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Business before Questions
Speaker’s Statement
Mr Speaker
I would like to make a statement about security and access to the parliamentary estate. It is likely that there will be a strike of parliamentary security staff this Wednesday 20 March. Industrial action is due to begin this evening, Tuesday 19 March, and to conclude on the morning of Thursday 21 March. During this time, access to the parliamentary estate for non-passholders will be extremely limited.
Parliament’s priority will be to ensure that the business of both Houses is unaffected. Priority access will be provided to Select Committee witnesses of both Houses and civil servants who are supporting business in both Chambers.
All security staff are highly valued and an essential part of the parliamentary community. Parliamentary authorities are continuing to engage constructively with the union over the issues that were on the ballot and hope to avoid the strike taking place. Should this action take place, I would like to reassure Members that security will in no way be compromised. Security is everyone’s responsibility. I should remind colleagues that it is imperative that we all wear our security passes at all time when on the parliamentary estate. Anyone failing to display a security pass is liable to challenge and may be required to obtain a day pass.
Oral Answers to Questions
(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Greg Clark)
The best way to support people is to make sure that they have a job. Today it was announced that more people are employed in our country than ever before. Unemployment has fallen to 3.9%, its lowest since 1975. Our pay rose in real terms over the past year by 1.3%, and over the past year 96% of those new jobs have been full time.
Judith Cummins
Too often, workers have eight or 10-hour contracts, but are then expected to work up to 60 hours when their employer demands it, with no flexibility in return. One concrete step that the Government could take to protect these insecure workers is to ensure that contracts reflect the hours that people normally work. Will the Minister commit to legislating for this?
Greg Clark
I am slightly surprised to hear that from the hon. Lady because she knows that we have taken measures to give workers the right to request that stable contract. She will know that in her own area Bradford Council is a very good exponent of that. It was advertising last night for casual commis chefs, saying that hours are offered on a “casual basis” and may be withdrawn by either party, giving a minimum of two hours’ notice. If she wants those rights to be extended, I suggest that she talk to Bradford Council first.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Can the Business Secretary confirm that there are more people in our nation in secure employment than ever before in our history and that the number of people on zero- hours contracts has fallen by 100,000 in the past year alone?
Greg Clark
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Obviously, it is a great source of confidence to people that they can obtain a job. It is the case that employers across the country value the flexibility that having a flexible workforce gives. In fact, again, the Labour leader of Gateshead Council said that
“many zero-hours contracts employees”
on the council
“don’t want to be full time employees and prefer to consider themselves as self-employed”,
so this is a practice that is pursued right across the country.
Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)
Some 1.6 million workers are paid exactly the national living wage of £7.83 an hour, and a further 3 million people are paid within 50 pence of it. In the spring statement last week, the Chancellor said that the ultimate objective of this Government was
“ending low pay in the UK”—[Official Report, 13 March 2019; Vol. 656, c. 349.]
The usual definition of a national living wage is 66% of median earnings, but the remit of the Low Pay Commission is only to get to 60%. Are the Government now committing to end low pay? If so, when?
Greg Clark
The hon. Lady should recognise the commitment to 60% and the progress that has been made towards that, which meant a very big pay increase for many of the lowest paid workers in the country. She will remember that the Chancellor announced a review in his statement last week to look into where we go beyond that, using international best practice to inform such a decision. I hope that the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, which the hon. Lady chairs, will want to contribute to that review.
Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)
Matthew Taylor’s recent review of modern working practices indicated that a blanket ban on zero-hours contracts would create more cliff edges for employers and workers. Does my right hon. Friend agree with that analysis?
Greg Clark
I do agree with that analysis and with what my hon. Friend has said. The conclusion of the panel in that completely independent report was:
“To ban zero hours contracts…would negatively impact many more people than it helped.”
It is right to ensure that there is an ability to request a stable contract and that people are not banned from working for different employers, but to remove these contracts all together would be against the practice of many employers, including councils.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)
Greg Clark
I share the hon. Gentleman’s concerns. In the last few weeks, I have been discussing with the trade unions how any loopholes that might be being exploited should be closed. It is the intention of everyone across the House that the law should be obeyed and that workers should be paid a fair rate for their work.
Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State agree that it is often the UK, not the EU, that has led the way on workers’ rights, and does he expect this to continue?
Greg Clark
I do indeed expect this to continue. Many of the rights that we have introduced—including, for example, the right to request a stable contract—were pioneered in this country, and are only now being taken up by other European countries.
Laura Pidcock (North West Durham) (Lab)
A couple of weeks ago, Labour colleagues and I crossed the road to Parliament Square to talk to outsourced Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy workers from the Public and Commercial Services Union and the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain, who were demanding equal terms and conditions with directly employed staff. They were disappointed that no Minister from the Department came to talk to them. If anyone had, they would have heard how people’s status as contracted-out workers is a fundamental cause of their insecurity.
We have heard fine words from the Secretary of State about workers’ rights recently, yet here is an example of workers being forced into precarious contracts under his very nose. Will he outline what he is doing to put his own house in order to help resolve this dispute? In the process, will he learn the lesson that outsourcing is the cause of insecurity and poverty pay?
Greg Clark
I value very highly the work of all the staff in my Department. I met some of the staff she has mentioned, who were affected. I asked my officials to review the comparable levels of pay that such staff receive, and those pay rates have been increased as a result. It was a good and constructive discussion with my much valued colleagues.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Greg Clark)
I have regular discussions with the Chancellor about support for businesses in Scotland, as well as in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. As the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) will know, last Wednesday we announced up to £260 million for the borderlands growth deal, which is a cross-party—and clearly a cross-border—partnership that has been hailed as a game changer by all the bodies involved, including the Scottish Government. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the best way to support business in Scotland is to end the uncertainty that comes from Brexit and to join the Government in agreeing a deal.
Patrick Grady
Actually, the best support for businesses in Scotland would presumably be for Scotland to stay in the European Union, because IDA Ireland reckons that its country has gained more than 5,000 jobs as a result of Brexit-related investment, so it is a little bit perverse that it seems to be that the countries staying in the European Union are enjoying the benefits that were supposed to come from leaving.
Greg Clark
The best chance for Scotland to enjoy prosperity in the future is to stay in the United Kingdom, and I hope the hon. Gentleman would support that. I am very surprised that he would mention jobs in the Scotland when, under the SNP, jobs growth in Scotland has been far behind the good statistics that I was able to give for the whole country. Indeed, if Scotland had matched the rate of job creation in England, there would now be nearly 200,000 more Scots with a job.
Angela Crawley
An Ernst & Young survey found that only 8% of Scottish firms feel fully ready for Brexit. Does the Secretary of State regret his failure to accept the SNP’s and the Institute of Directors’ demands for a £750 million support service to help small and medium-sized businesses to navigate Brexit?
Greg Clark
No. Advice and support are available to every business across the United Kingdom, including, of course, businesses in Scotland. I work very closely with the Scottish Government. They are represented on the groups that are developing the contingency plans for a no-deal Brexit, and businesses are included in that.
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
In Scotland, as in the rest of the United Kingdom, there are grants of up to £1,050 per employee for training employees, and up to £200,000 for new IT systems for dealing with new customs arrangements. Given the importance of this, why is it not more widely advertised both in Scotland and in the United Kingdom?
Greg Clark
My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point. As he knows from the industrial strategy—he was closely involved in its construction—grants and assistance for training, especially for employees whose jobs change as a result of technological change, is a very important contribution that we can make, and I am glad that he has brought it to the attention of the House.
Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)
What discussions has my right hon. Friend had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer about making sure that the UK shared prosperity fund is UK-wide and allows the UK Government to work with public and private partners across the whole of the Union?
Greg Clark
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. That is absolutely the intention. The fund will be UK-wide and continue the progress that has been made, not least through the city deals programme. All the major cities of Scotland have benefited from a city deal that embraces the UK Government, the Scottish Government, and local authorities. That is a good model that is working and is successful.
David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)
The Minister for Energy and Clean Growth (Claire Perry)
As my hon. Friend knows, I am very pleased to discuss our leadership position in this area. We have led the G7 in cutting emissions while growing our national income. Since 2000, we have topped the global leader board of the G20 in reducing our annual carbon intensity. I set out, a couple of years ago now, how the clean growth strategy will take that progress forward and, indeed, accelerate it. The recent offshore wind sector deal was a fantastic example of how we can work with industry to advance our decarbonisation and also create jobs right across the UK.
David Duguid
The growth of offshore wind is providing great opportunities for coastal communities around the United Kingdom, including the port of Fraserburgh in my constituency, which is set to host an operations and maintenance base for the Moray East wind farm project. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the new offshore wind sector deal will help more ports like Fraserburgh to benefit from this key aspect of our future energy sector?
Claire Perry
Most certainly. In an uncertain world, to go and stand on the docks of Lowestoft and visit Great Yarmouth and see the wind turbines and feel the wind is actually to see the future—this incredible opportunity. We have the best conditions for offshore wind generation in the world, and that will create jobs right across the UK—we estimate over 27,000 by 2030. We are world-leading in this: very few countries have even started to install. We reckon that exports of up to £2.6 billion will be available, and of course the benefits from that will flow to coastal communities right across the UK.
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
Will the Minister join me in congratulating Bacon Engineering in Great Grimsby on its 120th anniversary? Will she commit to working with me to assist local companies like that to become part of the supply chain of the energy estuary’s burgeoning offshore wind sector?
Claire Perry
The offshore wind sector deal was a gift that kept on giving, because the hon. Lady and I had the great pleasure of discussing that with the Prime Minister on the Friday after the launch and seeing the incredible opportunities already flowing to the wonderful port of Grimsby, which she represents very well. I would love to congratulate that local firm and work with her on this groundbreaking sector deal.
Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)
We have known how to build houses that cost nothing to heat for 20 years, but we just do not do it. Does the Minister agree that one of the best ways to get clean growth is to support my Housing Reform Bill, which would supply serviced plots of land on which thermally efficient houses could be built?
Claire Perry
My hon. Friend is a wonderful campaigner on this new and exciting area of house building, which is part of the grand challenge. I was very pleased, as I am sure he was, to see the Chancellor commit last week to phasing out fossil fuel heating in homes from 2025. We know we can decarbonise. We know we need to do more.
Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)
All of us will support the Government in their attempts to deliver clean growth, but we need international action. Can the Minister be more specific about what the Government are doing to encourage international action to increase clean growth?
Claire Perry
I enjoyed what might be the last ever meeting of EU Energy Ministers last week, where it was clear that our leadership, which has been so important in the EU, will continue unabated. Countries look to us and want to work with us. The hon. Gentleman will know that we are in the process of bidding to host the 2020 climate change talks here in the UK. To me, that is the most seminal moment since the Paris talks, as we will have to show our national contributions and see whether we are on track. I would love to get his support for that bid.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
More than 60 of the UK’s onshore wind farms are set to reach the end of their support deals in the next five years. How will the Government ensure that we do not lose our onshore wind capacity as those plants reach the end of their lives?
Claire Perry
I am sure that my hon. Friend, like me, welcomes the fact that we already have more than 13 GW of onshore wind installed. As she says, much of that is reaching the end of its life. Those plants can be repowered to generate more energy, and we expect them to be, but any application must be consistent with what local people want, so I expect developers to work closely with local communities to deliver that.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
In spite of what the Minister says, her Government’s nuclear dogma is holding back Scotland’s green growth. Having lost market confidence in the Moorside, Wylfa and Oldbury-on-Severn nuclear projects, will she get the message about nuclear’s terminal decline and start backing Scotland’s renewables growth revolution instead?
Claire Perry
The hon. Gentleman needs to understand that we welcome the fact that we have a diverse energy supply. As we have discussed, there are thousands of jobs to be created from renewables and also from our world-leading nuclear installations. We need a low-carbon, reliable, low-cost energy system, and thanks to the work we are doing, we think that over 70% of the UK’s energy supply will be zero-carbon in just 11 years.
Drew Hendry
The facts are that, compared with offshore wind, the Tory Hinkley project will saddle consumers with a 35% tax on energy bills. Given that this Government currently have no consequences for Ministers who switch policies, is this not the right time to take advantage of that, do the right thing and scrap this nuclear obsession?
Claire Perry
I just cannot agree with the hon. Gentleman. He might make good headlines, but he knows that we should pride ourselves on having a diverse, low-cost energy system. We have to deliver energy security, and those thousands of highly skilled nuclear jobs, which are increasingly going to women, are a really good thing for the UK.
Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)
The Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation (Chris Skidmore)
We have regular discussions with our ministerial colleagues on this matter, and most recently on the £260 million borderlands growth deal announced by the Chancellor in the spring statement. Our industrial strategy sets out our ambition to make the UK the best place to start and grow a business, and central to that is our ongoing commitment to the British Business Bank, which supported £467 million of finance to more than 3,600 Scottish businesses in 2017-18.
Stephen Gethins
I thank the Minister for his response. He will be aware of the importance of banking services to small businesses, particularly in rural and more fragile areas, and the closure of banks has hit many of these small businesses hard, not least in East Neuk in my constituency. What action is he taking to look at, for example, increasing transaction remuneration to post offices, which are increasingly important to those businesses?
Chris Skidmore
I understand from the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst), that she is currently negotiating the banking framework. I also want to set out the support that the British Business Bank gives to start-up businesses: 3,200 businesses have received £22 million in funding in recent years. We have 48,000 more businesses in Scotland compared with 2010. That is good news, and we need to make sure that we continue to support businesses, particularly the rural ones the hon. Gentleman mentions.
Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Kelly Tolhurst)
We are backing young entrepreneurs by launching an independent review, led by the Prince’s Trust, to understand how we can better support them to turn their business dreams into reality. We are backing small and medium-sized enterprises with our spending power, with our ambitious strategy to ensure that at least £1 in every £3 we spend as a Department is spent with smaller businesses by 2022.
Ben Bradley
I thank the Minister for bringing forward the future high streets fund, which will be really important for small businesses on Mansfield High Street, and for the meetings I have been able to have with the Government about how to make sure that Mansfield can benefit. The council is now consulting with stakeholders on its proposals. Will Ministers agree to meet me so that I can make the case for Mansfield’s bid to the future high streets fund?
Kelly Tolhurst
My hon. Friend is right. High streets are changing, and the Government are committed to helping communities adapt. In the Budget, we set out our plan for high streets, with a £1.6 billion package to support the sustainable transformation of our high streets, which includes the future high streets fund. My hon. Friend is a passionate campaigner for his town, and I would very much welcome the opportunity to hear his proposals for the regeneration of Mansfield town centre, coupled with the investment and plans already being put in place through the growth deal.
Stephen Metcalfe
Will the Minister join me in acknowledging the welcome focus the Government have put on tackling late payment to small businesses? Will she confirm that improvement in payment times could release billions of pounds back into the economy to ensure that our SME sector remains vibrant and thrives?
Kelly Tolhurst
I thank my hon. Friend for his question, and he is quite right. Tackling late payments will indeed do just as he says. It is true that late payments can be extremely damaging for small businesses, and that is why we are committed to tackling it. In his first year, the Small Business Commissioner has managed to collect over £2 million owed to small businesses. In the spring statement last week, we announced a requirement on audit committees to review their payment practices. I look forward, in the very short term, to bringing forward a full package of policy measures to tackle just that.
Henry Smith
Last weekend, I was pleased to support High Street Saturday in Crawley town centre. Will my hon. Friend welcome the £900 million in business rate reductions, which is really starting to help small businesses on our high streets?
Kelly Tolhurst
I thank my hon. Friend for giving me the opportunity to welcome this cut in business rates. He will also be pleased to hear that, because of the updated forecasts from local authorities, the discount is now worth nearly £1 billion to retailers over two years, further bolstering this Government’s plan for the high street, which is now worth £1.6 billion, and directly benefiting some of our smallest retail businesses. My hon. Friend is a great campaigner for Crawley, and I am sure he will continue to ask questions on this subject.
Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)
With just 10 days to go to a possible no-deal Brexit, only a third of the small businesses that trade exclusively with Europe have applied for and received their so-called EORI—economic operator registration and identification—numbers that will enable them to continue to do so. Those numbers could be allocated automatically by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. Will the Minister lobby HMRC to tell it to do that, and back British business?
Kelly Tolhurst
The hon. Gentleman raises a very important point. It is true that we are making sure, as this Department is charged to do, that small businesses are absolutely aware of their obligations in regard to a no-deal Brexit. I would point out to him that HMRC is reissuing those numbers within 24 hours of small businesses applying.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
Staff working insecure hours for the Hull-based small business Grotto Hire UK, which operates Santa’s grottos, have still not been paid, and many are owed thousands of pounds. The company owner offered to put the company into liquidation so that the staff could claim through the insolvency fund, but his appointed liquidators have now pulled out, leaving the company still running. Will the Minister please meet me to discuss this appalling situation and look at how the company can be wound up in the public interest?
Kelly Tolhurst
The point that the hon. Lady raises is really important, especially for her constituents. I will be more than happy to meet with her to discuss those issues.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
Small businesses and our high streets are hugely damaged by the closure of bank branches right across the country, which nets the banks, which we bailed out with taxpayers’ money, a vast amount of money in savings. Will the Minister consider a windfall tax on the banks to ensure that we redistribute some of that money back into our high streets to support small businesses?
Kelly Tolhurst
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. Tax is a responsibility of the Treasury, but as he will know, including after our conversations yesterday—this was also alluded to earlier in questions—post offices are still an important part of our high streets, and the Post Office is currently negotiating a new banking framework. It is absolutely right that, when banks are pulling out of our high streets, the post offices that are delivering the services are remunerated correctly for that.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
The duty for large companies to report how quickly they pay their suppliers is of course welcome—80% of businesses that fail do so as a result of late payments—but to be effective, the new duty to report will need some teeth, such as binding arbitration and fines for persistent offenders. This Government’s use of sanctions against the poorest has been disgraceful, so how about using sanctions against some of the most powerful and making sure that large corporations treat their small business suppliers fairly?
Kelly Tolhurst
Late payments and the way that some large businesses have behaved in the past have been an issue for decades, and it is this Government who are prepared to make changes and bring forward policies to reduce them. We know that late payments can be incredibly damaging for businesses. That is the reason for the Chancellor’s announcement last week about the responsibility of committees to look at payment practices, and I look forward to making further proposals.
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
The Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation (Chris Skidmore)
In the past month we have invested £18 million in the OneWeb satellite constellation to deliver global 5G communications, which I announced at the European Space Agency in the Netherlands. Last week we announced £7 million for the SMILE—Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer—mission. In addition, we announced £25 million for the PLATO—planetary transits and oscillations of stars—observatory mission, and last week we signed the Square Kilometre Array treaty, which will see £180 million invested in the world’s largest telescope.
Steve Double
I thank the Minister for that answer, but will he confirm that the Government remain positive about the potential of a horizontal-launch spaceport at Cornwall airport Newquay? Will he continue to work to provide the support needed to move that development forward, which would be of such benefit to the Cornish economy? Will he also come to Cornwall and see for himself the potential of the site?
Chris Skidmore
I thank my hon. Friend for his question; we had a positive meeting with the spaceport team last week. I am keen to do what I can to progress the hard work that has been done to put together an exciting project. The Government are investing £50 million to kick-start operations for a UK spaceport, including a £2 million fund for spaceports planning to host air-launched rockets and sub-orbital space planes. I will come down to Cornwall next month.
John Howell
Can the Minister confirm that it remains his intention to help the UK space industry by developing an alternative to the European Union’s Galileo system?
Chris Skidmore
The Government have committed £92 million to developing options for a domestic alternative to Galileo. The UK Space Agency is leading work with the full support of the Ministry of Defence. Contracts are being let with UK companies. Around 50 have made expressions of interest in the process, which will help to keep important skills and expertise in satellite navigation.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister might know that some of the finest engineering companies in Huddersfield are busy providing components for space probes, including the one that went to Mars. Our great town is really on the cutting edge, so will he visit Huddersfield and see what an enterprising, get-up-and-go town can do for small businesses and large businesses? Components come from all over Europe, so will he also come and reassure people who are terrified of what could happen with Europe?
Chris Skidmore
I can confirm that I will visit Huddersfield on 10 May. I am going to the university there, and I will ensure that I speak to the hon. Gentleman and arrange to meet the companies as part of my visit.
Mr Speaker
I say to the Minister, who is a serious academic, that I have had the great joy of giving a lecture at the university. It is an admirable institution and they are very hospitable, so I think they will very much look forward to seeing and hearing the Minister.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Not every region of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland can be part of the UK space industry, but every region deserves the opportunity for employment. Will the Minister indicate what has been done to ensure that all regions have those employment opportunities?
Chris Skidmore
When we look at our space industry, we see that it is truly part of the United Kingdom, right across every place. I went to Northern Ireland to see Thales and the work that it is doing on some of the satellite applications. Up in Sutherland in Scotland, we have a £31.5 million investment in vertical space launch. We want to ensure that our space industry—one of the fastest-growing industries in all of business—covers the whole of the UK.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
The Minister for Energy and Clean Growth (Claire Perry)
It was a pleasure to meet the right hon. Gentleman and a cross-party group of colleagues only last month to discuss this matter. I commend the Marine Energy Council for the work that it has done, and indeed I see that it has published some interesting analysis today. We have provided £175 million of innovation funding to the sector. We all want it to succeed. We have the first pre-commercial array deployed off Caithness and, of course, we have the European Marine Energy Centre in his constituency.
Mr Carmichael
I thank the Minister for the meeting last month. We are now engaging with the Treasury in respect of revenue support for the sector, and any support that she can give it will be very welcome. In the meantime, however, we have the prospect of the energy White Paper. Will she use her offices to ensure that the potential for marine renewable energy generation is fully recognised when that White Paper comes to publication?
Claire Perry
I do not want to pre-empt the White Paper, but I think that one thing we will show in it is how the ongoing attempts to be technology-neutral can work across the piece to generate low-cost, low-carbon energy, and highly competitive technologies will be part of that. We remain interested in marine and tidal, as the right hon. Gentleman knows. Of course, we need to discuss with the Treasury any revenue support mechanisms, but I want to continue to engage with the sector on a long-term basis.
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
The Minister will be aware that the proposed Swansea Bay city deal would include a strong marine energy component centred on Pembroke Dock. She will also be aware that the growth deal is beset with concerns and questions about its progress, so will the Minister, along with Welsh Ministers, please look into the marine renewables part of the project to ensure that progress is made and opportunities are not lost?
Claire Perry
Of course, it is striking that we had the very interesting Swansea tidal bid, which would have been the most expensive power station in the UK had we built it, and that that project has now come forward in a different form not requiring Government subsidy. There is huge potential to continue to work with the communities of Swansea and across Wales, and I will be delighted to keep working with them.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
Fifty per cent. of Europe’s tidal and 35% of its wave energy resource are in UK waters, but the Government have still not provided the marine renewables industry with a secure route from experimental phase through to demonstrator phase through to full commercial development. Recent research from the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult shows that revenue support could enable marine renewables to create up to 50,000 new jobs and dominate more than 30% of a global market estimated at £76 billion by 2050. Does the Minister accept that the contract for difference auctions are not an adequate mechanism to support emerging technologies such as marine renewables at this stage in their development, and will she take action to provide a competitive funding pool in the energy White Paper to support the UK’s innovative marine technologies and enable the UK to gain its rightful share of this exciting global market?
Claire Perry
I will attempt to do that, Mr Speaker. The hon. Gentleman will know, of course, that all these technologies basically started off in the same place. Arguably, marine and tidal have received more innovation funding. They have not been able to demonstrate a cost reduction pathway commensurate with, for example, offshore wind, but he is right to say that we need to look at ways to try to bring these technologies forward and we will continue to do so.
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Richard Harrington)
The industrial strategy is based on increasing the number of high-quality and well-paid jobs because it invests in skills, infrastructure and innovation, as well as building long-term strategic partnerships with businesses through sector deals between the Government and industry.
James Cartlidge
As my hon. Friend will be aware, we often talk about our being the fifth largest economy, but by GDP per head we are ranked about 23rd or 24th, according to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Does he agree that greater export penetration into growing markets overseas will help to raise that GDP per head and that an independent trade policy could boost that endeavour?
Richard Harrington
I agree with my hon. Friend. In his own constituency, six companies have received the Queen’s award for international trade. He understands the importance of exports. I agree that the UK needs to deploy all the tools at its disposal to support UK exporters, and a key part of that is tailoring our trade policy to the strengths and requirements of our economy and supporting the delivery of the industrial strategy.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
Today’s Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee report singles out the steel industry as having been particularly failed by the Government’s industrial strategy. On behalf of the steel sector in my constituency, can I ask the Minister when the Government will get back around the table to take action on issues such as energy prices?
Richard Harrington
I discussed this issue yesterday through the good offices of the all-party group on steel and metal related industries—several hon. Members were there—and agreed to hold a roundtable with all parties, including, I hope, the hon. Lady, to discuss how we can progress the sector deal.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
General Electric in Stafford—and indeed in Rugby—provides excellent, high-quality and well-paid jobs through its investment in energy, particularly good energy. Can I invite the Minister or his colleague the Energy Minister to come and see what world-leading technology is being developed in Stafford?
Richard Harrington
I cannot answer for my right hon. Friend, who is capable of visiting wherever she likes—in fact, she is omnipresent all over the country with her visits—but I would be delighted to visit GE and anywhere else in Stafford my hon. Friend thinks suitable.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
Will the Minister spell out yet again the extent of his support in the industrial strategy for the likes of Bombardier and related industries in Northern Ireland?
Richard Harrington
As the hon. Gentleman knows, I meet regularly with Bombardier, as does my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. It is a regular visitor to my office and is always welcome. I am interested to hear its views on anything.
Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)
It is more than a year since the Government committed to putting as much emphasis on the quality of jobs as on the quantity. In their response to the Taylor review last February, they said:
“We will…report annually on the quality of work in the UK economy…and…hold ourselves to account”.
How much longer do we have to wait for the first assessment of job quality in the UK?
Richard Harrington
We gave our answer in our response to the Taylor review, but the Government have also published a good work plan, in which we commit to ways of delivering better jobs for everyone in the British economy.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
The Minister for Energy and Clean Growth (Claire Perry)
The right measure is to look at carbon dioxide reduction as a unit of national income—the carbon intensity measure—and BEIS will publish its own numbers at the end of May and then make the assessment. I am sure that, like me, the hon. Gentleman welcomes the fact that we have been decarbonising faster than any other G7 or G20 economy and that in the last year for which we have data our decarbonisation rate—on the intensity measure—was minus 4.7%. We know we have to do more, but I hope he welcomes the measures on hard-to-reach sectors, such as decarbonising the heating grid. We should be proud of what we have achieved.
Bambos Charalambous
The UN says that we have less than 12 years to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, and on Friday thousands of schoolchildren marched for their futures. Given that emissions fell last year by only 1.5%—less than half the 3.2% fall recorded the year before—does the Minister agree with the Environmental Audit Committee that the Government are “coasting” on climate change?
Claire Perry
Far from it. I do not recognise those numbers. I have got into trouble before for saying I probably would have been out there with those kids several years ago—I recognise the admirable passion and urgency with which they have raised this matter, although we need their skills to solve this problem. The best way to solve the climate problem is to create a generation of geo-engineers, climate scientists and technologists, and they have to learn those skills in the classroom.
We are absolutely not coasting, but we need strong cross-party support to deliver this change. It is striking that when we debate our relationship with the earth’s climate for the next 40 years, this place is half empty, but when we debate our relationship with the EU for the next three years, it is jam-crammed. We need to get beyond Brexit and start focusing on the future.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
The Minister is rightly encouraging the use of electric vehicles, but, as she will appreciate, in the commercial sector there is, on occasion, inadequate supply in the grid. Will she recognise the valuable role played by Off Grid Energy in my constituency, which has storage technology, and whose latest project for the Oxford Bus Company involves capturing energy from solar panels and storing it so that the buses can be charged up overnight?
Claire Perry
My hon. Friend—whose constituency is known for its engineering excellence—is absolutely right. As is clear from the smart systems plan for the future and the smart export guarantee, decentralised energy generation storage is one of the ways in which we can maximise the value of electric vehicle roll-out and its contribution to solving the generation and storage problem.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
The Minister for Energy and Clean Growth (Claire Perry)
As the hon. Lady will know, nearly 400,000 people—more than the number employed in aerospace—are working in the low-carbon economy. As last week’s offshore wind sector deal made clear, the focus on job creation is paramount, but we must also focus more on diversity in the sector, and I am very proud of the commitment by the industry and the Government to ensuring that at least a third of the 27,000 jobs that will be created are going to women by 2030.
Vicky Foxcroft
Lewisham Council recently declared a climate emergency, and called for urgent action on the environment. Tackling climate change will require a radical transformation of the economy and society, including investment in green industries. Will the Minister match Labour’s commitment to a green industrial revolution creating 400,000 jobs across the country?
Claire Perry
I always admire the hon. Lady’s enthusiasm, but committing themselves to a target that we have already achieved is perhaps not the most stretching thing that the Opposition could do. However, I welcome Lewisham Council’s declaration of a climate emergency. My local authority, Wiltshire County Council, has done the same.
I am struck by the sense of urgency in schools and local authorities, and among people throughout the United Kingdom, but we must ensure that the plans we come up with are deliverable and not pie in the sky. Many people have criticised the Opposition’s rather fanciful projections, which they say will never be delivered. I am in the business of delivering policies that add up, can be delivered, and stand the test of time.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
Jaguar Land Rover is moving to the production of electric cars, but one of the issues that holds back purchasing is range and the time that it takes to recharge their batteries. What can the Government do to improve battery technology?
Claire Perry
Range anxiety is diminishing as battery technology improves. My hon. Friend will know of the Faraday challenge, a cross-Government and industry commitment to not only improving battery manufacturing and technology, but creating some of that value here in the UK.
Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)
Kirstene Hair (Angus) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Greg Clark)
The UK is leading the world in decarbonising our energy supplies while driving down the cost of clean power. The proportion of our electricity coming from renewables has increased fourfold since 2010, and the cost of clean power is falling fast. The price of offshore wind has fallen by 50% in the last couple of years.
Ruth George
The Secretary of State has just recognised that there is considerable support for renewable energy throughout the country. My local community in High Peak have always been committed to that. “Archie”, the Archimedes’ screw in New Mills, is the first community-owned hydroelectric project. However, the Government are preventing people from becoming involved in renewable energy projects by removing the feed-in tariff and refusing to remove planning blocks on onshore wind, while forcing councils to plan positively for fracking. Will the Secretary of State recommend the scrapping of that policy, and instead require councils to plan positively for renewables?
Greg Clark
I think the hon. Lady should recognise the huge progress that has been made, which is beyond what anyone would have expected 10 years ago when the Climate Change Act 2008 was passed. I commend her constituents for their contribution in respect of renewable power. However, as my right hon. Friend the Minister for Energy and Clean Growth has said, the right mechanism must be applied to the right technology. It is better to finance technologies in the early stages of development through innovation funding than to pretend that they can make a significant contribution to the grid.
Kirstene Hair
A renewables mix is hugely important in securing our long-term energy supply, so will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss some of the contradictory barriers in place for solar power, for example, because there are limited technologies that are able to bid for support through the contracts for difference scheme?
Greg Clark
I will indeed meet my hon. Friend, and I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Energy and Clean Growth will join that conversation. We have a good record in bringing on a range of new technologies and I am very happy to make sure there are no barriers to that.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
There will now be a 9 GW cut in future installed capacity by 2030 as a result of Toshiba and Hitachi ending their plans to build three new nuclear power stations. The Secretary of State has also cancelled plans to build tidal lagoons possibly providing about that amount of additional capacity, has banned onshore wind and has run down new solar installations. He has severely limited the auction for new offshore wind to only £60 million of a possible £557 million. Does the Secretary of State agree that on present policies it looks like there will be a substantial capacity gap in power production against likely 2030 demand? Does he have any plan to deal with that? Does he have any plans to revive the lost nuclear power proposals? Does he share the Opposition’s view that, among other things, we will need at least 50 GW of installed offshore wind to help close the gap and meet our climate change commitments?
Greg Clark
Quite the opposite is true. One of the reasons why it has proved impossible to finance privately some of these nuclear power stations is that the cost of renewables was falling and the availability was increasing so rapidly that they are being muscled out of the system. The forecast electricity margin for this year is now over 11%, the highest for five years. To put this into context for the hon. Gentleman, the contribution that the Wylfa nuclear power station—3 GW—would have made was procured in a single contract for difference auction for offshore wind. That shows the abundance that we have, rather than the shortage.
Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)
The Minister for Energy and Clean Growth (Claire Perry)
Solar is a UK success story: 99% of the solar capacity in the UK has been installed since 2010 when I became an MP. The feed-in tariff, however, as the hon. Gentleman knows, is a very expensive way of delivering small-scale generation. It has cost us almost £6 billion to date, and as the price of solar panels has fallen by 80%—I can see the hon. Gentleman sighing but numbers and value for money tend to matter on the Government Benches—I decided to bring forward the smart export guarantee, which opens up the market for small-scale generations and ensures that everybody is paid for power they export to the grid.
Clive Lewis
From listening to the Government’s rhetoric on climate change, we could be forgiven for thinking that the school strikers are coming out in support of them; they are coming out against them, and if we cut through the greenwash we see the feed-in tariff axed, the solar energy sector decimated, and now the exports payments framework about to be ended and no replacement put in place. So let me ask this: will the Government ever announce a cut to the lavish support they dole out to their friends in the fossil fuel industry?
Claire Perry
It is news to me that the Labour party’s policy is to be anti the oil and gas industry that employs so many hundreds of thousands of people. And when it comes to rhetoric, the hon. Gentleman should just go and practise in front of the bathroom mirror. I am happy to share the facts with him again—[Interruption.] Perhaps he is going to ask me to get on my knees next, Mr Speaker. [Interruption.] What we do on the Government side of the House is focus on facts—[Interruption.] You know, Mr Speaker, the hon. Gentleman was very clear that he was not a misogynist bully boy; I think his activities and behaviour today suggests quite the opposite. If he would like me to answer the question——[Interruption.] The answer to the question is this: we have not slashed support for renewable energy. We are now moving to a point where renewable energy no longer requires subsidy to deploy. If the hon. Gentleman could just stop equating Government spending with success and look at the results, he will see that we do not subsidise things that we do not have to, which means we can focus on bringing other technologies to market.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Richard Harrington)
On the question of whether hospital projects should be part of the industrial strategy, I absolutely agree. They are part of an industry in an area—health campuses, science, research and development, and, not least, modular construction and everything in our construction sector deal.
Robert Halfon
Together with the £400 million move of Public Health England to Harlow by 2024, a brand-new healthcare hospital campus would make Harlow the health science capital of the UK. Will my hon. Friend work with the Treasury to support capital funding for the desperately needed new hospital in Harlow?
Richard Harrington
My right hon. Friend could not be a greater champion for the Harlow hospital and health campus; in fact, I would honourably suggest that it should be named after him. However, he is absolutely right: the Treasury has to consider this and other bids, including the wonderful Watford General Hospital health campus, which I support. I am sure it will reach the right conclusion that these bids are fantastic for local areas—not just for the hospital but for industrial development for the future in those areas.
Mr Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Greg Clark)
One of the frustrations about the dominance of our Brexit debates over the last two years is that insufficient attention is given to the fact that this is one of the most exciting times for British industry and commerce since the first industrial revolution, which was forged in this country. We are in the vanguard of so many of the industries of the future. Earlier this month, my right hon. Friend the Energy Minister was in Lowestoft and, again, in Grimsby to launch the offshore wind sector deal—the 10th sector deal in our industrial strategy. It is helping Britain to procure a third of its electricity through offshore power by 2020, to provide a lead right around the world and to export good technology.
Mr Dunne
I share my right hon. Friend’s optimism and enthusiasm for the opportunities that lie ahead for this country. Following the Chancellor’s statement last week, when specific measures were announced, which I welcome, could he elaborate on how he expects the UK to take a lead in science and innovation to develop new technologies for renewables, which he touched on, and new materials?
Greg Clark
My right hon. Friend is correct that our reputation for science and innovation, and the standing of our universities, are among the best in the world. At a time when every country around the world is investing in the technologies of the future, we need to emphasise the abilities and talents we have. Through the industrial strategy, we have the biggest increase in public and private sector spending and innovation that we have ever had in this country. It is already making a difference, but we have more to do.
Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
Our automotive sector is facing significant challenges. To quote the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders,
“There is a perfect storm of a hostile global trading environment, the imminent threat of significant tariffs on cars exported to the US, rising costs, technological revolution and the already damaging impact of Brexit on the UK industry”.
This perfect storm has already claimed some victims: Honda in Swindon, the loss of the production of the X-Trail and Infiniti models in Sunderland, and the loss of thousands of jobs at Jaguar Land Rover and Ford. The sector needs immediate and substantial support. Does the Secretary of State think the Government are doing enough?
Greg Clark
I am glad the hon. Lady recognises the importance and effectiveness of our automotive sector. She is absolutely right that the acceleration of the shift to new technologies is affecting the sector in every country around the world. Through our industrial strategy, agreed with the automotive sector through the sector deal, and the Faraday challenge, we are advancing our position in battery technology. That makes sure that, when the new generation of batteries are produced, they are produced in Britain, guaranteeing our future.
Rebecca Long Bailey
Those are warm words from the Secretary of State, but actions speak louder. On Brexit, his Government have threatened a catastrophic no deal and run down the clock. On rising costs, the Government have allowed costs such as industrial electricity prices and business rates to disadvantage UK manufacturers. On electrification, the Government have allowed us to fall behind. The planned charging infrastructure investment fund is still not in operation 16 months after it was announced, and subsidies for electric vehicles have been cut. Is not the truth that this Government are failing to provide the automotive sector with the support it needs to weather this perfect storm?
Greg Clark
We are the leading country in Europe when it comes to the production of electric vehicles, and as the hon. Lady is well aware, we have, through the industrial strategy, advanced our leadership position. However, if she listens to the leaders of the automotive sector, they say one thing time and again very clearly: we need to conclude a deal with the European Union. They have endorsed comprehensively the deal the Prime Minister has negotiated. If the hon. Lady is concerned for the future of this important sector, she would compromise and recognise the importance of bringing to an end this uncertainty and passing the deal.
Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Kelly Tolhurst)
Our business environment is among the best in the world. By reducing corporation tax and investing in skills, innovation and productivity-boosting schemes, we are supporting businesses to compete in an ever-changing market. Ensuring that businesses can access finance is key, and the British Business Bank has the tools to make that happen, including its enterprise finance guarantee scheme, start-up loans and our export strategy.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
The Minister for Energy and Clean Growth (Claire Perry)
The hon. Gentleman is right that CO2 molecules do not care where they are emitted or where they have an impact. I am delighted to tell him that we are one of the world’s largest donors of climate-facing aid, with £5.8 billion over this Parliament, about half of which is spent on adaptation and half on mitigation. There is clearly more to do, but we should be proud of that record.
Colin Clark (Gordon) (Con)
Claire Perry
My hon. Friend speaks proudly of the hundreds of high-skilled jobs in his constituency, and there are hundreds of thousands such jobs across the UK. We are increasing R&D spend across the piece, but innovation in the oil and gas sector is driven through the almost £200 million investment in the oil and gas technology centre, which I have been pleased to visit, including £90 million from the Government.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
Greg Clark
The hon. Gentleman knows that I have been in discussion with the industry. The sector has participated in the development of the path to the decarbonisation of vehicles, and it is important that we are consistent with that. However, part of that process is about recognising that buying a diesel car is a perfectly reasonable choice for many people, but some people have got the wrong impression from the announcement.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
Kelly Tolhurst
My hon. Friend is a passionate campaigner in this area and for his constituents, and he knows that I would particularly like to tackle this matter. Insolvency practitioners must adhere to the insolvency code of ethics and must not allow conflicts of interest to override the fundamental principles of objectivity. Breaching the code may result in regulatory action, such as a fine, reprimand or, in the most serious of circumstances, the removal of a licence. The code is currently being updated by the recognised professional bodies that license insolvency practitioners, but I will continue the dialogue with my hon. Friend on this matter.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
Kelly Tolhurst
The hon. Lady raises an important point, but she knows we are doing a lot in this area to strengthen employment rights for people in the workplace. We have the good work plan, we are looking at flexibility, we are increasing holiday pay and we are always looking at how we can improve the situation for workers, whether the self-employed or general workers.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
The Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation (Chris Skidmore)
The spring statement was indeed a statement for research, innovation and science. Looking at just one of those investments, there is £60 million to keep the Joint European Torus facility going, and there are hundreds of jobs and tens of PhDs at that facility. I am delighted that the Chancellor made that commitment as we move forward to 2.4% of GDP being spent on research and development by 2027.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Greg Clark
Substantial analysis has shown that, of all the options available, the Prime Minister’s deal is the one that provides the best economic future, and I hope the hon. Lady will support it.
Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)
Post offices are at the heart of our communities, so does the Minister welcome the news that Newick post office in my constituency, after being closed for months following the sad death of the postmaster, Terry, is set to reopen? Does she agree that we must do all we can to keep post offices open in our rural communities?
Kelly Tolhurst
I thank my hon. Friend for the work she has done with her constituents, the Post Office and the community to make sure that the post office in Newick is reopened. Post offices play an important role in our communities, and we are committed to maintaining the network of 11,500 post offices with the support of MPs like her.
Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)
Kelly Tolhurst
As the hon. Lady knows after our meeting yesterday afternoon to discuss this issue, we are committed to delivering and maintaining the post office network, which did not happen under the last Labour Government, when there was a reduction. As I have already outlined and made very clear, where there are concerns about specific branches, practices and consultations, I will personally raise them directly with the Post Office.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State give an update on the next phase of the Greater Grimsby town deal?
Greg Clark
I am delighted that the Prime Minister was able to join my hon. Friend, the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) and me to celebrate the success of the beginning of that deal. The next phase is about investment in skills, and I look forward to visiting Cleethorpes and Grimsby to inaugurate that important set of investments in the skills of the population.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab)
At the last general election, Labour promised to introduce a “Post Bank” to combat financial exclusion and ensure that everyone has access to banking services in their community. Does the Secretary of State agree that introducing a Post Bank to provide banking services in post offices would do wonders for the high street, as well as reducing financial exclusion?
Kelly Tolhurst
The hon. Gentleman gives me an opportunity to talk about the fact that we already offer banking services in our post offices. As I outlined earlier, we are doing the most we can to make sure that post offices and sub-postmasters are remunerated for the work they do.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. I am sorry, but the questions and answers are just too long. I am trying to help the House, but what we want is a brief question and a brief answer, not a speech.
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
Barclays has just announced another swathe of branch closures that affect my constituency, as the banks continue their flight from small towns and rural areas. Where does the Minister think all this will end? Does she agree that banks have a wider social obligation?
Kelly Tolhurst
I agree with my right hon. Friend that banks have a wider social responsibility. That is why I am committed to working with the Post Office to make sure that under the new banking framework post offices are remunerated correctly for the service they are providing for communities that the banks have moved away from.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
Fracking is bad for the environment, our health, our democracy, our landscape and even the courts. Does the Minister recognise that the Government are on shaky ground, quite literally, and will they ditch their support for this failing industry?
Claire Perry
We have said repeatedly that the opportunity to create a home-grown energy source that provides thousands of jobs in parts of the country that economic policies have not been able to help, with the toughest regulations for oil and gas exploration in the world, is something that we should soberly and sensibly explore. That continues to be the case.
Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)
What progress is being made to upgrade SMETS 1 smart meters to allow them to function interoperably?
Claire Perry
The switchover has already started. The priority is smart meters that have gone dumb through customers switching, because we do not want there to be an impediment to switching. The commitment is unchanged: it will be rolled out completely by the end of 2020.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
A common feature of all patient safety scandals is that whistleblowers were ignored, intimidated or lost their careers, and were not protected by the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998. Will the Secretary of State bring forward legislation for all sectors to ensure that that concern is investigated and that whistleblowers are protected?
Kelly Tolhurst
The hon. Lady addresses a very important area that I am extremely concerned about. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is working closely with the Department of Health and Social Care on how we can best strengthen the protection for whistleblowers within the NHS to support families and staff who raise concerns. This is a key area for us and I will continue to communicate with her on it.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
I am sorry to disappoint the large number of colleagues remaining, but on the principle that one should encourage an up and coming young Member at the conclusion of proceedings, I call Mr Dennis Skinner.
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
Why should Jim Ratcliffe make millions creating misery for all the people affected by fracking? Coincidentally, there are not many jobs either.
Claire Perry
The hon. Gentleman, as a proud representative of a former coalfield community, knows that, to the contrary, many people, including the GMB, support the fracking policy because of its potential—
Claire Perry
The hon. Gentleman says the unions are wrong—that is probably a first. People support fracking because of its potential to create jobs. [Interruption.] Crikey, if he would stop yelling. I must say that I feel desperately sorry for female Members on the Opposition Benches if this is how their colleagues treat them: being howled down, winked at—the other hon. Gentleman is not in his place—and having kisses blown after a question. The brocialists are in full control of the Labour party. I know that the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) will accept that we need to explore the science sensibly and see whether there is a natural resource there, because when he was digging up coal, energy security used to matter.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
I am genuinely sorry to disappoint remaining colleagues, but demand has exceeded supply, as is so often the case at Question Time.
Child Sexual Exploitation Victims: Criminal Records
(5 years, 1 month ago)
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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.
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Mr Speaker
Before I call the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) to ask her urgent question and the Minister to respond, I must advise right hon. and hon. Members that under the terms of the House’s resolution on matters sub judice, they should not refer to specific cases that are currently before the courts. It should not be beyond the ingenuity of right hon. and hon. Members to find ways of airing the issue without mentioning the specifics in a way that could threaten the legal process.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department to make a statement on criminal records disclosure for victims of child sexual exploitation.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)
I am conscious that, as you outlined, Mr Speaker, this question relates to an ongoing legal case, and that as such it would not be appropriate to comment on the specific case or cases. I assure you that the Government want all victims and survivors of sexual abuse and exploitation to feel that they can come forward to report abuse, and get the support they need when they do so. We are committed to working across Government to ensure that victims can move on from the abuse they have suffered, and that professionals, including the police, who come into contact with a victim recognise exploitation when they see it and respond appropriately.
The Government are committed to acting to protect the public and help employers make safe recruitment decisions. The disclosure and barring regime plays an important part in supporting employers to make informed recruitment decisions about roles that involve working with children or vulnerable adults, and in a limited range of other circumstances. The criminal record disclosure regime seeks to strike a balance between safeguarding children and enabling individuals to put their offending behind them.
The House will be aware that the Supreme Court recently handed down a judgment in the case of P and others that affects certain rules governing the disclosure regime. We are still waiting for the order from the Supreme Court, but we are considering the implications of the judgment and will respond in due course. It is important to note, however, that the Supreme Court recognises that the regime balances public protection with individuals’ right to a private life. It applies only to certain protected jobs, and it is for employers to decide someone’s suitability for a role once they are armed with the facts.
Louise Haigh
Thank you for granting this urgent question, Mr Speaker. Just before Christmas, you welcomed Sammy Woodhouse to this Parliament. You, the Leader of the Opposition, the Prime Minister and the leader of the SNP all praised her bravery in speaking out and waiving her anonymity in order to protect other victims and survivors of child sexual exploitation. In that instance, we discussed CSE survivors’ experience in the family courts. It is good to see the Justice Minister in his place. I hope we can make progress on that issue.
Everyone in this House owes it to Sammy and all victims of child sexual exploitation to do everything in our power to reward her bravery and ensure that no one has to endure the appalling, unimaginable abuse that she experienced. We must all ensure that the state in all its forms no longer fails CSE survivors. They are forced to confront their past every day of their lives through the painful trauma that never leaves them, which many simply cannot escape. Their bravery in the face of all that has happened to them is humbling.
The victims are forced to live not only with their trauma but with convictions linked to their sexual exploitation in childhood. They are blighted by an obligation to disclose criminal convictions linked to past abuse. They are forced to tell employers and even local parent teacher associations about their past convictions. That punitive rule means that they simply cannot escape a past in which they were victims.
I understand your ruling that we are unable to refer to sub judice cases, Mr Speaker, but Sammy will not mind me referring to her record, which includes possession of an offensive weapon and affray. Both are explicitly linked to her grooming. When she was 15, the police raided the property of now-convicted serial rapist Arshid Hussain. Sammy was half-naked and hiding under his bed. Hussain was not detained, but Sammy was arrested and charged. She was a victim of exploitation and is now forced to disclose her criminal convictions—crimes she committed only through her exploitation.
Judges in the High Court have already ruled that forcing victims of CSE to disclose past convictions linked to CSE is unjust. They argued that
“any link between the past offending, and the assessment of present risk in a particular employment, is either non-existent or at best extremely tenuous.”
I ask the Minister, what is the Government’s position on record disclosure of CSE survivors?
One of the single biggest tasks of this Parliament and society is to create an environment in which victims of child sexual exploitation are given the best possible chance not to allow their past abuse to define them. Will the Minister consider bringing forward what is known as Sammy’s law, which would give CSE victims the right to have their criminal records automatically reviewed, and crimes associated with their grooming removed? At present, anyone has the right to apply to the chief constable of their force area to have their records reviewed, but it is little known. Surely there must be a specific case in those circumstances.
Child sexual exploitation is fundamentally about an imbalance of power that is used to coerce, manipulate and deceive. It leads many victims to commit crimes relating to their exploitation. I know the Minister will agree that it cannot be right that victims are forced to live with the consequences of their exploitation for the rest of their lives.
Victoria Atkins
I thank the hon. Lady for her urgent question. She knows, because we have discussed the issue behind the scenes on many occasions, the concerns, feelings and sympathy that the Home Secretary and I have for victims of child sexual exploitation and abuse, and that this Government have done more than any other to tackle it. By setting up institutions such as the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, the Prime Minister, when she was Home Secretary, sought to uncover these terrible hidden crimes. We know of the experience in Rotherham, of course, and I note that the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) is in her place. I have seen for myself the vital local work to support victims and bring the perpetrators of these terrible crimes to justice.
I am afraid that I am not able to comment on individual cases at this moment—it is a matter of timing—but the Government are considering the Supreme Court judgment very carefully. Sadly, I am not in a position to comment on other aspects of the urgent question, but we have, I think, acknowledged as a society that when children initially present as suspects, the police and others must ask questions to see whether there is more to the picture. I am sure that we all agree on that, and I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to reiterate it.
Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)
This case, the details of which we are very carefully not discussing today, is particularly horrific. Does the Minister agree that the issue with child criminal records goes much wider than CSE? I urge her to read, if she has not already, the Justice Committee’s excellent report on the subject, and to meet me and a group of cross-party colleagues, as well as the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), in the near future to discuss how we can deal with these issues as a matter of urgency.
Victoria Atkins
My hon. Friend feels—and, in fairness, has campaigned—strongly on this subject. I have read the report. She will appreciate that given the timing, I am constrained in what I can say, but I would be very happy to meet her. I should have said in my initial answer that I had the privilege of meeting Ms Woodhouse last year; she described to me in great detail her experiences as a child, and their impact on her as an adult. I very much valued the time she gave for that meeting. I look forward to meeting my hon. Friend and others to discuss their views on the disclosure regime, and any submissions that they wish to make to Ministers.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
Sammy Woodhouse is to be commended for her courage and fortitude. Her campaign reminds us of the complex nature of child sexual abuse and its long-lasting consequences. She makes a very important point when she says that fear of being prosecuted may prevent victims from coming forward, and that criminal records may prevent survivors from moving on with their life.
Conscious of your warning, Mr Speaker, I will not say anything about the case in hand, but I point out that my colleagues in the Scottish Government are committed to preventing and tackling child sex abuse through a range of actions. Of course, grooming is a major issue; Police Scotland has emphasised that it is important that children should not be deterred from coming forward by a fear of having broken the law, and I know that the Minister will agree. In Scotland yesterday, Police Scotland launched the Stop it Now! campaign, which aims to drive home the message that the online grooming of children and young people is illegal and causes huge harm. This is one of the many areas where we really need to drive home the message that it is illegal for adults to have sexual conversations, online or offline, with young people. Does the Minister agree with the aims of the campaign to stop online and offline grooming in Scotland, and will she pledge her support for it?
Victoria Atkins
I thank the hon. and learned Lady for her question. As she knows, we are very keen to work with colleagues across the United Kingdom, and to learn from best practice. I am pleased to hear of that campaign. With the help of the Mayor of London, we recently invested in a child house in London. I visited it recently; it is an amazing facility. Anyone who has worked with child victims—I know that several colleagues in the House have—will agree that the child house is a real step forward in making children feel comfortable in giving evidence, and in achieving the best evidence on behalf of those children. I am keen to see what more can be done in that area.
I am conscious that what is illegal online is just as important as what is illegal offline. The hon. and learned Lady will know the Home Secretary’s personal commitment to ensuring that industry’s response matches our expectations. That response should include a range of actions, such as stopping child grooming from taking place on companies’ platforms, building artificial intelligence to stop this material getting on to the web, and having much greater openness and transparency about how they are clearing out their backyard. Of course, the online harms White Paper is coming up as well, and I am sure that many colleagues will take a great interest in it.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
Huge progress has been made since the Government’s CSE action plan, introduced back in 2011—even before the Savile revelations. It was based on encouraging victims to come forward and not regard CSE as being in some way their fault, and also on making sure that agencies did not try to sweep it under the carpet and were not in denial about cultural sensitivities—and even on making sure that they did not feel that children had brought this on themselves. What ongoing links does the Department have with survivors and victims of CSE? Are there facilities for those victims to meet and help educate judges, so that we can make sure that victims continue to be recognised as such, and not as being perpetrators in some way, and get the ongoing recognition and support that they desperately need?
Victoria Atkins
I thank my hon. Friend. I note the work that he did as children’s Minister to bring about justice for these victims. The Home Office and I personally meet victims of historical and more recent child sexual abuse; I see it as an absolute privilege, and it is an essential part of my role. He is absolutely right that this is about not just law enforcement, but multi-agency working. There have been steps forward in improving that. For example, one of the reasons why we amended the Data Protection Act 1998 last year was to include a clause making it clear that professionals can share data to safeguard vulnerable people, including children, so that if they are worried about a child or vulnerable person, they can be confident that they absolutely must share data with other agencies that may have a role to play.
As for our ongoing work, we continue to fund targeted support for victims of child sexual exploitation and abuse. The police transformation fund, which helped to fund the child house, is another source of support for innovative projects that can help improve our response to this terrible crime.
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
Can the Minister tell the House what analysis has been done on the impact that police cuts have had on bringing the perpetrators of CSE to justice?
Victoria Atkins
The hon. Lady may be aware that we have set up the centre of expertise on child sexual abuse, which is undertaking groundbreaking work on the various typologies of child sexual offending—online, as much as offline, offending. We anticipate that that work will help police forces to address the many challenges that they face in investigating recent and historical examples of child sexual exploitation. We know that the criminal justice system has faced a particular challenge in bringing historical offenders to justice. I am very proud of the work that the police do to investigate historical child sexual abuse, and of the work that the criminal justice system does as a whole to give justice to those victims, but of course I accept that there is always more that can be done.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
There should be no place for child sexual exploitation in our society. Will the Minister give us an update on how the police transformation fund is effecting real change in the way that police investigate crimes involving vulnerable young people?
Victoria Atkins
The police transformation fund helps to fund innovative projects such as the child house, but also wider work across policing. The College of Policing has updated its guidance to make the point that children who, at first glance, appear to be suspects must be looked into to ensure that they themselves are not in fact victims.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
With children’s services having faced a 49% cut in their early intervention funding, will the Minister explain how she thinks we will be able to intervene at an early stage to spot and rescue young people at risk?
Victoria Atkins
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. As I have said, we are investing in innovative projects through the police transformation fund, which will help. The point of the child house is that it brings together all the agencies that may be able to help to look after a child. There is also a great deal of work going on in policing to ensure that children are intervened on before harm happens, and this includes helping to fund regional organised crime units to increase the undercover online capability, which we know is being used to target the online grooming of children.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
The victims of child sexual exploitation have the ability to choose taken away from them in so many aspects of their lives, including with regard to behaviour that can potentially lead to them picking up offences. Does the Minister agree that it is important to promote the ways in which such situations can currently be reviewed, pending the introduction of a system that could help take away the lifetime legacy of offences that those victims did not really have freedom of choice about committing?
Victoria Atkins
My hon. Friend puts it most eloquently. This is, of course, something that we will be very much taking into account as we look at the judgment of the Supreme Court and any other ongoing judgments as well.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
Unfortunately, once again, the Minister’s response is the same as the one that we get from the Home Office, which is that it is for the employer to decide, and frankly that is just not good enough. It shows a failure in the Home Office to recognise the fundamental flaws both in the policy and implementation of the disclosure and barring scheme. We must allow people, particularly victims of CSE, to rebuild their lives. Why will she not dump the dogma and sort out the faulty DBS before it blights even more lives?
Victoria Atkins
I know that the right hon. Gentleman has a long history of campaigning on this matter, and he asked me about the system recently in Home Office questions. I remind him gently that the Supreme Court found that it was a coherent scheme of legislation. We are considering that judgment very carefully, because, of course, we must balance the rights of the individual against the rights of wider society in safeguarding the most vulnerable people in our communities.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
It is clearly evident that, as part of their grooming, children are coerced into getting criminal records, whether through child sexual exploitation or drugs and gangs. That has the desired effect in that it prevents the children from going to the police, but it also damages for life their employment and, most perversely, their likelihood of getting compensation from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority. Will the Minister please give guidance to the police, the judges and the Crown Prosecution Service to consider holistically that, when a child is presented with a criminal activity, it could be part of grooming?
Victoria Atkins
I remember being incredibly moved, but also impressed, by the work of the hon. Lady’s local police and safeguarding teams when I visited her constituency last year. The fact that the College of Policing guidance has been updated and improved to reflect the situation that she has described will have an impact on law enforcement, but of course, yet again, we ask all agencies to work together to ensure that these children are intervened on before real harm is committed.
Sir Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)
Given that the High Court judges have already ruled that CSE victims’ convictions are unjust, and that any link between past offending and current risk is either non-existent or tenuous, does the Minister think that we should ask some form of independent commission to advise the House on whether there needs to be a change in the law or regulations?
Victoria Atkins
I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman was in his seat when Mr Speaker said that this case is sub judice, so I cannot comment at this point. On the wider point about an inquiry, he will know that the independent inquiry on child sexual abuse was set up precisely to lift the stones on this terrifying and terrible subset of crime. There are all sorts of strands of work going on through that inquiry at the moment. We are considering with great care the reports that have been submitted already, with a view to not just Government but the whole of society looking at where these problems exist.
Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)
Only a month ago, 55 men were arrested in Batley and Spen for historical child sexual exploitation. The women who came forward are, of course, absolutely amazing. They are spectacular people with great courage. My concern is that this case is in the papers and in the House. Will that be a block to other young women in Kirklees and more widely across the country coming forward, as they will be scared about being treated like criminals? They are scared that, when they have their own children and want to contribute to society and join charities, parent-teachers associations or whatever, they will be treated like criminals. That cannot be fair.
Victoria Atkins
I cannot comment on the specific case that the hon. Lady has raised. She makes an important general point about the way that we treat victims as they come forward. The criminal justice system has improved in the way that it looks after victims in the course of giving their evidence. Special measures can also be put in place, but, as always, if colleagues are aware of cases where the court system is not applying the rules as carefully as it should, they should please let me or Justice Ministers know. We are very keen that when victims are giving evidence, we do right by them and treat them fairly in the court process.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
Girls and vulnerable young women in Newcastle suffered horrendous sexual abuse, rape and exploitation and yet found the courage to work with the police and social services to bring perpetrators to justice. As we have heard, the consequences can last a lifetime, and the support that we offer them should last a lifetime, too—I am talking about the kind of support that is provided by the sexual exploitation hub in Newcastle, for example. I know that the Minister recognises that and knows that we are talking about decades, not simply months, of support. What funding is available to provide support so that these victims can rebuild their lives and have the futures that they deserve?
Victoria Atkins
The hon. Lady has raised this with me, and the project that she mentions is doing great work in the north-east. We do have a stream of funding mechanisms, which I am very happy to discuss with her afterwards, but she is right to say that historic child sexual abuse has not just an impact in the immediate term, but emotional, mental and physical consequences for many, many years afterwards. We must find a way of supporting victims in the longer term as well as in the short term.
John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
There is a handful of people whose views should be forgotten, and that is that increasing number of commentators and politicians who suggest that this is a waste of money. I have dealt pretty much every week, and certainly every month over the past five years, with those who have survived this abuse, and that includes this week. I can tell the Minister that this question of criminality, with its impact in respect of custody, housing and employment, but also in respect of ongoing reputation for those who have managed to move on in their lives, is fundamental to why the vast majority of people affected have not come forward, despite the fact that I represented more than 30 during the three weeks of the Nottinghamshire inquiry. As all these issues have been aired during the inquiry in huge detail, will the Minister give a guarantee that the recommendations, when they come forward from this inquiry, will be implemented lock, stock and barrel by the Government?
Victoria Atkins
The hon. Gentleman has put his finger on the fact that what is important is not only how the criminal justice system and other agencies react to this issue, but how we in this place react to it. The choice of language that we use is vital, and I want to make it absolutely clear that it is the policy of this Government that we will always be on the side of the victims of child sexual abuse, and we will always seek to secure justice for them.
Clydesdale Bank and SMEs
(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Speaker
Before I call the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) to ask her urgent question and the Economic Secretary to the Treasury to respond, I must again advise Members that, under the terms of the House’s resolution on matters sub judice, they should not refer to specific cases that are currently subject to legal proceedings; Members may of course speak to the general issues.
Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Economic Secretary to the Treasury if he will make a statement on Clydesdale Bank’s treatment of small and medium-sized enterprises.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen)
The Government are committed to ensuring a strong, diverse and dynamic economy, where small businesses can access the credit they require in order to prosper and grow. As such, we expect the highest standards of behaviour across the financial sector, which is why a number of necessary changes have been introduced to restore public trust in financial services, such as the senior managers and certification regime. Although it would be inappropriate for me to intervene in individual cases, particularly when they are subject to ongoing legal proceedings, we must always remember the human element to each case. That is why the Government have been consistently clear that, where there has been inappropriate treatment of SMEs by their bank, it is vital that those businesses can resolve their disputes and obtain fair redress.
At the Budget last autumn, the Government set out their support for the Financial Conduct Authority’s plans to expand eligibility to complain to the Financial Ombudsman Service to small businesses and micro- enterprises. This will ensure that, from 1 April 2019, well over 99% of all UK businesses will have access to fast, free and fair dispute resolution. The Government have also been clear that banks need to work hard to restore businesses’ trust in their institutions, and have welcomed the banking industry’s commitment to establish two independent voluntary ombudsman schemes to resolve SME disputes.
I am extremely pleased that last week my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) agreed to sit on the steering group responsible for implementing these schemes, alongside Nikki Turner from the SME Alliance. That follows several months of intense engagement with the all-party parliamentary group on fair business banking. Although eligibility for the scheme to address historical complaints will need to be determined on a case-by-case basis, I encourage all SMEs that believe that they are eligible to apply once the scheme is up and running in September.
I am pleased that the sale of loan portfolios to third parties is now covered by the standards of lending practice—overseen by the Lending Standards Board—to which Clydesdale is a signatory. That means that it is now committed to ensuring that third parties that buy loans have demonstrated that customers will be treated fairly, and to allowing customers to complain to the original lender if there is a dispute that cannot be resolved. I can also confirm that Andrew Bailey of the FCA has spoken to Clydesdale about the case in question.
The Government are not complacent about this serious matter. We will monitor the implementation of these new or expanded dispute resolution schemes, and we will continue to remind banks of the importance of restoring SMEs’ trust in them.
Angela Crawley
I asked for this statement on Clydesdale Bank’s treatment of SMEs in the light of my constituent John Guidi’s hunger strike in protest at his treatment by Clydesdale Bank and Cerberus Capital Management. I am aware that aspects of Mr Guidi’s case are sub judice, so I do not intend to refer to the specifics in any way that would prejudice the case.
In 1998, John Guidi built a business in the west of Scotland with a portfolio of almost 150 properties. Clydesdale Bank backed that business from the very beginning. Mr Guidi has told me that he was treated by bank chiefs as “a model customer”, and in only 15 years he built a property business worth £16 million. He never missed a payment, was in regular communication with bank bosses and appeared to have a great relationship with the organisation.
My constituent informed me that Clydesdale Bank changed the structure of his loans in 2002, introducing him to the tailored business loan. In 2014, Clydesdale Bank sold its tailored business loans to Cerberus Capital Management—an American private equity business. Mr Guidi says that this organisation aggressively pursued the debt and subsequently put his company into receivership a few months after purchase. As a result of my constituent signing a guarantee, he has personally been made bankrupt, and the company is pursuing his family home. He only has a few weeks before he is evicted and has taken the decision to start a hunger strike in protest.
This tragic case brings attention to the vulnerability of UK businesses to abusive treatment by lenders and vulture funds, and the inadequacy of current regulation in preventing it. Sadly, John is not alone. There are hundreds of people across the UK whose tailored business loans were sold by Clydesdale Bank to Cerberus Capital Management. Since 2010, Cerberus has acquired more than 1.2 million distressed or non-performing loans, worth more than $80 billion. Simply put, Cerberus is the world’s largest debt collector.
As we all know, so-called distressed loans are often anything but. Since the banking crisis of 2008, we have seen a sorry catalogue of thousands of instances in which banks have forced legitimate borrowers into distress through no fault of their own, and because loans to SMEs are not regulated properly, the customers have little or no redress. John now finds himself in that category. All he wants is a fair say before he loses his family home. He has requested that his case go to an independent arbitrator for a review.
Will the Minister join me in calling on both Clydesdale Bank and Cerberus to engage with my constituent urgently, and will he meet John to discuss how the lack of regulation in the banking industry has destroyed his business? Finally, is now not the time to pursue an independent financial tribunal to ensure that my constituent can receive adequate remedy from the dispute resolution of his case?
John Glen
I thank the hon. Lady for her points, and I will try to address them all. The decision to develop the dispute resolution service was taken carefully, after a lot of engagement with the industry. I am obviously aware of the press coverage around the case and of the extremely difficult circumstances faced by her constituent. I understand that enforcement action is currently on hold as legal proceedings have been brought against Clydesdale and Cerberus. I also understand that Clydesdale and Cerberus have offered to meet Mr Guidi.
The hon. Lady raises a number of points about a preferred alternative mechanism for resolving such situations. It is common across all jurisdictions for banks to sell off parts of their portfolio of debt at times. The question becomes what the appropriate mechanisms and safeguards are in those cases. The sale of debts to third parties is covered under the standards of lending practice, to which Clydesdale is a signatory. That means that it is committed to ensuring that third parties that buy loans have demonstrated that customers will be treated fairly, and to allowing customers to complain to the original lender if there is a dispute between the business and the third party that cannot be resolved.
I am very happy to meet the hon. Lady to go through the full extent of her outstanding concerns on the matter. I take the issue and this case very seriously.
Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) on raising this urgent question. As somebody who was involved with the all-party parliamentary group on fair business banking back in 2012 and 2013, the fact that we are still talking about businesses that were sold TBLs which have not received redress is somewhat shameful. I appreciate the very constructive comments made by the Minister. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) on his work as chairman of the all-party group. Is it not the case that these issues could have been resolved much earlier if, for example, the FCA had included TBLs in its original redress scheme, and would that not have resolved some of the issues now being faced by constituents of Members across this House?
John Glen
I acknowledge my hon. Friend’s long-standing efforts in this area. Before I was a Minister, I was a member of that APPG. The whole range of dispute resolution mechanisms that have taken place over the past 10 years all seem to have a very different story. As the Minister responsible, I was keen to ensure that we had a meaningful historical redress mechanism that would give discretion for the banks to examine these individual cases. I was also very keen that this House should be represented on that group. That is why having my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton, with representatives from the SME Alliance, involved will allow full scrutiny of all the cases that have not been resolved adequately.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) for securing this urgent question and for being a firm advocate on behalf of her constituent.
All people and all businesses in the UK deserve a mechanism that provides them with access to justice in the event that they end up in dispute with their financial services provider. Under your guidance, Mr Speaker, I will not comment on the specifics of the Guidi case. However, as many Members are aware, the issue of redress for SMEs against banks and other financial services providers is one that we have discussed in this place many times. At present, too many businesses are caught between the threshold for using the Financial Ombudsman Service and the cost and difficulty of using the full legal process to pursue a claim. So this issue is about more than just one case.
We must take decisive action to draw a line under historical cases like these, as well as ensuring that we have an adequate system of redress going forward. If we do not, then we have no hope of restoring the trust and confidence in business banking that this country so desperately needs. The debates that we have held so far have revealed a substantial coalition across the House for a full tribunal system, alongside a historical case review, that would look again at cases that have been settled by internal bank review processes. The Labour party, the Scottish National party, the Liberal Democrats, the Democratic Unionist party and many individual Conservative MPs certainly hold that view; it is only the Government who do not.
I therefore have some questions for the Minister. First, do the Government agree with the Opposition that where there is evidence from complainants, the historical review process should be willing to consider cases going back to 2000? At present, only those going back to 2008 would be eligible. Secondly, are the Government willing to reconsider their view on the establishment of an independent tribunal system for dispute resolution in order to level the playing field between businesses and their banks? Thirdly, have the Government listened to those people arguing that the expansion of the ombudsman service alone will not solve the problem, as it does not have sufficient resource and capacity to get to the root of the problem, and the mooted compensation cap by the Government looks far too low?
Most of all, do the Government acknowledge that MPs want to see some real action and progress on this? It is disappointing that despite many hours of parliamentary debate and consensus on what must happen next, with agreement stretching across the Treasury Committee, the Opposition, the Financial Conduct Authority, the major banks themselves, such as TSB and Metro, and the all-party parliamentary group on fair business banking, the Government are still reluctant to join this consensus. We all want to be able to tell our constituents that these issues are resolved and simply will not be allowed to happen again.
John Glen
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. I always listen very carefully to the constructive way that he presents his case.
Let me address the hon. Gentleman’s three core questions. First, the historical review process has been as set out, but there is discretion within that. I know that there will be a lively discussion at the first board meeting about how the handling of past cases will be considered. In terms of the disputes over how to resolve this, the role of the Financial Ombudsman Service is being expanded. Its representatives were in Parliament last week offering access to colleagues across the House, and I have visited them to examine what they are doing to recruit the extra resources needed to deal with this extra category. I think that this will work; I would not have made the decision otherwise. The other key consideration I have to balance is about the rapidity and efficiency with which the vast majority of cases—we are talking about 99% of businesses with a turnover of up to £6.5 million—will be able to get a resolution. That is why I think that the ombudsman service is the right way to go forward.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
I thank the Minister for all the work he has done in this area. I do feel that we are making progress, but, understandably, the jury is out until we get to the place we need to be. I also thank the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) for tabling such an important question today. There are many issues with this. The case concerned follows a typical pattern. Over 10,000 of these tailored business loans were sold to businesses. It may be impossible for these businesses to refinance because of the exit fees. Personal guarantees were then required, and finance was withdrawn despite the fact that the businesses had never missed a payment. The FCA has looked at this and has said that these cases should be considered by the new dispute resolution scheme, which is good news for many people. I ask the Minister to impress on UK Finance that it makes sure that it suspends any proceedings in any of these cases until they have been reviewed.
John Glen
Again, I thank my hon. Friend for the work he has done in this area. I met representatives of UK Finance just a few hours ago, and I am aware of his correspondence overnight on this issue as he joins the board imminently. The key concern I would have is the extrapolation of one case, or a few celebrated cases—tragic cases—to say that they are normative of practices across the sector as a whole. He smiles because he knows that is a conversation we have had frequently. This historical dispute resolution mechanism is not designed as some sop, but as a meaningful mechanism to interrogate wrongdoing in the past and seek resolution for those individuals who remain dissatisfied.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) on securing this urgent question.
The issue of transferring funds to an organisation such as Cerberus is far from the only one. The hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) mentioned businesses that did not have any debt issues whose loans were restructured and who were offered incredibly high and arbitrary repayment terms with incredibly high interest rates. That was completely inappropriate. The restructuring of debt should be tackled in the first place, and not just the transferring over. Nobody should be in the situation in which my hon. Friend’s constituent found himself.
The Minister said that these cases are not necessarily indicative of how everybody has been treated, but we have seen enough of them coming forward, and enough people losing their homes, losing their families, and, in some cases, losing their lives as a result. We know as parliamentarians that we see only the tip of the iceberg in the cases that come into our offices, and that there are probably many, many more that we have not seen and have not raised here.
It is clear from cases like the one that my hon. Friend describes that any system of voluntary redress is not working, and is probably not working in many of the cases that we see coming into our offices. I am concerned that the issue with voluntary redress schemes will also happen with the ombudsman scheme given that it is voluntary and not as all-encompassing as it could be. The Government can still take action and save face. What the Minister has said about the ombudsman system is interesting, but it is not the independent tribunal that we on the fair business banking APPG have been calling for. It does not go far enough on that basis.
The other thing that the Government have failed to do so far is to bring forward a massive, comprehensive review of banking culture to ensure that nothing like this happens again in future so we know that SMEs will not be treated in the same way as they were previously. It is incredibly important for our economy that SMEs can borrow, and they will not be able to do so if they do not trust the banking sector to treat them fairly. If the Government have to step in and ensure that this happens, then that is what needs to happen.
John Glen
I thank the hon. Lady for her comments. There are two things there, and one is the adequacy of the voluntary mechanism. To be fair, it is unclear how it will play out, because it has only just been established. I see from my engagement with the chief executives and chairmen of the banks a massive desire to ensure that this has teeth and can deliver. This is not about the Government saving face. It is about ensuring that this process is effective. I will have deep engagement with and take a close interest in this process, because it must be effective and thorough in its examination of these cases.
I take the wider point that the hon. Lady makes about banking culture. A lot has changed in the last 10 years, and many of these cases arose before that. We now have a very different regulatory environment, with the Prudential Regulation Authority and the FCA, which has changed things considerably, but I will reflect carefully on her comments.
Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) on securing this urgent question. I had the opportunity recently to meet her constituent John Guidi, and I express my strongest concern for his welfare. Does the Minister accept that just one such example makes the case for introducing a financial services tribunal, to allow business owners to challenge financial institutions and have confidence that they will always be treated on the basis of fair play and justice?
John Glen
I have extreme sympathy for everyone who has had the sort of experience that this constituent has had, but I do not think it is right for any Government to make policy on the basis of one case. It is incumbent on Government to set out a framework and a policy that will deliver real answers to complex questions. I do not accept that the regulation of bank lending would be a good step forward. I understand the argument that it would give certainty to small businesses, but my view is that it would discourage a lot of lending, because there would not be the same appetite for lending if that regulation was as onerous as it would likely be.
Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)
I join others in congratulating the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) on securing this important urgent question. We license and regulate banks to protect customers and because our economy requires SMEs to work as well as they do, but we also need to level the playing field of power between banks, SMEs and individual customers. There is overwhelming evidence that the banks have abused their position of power in the past. If I was at my most sympathetic, I would say that trust in the banking system is at breaking point. I actually fear we have gone beyond that. Is the Financial Conduct Authority really the answer to this, or has the time not come to have a financial services tribunal that SMEs, individual customers and banks can trust to resolve these problems, so that we can move forward?
John Glen
I have listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman a number of times. As I have said to him previously, we need an effective mechanism that small businesses can get reliable and efficient access to and answers from. I have seen the investment that has gone into the expanded provisions of the ombudsman service. I know that he is not convinced, but this matter is not set in stone forever. Obviously the service needs to deliver. In my conversations with the chief executive of the ombudsman service, as in my conversations with UK Finance and the chief executive of every bank, I have said that this is the top priority in this area of my portfolio.
Paul Masterton (East Renfrewshire) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. I have met too many individuals in my constituency who ran serious, sensible businesses and were a model in their borrowing but whose lives have been ruined by the behaviour of unscrupulous banks. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to air this on the Floor of the House.
I understand from my constituent Ian Lightbody that, despite the tireless efforts of him and his CYBG Remediation Support Group, they have not had the courtesy of a response from the CEO and chairman of CYBG, which sums up the complete contempt and disregard of Clydesdale Bank’s senior management for small business owners. Will the Minister join me in demanding that the bank, as a first step, shows some courtesy to these individuals and at least engages with them?
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
It is not just in calling for a financial services tribunal that the Treasury Committee has joined the consensus. We have also echoed the concern, based on widespread evidence we received, that the regulatory perimeter needs to be looked at in respect of commercial lending. We urged the Government not to adopt a “wait and see” approach. Having looked at the Government’s response to our inquiry into SME lending and listened to the Minister this afternoon, I think the Government do indeed appear to be taking a “wait and see” approach. When will we see more concrete action to give all business owners the confidence they need that whenever malpractice occurs—it does occur, and it is too widespread—they will see justice and accountability?
John Glen
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I have set out the expanded remit and role of the ombudsman service and the extension of the money that can be provided. I have also set out the engagement I have had with UK Finance on historical cases. I respectfully say to him that these are very early days—it is only two months since this decision was made, and I look forward to seeing urgent progress.
Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) on asking this important question. Along with effective dispute resolution, a properly functioning banking and financial services sector that commands the trust of the British people relies on brave individuals who are prepared to blow the whistle on wrongdoing within the institutions where they work. Does the Minister agree that it has become increasingly clear that we need enhanced protection so that people feel able to speak out and a regulator that is prepared to stand up for, support and protect whistleblowers when the going gets tough?
John Glen
I recognise that we need in the Financial Conduct Authority and the PRA regulators that are able to take appropriate action in a timely way to deal with disputes where they have responsibility. I have regular conversations with the FCA and encourage it to look at different matters. I will obviously be concerned about how the expanded ombudsman service and the redress mechanism work, and nothing is ruled out in the future.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) on securing this important urgent question. Like many Members, I have constituents whose businesses were successful and would not have gone under had the banks not mistreated them. Does the Minister agree that the FCA should issue strict guidance that the banks should not destroy any documentation relative to ongoing disputes before the historical compensation scheme is established, and if they do so, they should be sanctioned?
John Glen
The hon. and learned Lady makes a reasonable point. It would be perverse to shred relevant materials in the context of a provision that they have entered into freely, showing a lot of good will, to try to find resolution and get to a better point of trust between the public and themselves.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
This is not just about one case. The description that the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) gave of the sale of tailored business loans is identical to the case of my constituent. Furthermore, that constituent has clear, documented and contemporaneous evidence of deliberate false representation by the bank to the Treasury Committee, the Financial Ombudsman Service and the FCA. I venture to say to the Minister, for whom I have a lot of respect, that this is widespread across the banking sector. We have seen the activities of the Royal Bank of Scotland Global Restructuring Group in attacking SMEs. Much as I support the idea of a tribunal, surely now is the time to go further and have a full public inquiry into the character of banking.
John Glen
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. The key issue for many of these people, who have been waiting for a very long time—sometimes up to 10 or 11 years and longer—is to make sure they can get access to a mechanism that interrogates the evidence and deals with it swiftly. I was not indicating to my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) that we should not say there are not parallels or themes, but I just feel that we have to look at the evidence on a case-by-case basis. I am certain that there is good will in the dispute resolution mechanism to interrogate thoroughly past cases that are unresolved.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
We acknowledge the work that the Government have done to date, and the point the Minister made about the need to strike a balance between banks being able and encouraged to lend and, at the same time, meeting the interests of their customers. Does he agree with me that an equally important balance is that between powerful financial institutions that have all the resources—and sometimes the resources of the state—behind them and small businesses that have been damaged economically by the actions of those banks and very often do not have the resources to fight back? Despite all the measures undertaken, 10 years down the line many are still seeking redress, still finding themselves blocked by the actions of the banks and now, ahead of the historical compensation scheme coming in, finding themselves forced into the courts and perhaps having their cases dealt with before the scheme comes in. Does he not agree that now is the time for an independent financial services tribunal, and for the FCA to make it clear to the banks that, ahead of the historical compensation scheme coming in, no further court action should be taken against individuals?
John Glen
I believe the dispute resolution service that has been set up gives the scope to go back over 10 years of disputed cases, and there is a desire to provide quick access. As the right hon. Gentleman points out, some of these cases have been going on for far too long. The situation is that the banks were in a very bad place with respect to the power they wielded over individuals and small businesses. They want to sort this out, and that is why they have engaged constructively in the construction of this dispute resolution service.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
Like other Members who have spoken, I have a number of constituents whose businesses were ruined by the actions of the banks. I think this is a much larger-scale problem than the Minister perhaps implied in some of his earlier answers. It is about an imbalance of power in the relationship between the banks and their customers. The banks have had years to provide redress and they have had years of a voluntary system in that regard, so how is a new voluntary tribunal system going to provide the redress the banks need to provide? Surely the time will come when the Minister will need to make this a mandatory system to provide the justice needed by small business customers who were ruined?
Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)
Given the personal cost of this—destroyed businesses, personal bankruptcy, mental health pressures, suicide and now a hunger strike—many of these people will not have the ability or the stomach for a historical review. Moving forward, may I tell the Minister that there is little confidence, including from the Treasury Committee, that the FOS has the ability, capacity or expertise to do the work it has been asked to do? I hope the Minister will listen—I am sure he will—to those in all parts of this House who are saying there is now an unanswerable argument for an independent financial services tribunal.
John Glen
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, and I have responded to I think nine debates in this Chamber and in Westminster Hall on this matter. I am very aware of the pitch and the breadth of concern that exists on this matter and the urgency in getting some outcomes that actually deliver for our constituents, and I will continue to work towards that aim.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
I think the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) hit the nail on the head. Let me give the House an example. A couple of years ago, when the Clydesdale proposed to shut its branch in my home town of Tain, I had a meeting with it and representatives of a highly successful local fish-processing business, and the Clydesdale was at pains to say, “Yes, we’re going to shut the branch, but you can use the post office locally.” Well, a fat lot of good that was, because the post office was too small, and I have raised that several times in this House. Now, in the next few days, that post office is going to close, and we will have no Clydesdale branch and no Royal Bank of Scotland branch in my home town. What good is that to SMEs? It is useless for business. I back the hon. Gentleman all the way: the time has come for a full inquiry into these banks, which, in my opinion, are completely out of control.
John Glen
As has been discussed in numerous debates, the changing face of the high street bank causes considerable concern for our constituents. We have a protocol in place on the relationship with the Post Office and, from memory, I think something like 97% of people in this country live within three miles of and have access to a post office. I think the hon. Gentleman needs—
John Glen
The hon. Gentleman needs to reflect on the fact that there will not be a one-size-fits-all approach across the whole of the United Kingdom, and the banks are willing to look at individual solutions in different circumstances. I would be very happy to meet him to discuss that further.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
There is probably no more appropriate Member to have raised this than my hon. Friend the Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) because, as Members will appreciate, Clydesdale is in fact the historical name for a great part of the constituency that she represents.
Does the Minister accept that no form of redress can ever be good enough once a business has gone bust and the owners of the business and their families have been put through 10 years or more of hell? What assurances can he give us that any future scheme of redress will become active and effective when there is still time to save businesses that, in the vast majority of cases, have operated lawfully within the rules and have been successful businesses? These businesses would not have been targeted if they had not been successful.
John Glen
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. He expresses exactly why I think it is so urgent that we get on and get the banks to engage in this historical dispute resolution mechanism and look at the detail, so that they are in a position to give compensation urgently. People have been waiting too long, and where such evidence exists, the banks need to respond appropriately and swiftly.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
First, I thank the Minister for his response on these issues. As he knows, I have met him on a number of occasions with my constituents to do with their problems, and I just want to put on the record the desperation that they feel. Yesterday, some of them attended the Irish schools— St Patrick’s Day—cup final to protest about Danske Bank, with “Shame on you” on their yellow hi-vis vests to highlight the issue. The Minister quite clearly knows that their story is dreadful—he has seen it—as it all too often involves health issues. When it comes to financial redress, it is compensation we are after. Has the Minister had any opportunity to address the issue of compensation, particularly the issues of the Danske Bank in Northern Ireland, which has false-changed my constituents?
John Glen
I do not personally have investigative powers, but I do recognise the need to have compensation. That is why we have an increased compensation threshold in the Financial Ombudsman Service, and nothing is ruled out with respect to the resolution mechanism. I would like to acknowledge the work that the hon. Gentleman puts in, and I thank him for his email at 9 am on Boxing day, but I was just surprised he had a day off.
Points of Order
Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You will know that once a statement has been made under section 13(4) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, a Minister of the Crown must make arrangements under subsection (6) for a motion in neutral terms to be moved within the period of seven Commons sitting days, beginning with the day on which the statement is made. As you will be aware, such a statement was made on Friday 15 March, and you will also know that Friday 22 March is a sitting day. Can you therefore confirm that, irrespective of what may emerge from the meeting of the EU Council on 21 and 22 March and what, if any, consequential secondary legislation may be brought to the House thereafter, we will have a stand-alone debate on an amendable motion by Monday 25 March?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order and his characteristic courtesy in giving me advance notice of his intention to raise it. As far as I am aware, his exegesis of the Act is entirely correct. Following the decision of this House not to approve the withdrawal agreement and the framework for the future relationship on Tuesday 12 March, the Government made a written statement on Friday 15 March, as required by section 13(4) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. Under section 13(6) of that Act, a Minister must move a motion “in neutral terms” that this House “has considered the matter” of that statement no later than Monday 25 March. According to the order of this House of 4 December, motions in neutral terms under section 13 of the Act are amendable. The motion has been tabled; it is currently item 64 in part B of Future Business. No amendments have been tabled yet.
Mr Speaker
I am saving the hon. Gentleman. I do not want to squander him too early in our proceedings. That would seem unkind and wasteful.
Mr Speaker
The right hon. Gentleman is a very learned fellow; we will come to him presently.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Ind)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Further to your, if I may put it this way, intervention—your ruling, perhaps—yesterday, the Government have today announced, no doubt also in accordance with the motion passed on Thursday, and apparently after a tumultuous Cabinet meeting, that the Prime Minister is writing to Mr Tusk to seek an extension of article 50, but not just, as prescribed in the motion last Thursday, till the end of June, but also for another, much longer period. However, we do not know for how long—apparently the Prime Minister might not have even decided herself—and we certainly do not know for what purpose any extension is being sought.
Mr Speaker, can you help us? Is all that in order, given that nobody has come to this place to tell the House of Commons what is going on, so that we can question, yet again, the purpose of that lengthy extension in particular and how long it will be, but also what this means, given that we are to leave the European Union in 10 days, still with no deal in place? The concern is that the letter is designed to do the very thing that the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) mentioned in her comments yesterday, which she has also mentioned on a previous occasion, in reference to the rulings in “Erskine May”, which is, it is believed, to bully, frankly, Conservative Back Benchers into supporting the Prime Minister’s withdrawal agreement, even though they believe that it is against everything they believe in and against their consciences. Could you assist us, Mr Speaker: is all this in order?
Mr Speaker
I am not aware that anything disorderly has taken place, and I must begin by advising the right hon. Lady that I am not privy to these matters. I know that she is customarily exceptionally well informed, and may well be, for all I know, in this case. One of the reasons why I am not privy to these matters is that I have not been advised of them by Ministers. Another reason why I am naturally not aware is that I have been attending to my duties in the Chair, as colleagues and others would expect, so I do not know whether a letter has been written or is in the process of being written.
What I would say to the right hon. Lady is that of course the motion passed by the House last week on, if memory serves me correctly, 14 March did provide for a potential extension of article 50 application to be made. If memory serves me correctly, the first part of that motion specified that if the withdrawal agreement and future declaration were endorsed by the House by 20 March, the Government would be minded to seek an extension to the end of June—specifically, I think, to 30 June. A later section of that motion raised the possibility of a potentially longer extension being sought, in circumstances in which the House had not by 20 March endorsed the withdrawal agreement and future partnership declaration. I think I remember rightly that that reference to a potentially longer extension in that circumstance did not reference a specific period—and that certainly was not at that point a Government policy proposal—and it did indicate that there was no certainty at all that that would be agreed to by the European Union; and of course, a rationale for such an extension would be needed.
I mention all that because it seems to me that, as things stand, nothing disorderly has taken place. The notion that an application for an extension might be made is not new. It is out there and has been for some time. I am bound to say that if the Government are minded to seek something by way of a written application, one would rather hope that the House would be informed of that. Of course, a successful application would not only require the agreement of the Union; as a consequence—I think the Clerk at the Table has consulted his scholarly cranium and advised me that this is so—it would require the agreement of the House. We will have to see whether in due course that will be sought, but certainly the agreement of the House is a prerequisite to postponing exit day—I am pretty sure about that—and the agreement of the Union would also be required.
Knowing the perspicacity of the right hon. Lady, I feel sure that she will be in her place at later points, today and assuredly tomorrow and on subsequent days, and it is possible—I do not have to look into the crystal ball when I can read the book—that she will leap to her feet with alacrity in order to seek to probe the Executive branch on these important matters. And who knows? She might well be successful in catching the eye of the Chair. I hope that is helpful to her at this early point in the day.
Sir Edward Leigh
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You have told the House that, under the convention dating from 1604, you would not be prepared to allow the Government to bring back the motion. I make no comment on that; I just mention it by way of introduction. However, we have also heard from the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), that it is likely that under the Act there must be further opportunities for debate, and the motion will be amendable.
I sense that the House wants to come to a conclusion; therefore, this point of order is designed to try to be positive and both follow your ruling, Mr Speaker, and not disagree with it and allow the House to come to a decision. If, as we hear, the Government are applying for an extension, which we are told might be quite lengthy, I would have thought that that was a fundamental change of circumstance, and you have yourself alluded to the fact that an SI would have to be brought to the House to implement that. I therefore wonder whether, if the Government were then to bring forward a motion, that might be a reason and an opportunity for you to make a judgment that that change was sufficiently meaningful to allow you to change your ruling and allow the Government motion to go forward.
There is another way. You may be aware, Mr Speaker, that I have argued for some time that the Government should use the concept of a unilateral declaration, and this has now been laid by the Government. What if the Government were to beef up or change its unilateral declaration, so that the motion that they brought back to the House was substantially different? I mention that as another way forward. I am trying to be helpful, so that we can both be true to your ruling, Mr Speaker, and allow the House to come to a decision as soon as possible, because I for one rather hope that this extension will concentrate the minds of my Brexiteer colleagues.
Mr Speaker
I am most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order and for the terms in which, entirely characteristically, he expressed it. There were quite a lot of hypothetical questions there, and he is both something of an intellectual gymnast—I think I am in no danger of contradiction in making that assertion—and a keen student of history, not least the history of his own party. I do not treat his inquiry with levity, but what I say to him is this: I have always thought that there is much merit in the observation frequently proffered by the late Lord Whitelaw. What he said, many a time and oft, was, “For my part, I prefer to cross bridges only when I come to them”—indeed, it might be thought to be somewhat hazardous to make any attempt to do otherwise. I stand by the point about the same or substantially the same proposition not being able to be brought in the same Session. The logical corollary of that is that if a different proposition is brought forward, it is perfectly possible that that can be done in an orderly way—that is to say, without falling foul of “Erskine May”. We will leave it there for now.
Chris Bryant
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. This is a completely different matter, if that is okay. As you know, we all mourn the loss of Paul Flynn, and his funeral is to be in Newport on Friday morning, but because, unusually, we are sitting this Friday for private Members’ Bills, your chaplain has agreed to hold a service in the crypt chapel of St Mary Undercroft at 10.30 am. I wonder whether we might be able to put that on the Order Paper for Friday, so that if anybody wanted to attend, they could come along.
Mr Speaker
I see absolutely no reason why that should not be done and every reason why it should be. I am deeply obliged to the hon. Gentleman. As he rightly says, this Friday is a sitting day. Many colleagues will be in the Chamber for important private Members’ business and I myself, all being well, will be in the Chair for a significant part of the proceedings. I would otherwise very much have wanted to be at the funeral and I am being represented at the funeral, as I think the hon. Gentleman knows, but I will be here. That service is itself a service—a service to our departed colleague, to his widow Sam and family and to everyone who knew, admired and respected Paul—so let us have it advertised in a rather official way, as the hon. Gentleman suggests.
Christian Matheson
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. On a more practical matter, there are occasions in this House when we have debates that are of a timed length. I am thinking, for example, of statutory instruments that are debated for up to 90 minutes or Standing Order No. 24 debates, for which I believe the time limit is three hours. When we have such timed debates, would it be possible for the annunciator to reflect the start time of the debate, so that hon. Members can see how long has elapsed within that period and how long is remaining?
Mr Speaker
The debate end time is displayed on the clocks at the table in front of the Clerks. I am sure that we can look at the practicality of that end time being displayed more widely. The proposition advanced by the hon. Gentleman is not only inoffensive, but potentially practical. [Interruption.] And practicable, as has been in no way pedantically pointed out to me.
Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. We are at a time of unprecedented crisis and time is not quite on our side. The UK is due to leave the European Union next week and the House is sitting on Friday, just as we come to the end of a critical European Council. May I seek your guidance on what scope there may be for Members or for the Government to bring forward a resolution so that the House could sit on Saturday?
Mr Speaker
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. Colleagues, for the second day running, I am obliged to turn to “Erskine May”—namely, page 309, with which colleagues, I feel sure, will be closely familiar—which states:
“Under Standing Order No 11(6) a sitting on Saturday or Sunday…can be secured only by a resolution of the House, made normally…at the commencement of public business.”
I hope that my reply sates the hon. Gentleman’s curiosity. If there are no further points of order, we will proceed to the ten-minute rule motion, for which the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) has been very patiently waiting.
Fracking (Seismic Activity)
Tuesday 19th March 2019
(5 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Fracking (Seismic Activity) 2017-19 View all Fracking (Seismic Activity) 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
Lee Rowley (North East Derbyshire) (Con)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require fracking operators to monitor seismic activity caused by fracking and take steps if such activity exceeds certain levels; and for connected purposes.
It is great to have the opportunity to talk about this issue today. Fracking is a controversial and difficult subject on which people take different views. Often, when fracking is discussed and debated, it is mainly talked about from an environmental perspective. That is an incredibly important part of the discussion, but it is not one that I am going to focus on today.
The part of the fracking debate that, frankly, has been missed in this place and elsewhere relates to its practicality and the practical implications for local communities who are affected by it, or by the exploratory drilling that precedes it, or who could be affected as a result of the drilling licence that is applied. For those communities, a shadow across the landscape is created by the implications for their local area—for the roads and the loss of agricultural fields—and the industrial impact in otherwise heavily rural areas. I wish to introduce the Bill today because of the continuing attempts by the industry, perfectly legitimately, to try to tweak and change some of the regulations that govern fracking and which this place needs to consider much more carefully and closely than it has hitherto.
The question on fracking is where to start, and the best place I can see is with what we as a country are trying to do with fracking. That is not actually that clear. I have put multiple written questions to various Departments over the past few months and have not been able to get a clear objective from the Government. The best that I have been able to get is a written ministerial statement from May last year, when the Government were clear that in their view, fracking offers “potentially substantial benefits” to the United Kingdom, that
“gas has a key part to play”
in our future energy mix and that they believe that
“it is right to utilise our domestic gas resources to the maximum extent”.—[Official Report, 17 May 2018; Vol. 641, c. 16WS.]
If we accept that principle, the logical extension of the argument that the Government are very pro-fracking and wish to push it is one of scale and the impact on the local communities who are affected by that scale.
On scale, the challenge with fracking is that to have any material impact when it comes to replacing the amount of gas that we import from outside the United Kingdom with domestic production, a substantial amount of gas would have to be produced from the various fracking wells that would need to be created. Cardiff Business School did a study on that a number of months ago. People from Cardiff Business School and the industry came to the all-party group on the impact of shale gas a few months ago and debated it. There was genuine consensus that if fracking is to be done at scale in our country, thousands of wells will be needed if there is to be any impact on replacing exports with domestic supply.
The Cardiff Business School report estimated that the number of wells required in the United Kingdom could be anything from 6,000 to in excess of 30,000 wells. All those wells are clustered in relatively small parts of the country—that is, where the petroleum licences are—and those include my part of the world as well as Yorkshire, Lancashire, little parts of Somerset, and Sussex. The logical extension of talking about 6,000 to 30,000-odd wells—on the basis that a well pad contains a number of them—is the involvement of thousands of locations in a relatively small space of time, if fracking is to have any impact on the replacement of gas imports with internal production. In each area, the impact on the local community will be tremendous.
In my community of Marsh Lane, permission for fracking exploration has been granted against its will. It is in the middle of green-belt land in the Derbyshire countryside that has remained substantially unchanged since the enclosure Acts of 1795. As a result of this application’s having been approved, we are faced with a proposal to place a light industrial estate in the middle of an agricultural field that has been used only for agricultural purposes, as far as we can tell, for more than 200 years, with over 10,000 vehicle movements in the exploratory phase alone; a substantial number of bulks, some over 10 metres high, for the entire period it is there; and a 60-metre-high drill rig during the six months it is being set up—all in the middle of green-belt countryside. That is the impact in just one location. Multiply that by over 1,000 locations and the challenge becomes that we risk substantially industrialising the countryside and other parts of this country where petroleum licences have been issued.
On top of the scale and impact problem comes another problem. There is a desire, because fracking has not been successful in the eight years it has been tested, to tweak the rules to make it more palatable in this country. First, the national planning policy framework was changed several months ago in effect to prioritise fracking and other forms of onshore oil and gas production over other elements, which gave great weight to allowing such energy exploration and production irrespective of where it was—whether in green belt, countryside or other locations that otherwise would be completely ignored and considered inappropriate for such development.
Secondly, an attempt was made last year to loosen the planning policy rules around fracking. It was proposed that fracking exploration—that light industrial estate plonked in the green belt in places such as my constituency —be permitted through the same planning policy processes as those for a kitchen extension and that the actual production, which could last up to 25 years, if not longer, be taken out of the hands of local people and put into the nationally significant infrastructure programme, both of which would be entirely inappropriate and take away control from local people over what happens in their local areas.
Then, in the last few months, after the failure of the first attempts to frack in this country for over half a decade—in Preston—the industry came back and said it wanted to change the rules around earthquakes. During that short two-month period in Lancashire when fracking was attempted before Christmas, more than 50 earthquakes were created near Blackpool—admittedly small ones, but earthquakes none the less—despite the fact that they got no further than about 10% of the way through the industrial process of fracking. If we multiply that impact by the thousand or so sites in the country, we see the scale of the problem.
My Bill proposes to limit the ability of fracking to create earthquakes to its current regulatory acceptable limit of 0.5 on the Richter scale. The industry has clearly indicated that it wants the limits raised, but that would be entirely inappropriate. We should limit fracking activity in line with the existing regulations. The industry signed up to those several years ago, and any change to them would bring great anxiety, distress and worry to communities such as mine.
In conclusion, fracking is controversial because it has not worked, because it is not working and because, in my view, it will not work from a practical and a community-based perspective. For that reason, I seek to limit in legislation the ability of seismic activity to take place over and above what the regulations already state.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Lee Rowley, Zac Goldsmith, Mr William Wragg, Damien Moore, Mr Simon Clarke, Eddie Hughes, Ben Bradley, Maria Caulfield, Sir Graham Brady, Andrew Lewer and Sir Kevin Barron present the Bill.
Lee Rowley accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 22 March, and to be printed (Bill 359).
Exiting the European Union (Food and Agriculture)
(5 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
With the leave of the House, we will debate motions 2 to 5 together.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Steve Brine)
I beg to move,
That the draft Materials and Articles in Contact with Food (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 5 February, be approved.
Mr Speaker
With this, we shall consider the following motions:
That the draft Genetically Modified Food and Feed (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 4 February, be approved.
That the draft Novel Food (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 4 February, be approved.
That the draft Animal Feed (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 5 February 2019, be approved.
Steve Brine
The instruments, which all concern food and feed safety, relate to those substances collectively known as “regulated products” and to animal feed hygiene and marketing. They are made under the powers in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 to carry out necessary amendments to the overarching food regulations so that those can continue to protect public health from risks that may arise in connection with the consumption of food. These are protections that our constituents would expect us to pass.
As the UK leaves the European Union, the Government remain committed to maintaining the high standards of food and feed safety and consumer protection that we enjoy in this country. As some hon. Members are aware, I have recently presented numerous instruments that will help to deliver a functioning body of food and feed law. I say “some hon. Members” because, by and large, they have been taken upstairs—so I like to think that today is a bit like me moving from BBC2 to the primetime slot on BBC1. The instruments will correct deficiencies in the regulations to ensure that the UK is prepared in the event we leave the EU without an agreement.
As with all the previous statutory instruments I have presented, I wish to make it clear that these instruments make no policy changes and that it is not our intention to make any at the present time. Similarly, they are crucial to maintaining the effective controls and standards that protect public health and consumer interests in relation to regulated products used in and on food and animal feed.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
As the Minister knows, in the ceramics industry contact with food is a huge part of the regulations. What assurances can he give to me that I can relay to the industry that should Europe change its own arrangements for contact rates and provisions—in other words, if our regulatory systems diverge—producers in this country that are in line with our regulations could still sell to the EU?
Steve Brine
I shall be able to talk in more detail about the ceramics issue, which I can well imagine is of great interest to the hon. Gentleman. However, the point of the regulations is to port across everything that is currently on the EU’s statute book. We have 100% regulatory alignment at this stage, because we are a member state at present; if we have a withdrawal agreement in place, there will of course be a seamless bridge. The purpose of the instruments is to ensure that that seamless bridge comes about regardless.
If, when we are a third country, we as a nation, and this as a sovereign Parliament, decided to make a change to the regulations, we would have to do so with the consent of Members. All the considerations would be taken into account, including the impact on areas such as the one that the hon. Gentleman represents, and I am pretty sure that he would be a very loud voice in any future debate. I hope that that answers his question.
David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)
What consultation has there been with the devolved nations?
Steve Brine
I ask the hon. Gentleman to bear with me. I will definitely come on to that, in respect of all the SIs.
As I said to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell), the purpose of the SIs is to ensure that UK domestic legislation that implements directly applicable EU regulations continues to function effectively after exit day. The proposed amendments are critical to ensuring that there is minimal disruption to novel foods, feed additives and other regulated products collectively if we do not reach a deal with the EU.
The first SI, the Materials and Articles in Contact with Food (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019—also known as Food Contact Materials—refers to all items that are intended to come into contact with food, both directly and indirectly. They include processing line machinery, transport containers—not vehicles, but the actual containers of food—kitchen equipment, packaging, cutlery as sold and dishes and utensils as sold, and can be made from a variety of materials including metal, paper, plastic, wood, rubber and, indeed, ceramics.
Let me say for the benefit of Members who do not live and breathe these regulations, in the unlikely event that there are any, that specific examples of food contact materials are tin cans for holding baked beans and plastic bottles for holding water. The regulations will ensure that those materials are robust enough to do the job, but safe enough to do it without transferring anything to the foodstuffs.
The instrument is critical in meeting our priority of maintaining after we leave the European Union the very high standards of food safety and consumer protection that we currently enjoy in this country. It will ensure that provisions in four main pieces of EU food contact materials legislation continue to function effectively in the UK after exit day. The first is European Commission regulation 1935/2004, which sets out the framework for all materials and articles intended to come into contact with food. The regulations then become progressively more specific. The second is regulation 10/2011, on plastic materials and articles intended to come into contact with food. The third is regulation 450/2009, on active and intelligent materials and articles intended to come into contact with food. The fourth is regulation 2023/2006, on good manufacturing practice for materials and articles intended to come into contact with food.
The instrument also makes relevant changes to other specific technical pieces of legislation on individual types of food contact material. It will ensure that regulatory controls for food contact materials continue to function effectively after exit day, that public health continues to be protected, and that high standards of food safety are maintained. Consumers must be protected against potential adverse effects of exposure to some substances used in the manufacture of materials and articles that are in contact with the food that we eat. The instrument will ensure that the effectiveness of the controls that we have is maintained.
This instrument, and the other SIs that we are debating today as part of the fourth and final bundle, will transfer responsibilities incumbent on the European Commission from Ministers in the European Council to Ministers in England, Wales and Scotland and the devolved authority in Northern Ireland. It will also transfer responsibility currently incumbent on the European Food Standards Authority to the relevant food safety authority: the Food Standards Agency, for which I hold ministerial responsibility in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and Food Standards Scotland north of the border. The change will also ensure a robust system of control to underpin UK businesses’ ability to trade both domestically and internationally.
Let me now say something about the impact of this instrument on industry. The proposed amendments are expected to have a very minimal impact on businesses that produce or use food contact materials or articles. Existing provisions have received very positive feedback from our previous consultations, and there is no evidence that the changes required will be detrimental to industry. I was asked about the devolved Administrations. They have consented to the instrument. We liaise closely at official level with our opposite numbers, and, as with the instruments that we have already debated, throughout this month we have engaged positively with the devolved Administrations throughout the development of these instruments. Let me place on the record again my thanks to them for their positive engagement with me and my team.
Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
I am pleased by the Minister’s reassurance about the commitment to the extremely high standards of food safety that exist in our country, but will he consider making some improvements as we take on this responsibility in our sovereign Parliament? A number of my constituents are worried about claims that many of the plastic items used to store and protect food are biodegradable or recyclable when that is actually not true. Will the Minister consider improving the current standards in future, so that we can have proper regulation and proper communications about how biodegradable or recyclable plastics really are?
Steve Brine
It is good to see my hon. Friend here, but not so good to see her there. She knows what I mean.
Along with the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), I chaired the all-party parliamentary group on breast cancer for many years. There is definitely talk in the lobbying community about plastics and their impact, and, as the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West knows, pieces of academic work make claims in that respect. Those claims are certainly not proven, and there is a wide range of scientific debate about them.
I take my hon. Friend’s point about biodegradable plastics, but it is not specifically a matter for me. The instruments deal with food standards and food safety. They do not make any degradations in our food safety, but neither do they make any improvements; they are housekeeping measures.
The second SI, the Genetically Modified Food and Feed (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, is also crucial to meeting our objective of ensuring that the current high standards are maintained. It was made under the powers in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 to make necessary amendments to retained EU genetically modified food and feed law. It will ensure that regulatory controls for GM food and feed continue to function effectively after exit day, and that public and animal health and, crucially public confidence are protected. The EU law governing GM food and feed provides a harmonised regulatory framework, including transparent and time-limited procedures for robust risk assessment and authorisation before these products can be placed on the market, and we believe that those strict controls must be maintained.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
Food safety is a critical element in the fight against antimicrobial resistance and the tackling of superbugs. Will my hon. Friend do all that he can to ensure that the UK remains a world leader in this area after we have left the European Union?
Steve Brine
I would have been disappointed if my hon. Friend had not raised the subject of antimicrobial resistance. He is ingenious in managing to get it into every debate. He knows of my commitment in that regard, not just domestically but internationally. This country is rightly respected and looked to for its work in the field, and I thank him for putting that on the record.
Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)
We have received assurances from the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs that in no way will any of our food standards be lowered as we leave the EU. That is very important to all our constituents, not least the people of Taunton Deane. Will the Minister assure me that we will stick to that, and, indeed, that there might be opportunities to raise our standards so that we are effectively a leader in many areas of the food, farming and animal feed sector?
Steve Brine
My hon. Friend makes a good point, and it is an interesting one to bring up at this moment. We have been very clear across Government from the Prime Minister down, including the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary, that we will not lower our standards in pursuit of trade deals as a result of leaving the EU, and that we will use all the tools at our disposal to make sure that standards are protected and we are not therefore left at a competitive advantage. My hon. Friend mentioned the Environment Secretary, who made that point very clearly at the Oxford farming conference, I think earlier this month. That is very much where this House is, and that is very much where I am as Minister responsible for food safety. I hope that is clear.
The law governing GM food and feed provides a harmonised regulatory framework. The authorisation process involves a safety evaluation based on rigorous scrutiny of scientific data by the European Food Safety Authority in line with international guidelines. GM events for use as food and/or feed are authorised by means of individual pieces of legislation. Authorisations are granted for a period of 10 years, which may be renewed if, following assessment of the required renewal data, the previous risk assessment remains valid. The rules also provide for the withdrawal of authorisations in appropriate circumstances.
There are also very clear requirements for the traceability of genetically modified organisms and the labelling of GM food and feed products, and importantly this enables products to be tracked through all stages of the supply chain. So the instrument ensures the continuation of these robust and effective GM food and feed safety labelling controls after we leave the EU.
As was the case with the other SIs, this instrument will make no change to policy beyond the technical amendments necessary, but it assigns powers and responsibilities currently incumbent on EU entities to appropriate UK entities. So I want to be clear that powers to make legislation, and risk management functions currently held by the European Commission to authorise GM food and feed and revoke or modify authorisations, will be assigned to Ministers in England, Wales and Scotland and the devolved authority in Northern Ireland. Those include discretionary powers to set down detailed rules that work for the UK in relation to the UK reference lavatory—laboratory, sorry, not lavatory; that would be strange.
Returning to industry, no changes to the way in which UK food or feed businesses are operated or regulated will arise from this instrument. There will be a continuation of the robust authorisation system I have outlined, the labelling requirements I have touched on, and the controls for GM food and feed that UK industry is familiar with and relies upon. The instrument enables the continued use of GM food and feed authorised in the UK. Again, the devolved Administrations provided their consent for it.
Thirdly, the Novel Food (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 are another instrument to be made under the powers of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. Novel foods are those that are relatively new or do not have a significant history of consumption in the EU. Those foods must be assessed for safety before they are introduced into the market to ensure that they do not present a risk to public health. This instrument will ensure that the regulation of and controls on novel foods continue to function effectively after exit day and that public health is protected. Anything permitted prior to exit day will be permitted after exit day. The purpose of the instrument—which again makes no policy changes—is to rectify deficiencies in the retained legislation. So foods new to the market are not assumed to be safe; that is where we have decided to place the burden. In the interests of public health the regulations require novel foods to have a pre-market safety assessment to identify whether they pose a risk and how that risk could be managed. The regulations will ensure that the existing levels of public health protection and food safety are maintained.
The EU framework regulation on novel foods is supported by four implementing measures, which provide the detailed rules, data requirements and administrative procedures governing all novel products. This instrument will ensure that provisions in the four main pieces of EU legislation continue to function effectively after we leave. They will correct the following retained EU law: regulation 2015/2283, which is the main framework for regulation on novel foods; regulation 2017/2469, which provides administrative and scientific requirements for the applications; regulation 2017/2468, which provides administrative and scientific requirements concerning traditional foods from third countries, which of course there would be; and regulation 2017/2470, which establishes a Union list of novel foods. Finally, regulation 2018/456 establishes procedural steps for the consultation process to determine the status of novel foods.
I know that food businesses watch these proceedings with interest, and there will be no change in how they are regulated. The instrument will, however, ensure that the robust system of controls that underpins UK businesses’ ability to trade both domestically and internationally continues. Again, we have engaged positively with the devolved Administrations, and we have their consent for this instrument.
Finally, the Animal Feed (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which concern feed law, are also made under powers in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. We are making necessary amendments to the overarching food and feed regulations under the powers in the Act, so that we continue to protect the public. The primary purpose of this instrument is to ensure that feed legislation continues to function effectively. The retained EU legislation on animal feed encompasses requirements relating to feed additives, feed hygiene, sampling—when local authorities do sampling, for instance—marketing, and the use of feed, including labelling.
This instrument will fix the inoperabilities in the retained EU legislation and provide a continuation of the legal requirements that already exist in EU law. These proposed amendments are equally crucial to maintain a functioning statute book and to maintain public safety and confidence. The instrument introduces a number of changes, but the purpose of them is to ensure that the animal feed regulations remain operable after EU exit.
Risk assessment responsibilities, currently incumbent on EFSA, will be assigned to the Food Standards Agency and, again, Food Standards Scotland north of the border, and again, we have had consent from the devolved Administrations.
These four statutory instruments are all necessary to ensure that our legislation relating to food and animal feed safety and hygiene continues to work effectively after EU exit day. No policy changes are being made. I hope the House will support the proposed amendments in these four instruments to ensure that continuation, and I commend them to the House.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
I start by thanking the Minister for introducing these statutory instruments on the Floor of the House this afternoon and for summarising them so clearly for us. I would also like to start, as I always do, by putting on record once again my disappointment and concern that there could be as few as 10 days before we leave the EU, yet we are still dealing with crucial legislation concerning our food safety. The Government have run down the clock for more than two years and only now, when the deadline is so close, are we considering important legislation that could impact on the public’s health if we do not get it right. Of course, that is because the threat of no deal is still hanging over us. I know that the Minister wants to get this right, which is why I have supported him throughout the discussions on these SIs, but I am still disappointed at the way the Government have handled this.
These statutory instruments will transfer tasks and roles assigned to the European Commission and the European Food Safety Authority to an appropriate UK entity. Will the Minister please confirm who that appropriate UK entity will be? While we are taking these SIs as a group, which I welcome, I would like to raise some concerns about each of them in turn.
Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
I am sure my hon. Friend agrees that this is as much to do with DEFRA as with the Department of Health and Social Care, and it shows why we need a food strategy in this country so that we can sort out some of the nonsense caused by the overlap between different Departments.
Mrs Hodgson
I absolutely agree. My hon. Friend makes a good point, and I discussed with the Government and Opposition Whips where responsibility for these SIs fell. There is so much crossover between food and health policy, and we are doing the best we can with the hand we have been dealt, but we should probably look more into this issue going forward.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
I do not want to take my hon. Friend off the point too much, but it crossed my mind when I was listening to the Minister—I apologise to him for coming in late— that issues have been raised in the press, certainly recently, about imported food and the use of chlorine to cleanse it. Does my hon. Friend have a view about that?
Mrs Hodgson
Yes. The issue of chlorine-washed chicken did come up in some of the SI Committees that were held upstairs, and the Minister assured Committee members that chicken would continue to be washed in fresh water and that there would be no sneaking chlorinated chicken into our food chain. I am sure he will reaffirm that today.
The first SI today is the Materials and Articles in Contact with Food (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019. As consumers, we are all familiar with the plastic packaging around almost every product—I suppose we are moving on to environmental policies in talking about the waste element of this, but the issue is at the forefront of consumer consciousness. Has the Minister had any conversations with his colleagues at DEFRA about the UK’s commitment to reducing plastic waste and about how this SI could help facilitate that? The authorised list of substances permitted for use in food contact plastics is generally updated several times a year. Which body will now undertake that work, and does it have sufficient resources to do so? Will the updated list be in line with that of our European neighbours?
Moving on to the genetically modified food and feed regulations, all authorised genetically modified food and feed must have a method of detection scientifically assessed and validated by the European Union laboratory, in collaboration with the European network of GMO—genetically modified organism—laboratories. What body will now scientifically assess and validate food and feed? Will the assessment process change, and will businesses have to complete a more complex process than currently? Will the UK be part of the European network of GMO laboratories after we leave the EU? If not, will the UK’s validation of GM food and feed be aligned with European network standards to ensure that GM food and feed from the EU can be placed on the UK market after Brexit and vice versa?
Can the Minister assure the House that GM food and feed will be authorised for sale only if they are judged not to present a risk to health, not to mislead consumers and not to have less nutritional value than their non-GM counterparts? Has he made any assessment of the impact that this SI may have on businesses? Has the Department contacted the food and feed industry to notify it of the changes in this SI?
Moving on to what is perhaps the most interesting of the SIs, on the regulation of novel foods, I was surprised to learn that chia seeds are classed as a novel food by the EU. I am sure I eat some of them; I have some in the cupboard—I think you sprinkle them on breakfast cereal and other things to try to get their goodness into you. Lots of other new products that I had not realised were classed as novel foods are now entering the market. I am pleased that foods that are new to the market are not automatically assumed to be safe. Novel foods must have a pre-market safety assessment before being placed on the market.
The geographical scope of the existing regulations is being maintained so that food that had a history of consumption in member states of the EU, and that could therefore be marketed in the EU without needing to be authorised, will not become novel and require authorisation to be sold in the UK when we leave. However, when we do leave the EU and new foods are added to the EU’s novel food list, will the UK mirror the same list and authorisation, or will it conduct its own review and authorisation? If the UK conducts its own review, which body will do it? Will the EU’s assessment be taken into account when we conduct a UK-only assessment? Public safety is paramount in all of this, as the Minister and I have discussed many times, so it is important that any reviewing body has the funding and resources to conduct a review. Can the Minister confirm that that is indeed the case?
Will a list of novel foods be available in the UK? Consumers are becoming more and more conscious about what is in the foods they eat, and rightly so. Any list must therefore detail all the information taken into account during the assessment so that consumers can make their own decisions. Packaging must also be clearly labelled with information about novel foods to ensure consumers are aware that their food is safe. It is of course highly important that any food entering the UK market for the first time is safe for human consumption. Leaving the EU should not mean a reduction in our food health standards.
Finally, the anomaly among these SIs, if we did not think that novel food was an anomaly, is the animal feed regulations—I suppose the Minister and I are discussing them because we are the Health Minister and the shadow Health Minister. This SI focuses on animal health and welfare, while taking into account the impact that that can have on human health—that is probably why it has fallen to the Minister and myself to debate it.
The SI says that all rules will remain the same as at present and that there will be a smooth transition for businesses, the feed sector and consumers. The elements of the instrument addressing deficiencies in the Animal Feed (Composition, Marketing and Use) (England) Regulations 2015 apply only in England. What discussions has the Minister had with his counterparts in the devolved Administrations? Is he confident that any regulations on animal feed will be similar, if not the same?
Any animal feed on the market, or used, anywhere in the UK must be safe. The conditions set out for labelling, packaging, sampling, analysis and hygiene must also meet a high standard to protect animal health and wellbeing. Animal feed must also be tested to ensure that it is not harmful to humans in the food chain.
Finally, any changes as a result of this SI must be effectively communicated to the agencies affected in a timely manner. With what could be as few as 10 days to go until Brexit day, will the Minister please confirm that he has had conversations with such agencies to notify them of any changes? The regulations must also be able to be amended easily in the event of emerging threats or changes in safety standards.
In closing, I would like to put on record once again that I am disappointed and concerned that it has come to this just 10 days—if nothing changes—before we are due to leave the EU and that we are still tying up loose ends in such legislation, which is so important to our food safety. We cannot let food safety standards slip as a result of Brexit. They are crucial to human and animal health, safety and welfare. That is why, although I am concerned about the way the Government are rushing through important legislation such as this, I none the less support these SIs. The UK’s food safety standards are paramount to our health and something we must not compromise on. With those remarks, I look forward to the Minister’s response. As ever, I hope he is able to answer some of my questions.
Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)
It is absolutely crucial that the Government take seriously the protection of public health in respect of food. We pride ourselves on our high standards of food production. As I mentioned earlier to the Minister, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs made a commitment that we would in no way do anything to undermine or lower our standards as we exit the EU. I think a great many of us in the Chamber will be holding his feet to the fire on that commitment. Indeed, not only would we like to keep the standards that we have, but we may want to strengthen them. As my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) said, we may want to address packaging in a different way, for example, and we have an opportunity to do so.
I support the approval of these statutory regulations, remembering that they relate not just to the food that we eat, but to imported feed—the soya, the grain and the other myriad crops—for the animals that turn into our meat. The regulations must be in place on day one after we leave the EU, because it is important that businesses can just carry on working. I have met several people from the agricultural supply trade, and they have stressed that point to me, because they want to carry on with business as usual. I was therefore pleased to hear from the Minister that businesses are backing these regulations.
The draft Novel Food (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 deals with interesting foods such as chia seeds, which I have on my porridge every morning. They are supposed to be a superfood, so I thought that they may do me some good. They are new to the market and, like all novel foods, they had to undergo a pre-market safety check. I am pleased that the regulations mean that we will adopt the whole system that applies to novel foods, which is important for public health and safeguarding. New products must undergo an assessment of the level of risk and then an assessment of how to manage that risk and, quite rightly, we are adopting the tried and tested methods of the EU. They seem to be working so far because nothing untoward has happened to me as a result of eating chia seeds, and I hope that nothing will. It is important to continue to follow the process and to ensure that we keep the labelling and packaging right so that people know about novel foods.
I shall now turn quickly to the draft Genetically Modified Food and Feed (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019. It is essential that the system for GM food and animal feed is transparent and well regulated and that it involves a trusted safety evaluation based on sound science. We must adhere to a strict practice, and the EU has an established method, so I am pleased that we are adopting it. It is important to ensure that any process also applies to imports, because we do not want our industry to be undermined by any other country with lower GM standards, something that has been highlighted to me by several people when it comes to soya, for example. We must also ensure that the tracking and labelling systems are in place for GM products.
While we are adopting EU measures lock, stock and barrel, should the EU make any changes to its regulations, we should examine them and consider whether we want to adopt them and whether we may want to add some other standards. If we do that, we should use a bona fide method that protects our consumers while enabling the worldwide trade in which we want to engage.
I assume that the draft regulations will dovetail perfectly with the ambitions in the Agriculture Bill, which sets out plans for a completely new and exciting rethink of land-use policy and for delivering public goods for public benefit. While food is not specifically listed as public good, it is part and parcel of the Bill, and ensuring that we have high standards will be part of all that, so I would like some assurances from the Minister. One thing is for sure: we cannot mess around with food safety. Consumer safety is of utmost importance, and it is beholden on us to put measures in place to ensure that it is properly addressed as we exit the EU. I welcome the approval of these statutory instruments.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
Many myths were spoken about leaving the EU, but one of the biggest was that it was a means of cutting bureaucracy. In fact, as is becoming obvious by the mess that this place has gotten itself into, we have been lucky over the past few decades that so much red tape has been efficiently managed from Brussels. Access to collective European bodies such as the European Food Safety Authority—expert scientists who independently research and advise and ensure that food standards legislation is fit for purpose—will be sorely missed. We must co-operate with national agencies like Food Standards Scotland, which has been a driving force for public health improvements. However, here we are in the midst of a Brexit bourach. As the damaging deal remains stuck in the mud, we have a torrent of statutory instruments to process simply to get to the starting block.
Existing protections and permissions over food contact materials must continue post-Brexit. No one wants a fall in the standards for containers transporting our food or the machinery processing our food, or for packaging, kitchenware, tableware and so forth—standards that successive UK Governments have contributed towards creating. The same applies, of course, to food standards, and my hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk (John Mc Nally) will be speaking more about the draft Genetically Modified Food and Feed (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.
It is vital that evidence-led food safety and food standards are not diminished or diluted by Brexit, which is important for our future trade with the EU as well as for public health. Any increased auditing of food safety standards and procedures at the borders will take a heavy toll on a sector that is already facing enough challenges from Brexit. Looming trade tariffs on agricultural products could close export markets and put thousands out of jobs and close hundreds of businesses. The loss of the European workforce that keeps everything flowing—pickers and packers, food processors, haulage drivers and vets—will also be a substantial blow. There is a threat to Scotland’s carefully cultivated brand identity and our protected geographical indicators. Brexit threatens all of it.
The EU accounts for 70% of annual Scottish food exports, so the possible damage is incredibly worrying, with the industry warning that a no-deal Brexit would cost £2 billion a year. The Government’s own analysis shows that the effect of crashing out of Europe on the agriculture, forestry and fishing industries would hit Scotland hardest—twice as hard as England—slashing the economy by 8%. No Government should contemplate such a self-destructive move, but the Secretary of State for Scotland sat on his hands while his Tory colleagues toyed with the no-deal catastrophe button. We cannot allow Scotland’s successful food and drinks sector to be hijacked by Brexiteers and those who enable them for party political purposes. Exports of iconic Scottish produce, such as whisky, beef, langoustines and salmon, are worth four times as much to the Scottish economy as they are to the UK’s, and seven of the top 10 food export destinations are EU countries.
We are here today to debate the replacements for legislation that we already have because of some xenophobic fear of the EU, but we still do not have cast-iron guarantees about the long-term protection of our food standards in international trade negotiations. Billions of pounds that should be spent on tackling the problems that people face the length and breadth of these islands is being wasted on Brexit bureaucracy, and countless hours of MPs’ time are being wasted replacing legislation that we already had with near-identical legislation. Kafka never came close.
George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)
I rise in support of all four statutory instruments. While this House, in its wisdom, has decided to send our Prime Minister on her hands and knees to beg for an extension to our leaving the European Union, we do not yet know what the EU’s counter-offer will be or whether the terms of that extension will be palatable and acceptable to the House. It therefore remains imperative that we continue to ensure that we have an operable lawbook for day one should we still be required to leave at the end of this month without an agreement.
The vast majority of the provisions in all the statutory instruments relate to the transfer of functions, principally from the European Commission to the food safety authority, which means Food Standards Scotland or the Food Standards Agency in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, or in other instances to the appropriate authority, which largely means the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
There is something of an irony in our having a debate on the Floor of the House about whether, in all these statutory instruments, it is acceptable to replace “Commission” with “Food Safety Authority”, yet the original powers to which every one of these statutory instruments relates were imposed on us directly by the European Union, typically through implementing Acts or delegated Acts. There would have been little or no scrutiny in this House, and probably the best that could have been expected is a letter to the European Scrutiny Committee or, in some instances, the tabling of an explanatory memorandum before Parliament. The truth is that the most pernicious Henry VIII power we have seen in this country in modern times is section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972, which has led to widespread changes in primary legislation.
Today I will focus on a specific point that is relevant to all four statutory instruments, which is the respective roles of the Food Standards Agency, on the one hand, and Ministers, on the other. The hon. Members for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) and for Stroud (Dr Drew) both mentioned the role of DEFRA, as the Department in which much of the technical expertise rests. Having experienced it for five and a half years as a Minister, I know there is something of an issue around our current food standards architecture in this country.
The Food Standards Agency was established in the wake of the BSE crisis, and it was made independent in a very special way, through statute, to be entirely insulated from the Government and Ministers. Although the Department of Health and Social Care is its sponsoring Department, Health Ministers seldom show direct policy interest in the FSA’s decisions, rightly recognising that it was established to be entirely independent.
However, there is an issue in how the FSA was set up, because the events that preceded its formation mean that, first, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and, latterly, DEFRA have been more divorced from its work than they ought to have been, as DEFRA is the Whitehall Department with the vast majority of technical and policy knowledge in this area.
I have always had very good relations with Heather Hancock, the chair of the FSA. However, I have always sensed that the FSA board, collectively, is sometimes prone to being somewhat supercilious in its denial of the expertise in DEFRA and, worse, is prone to making rather unfair assumptions about DEFRA’s motives in advancing issues or concerns on particular policy fronts. That is, of course, until something goes wrong.
In 2013, when we faced the horsemeat scandal, Health Ministers did not want to get involved, the FSA sat on its hands and it was left to the then Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), to step into the breach. DEFRA took control of the crisis and took ownership of events by setting up a review of food crime and crafting a policy that resulted in a new food crime unit.
When these regulations were originally considered, some on the FSA board sought significantly to extend the FSA’s powers by taking direct decision-making responsibility in some of these areas, which would have gone a long way beyond its current remit. The Minister’s predecessor and I resisted that approach, and I am pleased to see that the approach we recommended is reflected in all these statutory instruments. We proposed, first, that the FSA should give independent advice to Ministers and that that advice should be public for all to see. Secondly, we recommended that Ministers should have regard to that advice. Thirdly, we recommended that if Ministers choose not to follow the advice, they should have to publish their reasons for not doing so. Those points are reflected variously in regulation 17 of the animal feed regulations, regulation 23 of the novel food regulations and regulation 23 of the genetically modified food and feed regulations.
This is important because, as a holding pattern, we need to ensure there is a presumption for following the advice of the Food Standards Agency. Until we have established a long-term settlement on which decisions should be taken independently by the FSA and which decisions should be taken by Ministers, subject to clear advice from the FSA, this sensible holding pattern makes absolute sense.
In the longer term, although I would not do anything to undermine the independence of the FSA—it was set up in the way it was for good reason—there is a case for trying to increase some of its democratic accountability, and there may be things we could learn, for instance, from the model we have for the Health and Safety Executive. It has now been several decades since the BSE crisis, and it is perhaps time to consider what the food safety architecture should look like, but that is a debate for another time. I fully support all four of these statutory instruments.
John Mc Nally (Falkirk) (SNP)
Regardless of my party’s opposition, in principle and in entirety, to the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, I recognise that it is crucial that statutory instruments are enacted to preserve a framework around the status quo. That framework will be essential to our future trading relationships with the EU and the rest of the world.
Scotland’s booming food and drinks industrysupports 119,000 jobs and exports £6 billion-worth of produce, 40% of which goes to our European neighbours. Consumers and farmers remain sceptical about the need for GM crops, and allowing GM crops in Scotland would threaten our country’s international reputation as a clean, green food and drink producer.
The Scottish Government remain totally committed to opting out of allowing the cultivation of GM crops, thereby giving policy certainty to producers and investors, in stark contrast to the uncertainty and paralysis of the UK Government. Public concern about hormone-tainted meat and chlorine-washed chicken demonstrates how critical food standards will be post-Brexit, both at home and abroad. In my hometown of Denny, which is in my Falkirk constituency, we have a business that exports broiler chickens to Europe and the world, and everywhere it sends those chickens it is recognised as the best in the world. My party intends to ensure that this valuable industry continues to flourish, and we will oppose any attempt to lower the food standards on which its future depends.
The UK imports around £2 billion-worth of animal feed, much of it from the EU or through EU ports. Maintaining high quality standards and as free a flow of trade in such commodities as possible is vital to Scotland’s rural communities, particularly those in less favoured areas. Just yesterday, the Scottish non-governmental organisation Scottish Rural Action, a great voice for Scottish rural communities, released a hard-hitting report documenting the widespread anger and frustration felt in Scotland’s rural communities, and reporting fears of 21st-century clearances in Brexit’s wake. These communities need assurances and protection.
The health and welfare of the UK’s 54 million pets also hang in the balance. The Pet Food Manufacturers Association has placed feed safety standards, together with animal health and welfare, at the top of the list of priorities in its Brexit manifesto. Some 80% of its members export to our European neighbours, and half of them import raw materials or finished goods from the EU.
These statutory instruments do not change the legal status quo, and therefore they safeguard confidence in the maintenance of quality standards. In turn, they ensure confidence in our food and drink industry and in the animal feed sector, and that confidence should be maintained. My party intends to ensure that these valuable industries continue to flourish, and we will oppose any attempt to lower these standards.
Steve Brine
We have heard a number of well-made points, to which I am pleased to respond.
My dear friend opposite, the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), often makes the point that it is late in the day. It is late in the day, but we did not say that all the SIs would be done a year ago. These are complex matters and we have to get them right. Whether they are taken now or next Tuesday is immaterial. The fact is that they will be done, as long as the House agrees to them today. It is important that they are done, because we need to make sure that the law is in the right state, as I set out in my remarks.
The hon. Lady asked about risk assessments, risk management and the loss of EFSA and its scientific expertise. Leaving the EU does not change the FSA’s top priority, which is rightly to ensure that food remains safe. The FSA has strengthened its risk-analysis process in preparation for EU exit. It has had significant extra funding this year of £14 million. That point has been raised by other hon. Members in respect of the FSA’s capabilities.
The FSA will undertake robust risk assessments and provide evidence-based risk management advice and recommendations on future food and feed safety issues. That is nothing new. The UK already produces independent risk assessments that are recognised internationally. The FSA currently undertakes a significant amount of the risk assessment and management work to maintain the high standards we expect.
The point about chlorine-washed chicken came up again, although the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) is no longer in his place. I have been clear about that point many, many times. Chlorine has not been approved and so cannot be used. Chicken that is washed with chlorine cannot be placed on the UK market. The Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and I have been very clear about that.
The lav—I nearly did it again! I meant to say the laboratory capability. Edit the record. The hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West made a very good point about having the laboratory capability to assess and validate the methods of detection with the same rigour that we have had at EU level. The bottom line is that the UK is developing alternative approaches to deliver the necessary functions that are currently provided by EFSA, the European Commission and other institutions, including the EU reference laboratory.
We will build on our capacity and capability to carry out those risk assessments and then to manage and control the food and feed safety risks. We already have the network of national reference laboratories in place that help to ensure the safety of our food and feed, and to prevent the entry and spread of infectious diseases in crops, livestock and feed. They are recognised internationally for their scientific expertise, and we are working with them to ensure that they are able to validate new analytical methods and ensure that they can mirror the scientific capability that we have.
The hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West asked about novel foods. I am touched that she thinks that is the most interesting of the four SIs—it is a low bar, but I take her point. She asked whether the UK will maintain the existing process or conduct our own review and assessment. We will start from the list as it stands on exit day. As I said to other Members, there will be full convergence at exit day. Any applications will then be assessed by our UK risk assessors. To answer her question directly, the UK advisory committee on novel foods is the body that will perform the role. That body existed prior to 2015, when that was transferred as a Commission competence. It will be unfrozen and will again carry out assessments for the novel list.
On materials and articles that are in contact with food, the hon. Lady made a point about recycling. She was referring to the requirements of Commission regulation 10/2011. That will be maintained, as I said in my opening remarks. The FSA works very closely with DEFRA, but the recycling remit lies with the Department and is not in scope of the amendments we are discussing today.
The hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew) is no longer in his place, but I will still respond to his point. He spoke about a food strategy to deal with the crossover between the Department of Health and Social Care and DEFRA. That point was also mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice). I am the sponsor of the FSA as an arm’s length body. It works very closely with DEFRA, the Department of Health and Social Care and Public Health England, for which I am also responsible. We continue to take a co-ordinated approach on food to support consumer choice. Yes, the fourth SI on feed could as easily have been introduced by a DEFRA Minister, but as my hon. Friend knows full well, what we give to animals ends up in the food chain, so it ends up in my brief.
The hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West touched on consultation. She is often rightly concerned about the impact on industry, which was also mentioned by other hon. Members. We carried out a full public consultation on the proposed approach to retained EU law in the food and safety space before we tabled the SIs. It was open for six weeks from 4 September until the middle of October. The approach we outlined proposed making a number of corrections to retained EU law under the powers of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. The responses we received are all available on the food.gov.uk website. Generally speaking, of the 59 responses received, 82% supported or did not disagree in any way with the approach we proposed.
I said to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) that I would come back to ceramics. The ceramics legislation dates from a European directive of 1984. Why it has not been updated before now is a fair question and one that I have asked of officials. I can write to him with more detail without detaining the House. He will be interested to know that work is ongoing at a European level to revise the legislation in this space. The FSA has collaborated closely with the UK industry on the establishment of the new European limits. He may wish to follow that up and check it in his constituency, but I am sure that is the case. Obviously, we are importing the law—the directives and the directions—as they stand. Therefore, anything that was in train on exit, we would not import.
It was interesting to hear the reflections of my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth on how the FSA grew out of the BSE crisis. We should also remember, as I have said many times, that EFSA grew out of the FSA. That is the rock on which it built its church, in many ways. The relationship between the FSA and EFSA is incredibly strong, even though the legal position will change. Many of the people there are actually our people. I am therefore confident that as the ceramics legislation changes, we will have a strong voice around the table, even if, legally, we are not around it.
Gareth Snell
I thank the Minister for that response. It will be heartening for some of the industries in my city, and I look forward to his letter. The issue that will be of most concern to them, albeit diminished because of his helpful answer, is that significant changes to the food contact regulations could affect the way in which they glaze their products through the use of cadmium or other elements. Whether that changes in the UK has an impact on them, but it also affects them if we lose step with Europe and have two operating standards for exports. I appreciate that that is more of a trade question than a contact question, but the two things are very much linked.
Steve Brine
It is a trade question, but ultimately if we want to trade with our biggest trading partner and our neighbours in the EU, we have to maintain those standards. We would not want to do anything to hobble our world famous potteries industry. I know that he agrees with that sentiment.
A lot has been said about GM food and feed. My hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) made that the kernel of her remarks. The laws around genetic modification were very high profile, perhaps due to Prince Charles’s interventions, back when I was at school.
Steve Brine
Quite right. The GM regulations are not about changing the robust controls that we have for GM food and feed; they are about correcting the deficiencies in the authorisations that will exist at the point of EU exit. I want to maintain those robust controls. I am putting in place a UK-centric authorisation process as a result of exit, but the data requirements and the robust scientific studies that are required for application will remain exactly the same. Any assessments made of GM food and feed will be made purely on scientific, evidence-based grounds. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that decisions are not made entirely on those grounds at an EU level at the moment. That is one of the benefits that we will glean from taking back control—I knew I would get it in there somewhere.
My hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) mentioned the Agriculture Bill. These SIs only fix the operability of EU law when it is brought into UK law. It is for the House to discuss and debate any changes required to give effect to policies in the Agriculture Bill, and I know that she will be at the heart of that.
The hon. Members for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) and for Falkirk (John Mc Nally) are absolutely right, and I have said that whenever I have spoken about SIs. There has been a lot of talk of the withdrawal Act containing Henry VIII powers, but Henry VIII was an awful lot more powerful than the Act. It is a piece of housekeeping legislation that allows us to bridge EU regulations over to UK legislation; it does not allow us to make significant changes either way on standards. That is perfectly reasonable. Once this House resumes the role of a sovereign Parliament, it will be able to make those decisions for our country, and the Scottish Parliament will be able to do the same north of the border.
If I may say so respectfully, many of the arguments that the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith made belong back before 2016. The country made a decision to leave the European Union. She argues against a no-deal Brexit, as I do—that is not the Government’s policy. I gently say to her that I keep voting for a safe exit from the European Union; she and her party do not.
My hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth, whom I am sorry to see on the Back Benches, because he was an excellent farming Minister, is absolutely right that this is about having an operable statute book and transferring functions. I have learned many things about food and feed in the past few months, because we are discussing them in the House of Commons and its Committees. That is very refreshing, and we will be doing so more, because when we introduce changes either way, they will have to be discussed and agreed by this House. He is right that they were previously only discussed by the Committee chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash). I am sure he thoroughly enjoyed that, but they are now discussed on the Floor of the House of Commons. That truly is progress.
My hon. Friend’s thoughts on the FSA’s conception and birth were very interesting. He was right to spot—he gave the paragraph references in three of the four SIs—that Ministers must have regard to FSA advice. He was also dead right to say that how operability will function is not a finished piece of work. That is why we have taken these powers in the first instance. Once we are a third country, we will have to refine and change that, and we will discuss it with the House and its various Committees. On the architecture, his advice about looking at the Health and Safety Executive was very interesting. I and the FSA, I am sure, will be very interested to talk to him in more detail about that.
We have spent a long time talking about housekeeping measures that will ensure that we maintain the food and feed standards that our constituents expect. Notwithstanding the difficulties we have deciphering what 17.5 million people meant when they voted leave, I am sure we all agree that they did not mean lower standards in the food that they eat and give to their children. These regulations play a very important part in ensuring that those standards are maintained when we leave the European Union.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the draft Materials and Articles in Contact with Food (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 5 February, be approved.
Exiting the European Union (Agriculture)
Resolved,
That the draft Genetically Modified Food and Feed (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 4 February, be approved.—(Steve Brine).
Exiting the European Union (Food)
Resolved,
That the draft Novel Food (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 4 February, be approved.—(Steve Brine).
Exiting the European Union (Agriculture)
Resolved,
That the draft Animal Feed (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 5 February 2019, be approved.—(Steve Brine).
Foreign Affairs Committee
17:34 - The House divided: - Ayes: 199 / Noes: 134 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
I inform the House that Mr Speaker has not selected the amendment.
Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)
I beg to move,
That Ian Austin and Mike Gapes be discharged from the Foreign Affairs Committee and Conor McGinn and Catherine West be added.
I am moving this motion on behalf of the Selection Committee. As Chairman of that Committee, it is my responsibility to ensure that it operates in accordance with the rules of the House. That is the case with this motion. I am moving it in the usual way, following its agreement by the Selection Committee last Wednesday. It is up to the House to decide on its merits.
There is no Standing Order requirement that Select Committees, unlike general Committees, be kept exactly in proportion to the House at large. It is through mutual agreement that membership of Select Committees is appointed in rough proportion to the House. That is why the Selection Committee has discretion in proposing changes to Select Committee membership.
Across all Select Committees, neither of the main parties is over-represented. If the Independent Group is treated as a party, it is very over-represented on Select Committees, given the number of members of the group in the House. Although that over-representation does not compel the Selection Committee to take action, reducing that representation is in accordance with the practices of the House.
Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Ind)
I rise to speak against this motion, to say why I think the House should not agree to it and to explain the background to it and why Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party is trying to boot me and Mike Gapes off the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Just to help the hon. Gentleman, he should not refer to Members by their name. He can say the leader of the party or whatever.
Ian Austin
The Labour party, as it is currently led, is making a vindictive attempt to boot me and the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) off the Foreign Affairs Committee.
I want to correct one point that was made earlier: I am not a member of the Independent Group. If the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) has based his calculations on over-representation, I am afraid that is a mistake.
Bill Wiggin
As I said very clearly, that would be true if those hon. Members were taken as a group. It is as a group of others that the representation is seen as.
Ian Austin
That is as may be, but I am not a member of the Independent Group; I am the independent MP for Dudley, standing up for the people of Dudley, and representing the whole of the House on the Foreign Affairs Committee, which is what members of Select Committees are elected to do.
As the Chair of the Liaison Committee pointed out in an article just this week,
“Select Committees have been strengthened”
since recent reforms
“which allowed their members to be elected by their fellow MPs—and Chairs by the whole House of Commons—rather than appointed by the patronage of party whips. As a result, members are more likely to have relevant experience and genuine interest in the work of their Committees”.
Of no one could that be said more truly than the hon. Member for Ilford South. As far as I am aware, there is no criticism of the way in which he or I have discharged our responsibilities on the Foreign Affairs Committee. He is a distinguished former Chair of the Committee, and before that he was the Labour party’s foreign policy expert. As I have seen in my short time on the Committee, and as Members in all parts of the House would agree, he has a more detailed knowledge of foreign policy issues, and greater contacts around the world, than anybody else in the House of Commons. Booting off the Committee somebody like that, who holds the Government to account, is a ridiculous decision. It flies in the face of how Select Committees are supposed to operate.
As for me, I was one of the people who instigated the Committee’s inquiries on Kurdistan. I was one of the MPs in this House who campaigned for years for the Magnitsky Act.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman and I may disagree on many domestic policy issues, but for years we have worked together on many foreign policy issues, some of which he is touching on. He mentioned that the Leader of the Opposition is behind this move. Is that because the hon. Gentleman is now an independent Member of Parliament, or because of his views on antisemitism and some of the other foreign policy issues that he has just raised?
Ian Austin
I will come on to that, but I will say this: I have been very clear about why I left the Labour party. I left after 35 years because I had become absolutely ashamed of the way in which the leader of the Labour party had allowed a culture of extremism, antisemitism and intolerance to develop—and for no other reason. Members have a choice to make this afternoon. They can choose to stand with someone who has campaigned against racism all their life, or stand with the leader of the Labour party in his vindictive attempt to boot people off a Committee simply because they stood up to racism. Frankly, I think it is outrageous.
I make one more point on my work on the Foreign Affairs Committee. I was one of the MPs who were a driving force behind the Magnitsky Act—legislation to take tough action against people responsible for gross abuses of human rights and large-scale corruption. I was one of the Committee members who instigated its current inquiry on UK sanctions policy.
As I mentioned, this debate is happening because the Labour party has decided that it wants to kick me off the Committee in retaliation for my decision to leave the Labour party. I want to set out the background to that and explain why I took that decision. I want Members to think about this and consider it when deciding how to vote.
The main reason why I decided to join the Labour party, 35 years ago as a teenager in Dudley, was to fight racism. I really cannot believe that after all this time, I have ended up leaving the Labour party because of racism. It was a difficult decision for me to take, but I have to be honest with people, and the truth is that I have become ashamed of the Labour party under its current leadership. I am appalled by the offence and distress that the leader of the Labour party has caused to Jewish people. It is terrible that a culture of extremism, antisemitism and intolerance is driving out not just Members of Parliament, but other members, too—decent people who have dedicated their whole lives to mainstream politics.
It is a matter of great shame that someone such as the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) has been bullied out of the Labour party by antisemites. It was wrong of the Labour party to threaten the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) and me with disciplinary action when we spoke out on antisemitism. It had to drop that, because we had done nothing wrong. The hard truth is that the Labour party under its current leadership is tougher on the people who complain about racism than on the racists.
The current leader and the people around him have turned what was a mainstream political party into something very different. He has spent his entire career working with, defending and supporting all sorts of extremists, and in some cases antisemites and terrorists. I thought from the very beginning—since before he was elected in 2015—that he would be utterly unfit to lead the Labour party, and he is completely unfit to be our country’s Prime Minister. He has said and done things that are clearly antisemitic, including defending that grotesque racist mural on a wall in east London. We need to ask ourselves what he would be saying if a senior member of the Conservative party had defended a grotesque mural that was racist against any other group of people. He called Jewish people Zionist, and said that they did not understand English irony—as if, somehow, they were different from the rest of us. He also calls Hamas and Hezbollah his friends.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. This is a debate about positions on the Foreign Affairs Committee. It cannot become a personal attack on a particular Member who may not have been given notice that that was going to happen in the Chamber. We must work within the rules. [Interruption.] I am trying to recognise and understand the frustration with what is happening, but what we should not be doing is attacking another Member who is not here and who may not have been given notice. That is where we are.
Ian Austin
Well, may I seek your guidance, Mr Deputy Speaker? I have to say that I do not think that the leader of the Labour party would need much notice to know what my views are of his behaviour and history. If I may say so as well, the reason why we are having this debate is that he wants to boot me off this Committee, because I have stood up against racism. If you will allow me, Mr Deputy Speaker, I want to explain why I think the Labour party has got itself into this mess and why, in the end, I decided to leave.
Mr Deputy Speaker
I am sorry, but this is about relevance to the motion before us. The issue that the hon. Gentleman raises could be for another time and another debate, but unfortunately this debate is about the replacement of people on the Committee. I understand the frustrations and the anger, but we have to be where we are. Unfortunately, this is about replacements, and we must stick to the agenda.
Ian Austin
I completely understand, Mr Deputy Speaker. I have made some of the points that I wanted to make about the Leader of the Opposition and the position that he has taken the Labour party to under his leadership.
I will draw my remarks to a close. I want to stay on the Committee because I want to speak up for freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law. I want to carry on campaigning against totalitarian dictatorships such as Venezuela, which are supported by the leader of the Labour party and the people around him at the moment. I want to carry on speaking out against the Kremlin and against Vladimir Putin and his brutal regime of corruption and abuse: he murders people on the streets of Russia and kills them here in Britain, too. I think every Member will recall the appalling response that the Leader of the Opposition gave to the attacks in Salisbury. I will continue to campaign on these issues, which is why I want to stay on the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Mark Pritchard
The hon. Gentleman is being very generous, and I am grateful to him for giving way. I will need to decide which way to vote today. Will he also include in that litany of why he should stay on the Committee the potential dismantling of our intelligence agencies, which protect us and our allies, day in, day out—another policy espoused by the Leader of the Opposition?
Ian Austin
What I will say, Mr Deputy Speaker, is that, on the Committee, I promise to stand up for the intelligence and security services and the democratic institutions that underpin our democracy in this country. That is one of the reasons why I am keen to carry on representing Members across this House on the Foreign Affairs Committee.
We are elected on to Select Committees not to pursue party political agendas, but to work on a cross-party basis in scrutinising the work of the Executive. I do not think that there have been any criticisms of my work or the work of the hon. Member for Ilford South in that regard. I very much hope that, when the House divides on this motion later today, Members across the House will vote against what I think is the Leader of the Opposition’s vindictive and unpleasant attempt to boot us off the Committee.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin). Probably seared on to all our memories—I would be surprised if hon. and right hon. Members have not seen this—is the moving interview that the hon. Gentleman gave to the television news in which he talked about being able to look his father in the eye. One can understand entirely the passion with which he has spoken, and I am grateful to him for it.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin), as Chairman of the Committee of Selection, said very helpfully that it is up to the House to decide on the merits of the motion. He moved the motion as, effectively, the servant of that Committee in a way that has come to typify the approach that he adopts in these matters, and the House should be grateful for that.
I very much echo the closing point made by the hon. Member for Dudley North about the role of Select Committees. We all get ourselves frightfully hot under the collar when people are badgering us in the Tea Room saying, “Will you support us on this?”, “We’re going for that,” and so on. But when the Select Committees get up and running, the epithets of party political allegiance seem to disappear. I have served on only two Select Committees, the Procedure Committee and the Welsh Affairs Committee, but I never really felt that I went into meetings as a Conservative member of the Committee. I went in as a Member with an interest in the subject. Each Committee is almost a mini House of Lords, if you will—a receptacle of expertise where people motivate themselves to sit on the Committee because they have an interest in, or experience of, that particular area. It is of course the job of Select Committees to hold the Executive to account, and sometimes the Executive get a bit of a clobbering. It is always worthwhile remembering that it was a Conservative Government who brought in Select Committees as we know them, through the Thatcher/St John-Stevas reforms.
Nobody could doubt the record of the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes): he was Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee between 2005 and 2010 and a member of the Committee from 1992 to 1997, and of course he also sits on the Committee now. I have only been in this place since 2015.
Simon Hoare
My right hon. Friend should try looking at it from where I am standing; it seems like 40 years, rather than four.
I hope that the hon. Member for Ilford South will take it in the spirit in which it is intended when I say that I watched the TV news and the proceedings in this place long before coming into the House, and when the hon. Gentleman spoke on foreign affairs, I did not say to myself, “Oh, there goes the Labour Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee.” I said to myself, “Here is somebody who speaks with authority, interest, passion and a breadth of experience that the House is well advised to listen to and take heed of.”
I agree with the assessment of the hon. Member for Dudley North. When I read the Order Paper initially—of course, this is the Labour party’s second stab at this—I thought to myself that this was one of the most mealy-mouthed, vindictive and small-minded motions.
Mark Pritchard
More widely, the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) has brought to bear his wonderful knowledge and wisdom on foreign affairs at the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and other international bodies such as the Council of Europe. The Committee would be missing out on all that knowledge should he be removed today.
Simon Hoare
I agree entirely. One is tempted to say that if the hon. Member for Ilford South did not exist, we would have to invent him. I am not quite sure what the formula for the invention would be, but one would have to invent him none the less.
I agree with the hon. Member for Dudley North; at the kernel of this decision is the discomfort that both hon. Gentlemen subject to this motion have created within the Labour party regarding the Leader of the Opposition’s stance on the antisemitism question, and their refusal to be silenced on it. That is true not just of these two hon. Gentlemen, but of many colleagues on the Opposition Benches.
Any student of history could tell us that the vindictive left—I put the Leader of the Opposition very much in that camp—will chase people out, even if the office that they hold is to bring the biscuits to the constituency meeting on a bi-monthly basis. They want to have their nasty little fingers—their spiteful little fingers—on every single lever. I feel very sorry for the shadow Leader of the House, because she is nothing at all to do with that. She is rather the Labour version of my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire, sent to do a job merely by dint of position rather than by instinct or by nature. She is none of the things that I am talking about.
Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)
Since in what feels like the dying days of this Parliament we live in a political free-for-all, with Ministers not voting on three-line Whips and colleagues not voting in the Division Lobby for the motions that they move, is it really such a big deal if we allow these two Opposition Members to continue on their Select Committee? After all, all the existing rules of politics have now been broken, so let us just break a few more.
Simon Hoare
I am not entirely sure that I understand the point that my hon. Friend is making. If he is encouraging me to endorse the proposition that there should be an early dissolution of this Parliament, then he will find me in the No Lobby, I am afraid. If he is saying that the hon. Gentlemen who are the subject of this motion should remain in post, then I agree with him, but if not, then I disagree with him wholeheartedly.
Simon Hoare
I have to say that there are times when I have cursed the man who wished that we all lived in interesting times. I think that some rather calm, boring times would suit the House very well indeed.
As I say, this is a very vindictive motion, and it speaks to the heart of today’s Labour party. Never mind the quantum of expertise; never mind the demonstrable levels of interest; never mind the heights of respect that an individual is met with across the House and within the media—if they do not pass the intellectual purity test, or rather the anti-intellectual purity test; if they do not pass the ideological test; if they do not know in the original Russian all the words of the eighth verse of “I Love the Member for Islington North” and can sing it backwards in the bath, they fail and they are out. This motion is effectively a Muscovite approach to the gulags. It is trying to send the hon. Members for Dudley North and for Ilford South to some Siberian wasteland of ex-Select Committee members. It is nothing to do with the good that they have done, nothing to do with—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. This is not a debate about the leader of the Labour party, as tempting as that may be for Members in all parts of the House. The reality is that it is about the replacement of members of the Foreign Affairs Committee. We need to keep that in mind, and we need to be more temperate given the way that the Chamber seems to be getting quite heated and excited. I am sorry that I have stopped you when you are going on at your finest rate, but I am sure you want to recognise that there are lots of other speakers who may wish to add to the debate.
Simon Hoare
I am grateful, Mr Deputy Speaker, and of course I take your ruling.
The lesson that we can draw is that if this is how senior and respected Members of Parliament who just happen to sit on Benches opposite to the Government Benches are treated by their former comrades, then God help the rest of us. We will be the first up against the wall. We will not just be off the Select Committees—we will be absolutely cast into outer darkness.
Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)
I think that my hon. Friend is missing an important point that has to be addressed. As much respect as I have for the two hon. Members concerned, and I do, the simple fact is that we will be in a position where nominations for the official Opposition on the Foreign Affairs Committee go down from half of the Committee to two members of the Committee. That does not reflect the make-up of this House as Select Committees are supposed to. One does have to bear that in mind.
Simon Hoare
I take what my right hon. Friend says with great seriousness. He is a former member of the Cabinet and, more importantly, a former Government Chief Whip. I concur with him up to a point. If this motion sought to tilt the balance of a Select Committee’s membership in favour of the Government and against the Opposition, I would be with him entirely, but it does not do that. This motion maintains the balance between, for want of a better phrase, Executive Members and Opposition Members, and that is entirely as it should be. However, if I am correct in my assessment—I am perfectly prepared to accept that I am not—in practical, political terms, the badges and colours of separate parties are left at the door of a Select Committee meeting and picked up again when Members leave. I am not sure that this motion does anything other than pursue an agenda of vindictiveness.
Ian Austin
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, because I hope it will allow me to reassure the right hon. Member for Derbyshire Dales (Sir Patrick McLoughlin) that my views on foreign policy have not changed at all. The values that inform my work on the Committee have not altered in the slightest since I was selected by the Labour party to be a member of it. The arguments I put forward and the way that I scrutinise Ministers have not changed at all. I am absolutely clear that I stand up for the mainstream, decent values of the Labour party that I have stood up for all my life. That is the work I bring to the Committee, and I hope that that reassures the right hon. Gentleman.
Simon Hoare
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for using me as a conduit to send that message to my right hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales. He amplifies perfectly my definition of what a Select Committee is about.
In conclusion, the Leader of the Opposition may be motivated by instincts of vindictiveness and—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. We have gone past that. This debate is not about the Leader of the Opposition; it is about the replacement of members of the Foreign Affairs Committee. We have had a good run round the track. We do not need to finish with another quote about vengefulness. Has the hon. Gentleman finished?
Simon Hoare
No—I just have one final sentence to add. This motion has come from somewhere. It did not just spring on to the Order Paper by itself.
Mr Deputy Speaker
I will help the hon. Gentleman. I think Mr Wiggin is responsible for it appearing on the Order Paper.
Simon Hoare
Yes, but who triggered the vote on the Committee? That is the question.
Simon Hoare
Indeed. I asked the wrong question—forgive me.
I happen to be a broad church, one nation, moderate Conservative. I happen to believe—[Interruption.] My former right hon. Friend, the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), is doing some sort of peculiar dance of the seven veils to entice me over. I have no idea what she is doing, but I am not coming.
I am not motivated by vindictiveness. I believe that we should respect those who have an interest in issues and who can speak with authority, knowledge and enthusiasm. If this motion is pushed to a vote, I shall vote against it.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I seek your guidance, following the comments you have made so far. We are debating the motion on the Order Paper about the selection of Committee members, but I am interested in the context of how we got there. I seek your guidance on what weight we should put on the context of where we are today, as well as what it is in the motion.
Mr Deputy Speaker
The motion is quite simple: it is about the replacement of people on the Foreign Affairs Committee. It is as narrow as that. This is not a witch hunt of certain individuals. [Interruption.] No, it is not. As tempting as it may be, that is not what the debate is about. There has been a little leeway, and I understand the frustration, but it cannot be about that. It is about the replacement of names. I have a job to do. I have to rule on the debate we are having.
Mark Pritchard
Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I think that the context is important. Somebody like me who has no idea what is going on this afternoon—that is nothing new—just needs that contextual help, and I genuinely do.
Mr Deputy Speaker
I am sure you do not, because you are a member of the Panel of Chairs. You have great experience and wisdom, and you do not need to test me on this, because you already have that.
Joan Ryan (Enfield North) (Ind)
I rise to speak against the motion, in the main on behalf of the Independent Group of MPs, but I also associate myself with the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin). I want to expand a little bit on what was said by the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin), who has moved the motion on behalf of the Selection Committee, and I am clear in my own mind that he did not initiate this motion at the Selection Committee.
We are told by the Library that, at the start of each Parliament, places are allocated to the political parties on departmental Select Committees on the basis of their strength in the House of Commons. There is no Standing Order that governs this process, or which requires that places on Committees be kept in exact proportion to the House at large. That is why there has not been a change every time a Member has been suspended from their Whip, for example, and the Selection Committee is not compelled to act. However, through mutual agreement, Select Committees are appointed in rough proportion to the House. Unlike with General Committees, such as Public Bill or Delegated Legislation Committees, there is no formula that sets out the exact number required.
That advice makes us look behind what is going on here and see that there does appear to be a personal element to this, because the only names being removed are those of Members who declared their independence just a few weeks ago. We are very clear who is initiating this. Suffice it to say—you may want to give your advice on this, Mr Deputy Speaker—I am told that, in something like 35 years, some very experienced Opposition Back Benchers have not known being instructed by their Whip to vote for such a motion of the House. However, they have been told to do so today, as I understand it, on this motion, which is the business of the House. I think that tells us where this is coming from.
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
For the information of the House, I would like to read out the text I have received from my Whips: “The motion to change the membership of Select Committees Foreign Affairs will be starting shortly. We remain on a three line whip. We expect a Division in the next hour.”
Joan Ryan
Assuming the Labour Whips represent the Leader of the Opposition and are the vanguard for delivering his will, that gives ample evidence that there is something very personal going on here. May I at some point seek your guidance, Mr Deputy Speaker, on whipping business of the House in this way? Is that acceptable? It is certainly very unusual, as we know.
I think this is a mean-minded parliamentary manoeuvre by Labour. It is attempting to remove, from one of the most important Select Committees of the House of Commons, a man who has served on it for almost two decades, including as its respected Chair. Select Committees are one of the most important parts of Parliament, and they are integral to the way in which MPs scrutinise the work of the Government. They have always operated in a cross-party way and they are at their best when they are consensual. After members of Select Committees are elected to them by their colleagues, they are not ciphers for political parties; they are representatives of their constituents, performing an important function.
Traditionally, members of Select Committees, and especially their Chairs, are treated with respect by political parties and by this House. This motion is utterly disrespectful. That is true for both Members who are the subject of the motion, but let me talk for a moment about my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes), because it is especially true for him. He has been a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee since 1992, when he was appointed under the then Leader of the Opposition, Neil Kinnock. He was reappointed to that Committee by John Smith, by Tony Blair, by Gordon Brown, by the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) and by the current Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition, who apparently had faith in him then, the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn).
In total, my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South has served for 19 years on the Committee, with five years as Chair from 2005 to 2010. During his tenure as Chair, the Committee published reports on Afghanistan, Pakistan, the implications of cuts to the BBC World Service and to foreign language capability in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, relations with Turkey, the Arab spring, human rights, extraordinary rendition, the future of the EU and relations with the United States. And that is not all: in his time as Chair of the Committee, my hon. Friend took evidence from the Dalai Lama, despite Chinese protests, visited Guantanamo Bay, and exposed corruption and intimidation that led to the UK Government suspending relations with the Turks and Caicos Government, and it was only after the Committee criticised the Syrian Government that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office included Syria as a human rights country of concern. My hon. Friend has also been a convenor and for 10 years a member of the quadripartite Committees on Arms Export Controls.
With my hon. Friend in the Chair, the Foreign Affairs Committee always operated as it should, on a cross-party and consensual basis, not least thanks to his strong belief that the role of Select Committees is to hold Government to account and that Committee members are not there as delegates of their parties. He has served actively and constructively under Conservative Chairs, including Richard Ottaway, the former Member for Croydon South, and the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) and the current Chair, the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat).
By virtue of his position, my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South has been a representative of our Parliament at home, welcoming foreign delegations, and abroad, liaising with diplomats and Governments. To this day, he continues to be active in the Committee, playing a role in amending draft reports and regularly meeting international visitors on behalf of the Committee.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
I hope the right hon. Lady will forgive me; I was chairing a sitting of the Committee just now, hence I missed the beginning of the debate. I echo her words, because she is absolutely speaking the truth. More than that, to a new Member who has had the good fortune to chair one of these great Committees very early on, the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) has been an amazing rock to lean on. His wisdom, his courtesy and his judgment have been of great value to me and, I hope, the whole House and the whole Committee, as he has helped to guide not just me but us all through some complex moments of foreign policy, where there have been very few more important subjects for our House, so I echo completely the right hon. Lady’s words.
Joan Ryan
I thank the hon. Gentleman, the Chair of the Committee, for those remarks, which I think are well received and well deserved by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South. I take them as an endorsement of all that I am saying about the way in which he has served the Committee, the House and the country. I know that the Chair of the Committee and, for that matter, all its members do not want this to happen and have made that clear in their own way.
Membership of Select Committees is fundamentally a matter for the House of Commons. It should not become the subject of mean-spirited manoeuvres by party leaderships who do not brook dissent. Labour’s move is the latest indication of how its leadership is unable to handle criticism, alternative viewpoints or any dissenting voices—a very worrying development in a democratic Parliament. This Parliament works through the Commonwealth, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and the Inter-Parliamentary Union to help other Parliaments around the world to learn from our examples and our experience to be good, democratic Parliaments, to strengthen democracy and to strengthen parliamentary democracy in particular. This move by the Leader of the Opposition absolutely cuts across and undermines all those aims, all of that mission and all that work.
Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)
As a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee both in this and the previous Parliament, I support the Members who are on it presently and particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes), who I have known for over 40 years. He has been an excellent member of the Committee. He has great knowledge and expertise and, as the Chairman said, he has been a rock to many of us in the Committee. Because of his experience and wisdom, he is an essential part of the Committee. Not for the first time, I will vote against the Whip—if there is a three-line Whip asking us to vote for the expulsion of those Members, I will not do it.
Joan Ryan
I sincerely thank my hon. Friend, as I am sure her hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South will, for those remarks and for her courage in saying that she will not follow this Whip. I hope that other Opposition Members, many of whom I know are not happy about this move, will show their displeasure and vote against the motion. I also hope that will be true of Government Members.
Members from inside and outside Labour who have raised serious concerns about Labour’s direction will not want to see the silencing of an experienced voice from the Foreign Affairs Committee at a time when the leader of the Labour party’s foreign policy has come under intense scrutiny. From Venezuela to Syria and Russia, the positions taken by the leader of the Labour party and Labour Front Benchers have been a concern to MPs on both sides. This attempt to remove a platform from one of Parliament’s most experienced voices on foreign affairs should be opposed. I want to refer back to what my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North said about his reasons for leaving, which are virtually identical to my own—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. This is a debate about replacement. I understand the frustration and anger, but unfortunately, I have to chair the debate on what it is about, which is the replacement of people on the Foreign Affairs Committee. The subject is narrow. We have broadened it a bit and I have been generous in trying to do that, but this cannot become a personal attack on one person by every speaker—unfortunately, we have to stick to what we have.
Joan Ryan
Thank you for your guidance, Mr Deputy Speaker.
The reasons my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South left the Labour party have a direct bearing on his work as a member of the FAC. He stated three reasons: Brexit, antisemitism and Labour’s foreign policy on Syria, Russia and Venezuela.
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. Being a member of the Speaker’s Panel, you know I have to keep the debate within the scope of the motion, and the scope does not allow us to go into the reasons; it is about the replacement of members. I do not want to be hard, but I have to keep to the agenda.
Joan Ryan
Can I seek your guidance, Mr Deputy Speaker? There are a few things I want to say about Select Committees that I think are relevant. I understand what you are saying about the narrowness of the debate, but there is the broader context of who is being removed and who has not been removed in the past. There is an underlying reason that is obviously about the people who left the Labour party a couple of weeks ago, and it is difficult to address this matter without being able to address the reasons it comes before us. With your guidance, I will attempt to continue, but I am sure you will tell me if I am wrong.
Mr Deputy Speaker
I think you know what you have to do, given your experience of chairing Committees. The reasons certain people left the Labour party can be debated some other time, but this debate is not about that; it is about replacing existing members. I do not want to put words into his mouth, but I presume that Mr Wiggin will establish why the representation of political parties should reflect the make-up of the House when he winds up. This debate is about the replacement of two, let’s be honest, very popular Members. There is no doubt about that, but it is about their replacement, so it is quite narrow. I have allowed some freedom, but it cannot be a personal attack on one person.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
I had not planned to intervene, given that I am in my pink-and-no-tie mode—but hey, we’re a modern Parliament! May I tell my right hon. Friend—I will call her that—that when there was a move some years ago to get me off the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, for reasons I will not bore hon. Members with now, I was told by the then Chairman, the late, great Sir Gerald Kaufman MP, that a Member of Parliament was elected to a Select Committee for a Parliament. It might have changed, but, regardless of shenanigans, I think the principle still stands.
Joan Ryan
The hon. Gentleman’s intervention echoes where I started: there is no formula setting out the exact required number. It is not entirely without precedent, but it is extremely unusual for this to happen.
I will try to move on. More widely, this attempt highlights some of the difficulties with how the main parties have a stranglehold on how Parliament works—from the way debates are scheduled to the party political carve-up on Select Committees. The dominance of the House of Commons by the Whips and the usual channels does our democracy a disservice. Minority voices are squeezed out and those who dissent from the view of the Front Benches can be summarily dismissed. If we are to reach across outdated tribal lines and agree on workable solutions to the challenges that we face as a nation, we must look again at how we organise Parliament. We must do that if we are to change politics, and we must change politics.
Removing newly independent MPs from Select Committees undermines and runs counter to the spirit of reforms made in recent years to reduce the influence of political parties over Select Committees. Those changes are widely considered to have strengthened the Committee system. For instance, the Wright reforms, implemented after the 2010 election, removed from party Whips the power to appoint Select Committee members, and introduced their election by their parliamentary peers.
Let me quote some of what former and current Members have said about these matters. The background to the first quotation is a rebellion against removing Select Committee Chairs Gwyneth Dunwoody, the former MP for Crewe and Nantwich, and Donald Anderson, then the MP for Swansea East and now, I believe, a Member of the other place. The right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), now Leader of the Opposition, said that appointments to Select Committees should be taken out of the hands of Whips. He said:
“I thank the Leader of the House for giving way. Before he completes his contribution, will he say what thought he has given to the Liaison Committee report ‘Shifting the Balance’, which is about the future appointment of Select Committees and appointments to vacancies that might occur in this Parliament? Does he accept its recommendation that those should be taken out of the power of the Whips Offices of all parties?”—[Official Report, 16 June 2001; Vol. 372, c. 45.]
That was very clear.
Angela—now Baroness—Browning, then the MP for Tiverton and Honiton, put the Tory Front Bench view that the power of the Whips to appoint was
“past its sell-by date.”—[Official Report, 16 June 2001; Vol. 372, c. 40.]
It is hard to disagree with that.
Robin Cook, the former MP for Livingston and a very respected and eminent Member of the House, and the Labour Government allowed free votes on Select Committee matters, because they were matters for the House. Will Labour do the same now, and if not, why not? I do not think that any free vote will take place today.
During the same debate, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) said:
“There is a message to my right hon. Friend. The Government might get away tonight with sacking two hon. Members who should be members of Select Committees, and they might think little of it, but in the last Parliament, and in this Parliament, sadly, they continue to present an image of what they are like which, I am sure, is totally inaccurate. The image suggests that they believe that one can ride roughshod, and grab and take anything. The impression of a belief that we rule, no matter what people say, is being marked down on our card outside. When we are in difficult times, we will find, like the shambles of the Conservative party, that it is too late to reform. The electorate will have marked our card indelibly, and when the moment comes, retribution will be visited upon us.”—[Official Report, 16 June 2001; Vol. 372, c. 61.]
Those are words to which the current Leader of the Opposition should perhaps pay a bit of attention.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
The right hon. Lady has mentioned the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), who, to the best of my knowledge, resigned the Labour Whip. Is she aware of any moves by his previous party to remove him from the chairmanship of the Work and Pensions Committee? That question plays into the argument that she and I, and others, have been making that this is a very partial and personal attack.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Ind)
My right hon. Friend will remember the reforms introduced by an ex Member of the House for Cannock Chase, Tony Wright. Does she agree that this motion, and a whipped vote on it on the part of the Labour Benches, goes completely against the spirit of the Wright reforms, which we voted upon in the 2005-2010 Parliament?
Joan Ryan
My hon. Friend is absolutely right and I could not agree with her more. This undermines those reforms in total, and also calls into question the ability of Select Committees to work in a consensual, non-tribal, cross-party way to properly scrutinise the business of government.
Tom Tugendhat
Does my right hon. Friend, as I will accurately call her, agree that equality before the law is one of the principles of British justice and that this House of all places should demonstrate that principle of equality? Does she not therefore feel it is slightly odd that the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) has not been singled out and the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) has not been singled out, yet the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin), who has spoken very clearly about antisemitism, and the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes), who has again shown his courage in this matter, should be the two who are singled out?
Ian Austin
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the shadow Deputy Leader of the House, the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), to sit there muttering away, shaking his head every time a contribution is made yet not say a word from the Dispatch Box about why the Opposition have imposed a three-line Whip on their MPs to vote in a particular way in this debate? Stand at the Dispatch Box and explain yourself.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I think we should lower the temperature here a bit—that is not a matter for the Chair. What I would say is that this is about the replacements on the Select Committees and there is quite a lot of muttering going on, and it would be much more polite if we could listen to what the right hon. Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan) is saying. But I remind this House that this debate is focused on the issue of the Select Committees.
Joan Ryan
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
To finish addressing the point made by the Chair of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling, as to whether all Members are equal before this House, some are clearly more equal than others. When I resigned on the basis of the Labour party becoming institutionally antisemitic and the fact that I could only say that I considered the Leader of the Opposition not fit to be Prime Minister, I made the point that Labour’s founding principle is equality, so I can only agree that that founding principle has been desperately undermined by the current Leader of the Opposition.
The Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee also mentioned my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) and it remains seriously concerning that Labour has sought names to replace her on the Health and Social Care Committee; that is on its list of vacancies where it seeks a replacement. Although the party has briefed that there are no plans to replace her, it has begun the process by seeking nominations, and presumably it remains the case that if someone from the parliamentary Labour party puts themselves forward Labour will submit their name to the Selection Committee. It is not right that my hon. Friend faces this situation; she is on maternity leave. What would we say to other employers who took punitive action against an employee on maternity leave? I think we would take a very dim view of that indeed.
I have said a lot about my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington—or rather my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South. [Interruption.] I think I have said a lot about both, frankly, and I wanted to say a few more words about my hon. Friend—my very, very good friend—the Member for Dudley North, who I very much wish was part of our group because I very much enjoy working with him, but I understand his reasons why he is not.
Leaving aside members of the Independent Group, it is concerning that Labour is moving against the hon. Member for Dudley North, whose resignation from Labour over antisemitism was brave and principled. The fact that Labour is responding by seeking to remove him from the Committee shows how the party’s leadership still does not understand the seriousness of the issue it faces. I really think it needs to listen today to what is being said and to the views of this House.
There cannot be independence as long as there is this system of patronage; the House itself needs to take this issue on. However, nobody in this place should endorse these mean-minded, petty actions by the Leader of the Opposition. Beyond that, if they do, they will appear to be endorsing the most despicable views that have infected this Labour party around racism against Jewish people—antisemitism—and not just the inability but the refusal of the Labour party to deal with that. The House needs to express its view on what I consider to be institutional antisemitism. This motion should be resisted at all costs. It has far, far greater implications and consequences than perhaps everyone is seeing at first glance.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
I will speak to the motion, which starts by saying that
“Ian Austin and Mike Gapes be discharged from the Foreign Affairs Committee”.
I will explain why I think that is wrong.
There is no doubt that, on almost every domestic issue, the hon. Members for Dudley North (Ian Austin) and for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) and I completely disagree. I would be shocked if there were many domestic issues we saw eye to eye on.
Mike Gapes
As a fellow West Ham supporter, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that that is not the case.
Alec Shelbrooke
I am most grateful for that; it just goes to show that we can all be wrong at some point in the day.
This issue is far more important than whether we agree on domestic issues. I want to speak about how Select Committees operate and the sort of people who should be on them. When we look at why this motion has been brought forward, it is worth noting that, in terms of the mathematics of Parliament, we will still have the same number of Opposition MPs on the Select Committee compared with Government MPs.
In April 2013, the hon. Member for Dudley North and I went to Kiev, shortly after the purple revolution. We saw at first hand how people tore up the streets to use the stones as missiles. We actually saw a lynching in the square. Why did we go on that trip? We were trying to understand the threats people faced to their freedom, how they were trying to overthrow a repressive Government and how the country could move forward—let us be honest, all is not rosy in Ukraine to this day, even apart from the Russian aggression and intervention. However, we went there to understand those things. That shows why the hon. Member for Dudley North has given so much experience to the Foreign Affairs Committee: he has gone around the world with cross-party groups—I will come to the hon. Member for Ilford South in a moment, because I would not want to rule him out of this.
That trip was not a Foreign Affairs Committee trip; it was a Back-Bench trip put together to understand what was going on. It was done to understand what was going on because that is what parliamentarians should do in this country—in this free democracy we live in. We have to understand repression around the world and bring to bear the values we hold dear—freedom, the rule of law, democracy and the right to choose what we want to do—when we discuss various issues.
It sends an appalling message to our fellow countrymen that this motion is effectively about the hon. Member for Dudley North standing up to racism and to antisemitism and calling out an affront to democracy. It breaks my heart that in the 21st century we are discussing issues that should have been put to bed 70 or 80 years ago. I do not know what this country is coming to when politicians elected to this House are on the list of the biggest threats to Jews in the world. How did we get here?
Standing up for those principles and going around the world to witness events in other countries to bring that experience back to a wider audience should be appreciated and valued. We should not immediately get rid of somebody from an influential Select Committee just because they stood by their principles. The hon. Member for Dudley North brings his many years of experience, and his skill is based on his time in government —he is an experienced Member of this House.
I say again that the hon. Gentleman and I disagree on many issues. In fact, we have had our ding-dongs in this Chamber—we can see them in Hansard—especially back when I was newly elected and full of vim and energy and wanted to make my point. However, that is no reason to get rid of someone with such high-held principles, which this country exports around the world. Those of us who travel around the world encouraging democracy know that this country’s principles about freedom of democracy should be celebrated, and we should not kick people off Select Committees when they stand up for them.
Tom Tugendhat
The hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) has shown exemplary personal courage on many occasions, most often when I argue in the Conservative interest and he argues in the Labour interest. It is really quite something that someone who is as dyed in the wool—if he will forgive that expression—to his party as he is should find themselves choosing between their father and their party.
What a time it is to find that we are so divided in this House that we have people who cannot reconcile their conscience and their family in one party! As Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, on which the hon. Gentleman serves, I pay tribute to him for the exemplary way in which he conducts himself, to his intelligence and subtlety of thought, and to the diligence he brings to reports and inquisitions.
Alec Shelbrooke
My hon. Friend summarises why I believe that the hon. Member for Dudley North should remain on the Foreign Affairs Committee under my hon. Friend’s chairmanship.
I turn to the hon. Member for Ilford South. This is not just about his membership of the Foreign Affairs Committee, because moves are also afoot to remove him from the delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. I am a member of that delegation and have been on the same sub-committees as the hon. Gentleman. For those unaware of the work of the NATO PA, I should say that it is divided into committees, and we meet with delegations from the other 28 member nations to discuss pertinent matters.
The hon. Gentleman and I are members of the Political Committee, which discusses the threats facing the world, and it is obvious at any meeting that the hon. Gentleman is almost a go-to man for the other nations. When we socialise outside of those meetings, we are not talking about the football—well, the hon. Gentleman and I may be talking about the football—because we and plenty of other people discuss further the issues of the day.
Other delegates go to the hon. Gentleman because he has 30, 40 and perhaps even—I do not want to be presumptuous—50 years of foreign affairs experience, and he brings that experience to this Parliament and projects the experience of this Parliament to other partner nations. At a time when our standing in the world is being questioned and when people are wondering where we are going next, we should be using those who are respected around the world to give the British perspective on issues of foreign affairs and defence.
Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)
I have had the privilege of serving on the Foreign Affairs Committee for nine years with the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes). Both he and the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) play an enormously important role in the Committee’s work and, frankly, I would not want to lose them—I want them to stay on the Committee. If a Member is selected to be a member of a Select Committee, they should be a member for the duration of the Parliament, just as we are elected to this House for the duration of a Parliament. If we change party, we do not have to give up our seat and, therefore, surely the Members concerned should continue to serve on the Committee for this Parliament.
Alec Shelbrooke
I echo and reinforce what my hon. Friend says about being selected to serve, and I am grateful for his intervention. The number of Opposition MPs on this Committee has not changed, and the balance between Government MPs and Opposition MPs is still the same.
If this motion is passed, we will have decided that if a Member stands up for their values and the things I am sure we would all value as the principles of being a British parliamentarian, they are out—“It doesn’t fit in with the views we want, so you are out.” How are we then supposed to do soft power around the world? It is up to the Executive and the Prime Minister to go around the world doing the hard power of this nation, but we do the soft power. We make this country relevant, whether we do it through the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Council of Europe or the Foreign Affairs Committee, which does valuable work feeding in to Government on the direction of events. We would be saying that, because a Member has stood up for their principles, we are not interested.
I cast no aspersions on the Members who have been put forward in this motion; I am sure they are intelligent and capable Members of this House who would bring something to the Committee. But they would not bring the years of experience and the global respect that the hon. Members for Ilford South and for Dudley North have. How must we look to the public viewing us today?
Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. Is not the issue that, when it comes to a contest between talent and tribe, talent must always win out? Ultimately, this country is best served by having its star players on the pitch, and the world would not understand if we deliberately took our best players off the pitch. Does he agree?
Alec Shelbrooke
I totally agree although, as a West Ham fan, it is difficult to spot the analogy. It is about talent, but it is also about the cumulative knowledge of so many years’ experience and the contacts around the world that make someone the go-to person on specific issues after the meetings of these organisations. It all feeds in.
Mr Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Ind)
The hon. Gentleman is incredibly kind to give way on that point. He was first elected in the same year I was, and we both aspire to the level and depth of experience of the two Members whom the motion seeks to discharge from the Committee. Is not his key point that the incentives in this place to speak out bravely when we believe things to be wrong need to be correctly aligned with our procedures? Both Members have found themselves in a position where they could do nothing but speak out and face the consequences. Today each of us, even those with the political experience of the hon. Gentleman and me, need to ask ourselves: if it is these two Members first, will it be us next?
Alec Shelbrooke
I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I will preface it, but he reminds me of the poem about the holocaust that finishes:
“Then they came for me—and there was no one left”.
We should bear that in mind. What has led to this situation? I regard the hon. Member for Ilford South as a good friend, and we have travelled the world together. I saw the huge, incredible levels of abuse he received, often from his alleged supporters in his own party. I think he dealt with that stoically.
I know that it was no easy decision for the hon. Gentleman to leave his party. I do not want to embarrass him, but I know it broke his heart because we have had those conversations. He did not want to leave the Labour party. He was forced into that position by standing up for what was right and standing up for the values we should all stand for in this House. That is the problem with the motion.
What message are we sending to the House with this motion? The motion asks us to replace two Members of this House who have enormous experience. The context is a lack of tolerance in this place. The Brexit debate was framed around the fact that people wanted politics done in a different way—we can argue and disagree about what that way is. What we are actually saying today is, “Stand up for your principles and you’re out.” It is an establishment stitch-up.
The reason why I want the two hon. Gentlemen to stay on the Committee—this is what I worry about most of all—is that they are experts in their field. They are admired by the other Committee members and by the people they see around the world. We should not give in to the pressure and, frankly, intolerance they have had to face, and thereby lessen the capability of the Committee they sit on.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
I am grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to say a few words in a debate that is both important and timely.
There are bigger points of principle at stake in this debate, with all due respect to the hon. Members for Dudley North (Ian Austin) and for Ilford South (Mike Gapes)—both of whom I hold in high regard and whose treatment I utterly deplore. We are really talking about the rules by which this House governs itself. Just as important as the rules are the reasons for which those rules are put in place. The rules do not just emerge out of nowhere. We have the rules that we have for a particular reason.
It is worth recalling that when the Chairman of the Selection Committee and I came into the House in 2001, it was a very different sort of House that ran to very different rules. The Chairs and members of Select Committees were all appointed at the pleasure of the leaders and Whips of their own parties. That system was, frankly, open to abuse and it was often abused. We all saw it. I remember John Denham—a man I held in high regard—going virtually automatically from being a Home Office Minister to being Chair of the Home Affairs Committee. That was not a proper way for the House to order its business. It happened because it was not the House that was ordering its business; it was done by the party managers.
I also remember the occasion that the right hon. Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan) reminded us of, when the business managers tried to replace Lord Anderson of Swansea and the late Gwyneth Dunwoody as Chairs of the Foreign Affairs and Transport Committees. I remember Gwyneth Dunwoody as one of the most formidable operators ever in this House. You may recall, Madam Deputy Speaker, that when she chaired the Transport Committee, it was said to be the only Committee of this House that had need of its own witness protection programme. One could quite understand why the Ministers and business managers wanted to be rid of her, but it was obviously in the interests of the House and the good functioning of our Select Committees that she not be removed. On that occasion, the House stood up for Gwyneth Dunwoody and Lord Anderson. They were able to retain their positions as Chairs of the Select Committees and continue doing their very important work.
That is why the Wright committee was set up to look at the workings of the House. Its recommendations were radical and highly innovative in changing the business. I declare an interest: at the time of the implementation of the Wright reforms, I was deputy Chief Whip of the coalition Government. The right hon. Member for Derbyshire Dales (Sir Patrick McLoughlin) was the Government Chief Whip, and Lord Young of Cookham, as he now is, was the Leader of the House of Commons, and we brought forward those changes.
For us as business managers, the changes were not always easy. I remember that, during that Parliament, a Chair of a Select Committee came to me and said that the presence of a Liberal Democrat MP on the Select Committee was making it difficult for the Committee to hear all the evidence and information it needed, because it was felt that he would compromise in some way some of the information being given to it. I had to say to that Select Committee Chair, “I’m sorry, but there’s not really anything I can do to remove him. I no longer have that power.” We have spoken about soft power and hard power. I should put it on the record that, as a result of sweet reason and good persuasion, we were able to persuade that gentleman to remove himself from the Committee. In that way, the House was able to continue.
For those reasons, I think it was right that we handed over control of Select Committee chairmanship and membership to the House. That is why I feel profoundly uneasy about the motion that has been brought to the House today. The reforms that we implemented as a consequence of the Wright report were long overdue and very hard-fought. For the House to be complicit in somehow rolling them back would be a retrograde step at a time when it is surely more important than ever that the House is prepared to assert its control and primacy over the Executive and the party machinery, which is being challenged.
Tom Tugendhat
The right hon. Gentleman and I represent opposite ends of the country, so I ask him this question: has he ever heard in the community he represents that what people really want is more political party control?
Mr Carmichael
With the possible exception of my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone), just about everybody represents seats in the other end of the country, as far as I am concerned. No, of course I have not.
That was why the House eventually acted in the way it did. We did not rush to act—my goodness, it was long overdue. Let us not overstate the party influence here. It is important to recognise that we are all elected on a party ticket, but once we are here we have other considerations to take into account.
Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)
My right hon. Friend’s position as a former deputy Chief Whip of the Government gives the points he is making even more weight. Does he accept that, of all parts of this House, the Select Committee system is so successful largely because people leave their party allegiances at the door and work together collectively? It is one of the most respected parts of our Parliament, so it is disappointing that the Labour party is trying to politicise it and make some sort of territorial claim on those seats, even though there are excellent individuals serving in those roles.
Mr Carmichael
Indeed. I had cause to reflect on the role of Select Committees recently, when the recently retired Clerk of the House stood down. He was instrumental in building the reputation of those Committees, because he started his career as a Clerk clerking them. The strength and standing of the Select Committee system that we enjoy today is not an accident. It is not something that happened overnight. It has been hard won. Many people had to work and fight very hard to build it. If we undermine it, we not only do a disservice to the hon. Members for Ilford South and for Dudley North, but risk doing a disservice to the House.
I understand why the Labour party moved in this way. I do not challenge the competence of the motion before the House, but it is significant that at the end of the day, this matter remains in the control of the House.
Angela Smith
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the competence of the motion is not in question, but surely the imposition of a three-line Whip is entirely against the spirit of the reforms that have made this House a better place.
Mr Carmichael
It is not entirely without precedent for parties to whip House business, but it is rare, and it is ill advised. As I say, I certainly do not challenge the competence of the motion, but I do challenge and seriously question the wisdom of those who sought to bring it forward in this way, at this time. I do not refer to the members of the Committee of Selection, and certainly not to its Chair, the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin); they are there to perform a function—to facilitate the House’s having this debate. Ultimately, the question of who should be on the Foreign Affairs Committee remains within the control of the House. I hope that the House will thank the Chair of the Committee of Selection and his colleagues, and politely decline to accept their advice.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
It is a pleasure to be called in this debate. It is worth saying that I have no personal objection to the hon. Members for St Helens North (Conor McGinn) and for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) joining a Committee; I remember the rather courageous stand that the hon. Member for St Helens North took a few years back in supporting the Government’s taking military action against Daesh when his party leader was not doing so. The comments I am about to make are no reflection on those two Members, but I do feel rather conflicted.
There has been a lot of talk about whipping and potential arrangements. I do not think it is right to discuss on the Floor of the House Members’ conversations with Whips, but I must say that while it is always lovely to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), my Whip, it was nice not to hear from her today about this motion and the amendment. She has the joy of texting me to ask if I am here, which usually gets the response, “I’m sitting on the other end of the Bench from you.”
There is a bit of a conflict in my mind today, and I will explain why. Previous motions from the Committee of Selection that we have considered on the membership of Committees, including Select Committees, have usually been brought forward when a Member has said that they no longer wish to be on a Committee, and the relevant party is looking to replace them. That is why when, a couple of years back, there was a motion relating to the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) being on the Justice Committee, I took the view that it was a Labour vacancy, and the Labour party had nominated someone. While the motion was controversial to those on the Government Benches, I took the view that it was not really for Government Members to pick who represented the Opposition on a Select Committee; I felt that voting against the motion would set a bit of a precedent, so on that occasion, I was prepared to vote in favour of it. It was not that I had any great thoughts about the merits of the individual concerned; I felt that it was a Labour vacancy, as a Labour Member was standing down from the Committee. The Labour party was therefore entitled to nominate someone. I did not feel it was for a Government MP, particularly one who was quite involved in things, to say, “No. Come back with someone else.”
I accept that today the situation is very different. Neither the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) nor the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) wishes to be removed from the Foreign Affairs Committee, and neither has done something that makes it necessary for the House to remove them. They have both given exceptional service. We saw in the superb speech of the hon. Member for Dudley North exactly why he is on that Committee. It is because of the incisive nature that he brings to debates and his passion for the subjects concerned. In the case of the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes), I can say that I may not share some of his views, I may not share his thoughts on a second referendum, and every time he speaks, I may not innately think, “Yeah, great point. That is one I would have made myself.” That is not what it is about; it is about making sure that there is independence on these Committees.
Where I feel uncomfortable is whether it should really be the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster who goes through the Lobby to decide who represents the Opposition on Select Committees. That is why I feel uncomfortable with suggestions that we should vote against this motion. It will set a precedent. I am conscious that there will be a number of Members on the Government Benches who will wish to vote against this motion. In particular, the respected members of the Committee may feel that they have a stronger need to express their views. None the less, as PPS to the de facto Deputy Prime Minister, I feel reticent about going through the Lobby to choose the Opposition representatives on that Committee.
Tom Tugendhat
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. I appreciate the point that he is making about choosing who should serve on Committees—which party they come from and how they should be selected—but surely the question before us today is a fundamental one about whether those who are elected to serve on a Select Committee are delegates of the whole House or representatives of their party. That is a fundamental question that we should be considering. The truth is that the Select Committee system was established so that the whole House could look into matters at greater depth than is possible for the Chamber as a whole. That is the question that we should be asking ourselves today. Therefore, once the House has made a decision as to who should represent it, should it be up to the Whips Office from one party or another to make a difference?
Kevin Foster
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. In relation to Committee Chairs, he is absolutely right that we select as the whole House. They are appointed by the whole House, and I would be reluctant to set a precedent, if Chairs of the Committees were to change their political affiliation—there has been one such change—that they were delegates of one party or another. At the start of the Parliament, we makes the allocations. If there comes a vacancy, that would potentially make a difference.
For me, there is a challenge in this. This matter is being debated on the Floor of the House. Members are appointed by the whole House to be Chairs and members of Committees, but we are talking about the Opposition’s spaces, and I do have a view on that. Although I suspect that, in this Parliament, things will be handled quite maturely—in fact I suspect that, under a number of Labour Governments, things would be handled well—we could be setting quite a precedent if Government Members, particularly Government payroll Members, started choosing the Opposition members on a Committee, regardless of what I might think on this particular occasion. It is different for those who are not on the Government payroll.
Dr Wollaston
I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for giving way on this point. I will, if I may, try to persuade him. Does he agree that Select Committees are at their best and acting on behalf of the public when their members can leave tribal politics at the door, focus on the evidence and work collaboratively to come up with solutions? That is what the public wants to see from this Parliament, as opposed to the often confrontational picture that they might see. This is the part of Parliament that often shows us at our best. My concern is that what we are seeing tonight will fundamentally undermine and degrade the important reforms that were brought in a decade ago, so I really hope that he will join me in the Lobby this evening.
Kevin Foster
I thank my hon. Friend—and I mean that—for her intervention. She is right that the Select Committees are at their best when a member of the public attending a sitting would not be able to tell which party label applied to which Member of Parliament. I remember the time that I spent on the Public Accounts Committee, and the questions there were as fearless from Government Members as from Opposition Members. That is the strength of Select Committees. The fact that we work by consensus in most instances gives strength to our reports. If an inquiry was just an attack by an Opposition motivated by party politics, it would not get the support of Government Members. And ditto—if a report were trying to praise the Government too much, funnily enough Opposition Members would probably not sign up to it.
It is right that people do not take their party labels into Select Committees, but the conflict for me is the issue of the Opposition having certain protections in this place. In a situation where a Government had a significant majority, they could in theory start playing a game with these sorts of motion. I think it is safe to say that a game is being played this afternoon, but it is quite clear to me that there is a difference between Members on the Government payroll and other Members. Each Member can take their own view; I just feel a slight difficulty in choosing the Opposition Members on a Select Committee from my position.
Dr Wollaston
Does my hon. Friend feel that it would undermine the system if we were in a position where members of a Select Committee were always having to look over their shoulder, because they might suddenly find that their place had been made unilaterally vacant on their behalf if they were not following the party line? In this case, there will still be the same number of Opposition Members on the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Kevin Foster
I accept that the balance of Opposition Members will be the same. This is not, for example, about someone having gone from the Government Benches to the Opposition Benches, and then a motion trying to flip back the balance. For me, though, this is about choosing the Opposition Members on a Select Committee. Let us be candid: there will be occasions when the Government might not particularly want certain individuals from the Opposition on a certain Committee. That is where the conflict lies. This is about Government Members —particularly those in the Government—choosing the Opposition Members on a Select Committee.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
This is the first time that I have ever had to disagree with anything my hon. Friend has ever said on the Floor of the House. I still hope that he will think again, listen to the rest of the debate and perhaps be persuaded. I must say that if any move is made to remove the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) from the chairmanship of the Liaison Committee, I shall certainly vote against that. As someone who disagrees with the stance taken on Europe by all the Independent Group Members, which has led them to find themselves cast into the wilderness, I would certainly say to my hon. Friend that it is not about him choosing who should be the Opposition Members to go on a Committee; it is about him deciding whether a witch hunt should allow Opposition Members to be driven off a Committee.
Kevin Foster
I thank my right hon. Friend, who shows his skills as a parliamentarian in recognising how this place works. It is not about our own views; it is about how we see the process working. Although I hear his strong point, I still have my view, and I will be abstaining—I will not be voting in favour. I would normally say that a nomination by an Opposition party should be respected by Government Members, but this situation is different in that it is not the case that Members are looking to retire from the Committee and that a vacancy therefore exists that needs to be filled. I do question the motivations and timing behind this move, but I do not feel that it is for me to be choosing Opposition Members. I might change that view if we were talking about Government Members, but it is my view that this decision is for the Opposition.
Kevin Foster
Actually, I commend the Government Whips Office for giving us a free vote to allow people to make their choice according to their conscience. I will abstain. I am not whipped as a payrolled Member to be in the Aye Lobby or the No Lobby. It is right that all Members of the House should make their own choice today. We all differ, and each choice will be valid. With that, I bring my remarks to a close—[Interruption.] I can hear the disappointment of the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin). The reason I will abstain is purely that I do not agree with the principle of key Government Members making a decision about Opposition Members.
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
I will not detain the House for long, but I felt the need to stand up and be counted on both the specific and the general contents of this debate.
I oppose the removal of my hon. Friends the Members for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) and for Dudley North (Ian Austin) from the membership of the Foreign Affairs Committee. That is not because I oppose my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn) or my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) being members of that Committee in future. I am sure that they will, in future, make fine members of the Foreign Affairs Committee should they wish to stand for it. This, for me, is about people being removed because they have held their heads up and said that the membership of the party in which they entered this House no longer represents their values and their views. Because I know both those Members, I know how hard and how difficult that was, and I commend them for their bravery. Over the past almost 22 years of my membership of this House, I have had little interest in the rules of the House, of debate, or of memberships of Select Committees—for me, what matters is what I do in my constituency and how I represent my constituents. I appreciate that people have different views of how they do the job. Surely that is the point, and the strength, of our system.
The hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) may like to look at evidence from the House of Commons Library about how members of Select Committees are dealt with if they leave their party and transfer to another. On 2 March 1981, Robert Maclennan defected from Labour to the Social Democratic party. He was a member of the Public Accounts Committee at the time. He remained a member until the end of the Parliament. On 2 March 1981, John Cartwright defected from Labour to the SDP. He was a member of the Defence Committee at the time. He did not leave the Committee until 31 March 1982—a year later. On 7 October 1981, Tom McNally defected from Labour to the SDP. He was a member of the Defence Committee at the time. He remained a member until the end of the Parliament. On 7 October 1981, James Dunn defected from Labour to the SDP. He was also a member of the Defence Committee. He did not leave it until December 1982, over a year later, and even then he was replaced by an SDP Member.
On 2 December 1981, Ronald Brown defected from Labour to the SDP. He was the Chair of the Committee of Selection at the time and remained so until the end of the Parliament. On 18 December 1999, Shaun Woodward defected from the Conservatives to Labour. He was and remained a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. In 2005, Paul Marsden returned to Labour, having previously defected to the Liberal Democrats. He was and remained a member of the Transport Committee. I would therefore suggest to the hon. Gentleman that the experience in this House, even in the days when Whips had more control over who was on Select Committees, suggests that people could remain.
We all know that this measure is a vindictive one. It shames our Whips—I say that as somebody who has been a Government Whip—to be involved in this manoeuvre today. There is no suggestion that either my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South or my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North have not done their job well, been regular attenders or argued their point of view. They are not being removed for any disciplinary issue or for not being up to the mark. They are being removed because of their politics—because my party has become intolerant and unwilling to listen to other voices.
Joan Ryan
As evidence to support what my hon. Friend is saying in the most powerful way, members of the Independent Group who left the Labour party just a couple of weeks ago and who sit in the Council of Europe, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe have all been threatened with removal by the actions of our Whips. The Whips cannot remove all of them, because they have a term of office, but that more than demonstrates the fact that this is, exactly as she says, about intolerance.
Siobhain McDonagh
I thank my right hon. Friend, who is my friend in this place in the true meaning of the word. One of the most shocking things is that attempts were going to be made to remove my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) from the Health and Social Care Committee while she was on maternity leave. Those were attempts by the Labour party —the Labour party of Barbara Castle, of Mo Mowlam and of the late, great Tessa Jowell. The party that introduced statutory maternity leave was considering removing a Member from a Committee while she was on maternity leave. Is that not an indication of how much we have lost our values and sense of who we are?
Whether it is the Conservative party having to remove people because of Islamophobia or the Labour party having to remove people because of antisemitism, we all have to stand up in our parties to extremism and totalitarianism. I say that with regret, but I hope that Government Members do not believe that I do not mean them too—I do. They need to watch their constituencies and their membership. If we move away from where the quiet, moderate majority lie, they will become disaffected with our politics.
Membership of the Foreign Affairs Committee is a small, arcane matter for this House, but it exemplifies the problems that all parties are experiencing. However uncomfortable it is and whether or not it means that some people on our side of the House will choose not to speak to us after this debate, we have to stand up, because for evil to triumph, it only needs the majority of us to say nothing.
Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)
I am moved by the speech of the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh). Those were extraordinarily courageous words to say in this extraordinary Parliament, where we find ourselves in unfamiliar territory in so many ways, with a new fluidity in politics that we need to reflect. I will detain the House for only a very short moment.
As the leader of the UK delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, it has been my good fortune to work with the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes). At the moment, when we go to these forums, parliamentarians from across the world—in our case, from across the NATO alliance—ask, “What is going on in the United Kingdom?” We try to explain, which at times I find almost impossible. If they are confused by our actions in this Parliament and our inability to get through a certain matter, they will be doubly confused when they see that somebody of the hon. Gentleman’s standing and stature in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly is being excluded from a Select Committee on which he has extraordinary experience and of which he is a former Chair. If he were also to be removed from our delegation, that would be extraordinary, and I simply would not be able to explain it to the many parliamentarians who look to this Parliament for inspiration and feel that there is a basic sense of fairness and decency, which we should uphold. I am grateful that the Government’s whipping allows me to do what I was going to do anyway.
Angela Smith
Does the right hon. Gentleman—I think he is right honourable—not think that this Parliament, in removing someone like my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) from the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, would be sending out a message to the international community that Britain no longer stands for fairness and justice?
Richard Benyon
The hon. Lady makes a very important point. I do think that the membership of a Select Committee or of a delegation—although, out there in the real world, it is not what they are talking about in the Dog and Duck—is an indication of the kind of politics we do in this place, and to me, it matters.
The machinations of the Labour party are something that, in one sense, we on the Conservative Benches could just not be part of. Personally, however, I am saddened if a great internationalist party does not still have people on its Benches—they have now moved to a different arrangement—who really understand the importance at this time of that internationalist approach and have an understanding of the dynamic of foreign affairs. If we are to define global Britain, it is not just going to be done by the people on the Conservative Benches; it has to be something on which Members of this Parliament engage across a whole range of different forums.
Alec Shelbrooke
Would my right hon. Friend summarise it in this way? The UK delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly is one of the most respected delegations because of the strength and depth of its knowledge, and if this was to pass, along with changes to the NATO PA delegation, we would diminish ourselves on the world stage.
Richard Benyon
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend.
I will conclude by saying that the hon. Member for Ilford South does the work, chairs committees and understands how these things work, and I hope—
Richard Benyon
I will not, because I have made a promise that I am going to shut up.
I just want to say that I have huge respect for the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) as well. He and I have worked on issues relating to Russia and Magnitsky, and I know his knowledge and understanding, and his courageousness as well. For goodness’ sake, let us be a Parliament that raises ourselves above this. Let us just be a little bit mature and reflect on the fact that, even if we were talking about people who had been on the Conservative Benches, we would actually stand up for something more important than what we are talking about today.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Ind)
There have been times today when I thought I was listening to my own obituary, and it has been quite moving to hear some kind things said about me. But it is not about me, and it is not about my good friend the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) either; it is about the way in which this Parliament works.
I have had the privilege and the honour to be a Member of Parliament for 27 years. For the vast majority of that time—19 years—I have been a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee. I have also served on the Defence Committee, the Joint Committee on National Security Strategy briefly, the Liaison Committee and, for more than 10 years, the Committees on Arms Export Controls, formerly known as the Quad. I know that the only way that this Parliament’s Select Committees work and work effectively is if we produce unanimous reports. We get listened to and noticed only when we work on a cross-party basis and leave our party labels behind us. If we get a 9:2 split in a Committee, it is better that the two are from different parties and that the nine are from different parties, than if it goes the other way. That is how Parliament works, and it works effectively.
Dr Julian Lewis
Is this not the heart of the matter? Is it not absurd to be talking about changing the balance between Opposition and Government membership on these Committees? These Committees, with very few exceptions, never divide along party lines. When the Defence Committee meets, I never ever have to consider the fact that it might be me—one Conservative—and five Opposition Members who happen to be in that meeting at the time.
I crave your indulgence for a second, Madam Deputy Speaker, to say that I am very sorry I cannot make a full speech in this debate because I was chairing a Defence Committee meeting that overlapped with a large part of it. However, I have known of the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) since the 1970s, when we were both fighting Trotskyists inside the Labour party. In the 1990s, I remember going with Conservative delegations to eastern Europe, only to find that the hon. Gentleman, as international secretary of the Labour party, had got there before us. The idea that the hon. Gentleman has had to leave the Labour party, when every drop of his blood is infused with the ethos of the Labour party, is absolutely tragic—
Mike Gapes
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman.
When a Select Committee produces a report that contains lots of recommendations and says some telling and critical things and it wants the Government to produce a serious response, that Committee has effect if it works collectively and comes to a consensual report. If the Government then gives an inadequate response, the Committee goes back. Under the chairmanship of my very good friend the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat), we have been persistent. We have told the Foreign and Commonwealth Office: “This is an inadequate response. We’re not accepting it.” We have made it difficult for them—we are persistent—and we do that on behalf of the House as a whole. We do it not as delegates from the central committee of a political party, but as parliamentarians who have used our knowledge, experience, integrity and persistence to beaver down, get the facts, expose the scandals and the problems, highlight them and then challenge the Executive.
There has been a trend in this Parliament for the Executive to treat Parliament with contempt. We have even passed motions saying that. I will not deviate from the terms of the motion, but we have seen lots of examples of Parliament having to struggle to assert our authority. It would be very strange if today we start to undermine Parliament’s authority in a different way.
Steve McCabe
I am grateful to my hon. Friend; I should probably say in passing: you are not dead yet. Can there be anyone who has witnessed this debate who could think that voting for this motion would be to represent the will of the House? If the purpose is to represent the will of the House tonight, do we not know what we should do?
Mike Gapes
I am very grateful. Obviously every Member has to look to their own conscience and presumably their own relationship with their party to decide what they will do, but I must say that I am astonished that there is a Whip on this House business. It is not usual.
I was in the House in 2001, and I recall the attempted removal of the Chairs of the Select Committee on Transport, Gwyneth Dunwoody, and the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, Donald Anderson, now Lord Anderson. That was not exactly the same as tonight’s proposal, because there was a vote in a parliamentary Labour party meeting, but it was ultimately a decision for the House as a whole. The House at that time rejected the proposal from the Labour party and those names were reinstated. We are in a different situation today, but the essence of my point is that, regardless of what happens to my personal position, this is about how Parliament and the Select Committees work.
Alec Shelbrooke
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the fundamental point is that the number of Opposition and Government MPs remains the same? He has not crossed the Floor; therefore, the fundamental mathematics remain the same.
Mike Gapes
Yes, that is factually correct. More importantly, this is not just a question of positioning on the Benches. My views on the awful Maduro regime in Venezuela, the Putin kleptocracy and the barbaric, murderous Assad regime have not changed from when I said those things over recent months. It may be that factors around those have played some role in this—I do not know.
Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman is aware that as a fellow Committee member, he has my full support, and I look forward to him, and indeed, the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin), being on the Committee for the rest of the Parliament.
Mike Gapes
I am very grateful. I say to all the members of the Foreign Affairs Committee that I am very pleased and grateful that the Committee decided unanimously that it did not want to have two of its members removed. The Chairman of our Committee wrote a letter to the Chief Whips of the respective parties pointing that out, so there is no doubt about the position of the other nine Committee members with regard to me and my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North.
In conclusion, whatever happens today or with the NATO delegation, I will continue to do the right thing and fight on foreign affairs to represent the best interests of our country abroad and to highlight issues of concern, because those internationalist values that I had when I joined the Labour party 50 years ago are still my internationalist values.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
I confess that when I read this motion, to begin with I was in two minds. I thought back to my days as a city councillor—I spent 10 years on Hull City Council and was one of two Tories out of 59—and what happened whenever there was a defection. Someone once defected to us—it was a terrible mistake for him and we tried to talk him out of it. When there were two members, we were never split more than 50:50—it got worse when there were three of us. However, when we had a defection on the council, there was always a change in the political make-up of committees and that reflected the change in the political make-up of the chamber. I think back to those days and the way we did things on Hull City Council—we even used to follow our standing orders on Hull City Council. They were not open to interpretation in the way that they seem to be in this place. We used to follow the rules, whether it suited the person who was chairing it or not. However, I digress.
So, I think back to those rules and to the changes here. I have to confess, when the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) crossed the Floor, I thought, “There has been a change in the balance on the Health and Social Care Committee between the Government and the Opposition,” but then I thought, “We elected her for the duration of the Parliament”—and I have to say, given the hon. Lady’s record in chairing that Committee, I do not think that the Government will notice much difference.
Andrew Percy
It was meant as such. I thought, “I really hope that my party does not move to remove the hon. Lady”, despite a certain knee-jerk reaction on my part when I saw that she had crossed the Floor, precisely because we elected her for the duration of this Parliament and she should serve out her term as Chair of that Committee.
The reason that I will oppose the motion this evening is that it is not based on the balance of this Chamber. What is behind this motion—we in the Chamber must always look for what is behind something—is vindictiveness, as has been stated. There is no doubt that the way in which these two Members departed the Labour party and the policy differences that they have, particularly on foreign policy matters, are behind this move. I am not going to put my name to anything that is based on pure vindictiveness, which is what this is.
A lot of things have been said about the two Members today. I did think that they may have died, because people are not normally that nice about those who are alive. Somebody even accused the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) of a subtlety of thought—I have never thought he has that, which is the reason I like him so much. There is no doubt, however, that in matters of foreign affairs they bring to the Committee a voice and experience that it would be the poorer without. We should consider, too, the views of the Members who serve with them on that Committee, who to a person wish them to remain on the Committee.
For that reason and because of the vindictiveness that lies behind the motion, I will 100% be opposing it this evening, and I hope that other colleagues will do the same and that they will consider carefully whether a three-line Whip should really be imposed in matters concerning the business of the House. I hope that colleagues on the Opposition Benches will reflect carefully on that and will support these two Members. If they do not, I should remind them, as has been said, that it may be these two today, but it could be others in the future.
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
I came to this debate with an open mind, not sure how to vote, and, as a relatively new Member, I do not know either the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) or the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) terribly well on a personal level.
On the argument about over-representation, numbers and fairness, there is a point: the TIG, in particular, but independent Members generally, are over-represented. The SNP, which has 35 Members, has two Select Committee Chairs, whereas the independents, of whom there are 21, also have two. The TIG, in particular, is well represented on Select Committees, holding almost two and a half times as many places as the Lib Dems, who have a similar number of Members. It is a fair point, then, that the Independents have more Select Committee places and that, had this been done at the start, the places held by these two hon. Members would have been contested by Labour Members, not Independent Members.
That said, we have to consider what Select Committees are for. I am lucky to serve on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee and previously to have served on the Health and Social Care Select Committee. The role of a Select Committee is to scrutinise the work of Government. Does having left the Labour party and sitting as an Independent make someone less able to do that? I would argue that it does not. It is clear that both Members are held in extremely high regard by the Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat), and each Committee member. Conservative members of the Committee have said how well they regard these individuals and how well they do their job of scrutinising the Government on matters of foreign affairs and attested to the level of expertise and skill they bring to their role.
Had these two hon. Members crossed the Floor, it would be fair to say that there had been a change in the balance of power in the scrutiny of the Government between Government and Opposition Members, but given that they have remained on the Opposition Benches, I do not think that argument holds any water.
On the motivation behind this move, I have listened to what has been said today, and it seems to me that this essentially is bullying. It is saying to people: “You didn’t agree with us, so you can’t do this job any more, not because you cannot do it, but because we don’t want you to, because we don’t agree with you any more.” That is wrong. I do not want to be part of a vendetta being waged against individuals for taking a stand, particularly a stand against racism, which is something we should all do. I will therefore oppose this motion.
Question put.
Business without Debate
Procedure Committee
Children Act 1989: Local Authority Responsibilities
(5 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Kate Osamor (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)
I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this pertinent issue. The “no recourse to public funds” condition applies to people who have arrived in the UK in a range of immigration categories, including students and workers and their spouses, who may have the right to work but not to access benefits. There is considerable confusion over what services people with no recourse to public funds are entitled to, which has led to terrible suffering for both adults and children, including many British-born children, who fall through the net of Home Office and local government support.
It was interesting that I was met with departmental confusion simply in trying to secure this debate. Over the past few days, the Department for Education, the Home Office and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government were each in turn named as the Department that would to respond to this debate, and I fear that that speaks to the profound confusion around accountability—namely, which body or institution is responsible for assisting those who have no recourse to public funds.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The hon. Lady has secured an important Adjournment debate. Does she agree that the biggest duty of care we owe is to children who rely solely on the state to look after them? All local authorities must understand that that duty includes considering historical cases to ascertain the safety of children in foster care. More than just the bare minimum, that duty means taking responsibility for the welfare of a child who has no one else in their corner, and it is essential that all local authorities understand that. I congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing this important matter forward for debate. Let us get it right.
Kate Osamor
I thank the hon. Gentleman, who makes a valuable point. I will go on to express similar concerns around the responsibility for looking after such children and the fact that many children have been and are being failed.
Local authorities, in practice, and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, on a strategic level, need to get a better grip on the issue and take responsibility for the people affected. The picture is currently bleak, but the legislation is very clear. Section 17 of the Children Act 1989 provides a general duty on local authorities to safeguard and promote the welfare of all children in need in their local area. This means that local authorities must do whatever possible to ensure sufficient services and measures are in place where a child’s health or development is not being achieved or maintained, or where it is being diminished.
This support is not considered a public fund and includes accommodation, subsistence and help for children with additional needs, such as a disability. For many destitute migrant families, section 17 support is their only opportunity to feed themselves and put a roof over their head. One of the last comprehensive national studies of children from families with no recourse to public funds receiving section 17 support was in 2015, when an estimated 6,000 children were receiving such support.
I tabled a written question on 12 December 2018 asking the Home Office whether it had any up-to-date data on children in need with no recourse to public funds, based on applications showing a change in their parents’ circumstances. I received a response from the Minister for Immigration on 20 December stating that no ideal data was being held “entitled ‘Change of Conditions’.” I used that wording in my question, and maybe it is not correct, but I was trying to ascertain the data for people whose circumstances have changed. I was told:
“Answering this question would require manual inspection of all family and private life leave to remain applications within the date range. This would incur disproportionate cost to the public purse.”
When we are talking about the livelihoods of young children, I would hope the public purse could extend to ensuring that we are looking after those children.
Ged Killen (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. As well as children, other people in vulnerable situations are being missed in this system. My constituent fled domestic violence elsewhere in the UK, and she found herself being turned away from several shelters. It was only through the diligence of my caseworker that a local charity, Ubuntu, found somewhere for that young woman to go.
Does my hon. Friend agree that a wide range of people could be affected by this lack of recourse to public funds?
Kate Osamor
My hon. Friend makes a valuable point. A multitude of people are getting caught in this trap of destitution including, as he clearly spells out, people experiencing domestic violence, which is even more complex. Those people need more support—immediate support—and, in many cases, they need to be made safe. I am grateful for his input and, more importantly, for the civil society group he mentions. I will mention other civil society groups that are doing fantastic work in picking up the public purse and doing the work that the Government are not doing, about which I am quite aggrieved.
Hugh Gaffney (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)
North Lanarkshire Council runs Club 365 so that no child in North Lanarkshire goes hungry. Every child has a meal available every day during the holidays and weekends. It is a great scheme, and other councils should follow that lead.
Kate Osamor
I thank my hon. Friend for that valuable point, from which we learn that not all councils are failing to meet their responsibilities. We have to ensure that such work goes across all councils, rather than being ad hoc, which is unfortunately the case at the moment.
A freedom of information request has shown that 980 individuals with dependants were given a no recourse to public funds condition in 2016-17. The figure grew to 2,100 in the next financial year, and it continues to rise. Between April and December 2018, the figure went up to 3,405.
A child’s immigration status should not be affected by their parents’ immigration status. It is upsetting that because of their parents’ immigration status, a child born in this country can be denied access to benefits, to their wants and needs, and to the comforts they desire. Despite statutory guidance stating that local authorities have a duty to ascertain the wishes and feelings of children and take them into account when planning provision, according to the Children’s Society, in 2015 six in 10 families with no recourse to public funds who applied for section 17 support were not supported by their local council.
Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech in favour of some of the weakest and most vulnerable people in our communities. This is a particularly urgent issue in Glasgow, where the Home Office tried to force contractors such as Serco to enforce a move-on policy. It was actually forcing people out of their homes if their asylum application failed. Many of those people had no recourse to public funds.
We are talking about the risk of mass destitution. Is that not just another example of how the Government’s hostile environment has permutations that affect the weakest people in society, even among our communities? Councils often do not have the funds, after years of cuts, to step in immediately and fill that gap.
Kate Osamor
My hon. Friend makes a valuable point. I will go on to discuss the hostile environment and its impact on the most vulnerable in society.
Project 17, an east London-based charity that I have been working with, works closely with families who have no recourse to public funds. Its recent report, “Not Seen, Not Heard”, documents the experiences of children living under this condition—I call it a “condition” deliberately. In 2018, four of the eight families living in Enfield who attended Project 17—my constituency of Edmonton is in the borough of Enfield—were told to call the emergency out-of-hours service each night for extended periods, rather than being provided with accommodation. It is standard practice for some local authorities to wrongly refuse interim support when they are first approached by families who need help. One woman was forced to call the out-of-hours service every night for almost two months.
The practice of not being child-focused is deeply concerning for a number of reasons. First, families have no stable place to be. When they are asked to leave temporary accommodation by 9.30 am, they wander the streets and have no safe place to go. Secondly, it is unclear how long it will take the out-of-hours service to arrange temporary accommodation following a request in the evening. Thirdly, navigating the out-of-hours service can be difficult for anyone, not least for those who struggle with English as a second language.
I hear reports of more and more families sleeping in the A&E reception. The reasons vary from them not understanding the system to safety, warmth and, basically, being destitute. One such report comes from Joel, who is nine years old. His family were forced to sleep in the accident and emergency department when they were left street homeless after a local authority refused their request for section 17 support. Joel said:
“We had to keep going to McDonalds every night and we would also go to A&E. I would have to wear my school clothes and sleep like that. They would say we have to sleep where the people wait but it’s just like lights and there is nothing colourful there. The chairs were hard. You know when you just sleep in the waiting room? I felt sorry for my mum because she had to stay up and my head had to be on her lap. She had to stay awake, her eyes were open like 24/7, all night and all day so she could watch over me. It was hard for her but also hard for me.”
Joel mentioned that he slept in his school uniform. That gives us more context on the plight of these children: despite having no fixed abode, Joel sleeps on his mother’s lap every night in an unsafe A&E reception. He is also expected to get up and concentrate in school.
I thank the Education Minister for being here today. I will not focus much on those young children’s experience in school, but I want to highlight the fact that, because a lot of their parents have no access to public funds, they cannot apply for free school meals and other things that would help their day in school.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an important contribution and is outlining the problem. Local authorities have obviously been underfunded in relation to childcare for a very long time, although the Government will not admit it; they keep telling us that they are putting more money in, but they are starting from a low base.
One thing that struck me in what my hon. Friend said—I have come across cases like this—is that kids, whatever their background, are expected to go to school, but they cannot concentrate on their education if they are worried about where they will live when they come home from school, whether they will get a square meal, whether their father and mother are together and whether there has been domestic violence. We can understand why kids sometimes become resentful in those circumstances. Does my hon. Friend agree?
Kate Osamor
I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution. What I take from it is that there is a lot of emotional strain on young children, which we must express and, more importantly, acknowledge.
The “Working together to safeguard children 2018” statutory guidance says that, where urgent needs are identified,
“social workers should not wait until the assessment reaches a conclusion before commissioning services”.
As I have illustrated, homelessness or destitution is clearly an urgent need. A refusal to provide interim support has led to a vulnerable woman and her children in Enfield having to stay with a local stranger they met on the street. When I first heard that story, my sadness turned to frustration at the fact that families are having to risk their safety and, ultimately, their dignity.
Why are families—mainly black families—forced to live like that? Would there be more of a public outcry if the victims of this pernicious policy were white? Would I even be standing here speaking on this matter? The hostile environment has a lot to answer for. The Prime Minister has a lot to explain, because it is her legacy that those innocent families are enduring.
Housing is a chronic issue across the UK, but housing scarcity does not remove local authorities’ obligation to ensure that all children are safe and that their needs are met. Amir, aged eight, described living in shared accommodation for 10 months:
“Where I live now, I’m not comfortable. There’s a lot of noise from people coming up and down the stairs. It’s always dirty. I have no space to do my homework and I don’t feel safe. At 3 am someone broke a door in the house—people were fighting.”
Poor living conditions are commonly reported. Project 17 reported the issues that children raised about the conditions of accommodation provided under section 17. They included living with rats, not having access to cooking facilities, cockroach infestation, antisocial behaviour from other residents in shared accommodation, not having basic furniture such as a table or chair, and not having access to washing facilities.
Civil society groups also report families receiving rates of financial support below the support rate of £37.75, set out in section 95 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. The Home Office says that that is the minimum amount required to avoid a breach of the European convention on human rights. Case law suggests that it would be unlawful for local authorities to expect families in receipt of section 17 support to live on less than that amount. It is unreasonable to expect families to live off less than £37.75 per week, and I am concerned that the Department, and thus local authorities, do not adequately recognise the negative impact of lower levels of support on children’s development and wellbeing. Even when support is provided, the current provision is insufficient. Interim support is being refused, and poor accommodation and low rates of financial support are being offered.
How are we helping these families and children? While there are process and practice issues that local authorities need to address, civil society groups across the UK have also reported that local authorities are increasingly deliberately putting barriers in place before supporting these families. Embedded Home Office immigration officials are one method by which that is done. While they can be used constructively, there are more consistent reports of their deployment to intimidate. The perceived threat of immigration enforcement action can deter the most vulnerable families from seeking support that they should be able to access. The management of these officers differs considerably between local authorities. Local authorities must take charge of their use.
Unfortunately, it is not just Home Office officials who intimidate parents. Worryingly, there is a trend of excessive scrutiny—of credit checks, minor inconsistencies being used to undermine a family’s case, allegations of fraud, and even threats of removing children without sufficient cause. I am sorry to say that several families in Enfield were simply misinformed by council officers. One family was even told that Enfield does not provide financial support to families.
How can we work together and help the failing authorities? Looking ahead, I would like to offer some solutions. At a local level, councils can take steps to ensure that such hardship is a thing of the past by signing up to a commitment to ensure the health, development and wellbeing of every child in their area. There is already such a pledge in Project 17’s children’s charter, and the Children’s Society has a charter, too. Project 17’s charter sets out a framework for local authorities working with children in need of support under section 17. It was derived from the UN convention on the rights of the child, the legal duties defined in the Children Act 1989 and subsequent case law, and what children and young people have told civil society groups about what they want.
I ask the Minister whether the Department will agree to meet Project 17 to discuss its work and its children’s charter. At a strategic level, I ask the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, if it is listening, to encourage local authorities to sign up to such a charter, and to clarify the procedures that local authorities must follow, and their obligations, regarding their care for every child in their area. In addition, those in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government can lobby the Prime Minister and their colleagues in the Home Office to end the hostile environment policy, which causes me deep concern. With all due respect, Madam Deputy Speaker, although Brexit is important, it is all we debate in this House, while this important issue only gets an airing in an end-of-day Adjournment debate.
The hostile environment policy builds destitution into the asylum process; destitution is going to happen, and that is wrong. Any attempt to combat destitution will be limited as long as the hostile environment continues. In a sense, people with insecure immigration status being forced to go without money, food or nappies for their children is not a failing in the system; it is the system. Can the Minister really say that he is happy with such a system? If not, will he do everything he can to ensure that the Department looks at the policy and how it affects the most vulnerable?
Ensuring that the needs of children are met should be the utmost priority of local authorities. However, if boroughs are expected to provide this essential support, it is crucial that they be provided with the resources to do so. In an age of austerity, it is imperative that the Government take this matter seriously and open a dialogue with local authorities and other organisations involved, to determine how much annual funding is required.
To put this in context, London boroughs spent £53.7 million in support of an estimated 2,881 households under the no recourse condition in 2016-17, and the estimated average total annual expenditure per borough was nearly £1.7 million, but the case load size in six boroughs led to their having far higher expenditure than the London average—expenditure of £5 million per year. That funding is primarily derived directly from the local authority’s social services budget: if pressures are not uniform across London then funding levels to cope with “no recourse” families should not be uniform, but targeted to ensure effective service delivery.
As I come to a close, let me say that I understand that local authorities are under immense pressure from a population with growing and increasingly more complex needs, from year-after-year reductions in Government funding, from the hostile environment policy and from a host of other problems and concerns. That is why no one expects every council to be able immediately and perfectly to adopt every proposal that I and others have made. However, when the stakes are so high for the children and families involved, I ask local authorities, the Minister and the Government to make concrete steps in the right direction.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)
Let me begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) on securing this important debate today. A number of colleagues intervened on her, and I thank them for the points that they made—the hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon), for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Ged Killen), for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney), for Glasgow North East (Mr Sweeney), and for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham). The message that I want to convey to local government is that all children should have access to the support that they need to keep them safe regardless of immigration status. Our main interest tonight is the discharge by local authorities of the important responsibilities under section 17 of the Children’s Act 1989, for which I am the Minister responsible. I need first of all to say a word about how the “no recourse to public funds” condition comes into this.
The Project 17 report, which has helped to inspire this debate, concentrates on local authority support for families with no recourse to public funds under section 17 of the 1989 Act. In particular, it focuses on families who are destitute because they cannot claim benefits or access social housing owing to their immigration status. Those families turn to local authorities for support under section 17. They are, though, not the main group to whom the responsibilities under section 17 are applied, and we must not lose sight of the fact that these responsibilities of local authorities involve many more groups, who also have needs.
Some of the questions raised by the hon. Member for Edmonton and other hon. Members are based entirely on immigration status issues. I will ensure that they are brought to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration, and I have her assurance that she will write to hon. Members in response to questions that were entirely immigration related.
What it is perfectly sensible for me to do this evening is to set out the main points of the Government’s position, as approved by Parliament, when it comes to the “no recourse to public funds” condition. The position is quite simply that those seeking to establish their family life in the UK must do so on a basis that prevents burdens on the taxpayer and that promotes integration. That position has been approved by Parliament in primary legislation and is reflected in the immigration rules. The application of the “no recourse to public funds” condition to those with a temporary immigration status is, therefore, a standard means of pursuing that legitimate objective.
The Project 17 report and hon. Members who have spoken this evening have drawn attention to the fact that, for a certain group of families, the “no recourse to public funds” condition did not used to be automatically applied to their status, and that it is now. That is true. In their changes to the immigration rules in 2012, the Government acted to correct an anomaly whereby some groups were not expected to be self-sufficient. That was entirely necessary to ensure that the Government could fulfil their intention for incoming families to establish themselves here without needing access to our limited public funds.
The Government’s view is that access to public funds should still be available, but not automatically. For those now coming to the UK, therefore, no recourse to public funds is a standard position. But I must make it clear that there is scope in immigration legislation for family life and private life applicants to request that no recourse to public funds should not be imposed, or that it should be lifted once imposed. Those applications are given very careful consideration in the light of the applicant’s circumstances and the welfare of any children involved. Of course, that does not apply to those who have been refused leave to remain in the UK and whose appeals have been turned down by the courts. These individuals are expected to leave the UK and are not eligible for support from public funds.
Sometimes there are barriers to individuals leaving the UK—for example, the difficulty of obtaining documentation from their own national authorities. Parliament has accepted that, as a result, they may qualify for local authority support where that is necessary to avoid breaches of human rights obligations, and where children are involved. This is the group whose support needs are brought to our attention by the Project 17 report. The Government’s view is that the right framework exists for providing them with support. There will be occasions when the support is provided in order to avoid a breach of the adult’s human rights. There will also be occasions when support is provided under section 17 of the Children Act, because it is the specific needs of the children of the family that call for such supportive intervention. This means that such families are supported by local authorities, even if they have no recourse to public funds. However, these decisions are made locally, according to an individual local authority’s protocol and assessments.
Although the Government’s position is that those seeking to establish their family life in the UK must do so on a basis that prevents burdens on the taxpayer and promotes integration, nothing in any of the legislation prevents the provision of support to those in genuine need, whatever their immigration status and at whatever stage they are in their migration journey. The Government have an impressive track record of ensuring that those who are in genuine need are supported appropriately.
The Home Office provides specific support under section 95 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 to families with children who have come to seek asylum and cannot provide for their own needs. Individuals and families with children may also be granted recourse to public funds even if their leave would otherwise be subject to an NRPF condition, where there are compelling circumstances relating to destitution, the welfare of a child or exceptional financial circumstances. Local authorities may also provide basic safety net support to families with children using their own powers, if it is established that there is a genuine need that triggers an obligation under human rights or children’s legislation.
The hon. Lady mentioned local government funding. I recognise that Enfield and other local authorities are delivering in a challenging environment, and have had to make really tough, difficult choices as they work to meet the needs of the most vulnerable. I welcome the further £410 million in 2019-20 for local authorities to invest in adult and children’s social care services. That is on top of the more than £200 billion until 2020 made available at the 2015 spending review for councils to deliver local services, including children’s services. Of this, Enfield is currently forecast to have core spending power of £236 million for 2019-20—an increase of about 1.7% on the previous year. I would like to assure you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that my Department is continuing to work closely with the sector to build the strongest evidence base for long-term children’s services funding as part of the spending review.
The hon. Lady mentioned free school meals. Let me reiterate—it is important to put this on the record, because many people will be listening to this debate outside this place—that where a child is in need, for example because they are homeless or the parent cannot afford to meet the family’s basic needs, families with the NRPF condition are not prevented from getting additional help from their local authority’s social services department. To establish eligibility for assistance, the local authority must undertake a child in need assessment. It is clear that many local authorities are doing the right thing and delivering free school meals for those children.
Again, I thank the hon. Lady for securing this important debate. We have a shared ambition, I think, to ensure that the most vulnerable children have the safety net and stability that they need to enable them to thrive in their homes and in their families.
Question put and agreed to.