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Oral Answers to Questions
(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Alan Mak (Havant) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
The UK has a fantastic life sciences industry. As a result of the sector deal announced in December, a further £210 million is being invested in research and £162 million in medical manufacturing.
Mr Hunt
I am looking forward to reading my hon. Friend’s report into this topic in May. We are a bit of a curate’s egg in this country. We have five of the world’s top 10 medical research universities and more than double the number of Nobel prizes of France, so we do incredibly well on the research side, but some of our hospitals are still running on paper, which is totally inappropriate. That is why we are determined to implement the Wachter review.
Dr Paul Williams (Stockton South) (Lab)
Co-operation in medical research, science and innovation with our European partners must not be hindered by a bad Brexit deal. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to ensure that UK patients are not left behind during the negotiations?
Mr Hunt
Let me reassure the hon. Gentleman—as a doctor, he is very conscious of such issues—that the absolute need to ensure that we have an uninterrupted supply of the most critical drugs is forefront in our minds. We are confident that we will be able to achieve that, but we also want great collaboration with European universities, which is why we have said that we would be happy to be an associate member of the European Medicines Agency.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
Part of the life sciences strategy is about ensuring that we have the skills for the future. May I thank the Secretary of State for the fantastic news about the five new medical schools opening in the country, including in Chelmsford?
Sir Vince Cable (Twickenham) (LD)
The Secretary of State will be aware that one of the factors stifling innovation is the difficulty of rapid-growth companies in crossing the so-called valley of death. Since the establishment in the coalition Government years of the business growth fund, the biosciences fund and the British Business Bank, how far is the sector from crossing the valley of death?
Mr Hunt
I hope that we are crossing the valley into eternal life because we have a fantastic life sciences industry that is worth £61 billion and employs 250,000 people. The right hon. Gentleman is right—he was involved in this when he was Business Secretary—that part of that is about having close links with the key people who make decisions about where to invest their resources.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
With companies such as UltraLinq raving about Belfast’s ability to provide technology support and skills from local universities, will the Secretary of State confirm what steps he is taking to invest departmental moneys in universities to set up life sciences skill centres in co-operation with the Department for Education?
Mr Hunt
I reassure the hon. Gentleman that we are conscious of the importance of a good outcome to the Brexit talks for universities, including Queen’s University Belfast, for precisely the reason raised by the hon. Member for Stockton South (Dr Williams) earlier. There are excellent research links with universities all over the world, but it is particularly important that we carry on working with European universities.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)
Since 2016, the Government have invested £750,000 to fund the provision of sports and activity prostheses for children and young people on the NHS. We have also invested a further £750,000 in a new National Institute for Health Research child prostheses research collaboration to drive improvements in technology. I can confirm that that funding will continue, and we will announce more details shortly.
Mr Francois
I thank the Minister for that reply. The centre at Headley Court provides world-class support for our servicemen who unfortunately lost limbs in Iraq or Afghanistan. It does incredible work. What lessons have we learned from Headley Court that we are able to transfer into the NHS?
Caroline Dinenage
My hon. Friend speaks about this with great knowledge. He was an outstanding Defence Minister and understands this subject better than almost anybody. He will be pleased to learn that, following the incredible progress that we have seen with adult prostheses through places such as Headley Court, we are now seeing the same technology in the development of children’s sports and activity prostheses, using the same manufacturers. The research collaboration will also enable us to invest in future studies, including in the development of some exciting technologies, such as myoelectrical bionic upper-limb prostheses for children.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
By 2020, investment in general practice will have risen by £2.4 billion, which is 14% in real terms, including an additional £680 million in infrastructure and premises in the last two years.
Richard Graham
The Health Secretary knows how hard staff have worked at the Gloucestershire Royal Hospital to ensure that this year—in fact, in January—it was rated 15th out of 137 hospitals for its A&E performance, despite the intensities of the winter. He knows from his recent visit that all staff, and their co-operation with health services, as well as within the A&E, have led to this, but will he also recognise and do all he can to let Public Health England know how important it is that new capital expenditure is available in order to increase beds and to serve the demographics of an ageing population?
Mr Hunt
I was pleased and privileged to see the brilliant work that staff are doing in Gloucester when I went on that visit. Deborah Lee and her team deserve enormous credit for getting a 10% improvement in performance year on year to February. A capital bid has been put in by my hon. Friend’s sustainability and transformation partnership. It is a promising bid and I hope to be able to give him news on that soon. If it is successful, it will be in no small part thanks to lobbying by him and our colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk).
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
Research shows that access to GPs is now more difficult than it was five years ago, and in Warrington, we still have fewer GPs than the population would merit, putting more pressure on A&E. What is the Secretary of State doing to attract more GPs to areas such as this and to reduce the burdens on those already in the profession, so that they do not take early retirement, as many are planning to do?
Mr Hunt
The hon. Lady is absolutely right about how important is to increase the number of GPs. The most significant thing is what we announced this morning, which is five new medical colleges that are in parts of the country where it is particularly hard to recruit doctors. Our intention is that half the medical school graduates should be moving into general practice because it is so important.
Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)
Thanet enjoys an ageing population and I am pleased to be a part of it. We will be delighted to know that one of the five new medical schools designated by the Secretary of State today is going to be based in east Kent: the bid from the University of Kent and Canterbury Christ Church University was successful. It will not have escaped my right hon. Friend’s notice that the Christ Church campus is in close proximity to an A&E hospital— the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Hospital—and we hope very much to see all the benefits very soon. Thank you.
Mr Speaker
May I just say to the hon. Gentleman that if memory serves me correctly, he was born on 20 August 1943, and therefore, he is really not very old at all?
Mr Hunt
I congratulate my hon. Friend on being born five years before the NHS was founded—a very short while ago. Kent is an area that, although it is the garden of England, has some profound challenges in its health economy. One of those challenges is attracting doctors to work in Kent and other more geographically remote areas, so I am very hopeful that this big new announcement for the University of Kent will be a big help.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
The GP-patient ratio in my constituency is unacceptably high, meaning that many people cannot get a GP appointment when they need it and they are turning up at the A&E—not only creating additional pressure but costing more in the process. What is the Secretary of State going to do to make sure that outer-London boroughs such as mine get the GP support that they need, because frankly, the assurances that he has already given are not manifesting themselves on the ground in terms of practical results for patients?
Mr Hunt
I appreciate that there are pressures in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. I think most hon. Members would say that there are pressures in their constituency when it comes to general practice, so what have we done so far? Let me put it that way. This year, 3,157 medical school graduates will go on to specialise in general practice, which is the highest ever, but we still have to do more to improve the retention of GPs who are approaching retirement.
Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)
Forgive me, Mr Speaker, if first of all, I congratulate you on a marvellous event this morning, celebrating 10 years on from your acclaimed report on young children’s speech and language and calling for a national strategy on that, which directly links into education and health. It was an excellent event, thank you. But of course, on to Taunton Deane. Tomorrow, I shall be very proud in this Chamber to be presenting my petition, which over 6,000 good people from Taunton Deane have signed, calling for a new surgical centre at Musgrove Park Hospital. They are not querying the quality of the healthcare given, but they are querying the facilities. I wonder whether my right hon. Friend would agree that this is a very deserving case for a new centre and for funding.
Mr Hunt
If these cases were decided on the persistence and strength of the lobbying of local Members, for sure my hon. Friend’s would be at the very top of the list. I have been to the hospital and heard about the issues from staff—it was a very good visit. She has campaigned persistently on this and I very much hope that we can give her good news because I am aware of how urgent the need is.
Mr Speaker
Not only was the hon. Lady present in Speaker’s House this morning, but her sister and distinguished speech and language therapist Rosalind Pow was present as well, so we had two doses of Pow in the course of a breakfast meeting. It was an unforgettable experience for all concerned.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
I cannot compete with that, Mr Speaker. Back in November, I wrote to the Secretary of State about the increased service charges on GP practices. Ambleside surgery in my constituency, which serves an increasingly ageing population, faces a huge increase of £25,000—more than double—and the staff there fear they cannot keep the surgery going long term with that kind of increase. A ministerial written response in November did not mention Ambleside once, so will the Secretary of State commit now to intervening directly to guarantee that Ambleside will not have to pay this unjustified additional £25,000 a year?
Mr Hunt
I will re-look at the issue and the response that the hon. Gentleman was given. The issue is that there is unevenness and unfairness in the rates charged to GPs whose surgeries belong to NHS Property Services. We are trying to make this fair across the country, but we also want to make sure that no GP surgeries close.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
With an ageing population, I, too, welcome the aim of integrating health and social care and developing population-based planning, as we have done in Scotland with health and social care partnerships, but the outsourcing of health service contracts to private providers in NHS England has led to more fragmentation rather than integration. Will the Secretary of State agree that we need to repeal section 75 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 so that local commissioners can develop patient-centred services and not fear litigation if they do not put them out to tender?
Mr Hunt
We want to encourage the NHS to move towards more integrated services, and part of that is about contractual structures, but part of it is about funding, and I gently point out to the hon. Lady that 8% of the NHS budget in England goes to general practice and only 6.6% in Scotland, which is why there is an even bigger problem with GP surgeries closing in Scotland.
Dr Whitford
The many and varied new integrated care structures developing in NHS England have no statutory basis, yet in the future will control the entire health budget for a population. Does the Secretary of State accept that with another major NHS reorganisation we need debate and legislation in this place to get the structure and governance right?
Mr Hunt
In my first few years as Health Secretary, the message I heard loud and clear from the NHS was that it did not want a huge structural reorganisation, so we are very cautious about changing statutory structures. We want to encourage integration, but in time, if the NHS says it would like the statutory structure changed, we will of course listen.
Eleanor Smith (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)
The Minister for Health (Stephen Barclay)
NHS Improvement has informed the Department that 42 foundation trusts have reported consolidated subsidiaries, but there might be a few instances of subsidiaries being too small to be consolidated.
Eleanor Smith
What assessment has the Minister made of the impact on staff morale, retention and recruitment where trusts have set up wholly subsidiary companies and introduced a two-tier system whereby new staff terms and conditions are not part of the NHS “Agenda for Change” or the NHS pension scheme? Is this the back door to privatisation?
Stephen Barclay
Had the hon. Lady been able to attend the recent Westminster Hall debate on this issue, she would have heard that in the trust under discussion the staff survey showed an improvement in responses as a result of the subsidiary because many staff valued the flexibilities in the new contracts that the subsidiary could offer.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
The Minister may be in denial about privatisation, but is it not the case that the question-and-answer document from North Tees and Hartlepool Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said that its subsidiary organisation could be taken over by a private company in the future? If the Minister wants to put these privatisation stories to bed, will he rule out the possibility of any of the subsidiary companies’ being taken over by private organisations in the future?
Stephen Barclay
The party that is in denial is the Labour party, which, in 2006, passed the legislation through which subsidiaries could be offered. If the hon. Gentleman does not believe me, perhaps he should listen to NHS Providers, which says:
“It is…inaccurate and misleading to say that the establishment of wholly owned subsidiaries is a new phenomenon or being pursued to avoid VAT, privatise the NHS, or to reduce terms and conditions for NHS staff.”
Labour Members should stop scaremongering over legislation that their party actually passed.
Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)
Over the last three years, about 65% of social care service users have been extremely or very satisfied with their care and support in England, and 81% of adult social care providers are rated good or outstanding.
Dan Carden
Since 2010, Government funding for Liverpool City Council has been cut by 64%, or £444 million in real terms and, given that 90% of properties are in bands A to C, our ability to raise money locally through council tax is at the bottom end of the UK average. We need integrated health and social care, but a departmental name change will not do it; we need the money locally. When will we see proper reform and proper funding to plug the gap in our most deprived areas?
Caroline Dinenage
The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the integration of health and social care is vital, and I think that the renaming of the Department is a symbol of how seriously the Government take our commitment to it. I am keen to talk to him about funding, given that the figures for Liverpool show that it is raising £7.4 million from the social care precept and has received approximately £21 million in grant from the Government.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
I agree that the social care system needs more funds. In recent Budgets, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has found those funds and put them into the system. May I urge my hon. Friend, as she looks at the Government’s proposals in the Green Paper, to ensure that the Dilnot proposals are included? Those proposals, for which we have already legislated, will give us the best chance of a sustainable system in the current Parliament.
Caroline Dinenage
The Secretary of State was with Andrew Dilnot yesterday, and we are looking carefully at his proposals. My right hon. Friend is right: although 81% of adult social care providers are registered as good or outstanding, it is unacceptable for levels of care to fall below the standards that we would expect, and in preparing the Green Paper, we will look closely at how we can improve the system.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
Caroline Dinenage
I do not entirely agree with what the hon. Gentleman has said. We provided an extra £2 billion in last year’s Budget to help councils to commission care services that are sustainable, high-quality and diverse. In the Green Paper, which will be published this summer, we will consider how we can future-proof the system.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
The Government inspector for Northamptonshire County Council has recommended that, because of misgovernance over the last five years, the council should be abolished. Will my hon. Friend and her colleagues work with the new successor authorities to ensure that a successful social care system is established in the county?
Caroline Dinenage
The Secretary of State has already had conversations with councillors about this matter, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise it. The Care Act 2014 placed a duty on local authorities in England to promote diverse, sustainable, high-quality care, and it is important for them to continue to do that.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
The National Audit Office says that our care system is not “sustainably funded”, the Care Quality Commission says that one quarter of care facilities are not safe enough, and care providers cherry-pick to whom they will give care places, and even evict people with advanced dementia on cost grounds. What is the Care Minister doing to address those issues and the sharp decline in public satisfaction with the social care system?
Caroline Dinenage
We know that the sector is under pressure because of the ageing population, but the Government have given councils access to £9.4 billion more dedicated funding over three years. The hon. Lady is right to emphasise the importance of putting power back in the hands of residents and their families, which is why we published a package of measures to ensure and protect consumer protections in the social care sector, and we will continue to look at that very closely.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
This afternoon I will make a speech setting out the principles with which we will approach the social care Green Paper, including a focus on the highest standards of care, integration of the health and social care system and developing a long-term sustainable funding solution.
Huw Merriman
Given that the arithmetic of this place is so tight, it is clear that there will need to be some form of cross-party consensus for any meaningful reform. Given that the Opposition appear to favour a wealth tax and our party has mooted the idea of individuals paying more for their own care, surely cross-party consensus is within reach; what is the Secretary of State’s view on that?
Mr Hunt
My hon. Friend always speaks very thoughtfully on this matter, and it is important, because social care issues will continue for decades ahead unless we find a solution and both parties will have to deal with this issue in government. In truth, both parties have made things worse by politicking in the past, whether by discussion about a death tax in 2009 or a dementia tax in 2017.
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
I have received a document from my local authority sent out by Cheshire and Merseyside NHS which tells it that it should be looking at there being a minimum of one choice of place for people coming out of hospital into a care home, and if that cannot be met it should be looking at transitional placements. So it will have to ask people who are frail and elderly to go into transitional placements, and that will cost more money. How are people going to be able to cope with this? At the end of the day, the problem is simply this: there is not enough money; there is not enough money to pay for good quality staff; and there are not enough places. The Government should be ashamed of themselves.
Mr Hunt
It is the hon. Gentleman’s party that should be ashamed of itself for leaving us with the financial crisis 10 years ago that has created such huge pressure in both the health and social care systems. Yes, in 2010 there were some cuts in the social care system, but that has changed now and over this Parliament the budget is going up, with £9.4 billion of additional resources, which is an 8.6% increase in real terms. We need to go further, however, which is why we have a Green Paper.
Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)
May I add my thanks to those of my hon. Friends for the fact that one of the new medical schools will be placed in east Kent, which is an extremely welcome development for the health economy? On social care, the Secretary of State will be aware that the funding issue is one of the big long-term questions that need to be answered. Can he assure the House that the Green Paper will not only address that, however, but will place equal emphasis on the need for rising quality in social care across the board, because in the short run that is what many families feel most anxious about?
Mr Hunt
I thank my right hon. Friend for doing some incredibly important work when he was responsible for this area; he laid some really important foundations. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right: earlier my hon. Friend the Minister for Care talked about the fact that 81% of adult social care providers are good or outstanding, but that means that one in five is not, which means too many people are not getting adequate social care provision. We must put quality at the heart of this, and of course that does link to funding.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
I hope the Secretary of State saw last night’s “Panorama”, which highlighted the link between the low pay of careworkers and the gender pay gap. We all know about the amazing work careworkers do, particularly in difficult circumstances such as when there is severe weather or where there are 15-minute appointments, so what is the Secretary of State going to do to ensure they are properly rewarded?
Mr Hunt
I am pleased that the hon. Lady mentioned that, because today is world social worker day. It is a day on which to celebrate the brilliant work done by people working in the social care system, often at low rates of pay. We should also celebrate the fact that, thanks to the national living wage, 900,000 workers have benefited, including through a raise of up to £2,000 a year in the take-home pay for the lowest paid workers.
Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Steve Brine)
Children’s oral health is better than it has ever been, and 72% of five-year-olds in England are now decay free. Of course, that means that 28% are not, which is why our Starting Well programme aims to increase access for young children in 13 high-need areas. NHS England is also looking at making similar approaches available in the areas of greatest genuine local need.
Tracy Brabin
In Kirklees, 29% of under-five-year-olds have experience of tooth decay. Nationally, among five to nine-year-olds, tooth decay is the most common cause of hospital admission. Does the Minister agree that the system of penalising dentists for not hitting targets and not paying them when they exceed targets has led to a situation where there are virtually no NHS dentists available for my young constituents? What steps will he take to make more places available?
Steve Brine
We are testing the new prevention-focused dental contract, which the hon. Lady knows about, to improve access and outcomes for NHS dental treatment. We have also made great progress on children’s oral health, as I have said. NHS England in her area is currently finalising arrangements for extra funding to support dentists in offering additional access and places. That funding will be available from 1 April, so she and other Members should stand by their phones.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
The hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin) is absolutely right about this particular issue. The Government have long acknowledged that there is a shortage of dentists in West Yorkshire, and in the Bradford district in particular, where the shortage is pretty chronic. Will the Minister set out what the Government are doing to ensure that there is an acceptable number of NHS dentists in the Bradford district?
Steve Brine
I will not pre-empt what the NHS in Yorkshire and the Humber will say to my hon. Friend or to the hon. Lady, because this is a local decision, but I will say that the 13 Starting Well areas—the programme was a manifesto commitment for us—were selected nationally based on overall need and using a wide range of data including access to NHS dental services.
Julie Cooper (Burnley) (Lab)
The Minister seems to be in denial. The British Dental Association reports that almost half of all NHS dentists are not accepting new patients—either adults or children. In several regions right across the country, from Yorkshire to Salisbury, patients are having to rely on the third world dental charity, Dentaid, with its now-famous wheelie bin dental surgeries. Does he think that that is an acceptable state of affairs? Will he outline what action he intends to take to improve access to NHS dentists?
Steve Brine
It is interesting that the hon. Lady should raise this; it is one of the things that we might be discussing shortly. According to the GP patient survey for January to March last year, whose results were published later last year, 59% of the adults questioned had tried to get an NHS dental appointment in the past two years, and of those, 95% were successful. Those are not bad figures.
Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
All policy teams in my Department have conducted assessments of the implications of Brexit and continue to plan for all scenarios.
Chris Law
Well, I hope to hear some good news then. In my constituency, Dundee University and Ninewells Hospital are recognised centres of biomedical and clinical research, working closely with other European colleagues and institutions. That work is threatened if the UK is outside the European research network and excluded from data-sharing and the new clinical trial system. How does the Secretary of State plan specifically to protect the academic and clinical research excellence of Scottish and UK institutions post-Brexit?
Mr Hunt
We have made it clear that we want to integrate very closely with European structures when it comes to medicines research. I would gently say to the hon. Gentleman that great universities such as Dundee also collaborate with universities all over the world, and I think that this is a good opportunity for us to ensure that we strengthen our research networks internationally as well as using the tried and tested ones that we have with the EU.
David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that leaving the EU will be a good opportunity to build links with other countries’ medical systems, particularly those of the Chinese, who have, for instance, integrated Chinese medicine and western medicine to reduce the demand for antibiotics?
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)
Patient safety, and particularly infection prevention, are among the Government’s key priorities. Public Health England has carried out some initial analysis of available data. However, currently the data is incomplete and would not give a true reflection of the usage of hand gel. We are working with Public Health England to explore how we can improve that data.
Nigel Mills
I am sure the Minister will agree that it is a matter of real importance that all NHS staff wash their hands at all the required five moments of patient contact. Does she agree that it is disappointing that we have not quite got that data published yet, and will she set a date when we will be able to see that data for each trust?
Caroline Dinenage
As I have said, we will continue to look at that, but, as my hon. Friend knows, the Department has a really strong track record of tackling infection. Incidents of MRSA are down 54% on 2010. We have published a revised code of practice on hand hygiene and we are working with partners across health and social care to ensure that this remains a focus.
Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)
There has been some excellent work on extending hand gel usage throughout the NHS, and the decline in MRSA is, I think, indicative of that. However, there is a glaring prejudice, certainly in my part of the world, amongst people who think that these gels contain alcohol, and will not use them for that reason. Is it possible to instigate some form of signalling or marking to prove and to state that there is no alcohol within these hand gels, because we do not want to see people prevented from using them?
Caroline Dinenage
The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point, and it is certainly something that we can look at more closely.
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
Will the Minister explain the work that the Government are doing with Public Health England to raise awareness of sepsis infections, and do urgent work to tackle that potential killer?
Caroline Dinenage
This is a massive priority for the Government, and we are about to start a public information campaign. Sepsis is a killer—one that deserves to be given the utmost importance, and one that we will be seeking to tackle in every way that we can.
Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Jackie Doyle-Price)
We estimate that of the approximately 460,000 referrals made to children and young people’s NHS mental health services per year, 200,000 children receive treatment and many are appropriately signposted to other help. Treatment within the NHS is determined by clinical need and it is vital for all to remember that specialist services are not always appropriate for those referred. That said, we are committed to treating 70,000 more children and young people each year by 2020-21.
Anna Turley
Around one in 10 children and young people in Redcar and Cleveland has a mental health disorder—a proportion that is higher than for the rest of the north-east and higher than for England. Local services are becoming overwhelmed. Last year, Redcar charity The Link, which provides mental health support for children, experienced an increase in demand of 40%. It has a waiting list of over 140 children and planned waits of 11 weeks, but the charity is still having to make redundancies and staff have had their hours cut due to the funding crisis. Will the Minister commit to increasing and ring-fencing spending for child and adolescent mental health, and will she ensure that the role of third sector charities in delivery of such services is preserved?
Jackie Doyle-Price
Having looked at the performance of the hon. Lady’s local trust, I can say that it is rising to the challenge extremely well, but that brings with it challenges. We are increasing the funding available for children and young people’s mental health services. We are relying on local clinical commissioning groups to purchase those services, but I can tell the hon. Lady that NHS England will be keeping this area under scrutiny, to ensure that we are delivering that help to the frontline.
Vicky Foxcroft
Does the Minister accept that cuts to mental health services mean that too many young people who have suffered trauma are not getting the support that they desperately need? Has she measured the impact of that on young people, and looked, in particular, at any links to the tragic incidents of youth violence that we are now seeing daily?
Jackie Doyle-Price
I do not accept the allegation that there have been cuts. We have increased expenditure by 20%. We recognise that we need to invest significantly more in improving children and young people’s mental health, and that is exactly what we will be doing.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Mental health problems clearly have a wider societal cost. Does the Minister agree that treating mental health issues in children benefits not only the child, but the future of our society as a whole?
Jackie Doyle-Price
I could not have put it better myself, and this is exactly why we have brought forward the proposals in the Green Paper. We recognise that early intervention is the best way of protecting people’s mental health, so we will be encouraging all schools to appoint a designated mental health lead. We will be rolling out mental health support teams to support schools and we will be trialling a four-week waiting time standard. This will lead to a material improvement in children’s mental health.
Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)
The Care Quality Commission has reported that young people are waiting up to 18 months to receive vital treatment. The Royal College of Psychiatrists says that some health trusts are spending less than £10 per child on mental health services and that spending today is less than it was in 2012. So will the Minister tell us exactly what she is doing to fix what many health professionals say is a broken child and adolescent mental health services system?
Jackie Doyle-Price
I welcome the hon. Lady to her place on the Front Bench. I believe this is the first time we have had exchanges, and I am sure it will not be the last. We invested an additional £100 million last year. We know that more than half of providers have an average waiting time of fewer than 12 weeks and 4% of providers have a waiting time of fewer than four weeks. She is right in that six trusts are outliers and they are receiving significant attention from NHS England. We are having targeted work with them to address what might be the issues there. As I said earlier, as part of the Green Paper we will be trialling a four-week waiting time standard, and we are determined to achieve improvement in this area.
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Jackie Doyle-Price)
I fully support the role that youth workers play in supporting vulnerable young people. We are working with the Home Office, which supports the charity Redthread to develop its work embedding youth workers in hospital emergency departments to intervene with young victims of violence. Redthread currently operates in London’s four major trauma centres, and will be launching in Nottingham and Birmingham this year. Redthread is also working with academics to assess the impact of its youth violence intervention programme.
Sarah Jones
Knife crime continues to soar, and Members from across this House believe that we need a new approach. Having youth workers in hospital A&Es is proven to work, and, as the Minister says, Redthread is in some of our hospitals around the country. It would cost as little as £6 million a year to put youth workers into all our major trauma centres, so will she find the funding?
Jackie Doyle-Price
First, I commend the hon. Lady for the work she does on tackling knife crime and I know it is an issue close to her heart. The work with Redthread is being co-ordinated with the Home Office, and I would not want to allocate its expenditure, any more than it should be allocating mine.
Edward Argar (Charnwood) (Con)
The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)
Dementia Awareness Week runs from 21 to 27 May, and the Department of Health and Social Care is expecting to participate fully in a range of activities that week, working with partner organisations and the voluntary sector.
Edward Argar
Alongside the work of Governments of both parties to improve dementia research, care and awareness—Dementia Awareness Week is a key part of that—the role of voluntary organisations and dedicated volunteers around the country is vital. Will the Minister join me in paying tribute to the fantastic work of specialist dementia care Admiral Nurses and in backing Leicestershire Dementia UK volunteers in their campaign, which is well on track, to raise the £50,000 needed for an Admiral Nurse for our county?
Caroline Dinenage
First, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the sterling work he does as co-chair of the all-party group on dementia. He is absolutely right to say that Admiral Nurses do fantastic work in many parts of the country, helping people with dementia to maintain their independence, and improve their quality of life and that of their families. I very much support all the fundraising activities going on in his local area.
Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Steve Brine)
NHS England is working with the East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust to determine the best way to deliver radiotherapy services to patients in Stevenage. This is part of a system-wide NHS England review of the way in which radiotherapy services are delivered.
Stephen McPartland
Hertfordshire has more than 1 million people and no radiotherapy provision. My constituents have to travel more than 80 miles for every treatment, which means thousands of miles during the course of their treatment—there is no public transport. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Sir Oliver Heald) and I have run this campaign for a number of years, and we have all the agreements from every part of the NHS. We are meeting the board of the trust on Friday, so will the Minister give them a direction to get on with building the facility?
Steve Brine
All trusts have been directed to get on with the review. The NHS England specialised commissioning team is in discussions with my hon. Friend’s local trust as it develops its five-year strategic plan for the cancer pathways. It is working with his local cancer alliance, including radiotherapy services. It is recognised that a more radical approach and a broader review of the radiotherapy options may be required in future. As my hon. Friend says, he and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Sir Oliver Heald) have that meeting later this week, and I hope the discussions are productive. I feel sure that my hon. Friend will come back to me if they are not.
Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
Would my hon. Friend be prepared to highlight to the review team just how dreadful it is for somebody to have to travel day after day, for an hour and a half in each direction, to London for radiotherapy when they are already ill? I hope it might be possible for some action to be taken to resolve this issue in our area.
Steve Brine
Obviously my right hon. and learned Friend is right to speak up for services in his area. The review is not about cutting those services, but about making sure that they are in the right places. We have to be mindful that sometimes the services have to be centralised to be in the right place to deliver the right outcomes for cancer patients.
Mr Speaker
I will take the next question on condition that Members are exceptionally brief, as time is constrained.
Royston Smith (Southampton, Itchen) (Con)
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)
Craig Tracey (North Warwickshire) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Steve Brine)
We of course recognise the shortages in general practice, which is why we remain committed to delivering an additional 5,000 doctors working in general practice by 2020 compared with 2015.
Royston Smith
Like many other places throughout the country, Southampton is struggling to recruit and retain GPs. There are many reasons for that, but perhaps one is the practice of discouraging medical students from going into general practice while encouraging them to become specialist consultants. Is my hon. Friend aware of that and of how widespread is it? What is he doing to encourage more people into general practice?
Steve Brine
The Secretary of State has already outlined the plans for the new medical schools and the record 3,157 GP training places that were filled. I am aware of the practice that my hon. Friend mentions, and that is why we are working with the profession on a range of measures to boost recruitment into general practice. The existing professionals also have a role to pay, and the superb chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, Helen Stokes-Lampard, is really leading from the front in that respect.
Steve Double
Does the Minister agree that part of the way to address some of the pressures that GPs face is to enhance the role of community pharmacies? Will he update the House on what steps he has taken to support pharmacies and further integrate them with general practice?
Steve Brine
We know that there are benefits to be had from the better integration of community pharmacies with sustainability and transformation partnerships. Through the pharmacy integration fund, we are integrating pharmacists into primary care. I hear good reports about how that is going and we will have 2,000 of them in general practice by 2020. Community pharmacies themselves should also be integrated, through STPs, because it is one NHS.
Craig Tracey
It is great to see that record numbers of medical students are going into general practice this year, but far too many GPs are choosing to retire and leave the NHS when they are in their 50s because of tax penalties on their pension scheme. Does the Minister agree that we need to address that situation so that experienced GPs are not penalised for staying in the NHS?
Steve Brine
Along with concerns about workload and, for example, indemnities, pensions are an issue that older GPs often bring up with me. Ultimately, it is a matter for Her Majesty’s Treasury. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) raised a similar issue at Prime Minister’s Question Time last week, and the Chancellor was on the Bench to hear it. I am sure he will read the report of these exchanges, too.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
In Stoke-on-Trent we have some fabulous GPs, not least the wife of the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), but too many people present to A&E because their primary carer is not up to dealing with the workload. That means that the A&E is over-logged so fines are levied on the hospital. What is the Secretary of State going to do to make sure that when hospitals pick up the slack from GPs, they are not subsequently fined by clinical commissioning groups for missing targets?
Steve Brine
We are going to integrate primary and secondary care properly through the new models of care—for instance, extended access is important in that. The new multidisciplinary teams—for example, I have talked about pharmacists working in primary care—are not only about providing the plaster when the cut happens, but about preventing the cut in the first place. The prevention agenda is very important.
Steve Brine
We need more GPs, which is why today’s announcement is very important. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman welcomes them.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
Patients at Hightown GP surgery were promised that their surgery would stay open, but, out of the blue, they were written to and told that the surgery would close on 8 June. The Government are belatedly taking action on the shortage of GPs, but will the Minister intervene to make sure that Hightown surgery is kept open and that a promise is kept to patients?
Steve Brine
I will look at Hightown surgery, and if the hon. Gentleman wants to talk to me about it, he is welcome to do so. Of course it is the responsibility of his clinical commissioning group and NHS England in his area to provide primary care services for the patients who are his constituents, but if wants to talk to me further, I am very happy to do so.
Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
Following the Government’s commitment to expand medical school places by 25%—one of the biggest expansions in the history of the NHS—I am pleased to announce to the House the results of the competition to set up five new medical schools. They were chosen following a rigorous and independent bidding process, which prioritised attracting doctors to harder-to-recruit areas and increasing the number of GPs and psychiatrists. Many congratulations to the winners, which are: the University of Sunderland; Edge Hill University in Lancashire; Anglia Ruskin University in Chelmsford; the University of Lincoln working in collaboration with Nottingham University; and Canterbury Christ Church University.
Andrew Lewer
With the death of Professor Stephen Hawking in all of our thoughts, can the Minister tell us what steps his Department will take to support research to develop a cure for motor neurone disease?
Mr Hunt
Professor Hawking was an inspiration not just because of his scientific thinking, but because, to many people with motor neurone disease, he was an absolute exemplar: he was given two years to live at the age of 21 and ended up living until he was 76. This disease is a big area of priority for us. In the last year for which we have full-year figures, £52 million was invested into it, and we are currently recruiting for 24 clinical trials.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. I am about to call the shadow Secretary of State, but I say very gently to him that he needs to be brief because there is a lot of pressure on time. He would not want a situation in which those on the Front Bench dominated at the expense of those on the Back Benches, because that would be absolutely wrong, and the hon. Gentleman is always opposed to that which is wrong.
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)
Thank you for your instructions, Mr Speaker. We have heard today more warnings that the winter crisis will stretch beyond Easter. We have seen the worst winter crisis for years. The Secretary of State will blame the flu and the weather, but patients are blaming years of underfunding, blaming years of social care cuts, and blaming years of cuts to acute beds, so will he now apologise for telling us that the NHS was better prepared than ever before this winter?
Mr Hunt
The NHS did prepare extremely thoroughly for this winter, but the hon. Gentleman is right to talk about funding because of course it matters. He will be interested in these figures, which are for the last five-year period for which we can get all the numbers: in Wales, funding for the NHS went up 7.2%; in Scotland, it went up 11.5%; and in England, it went up 17.3%.
Jonathan Ashworth
This Government are moving into their eighth year, not their fifth year, and yet, after eight years, life expectancy is going backwards in the poorest parts of the country and infant mortality is rising. New research shows that, in the first 49 days of 2018, an additional person died every seven minutes. That is shameful. Is it not time that we had a full national inquiry into widening health inequalities? In the 70th year of the NHS, will this Government now bring an end to the underfunding, cuts, austerity and privatisation of our health services?
Mr Hunt
Really, the hon. Gentleman can do better than that. The truth is that the NHS has had its most difficult winter in living memory, which is why last year, in preparation, we invested £1 billion in the social care system; invested £100 million in A&E capital; and gave the flu jab to 1 million more people. He still has not explained why, for every additional pound that we have put in per patient in the NHS in England, the Labour Government in Wales put in only 57p; that is underfunding.
Mr Ranil Jayawardena (North East Hamp- shire) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Steve Brine)
We are already delivering an ambitious plan to address childhood obesity, including taxing sugary drinks and helping children to exercise more, but we need to keep a close watch on this. We have taken the first few steps in a long race, and we are always looking to learn from successful initiatives elsewhere. Last week I was in Amsterdam looking at the system-wide approach there, which has led to very impressive reductions in child obesity. We should be listening and we are.
Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)
Mr Hunt
That is totally unacceptable, which is why we announced a £300 million expansion of CAMHS in the autumn. CAMHS funding went up by 20% last year. We are specifically trying to end precisely the situation that the hon. Lady mentioned, whereby people are told that they are not yet ill enough to get treatment. We have to put a stop to that.
Sir Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)
The Minister for Health (Stephen Barclay)
My neighbour is correct that I know the hospital, not least because my son was born there, and he is absolutely right to highlight the importance of the work done at King’s Lynn and of the staff there. In the Budget the Chancellor signalled his additional commitment for the “Agenda for Change” staff, and those discussions are ongoing.
Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)
Stephen Barclay
The reality is that the number of places is increasing, even if the number of applications is lower. The Government have signalled their commitment on pay. We have more clinicians, doctors and nurses, and we are treating more people. That is part of the success of the NHS under this Government.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Mr Hunt
I was very inspired by how hard the staff there are working. My hon. Friend always champions them in this House, but it was a great privilege to see that for myself. There is new leadership coming into that hospital, and I am confident that that leadership will put in place some simple changes that will enable the hospital to get out of special measures, hopefully quickly.
Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)
Steve Brine
Obviously, everybody in the House is aware of this case, and our thoughts are with Alfie and his family. The policing Minister has met Alfie’s family and discussed options that may assist him. No decisions have been made, and any proposal would need to be led by Alfie’s clinicians using sufficient and rigorous evidence.
Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)
Despite not hearing it from Opposition Members, I am sure that all Members in this House welcome the five new medical schools announced today. Will the Minister also welcome the extra medical school places in Brighton and Sussex Universities, supporting my constituents, and the launch last week of the new nursing apprenticeship scheme by the University of Brighton, which will enable more nurses to enter the profession?
Stephen Barclay
My hon. Friend always, quite rightly, champions the work of nurses. She is also right to signal the importance of the nursing apprenticeships, which offer a new route, particularly for many healthcare assistants, to progress within the NHS. It is right that we increase the number of pathways for nurses in order to deliver the excellent care that they provide.
Dr Paul Williams (Stockton South) (Lab)
Mr Hunt
As the hon. Gentleman will know, these figures cover England and Wales. He will also know that they do not take account of changes in population or changes in demography, so we use the age-standardised mortality rate, which, according to Public Health England, has remained broadly stable over recent years.
Bim Afolami (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State recognise the strong business case for the merger between Luton and Dunstable University Hospital and Bedford Hospital in terms of delivering value for money for our local health economy?
Stephen Barclay
My hon. Friend has been assiduous, as have his neighbours, in lobbying the case for Luton and Dunstable and Bedford. He will be aware that the ongoing business case is being reviewed as part of that, but ultimately this is about the £3.9 billion of additional capital investment that the Government have funded. That is why these cases are being reviewed.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
Steve Brine
As I have said, we are concerned about child obesity, which is probably the big public health challenge, not least in the impact that it can have on diabetes, heart disease and cancer. That is why I so welcome Cancer Research UK moving into this space. We have one of the most ambitious plans in the world. We have already said that it is the start of a conversation, not the end, and if we need to go further, we will.
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
May I welcome today’s announcement on a new medical school for Kent? In an area that struggles to attract doctors, this will make a huge difference: it is genuinely a game changer. Will my right hon. Friend congratulate the University of Kent and Canterbury Christ Church University on their successful bid?
Thelma Walker (Colne Valley) (Lab)
Stephen Barclay
I am aware of the issues raised by Kirklees Council, and I understand that local campaigners have referred this to judicial review. Given the imminent legal proceedings, it would not be appropriate to comment further at this stage. A decision on the referral to me by the local council will be made in due course.
Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)
Cheltenham General is a wonderful hospital, but it needs investment in theatres and wards. May I take this opportunity to commend the application for over £30 million of capital funding, which would make a huge difference to my constituents?
Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)
Bowel cancer remains a major killer in the UK. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recognises the new FIT—faecal immunochemical test—to be a far more effective bowel screening process, but there remains a lack of clarity about when it is going to be rolled out nationally. Will the Minister provide that clarity today so that people can be saved down the line?
Steve Brine
The UK National Screening Committee has recommended that FIT be the primary screening test for bowel cancer, and NHS England remains absolutely committed to implementing it in 2018-19. We expect to make a decision very shortly on when that will be.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
You wanted short, Mr Speaker. I thank the Secretary of State for our new medical school at Lincoln.
Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)
May I thank the Minister for his concern about what is going on at Arrowe Park Hospital? Will he meet Wirral Members shortly so that we can be assured that the existing governance is very short-term and that the issues of bullying and the way the hospital cripples primary care are dealt with effectively?
Stephen Barclay
The right hon. Gentleman is right to raise that serious issue. There needs to be a culture change in Wirral, and I am happy to continue to meet him and other Wirral Members to discuss that. He will be aware of the NHS Improvement report on that issue on 5 March.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
According to Lord O’Neill, diagnostics prior to prescription of antibiotics is the most important of the 10 commandments in the O’Neill review on antimicrobial resistance. Will the Minister update the House on progress towards that very important goal?
Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)
My local paper, the Bradford Telegraph and Argus, has recently launched its “Stop the Rot” campaign, as children in Bradford have some of the worst dental health outcomes of anywhere in the country. Does the Minister agree that prevention is key to improving children’s dental health? Can he tell us what steps the Government are taking to ensure that prevention is a key element of any new dental contract?
Steve Brine
I think that would be the brilliant Bradford Telegraph and Argus. As I said, 75 dental practices are continuing to test the preventive focus clinical approach alongside the new remuneration system, which supports an increased focus on prevention through the dental contract. I know it is taking time, but I want to get it right.
Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)
We know that early diagnosis of cancer is crucial for successful treatment outcomes, but for many cancers, such as pancreatic and ovarian cancer, early symptoms can be vague and the chance to diagnose early easily missed. What are the Government doing to ensure that hard-to-detect cancers are diagnosed early?
Steve Brine
That is an excellent question. We are testing the new Accelerate, Co-ordinate, Evaluate programme—ACE—which I visited recently at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford. Patients with vague symptoms can be referred for multiple tests and often receive a diagnosis or an all-clear on the same day. I do not get excited very easily, but that promises great excitement.
Mr Speaker
It is a delight to see the Minister in a state of high excitement. We hope to see it repeated on innumerable occasions.
James Frith (Bury North) (Lab)
Seventy MPs from across the House in yesterday’s Westminster Hall debate all agreed that we need Orkambi on the NHS now. Can the Minister tell me what he will be doing differently for sufferers of cystic fibrosis and when we will hear news of a breakthrough? Sufferers of cystic fibrosis are slowly drowning in their disease without access to Orkambi.
Steve Brine
It was a very good debate, and the hon. Gentleman spoke very well in it on behalf of his constituents. We have made a counter-offer to Vertex. I call on Vertex to be reasonable, and I call on Vertex and NHS England to get back round the table and get this sorted.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. In Question Time, as in the health service under all Governments, demand tends invariably to exceed supply. We have time only for two more—we do not really have time, but I am creating it.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
I would like to thank the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), for his response to the all-party parliamentary group on blood cancer report. Will he continue to ensure that cancer alliances and GPs are diagnosing early?
John Grogan (Keighley) (Lab)
With a significant amount of public money at stake, should not NHS trusts that are proposing to set up subsidiary companies publish their full business cases?
Stephen Barclay
The point is that trusts are 100% owned by the NHS, so any benefit accrued from the subsidiary goes to the NHS, because it is fully owned by the public sector.
Petition
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
It takes a lot to excite the good people of Aberfeldy and Pitlochry, but the closure of the two Royal Bank of Scotland branches in those communities has exercised and upset my constituents to the extent that they have presented this petition.
The petition states:
The petition of residents of Aberfeldy and Pitlochry,
Declares that the proposed closures of the Aberfeldy and Pitlochry branches of the publicly-owned Royal Bank of Scotland will have a detrimental effect on local communities and the local economy.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges Her Majesty’s Treasury, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Royal Bank of Scotland to reconsider their community-harming and flawed argument about branch closures; further notes that the Royal Bank of Scotland take into account the concerns of petitioners and take whatever steps they can to halt the planned closure of these branches.
And the petitioners remain, etc.
[P002121]
James Heappey (Wells) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. A number of Opposition Members have visited the Wells constituency in recent months, most notably the Leader of the Opposition, who has visited twice. Unfortunately, they have not always found the time to give me advance notice of their visits, as was the case last Friday when the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew) chaired a public meeting there. With English tourism week upon us next week, it would be selfish not to share with Opposition Members the beauty and heritage of the Wells constituency, but I wonder whether you might be able to advise me of the procedures that colleagues might follow when contributing to the Somerset visitor economy in an official capacity.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
It is wise to remind all Members, of whatever party, that it is courteous to let a Member know if they are visiting on political business. That is now on record, and I am sure that everyone will note it.
Leaving the EU: Fisheries Management
(6 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make a statement on the progress of negotiations relating to future fisheries management arrangements after the United Kingdom leaves the European Union.
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for allowing this urgent question and for giving our fishing communities a voice in the Chamber today.
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Michael Gove)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for this opportunity to update the House. I begin by paying tribute to the hard work of the Ministers and especially the civil servants in our country’s negotiating team, who this weekend concluded an agreement on the nature and length of the implementation period, which will help us to prepare for life after Brexit. Taskforce 50, on behalf of the EU, and our own team of dedicated civil servants secured an agreed text, which will now go to the March Council of the European Union at the end of this week, and after that the Prime Minister will update the House on Monday.
The House will be aware that there are important legal and technical questions relating to fisheries management, which means that it occupies a special position in these negotiations. Both the EU and our own negotiators were always clear that specific arrangements would have to be agreed for fisheries.
Our proposal to the EU was that, during the implementation period, we would sit alongside other coastal states as a third country and equal partner in annual quota negotiations. We made that case after full consultation with the representatives of the fisheries industry. We pressed hard during negotiations to secure this outcome, and we are disappointed that the EU was not willing to move on this.
However, thanks to the hard work of our negotiating team, the text was amended from the original proposal, and the Commission has agreed amendments to the text that provide additional reassurance. The revised text clarifies that the UK’s share of quotas will not change during the implementation period, and that the UK can attend international negotiations. Furthermore, the agreement includes an obligation on both sides to act in good faith throughout the implementation period. Any attempts by the EU to operate in a way that harmed the UK fishing industry would breach that obligation.
These arrangements will of course only apply to negotiations in December 2019. We are at the table as a full member state for negotiations in December 2018 and, critically, in December 2020 we will be negotiating fishing opportunities as a third country and independent coastal state—deciding who can access our waters and on what terms for the first time in over 40 years.
It is important that we use this transition period to ensure that we can negotiate as a third country and independent coastal state in 2020 to maximise the benefits for our coastal communities, ensure that we can control who accesses our waters and on what terms, and ensure that we manage our marine resources sustainably. We are already looking at a range of data to support consideration of future fishing opportunities, including the nature of catches and zonal attachment of stocks in the UK exclusive economic zone.
There is a significant prize at the end of the implementation period, and it is important that all of us in every area accept that the implementation period is a necessary step towards securing that prize. For our coastal communities, it is an opportunity to revive economically. For our marine environment, it is an opportunity to be managed sustainably. It is critical that all of us, in the interests of the whole nation, keep our eyes on that prize.
Mr Carmichael
I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. The problem he has, of course, is that as recently as two weeks ago, the Prime Minister did not see this as a necessary step. I have to tell him—if he does not already know it—that the mood in fishing communities today is one of palpable anger. This is not what they were promised. The basic question that the Secretary of State has to answer today is: if the Government can let us down like this on the deal for the transitional period, how do we know they will not do it again when it comes to the final deal? When it comes to it, will they trade away access to waters for access to markets or anything else?
The House also needs to hear today how this bizarre arrangement is going to work in practice. The EU deal with Norway and the Faroes on mackerel is due to expire at the end of this year. We had thought that it would be rolled over for 12 months. Will that still be the case, and what barrier will there be to the EU Commission agreeing another bad deal for our pelagic fleet? With regard to the operation of a discard ban, the Secretary of State should know that British boats have a particular problem with hake as a choke species. That is a problem for our fleet and for nobody else. Does he really expect that the other 27 member countries are going to come up with a solution to something that is a problem only for us and not for them?
It is reported that the Government Chief Whip told his Back Benchers yesterday that
“it’s not like the fishermen are going to vote Labour”.
If that is true, it betrays a certain attitude. The Secretary of State should not be complacent: he should not take it for granted in the future that they will be voting Tory either.
Michael Gove
I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his very fair and detailed comments. The first thing I will happily acknowledge is that there is disappointment in fishing communities. As someone whose father was a fish merchant and whose grandparents went to sea to fish, I completely understand how fishing communities feel about the situation at the moment, and I share their disappointment.
Secondly, the right hon. Gentleman asked about future negotiations and the role that we will play. There is a unique 12-month period, leading up to the December Council at the end of 2019, when the EU will argue on the UK’s behalf, but the UK will be there, as part of the delegation and consulted, in order to ensure that all the legitimate interests that the right hon. Gentleman raises are fairly represented.
The right hon. Gentleman also raised the whole question of the discard ban and choke species. The truth is that every single fishing nation is affected by the discard ban and choke species, and that we operate collectively with our neighbours to ensure that we have the correct means of marine conservation, because unless we have a system that involves choke species and a discard ban, we can have the overfishing that in the past has sadly led to an unhappy outcome for fishing communities.
The final point I would make is that of course no one takes anyone’s votes for granted—certainly not the votes of those who work so hard to ensure that we have food on our plates—but I would say one thing. The only party in this House actually committed to leaving the common fisheries policy is the Conservative party—I should say in fairness that our colleagues in the Democratic Unionist party share that position as well. It is critically important that we all ensure that leaving the common fisheries policy at the end of 2020 enables us all to ensure that the communities the right hon. Gentleman represents in Orkney and Shetland, and the communities we all have the honour of representing, benefit from the new freedoms that that will bring.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
I know that the Secretary of State knows that 45 years ago the fishermen felt they had a very bad deal. They want their fishing rights back. Can he reassure me that, as we have this interim deal, we can register ourselves as an independent coastal state, so that on 1 January 2021 we have complete control of our waters?
Michael Gove
Yes, my hon. Friend, the Chairman of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, is absolutely right. One of the critical things we can do is make sure, not just from 1 January 2021 but in December 2020, that we are negotiating as an independent coastal state. We will be able to join the regional fisheries management organisations in advance of the December 2020 negotiations—organisations that any independent coastal state has to be part of to secure fishing opportunities and ensure that the marine environment is adequately protected.
Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) for securing this urgent question and to the Secretary of State for his response. However, I am afraid I still have several questions.
The Secretary of State, alongside the Fisheries Minister, has asserted time and time again that the UK would take back absolute control of our waters from day one of leaving both the European Union and the 1964 London fisheries convention. However, following announcements made in the last 48 hours, we now know that the rest of the Government has been having very different conversations with the EU27. The announcement made by the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union and the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier, ahead of formal phase two negotiations, made it clear that the UK would continue to be part of the common fisheries policy for the duration of a 21-month post-Brexit transition period, extending up to 2020.
The announcement that Britain’s share of the total allowable catch will remain unchanged during the transition period contradicts all other previous Government statements in relation to post-Brexit fisheries, and it is understandable that many coastal MPs and fishing communities feel so angry and let down. The Government’s failure to meet their previously stated aims through negotiations is one that now requires greater explanation and examination on the Floor of the House. The Government must be absolutely clear about who is leading the negotiations on fishing and what their position is. Have the Government failed to secure their desired position, as advocated by the Secretary of State and the Fisheries Minister, or was that never the position of our negotiating team and the rest of the Cabinet? If that red line has moved, can the Secretary of State tell the House whether there has been an exchange, and if so, what was secured instead?
Less than a month ago, in a Westminster Hall debate on the UK’s fisheries policy secured by the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Scott Mann), I asked the Fisheries Minister whether he had seen the draft proposals from the European Parliament’s Committee on Fisheries—the PECH Committee—and what the Government’s response was. He informed me that
“at the end of the day, it does not really matter what the European Union asks for, but what we are prepared to grant it.”—[Official Report, 27 February 2018; Vol. 636, c. 314WH.]
With that in mind, can the Secretary of State now be explicit in outlining what the Government are prepared to grant the EU in relation to fisheries? Can he also inform the House what the transition arrangement with the EU will mean for the London convention?
The Secretary of State will have seen the comments from the less-than-satisfied representative fishing organisations and the bold statements—and actions—of his own Back Benchers. Any post-Brexit fisheries policy must be rebalanced to work for our coastal communities and have a sustainable approach at its very core. What we need now from the Government is a move away from the chaotic approach we have seen this week and, instead, honesty and clarity about their negotiating position and exactly what that means for the fishing industry.
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her questions. The first thing to make clear is that we are leaving the London fisheries convention, and we will be fully out of the convention, as we will be out of the common fisheries policy, by the time the implementation period ends.
However, it is also important to recognise, as the hon. Lady mentioned, that our share of the total allowable catch during the implementation period, including 2019, will not be altered. That is a protection for all those who want to make sure that we have the stability required to prepare for the additional opportunities that will come at the end of the implementation period.
The critical point remains that the dividing line—I hesitate to say it is a red line—between the Government and their supporters and the Government’s critics is that we believe that, when we leave the European Union, we should leave the common fisheries policy. It is not the position of any other political party in this House that we should leave the common fisheries policy and take advantage of the opportunities that accrue. In that regard, the comments of my hon. Friend the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food about the capacity of the UK to say what it will and will not accept refer clearly and unambiguously to what will occur after the implementation period ends and we are an independent coastal state outside the European Union.
Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question, which is in a very similar vein to the one I submitted. That shows the level of interest in this subject on both sides of the House.
The Secretary of State will understand that there is no way I can sell this deal in the transitional period as anything like a success to fishing communities in Moray, Scotland or the UK. However, will he confirm that, when we leave the common fisheries policy in 2020, we will have full control over fish stocks and vessel access, because fishing communities that feel let down and angered by the Government at the moment need that guarantee?
Michael Gove
I entirely understand my hon. Friend’s point. I think people not just in Buckie and Portsoy but across the north-east of Scotland—indeed, across the United Kingdom—will be disappointed that the proposal we sought to ensure would apply for 2019 does not apply for that year. However, it is important to recognise that this is a 12-month additional extension to the maintenance of the EU acquis and that we accept that the greater prize, which my hon. Friend is quite right to remind the House of, is available only if we ensure that we leave the common fisheries policy, take back control and make it absolutely clear to other countries that access and quotas will be in our hands.
Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)
It is a big concern with the Conservatives that it is always somebody else’s fault. When the Conservatives took us into the common fisheries policy, Scotland’s fishermen were described as expendable, so they are used to Scottish Tory sell-outs. But, given the matter of days involved here, even Scotland’s fishermen will be surprised at how quickly this one was turned around.
Will the Minister tell me at what point our fishermen became a bargaining chip, or has that been the case all along? Does he agree that we are now in the worst of all worlds, because we are in the common fisheries policy but we have no say? Will he tell me why, over the years, when the SNP has proposed changes to bring greater control over fishing policies, those have been rejected? Does he agree that that is because fishing is a big industry in Scotland and important to the Scottish Government, but it means nothing at Westminster?
Michael Gove
Psychologists have a phenomenon called projection. It means that when someone describes someone else, they are really talking about themselves. It is very interesting that the Scottish National party spokesman should talk about people always blaming somebody else and things always being somebody else’s fault. As members of a party that has raised grievance to an art form, SNP Members have a damn cheek making that case. They have a particular cheek in this case, because it is the stated policy of the Scottish National party to stay in the European Union, to stay in the single market, to stay in the customs union and to stay in the common fisheries policy. The ones who are committed to giving Scottish fishermen, and indeed all fishermen across the United Kingdom, a brighter future by leaving the CFP are the Conservative party and this Government. I think that the 90 seconds of concentrated—I do not know what the word is, but it is probably unparliamentary, Mr Speaker—cant that we have just heard from the hon. Gentleman will be met with the derision it deserves.
Mr Speaker
In fact, I think it was 56 seconds. The right hon. Gentleman has indulged in a bit of statistical rounding.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Will the Government go to the Council this week and say that this deal from the EU is unacceptable and that we voted to take back control of our fish, our money, our borders and our laws? We have accepted a two-year, nine-month transitional period, so will the Government just get on with this?
Michael Gove
I completely understand my right hon. Friend’s feelings on this matter. I just want to reassure him that our negotiating team negotiated hard, in good faith and armed with the support of our fisheries industry to try to get the best possible deal. We did not get everything we wanted, but it is the view of this Government and, I think, the majority of people in this House that we need to make sure that this implementation period succeeds so that we can grab the greater prize that Brexit provides at the end of it.
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing this urgent question, on the same subject I also submitted one this morning.
The truth is that the Tories are treating this industry as expendable. The Secretary of State talked about revival, but the industry cannot revive based on the status quo that the Government have delivered on the CFP. Does he understand why my constituents will see this as a total sell-out, with us not even having a say at the negotiating table for the next two years?
Michael Gove
It is certainly not the case that anyone on the Government side of the House regards fishing communities or the fishing industry as expendable. That is why we are investing more in the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science—our top-level marine scientific advisory body. It is why we are investing more in the Marine Management Organisation, which will be responsible for making sure that our fisheries industry is effective. It is why we are investing more in fisheries protection vessels to ensure that the sea of opportunity that comes outside the CFP can be properly taken advantage of.
The idea that we do not care about fisheries and that we are not investing in their future is, I am afraid, simply not true. The hon. Lady may express disappointment, and I express disappointment that we did not secure everything we wanted in these negotiations, but it is vital that we all focus on the bigger prize ahead of us. I completely understand why some people in the House —I exempt the hon. Lady—want to make partisan points, but, honestly, the future of our fishing industry is bigger than that.
Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
Why will my right hon. Friend not specifically answer the question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Moray (Douglas Ross)? Why can he not give a guarantee that, in 2020, we will actually take back control over our fishing and our waters?
Michael Gove
I believed—and I must apologise to the House if I did not make this clear—that I had made it clear in my original statement that, even before the transition period ends in December 2020, we will be negotiating as an independent coastal state. I hope that is a sufficient guarantee and reassurance to my hon. Friend and to my hon. Friend the Member for Moray (Douglas Ross).
Mr Alan Campbell (Tynemouth) (Lab)
Given that we export such a large proportion of our prawns and other shellfish to Europe, should we not have the freest possible trade with Europe?
Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
I am slightly concerned by my right hon. Friend’s tone in relation to the negotiations, which suggests that the European Commission would not allow us something. In a negotiation, it is surely a question of what importance we put on something as to whether we get it. Therefore, I ask my right hon. Friend, what did we get in return?
Michael Gove
The big prize that we have secured is an implementation period that allows us as a country to prepare for all the benefits that Brexit will bring. I campaigned with my hon. Friend to ensure that Britain can leave the European Union, and it is important that we do so in good order. This transition period allows us the time and space to do just that.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
As the Secretary of State well knows, meetings of the Fisheries Council tend to go on into the early hours, when they reach decisions on quota and catch. Will he clarify whether, under the terms of the transitional agreement, Britain will have the possibility of being in the room when those decisions are made, or does article 125 of the draft agreement mean that we will only be able to provide comments? If we can only provide comments, what impact does he expect those comments to have when final decisions are taken in the meeting itself?
Michael Gove
It is clear that we will be consulted, and not just in a perfunctory way. The scientific advice and evidence that our top-level marine scientists generate will shape and frame the negotiations. I should say that it is only for one year—in December 2019—that we will be in that position. The principle of the European Union operating in good faith towards the UK is one that I take seriously, because if the European Union were to act in a way in that one year that demonstrated bad faith, then, apart from the mechanisms that police the withdrawal agreement and the implementation period, it would also be the case that Britain, having taken back control of its waters, might be in a position to be less generous than the EU would want us to be.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
The economies of Cleethorpes and the adjoining town of Great Grimsby have never fully recovered from what local people see as a betrayal in the original negotiations to enter the EU. Since then, successive Governments have not given sufficient attention to coastal communities. Will the Secretary of State assure me that his and other Departments will give greater support to such communities, particularly now that they have to wait that little bit longer before the benefits of leaving the CFP become fully evident?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is exactly right in two areas. First, we are waiting a little longer before we can properly take advantage of being outside the common fisheries policy. Secondly, there has been an historical neglect not just of the fishing industry, but of coastal communities. This Government have sought to reverse that trend through the coastal communities fund and the investment that I mentioned earlier. It is vital that we recognise that the challenges that coastal communities face—the decline of fishing has been one of them—require intervention from all Departments to ensure that the people whom my hon. Friend represents so well have a brighter future.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
I must declare an interest. My daughter, Lisa Roberts, and her partner, Shaun Williams, bought a fishing vessel last year, and they are ambitious and excited at the start of their business venture. However, what the Minister proposes means that they now face a maelstrom of perishable foodstuffs held up at customs, continued pressure on seafood species and no say over quotas for alternative catches. In what way has he not used the fishermen and women of Wales as Brexit bait?
Michael Gove
I wish the hon. Lady’s family all the very best in taking to sea. Coming from a family with a fishing heritage, as I mentioned earlier, I know both the risks and the rewards that come from pursuing fishing opportunities. In her admittedly eloquent question, she conflated a variety of issues relating to customs, total allowable catch, quotas and trading opportunities. Let me make it clear that when it comes to the future negotiations, negotiations over trade should be entirely separate from negotiations over fishing access and opportunities.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
It is just as well that the implementation period is shorter than was sought, isn’t it?
Michael Gove
As ever, my right hon. Friend sums up my thoughts with more pith and elegance than I can ever aspire to.
Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)
The Minister is sometimes so able that he beguiles the House and we are unsure of what he believes. Following the example that he has just given, will he offer two yesses to these questions? First, when we leave, will we totally control our fishing waters? Secondly, will he please offer every fishing port free port status?
Michael Gove
I can say yes to the first question, but the second question is above my pay grade. As for knowing what I believe, the best guide has always been the right hon. Gentleman’s capacity to get to the heart of the matter, as he does so effectively on this issue.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)
Brixham in my constituency lands the most valuable catch in England. Will the Secretary of State visit Brixham to meet all parts of the sector to discuss their serious concerns that the terms of the transition could end up being reflected in the final deal?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend has privately been a persistent, effective lobbyist on the behalf of the fishermen of Brixham and all those associated with the industry, and I thank her for her work. The industry in Brixham has a highly effective and able advocate, and I will of course visit the fishermen in her constituency to explain to them how we intend to ensure that the opportunities available to them will be theirs to enjoy after the implementation period.
Mr Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)
When will the Secretary of State explain article 157 of the draft agreement that was discussed between the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union and Michel Barnier? It sets out a new joint committee between the EU and the UK for deciding all matters relating to the transition period, including fisheries and citizens’ rights—absolutely everything—but gives Parliament no power whatsoever to have any say on any of those issues. Having heard about the Secretary of State’s decision today, how can Parliament have a voice during the transition period?
Michael Gove
The hon. Gentleman takes his duties as a scrutineer of the Executive very seriously. The one thing that I would say is that the draft agreement covers a wide variety of issues, and he alludes to an important one. Obviously, I am here to answer questions relating specifically to fishing. I hope that the draft agreement will be agreed at the March Council, and with your permission, Mr Speaker, the Prime Minister will be here on Monday to make a statement. The hon. Gentleman will have the chance to get his question fully answered then.
John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)
Like many fishermen across Scotland, I feel badly let down by this deal, because we are not going to be taking control of our waters as quickly as we had hoped. Will my right hon. Friend give me the guarantee that the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation seeks, which is that we will take control of our vessels and waters after we finally come out of the transition period as we leave the European Union?
Michael Gove
I thank my hon. Friend for raising the role of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation. Its chief executive, Bertie Armstrong, has been an extremely effective advocate on the industry’s behalf, and his response today, balancing the disappointment felt by many with the determination to ensure that we get absolutely the right deal at the end of the process, was constructive. That approach was reflected in my hon. Friend’s question, and it is absolutely the case that we will seek to secure the opportunities that the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation and other bodies want to secure.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
What a load of codswallop from a Secretary of State who is all out at sea on this issue. The Government will never, ever again be trusted by Scottish fishermen. He drew a red line with the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, but that red line has gone—hook, line and sinker. Will he save us some time and tell us about the next betrayal that Scottish fishermen can expect from his Government?
Michael Gove
I have enormous respect and affection for the right hon. Gentleman—[Interruption.] The fact that he is not right honourable does not diminish the respect or affection that I have for him. My point is that it is the Scottish National party’s policy to remain in the single market and the common fisheries policy. As a result, his capacity to criticise any other party in this House for seeking to secure additional opportunities for fishermen in Scotland or elsewhere is undermined by the fact that he does not believe in giving those opportunities to anyone.
Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement, but he will remember his visit to Newlyn, where he heard of significant multimillion-pound plans to invest in the harbour to make it ready for this new dawn of fishing. I hate to prolong the point, but will he categorically confirm that who fishes in UK waters from 2021 will be our decision? Will he confirm that we will regain that control? Will the Government announce a fund to improve and enhance our vessels, our ports and our processing plants to prepare for that day?
Michael Gove
I enjoyed my visit to Newlyn, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his work on the behalf of his constituents—he is untiring. The first paragraph of article 125 of the draft agreement makes it clear that we will fix fishing opportunities for the duration of the implementation period. Given that the implementation period ends in December 2020, the December 2020 Council and negotiations that fix fishing opportunities for 2021 and beyond are not covered by the agreement, so I can give him the reassurance that I hope he and his constituents seek.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
Unlike some of those who have been trying to work themselves into a lather about this decision, the Secretary of State and I canvassed support to leave the common fisheries policy and the EU in its totality. I remember the promises that were made when we visited Aberdeen, and many people will be alarmed and concerned about the draft agreement. He has said that the EU will act in good faith during the transition period and not seek to undermine existing fishing communities. Given its record to date in the negotiations, how can he be sure that legislation, directives and rules will not be put in place further to undermine the fishing industry, leaving nothing to negotiate for at the end of the transition period?
Michael Gove
My right hon. Friend has been a consistent campaigner to leave the EU and the CFP. The role that he plays on the Exiting the European Union Committee, as a champion for those who have always argued for that, is exemplary. I strongly sympathise with the concerns that people express about the past record of Governments on the fishing industry. What I would say is that the opportunities that will exist after we leave are considerable, and it is only one year—December 2019—when we will rely on that good faith provision with respect to fisheries. As I mentioned in response to questions from Labour colleagues, if the EU were to choose to act in a way in that year that was against our interests, the consequences that would follow for all would not be happy.
Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)
For decades, EU trawlers have plundered our waters and fished in ways that have caused damage to our marine environment. It seems that the Scottish Government are prepared to accept that situation in perpetuity—[Interruption.] Indeed, we have heard comments that they do not trust the EU for a year; I am afraid I have not trusted the EU in its negotiation strategies over the fisheries policy for a very long time. Can the Secretary of State confirm that we will have greater control not only of our fisheries, but of our fishing processes, which have been so damaging to the marine environment and which a lot of us would be very glad to see an end of?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes two very important points. Yes, it is not just the case that the fishing industry benefits by being outside the CFP; our marine environment also benefits. She also makes a very important point about the Scottish Government. They want to keep us in the common fisheries policy and deny Scottish fishermen the opportunities of leaving the CFP. In that position, their protestations ring hollow this afternoon.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
The paradox is that Conservative Fisheries Ministers have been very successful in the common fisheries policy in negotiating more sustainable catches. In the Secretary of State’s 25-year environment plan, he talks about all fish stocks being recovered to and maintained at levels that can produce the maximum sustainable yield, which is an exact replica of the EU common fisheries policy. However, in that plan, he neglects to mention the linked application of the precautionary principle to fisheries management. Can he reassure the House that in the future fisheries Bill, there will be no return to the bad old days of days at sea or fishing effort?
Michael Gove
A number of very important points were raised in that question. First, yes, previous Fisheries Ministers in this Government—in particular, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon)—have done an outstanding job on improving the common fisheries policy and in making a bad situation better. Secondly, the hon. Lady is absolutely right that in the 25-year environment plan, there is an absolute commitment to ensuring that we follow the science, so that we have the best approach towards making sure that fish stocks are healthy and sustainable in future.
On the broader point about the precautionary principle, it is clear that during the time that we have been in the European Union, although a number of things have worked against the environmental interests of this country and our marine environment, the precautionary principle properly applied can be a very powerful tool to ensure that our environment is protected and enhanced. We will be saying more in due course about the environmental principles that have evolved during our time in the EU and the means by which we will hold the Government to account to keep in line with those principles.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. Colleagues, I granted this urgent question because I was very clear in my mind that the matter warranted the attention of the House of Commons today. I think the judgment has been vindicated by the level of interest in participating. I am keen to accommodate the inquisitorial appetite of the House, but given that there are two statements to follow, there is now a premium on a degree of brevity. That is normally demonstrated by the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne), but he has already asked his question. May I exhort colleagues to follow his excellent example?
David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)
I will keep this short. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we owe a debt to our fishing communities and that we must not guarantee to the EU, at the end of this implementation period, any level of access in favour of a longer-term trade deal?
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
Today is St Cuthbert’s day, so it is right to celebrate the wonderful seafood of Northumberland, from Craster kippers to Lindisfarne oysters, which are enjoyed by my constituents and exported all over the world. However, should the coastal communities that depend on them ever have believed that a Tory party funded by the City would prioritise a deal on fishing as highly as a deal on finance?
Michael Gove
It is St Cuthbert’s day, and I believe that on this day, St Cuthbert was given a gift of fish to sustain him, so it is a day that is resonant for a number of reasons. One thing I would say is that it is a Conservative Government who have been investing in the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, the Marine Management Organisation and all the steps required to ensure that we can take advantage of the opportunities that arise when we leave the CFP. It is also a Conservative Government who have been investing in fisheries protection vessels to ensure that the hon. Lady’s constituents and others are properly protected when their fishing interests are engaged.
Mr Speaker
Of course, Jeeves always used to encourage Wooster to eat more fish on the grounds that it was good for the brain.
Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)
As the British fishing industry has been hammered over decades with our membership of the common fisheries policy, the Secretary of State has now given a guarantee that we will be leaving towards the end of the implementation period. Will he use his good offices to ensure that we find imaginative ways to support the fishing industry as we embark into this new era?
Michael Gove
Yes, my hon. Friend is absolutely right and, indeed, that point was made very well by my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas). We will be saying more with the publication of the fisheries White Paper about additional steps that we want to take to support the fishing industry in preparing for life after the transition period.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
When will we know the detail about the great prize and bright future that the Secretary of State refers to—before or after 29 March 2019?
Ross Thomson (Aberdeen South) (Con)
I share the disappointment of north-east fishermen that the transition deal falls short of what they had hoped for. Can the Secretary of State guarantee that on 1 January 2021, we will leave the common fisheries policy, take back control of our waters and set our own fisheries management policies and our quotas? Will he look at including that in the fisheries Bill, and does he share the concern that I and the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation have that the Scottish National party Scottish Government would keep us in the common fisheries policy in perpetuity and that that would sell Scotland’s fishermen out in perpetuity?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is absolutely every right in every particular. It was instructive that when the chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation was interviewed on the radio earlier today, he made it clear how disappointed he was by the Scottish Government’s determination to keep us in the common fisheries policy.
Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)
Given the assurances that I and others were given over the past year right from the Prime Minister down that we would leave the common fisheries policy at the end of March 2019, who was actually negotiating this and did they really care about fishing? I would like the Secretary of State to answer this: did the officials actually argue that we could be left out right away and that it would be nothing to do with the implementation period?
Michael Gove
The hon. Lady asks a very direct question. That absolutely was the case. We had an immensely hard-working team of officials who negotiated incredibly hard on our behalf. They were in constant touch with Ministers every step of the way, and they encountered intransigence on the part of the EU, which was disappointing—I make no bones about it—but one thing that cannot be faulted is the hard work, mastery of detail and determination of the civil servants in DExEU and DEFRA to get the very best deal for Britain, and I will not hear a word said against them.
Bill Grant (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Con)
Going forward, what confidence or guarantee can my right hon. Friend give that control of our seas will not be sacrificed on the altar of Brexit?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to stress that one of the great prizes of Britain leaving the European Union is taking back control of our territorial waters. That is why we must maintain our eyes on that great prize at the end of this process.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
I am the daughter of a man who was a member of the Grimsby deep-sea fishing fleet in the late 1950s, so I know that it is one of the hardest jobs in the world. That does not stop me understanding, however, that the processing side of the industry is incredibly important to coastal communities such as Grimsby and Peterhead. On that basis, will the Secretary of State guarantee that the processing side of the fishing industry will not be sacrificed to other priorities in trade deal negotiations?
Michael Gove
The hon. Lady makes a very good point. I have had productive talks with representatives of fish processing organisations, and we absolutely appreciate that they have specific demands on both access to other markets and labour. We respect their demands and will do everything possible to help them achieve them.
Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)
The SNP has admitted that it would hand powers over fisheries not to Edinburgh or London but back to Brussels. Will my right hon. Friend assure me that that will not happen?
Michael Gove
I can give an absolute guarantee that under no circumstances will I ever adopt the craven and abject surrender that the Scottish Government would offer the EU by accepting that the CFP should persist ad infinitum.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
The future of the fishing industry is a politically sensitive issue in Hull—UKIP has talked about a fishing fleet being re-established there—but was not one of the main promises made to the people of Hull that we would retain our territorial rights around fishing from day one, and has that promise not been broken?
Michael Gove
No, we will. When the implementation period ends, the exclusive economic zone that is ours to police and control will be ours to police and control.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
If during the implementation period, the EU cannot cut our quota, what is to stop it increasing its quota? That said, those of us who are bitterly disappointed at this outcome will take no lectures from those who never want to take back control.
Michael Gove
I entirely understand my hon. Friend’s position. I explained earlier the good faith provisions and the other guarantees that are there. The outcome is not what we wanted, but it does afford our fishermen protection during the implementation period.
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
Fishermen in Plymouth feel utterly betrayed by the decision announced yesterday. What does it mean for the reform of the unworkable discards ban that was promised next year and which is especially important for mixed fisheries in the far south-west?
Michael Gove
The discards ban is necessary to ensure responsible management of all species, but we are working on how to apply it in a way that ensures that the legitimate concerns the hon. Gentleman raises on behalf of his constituents are properly addressed.
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)
The Secretary of State will not be surprised to learn that fishermen in mid-Cornwall feel very disappointed, and in some cases angry, at yesterday’s announcement. When he visits Devon, will he come that little bit further and meet the fishermen of Cornwall as well, and in doing so will he lay out very clearly that the implementation period will affect only one year’s quota negotiations, that their quotas will be protected during that time and that at the end of the transition period we will take back control of our fishing waters?
Michael Gove
Absolutely. My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head, and I look forward to meeting him in Mevagissey later this year.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
In defence of this negotiating debacle, the Secretary of State says the Government always knew there would be important legal and technical questions to be resolved. If so, why less than 10 days ago did he and Ruth Davidson promise fishermen across the UK that we would be leaving the CFP in March 2019?
Michael Gove
It is the case that important questions need to be resolved, but the one thing the SNP is promising is that we will never leave the CFP. It is instructive that in so many of their questions SNP Members talk about Ruth Davidson but never about a single fisherman, species or community; they only attack the leader of the Scottish Conservatives. Why? They’re feart.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that under yesterday’s transition agreement we can continue to market fish and fish products seamlessly and frictionlessly into the EU, and that that is his aim for the time after the transition period has ended?
Michael Gove
Yes, it is absolutely the case that we want as friction free a trade arrangement as possible with the EU, and indeed with other nations.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
In my constituency on Friday, the talk of the day was: let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate. In ’74, when we joined the Common Market, Edward Heath sold the fishing sector for a bowl of pottage. In 2018, can the Secretary of State give an absolute guarantee that the fishing sector in Portavogie, in my constituency, and also at Ardglass and Kilkeel, has not been and will not be sold out by a transitional arrangement that leaves the EU in control of fishing policy?
Michael Gove
I appreciate the issues the hon. Gentleman raises, and I will do everything possible to address the concerns of fishermen not just on the Ards peninsula but in Kilkeel and elsewhere. I look forward to working with him and colleagues across the political divide in Northern Ireland to provide that reassurance.
Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the prize of agreeing an implementation period. How will the UK’s voice be heard and respected in the annual quota allocation for 2020?
Michael Gove
I hope that my hon. Friend will be reassured to know that in 2020 the UK will be negotiating as an independent coastal state. [Interruption.] The negotiations in 2019 will take place on the basis that we will be consulted and that our science will be part of the process by which arrangements are reached, and of course the good faith provisions and other arrangements and guarantees I discussed earlier will be there to safeguard UK interests for that limited 12-month period.
David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)
The quotas for 2020 will now be set by the EU after some consultation with the British Government. Now that the ball has been handed back to the EU, what guarantees can the Secretary of State give to the industry that he will get the ball back?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend reasserts the vital point that were the EU for any reason in 2019 to behave contrary to our long-term interests, it would also be contrary to its long-term interests. I agree that the opportunities available to us after the transition deal are critical and that we must secure them. That has meant accepting a sub-optimal outcome in the deal, but it is only for an additional 12 months, and we must keep our eyes on the prize.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
Far from providing “a sea of opportunity”—to use the Secretary of State’s own words—all this deal does is underline, as the Heath, Thatcher and Major Governments did before, that the Tories are happy to throw Scotland’s fishing industry over the side. Is it not time that he and his Scottish Tory sprats were also discarded?
Michael Gove
Again, I note that questions from the Scottish nationalist Benches have contained more mentions of the Scottish Tory leader and bad puns than adherence to either science or economics. The SNP will have to do better than name calling and joke making if it is ever to be taken seriously as a defender of the interests of Scottish fishermen.
Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)
All fishing communities up and down the nation will have hanging their heads in shame at this disgraceful discussion so far. The list of Tory sell-outs is endless: in the 1970s, Ted Heath said that fishermen were expendable; in the ’80s, Margaret Thatcher signed up to the original doomed common fisheries policy and consigned our fishermen to decades of mismanagement; while John Major signed up to a revised CFP that had scrapping vessels and destroying livelihoods at its very heart. Given this continual betrayal, can the Secretary of State honestly say that things will be any different post-Brexit?
Michael Gove
Absolutely. I have enormous respect and affection for the hon. Gentleman, who I think is a great campaigner, but I must respectfully point out that, although I do not doubt his passion and commitment, the platform on which his party stands would keep us imprisoned in the CFP, as opposed to opening us up to the opportunities that exist outside, which we and our friends in the Democratic Unionist party support.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
I make it five Conservative Scottish MPs who have asked for the same promise from the Secretary of State, but he has been so obsessed with his #SNP line that he has not given that guarantee. Is this not the Secretary of State who promised that Scotland could have devolved power over immigration if we left the EU, and was that promise not worthless? Is this not the same Secretary of State who promised, barely a week ago, that we would definitely leave the CFP in March 2019, and was that promise not worthless? Is it not the case that any promise he makes in the future to the people of Scotland will be just as worthless as his promises in the past?
Michael Gove
It was the promise the SNP made to keep us in the CFP and the EU that was comprehensively rejected at the ballot box by the votes of people in north-east Scotland and in fishing communities. I am afraid that Scotland faces a simple choice: does it remain within the EU and CFP under the SNP, or will it be liberated, as will be the case if this Government have their way? On that choice so much hangs, including the future of the SNP.
Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)
Again, it just goes to show that at any negotiating table we want someone who will stand up for the issues that matter. Be it Brexit or the CFP, Scotland and Scotland’s fishing community are expendable once again in the eyes of the UK Government. At what stage did the Secretary of State know that fisheries would be a bargaining chip, and what did the Government secure in return?
Michael Gove
Both sides—both the UK and the EU—made it clear that fisheries would have to be handled separately from many of the other issues that would be addressed during the implementation period, and it was always clear that we would have to have specific arrangements. One of the things that are different about fisheries is that even before the implementation period ends, we will be operating independently outside the constraints of the European Union. It is also the case that, having secured the capacity to operate independently in December 2020, we will be in a position to secure the larger prize of life outside the common fisheries policy, a prize that the SNP rejects.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
We know that Heath was the one who said that Scottish fishermen were expendable, and Thatcher was the one who took us into the CFP. We talk about fish quotas. Just this morning, on Radio Scotland, Niels Wichmann, the head of the Danish Fishermen’s Association, said:
“Britain has never ever challenged the quota shares that we have used every year in the annual negotiations”.
It does not matter whether we are in the CFP or not; the UK Government cannot be trusted. Does the Secretary of State agree with that?
Michael Gove
I enjoyed hearing again a quotation that I had heard a few minutes ago. Repeats from the SNP are quite something. More particularly, however, the hon. Gentleman’s question betrayed a misunderstanding of the principle of relative stability which underpins quota negotiations.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Ind)
I have suggested several times over the years, including in the Chamber, that only when all the fishing waters of Europe have been returned to their own countries will the fish stocks and fishing industries of Europe be saved, and that the UK must lead the way in that process. Will the Government now publicly urge the complete abolition of the common fisheries policy, which has been such an unmitigated disaster?
Michael Gove
My admiration for the hon. Gentleman knows almost no bounds. He is right: the common fisheries policy has been bad not just for Britain, but for fish throughout the European Union. My only hope is that he will not only have an opportunity to see our shared ambition for a Britain outside the European Union fulfilled, but will be able to persuade socialist and progressive colleagues across the European continent to reform their own governance in a way that is genuinely liberating, as he has long advocated.
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
As I look across at the faces of the Scottish Tories who are once again witnessing the United Kingdom Government betraying Scottish fishing communities, never has the phrase “done up like a kipper” seemed more appropriate. Can the Secretary of State explain to the bewildered fishing communities in my constituency why he has signed them up to what he described nine months ago as the “disastrous” common fisheries policy for a further two years, on worse terms than they are currently experiencing?
Michael Gove
Listening to yet another Scottish National party spokesman denying the reality of the SNP’s adherence to the common fisheries policy and attempting to cover it up with a weak pun, I felt that I was witnessing yet another audition for someone to appear on Alex Salmond’s rt.com talk show. It is the combination of bad taste and poor humour that has been exhibited by so many on those Benches.
Business of the House
(6 years, 7 months ago)
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The Leader of the House of Commons (Andrea Leadsom)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I shall make a short statement about the business for tomorrow. It will now be consideration of a business of the House motion, followed by proceedings on the Northern Ireland (Regional Rates and Energy) Bill. The House will then be asked to consider a further business of the House motion, before moving on to proceedings on the Northern Ireland Assembly Members (Pay) Bill. Thursday’s business will remain as previously announced: a general debate on the economy. I shall make my usual statement announcing further business on Thursday.
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House. That was probably the shortest statement, and the shortest response thereto, in the recent history of the House.
We now come to a statement from the Minister for Small Business, Consumers and Corporate Responsibility. The fellow must beetle into the Chamber. Well done! Minister Andrew Griffiths.
Corporate Governance and Insolvency
(6 years, 7 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Andrew Griffiths)
I am pleased to announce that the Government have today published a consultation paper on corporate governance and insolvency. Copies have been placed in the Library of the House.
The United Kingdom is recognised as having a leading international reputation for corporate governance. That gives us an international competitive advantage, and is an important factor in making the UK the best place in the world in which to invest and do business. The Government are determined to ensure that our corporate governance regime remains the envy of the world.
Large corporate failures rarely happen, but when they do, their effect on stakeholders such as employees and smaller suppliers can be very damaging. In those circumstances, it is important to ensure that those in charge of the company concerned act properly and fully discharge their responsibilities. The Government are determined to ensure that our corporate governance framework clarifies those responsibilities, protects the economy and enhances public confidence, while continuing to foster conditions for business to thrive.
Last year we announced a number of reforms to strengthen the corporate governance framework in relation to executive pay, the voice of employees and wider stakeholders in the boardroom, and corporate governance in large privately held businesses. Those are now being delivered, and all of them will contribute to more robust and well-founded decision making in our large companies. We are determined to learn the lessons from corporate failures such as Carillion. We believe that we can do more to strengthen the corporate governance framework as it applies in insolvency situations. We intend to reduce the risk of major company failures occurring through shortcomings of governance or stewardship, and to strengthen the responsibilities of directors of firms when they are in or approaching insolvency.
The consultation will focus on three specific measures. Considerable public concern arises when owners of a distressed business, including a business within a group of companies, sell it on without proper regard for its future prospects or the interests of its creditors and employees. We propose to require directors, including directors of holding companies in respect of sales of subsidiaries, to have a greater regard to any future consequences of the sale of an insolvent or near-insolvent company for which they are responsible. In doing so, however, we will ensure that we do not put barriers in the way of credible business rescue efforts. We do not want to make it impossible to rescue businesses in distress.
Considerable public concern has also been raised when a company in financial difficulty has been rescued by new investment, only to find when it subsequently fails that the new investors have set up a series of complex financial schemes to protect their investment or minimise their losses, at the expense of other creditors. The Government will consult on measures to give insolvency practitioners the additional necessary powers to claw back, for the benefit of creditors, money that has been siphoned off through complex financing arrangements.
Concerns have also been raised—by, among others, a number of hon. Members—about the difficulties that arise when a company has been dissolved, but it is then found that it has outstanding debts or there have been allegations of director misconduct. Those dissolved companies often reappear, phoenix-like, in a slightly different form and with a slightly different name, and start operating again. At present, the Insolvency Service does not have the necessary powers to investigate such cases, and we are determined to ensure that it does.
These measures will complement those published yesterday by the Department for Work and Pensions in a White Paper entitled “Protecting defined benefit pension schemes”, which provides for stronger powers for the Pensions Regulator to prevent and punish those who would deliberately endanger a defined benefit pension scheme.
Corporate failures such as Carillion have raised concerns about some other aspects of our corporate governance framework. I do not wish to anticipate the current investigations of the circumstances leading up to Carillion’s failure, but I intend to use the consultation to seek views on a number of areas in which we may be able to do more to strengthen the rules within which UK companies operate. Those areas include the questions of whether steps should be taken to improve governance, accountability and internal controls within complex company group structures, and whether there are further opportunities to strengthen the role of shareholders in stewarding the companies in which they have investments. While the payment of dividends should remain for the directors to decide, having regard to their obligations and guidance, there is the question of whether the legal and technical framework within which these decisions are made could be improved and made more transparent and fairer. There are also questions about whether the commissioning and use of professional advice by directors is done with a proper awareness of directors’ duties, and how the supply chain and other creditors can be better protected in the event of major insolvency while preserving the interests of shareholders.
The reforms we propose will help prevent corporate failure and will strengthen the UK’s business environment, contributing to the success of our industrial strategy, and will cement our reputation as one of the best places to work, invest and do business. I commend the statement to the House.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. May I gently point out that Members who were not present for the statement cannot suddenly beetle into the Chamber and expect to be called to ask a question? I am sorry, but that is not on.
Laura Pidcock (North West Durham) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement and for making it in good time.
There are two substantive proposals: on clawback and on disqualification of directors. There is, however, already provision in insolvency law for clawback of assets, for example assets sold at an undervalue. There is also provision in company law for disqualification of directors due to incompetence or recklessness. The proposals set out by the Minister on clawback are extremely unclear. Can he explain how these provisions add to existing rights, rather than repeat them?
Secondly, there are a number of much vaguer promises. What do these mean? On giving the Insolvency Service new powers to investigate directors of dissolved companies, what will these new powers be and how would they militate against reckless behaviour? There is also the consideration of the legal and technical frameworks within which decisions are made on payment of dividends and how that can be improved and made more transparent. What does that mean? How can it be made more transparent, and how would greater transparency protect against greed and excessive payment of dividends, as we saw with Carillion? Then there is the strengthening of the role and responsibilities of shareholders in stewarding the companies in which they have investments, and, again, that is vague. What does it mean? Frankly, these are meaningless platitudes.
Thirdly, the Government again appear to be consulting, rather than acting. Do the Government agree that it is time for action, not consultation? They are also consulting on the Taylor review, which in itself was a consultation. What good are these consultations to people currently working in companies providing public services at risk of collapse?
Fourthly, the Government are certainly not known for being proactive; rather, they are always mopping up after the event. None of these problems is new. Companies going insolvent and leaving pension deficits and asset-stripping is not novel; we need only look at the case of BHS. These are problems that the Government should already have anticipated. Why has it taken the Government until now to begin to act, and why do they take only tentative steps?
Fifthly, we must have a bolder and more imaginative approach to corporate governance. Large companies are not the toys of directors and shareholders. They do not exist merely to make a small group of people excessively wealthy. They are the product of the hard work and effort of their workforce and suppliers, and they provide services that the public use. Short-termism is often at the heart of shareholder decisions. How do today’s proposals safeguard the long-term interests of companies, for the workforce and for the public good?
Sixthly, have the Government made any assessment of the viability of Interserve and any companies with public sector contracts? What steps are the Government taking to ensure these companies do not collapse? Will the Government institute project bank accounts for major public construction projects, mandate and enforce payment of public sector contractors within 30 days and set up a new model that allows them to step in when construction companies collapse, all of which Labour has called on the Government to do?
Lastly, how would any of these proposals meaningfully have helped the workers, pensioners and suppliers of Carillion? The amount paid in dividends at Carillion was the same as the pension deficit over the same period. Have the Government done any assessment of what more the workers, pensioners and suppliers would have received under these new plans, and if not, why not?
Andrew Griffiths
A little like a machine gun, those questions came thick and fast, and I thank the hon. Lady for them, but I am somewhat surprised. When Carillion went into insolvency the hon. Lady and her partner the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) demanded that we learn the lessons from the Carillion failure. Today, just a few weeks later, we have come forward with proposals to prevent something similar from happening, yet she criticises us for a failure. Her colleague the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles criticised us in Labour’s press release today for yet another consultation, and then said that Labour has
“launched our own review into corporate governance”.
The Government’s measures will make a massive difference to prospects and the way in which our companies are regulated, to ensure a more robust and accountable regime within the boardroom. The hon. Lady fails to mention the fact that yesterday the Department for Work and Pensions brought forward a White Paper that introduces a huge number of extra regulations and gives powers to the Pensions Regulator to impose punitive fines, civil fines, criminal sanctions, and director disqualification. The hon. Lady asks what we have been doing during our time in office: we brought in pay ratio reporting, a new register of companies for significant shareholder opposition, and we have strengthened the voice of the employees and representatives in the boardroom.
The hon. Lady talks about Interserve. It would be inappropriate for me to give a case-by-case running commentary on the financial probity of private businesses, particularly as that could impact on their share price. I am sure somebody of the hon. Lady’s experience will understand that.
The hon. Lady talks about project bank accounts. As she will be well aware, in January, the Government consultation on project bank accounts closed, and we will be making our proposals in the coming weeks. She talks about payment in the public sector, and I can inform her that the special manager in relation to PwC has already agreed that companies providing services to Carillion will be paid within 30 days, and that is a requirement for all contractors who accept Government contracts. We will make further proposals about how we can improve that and make it robust.
The hon. Lady talks about disqualification. Directors can be disqualified for up to 15 years, and that prevents them from acting as a director, and taking part directly or indirectly. Anyone contravening a disqualification is committing a criminal offence, so these are real punitive powers.
The hon. Lady talked about dividends. There is nothing wrong with healthy companies paying dividends. In fact many of our pension schemes rely on the profits paid from dividends. The hon. Lady talks about dividends as if they are a dirty word, but in a healthy business they are something to be applauded.
The House can be reassured that this is just the next step in a robust, detailed, full review of our corporate governance regime to make sure that we protect the taxpayer, the pensioners and the workers in all those companies who do such a good job.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
What is the Minister’s ambition for when his excellent proposals will be implemented?
Andrew Griffiths
As my right hon. Friend will know, we have not hung about in relation to improvements within the corporate governance structure. We will soon lay a further statutory instrument which will enhance even further the corporate governance measures we have introduced. The consultation will take place within the normal rules of a consultation, and we hope to bring forward proposals as a matter of urgency.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
I thank the Minister for giving me advance sight of his statement. On engagement, will the Government consider proposals to force chief executives and company directors to engage directly with small business owners or groups of affected individuals? In the recent instances involving the Global Restructuring Group and the Royal Bank of Scotland branch closures, there has been a refusal on the part of directors to meet those affected. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) pointed out, a lot of the problems that this consultation seeks to address could have been avoided simply through early engagement with those in charge.
With prohibitive costs often preventing individuals from pursuing legal options after being affected by insolvency, will the Government’s strategy look at ways of ensuring that legal recourse is available to those who will already be in financial difficulties as a result of insolvency? On contract and pensions protections, small businesses should not be the ones to suffer when a failed large company goes bust, and it should not only be in high-profile cases that the Government step in to protect pensions. What measures will this strategy take to ensure that small and medium-sized enterprises are protected when contracts or payments are halted due to a large company collapsing, and that any protection for creditors is mirrored by protection for workers and pension holders? These proposals are aimed at improving the range of options available following a company becoming insolvent. However, a proactive approach could help to prevent that from happening in the first place. Does the Minister agree that one way to ensure this would be for organisations to take profit warnings seriously and not to continue to hand out contracts to firms that issue them?
Andrew Griffiths
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his detailed and important questions, many of which related to small businesses. As the Minister with responsibility for small businesses, I take those questions extremely seriously. It is not just large corporate collapses, such as that of Carillion, that affect the thousands of small businesses in the supply chain. The collapse of a small business can affect other small businesses as well. We have all seen cases in our constituencies of small businesses losing money because of phoenix businesses that go into liquidation, change their name and reappear. It is the same people selling the same products, fleecing people time and again. We are giving the Insolvency Service the ability in this consultation to investigate companies that have already been dissolved, and that will go a long way towards sending the clear message to directors who think they can get away with fleecing small businesses in that way that the Insolvency Service will come and get them.
The hon. Gentleman talked about pensions. It is important that directors should clearly understand, through this White Paper and through the consultation, as well as through the Department for Work and Pensions White Paper, that there will be consequences if they fleece their pension fund, that there will be fines and penalties and that they could spend time in prison if they have been found to be fleecing their pension fund in an unacceptable way.
The hon. Gentleman also talked about the need for small businesses to be treated in an ethical way. In the spring statement last week, the Chancellor demonstrated a clear recognition and understanding that small businesses were being fleeced, particularly in relation to late payments. He said that he would consult on how we could end the “scourge of late payments”. If we could do that, we would see £14 billion taken from the pockets of big businesses and put into the pockets of small businesses. Also, when insolvencies such as that of Carillion do happen, payments will stay in the bank accounts of the company that had gone bust not for 128 days but for only 30 days.
Craig Tracey (North Warwickshire) (Con)
I welcome this announcement. As a former business owner myself, I have seen the impact, particularly on small businesses, of large companies becoming insolvent. Does the Minister agree that it is crucial that we protect the small businesses and employees in the supply chain?
Andrew Griffiths
I agree with my hon. Friend. This is why we are specifically consulting, in this document, about what more we can do to protect small businesses. In lots of these failures, we have seen clever directors with clever advisers, clever lawyers and clever tax accountants putting in place a regime that allows them to walk away scot-free while hard-working businessmen and women in our constituencies pay the price. This consultation looks at how we can put an end to that and be on the side of the small guy, not the big guy.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
In the consultation, will the Minister consider extending the 30-day limit for late payments to other non-governmental contracts, to create a new way of doing business? Also, what will he do to protect apprentices who are often caught in the subcontracting chain and who lose their apprenticeships with SMEs, which are the lifeblood of our economy?
Andrew Griffiths
The hon. Lady asks two important questions. The Government have a role to play in this as a customer. We give billions of pounds of contracts and we have the power in our own hands to demand that the supply chain is treated properly. I can assure her that, in the very near future, we will be coming forward with a clearer set of principles and tools to ensure that the supply chain is treated properly and paid fairly, using the 30-day terms. That is what we expect of our suppliers. I agree with her point about apprentices. Unfortunately, we have to accept that there will always be businesses that go bust. That is one of the realities—[Interruption.] That is the way in which the business environment works. We are putting the employees at the heart of this consultation and at the heart of the decisions we make.
Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)
I congratulate the Minister on his statement and on launching this much-needed consultation. As a member of the Select Committee that is inquiring into the collapse of Carillion, I should like to share with him the fact that one of the startling things we discovered was that the company could not even give the Insolvency Service the names of all the directors of all companies in the group. Does he agree that steps should be taken to improve governance and accountability in groups of companies with complex structures?
Andrew Griffiths
My hon. Friend has hit the nail well and truly on the head. I commend the work that his Select Committee has been doing in shining a light on the realities of the way in which Carillion operated. In the very early days of the Carillion collapse, when the Government were looking to protect those vital services that were being delivered and to protect the 18,500 people employed by the company, it became clear that it was a hellishly complicated business with a hellishly over-complicated structure. It is still proving a difficult job to untangle the web of the Carillion business structure. If it is difficult for the Insolvency Agency to do that, so many weeks on, how much more difficult must it have been to run the business? We need clear, accountable business structures in our businesses today.
Sir Vince Cable (Twickenham) (LD)
I welcome this sensible set of proposals, particularly those relating to value extraction through complex arrangements. What can the Minister currently do, and what will he be able to do in the future, in respect of companies such as Toys R Us? It had a management team, led by a man called Frank Muzika, which was able to loot the company over a long period of time and load it up with debt using complex instruments and tax havens, leaving behind a legacy of a £580 million pension fund and 3,000 redundancies. What can the Minister do?
Andrew Griffiths
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. He clearly has a vast amount of experience as a former Secretary of State in our Department. He is right to identify the value extraction element in this document. When a business is taken over, we often see the directors of the purchasing company put in place complicated measures to protect their own backs, to ensure that, whatever happens to the business, they will not be impacted. The powers proposed in this consultation would allow us to recoup and recover the amount of money involved, not just for shareholders and directors but for contractors and creditors in the supply chain. In relation to Toys R Us, he will recognise that some businesses will always fail. However, the Government are clear that this set of measures will put an emphasis on the responsibilities not just of directors but of shareholders. It is an important point that shareholders—particularly institutional shareholders—should have a voice in the way in which these businesses are run.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
I commend my hon. Friend for his statement, for this consultation, and for standing up for small businesses. Will he extend the consultation—or perhaps have a future consultation—to look at the forced liquidations of often small and sometimes slightly vulnerable businesses by banks and other secured creditors, which are totally unnecessary, and could be resolved by other means, thereby maintaining jobs, employment and prosperity in our constituencies, as opposed to leaving bust businesses that should be thriving?
Andrew Griffiths
In recent weeks, we have seen the impact that the banks can have on small businesses when they act inappropriately. I have been meeting the all-party parliamentary group on small and micro business recently to see how we can get more accountability; I know that my hon. Friend is a member of that group. My concern is that small businesses are shying away from finance—shying away from taking credit from the banks because of the way they have been treated. I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend to talk about his ideas.
Point of Order
Karen Lee (Lincoln) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. May I ask for some clarification, please? Is it usual, when an MP visits a constituency other than their own, for them to let that Member know? Within the past 10 days, two Conservative MPs have visited my constituency and I have had no notice or communication, before, during or after—and you never know; we might have another visit coming up shortly.
Mr Speaker
I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order. The short answer is that a Member visiting another Member’s constituency on public business should notify the Member whose constituency he or she is intending to visit. That should be done in a timely way. It is a matter of parliamentary courtesy. It is not part of our Standing Orders, but it is a long-standing convention of the House. It is a regrettable situation if Members feel obliged to raise these matters on the Floor of the House, which in this case she has felt she has had to do. Members should simply show a basic level of courtesy and respect for each other in these matters.
BILL PRESENTED
Northern Ireland Budget (Anticipation and Adjustments) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Secretary Karen Bradley, supported by the Prime Minister, Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Attorney General and Mr Shailesh Vara, presented a Bill to authorise the issue out of the Consolidated Fund of Northern Ireland of certain sums for the service of the years ending 31 March 2018 and 2019; to appropriate those sums for specified purposes; to authorise the use for the public service of certain resources for those years; to revise the limits on the use of certain accruing resources in the year ending 31 March 2018; and to authorise the Department of Finance in Northern Ireland to borrow on the credit of the sum appropriated for the year ending 31 March 2019.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time today, and to be printed (Bill 186) with explanatory notes (Bill 186-EN).
Mr Speaker
I congratulate the Secretary of State on the quality of her nod.
Fire Safety Information
Tuesday 20th March 2018
(6 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Fire Safety Information Bill 2017-19 View all Fire Safety Information Bill 2017-19 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
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about the requirements for fire safety information for occupants of certain buildings, including high-rise residential buildings.
Following the tragic events at Grenfell Tower, a great deal of attention has rightly been focused on the urgent need to improve fire safety, including the materials used for construction, the effectiveness of building regulations, and the need for sprinklers. The safety of residents of high-rise buildings is the overriding concern, and our efforts should be concentrated on ensuring they are afforded the best protection. To that end, the setting up of the independent review of building regulations and fire safety, led by Dame Judith Hackitt, was a vital step, and we look forward to seeing her report and recommendations, which are expected in the spring.
In the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire, like many other Members, I made inquiries about the high-rise residential buildings in my constituency, in respect of both their physical safety and the extent to which residents knew what to do in the event of fire. I put on record my gratitude to Hampshire fire and rescue and the excellent work that it did, carrying out inspections of high-rise buildings, making home safety visits and, importantly, responding fantastically to residents’ concerns at that time.
However, it became clear to me that one of the issues that was causing concern among residents was the lack of transparency about who was responsible for fire safety in their building—their home—and the lack of information made available to them. That lack of information and transparency was first raised with me by a constituent in Basingstoke, who was renting a flat from a leaseholder in a privately owned high-rise residential block. My constituent, quite understandably, was seeking to satisfy himself about the safety of the building in which he lived, but he had found it incredibly difficult to access such information.
In the first place, it was not clear who was responsible for fire safety, and indeed the managing agents would not even tell him who owned the freehold of the building. It transpired that the managing agents were the “responsible person,” but they refused to give him access to fire risk assessments, on the basis that they did not routinely make them available to residents.
When I eventually secured a copy of the fire risk assessment and sent it to my constituent, he was very concerned. He was concerned to discover that a number of fire risks had been raised in the report, including serious faults on the vent control panel, which the report identified as a hazard for “escape routes and evacuation”. He tried to find out whether remedial actions had been taken, but received conflicting information.
One way for my constituent to raise those issues would be for the managing agents for the building—the responsible person—to hold a residents meeting, to enable occupants to receive information and scrutinise what action had been taken. However, the managing agents did not feel it necessary to hold such a meeting, and instead issued correspondence, which in practice was with the leaseholders of the individual flats, not the actual occupants.
I then worked with my local authority, Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council, to try to find out how other high-rise buildings in my constituency were managed with regard to fire safety. The borough council is very supportive of the proposition that the responsible person should hold an annual meeting to clarify the fire safety strategy for the building, and to allow residents an opportunity to raise any queries. From the council’s inquiries it was clear that practice in my constituency varies greatly; indeed, one managing agent told us that it held an annual general meeting with residents, and that the issue of “fire safety arrangements” was on the agenda. In fact, a meeting had been held just prior to the Grenfell Tower fire. Other organisations, including for the building where my constituent lives, did not see the need for such a meeting.
The main purpose of the Bill is to require the responsible person for all high-rise residential buildings to hold an annual meeting for all residents to inform them of the fire risk assessment and to address all fire safety issues that might be raised. Currently, the responsible person for any high-rise building is required to have fire risk assessments of the building carried out “regularly”. Those will identify any fire risks in the building and require remedial works to be carried out. However, there is currently no requirement for those fire risk assessments to be shared with residents—no transparency that might help improve the safety of people living in high-rise accommodation.
From the experience in my constituency, I have learned that there is some good practice, but it is not necessarily widespread. I believe that residents have a right to know whether fire risks have been identified in their building, and be allowed to come to their own conclusions about the level of fire risk that they are prepared to accept. My Bill would ensure that the responsible person holds an annual residents meeting to go through the fire risk assessment, and to review and report on the measures being taken to address any risks identified. In this way, progress on rectifying problems would be transparent to residents. An annual residents’ meeting would also be a useful forum for communicating about fire safety with residents, who may not necessarily be the owners or leaseholders of those flats.
When Dame Judith published the interim report of the independent review of building regulations and fire safety in December 2017, she recognised in it the need to reassure residents that an effective system is in place to maintain safety in the buildings that are their homes. The Bill will ensure that the responsible person holds an annual meeting for residents to share with them the fire risk assessment and to make sure that residents are aware of how fire safety is being managed in their own home. That should be very much in line with the direction of travel of the independent review, but goes a step further, in providing residents of high-rise buildings with more information and a greater degree of transparency than has been the case to date.
Everyone who lives in a high-rise building has a right to know whether any fire issues have been identified and how they are being tackled and, most important of all, what they should do in the event of a fire. At the moment, there is no transparency and patchy good practice. Residents deserve better. I recommend the Bill to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Mrs Maria Miller, Mr Iain Duncan Smith, Stephen Hammond, Eddie Hughes, Sir Mike Penning, Theresa Villiers, Sarah Champion, Ms Harriet Harman, Mr David Lammy, Jess Phillips and Lucy Powell present the Bill.
Mrs Maria Miller accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 26 October, and to be printed (Bill 185).
Northern Ireland Budget (Anticipation and Adjustments) Bill (Business of the House)
Ordered,
That the following provisions shall apply to the proceedings on the Northern Ireland Budget (Anticipation and Adjustments) Bill:
Timetable
(1) (a) Proceedings on Second Reading and in Committee of the whole House, any proceedings on Consideration and proceedings up to and including Third Reading shall be taken at today’s sitting in accordance with this Order.
(b) Notices of Amendments, new Clauses or new Schedules to be moved in Committee of the whole House may be accepted by the Clerks at the Table before the Bill has been read a second time.
(c) Proceedings on Second Reading shall be brought to a conclusion (so far as not previously concluded) four hours after the commencement of proceedings on the Motion for this Order.
(d) Proceedings in Committee of the whole House, any proceedings on Consideration and proceedings up to and including Third Reading shall be brought to a conclusion (so far as not previously concluded) six hours after the commencement of proceedings on the Motion for this Order.
Timing of proceedings and Questions to be put
(2) When the Bill has been read a second time:
(a) it shall, despite Standing Order No. 63 (Committal of bills not subject to a programme order), stand committed to a Committee of the whole House without any Question being put;
(b) the Speaker shall leave the Chair whether or not notice of an Instruction has been given.
(3) (a) On the conclusion of proceedings in Committee of the whole House, the Chairman shall report the Bill to the House without putting any Question.
(b) If the Bill is reported with amendments, the House shall proceed to consider the Bill as amended without any Question being put.
(4) If, following proceedings in Committee of the whole House and any proceedings on Consideration of the Bill, a legislative grand committee withholds consent to the Bill or any Clause or Schedule of the Bill or any amendment made to the Bill, the House shall proceed to Reconsideration of the Bill without any Question being put.
(5) If, following Reconsideration of the Bill—
(a) a legislative grand committee withholds consent to any Clause or Schedule of the Bill or any amendment made to the Bill (but does not withhold consent to the whole Bill), and
(b) a Minister of the Crown indicates his or her intention to move a minor of technical amendment to the Bill, the House shall proceed to consequential Consideration of the Bill without any Question being put.
(6) For the purpose of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph (1), the Chairman or Speaker shall forthwith put the following Questions in the same order as they would fall to be put if this Order did not apply—
(a) any Question already proposed from the Chair;
(b) any Question necessary to bring to a decision a Question so proposed;
(c) any Question on any amendment moved or Motion made by a Minister of the Crown;
(d) any other Question necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded; and shall not put any other questions, other than the question on any motion described in paragraph (17)(a) of this Order.
(7) On a Motion so made for a new Clause or a new Schedule, the Chairman or Speaker shall put only the Question that the Clause or Schedule be added to the Bill.
(8) If two or more Questions would fall to be put under paragraph (6)(c) on successive amendments moved or Motions made by a Minister of the Crown, the Chairman or Speaker shall instead put a single Question in relation to those amendments or Motions.
(9) If two or more Questions would fall to be put under paragraph (6)(d) in relation to successive provisions of the Bill, the Chairman shall instead put a single Question in relation to those provisions, except that the Question shall be put separately on any Clause of or Schedule to the Bill which a Minister of the Crown has signified an intention to leave out.
(10) (a) Any Lords Amendments to the Bill may be considered forthwith without any Question being put; and proceedings interrupted for that purpose shall be suspended accordingly.
(b) Proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement; and any proceedings suspended under sub-paragraph (a) shall thereupon be resumed.
(11) Paragraphs (2) to (11) of Standing Order No. 83F (Programme orders: conclusion of proceedings on consideration of Lords amendments) apply for the purposes of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph (10) of this Order.
Subsequent stages
(12) (a) Any further Message from the Lords on the Bill may be considered forthwith without any Question being put; and any proceedings interrupted for that purpose shall be suspended accordingly.
(b) Proceedings on any further Message from the Lords shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement; and any proceedings suspended under sub-paragraph (a) shall thereupon be resumed.
(13) Paragraphs (2) to (9) of Standing Order No. 83G (Programme orders: conclusion of proceedings on further messages from the Lords) apply for the purposes of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph (12) of this Order.
Reasons Committee
(14) Paragraphs (2) to (6) of Standing Order No. 83H (Programme Orders: reasons committee) apply in relation to any committee to be appointed to draw up reasons after proceedings have been brought to a conclusion in accordance with this Order.
(15) Standing Order No. 15(1) (Exempted business) shall apply so far as necessary for the purposes of this Order.
(16) Standing Order No. 82 (Business Committee) shall not apply in relation to any proceedings to which this Order applies.
(17) (a) No Motion shall be made, except by a Minister of the Crown, to alter the order in which any proceedings on the Bill are taken, to recommit the Bill or to vary or supplement the provisions of this Order.
(b) No notice shall be required of such a Motion.
(c) Such a Motion may be considered forthwith without any Question being put; and any proceedings interrupted for that purpose shall be suspended accordingly.
(18) (a) No dilatory Motion shall be made in relation to proceedings to which this Order applies except by a Minister of the Crown.
(b) The Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.
(19) No debate shall be held in accordance with Standing Order No. 24 (Emergency debates) at today’s sitting after this Order has been agreed.
(20) Proceedings to which this Order applies shall not be interrupted under any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.
(21) (a) Any private business which has been set down for consideration at a time falling after the commencement of proceedings on this Order or on the Bill on a day on which the Bill has been set down as taken as an Order of the Day shall, instead of being considered as provided by Standing Orders or by any Order of the House, be considered at the conclusion of the proceedings on the Bill on that day.
(b) Standing Order No. 15(1) (Exempted business) shall apply to the private business so far as necessary for the purpose of securing that the business may be considered for a period of three hours.—(Karen Bradley.)
Northern Ireland Budget (Anticipation and Adjustments) Bill
Tuesday 20th March 2018
(6 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Northern Ireland Budget (Anticipation and Adjustments) Act 2018 View all Northern Ireland Budget (Anticipation and Adjustments) Act 2018 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Karen Bradley)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
As I set out to the House in my statement last week, in order for the UK Government to uphold their commitments to govern in the interests of all parts of the community in Northern Ireland, a series of steps are now required to safeguard public services and finances. This Bill represents the first of those steps, with further legislation scheduled to follow tomorrow. I should say at the outset that I take these measures with the greatest reluctance; I have deferred action here until it was clear that it would not be possible for a restored Executive to take this legislation forward. But as we approach the end of the financial year, it is important that we proceed now to give certainty as the Northern Ireland civil service looks to continue to protect and preserve public services.
Last year, the UK Government had to step in to ask Parliament to legislate for a 2017-18 budget for Northern Ireland. Again, that was not a step we wanted to take, but it gave the Northern Ireland civil service the clear legal basis required to manage resources and perform the important work it continues to do in the absence of an Executive. The legislation we passed, the Northern Ireland Budget Act 2017, did not set out any direction for how spending decisions should be made; instead it set out in law departmental spending allocations, within which permanent secretaries could deliver on their respective responsibilities. That Act was passed in November, and since then the Northern Ireland civil service has continued to assess where pressures lie across the system and has reallocated resources, as required. In addition, the UK Government committed in November to providing £50 million of support arising from the financial annex to the confidence and supply agreement, to address immediate health and education pressures. Of that, at the request of the Northern Ireland civil service, we agreed that £20 million would be made available in 2017-18, with the remainder to form part of the resource totals available in 2018-19. That additional funding was confirmed in the Supply and Appropriation (Anticipation and Adjustments) Act 2018, which received Royal Assent last week.
As we approach the end of the financial year, those changes must now be reflected in the legal spending authority provided to the Northern Ireland administration, and that is what this Bill does. In addition, it would provide for a vote on account for the early months of next year, to give legal authority for managing day-to-day spending in the run-up to that estimates process. Right hon. and hon. Members may recall that there was no such action this year, with no budget legislation for Northern Ireland before November. This meant that the Northern Ireland civil service had to rely on section 59 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998, and section 7 of the Government Resources and Accounts Act (Northern Ireland) 2001 to issue cash and resources. Those are emergency powers, intended to be used only in the absence of more orthodox legal authority. As we take forward legislation to formalise the budget for last year, I do not consider it would be appropriate if we did not provide the usual vote on account facility to the NICS—a facility we had provided to UK Government Departments through our own spring supplementary estimates process.
To be clear, this is not a budget for the year ahead. The Bill does not seek to set out in legislation the departmental allocations I outlined in my written statement on 8 March. Those will be taken forward via a budget Bill in the summer, exactly as is the case for the United Kingdom finances as a whole. Of course, I hope that this budget Bill will be brought forward by a restored Executive. We must, however, be prepared for the potential that it will again fall to this Parliament to provide budget certainty for the NICS. Nor does the Bill seek to vote any new moneys for Northern Ireland. The totals to which it is related are either locally raised or have been subject to previous votes in Parliament, most recently in the Supply and Appropriation (Anticipation and Adjustments) Bill.
Instead, this Bill looks back to confirm spending totals for 2017-18, to ensure that the NICS has a secure legal basis for its spending in the past year. As such, it formally allocates the £20 million of confidence and supply funding already committed for 2017-18; it is not concerned with any of the £410 million set out in my budget statement, which will be a matter for the UK estimates in the summer, and for a Northern Ireland budget Bill thereafter. Taken as a whole, it therefore represents the minimum necessary intervention to secure public finances at this juncture.
I will turn briefly to the contents of the Bill, as this will largely rehearse the discussion that my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), whom I know will be with us when he has finished dealing with a piece of secondary legislation he is involved with upstairs—[Interruption.] He is here—good. This will rehearse the discussion he had when bringing the Northern Ireland Budget Act 2017 before this House. I am delighted to see him here and I know he will contribute later when he has served on the secondary legislation Committee upstairs.
In short, the Bill authorises Northern Ireland Departments and certain other bodies to incur expenditure and use resources for the financial year ending on 31 March 2018. Clause 1 authorises the issue of £16.1 billion out of the Consolidated Fund of Northern Ireland. The allocation levels for each Northern Ireland Department and the other bodies in receipt of these funds are set out in schedule 1, which also states the purposes for which these funds are to be used. Clause 2 authorises the use of resources amounting to £18 billion in the year ending 31 March 2018 by the Northern Ireland Departments and other bodies listed in clause 3(2). Clause 3 sets revised limits on the accruing resources, including both operating and non-operating accruing resources in the current financial year. These are all largely as they appeared in the 2017 Act, and the revised totals for Departments appear in schedules 1 and 2 of the Bill.
Clause 4 does not have a parallel in that Act. It sets out the power for the NICS to issue out of the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund some £7.35 billion in cash for the forthcoming financial year. This is the vote on account provision I have already outlined. It is linked to clause 6, which does the same in terms of resources. The value is set, as is standard, at about 45% of the sums available in both regards in the previous financial year. Schedules 3 and 4 operate on the same basis, with each departmental allocation simply set at 45% of the previous year’s. Clause 5 permits some temporary borrowing powers for cash management purposes. As I have already noted, these sums relate to those which have already been voted by Parliament, together with revenue generated locally within Northern Ireland. There is no new money contained within this Bill; there is simply the explicit authority to spend in full the moneys that have already been allocated.
Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)
The Secretary of State will be well aware that under the allocation to the Executive Office, the detail in the Bill refers expressly to
“actions associated with the preparation and implementation of the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry Report and Findings”—
the Hart report. What exactly is going to be implemented and done? It is long overdue—what is going to happen in Northern Ireland as a result of this Bill?
Karen Bradley
The hon. Lady and I have discussed this matter in the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee and in the House. As I have said, the Bill agrees the money that has already been spent in respect of the Hart inquiry. That inquiry was set up by the Executive, so it is quite right that the Bill agrees that the money that has already been spent has been properly and lawfully spent.
On the treatment of the victims of historical abuse, the hon. Lady will know that we all want those victims to get the justice that they so rightly deserve. She will also know that the inquiry was set up by the Executive, so the recommendations should rightly be dealt with by the Executive. It is a great shame that we do not have an Executive to deal with these things, but it would be constitutionally inappropriate for this House to determine the actions that should be taken in respect of those recommendations, because this House did not set up the inquiry; it was set up by the Executive, which is the right place for the recommendations to be considered and for the decisions about those recommendations to be taken. I am well aware of the hon. Lady’s point, though, and we will continue to discuss it.
Ordinarily, the Bill would have been taken through the Assembly. As such, there are a series of adaptations in clause 7 that ensure that, once the Bill is approved by both Houses in Westminster, it will be treated as though it were an Assembly budget Act, enabling Northern Ireland public finances to continue to function, notwithstanding the absence of an Executive.
Alongside the Bill itself, I have laid before the House as a Command Paper a set of supplementary estimates for the Departments and bodies covered by the budget Bill. The estimates, which have been prepared by the Northern Ireland Department of Finance, set out the breakdown of the resource allocation in greater detail. As hon. and right hon. Members may note, the process is different from that which we might ordinarily see for estimates at Westminster, where the estimates document precedes the formal Budget legislation and is separately approved. That would also be the case at the Assembly, but as was the case in November, the Bill provides that the laying of the Command Paper takes the place of an estimates document laid and approved before the Assembly—again, to enable public finances to flow smoothly.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
Assuming an Executive is reconstituted at some stage during the year—perhaps, say, in six months’ time—would members of that Executive have any ability to fiddle, change or adjust the budget that my right hon. Friend is proposing, or is it set for the year?
Karen Bradley
My hon. and gallant Friend is correct that members of the Executive would have the power to change the allocations set out in the budget and to change the decisions that have been taken. He will know that, as I set out in my statement last week, what I did was the bare minimum required to allow the NICS to continue to function and deliver public services. Of course, there are many political decisions that it would not be appropriate to take in this place because we do not have the executive power to do that. The Executive would have that power, so I urge Members of the Assembly to do what they can to come back to Stormont so that they can take Executive decision-making powers there.
I hope hon. and right hon. Members will agree that this is very much a technical step that we are taking as we approach the end of the financial year. It looks backwards rather than forwards, although it does avoid the use of emergency powers for the forthcoming financial year.
Lady Hermon
I am extremely grateful to the Secretary of State for allowing me to move on to a completely different topic: the Independent Reporting Commission. Given the sad and most regrettable rise of loyalist paramilitary activity in North Down, I am curious to know what exactly the Independent Reporting Commission, which was set up a previous very distinguished Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), who was in the Chamber earlier but is not present at the moment, does for its money. Paramilitary activity seems to be increasing instead of decreasing, which was its remit when it was set up.
Karen Bradley
I had the privilege of meeting Mitchell Reiss when I was in the United States last week, and I think several Opposition Members may also have had the chance to meet him. I expect the Independent Reporting Commission to report its interim findings shortly. Its members will be visiting Northern Ireland shortly, at which point I expect to have a meeting with them. I am well aware of the point that the hon. Lady mentions—it was something I discussed with Mr Reiss in the United States.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
Funding that is apparently destined for the implementation of the recommendations of the Hart report is quite correctly covered in schedule 2, but it is also covered in schedule 3, which seems to conflict slightly with the point made earlier. Will my right hon. Friend clarify the situation? Schedule 3 appears to anticipate spend on the Hart inquiry, which we would all welcome, but she has not said this explicitly.
Karen Bradley
I thank my hon. Friend the Chair of the Select Committee for that point. As I said earlier, the forward-looking expenditure is merely to approve, in the way we would do in the normal Budget process in this House, 45% of spending. We have done exactly the same allocations as in the previous year to enable the moneys to be spent, but the Bill does not give decision-making power to say how the money should be spent; it merely gives approval for money to be spent by those Departments so that they can continue to function. I appreciate that it is not an entirely satisfactory situation, but it is what is required to enable the Departments to continue to function and provide public services. In summer we will of course come through with the full budget process, which I hope will be done by a restored Executive at Stormont. If not, it will have to be done in this House.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
The Secretary of State will know my interest in making sure that it is the perpetrator who pays and is punished, not the taxpayer. Will she ensure that if there is not an Assembly in six months’ time, it will be the institutions that perpetrated those false and indeed horrible, pernicious attacks on innocent individuals that are made to pay, and that it will not be the taxpayer picking up the bill?
Karen Bradley
The hon. Gentleman’s comments indicate to the House that there is perhaps not universal support for every recommendation from the Hart inquiry. That is why it is important that we have a restored Executive in Stormont that can make the decisions about those recommendations and enable justice to be delivered.
Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
The Secretary of State confirmed the legal position of the Bill and what it purports to do and will do, if passed. Will she confirm that, in respect of the written ministerial statement that allocated £410 million of the confidence and supply money, Government Departments in Northern Ireland will be able to plan on spending that money as of the start of the financial year?
Karen Bradley
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The statement sets out the departmental allocations; the Bill gives parliamentary approval for Departments to start to spend that money. That is what is required to enable that spending to start at the start of the financial year, but it does not set the final allocations; it merely gives approval such that Departments can start to spend. In effect, Parliament is saying that the money can now be spent so that public services can be delivered. The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that the £410 million from the confidence and supply agreement that is allocated for 2018-19 is in the allocations set out in the written ministerial statement, and the Departments can work on the basis that they can start to spend that money.
The Bill provides a secure legal footing for the Northern Ireland civil service. It is on that platform that my budget statement last week sought to build. That statement will need to be the subject of formal legislation in the summer as a further Northern Ireland budget Bill. As I have already said, that is a Bill that I sincerely hope will be taken forward by a restored Executive. If required, though, that is something that we as the UK Government would be prepared to progress with, as we uphold our responsibilities to the people of Northern Ireland. In the meantime, it is those allocations that provide the basis for the NICS to plan and prepare to take decisions for the year ahead.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
We all, of course, want to see the Executive restored, but, in the absence of that in the medium term, does the Secretary of State agree that the way in which we are bringing this process forward, while not satisfactory, is at least progress? However, we need to see further progress in how that money is spent on the ground on much needed services.
Karen Bradley
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution. I agree that we all want to see devolution restored. As I have said, I am doing this reluctantly, but I am doing what is required to enable public spending to continue and public services to be delivered. I pay tribute to the civil servants and other public servants who have worked tirelessly for the past 14 months doing exactly that work, and I want to make sure that they can continue to do so.
Dr Murrison
My right hon. Friend is being very generous in giving way. I am probably being thick, but can she explain the difference between schedules 3 and 4 —that is to say the difference between “resources authorised” and “sums granted” for the year ending 31 March 2019? Many of the figures look pretty much the same, but clearly there is a difference in the form of words used. I would be very grateful for clarification on that point.
Karen Bradley
I suspect that that is a deeply technical point. It would probably be helpful to the members of the Select Committee if I wrote to my hon. Friend and set out exactly what the difference was. However, I want to assure him that we are approving the start of spending, but we are not approving final numbers or how that spending happens as part of the process for 2018-19. What we are approving today is the moneys that have already been spent and making sure that those moneys that have been spent are on a proper statutory footing so that the finances of Northern Ireland and the NICS can be properly dealt with.
As I conclude, I will set out once again a point that I have made several times before: the UK Government are steadfastly committed to the Belfast agreement, and we are completely committed to working to remove the barriers to the restoration of devolution. That is because Northern Ireland needs strong political leadership from a locally elected and accountable devolved Government and that remains my firm goal. However, in its absence, this Bill is a reminder that the UK Government will always uphold their responsibilities for political stability and good governance, and I commend it to the House.
Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)
This is, as the Secretary of State has said, a technical step today. For instant clarity, let me say that we will, of course, support these technical measures and the provisions in the Bill.
I wish to begin by remembering, on behalf of us all in the House, Johnathan Ball and Tim Parry who lost their lives in the IRA atrocity at Warrington 25 years ago today. There has been a commemoration in Warrington today where they are being honoured along with the 54 men, women and children who were injured on that day. I wanted to do that to mark their tragic death and to remind us all of the terrible cost of the troubles and to remind us, too, of the need to complete the journey to reconciliation between communities and to get to a true point of political stability in Northern Ireland. That is something that we should be reminded of today.
Karen Bradley
May I thank the shadow Secretary of State for his words? I wish to put it on the record that I add my condolences and thoughts to his. He is absolutely right to reflect that today marks the 25th anniversary of a shocking event that none of us who lived through that time will forget, and it is a stark reminder of how far we have come.
Owen Smith
I welcome those words. I was sure that the Secretary of State would reflect on those events.
The Bill does in itself reflect the instability in Northern Ireland and the fact that reconciliation is required. We should remind ourselves, too, that it is actually the seventh year of suspension in the 18 years of the Assembly. It is a measure of some of the problems that we face that we are still in suspension now after 14 months. Other recent comments that have been made in respect of commemorations remind us, too, of the desperate need that we still have for true reconciliation between communities. Although the peace is robust—I know that we all feel that—the reconciliation is still all too fragile.
Notwithstanding the fact that we are discussing a set of technical measures today—it is not formally a budget, as the Secretary of State has explained to us—there are lots of questions to be asked. I hope to pose some of them, including questions about the form of the Bill—what is in it, what is not in it and what should be in it—reflecting some of the comments that have already been made by right hon. and hon. Members.
The first is about the form of the Bill. The Secretary of State said, “We have done something different this year.” She has not done what her predecessor did, which is rely on section 59 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 to provide 95% of budgets. We have moved to what is in effect a version of the budget and the estimates process that we have for the rest of the United Kingdom at traditional points in the year. The Secretary of State has partially explained why she has done that—because it is an emergency measure—but I still do not completely understand why we have gone down that route. That prompts the question whether this is a further staging post on that famous glide path to direct rule. If that was in the Government’s mind when they went down this route, I urge them to think harder about how they redouble their efforts to try to get things back up and running.
If we are not dealing with a straightforward budget today and if these measures are allocating only 45% of the spending for 2018-19, we will have to have, as the Secretary of State has said, another budget Bill before the summer, which equally makes the point that this is a pretty poor substitute for the sort of scrutiny, intelligence and direction that we would have if we had a Stormont Executive and Assembly setting and scrutinising a budget. Some of the confusion that we have heard about today over the differences between allocations and appropriations and schedules 3 and 4 and about whether we are allowing for spending on the historical institutional abuse inquiry this year is because, effectively, what we have is a piece of cut and paste legislation here. If we read the schedule, it is pretty much exactly, word for word, the same schedule with the same description of the objectives and tasks facing the individual Departments in Northern Ireland as we had in the Northern Ireland Budget Act 2017.
Emma Little Pengelly (Belfast South) (DUP)
Does the shadow Secretary of State agree that the lists in that document cover the scope of each Department—the vires of the Department? Therefore, we will not see any significant change in that year by year, because that is the scope, the limits and the vires of those Departments in which they can spend. That does not change in this document.
Owen Smith
That is precisely right; that is the point that I was coming on to. I was going to say that this is a poor substitute for a proper budget process. What we do not have today is any real insight into how the money will be spent, or where the priorities lie beyond those broad headings. We have had some confusion around HIA funding today. Clearly, there is an implication that 45% of the money for the HIA is available to the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister to deal with in this coming year, so some clarity on that would be helpful. I will come on to the HIA in a little more detail later. This is a poor substitute. I think that we can all see that we should have better scrutiny, transparency and accountability, but we can only have that if we get the Executive back up and running, because this place cannot properly form a substitute for Stormont.
All this places Northern Ireland’s excellent, hard-working and diligent civil servants in a very invidious position. They are taking responsibility for providing services and are making increasingly autonomous decisions about services without really having a political master to serve, or a political backstop to watch their back if there is a crisis in any of the services that they are providing. We can all see that that is not a situation that we would wish to place civil servants in, and it is not a situation that can continue ad infinitum. I know that the Secretary of State is mindful of that, and I hope that it is one of the things that will spur the Department on to redouble its efforts in this matter—and indeed spur the parties on to try to find the wherewithal to build trust between one another, because they, too, will be effectively leaving those civil servants to carry the can unless we are able to get an Executive back up and running.
Three areas of public expenditure are not included in the budget today or are only referred to obliquely in the case of the HIA that could be included in the budget and could have been dealt with more fully today and in the coming months. The first is the HIA inquiry conducted by Sir Anthony Hart that several right hon. and hon. Members have already mentioned today. The inquiry reported before the Executive collapsed, recommending that the hundreds of men and women who survived historical abuse in some 20 institutions in Northern Ireland should be commemorated and, crucially, compensated for the abuse that they experienced.
Ian Paisley
Does the hon. Gentleman think that his taxpaying constituents in Pontypridd, mine in North Antrim and those of the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) should pay the compensation, or does he believe that the institutions that carried out the abuse should be made to pay the compensation, given the vast amounts of money that some of those institutions possess?
Owen Smith
It will be for the Government and, I hope, for the Executive to make a determination about the balance of payment. My view is that both will have to bear some costs. Some of the Church institutions that were involved will have to bear some of the cost, as happened in the Irish Republic. I think that the costs will be borne by the taxpayers where state-run institutions are involved. The reality is that we all have to recognise—I know that the hon. Gentleman does—that the abuse suffered by those individuals was heinous, and a way must be found for them to be properly compensated. This impasse in Northern Ireland cannot get in the way of that; we need to move forward. In fact, I have a particular question on this matter for the Secretary of State that she might want to listen to.
When I listened to David Sterling, the head of the Northern Ireland civil service, giving evidence to the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs just a month or so ago, my impression was that he is preparing legislation in respect of the HIA. He said explicitly that if there is no Executive in place—he implied by the summer, as that is when the legislation will be ready—he will ask the Secretary of State to introduce legislation in Westminster to give effect to the recommendations of the Hart inquiry. The Secretary of State left a gap at the end of addressing that question, so I just want to be sure that she will introduce such legislation, notwithstanding the fact that we would, of course, like Stormont to do so.
Karen Bradley
To be clear, I also heard the evidence given by David Sterling and I have spoken to him about this. Constitutionally, the inquiry was set up by the Executive and reported to the Executive. Unfortunately, the Executive were unable to take decisions on the recommendations before they collapsed. Given the hon. Gentleman’s closeness to this issue throughout his long political career, he will understand that the constitutional implications of the Westminster Parliament or Government taking a decision about something set up by a devolved institution mean that such decisions are not to be taken lightly. But, of course, if David Sterling should write to me with specific requests, I would consider them at that point.
Owen Smith
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that clarification, but she has effectively doubled down on what she said earlier, and that is not good enough. These people have waited long enough. I think that the report came before the Assembly collapsed, and there is widespread political support across the piece that compensation ought to be paid. I therefore hope that, notwithstanding the complications and the sense that we would in some respect be rescinding a measure of devolution, we should find it in this place to legislate and provide the resources. That is the view of the Labour party, and I am sure that the Secretary of State will reflect on that.
Emma Little Pengelly
I just want to provide some clarity. The report from Judge Hart, who headed up the inquiry, actually came just a very short time after the collapse. In fact, we raised this point with Sinn Féin. We established the inquiry with Sinn Féin, who knew that the report was coming, and we wanted to hold on to get the report and make the correct decisions before the collapse of the Assembly.
Owen Smith
The hon. Lady is right. I think that the report came a matter of days after the Executive collapsed. But that does not change my point, which is that there is widespread political support for action. David Sterling clearly thinks that it would be acceptable for us to legislate in this place. I have put on the record that the Labour party thinks that it would be acceptable for us to legislate in this place and that we think that the Secretary of State should do so.
The second area of omission that I wish to bring to the attention of the House is the legacy of the troubles. I know that the Secretary of State is reflecting on this and that it was part of the discussion between the parties in the recent talks that have unfortunately stalled. In the light of the failure of the talks, will the Secretary of State say a little more about whether and how she might bring forward resources and legislation on dealing with the legacy of the past?
Karen Bradley
It is probably worth confirming what I have said previously about dealing with the legacy of the past. No doubt, we will talk about this tomorrow during oral questions and the debates on the further legislation that we are bringing forward. I have been clear that the UK Government are committed to setting up the institutions that were agreed in the Stormont House talks process. We will shortly consult on how to set those institutions up, and we remain committed to doing that.
Owen Smith
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that confirmation. I am sure that people in Northern Ireland will find that reassuring. I also ask her to consider the plea made by the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland for a separate set of resources to allow the few remaining legacy inquests to be undertaken in a timely fashion. Some of the people affected are, of course, ill and some have already died. Every passing month leaves injustice hanging in the air. We could also be dealing with that issue in this place.
My third point is that the Bill could and should have included financial provision for a pension for the seriously injured victims and survivors of the troubles. There are still around 500 seriously physically injured survivors, many of whom live in significant financial hardship due to their injuries and the loss of earnings during their lives as a result of the legacy of the troubles. Some believe that we cannot provide a pension for all those 500, as among them are some who were injured by their own hand. I believe that there are six loyalists and four republicans who were injured by their own actions during the troubles. I acknowledge those concerns and the difficulty that this poses. I understand that right hon. and hon. Members have considerable issues with what that would mean for the treatment of victims and for how we move forward in respect of legislation for victims.
Bob Stewart
Many soldiers have actually received compensation and pensions. Is the hon. Gentleman including them in the figure of 500, or are they separate?
Owen Smith
No, there are 500 civilian victims. As the hon. Gentleman says, there are separate provisions regarding injured soldiers. The reality is that many of the 500 have received some form of stipend or financial compensation, but for many that money has long since run out. The loss of earnings over a protracted period has left significant hardship as the daily reality for many men and women in Northern Ireland. This is another area where we cannot allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. Notwithstanding the difficulties, the Secretary of State in particular right now should be thinking about how we provide for those people.
Ian Paisley
I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s genuine concern about this issue. Is he equally concerned about the military covenant and its full implementation in Northern Ireland? Will he be pushing the Secretary of State to ensure that that occurs?
Owen Smith
Of course, that is another very important issue. It is not necessarily related to the substance of this Bill, which is largely about financial measures, but I am sure that the Secretary of State has heard the hon. Gentleman’s point. I will be continuing to talk about the military covenant and its importance to all communities in Northern Ireland.
On pensions, the Secretary of State should know that some of the victims, particularly those represented by the WAVE group, will be here to listen to our proceedings tomorrow. I urge her to show leadership and find the resources to provide them with the amount of money that they need. It will be a tiny amount of money for the state in the grand scheme of things—£2 million to £3 million a year—but it will be a lifesaver for individuals.
Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson (Lagan Valley) (DUP)
The shadow Secretary of State will know that this is not just a question of financial provision, as we will require legislation. The Democratic Unionist party is prepared to put forward a private Member’s Bill to propose such a pension for seriously injured victims and survivors in Northern Ireland. Will the Labour party support that Bill?
Owen Smith
That will depend on the nature and the terms of the Bill, and on how all individuals are treated under it. The right hon. Gentleman will know that, as I said earlier, people have concerns about the definition of “victim” and the nature of some of the individuals who might benefit from such a pension. My view is clear. As I put on the record a moment ago, we cannot allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. Even if some people injured by their own hand were eventually in receipt of a state pension, that would be a price worth paying to provide the necessary resources for the vast majority of innocent victims.
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
The Select Committee has met representatives of WAVE and looked at their proposals. Has the hon. Gentleman thought about how to design a pension that gave people who suffered mental health problems as a result of the troubles the right sort of compensation? I suspect that that might include far larger numbers than the 500 people and £4 million a year that he cites, but I cannot see how we could produce a scheme that did not help those people as well.
Owen Smith
I know from the hon. Gentleman’s time on the Select Committee that he is very familiar with this issue. He is absolutely right. I referred to the 500 seriously physically injured victims and survivors, and the £2 million to £3 million quantum that is the annual sum associated with their receiving some form of pension. He is also right that a further significant issue to be considered is the people who have been injured permanently and psychologically as a result of the troubles. No, I do not have an absolute idea about how this would be achieved. I have of course read the commission’s report on how it might be achieved, and other pieces of work have been done. That would need to be taken into account. I repeat, however, that time is passing for all the victims of the troubles, and time is the one thing they cannot afford. I therefore urge us all in this House to get past these difficulties and see a way clear to providing the resources that are needed.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
When we had the debate here on the Northern Ireland covenant, the hon. Gentleman said in response to many of the questions that he would go back to Sinn Féin to see how we could move the thing forward. In the period between that debate and now, has he had the opportunity to talk to Sinn Féin to see what its position on the Northern Ireland covenant would be, and is he going to give us good news that it will agree to it?
Owen Smith
No, I have not.
I know that the Secretary of State agrees that this should be the last year that we are passing a budget in this place instead of at Stormont. Will she outline a little further what she is doing now to ensure that that is the case?
For our part, notwithstanding the slightly less than successful intervention by the Prime Minister in February, we continue to believe that there is an important role for the Prime Minister in galvanising parties in Northern Ireland and acting as a rallying point to try to bring people together, ideally in some sort of prime ministerial and Taoiseach-led summit of all the parties. These things have worked in the past and we cannot understand why there has been so much refusal to consider it in the past 14 months. We also believe that the Secretary of State should be thinking about asking an independent chair to come in to try to take those talks to fruition.
If we simply continue with the cycle of failure that we have seen in the past year—if we do not try to shake things up somehow and inject new energy and dynamism into this process—we can all see the danger that we do drift towards direct rule. I know that she feels that that would be a grossly retrograde step for Northern Ireland, so I urge her to tell the House today, and in the coming days, what she is doing to make sure that it is not where we end up.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on bringing forward this measure. It is something that none of us wanted to see, but it is preferable to section 59 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998, not least because it means that accruing resources can be used, and subsections (2), (3) and (4) make it clear that those sums of money are substantial. Clearly, this Bill requires a budget to be set at some point. We hope that that budget will be set in Stormont and not here, but it still needs to be set. It would be useful to hear what timetable the Secretary of State envisages. We have grown used to timetables that are somewhat flexible in recent months—indeed, years—but if she has to bring forward a Bill here, it will be nice to have a sense of when she intends to do so.
I thank the Secretary of State for her letter to me of 13 March, following mine of 28 February, on the Northern Ireland Office supplementary estimate. I think that she satisfied all the points that I raised on behalf of the Northern Ireland Committee. However, may I press her a little on efficiency savings? It is understood from the letter that the Northern Ireland Administration have already scored the formal efficiency review of 2017-20 against the target, but efficiency improvements are still expected. How will this be ensured, who will implement it and who will oversee it? What role does the Secretary of State see that the auditor has in this respect? I will come back to that in a few minutes, if I may.
In my letter, I drew attention to the £79 million discrepancy between the cash grant and the departmental expenditure limit at main estimate. The explanation relating to the Stormont House and Fresh Start agreements is perfectly satisfactory, but my Committee’s scrutiny work would have been greatly assisted by early notification of that apparent discrepancy. Hon. Members can be sure that we will scrutinise the figures in this Bill closely, and the budget when it appears. It is very important that any discrepancies are brought to the attention of my Committee, or indeed the House, since in the current circumstances, scrutiny in this place is vital.
Are we any further ahead in quantifying the costs of systems envisioned under option 2 at paragraph 49 of December’s joint report? If so, where and when will they appear in subsequent estimates? Those are the costs that will be involved in creating alternative solutions in order to ensure that the border in Northern Ireland is as frictionless and seamless as possible. Those costs are likely to be significant, if indeed such a solution can be created, and it would be good to know that sufficient budgetary accommodation has been made for them.
In her written ministerial statement of 8 March, the Secretary of State announced £100 million in flex from capital to resource. Capitalisation is uncommon. The Treasury dislikes it, and for very good reason. So why precisely is it felt necessary, against a relatively generous Northern Ireland settlement on this occasion, to introduce capitalisation?
The Treasury has made a rather unusual call for evidence in a piece of work that it is doing on tourism. It wants evidence on VAT and air passenger duty that may go to support an improved position for tourism in Northern Ireland. I very much welcome that. Indeed, my Select Committee took evidence on this subject recently, and the Treasury documentation refers to that. However, it does seem to be an unusual intervention. Indeed, since many of the things that will have to be done as a response to any such report that the Treasury may produce will be devolved, how does the Secretary of State see that work being carried forward? I am sure that she, like me, would not wish the Treasury to be embarked on a piece of work that was not, at the end of the day, going to result in recommendations that could be carried forward. I therefore imagine that she has worked out, in collaboration with the Treasury, a pathway between recommendations that may come out of this piece of work and how they are going to be implemented. We cannot necessarily assume—I am sure that she does not—that we will have an Executive up and running within a timeframe that will be suitable for this report.
Nigel Dodds
The hon. Gentleman is right in respect of some of the recommendations that may come out of that report. As for whether Ministers responsible to this House or Ministers responsible to the Assembly take these decisions, we will have to wait and see what happens. Air passenger duty and value added tax are matters for this House—for the Chancellor and the Treasury—and therefore the main object of the report will be a matter for this House.
Dr Murrison
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. However, the call for evidence goes much further than that. That is what I am chiefly concerned about, since it implies that competences will be available in the event that there is no Executive in place that will carry this forward. Otherwise, it would be a fairly tight and narrow call for evidence.
The Northern Ireland Audit Office this year will report on a number of things. It is a very busy office, and my Select Committee was very pleased indeed to be able to meet Kieran Donnelly recently in Belfast to take evidence on the work of his department. It will be reporting on digital transformation in Northern Ireland, welfare reform in Northern Ireland, speeding up avoidable delays in the criminal justice system, financial health of schools and the social investment fund.
A lot of that has to do with increasing productivity in Northern Ireland and rebalancing the economy. It is not discretionary work; it is vital. It has to do with achieving value for money. My question is: where is all that work leading? If there is no body to scrutinise the auditor, let alone an organisation to take forward his recommendations, he may be crying in the wilderness. It is a bit of an irony that his work is geared towards value for money, since in those circumstances—that is to say, those recommendations not being taken forward—some question would be revolving around the value for money posed by the auditor himself.
It would be useful to know what thoughts the Secretary of State has about how the auditor’s reports can be properly examined—perhaps by a shadow Public Accounts Committee made up of Members of the Legislative Assembly—so that some comment can be made upon them. There would then be at least some chance of that work being carried forward by perhaps a newly emboldened Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, who may need to have powers if the current impasse continues for any length of time.
I would like to ask the Secretary of State about the guidance that she has recently offered permanent secretaries and the status of it. On 12 March, at column 646 of the Official Report, the Secretary of State said in answer to my question about budgetary granularity that she had written to permanent secretaries about her guidance on how money should be spent. She cited health transformation money as an example and said that she was taking legal advice on the powers that might be available to her. I sympathise with her. Dealing with lawyers is a tricky business at the best of times, and this, I assume, is a legal minefield.
The Secretary of State will want to ensure that this is got right, not least because, if she gets it wrong, there is every prospect of judicial review. I know very well that she is not going to publish the legal advice—I know better than to ask her to do that—but I wonder whether she could publish the guidance that she has issued to permanent secretaries. My Select Committee and this House will want to know what guidance she has issued, the status of that guidance and the extent to which permanent secretaries will be acting upon it.
In the schedules to the Bill, a whole raft of things are listed, with very big sums of money attached to them. It is important to understand whether we are dealing with governance by guidance or whether these are simply helpful suggestions that the permanent secretary may be guided by because, if he is judicially reviewed at some point for decisions made, the courts will want to determine what status that guidance has. At the moment, that appears obscure.
It becomes important in areas such as infrastructure. In the schedules, very large sums of money are attached to the Department for Infrastructure. We know that the Secretary of State wishes to pass £400 million for particular infrastructure projects in connection with the confidence and supply agreement, in two parts—£200 million in one financial year and £200 million in another. It is not clear to me what happens if that money is not spent within the timeframe of the agreement.
I ask that because, like right hon. and hon. Members who have observed large infrastructure projects in their constituencies, the natural tendency is for these things to run and run. In the event that the money is not spent, does it accrue to the Treasury? Is it spent on other things? Does it sit at Stormont, waiting for the glorious day of the restoration of the Executive? What happens to those unspent funds?
Can we also know a little more about what big-ticket items the Secretary of State has in mind? The wish list published by the Executive before their collapse contained a great deal more than the York Street interchange, which the Secretary of State has mentioned recently. Does the guidance issued for the permanent secretary at the Department for Infrastructure cite what things the Secretary of State thinks are important, in priority order? That, she will be aware, is difficult because some of the political parties in Northern Ireland—one of them in particular—are not at all keen on one or two of the projects and would rather see other things. It is politically quite sensitive, and it would be good to know what guidance the Secretary of State has issued to the Department for Infrastructure on that important item of public expenditure.
The £100 million for health transformation in the confidence and supply agreement is most welcome, but we have to understand what transformation means. It is not simply about opening clinics or hospitals; it is also about closing them. The hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) was right to make the point last week that there is nothing more political in what we do than the opening and closing of healthcare institutions. I know that very well from my own constituency experience.
Is it really reasonable to expect permanent secretaries to make decisions of that sort? Indeed, would they make decisions of that sort? If they will not, the risk is that Bengoa will simply be put on ice. Under those circumstances, everybody loses. One way forward would be a legal avenue by which the Secretary of State can offer guidance that is perhaps a little more prescriptive than might otherwise be the case. We will not know that in this place unless we have sight of the guidance that has been issued and are able to examine it.
Does the Secretary of State share my concerns on policy drift and “do nothing” becoming the default option? The hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), who is not in her place, gave the great example last week of the decisions needed to secure the Commonwealth youth games in 2021. I know that the Secretary of State, because of her previous portfolio experience in this matter, is acutely aware of the difficulties. A number of decisions have to be made around that yet, at the moment, there is nobody to make those decisions. It may be small, but it is a poignant example of why it is so necessary for somebody somewhere to be able to make those sorts of decisions.
I know that the Secretary of State was recently in Derry/Londonderry. It just happened that she was visiting at the same time as my Select Committee. She will have heard from people in that fine city how frustrated they are that nobody appears to be making any decisions right now. This goes right across communities. Regardless of community almost, people just want things to happen, because they see society being pulled back and a Province that has made so much progress in recent years—economically, socially, in every conceivable way—essentially marking time while the Executive get their act together.
There will come a point when, with a heavy heart and the greatest of reluctance, Ministers here will have to start to make decisions. We can all hope for a restoration of the Executive, but we might be hoping for a restoration of the Executive in three years’ time. In three years’ time, the world will look a very different place. Bengoa will probably have been forgotten. Some of the big infrastructure projects that we want to see in Northern Ireland may well have fallen by the wayside. All that good stuff will not have happened, and Northern Ireland will have slipped further behind economically, socially, in every way imaginable. That would be a huge failure, and I know the Secretary of State feels the same way.
Nigel Dodds
The hon. Gentleman is 100% correct in what he just said. He is right to point out that of course we want devolution, and efforts must continue to ensure there is devolution in Northern Ireland but, in the meantime, there are communities and people suffering as a result of the lack of decision making. As he rightly says, in the meantime we must ensure that decisions are made for the good of everyone. That is an extremely important point, which I am sure the Secretary of State heard very clearly.
Dr Murrison
The right hon. Gentleman is, as ever, absolutely correct.
I will finish my remarks on the Hart inquiry, which Members are right to mention in connection with the business before us. The programme for government offers a helpful pointer to Ministers, who may otherwise not feel on particularly safe ground in relation to making decisions. The Secretary of State and other Ministers have said that it provides some basis on which they can take note of the last expressed democratic view on a number of issues. However, on 12 March—at column 653, on the Hart inquiry—the Secretary of State suggested that it is not the business of UK Ministers or this place to consider recommendations of bodies set up by the Executive, let alone implement them, and she repeated those sentiments today.
It would be helpful to have a bit of clarification, because I fear that we cannot have it both ways. We either observe what democratically elected bodies determined before they crumbled, and that extends to any bodies that they may have established, or we do not. It is an important principle because it seems to me that it is legitimate to take note of decisions that have previously been made and of the clear will of those bodies, particularly if there was no great controversy about them. It would be useful if the Secretary of State clarified this point, so that we are a bit clearer about what we can rely on and, indeed, what she will rely on in making any decisions or issuing any guidance on which she may wish to reflect.
James Brokenshire (Old Bexley and Sidcup) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend give way?
James Brokenshire
I commend my hon. Friend for his work and that of his Committee. Does he acknowledge that one of the challenges is that no recommendations were agreed by the outgoing Executive? That obviously makes the job of the Secretary of State in determining the right way forward on the hugely sensitive issue of the recommendations that the Hart inquiry sought to bring forward extremely difficult, and that is why she has to think carefully about how best—cross-community, and with the parties—to assess the right way forward.
Dr Murrison
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right but I am sure that, if he re-reads Hansard from last week, he will see that the argument extended not just to decisions made by the Executive or passed by the Assembly, but to things done by organisations set up by the Executive, which of course includes the Hart inquiry. The issue is whether we are guided by the recommendations made by those organisations or not, particularly if there appears to the Secretary of State and her Ministers to be genuine cross-party and cross-community acceptance of those recommendations and findings. To what the extent is that the best we have to work on? The question is really whether we are guided by what happened before the collapse of the Executive or not. I do not think that we can easily be selective.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
I echo the comments made by the Secretary of State and the shadow Secretary of State about the recent 25th anniversary commemoration of a truly terrible event, and I thank them for making that point.
The impasse at Stormont means Whitehall is taking decisions that should rightly be taken in Belfast. There is no upside to that; no good to be found in it. I take the opportunity to repeat the Scottish National party’s position that policy decisions on areas of competence that are devolved should be taken by Ministers in the devolved Administrations, rather than in Whitehall. Unfortunately, there are no Ministers in the Stormont Administration, so I find myself in reluctant agreement with the Secretary of State that legislation must be passed here to allow public services to operate in Northern Ireland.
I have to say, however, that the parties elected to Stormont have failed the people who put their trust in them and loaned them their votes. Plenty of excuses have been offered and there has been plenty of posturing, but no one has come out of the negotiations with credit, and the fact that Stormont is still in suspended animation is a disgrace. Some massive concessions were made to get power sharing up and running in the first place, and people risked a huge amount to pursue peace. It is to be hoped that the current set of politicians in Northern Ireland find the strength and the humility to get themselves back to the negotiating table to thrash out a deal and restart the Assembly, so that their budgets do not have to be passed here in the future. No matter what the reasons or excuses are for the current position, that is the least that electors should be entitled to expect.
Turning to the Bill, I thank the Secretary of State for providing me with a copy of it yesterday afternoon: it is always good to have sight of legislation before it starts its progress. I want to take just a few moments to talk about the rationale for fast-tracking as laid out in the explanatory notes, although I accept that there should be no further delay. I acknowledge that there is a need to provide resources to the civil service to allow continued spending on public services, and I of course appreciate that confidence and supply is important. I find it difficult, however, to accept the delay that we have witnessed so far. I will quote the paragraph from the explanatory notes for clarity:
“The Government has sought to defer legislation for as long as possible to enable final decisions on the allocations to be made by a restored Executive. The need for this Bill arises from the lack of an agreement and the appointment of an Executive within the timescale required for a Budget Bill to be brought through the Northern Ireland Assembly. It is taken forward at the latest possible point before the risk to public services could manifest. In the circumstances, therefore, it has not been possible to give Parliament more time to scrutinise this Bill, without risking the delivery of public services in Northern Ireland or distracting from and undermining the talks aimed at restoring an Executive.”
We have watched this situation grinding on for a long time now. We have not been kept in the dark about the difficulties in the negotiations—real or fabricated—and we have all known it was likely that we were trundling towards this point. In my view, this legislation should have been prepared and started in good time for it to be considered properly; it could have been abandoned if an agreement had been reached. I cannot accept that the progress of a budget Bill would distract from or undermine the talks aimed at restoring power sharing and getting Ministers in place. It might well have focused attention and sharpened the negotiations. To be fair, the Secretary of State is not long in the job—a couple of months—but I still think this should have been foreseen and that she or her predecessor should have begun the process. The drafting could have started without compromising anything.
That said, we have arrived at this point, and we have to deal with the situation we have, rather than the situation we would have preferred to have had. We have to provide the civil servants in Belfast with the resources they need to do their job properly, and give public servants across Northern Ireland some certainty about the funding they need to continue operating—literally, in some cases.
I will offer no amendment to this Bill, nor will I seek to impede its progress. I will accept the amounts for each Department mentioned in the schedule as being made on the recommendation of the head of the Northern Ireland civil service in conjunction with the Northern Ireland civil service board. Their knowledge of what is likely to be needed on the ground over the next financial year outweighs any considerations that Members in the Chamber might have. The challenges that lie ahead for them in the near future are large, and I do not envy them their tasks.
As I said earlier, these decisions would be better taken by politicians elected for that purpose by the people who will be affected by these decisions. It is to be hoped—devoutly to be hoped—that this will be the last budget for Northern Ireland that gets set here. I urge all sides in the negotiations over power sharing to get back to the table and find a resolution. In the meantime, this Bill should be approved for the sake of keeping the lights and the heating on for public services.
Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)
May I start with an observation? It is interesting that when we talk in this place about Northern Ireland and Brexit, the Benches are absolutely heaving, but when we talk about the budget for Northern Ireland, which is having a real impact on the day-to-day lives of the people of Northern Ireland right now, the Benches are much less full.
I welcome the Bill. I have served on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, and I have heard at first hand from some of the witnesses who have attended how difficult life has been for the people of Northern Ireland without a budget in place. We have heard from the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland about how life is difficult in the public sector even in ordinary times, but when working to a budget that has not been set, it is almost impossible. He explained how for days, weeks and months he did not even know whether he had the money to pay his officers, which is just an unacceptable position to be in.
The Committee has also heard from members of the business community in Northern Ireland about the difficulties that not having an Assembly, an Executive or a budget was giving them. They gave the good example of the apprenticeship levy. Businesses are paying into it, but because no budget is in place, they have no access to the funds. Apprenticeships in Northern Ireland are hugely at risk, and this in a part of the United Kingdom where apprenticeships are needed for all communities more than ever. Because of the lack of a budget, businesses are finding that the apprenticeship levy is forming a type of additional taxation.
I have met charities in Northern Ireland—I am particularly thinking of Addiction NI, which works with people trying to combat alcohol and drug addiction—and I know that not having a budget in place is having a huge impact on their ability not so much to provide an immediate service, as to plan for the long term. These are difficult times for charities, and not knowing where the next penny is coming from or what direction a Northern Ireland Government will be going in makes it almost impossible.
Then we have the Belfast city deal, which was announced in the UK Budget late last year, but which, as far as I know, is going absolutely nowhere. This city deal is an opportunity for Belfast to build on its infrastructure and create jobs.
Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson
May I assure the hon. Lady that the Belfast city region deal is going forward? It is being led by a consortium of local councils—Belfast City Council, Lisburn and Castlereagh Council, Antrim and Newtownabbey Council, and some others—
Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson
And, of course, Mid and East Antrim. The absence of a devolved Government is therefore in no way inhibiting progress on the city deal, which is directly between central Government and local government in Northern Ireland.
Maria Caulfield
I am extremely pleased to hear that, because the city deal is a huge opportunity for Belfast and, if it works well, could be a huge opportunity for other parts of Northern Ireland in future.
Not having a budget set for this financial year has a huge impact, but I am greatly concerned that we do not have a budget for the next financial year, because we have heard time and time again how difficult things have been for the charities sector, public services and businesses. This constant uncertainty, a bit like the uncertainty around Brexit, is just not feasible for the long term.
Ian Paisley
I appreciate the hon. Lady’s point, and of course I agree with it, but we should not be totally pessimistic. Unemployment is the lowest it has ever been in Northern Ireland, at 3.9%. Exports are up and we have had drives to promote the economy in other areas, and we are not the only region of the world that from time to time does not have a stable Government. Indeed, Germany did not have a Government for several months earlier this year.
Maria Caulfield
The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point, although I have heard him say himself that we want some certainty and a direction of travel, because this is not just about setting the budget. This is about scrutinising how that money will be spent. The civil servants in Northern Ireland are doing a fantastic job—we have all put on record today our thanks for their dedication and hard work—but we need political decisions about how that money is allocated and political scrutiny of how it is spent.
I therefore agree with my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) that there is a sense that Northern Ireland is treading water or standing still. That reduction in unemployment and creation of jobs, and the great place that Northern Ireland is, is down to the hard work of people in the councils—the elected members at council level—who are continuing despite there not being an Assembly or Executive, and the civil servants, yet so much more could be achieved if there was an Executive in place.
I have three asks of Ministers. I do not want to be a pessimist—I hope I do not sound too pessimistic—but I honestly do not think there is a realistic possibility of the Assembly being reformed in just the next few months. As this is budget-setting time for most authorities across the United Kingdom, serious consideration needs to be given to the impact of not having a long-term budget for the next financial year. My first ask is: if there are Members who will not get back round the table and restore the Assembly, could an Assembly be restored with those who are willing to do that? As is the case in this place, if MLAs choose not to get round the table, that is a personal decision for them.
Secondly, is there a possibility of setting a budget for the next financial year, not just the first few months, so that public sector bodies such as the PSNI, charities such as Addiction NI and communities that desperately need to know the direction of travel for their funding can have some certainty? As the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) said, that budget could be set and abandoned if an Assembly came back into being. My third ask is: could the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee be given some task-and-finish authority to scrutinise current spending? Without any scrutiny whatever, are we really sure that the money is being spent in the best interests of the people of Northern Ireland?
I welcome this much-needed Bill, but there is still a huge amount of work to do. I want to put on record my congratulations and thanks to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, who is doing so much to try to make progress happen. These are difficult circumstances. None of us wants to be passing this Bill, which is a necessity, but there is still so much more work to be done.
Sammy Wilson
(East Antrim) (DUP): Let me start by making it clear that this is a technical debate, although the misconceptions that we have heard from some speakers in the Chamber today are not uncommon. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast North (Nigel Dodds) and I will remember, from when we were in the Northern Ireland Assembly and from our work at the Department of Finance, this budget debate very often degenerated into people coming forward with all the things they wanted to spend money on, when in fact it was nothing to do with setting the budget.
The shadow Secretary of State fell into that misconception. I do not want to go through all his mistakes. He talked about this being a pretty poor way of dealing with the budget, yet we are not actually dealing with the budget; this would have been an essential step even had it been in the Northern Ireland Assembly. He also talked about the general headings in the Bill and how they had not changed. As was pointed out to him, unless we change the remit of a Department, we would not change those headings of expenditure—although there are significant points that the Secretary of State will need to address in future.
This debate is really about, first, how Departments spent their money last year. As the figures show, some spent more than was originally allocated and some spent significantly less. For example, the Department for the Executive spent more than a third less than it was originally allocated, although I note that this year it will be allocated the same amount that it was given last year, even though it underspent by a third. Maybe the Secretary of State can tell us why that decision was made, when the underspend was so high. This debate looks back at the past, at what was allocated, what was spent and what additional money had to be given to some Departments—for example, health and education. Where did that money come from? It came from some of the Departments that underspent. That additional expenditure—or that reduction in expenditure—has to be authorised, which is what this Bill does.
This debate also looks forward, because a budget has been set for Northern Ireland—the Secretary of State did that a couple of weeks ago. Each Department knows its expenditure limits for the next year, but until a budget Bill goes through, which will take some time, Departments have to have the legal authority to spend. That is the reason why 45% of the budget is allocated in this Bill. Departments can spend with confidence, because they know that the money is available to them, and they know the limits within which they have to spend it.
It is important that we understand what we are actually debating today. This is not about, “Well, you should have given more money to the Department of Education” or “The Department of Education should be spending money on this” or “The historical enquiries team should have more money allocated to them.” The Members who raised those issues have illustrated an important point, which the Secretary of State needs to address: simply giving Departments information about the money they will have available to them next year does not give them the ability to spend that money, because there are some things civil servants will need direction about.
The Secretary of State has taken the first step—namely, setting the departmental spending limit, giving us the budget statement and now bringing through this Bill authorising last year’s expenditure, which is historical, and giving some money to start off next year—but the big, important political question is when, in the absence of the Assembly, she will give permanent secretaries more power or have Ministers take responsibility for spending the money that is allocated.
I could bore the House with that this afternoon, but let me take just one example: the Department for the Economy, which will get roughly £1 billion next year. Some of that will be spent on air access. If we want to authorise new routes, that will require a ministerial decision—no civil servant is going to do that.
Another thing that is listed is “development including regulatory reform” and “mineral and petroleum licensing”. We are sitting on one of the most lucrative goldmines not just in Europe but in the world. There are issues around that, but those will not be resolved by civil servants. The Exchequer will be able to get vast amounts of revenue from that development. There are hundreds of jobs in the west of the Province, where rural employment is difficult to obtain. However, in terms of making decisions about that, it is not enough just to say to the Department for the Economy, “There is £1 billion.” Decisions have to be made. Direction has to be given about the development of regulations and about decisions where controversies are going to arise.
Another issue is assistance to the gas and electricity industries, which is particularly relevant in my constituency. Indeed, the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee looked at the issue recently. As a result of the auction, Kilroot power station is likely to close. That major coal power station supplies, on occasion, 45% of the power to Northern Ireland. A decision has to be made, because the regulator wants the station kept open for three years, but there is no guarantee that it will sell 1 kW of electricity. Quite rightly, the owners are saying, “We are not going to keep it open for three years if we are not guaranteed any sales.” A decision is going to have to be made by a Minister—it is that important. What do we do?
There is also the issue of investment in tele- communications infrastructure. This is not included in the Bill, but £150 million has been allocated for broadband infrastructure in Northern Ireland. However, again, the policy decisions required to spend that money will require ministerial direction.
On Tourism Ireland, we provide 60% or 40% of the budget for that cross-border body. Yet, if someone goes into the international airport, what is that body advertising? Is it advertising and promoting tourism in Northern Ireland? Not a bit of it. It is advertising tourism in the Irish Republic. There needs to be a ministerial decision: do we continue to spend such an amount of money on a cross-border body such as that, when it is actually to the detriment of Northern Ireland?
Ian Paisley
Is my right hon. Friend saying that the Secretary of State should make those ministerial decisions or that she should appoint other Ministers under her from here to make them?
Sammy Wilson
I am just picking at random from one Department, and I could do the same with every other Department. When it comes to spending the money, the Secretary of State has two options, or a combination of both. It can either be made clear to civil servants that they have the power to make decisions—I do not think that that is a particularly good way of doing things—or there is a mechanism whereby decisions about the spending of the money can be made politically, and that will require intervention. Otherwise, we will find that Departments receive the money and continue to spend it as they are doing at present, without any policy development and without considering the changes that have occurred in Northern Ireland.
Lady Hermon
There are not two options, but three. The third option, and the one that we all want to see, is for the DUP to get back into talks with Sinn Féin to establish the Executive and the Assembly. What exactly is holding up the DUP getting back into those talks?
Sammy Wilson
That is actually where I was getting to. Unfortunately, the decisions that we have had to date—a budget statement two weeks ago, the Northern Ireland Budget (Anticipation and Adjustments) Bill today, and a full budget Bill probably in June—are not the inevitable consequence of reluctance from the DUP to do the work that is required. The very next morning after election day last year, we were saying, “Let’s get back into Stormont, and let’s do these things.” We did not lay down any conditions, but Sinn Féin laid down conditions that fell nothing short of blackmail.
Sinn Féin made demands for things in the talks that they knew they would not have got through the Assembly. Even when it came to the Irish language, they could never have persuaded the other parties, some of which have said they are sympathetic to some movement on the Irish language, to give them the kind of Irish language Bill that they wanted. So, what did Sinn Féin do? They made the decision not to go back into the Assembly until they had been given an assurance that there will be delivered, as a price, some things that they could never have negotiated, debated, argued for or persuaded anybody to give them had they been using the Assembly mechanism. The hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) continually tries to share the blame, but let me make it clear that we are having this debate today not due to any reluctance on behalf of my party; it is because we will not give in to the kind of blackmail that we have experienced from Sinn Féin.
Sinn Féin make things even more difficult, because even if someone was daft enough to give them what they wanted, they create such a toxic atmosphere in Northern Ireland that they would be pilloried for it. For example, an MP, who was elected to this House but did not attend, was seen dancing around a garage at midnight, mocking the victims of IRA terrorism—people who were taken out of a minibus on their way home and gunned down—and then they say, “We want to sit down and talk about the way forward and about respect.” When the former Finance Minister does the same, it is impossible to reach an agreement that would get us back into the Assembly.
We welcome the fact that the Secretary of State has acted, and she has not actually been tardy, because had this Bill been presented to the Assembly, it would have been presented around this time of the year anyway. Some poor Finance Minister in the Assembly would have been standing up and enduring—I used that word deliberately—a six-hour debate about what should be in the Budget, and they would have been gnashing their teeth and continually reminding the Speaker, “This is not what the debate should be about,” and MLAs would simply have ignored him or her and continued to talk about it anyway. The Minister has not been tardy with the timing. If the Bill had been brought forward earlier, we would not really have known by how much Departments would have been underspent or overspent for the year. This is as close to the end of the year as we can get. When it gets to June, the final accounts will be made available, so we will know that if changes and adjustments had been made in the last couple of weeks in the month, they can be reflected in the figures that are given.
Lady Hermon
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for allowing me to intervene again. He has painted a very bleak picture, sadly, of the prospects for the restoration of a devolved Assembly and an Executive this side of the summer. That being the case, would he confirm on the record for the victims of historical institutional abuse that, should we have no Assembly and Executive by the summer, it will be in order for the Secretary of State to implement the Hart proposals through legislation here at Westminster? The victims are elderly and infirm and many are not in good health. It is intolerable that they should be kept like this, uncertain about their future and compensation.
Sammy Wilson
That will be entirely a matter for the Secretary of State, but as has been pointed out regularly during the debate, one of her considerations when coming to that decision ought to be whether some of the institutions that at least turned a blind eye to the abuse should also be held culpable and have to make some contribution towards compensation. It should not fall totally on the public purse, but the Secretary of State would have to make that decision. Our view, if we were ever consulted on it, would be that yes, there is a role for the state, but there is also a role for the institutions that at least turned a blind eye to some of the terrible abuse that went on and therefore allowed so many victims to experience the terrible things that happened to them.
In conclusion, I welcome the Bill and I think Departments will welcome it, but I warn the Secretary of State that it is but a first step. It is one thing to allocate money to Departments, but it is another to ensure that Departments and the civil servants in them have the guidance, direction and authority to spend the money.
Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
As always, it is a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), who spoke with great authority and eloquence. Of course, as he said, he speaks with authority as a former Minister for Finance in Northern Ireland. He and I both have experience of serving in that office in the Northern Ireland Executive, so I totally empathise with his frustration when it comes to replying to some of these kinds of debates. I well remember civil servants preparing a whole host of possible answers to questions that might arise in such a debate. After a year or two of experience, I remember being able to tell them that they could discard all their preparations, because the same issues would arise that had arisen in every previous debate of this type—the issues would be totally irrelevant to the debate, so they should just get on and prepare the press release. Thankfully, there has not been as much of that in this debate so far, and I think my right hon. Friend set out very clearly what the Bill does.
I too welcome the fact that the Secretary of State has brought the Bill to the House today. It is very timely; it is the start of decision making for Northern Ireland, ending the drift, and is an important milestone in that regard. I fully empathise with the point that the hon. Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) made earlier about the empty Benches. I suppose in one way that is actually quite a good sign, in that it seems that taking decisions at Westminster is not that controversial after all. At the end of the day, there seems to be a broad consensus. Nobody I have heard railing about how terrible it would all be is actually even here to make those points. That is a very significant development.
The hon. Lady rightly alluded to those who speak so much about Northern Ireland—about their concern for the economy and the future and about having no hard border—but who, when it comes to the nitty-gritty of financial management and decision making for Northern Ireland, are not here. These are people who speak a lot about Northern Ireland in terms of Brexit but who never show any interest at any other time. It raises questions in our minds about the extent to which Northern Ireland—the Belfast agreement, the peace process, our political situation—is being used by some people to thwart Brexit or to shape a Brexit they would like for the whole of the UK. That is what is actually going on. I therefore commend Members on both sides of the House who are here and making a contribution today on this important matter.
I reiterate what my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim said about how we do not wish to be in this situation. We would far rather these matters were decided in the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont. Indeed, it is ironic that in late December 2016, when the then Finance Minister, a Sinn Féin Member, had the ability to bring forward measures in the budget, he refused consistently to do so—refused even to bring matters to the Northern Ireland Executive—in the full and certain knowledge that Sinn Féin was going to crash the institutions early in January over matters totally extraneous to the programme for government or anything it had previously raised in discussions with us.
Sammy Wilson
Does my right hon. Friend accept that had that Member, Máirtín Ó Muilleoir, still been Finance Minister when this situation arose, he would probably have breathed a sigh of relief, because he had not the courage to take the political decisions to bring forward a budget—the only Finance Minister never to do so—but would rather whinge and gurn and point the finger at the Conservative party?
Nigel Dodds
My right hon. Friend makes an interesting point. A very good illustration that proves his point concerns welfare reform. We were faced with a difficult situation in Northern Ireland following welfare cuts and changes to welfare benefits. The then Minister, Nelson McCausland, negotiated mitigations that helped the situation in Northern Ireland, but generally it presented a difficult position for all the parties in Northern Ireland. The parties, including ours, took the hard decisions and brought them to the Assembly, but Sinn Féin refused to go along with it, and because of the make-up of the Assembly and the veto principle, it was able to block those decisions, and the institutions almost collapsed as a result. We had to have the Stormont House and fresh start negotiations to prevent the collapse of the Assembly.
As my right hon. Friend points out, Sinn Féin, in particular, refuses to take hard decisions and work within the parameters of a devolved legislature that has to set budgets and work within the block grant. That is part of the problem and one of the reasons we are now in this situation. Our party stands ready, as it did in December 2016 and at the time of the elections in March 2017, and as it has done every day since, to get back into government immediately, without any preconditions or red lines, to tackle the issues that matter to the people of Northern Ireland.
In any survey or poll conducted right across both communities, the issues that matter to people are those that matter to people everywhere: health spending, education, infrastructure, housing, the environment. These are the things people care about, and they want their politicians to be delivering on and dealing with them—and so do we—which is why we are mystified, and why most people in Northern Ireland are bewildered, that Sinn Féin put narrow partisan political issues above dealing with these issues. When we proposed dealing with issues of concern to Sinn Féin in parallel with getting the institutions up and running and dealing with the big issues affecting all of us, and even suggested time limiting the Assembly to ensure there was no bad faith on our part, it was rejected out of hand.
Let us be very clear: devolution is our first option and our clear preference. We are not the barriers to devolution in Northern Ireland; nor, I believe, are other smaller parties such as the Ulster Unionists, the Social Democratic and Labour party and the Alliance party. It is very clear what is blocking devolution.
There is another point that we make over and over again, and it was strongly emphasised by the Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), and he was absolutely right. Without prejudice to efforts to get devolution up and running, we do need decisions to be made. The same point was made by the hon. Member for Lewes.
It is the fact that there are no Ministers in place that is causing drift and putting Northern Ireland into limbo. That is why some decisions are not being made in the Department for the Economy, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim referred. The problem is not the absence of an Executive per se, but the absence of Ministers. As the hon. Member for South West Wiltshire said, the situation cannot continue for much longer. The various decisions that need to be made by Ministers are basically about allocation and prioritisation. Civil servants cannot make those decisions, because they would just be making personal decisions. They are not accountable. We need to ensure that something is done, and that it is done in a relatively short space of time.
Mr Gregory Campbell
Does not part of the problem lie with the wider community in Northern Ireland? They are disillusioned with politics for the obvious reason—Sinn Féin’s reluctance to return to the Government—but they are also disillusioned by the lack of what my right hon. Friend has identified: ministerial decision making and ministerial directions to address issues that affect everyone, not just a small part of the community.
Nigel Dodds
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. When I have constituency surgeries and meet people and, like all Members of Parliament, discuss with them matters of individual concern and wider issues, what they all lament—whether they are from a nationalist or a Unionist background—is the fact that decisions are not being made.
The recent lobby of this place by a large group of people interested in and affected by mental health issues was a glaring example of that. Those people made a cross-party, cross-community plea. They said, “Please give us someone we can lobby, someone who can make decisions”—on, for example, the trauma centre in Northern Ireland. As my constituency has the highest rate of suicide in Northern Ireland—indeed, the United Kingdom—I feel very strongly about that issue. Something needs to be done about it, in terms of decision making. As a result of the confidence and supply agreement, we have secured extra money to be spent on mental health specifically in Northern Ireland, but civil servants, in the Department of Health and elsewhere, are unable to say how they will spend it, because they have no ministerial direction. As was pointed out by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim, money can be allocated, but decisions within the Department need to be made by a Minister.
Bob Stewart
I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way, and I also thank my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) for his contribution.
I do not quite understand why a Minister could not come to make such decisions relatively shortly, although, as far as I can ascertain, we are not at that stage yet. We are not returning to direct rule, but we might be moving towards pragmatic, and also legal, decisions that are required for us to look after the community of Northern Ireland.
Nigel Dodds
The hon. Gentleman has made a very sensible, reasonable, pragmatic point, and, as always, he has demonstrated his strong interest in Northern Ireland affairs. I know that he speaks from the heart and wants to ensure that Northern Ireland keeps moving forward, and that is our only concern. We want to make sure that nobody across the board is detrimentally affected by the lack of Ministers. Likewise, it was because of that concern to ensure that people across the board in both communities had their lives improved that we argued that the confidence and supply arrangements should include an extra £1 billion in cash resources for Northern Ireland to be spent across a range of subjects which would benefit everybody. That is in addition to the extra half a billion pounds in flexibilities in terms of previous moneys allocated.
I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State announced in recent days the budget for Northern Ireland, to include the £410 million first tranche, or substantial part, of those confidence and supply arrangements. Some in the media and elsewhere said over and over again that that money would never come to Northern Ireland and that it was a pipe dream, yet it has now been delivered. They also said it would not come in the absence of an Executive, and that too has been proved wrong, although I do not hear them saying much about it despite being very vocal previously. They also said it could not come because there was no parliamentary authority for it. Well, we are now getting parliamentary authority through this Bill for the money to be expended in this financial year and proper parliamentary authority will be given to all the rest of it, as is to be expected and is the normal process.
Lady Hermon
I always listen very carefully to what the right hon. Gentleman has to say, and he has made it clear on behalf of his party that there are no red lines. He has also made it clear that his constituents—indeed, my constituents and people right across Northern Ireland from all communities—are anxious to see their Assembly back again and Ministers taking decisions, so what exactly is holding up the DUP getting back into talks with Sinn Féin and successfully seeing the restoration of devolution in Northern Ireland, for the benefit of everybody?
Nigel Dodds
I could repeat everything that my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim said in response to exactly the same question. [Interruption.] The hon. Lady has said, “Please don’t,” so I won’t, and if she did not understand it the first time I doubt she will understand it now if I repeat it. The fact of the matter is that we are no barrier to devolution, and neither are the Ulster Unionists, the Alliance party or the SDLP, and perhaps more pressure exerted on those who are the barrier would be more productive and sensible.
The fact of the matter is that this is a very positive move in terms of breaking the logjam and stopping the drift that has continued for too long in Northern Ireland. It sends a strong message to everyone, including the parties that have been reluctant and recalcitrant so far in terms of forming the Executive, that decisions will be taken, for the good of Northern Ireland.
Lady Hermon
The right hon. Gentleman is being exceedingly generous in giving way again. I just want to ask him to reflect for a few moments on the fact that tomorrow marks the first anniversary of the death of Martin McGuinness. Martin McGuinness sat as Deputy First Minister in a very successful period of devolved Government with the right hon. Gentleman’s then party leader, Ian Paisley senior. Sadly, they are both no longer with us, but remarkable generosity of spirit was shown by both of those gentlemen at the time. Could the DUP indicate a generosity of spirit to get back into talks without any hesitation or red lines?
Nigel Dodds
The hon. Lady is right to refer to the efforts made by the previous leader in Northern Ireland of Sinn Féin and my former leader as well and to the great efforts that were made, and there have also been their successors Peter Robinson, who led the Executive for seven years, and Arlene Foster, and Martin McGuinness during that period as well. I served in the Executive under both Dr Paisley and Peter Robinson, so I am fully aware of the efforts the DUP has made to reach out across the communities and to serve with people who for many, many years attacked our communities, and indeed attacked us personally by trying to assassinate members of our party—myself and others—so that was no easy task.
Generosity of spirit is something that we have exhibited over many, many years. Despite the toxicity of the atmosphere that Sinn Féin has created, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim alluded, we are still prepared to go into government and to work in devolved government. That shows a pretty generous spirit. There are no red lines for us because we believe in going about the people’s business and getting the Government up and running. That is what matters.
Just as an aside—although it is more than an aside—I should like to say this. The hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) referred to an anniversary tomorrow, but we have already rightly referred to the anniversary today of the Warrington bombing and the anniversary yesterday of the savage murder of two Army corporals. Everybody who was alive at the time remembers seeing the footage of the two young British soldiers who stumbled into a funeral and who were almost literally torn to death. We should remember, as we hear the eulogies to Martin McGuinness, that it was the movement he led that carried out those atrocities.
James Heappey (Wells) (Con)
My right hon. Friend refers to one of the darkest days for the British Army during the troubles, but will he join me in contrasting that day with the scenes that we saw in Lisburn last week when my former battalion, 2 Rifles, was welcomed back with great enthusiasm by the whole community? Is that not a great example of the way which Northern Ireland has changed?
Nigel Dodds
Yes, and I am sure that even 30 years ago the good people of Lisburn would have extended that same welcome to the soldiers to whom my hon. Friend refers. The fact is that when we praise the peace process and the political process in Northern Ireland, far too little praise and respect are given to the members of the Army, the other services, the police or the Ulster Defence Regiment, who over many decades held the ring and protected innocent life, both Catholic and Protestant, Unionist and nationalist. They were courageous in their efforts and, were it not for them, we would not enjoy the peace that we enjoy today. There are individuals in the political sphere and elsewhere who are rightly praised and given plaudits, but the real heroes are the people of our emergency services and security forces who put on their uniforms and went out to defend the people at great cost to themselves. Some of them still bear the cost in mental and physical trauma.
Jim Shannon
I think it might be appropriate to point out, given that my right hon. Friend feels as we all do on this side of the Chamber, that Gillian Johnston was brutally murdered by the IRA as well. Perhaps her family feel that she is one of the forgotten victims, but we should remember them. There are many forgotten victims, but their families never forget.
Nigel Dodds
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw our attention to that particularly brutal slaying. It is right to remember all the victims of the troubles in Northern Ireland; it is all too easy to gloss over these events. We remember them not because we want to indulge in talking about the past but because it is important to remember the victims and to remember that their sacrifice is never forgotten.
It is also important that we redouble our efforts to keep moving Northern Ireland forwards. We want devolution to be restored and we want to get the institutions back up and running. Sometimes, when people say that we should just get it done, I say to them, “Well, let’s call a meeting of the Assembly on Monday. Let’s go through the process of forming the Executive. Let’s see who steps forward to form the Executive, and let’s see who refuses to step forward.” Then all those who say, “Why can’t you all just get together?” and who lump all the politicians into one group and say, “You’re all to blame” would be able to see for themselves who was refusing to form the Government.
Let us get this process passed today, and let us get the legislation passed tomorrow. Let us start getting decisions made and let us keep on with the efforts to get devolution. Then perhaps the Secretary of State, encouraged by her efforts in getting this legislation through, will come forward with the proposal to call the Assembly together, to re-establish the Executive, to invite those who wish to do so to form a coalition of the willing, and to invite those who refuse to do so to say why they are not prepared to take on the responsibility of the government of Northern Ireland.
Emma Little Pengelly (Belfast South) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to follow the excellent speeches that we have heard throughout the House today, especially those by my right hon. Friends the Members for Belfast North (Nigel Dodds) and for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson). They have very strongly set out all the key issues involved in the current situation in Northern Ireland, and I will heed their advice. It is not often in scrutiny of such a technical budget Bill that it is possible to sit on the same Benches as no fewer than two former Finance Ministers, and I am very conscious that they, in the House and in the Northern Ireland Assembly, held strongly held views and that officials shared those views. Some officials from Northern Ireland are present today, and I know that they will have sat year after year, and heard people raise the same issues, and I do not want to broach them too much today, but I will do so to a limited extent.
Before I get into the substance of some of the issues discussed, I want to say yet again that I find this a particularly sad day for Northern Ireland. Once again, we are standing in this Chamber, discussing the business of Northern Ireland, when what we want is for the Northern Ireland Assembly to be restored and for locally elected Northern Ireland politicians to be sitting in the local Northern Ireland Assembly, making decisions for our people from Northern Ireland. That is what I hear from people on the ground all the time.
A very strong point was raised by the hon. Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) and reiterated by my colleagues about the interest shown in Northern Ireland. I hear, as we all do, day in, day out, from across the House about Members’ interest in Northern Ireland and their interest in the economy, and what is good for Northern Ireland, how we do not know what is good for Northern Ireland and how we are irrelevant, and all that, but it is an incredible and stark fact that there has been no Government in Northern Ireland for over 14 months. In this great democracy that is the United Kingdom, there is a region—Northern Ireland, part of that United Kingdom—where there is a democratic deficit. We have no Ministers to be accountable to the people. We have senior civil servants trying to get by—because that is all that they are doing—and they are under intolerable pressure, because this is a legal minefield. They do not know, and it is not clear, what decisions can and cannot be taken; but what they do know is that they should not and cannot take decisions that Ministers ought to be taking. Yet, after 14 months, we still do not have Ministers in place, and that is simply unsustainable.
Although I welcome this technical Bill, as has been articulated by my right hon. and hon. colleagues, there is a lot of confusion at times about such technical Bills. However, it does not take away from the fact that decisions need to be taken. It is not sustainable in Northern Ireland for those decisions not to be made.
David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)
My hon. Friend has outlined the position very well, but the bottom line is this. There is one party that is holding Northern Ireland to ransom and that has held Northern Ireland to ransom for many years through its previous violence, but now is holding the country to ransom economically, and that is Sinn Féin.
Emma Little Pengelly
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and I will discuss that in more detail later.
I shall highlight two key issues. The first relates to the process that would be instituted by the Bill and the process as we lead up to the budget, which will, we hope, be presented around June. Although we do have two former Ministers of Finance in the Chamber, I was the last Chairperson of the Finance Committee in the Northern Ireland Assembly on collapse, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast North spoke a little bit about the behaviour of the then Finance Minister, Máirtín Ó Muilleoir, who was the Sinn Féin Finance Minister. Sinn Féin had concerns in relation to a number of matters. It became clear that Sinn Féin were intending to bring down the Assembly unilaterally. The only way that they could do that was by resigning—and that was the resignation of the late Martin McGuinness. The Committee and I made strong recommendations and representations to the Finance Minister in writing and on the floor of the Northern Ireland Assembly to say that the decision about the timing of this collapse was Sinn Féin’s—it was the only party that wanted the collapse and it chose that timing.
That is vital in respect of two of the issues mentioned here today, with the first relating to the report of the historical institutional abuse inquiry. As a special adviser and a junior Minister for a period in the Office of the First Minister, I had policy responsibility for that area. I spoke to many victims of historical institutional abuse on an ongoing basis. Their stories are powerful and one has incredible sympathy with their recollections and accounts. That is why the Executive jointly moved—with Sinn Féin—to put in place the legislation and this independent body to look at these matters.
What was clear from the outset when I sat down to negotiate and talk about those terms of reference, when the Executive agreed them, was the date on which the report would come forward. Unlike some of the public inquiry legislation, the historical institutional abuse legislation had a deadline—it had a period of time specified, with a discretionary power to extend it, but only for one year. Right from the outset of that inquiry, and through the years of that inquiry, Sinn Féin knew exactly when that report would come forward.
I want to put on record my thanks for the excellent work that its chairperson, Judge Hart, did on that inquiry. One key thing he did was to bring it in not only on budget, but on time. The report was produced to the time asked for by the Executive and known by Martin McGuinness and Sinn Féin. When they collapsed the Assembly, there were just days to go before we got that report.
I raised the issue directly with the Finance Minister in the dying days of the last Northern Ireland Assembly and asked, why not hold on for a further week to allow for the budget to be presented to the Assembly and to be passed, to give certainty for the people of Northern Ireland and their public services? There was no reason not to do so, as I made clear. One week or two weeks would not have made any difference whatsoever in terms of that collapse. We did not want the collapse to happen, but Sinn Féin chose to collapse this and Sinn Féin chose the timing. That timing was when there was an already wildly overdue budget. Máirtín Ó Muilleoir and Sinn Féin will go down as the only people in Northern Ireland who had the finance ministry but failed to do their No. 1 duty, which is to produce the budget for Northern Ireland.
The second important issue in relation to the scrutiny of the Committee for Finance is that that opportunity is no longer there. Part of that role, which is set down slightly differently from the statutory duties and the duties of the Select Committees of this House, involves a statutory duty on the Committee to scrutinise and to ask for evidence, which we did. We called stakeholders and Departments to ask about the pressures within them. We took a look at the overall budget position and we would make recommendations. That process simply does not exist in the current situation, which is not good for Northern Ireland; it is not good for the budget not to have that process.
As has been outlined, the DUP has been clear: we are prepared to go into government right now—it is as simple as that. If there was a calling of the Northern Ireland Assembly tomorrow, we would be there. We are not asking for anything. However, it is not just the DUP, but the entirety of Northern Ireland that is being held to ransom by one party, Sinn Féin, which is making it clear that it will not go into government unless its demands are met. That is not the way to do business. I ask any interested Member from across this House to look at the programme for government agreed between the two parties. I have been clear that the only way to make coalition government work and to make this type of power-sharing agreement work is by focusing on what we agree on and not to get sidelined or obsessed with the things we do not agree on. Nobody will ever say that Sinn Féin and the DUP are the same party in relation to a whole range of policy areas. We accepted that and we accept that in a power-sharing arrangement. So let us get on and focus on what we can agree on. What we can agree on was contained in the last programme for government and that is what we should be doing and implementing.
There are plenty of issues on which we know Sinn Féin do not agree with the DUP. There are plenty of issues on which we could say to Sinn Féin, “We will refuse to go into government unless you agree to x, y or z.” We are not doing that because we do not hold the people of Northern Ireland to ransom.
The people of Northern Ireland need key decisions to be made on health, education, special educational needs and access to drugs and in respect of support and public services. Although in relation to a budget Bill this legislation is welcome, it is vital to remember that the decisions that need to be made have not been made for 14 months. No Government and no Department can continue like that. It is not sustainable and it is not fair on the senior civil servants and those trying to walk the incredibly difficult line between what is legal and what is not. They fear that they may end up in court at any time for the decisions that they are having to make. That is incredibly sad for everybody in Northern Ireland.
Despite my colleagues’ advice not to get into some of the issues, I wish briefly to raise several concerns that have been expressed to me. First, others have mentioned the severely disabled victims of the troubles who will be with us over the next couple of days. I have spoken to several Members about that and welcome their interest in meeting those people. It is clear that those people have great needs, particularly as they age. They need somebody to listen to them and to lobby for them—somebody they can ask to take up their cause—and most importantly, they need action, because they are the people who are suffering the most while others want to focus on divisive issues.
The reality is that the Irish language Act is a divisive issue on the ground. There is no consensus on it. It cannot be the case that the answer is to say to the DUP, “It’s your fault because you won’t simply roll over and agree.” We need to listen to people and to build consensus, because it is a divisive issue. We have plenty of divisive issues in Northern Ireland—there are divisive issues all over—and we can take the time to talk about them, but in the meantime our politicians must get on with doing what they need to do, which is to deliver for the likes of the severely disabled victims and their needs and for the victims of historical institutional abuse. I talked to those people throughout the historical institutional abuse inquiry and they said to me clearly, “We are not interested in the money. It is not about the compensation. This is about the truth and about getting to the bottom of what happened.” It is important that something happens as a result of that inquiry. The report has come out and has been sitting there. Those people need to see action taken on it urgently.
I have previously mentioned the pressures on our education sector. Schools are contacting us all with worries about their budgets, particularly in relation to special educational needs. We are seeing a rise of conditions such as autism and big challenges in relation to young people’s mental health. Such issues need to be addressed, but they require decisions. It cannot simply be a case of things rolling on. There is a programme for government. We have gone on for 14-plus months and it is far too long. Because of the current situation, which we do not want in Northern Ireland—a sad situation in which the negotiations have not produced agreement—I appeal to the Secretary of State to step up and ask her colleagues to put in place Ministers to make the vital decisions, for the good of all the people across all the communities in Northern Ireland.
Paul Girvan (South Antrim) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast South (Emma Little Pengelly). The word “anticipation” is in the Bill’s title, and a lot of anticipation has been associated with this legislation. I do not want to regurgitate things that have been said already, but I was one of those Members of the previous Assembly who was told that they could talk not about what the money was going to be spent on but about the budget and what had happened historically. We had to glibly go ahead and go back through the detail of our wish lists for our constituencies.
In welcoming the Bill, I wish to go back over some of the ground that has already been covered. We had a difficulty last year: no Budget was set. One never came forward to the Northern Ireland Assembly. As a consequence, the permanent secretaries in Departments were left in a very difficult position: they were allowed to make a spend of up to 75% of their budget. Ultimately, we were told that they could spend up to 95% of their total budget, which would leave Northern Ireland with a black hole of somewhere in the region of £600 million accounted in one year if no Budget was set.
Thankfully, a Budget was put through this House in November 2017, which meant that the total amount allocated could be spent. I appreciate that that creates its own difficulties in that Departments cut their cloth accordingly, as they know where they can, and where they cannot, make their spend. Unfortunately, decision making is the main area with a deficit. The difficulty over the past year is that many projects were put on the backburner. Some civil servants used the excuse of no political direction as a reason to do nothing. In my area, we have roads that need repairing. Unfortunately, whenever it comes to monitoring rounds, we do not have the opportunity or the flexibility to move money where it is needed. That is a big problem. That has happened not just in Northern Ireland, but throughout the United Kingdom. A lack of direction has led to problems in our education sector and in our health sector—two areas of biggest spend.
In the past month, I had occasion to meet a delegation of principals from schools right across my constituency, representing every sector of education, Irish-medium included. I can only say that there is a total unfairness in the way that education is funded. Unfortunately, the Department says that it cannot make an adjustment because it needs ministerial direction. We have primary schools that receive £2,242 per pupil. Another sector of education receives five times that amount per pupil. Where is the equality when one pupil is valued at five times the level of another in the ordinary controlled sector of education? That really needs to be looked at. The message that came from that meeting of principals was that they do not necessarily want more money; they just want it spread more fairly and evenly throughout the education sector. That would mean that we would have the same outcomes in whatever sector of education we are dealing with. That was the message that came out loudly and clearly, and it is something that I want to see being driven forward.
I appreciate that all sorts of options have been proposed for how we deal with the way forward. All I can say is that we are rolling down a track, and there is a buffer. I appreciate that decisions have to be made in June, or whenever we set a Budget, but if we do not have an Assembly up and running—I cannot see us having one at that time—we will not have Ministers in position in Northern Ireland to give direction to the way the budget is spent. Let us be honest, not all of us have the same faith that the Northern Ireland Office will deliver the money fairly either. Therefore, we need direct input from Westminster to ensure that the spend is made correctly.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast North (Nigel Dodds) has said, great play was made about the confidence and supply money. One message that we have been very sure about putting forward is that this is not our money—this is money for the whole of Northern Ireland and it is to deliver for the whole of Northern Ireland in areas where it will have the most benefit. That is very important.
It was interesting to hear the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee make reference to the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Public Accounts Department in Northern Ireland and some of the scrutiny rules that might be required. He suggested—and this is something—that we might well set up a scrutiny Committee, which would be made up of Members of the Legislative Assembly. I think that the Secretary of State’s predecessor had already suggested that this might be a way forward, giving the Assembly some form of business by involving it in the scrutiny role of both Departments and the PAC.
There are those in Northern Ireland who have said that they welcome the budget, although former Minister, Máirtín Ó Muilleoir, has been on local media stating how sad it is to see Tory austerity being driven forward in Northern Ireland. But there is a Barnett consequential carried forward to Northern Ireland through this budget, so we are getting our increase. The additional moneys that we have received for our confidence and supply agreement are over and above anything else, and we will ensure that they have direct benefits for Northern Ireland.
We need to be careful that we do not stand back and say that we do not want the Northern Ireland Assembly back. As a former Member of the Legislative Assembly, I see the benefits of devolution and believe that it is the right way forward for Northern Ireland. Unfortunately, we have a sword of Damocles held to the back of our necks, and it is being held by one party: Sinn Féin. We really have to stand up to them, drive forward and have, as the hon. Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) said, an Assembly of the willing. Let us be honest—there are those who are willing to run Northern Ireland and work together. We are willing and want to go into an Assembly tomorrow. We hear red lines mentioned all the time now. Well, Sinn Féin has unfortunately set its red lines when it comes to the issues that it does not believe it could not drive through the Northern Ireland Assembly. Instead, it uses the talks process to drive forward its own agenda.
The Irish language is totally toxic to my community, and Sinn Féin knew that. Those issues were just put on the table to drive us further down the road. With the elections in the Irish Republic, Sinn Féin wanted to ensure that it did not let the Northern Ireland Assembly get up and running; it was keeping its eye on what was happening in the Republic of Ireland.
Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson
On my hon. Friend’s point about the Irish language, the DUP has made it very clear that we do not object to people speaking the Irish language or having their children educated in the Irish language. Indeed, the Government in Northern Ireland have contributed millions of pounds towards promotion of and education in the Irish language. But the fact is that when a Sinn Féin spokesperson says that every word spoken in Irish is another bullet fired in the cause of Irish unity, they politicise a language, meaning that it becomes a very divisive issue in Northern Ireland.
Paul Girvan
I agree 100% with my right hon. Friend. I do not necessarily hold to speaking Irish, but I am not going to be against those who want to learn it and speak it. But there should be fairness and equality in the funding of these cultural issues, and political direction is needed in this area for the following year’s budget.
I appreciate that there were Departments that did not make their full spend. If other Departments were to come before the Assembly, they would have to qualify their accounts because of the overspend; there would probably be a vote on account associated with the overspend of some Departments. Some should probably have learnt a lesson and been a little bit more prudent in their accounting. I appreciate that there were negotiations about the spring statement last week, and Departments will have had some input. We want to see political direction to ensure that the spend is made to benefit the whole of Northern Ireland for the year 2018-19.
I, for one, am sad that we are here to discuss this. It will be worse when we are having to discuss the budget in June, because each and every one of us will have our own pet project that we will want to include in the debate, and we might well drag it out for longer than it should go on. However, I hope that the message from today’s debate is going out loud and clear: we are here because one party failed to deliver a budget in 2017-18. As a consequence, all the blame should be laid at the house of Sinn Féin over what it has caused Northern Ireland to suffer in the past year.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is always a pleasure to speak at any stage in any debate in this House. I look forward to the opportunity to be the rear gunner, to use terminology that is very apt in the armed forces and the services.
We did not want to bring this debate to this House, but it is here and we must have it. I congratulate and thank the Secretary of State and the Minister for their contributions to making it happen. I am not here to plead for direct rule, because I am very committed to devolution, as is my party. I was part of the old Assembly from 1998 before I was elected to this place. The work in the Assembly was always hard and frustrating, trying to plough forward against constant opposition, as we sometimes do in this place as well. Yet it was workable, because people knew they were elected to do a job and sought to do just that.
People still know that. Our MLAs who are more than capable of doing their job want to do it but are stopped by a red line that may as well be the Red sea. The problem is that we do not have Moses to step forward to part the sea at this time. None the less, the waters are raging and the people who are being caught in the current are everyday people from all sides of every community. Rich and poor, Catholic and Protestant, Jew and Muslim, Unionist and nationalist, healthy or sick, old or young: all are paying the price for the red line erected by Sinn Féin which says that nothing is worth more or is greater than an Irish language Act. No grandmother who needs a care package, no child who needs a classroom assistant, no road that needs repairing: none of those supersedes the provision of a militant Irish language Act. My right hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) referred to the politicisation of this legislation. That is why I say this: set the budget, make the ministerial decisions, get the process in place, and do what we are capable of doing ourselves but are prevented from doing back home in the Assembly. I have too many constituents in need for this to be prolonged any more.
At the end of the day, we secured additional money for all the people of the Province. Last week, a Member said to me facetiously: “Well, I suppose that money will be going to the Unionist areas.” That money will go to Unionist, nationalist and all parts of the Province. It is very clear where it is going to be allocated. I wanted to put that on the record.
Mr Gregory Campbell
Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a very substantial contrast between Sinn Féin’s very narrow focus, to bring the Assembly down, and the much wider and more comprehensive approach that we took in terms of the confidence and supply motion, which benefits everybody without exception in Northern Ireland?
Jim Shannon
I thank my hon. Friend; he is absolutely correct. Yes, we were committed to bringing advantages for everyone across the whole of the Province, and we did so. This money has been committed to all the people of the Province.
Permanent secretaries will not take decisions, and the losers are people from all corners of the Province. Northern Ireland is disadvantaged today because of Sinn Féin’s austerity and its obstacles and negativity. Members of Sinn Féin are quite clearly the people to blame for this. I have parents tearing their hair out as their child can and should be mainstreamed if they could have a little bit of help in the form of a classroom assistant. Similarly, I have headteachers tearing their hair out because they are limited in the amount of referrals they can make, in the hours they can allocate to pupils, and in the one-to-one time they can give to pupils who could excel with early intervention. There is a very clear need for classroom assistants and educational assessments. I have schools such as Newtownards Model Primary School, which provides music specialists and has helped children who struggle academically but thrive musically. The school has seen great success with these programmes but is having to cease them because the board of governors cannot work out what its budget will be and do not know how or what to cut otherwise.
That simply should not happen. The school has raised money and worked hard to have that wonderful scheme, only for it to end because schools do not know what is happening. That is unacceptable, and yet our schools are forced to accept it, with the caveat of, “Blame the politicians on the hill.” It is not the politicians on the hill who are to blame; it is Sinn Féin. Not all politicians are to be blamed, but some are, and let us be clear who: the blame lies with Sinn Féin and their intransigence.
Special schools were a big issue in the news yesterday. I had a number of phone calls yesterday morning about that, as other Members will have had. Five schools are going to be amalgamated into perhaps two. There will be a consultation process, but already parents in my constituency have phoned to say that they are very concerned about where their child is going to end up and what is going to happen.
We have North Down Training Ltd, which does some great work with young adults who are educationally disadvantaged and have problems that are apparent and need to be addressed. We have high schools with small numbers under threat, with no money in the budget, yet money is flowing in for the Irish language schools—and this is before an Irish language Act comes into being. I have constituents saying, “Where is the equality for the small school in my area, when Irish language schools with under 50 pupils are as happy as Larry?” Of course they are, because they get every bit of money they want.
Where is the fairness? Where is the equality? We hear Sinn Féin talking about equality. I am going to talk about equality as well. Let us have equality for my constituents and for constituents across the rest of the Province who are disadvantaged and do not have it. How can I explain to my constituent why his child deserves less than another child because he does not feel a need to speak Irish in an English-speaking country?
New builds are an issue. Glastry College, which I serve on the board of governors for, is waiting for a new build. The decision on Movilla High School stands clear as well. These are problems that every school in my constituency, and indeed every constituency across the whole of the Province, deals with.
I have people complaining that they cannot access their GPs and that when they do get to the surgery, their GP puts them on a waiting list of sometimes over 18 months to get done what needs to be done urgently. We need a decision to be made to provide bursaries to medical students who will give a commitment to work their first seven years in GP surgeries, to relieve the burden on those and the doctor out-of-hours system.
These are things we are dealing with every day. Hopefully this budget and the allocation of moneys and ministerial decisions that will come will eventually ensure that these systems are all sorted. Again, we have A&Es bursting at the seams, with beds in the halls being above the normal. I remember my parliamentary aide coming back from Swaziland and telling me about the hospitals there, which had two people to every bed in the wards. Sometimes we ask ourselves, is that where we are heading? If we are, something needs to be done.
I have met the permanent secretary regarding funding for insulin pumps, which vastly improve the quality of life of children with type 1 diabetes, as well as adults. He agrees that those would be wonderful, but money needs to be released for training of the nurses who specialise in the field. That needs to be budgeted for. In Northern Ireland, we have the largest number of type 1 diabetics percentage-wise in the whole of the United Kingdom, with Scotland following us. These are key issues in my constituency and in constituencies right across the Province.
We need to bridge the pay gap for the nurses and staff, but again, that will not be done without ministerial approval. We need care-in-the-community packages to allow elderly people to retain their independence for as long as possible and to cut down on the funding allocated to placing them in a home before necessary. That cannot be signed off without ministerial direction. We need to ensure that people on restricted diets can access their food when needed on the NHS, without having to make a case; their illness is the case.
Some of the money from the sugar tax will come to Northern Ireland, and we need someone in place to make decisions on that. A pilot took place in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson), which my hon. Friends are well aware of. That is a great scheme, addressing issues of obesity, diet and health. We want to see that scheme across the whole of Northern Ireland. That is something we should do.
We need the £1.4 billion of funding that we secured to be allocated. We desperately need the Ballynahinch bypass, which would benefit so many people in my constituency and those in South Down. Since the MP refuses to come to the House—he is too busy naming his office after those killed in the midst of terrorist activity—we are making that point and speaking for all those people in this place. I speak for my constituents and perhaps for some of his as well.
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)
My hon. Friend thinks I am intervening to put forward an alternative proposal for the route of the A55 Knock Road widening scheme, but that is not the case. He has mentioned on several occasions that many things cannot progress because of a lack of ministerial appointments and the fact that there are no Ministers to make decisions. Does he agree that it would be useful if the Minister indicated whether he has considered article 4(4) of the Departments (Northern Ireland) Order 1999, which says that senior officials can take decisions falling to their Departments in the absence of a Minister?
Jim Shannon
I thank my hon. Friend for that solution and for his question to the Minister. I am sure that Ministers will correspond furiously with their civil servants to find out how that might work. It has already worked in Northern Ireland on one occasion. We have seen it in action, and if we can have it in one Department, it can happen in all of them. Let us see whether we can get on with doing so.
In the case of the Ballynahinch bypass, the permanent secretary needs ministerial direction. This scheme is ready to go, so will someone please sign it off, because I would love it to happen? Similarly, a scheme must be put in place, Province-wide, with additional money for repairing roads. This hard winter has left too many potholes on our roads, and they are damaging cars. People are coming to my office saying that they have never before had to come and see their elected representative about this matter, but are now doing so. Let me mention one example which, miraculously, was fixed after a lot of correspondence. There was a pothole in Mary Street in Newtownards, and I raised it with the Department on a number of occasions. The last time I did so, I said to the gentleman, “If we don’t fix that pothole soon, we’ll be shaking hands with the Australians”. It was so deep, cars were getting damaged every day. It has now been fixed, and thank the Lord for that.
I have big businesses that are seeking to remain competitive globally through the Brexit uncertainty, but they cannot access grants to improve their business and cannot get through to decision makers to bring us into line with mainland practice. I say to the Secretary of State that someone needs to make such decisions. For example, the budget in front of us mentions the agri-food sector, which is very important in my constituency and across the whole of Northern Ireland. Where are the moneys for capital build? There is such a scheme in England, and this is devolved in Scotland and in Wales, but we do not have it in Northern Ireland, so we would like that to be put in place as well.
I applaud the voluntary sector and charitable organisations that are doing a tremendous job, but they are closing their doors as they cannot operate in uncertainty—they do not know what will happen in April—which leaves vulnerable people without the support they need to function meaningfully. Again, we look to the budget, and perhaps the permanent secretary, with the blessing of the Secretary of State and the Minister, could do something about that.
For all of these reasons, I am bringing to the House what I should have brought to Ministers and asking them, in setting the budget, to allocate the powers as well—as my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) said so well—to those who are capable of making decisions. They will make such decisions and stop this floundering about, which has left our constituents frustrated, unrepresented at the Assembly and second class citizens.
I ask that consideration is given to the issues raised today when setting a budget, but also, more than this, that a system is urgently enacted to allow Northern Ireland to run again as a country, instead of being in limbo and no man’s land due to Sinn Féin’s austerity programme. Sinn Féin have tried to break the Assembly and to destroy Northern Ireland, and no matter what language they say that in, it is wrong. I hope that the budget we are setting today is the first stage in stopping just that.
I conclude with this last comment. Northern Ireland has weathered the past year, but a heavy price has been paid by voluntary sector workers, community groups, our NHS, our education boards and schools, and they are done paying for someone else’s refusal. I look to the Secretary of State and the Minister, and to this Government, to take the power, make the decisions, get the country back on its feet and put Sinn Féin back in the corner in which it already skulks.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
I understand that the Under-Secretary will be replying to many of the points made in this debate. I want to add to the list of his replies that will be vital going forward.
Since being appointed, and in looking at the budget and how we got to this point, the Minister has also created an expectation. He has been very diligent, going round Northern Ireland, visiting with Invest Northern Ireland, visiting the Police Service of Northern Ireland and many other groups, along with the Secretary of State, making the case, listening to needs and, I suppose, creating an expectation that those needs will rightly be addressed. Of course, and to echo everything said by every other Member, we would far rather those expectations were addressed by a functioning Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly. However, at some point we have to smell the coffee and recognise that that is not the case at the present time and, realistically speaking, probably will not be for the remainder of this year. If that is so, and given that between now and June the Minister will have to look at the next budget and how we deal with incoming expenditure and setting targets, it is important that he turn his mind to certain matters,.
I want to focus on one part of the portfolio that I carry responsibility for in this House, and that is sport. We have a very successful sport tourism portfolio. Indeed, Northern Ireland golf tourism is about to really take off in the coming year, and that has been started in the last week by the success of Rory McIlroy, who set a particular standard of achievement in the Arnold Palmer cup.
Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson
When my hon. Friend speaks of smelling the coffee and the importance to our economy of driving things forward, he will be aware that one of Northern Ireland’s many success stories in the past 14 months is the Pure Roast Coffee company in my constituency, which has struck a deal to supply coffee across China, so there is good news and we should welcome it.
Ian Paisley
It is good that we, as the country that I think drinks the most tea per head of population, are now exporting coffee, and to the largest market in the world.
We are going to have an influx of golf tourists coming to Northern Ireland for the Irish Open, and indeed the Open in 2019. The organisation—the Royal and Ancient—but more importantly the golf clubs in Northern Ireland, in particular Royal Portrush golf club, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell), will need certainty about the finance for them and for those tournaments. Will the Minister ensure immediately, so that there is no delay, that those organisations get certainty and clarity about financial expenditure for golf tourism? This is going to be the single largest shop window for Northern Ireland—a very positive shop window—and the expenditure therefore needs to be properly underwritten by the Government.
Emma Little Pengelly
Does my hon. Friend agree that we have a number of excellent ambassadors for golf in Northern Ireland? They include our very own Rory McIlroy—congratulations to him. With him back on form, as demonstrated at the weekend, and winning across the world, this is the perfect time to maximise golf tourism in Northern Ireland.
Ian Paisley
We always used to mention the triumvirate of Rory, Darren and Graeme, but now there are so many good golfers in Northern Ireland that we do not want to get into naming them all, because we might offend one by leaving them out. My hon. Friend is absolutely right: we have a great golf ambassador in Rory, and there are many others.
Lady Hermon
I am sure the hon. Gentleman is coming to the line in his speech about how Rory McIlroy trained in the Holywood golf club, and put Holywood on the map as a constituent of mine. I am sure that tourists will come to see where he trained to become so successful.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
We are in danger of getting stuck in the bunker, and that is not where I want to be. Come on, Mr Paisley!
Ian Paisley
I will put the sand wedge away and move to another discipline, if you don’t mind, Mr Deputy Speaker.
In their wisdom, the last Executive, before they were put out of existence by the untimely resignation of the then Deputy First Minister, kindly appointed me to be the independent chairman of the Northern Ireland taskforce on motorsport. A number of significant motorsport events occur annually in Northern Ireland. Significantly, the North West 200 will require financial certainty from the Minister before June, and I would like to make sure that he is able to give that certainty and that he talks to the relevant Department—the Department for Communities—to indicate that proper finance will be put in place for the largest outdoor sporting event not only in Northern Ireland but in the entire island of Ireland. The race attracts over 100,000 people annually to the triangle of Portrush, Portstewart and Coleraine. It is very significant for sport in Northern Ireland and, indeed, for community relations. Motorsport is one of those things that attracts all people, of all classes and creeds. It is also something that Northern Ireland excels at, and we require certainty in terms of the provision of support to allow the race to go ahead. The Armagh road race in my constituency and the Ulster grand prix, which straddles the constituencies of South Antrim and Lagan Valley, also require certainty before the August timetable. I ask the Minister of State to look into that to ensure that the Department is properly told by him that funding must be put in place.
Looking forward to 2021 and the youth Commonwealth games, plans are already being put in place, and it is essential that the organisers are given certainty so that they can market Northern Ireland around the world as a destination and the location of those games. That will not happen in the six months before the games; it has to happen years in advance. I ask the Minister to put his mind to making sure that the Department is put on notice that he will be breathing down its neck to ensure that proper resources are put in place for these important showcase events for Northern Ireland.
Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)
We have had an extraordinarily interesting afternoon. It started with almost a political first—almost a parliamentary first—when a Secretary of State came to the Dispatch Box longing to give up power and desperate to slough off some of the responsibilities of office. Most of us—obviously, I exclude myself and hon. Members present—are climbing the greasy pole with all rapidity, but, no, the Secretary of State spurns the trappings of authority and wants no part of them.
I have to say I have enormous sympathy, because, in all honesty, what we have heard this afternoon is almost an admission of failure. We heard an admission that we are discussing issues that we simply should not be discussing; we actually need to talk about the things that really matter to this House, and representatives of Northern Ireland need to talk about things that matter there.
We heard an extremely forensic analysis of the Bill from the hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison). He brought to the Bill the same scalpel-like skill that he used to bring to human beings—most of whom survived—and he broke it down, particularly in his comments on the role of the Northern Ireland Audit Office. He said, quite correctly, that permanent secretaries should not be dealing with the closure of health facilities. In many ways, that brought us to the nub of what we are talking about this afternoon.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) said she was in reluctant agreement, but, in a very potent phrase, she said we have to somehow keep the lights and the heat on. We do not normally talk about heating in these debates, but in this case talking about keeping the lights and the heat on was entirely appropriate.
The contribution from the hon. Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) has attracted much support and comment. She not only spoke from the heart and from a position of authority, but she spoke the essential truth. The references she made to, for example, the Belfast city deal were very potent because such matters really concern the people of Northern Ireland—rather more than what we are saying in this Chamber.
The right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) showed yet again what an immense loss he is to the world of higher education. An entire generation of schoolchildren in Northern Ireland learned at his feet, studied underneath him and survived. He again gave us a master class, and he was right to talk about misconceptions. Like his pupils, I feel honoured and a better person for having heard him.
The right hon. Member for Belfast North (Nigel Dodds) widened the scope of the Bill somewhat and brought us to Brexit, among other things. He incorporated an extraordinary amount of detail, but that was quite correct in many ways, because the Bill does have an impact on so many areas. He also talked about going about the people’s business, which is a potent phrase. We should be going about the people’s business in our constituencies, whether they be in Northern Ireland or here; we should not be doing this. Not for the first time, the right hon. Gentleman spoke not just good sense but with a great sense of rightness on his side, and it was good to hear it.
I hope that the hon. Member for Belfast South (Emma Little Pengelly) will not think me patronising when I say that she has grown in stature during the short time that she has been in the House. She spoke superbly, saying, again from the heart, that today is a sad day. In that, I think she enunciated the spirit of the House. She talked about the democratic deficit and referred in passing to the paucity of Members here present. That is their loss, because we have heard some excellent speeches, including that of the hon. Lady. She also talked about the impact on children with special educational needs and on education, which are issues on which we should be concentrating.
The hon. Member for South Antrim (Paul Girvan) talked about the roads that needed repairing and problems in health and higher education. Mr Deputy Speaker, if I may prevail upon your legendary generosity of spirit, I will say that it was a great pleasure yesterday to meet the hon. Gentleman with Grace Nesbitt, one of his constituents —oddly enough, she worked in the Department of Finance—who came here to receive her well-deserved OBE, accompanied by her absolutely delightful daughter, Rhoda.
Normally when the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) stands up, I feel that we have saved the best for last. I thought he was to be the last speaker, but he introduced us to the giant pothole of Newtownards. I have no doubt that it will before long become one of the signature destinations in Northern Ireland. We have had the Giant’s Causeway and the walled city, and we will soon have the giant pothole of Newtownards. I understand that it would be difficult not to score a hole-in-one where the giant pothole is concerned, and the thought of the DUP accidentally opening an Australian branch is one that does not worry me overmuch, but I understand that a certain concern is being expressed in the antipodes. He also talked about important things, such as bursaries for medical students, and it is the combination of the local minutiae—the bread-and-butter issues of his local politics—with the big issues that makes him such an excellent speaker.
The hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) suddenly led the debate into a completely new direction, and the entire House almost leaped to its feet in animation as we started to talk about golf, tourism and the North West 200. We could have carried on like that for another couple of hours.
Bob Stewart
The hon. Gentleman talks about the North West 200 and the Portrush, Coleraine and Portstewart triangle. Is it sheer coincidence that right in the middle of that triangle is the Bushmills distillery?
Stephen Pound
I am more familiar with Bob Stewart than Portstewart, but there may well be a distillery along that route. I also remember that there are demountable traffic signs and that the street furniture can be moved to the side thanks to Joey Dunlop’s inspirational leadership. Mr Deputy Speaker, although I have referred to your legendary generosity of spirit, I think that even you may be tempted to rise and ask me to sit were we to go into more discussions on that.
Ultimately, we are talking about a subject that none of us really wants to be addressing in this Chamber. Last Thursday, I attended the excellent housing conference organised by agendaNi in the Titanic centre to hear people talking about housing issues in Northern Ireland, the problems of substandard housing and the problems of needing to adapt properties for people with special needs. Those are the issues that we should be talking about. This afternoon, we talked about the York Street interchange—that should be discussed in Stormont and not in Westminster. It is important and it matters to the people of Northern Ireland. We should not even have to mention that here and now.
The Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Mr Vara), was referred to earlier by the hon. Member for North Antrim, who remarked on him traveling around the highways and byways of Northern Ireland, stirring up expectations and giving people the anticipation of delivery. I have every confidence and faith in the Minister. I consider him a friend—I appreciate that may breach parliamentary protocol, and it has probably doomed his career. I think we have a duty to be evangelical and optimistic. The great people of Northern Ireland—some of the greatest people I have ever had the privilege of meeting—deserve better. In fact, they deserve more than better; they deserve the best, and they deserve that from their elected representatives in their own part of the world. What we have done today has been technical and necessary, but I wish that we had not had to do it.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr Shailesh Vara)
May I say what a pleasure it is to be in this debate this afternoon, Mr Deputy Speaker? I thank right hon. and hon. Members across the House for their contributions. In particular, I thank the Opposition Front Benchers for their support for these necessary steps to safeguard public finances, public services and public confidence in Northern Ireland in the continued absence of devolved government. In bringing forward the Bill, we are taking an administrative but hugely important step to formalise spending totals for the previous year. Given the largely technical nature of what is proposed, I intend to be brief while also responding to some detailed points that have been raised.
In his opening remarks, the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) made several points, many of which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State responded to. There has been some confusion about the purpose of the Bill, and I hope the hon. Gentleman takes comfort from the fact, and will appreciate, that the issue of victims’ pensions is one for a devolved Assembly.
My hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) raised a number of points. Although the Secretary of State will reply to him in detail regarding the specific questions he raised, I just say that as far as schedule 3 is concerned, this is cash to be drawn down from the Consolidated Fund to pay for revenue and capital investment, while schedule 4 is for the use of resources only. It excludes capital but it includes non-cash items, such as depreciation costs.
We covered the Hart inquiry extensively. Other Members spoke about that as well, but my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire will appreciate that no recommendations were made by the devolved Assembly before it collapsed. That was something that my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (James Brokenshire), the former Secretary of State, was able to confirm.
My hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire also spoke about the costs of the border to the Northern Ireland Administration. I emphasise that this budget Bill deals with the 2017-18 budget. Detailed spending decisions, including any allocations required for Brexit costs, remain for the Northern Ireland Administration to take. The Secretary of State’s written ministerial statement from 8 March on the budget set out departmental allocations for the years 2018-19 only. The decisions that underpin those are for the Northern Ireland civil service in the absence of an Executive.
May I clarify one particular point? In response to a question following last week’s statement, the Secretary of State said she would write to the “permanent secretaries”. In actual fact, she meant the “permanent secretary”, and she is more than happy to provide a copy of the letter to my hon. Friend. I hope that that has clarified the issue.
Lady Hermon
The Minister will undoubtedly be aware that last week—I am sure it was last week—the head of the Northern Ireland civil service, David Sterling, gave evidence under oath to the renewable heat incentive inquiry. He explained—I have no reason to doubt what he said—that in the past some Ministers had instructed officials and civil servants not to take minutes of meetings and decisions about expenditure to avoid freedom of information requests. Since permanent secretaries are now to be given budgets and to be making decisions about expenditure, will the Minister confirm for our benefit and that of the people of Northern Ireland that that policy is no longer in place and that permanent secretaries are indeed keeping minutes of all meetings and decisions relating to the budget?
Lady Hermon
With the greatest of respect to the Minister, for whom I have enormous regard, this has nothing to do with the RHI inquiry. I am not asking about the inquiry, which is ongoing, as he rightly says; this is a separate issue. In evidence to the inquiry, the head of the civil service in Northern Ireland, David Sterling, confirmed that Ministers—I understood him to mean Sinn Féin and DUP Ministers—had instructed civil servants not to keep minutes of meetings to avoid freedom of information requests. [Interruption.] I am pleased to see that there is some head shaking from DUP Members. Will the Minister confirm that all permanent secretaries, who are now running Northern Ireland Departments, have instructed civil servants to keep minutes of all meetings and decisions recorded afterwards?
Mr Vara
I hope that the hon. Lady will appreciate that there are no Ministers in the Northern Ireland Assembly. It would be for them to give instructions to permanent secretaries, not Ministers in Westminster, so I cannot give her the assurance she seeks. It is a devolved matter.
I am grateful for the support of the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock). She spoke of the delay in the Bill coming forward. I hope that she will appreciate that we were very keen to get the devolved Assembly up and running again—only recently there were intensive talks to try and progress matters—and that we therefore left this to the last minute. We had hoped not to have to take the decisions we are taking today.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) raised several issues. The Secretary of State’s budget statement on 8 March gives financial clarity to Northern Ireland Departments and reflects the feedback from the Northern Ireland civil service budget consultation and advice from the Northern Ireland civil service on where key pressures lay, such as health and education. It is a balanced budget that provides a secure basis for protecting and preserving public services.
My hon. Friend also mentioned city deals. She will be aware that work is ongoing on these deals. Councils, the Northern Ireland civil service, the Northern Ireland Office, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and Her Majesty’s Treasury are all involved in charting the way forward, but she and the House will appreciate that we need the devolved Assembly, because it has a huge contribution to make to progressing those city deals.
My hon. Friend referred to the apprenticeship levy. The Northern Ireland Administration have been allocated their share of the apprenticeship levy, so it is available to the Northern Ireland civil service for allocating. In line with the devolution settlement, however, it is not for the UK Government to dictate how Northern Ireland’s share is spent. Apprenticeships are a devolved matter. That is another issue that highlights the need for a devolved Assembly to be up and running.
The right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) spoke in his customary manner and with his customary passion. It was good that he helped to clarify the purpose of the Bill, given that there has been some misunderstanding among Members. The right hon. Member for Belfast North (Nigel Dodds) also made a passionate speech, which he normally delivers. He spoke of the way forward for the devolved Assembly from his own perspective, but also recognised the need for crucial decisions to be made, as, indeed, we are making them today.
The hon. Member for Belfast South (Emma Little Pengelly) spoke of her personal experience, and it was certainly beneficial to the House to hear that. She, too, spoke of the need for decisions to be made and gave the example of the special needs sector in education. The hon. Member for South Antrim (Paul Girvan), again, spoke of the lack of decisions, giving examples relating to education and health. He also highlighted the additional funds from the confidence and supply agreement, and it is important to remember that those will benefit all the people of Northern Ireland. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) reinforced the need for decisions to be made.
The hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) asked two specific questions, about golf tourism and the youth Commonwealth games. I appreciate the vital importance of golf tourism to the economy, as, I think, does the House, but I am going to give him the answer that he does not want: that, along with the youth Commonwealth games, is a matter for the devolved Assembly, which is another reason why it is so important to try to get the Assembly up and running.
Ian Paisley
I wholeheartedly agree that, yes, in the best case in the world that is a matter for the Northern Ireland Assembly, but let us have a reality check. The Northern Ireland Assembly has gone for now. We would love to have it back, but the Minister needs to start preparing an emergency plan that will give certainty about the funding of events in the future. That does not detract from our desire to see the Assembly restored as soon as possible. I just hope that the Minister will take this message to his officials. I hope that he will say to them, “Please give certainty to these organisations in relation to sport and our games bids.”
Mr Vara
I take on board what the hon. Gentleman has said, but he will appreciate that, as I pointed out at the beginning of my speech, the Bill is technical and specific. I hope he will forgive me if I stick to the terms of the Bill, but I hear loud and clear what he has said.
The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) spoke of the coffee business in his constituency. I hope that he will be pleased to know that last Thursday I was at Borough market in London supporting some 14 Northern Ireland businesses dealing with food and drink. They all seemed to be doing very well and to have made contacts with traders here who are happy to take goods from them in the future and sell them in London. That was a very productive event, and I greatly enjoyed it.
The hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) asked a specific question about the Departments (Northern Ireland) Order 1999. Article 4(3) provides that decisions may be made by senior officials. Permanent secretaries consider legal authority for decisions every day in line with legislation. It is a technical issue, but I hope that that gives the hon. Gentleman some comfort.
Gavin Robinson
The Minister is right to refer to paragraph (3) rather than paragraph (4); I misdirected him earlier.
Of course legislative opinion may be sought, but does the Minister not believe, having reflected on that provision, that it fundamentally undermines the blanket stance that no decisions can be made until Ministers are appointed? There is more flexibility in that legislation than is suggested by the current political atmosphere and the discussions that are taking place in Northern Ireland. Given that it is there, we should use it.
Mr Vara
The hon. Gentleman is a distinguished lawyer and will therefore appreciate that, given the context in which we are speaking, I would prefer, speaking as one lawyer to another, to read that paragraph in a wider context before making any further commitments to it, and he will appreciate that I am not in a position to make that comment now. I hope that he will be content with that; I think the smile on his face says that he knows he is trying his luck there. [Interruption.] Trying his luck in terms of pushing me further than perhaps I ought to go.
I reiterate the point made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that the Bill does not set out in law the allocations outlined in her written statement of 8 March. That will be done in the summer through a budget Bill—I hope, by a restored Executive— following on from the equivalent estimates process for UK Departments. This Bill confirms departmental allocations for 2017-18, reflecting final spending totals and revised allocations during the year. It also provides a pro forma authorisation for spending in the early months of the next financial year in anticipation of the budget Bill. To be clear, this is all money that is either locally raised or has been previously subject to a vote in Parliament. This is simply about formalising reallocations of funding during the year in Northern Ireland Departments to meet key pressures.
As for providing authorisation for spending in 2018-19 without formal departmental totals, I can reassure colleagues that this is exactly in line with usual processes. Last year, Northern Ireland permanent secretaries were forced to rely on emergency powers under section 59 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 in the absence of legal authority through an Act of this kind to spend money. I hope colleagues will agree that it will not be acceptable to invite the same uncertainty.
The issue of scrutiny and accountability was raised, and of course it is important to appreciate that that is there. The measures before us relate to the formalising of allocations for the previous financial year. As the former Secretary of State my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup put it, arrangements are in place to allow the reports of the Northern Ireland Audit Office and Northern Ireland departmental responses to be placed in the Libraries of both Houses when they concern audit or value for money issues. Last week, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State placed the first two departmental responses to NIAO reports in the Libraries to fulfil that commitment, and we stand ready to continue that process over the coming months. We shall reflect on whether any further scrutiny arrangements are merited to enable appropriate oversight of the use of public money.
We would very much have preferred these budgetary steps today to have been taken by a restored Executive and we waited for as long as possible for that to happen, but in the absence of an Executive, this Bill is required to give much-needed certainty for the Northern Ireland civil service as it safeguards public services for the people of Northern Ireland. That is why it is so important that the Bill be passed on Second Reading today.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Committee of the whole House (Order, this day).
Bill considered in Committee (Order, this day).
[Sir Lindsay Hoyle in the Chair]
Clauses 1 to 9 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedules 1 to 4 agreed to.
Bill reported, without amendment.
Bill read the Third time and passed.
Delegated Legislation (Committees)
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
With the leave of the House, we shall take motions 4 to 9 together.
Ordered,
Statute Law (Repeals) Measure
That the Measure passed by the General Synod of the Church of England, entitled Statute Law (Repeals) Measure (HC 781), be referred to a Delegated Legislation Committee.
Pensions (Pre-Consolidation) Measure
That the Measure passed by the General Synod of the Church of England, entitled Pensions (Pre-Consolidation) Measure (HC 782), be referred to a Delegated Legislation Committee.
Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and Care of Churches Measure
That the Measure passed by the General Synod of the Church of England, entitled Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and Care of Churches Measure (HC 783), be referred to a Delegated Legislation Committee.
Mission and Pastoral Etc. (Amendment) Measure
That the Measure passed by the General Synod of the Church of England, entitled Mission and Pastoral etc. (Amendment) Measure (HC 784), be referred to a Delegated Legislation Committee.
Legislative Reform Measure
That the Measure passed by the General Synod of the Church of England, entitled Legislative Reform Measure (HC 785), be referred to a Delegated Legislation Committee.
Delegated Legislation (Electoral Commission)
That the Motion in the name of Andrea Leadsom relating to the Electoral Commissioner shall be treated as if it related to an instrument subject to the provisions of Standing Order No. 118 (Delegated Legislation Committees) in respect of which notice has been given that the instrument be approved.—(Wendy Morton.)
Business without Debate
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
We now come to motions 11 to 21. Is there an objection?
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
I have an objection to motion 9, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Mr Deputy Speaker
I am sorry. We have done motion 9. We have moved on to motions 11 to 21. I am sorry; I did say.
Delegated Legislation
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),
Financial Services
That the draft Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Carrying on Regulated Activities by Way of Business) (Amendment) Order 2018, which was laid before this House on 21 December 2017, be approved.
Public Passenger Transport
That the draft Enhanced Partnership Plans and Schemes (Objections) Regulations 2018, which were laid before this House on 17 January, be approved.
Taxes
That the draft International Tax Enforcement (Bermuda) Order 2017, which was laid before this House on 3 November 2017, be approved.
That the draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Kyrgyzstan) Order 2017, which was laid before this House on 3 November 2017, be approved.
Rating and Valuation
That the draft Non-Domestic Rating (Alteration of Lists and Appeals) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2018, which were laid before this House on 21 December 2017, be approved.
Local Government
That the draft Greater Manchester Combined Authority (Amendment) Order 2018, which was laid before this House on 5 February, be approved.
Police
That the draft Police Powers of Designated Civilian Staff and Volunteers (Excluded Powers and Duties of Constables) Regulations 2018, which were laid before this House on 7 February, be approved.
Terms and Conditions of Employment
That the draft Employment Rights Act 1996 (Itemised Pay Statement) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2018, which was laid before this House on 8 February, be approved.
Information Commissioner (Remuneration)
That, from 1 April 2018—
(1) the Information Commissioner shall be paid a salary of £160,000 per annum and pension benefits in accordance with the standard award for the civil service pension scheme;
(2) this salary shall be increased by 1% each year on 1 April;
(3) the Information Commissioner in post on 1 April 2018 shall also be paid, as part of their salary, a non-consolidated, non-pensionable annual allowance of £20,000 for the duration of the single-term appointment; and
(4) all previous resolutions relating to the salary and pension of the Information Commissioner shall cease to have effect.
Government Trading Funds
That the draft Land Registry Trading Fund (Extension and Amendment) Order 2018, which was laid before this House on 26 February, be approved.
Electricity
That the draft Electricity Supplier Payments (Amendment) Regulations 2018, which were laid before this House on 5 February, be approved.—(Wendy Morton.)
Question agreed to.
Closure of Local RBS branches in and around Aberfeldy
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
It takes a lot to excite the good people of Aberfeldy and Pitlochry, but the closure of the two Royal Bank of Scotland branches in those communities has exercised and upset my constituents to the extent that they have presented this petition.
The petition states:
The petition of residents of Aberfeldy and Pitlochry,
Declares that the proposed closures of the Aberfeldy and Pitlochry branches of the publicly-owned Royal Bank of Scotland will have a detrimental effect on local communities and the local economy.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges Her Majesty’s Treasury, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Royal Bank of Scotland to reconsider their community-harming and flawed argument about branch closures; further notes that the Royal Bank of Scotland take into account the concerns of petitioners and take whatever steps they can to halt the planned closure of these branches.
And the petitioners remain, etc.
[P002121]
James Heappey (Wells) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. A number of Opposition Members have visited the Wells constituency in recent months, most notably the Leader of the Opposition, who has visited twice. Unfortunately, they have not always found the time to give me advance notice of their visits, as was the case last Friday when the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew) chaired a public meeting there. With English tourism week upon us next week, it would be selfish not to share with Opposition Members the beauty and heritage of the Wells constituency, but I wonder whether you might be able to advise me of the procedures that colleagues might follow when contributing to the Somerset visitor economy in an official capacity.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
It is wise to remind all Members, of whatever party, that it is courteous to let a Member know if they are visiting on political business. That is now on record, and I am sure that everyone will note it.
Greater Manchester Metrolink
(6 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
Hold on to your seat, Mr Deputy Speaker, while I take you through the history of Greater Manchester’s tram network. [Interruption.] We could have two hours on this, but if it is any help, I promise not to take us anywhere near that—unless there is trouble on the line and we get delayed.
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
If my hon. Friend is going to give us a history of Manchester’s tram network, which I look forward to, will he join me in paying tribute to the man described as “Mr Metrolink” by the Manchester Evening News—Councillor Andrew Fender, without whom we might not have a Metrolink system at all, and who stands down from Manchester City Council in May after 41 years of dedicated public service?
Jim McMahon
Councillor Fender has been a real transport inspiration for many people in Greater Manchester. He is actually a very quiet and reserved character; he is not somebody who grandstands—who seeks attention. He works in the background and diligently gets on and does the work that is very complicated, often very technical, and requires a lot of time and dedication. I have absolutely no doubt that without the time that he put in to transport in Greater Manchester—not just the tram system but the bus network, and cycling routes especially—it would not be as advanced as it is. I think that is a very fitting tribute. I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention.
Greater Manchester’s tram network opened in 1992 and is now the UK’s biggest light rail network. It is essential to Greater Manchester’s economy. We know how important transport is. It is important to get people from A to B, but it is also essential to do so efficiently, to make sure that we reduce congestion, that people can get to work affordably, and that there are routes that take people where they need to go for their employment or for leisure. People vote with their feet. The light rail system in Greater Manchester carries 41 million passengers every year. It covers 60 miles over 93 stops. However, as always in Greater Manchester, we are not content to stand still. We want to go even further.
At the moment a new line is being built to Trafford Park, and that will provide fantastic connectivity to one of Europe’s largest employment sites. People across Greater Manchester will be able to travel through the city centre and on to Trafford Park, and capitalise on the jobs that are being created there. That builds on the success of the airport line, which will take people to Manchester Airport, one of our enterprise zones—also essential for getting people to decent, well paid, secure jobs, particularly now, and in the future too.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I am ever mindful that the Government have committed to reducing pollution levels massively in our cities. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that a working, modern, technology-friendly public transport system is essential for Manchester and other cities like it, and that the expansion of services into the south will attract more people into using the service, making it more effective, and therefore cost-effective, and benefit the environment as well?
Jim McMahon
That is a very important point about the benefits for the environment and the economy. At one point, I was slightly fearful that we were going to make a claim for an extension over to Northern Ireland, which would be a great day out, but I might struggle to—
Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)
As the hon. Gentleman is talking about providing extensions, I would like to make a bid. At the moment, as he knows, East Didsbury is at the end of the line, as it comes out towards my constituency of Cheadle. We would love to see the line go all the way through to Stockport, as well as going to Manchester Airport, so that we would get true connectivity around the south of our area.
Jim McMahon
That is an important point. I will mention some potential routes later. There is a case to be made not only for the Didsbury line to be extended, but for a connection from Ashton through to Stockport and through to the airport, because as important as the connections in and out of Manchester city centre are, so too are the orbital links connecting the boroughs around Greater Manchester, beyond the city of Manchester. We should be ambitious; we need to create a transport vision that will guide us for decades. The people who laid the foundations for Manchester’s current Metrolink system came up with that idea—that nugget of how Greater Manchester could be different, and could be modern—many, many generations before it was built. It is important that we now take on that responsibility for the next generation, and plan that far ahead. I think Stockport ought to be the beneficiary of a tram line. I think we ought to be able to connect the whole of that eastern ring, too.
The Oldham line, which is my particular interest, started construction in 2011 and opened in 2014. Work began in the year that I became council leader in Oldham and so we had the great success of work beginning on the line. It was previously a heavy rail line, which was then decommissioned, to be turned into a light rail system. Clearly, that caused a lot of disruption and not everybody was convinced that a tram coming through the town would pay dividends and ultimately be a benefit to it, given all the traffic chaos that naturally happens when we start laying tram tracks on the road network. Plenty of people said, “If you build a tram from Oldham to Manchester, surely people are just going to go to Manchester and that will be to the detriment of Oldham.” We said, “No, this is about that connectivity that makes us part of a great Greater Manchester. If Oldham sits in isolation, thinking it is an island, and does not capitalise on one of the best cities in the world, we are missing a trick.”
It was important not just to capitalise on a great city, but to have a vision for Oldham that meant it could be the best Oldham it could be. Metrolink was very important as part of that vision and that future economy. Significantly, the phase 3 line saw an investment of £764 million. It also connected many key sites. Obviously, it connected through Oldham and on to Rochdale, but it also went through two previous housing market renewal sites. We know that where Metrolink stations are placed, there is a good effect on the housing market and demand in that locality. So Freehold, where the Metrolink stop is placed, was a key site for housing market renewal. We know the local authority is keen to see that being redeveloped, with the eyesore of the Hartford mill, which might be the subject of a future Adjournment debate, demolished to make way for decent, secure accommodation for people to live in and to create a thriving neighbourhood. Metrolink also connected the Derker community, where there was a lot of clearance as part of the housing market renewal project. Now it has fantastic family houses for people to live in, just a walk to the station, where they are connected to Rochdale, on to Manchester and further into the network—to connectivity that is vital for them.
As I said, people vote with their feet. The old heavy rail system, with the clunker carriages we used to have on the old Oldham Mumps station, carried 1.1 million passengers a year, which was impressive, but nowhere near as impressive as the figure of 3.6 million people using the current Metrolink system on the same line. So we know this has a material effect on increasing passenger numbers, and the more people who go on the tram, the fewer the people who have to travel by car, because they have a genuine alternative, provided in a more environmentally friendly way.
If the Government are serious about creating the northern powerhouse, it is crucial that we rebalance the UK’s economy. But we also need to understand that if all we do is benefit Manchester city centre and the south of Manchester, which have historically been the better performing parts of Greater Manchester, and we do not concentrate on north Manchester, which has historically underperformed compared with the south of Greater Manchester, we will miss an opportunity to make sure that every part of the northern powerhouse can benefit from future investment. Let me give some context on that, because this is not just about a northern Manchester bias and saying “Why does south Manchester get everything at our expense?” This is where the facts are. The gross value added return for Manchester south is £34.8 billion a year, which accounts for 68% of the total GVA for the whole of Greater Manchester. So we can see that an underperforming north Manchester—I am not saying south Manchester is necessarily overperforming—needs to do far better to rebalance and to contribute to that greater GVA. To do that, we need concerted and long-term investment planning—on transport, on housing and on schools. So this debate is about how we might achieve that.
Those who have been on the Manchester Metrolink and gone on a real journey will perhaps bear with me while I take them on what could be a journey of the future, if the Government and Greater Manchester are willing to work together on this plan. I am going to concentrate on the potential of connecting Oldham with Middleton and then on to the Bury line at Heaton Park. Currently, when the tram comes down the Metrolink track and gets to Westwood station, it turns off to the left, towards Manchester. In the new journey we are taking today, however, the tram could continue straight down Middleton Road, towards the sunny climes of Middleton. People could benefit from a park and ride in Middleton town centre and go on further towards Heaton Park, and join with a Bury line that would connect them with Bury and that part of Greater Manchester.
Coming back, where the line currently carries on to Rochdale after Oldham Mumps, people could go on from Mumps, perhaps up Ashton Road or even along the disused railway line—which would be a cheaper option, although clearly not to the benefit of as many people—on to Ashton town centre, where the line currently terminates. There is nothing worse than a line that terminates; we could at least carry it on and make it nice and tidy. People could carry on straight to Ashton town centre and then, as the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mary Robinson) said, there would be the potential of a loop to Stockport and on to Manchester airport. Suddenly, we are beginning to create what the Manchester Evening News has dubbed the “circle line”. That is a way to use public transport to create proper interconnectivity across Greater Manchester, just like the M60 motorway currently provides for car users. That would be a fantastic boost for many people accessing jobs and for our local economy and tourist industry.
All that would also give Oldham a critical part to play as an important transport hub. It would not just be the place that people pass through; it would mean that Oldham Mumps, which is currently a strategic regeneration site, would be a critical point of interconnectivity between Bury, Rochdale, Manchester and Tameside, and perhaps further on if we have further extensions. Oldham would become an important place for investment and regeneration, and I believe it would be an important catalyst for the rebalancing of the Greater Manchester economy.
To achieve all that, we need to be honest. Currently, financial modelling is heavily predicated on the question, “What does this mean for GVA return?” If we invest £1, what will be the pound-for-pound return in the local economy? This is where the way in which we assess capital investment in this country needs a fundamental rethink. There ought to be a measure to take human capital into account.
What is our starting point if we want everybody to have equal opportunity to access well-paid, secure jobs and decent leisure and sporting facilities? To do that, we need to accept that different communities in Greater Manchester will start at different points and that a rebalancing will need to take place. It is important to bear in mind that we can rebalance in two ways: we can bring the highest-performing area down to the level of the lowest-performing area, so that they are equal but have to share scraps of the table, and the economy will suffer; or we can use investment to raise areas that are not currently performing as well as they could be, so that everybody thrives across Greater Manchester.
To achieve that second option, we need a different way of assessing GVA return, because the truth is that on any assessment today, building a mile of Metrolink track in, say, Trafford would have a higher GVA return than building a mile of Metrolink track in Oldham, just because the starting point is very different. I do not believe that that is the way to generate an investment plan that rebalances the economy in the way we need it to be rebalanced.
This debate is about setting out a potential route, but I am not precious about exactly which road or route the new tram line ultimately goes along. I am, though, passionate about Oldham realising its full potential. I am passionate about people in Oldham being able to access high-performing, decent, secure, well-paid jobs throughout Greater Manchester. I am desperate for young people in Oldham to recognise that their horizon is not just at the end of their street, but is much further away, and for it to be available to them because it is affordable and accessible.
Let me tell a personal story. I have been helping my son to navigate the complex world of apprenticeships and college courses. We were looking at some apprenticeships in Trafford Park, which is not far away at all—we can get there by car in half an hour. My son was looking at engineering courses. The problem is that our bus system does not connect young people with Trafford Park in a way that means they can work shifts on those jobs. For instance, if a young person living in Royton wants to get to Trafford Park for a 6 am shift start, they would have to set off at 11.30 pm the night before, because the buses do not start until quite late in the morning. Therefore, if a young person cannot get a driving licence and a car to make their own way there, and they are reliant on public transport, which for people in Royton is a bus at the moment, straight away they are excluded from working shifts in one of the largest engineering employment locations in Europe. That just cannot be right.
I am not saying in this debate that if all we do is to build a bit of Metrolink track, Oldham will be fixed. My point is much broader: we need to get transport in Greater Manchester right for the people who live in Greater Manchester. Significant effort has been made by the mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, and by his team on the Greater Manchester combined authority. Sterling work has been carried out by Andrew Fender and by all the very dedicated officers that work at Transport for Greater Manchester. The truth is that much of this comes down to resource and investment. Unfortunately, in Greater Manchester, we have lost many local bus routes that would connect young people in particular with the job opportunities of tomorrow, and we need to see investment in that area.
We also need proper capital investment that at least puts Greater Manchester on a par with London. We want Greater Manchester to thrive and to play an active part in the northern powerhouse, but the northern powerhouse cannot be done on the cheap; it needs investment on a par with that of this great capital city. Manchester deserves absolutely every penny of that investment. If we see even a fraction of it, we will see very different outcomes for young people in Greater Manchester.
I urge the Government to get behind this. I am not necessarily talking about the A to Z route that we are proposing—that will come out of a feasibility report and a technical assessment of what is possible and, of course, it has much to do with patronage and whatever physical barriers may be in place. There should be no barrier to our desire to make Greater Manchester absolutely great. That can happen only if the Government come to the table, offer real investment and work with Greater Manchester to make sure that transport in the future is far better than it is today.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Jesse Norman)
I do not have an enormous amount of time in which to speak. If I have understood things correctly, I have 12 minutes.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. The Minister has until 7.30.
Jesse Norman
What a joy. In that case, I can extend my speech. I am very glad to hear it.
When I read the name “Jim McMahon” I thought that it was referring not to the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon), but to one of my great heroes, the former quarterback for the Chicago Bears and, latterly, the Green Bay Packers. My sense of excitement on being invited to respond to him and my sense of delight that he was taking an interest in the transport issues of Greater Manchester was absolutely intense. However, my sense of delight is no less great in having this opportunity to respond to the hon. Gentleman, who was himself an award-winning leader of Oldham Borough Council.
If I may say to the hon. Gentleman, he is a little confused about some of the responsibilities involved in his area. For buses, he is very welcome to address himself to Andy Burnham, who has responsibility for buses. Indeed, he has enhanced powers under our new legislation. He has rightly addressed the subject of the Manchester Metrolink system. Everyone in this House who has travelled on the Metrolink—I was travelling on it recently myself—will agree that it has been a colossal success for the conurbation. I absolutely agree with him, and, as a member of the Government, I pay tribute to Councillor Andrew Fender for the work that he has done over the past 41 years. Opinion is divided in Manchester as to whether he should be regarded as Mr Metrolink, or just Mr Transport. Whichever it is, we congratulate him, and the hon. Gentleman’s point was very well made.
As the hon. Gentleman knows, transport is of enormous importance to this Government—absolutely in the north-west and as part of the strategic development of the north as a whole. We very much agree with local partners that transport is essential for growth, which is why we are investing significantly in local and regional transport infrastructure, including £15 billion for the strategic road network and £6 billion for local schemes through the local growth fund. This investment is designed specifically to drive the economic growth that we wish to see, to allow the other opportunities that come from transport including the social and family benefits, and to relieve the economy—at least temporarily—from the effects of congestion.
As the hon. Gentleman knows, we are creating a northern powerhouse to rebalance the economy, and that is a shared aim. The reason for creating Transport for the North as an entity was specifically to provide a local voice that could convene and gather those different projects and schemes—that total regional ambition—into one place that would support economic growth in the north. We will invest £13 billion during this Parliament to connect the region better, so that northern towns and cities can pool their strengths and create not a series of city economies or regional economies separated by geography, but a single powerhouse economy. Of course, Greater Manchester is at the heart of that.
Jim McMahon
I accept all those points. The event that we attended in Manchester with the Northern Powerhouse Minister was very much in the spirit of working together across party political lines in order to get the best outcome for Greater Manchester, but I made a point at that meeting that, when HS2 is in place, it will take the same amount of time to get from Manchester to London as it does to get from Royton to Trafford Park. Those local connections are vital if we want the economy to thrive.
Jesse Norman
Yes, that is an interesting and well-made point. Of course, it is true that every journey begins with a local journey unless one happens to live in the terminus. It is also true that, as with the Metrolink, the secret of HS2 is a capacity story, as much as it is a speed story. As the hon. Gentleman has well said, the capacity of the Metrolink has greatly increased over the last few years, and that is one measure of its great success.
As the House will know, Greater Manchester has seen a revolution in its public transport over the past few years. Through the innovative Greater Manchester transport fund, which combined local funding with significant support from central Government, as well as real support from the local growth fund we have seen the introduction of bus corridors including the Oxford Road bus corridor, which is believed to be the busiest in Europe; the Leigh-Salford guided busway; new bus stations and multimodal transport interchanges across Greater Manchester; and a step change in support for cycling and walking. I pay tribute to the Mayor of Greater Manchester for the work that he has done with Chris Boardman in reimagining the possibilities for walking and cycling across the whole area. It is something that Chris and I have worked closely on and that the Department fully supports.
The Chancellor confirmed in his spring statement last week that a further £243 million from the transforming cities fund is being provided to the Metro Mayor of Greater Manchester to support public transport, improve sustainable travel and boost local productivity. This again demonstrates the Government’s strong commitment not just to Manchester, but to mayoral combined authorities.
Although rail is not my specific brief, it is worth saying that the great north rail project has allowed us to upgrade Manchester Victoria and connect Manchester’s three main railway stations for the first time through the Ordsall Chord project. Over the next few years, the chord will provide new and direct links to Manchester airport from across the region, and will free up capacity at Manchester Piccadilly. We have delivered upgrades and electrification between Liverpool and Manchester, and cut the fastest journey time by 15 minutes since 2015. We have also upgraded the route between Manchester and Wigan, and are currently delivering a comprehensive package of route upgrades and electrification across the north-west and Yorkshire, including between Manchester, Bolton, Preston and Blackpool. Of course, the success of the Metrolink has been at the centre of this development, as the hon. Gentleman rightly acknowledged. This started in 1992 with the opening of the first phase between Bury and Altrincham and has continued through to the current construction of the Trafford Park extension. The first extension, to Eccles in 2000, linked Salford to the city centre.
In 2008, Metrolink embarked on a £1.9 billion investment programme that transformed the network and its service. It tripled in size, providing improved connectivity to jobs, retail and leisure opportunities for communities across the region. New park-and-ride facilities made the network even more accessible and have helped to reduce traffic congestion across the region, while customer facilities have been upgraded and a brand new fleet of trams has been introduced. Extensions were completed to Chorlton in 2011, to East Didsbury, Droylsden and Ashton-under-Lyne in 2013, and, as the hon. Gentleman will be aware, to Oldham and Rochdale by 2014. I congratulate him on his timing in arriving at Oldham Council in time to take credit for many of the successes that were about to occur. That is always a good quality in a politician.
In addition, the Airport line was opened in 2014, winning the civil engineering achievement of the year award at the prestigious national rail awards in 2015. Other improvements have included the short extension to Media Village and, more recently, the Second City Crossing. The latter project is a short but important route designed to alleviate congestion and improve capacity by providing a second route through the city centre. It is already helping to improve the reliability and resilience of the network and allowing it to be operated to its full extent. The most recent development, however, is the construction of the Trafford Park extension, which is currently under way. This has been funded in part as a result of the devolution deal with the Greater Manchester combined authority, which gives the city the greater certainty it needs to invest in this, and other, important local schemes. This scheme, worth £350 million, will link some of Greater Manchester’s busiest visitor destinations as well as running through Trafford Park—Europe’s largest trading estate and home to more than 1,400 businesses employing over 33,000 people. Services are expected to start in 2020.
The result of all this investment and exciting development is that Metrolink is now the largest light rail network in the UK, with 93 stops along 57 miles of track. It is a model of what can be done with steady and sustained investment. It is a public transport network that passengers are using in large numbers, with 37 million passenger journeys in 2017—an increase of 10% on the previous year. That is a massive success overall and a reason why investment continues both from the Government and from the combined authority’s own resources in order to make it happen.
I am aware of the hon. Gentleman’s continued support, which he has made very clear, for further extensions to the Manchester Metrolink system such as the Ashton loop line from Ashton town centre to Oldham, and a spur to Middleton linking up to the Bury line to create an orbital line across the north and east of the conurbation—a “circle line”, as he has described it, at least in potentia. Indeed, he spoke on this topic in his maiden speech on 19 January 2016. The future development of the network is a matter for the Mayor of Greater Manchester, the combined authority, and Transport for Greater Manchester. I understand that the combined authority has a number of ideas about future expansion, including possible routes to Stockport, and a loop around Wythenshawe linking into the proposed HS2 station at Manchester airport, as well as, in the longer term, a possible third link across the city centre.
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on putting this issue squarely on the public agenda once again. It faces local constituency interests and authorities as much as it faces central Government. For our part, we are currently considering a bid for funding from the large local majors scheme fund for a short extension of the existing Airport line to the expanding Terminal 2, which would ultimately be part of the Wythenshawe loop. We will announce a decision on that fairly soon. I also understand that Transport for Greater Manchester is looking closely at using tram-train technology. The current project to provide this between Sheffield and Rotherham should provide useful lessons on how this type of technology—potentially very useful and highly applicable—could be used elsewhere.
The Government will continue to work with the combined authority as it develops its strategies, and we will continue to consider future bids for funding. Greater Manchester has shown that it is also able to make use of its own resources and those of third parties to develop extensions without direct Government funding. I applaud that, but there is clearly merit in continuing to co-operate and work closely together on these big infrastructure projects.
The Metrolink system is only one of the light rail systems in this country. Our view on this development in transport is very simple: we support it and think it has massive benefits. We have already seen the impact of better integrated transport links for both passengers and the local economy in cities such as Nottingham, Birmingham and, as we have heard today, Manchester. In all three, the light rail system has become an integral part of the transport network. We have supported it because we know that it is part of a strong and resilient economy.
The new £1.7 billion Transforming Cities fund recently announced by the Chancellor will provide funding for more light rail schemes, which will help to drive productivity and growth in cities where it is most needed, connecting communities and making it quicker and easier for people to get around. The new fund will enable more English cities to reap those benefits, helping to deliver the opportunities and ambition of the industrial strategy across the country.
The joy of a light rail system is not merely that it supports an integrated transport network, which reduces congestion, but that it is good for air quality and very environmentally friendly. It is a green form of transport, which makes locations better places to live, not just better places to get to. We have seen evidence that implementing a light rail system helps to stimulate long-term employment growth and attract inward investment, boosting local economies. It can also bring in tourism and give a sense of place and distinction to an area—even one as already distinguished as Oldham.
I have seen examples of the transport system being a key consideration of companies wishing to invest. Few companies these days do not think about transport when deciding where to locate their main offices or even satellite offices. They know that light rail is popular with its users, and that is reflected in the statistics published by the Department for Transport, which show a record number of passengers using light rail. Passenger numbers continue to rise in England, to a record 267 million since records began in 1983. Independent figures also show passenger satisfaction riding high at around 93%, and 90% on the Metrolink.
However, we also have to be realistic and acknowledge that light rail is not necessarily suitable for every place. Each place is different and has its own demands, needs and interests. We feel that there is scope for the sector to look more closely at how light rail can integrate with future forms of transport, such as driverless cars and other forms of mobility, as a service. The Government will continue to work closely with the sector across all of these modes to help bring about the improvements we all want to see in this area.
The Manchester Metrolink has been a great success. It has improved connectivity, access to jobs and retail and leisure opportunities for communities across the region. That has been made possible by the combined commitments of significant local transport investment by central Government and investment made through the combined authority. We are confident that the Metrolink system will continue to play a key role in the future success of Greater Manchester, and I am delighted that this issue has been placed firmly on the public record by the hon. Gentleman.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Gambling Act 2005 (Operating Licence Conditions) (Amendment) Regulations 2018
(6 years, 7 months ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Tracey Crouch)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Gambling Act 2005 (Operating Licence Conditions) (Amendment) Regulations 2018.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. The draft regulations impose a new mandatory condition on the holders of any betting operating licence issued under the Gambling Act 2005. The purpose of the new condition is to prevent such operators from accepting bets from British consumers on the outcome of the EuroMillions draw or of a EuroMillions game in a participating country outside the UK. Section 95 of the 2005 Act already prohibits the holder of a betting licence from offering a bet on the outcome of any lottery that forms part of the national lottery, including the lottery known in the UK as EuroMillions. The additional licence condition extends the existing prohibition on betting on the national lottery to the EuroMillions lottery games and applies to all general betting operating licences, pool betting licences and betting intermediary licences issued by the Gambling Commission, which will reduce the customer confusion that has arisen as a result of operators offering such bets and maintain the clear blue water between the national lottery and other forms of gambling, as set out in section 95 of the 2005 Act.
The national lottery was established in 1993 to support good-cause projects across the UK. It enjoys a unique status. It is not regulated as gambling, a distinction further protected by section 95 of the 2005 Act, which prohibits betting on the national lottery, including the UK EuroMillions game. However, EuroMillions is, in fact, a number of technically separate lotteries played in nine European countries, each licensed in accordance with that country’s regulatory framework and determined by a single draw held in Paris. A small number of gambling operators offer bets on the outcome of a non-UK EuroMillions lottery, for example, the Spanish EuroMillions. Our consultation showed that that has led to customer confusion, with some players unable to distinguish between placing such a bet and buying a national lottery EuroMillions ticket. Although small, the number of operators offering such bets has increased in recent years, and there is a risk that further growth will affect the national lottery, in particular its returns to good causes, as there is no requirement for operators to contribute to these.
Indeed, some operators even undercut the national lottery. When the price of a EuroMillions lottery ticket went up from £2 to £2.50, operators took advantage by advertising their products at a lower price. I cite just one example as an illustration:
“Why can Lottoland advertise tickets for tonight’s £112 million jackpot at £2.00 while everyone buying a ticket from a Camelot outlet or on-line via Camelot has to pay £2.50 per ticket? How do you explain this?”
Operators continue to offer bets for less than the price of buying a lottery ticket or offer two bets for the price of one, adding to customer confusion. The Gambling Commission has undertaken a number of non-legislative measures to reduce customer confusion about bets on EuroMillions and the EuroMillions lottery, which has resulted in changes to how some operators promote their products, but even where such proactive steps have been taken significant numbers of customers are still unable to distinguish between the two products. In fact, some of the operators themselves have provided evidence of customer confusion. Lottoland carried out a survey of customers in 2017, which revealed that 28% of them did not believe there was a difference between betting on EuroMillions and participating in national lottery EuroMillions. A further point of confusion is how players can arrive at the operators’ websites. It cannot be right that if someone wants to buy a EuroMillions lottery ticket from the national lottery online and they search for EuroMillions they get a proliferation of sites offering a range of betting services to choose from. Another operator, jackpot.com, tells us that it sees increased numbers of visitors to its site when there are big EuroMillions draw roll-overs
A Government consultation on prohibiting betting on EuroMillions ran between March and May 2017. Respondents included lottery operators, beneficiaries of lottery funding, betting operators and members of the public. Of the 52 responses, 32 strongly agreed with the proposal that non-UK EuroMillions bets should be prohibited. Their reasons included preventing customer confusion, closing the regulatory loophole, protecting the national lottery good-causes funding, protecting the integrity of the national lottery brand, and the potential loss of retailer commission. Only five respondents strongly disagreed, all of whom were operators currently offering the bets to British consumers. They argued the action was disproportionate in the light of the absence of evidence that these products had a negative impact on EuroMillions lottery sales, and that they would reduce customer choice and tax revenues. We concluded that there was broad support for introducing this action, which will remove any customer confusion. It will also preserve the distinction between betting and the national lottery, and by doing so help to protect against potential future losses to good-cause returns.
Betting on the outcome of lotteries is nothing new. It has been offered legally for many years, but not on the national lottery. For most operators offering bets on lotteries the product is one element of a wider portfolio. British customers will still be able to participate in the other products offered by these operators, which remain unaffected by this action.
Betting on EuroMillions is a growing market, and it is important that we maintain a clear distinction between the national lottery and other forms of gambling, as set out in section 95 of the Gambling Act 2005. The effect of the regulations will bring non-UK EuroMillions draws into line with UK draws and prevent gambling operators taking advantage of the technical way in which EuroMillions is structured as individual country draws. More urgently, this action will eliminate customer confusion. For those reasons, I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. Our national lottery funds over half a million projects across the UK. Since its inception, it has donated more than a staggering £37 million towards good causes supporting our local communities. It is and always has been our position that the national lottery should be the flagship lottery of the UK. From supporting our Olympic and Paralympic athletes to inspiring future generations to participate in local grassroots sports it promotes our arts, culture and heritage sector by funding local museums, preserving areas of natural beauty and historical places and parks. It backs our voluntary and community sector, which is the lifeblood of local communities everywhere. Its contribution cannot be understated. We have a duty to protect the fantastic work that it does.
Unfortunately, revenue generated from ticket sales has been decreasing in recent years and the Gambling Commission has expressed concerns about the increasingly popular practice of licensed gambling operators selling non-EuroMillions bets. It is illegal for licensed gambling operators to place bets on the outcome of a national lottery draw within the UK, and rightly so. It is our responsibility to ensure that the national lottery delivers the maximum benefit to charities and the other good causes that it supports. However, because of the unique set-up of the EuroMillions draw, which includes nine separate lotteries from each participant country, some gambling operators have found a way to exploit the current legislation. Betting firms are using this as an escape clause to capitalise on low-cost bets. We must close this loophole. The Gambling Commission is right to express concerns about this growing practice, which poses a substantial risk, both now and in the future, of diverting funds from the national lottery, placing it in direct competition with other gambling operators. Driven solely by profit, those operators have found a way to offer the same jackpot rewards while marketing tickets at a lower price. They can reap all the benefits without the added responsibility of having to contribute a single penny to any good cause. That practice has to stop.
Alongside the evidence gathered in the consultation conducted by the Department of Digital Culture Media and Sport, it is clear that consumers are more often than not unaware of exactly what they are purchasing. There is a clear difference between participating in a lottery and gambling on lottery odds, but that distinction has been deliberately obscured. It is easy to understand why. If non-UK betting slips are branded with a EuroMillions logo, for most people they are no different from a lottery ticket. We all associate the national lottery and the UK EuroMillions with the good causes that they represent. Players are attracted to that because it offers a fair way to contribute to local causes and projects as well as a chance of winning a life-changing amount of money. There should be no room for betting firms to capitalise on the positive branding that our national lottery offers. Camelot has expressed concern about the additional pressure that that generates, as money has to be allocated to defend key brand terms against being constructed by other market players—money that could otherwise be allocated to good causes.
We welcome and support the statutory instrument. The Gambling Act 2005 is intended to protect our national lottery. Some licensed gambling lottery operators have not been playing fairly. I would go as far as to suggest that, at times, they have acted without integrity. Their conduct has shown that it is time for this loophole to be closed. I would be grateful for clarification on a few points from the Minister. Some operators have threatened a judicial review. Should the SI not have been withdrawn? Operators such as Lottoland, which strongly opposes this change, have registered concerns that the measure breaches EU laws. What legal advice has the Department received on that? How much does the national lottery EuroMillions return to good causes? Does the Minister know how much money Camelot has spent trying to protect its branding as a result of the rising popularity of non-UK EuroMillions betting? Does the Minister know how many consumers have unknowingly participated in these betting channels, believing that they were playing the real lottery? Has the Minister held any conversations with the Department for Exiting the European Union on any implications that Brexit might have on the implementation of the measure? Finally, will the Government take any further steps to support the role of the national lottery in the UK?
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
It is a pleasure, Mr Davies, to see you siting in the Chair for today’s proceedings. I welcome this statutory instrument, which does an important job. I am interested to see whether the Minister will tell us a bit more about the customer confusion caused by the marketing of foreign lotteries and bets on the outcome of foreign lotteries. What she has said today sets an interesting and good precedent regarding customer confusion about advertising leading to more regulation of lotteries and much wider measures. Would she say more about that?
There are some anecdotes in the impact assessment about people who confuse betting on the outcome of the EuroMillions lottery with the buying of tickets for our lottery. Such marketing—along with the operation of websites that send people to dubious places when they search, tempting them to buy dubious things that are not what they think they are—happens far more widely than lotteries, although in gambling it is clearly a difficult issue and could lead to problem gambling. Would the Minister say more about the good precedent set by her and her Department in taking this draconian but welcome legislative action, tipped off by evidence that customers are confused?
Tracey Crouch
I am grateful for support across the Committee for these measures, which are the right ones to introduce. They close a loophole and they will ensure that customers have greater clarity about what they are getting involved with.
I would like to address some of the additional points made by the hon. Member for Tooting: operators have logged a judicial review, but we have set out a robust defence of the legality of the issues and we believe that we are acting well within our powers in doing so. She asked about EuroMillions and the return to good causes. EuroMillions returns approximately 27% of its sales to good causes through the retail sector, and 33% through online sales. In contrast, betting operators can advertise the same jackpots—a key sales driver—at lower prices without any obligation to return a percentage to good causes, perhaps increasing some of the confusion to which the hon. Member for Wallasey referred.
The ban aims to eliminate customer confusion by protecting those who wish to buy a EuroMillions lottery ticket online from ending up on a betting site. We do not intend to prevent operators from offering bets on lotteries that do not form part of the national lottery to consumers who genuinely wish to place a legitimate bet on such a lottery. Betting on the national lottery is illegal, and this ban will bring betting on all EuroMillions products in line with the rest of the national lottery portfolio. We believe that that is a way of supporting customers to ensure they make the right decisions about what they are betting on, and for the right reasons. People are not aware that by betting on a lottery they are not returning any money to good causes—good causes that, as the hon. Member for Tooting pointed out, have returned billions of pounds to support a variety of projects.
Mr John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
The explanatory notes make the point that the number of non-UK EuroMillions bets is increasing. Indeed, the Gambling Commission has said that it has grown, endangering the pot of money that goes to good causes. I do not expect the Minister to be able to give details of the extent of that issue today, but will she let members of the Committee and others know how she sees that going, and at what point will it become a real problem for the amount of money that is distributed to the good causes that we all support?
Tracey Crouch
We face many challenges at the moment regarding the national lottery and the return to good causes. We are seeing some stabilisation of lottery sales, which is a good sign, and we have regular discussions via the Gambling Commission with Camelot about lottery sales. Today, we are specifically looking at EuroMillions, which gives 27% of its retail sales and 33% of its online sales to good causes. We want to ensure that we eradicate any threat to that by looking at closing the loophole that allows people to bet on EuroMillions. That is something that has been discussed over time, and we feel strongly that it is a way of supporting the good causes that people who play the national lottery believe they are getting involved in.
Ms Eagle
I am interested in the level of confusion caused by advertising the presence of gambling websites—the way in which one goes through a search engine on to a gambling website, which gives confusing information— and what assessment the Government have made of the standards that are acceptable on those websites and those that are unacceptable because they are actively misleading. Can the Minister give us more information about the way in which she and her Department have reached decisions on that? We support the decisions, but there is a much bigger issue about confusion and sales issues on all kinds of websites, for which she may be setting a good precedent. That is what I am interested in.
Tracey Crouch
I refer the hon. Lady to the gambling review, in which we look at issues around advertising and gambling, full stop. That includes advertising online and we will continue to work on that. There is a whole system of algorithms that are in place, which we are trying to unpick to see whether we can seek to develop a much more responsible way of advertising gambling products in response to particular search items.
As I said, we are aware that if people search for EuroMillions, the first thing that comes up is not necessarily the national lottery site but gambling sites. That is one of the things we are trying to unpick, but on a much wider scale, not just related to this issue. We have to ensure that customers have a choice. We must recognise that there are legitimate betting operations and practices out there, but we want to ensure that we have the right choices for the consumer.
Tracey Crouch
We are reviewing all of this as part of the gambling review and the outcome of the review will be published soon, in the spring, although the hon. Lady knows as well as I do that in Government parlance that can vary.
Tracey Crouch
It is the first day of spring today. I urge the hon. Lady to engage with the outcomes of the gambling review, which looks at the much wider issue of advertising in gambling: not just in broadcast, but how we can reduce customer confusion and protect vulnerable people from harm online.
To conclude, in introducing regulations imposing a new licence condition, we are doing no more than extending the existing protection against betting on the national lottery and taking action to remove consumer confusion relating to bets on EuroMillions games. I further commend these regulations to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Armed Forces Act (Continuation) Order 2018
(6 years, 7 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Tobias Ellwood)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Armed Forces Act (Continuation) Order 2018.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. It is important that we debate this order, and I am delighted that we have a full 90 minutes in which to do justice to this important subject. I hope that all hon. Members have got their own copies of the Armed Forces Act 2006, to which I will make regular reference.
The draft order we are considering today is to continue in force the Armed Forces Act 2006 for a further period of one year, until 11 May 2019. The legislation which governs the armed forces is renewed by Parliament every year. This reflects the constitutional requirement under the Bill of Rights 1688—
Mr Ellwood
It declared:
“That the raising or keeping a standing Army within the Kingdome in time of Peace unlesse it be with Consent of Parlyament is against law”.
As we hear from my right hon. and learned Friend in his support for the Bill of Rights, it is an important and iconic document that set the tone for the advancement of democracy in our country. It sits alongside the Magna Carta and the Act of Settlement as being important landmarks as we established the balance of power between the monarchy; the state—the people; Parliament; and, indeed, the armed forces. It is right that we reflect on the background to this, because it is from here that we enjoy the privilege and right of maintaining a standing army within the context of the law, going all the way back to 1688.
Of course, that was some time ago. Today’s Committee might be interested to know how we got here today. A Defence Select Committee report, published on 8 December 2005, said:
“Since 1689 the House of Commons has passed an annual vote setting limits on Army numbers. The passing of this vote became an established part of the work of the Committee of Supply.
Prior to 1955, that vote, when reported from the Committee of Supply and agreed to by the House, gave rise to an annual Act authorising the system of Army Discipline and the preamble to such Acts referred to the limits on numbers.
The same practices were adopted in respect of the Royal Air Force following its creation”—
100 years ago. The report continued:
“In 1955 the direct relationship between discipline for land forces and parliamentary control over their numbers was severed by new provision for Armed Forces Discipline Acts subject to annual renewal by secondary legislation and quinquennial review and renewal through primary legislation.”
That practice continues. However, a change was proposed by the Ministry of Defence in the Armed Forces Bill of 2005. That Bill did not make any provision for annual renewal but that was resisted by the Defence Committee and the Committee that considered the 2005 Bill. The Ministry of Defence amended the Bill accordingly; that Bill became the Armed Forces Act 2006. The 2006 Act provides nearly all the provisions for the existence of a system for the armed forces of command, discipline and justice, which applies at all times wherever in the world members of the armed forces are serving.
As I have said, the legislation that governs the armed forces is renewed by Parliament every year. Every five years there is an Armed Forces Act. The most recent is the Armed Forces Act 2016; the next will be in 2021. The primary purpose of these five-yearly Acts is to renew the legislation which provides for the armed forces to exist as disciplined bodies—currently the Armed Forces Act 2006.
Between the five-yearly Acts, the legislation is renewed by an annual Order in Council. That is what we are considering in draft today: we call it the continuation order.
The Armed Forces Act 2016 provides for the continuation in force of the Armed Forces Act 2006 until 11 May 2018 and for further renewal thereafter by Order in Council for up to a year at a time, but not beyond 2021.
If the Armed Forces Act 2006 is not renewed by Order in Council before the end of 11 May 2018, it will automatically expire. The central effect would be that the provisions necessary for the maintenance of the armed forces as disciplined bodies would cease to exist.
The 2006 Act creates offences and provides for the investigation of alleged offences and the arrest, holding in custody and charging of individuals accused of committing an offence, and for them to be dealt with summarily by their commanding officer or tried in the court martial. It provides so that members of the armed forces can be investigated, tried and punished for any criminal offence under the law of England and Wales, wherever in the world the offence might be committed. It also provides for offences that are peculiar to service in the armed forces, mainly relating to discipline, such as misconduct towards a superior officer and disobedience to lawful commands.
Perhaps the clearest example of the effect of expiry of the 2006 Act would be that the duty of members of the armed forces to obey lawful commands, and the powers and procedures under which this duty is enforced, would no longer have effect. Commanding officers and the court martial would have no powers of punishment for failure to obey a lawful command or other disciplinary or criminal misconduct. It is true that members of the armed forces would still owe allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen, but Parliament would have removed the power of enforcement, which comes from the Bill of Rights itself.
The obligation of members of the armed forces is essentially a duty to obey to lawful commands; they have no contracts of employment and so no duties as employees.
The 2006 Act also provides for several other important matters for the armed forces, such as for their enlistment, pay and redress of complaints. With that explanation, I hope that hon. Members will be satisfied and will be inclined to support the draft continuation order.
Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson.
I was a history teacher a number of years ago, and I used to teach my pupils about the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the Bill of Rights. I explained to them—accurately, I think—that the revolution and the Bill that followed saved England from the power-seeking of James II and secured the development of our constitutional monarchy and freedom of religion and of civil liberty and established the course of the development of the rule of law.
I did not fully appreciate at that time the true significance of the weighty tome that the Minister has in front of him. I did not fully realise then—I do now—that Parliament has to decide annually, and every five years by an Act of Parliament, that the armed forces should continue and that discipline should be maintained, as the Minister outlined. Given the significance of the draft order, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that all Members from all parts of the House will give it their full and rapturous support, realising how necessary it is.
The 2017 continuation order prompted a five-hour debate in the other House last year. It seems that peers took the opportunity to debate a whole raft of issues related to the defence of our country. I understand that the draft order has not yet been debated in the other place this year, but I suspect that, when it is, there will be more quite long speeches. Indeed, I am tempted to make a long speech myself, but I realise that, at five to nine on a Tuesday morning, when Members are not overly enthusiastic, it would not go down too well. [Interruption.] There is dissent. I will confine myself to simply asking a straightforward question of the Minister about the nature of the armed forces and the development of discipline therein.
As we know, the armed forces constantly evolve to meet the new threats that this country faces. Indeed, the nature of the armed forces, with the increase of technology, requires a different kind of person to be in the armed forces and a different kind of commitment, which also implies that a different kind of discipline is required. Will the Minister will take this opportunity to explain to Members how he sees the nature of discipline in our armed forces being maintained in a modern context? With that question and those few words, the Opposition give our full support to the draft order.
Mr Ellwood
I was expecting other hon. Members to seek your attention, Mr Robertson, but in the absence of that I am delighted to respond to the hon. Member for Caerphilly. I would be delighted to continue this debate for a further five hours, but I suspect others may have plans.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
While we all appreciate the eloquence of the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly, this is not the time for long speeches. We all wholeheartedly support this motion.
Mr Ellwood
I absolutely concur with that. The hon. Member for Caerphilly asked about two aspects, the first of which is the importance of discipline in the armed forces. That is the reason why this must come to the fore. We do change the rules on a five-year term. The requirements we expect from those wearing a uniform is different from those in civilian street. A captain on a ship away from UK shores has to know that he or she has the powers to maintain discipline on that ship, indeed, to imprison people if necessary, and to ensure that the crew and personnel are able to work as coherently and effectively as possible.
The element of trust in the armed forces—I say this from my own experience—is at a different level than is found in civilian street. I do not want to judge: others might feel differently. Companionship and comradeship comes of individuals having to rely on each other. They need to know that they can impeccably trust each other, they can leave their kit out, they can leave documents out and they can support each other. When these things go awry or are tested in some way—I have seen instances of this—a court martial will come down harshly on something that seemed quite trivial, simply because it is the integrity of individuals, who need to lean on each other in extreme circumstances, that binds a unit to be able to function as effectively as possible.
Discipline in every sense of the word is fundamental to the existence of our armed forces and to their success. More than that, it also reflects who we are as a nation. When we speak in this House about our hard and soft power, about standing up as a force for good across the world, we should ask who it is that we actually put in harm’s way. It is those in uniform. The standards and professionalism that they express and illustrate is a reflection of our standards. Their commitment, duty and reputation means that they are respected by our allies and feared by our foes. It is because of that high standard of rule of law that we can speak with authority at the United Nations Security Council, in NATO and on other senior platforms across the world. If those standards were to drop and ill-discipline were to creep in, we would not have that reputation that allows us to speak with such gravitas and professionalism across the world.
While I appreciate that this is a statutory instrument and it is a continuation order that we come together to agree every year, what we are actually doing is confirming an important bond, that sense of duty that our armed forces actually have, and the place it holds within Parliament and Government. I hope I have answered the hon. Gentleman’s questions. He talked about his time as a history teacher and the Glorious Revolution. That was absolutely a fundamental document in spelling out the direction of travel for our nation. The Bill of Rights, the Act of Settlement and other changes that came in avoided further revolutions. It is for another day, but it was interesting to read that the Bill of Rights also included the right to bear arms, something that we have managed well—in this country at least—through longevity, unlike other countries around the world. On that controversial note, I had better sit down.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 (Powers of Seizure) Order 2018
(6 years, 7 months ago)
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The Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation (Mr Sam Gyimah)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 (Powers of Seizure) Order 2018.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ryan. The UK wholesale energy markets are of great significance to the UK economy. The large sums involved and the importance of the wholesale energy market for financial services, industry and consumers make integrity of the market a matter of national and international importance. Insider trading and price manipulation in wholesale energy markets harms hard-working consumers and businesses. It drives up prices and distorts markets, which should be fair and transparent. The Government believe it is therefore vital that the energy regulator in Great Britain, Ofgem, has strong powers to investigate and punish those behaving in this way. Strong powers also have a deterrent effect, making those considering cheating the system think twice.
Insider trading and market manipulation in wholesale energy markets is prohibited by the EU regulation on energy market integrity and transparency, or REMIT, which has been in force since December 2011. In June 2013, the Government made civil enforcement regulations for REMIT, the Electricity and Gas (Market Integrity and Transparency) (Enforcement etc.) Regulations 2013. The 2013 regulations give Ofgem powers to impose unlimited financial penalties, access information and enter premises of a regulated person under warrant. In March 2015, the Government strengthened that regime by making further regulations to create criminal offences of intentionally or recklessly breaching the prohibitions on insider trading and market manipulation.
The 2013 regulations gave the regulator power to search for and seize information and documents which appear to be relevant under warrant. There are, however, cases where Ofgem may have difficulty exercising this power of seizure. For example, investigating officers may be presented with a large volume of documents. Identifying documents relating to suspicious transactions among many documents of a similar nature can be difficult and time-consuming. Ofgem currently has no power to take away an entire body of documents in order to sift them for relevance off premises and evidence relevant to Ofgem’s investigation could therefore be missed.
Section 50 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 enables a person exercising such a power of seizure to remove material from the premises being searched. This information can then be adequately sifted to determine whether it is something which the person is entitled to seize, if it would not be reasonably practical to determine that on the premises. The power in section 50 applies where a person is exercising the power of seizure listed in schedule 1 to the Criminal Justice and Police Act. Over 60 such powers are already listed in the schedule. The effect of this order is to extend this power to Ofgem when it is searching premises to investigate breaches of REMIT. The Government believe that this will be a proportionate and reasonable extension of Ofgem’s powers, which will help to ensure it can take effective enforcement action.
The Government sought views in December 2015 through consultation on whether Ofgem powers should be strengthened to bring them in line with this provision. This measure was consulted on as part of a wider package of reforms to Ofgem regulatory powers. It received relatively few comments, as would be expected for a specialised issue. It is perhaps not surprising that most industry stakeholders who responded to the consultation argued that the powers were disproportionate. One industry stakeholder supported the powers being given to Ofgem with sufficient oversight. Other stakeholders were neutral.
We have considered stakeholder views carefully. We must weigh up the importance of giving Ofgem sufficient powers to tackle anti-competitive behaviour versus the need to respect stakeholder views. With that in mind, the Government concluded that sufficient safeguards will be in place to meet stakeholder concerns and that it will be proportionate to proceed with this instrument. The first such safeguard is that the power will apply only where a court has granted Ofgem a warrant to search premises. Secondly, when Ofgem exercises this power, it will be under a statutory duty to sift information as soon as reasonably practicable after seizing it, and return anything that it was not entitled by the warrant to seize. Thirdly, a person who is the owner of a document can apply to the court for the return of such material. Finally, magistrates may of course refuse warrant applications, preventing a potential investigation where it is not seen to be justified. Ofgem will have to provide extensive evidence to support an application, and therefore we expect it to do so only when it is absolutely necessary to support an investigation.
Further, ensuring that the relevant evidence is identified more quickly should lead to less disruption to those businesses being investigated, with more efficient investigations overall. Co-operation with Ofgem will also ensure that investigations run quickly and smoothly. The Government would certainly encourage those under investigation to help Ofgem in whatever way they can.
In conclusion, this additional power will aid Ofgem in its investigation of market abuse, but with safeguards that should ensure that it is used proportionately. I commend this order to the House.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Ryan. As the Minister has already set out in detail, the order gives Ofgem additional powers concerning the seizure and examination of documents—I note that those are both paper and electronic—in respect of an inquiry about possible market abuse. We support the idea that Ofgem should have sufficient powers to do these investigations. It is important that Ofgem is able to conduct investigations effectively and properly. We know that on occasions there have been suggestions of market abuse and it is important that the market is as clean as it can be—for example, in relation to energy trading or the relationship between trading and distribution—and that everything is on the table and transparent. In terms of what we are doing over the next period with the price cap, for example, it is particularly important that there are no manipulations of the market to get round regulations. This is a timely addition to the powers that Ofgem has and a timely putting right of the restrictions that it previously had, under the EU REMIT legislation, to search and seize documents. The issue is that Ofgem has the power of search and seizure at the moment, but not the power to take away and look at the documents it has come across, and the order puts that right.
I welcomed the Minister’s setting out of the safeguards that might be in place as far as those seizures are concerned. However, given the wide range of powers that Ofgem has in different areas of the energy markets, it is important that any action by Ofgem is not seen as a fishing expedition. It is important to have confidence that Ofgem, as an even-handed and fair regulator, would not undertake seizures and examinations of material that might then be used for purposes other than the investigation that Ofgem is engaged in. It is important that there are safeguards, particularly on the extent to which Ofgem would need an application to undertake the seizure of the documents, but it is also important that we are absolutely clear that any suggestion that Ofgem has attempted, or will attempt, to remove documents at any point for purposes other than the one that it is centrally engaged in not only should be frowned upon, but would not be countenanced. I would welcome it if the Minister clarified that that is behind what his proposals this afternoon.
The Opposition do not want to delay the introduction of the new powers; I am afraid it is the Government that have done so. The power was first mooted in a consultation, as the Minister mentioned, launched on 18 December 2015. Its urgency meant that responses to the consultation were required by the end of January 2016—a pretty short window. As a result of that rapid turnaround, those people in industry responding to the consultation would have expected action to be taken subsequently. However, 2016 and 2017 came and went, with no response. Eventually, a response to the consultation came on 1 February 2018—more than two years after the original proposals were mooted in consultation. Frankly, that gives no confidence to people who take part in such consultations that what is intended to be done as a result of a consultation actually will be done. Indeed, in this instance, that proved to be the case; nothing was done for two years.
It seems to me quite important that Ofgem has these powers. It was therefore incumbent on the Government at the time to make some progress in translating the consultation into the reality of an order. On this occasion, that has not happened. I do not know whether the Minister has any observations he wishes to make on why that process was so unbelievably slow. Were there good reasons why the process between consultation and the introduction of an order was so slow, or was it just forgotten about, and has only just come back to the surface of the pile, and been acted on? I hope that there is a good reason for the lengthy delay, but I fear that that may not be the case. In any event, I would be grateful for the Minister’s observations on that.
David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)
As always, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ryan. I have a few quick points to put to my hon. Friend the Minister, although I broadly welcome the additional powers for the gas and electricity market authority commonly known as Ofgem. First, he mentioned the problem of a large volume of documents. What exactly is a “large volume”? Does that mean that any documents of any kind can be taken? Are there any limits to that provision?
Secondly, the Minister mentioned the responses. There were only 20 responses altogether, albeit they may have come from important and large organisations. Were there any notable exceptions? I could not hear all of his speech, so he may have mentioned that, in which case he will no doubt make that point. Thirdly, and most importantly, the order addresses the issue of documents stored electronically. We have had a lot of problems with electronic media in the news recently. Is this a blanket power? Does it mean that people could access Facebook accounts? Could they seize mobile phones? Are those electronic documents? What if documents that are relevant to an investigation have been photographed and stored on an iPhone? How would that work? If my hon. Friend is not able to address those issues today, perhaps he would write to me.
Mr Gyimah
I thank hon. Members for their valuable and relevant comments on the order. The first point made by the Opposition spokesperson was about whether this power would encourage fishing expeditions on the part of Ofgem. To assuage his concerns and those of the Committee, the terms of the warrant to conduct seize and sift will be clear and well defined. Ofgem will only seize and retain information that is relevant to the investigation at hand and specified in the warrant.
There was also concern about the timing and the sense of urgency regarding the consultation and the path to where we are now. The Government have been considering priorities against a very restricted legislative timetable, as the hon. Member for Southampton, Test, will be aware. A decision was taken in July 2017 to take forward the proposals on REMIT separately from the other proposals in the consultation. The timeline was driven by the non-REMIT part of the consultation, which included proposals for new primary legislation, on which decisions were due to be taken in early 2016. The opportunity for that decision to be taken was then delayed. I hope that that gives some background on the timing.
Dr Whitehead
The other piece of secondary legislation to which the Minister has referred comes under another area of law and, as far as we understand, that has been laid before Parliament as a negative statutory instrument and will come into force on 9 April, I think. That appears to suggest that the two bits of legislation that were set out in the consultation ran in parallel and not separately, as he appears to be suggesting.
Mr Gyimah
The basic point is getting the time. The hon. Gentleman is aware of the restrictions on the legislative timetable. As he rightly recognises, this is a timely addition to the powers of Ofgem that provides safeguards as far as seizure is concerned. As a relatively new Minister in the Department, I welcome the fact that we are able to get on with it. I refer to what the hon. Gentleman said: it is important that action is taken, and is taken swiftly. That is why we are here.
I turn to the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth. I am happy to write to him to give some detail on the definition and how many documents constitute too many documents. To give the Committee an idea, there may be many documents of a similar nature—for example, buy and sell orders—that may appear relevant to an investigation. Rather than going through someone’s social media accounts, if we think about the number of trades that are conducted in any given day or any given period, it might not be possible to sift all of them on site. I am happy to write to Committee members to illuminate in more detail the definition and limits of what counts as far as documentation is concerned.
David Tredinnick
On electronic media, will the Minister look at whether iPhones and other types of equipment are covered?
David Tredinnick
I have to say to my hon. Friend that it should. He needs to look at this, because we now have such a wide range of communication systems at our disposal that it is pointless coming forward with an order that does not cover all the possibilities. I think that should be addressed.
Mr Gyimah
As I have said, I will write to my hon. Friend to set out in full detail all the electronic media that are covered. That will be the best way to proceed so that he has a comprehensive answer to his questions.
The order provides Ofgem with the necessary tools to aid its enforcement efforts in this area. That is self-evident. The proposed seize-and-sift power will enable Ofgem to scrutinise information thoroughly and to identify what is relevant. It will do so under the scrutiny of the magistrate’s warrant, which is an important safeguard. It will contribute to Ofgem’s ability to effectively investigate and prosecute market manipulation and insider trading offences. I commend the order to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (England) Regulations 2018
(6 years, 7 months ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (George Eustice)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (England) Regulations 2018.
I am pleased to open this debate on an important set of regulations introducing an updated system of local authority licensing of activities involving animals in England. These regulations meet the Government’s manifesto commitment to continuing its review and reform of the pet licensing controls and, specifically, to updating the licensing system for dog breeding, pet sales, riding establishments and animal boarding establishments. They also modernise a system for animal exhibits.
The licensing and registration system that covers these five animal activities is outdated and complex. The activities are regulated under a number of different pieces of legislation: the Performing Animals (Regulation) Act 1925, the Pet Animals Act 1951, the Animal Boarding Establishments Act 1963, the Riding Establishments Act 1964, the Breeding of Dogs Acts 1973 and 1991 and the Breeding and Sale of Dogs (Welfare) Act 1999. They will be repealed and replaced with new regulations that consolidate and update the requirements set out in each of the Acts in one consistent licensing scheme. This new licensing will have more streamlined processes of application, inspection and enforcement, reducing the burden on local authorities and businesses while improving consistency of application across the country.
One of the key issues with the licensing system is that the animal welfare standards with which businesses are required to comply have not been updated for many years. The schedules to the new regulations include detailed animal welfare standards for each activity. We have worked closely with stakeholders from the industry, animal welfare organisations, local authorities and veterinary bodies in drafting these standards and we are grateful for their support—in particular the Canine and Feline Sector Group and the Equine Sector Council for helping to co-ordinate this work. These new standards will ensure that anyone who receives a licence for dog breeding, selling pets, boarding dogs and cats, hiring out horses or keeping or training animals for exhibit will need to meet these new minimum welfare standards. This should help drive up animal welfare standards across all of these sectors.
Many people and organisations have been calling for more restrictions to be placed on the breeding and selling of dogs in particular, where it is felt there are unscrupulous businesses that breed dogs in poor conditions for maximum profit. The regulations address this in a number of ways. First, we are making changes to the definition of dog breeding, to ensure the regulations capture both large-scale dog breeders as well as smaller-scale dog breeding businesses. Under the new regulations, anyone who is in the business of breeding and selling dogs will need a licence. In addition, breeders who are not classed as a business will also need a licence if they breed three or more litters a year and sell any of them. Overall, this will ensure that more breeders are captured under the regulations and will need to comply with the high animal welfare requirements set out within them, while also ensuring that we crack down on unregulated backstreet breeding.
Secondly, it is important to acknowledge the sad fact that many unsuspecting potential buyers are providing a lucrative market for rogue dog breeders and animal dealers who work illegally, outside the licensing system. Therefore, the regulations include a number of measures that will help consumers identify these rogue traders and make more informed decisions when purchasing an animal.
Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)
On that point, can the Minister confirm whether unlicensed breeders, specifically those falling below the threshold for licensing, will still be able to sell puppies to pet shops and dealers if they are under eight weeks of age?
George Eustice
The situation described by the hon. Lady, as I outlined, would be captured. Under HMRC’s badges of trade, which define what trade is, anyone breeding for the purpose of selling to pet shops would be covered by these regulations, even if they were breeding fewer than three litters a year.
The regulations include a number of measures that will help consumers identify these rogue traders and make more informed decisions when purchasing an animal. Licence holders are required to publish their licence number on all adverts, including online adverts, so that consumers can check with the relevant local authority that it is a legitimate business. All licensed businesses will also receive a risk rating—from one to five stars—based on their welfare standards and compliance record. That is a similar system to the one used in food hygiene rating schemes. For puppies, there is an additional requirement that any sale be completed at the premises where the puppy was bred to make sure that the purchaser sees the puppy and the conditions in which it has been kept before making the final purchase. All licensed pet sellers are also required to provide purchasers with information about how to care for the animal they are buying.
These measures will ensure that consumers can make more informed decisions when buying an animal, and are better able to care for it once they have taken it home. This is particularly important for some of the more exotic species, such as reptiles, which are becoming more common as pets these days.
Many people are concerned about the increase in the online sale of pets. Dating as it does from 1951, the current legislation is not clear on whether these businesses require a licence. The legal position is that they already do. However, as a result of the lack of clarity, enforcement is inconsistent across the country. Under the new regulations, the issue is put beyond doubt: all commercial sales require a licence, including those that take place online. All these businesses will have to comply with the minimum welfare standards set out in the regulations. These measures will ensure that the licensing system is consistent and fit for purpose in this modern age.
Ruth George
The Minister is outlining an excellent procedure for the star rating and the licensing of online, as well as other, sales, but that will require considerable enforcement and monitoring by local authorities. What resources are being given to local authorities to perform all these tasks?
George Eustice
Local authorities can recover the full cost of their licensing regime through the price of the licence that they issue. Resourcing is not a problem; they can go for full cost recovery and the regulations provide for that.
I should point out that the licensing system is run by local authorities and, as I said, funded by full cost recovery—the hon. Lady got there just before I reached that point— so there is no financial burden on local authorities. Licences can also be issued at any point in the calendar year, which will help to spread the workload across the year. The maximum licence length that can be issued is increased from the current one to three years, with longer licences going to businesses with earned recognition.
This earned recognition will be based on a combination of past history of compliance and the animal welfare standards adopted by the business. Businesses with high animal welfare standards and high historical levels of compliance, or those associated with a body accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service—such as the Kennel Club’s assured breeder scheme—will be able to achieve the maximum three-year licence, leading to less frequent inspections and a lower fee. They will also achieve a five-star rating to demonstrate their high quality to consumers.
The risk-based system should reduce the workload for local authorities, allowing them to spend more time on enforcement of unlicensed and less compliant businesses. That will also reduce the burden on good businesses and therefore provide an incentive for businesses to improve welfare standards.
We recognise that the implementation of these regulations will be crucial to their success and so local authority inspectors will be required to undertake specific training on licensing and inspection. That will ensure that they are suitably qualified to undertake inspections for all the animal activities covered by the regulations. The regulations have been drafted in consultation with stakeholders from industry, animal welfare organisations, local authorities and veterinary bodies, and we are grateful for all the assistance they have offered. The regulations are proportionate and targeted and will help improve animal welfare across a number of sectors. I therefore commend them to the Committee.
Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
May I join the Minister in saying what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen? I am grateful to him for his opening explanation. We are in agreement that the statutory instrument is a step in the right direction, but we will take this opportunity to seek clarification on certain areas and outline reservations that this is a missed opportunity to go further in certain other directions.
There are 2,300 licensed pet shops, 650 licensed dog breeders, 1,800 licensed riding establishments and 6,300 licensed animal boarding establishments in England alone. That is why guaranteeing the welfare of the animals within the system presents such a big challenge for local authorities. Collectively, these businesses make up the fourth largest group of establishments requiring licences issued by local authorities after premises, taxis and gambling establishments. We welcome the opportunity to update the existing legislation, which is contained predominantly within five Acts, as the Minister said, that date back as far as 1925. They are therefore certainly in need of an update.
It is important to account for changes within the sector, new and varied routes to market, updated guidance on animal welfare and changing social attitudes but, perhaps most importantly, it is important to clamp down on those who go beyond poor animal welfare and seek to exploit animals for the purposes of criminal activity and gain. With that in mind, we are pleased to see that under the regulations puppy sales are required to be completed in the presence of the new owner and with the puppy shown with its mother. That is to prevent online sales, which have increased dramatically in recent years and have prevented the buyer from seeing the animal first.
However, the regulations do not prevent the third-party sale of puppies, which is a massive missed opportunity. I heard the Minister’s comments earlier, but the Labour party outlined the pledge in our 2017 manifesto, and we reiterated it in our recent animal welfare plan, which has been endorsed by the League Against Cruel Sports, Compassion in World Farming and the World Wide Fund for Nature. Battersea Dogs and Cats Home and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals support calls for a ban on the third-party sale of puppies, so why stop short of delivering on that? It would address the issues much more comprehensively than the proposals before us today.
We also want to stress in the strongest possible terms that with the best will in the world, the fewer numbers of staff at cash-strapped local authorities cannot perpetually become experts in the increasing number of fields for which we are asking them to take responsibility. Whether it is environmental health inspectors or licensing officers, when I follow up on casework I am increasingly being told, “The person who knew about that topic does not work here anymore, and I am afraid we haven’t got anyone else.”
Minimum standards are already outlined in guidance, but the Government’s own findings suggest that fewer than one in three local authorities use the guidance when carrying out inspections, and I would imagine that that is a resourcing and time issue as much as anything else.
Ruth George
Regarding the resourcing of local authorities, obviously they have to provide the personnel to start with. To monitor the licensing and enforcement, they have to provide up-front training. If they are doing the enforcement side of it, that does not pay as well as the licences themselves. Does my hon. Friend share my concern that if there is a lot of enforcement, that could raise the level of licence fees to a disproportionate level for breeders who are prepared to pay for them?
Holly Lynch
My hon. Friend made a couple of key points there. I will come on to talk in detail about the issues she raised, and I hope we will hear the Minister respond to those points, which she made powerfully.
Thinking about resourcing, how do the Government propose to overcome some of the challenges through the new regulations? The impact assessment admits that local authorities may struggle to deliver the new regulations—that was my hon. Friend’s concern—that will be brought into force by 1 October this year. The impact assessment accepts that under this Government, authorities are
“unlikely to acquire additional resource”.
Instead it suggests that to meet demand, authorities may have to reprioritise existing activities. Will the Minister be clear about what local authorities should reprioritise? Is it licences for selling alcohol, taxis, gambling, houses in multiple occupation or tattoo parlours? We all appreciate that that is incredibly important work.
To get down to the detail, the impact assessment assumes a one-off familiarisation cost of two hours’ work per local authority. That is one hour for a staff member to understand the new guidance and a further hour to disseminate that information to other staff members, with a combined national cost to 356 local authorities of just under £11,500. I can only take from that information that one licensing officer will get the training and then is expected to educate the other members of the team. However, the impact assessment specifically says “disseminate” the information. The impact assessment accounts for two hours for one person, which does not allocate a time or cost for the rest of the team to even read the information disseminated, or take part in any internal training, during working hours. With that in mind I will give the Government the benefit of the doubt, and suggest that this impact assessment is just lazy, and provides an inadequate assessment of what the cost would be to get this right in the way that I am sure the Minister intended—because the alternative is that it exposes a fundamental lack of commitment to the training that will be intrinsic to delivering the regulations, and improving animal welfare. I am sure that that is not the case.
We are also keen to better understand how breaches of licence conditions will be penalised—which comes back to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak—and what the consequences would be for those seeking to obstruct a licensing officer. Three years is a significant period of time for those establishments that have a good inspection and are rewarded with a lengthy inspection-free period, based on the assessment of risk. However, if a member of the public or an employee, for example, raised concerns with the local authority that changes had occurred and animal welfare had declined in that period, would that mean that further inspections could be brought forward, as we hope would be the case? I would be grateful if the Minister can confirm that today.
We would also like to put on record our regret that the threshold for these new regulations is three litters per annum, which is still an intensive breeding regime for a dog. Why did the Minister draw the line at three litters and not reduce the number to two per year, or even one, as called for by organisations such as the Dogs Trust?
We firmly believe that these measures are a step in the right direction, but I hope that the Minister will offer us some clarity on the issues that I have raised. In particular, can he revisit the training element of these new regulations, as that will be absolutely key if the measures are to be effective? I would be grateful for his assurances that the impact assessment will be reconsidered and that the training will be delivered properly.
Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I am sure that all Members here share my desire to see the highest possible standards of animal welfare in the UK. Indeed, as a dog owner myself, and someone who has pushed recently for changes in legislation on animal cruelty, this policy area is close to my heart, and I am glad of the opportunity to speak briefly on this topic today.
Every week, I receive letters and emails from constituents concerned about the welfare of animals. We are a country of animal lovers and the strength of feeling on this issue is huge. When cases of the mistreatment or abuse of defenceless animals come to light, they are emotive and shocking, and people are right to ask what can be done to prevent similar cases occurring in the future. These cases remind us that Parliament has a key role in keeping animals safe in England, and that will be true regardless of the outcomes of negotiations on leaving the European Union.
We must stay one step ahead of these abusive practices by looking at ways that we can raise standards. There is no room for complacency, and where there is evidence of wrongdoing occurring within the system, and there is scope to tighten legislation, then it must be addressed. Our understanding of the behaviour and needs of animals is constantly changing too, and it is good to see this instrument attempt to update regulations to reflect that. It shows that we must always have this issue on our minds, and we can always do better. I am pleased to see that this instrument has been brought forward after a successful public consultation and has taken into account quality, evidence-based submissions on how the current licensing arrangements can be improved. We have some of the best animal welfare charities in the world, and I am very proud of the work that Dogs Trust, the RSPCA, Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, and others have done to feed into this work.
I am satisfied that there are a number of sensible and timely reforms to the system within this instrument, and many measures that are non-controversial, and ought to be non-partisan. There are however some concerns. This instrument brings welcome new standards of good practice and addresses concerns around problem areas. I will wait to see the results before cheerleading, but it is welcome that the Government have made specific reference to the rise of online sales of pets, where there is a danger, as with all online activity, that regulation cannot keep up with fast-moving trends. There has been much work by animal welfare organisations and others through the Pet Advertising Advisory Group to improve the standards of animals advertised for sale via online websites. It is a positive step forward that this instrument will now enshrine that work in law, making it applicable to all licensed individuals wishing to sell their pets in this way, regardless of the platform that they use.
I would like to highlight a point mentioned by my hon. Friends the Members for Halifax and for High Peak, which is that these regulations must not lead to overworked local authorities. The impact on public confidence in the licensing process and on the ability to deliver licensing will be severe. The current application process for licensing puts pressure on businesses and local authorities by limiting licences to a calendar-year framework. Therefore the introduction of licences issued for a fixed term, set at any point in the year, is an eminently sensible measure that will prevent a backlog of inspections and paperwork at the end of the year. Local authorities are already under strained financial pressure to deliver services as it is, and working to ease this pressure is an important part of making the system work.
I believe that the inclusion of an earned recognition principle into the licensing system is a good step to incentivising good behaviour, and can potentially alleviate burdens on local authority time. However, we must be careful that this is a measure to drive up standards, and is not used to circumvent proper inspections when local authorities are under particularly difficult time and financial constraints.
I will support this instrument, but I want to finish by asking the Government questions, some of which I know my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax has mentioned before. How can we be sure that local authorities are sufficiently ready for the implementation of these regulations before the 1 October deadline? What steps will the Government take to support local authorities struggling with the implementation? Has there been any consideration of setting up a national unit of inspectors that could alleviate the burden on local authorities, and also help to provide much-needed animal welfare standards expertise for inspections?
George Eustice
I am grateful for the supportive comments from both hon. Ladies who have made a contribution to the general approach we are taking. They have raised some specific issues that I will try to address.
The shadow Minister raised the point of third party sales. I hope that she is aware that on 8 February 2018 we issued a call for evidence on this matter. It has been discussed a little bit in the last few years as we have progressed these issues. The general view that we have taken is that if we can tighten up on internet sales and make it clear that people selling online are registered pet shops and pet dealers and therefore require a licence, it will go some way to addressing these challenges, but we are aware that a number of organisations have made and continue to make representations on third party sales, and that is why we have a call for evidence out on this at the moment. We will have many representations on that so we are addressing and dealing with that point through that approach.
The hon. Member for Halifax also mentioned resourcing. As I explained at the start, local authorities can recover the cost of both the enforcement and the licensing regime through the cost of the licence that they issue. We are now working closely with local authorities to put together guidance to help to inform people of the length and scale of the charges that would probably be imposed for licences of different lengths, and they will be able to recover all of their costs through the licence cost.
Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)
Does the Minister agree that deciding to set the licensing threshold for dog breeders at one or two litters would bring more breeders on to the radar in terms of licensing?
George Eustice
If it is okay with the hon. Lady, I will return to the issue of the threshold set on the number of puppies. Even as a backbencher from 2011, I looked closely at this issue over a number of years, and I think we have arrived at the right place, but I will return to that.
I will say a little bit more about resourcing. As the hon. Member for Redcar correctly pointed out, by making sure that the licence can start in any month of the year—so it is a 12-month licence, not a calendar year licence—we spread the workload for local authorities. With the ability to have earned recognition for the best performing establishments of up to three years, we will also therefore reduce the workload in that regard. The combination of the ability to recover the cost of the licence—the regulation provides for that—and the evening out of the workload will help local authorities.
The shadow Minister raised the point about the consistency of application. We recognise that this has been a bit patchy in the past. It varies from local authority to local authority. That is why we will address that by requiring, for the first time, training of those carrying out the licensing. That will address that particular concern.
Holly Lynch
I am grateful for the opportunity to make an intervention. Returning to the impact assessment, that training is for just one member of staff. While there is a responsibility on that member of staff to then disseminate information within the team, there is no accounting of time or cost for people to be involved in that training, to listen to and digest it, and to be informed when they are then going about their business. Is that an error within the impact assessment or is that intentional?
George Eustice
I was going to move on to that. The hon. Lady raises the issue of familiarisation. These regulations consolidate a number of other existing licensing regimes. So it is not as though we are starting from scratch. All local authorities will have people who have some familiarity with the existing regulations. We are changing, improving and consolidating it, but the starting point is that they are familiar with the regulations that exist today. The second point is that when I was handling this part of the portfolio—it is now with my noble Friend Lord Gardiner—in 2015, we were actively engaged in discussing this issue with local authorities and we have been ever since. To get to the stage we are at today there has been an enormous amount of dialogue with local authorities on these regulations and the approach we are taking. It is an approach that they have supported and, in effect, co-designed with us.
Ruth George
Local authorities are already under enormous pressure enforcing the existing regulations. In my area of High Peak, we have not seen a single prosecution for raptor death in the last year and raptors have been reduced from 15 pairs down to one. This is going on, but the law is not being enforced, because enforcement and prosecution in particular take up a vast amount of time and resources that local authorities simply do not have.
George Eustice
The hon. Lady is taking us into a slightly different area, which is wildlife crime and persecution of raptors, but she will be aware that we have the national wildlife crime unit, which also addresses this particular issue. It is a challenge. However, as I have said a number of times, local authorities can recover the costs of running this licensing regime and the regulations have provided for that.
The shadow Minister raised an important point, particularly given that there could be a longer licence, what are the remedies if there is a breach of the licence? That is an important point because, somewhat astonishingly, the existing regulations—with the exception of the Performing Animals (Regulation) Act 1925—have no provision at all to revoke the licence. It is an annual licence and the remedy effectively was that it would not be renewed if there was a breach. We do not think that is sufficient or acceptable. In a new addition we have brought in, these regulations enable local authorities to revoke and suspend licences where a breach has occurred. The establishments affected will have the ability to appeal, if they wish, to a first-tier tribunal, so we would make provision for an appeals process. This is the first time that local authorities will have the power to revoke or suspend licences. That is new. It gives us the confidence to grant those longer-term licences where operators have demonstrated a high degree of compliance and a commitment to high-level animal welfare.
Holly Lynch
May I just query, in those circumstances where a licence is revoked, for example for a dog breeder, what would happen to the animals within their care?
George Eustice
In a situation such as that, the animal welfare officers at local authorities already have the power to intervene, to take those animals away and find a way to re-home them, probably with rescue charities, other breeders or other establishments that retain a licence. They have the powers to facilitate that already. On the issue of the threshold of the number of puppies, as I said earlier, I looked at this in depth as a Back Bencher and it might be worth dwelling briefly on the history. Until, I think, 1999, if someone bred more than two litters—that is, three litters or more, the same as we are proposing now—they required a licence. As a result of a debate that took place in the House of Commons regarding concerns over commercial, large-scale puppy farms, a direction was given that resources should be focused on large-scale puppy farms rather than smaller breeders.
As a result, a Home Office circular was sent out, in effect giving guidance to local authorities that they should follow a threshold of five litters or more. I am not going to make a political point; that took place under the last Labour Government, but it was done with good intentions, to try to target resources where the greatest concern lay, as Parliament saw it in those days, which was large-scale puppy farms.
What we have subsequently found, particularly in the last decade, is a worrying growth in what I would term backstreet breeders, particularly people breeding status dogs. Those are people who are not really fit to raise dogs or to look after puppies. To make it worse, they often raise them, and try to train them, to be aggressive. There has been a worrying trend of status dogs, which started in around 2005 and has run for the last decade. The change we are making will capture those people again, by effectively reinstating the position as it was until 1999.
There is always an argument that we could go further, but we can review this. The regulations will be reviewed every five years, and if the feeling of the House at that time is that there is a reason to change the threshold again—maybe putting it up or down; it tends to move quite often—there will be an opportunity to do so at that point. Having looked at this, to put the position back as it was and to put it back in line with legislation introduced by the Welsh Government, which also has a threshold of three litters or more, is right.
The final thing I would say is that, notwithstanding the second criterion of three litters or more as a threshold, if somebody were breeding fewer than that but were doing so commercially and regularly selling those puppies, they would still be captured by the need to have a licence under the badges of trade criterion, which is included in the legislation.
Anna McMorrin
Has a minimum staff-to-dog ratio for breeders been put into any of this legislation?
George Eustice
It would test my skills to find the correct location. I am not sure that there is a specific staff-to-dog ratio, but if the hon. Lady looks in the schedules of the statutory instrument, she will see that when it comes to both pet shop and dog breeding establishments there are detailed statutory codes that people must follow. It sets out things about the amount of social contact there must be with dogs, the feeding regime, the availability of water and bedding, and socialisation of the dogs. That is all set out in some detail through the new statutory code that we have worked up with the industry.
Anna McMorrin
I thank the Minister for giving way again. I will just state that in the Welsh Government’s legislation there is a minimum staff-to-dog ratio of 1:20. I see he has a piece of paper.
George Eustice
My officials have very helpfully helped me out. The specific issue of a ratio is not in the regulations. Lots of other things are, and I commend them to hon. Members, because we have worked them up with the industry. The ratio of staff to dogs will be contained in and addressed through the guidance that goes to local authorities alongside the regulations.
I will briefly conclude by addressing some of the points raised by the hon. Member for Redcar; I know she has introduced legislation, through a private Member’s Bill, to address some of these issues. I welcome what she said about earned recognition, which was something I was always keen to support because we know there has been quite patchy application of the regulations by local authorities. My view was always that if we had a way of recognising those who are signed up to UKAS-accredited schemes or who demonstrate strong compliance, it frees up the time of local authorities to target the people we really want to hit—those who are trying to avoid or evade the licensing regime, and about whom we have concerns.
The hon. Lady asked whether local authorities are ready for this. The commencement date is 1 October. I believe they are ready, because, as I said earlier, we have been talking about this for quite some time. We first started engaging with local authorities on the emerging regulations in 2015 and they have been involved in their co-design. They will welcome the changes, because they will enable them to issue longer licences and to spread their workload across the year. They are ready for it and they have had lots of time to prepare. We will also issue guidance and work with them over the next six months to ensure that they are ready.
Finally, the hon. Lady asked whether there should be a national unit dedicated to enforcement. We looked at that, but we concluded that it would be the wrong way to go. Licensing regimes have traditionally been run by local authorities. We want to improve the way they are run and the consistency of enforcement, which is why we will have training. We want to enable them to take a risk-based approach to their licensing regime. We want them to be able to recover their costs so that they can do the job effectively. It is right, however, that local authorities, with local people on the ground, run this kind of licensing regime.
The Chair
You have missed the opportunity, unless the Minister is feeling over-generous and has not quite finished. Does he wish to take an intervention?
George Eustice
I will, out of kindness, given that the issue is dear to my heart.
Anna McMorrin
I am grateful to the Minister for taking a final intervention. Could he clarify how the public will be able to validate a seller’s licence? Will there be a publicly accessible list of all licensed breeders and sellers?
George Eustice
There will not be a publicly available list as such, but, as I said, those who are selling animals will be required to display their licence number on their websites. Our view is that it should be a risk-based approach. If someone has concerns about the validity of a particular licence and believes that fraudulent behaviour is happening, they should be able to raise that with their local authority.
I was always supportive of requiring licence numbers to be stated on websites and on online adverts because it gives local authorities an easy surveillance tool to check whether people who claim to be in Sheffield and to have a licence in Sheffield actually have such a licence. It is an easy way for people to self-volunteer, and it makes enforcement by local authorities very easy. On that final point, we have had a constructive and useful debate, and I commend these regulations to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the Committee has considered the draft Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities involving Animals) (England) Regulations 2018.
Draft Non-Domestic Rating (Rates Retention and Levy and Safety Net) (Amendment) Regulations 2018
(6 years, 7 months ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Rishi Sunak)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Non-Domestic Rating (Rates Retention and Levy and Safety Net) (Amendment) Regulations 2018.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie, and to be in these grand surroundings, as befits this grand topic. The regulations make amendments to the administration of the business rates retention system. The scheme, which was introduced with effect from 1 April 2013, allows local government to keep a percentage of the business rates they collect from local ratepayers. Initially, local government’s share was set at 50%, but in 2017-18, 27 local authorities in five areas—Cornwall, Greater Manchester, Liverpool City region, West Midlands and the West of England—were allowed to keep all the business rates they raised. In addition, the Greater London Authority’s share of business rates was increased from 20% to 37%.
In June of last year, the Government gave every other local authority in England the opportunity to become a 100% business-rates pilot. So popular did that invitation prove that 212 authorities in 26 different areas applied to become 100% pilots in 2018-19, which reflected the desire of local authorities to take more control of the local tax base and to potentially secure additional income by keeping all the benefits of local growth. In the event, we were able to extend 100% rates retention to a further 122 authorities in 11 areas—Berkshire, Derbyshire, Devon, Gloucestershire, Kent, Leeds, Lincolnshire, London, Solent, Suffolk and Surrey. Taken together with the original pilots and based on their own estimates, authorities might have as much as £700 million more income in 2018-19 as a result of keeping 100% of their business rates growth.
The regulations give administrative effect to the new 100% pilots and make two other principal changes. First, they make changes to each authority’s tariff or top-up as a consequence of the 2017 revaluation. Tariffs and top-ups are the means by which we redistribute business rates income between richer and poorer authorities under the local government finance system. They were originally set in 2013-14 and since then have only been uprated by inflation. However, in 2017-18, local authorities’ income from business rates changed, not because of any growth in the underlying rates base, but as a result of the business rates revaluation. In last year’s settlement, we adjusted the tariffs and top-ups to strip out the impact of the revaluation, but we said at the time that we would revisit and revise the adjustments in the 2018-19 settlement to reflect updated data.
Revised tariffs and top-ups based on the updated data were approved by the House as part of this year’s local government finance settlement and in 2018-19, authorities will pay or receive the tariffs and top-ups set out in the local government finance report for 2018-19. Those tariffs and top-ups also need to be used in the administration of other parts of the rates retention system, principally in the calculation of the levy and safety net payments. The regulations therefore ensure that levy and safety net calculations are made using the revised values for tariffs and top-ups for last year and the forthcoming year.
Finally, the regulations make changes to the time period for which local authorities will be compensated by the Government for the relief they give businesses in enterprise zones. I am sure Members of the Committee know that, under the rates retention system, authorities are entitled to keep all of the growth in business rates in enterprise zones. There are more than 200 separate zones in more than 100 local authorities. As part of their efforts to regenerate zones, authorities are able to give business rates relief to new businesses relocating there. The Government then compensate local authorities for the relief they give, by allowing them to deduct the cost of the relief from the payments they make to central Government under the rates retention scheme.
The first enterprise zones created in 2013 were entitled to compensation for the relief they gave for up to five years, until 31 March 2018. That period, set out in the rates retention regulations, has not changed since, despite the fact that that we have set up new enterprise zones in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017. In order to ensure that all of these later enterprise zones can also receive compensation from Government for relief for up to five years, the regulations now tie the period for which authorities can receive compensation to the specific date on which the enterprise zone came into being. This puts all enterprise zones in the same position, regardless of when they were created.
Before concluding, I would like to bring to the Committee’s attention a written ministerial statement made earlier today that relates to a historic error identified in the methodology used to calculate the sums due to 100% business rates retention pilots. The written ministerial statement details the steps taken to address this error. Given that this is not the direct subject of today’s debate I will not go into further detail as it would not be appropriate, but I wanted to flag this up to the Committee and I am happy to answer any questions.
The regulations before the Committee make technical changes to the regulations governing the administration of the business rates retention system to ensure that the scheme works properly following the revaluation to allow new 100% rates retention pilots to operate from 1 April 2018, and to ensure parity of treatment between all enterprise zones. I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. In line with the Local Government Association— the cross-party organisation representing local government —we are keen to see more progress being made on giving local authorities more sustainable forms of income. Where they play an active role in growing their local economic base, they should see the value in doing that. We have not yet seen a real assessment made of the implications of the 100% retention scheme through the initial pilots with the first wave of local authorities. We know that the Government hold limited data on what that means, and we know that there are significant capacity issues within the Department itself. Between 2011 and 2017, there has been a 39% reduction in full-time equivalent staff working on the 100% retention scheme, so we are not convinced that the Department has the proper capacity to see this through and to monitor, evaluate and importantly to ensure that any risks are mitigated in then allowing a new wave of applications to come forward.
Local authorities are also concerned that London was given the option of no detriment but the same offer was not made available to new authorities applying to the scheme. Authorities outside London will quite rightly ask why we have one rule in place for London, while authorities outside London are being asked to apply to a different scheme with different rules and safety nets in place. I would be grateful for clarification on that.
As to the scheme’s risks, we know that local authorities have had to prepare for the eventuality of ratings appeals. Businesses that do not agree with their ratings position make the appeal in the right way, but under this scheme the risk of that falls partly to the local authorities. In cash terms £2.8 billion has been put aside by local authorities as part of a first tranche of rate retention to prepare for the eventuality that those appeals might be successful. That is £2.8 billion that could be used for public services at a time when local government services are under significant pressure.
We have not yet seen evidence that the Government have had a thorough piece of research done to understand what this would mean if it were rolled out for the whole of England. We know that the Government have approached local authorities who would be in a net position, so they have taken away the equivalent grant that the local authorities are getting in cash terms for the rates that they are able to retain. However, we are unable to say what that means for the country. Cherry-picking a local authority that has no cash difference to the Treasury is okay, but some local authorities will always require more in grant funding than they can generate in business rates in the local authority area. We have not seen what the Government’s approach would be for that.
We have also not understood why we have pilots running on the one hand with a number of local authorities, while on the other hand we have the promise of a fair funding review to be carried out, but we have not had much detail on how the two will talk to each other. The Government need to be clearer on this. What lessons will be learned from the pilots that have been undertaken so far? What mechanisms will be put in place to ensure lessons are learned from the next wave of local authorities? How will that be hard-wired into the fair funding review to ensure the total amount of money that is available to local government to deliver local public services is sustainable in a 100% retention model? If the Government provide that information, we would be happy to sit down and scrutinise it.
What assessment have the Government made of the benefits and risks of the growth and decline of business rate bases at a local level? At the moment, the business rate bases that local authorities are in receipt of are generally historical. They have developed over many years—50 years, 100 years, and for some towns and cities many hundreds of years. The Government have provided very little evidence of how individual local authorities have by their own actions fundamentally changed the business rate bases in their areas. The Government are saying to local authorities, “If you are responsible for a geographical area and an economy that has done well historically, you will be able to capture that growth,” without any evidence that the local authority has actively contributed to the growth. The local authority of another town or city may be working hard to try to grow the local economy, but due to its historically low tax base and its weak economy at a local level, it may struggle to make ends meet and keep afloat. Some towns and cities have to work twice as hard to stay still, while others have accelerated growth just because of their local circumstances. It would be good to hear what the Government’s approach is to ensuring that a genuine rebalancing takes place across England as part of that strategy.
Rishi Sunak
I thank the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton. He made some thoughtful comments, as is his wont, which I appreciate. I will try to address his points quickly.
The hon. Gentleman talked about the future for local government, with regard to rates retention, and local government’s desire for more of the income that is generated locally to be kept locally, and to be more in control of its own destiny. As he knows, the Government are committed to introducing 75% rates retention for the entire country by 2021. As part of that process, many of the questions he asked are being addressed.
The hon. Gentleman asked about redistribution among authorities. Of course, some local authorities will have a greater capacity to generate business rates income. That is true today and it will be true in the future, so the new system will ensure some redistribution. The Government are clear that that will remain a feature of the system. What the best way of doing that is needs to be worked out within the sector.
The hon. Gentleman said that local authorities that are trying hard but are not able to generate growth should not be penalised. The new system will have a reset period. A balance needs to be struck: the period should give local authorities enough of an incentive to drive growth and enjoy the benefits of it, but the gap between the various authorities should not grow too wide. The reset period and the mechanism for redistribution are important features of the new system about which Government are currently consulting with the sector and stakeholders. I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s thoughts on those issues.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the assessment of the first wave of pilots. That is a very fair question. He will be pleased to know that the Department has been conducting extensive questionnaires and meetings with the first wave of pilots from last year. From memory, I think those surveys were completed in November last year—it possibly stretched into December. The early results of the surveys have already been shared with the LGA, and some elements of that will be brought into the public domain shortly.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the no detriment clause. For the benefit of other Committee Members, let me explain that the no detriment clause ensures that becoming a pilot makes no one worse off. I assure him that it applies to each and every pilot, not just to those in London.
The hon. Gentleman talked about appeals. As he knows, the Government recently introduced a new appeals process, which we discussed in a similar Committee last week. The new “check, challenge and appeal” process is designed to improve the system to the benefit of local authorities, reducing the burden of speculative appeals and the provisions they need to make. I acknowledge his point that provisioning for such appeals has an impact on local authorities, which is why appeals and provisioning are the subject of a technical working paper, which is being worked on as we speak by a technical working group run by the Department and the LGA. It will figure out how, in the new business rates retention system, some element of socialisation of those appeals can perhaps happen within industry. The sector is keen to see that, and the hon. Gentleman is right to highlight it.
Finally, the hon. Gentleman asked about timing. He made a good point about the fact that the fair funding review and the business rates retention processes are both fundamental reforms of the local government finance system. It is good that they are now on the same timeline and will come in at the same time in 2021. A spending review will happen at the beginning of next year, while these conversations are live. That is helpful, because it enables us to consider funding for local government finance and these two new systems in the round. We will bring those twin-track processes together to ensure that we are all on the same page, and that the systems work properly together.
I hope I have answered all the Committee’s questions. I commend these technical but important regulations to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Petitions
School budgets
Data Protection Bill [ Lords ] (Fifth sitting)
(6 years, 7 months ago)
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The Committee divided: - Ayes: 9 / Noes: 10 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 9 / Noes: 10 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Chair
We begin consideration of the Bill today with schedule 9, to which no amendments have been tabled.
Schedule 9 agreed to.
Schedule 10
Conditions for sensitive processing under Part 4
Amendment made: 117, in schedule 10, page 187, line 5, at end insert—
‘Safeguarding of children and of individuals at risk
3A (1) This condition is met if—
(a) the processing is necessary for the purposes of—
(i) protecting an individual from neglect or physical, mental or emotional harm, or
(ii) protecting the physical, mental or emotional well-being of an individual,
(b) the individual is—
(i) aged under 18, or
(ii) aged 18 or over and at risk,
(c) the processing is carried out without the consent of the data subject for one of the reasons listed in sub-paragraph (2), and
(d) the processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest.
(2) The reasons mentioned in sub-paragraph (1)(c) are—
(a) in the circumstances, consent to the processing cannot be given by the data subject;
(b) in the circumstances, the controller cannot reasonably be expected to obtain the consent of the data subject to the processing;
(c) the processing must be carried out without the consent of the data subject because obtaining the consent of the data subject would prejudice the provision of the protection mentioned in sub-paragraph (1)(a).
(3) For the purposes of this paragraph, an individual aged 18 or over is “at risk” if the controller has reasonable cause to suspect that the individual—
(a) has needs for care and support,
(b) is experiencing, or at risk of, neglect or physical, mental or emotional harm, and
(c) as a result of those needs is unable to protect himself or herself against the neglect or harm or the risk of it.
(4) In sub-paragraph (1)(a), the reference to the protection of an individual or of the well-being of an individual includes both protection relating to a particular individual and protection relating to a type of individual.’—(Victoria Atkins.)
Schedule 10 makes provision about the circumstances in which the processing of special categories of personal data is permitted. This amendment adds to that Schedule certain processing of personal data which is necessary for the protection of children or of adults at risk. See also Amendments 85 and 116.
Schedule 10, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 87 to 93 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 94
Right of access
Amendments made: 35, in clause 94, page 55, line 8, leave out ‘day’ and insert ‘time’
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 71.
36, in clause 94, page 55, line 9, leave out ‘day’ and insert ‘time’
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 71.
37, in clause 94, page 55, line 10, leave out ‘days’
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 71.
38, in clause 94, page 55, line 11, leave out ‘the day on which’ and insert ‘when’
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 71.
39, in clause 94, page 55, line 12, leave out ‘the day on which’ and insert ‘when’
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 71.
40, in clause 94, page 55, line 13, leave out ‘the day on which’ and insert ‘when’ —(Victoria Atkins.)
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 71.
Clause 94, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 95 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 96
Right not to be subject to automated decision-making
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)
We are rattling through the Bill this morning and will soon reach clause 109, to which we have tabled some amendments. Clause 96, within chapter 3 of part 4, on intelligence services processing, touches on the right not to be subject to automated decision making. I do not want to rehearse the debate that we shall have later, but I think that this is the appropriate point for an explanation from the Minister. Perhaps she will say something about the kind of administration that the clause covers, and its relationship, if any—there may not be one, but it is important to test that question—to automated data-gathering by our intelligence services abroad, and the processing and use of that data.
The specific instance that I want to take up concerns the fact that about 700 British citizens have gone to fight in foreign conflicts—for ISIS in particular. The battery of intelligence-gathering facilities that we have allows us to use remote data-sensing to detect, track and monitor them, and to assemble pictures of their patterns of life and behaviour. It is then possible for our intelligence services to do stuff with those data and patterns, such as transfer them to the military or to foreign militaries in coalitions of which we are a member. For the benefit of the Committee, will the Minister spell out whether the clause, and potentially clause 97, will bite on that kind of capability? If not, where are they aimed?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)
An intelligence services example under clause 96 would be a case where the intelligence services wanted to identify a subject of interest who might have travelled to Syria in a certain time window and where the initial selector was age, because there was reliable reporting that the person being sought was a certain age. The application of the age selector would produce a pool of results, and a decision may be taken to select that pool for further processing operations, including the application of other selectors. That processing would be the result of a decision taken solely on the basis of automated processing.
Liam Byrne
I do not think the clause actually says anything about age selection. How do we set boundaries around the clause? Let us say that minors—people under the age of 18—want to travel to Syria or some other war zone. Is the Minister basically saying that the clause will bite on that kind of information and lead to a decision chain that results in action to intervene? If that is the case, will she say a little more about the boundaries around the use of the clause?
Victoria Atkins
The right hon. Gentleman asked me for an example and I provided one. Age is not in the clause because the Government do not seek in any way to create burdens for the security services when they are trying to use data to protect this country. Given his considerable experience in the Home Office, he knows that it would be very peculiar, frankly, for age to be listed specifically in the clause. The clause is drafted as it is, and I remind him that it complies with Council of Europe convention 108, which is an international agreement.
Liam Byrne
The point is that the clause does create a burden. It does not detract from a burden; it creates an obligation on intelligence services to ensure that there is not automatic decision making. We seek not to add burdens, but to question why the Minister is creating them.
Victoria Atkins
The clause complies with Council of Europe convention 108. I do not know whether I can say any more.
The Chair
I think we have come to a natural conclusion.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 96 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 97
Right to intervene in automated decision-making
Amendments made: 41, in clause 97, page 56, line 34, leave out “21 days” and insert “1 month”.
Clause 97(4) provides that where a controller notifies a data subject under Clause 97(3) that the controller has taken a decision falling under Clause 97(1) (automated decisions required or authorised by law), the data subject has 21 days to request the controller to reconsider or take a new decision not based solely on automated processing. This amendment extends that period to one month.
Amendment 42, in clause 97, page 56, line 39, leave out “21 days” and insert “1 month”.—(Victoria Atkins.)
Clause 97(5) provides that where a data subject makes a request to a controller under Clause 97(4) to reconsider or retake a decision based solely on automated processing, the controller has 21 days to respond. This amendment extends that period to one month.
Clause 97, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 98
Right to information about decision-making
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Liam Byrne
This is a vexed and difficult area. The subject of the clause is the right to information about decision making, which is very difficult when it comes to the intelligence services, and I have had experiences, as have others I am sure, of constituents who come along to an advice bureau and claim to have been subject either to intelligence services investigation or, in some cases, to intelligence services trying to recruit them. Sometimes—this is not unknown—an individual’s immigration status might be suspect. I had one of these cases about five or six years ago, where the allegation was that the intelligence services were conspiring with the UK Border Agency and what at that time was the Identity and Passport Service to withhold immigration documents to encourage the individual to become a source. The challenge for Members of Parliament trying to represent such individuals is that they will get a one-line response when they write to the relevant officials to say, “I am seeking to represent my constituent on this point.”
A right to information about decision-making will be created under clause 98. I ask the Minister, therefore, when dealing with very sensitive information, how is this right going to be exercised and who is going to be the judge of whether that right has been fulfilled satisfactorily? There is no point approving legislation that is superfluous because it will have no effect in the real world. The clause creates what looks like a powerful new right for individuals to request information about decisions taken by the intelligence agencies, which might have a bearing on all sorts of things in their lives. Will the Minister explain how, in practice, this right is to become a reality?
Victoria Atkins
If I may give an example, where a terrorist suspect is arrested and believes he is the subject of MI5 surveillance, revealing to them whether they were under surveillance and the process by which the suspect was identified as a potential terrorist would clearly aid other terrorists in avoiding detection. The exercise of the right is subject to the operation of the national security exemption, which was debated at length last week. It might be that, in an individual case, the intelligence services need to operate the “neither confirm nor deny” principle, and that is why the clause is drafted as it is.
Liam Byrne
The clause is drafted in the opposite way. Subsection (1)(b) says that
“the data subject is entitled to obtain from the controller, on request, knowledge of the reasoning underlying the processing.”
In other words, the data subject—in this case, the individual under surveillance—has the right to obtain from the controller, in the hon. Lady’s example of the intelligence agencies, knowledge of the reasoning underlying the way their data was processed.
Let us take, for example, a situation where CCTV footage was being captured at an airport or a border crossing and that footage was being run through facial recognition software, enabling special branch officers to intervene and intercept that individual before they crossed the border. That is an example of where information is captured and processed, and action then results in an individual, in this case, being prevented from coming into the country.
I have often had cases of constituents who have come back from Pakistan or who might have transitioned through the middle east, perhaps Dubai, and they have been stopped at Birmingham airport because special branch officers have said their name is on a watch list. Watch lists are imperfect—that is probably a fairly good description. They are not necessarily based on the most reliable and up-to-date information, but advances in technology allow a much broader and more wide-ranging kind of interception to take place at the border. If we are relying not on swiping someone’s passport and getting a red flag on a watch list but on processing data coming in through CCTV and running it through facial recognition software, that is a powerful new tool in the hands of the intelligence agencies. Subsection (1)(b) will give one of my constituents the right to file a request with the data controller—presumably, the security services—and say, “Look, I think your records are wrong here. You have stopped me on the basis of facial recognition software at Birmingham airport; I want to know the reasoning behind the processing of the data.”
If, as the Minister says, the response from the data controller is, “We can neither confirm nor deny what happened in this case,” then, frankly, the clause is pretty nugatory. Will the Minister give an example of how the right is going to be made a reality? What are the scenarios in which a constituent might be able to exercise this right? I am not interested in the conventions and international agreements this happy clause tends to agree with, but I would like to hear a case study of how a constituent could exercise this right successfully.
Victoria Atkins
The right hon. Gentleman says he is not interested in conventions and so on, but I am afraid that is the legal framework within which Parliament and this country have to act. The clause confers—as do the other clauses in chapter 3—rights upon citizens, but those rights are subject, as they must be, to the national security exemption set out in chapter 6, clause 110.
I am slightly at a loss as to where the right hon. Gentleman wishes to go with this. I am not going to stand here and dream up scenarios that may apply. The rights and the national security exemption are set out in the Bill; that is the framework we are looking at, and that is the framework within which the security services must operate. Of course one has a duty to one’s constituents, but that is balanced with a duty to one’s country. This is precisely the section of the Bill that is about the balance between the rights of our citizens and the absolute necessity for our security services to protect us and act in our interests when they are required to do so.
Liam Byrne
I am not asking the Minister to dream up a scenario in Committee. All good Ministers understand every single dimension of a clause they are required to take through the House before they come anywhere near a Committee, because they are the Bill Minister.
We are not debating here whether the security services have sufficient power; we had that debate earlier. We are talking about a power and a right that are conferred on data subjects under subsection (1)(b). I am slightly concerned that the Minister, who is responsible for this Bill and this matter of policy, has not been able to give us a well-rehearsed scenario, which presumably she and her officials will have considered before the Bill came anywhere near to being drafted. How will this right actually be exercised by our constituents? It could be that the Committee decides, for example, that the rights we are conferring on the data subject are too sweeping. We might be concerned that there are insufficient safeguards in place for the intelligence agencies to do their jobs. This is a specific question about how data subjects, under the clause, are going to exercise their power in a way that allows the security services to do their job. That is not a complicated request; it is a basic question.
Victoria Atkins
As I say, the framework is set out in the Bill, and the exemption exists in the Bill itself. I have already given an example about a terror suspect. With respect, I am not going to enter into this debate about the right hon. Gentleman’s constituent—what he or she might have requested, and so on. The framework is there; the right is there, balanced with the national security exemption. I am not sure there is much more I can add.
Liam Byrne
The Minister says she does not want to enter into a debate. I kindly remind her that she is in a debate. The debate is called—
Victoria Atkins
On a point of order, Mr Hanson. I did not say that I do not want a debate. Will the right hon. Gentleman please use his language carefully, as I know he has long experience of doing? I said I was not sure how fruitful it would be to have examples, to and fro, about constituents. That is quite a different matter from a debate. I have debated with him; I have said the answer; it is for him—
The Chair
Order. We have a point of order—which, in due course, the good offices of Hansard will resolve—as to what was said by the right hon. Gentleman and how the Minister interpreted it. At the moment, we are dealing with clause 98 and Mr Liam Byrne has the floor. As he wishes, he can give way or continue.
Liam Byrne
I am grateful, Mr Hanson, for that complete clarity. This is the debate that we are having today: how will clause 98(1)(b) become a reality? It creates quite powerful rights for a data subject to seek information from the intelligence agencies. I gave an example from my constituency experience of how the exercise of this right could run into problems.
All I ask of the Minister responsible for the Bill and this area of policy, who has thought through the Bill with her officials and is asking the Committee to agree the power she is seeking to confer on our constituents, and who will have to operate the policy in the real world after the Bill receives Royal Assent, is that she give us a scenario of how the rights she is conferring on a data subject will function in the real world.
However, Mr Hanson, I think we might have exhausted this debate. It is disappointing that the Minister has not been able to come up with a scenario. Perhaps she would like to intervene now to give me an example.
Victoria Atkins
Part 4 sets out a number of rights of data subjects, clause 98 being just one of them. This part of the Bill reflects the provisions of draft modernised convention 108, which is an international agreement, and the Bill faithfully gives effect to those provisions. A data subject wishing to exercise the right under clause 98 may write to that effect to the Security Service, which will then either respond in accordance with clause 98 or exercise the national security exemption in clause 110. That is the framework.
Liam Byrne
That is probably about as much reassurance as the Committee is going to get this afternoon. It is not especially satisfactory or illuminating, but we will not stand in the way and we will leave the debate there, Mr Hanson.
The Chair
This might seem like a long day, but it is still morning. On that note, we will proceed.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 98 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 99
Right to object to processing
Amendments made: 43, in clause 99, page 57, line 28, leave out “day” and insert “time”.
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 71.
44, in clause 99, page 58, line 3, leave out “day” and insert “time”.
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 71.
45, in clause 99, page 58, line 5, leave out “the day on which” and insert “when”.
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 71.
46, in clause 99, page 58, line 6, leave out “the day on which” and insert “when”.—(Victoria Atkins.)
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 71.
Clause 99, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 100 to 108 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 109
Transfers of personal data outside the United Kingdom
Liam Byrne
I beg to move amendment 159, in clause 109, page 61, line 13, after “is” insert “provided by law and is”.
This amendment would place meaningful safeguards on the sharing of data by the intelligence agencies.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 160, in clause 109, page 61, line 18, at end insert—
‘(3) The transfer falls within this subsection if the transfer—
(a) is based on an adequacy decision (see section 74),
(b) if not based on an adequacy decision, is based on there being appropriate safeguards (see section 75), or
(c) if not based on an adequacy decision or on there being appropriate safeguards, is based on special circumstances (see section 76 as amended by subsection (5)).
(4) A transfer falls within this subsection if—
(a) the intended recipient is a person based in a third country that has (in that country) functions comparable to those of the controller or an international organisation, and
(b) the transfer meets the following conditions—
(i) the transfer is strictly necessary in a specific case for the performance of a task of the transferring controller as provided by law or for the purposes set out in subsection (2),
(ii) the transferring controller has determined that there are no fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject concerned that override the public interest necessitating the transfer,
(iii) the transferring controller informs the intended recipient of the specific purpose or purposes for which the personal data may, so far as necessary, be processed, and
(iv) the transferring controller documents any transfer and informs the Commissioner about the transfer on request.
(5) The reference to law enforcement purposes in subsection (4) of section 76 is to be read as a reference to the purposes set out in subsection (2).”
New clause 14—Subsequent transfers—
‘(1) Where personal data is transferred in accordance with section 109, the transferring controller must make it a condition of the transfer that the data is not to be further transferred to a third country or international organisation without the authorisation of the transferring controller.
(2) A transferring controller may give an authorisation under subsection (1) only where the further transfer is necessary for the purposes in subsection (2).
(3) In deciding whether to give the authorisation, the transferring controller must take into account (among any other relevant factors)—
(a) the seriousness of the circumstances leading to the request for authorisation,
(b) the purpose for which the personal data was originally transferred, and
(c) the standards for the protection of personal data that apply in the third country or international organisation to which the personal data would be transferred.’
This new clause would place meaningful safeguards on the sharing of data by the intelligence agencies.
Liam Byrne
I rise to speak to amendments 159 and 160, which relate to two significant developments in defence policy that have unfolded over the past couple of years. Our intelligence agencies have acquired pretty substantial new capabilities through all kinds of technological advances, which allow them remotely to collect and process data in a completely new way.
It is now possible, through satellite technology and drones, to collect video footage of battle zones and run the information collected through facial recognition software, which allows us to track much more forensically and accurately the movement, habits, working lives and leisure of bad people in bad places. We are fighting against organisations such as Daesh, in a coalition with allies, but over the past year one of our allies has rather changed the rules of engagement, which allows it to take drone strikes with a different kind of flexibility from that under the Obama regime.
The change in the American rules of engagement means that, on the one hand, the American Administration has dramatically increased the number of drone strikes—in Yemen, we have had an increase of about 288% in the past year—and, on the other, as we see in other theatres of conflict such as the war against al-Shabaab in Africa, repeated strikes are allowed for. Therefore, even when the circumstances around particular individuals have changed—new intelligence may have come to light about them—the Trump Administration have basically removed the safeguards that President Obama had in place that require an individual to be a “continuing and imminent threat” before a strike is authorised. That safeguard has been lifted, so the target pool that American forces can take aim at and engage is now much larger, and operational commanders have a great deal more flexibility over when they can strike.
We now see some of the consequences of that policy, with the most alarming statistics being on the number of civilians caught up in some of those strikes. That is true in Yemen and in the fight against al-Shabaab, and I suspect it is true in Syria, Afghanistan and, in some cases, Pakistan. We must ensure that the data sharing regime under which our intelligence agencies operate does not create a legal threat to them because of the way the rules of engagement of one of our allies have changed.
The Joint Committee on Human Rights has talked about that, and it has been the subject of debates elsewhere in Parliament. The JCHR concluded in its 2016 report that
“we owe it to all those involved in the chain of command for such uses of lethal force—intelligence personnel, armed services personnel, officials, Ministers and others—to provide them with absolute clarity about the circumstances in which they will have a defence against any possible future criminal prosecution, including those which might originate from outside the UK.”
We need to reflect on some of those legal risks to individuals who are serving their country. The amendment would ensure that—where there was a collection, processing and transfer of information by the UK intelligence services to one of our allies, principally America, and they ran that information against what is widely reported as a kill list and ordered drone strikes without some of the safeguards operated by previous Administrations—first, the decision taken by the intelligence agency here to share that information was legal and, secondly, it would be undertaken in a way that ensured that our serving personnel were not subject to legal threats or concerns about legal threats.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the legal framework that we rightly expect to apply to our law enforcement offers and agencies does not necessarily apply directly to our intelligence and security services? That, however, would be the effect of the amendment.
Liam Byrne
I am not sure that that would be the effect of the amendment. While I agree with the thrust of the hon. Gentleman’s argument, I am cognisant of the fact that in 2013 the Court of the Appeal said that it was “certainly not clear” that UK personnel would be immune from criminal liability for their involvement in a programme that entailed the transfer of information to America and a drone strike ordered using that information, without the same kinds of safeguard that the Obama Administration had. The amendment would ensure a measure—nothing stronger than that—of judicial oversight where such decisions were taken and where information was transferred. We must ensure a level of judicial oversight so that inappropriate decisions are not taken. It is sad that we need such a measure, but it reflects two significant changes over the past year or two: first, the dramatic increase in our ability to capture and process information, and, secondly, the crucial change in the rules of engagement under the Trump Administration.
Mike Wood
The right hon. Gentleman is being kind and generous with his time. He says that the amendments would not replicate the frameworks for law enforcement, yet amendment 160 would do exactly that by applying clauses 74, 75 and 76 to the test for data sharing for intelligence and security services. Those exact safeguards were designed for law enforcement, not for intelligence and security sharing.
Liam Byrne
The point for the Committee is that the thrust of the amendment is not unreasonable. Where there is a multiplication of the power of intelligence agencies to capture and process data, it is not unreasonable to ask for that greater power to bring with it greater scrutiny and safeguards. The case for this sensible and cautious amendment is sharpened because of the change in the rules of engagement operated by the United States. No member of the Committee wants a situation where information is transferred to an ally, and that ally takes a decision that dramatically affects the human rights of an individual—as in, it ends those rights by killing that person. That is not something that we necessarily want to facilitate.
As has been said, we are conscious of the difficulty and care with which our politicians have sometimes had to take such decisions. The former Prime Minister very sensibly came to the House to speak about his decision to authorise a drone strike to kill two British citizens whom he said were actively engaged in conspiring to commit mass murder in the United Kingdom. His judgment was that those individuals posed an imminent threat, but because they were not operating in a place where the rule of law was operational, there was no possibility to send in the cops, arrest them and bring them to trial.
The Prime Minister was therefore out of options, but the care that he took when taking that decision and the level of legal advice that he relied on were extremely high. I do not think any member of the Committee is confident that the care taken by David Cameron when he made that decision is replicated in President Trump’s White House.
We must genuinely be concerned and cautious about our intelligence agencies transferring information that is then misused and results in drone strikes that kill individuals, without the safeguards we would expect. The last thing anyone would want is a blowback, in either an American or a British court, on serving officers in our military or intelligence services because the requisite safeguards simply were not in place.
My appeal to the Committee is that this is a point of principle: enhanced power should bring with it enhanced oversight and surveillance, and the priority for that is the fact that the rules of engagement for the United States have changed. If there is a wiser way in which we can create the kinds of safeguard included in the amendment we will be all ears, but we in the House of Commons cannot allow the situation to go unchecked. It is too dangerous and too risky, and it poses too fundamental a challenge to the human rights that this place was set up to champion and protect.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
I agree that these amendments ask a legitimate and important question about the level of safeguards on international data sharing by UK intelligence agencies. As it stands, clause 109 contains two fairly otiose sub-clauses to do with the sharing of personal data abroad by our intelligence agencies. In contrast, there is a whole chapter and a full seven clauses putting in place safeguards in relation to transfer to third countries by law enforcement agencies. These amendments borrow some of the safeguards placed on law enforcement agencies and there seems to be no good reason why that is not appropriate. I take the point that it does not necessarily follow that what is good for law enforcement agencies is definitely good for intelligence services. However, it is for the Government to tell us why those safeguards are not appropriate. If there are different ways for us to go about this, I am all ears, like the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Gentleman quite rightly raised the example of drones and US attacks based on information shared by personnel. At the moment, the lack of safeguards and of a very clear legal basis for the transfer of information can be lethal for billions and is dangerous for our personnel, as the Joint Committee on Human Rights has pointed out. We support the thrust of these amendments.
Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)
I declare my interests as set out in the Register of Members’ Interests.
The Chair
Order. The hon. Gentleman declared his interests in previous Committees, but I have been advised that he needs to specify what the interests are, as well as declaring them.
Darren Jones
Thank you, Mr Hanson. The two items on the register are, first, that I was a legal counsel at BT before my election as a Member of Parliament, where I was responsible for data protection law. Secondly, I had a relationship with a law firm called Kemp Little to maintain my practising certificate while I was a Member of Parliament.
My argument in support of amendment 160 is one that I have rehearsed in previous debates. In line with recommendations from the Joint Committee on Human Rights, today we benefit from an exemption under European treaties that say that national security is a member state competence and therefore not one with which the European Union can interfere. However, if the UK leaves the European Union, the European Commission reserves the right to review the entire data processing legislation, including that for intelligence services of a third country when seeking to make a decision on adequacy—as it has done with Canada. Where the amendment talks about adequacy, it would be helpful—
Darren Jones
It does, but it has been reviewed by the European Commission. One of the concerns the Commission has had with Canada is its intelligence-sharing arrangements with the United States of America, which is why this amendment is so pertinent and why it is right to support the Government in seeking this adequacy decision. I make the point again that we will no longer benefit from the exemption if we leave the European Union and I hope that the Government keep that in mind.
Victoria Atkins
Before I start, I want to clarify what the hon. Gentleman has just said about adequacy decisions. Canada does have an adequacy decision from the EU for transfers to commercial organisations that are subject to the Canadian Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. I am not sure that security services are covered in that adequacy decision, but it may be that we will get assistance elsewhere.
As the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill is aware, amendments 159, 160 and new clause 14 were proposed by a campaigning organisation called Reprieve in its recent briefing on the Bill. They relate to concerns about the sharing of personal data with the US and seek to apply the data sharing protections designed specifically for law enforcement data processing, provided for in part 3 of the Bill, to processing by the intelligence services, provided for in part 4. That is, they are seeking to transpose all the law enforcement measures into the security services. However, such safeguards are clearly not designed for, and do not provide, an appropriate or proportionate basis for the unique nature of intelligence services processing, which we are clear is outside the scope of EU law.
Before I get into the detail of these amendments, it is important to put on record that the international transfer of personal data is vital to the intelligence services’ ability to counter threats to national security. Provision of data to international partners bolsters their ability to counter threats to their security and that of the UK. In a globalised world, threats are not necessarily contained within one country, and the UK cannot work in isolation. As terrorists do not view national borders as a limit to their activities, the intelligence services must be in a position to operate across borders and share information quickly—for example, about the nature of the threat that an individual poses—to protect the UK.
In the vast majority of cases, intelligence sharing takes place with countries with which the intelligence services have long-standing and well-established relationships. In all cases, however, the intelligence services apply robust necessity and proportionality tests before sharing any information. The inherent risk of sharing information must be balanced against the risk to national security of not sharing such information.
Liam Byrne
Will the Minister tell us more about the oversight and scrutiny for the tests that she has just set out that the intelligence services operate? Perhaps she will come on to that.
Victoria Atkins
I am coming on to that.
Any cross-border sharing of personal data must be consistent with our international obligations and be subject to appropriate safeguards. On the first point, the provisions in clause 109 are entirely consistent with the requirements of the draft modernised Council of Europe data protection convention—convention 108—on which the preventions of part 4 are based. It is pending international agreement.
The provisions in the convention are designed to provide the necessary protection for personal data in the context of national security. The Bill already provides that the intelligence services can make transfers outside the UK only when necessary and proportionate for the limited purposes of the services’ statutory functions, which include the protection of national security; for the purpose of preventing or detecting serious crime; or for the purpose of criminal proceedings.
In addition, on the point the right hon. Gentleman just raised, the intelligence services are already under statutory obligations in the Security Service Act 1989 and the Intelligence Services Act 1994 to ensure that no information is disclosed except so far as is necessary for those functions or purposes. All actions by the intelligence services, as with all other UK public authorities, must comply with international law.
Victoria Atkins
Yes, but I am coming on to further safeguards, if that is the point the hon. Lady wants to raise.
Louise Haigh
Under those pieces of legislation, are the intelligence services subject to the Information Commissioner, and will they be subject to the commissioner under the Bill’s provisions?
Victoria Atkins
I am about to come on to the safeguards that govern the intelligence services’ information acquisition and sharing under the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. They ensure that any such processing is undertaken only when necessary, lawful and proportionate, and that any disclosure is limited to the minimum number of individuals, in accordance with arrangements detailed in those Acts.
Those Acts, and the provisions in the relevant codes of practice made under them, also provide rigorous safeguards governing the transfer of data. Those enactments already afford proportionate protection and safeguards when data is being shared overseas. Sections 54, 130, 151 and 192 of the 2016 Act provide for safeguards relating to disclosure of material overseas.
Those provisions are subject to oversight by the investigatory powers commissioner, and may be challenged in the investigatory powers tribunal. They are very powerful safeguards, over and above the powers afforded to the Information Commissioner, precisely because of the unique nature of the material with which the security services must act.
Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)
Is the point not that those who would seek to do us harm do not have the courtesy to recognise international borders, as recent events have shown? It is vital that our intelligence services can share information across those same borders.
Victoria Atkins
It is absolutely vital. What is more, not only is there a framework in the Bill for overseeing the work of the intelligence services, but we have the added safeguards of the other legislation that I set out. The burden on the security services and the thresholds they have to meet are very clear, and they are set out not just in the Bill but in other statutes.
I hope that I have provided reassurance that international transfers of personal data by the intelligence services are appropriately regulated both by the Bill, which, as I said, is entirely consistent with draft modernised convention 108 of the Council of Europe—that is important, because it is the international agreement that will potentially underpin the Bill and agreements with our partners and sets out agreed international standards in this area—and by other legislation, including the 2016 Act. We and the intelligence services are absolutely clear that to attempt to impose, through these amendments, a regime that was specifically not designed to apply to processing by the intelligence services would be disproportionate and may critically damage national security.
I am sure that it is not the intention of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill to place unnecessary and burdensome obstacles in the way of the intelligence services in performing their crucial function of safeguarding national security, but, sadly, that is what his amendments would do. I therefore invite him to withdraw them.
Liam Byrne
I am grateful to the Minister for that explanation and for setting out with such clarity the regime of oversight and scrutiny that is currently in place. However, I have a couple of challenges.
I was slightly surprised that the Minister said nothing about the additional risks created by the change in rules of engagement by the United States. She rested some of her argument on the Security Services Act 1989 and the Intelligence Services Act 1994, which, as she said, require that any transfers of information are lawful and proportionate. That creates a complicated set of ambiguities for serving frontline intelligence officers, who have to make fine judgments and, in drafting codes of practice, often look at debates such as this one and at the law. However, the law is what we are debating. Where the Bill changed the law to create a degree of flexibility, it would create a new risk, and that risk would be heightened by the change in the rules of engagement by one of our allies.
The Minister may therefore want to reflect on a couple of points. First, what debate has there been about codes of practice? Have they changed given the increased surveillance capacity that we have because of the development of our capabilities? How have they changed in the light of the new rules of engagement issued by President Trump?
Peter Heaton-Jones
The right hon. Gentleman is being generous in giving way. I am listening carefully to what he says. I am concerned that he seems to be inviting us to make law in this country based almost solely on the policies of the current US Administration. I do not understand why we would do that.
Liam Byrne
The reason we would do that is that there has been an exponential increase in drone strikes by President Trump’s Administration and, as a result, a significant increase in civilian deaths in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, Yemen and east Africa. It would be pretty odd for us not to ensure that a piece of legislation had appropriate safeguards, given what we now know about the ambition of one of our most important allies to create flexibility in rules of engagement.
Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman on that point, but is not the more important point that our legislation cannot be contingent on that of any other country, however important an ally it is? Our legislation has to stand on its own two feet, and we should seek to ensure that it does. To change something, as he attempts to, purely on the basis of changes over the past couple of years would set a dangerous precedent rather than guard against a potential pitfall.
Liam Byrne
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, and he is right to say that our legislation has to stand on its own two feet. It absolutely has to, and what is more, it has to be fit for the world in which we live today, which I am afraid has two significant changes afoot. One is a transformation in the power of our intelligence agencies to collect and process data, and in my view that significant advance is enough to require a change in the level of oversight, and potentially a judicial test for the way we share information. As it happens—I was careful to say this—the risk and necessity of that change is merely heightened by the fact that the rules of engagement with one of our most important allies have changed, and that has had real-world consequences. Those consequences create a heightened threat of legal challenge in foreign and indeed domestic courts to our serving personnel.
For some time, our defence philosophy has been—very wisely—that we cannot keep our country safe by defending from the goal line, and on occasion we have to intervene abroad. That is why in my view Prime Minister Cameron took the right decision to authorise lethal strikes against two British citizens. He was concerned first that there was an imminent threat, and secondly that there was no other means of stopping them. Those important tests and safeguards are not operated by our allies.
The change to the American rules of engagement, which allow a strike against someone who is no longer a “continuing and imminent threat”, means that one of our allies now operates under completely different rules of engagement to those set out before the House of Commons by Prime Minister David Cameron, which I think met with some degree of approval. If we are to continue to operate safely a policy of not defending from the goal line, if we are to protect our ability to work with allies and—where necessary and in accordance with international law—to take action abroad, and if we are to continue the vital business of safely sharing information with our allies in the Five Eyes network, a degree of extra reassurance should be built into legislation to ensure that it is fit for the future.
Mr Alister Jack (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)
I am confused. Is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting that the actions by Americans, based on the data sharing, which we know is run with international safeguards, could have legal consequences for our personnel in the intelligence agencies serving here?
Liam Byrne
Yes, and it is not just me—the Court of Appeal is arguing that. The Court of Appeal’s summary in 2013 was that there was a risky legal ambiguity. Its conclusion that it is certainly not clear that UK personnel are immune from criminal liability for their involvement in these programmes is a concern for us all. The Joint Committee on Human Rights reflected on that in 2016, and it concluded pretty much the same thing:
“In our view, we owe it to all those involved in the chain of command for such uses of lethal force…to provide them with absolute clarity about the circumstances in which they will have a defence against any possible future criminal prosecution, including those which might originate from outside the UK.”
This is not a theoretical legal threat to our armed forces and intelligence agencies; this is something that the Court of Appeal and the Joint Committee on Human Rights have expressed worries about.
The new powers and capabilities of our intelligence agencies arguably create the need for greater levels of oversight. This is a pressing need because of the operational policy of one of our allies. We owe it to our armed forces and intelligence agencies to ensure a regime in which they can take clear, unambiguous judgments where possible, and where they are, beyond doubt, safe from future legal challenge. It is not clear to me that the safeguards that the Minister has set out meet those tests.
Perhaps the Minister will clarify one outstanding matter, about convention 108, on which she rested much of her argument. Convention 108 is important. It was written in 1981. The Minister told the Committee that it had been modernised, but also said that that was in draft. I should be grateful for clarification of whether the United Kingdom has signed and is therefore bound by a modernised convention that is currently draft.
Victoria Atkins
I am happy to clarify that. Convention 108 is in the process of being modernised by international partners. I have made it clear, last week and this week, that the version in question is modernised, and is a draft version; but it is the one to which we are committed, not least because the Bill reflects its provisions. Convention 108 is an international agreement and sets the international standards, which is precisely why we are incorporating those standards into the Bill.
I know that the Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition appears to be stepping away from the international community, over the most recent matters to do with Russia, but the Bill and convention—[Interruption.] Well, he is. However, convention 108 is about stepping alongside our international partners, agreeing international standards and putting the thresholds into legislation. The right hon. Gentleman keeps talking about the need for legislation fit for the world we live in today; that is precisely what convention 108 is about.
The Chair
Order. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill indicates that this is an intervention. I thought he had sat down and wanted the Minister to respond. However, if it is an intervention, it is far too long.
Liam Byrne
I am grateful. Some of us in this House have been making the argument about the risk from Russia for months, and the permissive environment that has allowed the threats to multiply is, I am afraid, the product of much of the inattention of the past seven years.
On the specific point about convention 108, I am glad that the Minister has been able to clarify the fact that it is not operational.
Liam Byrne
I will give way to the Minister in a moment. The convention was written in 1981. Many people in the Government have argued in the past that we should withdraw not only from the European Union but from the European convention on human rights and therefore also the Council of Europe.
Liam Byrne
I did not say it was Government policy. I said that there are people within the Administration, including the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who have made the argument for a British Bill of Rights that would remove Britain from the European convention on human rights and, therefore, the Council of Europe. I very much hope that that ambiguity has been settled and that the policy of the current Government will remain that of the Conservative party from now until kingdom come; but the key point for the Committee is that convention 108 is in draft. The modernisation is in draft and is not yet signed. We have heard an express commitment from the Minister to the signing of the thing when it is finalised. We hope that she will remain in her position, to ensure that that will continue to be Government policy; but the modernised version that has been drafted is not yet a convention.
Darren Jones
Does my right hon. Friend recognise that the modernisation process started in 2009, with rapporteurs including one of our former colleagues, Lord Prescott? When a process has taken quite so many years and the document is still in draft, it raises the question of how modern the modernisation is.
Liam Byrne
Some members of the Committee—I am one of them—have been members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe for some time. We know how the Council of Europe works. It is not rapid: it likes to take its time deliberating on things. The Minister may correct me, but I do not think that there is a deadline for the finalisation of the draft convention. So, to ensure that the Government remain absolutely focused on the subject, we will put the amendment to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Stuart C. McDonald
Clause 113 is one of the broad Henry VIII powers that we are consistently opposing and voting against and will continue to oppose and vote against. In chapter 6 of part 4 of the Bill are set out various exemptions that would disapply a number of aspects of data protection if that were required for national security. In schedule 11 are set out further exemptions, including for prevention and detection of crime, parliamentary privilege, legal professional privilege and so on. Huge swathes of data protection principles and subjects’ rights disappear in those circumstances.
We have already had a number of good debates on whether we have struck the right balance between the rights of data subjects and the national interest, national security interests and so on. In our view, it rather undermines our role in scrutinising Government legislation and finding the right balance if we then hand over what is pretty much a carte blanche to change the balance that we have decided on, with the minimum of scrutiny, through broad Henry VIII powers. We therefore continue to oppose broad Henry VIII powers in the Bill and encourage hon. Members to support taking this clause out of the Bill.
Victoria Atkins
I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising this point. Clause 113 is analogous to clause 16, which we have already debated, and provides for the Secretary of State, by regulations subject to the affirmative procedure, to add further exemptions from the provisions of part 4 or to omit exemptions added by regulations. This clause reflects amendments made in the House of Lords in response to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s concerns that the powers in the Bill as introduced, which provided for adding, varying or omitting further exemptions in relation to schedule 11, were inadequately justified and too widely drawn. However, maintaining the power to add further exemptions, or to omit exemptions that have been added, provides the flexibility required, if necessary, to extend exemptions in the light of changing public policy requirements.
The Minister of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Margot James)
I beg to move amendment 122, in schedule 13, page 194, line 36, leave out from beginning to end of line 4 on page 195.
This amendment is consequential on the omission of Clause 121 (see Amendment 47).
Margot James
Amendment 122 and clause 121 deal with measures inserted into the Bill with the intention of protecting and valuing certain personal data held by the state—an issue championed by Lord Mitchell, to whom I am grateful for taking the time to come to see me to further explain his amendments, and for giving me the opportunity to explain how we plan to address the issues he raised.
Lord Mitchell’s amendments require the Information Commissioner to maintain a register of publicly controlled data of national significance and to prepare a code of practice that contains practical guidance in relation to personal data of national significance, which is defined as data that, in the Commissioner’s opinion,
“has the potential to further…economic, social or environmental well-being”
and
“financial benefit…from processing the data or the development of associated software.”
Lord Mitchell has made it clear that his primary concern relates to the sharing of health data by the NHS with third parties. He believes that some information sharing agreements have previously undervalued NHS patient data, and that the NHS, along with other public authorities, needs additional guidance on optimising the benefits derived from such sharing agreements.
We agree that the NHS is a prime state asset, and that its rich patient data records have great potential to further medical research. Its data could be used to train systems using artificial intelligence to diagnose patients’ conditions, to manage risk, to target services and to take pre-emptive and preventive action—all developments with huge potential. I have discussed this matter with ministerial colleagues; not only do we want to see these technological developments, but we want the NHS, if it is to make any such deals, to make fair deals. The benefits of such arrangements are often not exclusively monetary.
NHS patient data is only ever used within the strict parameters of codes of practice and the standards set out by the National Data Guardian and other regulatory bodies. We of course recognise that we must continue in our efforts to make the best use of publicly held data, and work is already being carried out to ensure that the value of NHS patient data is being fully recognised. NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care have committed to working with representatives of the public and of industry to explore how to maximise the benefits of health and care data for patients and taxpayers.
Lord Mitchell’s provision in clause 121 proposes that the commissioner publish a code of practice. However, if there is a problem, a code would seem to be an unduly restrictive approach. Statutory codes are by necessity prescriptive, and this is an area where the public may benefit from a greater degree of flexibility than a code could provide in practice, especially to encourage innovation in how Government use data to the benefit of both patients and taxpayers.
The Government are releasing public data to become more transparent and to foster innovation. We have released more than 40,000 non-personal datasets. Making the data easily available means that it will be easier for people to make other uses of Government-collected data, including commercial exploitation or to better understand how government works and to hold the Government to account. The benefits of each data release are quite different, and sometimes they are unknown until later. Lord Mitchell’s primary concern is health data, but can guidance on how that is used be equally applicable to the vast array of data we release? Such guidance would need to be so general that it would be useless.
Even if we stay focused on NHS data and what might help to ensure that the value of it is properly exploited, Lord Mitchell’s proposal has some significant problems. First, by definition, data protection legislation deals with the protection of personal data, not general data policy. Companies who enter into data sharing agreements with the NHS are often purchasing access to anonymised patient data—that is to say, not personal data. Consequently, the code in clause 121 cannot bite. Secondly, maintaining a register of data of national significance is problematic. In addition to the obvious bureaucratic burden of identifying the data that would fall under the definition, generating a list of data controllers who hold data of national significance is likely to raise a number of security concerns. The NHS has been the victim of cyber- attacks, and we do not want to produce a road map to resist those who want to harm it.
Thirdly, we do not believe that the proposed role is a proper one for the Information Commissioner, and nor does she. It is not a question of legislative enforcement and, although she may offer valuable insight on the issues, such responsibilities do not comfortably fit with her role as regulator of data protection legislation. We have consulted the commissioner on the amendments and she agrees with our assessment. In her own terms, she considers herself not to be best placed to advise on value for money and securing financial benefits from the sharing of such personal data with third parties. Those matters are far removed from her core function of safeguarding information rights. She adds that others in Government or the wider public sector whose core function it is to drive value from national assets may be a more natural home for providing such best practice advice.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
I have the great pleasure of representing a constituency with one of the best medical research facilities in the world. One of the greatest impediments for that facility is getting access to anonymised NHS data for its research. Is the Minister saying that her amendment, which would remove the Lords amendment, would make it easier or more difficult for third parties to access that anonymised data?
Margot James
I am ill-qualified to answer the hon. Gentleman’s question. Hypothetically, it would probably make it more difficult, but that is not our purpose in objecting to clause 121, which we do not see as being consistent with the role of the Information Commissioner, for the reasons I set out. However, he raises an interesting question.
I agree with Lord Mitchell that the issues that surround data protection policy, particularly with regard to NHS patient data, deserve proper attention both by the Government and by the National Data Guardian for Health and Care, but we have not yet established that there is any evidence of a problem to which his provisions are the answer. We are not sitting on our laurels. As I have already said, NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care are working to ensure that they understand the value of their data assets. Further work on the Government’s digital charter will also explore this issue. When my right hon. friend the Prime Minister launched the digital charter on 25 January, she made it clear that we will set out principles on the use of personal data.
Amendment 122 removes Lord Mitchell’s amendment from schedule 13. We do this because it is the wrong tool; however, we commit to doing everything we can to ensure that we further explore the issue and find the right tools if needed. [Interruption.] I have just received advice that the amendments will make no difference in relation to the hon. Gentleman’s question, because anonymised data is not personal data.
I commend amendment 122 and give notice that the Government will oppose the motion that clause 121 stand part of the Bill.
Liam Byrne
I am grateful that the Minister made time to meet my former noble Friend Lord Mitchell. These are important amendments and it is worth setting out the background to why Lord Mitchell moved them and why we give such priority to them.
In 2009-10, we began to have a debate in government about the right approach to those agencies which happen to sit on an enormous amount of important data. The Government operate about 200 to 250 agencies, and some are blessed with data assets that are more valuable than those of others—for example, the Land Registry or Companies House sit on vast quantities of incredibly valuable transactional data, whereas other agencies, such as the Meteorological Office, the Hydrographic Office and Ordnance Survey, sit on sometimes quite static data which is of value. Some of the most successful American companies are based on Government data—for example, The Weather Channel is one of the most valuable and is based on data issued from, I think, the US meteorological survey. A number of Government agencies are sitting on very valuable pots of data.
The debate that we began to rehearse nearly 10 years ago was whether the right strategy was to create public-private partnerships around those agencies, or whether more value would be created for the UK economy by simply releasing that data into the public domain. I had the great pleasure of being Chief Secretary to the Treasury and the Minister for public service reform. While the strong advice inside the Treasury was that it was better to create public-private partnerships because that would release an equity yield up front, which could be used for debt reduction, it was also quite clear to officials in the Cabinet Office and those interested in public service reform more generally that the release of free data would be much more valuable. That is the side of the argument on which we came down.
After the White Paper, “Smarter Government”, that I brought to the House, we began the release of very significant batches of data. We were guided by the arguments of Tim Berners-Lee and Professor Nigel Shadbolt, who were advising us at the time, that this was the right approach and it was very good to see the Government continue with that.
There are still huge data pots locked up in Government which could do with releasing, but the way in which we release them has to have an eye on the way we create value for taxpayers more generally. Beyond doubt, the area of public policy and public operations where we have data that is of the most value is health. The way in which, in the United States, Apple and other companies have now moved into personal health technology in a substantial way betrays the reality that this is going to be a hugely valuable and important market in years to come. If we look at the US venture industry we can see significant investment now going into health technology companies.
Liam Byrne
The Minister is very generous. From that vantage point in the City, I was able to watch the level of ingenuity, creativity and innovation that was unlocked simply by the Government telling the world, “Here are the assets that are in public hands.” All sorts of ideas were floated for using those assets in a way that was better for taxpayers and public service delivery.
To the best of my knowledge, we do not have a similar data catalogue today. What Lord Mitchell is asking is for Ministers to do some work and create one. They can outsource that task to the Information Commissioner. Perhaps the Information Commissioner is not the best guardian of that particular task, but I am frustrated and slightly disappointed that the Minister has not set out a better approach to achieving the sensible and wise proposals that Lord Mitchell has offered the Government.
The reason why it is so important in the context of the NHS is that the NHS is obviously a complicated place. It is an economy the size of Argentina’s. The last time I looked, if the NHS were a country, it would be the 13th biggest economy on earth. It is a pretty complicated place and there are many different decision makers. Indeed, there are so many decision makers now that it is impossible to get anything done within the NHS, as any constituency MP knows. So how do we ensure that, for example, in our neck of the woods, Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham does not strike its own data sharing agreement with Google or DeepMind? How do we ensure that the NHS in Wales does not go in a particular direction? How do we ensure that the trust across the river does not go in a particular direction? We need to bring order to what is potentially an enormous missed opportunity over the years to come.
The starting point is for the Government, first, to ensure we have assembled a good catalogue of data assets. Secondly, they should take some decisions about whether the organisations responsible for those data assets are destined for some kind of public-private partnership, as they were debating in relation to Companies House and other agencies a couple of years ago, or whether—more wisely—we take the approach of creating a sovereign wealth fund to govern public data in this country, where we maximise the upside for taxpayers and the opportunities for good public service reform.
The example of Hinkley Point and the unfortunate example of the Google partnership with DeepMind, which ran into all kinds of problems, are not good precedents. In the absence of a better, more concrete, lower risk approach from the Government, we will have to defend Lord Mitchell’s wise clause in order to encourage the Government to come back with a better solution than the one set out for us this morning.
Margot James
I enjoyed the right hon. Gentleman’s speech, as it went beyond some of the detail we are debating here today, but I was disappointed with the conclusion. I did not rest my argument on it being just too difficult to organise such a database as proposed by Lord Mitchell; there are various reasons, chief among them being that we are here to debate personal data. A lot of the databases the right hon. Gentleman referred to as being of great potential value do not contain personal data. Some do, some do not: the Land Registry does not, Companies House does, and so forth. Also, the Information Commissioner has advised that this is beyond her competence and her remit and that she is not resourced to do the job. Even the job of defining what constitutes data of public value is a matter for another organisation and not the Information Commissioner’s Office. That is my main argument, rather than it being too difficult.
Liam Byrne
Happily, what sits within the scope of a Bill is not a matter for Ministers to decide. First, we rely on the advice of parliamentary counsel, which, along with the Clerks, was clear that this amendment is well within the scope. Secondly, if the Information Commissioner is not the right individual to organise this task—heaven knows, she has her hands full this week—we would have been looking for a Government amendment proposing a better organisation, a better Ministry and a better Minister for the work.
Margot James
I can only be the Minister I am. I will try to improve. I was not saying that Lord Mitchell’s amendment is not within the scope of the Bill; I was making the point that some of the databases and sources referred to by the right hon. Gentleman in his speech went into the realms of general rather than personal data. I therefore felt that was beyond the scope of the Information Commissioner’s remit.
I share the right hon. Gentleman’s appreciation of the value and the uniqueness of the NHS database. We do not see it just in terms of its monetary value; as the hon. Member for Edinburgh South made clear in his intervention, it has tremendous potential to improve the care and treatment of patients. That is the value we want to realise. I reassure the right hon. Gentleman and put it on record that it is not my place as a Minister in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, or the place of the Bill, to safeguard the immensely valuable dataset that is the NHS’s property.
Louise Haigh
Before the Minister concludes, given that she has focused so much on NHS data, can she update the Committee on the Government’s progress on implementing Dame Fiona Caldicott’s recommendations about health and social care data?
Margot James
I cannot give an immediate update on that, but I can say that Dame Fiona Caldicott’s role as Data Guardian is crucial. She is working all the time to advise NHS England and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on how best to protect data and how it can deliver gains in the appropriate manner. I do not feel that that is the place of the Bill or that it is my role, but I want to reassure the Committee that the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, to whom I am referring Lord Mitchell, is alive to those issues and concerns. The NHS dataset is a matter for the Department of Health and Social Care.
Amendment 122 agreed to.
Schedule 13, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 117 and 118 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 14 agreed to.
Clauses 119 and 120 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 121
Code on personal data of national significance
The Chair
We debated clause 121 with schedule 13. For those who are interested, the Minister proposed that the clause should not stand part of the Bill, but the question remains “That the clause stand part of the Bill.” For the avoidance of confusion—I have only been here 26 years—those who, like the Minister, do not want the clause to stand part of the Bill should vote no.
Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Liam Byrne
The debate rehearsed in the other place was whether we should acquiesce in a derogation that the Government have exercised to set the age of consent for personal data sharing at 13, as opposed to 16, which other countries have adopted. There was widespread concern that 13 was too young. Many members of the Committee will have experienced pressing the agree button when new terms and conditions are presented to us on our updates to software on phones, or privacy settings presented to us by Facebook; privacy settings, it is now alleged, are not worth the paper that they were not written on.
Debates in the other place centred on what safeguards could be wrapped around children if that derogation were exercised and the age of consent left at 13. With Baroness Kidron, we were keen to enshrine in legislation a step towards putting into operation the objectives of the 5Rights movement. Those objectives, which Baroness Kidron has driven forward over the past few years, are important, but the rights therein are also important. They include not only rights that are enshrined in other parts of the Bill—the right to remove, for example—but important rights such as the right to know. That means that someone has the right to know whether they are being manipulated in some way, shape or form by social media technologies.
One of the most interesting aspects of the debate in the public domain in the past few months has been the revelation that many of the world’s leading social media entrepreneurs do not allow their children to use social media apps, because they know exactly how risky, dangerous and manipulative they can be. We have also heard revelations from software engineers who used to work for social media companies about the way they deliberately set out to exploit brain chemistry to create features of their apps that fostered a degree of addiction. The right to know is therefore very powerful, as is the right to digital literacy, which is another important part of the 5Rights movement.
It would be useful to hear from the Minister of State, who—let me put this beyond doubt—is an excellent Minister, what steps she plans to take to ensure that the age-appropriate design code is set out pretty quickly. We do not want the clause to be passed but then find ourselves in a situation akin to the one we are in with section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 where, five years down the line, a misguided Secretary of State decides that the world has changed completely and that this bit of legislation should not be commenced.
We would like the Minister to provide a hard timetable— she may want to write to me if she cannot do so today—setting out when we will see an age-appropriate design code. We would also like to hear what steps she will take to consult widely on the code, what work she will do with her colleagues in the Department for Education to ensure that the code includes some kind of ventilation and education in schools so that children actually know what their rights are and know about the aspects of the code that are relevant to them, and, crucially, what steps she plans to take to include children in her consultation when she draws up the code.
This is an important step forward, and we were happy to support it in the other place. We think the Government should be a little more ambitious, which is why we suggest that the rights set out by the 5Rights movement should become part of a much broader and more ambitious digital Bill of Rights for the 21st century, but a start is a start. We are pleased that the Government accepted our amendment, and we would all be grateful if the Minister told us a little more about how she plans to operationalise it.
Margot James
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his generous remarks. To recap, the idea that everyone should be empowered to take control of their data is at the heart of the Bill. That is especially important for groups such as children, who are likely to be less aware of the risks and consequences associated with data processing. Baroness Kidron raised the profile of this issue in the other place and won a great deal of support from peers on both sides of that House, and the Government then decided to introduce a new clause on age-appropriate design to strengthen children’s online rights and protections.
Clause 124 will require the Information Commissioner to develop a new statutory code that contains guidance on standards of age-appropriate design for online services that are likely to be accessed by children. The Secretary of State will work in close consultation with the commissioner to ensure that that code is robust, practical and meets children’s needs in relation to the gathering, sharing and storing of their data. The new code will ensure that websites and apps are designed to make clear what personal data of children is collected, how it is used and how both children and parents can stay in control of it. It will also include requirements for websites and app makers on privacy for children under 18.
The right hon. Gentleman cited examples of the consultation he hopes to see in preparation for the code. In developing the code, we expect the Information Commissioner to consult a wide range of stakeholders, including children, parents, persons who represent the interests of children, child development experts and trade associations. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the Department for Education, and I see no reason why it should not be included in that group of likely consultees.
The commissioner must also pay close attention to the fact that children have different needs at different ages, as well as to the United Kingdom’s obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The code interlocks with the existing data protection enforcement mechanism found in the Bill and the GDPR. The Information Commissioner considers many factors in every regulatory decision, and non-compliance with that code will weigh particularly heavily on any organisation that is non-compliant with the GDPR. Organisations that wish to minimise their risk will apply the code. The Government believe that clause 124 is an important and positive addition to the Bill.
Liam Byrne
Will the Minister say a word about the timetable? When can we expect the consultation and code of practice to be put into operation?
Margot James
There should be no delay to the development of the code and the consultation that precedes it. If I get any additional detail on the timetable, I will write to the right hon. Gentleman.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 124, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 125
Approval of data-sharing, direct marketing and age-appropriate design codes
Amendment made: 49, in clause 125, page 69, line 9, leave out “with the day on which” and insert “when” —(Margot James.)
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 71.
Clause 125, as amended, order to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 126 to 130 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 131
Disclosure of information to the Commissioner
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Liam Byrne
Clause 131 deals with disclosure of information to the Information Commissioner, and this is probably a good point at which to ask whether the Information Commissioner has the right level of power to access information that is pertinent to her investigations into the misuse of information. Thanks to The Guardian, The New York Times, and particularly the journalist Carole Cadwalladr, we have had the most extraordinary revelations about alleged misbehaviour at Cambridge Analytica over the past couple of years. Indeed, Channel 4 News gave us further insight into its alleged misdemeanours last night.
We have a situation in social media land that the Secretary of State has described as the “wild west”. Some have unfairly called the Matt Hancock app one of the features of that wild west, but I would not go that far, despite its slightly unusual privacy settings. None the less, there is now cross-party consensus that the regulatory environment that has grown up since the 2000 e-commerce directive is no longer fit for purpose. Yesterday, the Secretary of State helpfully confirmed that that directive will be modernised, and we will come on to discuss new clauses that suggest setting a deadline for that.
One deficiency of today’s regulatory environment is the inadequate power that the Information Commissioner currently has to access information that is important for her investigations. We have a wild west, we have hired a sheriff, but we have not given the sheriff the power to do her job of keeping the wild west in order. We now have the ridiculous situation that the Information Commissioner must declare that she is going to court to get a warrant to investigate the servers of Cambridge Analytica, and to see whether any offence has been committed.
Darren Jones
Does my hon. Friend agree that this is also a question of access to the judiciary? Last night, the Information Commissioner had to wait until this morning to get a warrant because no judges or emergency judges were available. At the same time, we assume that Facebook was able to exercise its contractual right to enter the offices of Cambridge Analytica. Emergency judges are available for terrorism or deportation cases. Should there not be access to emergency judges in cases of data misuse for quick regulatory enforcement too?
Liam Byrne
If I wanted to hide something from a newspaper and I thought that the newspaper was going to print it inappropriately, I would apply for an emergency injunction to stop the newspaper running it. I do not understand why the Information Commissioner has had to broadcast her intentions to the world, because that has given Cambridge Analytica a crucial period of time in which to do anything it likes, frankly, to its data records. The quality of the Information Commissioner’s investigation must be seriously impaired by the time that it has taken to get what is tantamount to a digital search warrant.
Is the Minister satisfied in her own mind that clause 131 and its associated clauses are powerful enough? Will she say more about the Secretary of State’s declaration to the House last night that he would be introducing amendments to strengthen the Commissioner’s power in the way that she requested? When are we going to see those amendments? Are we going to see them before this Committee rises, or at Report stage? Will there be a consultation on them? Is the Information Commissioner going to share her arguments for these extra powers with us and with the Secretary of State? We want to see a strong sheriff patrolling this wild west, and right now we do not know what the Government’s plan of action looks like.
Margot James
I just want to recap on what clause 131 is about. It is intended to make it clear that a person is not precluded by any other legislation from disclosing to the commissioner information that she needs in relation to her functions, under the Bill and other legislation. The only exception relates to disclosures prohibited by the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 on grounds of national security. It is therefore a permissive provision enabling people to disclose information to the commissioner.
However, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill has taken the opportunity to question the powers that the Information Commissioner has at her disposal. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said yesterday in the Chamber, we are not complacent. I want to correct something that the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill said. My right hon. Friend did not say that he would table amendments to the Bill on the matter in question. He did say that we were considering the position in relation to the powers of the Information Commissioner, and that we might table amendments, but we are in the process of considering things at the moment. I presume that that goes for the right hon. Gentleman as well; if not, he would surely have tabled his own amendments by now, but he has not.
Liam Byrne
The Minister will notice that I have tabled a number of new clauses that would, for example, bring election law into the 21st century. I think that the Secretary of State left the House with the impression yesterday that amendments to strengthen the power of the Information Commissioner would be pretty prompt. It is hard to see another legislative opportunity to put that ambition into effect, so perhaps the Minister will tell us whether we can expect amendments soon.
Margot James
I can certainly reassure the right hon. Gentleman that we are looking at the matter seriously and, although I cannot commit to tabling amendments, I do not necessarily rule them out. I have to leave it at that for now.
On a more positive note, we should at least acknowledge that, although the Bill strengthens the powers of the Information Commissioner, her powers are already the gold standard internationally. Indeed, we must bear it in mind that the data privacy laws of this country are enabling American citizens to take Cambridge Analytica to court over data breaches.
I want to review some of the powers that the Bill gives the commissioner, but before I do so I will answer a point made by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill. He said that the commissioner had had difficulties and had had to resort to warrants to pursue her investigation into a political party in the UK and both the leave campaigns in the referendum. She is doing all that under existing data protection law, which the Bill is strengthening. That is encouraging.
Liam Byrne
I did not want to intervene, but I have been struggling with the matter myself. There are allegations that a significant donor to Leave.EU was supported in that financial contribution by organisations abroad. As I spoke to the Financial Conduct Authority and tabled questions to the Treasury, it was revealed that there were no data sharing gateways between the Electoral Commission and the FCA.
Margot James
I shall come back to the right hon. Gentleman on the relationship between the Information Commissioner and the FCA. I am sure that the information that he has already ascertained from the Treasury is correct, but there may be other ways in which the two organisations can co-operate, if required. The allegations are very serious and the Government are obviously very supportive of the Information Commissioner as she grapples with the current investigation, which has involved 18 information notices and looks as if it will be backed up by warrants as well. I remind the Committee that that is happening under existing data protection law, which the Bill will strengthen.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 131 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Data Protection Bill [Lords] (Sixth sitting)
(6 years, 7 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 9 / Noes: 10 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 9 / Noes: 10 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 10 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 10 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 9 / Noes: 10 - Question accordingly negatived.
Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Streeter. The Minister suggested this morning that the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport had not committed to the House yesterday to introduce powers to strengthen the Information Commissioner. However, on checking Hansard over lunch, I noticed that the Secretary of State said that where there is non-compliance with an audit,
“there is a very serious fine, but the question is whether the criminal penalties that can be imposed in some cases should be further strengthened. That detail is rightly being looked at in the discussions on the Data Protection Bill.”—[Official Report, 19 March 2018; Vol. 638, c. 51.]
Most of us would assume that “further strengthened” meant that further powers would be suggested, but the Minister seemed to say this morning that that would not be the case. Could she clarify whether such amendments will be tabled?
The Chair
It is up to the Minister to decide whether she wishes to respond to that point of order.
The Minister of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Margot James)
I hesitated, Mr Streeter, because I am not quite sure that I can clarify the matter. I cannot answer the right hon. Gentleman’s question. I reiterate that in answer to the important question about strengthening the Information Commissioner’s powers, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said yesterday:
“We are considering those new proposals, and I have no doubt that the House will consider that as the Bill passes through the House.”—[Official Report, 19 March 2018; Vol. 638, c. 49.]
In the context of the commissioner’s request for additional powers, he said:
“We are therefore considering the Information Commissioner’s request.”—[Official Report, 19 March 2018; Vol. 638, c. 52.]
The right hon. Gentleman’s point was recently made by the commissioner, so it is a point worth listening to. I can confirm that we are listening and reviewing, but beyond that, I cannot go.
The Chair
As the Speaker himself might say, the right hon. Gentleman has been here a long time and will no doubt find other ways to pursue the matter. I am grateful for the point of order.
Clause 132 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 133 to 139 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 140
Publication by the Commissioner
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Margot James
I was not planning to speak to this clause, but as it is relevant I will use the opportunity to give the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill further information. He asked about the code of conduct where the commissioner has a responsibility to publish the document about child-friendly regulation of websites. Clause 140 provides that the document can be published in a way the commissioner considers appropriate. Under clause 126, the Bill contains a duty to publish various codes of practice, including the age-appropriate design code. The Bill requires the commissioner to publish the age-appropriate design code within 18 months of Royal Assent, but as the matter is important and urgent, we will endeavour to do so sooner.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 140 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 141 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 142
Inquiry into issues arising from data protection breaches committed by or on behalf of news publishers
Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
I beg to move amendment 137, in clause 142, page 77, line 34, at end insert—
“(3) The Secretary of State must consult the Scottish Government and obtain its consent before establishing an inquiry under subsection (1).”
This amendment would ensure that before any inquiry was established, the UK Government must have consent from Scottish Government.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Clause stand part.
Clauses 168 and 169 stand part.
Government amendment 72.
Amendment 138, in clause 207, page 121, line 12, after “subsections” insert “(1A),”.
This amendment is a paving amendment for amendment 139.
Amendment 139, in clause 207, page 121, line 13, at end insert—
“(1A) Sections 168 and 169 extend to England and Wales only.”
This amendment would ensure that clauses 168 and 169 would only extend to England and Wales and not apply in Scotland.
Brendan O'Hara
Amendments 137, 138 and 139, which stand in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East, were tabled because we believe that the Bill is incompatible with the devolution settlement, trampling roughshod over areas of wholly devolved competence. Whether by accident or design, the Lords amendments on Leveson—in particular on section 40—that seek to impose a one-size-fits-all Truro to Thurso solution are wholly inappropriate, as they fail to recognise or take cognisance of the fact that in press regulation and criminal justice, to name just two fields, it is the Scottish Parliament, not this place, that has legislative competence. The three amendments draw that distinction and defend the devolution settlement, removing any lingering doubts as to where the hitherto clear legislative boundaries, which have existed since 1998, lie.
Amendment 137 relates to any future inquiry on press standards, styled as Leveson 2. The Scottish National party has been clear throughout that all individuals should be able to seek redress when they feel they have been the victim of press malpractice, and that it benefits each and every one of us to have media that are transparent and accountable. However, we have been equally clear that if there is to be a second part of the Leveson inquiry, the distinct legal context in Scotland must be taken into account. As press regulation and criminal justice are matters for the Scottish Parliament, it is that body that must be consulted about the scale and the scope of any future inquiry and how it will operate in Scotland. As long as the Scottish Government were consulted and the distinct Scottish legal system taken into account, we would be happy to support efforts to establish a second part of a Leveson inquiry because any reasonable person would agree that the terms of reference for that part of the inquiry have not yet been met.
It is unfortunate that we have had to table the amendments. It is not unreasonable to expect the House of Lords to know that press regulation and all the associated issues of the culture, practice and ethics of the press would fall under the devolved competence. A blanket UK-wide amendment would only negatively affect areas of devolved competence. We are disappointed that the amendments were necessary in the first place, but we sincerely hope that Members in all parts of the Committee support our attempts to respect the devolution settlement.
Amendment 139 would ensure that clauses 168 and 169 would extend only to England and Wales and would not apply in Scotland. Again, this is simply a case of our having to tidy up after the Lords. I want to put on record that there is no excuse for what we regard as lazy and entirely inappropriate amendments from the other place. By accident or design, those amendments take no cognisance whatsoever of which powers are devolved and which are reserved. For the future benefit of their lordships, let me say again what I have said on numerous occasions. Although data protection may well be an area of competence reserved to this place, press regulation and criminal justice are wholly devolved to the Scottish Parliament and have been for the past 20 years. If the Bill is not amended, the power of this Parliament will be extended into areas that are solely the preserve of the Scottish Parliament. I believe that will set a very dangerous precedent.
Not only does the Bill drive a coach and horses through the devolution settlement, but I would question why the House of Lords thought it in any way appropriate to apply section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 to the whole of the United Kingdom, because there is no such piece of legislation as the Crime and Courts Act in Scotland. It simply does not exist. Furthermore, the whole concept of exemplary damages, as I understand is being proposed, is not even recognised and has no equivalent in Scots law. If the Bill were passed unamended, it would force the Scottish Government to pass a legislative consent motion—something they have said they have no intention of doing because, as I said, press regulation and criminal justice are wholly devolved to the Scottish Parliament.
It is simply unacceptable for the UK Parliament to decide what should happen in Scotland with regard to press regulation; that is a job for the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Government have made it clear that, although they are not opposed to press regulation and are having ongoing discussions with the Scottish media about how best to implement an independent press regulation system, it is for Holyrood to decide on a course of action, not to have it decided for them by Westminster. I fully expect the Government to seek to remove clauses 168 and 169 and the Opposition to seek to restore them on Report. I hope that, when the Labour Opposition do that on Report, they will ensure that what they bring back to the Floor of the House of Commons is compatible with the devolution settlement and that the proposed new clause will exclude Scotland from the section 40 legislation.
It is not enough for the Government to say that they understand and sympathise. I urge the Minister to accept our amendments because they preserve and protect the devolution settlement, which has worked well for the past 20 years in terms of press regulation and criminal justice. I ask the Minister and in particular Conservative Members representing Scottish constituencies to respect the devolution settlement and accept that what came back from the House of Lords flies in the face of the long-established devolution settlement. I ask them to accept that it is wholly inappropriate and inconsistent with Scots law and, therefore, support our amendments.
Liam Byrne
I want to say a few words in defence of the clause and touch on the amendments the Government have proposed. The substance of the clause is an attempt to ensure that we activate the second half of the Leveson inquiry, to look into allegations of collusion between the police and members of the fourth estate.
It is worth reminding ourselves of the absolute horror with which we all looked at the revelations about News International’s malpractice. The idea that individuals from national newspapers could hack phones of pretty much anybody in the country, including most notoriously the phone of poor Milly Dowler, sell that information and turn it into front-page newspaper stories, absolutely shocked us. Serious questions were asked about the way the police investigation was conducted. That is why the House united not just to begin the Leveson inquiry, but to propose a second part to look into the question of police collusion. That element was not possible at the time because of the cases that were coming to court, both civil and criminal. The solution proposed by Mr Cameron, the then Prime Minister, which I believe was supported by the present Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, was that there should be a second half of the Leveson inquiry. Mr Cameron said:
“One of the things that the victims have been most concerned about is that part 2 of the investigation should go ahead—because of the concerns about that first police investigation and about improper relationships between journalists and police officers. It is right that it should go ahead, and that is fully our intention.”—[Official Report, 29 November 2012; Vol. 554, c. 458.]
Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. I declare an interest: I was a journalist for many years—I am no longer practising—although not in the hard-copy newspaper industry. Given my background, I take a deep interest in these matters.
I have a great deal of sympathy for the reasons for the Scottish National party tabling amendments 137, 138 and 139, and I absolutely understand the need for the tidying up that needs to be done to the amendment that has come from the other place, which appears to be addled in relation to the legal situation with the Scottish Parliament’s devolved powers. I fully understand why the Scottish amendments have been tabled, and I have sympathy with the view that the Lords amendment needs tidying up. However, I cannot support the SNP amendments simply because I do not want the amendment from the other place, to which they would be attached, to be part of the Bill at all. I will go through some reasons to explain why, but I want to put on the record my sympathy for the reason for them being tabled.
The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute described the amendment from the other place as “lazy” because it does not take into account the Scottish devolved powers. That is one description of it. It is also, frankly, a bit mysterious. I find it a little hard to understand why we are discussing this issue at all in relation to the Bill. That amendment and the section 40 amendment, which we will discuss later, were attached to the Bill in the other place in much the same way as one attaches decorations to a Christmas tree. They are not part of what we should be discussing, although I am grateful that we have the opportunity so to do, because that allows the Government to put their case, as I am sure Ministers will do shortly, and as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State did in the House earlier.
As I set out in my speech on Second Reading, I believe strongly that we should reject the amendments that have come to us from the other place—in particular, the amendment relating to Leveson 2. I heard everything the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill said about the need for Leveson 2 and about victims needing their day in court. I am not putting words into his mouth—I do not think he used exactly that phrase, and I do not disagree—and there is indeed a difficulty in that, of course, there are still examples of reporters working for a variety of news organisations who are undertaking practices that are either immoral or illegal, or in some cases both.
Liam Byrne
Like the hon. Gentleman, I wish that the entire media operated with the editorial standards of BBC Essex and the Swindon Advertiser. I was struck by a remarkable statement: that he believes that the mispractice or malpractice still goes on—I have written down carefully the words that he used. I cannot, therefore, understand why the conclusion he draws from the persistence of malpractice is to look the other way and to shut down an inquiry into whether it took place and who the guilty are. I would be grateful if he can correct me on my misunderstanding.
The Chair
Order. First, let me correct a possible misunderstanding. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill mentioned that clauses 168 and 169 will be debated later. In fact, we are debating them as part of this group, as I tried to make clear when I introduced amendment 137.
Peter Heaton-Jones
Thank you for that clarification, Mr Streeter.
There is nothing remarkable about what I said. Quite clearly, there is still malpractice going on in the journalism industry. Is the right hon. Gentleman honestly trying to say that that is a remarkable thing to say?
Peter Heaton-Jones
It is not remarkable at all. Of course it is going on, but establishing and carrying out Leveson 2 would do nothing to solve that problem and nothing to bring justice to the members of the public who have been done wrong by that small number of journalists who are acting in that way. I do not know why the right hon. Gentleman finds that a remarkable statement to make.
As for the statement that he made on Second Reading—that the Government’s position is to say, “Nothing to see here—absolutely nothing happening”—that is not what the Government are saying at all. The Government’s position is clear: Leveson 2 simply would not do what I think the right hon. Gentleman and probably everyone in this room would like it to do, which is to be some sort of cleansing disinfectant that solves all the problems. It simply will not do that.
Liam Byrne
As much as I respect the hon. Gentleman’s omniscience, how could he possibly know that?
Peter Heaton-Jones
It is a big gamble to spend potentially £50 million when we are not sure whether it will have the required outcome. That is the point. The Lords amendment would start the Leveson 2 process, which would cost at a very conservative estimate £50 million, potentially last for a huge amount of time and still not get to the answer that we want. There must be better solutions.
I had started to discuss the fact that the landscape has changed and that the very framework in which we work has changed markedly since the former Prime Minister made the commitment to go ahead with Leveson 2. There have been huge changes. Not only have we had the Leveson 1 inquiry, which in its own terms of reference touched on many of the issues that the proposed Leveson 2 inquiry would cover, but we have had any number of changes, improvements, and reforms in the way the police and indeed the media operate. We have had Operations Elveden, Tuleta and Weeting, which included Operation Golding, all of which have investigated a wide range of practices in the interaction between the police and members of the media and journalists. At a total cost, incidentally, of about £40 million for those operations, they have done good work and all of them have resulted in significant reform.
When I first joined the journalistic trade, way back in 1986, there was malpractice on a scale that we would not believe, and it was completely normal for journalists to pick up the phone to a friendly police contact and get whatever information they wanted to write their next report. That was absolutely normal. It is not normal now. I am sure it still happens, but it is now not the norm, which is good. That is why we do not want to turn the clock back and commit ourselves to a very long inquiry—a Leveson 2 inquiry—which would not do what we want it to do.
Where malpractice occurs in the media, where cases such as those raised by the right hon. Gentleman come to light, and where members of the public are treated in the most despicable way by journalists, I want people to be able to have the right to redress, to have their day in court, and to be able to say, “This is what has happened and it must change,” but Leveson 2 would not do that. It would not provide the means by which that happened. That is why the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport was absolutely right to make the decision and to say that Leveson 2 is not on the Government’s agenda, and nor should it go ahead. It is perhaps worth pointing out also that this Government were elected only nine months ago on a manifesto that specifically said that Leveson 2 would not go ahead. That was a manifesto commitment.
Mr Streeter, may I just seek absolute clarification from you? From your earlier instruction, are we now also talking about section 40?
The Chair
Yes. Clauses 168 and 169. Clause 168 refers to section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013.
Peter Heaton-Jones
Yes it does. May I go on to address that briefly as well at this point, if that is in order?
Peter Heaton-Jones
Thank you very much indeed.
I do not really have much to say. To be clear, we are considering the amendment made in the other place. It seeks to enact section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, which this Government and the Secretary of State have said we will not do—indeed, they have said that we wish to repeal section 40.
It is very clear in my mind that we need to reject the amendment made in the other place. There is a very straightforward reason, which is that section 40 does one key thing: it seeks to persuade media organisations, specifically newspapers, that have not signed up to a recognised regulatory body to do so by providing a financial inducement of the most “blunt instrument” kind.
I have here a document from the House of Commons Library; for the record, I emphasise that the House of Commons Library is neutral. The document discusses why section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 was introduced. The Library says that it was intended to
“coerce or incentivise publishers to become members of a recognised regulator”.
That is language that we should be worried about. The reason we should be more worried about what section 40 will do—it is pretty straightforward—is that if a member of the public brings a defamation action against a newspaper, it goes to court and the newspaper wins the case, that media organisation is still financially liable to pay the costs of both sides.
Quite simply, that will encourage a lot of entirely superfluous and vexatious legal actions to be brought by people who just have some kind of beef against the media and pockets bulging with cash that allows them to do so. When, as will inevitably happen, the media wins the case, because it was built on sand, the media organisations concerned will be put out of business by the requirement to pay the legal costs on both sides.
Liam Byrne
The Minister is cheering on the hon. Member, but will he for complete clarity remind the Committee who proposed this architecture in the first place? From memory, it was his right hon. Friends the Members for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) and for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller).
Peter Heaton-Jones
I was not in Parliament at the time. I have only been here for two and a half years. We go back to the point that I made in relation to the previous clause. The ground has shifted. We now know what the effect will be. The other place debated this in some detail; the arguments were put extremely strongly, and by a narrow majority their lordships, as is their right, passed the amendment and asked us to consider it. It is perfectly right that they are asking us to consider it. It is perfectly right that we say: “Up with this we will not put.” Section 40 will have precisely the opposite effect to what probably anyone listening would hope it to have. It will be an extraordinarily damaging measure for the future of the freedom of the press in this country. It will have the effect of preventing publication of material which is in the public interest and which is true, legitimate, and fair, because newspaper proprietors will not be able to afford the risk of going to a court case which they win but still have to pay the costs. It will be an incredible impediment to the free press in this country. For that reason more than any other we must reject the amendments that come from the other place.
The Chair
One or two colleagues have caught my eye because I was not clear enough in my introduction to this section. I invite Mr Liam Byrne to readdress the Committee in relation to these clauses.
Liam Byrne
I am grateful to you, Mr Streeter, for setting that out so clearly. I want to speak in defence of clauses 167 and 168.
I am clearly an innocent abroad in a world that is not innocent. I struggle to follow the argument made by the hon. Member for North Devon. On the one hand he was pretty insistent that malpractice continued, but then invited us to believe that somehow the world had changed comprehensively. Either the world has changed or it has not. I fear that the world has changed a bit, but not enough, so there is still a need for an effective means of offering justice to those who have been maligned by newspapers.
The architecture set up by the right honourable Members for West Dorset and for Basingstoke was complicated. We have a fine tradition of a free press, going back to the restoration. One of the reasons why the industrial and scientific revolutions flourished in this country was that we had a culture of free speech—something that Voltaire admired greatly when he spent time in London. However, the reality is that bad behaviour by the press has destroyed people’s reputations without any real chance of recovery. In a world of social media, when reputations are destroyed, the smears stick to people like tar. They do not go away; they stay with people and scar them for life.
Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)
I shall be mercifully brief. As a print journalist for 15 years, I start by saying that the entire industry was genuinely horrified to learn of the extent and the offences that had been committed by organisations that, in the main and over many centuries, worked genuinely in the public interest. We should not forget that journalists who work in the media today, and were doing so while that was going on, are in the main trying to do the kind of public service that we would all defend. We should not underestimate the horror with which the industry greeted the stories of what happened to the Dowler family and many others, be they celebrities or other victims. I hope we would agree across the House that the media in the main have fulfilled that remit. I should also say, as did my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon, that I have a great deal of sympathy with the amendments proposed by the Scottish National party. We should prize consistency above all else in this area.
The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill said that he was surprised to learn that the Government did not seek to proceed with the second part of the Leveson inquiry. It was in our manifesto, so his surprise is surprising. I can only conclude that he did not read the Conservative manifesto. Perhaps he read the Labour manifesto and was so horrified he could not face reading another one.
Matt Warman
The Labour one? Quite right. We should bear in mind the two things used in favour of the position taken by the Conservative party and the Government in the manifesto. The first, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon said, is that the world has indisputably moved on. Even Sir Brian Leveson agrees that the world has moved on. The challenges that face our modern media are not the challenges that would have been subject to the Leveson inquiry. The more important point is that, where there are legitimate concerns about the media and how people are treated, the solution to that is effective and independent regulation, and that is what we have now more than ever.
Liam Byrne
The hon. Gentleman served on The Daily Telegraph long enough to know that the IPSO code today bears a striking resemblance to the old editors’ code. Perhaps he could give us the benefit of his experience and tell us whether he is satisfied that the IPSO code meets the tests set out by Sir Brian Leveson and agreed in all parts of the House.
Matt Warman
I will say two things. I had a mercifully limited engagement with what was then the Press Complaints Commission, although we did have to deal with some complaints in my small bit of the paper. Although we took it seriously, it is in no way comparable with the seriousness that IPSO is now taken. That might be down to the fact that the scale of the apology that can be demanded by IPSO, and has to be given, is exponentially greater. That is a crucial deterrent when it comes to the work done by journalists in the newsroom, who sometimes regard their editors as figures of great fear as much as great role models.
The other side is that we have a crucial low-cost arbitration system that allows people who are not of the means that the right hon. Gentleman described to bring cases against the media and get the redress they deserve when people make mistakes. Those are the two crucial differences between the PCC and IPSO. The latter is a fundamentally more powerful, very different regulator, but it has the credibility and independence that IMPRESS will simply never have.
Liam Byrne
The hon. Gentleman was an experienced and respected journalist and has a track record on which to draw in his reflections. He did not quite answer the question whether he thought the code of conduct that IPSO regulates meets the tests set out by Sir Brian Leveson and agreed on both sides of the House. Will he reflect on whether the code of conduct is prone to changes driven through by newspaper editors? There is no guarantee that newspaper editors cannot influence that code, and its shape and bite, in the years to come.
Matt Warman
The right hon. Gentleman is right that there is a continuous thread to the sensible key principles of press regulation, and for journalists to have a role in shaping those is not entirely illegitimate. None the less, we must bear in mind that those principles should serve the public before they serve the press. That is what is in the principles that Sir Brian Leveson sought to suggest. The right hon. Gentleman is right that we agree on those on both sides of the House, and that IPSO strikes the right balance. The sense that both the world and the regulator have changed should reassure both Opposition Members and members of the public who would like the Government to secure a free but sensibly regulated press that serves all of us.
Colin Clark (Gordon) (Con)
Surely my hon. Friend shares my concern, and more to the point the public’s concern, that state interference smacks of all the wrong things the Government do and undermines the free press, on which we depend on a national and a local scale.
Matt Warman
I agree, which is why IPSO rather than IMPRESS strikes the right balance between the two. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill made great play of David Cameron promising IPSO, but I would make great play of Government delivering on the manifesto pledges they made when they fought an election in 2017. Not doing what he set out also delivers on a promise—the more recent promise should take precedence.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Devon powerfully made the case against section 40, which seeks to punish the victim. That would obviously have a clear chilling effect not only on our local newspapers, which are often on the brink of bankruptcy, but on the broader media. We can look at fantastic pieces of journalism even today, such as the one about Cambridge Analytica. The Guardian itself says, “Please, we would like your donations so we can keep our valuable journalism free”—the paper has had to fight off three pieces of legal action by Cambridge Analytica and one from Facebook. Those huge corporations seek to shut down legitimate investigation, and the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill suggests that if they were to bring and win cases, The Guardian should pay for them. That is an extraordinary position to take.
Matt Warman
I am sure the right hon. Gentleman is about to assure me that he is not taking that position.
Liam Byrne
Let us be real about this. The idea that companies such as Facebook or Cambridge Analytica will desist from legal action to shut down stories that they do not like—the idea that that will not happen at any time in the future, even under the existing regimes—is for the birds. The argument that is better made by some of the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues is to do with the risk to local newspapers, most of which are now owned by Trinity Mirror, which makes tens of millions of pounds in profit, or the Johnston Press. The point is that vexatious claims can be shut down and thrown out at any one of three stages by the regulator or, before the case goes to arbitration, by the arbitrator or by a judge, so the incidence of costs arising will not be on the scale the hon. Gentleman anticipates. Equally, he must accept that, without a form of low-cost arbitration, justice is denied to people who are maligned by newspapers.
Matt Warman
I enjoyed the right hon. Gentleman’s speech, but I disagree with him profoundly. I worked for a newspaper that had, by comparison with our local papers, an enormous budget. The threat of having to pay the legal bills of Facebook and Cambridge Analytica would have a profoundly chilling effect, even at the very highest level of journalism.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
Is my hon. Friend as concerned as I am that The Times journalist who uncovered the Rotherham child abuse scandal said that it would have been inconceivable—that is the word he used—for the newspaper to have run that story on its front page had section 40 been in place? How would that have damaged the investigation?
Matt Warman
Exactly—there are a number of such examples. Opposition Members might wish to imagine that the so-called Fleet Street media has money to burn and could not care less about paying all sorts of legal costs. However, we all know that these businesses have to mind every penny, whether they are profitable or not. It is legitimate for them to do that. If every single investigative journalist was constantly living under the threat of their piece of work costing their newspaper and their boss tens of thousands of pounds, they simply would not get hired, never mind allowed into print.
Liam Byrne
Finally and very briefly, the hon. Gentleman is making an eloquent argument. Why, then, was that proposed by the right hon. Members for West Dorset and for Basingstoke? How did they get it so profoundly wrong?
Matt Warman
That is a fascinating philosophical question, but I can only tell the right hon. Gentleman that I would not have voted for it. I appreciate that he will say that it is easy for me to say that now, but the idea that people in this place would be convinced that it is the best possible model is simply not plausible after the statements that my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon and I have made today. Surely we need a set of press regulations that preserves the independence of the media, and their ability to invest in journalism at local and national level, which we all want if we are to hold the powerful to account. We also need regulations that allow hon. Members to say with a clear conscience that we have done nothing that puts those businesses in serious jeopardy.
It does not seem to me that a costly Leveson 2 is the best use of public money, or that the threat of section 40 will ever be the best use of private money, putting legitimate local and national media out of business. Those arguments seem to me like a powerful case for IPSO, and for a sensible look at the sustainability of the press, as the Prime Minister has set about doing. They do not under any circumstances seem to me like a good reason to vote for the amendments.
Margot James
I will set out the Government’s position on clauses 142, 168, 169 and 205, before returning to the amendments in the name of the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute.
As we have heard, clause 142 requires the Government to establish an inquiry with terms of reference similar to those contained in part 2 of the Leveson inquiry, but in relation to data protection only. The Government set out our intention not to reopen the Leveson inquiry in our response to the consultation on the future of the inquiry on 1 March. I will not repeat the arguments in full, but I will say that the Government’s firm focus is on the problems faced by the media right now.
The Government recognise that there is a great deal of feeling on both sides of the debate. We have listened to all views, including those of victims, in reaching a decision. No one seeks to excuse the past behaviour of individual media organisations, nor to legitimise it. As the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill said, some of the stories we heard at the beginning of the Leveson inquiry were horrific. The Government have a duty, however, to make decisions that are proportionate and in the public interest. In the light of all the evidence available, it is apparent that part 2 of the inquiry is no longer appropriate or proportionate.
Part 1 of the inquiry lasted over a year, and heard evidence from more than 300 people, including journalists, editors and victims. Since then, the majority of the Leveson recommendations have been implemented. Three major police investigations examining a wide range of offences have been completed. More than 40 people were convicted, some of whom were sent to prison. There have also been extensive reforms to policing practices, and significant changes to press self-regulation.
As a result, the terms of reference for part 2 have largely been met, and the culture that allowed phone hacking to become the norm has changed. Meanwhile, the media are facing critical challenges that threaten their sustainability, including fake news, declining circulations and gaining revenue from online content. Free and vibrant media are vital to democratic discourse, and we need to tackle those challenges urgently. Holding a costly and time-consuming public inquiry looking predominantly backwards is not the right way to go.
The Government are committed to addressing these issues, and we are developing a digital charter to ensure that new technologies work for the benefit of everyone, with rules and protections in place to keep people safe online and to ensure that personal information is used appropriately. As part of that, we are also undertaking work to ensure that there are sustainable business models for high-quality media online. The media landscape is different and the threats are different, too. Issues such as fake news mean there is a need to protect the reliability and objectivity of information.
Likewise, clauses 168 and 169 are similar to the provisions contained in sections 40 and 42 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, but apply to breaches of data protection law only. The Government do not believe that introducing a provision similar to section 40 of the 2013 Act into the Bill is appropriate, but in relation to data protection only. That is particularly so given our decision earlier this month to repeal section 40 when there is a suitable legislative vehicle. In coming to that decision, we considered all the available evidence, including the views of respondents to the public consultation that we undertook last year. Many respondents cited concerns about the chilling effect that section 40 would have on the freedom of the press, which was so ably summed up by my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness.
Liam Byrne
Will the Minister tell the Committee why she supported it when it came to a vote last time?
Margot James
The right hon. Gentleman has made great play of the former Prime Minister’s statement. I remind him that that statement was given six years ago. Much has changed since. My hon. Friend the Member for North Devon tried to make the point that, although we cannot rule out that egregious conduct is still going on in the press, as I imagine there is in virtually every other sector of society, we can agree that much has changed and improved. That is why the Government have changed their direction. I hope that satisfies the right hon. Gentleman.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter.
On that point, the Minister accepts that egregious activity could be taking place across the industry but does not think that the proposal is the appropriate vehicle for dealing with it. She believes that the digital charter is the appropriate vehicle, but what evidence is she using to ensure that that addresses the egregious activity?
Margot James
I want to correct one thing that the hon. Gentleman said: I did not say that that activity was taking place across the industry; I said that it was still taking place. Indeed, we have heard the horrendous allegations made by John Ford, albeit referring to behaviour that predates 2011. He alleges that it is still going on. I am not denying that it probably is still carrying on in pockets, but I would not say that it is widespread.
Press self-regulation has changed significantly in recent years with the establishment of IPSO, which follows many of the principles set out in the Leveson report. As so few publishers have joined a regulator recognised under the royal charter, commencement of section 40 would have a chilling effect on investigative journalism, which is so important to a well-functioning democracy.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. We keep hearing about the chilling effect—it is well rehearsed—but could the Minister confirm that it could be entirely avoided if newspapers sign up to an appropriate regulator, which does not have to be IMPRESS? It is not a difficult thing to do.
Margot James
Currently, IMPRESS is the only regulator recognised under the royal charter. I cannot speak for the press. There was a heated debate when the legislation went through Parliament. The press decided as one not to join what they perceived as a state-backed regulator. IPSO now does the job, albeit the Financial Times and The Guardian alone among the broadsheets have not joined IPSO.
The media landscape has changed. As I noted earlier, high-quality journalism is under threat from the rise of clickbait and fake news, from difficulties in generating revenue online to replace the revenue that used to flow from printed sources, and from the dramatic, continued rise of largely unregulated social media. If implemented, section 40 could impose further financial burdens on publishers, particularly at local level—200 local papers have closed in the last decade.
On top of that, the amendments made in the other place undermine our Scotland and Northern Ireland devolution settlements—that point was ably made by the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute. The proposed new clauses seek to legislate on a UK-wide basis despite press regulation being a reserved matter for the devolved Administrations, which brings me to amendments 137, 138 and 139 in the name of the hon. Gentleman.
The Government are sympathetic to the hon. Gentleman’s arguments for reasons I have set out. We will nevertheless push instead for the removal of those clauses from the Bill in their entirety. Similarly, while we agree with the sentiment of amendment 137, which seeks to require the Government to obtain the Scottish Government’s consent before establishing an inquiry under clause 142, we note that there is already a consultation requirement to that effect in the Inquiries Act 2005. Such an amendment is therefore unnecessary.
To conclude, high-quality news provision is vital to our society and democracy. I know there is shared interest across the House in safeguarding its future, and the Government are passionate about and working to deliver it. We believe that the clauses would work against those aims and cut across the work we are doing to help strengthen the future of high-quality journalism, and will therefore oppose their continued inclusion in the Bill.
Brendan O'Hara
I take on board what the Government say and appreciate that they have accepted the principle of the amendment, but I still intend to push it to the vote. It is essential that the devolution settlement is protected in as broad and deep a way as possible. I understand that they would seek to remove the entire clause, but if the clause is passed and de-amended, it has serious consequences for the devolution settlement. For that reason we will be pushing it to the vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Margot James
I beg to move amendment 51, in clause 143, page 77, line 37, after “notice”)” insert “—
(a) ”.
See the explanatory statement for Amendment 52.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments 52, 54, 126 and 58.
Margot James
The Information Commissioner has a breadth of corrective powers at her disposal to investigate breaches of data protection legislation. One such power is the ability to issue an information notice on a data controller requesting that they provide the commissioner with specified information. Article 2 of the general data protection regulation states that certain types of processing of personal data, including purely personal or household activities, are exempt from the provisions of the GDPR. That includes the list of all those hon. Members who deserve a Christmas card this year.
Although such processing is exempt, it is important that in certain situations the Information Commissioner is able to verify that the processing actually meets this test and does not fly under the radar of GDPR requirements unduly. Government amendments 51 and 52 will ensure that the Information Commissioner is able to issue an information notice, in order to determine whether the process is genuinely being undertaken in the course of a purely personal or household activity.
Government amendment 54 is a consequential amendment. It ensures that the reference to processing of personal data in the subsection added by Government amendment 52 means any type of processing, pulling on the definitions provided in subsections (2) and (4) of clause 3, rather than those under parts 2, 3 or 4, none of which apply to processing in the course of purely personal or household activities.
Government amendments 58 and 126 make further consequential changes to clause 159 and paragraph 9 of schedule 16. The amendments ensure that certain safeguards for controllers and processors in the context of enforcement action extend to all persons, since their exact status may in fact be the source of dispute.
All in all, this is a common sense set of changes that enjoy the full support of the Information Commissioner’s Office.
Amendment 51 agreed to.
Amendments made: 52, in clause 143, page 77, line 40, at end insert “, or
(b) require any person to provide the Commissioner with information that the Commissioner reasonably requires for the purposes of determining whether the processing of personal data is carried out by an individual in the course of a purely personal or household activity.”
This amendment and Amendments 51 and 54 enable the Information Commissioner to obtain information in order to work out whether processing is carried out in the course of purely personal or household activities. Such processing is not subject to the GDPR or the applied GDPR (see Article 2(2)(c) of the GDPR and Clause 21(3)).
Amendment 53, in clause 143, page 78, line 23, leave out
“with the day on which”
and insert “when”.
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 71.
Amendment 54, in clause 143, page 78, line 30, at end insert—
“(10) Section 3(14)(b) does not apply to the reference to the processing of personal data in subsection (1)(b).”—(Margot James.)
This amendment secures that the reference to “processing” in the new paragraph (b) inserted by Amendment 52 includes all types of processing of personal data. It disapplies Clause 3(14)(b), which provides that references to processing in Parts 5 to 7 of the bill are usually to processing to which Chapter 2 or 3 of Part 2, Part 3 or Part 4 applies.
Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
In this of all weeks, it is particularly relevant that we debate this clause, which relates to information notices, and the powers and enforcement sanctions available to the Information Commissioner, given the horrendous breaches of our data regulation that have been exposed by Channel 4 and The Guardian.
The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport told the House yesterday that the Information Commissioner was seeking further powers to compel compliance with information notices, testimony from other individuals in complex investigations, such as that into Cambridge Analytica, and criminal sanctions for breaches of information notices.
Under the current data protection legislation, breach of information notice is a criminal offence that carries a custodial sentence. The maximum sentence under this Bill is only a fine. That is a significant weakening of the data protection regime and its sanctions. Indeed, in her own evidence, the Information Commissioner said:
“The new approach in the Bill of failure to comply with an”
information notice
“no longer being a criminal offence but punishable by a monetary penalty issued by the ICO is likely to be less of a deterrent, as data controllers with deep pockets might be inclined to pay the fine, rather than disclose the information being requested.”
I would be grateful if the Minister could set out exactly why the Government have decided to weaken the powers given to the Information Commissioner and the sanctions available to her.
Crucially, the Information Commissioner has requested the power to compel compliance with information notices. As things stand, it is an offence not to deliver information, but the Information Commissioner does not have the power to demand compliance with information notices. She has said that that puts us out of step with our closest EU member state neighbour, Ireland, which has a much stronger data protection regime, with much tougher sanctions and, indeed, powers to compel compliance with an information notice.
That gap in the Information Commissioner’s enforcement powers has not caused significant problems up to now, because formal action has largely centred on security breaches or contraventions of the privacy and electronic communications regulations. In such cases, the commissioner rarely needs to use her information notice powers, because the evidence of a contravention is usually clear and in the public domain.
Where the Information Commissioner has used her enforcement powers against a data controller for contraventions of the data protection principles under the Data Protection Act, she has generally found data controllers to be co-operative because, under the current framework, financial penalties are reserved only for the most serious contraventions of the law. However, as investigations become more complex—and as we are seeing this week—the Commissioner will be unable to obtain the information she needs.
The Minister has said that the Government are considering potential amendments to the Bill, as laid out by the Secretary of State yesterday. It is baffling, however, that those amendments have not already been tabled, given that the Information Commissioner suggested them in her written evidence earlier in the process. The provisions represent a serious weakening of the existing regime and a failure of the Government to step up to the plate on the matter of the complex investigations conducted by the Information Commissioner.
Margot James
I do not accept that this Bill represents a reduction in the powers of the Information Commissioner, and I do not think that that is her view either. Obviously, I accept what she said in response to questioning from Select Committee on Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. As I have already said, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is considering her request, and we are working on the areas where she feels there is a shortfall.
I reassure the Committee that the Bill strengthens ICO’s overall powers. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley has mentioned fines. There are fines of up to 4% of global turnover, or £17 million, both for malpractice itself and for blocking investigations and inquiries mounted by the ICO.
Liam Byrne
One way in which the Government could row in behind a frustrated Information Commission would be to deny Government contracts to companies that are behaving badly. I understand that Cambridge Analytica has Government contracts with both the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence. Are they under review?
Margot James
I cannot speak for either of those Departments. We are debating the powers of the ICO rather than contractual matters between private companies and Government Departments. I accept that that is a moot point, but it is not the purpose of this Bill Committee to go into those details.
To return to the points raised by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley, we are strengthening the powers of the Commissioner. We are extending her current power to serve assessment notices on data controllers in public sector bodies to all data controllers across the private sector as well. Those assessment notices will require them to provide evidence of their compliance with the law, and there is now the power to enforce assessment notices by obtaining a warrant to exercise search and seizure powers on behalf of the ICO. The Bill also creates a criminal offence for obstructing a warrant, which is subject to both fines and a criminal record. We are strengthening in those areas and also increasing fines substantially.
Liam Byrne
I understand that the Minister cannot answer the detailed question about Government contracts with, for example, Cambridge Analytica, but does she think, philosophically, that a Government would and should reconsider contracts with companies that are not complying with a reasonable request made by the Information Commissioner?
Margot James
The right hon. Gentleman makes an entirely reasonable point. As I said earlier, I cannot go into it in a debate on this particular Bill, other than to say that he makes a reasonable point.
Clause 143 provides the commissioner with the power to issue an information notice. This is a type of notice that requires a controller or processor to provide the commissioner with specified information within a certain time period.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 143, as amended, accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 144 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 145
False statements made in response to an information notice
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Liam Byrne
The operation of clause 145 is a matter of great public concern this week, because of the revelations that an app that sat on Facebook collected data for a particular purpose, but they were then re-used by Cambridge Analytica for an entirely different purpose, to bend the outcome of particular elections and, quite possibly, referendums too. Facebook had made a statement that the matter had been resolved a couple of years ago and that the relevant data in question had been deleted. The story has developed over the past 24 hours and former Facebook employees are now alleging that it was not simply 50 million records that were collected for one purpose and re-used for another; there may have been hundreds of millions of records collected for one purpose and used for another.
How will clause 145 bite on a company such as Facebook that may be responding to an information notice issued by the Information Commissioner? The company may have told the Information Commissioner that it was all fine, the data was all deleted and everyone was perfectly satisfied, but a couple of years later it transpires that that is not the case. What would then happen to a company such as Facebook? Is the Minister satisfied that the proposed sanctions and penalties are strong enough? It is not clear to me, given what we now know, that these sanctions are strong enough at all.
Margot James
We are debating a suite of powers as part of the overall powers with which the Bill reinforces the Information Commissioner’s Office. It is not just about clause 145. If a company discloses information unlawfully, there is also a separate offence in clause 170. We are not relying on one clause alone.
Louise Haigh
Earlier, we debated the requirement for law enforcement agencies to conduct data protection impact assessments ahead of developing or using any new filing system, and we debated several examples of what those filing systems or methods of data collection could be, including automated facial recognition software, automatic number plate recognition and the use of algorithms to determine decisions made in the criminal justice system.
In relation to the clause, the Information Commissioner has requested that she be given the power to impose corrective measures where necessary, when a data protection impact assessment has revealed that the processing of that personal data is of high risk to individuals and where there are no measures to mitigate that risk in relation to law enforcement processing, as she has for other processing. She maintains that a different approach to law enforcement is not justified and might lead to adverse consequences in an important area affecting individuals. That is important because it gives weight to the important aspects raised earlier that require law enforcement agencies to conduct that DPIA. There is little point asking organisations and data controllers to conduct impact assessments and then, even when they are falling short dramatically, to let them carry on conducting assessments and collecting data in that way.
In evidence, the Information Commissioner has said that part 3 of the Bill
“requires these types of assessment to be undertaken”
and provides
“for requirements to consult the Commissioner where such a high risk is present but measures cannot be put in place to mitigate these. They also provide requirements for the Commissioner to use her corrective powers in relation to GDPR but the way the Bill is drafted these corrective powers will not be available in relation to concerns arising from a DIPA involving law enforcement processing. Nor are there any powers available to ensure that the Information Commissioner can take action if a DIPA for law enforcement processing is not carried out when required.”
Not only are there no enforcement powers if the DPIA is conducted and falls short, but the Information Commissioner is not provided with any powers under this legislation to compel a DPIA to take place. Given, as we discussed earlier, the serious threats not just to data rights, but to prevention with respect to an individual’s rights to liberty and freedom, it is very serious indeed if law enforcement agencies will be able to carry out impact assessments without any adherence to the provisions in the Bill.
The Information Commissioner says:
“Having the ability to issue corrective measures based upon the DPIA or indeed requiring a DPIA to be undertaken when it should have been, is an important measure which is missing in relation to law enforcement processing”.
The commissioner has raised her concerns with the Government and suggested drafting solutions. Will the Minister clarify why those were not introduced in Committee?
Margot James
The clause gives the commissioner the power to issue an enforcement notice, which requires a person to take steps or refrain from taking steps specified in the notice. For example, the commissioner can use an enforcement notice to compel a data controller to give effect to a data subject if they have otherwise failed to do so. Section 40 of the Data Protection Act 1998 made similar provision. In respect of the hon. Lady’s questions concerning the law enforcement aspects of the clause and the need for impact assessments, and the powers that the ICO might need to ensure that those impact assessments are done and are appropriate, I will have to write to her on the details of those latter points.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 148 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 149
Enforcement notices: supplementary
Amendment made: 56, in clause 149, page 83, line 36, leave out “with the day on which” and insert “when”.—(Margot James.)
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 71.
Clause 149, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 150
Enforcement notices: rectification and erasure of personal data etc
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Liam Byrne
The clause bites on the question of individuals’ rights to the erasure of personal data and rectification. I want to give the Minister an opportunity to update the Committee on her conversations with media, culture and other organisations about how she is going to balance the implementation of clause 150 with the ambitions of those organisations to protect archives—not just archives of very large sets of artefacts, such as the Natural History Museum, but those that are run by News UK or Trinity Mirror or the BBC.
The risk that is obviously posed by those organisations is that they often rely on very good, detailed and often quite old archives of news information. The scenario that was put to us last night by lawyers representing a number of those organisations that wanted to give us their views about clauses 168 and 169 was that successful journalism—whether The Daily Telegraph or the Swindon Advertiser—will often rely on excellent archives.
If rich individuals are seeking to create a different truth and a different history, and to exercise their rights under the clause, a risk will be created for those media organisations. I am more worried about the media organisations’ rights than I am about the Natural History Museum and the BBC, because I think the Minister’s Department will do a good job of working out where to put that grey line round what should be protected and what is up for grabs. The example put to us last night was of rich individuals seeking to create a different kind of history—a different kind of past—to bend deliberately the future of reporting by eradicating a record that might be true. The risk that was put to us is that, very often, newspaper legal directors—the poor things often have to advise on this decision—will sometimes conclude that the game is just not worth it and therefore give in to the rich individual to avoid damaging and expensive legal action and delete the records from their archives.
This is a difficult area, where balances have to be struck, but it is a form of litigation that will doubtless continue into the future. We might have just decided to deny access to ordinary people to correct media malpractice, but rich individuals will continue to bring their cases. Will the Minister tell us how the balance will play out in practice? How do we protect the rights of news organisations to run good archives for the benefit of public interest journalism in the future?
Margot James
The clause makes additional provision for enforcement notices where the subject matter of the notice relates to the controller or processor’s failure to comply with the data protection principle of ensuring accuracy. The clause may also apply where a controller or processor has failed to comply with the data subject’s rights on rectification, erasure or restriction of processing under articles 16 to 18 of the general data protection regulation.
We touched on the issue of archives in one of the Committee sittings last week. I explained to the Committee that there is protection for archives under the GDPR, whether they be those of news organisations or of academic sources. We are aware of the concerns expressed by organisations representing archives, and I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that quality journalism often depends on the use of such archives. However, I assure him that my Department will defend the rights of journalists and the press as tenaciously as we would defend the rights of archivists in the great museums of our country against the distortions that he gave as examples of people perhaps wanting to use the right to be forgotten in an excessive manner and in a bid to rewrite history. We are aware of such individuals, and we are comfortable that the GDPR prevents those abuses.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 150 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 151 and 152 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 153
Powers of entry and inspection
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Liam Byrne
Again, on this point, we would benefit from some clarification from the Minister. The story that broke this morning was that the Information Commissioner had, in effect, to go to court to get her warrant to investigate what Cambridge Analytica was up to. There was some speculation as to why Facebook was able to exercise some contractual rights and turn up at the offices of Cambridge Analytica to conduct an inspection. The reports are that, as the situation played out, the Information Commissioner had to tell Facebook legal officers to stand down and to stop what they were doing. As it happened, Facebook wisely decided to follow the Information Commissioner’s orders.
A matter of great concern is that the Information Commissioner has to go through what sounds like a laborious process to get the warrant needed to conduct an investigation that is obviously in the public interest. When we secure, for example, emergency injunctions to stop the publication of material that people do not want published, or when magistrates issue search warrants, most of us with experience of this at a local level would observe that such warrants are often issued in a much faster and less high-profile way than the process the Information Commissioner appears to have to go through.
In effect, Cambridge Analytica has had 48 hours’ notice of the Information Commissioner’s concerns—[Interruption.] I am sorry, but I do not know whether the Minister wants to intervene on that—
Liam Byrne
I am sorry, Mr Hanson. I was not sure whether the Home Office Minister wanted to clarify that point. We know that warrants have to be sought and judicial oversight is important, but the process appears slightly cumbersome. I wonder whether the Minister can tell us whether she is satisfied that the process and the powers that we will equip the Information Commissioner with are as smooth and slick as the new enforcement environment requires.
Margot James
I remind the right hon. Gentleman that, in this case, the Information Commissioner is acting under the existing powers in the Data Protection Act 1998, but she is pursuing warrants where she has to get them to continue her investigation. She has issued 12 information notices—I might have said this earlier—pertaining to Cambridge Analytica, and she plans to issue another six this week. One of those notices has been challenged, but she is now issuing a demand for access and she is getting where she needs to get. She was very surprised to read that Facebook had decided to plough into the offices of Cambridge Analytica when it was itself under investigation. She must have thought that an extraordinary course of action, but as soon as she intervened, Facebook desisted and removed itself from the offices of Cambridge Analytica to enable her to undertake her inquiries.
That is of course all happening under the existing legislation. The Bill will provide new powers, including the ability to serve assessment notices, backed up by warrants if they are not complied with.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 153 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 15 agreed to.
Clause 154
Penalty notices
Margot James
I beg to move amendment 179, in clause 154, page 85, line 39, leave out from the beginning to “when” and insert “Subject to subsection (3A),”.
This amendment and amendment 180 provide that the requirement in clause 154(2) and (3) for the Commissioner to have regard to listed matters when deciding whether to give a penalty notice, and determining the amount of a penalty, applies not only in the case of failures described in clause 148(2), (3) or (4) but also in the case of failures to comply with an information notice, an assessment notice or an enforcement notice.
Margot James
As part of the Information Commissioner’s suite of corrective powers, she can issue penalty notices to data controllers requiring them to pay a fine. Fines can be issued where a controller has failed to comply with a previous notice or where significant breaches of data protection legislation have taken place. Members will be aware from our debate this afternoon that the maximum such penalty will increase from £0.5 million to £17 million, or 4% of global turnover, for the most serious breaches.
When imposing a penalty for breaches of the GDPR, the commissioner must follow the procedures set out in article 83 of the GDPR, which include acting on a case-by-case basis; ensuring that the fine is effective, proportionate and dissuasive; and taking into account various factors. Because law enforcement and intelligence services processing falls outside the scope of the GDPR, the clause makes parallel provision in respect of breaches of those parts of the Bill, including by listing matters that the commissioner must take into account when deciding whether to issue a fine for that type of processing and when determining the magnitude of that fine.
Government amendments 179 and 180 make it clear that, when considering a person’s failure to comply with notices—an information notice, for example—the commissioner is to have regard to the matters listed in article 83(2) of the GDPR and, in relation to law enforcement processing and intelligence processing, to clause 154(3) and (4) of the Bill. Clause 154 prescribes such requirements only for decisions regarding the issuing of a monetary penalty notice in relation to certain failings. The commissioner has powers to prepare guidance on how she uses her enforcement powers, so she could decide, as a matter of policy, to have regard to those matters in relation to other failings. However, the Government’s view is that there should be a requirement for her to do so in the Bill.
Government amendment 57 makes an addition to clause 154(3)(c) to ensure that the Information Commissioner takes into account any actions the controller has taken to mitigate not only damages, but distress suffered by the data subject. The amendment will bring the clause into line with other similar clauses in the Bill, where the Information Commissioner must take into account damage or distress caused. They include clause 149 regarding enforcement notices, where the Information Commissioner must take into account the magnitude of the damage or distress caused by the controller. I am sure right hon. and hon. Members will agree that providing consistency across the Bill is important; the amendment is a step to ensure that that is provided.
Amendment 179 agreed to.
Amendments made: 57, in clause 154, page 86, line 10, at end insert “or distress”.
This amendment is for consistency with Clause 149(2). It requires the Commissioner, when deciding whether to give a penalty notice to a person in respect of a failure to which the GDPR does not apply and when determining the amount of the penalty, to have regard to any action taken by the controller or processor to mitigate the distress suffered by data subjects as a result of the failure.
Amendment 180, in clause 154, page 86, line 28, at end insert—
“(3A) Subsections (2) and (3) do not apply in the case of a decision or determination relating to a failure described in section 148(5).” —(Margot James.)
See the explanatory statement for amendment 179.
Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
Louise Haigh
I am sorry to labour the point; it is pertinent to the clause but also relates to the debate that we just had on information notices. The Minister has failed to set out why the Government have removed the custodial sentence as an enforcement power of the Information Commissioner when data controllers or processors breach information notices. The Minister said earlier that she does not accept that it is the Information Commissioner’s view that that weakens the existing data protection regime, but the commissioner explicitly set that out in her written evidence to the Committee:
“The new approach in the Bill of failure to comply with an IN no longer being a criminal offence but punishable by a monetary penalty issued by the ICO is likely to be less of a deterrent”.
We very much welcome the increased penalty as a sanction by the Information Commissioner, but the Minister has so far failed to set out why she has removed that custodial sentence, which, as the Information Commissioner has laid out, is a serious deterrent. That could weaken her abilities to investigate complex situations and, as I mentioned earlier, it is in direct contrast to the Irish Government’s approach, which carries a fine but also a custodial sentence of up to five years’ imprisonment if the data controller fails to comply with an information notice.
In written evidence, again, the Information Commission suggests that the Government’s approach pales in comparison to that taken by Ireland. Will the Minister take this opportunity to explain why she has so significantly weakened the Information Commissioner’s important powers?
Margot James
The clause replicates section 55(a) of the 1998 Act, which gives the commissioner a power to serve a monetary penalty, requiring the data controller to pay the commissioner an amount determined by the commissioner. The maximum penalty is specified in clause 156. Before the commissioner can issue a penalty notice, she must be satisfied that a person has failed to comply with certain provisions of the GDPR or the Bill, or has failed to comply with an information notice, assessment notice or enforcement notice.
Clearly, it is up to the commissioner to decide whether a penalty notice is appropriate. She has stated:
“It’s about putting the…citizen first. We can’t lose sight of that…It’s true we’ll have the power to impose fines much bigger than the £500,000 limit the DPA allows us.”
Daniel Zeichner
For reasons that are entirely understandable, my constituents in Cambridge take a particularly close interest in some of the things that have been happening with Cambridge Analytica this week. They will be astonished that the Minister does not seem to be answering the question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley. Financial penalties, yes, but criminal proceedings surely should be uppermost when we have seen these dreadful things that have been going on.
Margot James
I was coming on to answer the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley, but as the hon. Member for Cambridge has raised her question again, I will jump to it. We are not removing all criminal powers under this new legislation. Under paragraph 2 of schedule 15, the commissioner may enforce assessment notices. That power includes the new offence of obstructing a warrant, which is a criminal offence, so criminal offences do remain. As I said, we are looking at the commissioner’s desire for stronger powers in certain areas, but under the current law there is a criminal sanction only for non-compliance with a notice, and that offence is not used. A civil penalty is a better way forward and is provided as the appropriate sanction by the GDPR itself.
Louise Haigh
The Minister has just confirmed that under the existing arrangements a custodial sentence is the maximum penalty if an individual fails to comply with an information notice. She has not given a coherent reason why she is removing that through the Bill. Is she really arguing that criminal sanctions are less of a deterrent than civil? That is a direct contradiction of the Information Commissioner’s evidence.
Margot James
I have just been advised that the existing law is non-custodial criminal sanctions. I have referred to the criminal sanctions with respect to assessment notices, and I will get back to the hon. Lady on the question of the sanctions on the information notices that she has asked about. I am told what I am told; the existing law is non-custodial.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 154, as amended, accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 16
PENALTIES
Amendments made: 123, page 203, line 26, leave out “with the day after” and insert “when”.
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 71.
124, page 204, line 10, leave out “with the day on which” and insert “when”.
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 71.
125, page 205, line 5, leave out “with the day after the day on which” and insert “when”.
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 71.
126, page 205, line 37, leave out “controller or processor” and insert “person to whom the penalty notice was given”.—(Margot James.)
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 52.
Schedule 16, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 155 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 156
Maximum amount of penalty
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Liam Byrne
I think we could all do with a bit of clarity, which did not quite emerge in the last debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley, makes an important point: in light of this week’s news, there is real concern that the maximum possible sentences should be on the books to punish people who try to get in the way of investigations by the Information Commissioner. Can the Minister say whether the Information Commissioner is currently able to prosecute people for getting in her way, and whether they could go to jail? That would be clarification No. 1. Clarification No. 2 would be whether, under the Bill the Minister is asking us to agree, that custodial sentence would still remain.
Margot James
I understand that under the current law there are no custodial sentencing provisions, so therefore I cannot argue that they will remain. That does not seem logical at all. The existing DPA offences are for fines only, according to section 60 of the Data Protection Act 1998.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 156 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 157
Fixed penalties for non-compliance with charges regulations
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Liam Byrne
Given the clarity that the Minister has now furnished for the Committee, and given the scale of wrongdoing that is alleged about Cambridge Analytica and potentially Facebook this week, the question on clause 157 is whether she is satisfied that financial penalties are going to do the job in the years to come. Otherwise, is this a clause on which we need to reflect on Report if not now so that if custodial sentences are not currently available, we might consider introducing them for people who appear determined to move heaven and earth to get in the way and obstruct an Information Commissioner inquiry? Could we perhaps come back to that on Report, rather than simply rely on sanctions such as fixed penalty notices?
Margot James
I have mentioned before to the right hon. Gentleman that there are criminal offences set out in the Bill, such as an offence of obstructing a warrant, which would enable the ICO to go in and exercise search and seizure powers. Although obstruction carries potential fines and a criminal record, I do not believe that it carries the threat of a custodial sentence, which is no change from the current situation.
As I have said before, and as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said yesterday, we are reviewing the enforcement powers of the ICO, and we are working with the commissioner to ensure that we get the whole suite absolutely right. I cannot say any more than I already have on that point.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 157 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 158 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 159
Guidance about regulatory action
Amendment made: 58, in clause 159, page 89, line 37, leave out from “a” to end of line 38 and insert
“person to make oral representations about the Commissioner’s intention to give the person a penalty notice;”—(Margot James.)
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 52.
Clause 159, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 160 to 163 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 164
Orders to progress complaints
Amendment made: 59, in clause 164, page 93, line 4, leave out “with the day on which” and insert “when”
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 71.—(Margot James.)
Clause 164, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 165 to 167 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 168
Publishers of news-related material: damages and costs
Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Liam Byrne
I beg to move amendment 157, in clause 170, page 96, line 25, at end insert—
“or
(d) was done in the process of making a protected disclosure for any of the purposes of the Employment Rights Act 1996 or the Employment Rights (Northern Ireland) Order 1996 (SI 1996/1919 (NI 16)).”.
This amendment seeks to ensure that the offences listed in the offences of the Bill do not infringe on a worker’s ability to raise public interest concerns about wrongdoing, risk or malpractice.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 158, in clause 171, page 97, line 28, at end insert—
“or
(d) was done in the process of making a protected disclosure for any of the purposes of the Employment Rights Act 1996 or the Employment Rights (Northern Ireland) Order 1996 (SI 1996/1919 (NI 16)).”.
This amendment seeks to ensure that the offences listed in the offences of the Bill do not infringe on a worker’s ability to raise public interest concerns about wrongdoing, risk or malpractice.
Liam Byrne
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South for keeping me warm and enthused.
The amendment is important. None of us wants to damage the right and power of whistleblowers to bring important information into the public domain, sometimes to the attention of regulators, sometimes to the attention of organisations, such as the Health and Safety Executive, and sometimes to the attention of Members. Over the years, we have put in place a good regime in order to ensure that whistleblowers are afforded protections that allow them to come forward with information that is in the public interest.
The reason we have to consider that now is that data protection legislation is being strengthened by the incorporation of GDPR into British law. However, the risk is that the ambiguities that frame the protection of whistleblowers in the Bill are such that many are concerned that whistleblowers will not be given the right protection against data protection legislation.
The Government recognise that it is important to protect whistleblowers. There is a protection in clause 170 for whistleblowers bringing forward information that is
“justified as being in the public interest.”
The argument put to us by Public Concern at Work and others is that that approach is unlikely to be effective. We are told that there will be a new test in law, which will therefore require guidance from the courts. Until that time, the precise meaning will obviously be a bit moot, and the scope of the situations that the Government seek to protect will remain a little uncertain. That uncertainty and ambiguity will jeopardise an individual who might have something important to bring to the attention of the outside world.
Exceptions to violations in personal data confidentiality were recently considered by the Government in section 58 of the Digital Economy Act 2017, which provided a far more comprehensive list of exceptions. Where there is overlap between the Bill and the Digital Economy Act, it appears that the Act deals much more satisfactorily with whistleblowers.
I remind the Committee that section 58 of the Act says that the offence does not apply to a disclosure
“which is a protected disclosure for any of the purposes of the Employment Rights Act 1996 or the Employment Rights (Northern Ireland) Order 1996”.
We therefore have a pretty well established and grounded definition of exceptions. Indeed, it was so well defined and grounded that the Government decided to use that definition in the 2017 Act. It is not clear why the Bill seeks to create alternative definitions and therefore the need for alternative tests and guidance in the courts when we have a definition we can rely on.
The Opposition amendment would return us to what we think was sensible drafting in the Digital Economy Act. That Act is not ancient history—it was only 12 months ago. Otherwise, the risk is that the Government, employers, courts and trade unions will get into an awful muddle as they try to understand which legislation protects whistleblowers in new circumstances. None of us wants to create a situation of uncertainty and ambiguity that stops whistleblowers from coming forward with important information.
I therefore hope we can have a useful debate about why the Government have chosen to introduce new definitions when it is not clear that they are improvements on well-established employment law that dates back to the Employment Rights Act 1996. Let us hear what the Minister has to say, but I hope the Government reflect on the arguments we rehearse this afternoon and introduce further enhancements and perfections on Report.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
The right hon. Gentleman is correct: it is essential that we do not create an offence in the clause that will snare whistleblowers. I am sure the Committee shares that goal. Indeed, if we created such an offence, whistleblowers would no longer be whistleblowers—a qualifying disclosure would no longer be a qualifying disclosure if it were an offence under different legislation, including the Bill.
We will listen carefully to what the Minister says, but, to come at it from a slightly different angle, as I understand it, the Employment Rights Act currently requires a “reasonable belief” by the worker making the whistleblowing disclosure that it is in the public interest to disclose that information. That seems a slightly easier test than the one contained in a defence in subsection (2) of the clause, which requires not a “reasonable belief”—those words do not appear—but proof that disclosure was justified in the public interest. There is also a contrast with subsection (3), where a reasonable belief test is applied to a defence but only in circumstances of publication of either journalistic, artistic or literary material.
It is not clear to me why there is a reasonable belief test in subsection (3) but not in subsection (2). I am interested to hear what the Minister has to say about that distinction.
Margot James
The amendments concern offences relating to personal data provided for by part 6 of the Bill. Hon. Members will be aware that the offence of unlawful obtaining of personal data has been carried over and updated from the 1998 Act to include the unlawful retention of personal data without the controller’s consent. By contrast, the offence of re-identification of de-identified personal data is new to data protection legislation, underlining our intention to bring data protection laws up to date with the digital age.
Amendment 157 would add an additional defence to clause 170 where the conduct is in the process of a disclosure by an employee raising public interest concerns about wrongdoing or malpractice to the extent that such disclosures would be protected by the Employment Rights Act 1996 and equivalent legislation for Northern Ireland. Amendment 158 adds the same defence to clause 171.
I share the sentiment of the amendments, but believe they are unnecessary. Clauses 170 and 171 provide defences in cases where the processing is necessary for the prevention or detection of crime or can be justified as being in the public interest. We believe that the crime prevention defence would cover a disclosure by an employee who suspected that an offence had been committed, and that the flexible public interest defence would encapsulate the other non-criminal activities envisaged by the amendments. In particular, as set out in section 43B of the Employment Rights Act 1996 and article 67B of the Employment Rights (Northern Ireland) Order 1996, a disclosure is protected in the first place only if the disclosing worker reasonably believes the disclosure to be in the public interest.
Stuart C. McDonald
This is a narrow question that I raised in my speech. There is a “reasonable belief” test in the 1996 Act. It is easier for someone to prove that they had a reasonable belief that a disclosure was in the public interest than to prove that it was in the public interest. That slight difference in wording may be significant. There are in fact two different tests in the clause, so I wonder whether the Minister might look at that again.
Margot James
I referred to the public interest defence as a flexible defence that would encapsulate non-criminal activities. I do not know whether that satisfies the hon. Gentleman, but a flexible public interest defence is indeed required.
For those reasons, I reassure hon. Members that a further defence providing for whistleblowing is unnecessary. It is telling that there is no such defence in section 55 of the 1998 Act, and we are not aware of any problems with its operation. Hon. Members mentioned section 58 of the Digital Economy Act 2017. That is a difficult comparison. Unlike clauses 170 and 171, section 58 does not contain a straightforward public interest defence, so, unlike the offences in the Bill, there may be no alternative protection for such disclosures. I hope I have given hon. Members sufficient reassurance that they feel confident withdrawing their amendments.
Liam Byrne
I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. She says that she wants to try to update the legislation. I understand what she is trying to do and why she does not accept that there is a complete parallel with the Digital Economy Act. None the less, the new definition will need to be tested in court, new guidance will need to be issued and new ambiguity will therefore be created, which brings with it the risk that important whistleblowers will be dissuaded from bringing forward information that is in our interest and letting it see the light of day.
I hope the Minister reflects on that further. She seeks to create an extension in law to ensure that there is a public interest definition in the round—I can see the enlargement that she is trying to make—but I hope she reflects before Report stage on the challenge that new definitions will have to be tested in court, which will create ambiguity and risk. I do not think she wants to create that risk, but the strategy she sets out does not completely delete it and it remains a concern. I will happily withdraw the amendment, but I ask the Minister to reflect on that point before Report.
Margot James
I am happy to reflect on what the right hon. Gentleman proposes. The last thing we want is to have any chilling effect on would-be whistleblowers.
Liam Byrne
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 170 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 171
Re-identification of de-identified personal data
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Darren Jones
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Streeter. I want to pursue the debate on the re-identification of de-identified personal data because, as the Minister pointed out, under the general data protection regulation, the idea of pseudonymised data comes into the law for the first time. For example, if my name, as my personal data, is turned into #365, it has been pseudonymised, and the question is whether #365 can be unlocked to identify the name “Darren Jones”. Pseudonymising is distinct from anonymising, which cannot be unlocked.
The question has come up a lot in the Select Committee on Science and Technology, in various contexts. I had a conversation with the Minister and her officials in the Select Committee about one scenario—the use of genetic data in the health service, where lots of data from individuals is pooled together for the purpose of learning about trends. It may be re-applied to the individual in the delivery of care. Another example might involve Facebook clients being able to upload customer lists on to the Facebook advertising profile. Each name would be hashed—pseudonymised—but ultimately targeted advertising could be pushed through to the individual’s profile.
Both those scenarios raise a policy question about the end of the process, when it comes back to the individual—the information has been personally identifiable, then is pseudonymised in a pooled way, and is then re-identified. Will those issues give rise to an offence under the part of the Bill that we are considering, and should consent be different, with the potential for pseudonymised data to be re-identified made clear to the end user? The reason I have not tabled any amendments to deal with the point is that I do not know the answer, but I should welcome the Minister’s views, and perhaps a commitment to have a conversation either with the Information Commissioner or the new data and artificial intelligence ethics unit about different types of consent where data is pseudonymised and then re-identified, either for health purposes or targeted advertising.
Margot James
I am sure you did, Mr Streeter.
Clause 171 creates a new offence of knowingly or recklessly re-identifying information that has been de-identified without the consent of the controller who de-identified the data. It is a response to concerns about the security of de-identified data held in online files. For example, recommendations in the review of data security, consent and opt-outs by the National Data Guardian for Health and Care call for the Government to introduce stronger sanctions to protect de-identified patient data, to which I think the hon. Member for Bristol North West was referring.
Subsection (3) provides the defendant with a defence if he or she can prove that re-identification was necessary for the purposes of preventing crime or complying with a legal obligation, or that it was justified in the public interest. Subsection (4) provides further defences where the defendant can prove they reasonably believed that they had or would have had the consent of the data subjects to whom the information relates or of the data controller responsible for de-identifying the information, or that they acted for the special purposes, with a view to publication, and the re-identification was reasonably believed to be justified in the public interest, or if the effectiveness testing conditions in clause 172 were met.
I have perhaps strayed rather far into the matter of defences in answering the hon. Gentleman, and may not have entirely satisfied him as to his question. If he is agreeable I will write to him, and get from my officials the latest as to the oversight of the important questions he raises.
Louise Haigh
My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West has raised important questions about social media providers. Before I entered this place, I worked in the insurance industry. Will the Minister confirm whether insurers would be covered by the clause if they re-identified individuals from datasets to inform the pricing of risk? That is potentially serious when considering the implications of loyalty card, bank or shopping information for health insurance.
Margot James
I will have to write to the hon. Lady on that. I do not think it would provide cover for insurance companies in those circumstances, but I would like to double-check before I give a definitive answer to her question.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 171 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 172 to 176 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 177
Jurisdiction
Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 151, in clause 177, page 102, line 13, at end insert—
“(4) Notwithstanding any provision in section 6 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, a court or tribunal shall have regard to decisions made by the European Court after exit day so far as they relate to any provision under this Act.”.
For fear of sounding like a broken record, my arguments in favour of the amendment are broadly similar to those for amendment 152—in seeking to assist the Government in our shared aim of getting a decision of adequacy with the European Commission, it would be helpful to set out in the Bill our commitment to tracking and implementing European jurisprudence in the area of data protection. Members will remember that amendment 152 dealt with the European data protection board. Amendment 151 makes the same argument, but in respect of the European Court.
I appreciate that there may be some political challenges in stating the aim that the UK will mirror the European Court’s jurisdiction, but the reality is that developing European data protection law, either directly from the courts or through the European data protection board, will in essence come from the application of European law at the European Court of Justice. The amendment does not seek to cause political problems for the Government, but merely says that we ought to have regard to European case law in UK courts, in order to provide the obligation to our learned friends in the judiciary to have regard to European legal decision making and debates in applying European-derived law in the United Kingdom. This short amendment seeks merely to put that into the Bill, to assist the Government in their negotiations on adequacy with the European Commission.
Liam Byrne
I would like to say a word in support of this important amendment. We had a rich and unsatisfactory debate on the incorporation of article 8 of the European charter of fundamental rights into British law. We think that that would have helped the Government considerably in ensuring that there is no divergence between the European data protection regime and our own. If the Government are successful, they will operate on different constitutional bases, and there is therefore a real risk of divergence over the years to come. I think that everyone on the Committee is now pretty well versed in the damage that that would do to British exports, many of which are digitally enabled. This is a really helpful amendment. It tries to tighten to lockstep that we have to maintain with European data protection regimes, which will be good for exports, services and the British economy, and the Government should accept it.
Margot James
When we leave the European Union, the direct jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union in the UK will come to an end. Clause 6 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill gives effect to that and takes a clear and logical approach to how our domestic courts should approach the case law of the CJEU as a result. In short, where a judgment precedes our exit, it is binding on courts below the Supreme Court. Where a judgment post-dates our exit, our courts may have regard to it if they consider it appropriate, but EU law and the decisions of the ECJ will continue to affect us. The ECJ determines whether agreements that the EU has struck are legal under the EU’s own law. If, as part of our future partnership, Parliament passes an identical law to an EU law, it may make sense for our courts to look at the appropriate ECJ judgments so that we interpret those laws consistently, but our Parliament would ultimately remain sovereign.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
The Prime Minister said in her Mansion House speech earlier this month that as a country we may have to stay under the jurisdiction of the ECJ for the purposes of organisations such as Euratom and other EU-wide organisations that the UK may wish to remain part of. Is the Minister saying that that is a possibility with regard to data protection laws in this legislation?
Margot James
The future of our membership of the European Data Protection Board will be subject to negotiations. I cannot prejudge how those negotiations will develop and finalise in respect of our membership of that important body.
Ian Murray
Am I right in saying that the Minister is not ruling it out as part of the legislation?
Margot James
I would not rule it out, but the negotiations are between two parties, so however much we may wish to maintain our membership of the European data protection board, that might not be something that the EU will grant us. As I say, it is a matter for negotiation and I am sure things will become clearer over the next 12 months. To take an approach now that would require our courts to follow future case law of the CJEU, even if only in some areas, would place limitations on the discretion and independence of our courts.
Liam Byrne
The Minister is trying to protect a discretion that sounds like the defence of a right to depart from EU case law to such an extent that we might jeopardise an adequacy agreement. Surely the point of this amendment is to keep us in lockstep, to de-risk that adequacy agreement for the years to come. That surely must be an object of her Government’s policy.
Margot James
The Government are absolutely committed to getting an adequacy agreement. The Prime Minister has said she wishes to go beyond adequacy in the negotiations. I would like to reassure the right hon. Gentleman that the very opposite is the case. Our courts can have regard to, and that is good enough. There is no reason for this to be different in the area of data protection from what it might be in any other area.
The provision has been discussed at length and agreed to by the House. Hon. Members will be aware that the other place is now scrutinising the EU (Withdrawal) Bill and has focused on this very matter. There is broad agreement that we need to consider how best to ensure that the Bill achieves the policy aim with sufficient clarity. We want to reach agreement on a proposition that commands the greatest possible support. We should, however, be wary of seeking to provide for something that alters the underlying policy in a way that binds or steers our courts towards a particular outcome, for example, by saying that they must have regard in only certain areas of law.
Liam Byrne
I do not quite follow the Minister’s argument. On the one hand, she says that it is the object of Government policy to secure an adequacy agreement and presumably keep that adequacy agreement, if not, indeed, go beyond it. She is now seeking to defend a flexibility that would allow some kind of departure from European norms. I cannot understand how she can quite want her cake and eat it.
Margot James
Courts will be allowed to follow the jurisprudence of the ECJ in this area of data protection. Nothing I am saying is prompting a departure from that position. We see the amendment as going further than we would like to go. By contrast, the Government’s proposed approach to CJEU oversight respects the referendum result and is clear, consistent and achievable.
Darren Jones
The Minister gave a full answer, largely in agreement with the points I made.
Darren Jones
I agree. I would therefore invite the Government to reconsider their position and support the amendment, because it reflects what is in the EU (Withdrawal) Bill, it talks about having regard to ECJ jurisprudence in future and, as the Minister pointed out, Government policy and the Government’s intention are that we are going to end up in that position anyway. By putting that in the Bill, we would put it into law and give a very clear signal to our colleagues in the European Union that that is our intention and we will stand by it.
The Minister’s arguments do not seem to stack up. If I were saying in the amendment that we must apply ECJ case law directly and that the UK courts had no power to disregard EU jurisprudence I would probably agree, but that is not what it seeks to do. I am not convinced it goes beyond the Government’s policy position nor what is said in the EU (Withdrawal) Bill. I merely seek to help the Government by making this simple amendment to the Bill. With your permission, Mr Streeter, I will push it to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
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Local Infrastructure (East Midlands)
(6 years, 7 months ago)
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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.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Lee Rowley (North East Derbyshire) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered investment in local infrastructure to secure new homes in the East Midlands.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I welcome the opportunity to debate this important topic, particularly from a regional perspective, with Members from all parties who have joined us. I welcome the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins), my constituency neighbour, and the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris). I welcome everybody on the Government side, from my right hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales (Sir Patrick McLoughlin) to my hon. Friends the Members for Charnwood (Edward Argar) and for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer), as well as everybody else who is not from the east midlands but who has come to listen to this important debate none the less.
We all know that the United Kingdom faces a huge house building challenge over the coming years. With a growing population and strong economic growth over the last two decades, the number of houses built in this country has lagged behind the number needed to ensure that people have access to affordable homes to rent or buy to live in. The ability and aspiration to own a home, or the ability to rent a decent one, are a cornerstone of our democracy. It is usually the largest purchase that we ever make, and it roots us in our communities, gives us control over the place in which we live and allows us over time to accrue the capital that gives us the freedom to do as we wish in our lives.
Despite having cautioned against it in a previous debate, I will refer to polling to make my argument. Polling consistently shows that, given a free choice, 80% to 90% of people would ideally like to own a house if they could. Interestingly, that desire has only increased over time. According to Ipsos MORI’s long-term tracker, those born before the wars were slightly less likely to aspire to own a home than those in subsequent generations.
However, the aspiration to own a home does not always equate to the ability to do so. Home ownership rates have been falling for a number of years; according to the labour force survey, just under two thirds of people were homeowners at the end of 2016, compared with nearly 70% 10 years earlier. Although home ownership rates have been higher in the east midlands than in the country as a whole, they have also drifted down slightly over the past 10 years, from just over 70% to just under it.
Although that headline movement is challenging enough, the actual distribution of that ownership has also shifted significantly over the past 10 years between different groups of people in our country, particularly by age. One of the most concerning trends is the reduction in home ownership for people my age and below. The likelihood of owning a home for those aged between 18 and 34 has fallen from more than half in 2006 to just over a third.
Capitalism works only when someone has the ability to accrue capital. For too many people at the moment, particularly those in the younger generation, their aspiration to accrue capital is not matched by their ability to do so. We all know that we have a problem; it has been debated many times in this place. Although the roots of all problems are usually more complicated than they look, there is a general acceptance that the issue here can be diagnosed: demand remains, but supply has fallen behind. As the Secretary of State stated in his housing White Paper earlier this year:
“This country doesn’t have enough homes. That’s not a personal opinion or a political calculation. It’s a simple statement of fact.”
The population is growing—by some estimates, more than 210,000 households are created every single year—yet the number of new houses being built has not kept up with that demand in any meaningful way for a number of years. In fact, until last year it was more than a decade since that number was hit. To find a time when we consistently exceeded that volume of 210,000 homes, we have to go much further back. Last year we had a breakthrough, with 217,000 new homes built as part of the Government’s target of achieving 1 million new homes by 2020. I welcome that, but we know that we have a significant amount of work to do to rebuild and to realise the home ownership aspirations of so many of our constituents.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing the debate. The specific topic does not relate to my constituency, but the general issue resonates with me. Does he agree that not only does investment provide affordable homes for families in desperate need, but the actual construction of the homes, which perhaps we do not focus on, provides jobs and an influx of spending power into the local economy? There are two wins: houses for people who need them, and jobs that boost the economy.
Lee Rowley
I completely agree. House building is important for home ownership and for helping people to rent and put down roots, but also for the economic growth and the jobs that come with house building in the first place.
There is a general consensus that increased house building is needed, both to house our growing population but also, I hope, to fulfil the home ownership aspirations I have talked about.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. He made an important point about how long it has been since home ownership kept up with demand. The truth is that home ownership has never kept up with demand, except for those times when Governments have built a significant number of homes. It is not in the interests of the house building industry to satisfy demand. Does he see a greater role for arms of the Government—whether local government or others—in satisfying our housing crisis?
Lee Rowley
There is a consensus that more homes need to be built. There are many ways in which they can be built; some will be via state intervention and some will be via increased support for private building. I welcome them all. The reality is that we have to ensure that significant numbers of homes are built, and the Government are committed to that. The output is what is important to me, rather than necessarily the process, so long as the quality of those homes is at the level we want. The hon. Gentleman and I both know from our neighbouring constituencies that many of the problems with house building have come from houses that were poorly designed and built 30, 40 or 50 years ago, which we are now having to spend significant amounts of money rebuilding or renovating as a result.
In the east midlands, the aspiration to own a house, and therefore the need to build more houses, is just as fervent as it is in any other region of our country. That desire is propelled by the fastest growth rates outside London and the south-east, and by an underlying economic and industrial strength, which the region has always been proud of.
Edward Argar (Charnwood) (Con)
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to emphasise the importance of home ownership, and indeed the economic growth in the east midlands. However, communities in my constituency, such as East Goscote and Queniborough, are very concerned about the potential for speculative applications in the wrong places, due to the council temporarily falling below its five-year land supply, as the council would normally deem application in those villages to be inappropriate. Does he agree that the key to getting this right, and to ensuring local support for more housing, is to build in the right places, with the right mix for the area to meet local needs, not in places where the infrastructure simply is not in place to support additional housing?
Lee Rowley
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I will move on to that point later in my speech. I too have a number of villages in my constituency that are affected by speculative house building. The important point, which I hope is the message that will come out from this debate, is that we need more houses, but we need them in the right place and we need to have local community consent in order to ensure that they are built.
The east midlands benefits from its strategic location, its workforce, its skills base, its good strategic connectivity, its strong supply chains and its reputation. It is an area that gets on with it. It is one of those quiet, industrious and energetic motors of the wider United Kingdom economy. Unemployment is lower than the national average and employment is higher. We are privileged to be the home of great cities such as Derby, Leicester, Lincoln, Northampton and Nottingham. We have East Midlands Airport and, in my own county, world-leading manufacturers such as Toyota, Bombardier and Rolls-Royce.
Over the past 30 years, my constituency has transformed itself into a manufacturing, logistics and service centre. As somebody who comes from the area, I am hugely proud of that. We are propelled by small and medium-sized business, the aspiration to do well and the desire to succeed and take advantage of the opportunities before us. For example, the Worcester Bosch factory is home to 300 workers in Clay Cross, the second-largest town in North East Derbyshire. The factory has been in our area for many decades. A few years ago it had only 100 employees but, following investment, support and increased market demand, it now has 300 workers and the number of oil-fired boilers coming off its production line has increased from 30,000 to 50,000 a year. The factory is a market leader and is showing the drive, ability and verve that is the hallmark of the east midlands. We are a “get on with it” constituency in a “can do” region, supporting a growth-driven and aspirational country.
We are also making significant strides on housing. Last year almost 15,000 new properties were built in the east midlands. After the south-west, that was the highest number of completions in the UK on a proportionate basis, based on the existing number of households in our area. That is more than the north-east and the north-west, and—for a proud region with the usual healthy competition, I hope my hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Outwood (Andrea Jenkyns) will not mind my saying—more than our friends across the border in Yorkshire and the Humber. However, if we are to meet the Government’s laudable objective of increasing the supply of homes, and therefore increasing the proportion of our constituents who have the opportunity to buy a home, we need to continue to assess and debate the challenges that prevent that from happening. That is the purpose of this debate.
Housing is a controversial topic on the doorsteps of Eckington, Killamarsh, Dronfield, Clay Cross and all the other towns and villages in my part of the world. Most of the residents I speak to recognise and support the Government’s objective of building more houses and their recognition of the importance of ensuring that the next generation can aspire to own their own home and have the same opportunities afforded to them. Many residents have personal experiences of sons or daughters who cannot get on the housing ladder, or perhaps they themselves are years away from doing so. Some of that is solved laterally, by being willing to move a few miles further out than would be ideal, by being willing to wait longer, or by the famous bank of mum and dad—I have to admit that I benefited from that in a small way when I bought my first property a few years ago. The desire to own is real and it continues to burn bright, irrespective of age or the place in which we live. Yet there is also real frustration about the way the house building process works and how the planning process manifests itself in the localities.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate and the strong case he is making. Does he share my sadness that too often communities seem pitched against the developer and it becomes a battle of wills as to who will get what they want? One way around that, much in line with what my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) said, might be for the community to be the developer through the local authority. The local authority would then have a greater stake in ensuring that the right infrastructure is in place to allow the development to live sympathetically in the community, because it will continue to have that relationship with the present and future communities.
Lee Rowley
I agree that communities and developers can often be pitched against each other—I have seen that in my constituency and will talk about it later. For me, it is not about who builds the houses; it is about the consent to build them in the first place. That is the challenge. We have a good planning system as a whole. I wholeheartedly welcome the Localism Act 2011, but the reality is that it has to be implemented locally in a way that works, and in my part of the world it is the council that has not taken the leadership over the past 10 to 15 years. We have not had a local plan in North East Derbyshire since 2005. I would argue, from my experience, that that is where the problem has been created, because it leads to speculative planning applications that completely undermine the cause of house building in our part of the world. There is also a failure of leadership to say where housing should or should not be built, which engenders the cynicism that can cause the kinds of problems that the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) has referred to.
In North East Derbyshire we want to build new houses—people accept that we need to build more houses. As the hon. Member for Nottingham North indicated, there is huge frustration in my part of the world about the local plan. We have been without a local plan since 2005—it has still not been updated, despite several attempts. North East Derbyshire District Council is one of only 15 local authorities in the entire country being called out for failing relating to their local plan. Over the past four years that has encouraged the kind of speculative house building that hon. Members have already referred to.
The beautiful village of Ashover in my constituency has been fighting speculative housing applications for four years. Its settlement limits have been pretty consistent for 40 years, yet a field that for centuries has been used for pasture and grazing will now receive 40 houses. That is not the fault of local residents, or because those residents do not recognise that more housing needs to be built, but because the council did not get its local plan in and the five-year housing land supply could not be evidenced, which meant that those speculative applications could be pushed forward. That community had decided through its own neighbourhood plan to find more houses than will be built on that field, which it was trying to save in order to preserve the overall look and integrity of the village. I find that very sad. There are many examples of that across my constituency, as I am sure there are in others. We have to get the local plan right if there is to be consent in the first place for the house building that we all know we need.
There is also frustration about the lack of infrastructure and forward thinking, because infrastructure sometimes comes only after the house building has begun. To some extent that is a function of the planning system, which we all accept and recognise is a necessity. I recognise that capital spending on schools, health and other public services is unlocked through the provision of housing in the first place, but it is the strategic infrastructure—the next level up—that is particularly important. Some of the problems are solved by the planning process, however imperfectly, but many are not.
In my part of the world, roads and railways are a real problem. Staveley, which lies partly in the north of my constituency and partly in that of the hon. Member for Chesterfield, is a former mining town that has huge potential and is seeking to regenerate and rejuvenate over the next 10 to 20 years, building on its proud mining heritage and industrial past. It has been looking for a bypass for many years—I believe that one has been in the works since 1927. If we want the bypass to be built before the proposal celebrates its centenary, we need to shout about it at country, regional and county level, and as MPs, so that it can unlock Staveley’s potential.
Let me give another example. In the south of my constituency, just outside Chesterfield, is a stretch of the A61 that has been congested for many years—since I was growing up in a nearby village. It has experienced a significant increase in traffic over the past 10 years. In truth, it is a problem that will be difficult to solve. The county council has introduced some welcome changes through the local enterprise partnership, but they will not solve the underlying problem: a road that cannot cope with the amount of traffic on it.
The fundamental point is that even though the council has messed up its local plan and we are not building as many houses as we need in certain parts of north Derbyshire, there are plots around the A61 for up to 2,000 houses over the next 20 years, including brownfield sites for new houses on the old Biwater factory in Clay Cross and on the old Avenue coking works near where I live. Although people often do not want houses built near them, people in my part of the world generally recognise that those are the places where they should be built: brownfield sites with lots of potential that were once engines of growth in our area and can be so again. However, there is no point in building 2,000 new houses to the south of Chesterfield and creating jobs for the people in them if massive traffic jams on the A61 are going to stop them from getting between the two. We need to take a coherent approach to these problems.
The south of my constituency also used to have several railway stations—even my small village was proud to have its own station when it was a significant mining area—but they have all gone. Over the past eight or nine years, the Government have looked into improving and recreating rail opportunities and have put new investment into rail where possible—the former Secretary of State for Transport, my right hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales (Sir Patrick McLoughlin), is sitting next to me. I think there is a case for a new station in or around Clay Cross. That has been an aspiration for several years, and I hope that we can make it happen.
Solving congestion on the A61, creating a bypass that has been in the works for more than a century, investigating the potential for a new commuter station in areas that will grow and improve over the coming years—these are the projects that we need to consider in my part of the world to give people confidence that we are putting infrastructure in place. Other hon. Members will have equivalent examples from their constituencies.
A few weeks ago, I took the Transport Secretary around the south of my constituency. We looked at the Avenue coking works and then went down to Clay Cross to see where the old station used to be, near Tupton. He was very interested, and I am very grateful to him for coming to talk to us about it. I understand that these discussions take time, and I do not expect solutions to come quickly, but we have to start talking about the options so that solutions can emerge in the long term. Later in the day I took him up the A61, and what happened? We got into a massive traffic jam, which did my job for me: as well as demonstrating the problem, it gave me the time to explain it. He was a captive audience, because we were sitting there moving at 0 mph—a problem that my constituents experience daily.
[Ian Paisley in the Chair]
I know that the Government are doing hugely encouraging things on infrastructure. Since 2010 they have been at the forefront of pushing the case for increased investment in the regions and spending on new infrastructure projects that will benefit millions of people—unclogging roads, building rail stations, renovating hospitals and expanding schools. To the Government’s credit, we have seen some of that in Derbyshire over the past eight years. A new train station at Ilkeston, just down the road from my constituency, opened a few months ago and is already thriving, demonstrating what can be achieved through strategic planning. Recent improvements to the M1—a key artery that serves our region and is so important for our economic growth—include an additional lane to increase capacity.
As east midlands MPs, we should be hugely ambitious about what we and our region can achieve in the coming years. The Government are making huge progress on unleashing our economic potential and building the housing needed to support it. The east midlands is often a victim of its own success and its quiet determination to get on and get going. We remain stubbornly low in our infrastructure spending, particularly on roads and rail.
I know that regional comparisons are often misused by Members of Parliament, who take narrow figures and extrapolate from them all manner of evils that have befallen their area. I have therefore used only figures that show the east midlands in a good light—what we are doing to outperform, rather than why we have such issues. However, I hope that the Minister will allow me to point out that the east midlands is the lowest funded region for transport per head of population. Much is being achieved, and more will flow from those achievements in the coming years, but just because in the east midlands we sometimes prioritise getting on with things rather than shouting about them, I would not want the Minister to think that the Government do not need to focus on our infrastructure needs and on how we can propel and power progress over the next 20 or 30 years.
All MPs have asks to make, and I am no exception. We all recognise that many others are asking for support and that some of them may take priority—I do not envy the Government their job. I am not sure that we will ever solve all the constituency issues that I have raised today, but I certainly want to see how we can mitigate and make progress on some of our congestion problems. For example, I want to work with our local councils to get the bypass moving in the north of Chesterfield and unlock the opportunity to bring thousands of proper houses and jobs there.
I know that the Minister knows that the east midlands is open for business. I know that he knows that we are doing our bit and will do more in future. However, I also hope that he will remember us when we talk about the need for further spending to continue our economic growth. We accept the need for more housing and recognise that it needs to be built in the right place, but the east midlands knows that it needs the infrastructure to support that new housing. The Government are doing much, but I hope and am sure that in the coming years they will look favourably on us and do more.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
It is nice to see you in the Chair, Mr Paisley. I congratulate the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) on his speech and on securing the debate. He is right that many of the issues he raised also apply to my constituency.
The hon. Gentleman focused on the need to achieve more house building starts. I entirely concur. Chesterfield has had huge success in attracting new sites for house building, and I am proud to have seen many new house building starts there over the past few years. The old football ground is now a housing estate, imaginatively called Spire Heights; fortunately the Spireites have a good new ground. The old rugby ground, where I used to run up and down, is now a housing estate called Rugby Drive; we have a very good rugby ground to replace it. The GKN cricket ground is also becoming a new housing estate.
Chesterfield is a very attractive destination for house building sites, but it faces many of the difficulties between residents and developers that my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) raised. Interestingly, even on sites where just one or two houses are being built, there are often widespread problems. When it comes to getting planning permission, sometimes it seems more difficult to build two houses than 80 houses. That is a real issue.
It is important that we hold the Government’s feet to the fire on their record on house building. I find it incredible that a Conservative Government are overseeing the lowest number of new people becoming homeowners, as has been the case in recent years. It really is a significant flaw in the Government’s record.
I positively support the opportunity for people to get Help to Buy. A relative of mine is currently going through the process of getting on to the housing ladder through that scheme, and there is some value in it. However, there is a more fundamental issue, which I referred to previously: it is not in the interests of the house building industry for the number of houses being built to meet demand. We all know what happens if there is a shortage of supply—prices go up.
There is also a skills part of this conversation that has not really been referred to yet. At a time when far too many young people are in very insecure work and they do not have huge amounts of skills, it seems a tragedy that we are so short of the people who we need to be trained up in the construction industry. There is a skills part of this whole equation that is missing, and there is certainly a role for Government in that regard.
As a homeowner and mortgage-payer myself, I am not advocating in any way that we should try to orchestrate some kind of collapse in the value of house prices. However, there needs to be a recognition that if the average price of a new home is going to be six or seven times the average wage, it will be increasingly difficult for new people to get into the housing market. As I said in my intervention on the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire, there will be times when the house building industry is able to meet the level of demand, as it did at times in the early part of this century, but it many cases it will not. There is a role for Government there.
I entirely support people’s aspiration to own a home. I remember unlocking the door for the first time on the day I bought my first home, at the age of 22 or 23. I was a young man on a very modest wage, but I was able to afford a small two-bedroom cottage. It is a magical moment for someone when they buy their first home, so I do not ever want to undermine or underplay people’s aspiration to own their own home. However, at a time when there is so much homelessness and so many people are in insecure accommodation, we should recognise that there is also a real value to people securing their first council house and that council houses can also be a route towards home ownership. That part of the whole equation has also been lost.
In the debate on housing in the main Chamber yesterday, I said that the Government really should look at the issue of right to buy on brand new houses. That is because I know that in Chesterfield there will be a real desire to get more houses built; in a small way, the council are getting houses built. However, there is a real worry that if the council was to make a substantial development and get new people into all those new homes, within three or four years those houses would all be getting bought off and the council would be hundreds of thousands of pounds out of pocket. There is a role for Government in that regard.
Although I support right to buy in general as a principle, if councils were given a moratorium that said that in the case of new homes they did not need to have right to buy for the first however many years, we would actually start to see more houses being built. People would have a choice: they could either take up the opportunity to get a new council house that they recognise would not have the right to buy, or they could stay on the housing list for all the council houses that already exist, which are already massively over-subscribed.
That is something that the Government should think carefully about, as is allowing councils to borrow in order to build. If we are serious about ending the housing crisis but all we are doing is pushing the supply side and trying to make it easier for people to afford a house—even if there is some value in that—simply by effectively providing the deposit, then we will continue to fail to get the number of houses to meet demand. I urge the Government to consider more seriously the steps that can be taken to support councils to do more of this type of thing.
The hon. Member for North East Derbyshire also referred to infrastructure. Again, I do not find myself in disagreement at all with what he said about the need for infrastructure to keep pace with new housing developments. He alluded to a couple of specific infrastructure challenges that both his constituents and mine face on the A61 and the Staveley bypass, and I am very keen to work closely with him on both those issues.
I first came to Chesterfield when I worked at CCS Media, which was slap bang on the A61; it was just inside my constituency and on the border with the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. He is absolutely right to say what he did. Right back in 1990, I was sitting in my old Ford Cortina in exactly the kind of traffic jam that he took the Transport Secretary to see 27 years later. He is right to say that these key infrastructure problems exist.
The previous Government made a massive investment in junction 29A, which was a really welcome and positive step in generating hundreds of jobs out of Markham Vale. However, it is a shame that the work on the development of that junction did not continue through to include work at the Stavely bypass, which it should have done.
The Government need to be held to account on infrastructure spending. They came to power in 2010, at a time when all kinds of pressures were slowing the economy down. However, one of their first decisions—I still remember the former Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, and the former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, standing up to speak—was to cancel all the infrastructure spending. What we saw was two or three years in which all infrastructure spending was slowed down, and although the rhetoric changed from 2012 and 2013 onwards, the level of infrastructure spending in the period between 2010 and 2015 was pitiful. There is a real need for infrastructure, including transport infrastructure, and also for Government intervention in making sure that the people with skills are available, to make construction affordable and to get more houses and more civil engineering projects built.
I will also take up the point that the hon. Gentleman raised about the level of spending in the east midlands. In Chesterfield, we are slightly unusual in that we consider ourselves—I certainly do—to be northern but Derbyshire. The Government consider us to be from the east midlands, but, as I say, I think people in Chesterfield consider themselves more northern than east midlands.
Whatever people consider themselves, the truth is that the east midlands has been massively overlooked in terms of the spending. The hon. Gentleman referred to the amount of spending on both house building and transport. It is true that when someone from the east midlands comes down to London, they meet people who have 10 times more spent on their transport than people in the east midlands do.
There are a number of reasons for that. Part of it is that the east midlands does not fit neatly into successive Governments’ views about how to regenerate areas. I apologise in advance to my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North, but we are not a region where the cities dominate and where it is all about the cities. Actually, we are a region of small towns and villages, predominantly—much as Nottingham and Derby might like to think that they are the spoke in the centre of our wheel, they are not entirely.
I remember being at an event where we got east midlands council leaders together. Up on the top table, as was always the case, were the leaders of Nottingham City Council and Derby City Council, and sitting quite a way back from them was the leader of Derbyshire County Council. Of course, the leader of Derbyshire County Council has far more constituents than either of the other two, given the size of that authority. Nevertheless, successive Governments have seen the cities as the way to regenerate regions. There needs to be much more understanding both of the role that towns play and of the make-up of the east midlands. I entirely endorse the point made by the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire about the need for greater infrastructure spending in the east midlands.
Edward Argar
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to emphasise the importance of small and medium-sized towns, but I urge him not to forget Lincoln, Northampton and Leicester as key cities of our region, alongside Nottingham and Derby.
Toby Perkins
I have no intention of forgetting anything. I was perhaps more Chesterfield-focused but, yes, it is important to remember those cities. We should also remember that the surrounding area of Chesterfield, with north-east Derbyshire and Bolsover, is a fairly coherent unit that is basically the same size as Derby city but does not have anything like the same sort of focus.
I want to pose a challenge regarding the desire for politicians to get together. There was a real opportunity with devolution. The Government spoke about it strongly in 2015 but my sense is that it has been petering out since the 2017 election. I was disappointed that Chesterfield did not join the Sheffield city region. There was a coherent unit there that had a long-standing track record of attracting infrastructure spending and there was some real dishonesty about the debate on the whole matter. Notwithstanding that, there is no replacement Nottinghamshire-Derbyshire deal, and I think that exactly what I saw in the run-up to 2015 is what I have seen since: petty political infighting, meaning that our area is unable to punch to its weight, let alone above it. I urge all political leaders to get together to ensure that we get a devolution deal for the north-east midlands.
I again congratulate the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire on securing the debate and raising many important points. Our area really needs to start performing to its potential.
Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) on securing the debate, moving the motion effectively and setting out clearly not just the problems facing his constituency but the solutions. Since he has been in this House, he has shown a positive way of working and of advocating for his constituency, which abuts mine.
I must admit that I do not quite recognise what the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) said about infrastructure spending. Infrastructure spending overall in the east midlands—in the whole country—has been very positive and very large indeed. At the moment, massive work is going on at Derby station. There is a £200 million investment, and a new platform and new signalling are being put in. That is real investment for the future of the east midlands. Likewise, there has been a lot of investment in Nottingham station. When I was Secretary of State for Transport, I closed the station for six weeks one summer and saw men working all hours to complete the job in that time. A fantastic job was done.
I want to talk about two other large infrastructure projects. One is the upgrading of the A38 around Derby, which is due to start in 2019. That will be another £250 million, to deal with the three islands around Derby, and it will significantly improve the infrastructure as far as the city is concerned. Secondly, I was pleased to be in Nottingham at the final opening of the dualling of the A453—long awaited but delivered by this Government —and the improvements to junction 24 of the M1. Those are big infrastructure projects that we have seen in the east midlands and I think they will make a big difference. There is no doubt that the upgrading of the M1 to a smart motorway, at the moment between junctions 23 and 25—it has already been done between junctions 25 and 28—causes a lot of disruption, but the long-term benefit is important, including for the region. So we can say that we have had a good share of the infrastructure investment made by the Government.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Jake Berry)
Does my right hon. Friend, who has vast experience of infrastructure spending, agree that it is not realistic to compare spending in a city with spending in a region? If the figures are conflated, a misleading balance is often produced.
Sir Patrick McLoughlin
I completely agree with the Minister. There is always talk about the investment that goes on in London. At the moment, there is Crossrail, which is a big investment. It is a project that has been wanted in the city for more than 40 years. I was a junior Transport Minister when Cecil Parkinson first announced he had the go-ahead, and it will be completed by the end of the year. Yes, it distorts the figures as far as the rest of the country is concerned, but we in the east midlands should be pleased about Crossrail, because the trains that will go on it are being built by Bombardier. Projects such as Crossrail and HS2 are national projects and the thing to do is ensure that we get investment in companies right across the country. The fact that the Crossrail carriages are being built in Derby and will, hopefully by the end of the year, run on the Elizabeth line—the name of the Crossrail line—is a fantastic achievement and, what is more, a fantastic engineering achievement for our country. I want to pay tribute, in this year of the engineer, to those people who have been progressing the build and the design of Crossrail.
It is misleading for people to confuse the investment in London, saying, “We’re not getting the same as London”. The investment in St Pancras station is beneficial to the east midlands. I remember going there 20 years ago and at that time no one would have wanted to spend more than five minutes there, instead arriving just as their train was leaving. Now, for those arriving half an hour early it is a fantastic place to be, almost a destination in its own right. I believe that St Pancras station is good news for the east midlands, because journeys to the region from London start from one of the finest stations in the country—likewise with King’s Cross. We need to get that right.
Earlier this year, the Government announced some money out of their marginal viability fund—something from the housing investment fund I understand—dedicating £55 million to the east midlands for various schemes. Here I want to come on to something that my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire said. I ask the Government to consider how they say to local authorities that money will be made available for schemes that lead to housing development. On the Staveley bypass, my hon. Friend said there would be housing development within the scheme. When I was Secretary of State for Transport, I had something called the local pinch point fund. It was £170 million in one year and was allocated on the basis of developers and local authorities coming forward with plans for road improvements of up to £10 million, which would lead to either more jobs or more housing. That seems a little like the marginal viability fund. I say to the Minister that sometimes such things are overcomplicated and should be much more straightforward and that future plans should be made available.
Seeing as we are all plugging our own schemes this morning, one scheme I would like to see—I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire will not mind me saying this—is the Ashbourne bypass. It would fit well into this particular project. It has already been partly bypassed on the A52, but the bit that links the A52 up to the A515 still needs to be done. If that scheme took place, that would lead to more housing development in the corridor where the new bypass would be.
It is important that we get the whole question of large-scale infrastructure investment right so that the region has the ability to attract business and companies. In the east midlands, we should not sell ourselves short. If we look at the Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Staffordshire borders, we have world-class engineering in Bombardier, Rolls-Royce, JCB and Toyota. They are world leaders and world-beaters in engineering. There is no doubt that is important for the prosperity of the area.
I ask the Government to be more open about when the other funds will be available. Shovel-ready schemes are important so that work can be started and got under way very quickly. The annoying thing that people get really angry about is that plans for housing development seem to take forever before the houses get built. Also, having given planning permissions for schemes, I know that more attention should be given to what money goes locally, such as to local schools. Sometimes the funds available are kept a bit too quiet and not too public.
I take issue with the hon. Member for Chesterfield only in so far as in the 30 years I have been in the House of Commons, I have not seen infrastructure investment in the east midlands like that we have seen over the past few years and will see in the future.
Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I am pleased to participate in this debate on such an important topic as housing, infrastructure and local government. It was introduced by a very close political colleague and friend, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley). I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
In the midst of Brexit negotiations, we should not forget the urgency of local matters that affect our constituents so much. That was proved by the Chancellor when he announced the Government’s commitment to a total of £44 billion of capital funding, loans and guarantees to support the housing market through to 2022-23. Reforming the housing sector is a priority of the utmost importance to the UK. The goal is to deliver 300,000 net additional homes a year by the mid-2020s, which will be the highest level since 1970. Some of the strategies that are part of this grand sectoral investment have already started, such as the £5 billion housing infrastructure fund. That fund is expected to deliver 200,000 new homes. Last month, the £866 million first wave of the fund was announced. The home building fund, which was launched in 2016 and was increased in the 2017 Budget, is set to deliver 88,000 homes. As of December 2017, the fund had contracted 153 schemes, worth more than £1.4 billion in loan funding.
Broadening the perspective, not enough significance is allocated to how transport infrastructure impacts on the housing crisis, hence the great value of this debate. Transport infrastructure is fundamental in delivering housing supply and in determining the type of housing provision, which can vary from the car-based, pollution-intensive, sprawling, isolated suburban extensions to sustainable, safe, people-focused and well-planned communities. Reliable transport networks are essential to that growth and productivity, which is why the Government are delivering the biggest investment in railways since Victorian times. A total of £40 billion will be invested between 2014 and 2019, and that will benefit millions of passengers across the country. It will mean more trains, more seats and better stations. My right hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales (Sir Patrick McLoughlin) has already talked about that in concrete terms.
That is the broad infrastructural sweep, but what about the east midlands and Northamptonshire in particular? The importance of strategic planning cannot be stressed enough, but homes are about people. The involvement of the local community and other organisations and groups is essential in helping local councils to shape a local plan and prevent the purely top-down imposition of housing and infrastructure that would not be right for that area.
Regarding my constituency of Northampton South, I am pleased to say that in February, the borough council cabinet agreed that the council and Northampton Partnership Homes should build or acquire around 1,000 homes, including affordable rented housing, market rented housing and housing for sale over the next 10 years. The council has requested a meeting with the Ministry to explore ways in which the Government can help and support the council in its efforts to maximise the supply of new homes in Northampton within that scheme and more broadly. There are positive prospects to look forward to with forthcoming major investment projects in my area. They include: the Northampton growth management scheme, the north-west relief road, the Sandy Lane relief road, the Daventry development link and the Towcester A5 relief road. That adds up to more than £118 million in funding.
To be hugely topical as a Northampingtonshire MP, there is a case, very much added to by the particular circumstances of Northampton—it is not an uncontroversial topic—for looking at local government reform to facilitate more joined-up and efficient provision of much-needed housing growth with properly co-ordinated and functioning infrastructure. As discussed at length in ResPublica’s report, “Devo 2.0—The Case for Counties”, devolution should expand beyond cities and advance the reform of local government in the counties. I was a district councillor for 12 years. For my sins, I was on a planning committee for 11 of those. I was a cabinet member. I was a county councillor for 10 years, and that included time leading Derbyshire County Council. As well as being deputy chairman of the Local Government Association for many years, I have been its vice-president since 2014.
I am proud of the achievements of the local government membership, as I am sure many people in two-tier district and county areas are. Those who served on urban district councils and rural district councils can be proud of their achievements in their era, but it is no disrespect to that former era and the work that went on in local government under the previous structure to say that it may have had its day and a change is needed. Population growth has been a challenge that has been hard to deal with in some of the two-tier areas. Some 60% of single-tier county areas were able to meet demand and provide homes for at least 95% of new households with an average population growth of 5,100. However, only 30% of district councils in two-tier areas were able to meet the same target, despite having average growth of only 1,750. It is not just about numbers. We heard recently in the Communities and Local Government Select Committee, as it was then called, about how housing and social care functions being together has helped Sunderland deliver better services for older people. Such synergies are clear with transport and housing.
I became a twin-hatted councillor for 10 of those 12 years to prevent responsibilities from being passed from pillar to post, where people say things like, “On-street is county. Off-street is district”, or, “We are a waste collection authority, but they are the waste disposal authority”, or, “Yes, we do libraries, but they do leisure centres.” With hard choices ahead of us and the need to fully engage the community, there is a democratic and administrative case to be made here when housing pressure is so great. As was rightly stated in the report I referred to, the collecting authority does not have an incentive to ensure that it receives the revenue needed to deliver infrastructure investment through section 106. The top-tier council is responsible for infrastructure, but the lower-tier council is in charge of collecting contributions from developers for infrastructure projects, and failure to collect that contribution limits the activity of the top-tier council. Nevertheless, developments continue to get approved without always necessarily having the right funds.
Another problematic aspect is that although services drive costs and go hand in hand with planning, it is not the planning authority that has the responsibility for the bulk of the ongoing costs as a result of the development. For reasons that are well known, Northamptonshire is right in the middle of this debate. The Dorset proposals, which have some genesis in the time that I spent writing the LGA peer report on Dorset in 2013, are starting a change away from a unanimity requirement towards some more rapid change in local government structures. I do not think people have cottoned on to how big that is and how quickly it will happen. In Northamptonshire, we have Cheshire as our potential model of two unitaries.
Bigger is not always better. We would not have any councils at all if we extended that principle too far. The economies of scale argument can be tested to breaking point. It is also important to keep the history. Cheshire is still Cheshire, and Northamptonshire will still be Northamptonshire, so this is not about the 1974, Edward Health-style policies of creating fictional counties that no one had any connection or association with, such as Avon and, particularly pernicious, Hereford and Worcester. We need to look to functional economic geography and thus to the heart of the debate on joined-up infrastructural housing and local feel and needs, and yes, making those savings as well.
Oxfordshire, for instance, has claimed that a move from a two-tier authority to a unitary would not only increase local accountability, but an independent study has estimated that it would save £100 million over the first five years to enable that council to boost housing and infrastructure.
Once the more coherent network of unitary authorities is set up, local authorities in England need to be more sovereign, more respected and less lorded over by central Government than they have been for many decades. That will incentivise strong leadership, high standards of accountability and therefore better delivery of housing and infrastructure. The investment announced by the Government is a great commitment to helping solve the housing crisis, but part of the solution to the problem is also local. In my time as a Member of the European Parliament, I saw how places in Denmark and Holland have a completely different relationship and respect level between national and local government. In leaving the EU, we must not turn away from best practice elsewhere or turn inward or, worst of all, turn Whitehall-wards. We need to really respect such practice from elsewhere and learn from it.
In this debate we have heard, and will hear, about different pressures and needs regarding housing and infrastructure across the east midlands. They are different in different places. The solution, as far as there ever will be one, is a serious commitment to localism.
Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) on securing an interesting debate that has covered a huge range—from Sandy Lane all the way through to Crossrail and investment in St Pancras. There have been important contributions across the piece on which I will comment as I go along.
Housing has shot up the political agenda dramatically. My own party has been banging the drum for some time, but it is good that the Government are beginning to talk about the fundamental importance of housing both as a social and an economic driver. That must be welcomed. However, we are still not where we ought to be: intelligent public policy, mixed with the private sector and working with local government. The hon. Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer) has already mentioned the importance of local government in the mix.
We ought to have a policy of housing replacement. The hon. Member for North East Derbyshire referred to the fact that in the east midlands there is a higher rate of housing formation than in most other parts of the country, but it will still take 135 years for it to replace its existing housing stocks. Houses that were built 50 years ago will not last the next 85 years, so we have to do massively better.
We need a mix of housing, but we do not have that in the east midlands. Of the roughly 15,000 new homes built in 2015-16, the overwhelming majority, 12,500, were built by the private sector for owner occupation. Some 2,000 were built by housing associations, but they are often for sale as well. Only 200 were built by local authorities. That does not provide the housing mix that allows people to be properly housed.
In Derby, for example, the average house price is just short of £170,000. Someone needs an income of £37,000 to £40,000 to service such a purchase, and that is above the levels of income typical in large parts of the east midlands. We know there will always be a need for social rented accommodation and we must see local authorities as part of that mix. I endorse the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) about the need to look at the right to buy and how councils build houses that simply disappear from the stock. We must at least see adequate replacement.
We must recognise that houses are people’s homes in their own communities. That emphasises the importance of infrastructure. If we do not integrate the planning process and make infrastructure an integral part of planning for people’s homes, then we miss a huge trick. That means public involvement because only the public sector can have such a planning framework. However, there are problems with that.
People who know my background are aware that I spent time working on the devolution agenda in a very practical way. I profoundly believe that there should be devolution from central Government, who have been far too centralising. Frankly, Government Department does not talk to Government Department; it is much easier at the level of a Northamptonshire or Derbyshire local authority.
For the sake of brevity, I will not name every east midlands county. Localism is important for coherent planning. It is possible to integrate, although I recognise there are difficulties and different arm wrestles between counties and districts. I will not get into the local government reorganisation debate, but devolution is fundamental to the delivery of good infrastructure. We are not there yet across the country.
We must also recognise that the Government are preoccupied with London. I disagree with the right hon. Member for Derbyshire Dales (Sir Patrick McLoughlin). Crossrail might be necessary for London, but London should not get the lion’s share of investment too often, whether it is for transport or across the piece. Of course the national capital is economically important, but we do not have a balance. It is not reasonable for public infrastructure investment in the east midlands to be only half that of London. In terms of economic investment, for example, it is only a third of that that goes into the national capital. That is not efficient for the nation’s economy.
Hon. Members have rightly emphasised the importance of the industrial traditions of the east midlands. I have studied and worked in the east midlands, so I am well aware of both the challenges and the opportunities. To liberate the capacity of that industry, we need public investment on a more equitable footing. The Government have to begin to rethink their allocation processes. Interestingly, in the week when the Government re-committed to Crossrail 2, they announced that the electrification of the midland line would not go ahead. That was a symbolic and interesting commentary on the Government’s priorities.
Sir Patrick McLoughlin
From the hon. Gentleman’s previous experience in Manchester, he will know that HS2 and the whole concept of the Northern powerhouse, which was pushed heavily by the previous Chancellor, are very important. In the hon. Gentleman’s area, there will be one of the biggest upgrades of Northern Rail in the next eight or nine months, with brand new rolling stock—something that was completely missed out when the last franchise was awarded under the previous Labour Government.
Tony Lloyd
Today’s debate is not about the north of England, but clearly I welcome what the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned. However, I do not just live in the Greater Manchester area; as I travel around, I recognise that we have a long way to go. I recently travelled between Manchester and Nottingham, and the journey was frankly worse than many decades ago, when I lived in Nottingham as a young man. We have to do better. [Interruption.] It was many decades ago—hon. Members can check the record. The investment in St Pancras is welcome, but it has not been mirrored by the same kind of investment in Nottingham station. It is not of the same quality as our London stations.
Another issue is the atomisation of local government. I was talking to the deputy leader of Derby City Council recently, and he made the point that the building control and planning departments in his city council have been eroded over recent years, and that is typical of every local authority across the country. I welcome the fact that there will now be an increase in fees in this area, but the skills infrastructure in our local authorities has declined, and it will take time to rebuild that. We need to recognise that if infrastructure is destroyed, it takes time to rebuild it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield made the point that we have the same issue with the skills mix in the construction industry. In the east midlands, we simply do not have the skilled workers for the great leap forward that we need. Those are major issues that we have to look at. Another issue that the Government have to address on infrastructure investment—this is another point that the deputy leader in Derby made to me—is that when Derby, for example, is trying to match its schools with its housing developments, because all new schools have to be academies and therefore delivered outside the local authority framework, a much more complicated balancing act is now needed to incentivise local people to look at section 106 funding to erect the structure for a new school to be built. That is not the right way to plan. We need better mechanics for our planning.
Statistics on the level of infrastructure may be misleading, but they are an important comparator. As a nation, we do not invest in our infrastructure. The World Economic Forum said recently that when it comes to infrastructure quality we have slipped from 16th place to 24th between 2006 and today. That is a major issue if we are to attract the inward investment into the east midlands and other parts of the country. Even the Government’s present plans for infrastructure spending—about 2.8% of GDP—are below the OECD’s recommended level of 3.5% internationally. We are falling behind even now, as the economic tide has changed after the global crisis. We are still lagging behind the levels of infrastructure spending that we need.
Within that, the east midlands does badly. Hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber representing communities in the east midlands should be jumping up and down on that issue. The spend on transport infrastructure in the east midlands is some 49% of the national average. That is a long way short of what the east midlands needs for the local schemes that Government Members have talked about. The spend on health is only 79% of the national average; on schools, it is some 78%. At important levels, the east midlands is sliding behind what the nation as a whole can deliver. Hon. Members ought to be concerned about that.
East Midlands Councils, in its committee report, said:
“The recent trend has worsened…and in summary, Government statistics demonstrate that in 2015-16, the East Midlands has…The lowest level of public expenditure on ‘economic affairs’…The lowest level of public expenditure on transport, in total and per head…The lowest level of public expenditure on rail per head…The 3rd lowest on health care…The 3rd lowest on education…The 3rd lowest total of public expenditure on services, in total and per head.”
Frankly, if I were an east midlands MP I would be saying to the Minister, “It’s not good enough. What are you going to do about it?”
The fundamental issue, which comes back to the important speech made by the hon. Member for Northampton South, is that central Government will never provide the joined-up structures that we need to deliver the infrastructure development that will liberate the houses of the future. With no disrespect to the Minister, he covers a huge range of issues. A Treasury Minister probably ought to be responding to today’s debate, if we are to see real join-up in central Government. We also have to give our local communities, through their local elected representatives, the capacity for strategic planning both to build housing consistent with local communities, and to plan public infrastructure, so that schools, hospitals, health services, roads, and transport systems are provided for those houses and those communities.
This is a very important debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire on securing it.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Jake Berry)
It is a pleasure to respond to this debate. In line with tradition, I intend to leave my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) a minute or two at the end to wind up.
I will rattle through some of the contributions. First, I congratulate my hon. Friend on introducing the debate, and on the elegant and forceful way he put the case for his constituents. He is the first Conservative Member of Parliament for his constituency since 1931 and, my goodness, he is doing a fantastic job. It was great to have a contribution from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), and I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Amanda Milling), as a Government Whip, has been champing at the bit to champion her constituency. She took the opportunity over the weekend to lobby me about Rugeley power station. In addition, the electrification of the Chase line—something I know that she has been a huge advocate for—is a great demonstration of the Government’s investment in infrastructure. My hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar) made a great contribution, showing that the fox’s county still has a couple of wags left in its tail when correcting the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins), saying that he had forgotten Leicester. It is unfortunate that my hon. Friend has gone to wag his tail somewhere else for the conclusion of the debate.
The hon. Member for Chesterfield spent some time castigating the Government for the number of houses that we are building. I gently point out that we inherited a housing system in which we were building fewer houses than we were in the 1920s, because of the recession caused in part by the Labour party. Recently, we have seen figures showing that the number of house-starts in construction increased by more than three quarters between 2009 and 2016. Just a few weeks ago, the Halifax survey showed that the number of first-time buyers is at its highest for 10 years.
The hon. Gentleman also spent some time saying that we should address youth unemployment and skills. I am pleased that we now have more people in employment than at any time since the 1970s, particularly with the introduction of T-levels and the Government’s drive to create 3 million high-level apprenticeships. That will ensure that young men and women come through our education system with the necessary skills to build an economy fit for the future.
My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer) talked about devolution. I would happily have an entire debate devoted to that subject. In my view, devolution should be the golden thread of Brexit. When more than 60% of my constituents voted to leave the European Union, they did not do so to bring more powers back to Whitehall; they wanted to bring more power back to themselves and, in my case, to east Lancashire. Of those areas that voted remain, the vast majority—London, Manchester, Liverpool, large parts of Wales and Scotland—already benefit from devolution, which shows that where people feel more connected with local government and government in general, they were, in my opinion, more likely to vote to remain in the European Union.
My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South also correctly pointed out that there is huge pent-up demand for devolution and for local government reorganisation. Eric Pickles famously said that he had a nickel-plated, pearl-handled revolver in his desk drawer for the first MP to come and ask him about local government reorganisation. Recent progress in that area shows that the Government’s position has changed and we would now welcome discussions from any area about local government reorganisation. That big change, led by Dorset, may be the trickle that leads to a torrent.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales (Sir Patrick McLoughlin) delivered a masterclass on transport and infrastructure. I was interested to hear how he has made himself massively popular by closing Nottingham station for six weeks—I am sure that was a pretty difficult thing to do. His point about housing infrastructure having to come before development, in order to support development, reflects a lot of the debate today. There are legitimate concerns about whether buses can take the capacity of new houses and whether local primary and secondary schools have the capacity. That is exactly why the Government set up the housing infrastructure fund; it is an acknowledgment that people want infrastructure first. That is what we are doing.
The announcement of the second phase of bids to the housing infrastructure fund is due to take place tomorrow. I say to all right hon. and hon. Members whose areas have submitted a bid that, even if the bid fails, Homes England has committed to continuing to work with areas to bring forward both the infrastructure and the housing development of the good bids.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales will of course be aware that our right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) is working on the Government’s plan to bring forward sites for development. It is a common problem across the country that people refer to anecdotally, saying that there are more planning permissions granted in their area than are being built out. Our right hon. Friend is looking at how we can tackle that issue.
I agree with comments from the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd), about the idea of replacing housing. It is a very interesting area. Houses built in this day and age do not seem to last as long as the fantastic Victorian terraced houses that I have across my constituency. Of course, I remind the hon. Gentleman that when the Labour Government left office in 2010 there were 400,000 fewer social homes than there were when they took office. I would have hoped that they would spend a bit more time devoting themselves to delivering social homes, rather than removing them from our national housing stock.
The hon. Gentlemen used the issue of house prices in Derby interestingly and well to demonstrate the crisis in affordability. It neatly demonstrates that the housing crisis is a national crisis. When people talk about the focus that the Government are putting on tackling the housing crisis, all too often they talk about the housing crisis as being a problem in London. It clearly is not; it is as much a problem in the midlands engine or the northern powerhouse as in any other area of our country. Through the £5 billion in the housing infrastructure fund, the changes we are making to the national planning policy framework and other matters outlined in the housing White Paper and the Budget, we have set out an absolute determination to tackle the housing crisis not just for London and the south-east, which we have talked about a lot today in terms of spending, but for our entire nation and constituents all over the country.
With that in mind, on 1 February the Government announced the first wave of funding from the housing infrastructure fund: some £886 million for 133 local projects. I am delighted to say that £55.2 million of that went towards 49 projects in the east midlands, which shows how we are using housing infrastructure to drive development. It includes £2 million to Sleaford West to unlock 1,400 new homes, creating a new roundabout to unlock development; £3.6 million to the Desborough North project, creating 700 new homes, where the housing infrastructure paid for a school and community facilities; and £2 million to Hogshaw and the Granby Road sites in Buxton, which released 675 new homes by making new road junctions and improvements.
My hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire mentioned the A61 corridor. He raised specific concerns about that corridor. From the Ford Cortina traffic jam to the Secretary of State for Transport traffic jam, the problem is obviously ongoing. We are taking action and have given £1.9 billion to the midlands through the local growth fund, which includes support for transport connectivity, as well as skills and support to grow the local economy. Some £257 million of that funding was earmarked for the D2N2 local enterprise partnership, which has been putting that money to good use, including by investing £12.8 million in improvements to the A61 corridor into and through Chesterfield. That will improve infrastructure and unlock opportunities for major housing development, including some of the houses we have discussed today, and the growth of Chesterfield and North East Derbyshire over the months and years to come.
A good way of demonstrating that commitment is the Avenue project in North East Derbyshire, which my hon. Friend referred to. I will conclude with that example because it is a particularly pertinent example of good practice. The project is located in Wingerworth—I am sure my hon. Friend will tell me after the debate whether I have pronounced that correctly—on a former coking works, once described as the most polluted site in the entirety of England. A completion ceremony is taking place on the site this very morning to mark the end of remediation and the new chapter of building homes. With support from Homes England, the site has been transformed and will deliver 489 new homes, all starting in the spring, a new primary school, 2.8 hectares of employment land, road improvements, including new access to the A61, and a wildlife habitat and country park.
That example, one of many we have heard about today, is a demonstration of how this Government, together with Homes England, working in partnership with local authorities, are prioritising the delivery of homes. My hon. Friend started the debate by saying that it is still an ambition of people across this country to own their own homes. I absolutely agree. When I travel across the country, people will say that what they most desire to be able to afford is their own home. The Conservative party is the party of home ownership and this Government are on the side of all those aspirational young and old people who would like to own a home in the east midlands.
Lee Rowley
I thank everybody who has contributed today. It has been a positive debate that occasionally deviated into much larger areas around policy and housing for the future. On the whole, the message from the debate is clear: the east midlands is open for business and wants to get on. To help us get on with getting on, we need infrastructure support, which we are getting and need to continue to get in future.
I welcome the Minister’s comments and I thank him for his support in many of the areas we have discussed today. He is absolutely right that if we are to get this moving and ensure that regions such as the east midlands can move forward in the way that we all hope, devolution is vital. I look forward to supporting additional devolution measures when they come forward, and changes to governance structures where necessary, as my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer) indicated.
I am very pleased with the discussion today and grateful to all hon. Members for making the time and taking the opportunity to talk about the issue. The Minister spoke about the Avenue project, which is a crucial project in my part of the world. In order to bring forward more Avenues—more brownfield sites that were once the most polluted parts of the country and can now bring forward the kinds of homes we need to support the aspiration of home ownership—we need support for infrastructure. I know that the Government are committed to doing that and that there will be more Avenues in future, consented to and supported by local people, because they will see the benefits of the economic growth that they can bring to the local area, helped by the infrastructure support from the Government.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered investment in local infrastructure to secure new homes in the East Midlands.
Truth and Reconciliation Commission: Sri Lanka
(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the establishment of a truth and reconciliation commission in Sri Lanka.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I am delighted to be joined by fellow members of the all-party parliamentary group for Tamils. The turnout represents the depth of feeling, particularly among the Tamil diaspora, in our constituencies. Yesterday, I led a debate in this Chamber on cystic fibrosis, which was the first time I have seen it with standing room only. The fact that there are fewer Members here for this debate does not negate its importance. Every Member in this Chamber represents many thousands of members of the Tamil diaspora, who remain concerned about what is happening in Sri Lanka and the Sri Lankan Government’s slow progress in meeting the terms of UN Human Rights Council resolution 30/1, which the Sri Lankan Government co-sponsored.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate. He is right that there is all-party agreement on this issue. Does he agree that one of critical things we need from the Sri Lankan Government is a commitment to the timescales by which they will have delivered the commitments they have made?
Paul Scully
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I absolutely agree. One of the things we need to say today is that we are nearly three years into this. Resolution 30/1 has been extended for a further two years, and we are halfway through that intervention. None of us wants to reach an impasse in a year’s time and go back to the UNHRC in Geneva to say, “Okay, guys, what has happened? Nothing.”
When the all-party group spoke to the Minister a little while ago, we said that if we get to this stage and still not much is happening, alarm bells will ring. I remember asking the Minister what the alarm bells meant. The hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) and I went to the UNHRC, and there seemed to be a sense that there is not a lot it can do, which is slightly concerning.
Joan Ryan (Enfield North) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate and on the work he is doing as chair of the all-party group. Although not much is happening and the UNHRC does not seem able to move forward, there has been appalling sectarian violence in Sri Lanka in recent weeks, which has resulted in the imposition of a state of emergency for the first time in seven years. Does he agree that, unless the Sri Lankan Government finally tackle the culture of impunity on the island and provide a genuine reckoning with the past, which I think he is arguing for, the country will be unable to lay the foundations of a sustainable peace?
Paul Scully
I thank the right hon. Lady for that intervention. I apologise to hon. Members that this is only a 30-minute debate, so they may not have as much time as they wish to share their views on behalf of their constituents. I am sure the Minister is pleased that he has got a bit more time to go out and talk to the Sri Lankan Government and other people, rather than spend time here.
On the issue of sectarian violence, the right hon. Lady is absolutely right. There was recently an outbreak of violence: petrol bombs were thrown at Muslim homes, shops and mosques. That is of real concern because there is an ongoing pattern of systemic violence by the authorities and a number of other issues, which I will try to touch on.
One of the things I try to do when I look at countries in the area—I have just come from an International Development Committee meeting about Burma and Bangladesh—is to triangulate what is happening in these countries. The sectarian violence against Muslims in Sri Lanka has real echoes of what is happening in Burma to the Rohingya Muslims. Indeed, there are Rohingyas in Sri Lanka. Unless we ensure there is a truth and reconciliation mechanism that has the confidence of the diaspora and the people left in Sri Lanka, the cycle will repeat. We need only look at how party politics works in Bangladesh now. There are still echoes of the war of independence and its aftermath, some 47 years on.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. As the right hon. Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan) said, in the past one of the key issues was freedom of religion, and the persecution and murder of people because of their faith. We would very much like to see truth and reconciliation. Does he agree that, for trust to be rebuilt in a community ravaged by guerrilla warfare and terrorism, people need to believe that there is a way of trusting a new generation? Support for and education of children is a driver for securing a future and hope for a war-torn nation. People need freedom of religion and the freedom to worship their God in the way they wish to.
Paul Scully
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The way to move on, in addition to truth and reconciliation, is through education. I am going to a Tamil school in my constituency this Saturday, I think. When we go to that sort of cultural event, we always welcome the fact that British Tamils celebrate their heritage. They do so through song, dance and poetry, but they also remember. We recently held Holocaust Memorial Day here, which is a day on which we look back on the atrocities that ravaged Europe. Tamils similarly look back at what happened at Mullivaikal.
One of the toughest things that the hon. Member for Ilford North and I had to do was to listen to the testimony of survivors of Mullivaikal, who talked about people who had gone missing and those who had literally been ripped in half during the shelling of a hospital, which was deliberately targeted by the army. Normally in armed conflicts, the co-ordinates of hospitals and buildings of that sort are given out so that they are avoided. That hospital looked like it had been deliberately targeted.
We can see why people are so emotional, even now. To go back to Bangladesh for a second, it is the 47th anniversary of independence, and last Saturday I was speaking to a veteran of that war, who was in tears recounting his story. That was 47 years ago. In the case of Sri Lanka, we are talking about 2009—just the blink of an eye—so it is no surprise that the emotions are so raw.
UNHRC resolution 30/1 does not just talk about the truth, reconciliation and justice mechanism; it talks about human rights in general. It says that the Prevention of Terrorism Act needs to be ripped up and started again to bring it up to modern standards. It talks about land-grabbing and the return of land to people. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) talked about religious tolerance. Buddhist structures have been popping up in the north and the east of the country, which antagonises Tamils there. The UNHRC resolution talks about setting up an office of missing persons. Although that has been signed off, we need to see that office properly established and doing its work. If the international community and the UN help it do its work, that would be welcome. I hope the Sri Lankan Government will respond positively to such requests.
When we were in Geneva, we saw a traffic-light or RAG—red, amber, green—system for rating how the Sri Lankan Government have been progressing on implementation of the resolution. There were far too many red lights for our liking. Some things are low-hanging fruit, such as the Government having a list of the disappeared that has never been published. They have the list. Why can they not just publish it?
We met mothers of the disappeared, a small group of people who had lost not only their children but their husbands and their grandchildren. We met them and took some photos, but we did not want to share those photos for fear of what people might have to go back to. That cannot be right. Those people, who have had so much pain and suffering, are in fear for their lives and of reprisals when they go back to their home country. It is important that we look into such matters to move forward.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree with me that the people in Sri Lanka who do not want the resolution to be implemented are, in effect, engaged in a war of attrition—both with more progressive elements in their own Government and with the wider international community? They hope that, as time passes, as personnel such as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights move on or Governments change, we will just forget about it. They think that they will be able to move on with impunity. That is exactly why the international community needs to keep up external pressure on the Sri Lankan Government to ensure that they sign up to the commitments they made, alongside the rest of the international community, in that important UN Human Rights Council resolution.
Paul Scully
The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point, which goes back to what the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) was saying as well: it is too easy for the situation to drift. It is too easy for us to get to next year, as I was saying, and to find that nothing has happened. That is why a time-bound plan, as the hon. Member for Ilford North suggests, is the right way forward. That would mean that we can look at staging posts along the way to ensure that action is happening.
Tom Brake
The hon. Gentleman is generous to give way again. Does he agree with me that the Sri Lankan Government have nothing to fear from this? An office for missing persons, for example, or a truth and reconciliation commission, would look at what happened on both sides, which would be of benefit to everybody in Sri Lanka, not only to one group or another.
Paul Scully
The right hon. Gentleman makes an absolutely valid point. That is true: implementation is a way of moving forward for both sides, and it needs to move forward.
Under the European Union’s generalised scheme of preferences, Sri Lanka has just received back GSP-plus or most favoured trading status, much to the frustration of our all-party parliamentary group. We all want Sri Lanka to succeed—of course we do: we want the economy to be developed for the sake of all the people of Sri Lanka, Tamils and Sinhalese alike—but none the less the fear is that the pace is too quick and that we are releasing all our levers of influence before having any sense of meaningful progress. Moving things on through a time-bound plan, we believe, is the way forward.
When we were in Geneva, we met representatives of the missions of Germany, Macedonia, Canada, India and the EU mission itself. They all seemed incredibly supportive of keeping the heat on Sri Lanka to ensure that it adheres to the resolution that it co-sponsored. But when we asked what would actually happen when we got to next year, the answer was really a bit of a shrug of the shoulders: they could come up with another resolution, or the UN Security Council might be another way to do something, although that is a very different arm of the UN—a very different instrument. Going down that route would get us into a whole other dynamic of geopolitics. We are talking about human rights, not necessarily security: two separate issues.
What other avenue does the UNHRC have? I fear that there is not one, so we have to look at the validity and purpose of the HRC. It needs to be seen to be effective, because otherwise the institution itself is undermined. That might result in situations in which people feel that they can do what they want. Again, to return to somewhere such as Burma, if it can do something without any punishment, any repercussions or a forward view, why not do what it wants to do? What is needed is for the international community to be able to act, and to be able to act effectively.
Joan Ryan
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way again. Does he agree that the restoration of GSP-plus by the European Union seems to be giving a signal that things are moving forward when in fact nothing has moved forward? When the Minister responds, it would be useful to know exactly what line he took on the restoration of GSP-plus and how firm he was with the European Union on the matter, because I do not think for a moment that that status should have been restored.
Paul Scully
I thank the right hon. Lady for making that point. As I said, GSP-plus absolutely has its place in building Sri Lanka’s economy, but its restoration was far too early. Nobody wants to hold a country such as Sri Lanka back, because too many people are affected by lack of development of the economy. None the less, the Sri Lankan Government—who, frankly, have their own problems, as we have seen in the recent elections—need strong leadership. More to the point, the Sri Lankan people need strong leadership. It is not for us to run their country or tell them how it should be governed, but we are here, as critical friends, to ensure that human rights abuses do not continue and that historical human rights abuses are dealt with firmly but fairly.
Finally, I will move on to the main body of the debate, which is not about the ongoing human rights situation, but about settling what has happened, and that relates to the truth and reconciliation commission. We have talked about the office of missing persons, the Prevention of Terrorism Act, the ongoing systemic use of violence by the police and the land-grabbing. What Sri Lankan people need, and not only those in this country—such as the 2,500 or so of the Tamil diaspora group in my constituency, with similar numbers in the constituencies of other hon. Members present in the Chamber today—and throughout the world, in Canada, Australia and all places, but Tamils in Sri Lanka, is a system of reconciliation and justice that includes international and independent representation so that people can tell their story and bring some to book, confident that they are not standing before those who might have perpetrated such crimes or their friends. People who appear before such a commission want confidence that they will get justice, and that reprisals will not follow for them or their family.
People want to make it safe not only for those in Sri Lanka to remain in their communities but, ultimately, for the diaspora to go back and forth to Sri Lanka and, more to the point, to invest there—that comes back to GSP-plus and the wider view of the economy. The diaspora in this country has done very good things economically, making a great contribution to this country, so if we can get them to have the confidence to go back and invest in Sri Lanka, that would be great for everyone there. If we can move the judicial process on with our support and international support, that has to be a good thing.
Will the Minister ensure that he keeps the pressure on? Perhaps he will detail what more we can do to secure a time-bound plan and, ultimately, if Sri Lanka does not adhere to resolution 30/01, what are the next moves that we can take?
The Minister for Asia and the Pacific (Mark Field)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) on securing this debate. I pay tribute to his passionate commitment to Sri Lanka, which predates his arrival in this House, although since then he has been an energetic leader as the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group for Tamils and on a range of issues in Burma too, as discussed.
Needless to say, I am also grateful for the attention and commitment of the other Members present: the right hon. Members for Enfield North (Joan Ryan) and for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), and the hon. Members for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon). I will try to respond to all the points made.
Let me offer my condolences to the families and friends of those who were killed in the recent intercommunal violence in Sri Lanka. Right hon. and hon. Members will know that that violence was not Sinhalese-Tamil, but Sinhalese against other communities, and it came in the immediate aftermath of highly contested local elections. Inciting violence in the name of religion or ethnicity clearly has no place in any civilised society. We support the Sri Lankan Government’s swift action to bring the violence to an end, but equally we implore the authorities properly to respect human rights in doing so.
We welcome the ending of the state of emergency that was announced yesterday morning, but we urge the Sri Lankan Government to ensure that there is an independent judicial holding of the perpetrators of that violence to account. Those events are yet another reminder of the continued importance of rebuilding trust and mutual respect between the communities and of the potentially tragic cost when that does not happen. The establishment of a truth-seeking commission is and always was an essential part of that process. I would like to update the House on Sri Lanka’s progress on reconciliation and on the UK’s action bilaterally and within the international community to support that process.
Sri Lanka’s co-sponsorship of Human Rights Council resolution 30/1 as long ago as October 2015 was a truly historic moment. It was, at least verbally, a strong commitment to address the legacy of its long-running and devastating civil war, a commitment subsequently extended by two years last year in resolution 34/1. In co-sponsoring those resolutions, Sri Lanka pledged to establish a commission for truth, justice, reconciliation and non-recurrence, to sit alongside other mechanisms as part of a comprehensive truth and justice process. The UK, understandably and rightly, enthusiastically supported those resolutions. It is right to say that the Sir Lankan diaspora in this country—disproportionately Tamil as it is, for obvious reasons, rather than Sinhalese—on all sides was very much in favour and made that plain to the UK Government.
We remain absolutely committed to the full implementation of those resolutions as the single best way to secure the lasting reconciliation and peaceful future that are in the interests of all Sri Lankans, and which they so richly deserve. There has been some small recent progress, but in all candour I must tell the House that it has been slower than we would have anticipated or liked. An office of missing persons is close to being operational and has appointed seven commissioners. The Sri Lankan Government have passed a law to prevent and criminalise enforced disappearances. I understand that a draft law to establish an office of reparations has been approved by the Sri Lankan Cabinet. I also understand that draft legislation for a truth-seeking commission—an important part of this whole process—has been prepared, drawing upon the work of a country-wide consultation taskforce.
Mark Field
I will come on to that, but when I visited Sri Lanka last year, that was the No. 1 priority—to discuss exactly what progress was being made, what the stepping stones were and, in legislative terms, what the difficulties or delays were. That is very much in mind, and obviously it is in the mind of our high commissioner in Colombo in his regular interactions with members of the Sri Lankan Government.
The legislation is under review, given the consultation that has just taken place, and is not yet publicly available. We hope to have progress on that shortly. I very much hope that it can proceed without further delay, together with work to establish the planned judicial mechanism, on which there has also been regrettably little progress.
This week marks the first anniversary of resolution 34/01. The UK will lead a statement at the Human Rights Council in Geneva tomorrow on behalf of the core co-sponsors: Macedonia, Montenegro, the United States and the UK. The statement will review Sri Lanka’s progress against its commitments following the update report to be presented tomorrow by the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
It would probably not be appropriate for me to pre-empt the final wording of the co-sponsors’ statement here, but I expect that it will reflect our assessment that: first, Sri Lanka is safer and freer now than it was in 2015; secondly, it continues to engage constructively at times with the international community; and thirdly, it has the opportunity to advance towards long-term, sustainable reconciliation. However, the statement will also make it clear that the pace of progress has been disappointingly slow and that much remains to be done, including on the implementation of transitional justice mechanisms, of which the truth and reconciliation commission is an important part.
I will touch on the point on the GSP-plus, which the right hon. Member for Enfield North made. I recognise the concerns that she raised and would like to make it absolutely clear that, although there has been progress and we have allowed some recognition of the efforts that Sri Lanka has made so far, I would not want the Sri Lankan Government to be under any illusion that being allowed to go for the GSP-plus somehow gets them off the hook. We feel that is an entirely acceptable position.
Mark Field
I am afraid I am running out of time and I want to finish this point. Subject to the scheme’s rigorous monitoring for ensuring continued compliance, the first report was published in January and we will have further reports.
On the diaspora point that was made powerfully by my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam, he is right that we need to try to encourage the Sri Lankan diaspora here in the UK to play their part. Improving the economy and the GSP-plus is part of that. In that sense, it is a slightly positive way forward, but I would not want there to be any misapprehension about what was going on.
Last October I met Foreign Minister Marapana in Colombo and encouraged the Government to focus on four steps that the UK Government believe, if implemented together, would enable conditions for stability, growth and long-term prosperity for all Sri Lankans. They are: to deliver meaningful devolution through constitutional reform; to establish credible mechanisms for transitional justice; to return to the rightful owners all remaining private land that is still held by the military—right hon. and hon. Members will know that that is a major stumbling block; and to replace the Prevention of Terrorism Act with human rights compliant legislation, which we have not had in Sri Lanka to date. We will continue to press the Government of Sri Lanka to make real progress in those areas.
The UK diplomatic work, through our funding of more than £6.5 million from the bespoke conflict, stability and security fund, is having at least some positive impact. When I visited Jaffna in the far north of the country, I saw at first hand how our funding is helping to clear landmines. That is vital to families who have already been waiting far too long to return to their ancestral homelands and to rebuild their lives. Our long-running community policing programme is also helping police officers to serve all communities better, and to give greater support to women and children and their rights.
All that activity remains worth while, but I am proud of the UK’s continuing role working alongside local communities in the east of the country to promote inter-faith and intercommunal dialogue, in a part of the country where there is a much more mixed population than in others. Through the UN’s Peacebuilding Priority Plan, together with other international donors, we continue to provide technical support on reconciliation efforts that include transitional justice.
The UK’s message to Sri Lanka remains resolute: we absolutely expect the Government to implement in full their commitments made in good faith in the aftermath of a time of terrible conflict. As a close partner but also as a candid friend, we shall continue to support and encourage the Sri Lankan Government to make further and faster progress, particularly on transitional justice.
Right hon. and hon. Members will be well aware that part of the difficulty is that national elections are looming and there is more political instability than perhaps we might have anticipated back in 2015. As a consequence, I share the very great frustrations that have been raised in the debate about the slow pace of change. However, as we know full well from our experience in Northern Ireland, progress on reconciliation is vital to redress historical grievances, to strengthen human rights and the rule of law, but also to lay the foundations for the lasting legacy that all Sri Lankans rightly crave. That process could be a lot slower than we all wish, but the great prize is there for the taking. I believe it is what all Sri Lankans deserve.
Question put and agreed to.
Local Authority Financial Sustainability: NAO Report
(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the National Audit Office report on the financial sustainability of local authorities, HC 834.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I will start by doing something very simple that we do not do enough in this place, or in the political world more broadly: saying thank you. I want to say thank you to our councillors, mayors and local government staff. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] As a former councillor, I know that local government holds our communities and services together and makes our towns and cities what they are. Our local government leaders take decisions and hold responsibility for budgets that directly affect their constituents just as much as, if not more than, many Members of Parliament. They deserve more recognition and respect for that than they are sometimes given. However, since 2010 their very challenging job has become almost impossible. The National Audit Office report makes it clear that funding has been cut by nearly 50%.
Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this important debate. The Times, which is not known for its hyperbole, stated recently in an editorial:
“All politics is local, and local government is going bust”.
Does he agree that the Government are culpable and must take responsibility for their funding decisions, and that it is down to them to stop local government going bust?
Mike Amesbury
I do. As a result of that 50% cut, services have been drastically reduced. Pressures and demands are increasing, but the Government have failed year after year to provide councils with fair and sufficient funding.
Derek Twigg
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. He knows that Halton Borough Council, which serves our constituencies, is under extreme pressure. It is one of the smallest councils, and its budget will have been cut by nearly 60% by the end of the Parliament. Does he agree that that puts the council’s sustainability and its ability to deliver its statutory duties, particularly for social care, at great risk?
Mike Amesbury
Of course. Things have been particularly difficult for local children’s services and adult services, about which we have recently lobbied Ministers.
Some 66.2% of councils now have to use their reserves for social care provision. These figures are not mine or the Labour party’s; they are in the National Audit Office report. Last year local authorities overspent by £901 million. Minister after Minister has ignored the crisis or tried to pretend that using calculations such as core spending power can somehow mask the level of the cuts that councils face, especially those in highest need.
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate and echo his thanks to our councillors and local government workers. Does he agree that it is outrageous that my local authority, Barnsley Council, faces cuts of 30% between 2015 and 2020? Such cuts put an unfair burden on local authorities and have a significant impact on local services. It is clear that the Government should take responsibility and do something about that.
Mike Amesbury
I agree. It took the Conservative leader of Surrey County Council to threaten a referendum on a 15% council tax rise to get any response at all from the Government. Even then, they just placed further accountability on local taxpayers. I am surely not the only person who was a little concerned that a financial crisis so grave that it required a 15% council tax rise in one of the wealthiest areas of the country appeared to go unnoticed for so long by so many local MPs. It is all the more worrying that those MPs include the Minister of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Ministers of State for Education, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Is it any wonder that Ministers do not appear to realise that we have a cash crisis in councils, schools and the NHS?
Thelma Walker (Colne Valley) (Lab)
The NAO report shows that the number of looked-after children has increased by 10.9% since 2010, but the Chancellor failed to offer local authorities any additional support to address that in the Budget or the spring statement. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government must act to provide more funding to support looked-after children?
Mike Amesbury
Certainly. In fact, there will be a £2 billion shortfall by 2022, so there is a real crisis in children’s services.
One of the other Surrey MPs happens to be the Environment Secretary. Given his experience of dealing with the outcomes of difficult referendums, I cannot imagine why he was not keen to support that one.
Many colleagues in the Chamber and beyond will know that although cuts have hit the poorest areas hardest, the damage is not limited to them, as the Local Government Association rightly points out. Rising pressures on social care, transport and other services cut across borough and political boundaries. As such, I wish the Defence Secretary all the best with his petition to save bus services in Staffordshire—I hope he gets a sympathetic ear from the council. Many in the Chamber might have been a little surprised that he addressed his concern locally rather than nationally, where the real fault lies, but raising it nationally might have resulted in the Chancellor informing him to shut up and go away—a statement that the Defence Secretary is all too familiar with.
Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. We both served on Manchester City Council, a great council with great leadership that has been devastated by cuts. Greater Manchester leaders say that they may be close to bankruptcy in four years if Government cuts continue in the same way. Does he agree with the report’s finding that, instead of blaming councils, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government should recognise that it has failed in its duty to monitor and mitigate the impact of budget cuts on our local authorities?
Mike Amesbury
I agree with my hon. Friend and former colleague on Manchester City Council.
Councils of all colours and types are near breaking point. Indeed, Conservative-run Northamptonshire County Council has already reached that point, although, as the report shows, any suggestion that its funding challenges are unique is wide of the mark. Some 10.2% of local authorities have less than two years’ reserves. They are at breaking point, and we could face another 15 being served with section 114 notices. It is only through the sound financial management of most councils that we have not seen more local authorities topple.
Warnings have come from councils across party politics and from the cross-party Local Government Association. The National Audit Office report confirms what those at the frontline of local government have been saying for years: funding is down by almost 50%, while demand for services such as adult and children’s social care and homelessness support rises. Lack of central Government support has meant that the tax burden has shifted to local taxpayers. The National Audit Office concludes that:
“As funding continues to tighten for local authorities and pressure from social care grows, there are risks to statutory services.”
Those findings are stark and should alarm us all, and not just in politics but well beyond. The picture that the report paints is familiar to Halton Borough Council and Cheshire West and Chester Council in my constituency, as it will be across the country. Pressures on some areas of children’s services have increased by 26% in Cheshire and by 83% in the more deprived Halton, as my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg) pointed out, yet the recent Budget failed to offer more money for that vital area of responsibility. That would be damaging enough when taken in isolation, but when we consider the human and future economic costs of failing our vulnerable children, it is truly damning. By 2020 the shortfall for children’s services will be a massive £2 billion.
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
One of the great problems for many children’s services departments operating in areas of high housing cost is that it is particularly difficult to recruit staff. We have a severe problem with that in Reading. We are outside the boundary for outer London weighting, which stops at Bracknell, even though that is an area of lower housing costs, and we suffer from a severe shortage of skilled workers to work in our children’s services departments. I understand that is a common problem for local authorities, and particularly for those in areas of high housing costs. There are issues with both pay for staff at those grades and the ability of local authorities to provide their own council housing. Reading had a plan to build 1,000 council houses, which sadly was stopped by George Osborne. Would my hon. Friend like to comment on the twin problems of low pay for key staff and the inability of local authorities to build housing for them?
Mike Amesbury
Indeed, those factors are highlighted in the report. Perhaps its most concerning aspect is the finding that the Government do not have a long-term funding plan for local authorities. That confirms the fear of many councillors and mayors I have spoken to. They have been offered no clarity about how 100% business rate retention will work, especially for those areas that will be net losers. Other councils talk of reaching a cliff edge in 2020.
My question to the Minister is simple. Does she have a long-term funding plan for local authorities and, if so, what is it? Councils need to know now. At what stage in the near future will she legislate to ensure that local authorities can use 100% of the money they raise locally for the good of their residents? If she cannot give our councils the stability and guarantees they need, she should not be surprised if future ambitions around homes, schools and services fall even further short of the mark than they do now. Between 2010 and 2017, spending fell on planning and development by 52.8%, on housing by 45.6%, on culture by 34.9%, and on highways—we are all familiar with potholes and everything else—by 37.1%. Again, those are not Labour party figures, but figures from the National Audit Office report.
A national Government who try to lecture local government about financial stability and saving for the future have no credibility to do so when their own watchdog makes such a serious statement about their short-sighted approach. The status quo can no longer continue. Our councils, our communities and the dedicated staff who work in them deserve and demand better.
Fiona Onasanya (Peterborough) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) for securing this important debate. In February I asked the Chief Secretary to the Treasury how my authority is expected to meet the rising demands of adult social care and children’s services, despite devastating funding cuts. She argued that councils have been given the ability to increase council tax levels to pay for those services. However, that new flexibility—namely, to increase council tax to pay for social care, as my council has had to do—and indeed the introduction of the improved better care fund, have associated conditions that might limit the flexibility of some local authorities to spend on social care funding as well as local priorities, thus disproportionately harming low-income families. Austerity is expensive. It has not tackled the deficit; rather, it has passed it on to public services.
In March 2018 the National Audit Office reported that many local authorities rely on their savings to fund local services and increasingly find themselves in an unsustainable financial position. We cannot keep cutting their funding and expect them to do more with less. In my constituency there has been a real-terms cut of 10.6% in adult social care, almost double the national average, and the Government have committed no further funding for social care in the Budget. The money offered to councils in the local government finance settlement is nowhere near enough to calm the crisis.
My constituents have repeatedly described social services as a nightmare. In Peterborough, 17,638 people are over the age of 65 and, of them, 2,171 are unpaid carers and 6,802 live alone. Cambridgeshire and Peterborough clinical commissioning group would have received an extra £30.3 million if it was funded in line with the national average. The CCG was ranked 204th out of 207 for the level of funding received from NHS England.
Services are overstretched, and the recent trends in the level of funding are unsustainable and unacceptable. Peterborough’s needs have been attended to on the cheap for far too long. As a consequence, cracks are beginning to appear in our services. Our needs have not been properly or adequately addressed, and the current settlement is blatantly below par.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) for securing the debate. My constituency covers both the Conservative-controlled East Riding of Yorkshire Council and the Labour-controlled Hull City Council, and the messages coming out of both councils are very similar. This is not fake news. Instead, it is the hard truth and reality of the cuts faced by both councils.
Hull City Council’s social care spend equates to 60% of its entire budget, and it is rising as a proportion of its total spend by 4% to 5% every year. It told me that it spends 37% of its total budget just on adult social care. It spends 23% of its total budget on children’s services. Yet since 2010 the council’s budget has been reduced by a staggering £126 million. This year it received £5.3 million less than it did the year before. Is it any wonder that it does not have the money to repair the potholes in the roads, or to invest in many other needed services?
Recently we had a situation in which Hull City Council was desperately trying to move money around to fund the rising demand and cost of adult social care and children’s services. One of the things it was looking at having to cut was its peer-to-peer support for breastfeeding mothers. In the end, it was able to find some money, but that means money coming from elsewhere. When I talked to the council about that, it was not because it wanted to take support away from breastfeeding mothers, but because every choice is an impossible choice. Either it takes money away from supporting breastfeeding mothers, or it cannot give it to support homeless projects in the constituency, to repair the play equipment in the parks or to deal with the increasing pothole problem. Every choice the council makes is an impossible choice.
Hull West and Hessle is a wonderful place to live, with great people. I am particularly delighted to see two of my constituents sitting in the Gallery and delighted that they can be here today. We are very proud of where we live, but we would be lying if we said that it did not have some significant problems. It is the third most deprived local authority in the whole country. A report by End Child Poverty has revealed that more than 20,000 children in Hull are living below the poverty line. That is one third of all the children in Hull living in poverty. In East Yorkshire, over 20% of children live in poverty.
As austerity continues to bite, the demand for social care continues to grow and Hull City Council simply does not have the council tax base from which to fund it. Some 68% of properties in Hull are in band A. We would be hard pushed, looking around our surroundings here in Westminster, to find a single property that is anything below band C. The number of people over 65 in Hull is forecast to increase by 6% by 2020, which of course will increase demand, but only 7% of people needing adult social care can self-fund it; everybody else is reliant on the council. Two thirds more residents in Hull require social care compared with the national average.
The picture I am trying to paint for hon. Members is of a city that simply does not have the ability to raise its own money to fund a problem that is greater, and growing more quickly, than in many other parts of the country. Hull City Council will get the lowest amount per head from the social care precept of any Yorkshire and Humber council. It has a very low tax base. If people want to raise the precept by 1%, fine, but in Hull that will raise £2.90 per head, compared with £7.08 per head in the City of London. They simply cannot be compared. Hull City Council is 81% reliant on the revenue grant from Government. It does not have the ability to self-fund, but still, even with all these problems so clearly laid out, it will have to cut another £16 million from its social care budget, or find cuts in all the other budgets.
It angers me that there are Liberal Democrat councillors in Hull criticising the council for making those cuts and for the consequences. I wonder how long their memories are. I wonder whether they remember that they were part of the coalition Government who in 2010 voted through all those cuts. When they stand there and criticise Hull City Council for not being able to repair the parks or the potholes, I wonder whether they could cast their minds back to being the people who took away that money in the first place.
Conservative-controlled East Riding of Yorkshire Council has said that the additional £2 billion for adult social care announced in the 2017 spring Budget was welcome, but said,
“if it is the Government’s wish to continue to safeguard some of the most vulnerable people, this scheme needs more investment and the human cost of failure in such an essential service is huge.”
That is a quote from the Conservative-controlled East Riding of Yorkshire Council. Even that council says that it does not have the funds needed. I know it has already spent all the reserves it has. Where is it going to find the money from in the future? It wants the Government to look at extending the additional £2 billion beyond 2019-20.
Cities such as Hull, with high needs, significant deprivation and a very low tax base, have limited ability to generate income. It is therefore essential that the Government’s future financial settlement calculations recognise and make allowances for those differences, challenges and variations. It is positive that the National Audit Office recommendations seem to be informed by a realistic understanding of the national position facing local authorities. If the recommendations were implemented in full, there would hopefully be some potential improvement.
While councils and their partners are making and continue to make strenuous local efforts to protect statutory services and to cope with the great pressures affecting children’s services and adult services in particular, it is simply the Government who must ensure that the national system is fit for purpose. People in Hull West and Hessle are tired of “make do and mend.” They are tired of tough and impossible choices. As East Riding of Yorkshire Council put it, “Salami slicing from other grant streams is not sustainable.”
We want our roads fixed, we want our parks to have new equipment and I know how much Friends of Pickering Park want their aviary back, but none of that can happen with the year-on-year cuts at the same time as the rising demand. My constituents deserve so much more. There is no justification for the continued underfunding, and the previous Liberal-Tory coalition’s mantra, “We’re all in this together,” just rings empty. It is time to end austerity, implement the National Audit Office’s recommendations and fund our local councils properly.
Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) on securing this important debate. It is a shame that we will not even hear a Tory Back-Bencher heckle, never mind make a speech or an intervention, because not one has turned up to speak on behalf of their local councillors in this important debate.
As others have identified, the National Audit Office report raises grave concerns about the sustainability of local authority finances. Even more worryingly, this Government show no sign of changing direction, regardless of the consequences. The spring statement showed that there is no plan to abandon the austerity project, meaning that services delivered by local councils will be put under even more pressure. This Government have presided over the slowest recovery since at least the 1920s. Austerity has not tackled the deficit; it has passed it on to public services and plunged them into crisis, from the NHS to schools, to councils even going bust.
The Tory cuts to local government are deeply unfair, hitting the most deprived councils with the greatest need the very hardest. Since 2010, Liverpool’s funding has been cut by a staggering 64%, or some £444 million, and council services have lost 3,000 staff. Those cuts have stripped our communities bare and left our services stretched to the limit. One of the biggest financial pressures on our councils nationally is adult social care. More than 400,000 people can no longer access social care, which faces a £2.5 billion funding gap by 2020. The other main growing pressure on council budgets is children’s services. The number of children taken into care is at its highest since 1985, yet, according to the National Children’s Bureau, more than one in three carers are warning that cuts have left them with insufficient resources to support those children.
Liverpool City Council has rightly shielded those services as much as possible from the full force of Government cuts, but that means that funding for other vital services is being squeezed, from housing to road maintenance to refuse collection. Cuts combine and converge to create increased hardship, risk of homelessness and pressure on other services. Liverpool City Council’s impact analysis shows that the biggest impact is on disabled people, women, families with children, younger people and social sector tenants aged between 40 and 59.
The council has set aside £50 million to protect the most vulnerable, including £11 million to tackle homelessness, which has more than doubled under this Government; £3.3 million for discretionary housing payments for those affected by botched welfare reform and hardship—70% of which are because of the bedroom tax alone—and £3.1 million for crisis payments to help with the cost of food, fuel, clothing and furniture. I could go on.
It is right that local authorities step in when the Government fail the most fundamental maxim: that a society is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable. However, those resources should be going on early intervention programmes, youth centres, community centres, libraries—facilities that give people the means to realise their creative capacities and live full and independent lives. Instead, local authorities, alongside a network of food banks and community and volunteer groups, are forced to act like a sticking plaster over the worst effects of Tory austerity.
Of course, the impact cannot be explained by figures alone. The stories of ruined lives that I hear at my advice surgeries and deal with through my office every day collectively amount to a national tragedy. Current trends of growing overspends and dwindling reserves are unsustainable, and the Local Government Association has raised concerns that there remains no clarity on how local government will be funded after the four-year funding deal runs out in March 2020.
We know that all this is down to political choices, not economic necessity. The Conservative Government chose to give tax handouts to the super rich, corporations and bankers, and it was paid for by the rest of us. In the autumn statement, they chose to hand almost £5 billion to the biggest banks by cutting the bank levy—money that could have been used to fund our children’s services. A recent report by the Equality Trust found that, in the UK, the 1,000 richest people now have more wealth than the poorest 40% of households put together, their wealth having increased by a staggering £82.5 billion last year. Meanwhile, UK workers have not had a pay rise for 10 years and continue to suffer real-terms pay cuts.
It was never about tightening our belts. We were never all in it together. It is time to call austerity what it is—and it ends the day the Labour party takes office.
Laura Pidcock (North West Durham) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) for bringing this extremely important debate to the Chamber. I echo my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) on the lack of representation from Conservative Members. I hope that is symbolic of how they will do at the local elections.
I have seen Durham County Council staff work extremely hard in a punishing fiscal environment. Along with other Members, I have seen the systematic decimation of our local authorities. I put on the record my sincere thanks to every single council worker and every single Labour councillor. They work extremely hard in these terrible circumstances.
Each time there are further cuts, we wonder if it will be the last year. What else could those who oversee budgets possibly do to cut more money because of repeated Government demands? What more could local authority workers possibly do, with the workload that is piled upon them? Durham County Council has seen its funding cut by half since 2011. It has to make savings of £43.7 million over the next four years, on top of the Government-inflicted cuts of £209 million since 2011-12, with £15.3 million cut this year alone. That is simply unjustifiable. Local governments across the country are at breaking point.
Millions of pounds cut from spreadsheets means very little, in numerical terms. Everyone here knows the figures. What we know, more than all the numbers, is the devastating impact on our communities. It is the stretch and the strain on child protection services and social services. It is the community centres, which are so cherished by local communities, that have closed. It is the reduced library hours or the closing of libraries. It is swimming pool prices increasing as subsidies dwindle, pricing out the poorest people from being able to go to a local swimming pool. It is the reduction of drug and alcohol services. It is the threadbare social care services. It is the thousands of civil servants and council workers who lose their jobs.
The feel of our communities becomes impoverished. The help that people need, and the way in which people can enjoy their communities, has been stripped bare because the Government do not believe in local government. They wish local government to be vessel entities for privatisation, rather than democratically controlled mechanisms for public ownership.
Let us be under no illusion: cutting the millions of pounds from local government was ideologically driven, with little or no care for the devastating impact it would have on our communities. The Government have stripped bare our local government services. We know how convenient it is for the national Government to devolve cuts to local government when they are Labour-run authorities, because the Government can devolve the blame. I would love the upcoming local elections to be a referendum on the way the Government have treated our local communities. The idea that raising council tax rates, which residents quite rightly dread because they feel the strain on their wages, or business rates retention are some kind of miracle remedy for the years of this punishing Government regime is an absolute joke.
I would love the Minister to come to North West Durham and justify that strategy—to say to my constituents’ faces that this is a serious remedy for the millions of pounds stolen from my area and my council. Councils have faced these funding cuts for nearly a decade now, and for what? What has been achieved? The poorest areas have been hit the hardest and, as always, those who rely on public services the most—those who graft so hard and who are so passionate about their communities —are being punished by the Government.
I wonder how the Government will possibly justify this damning record in our local communities. That will be really difficult. I urge the public to demand so much more from their Government. It is only what they deserve.
Jo Platt (Leigh) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) for securing this vital debate. Local authorities across the country are at a tipping point. Eight years of Tory austerity have decimated our local councils, with my local authority of Wigan facing an additional 30% cut to its budget, which will mean £160 million taken out of its budget by 2020.
Prior to coming to the House, I was a local councillor. I saw at first hand the impact of the cuts inflicted to services, particularly on the most vulnerable. It is really important to note that cuts to local authorities are not just cuts to their services—the cuts to support services are just as barbaric. For example, in my area there has been a 20% rise in domestic violence, which is little wonder when local registered charities also lose their funding due to the financial pressures on local authorities via commissioning streams. The same can be said for homelessness, in which we have seen a huge surge nationally. Local cuts to early intervention and prevention grants have only exacerbated the problem. I urge the Minister to take that into consideration when she next thinks about the causes of homelessness.
Councils should have the resources to provide emergency accommodation and council housing to those most in need and to offer the support to transform people’s lives. However, the Government have time and again shifted the responsibility on to local authorities while dramatically cutting their budgets. Quite simply, our local councils are unable to cope any further with the increased responsibility placed on them by central Government without the means to deliver.
Without the resources to deliver, where do councils turn? As my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) mentioned, they turn to their reserves. However, reserves are not pots of money that councils sit on for fun, as they are often characterised by the Government. Local authorities rely on these reserves to transform their services, as has been the case in my local authority. They are also called on in emergencies to ensure that councils remain operational.
Emma Hardy
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about reserves. In 2007, Hull was hit by terrible flooding, which caused a lot of damage. One thing reserves are used for is for emergencies like that—to deal with unforeseen disasters. What will happen if we have a similar flood situation again and the council has spent all its reserves?
Jo Platt
I completely agree. We could all mention many instances where the reserves have come into play.
The scale of cuts faced by councils has meant that many have been forced to eat into the reserves to provide the everyday essential services that we all rely on. That is not only unsustainable, but reckless—we cannot play Catch-22 with the fate of our vital local councils. Doing so has led to the frankly astonishing reality of the National Audit Office warning that 10% of councils will exhaust their reserves within three years.
For me, there is another elephant in the room: Brexit. As the Brexit process continues, local authorities are still unaware of the impact that leaving the EU will have on their finances—business rates retention, for example. They also have to deal with the loss of EU structural funding: both areas on which the Government have not given sufficient assurances.
Our councils face the greatest crisis in living memory: an assault on their funding while also adopting ever more responsibility. Put simply, they have been passed the buck without the bucks. The Government’s unsustainable position must come to an end. If they are serious about delivering on housing, about social mobility and about giving powers to local communities, they need to provide the funding that our councils deserve.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) on securing this absolutely crucial debate today. I thank the many Labour Members who have contributed, particularly those who made speeches: my hon. Friends the Members for Peterborough (Fiona Onasanya), for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy), for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden), for North West Durham (Laura Pidcock) and for Leigh (Jo Platt). They speak up on behalf of their communities, who are really struggling in the face of eight years of Tory austerity.
I find it bitterly surprising that there is not a single member of the parliamentary Conservative party here, save for the Minister and her Parliamentary Private Secretary. I cannot believe that after eight years of cuts and the destruction and decimation of our public services, there is not a single member of the Conservative party willing to stand up for their communities and to say to the Minister and the Government, “Enough is enough!”
Emma Hardy
I have already spoken about the cuts facing the East Riding of Yorkshire Council. My constituency represents a very small part of that council, but the Conservative Members of Parliament that represent the council, such as the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), are not here. Why is it left to Labour MPs to give the Government the message about what is happening in their own Conservative-controlled councils?
Andrew Gwynne
I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend. As I said, I find it bitterly surprising. When we talk to Conservative Members in private, they are as concerned about what is going on in their own communities as Labour Members are. When we look at what is happening across local government, it is not just the Opposition raising concerns.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
I was a councillor for 10 years in a local authority in the north of England and I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman. It is time for everybody to speak up against the cruel cuts that completely demolish local authorities. People say, “The Lib Dems were also involved in this in the coalition years.” We need to take responsibility and say, “Yes, there was a point when we agreed to that, but enough is enough.” We have to stand up and say it is no longer acceptable. Our local services are no longer any services to speak of and everybody suffers.
Andrew Gwynne
I am grateful to the hon. Lady. I will be kind to her because she was my son’s German teacher at Audenshaw School. She is right to acknowledge the role that the Liberal Democrats played in this matter. I know she was not a Member of this House when the cuts were made, but some of the most damaging and deepest cuts made to local government happened under the coalition Government. Not a single Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament stood up, spoke out and voted against those cuts, so I am afraid the Liberal Democrats do have a responsibility for the state that local government is in today.
However, the hon. Lady is absolutely right to say that enough is enough. Local government is in crisis—and it is not the Labour party saying that, but the National Audit Office and the Tory-controlled Local Government Association.
Fiona Onasanya
In my constituency, Peterborough is run by a Conservative council, which has come to me and said, “Will you join us and lobby Government and say enough is enough? Stand up for Peterborough. We do not have enough funds. We cannot continue to do more with less.” Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government need to listen to their own voices from within and stop the cuts?
Andrew Gwynne
I absolutely agree. The Tory-controlled Local Government Association and Tory-controlled County Councils Network speak with one voice in the local government family, which is that local government is on its knees, our public services are struggling and local government cannot carry on if the cuts continue over the coming years. We know what is happening because it is happening today. Tory-controlled Surrey County Council, in one of the richest parts of the country, is complaining that it does not have enough money. If Surrey County Council has not got enough money, what hope have the Liverpools, the Tamesides and the Hulls of this world?
Dan Carden
I am delighted my hon. Friend has made that point. We are trying to argue that this matter is not economic, but political. When Liverpool has 60% of its properties in band A, what hope have we got of raising council tax to pay for all our services?
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend makes a very important point. One of the two local authorities that I represent, Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council in Greater Manchester, has a £16 million social care funding gap this year. A 1% increase on the council tax brings in about £700,000. The Tamesides of this world will never be able to fill the gap in the cuts from central Government, so the point my hon. Friend makes is absolutely crucial. The authorities that we represent are grant-dependent for a reason, because no amount of business rates retention and increases in local taxation through the council tax within the referendum framework will ever make up the difference between the cuts that have been made centrally.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. The situation is similar in my own local authority of Nottingham City where the amount required for adult social care in the year ahead is £12 million, and the social care precept raises around £3 million. Does he think that the Minister expects us to provide each elderly or disabled person with just a quarter of the care that they need, or should we simply pick a quarter of them and show that they have the care, leaving the other three quarters without the care that they require? What does he think the Minister’s advice would be?
Andrew Gwynne
I will let the Minister speak for herself. We know that local authorities have to provide social care and that it is not the social care services that necessarily get squeezed, but all the other services that many of our residents access on a day-to-day basis. Most of our constituents do not access adult social care unless they have an elderly relative who needs it and they do not access children’s social care unless they have a child in the system, but they expect their parks to be well maintained, their streets to be adequately surfaced, street lighting to be fixed, and litter to be picked up. They expect basic decent services, and it is those services that are being cut.
Emma Hardy
Exactly. There are cuts to the local library service, for example. Local libraries have had to reduce their opening times, and yet the move towards universal credit means that everybody is expected to apply online. They were told, “Go to your library and use the computers there,” but there are not enough computers in the local library and it is not open as much as it used to be. That is another consequence of the cuts and it shows a lack of joined-up thinking, a lack of forward planning and a lack of consideration and regard for the people in the poorer parts of this country.
Andrew Gwynne
Absolutely. Those are the pressures facing our communities. We talk about local services as though they are isolated from one another, but they are the life blood of many towns, villages and communities. Library services, welfare support and advice, and housing services are crucial elements of what makes communities tick and brings them together.
I speak not only in my role as shadow Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government but as someone with a fundamental belief in local government’s power to make a difference. I spent 12 mainly happy years, and my wife is nearing her 18th year, as a Tameside councillor. I want to add to the thanks that my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale expressed in his speech. We do not thank nearly often enough those, of all political parties and none, who serve as councillors and elected Mayors, or the staff and officers who implement councillors’ decisions. I offer thanks and appreciation to all those who work in our communities as elected members and local authority staff and officers. They are on the frontline of defending public services. Not only that, but they are the last line of defence when it comes to making the tough decisions that the Government have forced on them. I recognise the way many of them value and take pride in their position as councillors.
The National Audit Office’s assessment of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government makes for rather uncomfortable reading. Fundamental to the argument presented by the NAO is the failure of the Ministry to present a long-term strategy for the sector. As a result, even the four-year settlement that we were told was intended to offer some financial stability just kicked the can down the road. Authorities face major funding uncertainties beyond 2019-20.
Even within those four years of supposed certainty, local government has had to deal with rapidly shifting priorities from central Government—often announced at relatively short notice. It is reported by the NAO that the majority of case study authorities with social care responsibilities that it spoke to said that central Government funding outside the settlement had changed a number of times. An example was the new homes bonus being repurposed to fund adult social care.
We are told that
“The Department’s view is that these changes reflect considered responses to new pressures and risks”.
Anyone who has been following the issue would know that those pressures and risks have been growing since the beginning of the decade. As will ring true for many of my hon. Friends who have spoken today, over the decade from 2010 to 2020 Tameside will have lost close to £200 million in funding. Stockport will have lost well over £100 million. We can, as I have said, never fill those gaps with council tax alone. Although Stockport has a slightly better and more advantageous council tax base than the Tameside part of my constituency, this year it will have to find a further £18 million of savings—or cuts, as I like to call them—which is leading to consultation of residents about some drastic changes to the delivery of social care.
Tameside has said that demand for its services is at unprecedented levels. That is because of the wider impact of austerity on the public purse. If we operate in silos, there should be no surprise when cost-shunting presents itself as a problem on the town hall doorstep. Whether it is the closure of Sure Start centres or early intervention and family support, or the reduction in the number of domestic violence officers who used to be employed by the police, resulting in children being presented as safeguarding cases to the local authority, everything moves one way—from one part of the public sector to another. It may be councils pushing on to the NHS or police pushing on to councils, but it is a merry-go-round of self-defeating prophecy. We must stop that, and fund services properly.
Elsewhere in the report, we were told that the Government are working towards implementing the fair funding review. However, the implications of that are not yet clear. I must be honest with the Minister: anything that comes from a Minister’s mouth and that includes the words “fair”, “funding” and “local government settlement” sends shivers down my spine. We sure know what that means: that the Tamesides, Stockports, Liverpools, Durhams, Leighs, Wigans and Hulls—I could rattle through all the areas—will almost certainly end up with less money. As sure as night follows day, that is what happens when the Tory Government instigate funding changes to local government. Yet we have real social need, and are not able to raise money directly. What we see is the culmination of a crisis facing local government across England. What certainty can the Minister give our councils that they will get a fair funding settlement reflecting the areas’ needs and their inability to make up funding gaps through other sources? So far that has been badly lacking.
I want to end by discussing today’s crisis. Tory Northamptonshire is the first council effectively to declare bankruptcy, but it will almost certainly not be the last. The NAO reckons that in the next few years, unless the funding settlement improves considerably, one in 10 councils with social care responsibilities will have exhausted their reserves and, almost certainly, be in a similar predicament.
How did Northamptonshire, which by any standard is a wealthy part of the country, with a good council tax base, end up with an overspend at this year end of about £21 million, and reserves depleted to about £17 million? I will tell the House how it happened: it took the advice of the former Secretary of State, Sir Eric Pickles, who said that rather than complaining about cuts councils should spend their reserves. Once reserves are spent the money is gone; once the assets are sold, the asset base is gone. Once the money is gone, councils have to make cuts and take difficult decisions.
Fiona Onasanya
Does my hon. Friend agree that the situation is a clear case of knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing?
Andrew Gwynne
It absolutely is, but if it was compounded by Tory mismanagement at local level in Northamptonshire, the root cause of the problem undoubtedly came from the Tory Government. They have, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale and the National Audit Office, presided over cuts of almost 50% in central Government funding to councils. That is unsustainable. If we want councils and councillors to facilitate services of such a quality as to provide dignity to the elderly and the best start for the young, and to provide the general population with quality public services, that must be funded.
Emma Hardy
We have talked a lot about percentages and money, but I want to mention something a little more individual: the incredible increase in the number of looked-after children in my constituency, which has gone up by 140. We have one of the highest numbers in the country, and that is a consequence of the cuts. That is what happens when cuts take place.
Councils do not have the money for early intervention or the other services that used to provide that extra family support. Such support does not exist anymore, because all that is left is the statutory service. Sure Start used to be available for wider family participation; groups that anybody could take their child to are now open only to a small number of people who have a particular identified need. That all contributes to the increasing number of looked-after children. We cannot just sit here and ignore it: 140 children’s lives have been changed forever.
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Indeed, it is worse than that because we need to rebuild these services, yet over the past eight years we have lost thousands of dedicated council workers and staff. We have lost the corporate knowledge and history that was embedded in our local authorities. This is not just a question of money; it is difficult to rebuild overnight that capacity in our local councils.
The reality of Government cuts is laid bare in the National Audit Office report. Planning and development has been cut by 52.8%. If we are to meet the Government’s targets for new homes, who will be the strategic planners of the future to identify the land? Who will be the planning officers who implement planning applications? Who will be the planning enforcement officers and ensure that homes and buildings are built in accordance with the plans? Transport funding has been cut by 37.1%. These are our bus routes and the vital links between communities; these are our roads, pavements and cycleways. These cuts are unsustainable.
Emma Hardy
The Government talk the good talk on social mobility and say how important that is, but at the moment there are young apprentices who live in rural areas and cannot afford to do an apprenticeship or attend college, or they cannot get there because there are no local transport services for them to use.
Andrew Gwynne
Absolutely. This is about our museums, heritage, and cultural services—the glue that makes our communities tick. It is about who we are and that sense of place, yet funding has been cut by 34.9%. Housing services are not just about ensuring that people have roofs over their head. They are about support for the homeless and ensuring that our housing market works correctly. They are about tackling the scourge of rough sleeping, yet funding has been cut by 45.6%.
When a Government have created a £5.8 billion gap in local government funding, when everyone is saying that social care is on its knees, and when children’s services need an additional £2 billion, this Secretary of State, this Minister and this Tory Government stick their heads in the sand. They fail to give our services the money they need, and they ignore the crisis that is happening on their watch to our services and communities. We need a Government who are committed to our local councils and to rebuilding our communities. We need a Labour Government for the many, not the few.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Mrs Heather Wheeler)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans—for the first time, I believe. I congratulate the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) on securing the debate. For the record, I am married to a councillor, and I employ a councillor.
This is an important issue that the Government take seriously, and we recognise the hard work of our councillors, councils and council staff. The report sets out the National Audit Office’s view on the financial sustainability of the sector. I wish to take this opportunity to set out what the Government are doing to support local authorities and to design a fairer and more transparent system of funding that gives them more control over the money they raise. Every day, local authorities deliver vital services to the communities they serve. Like the rest of the public sector, they have had their part to play in helping to bring down the deficit. It is to their credit that they have continued to provide high-quality services, while delivering a better deal for the taxpayer. Indeed, so good are they that non-ring-fenced reserves have increased by 47% since 2011, to £21 billion in March 2017.
We take the funding of local government very seriously. That is demonstrated by the package of measures that we provide to local government as part of the 2018-19 finance settlement, which Parliament approved last month. The settlement confirmed a real-terms increase in resources for local government over the next two years, from £44.3 billion in 2017-18 to £45.6 billion in 2019-20. That is the third of a four-year deal, and it has reinforced our commitment to delivering more freedom and fairness, and greater certainty to plan and secure value for money. The deal has given English councils access to more than £200 billion of funding in the five years to 2020.
We recognise that pressures are growing, particularly in the light of higher than expected inflation—I was delighted, however, to hear today’s announcement that inflation is down to 2.75%—and pressures on services such as adult and children’s social care. That is why in the settlement we sought to strike a balance between addressing the pressures on services and the burden placed on taxpayers, by increasing the core council tax referendum principle by 1% to 3% for authorities in 2018-19.
Andrew Gwynne
But that is not a single penny extra from central Government. All the Minister has done is shift the burden from central Government on to local taxpayers. As I explained, a 1% increase in Tameside brings in £700,000. It is not enough, is it?
Mrs Wheeler
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention and repeat: the money from this Government has increased from £44.3 billion in 2017-18 to £45.6 billion in 2019-20. The National Audit Office rightly noted that local authorities are increasing their spending on the social care services that councils provide to our elderly and vulnerable citizens, in the face of growing demand. This is why at the spring Budget in 2017 an additional £2 billion was announced for adult social care. This year we have seen how that money has enabled councils to increase provider fees, provide for more care packages and reduce delayed transfers of care.
Mike Amesbury
That still equates to a 3% reduction from 2010 to 2017. It is a real-terms reduction.
Mrs Wheeler
I am always delighted to hear the dexterity of mathematicians in this building. It is £44 billion up to £45 billion, which I see as an increase. [Interruption.] I will move on. Local government and the NHS have worked in collaboration this year to deliver significant improvements in care. That is highlighted by the 26% reduction in delayed transfers of care, when comparing February this year with February last year. That is not all, however, because a further £150 million is being made available in 2018-19 for adult social care support grants. That, alongside the freedom to raise more money more quickly through the use of the adult social care precept, and the improved better care programme, means that councils have access to £9.4 billion in dedicated adult social care funding over the three years from 2017-18 to 2019-20.
Fiona Onasanya
Listening to the figures being presented, I understand the proposition that there has been an increase in funding. However, as Labour Members have said in their contributions, in real terms this is not an increase because supply is not keeping up with demand. I feel that this is like the emperor’s new clothes—the emperor seeks to describe the elegant, flamboyant gown that he is wearing, but actually he is completely naked. The amounts that the Minister is talking about do not keep up with the demand. These are demand-led services, and that is the point we are seeking to make.
Mrs Wheeler
The hon. Lady makes her point very elegantly, but I prefer the dress she is wearing today to ones I might imagine.
Alongside the £150 million for adult social care support grants, there is the freedom to access £9.4 billion up to 2019-20. I make it absolutely clear that real improvements are being made in adult social care services. That is in relation to the delayed transfers that have happened and the change whereby the NHS is working so much better by working hand in hand with local government. There has been such an improvement.
Like the NAO, we recognise the importance of investment in prevention and in high-quality children’s services. That is why the Government have invested almost £250 million since 2014 to help the children’s social care sector to innovate and redesign service delivery to achieve higher quality and better value for money. We have also invested £920 million in the troubled families programme, reducing the number of children in need.
I would like to say something about our work to deliver a fairer funding settlement for local government—I do appreciate the comments from the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) on this matter. We all know that we live in a changing world. Over the years, the current formula for budget allocations has served councils well, but what is right today might not be right tomorrow. The conditions that councils face, including demographic shifts in some parts of the country and new risks, mean that the system of financing local government also needs to change. We need an updated and more responsive way of distributing funding that gives councils the ability to meet the challenges of the future. That is why we are currently working with councils to undertake a review of local authorities’ needs and resources. There have been widespread calls for a thorough review, and we will deliver that.
We are committed to using the most up-to-date data available and, as far as possible, taking an evidence-based approach to both current and future demand. What we are looking to do is very important. We want to devise a new funding system that more fairly reflects modern needs. The Government aim to implement a new system, based on their findings, in 2020-21. Alongside the new methodology, in 2020-21 the Government are committed to giving local authorities greater control over the money they raise.
Wera Hobhouse
Will the Minister ensure that no council gets less money as a consequence of the new funding formula that she is proposing?
Mrs Wheeler
Much as I would love to do that, I think the safest thing I can do is refer the hon. Lady to the new funding for schools. Every single school has not had a reduction under the new fairer funding; every single school has had an increase of at least 1%.
Mrs Wheeler
No, I am going to carry on. As I said, alongside the new methodology, the Government are committed to giving local authorities greater control over the money they raise, which we are doing through our plans for increasing business rates retention. Local authorities are the engines of local growth. They know best the levers to pull to boost their business rates, which is why business rates retention is an important move. Our aim is for local authorities to retain 75% of business rates from 2020-21, with the other 25% going to councils that do not have a large business rates take.
Emma Hardy
On that point, if I am not able to make the point that I was going to make previously, I want to ask this: will the system make allowances for councils such as Hull? Currently, 81% of its income comes from the Government revenue grant and only 19% can be raised locally.
Mrs Wheeler
Yes, indeed. Forgive me for repeating myself, Mr Evans: 25% will go to the councils that do not have large business rates retention.
Emma Hardy
The Minister says 25%. Hull City Council currently relies on the Government revenue grant for 81% of its income, not 75%.
Mrs Wheeler
The business rates for the City of London are many, many millions of pounds. The money that is split out goes to the rest of the country.
Andrew Gwynne
Of course, this is not just about the councils that are unable to raise enough business rates to support their services now. Will adequate funding mechanisms be in place to ensure that if a large employer were to close and leave a council that is currently sustainable in terms of business rates, it would in effect get the shortfall created by the employer moving out or closing down?
Mrs Wheeler
I would be devastated if that happened and I cannot imagine why it would happen, with the growing economy that we have.
We will continue to work with the sector to identify opportunities to increase the level of business rates retention further at the right time. We are already making progress towards that. The Government have announced an expansion of the piloting programme for business rates retention into 2018-19. In the latest round of pilot bids, more than 200 authorities put themselves forward, demonstrating local government’s enthusiasm for business rates retention. We are enthusiastic about working with them to take that agenda forward. We will be taking forward 10 new pilots, covering 89 authorities, instead of the five that we originally planned. A further pilot will begin in London in 2018-19, and existing devolution pilots will continue in 2018-19. The 10 that we have selected, taken alongside the existing pilots, give a broad geographic spread.
Mike Amesbury
At what stage will the Government legislate, as they previously stated they would, to ensure that there is 100% business rates retention? And surely, as part of the funding mix, an area-based grant needs to be retained.
Mrs Wheeler
I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman will have to wait for that to happen.
I referred to a broad geographic spread. That was carefully thought through, as we want to see exactly how the system works across the country, and the pilots will ensure that that happens. The expansion of the pilots, and our plan to do more piloting in 2019-20, is how the Government are listening to the voice of local councils. The precise benefit to the areas involved will depend on the economic growth that they achieve. I am very keen to see what we can learn from these and the other pilots. We should be clear: the system of business rates retention is helping local authorities to benefit from the proceeds of growth.
Dan Carden
Does the Minister agree with us that, actually, a fair funding formula is about the requirements of the citizens who live in the area, and that that has to be the responsibility of not just local government, but national Government? I invite the Minister to come to Liverpool to see what would be the consequences of any business rates changes before they take place.
Mrs Wheeler
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that kind invitation; I am sure that eventually that will happen. Thanks to the business rates retention scheme, local authorities have had approximately an additional £1.3 billion of funding to support local services in 2017-18. That is over and above their core settlement funding.
Investment is important, but it is also vital that local government continues its work to deliver better value for money. Local government has a strong track record on efficiency, setting an example to other parts of the public sector. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak), who is responsible for local government, are keen to continue to work with the sector to increase transparency and share best practice and to harness the power of digital to transform services.
I am glad that we have had this chance to discuss the National Audit Office report. It is good that the NAO has recognised the positive work of the Department in getting to grips with the challenges across local government. I believe that the Government have shown that we are alive to the challenges that the sector faces and have a coherent plan for reform.
I thank the hon. Member for Weaver Vale for calling a debate on this important issue. I look forward to working closely with many colleagues over the coming months and discussing some of the challenges and opportunities facing the local government sector, and I look forward to hearing the hon. Member for Weaver Vale winding up the debate now.
Mike Amesbury
I thank you, Mr Evans, and the Minister. Of course, I too am disappointed at the austerity clearly displayed on the Government Benches—that symbolises the Government’s relationship these days with local government.
It is clear that we are at a watershed moment. The National Audit Office paints a stark picture, highlighting the genuine risk to statutory services. It is clearly time to change the record. Austerity is not working. It is a political choice. Certainly, as my hon. Friends have pointed out, it is not a sound financial one. Councils are crying out for certainty and are desperate to fund vital services and create better, healthier, more prosperous communities for all. We are a wealthy nation and must get our spending priorities in order. Rather than giving the richest corporations and individuals billions of pounds in tax cuts, let us fund local government services and help the most vulnerable to thrive and reach their full potential. We demand and need fair funding for all, now.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the National Audit Office report on the financial sustainability of local authorities, HC 834.
Vauxhall Factory, Ellesmere Port
(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the future of the Vauxhall factory in Ellesmere Port.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. When I am at home in my constituency, I get up to go to work and I head off in my Astra, of course. I go past many houses where Vauxhall employees and pensioners live, and many houses where the family and friends of people who work at Vauxhall live—and that is before I get to the end of my street. At the end of the street, I drive past a newsagent that relies on trade from Vauxhall employees, like many other local businesses. As hon. Members will understand from what I am saying, Ellesmere Port is synonymous with Vauxhall Motors.
The first Vauxhall Viva rolled off the production line in 1964. As the plant grew, so did the town. There is virtually nobody who lives in Ellesmere Port who does not have some connection with the plant. At its height, it employed around 12,000 people. Sadly, with recent job losses, the number is about a tenth of that today, but it is still substantial. We also have to take into account the fact that for every person employed at the plant, three other people are employed in the local economy. There is also the potential for greater numbers should we increase from single-shift production again in the future.
Vauxhall remains a big part of the local economy. We should build our future success on such jobs: highly skilled, permanent jobs that manufacture something of national and local pride. Vauxhall’s advertising material makes much of the significance of its being a UK manufacturer, but this is about more than being a UK manufacturer, or a key part of the local economy.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is right to stress that Vauxhall is a UK manufacturer. Is it not absurd, and frankly disgraceful, that so many public bodies—including police forces—buy vehicles from abroad? Some use Astras, but many others buy from companies that do not even have a presence in the UK. Should we not take that issue on?
Justin Madders
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have had debates about that before. He reminds me of the time when we talked about the police in France using Citroëns and Renaults; the police in Germany using Mercedes and BMWs; and the police in Spain using SEAT vehicles. As a nation and as an economy, we should do much more to take advantage of our procurement power.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Does he recognise that my constituency contains Vauxhall workers as well? Their economic future is reliant on the Government’s decisions in the Brexit negotiations, particularly given that they have decided to leave the single market, which puts those jobs at risk.
Justin Madders
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the footprint is much wider than Ellesmere Port—it goes into north Wales, and hon. Friends from that part of the world are present. Brexit is key to the plant’s future, and I will go on to address that shortly.
It is not just about economic impact. The plant is a big part of the town’s local identity. From the 30 kids’ football teams that play under the name “Vauxhall’s”, to the sports and social club that has had huge investment in new 3G pitches and the kids at school who see working at the plant as part of their family tradition, it is a major part of our community, and we do not want to lose it.
The plant has regular fights for survival. Every five years or so, when the next model is being discussed, plants across Europe are effectively pitted against one another to bid for the next job. In the past, the productivity and co-operation of the local workforce, combined with the tremendous leadership of Unite the Union, of which I am a member, in its work with management, have put us in the best possible position to secure future work. That partnership is an exemplar of how to conduct employee relations for the benefit of everyone.
Ian C. Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Is that partnership of unions, employers and Government working together not the reason why the UK has been effective in beating off competition from mainland Europe to secure jobs in the past? That is what we need to do in the future.
Justin Madders
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Initiatives such as the Automotive Council have seen the UK car industry go from strength to strength. As we know, however, every time a model comes up for renewal, it gets a little harder, the demands are greater and the workforce have to sacrifice a little more. It is a challenge we have always been equal to in the past, but the convergence of factors undoubtedly makes securing the next model our biggest challenge yet.
The latest edition of the Astra became European car of the year in 2016. It enjoyed great success, particularly in the sports tourer model, which led to 80% of the vehicles built in Ellesmere Port being exported to Europe. Despite that, in recent months, tastes have changed and there has been a dramatic slowdown in sales for that type of vehicle.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that our Vauxhall plants, including Ellesmere Port, are among the most productive in the PSA Group family?
Justin Madders
Yes, I would like to say that they are, but we are now being judged by a new benchmark. I will go into some detail about how things are being counted against the workforce’s excellent productivity.
The cuts in sales have led to cuts in the workforce, with 400 jobs going in October and another 250 earlier this year. In the past, a downturn has led to agreements between the unions and management about reduced hours to protect jobs, but the new owner, the PSA Group, has shown a different approach. That must act as a warning that we cannot expect any sentimentality from it, and that, as it has said consistently from the day it took over, plants will be judged on their efficiency.
History tells us that the local unions and management are well capable of meeting that challenge, but numerous factors are at play that will impede their ability to do that. It is our job—not just the job of the Opposition, but of the Government—to help them to overcome those obstacles in a highly competitive market.
Let us start with the big challenge: Brexit. Uncertainty across a sector can have a real impact on investment decisions. As we know, investment decisions in the automotive sector are traditionally made three to five years in advance, so decisions about investment in the post-Brexit world will begin to be made shortly.
In that respect, the timing could not be worse, as the current model in production in Ellesmere Port is due to be discontinued around the same time, in 2021. The chief executive of the PSA Group recently said:
“We cannot invest in a world of uncertainty.”
Some might say that is an excuse. Some might call it a distraction. I do not mind what it is called, as long as we do not ignore it.
After the Prime Minister’s Mansion House speech, the PSA Group and other manufacturers in the sector made similar points about the lack of the clarity, so I asked her to provide certainty by confirming that the trading arrangements in the automotive sector will be no less favourable than they are now. I am sorry to say that her answer did not give any clarity and there was certainly no unequivocal guarantee.
Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)
Might I put on record what we have spoken about in private, that we should go to see the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union and push for a sectional deal, particularly for Vauxhall and other companies producing cars and vans in this country? A second stage could be that we get unions and management in France and Germany to effectively lobby their Governments.
Justin Madders
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that the sector is too important to be left on its own. It directly or indirectly employs around 800,000 people and generates almost 10% of the country’s manufacturing output. Half of all the UK’s car production is exported to the EU, and that figure goes up to between 70% and 80% for the Vauxhall plant in my constituency.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
I concur with my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field). Does my hon. Friend agree that the statement made by the CEO of the PSA Group, Carlos Tavares, is a canary in the mine? It is the first warning about Brexit and the serious impact it will have on our economy.
Justin Madders
That is certainly a huge concern locally. We do not want to get into a game of pointing fingers; we want action, certainty and investment in the plant, but it will be a challenge. A report by the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee recently concluded that
“leaving the EU without a deal would undoubtedly be hugely damaging to the UK automotive sector, more so than to other European countries… Overall, no-one has argued there are advantages to be gained from Brexit for the automotive industry for the foreseeable future.”
Now that we are leaving the EU, it is important to recognise that there is no upside for one of our most vulnerable and important sectors. We must do everything possible to safeguard jobs and investment, because history shows us that once manufacturing jobs are lost, they very rarely come back.
So far, the Government’s response has been denial. We need them to work tirelessly to reassure major international companies that their future competitiveness will not be fatally undermined by tariffs or regulatory divergence, and that they can invest with confidence. I want us to get into a position in which Brexit cannot be used as an excuse not to invest in UK manufacturing. A clear and unequivocal commitment to a customs union would help, so that the many parts that travel back and forth across the continent can do so without impediment and without the final product becoming uncompetitive. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders has estimated that failure to properly cater for such issues in the negotiations could result in an increase of more than £1,500 in the average cost of a vehicle. What business can absorb that without a massive impact?
There is a school of thought that says that some sort of customs union will prevent us from striking up trade deals on our own, but as the BEIS Committee said, the reality is that there are no advantages for the automotive sector from Brexit. If asked to choose between preserving trade with up to 80% of existing customers or knowingly jeopardising existing trade in exchange for the chance of some new business with unspecified countries at an unspecified future time, I believe most people would go for the former and protect existing jobs.
All I have seen from Cabinet Ministers who have been pressed on the issue is bluffing, complacency and dangerous fantasies about a green and pleasant land. The automotive industry will survive and flourish only if we protect it now. I do not expect the Minister’s reply to provide the laser-like clarity that has been missing so far, so I will focus instead on matters that are wholly within the Government’s gift, that are not down to negotiations, that can make a real difference now, and that would still be key to securing the plant’s future even if a new model were announced tomorrow.
The first such matter is business rates, which can have a deterrent effect on investment and can mean that efficiencies have to be sought in alternative areas. Some 60% of the total property tax bill of the former Opel group came from the UK, even though the UK accounted for only 8% of the group’s total footprint. In Germany, significant rate reductions are provided to large companies that are intensive energy users.
Alison McGovern
All red-headed women are actually the same, Mr Rosindell, so do not worry.
Is my hon. Friend aware that I went to see Treasury Ministers well over a year ago about the business rates problem in car manufacturing, but they were simply unable to do anything? Does he agree that when it comes to meeting the challenge of Brexit and keeping manufacturing jobs in this country, that sort of approach is just not going to work?
Justin Madders
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The motor industry has been pressing on the business rates issue for several years, and it pressed again this year; I know that hon. Members with an interest in the subject have pressed on it, too. The case argues itself. An EY study has demonstrated that de-rating certain types of plant and machinery, not just in the automotive sector but across manufacturing, could stimulate additional investment of more than £8.7 billion and support an additional 33,000 jobs per annum. That is something we can do, and the argument for doing it is clear.
Let me give another example that relates to Brexit. If Vauxhall invested in solar panels on the site in the attempt to save on energy costs, it would attract a higher business rate. That does not seem in tune with much of what the Government are trying to achieve. Vauxhall has learned that its energy costs per MWh are twice those of plants in France. That has a massive impact on the competitiveness of the vehicles that it manufactures. I am grateful to the council and the local enterprise partnership for their work to address the issue by helping to source a local low-carbon supply for the plant. That will inevitably require some infrastructure investment, so I urge the Minister to keep in close contact with the LEP to ensure that everything possible is done to facilitate the proposal.
The final piece of the jigsaw is about taking a challenging part of the current set-up and reusing it to enhance the site’s overall viability. A good deal of land on site is surplus to requirements; as the number of people employed there has shrunk, so has the need for the land that the plant sits on. At the moment, only about a quarter of the Astra’s parts are sourced from the UK supply chain, and there has long been an ambition to increase that substantially. Given the uncertainties over future customs arrangements, the opportunity to utilise spare land to help local automotive suppliers to base themselves closer to the manufacturing site has many benefits. It will reduce transportation costs, improve productivity by providing more certainty about delivery, and benefit the wider community and environment by reducing lorry miles and thus emissions. Most of all, it will be a bulwark against a disadvantageous future customs arrangement.
David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
My hon. Friend will know that approximately 400 people from north Wales work at the plant. I urge him, along with the Minister, to contact the National Assembly for Wales. The Welsh Assembly Government, in co-operation with the UK Government, can help with infrastructure and with many of the issues that he raises.
Justin Madders
I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. He and I work with many other hon. Members in the all-party group on Mersey Dee North Wales. We recognise the symbiotic relationship in the north-west between Cheshire, Wirral and north Wales, and the interchange of people who move between those areas’ economies. I will certainly work with him and his Welsh Assembly colleagues on the matter.
Reshoring the supply chain is a clear element of the Government’s industrial strategy, although so far I have seen no financial or practical steps taken to deliver it. We need the Government to designate the area around the plant as a local enterprise zone to incentivise suppliers to relocate there. That would benefit the local supply chain, boost the local economy, provide more jobs and raise productivity. It would be a tremendous vote of confidence in the plant, so I urge the Minister to come back with a positive response as soon as possible. It would not only help Vauxhall, but help to improve the competitiveness of other motor manufacturers in the region.
The Vauxhall plants in Luton and in Ellesmere Port are among the most productive in the PSA family, and some of the most popular vehicles in the country are made there. We know that we are in a time of uncertainty and enormous challenge, but I do not see decline and closure as inevitable. We need to build on the positives. There can be no doubt that the ability to say that it supports British manufacturing boosts the company’s sales. Nor can there can be any doubt that the local management and workforce are committed to delivering the best. That commitment must be matched by the Government, ideally in the ways I have set out today, so that the owners are in no doubt that this is a community and a country that they want to invest in. When I go home, I want to be able to tell my friends and neighbours that Parliament is united and determined to give them all the backing they need to enjoy another half-century of production at Vauxhall Motors.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Richard Harrington)
It is a great honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. I perfectly understand your mistake in confusing the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) with the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner); I myself am regularly mistaken for my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis). I have sued people for less, but I am sure that that will not be necessary in this case.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) on securing this debate, and all right hon. and hon. Members on their contributions. I take the automotive industry very seriously, which is why I asked for it to be included in my portfolio—not just Vauxhall at Ellesmere Port, but the automotive industry in general. I have met quite a few people in the industry since I first became responsible for it, and further to this debate I will be happy to meet any Members for constituencies in the area; it might be better if we organised that through the all-party group, but I leave the decision to them. I hope that right hon. and hon. Members know that my door is always open, and I really mean that—it is not just a platitude. They have said some quite critical things about the Government, but that is their job and I quite understand it.
I know that Vauxhall’s history is very important to it. The PSA senior management, from Carlos Tavares down, have made clear to my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary the value they place on Vauxhall’s historic brand and the commitment of its workforce. They have emphasised their intention to build on those strengths. That positive message was reiterated when the PSA Group launched its turnaround plan in November, which it called PACE, aiming to bring Vauxhall and its sister brand Opel, which were with General Motors, to profitability by 2020. Mr Tavares again made a clear commitment to Vauxhall and expressed the intention to avoid forced redundancies or the closure of any Vauxhall plants. He has consistently said that he wishes to exploit in full the company’s potential in the UK.
We have regularly met senior management, within both Vauxhall and the PSA Group, and we will continue to do so. Discussions have been based on the future strategic direction for the PSA Group and Vauxhall, and on the outstanding and supportive environment that exists here for advanced manufacturing businesses and investment.
I was disappointed, as I am sure everyone in this Chamber was, at the announcements in October last year and in January on the voluntary reductions in the workforce at Ellesmere Port. Vauxhall has made it clear that the decision was taken to safeguard the competitiveness of the plant in an ever more challenging environment across Europe. I accept what hon. Members have said about the impact of those announcements on their constituencies and about how few people now work at Ellesmere Port compared with the past, as well as about the importance of those people to the local economy and their supply chain.
Ministers—more recently including myself—have stayed in touch throughout with key decision makers from both Vauxhall and the PSA Group, and very helpfully with leaders from Unite and other unions, too. We have pressed the case for Vauxhall’s plants and highlighted the excellent UK workforce, and we will continue to do so.
The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston made a fine speech—I do not want him to think that I objected to much of it, because I agreed with a lot of it—but I reject his claim that we are in “denial” about what is happening. I will come on to Brexit business in a moment, but I do not think that claim is true, and I would tell him that privately or publicly on the record.
We have shown that auto investment is important in the UK. Recently, Toyota announced that its new model would be built in its plant at Burnaston and there have been other announcements in the last year from Nissan, BMW and Lotus. We can do it, and global demand for vehicles designed, engineered and manufactured in the UK is strong.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
I am most grateful to the Minister for giving way. There is a Toyota plant next to my constituency, in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (David Hanson). Are not investment decisions such as those the Minister has mentioned taken three years in advance? That decision by Toyota had already been taken and was known even before the Brexit referendum had taken place.
Richard Harrington
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but I do not believe that that is the case; if Toyota was concerned, particularly about the Brexit issue, whatever decision it may have taken was certainly not finalised until well after the referendum. By the way, I look forward to visiting the Toyota plant in the constituency of the hon. Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood)—I think it is in her constituency—quite soon.
Richard Harrington
I do beg your pardon—in Deeside. Well, I look forward to visiting it anyway, and if I was invited to visit Ellesmere Port I would be very pleased to do so, subject to an agreement with the Conservative Whips.
Ms Angela Eagle
I thank the Minister for giving way. All of us who have an interest in this issue welcome his interest in the automotive plant, but we want a little more from him than that, since he is the Minister. Can he give us an answer on the issue of rate relief? Will the entire area be given the special status that my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) asked for?
Richard Harrington
Well, I have seven minutes and I will do my best to satisfy hon. Members, but as I say my door is open to anybody—
Ms Angela Eagle
Just say yes now; it does not take seven minutes to say yes.
Richard Harrington
The hon. Lady has been in government herself, so she knows that sometimes seven minutes is not enough to deal with these matters.
The automotive industry is very important for the industrial strategy, which is our cornerstone policy. We have announced quite significant sums of money— £80 million—for battery scale-up facilities in the west midlands, and I believe that the automotive industry, with the advanced propulsion centre and everything else, is absolutely critical to us. I hope that can help the situation at Ellesmere Port, because it will provide a framework for a modern industry of the future.
As far as Brexit is concerned, I recognise exactly the uncertainty that has been mentioned by the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston, and others. It is very important; we are not in “denial” about it. However, what I would say is that the automotive industry has been used as a model by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. For example, it was well publicised that at Chequers the automotive industry and its interlink with all of the companies in the supply chain, and everything in Europe, was used as an example; what my right hon. Friend would call, quite rightly, an “exemplar”.
Yesterday’s conclusion of the negotiations between the Brexit Secretary and Michel Barnier, with the transition period, showed that exactly the sort of thinking that we need for the automotive industry is recognised by our own Government and by the European Union. I am confident that that is largely the result of successful Government lobbying by the automotive industry—in which, of course, Vauxhall has taken part.
Alison McGovern
I thank the Minister for giving way. Is he saying that, given that the automotive industry was used as such an “exemplar”, the kind of arrangements agreed for the period of transition are those that we can expect to help the automotive sector in perpetuity?
Richard Harrington
Yes, I would hope so. I accept the fact that we are leaving the European Union, but I believe that common sense will prevail about the frictionless and free movement of trade between ourselves and the European Union. I think the hon. Lady is quite aware of my views on that.
Yesterday’s milestone on the implementation period will help in the short term to alleviate some of the fears mentioned by Mr Tavares and others.
Richard Harrington
I will not take the intervention, but only because of the time; under normal circumstances, I would be happy to take it. I do not want to annoy Mr Rosindell on this subject, and I am determined to do as much as I can. We as a Government are certainly determined to ensure that the UK continues to be one of the most competitive locations in the world for automotive and other advanced manufacturing.
Our vision is of a UK that is a
“champion of free trade based on high standards”,
not on low standards, and we hope that global Britain will forge
“a bold and comprehensive economic partnership with our neighbours in the EU, and reaches out beyond to foster trade”,
which I hope will help Ellesmere Port.
The right hon. Member for Delyn (David Hanson) said that we should be involved with the Welsh Assembly and others; I am very happy to meet Welsh Assembly Members. I have heard very good reports about the local enterprise partnership and it seems a very sensible idea to work with it. I would be happy to include the Welsh Assembly within any discussions on this matter.
To conclude, we are absolutely committed to a successful Vauxhall, so that it remains and thrives in the UK, both at Ellesmere Port and at the company’s plant in Luton. We have made our strong commitment absolutely clear to the company and it has full access to the support available through our industrial strategy. We want Vauxhall to be successful and—
Richard Harrington
I have not got time. We want Vauxhall to be part of a thriving economic situation. [Interruption.]
Richard Harrington
I do beg your pardon, Mr Rosindell. People were asking me to give way, but I have only two minutes.
I am happy to continue this debate offline, and to have a meeting with the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston and any colleagues. Perhaps we could do that through the all-party parliamentary group; I leave it to them to decide. Some important questions have been asked, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are not in “denial” and we want a prosperous Vauxhall. We want Ellesmere Port to be part of that.
Andrew Rosindell (in the Chair)
Order. The debate is over, I am afraid. The Minister has offered to continue the debate after this, so I suggest that you speak to him later.
Question put and agreed to.
Scottish Welfare Powers
(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Bill Grant (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered Scottish welfare powers.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. I extend my thanks to Members from both sides of the House who have turned out to debate this important issue for Scotland.
The Scotland Act 2016, which was delivered by a Conservative Government to the people of Scotland to implement the recommendations of the Smith Commission, has elevated the Scottish Parliament to one of the most powerful devolved legislatures in the world. It has unprecedented power at its disposal, including over some welfare and social security elements. I am proud of my party’s record on devolution. It is the Conservatives who are delivering on devolution. It is this party that gave the Scottish Parliament the powers to top up existing benefits, make discretionary payments and even create entirely new benefits. In total, the Government have devolved 30% of working-age benefits in full, meaning that Scotland has significant control over its welfare system. The question now is how those powers are used.
Between the powers held by this Parliament and those rightly held in Holyrood, the welfare system in Scotland should, I believe, be based on three overarching principles. First, we must always ensure that adequate support is available for the most vulnerable in our communities, and we are rightly proud that in this country we have a system designed to offer a safety net to those who need it most. Secondly, any welfare system must be flexible and, where possible, personalised. Far too often we approach these debates with a singular focus on numbers and statistics. We must remember that behind every one of those numbers is an individual or a family with their own set of unique circumstances, and any welfare system must be able to work for each and every one of them.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for most kindly giving way on my birthday. Does he believe that social security is also a human right?
Bill Grant
That is an interesting question. We cannot see people going without entirely, so yes, I would lean towards its being a human right. Social security is a safety net that in this country, and in Scotland, we can be proud of providing, and I hope that we are able to do so for a long time to come, through a good, strong economy and people in employment.
The third principle is that the welfare system should give those who can and want to work the opportunity to do so. That is an essential part of its modernisation. It has rightly been the guiding principle of welfare reforms across the UK in recent years, and we should not underestimate the dignity and sense of fulfilment that accompany employment.
It is with those principles that I have approached the debate today, but one further important requirement underpins them all, which is that the system works. That sounds very simple and easy, but I am increasingly concerned that the Scottish Government are simply not moving fast enough to ensure that it does. Hundreds of thousands of people receive the benefits, so it is vital that the devolution of powers is delivered safely and in an orderly way. It is vital also that people know what will happen under the new system, that the Scottish Government think through policy properly and that they have the structures up and running to take over the important responsibilities.
Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)
Has the hon. Gentleman articulated any of those concerns directly to the Scottish Government?
Bill Grant
I can honestly say no, but I believe that it is not my role to do so at this juncture. The hon. Gentleman may have a different view, which I fully respect. If there is a need to do so, I will certainly take him up on that.
This is no easy feat. I accept that we cannot just magic up a new welfare system. I do not underestimate how much work must be done. We have known the timeline for the devolution of the powers for quite some time now, yet there is still no real detail about how the Scottish Government intend to use the important main powers. The fact is that Scottish National party Ministers in Scotland are proceeding exceptionally slowly with implementing this aspect of devolution. I suspect that the SNP is now beginning to realise that creating a welfare system that is fair to everyone, including taxpayers in the UK and in Scotland, is not an easy task. That I accept.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
Disabled people across the UK have suffered a cut in their disability benefit of £30 a week under the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016, and the Institute for Fiscal Studies says that some 10,000 disabled claimants in Scotland will have to find £1,400 a year. Does the hon. Gentleman believe that to be fair?
Bill Grant
Disability funding has increased over this Parliament, and will continue to do so. Fairness is a double-sided coin. The hon. Gentleman will learn that in the Scottish Government. Fairness must apply to the taxpayer and to those who receive assistance. I am sure that he agrees.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
The Equality and Human Rights Commission produced a report last week that suggested that 75% of cuts have fallen upon Pakistani families in England. Does the hon. Gentleman think that is fair?
Bill Grant
I have to take the hon. Lady’s word for that. I have not seen that report. I have no reason to doubt it, but I would have to know more about it before I agreed to apply the word “fairness.”
Disability benefits are being devolved by April 2020, and we have been promised that a new Scottish social security agency will be up and running, ready to take on the handling of welfare issues, in time for the next Scottish election. Time is moving on, yet many of the details are still desperately lacking. For example, we do not know how the system will interact with and work in parallel with the UK system and the Department for Work and Pensions. Might the Minister be able to indicate whether he has discussed that with his Scottish counterparts? That might reflect on the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray) tasking me with that job.
That lack of detail and policy is a concerning feature of the SNP Government’s approach to welfare. We know that they will take over responsibility for benefits such as disability living allowance and personal independence payments. What we do not know, however, is precisely what their policy will be on disability benefits. What assistance do they propose for people with disabilities? How will claims be made, assessed and processed through the system? How much will people be able to receive?
Neil Gray
With due respect, the hon. Gentleman is clearly not following proceedings in Holyrood. At the Committee stage alone we discovered from the Scottish Government—supported, I think, by the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues in Holyrood—that the medical information required for the assessments will be gathered by the social security agency so that there will be a reduction in the need for face-to-face intervention. That is just one area in which we know there is clear detail from the Scottish Government.
Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)
Reference was just made to the Scottish Social Security Committee report. In its conclusions, it in fact states:
“There have been a number of consistent concerns raised about the Bill, in particular the balance between what is contained in the Bill and what will be in regulations.”
The distinct lack of detail in the Bill is causing parliamentarians and outside interest groups grave concern.
Bill Grant
I will not be the referee on what is right or wrong in the report, but the truth will be in there somewhere.
Most worryingly, the detail we have from the SNP simply has the look of an attempt to move away from Westminster systems and be different just for the sake of it. Take disability benefit assessments, for example. One of the first and only changes that the SNP has announced is over the role of the private sector in those assessments. It has yet to justify that approach, and I am not clear what the actual benefits will be.
Chris Stephens
The hon. Gentleman is being most generous in giving way. Is the role of the private sector in assessments not best covered by the recent Work and Pensions Committee report, which documented individual men being told by the DWP that they were in actual fact pregnant? Does that not tell us that there is something wrong with the private sector dealing with assessments?
Bill Grant
I do not think that I would pass judgment on the private sector system based simply on that one example. You can pick out poor examples from any system. Any identified problem will be rectified. The Government have been rectifying issues over a long period of time.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Are you seriously coming to the Chamber today and telling us that since you have been elected, no constituent has come to you to complain about the way their applications for DWP assessments have been treated? Is that what the hon. Gentleman is telling us? If he is telling us that, it must be the only constituency in Scotland where that is the case.
Bill Grant
I respect the hon. Lady’s intervention, but for clarity, I never indicated or suggested—sorry if you have interpreted it as such—
Andrew Rosindell (in the Chair)
Order. I remind Members that the word “you” refers to the Chair.
Bill Grant
My apologies. I checked with the office. Cumnock jobcentre went live on 25 October last year, and in February this year the two other jobcentres in my constituency, Ayr and Girvan, went live. I think we have had six inquiries in total in that time. By the time my office staff got back to them, I think two or three of them had self-resolved and the system had resolved the others. The dark side of universal credit in terms of the changes is not self-evident.
Stephen Kerr
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his generosity. Surely the whole point of this debate is not the issue raised in the previous intervention by the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson), but what will happen to social security in Scotland in future. That is what my constituents have grave concerns over.
Bill Grant
I thank my hon. Friend for that. It may be prudent for us to focus on the purpose of the debate. The SNP appears to be unprepared for the powers it has demanded for so long. It has repeatedly demanded powers—it could be called a power grab—and it has now been granted them. We urgently need to know whether the Scottish Government will be ready to take on responsibility for welfare by 2020, as is planned, or whether they will have to ask the UK Government to delay the process. I hope that later in the debate the Minister will touch on some of the contingency plans we must have, as we cannot allow the Scottish Government’s delays to impact on those who rely on these benefits.
Drew Hendry
At the very least, the hon. Gentleman is being generous in taking interventions. Can I clarify something with him? He is saying that the Scottish Government are not taking action ahead of time. Does he support the hundreds of millions of pounds that the Scottish Government have put into mitigating the bedroom tax in Scotland?
Bill Grant
I have no issues. That is the choice of the Scottish Government, and I respect their choice. They have chosen to do that.
From what we do know of the SNP plans, we can see that they are likely to be incredibly expensive. The Scottish Fiscal Commission said that devolved welfare spending—this is an astronomical rise—will increase by nearly 50% between 2017 and 2023, going from £330 million to £470 million of taxpayers’ money. It is never the Government’s money; it is the tax raised from the hard-earned income of those in employment. Of course any system must be able to cope with the needs of those who depend on it, and do so adequately, but my concern is that the Scottish Government might devise a social security system that is so expensive that it will not provide fairness to taxpayers. The balance of need and affordability must be carefully considered.
Alison Thewliss
The hon. Gentleman seems to be suggesting that people are either claiming benefits or paying tax. Does he not agree that that is not the reality? Some people supported through tax credits are working.
Bill Grant
It might be my Scots accent that is causing an issue, because I did not indicate that. I said that the welfare system is generally dependent on those who earn money and pay tax, but there is a middle group. There are those who earn and who are not dependent on the welfare system, and those who are wholly dependent on it and are perfectly entitled to that support. The hon. Lady is right that there is a middle group where there is a balance of work with tax credits and assistance, and that is to be welcomed.
Bill Grant
If the hon. Gentleman will bear with me, I want to make a wee bit of progress. Just like the policies themselves, there is little detail on future costs. It is important that we know how much things will cost and how taxpayers will be expected to fund the Scottish system. Are we going to see yet more tax rises for the people of Scotland, or will other services begin to see cuts? My Scottish Conservative colleagues and I have spoken regularly in this place about the need for Scotland’s two Governments to work effectively together, and that is true for welfare.
Neil Gray
Has the hon. Gentleman read the financial memorandum that was published for the Bill on Friday? Has he considered the Scottish Government’s remarks that suggest we will always pay for the social security system out of the funds we have in Scotland and any efficiency savings that come forward? Clearly the finances are there.
Bill Grant
I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s comments. I certainly hope that there are efficiency savings in that regard, but I am a bit sceptical.
Take universal credit, for example. The Scottish Government have made use of the flexibilities available, and they are well within their rights to do so, but consultation and information sharing with the DWP could be much better. In Scotland, claimants can choose to have the housing element of their universal credit paid directly to landlords. In England, the DWP does not simply pay people money and turn its back on them. If somebody has fallen two months in arrears with rent payments, a UK-wide system of alternative payment arrangements is triggered and rent can be paid, where needed, directly to landlords. It is best if individuals can manage their own money to match the working environment. It is important that they are allowed to manage their own money where they can and that there is a system to support them.
Chris Stephens
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way again. In terms of flexibilities, does he not accept the evidence that has been given to the Work and Pensions Committee, and to the consultations on the Social Security (Scotland) Bill, is that those moving on to universal credit who have been in work are paid weekly and fortnightly. The majority are paid that way, not four-weekly.
Bill Grant
I think I have indicated in the debate today that flexibility is a good thing. I welcome such things for people until they, for want of a more elegant phrase, get on to an even keel. It is a support system; it is not a permanent system. Where the system would benefit from flexibility, I welcome that.
Ged Killen (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)
The hon. Gentleman is talking about the flexibility now afforded to the Scottish Government in the payment of universal credit. Does he not agree that it is regrettable that his party and his favourite sparring partners the SNP voted down the Labour amendment to ensure that women in particular can be protected from financial abuse by being able to split universal credit?
Bill Grant
I support that. I think discussions are going on between the UK Government and the Scottish Government to resolve that. It is a serious issue, particularly in terms of abusive relationships and so on. I respect and support that point.
I am conscious of time. It is not clear how Scottish flexibility and the UK-wide alternative payment arrangements system will work together in the future, and both Governments must provide further clarity on that. Universal credit is an area where the Scottish Government have already exercised their devolved powers. While it is rightly a reserved benefit, it is also right and correct that it should be tailored to Scottish needs, but these flexibilities throw up issues that must be worked out between the two Governments. People in Scotland who opt for the flexibility of two-weekly payment may not be able to access things such as direct debits to secure lower utilities prices. Will the Minister commit to working with the Scottish Government to resolve such issues in the devolved system?
Providing welfare is one of the most important and complex tasks a Government delivers. As we move into the 2020s, the Scottish Government will rightly take on more and more responsibility in this area. By 2021, the leadership of the Scottish Government might look rather different—it might look much the same—but it must be ready regardless. We simply cannot afford for the SNP not to be ready. We know that it is a party that prefers complaining to governing, but that has to end now—the stakes for these individuals are far too high.
The UK Government promised devolved welfare and have kept up that end of the bargain. The SNP Government now need to get on with the work to secure a welfare system in Scotland. They need to be 100% focused on what to do with the powers. They need to ensure that Scotland is ready for this significant and important change. We are not there yet, but there is still time. Let us all hope that, for once, they rise to the occasion. Finally, I thank the staff of the Department for Work and Pensions, in offices around Scotland and the United Kingdom, for their continuing commitment to the needs of their clients on a daily basis, and for embracing change and digital technology.
Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)
Thank you, Mr Rosindell, for your expert chairmanship of the debate. We have had a spirited introduction from the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant), with some interesting re-writing of history regarding the Tory party’s legacy when it comes to defence of the welfare state in Scotland.
At every stage of the process of devolution, it is Labour that has led the charge. During the passage of the Scotland Act 2016, although the welfare provisions were agreed by the Smith commission, it was only the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) that extended the new benefits in devolved areas, and top-ups in reserved areas. It was only his action that forced that change in the Lords, and pressure from the Labour party that ensured that that provision was included in the Act.
A huge opportunity has been presented to the Scottish Government with the extension of welfare powers. That is exactly what devolution was intended to do. Remember that the spirit of devolution was set up in the face of rampant Thatcherism and the rolling back of the industrial and welfare settlement that Scotland had enjoyed since the end of the second world war.
Stephen Kerr
On a point of information, Mrs Thatcher left office in 1990. The devolution settlement the hon. Gentleman is referring to occurred under Tony Blair’s Government, eight years later.
Mr Sweeney
I think I referred to the “spirit” of devolution. If the hon. Gentleman recalls his history, devolution, which of course the Tories implacably opposed throughout, was born in the 1980s. Likewise, the popular campaign for a Scottish Parliament was born out of the 1980s and the reaction against Thatcherism, the policies of which were anathema to the Scottish people. Devolution was born in the face of Thatcherism. If I am not mistaken, it was the former Secretary of State for Scotland, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, who referred to Thatcher as the midwife of the Scottish Parliament.
Clearly, Labour led the charge at every stage in the process. Although there is a great opportunity for the Scottish Parliament to be what it was designed to be—a bulwark against Tory austerity, not a conveyor belt for it—we have seen a weakness in the Social Security (Scotland) Bill, which was built on empty rhetoric, not substance. Again, it has been Labour pressure that has led the charge against the SNP pulling off an audacious power grab, without any scrutiny or accountability, in the Bill’s development in the Scottish Parliament.
Scotland has the powers to create its own social security system, to change the lives of disabled people, to tackle poverty, and to reinforce the safety net, but there is still so much missing from the Bill. The Bill at stage 3, as it goes through the Scottish Parliament, will be very different from the form it was issued in last June. That has been achieved through campaigners lobbying, and Labour holding its ground, seeking to deliver real change to improve the lives of the people of Scotland. I want to be clear about how it has progressed through the Scottish Parliament, for the avoidance of any doubt and any rewriting of history.
In June 2017, a briefing was circulated to all MSPs highlighting that the Bill contained no top-up to child benefit, no rules setting out how the Government should create new benefits in devolved areas, and no ban on the private sector, going back on the Scottish Government’s word from April 2017. There was also no hard commitment on uprating, going back on their word from June 2016, and no scrutiny through the legislative process. By the end of that summer, during stage 1 Labour had secured the following concessions in the Bill: scrutiny and parliamentary procedure, a right to independent advocacy, a right to payment cash as default, and a statutory duty to maximise incomes.
However, the Minister for Social Security in Scotland continued to block protections for recovering overpayments made by office errors, which is more onerous than the UK system. She also blocked inflationary uprating—that is to say, the Minister wanted to do less than the UK system—and redeterminations, as they wanted to replicate the UK system. She also blocked the banning of the private sector, and the setting of binding targets to encourage the uptake of £2 billion in unclaimed benefits. However, since January we have seen a U-turn on all those issues, by laying or supporting amendments and seeking Labour’s support, while antagonising the third sector and civic society in the process.
During stage 2 of the Bill, the SNP and the Tories voted down amendments to secure human rights in the Bill. For months, a key and fundamental part of SNP rhetoric focused on how the system would be built on dignity and respect, yet when put to a vote they teamed up with the Tories to vote that down. That rightly angered the third sector, and some of the Scottish Government’s key supporters, who have long called for the right to social security to be part of the legislation. The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations said in response to this issue:
“This ‘due regard’ amendment...was to ensure that the principles in the Bill, something we have heard a lot about from the Scottish Government, could be realised in practice.
Astoundingly, despite the Scottish Governments rhetoric around a social security system based on human rights, the amendment was not agreed and no such duty will exist in the Bill.
Confused? You should be.”
That is a shameful indictment of the Scottish Government’s true commitment on this issue.
Stephen Kerr
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way again. I congratulate him on his powerful speech, even though I do not agree with everything that he is saying. Does he agree that the evidence that he is presenting shows how difficult it is for the Scottish Government to get their arms around the issue of providing a social security system in Scotland? It is a complex issue, is it not?
Mr Sweeney
I agree that the complexity of the social security system should not be underestimated, but none the less we should have committed at the outset to the objectives and the vision that we wanted to see, which we share. Surely they should live up to their rhetoric on this issue.
Patricia Gibson
The hon. Gentleman says that the Labour party has been leading from the front on this issue. In the light of that statement, I ask him whether he regrets, and would like to apologise for, the fact that 184 members of his party abstained on the Welfare Reform and Work Bill in 2015, thereby letting through £12 billion of welfare cuts.
Mr Sweeney
I am afraid that is a total misrepresentation of what Labour was voting for in that case. If anything, the SNP should apologise for abstaining on the Third Reading of the Tory Finance Bill just last month, when we were all in Parliament. I cannot speak for colleagues who were not elected at the time she refers to, but I can accuse the hon. Lady of that act just last month.
On the progress of the Social Security (Scotland) Bill and how complex it has been, even at stage 2 in February, Labour continued to challenge the Scottish Government to deliver a number of further improvements, which have been resisted. For example, a child benefit top-up of £260 per year was blocked by the Tories and the SNP voting together. Changes that would prevent the winter fuel payment as well as disability and industrial injuries benefits from being means-tested were backed unanimously by Labour, the SNP, the Tories, and the Greens—a good concession. Binding targets to boost the take-up of all benefits were also backed, and protection for carers from inflation—the current carefully crafted Scottish Government plans look set to save £5 million—was backed unanimously.
However, a requirement in law to secure the automatic splitting of universal credit so that women are protected from financial abuse was blocked. The competency of that is contained in section 30 of the Scotland Act 2016. The Tories and the SNP blocked that by voting together—just days before, somewhat ironically, the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) introduced a Bill in this place on the same issue. It is an example of how the SNP talks a good game at Westminster, yet acts very conservatively at Holyrood. An attempt to secure a higher legal threshold to prosecute claimants who fail to notify a change of circumstances was also blocked when the Tories forced a vote on it.
There is clearly much more scope to improve the quality of the social security system in Scotland. The only party that has driven real change and a real defence of working people in Scotland who rely on a social security system and a safety net has been the Labour party at every stage. We should not forget that the only force that will ensure that we have real, radical change for disabled people, that we tackle poverty, and that we reinforce the safety net will be a Labour Government at Holyrood in Edinburgh, and at Westminster in London.
Several hon. Members rose—
Andrew Rosindell (in the Chair)
Order. There will not be time for everyone to speak in the debate unless everyone keeps their remarks down to just over a minute. We have only eight minutes before we have to move on to the SNP spokesman. We will have to be very strict with that timing, because there is very little time left. I call Luke Graham.
Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)
I will try to keep my remarks as close to one minute as I possibly can. Welfare is one of the key elements of the modern British state. We launched the NHS together and we built the welfare state together. It started at the turn of the 20th century and was built throughout the last 100 years. Beveridge was the son of a Scottish civil servant and helped lay the infrastructure in which we operate today.
Welfare is also one of the biggest issues that I have experienced as an MP. Constituents regularly come to me with a whole range of welfare issues and my staff and I work incredibly hard to make sure that we resolve them. We have been able to successfully resolve 94% of the universal credit inquiries we have had in just a few days. The greatest concern when we get into the politics of the devolution of welfare powers is the impact on constituents. I have already had constituents coming to me in a state of confusion because they do not know whether to go to the local authority, the MSP or the MP, and that is just with the current system, before we create a whole other agency with a whole other bureaucracy and the costs that go with that.
The Smith commission put the powers in—
Andrew Rosindell (in the Chair)
Order. I apologise. I call Patricia Gibson.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
I will try to be brief. I am bewildered about what this debate is supposed to achieve. The hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant) agreed with many of the points we put to him—for example, that social security is a human right. I wonder what the Minister will think of that.
We will take no lessons from the Labour party. It does not matter what the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Sweeney) says, £12 billion-worth of cuts on welfare went through in 2015 and 184 Labour MPs abstained. That is why we need to have people in here protecting Scotland’s interests.
The hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock talked of the need for mitigation. By definition, if we need to mitigate Tory cuts in Scotland, that suggests that the Tory cuts should not be taking place.
In setting up the new welfare system in Scotland, there has been widespread consultation. For the hon. Gentleman to suggest that it is some dark secret and nobody knows what is happening is clearly nonsense. His colleague, Adam Tomkins MSP, talked about the welfare legislation in Scotland as being landmark legislation and the great consensus around it. It is a pity that the hon. Gentleman cannot agree with his Tory colleagues in the Scottish Parliament. Adam Tomkins MSP congratulated the Scottish Government on bringing the legislation forward in the form that they did. It is very clear that the only people who are standing up for the people who find themselves relying on benefits—
Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)
Having made a number of interventions, I will take a few seconds simply to say that what concerns me most about the passage of the Social Security (Scotland) Bill, as outlined by the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Sweeney), is the disregard that the Scottish National party in Government in Scotland show to due parliamentary process. They are reluctant to expose their legislation in detail. They are reluctant to allow that legislation to be properly scrutinised. They make bad laws. They have a consistent record of making bad laws. They ram legislation through the Parliament. We have an example right now with the wrecking Bill that is going through Parliament with very little time for scrutiny. This is another typical example. The Social Security (Scotland) Bill as it was originally presented included enormous powers reserved to Ministers—called Henry VIII powers here. They are practitioners of reserving powers to Ministers for regulations of the highest order and that is why sometimes when they speak in this place, their actions in Government in Scotland should be set against what they say.
Hugh Gaffney (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)
I am delighted to serve my community and to stand up for the most vulnerable in society. It has not always been easy in public life, but it is easy to stand up for what is right.
I am so sick of seeing the impact of the SNP and Tories on my constituents. On a national level, we have seen jobcentres closed. We have seen DWP offices closed. We have seen housing benefit for under-25s scrapped. We have seen support for local authorities across the United Kingdom slashed. We cannot forget that many of the decisions taken by the Tories in London and the SNP in Scotland have taken money out of the pockets of people in need. I am ready for real change.
That is why I am delighted that Richard Leonard has become the leader of the Scottish Labour party. Under Richard, we will see radical change for disabled people and plans to tackle poverty, and we will reinforce the safety net. This is not and should not be political. It is about a better future for the people of Scotland.
John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)
Like, I suspect, most hon. Members, I got involved in politics to make people’s lives better and to make our country a better place. A large part of the casework I have to deal with revolves around welfare and ensuring that people get what they are entitled to from the safety net that the state rightly provides. That is why I find it so annoying and so frustrating that the SNP chooses to make party politics of this. While they constantly condemn the choices that the UK Government make about welfare, when this Conservative Government gave the Scottish Parliament even more powers to take those decisions itself, the SNP Government have dithered and delayed and pushed the powers back for as long as they possibly could to avoid making the tough choices and taking responsibility for being in government, and would rather just stoke up the politics of grievance. The voters see through it. We see through it. It is about time the SNP stood up for the rhetoric that it is so keen to articulate and actually took responsibility for being in government.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. So far we have been subjected to what one can only call buzzword bingo. I am only waiting on one from either the Labour or Conservative Benches.
The hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant) complained, on the one hand, that not enough was being done and then, on the other hand, complained about what has already been announced. It is incredible behaviour. It can be summed up like this: the UN committee on the rights of persons with disabilities has criticised the UK Government for grave and systematic violations of the conventions on the rights of persons with disabilities and, at the same time, it has praised the Scottish Government for engaging with disabled people and the organisations that represent them.
If we are building a social security system—not a welfare system as the Conservatives talk about, as if it is some sort of handout—
Chris Stephens
It is not a handout; it is a human right. Language is important. The hon. Member for Stirling can shout all he likes—it is social security we should be talking about, not welfare. That is a big difference between my party and his in terms of how we view the issues. We need to ensure—
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
The hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant) has brought this debate to the Chamber and was largely complaining about two things: cost and time. I do not have much time and so I would refer the hon. Gentleman to some of the speeches I have made about the misery of universal credit in my constituency since 2013, which he is invited to come and see.
Let me just make a point on cost. The UK Government have already lost in court, being found to have unlawfully discriminated against disabled people—a move that could cost billions. So there is the cost. In terms of dates, the Scottish Government will introduce the first of the devolved benefits, carers allowance, in the summer. It will bring in the best start grant in summer 2019, funeral expenses assistance in summer 2019, and the young carers’ grant—a £300 payment for young people—in autumn 2019. Recipients will also benefit from free bus travel from 2021. The Benefits Expert Advisory Group will extend winter fuel payments to families with children on the higher rate of disability living allowance and not means-test them. That is the way to deliver with the very limited powers that have been at the disposal of the Scottish Government, in terms of the best value for money and the best value for people.
Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate with you in the Chair, Mr Rosindell. I congratulate the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant) on securing the debate. As has already been evidenced, it has allowed us to highlight the rather stark differences in the approach to social security in Holyrood and here at Westminster.
I also feel a wee bit sorry for the hon. Gentleman as, when he secured the debate, he really must have thought it was going to be a chance to get another “SNP bad” story on the Scottish Government for failing to deliver on their promises. Of course, the Scottish Government are proceeding quite nicely as they build the new Scottish social security agency. He must have been choking on his kippers at breakfast this morning as he read the headlines about his Prime Minister selling out the Scottish fishing industry. Today is really not the day for Scottish Tories to talk about promises to the electorate, when the SNP Government are keeping theirs.
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)
Last week, the Equality and Human Rights Commission published its report on the cumulative effects of the UK Government’s tax and benefit policies, which showed that the very poorest in our society—the bottom 10%—are the ones who have suffered the most, and the ones who have suffered the least are the richest 10%. In other words, it is a system that is in direct and converse relationship to what it should be. Does my hon. Friend agree that, given their legacy, Government Members have a bare-faced cheek to try to attack the Scottish Government?
Neil Gray
I absolutely concur.
The hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock suggested that the Scottish Government are not following due process in preparing for the new system, and that they are not ready for the new powers because there is a lack of detail in the plans. I politely suggest to him that both statements cannot be true. Indeed, both are false. He himself acknowledged many of the areas in which the Scottish Government have used their powers to act. The Bill to create the new Scottish agency passed Committee stage at Holyrood—it did so with remarkable consensus, given the topic of discussion—so the process has been followed in a timeous fashion.
The Scottish Government are in regular contact with the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues in the DWP about how the two systems relate to each other. I wonder whether the Minister has done the groundwork that the Scottish Government have. We have yet to see evidence that he has. On the process point, the hon. Gentleman is clearly wrong.
Luke Graham
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that benefits across this country should at least be of one high standard? We have to be careful that, in creating another agency, we do not end up duplicating services, creating more cost for our taxpayers and delivering a worse service for our constituents. In other words, there has to be an incremental benefit, not duplication, more cost and bureaucracy.
Neil Gray
I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s constructive intervention to a point. That is why the Scottish Government are taking time to consider setting up the agency and are doing what they can to liaise with the UK Government about how the systems will operate in tandem.
The hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock is also wrong on the detail point, which relates to our readiness. From the Bill’s progress in Committee alone, we know that private companies will not be involved in delivering assessments. A new benefit will be provided to overcome his Government’s removal of housing benefits from most 18 to 21-year-olds.
Neil Gray
To paraphrase Mike Russell, I am afraid I have too few minutes and too much to contradict the Tories on. I am very sorry, but I do not have enough time. I have taken other interventions.
We will establish an independent scrutiny body—the Scottish commission on social security—and we have a legal duty to scrutinise proposals for regulations and have regard to human rights. The new agency will seek medical information at the outset of an application—applicants will not be required to collect it at appeal stage—so face-to-face assessments will be reduced. The legislative process required to deal with the successful transition of 11 benefits is still going on in Holyrood, so there may be more detail to come.
Those who contradict the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock are not restricted to SNP Members. I am keen to quote a couple of his colleagues in the Scottish Parliament. On 19 December, the Tory spokes- person on social security, Adam Tomkins, described the Scottish Government’s Bill as “landmark legislation” and said that
“the general principles of the bill should be supported.”
His colleague, Michelle Ballantyne MSP, went even further on the same day, and said that our Bill
“has the potential to revolutionise social security in this country.”
It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman has chosen this topic for debate, given that his colleagues up the road are not quite so keen to denigrate the Scottish Government’s actions. That is one of the reasons why I asked whether he had written to the Scottish Government at any stage about any of his concerns. You will be shocked to learn that he has not, Mr Rosindell. Call me cynical, but I think motives other than just inquiring about the progress in this area might have been at play when he called this debate.
The Scottish Tories were supposed to be coming to Westminster to vote as a bloc to protect Scottish interests and advocate for Scotland. Instead, they have used Westminster as a platform to try to denigrate the Scottish Government to the point of farce. Perhaps if the Scottish Tories had spent less time trying to do the job of MSPs, which many of them left, and more time watching what their own Government are doing, they would not be in the fisheries mess they currently find themselves in.
That leads me to my main questions for the Minister. How are the UK Government’s plans for the new Scottish social security agency going? What work has the Minister commissioned to ensure there is no delay to the smooth progress, which is currently on track to be delivered by the Scottish Government? What work have the UK been doing to keep up with—
Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. I welcome this debate, and I thank the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant) for securing it.
It is important that we debate the impact of the Westminster Government’s cuts to the social security system in Scotland and the whole of the UK. Although the Scottish Government’s response takes steps in the right direction, is not without problems. I pay tribute to my Labour colleagues in Scotland who have worked hard and continue to do so to ensure opportunities are not missed in the Social Security (Scotland) Bill, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Sweeney) said powerfully. They have used every opportunity available to them to improve the legislation, but we are concerned because, for all the Scottish Government’s warm words, progress has been slow.
I will not go through every aspect of the Bill, because many have been discussed today, or the powers available to the Scottish Government, but I want to raise some key issues that we need answers to. The previous Labour Government strengthened the social security net to lift 120,000 children and 110,000 pensioners in Scotland out of poverty, but ground has been lost since Labour left office. More than one in four children in Scotland now live in poverty.
The Westminster Government’s decision to limit the cap on uprating to 1% from 2013-14 to 2015-16, and the subsequent freeze on the majority of social security payments, have caused low-income households to suffer a significant deterioration in the adequacy of social security support. The freeze to payments and support is having a detrimental impact on millions of people on low incomes across the UK. Inflation has more than doubled in the past year. It hit 3.1% in November, and it is now at 2.7%. Meanwhile, food inflation is at 3.3%. The Child Poverty Action Group states that
“the failure to uprate benefits in line with inflation is the single biggest driver behind child poverty.”
Will the Minister explain why the Government refuse to listen to CPAG and many other expert charities and organisations, and why they will not end the freeze?
I want to see the uprating of social security support both in Scotland, via the powers given to the Scottish Government in the Social Security (Scotland) Bill, and in the rest of the UK. Unfortunately, the Government here have refused to do that, but the Scottish Government still have the opportunity to take action.
Danielle Rowley (Midlothian) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the Conservative Government’s handling of welfare changes has been absolutely shambolic, and that the SNP Government in Holyrood have dragged their heels? At the centre of this are people, and the finger pointing on display here does nothing to reassure them.
Margaret Greenwood
My hon. Friend makes a really important point, but I am so short of time.
In Scotland, some 50,000 households with three or more children are in receipt of tax credits. From April 2017, families no longer received support through child tax credits or universal credit for any third or subsequent child born on or after that date. That also applies to new UC claims. On top of that, the abolition of the family element of the child tax credit for all families whose third child is born after the April 2017 deadline will affect thousands of families who will lose £545 a year. Yet in Scotland the SNP blocked Labour’s plan to introduce a child benefit top-up of £260 each year, which would have lifted 30,000 children out of poverty. After housing costs, 26% of children in Scotland were living in relative poverty in 2015-16—approximately 260,000 children. Does the Minister think that is acceptable? Why does he refuse to act?
On top of that, the switch to universal credit will cause up to 100,000 families in Scotland who are currently in receipt of housing or council tax benefit to lose an average of £1,196 a year in state support for childcare costs. Universal credit is clearly not fit for purpose, so why does the Minister refuse to pause the roll-out and fix the problems to make the system work?
Members have spoken about the flexible payment system, which is important—we have been calling for one for the rest of the UK—and the system of split payment. I would be grateful if the Minister explained to us whether there are any practical reasons why split payments cannot be the default position. There is a great deal of concern about the impact that the current system has on the safety of people living in situations of domestic violence.
Labour has long campaigned for the abolition of the bedroom tax right across the UK, so we welcome the Scottish Government’s action to mitigate its impact. Like the bedroom tax, the imminent changes to support for mortgage interest is another Conservative policy that will hit those on low incomes. Right now, 11,000 people in Scotland who rely on the current scheme have little more than a month to decide whether to take out a loan or pay for the shortfall. I am eager to hear what the Minister has to say about that devastating yet avoidable change. Will he delay the impending changes and review the impact of the options before him?
We welcome the Scottish Government’s agreement with Labour that the new social security agency in Scotland should have a duty to ensure take-up, but we should go further. Will the Minister commit to considering a duty for the rest of the UK? We need a social security system that is reliable, is there for us in our time of need, and provides support should any of us become sick or disabled, or fall on hard times. I am interested to hear how the Minister intends to address that in the light of the changes his party is pursuing.
The Minister for Employment (Alok Sharma)
It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant) on securing this debate on a key issue for the citizens of Scotland.
We have had an incredibly spirited debate, in which a range of views have been expressed. Of course there have been disagreements, but that demonstrates, as my hon. Friends the Members for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham) and for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) noted, that ultimately we all care about our constituents and want to do the best by them. That is why we need to work together, across all parties, to ensure that we deliver for the people of Scotland.
Alok Sharma
No, I will not, if the hon. Lady does not mind. A lot of comments have been made, and I want to deal with them.
The devolution of welfare powers represents a considerable and positive change, but it will require strong collaboration and co-operation from all sides if it is to be a success. The hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray) asked about the UK’s commitment. I can tell him that we have set up and resourced dedicated teams to lead on Scottish devolutions; we have shared—and we continue to share—our learnings and experience with the Scottish Government; we have run more than 100 workshops and operational visits; and we have shared many hundreds of pieces of information. We are absolutely committed to working in partnership with the Scottish Government to ensure a safe and secure transfer of the welfare powers for which they now have responsibility.
Scotland is an integral part of the United Kingdom, and our economic and welfare reform policies recognise that. Unemployment in Scotland is at a near historic low, which we should all welcome, and more people see greater security in retirement. Following the decisive result of the 2014 independence referendum and the ensuing Smith commission, we are delivering on the promises we made to people in Scotland by devolving £2.8 billion in welfare powers.
Neil Gray
If we are working together and in partnership, will the Minister support the private Member’s Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford)? That would negate the need for the Scottish Government to have to negotiate with the Department for Work and Pensions and would pay for the DWP to deliver split payment services under universal credit.
Alok Sharma
If I may, I will come on to how we are co-operating with the Scottish Government. At the end of the day, there is of course also a requirement on the Scottish Government to play their part. Many of the powers are being devolved: that involves not only a right for the Scottish Government, but a requirement for them to deliver.
The Scotland Act 2016 was an historic moment that created a shared welfare space for the first time. Since September 2016, the Scottish Government have had power to deliver employment programmes for disabled people and those at risk of long-term unemployment, and to vary the housing cost elements of universal credit through the universal credit choices. They have also had the power to top up reserved benefits using their own resources and to create new benefits in areas of devolved responsibility.
We have seen progress in some of those areas, with the DWP providing considerable support to enable the Scottish Government to deliver their transitional employability programmes from April 2017. From April this year we will support the introduction of their successor employment programme, Fair Start Scotland, which relies on Jobcentre Plus work coaches playing a key role in the referral process.
Since 4 October last year, we have been delivering universal credit Scottish choices through the universal credit system. That has allowed those living in Scotland who make a new universal credit full service claim a choice on whether they are paid twice monthly, instead of monthly, and whether their housing element is paid directly to their landlord. Since January this year, regulations allow for those universal credit Scottish choices to be extended to those who were universal credit full service claimants before 4 October, as well as to those claimants transferring from live to full service, once their claim has been established.
We are yet, however, to see any proposals for how the Scottish Government intend to use their powers to top up benefits or to create new benefits in areas of devolved responsibility. The Scottish Government are proposing to pay a carer’s allowance supplement to carers living in Scotland from this autumn, but they have still not put forward proposals on the disability benefits such as personal independence payments, disability living allowance and attendance allowance for people in Scotland.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock asked about joint working. As he may know, there is a joint ministerial working group on welfare, which is jointly chaired by the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Cabinet Secretary for Communities, Social Security and Equalities in the Scottish Government. It continues to oversee the transfer of the new employment and welfare responsibilities. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions also attends the working group. My Department has worked hard to share our knowledge and experience and has invested significant resource to support the Scottish Government’s thinking and planning.
It is two years this week since the Scotland Act received Royal Assent, and I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock that the public need clarity, as there is still much to do. Meaningful devolution in such areas cannot happen until the Scottish Government make their policy intentions clear and put in place the infrastructure to deliver them.
The hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts asked specifically what we were doing with the Scottish Government. I can tell him that, obviously, we have been supporting them in a whole range of areas, as outlined, but we are keen to understand in greater depth the Scottish Government’s plans for post-wave 1—when I say that, I mean the disability benefits that I have already outlined.
The reality is that if the Scottish Government fail to deliver those welfare powers by 2020, the people of Scotland will need to be protected. Plans are in place to ensure that the DWP will be able to continue to administer and deliver the devolved benefits, as we do now, under an agency agreement for a defined time. We will ensure that we provide the greatest support and the greatest protection for the people of Scotland.
Alok Sharma
My intention is not to create any kind of ranking—we want to work with the Scottish Government. The point that my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock made, rightly, is that he has concerns about the pace at which things are moving. I repeat: the faster the Scottish Government move forward, the faster and more easily we can work together to deliver, ultimately, for the people of Scotland. That is what are here to talk about—not the politicians, but the people of Scotland.
Luke Graham
It is good to hear about the support that the Minister is providing to the devolved Administration, but will he assure me and other Members that, although some devolution of powers will be helpful, he and his Department will work with them to ensure against duplication and our constituents receiving a lower standard of service? Creating a new welfare agency is another layer of bureaucracy and cost. Benefits are already confusing enough for our constituents. Will he make that guarantee? We are MPs in this place to influence Government directly for all the UK, not to devolve our responsibility away.
Alok Sharma
As I said, we are here to work together to deliver for the people of Scotland. I know a number of colleagues have castigated universal credit, but it is a welfare system that has simplified the whole infrastructure of welfare. Having gone to jobcentres around the country and talked directly to claimants, I can say that for them that has made a big positive difference.
I only have a couple of minutes left, so I will deal with a couple of points made during the debate. One was with regard to disabilities. There was an implication that we may be cutting disability benefits, but that is not the case. In fact, PIP and DLA are just one part of more than £50 billion that we will be spending this year alone to support disabled people and those with health conditions.
The hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) mentioned the Equality and Human Rights Commission. We do not accept the commission’s analysis, because it only represents a partial picture, does not consider the effect of spending on public services and makes unevidenced assumptions about income sharing in households. She made a specific point about women of Pakistani origin. We are committed to increasing opportunity for them, which is why, as part of the work we have done in the race disparity audit, we have identified 20 challenge areas in which to have pilots, to ensure that we can get people into work.
In conclusion, we look forward to the Scottish Government ultimately making progress with the ideas outlined. We, of course, stand ready to work with them to deliver for the people of Scotland. That is certainly the case that my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock made in his opening speech, and I commend him for that.
Bill Grant
It is left to me simply to thank all Members and the Minister for coming along this afternoon—and indeed you, Mr Rosindell, for chairing the debate.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered Scottish welfare powers.
Written Statements
(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Competitiveness Council
(6 years, 7 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Richard Harrington)
The Competitiveness Council (Internal Market and Industry) took place on 12 March in Brussels. I represented the UK.
EU industrial policy
Ministers had a wide-ranging discussion on the future of EU industrial policy and the need for European industry to adapt to changes in the global economy and the digital revolution. The UK noted that its recently published industrial strategy identified many of the same challenges and drivers of growth, and stressed our commitment to an open, liberal market economy based around fair competition and high standards. Commissioner Bieńkowska updated Ministers on the first meeting of the “Industry 2030” High Level Roundtable which took place in February. The roundtable would work towards a future vision for EU industry. Ministers also agreed the draft Council conclusions (doc. 2793/18).
The UK also raised concerns at the recent announcement by the US Administration to introduce tariffs on steel and aluminium imports. The UK stressed that unilateral tariffs were not the right way to tackle global overcapacity. Other member states stressed the need for a solution that respected the role of the WTO which Commissioner Bieńkowska supported in her response.
Digitalisation of the EU economy
Ministers considered how to better focus national reform efforts and funding decisions, to seize the opportunities presented by digitalisation for European industry and citizens. There was wide agreement on the need to boost digital skills, to provide clear regulatory frameworks, and to see SMEs and the public sector as potential beneficiaries as well as large businesses. Member states considered that both private sector and EU funding should be easier to access and complement existing national investment in infrastructure.
Single Market
Ministers held a policy debate on the single market to mark the anniversary of the yreaty of Maastricht. A number of member states, including the UK, called for better enforcement of single market rules and an analysis of barriers to the services market to realise the single market’s full potential.
Commissioner Bieńkowska hoped that member states would reflect their aspirations for the single market in responding to Commission legislative proposals. The UK underlined our continuing interest in the success of the single market and support for ongoing efforts to reduce barriers, and reiterated the Prime Minister’s call for an ambitious UK-EU partnership.
Other items
Commissioner Bienkowska set out the key elements of the Commission’s plastics strategy and highlighted the objectives of a review of the REACH regulation. On better regulation, the presidency presented work to highlight the role of scientific evidence in the EU’s regulatory decision making. Belgium presented a short note to highlight the risk of start-ups and scale-ups being captured by the rescue and restructuring guidelines in the state aid rules. Under the regular “Competitiveness Check-up” Commissioner Bieńkowska gave a presentation on the link between services reforms and productivity in manufacturing. Commissioner Jourova updated Ministers on the forthcoming package of consumer protection proposals which are due in April.
[HCWS564]
Corporate Governance
(6 years, 7 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Greg Clark)
The Government are launching a consultation on improving the corporate governance framework to ensure the highest standards of behaviour from those who control companies.
The UK is already recognised as having a leading international reputation for corporate governance. After consulting last year, the Government are preparing secondary legislation to implement a range of reforms that build on and enhance the current framework in relation to executive pay, strengthening the employee and wider stakeholder voice in the boardroom, and corporate governance in large privately held businesses.
Today’s consultation takes this essential work further by improving the corporate governance of firms when they are in or approaching insolvency, and seeking views on a number of areas where our existing rules and processes may need updating. This consultation seeks to respond in a balanced and proportionate way to reinforce public trust and confidence in business, so that the vast majority of responsible companies do not have their reputation besmirched by a small few.
The consultation considers:
The sale of businesses in distress: The consultation explores potential changes to ensure that directors responsible for the sale of an insolvent subsidiary of a corporate group take proper account of the interests of the subsidiary’s stakeholders. The proposals seek to ensure fair outcomes when major companies get into difficulties, but to avoid putting barriers in the way of credible business rescue efforts.
Reversal of value extraction schemes: The Government want all creditors to be treated fairly in an insolvency situation and is seeking views on potential changes to how certain transactions, or a series of transactions, entered into before insolvency can be challenged and clawed back if unlawful.
Investigation into the actions of directors of dissolved companies: There are difficulties caused when companies are dissolved with outstanding debts or allegations of director misconduct, which the insolvency service does not currently have the necessary powers to investigate.
Strengthening corporate governance in pre-insolvency situations: Whether steps should be taken to improve governance, accountability and internal controls within complex company group structures;
whether there are further opportunities to strengthen the role of shareholders in stewarding the companies in which they have investments, while the payment of dividends should remain for the directors to decide, having regard to their obligations and guidance, whether the legal and technical framework within these decisions are made could be improved and made more transparent;
whether the commissioning and use of professional advice by directors is done so without a proper awareness of their duties as directors; and whether and how a supply chain and other creditors can be better protected in the event of a major insolvency, while preserving interests of shareholders.
Today I will be placing copies of the consultation document in the Libraries of the House.
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Digital Economy Act 2017
(6 years, 7 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Matt Hancock)
This statement is to inform the House that regulations were made on 15 March 2018 to bring into force specified provisions in parts 5 and 6 of the Digital Economy Act 2017 (“the Act”). The part 5 provisions, also known as the “Digital Government” provisions, provide powers enabling public authorities and other persons to share information for particular purposes, as well as introducing new powers of access to information for the UK Statistics Authority to assist it in exercising its functions.
The Digital Government provisions in part 5 of the Act allow information sharing in the areas of public service delivery, civil registration, debt, fraud, research and statistics. Between 21 September and 2 November last year, the Government carried out a public consultation and obtained the views of statutory consultees on draft codes of practice and other guidance which support these provisions, and on draft regulations which set objectives for the public service delivery provisions. The Government expect to lay the draft codes and regulations for consideration by Parliament shortly.
The research and statistics provisions (at chapters 5 and 7 of part 5) will be brought into force in Northern Ireland as well as in England, Wales and Scotland. Some of the purposes for which information may be shared under part 5 are devolved with respect to Northern Ireland.
Although it was intended that a legislative consent motion (LCM) would be sought from the Northern Ireland Assembly during the passage of the Act, the Assembly was dissolved before the motion itself could be passed. With that in mind, the Government have sought to keep open the ability to commence the provisions separately in Northern Ireland, in the hope that a restored Executive could seek legislative consent from the Assembly before the provisions were commenced.
In the light of the ongoing absence of a Northern Ireland Executive, however, a point has been reached whereby a decision on whether to commence the research and statistics provisions cannot be further deferred. The UK Government have therefore decided to proceed with UK-wide implementation on a limited basis for those provisions, taking into account representations from officials and other stakeholders in Northern Ireland. This decision has not been reached lightly. Not commencing these specific provisions UK-wide at this time would undermine the comprehensiveness and consistency of statistics about society and the economy for both the UK as a whole, and for Northern Ireland in particular. It could also affect the ability of bodies in Northern Ireland to access essential statistical data and to make policy on the basis of relevant research. In both respects it would impact on the ability to make effective, timely and evidenced decision-making at the local and national levels. Given this, and noting the support the measures commanded from the previous Executive (with a legislative consent motion laid in the Assembly albeit not passed) and as part of a public consultation which included Northern Ireland, we assess that now is the right time to move forward with commencement.
When an Executive has been restored, we will write to Northern Ireland Ministers to confirm that they are content for the commenced provisions to remain in place. We will also consider carefully any further representations from stakeholders in Northern Ireland to commence other provisions in the Digital Economy Act 2017, while recognising the broad support that these measures have commanded previously.
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NHS Planning in 2018-19
(6 years, 7 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Steve Brine)
I am today updating the House on the outcome of the General Medical Services (GMS) contract negotiations with the General Practitioners Committee of the British Medical Association and NHS Employers on behalf of NHS England.
The GMS contract for 2018-19 comprises a pay uplift together with a CPI uplift of 3% to expenses totalling £102.9 million, as part of the overall investment of £256 million. The investment includes £60 million which has been allocated to cover increased indemnity costs incurred in the past financial year.
Other key parts of the contract include:
An agreement that will pave the way to general practitioners no longer issuing paper prescriptions, instead using the NHS electronic prescription service.
The roll out of the NHS e-referral service into general practice. NHS England has allocated £10 million to facilitate GPs uptake of the electronic referral service.
An agreement with the GPC to work with DHSC and NHSE to establish the extent and reasons behind locum use and cost.
We understand that NHS England will apply the provision to personal medical services and alternative provider medical services where appropriate.
Full details of the agreement can be found at: http://www.nhsemployers.org/GMS201819.
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General Medical Services Contract Negotiations 2018-19
(6 years, 7 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Steve Brine)
I am today updating the House on the outcome of the general medical services (GMS) contract negotiations with the General Practitioners Committee of the British Medical Association and NHS Employers on behalf of NHS England.
The GMS contract for 2018-19 comprises of a pay uplift together with a CPI uplift of 3% to expenses totalling £102.9 million, as part of the overall investment of £256 million. The investment includes £60 million which has been allocated to cover increased indemnity costs incurred in the past financial year.
Other key parts of the contract include:
An agreement that will pave the way to general practitioners no longer issuing paper prescriptions, instead using the NHS electronic prescription service.
The roll out of the NHS e-referral service into general practice. NHS England has allocated £10 million to facilitate GPs uptake of the electronic referral service.
An agreement with the GPC to work with DHSC and NHSE to establish the extent and reasons behind locum use and cost.
We understand that NHS England will apply the provision to personal medical services and alternative provider medical services where appropriate.
Full details of the agreement can be found at: www.nhsemployers/GMS2Q1819.
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Fire Reform
(6 years, 7 months ago)
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The Minister for Policing and the Fire Service (Mr Nick Hurd)
Improving firefighter diversity is a key priority for the Government’s ambitious fire reform programme. The most recent 2017 operational data, published on 26 October, showed that only 5.2% of firefighters in England are women and 3.9% are from an ethnic minority group. This is unacceptable and needs to be significantly improved so that firefighters are representative of the communities they serve.
While in 2017 we did see movement in a positive direction in terms of new joiners to the firefighter role: 8.7% were women and 5.1 % from ethnic minorities, there is still further to go. This is why the Home Office will shortly be launching a national campaign with a focus of ‘Join the Team; Become a Firefighter’ to raise awareness of the role of a modern firefighter and help improve diversity.
The campaign, which is being supported by the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC), Local Government Association (LGA) and Inclusive Fire Service Group (IFSG) will:
(i) target those from under-represented groups that may not have previously been interested in the role;
(ii) provide information on the breadth of role across prevention, protection; and response; and
(iii) produce guidance and toolkits to help those interested in the role overcome any challenges they face during the recruitment rounds. The campaign will enhance and not duplicate the work already being undertaken by fire and rescue services in England to improve diversity.
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Local Government Finance
(6 years, 7 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Sajid Javid)
The current 50% business rates retention scheme for local government is yielding strong results. Local authorities estimate that in 2017-18 they will keep around £1.3 billion in business rates growth, which we expect will be at least maintained into 2018-19 and 2019-20. On top of the 50% business rates retention scheme which is in place for all local authorities, in 2017-18 the Government established pilots of 100% business rates retention in five areas of England and extended business rates retention to 67% in London. The pilot programme will be expanded further in 2018-19 to cover an additional 10 areas.
My officials have worked through the necessary calculations to prepare for the extension of the piloting programme in 2018-19. In doing so, an historic error has been identified in the methodology used to calculate the sums due to pilots. An adjustment is therefore required to the methodology, which will reduce the amount due to these local authorities for participating in the pilot programme to the correct level. This adjustment does not affect the local government finance settlement nor the core spending power of the local authorities concerned. The relevant local authorities have been informed today.
Background
Under the business rates retention system, local authorities retain a percentage of the business rates they raise locally. Since 2014-15, locally-raised business rates have been lower than they would have been because Government have under-indexed the business rates multiplier in each of 2014-15, 2015-6 and 2018-19. To compensate local authorities for their loss of income, therefore, the Government have calculated the extent of the loss caused by under-indexation and paid that amount as a grant under section 31 of the Local Government Act 2003.
The compensation to be paid to local authorities is paid on account during the course of a year, based on estimates made by authorities before the start of that year. It is then adjusted once outturn figures are available, following the end of the year.
When on account compensation payments were calculated for the six 2017-18 pilot areas, the methodology used to adjust tariffs and top-ups contained an error. This resulted in 27 local authorities and the Greater London Authority being over-compensated by £36 million.
These local authorities will have been operating on the understanding that this funding has already been secured and, at this this late stage in the year, a sudden reduction in their funding could potentially have an impact on the delivery of the objectives agreed as part of their devolution deals. Therefore, although the rules of “Managing Public Money” indicate that the Department should recover the overpayment, I have issued a direction requesting that the permanent secretary does not do so in this extraordinary circumstance. My correspondence with the permanent secretary will be published on the Department’s website.
In respect of the payments due to 2018-19 business rates retention pilot authorities, my Department will use the corrected methodology to calculate the section 31 grant compensation due to authorities. Local authorities will shortly be notified of these amounts.
Review
In recognition of the importance of the business rates retention system to the sustainability of local government, I am also today announcing an independent review of the internal processes and procedures that underpin the Department’s oversight of business rates and related systems. This should include modelling and analytical work, how officials manage the interface with policy decision making, and resourcing and skills.
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Safeguarding in the Aid Sector: Update
(6 years, 7 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for International Development (Penny Mordaunt)
Following the safeguarding issues exposed through the case of Oxfam in Haiti, I am updating the House on three key areas of work DFID has undertaken.
Statements of assurance from UK charities and follow up on cases
All UK charities that I wrote to on 12 February have replied and provided me with a clear statement of their assurance on their organisations’ safeguarding environment and policies, organisational culture, transparency and their handling of allegations and incidents.
This exercise has delivered results in terms of increasing reporting of live and historic cases to the relevant authorities. As of 5 March, 26 charities funded by DFID had made serious incident reports to the Charity Commission, concerning some 80 incidents. There has also been an increased level of reporting of safeguarding concerns into DFID’s “Reporting Concerns” hotline and inbox.
I cannot provide information on live investigations, but will keep the House informed on developments with partners and with regard to DFID’s internal case review.
Writing to UK charities was the first stage in a broader process, which also includes requesting assurances from our top 30 suppliers, 43 multilateral organisations and other partners. Assurances received are a first step, but do not constitute a final conclusion by my Department on the quality of safeguarding. We will test this further through the measures I announced at the safeguarding summit held on 5 March and set out below.
A high-level summary of the returns from UK charities and a list of organisations we have written to will be published on gov.uk today. It can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/high-level-summary-safeguarding-assurance-returns-from-uk-charities.
Safeguarding summit follow up
On 5 March, DFID co-hosted a safeguarding summit with the Charity Commission where I challenged UK charities to drive up standards and ensure that the aid sector protects the people it serves. As a result a number of actions were agreed. These include immediate short-term measures and longer term initiatives.
Four working groups, including civil society and independent experts, have been established and are meeting this week to refine and test ideas further. They will report back on concrete actions in time for the international safeguarding conference that the UK will host this autumn. The working groups are taking forward the following areas:
Accountability to beneficiaries and survivors—prioritising those who have suffered and survived exploitation, abuse and violence, and designing systems of accountability and transparency that have beneficiaries at their centre;
How the aid sector can demonstrate a step change in shifting organisational culture to tackle power imbalances and gender inequality;
Ensuring that safeguards are integrated throughout the employment cycle, including work on the proposal for a global register/passport; and
Ensuring full accountability through rigorous reporting and complaints mechanisms, and make sure that concerns are heard and acted upon.
At the summit, I announced new, enhanced and specific safeguarding due diligence standards for all organisations that work with DFID. A pilot of these new standards starts this week and they will be rolled out shortly. No new funds will be approved to organisations unless they pass these new standards, which will be integrated into DFID’s due diligence assessments, supply partner code of conduct and ongoing programme management and compliance checking processes.
Major UK charities, the Charity Commission and DFID agreed on initiatives to be taken forward to improve safeguarding standards—including immediate short-term measures, and longer term initiatives to be developed in the coming weeks and months. These include:
Exploring options for an international safeguarding centre to support organisations to implement best practice on safeguarding and maximise transparency in the sector. This work could include conducting safeguarding reviews, offering guidance and support to organisations, and a deployable team of experts on sexual exploitation and abuse who can advise organisations on the ground.
Carrying out an urgent review of referencing in the sector. At the summit, it was agreed that vetting and referencing standards are required for: UK-based staff; international staff and locally employed staff—to ensure no offender can fall through the cracks.
Planning for a systematic audit of whistleblowing practices across the sector to ensure individuals feel able to report offences, and developing and implementing mandatory standards which would make organisations accountable to beneficiaries—ensuring those receiving aid are able to identify and raise concerns.
Making annual reports more transparent, with specific information published on safeguarding including the number of cases. Also carrying out mandatory inductions on safeguarding for all staff to ensure any issues are identified and acted upon.
Establishing clear guidelines for referring incidents, allegations and offenders to relevant authorities—including the National Crime Agency.
Those in attendance at the summit agreed a joint statement which has been published on the Bond and gov.uk websites.
DFID is now building on the 5 March summit outcomes and working with a wide range of stakeholders, including other nations, to shape and deliver an ambitious agenda for the safeguarding conference to be held later this year.
Driving up standards in the UN and multilateral organisations
I have written jointly with the Foreign Secretary and with the support of other donor countries to the UN Secretary-General.
Last week, I was in New York to speak at the Commission on the Status of Women to highlight that we will only prevent sexual exploitation and abuse and achieve the sustainable development goals, if we deliver our commitments on gender equality.
I hosted a roundtable and held meetings with senior UN partners, calling for a step change across all constituent parts of the UN to ensure they put beneficiaries first, shift their organisational culture, integrate safeguards throughout the employment cycle and ensure that there are robust systems for reporting, complaints and whistleblowing. I challenged the UN to set out concrete actions to take this forward.
I will take this message to other multilateral organisations at the spring meetings next month.
A donor group has been established to capitalise on our collective leverage to deliver changes across the international aid sector at the safeguarding conference.
I am determined that the UK will continue to lead this agenda to drive up safeguarding standards across the sector and keep people safe from harm.
[HCWS568]
Justice Update
(6 years, 7 months ago)
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr David Gauke)
The Government are today introducing into the House of Lords legislation through the Civil Liability Bill to make important changes to our system of compensation for personal injury.
As announced in the Queen’s Speech on 21 June 2017, the Civil Liability Bill will reform the law relating to whiplash claims. We will introduce a new fixed tariff of compensation for pain, suffering and loss of amenity for whiplash claims with an injury duration of up to two years. The tariff will be set in supporting regulations. We will also introduce a ban on seeking or offering to settle whiplash claims without medical evidence.
The Civil Liability Bill will also make changes to the way in which the personal injury discount rate for England and Wales is set under the Damages Act 1996. The principal changes we are making are that: the discount rate will be set by reference to expected rates of return on a low risk diversified portfolio of investments rather than a return on very low risk investments as under the present law; in setting the rate, the Lord Chancellor will consult an independent expert panel chaired by the Government Actuary, with HM Treasury remaining a statutory consultee; and the discount rate will be reviewed promptly after the legislation comes into force and, thereafter, at least every three years.
I am also publishing today the Government’s response to the Justice committee’s report, “Pre-legislative scrutiny: draft personal injury discount rate clause”, published on 30 November 2017.
I am also placing the delegated powers memorandum and accompanying impact assessments in the House libraries.
I notified the market of the Civil Liability Bill earlier today through the London Stock Exchange group.
[HCWS566]
Rail Update
(6 years, 7 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Transport (Chris Grayling)
I have today launched an invitation for investors who want to invest in rail infrastructure to bring forward proposals for the new southern rail link to Heathrow. In addition they are being invited to propose schemes around the country that could enhance and expand the rail network. Promoters and investors now have two months to start working up proposals which are financially credible without Government support.
This Government are already making the biggest investment in the railway since the Victorian era, delivering better journeys for passengers across the network. However, I want to go further by unlocking new private sector funding to invest in railway infrastructure across the country. This will be in addition to the Government’s significant commitment to invest £48 billion in railway infrastructure in the next funding period.
Governments do not have a monopoly on good ideas for the railways. I have been clear that I want the knowledge and expertise of investors and local partners to contribute to delivering new connections, more services and better journeys for passengers.
This approach has already proved effective on a number of roads schemes in the UK. By encouraging innovative ideas and new investment on our railways, we can relieve the burden on taxpayers and fare payers with schemes that match our transport needs, support our economic and housing aspirations and ensure everyone benefits from an enhanced rail network.
Heathrow is a perfect example of how this approach can make a real difference. The Department is continuing to work on a western rail link to Heathrow. The proposed southern rail link to Heathrow is an exciting opportunity to harness new and innovative ideas from the private sector and there are already a number of consortia looking to construct it. I am certain that there are other opportunities nationwide for third parties to work with the Government to improve the railway.
I have published my guidance for market-led proposals to provide clarity on what Government are looking for from these ideas and the process by which it will consider them. I have also published the “Rail Network Enhancements Pipeline”.
When I published my high level output specification and statement of funds available for the railway in England and Wales for the next investment period, I made clear that the Government were developing a new process for rail enhancements—the “Rail Network Enhancements Pipeline” provides this. This is designed to ensure that future rail projects are planned and scrutinised to deliver maximum value and benefit to rail users and taxpayers.
Taken together this provides a clear framework for how we will improve the way we enhance our railway.
The changes I have outlined today lay the foundations for improving rail access to Heathrow. They also set in motion ambitious proposals on new rail schemes that could deliver significant improvements for passengers across the network and to maintain the record levels of investment this Government are delivering in our railways.
[HCWS562]
Access To Work Scheme
(6 years, 7 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Ms Esther McVey)
In March 2015, as part of a package of improvements to access to work, the former Minster for Disabled People, Health and Work, my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Mark Harper), announced the introduction of an annual limit on the amount of an access to work grant of 1.5 times average salaries in order to encourage better use of public funds and to enable Access to Work to support more people—particularly traditionally under-represented groups. The cap has been in place since October 2015, but a period of transitional protection was granted to enable those who were spending above the level of the cap on introduction time to adjust to the new limits.
During this transitional period for people to adjust to the need to source their support within a limit, we have seen considerable progress. The average spend among the remaining transitionally protected customers has fallen from around £57,000 each to around £45,000 each. This suggests that it is achieving the intended incentive effects on individuals and employers to make best use of funding as well as freeing over £2 million per year, to support growing numbers of people benefiting from the scheme, alongside the extra resources provided in the spending review. I am therefore persuaded that the principle of the cap is sound, balancing the need to provide support to the largest number of people, and at a significant level for some, with the need to make the best use of public funds.
At the same time, the Government have always said that we would also use this time to monitor the impact of the cap on individuals and work with customers and other stakeholders to see if any further practical mitigations could be applied to those whose needs still remain above the cap. This includes emphasising the duties that employers have to play their part and make reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010. At the same time it was agreed that we would lead a review of communication support for deaf people, which we published last year.
I am therefore pleased to announce that as a result of this engagement—particularly with the UK Council on Deafness (because the majority of capped customers are deaf), but also with others groups and individuals that as of April 2018, the cap will not rise to £43,100 in line with 1.5 times average earnings. Instead it will rise to £57,200, double average earnings, and will be up-rated annually on that basis. This means that considerably fewer British sign language users now remain affected by the cap. I believe it is important to retain this link to average earnings so that high-value awards, which are overwhelmingly used to purchase human support, retain their purchasing power over time.
Alongside this change, existing capped customers will, where applicable, have their needs considered against this new limit when their awards are due for their annual review.
As we continually seek to improve Access to Work, which last year approved provision for 8% more people than in 2015/16—including 13% more people who were deaf or had hearing loss—we will introduce the following measures:
extra support to customers with high-value awards via automatic workplace assessments promoting available technology and reasonable adjustments and voluntary cost-share from employers as well as signposting to advice and guidance provided by third parties;
working with stakeholders to co-produce guidance and share best practice as well as continued monitoring of the impacts on the cap;
discretion in exceptional cases of multiple disability, to consider award limits averaged over a longer period—for example where a customer’s on-going need for a support worker may be below the cap but when coupled with a periodic need for, say, a wheelchair, would exceed the cap in that year;
introduction of managed personal budgets to enable greater choice and control for customers in the way grants are spent;
taking applications 12 weeks ahead of a job start date rather than the current six weeks to allow more time for support to be agreed and put in place;
continuing to invest in our digital improvements such as developing the facility to submit invoices online;
allowing more flexibility in how people can use Access to Work to support short periods of work experience where there is a likelihood of a paid job in the near future; and
encouraging uptake of technological solutions that can both reduce costs and promote independence, we will allow risk free trials of technological solutions so that customers can revert to their old award if they wish, and also introduce a “Tech Fund” that will mean the mandatory cost-sharing contributions from employers for such items are waived where their use will save the taxpayer money.
[HCWS563]
Grand Committee
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Geddes) (Con)
My Lords, it is now 3.30 pm but, as noble Lords will see from the monitors, the Minister is on his feet in the Chamber—I beg your pardon; he is not on his feet, although he was 30 seconds ago. He will be here any minute, so I suggest we be patient until such time as he arrives.
The Minister has now fulfilled his duties in the Chamber and is with us. I must advise the Grand Committee that if there is a Division in the Chamber, which I presume there may well be, the Committee will adjourn for 10 minutes.
Industrial Training Levy (Construction Industry Training Board) Order 2018
Viscount Younger of Leckie
That the Grand Committee do consider the Industrial Training Levy (Construction Industry Training Board) Order 2018.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, this is familiar ground for me, having moved the draft of industrial training board levy orders in the House on three occasions previously. The order before us enables the CITB to raise and collect a levy on employers in the construction industry. The objective of the levy is to raise funds to meet the CITB’s expenditure on training the workforce across the construction industry to secure a sufficient supply of skilled labour.
There is a strong public interest in a high-performing, efficient construction industry. Construction is one of the largest sectors in the UK economy, with a turnover of £370 billion, contributing £138 billion in value added to the UK economy and employing 3.1 million people, which is 9% of the total UK workforce. We know the construction industry faces many inherent disincentives to train. As Mark Farmer’s report and the Government’s own review of industry training boards identified late last year, construction is a highly fragmented industry, with SMEs making up more than 99% of all businesses. It relies heavily on subcontracting and self-employment, and it is the central role of the CITB to help incentivise firms to overcome these disincentives.
The scope of the CITB covers most construction activity. Construction is an extremely large and diverse industry, covering a highly disparate range of industries and trades—everything from major civil engineering works to private housebuilding. The Government recently published the 2017 update to the National Infrastructure and Construction Pipeline, setting out details of over £460 billion of planned infrastructure investment across the public and private sectors. Looking to the next 10 years, we project total public and private investment in infrastructure to be around £600 billion. This will be challenging; government and industry need to work together to ensure that we have the right people with the right skills to deliver this ambitious pipeline of investment.
We need also need a construction industry that has the right skills to build more homes, including in new and innovative ways. In the Autumn Statement, the Chancellor announced more than £15 billion of new financial support for housebuilding over the next five years, taking total financial support to at least £44 billion up to 2022-23. This will create, fund and drive a market that will raise housing supply to 300,000 a year on average by the mid-2020s. Building more homes using modern methods of construction, including off-site and smart techniques, is a part of this.
The construction industry recognises the important role of the CITB in helping it to attract, retain and develop individuals with the appropriate skills to meet the range of challenges it faces. The CITB recently estimated that 158,000 construction jobs are set to be created over the next five years. The CITB develops the skills of the existing workforce and new entrants into the industry through providing training grants and putting in place strategic initiatives that will benefit industry over the long term and secure a sustainable pipeline of skills. In 2016, the CITB used its levy income to provide £148 million of grants to 16,101 employers, including assisting them with the additional costs of employing an apprentice. In particular, the grant scheme supports and incentivises investment in training for smaller businesses, which carry out the majority of training but generally have greater constraints in their capacity to invest. The CITB also delivers a range of other functions such as sector-wide work on research, developing standards and qualifications and promoting construction as a career.
The CITB was established as an industry training board in 1964. The construction industry has therefore had a levy and grant arrangement for some 50 years. Recognising the need to consider the implications of the apprenticeship levy, increase domestic construction skills and improve the productivity of the sector, the Government recently concluded a significant review of industry training boards, including the CITB, which was published in November 2017. The review concluded that the CITB’s resources and capabilities continue to be vital in supporting the construction industry and allowing it to deal with the challenges it faces. The industry training board review supported the CITB levy being retained alongside the apprenticeship levy. It determined that, because relatively few employers in the construction industry are likely to pay both the apprenticeship and the CITB levies, removal of the CITB levy would mean significantly less funding being available for training, at a time when levels of training need to increase. It concluded that the CITB levy and the apprenticeship levy are complementary and pay for different types of training and employer support.
I now turn to how the order has met the legal requirements set out in the Industrial Training Act. The Act allows the CITB to submit a proposal to the Secretary of State for the raising and collection of a levy. The order can be made only if the Secretary of State is satisfied that certain legislative tests have been met. These include consideration that the amount of levy is appropriate in the circumstances, that the proposals are necessary to encourage adequate training in the industry and that more than half of the employers—who together are likely to pay the majority of the levy—also consider the proposals necessary to encourage adequate training in the industry. The Secretary of State was satisfied that these conditions had been met.
The CITB has undertaken its most extensive consultation with industry to date on the levy proposals before us. The consultation process, also known as the consensus process, has included direct consultation with trade bodies that represent 7,150 employers and 4,000 employers that are not members of trade bodies. The CITB scoped out a range of possible options, entered into discussion with employers to share the developed options and received their feedback before agreeing on the final levy proposal. The levy proposals have therefore been shaped significantly by industry.
Having listened to industry views and recognising the impact that the apprenticeship levy will have on training in the sector, the CITB proposes to decrease the levy rate from 0.5% to 0.35% arising from emoluments relating to people directly employed by an employer. The liability for the levy arising from indirect employment will remain at a rate of 1.25%, and the CITB will continue to use information about net construction industry scheme payments to determine this liability. Of those companies in scope of paying the levy, who together are likely to pay 69% of its value, 76% are in favour of the CITB proposals before us today. In line with the requirements of the Industrial Training Act, the Secretary of State is satisfied that the CITB has taken reasonable steps to ascertain the views of employers who are likely to be liable to levy payments in consequence of the levy proposals.
The order can also be made only if the Secretary of State is satisfied that the exemption thresholds set out in the proposals exempt suitable small employers from the levy. The order therefore provides that small firms whose combined payroll and net expenditure on subcontracted labour is less than £80,000 will not have to pay at all, but will be able to claim CITB grants and access support. Of all the establishments considered leviable by the CITB, it is expected that around 40% will be exempted from paying the levy. In addition, employers just above the small-firm threshold will receive a 50% reduction in the levy payable if their expenditure on payroll and subcontracted labour is between £80,000 and £400,000.
Over three years, the CITB’s proposals are expected to raise about £600 million of levy income, which will be directly invested back into industry. The order will enable the CITB to continue to carry out its vital training responsibilities, and I commend it to the Committee.
Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing the order. As we know, the CITB has to apply every three years for authority to raise the levy from employers to enable it to continue operating and, as he set out, the industry is fragmented and has high levels of self-employment and subcontracting, and those create disincentives for employers to train and develop the workforce. The CITB is there to support and encourage training, which it has been doing since 1964, so it is well established and recognised throughout the industry.
The reduction of the levy to 0.35% from 0.5% must have been welcomed, as the Minister mentioned, and had the support of the great majority of employers. Of course, relatively few employers are large enough to pay the apprenticeship levy, so even after that is properly up and running, there will still be a need for the CITB to support training.
The Minister said that the two levies are complementary, but I wonder how the CITB levy will work alongside the apprenticeship levy. Will employers be prepared to pay for both, and has any assessment been done of the additional cost and burden on employers? Did the CITB consultation come up with any proposals to widen the apprenticeship levy to include skills, which is a widely mooted discussion at the moment?
The Minister says that the construction industry needs to recruit 158,000 people across the UK in the next five years. How will the Government help the industry to attract recruits, particularly in view of Brexit and the high number of EU citizens who currently work in the industry? What attempts are being made to recruit more women into construction? I am involved with one organisation called Women on the Tools and another called Women in Construction, which work to attract women and girls into the industry. Those who take the plunge find excellent work as plumbers, electricians, roofers and so on, but the macho nature of the workforce can make life difficult for women whose skills and interests lie in construction but who have to face up to being the only woman in the workforce or in training. To meet the skills and needs, women will need to be included.
Lord Jones (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his crystal-clear exposition of the order. I certainly do not wish to oppose it and I much appreciate the figures supplied concerning the planned expenditure on infrastructure and the references to much-needed investment in housing.
My memory goes back to when I served in another place alongside the late Lord Eric Varley, some 30 years ago. In our opposition role, it appeared that night after night and month after month, after 10 pm there would be orders to abolish existing training boards. Those orders were brought forward by the late Peter Morrison, a Minister in the Department of Employment and the Member of Parliament for Chester, whose constituency abutted my own and with whom I often collaborated. I sometimes wonder whether the nation’s extreme shortage of skilled labour has its roots in those successive abandonments of training boards in those debates after 10 pm in the 1980s. We certainly all agree that the nation needs a more skilled workforce. I know that the CITB is a great survivor and has a substantial training ground in north Norfolk, not a million miles away from the Sandringham estate.
I do not wish to detain the Committee but could the Minister, perhaps with the aid of his officials, exemplify a typical SME and indicate what sort of money that business may need to find each year for the levy? He rightly mentioned housing investment. The names of some of the great companies which build houses across Britain come to mind, such as Redrow, Persimmon, Barratt and Taylor Woodrow. Is he able in this Committee, or if not in writing at another time, to say what sort of money they pay? What is the levy on such exemplary great companies in housing and/or construction? That is my query following his exposition.
Lord Stunell (LD)
My Lords, I will draw attention to one of the other facets of the importance of the construction industry and of the CITB. I too agree that the order should quite properly go forward, but a number of factors need a little further exploration. In presenting the case, the Minister set out the demands there will be on the construction industry in the infrastructure pipeline and the need to increase the number of homes built to 300,000 by the mid-2020s—2025 is seven years ahead. The infrastructure pipeline of £600 billion that he mentioned is, I understand, additional to that.
There is a requirement for 158,000 extra jobs in the construction industry. I am sure the Minister will be familiar with the statistic that some 70,000 people leave the industry each year and currently only about 40,000 UK residents are recruited to it. The difference is made up by EU 27 migrant workers. It is that side of the equation that I want to draw to the Minister’s attention.
While we might need another 158,000 employees to meet these very necessary targets, some 200,000 workers in the construction industry are from the EU 27 and another key ambition of the Government is to reduce inward migration to the tens of thousands, presumably over approximately the same timescale to the mid-2020s. Add those two figures together and you get more than a third of a million extra workers who need to be recruited from within the UK to maintain or deliver that. I have the advantage of a press release from the Federation of Master Builders from January, which says:
“Two-thirds of those running small and medium-sized … construction firms are struggling to hire bricklayers and carpenters as construction skills shortages hit a ‘record high’”.
We do not have any surplus. We certainly have pressure on that. The building survey report that I saw last week from GK Strategy—nowadays, with practically all jobs being online, you can also monitor how many people apply for jobs online—notes that the number of searches of UK-based jobs by workers in Romania has fallen by 36%. In other words, far fewer Romanians are looking at jobs in the UK as a destination they want to go for. Overall, there is a drop of some 30% in Eastern European searches for jobs in the UK.
The indication is that even without government policy action, the whole process of Brexit and the declaration of intent is leading to a reduced flow of workers coming in through the construction industry. The Home Builders Federation says that at the moment 17.7% of its workforce is from the EU 27, of which more than 50% are from Romania, the country from which applications appear to be drying up.
Putting all that together, the task being set for the Construction Industry Training Board—and, indeed, for the Government—is extremely serious and intense. It will require real focus and determination if we are not to find that some, if not both, of the Government’s ambitions about reducing migration on the one hand and delivering the infrastructure pipeline on the other are not to be frustrated.
Having read the CITB briefing in preparation for this discussion, and having met the CITB just over a month ago, I am well aware that it is planning to both shrink and refocus its work and to direct it in a different direction. I do not criticise that. It is necessary in view of the feelings of concern that were widespread in the industry about the CITB and its role. Indeed, the CECA—Civil Engineering Contractors Association —members’ survey, completed last year, reported that,
“some members felt it was becoming more difficult to get hold of their CITB representative especially since the CITB has re-organised. CECA members generally reported less satisfaction with CITB since recent changes”.
The consensus was indeed on the figures that the Minister gave but some pretty rough ground was covered in reaching it. Expectations of the CITB are clearly high and need to be delivered.
Putting all that together, I would be very interested to hear from the Minister not just what he has said already but how this proposal fits in with the broader aims of the construction industry strategy, as set out by the Government in their overall industrial strategy earlier this year. Does he agree that the CITB will need to expand and intensify its work, not least by getting the long list of courses and apprenticeships currently waiting for approval approved and those courses operating as quickly as possible? To pick up what my noble friend Lady Garden said about the two levies, will the Government please work with the industry and the CITB to make sure that, as the Minister expressed it, these things are complementary? That is not how the industry sees it. By and large, I would say that it is—using the other spelling—uncomplimentary about the fact that there are these two levies. The larger employers which fail to pay both are, frankly, gaming the system in order to spend the money, not necessarily on the task which the Minister clearly thinks is important, which is training and recruiting additional people for the industry, not simply upskilling those who are already in it.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for the clear and concise manner in which he laid out what this statutory instrument seeks to achieve. It is not often that we read from the same page but this is such an occasion because the Opposition fully support the introduction of the latest version of the CITB levy. The Minister started by saying, I think, that this is the third of these he has done. It is my second and I remember a year ago there were only two of us involved in the debate, so it was good to have contributions from the Liberal Democrats and my Labour colleague. It is an important industry so the way its training develops is very important as well.
From memory, there used to be in excess of 20 industrial training boards until they were significantly reduced in number by the Industrial Training Act 1982. That is the legislation under which this order is issued. Today there are just three boards, each of which is a non-departmental public body, and thus accountable to Parliament. They raise most of their funds through training levies and various commercial activities. We learn from the Explanatory Memorandum that the CITB expects to raise around £200 million in levy in each of the three years to which the order relates. It is to be hoped that the board will return more than this figure each year to the sector—as, to its credit, was the case in 2016.
It is interesting that the CITB itself made the proposal to reduce the rate of the levy for workers employed directly by the employer, but not for those employed indirectly. The memorandum explains that this is the result of the prevailing economic conditions and the skills needs of the sector. That is understandable, but why is there a differential? The economic conditions hit those employing people both directly and indirectly, so the rationale for the difference is not immediately obvious.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
My Lords, I start by thanking all noble Lords who have taken part in this short debate. I also echo the thoughts of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, who pointed out that it is not just him and me debating this important issue; we have representation from other parties, the Liberal Democrats in particular.
I will go straight in and address a number of questions that were asked about the order, and will start by looking at the apprenticeship scheme, because the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, asked about the levy. Even though I made it quite clear in my opening statement, understandably, she wanted to know a little more about how the CITB levy would work alongside the apprenticeship levy. We see them as complementary. The levy supports the extra costs employers face when taking on an apprentice. I am saying that also because the consultation raised that point as well, so the consultees—the employers—were perfectly happy for the two to go side by side.
The noble Baroness, Lady Garden, and the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, asked about the details of the apprenticeship levy. The CITB estimates that around 900 out of the 28,000 CITB levy-paying employers will pay both the CITB levy and the apprenticeship levy. The two are complementary, as I said, and pay for different types of training and employer support. The CITB provides grants that incentivise employers to take on apprentices and support travel and accommodation costs, but no other sector without an industry training board receives this support. Government funding generally covers apprenticeship training costs, while the CITB’s grant scheme supports the employers with the costs of having an apprentice—for example, wages and tools.
The noble Baroness, Lady Garden, asked about the flexibility within the apprenticeship levy. I think she is probably alluding to a recent debate in the Chamber on this matter. I continue to reassure her that we continue to work with employers and the wider stakeholders on how the apprenticeship levy is spent so that the funding system works effectively and flexibly for industry and meets employers’ skills needs, supports productivity across the country and supports our commitment to delivering 3 million apprenticeship starts in England by 2020. From April 2018, as she knows, we will allow eligible levy-paying employers to transfer up to 10% of the annual value of funds entering their digital accounts to other employers, and we will carefully monitor the implementation of this change. That could include employers in the supply chain of the main employers, which could obviously help with business.
The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, asked about the standards within apprenticeships and why it has taken so long to establish standards, which is a fair question. The Institute for Apprenticeships is responsible for managing the approval of new standards. It is important that we have a rigorous process for approving new standards so that we can be sure that we approve only high-quality proposals; that is an absolute cornerstone of what we are doing on apprenticeships. However, the institute has also been listening and consulting, and planning improvements to make the approvals process faster and better, and it will soon launch a simple, effective, two-stage review process for standards, starting with a root review and then more detailed scrutiny of a pathway support for trailblazers review. Employers will be actively involved in this. I cannot promise immediate improvement, but we are on it and it is important that we step up on speed; employers are telling us that.
The noble Baroness, Lady Garden, raised an important point about diversity. I say at the outset that the Government are committed to supporting the construction sector to increase the gender and ethnic diversity of its workforce to ensure that there are opportunities for all those who wish to pursue construction careers, regardless of their background. It is true that in 2014, women made up 46.6% of the working population, and yet only 14.5% of the construction workforce are women. The noble Baroness mentioned 2%, but I do not recognise that figure. However, the point is that it is very low—too low.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
The figure of 2% is for women doing construction jobs. The additional figure is because quite a lot of them work in office and admin jobs; they are working in the construction industry but not doing the plumbing and the roofing.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
The noble Baroness makes a very good point: 2% is far too low for those at the front end. The Government are very much aware of that. The CITB has taken practical steps by developing a cross-industry fairness, inclusion and respect programme, which will invest in activities to make the sector a more attractive place to work in for people of all backgrounds, particularly women.
There is more. The CITB careers hub, Go Construct, provides online guidance and case studies for prospective employees and employers on a range of diversity topics, including gender and race. In addition, the wage gap between women and men is 17% and people with disabilities earn 9.9% less, so there are suggestions that women fail to be promoted once given additional responsibilities. This is another linked area that we are looking at and the CITB is also aware of it. Those points are important.
The noble Baroness, Lady Garden, mentioned the EU and Brexit, asking whether our leaving the EU will reduce skills and our capacity in the sector further. We see this in a different light from her—she will probably not be surprised by what I am about to say—because we see it as an opportunity for industry to invest in its workforce and tackle the long-standing issues around training and productivity. We expect industry, working with government, to offer rewarding careers to a new generation of British construction workers. In parallel, local areas have the opportunity to use housebuilding to create skilled jobs and drive growth. There is more because, as the noble Baroness will know, negotiations are continuing and we will have to wait for their outcome to know what the construction sector will consist of after Brexit.
The noble Lord, Lord Jones, asked about the amount of levy paid by an SME and what is paid by larger housebuilders; that is two questions, actually. As he alluded to, I cannot give a specific example. Perhaps I can reassure him to this extent: as I mentioned, very small employers with a wage bill of less than £80,000 are entirely exempt from the levy, slightly larger firms—those with a wage bill of £80,000 to £400,000—pay a 50% reduced rate, and SMEs receive 60% of all CITB grants in return. I hope there is some reassurance there —without giving specific examples—that housebuilding firms fall into that as well.
Lord Jones
I am grateful. Would the Minister’s officials be able to give him such details, given the importance of the levy?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
Yes. I will write to the noble Lord and give one, if not two, examples. We can perhaps look at Hansard and follow up on that.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, asked about skill shortages, which is another item high on the Government’s list. The CITB is committed to helping construction employers to deliver the pipeline of work faster, better and more efficiently. The CITB aims to use its evidence base on skills requirements to ensure that employers can access the high-quality training its workforce needs. The key is to work with employers and design with them a skills system more responsive to the needs of industry.
Lord Stunell
Is the Minister satisfied that the CITB will have the muscle and means to deliver such an expanded programme in the timescale he is speaking about?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
I was about to move on to a further point made by the noble Lord about the CITB and its efficiency. He may well be aware that reforms are under way as a result of the report published on the ITB back in November 2017 and linked to the 2016 skills plan. The report found that the CITB levy remained necessary, which is why we are here, but that it must reform and serve the skills needs of the construction industry better. That is a very clear message. Recommendations were made in two areas: improving governance and accountability; and ensuring that the CITB has a more positive impact on the industry. I hope I can reassure the noble Lord that, with the changes being made at the moment, the CITB will be fit for purpose to handle the issues that he raised.
Armed Forces Act (Continuation) Order 2018
(6 years, 7 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe) (Con)
My Lords, as ever, our Armed Forces continue to serve us well, yet they cannot do so without the consent of Parliament. Today we return to our annual consideration of the legislation governing the Armed Forces: the Armed Forces Act 2006. The purpose and effect of the draft order we are considering today is to enable the 2006 Act to continue in force for a further year, until 11 May 2019. This reflects the constitutional requirement under the Bill of Rights that the Armed Forces may not be maintained without the consent of Parliament.
Noble Lords are familiar with the fact that the legislation which provides for the Armed Forces to exist as disciplined bodies is renewed by Parliament every year. But it is right that I explain, for the record, why we do this. Every five years, renewal is by Act of Parliament—an Armed Forces Act. The most recent was in 2016. Between the five-yearly Acts, renewal is by annual Order in Council. This is such an order. The Armed Forces Act 2016 provided for the continuation in force of the Armed Forces Act 2006 until 11 May 2017 and for further renewal thereafter by Order in Council for up to a year at a time, but not beyond 2021. If the Armed Forces Act 2006 is not renewed by Order in Council before 11 May 2018, it will automatically expire. If the 2006 Act expires, the provisions necessary for the maintenance of the Armed Forces as disciplined bodies would cease to exist.
The 2006 Act contains nearly all the provisions for the existence of a system for the Armed Forces of command, discipline and justice. It creates offences and provides for the investigation of alleged offences; the arrest, holding in custody and charging of individuals accused of committing an offence; and for them to be dealt with summarily by their commanding officer or tried in the court martial. Offences under the 2006 Act include any criminal offence under the law of England and Wales, and those peculiar to service, such as misconduct towards a superior officer and disobedience to lawful commands. I remind the Committee that the Act applies to members of the Armed Forces at all times, wherever in the world they are serving.
Perhaps the clearest example of the effect of expiry of the 2006 Act would be that the duty of members of the Armed Forces to obey lawful commands, and the powers and procedures under which this duty is enforced, would no longer have effect. Commanding officers and the court martial would have no powers of punishment for failure to obey a lawful command, or other disciplinary or criminal misconduct. Members of the Armed Forces would still owe allegiance to Her Majesty, but Parliament would have removed the power of enforcement. The obligation of members of the Armed Forces is essentially a duty to obey lawful commands. They have no contracts of employment and so no duties as employees. The 2006 Act also provides for other important matters for the Armed Forces, such as for their enlistment, pay and redress of complaints.
To conclude, the continuation of the Armed Forces Act 2006 is essential for the maintenance of discipline. Discipline, in every sense, is fundamental to the existence of our Armed Forces, and, indeed, to their success, whether, for example, at home supporting emergency services and local communities following the recent heavy snowfall, or supporting the police in their investigation into the poisoning of the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury; playing their part in putting an end to the sickening and illegal poaching industry in Malawi; or, as one might more immediately think of, defeating Daesh in Iraq and Syria.
We have the finest Armed Forces in the world and the dangers they face are ever changing. We owe the brave men and women of our Armed Forces a sound legal basis for them to continue to afford us their vital protection. For those reasons, I beg to move.
Lord Craig of Radley (CB)
My Lords, I totally support the order, but I will raise one point mentioned in the Explanatory Memorandum. It says that the Minister of State for Defence has stated:
“In my view the provisions of the Armed Forces Act (Continuation) Order 2018 are compatible with the Convention rights”.
That is the European Convention on Human Rights. As has been evident in recent years, there are apparent disconnects between the Armed Forces legislation and some aspects of human rights law that I and other noble Lords have drawn attention to in various debates in your Lordships’ House. What are Her Majesty’s Government doing to address these difficulties, particularly where they arise in the course of live operations—difficulties that have, indeed, been acknowledged and spoken to by Ministers?
Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)
My Lords, I am also lost in admiration for the quality and character of the Armed Forces, who serve this country so well. Since the noble Earl introduced the debate with characteristic clarity there is no need for me to rehearse the statutory position. I also welcome the detail of the Explanatory Memorandum, but I draw the noble Earl’s attention to page 2, paragraph 7.3, the second line of which says that the Bill of Rights is of 1688. All my schooldays were based on the proposition that it was 1689. Along with the Act of Settlement of 1701, it forms a part, at least, of the constitution of the United Kingdom. It does not really matter whether it was 1688 or 1689—at least it shows that I have read the Explanatory Memorandum.
Although this is a regular event, we should not allow ourselves to ignore its constitutional and political significance. The commander-in-chief of our Armed Forces remains the sovereign by law, but now the Government exercise the royal prerogative. That has assumed a political dimension, because Governments of both parties have accepted the need for parliamentary approval, whereas if the prerogative were simply exercised in purity, as it were, that would not be so. I think of the approval sought by Prime Minister Blair for the military action against Saddam Hussein and that sought by Prime Minister Cameron in relation to Libya. In both instances, the Government were successful, but when it came to the question of Syria in 2013, the Government discovered that there was no majority for the action proposed, which the then Prime Minister accepted almost immediately.
The Bill of Rights of 1689 arose out of the civil war that had so disfigured England. It was a particularly torrid time in the history of England, with Oliver Cromwell and the execution of Charles I. Given that Cromwell went to Edinburgh, where he stabled his horses in the basement of the Court of Session, Scotland was to a certain extent involved as well. There has been no civil war on this island since then, with the possible exception of the last convulsions of Jacobitism in 1715 and 1745.
I want to make three points, if I may, although the noble Earl has anticipated me to an extent. We do not always keep in mind the fact that the service of our Armed Forces takes place around the world in a whole variety of roles. I wonder how many citizens know that members of our Armed Forces are embedded in the Pentagon as part of the defence relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States or understand the extent to which our training commitments in Afghanistan are important. Although these are not the forgotten army of the Second World War, it is important on such an occasion to acknowledge the contribution that they make. One further contribution has some resonance with the events of the last 10 days: what I would call NATO’s forward deployment in the Baltics but what is known by NATO as its enhanced forward presence. That is being done to make it clear to Russia and Mr Putin that NATO accepts and undertakes the obligations under Article 5 in relation to its members Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
My second point, which has also been foreshadowed, is assistance to the civil power. As the noble Earl pointed out, this takes a variety of roles. In Edinburgh, military transport took medical staff to hospitals to perform necessary and urgent operations. As we have heard most recently, a particular skill set has been brought to the Salisbury investigation. It was reported in some newspapers that there was formerly a battalion with those particular skills but that it had been disbanded. Perhaps the noble Earl could tell us a little about the history of that, because if there was any watering down of that capability, that is obviously a matter of some importance.
Lord Jones (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for his skilful introduction. It is always hard to follow him, and I totally support the draft order. I hope that the Ministry of Defence can get the extra funding that our splendid forces need and deserve.
It is always good to follow the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, particularly when he is in history mode. It requires to be said that in 1649, after the King was executed, by the March following that January, the monarchy was abolished and, days later, your Lordships’ House was abolished. The Lord Protector was in such a pickle that he had to restore your Lordships’ House. Of course, it was a nominated House and nowhere near the size of the current House of Lords—I believe it had no more than 70 Members and on the vesting day, only 34 arrived.
Historically, Britain—England—has looked askance at a standing army, and it bears reading into the record what is said in paragraph 7.1 of the helpful memorandum, which enables one to support the draft order:
“The Act provides nearly all the provisions for the existence of a system for the armed forces of command, discipline and justice. It covers matters such as offences, the powers of the Service police, and the jurisdiction and powers of commanding officers and of the Service courts, in particular the Court Martial. It also contains a large number of other important provisions as to the armed forces, such as provision for enlistment, pay and redress of complaints”.
But we are but a handful of your Lordships’ House—so few of us on such very important matters. It would perhaps have been better if we were on the Floor of your Lordships’ House—in the Chamber—but that is but a modest opinion.
Again for the record, the memorandum states at paragraph 7.4:
“The obligation of members of the armed forces is essentially a duty to obey lawful commands … They have no contracts of employment, and so no duties as employees”.
Rightly, the Minister said that without the 2006 Act, the powers and procedures under which the duty to obey lawful commands is enforced would no longer have effect.
These matters are of huge importance to tens of thousands working in our Armed Forces, giving wonderful, loyal service to sovereign and Parliament.
It just happens that, by serendipity, today’s newspapers —the Times and the Daily Mail, for example—report a specific case where a judge refers to our Royal Military Police and its current shortcomings. The headline in the Times is: “‘Flawed’ inquiry into army abuse collapses”. The report, which is more serious than its headline, is on page 14 of today’s Times. It relates, by serendipity, to what these paragraphs refer to. That is why I have read them out, in the knowledge that, although this Committee is very important, these matters may well have been considered by the Minister and the House in the Chamber.
We should be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell. When the nation sent for William of Orange and Queen Mary, William brought with him 12,000 soldiers who landed on our southern shores. It was a remarkable, unopposed invasion which included German mercenaries and other continental soldiers. Parliament would be foolish to allow the most important of measures to just come by. It is our national history. As the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, reminded us, it is remarkable that 12,000 foreign soldiers came to our southern shores with our Queen Mary and her husband.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for introducing this order. I note the excellence of the Explanatory Memorandum. In previous years, we have had esoteric conversations about what would happen if we did not pass the order. This time, we are told. We could not tell them to go and get Ted. I fully support the order and, in doing so, also pay tribute to the men and women of our Armed Forces. Like other noble Lords, I have looked at the original documentation. The national archive refers to the Bill of Rights 1688 as, “1688 CHAPTER 2 1 Will and Mar Sess 2”. If you dive into it, there are two references to a standing army. The second says that,
“the raising or keeping a standing Army within the Kingdome in time of Peace unlesse it be with Consent of Parlyament is against Law”.
Why was that clause put in? They were turbulent times: it was an armed invasion and there were some clashes, but it ended up with a deal between William and Mary and Parliament. Why would Parliament at that point be so concerned about not having a standing army? In those turbulent times, a standing army was the means by which the Crown was able to impose its will on the people. There was, therefore, a strong movement for standing armies to be under the control of Parliament and to be illegal without its approval.
I do not think we are that worried any longer about a standing army imposing the will of the Crown, or even Parliament, on the people. However, this annual event gives an opportunity for a short annual review of the Armed Forces and their administration. Sadly, the Armed Forces are in a sorry state at the moment. They are underfunded by—I think the consensus figure is—about £2 billion per annum. Because of the financial constraints, some of the Armed Forces are undertrained. Morale is bravely measured each year by the Ministry of Defence, and has fallen in recent years.
I will concentrate today on how the Armed Forces are being administered. Let us look at the present confusion. On 20 July 2017 the Cabinet Office—not the Ministry of Defence—announced a strategic defence and security review implementation. It said:
“The government has initiated work on a review of national security capabilities, in support of the ongoing implementation of the National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review … The work will be led by Mark Sedwill, the National Security Adviser, with individual strands taken forward by cross-departmental teams, and will be carried out alongside continued implementation and monitoring of the 89 principal commitments set out in the NSS & SDSR … The government is committed to report annually on progress in implementing the NSS & SDSR, and published its First Annual Report on implementation in December 2016. Further progress on implementation of the NSS & SDSR, and related work, will be reported in the Second Annual Report after the end of the second year of implementation”.
I believe that any reasonable person would have taken that to mean that if the first annual report was produced by the end of 2016, the second annual report—which is now apparently being subsumed into the Cabinet Office review—would have been published by the end of 2017. In fact, I am reasonably sure that it was not. Indeed, the question remains of when the report will be published.
The Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy is launching an inquiry into the national security capability review, which I assume is the same review. That was announced on 18 January 2018. So it is apparent that that Joint Committee had not seen the conclusions of the review. Meanwhile, on 25 January the noble Viscount the Minister—I am sorry, the noble Earl—
Lord Tunnicliffe
If only I had the noble Earl’s upward mobility. We mere Barons should show respect, I am so sorry. He was kind enough to write to us on 25 January. The letter said:
“I am writing to describe the purpose of this Government’s Modernising Defence Programme and what it will involve. Following Ministerial discussion on the National Security Capability Review, which will be published later in the spring”—
when is the spring, I ask—
“the Secretary of State for Defence has agreed with the Prime Minister and the Chancellor that further work is required to modernise Defence. We must ensure that we deliver the best military capability that constantly evolves to counter the threats we face, and that this is done in a sustainable and affordable way”.
Earl Howe
My Lords, let me begin by thanking in particular the noble Lord, Lord Jones, for having focused our minds on the historical origins of the order. I fully agree that we should not treat this as a mere routine measure. It behoves us to remind ourselves of where this all came from and where the legal framework on which our Armed Forces rely originates. I had to turn to my officials for a copy of the Bill of Rights in light of the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell—
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Geddes) (Con)
My Lords, a Division has been called in the Chamber. The Grand Committee stands adjourned for 10 minutes, to resume at, give or take, 5 pm.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees
My Lords, I rudely interrupted the noble Earl mid-flow. Perhaps he would like to continue.
Earl Howe
My Lords, not for the first time, we can be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, for drawing our attention to what may seem an anomaly in the date I read out from the Bill of Rights. I hope that I can convince him that I was correct—and that he too was correct. The Bill of Rights, a copy of which I have in my hand, is indeed dated 1688. However, the noble Lord may be interested to know that in the preamble of the Bill, the following words appear:
“Whereas the late King James the Second by the Assistance of diverse evill Councellors Judges and Ministers imployed by him did endeavour to subvert and extirpate the Protestant Religion and the Lawes and Liberties of this Kingdome”,
and so on. It is apparent from the notes attached to the Bill that:
“The Bill of Rights is assigned to the year 1688 on legislation.gov.uk … although the Act received Royal Assent on 16th December 1689. This follows the practice adopted in The Statutes of the Realm, Vol. VI (1819), in the Chronological Table in that volume and all subsequent Chronological Tables of the Statutes, which attach all the Acts in”,
the first year of William and Mary’s reign,
“to the year 1688. The first Parliament of William and Mary (the Convention Parliament) convened on 13th February 1689 (1688 in the old style calendar—until 1st Jan 1752 the calendar year began on March 25th)”.
So I am afraid that we are at the mercy here of a historical quirk which has, quite rightly, prompted the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, to question the accuracy of what I said.
Lord Campbell of Pittenweem
I am grateful to the noble Earl for his extensive investigations into these matters. I can say only that I would not have dared to correct the First World War veteran who taught me history to tell him that it was 1688 and not 1689.
Earl Howe
I think that in modern parlance we can safely say that it was both, but as a working basis, 1689 will do very well.
The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, returned us to the issue of human rights, as he has done in the past. I understand entirely the concerns that he outlined. Clearly, we need to address what many people see as a flaw in the way that the law has come down upon certain events and situations experienced by the Armed Forces in the course of combat and in conflict zones.
For the future, and I make it clear that we cannot do anything about the past, the Government have already announced that they would consider on a case-by-case basis a derogation from the European Convention on Human Rights, where that is appropriate in the context of a future operation overseas. That could help to ensure that our troops can confidently take difficult decisions on the battlefield, and enable us to focus on the defence budget rather than on lawyers. Some would say that lawyers have had too big a slice of the cake in recent years when it comes to the cross-questioning of our Armed Forces personnel in various contexts. I am the first to agree that it has been very burdensome and difficult for many individuals.
Lord Tunnicliffe
Does the noble Earl agree that the problems in general have not been with the Human Rights Act but with very crooked lawyers?
Earl Howe
I agree with the noble Lord that dishonesty on the part of lawyers has played a part in the difficulties that I have referred to. Nobody wants to see service personnel facing extensive investigations and then re-investigations into the same incident. The situation is exacerbated when members of the legal profession are less than honest in the way that they handle the cases before them.
The noble Lord, Lord Campbell, asked about the report that he had read saying that a battalion specialising in chemical and biological weapons had been stood down or disbanded in recent years. He is quite right that the joint CBRN regiment was disbanded but I can reassure him fully that the capability which that regiment had is retained in the services, especially in the Army and the RAF. What matters, particularly in the context of the recent events in Salisbury, is that the capability we need was there when it was needed. Our Armed Forces stepped up to support the police in their investigation in Salisbury, building on the vital expertise and information already provided by our world-renowned scientists at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down. We have the right people with the right skills to assist with the crucial inquiry that is in progress.
I would just add that our modernising defence programme, which is currently under way and to which the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, referred—I will come on to his question in a minute—will make sure that our country can respond to the changing nature of warfare and the new threats that we face, including those of a chemical and biological nature. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell, may have read that we have announced a £48 million investment in a new chemical weapons defence centre at Porton Down to maintain our cutting edge in chemical analysis and defence.
The noble Lord, Lord Jones, referred to the press reports from today relating to the Royal Military Police. Every year, the service police carry out a wide range of investigations into many different service offences. They play a key role in ensuring that allegations are investigated and offenders brought to justice, but it is clear that, in this specific case, something went very wrong. We will review that. The service police are a key part of the service justice system and as such are already included in the service justice system review, which we announced last year. It is due to report by the end of this year. The policing aspects of that review are being led by Sir Jon Murphy, the former chief constable of Merseyside Police, and we will of course consider carefully any recommendations that he makes.
I turn to the questions asked and points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, who asked me about the national security capability review and how it dovetails into the modernising defence programme, which we are leading from the Ministry of Defence. First, on the timelines, the Government will publish a report on the NSCR at Easter. The Ministry of Defence aims to be in a position to share headline conclusions from the MDP by the NATO summit in July. The NSCR essentially updates the Government’s analysis of the threats and risks to the United Kingdom and articulates what an integrated, cross-government approach to national security ought to look like. When published, the report will set out high-level findings across 11 of the 12 strands of work that make up the NSCR, but will refer to defence—the 12th strand—only at a strategic level. The defence element of the NSCR identified that further work was needed to modernise defence to deliver better military capability and value for money in a sustainable and affordable way. Therefore, the National Security Council commissioned a separate, further programme of work, namely the modernising defence programme, or MDP.
The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, questioned the meaning of “strategic affordability”. That phrase is a condensed way of describing what we are seeking everybody’s views on this consultation: how we marry strategy and affordability. By strategy, we are referring to not only the ways we should plan to counter the various threats identified in the 2015 SDSR, but the emphasis that we should attach to each strand of those capabilities. Different people will have different views on that, but we have to consider the affordability of all that we do. The MDP will build on the findings of the NSCR and the Ministry of Defence will continue to consult colleagues across government throughout the course of the programme.
The noble Lord asked about the apparent lack of synchronicity in launching the MDP before we published the NSCR. There is a very simple reason for that. Earlier this year, as the NSCR was reaching its final stages, it became clear to us that further work was needed to modernise defence. To conduct that work at the necessary pace, it was agreed by the National Security Council that the MoD should initiate the modernising defence programme without further delay. There would be no benefit from waiting for the publication of the NSCR report before starting work on the MDP. Work across government on the NSCR and the MDP continues to be, I assure the noble Lord, fully joined up.
Greater Manchester Combined Authority (Amendment) Order 2018
(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
That the Grand Committee do consider the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (Amendment) Order 2018
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)
My Lords, the draft order that we are considering was laid before the House on Monday 5 February 2018. If approved and made today, it will support Greater Manchester’s programme of public sector reform, promoting growth and productivity and continuing the implementation of the devolution deals.
There have been five devolution deals with Greater Manchester, including most recently at the Autumn Budget 2017. Noble Lords will be aware that, since passing the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016, there have been seven further orders in relation to the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. The orders provided for the introduction of a mayor, and give the mayor the role and functions of the police and crime commissioner. They have also given the combined authority powers on housing, planning, transport, public health, fire and rescue, and education and skills. Some of those powers are to be undertaken by the mayor individually and others by the members of the combined authority collectively.
I turn to today’s draft order. It makes provisions about the housing investment fund, allowances for committee and sub-committee members, and setting the police and crime commissioner component of the mayoral precept.
A housing investment fund was agreed as part of the initial devolution deal with Greater Manchester in 2014. It is a loan of £300 million from the Government that has enabled the combined authority to lend over £420 million to local developers to help fund quicker housing delivery in the Greater Manchester area. It has committed funding to build more than 5,800 homes at 23 sites across Greater Manchester. This order will amend the constitution so that, in addition to a simple majority of combined authority members, the mayor must also be on the winning side of any votes relating to the housing investment fund for the decision to be carried.
The order also refines certain aspects of the combined authority’s remuneration powers. This will allow it to pay travel and subsistence allowances to all members of its committees and sub-committees, such as the fire committee, as well as to members of the combined authority. It also enables the independent remuneration panel to make recommendations on the remuneration of all members of committees and sub-committees and provides for the combined authority to pay an allowance to committee members who are not elected members of a council in Greater Manchester. The draft order also changes a date within the process for setting the police and crime commissioner component of the mayoral precept for the Greater Manchester mayor. This has been requested by the combined authority to ensure that the scrutiny process is complete before the precept must be issued.
There have been two consultations undertaken by the combined authority in relation to proposals contained in schemes that are relevant to this order. The first consultation ran for eight weeks from 21 March to 18 May 2016. The scheme included the proposal that the mayor should control the Greater Manchester housing investment fund, in addition to the combined authority taking on a range of housing powers. The second consultation ran for six weeks from 4 July to 15 August 2016. This scheme made a number of proposals relating to committees that have now been legislated for, which is relevant to this order, as it is for members of these committees and sub-committees that the combined authority would be able to pay travel and subsistence and also refer to an independent remuneration panel for a recommendation on allowances.
There was general support for the powers consulted on, but few directly commented on these technical issues. The amendment to the process for setting the PCC component was requested by the combined authority to ensure that the statutory timetables for both components of the precept are properly integrated. As statute requires, the combined authority provided to the Secretary of State summaries of the responses to each of the consultations. Before laying this draft order before Parliament, the Secretary of State considered the statutory requirements in the 2009 Act.
The Secretary of State considers that making these constitutional changes on the Greater Manchester Combined Authority would be likely to lead to an improvement in the exercise of the statutory functions in the area of the combined authority. The Secretary of State has also had regard to the impact on local government and communities and the need to secure effective and convenient local government, as he is required to do. Also as required by statute, the constituent councils and the combined authority have consented to the making of this order.
In conclusion, implementation of the five devolution agreements made with Greater Manchester continues to progress at an impressive pace. We will continue to work and devolve more powers to Greater Manchester, contributing to greater prosperity and a more balanced economy, and economic success across Greater Manchester, the northern powerhouse and the country. I commend this draft order to the House.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, I remind the Committee of my registered interests as a councillor on Kirklees council—the proper side of the Pennines—and a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I apologise for my deepening voice and croakiness: I am sure I will last through the sitting.
The three amendments proposed in this statutory order all relate to governance. It is very important that any amendments retain public trust and confidence in the system and create an open and transparent process of decision-making so that residents feel that their voices are not only heard but listened to, acknowledged and—crucially—seen to significantly influence outcomes.
That is my starting point for assessing the changes proposed. The proposal regarding amending the process for agreeing the police precept is eminently sensible. I have no problem with what is written in the statutory instrument. The second change is the one proposing allowances for those involved in the combined authority. As far as I am concerned, that is a matter for local decision-making and the amendment enables a decision to be made. However, I always have an addendum to that: anybody who receives funding from the council tax payer will need to be answerable to them for any allowances they receive. I am not always sure that non-elected members appreciate the importance of that relationship.
I have a bit more to say about the third proposal, which contains what I regard—that is, read and interpreted—as a mayoral veto. The proposal enables any decision relating to the housing investment fund to be made by a simple majority vote of the combined authority—in other words, the leaders of the 10 councils in the Greater Manchester area—provided that the Mayor is on the winning side. So nine of the council leaders could decide that the proposal was not good and the Mayor could stop them. That seems to require further thought. The explanatory memorandum attached to the statutory instrument suggests that this implements a commitment made in the devolution agreement and links to that element of the agreement with the combined authority in Manchester. I wonder whether the Minister can provide us with the text and source of that commitment. I have read through every single word of that and nowhere does it say anything about enabling a mayoral veto. It says, under planning and housing, that the Mayor will receive strategic planning powers. This will give the Mayor the power to create a statutory spatial framework for the city region, which will need to be approved by a unanimous vote of the Mayor’s cabinet. This will be in line with the strategy currently being developed by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, or GMCA. Of course, there is a catch-all phrase in that list about any further powers we can give; perhaps it comes under that.
However, I cannot think that the members of the combined authority had envisaged, when this was agreed and consulted on, that democracy would be undermined in this way. Our democracy is precious and has developed on the basis of collective decision-making. It has served us well. People respect it, understand it and will not be content with its degradation. I hope that the Government will rethink this element of the statutory instrument.
Lord Smith of Leigh (Lab)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a member of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and leader of Wigan Council. I must also declare that, in 2014, I was part of the team discussing the devolution deal with the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, which ended up being the deal we got.
I remember that, as part of the deal we signed up to, we were not exactly enamoured of having an elected Mayor at the time but we realised that we would get significantly increased powers if we agreed to it. One of the powers, in terms of the Housing Investment Fund, was a substantial amount of money. The Minister described how it has been used—largely, at the moment, to fund schemes that return into the Housing Investment Fund so that we can spread it out even further.
I do not think we discussed at the time whether a simple majority could depend on one person—actually, it could be 10:1, never mind 9:1. I assure noble Lords that within the unofficial governance of Greater Manchester we would ensure that things were decided in a proper manner. We would not allow any individual to hold up what would be a significant investment in Greater Manchester.
Lord Beecham (Lab)
My Lords, I declare my interest as yet another vice-president of the Local Government Association and as a member of Newcastle City Council. Although it is good to hear from my noble friend Lord Smith that they are satisfied with the setup in Manchester and can rely on the current elected Mayor of Manchester not to exercise what is in effect a power of veto, which may not always be the case. Heaven forfend, but we might even get a Conservative or Liberal Democrat Mayor of Manchester elected separately from the constituent councils, in which case one can conceive of certain circumstances which might lead to conflict. So I share the reservations raised about that as a general principle. If Manchester is satisfied with it, so be it, but I should be wary of seeing that provision made in any other authority, and any members who are approached in that light should look carefully at that.
On remuneration, I wonder whether it is intended that this should simply come into force now with no retrospection. It would seem rather unfair if people had devoted considerable time up to now with no remuneration. If possible, it should be open to the authority to pay them, if it thought it reasonable. It would not be a duty to do so in any case, but it is invidious if those who have served already are not to be compensated to some extent as, presumably, they may well be in future.
My other question is whether any of these changes should be generalised and applied to all the combined authorities. If not, there will be a differential pattern up and down the country, particularly in relation to the remuneration of councillors. It would be helpful to know whether the Government will look at that, rather than bringing a succession of individual pieces of secondary legislation to give the power across the piece. I would be interested to know whether the Government have considered that or will consider it. If not, I suspect that we will spend time in this Room on a number of occasions simply repeating debates on the provision of a power that might be better conferred at the outset. It would not be a requirement, but I believe that the process of conferring the power should be simplified. Perhaps the Minister will think about that and get back to me and others in due course.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I draw to the attention of the Committee my relevant registered interests as a councillor and a vice-president of the Local Government Association.
I have read the order and the Explanatory Memorandum. As the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, said, the proposal that the mayor has to be on the winning side for a vote to be carried means that the mayor has a veto. I hear what my noble friend Lord Smith of Leigh says. He is a member of the combined authority, so I accept his expertise on these matters. If Manchester is happy with it, then so be it, but it is an odd way of working—it seems a bit cumbersome. As I say, if that is how it wants to work, we are fine with it. It means that, in effect, the mayor has a veto. Another way of operating would be to let the mayor take the decision.
A couple of points have come out of the debate. My noble friend Lord Smith of Leigh mentioned the Bus Services Act. I remember that, during the debates on the Bill, the Government were insistent that you had to have a mayor in order to get the bus franchising powers automatically. That was a big issue. Many of us could not understand why you had to have a mayor, but the Government were insistent. It is regrettable that, although the Act has been on the statute book for about a year, we have not moved forward on this. This is not a good place to be. Perhaps the Minister can come back to us on that, because I believe that it is important for authorities outside London to have powers to control their bus services—the fares, the routes and the timetables. Those powers exist in London, where we have a good bus service, and are very attractive to combined authorities.
My noble friend Lord Beecham referred to the differential pattern in the combined authorities. Manchester seems to have the most powers. Others are different, but can evolve over time. I believe that local government in England has a problem. It is a bit of a mess. We have all sorts of tiers of local government. Buckinghamshire is going to become two unitaries and there will also be two unitaries in Northamptonshire. I recall in one debate the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, listing the five authorities that potentially regulate where he lives in Cambridgeshire. It looks to me to be a bit of a mess now. At some point, we will have to look at what we want for local government in England outside London. This patchwork is not necessarily the right way to go.
I am happy with both parts of the order. The proposal for the remuneration of independent members seems sensible and I agree with it.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
I thank those noble Lords who have participated in the debate on the Manchester powers. I will respond to their contributions in the order that they were made, so I turn first to the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. She was very much in Wars of the Roses mode as she entered the fray and she may have carried that through into thinking that the mayor and the council will always be at daggers drawn. She will know that that is generally not the reality of how councils work, so this idea of the mayor being on the winning side, as it were, is very much that he—as it is in this case; it could also be “she”—has the democratic mandate, which is likely to develop into a consensus rather than a battle between two factions. I take the point that in general it provides a check—or a balance, as I prefer to see it—rather than a cause for concern. I note in particular what the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Leigh, said in that regard. I thank the noble Baroness for her general support for the police precept point and the allowances point.
Picking up on points made by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, I will go away and look at whether it would be helpful to have a more generalised provision for allowances. I suspect the answer is possibly not, because as has just been said by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, all of these deals are somewhat different. They are bespoke deals. They may not be visually or aesthetically pleasing but the question is whether they are appropriate for and work for the given area. I am not sure that, in the end, the provision would be that helpful. I am pleased to see that that seems to be the correct answer. It was not a punt—I thought it was the correct answer, but I am gratified that it indeed appears to be the case.
Moving on, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Leigh, for his general support for funds that were given in relation to the housing deal. This is part of an ongoing process. If I could pick up on the point made by various noble Lords on the bus position, I will investigate it further but the Bus Services Act provides the powers for bus franchising. That is absolutely right. It is intended that we will have a further order consolidating Greater Manchester transport powers. Believe me, a string of these things is coming through. Of course, they are extremely important.
In relation to the points made by noble Lords on allowances, the legislation prevents their being retrospective. Obviously, we want the relevant combined authorities and their independent remuneration panels to be able to act on this as quickly as possible so that they can get this right. I should say that when the independent remuneration panel makes its recommendations, the council cannot go above those recommendations. It can go below but not above, so there is a very sensible check there.
With that, I will write further on the points that have been made, particularly on buses. I thank noble Lords for their general support for a very sensible move forward for the Greater Manchester area. I wish it and the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Leigh—as a member of that authority—all the best in moving things forward.
Insolvency of Registered Providers of Social Housing Regulations 2018
(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
That the Grand Committee do consider the Insolvency of Registered Providers of Social Housing Regulations 2018
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)
My Lords, these regulations were laid before this House on 7 February 2018. In the Housing and Planning Act 2016, we introduced a special administration regime for the social housing sector. In introducing these changes, we were responding to concerns that the existing moratorium provisions are not suitable for modern, large, developing and complex housing associations that might get into financial difficulty.
The provisions in the Act applied only to housing associations that were companies. We were unable to include registered societies and charitable incorporated organisations in the Act, due to the timing and the complexity of drafting required. Therefore, the Act included provision to make regulations to extend the housing administration regime to these forms of housing associations, thus covering all the different forms of housing association. These are the draft regulations that we are considering today. I also draw your Lordships’ attention to the fact that there will need to be another piece of legislation enacted before the housing administration regime can be commenced. This will be a statutory instrument setting out the rules that apply to the administrator’s conduct of a housing association. They will follow the negative procedure and cannot be introduced until we have passed this legislation.
Turning to the purpose of this legislation, the regulations before your Lordships are quite technical, but, as I said, they extend the housing administration regime set out in the Act to housing associations that are registered societies or charitable incorporated organisations. Under the law at the moment, where a housing association gets into financial difficulty and steps are taken towards it entering a formal insolvency procedure, a 28-day moratorium begins, which restricts creditors’ ability to enforce their security during this timeframe. If the regulator cannot reach a solution with creditors within the 28-day period or any agreed extension, creditors are able to call in loans and seek to recover debts through a sale of assets including social housing stock. This could potentially lead to a fire sale of social housing, meaning that the stock would no longer be regulated and tenants would lose the protections of the social sector, including rent regulation.
This process was considered to be inadequate when dealing with modern, large, developing and complex housing associations with tens of thousands of properties in their ownership. There are almost 1,500 private registered providers of social housing in England, providing some 2.6 million homes to those in housing need. Although financial failure within any housing association is extremely rare, the housing association sector has changed significantly in recent years. The level of private finance has grown from £48 billion in 2012 to £70 billion in 2017, for example. Therefore, in the event of a private registered provider becoming at risk of entering insolvency proceedings, the Act gives the Secretary of State—or the Regulator of Social Housing, with the Secretary of State’s consent—power to apply to the court to appoint a housing administrator. The administrator would manage the affairs, business and property of the registered provider of social housing for the duration of the housing administration.
As with any administration regime, the main objective would be to rescue the organisation or return money to creditors—or, indeed, both. The crucial difference is that a housing administrator would also have a secondary objective: to retain as much of the social housing as possible within the regulated sector. In addition, a housing administrator would not be constrained by a 28-day timeframe and would have the time to investigate the business and find the best solution possible to meet these objectives.
These regulations extend the housing administration framework in the Act to registered societies and charitable incorporated organisations. As I have mentioned, there are some 1,500 housing associations. About 400 of those are companies; the remainder, some 1,100, are registered societies or charitable incorporated organisations. The regulations apply certain provisions of the Insolvency Act 1986, with necessary modifications, to registered societies and charitable incorporated organisations.
We carried out informal consultation with representatives from insolvency practitioners, valuers, UK finance, and private registered providers and main lenders prior to the introduction of the Housing and Planning Act 2016, and again before laying these regulations. This group represented the organisations that have the main interest in housing administration, and they are keen to have this regime in place. A fuller public consultation was not carried out due to the extremely technical nature of the regulations and because the process of housing administration will be required only in the event of a housing association facing insolvency, which experience has shown to be extremely rare.
These regulations apply to the whole of the United Kingdom. We want the regime to cover social housing stock in England, including any such stock held by housing associations registered with the social housing regulator for England but which are, as legal entities, registered in devolved Administrations. I commend these regulations to the Committee.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I remind the Committee that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. It is important to support the regulations because it is in the interests of tenants that we should. It is also in the public interest that we should protect the Government’s investment in social housing within the regulated sector. As the Regulator of Social Housing has pointed out, its powers may not be strong enough if one of the bigger private registered providers gets into trouble financially. There has to be a robust mechanism for the handling of financial failure. I accept that the sale of houses that is not done to an agreed, coherent plan could impact negatively on the rights of social tenants, not least on the level of their rents. We need to protect them.
However, now that housing associations are in the private sector and there is, as the Minister reminded us, a higher level of debt finance than there used to be, I return to an issue arising from four Written Questions on the governance of housing associations, which the Minister answered on 20 February. They were about, first, whether the Government would be prepared to take steps to require Homes England to maintain a formal, publicly available register of directors of regulated housing associations; secondly, whether Homes England could be required to publish clear governance standards for housing associations to enforce strong independent director representation and responsibilities, in line with those applying to public companies; thirdly, whether the Government would take steps to require all housing associations to publish details of director attendance at meetings in their annual reports; and fourthly, whether the Government will require annual returns to be made available to the public free of charge, showing the levels of board remuneration of housing associations.
Various statements were made in the rewritten reply. I understand why they were, but two lines struck me as particularly important:
“The Secretary of State is not able to direct the Regulator on the governance arrangements of housing associations, and the Regulator has no plans to change the current approach”.
I ask the Minister a very specific question in the context of these regulations. If a housing association becomes insolvent and there are found to be problems in its governance that led to the insolvency, does that mean that the regulator may be found partly responsible for the insolvency of that housing association, because, as the Minister’s reply said, it has no plans to change the current approach? We need to be clear about the governance responsibilities of housing associations and of the regulator. Problems almost certainly will not arise but if they do, we need to be clear that a housing association—a regulated provider—has done everything it ought to have done about the openness of its governance structure.
Baroness Golding (Lab)
My Lords, may I just ask the Minister a question? The housing association in my area took control of all the council housing that had belonged to and was controlled by local government some years ago.
Baroness Golding
My Lords, I am sorry for that interruption. I wish to ask a very simple question. Some weeks ago the chairman of my local housing association, which took control of all the council housing in the area many years ago, announced that it was no longer a public provider but a private one. There have been arguments about what she said but, if it is now a private provider, will it come under the terms of the regulations?
Lord Beecham (Lab)
My Lords, I refer again to my relevant interests. Has there been any consultation with, for example, the Local Government Association about the possible role of local housing authorities in this situation? In other words, could they be another potential source—I am not sure what phrase I am looking for here—for taking over the responsibility, as opposed to it necessarily being another housing association? In certain areas it might be more feasible for the local housing authority to do that. If the Government have not considered that, could they now take a look at it?
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I draw the Grand Committee’s attention to my relevant interests, which I mentioned on the previous order. I am always slightly concerned when I hear mention of the dreaded Housing and Planning Act; it really is one of the worst and most ill-thought-out pieces of legislation that any Government have put on the statute book in recent times. Unfortunately, I regularly have to remind noble Lords of that. I think it is a terrible piece of legislation.
Having said that, I read the regulations and their Explanatory Memorandum before today’s Committee and I am happy to support them as far as they go. As we have heard, they seek to extend a new protection regime that already applies to registered social housing providers that are companies to registered societies and charitable incorporated organisations. I am happy to support that.
I am aware that this has come about following discussions between the department and the lending sector. I am also aware of the issue of the Cosmopolitan Housing Group in the north-west of England, which has had problems. Although in the end they were resolved, they have highlighted some weaknesses in the statutory provisions governing insolvency in a registered provider of social housing. Many providers now have to make other arrangements regarding how they do their business and have to cross-subsidise things, which exposes them to more risk, so I am happy to support the regulations before us.
Paragraph 10.3 in the Explanatory Memorandum states:
“An Impact Assessment has not been prepared for this instrument. However, an assessment of impact will be published alongside this instrument”.
I have it here. Can the Minister tell me the difference between an impact assessment and an assessment of impact? Certainly this one is easier to read than the others; perhaps that is the difference. Can he tell us the status of it compared to impact assessment? Are they the same and, if not, why has this arrived? I would be keen to understand that. Having said that, I understand the regulations and am happy to agree them.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have participated in discussion on these provisions relating to insolvency and housing associations. I thank them for the general support given to the regulations. I confirm that they are based on the provisions that applied to insolvency for companies introduced after the Cork committee in the mid-1980s, sensibly ensuring that there was a broader-based approach to companies in financial difficulties so that, if they were unable to pay debts, they were not automatically put into insolvent liquidation. It provided an administration procedure, which is something we have sought to replicate for housing associations. We did it first for companies and are now extending it by the regulations to friendly societies and charitable organisations. They provide an additional means of intensive care for these housing associations, rather than in the very rare event when insolvency was considered for a housing association—there has been only one circumstance in the past 22 years and even then it did not happen. If there should be an insolvency it provides an alternative rather than the 28-day moratorium, which is very short and specific. This would provide a period of, say, a year, which could be extended, for the debts to be paid off and the tenants to be protected. I appreciate noble Lords’ support for ensuring that we can protect tenants as well as creditors at the same time.
I turn to points made by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, who sought reassurance on the position of governance, and so on, in relation to the social housing regulator. I can confirm that the social housing regulator proactively regulates providers of social housing where there is a minimum of 1,000 units, which is more than 90% of the sector, on governance, financial viability, value for money and rent standards. I hope that that provides some reassurance. For the 10% under that threshold of 1,000 units, if a matter is referred to the regulator it will look at it, but it would not do so proactively.
The noble Lord asked if it was conceivable that the social housing regulator would be directly liable. Obviously, there are statutory obligations that it could be in breach of. I think it would be unlikely that it would be caught by the fair dealing provisions in relation to liquidation, except in the most unlikely circumstances, but there is that issue of statutory responsibility in relation to the standards that apply to the social housing regulator.
Turning to the noble Baroness, Lady Golding, we were left on tenterhooks as we went round voting in the Division wondering where her story was going to go. I am very grateful to her. I can confirm that her housing association would be subject to the regulations. If she wants me to have a closer look at the situation I am very happy to do so, but I think what the chair of the housing association is referring to is the fact that housing associations are now off the public balance sheet, as they are in the private sector rather than the public sector. I do not think that what would happen on a daily basis would change for that housing association, but it would certainly be subject to the regulations as I understand it.
The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, asked—I think I understood this correctly, but I am sure that the noble Lord will correct me if I am wrong—about the possibility of housing authorities stepping into the breach where there was an insolvency position. Of course that would be open to the administrator to consider if there is a circumstance where it is trying to settle the debts and move the association forward so that it could be solvent once again. I am sure that such an approach would be considered by the administrator, appropriately in the circumstances, to see whether that would be feasible. That is a constructive point, and I think that is the position at the moment.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I must say that this is much easier to read than those forms you get, so maybe at some point they should look at how impact assessments are presented to Members.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
I agree with the noble Lord; that is a fair point. I certainly found it easier to follow than some. I thank the noble Lord for his help on that point and others, and I thank noble Lords for their general support.
Gambling Act 2005 (Operating Licence Conditions) (Amendment) Regulations 2018
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen
That the Grand Committee do consider the Gambling Act 2005 (Operating Licence Conditions) (Amendment) Regulations 2018
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)
My Lords, the draft regulations would impose a new mandatory condition on the holders of any betting operating licence issued under the Gambling Act 2005. The purpose of this new condition is to prevent these operators accepting bets from British consumers on the outcome of the EuroMillions draw or a EuroMillions game in a participating country outside the UK. Section 95 of the Gambling Act 2005 already prohibits the holder of a betting licence from offering a bet on the outcome of any lottery which forms part of the National Lottery. This includes the lottery known in the UK as EuroMillions.
This additional licence condition extends the existing prohibition on betting on the National Lottery to all EuroMillions lottery games, and will apply to all general betting operating licences, pool betting licences, and betting intermediary licences issued by the Gambling Commission. This will reduce customer confusion that has arisen as a result of operators offering these bets and maintain the “clear blue water” between the National Lottery and other forms of gambling, as set out in Section 95 of the Gambling Act 2005.
I will set out the background to this SI. Because EuroMillions is structured as a separate game in each of the nine countries in which it is played, a small number of gambling operators are able to circumvent the prohibition in Section 95 and offer bets on the outcome of a non-UK EuroMillions lottery—for example, a bet on the outcome of the Spanish EuroMillions lottery. Our consultation showed that this has led to customer confusion, with research showing that a percentage of players are unable to distinguish between placing such a bet and buying a National Lottery EuroMillions ticket. Some operators even undercut the National Lottery and advertise products at a lower price than the National Lottery EuroMillions or offer multiple tickets for the price of one. They are able to do this because they do not return a proportion of their proceeds to good causes.
The Gambling Commission has already undertaken a number of measures to reduce customer confusion, and this has resulted in changes to how products are promoted, but even where such proactive steps have been taken we still see evidence of customers unable to distinguish between the two products. A further point of confusion is how players can potentially arrive at these betting websites. It cannot be right that if you want to buy a National Lottery EuroMillions ticket online, and you search for “EuroMillions”, you get a proliferation of sites offering a range of betting services to choose from. Between March and May 2017, the Government consulted on prohibiting betting on EuroMillions. Respondents included lottery operators, beneficiaries of lottery funding, betting operators and members of the public. There were 52 responses and 32 strongly agreed with the proposal that non-UK EuroMillions bets should be prohibited. Not surprisingly, the only respondents to strongly disagree were operators offering these bets.
Betting on the outcome of lotteries is nothing new—it has been offered legally for many years, but not on the National Lottery. For most operators offering bets on lotteries, the product is one element of a wider portfolio. British customers will still be able to participate in the other products offered by these operators, which remain unaffected by this action. Betting on EuroMillions is a growing market, and it is important that we maintain the clear distinction between the National Lottery and other forms of gambling, as set out in Section 95 of the Gambling Act 2005. The effect of these regulations will be to bring non-UK EuroMillions draws in line with the UK draws and prevent gambling operators from taking advantage of the technical way EuroMillions is structured, as individual country draws. More urgently, this action will eliminate customer confusion. For these reasons, I commend these regulations to the Committee.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)
I am happy to support the regulations. I declare an interest as the chairman of the Alderney Gambling Control Commission and as a veteran of the scrutiny committee on the draft Gambling Act 2005. I recall very well that there were a lot of debates then about whether betting on the National Lottery should be permitted. Our advice was that it should not, for the reasons that the Minister has explained. There has always been a conflict of interest for the National Lottery and the role of the Gambling Commission as its regulator, which remains unresolved. The Gambling Commission—and the National Lottery Commission before it—had the twin objectives of player protection, in ensuring that people did not spend excessive amounts on the lottery and get themselves into difficulty, and the requirement to maximise the return to good causes. As I say, that conflict remains unresolved and will, I suspect, continue to remain so.
The regulations deal with companies such as Lottoland, from which I received a certain amount of unsolicited promotional material. It is based in Gibraltar and offers bets not just on the EuroMillions Lottery but on competitions such as the US Powerball, the Irish Lottery and something called the Bitcoin Lottery. I am not surprised that it opposed the regulations; being able to cash in on the promotion of EuroMillions is a nice little earner for it. Like the Minister, I do not agree that it is right for such companies to do that, so I support the order.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her introduction to the order. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, who took us down memory lane with the Gambling Act 2005. It reminds me that I have been doing this job almost as long, I think, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, which is saying something.
I entirely accept the logic and reasons outlined by the Minister. First, there is the confusion that has clearly been caused. I, too, thought that Camelot’s briefing was pretty cogent on the subject of the damage to the EuroMillions and National Lottery brands in this country. Of course, that has a detrimental effect on participation. It is interesting that Camelot’s research found that only 14% of consumers could correctly identify that buying a EuroMillions ticket via Lottoland —already mentioned—is actually a bet on EuroMillions in a foreign country. Over 60% thought that they were playing EuroMillions the UK. Indeed, I understand that Lottoland’s research found that 28% of its customers did not understand the difference between the two products. That is pretty conclusive.
Secondly, none of the revenue from betting on these lotteries is returned to good causes. That must be a major reason for passing this order. Then there is the fact that Camelot is having to spend quite a lot of money defending its National Lottery brand as a result of all this. That is another reason, so we on these Benches support action by the Government very strongly. This kind of betting on lotteries runs contrary to the spirit and intention of the law, causes customer confusion and harms returns to good causes.
As is ever the case with these orders, it is a very good excuse to probe the Government on one or two other matters. I turn to the relationship between the National Lottery and society lotteries in this context. We know about the success of the National Lottery, which has partly been because of the clear distinction between the National Lottery and society lotteries. A single national lottery has been operated in order to maximise returns to good causes. The economic case for a single national lottery has been examined on many occasions; I think the most recent occasion was when the Gambling Commission advised the DCMS on regulatory policy for the lottery sector. That was in September 2014. It said that,
“the relatively low prizes and generally limited distribution footprint are key factors that have traditionally differentiated the”,
society lottery,
“sector from TNL”—
that is, the National Lottery sector. To make a clear distinction between the National Lottery and smaller, traditional society lotteries, prize and proceed limits exist for society lotteries—as the Minister will know—with the top prize capped at £400,000.
The emergence of national or “umbrella” society lotteries has blurred the distinction between the National Lottery and society lotteries. These larger lotteries are sold and advertised nationally and run by commercial operations. For these reasons, umbrella lotteries stray into the territory originally intended by Parliament to be the sole preserve of the National Lottery through its single national lottery model. Of the current operators in the market, the only umbrella society lottery to offer the top prize of £400,000 is the People’s Postcode Lottery. Increasing the top prize for society lotteries could create, in effect, many more national lotteries, contrary to all economic evidence that a single national lottery is the optimal way to maximise returns to good causes.
After that barrage, my question is: do the Government accept that case and that increasing the top prize for society lotteries risks unbalancing the single national lottery model, putting revenue for good causes at risk, and that therefore there should be no change to the top prize value for society lotteries? I would be more than happy if the Minister wrote to me.
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)
My Lords, I am more than grateful for the remarks that have already been made. I am discovering all the time how much more I am being educated in abstruse parts of our national life that I had no idea about at all. I am a sweet innocent abroad most of the time. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, mentioned a statistic which I have also fallen upon in the paperwork before us: the 28% of people who do not know the difference between gaming—betting—and a lottery. I would be part of that 28%, without any doubt. What I have learned about the overlap between the EuroMillions and the National Lottery is completely new to me. But I can quite see why it should be confusing and why it needs to be evened out.
Others have expressed their own interests. Mine is simply that I have worked with 12-step self-help groups of people wanting to recover from habits incurred in these areas of life—gambling and various kinds of addiction, particularly alcohol—and consequently I look at measures such as this as if I were someone who had the problem and ask myself: what would help me with these matters?
Are we satisfied with the fact that 28% do not know the difference or does that goad us to feel that there ought to be some way of educating people so that it is less than 28%? Is there not some obligation on us to provide a programme of public education, or should there not be some way of drawing to people’s attention to, first, what the difference is and, secondly, some of the other confusions that arose from the analysis offered by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones? I do not have a clue what society lotteries are. We have entertained people from the People’s Postcode Lottery, so I am beginning to be more alert to that. I am making progress on these things but if I am confused, it seems that we should ask ourselves: what do we do with people who are really confused and victims of their confusion?
Certainly, we ought to be driven by the fact that the National Lottery exists to raise money for good causes and anything that interferes with the clear profile that it has should be looked at askance. Is anyone else piggybacking on the National Lottery, taking advantage of the fact that the National Lottery is there, with all its structure and place in society and so on, and rather stealing its clothes in one way or another as it makes its appeal?
I wonder about the trademark authority refusing registration of the EuroMillions logo because of “near identical verbal elements”. In this area I can claim some expertise. Words are very much my tools. If one form of words confuses the ground between the EuroMillions and the National Lottery, I can think of a thousand ways in which we could change the words but still take advantage of the logo. Verbal similarity is not a difficult thing. I have marked undergraduate essays for long enough to know how to identify a little plagiarism now and again. Who monitors the logos? I guess it is the Gambling Commission, the advertising standards people or the trademark authority itself. We ought to keep an eye on these things and—this is the thrust of the statutory instrument—always ask ourselves: will this make for a clearer picture for the people who are the victims of, first, the confusion and, secondly, some of the exploitative methods that are employed by some people in that area of life? But I have no doubt at all that I approve of the order and I add my voice to others who have spoken in favour of it.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
My Lords, I was not intending to speak on these regulations but I caught something my friend the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, said and I thought I would respond to it. It was also mentioned by my noble friend Lord Griffiths in his response.
When we look at lottery matters, we should have regard to the fact that we are looking at a system under which the intention is to increase the amount of money paid out to good causes. We have adopted a model to do that which is not necessarily found in other parts of the world that have lotteries. I do not wish in any sense to emulate the length of time for which the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has presided over this brief in his party but when I came to debate it, a long time after he started, I wondered whether we should think harder about the percentages going out of the National Lottery system into the good causes. That was presumably not unrelated to the fact that money had to be found for the Olympics, so there was a lot of tension and a focus in that.
However, things have moved on and I felt that some of the figures being cited by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, were not exactly in line with the current state of knowledge on this. For instance, I understand that there is now a report from the National Audit Office indicating clearly that the money going to the Postcode Lottery does not deflect from people’s interest in the National Lottery and that the representations made on behalf of the Postcode Lottery—that it should be allowed to expand its prize money, which is the point he made—have been the subject of lengthy discussion and consideration in the department. I think there are still consultations going on.
The Minister may know that I have tabled a Question for Written Answer on this matter, to which I am sure she will want to speedily return to amplify what she says in response to this debate. If she wants to wait until then, I will be quite happy, but my point is that there is an ongoing debate to be had about the proportion of money that the public wish to see going to national causes, which means that our model needs to be robust and sustainable.
First, is it time to reflect on that? Secondly, is there room now for this in a society that has changed out of all recognition since the National Lottery was formed, and which has an interest in local events? Research exists now to show that the Postcode Lotteries which are done postcode by postcode in the full system, and which operate right across Europe successfully, may offer another approach to giving for good causes in that the committees set up under the Postcode Lottery seem to be locally focused. The giving is therefore not so much for the benefit of winning a big prize, because the prizes are more modest, but because there is more satisfaction in the direct channelling of money towards local causes. It may be appropriate for the Government to look at whether it is time to think again about these things so that we can get more sense, and, we hope, more money, into the system.
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen
I thank all noble Lords who have taken part. As the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, said, it might be a steep learning curve for him but it is an even steeper learning curve for me. It is marvellous to have so many experts here today. I am very much the old new girl on the block where this is concerned, so it is interesting to hear everything that the Committee has said.
The noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, talked about the deal with companies such as Lottoland. We feel that one problem is that this is a growing market, which is why it is so important to bring this SI in. As several noble Lords have mentioned, there is no doubt that it takes away from people taking part in the National Lottery, which then takes away from good causes and so on.
The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, talked about society lotteries, as did the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson. Evidence shows that, to date, there has been no substitution between society lotteries and the National Lottery due to the very different prospects they offer the players who take part. We have been looking at the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee’s recommendations on society lotteries and we will look closely at how we feel they are working, including on the top prize. We hope to provide a further update on that in due course.
The noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, talked about customer confusion. Again, we hope that this SI will sort this out. The ban certainly aims to reduce customer confusion by protecting those who wish to buy a EuroMillions lottery ticket online from ending up on a betting site.
It is always important to keep education in mind and find ways to improve it, making sure that people are betting on what they want to bet on and not on something else. It is not our intention to prevent operators offering bets on lotteries that do not form part of the National Lottery to consumers who genuinely wish to place legitimate bets on such a lottery. Betting on the National Lottery is already illegal and the point of this ban is to bring betting on all EuroMillions products in line with the rest of the National Lottery portfolio.
I think that has answered all the questions. I have a note that was handed to me; is it something I forgot? The National Lottery is a uniquely important part of British society. Each year, it raises around £1.6 billion for good causes and has raised a total of £37 billion—a pretty impressive sum—since it started in 1994, supporting important charity, heritage, arts and sports projects. From the charities I am involved in, I have found the National Lottery a great help on many occasions.
In bringing forward these regulations imposing a new licence condition, we are doing no more than extending the existing protection against betting on the National Lottery and taking action to remove consumer confusion in relation to bets on EuroMillions games. I commend the regulations to the House.
Electronic Commerce Directive (Miscellaneous Provisions) Regulations 2018
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen
That the Grand Committee do consider the Electronic Commerce Directive (Miscellaneous Provisions) Regulations 2018.
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)
These regulations, which were laid in both Houses on 30 January, seek to implement two parts of the electronic commerce directive —or e-commerce directive—in relation to various offences. These are the country of origin principle and provisions relating to the liability of intermediary service providers.
To explain further, when new legislation is brought in on a particular policy area and an element of this relates to offences or requirements that could apply to an information society service—for example, intimate images on an online platform—the directive must be implemented to apply these rules. This must be done for the UK to be compliant with EU law. Importantly, the SI does not create new policy. These regulations are a technical measure to ensure that these offences are consistent with the e-commerce directive. The regulations implement the directive in relation to various offences including, for example, the children’s hearings publishing restrictions offence.
The Committee should be aware that my department worked closely with officials in the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Assembly in preparing this draft instrument. The Scottish Government are keen to see this SI made law.
I will now look at what the e-commerce directive is and what the SI claims to achieve. The directive seeks to contribute to the proper functioning of the internal market by ensuring the free movement of information society services within the EU. The directive is also relevant to the European Economic Area. This SI implements the e-commerce directive’s country of origin principle in relation to these offences, where relevant. Under the country of origin principle, an information society service should be only under the jurisdiction of the member state in which the service is established, not the European Economic Area country that the service is targeting. The country of origin rules are described in more detail in the Explanatory Memorandum at paragraph 4.2.
Finally, the SI also implements articles 12 to 14 of the directive, where relevant, which limit, in specified circumstances, the liability of intermediary service providers which carry out certain activities essential for the operation of the internet, namely those which act as “mere conduits” and those which “cache” or “host” information. I emphasise that the sole intention and outcome of this statutory instrument is to implement parts of the electronic commerce directive in relation to various offences, where this has not been done before. It will not create or set new policy; instead it is a technical measure to ensure compliance with EU law. I look forward to the Committee’s questions and hope that your Lordships will allow this SI to become UK law.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
I thank the Minister for her very clear introduction. This is a very interesting regulation—for aficionados. As she spoke in detail about it, that introduces the country of origin principle for discussion. I understand completely what the draft SI is meant to do. I expect that somebody in DDCMS woke up in a cold sweat and suddenly realised that there was quite a backlog of criminal offences in Scotland and Northern Ireland that needed to be brought within the scope of the e-commerce legislation. Such cold sweats can occur, even in the best-run government departments. We should not impede the passing of this SI simply because some of the offences are rather ancient. We are not dealing just with 2015 offences.
Of much more interest for those who are currently debating the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill is the whole question of the future application of the country of origin principle. After all, starting with the e-commerce directive, the EU Commission aimed to create an effective single market, particularly in the field of online retail. It is extremely pertinent to what is going to happen next. The current law is set out in the EU electronic commerce directive 2000, implemented into UK law in 2002. The regime covers almost every commercial website and is not restricted to online buying and selling but covers any service provided for remuneration at a distance using electronic means. On top of that, we have EU-derived distance selling and cookie regulation.
Much e-commerce law is implemented largely through secondary legislation, which will be preserved after Brexit takes place. However, the EU is obliged to revisit the directive every two years, so a divergence between the EU and the UK is possible. Therefore, the question arises as to whether we are going to need some sort of adequacy ruling for country of origin, rather in the way that we will probably have such a ruling for data protection. Indeed, is country of origin going to be available to us in the first place? Does the e-commerce directive fall away post Brexit? As I am sure the Minister is aware, country of origin principles applied to broadcasting will fall away unless there is a special deal which breaks through the normal cultural exceptions put into free trade agreements. So I am a little pessimistic about that.
Then, of course, the wagon rolls on. The consumer protection co-operation regulation was adopted by the Commission in December 2017. A regulation on addressing unjustified geo-blocking was adopted this February. There are two legislative proposals on the supply of digital content, and on online and other distance sales of goods, which the Commission proposed in December 2015 and are currently under negotiation in EU institutions. What are the Government’s intentions in respect of the new EU digital single market developments? Does they intend to stay aligned with e-commerce law in the EU? If so, how? If not, what will the consequences be? I would be extremely interested to hear from the Minister.
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, must first hear from me. Perhaps that will give the Minister a little time. I am very grateful for the way in which an aficionado made me aware of this welter of material relating to the way that information flows and the activities that benefit from that flow of information across Europe in so many fields.
This SI is relentlessly logical. I cannot understand why the law on such important and serious matters as human trafficking, prostitution, the care of children, threatening comments, intimate images—all those things that are listed here—came on to the statute book in Brussels in 2000 and here in 2002 but it has taken us until 2018 to deal with it. The country of origin thing may be part of the answer, I do not know. But, as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, said, just this morning we received a visit from commercial broadcasting people who are terribly worried about this country of origin principle and how it will affect their business in the future.
This SI is intended to ensure the smooth functioning of the internal market and to ensure consistency with EU law—all of that—while we are still members of the EU. I share the bemusement of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, about what might happen afterwards. He talked about adequacy, the future application of country of origin—will that continue?—and possible divergence that may occur as two different regimes pursue ways forward according to their own respective best lights, which may not be the same.
Of course, Brexit is raising a whole host of details of this kind, which make us aware of how silly we were to go down this road in the first place. Perhaps that remark ought not to go on the record—it does not belong to this debate—but I could not forbear from making it. But here we are with something that makes obvious sense but raises questions of concern that lie beyond its scope and its date. We wonder about both the scope and the date and what will happen to us all very soon. But I have no hesitation in supporting this statutory instrument.
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen
I thank the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Griffiths, for their contributions, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, who went off on one, I think. He will probably not think that the answer is good enough but, as we know, the UK will be leaving the digital single market but we will continue to work closely with the EU on digital issues as we build on an existing strong relationship in the future economic partnership. We will seek an ambitious agreement with the EU that enables the best possible access to each other’s markets. There is mutual advantage in the continued close relationship between the UK and the EU on digital issues and the advancement of digital transformation across Europe.
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen
With that, I think I have covered everything that was mentioned. As I said, this SI is important, and I have set out clearly why we need these regulations, which are technical. They will provide legal certainty to UK online services to enable them to trade across the EU with confidence. I therefore commend them to the Committee.
Data Protection (Charges and Information) Regulations 2018
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen
That the Grand Committee do consider the Data Protection (Charges and Information) Regulations 2018
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)
My Lords, the work of the Information Commissioner and her office is of fundamental importance and relevance in today’s society. Data is a pivotal element of the digital revolution, enabling a multitude of technological innovations that support growth and benefit our society. However, for these innovations to be successful, we—both government and the general public—must be confident that our data is not being misused. For this reason, we are modernising our data protection laws through the Data Protection Bill, and providing new and stronger powers for the Information Commissioner.
An effective data protection regulatory framework is critical to retaining the right balance between innovation and privacy. This is particularly the case now, when data is at the forefront of the political agenda, both domestically, with the Data Protection Bill currently in Parliament, and internationally. This was highlighted in the Prime Minister’s recent Mansion House speech, which featured the UK’s exceptionally high standards of data protection as one of the foundations underpinning our post-Brexit trading relationship with the EU. This changing data protection landscape has increased the responsibilities of the Information Commissioner and the challenges she faces, and with these increased responsibilities comes an increased cost.
It is crucial that we ensure that the Information Commissioner and her office are adequately funded to fulfil their responsibilities and that government meets its responsibility under the GDPR to ensure that the ICO is funded for the effective performance of its tasks. As with other similar organisations, such as the Care Quality Commission, Ofcom and the BBC, it is only right and appropriate that this funding comes from charges levied on relevant stakeholders—in this case, data controllers.
Currently, data controllers pay two tiers of charge: tier 1, for organisations with less than 250 staff or turnover under £25.9 million, is £35 per annum; and tier 2, for the remaining larger data controllers, is £500 per annum. These charges have not increased at all since their introduction in 2001 and 2009 respectively. The regulations will implement a new charge structure in order to fund the Information Commissioner’s data protection activities, and will come into force on 25 May 2018, which is when the new Data Protection Act and the GDPR standards are due to take effect.
The new structure is made up of three categories of charge: “micro-organisations”—including individuals—which will pay a charge of £40; “small and medium organisations”, which will pay £60; and “large organisations”, which will pay £2,900. The structure is designed to be closely aligned with the standard government categorisation of businesses. Furthermore, a £5 discount applies to all organisations where they pay by direct debit. This in effect means that micro-organisations which pay by direct debit will pay the same charge that they have since 2001 and that all micro, small and medium data controllers are paying less than the annual cost of a Netflix subscription towards maintaining the ICO as a world-class data protection regulator.
Similar to the current approach under the Data Protection Act 1998, public authorities will be categorised on the basis of number of members of staff only. In addition, charities and small occupational pension schemes will continue automatically to pay the lowest charge. The new funding model for the Information Commissioner has three main policy objectives. It will ensure an adequate and stable level of funding for the ICO, build regulatory risk into the charge level and raise awareness of data protection obligations in organisations, thereby increasing their compliance. Let me expand on what that means in practice.
First, in designing the new charge structure, the Government, in conjunction with the ICO, have given detailed consideration to the income requirements of the ICO now and in future. The new charge levels recognise the increased funding required by the ICO under the new data protection regime and spread the funding provision appropriately across each of the three tier groups. The charge levels have been increased from the current level of fees primarily to reflect the increased responsibilities of the ICO under the GDPR. For example, the GDPR will expand the Information Commissioner’s responsibilities in relation to mandatory breach notification and data protection impact assessments, as well as increasing the scope and scale of her existing activities. In 2016, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport estimated that the ICO’s income requirements for its data protection functions will increase from approximately £19 million in 2016-17 to approximately £33 million in 2020-21. A financial forecast for the first year of operation under the GDPR—that is, 2018-19—sets the income requirement for the ICO at approximately £30 million. It is imperative for the ongoing success of the UK’s data protection regulatory framework that the ICO has the income it needs to continue fulfilling its vital functions to such a high standard.
Secondly, large organisations, including public authorities, often hold the most complex and sensitive datasets, as such represent a higher level of information risk and will generally draw more heavily on the ICO’s resources than small organisations that process small amounts of personal data. The charge structure has been designed to ensure that overall income from each group of data controllers—micro, small and medium, and large—adequately reflects the proportionate information risk accruing to each group, as well as to recognise that it would not be appropriate for large businesses and public authorities to be effectively subsidised by small and micro-businesses, which make up the majority of the register of data controllers.
Thirdly, and finally, in making these regulations we are highlighting the importance of compliance with the UK’s data protection regulatory framework to data controllers, thereby increasing their awareness of the ICO as the regulator and their own obligations. The new regulations substantially replicate the current exemptions from paying notification fees, with some exceptions. The regulations will remove the current exemption for some data controllers who are only undertaking processing for the purposes of safeguarding national security, and introduce clarification to the wording of the existing personal and household purposes exemption to make clear that homeowners using CCTV for these purposes are no longer required to pay a charge under the new scheme. I appreciate that there is appetite from stakeholders to review these exemptions in general; the Government have committed to undertake a public consultation on the exemptions later this year. Your Lordships may be interested to hear that we are especially minded to consider an exemption for elected representatives and the House of Lords.
In conclusion, the work of the Information Commissioner and her office is fundamental to the success of our digital economy. It is vital that we secure adequate funding, for now and the future. The new funding regime set out in these regulations maintains the spirit of notification fees in charging only those people and organisations that handle personal data without the need for direct government funding, while providing the ICO with the level of income it requires to continue to deliver as a world-class data protection regulator. I beg to move.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
I thank the Minister for her comprehensive introduction. We all accept the need for a well-resourced Information Commissioner’s Office. On Report, we welcomed what the noble Lord, Lord Ashton, who was the Minister at the time, had to say in response to an amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, about the commitment to ensuring that the commissioner has adequate resources to fulfil her role as a world-class regulator and to take on the extra regulatory responsibilities set out in the Bill. There is no argument between us about the principles of funding the Information Commissioner’s Office. The pledges made by the noble Lord, Lord Ashton, were very welcome. We wish the Information Commissioner well with her extended role and her extended £33 million budget.
That does not come without a cost to data controllers. It is not simply a question of deciding the budget and then deciding what people pay, without considering affordability. Local authorities have put to me that they are very concerned at the lack of consultation offered to all affected parties, including the LGA, ahead of the new charging model. Apparently, approximately 40,000 data controllers were written to, inviting them to respond to the consultation: I understand that about 2,000 did so. However, not all affected parties were offered the opportunity to contribute. The consultation, and responses to it, are not publicly available, which differs from most government consultation. Will the Minister commit to publishing the outcome of the consultations?
Local authorities are concerned by what appears to be a rather arbitrary increase in the charges that they will have to pay to the ICO as data controllers. I also understand that it is proposed that elected representatives will be subject to a small increase in their charge. Under the new charging model, councils with 250 or more employees are defined as large data controllers and are subject to the highest fees under the SI. In practice, most councils that would have been paying £500 to register with the ICO will now have to pay £2,900. This is an increase of 480%; an inflationary increase would have seen the fees rise from £500 to £623.61. This comes at a time when local government is under significant financial pressure and local councils are receiving no additional government funding to help implement the GDPR.
It seems from the Explanatory Memorandum that the Government are considering an exemption for elected representatives, subject to a full review of exemptions in general. In the current process, there are exemptions from the requirement to register with the ICO. These include exemptions for those maintaining a public register, for staff administration purposes, for advertising and for accounting. I refer the Minister to paragraph 7.10 of the Explanatory Memorandum, where the Government state their intentions about the review.
On these Benches, we would definitely support an exemption for elected representatives. Councillors should not have to pay a charge to the Information Commissioner to correspond with their residents and should not incur a cost associated with their duties in representing their constituents. I am interested to hear what the Minister has to say about the review which is heralded in the Explanatory Memorandum.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
My Lords, I agree with just about everything that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, said, particularly on the comments—they have been passed to me as well—from the Local Government Association, which seems to have been badly hit by the changes. He will remember, although I think this predates the Minister, that we went through some of the thinking behind the charges in what is now the Digital Economy Act. He will recall the debate and discussion at that time; it is good to see it coming through now in a form that we can look at.
I will not repeat some of the issues that have been raised because I come at this with a slightly different argument, although we arrive at roughly the same place. First, noble Lords could not have gone through the Data Protection Bill without recognising, as the Minister did, the huge amount of extra work and responsibility that will lie with the ICO after it went through. It is an astonishing step change. Yes, it is true that that is reflected in the additional resources, which will be calculated to flow from these changes and increases in the fee structure, but two questions arise. We are relying for the arithmetic on work that was done, as I understand it, by working through the new charge structure; the department has modelled the anticipated income generated to try to come up with something. Two things occur to me from that.
First, what happens if the calculations are wrong? As we speak, we are living through a situation in which a huge additional workload has suddenly landed on the ICO’s desk. Cambridge Analytica was not a household name before this week’s revelations but if the matter goes to court to get submissions, the ICO will have to prosecute and defend itself. I cannot quite see where that was built into things. I am not looking for a specific response but I want to sharpen the question. It is all very well being on a cost-recovery basis when the funds exceeds the expenses, but what happens when they do not? Who will carry the cost? Can the Minister comment on that? Secondly, would it be possible to get a bit more detail about how this plays out in real terms, given the reserves that are allowed to be carried forward and the implication for what work would have to be cut if it is not possible to carry forward deficits from year to year? We are talking about government accounting so, presumably, the NAO will be watching very carefully. I worry a bit about what will happen in the short term. I do not want a detailed response now but I would be happy to get a letter on that.
My second point is about the assertion made that somehow the structure we have here is a way of responding to what was described in paragraph 7.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum as building,
“regulatory risk into the charge level”.
I do not understand what risk is being assessed here. Again, this may need a more considered response. Is it the numbers? It is clear that there will be a lot more tier 1 organisations and therefore a lot of detailed administration and housekeeping, but does that equate to risk? I think not. I therefore wonder why the charge, relatively speaking, is being kept at roughly what it was before—it is still £40—and has been extended.
I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, made this point today but I am sure that he raised it in discussion in Committee and on Report. We are talking about a situation where it did not matter whether you registered with the system under the Data Protection Act 1998, despite the fact that the noble Lord did not get his amendment through on having a statutory register for these things. I am sorry about that. There will effectively be a register for all those who use data, which will be policed to some extent. Therefore, the chances are that anyone who was not paying before will certainly be caught now. There is a huge additional element here that has not been previously caught or considered. I am intrigued by that. Therefore, the comment made about not wanting micro-organisations to pay for their activities further up the scale struck me as a little odd. Perhaps we might come back to that.
Tier 2 includes the mid-range of the organisations. A lot of companies are in this area; in fact, the bulk of activity in the industry. Yes, they should pay for services received but I would hazard that they are extremely low-risk. I cannot believe that major breaches of personal data are happening in a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises. That bears comparison with the new third tier that has been introduced to look at large organisations; we are talking about Facebook and other organisations which I do not need to name. We are asking them only to pay a modest proportion more than small and medium-sized organisations. I do not know how that equates to risk. It seems that the evidence of this week is that 50 million Facebook accounts could have been picked up and used in some alleged way of trying to influence elections. We are talking about damage on a substantial scale, which is not the same, in any sense, as that which might occur to citizens—the local joiner, plumber or building firm mislaying their accounting records for a short period. However, I am prepared to listen to the arguments on that.
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen
I thank the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Stevenson, for their comments.
The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, asked whether we will publish the results of the consultation. In response to interest from Peers and in the interests of transparency, they will be published shortly. Both noble Lords talked about the top tier. Indeed, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said, these regulations and the GDPR come into force on 25 May, so we are a bit short of time. The top tier has been raised significantly, and the amount has been set out to ensure appropriate funding for the ICO without leading to excessive surplus. However, I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said about large companies. It is important to remember that DCMS will review the income generated annually to ensure that it remains appropriate, so it can be checked.
The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, also talked about large public authorities. It is important to remember that they hold a huge amount of sensitive data about members of the public; therefore they are subject to high levels of information risk. So we consider it appropriate that the regulation of these organisations is effectively subsidised; that means that they are paying a large sum, but the small and medium-sized businesses are not. It is important that they should not be unfairly charged. The new funding model is aimed at ensuring that the new charges are fair and reflect the risk of the organisations. The small and medium-sized businesses will not be paying any more than they have been, in real terms. It is the larger organisations that will be paying the most.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
I may not have made the case clearly enough. We have not seen the figures but the last time we asked about this we were told that the proportion of very small registrants—micro-companies and individuals—is really small. As we learned when the Bill was in Committee, an awful lot of people and loads of small companies and organisations—including parish councils, of which much was made—will have to appoint data controllers to make sure that their systems are up and adequate. That is right, but the shock of having to pay on a regular basis will be substantial. I want to make it clear that going from 10% to 100% of people involved in this will be a major change in people’s thinking.
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen
They have been paying up until now, but a very small amount.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
Those that registered did pay, but very small numbers do. That is the point. I bet that no parish council has ever registered: every one will have to register. That is a big change.
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen
I take the noble Lord’s point. However, more often than not they will be able to use somebody who is already on the parish council to do the work. They will not have to pay somebody extra to do it. We feel that this is the fairest way of doing it. Those with the least money are paying the least and those with the most money are paying the most. I think I have answered all the questions.
Lord Clement-Jones
I do not think the Minister has really answered the question about the lack of consultation with local authorities and why they are being particularly hit by this new set of charges.
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen
As I said earlier, it is because we feel they have quite a lot of risk. They hold a huge amount of data, so it will be quite a lot of work for the commissioner. It is only fair that they should pay their way. Does that satisfy the noble Lord?
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
It is not so much whether they should be paying—we probably accept that they should, though how much is in question—it is the fact that they were not consulted. The consultation exercise did not reach that far and the Minister was going to try to give some information about why that could have been.
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen
In 2015, the ICO used the BDRC, an independent market research company, to conduct initial research about its funding structure. The contractors of the survey were provided with a sample of 10% of the register of the Information Commissioner’s Office, including all top fee-payers and a random sample of lower ones. In 2017, data controllers who responded to this initial research formed the basis of the targeted consultation on the new charges last year. This comprised a representative sample of data controllers, including public authorities, small businesses and other large organisations.
I thank noble Lords for their contributions on this important matter. I believe that the funding regime proposed today represents the best way of ensuring that the ICO is appropriately resourced for its increased role, while still keeping regulatory costs and burdens low for small businesses. I assure the Committee that, while the exemptions from paying charges have not significantly changed at present, they will be comprehensively reviewed with a view to updating them later this year. I beg to move.
House of Lords
Tributes: Lord Richard
(6 years, 7 months ago)
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The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) (Con)
My Lords, it is my sad duty to lead the tributes to one of my predecessors as Leader of the House, Lord Richard, who died on Sunday.
Lord Richard was a significant figure in the political life of this country, holding a variety of high-profile public roles over several decades. He always argued with a fearsome combination of intellect and passion, directed by strong political convictions. He joined this House in 1990, becoming Leader of the Opposition two years later during a time of great change for the Labour Party before being appointed as Leader of the House after the 1997 general election. As Leader, he played a central role in the early cross-party discussions about the future of this House, which were to culminate in the House of Lords Act 1999. By then he had already had a long and distinguished record of service, both as an MP and at the highest levels of international relations, and after his time as Leader of the House he continued to make important contributions to our work and through our Select Committees.
In 1974, Harold Wilson appointed Lord Richard as the UK Permanent Representative to the UN, where he served for over five years. During this time he played a key role in bringing together the different sides in the Middle East and Rhodesia conflicts. Following the change of Government in 1979, Lord Richard was appointed as one of the UK’s European commissioners, replacing Lord Jenkins of Hillhead. He spent four years in Brussels, where he oversaw employment, social policy, education and training. My noble friend Lady Chalker tells me that Lord Richard’s unfailing willingness to listen and seek the advice of others helped him to resolve a wide variety of challenges and ultimately achieve better outcomes during his time in these international posts.
His service to this House since his period as Leader saw him making a number of invaluable contributions to the European debate as well as on major constitutional issues, including reform of this House. He was appointed as Chairman of Committees on the Constitutional Reform Bill, the Barnett formula and most recently of the Joint Committee on the draft House of Lords Reform Bill. In each of these roles he demonstrated all the negotiating skills gleaned from his international postings in achieving cross-party consensus on serious and difficult issues. As well as chairing committees, he also served until very recently on a number of EU sub-committees.
Together with the death of my noble friend Lord Crickhowell, I am sorry that the House has had to bid farewell to two distinguished Welsh political figures in the same week. Lord Richard was a man who never abandoned his Carmarthenshire roots; he was invited to chair a commission on the future powers of the National Assembly for Wales, which reported in 2004. While its recommendations were not initially accepted by the Government at the time, the important body of work eventually resulted in the devolution of further powers to Cardiff.
At this sad time, all sides of your Lordships’ House will want to send their good wishes to his wife Janet, to whom he was a devoted husband, and to his children. We share in what must be their sense of profound loss. But it is almost impossible not to be struck at the breadth of what he achieved at high level in so many different fields He put his experience and wisdom willingly at the disposal of this House throughout his membership, and he will be greatly missed.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her comments; we are grateful for the tributes she has paid. As well as Lord Crickhowell, she will understand that we are also mourning our colleague Brenda Dean who died very recently.
In 1997 Lord Richard—Ivor—led the Labour Party in the Lords into government for the first time in 18 years. He had taken over the leadership in 1992, just after we had been defeated in an election that we went into with such high hopes. Noble Lords will understand that it was not an easy time: despite the convincing nature of Labour’s victory in 1997 the future had looked far from certain five years earlier.
Ivor was a man of great intellect and experience—a “wise owl” if ever there was one. He had strong political convictions and as someone said to me earlier, he was a true character. His time in Parliament spanned almost 54 years. He was first elected as a Member of Parliament in 1964 for Barons Court in west London and served for 10 years in the other place, returning to Westminster on the red Benches in 1990. Between his times at Westminster he served in not one but two high-profile international postings; first, as Britain’s ambassador to the United Nations and then as a European commissioner. In the former role, Ivor was at the centre of two of the key issues of the day: the Middle East conflict that still troubles us and the growing movement for independence in what is now Zimbabwe. An early advocate of Britain’s membership of the then Common Market, Ivor found himself briefly dislodged from the Labour Front Bench for defying the Whip on the historic vote to join in 1971: some things change.
We will miss Ivor’s wisdom, expertise and statesmanship as the seemingly never-ending Brexit process moves forward over the coming months and years. In 1997, his tenure as a Cabinet Minister and Leader of your Lordships’ House was inevitably dominated by the new Government’s heavy legislative programme, particularly the proposals for reform of this House. Lords reform remained a passion and an issue close to his heart, so he was the obvious choice to chair the Joint Committee considering the draft Bill at the last major attempt to reform your Lordships’ House, under the coalition Government.
A proud Welshman, he also played a key role in the development of the powers of the National Assembly for Wales, paving the way for the 2011 referendum on the Assembly’s lawmaking powers. Ivor served on more committees of this House than we have time to mention here, most recently on the Select Committee that this House set up to consider some of the most contentious aspects of the Trade Union Bill. I well recall the Monday morning when Ivor arrived at my office in your Lordships’ House, having just been appointed the previous week, with a huge pile of papers under his arm, all marked up, all flagged: he had spent the whole weekend examining in detail the issues before that committee. His contribution to Parliament and to the Lords over many years was huge. He was the last former MP to become Leader of your Lordships’ House—so far.
So today we pay tribute to Ivor, our friend and colleague whom we shall miss enormously. Our thoughts are with his family, particularly his wife, Janet. I hope that our thoughts as we remember him today will be of some comfort to them.
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, Ivor Richard, as we have heard, had an exceptionally varied and successful career in both domestic and international politics. As MP for Barons Court, as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, pointed out, he gained the battle honours of being sacked from his Front Bench for supporting the Bill taking the UK into the European Community in 1971. After leaving the Commons, he was a forthright UK Permanent Representative at the UN and then a successful commissioner when he succeeded Roy Jenkins at the Commission in Brussels.
On these Benches, he is especially remembered, particularly by my Welsh colleagues, as architect of the Richard commission report, which was commissioned in the early days of the National Assembly for Wales by the coalition Government, of which the Lib Dems were then part. The report looked at the powers and the size of the Assembly, and, somewhat remarkably, proposed changed the voting system to STV—which particularly commended it to my friends. He was a committed devolutionist and a committed Welshman. He helped push the boundaries of thinking on full powers for the National Assembly, which eventually, many years later, have come to fruition.
But the thing which always impressed me most was his presence and his voice. He had a solidity, an authority and a manner of speaking which commanded attention and made me, at least, want to listen very carefully to everything he said. This, in my experience, is a very rare ability and made him a most effective leader of your Lordships’ House. I will certainly miss that voice.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, on behalf of my colleagues on the Cross Benches, I too wish to be associated with the warm and very well-deserved tributes that have been paid to Lord Richard. As we have heard, he had a distinguished career before he became a Member of this House. Under the name Ivor Richard, he became very well known to the public, first as the UK’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations and then as an EEC commissioner. Perhaps less well known is the fact that he had practised at the Bar for nearly 20 years before accepting these appointments. His clarity of thought, his skill as a communicator and the air of quiet authority which in later years were to become his hallmark when he spoke in the House must surely have owed much to his legal background.
As we have heard, he spent much more time on the Front Bench as Leader of the Opposition than he did when he was appointed Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House after the 1997 general election. It was not until after he had left that office that the House of Lords Act 1999, which was the first measure to reform the House that was passed during the then Labour Government, received its Royal Assent. So he had the difficult task of being Leader when the party in government were very much in the minority in this House because of the presence of the hereditary Peers. I was serving as a Law Lord during that time, so I did not see how he handled that, as I was usually sitting upstairs with the Appellate Committee during Questions and on other occasions when his skills would have been put to the test.
His contribution as Leader was by no means the only contribution he made to the work of the House. I saw him in action when he chaired the committee that has already been mentioned, before which I gave evidence, which was appointed to scrutinise the Bill that became the Constitutional Reform Act 2005. That Act is certainly steeped in my memory because it resulted in the departure of the Law Lords and the creation of the UK Supreme Court. Then he was invited to chair the Joint Committee on the draft House of Lords Reform Bill which sat from 2011 to 2012. The careful and measured way in which he fulfilled these responsibilities and the many others that came his way was an example to us all.
The noble Lord, Lord Newby, referred to Lord Richard’s presence. We on these Benches had the advantage and pleasure—denied to those on the Opposition Benches because of layout of the Chamber—of seeing and watching the noble Lord every day when he was in his place on the Back Benches. He was one of those remarkable men who could communicate his views by the look on his face or maybe the movement of his shoulders almost as well as he could when he spoke. There was much entertainment to be had when he was in that mood. We shall miss him very much, and to his wife and all the members of his family, we on these Benches wish to extend our condolences on their loss.
The Lord Bishop of Winchester
My Lords, on behalf of these Benches, I also pay tribute to Lord Richard and associate myself with the comments already made. Lord Richard’s life was clearly one devoted to public service: MP, ambassador to the United Nations, where he worked hard on both the Middle East and then Rhodesia, and EU Commissioner before coming to this House, where he first became Leader of the Opposition and ultimately Leader of the House. Most of us aspire to making an impression in one area alone: he clearly excelled in many.
Although there is no one now on these Benches who had the privilege of serving under his leadership of this House, the last Bishop of Leicester had the pleasure of serving under his chairmanship of the committee looking at the coalition Government’s plans for Lords reform—an experience made all the better for his impressive command of the brief. Any Member who is given—or, indeed, accepts—the unenviable task of navigating their way through that contentious swamp has to be possessed of a formidable intellect and firm resolve, and command the trust and respect of all sides. These were qualities that Lord Richard held in abundance and which he applied to his service to the public good in so many different ways over the years. He will be much missed.
Lord Tugendhat (Con)
My Lords, as noble Lords have pointed out, Ivor Richard served for four years as a Commissioner in Brussels. He and I were colleagues at that time. I pay tribute first to the broader horizons that he brought to bear when he arrived: he came from being ambassador to the United Nations and this added a dimension to the Commission’s understanding of the world, which was very useful and important at that time.
Of course, he was Labour and I was Conservative and he was in charge of employment and social affairs, and I was in charge of the budget, so that in many aspects we were not natural allies. The way in which he always played his hand in those very difficult negotiations—conducted against the background of the British budget problem of the late 1970s and early 1980s—was a great tribute to his integrity and acumen. He never gave way on matters that were of particular interest to his portfolio or his beliefs, but he was always able to appreciate the wider interest, both in terms of Britain and the European Union and in terms of the Commission formulating a policy. In addition to that, he was a very convivial character, and in a multi-national body such as the Commission, where people come from different political parties and different national backgrounds, his convivial characteristics played a very useful role in cementing the group and helping to make it operate as one, rather than as a whole lot of different individuals. He was a good colleague and a good companion, and I have very happy memories of serving together with him.
Just before I sit down, I hope that the House will understand if I also say how very much I shall miss my very good friend and long-standing colleague, Lord Crickhowell.
Lord Morris of Aberavon (Lab)
My Lords, Ivor was one of my oldest friends. We served together as Ministers in the Ministry of Defence in the 1960s. It seems a long time ago. I looked after equipment and he looked after the Army. After his distinguished diplomatic career, he returned to the Bar and again distinguished himself as a very impressive advocate. We both turned up from time to time and appeared at the Old Bailey—professionally of course. My last recollection of him was his comment a few weeks ago that he went to the same elementary school in Carmarthenshire as Jim Griffiths, formerly deputy leader of my party and the first Welsh Secretary. Ivor was a proud Welshman who rendered very great service, particularly to future constitutional development. He will be missed.
Lord Strathclyde (Con)
My Lords, I should like to join in with a short tribute to Lord Richard. I was the Government Chief Whip from 1994 to 1997 when both he and Lord Graham ran a most effective and expert Opposition, which made our lives extremely difficult. Looking back over 20 years, one might have assumed that the transition from Opposition to Government under the Blairite wave of good will that swept the country would have been an easy task for a new Leader in the House of Lords. Far from it, but if his political skills, which were real indeed, were tested in that period then he never showed it, because he demonstrated with his intelligence, his Welshness and his profound belief in the Labour Party that everything could be achieved—and so it was, with him as Leader. I am glad that he came to this House regularly in the succeeding years and even until quite recently. He and I would occasionally stop and talk about those days. He will be much missed and, like everyone else, I send our condolences to his wife and his family.
Lord Desai (Lab)
My Lords, I shall add my own tribute to Lord Richard. He was the first person who I voted to be Leader of the Labour Party in this House; I had arrived in 1991 and the election was held soon after. I must mention that his devotion to reform of your Lordships’ House, and to trying to make it an elected Chamber, was profound and he worked very hard for it. At the end of the day that did not work out, but we all live in hope. I am sure that on the day when the House becomes an elected Chamber, we shall all remember Lord Richard’s contribution. It was said that he had been sacked from the Front Bench during his career for defying the whip. I have the distinction of having been sacked by him twice, but I still liked him very much.
Abortion: Misoprostol
(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Watkins of Tavistock
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord O’Shaughnessy on 21 January (HL5321), why there are no plans to enable women undergoing early medical abortion to take the second dose of the medication, misoprostol, at home, if they so wish.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord O'Shaughnessy) (Con)
My Lords, the Government’s priority is to ensure that women who require abortion services have access to safe, high-quality care. Abortions must be performed under the legal framework set by the Abortion Act 1967. We are not currently in a position to approve homes as a class of place under the Act. However, we will continue to keep this matter under review and assess further evidence as it arises.
Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)
I thank the Minister for his Answer, but can he inform the House of the expected timeframe for the Government’s decision regarding enabling women to choose the dignity of being as comfortable as possible in their own homes when they experience medical abortion, rather than some of them suffering while travelling home from the clinic? Journeys of over two hours are not uncommon, particularly for women from rural areas. It is also worth noting that the procedure is endorsed as a safe practice by the World Health Organization.
Lord O'Shaughnessy
I thank the noble Baroness for her question. No timeframe has been set for any decision on a policy change. She will understand that any change of policy would need to be done cautiously, in the light of the evidence and of legal developments—for example, relating to Scotland’s decision to name homes as a place. It is on that basis that we will consider any further evidence.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My Lords, if women in Norway, France and now Scotland can take this drug at home, not in a clinical setting, with careful safeguards and support in place—I have looked at what has happened in Scotland, and there is no doubt about that at all—it is important that the Government should afford the same facility to women in England. I would like the Minister to perhaps go further than he has now and say that there will be a timetable for this to happen.
Lord O'Shaughnessy
In terms of the experiences in other countries, of course only the countries of the UK are operating under the auspices and obligations of the 1967 Act, which any Government would have to act under. The Scottish Government have made that decision, but the noble Baroness will know that it is subject to a dispute and that a judicial review has been brought against it by the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, which is obviously testing the legality of the Scottish Government and their powers to act. We shall look closely at developments in these legal proceedings, as well as any other evidence that arises. Unfortunately, this is why I am not in a position to give her a timetable.
Baroness Eaton (Con)
My Lords, a study of 42,600 early abortions in Finland—where there is good registry data, unlike in England and Wales—found that, six weeks post abortion, complications after medical abortions were four times higher than after surgical procedures: 20% compared with 5.6%. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists cites one study in the UK where 53% of late medical abortions required surgical intervention. Given these facts, are Her Majesty’s Government not also concerned that so-called home abortions outside of a medical setting would compromise the health and safety of women, especially young women who may use these powerful chemicals secretly at home?
Lord O'Shaughnessy
This is obviously a concern. There has been an increase in women buying online the drugs necessary for medical abortions, and that is something on which we are attempting to crack down. It is worth pointing out that 90% of abortions are NHS funded and therefore provided for in that way. The noble Baroness was talking about medical abortions at a late stage; it is worth pointing out that, actually, there has been an increase in the number or percentage of abortions that are happening at an early stage, which is obviously in the interests of women’s health.
Baroness Barker (LD)
The noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, mixed up two completely different things. She mixed up early medical abortions and late abortions. Can the Minister confirm that a 2011 court case brought by BPAS established that the Secretary of State has the power to allow early medical abortions to happen at home? If he agrees, and if the evidence from the Scottish trial is convincing and underpinned by the decision of the Scottish courts, will the Secretary of State then undertake to look at the development of a facility for legal abortion which may well be to the benefit of thousands of women in this country, particularly those who live in rural areas?
Lord O'Shaughnessy
I am aware of the opinion in that judicial review. It is worth pointing out that there is still uncertainty about the legal position. This is why we will watch the developments in Scotland carefully and proceed cautiously. It would be wrong of me to prejudge either the opinions that come from the court or indeed any evidence if this scheme does get up and running in Scotland.
Baroness Tonge (Non-Afl)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that, up to nine weeks, it is perfectly safe for a woman to take the pills for a medical abortion? It is much better and more comfortable for her to have the consequences at home. Does he also agree that this would mean each woman would have to make half the number of appointments to get a medical abortion—a huge saving for the health service?
Lord O'Shaughnessy
The importance here is making sure that, under the auspices of the Act, women have access to safe and legal abortion, and that is what they have a right to do. An important point here is that, the earlier these abortions happen, the safer they are. The proportion of abortions under 10 weeks has risen from 68% to 81% in the last 10 years. At the moment, both courses of treatment for early medical abortion should take place in a clinical setting approved by the Secretary of State.
Baroness Masham of Ilton (CB)
My Lords, has any research been undertaken on the psychological feelings of people who have had abortions in their own homes?
Lord O'Shaughnessy
I am not aware of any research, but I shall ask the department to see if there is any. If there is, I shall write to the noble Baroness.
Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)
My Lords, if the information we have just had is correct that more women, especially young women, are buying abortion drugs online, surely that proves the point that we need to improve the abortion services that we have within the NHS and the advice that is given to young women.
Lord O'Shaughnessy
No, I do not think it proves that. The fact that illegal drugs of all kinds are being bought online, whether they are illegal drugs or prescription drugs bought illegally, is a feature of modern life. Rates of abortion in the under-18s are falling, as is the teenage pregnancy and conception rate. Those are separate issues.
Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)
My Lords, is my noble friend aware that, as well as in Scotland, the home use of misoprostol is common practice in the United States, Canada and multiple other European countries?
Lord O'Shaughnessy
Yes, I am aware of that. As I said, those countries operate under a different legal framework from ours.
National Curriculum: Litter
(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Robathan
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they have given to including litter picking in the National Curriculum for Year 6 children, to tidy up the roads and encourage civic responsibility.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)
My Lords, as part of the science curriculum, children are taught about the scientific concepts that relate to the environment. At key stage 2, pupils should explore examples of the human impact on environments, which can include the negative impact of litter. At present, around 75% of schools in England are members of the Eco-Schools programme. We would like to increase participation in this programme overall and are working actively on anti-littering awareness, including participating in litter picks.
Lord Robathan (Con)
My Lords, that is a start and I am grateful to my noble friend. However, the shocking and disgusting proliferation of litter in our towns and countryside frankly shames this nation. While my proposal might meet with opposition and some people would understandably be very concerned about safety—and, indeed, some teachers might not like it very much—if all children spent a couple of hours clearing litter, it might not only have a gradual effect on attitudes but might in the long term have a positive educational impact. So will my noble friend please go back and look very seriously at this proposal or something similar and take radical action so that we no longer need be ashamed of the state of our highways and byways?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, I agree with my noble friend that litter is a scourge. That is why the Government launched the litter strategy last year, which sets out our aim to clean up the country and deliver a substantial reduction in litter within a generation. The litter strategy brings together communities, businesses, charities and, most importantly, schools to bring real change by focusing on three key themes: education and awareness, improving enforcement, and better cleaning and access to bins.
Lord Winston (Lab)
My Lords, given the high rate of illiteracy in many of our primary schools and the low rate of numeracy among 11 year-olds, which affects their subsequent education, does the noble Lord not agree that it would be far better to concentrate on the essentials of a good education and not expose our children to unnecessary danger doing foolish things that are not part of the curriculum?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, litter is a symptom of children’s respect for our society and environment—so a good education will address these two strands, which is what we do on the people side through the citizenship programmes and PSHE, and through the recent Tom Bennett review of behaviour in schools. As the noble Lord knows, on the environmental side we have just released the 25-year environment plan. We have the Eco-Schools project that I mentioned earlier. The Great British Spring Clean is under way and has been extended because of the bad weather. So I think the noble Lord’s judgment is a little harsh, because not having litter is a symptom of a good society.
Lord Marlesford (Con)
My Lords, two weeks from today a penalty of £80 will be imposed on the owner of any vehicle from which litter is thrown. This is a big advance, because previously the offence could never be prosecuted. The Government have now made it subject to a civil penalty rather than classing it as a crime. However, does my noble friend accept that the penalties for fly tipping and the enforcement of those penalties are completely inadequate?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, this comes back to my earlier statement that this is about a sense of public responsibility and duty. I am delighted that the fines for littering from cars have been increased. My noble friend will also be aware that from January this year we banned the use of microbeads in cosmetic substances—so the whole thrust is to improve the protection of our environment. I applaud the most recent action to which he referred.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, the noble Lord is right to raise this issue and of course Keep Britain Tidy does a lot of work in schools. But now that we have light at the end of the tunnel, will the Minister not lobby the Government to provide more money to local authorities so that the highways, verges and streets that he is concerned about can be properly cleansed, with local authorities given the resources to carry that out? I know that this is not quite in the Minister’s brief but, while I am up perhaps I might ask—as some schools include this as part of PSHE—when the consultation on PSHE will be concluded, and will we have an opportunity to discuss the recommendations?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, in relation to the noble Lord’s first question, if we can change attitudes we will not need to spend large sums of taxpayers’ money cleaning up the litter left by careless people. In relation to PSHE, the review closed on 12 February and we had a record number of responses. We will be replying to that as soon as possible. It is also worth noting that an additional requirement that we have of schools is for the social, moral, spiritual and cultural development of children. This is a high-level duty that sits outside PSHE. It is written into legislation and also into the academy funding agreement, and it includes issues such as respect for the environment.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
I am wary of criticising the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, given his service in the SAS, but I suspect that there are many parents and not a few children today who, having heard him, are quite relieved that there are mercifully few chimneys left in this country. I wonder whether the noble Lord is aware that it is extremely rare for the broad and balanced year 6 curriculum not to include civic responsibility, so it is not a problem. There are many great teachers in state schools in this country, not least Andria Zafirakou, who was named as the winner of the Global Teacher Prize just a few days ago. That is a tremendous credit to her work at Alperton Community School in north London. I suspect that most teachers in this country would welcome a robust statement from the Minister that teachers should be allowed to get on and teach. Will he give that assurance?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord that it is very important that teachers are allowed to teach. The core of our reforms over the last seven or eight years has been the granting of autonomy to schools and the freeing up of the key stage 3 curriculum to give space for the teaching of things that are not directly linked to exams. I come back to my general theme: much of education is about producing a spiritual sense and a sense of belonging in society—so I agree that we should not be mandating additional individual activities.
Syria
(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Roberts of Llandudno
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the changing situation in Syria.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, we welcome the progress made in the fight against Daesh, including the liberation of Raqqa. However, the Syrian crisis is far from resolved; violence continues and the humanitarian situation remains dire. Eastern Ghouta, besieged by the regime, is a particularly tragic example. A political settlement remains the only solution to bring sustainable peace to Syria and we support the UN Geneva process. All parties must work constructively towards a political agreement.
Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD)
I thank the Minister. This is not, as Neville Chamberlain said of somewhere else,
“a faraway country of which we know very little”.
In the past week, 237 people have been killed in Syria, 37 of whom were children. Over 10,000 were killed last year and nearly 3,000 of those were children. At the same time, some of the national and international agencies have been forced to withdraw, having given so much help to alleviate this terrible catastrophe. I make special mention of the White Helmets, who have done great work. Is it not time that the Dubs amendment—originally covering 3,000 children, with the number reduced to 480—should be restored to its original total of 3,000? We cannot turn our backs. These are people in the worst humanitarian crisis since the war. I ask the Minister: will he press somehow to restore 3,000 as the aim for accommodating and welcoming these children?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord about the situation in Syria, although I do not agree that it is something that we know little about. Tragically, we know a great deal about it because of the things that we see every day in the media—the unfolding crisis and the continuing suffering of the Syrian people. Over 400,000 people, including many children, have now died. As I am sure the noble Lord will be aware, we have established the vulnerable children’s resettlement scheme, which will settle up to 3,000 at-risk children and their families by 2020. In terms of overall resettlement, by December 2017 a total of 10,538 people had been resettled under the vulnerable persons resettlement scheme since it began in 2014 and a total of 570 people had been resettled through the vulnerable children’s resettlement scheme since it began in 2016.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, the Government’s position was that they would never deal with Assad and that they want to see him removed as part of any deal. Given that that is not going to happen, will the Government change their position as far as Assad is concerned?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The Government’s position is very clear. We do not believe that the Assad regime, or indeed Assad himself, can be involved in the future of Syria, and we have said that it is for the Syrian people to choose a transition arrangement. We are imploring all parties, including the Russians, the Iranians and all those who have influence over the Assad regime, to move forward so that a peaceful transition can be reached. In terms of dealing directly with the Assad regime, our position does not change: we do not believe that there is a future for Syria with the Assad regime in place.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, no one would disagree with the noble Lord’s sentiments about the need for a peace settlement involving all parties. We have recently seen Turkish forces in Afrin and it is possible that they are moving on to other towns where the US has military bases. We could be facing a scenario where two NATO allies are supporting different sides in a conflict and exacerbating the situation. What role are we playing in NATO and the UN in trying at least to bring our allies together, rather than just opponents?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I assure the noble Lord that we are following very closely the developments in Afrin and in the wider northern and western Syrian provinces. We call repeatedly for de-escalation and for the protection of civilians. We are using our good offices through NATO and the UN and through bilateral exchanges directly with the Turkish Administration to call for that very de-escalation.
The Lord Bishop of Winchester
My Lords, will the Minister give an assurance that in the provision of humanitarian aid to those displaced in this conflict the Department for International Development’s understanding of vulnerability includes religious persecution? Will he also give an assurance that the Government will continue to ensure that the UNHCR’s procedures and criteria for determining refugee status recognise religious persecution as a distinct category?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The Government are very cognisant of religious persecution in Syria and Iraq. Indeed, I returned from Iraq only a couple of weeks ago. I visited Mosul and met directly with Christian representatives as well as those of the Yazidi community and heard first hand about the heinous crimes that have been committed against young women and children. I assure the right reverend Prelate that all forms of persecution against all people throughout Syria and Iraq are taken into account, and those issues are fully considered by all agencies, including the UNHCR.
Lord Hylton (CB)
My Lords, will the Government call for the withdrawal of all foreign forces, together with foreign fighters, from Syria? Is this not absolutely necessary to enable the Syrian people to decide their own future?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
Indeed. The commitment of Her Majesty’s Government to the Geneva process includes exactly that call for all foreign forces to be withdrawn. Ultimately, we all wish to see a political settlement in Syria where the people themselves choose their leadership.
Baroness Northover (LD)
What assessment have the Government made for the Geneva peace process—to which the Minister referred—in the light of the sacking of Tillerson and the appointment of Pompeo in the United States, and the re-election of Putin? Does he think that this will makes things easier or more dangerous?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The election of President Putin was a matter for the Russian people, and the selection of Cabinet members in the US Administration is very much a matter for the President of the United States. We believe that it is important for all members of the Security Council—particularly its permanent members—to be committed to the Geneva process, and to other processes. Indeed, the Astana process, which Russia has been overseeing with Turkey and Iran, should also feed in to ensuring the peace settlement we all desire.
Part-time Study
Baroness Bakewell
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will consider further ways of promoting part-time study in the light of the findings set out in the report by the Sutton Trust, The Lost Part-Timers.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, we want everyone with the potential to benefit from higher education to do so. Studying part-time brings considerable benefits for individuals, the economy and employers. The recently announced review of post-18 education and funding will look at how we can encourage learning that is more flexible and complements ongoing government work to support people to study at different times in their lives.
Baroness Bakewell (Lab)
I thank the Minister for that Answer, but I would be pleased to hear more than warm words. I would like action on the serious report by the Sutton Trust, which found a fall of 50% in part-time study in the last five years. This is very serious indeed, particularly for the Government’s intended strategy, which is supposed to improve social mobility and encourage part-time study. Will the Government therefore undertake to include in their coming report on post-18 education consideration of part-time education as a whole, which will help fulfil their industrial strategy?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
The noble Baroness has spoken at length on this subject in the past. We are concerned about the decline in part-time study. I can reassure her that the review of post-18 education and funding will look at how we can address this issue further. Indeed, part of its terms of reference include consideration of:
“How we can encourage learning that is more flexible (for example, part-time, distance learning and commuter study options) and complements ongoing government work to support people to study at different times in their lives”.
Beyond the review, as the noble Baroness will be aware, the Higher Education and Research Act placed a general duty on the OfS to consider the means by which learning is provided and specifically mentions part-time study.
Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)
My Lords, it should be a matter of great concern to see the decline in mature and part-time students at such transformational institutions as Birkbeck and the Open University. Will the Government consider a better-monitored version of the individual learning account, where contributions from learners, employers and government could provide a very effective mix of funding and motivation?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
I am sure that the panel will take note of the points made by the noble Baroness. The review covers all post-18 education and funding and it is important for it to look at this area. In addition to this, since 2012-13 we have provided tuition fee loans for part-time courses, and in 2018-19 we intend to introduce full-time-equivalent part-time maintenance loans, so there is some further action ongoing.
Lord Cormack (Con)
Would my noble friend accept that one of the greatest achievements of any post-war Government was the creation of the Open University? What are the Government doing to encourage mature adults to take up courses at the Open University?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
The Open University is a good example. The noble Lord may know that there is a restructuring exercise going on there, and the Open University is looking to change the way it operates to take account of changing conditions and the reduction in part-time study. That is something that we will be looking at.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister is being remarkably complacent. He and his colleagues have presided over a devastating reduction in the number of part-time students. That is madness when it comes to the priority to upskill people who have missed out on higher education in the past. The Sutton Trust report makes abundantly clear that the reason for the huge reduction is that the Government got rid of maintenance grants and put the fees up by a huge amount. Incidentally, in his Statement to this House in February, the noble Viscount did not mention part-time students. So instead of a review, why do the Government not reverse that decision and restore maintenance grants?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
My Lords, the important thing is to look at the reasons for the decline, and they are indeed complex. Over the past five years, there have been wider changes to the economy and there was the removal in 2008-09 of the HEFCE teaching grant for equivalent and lower-level qualifications, so there are complex issues here that need to be addressed. I also point out to the noble Lord that the numbers have fallen not only in England. The noble Baroness is right that the number has fallen significantly—actually, I have a figure of 63%—so we understand the seriousness of this, but the number has also fallen in Scotland by 22% and in Wales by 46%.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
My Lords, is it not important to recognise the particular problems of part-time students, which are not faced in the same way by full-time undergraduates starting their studies at 18? In particular, there are often challenges with families, occupations, dependants, the difficulty of going back to full-time education after a long period outside and all the pressure that that has on people. In a sense, we should focus far more on the challenges that part-time students face than the rather more predictable course of full-time students.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
The noble Lord is absolutely right. That falls in line with what our statistics show us, which is that part-time study typically caters for more mature students: in 2016-17, 53% of undergraduate entrants were aged 30 or older. But to look broader to the noble Lord’s question, we are looking at those people who might not have made the right career choice and in their 20s or 30s might be looking to make a change in their career. Part-time study could suit that. Returning mothers is another important group that we will be looking to encourage to get back into employment, and there are also post-retirement courses. All these areas are important and complex, and we need to look at them as part of the review.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, have the Government considered the link between immigration, particularly from the rest of the European Union, and the shortage of medium skills at all levels? I see FE colleges being cut back as well as part-time education. I am very conscious that, across Yorkshire, companies find it easier to recruit directly from Slovakia or Poland than train their own people. The new apprenticeships scheme, as the Minister will know, has led to an immediate drop in new apprentices being taken on last year, so this will not help. Investing in training, part-time and full-time, for the 50% of our people who do not go to university is not only key to our economy but key to reducing the pull factor in immigration, which comes from companies recruiting directly from abroad.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
We should look at life from a more positive angle. The noble Lord mentioned the apprenticeship levy, which is just one of several apprenticeship or levy schemes that are ongoing, particularly if we look at the construction sector, which is very important indeed. The objective is to home grow our own skills.
Civil Liability Bill [HL]
Tuesday 20th March 2018
(6 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Civil Liability Act 2018 View all Civil Liability Act 2018 Debates Read Hansard Text
National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Regulations 2018
(6 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Henley
That the draft Regulations and Order laid before the House on 5 February, 23 January and 18 January be approved.
Relevant document: 19th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Considered in Grand Committee on 15 March.
Brexit: Fisheries Management
(6 years, 7 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Gardiner of Kimble) (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House I shall repeat as a Statement an Answer given to an Urgent Question in the other place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment. The Statement is as follows:
“Can I begin by paying tribute to the hard work of the Ministers and especially the civil servants of our country’s negotiating team, who this weekend concluded an agreement on the nature and length of the implementation period which will help us to prepare for life after Brexit? Taskforce 50, on behalf of the EU and our own team of dedicated civil servants, secured an agreed text which will now go to the March Council of the European Union, and after that Council at the end of this week, the Prime Minister will update the House on Monday.
The House will be aware that there are important legal and technical questions relating to fisheries management which mean that it occupies a special position in these negotiations. Both the EU and our own negotiators were always clear that specific arrangements would have to be agreed for fisheries. Our proposal to the EU was that, during the implementation period, we would sit alongside other coastal states as a third country and equal partner in annual quota negotiations and, in making that case, we did so after full consultation with representatives of the fisheries industry. We pressed hard during negotiations to secure this outcome and we are disappointed that the EU was not willing to move on this. However, thanks to the hard work of our negotiating team the text was amended from the original proposal and the Commission has agreed to amendments to the text which provide additional reassurance. The revised text clarifies that the UK’s share of quotas will not change during the implementation period and that the UK can attend international negotiations. Furthermore, the agreement includes an obligation on both sides to act in good faith throughout the implementation period. Any attempts by the EU to operate in a way which would harm the fishing industry would breach that obligation and, of course, these arrangements will only apply to negotiations in December 2019. We are at the table as a full member state for negotiations in December 2018 and, critically, in December 2020 we will be negotiating fishing opportunities as a third country and independent coastal state, deciding who can access our waters and on what terms for the first time in over 40 years.
It is important that we use this transition period to ensure that we can negotiate in 2020, as a third country and independent coastal state, to maximise the benefits for our coastal communities; that we can control who accesses our waters and on what terms; and that we manage our marine resources sustainably. And we are already looking at a range of data to support consideration of future fishing opportunities, including the nature of catches and zonal attachment of stocks in the UK exclusive economic zone. There is a significant prize at the end of the implementation period, and it is important that all of us in every area accept that the implementation period is a necessary step towards securing that prize. For our coastal communities, it is an opportunity to revive economically. For our marine environment, it is an opportunity to be managed sustainably, and it is critical that all of us, in the interests of the whole nation, keep our eyes on that prize”.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer, but he will know that the Secretary of State made great play of how he would fast-track our rights to fish in our own coastal waters on EU exit day and outside of EU constraints. The fact is that he has now been overruled by others in the Cabinet, which has accepted this deal. That is why we have real concerns that, despite the Secretary of State’s promises, he will be overruled again and again—for example, when the Cabinet is confronted with the choice of new trade deals, or retaining future animal and food quality standards.
The Secretary of State has made a number of promises that are now open to question. Can the Minister clarify who exactly in the exit talks is leading the negotiations on fishing? Can we be assured that those negotiators will now be more honest with fishing communities about their negotiating position in the future? What guarantees can the Minister give that at the end of the transition period, our fishing rights will not be traded away for some other economic priority? What steps will the Government take to provide immediate support for those coastal communities who are bitterly disappointed by this decision and who, as we know, are already suffering acutely from economic hardship?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, along with my colleagues in the department we share the disappointment that the noble Baroness has suggested, but of course the UK share of quotas will not change during the implementation period and we will be attending the international negotiations. This is an extension, and the implementation period is due to conclude in December 2020, so that during that time we will be in a position to advance the things we think are absolutely right and to ensure that we fish in a sustainable manner. This country has been in the lead on that and we want to ensure, through our negotiations not only with EU members but with other independent coastal states, that the fisheries in this part of the planet are sustainably fished. That is a very important prize for us because the seafaring communities of this country are vital to us and, as I say, the changes that our negotiators have been able to secure are valuable because there is certainty. However, now we shall work on the access that we will have as an independent coastal nation, which I think is a very strong prospect for the future.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
I thank the Minister for repeating the Answer. This issue has caused a great deal of unrest and anger among Scottish fishermen. It had been anticipated that the UK would withdraw from the common fisheries policy on the day after leaving the EU. Indeed, the Government promised that they would take back control of the UK’s fishing waters after Brexit. While Michel Barnier and David Davis may agree that the transition period is a decisive step, I fear that that view is not shared by the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation. Bertie Armstrong of the SFF has expressed the view that the Scottish industry does not trust the EU to look after its interests. Is the Minister surprised by his reaction? Why have the Government sold the fishing industry short by agreeing to this transition period? Can the Minister confirm that there has been consultation with the industry and that it was satisfied with the outcome? Are the Government prepared to let our fleet continue to be governed by rules in which our Government have had no say, and what is the Secretary of State doing to achieve a sustainable supply of fish and to avoid depleting numbers?
Trust takes a long time to build but it can be destroyed in a moment. How are the Government going to restore confidence that they do indeed have the best interests of our fishermen at heart?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, it is in the national interest that we have a vibrant fishing industry and we support fishermen in all parts of the United Kingdom. I heard Bertie Armstrong on the radio this morning and the accusation about the implementation period and the year. Interestingly, he also said that it was ironic that, regarding those parties which do not wish to leave the common fisheries policy because they do not wish to leave the EU, we would never be in a position to have the negotiation we will have when we leave the CFP. We will have access to our own waters and we will be able to decide that access for ourselves based on the science. It is important to ensure that we fish our waters sustainably and that we base our judgments on the best scientific advice available.
Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)
My Lords, will my noble friend confirm that what is clear—according to my understanding on both sides—is that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed? Once you get to that position and you have a transitional arrangement, it is inevitable that there will not be any changes in the meantime. But the most important part of my noble friend’s Statement is the confirmation from the EU that there will be absolutely no attempt to change the present arrangements and that the Government will stick to their determination to improve the situation once everything is agreed.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, my noble friend is right about the arrangements for the deal, but clearly the negotiations will take time. As my noble friend has said, it is important that the UK share of the quotas will not change and that we are continuing on that basis. It is clear that there are enormous opportunities for UK fishing fleets across all parts of the kingdom, and that is a positive position. That is what we will be turning our energies towards achieving.
Lord Cunningham of Felling (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister is correct to be cautious about this very complicated matter. Most people know that 75% of all fish caught in United Kingdom waters is exported and that, conversely, most of the fish consumed in our fish shops, our restaurants and at home is imported. There is an important deal to be done here. The vacuous promise of taking back control has been exposed, as my noble friend pointed out. We need access to other people’s waters just as they need access to ours—otherwise fishing will grind to a halt in many of our communities. The idea that British vessels will fish only in British waters and everyone else will be excluded is for the birds—or perhaps I should say for the fish.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, this is a complicated matter. It obviously involves considerable negotiation and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State and the Fisheries Minister will be or have been visiting the Faroe Islands, Norway and other countries—because, as the noble Lord said, we all fish in each other’s waters. The principle of this is that we must fish in a sustainable manner. That is what we all need to achieve and that is what the British Government will be seeking to achieve.
Lord Framlingham (Con)
My Lords, will the Minister confirm the point made by my noble friend Lord King, given the disappointing news that is coming out of the fishing negotiations? In the Brexit negotiations nothing is agreed until everything is agreed—and if, at the end of the day, the total package presented to us is unsatisfactory we will not accept it.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, clearly Her Majesty’s Government are seeking a deal and an arrangement. As is plainly obvious, at the end of the day this will involve a huge amount of work and we will all need to see how that goes. Our intentions are in good faith. We want there to be a deal. We think that it is in the interest of this country and, indeed, of the EU 27 that we come to a reasonable, responsible deal.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness (LD)
My Lords, the Minister has on three occasions, I think, emphasised the fact that the quotas will remain the same during the transition period. From my recollections of times past, during the December negotiations one of the most important arguments and discussions was on the size of the total allowable catches to which the quotas apply. What will be the role of British Ministers and officials in the 2019 discussions on total allowable catches?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, I was very clear about the UK’s “share” of the quota. Obviously that goes back to the issue of sustainability. As the noble and learned Lord will know, at the Council there is a discussion about catch sizes on the basis of proper consideration of the analysis of the fish stocks. This is why I precisely said “the share” in the 2019 Council—I said it specifically for that reason.
Lord Tebbit (Con)
My Lords, is there anything that would disbar Her Majesty’s Government from giving financial assistance to fishermen and their fleets during the transition period if our friends in the EU are grossly unfair in the negotiations?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, as I have said, there is already agreement in terms of the implementation period. Both sides have agreed that they will act in good faith during the implementation period and, clearly, if there was a breach—I repeat, if there was a breach—of good faith, that would be a serious mistake. But in the end this is part of an honest adventure to try to get the best deal we can for the country.
Nuclear Safeguards Bill
Tuesday 20th March 2018
(6 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Nuclear Safeguards Act 2018 View all Nuclear Safeguards Act 2018 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 81-R-I(a) Amendment for Report, supplementary to the marshalled list (PDF, 54KB) - (19 Mar 2018)
16:47 - Division on Amendment 3 - Ayes: 265 / Noes: 194 - Amendment 3 agreed.
17:54 - Division on Amendment 7 - Ayes: 244 / Noes: 194 - Amendment 7 agreed.
Lord Henley
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Henley)
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 2 and 12.The amendments place the definition of “civil activities” in the Bill. The House will be aware that the term “civil activities” forms a key part of the main regulation-making power set out in new Section 76A(1)(a). Regulations can be made for the purpose of ensuring that qualifying nuclear materials, facilities or equipment are available only for use for civil activities, so the meaning of “civil activities” is one of the elements that determine the scope of the safeguards regime that can be made through those regulations.
I am grateful to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee for its recommendation on this matter: that a definition of “civil activities” should be, so far as is possible, placed in the Bill, supplemented by a power where necessary to develop its meaning in regulations. Having considered the committee’s recommendation on this matter, I am pleased to have been able to table this government amendment, which places the definition of “civil activities” in the Bill. This definition takes into account the continuing work on the draft regulations which will underpin the Bill, on which we are intending to consult by June.
It is important to emphasise again the fundamentals of what safeguards actually are and what we are hoping to achieve with our new domestic regime. Safeguards are nuclear non-proliferation reporting and verification processes by which states demonstrate to the international community that civil nuclear material is not diverted into military or weapons programmes. Nuclear safeguards measures include: reporting on civil nuclear material holdings and development plans; inspections of nuclear facilities by international inspectors; and monitoring, including by cameras in selected facilities.
As the House will now be well aware, nuclear safeguards are distinct from nuclear safety, which regards the prevention of nuclear accidents, and nuclear security, which is physical protection measures. Nuclear safety and nuclear security are the subject of separate regulatory regimes operated by the ONR.
The new domestic civil nuclear safeguards regime which we are developing is designed to ensure that we can robustly demonstrate to the international community that civil nuclear material is not being diverted into military or weapons programmes. I hope that the House will therefore agree that the proposed definition of “civil activities”, which has the concept of “peaceful purposes” at its core, suitably recognises this international commitment while including helpful detail on the types of activities covered by safeguards.
Although the committee accepted that it might still be necessary to supplement this definition with a power to embellish its meaning in regulations, I have not found that to be necessary. The amendment removes the existing power to specify in regulations activities that are or are not to be treated as “civil activities” and replaces it with a definition on the face of the Bill without creating another power. It therefore reduces the number of powers created by the Bill.
I hope that the House will agree that the amendments satisfactorily address the recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. I commend them to the House and beg to move.
Lord Hutton of Furness (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome the tabling by the Minister of this amendment. It is always a good idea to see on the face of legislation the definition of terms used in it. It is helpful.
I quite understand why the Minister would want to confine the definition of “civil activities” to things carried on for peaceful purposes; for example, in relation to the production, processing and storage of nuclear material—it is within the safeguarding arrangements and makes sense; the same is true for the purposes of research and development. What I do not understand is why he has felt it necessary to use the words,
“carried on for peaceful purposes”,
in the context of generation of electricity, because I am not aware that the generation of electricity is ever for anything other than peaceful purposes.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, I will enjoy the Minister’s response to my noble friend’s question. I welcome the amendments brought by the Minister; they follow our discussion in Committee and the recommendation of the Delegated Powers Committee. However, on his eloquent defence of our having this Bill before us, the Bill would be quite unnecessary if the Government were to reverse their decision to leave Euratom, which remains for many of us unfathomable and unjustified.
Lord Henley
On the last point of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, it is not necessary to rehearse all the arguments that we have been through on this matter because the decision has been made to leave Euratom. As he knows, that was dealt with in the transition Bill, which received a large majority in another place and is now an Act. It is a done deal. That is where we are and we have legislated on that issue.
On the more detailed technical point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hutton, about electricity generation carried out for non-peaceful purposes, I have not got a clue and will take advice on the matter. I am assured by those drafting the Bill that this was the appropriate and proper way to deal with this matter. We wanted to ensure that we did not need to keep a residual power so that we could come back to this and make further amendments. That would have upset the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who would have accused me of retaining a Henry VIII power to seek further amendments to the primary legislation. By tabling this amendment and drafting it in that way, I have been able to make sure that there is not even that residual power. That is the proper way to go forward.
Having said that, I will write to the noble Lord, Lord Hutton, to give him an idea about electricity generation that is carried on for non-peaceful purposes, if such an answer can be found. I will make that information available to other noble Lords as they so wish.
Lord Henley
““civil activities” means—(a) production, processing or storage activities which are carried on for peaceful purposes;(b) electricity generation carried on for peaceful purposes;(c) decommissioning;(d) research and development carried on for peaceful purposes;(e) any other activity carried on for peaceful purposes;”
Lord Broers
“Agreements required before withdrawal
(1) In the event that any of the agreements listed in subsection (3) are not in place on 1 March 2019, a Minister of the Crown must, as part of the negotiations regarding the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Atomic Energy Community Treaty, request to suspend the United Kingdom’s withdrawal until either—(a) the agreements listed in subsection (3) are in place, or(b) other arrangements have been made to enable the United Kingdom to continue to benefit from existing nuclear safeguards arrangements until the agreements listed in subsection (3) are in place.(2) For the avoidance of doubt, a request for suspension under subsection (1) applies only to withdrawal from the European Atomic Energy Community Treaty and to no other part of the United Kingdom’s negotiations for withdrawal from the European Union.(3) The relevant agreements are—(a) an agreement between the United Kingdom and the International Atomic Energy Agency recognising the Office of Nuclear Regulation as the approved United Kingdom safeguarding authority in place of the European Atomic Energy Community;(b) a Voluntary Offer Agreement between the United Kingdom and the International Atomic Energy Agency resulting from the United Kingdom no longer being a member of the European Atomic Energy Community; and(c) relevant international agreements with those nations with which the United Kingdom has exercised rights in the last three years as a party to agreements made by the European Atomic Energy Community.”
Lord Broers (CB)
My Lords, Amendment 3 seeks to ensure that the necessary agreements to secure the safeguards for our nuclear power are in place before 1 March 2019. It does not require us to withdraw but to suspend the UK’s withdrawal from the European Atomic Energy Community treaty until the agreements are in place.
The legal relationship between Euratom and the EU is not as clear to me as it is to the Minister. I have sought the opinion of learned friends who have told me there is no binding legal agreement that obliges us to withdraw from Euratom when we withdraw from the EU. However, the Government’s position is based upon what is stated in paragraph 18(1) in the Explanatory Notes relating to the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act, which states:
“The power that is provided by clause 1(1) applies to withdrawal from the EU. This includes the European Atomic Energy Community (‘Euratom’), as the European Union (Amendment) Act 2008 sets out that the term ‘EU’ includes (as the context permits or requires) Euratom (section 3(2))”.
The situation is not straightforward. I am reminded of the words of Sir Thomas More in “A Man for All Seasons”—“I trust I make myself obscure”—which seems to be the situation.
As I have already stated, we are not asking for withdrawal but suspension of our withdrawal from the European Atomic Energy Community treaty until we have the relevant agreements described in subsections (3) (a), (b) and (c) of the proposed new clause in place to give the confidence that these agreements are complete and appropriate and will maintain the highest standards in safeguarding our nuclear power. This is essential if we are to maintain the nuclear baseload needed to underpin our intermittent renewables. As I said last night, if this fails we will almost certainly not be able to meet our reduction in emissions obligation.
Of all the world’s complex technologies, nuclear power is surely one where we must maintain collaboration with our partners, especially those in Europe, with whom we have been working so closely. To ensure that our energy strategy is secure, we must have the assurances contained in the amendment. I beg to move.
The Earl of Selborne (Con)
My Lords, in the draft transition agreement published yesterday the entry on Euratom is in green, which appears to demonstrate that there is some progress being made, apart from any legal complication which might emerge from the woodwork. The Government have committed themselves to a close association with the Euratom research and training programme. The Secretary of State has also committed to report back to Parliament every three months about overall progress on Euratom, with a first update expected before Easter. All so far so good, but this does not change the position that a default clause, such as this amendment suggests, might be sensible.
The only reason I have heard why this amendment will not or cannot be accepted is that, by our own folly, we have already given notice that we are leaving Euratom, come what may. My noble friend on the Front Bench described it as a done deal—which of course it is in terms of the Act we have already passed—but that is not the best of reasons for rejecting this amendment. After all, one Bill can amend a previous Act and if we find that the default position is needed in order to make sure that we do not fall between poles between one Bill and another, I should have thought that a fallback position such as that suggested by this rather sensible amendment would at least be worthy of serious consideration.
I recognise that the assurances given by the Government, and indeed by our Minister here, are helpful so far as they go—I have enumerated them just now—and that the disastrous decision to leave Euratom may ultimately be irreversible, but I will be listening to the Minister’s response to this debate with great care.
Lord Warner (CB)
My Lords, I strongly support this amendment. I want to focus on the one issue that will cause me to vote for this amendment if my noble friend puts it to a vote. That is the way that the Government have been playing Russian roulette with our energy security by the ill-considered and ideological rush to leave Euratom without being sure that an equivalent regime is properly in place. The jeopardy this places the UK in is well set out in the latest briefing from the Nuclear Industry Association. The Government are doing a very unusual and risky thing in ignoring the advice of the nuclear industry’s experts simply because of their obsession with the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, which, let me remind the House, has never intervened in a Euratom matter during the duration of Euratom’s life.
There is little evidence that it is possible to secure UK accreditation from the IAEA and negotiate a raft of new nuclear co-operation agreements with other countries before exit day. As the NIA briefing makes clear:
“Without access to Euratom’s NCAs and common market, the nuclear new build programme, nuclear could be seriously affected”.
Clearly, a responsible Government would stay in Euratom and not risk the disruption and uncertainty to a critical industry that departure brings, but not this Government. They claim that they will secure an equivalent alternative set of arrangements to membership of Euratom by exit day. Their backstop for failure seems to be that by the end of the transition or implementation period they are trying to negotiate with the EU. Despite yesterday’s upbeat gloss put on the negotiations of a transitional period, no such arrangements have yet been agreed by the Council of Ministers; they may well not be before the Bill leaves this House. Even if they are agreed before Royal Assent they will not provide for a transition period beyond the end of 2020. That may still not be long enough to secure all the new NCAs the UK needs, especially with the United States.
As the NIA briefing makes clear, without these agreements the trade in goods and services to maintain our existing nuclear reactors—these generate 21% of the UK’s electricity—is put in jeopardy, as is the building of new reactors. Sizewell B is particularly vulnerable because it relies on an NCA with the United States, and a new NCA is effectively a treaty, which requires congressional approval.
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, I am very happy to have added my name to this amendment. I am chair of the House’s EU Energy and Environment Sub-Committee, which looked at the subject of Brexit and energy security. Regretfully to some, we did not come out with any great headlines that said that the country was going to grind to a halt on the energy side, although we did say there was probably going to be an increase in prices because of increased electricity trading inefficiency. However, we made one exception, which we thought at that time was probably unlikely, but the evidence since might push this the other way. If the UK did not manage to replicate the agreements that Euratom has with the rest of the world and the IAEA, then there was a real risk of our current fleet of nuclear power stations coming to a halt, Hinkley C not being built and various other problems in terms of our deep work in nuclear research.
That is why this amendment absolutely puts its finger on the issue. It goes through the three things that have to be agreed for the United Kingdom to be able not just to fulfil its own obligations internationally but to be able to trade in nuclear material, people and spare parts even, post Brexit. What are they? We clearly need our own Office for Nuclear Regulation to be approved as a safeguarding authority by the IAEA, which is clearly essential; we need a voluntary offer agreement with the IAEA; and we need to replicate a number of our nuclear co-operation agreements with the rest of the world. I have certainly not heard, anywhere, even any attempt to try to give confidence that we will be able to roll over any of these NCAs following Brexit. But there are a large number of hurdles to achieving these aims, and this is going to take time.
In terms of the approval by the International Atomic Energy Agency of a safeguarding regime, they include recruitment, which the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has talked about many times and was covered in the evidence that came to the House of Commons Select Committee. There is the training of those personnel. There is the retention of those personnel, which has been highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, on previous occasions, as once they are qualified, there is a very strong international demand for them. There is also the issue, which I raised in Committee, of IT systems, and I thank the Minister the noble Lord, Lord Henley, for his reply to my Written Question, which very carefully went through the new systems that are required for us to be able to function as a safeguarding authority. Those systems are quite substantial, and we will come on to that—on my Amendment 9A—later today.
Of course, we also need to negotiate an agreement with the IAEA itself. When it comes to nuclear co-operation agreements, these are absolutely essential to us for our nuclear fissile material for power stations, for repairing, for spare parts and for nuclear intellectual property. It is very difficult to replicate those agreements so, as the noble Lord, Lord Warner, absolutely showed far better than I could, two of our key nuclear co-operation agreements—one with the United States, a legal requirement, and one with Australia, as the Minister highlighted in Committee—would expect us to be full members of the IAEA and to be able to have nuclear co-operation agreements in order to trade those materials. Even just in those two countries, we have major hurdles.
Turning to the voluntary offer agreements, these agreements are only necessary—or only made—by the five nuclear weapon states, or those that have declared as such; India, Pakistan and Israel have separate arrangements. I cannot imagine, however, that as a country that is one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and that stands for the upholding of international law and for the importance of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, we would allow ourselves to go ahead without having concluded such an agreement with the IAEA.
That is why this amendment is so important. If we cannot fulfil these three criteria, then we should not go ahead: we should postpone leaving Euratom. Why is the date of 1 March 2019 there? Clearly, it is four weeks before we are set to leave the European Union. Like others, I have looked at the agreement that was made yesterday, and there is a separate article and chapter on Euratom. Paragraph 2 of Article 76 of that agreement—which is in green, meaning that it has been agreed by the European Union and ourselves in detail—says very starkly:
“The United Kingdom shall have sole responsibility for ensuring its compliance with international obligations arising as a consequence of its membership of the International Atomic Energy Agency and of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons”.
When you look to the transition chapter, there is no mention of Euratom, or of paragraph 2 of Article 76 being postponed in any way. This ties up with the Government’s own view. We will be leaving Euratom on 29 March next year unless we make other arrangements, and the EU 27 and the UK are agreed on that position. That is why this is a matter not just of energy security but of national security.
Lord Hutton of Furness
I want to say a few words in support of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Broers. I draw the House’s attention to my interest in the register: I am currently the chair of the Nuclear Industry Association.
None of us in this House or outside who has been following this debate really has any doubt at all that the Government are seized of the significance of the challenge that we face. Having made the decision, which many of us regret, to leave the Euratom treaty, the Government have to do two things against a very tight deadline. The first is to replace the existing Euratom safeguarding regime, which, as other noble Lords have said, is a very important part—in fact, the central part—of one of our obligations as a nuclear weapons state: to ensure against the risk of nuclear proliferation. That is a big challenge. We have not exercised that function, which is currently done for us by Euratom, and building up the capability under the auspices of the ONR is a difficult challenge. The ONR itself has said, in evidence in another place, that it probably will not be ready to fully discharge those responsibilities by next March. So the Government—rightly, in my view—have come to the view that they need a little more time, once we have left the EU, to ensure that the ONR can step up and do that job, but it will be touch and go.
The other thing that the Government need to do, although, with respect to the Minister, they have come to this a little late, is to put in place all the machinery necessary for the continuance of the nuclear co-operation agreements that exist between ourselves and Japan, the US, Canada and Australia, our principal nuclear friends and allies, for the continuing exchange of information, goods and services in the nuclear sector. Of course, unless we are able to move seamlessly from the current NCAs to the new arrangements, the trade in goods and services will come to an end at the end of the implementation period at the end of 2020—assuming that the implementation period is agreed—unless in that period we have successfully put in place alternative nuclear co-operation agreements.
The fundamental reason why your Lordships’ House should pay close attention to the amendment is that it is good to have a default or a back-up. Suppose we do not get to the point at the end of the implementation period where these nuclear co-operation agreements have all been agreed, renegotiated and put into legal effect. The noble Lord, Lord Warner, drew our attention to some of the issues of complexity around renewing the NCAs. The process is not in our gift; we do not have control of the process whereby these replacement nuclear co-operation agreements will take legal effect, because in many of those countries they are international treaties—and will require the consent of, in the case of the US, the US Congress.
Any student of US politics knows one thing: that international treaties progress very slowly in Congress. Something that we have come to see in the US repeatedly, under both Democrat and Republican Presidents, is the extraordinary process that we in the UK do not understand at all where the US Government shut down because of, for example, a failure in Congress to agree budgets. We have no say in or control of that. Suppose there is a prolonged shutdown in the government machinery of the US at the very time when we want the US Congress to renew the nuclear co-operation agreement. What do we do then?
Fundamentally, the amendment poses that question: what do we do, all of us, if, with the very best of intentions and the absolute commitment of the Government, which I do not doubt, to renew these nuclear co-operation agreements, the implementation period comes to an end and we have not succeeded in putting into place the nuclear co-operation agreements? It seems pretty obvious that, despite all the difficulties of trying to construct a default or backstop, we have to give attention to the risk that we come to the end of that period and we have not renegotiated successfully—through no fault of our own but simply because we do not control all the processes that are involved in moving pieces of the jigsaw—and we do not find ourselves in the situation, where we all want to be, where these NCAs can be seamlessly renewed.
If we get to that point where the NCAs are not in place with our key nuclear trading allies, we have a major problem. In my view, it would become impossible for the vital exchange of goods and services in the nuclear sector to continue beyond that point legally and lawfully, and if it cannot be done legally and lawfully then it will not be done at all. The noble Lords, Lord Warner and Lord Teverson, have referred to the problem which that might create for the energy security of the UK. I am sure I cannot be the only person in this House to say, “I don’t think any of us should take a gamble or a risk with the energy security of our country”. Given the important role of the nuclear industry, that is precisely what we will be doing if we do not find the wherewithal in this Chamber today to find a way of constructing a backstop for the “What if?” moment if at the end of the day these nuclear co-operation agreements cannot be brought into effect at the time when we want them to be. That seems to be the issue that the amendment has raised, and it is not going to go away. We have to have an answer somehow to that fundamental question, and I look forward to what the Minister has to say.
Viscount Trenchard (Con)
My Lords, I very much respect the expert opinion of the noble Lords who have tabled this amendment. I share their concern about whether the ONR is going to be sufficiently staffed in time, with enough appropriately qualified experts who can quickly take up all the safeguarding duties. It is also essential that the ONR should have the necessary budgets and organisation and enough duly authorised persons in order to carry out its duties. I should like to hear from the Minister that he is satisfied that this will be the case.
I should also like to ask the Minister exactly what our status is going to be during the interim or implementation period, assuming that we have managed, before March 2019, to put in place an IAEA-approved safeguards regime. This is unlikely because I think we will need most of the implementation period till the end of 2020 to establish and enter into the new NCAs, at least with our principal nuclear trading partners. Many of them have to go through their own legislatures and we have no means of guaranteeing how smoothly this will be done. I think we can be confident that it is equally in their interests to make sure that they continue the appropriate arrangements with the United Kingdom as a major player in the nuclear sector.
I feel that the noble Lord, Lord Broers, and the other noble Lords who have tabled this amendment, fail to recognise that there is an upside from our leaving Euratom. It has been suggested that it is a mistake, and that we could have remained within Euratom but left the EU. Even if this were so—and I do not know whether I believe it or not—I think there are good reasons why we would do better to have our own safeguards regime approved by the IAEA and to escape from the rather cumbersome and onerous Euratom process.
Other noble Lords were present at the briefing given by Mr Colin Parker of EDF. I have also been told by Dr Pat Upson, former director of BNFL and Urenco and former chief executive of ETC—the joint venture between Urenco and EDF—that there could certainly be advantages to the UK in having an independent safeguards regime and not seeking to replicate Euratom safeguards which concentrate too much on complicated verification processes and are less robust than IAEA requirements on process, procedures and controls.
There are those who believe that our security in this very sensitive sector will also be enhanced if we are not obliged to share all the details of our research and development programme with the 27 members of Euratom. There is, therefore, a considerable upside. Euratom is also too expensive. To replicate Euratom’s safeguards regime does not provide extra safety or security over what is required by the IAEA. I therefore have some reservations about proposed new subsection (3)(c) of the noble Lord’s amendment regarding the necessity to continue to share research and development entirely with the Euratom community.
Viscount Hanworth (Lab)
My Lords, I am inclined to clap a hand on my head and express my utter amazement at the absurdity of this aspect of the Brexit agenda.
We are at present attempting to mitigate the deleterious consequences of a wholly unnecessary programme of the Government for leaving the Euratom consortium. The present amendment, which is supported by all other parties, foreshadows an inevitable outcome. The programme to leave Euratom will not be fulfilled by March 2019, when we shall formally leave the European Union, and the Government will have to bid for extra time. A similar amendment ought to have been brought forward by the Government. Their need to demonstrate their faith in Brexit may have prevented their doing so. Indeed, they have fostered some dangerous delusions. At the outset, the Government evinced an unreasonable optimism in the ability of the ONR to have the necessary security arrangements in place by March 2019. They have since become convinced that they will be able to negotiate a meaningful transition period thereafter from which our nuclear industry could profit. I believe that, notwithstanding recent events, it is far from certain that a workable agreement on a transition period will be reached. Certainly, a secure agreement has not yet been reached.
The Government also have an unjustified optimism regarding the likelihood that the necessary nuclear co-operation agreements, or NCAs, will be in place in time to avert a crisis in the supply of nuclear fuels and engineering materials. Without these NCAs in place, the generation of our electricity by nuclear power and the construction of the new nuclear power stations are likely to grind to a halt. Let me elaborate on these three points in the order that I have raised them, albeit that, in doing so I am conscious that I will repeat some familiar arguments. It is necessary to do so in the face of the obtuseness of the Government.
First is the question regarding the readiness of the ONR to assume the burden of nuclear safeguarding by March next year. Doubtless the Minister will attest that the ONR has declared that it is willing and able to undertake the task, and that it is working hard to meet the deadline. One is bound to retort, “It would say that, wouldn’t it?” But it has also said much else besides, which makes it abundantly clear that the best that it could achieve by that date is a threadbare organisation that would be severely understaffed. These honest admissions on the part of the ONR of its incapacity do not seem to have registered fully with the Government. However, they may have registered with other agencies that participate in the international nuclear regime. I am thinking of the foreign organisations that will require that we should have a proficient nuclear safeguarding regime in place if they are to continue to be our suppliers.
Next, there is the Government’s optimism regarding the likelihood of our being granted a lengthy transition period to ease the demands of Brexit. We have heard a statement recently from Michel Barnier to the effect that he sees a prospect for a rapid advancement of the negotiations, but he has insisted that all this depends on the precondition of an arrangement regarding the Irish border. I wonder how this sounds in the ears of the responsible government Ministers. Have they been listening more to the upbeat tone of the delivery of the message than to the preconditions that it asserts? To many listeners the message serves only to increase the anxiety that there will be no viable transitional arrangements.
The final point to make concerns the nuclear co-operation agreements or NCAs. The importance of enacting these in good time has been stressed repeatedly by EDF, which is the owner of Britain’s existing fleet of nuclear power stations and the constructor of the first of what is planned to be a new fleet. These are surely the people to whom we should be listening. The NCAs can be established only when there is a viable UK nuclear safeguarding regime in place. There is likely to be a considerable hiatus between the time when a new UK nuclear safeguarding regime is up and running and the enactment of the necessary NCAs. The Government have said nothing about how they would accommodate the inevitable delays. As many have mentioned, one is mindful of the fact that a new NCA with the United States will require to be ratified by the Senate. This could be a hazardous and lengthy process. The US has a nuclear industry of its own. Someone in the US legislature might be minded to promote the commercial interests of the American industry at the expense of ours and at the expense of the French, who own our nuclear power stations. I believe that this amendment foreshadows an inevitable outcome. The Government will be bound to take the steps proposed in the amendment.
Lord Grantchester (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Broers, for tabling this amendment, to which we have added our names. I will say again what the amendment does so that we can be clear. The amendment delays the UK’s withdrawal from Euratom until the required agreements that will allow the civil nuclear industry to continue are in place. These required agreements are listed and have been debated at length in Committee. They are not in place at the moment and there is widespread opinion that they will not be— indeed cannot be—ready before exit day in March 2019 and, in respect of the proposed new subsection (3)(c) on international agreements, before the end of any transition period yet to be fully agreed.
In saying what the amendment does, we should also be clear what it does not do. It does not stop the withdrawal of the UK from either the EU treaty or the Euratom treaty. It does not seek that the UK will remain permanently either in the EU or in Euratom. The problem in scrutinising this Bill in your Lordships’ House is that the Government have been reluctant to give clarity to their negotiations—about what is and what is not included in them and how far they apply to nuclear safeguards and the Euratom treaty. The Government have even been reluctant to spell out exactly what immediate standards will be adhered to on exit day. I thank all sides of the House for the persistent challenges that have come to the Government and for remarks made again today examining the situation. I also thank the Minister for recognising the importance of this issue and providing what further assurances the Government are prepared to give. But the risks remain.
The conclusion is that the UK cannot set up its own Euratom-standard safeguards regime in time. In this situation it is only responsible that this House should insist on a delay. The importance of maintaining the UK’s integrity to be part of an international civil nuclear order cannot be overstated. Once the vital international safeguards standards have been met and agreed, withdrawal of the UK from the Euratom treaty can proceed. This may well take longer to achieve than even the transition period may be able to offer.
The Government will want to claim that the amendment is defective. That is the default position, since the Government always state that the two treaties of the EU and Euratom are legally joined. That the two treaties share common institutions is not to be denied, but the Government have not come forward with their legal advice for the interpretation that they cannot be separated. There are two distinct treaties. As was discussed last night in amendments to the withdrawal Bill, the UK was a member of Euratom distinct from the EU treaty, because this was the case before the UK joined the EU. Furthermore, in the Prime Minister’s letter of 29 March 2017 to President Tusk, she deliberately mentions both withdrawal from Euratom under Article 106a of the treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community and withdrawal from the EU. They are, therefore, separate.
Article 106a has never been invoked and was not mentioned in the drafting of the EU (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill, which the Government insisted could not be amended. So the amendment does not try to undo anything legislatively that has already been agreed by Parliament. The Government claim that power to withdraw from the EU includes the power to withdraw from Euratom, so they make it a tautology in their opinion, and make no further reference or inclusion of Euratom. It can be argued that the noble Lord, Lord Broers, wishes to insist on the principle that leaving Euratom be delayed until the UK is ready. It is Labour policy to remain a part of agencies such as Euratom, as has been stated in the other place. The Government can perfect any drafting at Third Reading.
The Prime Minister herself, in her Mansion House speech on 2 March, stated that the Government want to explore with the EU how the UK can remain part of EU agencies. She mentioned three—namely, the European Medicines Agency, the European Chemicals Agency and the European Aviation Safety Agency—and went on to explain the reasons. By accepting this amendment, the Government can, in their determination to be in close association with Euratom, keep withdrawal from Euratom in suspense while they explore how far adherence to EU rules can still be beneficial to the UK. The Government have expressed this wish repeatedly without further definition. In a letter to my noble friend Lord O’Neill of Clackmannan dated 28 February, the Minister stated that,
“the Government’s focus is on the outcome rather than the means”.
That means that the House needs to focus on the outcome of the amendment.
Lord Henley
My Lords, I hope that I can persuade the House that it could be irresponsible and would create confusion and doubt to support this amendment in a Division, as the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, wishes to do.
The amendment seeks to require Ministers to request, as part of the negotiations with the EU, that the United Kingdom does not leave the Euratom treaty if it does not have certain agreements or arrangements in place by 1 March next year—that is, four weeks before exit day. Those agreements or arrangements are set out briefly in paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) of new subsection (3) proposed in the amendment, and I will deal with those in due course.
The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, also made it clear that the amendment is not about stopping us leaving Euratom. He might give us that assurance but, listening to some of the other speeches, I am not sure that that is necessarily the wish of others, who have made it clear that they would like us to stay in Euratom—a point made in earlier interventions by the noble Lord, Lord Hutton, and others.
At this stage, it is important to remind the House that when my right honourable friend the Prime Minister gave notice last year of our intention to leave the European Union, she also commenced the process for leaving Euratom. The power to make that notification has already been debated at considerable length in both Houses of Parliament and authorised by the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017. That notification has been accepted by the European Union. The United Kingdom will therefore withdraw from Euratom at the same time as withdrawing from the European Union. That, as I put it to the noble Lord, Lord Hutton, earlier, is a done deal.
I commend all noble Lords’ commitment to ensuring that all the necessary measures are in place so that the United Kingdom can operate as an independent and responsible nuclear state upon withdrawal from Euratom. It is essential that the civil nuclear industry is not adversely affected by the UK’s withdrawal from either the EU or Euratom and that it can continue to operate with certainty. I underline the word “certainty”. That is our top priority and the reason for the Bill. It is why we are bringing forward all the regulations that sit beneath it—of which noble Lords will have seen draft versions—and the reason for the work the ONR is doing to put in place a regime, and that my department is doing to secure the agreements we need with the IAEA and key international partners. I will reiterate this point until the House understands the extent to which the UK stands ready to operate as an independent and responsible nuclear state from day one of exit.
The first quarterly update to Parliament, which will be available before the Easter break, will demonstrate our significant progress on this front, and I will share some of the details with the House shortly. Before I do so, however, I will address the crucial issue of the timing of our withdrawal from the Euratom treaty and the timings provided for in this amendment.
The amendment’s proposed suspension period for Euratom withdrawal is in conflict with the transition period already agreed by the UK and the European Union. This has been referred to by several noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and my noble friend Lord Trenchard. The agreement is for a transition period running from 30 March 2019 to 31 December 2020 and will include all of the Euratom acquis. To be clear, the agreement reached in Brussels on 19 March is that the transition period will include the continued delivery of the Euratom safeguards regime in the UK, and the UK will continue to be covered by Euratom-level agreements with third countries during that period. Clearly, this will take effect after the UK has left Euratom, whereas this amendment refers to a period prior to the implementation of Euratom withdrawal—one of the reasons why it is not satisfactory. The amendment is, therefore, at odds with national government policy and as such mandates a request that we know is futile.
In terms of the overall principle of the amendment, I must be clear that an attempt to mandate a particular stance in negotiations, in the way that this amendment seeks to do, does not belong in primary legislation. I cannot, therefore, accept this amendment but I understand that the House will want reassurances that we have in place the international agreements that we need on safeguards.
I turn to progress on securing those new bilateral safeguard agreements. We have made very good progress in negotiating these with the IAEA, which I will simply refer to as “the agency”—I have problems with the initials, as noble Lords may have noticed. Both the UK and the agency are clear that the new agreements should follow the same principles and scope as the current trilateral agreements.
The amendment also addresses relevant international agreements with other nations—the NCAs. To be clear, the United Kingdom is not a party to nuclear co-operation agreements concluded by Euratom with other nations. These are concluded by Euratom on behalf of the member states. I understand, however, that the intention of this amendment is to cover agreements Euratom currently has in place with third countries.
As the House will be aware, the Government have prioritised putting in place nuclear co-operation agreements with those nations which have a legal or policy requirement for them to be in place as a prerequisite for civil nuclear trade. We are on track to conclude, and to secure third-country and UK ratification of, all such agreements that are essential to ensure a smooth withdrawal from Euratom in advance of 2019, in particular those with the US, Canada, Australia and Japan. We have held positive and constructive discussions with each of these four countries and remain on track to ensure that these agreements will be in place in time.
Lord Hutton of Furness
Have Her Majesty’s Government received any assurance from the Government of the United States that this legislation will be in place, having passed through both Houses of Congress, in time to ensure that there is no break in trade? Has he received that assurance?
Lord Henley
My Lords, I am not aware of any such assurances. It is important that we get this legislation in place in good time. That is why I hope that we will complete Report today and Third Reading next week, and the Bill will receive Royal Assent some time after the Easter break. I do not know what is happening in the United States but I can assure the noble Lord that negotiations continue. We believe that we are on track to achieving the NCAs which are necessary. As I said, the important NCAs that we need are with the US, Canada, Australia and Japan. The amendment seeks relevant international agreements with those nations with which we have exercised rights within the last three years, which would include others that are not relevant. The important ones are those four—the ones that we trade with—and I give an assurance that we are on track. We have held positive and constructive discussions with each of these four countries and remain on track that those agreements will be in place in time.
All sides recognise the mutual interest in having these agreements in place to replace the Euratom agreements on which the UK currently relies. As I have said, discussions have been constructive; the substance of the new agreements is planned to follow very closely what is in the existing agreements. I am confident that sufficient progress is being made in this area, including on draft texts and ensuring that respective ratification processes and timetables have been taken into account in the planning.
Our substantial progress in international negotiations, coupled with our swift action to establish a legislative and regulatory framework for a domestic safeguards regime, not least via this Bill, means that we will be ready for exiting the Euratom treaty no matter the outcome of wider government negotiations on Brexit. The core aspects of this element of Amendment 3 will therefore already be met, and are therefore unnecessary.
Crucially, I must also bring the House’s attention to the fact that the effect of this amendment would extend to covering a number of additional agreements which, de facto, are not required to ensure a smooth withdrawal from Euratom. Introducing such requirements into the Bill will unnecessarily create huge risks and uncertainties to the UK’s ability to operate as an independent nuclear state from March 2019. I refer the noble Lord, Lord Hutton, particularly to proposed new subsection (3)(c) of the amendment, which could cover NCAs that Euratom has concluded with Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Argentina, and Ukraine. As I have previously set out, none of these countries has a legal or policy requirement for an NCA to be in place to facilitate nuclear trade. Requiring us to put agreements in place with each of these countries before we withdraw from Euratom would be a fruitless exercise which could jeopardise our work to establish a civil nuclear safeguards regime for the UK with all the essential agreements in place.
Further, proposed new subsection (3)(a) refers to an agreement between the UK and the agency to recognise the Office for Nuclear Regulation as the approved UK safeguards authority. I would like to make it clear that the agency’s focus in respect of the UK’s safeguards lies with the voluntary offer agreement and additional protocol, rather than the domestic legislation underpinning the domestic regime, or the UK’s arrangements for fulfilling its commitments. It is the Government—not the ONR—who enter into these agreements, and therefore the Government who must uphold these commitments, regardless of whether or not we choose to delegate obligations to an independent domestic regulator. The additional agreement referred to in Amendment 3 as distinct from the voluntary offer agreement is therefore unnecessary, impractical, and in no way required for a smooth withdrawal from Euratom.
As I and ministerial colleagues have emphasised throughout the passage of this Bill—this has been echoed by all those taking part in this and earlier debates—certainty for the industry is essential. Creating a situation where we are compelled to secure agreements—
Lord Warner
I am sorry to interrupt the Minister as he comes to his peroration. Will he answer the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Hutton, in more detail? Can he give a categorical assurance to this House that there is no risk of Sizewell B closing down as a result of the Government’s failure to put in place all the things that he assured us of by 29 March next year? As he will know, it is of a US design and relies on imported spare parts and maintenance arrangements, and generates about 8% to 10% of the UK’s electricity.
Lord Henley
The noble Lord is asking whether that NCA with the United States will be completed. I have given all the assurances I can that it will be and I cannot go any further than what I said in response to the noble Lord, Lord Hutton. With that in mind, what I was trying to make quite clear in what the noble Lord, Lord Warner, described as my peroration was the need for certainty for the industry, and this amendment would remove that certainty. The amendment would create a situation where we are compelled to secure agreements that we do not need and it runs counter to what the Government are doing: creating certainty. Even if this amendment were technically correct, its impact would be to introduce further uncertainty and potential disruption to an industry by casting doubt over establishing the domestic safeguards regime in the long term. I do not believe that can be the intention of the noble Lords who tabled it.
I believe we are on track to provide continuity and that this amendment is not only unnecessary but exacerbates the risks that it seeks to remove. I hope with the assurances I have given, and with the explanation of the weaknesses in the amendment, that the noble Lord will withdraw it.
Lord Broers
My Lords, I very much appreciate what the Minister said with respect to the progress the Government are making to seek these agreements—it is essential that we get agreements with our major partners. I do not feel that the amendment, as it is, will put us in great danger by going beyond our major partners, but perhaps such adjustments could be made in the other place.
I do feel, however, that I have heard too many assurances that have not been fulfilled. In a case of such great importance, this amendment would secure what may be relatively straightforward, as the Minister said. We are well on the way to gaining most of these agreements already so it should not be too burdensome, but I wish to test the opinion of the House.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
“( ) No regulations may be made under this section after the end of the period of 5 years beginning with the day on which this section comes into force.”
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
My Lords, Amendments 4 and 5 seek to place a time limit, also called a sunset, on use of the power in Clause 2. I would like first to explain how Clause 2 works.
Clause 2 contains the power to amend by regulation the Nuclear Safeguards and Electricity (Finance) Act 1978, the Nuclear Safeguards Act 2000 and the Nuclear Safeguards (Notification) Regulations 2004. It can amend those three pieces of legislation only, and amendments can only be those in consequence of a “relevant safeguards agreement”, that being very specifically an agreement relating to nuclear safeguards to which the UK and the International Atomic Energy Agency are parties.
This is a narrowly drawn power to enable the amendment of references in this legislation to provisions of safeguards agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency—which I shall refer to simply as the agency. This legislation enables the agency to carry out its activities in the UK, including by providing it with legal cover for activities of its inspectors in the UK. For the UK to have a domestic safeguards regime in future, it is essential that the legislation specified in Clause 2(1) can be amended to make correct reference to new safeguards agreements that the UK enters into with the agency.
The legislation cited in this clause is extremely unusual in that it makes detailed references to specific provisions of international agreements. As such, these references—for example, to articles—are likely to change as a result of any amendment of, or change to, those agreements. The power in the Bill is therefore necessary to make the changes to the relevant legislation to update those references when the new agreements are in place.
The UK’s safeguards agreements with the agency, and the agency’s ability to perform safeguards activities in the UK in accordance with those agreements, are absolutely fundamental to the agency’s application of safeguards in the UK. While the power is narrow, it is essential and underpins the entire regime. The unavoidable nature of negotiations means that we are tied to timing uncertainties and this power constitutes the only way we can address that uncertainty.
The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee agreed that the power in Clause 2 is necessary and appropriately framed. It recognised that it is intended as a way of reflecting the new agreements with the agency required to establish the UK’s civil nuclear safeguards regime, and recommended preventing the use of the power after a period of two years had expired.
The Government accept the principle of the committee’s recommendation, and of Amendment 5, that we should not retain this power for an indefinite period. However, the regime is heavily reliant on wider international negotiations and it is therefore of the utmost importance that the power is not sunsetted prematurely. Prematurely sunsetting this power could result in the relevant provisions becoming ineffective, leaving the UK without an effective domestic safeguards regime and in breach of any new international safeguards agreements put in place with the agency. The potential consequences of such failures are serious. The UK’s reputation as a responsible nuclear state would be damaged.
The international negotiations relevant to this power are unprecedented in their nature. I consider it essential to retain a provision enabling the UK to adapt to any circumstances affecting the timing of the commencement of international safeguards agreements between the agency and the UK. I hope that, in the light of my explanation, noble Lords will feel able not to press their amendment, and the House will feel able to support government Amendment 4. I beg to move.
Lord Grantchester
I speak to our Amendment 5, which is in this group. In Committee, we proposed that the power of the Secretary of State to enter into relevant international agreements without parliamentary approval be limited to a two-year period. The Government have accepted the principle but wish to extend the power to five years, as the Minister has proposed. We accept that this power is necessary and that there is oversight in its use through the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010.
However, I would like to press the Minister on why the Government think that a two-year period that coincides with any transition period could be insufficient to conclude necessary wider international agreements. We certainly do not wish to leave the UK without an effective domestic safeguards regime, in breach of any new international safeguards agreements put in place with the IAEA, but the Minister has not properly explained why she thinks it could be premature if this sunset clause were brought in at a period of two years.
The government amendments seek a further three years beyond the end of any transition period. Can the Minister clarify the kind of agreement she thinks could still be outstanding? I wonder whether included here could be the circumstances already drawn attention to in the earlier amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Broers, under proposed new subsection (3)(c), regarding international agreements with third countries, whereby the NCA agreement with, for example, the US could well take longer than any transition period. He argued for a suspension to our leaving Euratom.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
I thank the noble Lord for his contribution. It is clear that the sunset provision we are discussing relates to the arrangement with the agency; it does not cover the nuclear co-operation agreements. Those are separate agreements.
We have thought very long and hard about the sunsetting of this—I think it falls into the territory of known unknowns—and we believe that two years is certainly too short and that five years is the right length. There may be circumstances that we cannot possibly foresee at this time that will make it necessary for the sunset clause to exist for slightly longer. We have now agreed—we hope, because nothing is agreed until everything is agreed—the implementation period. I think that noble Lords should take quite a lot of comfort in that implementation period in that, during that period, our safeguard arrangements will still be provided by Euratom. Indeed, it gives us an extra 21-month period for these arrangements to be put in place. Nevertheless, I think that the five-year period is appropriate. We have looked at the recommendations of the DPRRC and agree with them. A period of five years is the most appropriate time.
Lord Henley
“Report on nuclear safeguards
(1) The Secretary of State must, in respect of each reporting period, prepare a report containing information about nuclear safeguards.(2) Information about nuclear safeguards includes information about—(a) international arrangements relating to nuclear safeguards to which the United Kingdom is (or is proposed to be) a party, and(b) the establishment in the United Kingdom of arrangements relating to nuclear safeguards.(3) A report under this section must be laid before Parliament after the end of the reporting period to which it relates.(4) There are four successive reporting periods, each of which is a period of 3 months.(5) The first reporting period is the period of 3 months beginning with the day on which this Act is passed.”
Lord Henley
My Lords, in moving Amendment 6 I shall speak also to my Amendment 10. This group includes Amendments 7 and 9, of which Amendment 7 is an amendment to my Amendment 6. Therefore, I take it that after I have spoken the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, will move his Amendment 7, and we can then debate the general issues. At this stage I shall speak to Amendment 6, and I shall respond to the noble Lord’s words on Amendments 7 and 9 in due course.
We all agree about the importance of ensuring that the industry can continue to flourish in trade, regulation and innovative nuclear research, no matter what the outcome of negotiations with the European Union or the final terms of our withdrawal from the EU and Euratom. Whatever the outcome and terms, we obviously want to see this great industry continue to flourish. We have made substantial progress in ensuring that the United Kingdom can operate as an independent and responsible nuclear state from day one, and we are committed to being transparent to Parliament about our work in this area. We have taken seriously the requests from Members of both Houses, across all parties, for regular, detailed updates about nuclear safeguarding arrangements in this country.
I agree that it is vital that Parliament is able to assure itself that the Government are taking effective action in relation to nuclear safeguards. In order to promote a transparent system of regular information on progress, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy committed to provide quarterly updates on overall progress on Euratom negotiations, going further than the proposed amendments at the time. The House will be aware that we plan to publish the first such update at the end of this month. This is even sooner than originally envisaged, coming three months since the publication of our January statement. As the end of the three months would fall during the Easter Recess, a decision was made to bring forward the publication of the first update so that it will be laid before Parliament rises.
Further updates will be made available every three months, with the next one scheduled for June 2018. I listened very carefully in Committee and I understand that noble Lords across the House would like something more than hopeful reassurances; for that reason Amendments 6 and 10 would place a statutory duty on the Secretary of State to provide quarterly reports on nuclear safeguards, covering both domestic and international matters, for the first year after the Bill receives Royal Assent. We will come on to the other amendments but I hope that our Amendments 6 and 10, as well as the current commitment under the Written Ministerial Statement of 11 January to report on wider matters relating to our withdrawal from Euratom, demonstrate our continuing commitment to provide information and clarity to Parliament and provide sufficient reassurances to noble Lords. I will listen very carefully to what the noble Lord says about his Amendments 7 and 9, in his name and those of a slightly varying list of supporters, and deal with them at the end of the debate. In the meantime, I beg to move.
Amendment 7 (to Amendment 6)
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
“(2A) A report under subsection (1) may include other information on future arrangements with Euratom, which may include information relating to nuclear research and development and the import and export of qualifying nuclear material.”
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Henley, for suggesting that I go next and speak to my Amendments 7 and 9. First, I welcome the Minister’s Amendment 6 and the intention that we have regular reports on nuclear safeguards; that is clearly helpful and we look forward to receiving the first report fairly soon, so I am most grateful to the Minister for his response to our debate. I hope today that we can just persuade him to go a little further.
As noble Lords will know, because some noble Lords have taken part in the debates, we have been having concurrent debates on this Bill and the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill. Last night—fairly late, although not as late as on some amendments—we had a fascinating debate, led by the noble Lord, Lord Broers, about research and development. There is an intimate connection here, and an absolute necessity for us to continue to invest in research and development, particularly in relation to the projects that the noble Lord referred to, such as JET, ITER, research into advanced nuclear fission reactors and so on, on which our decision to leave Euratom could potentially have an impact.
In addition, we discussed in Committee medical isotopes and the concerns among medical colleagues and the health service in general. The work of Euratom has no doubt led us to deal with issues of shortage of supply and some of the issues of the rapid transport that is required. There is some concern about whether we can ensure the security of those supplies, which are absolutely essential for the treatment of many patients on a daily basis, in future. So adding a further reporting requirement to the noble Lord’s own amendment would be important and would reassure noble Lords on some of the very important issues that have been debated both here and in the EU (Withdrawal) Bill.
In relation to nuclear safeguarding, we need to be clear that we are essentially taking a kind of policing role from an international agency. Nuclear safeguards make sure that nuclear materials used for peaceful purposes are not used for military ones, so this is very important in relation to nuclear proliferation and our treaty obligations. We are removing ourselves from Euratom, establishing ourselves as a single nation, with its own existing regulator being given these duties to police our responsibilities under the non-proliferation treaties, and then having a sort of backstop of doing it in accordance with the strictures of the IAEA.
So the Government themselves are taking on a very responsible duty. Although of course I would implicitly trust any report that the noble Lord presents to us on these matters, having as a backstop an independent reviewer who could report from time to time on what is happening to make sure that those safeguards are being conducted in the way that we need to do them internationally would be an important safeguard. I hope that the Minister will see that both these amendments are wholly constructive and intended to act alongside and add to the constructive nature of the noble Lord’s own amendments.
Baroness Featherstone (LD)
My Lords, I have attached my name to Amendment 7. I also support Amendment 9, which will be covered by my noble friend Lord Fox.
I totally welcome government Amendment 6, which brings in the reporting system, and hope that the Minister will take Amendment 7 really as sort of an aide memoire, as if it was something he clearly forgot to put it into Amendment 6. So many areas remain of concern about the precariousness of our exit from Euratom. We discussed many of them in Committee. As we have heard across the House already today, they include the critical issue of timing, with the industries that are directly affected and their supply chains being desperately concerned to avoid the cliff edge, unsurprisingly—and all the while the clock is ticking relentlessly towards exit day. Amendment 6 seeks to reassure us in the interim with regular reporting to Parliament on key issues. However, Amendment 7 in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, amends Amendment 6 and seeks to cover those key elements of concern that we felt were missing. These include information on progress, and the form that is taking shape, on future arrangements on research and development, the import and export of qualifying nuclear material and, of course, the nature and form of future arrangements with Euratom.
I and my party still remain hopeful—Liberal Democrats are obviously optimists—that common sense will at some point take hold between now and exit day, and that we will simply be able to remain in Euratom or a bespoke associate membership of Euratom will become possible, just as a bespoke trade agreement seems to be possible in the Government’s lexicon.
On nuclear research and development, exiting Euratom has put a number of concerns on the table. It would be really helpful in dealing with the uncertainties raised over the UK’s future contribution to nuclear research and development if this were included in the reporting regime. We have benefited from Euratom funding for research. As was mentioned in Committee and earlier today, the JET project based in Culham receives £60 million a year from Euratom, covering 88% of the running costs; it provides employment for 500 people implementing the contract. We are also concerned about the impact on the ITER project, which is a magnificent international collaboration intent on proving that fusion is a viable source of large-scale, safe and environmentally friendly energy for the planet.
However, it is far more than the money itself. What should be an ongoing discussion in the negotiations, and what I would like to see reported back on in relation to our leaving Euratom, should be the co-operation and collaboration that is such an important part of research in Europe. We will discuss the talented people who forge that research and development—and their ability to come and go and work in countries around Europe—in my noble friend Lord Teverson’s Amendment 8.
It is absolutely critical that we remain a key partner when outside Euratom if we are to be able to continue to hold EU and international regard as a key player as a nuclear nation. All the programmes demand close collaboration with the EU and the international nuclear community. We currently have access to research infrastructures and capabilities not available in the United Kingdom. We are also able to leverage UK investment for industry, national laboratories and academia.
Going forward—whatever the arrangement—we have to make sure that we can continue as a leading participant in the Euratom working groups and EU-funded research projects. We do not want our ability to influence and shape this agenda to be lost, nor our access to facilities, data, people and material that has enabled us to be at the cutting edge of developing technology and innovation. Therefore, as the Government go forward on this agenda, they are going to have to come to an arrangement over the future of JET with Euratom: we hope that it can be paid for by the Euratom framework programme after 2020 if that is still the end date for the UK Government’s commitment to its funding. The Government are also going to need to come to an agreement over F4E so that we can carry on participating in the fusion programme. Future arrangements must ensure that international collaboration is ongoing so that both contributing and gaining from world-leading research continues. That is why Parliament must be kept informed on progress on all those issues and why it is crucial that research and development are part of the reporting requirement.
I turn now to the import and export of qualifying nuclear material. Currently the Euratom Supply Agency has rights over such materials produced in its member states. This confers legal exclusive rights to contract the supply of those materials entering or leaving the European Union. Our current nuclear reactors are totally reliant on this fuel supply chain so, post Euratom, the Government will need to ensure this process in relation to the export of fissile materials from Euratom to the UK. This possibly—and probably—will in future become an export and may need to be authorised by the EU Commission’s research and development department. What I am describing is a future situation regarding the import and export of fissile material that needs to be worked through so there are no additional barriers, to ensure that trade in this essential market can continue. It is vital that Parliament is regularly updated on these important issues.
The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and I have made substantive and, I hope, persuasive arguments such that I trust the Minister can see the necessity for amending Amendment 6 with Amendment 7.
Viscount Trenchard
My Lords, I welcome Amendment 6, proposed by the Minister. It makes a lot of sense but I do not think the House would be wise to support Amendments 7 or 9. Amendment 7 is about collaboration with Euratom in future in research and development and the import and export of qualifying nuclear material. I think we will benefit from greater flexibility by making our own decisions about research and development and committing our own funds. Of course Euratom will be an important and continuing partner for us in nuclear but we will be freed of the obligation and in the position where we will own our own research material, which of course in the JET and ITER programmes we do not. We should caution against overoptimism on what ITER is likely to bring; I understand that there is considerable scepticism in the industry about whether it is really worth the massive amount of money that it costs, and that there is some chance of a demonstration operation by 2045 if all goes well. If we were to commit funds to SMR research, by contrast, in which we in this country have several notable qualified players, we would own the outcome and could get ourselves back into the lead in nuclear by selling our new technology to others. We would have greater flexibility and the freedom not to be committed—
Lord Fox (LD)
I remind the noble Viscount that the two are not mutually exclusive.
Viscount Trenchard
I accept what the noble Lord says but if you are bound to commit, through the Euratom programmes, to a greater amount of funding for the sector as a whole, that could effectively mean that you were constrained in what you do on your own. I am not saying we would not wish to contribute or to continue to participate, but it would be our decision on whether we participated or not. We would recover the right to make decisions and to apply our research and development funds, which we would then own in so far as they were invested in programmes that we were running independently.
On Amendment 9, I do not see the need for the taxpayer to have to fund a further independent reviewer. The IAEA will ensure that we follow the approved safeguarding regimes, check and verify our safeguards regime and ensure that we work only with verified customers.
Lord Warner
My Lords, I support Amendments 7 and 9, and I compliment the Government on Amendment 6. I remind the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, that scientific research, in this area or anywhere else, is now overwhelmingly collaborative. If you do not get in the game collaboratively, you find that some of your best researchers and ideas are rapidly transferred abroad to someone else who is much more interested in collaborative research. We have moved on from being a Great Britain that does all this stuff ourselves to being a collaborative, global, international participant in research, including in this area. That is one of the reasons why I support Amendment 7; I think it takes us in the right direction. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Broers, whose amendment last night I sadly missed, will want to say a bit about that.
I am really pleased that we have come back to talking about medical isotopes and having a report that keeps Parliament up to date in that area. There is huge concern outside this House about whether the supply chains around medical isotopes will be sufficient to cope with the needs and demands of NHS research and NHS patients.
On Amendment 9, after the last debate that we had before the vote, you would have to be one of life’s perennial optimists—I am not a Liberal Democrat so I do not join that particular club—to believe that everything is going to be okay by March 2019. I suggest to the Minister that he might find it useful to have an independent reviewer who can make independent reports to Parliament to convince sceptical parliamentarians such as me and, I suspect, a few others in this House that good progress is being made on some of the critical issues. That is why I support Amendments 7 and 9.
Lord Fox
My Lords, I support Amendment 9, to which my name is appended, and I commend the Government on Amendment 6 and support Amendment 7. I echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord Warner: not even the Liberal Democrats are optimistic enough to imagine that everything is going to be in place in time. That is why we believe this is a helpful amendment to the Government and to the Minister. We heard in the debate on Amendment 3 that the stakes are high in achieving what needs to be achieved in time. I believe, en passant, that for the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, to use the cost as a reason for not having something like this in place is a little like trying to save the money that is down the side of the sofa when the whole house is potentially at stake. I suggest that cost is not a reason for not doing this.
The stakes are high. I will not rehearse them again but the Committee has heard scepticism, concern and worry from a vast array of people about whether the finish line can be crossed in time. The Minister—this is in no way reflects scepticism of the Minister himself—has stood up on a number of occasions and said everything is in order and we need not worry. Almost every statement he makes begins with, “I believe”. That is the problem; at this point, to some extent it is difficult to go beyond a belief system. Amendment 9 would put in place an independent voice, someone who was marking the Government’s homework but was not the Government. This is not a question of doing the work of the IAEA; it is a question of following and tracking the Government’s progress in getting to the finish line.
I echo the noble Lord, Lord Warner: this could be very useful for the Government in helping to give reassurance. It would be another voice to prove that the Minister was correct—if he was. When the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, says that this is not an aggressive amendment and not intended to be unhelpful, I know, because I participated in the discussion around this amendment, that it is genuinely not intended to wreck or harm the Bill in any way. It is intended to give support and some further credibility to the argument that things are moving in the right direction.
Lord Broers
My Lords, I will make some brief remarks in answer to the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard. The research we are talking about here is not necessarily just in fusion—it includes fusion, but that is a great big project—but in areas that are ancillary to a certain extent but terribly important. Research is going on everywhere into radioactive waste disposal, but we happen to lead that. I do not think that this defeats the noble Viscount’s ambition—which is my ambition—that our own industry does a lot and gains a lot from that. It also gains a lot from being accepted by the community, so that when our advances come up, others will use what we did. The same is true of radiological protection, which is always a problem with workers around nuclear plants. So it is not just the new reactors, although the one gap in our knowledge is what is happening to the new generation fission reactors beyond the EPRs that people are working on. We really need international collaboration.
With respect to our own ambitions, I entirely support the noble Viscount in terms of SMRs. We are dying to get going—to be specific Rolls-Royce is dying to get going—on SMRs. In fact, Rolls-Royce tells us they are spending £1 million a month keeping that programme alive and waiting for the Government to make a decision on the competition which I hope will come.
Also, in fusion, there is Tokamak Energy. This is a very ambitious small company which feels it can contain fusion in a spherical tokamak, which is a fascinating thing. I should love to spend a lot of time talking about it. It is a very clever and effective way to up the efficiency of the use of the magnetic field to confine the plasma. So there is more to this research than just a few of the most obvious things. I think that is greatly in support of Amendment 7. I also support Amendment 6. I agree with the noble Lords, Lord Fox and Lord Hunt, who mentioned this. I think the independent review is designed to help the Government and not be a hindrance.
Lord Henley
My Lords, I want to begin by adding to something that the noble Lord, Lord Fox, said. He said that I repeatedly say, “I believe, I believe”, and that the House has to take it on trust. I hope this goes beyond me and officials within the department. We have seen what is happening when it comes to nuclear safeguards—
Lord Henley
I was not suggesting that the noble Lord was doing that in any way whatsoever.
Since Second Reading, I have visited Sellafield—well, obviously I have visited it on occasions in the past because it is in my home county, but I visited it again—just to see what nuclear safeguarding amounts to. After all, Sellafield contains two of the three sites that will be relevant in terms of nuclear safeguarding. I cannot say that a one-day visit has turned me into an expert in any way. I would not want to claim that, but I can say that I can go beyond, “I believe”, and say “I have seen”.
Lord Henley
I am amusing the clerical members of the Cross Benches and I will try to restrain from doing so. Perhaps they thought I was making some sort of evangelical speech.
Let me start by dealing with the two amendments. While expressing my deep sympathy for them, I do not think they are necessary, but I want to give some indication as to how importantly we take them. I am grateful to various noble Lords who welcomed the original amendment, which is government Amendment 6.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that full response. He expressed deep sympathy with the intent of our amendments but, alas, even with divine inspiration, he failed to go a little further. Essentially, his argument in relation to my Amendment 7 was that it was unnecessary in the light of existing commitments in the Written Ministerial Statement and what he has said today about the importance of research and development. I go back to our debate last night on the EU (Withdrawal) Bill, in which there was an overwhelming sense that this country still has a lead in some aspects of nuclear research. The noble Lord, Lord Broers, spoke about that very eloquently. This is at risk because of what is happening in relation to Brexit and our withdrawal from Euratom. It is important to have on the face of the Bill—in primary legislation—a commitment that the Government will report on research and development. I wish to test the opinion of the House.
Lord Teverson
“Freedom of employment for specialists
(1) Article 2(g) of the European Atomic Energy Community Treaty, ensuring freedom of employment for specialists, continues to have effect in UK law in relation to those who work in nuclear safeguarding, after the United Kingdom leaves Euratom.(2) In this section “specialists” includes those staff essential to the United Kingdom’s nuclear safeguarding.”
Lord Teverson
My Lords, I remind Members of what the Euratom treaty says in Article 2(g)—that, in order to perform its tasks, the community shall,
“ensure wide commercial outlets and access to the best technical facilities by the creation of a common market in specialised materials and equipment, by the free movement of capital for investment in the field of nuclear energy and by freedom of employment for specialists within the Community”.
I have not taken the whole of the article, or of part 2(g), into the amendment, but rather the important post-Brexit part, which concerns the free movement of nuclear specialists. I will not make a long speech because I believe that this is self-evident. The Government have an industrial strategy around the nuclear sector: to expand it and for it to be part of where this country goes economically.
We have heard in previous debates that our most important need in the short term is to have a functioning safeguarding authority, whether that is Euratom or—as soon as that stops—our own Office for Nuclear Regulation. We need those bodies, and that body in particular, to function. We have a shortage of qualified people in this area and a shortage of specialists in the industry more generally—although the amendment is, because of the Bill, primarily around safeguarding. Therefore, it must be in the interests of the Bill, and of the country at large, to ensure that we maintain the mobility of those specialists in the nuclear industry and the nuclear sector, so that we maintain this benefit post Brexit and post our membership of Euratom. That is why the amendment is absolutely appropriate to the Bill and is of great importance not just to this sector but to our national security.
I very much hope that the Minister will be able to give a greater reassurance—perhaps higher up on my noble friend Lord Fox’s Richter scale of assurances—than we have received so far that this area will be looked after by the Government, that we will not be browbeaten by the Home Office into having a minimal circulation of specialists, and that this country will benefit from those with the experience and skills that will enable us to perform in this sector, not just in safeguarding but in the nuclear sector more broadly. I beg to move.
Lord Warner
My Lords, I have added my name to this amendment because, like the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, I remain concerned about the industry’s access to the workforce that it will need once the UK leaves Euratom. I suggest that the free flow of essential specialist staff could well dry up unless the Government are reasonably energetic in the guarantees that they give them. As the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, this is not just a safeguarding workforce issue; it affects the whole sector, as was very well brought out in the Nuclear Industry Association’s briefing. I shall not go into detail on that but it is clear that we need a very skilled workforce coming to this country to help both in maintaining existing reactors and, even more significantly, in building new ones, as well as in the safeguarding area.
With regard to the regular reports that the Government will give to Parliament on progress in the safeguarding area, it is a bit disappointing that we did not manage to get into the Bill a specific reference to the need for an essential specialist workforce. I hope that the Minister will take this suggestion in the spirit in which it is offered, and perhaps he might encourage his officials, when they are producing these reports, to say something about the progress that is being made, particularly with the ONR getting the specialist staff that it needs.
The Earl of Selborne
My Lords, for at least 20 years this country allowed its specialist skills in matters nuclear to run down. There was a failure by successive Governments to address the issues and determine what our attitude was to policy on nuclear generation, medical sciences and the like. Although things have improved a little in recent years, it is certain that we will depend on specialist skills from overseas. I doubt that it is really necessary to put this amendment on the face of the Bill, but I am absolutely confident that the Minister will agree that we will indeed need specialist skills. We must give an assurance to the industry that those specialist skills will be welcomed. Therefore, I am sure that, in responding to this short debate led by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, the Minister can assure us that the Government will give due priority to those with the relevant nuclear skills.
Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Lab)
My Lords, an important point about Euratom is that it had a research programme on connecting fusion and fission. A long-range problem in the nuclear industry is finding ways of dealing with nuclear waste. As the Euratom programme showed, one way of doing that in future would be to connect it to fusion, because fusion produces fast neutrons that can process waste and give it a shorter half-life. That is an extremely important issue, and the people who will be able to work on it will have a very broad range of specialties, not just the narrow range that experts have at the moment.
Lord Grantchester
I commend the noble Lords, Lord Teverson and Lord Warner, for bringing back this amendment on Report. It concerns an important issue: that the UK must address the skills that are needed in the UK. The problem of labour supply with the necessary skills beyond those present and available in the UK will need to be addressed by several industries—and none more crucial than the power industry, in relation not only to new build but to the continuing need for decommissioning.
EDF is certainly correct to identify the importance of the specialisms needed to deliver Hinkley Point C on time. The noble Lord, Lord Warner, drew attention to this and to the Immigration Rules. With restrictions on freedom of movement, currently no route is identified for the many categories of workers to enter the UK under the points system in order to fill the vacancies envisaged. It is crucial that the Minister’s department underlines the importance of the issue to the Home Office and comes up with a solution. It will be needed in the best interests of the UK’s civil nuclear industry.
Lord Henley
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for moving his amendment, and for the contributions of other noble Lords. I accept that it will continue to be important to attract—as the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Warner, and my noble friend Lord Selborne put it—the brightest and the best, to ensure that we maintain our excellence in the nuclear field. This amendment, however, is somewhat more limited in scope than that. Our future immigration system will be set out shortly and it would not be right for me to go into it. As my right honourable friend made clear in his Statement on 11 January, we will ensure that businesses and communities, as well as Parliament, have the opportunity to contribute their views before any decisions are made about the future system that the Home Office will be developing.
Lord Henley
As I remember, the last time we debated this, by chance—I may be misremembering—a Home Office Minister was sitting next to me. I can confirm, however, that the Home Office is fully aware of the concerns expressed in debates of this sort, and we will make sure that it continues to be so. It is important to us that we continue to—as I put it—access the best talent. As the noble Lord will be aware, we have already doubled the number of available visas in the tier 1 exceptional talent review, and will be looking at changing Immigration Rules to enable world- leading scientists and researchers under the tier 1 route to apply for settlement after three years and to make it quicker for highly skilled students to apply for work in the United Kingdom after finishing a degree. We are, therefore, relaxing the labour market tests where appropriate.
The crux of this amendment, which relates to safeguarding staff—the Bill has been drafted in that way and so the amendment must be too—attempts to ensure the freedom of employment of specialists employed in that field. This is clearly a matter of particular interest in the light of the Government’s preparations for establishing a domestic nuclear safeguards regime, which, among other important work, means securing the right quality and quantity of appropriate safeguarding staff in the Office for Nuclear Regulation. Given the importance of attracting the right staff to work in this specialist field, the Government are committed to ensuring that the ONR has the right personnel. I can give the House a bit of information: in the most recent recruitment round for two further posts in this field there were 112 applicants for the ONR to look at. We will continue to work with the ONR to ensure that it has the right staff to regulate the UK’s new civil nuclear safeguards regime. Those figures show that there is no shortage, certainly in the world of recruiting and training the appropriate inspectors and building additional institutional capacity.
The noble Lord will not be surprised if I do not go into this, because he will then ask for further details. If I give him an assurance that the amendment is possibly itself defective and not suitable for inclusion, and he accepts that in spirit there is no need for it—since the Government are committed to ensuring that we have the right specialists and the Home Office continues to work in this field—I hope that he will feel able to withdraw Amendment 8.
Lord Teverson
I thank the Minister for his reply. It is good to have some figures: can we have more of them in these interactions around groups? I also remind the Minister that he regularly mentions the highly skilled and the talented. That may, I agree, be the case in nuclear safeguarding, but in a lot of Brexit areas, perhaps including some areas of the nuclear industry, the need is far broader. However, I take his point in regard to this Bill.
I also recognise that this issue will inevitably be fought out during the immigration Bill that we will eventually get. I am delighted that we will have another opportunity to debate Euratom in another Bill, to pursue sanity and perhaps get some change in this area. I therefore accept the noble Lord’s challenge—as it were—and his assurances about taking up these issues in the future immigration Bill, which we continue to await with interest. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Teverson
“Report on information technology systems necessary for nuclear safeguards
(1) The Secretary of State must, in respect of each reporting period, prepare a report containing information about the progress made to provide adequate information technology systems necessary for the United Kingdom to operate a nuclear safeguarding regime to international standards.(2) The report under subsection (1) must include the progress on, and the estimated cost of, developing the following systems—(a) a State System of Accountancy for and Control of Nuclear Materials;(b) a Safeguards Information Management and Reporting System; and(c) any other technology system necessary for the United Kingdom to operate an effective international nuclear safeguarding regime.(3) A report under this section must be laid before both Houses of Parliament after the end of the reporting period to which it relates.(4) There are four successive reporting periods, each of which is a period of 3 months.(5) The first reporting period is the period of 3 months beginning with the day on which this Act is passed.”
Lord Teverson
My Lords, in Committee I raised an issue that I do not think has been raised before, about the information systems required for the Office for Nuclear Regulation to perform its tasks acceptably as a safeguarding agency in the international system. I subsequently submitted a Written Question to the Government on this matter, and I thank the Minister, very genuinely, for a comprehensive and interesting reply—a very good one. In that regard, I almost feel that I have to apologise to the House for the long names in subsection (2)(a) and (b) of the amendment: the State System of Accountancy for and Control of Nuclear Materials and the Safeguards Information Management and Reporting System. The Minister informed me that these were needed to fulfil our international obligations.
I also asked what those systems would cost, less to understand the cost than the size of the task that needed to be completed within the next 12 months. I will quote from the Minister’s Written Reply:
“ONR has estimated that it will cost £10 million to establish a UK SSAC and SIMRS”—
the two systems—
“is included as a part of this overall estimate. An initial tender opportunity in relation to the SIMRS is currently being advertised on the Government Digital Marketplace and responses to that tender will provide more certainty on estimated costs”.
I do not know whether we already have the other system—I do not think so—but what concerned me particularly about that reply was that we are only tendering for one of those systems. It is clearly a significant cost—£10 million for both—but we are only just getting around to advertising them. From both my corporate career and my role in this House in scrutinising what the Government are up to, and government systems, I know that it is not the easiest thing to predict when IT systems will be ready, let alone functioning. We had a debate last week about the Smart Meters Bill and all the IT needed for that, and it is 12 years later that we have come to those particular systems.
My real question is a serious one. Clearly, from the Minister’s reply, the ONR cannot function properly without these systems, but we are only at the stage of advertising just one of them. The size of them is at least £10 million and I feel very nervous that these systems will be ready when we need them to be ready on 29 March next year. That seems to be quite an ask. Therefore, with the amendment I am looking for some substantive reassurance from the Minister that this is under control and that it will be part of the Government’s reporting mechanism between now and our leaving date for Euratom, so that we can understand the progress in this critical area—an area where, to put it lightly, the Government do not have the greatest reputation in terms of delivering such systems. I beg to move.
Lord Warner
My Lords, I support the amendment, but I do not expect us to go for our hat trick of votes on it. I speak as someone who had the misfortune to inherit the NHS IT system as a responsibility. I also had some experience in the Home Office of IT systems. Things never work out the way that noble Lords think they will. They are usually delayed and they usually malfunction a bit when they are first introduced and used. My question for the Minister is: has he got a plan B and what is it, if this IT system does not come online to time? At the end of the day, the ONR will still have some responsibilities to discharge. If it does not have the IT system, how will it go about discharging its responsibilities?
Lord Fox
Following my noble friend Lord Teverson’s excellent explanation for the reason for this amendment, on the long-named programmes and systems in proposed new subsection (2), can the Minister tell the House whether these are built on existing systems that are being adapted or will they be built from scratch? The Minister may have to write to me in answer. Also, on the nature of the IT companies delivering these, is there competition in delivering systems such as this or is this a very specialist area with a small pool to fish from and not much choice, which of course leads to price escalation?
Lord Grantchester
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for raising the important issue of the information technology systems necessary for nuclear safeguards. I also saw the written Q&A from the noble Lord and I thank the Minister for replying so swiftly. In Committee, the importance of understanding the full inventory costs in IT management systems was debated. The Government clarified that the full implications of the mechanisms that the ONR will need to set up are matters that could be included in each report that the Government will undertake. It can only build confidence that Parliament will be reassured through any audit process that the UK’s regime will be costed, reported and certified to be robust.
Lord Henley
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for moving his amendment. He and the House really want two things. They want substantive reassurances and details of further reporting. I asked to have this amendment grouped with Amendment 6, which to some extent deals with this matter. We propose to put such reporting on the face of the Bill, and progress with the information technology systems required for the safeguarding regime will fall within that reporting duty. I hope that the noble Lord will feel that he does in due course get sufficient information. In the meantime, I will give an update about what is happening. As the noble Lord, Lord Fox, said, I might have to write with further detail later on, but let us see how the quarterly statements take place to see whether they provide sufficient information. If not, noble Lords can come back to me.
The overall system of safeguards is generally referred to as a state system of accountancy for and control of nuclear materials. The noble Lord referred to that in my original Written Answer. That is also known as an SSAC. The last time I came across SSAC it was the Social Security Advisory Committee, but that was in another world and another place. We will not go there now. As part of this, the ONR plans to put in place an IT system which it refers to as the safeguards information management and reporting system. I do not know how you pronounce “SIMRS” so we shall refer to it by its initials. The SIMRS is aimed at enabling the ONR to obtain and process the information necessary to ensure timely submission to the International Atomic Energy Agency of the reports required by any future safeguards agreements with the agency. The SIMRS will also enable submission of any specific reports required by supplier states as part of nuclear co-operation agreements.
The ONR has estimated that it will cost some £10 million—the figure I gave some weeks ago in Committee—to establish a UK SSAC, and the SIMRS is included as a part of this overall estimate. A pre-qualification questionnaire in relation to the SIMRS was recently advertised on the Government’s digital marketplace. Sixteen suppliers responded, of which six have been invited to respond to the invitation to tender by 6 April. Responses to that tender will provide more certainty on estimated costs, and the ONR expects to let the contract in early May.
I of course take note of what the noble Lord, Lord Warner, warned about IT systems from his experience with the health service and the Home Office. We are all aware of problems that new IT systems can have. I do not think that what we are proposing here is on the scale of what the National Health Service needs, but I accept that there can be problems. We and the department have a duty to examine that as carefully as we can. I give an assurance that we will do that as far as is possible.
Put very simply, that is where we are at the moment. We will keep noble Lords updated. We have accepted my Amendment 6, as amended by the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. There is no need to further complicate the Bill’s proceedings by adding this amendment, which duplicates what we already have. Therefore, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Teverson
My Lords, I thank the Minister and welcome his undertaking that the IT systems will be included in the regular reporting. It would be useful if the Minister could answer my noble friend Lord Fox’s question about whether they are starting from zero or whether we are effectively modifying existing systems.
Lord Teverson
I welcome that and on that basis beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Henley
Lord Henley
Free School Lunches and Milk, and School and Early Years Finance (Amendments Relating to Universal Credit) (England) Regulations 2018
(6 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
20:07 - Division on Lord Bassam of Brighton’s Motion - Ayes: 167 / Noes: 160 - Lord Bassam of Brighton’s Motion agreed.
Lord Bassam of Brighton
That this House regrets Her Majesty’s Government bringing forward changes in entitlement to free school meals through the Free School Lunches and Milk, and School and Early Years Finance (Amendments Relating to Universal Credit) (England) Regulations 2018 which will undermine work incentives in Universal Credit and leave up to a million poor children unable to claim free school meals; and calls on Her Majesty’s Government not to implement the Regulations until a full poverty impact assessment has been completed and considered by both Houses, and not before six months has elapsed (SI 2018/148).
Relevant document: 20th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee.
Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)
My Lords, I make no apologies for moving this Motion. I make it plain from the start that I see this in very personal terms.
Back in the 1960s, a time which brings happy nostalgia for many noble Lords, I was a teenager at secondary school, living with my mother and stepfather. Shortly before the start of the 1966 World Cup, he collapsed and died of a heart attack. I was just short of 13 years old and, frankly, my mother’s world collapsed around her. She worked, as she always had. She was then a farm worker on a soft fruit farm that produced plants for sale all year round. She picked soft fruit in the summer months and then worked in the fields, greenhouses and packaging and distribution centre the rest of the year. It was hard, backbreaking work, sometimes with long hours.
The pay was regulated by the old Agricultural Wages Board. Her weekly take home pay was 157 shillings and six pence, the equivalent today of £7.85. The equivalent today, annualised, would be £7,152.60. With overtime, it would have risen close to the threshold set by the Government for cutting off access to free school meals. My mother would have faced a hard choice akin to those who face today a modern cliff-edge judgment. Like most teenagers, I found odd jobs to try to help pay my way, but in 1966 she was what we now call part of the working poor. In fact, until I did some research today, and assuming I have my sums right, I had not realised quite how poor she was.
There were not many silver linings for my mum becoming a widow and she struggled to cope, both financially and emotionally. Eventually, the local council transferred the tenancy to her. The loss of household income led to a housing allowance and, in turn, that triggered entitlement to free school meals. When my mother eventually got her head around it, she asked me to see if we qualified for something called family income supplement—it was a sort of universal credit of its time—but apparently we did not.
Why do I mention this, and why now? Free school meals were, for my mother, a godsend. They were not an add-on, they were an essential. She did not have to spend time packing a lunch for me and it meant I had a hot meal five days a week without her having to worry. It saved her time—if you are working poor, that matters—and it saved her money. That is what makes these regulations so abhorrent. The Government seek to dress up this change as something it is not. They say, as the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, did last week, that they are an act of state generosity because, when they roll out universal credit and it is complete, there will be 50,000 additional beneficiaries. This is not because the scheme is more generous; it is simply, as the Children’s Commissioner rumbled last week, because of an increase in the size of the school-age population by nearly half a million by 2022. In fact, as a percentage of the school-age population, fewer will be entitled to free school meals.
Studies show that the educational benefit of good eating habits are profound. Northumbria University’s work on this suggests there is a real benefit in terms of educational attainment of a midday meal for those from low-income households. It was precisely because of this link that school meals were first introduced back in 1906 and why Labour has done so much to encourage breakfast clubs to ensure that kids get fed before the school day begins.
The Government are not making these changes out of the goodness of their heart. These changes are being made as part of the continuing austerity package. Will the Minister enlighten us this evening on the level of continuous savings they produce for the Treasury? However, we know the value of free school meals to individual households: £437 per child for a year and more than £1,300 a year for a three-child family where all are in education. Take those sums away and that represents a significant cut to family income.
We are supposed to be reassured by the transitional arrangements. No family should lose out if they currently receive free school meals except when they move to the next phase of schooling. On transfer from primary school to secondary school, you lose out, and you lose out when you transfer to sixth-form college. Perhaps the Minister can tell us how many will fall out of free school meals eligibility through that route each year. I ask this: how will it feel if you are in a family where the youngest child moves up to secondary school and loses their free school meals as a result of moving phases, but has a brother or sister still in receipt of free school meals? This is a divisive policy in families where some will get the benefit until they finish school and others will not. What are the total numbers who benefit now, and who will benefit at the real end of the rollout? Perhaps the Minister can give us a better and fuller picture of the long-term impact. The Children’s Commissioner suggests that we will not know the difference until 2026 or 2027 because of the protections relating to the educational phases.
I have read the consultation document. At paragraph 4.4 it states that 90% of pupils currently getting free school meals will continue to get them. The 10% who will not amounts to roughly 110,000 children, a not insignificant number. Where is their transitional protection? In the White Paper on universal credit, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions said:
“At its heart, Universal Credit is very simple and will ensure that work always pays and is seen to pay. Universal Credit will mean that people will be consistently and transparently better off for each hour they work”.
The Children’s Society argues that the introduction of the £7,400 earnings limit for free school meals creates a serious cliff-edge that fundamentally undermines that objective and will mean that many families actually become worse off overall by increasing their earnings. The society estimates that some 200,000 families with half a million children are at risk of falling into a new poverty trap where they seek to increase their earnings, or are forced to do so by their work coach, and they then lose the benefit of free school meals. It also estimates that a further 150,000 families with 400,000 children will find themselves in a position where they could be better off by reducing their earnings.
The best thing that can be said for the Government’s consultation paper is that it is confusing. In it the Government tell us that 1.9 million pupils will be sufficiently in poverty for them to apply the pupil premium formula to schools. If they can apply this number to schools, why not to pupils in poverty? Another DWP report on households with below-average incomes 1994-95 to 2015-16 suggests 2.3 million and 4 million children living in poverty, yet only 1.1 million currently benefit from free school meals and even on the Government’s best estimate, the figure will increase by just 50,000. The Children’s Society states that up to 1 million children living in poverty will miss out, and, as the Children’s Commissioner says,
“under any scenario, many hundreds of thousands and possibly well over a million children living in poverty are already not receiving free school meals”.
The Children’s Commissioner suggests that the Government should do four things. First, they should release the analysis behind what looks like a spurious claim for increased eligibility. Secondly, they should provide an estimate of the future number of pupils who will be eligible under a range of scenarios, including the old system of benefits-based eligibility, and the current system based on universal credit. Thirdly, they should provide impact assessments beyond 2022 to capture the full impact over the long term. Fourthly and finally, they should publish an estimate of the number of children who were previously ineligible for free school meals who will now become eligible because of the changes as compared against the number of 110,000 whose eligibility will cease as a result of the changes.
My Motion suggests that the Government should delay the changes for six months while they put their house in order, complete a full poverty impact assessment and place it before both Houses so that we get a complete picture. We should then consider these regulations again, otherwise they will penalise many of the working poor, people like my widowed mother who lived and worked in hard times and who asked for little. However, she needed a benign state not to penalise her, but to make life more tolerable so that she could just about manage.
Poverty does not make headlines, although it should. These regulations do nothing to solve the problems of modern poverty—rather, they surely make things worse. I beg to move.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, for tabling this Motion and I was moved by his opening comments about his own circumstances as a child with his widowed mother. For many people, in particular those whose children have left school, it may not seem important for us to debate a tiny piece of secondary legislation that tweaks the regulations about who will be entitled to a free school dinner. But this measure is about children, specifically those who most need our support: children living in poverty—children who through no fault of their own are not well fed, even in one of the wealthiest countries on this planet.
For many children, the 190 hot meals a year they get in school, which on average comes to fewer than four a week, are the only “proper” meals they get. For them, a holiday from school is also a holiday from hot dinners. I can well remember Christopher, who I taught many years ago, telling me that he was always pleased to see the end of the summer holidays so that he could come back to a school dinner once more.
I am sure that we will hear from the Government about how the statisticians with their electronic slide-rules have worked out who should and who should not qualify for a free school lunch, to meet the demands of the small army of government accountants employed to deliver austerity. The reality is that hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren will, each and every one of them, pay the price for our meanness. Children in our poorest communities who are born next month, children whose brothers and sisters have benefited from a free school lunch, will not have that benefit. Why? It is because they will not be four years of age by April 2022.
Margaret Thatcher is remembered for many things, one of which was taking away free milk from children. Mrs May, I am sure, will be remembered for trying to take us out of Europe, but if these regulations get on to the statute book, she will also be remembered for taking away from many children their only hot meal of the day. Marie Antoinette is believed to have said “Let them eat cake” when she was told that the poor had no bread to eat. What will the Prime Minister say to poor children who have no free school meal?
The Liberal Democrats fought hard when in the coalition to deliver universal free meals for infant schoolchildren as we recognised the importance of a nutritious meal in ensuring that children are able to make the most of their education. These regulations, once universal credit is rolled out, will ensure that 1 million children will not be getting that free meal. Last week on 14 March, the Equality and Human Rights Commission published its final report looking at what the impact of changes to the tax and welfare system on families will be in the 2021-22 tax year. It found that children will be hit the hardest, as an extra 1.5 million will be in poverty. The child poverty rate for those in lone-parent households will increase from 37% to more than 62%, and households with three or more children will see particularly large losses of around £5,600. David Isaac, the chair of the commission, which is responsible for making recommendations to the Government on the compatibility of policy and legislation with equality and human rights standards, said:
“It’s disappointing to discover that the reforms we have examined negatively affect the most disadvantaged in our society. It’s even more shocking that children—the future generation—will be the hardest hit and that so many will be condemned to start life in poverty”.
We cannot let this continue if we want a fairer Britain. Appalling though this picture is, I am pretty certain that it does not take into account the additional impact on many poor families of these changes to the free school lunch regulations.
When I taught infant schoolchildren, if they occasionally misbehaved, I would say that I was sad in my heart. I am sad in my heart about these regulations and I regret the lack of humanity that these changes to the regulations demonstrate. Our children are our future and we must cherish and nurture them. On top of the negative impact on children of the tax and welfare reforms, this change adds insult and hunger to injury.
Lord Patten (Con)
My Lords, I do not have a flinty heart, but I am not oversentimental. However, I was moved by what the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, said about his own circumstances and his hard-working mother and how people in working poverty suffer. I do not think there is anyone in this House who is not concerned about poverty and about dealing with it properly. But that always has to be based on fact and not on sentiment. What strikes me about what the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, said in his speech is that there is a huge gap, not just in alleged or asserted numbers but in credibility, between the alleged 1 million child losers to whom he referred and the assurances given, for example, in a Parliamentary Answer by my noble friend Lord Agnew of Oulton earlier this month that by 2022 there will be an increase in the number of children getting free school meals. There is a seven-figure difference between the Answer from my noble friend and the figures of the noble Lord, Lord Bassam. I am all in favour of building bridges —I would welcome building a bridge with the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, if I got the chance—but there is an unbridgeable gap here; a seven-figure gap.
The noble Lord may wish to reflect on his own time as a distinguished Labour Chief Whip. In Division after endless Division, he clicked away, totting up the votes, with the ever-helpful learned clerks counting up on their devices as a back-up—we all like our statistical fact checkers, and there is no hiding place for the eventual numbers of the contents and the not-contents. Yet there are lots of independent authorities which say that his figures asserting massive losses of free school meals are—forgive my uncharacteristic bluntness—wrong. Unlike some of my colleagues, I like experts, and these authorities and experts range from the UK Statistics Authority, which makes it clear that claims that universal credit causes poverty are wrong, through to the “Channel 4 News” FactCheck, which pointed out that no child currently receiving free school meals will lose their entitlement, but rather that more will benefit from the changes.
So, while I understand the strength of feeling, it seems that we have seen the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, with his new-found arithmetical freedom, transmogrify from being an obsessive bean counter—or perhaps I should say Peer counter—of those voting content or not-content into what some might think to be a statistical tearaway, albeit in a good cause. I do not doubt that it is a good cause, but, in the end, hard facts, rather than what some would think of as exaggeration, are best to rely on.
I certainly wish to see all children in all households that are in need get help. But if all children of all households on universal credit were to get free school meals, we would be talking about a cost of billions, and I am not making that up. I wonder what the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer thinks about that. By comparison, I congratulate Her Majesty’s Government on what they are doing. All children in years 1 and 2 will continue to get free school meals—this was not mentioned in the debate—and no child will lose out as universal credit is rolled out. With respect to the noble Lord, these are facts rather than assertions.
The Earl of Listowel (CB)
My Lords, it is good to hear the noble Lord, Lord Patten, recognising that on all sides of the House we are very concerned about the just-managing families. Two-thirds of all children in poverty live in working families that are working hard to make ends meet and to do the best for their children. It was encouraging to hear the Prime Minister talk so strongly after the Brexit vote about reaching out to those just-managing families in need. So I hope that the Minister will take this golden opportunity offered to us by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, to give moral support to children and families in poverty today, and to say from the Dispatch Box that, yes, there may be difficulties, but he will look at how we can ensure that all children in poverty get a free school meal.
This morning, I spoke with a mother who endured poverty for several years. She was a victim of domestic violence; she was in a refuge for three months; and, last year, she spent six to seven months in bed and breakfast accommodation, living in one room with her teenage daughter and infant granddaughter. That was a hugely challenging time for her and she needed her friends around her to give her moral support. This morning, she told me that she had been successful in a visa application. She is now in a financially better state, and has found a new relationship with a good man. We need to give support to families when they are struggling through difficult times—and these are difficult times for so many families after years of austerity. Her issue is extreme, but many of the families we are talking about will be suffering severe housing problems. Increasing numbers of children are growing up in bed and breakfasts or hostel accommodation, and even those with more secure accommodation lack clear security of tenure.
Over the weekend, as your Lordships will have heard, a British teacher won the accolade of best teacher in the world. She talked of her experience in Brent, where she was very concerned about housing—so many children living in an overcrowded home and having to work in the bathroom to be able to concentrate.
These families are coping with the stress brought about by years of austerity. They have lost their early intervention services as local services have been cut. This is an opportunity for the Government—yes, perhaps a difficult one—to think about how we can offer moral support to those families. Often, it is mothers bringing up their children on their own, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, said at the beginning of the debate, giving them the confidence that their child will have a good, healthy, hot meal at the beginning of the day gives them one less thing to worry about. Surely we can reach out to these families and offer them that help. I hope that the Minister will give us that assurance today.
The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth
My Lords, it normally gives me great pleasure to speak in your Lordships’ house, but this evening I speak with some sorrow. I am hoping that the proposals made by the Government—involving, I am sure, the Treasury, the Department for Education and the Department for Work and Pensions—are perhaps the result of the complexity of those interlocking interests and have inadvertently left what surely cannot be intended. The consequences of this policy run counter to everything that the Government have said about the principle of universal credit, which I and many others have supported. If the consequences are unintended then I shall be delighted and relieved to hear the Minister say so.
I have looked at these regulations and concluded that they drive a coach and horses at some speed through the defining principle of universal credit—a principle I wholeheartedly endorse—that work should pay. They create an arbitrary cliff edge at a low-income threshold, off which many risk falling. For working families just below the current threshold, this proposal would very clearly not make extra work pay. They would be better off not seeking more paid work and leaving their children on free school meals, unless their family income increased by some considerable margin. Those just above the threshold will be worse off under the regulations, facing school meal charges. They would be better off working less. That is at best an anomaly, but I am tempted to describe it as an absurdity.
I do not, however, see this as pointing to a flaw or a contradiction in policy design. Rather, it points to the real, pressing and increasingly difficult circumstances that, over the years, families will face. More often than not, this will affect people who are already in work who earn very little—people whose weekly budgets already have little or no slack.
Some Members of your Lordships’ House may recall that recently I chaired a briefing for Members of both Houses. A number of your Lordships may remember Clare, who spoke to us. Her oldest child currently receives free school meals. She and her husband do not want to live on benefits, credits or allowances; they want to get on and get up. Clare’s husband had been made redundant, and after 18 months volunteering in a local school he now works as a teaching assistant and earns £8,000. Clare had worked for 15 years as an NHS dental nurse, but her clinic closed. I quote Clare with her permission. She said:
“We both never, ever thought we would be in this situation. We feel terribly ashamed to have to rely on help”.
Clare is retraining as a solicitor. When she has done so, her husband will complete his own retraining as a teacher; both will incur significant debts. Hers will be £56,000. Clare told me that they have many working years ahead of them and look forward to a future in which taxes are spent helping the vulnerable in society. She feels blessed to live in a society that has a safety net in place for them and others facing short-term difficulties.
These regulations will not help Clare and those like her overcome these short-term challenges. They will add to them and hinder her from creating a long-term future for herself and her family, because Clare has no slack. She told us her family of four,
“survives on £10 a day for our food and petrol … with no luxuries”.
Clare does not understand how the figure of £7,400 has been arrived at. Nor does she understand how introducing an earnings threshold as low as that could possibly benefit people in her situation. I do not understand either. She knows her eight-year-old daughter will, for now, continue to receive free school meals, but what of her son, who starts school in September and other children of their ages? As she observes, initially it seems nobody will lose out, but in the long term more and more people—and more specifically, more and more children—will.
We are potentially creating anxiety, even despair, when we should offer hope and support. We are creating a cliff edge so that work does not pay. The job of this House is often to ask the Government to think again about what may be the unintended consequences of policy. The outcomes of this one are severe. I ask the Government to think again this evening, and I do so from the bottom of my heart.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, in his very moving opening speech, my noble friend Lord Bassam quoted lain Duncan Smith when he was Secretary of State, saying that universal credit would always make work pay and people would be better off for every hour they work. I want to focus specifically on the question of work incentives. I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Patten, that I trade in facts, which I offer to the House for its consideration.
Iain Duncan Smith’s quote was not a throwaway comment. It was in the foreword to the White Paper which explained why the Government were planning to abolish all the main means-tested working-age benefits and replace them with universal credit. That process is now ongoing. It has had its challenges, as we all know. There have been problems with the system and computers, design and implementation challenges and severe delays. It has been subject to repeated budget cuts with the result that it has gone from being what was originally designed as a benefit to claimants to being a net saving to the Treasury. The whole point of this enormous exercise, which will eventually include some 7 million people, was that it would always “make work pay”. Even small amounts of work and every extra hour would pay. That quote was the aim of the system in a nutshell.
Yet this SI reintroduces the mother of all cliff edges into universal credit. At the moment, if parents work, there comes a point when they lose free school meals, but at that point they gain access to working tax credit, which is worth more. Under this system it would mean if a parent were offered a pay rise—like the mother of the noble Lord, Lord Bassam—or the chance of an extra hour a week working which would take their earnings over a cash limit of £7,400 a year, they would either have to turn that down or take it knowing their children would all lose free school meals.
The excellent briefing from the Children’s Society and the CPAG modelled the impact on a single parent in 2022 at the then-expected minimum wage raising two children in a rented house. She wants to raise her hours from 12 to 16 a week, exactly the kind of thing universal credit is meant to help. Her earnings would go up by £1,893 a year but she would end up £174 worse off by the time she had lost universal credit and free school meals. Other families would actually be better off by cutting their hours or taking a pay cut. This undoes all the progress made by tax credits and all the aims of universal credit of getting away from precisely those problems in the old-fashioned benefit system. Does the Minister acknowledge that there is a problem here?
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, I too echo the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, about the Government’s proposals to introduce an earnings threshold for eligibility for free school meals and milk. This is very unfair, because it takes no account of the number of children who the parents have to feed. It is a cumbersome way of doing things which will make it very difficult for families to plan their budgets and, as we have heard, will cause a poverty trap for many. This comes on top of recent cuts in benefits which have already made many working families worse off and the food banks busier.
Let me say first why free school meals are so important. There is plenty of research showing that nutrition levels in school meals are vastly better than those in either the average packed lunch, only 1.6% of which reach the same nutritional standard, or certainly those in a cheap bag of chips and a fizzy drink from the shop on the corner. One of the best services we have for school-age children is the provision of a nourishing meal at lunchtime. For some children in poverty, this is the only decent meal they will get all day, and it is essential that it is provided for them if their parents cannot afford to pay. Many teachers will tell you that they have children in their class who come to school without any breakfast. One local authority has taken this so much on board that it has decided to offer free meals for poor children every day of the year. That is because teachers notice evidence of malnutrition in some children when they come back to school after the holidays.
A nourishing, balanced meal containing fruit and vegetables is important not just for the health of the child, providing the vitamins needed for healthy growth and helping to prevent obesity; it is important also for the child’s behaviour and academic attainment. Pilot studies on the effect of universal provision of free school meals for key stage 1 children when they were introduced by the coalition Government showed a distinct improvement in behaviour, and attainment advanced by as much as two months. This was particularly so with children from disadvantaged backgrounds. So it is clear that free school meals are one of the major tools in our armoury for closing the attainment gap between the rich and the poor.
The main objective of our education system must be to help all children attain their maximum potential, and good nutrition is one foundation of this. A hungry child is not a learning child. Anything that has the potential for reducing the number of poorer children who receive such meals should be rejected. Indeed, we should provide free meals for more children, not fewer, because a free meals regime increases uptake, decreases stigma and reduces the number of children bringing in sandwiches and biscuits or going to the chip shop. That in turn improves the attainment of all children.
The Government have told us that 50,000 more children will receive free meals under the new regulations than under the old and promise that no child already on free school meals will lose their meals while at their current stage of education. The problem with that is that children grow up. They get to the end of primary school or secondary school and, suddenly, children who were formerly eligible for free meals will no longer get them. There needs not to have been any change in their parents’ earnings for this to happen because there is now an earnings threshold which takes no account of the size of the family.
Every mum and dad knows that it takes twice as much money to feed two children as one, and three times as much to feed three. That is £10 a week for lunches every week of term, or £20 or £30 for bigger families, which could easily be enough to make it not worth taking a few extra hours’ work. Where then is the fundamental work incentive that is supposed to underpin universal credit? Where now is the mantra “making work pay”?
I am not going to go through the case studies in the briefing, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, has already done so, but there is clear potential for making a lot of families worse off. The Government need to look at the disposable income of a family once the 63% withdrawal of universal credit for every extra pound earned has been taken account of and school meals paid for. If they do that, they may come up with a fairer system.
School lunches are not a luxury; they are an essential of life for those families who find it hard to feed their children. Of course, we are talking not only about meals; many other passported benefits are linked to free school meals which help make bringing up children bearable. They currently include the early years pupil premium. I beg the Minister to decouple that at the very least, because, again, it is in the interests of closing the attainment gap.
Universal credit was supposed to avoid the cliff edge and make it worth while going to work. By introducing a lower earnings threshold, the Government are creating a cliff edge at a very low earnings level where it will hurt most and undermine the whole point of universal credit. In doing so, they are putting at risk the health and academic attainment of the poorest children. Will the Minister please think again?
Lord Lexden (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, made his case with characteristic vigour and force, and with deep feeling as he recalled life in the 1960s in a part of Essex with which I was very familiar myself. The Motion states that up to 1 million poor children could be deprived of free school meals as a result of government policies. As my noble friend Lord Patten has shown, independent experts have urged us to treat this truly alarming prediction with considerable caution. We should be wary about rushing to the conclusion that a crisis is in the making.
It is accepted on all sides that the introduction of universal credit throughout our country, so vital in helping more people into jobs, will affect the number of children eligible for free school meals while ensuring that poor families, whose needs must be safeguarded, remain at the centre of policy. Interim arrangements were announced last summer to secure free school meals for all pupils whose parents were at that time recipients of universal credit. Future recipients will be subject to a means test as regards the provision of free school meals to their children. There is nothing new or unexpected about this. It has been a feature of the plans for this major, constructive reform of our welfare system since 2013.
What are the implications? The Department for Education estimates that, in the years ahead, some 50,000 more children will be entitled to a free school meal than under the arrangements which universal credit is replacing. That is welcome reassurance, but the Government should perhaps consider some form of monitoring. I wonder whether arrangements could be made to publish at regular intervals between now and 2022 authoritative figures for the number of children actually receiving free school meals so that the effects of this hugely significant change of policy can be assessed. We need to be sure that the poorest families in our country continue to receive the help they need.
Lord Freud (Con)
My Lords, I want to pick up on two statements made by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, one of which I agree with and one of which I do not. The first and possibly more substantial statement is the claim that 1 million children will lose out and that the new threshold of £7,400 changes where the line is between when people have free school meals and when they do not. This figure was chosen to try to find the right level for continuing to make that provision, so I disagree with the noble Lord there.
However, where I agree with the noble Lord, as well as the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, and the right reverent Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth, is on the disincentivising effects of what is almost the only cliff edge—rather than a cliff edge, it is almost a waterfall effect; it is more waterfall than the cliff edge that we are used to. Nevertheless, it is there. SSAC produced a report four years ago, which I commend to the House, looking at what we could do with passported benefits generally in order to incorporate them within universal credit and eliminate not just free school meals—there are others, such as prescriptions—and put them within the taper in a way that did not have a cash-flow impact. The report suggested a structure that the DWP response endorsed.
As SSAC pointed out, we have the most passported benefits of any country—they have proliferated—and we need a mechanism to add to universal credits and put them on a taper so that we do not have a disincentive effect. The DWP and this House care about disincentivising work, but other departments do not—they worry about feeding children and so on—so it is important to keep up the pressure in the years to come so that we do not allow these cliff edges or waterfalls to be reincorporated into the system. To do that we will have to design a way of putting the passported benefits into universal credit.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, I am very pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Freud, because it fits well with what I want to say—but first I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Bassam for his powerful introduction.
The Government have prayed in aid the report of the Social Security Advisory Committee to suggest that there is not a problem about work incentives. Last week in Oral Questions the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, said that when SSAC looked at the issue it found that there was no rigorous research evidence to show that the provision of passported benefits acted as a work disincentive. I am not sure whether the Ministers have read the report—I have it here; it is a right door- stopper—but it actually says that very little is known, which is slightly different.
However, the response to SSAC from the coalition Government was interesting. It said in its introduction to the report:
“The coalition Government endorses the SSAC’s view that the design of passported benefits under Universal Credit can have a key impact on incentives to work ... SSAC notes that there is mixed evidence about the impact of passported benefits on work incentives. However, it is important to highlight that the responses gathered in the review focus on the impact of passported benefits within the current benefits and tax credit system rather than the impact under Universal Credit. This is an important distinction as, currently, at the point some passported benefits are withdrawn, recipients often receive an increase in working tax credits that helps compensate for the loss of the value of the passported benefits”.
Quite—as my noble friend Lady Sherlock pointed out. But this was ignored by the Secretary of State when last week he told the House of Commons that there had always been a cliff edge. He seemed to interpret that as meaning “meal or no meal”.
SSAC’s fears have been borne out by the analysis by Professor Jonathan Bradshaw and Dr Antonia Keung, the Children’s Society and the Child Poverty Action Group—I declare an interest as its honorary president—which has already been referred to. I look to that report also to address a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lexden. We have always known that what is happening currently is an interim arrangement, that is true, but the SSAC report was six years ago, in 2012. It is not surprising that some noble Lords have forgotten about that, because it was a long time ago.
However, the Government also said then that they would consult on new criteria that year to put in place the new system in October 2013. We have had to wait six years. What took them so long? I suspect that it was because they could not find a way round the cliff- edge problem, because SSAC repeatedly drew attention to the fact that if you go down the route of introducing an income threshold it creates a cliff-edge problem. It did not have an answer to it because there is no answer if you are not prepared to pay for free school meals for all those on universal credit. As has already been said, that undermines the foundational principle of universal credit. Perhaps that is why the noble Lord, Lord Freud—who did so much work on that benefit—is so concerned.
Yes, the Government made this clear in 2012—but the living standards landscape is very different from what it was then. For example, we did not know then that there was going to be a two-child limit on benefits for families. We did not know then that universal credit was going to be subjected to cut after cut. The CPAG has suggested that the average loss for working families on universal credit will be more than £400 a year. We did not know then that working age benefits were going to be frozen. Child benefit is particularly relevant here. Professor Jonathan Bradshaw kindly did some calculations for me—I am not very good at calculations—and calculated that for a two-child family child benefit is worth £2.66 a week less than it was in 2012 when the Government first suggested that they were not going to give it to everyone on universal credit. It is £5.44 less if we go back to 2010. That is in the context of the Resolution Foundation pointing out that for a two-child-plus family, child benefit is less generous than at any point since it was fully introduced in 1979. So, as they say, when the facts change, perhaps the policy should change as well.
Many of these matters come down to how things work in practice, so perhaps I may ask a few practical questions. We know that the earnings of people at the lower end of the labour market fluctuate repeatedly. The Government have addressed how they are going to estimate what those earnings are, but if they are going to be recalculated every month—as in the briefing referred to by the right reverend Prelate from the representatives of the Children’s Society—this will be an absolute nightmare. I cannot see any reference to what will happen to people on zero-hours contracts or self-employed people. Can the Minister explain how their earnings will be calculated?
On the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, have the Government given any consideration to decoupling free school meals eligibility from pupil premium eligibility? As I understand it, it is the latter that costs so much, not free school meals. So it would be possible to pay for free school meals for everyone on universal credit at not a huge extra cost and treat the pupil premium separately.
Finally—I hope this is not too cheeky—when the Minister responds, will he respond to what has actually been said here today? Last week in Oral Questions I got the sense that officials had expected us to say the same things that had been said in the House of Commons the day before. We did not, but that was what the response was to.
I say the same to the noble Lord, Lord Patten. My noble friend Lord Bassam made it very clear what he was talking about. He produced facts from the Children’s Commissioner which showed that the facts that the Government have been presenting over and over again—that 50,000 children will be better off—are fake facts, to quote a certain President. So let us get our facts right and address what people are saying in this House rather than what we expect them to say.
Lord Polak (Con)
My Lords, I also pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Bassam. His words about his experiences and circumstances as a child were very moving. However, change is often difficult to deliver. As George Bernard Shaw said, progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
The introduction of universal credit transforms the benefits system by making work pay. At the same time, public resources can be targeted at the families most in need, and that must include setting a threshold for free school meals.
I was particularly struck by the contribution to the debate in the Commons by my honourable friend the vice-chairman of the Conservative party Maria Caulfield. She too talked about her experiences of being brought up in a working-class background where there was no hope and no ambition for working-class kids other than a future life on benefits. Universal credit, I am sure noble Lords will agree, will help such families and such individuals. I will not repeat the arguments made and the reply to the Labour smears of last week; suffice it to say that as a result of the changes we are told—facts—that 50,000 extra children will get free school meals by 2022. I have called them facts; we cannot call them facts because only in 2022 will we know the real facts on any of the projections, but those will be as a result of changes brought about by the Government. As Maria went on to say last week, what some Labour Members did was to spread fear in a political, point-scoring way and use working-class families, shamefully, as a political football. That was clear. It was clear if you read what was in the press.
I was absolutely sure that it must be right that free school meals are intended for the most disadvantaged families on low incomes. Thus, targeting taxpayers’ money at those most in need is the right thing to do. I support the Government’s position, which is good for all, and I remind those who will not accept change of the words of the late Harold Wilson:
“He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery”.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Bassam for opening this debate so effectively and, like other noble Lords, I was certainly moved by his personal story. These regulations have brought widespread resistance from opposition parties and Cross-Benchers, as evidenced in this debate, as well as from the children’s welfare and education sectors in recent weeks and months. Apart from the effects of the regulations, anger has increased with the realisation that, inexplicably for such an important matter, no impact assessment was carried out by the Government. Can the Minister explain why?
I agree with the wording of the regret Motion regarding a six-month delay while that impact assessment is carried out; if it was not seen as necessary at the start, when the Government first devised these regulations, it certainly is now, because of the issues that have been raised in debates in the other place last week and in your Lordships’ House this evening. When they were debated in the other place last week, when the Opposition prayed against them, the Government lost the argument that day but fended off the Motion to Annul with the help of the Democratic Unionist Party—hardly surprising, since the Prime Minister had enlisted their support, I would say cynically, by producing a rabbit from a hat by announcing that the regulations will not apply in Northern Ireland. The Government have no such cover in your Lordships’ House.
As noble Lords have said, not receiving free school meals would cost a family around £430 a year for each child. Labour policy is that the children of all families in receipt of universal credit should receive free school meals, and of course that comes at a cost. However, not providing free school meals to the children of families stuck in poverty despite one or both parents being in work also comes at a cost, a cost of a different kind, because a key issue from the education point of view is that free school meals often act as a passport to other support, such as help with school clothing, trips, music lessons or discounted access to leisure facilities. This means that entitlement to free school meals can be worth significantly more to struggling families than the direct value of the meal itself.
The Government say they want to target the families that need free school meals most, and that is understandable and perfectly acceptable, but what about the families that may need it slightly less, but nevertheless genuinely need the benefits of free school meals? The Minister may not appreciate this fact, nor indeed some of his colleagues, but for too many children in poverty, free school meals are the difference between getting a hot meal during the day and going without. As the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and my noble friend Lady Lister said, teachers know only too well that an undernourished child is in no fit state to be taught effectively. The Government should adopt the policy of the Opposition and support all children living in poverty by continuing with the transitional arrangements.
The government position is that it would cost too much: by most estimates around £3 billion a year. But if free school meals were decoupled from universal credit, as other noble Lords have suggested, and as has already happened with infant school meals, which are universally free, then the cost would be substantially reduced, probably to around £500 million a year. That is not an insignificant amount of money, I am not suggesting it is, but is the Minister going to get to his feet and tell your Lordships’ House that his Government cannot afford that relatively modest amount to ensure that children from poor in-work families—I repeat that these are in-work families—are provided with a nourishing meal each school day? If so, then the Prime Minister’s claim to be supporting the “just about managing” will be demonstrably empty rhetoric. If their aim is to target the families that need free school meals most, the Minister has to answer the point made very well by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, as to how children should be treated during school holidays: in many cases they suffer considerably without any access to free school meals in that period.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, on securing this important debate. I also thank many noble Lords for their contributions today. I will attempt to deal with the important points raised. This Government are committed to providing a healthy free school meal to the most disadvantaged children. I reassure the House that, contrary to some reports, no child will lose a meal as a result of these changes. In fact, more children will benefit by 2022 compared to the previous system.
Let me discuss the technicalities behind these regulations. As your Lordships will be aware, we are reforming the welfare system to ensure that work always pays by replacing a complex and fragmented system with one benefit—universal credit. Since April 2013, all families receiving universal credit have been entitled to free school meals. As my noble friend Lord Lexden said, we have on several occasions flagged up that this was a temporary measure—for example, in the Social Security Advisory Committee report on passported benefits in March 2012 and as repeated in April 2013. As the national rollout of universal credit accelerates, we are replacing this temporary measure with clear eligibility criteria for free school meals to ensure that they continue to be targeted at disadvantaged families.
Under the new eligibility criteria, we have estimated that by 2022 around 50,000 more children will benefit from a free school meal. I want to address the concern expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, that this included population growth—it does not. In addition, our protections will ensure that no child receiving free school meals now, or gaining them during the universal credit rollout, will lose their entitlement until the end of the rollout, and beyond that until the end of their primary or secondary education. Children protected in this way are in addition to the 50,000 I have just mentioned.
Lord Bassam of Brighton
I am interested in this phasing argument. Say you are in primary school now, and get free school meals. If you fall outside the eligibility criteria, am I right in thinking that when you go to secondary school, in maybe two or three years’ time, you will then lose entitlement to that free school meal?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
The protections are in place until 2022. It is the longer of the period of being in a phase of education or 2022.
Lord Bassam of Brighton
So if you go to secondary school in 2023—which is quite possible if you are in primary school now—you will lose your free school meal. Is that what the noble Lord is telling us?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, it will depend on the circumstances of the family at that time.
I turn to the comments about the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, which published a briefing which assumed that the number of 50,000 more pupils who will benefit from free school meals does not take into account population growth. This is incorrect. Our analysis compares 2022 under a universal credit system to 2022 under the legacy benefits system, and population growth is by definition captured within this comparison. Furthermore, the Government have just published an updated equalities impact assessment, on 7 February. The majority of respondents to the consultation agreed with us that there would be no adverse impact on those with protected characteristics.
It is important to add that the £7,400 threshold relates to earned income. It does not include additional income through universal credit. A typical family earning around this threshold, depending on their exact circumstances, would have a total annual household income of between £18,000 and £24,000 once benefits are taken into account.
I take this opportunity to bust a myth. Some have claimed that these reforms will take away free school meals from 1 million children. This is simply not true. As my noble friend Lord Patten said, Channel 4 made this clear in its FactCheck article. It highlighted that this claim is based on an entirely hypothetical scenario in which universal credit was to continue being an automatic eligibility criteria. This was never going to be the case. Contrary to some people’s claims, this Government’s plan will result in more children benefiting, not fewer, and is more generous than the old system.
I also acknowledge the report published by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee on 1 March this year. We have listened to the committee’s comments and have responded to its report requesting that we publish the methodology supporting the modelling of the 50,000 children who will benefit by 2022. This has been published as part of the report.
The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, expressed concern about fluctuating income. We recognise that some households see their earnings fluctuate on a regular basis and have written into regulations that earnings should be checked over a period lasting up to three months, where the assessment period data is available. We are also exploring ways to ensure that families with very low incomes can receive free school meals during the initial assessment period for universal credit.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
What will happen with self-employed people and those on zero-hours contracts? I could not find that in the document.
Lord Agnew of Oulton
As I mentioned, we are assessing those who are on very low incomes to ensure that they can receive free school meals. That information will become available in due course.
I hope your Lordships will agree when I state the importance of targeting public resources where they are needed the most. If free school meals were extended to all families on universal credit, as some suggest, this would mean that by the end of the rollout around half of all pupils would become eligible. Some universal credit households are on middle incomes, sometimes exceeding £40,000 a year. We estimate that extending free school meals to all these families would cost in excess of £3 billion more a year by 2022, including the cost of the extra meals and associated school deprivation funding. The additional meals alone would cost in excess of £450 million a year. As the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said, fairness requires Government to direct resources to where they are needed most. These are not the low-income families that we want to target with free school meals, and this is not a sensible or indeed fair use of public money.
The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, was concerned about the decoupling of free school meals from the pupil premium. The Government are very committed to providing equality of opportunity so every pupil, irrespective of their background, can realise their academic potential. Since the introduction of the pupil premium in 2011, the difference in the relative attainment of disadvantaged children and their peers has reduced across both the primary and secondary phases. It has narrowed by 10.5% at key stage 2 and 10% at key stage 4. This means better prospects for disadvantaged pupils and a more prosperous life as an adult.
Concerns were raised about conditionality and the use of sanctions. Sanctions are only ever used as a last resort. When considering whether a sanction is appropriate, a decision-maker will take all the claimant’s individual circumstances, including any health conditions or disabilities, and any evidence of good cause, into account before deciding whether a sanction is warranted.
I want to address some of the comments made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth and the noble Baronesses, Lady Sherlock and Lady Lister, dealing with cliff edges. Universal credit is designed to be more generous to claimants who take on additional hours, and the smooth taper rate gives incentives to do so because, unlike under the old system, people see more money in their pocket for every extra hour that they work. As my noble friend Lord Polak said, change does involve some disruption, but in general we are seeing a better system for people who want to achieve more and to work harder or to be able to have the opportunity to work. In addition, the well-established links between employment and improved health and well-being mean that there are considerable non-economic benefits for parents who increase their working hours.
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope (LD)
I do not think that the Minister has dealt with the absolutely crucial point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Freud, because if we do not have a mechanism that assimilates and deals with passporting benefits, there may be other outstanding issues that will come along and prove to be not cliff edges but waterfalls—I like that description. Will the Minister commit to refer the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Freud, to the Social Security Advisory Committee? That is the best vehicle for coming up with an evaluation of the work-disincentive effect that these waterfalls and cliff edges are guaranteed to introduce long-term and in perpetuity into universal credit, which is a bad thing for the Government’s own policy.
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, I am happy to relay those concerns and to take the matter away for further consideration.
Finally, I would like to highlight the five key improvements made by this Conservative-led Government for early years and child care. I give credit to the noble Lord, Lord Storey, as part of his party’s involvement in these important reforms, but I believe that it is incredibly important to put these into context. First, there is the 15 hours a week of free early education for disadvantaged two year-olds, which did not exist before 2010. Secondly, there is the universal 15 hours a week free childcare for three and four year-olds, now with the early years pupil premium. Thirdly, there are an additional 15 hours a week of childcare for working parents. Fourthly, through universal credit, up to 85% of childcare costs can be reimbursed, which is a higher percentage than was ever available under tax credits. Finally, nearly 1 million more families will gain support through tax-free childcare than through the existing voucher scheme.
I hope these five elements exemplify the efforts this Government have made to support vulnerable families. The continued provision of free school meals to children in households that might not be able to afford them remains of the utmost importance, and I would stress that—the utmost importance. Free school meals have always been provided to children who need them most, and we want to make sure that as many eligible children as possible continue to claim them.
Lord Bassam of Brighton
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that rousing conclusion. I have not really heard anything that convinces me that the Government have got their policy on this right. The Minister failed and ducked the issue of the cliff-edge point that was so eloquently addressed by my noble friend Lady Sherlock and others. The Minister actually supplemented and aided my argument on phasing when he said that, yes, it would depend on the individual’s circumstances in 2023, but if they move from one phase of education to the other then of course there would be an issue about whether they continue to have eligibility for free school meals.
I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Patten, for reminding us about fact-checking because, for me, he added to the confusion about figures. Part of the argument that we have been pushing over these last few weeks about free school meals is that nobody has quite got to the bottom of the Government’s policy because nobody can be absolutely certain about the data on which it relies. I was very heartened to hear the noble Lord, Lord Freud, express some concern about the waterfall and cliff edge, because that cuts to the core of the issue. We just do not know.
I have tabled a lot of Written Questions on this issue; most of them have not yet been answered. Most of them were directed at trying to find out at what stage of the rollout of universal credit we can expect to have hard numbers and data about the overall impact. I find that most worrying and troubling because the Government have not done a poverty assessment in this whole process. We do not know what the real impact will be of taking away free school meals from people, or what impact the new system will have on populations in the future. The failure to do a proper poverty assessment fatally flaws this new system.
I agree with the Minister and I agree with other noble Lords on the Benches opposite when they say that work should always pay. That is a laudable objective of universal credit, but I am not convinced that the levels are right or that the policy is set in the right direction. I am grateful to my noble friends Lady Lister and Lady Sherlock, the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, the noble Lords, Lord Storey and Lord Kirkwood, and my noble friend Lord Watson for their support in this debate.
I have done a bit of a fact check since I have been sitting here. The noble Lord, Lord Patten, went to Wimbledon College; the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, went to Framlingham College; the noble Lord, Lord Freud, went to Whitgift School and the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, went to Rugby. I bet there were not too many free school meals at those schools. This evening we should stand up for those who benefit from this, and I therefore wish to test the opinion of the House.