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Oral Answers to Questions
(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)
The Department of Health and Social Care works across government to ensure every child can have the best possible start in life. This includes a significant increase in mental health support in schools.
Lucy Powell
I thank the Secretary of State very much for that reply. May I first pay tribute to the former Minister, the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine)? I think his actions last night were very honourable, and he has been an exceptional Health Minister.
May I ask the Secretary of State also to look at how we can join up services much more strongly on the ground? Whether it is early years, child mental health or special educational needs and disability support, time and again we hear problems about how services are not joined up.
Matt Hancock
I agree with the hon. Lady on both counts. My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) was an excellent Public Health Minister, who did exemplary work and drove the agenda with great passion and determination, and he has behaved honourably in every sense.
On the point about cross-government working, the hon. Lady is completely right. The need to join up, breaking down the barriers of silos that sometimes exist between agencies, is vital. There is a huge amount of work under way in all of the areas she mentioned, and I am determined to see that work.
Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)
On Friday, I met two clinical commissioning groups that cover my constituency specifically to discuss mental health and children’s health and wellbeing. While it is an extremely complex issue, does the Secretary of State agree with me that, with the perceived rigorous spending rules requiring health providers to spend only on pure health services, it will remain extremely challenging for them to work with other agencies to support methods, such as those to build resilience, that improve outcomes for children’s health?
Matt Hancock
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this. The most forward-looking CCGs in the country are working with all sorts of partners—the voluntary sector, charities, local authorities—to deliver better services that make people healthier, even if they are not purely medicinal in the first instance. For instance, tennis lessons may sometimes help people, Mr Speaker, as may all sorts of other activities. This is all part of a broadening social-prescribing agenda to get people healthy, however that is best done.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
The Secretary of State will be aware that, last Monday, I published my report, with the Royal Society for Public Health, on children’s mental health and social media. May I place on the record my thanks to him for his tweet in support of the report? I have asked Education Ministers and I will be doing this with the devolved institutions as well, but would he agree to a meeting with me—and with the Mental Health Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price)—to look at the report and the recommendations so that we can start working across Departments and across devolved institutions?
Matt Hancock
I would be very happy to meet the hon. Gentleman and his all-party group on social media and young people’s mental health and wellbeing. It is an incredibly important topic. We must make sure that social media is safe and that we protect children’s mental health, which the evidence increasingly shows can be negatively impacted by the wrong use of social media. Social media can be a great, powerful force for good, but it also has its downsides and we need to mitigate those, and there is a lot more coming from the Government soon.
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
May I ask the Secretary of State to meet the Sport and Recreation Alliance to hear its ideas on how we ensure children and young people lead healthier and more active lives?
Matt Hancock
Yes, I would love to. I think this is an incredibly important agenda. It ties in directly with the question from my former ministerial colleague when I was at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch). There is lots to do on this agenda.
Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
There has been an alarming rise in the need for the use of baby banks for children. While I am proud that organisations such as Little Village in Tooting are doing such amazing work, it is shocking that we even need baby banks in this day and age. Does the Secretary of State agree with me that it is a stain on this Government and highlights the drastic inequalities seen in our society?
Matt Hancock
We are determined to do everything we can to support people, especially at the time—in the first 1,000 days—that is so critical to people’s whole lives, and that is an incredibly important part of the work. Improving maternity services is important, but the link-up with other broader agencies is also important, and we should not denigrate or downplay the vital role that charities too can play in supporting people.
David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for coming to Hinckley to see co-ordination and social prescribing in action. Will he be taking steps to further develop personal budgets, which save money and improve lives?
Matt Hancock
Yes, absolutely. Driving the social prescribing agenda, which is based on increasingly strong evidence of the power of social prescribing to help people stay healthy and get them healthy again when they are ill, will also involve wider use of personal budgets. Almost 1 million people have personal budgets.
Dr Paul Williams (Stockton South) (Lab)
I join my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) in paying tribute to the very hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), and I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders). Has the Secretary of State seen Professor Clare Bambra’s research in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health this month, showing that inequalities in infant mortality between deprived and more affluent areas fell between 1999 and 2010 when there was a Labour Government, and then increased from 2011 to 2017? Is it not true that only Labour has the range of co-ordinated, cross-governmental policies that reduce inequalities in child health?
Matt Hancock
No. The NHS long-term plan has a whole swathe of policy to reduce health inequalities. The best thing we can do to reduce health inequalities is ensure that more people are in work, and the record number of jobs that have been delivered is a vital part of that agenda.
Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)
The Minister for Health (Stephen Hammond)
The long-term plan sets out how we will make the NHS a world-class employer and ensure that the NHS has the people that it needs. The NHS, led by Baroness Harding, is engaging with people across the sector to develop a people plan. That plan will set out how the challenges of supply and demand reform can be met, and it will be published in the spring.
Derek Thomas
I thank the Minister for that response. In Cornwall, we have set up the Health and Social Care Academy, and we use the apprenticeship levy to enable local people to train within the NHS service or social care wherever they want to. However, there are many restrictions around the levy, and I wonder if the Minister will meet me and others to discuss how the levy can actually be about training and supporting people into the NHS, rather than just restrictions about paying fees.
Stephen Hammond
The apprenticeship levy was obviously introduced to cover the training and assessment costs of apprenticeships at a rate that would meet employee demand. I recognise some of the challenges that there are, and I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend to discuss the issues that he has raised.
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
Stephen Hammond
The hon. Gentleman knows that I wrote to him on 20 March on this issue, and I outlined that officials from DHSC had contacted the scheme administrator about the issues with Livewell. I can confirm that the members there would still be dealt with in the way set out prior to the implementation date, and I am happy to meet him.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
The best way that Kettering General Hospital could deliver the NHS’s 10-year plan would be to have the funding for an urgent care hub. I thank the Hospitals Minister for visiting recently. What can he do to ensure that that project is delivered?
Stephen Hammond
I was delighted to visit Kettering and to meet the chief executive and the chairman of the trust again. They made very strong representations. The representations by my hon. Friend and the trust have been heard, and he knows that they are at the forefront of my mind.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
Changes to the pensions allowance are particularly impacting consultants in their willingness to do additional shifts, or indeed stay in their roles, so what discussions has the Minister had with the Chancellor about the effect of the changes to pension allowances on the retention of consultants in the NHS?
Stephen Hammond
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I have both had conversations with the Treasury and the Chancellor, and there are ongoing discussions.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
The Government have done well to get more medical students into general practice, but we are not doing quite so well at retaining GPs later on. What more can we do to make sure that GPs stay in general practice, so that more of our constituents can go and see a doctor more easily?
Stephen Hammond
NHS Improvement has a number of retention schemes in place, for GPs and for nurses, to look at why some people are leaving. The interim plan being developed by Baroness Harding has an employer of excellence work stream, which will report on a number of potential issues.
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)
May I just take a moment, on behalf of the Opposition Front Bench team, to thank the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) for all his work? We found him a decent, fair-minded Minister, and I wish to pass on my personal thanks for the work that he did on the children of alcoholics agenda.
We have 100,000 vacancies across the NHS. The Brexit mess means that we have fewer EU nurses and health visitors. Across the NHS, voluntary resignations are up 55% since 2011, and the professional development budgets have been cut by £250 million. Does the Minister agree that for Dido Harding’s review to be taken seriously, those cuts to continuing professional development must be reversed?
Stephen Hammond
As the hon. Gentleman heard me say earlier, Baroness Harding is developing the implementation plan, which will then feed into the final implementation plan published after the comprehensive spending review. The cuts, as he describes them, are not cuts. He knows that we are increasing the budget for the NHS in real terms and in cash terms up to 2023-24.
Jonathan Ashworth
The Minister is responsible for workforce, but does not seem to understand that training budgets have been cut. Baroness Harding’s review will only be taken seriously if it is backed up by real investment.
Outsourcing and transferring of staff, whether to wholly owned subsidiaries or the privatisation of clinical services, further undermines staff morale and creates a more fragmented workforce. The Secretary of State went to the Health and Social Care Committee and said no more privatisations on his watch, yet cancer scanning services in Oxford are being privatised. Will the Minister reverse those privatisations, or can we simply not believe a word the Secretary of State says?
Stephen Hammond
The hon. Gentleman can believe everything my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State says. He has delivered on his promise to work with the NHS to deliver a long-term plan, to deliver the funding that will make it possible, and to deliver the workforce that will ensure the plan is not undermined.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jackie Doyle-Price)
The latest work from the Office for National Statistics shows that life expectancy is projected to increase, but none the less there are inequalities within those figures. That is why we are taking action to reduce smoking, prevent cardiovascular disease and diabetes, improve cancer outcomes and, of course, tackle childhood obesity. I can also add that reducing health inequalities is an important component of our NHS long-term plan. All local health systems will be expected to set out how they will specifically reduce health inequalities by 2023-24.
Liz Twist
Sir Michael Marmot, the world-recognised authority on public health, has warned that the country has, since 2010, stalled in the task of improving the life expectancy of our population. There are already wide inequalities. For example, a Gateshead man can expect to have 57 years of life in good health, compared to the England average of 63.4 years; and a Gateshead woman can expect to have an average of 59.1 years in good health, compared to the England average of 64.1 years. What is the Minister doing to redress those real inequalities?
Jackie Doyle-Price
As I mentioned, the NHS long-term plan will be asking local health systems to specifically address this issue. Certainly, there are particular trends that I personally want to address. They are the real inequalities that affect people with learning disabilities, which are worse than the figures the hon. Lady mentions. We also see that the outcomes she refers to can be laid at the door of a slowdown of heart disease and stroke mortality improvements, so we really need to focus our interventions there. We are also seeing an increase in the fall in life expectancy due to alcohol misuse.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
Medway has some of the highest health inequalities in the country. As the Minister rightly says, high inequalities are linked to a greater chance of a stroke. Despite that, the sustainability and transformation partnership and the clinical commissioning group decided to put an acute stroke service in Dartford, which is very close to London and is served by King’s College London. The criteria was not followed correctly. The matter is now with the Secretary of State to review. Can the Minister assure me that the criteria will be re-looked at to ensure that justice is done?
Jackie Doyle-Price
My hon. Friend will know that this has to be reviewed independently, but the Secretary of State does have duties to consider inequalities in all his work.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
I, too, wish to pay tribute to the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), who I sparred with many times in Westminster Hall. We might not have agreed on how to go about it, but he was clearly passionate about improving health.
The Secretary of State’s vision for NHS England includes video links to GPs, diagnostic phone apps and healthy people undergoing gene tests for a few hundred pounds. Considering his own experience of such a gene test, does he not recognise that this just increases access for the well-off, will drive demand in the system and will actually widen health inequalities?
Jackie Doyle-Price
I do not accept that at all. Apart from anything else, we are seeing younger generations be more technologically savvy. We are taking advantage of that technological innovation to spread good health prevention and to help people look after themselves.
Mr Speaker
I beg the hon. Lady’s pardon; I thought she wanted two questions on this. Maybe I was misinformed. Very well—she can have another question later.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)
The data that my right hon. Friend asks for is not available, but it is important that we take action to make sure the right drugs are available for the right people.
Sir Desmond Swayne
Was it intended to make them as rare as hens’ teeth? What measures is the Secretary of State taking to support clinicians in actually prescribing?
Matt Hancock
I met the parents of some of the children whose needs are best met through the use of medicinal cannabis. My heart goes out to those who are fighting for this cause. We changed the law in the autumn to try to make it easier, and I am looking very closely at what we can do to make sure that the intention of that decision is met.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
The Health Committee heard last week that patients are dying unnecessarily and up to a million families are being driven to criminality by getting medical cannabis illegally, and the situation has got worse since the Government changed the law in November. When are these families going to get access to medical cannabis for their children and other sufferers that they would have access to if they lived in Germany, the Netherlands, Canada or the United States?
Matt Hancock
As the right hon. Gentleman knows, I supported and indeed participated in the decision to ensure that access was made legal in the autumn, and I am working right now on trying to make sure that some of the challenges in the system are unblocked. Ultimately, these things have to be clinician led, but my sympathy is with those who are campaigning, whom I have met, because I know of the anguish that this problem is causing.
Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)
The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)
Extensive arrangements are already in place to help people afford NHS prescriptions. Those include a broad range of prescription charge exemptions, for which somebody with asthma may apply.
Mary Glindon
More than 90% of people on low incomes say they struggle to afford their prescriptions, and 71% told Asthma UK they skipped their asthma medication due to cost. Given the health inequalities in this country, will the Minister investigate that injustice?
Caroline Dinenage
People on low incomes who do not qualify for an exemption may be eligible for either full or partial help with prescription charges through the NHS low-income scheme. In addition, for those who do not qualify for that, the prescription pre-payment certificate is available, under which everybody can get all the prescriptions they need for only £2 a week.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
Of the 300,000 who have missed out on their prescriptions, a quarter have had a flare-up of their asthma and 13% have ended up in hospital. Does the Minister not accept that prescription charges simply are not cost-effective and should be abolished, as they have been in Scotland?
Caroline Dinenage
Almost 90% of prescription items dispensed in the community in England are free of charge. That includes medicines for the treatment of asthma. The fact is that people who, like me, suffer from asthma and need those prescriptions have to decide, as taxpayers—as the people funding our NHS—whether we would rather contribute to those prescriptions or see the underfunding we have seen in Scotland, where GPs have been underfunded by almost £660 million over the last four years. It is a case of priorities.
Julie Cooper (Burnley) (Lab)
I miss the former Minister, the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), but commend him for his principled stance.
The Minister is missing the point on prescription charges. It is now more than 50 years since the eligibility criteria for medical exemption charges were reviewed, and next week prescription charges will rise again, placing a financial burden on many who require regular medication for long-term conditions. Does she agree that it is high time the Government moved to address the very many anomalies in the system? How can it be fair that patients with some chronic illnesses get free prescriptions for all their ailments, while asthma sufferers pay for everything? When will she review this unfair system?
Caroline Dinenage
We all miss my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), so I thank the hon. Lady for her comments.
Since prescription charges were introduced, Governments of all colours have decided that some patients should pay prescription charges to contribute to the cost of running the NHS, but almost 90% of prescription items are dispensed in the community free of charge, which I think the hon. Lady will agree is an enormous amount.
Mr Stephen Hepburn (Jarrow) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)
On 11 March, I held a meeting with all the parties to discuss how best to ensure that people with cystic fibrosis and their families can benefit from the best drugs as soon as possible. Vertex, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and NHS England met on Thursday and have agreed to take those discussions forward.
Mr Hepburn
Does the Secretary of State support immediate interim access to Orkambi while the negotiations are going on, and has he asked NHS England, NICE and Vertex to consider this option?
Matt Hancock
We are having constructive discussions—I am delighted that finally Vertex has agreed to participate in them; the parties have committed to providing the data needed for an objective assessment of the drugs in question, and I look forward to the discussions proceeding effectively.
Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)
A constituent of mine came to see me in my surgery. He had been born with cystic fibrosis and told me what a transformative effect the drug had had on him. He was lucky enough to be accepted on the trial, but he says we need to raise awareness because millions of people are not getting the drug. What response can the Secretary of State give to him and fellow sufferers?
Matt Hancock
My hon. Friend’s constituent is absolutely right about raising awareness of the issue and the need for these drugs. I know the impact that cystic fibrosis can have on people and of the hope that these drugs will save lives. We have made a significant offer to the pharmaceutical company, Vertex, to allow these drugs to be provided in the UK, and I very much hope we can come to an agreement.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
On NICE decision making, my young constituents Nicole and Jessica Rich have the life-limiting rare condition Batten disease. Last month, NICE turned down a proven treatment for the condition after a year of deliberation. I and several cross-party colleagues wrote to the Secretary of State to ask if we could discuss this urgent matter, but we received a reply from the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Baroness Blackwood), saying that she could not meet us because of diary commitments. This is insulting. Will the Secretary of State meet us to discuss this urgent issue?
Matt Hancock
Yes, of course I will. I understand exactly where that process has got to. It concerns a different drug from the one in the question, but it is also a very important consideration for a number of people.
Luke Hall (Thornbury and Yate) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State agree to or consider temporary interim access to Orkambi while the negotiations continue, and has he had any discussion so far on that subject?
Matt Hancock
I am happy to consider all options that can secure access in a way that provides value for money based on an objective assessment of what is clinically right. That is the basis of our discussions.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
I am glad that the Secretary of State is taking a personal interest in this matter. In Thursday’s debate, I mentioned the case of Oli Rayner, who gave evidence to the Health Select Committee. He fell ill in his 30s and was given Orkambi just to make him well enough to undergo a lung transplant operation. Is it not ludicrous to wait until people are virtually at death’s door before being prepared to give them the drug?
Matt Hancock
That is one very important consideration. Having met people suffering from cystic fibrosis and heard directly the stories they tell about the impact on their lives and how it potentially shortens their lives, I think it is very important that we find a solution, which is why I was so determined to bring the parties together.
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)
The new five-year national action plan to tackle antimicrobial resistance contains the commitment to support more research into new and alternative treatments, including vaccines and diagnostic tests, to promote broader access to vaccines for both humans and animals.
Stephen Crabb
Stopping the spread of diseases such as TB by using vaccines will play a key role in tackling AMR worldwide, so what plans does my right hon. Friend have for building on the excellent work of the UK Vaccine Network, with all the funding that goes with that, to ensure continued UK leadership in vaccinology?
Matt Hancock
My right hon. Friend is right to raise this issue. Of all the challenges facing the world, the risk that antibiotics will fail to work in the future is a huge one that we cannot afford to allow to come to pass. We are putting significant research money into the production of new antibiotics and ensuring that we roll out vaccines so that antibiotics do not have to be used.
The use of antibiotics in the chicken population in the United Kingdom has fallen by more than 70% over the last five years. This is doable: we will provide the money that is necessary to ensure that people can use antibiotics well into the future.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
May I beg the Secretary of State to snap out of the trance that he now seems to be in and wake up to the fact that many of the key researchers in this area are going back to their European homes because of the threat of Brexit? We are losing Spanish nurses, for instance, on whom my constituents absolutely depend for healthcare. Up and down the country, our health system is haemorrhaging talent because of the Secretary of State’s lack of action. Wake up, Secretary of State, and smell the coffee!
Matt Hancock
I am afraid that I profoundly disagree with the hon. Gentleman, who used to be so sensible. Antimicrobial resistance is a global problem and we contribute to global funds, because only by coming together as a whole world will we be able to tackle it— and that is what we are going to do.
Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)
The Minister for Health (Stephen Hammond)
Health Education England is leading a national nursing associate expansion plan to train 7,500 apprentice associates in 2019, building on the 5,000 who were trained in 2018.
Andrew Lewer
The University of Northampton successfully carried out its partnership with Northampton General Hospital in training the first wave of nursing associates in the United Kingdom, as the Secretary of State saw when he visited the hospital recently. What can he and his team do to encourage other universities and local hospitals to form partnerships to deliver similar results?
Stephen Hammond
I know that the Secretary of State enjoyed his visit and was very impressed by what he saw. Health Education England has led the establishment of test site partnerships across England. There were 11 test sites in the first wave and a further 24 in April 2017, and the programme is now being rolled out all over the country.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
What discussions has the Minister had with nursing associations and the Home Secretary about the recruitment of nurses and social care workers from the European Union after we leave and about how it can be made easier?
Stephen Hammond
I know that my hon. Friend the Minister for Care met the Home Secretary last week and that there are ongoing discussions.
Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)
The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)
The National Institute for Health Research is supporting the study of Lyme disease by researching markers that would offer a faster and more accurate diagnosis. Meanwhile, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has published clinical guidance for the diagnosis and treatment of the disease for healthcare professionals.
Sir Hugo Swire
Lyme disease is often misdiagnosed or diagnosed late, which results in widespread suffering such as joint pain, paralysis and brain damage. Will the Minister therefore join me in congratulating the charity Caudwell LymeCo, which has pledged £1 million in research funding, and will her Department commission research on a better test for the disease?
Caroline Dinenage
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this issue. We know that the outcome of Lyme disease depends on whether it is diagnosed and treated at an early stage. That is why my Department commissioned four separate independent systematic reviews of all the relevant literature on the diagnosis, treatment, transition and prevention of the disease, which were published in December 2017 and which assess the existing evidence for the research community, research funders and the public. We welcome all independent researchers who want to do more work on that basis.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
My constituents have faced many challenges in relation to Lyme disease. They have had to go overseas to be tested and given a diagnosis. However, the NHS does not recognise those tests. What is the Minister doing about that?
Caroline Dinenage
Most people are diagnosed and treated successfully by GPs and recover uneventfully, but in a few cases people who are diagnosed late or are not treated adequately may develop significant complications. That is why the National Institute for Health Research welcomes applications for research funds.
Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)
Caroline Dinenage
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this: we do need to do more in this space, and that is why we are investing over £1 billion a year in health research through the National Institute of Health Research.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
What evaluation is being put in place to see how effective the 2018 NICE guidelines for clinicians on managing Lyme disease are in improving the treatment of this dreadful disease?
Caroline Dinenage
All NICE guidelines are permanently kept under review. If the research we are investing in throws new light on any issues, that will always be taken into consideration.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)
It is a great pity to see the hon. Gentleman back up there on the Back Benches as he was such a force—and a rare force—for reason and progress on the Opposition Front Bench until recently.
Standards in the NHS should be based on clinical evidence, and NHS England’s proposals will be rigorously field-tested to gather further evidence on clinical, operational, workforce and financial implications, all with the goal of improving the quality of care.
Justin Madders
I thank the Secretary of State for his tribute—although it is not going to change the question I am going to ask. He will be aware that since July 2015 the four-hour A&E target has not been met and last month saw the worst performance on record, so regardless of any clinical reviews, is it not time that Ministers admitted that the four-hour A&E target has effectively been abandoned?
Matt Hancock
Of course, we are aiming to meet and improve against the targets, including with the injection of the extra money—£34 billion extra in cash terms over the next five years. At the same time, we must make sure that the standards to which we hold the NHS are the right ones clinically for the times, and that is what this review of standards is all about.
Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jackie Doyle-Price)
We have some of the highest HPV—human papillomavirus—vaccination rates in the world. This month we launched a major new national campaign to increase the number of women attending cervical screening across England, and throughout the NHS long-term plan we have committed to radically overhaul screening programmes and further invest in the latest technology to transform diagnosis and boost research and innovation.
Mary Robinson
Figures from Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust show that 200,000 women in Greater Manchester have missed their smear test, including half of women aged 25 to 29, yet we know that smear tests save lives. What are the Government doing to raise awareness of the importance of attending screening to prevent cervical cancer?
Jackie Doyle-Price
My hon. Friend is right: cervical screening saves up to 5,000 lives every year, so we cannot do enough to encourage women to take advantage of the screening. It is not the most pleasant experience to go through, but it can save lives. I would encourage everyone to take advantage of the screening, and we will continue to do our best to promote it.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
In Newcastle, cervical screening rates have fallen since 2010: they range from 85% to just 23% and are consistently lower in poorer areas and among younger women and ethnic minority women, and across the UK women are more likely to die in more deprived areas. What specifically is the Minister doing not just to encourage women to attend but to make screening more available at the weekends, out of hours and closer to where people live?
Jackie Doyle-Price
The hon. Lady makes some excellent points and highlights those areas of the community where take-up is much lower. We need to be more imaginative about how we promote the need for screening, and in that regard I am very pleased to see the work of Jo’s Trust, and also that of the Eve Appeal to raise awareness. We can all do our bit, and I would encourage everyone to spread the word about the need to get screened.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
I, too, want to start by paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders)—he is a big loss to the Front Bench—and also to the Minister I used to shadow, the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine). Credit where it is due: I know cancer charities and campaigners are all tweeting their regret, because the hon. Gentleman was, and hopefully will remain, a true ally of that cause.
Cervical cancer is the most common cancer in women. Smear tests can prevent 75% of cervical cancers from developing, but one in four women do not attend their smear tests and screening is now at a 21-year low. This was not helped by the failure of the outsourced screening to Capita, which failed to write to 48,000 women in six months. What are the Government going to do to ensure that women and girls know what happens at a smear test, what it is for and why it is so important?
Jackie Doyle-Price
As the hon. Lady will know, we have brought that service back in-house, but we should leave no stone unturned in relation to thinking more imaginatively about how we spread the word about the need for screening. I should like to pay tribute to those celebrities who have tweeted pictures of themselves going for their smear tests, because it is only by normalising it and ensuring that everyone realises that it is something they should do that we are going to encourage take-up.
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)
Primary and community care are set to receive an additional £4.5 billion a year of taxpayers’ money as part of the NHS long-term plan, to ensure that we can get the best possible access to GPs.
Helen Whately
In parts of my constituency, it is very difficult for people to see their GP. For example, in the area of Park Wood, there is just one GP for 4,000 patients. I welcome the extra money going into primary care that my right hon. Friend just mentioned, as well as the additional GP training places and the fact that a Kent medical school is coming our way, but we need more nurses, physios and other health professionals in primary care. What is he doing to ensure that people can see the right health professional when they need to do so?
Matt Hancock
This is an incredibly important agenda that is close to my heart. It is at the core of the prevention of ill health to ensure that we have the right primary care services. Yes, that includes more GPs, but it also includes more of the other health professionals who support them. We have 1,000 extra non-GP clinical staff already working in general practice compared with just two years ago, but there is much more to do.
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
But what is the Secretary of State doing about retaining GPs? This is a real problem, and we have seen more and more GPs taking early retirement in recent years. What is he doing specifically to support retention?
Matt Hancock
This is a core question that Baroness Dido Harding’s workforce review will be looking into, and work is going on right across government to try to fix it.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
GPs are the first line of defence against superbugs and antimicrobial resistance, and the Secretary of State is already proving to be a world leader in this area. The idea of a resistance tax has the support of other world leaders including Lord O’Neill and Dame Sally Davies. Would he consider this approach?
Matt Hancock
I am happy to look at all approaches to how we can reduce the overuse of antibiotics to preserve them so that they work effectively where they are needed. Of course GPs have a role to play in that, and the number of antibiotics prescribed by GPs has fallen in recent years, but again there is much more work to do.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Will the Minister outline whether his Department is willing to enter into an agreement with medical students to wipe out their student loans if they contract to carry out five years of GP service?
Matt Hancock
That is an interesting proposition and I would be happy to talk to the hon. Gentleman more about the idea. I was in Northern Ireland last week looking at medical services there and at what we can learn, and that might be another idea.
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
The Minister for Health (Stephen Hammond)
Workforce is a key priority for the Government, which is why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State asked Baroness Dido Harding to develop an interim workforce implementation plan for the spring, including a 2019-20 action plan. It is right that local leaders and clinicians should be empowered to shape the services they need, which is why NHS Improvement has written to all system leaders in England to ask for their views on the vision that is coming forward.
Jeff Smith
The all-party parliamentary group on mental health’s recent report found that workforce is the biggest challenge to delivering improvements to mental health care. Given that there are 4,000 fewer mental health nurses than there were in 2010, what additional guidance and funding will the Government provide to ensure that local partnerships can recruit mental health nurses, and what are they doing to expand medical school places so that we can train more doctors, particularly in psychiatric specialties?
Stephen Hammond
The hon. Gentleman asked a number of questions there. It is true that the NHS has recently asked all sustainability and transformation partnerships and integrated care systems to create new five-year plans by autumn 2019 setting out how they are going to transform services. He will know that mental health is a priority in the long-term plan and that we are expanding the number of places for clinicians.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend meet me to discuss the severe shortage of pathologists to carry out post mortems? Professor Peter Hutton’s report referenced some ideas that we could take forward.
Stephen Hammond
My hon. Friend has already mentioned several such ideas and I would be happy to meet him to discuss them.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
Stephen Hammond
The hon. Gentleman is right: early diagnosis of cancer is vital for successful outcomes. The Government are absolutely committed to a cancer workforce with the skills and expertise to ensure that 75% of all cancers are diagnosed early, not just the top 10. As I have said several times, that is why we asked Baroness Dido Harding to develop a detailed workforce plan to ensure that that can be delivered.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
Blood cancer is the fifth most common and the third biggest killer in the UK. What assurances can I get that the workforce in that area will be increased?
Stephen Hammond
My hon. Friend has been a champion of this cause for a long time, raising the matter on the Floor of the House several times. He can be assured that, as I said to the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson), Baroness Harding has been asked to bring forward detailed plans for the cancer workforce in her implementation plan.
Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)
Mental health nurse numbers have fallen for the second month running, and learning disability nurse numbers have fallen by 40% since this Government came to power. Nearly 13,000 mental health staff left their roles between May and October 2018, and the vacancy rate is now almost 10%. The King’s Fund, the Nuffield Trust and the Health Foundation say that
“Urgent action is now required to avoid a vicious cycle of growing shortages and declining quality.”
Is it not time for Ministers to start taking such advice, rather than giving it?
Stephen Hammond
The Department of course takes such things seriously. My hon. Friend the Minister of State for Care met Baroness Harding last week to discuss how to ensure that there are nurses and carers to help people with learning disabilities. The money that has been promised to make that possible comes in the new financial year, which starts next week.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)
We are pursuing a multi-agency approach to prevent and tackle serious violence. Healthcare is of course one of the important and relevant agencies that need to work together right across government to reduce knife crime.
Vicky Foxcroft
The Government are committed to a public health approach, but we heard the Secretary of State dismiss it just a few weeks ago. What assurances can he give that he is now fully signed up to the approach? What evidence is his Department collating? How is the Department working with the Home Office to ensure that we have a long-term strategy for keeping our young people safe?
Matt Hancock
I am a huge fan of the public health approach to tackling knife crime. In fact, I was in Croydon yesterday to talk to charities and to students at Croydon College about the role the NHS can play in tackling the scourge of knife crime. I am a big fan of this agenda, and I look forward to working with the hon. Lady and colleagues from across the House.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jackie Doyle-Price)
All children should receive good-quality relationships and sex education so that they understand the benefits of healthy relationships and how to protect themselves against sexually transmitted infections, HIV, unplanned pregnancy and abuse.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle
Does the Minister believe that the £6 million allocated for relationships and sex education is enough when it equates to a few hundred quid per school? Her Department has cut £3.2 billion from public health spending, meaning that many young people now cannot access STI testing, and we are seeing a boom in STIs among young people.
Jackie Doyle-Price
The hon. Gentleman’s question is actually a matter for the Department for Education, but I do not accept his statement. The new relationships and sex education proposals were widely welcomed across the House when they were announced, and we will improve children’s ability to look after themselves and have healthy sexual relationships.
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)
We all in this House have huge admiration for the dedicated staff who work night and day to deliver world-class care to patients in our NHS. We should recognise that today marks the 75th anniversary of the publication of the White Paper on the establishment of the NHS, delivered in this House by a Conservative Minister, under a Conservative Prime Minister.
Stephen Crabb
The prescription of powerful painkillers has soared, as has the number of overdoses and deaths from these prescription drugs, with some of the worst statistics in the poorest areas of the country. What is my right hon. Friend doing to reverse this worrying trend?
Matt Hancock
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this. There has been a rise in opioid-related deaths, and we need to work across government to tackle the problem. Public Health England is reviewing prescription drug dependence, including opioid dependence, and we recently announced a review of over-prescription in the NHS to make sure patients are taking the right medicines for the right amount of time.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
There are still 2,295 patients who are autistic or who have learning disabilities in hospital in-patient settings, despite a Government pledge in 2012 that no one would be in inappropriate settings by 2014. In 2015, the Government said they would close up to 50% of these in-patient places, and they failed to meet that pledge, too, because of a lack of social care funding. Will the Secretary of State now commit to proper social care funding for this programme and renew the pledge to end the misery of these placements by 2022?
The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)
The NHS long-term plan has made it clear that learning disability and autism are one of the key clinical pillars in its absolute priorities. This transforming care work is incredibly important. Where people need access to in-patient services for assessment and treatment of their needs, it has to be for as short a time as possible, it has to be as close to home as possible and it has to be with a very clear discharge plan in place.
Kirstene Hair (Angus) (Con)
Matt Hancock
I will certainly do that, and I am very surprised and disappointed to hear what my hon. Friend has to report. I pay tribute to her work in leading on this agenda, including setting up the all-party parliamentary group. She has campaigned hard to get the Scottish Government to act. Given the progress we have made on the target—by 2021, 95% of children and young people with an eating disorder receiving treatment within one week for urgent cases and four weeks for routine cases—we are on track to meet it. That is something we should be discussing, at the very least, with our Scottish colleagues.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
Matt Hancock
We have a range of work going on to improve access to innovative new treatments, both pharmaceutical treatments and the broader treatments that the hon. Gentleman describes, including ensuring, through an accelerated access collaborative led by the former Labour Minister Lord Darzi, that we drive innovation and that those innovations are taken up by other parts of the NHS.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. Last night, in the heat of the moment, I was discourteous to the right hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands), and thereafter I apologised to him. However, I take this opportunity in the Chamber today to repeat that apology unreservedly to the right hon. Gentleman, and I hope he will accept it in the genuine and sincere spirit in which the apology is intended.
Greg Hands (Chelsea and Fulham) (Con)
Matt Hancock
My right hon. Friend was not only a very good Whip, but is a very good constituency MP. He has made his case very well. “Shaping a healthier future” is no longer supported by the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS Improvement or NHS England. The NHS will look at parts of the proposals that are in line with the long-term plan, such as the aspects that are focused on expanding the treatment of people in the community. As for the changes in A&E in west London that are part of “Shaping a healthier future”—for instance, those at Charing Cross Hospital, which he mentioned—these will not happen.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jackie Doyle-Price)
The hon. Lady makes a very good point. I had regular discussions with the sadly departed Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, who provided really great challenge within the Department for Work and Pensions about how it handles such assessments. We must do all we can do to humanise them, especially when people are going through periods of ill health.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
The Minister for Health (Stephen Hammond)
I commend my hon. Friend for his commitment to raising the local priorities of his constituents and for the campaigning he does on behalf of the local NHS. I think that these plans are best worked through by the local NHS. However, if he would like, I would be happy to meet him to discuss the concerns that he has on behalf of his constituents.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)
Caroline Dinenage
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to draw the House’s attention to how vital local community services are in supporting people and to say that we really do need to invest in them. Clearly, these matters of investment are for local areas, which is why we allow CCGs to make these decisions, but I am more than happy to meet him to discuss the matter.
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State give an evaluation of the “Future Fit” programme? We have secured more than £300 million for investment in our local hospital trust. What is his understanding of where the “Future Fit” programme has got to?
Matt Hancock
I have called in the independent review panel and asked it to consider all the evidence, at the request of the local council, to ensure that we properly assess all the evidence. We have made the money available, but we must ensure that the plans are the best ones possible for both Shrewsbury and Telford.
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)
Caroline Dinenage
The Government take this very seriously. The NHS long-term plan sets out priorities for the NHS, and deaths from respiratory disease is a key indicator and an absolute priority. However, it is only right that people who can afford to pay for their prescriptions, like me—I am an asthma sufferer and I can afford to do it—do so. Local areas have to decide those priorities. At the moment, 90% of prescriptions are free.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
Can Ministers outline the latest steps to support the children of alcohol-dependent parents? In the forthcoming alcohol strategies, will greater support be promoted for the families of alcoholics, who are often best placed to help to reduce alcohol harm in their loved ones?
Matt Hancock
Absolutely. My hon. Friend is right to stress the role of families in supporting the children of alcoholics. We made progress on that and were able to announce funding just last week. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) for all his work—I enjoyed doing it with him—to do everything we can to support the children of alcoholics.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Matt Hancock
The relative funding across the country for different areas is assessed independently, and by law NHS England makes that assessment. I am happy to write to the hon. Gentleman with the precise details of how those allocations are devised—I am sure that he has got them; they are widely available—and an explanation of the conclusion that NHS England independently reached.
David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)
What is being done to improve co-ordination between orthopaedic surgeons, osteopaths and chiropractors to reduce the burden on surgeons?
Matt Hancock
It is an important part of the agenda that we look right across the piece at interventions that can benefit patients. I know full well, not least because I am married to a former osteopath, the positive impact that that can have.
Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)
In a debate on 24 January in this Chamber, many contributors outlined the dangers of using graded exercise therapy in treating ME. What conversations has the Department had with NICE on that issue before the proposed publication of the revised treatment guidelines in October 2020?
Caroline Dinenage
There are ongoing conversations. As the hon. Gentleman knows, NICE is updating existing clinical guidance on the diagnosis and management of ME and chronic fatigue syndrome. That guidance will be published in 2020.
Julia Lopez (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)
I met the Secretary of State to discuss my campaign for a new health centre in Hornchurch and I welcome his subsequent announcement that NHS trusts can apply for NHS property assets. Will my right hon. Friend let me know how and when they can make those applications and whether he will consider fast-tracking any bid we make, given how close we were to receiving capital funding?
Matt Hancock
There is no better advocate for Hornchurch in the Chamber than my hon. Friend. She made her case with passion and commitment and I was very impressed by it. I will write to her with the full details, once they are published, of exactly how the process will work, and I look forward to working with her.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
The north-west of England has only half the number of ambulances per head of population as London. In rural Cumbria, the situation is far worse. Will the Secretary of State agree to our proposal for an additional two ambulances for Westmorland so that we can keep our communities safe?
Stephen Hammond
The hon. Gentleman will know that, in the winter funding round, extra ambulances were provided across the whole country. I am happy to meet him and discuss his proposals, which I will then consider carefully.
Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)
ADHD Solutions is a community interest company based in the constituency of the shadow Health Secretary that serves children and young people with ADHD across Leicester and Leicestershire. Fifty per cent. of its referrals come from the NHS, yet it does not get funding for those referrals; however, those NHS services are able to meet NICE guidelines because ADHD Solutions is doing the job. Will the Health Secretary meet me and the shadow Health Secretary to discuss that?
Jackie Doyle-Price
I have corresponded with my right hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), but I am more than happy to meet them to discuss that issue. From my perspective, services for people with ADHD are a bit of a Cinderella and I would like to do my best to address that, working with colleagues across the House.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
With a throwaway answer to the right hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands), the Secretary of State has just pulled the west London strategic health framework, which has governed the delivery of hospital and community services for most of the last decade, absorbed tens of thousands of hours and cost hundreds of millions of pounds. Why has he not thought it appropriate to bring forward a statement so that the many of us who are concerned with this issue have an opportunity to interrogate the many very serious implications that this has for the delivery of healthcare across west London?
Matt Hancock
The hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter), who is sitting next to her, have run, over a number of years, totally inappropriate scare stories about what they said were potential changes to A&E in west London as part of “Shaping a healthier future”. It has been one of the worst aspects of local parliamentary campaigning and I am absolutely clear that the changes in A&E in west London as part of “Shaping a healthier future” will not happen. However, there are elements of “Shaping a healthier future” that are about more community services and treating more people in the community. We look forward to working with the local NHS on those parts of the proposal.
Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State, on behalf of this House, thank doctors and nurses in the NHS for the amazing news that death rates from breast cancer are falling at a faster rate here than in the six largest countries in Europe and that, since 2010, death rates have fallen by 17.7%? He will know that I raised the issue of my constituent Nicola Morgan Dingley, who is suffering from terminal breast cancer. He very kindly wrote to me. Will he agree to meet Nicola so that she can describe to him the challenges faced by women with triple negative breast cancer?
Matt Hancock
Yes, of course, I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend and his constituent. He is right that the fall in deaths from breast cancer is huge progress that we have made as a country. I pay tribute to the work of the NHS on that but, of course, every such death is a tragedy and we need to do yet more.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
“Shaping a healthier future” was the biggest hospital closure programme in the history of the NHS, with the loss of two major hospitals, including Charing Cross in my constituency. It was fully supported by the Conservative party not only nationally, but locally, as the right hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands) well knows. After seven years, millions of pounds wasted in consultants, staff leaving through insecurity and 2 million people across west London threatened with the loss of essential and world-class hospitals, is that it today? Abandoning “Shaping a healthier future” is a victory for the people of Hammersmith, for the Save our Hospitals campaigners and for our Labour council, but there has been appalling judgment by a succession of Governments and Secretaries of State. Will this Secretary of State now apologise to my constituents?
Matt Hancock
It is astonishing, is it not? My right hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands) has made this case with objective clarity and reasonableness, is supporting his constituents and led to a very positive outcome, keeping the A&Es open but still doing the positive work in the community, and all we continue to get is information that I regard as erroneous from the hon. Gentleman, who has campaigned in the most terrible way on this over many years.
Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con)
A nine-year-old constituent of mine, Lydia Heptinstall, is a very brave sufferer of hypermobile Elhers-Danlos syndrome. She suffers from joint pain, headaches and numerous other symptoms and cannot do the things that other children can do. Will the Minister meet me to discuss Lydia and what the Government are doing to raise awareness of this condition?
Matt Hancock
Yes, of course, I would be very happy to meet my hon. Friend and talk about her constituent’s concerns.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
I am wearing purple today for Epilepsy Day. What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the causes of ongoing shortages of epilepsy medications? What action is being taken to address those problems and what impact will Brexit have on the supply of those medicines?
Matt Hancock
I, too, am wearing purple—purple socks in my case—to support this important campaign. Of course, we have done enormous amounts of work across the NHS. I pay tribute to the NHS and to suppliers for working to ensure that, whatever the Brexit outcome, there will be the continued supply of medicines, but there is one thing that the hon. Lady can do if she really wants to make sure that we put this issue to bed once and for all—vote for the deal.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. I am sorry for disappointed remaining colleagues, but we must now move on. Before I take a possible point of order appertaining to business of which we have just treated, I want to say something with reference to yesterday’s decisions and tomorrow’s business.
Speaker’s Statement
Mr Speaker
I understand that the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) will be tabling a business of the House motion at approximately 4 pm today. Members have until the rise of the House this evening to table motions to be considered tomorrow under the indicative votes procedure. The indicative votes procedure itself, I must advise the House, will be set out in the amendable business of the House motion, which the House will debate tomorrow. I will leave it there for now. The Leader of the House will be making a supplementary business statement later, after the urgent question on Yemen. I hope, as a guide, that is helpful to the House.
Points of Order
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker.
Mr Speaker
We cannot have a replay of Question Time because people are disappointed with the answers they got or whatever, but if there is some material point of order to be articulated briefly, I will hear it.
Debbie Abrahams
Can you advise me, Mr Speaker? I think the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price), might have inadvertently misled the House in her response to Question 3 on health inequalities when she stated that there was an increase in life expectancy. In fact, the latest figures show that life expectancy has been revised downwards. Public Health England has done an investigation into this trend. Can you advise me, Mr Speaker, on how she might correct the record?
Mr Speaker
What I would say to the hon. Lady is that every Member in this place is responsible for what he or she says in it. If a Minister believes that an error has been made from the Treasury Bench, it is of course incumbent upon that Minister to correct the record. We shall have to wait to see whether the Minister judges that that is necessary in this case. If it is and it happens, I dare say the hon. Lady will be at least partly satisfied. If it is not thought to be required and therefore does not happen, my advice to her is to persist, if she wishes, through the use of the Order Paper, repairing to the Table Office to table questions, and seeking opportunities to ventilate the matter further at appropriate junctures in the Chamber.
Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. As always in Health questions, you did your level best to get as many Back Benchers in as possible, so that we could put questions on behalf of our constituents, but obviously the desire of Members of this House to hold the Government to account on the NHS is such that Health questions are oversubscribed, as always. Every time we have Health questions, there are more people standing than the time allows. As Back Benchers, what can we do either to get more time for Health questions, which are so important, or to have them more regularly, so that Back Benchers can properly represent their constituents?
Mr Speaker
There are two possibilities. One is that Members can table further written questions—if they have already tabled some—or table them for the first time on the matter about which they are concerned and in relation to which they did not have an opportunity at oral questions. That is one avenue open to the hon. Gentleman and other Members.
Secondly, if the hon. Gentleman has a bigger concern, which I detect perhaps he has, and thinks that the salience of the issues and the level of interest in them are such that they warrant a greater allocation of time in the Chamber, my advice is to write to the distinguished Chair of the Procedure Committee, his hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), to inquire what the Committee might think about allocating greater time to these matters by comparison with others. For my part, as the hon. Gentleman would know, I would happily sit in the Chamber all day and probably all night, listening to nothing other than the dulcet and mellifluous tones of my colleagues in relation to these important matters.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Could you further clarify your advice to the House about the processes to be followed tomorrow, and your suggestion about tabling proposed amendments before the rise of the House? There is a risk—we do not know—that the business on the Order Paper might collapse early. Would it not be more opportune to set a time by which all amendments should be tabled in case the business were to collapse and the House rise early?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I confess that I had not considered that point. The Clerk at the Table, having consulted his scholarly cranium with characteristic speed, has swivelled around to advise me on this matter, and he does not think it necessary; on balance, I do not think it necessary either. The hon. Gentleman is obviously concerned about the possibility that the business of the House might conclude early, but it is not automatically to be assumed that that will be so. If that eventuality were to arise and Members were to be disadvantaged as a consequence, I would have to revisit the issue because my concern is to facilitate colleagues.
As things stand, I am working on the assumption—considering matters lying ahead, and playing for time as I do and as colleagues can see—that this need not arise. We have an urgent question on the situation in Yemen, consideration of the Healthcare (International Arrangements) Bill and a number of other items of business, including the consideration of Lords amendments to the Offensive Weapons Bill and a motion regarding section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993 that is amendable. I give the hon. Gentleman a hint that hon. Members may have expressed an interest to me in amending that motion. I can therefore see some hours of learned and eloquent debate ahead of us. I hope that allays his concern.
Melanie Onn
Sorry to disappoint you, Mr Speaker. It appears that hon. Members are able to submit oral questions for the weeks beginning 8 April and 15 April. Is that accurate, and has future business been amended?
Mr Speaker
I am advised that it may be a glitch in the system. The short answer is that the business for those weeks has not been announced. As I think the puckish grin on the hon. Lady’s face testifies, she knows that the business is a matter of some uncertainty at this stage. I do not know any more than she does, and as of this moment I possibly do not know any better than Members on the Government and Opposition Front Benches as to whether the House will be sitting in the weeks of 8 April and/or 15 April. It is a matter still to be determined.
Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am sure that the whole House will join me in condemning the abhorrent racist abuse directed at England footballers during their match last night. I know that you will agree that we must do everything we can to stamp out this vile behaviour. Can you advise me whether it would be reasonable to expect the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to come to the House and make a statement on what the Government are doing to protect our players abroad and what action they are taking to push for the strongest possible punishments?
Mr Speaker
It is certainly perfectly reasonable for the hon. Lady to hope for a statement. Whether the Secretary of State has a plan to do so imminently—in truth, I do not know. It may be intended. There are other ways in which the House can air its concerns on the matter. I share entirely the hon. Lady’s view. Any and all racist abuse is to be utterly and unreservedly condemned, and all of us who have public voices—if I may put it that way—should take the opportunity to make it clear that there can be no justification for that behaviour by anyone, anywhere and at any time. A huge amount of work has been done by anti-racist organisations in football and more widely across sport to try to change behaviour and change the attitudes that underlie abhorrent behaviour. It is only a pity to note that, despite some fantastic work—of which the hon. Lady will also be well aware—much still remains to be done.
Yemen
(5 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab) (Urgent Question)
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the situation in Yemen.
The Minister for Asia and the Pacific (Mark Field)
I hope you will indulge me for just one moment, Mr Speaker, while I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), who has left office and, in a normal state of affairs, would have been answering this question. He is a very old friend of mine. We have shared offices not just in the Foreign Office but in Portcullis House. I know that he will make a great contribution to international affairs and elsewhere, not least in the middle east, in the rest of his time in Parliament.
Today is the fourth anniversary of the intervention by the Saudi-led coalition into the conflict in Yemen, at the invitation of the Government of Yemen, which began when the Houthi rebels captured most of the capital, Sana’a, and expelled the internationally recognised Government. Since then, Yemen’s humanitarian crisis, the largest in the world, has continued to worsen, as many right hon. and hon. Members know. We call on both sides urgently to implement the agreements made at the Stockholm peace talks and bring an end to this dire conflict.
The United Kingdom is at the forefront of work towards a political solution to this conflict—there can only be a political solution, in the long term—and we will continue to show leadership as part of international efforts to end the appalling suffering that millions are facing. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary visited the region at the beginning of the month in a display of the UK’s support for efforts to secure peace. During this time, he visited the port city of Aden, becoming the first western Foreign Minister to visit Yemen since the conflict began. He also attended the peace talks in Stockholm last December. This year—the tax year 2019-20—we have committed an additional £200 million of UK aid, bringing our total commitment to over £770 million since the conflict began. This support will save, and indeed is saving, lives by meeting the immediate food needs of more than 1 million Yemenis each and every month of the year, treating 30,000 children for malnutrition and providing more than 1 million people with improved water supply and basic sanitation.
The UK continues to support the work of the UN, and the UK-led UN Security Council resolutions 2451 and 2452 were unanimously approved by the Security Council in December 2018 and January 2019 respectively. Those resolutions enshrined the agreements made in Stockholm and authorised the deployment of monitors within the UN Mission to Support the Hodeidah Agreement, thus bolstering the peace process further. We believe that the Stockholm conference was a landmark point, as the first time that the parties had come to the negotiating table in over two years, but we all know that there is a serious risk that this window of opportunity to make progress towards lasting peace may slip away. The UK therefore urges both sides to act in good faith, to co-operate with the UN special envoy and General Lollesgaard and to implement the Stockholm agreements rapidly. We have been clear that a political settlement is the one and only way to bring about long-term stability in Yemen and to address the worsening humanitarian crisis. We shall continue to make every effort to support the UN-led process to get to the solution that so many Yemeni civilians so desperately require.
Emily Thornberry
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question.
Let me begin by completely agreeing with the Minister about the terrible loss from the Foreign Office Front-Bench team of the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), who might well have been answering this question today were it not for his decision on a matter of principle. Labour Members applaud the right hon. Gentleman for that today, as we do the equally principled stance taken by the Minister for Asia and the Pacific. We will miss both the substance and the tone that the right hon. Gentleman has brought to our debates from the Front Bench over the past two years.
Unfortunately, however, the former Minister is one of several Foreign Office and Defence Ministers who have told us repeatedly from the Dispatch Box, in written answers and in evidence to Committees that Britain is not a party to the conflict in Yemen. Most crucially, for the past three years, that phrase has been used time and again by Ministers to explain that it is impossible to assess alleged individual violations of international humanitarian law in Yemen because we are not a party to the conflict. Yet this weekend we read reports in The Mail on Sunday that members of British special forces had been engaged in gun battles with the Houthi rebels in Yemen while providing support to the coalition forces.
I am not for a second expecting the Minister of State to comment on the activities of our special forces—something that the Government never do—but I want to ask him two important questions of principle. First, in the light of these reports, do the Government still stand by their long-standing statements that Britain is not a party to this conflict? We already know about our support for the Saudi air force and our supply of billions in arms for the Saudi coalition. If, in addition to all that, our forces are engaged in actual gun battles with the Houthi rebels and that does not constitute being a party to the conflict, I really do not know what does.
The second question of principle is this. It is an equally long-standing position of the Government that there is no military solution to this conflict. Indeed, the Minister has reaffirmed that today. So I simply ask this: why, if these reports are accurate, are British forces being put in harm’s way trying to deliver that military solution?
Finally, there was one especially disturbing allegation in The Mail on Sunday report that our forces are providing support to locally recruited, Saudi-funded militia and that many of the fighters—up to 40%, it was alleged—are children as young as 13 years old. Is that in any way true? If it is, that would confirm that our forces are not just a party to this conflict but witnesses to war crimes.
Mark Field
I thank the right hon. Lady for the tone of her contribution. She will appreciate—indeed, she expressly appreciated—that in relation to special forces we do not comment either to confirm or deny any involvement. Clearly, she is well aware that we have liaison officers who are based in Saudi Arabia, and have been routinely. I am very keen not in any way inadvertently to mislead the House on this matter, and therefore I will, if she will forgive me, ensure that she has a written response, liaising with the Ministry of Defence, about the issue of other engagement or involvement of British personnel in Yemen at the moment. We still hold to the firm view that we are not a party to the conflict. Clearly, we are supportive of Saudi Arabia, which has been a long-standing ally, as she is aware. There is no military solution to this matter.
I have never been to Yemen myself, but my late father’s first engagement out of Sandhurst was in Aden, in a different time. He had the fondest of memories, as indeed many people living in that country have of this country. That is why we have been a penholder at the UN Security Council.
I have also, of course, read the article in The Mail on Sunday, if perhaps slightly later than the right hon. Lady did—only this morning. It makes some very serious allegations. I am keen that we get to the bottom of those allegations. Again, I am very keen not in any way to mislead the House, but allegations made in relation to any engagement that involves bringing child soldiers on board would be appalling. I very much hope that the journalist will be in a position, within the sources that he can reveal, to make it clear what knowledge he had on the ground. Clearly, that will be investigated as a matter of urgency.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. I am very much hoping to move on no later than 1.30 pm, so brief questions and answers would be greatly appreciated.
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
The whole House will be grateful for the words of the Minister and the shadow Foreign Secretary about my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt). I have worked with him on international development matters for the last 14 years, and the Government can ill afford to lose such a capable Minister at a time like this.
The welcome change of direction on Yemen that the new Foreign Secretary has ushered in is greatly to be applauded, but there were exceedingly serious, credible and authoritative allegations in the Sunday media that serving British military personnel have been seriously wounded in operations in Yemen. That flies in the face of assurances given from the Dispatch Box on countless occasions, including in emergency debates that you have authorised, Mr Speaker. I tabled a number of questions last night to the Ministry of Defence, and were it not for the all-consuming nature of Brexit, I suspect the House would want to explore this as a matter of urgency.
Mark Field
I thank my right hon. Friend. I know he has a long-standing interest in this issue, not least the humanitarian aspect, from his time as International Development Secretary. He is right; these are very serious allegations, and I am keen that I do not inadvertently give reassurances on the Floor of the House that could turn out not to be the case. We need to have an internal investigation. I will perhaps take this up in writing with him, but I suspect that we will come back to this issue on the Floor of the House before too long.
Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)
May I add my own remarks about the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt)? This is a loss that the Government, never mind the FCO, can ill afford. He was a fine Minister, and I am sorry to see him go.
In the deepening humanitarian crisis, some aid agencies are saying that they cannot now work around Hodeidah, and the cholera crisis is spiralling out of control. How are we using our influence? We have been told that the Government are using their influence through arms sales. What influence has £4.6 billion-worth of arms sales delivered? The Minister said in response to the shadow Foreign Secretary, on the subject of the Mail on Sunday allegations, that
“we are not a party”
to the conflict, but “we are supportive”. Can he give more detail about what the difference is? What advice is the Foreign Office giving to the Home Office about those who manage to flee the conflict in Yemen, who are being diverted to Sudan at the moment? What advice is it giving about the safety of young families who have been sent there?
Mark Field
For obvious reasons, there is constant dialogue between the Home Office and the Foreign Office. I will get back to the hon. Gentleman on specifics, if I may. As far as the broader issue of arms sales is concerned, I appreciate that other Members may wish to raise this, but let me say generally that, as he will be aware, we have one of the strictest arms sales regimes in the world.
Mark Field
Well, as the right hon. Lady will be aware, it is a regime that came into place under the new Labour Administration.
Mark Field
I can confirm to the right hon. Lady that in my part of the world—in Asia and the Pacific—the issue that I probably spend the most time on is arms licences. All Foreign Office Ministers take that work extremely seriously. I have a strict rule in my mind that if the recommendation is to refuse, I will endorse that, but if it is to accept, I will look very carefully through the papers and will often ask for further and better particulars or will push back to refuse. That causes all sorts of day-to-day concerns with the Department for International Trade, but we do that. We take that very seriously as Foreign and Commonwealth Office Ministers—something I am sure she looks forward to doing at some point in the near future.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
To what extent are offensive coalition air operations continuing? What is their intensity?
Mark Field
I will have to get back to my right hon. Friend on that matter. It is more an issue for the Ministry of Defence, I guess, than for the Foreign Office.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
May I echo what has been said about the former Minister, the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt)? He will be a huge loss to both the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development.
On Saturday in Birmingham, friends of Yemen from across the country came together with a very powerful voice for the diaspora. Can the Minister seek to ensure that, the next time Martin Griffiths is in the UK, he has a meeting with representatives of the Yemeni diaspora who live here, so that their voice can be heard in this process?
Mark Field
That is essential, and we will try to organise that. I will try to ensure that my private office gives the hon. Gentleman as much notice as possible of Martin Griffiths being here in the UK. We can be very proud of what we are doing on the humanitarian aspects of this. That links into the Yemeni diaspora in this country, and we hope that they will feel that they can play an important part in a better future for that country.
Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)
The Minister rightly says that a political settlement is the only way to end this crisis, but pressure must be exerted from all sides. Does he have a message for the Government of Iran about how they can use their influence with the Houthi people to bring about peace?
Mark Field
I thank my hon. Friend for her question. She will be aware that this war did not begin with a Saudi-led intervention. This whole matter began six months after Houthi rebels, representing no more than 15% of the Yemeni population, captured most of the capital, Sana’a, and expelled the internationally recognised Government. As she alludes to, they have been supported by Iran, and clearly the international community needs to try to come together. It is a desperate humanitarian situation on a scale that few of us can comprehend. I have been out to Cox’s Bazar, where the Rohingya are living, but this is on a scale literally 30 times as great; it is really quite horrific.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
I join the shadow Foreign Secretary and others in commending the incredible work of the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt).
This is a grim anniversary. Since the ceasefire was announced, three civilians have died in this conflict every single day, and there are 110,000 cases of cholera. Three dates are essential: the date that we can have the next meeting of the Quad, the date when the peace talks will resume and the date for the appointment of a new Minister with responsibility for Yemen. When will those be? It is important that we have proper ministerial focus. The Minister cannot run the whole world. We need someone as focused as the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire.
Mark Field
That is a fair question. I would like to think that I can do the job at least for urgent questions and the like, but I take on board what the right hon. Gentleman says. As far as a date for peace talks is concerned, we are desperate to ensure at the UN and with all our partners that there is momentum from what happened in Stockholm, which was very positive, but we feel that the momentum is coming to an end. As far as the Quad is concerned, there are ongoing discussions, and no doubt we will again try to get more movement and momentum to ensure that the progress made is built upon and does not dwindle away.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Are there any restrictions on our very large aid budget that would prevent us from applying it to a warzone such as this?
Mark Field
My right hon. Friend will recognise that that is an issue for the Secretary of State for International Development, but there are restrictions on it—in fact, fairly strict restrictions in international law, and our own legislation has come into play in that regard. Clearly, this is a desperate humanitarian situation. I think all of us feel that it is right that a significant amount of international aid is placed there. There is a recognition that it is sometimes difficult to get to the most vulnerable on the ground, but we shall do our level best to ensure that that happens.
Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)
I very much echo the comments that others have made about the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt). He was one of the very best, most thoughtful and most dedicated Ministers, and his departure from the Front Bench is a loss to the Government and the country.
There has been a huge reluctance on the part of the Government to criticise the Saudi regime, even in the face of the most appalling humanitarian situation in Yemen, which the Minister described, and the appalling conflict. It seems unacceptable that we continue to sell arms to Saudi Arabia. I do not call that leadership. Instead of leveraging our influence from our trading relationship with Saudi Arabia, it seems that we are silenced by it. Does the Minister share my assessment that, after Brexit, we will be in a weaker position, not a stronger one, to criticise states with a bad human rights record?
Mark Field
No. The truth of the matter—I see it even in my part of the world—is that the diplomatic channels are open, and we regularly express human rights concerns with countries with which we have trade. I reiterate that we do take our export licensing responsibilities extremely seriously, and we operate a very robust arms export regime. There is a respectable case that says we should not be in the arms business and should just not sell any at all, but we would like to think that our regime means that in many ways we are able to present a more robust case than many other countries that sell arms across the world.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
The Foreign Secretary has said that there are 50,000 metric tonnes of grain stuck in Hodeidah. Is it possible that we could use the port of Aden, which used to be a great port, to deliver aid and divert it another way?
Mark Field
I should say to my hon. Friend that the most vulnerable areas are in the north-west of the country, and important though Aden is as a port, Yemen is a large country and it is actually too far away. The roads from Aden to the most affected areas are of course particularly dangerous to traverse at this time.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
What action is being taken to prevent children from Sudan from being used and exploited in the conflict in Yemen?
Mark Field
I thank the hon. Lady for her question, and I look forward to crossing swords with her now she is on the Foreign Affairs Committee. We take the issue of children very seriously, and part and parcel of our work with non-governmental organisations and international bodies is ensuring that children are not used in any sort of conflict, particularly those being pushed across borders in the way she describes. We will do our level best, and if we have more specific information, I will obviously ensure that it is brought to her attention.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
The Iranian-backed “party of God”—Hezbollah—which is mainly based in Lebanon, has been supplying training, weaponry and missile technology to the Iranian-backed Houthi insurgency. To what extent does the Minister believe that Hezbollah is egging on the Houthis not to adhere to the terms of the ceasefire?
Mark Field
I very much agree with my hon. Friend. We have very long-standing concerns about Hezbollah’s involvement in Yemen. Hezbollah and Iran are of course providing training and weapons to the Houthis, contrary to UN Security Council resolution 2216 and the embargo on the export of weapons by Iran. We shall continue to encourage Iran, the state sponsor of Hezbollah, to demonstrate that it can be a constructive part of the solution, rather than continue with its current conduct. We hope it can promote stability.
Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)
With nearly 110,000 new cases of cholera since the start of the year, a third of which involve children under the age of five, does the Minister agree that any strategy to protect children must not only stop the appalling attacks on children, such as the attack on the school bus last summer, but take action against killer diseases such as cholera? Will he tell us what we are doing to achieve that?
Mark Field
It is an absolute tragedy of the first order. I am often reminded that cholera was discovered, if that is the right word, in my constituency, a stone’s throw from here, back in the 1840s, when it was discovered that it was a water-borne disease. It is obviously unthinkable that people would suffer from cholera in this country, and we are doing all we can to ensure that there is fresh water, and indeed that water supplies are as pure as possible. The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that there is probably also cholera in some of the more difficult to reach far-flung areas, where it is difficult to get access.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
The initial optimism of the peace talks bringing the two sides together seems to have waned. What influence is my right hon. Friend seeking to have on the different parties to bring them to the negotiating table so that international aid can be provided to relieve the humanitarian suffering?
Mark Field
As we see it, the next phase of the Stockholm agreement is to provide for a mutual redeployment of the forces away from Hodeidah. Again, we are looking to work, as we need to do, with both sides of the conflict for an agreement on that, which would obviously have a big impact on the humanitarian situation. That has not been implemented to date, and to be frank with my hon. Friend, until that happens the ceasefire is unlikely to be sustained.
Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)
To go further on that point, can the Minister give examples of how, practically, he is ensuring that aid is being delivered to all parts of Yemen, no matter who is holding that ground?
Mark Field
The detailed aspects of this are slightly sensitive. They are a matter for the Department for International Development, and I will do my best to write to the hon. Gentleman with some details.
Julia Lopez (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)
Without wishing to repeat what others have said, keeping Hodeidah port open is absolutely critical to the flow of aid and food supplies to those most in need in Yemen. Given the heavy weapons fire between the warring parties in the city this week, what urgent pressure has the Minister sought to exert to restore the ceasefire there?
Mark Field
The work we are doing within the UN is clearly vital. We have to bring both sides of this conflict together, and we have done our level best to do that. We think the Yemeni Government understand the importance of this issue, and it is the single most important issue that will have such an impact on the lives of the many millions of Yemenis having to put up with this dreadful conflict.
Graham P. Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
May I add my compliments to those paid to the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt)?
The allegations about child soldiers are very serious. I have previously raised them in the House, and it is very disappointing that it has taken us so long to discuss them. UNICEF has reported how many child soldiers were employed by the Houthis; the BBC has reported that they were being shot in the back; and we have seen other such crimes such as the use of mines. When are we going to take Yemen seriously, instead of discussing some issues around the edges that do not affect the situation in Yemen?
Mark Field
To be honest, until all parties in Yemen are committed to the peace process or start down that path, it is going to be very difficult. That is the truth. We will do as much as we can on the humanitarian side, and we will obviously continue to do as much as we can diplomatically, but there needs to be a sense within Yemen of all parties being committed to peace. Unfortunately, four years in, that is not yet the case. I entirely share the hon. Gentleman’s deep-seated concerns about the dreadful notion of child soldiers being used in this conflict.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
The Minister has talked of two sides being involved in this, but there is a third, which is Iran. What is being done to bring Iran into the process so the humanitarian crisis can be solved?
Mark Field
As I mentioned in the answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), we obviously recognise that Iran has an important part to play, not least because it is the state sponsor of Hezbollah. We will continue, in whatever way we can, to make representations to the Iranian Government—we do that out in Tehran, obviously, but also in the international community—and to try to impress on others the importance of their influence. As he says, it has all too often been a malign influence, and it needs to change.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
To follow up on that question about Iran, what further measures can the Foreign and Commonwealth Office bring into play to make sure that Iran, which obviously has a proxy in this conflict in Yemen, is brought to account for what it is doing?
Mark Field
On bringing Iran to account, the hon. Lady is absolutely right that it has had a proxy in what has happened, as it has for some years, not least in encouraging the Houthi insurgents. We have recognised that if Yemen is to have unity, sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity, Iran clearly has an important part to play. We hope it will use its influence with the Houthis to encourage a de-escalation of the current crisis and to end their attacks on coalition countries, but also to support the moves back towards a political track.
As I have often said here about diplomacy, sometimes it is a matter of taking three steps forward and a couple of steps back. Stockholm was definitely three steps forward, and I think we are in a far better place today than we were six months ago. Equally, we do not want those advances to slip away. Iran has had an important part to play in that process, and will do in the years to come.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
The Minister is right to focus on the peaceful and negotiated solution that needs to be sought to bring an end to this conflict, but what discussions are there about long-term support to stabilise and rebuild the country? This is not just about bringing the fighting to an end; the long-term solution is about ensuring that it does not restart.
Mark Field
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and of course there is thought going into that. I see it in a different part of the world—in Afghanistan, where obviously we have had an engagement—and one realises just how long a haul this must be. As my hon. Friend says, an important aspect of that is to build up a sustainable economy. Of course, one does not start from zero in that regard. We need to work together with the international community to build up a sustainable economy in Yemen that can provide prosperity for future generations.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
The right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) was dedicated in office, a decent person and dignified in the leaving of office. He was also helping me with the case of my constituent Luke Symons, who has been held captive by the Houthis for two years in Sana’a, and we were, I hope, making some progress. Will the Minister—or perhaps the Foreign Secretary, who is aware of this case—agree to an urgent meeting with me in order that we do not lose momentum, given the former Minister’s departure?
Mark Field
I could not suppress a slight smile when the hon. Gentleman talked about my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt); it was as though he had died. I think he is still alive and kicking. He is probably having a quiet pint and a quiet afternoon—though maybe not.
The hon. Gentleman raises a serious point about Luke Symons, on whose case he has worked extremely hard. He is aware that the Foreign Secretary brought up the case during his visit to Yemen earlier in the month. We have been providing consular advice to the UK-based family since 2017, and will continue to do so.
I wish to put it on the record that although I appreciate there were particular reasons why Luke Symons was out there—his wife is a Yemeni national—we now advise against all travel to Yemen, and therefore we are unable to provide consular assistance out in the country. Anyone who travels to Yemen against our advice is putting themselves at considerable risk.
Of course I would be very happy to meet the hon. Gentleman, and indeed representatives of the Symons family.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
I, too, would like to share my gratitude to the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) for his work. I was very glad to be able to listen to Yemenis last week who were in London for events. They included Dalia Qasem Farea, Laila Al-shabibi and Hisham Al-Omeisy—the House may remember that he was held by the Houthis, and I have raised his case in the House.
Of ongoing concern to many aid agencies is the ability of goods and people to travel around Yemen to get to the places and people who need them. Can the Minister tell us more about what is being done to ensure that aid reaches those who need it the most?
Mark Field
The hon. Lady makes a very good point. I have already alluded to that subject in several answers. Our immediate focus, obviously, remains on ensuring that enough food is getting through to the desperate Yemenis to prevent starvation and a disastrous famine. With the operating environment in Yemen extremely difficult for humanitarian organisations we are now focusing our attention on UN agencies, NGOs and other donors, to get out to those more difficult areas. Part of that is to assess the acuteness of need in those parts of Yemen, but that of course is an ongoing process and we feel that we have made some significant progress along with NGOs and other international partners.
Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)
At a recent lobby of Parliament by Save the Children and Oxfam, my constituents were quite clear that the arms sales to Saudi Arabia need to end if the famine in Yemen is to end. Does the Minister share their sentiments?
Mark Field
The hon. Gentleman and I have spoken on the whole issue of the arms trade. He is putting forward a perfectly respectable position, but I think it is not necessarily shared by us all. I hope that the fact that we have safeguards in place that are, I think, more stringent than most other countries’ should give some comfort to his constituents; but I think that we will have a very active and live debate in this House, in relation to not only Yemen but the whole world, in the years to come.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
Diolch yn fawr iawn, Mr Speaker. In an answer to a parliamentary question that I tabled, the British Government confirmed that they had directly trained 102 Saudi pilots over the last 10 years. Last year they signed a deal to sell 48 Typhoon jets to Saudi Arabia. How many of those pilots and planes have been operational in Yemen? Or is it the case that once the pilots are trained and the planes are sold, the British Government wash their hands?
Mark Field
The hon. Gentleman will recognise that I cannot answer that question directly, simply because we obviously do not have that information to hand. And no, it is not a matter of our washing our hands. We have military liaison in Saudi Arabia, and part of that is to try and encourage a sense of ethics. We have military liaison, of course, in a number of other countries that are at the heart of war zones as well. I obviously cannot give a direct answer because I do not have that data to hand, but I very much hope that the liaison officers that we have with the Saudi military are inculcating some of the values that we need, within warfare, to be properly adhered to.
Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)
I am sure that the best wishes of the whole House will go out to those members of the British Special Forces who have been reported injured in Yemen. I do not expect the Minister to comment on the details of the operations that they might have been involved in, but can he say whether any members of the British armed forces operating in Yemen have observed, or been witness to, the use of child soldiers by the Saudi Arabian side?
Mark Field
I refer to my earlier answers. I do not wish to fob the hon. Gentleman off. Some serious allegations were made in The Mail on Sunday article. I am sure that they are well sourced, so I would be interested to know more about those sources. There will be an investigation on the matter.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
The Government clearly recognise the scale of the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, because they have recently increased aid; yet, sickeningly, unlike Germany, Norway, Denmark and Finland, UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia continue. Does the Minister feel that these continued arms sales are helping to cease or intensify the relentless and indiscriminate murder of innocent children and civilians?
Mark Field
I can really only refer the hon. Lady to what I said earlier on arms sales. Many of these are long-standing contracts, with arms that are in the hands of some of the combatants in the Saudi-led coalition in this regard. There is nothing that I can usefully add to that answer.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)
The Government contract the manufacture of UK arms for Saudi Arabia. They contract the issuing of bombs into UK aircraft in the kingdom. They have RAF soldiers in command centres, and now we learn that we have ground assets in Yemen. So can I ask again, because I do not think the Minister answered the question: if this does not constitute being a member of the coalition, what on earth does? What legal advice have Her Majesty’s Government received about potential complicity in war crimes and international humanitarian law abuses, which we could now be liable for?
Mark Field
Will the hon. Gentleman please be assured that there is ongoing legal advice on all the matters to which he referred? I should perhaps also say, to correct the record in that regard, that we do not have our liaison officers or others in command centres with the Saudis. The liaison is in Saudi; they are there in a training and advisory capacity.[Official Report, 27 March 2019, Vol. 657, c. 4MC.][Official Report, 10 April 2019, Vol. 658, c. 4MC.]
Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP)
Like many hon. Members, I attended some of the #YemenCantWait events over the past week. I was struck by one quote:
“We’ve had 4 years of WAR, and the SUFFERING is reflected on every face you see.”
The situation is beyond dire. What will the Minister say to the UN’s Martin Griffiths when he visits London—I believe this week—regarding the urgency of a continued effort on the peace process?
Mark Field
I thank the hon. Gentleman for what he has said. It is an absolutely desperate situation. We are working closely with Martin Griffiths, and will continue to do so.
As I said at the outset, the most important thing is to try and move towards a political solution. We had some real progress, for the first time in two years, in Stockholm at the end of 2018, and we now need to build upon that. That is the message that goes out: how can we work together to build upon the progress that has already been made? It is, though, an utterly desperate situation.
Mr Speaker, you will be glad to know that we are 110 seconds within your limit, so I could filibuster a little bit longer. [Laughter.] No, I do not wish to be too glib on this. I know that we shall come back to the subject repeatedly in future. I thank all right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions. I appreciate, and they will appreciate, that for obvious reasons, one or two of their replies will have to be provided in writing. I think it is greatly to our credit that we are a UN penholder on this Yemeni issue. It is very close to our hearts. We shall be doing a lot of work, continually, on the humanitarian side. Some of the most important work that we do across the globe will be done, and many, many lives will be saved courtesy of the British taxpayer.
Business of the House
(5 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Leader of the House of Commons (Andrea Leadsom)
To assist the House, I would like to make a short business statement. The first business tomorrow will reflect the decision taken by the House yesterday. At the conclusion of that business, the Government will bring forward the draft European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (Amendment) Regulations 2019 for consideration.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
I thank the Leader of the House for the statement. We welcome the fact that we can approve the statutory instrument to extend the exit day. I just have a couple of questions. When will the meaningful vote be brought back, given that the Prime Minister said it would be coming back this week? Can she confirm that it is also the Government’s understanding that: if the meaningful vote is passed, exit day is on 22 May; if there is no meaningful vote, we leave by 12 April; and there will be a further extension if we show purpose? We welcome the fact that the uncertainty of 29 March has now moved, albeit to 12 April.
Andrea Leadsom
I thank the hon. Lady for her questions. What I can say is that, as the Prime Minister has made very clear, the Government continue to believe that the best way to leave the EU is with a deal. The deal that she has negotiated has taken the best part of three years and is extremely complicated. It remains our view that it represents the best compromise for leaving the European Union while keeping a close economic and security partnership. As the Prime Minister has said, she will continue to have discussions with colleagues across the House to seek to build support for her deal, so we can, if possible, this week approve the deal and guarantee Brexit.
On the hon. Lady’s specific question, the draft statutory instrument the Government hope to bring forward tomorrow will provide for two durations that were agreed with the EU27. Exit day, as amended, would be 22 May if the withdrawal agreement is approved before 11 pm on 29 March. Otherwise, it would be 11 pm on 12 April.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. I understand the appetite of colleagues. This is an important business statement by the Leader of the House, but its terms are relatively narrow and it is not the normal business statement so it really should focus on tomorrow, which is the subject matter on which the Leader focused.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
Will the Leader just clarify? I thought the 2018 Act required an exit date, not two optional dates. So I am surprised that the statutory instrument is actually naming two dates. I would have thought that the right thing would have been to have 12 April and then extend later if need be. Am I also right in thinking—I am sure the Leader would agree—that if those statutory instruments go through both Houses of Parliament, we will be coming out of the European Union, at least domestically, in three days’ time?
Andrea Leadsom
My hon. Friend raises an incredibly important point. This House voted on 14 March for a short extension to article 50. The EU Council’s conclusions were turned into a legal decision with which the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom agreed. Those conclusions came into force last Friday. So the date for our departure from the EU has already changed in international law. The draft statutory instrument provides for both the durations that were agreed with the EU27. As I said to the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), exit day, as amended, would be 22 May if the withdrawal agreement is approved before 11 pm on 29 March. Otherwise, it would be 11 pm on 12 April. I want to be very clear that a rejection of the statutory instrument that the Government seek to bring forward tomorrow would create a clash in UK law, because a large volume of EU exit legislation preparing the UK statute book for the moment that EU law ceases to apply is due to enter into force automatically on exit day. In international law, the exit date has already changed. The statutory instrument seeks to clarify that in UK law. I hope that that is clear to all Members.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
We all look forward to the Leader of the House’s motion tomorrow, so this can be properly discussed. I think we are all particularly looking forward to a little bit of parliamentary innovation tomorrow. I am looking around for Prime Minister Letwin. He must still be with the Queen discussing the Parliament party legislative programme, which we will obviously get an opportunity to consider and debate tomorrow.
I get the sense that Parliament is about to take control of this process with all the enthusiasm of the first lieutenant of the Titanic taking over from Captain Edward John Smith. Can the Leader of the House confirm today that the Government will observe and respect whatever outcomes are agreed tomorrow, by a majority, in this great piece of parliamentary novelty? That is what the House really needs to hear from the Leader. We are sick and tired of voting repeatedly on motions that are passed, only for the Government to casually and contemptuously ignore them. Will they co-operate fully in ensuring that we get to some sort of solution with this House, and will they respect and observe it?
Andrea Leadsom
I reject what the hon. Gentleman says about the Government ignoring this House. It is, of course, as a result of the motion that was passed by this House on 14 March that we have an extension to article 50. As he knows well, as Leader of the House of Commons, I take very seriously my role to be Parliament’s voice in the Government.
On the options that will be brought forward tomorrow, what I can say to the hon. Gentleman is that, at this stage, we do not know which options will be debated and voted on, let alone which will pass. To use his analogy, my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin), the new Prime Minister for West Dorset, has not yet indicated that manifesto. Nor indeed has the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) indicated his manifesto. I think we need to wait for that advice. I do jest, in case any hon. Gentleman is determined to take offence at my joke there, Mr Speaker. I say that for clarity in this Chamber.
The second point is that any options passed by this House must be negotiable. They have to be deliverable in negotiations with the EU and they would also have to take account of how long those negotiations would take.
Finally, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister pointed out in the discussion yesterday, and as the shadow Brexit Secretary also made clear in the House, it would not be possible for different parties to accept proposals that their party manifestos rejected at the last general election. [Interruption.] The shadow Brexit Secretary was clear in the House yesterday that Labour would reject certain potential outcomes as inconsistent with the Labour manifesto. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) shouts “Rubbish”, but she needs to talk to her Front Benchers. It is absolutely vital that this House delivers outcomes that are negotiable, feasible and in line with the will of the manifestos and the referendum on which we all stood.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
If the measure was defeated or the Prime Minister stayed her hand, then the European Communities Act 1972 would cease to apply on Friday evening and we would be free, wouldn’t we?
Andrea Leadsom
My right hon. Friend is correct to say that a commencement order is required under section 25(4) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 in order to give effect to the repeal. The timing of that commencement order will depend on the date we leave the EU. We need to commence the repeal of the 1972 Act on the date of our departure, which is either 12 April as things stand if the deal is not approved, or 22 May if the deal is approved.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
May I join the Leader of the House in welcoming her resistance to what I must now call the anarcho-Brextremists on her own side who want to mess around by voting against the motion she has brought today to put UK law in line with the international treaty agreements that the Prime Minister has made? Will she clarify something she said in her statement? Yesterday, the Prime Minister said she was no longer going to bring the deal back for a third meaningful vote, but the Leader of the House has just said that that might happen this week. Can she clarify which is true?
Andrea Leadsom
The Prime Minister has said that she will continue to seek further support for the withdrawal agreement and political declaration. Should she succeed in that, we will seek to bring back the meaningful vote for this House to consider. To be clear again, it is only if this House approves the withdrawal agreement before 11 pm on 29 March that there is then an extension to 22 May.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
If this House does not approve the withdrawal agreement—indeed, it might be that it is not possible for the withdrawal agreement to be brought back before this House anyway—and if the Prime Minister therefore decides that exiting on World Trade Organisation terms is preferable to no Brexit, is there anything that this House can actually do to prevent the Prime Minister ensuring that we exit on WTO terms? I think the answer to that question is no, isn’t it?
Andrea Leadsom
I think my right hon. Friend poses an unanswerable question, because of course the ingenuity of the House knows no bounds. What the House has been clear about is that it does not want a no-deal Brexit or a Brexit on WTO terms. I share that desire, but, as we have always been clear, the way to avoid a no-deal Brexit is to vote for the deal. If I may, Mr Speaker, I will quote directly from the European Council conclusions:
“The European Council reiterates that there can be no opening of the Withdrawal Agreement that was agreed between the Union and the United Kingdom in November 2018. Any unilateral commitment, statement or other act should be compatible with the letter and the spirit of the Withdrawal Agreement.”
So all the terms under which the UK leaves the EU are subject to the agreement by this House of the withdrawal agreement.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
It is potty to announce today that we are going to have the statutory instrument tomorrow evening, at the fag end of the business. That is absolutely ludicrous when we could perfectly easily do it on Thursday.
May I ask the Leader of the House whether we will be sitting on Friday? I have a particular interest: Friday is Brain Tumour Research’s Wear A Hat Day, and it is encouraging everybody around the country to wear a hat to work on that day. As you will know, Mr Speaker, “Erskine May” is now silent, on page 451, about whether we can wear a hat in the Chamber, although I think we are expected to speak uncovered. Would it not be a good idea for the Leader of the House to announce now, if we are sitting on Friday, that we are going to do that on Friday, or if not, that we can all wear hats on Thursday?
Andrea Leadsom
Excellent. I once wore a hat because I wanted to take my hat off to the right hon. Baroness Jowell, who sadly is no longer with us, for her brilliance in establishing Sure Start. I can tell you, Mr Speaker, that you tolerated my wearing of a hat in honour of what I felt was a very good cause.
The hon. Gentleman asks a very specific question. As he will be aware, at the moment there are no plans to sit on Friday. If there were plans to do that, it would require the passing of a motion to that effect, which the House would have to agree.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
Can my right hon. Friend confirm that to get the longer extension requires the passing of the withdrawal agreement, not the withdrawal agreement plus the political declaration, and that the political declaration provides for a wide spectrum of potential outcomes for the long-term relationship between the UK and the EU?
Andrea Leadsom
My hon. Friend is right that the European Council decision requires that this House has agreed the withdrawal agreement—or has introduced the withdrawal agreement—in order to get the long extension ready for the legislation. I encourage all hon. Members to consider that a lot of the proposals being put forward for tomorrow would themselves require a withdrawal agreement to be approved in order for them to be taken forward. We need to be clear that what we will be talking about in the indicative votes tomorrow are, potentially, replacements for the future arrangements as opposed to replacements for the withdrawal agreement. I urge hon. Members again to consider the Prime Minister’s deal and to accept the reality, which is that the European Council requires us to look positively at the withdrawal agreement.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Leader of the House knows, and I welcome the fact, that I am now semi-clear about what the future progress in the House will be, but does she agree that it is most important in this troubled and tumultuous time that we inform our constituents about what we are doing as honestly and openly as possible? Will she stop her colleagues in the Cabinet going on radio and television and saying that there has been a vote on a people’s vote, or a second referendum? That has not taken place. A minority group in the House moved a motion, on which most of the Opposition abstained. There has not been a major vote on the people having the opportunity of a new referendum. Will she stop her Cabinet colleagues saying there has been?
Andrea Leadsom
There very much was a people’s vote. That was in June 2016, and the people decided to leave the European Union.
Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)
Will the Leader of the House confirm that the very act of the Prime Minister signing what is, in effect, an amendment to the Lisbon treaty under royal prerogative makes whatever we have to say on the matter of an extension rather irrelevant?
Andrea Leadsom
This House voted on 14 March for a short extension of article 50. At the time, the Prime Minister made it very clear that if this House were to vote for that short extension, she would seek to negotiate it but that she could not be certain what the EU would offer in return. My hon. Friend is right. The Prime Minister agreed a short extension. That was not necessarily every individual’s definition of exactly what that should be, but she agreed it on behalf of the United Kingdom. As such, in international law, the date of our exit from the EU has now changed irreversibly to 12 April, or to 22 May if we have agreed to progress with the withdrawal agreement.
Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)
Is it the Government’s intention to table their own business motion for the Speaker to deliberate on regarding tomorrow’s business?
Andrea Leadsom
As I set out just now in the business statement, the first business tomorrow will reflect the decision taken by the House yesterday, and at the conclusion of that business the Government will bring forward the draft European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (Exit Day) (Amendment) Regulations 2019.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Given that the Leader of the House has said that we are not sitting on Friday, and given that House business takes priority tomorrow, does she expect to make a business statement at the end of House business tomorrow announcing that the meaningful vote will take place on Thursday?
Andrea Leadsom
I cannot give my hon. Friend absolute certainty on any issues of future business right now. As I have set out, we are continuing to seek support for the Prime Minister’s deal, and that is absolutely the focus for the Government. Should we feel that there was sufficient support for that deal, we would seek to bring that vote back, because that would mean we would be in a position by the end of this week to have an orderly departure from the European Union, with a close economic and security partnership to go with it.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
I am sorry if I missed it, but will the Leader of the House clarify tomorrow’s business? Will there be protected time for the SI? It seems strange to cram it in tomorrow, given the decisions the House has made about debates tomorrow. Will she clarify how much business there will be, whether we will have protected time for it and whether the Government will table their own business motion to deal with the indicative votes tomorrow?
Andrea Leadsom
Hon. Members will realise that the vote yesterday was that the Government would not be responsible for tomorrow’s business. The Government are seeking to engage in a productive and constructive way with those who have control of tomorrow’s business to ensure that we debate this very important statutory instrument, which will provide certainty—not certainty about our departure date but legal certainty between 29 March and, in the first instance, 12 April—to businesses and citizens. The Government are working closely with those right hon. and hon. Members who are controlling the business tomorrow to seek agreement that Government business will be able to carry on after the moment of interruption. As is normal with statutory instruments, I would expect that to be a 90-minute discussion followed by a vote, but that is not in my hands.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
There has been a real lack of clarity in what the Leader of the House has said about whether meaningful vote 3 will come back this week, next week or perhaps even the week after. Given that the question sessions for the weeks beginning 8 April and 15 April are now available for tabling on Parliament’s Member hub, will she confirm what we all know to be self-evident: that recess is cancelled?
Andrea Leadsom
As the hon. Lady will know, I have announced the dates for the Easter recess, but recess dates are always announced subject to the progress of business. We will need time in the House either to find a way forward or to pass the withdrawal agreement Bill, and I think the country will rightly expect Parliament to be working flat out in either scenario. Further announcements on future recess dates will be made in due course in the usual way.
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
In answering my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), the Leader of the House said that anything the House proposed had to be negotiable and deliverable before the Government could support it. Tomorrow, with cross-party colleagues, I will be bringing forward an amendment on the revocation of article 50 to avoid a no-deal Brexit. Given that revocation has the virtue of requiring no negotiation and is deliverable, will she confirm that were that to be passed in an indicative vote tomorrow, she would respect that vote?
Andrea Leadsom
We will wait to see what the indicative votes are on tomorrow before deciding how to respond.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
The Leader of the House has talked about the Easter recess. One of the dates she mentioned this morning is during that recess. The Table Office is already populating that fortnight for questions. When will the Government come clean and tell us the Easter recess is cancelled?
Andrea Leadsom
I refer the hon. Gentleman to the response I just gave. The Easter recess has been announced, but it will be subject to the progress of business. Of course, we hope to have a clear way forward in the next few days, and I will make a further statement on recesses as soon as I can.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
I am sorry if I missed this, but, following the question from the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford), will the Leader of the House clarify whether the four SIs on the Order Paper tomorrow—on exiting the EU and food, the protection of trading interests, animals and constitutional law—will remain as Chamber business? I ask because I have a rather excellent Adjournment debate that I do not want Members to miss out on.
Andrea Leadsom
As I said in response to an earlier question, we are in proactive discussions with my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) on what Government business can take place tomorrow.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
As my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) has referenced the silence of “Erskine May” on sartorial matters, perhaps the newly elevated right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) could appear in the toga he once wore when he appears before us.
On tomorrow’s business, will the Leader of the House clarify what the Government’s attitude will be if, as expected, tomorrow’s indicative votes do not come up with a solution and more time is required? Will the House have to wrestle that time from the Government again, or, instead, given the clear views of the House, will they be prepared to provide more time to settle the matter?
Andrea Leadsom
There is no question of wrestling; what we do in this place is vote and take decisions. The Government’s position is that the withdrawal agreement and future political declaration are essential to an orderly and proper departure from the EU. That is the Government’s position. Anything else that is voted on by the House will have to considered as and when it arises.
Graham P. Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
The Conservative manifesto at the last general election was defeated. Is that true?
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
It feels as though the Leader of the House and the Prime Minister still have not grasped that last night’s vote was because Parliament is fed up with this broken record about the only way to avoid a no deal being to vote for the withdrawal agreement the Prime Minister negotiated. To quote one of the most reasonable and respected Ministers, who resigned last night, the Government continue to play roulette with people’s livelihoods. The Leader of the house has not answered this question yet: what will the Government do to respect the votes tomorrow and what measures will be in place to contact the EU and plan for legislation to respect them?
Andrea Leadsom
The hon. Gentleman says it is boring, but it is actually true: the only way to avoid no deal is to vote for a deal. The second very important truth is that hon. Members can put forward other bespoke solutions, but they have to be negotiable—that is the absolutely incontrovertible fact. The House cannot just decide; it requires the EU to negotiate the other side of that transaction. The Government will look very carefully at what the indicative votes show tomorrow and then respond accordingly.
Point of Order
Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I had hoped to raise this matter directly with the Speaker, as it arises from his exchange with the hon. Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan), who raised a point of order about racism in football. In response, the Speaker from the Chair gave us a homily on racism in football and its evils, which was particularly welcome, coming as it did from a former secretary of the immigration sub-committee of the Monday Club. I have, however, raised previously my concerns about the bias of the Speaker, and I would be grateful if you could convey it to him, Mr Deputy Speaker, that the fewer views he expresses, either from the Chair or as the Speaker, the less anxious we will be about his bias.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
I think we now need to press on with the business in hand.
Bill Presented
Decarbonisation and Economic Strategy Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Caroline Lucas, supported by Clive Lewis, presented a Bill to place duties on the Secretary of State to decarbonise the United Kingdom economy and to eradicate inequality; to establish a ten-year economic and public investment strategy that prioritises decarbonisation, community and employee-led transition from high-carbon to low and zero-carbon industry, and the eradication of inequality; to require the Government to report on its adherence to the strategy; to establish higher environmental standards for air, water and green spaces; to make provision to protect and restore natural habitats; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 5 April; and to be printed (Bill 365).
Compensation Orders (Child Sexual Abuse)
Tuesday 26th March 2019
(5 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Compensation Orders (Child Sexual Abuse) Bill 2017-19 View all Compensation Orders (Child Sexual Abuse) Bill 2017-19 Debates Read Hansard Text
A Ten Minute Rule Bill is a First Reading of a Private Members Bill, but with the sponsor permitted to make a ten minute speech outlining the reasons for the proposed legislation.
There is little chance of the Bill proceeding further unless there is unanimous consent for the Bill or the Government elects to support the Bill directly.
For more information see: Ten Minute Bills
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the Lord Chancellor to report on the use by courts of compensation orders for child sexual abuse offences; and for connected purposes.
People come to this House for many reasons—to deliver Brexit, to fight racism, to champion social justice, to reform Parliament—but I am sure that everyone in the House, from all parties, comes here to help the victims, the vulnerable and those with the least voice, and there can be fewer in our society more in need of our help than the victims of crime, and in particular victims of child sexual abuse. In this place, we regularly discuss the abuse that has occurred in our country. It has occupied much of our time in the Chamber. We have discussed the horrendous abuse that took place in the 1970s and in the Catholic Church and the Church of England.
More recently, we have spent much time talking about the horrific and widespread abuse in towns up and down the country such as Rotherham and Bradford. The suffering of those children is indescribable and unimaginable, and it is only right that this place does all it can to reduce the possibility of such things happening again. Nobody can take away from those victims the pain that their abuse has caused, the trauma and the suffering that they have endured, not just as a child when the abuse happened but, all too often, in later life, when the trauma comes back and bubbles to the surface.
We all want to do our very best in this place for those survivors. As someone who was himself a victim of child sexual abuse, I know how difficult and traumatic it is to discuss such issues. I kept my secret hidden for some 40 years. I locked it away, chained it down and hoped it would never surface. I convinced myself that if I did not give it words, I could deny it a reality. That was my view. How wrong I was! Talking about what happened to me, and explaining it to other people, was the best thing I could have done. I hope that other people who see this debate or read my testimony will think about coming forward and speaking out about their abuse and the trauma they have suffered.
To talk about these things takes courage. If it took sitting in a psychiatric ward with a psychiatrist for me to be able to talk about my trauma, how much more difficult must it be for victims who find themselves in the courtroom—in that intimidating and forbidding place—who have to suffer cross-examination by a skilled and forensic barrister? All too often, they have to face the perpetrator—the person who caused them so much pain and anguish over their lifetime—across the courtroom. And yet they do it. They speak out. They find, from somewhere within, the courage to be able to do that. Surely we—Parliament, the judiciary and the police—should support them in any way we can if we are to stamp out the scourge of child abuse that we see all too often in our country.
The House has mandated support for those victims. One of the objectives of the Criminal Justice Act 1982 was to increase the use of criminal compensation orders to ensure that victims of crime were compensated by right, as a norm, without the need for expensive civil litigation and the prospect of having to retell and relive the story of their abuse in the courtroom. That was consolidated in the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000. The Sentencing Council itself says:
“the court must order compensation wherever possible and should not have regard to… other sources such as civil litigation or the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme.”
So if everyone agrees that survivors should receive compensation as of right, and judges have the power to award that compensation straight away, at the time of sentencing, CCOs in child sexual abuse cases should be used regularly and to good effect. Surely that is a given, is it not? Sadly, the answer is a resounding “No”.
In 2017, the last year for which figures are available, there were some 6,861 convictions: 6,861 people were found guilty and sentenced for committing a child sexual abuse crime. Yet in how many of those 6,861 cases in which a CCO could have been used was one received? How many would the House suggest—50%, 25%, even 10%? The shocking reality is that just 26 people received compensation: just 0.4%. That is a criminal act. We should be ashamed that we are treating victims of child sexual abuse in that way. It is an outrage. We are letting down the survivors, and we must do something to change that.
The power is there. It lies in the hands of the judges, but they are simply choosing to ignore the use of CCOs. Despite all the guidance that the Ministry of Justice has issued and all the advice that has been given to the judiciary over many years, the courts are simply ignoring it, either by design or by accident, and compensation is not being given to the people who so justly deserve it. Moreover, although the police are supposed to be providing the CPS with information at an early stage so that judges can make the necessary decisions when sentencing, that information is simply not being collated. The crazy thing is that all too often the police do collate information for the courts, but in this instance, when there seems to be an obvious opportunity to use CCOs for a good purpose, the information is not being gathered.
Evidence shows that victims are being let down through a general lack of awareness and a lack of purpose behind a fundamental statutory provision. How can it be that we are not using such a simple tool to help those victims? I am sorry to report to the Minister that the Ministry of Justice’s “Victims Strategy” document, although it is a great document—very worthy and very laudable—makes no reference to the use of CCOs.
My Bill asks the Government to report routinely to Parliament on the use of CCOs in child sexual abuse cases. Let me quote a well-known phrase that my dad used to use: “What gets measured gets done.” I firmly believe that such reporting, if adopted by the Government—in association with other simple and straightforward methods—will stimulate the judiciary to secure for the victims the compensation scheme that they deserve.
I thank all the Members who have supported the Bill so far, particularly my hon. Friends the Members for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) and for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), the hon. Members for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin), and my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton), all of whom have been hugely helpful, as has Alan Collins of Hugh James, the solicitors, whom I also thank. However, there must be more that we can do to help those victims. It is in the Minister’s hands. Victims of child sexual abuse deserve better, and we can deliver it. I ask the House please to accept the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Andrew Griffiths, Sarah Newton, Fiona Bruce, Sarah Champion, Tracy Brabin, John Mann, Dr Philippa Whitford, Antoinette Sandbach, Carolyn Harris and Jim Shannon present the Bill.
Andrew Griffiths accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 5 April and to be printed (Bill 366).
Healthcare (International Arrangements) Bill (Changed to Healthcare (European Economic Area and Switzerland Arrangements) Bill) (Programme) (No. 2)
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),
That the following provisions shall apply to the Healthcare (International Arrangements) Bill (changed to the Healthcare (European Economic Area and Switzerland Arrangements) Bill) for the purpose of supplementing the Order of 14 November 2018 (Healthcare (International Arrangements) Bill (Programme):
Consideration of Lords Amendments
(1) Proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion two hours after their commencement at today’s sitting.
(2) The proceedings shall be taken in the following order: Lords Amendments Nos. 1, 2, 8 to 10, 18 to 20, 3 to 7 and 11 to 17.
Subsequent stages
(3) Any further Message from the Lords may be considered forthwith without any Question being put.
(4) The proceedings on any further Message from the Lords shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement.—(Paul Maynard.)
Question agreed to.
Healthcare (International Arrangements) Bill (Changed to Healthcare (European Economic Area and Switzerland Arrangements) Bill)
Tuesday 26th March 2019
(5 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Healthcare (European Economic Area and Switzerland Arrangements) Act 2019 View all Healthcare (European Economic Area and Switzerland Arrangements) Act 2019 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 166-I Marshalled list for Third Reading (PDF) - (18 Mar 2019)
The Minister for Health (Stephen Hammond)
I beg to move, That this House agrees with Lords amendment 1.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendments 2, 8 to 10, 18 to 20, 3 to 7 and 11 to 17.
Stephen Hammond
It is a pleasure to be in the Chamber this afternoon. We now have the opportunity to turn our attention to an issue of great importance which, I know, commands the support of the House: the issue of reciprocal healthcare. As Members know, our ability to fund healthcare abroad brings invaluable benefits to people, and it is our responsibility to ensure that we continue to make them available to the public. I thank Members on both sides of the House for their work in considering the Bill so far, including those who have spoken to me about it outside the Chamber.
The amendments deal with the global scope of the Bill. It was intended to provide the Secretary of State with powers to fund healthcare outside the UK, to give effect to healthcare arrangements and healthcare agreements between the United Kingdom and other countries or international organisations—such as the European Union—and to make provision in relation to data processing, which is necessary to underpin these arrangements and agreements. Although it was introduced as a result of the UK’s exit from the EU, it was intended to be forward-facing and not to deal only with EU exit. It offered an opportunity to implement new comprehensive reciprocal healthcare agreements with countries outside the EU.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
I am sorry that the Minister was not able to join us at St Helier Hospital yesterday. I understand the reasons for that perfectly, but I hope that he will back the plan for the hospital.
The Minister mentioned the international scope of the Bill. Does he accept that that was a mistake in view of the concerns that people have expressed about, for instance, the opening up of the NHS in future international trade deals with countries such as the United States?
Stephen Hammond
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his words about why I was unable to go to St Helier Hospital. He knows that, as a Minister, it would have been inappropriate, but as a constituency Member of Parliament, I have no doubt that I will be visiting there again soon. I do not accept his criticism. That was never the point of the Bill. We made that argument consistently both in this House and in the Lords. But we have listened carefully to what has been said about the scope of the Bill and I am about to address that now.
As we prepare for our imminent exit from the EU, the global scope of this Bill has been the source of much discussion in here, outside this House and in the other place. I am pleased that the noble lords did not fundamentally disagree with the idea of reciprocal healthcare arrangements outside the EU. However, it was strongly felt that this was not the time to provide for it. Although the Government would have welcomed that opportunity to provide for it, they have recognised that through this group of amendments their lordships voted to restrict the scope of the Bill to making provision only for EU/EEA countries and Switzerland.
The Government believe it is disappointing to lose at this particular time the opportunity to be able to help UK nationals to obtain healthcare when they visit countries outside the EU, such as when they are travelling, studying or working abroad, or if they want to give birth or obtain treatment. It remains the Government’s view that international arrangements on these issues could promote more life options for our citizens outside the EU, offer greater personalisation of care and assist further in the fostering of international healthcare co-operation. However, it must be our foremost priority to ensure that the Bill receives Royal Assent and is in place so we can respond to the different scenarios without delay and assist, as appropriate, the people who rely on these vital healthcare arrangements.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister and I have form on this, in that we were in a Statutory Instrument Committee only yesterday when I was trying to get over to him the need to be very clear to our constituents that, when we leave the EU, the EHIC—the European health insurance card—will disappear and when our constituents go to anywhere in Europe the full bank of healthcare will disappear. Yesterday, the Minister suggested people should take out private insurance instead. Is it not his job as a Minister to tell his constituents and my constituents the truth about this?
Stephen Hammond
It absolutely is my job to tell my constituents and the whole of the country the truth, and I did that yesterday in Committee and will do it again now. If the hon. Gentleman votes for the withdrawal agreement and it passes, the EHIC will remain in place, as I said yesterday. As I also said yesterday it has always been the Government’s advice that people should purchase travel insurance. None of that has changed and that is exactly what I said yesterday and it is exactly what I am saying today.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to be very clear that, with the EHIC, people will get treated as if they are a local; it is not the NHS on tour, so to speak, so we can still face some charges? Particular note should be taken of repatriation costs. If going abroad on something like a skiing holiday, people would be foolish not to take out full travel insurance.
Stephen Hammond
My hon. Friend is right. I made that point yesterday; I made it when I was speaking at the Dispatch Box on Report; and I am happy to make that commitment again today.
It must be our foremost priority to ensure that the Bill receives Royal Assent and is in place so that we can respond to different scenarios. We take this decision with regard for the people who currently rely on the EU reciprocal healthcare arrangements and, only with that in mind, we are choosing not to disagree with the Lords amendments.
Stephen Hammond
One last time because the hon. Gentleman and I had form on this yesterday.
Mr Sheerman
This is an important issue. If the Minister wants me to make a series of points of order, I will because this is so important. Yesterday in a Committee Room, none of us could understand this. At one point, the Minister said, “This is transitional. This will only cover the transition until we are out of the EU. After we have left the EU, EHIC won’t apply.” That is what he said yesterday. I am still not sure whether EHIC will apply only in the transition period, or will go on forever. He has not been clear about this.
Stephen Hammond
I have been clear. One can say these things as many times as one likes, but if someone won’t hear, they won’t hear. I will say one more time to the hon. Gentleman—I am happy to take his interventions if he is going to move on to other points—that, as I made clear yesterday, if the withdrawal Bill passes, the current arrangements for reciprocal healthcare will continue throughout the implementation period. During that implementation period, it is the express intention of the Government and the EU to secure continuing reciprocal healthcare arrangements.
Stephen Hammond
The hon. Gentleman chunters that there is no guarantee. I have given him the guarantee that it is the express intention of both the UK and the EU to ensure reciprocal healthcare arrangements for our citizens post EU exit. I have set out clearly that, in the event of the withdrawal Bill passing and the implementation period starting, EHIC will continue and I think—
Mr Sheerman
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Minister and I were in an SI Committee yesterday and you will know how pressurised they are. Four SIs were all blended together, so it was very difficult to separate them and do our job of scrutinising the legislation going through this place, which is our prime responsibility. What we could not get from the Minister was absolute clarity, speaking out to the public and saying that actually the likelihood of keeping EHIC after we leave the EU is on a wing and a prayer—there is no certainty at all.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
That is not a point of order, but the hon. Gentleman has certainly clarified what he believes needs to be put on the record.
Stephen Hammond
The hon. Gentleman put that on the record yesterday. I answered the question yesterday. I did so with clarity, in a way that I think almost any member of the public could have understood, and I hope that with that we can move on.
The next amendment I wish to discuss is Lords amendment 3. Their lordships have amended clause 2 to limit the regulation-making powers at clause 2(1). Clause 2(2) was intended to be an illustrative list setting out examples of the type of provision that may be included in regulations made under clause 2(1). It is not, on its own, a delegated power. The effect of amendment 3 is to make the list at clause 2(2) exhaustive. Regulations made under clause 2(1) can now only provide for those things on the list at clause 2(2). The intention of the Government has always been to be prudent and transparent in the use of the Bill’s delegated powers and the list was included to be helpful by demonstrating the types of provision that the regulation-making powers at clause 2(1) could include.
Mr Sheerman
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I like the Minister—he is a nice man—but he is reading a brief that for most of my constituents and his is absolute gobbledegook—brackets, references here and sub-clauses there. Surely his job as a Minister is to tell this House in plain English what the dangers are to their future travel—their holidays and business in Europe?
Mr Deputy Speaker
Let’s calm it down a little. In fairness, I think the Minister needs to get to the end of his speech. We cannot have him being interrupted on points of order; it is not good form in this House to do so. What I would say is, “Who knows?” because I cannot predict what the Minister is going to say. He may well get to the points the hon. Gentleman feels are not being addressed.
Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. As a Back Bencher who is keen to see this debate develop and move on so we can get on to other equally important business, what advice can you give me to stop other hon. Members asking pointless points of order in this debate?
Mr Deputy Speaker
The hon. Gentleman not making another point of order might be helpful as well. Let’s just get on and move forward because it is in everybody’s best interests to hear what the Minister has to say.
Stephen Hammond
Much of what we discuss in this House is clearly of a technical nature, and sometimes its language is impenetrable to others who are watching. However, as the hon. Members for Burnley (Julie Cooper) and for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) will know, the House has had a chance to look at this in a fairly exhaustive way. They will know exactly what I am referring to, and I am sure that they will wish to refer to it in their speeches.
Using “for example” to introduce an illustrative list of things that can be done under a regulation-making power can be found in a number of other pieces of legislation. Section 11(2) of the Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018 states:
“Regulations under subsection (1) may, for example”.
Section 48G(2) of the Banking Act 2009 says:
“An order may, for example”.
Using “for example” is not unknown. However, we acknowledge the concerns raised about the breadth of the delegated powers in the Bill, and the Government have taken considerable steps to address those concerns via a number of Government amendments that were accepted in the other place, which I will come to shortly. In addition, we are choosing not to disagree to this amendment, to give further reassurance that the delegated powers in the Bill are no wider than necessary.
Mr Sheerman
The Minister knows that I have also been on another, similar Statutory Instrument Committee, which looked at the use of the green card that gives our constituents the assurance when they travel to Europe that if they are hit by an uninsured driver they will be covered by the insurance industry. That will be lost when we leave the European Union. I used that example yesterday, but the Minister did not come back on it. That is a right and privilege that our constituents expect, and now they are going to lose a similar one relating to healthcare. Is it not clear that these are both examples of the real damage that leaving the European Union will do to us?
Stephen Hammond
The hon. Gentleman has confused various clauses of the Bill, but I will not trouble to explain that. I simply say that the green card is clearly an issue for another Department. I also say again, as I said to him yesterday, that citizens are not going to lose the benefits they enjoy under the EHIC if the withdrawal agreement is passed and the implementation period starts. I would guide him by saying that the easiest way to ensure that all the good burghers of Huddersfield whom he so ably represents can continue to enjoy those rights is to vote for the withdrawal agreement.
As I was saying, the Government have taken considerable steps to address these concerns via a series of Government amendments that were accepted in the other place. In addition, we are choosing not to disagree to this amendment, to give further reassurance that the delegated powers in the Bill are no wider than necessary. Our primary concern, as I have said, is to ensure that the Bill is in place so we have the legal mechanism to support people who rely on these vital healthcare arrangements, as may be necessary.
I would now like to turn to the Government amendments in this group. The Government have also sought to restrict the regulation-making powers in clause 2(1). Amendments 4, 5, and 6 will ensure that, if we confer or delegate functions, this will only be to public authorities. The Government have listened closely to the concerns that the regulations could be used to confer functions on “anyone, anywhere”. The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston argued in Committee that this wide-ranging scope was unacceptable. As I said to him, there has never been an intention to confer functions on private bodies in order to implement reciprocal healthcare arrangements, but, given the concerns that have been raised, we were prepared to make this restriction clear through these amendments to clause 2.
The Government have also brought forward amendment 7. Arguably the most persistent criticism in both Houses has concerned the Bill’s delegated powers. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and the Constitution Committee both raised particular concerns about the breadth of the powers. The powers in the Bill were sought to provide options in the event of no deal to mitigate the detrimental effects of a sudden change in healthcare overseas for UK nationals living in the EU. In particular, the regulation-making powers in clause 2 (1)(a) and 2(1)(b) provide a means for dealing with situations where there is no bilateral or multilateral agreement in place.
The Government listened carefully to the concerns raised by parliamentarians across both Houses about the scope of the Bill’s regulation-making powers and concluded that the powers used to establish unilateral healthcare arrangements outside of reciprocal healthcare agreements should be sunset for a period of five years following the UK’s exit from the EU. During the five years before the sunset, we will have the ability to use regulations under clause 2(1) as appropriate. These powers can be used to support UK nationals in the EU in different EU exit scenarios. After the sunset, making use of the regulation-making powers under clause 2(1) would be limited to clause 2(1)(c) only. This provides the Government with a mechanism to give effect to future complex healthcare agreements with the EU, individual EEA member states and/or Switzerland.
Mr Sheerman
Will the Minister give a crystal clear guarantee to all those people who are related to our constituents and who live across Europe and have perhaps retired there that, if they have a long-term health need, the benefits they enjoy under the EHIC at the moment will continue? I do not want to hear anything about the difference between transitional and long term; can he assure those people that they will continue to get those health benefits in the long term?
Stephen Hammond
If the hon. Gentleman votes for the withdrawal agreement, he will be able to give them that reassurance.
I want to turn now to Government amendment 11. The matter of financial reporting and parliamentary scrutiny has also been a matter of legitimate concern to this House and the other place, and amendment 11 speaks to this concern. As I explained in Committee, the Government are firmly committed to transparency in the use of public money. We have made this commitment plain in the Bill with a duty on the Secretary of State to lay a report before Parliament each year. This report will outline all payments made during the preceding financial year in respect of healthcare arrangements implemented by the Bill. I believe that this amendment directly addresses the concerns raised by hon. Members in Committee, particularly those raised by the hon. Member for Burnley. The nature and implementation of future reciprocal healthcare agreements is a matter for future negotiations. However, we envisage that through this reporting mechanism we would also be able to provide Parliament with further information on the operation of future agreements. For example, we anticipate that this report would include details of both expenditure and income to reflect the reciprocal nature of the agreements.
Before I speak to Government amendment 12, I am pleased to report that we have secured legislative consent motions from both the Scottish and Welsh Governments, in addition to having positive and productive engagement with colleagues in the Northern Ireland Department of Health and the Northern Ireland Office. I want to put on record my thanks to all of them. We have amended the Bill to reflect the outcome of our productive discussions, and the Secretary of State must now consult the relevant devolved authority before making regulations under clause 2(1) that contain any provision that is within the legislative competence of a devolved legislature. To underpin and facilitate this consultation, we have developed and agreed a memorandum of understanding with the devolved Administrations. The MOU sets out a practical and mutually beneficial working relationship that will ensure that the devolved Administrations continue to play a vital role in delivering reciprocal healthcare for the benefit of all UK nationals. We believe that this practical and pragmatic agreement allows us to move forward in a collaborative way with all our colleagues in the devolved Administrations.
Mr Sheerman
The Minister will remember that, in our previous encounter on this matter in Committee, we asked him how far he had spread his discussions about the impact of this Bill in Northern Ireland. He was very honest and said that he had spoken mainly to officials and civil servants, and not to the politicians who represent the constituents there. Has he changed his mind about that, because that seems like a strangely narrow sort of consultation?
Stephen Hammond
I do not think that it was narrow in the slightest. We have discussed matters with the Welsh and Scottish Governments and, given the situation in Northern Ireland, which the hon. Gentleman well knows, with the Northern Ireland civil service, the Northern Ireland Department of Health and the Northern Ireland Office here. I think that that is exactly what I said yesterday, and I am happy to repeat it.
Turning to amendment 15 and transparency, we have also amended the Bill to allow for further parliamentary scrutiny of the list of persons who can lawfully process data as a part of implementing new reciprocal healthcare arrangements under the Bill.
Mr Sheerman
The Minister is being generous in giving way. He will be aware that even Henry VIII in his full pomp would not have got away with stealing the right to health cover of British citizens travelling on holiday to Europe or visiting on business without full democratic scrutiny of the decision. Henry VIII would have been pleased to have had that privilege. This Government have been smuggling the decision through, both in Committee and here in this empty Chamber, and they are stealing the rights of British people.
Stephen Hammond
Given that I just said that we have accepted the amendment that would remove the powers, that argument is hardly powerful. I also suspect that the Opposition spokesperson and the other members of the Committee will be surprised to hear that they had not fulfilled their role when they sat through the hours of scrutiny in Committee.
In conclusion, I offer my thanks to hon. Members from across the House and to the Lords for its constructive work in scrutinising and improving this Bill. We share a common goal in wanting to ensure that we can continue to benefit from the current reciprocal healthcare schemes and benefit from similar arrangements in the future. This Bill is an important and necessary piece of legislation that seeks to ensure that the Government are ready and able to respond to different EU-exit scenarios and that we are in a position to support, as appropriate, people who rely on current EU reciprocal healthcare arrangements. For that reason, it is critical that we take those steps and that the Bill can become law.
Julie Cooper (Burnley) (Lab)
I rise to support the Lords amendments before us. I thank all the Members who have worked on the Bill at various stages and the staff of the House, who have provided invaluable support. I also put on record my particular thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) for his great work during the Bill’s earlier stages. I also thank those in the lords for their exceptional work on this Bill. Thanks to their endeavours, we now have a Bill that is fit for purpose. I am pleased that the Government have decided to listen to our noble friends and give full support to the amended Bill, which marks a welcome, if rather belated, climbdown by the Government.
As we prepare to leave the European Union, it is vital that the Government are able to respond to the widest range of possible EU-exit outcomes in relation to reciprocal healthcare. So many people are reliant on the continuation of reciprocal arrangements and the Government are quite right to seek to secure such arrangements as we leave the EU. The Opposition have supported the principle of this Bill from the outset. but our concerns have been around the scope and the wide-ranging powers that were originally proposed. We were not happy to give the Government a blank cheque to enter into any number of health agreements, with anyone anywhere in world, with no requirement to report back to Parliament, and with little or no opportunity for parliamentary scrutiny. These amendments have addressed our concerns, and I again thank those in the lords for their work.
Turning to amendments 1, 2, 8, 10 and 18 to 20, I want to stress to the House the scale of the issue before us, as pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), who is no longer in his seat. Under the existing arrangements, 190,000 UK state pensioners and their dependants who live abroad, principally in Ireland, Spain, France and Cyprus, enjoy the benefits of reciprocal health agreements. The current arrangements also provide full access through the EHIC to healthcare and emergency treatment for UK residents who visit the EU on holiday, to study or to work. The same protections are extended on a reciprocal basis to EU nationals who reside in the UK or who seek to visit. For the sake of those people, I am glad that the Government have come to their senses. These arrangements, which give full peace of mind for healthcare, must be protected.
I remind the House of the evidence given by representatives of Kidney Care UK. We heard that 29,000 people in the UK are dependent on dialysis, which involves three five-hour sessions per week to ensure survival. Under the current arrangements, if those people choose to holiday in the EU, they can easily pre-book slots for dialysis, with Kidney Care UK saying that that
“means that people are able to go away with the confidence that they will be able to be supported and receive the treatment they need.”––[Official Report, Healthcare (International Arrangements) Public Bill Committee, 27 November 2018; c. 12, Q39.]
That also means that they and their families are able to get a much-needed break. Kidney Care UK also made the point that
“it is easier to go away for two weeks in Europe and take a break in that way than it is to get two weeks in a UK unit”––[Official Report, Healthcare (International Arrangements) Public Bill Committee, 27 November 2018; c. 14, Q43.]
Perhaps there is a learning point for us there.
Based on that evidence, the Minister concluded at the time that without a continuation of these arrangements it would be more or less impossible for sufferers of kidney disease to travel. I totally agree, and I am delighted that the Government appreciate the urgency of the situation in which we find ourselves and are giving their full support to this amended Bill. That is important because we may yet leave the EU with no deal, and there will be many British citizens listening nervously to this debate because they have already booked holidays—some of them will be departing at the weekend or in the coming weeks. However, they can now be reassured that the legislation will pass without further delay.
I reassure Baroness Chisholm that the main Opposition priority is always to ensure that those who need care get it. Further to that, we are right in the first instance to protect the rights that UK citizens already enjoy. In short, we must protect our rights to reciprocal healthcare in Europe before we seek to acquire global healthcare provision. Similarly, those UK citizens who have retired to the EU will be relieved to know that treatment for chronic health conditions and ongoing health support will continue to be provided for them, as it is now, without interruption.
If that was not the case because the Bill was unable to receive Royal Assent in a timely fashion, there would have been much understandable consternation and anger among UK citizens currently residing in the EU. A significant proportion of these citizens are pensioners, and they would have been personally liable for healthcare costs after exit day unless a new agreement with the EU or new bilateral agreements with member states were in place. We must also consider the fact that if there is an interruption in provision, many British expats would have no alternative but to return to the UK, which would of course add to the pressures on our already overstretched NHS.
At every stage, both here and in the other place, concerns have been raised about what those in the lords described as the breathtaking powers sought in this Bill. Lords amendments 3 to 7 serve in part to restrict the powers to those that are clearly defined and to those that are necessary for the purpose of protecting reciprocal health arrangements. In amendment 3, just removing the words “for example” assists in terms of essential accountability issues by restricting the powers of the Secretary of State to those regulations specifically listed. The powers listed remain extensive, and the lords was assured that they give the Government everything they need to take forward the negotiations on reciprocal healthcare. We welcome amendments 5 and 6, which ensure that the power to deliver functions is conferred only to a public authority. We are happy that the powers conferred by clause 2 should also be subject to a five-year sunset clause.
We support amendment 11, which provides an important and necessary requirement to consult with the devolved authorities, namely the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly. We fully support the vital role that the devolved Administrations play in delivering reciprocal healthcare arrangements, and we welcome the memorandum of understanding that has already been achieved.
Amendment 12, which requires the Secretary of State to report on repayments made under this Bill, is also welcome. This amendment reasonably calls for annual reports to be published after the end of each financial year as soon as is reasonably practicable. It is anticipated that these reports will include details of both expenditure and income. This will facilitate transparency on the Government’s use of public money. I am especially pleased that the Minister has withdrawn his former opposition to that procedure.
On a wider point, in connection with repayments, it is important that we do not overlook the fact that many hospital trusts are struggling to recoup moneys owed under current EU arrangements. Indeed, some costs are never recovered. The UK recovers less than £50 million a year for the cost of treating European patients, while paying £675 million for the care of Britons in Europe.
Mr Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)
The hon. Lady is pointing out the disparity in payments between the UK and the EU. Recognising that there are considerably more EU users of the NHS than UK users of health services on the continent, why is it that the Labour party, in the past, criticised the NHS and the Department of Health and Social Care for trying to recover sums due from EU citizens for taking advantage of our health service?
Julie Cooper
I think the objections raised by the Labour party in the past were based on the methodology used and the potential abuse of personal data, but we would fully support an efficient system to recover moneys owed to the UK.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
When talking about the disparity in numbers—there are more than 3 million European citizens here and approximately 1.5 million UK citizens there—is it not the case that the majority of EU citizens here are working and paying taxes and therefore are not covered by this system but are covered by the tax they already pay?
Julie Cooper
The hon. Lady makes an important point. I was referring to the fact identified by the Public Accounts Committee in its concerns about collecting what is due, but I take her point that many people pay for their own health provision while in the UK.
My point further reinforces the rationale of restricting the scope of this Bill to the EEA and Switzerland, which will help to ensure the priority is to improve the recovery of healthcare costs, where they are due, before we even begin to think of entering into non-EEA agreements.
We, of course, welcome the Government’s decision to remove the Henry VIII powers from this Bill. We repeatedly return to that issue in this raft of Brexit legislation, and I hope now, and certainly in connection with this Bill, that the Government agree it can never be right to confer on any Minister the same powers as are conferred on Parliament.
I understand that the Minister has a big vision and wants to take this opportunity to extend the current arrangements and to present a Bill that allows the Government to enter into any number of new reciprocal health agreements with any and every nation of the world, should they so choose. There could be a time and a place for such legislation, but it is not now because time is so short. There is not time for Parliament to scrutinise such an extensive range of proposals properly for such wide-ranging powers.
Our noble Friends raised some very reasonable concerns on that point, and they are correct to note the comments of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee when it concluded that the Bill, in its original form, gave law-making powers that were too wide. Our noble Friends were right to give serious consideration to the Constitution Committee’s recommendation that the scope of the Bill should be limited to countries that participate in the existing EHIC scheme:
“While the exceptional circumstances of the UK’s departure from the European Union might justify legislation containing broader powers than would otherwise be constitutionally acceptable, this does not extend to giving effect to new policy unrelated to Brexit.”
Above all, we now have a Bill that does what was intended: to ensure the continuation of the current reciprocal healthcare arrangements with the nations of the EU and the EEA. Given that that is the Bill’s principal target, there is no need to give the Bill worldwide scope.
I am pleased to join the Minister in giving our full support to the amended Bill before us.
Kevin Foster
It is a pleasure to be called to speak in this debate. I do not intend to detain the House long with my observations. I enjoyed the Minister’s introduction.
I welcome the Lords amendments, particularly the ones that change the thrust of the Bill to the EEA and Switzerland, but I hope that right hon. and hon. Members will bear in mind that, in the long run, the goal of having reciprocal healthcare arrangements with other nations is not a negative one in itself. I was disappointed yet again to hear from the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) that this is all about opening up the NHS to the US health giants—it is not. It is about having reciprocal arrangements for visitors to other countries, including those on business and those who are travelling.
Julie Cooper
I made the point that, in future, there may be a place for such arrangements, but does the hon. Gentleman accept that time is so short, given the urgency of getting something in place to secure arrangements, that now is not the time for that?
Kevin Foster
I meant it more as a comment. I accept the Lords amendments. To be blunt, given the pressure of time and the need to get the Bill on the statute book to give people certainty about their healthcare arrangements, if these amendments achieve consensus with Opposition Front Benchers and the other place, I am more than happy to support them.
In relation to the remarks of the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington, who sadly has not stayed for the rest of the debate, this is about making sure that people who go to hospital to access emergency care are not suddenly faced with a bill for the full cost as if they were completely uninsured.
We have arrangements with Australia and New Zealand that are not at the same level as we have with other EU countries, but they could potentially be developed. I do not want to see that aspiration lost, because we want our young people to have the opportunity to travel and work abroad where appropriate. In many countries, as the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) rightly said, people who work will start earning rights under that country’s social insurance system, which would trump the Bill.
Mr Dunne
My hon. Friend is generous in giving way. In talking about other Commonwealth nations to which we would like to extend such arrangements, does he agree that the dominions of the Channel Islands, which do not currently have reciprocal status with the UK, should not be ignored and should be a matter of importance once the EU arrangements have been completed?
Kevin Foster
As always, I thank my right hon. Friend for his incisive intervention. The Channel Islands might use our currency and, in many ways, fly our flag, but people forget they have a very different constitutional status and are not part of the European Union. For some visitors, it can be a surprise that there is not a reciprocal agreement. There is a reciprocal arrangement with Gibraltar, for example, and it makes eminent sense to try to have such an arrangement between the UK and the Channel Islands, not least given the strong cultural links and the fact that many families split their time between the mainland and the islands.
Looking across the Commonwealth more widely, it might make sense to have arrangements with countries such as Canada and Jamaica in the long run, based on the fact that they have comparable systems of healthcare provision. That is perhaps where the oft-cited example of the United States starts to fall apart, because it is one of the handful of modern, developed countries that do not have a guaranteed system of universal healthcare free at the point of need rather than a system based on insurance schemes for which people may pay.
It is welcome to have ambition, and the Bill is clear about where we are going. I have no problems with the Lords amendments, which are welcome, and I am happy to support them. I am conscious that we are looking to move the debate forward, but I wanted to get those thoughts on the record.
Dr Whitford
Obviously, the Bill itself is quite small. It does not extend or protect continuing reciprocal healthcare rights; it is simply an enabling Bill that gives the Secretary of State powers to try to do that. It enables him to pay for overseas treatment in the EEA and Switzerland. We have heard how the Lords removed the powers to extend that worldwide and increase the scope, as well as limiting some of the Henry VIII powers.
The Bill will allow the Secretary of State and his team to negotiate healthcare agreements with the EEA and Switzerland as a group through the EU system or, failing that, to make bilateral agreements. Unfortunately, that would mean having bilateral agreements with 31 countries, which would inevitably be more complex, more bureaucratic and more expensive.
Clause 4 allows data exchange, which most Members would recognise is absolutely critical not just for collecting payments or swapping money, but for accessing medical health records if someone goes for treatment in another country. It is important that that will be handled only by an authorised person who is part of a statutory body—a public body.
I welcome the new clause in Lords amendment 11, which says that the devolved Governments must be consulted, because it is the three devolved Governments who deliver healthcare in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. It is critical that they are involved in any agreements.
This legislation is needed whether there is a deal or no deal. As came out of the points of order exchange earlier, the withdrawal agreement would extend through the transition period, but we have all seen how the last three years have melted away like snow off a dyke. The next 20 months will also disappear, so legislation is required for the long-term protection of those who already live in Europe and want to stay there, particularly those who have been there only a few years and do not have five years-worth of residency rights in the country they have chosen to settle in. After the Bill is passed, it is therefore important that the Government hope to negotiate the continuation of reciprocal healthcare.
The problem is that reciprocal healthcare is not a free-standing thing on its own; it is there simply to enable freedom of movement. People cannot exercise their freedom of movement rights if they simply cannot afford healthcare where they choose to live, work, love, settle or retire. We have had the right over the past few decades to retire and settle anywhere. People are well aware of my husband’s situation as a German citizen who lives here and has spent virtually all his adult life working in our health system. That was certainly his first concern after the Brexit vote, and I am sure it is a concern for all 5 million people who have either settled here from Europe or settled in Europe from the UK.
The problem is that, as the Government reject freedom of movement and talk merely about a mobility framework, any reciprocal arrangement is likely to be proportional to that mobility framework, as is described in the impact assessment. The Government are not offering visas of over a year for unskilled workers. They are demanding that people be high skilled, possibly that they earn more than £30,000 a year and that they are economically active and are contributors. Will pensioners still be able to retire elsewhere, since they are not necessarily contributors in a major sense and are certainly not necessarily economically active?
People highlight the difference between what the UK has to pay into the European system and what we get back from Europe. A lot of that difference is quite simply because of the number of UK pensioners who choose to retire to sunnier climes—who can blame them?—and the general lack of obsession with retiring to the drizzle and moving in the other direction. Living in Scotland, I can vouch for that. Who would choose to leave the south of France and come to live in the mist, fog and drizzle? That is why the number of European pensioners retiring to the UK is considerably smaller than the number of UK pensioners who retire to the south of Spain and the south of France. That is simple logic.
Dr Whitford
The right hon. Gentleman probably would not like me to get into the clearances of the 17th and 18th centuries when people were burnt out of their villages and put on boats, or when people were transported for criminal activities. There are all sorts of reasons why Scots have ended up all over the world, and they are not all about the weather.
Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)
I just want to say to the hon. Lady that I adore Scotland. I just love the mist, the fog, the rain—it is what I call proper weather, and it is to be celebrated.
Dr Whitford
That is why I live there, right beside the sea, but that does not necessarily mean that somebody living in the vineyards of France will think, “You know what? The weather’s a bit boring here. I fancy somewhere with snow, sleet, hail and sunshine all in one day.”
It is a fact that the disparity is because of the number of pensioners. It is often described as if it is the EU somehow tricking the UK—it simply is not. We are obliged to pay for the pensioners from the UK who have settled in Europe. Indeed, we pay a fixed rate per head that is considerably lower than—just over half—what would be charged for a European citizen settling here.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
Does the hon. Lady agree that another reason for the disparity is that the NHS, in being free at the point of need, has not over the years been as geared up as other countries for recording the patient episodes of EU nationals and collecting that kind of data? Because it is not an insurance-based system but is free at the point of delivery, it does not necessarily have the mindset or the paperwork to think about healthcare in terms of money.
Dr Whitford
I totally agree that that is part of it. The Government have to consider, given the numbers involved, whether creating that entire administrative system will bring more money back in than is spent on administering it.
It is important to consider exactly how we will expect doctors and other health staff to demand to see someone’s settled status. Will it be based on a foreign sounding name, a skin colour or an accent? Will people have to produce an ID card if they were born here, they grew up here, they have never been anywhere else and their family are 20 generations English? That is the point: there is no ID card here. In other European countries, there is an ID card and it will show that UK citizens have whatever the equivalent of settled status is. I think doctors and others are anxious about the circumstances in which they should ask for proof of habitual residency.
We see that already in respect of universal credit. I have dealt with a German lady who has been settled here for 30 years and who was refused universal credit on the basis that she was not habitually resident. We are already seeing these things, and we do not want to see them around healthcare.
As we have heard, there are three main groups. The biggest group is the almost 200,000 pensioners using their S1 rights to register somewhere they have never paid tax—and yet they benefit as if they have. It is important that their rights continue, or they may end up having to come back home. They would cost more here than the Government are paying France or Spain to deliver their healthcare. It is important that they are not limited in some way, so that only people who do not have medical health risks are accepted, as happens with insurance. Ordinary pensioners who have exercised those rights would simply not be able to afford comprehensive private health insurance.
A lot of work is being done to protect those who have settled already, but what about the rest of us, who might fancy settling in the south of France or Spain? Will this be achievable by ordinary pensioners in the future?
Approximately 1,300 UK citizens use S2 forms for planned treatment, and the biggest number is the 250,000 claims a year that are made through the EHIC card, which allows people to travel or study all over the EU. As the hon. Member for Burnley (Julie Cooper) said, that includes people with expensive chronic conditions that require treatment such as dialysis three times a week. I defy any Member to find affordable health insurance that would cover such treatment. That is not a risk of healthcare, but planned healthcare, otherwise the trip simply cannot be made.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate—from the Back Benches on this occasion. Although I would have preferred to contribute from the Front Bench as I did during previous stages of the Bill, the Opposition are in safe hands, thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Julie Cooper).
It is curious that both the Minister who led for the Government on Second Reading and I, as Opposition spokesperson, have moved on since then, him to become Brexit Secretary and me to become a Back Bencher. We could have a debate—perhaps even a Division—on who got the better deal.
However, perhaps most curious is that, along the way, the measure has gone from being an international arrangements Bill to an EEA and Swiss arrangements Bill. I have been here for only four years, but I have never heard of a Bill changing its name—but then before this year, I had never heard of Cabinet Ministers breaking collective responsibility and staying in their job, or Parliament taking control of the Order Paper. There are obviously many other examples of the strange times we live in, and this is just another curiosity to add to the list.
The Lords amendments pick up on many of the anxieties we expressed previously about the implications of the sweeping powers in the Bill. I pay tribute to Baroness Thornton and her team who have obviously got greater powers of persuasion than us. They have come up with a series of amendments that rightly curtail the breathtaking powers the Government sought to claim for themselves.
When the Bill began its progress in November, there was a clear assumption on the part of the Government that agreement with the EU would have been reached by now and that arrangements would be in place to carry on very much as we are, at least in the interim period. That in itself raised serious questions about why the scope of the Bill was so wide, and it would not be an understatement to say that the orderly exit envisaged at the time is now not quite so certain. That makes it all the more important that we have a Bill with proportionality and transparency at its heart.
It is worth reminding ourselves that when the Bill first surfaced, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in the other place set out very clearly its potential impact if it remained unamended. It said that the measure gave the Secretary of State the power to fund the cost of all mental health provision in the state of Arizona, or the cost of all hip replacements in Australia. Although we pushed the Minister on the reason for the need for such wide powers—accepting of course that they would be unlikely ever to be used—the only justification given was that they might prove useful at some future time in trade deals. Although that might be the case, without a clear objective, debated and agreed in Parliament, the powers were unnecessarily broad, so it is right that the Lords raised those concerns and amended the Bill accordingly.
We all have constituents who regularly raise concerns about access to the NHS being used as a bargaining chip in trade negotiations. If the Bill had remained unamended, it would only have given those people more reason to be concerned about such deals. Restricting its scope to EEA countries and Switzerland is therefore proportionate and sensible.
I want to say a few words about amendment 12, which is very similar to an amendment that the Opposition tabled in Committee. It deserves support because even under the current arrangements, cost recovery has not always been handled satisfactorily. Indeed, the Public Accounts Committee described it as “chaotic”. The Law Society of Scotland was clear on the importance of that issue when it gave evidence to the Lords Committee. It said that
“as the NHS has never been very effective in reclaiming the fees owed to it by overseas visitors to the UK, the UK may find itself substantially worse off financially when new arrangements for funding cross-national use of health services are put in place.”
The case for greater accountability is there and has been strengthened by the Government’s impact assessment, which seemed to seriously underestimate the consequences of a no-deal scenario. It set out that the cost of establishing future reciprocal healthcare arrangements on the same basis as now would be £630 million a year, but it went on to estimate that, in the event of a no-deal scenario, the costs are expected
“to be similar or less, depending on the number of schemes that are established.”
I do not think it has ever been clear why the costs might be less unless we stopped reciprocating with some countries, and I do not believe that has ever been an express policy objective of the Government. In fact, they have often—rightly—said the opposite, but the reality is that, in that scenario, the costs could be significantly higher. Both the BMA and Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health stated that if no EU-wide reciprocal agreement was achievable, the significant extra costs of establishing bilateral reciprocal arrangements with EU and EEA countries in future could fall on the NHS. We need, but have never had, a commitment that, in those circumstances, any extra costs would not be borne directly by NHS trusts. I hope that today the Minister can give such an assurance.
The Lords picked up on a related issue, which we have raised previously, on the lack of clarity about how dispute resolution will work in the event of bilateral agreements being necessary. We know from what the Minister has previously told us that, if we manage to reach full agreement with the EU27, there will still be a limited role for the European Court of Justice, but we do not know what the dispute resolution procedure will be if we do not.
The Lords rightly pointed out that there would be little incentive for other countries to agree to a brand new dispute resolution procedure, and they would certainly be loth to do that if they were expected to pay for it, so in the event of a no-deal scenario, is it not the case that there will be significant additional costs for the UK taxpayer in setting up and resourcing a new dispute resolution scheme? Does the Minister envisage those costs being part of the reporting requirements under amendment 12 and again, can he give a commitment today that those costs will not be directly borne by NHS trusts?
The Bill is in a much better condition than when it started. It does what it is supposed to do, and no more. Crucially, it gives much greater parliamentary oversight than we originally had. I think it is called taking back control.
Lords amendment 1 agreed to.
Lords amendments 2, 8 to 10, 18 to 20, 3 to 7 and 11 to 17 agreed to.
Offensive Weapons Bill (Money)
Queen’s recommendation signified.
Resolved,
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Offensive Weapons Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable under any other Act out of money so provided.—(Amanda Milling.)
Offensive Weapons Bill (Programme) (No. 3)
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),
That the following provisions shall apply to the Offensive Weapons Bill for the purpose of supplementing the Orders of 27 June 2018 (Offensive Weapons Bill (Programme)) and 28 November 2018 (Offensive Weapons Bill (Programme) (No. 2)):
Consideration of Lords Amendments
(1) Proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion two hours after their commencement at today’s sitting.
(2) The proceedings shall be taken in the following order: Lords Amendments Nos. 27, 28, 1 to 26 and 29 to 95.
Subsequent stages
(3) Any further Message from the Lords may be considered forthwith without any Question being put.
(4) The proceedings on any further Message from the Lords shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement.—(Amanda Milling.)
Question agreed to.
Offensive Weapons Bill
Tuesday 26th March 2019
(5 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Offensive Weapons Act 2019 View all Offensive Weapons Act 2019 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Commons Consideration of Lords Amendments as at 26 March 2019 - (26 Mar 2019)
16:35 - divided: - Ayes: 249 / Noes: 308 - Question accordingly negatived.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
I must draw the House’s attention to the fact that financial privilege is involved in Lords amendments 27, 28, 35, 43 to 48, 50, 51, 53, 55, 57, 62, 63, 65, 66, 69, 73, 88 and 93. If the House agrees to any of these amendments, I shall ensure that the appropriate entry is made in the Journal.
I must also remind the House that certain of the motions relating to Lords amendments are certified as relating exclusively to England and Wales as set out on the selection paper. If the House divides on any certified motion, a double majority will be required for the motion to be passed. I inform the House that Mr Speaker has selected all the amendments as provided on the relevant papers.
Clause 17
Delivery of bladed products to residential premises etc
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)
I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 27.
Mr Deputy Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government motion to disagree with Lords amendment 28.
Government amendments (a) to (k) in lieu of Lords amendments 27 and 28.
Lords amendments 1 to 6.
Lords amendment 7, and amendments (a) to (d) thereto.
Lords amendment 8.
Lords amendment 9, and amendment (a) thereto.
Lords amendment 10, and amendment (a) thereto.
Lords amendment 11.
Lords amendment 12, and amendments (a) to (c) thereto.
Lords amendment 13.
Lords amendment 14, and amendment (a) thereto.
Lords amendments 15 to 22.
Lords amendment 23, and amendment (a) thereto.
Lords amendments 24 to 26.
Lords amendments 29 to 61.
Lords amendment 62, and Government amendment (a) thereto.
Lords amendment 63, and Government amendment (a) thereto.
Lords amendments 64 to 95.
Victoria Atkins
I thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for what I know to be quite a complicated bit of procedure. I hope that I deal with the procedure correctly, and I am very grateful to your learned Clerks for advising me on the wording. I shall be speaking to amendments 27 and 28, Government amendments (a) to (k) which are laid in lieu, and Lords amendments 1 to 26 and 29 to 95. I may not be able to speak to the details of some of those later amendments, but, obviously, I will be very happy to take interventions.
The Offensive Weapons Bill is an important piece of legislation. It is just one of the measures that the Government are taking to tackle serious violence in the serious violence strategy. The Bill has enjoyed a collaborative approach across the House, and I thank all right hon. and hon. Members and noble lords who have helped with the passage of the Bill thus far. I am sure that this afternoon will continue in that spirit.
I will first address Lords amendments 27 and 28, which were moved by Lord Kennedy in the other place. I am grateful to him for his assistance on this part of the Bill. We have laid amendments in lieu, because the Government cannot agree with the trusted courier amendments as they sit, but I very much hope that the amendments that we have laid in lieu will meet with the House’s approval.
The trusted courier scheme would have practical difficulties in its bureaucracy and regulation. It risks making it more difficult to determine whether a delivery company can be trusted to provide reassurances that a bladed product will not be handed to a person aged under 18, and it is not clear, for example, how this scheme would apply to self-employed delivery drivers working on a casual basis for some of the larger firms. We are also concerned that simply being part of a scheme, or being in possession of a seal of approval as a trusted courier, does not guarantee compliance with the conditions in the scheme. We note that no responsibility is placed on the courier or company, and therefore there does not appear to be any consequence for the courier company if it fails to comply with the requirement not to hand a bladed product to a person aged under 18. One can envisage a courier in a rush, for example, pushing a package through a letterbox without conducting checks. It is this lack of liability for age checks in the scheme that we believe risks undermining the purpose of the Bill, which means that we must, I am afraid, disagree with it at this stage.
The Government have, however, given considerable thought to the views expressed on the sale-of-knives provisions throughout the passage of the Bill by Members both in this place and the other place and, importantly, by representatives of the business community, particularly those in small and medium-sized businesses in the capital of knife and steel manufacturing in Sheffield. I am very grateful to the hon. Members for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) and for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) for their assistance in this. We have tabled amendments (a) to (k) in lieu of Lords amendments 27 and 28, which I hope address their concerns. In short, these amendments in lieu would enable a remote seller to deliver a bladed product to residential premises where they have arrangements in place with a deliverer not to hand them over to a person aged under 18. This approach mirrors, largely, the clause already in the Bill regarding delivery companies relating to overseas sales, although it is limited to bladed products and to deliveries to residential premises. Regulations on overseas sales by contrast apply to deliveries to all premises and to all bladed articles.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Lady for giving way, and I hope that she will show me where I am wrong, but I always understood that delivery companies, particularly those delivering post and packages, have an X-ray procedure to see what the contents are.
Victoria Atkins
I am not sure whether I am in a position to answer that. Of course, every company will have its own security arrangements. The hon. Gentleman will know that what we have inserted through this Bill are further conditions on sellers to ensure that their packages, if they contain bladed products, are labelled very clearly so that anyone handling that package understands what is inside it. We appreciate that perhaps not everyone has access to those facilities.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for the huge amount of work that she has done on this very important Bill and on this particular issue as well, which will make it much more difficult for people, especially young people, to buy knives online. Last week, I was very interested to hear that Asda will no longer sell individual knives, and I wondered whether she might like to comment on that.
Victoria Atkins
I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend. She has taken a keen interest in this matter both as a constituency MP and in her contributions to this place. She is absolutely right to raise the example of Asda. Asda and other major retailers are signed up to our voluntary commitments when it comes to the sale of knives online, and we believe that that is another way in which we can ensure that retailers are doing what they should be doing in terms of selling bladed products and sharp knives responsibly. I am delighted that Asda has taken that decision of its own volition. I know that other retailers are doing great things in this space as well, but we all want to ensure that those standards are met not just by the large retailers, but by smaller ones, too.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for meeting my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) and me and I also thank her colleague in the House of Lords for doing the same. I also thank them both for listening. What clause 17 does is recognise the importance of making sure that knives are not sold to young people, but here it establishes a procedure for proving that young people are 18, as they are checked at the point of sale and at the point of delivery. The measure also protects small businesses such as Taylor’s Eye Witness, which manufactures knives in my constituency, from the effects of the original legislation. I also want to say that the real thanks go to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central and his assistant Paula who have done an incredible amount of work on this. They, along with Lord Kennedy in the House of Lords, deserve particular thanks for getting this far.
Victoria Atkins
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his words and for that meeting I had with him. He is absolutely right that we wanted to listen on this. As I said at the beginning, this Bill has been, I hope, a good example of collaborative work across the House and I am extremely grateful to hon. Members for that.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
My concern about retailers has always been not with the Asdas or John Lewises, whom one would expect to do the right thing—they have a public image as well—but with the disreputable merchants. Will my hon. Friend at least keep this matter on watch, so that if it turns out that those not following the code are seen to be doing wrong, we can review the amendment that was discussed the last time we considered the Bill?
Victoria Atkins
Yes, and I thank my hon. Friend, who has been particularly persistent about locking away bladed products or sharp knives. We absolutely keep that point under review. We have had a good response from the retail industry thus far, but we will of course keep the pressure up, and I am extremely grateful to him for his contribution to that.
Liability under our amendments in lieu attaches only to companies that enter into arrangements to deliver bladed products. A delivery company could choose simply not to do so. Our amendments therefore provide the flexibility that the hon. Member for Sheffield South East described, so that if a seller does not enter into an arrangement with a delivery company, the provisions in the Bill that prohibit delivery to residential premises of a bladed product will still apply. A seller in those circumstances will not be able to send a bladed product to residential premises and the product will have to be collected in person at a collection point, which at least gives small and medium-sized businesses the choice over how to conduct their business. We believe that these amendments will help to address the concern behind the Bill and achieve the aim of stopping young people and those under 18 having access to these products through online sales when they should not have such access. I very much hope that our amendment will meet the approval of the House.
Let me turn to knife crime prevention orders. It is vital that the police have the powers they need to prevent knife crime and to protect the public from the devastating effects of violent crime on our streets. It is frankly already too late when we prosecute young people for knife crime. If measures are available that might help to steer children and young people away from carrying or using a knife, we should not hesitate to put them in place. That is why the Government have introduced, in short order, knife crime prevention orders in the Bill. The police made that request of us at the very end of the summer last year, and we were pleased to insert the provision into the Bill in the House of Lords. These are civil orders aimed at young people at risk of engaging in knife crime, people whom the police call habitual knife carriers of any age and those who have been convicted of a violent offence or an offence involving knives.
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
Will the Minister confirm that although these are civil orders, if they are breached they become criminal, and that 12-year-old children could end up in prison for two years? Will she also confirm that not a single organisation, from the magistrates and local government to charities, lawyers and anybody involved in youth offending teams, supports this change? They all think that we are acting too quickly and need to take more time looking at the implications before introducing it.
Victoria Atkins
I am about to come to the framework for these orders, because I am conscious that in an ideal world we would have had the measure in the Bill when it was first laid before the House in the early summer last year. However, the police came to their view and alerted us to their thinking at the end of summer, and although we have frankly acted pretty quickly, we could not by definition have put the measure in the Bill before the police asked us to. We are doing this in response to the express wish of the police; in fact, the Mayor of London wrote to the Home Secretary in December asking that the orders be inserted in the Bill.
I do not know whether the hon. Lady has had a chance to speak to the Mayor of London, but the reason we are introducing these orders is that we want to try to help local communities to tackle knife crime. They are one measure. We do not pretend that they will solve all knife crime, but they are about preventing young people from getting ensnared in criminal gangs or getting into a situation where they think that carrying a knife will protect them. This is about trying to wrap services around those children before they become criminalised.
I know that concerns have been raised about the age at which the orders can be imposed. The orders apply from the age of 12 upwards because the police tell us that the age at which people carry knives is getting younger. We also know from hospital data that younger children are victims and perpetrators. That is why we have chosen that age. If we are serious about tackling knife crime on our streets, the measures that we take must apply to young people and children.
Sir Edward Davey
I think the whole House is with the Minister in the determination to tackle knife crime and to try to prevent young people from getting into it, but can she tell the House what other mechanisms, orders or contracts the Government looked at before concluding that this was the right way forward? I have spoken to her privately about antisocial behaviour orders, which in the past did not work, whereas acceptable behaviour contracts, which worked with the young person, did work. Have the Government looked at those?
Victoria Atkins
I think the right hon. Gentleman and I talked about that last week. As I have said to him, I will happily look into those. We looked at whether gang injunctions are appropriate, but as Members across the House will know, not every child carrying a knife is a member of a gang. We also looked at criminal behaviour orders, but both those measures are contingent on a child being convicted of a criminal offence. With knife crime prevention orders, we want to try to reach those children before they are convicted of carrying a knife. The orders are also available upon conviction, because we want to wrap services around children if they are convicted and serve a detention training order. We wanted an extra structure around children to try to tackle the issue.
Victoria Atkins
If the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I must make some progress.
The order may impose such requirements or prohibitions on a person as a court considers necessary to protect any person from risk of harm or to prevent the commission of an offence involving a bladed article. A KCPO that imposes a requirement must specify a person who is responsible for supervising compliance with that requirement. Again, I emphasise that this is about protection and prevention. It is not about criminalising children. The order is a civil order. We do, however, accept that the breach of an order is, in itself, a criminal matter. I know that some have argued that it would be better to go down the antisocial behaviour injunction route, which applies to children as young as 10. The argument is that having a contempt of court rather than a criminal offence for a breach would make the orders more palatable, because it would mean that children did not get a criminal record. The advice from the police—it is advice that we must listen to very carefully—is that making it a criminal offence to breach an order is important if we want these orders to be taken seriously.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
May I congratulate my hon. Friend most sincerely on producing a much needed Bill? Acid, knives and certain firearms are issues that we absolutely need to crack down on. Does she agree that knife prevention orders are a good mechanism? It is becoming de rigueur in some of our cities for people to carry knives in self-defence, in case they might want to use them, which is totally the wrong culture. With these orders, the police will be able to warn youngsters that if they carry knives again, they will be subject to an order and could be subject to a criminal penalty if they breach it.
Victoria Atkins
My hon. Friend summarises the orders succinctly, and I thank him for all his work on the Bill. The point of the orders is to try to reach those children before they are in the criminal justice system. They include, for example, the ability to prohibit a child from accessing social media or entering certain postcodes, because we know the tensions arising on the streets from particular groups of young people in certain parts of our large cities. This is not about criminalising those young people; it is about trying to reach them.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
In the Minister’s discussions with the police about programmes that work and the investment that they want to see, has she considered expanding Prevent, a programme with proven successes, or early intervention measures such as investing in our youth services? What the police keep saying, and what Ministers keep quoting, is that we cannot just police our way out. If that is the case, we need to invest in all those programmes that support our young people, so I would be grateful if the Minister said something about Prevent in particular.
Victoria Atkins
I thank the hon. Lady again for all the work that she does through the Youth Violence Commission. She is absolutely right. As I said at the beginning of the debate, the Offensive Weapons Bill is but one measure within the serious violence strategy, and these orders are but one measure within the Bill. We do not for one moment claim that the orders are going to solve everything, but we hope that they will be a path to reaching some of the children who are currently so difficult to reach, as the hon. Lady knows. These measures come on top of all the early intervention and the youth endowment fund, through which we are investing £200 million over the next 10 years to give certainty to the organisations that win bids. All those measures are really important.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
As I have stated previously in the Chamber, the Offensive Weapons Bill has been a cause of serious concern within the British Sikh community, with a feeling that the centuries-old religious requirement of wearing a kirpan, a Sikh sword, could be unintentionally criminalised and that even the tradition of honouring a non-Sikh within a gurdwara, a place of worship, by bestowing them with a kirpan could be deemed illegal. However, thanks to the strong leadership of the noble Lord Roy Kennedy and others in the House of Lords, with excellent assistance from Lord Singh, Lord Paddick, Baroness Verma, the organisation Sikhs in Politics and others, amendments were tabled. As Lord Tunnicliffe and Baroness Williams said, those amendments were passed with unanimity. Although I am extremely grateful to the Minister for the courtesy that she extended to me during our recent meeting to seek my views on the matter, for the record—and to assuage community concerns—can she confirm that the Government wholeheartedly support those amendments and will incorporate them into the Bill?
Victoria Atkins
The hon. Gentleman has jumped right to the end of my speech. However, I will respond now because I am conscious that it is such an excellent intervention. I will then return to KCPOs.
Let me put on record my thanks to the hon. Members for Slough (Mr Dhesi) and for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill), my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) and many noble lords in the other place for their work to ensure that this Bill reaches the issues in knife possession that we really want to tackle, and it does not inadvertently and completely mistakenly in any way affect the gifting, use or possession of Sikh kirpans, which was never the Government’s intention. I am grateful to all hon. Members, as well as to the many Sikh organisations that have been involved in this process, for helping us to clarify and improve the law.
I can confirm that the amendments will create defences to sections 141(1) and 141A of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 and section 50(2) and (3) of the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979 relating to the custom of gifting kirpans by ceremonial presentation. The amendments will create a defence for a person of the Sikh faith to present another person with a curved sword in
“a religious ceremony or other ceremonial event.”
They will also provide a defence for possessing such swords for the purposes of presenting them to others at a ceremony, and for the recipients of such a gift to possess swords that have been presented to them. It was never the intention of the Bill to affect this custom, and I am extremely grateful to hon. Members for their work on these measures.
Victoria Atkins
If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I must move on because I am conscious that others wish to speak.
Let me return to KCPOs. I know that the shadow Minister has tabled some amendments, and I will deal with them in a moment. On the question of age and the concern that youth offending teams must be consulted, we have included in the Bill a requirement that youth offending teams must be consulted on any orders for people under the age of 18. We have also said that we will consult publicly on the guidance with community groups, youth organisations and others before these orders are brought into force.
Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)
Before the Minister finishes discussing prevention orders, will she tell the House a little bit more about the pilots? How many pilots are there going to be, when are they going to start and how long will they last? Given the urgency of implementing this legislation and the concerns that have been raised, will the Government report back to the House on how the pilots have operated, so that we have a further opportunity to amend and adapt the measures if necessary?
Victoria Atkins
Yes. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising the pilots. Some of the concerns raised today were also raised in the other place, so their lordships saw fit to insert an amendment regarding piloting. I hope that it gives some comfort to the House that we will pilot the provisions in one or more specified areas in England and Wales. We have not yet determined which forces will have the privilege of starting these pilots. The second condition of piloting is that the Secretary of State will lay before Parliament
“a report on the operation of some or all of the provisions”
relating to KCPOs, so the House will be fully updated on the progress. I am sorry that I cannot give the hon. Gentleman more details regarding the operational aspects of the pilots at this precise moment in time, but I want to deal with the amendments tabled by the shadow Minister.
Amendments (b) and (c) to Lords amendment 7, and amendment (a) to Lords amendment 14, would make it a requirement for the police to obtain—and, by implication, for the youth offending team to produce—a pre-injunction report, including an assessment of the defendant, before making an application on conviction, or otherwise than on conviction if the defendant is under the age of 18, and to provide that report to the court as part of their application. It follows from this proposed amendment that the outcome of the consultation should be available to the court. The requirement to consult is an important safeguard to ensure that the youth offending team has a chance to influence the process, and we expect the YOT’s view to be before the court when it is considering the application. We will state in guidance that we expect the police and the Crown Prosecution Service to share with the court the outcome of the consultation with the youth offending team, and we will reinforce the message during the pilots that the applicant police force should share the outcome of the YOT consultation with the court.
Amendment (c) to Lords amendment 12 would also set down a requirement in relation to a pre-injunction report. Again, we believe that the requirement to consult the youth offending team addresses this, and I am not persuaded that it would be appropriate to include a requirement to consult the youth offending team if an application without notice were made, given the urgency of such applications. However, the consultation requirement must be fulfilled before the full hearing takes place.
Amendment (d) to Lords amendment 7 is not needed. The Bill already provides a power for the court to require evidence from the individual responsible for promoting, supporting and monitoring compliance with any requirement included in the order. That individual could be the youth offending team, but it could also be a community group or a charity, for example. Let me remind the House that the police fully support the provisions in the Bill as they stand in the Lords amendments that we have tabled in the Home Secretary’s name. There are already safeguards in the Bill to ensure that the orders are proportionate and that the views of the youth offending teams are taken into account during the application process. I therefore ask the shadow Home Secretary and the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) not to press their amendments.
Amendment (a) to Lords amendment 23 requires a report to be laid before Parliament on the outcome of the pilots. I would expect that, as has already been set out in our amendment, a report will be laid before Parliament about the success or otherwise of the pilots, and that KCPOs will be the subject of ongoing scrutiny.
Vicky Foxcroft
Will the Minister confirm that when that report is laid before Parliament, there will not be a further roll-out of the KCPOs without our seeing it in Parliament first?
Victoria Atkins
I think the hon. Lady is talking about the amendment tabled by the shadow Minister. We do not agree with that amendment. We believe that piloting and then the Secretary of State laying a report before the House is a perfectly proportionate way of assessing the pilots’ success. Let us not forget that we are talking about youth courts and magistrates courts using civil orders, with all the safeguards that are in the regime. This regime mirrors similar regimes used in, for example, gang injunctions. We should have trust in our youth courts and others that they will be able to meet the expectations of the House in terms of ensuring the wellbeing and the welfare of the young people they are looking after. The aim of these orders is to protect young people and also the wider community. On the proposal that a full report should be laid out, I am afraid that, in the usual way, such regulations are not subject to any parliamentary procedure, and the Government see no reason to adopt a different approach in this case.
There are of course other provisions that I have not even begun to address, although I may well have a chance do so at the end. However, I hope that my focusing on the three main issues arising during the passage of the Bill meets with colleagues’ approval. I very much look forward to hearing their contributions in the rest of the debate.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
I thank those in the other place for their careful consideration of this Bill, which is certainly in better shape than when it left this Chamber.
As the Minister has outlined, we have offered our sincere and constructive support throughout the passage of the Bill for the Government’s attempts to respond to the surge in violent crime. We offered our support in Committee, on Report and at Third Reading. We have fought to enhance protections on the sale of knives, to close dangerous loopholes in our gun laws, to force the Home Office to release evidence on the consequences of cuts to vital services for levels of serious violence, to force the Government to assess whether the police have the resources they need to tackle violence involving offensive weapons and to put the rights of victims of crime on a statutory footing—rights that have been neglected despite repeated manifesto promises by the Conservative party.
Let us not forget the absolutely farcical spectacle of the Home Secretary and the Minister, on Second Reading and in Committee, making the case for a ban on high-powered rifles—guns that have an effective range of 6 km—and then coming back to the Chamber on Report and making the exact opposite case in the face of Back-Bench rebellion. Our gun laws are in need of updating, and it is a sad reflection on the Government that all the passage of this Bill has done is weaken the provisions on firearms and kick the can down the road once again in pushing the issue to consultation. Furthermore, the Bill as it stands still ignores much of the key evidence contained in a leaked Home Office report on the drivers of serious violence. This included compelling evidence that violence was, in part, being driven by a precarious and vulnerable youth cohort shorn of the support, early intervention and prevention work necessary to stop those vulnerable people falling into a spiral of serious violence.
Turning to the amendments, I am grateful for the work of the noble Lord Kennedy, and that of my hon. Friends the Members for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) and for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), who have managed to find a consensus on the delivery of knives to residential premises that protects children while not unduly hampering specialist knife manufacturers and businesses. We are therefore happy to support the amendment in the name of the Home Secretary whereby businesses will need to prove they have taken all necessary measures to ensure that a knife is delivered into the hands of an adult or will feel the full weight of the law.
On kirpans and Sikh ceremonial swords, I again congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Slough (Mr Dhesi) and for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill) on their work. We understood the concerns raised across the House, and I am pleased that the Labour Lords amendment has been accepted that will allow Sikhs to practice their religion freely without fear of criminalisation.
But undoubtedly the biggest change has been the introduction of knife crime prevention orders, and that is what I wish to focus my remarks on. It is important when making any changes to the suite of police powers that Parliament has the fullest opportunity to consider the evidence and implications. That is why we are extremely concerned about both the way in which these proposed orders have been brought forward and some of their content. Our concerns are threefold, and I will address each in turn. As the Minister said, our amendments to the Lords amendments speak to those concerns.
Victoria Atkins
To correct the record, these orders have been discussed in the serious violence taskforce, which is attended by the Children’s Commissioner and many of the others that the hon. Lady mentioned. This is action that the police required of us. We turned it around as quickly as we could to get it into the Bill, in order to protect children. We are doing it on the advice of the police.
Louise Haigh
I would respectfully suggest that putting before Parliament orders that would criminalise children for up to two years requires more than discussion at a meeting. It requires full consultation and full parliamentary scrutiny, and none of that has happened.
Before Parliament approves any roll-out, the Government should release a report giving an explanation of what guidance has been given to authorities on the burden on proof, which is a civil standard, the impact of orders on the rights of children and the impact on different racial groups as defined in section 9 of the Equality Act 2010.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
Does the hon. Lady not think it is a bit rich that she is complaining on the one hand about the Government introducing a full consultation on a whole range of firearms issues enshrined in statute under the Bill, and on the other hand that the Government have not consulted enough on knife crime prevention orders, which are suggested by the police and are a much-needed part of the armoury in the fight against knife crime?
Louise Haigh
The Government consulted on the ban on weapons ahead of the Bill and concluded, on the basis of evidence from the most senior counter-terror police in the country, that it was right to ban assault rifles. It was only in response to a Back-Bench rebellion led by the hon. Gentleman that the Government caved and made the exact opposite case to the one that they made on Second Reading.
These are very basic requests for what is, in truth, information that Parliament should already have when being asked to pass legislation. The parliamentary lock we are seeking to add to the orders should not be necessary, but we know the damage that can result from a lack of joined-up thinking in youth justice, and our communities simply cannot afford another misstep. That is why it is only right that parliamentarians are given the full facts before being asked to approve a further roll-out.
Turning to the content of the orders themselves, all of us in this place are united in our mission to do everything in our power to bear down on the terrible scourge of knife crime, but we must be wary of taking action for the sake of action. Interventions must be evidence-based, have a clear purpose and fill a gap in the existing legislation. The police already have a substantial suite of powers for those they suspect of possessing a knife. The issue is, and has been for several years, the ability and capacity of the police to enforce those powers. As the chair of the Police Federation has said,
“How the Home Secretary thinks we have the officers available to monitor teenagers’ social media use or check they are at home at 10pm when we are struggling to answer 999 calls is beyond me.”
This Government have taken 21,000 police officers off our streets. Response times have rocketed, and in some force areas residential burglaries are rarely attended. The police’s capacity to respond to crime has been extremely diminished, so it is beyond doubt that they do not have the capacity to place orders on people who have not actually committed a crime, and then to monitor and implement those orders effectively. There has been no impact assessment of the resource implications for the police or any of the other services that may be brought in by these orders. We are concerned, and this is what our amendments speak to, that in trying to establish so-called wraparound care for young people, these orders will inevitably end up focusing on the restrictive elements such as curfews, social media bans and prohibitions, rather than the potential for positive, rehabilitative action.
I think we have now reached consensus in this place that, to combat youth violence effectively, a whole-system, cross-governmental public health approach is required. These orders could have been an attempt to bridge such a divide, but instead they place sole responsibility on the police as the only authority that can apply for an order, which risks narrowing the focus of the suite of options available. The fact that there is no statutory requirement to assess the needs of a child, establish their circumstances and consider the safeguarding implications of an order or their family history prior to an order being granted should be fatal for a legislative proposal that the Government have styled as a route to access wraparound services. It simply does not do what is required. That is why our amendments would establish a statutory requirement to consult with the YOT to produce a pre-sentence report. However, we are satisfied with the Minister’s commitment that this will be made clear in guidance.
Furthermore, I wonder whether the Government, in using the example of a youth worker as someone to be responsible for the delivery of an order, recognise the bind they would be putting such an individual in if they were responsible for reporting any breaches to the police. Central to a public health approach is a consistent, constant adult in vulnerable young people’s lives. This could provide an opportunity for that, but it cannot do so if such individuals are then forced to report them to the criminal justice system every time they do not abide by the conditions laid down in their order.
I will round off with a number of questions to which I hope the Minister will respond when she speaks again. The civil burden of proof is concerning, so what sort of intelligence does the Minister envisage would be sufficient for a court to grant an order? Will the police use the gangs matrix to target individuals? Will association with known offenders be sufficient for an order to be placed? Will past offending be sufficient, as the Minister in the other place appeared to suggest?
Does the Minister share the concerns of Members across the House that we risk criminalising children as young as 12 who have not actually committed a criminal offence? Does she really believe that a two-year custodial sentence is proportionate to a breach of a civil order, and can she give an example of when such a sentence would be appropriate? What exactly can KCPOs require or prohibit? Will guidance be brought forward on what measures are effective in tackling knife crime, or will it be anything that the court deems necessary, proportionate and enforceable?
Finally, who will be required or allowed to know that a child has an order, and what action will their school or alternative provider be expected to take when one has been granted? The implications for alternative provision are potentially severe, as some providers refuse to take children who have knife convictions, leaving them completely out of education and therefore much more vulnerable to becoming involved in violence. What consideration has been given to this?
I do not think that the Minister has satisfactorily answered the concerns raised by the Opposition in our amendments or those of expert organisations that work on these issues every single day, such as the Magistrates Association and the Association of Youth Offending Team Managers. We will therefore divide the House on our amendment (a) to Lords amendment 23 in relation to the parliamentary lock, as the report that the Home Secretary brings forward must be voted on before the pilots can be rolled out.
I conclude by thanking and congratulating my right hon. and hon. Friends who have significantly improved the Bill and subjected it to scrutiny during its passage, especially my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) and my hon. Friends the Members for Sheffield Central, for Sheffield South East, for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft), for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), for Birmingham, Edgbaston and for Slough. The amendments in our names have sought to strengthen and improve the weak legislation before us today. They have sought an evidence-based response to the long-term trend of violence that we are witnessing as a result of this Government’s austerity agenda. We hope that the Government will accept that much more needs to be done if we are to prevent any more young lives from being needlessly taken, and we hope that the Government will accept the amendments in our names today.
Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh).
I should like to focus on knife crime prevention orders. If we are to reduce knife crime, we need to address the issue of drug usage. So many of the young people dying in our communities are dying as a result of the drugs trade—particularly cocaine. We need to consider increasing the costs attached to the usage of drugs, because drugs are historically extremely cheap at the moment; and if we want to attack usage, we have to increase the costs attached to recreational possession. The Minister said that she had looked at dealing with gangs—she had looked at knife crime prevention orders—but I think we need to look at drug prevention orders.
I think it is appalling that the chattering classes, wherever we may find them, whatever their politics, are wringing their hands about the deaths of mostly young men and children on our streets and then, moments later, too many of them are shoving a line of cocaine up their noses. That is not a line of white powder; that is a line of blood, and users of cocaine have blood on their hands—the lives of many, many young people and children.
So I say this to the Minister. Let us not build more prisons. Let us not lock more recreational users up—but let us hit them in the pocket. If they are caught in possession of cocaine, if they are responsible for the deaths on our streets, they should be fined accordingly. Let us say that you are a City trader on £300,000 a year, Minister: you should be fined a third of your income—a third of your income—if you are caught in recreational possession. Then users might start to think. If they do not care about the young lives being lost on the streets, they might start thinking about the consequences to themselves and their finances.
It may be a City trader. It may be a Member of Parliament. It may be a doctor. It may be a teacher. But if they are using cocaine, they are responsible for the tragedies that are happening daily, and I think they should pay—pay for recreational usage. They should pay by being fined a significant amount of their income the first time they are caught in possession, 50% the second time and 100% the third time. When we introduce laws like that, Minister, people may start taking this matter seriously, and we may actually start to address the mayhem, destruction and tragedy that is afflicting so many of our communities.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
I start by confirming that the SNP has supported the Bill from the outset. As I previously acknowledged, the Government here have worked closely with the Scottish Government on many of its provisions, given that the Bill’s subject matter covers a range of both devolved and reserved competences. We remain of the view that the Bill will help tackle crimes involving corrosive substances, knives and certain firearms, so it continues to enjoy our support. However, we took—and continue to take—the view that more important tools include police funding, police numbers, cross-government working and a genuine switch to a public health approach to knife crime.
For today, though, the 95 amendments passed in the Lords focus on three specific areas. One set of changes proposed in the Lords does not convince us at all. One set of changes appears absolutely reasonable to us. Another group of amendments is welcome but still falls short of what was in the Bill at the outset. We are far from convinced on the knife crime prevention orders. As we have heard, things have moved very quickly, essentially closing down time for proper consideration, scrutiny and consultation. It is fair to recall, however, that this morning the Metropolitan Police Commissioner defended the proposals robustly before the Home Affairs Committee. I absolutely respect the fact that they are well-intentioned. I question, however, whether the reasoning behind them and the form they now take are well-founded. The all-party group on knife crime, excellently chaired by the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), heard evidence from a series of groups who have significant concerns about the impact they will have. As we have heard, concerns have been raised by magistrates, local government, the Children’s Society, the Standing Committee for Youth Justice, the Prison Reform Trust and the Police Federation.
Huw Merriman
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald), whose constituency I will not even try to pronounce correctly. He always speaks with such eloquence. I attended the same meeting of groups hosted by the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) and listened to the arguments about knife crime prevention orders. It was hard not to be persuaded by some of those arguments, but I want to explain why I think introducing those orders is the right thing to do.
The Government are absolutely right to follow a public health approach to knife crime. It is time to look holistically at all our agencies in delivering both a health-based solution and a criminal justice solution. We have the youth endowment fund and the review of drugs policy, and we should recognise that prison sentences for knife crime have increased: 85% of people convicted serve at least three months, compared with 53% only 10 years ago. The courts are putting in place a whole range of tougher measures, and the Government and local authorities are looking to introduce wraparound support, yet the reality is that knife crime is endemic and will not be solved in the short term with those measures alone. I therefore absolutely support knife crime prevention orders.
What makes this issue so stark for me is the number of recorded knife crime offences in the 12 months to September 2018. There were 40,000—an increase of two thirds since March 2014. Those figures are appalling. In the context of overall violence having fallen by a quarter since 2013, it is clear that we have an issue specific to the carrying of knives. I was struck by a recent survey by the Centre for Social Justice, in which 6% of Londoners polled confessed to having carried a knife in the past 12 months. There is a contagion effect. Young people carry knives to protect themselves, because they do not feel confident, but we all know that someone is more likely to die when they are carrying a knife than when they are not. We must make some kind of intervention to tackle that.
The Mayor of London was absolutely right in his letter to the Home Secretary in December. He was critical because nothing had yet been inserted into the Bill. He said that he was
“concerned to note that despite requests from the police…no amendments have yet been tabled”.
Now they have, which is to be welcomed. He went on to say that the introduction of the orders would
“enable better protection for the community, particularly those working with vulnerable and high-risk young people,”
and added:
“At the same time, they will enable the police and partner agencies to intervene and prevent future crime.”
They will prevent future tragedies, too.
Last month, I heard from senior officers in the Met who have asked for knife crime prevention orders to be introduced. Again, it was hard not to be impressed by what they had to say. Absolutely, introducing the orders is a slight roll of the dice—they are new and innovative—but it is important that we do so.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I think the main point is that if someone is on a knife crime prevention order, people around them will realise that they are and may concentrate more on looking after them and stopping them doing something wrong again. That is very important, too.
Huw Merriman
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: this is about that care and intervention as well as having a deterrent. Of course there has to be a deterrent.
We must not overlook the fact that applications will have to be made by either the Crown Prosecution Service or a chief officer of police, and that the court will have to be satisfied, on the balance of probabilities, that on at least two occasions in the previous two years the defendant had a bladed article in a public place or a place of education. That is not enough, either: if there has been a big conversion, that can be demonstrated, and the magistrates court must think it is necessary to make the order to protect the public from harm from a bladed article or, indeed, to protect the respondent from committing an offence.
We talk about locks; there is a series of locks in the magistrates courts, and we must trust our magistrates to look fairly and objectively at the evidence before putting in place an order, which I say will deter young people from causing a tragedy to themselves or other people. Only if that order is breached will we be talking about a custodial sentence. Orders will be reviewed if they are longer than 12 months, and they can be varied, too. To me, they make absolute sense.
I will conclude by explaining why I feel so passionately about this issue. We can talk about long-term interventions, but the reality for young people who carry knives is that one mistake leads to loss of life—either theirs or others’. The impacts of that are dramatic. In 2007, the number of knife crime-related homicides was high—it was 272. We —both Labour and Conservative Governments—brought it down to 186 in 2015. It has now risen to 285 killings in the last year, which is the highest since records began in 1946. Something has to be done, and done now.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
I want to back up what my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) just said. In addition to the safeguards my hon. Friend has ably set out, there is the provision for under-18s that, before an order can be granted, a youth offending team has to be consulted, meaning they can be helped by experts not to reoffend.
Huw Merriman
My hon. Friend is absolutely right; YOTs will be consulted. I do not agree with the idea of having a more specific order, because that would tie the whole process up in knots, whereas this needs to be a fluid process. YOTs would indeed be consulted, and then appropriate adults—youth workers—would supervise any requirements under the order.
These interventions can help people turn their lives around. I spent five years working in a youth organisation that was trying to turn young people’s lives around and stop them making these mistakes. We helped with their education and encouraged them to put their energy into sports, performing arts, environmental projects, and so on—something that could turn them away from a life of crime and give them something more interesting, exciting and exacting to work on. That said, we have now regressed. Far too many young people are being attracted by gangs and carrying knives either because of the glamour or as protection. We need to do something now to turn that around and save lives.
Sir Edward Davey
The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) speaks with authority as a former youth worker, and one listens to him with great attention, but I disagree with his conclusion that the proposal before the House is the best way forward. I want to suggest alternatives that I hope he will consider.
There is no doubt that action on knife crime is needed—that fact unites us all—and a lot of the action will involve spending money, whether on policing, including community policing, or on youth workers. There may have been a lot of youth workers when the hon. Gentleman was active, but when I look around communities today I do not see many youth workers or community police officers, but we will need them to implement these orders. We will need to spend money if we are to have the people in place to give those young people alternatives and protect them. We as a Parliament have to recognise that the public health approach is not a cheap option.
Do we need another legal power? The Government argue that, despite the panoply of powers already on the statute book, we need a new one, which is why the House is right to scrutinise the proposal; I only wish it had more time. Will the proposal work? We have some evidence from the past. As you will remember, Madam Deputy Speaker, we have had many debates in this House, in previous Parliaments, on how to tackle antisocial behaviour, and we have seen policies such as antisocial behaviour orders, on which, I believe, these knife crime prevention orders are modelled. My noble Friend Lord Paddick in the other place has pointed out some of the major problems with ASBOs that we believe knife crime prevention orders will also have.
I want to be constructive, however, and to support the Minister in her work to tackle knife crime. I hope that she will agree to meet me to discuss the Liberal Democrats’ proposal for what I have named anti-blade contracts—linked to the ABCs, or acceptable behaviour contracts, of the past—which could be far more effective in preventing young people from carrying knives in the first place. I would also make the case for other similar initiatives, such as what I call knife crime prevention injunctions, which would have the benefit of not resulting in criminal records for young people.
First, though, I will make the case against the Government’s proposal. The fundamental problem is that these will be pre-conviction orders—as opposed to on-conviction orders—which means that young people as young as 12 could be handed a court order on the grounds that, on the balance of probability, they may have carried a knife. That ought to alarm every colleague. Guilty before anything has been proven—that is a shocking legal principle. I am surprised that a lawyer as distinguished as the Minister feels comfortable about young people getting court orders even when it has not been proved that they committed a crime.
The Minister’s mitigation is that this is a civil offence, but if the order’s conditions are breached, it becomes a criminal offence. A condition may, for instance, be a requirement to notify. A young person who fails to notify the police of a change of address within three days will be in breach of the order, and could be imprisoned.
This legislation has no link to real life—to the chaotic lives that some of these young people lead. The idea that they will remember to notify a police officer within three days that they have changed their address because they have moved from one parent or carer to another, thus avoiding a prison sentence, is total nonsense. Why do we need to criminalise young people who have not committed a crime? Where is the evidence that that will tackle knife crime? Prisons are overcrowded, and there are high levels of self-harm. Is this really a sensible approach?
Victoria Atkins
The point of the orders is that there is information suggesting that these children have been carrying a knife on two or more occasions. The criminality, if we are talking in those terms, would be in the fact of the possession, and a magistrates court or a youth court would consider that very carefully. A child who is carrying a knife may well get into terrible trouble with the police because he or she has used it against someone, and we are trying to get to children before that happens.
Sir Edward Davey
There I have sympathy with the Minister, and I want to propose an alternative which addresses that very point. However, she was beginning to suggest—I am not sure that she meant to—that a criminal test had to be passed, and that is not what is in the Bill. It is not a criminal test that must be passed; it is a civil test, which could then result in a criminal record. I think that the House should think very carefully before going down that road.
Let me say a little about the alternative model that I want the Minister to consider. I am proposing what I have called anti-blade contracts. The idea is that a police officer, along with the parents or a carer, or possibly a youth officer, would sit down with a young person and require them to sign a contract saying that they should not carry a knife and that there would be consequences—for instance, fines or community sentences —if they were caught doing so. Crucially, however, linked with the public health or prevention approach would be positive elements. Young people could, for example, contact a named youth worker or police officer if they were concerned about their safety. There could also be a package of other support, which might involve access to youth services.
That is the way to change behaviour. That is the way to prevent a young person from ending up on the pathway to more crime. People who go to prison often see it as a college of crime, and we must try to avoid that. The approach that I am suggesting would do what the Minister wants: it would meet her objectives, but without the cost and without the potentially damaging impact that her orders would have.
Bob Stewart
Is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting that all young people should sign such contracts? That has a certain appeal to me—the idea that everyone at school, say, is given a lesson and then signs a contract, so that they understand what they are doing. Is that what the right hon. Gentleman is proposing?
Sir Edward Davey
Not in the first place. The idea—and this goes alongside the Government’s proposal—is not that every young person would be open to the process, but that it could be offered to young people who were thought to be in danger. I am not sure whether we would want it to be applied to every young person, although it could go further and be part of an educative process as well. Given the lack of resources in the police and youth services, I think that we should target those who are most at risk in the first instance.
The crucial part of my argument is that I am putting forward something that is based on evidence. The evidence from the Home Office, in its reports on the difference between antisocial behaviour orders and acceptable behaviour contracts back in 2004, and the evidence from the National Audit Office in a 2006 report, suggested that ABCs were far more effective in changing young people’s behaviour, which is what we want to do. More important—or, at least, as important—was the fact that they were cheaper. They took less time. Orders that need to go to court require considerable police resources, and we do not have those resources. They also take up the time of magistrates, which is already rather stretched, so we are putting forward something that goes against the evidence from the past and that we know is going to be more expensive and more time consuming. This is an urgent problem, and our proposal based on evidence does not need even this place to legislate. We could get on with it; we could issue guidance. Why on earth are we doing this? The situation is far more urgent than the Government seem to think. The Minister’s proposal would take so much time and money when we know that is not available.
I implore the Minister: I am pleased that she has nodded from a sedentary position to indicate that she is prepared to meet me to discuss our proposal—
Sir Edward Davey
I am very grateful to the Minister for doing that, but I hope she will reflect on this.
I will be supporting the Labour amendments in the name of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) tonight, which are well tailored. The Labour proposal requiring this House to vote on a report on the evidence from the pilot is a good compromise; it is an example of this Parliament working together to make sure that what we do is evidence-based. The good thing the Minister could do if she goes down my route is proceed with my anti-blade contracts while those pilots are going on, because an anti-blade contract does not need to bother this legislature.
Sarah Jones
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey) and I agree with much of what he said. The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) put his finger on it when he said that these knife crime prevention orders are a roll of the dice. That is absolutely the point we all want to make, and while I completely disagree with the conclusion he has come to, this is what we are doing in this House: we are rolling a dice and there might be unintended consequences that we do not know yet. That is what I want to speak about today. I shall speak to the amendments I added my name to: 7, 9, 10, 12 and 23.
I chair the all-party group on knife crime, and yesterday we hosted an event on knife crime prevention orders. We heard evidence from the Magistrates Association, lawyers, academics, charities and youth offending teams who work with children and young people involved in knife crime. There was resounding agreement: they all want to stop knife crime and protect young people, but they all believe that these orders are not the answer. I think they are a knee-jerk reaction to a moral panic and they risk exacerbating, not diminishing, the problem. Lawyers, magistrates and youth offending teams are all in agreement that, far from being preventive, as the name of the orders suggests, the orders will have unintended consequences that could criminalise a generation of young people and actively work against the Government’s stated aim of reducing knife crime.
This final stage of the Offensive Weapons Bill is the first opportunity MPs have had to have our say on whether or not these orders should become law. This is indicative of the Government’s approach of late: rushing through ill-thought-out plans so they can appear to be doing something without actually listening or engaging with experts or allowing parliamentary scrutiny. No real consultation took place other than some rushed consultation within the police—although we heard yesterday that even the senior police representative for children and young people was not asked about these knife crime prevention orders.
As far as we can tell, the orders are the result of a few behind closed doors conversations between the Home Office and a few senior Met police. They have not comprehensively been thought out, and they were not a part of the Government’s own serious violence strategy. This is not the proper way for the Government to create laws, and it is an example of how bad, ineffective policy is created.
As we have heard, these are civil orders that would be placed on children as young as 12 who are suspected of carrying a knife. They could place severe, lengthy and potentially unlimited requirements and restrictions on the person subject to the order. If the requirements are not all met, a breach will be punishable by up to two years in prison. We have a situation in which somebody—a child—who may never have carried a knife and never have broken the law will end up with a criminal record and potentially a prison sentence for an order placed on them just on the basis of probability, rather than a criminal standard of proof. This leaves room for subjective decisions being made and for many young people to feel unfairly targeted.
The Government should be seeking to draw people away from the criminal justice system, not pushing children into it. And for solutions to be effective, they need to target the underlying cause of the behaviour. Sending children to custody does not work and is not an appropriate or proportionate response. Vulnerable young people must have access to education and employment so that they have routes away from drug gangs and the like. Criminal records and other criminal sanctions will disrupt lives and further marginalise young people, locking them out of mainstream society and exacerbating the root causes of violence. Children and young people have told our all-party parliamentary group many times that many are picking up knives out of fear. They feel that it is a necessary form of self-protection because everyone else has one and the police are not there to help them. Knife crime prevention orders will not deter children from picking up knives. They would rather be in prison for carrying a knife than be stabbed to death.
Another thing that was clear from our meeting yesterday was that the orders are neither necessary nor new. Magistrates and lawyers who are involved in children’s sentences have not called for more sentencing options. There are already intervention options available that could be promoted and developed. Many youth offending teams have programmes to address knife carrying, and if they had the money to do more outreach, they could help more children in this way. Conditional cautions can place requirements on children and young people, such as having to see their youth offending team and attend education programmes. These have lower reoffending rates than other more punitive responses, and they deal with behaviour outside the court system. Likewise, there is the triage system, where a young person who is arrested in a police station can be directed to appropriate intervention without being unnecessarily over-criminalised.
The similarities between knife crime prevention orders and the old antisocial behaviour orders are clear. The author of the Youth Justice Board report on ASBOs told us yesterday that they were disproportionately used on children and that they were breached in over two thirds of those cases. The use of ASBOs petered out over time because the courts and other agencies became increasingly concerned that they were counterproductive. Children had come to view them almost as a badge of honour and to define their identity around them. ASBOs were actually encouraging the behaviour they were designed to discourage. Over a nine-year period, more than 5,500 children were sent to prison for breaching their order. The bottom line was that they were not effective, because the kids kept coming back.
A number of other concerns have highlighted how little time has been given to the detail of these orders. Who will monitor them? Who will be responsible for reporting breaches? It seems that charities running programmes with young people would be expected to tell on their young people if they did not turn up. That would betray all the trust those organisations had carefully built up and would undoubtedly affect engagement. If the orders are imposed on the basis of probability, will not the victims of crime be more resistant to going to the police in case they get an order slapped on them, too? If school exclusions are already a big problem and a driver of young people becoming involved in violence, what impact do the Government expect the orders to have on access to education? A school will not want to take on a child who has been issued with a knife crime prevention order.
Finally, young black boys are already disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system, and there are real problems with trust and community relationships with the police. The imposition of restrictive orders such as these, especially when someone is only suspected of carrying a knife, will feed into those young boys feeling disproportionately targeted or harassed by police, their feelings of marginalisation and alienation, and their feeling that they are being treated less fairly than others by the justice system. This will be a major setback.
In 2010, the then Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), described ASBOs as a
“top-down, bureaucratic, gimmick-laden approach”.
She said that they were
“too complex and bureaucratic…they were too time consuming and expensive and they too often criminalised young people unnecessarily, acting as a conveyor belt to serious crime and prison.”
The Government should listen to that now. They should also listen to the wide coalition of professional bodies and organisations that have come out against these orders. They should listen to concerns raised by the Joint Committee on Human Rights and to the Justice Secretary himself, who has highlighted a lack of evidence that the orders will be effective. They should also look at the evidence of what works to tackle violent crime. They should consult, and they should work out the actual impact of the policy before imposing it.
Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones). On behalf of the all-party parliamentary group for British Sikhs, I want to thank Members across the House for their support for the amendment that we tabled in this House and for their subsequent support for removing the unintended consequences for the Sikh community that the Bill would have had in its previous form. Unamended, the Bill would have meant that Sikhs who possessed a 50 cm kirpan in the home would be committing a criminal act and subject to a year’s imprisonment, so I am grateful for the Minister’s intervention to amend the justification for a Sikh possessing a kirpan from the narrow “religious ceremonies” to “religious reasons”. This was a fundamental change to protect the rights of Sikhs to purchase and possess a kirpan.
The Lords has made a further amendment on the gifting of the kirpan to others at a ceremony, and I thank Lord Kennedy and Lord Paddick for their work. I also pay tribute not only to the work done behind the scenes, especially by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) and the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), but to the Offensive Weapons Bill team in the Home Office.
With this amendment, the Sikh community have been given a clear commitment by the Government that they will not be penalised, and I hope that that approach will be taken by all other Departments. The APPG would like to work with the Minister on developing the statutory guidance surrounding the amendment, and I hope that she will continue to work with us to protect the Sikh community from any further discrimination.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
I will speak briefly about the Government’s response to Lords amendments 27 and 28. The Minister talked about the collaborative approach that has been adopted in relation to many aspects of the Bill, and I want to thank her for her engagement and also thank her colleague Baroness Williams. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) and I had two constructive meetings where we brought knife manufacturers to meet the Minister and Baroness Williams, and we were pleased with how the Minister engaged with the concerns that were raised. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East, who is no longer in his place, for his generous comments and—there is a bit of a Sheffield theme here—the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh)—[Interruption.] Sheffield is the centre of the world, depending on where you start from.
The point on which we all agree relates to the deep concern within all our communities that are affected by knife crime in some of the most horrific ways. We all want effective action to tackle the problem, and the emphasis should be on effective action. We need the right laws to tackle the problem without unintended consequences. I was concerned about the original proposals, which would not have addressed the problem and would have caused unnecessary damage to the knife manufacturing sector and to small businesses in particular, to which the Minister referred in her opening remarks.
It was for that reason that I proposed a trusted trader scheme on Report simply to open up the debate, and that discussion developed in the Lords into the proposals for a trusted courier scheme. I pay tribute to Lord Kennedy for taking up the issue effectively, brokering some of the meetings and engaging productively with Ministers. Although the proposals that we have from the Government today offer a different approach, they nevertheless address our concerns and are probably better than my original amendment on Report.
I have consulted with the local businesses who joined us at the meetings, and I pay particular tribute to James Goodwin from Egginton Bros Ltd for first raising the issue with me, and also to Alastair Fisher from Taylor’s Eye Witness. They welcomed the Government’s proposals in response to the Lords amendments. More widely, the knife manufacturing sector and retailers, who also had a lot at stake in ensuring that we got things right, will also welcome the proposals. With that, I join other hon. Members in endorsing the Government’s proposals.
Lords amendment 27 disagreed to.
Lords amendment 28 disagreed to.
Government amendments (a) to (k) made in lieu of Lords amendments 27 and 28.
Lords amendments 1 to 22 agreed to.
Amendment (a) proposed to Lords amendment 23.—(Louise Haigh.)
Question put, That the amendment be made.
The House proceeded to a Division.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I remind the House that the motion relates exclusively to England and Wales. A double majority is therefore required.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:
Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration etc) Act 2019
Northern Ireland (Regional Rates and Energy) Act 2019
Healthcare (European Economic Area and Switzerland Arrangements) Act 2019.
Section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993
(5 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
18:02 - The House having divided: - Ayes: 288 / Noes: 309 - Question accordingly negatived.
18:20 - The House divided: - Ayes: 309 / Noes: 292 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I inform the House that Mr Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss).
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Elizabeth Truss)
I beg to move,
That this House approves, for the purposes of Section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993, HM Government’s assessment of the medium term economic and fiscal position as set out in the latest Budget document and the Office for Budget Responsibility’s most recent Economic and Fiscal Outlook and Fiscal Sustainability Report, which forms the basis of the United Kingdom’s Convergence Programme.
I hope, first of all, that this will be one of the last times that we talk about this subject. We do not want to be holding this debate on the convergence programme document any more. I look forward to the opportunity to move on to a period of future growth outside the European Union.
Madam Deputy Speaker, if you listened to some of the public discourse today—the teeth gnashing, the wailing, the portents of doom—you would not realise that in fact the British economy is doing rather well and that Britain is on the up. We have more people in work than ever before, the fastest wage rises in more than a decade and a record number of new start-ups. What is particularly interesting is that it is younger people in particular who are starting up those businesses. We have seen an 85% increase in the number of 18 to 24-year-olds setting up businesses in the last three years, so far from being a bunch of Starbucks-hating socialists, they are in fact more pro-low taxes and pro-enterprise than many older generations.
We are also seeing investment flooding into Britain. We have got more investment in technology than other European countries, and the latest growth forecasts show that the UK economy is set to grow faster than Germany’s or Japan’s. The public finances have been brought back under control after years of profligacy under Labour; debt is falling as a proportion of GDP; and we are reducing the deficit ahead of our plans. Why has this happened? Well, it has not happened by accident or because the Government say it should happen. It has happened because this country has a successful free enterprise economy, and the private sector has created millions of new jobs. The Government have created the conditions to enable this to happen and built the infrastructure to help those businesses to succeed. We have cut corporation tax and other taxes so that businesses are able to invest more in training and capital investment. We have made it easier for companies to take on staff through employment reforms. We have reformed our welfare system, introducing universal credit so that it always pays to work and to move up the jobs ladder.
We are seeing the flourishing of Britain right across the country, with new businesses being established and succeeding. From Skyscanner in Edinburgh to WANdisco in Sheffield, Britain is leading the technology revolution. The sky is the limit for Britain, and there will be even more opportunities for growth and new trade around the world when we leave the EU.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
I remember all the dire predictions of economic meltdown if the people voted to leave. What has happened to all those predictions? What does my right hon. Friend think would happen if we were to leave with no deal on Friday? Or perhaps I should ask the jobbing Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin), because he appears to be in charge at the moment. Anyway, I am interested in the Minister’s opinion about all the dire predictions of gloom if we leave with no deal.
Elizabeth Truss
The UK economy is projected to grow under all circumstances. Our future is in the hands of individuals and businesses in this country. It is those people who determine whether we will be successful or whether we will fail. I have a huge amount of respect for the entrepreneurs in this country who are setting up new businesses, growing and investing. We have a very bright future ahead of us.
The reality is that the threat to British prosperity is not our precise relationship with the European Union, but the ideas of some in this Chamber who want to limit people’s opportunities, see public spending balloon and start increasing our national debt again by £1,000 billion. And what would happen then? Taxes would go up; people would be able to keep less of their own money; businesses would not have the funds they needed to invest in the future; and our economy would decline rather than grow. That is the real threat to British prosperity. Fundamentally, we have been successful and moved on from the post-crash era because we have backed the British people and British businesses to succeed. We have not gone out there and said that business is the enemy—something that should be fought against. We have said that business is a friend of success and aspiration, and we need to back it.
This year represents a big opportunity for Britain. First, 2019 is the year when we are leaving the European Union, but it is also the year of the spending review. As the Chancellor announced in the spring statement, we will be launching the spending review just before the summer and completing it in the autumn. That spending review will set the budgets for the next three years. For the first time since the financial crash we have choices, because there is now headroom in our budget. That headroom is thanks to the fact that there are more people in work than ever before, and they are contributing in taxes.
We now have choices we can make. First, we have the ability to cut taxes, which we will already be doing this April. People will see more money coming into their bank accounts from this April onwards thanks to the fact that this Government have decided to reduce taxes for those on the basic rate and for those on the higher rate. We are also able to invest in public services. Because we have taken these difficult decisions, we have allowed the economy to grow. We have an opportunity to modernise government to make it sleeker and better value for the people it serves.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
On investing in public services, what is the right hon. Lady going to do to invest in local authorities so that they, in turn, can invest? Coventry is a good example. Coventry has encouraged small businesses, and we have the University of Warwick science park and so forth. What is she doing to encourage local authorities to invest in their public services, as she knows that for the past few years that has been very difficult for local authorities, to say the least?
Elizabeth Truss
I was very glad to visit a successful business in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. I know that he is very committed to the development of business in his area. It is important that money spent is raised locally as far as possible. As a Government, we have rebalanced from central Government giving money to local government to more of that money being kept locally, whether through business rates retention or council tax. That is an important principle. However, we did recognise in the Budget that local authorities were under pressure. That is why we put in an extra £650 million, which can particularly be spent on adult social care and children’s social care where there is pressure. Of course, we will look at that balance in the spending review.
At the moment, we have a complicated landscape in the support offered to business. When there is a complicated landscape, it can sometimes be the big businesses that know how to work the system that end up getting the money. We need to move to a system where we have lower taxes and it is clearer and simpler to see where the support is. Of course, we are also investing in the infrastructure that helps business to succeed, whether it is local roads, fibre or rail. Ahead of the spending review, I am making visits around the country to hear from people on the ground to understand what the public’s priorities for public spending are. It can sometimes be easy in Whitehall to listen to the big lobby groups— the big organisations that have an operation here in Westminster—but I want to hear what people in Coventry and other places around the country think about what their priorities are. I have done a few of these sessions so far, and the topics that come up tend to be education, local roads, the NHS—for which we have already put in additional money—and police. We need very much to keep in mind what the public want to see our money spent on rather than just listening to the big organisations.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
I am delighted to hear my right hon. Friend mention education. May I press her to consider the fact that in our rural areas the funding per pupil is still not as it should be by comparison with urban schools? We have a huge number of Victorian schools, such as that which I visited earlier in the week in Motcombe in my constituency, where the maintenance of the buildings costs far more. We are therefore looking, in the comprehensive spending review, for a long-term increase in new money to deliver the first-class education to grow the entrepreneurs who will return the investment that we put into their education while they were at school.
Elizabeth Truss
My hon. Friend makes a very good point about education funding and how important young people having a good education is to the future of the economy. In this year’s spending review, we are looking not just at how investment in physical infrastructure like bridges and roads improves our economy, but at human capital—where we need to put in extra money to make sure that children and young people leave school, university or an apprenticeship with the skills that will help them to get a good job and to live a successful and fruitful life. That is very important. In the past, Governments have been more interested in spending money on things that are sexy and new—the big new pieces of infrastructure—and maintenance has sometimes taken a back seat, but it is very important to make sure that all the existing assets we have, whether roads or schools, are fit for purpose. In the zero-based capital review, we are looking at the balance between maintenance and new infrastructure investment.
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
I thank the Chief Secretary for giving way. Has she had any discussions with the Children’s Minister, who is currently considering the very relevant issue of investment in nursery schools, which is an obvious case of human capital investment as it has a considerable benefit for society after only a few years?
Elizabeth Truss
I have had discussions with my hon. Friend the Children’s Minister. That is one reason why we put additional funding into children’s services at the Budget. Part of the human capital review is looking at where we invest in education. As a country, we currently put more money into the later stages of education. There are laudable reasons for that, but we put more money equivalently into universities than secondary schools. We are looking at how to ensure that all children are getting the best possible start of life. There is a lot of evidence that the earlier the investment, the better.
I mentioned the zero-based capital review, which will look at all capital infrastructure to ensure that we are getting the most bang for our buck. That is an opportunity in 2019 to look afresh at our future projects and where the greatest impact can be made. We are also looking at opportunities to reform the way we do things in government. Housing is a good example. At the moment, we spend £34 billion on housing through the housing benefit budget and things such as the housing infrastructure fund and Help to Buy. My question is: by liberalising planning and making it easier to build, can we reduce costs for people looking to get on the housing ladder and at the same time reduce costs for the Government? We should not always assume that it is just about spending more money. We also need to think about how we reform things to do them better, to reduce the cost for people for whom housing is a big item on their household budget and to reduce the cost for the Government.
In summary, 2019 is going to be a huge year for our country. The economy and the public finances are on the right trajectory, but we are not complacent at the Treasury. We are looking very carefully at how every single pound is spent. We want it to be spent as much as possible on ensuring that everybody has access to a good start in life, that our core public services are provided and that we help companies and enterprises continue to deliver the economic growth that they have over the past few years.
Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
The Chief Secretary referred to the gnashing of teeth. The only gnashing of teeth going on in this country is by those people who cannot get access to a dentist because of her party’s health policy. She talked about the Tories being the party of business. She may well wish to have a word with the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), who used an Anglo-Saxon phrase in relation to business—the second word was “off”, basically.
If education is so wonderful and marvellous and schools are in such a good state, how come headteachers marched on Downing Street and presented the largest petition about the condition of schools and education? The answer from the right hon. Lady is always more deregulation.
Peter Dowd
That is what the right hon. Lady said in relation to planning law. It is deregulation—that is what it comes down to. However she wants to dress it up, it is deregulation. Deregulation has got this country into so much trouble in a whole range of areas, including banking and housing. Let us not hear any more about how deregulation is going to solve all the problems of the world. It will not.
After that, I would like to thank the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and give credit where credit is due. In a speech given on 19 March, the Chief Secretary finally acknowledged that we will now
“throw off the constraints of the post-financial crash world”.
There it is: it is official. It was a financial crash world, not Labour’s crash. But better late than never—apology accepted.
We find ourselves in the absurd and surreal position of debating a motion to approve the Government’s programme of convergence with the EU at a time when the issue of Britain’s membership of the EU is about to bring down yet another Conservative Prime Minister, so the only convergence on the cards is the one between the Prime Minister and her P45. The theological obsession of the European Research Group, which is opposed to any convergence with reality in fact, has hamstrung the Brexit negotiations and left the majority over there—on the Government Benches—as spectators in an unfolding disaster of their own making.
Reflecting on the first time I spoke in the debate on the Government’s convergence programme with the EU, I recall it was just before the snap election in spring 2017. I am sure we all remember that. At the time, prominent newspapers ran headlines such as “Blue Murder” in the sure and certain belief that the Conservatives would wipe out the Labour party, or “Steel of the New Iron Lady”, comparing the Prime Minister to Margaret Thatcher.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
We’re still in government.
Peter Dowd
The hon. Gentleman says that they are still in government, but that is a complete and utter fantasy, and even his honourable colleagues all smiled and smirked at that particular one.
Those supine, oleaginous headlines in the newspapers are gone, along with the words that dare not speak their name, “Strong and stable”. Whatever happened to that? Just two years later, those same newspapers now call for the Prime Minister to resign, stating, “Time’s up, Theresa”. This sea change among the Tories’ biggest supporters in the press sums up the failures of this Government.
While we are on the maritime theme, the Environment Secretary could not even use the limited imagination he has to think up another metaphor, and resorted to the hackneyed one:
“It’s not time to change the captain of the ship”.
What an imagination!
The Prime Minister’s red lines and her intransigence and insistence on a deal that has little or no support in the country or in this House have led us to this crisis. This weekend, we had the ludicrous spectacle—the ludicrous spectacle—of Cabinet Ministers jostling to brief the press about her imminent departure and her would-be likely successor, only to be followed by quick recants and unconvincing oaths of loyalty. It is almost Shakespearian.
The Government’s motion is based on the economic forecast provided by the Office for Budget Responsibility and the Chancellor’s spring statement—what there was of it. I am sure all Members would agree that the work of Robert Chote and his staff at the OBR is indispensable in informing debate and offering an independent forecast of UK economy. [Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Solihull (Julian Knight) wants to intervene, he should feel free to do so, but perhaps he could stop muttering across the Chamber inane comments that nobody can hear and nobody understands, and I suspect he himself does not even understand what he is actually saying.
However, it is worrying that the OBR’s recent forecast continues to be based on the UK securing a Brexit deal, which the Chief Secretary did not even mention, and a smooth transition, which she did not mention, particularly at a time when the Prime Minister continues to keep the option of no deal on the table. It is still there; it has not been taken off. This assumption means that if the UK does leave without a deal or leaves with a poor deal, the OBR’s forecasts will be in serious need of revision.
Similarly, at the spring statement the Chancellor spoke again of this mythical Brexit “deal dividend” that the economy will receive once parliamentarians sign up to the Prime Minister’s deal. According to the Chancellor’s imagination—which is significantly more febrile than the Environment Secretary’s—this “deal dividend” will lead to an increase in the public coffers. However, the Chancellor’s claims have already been debunked by the Treasury Committee, which described the dividend as “not credible” and “not fully consistent” with his own fiscal rules—yes, the rules that keep changing.
Rather than the fantastical picture that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury seeks to paint for our EU partners, I will take the opportunity to outline the real state of the UK economy and the Government’s woeful record. That is where we hear the gnashing of teeth—woeful record. Under the Conservatives, we have faced nine years of politically instituted austerity, which has weakened our economy and pushed our public services to breaking point. The Government’s austerity programme has suppressed incomes by more than £3,600 per household, costing the economy £100 billion; yet austerity is far from over. The departmental spending review that the Chief Secretary mentioned—likely to report in the autumn, as she said—will see real-terms cuts for most Departments. I will sit down if the right hon. Lady would like to give us some more information on that one.
Peter Dowd
I do not think that is correct. I am afraid we will have to look at those figures. We will see them and we will hold the Chief Secretary to account when she is at this Dispatch Box and I am at the Dispatch Box where she is now.
Matt Rodda
My hon. Friend makes a good point about the complete failure of the Government’s austerity agenda. Earlier, the Chief Secretary mentioned nursery schools. Many school and nursery school heads are experiencing a continuing programme of austerity, which is actually due to get worse. She mentioned that she had a brief conversation with her colleague in the Education Department. [Interruption.] However long the conversation was, the message I have had from headteachers is quite to the contrary; actually, a very short stay of execution has been given, for just one year, when the headteachers I speak to in my Reading constituency need a long-term programme of sustainable investment in nursery schools, rather than warm words.
Peter Dowd
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. May I nip back to the point about the 1.2% increase, if I may beg your indulgence, Madam Deputy Speaker? The 1.2% is the overall increase. What will happen—[Interruption.] No; the reality is that some Departments will have major cuts in their budget.
Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman is referring to a number of figures that he claims show a hit to every taxpayer; but 32 million taxpayers have had their taxes reduced under this Government, so they are keeping more of what they earn and they are better off. How many of those 32 million people would see their taxes put up under his proposals, and how many would be poorer under his proposals?
Peter Dowd
I will pick up some of those points later.
The reality is that meanwhile, the Government have presided over the slowest recovery since the 1920s—stubborn fact. The OBR has revised down GDP growth, and business investment is now falling. Those are not my figures; they are the OBR’s figures. What about wages? I will touch on the points that the hon. Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) raised. Real wages are still lower than they were a decade ago, and according to the OBR,
“average earnings growth remains below the rates typical before the financial crisis”.
These are real people’s real lives—real wages are not going up. For many workers who have seen their wages stagnate, borrowing and debt has plugged the gap. Household debt relative to income is forecast to increase over the next few years.
What about transparency in Government spending? Long gone are the days when Tory Ministers hailed their Government as the most transparent in history—replaced by a culture of secrecy and a disregard for parliamentary convention that saw the Government held in contempt of Parliament for the first time in history. It is not a proud record to have.
Even on transactional issues, such as the regular and timely release of figures for departmental spending of over £25,000, the Government seem to have quietly backslid, in some cases releasing data series late, incomplete, or not at all. The question is: what are they hiding? The Chief Secretary has made much of the Government’s record on the deficit, yet the reality is that on her watch, and that of her predecessor, they have simply passed deficits on to our schools, our hospitals and our local councils, with departmental spending cuts of over £40 billion since 2010.
Mr Jim Cunningham
When we talk about more money being put into Departments, whether for education or the health service, we have to remember that any additional money starts from a lower base. The Government are partially replacing what they took out in the first place. People do not seem to understand that major point. They said that austerity was over, but we still have it. Yes, people are in jobs, but they are very low-paid jobs. That is not taking people out of poverty; that is keeping people in poverty. What interests me the most, however, is that nothing has been said about further education, which has had major cuts. If the Government want to continue with austerity, they have to do something about further education.
Peter Dowd
My hon. Friend has obviously been reading Labour’s “Funding Britain’s Future” document, in which we picked up on that particular point. The hon. Member for Redditch mentioned tax cuts. Try telling that to people who have had 15% and 16% rises in their council tax, because the Government have shunted that on to the people. They are still taxpayers. Try mentioning to them that they have fantastic local services, when increases to their council tax do not even cover social care bills.
The Chief Secretary has bragged about the so-called Tory jobs miracle. However, she made no mention in the speech of the fact that it is built on insecure work, low pay and regional disparities. We have nearly 4 million people in insecure work and nearly 3 million people working under 15 hours a week across the UK. Workers in the north-east earn around £200 less than those in London, reifying the regional imbalance.
Simon Hoare
I hate to shoot the hon. Gentleman’s unicorn just as he has started to ride it, but 90% of new jobs created are full-time jobs. This is a total myth that his party keeps peddling. It belies the hard work, initiative and enterprise of the British people. Is it not time to stop misleading?
Peter Dowd
Try telling that to the 3 million people in insecure work. It is okay hon. Members jumping up and being outraged at the facts. The facts are stubborn, I completely grant them that. We are not living in the halcyon world that the hon. Member thinks we are living in. There are 3 million people living in insecure work. That is not acceptable in a modern society. The Chief Secretary has done nothing to help headteachers who having to close schools early or the 87 people a day dying while they are waiting for social care, or to assist the nurses, doctors, police officers, social workers, road sweepers, fire fighters, security services staff, civil servants or the back-office staff who keep all those services running day in, day out and night in, night out. Those are the so-called vested interests the Chief Secretary refers to in her regular speeches.
The Chief Secretary recently visited Felixstowe, Walsall and Tadcaster—commiserations to the people of Felixstowe, Walsall and Tadcaster. She said that people want
“the local roads fixed and not to have to sit in a traffic jam.”
Well, the Government are in a big jam at the moment. She went on:
“They want a less crowded commute into work. They want the basics sorted.”
This is after nine years of Tory Government! Where has she been? Did she really have to ask that question? A report today highlights that there are 2 million potholes out there with a £10 billion backlog of repairs under the Tories. No wonder people are sitting in traffic jams—they cannot get through the road for potholes. That is the reality under the Tories. Anyone with a scintilla of awareness already knows the answer to that. The good people of north Lincolnshire were certainly aware of it when I was in Crowle on Saturday, campaigning to rid them of their useless Tory council with the excellent Labour candidates. They want the Transport Secretary to do his job, and they want the Chief Secretary to do hers.
What about productivity—another abysmal failure of Tory economic policy? Productivity remains weaker than in most other advanced economies. The fact is that the Government have failed to prepare the UK economy for the future. Britain’s infrastructure ranks behind that of Germany, France, the USA and Japan in terms of quality, and its rate of public investment is among the lowest in the OECD.
Elizabeth Truss
Is it not the case that in 1997 the Labour Government cancelled the road building programme?
Peter Dowd
Yes—to invest in public transport. We now have the Chief Secretary to the Treasury resorting to decisions made by a Labour Government two decades ago. That is how grim it has got for the Conservatives’ arguments—they are talking about something that happened 20 years ago.
Despite that, the Government have cut planned public sector investment. Their failure to negotiate a credible Brexit deal has already led to huge uncertainty, stifling investment and putting jobs at risk. Manufacturing is in recession; numerous employers have announced job losses; and businesses that rely on the EU supply chain have been left in confusion and despair—like most Government Members, who are in confusion and despair at the actions of the Prime Minister.
The internecine warfare within the Conservative party has paralysed the Government yet again, while the economy and many people’s livelihoods hang in the balance. It is affecting people’s livelihoods, manufacturing and business—more vested interests to be ridiculed and ignored by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. All that while the Government are reporting to our EU partners that everything in the garden is rosy—no pun intended, Madam Deputy Speaker. Surely it is time for the Chief Secretary to acknowledge that the only Brexit that will gain majority support is Labour’s alternative plan: a permanent customs union, a strong relationship with the single market and full guarantees of workers’ rights and environmental protections.
The Government’s assessment of the UK economy is not based in reality. It does not account for the Conservatives’ catastrophic record of austerity, which continues to destroy our public services and suffocate the economy. It pays no regard to the Tory failure on wages, which remain lower than they were a decade ago. In addition to radio silence on productivity, there is little mention of the lack of public investment in our infrastructure. In short, the Government’s assessment says far more about the ideological position of Tory Ministers and their insolvent ideas than it does about the actual economy. It says more about the hubris of a Government who have stayed in office well past their sell-by date and do not recognise the experiences of ordinary people.
In summary, economic growth stands at 1.2%; productivity is 35% below the Germans’; household debt as a proportion of income is set to rise from 139% to 143% by 2024; the national debt still stands at 82% of GDP—the Conservatives have doubled the national debt —and the deficit is £22.8 billion. That is the Conservative Government’s record after nine years of economic incompetence. That epitomises why the country needs a Labour Government that will put jobs and our economy first and invest to rebuild Britain for the many, not the few. I urge Members to reject the motion.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the Chief Secretary to the Treasury.
Simon Hoare
I mean the shadow Chief Secretary. [Laughter.] Of, course, it is a pleasure to follow the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. It is a greater pleasure to follow her shadow, the emphasis being on the word “shadow”—it is sort of me and my shadow. I call him a friend; I think we get on pretty well when we have a gossip in the Tea Room. He is known for his great sense of humour, and it was deployed beautifully in his speech, which started as a serious attempt and then descended into some sort of 1890s music hall act slightly on its way out—rather like the Labour party and its economic manifesto. I am sorry he did not talk about the need to ring-fence anything in the Budget for the re-education of Treasury officials, which the little red book and Chairman Mao will doubtless be planning the curriculum for even as I speak.
I rise to make a few points to the Treasury Bench. This is a key time in our national economic affairs. The challenge/opportunity of Brexit, including the need for a deal to ensure an orderly withdrawal from the EU, will provide a fundamental foundation for maintaining economic growth and jobs, as my right hon. Friend referenced. From those jobs, of course, come the taxes that pay for the nurses, the doctors, the teachers, the roads and any other project the Government wish to support. We are approaching, if we have not already arrived at, that opportunity which comes with having fiscal headroom and permits choices to be made.
In the last few years—let us be frank—it has been economic management by necessity. We have been trying to deal with the task that we were bequeathed, not by choice, but which the electorate trusted the Conservative party to resolve. Treasury Ministers past and present deserve the nation’s thanks for facing into those difficult decisions. It is all too often characterised, sometimes by the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) and his colleagues, as an ideological pursuit by the Conservative party that in some way engenders jollity and laughter. I believe that all politicians enter public office and service to improve lives and the lot of our constituents. More and more of our constituents, as they get older, look to public services, and it should always be a matter of pride for a Conservative Government with a sound record of economic stewardship to deliver quality public services as efficiently as possible.
The end of the legacy of the crash and everything that flowed from it now provides that opportunity for choices. I would characterise those choices as needing the striking of a balance that is both sensitive and sophisticated. With my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor at the helm of the Treasury, I think we have both those characteristics, although I will not say which of them is sensitive and which is sophisticated—probably they will meld into the two. That is important, though, because we now have an opportunity to choose.
My right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary and I are very much children of the 1980s—our views and thoughts were shaped by the economic miracle that Mrs Thatcher and Geoffrey Howe worked—but we must appreciate that times have moved on. I am very struck by the fact that people in an earning bracket such that 25 or 30 years ago they would have looked to private health provision and education now look to and use state provision. I applaud that. I used the NHS. I had an operation at Dorchester last week, and I use my local education service—we have three girls in our local primary school. It is important to bear that in mind.
My right hon. Friend is right to point to the need for competitive taxation, whereby we can take people out of tax such that they have more money to spend, and it is absolutely right that our policies focus on those on the lowest incomes, but it is also right, in a fair and equitable society, that those who can should shoulder the burden, in a competitive way, to make sure we can deliver those services that people are looking for. I think it is too easy a prescription merely to say that we must pursue an agenda of tax cuts, as if British society had not evolved since 1985, 1986 or 1987. That is where the balance needs to be struck. It may be the balance between a liberal Tory and a more Thatcherite Tory—I do not know—but it needs to be struck.
As other Members have pointed out, as a result of a period of austerity we are now in a period in which the fiscal headroom allows for additional investment. The spring statement was helpful, and what my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary has said about an average increase of 1.2% in departmental expenditure was also welcome. However, we would be foolish to ignore the fact that we are now having to claw our way back from a period in which spending has been—albeit quite justifiably —capped.
Any Member whose constituency contains a prison will notice that the fabric of the prison estate has deteriorated. Some people might say that that is a good thing because we are talking about prisoners, but I am inclined to think that if we are serious about bringing people back into society—the redemption strategy—we need to provide a satisfactory prison environment.
In an intervention on my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary, I mentioned schools and the need for the long-term provision of new money in the comprehensive spending review. It is great that we are offering the widest and deepest range of free-at-the-point-of-use educational opportunities in our country, and when T-levels come on stream, it will become even wider and even deeper, but it is folly to suggest that we can continue to provide that, and can make the necessary investment to deliver a happy, educated, productive next generation, with the fiscal envelope currently enjoyed by the Department for Education.
Matt Rodda
The hon. Gentleman is making an interesting and thoughtful speech. Has he considered the Government’s policy of placing additional pension demands on schools in an unfunded way? If so, what does he think of it?
Simon Hoare
In an intervention on the shadow Chief Secretary, the hon. Gentleman referred to something that I am sure we have all heard from headteachers in our constituencies. Whether we are talking about national insurance, about pensions or about the demands of special educational needs, although increased DFE expenditure is going into most of our schools, it is nowhere near enough. We are asking schools to do more for more pupils with not quite as much money as they need. That is why I make the distinction. I welcome the increase, but new money is required, particularly as the range and the choice become wider and deeper.
I challenge anyone who represents a rural constituency, as I do, not to share my views on rural schools. I was delighted when the Chief Secretary took my point about the needs of maintenance. The costs of heating and running a whole estate of Victorian primary schools are greater than those in new build, perhaps in an urban setting, although that is not to say that there are no Victorian schools in urban settings. Such schools do not provide a good learning environment. Last month, I visited Motcombe primary school in my constituency. In a small classroom, one child is effectively being fried against a not particularly adequate heater, because the school does not have enough money to replace the heating system.
We must make a balanced judgment: we must aim to take those at the lowest end of the earning spectrum out of taxation, while also investing properly. We must strike that sensitive and sophisticated balance. My right hon. Friend was absolutely right: it is not just the big and sexy that we must consider, but schemes for local roads such as the C13 and the A350 in my constituency, and support for those who wish to remedy the rural broadband and mobile blackspots, which could become engines of economic growth and entrepreneurialism.
That takes me to my closing point, to which the hon. Member for Bootle alluded. Some of our recent debates appear to have pitted my party against the Government. I am sorry—I meant to say “against business”. [Laughter.] That was not a Freudian slip—or perhaps it was.
Business is the engine that generates the tax that delivers the services. We cannot have a hostile viewpoint; we cannot have a hostile environment for UK business to flourish. Without a flourishing business sector, without the freeing up of the entrepreneurial spirit that underpins the British character, the proceeds of growth—
Simon Hoare
I am drawing to a conclusion.
We all want to see the proceeds of growth and the investment in our public services that is required.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
I beg to move amendment (a), in line 1, leave out from “House” to end, and add
“declines to approve for the purposes of section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993 the Government’s assessment of the medium term economic and fiscal position as set out in the latest Budget document and the Office for Budget Responsibility’s most recent Economic and Fiscal outlook and Fiscal Sustainability Report, because it does not contain detailed analysis of the impact of the Withdrawal Agreement and the Framework for the Future Relationship with the EU on the UK’s economic and fiscal position; and calls on the Government to publish an assessment containing that analysis immediately.”.
I was curious to hear the Chief Secretary to the Treasury start by saying she is so glad that this is the last statement she will ever have to make to the EU. I cannot agree, and the Scottish National party cannot agree either. It is surreal to be standing here days from the original day of departure from the EU attempting to fulfil this legal obligation as though things were business as usual. These past few days prove beyond any doubt that we could not be any further from business as usual in this House; we are absolutely through the looking glass. Events are developing every day around what kind of country we are going to be left with; there are grave concerns about the future from every aspect of civic society. So I certainly do not share the Chief Secretary’s optimism that there is a bright future ahead.
The Chief Secretary talked about young people. Young people are the most pro-EU group in this country, and it is their future that this Government want to take away, so shame on her for not recognising the limitations that young people will face when they want to set up businesses, when they want to trade with the EU, when they want to travel and advance their education and opportunities in life.
I do not wish by way of proposing the amendment to diminish the work that the Office for Budget Responsibility does. My colleagues on these Benches and I will always welcome efforts to make public accounts more transparent and independent. The OBR has conducted this analysis rightfully and properly within its remit, but unfortunately this is precisely the reason why the SNP cannot support the approval of this statement tonight: because the OBR can only make forecasts on the basis of stated Government policy regardless of whether the policy is likely to be achieved or, as the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) said, whether it is his party against the Government, or whether in fact the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) is now the Prime Minister, because who knows? It is a Dorset thing; Dorset is leading the rebellion against their own Government. That is very interesting—and I see how happy the hon. Member for North Dorset is to be doing so. It is an absolute shambles when a Member who ought to be supporting the Government ends up leading the charge against them—although that is not at all uncommon these days; it is part of the whole madness of this Government.
The latest OBR fiscal sustainability report was published on 17 July 2018. It does not reflect the reality of the Prime Minister’s proposed deal, which was published much later, on 25 November 2018. In the OBR’s outline of the assumptions made in its economic and fiscal outlook, it is clear that the terms of the UK’s departure from the EU are unclear and that there is “no meaningful basis” on which to predict the nature of the relationship between the UK and EU. That is the situation in which we have we remained.
I checked and I have £3.52 in my purse and I would be as well throwing it down the stank as putting it on any outcome of the UK leaving the EU, so it would be an understatement to say that I could find it risky to endorse a fiscal spending plan based on one assumption of our future relationship with Europe. It is ludicrous for MPs to be asked to approve this motion without having any sight of any analysis of the Prime Minister’s deal. It is our job in this place as MPs to scrutinise the UK Government, but we are not being given the opportunity to do so effectively.
The Prime Minister has said that such an analysis of her deal does exist. She confirmed it in a letter to my colleague, the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), so why will the Prime Minister not share the details of that analysis with the House? Is it because she knows, as we all know, that the economists are right and her deal will be bad for GDP, public finances and the living standards of all our constituents?
GDP growth has gone from being the highest in the G7 before the EU referendum to the lowest today. Imports have been slower than for other G7 countries, despite an unprecedented drop in the value of sterling, and it is interesting that for some time now the exchange rate on the cash machines at Glasgow airport, which I see when I come down to London every week, has been taken off, because nobody would take any money out if they saw how dreadful it was.
Inward and outward foreign direct investment have dropped, with some analysis suggesting that the drop in inward FDI is as much as 19% compared with a no-Brexit scenario, and we are starting to see job losses on a regular basis across these islands. It is no coincidence that this is happening. The Brexit job loss index says that more than 200,000 jobs have been lost already, without the UK having even left. In a no-deal scenario, Scotland can expect to lose 100,000 jobs, according to research by the Fraser of Allander Institute, which is based in my constituency. Speaking of my constituency, I recall hearing from a significant business there on Friday afternoon. It says that it is going down from a five-day week to a four-day week, that it has laid off temporary staff and that it is losing orders because of the uncertainty of this Government. It is unacceptable that businesses the length and breadth of these islands are being put into this position because of an internal dispute within the Tory party.
The OBR has not explicitly modelled the effects of a no-deal Brexit on the economy, but the London School of Economics has suggested that if the UK Government were to stick to their frankly unreasonable targets for reducing net migration, it would not be unreasonable to expect a long-term decline in output and productivity. The UK Government’s shambolic Brexit deal would also be hugely damaging, because EU nationals contribute hugely to our society and our economy. The Government’s aim to reduce the number of EU nationals here by 80% would have a massive impact on the UK’s economy, on population growth and, quite frankly, on our ability to survive as a country. The Government do not want poor people to have children—they have brought in the two-child limit—and they do not want people to come to this country and build their lives here, but we have an ageing population. Where do they think we are going to get the people from? I have absolutely no idea, and neither do they.
On top of all this, income inequality has risen since the Brexit vote to the extent that on two occasions the OBR could not predict the levels of tax that the Treasury was going to receive from the 1% in society. The tax windfall that the Chancellor is celebrating is not a sign that the economy performing well; it is a sign of deep-seated inequality, which is worsening under the UK Tory Government.
Peter Dowd
I am sure the hon. Lady is aware that, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, an extra £5 billion will be required to maintain services in line with population growth, along with an appropriate number of people to support those services.
Alison Thewliss
The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point, and he is absolutely correct. Without people, the economy will falter. That is the economic reality.
The Resolution Foundation has said that the income tax take is up 8% so far this year, but that that is coming from the very highest earners. The wages at the bottom continue to stagnate. If the OBR cannot openly predict the short-term economic performance, it is unreasonable to ask the House to sign off on its guidance. It is more difficult now for families to survive on the money they have. Since the vote, the cost of bread is up 11%, the cost of butter is up 23% and the cost of milk is up 11%—and we still have not left the EU. If people cannot afford to put bread and butter on the table, this economy is heading for the drain.
It is a well-established fact that Scotland did not vote for or particularly want to leave the EU. I checked just before I stood up to speak, and 13,920 of my constituents have now signed the petition to revoke article 50. The Prime Minister has consistently ignored attempts by the Scottish Parliament to find any kind of compromise solution, such as staying in the customs union and the single market, which would limit the damage of this hard Tory Brexit. If she wants to drag Scotland out of the EU against its will, she should have the bottle to come to this House and present the analysis that she says exists. She should have the courage to tell people that it will cost jobs and businesses and that she cannot make guarantees about the future.
If the Prime Minister does not believe that her Brexit deal can stand up to scrutiny in this House, the UK Government need to face up to reality and ditch Brexit altogether by revoking article 50. They are throwing good money after bad on no-deal planning, on fridges, on staged traffic jams and on botched ferry contracts, when they could be spending that money on lifting the awful austerity cuts that we have seen over the past nine years. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury talks about going round the country and listening to people’s public spending priorities, but I bet none of them talked about spending £33 million on Eurotunnel due to the shambles created by the Secretary of State for Transport, or about the £1 billion to bribe the Democratic Unionist party in an attempt to keep the Government in power.
Day after day in my constituency, I see the impact of this Government’s callous approach to cost-cutting. I see the benefits freeze, which is expected to cost families £800 a year, on top of the £900 a year that the Bank of England says Brexit is already costing every family. I see the two-child policy, which leaves families nearly £3,000 a year worse off if they have a third child and which makes a woman with three children on a 16-hour contract work the equivalent of 45 hours to make up the difference. I also see the thousands of pounds a year being lost by the WASPI women who are no longer entitled to their side of the pension bargain, having had their pensions cruelly stolen by previous Governments and by this one as well. How can any Minister look the population in the eye and say, “There is no money for you,” when the Government are asking us to sign a blank cheque for a hard Brexit?
I am a lifelong campaigner for Scottish independence and scarcely have I seen a clearer case for it than the shambles of the Conservatives and the incompetence of the Labour party in opposing them. The UK Government’s incompetence is changing hearts and minds all over Scotland on the merits of independence, and I hope that there will soon be an opportunity for the people of Scotland to take matters into their own hands.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
I rise to support the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who is rather a heroine and is leading a one-woman campaign to try to keep public spending down. It is all very well to call for more public spending—I use the NHS exclusively and value the work of those who care for me and my family—but only patients would suffer were we dramatically to increase health spending in line with Labour party policy. There would be a dramatic decline in productivity and no obvious increase in good healthcare.
The shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury spoke for nearly 20 minutes, but it was interesting that there was little about the Labour party’s plans. Although this Parliament is staring at the detail of the various Brexit solutions, all the various outcomes pale into insignificance compared with the threat posed to this country by a Government led by the Leader of the Opposition. Conservative Members of Parliament need to point the finger again and again at what will happen if this Government go and the Labour party takes over under its present management. One cannot meet a Labour MP who does not say in private that they are scared stiff by a Government led by the Leader of the Opposition.
What would happen if the present Leader of the Opposition took over? I predict that there would a few months of dramatic spending increases and everybody would be happy. In the end, however, the country and the economy would be crashed. Let us remember that the present Leader of the Opposition execrated the Governments led by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, saying that they were right-wing stooges of capitalism, and he is the man who now wants to lead us on what would be the road to ruin. He would open the gates and unleash mass immigration. In the end, we would not have a better health service, better education or better investment; we would have only economic chaos and mismanagement.
Conservative Members must look laser-like at the alternatives, but we also have to put our own house in order. My advice to my hon. Friends is, frankly, to get on with Brexit and to vote for the Prime Minister’s deal. The economic clouds would lift; the pound would shoot up; and investment would increase. The Government could then carry on to the next general election, when we could really put the spotlight where it needs to be: on the disaster that would befall this country if the shadow Chief Secretary gets anywhere near power.
Colin Clark (Gordon) (Con)
I am glad to rise to support my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. I serve on the Treasury Committee, and it is a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), who is so optimistic. I am also glad to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), who always speaks from the heart.
Do Labour Members and SNP Members welcome the fact that, despite their concerns about Brexit, Forbes recognises the UK as the No. 1 place to do business? The UK is currently the second highest location for inward investment in the world and the highest in Europe. The market believes that the UK has a future after Brexit; Opposition Members do not.
Alison Thewliss
Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that there is no deal as good as the deal that the UK currently has as an EU member state?
Colin Clark
I do not agree with that, actually. The Treasury Committee has discussed the fact that the UK has the highest employment growth in Europe, which is an inexplicable miracle. Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, could not explain why it is happening. This country is a jobs miracle because this Government believe in private enterprise. Opposition Members do not believe in private enterprise. They believe in the crushing hand of the state, which damages business and does not build it up.
In my constituency, we have 1.2% unemployment. We have the highest employment levels we have ever had. The oil and gas industry expects £200 billion-worth of future investment because it is optimistic about business. This Government’s Treasury is supporting the oil and gas industry and backing much of the fiscal policy that is making this the most attractive place to do business.
This is so difficult because the Opposition parties simply cannot get their heads around the Conservatives being the party that supports aspiration, which is instinctively what we do. Many Conservative Members are, like me, self-made businessmen. We are the party of enterprise, and I am living proof of that enterprise.
Several hon. Members rose—
Colin Clark
We are the party of optimism and, on the subject of optimism, I will let a pessimist speak up.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
The hon. Gentleman spoke earlier about the UK’s high ranking in Forbes magazine. Can he tell us how the UK rates on food bank usage?
Colin Clark
That is the difference between the hon. Gentleman and me, because I consider the fact there are food banks to support people to be an example of charitableness. I want to celebrate the success of this country, not the failure, and it is the Conservative party that will make sure this country is a success.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Colin Clark
I will finish, because we are running out of time.
We are the party of opportunity, and they are the parties that would destroy opportunity. We are the party that wants to support everyone in society and give people a hand up, and they are the parties that would crush people with taxation. It is interesting that the hon. Member for Glasgow Central mentioned the OBR and taxation, because it was the OBR that recognised that the differential in taxation will damage the Scottish economy—and that was the Scottish Government’s choice.
This is a Conservative party building the economy, and the socialist parties on the Opposition Benches would crush the United Kingdom economy as we leave. I support the motion.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
The House proceeded to a Division.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the No Lobby.
Mr Speaker
I have to inform the House of a correction to the result of the Division held earlier today on amendment (a) to Lords amendment 23 to the Offensive Weapons Bill. The number of Members voting in the No Lobby was 308, as previously announced, but the number of Members who represent constituencies in England or Wales and who voted No was 286, not 285. There is no change to the outcome of the Division.
Business without Debate
18:36 - The House divided: - Ayes: 304 / Noes: 275 - Question accordingly agreed to.
18:50 - The House divided: - Ayes: 302 / Noes: 283 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Mr Speaker
With the leave of the House, I propose to take motions 10 to 26, all appertaining to exiting the European Union, but covering sea fisheries, animals, a plentiful supply on agriculture, matters relating to the health service and to health and personal social services, and one on customs, together.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),
Exiting the European Union (Sea Fisheries)
That the draft Common Fisheries Policy (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) (No. 2) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 28 February, be approved.
Exiting the European Union (Animals)
That the draft Livestock (Records, Identification and Movement) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 10 January, be approved.
Exiting the European Union (Agriculture)
That the draft Common Organisation of the Markets in Agricultural Products Framework (Miscellaneous Amendments, etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 13 February, be approved.
That the draft Common Organisation of the Markets in Agricultural Products and Common Agricultural Policy (Miscellaneous Amendments) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 14 February, be approved.
That the draft Agriculture (Legislative Functions) (EU Exit) (No. 2) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 13 March, be approved.
That the draft Food and Farming (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 11 March, be approved.
That the draft Market Measures (Marketing Standards) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 13 February, be approved.
That the draft Market Measures Payment Schemes (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 13 February, be approved.
That the draft Market Measures (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 13 February, be approved.
That the draft Agriculture (Legislative Functions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 4 March, be approved.
That the draft Common Agricultural Policy (Financing, Management and Monitoring) (Miscellaneous Amendments) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 13 February, be approved.
That the draft Common Agricultural Policy (Financing, Management and Monitoring Supplementary Provisions) (Miscellaneous Amendments) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 13 February, be approved.
That the draft Common Agricultural Policy and Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 21 January, be approved.
Exiting the European Union (Health Services)
That the draft Social Security Coordination (Reciprocal Healthcare) (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 11 February, be approved.
Exiting the European Union (National Health Service)
That the draft National Health Service (Cross-Border Healthcare and Miscellaneous Amendments etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 11 February, be approved.
Exiting the European Union (Health and Personal Social Services)
That the draft Health Services (Cross-Border Health Care and Miscellaneous Amendments) (Northern Ireland) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 11 February, be approved.
Exiting the European Union (Customs)
That the draft Trade etc. in Dual-Use Items and Firearms etc. (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 4 March, be approved.—(Mike Freer.)
Question agreed to.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),
Exiting the European Union (Customs)
That the draft Customs Safety and Security Procedures (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 27 February, be approved.—(Mike Freer.)
Bereavement Counselling
(5 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)
“You have a lot of misfortune in your family.” Those, Mr Speaker, are the words that a registrar spoke to me when I registered the death of my mother, who died 20 years ago today, aged 53. Kind, compassionate, understated, he said them because just six weeks previously I had registered the death of my father.
I was, Mr Speaker, 27. I was not a child, but I was, I think, too young to know how to bear some of the sadness that I felt in 2009. Some people have, by the age of 27, borne far more emotion: they have married, had families, served and sometimes died for their countries, and in many instances they have also buried both their parents. However, 27 is young to be an orphan in the western world. I struggled to admit it then and I struggle to admit it now, but I found it impossibly hard. I should have looked for help, because grief makes us all angry, irrational, upset and difficult.
Perhaps too many of us in the House think that that strength is incompatible with weakness. Perhaps too many of us are stubborn. It is often said that that which does not kill us makes us stronger; perhaps that which kills those closest to us can make us stronger still, but few can do it on their own. In this Adjournment debate, I want simply to say to those who struggle with the loss of loved ones—and even the loss of close family members who are not so obviously loved—that there is already help out there, and to say, “You are strongest when you take it up, and go to the doctor or just talk to friends.” However, it is also true that more can be done by the Government and by others.
This week, we celebrate Mother’s Day. Mothers up and down the country will be appreciated through cards, breakfast in bed, and often questionable artwork from their children. For some, though—myself included—that day is a reminder of what we have lost. To use the modern jargon, it is a trigger. I thank you, Mr Speaker, for letting my personal circumstances have some influence on the parliamentary calendar. Changing it seems to be all the rage at the moment, but you know that MPs are surely at their best when we draw on our personal experiences.
The coming of Mother’s Day gives this debate a broader relevance, because I also want to raise the question of what more we can do in government to support those who have been bereaved, and how we can encourage wider society to make small, seemingly insignificant changes that can prevent immense upset for so many people. The bereavement charity Cruse currently claims on its home page that it can “help this Mother’s Day”, and that is hugely welcome, but such is the volume that the charity has suspended its email help service, and its phone lines are not open 24/7. It takes more than charity to tackle bereavement; it takes society, in all its little family platoons.
The Government have done great work in introducing bereavement counselling for parents who lose children, thanks in part to my hon. Friends the Members for Colchester (Will Quince) and for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach), as well as other Members on both sides of the House. I am not calling for a similar kind of bereavement leave for everyone, because businesses, in truth, are largely respectful, and they are also hugely varied. However, I know from personal experience that many people do not feel the true impact of their loss for weeks, months, or even, in some instances, years after the person whom they have loved has passed away. Often they are in shock or trying to be strong for others, and that is on top of all the mundane considerations that have to be dealt with in such circumstances.
Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making an incredibly powerful speech, and I know how proud his parents would have been to witness him doing so. I know about the delay that he has mentioned. My father died 30 years ago this year, of mesothelioma, and I remember reading my mother’s diary, in which she was crying out for help nine months later. It is incumbent on us to recognise that delay, and I appreciate everything that my hon. Friend is saying.
Matt Warman
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and that is why in some ways I am calling on the Government to have ongoing support for those who are recently bereaved and an open-ended offer of counselling on the NHS which can be accessed when they are ready, not at the easiest point for the NHS.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I also commend the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate and telling his own personal story. Across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland one in four people suffers from mental health issues, and many of them are a result of the grief from someone close to them leaving, especially when that is sudden. Early intervention is key, and I would like the Minister to respond on that. Does the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) agree that we should have early intervention through the use of Cruse and perhaps other groups—I am thinking of church groups and ministers who are on call if needed?
Matt Warman
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I agree with him and will mention that issue in a few moments.
There should be a dedicated mental health helpline provided through the NHS, which under the long-term plan will be accessed via 111. It is important that there is an understanding within that that bereavement for a long time is an exacerbating factor in loneliness, suicide and more; it is a red flag that should be recorded for a long time.
The importance of such ongoing support cannot be overstated. We have spoken in this House many times about the tragedy of the rise in male suicide; while things are improving there is still a huge stigma around men feeling unable to open up and show their emotions—although I am hopefully doing all right today.
This is why it is particularly important to normalise the support around bereavement, and we must not leave it solely to those affected to reach out to organisations such as the Samaritans or Cruse. That registrar who I spoke to 10 years ago should have been trained to offer a signpost—although I confess that if he was or if he did I was in no state to listen—and the NHS and our volunteering strategy should include better plans to encourage more people to train as volunteer bereavement friends and counsellors, as in the hugely valuable work we see with Dementia Friends, or, as Sue Ryder has called them, the bereavement “first aiders”.
Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech and a series of good points. I am not at all ashamed to say that I had bereavement counselling when my son died, and I cannot see why anyone would not; we go to the doctor when we are feeling unwell, and of course we go to the bereavement counsellor when we need help with grief. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is very important that we normalise this?
Matt Warman
I absolutely agree.
There is also a role for us to play in opening up the debate and shining light on steps outside organisations can take to make bereavement in general more bearable, but also, on the theme of this debate, to make Mother’s Day or Father’s Day less difficult for those who have experienced loss.
Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)
I wonder if there may be a role for funeral directors in this, given the links they have with families. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his moving speech.
Matt Warman
I thank the hon. Lady for her kind words. The Co-op has done interesting and very valuable work on this, and the Department can put some of these initiatives together.
One interesting example I would like to see introduced across the board is the new policy from an online flower company called Bloom & Wild. It has given customers the opportunity to opt out of Mother’s Day emails as it recognises that it can be a very sensitive time for some. If other companies were to follow suit, the dread—and I do mean dread—around this day might be mitigated for many people. I personally do not feel, for whatever reason, the same dread about Father’s Day marketing, but obviously it should be treated equally in case anyone is worried. Organisations such as the Advertising Standards Authority could perhaps make this part of a voluntary code around data. I am not a Tory asking for some enormous nanny state. I am saying that providing another tick box for when people sign up for yet more emails would be kind. Companies bang on about corporate social responsibility all the time, so why not try this?
This debate is important to me for three reasons. Yes, this is a sad anniversary, but I am lucky to have this platform to say that the Government are right to acknowledge that they need to do more to ensure that there is ongoing support for those who have lost someone they love. This is also a chance to open up the discussion on how everyone in society and business can play a role in increasing the sensitivity with which these difficult days, which last for many years, are handled. I hope that by securing this debate, through your good offices, Mr Speaker, we will move fractionally closer to ensuring that all men and women who, like myself, have not always felt comfortable discussing such emotional topics are able to do so more freely, to seize the help that is there and perhaps ultimately to need that help just a fraction less.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jackie Doyle-Price)
Thank you for allowing this debate, Mr Speaker. I am really glad to have this opportunity to respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman), who has spoken incredibly movingly about his personal experience. In this place, it is difficult to speak rawly from the heart, but he has done well today. He has done extremely well. His speech sets in stark relief the fact that we are all human beings in this place, although people might be forgiven for thinking otherwise in recent days. We all bring our own experiences here, and it takes a lot of courage to share some of them. I am not always as confident and brave as he is when it comes to sharing my own stories. It is a pleasure to reply to him tonight.
The effects of bereavement and loss are different for us all, as my hon. Friend said. They can differ depending on age, on family circumstances and on whom we can reach out to for help, but one thing that I would really like to land is the fact that grief is lifelong. Grief never leaves us. When we lose a loved one, it stays with us for the rest of our life. My hon. Friend mentioned triggers, and they can happen at any point. It is important that I, as a Minister in the Department of Health and Social Care, ensure that we have sufficient support for people who are grieving, because it can come from nowhere. He used the word “normalise”, and that is so important when we talk about any aspect of mental ill health and mental stress, because it is not uncommon for us all to go through periods when we feel like that.
It is difficult, particularly for men, to reach out and ask for help. That is because it is seen as a sign of weakness, but it really should not be. “No man is an island” is the trite phrase that we often use, but it is also true. Sometimes, people feel that they cannot show weakness because they are the linchpin of their family and cannot grieve because they need to be strong for everyone else. It will be the mark of a compassionate society that we ensure that we have services for all those people. From a health perspective, it is also really important that we do that, because people who are suffering in this way are more likely to suffer from physical ill health and from weight loss, depression and anxiety. I have witnessed this within my own family following a bereavement. We must encourage people to access support from bereavement counsellors.
My hon. Friend spoke movingly about the fact that Mother’s Day was a particular trigger for him. He lost his mother and father at a young age, and the sense of grief when life ends prematurely is perhaps even more acute at that time. I was reminded of people I have met who were victims of terror, for example, or of Grenfell Tower. There, too, life ended very prematurely for those people. Sometimes we do not even think about the effects of seeing pictures of that fire flashed up every time Grenfell Tower comes up on the news. We risk re-traumatising people in that way, and as a society we really need to start looking at some of those behaviours. These things are often done with the best of intentions. I remember when we started the independent inquiry into Grenfell, there was obviously great interest in it on the news, but those pictures being flashed out on every news programme cannot have been pleasant for those left behind. There is a role for us to think carefully about news reporting, broadcasting and what is available on the internet. There is also a challenge for editorial teams about how to report such things after the event, because we really should not expect people just to tolerate living with ongoing trauma.
Bereavement counselling is available to people at any time, and it is important to realise that the grieving process does last a lifetime and that feelings could be suppressed for decades before being triggered again. The first step for someone wanting to access a counsellor should be to go to their local GP or to self-refer to Cruse, as my hon. Friend mentioned. I am pleased that we will be making more services available through the 111 facility, because people being able to access care, advice and support when they need it will mitigate any harm that they are experiencing.
Cruse Bereavement Care is funded by clinical commissioning groups and local authorities and has branches all over the country that offer free, confidential advice to anyone who needs it. Cruse’s aim is that everyone who loses somebody should have someone to talk to when they need it, and I am pleased with the service it offers. The quality of service could be improved, however, so we are working with NHS England to develop better provision so that everyone can access it.
I also cannot commend the voluntary and charity sector’s input enough. I keep saying to CCGs that we should not look at mental ill health just as something to be medicalised, because support from voluntary providers and people with other skills can be just as important in helping people to get better and get used to their condition as any appointment with a clinician. The 111 service will provide 24/7 mental health crisis support, enabling access to a trained mental health professional who can signpost to treatment and other support, but the system should be holistic, so we need voluntary services, bereavement counselling and mental health professionals where they are needed.
My hon. Friend told us this evening that Mother’s Day is a particularly difficult time for him, and any kind of anniversary can reignite grief. I was interested to hear about Bloom & Wild’s policy, which is a good reminder of how a bit of sensitive thinking can make life so much easier. I would encourage all companies that are involved in activity around such times—any business that builds relationships with its customers—to be more sensitive in how it contacts people. That is just good corporate social responsibility, as he said. Advertising in the United Kingdom is regulated by the Advertising Standards Authority, but it could do more to spread good practice and encourage companies to think more carefully, because everyone can support people who have been bereaved.
I am pleased to see my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) here, and my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) was here earlier. The Baby Loss Awareness Week debate is now an annual fixture, and there is never a dry eye in the House when hon. Friends share their direct experiences. I find it amazing that it was so taboo to talk about such things until recently, but in this sphere we have led the way in acknowledging our grief and talking about it, and in so doing we are setting a good example for the rest of society. I know that it is difficult for colleagues, as I said, to talk so rawly about the emotions that they have experienced, but when pictures go out from this House showing not a point-scoring bearpit but real naked human emotion, that is what the public want to see. They are the things that remind them that, in this place, we are all citizens of the United Kingdom with all the problems and challenges that everyone else has. We are not some class apart living a completely different life—not living in the real world, as some would say.
Those pictures from the annual baby loss debate open people’s eyes and tackle the taboo. I very much hope that people watching those debates will think, “Do you know what? It’s okay to feel bad. It’s okay to have a good cry about something that happened to me many years ago.” Grief is something you have to manage. You will never stop missing that loved one, and you will never stop regretting the fact you have lost them. Much of the time memories are happy and, in your own mind, you can celebrate their life and their contribution to your life, but the regret that they cannot see what you are doing now is something that never leaves you, and that is just a sign of being a good human being.
I sincerely thank my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness for securing this debate. He raised the issue of suicide, and particularly male suicide, which underlines the need to encourage men to acknowledge that it is okay to have a good cry and to ask for help. They do not have to be superhuman and it is not a sign of weakness. We need to do much more to encourage men to open up, and I have seen that directly in my role as Minister for suicide prevention. I have met families who have lost young men to suicide, and it might sound weird, but it is a privilege to have heard their stories and for them to be able to share their pain. I find it so inspiring that people who have gone through the most tragic things want to use that experience to make life better for everyone else.
Perhaps that is a good note on which to finish. We are all very proud of my hon. Friend, because he has done exactly that. He has shared his pain so we can all learn from it. That is the best of Britishness.
Question put and agreed to.