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Oral Answers to Questions
(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sajid Javid)
We would prefer to leave with a deal, and we continue to work energetically and determinedly to get a better deal, but the Government are turbo charging their preparations to ensure we are ready to leave without a deal on 31 October. All necessary funds have been made available. The fundamentals of the British economy are strong: real wages are growing; employment is at a record high; and unemployment is at an historic low.
Rushanara Ali
The Government’s Yellowhammer document, or base case scenario, states that there will be job losses, that food supplies will decrease and that financial services and law enforcement data and information sharing will be disrupted. Last night, we heard about customs clearance zones in Ireland and Northern Ireland, and the Brexit Secretary has admitted that there is insufficient time to complete the work. The Government spent £100 million on a PR campaign called “Get Ready for Brexit”. Is it not time that the Chancellor admitted that the Government are far from ready for Brexit and instead are heading for causing chaos in our country?
Sajid Javid
The hon. Lady will appreciate that the uncertainty around Brexit has caused businesses significant concern. They want to see the Government deliver Brexit and leave on 31 October, and that is what we will do. Significant preparations have been made for a no deal, including trade agreements reached, increases in personnel at Border Force and more than 600 statutory instruments laid in this Parliament. If she wants to help, she should support the Government in getting a deal.
Helen Hayes
There is evidence of a rise in short positions being taken out against the pound. Is the Chancellor confident that the hedge funds taking those short positions, some of which donated to the Prime Minister’s leadership campaign and the Conservative party, have no inside information about the planning or timing of a no-deal Brexit?
Sajid Javid
That is such a ridiculous suggestion it does not deserve an answer.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
If we leave the EU without an agreement, do we get to keep the £39 billion?
Sajid Javid
The figure of £39 billion is based on a deal. If we end up leaving with no deal, that £39 billion number is no longer relevant.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Ind)
Is the Chancellor aware that the chief executive of the port of Dover has said that we are 100% ready to leave the EU, and will he help that readiness by bringing forward plans to dual the A2 to the port of Dover?
Sajid Javid
I thank my hon. Friend for drawing the House’s attention to this issue. I am aware of that. I know, for example, that the investment the Government have made through Border Force, including the extra officers, is helping, and I am confident that in all circumstances we can keep trade flowing.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
Sajid Javid
We do not know that at all. That is just scaremongering from the Scottish National party. We know that businesses throughout the UK, including in Scotland, want this uncertainty to end and want us to leave on 31 October.
John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)
Does the Chancellor agree that if we were to leave with no deal, there could be a potential economic impact on our European partners and that therefore it is as much in the EU’s interests to reach a deal as it is in ours?
Sajid Javid
My hon. Friend has made an important point: it is in everyone’s interests—ours and our European friends and partners—that we reach a deal. Intensive negotiations are going on, both with the Irish Government and with other European partners, and there is a very strong recognition that it is in all our interests that we reach a deal.
Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)
Is the Chancellor aware that the Office for Budget Responsibility’s alarming fiscal analysis of a no-deal Brexit assumes that the Government’s preparations are successful—and so result in a miraculously benign no-deal Brexit—and that even with this least-damaging no-deal Brexit the OBR predicts a hit to Britain’s finances that would destroy every single spending announcement by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor? Given that, is it not unacceptable for a Chancellor in a Government publicly contemplating a no-deal Brexit to fail to tell the truth to the British public that spending on health, schools and police will be slashed in the event of a no-deal Brexit?
Sajid Javid
First, I do not recognise that picture at all. It has been made up by the Liberal Democrats. Secondly, the right hon. Gentleman talks about what is unacceptable. What is unacceptable is for the Liberal Democrats to pretend that the referendum on the European Union never happened.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
We have heard in the media today that the UK Government will have proposals ready to send to the EU by the end of the Tory conference this week. The Prime Minister’s main negotiating strategy seems to be to convince the EU that we are willing to accept no deal, and hope that it will capitulate at the last minute. Can the Chancellor name one occasion on which the EU has folded at the last minute in international negotiations?
Sajid Javid
Can the hon. Lady name a single negotiation in which we have not had the ability to walk away, out of the room?
Kirsty Blackman
These are supposed to be questions to the Chancellor, not to me.
Businesses are not ready for a no-deal Brexit. They are already losing EU workers, and are closing down as a result. In a no-deal Brexit, they will be hit by tariffs, and many more of them will sink as a result of that. People will lose their jobs. Given that there is now less than a month until Brexit day, does the Chancellor really believe that there is time to negotiate a deal? If not, will he ensure that the Prime Minister respects the law and requests an extension?
Sajid Javid
Significant work is going on to prepare the whole country for a potential no-deal outcome, and that includes helping businesses. I have allocated an additional £2.1 billion on top of the £2 billion that was already there, and that means that we can do much more to help businesses, including sending them more than 750 communications on preparedness and more than 100 technical notices.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
The Government’s current policy is that we can have higher public spending, falling debt and a no-deal Brexit, but those three things are impossible to deliver together, so on which of them are the Government not telling the truth?
Sajid Javid
The Government are focused on leaving the European Union on 31 October. We are trying to do that with a deal, but if we do not, we will leave with no deal. The hon. Gentleman talks about the Government’s policy. At least this Government have a clear policy on Brexit; what is the policy of the Labour party?
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)
Anne Milton (Guildford) (Ind)
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jesse Norman)
The Government have listened to concerns expressed across the House about the loan charge, and, as the House will know, an independent review is now in progress under the leadership of Sir Amyas Morse. While it is under way, it is right for the loan charge to remain in force and for the Government to implement legislation on which the House agreed. The review will conclude by mid-November, to let anyone who may be affected know, and to give people time to plan in advance of the January self-assessment filing deadline. To help taxpayers who may need longer to pay, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has confirmed again that there is no maximum time limit for payment plans.
Mr Bone
The loan charge is the worst form of retrospective taxation. It is causing real hardship and distress to law-abiding taxpayers, and this week it was reported that a seventh person had taken their own life because of it. How many more people are going to take their lives before the loan charge is scrapped?
Jesse Norman
Let me correct my hon. Friend on the facts. We have been notified of three suicides that may have some connection with the loan charge, and which have been referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct. In one case there has been a referral back to HMRC, but in all other cases there has been no further development, so I do not recognise the picture that my hon. Friend has described. Let me also remind him that although these effects have been much bruited, there is also the question of collecting the several billion pounds of back tax that is due.
Nic Dakin
What is clear is that the retrospective loan charge is causing huge pain and upset as people’s livelihoods and homes are threatened. Will the Minister ensure that the review hears directly from people who have been so affected, and will he either suspend the loan charge or at least tell HMRC that those who have signed a settlement agreement can pause their payments until the review has been concluded?
Jesse Norman
I am grateful for the question. Of course any injury to individuals from any act of Government or their agencies is to be deeply regretted. I recognise that, and if it has happened here, it is appropriate for the House to feel that way.
I have no powers to direct Sir Amyas Morse. I understand that he is taking evidence from external sources, including the loan charge all-party parliamentary group and the Loan Charge Action Group, which acts as its secretariat. I have met the APPG and the secretariat separately. So the matter is being fully addressed. The details of settlement have been set out on gov.uk.
Mr David Davis
On the issue that my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) raised with the Minister, the hard fact is that seven people facing challenge or investigation for the loan charge have taken their own lives. He can attribute cause as he wishes. The fact is also that the distress has been caused by the historical incompetence of HMRC and the subsequent willingness of Ministers to use retrospective taxation. Are the Government going to give up on the premise of using retrospective taxation, or does it fall to the House to pass laws that will stop them doing so in future?
Jesse Norman
The legislation is not retrospective. [Hon. Members: “It is.”] There are defined circumstances in which HMRC and the Government may seek to use retrospective taxation, and they do so with extreme care and attention. All that I am doing is referring my right hon. Friend to the facts as reported to the IOPC. As he will be aware, these are immensely difficult cases in which many circumstances and factors may be in play.
Jesse Norman
The review is designed to assess whether the Government’s policy is appropriate, and it would be wrong to change it until the review has had chance to make a decision on it. The Treasury and the House have a great interest in supporting the provision of public services, which the recovery of tax avoided in this way, in many ways egregiously, is designed to fund.
Anne Milton
I honestly do not think that the Minister is paying attention. These comments are coming from Members behind him, not opposite him. [Hon. Members: “From all sides.”] These people followed professional advice and declared their arrangements to HMRC, which did nothing. Yet it is now going back and taxing them retrospectively, all the way back to 1999 in some circumstances. The Minister cannot stand at the Dispatch Box and just ignore what he is hearing from the Benches behind him.
Jesse Norman
Nothing could be further from the truth. We are carefully attending to concerns that have been expressed. That is why I announced changes in July and have written on two occasions to colleagues to inform them of changes and developments. That is why we have instituted this independent loan charge review, the purpose of which is precisely to scrutinise the extent to which Government policy is appropriate.
Mr Gregory Campbell
The Minister is bound to be aware of the scale of concern across the House and among those who are directly affected. He has outlined a date of mid-November. Immediately upon that date being reached, will he take urgent action to assist those affected?
Jesse Norman
I have no idea what the loan charge review will conclude, but I guarantee that we will look at its findings with all due speed and dispatch.
Justine Greening (Putney) (Ind)
Like many Members, I have constituents who have been egregiously affected by the loan charge. The Minister’s response is unacceptable from their perspective. He should suspend all the loan charge activity while the review is under way and until the Government have responded to it. What preparation is happening in HMRC for the policy shift if the review says that the loan charge is unfair and needs to be changed? How will he deal with my constituents who have already had to pay but may be proven to have paid erroneously?
Jesse Norman
I am unable to comment on what the review will conclude. We can certainly look at whether there may be changes that HMRC would take rapidly thereafter. It possesses the capacity to do so quite quickly if necessary, as does Government. We will have to review that moment when it comes.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
Jesse Norman
The hon. Lady is absolutely right to focus on the activity of the promoters. They are extremely ingenious in operating within the framework of law, but doing some very nasty and duplicitous things. They often operate offshore and it is extremely difficult to close them down when they are constantly mutating from one company to another. I assure hon. Members that we are looking at the problem extremely closely, and I hope to return to the House at some point fairly soon with some thoughts.
Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Ind)
I worry that the Government characterise those who are suffering from the loan charge as in some way egregious tax avoiders, when it is abundantly clear that in the case of my constituents they acted on advice, openly, and in the belief that the scheme was approved by HMRC. I also worry that HMRC is behaving towards taxpayers in a fashion that is new, and in many cases, tax advisers say, unprecedented. I also think that the retrospectivity is deeply questionable.
Jesse Norman
I must say, I am surprised to hear a man of my right hon. and learned Friend’s legal standing and status regard this as retrospective, because it plainly is not. [Hon. Members: “It is!”] There are many parts of tax policy that have to look back to the basis of an asset or a liability, and that has happened here. In this case, HMRC has taken quite vigorous action over the years, in different forms, to let people know. Of course, it is subject to the loan charge review; we will see what that concludes. However, I remind my right hon. and learned Friend that these people were in many cases paying very little or zero in tax. [Interruption.] Of course the circumstances can differ, but there are a large number of people who knew, or should have known, that they were avoiding tax, and doing so un—
Several hon. Members rose—
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sajid Javid)
The recent spending round has delivered the fastest real growth in day-to-day spending in 15 years, targeting additional money on the people’s priorities of healthcare, education and tackling crime. We will publish alongside the next Budget an analysis of how these spending changes are distributed.
Alison Thewliss
We on the SNP Benches welcome the Chancellor’s announcement on his pretendy living wage, because we have been calling for it for four years, but his promises still fall 5p short of the London living wage today, never mind in 2024. A 16-year-old today would have to wait five years to be entitled to it. Will he end the state-sanctioned age discrimination of his pretendy living wage, so that all people, regardless of age, can receive a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work?
Sajid Javid
I welcome the hon. Lady’s support. It was this Government who introduced a national living wage in 2016. It was this Government who increased the rate, as recently as April this year. The announcement that we have made, which I will have more to say about later, will help to end—actually will end—low pay for good in our great country.
John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)
The best way to improve living standards is to reduce tax burdens. Does the Chancellor share my concern that anyone in Scotland earning more than £27,000 is paying more than the equivalent English taxpayer, and that more than 1 million Scots are paying £500 million in extra taxation?
Sajid Javid
I believe the First Minister actually promised not to raise taxes, but in fact the SNP has raised taxes on more than 1 million Scots. Doctors, teachers and police are all paying more in Scotland than in any other part of the UK. Scotland is now the highest-taxed part of the UK, and the Scottish people will remember that at the next Scottish elections.
Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)
Since this Government came to power, they have relied heavily on monetary policy. The Chancellor of the Exchequer will know that quantitative easing and interest rates have now been cut to the bone. Is he concerned by noises coming from the Bank of England that interest rates could rise, and the effect that that would have on heavily indebted middle-income families?
Sajid Javid
The hon. Gentleman should know that the Bank of England is independent, and therefore monetary policy decisions are independent. I know that his friends on the Opposition Front Bench do not recognise or respect that, but it is a very important part of our economic system.
Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)
The Chancellor will know that one of the Government’s fiscal policies that is fundamentally wrong is the loan charge retrospective taxes on our constituents. Whether it is one death, no deaths or seven deaths, families are being destroyed because of the retrospective charge. Surely we should put a stop to it now.
Mr Speaker
Order. The matter in hand is the effect of fiscal policies on living standards.
Sajid Javid
Well, it is fiscal policy, Mr Speaker, in the interests of my right hon. Friend, and he is right to raise the matter. He will have heard the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, in answer to the previous question, point to the independent inquiry that is taking place, led by a gentleman who has considerable respect. We will await the outcome of that inquiry.
Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
The effects of the Government’s fiscal policies on living standards have been devastating, especially for vulnerable people, so is it still Government policy to remove the benefits freeze in April 2020?
Sajid Javid
The hon. Gentleman talks about the Government’s fiscal policy, which is a core part of our overall economic policy, and it is that policy that has led to a jobs boom, with 3.7 million more people in work since 2010, and over 1 million fewer working households in our country living in poverty. The real threat to the living standards of working people is the agenda of the Labour party.
Peter Dowd
It would have been helpful to get an answer to the question. We have a Prime Minister who cannot be candid even with the Queen, a Health Secretary who claims there will be 40 hospital rebuilds when in fact it is just six reconfigurations, and a Chancellor who worked at a senior level for a bank that a US Senate Committee found had caused
“material damage to ordinary people and the wider global economy”.
Why would anyone believe a word that this self-serving Government say? They are led by a Prime Minister who, many claim, believes that telling the truth is an illness to be avoided.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen)
The UK has an extensive and internationally enviable free ATM network. We know that many people still use cash day to day, and we have committed to safeguarding cash for those who need it. I am delighted that UK Finance and LINK are leading industry efforts to protect free cash access. That culminated in UK Finance launching the Community Access to Cash initiative just yesterday.
Mrs Hodgson
The Minister says that, but news that NoteMachine is to convert 3,000 of its 7,000 free-to-use cash machines to pay-to-use machines is of great concern to my constituents. According to Which?, we have lost 15% of our free-to-use ATMs over the past year alone. The previous Labour Government formed an agreement with ATM operators and the Treasury to plug gaps in financially deprived areas where people had to pay to access their cash, so what are this Government going to do to prevent people being charged just for trying to access their own money?
John Glen
Use of cash has reduced significantly faster than expected over the past 10 years. I am meeting UK Finance and LINK tomorrow to ensure that their mechanism is good for the current situation. The new initiative to which I referred in my previous response will give communities up and down the country the opportunity to engage with UK Finance on better and new solutions.
Several hon. Members rose—
Sir Gary Streeter (South West Devon) (Con)
Is not the closure of ATMs linked to the decision by high street banks to close their branches left, right and centre? Will the Minister, in his regular meetings with the chief executives of high street banks, remind them that they do have some duty to elderly customers and small businesses?
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
Hull’s high street is still very cash-reliant, and I am really worried about the blow that this reduction will give to an already struggling high street. Will the Economic Secretary please speak directly to the Payment Systems Regulator about what further measures can be taken to prevent the reduction in free-to-access cash machines?
John Glen
Yes, I am very happy to continue to engage with the regulator, and I noted the hon. Lady’s urgent question application earlier today. Digital payment alternatives improve local cash recycling and support cashback initiatives. Mastercard and Visa have a number of initiatives under way, and I am determined to see progress in this area.
Mr Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)
With a third of banks, many of which had ATMs, closing in rural areas, and with very poor mobile connectivity in those areas meaning that digital payment schemes are not possible, I was very pleased to learn of yesterday’s announcement by UK Finance on Community Access to Cash, to which the Economic Secretary referred. That is the way forward, but what can he do to reassure business providers that if they provide ATMs, they will be safe from break-in?
John Glen
We have to ensure that there is a wide range of options in rural areas. A number of trials are under way to provide solutions, underpinned by the investment in gigabit infrastructure that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced yesterday, which will ensure that we have even better connectivity in remote rural areas.
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sajid Javid)
The Government remain committed to ending rough sleeping. That is why I announced £54 million of new funding to reduce homelessness and rough sleeping in last month’s spending round, following on from discussions with my right hon. Friend the Housing Secretary, which will take total resource funding to £422 million next year.
Neil Coyle
It has been revealed today that two rough sleepers died on the streets every day last year. The Government committed to halving rough sleeping by 2022, but their own guesstimate is that it fell by only 74 people last year, not the 500 required for them to be on target. That puts them three decades behind schedule, so when will the Treasury provide councils and homelessness charities with sufficient funds to properly tackle this national shame?
Sajid Javid
This is an important issue, and I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has raised it today. He will know that there are multiple causes of rough sleeping, which means that we need action across Government. That is why the Government have set out a rough sleeping initiative to deal with the causes, such as mental health, family breakdown and addictions. I think he will appreciate that we need cross-Government work. That needs to be properly funded. The £422 million that I referred to a moment ago is a 13% real-terms increase, and it will end rough sleeping by 2022.
Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
Many people going to work today, not just in London but in cities and towns across England, will have seen at least one fellow citizen sleeping rough. Eight thousand beds have been lost, universal credit has cost tenants their homes, and as we have heard, 726 people died on the streets last year. Charities say that the funding gap is £1 billion. The Chancellor has said that ending rough sleeping is in our gift, but how many more of our fellow citizens will have slept on our streets before he delivers?
Sajid Javid
I hope that the hon. Lady welcomes the extra resources being put into fighting homelessness and rough sleeping—as I said, a 13% real-terms increase. She might recall that when I was Housing Secretary, we introduced new programmes to deal properly with rough sleeping, for example the Housing First pilots that are taking place in three parts of our country and showing real resource. We are starting to see falls in rough sleeping for the first time in a number of years, and I think the British people would appreciate cross-party co-operation on this very important issue.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Rishi Sunak)
The Government have just announced the largest hospital building programme in a generation, with £2.7 billion of investment in six new large hospitals. I am delighted that one of those is the Princess Alexandra in my right hon. Friend’s constituency, and I pay tribute to him for his years of campaigning for his constituents on this issue.
Robert Halfon
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the hundreds of millions of pounds pledged for a new hospital for Harlow will mean not only that we have a building fit for purpose for the 21st century, but we will continue to attract the best and brightest staff, including through healthcare apprenticeships?
Rishi Sunak
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. May I take this opportunity to congratulate all the hard-working staff in his trust for their efforts in campaigning for this. They do a wonderful job serving their community, and I am delighted that with this support they will have the resources they need to keep doing that for years to come.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
This is just a fraction of the hospital building programme that took place under the last Labour Government. Why on earth should anyone believe a single word this Government say, given that they themselves admit that a no-deal Brexit will damage the economy and the public finances? So there will be less money for hospitals and everything else, will there not?
Rishi Sunak
The legacy of the last Labour Government’s hospital building programme is that we are left with £10 billion in private finance initiative payments every year, rather than this being spent on people’s healthcare. This Government are investing in hospital upgrades up and down the country, with 20 announced on the steps of Downing Street, six more announced this past weekend and business plans for another 20 more—and diagnostic equipment. This Government are committing to the NHS, and we will ensure that every patient gets the care and consideration they deserve.
Dame Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)
I welcome the announcement of the makeover of the out-patient facilities at Heartlands Hospital, which serves some of the most deprived wards in east Birmingham and in my constituency. Does the Minister agree that it is possible to put this additional capital spending into the health service only because a Conservative Government have repaired the nation’s finances?
Rishi Sunak
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s comments. She is absolutely right: the only way we get strong public services is with a strong economy, and the only way we get a strong economy is with a Conservative Government.
Several hon. Members rose—
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
You are very kind, Mr Speaker. In his announcement this week, the Chancellor chose not to invest a single penny in the Westmorland General Hospital in Kendal, but will he at least end the Treasury’s 3% deficit tax on our local hospitals trust, which has cost £4 million from hospital spending in the past three years? That is money that should have been spent on a new radiotherapy centre for local cancer patients.
Rishi Sunak
On cancer treatments, I am delighted that survival rates are at the highest they have ever been. On diagnostic treatments, the recent announcement of £200 million to upgrade diagnostic equipment up and down the country will make an enormous difference to early screening and testing. On funding in general, we are in the first year of a record five-year investment in the NHS—£34 billion more promised by this Government.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sajid Javid)
Treasury Ministers regularly engage with Secretaries of State on all aspects of public funding, including 16 to 19 education funding. At the spending round, we chose to invest £400 million more in the sector next year, which will mean that the base rate of funding will rise to £4,188 and be growing at a faster rate than core school funding.
Daniel Zeichner
Away from the fantasy figures being peddled in Manchester this week, college heads and principals are struggling to work out whether to continue to raise their class sizes or to restrict subject choice. Will the Chancellor therefore tell Cambridge Regional College and the excellent sixth forms and sixth-form colleges in Cambridge whether they are going to be getting the extra £760 that the Raise the Rate campaign has calculated is necessary or the meagre £188 per pupil per year he is offering?
Sajid Javid
The hon. Gentleman might call these fantasy figures, but this is the biggest increase in funding for 16 to 19-year-olds in a decade, and it has been hugely welcomed by the sector. It includes £212 million of targeted interventions, on the courses that are the most costly to deliver, such as engineering and construction. I would have thought he would have welcomed that.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. If the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) wishes to shoehorn his Question 20, which will not be reached, into this Question 10, which has been, he is free to do so. If he takes me up on his generous offer, we will have a double dose of Daniel.
Mr Speaker
No, no, your moment is now, Sir. Your opportunity has arrived—expatiate.
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
Sajid Javid
My hon. Friend will know that in the spending round I announced a £4.6 billion increase in school spending. I know that he has campaigned on funding for his local schools and can tell him that 80% of the secondary schools in his area will see their funding level go up to at least the new minimum level of £5,000 per pupil.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Simon Clarke)
A new business starts in the UK every 75 seconds. Following the patient capital review, we announced a £20 billion action plan to finance growth in innovative firms. To support that, we have established a new business finance council to ensure that Government, banks and other lenders work together to help small and medium-sized enterprises to access the finance that they need.
Huw Merriman
I welcome all of the Treasury team to their places and thank the former Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), for letting me work so closely with him. It was an amazing privilege.
I spent an amazing day with my constituency businesses in the village of Beckley. They are concerned about business rates, on which I support their call for reform, as well as about the VAT threshold and lack of taper. They will also now be writing to me about the welcome increase to the national living wage. Can we do more to support small businesses? They are the backbone of rural economies and without them we will not have employment.
Mr Clarke
I thank my hon. Friend for his question and take this chance to thank him, on behalf of the Government, for the work he did with the former Chancellor. He is quite right to talk about tax reform. Of course, since 2016 we have announced business rates reforms and reductions worth more than £13 billion by 2023-2024. On VAT, in the run-up to the 2018 Budget we consulted on the threshold, which is the highest in the EU and the OECD. We have committed to keep that in place until 2022, but I am genuinely always interested in suggestions that I can discuss with colleagues.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
When is the Minister going to do something about the delays in payment to small businesses that often affect their cash-flow? We have debated the issue for many years; is it not about time that the Minister did something about it?
Mr Clarke
Responsibility for this issue falls between the Treasury and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. A late-payment regulator has been set up. I talked about this issue with businesses at the Conservative party conference on Sunday; I take it very seriously and they highlighted it as an ongoing concern. It should come out loud and clear from the House that all businesses, particularly larger ones, have a responsibility to meet their payment terms, because that is crucial for small businesses. I think everyone in the House can unite around that common principle.
Several hon. Members rose—
Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
Is the Minister aware that one of the main difficulties facing small rural businesses is the non-availability of fast and reliable broadband? In the light of the announcement that the Chancellor made yesterday in Manchester, can we now assume that the days in which a geographically isolated business is also digitally isolated really are numbered?
Mr Clarke
My right hon. Friend is of course absolutely right that broadband connectivity lies at the heart of a modern economy. It was so welcome to hear my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer yesterday set out how £5 billion of investment is going to be devoted to making sure that we can deliver on the Prime Minister’s pledge to ensure full fibre broadband access by 2025.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Will the Minister outline whether he has considered tax incentives for businesses to take on apprentice staff in administrative roles, with special reference to young people from learning-difficulty backgrounds, who take more time and patience to train? There are simply not enough places available; will the Minister undertake to make places available?
Mr Clarke
Again, that is a unifying principle to bring to the House. The Government have done an awful lot to try to promote the uptake of apprentices—we have seen action on things such as national insurance to try to make it more affordable for businesses to employ young people. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is very interested in all the work that goes on around supporting access into work for disabled people and people with learning disabilities, and would be interested to hear more from the hon. Gentleman about those ideas.
Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Simon Clarke)
I discuss matters of importance regarding the Scottish economy with Government colleagues on a regular basis. In July, £32.5 million was allocated for the Moray growth deal.
Douglas Ross
The £32.5 million investment that the Minister has just mentioned, which was also matched by the Scottish Government, made the Moray growth deal the highest funded per head of population anywhere in the country. The next key milestone will be the signing of the heads of terms, so can he update us on the progress made towards that?
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
I think that we are about to hear the prodigious knowledge of the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) on the Moray growth deal. Wonders never cease.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
Mr Clarke
That was a truly ingenious question. Of course, the UK shared prosperity fund is really important. We continue to make good progress on its design. Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government officials have so far held 26 engagement events across the UK with over 500 representatives from a breadth of sectors. This is something that, obviously, has massive implications for Wales, and we are very happy to ensure that we engage everyone in that process.
Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)
The Moray growth deal, like the Clackmannanshire and Tay Cities growth deals, is bringing unprecedented investment into Scotland. Are the Minister and the Treasury considering reprofiling the investment over 10 years, as opposed to 15, as the local councils are asking me to do, so that we can get this investment and this transformational change in our communities?
Mr Clarke
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. Clearly, we want to see this investment move forward as quickly as possible. If he wants to raise that matter with us and indeed with the Secretary for Scotland, we can certainly talk about it, but I obviously cannot make any commitments here today.
Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)
On the subject of growth deals, may I ask the Minister, in addition to discussions on the Moray growth deal, what discussions has he had with Cabinet colleagues on the progress of the Mid Wales growth deal?
Mr Clarke
We are committed to bringing forward growth deals across the UK. Obviously, in the devolved Administration areas, we want to bring forward money from our side, but with effect from the Welsh and Scottish Governments as well. We want to see progress across the UK; it is not restricted to Scotland.
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Rishi Sunak)
We are developing an ambitious and attractive UK free port offer to create hubs that will attract inward investment, create jobs and boost trade. Typically, free ports only offer customs benefits, but we are looking to go further than that to ensure that these turbo-charged areas can drive growth for their community.
Melanie Onn
I thank the Minister for that answer and for his speculative phone call earlier trying to tease out the nature of my question to him. The Conservative Mayor for Tees Valley, a member of the Government’s very carefully selected free ports advisory group, says that he hopes to see reduced corporation tax and exemption from employers’ national insurance contributions. Has the Minister made an assessment of the impact of these Tory proposals on the Exchequer and the state pension fund?
Rishi Sunak
I pay tribute to the Conservative Mayor, Ben Houghton, in Teesside for championing his community. He has been advocating a free port because he believes that such a phenomenon will create jobs in his area, drive inward investment and boost trade. I hope that the hon. Lady would welcome that for her community in Grimsby, where the seafood industry and Associated British Ports, the port employer, has loudly called for such free port status for her area. I hope that, when the opportunity comes, she will support her community in applying for that.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is truly a champion of free ports, but will he agree to meet me to discuss the potential benefits for ports such as the port of Poole and the advantage for the wider region as well?
Rishi Sunak
I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend. I believe that it is his birthday today, so I wish him a happy birthday. I am happy meet him and his colleagues from Poole to discuss free ports. We believe that these should be opportunities for the entire country to take advantage of.
Mr Speaker
The unadulterated charm of the Chief Secretary has, in my experience, not been surpassed—at any rate among Treasury Ministers.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jesse Norman)
That was a cruel blow for my right hon. Friend, Mr Speaker, if I may say so.
In answer to the hon. Lady’s question, the House will I am sure rejoice that between 2010 and 2019 the personal allowance has been increased by more than 90%, so that those on the lowest incomes do not pay any income tax, and since 2015-16 alone 1.74 million people have been taken out of income tax altogether. We will publish a full distributional analysis of the recent spending round alongside the next Budget, and it will also capture the effect of any budgetary announcements made at that time.
Janet Daby
Can the Minister explain how it is fair that a small handful at the very top have run into the distance, making up the top 10% of the population and owning 44% of the nation’s wealth?
Jesse Norman
The hon. Lady may not be aware that at the moment the top 1% of the country pay 29% of all tax. That is up from the 25% in 2010-11.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sajid Javid)
I have three clear priorities as Chancellor: to ensure a strong economy, to get Brexit done and to deliver on the British people’s priorities. That is why I am pleased to confirm that this Government will bring an end to low pay. We are setting two new targets for the national living wage over the next five years: raising it to two thirds of median earnings and extending it to workers aged 21 and above. That will give 4 million workers an average pay rise of £4,000. I will set out further details in the next Budget. This Government are proving again that they are on the side of working people. Thanks to the hard work of the British people, we are moving from a decade of recovery to a decade of renewal.
Christine Jardine
When the Chancellor was Home Secretary, he told me and other More United MPs that officials were looking into the potential economic benefits of lifting the ban on asylum seekers working, which the Lift the Ban coalition says would bring £42 million into the economy. Now that he is Chancellor of the Exchequer, will he lift that ban in order to allow asylum seekers such as those in my constituency to contribute to the economy and to have the dignity that they deserve?
Sajid Javid
The hon. Lady makes an important point, and I am glad that she has brought my attention to it again. As Chancellor, I want to ensure that across Government every Department is doing its bit for the economy. Some of the people she is talking about will be vulnerable people and the current rules are worth looking at again. It is something that the Home Office is taking very seriously.
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jesse Norman)
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. I have addressed the substance of it, but let me make a point about Sir Amyas Morse. I think that Sir Amyas is a superb choice. As my hon. Friend may be aware, in a debate in the House of Commons on 6 March 2019, the Chamber united across the parties in praise of Sir Amyas. The Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), called him
“a fearless advocate for what is good in the public sector and for challenging Governments of whatever party”.
The Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran), said that he was not only “unfailingly courteous”, but had
“an intelligence of steel. He has a knack for calling out obfuscation, fudge and imprecision”,
and
“a reputation for being completely fair.”—[Official Report, 6 March 2019; Vol. 655, c. 1004-05.]
He is a very good choice to lead this review.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
Will the Chancellor give the House a quick fact-check of his speech yesterday? The Conservatives have cut funding for buses by £640 million a year. Yesterday, he announced nothing new; he simply reannounced £220 million from the spending review. His Government have cut £900 million a year from annual youth services budgets. Yesterday, he offered £500 million, possibly as a one-off. The National Infrastructure Commission says that we need £33 billion to roll out full-fibre broadband. Yesterday, he offered £5 billion. All of those promises will count for nothing if there is a no-deal Brexit. Has he not just followed the Cummings code: grab a headline, possibly wrap it around a bus and ignore the truth? But there is one figure that I would like to ask him about: 120,000. What significance does the figure 120,000 have for him?
Sajid Javid
The right hon. Gentleman knows that the last time his party was in office, we had the biggest budget deficit in our peacetime history and the biggest banking collapse this country has ever seen, and our country was virtually bankrupt. Now our economy is strong, with the lowest unemployment rate in 45 years, and it is because the economy is strong that yesterday I could make the announcement of investments in buses, roads, youth facilities and full fibre. If he wants to see that kind of investment continue at the next general election, he should vote Conservative.
John McDonnell
I did not ask about the Chancellor’s record at Deutsche Bank; I never asked about the products he was selling that brought about the financial crash.
Let me tell the Chancellor what the figure 120,000 means. It is the number of deaths linked by the British Medical Journal to the Conservatives’ cuts since they came to power in 2010. No amount of spin will wash away the memory of nine years of this scale of human suffering. He claimed yesterday:
“We believe in a society where everyone knows that if they work hard, and play by the rules then they will have every opportunity to succeed.”
But isn’t it true that the Conservatives have broken the link between people working and being able to lift themselves out of poverty, when 70% of our children living in poverty are in households where someone is at work? And isn’t it the case that, despite the Chancellor’s pathetic attempt yesterday at playing catch-up to Labour party policy, under the Tories’ plans no one will reach the Tories’ target minimum wage until five years from now? And isn’t it the truth that, with this Chancellor and Prime Minister in charge, the Conservatives will always be the party of tax avoiders, bankers and the super-rich?
Sajid Javid
Let me tell the right hon. Gentleman a fact: the Labour party no longer represents working people and it is no longer the party of working people. That stopped a long, long time ago. He should reflect on his own policies of renationalisation; mass confiscation of private property, including the shares and homes of individual investors; protectionism; and state control. He calls business the real enemy, but the fact is that the Labour party is no longer fit to govern. It would wreck the economy and it would be hard-working people who would pay the price.
Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Ind)
I have had heartbreaking meetings with constituents from Hastings regarding the loan charge, where I have heard tragic and sad stories about the destruction of families and their finances. Although I of course welcome the review that is to take place, may I urge the Chancellor to reconsider the position of not suspending the loan charge during the review period?
Jesse Norman
I do not know whether my right hon. Friend caught the discussion we had about this matter earlier, but the purpose of the review is to establish whether the Government are pursuing the right policy. It makes no sense at all to change the policy until we have heard from the review. I absolutely sympathise with the concerns that have been felt across the House, and both the Government and HMRC itself have taken steps to try to mitigate them.
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
Sajid Javid
I share the hon. Gentleman’s desire to ensure that all parts of our great country are benefiting from our strong economy. We have seen a jobs boom since 2010, after the deepest recession in our peacetime history under the previous Labour Government. Of the 3.7 million jobs that have been created, 65% are outside London and the south-east, which will be benefiting his communities and so many more.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
One of the ingredients of economic growth—we have talked about boosting small businesses—is improving the productivity within the economy. What are the ministerial team doing to boost productivity?
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Simon Clarke)
I thank my hon. Friend for his question; he was obviously responsible for this when he was Exchequer Secretary. Last week I met Charlie Mayfield for a very good discussion about the Be the Business fund that the Government have set up to support business-led movement to improve small business productivity. This includes running pilots in Cornwall to support the hospitality sector and in the north-west to support family businesses. There are other schemes, such as Made Smarter, which is a good pilot, in addition to a £31 million package announced at conference 2018 to improve SME management through peer-to-peer networks.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
Sajid Javid
I will make certain that the Business Secretary is aware of the hon. Lady’s concerns. The Treasury obviously takes an interest in this issue but she will know that the Department for Business is taking the lead on it. Obviously, and rightly, she is concerned about jobs in her constituency. She would welcome the fact, I hope, that because of the policies of this Government more generally since 2010, we have seen in her constituency a 50% fall in the headline unemployment rate.
Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Ind)
As we leave the EU, we need to reinforce our international reputation as a powerhouse of scientific excellence. In 2017 we spent 1.7% of national income on research and development, while Germany spent 3% and Israel 4.3%. So will the Chancellor use his next Budget to make substantial progress towards our 2.4% target and recommit to the medium-term target of 3% of national income going into research and development?
Sajid Javid
First, may I thank my right hon. Friend for his excellent work as Business Secretary, including in this hugely important area of research and development? He set some ambitious targets. We intend to stick to those targets, if not go even further, which I am sure he would welcome. Obviously I will not set out the Budget now, but I absolutely share his ambition, and I think he will be pleased with what we eventually do.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Sajid Javid
We are investing in York and investing throughout the country by creating a dynamic, free enterprise economy that is creating jobs. We have the lowest unemployment rate in our country in 45 years. I would think that a party that calls itself Labour would actually welcome that. In the hon. Lady’s own constituency, since 2010—since the Labour Government were kicked out—we have seen a fall of 12,300, or 64%, in the unemployment numbers. That is something she should welcome.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
I welcome the introduction of the new business banking resolution service that will start to hear cases of historical problems later this year. In the previous Chancellor’s letter of 19 January, he stated that that scheme should carefully consider all cases that come before it. How is that possible when the research of the all-party parliamentary group on fair business banking determined that 85% of cases are excluded?
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen)
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. He is a powerful advocate for this redress scheme and I thank him for the work that he has done. In our conversation on 10 September, I reiterated the Government’s position that the scheme should not reopen complaints that have sometimes gone multiple times through the courts, but I welcome the fact that the new scheme will give access to 99% of those claims going forward, and I will continue to engage with him where I can to provide solutions on individual cases.
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
Sajid Javid
I can see that this is an important issue, and I will ensure that a meeting takes place with the appropriate Minister.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
The hon. Member for Solihull (Julian Knight), the House will want to know, is a former money and property editor of The Independent and a very distinguished fellow, I am sure.
Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)
I am sure whatever cachet I had has now been completely ruined; thank you, Mr Speaker. There are reports that the Government are looking at bringing forward the date of the banning of diesel and petrol cars. Does the Chancellor share my concerns about the fiscal damage of lower new car sales, the lack of electric car infrastructure and the negligible impact that such a virtue-signalling move will have on emissions?
Mr Simon Clarke
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. He is a tireless champion of the motor industry, which we all take very seriously. The Government have made a commitment to delivering net zero emissions by mid-century; that is hugely important and has cross-party support across the House. We will not be making any precipitate moves that would concern him without proper consultation fully across Government about the ramifications of any change in that date.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
Jesse Norman
I do not have the number to hand, but I would be glad to write to the right hon. Gentleman with it.
David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)
I welcome the Chancellor’s commitment yesterday of £5 billion to support gigabit broadband across the whole of the United Kingdom. He will be aware that, historically, the Scottish Government have been responsible for the roll-out of superfast broadband, which is way behind what they promised, and not a penny of the £600 million that they announced in 2017 has been spent. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that future broadband funding will be paid directly to local authorities, bypassing the Scottish Government, who have failed rural constituents such as mine more than most?
Sajid Javid
The investment that I announced yesterday is hugely important for the entire country, including Scotland. My hon. Friend is right to point to the abysmal record of the Scottish Government in delivering broadband for their people, so we should certainly look at whether there is a much better way to deliver it.
Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Rishi Sunak)
This Government passionately believe in helping those at the bottom end of the pay scale, which is why the Chancellor announced yesterday an increase in the national living wage, to abolish low pay in this country once and for all. Our track record over the last few years in this area has been exemplary. The fastest growth in incomes has been for those at the bottom end of the pay scale. Today, someone earning the national living wage is £3,500 better off than they were when we came into office. This is a Conservative Government on the side of those who are working hard.
Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
I very much welcome the Prime Minister’s announcement of pound-for-pound replacement through the shared prosperity fund of the EU funding that Cornwall receives. We are really ready in Cornwall to drive our economy forward. Will the Chancellor meet the local enterprise partnership and all Cornwall’s MPs, so that we can make rapid progress in designing that fund?
Mr Simon Clarke
My hon. Friend is right that we need to ensure that the UK shared prosperity fund works for all the regions and nations of our country. I would be delighted to meet her, to ensure that we get all the suggestions from Cornwall as part of the process of designing that new fund.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
Can the Minister answer the question asked earlier by the right hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd): what is the reason for not suspending the loan charge scheme until the inquiry is completed? It is a request not for a change of policy, but just to suspend the scheme.
Jesse Norman
The reason is that the inquiry is designed to test the policy, and the policy remains in place until the inquiry is over. If the policy were ended now or suspended, all that potentially would occur is more confusion if the inquiry took the view that, ultimately, the Government were in the right.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
I thank Ministers for providing funding to help evidence and establish the business case for reopening Middlewich railway station—a key priority for my constituents. What wider fiscal steps are they taking to support my constituency by supporting the northern powerhouse and midlands engine?
Sajid Javid
I thank my hon. Friend for working tirelessly on behalf of her constituents to ensure that more infrastructure, including rail and road, is delivered locally. She will know that one of the first commitments of the new Administration was to Northern Powerhouse Rail and further funding for the midlands engine. She may also know that yesterday I announced a White Paper on further devolution, which I think she will welcome too.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
The social security benefits freeze has led many children and families into poverty and destitution. The Chancellor failed to answer the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd), so I ask him again: yes or no, will he lift the social security freeze next year?
Rishi Sunak
Announcements on welfare will of course be for the Budget, but it is important to note that this Government have done the most important job in lifting people out of poverty, which is getting them into work. Today, a million fewer people are living in workless households as a result of the actions taken by this Government.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
So many shining stars in the parliamentary galaxy and so little time. Which star shall shine? Justine Greening.
Justine Greening (Putney) (Ind)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Government seem to be making pre-election spending pledges with all the velocity of a high-power water jet. I wonder whether the Chancellor will point it in the direction of Hammersmith bridge. It has been closed for several months, but even its repair plan would not enable it to take double-decker buses. Will he look at whether his bus pledge can extend to the capital required to enable it to be successful?
Sajid Javid
I know that this is a very important issue for my right hon. Friend and her constituents. I share some of her concerns, which is why it has troubled me that the Mayor of London is not taking this issue seriously. Why is that? He has the funding available if he chooses to deploy it. He can make a difference immediately, but he refuses to do so.
Petition
(5 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
The petition is from Park Hall women’s institute, Walsall, who are residents of the United Kingdom. The petitioners are concerned that the Midland Freewheelers, who transport blood, x-rays, tissue samples, platelets, breast milk for premature babies, chemo drugs and other emergency medical supplies across Birmingham and the Black Country on behalf of the NHS, are not permitted to use designated bus lanes when transporting these emergency supplies. The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to consider allowing Midland Freewheelers to use designated bus lanes so that essential emergency supplies can be delivered without delay. There are 45 signatories to the petition.
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of the residents of the United Kingdom,
Declares that the Freewheelers is a voluntary organisation which transports essential supplies across the Birmingham and the Black Country as requested by the NHS and notes that the Freewheelers are not permitted to use designated bus lanes.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to consider permitting Freewheeler volunteers to use designated bus lanes to ensure that essential health equipment and materials can be delivered quickly.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P002525]
Irish Border: Customs Arrangements
(5 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union if he will make a statement on the Government’s proposals for checks and customs arrangements on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to replace the current backstop.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (James Duddridge)
We are committed to finding a solution to the north-south border that protects the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. We can best meet those commitments if we explore solutions other than the backstop. The backstop risks weakening the delicate balance embodied in the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, which was grounded in agreement, consent and respect for minorities. Removing control of the commercial and economic life of Northern Ireland to an external body over which the people of Northern Ireland have no control risks undermining that balance. Any deal on Brexit on 31 October must avoid the whole or just part—that is, Northern Ireland—being trapped in an arrangement where it is a rule taker.
The Government intend to set out more detail on our position on an alternative to the backstop in the coming days. In the meantime, I assure the House that under no circumstance will the UK place infrastructure, checks or controls at the border. Both sides have always been clear that the arrangements for the border must recognise the unique circumstance of the island of Ireland and, reflecting that, be creative and flexible.
The Prime Minister’s European Union sherpa, David Frost, is leading a cross-Government team in these detailed negotiations with taskforce 50. We have shared in written form a series of confidential technical non-papers, which reflect the ideas the United Kingdom has been putting forward. Those papers are not the Government setting out their formal position. These meetings and our sharing of confidential technical non-papers show that we are serious about getting a deal—one that must involve the removal of the backstop.
Hilary Benn
I am grateful to the Minister for his reply, but we are not much the wiser. Today, there are no border posts or checks on goods crossing the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, and the backstop is there to ensure that remains the case after Brexit. That is what the joint declaration of December 2017 committed to. The Government’s position now, however, is that the reality of Brexit will require customs checks on the island of Ireland. That is the inexorable logic of the Prime Minister’s statement this morning that a
“sovereign united country must have a single customs territory.”
Whatever proposals have in fact been put to the EU taskforce, the Tánaiste, Simon Coveney, has described them as a “non-starter”, an Irish Government spokesman says the taskforce has indicated that the UK’s non-papers
“fall well short of the agreed aims and objectives of the backstop”,
and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has told the BBC that
“it’s not possible to put anything like a customs facility in Newry, Fermanagh or many other locations away from the border”.
I have the following questions to put to the Minister. Are the Government proposing customs clearance sites or zones anywhere in Northern Ireland? Does the Minister understand the risks that any such sites would create for the peace brought by the Good Friday agreement, and have the Government taken legal advice on the compatibility of their proposals with that agreement? Do the Government’s proposals comply with section 10(2)(b) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, which rules out regulations that
“create or facilitate border arrangements between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland after exit day which feature physical infrastructure, including border posts, or checks and controls, that did not exist before exit day”?
Are the Government proposing to track lorries cleared at any such sites using GPS? How can an alternative to the backstop be built on systems and technology that are not currently in place? Finally, when exactly will the Government share with this House and with the people of Northern Ireland their proposals for a replacement to the backstop? I ask because it is unacceptable for us to be kept in the dark about what is being proposed in our name on such an important matter.
James Duddridge
There were eight or nine questions there, and I will try to cover them all, but if I do not, perhaps we will pick them up in questions. I think it is completely reasonable that the Government can use non-papers to have those technical discussions. The Government are seeking to have a good discussion with the Commission, rather than disguising anything. The previous Government shared more, and actually it led to proposals being rubbished before they were properly worked through. These technical papers are not even our final proposals to the Commission—they are very much working documents—but we will be giving proposals to the Commission shortly.
Clearly, the Government will want to comply with subsection (2)(b). The right hon. Gentleman asked about legal advice. I think he will understand that I am not going to get into whether legal advice has been taken, or what legal advice has been given; for normal reasons, those things are not shared with the House. He asked about the impact of physical checks. There is no intention to have physical checks at the border. I am not choosing my words carefully there; there are no plans to do that, I can reassure him. Perhaps he was thinking about some of the reports in the Northern Ireland press suggesting there might be checks near the border. That is not the intention. Those reports simply are incorrect. The right hon. Gentleman also referred to GPS and technology. I am afraid I cannot get into the detail of the proposals at that level now, because they are subject to ongoing negotiations and discussions at the Commission.
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)
In his discussions with businesses, is the Minister finding the same as I am, which is that the real challenge businesses are facing is the prolonged uncertainty of kicking the can down the road? Of course, all businesses would rather leave with a deal, but when faced with the choice of leaving at the end of October with no deal or prolonging the agony for many months to come, businesses simply want this done and for us to leave at the end of October.
James Duddridge
I thank my hon. Friend for that, and he makes a very good point. The British public do want us to get on with this, and the best way we can get a deal is continuing serious discussions, through use of these technical papers, with the EU and coming forward with more concrete proposals shortly.
Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)
Let us return to the question of the Irish border, because it matters. The Good Friday agreement was a guarantor that we had moved beyond the period of conflict. What we are risking now is not only a dangerous time in the history of this country, but our relationships across the island of Ireland and the world. We are 70 days into the premiership of Prime Minister Johnson and there are 30 days until the Brexit date. It is now time that the House had clarity from this Minister or from other Ministers about what the Government intend to do to deliver on the Irish border.
Everybody in the House knows that the backstop was there to guarantee that there would be no hard border across the island of Ireland. That is fundamental to delivering on the Good Friday agreement. We all know that while the European Union has said that it is prepared to negotiate around the words of the backstop, it is not prepared to compromise on the spirit of it—that Northern Ireland should be part of the customs union and the single market regulatory standards of the European Union. When the Prime Minister says that “the reality” of Brexit is that there will need to be customs checks on the island of Ireland, it is in stark contrast to the words of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland this morning that there would be no checks five or 10 miles into Ireland. That would be in breach of the joint declaration of 2017, and importantly, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) pointed out, would be in breach of section 10 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, which made it clear that any arrangements for Northern Ireland after exit day that featured border posts or customs controls would not be acceptable.
The Minister has to come clean to the House about what the future holds for us. The Good Friday agreement is far too important for us to put it at risk by fooling around. If this were just farce, we might all laugh at the high-wire tricks of the Prime Minister, but this is dangerous. It puts the Good Friday agreement and its hard-won gains in jeopardy. It is not just Northern Ireland and Ireland that deserve better, as the Irish Foreign Minister said, but this House and the whole country. The Minister has got to do better.
James Duddridge
I agree with the hon. Gentleman: the Good Friday/ Belfast agreement is essential. Where we differ is on where we feel conflicts may be brought about on that agreement. He feels they will be brought about by removing the backstop; I think there is a greater risk of leaving the backstop there and ending up in a situation in which Northern Ireland is part of the customs union in perpetuity and takes a different direction. I think that is the greater risk, and I remind him that the alternative arrangements are not a solution to the backstop. The alternative arrangements would always have to be there. What we are doing is putting a date on when we will get that sorted out, rather than leaving an indefinite period.
Justine Greening (Putney) (Ind)
The country is facing no deal precisely because the Government have not published a Brexit plan, yet. The key protagonists who sold Britain Brexit are now in charge, and all we are asking is for them to get on with it and tell us what the plan is to deliver what they promised. Back in April 2016, the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland—now Secretary of State for the Environment—said:
“There is no reason why we have to change the border arrangements in the event of a Brexit”.
Clearly, what is being discussed now is something very different from what voters were told during the referendum campaign. The House is simply asking what the plan is to deliver what was promised. I do not understand why the Government will not just get on with it and tell us what their plan is.
James Duddridge
The Government are actively getting on with it, and that is what the negotiations are about. I would gently say that revealing the detail of our negotiating position—the technical papers and emerging proposals—would actually deliver what the right hon. Lady and I do not want. We do not want no deal: we want a deal—
James Duddridge
To be clear, we have given technical non-papers. We will give the proposal to the Commission shortly.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
The future of peace and normality on the island of Ireland will critically depend on the actions of the Prime Minister over the next few weeks, and I for one am deeply concerned that he shows every sign of not understanding or not caring, or both, about the potential implications of the course that he is following.
What discussions have the Government had with the Government of our co-guarantors of the peace process, the Government of Ireland, before lodging this non-plan? What discussions did the Government have with the political parties that represent a significant majority opinion in Northern Ireland before lodging this non-plan? Is the Minister even mildly concerned that the director of the CBI in Northern Ireland has said that the proposals suggest that the
“U.K. govt doesn’t take NI’s economy or peace process seriously”?
Does that comment cause any concern to the Government?
Through various Ministers at the Dispatch Box, the Government have sworn blind that they are negotiating hard for a better deal, but the Minister let the cat out of the bag—there is not even a detailed proposal on which to negotiate. Will the Government now own up to the fact that there is no detailed proposal, there have been no proper negotiations and the Government’s strategy is to look for a no-deal Brexit while blaming everyone but themselves for the problem?
Will the Minister unequivocally repeat the comments of the previous Prime Minister that there will be no customs controls at the border or anywhere else, as required by the Good Friday agreement? Given that this Prime Minister has unilaterally reneged on a promise that he personally signed up to as Foreign Secretary in December 2017, is it any wonder that this side of the House, the other side—increasingly—and an increasing number of Governments in the European Union are coming to the conclusion that he simply cannot be trusted?
James Duddridge
Northern Ireland is key to the Government and the Prime Minister. In fact, it is the principal discussion point with the Commission. The Prime Minister has said that we want to get rid of the backstop and this is “the most important thing”. Far from Northern Ireland being on the side as part of the negotiations, it is at the centre of them.
The hon. Gentleman asks about discussions: clearly, extensive discussions have been had with the Irish Government and other entities in Northern Ireland. He says that I have let the cat out of the bag by saying there are no proposals: there are technical papers in the non-papers, and the final proposal will come shortly. It is very much actively being discussed with the Commission on a daily basis. He asked me to confirm on behalf of the Government that there will be no customs control at the border, and I am happy to say that that remains unchanged.
Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)
Will the Minister confirm that it is the Government’s position that they want to leave with a deal if possible? Will he also confirm that should the European Commission and European leaders decide not to accept the proposals, the Government will leave with no deal? My constituents voted 63% to leave. They have been waiting three years for Brexit. Will the Minister tell the Prime Minister that they are behind him and to make sure that we get on and deliver Brexit on 31 October?
James Duddridge
I thank my hon. Friend and his constituents who overwhelmingly supported Brexit. I can confirm that plan A is to get a deal, and that is what we are working towards and why there is so much focus on the proposal that will come shortly. It makes no sense to share the detail of the negotiation with the House if it makes getting a deal done less likely. Collectively, the House wants a deal and the strategy that we are taking forward makes it more likely that we get a deal while being fully prepared for no deal.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
As a Member who lives in the non-customs zone that has not been discussed, and given that we will, I hope, get definitive proposals in the next few days, can the Minister at least draw a little comfort among the negativity that has pervaded the EU that they are no longer talking about no reopening of the withdrawal agreement, that it is sacrosanct and there is no possibility of ever going back to it? At least now there is a glimmer of light.
James Duddridge
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question because it gives me the opportunity to say how things have changed. There was a time when Michel Barnier was saying, “No more negotiations”, and that he did not have a mandate to negotiate on issues that are important in Northern Ireland and across the United Kingdom. Now the Prime Minister’s sherpa is regularly in Brussels and there are regular discussions at prime ministerial level and between the Secretary of State and Michel Barnier.
Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)
Many people speak on behalf of the communities affected in Northern Ireland, but what have the Government done to speak directly to those communities on what ideas they have for alternative arrangements that would be acceptable to them?
James Duddridge
Specifically on alternative arrangements, there is an architecture that supports these discussions. There is a technical-level group, which is chaired by the Secretary of State, and which includes industry experts, and there is also a business consultative group working towards alternative arrangements under a deal that will come after exit day.
James Duddridge
The hon. Gentleman says he does not believe it. I chaired the group last time, along with the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. There is constructive agreement and frank discussion within that group, and that happens outside the consultative group forum as well—I have set up several bilateral meetings with businesses since.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
Section 10(2)(b) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, on the Irish border, says there can be no hard border that undermines the Northern Ireland Act 1998, which enacted the Good Friday agreement. It also makes illegal an agreement that creates or facilitates border arrangements between Northern Ireland and the Republic that feature physical infrastructure that was not there before. Can the Minister explain how on earth what we learned overnight is compatible with the law?
James Duddridge
I am unclear what the hon. Lady means by “what we learned overnight”. If she means the press report on RTÉ in Ireland, I can tell her that it simply is not true. I can categorically say to her that there are no plans and never have been any plans for any physical checks. This is not a right to reply, but I will be more than happy to take that up with her in more detail, in relation to the Act and more generally, particularly when everything else has come out in the wash.
Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that this whole Northern Ireland-Republic border issue is confected nonsense designed to derail Brexit? Has he considered the Jameson lorry that goes from the south to the north and the Bushmills lorry that goes from the north to the south—different currencies, different excise duties and different tax rates? These are trusted traders. They are trusted now and will be in the future. Does he consider that the current VAT system of Intrastat returns and quarterly accounting could form the basis upon which a proper border arrangement can be easily made?
James Duddridge
There are different people in this Chamber: some have a legitimate desire for Brexit not to happen; equally, some Members have genuine concerns and recognise the legitimate decision of the general public and the need to get on with Brexit. It is unhelpful to conflate the two. My hon. Friend refers to a specific solution. There are many solutions being considered that were in the non-papers, but I do not want to comment on those until the proposal is formally made to the Commission.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
On the “Today” programme this morning, the Prime Minister said that he would like to “veil” the Government’s proposals on the Irish border in “decent obscurity”? Can the Minister explain how individuals and businesses are supposed to prepare for Brexit if it is veiled in decent obscurity? For clarification, could he say how much he expects these proposals will cost small and medium-sized enterprises in Northern Ireland and how many of those businesses he expects to fail as a result of the Government’s proposals? Will he finally admit that there is no version of Brexit that works for Northern Ireland?
James Duddridge
The point of the business consultative group that met in Belfast a few weeks ago was to share ideas in confidence so that the UK Government could develop their position and feed that into the consultative papers, so there is structurally a process in place to involve businesses. Under the terms of reference, that is purely to look at deal relationships. In many ways, deal and no deal could be similar in terms of the crossover of systems that could be used, but those discussions are very much ongoing.
Paul Masterton (East Renfrewshire) (Con)
Given that we cannot know what is needed to make the Irish border work until we have sketched the outline of our future relationship, and regardless of the shortcomings of the backstop, is not this fixation on trying to find an alternative permanent solution to the border now a complete waste of time, energy, money and, ultimately, political capital?
James Duddridge
We need to find a solution to the border issue, and the original withdrawal agreement gives us extra time beyond exit date to do so. We are trying to bring forward those issues, work on them closely now and get more of the work done before a deal and exit day in order to avoid ending up in a long-term and complicated situation that causes problems in Northern Ireland, for the integrity of the UK and for our relationship with the EU.
Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)
I want to take the Minister back to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) about the Government’s obligations to obey the law and abide by legislation passed by the House. Section 10 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 says that Ministers must
“have due regard to the joint report from the negotiators…during phase 1”—
in December 2017—and that nothing in the Act
“authorises regulations which…create or facilitate border arrangements…which feature physical infrastructure, including border posts, or checks and controls, that did not exist before exit day”.
He has told us to discount reports from RTÉ overnight that suggest that the Government were planning infrastructure a few miles from the border. Would he regard such physical infrastructure a few miles back from the border as incompatible with the legislation this House has passed?
James Duddridge
I am tempted to give a simple answer to a straight question, but, because it relies on detail, I will write to the right hon. Gentleman and confirm what I think is the bleeding obvious. Given what he says, it seems to me that there is an obvious answer—[Hon. Members: “Give it!”] I have said I will give him a good answer and make sure it is proper in relation to that Act.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
The British Government are not going to build a hard border in Northern Ireland, the Irish Government say they will not allow a hard border in Northern Ireland, and the EU cannot build a hard border in Northern Ireland, so who is going to build this hard border?
James Duddridge
My hon. Friend eloquently makes a point. We have said that we will not put a border in place, the Irish do not want to put a border in place, and the EU do not want to put one in place along the north-south line.
Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland told BBC Radio Ulster this morning:
“I’m clear that we can’t have customs facilities in the places mentioned in the reports”
overnight, but Parliament needs to know; we need clarity. The people deserve to know what the Government’s plans are. Can the Minister tell us who is speaking for the Government on these matters—the Prime Minister or the Secretary of State?
Mr Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend, with his customary good grace, take this opportunity at the Dispatch Box to confirm the seriousness with which the Government are seeking to respect the Good Friday agreement, in contrast to the unworthy characterisation by the Labour Front Bench that this is part of some great big game? Secondly, can he alert the House to whether there are existing procedures in the north and south of Ireland by which companies import and export to countries outside the EU using existing customs clearances and checks?
James Duddridge
The answer to the second part of my right hon. Friend’s question is that there are established systems that can also be used.
The issue of Northern Ireland is incredibly important. It is central to the delivery of a deal on Brexit. One of the first things that I asked to be able to do was visit the border. It is sometimes difficult to get down to the border: there is a certain resistance to allowing Ministers out of Whitehall, or, if they do get into Northern Ireland, allowing them out of Belfast. However, I went down to Newry and insisted—although I think that some people were not too keen—on visiting the border and criss-crossing and talking to people about the issues. I think that that is the responsible thing to do, to understand the problems at least broadly, so that we can develop solutions as much as possible.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
A significant proportion of the exports of the Northern Ireland food industry, particularly ready meals, goes through the Republic, through Holyhead and then on to the UK home market. What assessment has the Minister made of the effects of Government policy on the border—whatever that is—on the viability of the Northern Ireland food trade, on the supply for the home market, and, critically for me, on the economic prospects of Holyhead?
James Duddridge
We are prioritising free flow across the border rather than customs revenue in the case of no deal, but we want as much free flow as possible in either scenario. There is detailed thinking on the ports at a thematic level, and also specific thinking port by port.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Ind)
As the Minister will know, in a deal or a no-deal Brexit, the use of the transit convention will mean that there will be no need for any infrastructure checks or controls at the Dover border. Could that not be applied to Northern Ireland as well? May I also ask whether the Minister agrees that all that the House really needs to know is what discussions Members of the House who are not members of the Government have been having with the European Union?
James Duddridge
I thank my hon. Friend for all his work on the short straits. I understand that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has visited both the Dover and the Calais sites, and I thank my hon. Friend for the support that he has been giving to the Cabinet Office, particularly in looking at no deal. I think that Dover was ahead of the game; other ports can learn from that, and have indeed done so, as has the Department.
As for my hon. Friend’s second question, I do not really want to get into the weeds when it comes to how people took advice on other Bills in the House. I will limit myself to the nature of the question asked by the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn).
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
Does the Minister accept that any new infrastructure or surveillance at or near the border carries serious risks? The Northern Ireland journalist Dearbhail McDonald has said:
“It’s hard to explain to those who have not lived through a conflict that claimed more than 3,500 lives, in a region with a smaller population than most large UK cities, how the border permeated every aspect of our lives.”
Should the Government spend a bit more time talking to those communities?
James Duddridge
As I have said, I went to the border. It does not take long to feel the pain, the fear and the uncertainty. That is part of daily life, separate from Brexit in many ways, and I take it incredibly seriously. I discussed it while I was there, and reflected on it throughout the day and subsequently.
May I add, on a more light-hearted note, that the hon. Lady has still not taken me up on the kind offer that I made when responding to my last urgent question? I look forward to having a cup of tea with her.
Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)
During my time in the Cabinet Office, some colleagues and I produced a paper based on customs collaboration, which meant using existing ports and airports and enabling EU and UK customs officials to work together in undertaking checks to ensure that there was no border infrastructure. It also involved leveraging existing VAT and cross-border accounting systems, again to ensure that there was no requirement for a border. Can my hon. Friend give us any more details of the current proposals, and tell us whether they run along similar lines?
James Duddridge
I thank the hon. Gentleman for all the work that he is doing. There are themes in which I have seen him very much engaged. I am not sure that I have seen the specific paper that he has mentioned, but I would welcome a briefing from him—with officials—so that it can be fed into the Government’s thinking.
Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)
Ministers regularly refer to their commitment to the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. Even the Prime Minister trots out the words that he is “committed to the Belfast/Good Friday agreement”, but I wonder whether he has any idea of what that actually means. It means the Prime Minister standing up and defending the agreement, not only in his words but in his actions. Will the Minister take the opportunity to rule out the suggestion, contained in a UK Government document, that there will be a string of border posts, not at the border but some miles from it? That would represent a physical infrastructure, which this Government must know is contrary to both the spirit and the letter of the Good Friday agreement. Will the Minister accept and confirm that?
James Duddridge
Obviously I recognise the importance of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. As for the specific terminology “a string of border posts” being in a Government document, I have certainly not seen it. I can say to the hon. Lady that I do not think it is in any Government documents, and that I can refute the contents of the RTÉ article. If she wants to pick out bits of the article, or any document that she thinks it refers to, I shall be more than happy to look at them, but that is not Government policy, that is not what we are doing, that is not the intent, and as far as I am aware, the report is incorrect.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Given that 95% of cross-border trade on the island of Ireland is engaged in by trusted traders who want to comply with whatever the new arrangements will be, and given that the Republic of Ireland’s own no-deal planning assumes controls away from the border even at the point of destination, what is the problem?
James Duddridge
It is a complex situation, but one to which we think we can find an answer. A category of “trusted traders” is certainly something that any competent Government would be looking into, but I do not want to go into the details of the proposals, for reasons that I have already given.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
Let us try again. Can the Minister simply confirm that any new physical checks or infrastructure, whether at the border or away from it, would be illegal under the Good Friday agreement and the withdrawal Act passed by the House last year?
James Duddridge
I think I have already answered that question in part. I have agreed to write in response to the part that I have not answered, and I will copy the right hon. Gentleman into my response.
Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Ind)
Does my hon. Friend agree that at this stage of the negotiations, it is not unreasonable to be able to share proposals before they are definitive and to be able to probe a response, and does he agree that the best course—before we reach the stage at which a formal submission is made—is for the confidentiality on both sides to be reflected, to provide the maximum space for the progress that is required?
James Duddridge
I recognise that as a potential way forward. I think it would limit the Government’s negotiating capacity, and there will clearly be opportunities for the House to interact in that way at some point in the future, but I will reflect on my right hon. Friend’s comments and discuss them with the Secretary of State.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (LD)
The House is being asked to take it on trust that the Government have credible proposals for alternatives to the backstop, so let me put the Minister to the test in a slightly different way. Is he confident that this border that is not going to be a border will be fully developed and ready for operation, and in compliance with the Good Friday agreement, at one minute past midnight on Friday 1 November 2019?
James Duddridge
That is certainly our intention. While on my feet, may I take the opportunity to say that I think I misheard the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) and may have answered the question that I thought he asked rather than the question he actually asked? I apologise. I will look at Hansard and get back to him properly.
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
Anyone with any business experience knows that complex and sensitive negotiations are not best conducted in public or with the input of those who may want an entirely different outcome to the purpose of those negotiations. Anyone claiming otherwise is in my view motivated by a desire to undermine Brexit rather than a desire for greater detail.
James Duddridge
I know it to be true because, before my hon. Friend came to this House, I had to negotiate the cost of my printing requirements at elections, and I know that he is a very canny negotiator who knows all the tricks. I listen to him carefully when he says what happens in business negotiations. I have great respect for his position.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
I think that the Minister is seeking to assure us that there will not be any customs posts, checks or controls anywhere at or near the border.
Stephen Timms
But the Prime Minister has said this morning that Irish customs checks will be the reality after Brexit. So where will the checks envisaged by the Prime Minister take place?
James Duddridge
The right hon. Gentleman is right in his first statement. I am entirely trying to reassure the House on behalf of the Government of the first point. I had the pleasure while getting changed this morning of listening to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on Radio 4. I did not have the pleasure of tuning into Radio Ulster, but I will hot foot my way back to the Department and ask for a transcript of what I presume the right hon. Gentleman is referring to.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
Is it not the case that whatever is put forward as the solution to the Irish border will not be sufficient for some in this Chamber; it will not be good enough for those who want to revoke and remain; and it will not be good enough for those who want more dither and delay? May I urge my hon. Friend to press on with his determination and with his clarity and to ensure that, come what may, we leave on 31 October?
James Duddridge
I thank my hon. Friend for that supportive comment. We are resolved. We will press on. We will try to get a deal. That is our preference, and we will do so and leave on 31 October.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
Governments are notorious for getting IT projects wrong in terms of both cost and time for implementation. Can the Minister confirm that one of these non-papers states that this mythical off-the-shelf technological solution that could be implemented in the event of a no-deal will be able to be adapted to any future arrangements and will answer the question posed by Michel Barnier about how a virtual solution can check cows?
James Duddridge
As tempting as it is, I have been clear that I will not get into the detail of those proposals or non-papers.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
May I remind everybody that this Government are creating a new customs border because they want to leave the European customs union and they do not want to accept the backstop. Customs checks are primarily there not for loads that are compliant and have the right documentation, but for goods that enter a country illegally. How do the Government intend to deal with non-compliant cargo and stop widespread illegal activity?
James Duddridge
That is clearly a very important issue. It is one of the issues that I looked at when I was on the border.
I am not sure that I used exactly the right words in the House. I should have said that the Government will never put in place infrastructure checks or controls at the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Just to be very clear, that is what I meant to say.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
Has the Minister read the non-papers? If he has not, how can he say what is or is not in the non-papers?
James Duddridge
First, I have not said what is or is not in the non-papers. As a Minister, I see all the papers I need to see. I am not going to list papers that I have seen, papers that I have read, papers that I have had input into, drafts or versions. I am not going to get into that.
Emma Little Pengelly (Belfast South) (DUP)
Despite the fact that border checks or infrastructure are not mentioned in the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, this Government have committed to avoiding a hard border, which this party agrees with. The Minister will be aware of the surprise and dismay among many in Northern Ireland at this leaked RTÉ proposal. What engagement does the Minister intend to undertake with businesses, which are particularly impacted by this? Will he repeat to them what he has said here today—that this is not Government policy, and nor will it ever be Government policy, because such a proposal would for many constitute a hard border?
James Duddridge
I thank the hon. Lady. It is important that, as well as my saying it, Government communications rebut the inaccuracy. I will make sure that that happens rapidly and in the right forums across Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. I thank her for that. I will do that. It is not something I was immediately going to do, having said it in the House, but it is certainly something I should do, and it is a helpful suggestion.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
Can we just be clear here? The Minister said earlier that there would be no customs checks at the border, which obviously suggests that they will be done elsewhere, yet he suggests that what RTÉ is reporting is untrue. He has now just had to correct himself. The Prime Minister said that there would be customs checks in Ireland. So who are we to believe in this process? None of those things are compatible and none of them appear to be compatible with section 10(2)(b) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, let alone the Belfast/Good Friday agreement.
James Duddridge
To clarify, the Government have no plans to put in those checks. We clearly cannot compel the Irish Government to do or not do anything.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
There has been much talk of a 10-mile buffer zone on the border. Can the Minister outline the stage that discussions are at as they pertain to where the Republic of Ireland intends to carry out its checks and in what form? The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has said clearly that it will not put up any border controls at all, so how ironic is it that, in the event of a no deal, it will be the Republic of Ireland and the Taoiseach that will have to erect and man hard border controls?
James Duddridge
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his continued support and thoughts on this issue. He and other colleagues feeding into the process have added great value, and I hope that we will continue those discussions as we move through the process, as the Commission are given proposals and the House debates these issues more fully.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
I crossed the border several times this weekend, and what was remarkable about the crossing was that it was utterly unremarkable. So it should remain. To me, there are three options available to us. There is a border in the Irish Sea; there is a hard border on the island of Ireland—which of course puts at jeopardy the Good Friday agreement—or we all remain in the customs union. The Minister has said that remaining in the customs union is a greater risk than jeopardising the peace brought about by the Good Friday agreement. Can he explain why?
James Duddridge
Unlike the hon. Lady, I do not want to put a border in Northern Ireland or in Scotland. I believe full-heartedly in the Union. It creates a risk in terms of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement because it puts Northern Ireland into a different position if alternative arrangements are not dealt with, and that is unacceptable. The Government believe that that would cause problems in relation to the Good Friday agreement.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister will know that the Good Friday agreement provides for a referendum for the people of Northern and southern Ireland on reunification if they so want. He will also know that 58% of the people in Northern Ireland voted to remain. Given that we have this problem with an open border with open migration, and with a closed border in breach of the Good Friday agreement, would it not be best for the Prime Minister to come forward with his agreement, which I assume will be the backstop within Ireland itself, and put it to the people in a public vote so that we can get Brexit done by finding once and for all whether we want this Brexit mess or not—as opposed to his divided kingdom?
James Duddridge
The hon. Gentleman accused me of dividing the kingdom, but he asked specifically in the same sentence for a vote on parting the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom, as one—the Union—has voted, and it voted for Brexit. That is what we are going to deliver.
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
In order to make a proposed border solution work, there will have to be an element of Northern Ireland Executive control over the implementation of any putative agreement. With no extant Northern Ireland Executive, the only solution for that would be imposition on the people of Northern Ireland through direct rule. One does not seek to address democratic issues on one part of these islands by taking democracy away from another, so will the Minister tell the House what his Government are doing to address this democratic outrage?
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
The Minister said there would be no hard infrastructure at the Irish border. Does the term “hard infrastructure” include cameras?
James Duddridge
I do not want to get into the detail of the actual proposal, but I will say that while there are not cameras across the whole of the border, there are cameras on parts of the border. However, the hon. Gentleman should not infer anything from that; I do not want to get dragged into the detail, but clearly it would have been one of the options that were looked at.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (LD)
Will the Minister accept that customs clearance sites would involve physical infrastructure, and that it would not matter whether they were at the border or some miles distant from it?
James Duddridge
I have been very clear that there will be no infrastructure on the border. I have also been clear that the proposals are currently under negotiation, and I will not go into the detail of those proposals in the House.
Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)
The Irish Government stated last night that these non-papers are a non-starter. With just 30 days to go until exit day, when does the Minister propose to put forward credible proposals that can be negotiated with the EU?
James Duddridge
The Prime Minister has been very clear: that will happen before this weekend.
Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
Over the last 15 minutes, the Minister has been at pains to stress the distinction between technical non- papers and final papers which are forthcoming. On the basis of that distinction, may I therefore ask him a simple question: without going into the detail, can he give the House an assurance that any final proposals that relate to the Irish border will not row back in any way from any of the solemn commitments signed up to in December 2017 in the joint report between the UK and the EU?
James Duddridge
First, may I thank the hon. Gentleman genuinely for his service on the Front Bench? When I took over this role, my predecessor said how much he respected the full team, and now that he is on the Back Benches, perhaps we can have a fuller and more honest discussion than we might have had when we were both Front Benchers.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Prime Minister has said that there will be checks, so whether at a border or a non-border, that does create a border. Whether in a non-paper or a paper, the reality is that there will be checks if the leader of our country has said so. However, the European Commission has said that it has not received any proposals from the UK that meet all the objectives of the backstop, as we have been reiterating and demanding. When will the EU see these proposals?
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
So far, we have had nonsense and non-answers on these non-papers, so can we have a clear answer on this question? Can the Minister rule out direct rule being imposed to implement any of these alternative arrangements on the border?
James Duddridge
Is the hon. Gentleman asking whether the Minister will rule out imposing direct rule?
James Duddridge
That is not the Government’s plan. The Government’s plan is to get Stormont going.
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for acknowledging that the Belfast agreement is not a one-dimensional document—that it is concerned not solely with north-south relations, but with east-west relations as well. Given the noises that we have heard from Dublin last night and this morning, will he reflect on the comments made by Shane Ross, the Irish Transport Minister, in the summer, who talked of border checks and customs checks in the Irish Republic until he was told that it was politically inconvenient to talk about that, or even those made by the European Commission, which at the start of September recognised, and spelt out very clearly, that it would require customs checks on the Irish side?
James Duddridge
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question because it gives me the opportunity to note how much work has already been done. That which was unacceptable and unresolvable, we are now discussing actively and moving forward on. We are at a snapshot between now and next Friday, with those proposals being delivered to the Commission. So we really are moving forward.
It was always going to be the case that some of the negotiations happened nearer the end of the time limit, but progress has been made consistently, from what was quite an entrenched position, which was particularly disappointing given the sensitivities around Ireland and Northern Ireland and the border and the Good Friday agreement. It would have been nice to have done this in a slightly more deliberative way, and earlier; but we are trying to set up the negotiations in such a way that we will get the best possible result for the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, and that is getting a deal.
Deaths of Homeless People
(5 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government to make a statement on his Government’s action to prevent the deaths of people who are homeless.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Luke Hall)
Every single death on our streets is a tragedy. Today’s statistics have provided us all with a stark reminder that there is so much more to be done. Every death on our streets is one too many, and this Government will work tirelessly to ensure that lives are not needlessly cut short. The fact that 726 people—mothers, fathers, siblings, all somebody’s loved one—died while homeless in 2018 will concern not just every Member of this House, but everybody up and down our country.
As you know, Mr Speaker, this Government are committed to putting an end to rough sleeping by 2027 and halving it by 2022; and we have changed the law to help make that happen. In April 2018, the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017—one of the most ambitious pieces of legislation in this area for decades—came into force. We now have a year’s worth of evidence, which is showing that more people are being supported earlier, and this is having a clear impact on the prevention of homelessness.
The Government last year published the first rough sleeping strategy, underpinned by £1.2 billion of funding, which laid out how we will work towards ending rough sleeping for good. Indeed, last year we saw a small change—a reduction in rough sleeping. A key element of that was the rough sleeping initiative. A total of £76 million has been invested in over 200 areas. This year, that initiative will fund 750 additional staff and approximately 2,600 new bed spaces. We know that next year, we must go further. Today’s statistics demonstrate that. We will be providing a further £422 million to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping. That is a £54 million increase in funding on the previous year—a real-terms increase of 13%.
The cold weather is a particularly difficult time for those sleeping rough, so the Government have launched a second year of the cold weather fund. We are making available £10 million to local authorities to support rough sleepers off the streets. That will build on last year’s fund, which helped relieve more than 7,000 individuals from rough sleeping over the winter.
These statistics have reminded us starkly of the fateful impact of substance and alcohol misuse. We know that the use of new psychoactive substances is rising. These are dangerous drugs with unpredictable effects, and that is why it is so important that people get the support that they need. In 2019, we brought forward new training for frontline staff to help them engage with and support rough sleepers under the influence of such substances. We are working with the Home Office to ensure that rough sleepers are considered in the forthcoming alcohol strategy, which will focus on vulnerable people.
There is so much more to be done. Our work is continuing, our funding is increasing, our determination is unfaltering and we are committed to making rough sleeping a thing of the past.
John Healey
Seven hundred and twenty-six people died homeless last year. Wherever we sit in this House, wherever we live in this country, that shames us all in a nation as decent and well-off as Britain today. Every one—in shop doorway, in bedsit, on park bench—has been known and loved as someone’s son or daughter, friend or colleague. We have heard from the new Minister today, but this demands a response from the Prime Minister himself, tomorrow, in his party conference speech. It demands that he leads a new national mission to end rough sleeping and the rising level of homeless deaths.
The official statistics released today confirm a record high total and a record high increase—up by a fifth over the past year alone. This record high has been 10 years in the making: investment in new social housing has been slashed; housing benefit has been cut 13 times; 9,000 homeless hostel places and beds have been lost as a result of Government funding cuts; and Ministers have refused to step in and protect private renters. There is the widest possible agreement, from homeless charities to the National Audit Office and the cross-party Select Committees of this House, that Government policy has helped cause the rise in homelessness every year since 2010.
Will the Minister therefore acknowledge that high levels of homeless deaths and homelessness are not inevitable? Will he accept that, just as decisions by Ministers have driven the rise in rough sleeping, Government action now could bring it down? Will he back Labour’s plans for £100 million for cold weather shelter and support to get people off the streets in every area, starting this winter? Will he tackle the root causes of this shocking rise in deaths with more funding for homelessness services, more low-cost homes and no further cuts in benefits?
These high and rising homeless deaths shame us all, but they shame Government Ministers most. This can and must change.
Luke Hall
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his questions. There is no shying away from the statistics, which are heartbreaking. He is absolutely right that every person who has died on our streets is somebody’s brother, mother or sister. He will find no complacency in this Government. We are increasing funding next year by £54 million, which is a 13% real-terms increase. It is important to note that in the areas where we piloted the rough sleeping initiative we saw a direct fall of 19% in rough sleeping in the first year. Next year we are delivering 750 more staff and 2,600 more bed spaces.
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to raise these issues. While visiting homeless hostels and shelters across the country over the past few weeks, I have been struck by the welfare issues that people have raised with me, especially those with complex and difficult needs, and by the complexity of navigating the system in order to get the right support. That is why we have designed a number of safeguards, including individualised support from Department for Work and Pensions frontline staff. It is important to note that we have also allocated £40 million next year for discretionary housing payments. There is a huge amount more to be done on affordable social housing. He is right to highlight the importance of the issue, which has been raised with me by homelessness charities time and again. We have made £9 billion available through the affordable homes programme, to deliver 250,000 new affordable homes.
The right hon. Gentleman is also right to raise the role of health services. We see in today’s statistics the impact of the high prevalence of drug and alcohol abuse. That is why the support that we are putting forward as part of the rough sleeping strategy, including £2 million to test community-based health models to help rough sleepers access services, including mental health and substance abuse support, is vital. I look forward to working with him, and indeed with every Member of the House, as we try to tackle this hugely challenging issue for our country.
Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Ind)
The number of rough sleepers in Newbury has dropped from the mid-30s to nine as of last week. That is nine too many, but that drop has been achieved by an enormous effort from local community groups, but also by statutory bodies such as West Berkshire Council using Government money, for example from Housing First and Making Every Adult Matter, to really bring down the numbers. The Minister will know that dealing with the hardest to reach—that is really what we are talking about in this urgent question—is about trying to get them the medical attention they need. Will he make every effort to work with his colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care to ensure that GP surgeries and other health bodies are as open as possible to receiving rough sleepers and ensure that they are directed to where their serious problems can best be dealt with?
Luke Hall
Absolutely, and I thank my right hon. Friend for raising these important matters. I pay tribute to the local organisations and voluntary bodies in his community that are working so hard to support homeless people and rough sleepers. Housing is part of the solution, but he is quite right to highlight that health services have a hugely significant role to play, alongside other public services. It is right to highlight the £30 million that NHS England is providing for rough sleeping over the next five years, specifically to tackle some of the high instances we have seen in today’s statistics. He is absolutely right and we will continue to make that money available.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
Every death of a homeless person is a preventable tragedy. Although housing is a devolved matter, in many ways the policies that are causing those deaths are reserved to Westminster. The Guardian reports that drug-related deaths in England and Wales have gone up by 55% since 2017, and that is directly related to failing Home Office policy. In Glasgow we are facing the twin risks of so-called street Valium flooding the city and an ageing population of intravenous drug users. They run the risk of being put out of their accommodation for drug use and are extremely vulnerable. Will the Minister ask his Home Office colleagues to lay the statutory instrument that would amend the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 to allow drug consumption rooms, as they have in countries around the world, including the incredibly successful Quai 9 in Geneva, which I visited recently?
People are also being plunged into debt and eviction due to universal credit, so will the Minister end the five-week wait, which makes it so hard for people to get out of that cycle and get their lives back on track? Will he also look at amending advance payments, because this only keeps people in debt for longer, rather than resolving the issues? Will he work with the Scottish Government, whose “Ending Homelessness Together” action plan is helping to ensure that those facing homelessness are supported into a permanent settled home and that their needs are met as quickly as possible? Will he look across Government, as I have asked, particularly to the DWP and the Home Office, and ask his colleagues to take action now on the issues that are causing the deaths of so many homeless people in England and Wales and also in Scotland?
Luke Hall
The hon. Lady started by stating that every death of a homeless person is preventable, and I absolutely agree. There is so much more that we can do. She talked specifically about the importance of cross-departmental working, both with the Home Office and the Department of Health and Social Care, and I completely agree. We are continuing to work with colleagues in those Departments on the forthcoming independent review of drugs policy, led by the hugely respected Dame Carol Black. We will study her findings extremely carefully. The hon. Lady also talked about universal credit. It is important to put on the record that housing benefit will remain outside universal credit for all supported housing, including homeless shelters, until 2023. She raised a number of extremely important issues, and of course I am happy to work with her colleagues in the Scottish Government and to meet her to discuss how we can take these issues forward.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
Fundamentally, we will deal with this only by providing many more truly affordable homes of secure tenure. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should consider changing the rules that currently require us to get the best price for public land, and that really we should make that land available to provide many more ultra low-cost homes?
Luke Hall
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. He is an expert in the field and I take what he says extremely seriously, along with all the recommendations of the Communities and Local Government Committee, of which he is a member. I look forward to meeting him to discuss his proposal in more detail.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
I welcome the Minister to his new post. Does he accept that two of the main drivers of the increase in homelessness are the shortage of social housing and the impact of the Government’s welfare policies? On housing, he said that the Government are making money available for affordable homes, but does he not accept that the Government’s definition of affordable homes, at 80% of market rates, means that they are simply unaffordable for most homeless people? On welfare, has he read the National Audit Office’s report, which draws a direct link between welfare policies and the rise in homelessness? Will he now accept that there is a need for a review of that link and then for a commitment to change the welfare policies to ensure that they do not drive homelessness up even further?
Luke Hall
I thank the Chairman of the Select Committee on Housing, Communities and Local Government for his questions, and I look forward to working constructively with him in the weeks and months ahead.
I would note that we have raised borrowing caps for local authorities so that they can borrow to build, and I say again that we are putting £24 billion a year into housing benefit, which will remain outside universal credit for all supported housing, including homelessness shelters, and making £40 million in discretionary housing payments available for 2020-21. I come back to the point about the difficulty of navigating the system and the importance of ensuring that people are provided with the support they need to do so.
Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
Can the Minister confirm that as part of the rough sleeping strategy, special training is being provided to frontline staff to help people under the influence of narcotics, to ensure that such tragic deaths can be prevented in the future? We have had this problem in Derby, and I know that the police have had real difficulty in dealing with it.
Luke Hall
I can absolutely confirm that, and my hon. Friend is right to highlight the importance of that training, which is going directly to the frontline. It is also worth pointing out that the rough sleeping strategy has created a specialist rough sleeping team made up of rough sleeping and homelessness experts with specialist knowledge across a wide range of areas, including addiction and alcohol issues. It is working with local authorities to reduce rough sleeping. I absolutely take on board what she says.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
Cuts have consequences. Quite clearly, if we take £37 billion a year out of social security, there are consequences. It is time to end the benefits freeze and build genuinely affordable housing, especially social and council housing—does the Minister agree?
Luke Hall
There is absolutely no shying away from today’s figures, so I take what the hon. Gentleman says head-on. The local housing allowance freeze is, of course, due to end in March 2020, and the Government are considering options for after the freeze. We are having continuing conversations about that issue.
Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)
Will the Minister join me in congratulating Lewes District Council, which along with Wealden and Rother managed to secure £120,000 earlier this year from the £46 million rough sleeping initiative? Does he agree that it is this Government who, for the first time, have got serious about tackling the causes of homelessness by introducing the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 and providing £1.2 billion of support for tackling all the causes of homelessness?
Luke Hall
I thank my hon. Friend and congratulate her local authority. One of the important points about the Homelessness Reduction Act is that for the first time, we have a year’s worth of data showing the importance of the early intervention that she talks about. She is right that it is backed up with £1.2 billion of funding, but of course today’s statistics show that there is so much more to be done.
Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (LD)
The fact that, in this city—arguably one of the wealthiest on the planet— 110 people lost their lives last year is a complete outrage. I am afraid that the fact that the figure has increased by 20% year on year is a damning indictment of the Minister’s Government.
Why are we continuing to criminalise people who are sleeping rough on our streets and begging? Is it not time that we got rid of the Dickensian Vagrancy Act, which is criminalising people instead of giving them the support that they need?
Luke Hall
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question. We have of course been reviewing the Act, and I take what he says extremely seriously. We are engaging with the police, local authorities and community groups to see what the most effective method of both support and enforcement is, but he is right that these are heartbreaking statistics, and the number of people who lose their lives on our streets is completely unacceptable.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
I welcome the Minister to his position, and I welcome the assured way in which he has dealt with his debut performance on this difficult subject.
In Worthing, we have an innovative project whereby Roffey Homes, a developer, bought a nurses’ home and has given it to Turning Tides, a homelessness charity, to use for the next five years, before it wants to develop it. With the support of Worthing Council and with Government funding, it has taken more than 30 people off the streets, providing not just accommodation but mental health support, training support, benefits advice and everything else. It is not without problems, not least the constant complaints and undermining by local Labour councillors, but does the Minister agree that we need this sort of innovative approach if we are to find sustainable solutions for people living and sleeping rough?
Luke Hall
I thank my hon. Friend for raising that example of good practice in his constituency. I was not aware of that project, but I would be happy to visit it. Of course, that good practice does not disguise the fact that there is so much more for us to achieve as a Government to tackle rough sleeping by 2027.
Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Ind)
How many of the homeless people who have died were in receipt of benefit, and how many were not, and why not? If the Minister does not know the answer, will he undertake to write to me and place the answer in the Library so that we can all know the truth?
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
The causes of and solutions to rough sleeping are never simple. I welcome the action that the Government have taken and encourage them to work with local authorities and the extraordinary range of charities and voluntary organisations, such as Churches Together in Basildon, which works tirelessly to tackle homelessness and get people off our streets, giving them a warm and dry place to sleep and a hot meal and, more importantly, helping them to access the support systems that are available but that they seem to have fallen out of.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
My local authority, Westminster, has the highest number of rough sleepers in the country. Its rough sleeping strategy found that a third of rough sleepers had been discharged on to the streets from prison, and of course others are ex-servicemen. Can the Minister tell us how many deaths have occurred among people who have been released on to the streets from prison? If he does not know, will he place that information in the Library, and can he tell us how on earth that is allowed to happen?
Luke Hall
I completely understand the importance of this issue to the hon. Lady’s constituency and in Westminster. If we are to end rough sleeping, we need to ensure that people leaving prison are supported into accommodation—I say that as both a Minister and someone with three prisons in his constituency. It is important to note the offender accommodation pilots that are under way at HMP Bristol, Leeds and Pentonville, but I am happy to meet her and the local council again to see how we can take this further.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
I had the privilege of serving on the Public Bill Committee on the Homelessness Reduction Bill, which was piloted through by my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) and passed on a cross-party basis. In welcoming the Minister to his place, may I too invite him to pay tribute to local organisations that support the homeless? In my areas there are organisations such as Routes to Roots, in Poole. What more can we do to support such organisations?
Luke Hall
My hon. Friend is right, and I thank him for his work not just on the Bill Committee on the Homelessness Reduction Act but in working with charities in his constituency. I absolutely pay tribute to them for their work, and I hope to visit them with him soon to hear more about their work.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
Leeds City Council, through its very impressive street support team, which brings together all the agencies working with the street homeless in our city, is making effective use of funding under the Housing First programme. That enables people who might not be able to comply with the conditions that hostels reasonably require, because of their drug and alcohol problems, to get into permanent accommodation with support. May I urge the Minister to increase the support that he is making available to local authorities such as Leeds through that programme? I have seen from that team that it is being put to extremely good use.
Luke Hall
I welcome the tone of the right hon. Gentleman’s question. He is right that the Housing First pilots are working very well. In a lot of instances they are backed up by international evidence that supports the programme, and we are building a strong evidence base to see how it can be continued and expanded. I thank his local authority for the work that it is doing.
Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)
I welcome the Minister’s passion for tackling this shameful situation. Stevenage Borough Council has had a terrible track record in tackling homelessness while I have been a Member of Parliament over the past 10 years. It still tells my constituents that they are intentionally homeless, which is unacceptable. Will the Minister meet me and local homelessness charities to work out what we can do to support the homeless in my community?
Luke Hall
I am absolutely happy to meet my hon. Friend and perhaps hold a roundtable with his local authority to ensure that we are all working together to tackle this issue. There is no getting away from the difficulty of today’s news and today’s figures, and I will work with anybody who can help bring this scourge to an end.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
Since 2010, homelessness in Newcastle has risen dramatically, visibly and tragically, with deaths in our city centre. Under the Minister’s Government, rough sleeping has been normalised, but it will never be normal to us. I have spoken extensively to Northumbria police, local housing associations, charities and public health officials, and it is clear that the cuts to public services are a prime cause. Will he acknowledge that austerity has caused this problem, and does he agree that it must be reversed?
Luke Hall
First, let me put on the record my thanks to Crisis, which I know does so much work in Newcastle, and highlight the success so far of the rough sleeping initiative, which is in the hon. Lady’s constituency and where we saw a 19% reduction in rough sleeping. She is right to highlight the importance of health services and other services available to people who are rough sleeping and homeless. This is why we have committed £30 million from NHS England to address rough sleeping over the next five years and £2 million in health funding to test models of community-based provision.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
No one should have to sleep rough, but there are people sleeping rough on the streets of Harrogate. Yet I have been told by those at the Harrogate homeless hostel, which is run by a fantastic local charity that has been doing great work for many years, that it has empty beds each night. So we have to work harder to understand the reasons why people feel that sleeping rough is their only option. Will the Minister join me in praising the joint initiative between Harrogate Borough Council and that hostel, whereby the council funds an outreach worker whose role is to go out and work with rough sleepers to help to address the underlying causes and make sure that the most vulnerable in our community get the support they need?
Luke Hall
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. I pay tribute to that work and to outreach workers around the country. I have spent many evenings with outreach workers in the past few months, listening to the stories they have to tell and hearing some of the difficult facts being relayed to me as the Minister responsible. I am happy to pay tribute to the work that his local authority is doing.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
We know from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities that the rent arrears of those on universal credit are two and half times the arrears of those on housing benefit. Will the Minister therefore tell us what discussions he is having with the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure that we are addressing the issue of rent arrears?
Luke Hall
The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight this issue. We are having constant discussions with Ministers about these issues. Both that issue and the one about the local housing allowance are raised most often with me, and I am having constant discussions with my colleagues on the Front Bench about the way forward.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
May I praise the work of organisations such as the Welsh Veterans Partnership in my community, which works to support veterans and ensure they are adequately housed, and the Salvation Army, which has Tŷ Gobaith in my patch? I visited it recently and its Bridge programme does fantastic work with those who have serious drug and alcohol addiction issues. What is the Minister doing to ensure that intensive programmes such as that are properly available to all who need them across the UK? Without that, people are not going to get the support they need.
Luke Hall
I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that example of positive work in his constituency, and I am happy to look at how such initiatives can be expanded more widely. We of course have the rough sleeping initiative, which is being expanded, as are the funding and services made available. I am happy to go away and look at the example he has raised.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) on tabling this urgent question and thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting it. The figure of 726 deaths of homeless people shames our nation. In an urgent question such as this, several issues inevitably become conflated, for the best of reasons, but “homelessness” is different from rough sleeping and from the number of people who die while homeless. The causes of homelessness are incredibly diverse and affect a very diverse range of people. The number of people who are rough sleepers is rather less diverse and the number of people who die through being homeless is even less diverse; the biggest cohort of people who die while homeless are men who have a drug problem, an alcohol problem, or both. Specifically, what are we doing to prevent the deaths of men who have drug problems and/or alcohol problems and are homeless?
Luke Hall
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. The Homelessness Reduction Act was genuinely a groundbreaking piece of legislation. For the first time, we now have some proper evidence about the importance of prevention. We see that the biggest group that has been helped by that Act is single men, because they can often end up on the streets. As we have seen, 88% of the 726 people who died last year were men. The Act is helping us to make substantial progress, but he is right about the importance of focusing on this issue.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
I understand that there have been a mere 180 transactions under the ludicrous housing association right-to-buy lottery. Why does the Minister not just admit that was always a daft idea, divert the remaining £190 million to an emergency winter programme and spare us a spate of people freezing to death on the streets?
Luke Hall
It is genuinely important to note the raising of the housing revenue account borrowing cap, so that local authorities have the ability to borrow money to build properties themselves. I take what the hon. Gentleman says extremely seriously. We should make sure that in areas such as his we have the rough sleeping initiative, as we are seeing progress, with a 19% direct fall. I am happy to have further discussion with him on this matter.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
Behind one of the shameful homeless death statistics is Jake Humm, a 22-year-old from Brighton who took his life last year, despite trying so hard to access support from local services such as Room to Rant, a brilliant project that helps young people find peer support through music. The Government have slashed local authority services and funding, which means that grassroots projects such as Room to Rant do not necessarily have the funding they need to support people such as Jake. When will the Minister reverse those cuts to funding so that those grassroots projects, which are literally a lifeline for so many, can continue in the future?
Luke Hall
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. We are doing a huge amount in Brighton with local partnerships, and Dame Carol Black has visited Brighton as well. It is an area covered by the rough sleeping initiative, but I know that there is a huge amount more progress to be made. I am happy to speak to the hon. Lady or go to Brighton to look at what more can be done to make progress on an extremely challenging issue in her constituency.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
Under the last Labour Government homelessness came down, partly because we made beds available for those who were on the streets so that those who wanted to move into accommodation could do so and those who were working with the hardest to move could focus their attention on those people. Does the Minister intend to return to that sort of strategy? How many of these deaths would have been avoidable had those beds still existed?
Luke Hall
I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that question. Part of the rough sleeping strategy and rough sleeping initiative is about delivering both the 2,600 new bed spaces next year and the 750 staff to provide support in tackling the sort of issues he is talking about.
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
If every seat, aisle and step in this Chamber was full, we still could not fit in every person who has died in the streets in this country, and that is actively at the door of the Government. We have had the cuts to housing and support services, particularly drug and alcohol services, and those chickens are coming home to roost. This cannot be fixed with the Housing Minister changing every few months, and by coming and making excuses. We need proper action and proper funding, and the Government need to take responsibility for the impact of welfare reform.
Luke Hall
The hon. Gentleman should bear in mind the £1.2 billion that is going in to provide homelessness support through the rough sleeping strategy. He makes an extremely valid point; there is no shying away from a hugely difficult set of statistics, and we should all pause for thought. He paints a vivid image. It is right to point to the fact that we are continuing to invest in our health services, with £30 million made available from NHS England for rough sleeping over the next five years, and £2 million in health funding to test these community-based models of provision, but he is right: there is no shying away from and no complacency about the fact that this is an extremely difficult issue affecting our whole society. We will strain every sinew to make this happen.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
It is right that we should get homeless people off the streets, but I also have real concerns about the unregulated supported housing sector. I have discussed that with the Minister’s officials and his predecessor. The Charities Commission has just reported on Wick House in my constituency, where several people have died, and there seems to be consensus that we need regulation of this sector, to prevent exploitative landlords from moving into it. Will the Minister follow up on my conversations? Can we see some action on this, please?
Luke Hall
It is absolutely unacceptable that vulnerable people—indeed anybody—should have to live in poor-quality housing. She raises the issue of Wick House, which we both know about, as west of England Members of Parliament. I have been having those conversations this morning and I will be happy to update her as soon as I can.
Hugh Gaffney (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)
First, will the Minister thank all those charities that help out the homeless and have brought down the number of deaths in this country? Recently, on 9 September, I joined a rally on the homelessness campaign just outside Parliament. The message was clear from people who are homeless: all they seek is a roof over their head. No one wants to be homeless. There are many reasons for it, and many cities, towns and rural villages now have homelessness problems. Will the Minister therefore join in Labour’s plans for funding to ensure that we have emergency cover during the winter months and that no one should be allowed to die on our streets?
Luke Hall
This year we have doubled the cold weather fund, to which local authorities can apply now, and I encourage his local authority to do so. He made a really intelligent and correct remark about the complexity of the different reasons why people end up on the streets. One positive that has come out of the 2017 Act is that for the first time we have some evidential data about why people end up on the streets, who is most at risk and how we can support them best. I absolutely take the points he makes to heart and will absolutely follow them up.
Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)
Every evening, as we leave this opulent building, we see a growing number of homeless people—in the tube station, outside the buildings, in shop doorways and anywhere else where they can seek shelter. It is clear that the Government are not doing enough. Homelessness has at least doubled since 2010; why does the Minister think that is? Does he recognise that swingeing cuts to the welfare budget and substance-misuse services have contributed to that rise?
Luke Hall
I say again that there is absolutely no shying away from the extremely difficult and upsetting set of statistics released today that shows that we need to do more. That is absolutely right, and that is why we are increasing the budget by £54 million next year—a 13% real-terms rise. The hon. Lady raises some extremely important issues. We have increased the welfare budget, but I understand the importance of the issues she raises, especially the numerous concerns relating to the LHA freeze. We are of course continuing to consider options for after that freeze next year.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
The number of rough sleepers declined under the Labour Government, which left office in 2010. Since 2010, the number has doubled. What was the reason for the change in fortune of rough sleepers since 2010? Why have those figures increased?
Luke Hall
The importance of the 2017 Act is that now we are really going to have some evidential information about why. If Members look at the information we have from the first year, they will see the progress that has been made, especially on supporting single men, and the importance and priority of early intervention. The hon. Gentleman raises an extremely important point, though, and there is no shying away from the hugely difficult set of statistics released today. We will strain every single sinew going forward. We are increasing the funding, with £54 million more next year, £30 million from NHS England to support health projects and £2 million for urgent intervention in community health services.
Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)
There have been some groundbreaking projects to help with the rapid rise in rough sleeping in Oxford, but they have really suffered from being short-term funded. Most of the money the Minister is talking about is just for the short term. The stamp duty surcharge on overseas property buyers is sustainable funding that is meant to last over the long term, but his Government decided that it was going to be set at a third of the level they originally committed to. Will the Minister explain why his Government apparently decided to prioritise the wealth of overseas property investors over the needs of vulnerable rough sleepers? I just do not understand it.
Luke Hall
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that point, which I am happy to look into in more detail. In Oxford, as in so many other areas throughout the country, the rough sleeping initiative is reducing rough sleeping—it is down by 19% directly since 2017 and there has been a 32% reduction compared with where we would have been had it not been introduced—but I absolutely take seriously the points that have been raised from all parts of the Chamber.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
I do not think anyone can question the sincerity of the Minister’s answers, but I am disappointed that he did not answer possibly the most important question that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) asked from her position of substantial knowledge of the impact that drug misuse is having among her constituents. The specific question was about the Government allowing, even on a trial basis, the establishment of a consumption room, under medical supervision, to see what difference that makes to the awful death toll that drug use is causing in Glasgow and elsewhere. Will the Minister at least commit to go back to his Cabinet colleagues and ask them to consider seriously the fact that drug misuse should be treated as a public health crisis, not as a criminal justice matter?
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)
As chair of the all-party group on ending homelessness, I agree with the Minister that this is a challenging issue, but the simple truth is that this was not happening on this scale in 2010, before the cuts to mental health services, to drug and alcohol cessation services, to councils and even to benefits for some of the most disabled people with mental health conditions in our country. Does the Minister regret the lost decade of cuts and the loss of life that we now know it has directly contributed to?
Luke Hall
I regret every single life lost on our streets. It is heartbreaking that those 729 people died on our streets last year. That demonstrates the need as clearly as ever—there is so much more to do. I am happy to meet the hon. Gentleman and come to the all-party group to discuss this in much more detail.
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
The Minister is before us to convince us of the Government’s seriousness in taking forward this issue. Back in March, the UK Statistics Authority urged the Government to improve the quality of their homelessness figures, because if the Government do not know exactly how many people are homeless, how can they possibly expect to deal with the issue? What action have the Government taken on that advice?
Luke Hall
One important thing in the rough sleeping initiative and the impact evaluation that we published a couple of weeks ago was the work on looking at the method we used to carry out the counts. The information and data that we have clearly proves that changing from a count to an estimate, or vice versa, did not have any impact on the reduction figures. Lots of different authorities represented by different political parties have made changes back and forward, but we have to be led by the evidence.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)
In 2010, the annual count of homeless rough sleeping in Brighton was 500; it is now 1,200. Deaths on the street were a rarity; now, they come more than once a month in Brighton and Hove. What policy has changed between 2010 and now? Surely we need to understand the policy failure before we can fix it.
Luke Hall
As I said to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), there are absolutely issues in Brighton, as there are throughout the country. The rough sleeping initiative is having an impact: in the places where we are trialling the rough sleeping initiative, there has been a 19% direct fall since 2017 and a 32% reduction compared with where we would have been had it not been introduced. There is no shying away from it, though: there is much more to do in Brighton, as there is in other cities, towns and villages all around our country.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
Every winter, the pretty village of Altnaharra in the epicentre of my vast far-northern constituency is the coldest place in the UK. As has been said already, the cold kills so many people sleeping rough. Have the Government looked at best practice in northern countries such as Norway, Sweden and Finland, to see how they are tackling this issue?
Luke Hall
Yes, absolutely, and we continue to have those conversations. I would be happy to keep in close contact with the hon. Gentleman and to have conversations as we move towards the winter. He should of course note that the cold weather fund has opened and we have doubled the money available since last year. I encourage his local authority to apply. I am more than happy to keep him updated as and when we look at the matter further.
Yemen
(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Foreign Secretary to update the House on the latest developments in Yemen.
Mr Speaker
Well, it is not the Foreign Secretary but a substitute for said Minister. He will do his level best, we feel sure.
The Minister for Africa (Andrew Stephenson)
The UK is deeply concerned by the ongoing conflict and humanitarian crisis in Yemen. We fully support the peace process, led by the UN special envoy, Martin Griffiths, and urge all parties to engage constructively with that process. A political settlement is the only way to bring long-term stability to Yemen and to address the worsening humanitarian crisis. A nationwide ceasefire will have effect on the ground only if it is underpinned by a political deal between the conflict parties.
The UK has been at the forefront of international efforts to bring a peaceful solution to the appalling conflict in Yemen. On 26 September, the UK co-hosted a political event at the UN General Assembly to co-ordinate the international community’s support for the UN-led peace process and to endorse UN special envoy Martin Griffiths’ plan to begin wider political discussion. My right hon. Friend the Minister for the Middle East and North Africa visited the region from 25 to 29 August, in support of the United Nations’ efforts to make political progress and alleviate the humanitarian situation.
Yemen remains the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, with nearly 80% of the entire population—more than 24 million people—requiring some form of humanitarian assistance. The UK has shown extensive leadership in responding to the crisis, committing £770 million of support to Yemen since the conflict began in 2015. Our funding for this financial year is providing food for more than 1 million Yemenis each month and more than 1 million people with improved water supply and sanitation.
We have been very concerned by the UN’s funding situation and the fact that it has been forced to stop delivering some of its life-saving support in Yemen. In response, the UK brought forward funding from our £200 million pledge and has already released 87% of the funding that we have pledged to UN agencies this year. We thank Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait for providing approximately $800 million in September and urge all donors rapidly to distribute their humanitarian pledges.
Stephen Twigg
I thank the Minister for that response. As he says, the humanitarian consequences of the Yemen conflict are devastating. The United Nations has estimated that, by the end of this year, the combined death toll from the fighting and disease will be 230,000. I pay tribute to the Department for International Development for its response, which, as he rightly reminded us, has been one of the most generous in the world, but, as he said, humanitarian efforts remain critically underfunded. The United Nations programmes on vaccination, cholera prevention and malnutrition have been forced to close. We are now looking to the 2020 humanitarian response plan. May I ask that the UK works with other donors to ensure that these life-saving programmes are restored? The previous Foreign Secretary provided real leadership on Yemen, and there is a concern that Yemen is no longer the Government priority that it was before July. Did the Prime Minister raise Yemen in his meeting with Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani last week? What is the United Kingdom doing to engage coalition members to move towards a full ceasefire? The Minister welcomed the very positive meeting that was held at the UN General Assembly, but will he update the House on the outcomes of that meeting?
I welcome the decision at the UN Human Rights Council last week to extend the mandate of the Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen. Those experts have found evidence of grave violations of international humanitarian law by all sides in the conflict. Does the Minister agree that all alleged violations of international law, by whichever side commits them, must be independently investigated and the perpetrators held fully to account? There can be no peace if we do not have justice.
Finally, there are reports of ceasefire discussions from both Saudi Arabia and the Houthis. These are encouraging reports, but the reports that I hear are about a partial ceasefire. Surely a ceasefire must cover the whole of the country. As we have seen since the Stockholm agreement last year, a ceasefire in one part of the country can simply result in increased fighting and civilian suffering elsewhere. Will the Government do everything in their power to bring about a full nation- wide ceasefire in Yemen?
Andrew Stephenson
Let me start by thanking the hon. Gentleman for his tireless efforts as Chair of the International Development Committee in raising awareness of the humanitarian crisis that is going on following the conflict in Yemen. I am grateful for his sustained work supporting the UN-led peace process and the work of the UN special envoy. Yemen, as he rightly said, is the world’s worst humanitarian disaster, and it is crucial that we continue to do everything we can to enable a peaceful solution to end the cycles of violence, and I share his statement about the chronic underfunding of the humanitarian relief at the moment. The British Government, our new Prime Minister and our new Foreign Secretary remain committed to keeping Britain at the forefront of efforts to find a political solution to this conflict. We are committed to using our resources to address the humanitarian crisis.
I had to leave the UN General Assembly early because of the recall of Parliament, so I am not fully briefed on what the Prime Minister discussed with the Iranians, but I am more than happy to take that away and find out whether Yemen was discussed with the Iranian Government.
The hon. Gentleman raises the Human Rights Council and the Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen. He will be aware that the UK voted in favour of the UN Human Rights Council resolution to renew the mandate of the UN Group of Eminent Experts. Although we welcome the renewal of that mandate, it is disappointing that a single consensus resolution was not possible. We continue to support investigations into allegations and incidents that have happened in this conflict and we continue to push for a ceasefire. It is important, as the hon. Gentleman said, that that covers all parts of the country and that we get as much buy-in as possible. There is no military solution to this conflict; there has to be a political solution. For that to work, everybody must sit round the table and discuss the best way forward.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a very expert defence of the Government’s policy in Yemen, but I wonder whether he could perhaps go even further in celebrating the work that Martin Griffiths has done as the special representative there. Will he also tell us a little bit about the work that his Department and other Departments in Government have done with Governor David Beasley of the World Food Programme? The work of the United Kingdom and others in opening up the port of Hodeidah to ensure that food aid is getting in, and the work that is being done with the Emirates and the Saudis in various other areas, is incredibly important in making sure that we have a coalition that works to relieve suffering in that country. Perhaps the Minister can say what more he and his colleagues will do to ensure that the UK’s voice is indeed the voice of reason and peace in the area.
Andrew Stephenson
I thank my hon. Friend for his question and for his support for the UN special envoy and his work. We all need to support Martin Griffiths, and to ensure that everybody gets behind the UN-led peace process. In my own portfolio of sub-Saharan Africa, I have been impressed—really impressed—by the World Food Programme’s ability to deliver aid to some of the most conflict-afflicted countries. I have seen at first hand its work in South Sudan and Somalia since my appointment and I am more than happy to look further into what it is doing in Yemen. I know that it is doing an incredible amount of work there. At this point, I should add my apologies for the fact that my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Middle East and North Africa is not in his place. He is undertaking some of his duties as an army reservist, and that is the only reason he is not taking this urgent question.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), the Chair of the International Development Committee, for securing it and for being one of Yemen’s great champions.
I am sorry that the Foreign Secretary himself has not seen fit to answer this question, but then again this is a Foreign Secretary who made a 1,300-word speech in Manchester this weekend and chose not to mention Yemen once, yet on his watch the cycle of indiscriminate violence in Yemen and the scale of the humanitarian crisis are growing worse every day. This weekend, we had unconfirmed reports of a major Houthi strike against Saudi forces inside Saudi Arabia. On this day a month ago, we had the attack by Saudi planes on a Houthi detention centre in Dhamar, killing at least 100 innocent captives. In Aden, we had the ridiculous situation of forces supported by the UAE fighting soldiers loyal to the Hadi Government, which the UAE is supposed to be trying to reinstall, and all the while the toll of innocent children killed by malnutrition and cholera continues to mount. As things stand, there is no end in sight to the conflict and no end in sight to the suffering of the Yemeni people.
This is not only a humanitarian disaster, but a failure of politics. The UK really must pull its finger out and do its duty in the Security Council. As the penholder at the Security Council, it is supposed to table a UN resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire by all parties everywhere in the country. We on the Labour Benches have been calling for that resolution for three and a half years. Can the Minister of State tell us how many more months and years we will have to wait?
Finally, tomorrow will mark exactly one year since Jamal Khashoggi was butchered in the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, in large part for his criticism of the war in Yemen. A full 12 months on, this House has still not been presented with the results of the Government’s investigation into who ordered his murder, let alone “the serious consequences” that we were promised from that Dispatch Box would follow. Again, can the Minister tell us how many more months, and now how many more years, we will have to wait?
Andrew Stephenson
I thank the shadow Foreign Secretary for her comments. The UK continues to call on all parties to the conflict in Yemen to exercise restraint and to engage constructively with the peace process led by the UN special envoy. We are monitoring claims of attacks in Saudi Arabia and are in contact with our partners to understand exactly what has happened there. We are also deeply concerned about reports of civilian deaths, following recent air strikes—our thoughts are with those who have been affected—and we are working with our partners to try to establish exactly what has happened. We welcome the coalition’s referral of both recent incidents to be investigated by the Joint Incidents Assessment Team. The UK continues to call on all parties to the conflict in Yemen to exercise restraint, to comply fully with international humanitarian law and to engage constructively with the peace process led by the UN special envoy, which is the only way to end this cycle of violence.
Sir Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)
I thank the Minister and his Department for their work in helping to alleviate this appalling humanitarian crisis. They have set a superb example to other countries.
What does the Minister make of the recent clashes between the Yemeni Government and the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council, which recently seized control of Aden? Surely everything possible must be done to prevent a civil war emerging within a much bigger civil war.
Does the Minister also agree that the Gulf initiative is probably now no longer valid? May I push him a bit on the need for another UN Security Council resolution, which I think is imperative? Will he comment on the recent outreach by his opposite number, US Assistant Secretary David Schenker, who is trying to speak to the Houthi rebels to bring them into a wide-ranging peace process?
Andrew Stephenson
We are working closely with the US as a member of the Quad, and we work well with a number of our international partners. To go back to my original point, I urge restraint on all sides. I read, as I am sure my hon. Friend did, the in-depth article in The Guardian this morning about factional fighting in Yemen, which is obviously of concern. We are trying to establish the facts of these situations. The most important thing, however, is to realise that there is no military solution to the conflict. We urge restraint on all sides. Everyone has to follow the UN peace process.
Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)
I, too, thank the Chair of the International Development Committee, the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), for securing this urgent and important question.
As the Minister and others have pointed out, this is one of the great humanitarian crises of our age, and one that is not only having a particularly detrimental effect on children but is man-made. I pay tribute, as I am sure we all do, to the extraordinary work of humanitarian organisations in Yemen, in some of the most difficult circumstances. The Minister was right to point to the humanitarian aid from the UK, but it has been eclipsed by the money coming in from arms sales since the start of the war. Surely that should be the other way around. I ask the Minister to address that. In particular since the Secretary of State for International Trade was forced to apologise, what additional measures have been put in place by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, because there were allusions to the failures of the Minister’s Department? Also, will the Minister update us on whether there is anything else of which this House should know or be made aware? Will he suspend any existing licences? We have asked about independent investigations—it was right to bring that up—and will the Minister investigate the alleged bombings of Oxfam water projects? That is incredibly important.
Finally, the UK is the penholder. As the penholder, the UK must be seen as an honest broker. Selling arms to one side while being seen as an honest broker just does not cut it. Will the Minister respond to that?
Andrew Stephenson
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the UK contribution to humanitarian assistance. The UK is one of the biggest donors to reconstruction in Yemen and in helping to deal with the immediate humanitarian concerns. Since the Yemen conflict began in 2015, our partners have reported two incidents to us in which UK-funded assets incurred damage as a result of the conflict. We urge all air strikes in which there are civilian casualties, in particular those that hit NGOs, to be fully investigated. We work with our partners to ensure that there are investigations into such matters.
As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Trade said in her statement to the House last week, the Government unreservedly apologise for the export licences that were issued in error. She has taken immediate action, including informing the Court of Appeal and Parliament, putting in place immediate interim procedures to ensure that the errors do not happen again, and instigating a full internal review of all licences granted to Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners since 20 June.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
My role as the Prime Minister’s special envoy for freedom of religion or belief involves engaging with international partners multilaterally and bilaterally to promote freedom of religion and belief. The UN has said that Baha’is living in rebel-held territory in Yemen have faced a persistent pattern of persecution, including harassment and arbitrary detention. Will the Minister ensure that freedom of religion is a key priority in all our discussions internationally?
Andrew Stephenson
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his appointment. This is something that he has long championed, and I look forward to working with him on this in the coming weeks and months. Freedom of religion and belief in all countries around the world is very important to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In particular, I am keen to see how we can work together on the situation in Yemen.
Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)
Unless there is an immediate ceasefire, by the end of this year 233,000 people will have died in Yemen, including 150,000 children under the age of five. What are we doing to try to get a ceasefire through a UN resolution? What are we actually doing? Tell us.
Andrew Stephenson
There were conversations about that at the UN General Assembly, which was attended by a number of Ministers. Unfortunately, we all had to cut our programmes short to return to the United Kingdom, but we will continue through the United Nations Security Council and other forums to ensure that the needs of Yemen are always discussed. We will see what we can do. We are leading efforts in support of the UN peace process in this area.
Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
I congratulate the Government on the amount of humanitarian aid that they have given to Yemen. Many NGOs and other organisations are trying to get food to the people in Yemen who desperately need it. Women who are pregnant desperately need that food, because if their children are born stunted—which they will be if they have malnutrition—they will never catch up, impoverishing the whole future of Yemen. Will the Minister please persuade other countries to do their bit just as Britain is doing?
Andrew Stephenson
I thank my hon. Friend for her pertinent question. So far this year in Yemen UK aid has helped to admit 250,000 children to health facilities and mobile clinics for malnutrition. UK aid supported 900,000 children to gain access to primary care in Yemen in the past year but, unfortunately, 2.5 million children in Yemen have irreversible stunted growth. We need to continue to work with international partners to ensure that more money is dedicated to that, because it is irreversible when it happens.
Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)
Does the Minister share my horror at the air strike that took place last week on a civilian area in Qataba, which killed 15 people, five of them children, and injured 13, seven of them children? Does he know that Save the Children has been calling for an independent investigation into that attack, so that the perpetrators can be held accountable? Will he support the call for an independent investigation and, if so, how will he help to bring it about?
Andrew Stephenson
We remain deeply concerned about reports of civilian deaths from any air strikes, in particular the case that he cited. Our thoughts are of course with all those affected. We are working with our partners to establish exactly what happened—that is the most important thing for us to do as a first step—and we welcome the coalition’s referral of two recent incidents for investigation by the Joint Incidents Assessment Team. The UK continues to call on all parties to the conflict in Yemen to exercise restraint, to comply fully with international humanitarian law and to engage constructively with the UN peace process.
Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)
Hezbollah has been involved in Yemen since the start of the conflict, providing training and weapons for the Houthis. When this Government decided to proscribe Hezbollah as an organisation, Opposition Members did not support them. Will the Minister condemn the role of Hezbollah in prolonging the conflict, and what words does he have for the Opposition?
Andrew Stephenson
The situation in Yemen is complex. There are a range of different actors in different parts of the country. All I would say is that we need restraint on all sides. There is no military solution to this conflict. A lasting solution can only be achieved through the UN-led peace process.
Jane Dodds (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)
Would the Minister agree that the UK has earned eight times more from sales of arms to Saudi Arabia and other members of the coalition in Yemen than it has spent on aid to help civilians? Right now, 10 million people are on the brink of famine. Some £770 million has been spent on aid to the region, and we are grateful for that, but there has also been £6.2 billion of arms sales to the coalition. We do not want thoughts or words; we want action to stop the war in Yemen and people dying.
Andrew Stephenson
As the hon. Lady will know, the UK has some of the most stringent arms exports licences in the world. [Interruption.] I know that some Members across this House would be happy to sacrifice our defence industry and jobs, but we work with countries around the world. We ensure that we are exporting defence equipment only to countries that are in compliance with international humanitarian law and, as has been so shown by the recent Court case, we are immediately stopping a supply of new licences and are investigating incidents where licences have been granted contrary to the Court judgment.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
I welcome the appearance of the Minister of State at the Dispatch Box, Mr Speaker, even if you do not.
As the Chair of the Select Committee has mentioned, the humanitarian situation in Yemen remains horrendous, but the impact falls disproportionately on women and girls. Since the beginning of the conflict, there has been an increase of more than two thirds in reported incidents of gender-based violence. Maternal death rates have also doubled in the past four years, as only a third of maternal and early years health services remain intact. What more can we do to help the most affected part of the Yemeni population for future generations, for the perfectly good reasons mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham)?
Mr Speaker
I enjoyed the hon. Gentleman’s question. However, as colleagues will know, I always welcome Ministers to the Dispatch Box to answer urgent questions that I have granted. That point is so blindingly obvious that only a very, very, very clever person could fail to grasp it.
Andrew Stephenson
The UK has supported 1,700 survivors of gender-based violence since 2017 through our £13 million of funding to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organisation for Migration. My hon. Friend is correct, though, to raise this issue as one of the most pressing in the conflict, with the number of incidents of gender-based violence reported to have risen by more than 60% since the start of the conflict.
Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
One action that the Government could take immediately would be to tell the Government of Sudan to withdraw their Rapid Support Forces from Yemen and to tell the Saudis to stop paying them.
Andrew Stephenson
We call for restraint on all sides in this conflict. As I said in my opening response to the urgent question, there is no military solution. The only solution is to follow the UN-led peace process.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Given Iran’s involvement in the conflict, what actions are the United Kingdom Government taking to try to get an agreed effective policy towards Iran between the United States and other NATO allies?
Andrew Stephenson
The Government have long-standing concerns about the Iranian involvement in Yemen which we have raised with the Iranian Government. Iran’s provision of weapons to the Houthis contravenes UN Security Council resolution 2216 and the Security Council’s embargo on exports of weapons to Iran. We are deeply concerned by the findings of the UN panel of experts on Yemen that missiles and related military equipment of Iranian origin were introduced into Yemen after the imposition of the targeted arms embargo.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
The UK Government’s multiple breaches of the Court order preventing the issuing of new licences for arms sales to Saudi Arabia has made a mockery of the UK Government’s claims that they have a rigorous and robust control of arms export controls. These arms are being used to cause untold suffering in Yemen. Does the Minister not agree that it really is time for the UK to do the right thing and stop all arms sales to Saudi Arabia for good, as it is a brutal regime with scant regard for international law, or will the UK Government continue to be complicit in the atrocities in Yemen?
Andrew Stephenson
As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Trade said in her statement to the House last week, the Government unreservedly apologise for the export licences that were issued in error. She has taken immediate steps, including informing the Court and Parliament, and has put in place further steps and interim procedures to ensure that these errors do not happen again.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Is not the truth of the matter that the conflict in Yemen is not going to end until Iran stops using the conflict as a proxy for its conflict with Saudi Arabia? Rather than engaging in a direct assault on Saudi Arabia, Iran prefers to use and fund the Houthi rebels to do just that. Other Iranian proxies such as Hezbollah are directly involved in providing the Houthis with missile technology. I know that the Minister says there is no military solution to this conflict. If that is right, the Iranians have to be persuaded to withdraw.
Andrew Stephenson
We encourage Iran to demonstrate that it can be a constructive part of the solution through promoting stability and showing commitment to the unity, sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Yemen. We hope that Iran can use its influence with the Houthis to encourage de-escalation of the current crisis, end their attacks on coalition countries and support a return to a political dialogue.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (IGC)
In his speech at the United Nations General Assembly two days ago, Yemen Foreign Minister Mohammed Abdullah Al-Hadhrami attacked and criticised Iran for its support of the Houthis, but also strongly criticised the United Arab Emirates for its support for the Southern Transitional Council in Aden. What is the position of the British Government as regards the positions taken by the UAE, and what contact have we had with the Southern Transitional Council?
Andrew Stephenson
We are in regular dialogue with representatives of the UAE. I referenced in one of my previous responses the rather concerning report in The Guardian today about some of the incidents that have happened. I am in regular discussion with the UAE, but I will more than happily write to the hon. Gentleman on this specific matter.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
Considering that the Saudi National Guard has been militarily active in Yemen, what can the Minister tell us about Sangcom, the 10-year £2 billion Saudi Arabia National Guard Communications Project that is a collaboration between the Saudi regime and the British Government and is reportedly led by the Ministry of Defence?
Andrew Stephenson
I may also have to write to the hon. Gentleman in response to that question. We do have a defence relationship with Saudi Arabia and work closely with the country on a number of projects, but I am not fully abreast of the details of that specific programme.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
In answering my hon. Friend the Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins), the Minister spoke about the need to investigate the shocking attacks on aid facilities in Yemen, yet Oxfam says that it has never so much as been interviewed about bombings of its water projects and water warehouses there. Are those investigations really happening, and why should we take them seriously if even those interviews have not occurred?
Andrew Stephenson
A large number of investigations have taken place. The Saudi Foreign Minister has been to this House in the past and has answered questions from Members about some of those investigations, and I know that more than 100 have now been brought to a conclusion. Of course we want damage or incidents involving civilian casualties to be investigated very thoroughly, particularly when NGOs or partner organisations are involved, and we ask searching questions about what has gone on in such incidents.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
What the Minister says about the UK calling on all sides to cease the fighting would be more convincing if he was able to tell us whether the Prime Minister mentioned Yemen in his meeting with President Rouhani. I appreciate that the Minister has stepped into the breach somewhat, but that would have been rather a key piece of information to bring to a statement about this conflict. I expect our Government to have relatively limited power with the Houthis and with the Iranians, but we should expect more from the Minister and from this Government in terms of our relationship with the Saudi Arabians. Given that the UK is continuing to trade weapons with the Saudis, can the Minister tell us a little bit more about what success we have had in terms of getting these investigations into breaches of humanitarian law and what actual influence we are having?
Andrew Stephenson
There is a range of questions there. I am sure that our Prime Minister raised this in his UN discussions, although I will have to come back to the House on the details. I know that the Foreign Secretary also met his Iranian counterpart at the UN. Between those discussions, I am sure that the situation in Yemen was of course discussed. The UK hosts regular meetings on this between Foreign Ministers in the Quad. We are taking a lead in ensuring that the needs in Yemen are never off the agenda.
Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)
The Houthi rebels have been, quite rightly, roundly condemned for their use of child soldiers. Is the Minister as concerned as I am by reports that it now seems that the Saudi-led coalition might be trying to use child soldiers originally from Sudan? What more can the Government do to stop this terrible use of children in conflict?
Andrew Stephenson
The UK is committed to ending the recruitment and use of child soldiers and protecting all children from armed conflict. We condemn in the strongest terms all grave violations and abuses committed against children in Yemen and urge all parties to the conflict to immediately cease all violations of applicable international law, including these grave violations.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
I was glad to see that the International Committee of the Red Cross had facilitated the release of 290 detainees yesterday. They are among many people in Yemen who have been arbitrarily detained and whose families do not know where they have gone. What more is the Minister doing and his Government doing, because it was one of the planks of the Stockholm agreement that prisoners would be released? What more can be done?
Andrew Stephenson
The UK offers full support to Martin Griffiths’ UN-led process as well as the work of the International Committee of the Red Cross. In April, the Yemen Quad reaffirmed its endorsement of the agreement reached in Stockholm by Yemeni parties in December 2018. We have previously seconded an individual to the UN to support the work of the executive mechanism for agreement on prisoner exchange. Obviously we welcome the very welcome news of the release of prisoners that we have seen in the past few days, but there is clearly more that needs to be done on all sides.
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
I have lost count of the number of times in the four years that I have been here when we have discussed Yemen in this Chamber, yet little or nothing has changed, so let me ask again a question I first asked in 2016 and is sadly still relevant: what does a regime have to do—how many breaches of humanitarian international law does it have to commit—before this Government deem it an unacceptable partner with which to deal arms?
Andrew Stephenson
The UK takes its exporting licence obligations extremely seriously. We operate one of the most robust export control regimes in the world.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)
The Guardian report yesterday that the Minister mentioned reveals that motor parts made in the Goodrich factory in Wolverhampton were found in fragments of illegal cluster bombs dropped by the Saudi coalition in Yemen. Can he please explain how UK components found their way into a bomb that is banned under international law, why on earth our allies—supposedly—are using such deadly weapons in Yemen, and what the Government are going to do about it?
Andrew Stephenson
I cannot comment on the specifics of what the hon. Gentleman has said, but in terms of recent licences we very much regret the licences that were issued in error. The International Trade Secretary commissioned a full and urgent investigation into those breaches as soon as they were discovered. Throughout the investigation, all decisions made on export licences to Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners will be subject to additional compliance checks, including closer collaboration between Departments so that no further licences are issued in error.
Points of Order
(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I wonder if I might seek your advice. My understanding is that Ministers should not knowingly mislead the House. However, during Treasury questions this morning the Chief Secretary to the Treasury implied that the UK was performing well in the cancer survival league tables. This is not correct and creates a false impression. I have checked in the Library and I have the latest article in The Lancet which has a comparative study, and unfortunately the United Kingdom is bottom in all seven categories: cancers of the oesophagus, stomach, colon, rectum, pancreas, lung and ovary. So I really think it is important that the record is corrected, Mr Speaker.
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his attempted point of order. I recognise, as many other Members will, that he speaks with very considerable personal knowledge and authority on this subject. If memory serves me correctly, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said that cancer survival rates were improving. I think that is what he said. The hon. Gentleman has made the point that in respect of the seven most common cancers, the UK is at, or close to, the bottom of a league table. I say with no pleasure that those two statements are not mutually exclusive. However, I recognise that in the context of what is a point of debate, he was very concerned to put his thoughts on the record. He has done so, and that record is there to be studied by people within the House and outside it. I thank him for what he has said.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. We are aware that the Government’s major attention at the moment appears to be a couple of hundred miles to the north of where we are, but I do think that if Parliament is sitting and we are going to have urgent questions on matters as crucial as today’s, it is beholden on the Government to ensure that if the Secretary of State is unable to attend, the Minister is given the relevant information to be able to ensure that the exchanges can be performed in a way that actually provides information to people watching these proceedings and, crucially, to Members of Parliament. I do not blame the Minister himself, but on the key factor about what the UK has done either with the Iranians or with the Saudi Arabians, he has not been in a position to respond, and I do think that that diminishes these proceedings. I wonder if you are able to get a message to the Government to ensure that people who come to the Dispatch Box are in a position to be able to respond on the key factors that they are going to be asked about.
Mr Speaker
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his attempted point of order. The Minister has signalled an interest in responding, and of course I will hear him.
The Minister for Africa (Andrew Stephenson)
If I could clarify, Mr Speaker, I said before that the Minister for the Middle East and North Africa was undertaking Army reserve duties, but it was actually Navy reserve duties. It is not the Conservative party conference that is the reason why the responsible Foreign Office Minister is not at the Dispatch Box today.
Mr Speaker
That is a helpful clarification and I thank the Minister of State for it. There is no rule on the matter. I say this as much for the intelligibility of our proceedings to observers as for the interest of Members. Who the Government field to respond to an urgent question granted by the Speaker is a matter for the Government. The natural desire and, I think, greater expectation on the part of colleagues that a Minister will be able to oblige is noted by the Chair, and more widely, I think, understood across the House. I think the point will convey itself to Government Whips, the Leader of the House and so on. Meanwhile, the Minister has courteously explained the position, and he did respond to all questions as fully as he felt able to. I genuinely thank him for that.
Mr Speaker
Yes, indeed—a point of order from Mike Gapes. He certainly knows about Foreign Office matters.
Mike Gapes
Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It is a genuine point of order. The Minister, in response to me and to some others, said that he would write to us. My question to you, Mr Speaker, is that if there were to be a Prorogation in the next few days, and a Queen’s Speech, what happens in the case where there has been no answer and we have been told that the Minister will write?
Mr Speaker
The answer to that is that Prorogation should not affect the moral obligation to keep a promise to send a letter, so if the Minister has volunteered written replies, which in a number of cases he did, the obligation to provide those replies continues to apply, and I am sure that he would expect to do so. As long as a Minister is in office—and one fully expects that he will continue to be in office; one has to work on that assumption as there is absolutely no reason to think otherwise—he will expect to redeem his commitment. I think we will leave it there for now. I hope that is satisfactory to the hon. Gentleman.
Exiting the European Union (Agriculture)
(5 years, 1 month ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)
I beg to move,
That the draft Common Organisation of the Markets in Agricultural Products (Transitional Arrangements etc.) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 24 July, be approved.
The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew), and a number of other Members may, in the case of this statutory instrument and two others that we will consider this afternoon, have a sense of déjà vu, not for the first time in issues relating to EU exit. I will explain why these further statutory instruments are necessary, but I do not envisage that we will need to take up the full time allocated for them, unless the shadow Minister feels that he did not rehearse these issues in the detail he would have liked to last time. This particular instrument concerns the common organisation of the agricultural markets, more commonly referred to as the CMO in EU parlance. The CMO sits in pillar 1 of the common agricultural policy alongside direct payments, and it was set up as a means of meeting the objectives of the CAP, in particular with regard to stabilising markets, ensuring a fair standard of living for agricultural producers and increasing agricultural productivity.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
How does that impact subsidies to farmers, which must affect the markets? Where are we in terms of the continuation of subsidies to stabilise those markets?
George Eustice
Retained EU law means that the existing basic payment scheme will continue. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the Agriculture Bill, which has been before the House, outlines a plan to evolve that policy over a period of seven years, but that is not the issue before us today. This particular instrument relates to the CMO regulations.
In March this year, six EU exit operability SIs concerning the CMO were debated in the House, approved and made. Those SIs sought to make retained EU law operable in the domestic UK context. The instrument under debate amends one of those existing EU exit SIs: the Common Organisation of the Markets in Agricultural Products and Common Agricultural Policy (Miscellaneous Amendments) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019. The existing SI, which was passed in March, ensured the operability of certain provisions relating to the reserved policy areas of regulation of anti-competitive practices, international trade, imports and exports and intellectual property law. Among other things, it establishes transitional periods for the import documentation for hops, certificates of conformity for fruit and vegetables and imports of veal.
The original statutory instrument obviously envisaged a departure date of the end of March, but, as Members are fully aware, a decision was taken to delay our departure to 31 October. The primary aim of this statutory instrument is to make simple corrections to the existing EU exit SI, to ensure that, where provisions refer to a transitional period, those periods are realised as was intended.
Current EU legislation requires hops imported from third countries to be accompanied by an attestation certifying compliance with EU marketing standards. For fruit and vegetables, EU legislation permits the inspection authorities of specified third countries to certify that imports originating from that country comply with EU marketing standards, so that they may benefit from lower inspection burdens in the EU. That legislation will be rolled over into UK law, and we are providing for a transitional period of two years for forms and certificates that we accept from third countries attesting that a product meets marketing standard requirements, during which both the new UK forms and certificates and their equivalent EU versions shall be accepted, provided that the EU standards remain at least as high as the UK standards. That will allow importers time to transition to using the new forms of documentation.
This instrument also concerns imports of veal. Under EU law, third countries wishing to import bovine meat into the EU must maintain an identification and registration system of the bovine animals they intend to import, starting from the day of birth of the animals. This is to ensure that imported meat has traceable origins and meets the EU’s standards and that the age of animals whose meat is marketed as veal can be verified. The name and address of the body in charge of the system, with a list of operators for whom the body is carrying out checks, must be notified to the Commission before the first consignment of veal is imported.
These rules are being retained in our own EU exit SIs, with a requirement for third countries—including EU member states, which will become third countries when we exit—to notify this information to the Secretary of State. To safeguard the continuity of veal imports from the EU into the UK after EU exit, we have allowed a three-month transitional period, to allow the EU time to gather and submit the required information to the UK. The end dates for these transitional periods were explicitly stated as 29 March 2021 for hops and fruit and vegetables and 30 June 2019 for veal.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
It is important that the standards are maintained as we head towards 31 October, and many of my constituents will be concerned about not only the maintenance of those standards but also pricing. Can the Minister clarify the Government’s policy on what tariffs the UK would place on EU agricultural goods coming into the UK if, in the event of no deal, the EU placed tariffs on UK agricultural goods?
George Eustice
The hon. Gentleman raises a point that is somewhat outside the scope of these regulations—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. For clarity, it is totally outwith the scope, and we must remain within the scope.
George Eustice
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
As I was saying, the end dates of these transitional periods were explicitly stated as 29 March 2021 for hops and fruit and vegetables and 30 June 2019 for veal. However, the extension of article 50 to 31 October would render those transitional periods significantly shorter, or in the case of imports of veal, completely redundant. This statutory instrument preserves the original transition period that was intended.
The instrument makes further amendments to the Common Organisation of the Markets in Agricultural Products and Common Agricultural Policy (Miscellaneous Amendments) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 in order to correct inconsistencies in the drafting and minor inoperabilities. The instrument under debate relates to reserved policy areas. However, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has engaged the devolved Administrations on its approach to CAP legislation under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, including on this instrument, to familiarise them with the legislation ahead of laying it. I commend these regulations to the House.
Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
It is just like old times—we are back considering SIs, and it is good to see the Minister back in his place. I see Ministers rather like basketball players: they come and go, and they keep substituting for one another. On the Opposition Benches, there is a bit more consistency, and we tend to stick it out.
It is important that we have this opportunity to revisit the legislation. I do not know whether this is the amendment of the amendment, or the amendment of the amendment of the amendment—we have had so many of these SIs, and we have amended them and debated them thoroughly. It would be interesting to know where and when these mistakes arose, who found them and why we did not get it right earlier; perhaps the Minister will be able to say a few things about that.
It would also be interesting to know whether this SI is part of the process of evolution we warned there would be. Clearly, the EU does not stand still; some of these changes are inevitable, because the EU has made policy developments and we need to amend our legislative framework so that, when and if we drop out, we have clarity about the basis on which our law will be taken forward. Although this is secondary legislation, it matters, because this sector will be the most affected by no deal and, more particularly, whatever happens as a result of what goes on at the end of this month.
I have some specific questions for the Minister, but first let me say in passing that it would be nice if we were spending this time on the Agriculture Bill, which disappeared in November 2018. We have now spent nearly a year waiting for it to come back. I see these debates as like sticking the tent poles up in a gale when someone has forgotten the canvas. It would be nice to know where the canvas is, because we are going to get rather wet without it, given what has been happening outside with our weather and so on. It is important that we know where that Bill has got to.
I was impressed by some of the amendments tabled to that Bill by the Minister, along with the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith). We thought they were excellent. Sadly, they seem to have disappeared. It would be nice to know whether the Minister still believes in those amendments. Certainly, if he and his colleague do not want to move them, we will, because they would provide actual protections. That is highly relevant to this SI, which is the most straightforward—dare I say it; we have some more difficult ones to come. We have rather a lot of time to spend on it, so we might as well spend it creatively and appropriately.
I am not sure in which debate I said this, because we have taken part in so many and we conflated a number of SIs, to the benefit of the Government. We did not have to do that, but clearly, with 500 Brexit-related SIs, of which more than 120 were DEFRA related, we had to do something to address the time restraints we faced and to do the job as well as we could. We warned that mistakes would be made because of the hurried way in which we went through this process—and mistakes were made. It is not without concern that farmers still face a great deal of uncertainty.
Clearly, this is the least contentious of the four SIs we will consider this afternoon. The other three are fairly straightforward, but we nevertheless have some concerns about them. This one is less of a concern, although I raised some worries about it previously and I will raise them again, because I am not sure we got the answers we would have liked to hear.
It is interesting to know that the regulations correct minor details, although the Minister rightly mentioned the impact on both the meat trade and vegetables. With that specifically in mind, a lot of the changes are about giving the Secretary of State all responsibility. It is important that we understand that. It is deliberately aligned, with the Government and the Minister being directly responsible. However, I do not understand why some of the references have been changed in the way that they have been. The Minister may want to explain that. Clearly, if the changes are purely to correct drafting errors, I will accept that, but some seem to change the responsibility even more, so that the Minister, and the Minister alone, is the responsible agency.
I have one very specific question, which I hope the Minister is able to answer. I am interested in why the olive oil and table olives sector, and likewise the silkworm sector, and interbranch organisations in the olive oil and table olives sector and the tobacco sector, were removed from this piece of secondary legislation. I do not understand why they were in the first or second draft—I think we are now on to the third draft.
On funding, although this is all about pillar 1, it has an impact on pillar 2. We had those debates; I just wonder where the Government are in terms of their philosophy on direct payments, which they want to remove. We do not yet have an agriculture Act in place to do that, so no doubt we will have to fall back on the current funding arrangements, presumably for the whole period of the transitional arrangements, which the Minister says could be up to two years. Unless the Government have sufficient resources, that will impact pillar 2. I always worry that money is filched from pillar 2. It would be good to know that the Government are clear that they will maintain enough payments in pillar 2. I know that is more pertinent to the second SI we will debate, upon which rural development regulations are contingent. It would be interesting to know whether the Government will put on the record that they intend to protect pillar 2 payments as a priority.
The other issue I want to raise is about monitoring and evaluation. The relatively new Secretary of State—everyone is relatively new, because we have had such a change in personnel—when asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (John Grogan) about the office for environmental protection, which of course would be in place if we got the environment Bill enacted, acknowledged that there will be a gap in provision and that that will lead to some difficulties. I am not at all sure who is going to do the monitoring and evaluation. We talked about maintaining standards of imports from EU countries, but who will maintain the standards of our current produce? Unless there is an authority that is able to do that, we will have a significant problem identifying whether our standards, let alone the standards of what might come in from abroad, are maintained.
The Opposition, at least, have always argued that there is a shortage of people to do those jobs, because they have gone into Europe and may not have come back—I do not know what the current employment situation is. I know we have all these additional civil servants, but there is no guarantee that they have the right skills to do this sort of work. Sadly, there has been a decline in agricultural science under this Government. Clearly, the people who are going to do this sort of work will need scientific training, because it is about trying to maintain the quality of the products we are discussing.
There is a lot in the draft regulations, even though, as I say, this is the most straightforward of the SIs we will deal with this afternoon. I hope the Minister is able to say a few things about it before we get on to our slightly more detailed scrutiny of the other three SIs.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
The amendments before us are ones for delay. Three years and three months have passed since we decided to leave the European Union. Leave voters would have expected us to have left at the two-year mark and to be well into enjoying the benefits of our independence by now, particularly in the agriculture and fishing sectors, where it is so much easier to design policies that would be better for domestic production and consumers than those they replaced.
I rise just to tease out a little more why the Government think we need a further 21 to 24 months’ delay in putting through policies that should clearly be better, because they would be fashioned in the United Kingdom with United Kingdom consumers and farmers in mind. I would like the Minister, who knows his subject very well, on behalf of the Government to exude a bit more optimism and confidence about our ability to govern these areas better and to try to reduce that time.
What transition can we not do today? What have we failed to do in three years and three months that we will be able to do, miraculously, from 1 November onwards? I find it difficult to understand what these things are that could not have been prepared already. Indeed, knowing my hon. Friend the Minister I suspect that they had been prepared already, because he is knowledgeable and assiduous, and a great deal of work has gone in. Before we automatically allow these things through, I do think we need a better explanation of why we need to have more than five years elapse from the point where many of us said, “Yes, we can do better. Yes, we can have more home-grown food. Yes, we can have more environmentally friendly agriculture. Yes, we can look after our animals so much better if we have UK rules. Yes, we can have a better international market in food if we can get down the tariffs on food from outside the EU.” These are all great bonuses of Brexit, and all we get today is, “Why don’t we waste another 21 to 24 months?” Please, Minister, cheer us up.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
I will speak to all of the instruments at once, given that they are really part of a whole.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. I appreciate that the hon. Lady is being straightforward in what she has just said, but I am afraid she cannot speak to all of the instruments at once. They are being taken separately. There is provision, quite often, to take these matters all at once, and the occupant of the Chair will say, “Everyone may speak to everything at once”, so it is not the hon. Lady’s fault for assuming that she might be able to do that, but I am afraid that it is a pretty strict rule. She has to speak only to the first one, and then later she can speak to the second, and then later to the third and then later to the fourth.
Deidre Brock
Those joys await me. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. You would almost assume that the instruments have been split just to fill the time while the Government are off playing in the delights of Manchester. But that would be very cynical of me.
I find myself on my hind legs again talking to statutory instruments that will be necessary as part of the eye-wateringly enormous effort to replace the sensible functioning of the European Union with domestic legislation that seeks to do the same thing. In the bonkers Brexit boorach, this all makes sense to someone, somewhere. I cannot help noticing, however, that if the Prime Minister’s cunning plan had succeeded and Scotland’s Court of Session had not reeled him back in—something that of course the UK Supreme Court agreed with—this place would be empty now. None of us would be here and the very important pieces of legislation that the Minister has brought to us today would still be sitting in a DEFRA drawer somewhere. Well, that is the optimistic view; they would more likely be headed for the shredder, with all the rest of the legislation that was being dumped on Prorogation.
We still await the return of the Agriculture Bill and the Fisheries Bill, as well as the environment Bill in this portfolio and scores of other pieces of legislation in other areas, all of which we have been told are needed to keep the UK functioning after Brexit. We have been told by, in my view, the worst Prime Minister in living memory that Brexit day is a mere 30 days away, come hell or high water, deal or no deal, give him ditches or give him death, but we have only these pieces of secondary legislation now, and the other pieces of secondary legislation and large chunks of primary legislation that we have been told so often are necessary for the proper functioning of the UK post B-day are still missing.
It would seem that this Government are determined to rip the UK out of the EU on Halloween, but do not give a flaming flamingo about getting the shop ready for opening day. For sure, there has been a very expensive advertising campaign telling everyone else to get ready, but the UK Government have stood steadfast too long in their refusal to prepare themselves, and we are now looking at a disaster of the Government’s making, while they insist that we are walking out that door no matter what. This legislation should have been prepared and presented a long time back, along with all the other pieces that should have been presented in an orderly fashion. Instead, it comes bundled on the back of a Prorogation that never was, half-formed and very late.
The Government are not prepared for Brexit, as was pointed out in the Brexit Secretary’s letter to Michel Barnier recently. I particularly appreciated his remark that
“there will be insufficient time to complete such work if left until the last days of October”,
as if there currently exists an enormous reservoir of time to do all that should have been done in the last three years. This Government appear to be just getting around to noticing what is coming. I hope that it will not be too long now until they realise what it means. I have to say that I have a great deal of sympathy for the civil servants who must be working flat out trying to get some sense of order into the chaos, because they appear to be getting absolutely no guidance from the politicians who should be pointing the way—led by donkeys, indeed.
So to this statutory instrument, and I will shorten my contribution at this point, Madam Deputy Speaker. On this particular one, the substitution of the role is largely to do with the timing and such things and it is relatively minimal. I will speak at some length on the pesticides instrument and to a degree on the CAP one later, but I will end my contribution at that point.
Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak in this important debate.
In April I was elected to this place in a by-election. I know that many colleagues across the House spent a great deal of time in Newport West and, in doing so, will have had the chance to see our city centre, our housing estates and our productive farming industry. In fact, the current Prime Minister, soon after taking office in July, made a visit to Newport West. Sadly, he did not ask me for a tour because there is plenty I would have shown him, but he will have seen for himself the need for his Government to do right by our farmers, and not to play fast and loose with their livelihoods and with our local and national economy.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Drew) for committing Labour to doing the right thing by our environment, our farming industries and agriculture more generally, and, importantly, for leading the fight in holding the Government to account when it comes to our departure from the European Union. This set of statutory instruments and all other relevant pieces of business require serious consideration by this House. We need thoroughly and comprehensively to take these issues apart to ensure that we get the best outcome possible for all of us across the UK.
I echo the shadow Secretary of State, who has been very clear that Her Majesty’s Opposition will not allow the crisis that is Brexit to be used as an excuse to reduce or weaken our environmental and public health protections. In fact, we want to maintain and enhance this country’s record of high standards and scientific excellence in the months and years ahead. I do not want to see chlorinated chicken in our shops, or hormone-fed beef in our butchers’, and nor do the people of Newport West, Wales or the rest of the UK.
Whatever happens, we need to ensure that our farmers avoid extra costs and businesses avoid greater burdens. We need to save jobs and protect our livestock, trees and plants from pests and diseases. We can do that by being sensible and realistic about the time pressures. The right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) was known for her red lines and look what happened to her. I do not want red lines and an unrealistic timeline to mean that the same happens to farmers, plants, animals or trees in Newport West or anywhere else in the country. I am hugely concerned by the reckless speed at which this minority Government—we should not let them forget that they are a minority Government—are pushing through the EU exit legislation without proper consultation, few, if any, impact assessments and wholly inadequate legislation. I have been here since April, but it is evident to me that the legislation we are discussing now was an afterthought for the Government. They did not want to be here this week, and when this House flexed its muscles and stood up to the Executive, the Leader of the House chose legislation that he hoped would allow his colleagues to stay in Manchester rather than sit here in the House.
As each day passes, we get closer to the edge. A no-deal departure would be catastrophic for the food and drink sector in Wales, Scotland, England and Northern Ireland. Let us be clear: the longer the uncertainty continues, the longer the sector suffers. Farmers in Newport West rely on a steady and dependable stream of European Union funding and need the time and space to prepare for the future. The same goes for our businesses. Investment will not come until people have a better idea of what the future will look like.
John Redwood
Can the hon. Lady say whether she disagrees with the statutory instrument? I have not heard her provide any analysis of it.
Ruth Jones
As I proceed, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will see what I am saying.
It is not just in Wales, but in other parts of these islands. We need only look across the Irish sea to the island of Ireland. Farmers, manufacturers and traders in Ireland and Northern Ireland are gravely concerned about the actions of the Government and what any Brexit deal may or may not mean for them, their livelihoods and their communities. As we discussed in the House last night, that is made far worse by the lack of a devolved Government in Stormont. I am not speculating or scaremongering: the fears felt across these islands were confirmed in the Government’s Yellowhammer documents.
Like many hon. Members, I am disappointed to see that all the time put in by Members on the Agriculture Bill appears to have been for nothing. The illegal Prorogation of Parliament by the Government has meant that good and important legislation has fallen, so I hope that the Minister will confirm that the Government intend to carry the Bill over if Parliament is prorogued—legally, this time, of course. A strong, comprehensive and authoritative Agriculture Bill would safeguard the nation’s food supply at a time when food poverty is on the rise and food bank reliance is ever increasing. The Government’s Bill was a starting point, but we must go further and do more. I hope that the Government will bring forward amendments to the Bill to prevent our farmers from being undercut on quality and price by imports that are produced to lower environmental and animal welfare standards than here in the UK. These are hugely important issues, and I am happy to continue fighting for farmers in Newport West over the coming months and years.
Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)
It takes a certain ingenuity to come up with new things to say about some of these statutory instruments, especially as I spoke at length about this one the last time we saw it. On Thursday, I stayed to listen to the Leader of the House and he took great relish in reading out the titles of the statutory instruments in what was a bit of a performance. But this is not a game. The details in the regulations that we have in the European Union have produced unparalleled food safety in this country—far better than the food safety that pertains in the United States—and exemplary environmental protections. We need to have SIs that are accurate and fit for purpose to make sure that we do not lose that food safety and environmental protection when we leave the European Union.
I have a series of questions for the Minister. How many SIs are still to be corrected before we can be sure that the safety of agricultural products we import will not be compromised? How will we know whether we have found all of those SIs? In answer to the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood), I have to say that while I would very much like us to grow more food in this country—I have mentioned broad beans—and there are various food groups where we could grow more of our own, I do not think we have time to grow a fully formed olive grove in Wokingham before 31 October. We will still need to continue to import food.
How can we be sure that all the other SIs are now fit for purpose? What will happen to all the SIs that are planned for next week if Parliament is prorogued again? If the Government are convinced that we will have a deal, why are we making preparations to leave without one? Can the Minister tell us whether he believes there is any likelihood that the House would vote to leave the EU without a deal, because I do not think there is? If we are going to leave without a deal, how can we support our agriculture and fisheries without passing the Agriculture and Fisheries Bills, which got so far before being shoved on to the backburner? I am sorry to have asked all those questions, but the fact is that I and this side do not believe that we are going to be fully ready to leave the EU on 31 October.
George Eustice
The hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) seemed to criticise the fact that we have these four SIs before us this afternoon and indicated she felt it might be a way of filling time. But I thought she and all the Opposition parties wanted to be here to scrutinise issues relating to EU exit and that is exactly what we are doing this afternoon. However, I share her commendation to our civil servants. The teams who have been working on this and all other SIs have worked incredibly hard over many months.
I want to address the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood). I think that he and I are not as far apart as he suggested in his contribution. He will probably recall that I resigned from the last Government on 28 February precisely because I did not believe it was right to extend article 50 and delay—I believed that that would lead to a sequence of events culminating in something of a muddle and the need to do exactly the types of things we are doing now.
My right hon. Friend must not confuse the transitional arrangements that we have discussed in relation to this SI with the rather oddly named implementation period in the withdrawal agreement that he will be familiar with. I will give him one example of the type of thing the SI provides for. Currently, it is possible, under EU law, for the EU to recognise certification authorities in New Zealand, so that people can certify that apples they are exporting from New Zealand to the UK meet our standards. That reduces the need for us to carry out automatic checks on those apples when they arrive at a UK port. All the SI does is enable those existing certifications to carry on for that period of two years, giving people time to continue to trade—I know he is a great supporter of free trade, particularly with our Commonwealth friends—in that two-year period without having to apply for a new UK certificate.
I turn now to the points made by the shadow Ministers. On those made by the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew), in general, the primary purpose of the SI is to extend the transitional periods to reflect the fact that the departure date has moved from the end of March to 31 October. That is the primary purpose, but as I said there are one or two other areas where there were very minor mistakes. He asked for some examples. In one case, the term “appropriate authority” was used, when it is clear it is a reserved matter, so we should have used the term “Secretary of State”. It is a minor error. The legislation as drafted probably would have worked but, given that we were revisiting this anyway to change the transitional periods, it seemed a good opportunity to put that other error right.
The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of olives, olive oil, silk worms and tobacco. It would not have been the end of the world if that had remained in the SI but, again, given that we needed to return to change the transitional periods, it seemed a matter of good housekeeping to remove those references where they were not appropriate. We would never have to recognise a producer organisation for the purposes of those sectors since we do not produce olives, olive oil, silk worms or tobacco, and as the hon. Member for Ipswich (Sandy Martin) pointed out, there is very little prospect of us doing so. In earlier SIs, we deleted similar provisions for home-grown UK bananas, because on a similar analysis we decided that was unlikely in the foreseeable future. This simply follows the same logic in those additional areas.
The hon. Member for Stroud raised several other issues about the Agriculture Bill and pointed out that I had tabled many amendments. Indeed, I made great use of my freedom as a Back Bencher to table some amendments. He will be aware, however, that now I am back at the Dispatch Box, I agree with collective Government and support a collective Government position. That is why those amendments have mysteriously disappeared.
The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of marketing standards and asked whether we have the enforcement capabilities for that. I can confirm that we have. We have Her Majesty’s marketing inspectorate, which sits within the Rural Payments Agency and which already does all the work involving marketing standards on behalf of the European Union, and the UK had its own horticultural marketing inspectorate well before we even joined the European Union.
On the issue raised by the hon. Member for Ipswich, a number of statutory instruments that are currently before the House have undergone a sifting process to correct minor errors but in general to ensure that the SIs that were laid before March remain relevant for a 31 October departure date. He is, of course, aware that the European Union (Withdrawal) Act provides for subsequent SIs after we have left, if it is simply a question of correcting minor errors of the sort that I have mentioned today. He will also be aware that there is provision for an emergency procedure should that be necessary.
I hope that I have managed to address most of the points that have been raised. I commend the regulations to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the draft Common Organisation of the Markets in Agricultural Products (Transitional Arrangements etc.) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 24 July, be approved.
Exiting the European Union (Agriculture)
(5 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)
I beg to move,
That the draft Common Agricultural Policy and Common Organisation of the Markets in Agricultural Products (Miscellaneous Amendments) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 24 July, be approved.
This statutory instrument concerns the common organisation of the agriculture markets, more commonly referred to as the CMO. As I said earlier, in March this year six EU exit operability SIs concerning the CMO were debated in the House, approved and made. They applied operability amendments to retained EU regulations which set out the overarching framework for the CMO and the detailed rules contained therein. This instrument amends some of the existing SIs to make simple corrections ensuring that when provisions refer to a transitional period, in common with the previous SI, it can be realised as intended, notwithstanding the delaying of EU exit until 31 October.
Five different transitional periods are set out in the existing EU exit SIs. The first and second concern special provisions for the import of wine and the labelling of imported wine. Under EU law, third countries wishing to import wine into the EU must produce it in accordance with specified oenological practices, and are required to provide key information on the content of the shipment, including a certificate evidencing compliance with EU rules and an analysis report. Those rules are being retained through retained EU law, but we are only retaining oenological practices that relate to domestic wine production.
We are also amending wine labelling rules to make them more appropriate for the UK market. For example, we are requiring certain information to be written in English whether or not it also appears in another language. However, we are providing for a transitional period of 21 months, consistent with that in other labelling provisions, during which wine that is labelled in accordance with current rules and produced in accordance with oenological practices authorised under EU law may be imported into the UK for marketing to ensure that there is no disruption to the import of wine from the EU. During that period, we will also accept EU forms and certificates from third countries alongside the new UK certificates.
The third and fourth transitional periods concern labelling for packages of fruit and vegetables, and for beef and veal. To ensure that consumers are not misled, for some products labelling changes are required primarily as a result of our no longer being a member of the EU. The terms “EU” and “non-EU” will be removed as options for describing the origin of the products, and pre-packaged fruit and vegetables will need to be labelled with the name and address of a UK seller after we leave the EU, rather than the information about an EU seller. We have introduced a transitional period of 21 months to mitigate the effects of these labelling changes on business.
The final transition period concerns import documentation for hops. Current EU legislation requires hops imported from third countries to be accompanied by an attestation certifying compliance with EU marketing standards. We are rolling over this legislation into UK law and providing for a transitional period of two years for documents that we accept from third countries, including the EU—which is about to become a third country—attesting that imported hops meet marketing standards requirements. During those two years both the new UK forms and certificates and the EU versions can be accepted, provided that the EU’s standards remain at least as high as those in the UK. This will allow importers time to transition to using the new forms of documentation, while ensuring that we accept only produce that is assured to meet UK standards.
In the original SIs, in common with the previous one we debated, the end dates of the transitional periods are explicitly stated as a specific date. For example, a transitional period lasting two years is expressed as a
“transitional period ending 29th March 2021”.
However, the extension of article 50 to 31 October means that we need to change the legislation to ensure that the intended period of transition remains in place. Therefore, the instrument under debate now makes a simple amendment to the existing EU Exit operability SIs so that the transitional periods apply for the duration intended.
The instrument also makes minor amendments to a series of other domestic EU exit SIs relating to marketing standards, the horizontal CAP legislation and the rural development programmes in order to remove ambiguity and inconsistencies, or to simply correct typographical errors. This instrument relates to areas of devolved competence. I can assure the House that we have consulted extensively with the devolved Administrations on its content and have received their consent to lay the SI. I therefore commend these regulations to the House.
Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
I am delighted to be here for the second of our four statutory instruments. I want to push the Minister a bit further. He did not manage to answer one of the things that I slipped into the first SI. What is the process of accountability? As we do not have the Environment (Principles and Governance) Bill enacted, we do not yet have the office for environmental protection. I ask again politely what and who is going to provide the sort of testing regime that is now talked about in these five conflated SIs? They are largely about wine—oenological; it is good to get that on the record. It is important that we know that someone somewhere will be able properly to scrutinise labelling and to test what is coming in. Currently, as far as I know, this happens seamlessly across the 28 countries, of which we are one. It will not be seamless when we have left because the wines that come from the EU will go through whatever process the Minister is going to explain to me in a minute.
I am not saying that at the moment there is a clarity because I, for one, do not know exactly how wine is tested to see that what people are buying is safe and what they think they are buying in terms of the proof and the quality, and that the labelling tells us what the wine is and where it came from so that people know what they are drinking. I just push the Minister politely to ask what process the Government have put in place for these interim arrangements?
I know this is about transition. Maybe we shall just turn a blind eye for a time, and let come in what comes in—although someone will have to account for the tariffs, if and when we get to that stage, because the EU will put tariffs on our goods and services and we will put tariffs on EU goods and services. It would be interesting to know what the Minister has, through his Department, been able to do. Presumably, such work has been going on for the last n number of months, since we have been discussing all these statutory instruments. Following the delay—again we are at the final hurdle, or maybe not—the reality is that somebody somewhere must have this all ready to go from 1 November.
I politely push the Minister, given that we have not yet got the office for environmental protection, with all the different tentacles that it will have, to undertake such work. The response may be that we have our own Food Standards Agency, but at the moment a lot of that work is subsumed into that of the European Food Safety Authority, so someone needs to have this type of capability, and it would be good to know who, and when they will come into play.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to appear after that crash of thunder, following the speech by the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew).
I refer hon. Members to my earlier remarks. Very little seems to have changed in the intervening period. The Minister mentioned that the intent was to retain only regulations that relate to domestic wine production. Does he mean wine made on these islands or domestic to the EU? If I heard him correctly, the UK Government are accepting the rules of the EU for wine production. Is that correct? Will the requirement to provide a UK seller for meat and other products, in addition to the EU’s current labelling rules, actually add red tape to the UK’s food market? It seems that we will in effect be accepting the EU’s single market rules and adding a few UK rules on top. I am not sure how that is taking back control, but I will be delighted to have it explained.
George Eustice
We rehearsed plenty of issues when we debated the previous statutory instrument, so I can be briefer, and I appreciate that both hon. Members who spoke have done so briefly.
The hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew), the Labour shadow Minister, asked who would do this work. The office for environmental protection, which will obviously be a matter for the new environmental Bill, would not do any such work. We are talking here, probably, about marketing standards and labelling standards, and the Rural Payments Agency has an inspectorate that leads on that work; it always has done, and has done so incredibly well.
The hon. Gentleman should recognise that the European Union does not have a directly employed army of inspectors in UK ports; the EU has a body of law, but UK agencies already do all such work. As he said, not only does the RPA monitor marketing standards, but there are other organisations as well. We have organisations that monitor pesticide residues; we have the FSA, which deals with food safety issues; we have organisations such as the Food and Environment Research Agency, which deals with plant health, and the Animal and Plant Health Agency, which deals with animal health. The technical expertise is already here in the UK, in our agencies; indeed, that technical expertise is often relied upon by the EU, not the other way round.
Dr Drew
I accept that; many of our good people currently work for the EU. But is the Minister seriously suggesting that those people have carried out proper contingency planning on how they will do this monitoring in a month’s time? How would FERA—how would the RPA, which I have significant doubts about; I do not know how many scientists it actually employs—sit down and do the work to see whether what has been imported is what it says on the label?
George Eustice
The regulations provide for a transitional period, precisely to give people time to adjust. We will be saying to European wine exporters that they do not, on day one, have to apply for a UK certificate, or get UK certification. We are saying, very generously—it is not being reciprocated particularly yet—to the European Union that because we want to prioritise continuity in the short term while people adjust to this new situation, we will recognise their existing certification.
To answer the hon. Gentleman’s question, there are no risks and nothing new is going to happen that has not already been happening under EU law for a number of years. This simply creates that transitional space to avoid UK authorities having to do unnecessary administration in the short term, and to avoid exporters having to go through unnecessary administration in order to continue to trade.
Dr Drew
The Minister is being very generous in giving way. What then is to stop people labelling their cheap plonk as burgundy and sending it in the form in which they send their good stuff? How will we be able to tell that what we are getting is what it says on the label? I am really intrigued by this.
George Eustice
Well, as the hon. Gentleman will be aware, there is nothing to stop that happening now, apart from EU law. For 45 years we have relied on EU law being enforced in member states. We are simply saying that in the transitional period we anticipate that the EU will continue to abide by and enforce its own laws. If it becomes apparent that it no longer enforces its own laws, we have the powers in these measures to cease to recognise them, because we will maintain our standards.
In answer to the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock), I can confirm that there are two slightly separate provisions on wine. First, we are bringing across only those provisions that relate specifically to wines that we produce in the UK, in relation to the production side. We have a growing and very successful wine industry, particularly in sparkling wines. We will not be bringing across those provisions for wines that we do not produce in this country and that are made in other countries. Secondly, we are making those labelling transitional provisions available to all EU producers so that there will be no short-term interruption in the administration procedures that they have to follow.
I hope that I have addressed the points raised by the shadow Minister and the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith. I commend the regulations to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Exiting the European Union (Agriculture)
(5 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)
I beg to move,
That the draft Import and Export Licences (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 23 July, be approved.
The purpose of this statutory instrument is to make changes to EU regulations governing the agricultural import and export licensing regime to ensure that they remain operable on our departure from the European Union. The instrument also revokes some obsolete and redundant regulations relating to the payment of export refunds in the dairy sector and on the administration of EU third country export quotas for cheese and skimmed milk powder.
I should point out that this instrument is rather different from the other three we are considering this afternoon, in that it does not relate to changes that are necessary due to transitional arrangements or dates. This is one of a small number of very minor SIs that were deprioritised in the run-up to the end of March, given that their applicability to the UK is quite limited and they were not judged to be sufficiently important to merit passing in time for the end of March. However, now that we have the luxury of time, it is possible to bring them forward.
This instrument seeks to make EU regulations governing the agricultural import and export licensing regime operable. In particular, the regulations make operability fixes to technical EU Commission regulations, providing for the issue of import and export licences for certain agricultural products; update EU regulatory cross-references to equivalent provisions in domestic legislation made under the Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Act 2018; and convert licence securities from euro values into sterling using the average annual exchange rate for 2018.
EU Commission regulations 2016/1237 and 2016/1239 provide for a licence system for the import and export of certain agricultural products and specific provisions for the import of hemp. Under those regulations, it is required that any import of husked, milled or broken rice, raw hemp and hemp seed or ethyl alcohol be subject to an import licence. Likewise, any export of husked or milled rice is subject to an export licence. The regulations also provide for specific provisions in relation to hemp seed imports other than for sowing, including the pre-registration of importers and requirements to prove the destination of goods.
The purpose of those common agricultural policy licences is primarily to provide a means of monitoring agricultural markets by having advance notice of goods entering and leaving the EU. However, given improvements in data collection at the border, the Commission has increasingly relied on real-time customs data as a means of monitoring markets, which has negated the need for licences. They are now limited to just a handful of products, for specific reason. That is why these measures are of declining importance and were not prioritised for passing by the end of March.
For example, rice import licences really serve only as a means of applying the EU’s variable import duty system, and hemp licences have been retained at the request of the directorate-general for migration and home affairs, apparently to support EU drug policy, even though the information provided does not really contribute to that effort. This statutory instrument specifically amends Commission delegated regulation EU 2016/1237 and Commission implementing regulation EU 2016/1239, both passed on 18 May 2016, by replacing references to the EU with references to the UK and references to the EU Commission with references to the relevant UK authority. It replaces EU regulatory cross-references with references to equivalent provisions in domestic legislation already made under the Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Act 2018 and converts licence securities from euro values into sterling using the average annual exchange rate for 2018.
EU Commission regulation 1187/2009 sets out detailed rules for the provision of export licences and export refunds in the dairy sector.
Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
Can the Minister confirm whether the cost of administering these licences is counterbalanced by the licence fees that are paid?
George Eustice
My right hon. Friend will be aware that we have always had a clear principle in this country of aiming for full cost recovery on licences, and these licences tend to be focused on very large traders and importers.
The provisions relating to the payment of export refunds are now obsolete, as they relate to rules that existed before the entry into force of the current common market organisation regulation. Under current rules, export refunds can be paid only in the context of crisis measures. The provisions covering export licences relate to the management of EU-World Trade Organisation third country export quotas of cheese to the United States of America and Canada, and of skimmed milk powder to the Dominican Republic, under the economic partnership with the CARIFORUM states. UK access to those export quotas once we leave the EU is obviously uncertain, since we will no longer be an EU member, although negotiations with those countries over future tariff rate quotas are ongoing. The Government will bring forward new legislation to manage any future UK access to third country quotas should that be necessary in the future. As the regulations in question are effectively obsolete or redundant in a UK context, this statutory instrument revokes Commission regulation 1187/2009, of 27 November 2009.
This statutory instrument concerns only reserved areas of competence regarding import and export controls, but the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has engaged with the devolved Administrations on its approach to CAP legislation under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, including this instrument, to familiarise them with the legislation ahead of its being laid. I therefore commend the regulations to the House.
Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
In rising to respond, at least I have the satisfaction of knowing that we have not debated this measure before. I have been trying to find the one that was the missing thread among all the ones we have debated. At least I have put my mind at rest, knowing that I have not missed this in the great mists of time.
I wish to pick up on a couple of things with the Minister. Paragraph 2.10 of the explanatory memorandum states:
“These technical amendments, designed to provide operability ‘fixes’”.
Is that a legalistic term? Is it a Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs term? Is it some other term? I know what it is trying to tell me but it is interesting that we talk about “fixes”. This is about trying to look at currency exchange, which is not unimportant, because one reason why British farmers have done less badly is that they have been paid in euros up to this moment in time. That has meant they have done slightly better, because the euro has risen in value against the pound. So there will be some “losers” here in the sense that they will not have that security and protection.
That was just an interesting comment, but now I come to a genuine question. It is about the way in which, certainly through the transitionary arrangements, export refunds will be paid. I accept that they will be paid in pounds, but does this refer both to the UK farmers receiving exports refunds and to EU farmers, who clearly at the moment will have seen this as a seamless operation? It is not now going to be, because it could be occurring in the context of a hard border. These are important aspects. The Government decided that this was not worthy of any priority whatsoever, but it is an important issue about currency conversion, because that can and does mean that the way in which payments are made can be beneficial. That will not be the case in the future because payments will always be in pounds. I would welcome the Minister’s clarification and willingness to look at the economic consequences of that, because in the short run at least British farmers could stand to lose out because of it.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
The explanatory memorandum points out that there is little impact from this statutory instrument, yet here we are. The Minister also said that it is not very important, but as it is about imports and exports, will he tell us whether tariff requirements will change some of the provisions in it? Has DEFRA done any analysis of how the licence regime will impact on businesses exporting and importing agri-products? What costs will industry have to bear?
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
First, let me thank the Minister for bringing this measure forward. In his introduction, he said that powdered milk was one of the products he is referring to. My constituency has a large number of agrifood companies, which depend on their export and important licences. One of them is Lakeland Dairies, which employs some 270 people in my constituency and is involved in the milk product coming in as a liquid. It has two factories in Northern Ireland and two in the Republic of Ireland—the company is in a unique position. I am encouraged by what its chief executive officer, Michael Hanley, has said, which is that whatever happens in this process of Brexit, be it a deal or no deal, we have to work with it. I am glad when the CEO of a major company has that attitude and that interpretation of what is happening.
Along with the approximately 2,500 agrifood sector jobs in Mash Direct, Rich Sauces and Willowbrook Foods, my area also has a number of farmers who feed into the process. I wish to talk particularly about the farmers who feed into Lakeland Dairies. Mine is the second-highest milk-producing area in the whole of Northern Ireland—second only to East Antrim—and we have a high-quality product and a number of committed farmers. I declare an interest: I live on a farm. It is not a milking farm—it is not a dairy farm—but my next-door neighbour takes the land and milks it, and I suppose that is ultimately used for dairy. My neighbours depend on the process being easy to take forward. The milk product provided by Lakeland Dairies comes across the border, the powdered milk goes back across the border to the Republic of Ireland, and it then comes across once more in a processed form, because of the way the factories do it down south. Ultimately, the product is packaged in Newtownards in my Strangford constituency and then sent overseas.
The former Minister for exports, Liam Fox—I cannot remember his constituency—was responsible for ensuring the export of the product from Northern Ireland, and ultimately from the Republic of Ireland as well, to China. He secured a contract for £250 million over five years. We are eternally grateful to him and his Department for ensuring that that happened, but I want to make sure that everything goes forward in the right way.
Earlier, the Minister said—I think I caught what he said correctly—that his Department had contacted the regional Governments. Unfortunately, we do not have a functioning Assembly; I presume that contact was made with the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, which is the equivalent of DEFRA over here. Has that contact been made, and has contact been made with the Ulster Farmers’ Union, which represents the majority of the milk producers throughout Northern Ireland? Indeed, has contact been made with the likes of Lakeland Dairies and others that depend on the powdered product and the milk product that cross the border on a number of occasions? They are high-quality, great products.
Finally, with special reference to daily export, is the Minister aware of the onerous added administrative burden? Is there not only support but funding to help with an interim change over a period? My local company has a number of questions, and I have written to the Department. To be fair, I think the Minister met the company—indeed, I remember the day that he did—on a separate occasion when he had a different responsibility. I just want to make sure that Lakeland Dairies, an integral economic factor of progress in my constituency of Strangford, can retain the jobs it has. We need to ensure that the milk producers can feed into the process and that, when it comes to import and export licence regulation and those companies that create so many jobs and so much in the economy, we can make my constituency of Strangford a stronger economic base for that, so that everything will be in place for them.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
For the record, the constitutency was North Somerset.
George Eustice
Let me turn first to the points made by the shadow Minister. He highlighted the use in the explanatory memorandum of the term “fixes”, which he even put in quotes marks. In DEFRA, we like to fix things that are broken, and the truth is that in this case, as in many other cases, it was always recognised that simply to bring across retained EU law would require changes for the purposes of operability. The types of fixes that are commonplace throughout this instrument and all the others simply replace the words “European Union” with “UK” or replace the European Commission as the competent authority with the relevant authority in the UK or with the Secretary of State.
The shadow Minister mentioned the issue of export refunds for dairy, which links to a point that was made by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). Let me say that, when it comes to these export refunds, we are simply deleting provisions that have already disappeared from EU law, so we are revoking something that became redundant and obsolete anyway under EU law in—I think—2007.
EU thinking on export refunds has evolved in recent years. There is a general consensus that they can be used only in extreme circumstances—when there is a particular crisis—and there are other provisions in law to enable that to happen. Therefore, they would not be able to be used anyway, because the other associated legislation that would enable us to do that does not exist, so this measure is really little more than a good housekeeping measure.
The point raised by the hon. Member for Strangford goes somewhat beyond the scope of the measure, but I will touch on it briefly. Let me reassure him that the Government are absolutely fully aware of the problems that the Northern Ireland dairy industry in particular could experience in a no-deal scenario. It is the case that it exports around 30% of its liquid milk to be processed in Ireland. That would be a problem if there were a requirement for export health certificates, or, indeed, if full tariffs were applied. It would also be a problem for those cheese processers in the Irish Republic, who would no longer have their supply of milk. Obviously, we hope that this is something that can be resolved through negotiation, but I can reassure him that we are working very closely with DAERA in Northern Ireland to identify all sorts of contingency arrangements and interventions that we would instigate if they were required.
Jim Shannon
I thank the Minister for that explanation and for all the hard work that he does in his Department. It is good to see him in his place doing things that he did in the past and doing them well. It is important that the Republic of Ireland is aware very clearly of the benefits of having a good working relationship with Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom. It is for the mutual benefit of everyone: for the mutual benefit of the other producers; for the mutual benefit of the factories; and for the mutual benefit of the workers.
George Eustice
I could not agree more. There is a mutual interest for all EU members and the UK to reach a sensible resolution to the current discussions. That is why the Government are redoubling their efforts to try to get a sensible withdrawal agreement with that backstop deleted and alternative arrangements put in place instead.
I turn now to the point raised by the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock), which also links to a point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight). I am aware that my right hon. Friend has raised with me this issue of cost recovery and charges in a different context, which I am looking into. However, in this particular context, I can confirm that it is licence security that is offered, and it is returned once a licence is utilised within the specified criteria. There are no costs to operators if they use the licence as specified and therefore no economic implications. The hon. Lady should be aware that the impact assessment highlights the fact that any costs would be well below the threshold of £5 million, but I hope that, in this additional information, we are talking here about a licence security that is returned. She must also bear in mind that we are doing nothing that is not already currently done. As I know that she and others would ideally like us to remain in the European Union, she would face those costs anyway. We would be forced to have those costs and would never have the chance to be able to repeal them should she want to. We, at least, as a country about to become a properly independent, self-governing country again, would have the opportunity, at a future date, if we felt it necessary, to repeal these particular provisions and save everybody the bother.
I hope that I have been able to address the points that have been raised, and I commend these regulations.
Question put and agreed to.
Exiting the European Union (Pesticides)
(5 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)
I beg to move,
That the draft Pesticides (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 17 July, be approved.
Plant protection products, or “pesticides” as they are commonly called, are currently regulated by means of two European Union regulations: Regulation (EC) 1107/2009, which concerns the placing of plant protection products on the market, including the approval of active substances, authorisation of pesticide products and management of associated risks; and Regulation (EC) 396/2005, which sets maximum residue levels of pesticides in or on food and feed of plant and animal origin, and measures to ensure compliance with those limits.
Earlier this year, two EU exit statutory instruments were laid before this House to convert those EU regulations into operable national law: the Plant Protection Products (Miscellaneous Amendments) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019; and the Pesticides (Maximum Residue Levels) (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019. Those two EU exit statutory instruments, in common with many others, made the EU regulations operable in a national context by, for example, transferring functions from EU institutions to national authorities.
This further instrument, which we are considering today, is comparatively minor and simply takes forward some additional amendments that are required to ensure that the regime can continue to operate effectively. First, in common with two of the other SIs that we have considered today, the change in exit day from 29 March to 31 October necessitates that we amend certain dates in the retained law that were based on the original date for EU exit. Secondly, further new EU legislation has come into force during the extension period, after the plant protection products and the maximum residue levels EU exit SIs were finalised. The new EU legislation needs to be corrected following the same approach as in the other SIs. Finally, this instrument fixes some errors within those earlier EU exit instruments, which I will cover later.
Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
For the avoidance of any doubt, will the Minister confirm that there is no measurable impact on business as a result of the regulations?
George Eustice
Yes, I can confirm that, in the sense that all the draft regulations are about continuity—an approach to ensure simply that where authorisations are carried out and decisions made by the European Commission, they will in future be made by the Secretary of State or the relevant authority.
Some amendments are required as a consequence of the change in our departure date. The plant protection products EU exit SI in particular contains a number of transitional measures that apply until specified dates. Those dates have been updated in common with the approach in other SIs. Given that exit day is now 31 October, those transitional provisions would allow much less time to adjust than was originally intended. This instrument therefore replaces dates that were calculated from the original exit date with a specified period of time after exit.
The draft regulations also deal with new EU legislation that has come into force since the original EU exit SIs were produced. The plant protection products and the maximum residue levels EU exit SIs converted active substance and MRL regulations into a new national register to give effect to the provisions in a national context. The EU regulations themselves were no longer required and therefore revoked. This instrument deals with new EU regulations that have come into force since then, and we have taken the same approach. Some outdated EU regulations have also been superseded or replaced, and those have now been identified as redundant, so they can be revoked.
This instrument also contains transitional provisions relating to grace periods for the withdrawal of active substances under EU regulations, so that they are carried across unchanged into our national law. Finally, this instrument also fixes a number of technical errors that were made in the earlier EU exit instruments. The vast majority of those were very minor in nature. However, I should draw attention to the fact that it came to light that the earlier plant protection products EU exit SI erroneously removed some provisions on endocrine disrupting chemicals. That omission was purely unintentional and this instrument therefore corrects that error.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
I am glad that the Minister has admitted that this error took place, but the Department has had to bring forward about 80 or so SIs over the summer. Has it conducted a review to ensure that similar errors have not been made in other legislation or are we are going to see a repeat of this situation, with other last-minute amendments?
George Eustice
Well, a point was made earlier that this has been an extraordinarily huge task of converting a highly complex body of EU law across into national law. When the EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018 was passed, it was even envisaged that there may be circumstances where there were errors, omissions or oversights. The hon. Lady will be aware that that Act makes provision for SIs to continue to be made in the event of errors occurring. I deal closely with the team of civil servants who have been working on this legislation, so I know that they have a huge amount of technical knowledge and have drafted the instruments we have been discussing today to the best of their ability to ensure that they have covered everything. But there can be difficulties if a last-minute update contained in particular EU document that is needed to make a particular element of EU law operable is not noticed; sometimes these things will come to light. The important thing is that we are clear about what we are trying to achieve, which is continuity, and that we put things right when they arise.
This instrument was originally submitted under the negative resolution procedure. We subsequently accepted a recommendation from the House of Commons sifting Committee that it be upgraded to the affirmative procedure and debated in the Chamber today on the basis that it includes a provision that relates to the charging of fees. In practice, this measure simply removes a redundant EU provision that clarified that member states could charge. The instrument does not change the existing fees and charges relating to the pesticides regulatory regime, nor does it have any effect whatever on the UK’s future ability to charge fees or make changes to the current fees. That relates to the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight), who I know is very concerned about these issues, but I hope that I have assured him that this changes nothing about the existing charging regime.
We have worked closely with the devolved Administrations —as we have on all the other measures we have discussed today—to develop this instrument, and they have consented to it being made on a UK-wide basis. I therefore commend it to the House.
Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
This is the most controversial of the four SIs that we have dealt with today, and we had a forthright debate on this subject previously in Committee. Much of that debate was about the theme I have been pushing today—that is, questioning the process of oversight and accountability.
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and Pesticides Action Network have both contacted me to demand that the Opposition scrutinise what the Government are saying and doing, so it was at our behest that this instrument was moved from the negative to the affirmative resolution procedure. In fact, we were tempted to vote against it on the basis that the Government need to explain better and to be clearer about how they intend to carry through—not just legislatively, but practically.
As I said earlier, this is about dissecting the parts that we have played as an integrated constituent partner within the EU, and how we begin to pull away. Two of our major agencies—the Food Standards Agency and the Health and Safety Executive—will be involved in this process. The HSE will almost certainly be responsible for testing the measures. It is therefore important that we know from the Government what they intend to do and how they intend to do it.
The RSPB and the Pesticides Action Network made six points. First, there is the loss of oversight checks and balances for a significant consolidation of power within an agency that, as such, does not exist at the moment. That is why I referred to the FSA and the HSE, because they are certainly going to have to be responsible for this in the short run. Secondly, there is the weakening of the requirement to obtain independent scientific advice that I referred to previously. Thirdly, there is the weakening of other standards. Fourthly, there are the important parts of the regime left unclear or with detail to be filled in through guidelines. I accept that this debate is partly about trying to clarify further where we might be in terms of those guidelines, but it is not yet absolutely clear what is going to happen. Fifthly, there is the loss of capacity and the lack of investment in the stand-alone regime. Again, I keep referring to that. Finally, as I have said and they confirm, there are the mistakes that were made in drafting these SIs on a previous occasion.
In the previous debate, the Minister’s predecessor, the right hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill), gave me some assurances. However, this is a work in progress and not necessarily something that has yet been completely nailed down by the Government. It is really becoming very important. I am still not clear what has happened to the REACH—registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals—directive, for example. This will be a very major part of what the REACH directive, as constituted when it comes into UK law, then entails, because pesticides, or plant protection products as they are properly referred to, will be an important part of what it is properly accountable for. I would welcome the Minister saying something about that. The chemicals division of the HSE has 150 people because it is largely operating within the framework of the EU. It will not be doing that after 31 October, so it will be important to know exactly how this is going to be constituted in a different format, given that we still do not have the environment Bill enacted.
There are other concerns that are important at this stage, to reiterate what I said in Committee, cost being one of them. The Minister has presumably looked at who is going to pay for this, because it will potentially be more expensive when we have a stand-alone regime.
Kerry McCarthy
I share my hon. Friend’s concerns. One of my concerns is that the Government may seek to recoup some of these costs, or to make savings, through the weakened requirement to obtain independent scientific advice. As I understand it, the measure now says:
“The assessing competent authority may obtain independent scientific advice where it considers it appropriate to do so.”
That is quite a bit weaker than the current requirement where it says that it “shall” obtain advice. That may be one way in which the Government would seek to save money.
Dr Drew
I thank my hon. Friend. That is one of the things we waxed lyrical about in the previous incarnation of this debate where we looked at “may” replacing “shall” and “must”. That gives—dare I say it?—a degree of wriggle room about how this is going to operate. This really does need sorting out by the Government because it will be too late if we get to this stage in a month’s time and it is not at all clear what is going to happen. This matters, because farmers need clarity.
I read today the report on the ban on neonicotinoids. I do not pretend to understand everything in it, because I read it quickly, but it was quite interesting. It looks at some of the scare stories put about that neonicotinoids would lead to a dramatic reduction in sugar beet and other products, whereas that does not seem to have been the case initially. We need to know what pesticides will be allowed and who will scientifically adjudicate on their safety. Will we have a different regime? We could choose to ban glyphosates, which the EU decided not to do, largely at the instigation of British MEPs. That matters to not only farmers but every gardener, because most of us have Roundup in our sheds and, if we are ever going to dispose of it as a potentially hazardous product, we will have to think about how to do it.
These debates are crucial, and this one has a more far-reaching impact than any, so we have to ensure that we get this right. It would be interesting to know from the Minister whether this is the final time we will consider this; what mechanism is now in place, whether it be the HSE working with the FSA or, eventually, the office for environmental protection, which presumably will encompass those two agencies when it comes to these products; and the detail of how we are changing the process of looking at the scientific basis of how we deal with these products, which are potentially quite hazardous but which farmers would argue are crucial to the way they carry out their business.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
I will start by saying how grateful I am to the Minister for his praise of independent countries as the way forward in our previous debate. I look forward to his support for Scotland deciding its own future.
This instrument is the one where an opportunity was missed. All of us will have received the briefing from the RSPB, which sets out how the SI fails to address issues with pesticide regulation, but it is worth laying them out a little, so that they are on the record for future battles.
Oversight will be lost and power centralised. The new system will see new DEFRA Secretaries having a great deal of say over what is considered appropriate. That power should be devolved, so that the devolved Administrations can consider the best interests of their nations and agree common frameworks where appropriate. Gone will be the requirement to consult the scientists, allowing those who say, “Experts—who needs them?” to have a free hand for dismantling sensible safeguards. That is a bad thing. We have seen the damage caused by disregarding experts.
The revocation of EU regulations on pesticides without corresponding safeguards being introduced seems another exercise in flinging caution to the wind. I hope that it is not part of the abandonment of the precautionary principle signalled by the previous DEFRA inhabitant, who also trumpeted the freeing up of genetically modified organisms and associated practices as one of the supposed benefits of Brexitannia. This SI also leaves big chunks of the regulatory landscape barren, with the future to be mapped out in guidelines rather than legislation. That is likely to leave regulators flying by the seats of someone else’s pants.
Pesticides, fertilisers and genetically modified organisms will be the touchstones of future battles on food safety, and this marks a reduction of our protections, which does not bode well for the future. It does not bode well either for protecting our food against low-quality imports. Can the Minister give us a guarantee here and now that hormone-pumped beef and chlorine-washed chicken from the US will not be allowed on to our supermarket shelves?
We will return to these battles time and again, no doubt. This instrument, like the others, will be passed today. Ironically, they represent the first points on the board of this Prime Minister’s time in office and they were written for his predecessor’s Government.
Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)
Whatever the risks to food safety and to agricultural producers and retailers from any errors in the other SIs we have debated, which deal with markets and import and export licences, they are massively enhanced by the risk of errors in any SIs pertaining to pesticides. This SI amends serious errors in the previous SI and gives us no confidence that there are not errors in other SIs dealing with regulations from the European Union that protect our health and our environment.
I am not enough of a lawyer to know whether it makes any difference to somebody who wishes to try to get away with an increased residue of 1,4-dimethylnaphthalene that it was identified in the previous SI as “1,4-dimethyl- napthalene”. However, other errors clearly would have allowed the use of dangerous pesticides, dangerous quantities of pesticides or inappropriate applications of pesticides if they had not been corrected by this SI. I direct hon. Members to regulation 6(4), which reverses the erroneous omission of provisions of annex 2 to regulation (EC) 1107/2009.
The problem we have is that, given the long, convoluted and dry naming of all these SIs, it is extremely difficult to identify where the errors are, but they are really important. In this case, if it were not for the correction in this SI, we would not have been able to prohibit the approval of active substances, safeners and synergists with endocrine-disrupting properties. Endocrine-disrupting properties have a significant effect on animal and human health.
If there are similar errors in other SIs, there is a real risk that we may open ourselves up to unhealthy reduction of our safeguards as part of negotiations to achieve a trade deal with the United States, where we know environmental health and human food safety take a back seat to profitability—in particular the profitability of the United States’ own producers. Our food safety and health, and the health of our environment, should not be up for negotiation. We have a real fear that, if we leave without a deal, there are other SIs that will open us up to that danger.
George Eustice
On the final point raised by the hon. Member for Ipswich (Sandy Martin), I addressed the issue of errors previously. Bringing across these statutory instruments is a vast undertaking; it is inevitable that there will be a few errors, and the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 made provision to deal with those even after exit. I explained very clearly that there was a simple oversight in the case of endocrine disruptors in that particular statutory instrument.
I want predominantly to address the issue of oversight, which was the principal concern raised by both the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew), and the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock). It is important to recognise that the UK has always been recognised as the leading country in the European Union for chemicals and pesticides expertise. The chemicals regulation division within HSE is the driving force behind most of the EU working groups that consider issues with pesticides. Through those working groups, we provide our technical expertise to the European Union; it benefits from our technical input. Yes, there is a role as well for the European Food Safety Authority and the European Chemicals Agency, but we should not underestimate the incredible technological and technical expertise we have in this field.
In addition to the CRD, which sits within the Health and Safety Executive, we benefit from advice from the expert committee on pesticides, which is a panel of leading academics with knowledge in this area. We also have an expert committee on pesticide residues, which assesses all the evidence on both imported and home-grown foods to look for trends in breaches of maximum residue limits. When we leave the European Union, all the existing methodologies for assessing pesticides at a European level will be brought across, including the so-called end points—that is, the thresholds that are applied—and the precautionary approach. Indeed, the key regulation, 1107/2009, was largely drafted by British officials based in the CRD. So we will be bringing all that across in the first instance.
The idea that there will no longer be technical or scientific assessments is a misunderstanding. I am told that, in the vast majority of cases, where “shall” is specified in the EU regulations in the context of requiring scientific input, it remains as “shall” in the UK ones. I think there are one or two minor areas that do not relate to the requirement for scientific input but relate more, as I understand it, to the methodology and the requirements on particular organisations or bodies. There, it is not appropriate to convert “shall” in the same way, as we do not have to have exactly the same institutions and organisational structure that the European Union has to carry out those effective scientific assessments. However, I reassure hon. Members that we will continue to have scientific assessments, that science will continue to lead all our decisions on pesticides in future and that we have some of the best technical expertise in this field. I hope that I have been able to provide reassurance on that point. Obviously, the main purpose of this particular statutory instrument is to change the dates for the transition.
Question put and agreed to.
Freewheelers' use of bus lanes
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
The petition is from Park Hall women’s institute, Walsall, who are residents of the United Kingdom. The petitioners are concerned that the Midland Freewheelers, who transport blood, x-rays, tissue samples, platelets, breast milk for premature babies, chemo drugs and other emergency medical supplies across Birmingham and the Black Country on behalf of the NHS, are not permitted to use designated bus lanes when transporting these emergency supplies. The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to consider allowing Midland Freewheelers to use designated bus lanes so that essential emergency supplies can be delivered without delay. There are 45 signatories to the petition.
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of the residents of the United Kingdom,
Declares that the Freewheelers is a voluntary organisation which transports essential supplies across the Birmingham and the Black Country as requested by the NHS and notes that the Freewheelers are not permitted to use designated bus lanes.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to consider permitting Freewheeler volunteers to use designated bus lanes to ensure that essential health equipment and materials can be delivered quickly.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P002525]
South Western Railway
(5 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Ind)
I thank the Speaker for having granted this debate. I recognise that the performance of South Western Railway is not a new subject, rehearsed as it was in this Chamber by the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable) less than a year ago and as it has been repeatedly in general debates touching on rail issues.
For those of us unfortunate enough to be served by the franchise, it is a repeat customer to our postbags and our inboxes. It is an aggravation every single time we set off from our constituencies to this place, not knowing whether the train will be delayed, overcrowded, with functioning heating or air conditioning, dependent on the time of year—one can usually rely on the air conditioning in November and the heating on full blast in July—or, indeed, whether it will arrive at all. Those served by more minor stations—shall we describe them in that way?—all too often see late trains hurtling past, making up time by not stopping at all.
My hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage), who cannot contribute to this debate but is here to listen enthusiastically, has asked me to remind the House that Gosport is still to this day the largest town in the United Kingdom with no railway station, so her constituents are obliged to find their way either to Portsmouth by ferry or to Fareham by bus to access a still substandard service.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I discussed my intervening on the right hon. Lady beforehand. The fact that multiple trains fail at the same time causes massive delays, but South Western Railway’s communications do not highlight that online, so people are left unaware of the difficulties until they reach the station and then it is too late to make alternative arrangements. Surely if it is any sort of a rail business at all, South Western Railway has a responsibility to its customers who deserve to know in advance what is going on. Does she agree?
Caroline Nokes
I do agree with the hon. Gentleman, who has highlighted one of the many problems, which is the lack of information. We all understand that problems on the network can cause trains to be delayed, but in the 21st century providing information in advance can enable passengers to work out a different route. Sometimes such information is simply not forthcoming. I well recall being at Southampton Airport Parkway station and buying a ticket for a train that the member of staff knew had already been cancelled, and I was then expected to take a convoluted route to get to Waterloo. Had he told me at the point of purchase, I could have simply got back in my car and driven to this place.
I want to start by giving credit where credit is due. Last Thursday, I returned from this place to Southampton on a train which ran ahead of time. That was a novelty. I wonder if it was a coincidence that it occurred a day after Mr Speaker granted this debate. Perhaps one should be granted every week and Mr Speaker has magical qualities of which we were previously unaware. It helped to strike up many a happy conversation among travellers when we stopped at Woking for a full five minutes, so far ahead of schedule was the train running. Oh, to have that driver again: truly his marvellous skills could be deployed on many a route across the network.
I would also like to give credit to the train staff who are in the main unfailingly polite and even jolly, sometimes in the face of extreme adversity, lack of information— as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned—and understandably bad-tempered passengers. But that is where the compliments cease.
I do not want my hon. Friend the Minister to think that I have come here just to whinge. I have not. I am seeking the opportunity to air the legitimate grievances of my constituents, but also to offer some constructive suggestions as to how the improvements identified as part of the Holden review might be encouraged in some instances, in order to improve the passenger experience.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Some of the railway’s services come to Bristol, although it is not the preferred route for getting to London as it takes so long, so I appreciate the right hon. Lady’s concerns. One group of passengers most affected by unreliable services of the types she describes are those with disabilities. It is easy to say that if information is made available passengers can change routes, but people with disabilities have to plan their journeys well in advance and it causes huge disruption for them if they cannot rely on the service.
Caroline Nokes
I thank the hon. Lady for making that point. It may try her patience, but I will come on to the issue of disabled passengers at the end of my remarks. A constituent of mine has been in touch about a terrible experience he had on a train from London Waterloo to Basingstoke. As a disabled passenger, he was trapped on the train and unable to make alternative arrangements, and he had a distressing and dreadful experience.
I am concerned by the circular firing squad we sometimes see between South Western Railway, Network Rail and the Department for Transport. At times, all can appear keen to blame and turn on each other, when perhaps they might do better to establish a constructive relationship with clear accountability, instead of the obfuscation and fudge we have at the moment. It is not only in this House that we achieve more by working together.
I shall move on to the specifics of where it still seems to be going wrong. The independent review commissioned by my right hon. Friend the previous Secretary of State for Transport, and chaired by Sir Michael Holden, reported over a year ago now, making a number of important recommendations. This is perhaps a good time to consider those recommendations and allow my constituents the opportunity to reflect on the progress they think has been made. It is also a good time to pose questions to my hon. Friend the Minister about what oversight he has of the progress of South Western Railway against those recommendations, which particular ones he regards as the highest priority, and what sanction he might consider imposing if there is not adequate improvement. As I indicated earlier, SWR has had a year since the review, and the patience of my constituents—if not the Minister—has run out.
I would like to highlight in particular the frustrations regarding overcrowding. Of course, I welcome the additional trains introduced following the timetable changes in May, but there is a nagging suspicion that this has been achieved by pinching carriages from other services. As my constituent David Willey explained to me, the most significant change on the service he uses has been the reduction in capacity by 17% from 720 seats in 12 carriages to 600 seats in 10. This has meant he has had to stand in his carriage usually two mornings a week.
Barnaby Wilson of Chilbolton let me know that he could not remember the last time his commuter train in or out of London was not short-formed and/or late. He comments on the regular occurrence of a 10-carriage train running with just five, thus halving the capacity at rush hour. And we all know the consequences: people crammed in like cattle, standing for the entire journey, or forced to wait for the next train as they simply cannot get into the reduced number of carriages.
Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Ind)
My right hon. Friend is making a powerful case on behalf of her constituents. When the service gets further up the line, shortened carriages cause even more problems, for constituents in Wimbledon and elsewhere. SWR promised to address this in its franchise bid, and we should now be reviewing that and asking whether it will be held to account.
Caroline Nokes
My hon. Friend makes a valid point. As my constituents pass through places such as Wimbledon, they see that no one is able to get on those trains.
As one constituent put it to me, the only change he has noticed in SWR’s service is a further deterioration, from a very low base: short formations, broken trains and stations being skipped, and delays continue unabated. As he correctly points out, if SWR publishes a revised timetable the evening before the service is reduced, there is no recourse to Delay Repay unless the service deviates from the newly published timetable. He describes it as a consumer rights void that he would like the Minister to address.
I would like to ask about the way transport strategy is joined up. Ian Dickerson of Romsey assured me that his preferred route from Romsey to Waterloo was to drive to Sunbury and then join the rail network on the Kingston loop to Waterloo, thus saving over £50 a week in tickets and parking costs, but undoubtedly adding to emissions on our road network. It is simply not a green solution.
One of the recurrent themes from constituents has been that SWR’s predecessor, South West Trains, had its moments, as they put it, but most of the time ran a robust, if no frills, service. If anyone in 21st century Britain regards functioning wi-fi as a frill, let me tell them that SWR has not even managed that. The passengers I sat across from yesterday commented in amazement that the wi-fi was working for once—right up until the point it wasn’t.
The consensus is that this performance is a breach of contract between company and traveller, and there is a suspicion that the Government have been duped by a provider promising what it simply cannot deliver. SWR won the contract pledging more seats and services and it has produced neither. The 442 shambles has meant there are now fewer seats and services. The promised new rolling stock has not yet arrived. It was promised by the end of this year. That clock is ticking and passengers are watching closely. Peak-time payers suspect they have been sacrificed on the altar of winning a contract and left with the old SWT trains, where the promised refurbs seem to have come to a grinding halt. It is far too simplistic to say we should renationalise—that is not the issue. The Department was sold a pup and needs to work out how to hold SWR to account against the Holden review challenges.
The final comment I have from a constituent is about the provision for and the treatment of disabled passengers. We all know there was an extremely hot spell during the summer, when rails got very hot and there were challenges right across the network. I am tempted to comment that it coincided with my hon Friend’s arrival in the Department for Transport, but I do not blame him for train conditions that were in some instances hotter than hell. But rail services run better in countries that are a great deal hotter than the UK ever gets in July and without the same level of chaos.
My constituent, a wheelchair user trying to return home via Andover, was advised at Waterloo to get on a Basingstoke train, as most other trains had been cancelled. With SWR assistance, he boarded a Basingstoke-bound train that was about to depart. Once he was onboard, it became apparent the heating was stuck on in the carriage and passengers were told to move forward, but my constituent was in a wheelchair; he was trapped. By the time the train arrived at Clapham, only a few minutes down the line, he was in serious medical difficulty, but he remained trapped in the carriage, as it was too far off the platform. He was in carriage nine, and we are all conscious of the shortness of some platforms at Clapham. No help was forthcoming from train or station staff, and it was only because another passenger intervened by preventing a door from shutting—literally putting his foot in it—that a medical emergency was averted. My constituent was seconds away from calling 999. However, the event prompts us to ask why the rolling stock is so antiquated that it had the maximum heating on the hottest day of the year, and why SWR staff at Waterloo helped my constituent into a carriage when there was an immediate announcement that the heating was stuck on.
Finally, let me return to the recommendations of the Holden review, and how SWR can be held to account for any failure to deliver. If Network Rail does not fulfil its obligations it can be held responsible by the Office of Rail and Road, which, in November 2018, took formal action to ensure that it would deliver on the recommendations in the review. However, SWR is accountable only to the Department for Transport, so I respectfully remind my hon. Friend the Minister that it is up to him to ensure that it delivers. May I ask him how robustly he intends to do that?
The medium-term recommendations are all due to be completed by the end of this year. There are 12 of them, ranging from ensuring the competence and training of controllers to ensuring that there is adequate provision of CCTV on platforms to assist with the dispatching of trains. Crucially, the review identifies the misalignment of incentives. It recommends that by the end of the year, the non-aligned objectives of Network Rail and South Western Railway should be dovetailed to ensure that the two organisations are pulling in the same direction at the same time—rather as we might expect a train engine to do. I simply ask my hon. Friend what steps he is taking to make sure that that actually happens, so that he may avoid having to return to the Chamber time and again to listen to what currently appears to be a tale with no end in sight for the poor passenger from my constituency who will pay just short of £6,000 a year to be subject to a sub-standard service.
Anne Milton (Guildford) (Ind)
I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) for securing the debate. It is timely, and I am fortunate enough to have a few more minutes than I expected in which to make some remarks.
The performance of South Western Railway is of ongoing concern in Guildford. It causes people frustrations and at times considerable anger. My constituents are not asking for an exceptional service, although they pay fairly exceptional fares. They would rather settle for a reasonable service; that would be sufficient. However, like my right hon. Friend, I want to praise the staff at the stations and on the trains. Many of them do an excellent job, often with no more information than the passengers, and sometimes in very difficult circumstances. I also want to associate myself with my right hon. Friend’s comments about those travelling with disabilities, who face even more harrowing journeys. I am pleased to see that there is some more seating at Guildford station, but that took a long time to achieve.
Late trains, missed stops, overcrowding—I have previously got into some trouble with my comments about my rail journeys on Twitter, and where I have ended up sitting. The Minister is nodding; he will possibly remember this. In particular, I commented on the fact that the seats designed for three people were adequate only if all three of the people occupying them had average-sized bottoms. If anyone has a more than average-sized bottom, they do not really work for three people.
The overcrowding is really shocking. When a train is late and there have been last-minute platform changes so that people have to rush to another platform and then find themselves sitting on the floor, or squashed almost on to someone’s lap, that is not acceptable. Insufficient information is probably one of the things that turn frustration into real anger. People do not know what is happening. There are a number of options for those living in Guildford—they can get out at Woking and share a taxi—but they may not know that the train will not start again for half an hour, or that they will have to change trains. Further problems are high fares and the fact that not enough ticket offices are open at peak times.
Lastly, I must say a word about the Solum redevelopment of Guildford station. I will not take too much time. The redevelopment of the station is welcomed by everybody. Everybody wants the station redeveloped. It is being done under the umbrella of Solum—an association between Kier and Network Rail, but nobody likes the plans that have been passed by the borough council. I believe that they went through on appeal. It is extraordinary that when the development was in its planning stages, the website did not at any time mention trains. It was simply about the station.
Constituents of mine are suspicious. They see it as an opportunity to increase revenue. There would be a fantastic opportunity at Guildford station if the plans were moved by simply 3 feet. That would allow sufficient resilience in the service. If something went wrong there would be a platform 0 that could be used. I urge the Minister—as I have urged Ministers before and urged Network Rail—and urge Kier to look at this. I know why they are nervous about reopening this planning application, but we will throw a party for Network Rail and Kier in Guildford near the station if they will be reasonable and reconsider this plan.
The Minister is looking hopeful, so I look forward to being able to invite him to that party. I have had numerous meetings with South Western Railway and Network Rail, and on every occasion they are nothing but helpful. They assure me that services are getting better and they explain the problems, but we are at the end of our tether. Ministers must act. The high fares that people in Guildford pay are acceptable only if there is a reasonable service.
Caroline Nokes
I thank my right hon. Friend for her comments. She says that high fares are acceptable only if there is a reasonable service. I received two comments from Guildford constituents on Twitter when they heard that this debate was occurring. One of them, Philippa, tells me that 2% of her trains this year have been both on time and in the correct formation. Scott, who travels into Waterloo, says that he has had one train on time in two months, over seven hours of delays, and four out of the last six trains cancelled. Does my right hon. Friend agree that her constituents are simply not getting a reasonable service for the price that they pay?
Anne Milton
They most certainly are not getting a reasonable service. I know Scott well. That is seven hours of his working time. The cost of rail delays to constituents and to businesses is significant. We have talked about wi-fi. We could go on and on. People cannot even work on those delayed trains. I urge the Minister not to just read out his speech. I am sure that he has a speech ready. I am sure that he will have taken note of all the comments that have been made today. We need him to act, to thump the table with the operators and Network Rail and make sure that the concerns of my constituents and those in Romsey, Gosport, Wimbledon and any other constituency that is represented here today are taken note of and acted on so that by the end of the year we are starting to get messages from them highlighting the improvements that have been made.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Chris Heaton-Harris)
I thank Members who have contributed to this interesting debate this afternoon. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) on securing the debate and for the opportunity to discuss this important issue in the House. She mentioned in passing Mr Speaker’s magic touch—her train appeared early the day after he granted this debate. As my right hon. Friend knows, Mr Speaker can work in mysterious ways. She also mentioned my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage) possibly having in her constituency the largest town without a railway station. The hon. Member for Daventry might have a competition with her on that, because the main town in my constituency does not have a station, either. [Interruption.] It is not good enough, obviously, but there are plenty of towns that do not.
Chris Heaton-Harris
And Leigh in Greater Manchester, I am informed by a terrible heckler from a sedentary position, suffers the same.
The current operational performance of South Western Railway for the period 18 August to 14 September, measuring arrival time to within five minutes at the final destination, was 82.9%. That is the common measure used by the rail industry. Using the measure that we, as a Department, now like to use—being on time within a minute—for the first quarter of this year performance was 59.7%. That is clearly not good enough.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North knows that we are a relatively new ministerial team in the Department, and when the Secretary of State came into the Department he set out his priorities for improving the railway. He is absolutely determined to work with the rail industry to deliver a more reliable, passenger-focused railway.
Stephen Hammond
Those are appalling statistics, but the Minister is absolutely right about a customer-focused railway. He must bang the desk of Network Rail, because a number of those failures have been signal failures, such as those which we experienced on the line yet again yesterday. When he bashes South Western Railway, will he please also make sure that Network Rail is brought into that attribution, and make sure that it recognises its responsibilities to customers?
Chris Heaton-Harris
I completely hear what my hon. Friend says. I promise to take up the mantle on this issue. It has not been lying still on the table—I can also promise that.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Anne Milton) informed the House that her constituents just wanted their rail service to do simple things—run, and be on time. I think that is a fair expectation. Maybe have enough room for three bottoms on some chairs as well, but basically that is it. I do regularly look at the various sets of statistics for the things that my right hon. Friend mentioned. I know that the Guildford ticket office has caused great concern to Guildford customers, and I do know, because I was warned by previous Rail Ministers, that the Guildford station platform 0 option is a matter of great contention locally, but I have not formally looked into it. I will ensure that I do, if that is okay as an offer to my right hon. Friend.
My Secretary of State’s vision is that the industry must make innovative changes to make the trains run on time, all of the time. South Western Railway agrees that its general performance is not yet up to the standard that it would like, and that its customers expect.
Around 70% of the delays and cancellations that affect passengers result from problems with the infrastructure, which is down to Network Rail, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) identified. Overall, Network Rail will spend around £48 billion nationwide on maintaining the network over the next five-year period, running from this year until 2024, and the Wessex route has seen a 20% increase in its funding compared with the previous five-year period. This funding should see more maintenance and a huge uplift in the renewals, to increase reliability and punctuality for passengers, but I know that it has not been delivered yet.
The train services provided by the South Western franchise are relied upon by 600,000 passengers every day. The train operator, South Western Railway, runs around 1,700 services each day on the network. The latest figures published show that 110,000 passengers pass through Waterloo station during the morning peak. It is a very, very busy network.
People are rightly frustrated and angry about the level of delays and cancellations that they are suffering, and I personally am sincerely sorry that that performance has reached this level—to the extent that we are having to hold this debate again on the Floor of the House. This has not happened overnight; sadly, the service has been deteriorating since about 2011-12. The Department for Transport has been working closely with South Western Railway and Network Rail to try to ensure that the causes of the problems are identified and understood and that there is a plan to turn performance around.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North referred to Sir Michael Holden’s review of South Western Railway and Network Rail’s performance on the Wessex route. The review was commissioned by the previous Secretary of State to ensure that everything was being done to understand and address the causes of the downturn in performance on the route. Sir Michael made 28 recommendations for improving performance. Some of them could be implemented in the short term and others will take longer. He was clear that there is no silver bullet and that it will take time to restore performance to acceptable levels, and that is our highest priority.
Sir Michael’s recommendations cover a range of disciplines, including performance management, train operations, infrastructure maintenance and renewals, and control and resourcing. He also suggested a number of infrastructure changes that could be made to improve the service. SWR and Network Rail are documenting their progress and sharing a copy of their “tracker” with the Department each month so that we at the centre can see how they are progressing. I can assure my right hon. Friends that we are monitoring it very closely.
Caroline Nokes
I welcome the fact that the tracker is being shared with the Department, but does my hon. Friend have any plans to share it more widely with Members of Parliament from across the south-west who are hearing the same levels of frustration in their postbag?
Chris Heaton-Harris
I asked my officials the very same question before the debate, and currently there are no such plans. However, I am sure that we can have a conversation afterwards and perhaps get to the stage where we do not need a humble address or anything too exciting to get the information.
Sir Michael has also been retained by SWR and Network Rail to review their progress. He has confirmed that 16 of his 28 recommendations have already been delivered to his satisfaction, including key infrastructure changes and relaunching SWR’s approach to performance management. I understand that he is due to return to check on progress in November.
A range of recommendations were made on performance management. SWR and Network Rail have established a joint performance improvement centre at Waterloo to focus on the critical areas of delivery across the infrastructure and train operations, and that is key to understanding what is actually happening and, more importantly, what can be done to prevent delays. I have an outstanding invitation to be shown around the JPIC, and I would be delighted if my right hon. Friend, and perhaps other Members, joined me to see at first hand how the executive teams at SWR and Network Rail are tackling the performance issues. I will happily arrange for my office to have the invitation extended if that is suitable—it seems like it could be a date.
Other areas of progress have seen £3.5 million invested to redesign the SWR control centre arrangements and create an industry-leading set-up to improve train performance. As part of that work, SWR is implementing enhanced decision support tools and improving training and competency management systems for controllers—lots of long words, but they refer to unbelievably important things that are going on. SWR is reforming its control centre operations, recruiting more people to improve decision making and providing information to customers during disruption. I heard very loudly indeed the complaints about communications to passengers. I have seen the complaints about communications—just type “SWR” into Twitter and have a cursory glance. The point is well made and well understood. Improving the control centre operations is a crucial part of improving performance and, ultimately, providing a better service to customers.
Other progress is being made to mitigate the biggest causes of delays within SWR’s control. It has introduced an innovative scheme that employs paramedics to work at the key London stations that are most impacted when people fall ill, and it has made significant investments in suicide prevention measures to ensure that SWR is doing as much as it can to reduce the impact of these tragic events.
The national rail passenger survey results for 2018-19 show that SWR failed to meet the expected levels against all nine benchmarks, with only 83% of passengers satisfied overall with their journey. SWR is therefore being required to make additional investment in initiatives to try to meet the contracted levels within the coming year.
There are obviously occasional strikes on the network, which are causing disruption to SWR. I understand and share the frustrations of all users of South Western Railway services who are being unnecessarily inconvenienced by the action being taken by members of the RMT union. My Department has been clear that it wants to see more people, not fewer, working on our railways so that it can deliver more services for passengers. SWR’s plans are completely in line with that. It will be employing more guards on trains in future, not fewer, and it has been clear from the outset that no one will lose their job and every service will continue to have a guard or conductor rostered to work. SWR wants to discuss with the RMT the method of operation of the new trains, which may involve transferring the task of closing the train doors from the guard to the train driver on the new suburban trains that are due to be introduced in 2020. This is a safe, well established practice that has been in place on our railways for the last 30 years. The RMT currently objects to it. We do not think that is right, but I hope that there will be proper dialogue to overcome that situation.
Forgive me, Mr Deputy Speaker, for taking a bit longer than normal, but we have a bit longer than normal and I want to address properly the points that my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North raised on behalf of her constituents.
Overcrowding continues to be an issue on this franchise. Significant investment that has already been made has seen suburban network trains lengthened from a maximum of eight cars to 10 cars. In the very first year of this franchise, SWR completed the introduction of 150 more carriages when the class 707s were introduced. Where possible, mainline services have also been lengthened using the units that were freed up by the increase in the suburban fleet. We have also introduced more terminal capacity at Waterloo by fully reopening the former Waterloo International platforms.
SWR’s plans for the franchise anticipated further capacity increases from changes to the layout of the existing fleet, the refurbishing and introduction of class 442 units, which my right hon. Friend mentioned, and the replacement of the entire suburban fleet with a new fleet of 750 carriages in Bombardier five and 10-car class 701 Aventra trains—an increase in the fleet taking it to almost 1,700 vehicles by the time that they are all in service. It is absolutely true, regrettably, that these projects are running behind schedule, but everything is being done to see those trains enter service as soon as possible.
Turning to the specific concerns of my right hon. Friend’s constituents, Mr Willey and Mr Wilson, about short formations, I am aware that, following the changes to the May timetable, a safety issue emerged with the operation of the class 442 fleet, so the trains that had been introduced have been withdrawn until the problem—electromagnetic interference with a signal, so quite a significant safety issue—has been resolved. SWR and Network Rail are working as fast as possible to resolve it.
Caroline Nokes
The Minister has referred a number of times to things being done as fast as possible and the new fleet being introduced as soon as it can be. Can he give any indication of a timescale?
Chris Heaton-Harris
I can, and I will probably get to that in a minute, because I am going through this in some detail. I will also write to my right hon. Friend to clarify completely any points that I do not pick up on in my speech.
As I said, SWR and Network Rail are working as fast as possible to resolve the issue, but in the meantime, SWR has had to make some changes to its timetable and train plan to minimise the impact on passengers. I am pleased to say that Delay Repay 15 has been introduced on the franchise and the process for claiming compensation has recently been streamlined. That includes the introduction of automated Delay Repay in the case of advance tickets bought on the franchise’s website and Touch smartcard season tickets.
I note the concerns that my right hon. Friend mentioned, on behalf of Mr Whiteman, about compensation when there is a revised timetable. Measuring entitlement against the revised timetable is an established feature of delay repay compensation policy; publishing a revised timetable is designed to help passengers plan their journey—she suggested that is a good idea—and thereby avoid delays where they can.
My right hon. Friend also asked, sensibly, about how transport strategy is joined up, citing the journey of Mr Dickerson as an example of an interesting multi-modal journey. It is of course for individuals to make decisions about what works best for their own circumstances. A train timetable has to be planned based on making best use of the capacity available to meet the forecast demand, especially at peak times. Network Rail regularly undertakes route studies as part of its long-term planning, to ensure that plans for investment in the network are developed and targeted at adding capacity where it is most needed. I am hopeful that as one of the results of the Williams review, which will come before this place in a White Paper later—we hope it will be this year—we will start to see the emergence a much more integrated system, of the type that my right hon. Friend envisages, rather than of the type that Mr Dickerson now takes part in.
All SWR trains are fitted with wi-fi, including the new trains that will arrive in 2020. By December 2020, an on-board media service of films, TV shows, magazines and games will be available on all mainline fleets.
Caroline Nokes
I think it is important to take the opportunity to press the Minister when I can. He makes the point that wi-fi is fitted—it is, but it simply does not work. It is complicated to log on to and it drops out frequently. Will he use all power to his elbow when discussing this with SWR? We know it is there, but make it better.
Chris Heaton-Harris
That discussion has already been had, so SWR is working with BT to install 31 new masts and upgrade 104 existing lineside masts to deliver better phone signal improvements for more than 90% of customer journeys. Full deployment of that will come in the next three years.
Chris Heaton-Harris
Full deployment of that will come in the next three years.
On the experience during the summer of my right hon. Friend’s constituent who uses a wheelchair, clearly this situation was handled badly and is unacceptable. I had not heard of this particular case beforehand, although I follow these cases closely in my office. I used to be the chairman of the all-party group on learning disability, and I think accessibility on our railway should be and is absolutely a priority of a modern-day rail service.
Stephen Hammond
I am pleased that the Minister is touching on this point, because I wanted to raise it. Accessibility, both for people who are disabled and for young mothers and others, is a real issue. Major stations up and down the SWR network have failed to have that step-free access implemented. I am thinking of places such as Raynes Park, in particular; currently, disabled people have to catch a taxi to Wimbledon in order to get on the train. That level of access is not acceptable.
Chris Heaton-Harris
I completely get the point that my hon. Friend is making, as well as those made by the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) and a host of other points I have picked up on since I became the Minister of State with responsibility for rail. I can honestly say that we are looking at this as hard as we can. Obviously, it would be much more helpful if people were able to book in advance, and they are able to. I know from my commute home on London Northwestern that a huge amount of investment has gone into some software at Euston and 35 people work there to ensure that disabled people or people who need help to get on and off trains can book that help in advance and get on and off in the right place. The work is being done and it is extremely important to me and to all the franchise holders.
We are continuing discussions with FirstGroup about train service operations for the future great western franchise, which will start in April 2020. The hon. Member for Bristol East has left the Chamber, but she would be interested to know that the discussions include options for the heart of Wessex line, which was a route that respondents to the public consultation suggested would benefit from improvements in the frequency of train services.
As I said in my opening remarks, SWR agrees that its general performance is not yet up to the standard that it would like, that its customers expect and that we all would expect. SWR’s joint performance improvement centre at Waterloo, which was established together with Network Rail last year, is focusing on performance improvement initiatives that should have a real impact on services. I look forward to taking my right hon. and hon. Friends to see it. SWR is working to reduce the number of incidents on the network to be more responsive to them when they occur. So, a whole host of things are going on to try to improve the situation for my right hon. Friend’s constituents and all who travel on the SWR network.
Steve Brine
I thank my constituency neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), for securing this important debate. One bit of homework that I would give to the Minister and the new ministerial team is on the issue of smart ticketing, and specifically on part-time season tickets. We had a commitment in the 2017 Conservative manifesto and, two years into the Parliament, the work is still outstanding. SWR’s carnet product is not a part-time season ticket, and my constituents see through attempts to present it as such. Work patterns are different these days and people feel that they are paying a lot of money for a five-day season ticket that they do not need. I do not ask the Minister to respond in detail at this point, but if he would write to update me on where we are with respect to that manifesto commitment on part-time season tickets, I and the good people of Winchester would be intensely grateful.
Chris Heaton-Harris
It would be a pleasure to write to my hon. Friend on those matters, and I think he will quite like the response he gets.
I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North and all Members who have taken part in this important debate. I have mentioned that the service on this part of our railways is currently absolutely not good enough, but I have spoken about the many ways in which we are trying to make improvements and to eradicate the reasons for the poor standard of performance—but there is much more to do.
Question put and agreed to.