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Oral Answers to Questions
(5 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Transport (Grant Shapps)
I want to echo the sentiments expressed yesterday by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister regarding the awful events in Grays, Essex. Inquiries are ongoing, but, having worked with the haulage industry over the past few months, I feel keenly the tragedy that has taken place, and the Department stands ready to assist in any way we can.
On 15 October, I announced that the Government would develop a world-leading transport decarbonisation plan. That will bring together the bold and ambitious programme of action across transport that is needed to achieve our net zero target by 2050.
Deidre Brock
I associate myself with the remarks of the Secretary of State about the terrible tragedy yesterday. The Scottish National party and Members across the House have been deeply shocked by it, and we hope that matters will be investigated thoroughly so that those who are guilty of this terrible crime are brought to justice as quickly as possible.
The Government’s electric car strategy is obviously not working, with sales still only at approximately 2%. Transport for London figures confirm that any successful scrappage scheme requires central Government support. The SNP has been calling for such support for years. When will the UK Government invest in a proper diesel scrappage scheme?
Grant Shapps
The figure is 2.6% for low emission and electric cars, and the hon. Lady will be aware that there has been an 122% increase in sales of electric cars this year compared with last year—indeed, I am proud to make up one small percentage of that percentage by owning one. Electric cars are fantastic, and for that reason we are about to see a big increase in the number of them on the road. There are already more public charging locations than there are petrol stations, and we will be doing a whole host of things—40 or 50 different measures—that I will describe in the decarbonisation plan. I think the hon. Lady will be pleased with a lot of the things that she sees coming along.
Stuart C. McDonald
On aircraft emissions, will the Government agree to incentivise the use of aviation biofuels? Does the Secretary of State have ambitions similar to those of the Scottish Government, who are seeking to introduce electric aircraft in the highlands and islands?
Grant Shapps
The hon. Gentleman will be interested to know that just the other day I went to see the aircraft that is being developed at Cranfield University by Britten-Norman for electric flights in the highlands and islands. The day before yesterday I had a meeting about biofuels, which are very important for meeting our commitment to net zero emissions by 2050 in aviation.
Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)
Road improvements are a key part of making transport sustainable for the future. The A30 goes all the way from London to my home town of Penzance, and part of it runs through villages and has traffic lights. Will the Minister meet me to ensure that improvements to the A30 are included in road investment strategy 2?
Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend has been fighting hard on this issue, and I would be more than happy to meet him, with the Minister of State, Department for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman), who has responsibility for roads.
Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)
Sustainability also includes safety. Last November, my constituent Priscilla Tropp suffered a fatal fall at Mill Hill Broadway station. Staff did not follow the emergency plans, and people walked over her as she lay dying. At her inquest, Govia Thameslink said it would introduce a new local incident response plan, but that has not been introduced. Can the Secretary of State advise whether that is the responsibility of the Office of Rail and Road, or some other organisation, because sustainability and safety at stations is not happening?
Grant Shapps
I am very concerned to hear about my hon. Friend’s constituent Priscilla and the way that that incident unfolded. Rail safety, in all its forms, is clearly a big concern to Members across the House, and I propose a meeting between my hon. Friend and the Minister of State, Department for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), on this issue.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
More than half of total carbon emissions in the UK come from cars on our roads, yet so far the UK Government have refused to introduce mandatory E10 fuel, which would reduce emissions. Unlike in Scotland, the UK Government remain wedded to cars that use fossil fuels until 2040. Will the Secretary of State heed the assertion by the Committee on Climate Change that action is required if the UK is to meet its targets for 2025 and 2030, let alone have zero emissions by 2050? What corrective measures will he take, and will he tell us about the exiting new measures that he spoke about earlier?
Grant Shapps
For the record, let me correct the figures given inadvertently by the hon. Gentleman. About a third of emissions come from transport, and about 90% of those are from vehicles. On the specifics, and E10 in particular, yes, I intend to move on the issue very soon.
Alan Brown
Norway has the highest per capita sales of electric vehicles in the world, and an average of 50% of new cars sold there in the first half of this year were electric vehicles. Second and third in the world are Iceland and Sweden. The UK still hovers at an average of about 2%, although the Secretary of State said 2.6% earlier. Is it not the case that Scotland could fulfil its ambitions and commitments like those Scandinavian countries if it was only independent?
Grant Shapps
The interesting thing about the countries the hon. Gentleman cites is that largely they do not produce cars. It is very, very easy if you are not a car manufacturer to introduce all sorts of measures that essentially mean that only electric cars will be favoured and sold. In this country, we have a big car manufacturing sector and we export 80% of the cars we produce. I am very anxious to move the sector to a faster timetable, but to protect jobs as well as the environment it is a question of doing that at a programmed pace. We have managed to do that so far.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
May I associate myself with the Secretary of State’s remarks concerning the terrible tragedy in Essex? The nation is reeling from that abject horror. We send our sympathies to all the families of the deceased, wherever they may be across the world. I reassure the Secretary of State that Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition will want to co-operate and work with him to take whatever steps are necessary, legislative or otherwise, to reduce the likelihood of this terrible event ever happening again.
We are in a climate crisis. Transport is the most emitting sector of the economy and the only sector where emissions have risen in recent years. Given that the Government have slashed subsidies for electric vehicles and failed to invest money promised for charging points over two years ago, does the Transport Secretary seriously believe his announcement earlier this week for a consultation on whether to introduce green number plates for electric cars is really going to save the planet?
Grant Shapps
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments about the events in Grays, Essex yesterday. We will work together on that.
Green number plates are just one very small part of a very, very large package that includes £1.5 billion to subsidise the take-up of electric cars; £400 million on a charging infrastructure investment fund, which I announced earlier in the summer, to help to supercharge the number of charge points; and many, many other activities. As I say every I time I stand at the Dispatch Box, electric cars are fantastic. They are available new and on the second-hand market. The cost of ownership overall, because it costs £5 or £6 to drive from here to Manchester and refuelling with those charge stations is much easier, is something that everybody can invest in now.
Andy McDonald
I am afraid the Transport Secretary ignores my warnings, but will he listen to the Government’s own advisers when they say the UK is way off track to meet their climate targets? Labour would invest £3.6 billion in charging networks, introduce 2.5 million interest-free loans for the purchase of electric vehicles, and target a 2030 phase-out for the sale of new diesel and petrol cars. The Government are attempting to disguise their lack of action on the climate crisis with a lick of green paint. Is the Secretary of State not embarrassed at his poverty of ambition?
Grant Shapps
As I have already said, I passionately believe in bringing this forward. I have already said that I am going to investigate moving forward from 2040 to 2035 a commitment given before the 2050 net zero, and I have a package of measures, which I was referring to before, that will be in the decarbonisation plan to ensure we meet all those targets.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (George Freeman)
May I say, Mr Speaker, what a pleasure it is to be back under your chairmanship in this new role as Minister of State for the future of transport?
On 7 October, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency entered into talks with the Public and Commercial Services Union. They have met three times. The DVSA is expecting to continue the talks, which are supported by ACAS, at the start of November.
Alex Norris
On 30 August, I met DVSA employees in Nottingham who are taking industrial action, as they want to work in an environment free from bullying and where they are listened to and valued. My hon. Friends the Members for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) and for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) and I wrote to Baroness Vere of Norbiton requesting a meeting to make these representations. She declined. Will the Minister or the Secretary of State take that meeting instead, so that they can hear important feedback from critical members of staff?
George Freeman
For the benefit of the House, I should say we are talking about the modernised employment contract for DVSA staff. This is a matter between the DVSA and staff. The impact will be two hours extra a week for training, which increases the working hours from 35 to 37. Lunch breaks are being protected. We very much hope that the union returns to the negotiations with the DVSA. I might perhaps gently ask the Labour party, which is reliant on the unions, to exercise its good influence on behalf of the travelling public.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Paul Maynard)
I understand the intense interest that there will be across the House in this issue. The Oakervee review is ongoing and will consider all three phases of the project. I met Douglas Oakervee last week for an administrative discussion about the review, and once the review is finalised the Department has committed to making it public.
Michael Fabricant
It is not just the cost of HS2, but the route: it does not even connect with Birmingham New Street or Heathrow, or meet its original intention of connecting with the channel tunnel. It does none of those. Doug Oakervee has told me that the amount of time they have to consider all this is very limited—it is very challenging indeed—and there is not enough time to consider alternative routes, so will the Minister consider giving them more time to do just that?
Paul Maynard
As I say, we have not put any time limit on Mr Oakervee’s findings, and he will report when he is ready to do so. As my hon. Friend will know, the current plans for phase 1 would see passengers connecting to Heathrow via Old Oak Common, and services would also call at Euston where passengers can make onward travel plans, including to Eurostar at King’s Cross St Pancras.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
Any change to the route of HS2 is likely to lead to further delays and extra cost. Is not the solution to HS2 to put competent people in charge of delivering it, and not to mess about with it and give an advantage to those who are opposed to it?
Paul Maynard
I have no doubt that Mr Oakervee is watching proceedings here carefully this morning to hear what colleagues have to say. That will be one of the issues that comes within his terms of reference and he will be reporting on.
Dame Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
It is reported in New Civil Engineer this morning that the advisory panel to the so-called independent Oakervee review has been asked to sign non-disclosure agreements in an attempt to stop leaks. How can it be right that a publicly funded project is again trying to conceal information about its viability by gagging the very people who have in-depth and up-to-date knowledge of this dreadful project?
Paul Maynard
Mr Oakervee is trying to ensure that he works consensually with the panel to ensure that they reach a single report. The management of the panel and the individuals on it, who cover a wide range of views, is a matter for Mr Oakervee.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
HS2 is an investment for the north of England, but it would be a lot more popular in the north of England if the trains actually stopped somewhere in the far north of England. At present, there are no plans whatsoever for HS2 trains to stop in Cumbria, even though the Lake District is the biggest visitor destination in the country after London. Will the Minister fix this immediately?
Paul Maynard
The hon. Gentleman is perhaps tempting me to go a little too far in presuming that everything is going ahead. I do not want to pre-empt Mr Oakervee’s report, but he will be aware that under the previous plans, classic-compatible trains will run north of Wigan and will therefore be able to stop at a range of stations, including Kendal, Oxenholme in the Lake District and Carlisle. That is part of what the West Coast Partnership will be able to consider.
Mr Speaker
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Aylesbury (Sir David Lidington) on his moderately demonstrative tie.
Sir David Lidington (Aylesbury) (Con)
From you, Mr Speaker, I take that as a compliment.
Will my hon. Friend instruct HS2 Ltd that it and its contractors should follow its own construction code and give local residents along phase 1 due and proper advance notice of the enabling works that it intends to carry out, instead of the high-handed, peremptory and arrogant approach that HS2 Ltd is currently taking?
Paul Maynard
I am disappointed to hear what my right hon. Friend has to say and I am more than happy to meet him to obtain further details. It is very important that HS2 Ltd continues to work with local communities rather than acting upon them when it carries out these works. I look forward to hearing further details.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Not only has the Williams review yet to see the light of day, but the Oakervee report is ready. His team has pulled out all the stops to get this to the Minister next week, so why is the Secretary of State saying that he will not publish it until after the general election? Is it because he intends to cut off the economic opportunities of the north, or is he worried that it will upset voters in the south?
Paul Maynard
I will take no lectures from the hon. Lady on how to support the north economically, or indeed, in transport terms. I am delighted that she lives in a world of alternate reality—neither the Secretary of State nor I have received Mr Oakervee’s report. She clearly knows more than I do, or maybe she is making it up. [Interruption.]
Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)
Sir Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)
Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Transport (Grant Shapps)
I take the performance of the railway very seriously and think that trains should run on time, which is why I have changed the industry’s performance standard from trains being five or even 10 minutes late to their being on time to the minute.
Robert Courts
Commuters in west Oxfordshire have long been frustrated by reliability problems on the Cotswold line. What support can Ministers offer me and the Cotswold line promotion group? The group is campaigning for further redoubling on the line, which will not only improve reliability but will give us scope to increase the services available.
Grant Shapps
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his tireless campaigning for improvements on the Cotswold line. The line will benefit very soon from the Great Western Railway timetable change in December, which will offer shorter journey times and more frequent services to key locations. Moreover, services from North Cotswold via Oxford and London will be restructured to deliver more, and more consistent, services. So I feel that my hon. Friend’s campaign is making progress.
Sir Henry Bellingham
Will the Secretary of State give us an update on the investment in Ely north junction, which is pivotal to the introduction of a half-hourly service from London to King’s Lynn as well as improving services from Cambridge to Norwich? Will he work alongside Network Rail and local authorities to ensure that this vital scheme is delivered?
Grant Shapps
I certainly will. The project is currently being scoped, and I should be happy to work on it with my hon. Friend and Network Rail.
Sir David Evennett
As my right hon. Friend is well aware, in my borough of Bexley we suffer from a very poor rail service operated by Southeastern. We experience regular cancellations—including the cancellation of my train this morning—and persistent short delays. What more can my right hon. Friend do to get our train company to improve punctuality and reliability?
Grant Shapps
I know that my right hon. Friend recently met the rail Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris). He is absolutely right: poor services are unacceptable, which is why the Williams review is so important. I do not agree that nationalisation is the answer, not least because railway numbers have doubled since privatisation. [Interruption.] It has a lot to do with the £6 billion invested by the private companies. However, there is much, much more to be done, and we will be doing more in time.
Andrew Lewer
Will the Minister elaborate on the plans to open the proposed Market Harborough line as part of the Oxford to Cambridge expressway and the benefits that it will bring to the local economy, especially around Northampton?
Grant Shapps
I understand that the reopening is at a formative stage, but I am very supportive of it. Indeed, I support the reopening of many of the smaller lines that were closed as a result of the Beeching cuts under a Labour Government, and I should like to see as many reopened as possible.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
I, too, would like to meet the rail Minister, to talk about the Southeastern franchise, the tender for which has been postponed. I should like to see trains from Victoria on the new Eltham to Mottingham line; I should like to see them retained on the Eltham and Falconwood line; and I should like to see extra capacity, so may I have a meeting with the Minister to discuss how we are going to do that?
Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend the rail Minister has informed me that he has met many of the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues and will be happy to meet him as well, as will I.
Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)
Grant Shapps
I think that the hon. Lady may be referring to the Hope Valley line. I should be very happy to speak to her about it in more detail and look forward to our meeting up.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
Confidence in Northern Rail has collapsed among commuters in my constituency as a result of delays, cancellations and poor-quality rolling stock over a number of years. Just how bad does the service have to get before Ministers take action and take the franchise away from this failing company?
Grant Shapps
Perhaps the hon. Lady missed it, but I mentioned to the Transport Committee last week that I had already issued a request for the proposal, which, as she will know, is the first stage towards either a direct award or a last-resort operation. I agree that poor service is unacceptable, and the financial problems are well documented.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
The Ebbw Vale to Cardiff line is critical to Blaenau Gwent’s economy, but with growing demand we urgently need physical improvements in the line. There is a complicated UK Government, Welsh Government and Network Rail problem here. Will the Secretary of State, or one of his Ministers, meet me, Welsh Government Ministers and transport officials to discuss this important issue?
Grant Shapps
Yes, and the hon. Gentleman will be interested to know that I had a conversation yesterday about setting up exactly such a meeting for those purposes. So the answer is yes.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Bus patronage varies across the country, and as a bus champion I am pleased to say that catching a bus is the most popular form of public transport. Hon. Members will want to know that we continue to invest in our bus services with further additional funding of £220 million through the better deal for bus users package, which will also include £30 million paid directly to local authorities to improve current or new services.
Liz Twist
For many people, including those in my constituency, bus routes are a lifeline, but Tory cuts to bus funding have meant over 3,000 routes have been cut or withdrawn in England alone. Does the Minister think it is right that people and communities are cut off from work, leisure and healthcare facilities by the withdrawal of routes, and what is her plan, beyond what she has already mentioned, to ensure she restores lost connectivity?
Ms Ghani
I thank the hon. Lady for her question which enables me to elaborate on the further funding that is available, but of course we know the importance of bus services; not only do they get people to work, but they ensure connectivity across our communities. As well as the £220 million of additional funding, we have the £1 billion for concessionary fares, but also the transformative £2.5 billion for the transforming cities fund, which also looks at reducing congestion. The hon. Lady talked about the reduction in services in England, but she may want to know that the highest number of bus services cut in the United Kingdom are of course in Labour-led Wales.
Kerry McCarthy
Bristol has bucked the trend of declining bus use, and under the Bristol bus deal we are investing in bus prioritisation measures and infrastructure, and in return the bus operators are investing in new commuter services, but we remain the only core city without a mass transit system; what can the Government do to help us realise our ambitions on that front?
Ms Ghani
I was pleased to visit Bristol and jump on a bus there, and it does indeed have a fantastic service. Patronage has gone up by 50%—[Interruption.] Well, it is getting better and better, and the numbers are indeed going up. One reason why the numbers are going up is that bus service operators are open to working with the local authority and making data available. One thing that we are doing, because of our Bus Services Act 2017, is ensuring the bus open data digital service is available for even more people. We know what people want, especially younger people: absolutely accurate detail on when their bus is arriving, how along the journey will take, and how much it will cost.
Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)
Ms Ghani
My hon. Friend is a good champion for North Cornwall, and of course the fantastic £1 around town initiative will be hugely successful. Rural buses are absolutely key for rural constituencies, including mine in Wealden, and from 2020 the One public transport proposals for Cornwall will integrate buses with rail services to provide passengers with better public transport solutions, low fares and higher frequency buses.
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
When pensioners in my constituency go to visit friends and family in England, they find that their concessionary bus pass does not work, so will the Minister please speak to the Welsh Transport Minister about making the bus passes in Wales and England compatible? It surely cannot be a difficult problem to fix and it is regularly raised with me as a source of frustration among pensioners.
Ms Ghani
That is indeed not a difficult problem to fix and I am more than willing to sit down with my Welsh counterparts to ensure that that is done. We have made more than £1 billion available for concessionary bus passes, and it is absolutely key that older people and those with disabilities can use our public transport system.
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
There is no doubt that our bus services are in crisis. Funding has been slashed by £645 million a year in real terms since 2010; over 3,000 routes have been cut, as we heard earlier; and fares have soared by two and a half times the increase in wages. It is hardly surprising that passenger numbers have fallen by 10%. Millions of pensioners, young people and commuters who rely on buses deserve an apology, so will the Minister now apologise for her Government’s complete and utter failure in this area?
Ms Ghani
It is remarkable that the hon. Gentleman, who represents a Reading constituency, will not even recognise the progress that has been made with local bus services in Reading, where numbers are going up. Even in places such as Liverpool, where better packages have been put together for younger people, numbers are definitely going up. I am more than happy to come to the Dispatch Box and talk about the new £220 million fund that is being made available. The hon. Gentleman talks about bus fares. They are indeed an issue for local authorities and train operating companies to take up, but unfortunately, Opposition Front Benchers have forgotten their history; when they were in office, bus fares went up twice as fast as they have under this Government.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Chris Heaton-Harris)
Flights between the UK and the EU will continue whatever the outcome of our EU exit. We are working with airports to ensure that freight can continue to flow and that any disruption to passengers is kept to a minimum. Aviation security in the UK will remain among the best in the world and passengers will not notice any change to airport security screening at UK airports as a result of EU exit.
Dr Whitford
Maintenance, repair and overhaul of aircraft is a major and growing industry at Prestwick airport in my constituency. With the Prime Minister’s preferred Brexit deal just one week away, what has already been put in place to provide the engineering licences and aircraft safety certificates currently provided by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency?
Chris Heaton-Harris
The first obvious point is that if the hon. Lady voted for the deal, we would go into the revised political declaration, which commits both the parties to uphold high safety and security standards and make arrangements to maintain close co-operation between the CAA and EASA. However, the Commission has already published proposals to extend its contingency measures for aviation until October 2020, were we to leave without a deal.
Sir Vince Cable (Twickenham) (LD)
Whatever happens to Brexit, some of us have been greatly encouraged by the comments of the Secretary of State, of the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the right hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), and yesterday of the Prime Minister in their lukewarm response to Heathrow expansion. Can the hon. Gentleman help resolve the contradiction between the official Government policy of encouraging airport expansion at Heathrow and their unofficial policy of opposing it?
Chris Heaton-Harris
I believe those arguments are entirely sustainable, and I am happy for the right hon. Gentleman to continue that conversation with the Prime Minister.
Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (George Freeman)
Transport in the Greater London area is devolved to the Mayor and delivered on his behalf by TfL. The Department continues to fund investment in major transport projects benefiting London, such as Crossrail and the Thameslink upgrade. The Department is also working with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to plan transport infrastructure as part of sustainable house building, particularly through the housing infrastructure fund and the garden communities programme.
Andrew Rosindell
I thank the Minister for his response, but has he looked into the possibility of expanding his investment programme to the Gallows Corner area of my constituency—a major hub from Essex into London? Its 50-year-old structure now needs to be replaced. Is it not time that the Government stepped in to make sure that this happens?
George Freeman
I am delighted to confirm that we are indeed stepping in. My hon. Friend is a dogged advocate of the needs of Romford and, along with his companion Buster, has done more than anyone to put this subject on the map. I know that as well as Brexit he wants “Hexit”—he wants control of Havering taken back into Essex. However, I can confirm that we are looking at this scheme with TfL to develop a series of major structural renewals at Gallows Corner, as announced by the Government in October 2018.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)
I am pleased that last week, TfL launched its new consultation on the Bakerloo line extension. Will the Minister commit to exploring funding options for that scheme with HM Treasury and TfL?
George Freeman
Those conversations are ongoing, and I am aware that the hon. Lady met the rail Minister last week.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
On the grounds that Thurrock is somewhat more geographically deserving than Truro and Falmouth in respect of this question, I call Jackie Doyle-Price.
Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)
Plans to deliver 3,000 new homes in Purfleet in my constituency have ground to a halt following Highways England’s decision to reject any planning application for more than 250 houses due to pressure on the A13. I find it difficult to explain to my constituents why Highways England is putting a new motorway through Thurrock while preventing us from planning and delivering new homes. Will the Minister meet me to discuss the matter?
George Freeman
Yes, I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend. She will be pleased to know that the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Department for Transport are working on the much closer integration of housing and transport.
Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)
High Speed 1 is one of the most successful pieces of infrastructure at enabling commuting into London. Indeed, it is so successful and reliable that many services, particularly at peak hours, are massively overcrowded. In the Department’s radical look at the future of the rail network, will Ministers consider the provision of extra rolling stock on HS1, so that my constituents in Ashford and people in other places along the lines can have more comfortable journeys to and from work?
George Freeman
My right hon. Friend makes a typically excellent point, and I am delighted to confirm that the rail Minister met the relevant decision makers yesterday to discuss that proposal.
Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (George Freeman)
On 23 July 2019, the Government announced a review of the available evidence to see whether a more flexible approach to the regulations permitting the use of red flashing lights by road recovery operators may be appropriate. The Department is in the process of commissioning the study, and a decision to review the regulations will be taken once the study has reported.
Tracey Crouch
I am grateful for that response. The partner of my constituent Sam was killed while recovering a vehicle on the M25. Since then, she and others have been campaigning for the roadside recovery industry to be able to use red lights, rather than amber, during recoveries. The police and others have now dropped their objections, and the science shows a difference in reactions to amber light and red light, so will the Minister now give the green light to the change?
George Freeman
I congratulate my hon. Friend on her campaign, and the whole House sends its condolences to her constituent. Our motorways are actually the safest roads, but she raises an important point. If the public feel that the use of red lights will help them feel safer, we will be minded, after looking at the evidence, to approve the change.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
My constituent Jason Mercer is dead because of the Government’s ill-conceived all-lane-running scheme on the M1. Will the Minister please meet me and Claire Mercer, Jason’s widow, to discuss the safety implications of the scheme and the stopping of next year’s roll-out?
George Freeman
Yes, I would be delighted to meet the hon. Lady, as will the Roads Minister, Baroness Vere. I am also delighted to confirm that the Secretary of State will be announcing a short review so that we can deal with that problem quickly.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Many of my constituents have told me about car headlights that seem undipped or exceptionally bright. This is a slightly different issue from the one we are discussing, but will there be regulations to ensure that headlights do not have an impact upon vehicles coming the other way? These lights can cause accidents.
George Freeman
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. We are going to take a quick look at the evidence and introduce a framework to ensure that people are safe on the edges of our motorways and that drivers know that the right regulations have been put in place for them.
Craig Tracey (North Warwickshire) (Con)
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (George Freeman)
Since 2015, we have doubled our capital investment in the transport system, and we are investing over £72 billion in transport infrastructure in the five years to 2020-21. The Prime Minister has set out his commitment to enhancing and levelling up connectivity across the country, and we are investing an average of £248 per person in the north, compared with £236 per person in the south.
Craig Tracey
One of the main projects that has been identified as essential for future economic growth in the midlands is the A5 upgrade in north Warwickshire. Will the Minister commit to working with me, the A5 partnership and Midlands Connect to help deliver these vital improvements?
George Freeman
Yes. My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and we are in discussions right now on that important golden triangle. We will shortly be announcing our plans for the A5 in the road investment strategy.
Fiona Bruce
Middlewich is clearly on the Government’s map for both road and rail investment, with £50 million for a bypass and funding for the business case for reopening the railway station. Will the Minister assure me that both projects are continuing at pace, and will he meet me to discuss it?
George Freeman
Yes, I am delighted to reassure my hon. Friend that we will make sure the pace is kept up and that the change in political control does not slow it down. We will make a decision on the final funding once a business case has been properly considered.
On the reinstatement of passenger rail services via Middlewich, my officials are now working with local partners on the development of that business case, which we will consider with Transport for the North.
Kevin Hollinrake
The A64, which runs through my constituency and the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill), is desperately in need of dualling. Will the Minister answer the calls of all MPs, businesses, local authorities, residents and hundreds of thousands of tourists and commit to this very important project?
George Freeman
My hon. Friend has been a tireless campaigner for the A64, and I can assure him that his message, both today and in his various correspondence and meetings, has been heard loud and clear. We will shortly be announcing the second road investment strategy, as promised in the first. We have plans for the A64, so I urge him just to wait for a few weeks and months.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
For economic growth to be properly supported, transport infrastructure needs to be properly accessible, so will the Minister and the Government commit to making sure that every local railway station, such as Lawrence Hill and Stapleton Road in my constituency, is fully accessible?
George Freeman
The hon. Lady makes an excellent point—I have a railway station in my constituency that is in desperate need of disability access—and that is why we have launched the Access for All programme. We will be looking to make sure that all those stations with the most urgent access challenges are sorted in the right order.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
Buses are a very important part of transport infrastructure, and my constituents will benefit enormously from the announcement by the metro Mayor of the Liverpool city region, Steve Rotheram, of a new metrocard. When will we improve bus service integration across the country by ensuring that we have a single smartcard, not different cards in different parts of the country?
George Freeman
I note the omission of thanks for the major package of investment in bus infrastructure, and I simply make the point that the Mayor has those powers. I am leading the Department’s work on smart ticketing, and we are keen to see Transport for the North and the Mayor lead that programme so people in that area can have integrated ticketing.
Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)
I am sure the Minister shares my frustration that rail passengers in the north will have to continue enduring the use of Pacer trains well into 2020, despite assurances from Northern that they would be taken out of service by the end of this year. Does he believe that passengers should be compensated as a result?
George Freeman
The Department shares the disappointment that the new rolling stock has been delayed. Pacer trains are not fit for purpose for the 21st century. Northern retired the first of its 102 Pacers in August, and it plans to remove two thirds by December 2019. Northern advises that, subject to receiving appropriate dispensation, up to 34 Pacers will remain in the fleet, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are determined to make sure the fleet is properly modernised.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Labour knows the true value of connecting towns and cities across the north. Our integrated transport plan will invest in public transport, in public ownership, to work for the passengers not the shareholders. We will start by investing £39 billion in the whole Crossrail for the north project. How much will the Minister commit to the project today—only £15 billion?
George Freeman
I think the nation will be interested to hear the Opposition Front Bench team announcing major plans for investment, given that their economic plans will see a massive loss of investment in this country and massive economic damage. We can fund good transport infrastructure and a good NHS only when we have economic growth. The truth is that this Government are proceeding with the biggest investment package in road, rail and infrastructure in this country since the Victorians—£72 billion—and we are spending more per head on passengers in the north than in the south. This Government have the interests of the north at their heart.
Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Paul Maynard)
My Department and the Civil Aviation Authority have conducted assurance work on the financing and affordability of expansion proposals. This has concluded that, so far as can be assessed at this stage and assuming current market conditions, Heathrow is in principle able to privately finance expansion, but we will continue to monitor this as plans mature.
Adam Afriyie
Given the compounding costs and constraints on a third runway at Heathrow, it seems unlikely that it will ever be built. What Heathrow has succeeded in doing is blocking its more competitive rivals from building extra capacity. In that light, when will the Government review their decision?
Paul Maynard
The airports national policy includes a requirement that any developers should demonstrate that their scheme is cost-efficient and sustainable, and that it seeks to minimise costs over its lifetime. It is a responsibility of scheme developers to follow the process set out in the Planning Act 2008 and to submit proposals to the Planning Inspectorate. We will consider the merits of potential schemes before referring them to the decision-making Minister with the recommendation.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the right hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) says it is “bonkers”, the Transport Secretary doubts that it stacks up financially and yesterday the Prime Minister told me that he has “lively doubts” about it. When will the Government stop playing with the lives of millions of people in the west of London and cancel this disastrous project?
Paul Maynard
The prudent thing for the relevant Minister to do is stick within the airports national policy, which was endorsed by this House with a large majority, and the decision by the House to back a third runway at Heathrow, which was also endorsed by an overwhelming majority.
Justine Greening (Putney) (Ind)
Does the Minister at least agree that it is important to give people and local communities the information they need to understand the decision that has been taken? Notwithstanding the Prime Minister’s words in Prime Minister’s questions yesterday, the Department is still pressing ahead with this very unpopular transport project and neither reviewing, nor reversing it.
Paul Maynard
In an attempt to seek some degree of agreement with the right hon. Lady, since I came into this role I have made a point of meeting community groups across the south-east, as well as the airports, to understand their concerns and how we can try to resolve some of the trust deficit that clearly exists between the two sides.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
Given the direct air connectivity between Northern Ireland and Heathrow, and indeed the Greater London airports, will the Minister ensure that he discusses with the Treasury the ongoing issue of air passenger duty, where our airports are at a significant disadvantage to those in the Irish Republic?
Paul Maynard
I am always cautious at the Dispatch Box not to trespass on the territory of APD, which is a matter for the Treasury, but I am sure the hon. Gentleman would welcome the renewal of the public service obligation to service the City of Derry airport.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Transport (Grant Shapps)
Now that the repatriation of those Thomas Cook passengers is complete, my focus is on the next steps, including the announcement in the Queen’s Speech that the airline insolvency review will be turned into an Act of Parliament.
Peter Grant
May I first pay tribute to the staff of Thomas Cook in Glenrothes, who for a great many years have provided my constituents, and indeed myself, with a very professional and courteous service? Last week, the Government finally admitted that no Minister had spoken to Thomas Cook directly before the company collapsed. The Secretary of State claimed that the company could not be saved, but then some parts of the company in other countries were indeed saved. Will he now accept that if the Government had engaged sooner with Thomas Cook, they could have mitigated the impact of this failure, fewer people would have lost their jobs, the cost to the taxpayer would have been less and fewer people would have seen their holidays ruined?
Grant Shapps
That is simply not correct. I met the chief executive of the company on 9 September, and I have checked my closing words to him at that meeting, which were—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman might want to listen. My closing words to that company and to the chief executive were: “If there is anything that Her Majesty’s Government could do then please get in touch.” The response was: “There is nothing that can be done at this time.” Later, on 18 September, he wrote to the Government asking for not the £200 million that has been reported, but up to £250 million. That decision would have required accounting officer sign-off for a company with debt of perhaps £1.7 billion or, we now hear, perhaps even £3 billion. It simply would not have stacked up. We would have spent all the money that has been spent on repatriation in any case, as well as money to bail out a company that had enormous debts.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
The travel industry has a proud record of pulling together when a company goes under, and that happened in the Thomas Cook case. Thomas Cook would have had an air travel organisers’ licence, so the money that was used to repatriate people from abroad should be recovered from that fund, which is levied on the travel industry. The net cost to the Government should therefore be very small.
Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend is right, at least in part. The ATOL coverage will cover a large proportion of the cost. However, the company was an airline as well as a travel company and, as my hon. Friend will be aware, airlines are not currently covered under ATOL—that is part of the review. In any case, we will ensure that laws are in place to make sure that the fleet can be used regardless.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
The truth is that it is shocking that this Government let down Thomas Cook staff. They lost their livelihoods while the gaffers got rich off their bonuses. The subsidiaries Condor in Germany, Thomas Cook in Spain and Thomas Cook in Sweden are still flying. The Government have stood by and let the business in the UK fail. When the Secretary of State gets to his feet, will he just say sorry for letting down all those hard-working staff and the British taxpayer?
Grant Shapps
The whole House and, indeed, the whole country is aware that those on the Opposition Front Bench do not understand how an economy functions.
Grant Shapps
If there was any possible way to ensure the survival of a company whose directors were allegedly being paid millions of pounds—it is interesting to hear that the Opposition want us to have backed those millions of pounds of bonuses with yet more money from the public purse—we would have done it, but, as I said, it would have required accounting officer direction, because it simply did not stack up. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the reality is that Hays Travel has come in and rescued many of those jobs, because well-run companies survive. Poorly run companies cannot survive.
Mr Speaker
Observers of our proceedings will doubtless have heard the sedentary exclamations of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner), who is further validating the assertion that I make to audiences around the world, which is that he is the loudest Member of the House.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Transport (Grant Shapps)
Mr Speaker, this is my first topical questions session and my last opportunity with you in the Chair. I have been in post for 93 days and, with your permission, will give a couple of quick updates.
I know the House is concerned about smart motorways. I have heard those concerns being raised today and previously, and I have asked my Department to carry out, at pace, an evidence stocktake to gather the facts quickly and make recommendations.
As we have heard, my Department was involved in Operation Matterhorn, which successfully repatriated the most people to this country since the second world war. We are also getting ready for Brexit and, of course, decarbonising transport.
Daniel Zeichner
There was widespread disappointment across the taxi and private hire sector last week when the Secretary of State indicated to the Transport Committee that he would not be bringing forward legislation to tackle some of the safety issues relating to licensing. He will know that councils can introduce high standards but cannot enforce them against drivers who are licensed elsewhere. Will he think about that again?
Grant Shapps
The hon. Gentleman pressed me hard on this matter in the Select Committee sitting, and I have done some work on it before and since. We intend to go down the statutory taxi and private hire vehicle standards approach, with standardised checks and a national database. I have spoken to Professor Mohammed Abdel-Haq, who is present in the Gallery and who chaired the task and finish group. I invite the hon. Gentleman, along with others in the House, to join us in that programme, and I thank him.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
Grant Shapps
I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for his work on this matter, and particularly for action in commissioning that task and finish group. I absolutely look forward to working with him, other Members across the House and the maritime Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani), who deals with this issue as well.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
Grant Shapps
I should just clarify for the hon. Gentleman that we are not going out to consultation; we are in fact acting on statutory taxi and private hire vehicle standards.
Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)
Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, of course, that Transport for London has a big impact on constituencies outside, including mine in Welwyn Hatfield. I do note, however, that there are widely differing views, including in my area, for example, where people would welcome more Transport for London involvement. In his area, perhaps the opposite is the case. I do think that it is a case of making sure that whatever we do fits in with the Williams review and the White Paper, which is to be published shortly.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Chris Heaton-Harris)
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I actually met her about this and other subjects only a couple of weeks ago. My officials, along with Ministry of Housing officials, are currently working with TfL to understand the case for the Bakerloo line extension and how it interacts with housing proposals, and I expect to be able to report more very shortly.
Dame Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
Grant Shapps
My right hon Friend has campaigned on this issue, quite rightly, for a very long time, and she gives me the opportunity to correct something that was suggested from the Front Bench earlier, which is that I somehow have a copy of the report, which I absolutely do not. I have not seen any of it, not even its emerging conclusions. When Oakervee is ready, he will present that report. I stick with everything I said. This is very important. As soon as we have this information, I will make it available to the House. As for non-disclosures, there are, of course, sensitive commercial matters involved in these things, and it is important that all members of the panel work together without releasing those inadvertently in a manner that would be commercially problematic. None the less, I do agree with the basic principle that, as soon as the information is available, this House will have it.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
We have put together a £2 million fund to help smaller bus companies make audio-visual information available, and that should come into place next year. It is a part of our inclusive transport strategy and I believe that we are the first country to have such a strategy: to align ourselves with UN goals to enable people with disabilities to access public transport as easily as those who do not have disabilities.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (George Freeman)
I am delighted to say that the noble Baroness Vere who deals with these issues and I met yesterday, and we both commend my hon. Friend for her leadership on this issue. This has been a very serious emergency situation, causing huge congestion in her part of the world, and we are determined to ensure that we get the solution right. That means not necessarily rebuilding what was there before, but getting a proper state-of-the-art solution.
Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)
Grant Shapps
The hon. Lady may be surprised to hear that I agree with her. Some of these salaries—in both road and rail—have gone off the scale, and I am already addressing the issue.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
Many of my constituents think that, as far as the Government are concerned, “northern powerhouse” only means Leeds and Manchester, so will the Secretary of State prove my constituents wrong by unequivocally committing to a station stop in Bradford for Northern Powerhouse Rail, which is vital for the local economy?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Paul Maynard)
I am sure that my hon. Friend has heard what the Prime Minister has had to say on this matter. He will also know that Transport for the North is looking at options including Bradford for trans-Pennine links. I am immensely sympathetic to his argument.
John Grogan (Keighley) (Lab)
Chris Heaton-Harris
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will recognise the work that has been done on this issue by other Members of Parliament, including my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith). The feasibility work is still in progress, and we are pressing further to assess whether the proposed scheme can be made affordable, will attract sufficient traffic and is part of the right long-term solution for all trans-Pennine rail traffic. The hon. Gentleman will have seen that the issue featured in the rail network enhancements pipeline publication earlier this week.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
Constituents across Gloucestershire will be delighted with the additional 5,000 seats a day of rail capacity between Gloucester and Paddington. Can the Minister tell me when we might also expect additional capacity on the important and very popular Gloucester to Bristol line, which would be welcomed by the Mayor of the West of England, my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Luke Hall) and our excellent candidate in Stroud, Siobhan Baillie?
Chris Heaton-Harris
My hon. Friend has been campaigning on this issue, possibly since the day he was born; he is certainly in my ear about it all the time. Increasing frequency on local Great Western Railway trains is the best way in which to provide additional frequency and seats on the route, and this is likely to be provided as an extension of MetroWest additional services for Bristol to Yate, with the Department funding Yate to Gloucester. MetroWest proposals are under development by GWR as part of the next franchise, which will start in April 2020.
Mr Speaker
Transport without a brake would be like a car without a driver—Tom Brake.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
In relation to Operation Yellowhammer, may I ask the Secretary of State what role the 300 troops and 180 police officers who are to be put on standby will play in policing the transport network in and around the port of Portsmouth, and how many other troops and police may be deployed at other ports?
Chris Heaton-Harris
It is always a pleasure to respond to the happy-go-lucky Member for Carshalton and Wallington, especially on the matter of Brexit because I was reading his website last night, on which he says,
“clearly this was a democratic vote and we must abide by this decision”
—something that he has forgotten, I believe. My Department is operationalising Yellowhammer, and I will happily write to the right hon. Gentleman with the details he requires.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Ah, let us call a Member who used to have responsibility for buses and various other forms of transport at different times—Mr Andrew Jones.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
After a widely supported and successful campaign against a relief road in Harrogate, the transport authority is now looking at a package of sustainable measures to take transport forward in the area. What support will the Government provide to North Yorkshire County Council and other such councils developing sustainable transport packages?
George Freeman
My hon. Friend raises an excellent point. We are currently in the midst of talking to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government about a much more fundamental integration of housing and transport through the housing infrastructure fund. I will happily meet my hon. Friend to talk this through to make sure that it works for local places so that housing comes with proper transport.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
Further to the Secretary of State’s earlier comments on the intention to carry out a review of the safety of smart motorways and all-lane running, he will know that the Transport Committee questioned Highways England on this yesterday. Is that review being carried out in the Department or by someone independent? I would be grateful if he clarified that.
Grant Shapps
I watched with great interest the evidence from Highways England in front of the Committee yesterday and noted the comments of the chief exec. I will ensure that the Department is making decisions on this, because some of the statistics have been difficult to understand. We know that people are dying on smart motorways. We also know that 70 or 80 people a year die on full motorways. Understanding whether smart motorways are less safe, the same or safer turns out not to be as straightforward as Members might imagine. I want all the facts and I want recommendations that could be put in place to ensure that all our motorways are as safe as they possibly can be. I will get this done in a matter of weeks.
Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
Growing towns and villages in my constituency need investment in cycle and walking infrastructure. Will the Secretary of State join my representations to the Treasury at the forthcoming Budget to make sure that there is dedicated funding for villages and towns to expand this infrastructure?
Chris Heaton-Harris
Yes, we are working with cycling groups up and down the country to do exactly that.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
TransPennine rail services between Leeds and Manchester through Stalybridge and Mossley are clearly vital to this country. The previous Government changed their mind quite a lot on improvements, including on full electrification. What is this Secretary of State’s policy on TransPennine rail upgrades, and will he meet me to hear some sensible suggestions on the way forward?
Paul Maynard
I am happy to meet the hon. Gentleman. I am very interested and cannot wait.
Several hon. Members rose—
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
The Secretary of State will have heard my exchange with the Prime Minister yesterday when he agreed with me on submitting proposals for free port status for the Humber ports, an upgrade to the A15, and improved east-west rail freight capacity. Will the Secretary of State indicate his support, and will he agree to meet me and a delegation to discuss the matter?
Ms Ghani
It is good to see my hon. Friend back on his feet promoting everything in his constituency, including free ports. I will of course be more than happy to sit down and meet a delegation, although I am a bit concerned about how large it will be. I am pleased to be working with the Department for International Trade and the Treasury to ensure that the ports that want it get the free port status that they require.
Several hon. Members rose—
Andy McDonald
I am grateful, Mr Speaker. In our exchanges on Question 3, my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) raised her concerns about the delayed publication of the Oakervee report. The Minister responded by saying that she was making it up. I can assure you, Mr Speaker, that when my hon. Friend comes to the Dispatch Box she does not make things up—she tells the truth. If the Minister has inadvertently used language that he ought not to, perhaps he could come to the Dispatch Box right now and withdraw the slur that he has laid against her immediately, without any qualification.
Mr Speaker
It is incumbent upon a Minister to own up if he or she considers an error to have been made. I would simply say that as a matter of fact Members must be assumed to speak what they believe to be true. It all happened very quickly, and I did mutter at the time that a Member will say only what he or she believes. So it was, I think, infelicitous, at the very least, and a gracious withdrawal would be appreciated.
Paul Maynard
I have not received the said report, but I am happy to clarify the point and I withdraw the exact comment.
Mr Speaker
I am extremely grateful to the Minister. I thank him for that and we will leave it there.
Checks on Goods: Northern Ireland and Great Britain
(5 years ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union if he will make a statement regarding checks on goods moving from Northern Ireland to Great Britain and Great Britain to Northern Ireland under the current withdrawal agreement.
The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Stephen Barclay)
On 17 October, the United Kingdom and the European Union reached political agreement on a new withdrawal agreement and political declaration for the future relationship. That includes a revised protocol for Northern Ireland, which has been extensively debated in this House. The agreement is clear that Great Britain and Northern Ireland are one customs territory. Goods that are not at risk of moving to the European Union will attract no tariffs. These arrangements mean that Northern Ireland would remain in the UK’s customs territory and could benefit from the UK’s new trade deals with third countries. Goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland that are destined for the European Union will have to comply with European Union rules. To ensure that the correct tariffs are applied and that goods comply with the rules of the single regulatory zone, some information will be needed on goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.
The deal also explicitly allows the United Kingdom to ensure unfettered market access for goods moving from Northern Ireland to Great Britain. There will be minimal targeted interventions designed to prevent, for example, trade in endangered species, which I would have thought the House agreed on. We will work with the European Union to eliminate those limited processes as soon as possible after Brexit. The most important point is that the arrangements automatically dissolve after four years unless a majority of the Northern Ireland Assembly in Stormont votes to keep them.
Tony Lloyd
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question, which really does matter.
There is confusion at the very heart of government. Yesterday, the Prime Minister told the House there would be “no checks” and “no tariffs” between Northern Ireland and Great Britain; that is in direct contradiction to what the Secretary of State just told the House. It is in contradiction with the steadily progressing views expressed in different statements from the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the Justice Secretary, who said last night on “Newsnight” that there will be checks in both directions—from GB to Northern Ireland, and Northern Ireland to GB. The manifest confusion at the heart of government is compounded by the confusion for businesses in Northern Ireland—particularly small businesses—and the Northern Ireland civil service in planning for the long term. That is simply unacceptable. The Government were trying to ram the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill through the House in three days, but they themselves do not properly understand what they are doing. That is problematic, and we need absolute clarity.
While this is outside the Secretary of State’s immediate brief, there are other consequences. The House spent a long time arguing that there should be no hard border across the island of Ireland to prevent an impact on the nationalist community; we did not think we would now be talking about the impact on the Unionist community and political Unionism. The new Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland said:
“whatever ends up as a Brexit deal, if there is one that could be perceived in a way that sort of threatens the security of the loyalist community...our concern is also the loyalist community has at times shown it can mobilise quickly, bring large numbers of people on to the streets and engage in public disorder in support of their cause.”
I hope that every Member takes that warning very seriously, because it is a profound warning from a senior and experienced police officer.
I have a number of specific questions for the Secretary of State. First, what overall impact assessment have the Government made for the Northern Ireland economy? What assessment have they made for trading ports and airports in Scotland, Wales and England? Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs estimates that each declaration for shipments from Great Britain to Northern Ireland will cost between £15 and £56, and Border Force says that a “minimum amount” of electronic information will be required for movements from west to east. When will the Secretary of State be able to give certainty to businesses about what the checks will be and how they will be undertaken? If the Justice Secretary was right when he told “Newsnight” that there would be checks from Northern Ireland to Great Britain, when will we know the detail of what those checks will be, rather than their being superficially dismissed as of no importance?
In the end, the Government have to put an end to this confusion. Will the Secretary of State guarantee that he will make an early statement to the House about the full impact of the checks in both directions? Does he accept the warning of the Chief Constable about the potential impact and do the Government take that seriously? If so, what is their assessment? Finally, I have to ask about a political point, although it is an important one: does the Secretary of State believe that the Prime Minister himself at last understands the impact of his deal on Northern Ireland and on the relationship between Northern Ireland and the rest of our country?
Stephen Barclay
I know that the House and the hon. Gentleman take these issues very seriously. He raises some very legitimate points, which I will seek to address.
First and foremost was the hon. Gentleman’s concern about any hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. I am happy to give him assurances on that; it is a key part of what the Government have agreed. If he looks at the preamble to the Northern Ireland protocol, he will see clear commitments from the EU and the UK to the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. It states that
“nothing in this Protocol prevents the United Kingdom from ensuring unfettered market access for goods moving from Northern Ireland to the rest of the United Kingdom”.
The hon. Gentleman also raised a legitimate concern about the statement from the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland. The Government take it incredibly seriously, and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland liaises closely with the Chief Constable and other senior officers. This is one reason why it is important to get the Executive back up and running, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman agrees. Part of the reason why the Government extended article 50, for which they were criticised at the time, was precisely that the previous Prime Minister took those concerns very seriously, and we have continued to work with the PSNI to address them. However, I remind the hon. Gentleman that one of the central concerns is the potential impact of no deal on the border, which is another reason it is important that the House comes together and agrees a deal, because that is the best way of safeguarding the Belfast/Good Friday agreement and addressing those concerns.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the comments of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister was distinguishing between the paperwork required, which will be done digitally and is a single form, and the introduction of physical checks. In the coming months, we will work within the United Kingdom and with the European Union to discuss how to eliminate the limited administrative processes that there are. The hon. Gentleman will know that article 6 of the protocol requires further work through the Joint Committee to minimise any impact. That is an ongoing commitment.
The hon. Gentleman made a valid point about certainty for business. It is something we hear about in our engagement with businesses in Northern Ireland. It is important to reassure businesses that this is an administrative process—an electronic form—and something as part of bookings that will be done with the haulier as an aspect of the shipment of goods. It will involve fairly straightforward data about who is exporting, who is importing and the nature of the goods. That said, I am happy to have further discussions with him, because he does reflect concerns among businesses, particularly the small and medium-sized enterprises sector in Northern Ireland, about these arrangements.
The hon. Gentleman also asked when we would come back to the House with further updates. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is keen to continue to update the House, following his discussions on this issue and, more widely, about the restoration of the Executive. I will speak to my right hon. Friend about how we keep the House updated.
The issue is that these are administrative processes pertaining in particular to international obligations on things such as Kimberley diamonds and endangered species and to things that hauliers will be able to prepopulate in their IT systems. However, it is the case—the hon. Gentleman is right—that concerns have been expressed in Northern Ireland. Indeed, concerns have been expressed, which I very much respect, by our confidence and supply partners. Again, I very much offer to work with colleagues across the House on how we address the real concerns—the very real concerns—that I know they have to minimise any disruption that they are concerned about.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
The why is very clear—why a deal is important for the island of Ireland, and for Northern Ireland specifically—but may I say to the Secretary of State that that is not the case with the how and the what? Given the lack of absolute clarity from Ministers and indeed from HMRC, if the Government are serious about trying to sell this proposal to the communities of Northern Ireland, they are doomed to failure. May I urge that the Secretary of State, the Northern Ireland Secretary, the Prime Minister and the head of HMRC get together pretty quickly? In oral evidence yesterday, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland referred to clauses of the Bill being brought forward. The communities need to see those in a timely fashion. We actually need to see draft documents about what these requirements would be. They are causing huge concern in Northern Ireland, and the Secretary of State will not be able to sell the deal unless within the next few days we have the clarity that will assuage very legitimate concerns.
Mr Speaker
Order. I accorded the hon. Gentleman some latitude in the light of his notable celebrity as the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, but a similar latitude cannot be widely extended. At this rate, lots of people will not get in, and it will be no good their whingeing about it—that is the reality.
Stephen Barclay
My hon. Friend, as the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, raises an important point about what reassurance can be given through the withdrawal agreement Bill to colleagues across the House to address some of these issues. I stand ready to discuss that with him, as I have offered to do with the shadow spokesman and others in the House, subject to the withdrawal agreement Bill proceeding, during its passage.
I remind the Chair of the Select Committee—of course he is very aware of this—that operationally these are issues that apply at the end of the implementation period, not when the withdrawal agreement is ratified, so there will be time for much more consultation with businesses in Northern Ireland to address the very legitimate questions that have been raised. Although it sometimes feels a bit longer, it was only last Thursday that the agreement was reached with the EU, and of course there are questions about what are often quite complex and technical arrangements pertaining to customs. Those are legitimate questions, and I stand ready to discuss them with businesses in Northern Ireland and also with my hon. Friend.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
The Prime Minister had one job—to sort the Northern Ireland backstop—and he has made a pig’s ear of it. He has taken the parts of the backstop that many of his own colleagues and many in the Unionist community in Northern Ireland found unacceptable and put them centre stage, and he claims that to be a success. I and my SNP colleagues welcome anything that gives Northern Ireland businesses free access to markets in the Republic of Ireland. What is not acceptable is that our businesses in Scotland are then put deliberately at a competitive disadvantage.
What is worse is that the Prime Minister has attempted to do this not only without the consent of Northern Ireland but, as is now clear, against the almost unanimous opposition of all the communities of Northern Ireland, without any prior consultation even with the businesses that will have to live with the consequences of what he has done. Can the Secretary of State confirm reports that he has said that even people in Northern Ireland selling stuff on eBay to Great Britain will have to complete customs declarations? Did he say that or was he wrongly quoted in the Irish press?
Can the Secretary of State explain why it is a good idea for Northern Ireland to have closer customs links and trade links with the Republic of Ireland, but it is a bad idea for Scotland, Wales and England to have the same links? Can he tell us what assessment he or anyone in government has made about the economic impact on businesses in other parts of the United Kingdom, which will be left at a disadvantage compared with those in Northern Ireland? Finally, given that, in the view of Unionist politicians on both sides of the House, the deal potentially undermines the long-term future of Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom, if the Prime Minister is prepared to play fast and loose with one of the founding principles of his party, why should anyone trust the reassurances he gives us on an NHS about which he quite clearly could not care less?
Stephen Barclay
The hon. Gentleman asks some legitimate questions, but I think he finished with an unfair suggestion. The Prime Minister was always told that he would not be able to renegotiate a deal or replace the backstop and that he could not change a word of the withdrawal agreement, but he achieved those things and deserves to be commended for doing so.
The hon. Gentleman started by saying that the Prime Minister had one job, but when Members passed the Benn legislation, many of them were saying that the Prime Minister’s job was avoiding no deal. By voting against the withdrawal agreement and the programme motion, the hon. Gentleman has made no deal much more likely.
The clear message that I get from businesses in Scotland —certainly those that I speak to, alongside my hon. Friends—is that they want the clarity and certainty of a deal, and to move forward. They want one step of changes through the implementation period, not two. That is why so many businesses across Scotland want us to get on with this. Fishing communities in particular want us to take control of our independent coastal waters once again.
When the hon. Gentleman referred to eBay, I was not sure whether he was talking about my comments or those of another Secretary of State, but if he was asking whether I have commented on that issue, no, I have not. Another Cabinet member might have made such comments, and I will be happy to clarify that. The impact of no deal, and the ongoing uncertainty of not resolving this issue, is clearly having a negative impact on business. Even business leaders who supported the remain campaign, such as Sir Stuart Rose, are now saying, “Let’s get this done. Let’s get Brexit done. Let’s get on to the future trade agreement and move the country forward.” I hope that the hon. Gentleman will think again and enable the programme motion to go through.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. I call the author of the brevity textbook, Sir Desmond Swayne.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
What proportion of goods from non-EU countries are currently subject to physical checks on entering the UK and the Republic of Ireland?
Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
Let us get this into perspective: Northern Ireland to Great Britain trade is worth £14 billion a year; trade from Northern Ireland to the European Union, including the Irish Republic, is £4.8 billion; and those figures are replicated the other way. Our trade with the rest of the UK is absolutely the most important by a long way. We need to avoid checks, and there will be checks, because we are going to have export declarations for trade from Northern Ireland to Great Britain. The Secretary of State now calls them “administrative processes”, but they are exit declarations that have to be checked. From Great Britain to Northern Ireland, there will be customs declarations, physical checks, tariffs on goods going to the European Union and entry summary declarations.
The Government’s own impact assessment states that there is the potential of
“reduced trade, business investment and consumer spending”
in Northern Ireland and that small businesses will be hit disproportionately. Let us have a bit of clarity and honesty in this House! The fact of the matter is that this will adversely affect the most important trade that we have in Northern Ireland—that is the point we have always made. No checks along the Irish land border, yes, but we cannot then have those checks in the Irish sea.
Please will the Secretary of State take seriously the point that the shadow Secretary of State made and the Chief Constable made today? You are in danger of causing real problems with the Belfast agreement, the St Andrews agreement, and the political institutions and political stability in Northern Ireland by what you are doing to the Unionist community. Please wake up and realise what is happening here. We need to get our heads together and look at a way forward that can solve this problem. Don’t plough ahead regardless, I urge you.
Stephen Barclay
I do take seriously the concerns raised by the right hon. Gentleman. Like the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and indeed my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, I stand ready to work with him to address those concerns. We are absolutely explicit in standing by the commitments of this Government, and there is a cross-party commitment to the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. The Northern Ireland protocol makes that explicit within the terms of the international agreement.
I absolutely accept the right hon. Gentleman’s point: the flow of trade from Northern Ireland to GB is three or four times more than the flow from Northern Ireland to Ireland. That is why the text makes it clear that there will be unfettered access. We need to work with him, where there are concerns, as reflected by the Chair of the Select Committee, to allay those concerns. Indeed, the text enables us to do so. Again, these are not issues that start on 1 November; these are issues that apply at the end of the application period. Even before we get into the actual articles, the preamble says:
“the application of the protocol should impact as little as possible on the everyday life of communities both in Ireland and Northern Ireland”.
So that is a commitment on both sides. We will work with him and with the Joint Committee on that. He well knows of our unique circumstances and that is why a unique solution is required, but I stand ready, as does the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State, to work with him to address the concerns he raises.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
I have listened very carefully to these exchanges. May I perhaps suggest to the Secretary of State that there is a solution here that requires Ministers getting a grip of officials? The starting point is that we want unfettered access. We only have to apply controls in strictly limited circumstances, so why do we not start with not having any businesses having to fill in forms and only having a requirement on businesses that present a risk of not complying with those strictly limited international obligations? That might well go some way to allaying the fears of our confidence and supply partners. I remind him—he does not need reminding as an experienced former Whip—that, if we had them with us, today we would be completing consideration of the Bill and be on track to leave the European Union next Thursday, and we are not.
Stephen Barclay
My right hon. Friend is right; as a former Whip, I do not need reminding of the importance of that, not least as he was my Government Chief Whip during my time in the Whips Office. Let me be clear. Officials across Whitehall, in getting the deal against a very tight timescale, worked phenomenally hard; they got it through by last Thursday. I wish to be clear and express the Government’s gratitude for the work that many officials did against very tight timescales, working with Taskforce 50 to get that deal through.
My right hon. Friend is right that we need to be clear about the impact of the administrative processes. In my response a moment ago, I alluded to the commitment that applies to the Joint Committee to mitigate those impacts. He will be aware that there are already processes around the transportation of goods—with ferries, dangerous goods obviously go on top of the deck—but we will work with hauliers to minimise any administrative processes. As I say, we will work with Members to do so.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
Under the agreement, if a Northern Ireland fishing vessel leaves a Northern Ireland port and returns to a Northern Ireland port with its catch, could tariffs apply at that point to the fish the vessel has caught if there is a risk that some of the catch might enter the European Union?
Stephen Barclay
It will be for the Joint Committee to determine to what extent there is a material risk of any leakage to the integrity of the single market. I think the example the right hon. Gentleman raises is not the sort of size of trade that I would expect to be a risk to the integrity of the single market. The rules say that no VAT would apply if that catch from the vessel was for use by consumers in Northern Ireland. His question, quite rightly, related to some of that catch then going into the EU and going into the EU single market. As is the norm, if goods go into the EU single market then VAT would apply—[Interruption.] But not automatically. It would be for the Joint Committee to determine to what extent it is a significant issue. Perhaps another example would be where food goes to Northern Ireland but goes into ready meals. Then it would be within scope. If it goes to Northern Ireland and is consumed in a restaurant in Northern Ireland, it would not. That is the sort of issue the Joint Committee will get into.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
We have had only five Back Benchers, even though the urgent question has been running for 26 minutes. I say gently to the Secretary of State that nobody could accuse him of excluding from his answers any consideration that he thinks might be material in any century, but it would be helpful if we expedited progress on this important matter.
Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)
In no way dispelling the fears of the Unionist community, of which I would consider myself one, may I quote what the Library says on this matter:
“there are currently checks on animal products entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain including physical checks on livestock”?
While there is the potential for those to increase under this agreement, the agreement is not establishing a principle in that respect—that principle is already established.
Stephen Barclay
My hon. Friend speaks with great experience, and I know that he takes a very close interest in matters pertaining to Northern Ireland. He is absolutely right in respect of the single epidemiological zone that is the island of Ireland, pertaining to animal and plant health, but at the same time, I accept that there are concerns from a number of Members about what additional requirements will be needed. Those are valid concerns and we stand ready to work with them on those issues.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Fish landed by Northern Ireland and UK fishing boats going east to west and west to east will be subject to landing tariffs that will be paid before landing. That is the information in the paperwork that I have seen. The Secretary of State stated yesterday at the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee that the Government will ensure that tariffs will be covered. I remind the Minister gently, but firmly, that there is nothing whatsoever in the small details that I have seen—the same papers that he has—that refers to that. This will cost Northern Ireland fishermen from Portavogie, Ardglass and Kilkeel, and indeed, all fishing boats in the UK. This withdrawal deal is absolutely rubbish. I used the word “codswallop” before—that is what it is.
Stephen Barclay
A moment ago, the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Nigel Dodds) raised the very correct point about the importance of the trade from Northern Ireland into GB, and how much more of that there was compared with trade from Northern Ireland into Ireland and the EU. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that, for those fishing vessels, as for other goods, there are no tariffs applied in terms of NI into GB, nor will there be any tariffs in terms of those who land their catch back into NI. We are dealing with a subset, which is where it goes into the EU.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State acknowledge that the matters that are being discussed are a symptom of a very serious problem that we need to resolve by good will and negotiation and with regard to the constitutional status of Northern Ireland? In that context, I urge him to listen carefully to the arguments not only from those in the Democratic Unionist party, but from our Back Benchers who realise that this is a matter of such importance that it absolutely requires 100% attention from the Government.
Stephen Barclay
My hon. Friend rightly raises the point about the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. He will know that the text specifically says that there must be regard to
“maintaining the integral place of Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom’s internal market”,
and there is specific reference to its “constitutional status”, so he is absolutely right about that. He is also right in his recognition that these issues need to be addressed in the context of the future trading relationship that will be reached between the UK and the EU, and we have set out our ambitions for that. We are trying to address the period ahead of that, but we have the implementation period and we are confident that we can get a free trade agreement in place on the timescale that applies—to December 2020. That, as he rightly identifies, then addresses the points in his question.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
The head of Border Force told the Home Affairs Committee yesterday that there would be checks and said that it is yet to be worked out in detail who would do them between Britain and Northern Ireland. A memorandum from the Home Secretary that we have published this morning rules out checks from Northern Ireland to Great Britain, but accepts that there is going to be a process from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. However, does the Secretary of State not accept that fudging the language on this is a serious problem when trust is needed? Will he clarify that enforcement will be needed if there is a process and, therefore, when he says “minimal targeted interventions”, that includes physical checks?
Stephen Barclay
The right hon. Lady has referred to the Home Secretary’s evidence to the Committee that she chairs. I understand that the Home Secretary wrote to her Committee this morning to clarify her comments. The right hon. Lady has indicated that she has had a chance to see that. I just put that on the record. As was referred to earlier, checks already apply in terms of rest of the world goods and the single epidemiological unit. Those are quite right. But underpinning all the detail that Members quite properly want to probe is the principle of consent. Any issues that apply will be subject to Northern Ireland. The key issue on that is that that aligns with the EU and the UK wanting to minimise any impact, because both sides know that the arrangements will be subject to a consent mechanism in the Northern Ireland Assembly in a way that did not apply to the backstop.
Mr Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend commit himself to the use of maximum leverage in our future negotiations with the EU to ensure that this scenario does not come about in the first place and to maximum use of the simplifications available in the Union customs code to ensure that we do not have to have controls at the border itself?
Stephen Barclay
My hon. Friend is right. In some ways I can go further and better than that, in that the text actually requires both sides to work to minimise the concern to which he has referred. So I would not see it so much as requiring to put leverage on the EU. I think there is a common interest in minimising this, because the text requires it and because, as I said in my response to the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), the EU is incentivised to minimise the impact to ensure that the arrangements gain the consent of the Assembly in Northern Ireland.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
“We could not support any deal that creates a border of any kind in the Irish Sea and undermines the Union or leads to Northern Ireland having a different relationship with the EU than the rest of the UK, beyond what currently exists.”
Those are not my words, but the words of the former Secretary of State for Scotland and Ruth Davidson, the recently resigned leader of the Scottish Conservative party—an intervention that was described at the time by an unnamed Scottish Conservative spokesperson as “an article of faith” for the Scottish Conservatives. Can the Secretary of State tell the House: when did the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party lose its faith?
Stephen Barclay
I think that what has shaped these arrangements is something on which I hope the right hon. Gentleman and I can agree. There are unique circumstances in Northern Ireland. That does require a unique solution. There are already unique circumstances pertaining to the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. That is what the solution has put in place. He would, I think, be the first to criticise the Government if we proposed a solution that in any way compromised or involved infrastructure on the border between north and south. Therefore, that does require a degree of flexibility and creativity on all sides; that is part of a negotiation. It is to the credit of Taskforce 50 that, having for a long time said that the backstop was all-weather and all-insurance—having said that it could not be changed, that not a word could be amended—the taskforce did apply creativity and flexibility, and perhaps he should do so as well.
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
The Secretary of State has referred to electronic declarations for goods going from west to east. Is he planning to build a new system in the next 14 months, or is he planning to use an existing system such as CHIEF, the customs handling of import and export freight?
Stephen Barclay
My hon. Friend is right that this is a straightforward process. In terms of documentation, hauliers and the transportation of goods, often, a firm will be making the same journey to their supplier, which is why any impact of the administrative procedures will be mitigated over time and the systems will ease them. However, we will work with the Joint Committee to reduce the impact of those. That is exactly what the implementation period is for.
David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)
I hope the Secretary of State will realise the difficulties that this will make for the agrifood industry in Northern Ireland; they will be massive. But I want to ask him a very straight question and I would appreciate a straight answer. My constituents are asking me this question, especially this week, when we have been inundated: why is it that the Conservative and Unionist party has done this in Northern Ireland? Are we the sacrificial lamb that was required in order to get the deal over the line?
Stephen Barclay
I know the hon. Gentleman reflects the very legitimate concerns in his constituency about some of the details, but I do not accept his characterisation of this. The strong representations we have had in government were on the need to safeguard the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, to ensure there was no infrastructure at the border in Northern Ireland, and to mitigate. Indeed, our commitment to Northern Ireland to address specifically the concerns he raises is reflected in another part of this package that has not been mentioned at all this morning, which is the new deal for Northern Ireland that the Secretary of State has been discussing with parties in the wider context of getting the Executive back up and running. It would be an odd position to suggest that the Conservative and Unionist party is not committed to Northern Ireland when indeed part of this package is a new deal which addresses the levelling up that the Prime Minister has committed to, in Northern Ireland and across the United Kingdom.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
It is quite understandable that hon. Members who represent Northern Ireland raise concerns about this issue, but is not the key point that these arrangements will be superseded by a future free trade agreement and that there are compelling reasons to think we can strike a deal that suits both sides, not least because of the impact on Ireland if we did not? Its GDP growth rate is currently 5%, but it will go into recession if we do not agree a UK-wide free trade agreement.
Stephen Barclay
As a senior business figure in his previous career, my hon. Friend understands both the dynamic impact from an economic point of view and also the terms of the agreement, which are exactly as he says: the free trade agreement will supersede these arrangements. These arrangements can be part of this, but the free trade agreement is where we will then take it forward.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State has a very interesting definition of “unfettered”, because what we are talking about here are checks, charges and confusing processes on trade within our own country—within the United Kingdom—and that of course has huge implications not only for Northern Ireland, and for Scotland and England, but also for Wales. Can the Secretary of State answer the question that the Home Secretary did not answer yesterday in the Home Affairs Committee and the officials did not answer either: will UK Border Force officials be involved at any stage in the checks and processes that both he and the Home Secretary have referred to?
Stephen Barclay
The hon. Gentleman talked about this being within Great Britain. There are no requirements in the protocol pertaining to Great Britain. We will have control, and this is part of it being unfettered; we will have sole control as to how we wish to address this. [Interruption.] With respect, the hon. Gentleman asked the question, and I have been trying to give full answers— perhaps slightly too full in the view of the Chair. The simple answer is that there are no requirements in terms of Great Britain: we will have sovereign control, as a sovereign country.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
As I understand it, a majority vote is required for Northern Ireland to escape the existing deal, which of course is a change from the cross-community agreement, and this has, I know, upset our friends and colleagues representing Northern Ireland. Can this be looked at, so that at least in December 2020 when we leave the EU Northern Ireland comes with us in whole?
Stephen Barclay
First, Northern Ireland will come with us: it will be part of the customs union, it will benefit from our trade deals, and we are absolutely committed to leaving, as the Prime Minister repeatedly says, whole and entire. My hon. Friend does raise a concern that has been raised on the Benches opposite in terms of the consent mechanism, but the concern is about giving one community a power of veto, not least because these are reserved matters pertaining to international relations that fall outside the scope of the Good Friday agreement. It is important to understand what the consent mechanism is applying to, and it is for that reason that it is by simple majority.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
The Secretary of State noted the comments of the Chief Constable, and we all want to avoid any descent into community disorder. He also acknowledged the scale of east-west commerce and business. Does he now acknowledge that what we need are not warm words or reassurances on what will follow, but to ensure that the text reflects the potential to grow the east-west business, and not to risk jeopardising it for the sake of north-south business?
Stephen Barclay
The hon. Gentleman and I would agree on the desire to grow that business, because economic ties underpin the democratic relationship that we have, and we both share a common desire to have a strong Union with Northern Ireland as a central component of that. There will be scope, both during the passage of the withdrawal agreement Bill and then in the implementation period, to look at the things that can be done to strengthen that. I would draw his attention, for example, to what we secured on state aid in Northern Ireland, where there is scope to look at the UK economy as a whole, which again enables us to ensure that Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom is central to the decision making of this and any future Government.
Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I welcome the tone of these exchanges, which seem to me very calm and very sensible and do recognise the concerns being expressed from Northern Ireland. I suggest that we need to separate two things—the symbolism of a process of compliance required between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom, and the substance of the effect of that policy. It seems to me that all the questions are about the substance of compliance and that those are fears that possibly can be assuaged, and that we should seek to assuage, while recognising that there will still be deep concerns in the loyalist community in Northern Ireland about having any kind of agreement that requires that compliance.
Stephen Barclay
My hon. Friend absolutely captures a key point in terms of that distinction, and I very much agree with him. I would expect most firms to get intermediaries to complete the administrative process required for moving goods, so he is absolutely right in the distinction that he draws. Indeed, that is exactly what the implementation period would be used for—to address that distinction.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
On exiting the EU, trade between the port of Rotterdam and England will be subject to checks. If the same goods go from other EU countries to England through the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, will they be subject to the same checks, and if so, where will those checks take place?
Stephen Barclay
I visited the port of Rotterdam to discuss the arrangements that it is making. For goods coming from Rotterdam to, say, Northern Ireland and then on to Great Britain, any requirements are within the control of Great Britain and the UK; there are no requirements on that in the protocol. The hon. Gentleman knows that most of the time—this is what I was discussing with the port of Rotterdam—these issues are intelligence-led in any event. That is the case now and that will be the case in the future.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
On a very practical level, PTI Express Ltd is a haulage company based in my constituency, transporting goods to and from both Northern Ireland and the Republic, and it was very concerned about the threat to its business—about the prospect of no deal. Of course, that threat to its business has now been abated as a consequence of the vote in the House earlier in the week, but what arrangements should it put in place for future circumstances?
Stephen Barclay
I agree with my hon. Friend in part, in that I think the central concern of many businesses, as with those in his constituency, has been around no deal; but because of the decision that the House took on the programme motion, I would not say that has been abated. That is why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has had to step up our no-deal preparation, Yellowhammer. The sooner we can reach a deal, the sooner we can address fully the concerns of my hon. Friend’s constituents, because he is quite right: many members of the business community are concerned about no deal. That is why they want this deal done and they want us to move forward.
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)
May I say that it is frustrating, to put it mildly, to hear that black is white and to hear contradictory comments that do not reflect the text in the withdrawal agreement or its outworkings? Can I say to the Secretary of State—I hope he takes this seriously—that this is fundamental for us? The sixth article of the Act of Union (Ireland) 1800 states that there will be
“No duty or bounty on exportation of produce of one country to the other.
All articles the produce of either country shall be imported free from duty.”
That is an article of the Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland. That is how fundamental this is.
Stephen Barclay
What article 6 makes clear is that there will be unfettered access—[Interruption.] That is article 4, sorry—[Interruption.] I had actually lifted out the page from my folder. What is made clear is that there will be unfettered access and that the UK has sovereign control—[Interruption.] I was actually quoting it correctly, because article 6.1 of the withdrawal agreement states:
“Nothing in this Protocol shall prevent the United Kingdom from ensuring unfettered market access”.
My point is that article 6 allows for unfettered access, and that is exactly what the text says.
Paul Masterton (East Renfrewshire) (Con)
The UK Government have an unequivocal obligation to ensure unfettered access for Northern Ireland into the GB market. It is not good enough to say, “We will wait six months until the Joint Committee to try to sort this out,” because the trust is not there. There is nothing to stop the UK Government setting out now how they intend to achieve unfettered access, both through the future relationship that they want with the EU and a package of unilateral domestic measures that they could take to prevent any of these provisions from coming into force. When will we see those measures?
Stephen Barclay
Such issues can quite rightly be discussed in more detail during the passage of the withdrawal agreement Bill.
Just to correct things, I slightly misheard the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), but I am happy to pick up his specific point following this discussion.
Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)
Peace and prosperity in Northern Ireland are far too important to be treated with the cavalier obfuscation that we have heard from the Secretary of State this morning. Can I take him back to the document that the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge), published on Tuesday night? Will he confirm that it says, between paragraphs 294 and 319, that £7.5 billion-worth of trade involving 20,000 businesses is in jeopardy as a result of checks and other issues at the border and that there is a risk that prices will go up for consumers in Northern Ireland? Will he confirm whether that is true and whether he thinks it is a good thing for his Government to do?
Stephen Barclay
It is misrepresenting the issue to say that such things are in jeopardy from a simple form—I have it here—that will need to be filled out. There are legitimate questions about administrative processes that we have been exploring in the House, and I stand ready to discuss them further, as does the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. However, it does not help the debate to describe a fairly simple form pertaining to what goods are moving from whom to whom and what is contained in the cargo as putting our future trade with Northern Ireland in jeopardy.
Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)
In addition to the symbolism of the issue, there is also a matter of practicality, given the limited number of businesses and transactions that may require declarations. Are the Government able to provide financial support or fiscal support to the limited number of affected businesses in Northern Ireland?
Stephen Barclay
My hon. Friend raises an important point. He will fully understand that as a Minister of the Crown it is not for me, on behalf of the Chancellor, to make fiscal commitments of that sort at this stage. However, my hon. Friend is opening up a wider discussion. As part of the new deal for Northern Ireland, as part of restoring the Executive and as part of the Joint Committee looking at how we can reduce the impact of any administrative processes, it is important to understand what the concerns are and what the Government can do to mitigate them.
Several hon. Members rose—
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
The raft of contradictory statements by senior members of the Government has caused nothing but confusion and anxiety for businesses over the past 24 hours. Given that the Prime Minister does not even seem to understand or be able to be straight about the impact of the Brexit proposals on the future of £18 billion- worth of trade within our own country, why on earth would anyone trust him to negotiate our future trading relationships with the EU or the rest of the world?
Stephen Barclay
The hon. Lady has previously raised a similar issue, saying that she did not trust the Prime Minister to get a deal. He has got a deal, and that deal includes unfettered access for those goods, which is why it will not be a threat to that trade. Quite rightly, where there are issues of concern—and particularly given the concern of the Chief Constable—we stand ready, both with the shadow Secretary of State and with others, to ensure that we work together to mitigate those concerns.
Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)
We have heard this morning that the impact on trade with the rest of the world will be around 1%. The Government are in danger of losing and turning what was a practicality point into a political point unless they provide clarity. Will they release a list of indicative goods to which the EU customs code is likely to apply, to provide that clarity for DUP and Conservative colleagues?
Stephen Barclay
I am happy to write to my hon. Friend to see what further clarity can be provided, but I refer to the answer I gave a moment ago. These issues will apply at the end of the implementation period, as opposed to when the withdrawal agreement is ratified.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
I am very sorry to disappoint colleagues, but we are constrained for time and a very large number of Members want to speak in the Queen’s Speech debate.
Business of the House
(5 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House please give us the forthcoming business?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees- Mogg)
The business for next week will be:
Monday 28 October—Second reading of the Environment Bill followed by, debate on a motion under section 3(2) of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019.
Tuesday 29 October—Second reading of the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill.
Wednesday 30 October—General debate on Grenfell.
Thursday 31 October—Tributes to the Speaker’s Chaplain followed by, general debate on spending on children’s services.
Friday 1 November—The House will not be sitting.
Valerie Vaz
I thank the Leader of the House for the forthcoming business. He is certainly getting his feet under the table. This is his third business statement of the week, or his fourth if we count his point of order on Saturday, which was a quasi-business statement.
The Leader of the House has previously mentioned that his godfather was Norman St John-Stevas, that architect of Select Committees and parliamentary scrutiny, and I am sure he will be guided by that as the Opposition seek more parliamentary scrutiny. I hope he will withdraw this comment:
“Those who voted for the Benn Act and the Cooper-Boles Act are on pretty thin ice when they complain about rushing Acts through”.—[Official Report, 21 October 2019; Vol. 666, c. 739-40.]
The Benn Act has three sections and the Cooper-Boles Act has five sections, but the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill has 40 clauses and six schedules. Was he wrong to say that, and will he correct it?
I do not know whether you have seen it, Mr Speaker, but there is an outrageous tweet going round. I would like the Leader of the House to confirm that the tweet, from the official Conservative party account, claims the deal has been passed by Parliament and it calls for donations, presumably from those who have made money betting on the fall of the pound. He will have to explain this, because the tweet includes a letter signed by the Prime Minister. The deal has not been passed by the House; it has passed its Second Reading.
Opposition Members stand ready to provide consensus on a programme motion that provides for proper scrutiny. The Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 states that the House should be given 21 days to consider a new international treaty before we vote on it. Why did the Government suspend this requirement?
The hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) asked the Leader of the House on Monday whether an impact assessment has been carried out on the deal, and he flippantly said:
“If you ask an economist anything, you get the answer you want.”—[Official Report, 21 October 2019; Vol. 666, c. 742.]
I think the saying is, “If you lay all the economists end to end, they will not reach a conclusion.” The idea is that the Government weigh the evidence and give the reasons for their decision.
The Chancellor is at it as well. He does not want to publish an economic assessment of the deal, claiming it is “self-evidently” in our economic interests. If Somerset Capital Management wants to open funds in Ireland, as it has done, presumably it will look at reports and analysis before it does that. More importantly, may we have a statement from the Chancellor, ahead of the Budget, on whether he will publish an economic assessment of the deal?
The Leader of the House has announced the Second Reading of the Environment Bill next week. The Queen’s Speech committed the UK to “protecting and improving” the environment, with targets among the most ambitious in the world, but the Bill has failed to deliver; in its 244 pages, not a single target has been mentioned. Aviation accounts for 6% of greenhouse gas emissions, but it is not mentioned in the Bill, even though this is the cheapest and fastest way to decrease one’s carbon footprint. He did not respond last week when I asked him whether the Government will rule out fracking once and for all in the Environment Bill. We need a debate on that National Audit Office report. It must not be down to my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) and her Committee to produce a report—we get only 10 minutes for that. The NAO report says the Government do not even know who has ultimate responsibility to pay for the decommissioning of fracking sites, and the Government’s plans for making sites safe after they have been used are unclear and untested.
We resolved and we asked questions to get access to the sectoral analysis, and I wish to draw the Leader of the House’s attention to two important sectors. The first figures have emerged showing the impact that Brexit uncertainty has had on UK research. The Royal Society’s analysis shows that the UK’s annual share of EU research funding has fallen by nearly a third since 2015, and the Royal Society’s president, Venki Ramakrishnan, has said:
“UK science has also missed out on around”—
£440 million—
“a year because of the uncertainty around Brexit.”
May we have an impact assessment on this important sector? The UK is the second largest legal services market in the world and the largest legal services sector in the EU. It contributes £27.9 billion to the UK economy and £4.4 billion in net exports. It relies, in part, on uniform market access the EU and the European economic area. What are the Government doing to protect this vital sector?
I am pleased that the Leader of the House has scheduled a debate on the tribute to the Speaker’s Chaplain; the Reverend Rose Hudson-Wilkin will become the first black woman bishop. Anyone who was in Speaker’s House on Tuesday will have heard Father Pat Browne sing “The Impossible Dream”. They have worked closely together and they have shown us that we are much more than the petty jealousies and rivalries as we work together and they support us in our work for the common good. I wonder whether the Leader of the House will consider expanding the tributes to include you, Mr Speaker, because everyone who was there yesterday in Speaker’s House will have heard the former leader of the Labour party and former Leader of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett), lay out your record dispassionately, and that must be read into Hansard. I am sure the Leader of the House will be aware of Guy Verhofstadt’s tweet saying that he would rather be John Bercow than Jacob Rees-Mogg. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff) and other hon. Members would like to seek a “flex extension” for you, Mr Speaker.
Mr Rees-Mogg
With regard to thin ice, supporters of the Cooper-Boles and Benn Acts know that it is the thinnest of thin ice for people to complain, having abused the constitution, in my view, to push those Bills through. The Benn Act, in particular, was a fundamental change of approach to our understanding of how the constitution works between the Executive and the legislature, so I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for giving me the opportunity to reiterate my comments: people should be consistent in the way they look at our constitutional processes, and not find that one thing suits them one day and the next day it does not.
The question of the Conservative party website probably falls outside my formal remit, but the deal has passed its Second Reading. That is a passage through Parliament and an indication of Parliament’s assent; it is not, however, an indication of the complete legislative programme. I do not think that is an unduly difficult concept, but if people reading and paying attention are now aware of that and wish to make donations, they will of course be very welcome. I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for raising that point so that I can give further publicity to the marvellous work that the Conservative party is doing. The point of it is that the deadline is the 31st, which we are all working towards. That deadline was set by the European Union, not by the British Government; the British Government accepted the European Union’s offer.
The right hon. Lady again raises the question of the CRAG Act. The issue with that Act is that it allows a treaty to be laid on the Table for 21 days, but it is then subject to no vote or legislative procedure. The agreement with the EU is being brought into legislation, which provides much more scrutiny than the minimum provided by the CRAG Act—really and truly. Under the CRAG Act, the Government do not have to provide any time for debating a treaty; they just have to lay it on the Table. Under this procedure, there would have been time, had the programme motion been carried, for debate on the issue.
The right hon. Lady questions the economic analysis that it is self-evidently in our interests to leave the European Union. This is a matter of routine economic debate. I think it is enormously in our interests to have the opportunity to be in charge of our own future—to allow the wisdom of this House to decide economic policy, rather than delegating it to tiresome bureaucrats, seems to me self-evidently to be in our interest. That is sufficient economic analysis. If Members think that poking through economic models to come out with gloomy forecasts will convince anybody, they have another think coming.
The right hon. Lady then went on to Monday’s business, the Environment Bill, which is indeed a very ambitious statement of environmental improvement. I should point out that the reason why the target is not in the Bill is that the target has already been brought into law—that was one of the last acts of the previous Government.
The right hon. Lady was concerned about Brexit uncertainty; we would not have any Brexit uncertainty if the Labour party had voted for the programme motion. Brexit uncertainty would have vanished—it would have disappeared and gone into the ether—as the Bill would have become an Act, we would have left on 31 October, and we would have gone on to the broad, sunlit uplands that await us. Even as we enter November, there will be broad, sunlit uplands. If only the right hon. Lady had led her troops in favour of the programme motion. But now, because of the Opposition, there may be some uncertainty.
I am much looking forward to making tributes to the Speaker’s Chaplain. I will not pre-empt them now, but your Chaplain, Mr Speaker, has been an absolute model of public service. I agree with the right hon. Lady that the ecumenism we have in the House is extraordinarily welcome. As a Catholic, I much enjoy the fact that we are allowed to use St Mary Undercroft for our services, as well as it being used for the services of the established Church. It is an enormous generosity on the part of the established Church to allow us to do that.
The reason why we are not having tributes to you, Mr Speaker, is that the matter was discussed and Mr Speaker modestly said that he felt that the tributes made on points of order were sufficient. However, I can give the House notice that in my statement next week I shall begin by making a tribute to Mr Speaker, so that we may do it in that context. I notice that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen are looking thoughtful and thinking about how they will incorporate into their questions a suitable tribute to Mr Speaker.
Finally, on Mr Verhofstadt—well, Mr Speaker, you are the lucky one.
Mr Speaker
I thank the Leader of the House for what he said, which is entirely accurate. I am not making the slightest representation on my own account and I would not dream of doing so—I am extremely satisfied—but I do want to thank the Leader of the House for what he said about the Speaker’s Chaplain. I look forward to those tributes. I hope I can be forgiven for saying in respect of my appointment—Rose Hudson-Wilkin was my appointment—that there were plenty of snobs, bigots and racists who were against Rose being appointed at the time. I was right; they were wrong, and I am glad that she is now universally celebrated in this House, as she absolutely deserves to be. I warmly thank the Leader of the House for what he has said.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Now, a very serious parliamentarian—who shall we have? I call Sir William Cash.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
On Tuesday, the vast majority of the Labour party, the Lib Dems and the SNP all voted against the Bill and therefore against sovereignty and the clause to protect UK vital national interests, on which the Prime Minister rightly insisted. Those clauses would protect the whole United Kingdom and voters from every political party from destructive European legislation, such as that on taxation and state aid, undermining UK enterprises, businesses, jobs and global trading. Will the Leader of the House join me in urging the entire House to support not only the Bill, but clauses 29 and 36, which will protect the sovereignty of the United Kingdom and voters from all political parties?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point and for the remarkable work that he has done over many decades to ensure that our sovereignty is protected. It is only a pity that the Bill did not manage to go into Committee, and therefore we were not able to debate the clauses that he thinks—and I agree with him—are so important to maintaining the national interest.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
We also look forward to joining in the tributes to you next week, Mr Speaker, and, if it is all right with the Leader of the House, perhaps the right hon. and hon. Ladies will be able to get a few words in, too.
I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business for next week. Of course, it is much more notable for what is not included than for what is included, because, of course, there is no Committee stage of the withdrawal agreement Bill, which is now in some sort of Johnsonian purgatory. We are supposed to be leaving the European Union a week today, but we will be debating—probably appropriately—children’s services. We were supposed to be leaving next Thursday—no ifs, no buts—but we are not. This date was “do or die” and “die in a ditch”. It was the very basis of the Prime Minister’s Conservative leadership campaign. Of course, we will not be leaving next Thursday, and it will be somebody else’s fault. Perhaps it is just me, but I cannot remember this ridiculous pledge being dependent on: “If only this pernicious remoaner Parliament lets us do it,” and, “If only these Nats were more reasonable.” It was an unconditional pledge, without caveats.
I know that the Leader of the House likes his surrender rhetoric; we have heard a lot about that in the past few weeks. Will he now say that this date is dead in a ditch and that it will not be met? The white flag will be raised. Halloween will go back to being the preserve—the exclusive preserve—of the ghouls and the spectres. This date is a dead parrot, Mr Speaker.
May I say ever so gently to my friends in the Labour party that if they get round the table to draw up another programme motion with the Tories—if they have a timetable for a Tory Brexit—their current precarious opinion poll ratings will be as nothing compared with what is about to come?
Can we have a debate about the responsibilities of the devolved institutions, perhaps just to outline to the Prime Minister exactly what they are? In referring to the withdrawal agreement yesterday, he said that
“the Scottish Parliament has no role in approving this deal.”—[Official Report, 23 October 2019; Vol. 666, c. 963.]
The only thing is that it has, and I know that the Leader of the House knows that because he has been looking at the withdrawal agreement. Annex A of the explanatory notes contains countless instances where legislative consent is required. For the first time ever, the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments will refuse to give that consent to a Bill. Will the Government care a whit? Probably not because they never do. What was all that rhetoric about—lead, not leave, the UK, and a partnership of equals? Is it not the case that if we are to secure the rights of our Parliament, we will have to become an independent nation?
Mr Rees-Mogg
During his comments, the hon. Gentleman made the remark, “If only the Nats were more reasonable.” Well, that is something to be looked forward to, but I think it may be in the next world rather than in this that it finally comes. But the Nats in their unreasonableness are at least very straightforward; they want to stop Brexit and have always been very clear about that. Although I disagree with them, I respect their position. There is no false pretence in what they say. It is a position they hold. They are not using procedural mechanisms to try to frustrate what 17.4 million people voted for. They are absolutely upright and straightforward in their opposition. I disagree, but I respect the honesty of that position. And they are certainly not on thin ice because they have opposed Brexit the whole way through.
The responsibility of the devolved Administrations is a very important issue. This Government respect the rights and responsibilities of the devolved Administrations, but the devolved Administrations ought also to respect the rights of the United Kingdom Government. The conduct of treaties and the agreement of treaties is a matter for the United Kingdom Government. Some of the detailed implementing legislation may require legislative consent motions, but the two are different and separate concepts. Therefore, what the Prime Minister said was absolutely right.
The hon. Gentleman asked if 31 October is still the date on which we will leave. That is still the date set in law. We do not yet know what the European Union will do. The European Union knows that the request for an extension is not the Prime Minister’s request. It is the request of the Benn Act. Her Majesty’s Government do not want an extension. Let me say it again: Her Majesty’s Government do not want an extension and are making every preparation to leave on 31 October.
Finally, the hon. Gentleman wondered what had happened to the withdrawal agreement Bill. I think the answer lies with Sir Percy Blakeney:
“They seek it here, they seek it there
Those parliamentarians seek it everywhere
Is it in heaven, or is it in hell?
That demmed, elusive Brexit Bill”.
Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
Whether Sir Percy Blakeney is searching for it or not, for all the consideration about, and requests for, extra time—some of which were quite reasonable about hours—when I listened to the radio this morning, I discovered the Labour party spokesperson saying that what Labour really wanted was weeks and weeks of further debate. Surely that can only be with one purpose: to stop Brexit altogether. I therefore wondered if we might have a debate in the coming week about the rationale and motivation of those who seek extra debate.
Mr Rees-Mogg
My right hon. Friend makes an extraordinarily good and valid point, which relates to what I was saying about the Scottish National party—that it is very straightforward about its position, which is that it does not want Brexit. The Labour party is in a more difficult position because some of its voters want Brexit, particularly in the midlands and the north of England, and some of its voters, especially in Islington, do not want Brexit. Labour Members are torn between the two and are therefore using all sorts of formulations to try to persuade us that they want that which they do not want. What they want is to frustrate Brexit, and that is what they are trying to do.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
It might be helpful to the House if I explain that I want to move on at 12.30 pm, so there is a premium on brevity from Back and Front Benchers alike.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
It is a bit rich being lectured about abuse of the constitution by the Leader of the House, who was found to have illegally prorogued Parliament. Given that we have a Prime Minister who has a tortuous and difficult relationship with veracity, can we have a debate about standards in public life, one of which demands that the Prime Minister tell the truth?
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
The British people voted to leave the European Union in a referendum and this House has given a Second Reading to the withdrawal agreement Bill. That cannot be changed; people either accept that or they do not, but it is going to be a treaty. May I ask my right hon. Friend why the Prime Minister does not just go to Brussels and sign the treaty—because it is endorsed by the British people and by our Second Reading—and why we cannot then have ratification by this House and the European Parliament at length? Could we then have a statement immediately after the Prime Minister has signed the treaty, saying that he has signed it?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend makes a very intriguing point. As far as I understand it, the problem—why it would not work—is that the treaty needs to be given effect in UK law for it to have effect from 1 November, or, strictly speaking, from 11 o’clock on 31 October. Therefore, although what he suggests is intriguing, I do not think it would achieve its intended objective.
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)
Will the machinery in the Government and main Opposition parties please quickly organise their nominations for the membership of the Backbench Business Committee so that we can get about our business? We have a number of applications with the Clerks that are, as yet, unpresented to the Committee. We also, in the previous Session of Parliament, wrote to the Leader of House with some suggested topics for debates until the Committee was reconstituted, one of which I am glad to see will be on the Order Paper for next Thursday.
Mr Rees-Mogg
The hon. Gentleman, as always, makes an important point. I have already congratulated him on his unopposed re-election, but there are now more Members present than there were last time, when it was rather late, so I reiterate those congratulations. I will take up his point with the Government Chief Whip, and I am sure that the shadow Leader of the House will take it up with her equivalent.
Dame Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
This week I had the pleasure of having a meeting with the restoration and renewal team, particularly those who are writing the specification to ensure that we include facilities that are friendly to people with autism. May we have a debate on autism-friendly facilities? Perhaps we could also have an experiment in this House that would create a more relaxing environment for autistic visitors, including returning to waving our Order Papers in the air rather than clapping, which often causes distress to people with autism.
Mr Rees-Mogg
My right hon. Friend has probably been the leading politician in raising awareness of autism in this country. I must confess that as a Back-Bench MP, as I became more aware of it and the effect it had on my constituents, the more grateful I became for the work she has done. I will certainly take up her suggestion with the House’s diversity and inclusion team, and indeed the restoration and renewal project, to see whether there is more that we can do to make autistic visitors feel more welcome. Orderly matters are for you, Mr Speaker, but I think that the feeling that clapping is not welcome is widely shared—although it may simply be, on my part, the sadness that nobody has ever bothered to clap me. [Laughter.]
Mr Speaker
I must say for the record that I did not think I would ever hear it from the lips of the right hon. Gentleman, but I am delighted to hear that he is signed up to the merits of diversity and inclusion. This is a very encouraging development indeed.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Leader of the House talks of sunny uplands. He may not know this, but I came into politics hoping to bring sunny uplands to the people of this country and the people of my constituency. Actually, that did not include a Government and a country run by old Etonians, but that is just my personal prejudice.
In terms of next week’s business, could the Leader of the House leverage in something that really does concern my constituents and constituents up and down the country—the safety of town centres? There is something wrong when people are now afraid to go into town centres at night. Could we look at how, through the police, more co-ordination or the revival of youth services, something could be done to make sure that ordinary people in this country going about their business enjoying themselves on a Friday or Saturday night do not go in fear?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I might quibble on the hon. Gentleman’s general sunniness: it does not come across enormously to this side of the Chamber, but I may be missing something. He is absolutely right on town centres. Government policy is doing a great deal about this through the extra 20,000 police but also the £3.6 billion fund to help town centres. We all want to feel that town centres are places that people can go to safely and enjoy. If they were to visit North East Somerset, there are lots of town centres—I think of Keynsham, Radstock and Midsomer Norton—where they will have a very enjoyable and safe time.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
In pursuit of philosophy, poetry or prose, I call Sir John Hayes.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
In far off times, in far away places, young men were sent to islands in the sun to witness the first nuclear tests. A former Defence Secretary promised me— I take him at his word—that the Government would look again at the health condition and wellbeing of those nuclear test veterans, as well as a medal to celebrate and thank them for their service. Will the Leader of the House arrange for a statement to be brought to the House saying how the Veterans Agency that the Government have established will deal with those matters? Perhaps at the same time, we might hear whether that agency will be able to commission services from the NHS and elsewhere. It is time we gave to those who gave so much.
Mr Rees-Mogg
My right hon. Friend is right to raise that issue. I note that he had a commitment from a previous Secretary of State for Defence. If he is concerned that that commitment has not been fully delivered upon, I would be grateful if he brought it to my attention, so that it may be followed up. His points are good ones, and I will ensure that they are passed on.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
The report of the Commission on Justice in Wales, chaired by former Lord Chief Justice Thomas, is published today. The Commission unanimously concludes that the people of Wales are let down by the present justice system and calls for a separate judiciary and control over legal aid, policing, prisons and probation. Can the Leader of the House find time for this House to debate how Westminster fails to serve Wales with justice?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am a great believer in the United Kingdom, and Wales gets enormous benefits from being a part of the United Kingdom—a very significant part of it. The first half of my surname gives away an element of Welsh antecedence, which is one of the reasons I am so much in favour of the Welsh connection. For a specific debate of that kind, a suitable route is the Backbench Business Committee, but the right hon. Lady and I disagree fundamentally on the place of Wales in the United Kingdom, which is probably more at the heart of this than anything else.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
Yesterday, the Education Committee published a report on children with special educational needs and found that parents face a titanic struggle to get the right support for their children and a postcode lottery. Can we have an urgent debate on the report’s recommendations, which include a neutral role to help parents wade through the bureaucratic treacle?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The Government are doing a great deal on special educational needs, with an extra £780 million allocated specifically for it. As a constituency MP, I absolutely understand the reference to wading through treacle. One of the things we all do as constituency MPs is be a point of contact for people who have children with special educational needs. We somehow cut through the treacle to help them, and that is a role we all take very seriously. In terms of a debate, Chairmen of Select Committees are often allowed to make statements on Thursdays as part of Backbench Business.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I see the Chairman of the Backbench Business Committee nodding, and he will have heard my right hon. Friend’s request for a debate.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
I know that the Leader of the House is quite well up on history. Will he talk to the Secretary of State for Defence about the names of the five new frigates? Since 1658, there has always been an HMS Coventry. Indeed, HMS Coventry was sunk in the Falklands war, with the loss of 19 crewmen and 30-odd injuries. Will he have a word with his right hon. Friend, to get one of those new frigates named HMS Coventry?
Mr Rees-Mogg
That is not formally within my remit, but I tend to think that if there has been a ship in the Royal Navy with the name of Coventry for such an extended period of our naval history, it would be a great pity if that tradition were not continued, so I will certainly take up the hon. Gentleman’s point with my right hon. Friend.
Anne Milton (Guildford) (Ind)
The long-term outlook for children who need mental health services is directly correlated to the time it takes for them to access that care. In response to the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) about special educational needs, the Leader of the House said that there was a lot of treacle to wade through. I applaud the Government for putting in extra money, but can we have a debate about what the Government can do to get rid of the treacle that those families who desperately need timely support have to wade through?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My right hon. Friend raises a concern that we all will have seen in our constituency surgeries, which is people trying to access mental health services in a timely manner. Funding for mental health services is increasing, which is important because it is more than treacle in this instance; it is a question of ensuring that the supply is there to meet the demand, and that is being tackled. It cannot be answered overnight, but it has universal support across the House.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
If everyone asks a single-sentence question, most colleagues will get in. If they don’t, they won’t.
Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)
Will the Home Secretary make a statement on immigration policy, specifically in relation to scientists, and particularly the case of Furaha Asani, a young academic who came to this country with a full scholarship to do a PhD on infection and immunity and who has since done cardio- vascular research at Leicester University? She is now being told that she will be deported to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where she has never even visited, let alone lived. This is surely scandalous, outrageous and inhumane, and is the last thing we should do if we are to invite and encourage scientists to this country.
Mr Rees-Mogg
In the interests of getting everybody in, it suffices to say that Home Office questions are on Monday.
David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)
Can we have a debate please on access to emollients for people suffering from chronic skin diseases and conditions and about the fact that the NHS and the powers that be are not always aware of just how distressing these conditions can be when they set the rules?
Mr Rees-Mogg
That might be most suitable for an Adjournment debate, but it is obviously an issue that will be important to people suffering.
Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating Grace Warnock, from Prestonpans Primary School, where tomorrow her “any disability” sign will be unveiled—her very first “Grace’s Sign”? In the light of the many questions today, can we have a debate in Government time on people with invisible disabilities and the need to have a heart for the whole of our community?
Mr Rees-Mogg
That is one of the most charming points that has been raised in this House. We all have a responsibility to those with visible or invisible disabilities. I am not sure that Government time will allow, but I agree with the hon. Gentleman about raising that point more generally and about the need to lift that point in our general behaviour.
Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
Can we have a debate on my Parking (Code of Practice) Act 2019, which became law in March, to find out why the Government are dragging their feet in introducing the code of practice mandated by that Act?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I have a feeling I supported my right hon. Friend in bringing that Act forward, so I will most certainly take this up with the relevant Secretary of State to find out why on earth there is any foot dragging, which is most uncharacteristic of this Government.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
The Government expect and want to leave the EU at 11 o’clock next Thursday. Is the Leader of the House making provision for the House to sit on the Friday to deal with the inevitable disastrous consequences?
Mr Rees-Mogg
It would be more suitable to make provision for a celebrational party.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
May we have, in the run-up to Armistice Day, a statement from the Government on the unconditional restoration of war widows pensions so that 265 of them who lost their pensions on remarriage will not have to divorce and remarry their spouses in order to get them reinstated?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My right hon. Friend raises a troubling point. There will be time for a debate. This is not a formal announcement, but the Treasury has announced, though not to the House, that the Budget will be on 6 November, in which case there would be time to debate it.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
Crime and antisocial behaviour in my constituency is on the rise, but community policing has been cut since 2010. Can we have a debate in Government time about the benefits of community policing and its funding?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I can reiterate the point that 20,000 police officers are being employed, and I hope that some of them will end in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency.
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Ind)
The armed forces covenant is incredibly important. I know the Prime Minister agrees with that and wants to bring forward legislation, but I notice that it was not in the Queen’s Speech that we will be voting on tonight. Will the Leader of the House update us?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The Gracious Speech is brought to a conclusion by the statement that other measures will be laid before the House, and it is no secret that one of these other measures will relate to the armed forces covenant.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
May we have a debate in Government time about our role in responding to the global crisis of forced migration, which the tragic events of this week have, sadly, highlighted once more?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The hon. Lady is right to raise the tragic events of yesterday. The thing that struck me so much was actually what the Leader of the Opposition said about how awful it must have been for the emergency services to come across that sight and how, one would have thought, that must affect them for the rest of their lives. This is indeed the most tragic event. The Home Secretary has made a commitment to keeping the House up to date. There was a statement yesterday, and I am sure there will be further statements. I think that the whole House sympathises with the hon. Lady in raising that point.
Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)
Will the Leader of the House confirm, subject to the outcome of any general election, that he will time find after that general election to place before this House precisely the same deal that we have now?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend asks me a very difficult question. It is impossible to guarantee what might happen after a general election, because we do not know what will be in the various manifestos and we do not know what a new Parliament will decide to do. The deal, as it currently stands, has had its Second Reading. If there were to be an election, any Bills that had not completed their passage would, of course, fall, so there can be no guarantees of that kind.
Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)
My constituent, Kay Wadsworth, and her husband became homeless because they sold their home to pay off their daughter’s gambling debts. Kay tells me she believes that the stress contributed to her husband’s untimely death. Sadly, their only daughter took her own life because of the pressure of gambling debts. May we have a debate in Government time about gambling and its impact on family life, including with reference to advertising directed at women?
Mr Rees-Mogg
Again, many of us have seen in constituency surgeries the most appalling cases of gambling addiction and also the very limited help that bookmakers sometimes give to people with gambling problems. I cannot promise a debate in Government time, although I am very sympathetic to the suggestion, but I am looking at the Chairman of the Backbench Business Committee—[Interruption.] He is nodding—ish—but I do not think he is promising anything.
Mr Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)
Two residents of my local hospice were sent home from it this week because of the trustees’ decision to close it, and the situation has really upset the whole community. May we have a debate on how trustees must observe strict codes of transparency, accountability and professionalism so that we can get this decision reversed?
Mr Rees-Mogg
That is exactly the sort of issue that should be brought to an Adjournment debate, with reference to the specific trustees and to the trust concerned. Trustees have fiduciary duties that they must follow.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Recently there has been a very serious escalation in the Algerian Government’s crackdown on churches. Middle East Concern has reported that four churches, including the 700-member Full Gospel Church of Tizi Ouzou and a 500-member Protestant church in Makouda, were given orders to close. The churches are all members of the Protestant Church of Algeria, which received official recognition in 2011 and is entitled to register its congregations. Will the Leader of the House agree to a statement or a debate on this matter?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The Government are gravely concerned by reports of church closures in Algeria, including the recent closures to which the hon. Gentleman refers. The Government have been active in raising cases with the Algerian authorities, including at senior levels, underlining the importance of freedom of religion or belief, as set out in Algeria’s own constitution, and the need for Algeria to ensure that its laws and practices are consistent with the constitution. The promotion and protection of religious freedom is a high priority for the UK in all its international engagement.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
The Leader of the House has set out his wish that the deal we have secured does not get bogged down for weeks and months. The Prime Minister has also said that—and I agree. If, as a result of the European Union’s decision, when it arrives, about the length of an extension, an opportunity presents itself to get that excellent deal ratified more swiftly, will the Leader of the House ensure that a Minister, if not the Prime Minister, can come to the House at an early opportunity to update the House about the Government’s plans?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The Government will, of course, keep the House updated on any developments, measures or happenings that take place at any time in relation to the European Union. The Prime Minister has spent almost 15 hours at the Dispatch Box, and he has therefore been most assiduous in answering right hon. and hon. Members’ questions.
Ged Killen (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)
I know that the Government are not minded to change the laws on firework sales, but as it is this time of year, may we have a debate on the possibility of devolving to the Scottish Government the necessary powers to ban the sale of fireworks?
Mr Rees-Mogg
As I have said before, we need to have a balance. People enjoy fireworks and we do not want to be po-faced enders of fun for one and all. We want to allow our constituents to do things that they enjoy, so I am not in favour of extending regulations at every opportunity.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
Alopecia UK is based in my constituency. May we have a debate on wig provision in the NHS, which I have to say is completely and utterly inadequate and causes a great deal of distress to victims of hair loss?
Mr Rees-Mogg
Mr Speaker, I understand that some candidates to take over your role are concerned about wig provision, albeit I believe of a different kind.
My hon. Friend makes a serious point. Having raised it in the Chamber, I would encourage him to press for further debates, and particularly to ask a question of the Health Secretary when he is next at the Dispatch Box.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. I call Sir Bernard Jenkin. [Interruption.] That is very gracious of the hon. Gentleman. I was trying to do two things at once, and not very successfully. I call Ruth Smeeth.
Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
Stoke-on-Trent City Council signed a 25-year deal with Solarplicity for a community energy scheme and thousands signed up, but in August Solarplicity went into administration. The customers were transferred to Toto Energy, but Toto went into administration last night. May we have a debate in Government time on community energy schemes because, good as they are, local authorities have obligations to carry out due diligence before they sign up?
Mr Rees-Mogg
Fortunately, the hon. Lady has made that point at exactly the right time, because the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy was in the Chamber to hear it, so it has already been raised at the right level. The hon. Lady is absolutely right to say that local authorities have an obligation to carry out due diligence and it would be absolutely remiss of them not to do so.
Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
May I invite my right hon. Friend to urge the Prime Minister to bring forward a motion under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 for a general election? Not only is it usual, if the Government cannot obtain their business, for Parliament to be dissolved and to let the people decide on the matter, but this would allow those who profess their faith and belief in representative democracy to demonstrate it, or to demonstrate that they do not actually believe in representative democracy at all.
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend’s constitutional expertise is second to none in this House, and he sets out the constitutional norms completely correctly.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I think that the hon. Gentleman wants my hon. Friend’s vote, so he ought not to shake his head like that.
My hon. Friend’s point about the Fixed-term Parliaments Act is absolutely spot on. We have had such a vote twice, and it is absolutely fascinating how many people say they would like an election, but disappear when they are offered the opportunity for one—they do not go for it. I am absolutely delighted that the shadow Chancellor has just taken his seat, because I have some quite helpful quotations from him on this matter.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
It has been reported that after years of campaigning, the drug Orkambi will now be available to people, such as my young constituent Jemima Bennett, which is wonderful news. I am sure that hon. Members would like the chance to congratulate the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, so will he be making a statement on that?
Mr Rees-Mogg
This is the most wonderful news. As someone who has campaigned for a different drug for a constituent, I know how pleased MPs are when their constituents get what they need. Health questions will be next Tuesday, and I hope that there will be praise for the Secretary of State on that occasion, given the work he has done that has led to this happening.
Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)
The ever-closer relationship between Russia and Turkey should be of concern to us all, not least because of our commitment to mutual defence under article 5 of the NATO treaty. Given that London is due to host a NATO summit on the first weekend of December, will there be the opportunity for a debate on NATO and the implications of the ever-closer relationship between Russia and Turkey?
Mr Rees-Mogg
Yesterday, I was at a memorial service for the late Professor Norman Stone, who was one of the first people to suggest that Russia and Turkey may have a closer relationship post the Soviet Union—his prediction showed great foresight. This is obviously an important matter. My right hon. Friend asks for a debate at the time of the NATO summit. I do not want to promise anything at this stage, but there are normally statements or debates around events of such significance.
Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)
As next week’s business is extraordinarily light, will the Leader of the House consider asking the Transport Secretary to make a statement on the forthcoming sale of First Bus across the UK? What provisions can be made with the Treasury to finance local authorities that are purchasing the assets of FirstGroup across the UK to create a municipal bus service?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I must disagree with the hon. Gentleman’s principal point—the business next week is extremely heavy.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
Many councils across the north of England, including mine in Harrogate, are supporting the northern forest with their own tree-planting programmes. May we have a debate to explore what the Government can do to support and accelerate that programme and all the environmental benefits that will flow from it?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend is a great champion of Harrogate, which is one of the most beautiful spa towns in the country. We could have that debate on Second Reading of the Environment Bill, which makes up a major part of next Monday’s business.
Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)
May we have a debate in Government time about smart motorways? Nobody understands whether those things are safe or good value for money—or, indeed, whether they work. Is it now time to discuss their future?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend and near neighbour tempts me because I suffer from delays on the M4 every week when going down to Somerset due to preparations for a smart motorway. This issue has been pretty well discussed, and we have literally just had Transport questions, which might have been the time to have raised it.
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
This week, the Health and Social Care Committee published a good report on drugs policy. May we have a full debate in Government time on the welcome recommendation that we move to a health-focused and harm-reduction approach to drug policy?
Mr Rees-Mogg
As I said to the Chair of the Education Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), there is the opportunity for Chairs of Committees to make statements or to apply to the Backbench Business Committee for a debate.
Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)
What is the point of smart motorways? We should have a statement or explanation in the House from the Transport Secretary, because even the head of Highways England has said that smart motorways are dangerous and confusing—they certainly are; I use the M4 twice a week. The Leader of the House should take the request from the hon. Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger) a lot more seriously.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I saw the comments from Highways England that were reported in the newspaper today, and I am aware of the concerns. I merely point out that Transport questions were held earlier, and this is a matter for the Transport Secretary.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
May we have a debate on support from the UK for the people of Burundi, where not only is there the highest level of malnutrition in the world, but people face the potential threat of Ebola coming across the border?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend is right to raise that pressing issue. Malnutrition is a major cause of preventable deaths, and the underlying cause behind 45% of child deaths and 20% of maternal deaths. The UK has been a leader on nutrition since it hosted the first Nutrition for Growth summit in 2013. Since 2015, the Department for International Development has reached 60.3 million people with nutrition services in 25 countries, including Bangladesh, Somalia, Burma, Ethiopia and Yemen. The next Nutrition for Growth summit is set for 2020. Ebola has caused devastation across Africa, and the bravery of frontline responders is to be celebrated. They are working tirelessly to help to save the lives of others. The UK has been a major supporter of the response to the outbreak since it began, and it has provided significant funding, technical expertise and political support. We are pleased to note that 10 African countries, including Burundi, have this week endorsed a cross-border collaboration framework for Ebola preparation and response, and we will continue to support them in their efforts to contain the outbreak.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
Knife crime in England has now reached its highest level for decades, and many Members spend a lot of time dealing with its terrible consequences. May we have a regular update on the issue from the Home Secretary or the Minister for Security?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The hon. Gentleman makes a serious point. All Members are concerned by the rise in knife crime, hence the need for extra police. I suggest that regular questions to the Home Secretary, both written and oral, are put down in the normal way to ensure that the House is frequently updated on this issue.
Ross Thomson (Aberdeen South) (Con)
I recently visited the ARCHIE Foundation at the Royal Aberdeen Children’s Hospital. It does amazing work to help my constituents and parents who are going through difficult and distressing times by offering emotional support, accommodation and other facilities. Will my right hon. Friend agree to a debate on what more we can do to support amazing charities such as the ARCHIE Foundation?
Mr Rees-Mogg
We are fortunate in this country to have an extraordinary range of charities that ensure that almost every aspect of life is considered, with some help and protection offered. This sounds like the type of general debate that would be suitable for consideration by the Backbench Business Committee, rather than Government business.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
My Small Business Saturday awards are an opportunity to celebrate the range and diversity of local small businesses. May we have a debate on the contribution that small businesses make to local communities and the economy?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I agree that the contribution made by small businesses to the economy is fundamental, and our economy grows because of the work of entrepreneurs. If the hon. Gentleman stays in the Chamber a little longer, we will come to the Queen’s Speech debate on the economy, in which I am sure his contribution would be enormously welcome and valued.
Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)
May we have a debate in Government time on the Treasury’s plan to extend the off-payroll working rules in the private sector? Many freelance and contract workers in the public sector have had those rules foisted upon them, resulting in higher taxes, even though they do not receive benefits such as employment benefit.
Mr Rees-Mogg
People have come to many of us, as constituency MPs, with concerns about the off-payroll working rules. I think we must assume that most people are honest, and there must be a balance between ensuring that tax is collected correctly and not making life impossibly bureaucratic.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
A constituent told me that at around 4.40 on Sunday afternoon a firework was fired sideways into a park in Pollockshields. It landed and exploded within 5 metres of a group of children and a toddler with its mother. Does the Leader of the House understand how upset my constituents are with his flippant response to concerns about fireworks? By way of recompense, will he secure a debate in Government time to discuss the matter further?
Mr Rees-Mogg
No, I do not understand—there is a balance. We could ban absolutely everything and have no fun, which is basically what socialists always want to do.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Following my question to the Prime Minister about the pro-Pakistani groups marching on the Indian High Commission on Sunday, will the Home Secretary make a statement about policing arrangements? There are all sorts of rumours about bans, rerouting the march and so on. While I am on my feet, may I wish Shubh Deepavali to everyone celebrating Diwali on Sunday?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The Home Secretary will be answering Home Office questions on Monday, when there will be the opportunity to question her.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
May we have a statement on why the Government are refusing to produce an economic impact assessment on the withdrawal agreement Bill? If it is the case, as the Leader of the House said, that there are broad sunny uplands to Brexit, why is he so reluctant to prove it?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The idea that economic models prove anything is for the birds.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
According to Wikipedia, the Leader of the House has an unusually shaped seat, but like many of our seats, it contains a good music festival. The pipeline to good music festivals are good-quality grassroots music venues, so may we have a debate about why the Government are specifically not allowing rate relief for grassroots music venues when they are for institutions such as pubs and high street businesses?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will, I think, be here fairly shortly, and he is the right person to answer on rates—[Interruption.] He is in the Chamber already—how could I have missed my right hon. Friend? He is sitting quietly at the end of the Treasury Bench and will have heard that question. He may well include a response in his all-encompassing speech.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Given that, all too often, international humanitarian tragedies suffer from “out of sight, out of mind”, will the Leader of the House arrange for the Foreign Secretary to update the House on the ongoing issues in Kashmir, and specifically what actions we are taking as a permanent member of the UN Security Council? Warm words and solidarity are not having the effect that is needed in that part of the world.
Mr Rees-Mogg
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to raise such an issue in the House. He is also right that “out of sight, out of mind” is a problem, and using all the available mechanisms within this House—no doubt you, Mr Speaker, will help him to do so—is the right way to go about addressing it. I urge him to use them all and to appeal for urgent questions, and for Adjournment and Backbench Business debates. That will ensure that the matter is in sight and in mind.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
The winner of the South Wales police and crime commissioner partnership award was a multi-agency suicide review and response group made up of South Wales police, Public Health Wales and Bridgend County Borough Council, which came together to look at early intervention for those at risk of suicide. May we have a debate on the importance of such partnerships and early interventions in preventing suicide, particularly among the male population, which is particularly vulnerable.
Mr Rees-Mogg
It is not open to me just to say yes to requests that come through, but that is the type of request that deserves the most earnest consideration. The success in reducing suicide is of great importance and it is about multi-agency working. We remember the problems that there were in the hon. Lady’s constituency not that long ago. This improvement ought to receive wider publicity so that other councils can follow the same path.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. I am sorry to disappoint remaining colleagues, but as I indicated earlier, the debate is very heavily subscribed and we must now proceed with it.
Point of Order
Mr Gyimah
Record numbers of people are watching the Parliament channel these days, because they are taking an interest in the proceedings of this House. Could you explain to us, Mr Speaker, the difference between a Bill passing Second Reading in the House of Commons and a Bill passing Parliament? It has come to my attention that the Government are presenting the Second Reading of the withdrawal agreement Bill as having passed Parliament. Some would describe that as fake news.
Mr Speaker
The difference is simple. A Bill can get a Second Reading, but that does not make it law. It simply means that it has approval for its general principles. Approval, in the ultimate sense, means the passage of a Bill on to the statute book, which requires it to go through Committee, Report stage and to secure a Third Reading. That is the difference and I hope that that satisfies the palate of the hon. Gentleman.
Debate on the Address
The Economy
(5 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
16:59 - The House divided: - Ayes: 293 / Noes: 311 - Question accordingly negatived.
17:16 - The House divided: - Ayes: 64 / Noes: 310 - Question accordingly negatived.
17:28 - The House divided: - Ayes: 310 / Noes: 294 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Mr Speaker
I inform the House that I have selected amendment (g) in the name of the Leader of the Opposition, which will be moved by the shadow Chancellor at the start of the debate, and amendment (h) in the name of the leader of the Scottish National party, which will be moved formally at the end of the debate.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment (g), at end add
‘but respectfully regret that the Gracious Speech fails to rebuild the UK economy, tackle the housing crisis, further pushes public services into crisis and contains no vision to bring this divided country back together; call on the Government to bring forward a plan to rebuild the economy so that it works in the interest of the many, not just handing out rewards to those at the top; and further call on the Government to address the climate emergency by bringing forward a green industrial revolution to decarbonise the economy and boost economic growth.’
Mr Speaker, may I just say this? This is the last time that you will be chairing a day of the Queen’s Speech debate, and I may not get the opportunity in other tribute debates to say this. It has been a privilege to serve in this House while you have been Speaker. Thank you.
I listened to the Prime Minister introducing the Queen’s Speech. What I always find most startling about the Prime Minister is his ability to create his own truth and, when confronted with any reality that contradicts his truth, to bluster his way through. I believe he believes that, with a combination of bluster and the occasional pretentious use of Latin, he can always avoid confronting reality or answering for it. So, if we can achieve anything in today’s debate, let us at least try to confront the reality of what some of our people face and assess whether the announcements in the Queen’s Speech in any way meet those challenges.
On the economy, the Prime Minister referred in his speech to “economic success” and “free market success”. He also said:
“in important respects this country is the greatest place to live and to be—the greatest place on earth.”—[Official Report, 14 October 2019; Vol. 666, c. 19.]
I think many of us feel that way, but I just wish it was the same for everyone. For so many of our people, tragically, it is not at the moment. There is a multitude of statistics evidencing just how far the Prime Minister is out of touch and how he appears to have no understanding of what our people have gone through over nearly a decade. Let me start with three stark examples of what the austerity the Conservative party has inflicted on our people has meant and continues to mean, and which I deeply regret were not addressed in the Queen’s Speech.
First, on infant mortality and child poverty, earlier this month, the British Medical Journal published a research project into infant mortality. Declines in infant mortality have been reversed for the first time in 100 years. The research found that, between 2014 and 2017, there were 570 excess infant deaths. The research concluded that 172 of those infant deaths were associated with the increase in child poverty. Out there, there are nearly 200 families who are grieving as a result of the Government’s austerity policies. There is nothing in the Queen’s Speech—nothing—that will tackle the poverty affecting 14 million of our people, and nothing that will tackle the poverty that 4.5 million of our children are being brought up in, or help the 125,000 children who are forced to live in temporary accommodation. There is nothing to address the £3 billion funding gap local councils face in trying to provide the services needed to support those very families. I will not forget, and many Labour Members will not forget, that this is a Government who have closed over 500 Sure Start centres, the very institutions we founded to support those families and to prevent infant mortality and morbidity on the scale we have seen.
Let me take the second example of what the Tories have done to our people. Earlier this month, the Office for National Statistics reported a record number of deaths of homeless people in England and Wales in 2018. Last year, 726 homeless people died. That represents the highest year-to-year increase since data was first collected. The Government have cut £1 billion from support to the homeless since 2010, so it is hardly surprising that rough sleeping has risen by almost 165%. In London, rough sleeping has more than tripled since 2010. Again, there is nothing—nothing—in the Queen’s Speech to tackle the scourge of homelessness.
My third example is the distance between what the Government claim and what employment and wages are like in this country. The Prime Minister claimed that
“we have unemployment at its lowest level since 1974”.—[Official Report, 14 October 2019; Vol. 666, c. 22.]
The reality is this: more than 3 million people are missing from the unemployment rate because they report themselves as “economically inactive,” we have over 2.5 million people counted as employed even though they work fewer than 15 hours a week and there are 3.7 million people in insecure work.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
The Government have received over £4 billion from the mineworkers’ pension scheme, despite not having paid a penny in. With retired miners getting by on a pension of, on average, £84 a week, does my right hon. Friend agree that it is time for the Government to listen? This Queen’s Speech should announce a review of the scheme so that miners and their widows get a fair deal.
John McDonnell
Madam Deputy Speaker, I know that large numbers of Members are seeking to make speeches—I will take a number of interventions, but I will protect the time as best I can for others to speak.
Let me give my hon. Friend this assurance on that critical point: in our last Labour party manifesto, we promised that we would review the mineworkers’ pensions scheme—it is dear to my heart, because I was one of the administrators of the scheme soon after I left university, when I worked for the RMT—and we will review it because we want to lift miners and many miners’ widows out of the poverty that they now live in. We give that commitment.
I mentioned insecure work. There are now about 900,000 people on zero-hour contracts—up by 100,000 from a year ago—and real wages are still below pre-crisis levels. The Government like to talk about wage rises and wages rising at their fastest rate in a decade. It is a bizarre claim, because the Government have been in charge of the economy for the last decade, suppressing wages all through that period. According to the Financial Times, the UK was the only major economy where growth returned but wages fell. According to TUC calculations, since 2010, average pay has also fallen for 7.7 million low to middle-income earners, and 11.5 million middle to high-income earners. It is extraordinary that that was not even acknowledged in the Queen’s Speech—that we now have a low-pay, insecure-job economy that this Government have created over the last decade.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
What my right hon. Friend’s wonderful speech is proving is that Government priorities make a difference. The previous Labour Government lifted millions and millions of children out of poverty, and the Government’s priorities since 2010 have plunged them all back in again.
John McDonnell
Let me put on record that we pay tribute to Gordon Brown for the work that he did during that period. He committed himself to lifting children out of poverty and, my God, he delivered it.
David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)
I am listening with great interest to what the right hon. Gentleman is saying. I do not share his perception of the economy and I am wondering whether he still believes that Venezuela offers a better economic model than that of my hon. Friends on the Front Bench.
John McDonnell
I said that I would limit interventions, but I accept that they can often be a job application, so I do not want to limit this job creation scheme that we are creating here—I wish the hon. Gentleman well in his future career.
The scale of human suffering and hardship inflicted on our people over the last nine years is never mentioned by the Government. The reason is that they would have to explain why our people have endured so much. They would have to admit that austerity was never—as we have said, and let us repeat it—an economic necessity; it was always a political choice. The choice the Tories took was that the bankers—their friends, many now populating the Government Front Bench—would never have to pay for the crisis that they had caused through their speculation. Instead, they determined—[Interruption.] The Chancellor of the Exchequer says, “You caused it”—this is the man who was selling the CDOs through Deutsche Bank. Deutsche Bank was a major contributor to the economic crisis that we faced—they have a nerve coming here blaming others, when they caused it. They determined that they would not pay for the crisis, but that the rest of our society would. They also took the view that they would never let a crisis go to waste, so they used it as the excuse to cut the taxes of the corporations and the rich. They have made £47 billion in cuts to our public services and, on their plans, they will have given away £110 billion in tax cuts to the corporations by 2022.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
The right hon. Gentleman pointed to the fact that it was this Government who bailed out the banks when, actually, the Asset Protection Agency was set up by the Labour Government.
John McDonnell
I say to the hon. Gentleman, who I have a lot of time for: it is best to listen to what I have said before he intervenes, because he did not, I think, accurately report what I said.
John McDonnell
No, I will press on. The hon. Gentleman will have the opportunity to speak.
The Government have made £47 billion in cuts to our public services, they are giving away £110 billion, and to ramp up the profits of these corporations, they have sold out our public services to them: £9 billion-worth of contracts in health and social care were handed over to private companies this year. Outsourcing under this Government has been exposed this week for the racket it is. A report by the think tank Reform showed that outsourcing contracts wasted £14.3 billion of taxpayers’ money in the last three years. Nothing in this Queen’s Speech even acknowledges these rip-offs, let alone promises action to reverse them.
I found nothing either in the Queen’s Speech that addresses the scandal of the industrial scale of tax avoidance and money laundering that is staining the reputation of our country. Today, Transparency International published its report “At Your Service”, which shows how
“UK service providers have been involved in some of the most egregious cases of corruption in our time.”
From the looks of this Queen’s Speech, the Government will continue to do nothing about it. The registration of overseas entities Bill, which will create a register of controlling owners of overseas legal entities that own UK land, is nowhere to be seen in the Queen’s Speech, three and a half years after the Government first committed to it.
We are at the tail end of what has been nearly a lost decade for our country—a near decade of the grotesque mismanagement of our economy by successive Conservative Chancellors; I am on my third in three years. The New Economics Foundation has shown that austerity has suppressed growth by almost £100 billion—that is more than £3,600 per household. After nine years of stuttering growth, GDP even went backwards in the last quarter. Public debt was meant to peak at 70% of GDP in 2013-14, only for it to rise to 86% of GDP in 2018-19. For all their stale claims of reducing the deficit, the reality is that the Conservatives have simply shifted that burden on to the shoulders of headteachers, councillors, NHS managers and police chiefs. These are the people who have had to make the tough decisions, not Ministers, and who have had to face up to the undermining of their services by these cuts.
Part of the testament to the Government’s failed fiscal strategy has been the litany of fiscal rules, invented, published, broadcast widely and then quietly and embarrassingly dropped. Within weeks, we hear that a new fiscal rule—probably largely stolen from us—will be announced in the Budget. I should say that we may have a new fiscal rule because we cannot be sure: only yesterday, despite the Chancellor announcing the Budget and its date, other Government sources were briefing that it was off. We have a Chancellor whose staff are sacked and escorted by armed guard out of their office, without his being told, and now Cummings is possibly cancelling his Budget. I give a word of advice to the Chancellor and his colleagues: get a grip on Cummings before he does any more damage to our country.
Apart from Budget making, one of the vitally important responsibilities of the Chancellor is to ensure that the Government and this House have the fullest information before them when considering legislation or issues impacting our economy. It is therefore extraordinary, and I think a dereliction of the Chancellor’s duties, that he—unlike his predecessors—has refused to publish a detailed economic impact assessment of the Government’s Brexit proposals. Studies of similar proposals have indicated a hit to the growth of our economy of between 3.4% and 8.1%. Even the lower range of that hit will have a severe impact on our people’s jobs and living standards, and on the economy overall. Surely it is only reasonable for Members to have a degree of information and analysis from the Chancellor’s Department before they make this momentous decision.
In their most recent manifestos, both the main parties committed themselves to respecting the outcome of the referendum. We do and we will, but, as we made clear on Tuesday, the House will not be bounced into an unrealistic and unfeasible timetable for considering and scrutinising such a critically important piece of legislation. That is why the Leader of the Opposition and Labour’s Chief Whip met the Prime Minister yesterday to offer a genuine compromise and to agree on a proper timetable that will allow, in the normal manner, proper scrutiny of the Bill and the opportunity to promote, debate and determine amendments. The Opposition have set out their views on the parts of the Bill that it wishes to amend, but of course we accept that it will be the House that decides. As always, we must accept the will of the House, even if, on many occasions, we disagree with it. It is a pity that the Prime Minister does not adopt that attitude.
There is an opportunity here for us to demonstrate to our people that Parliament can and does work. If we can demonstrate civility and a rational process in the House, we may be able to help to overcome some of the division and, indeed, bitterness that have set in within our own society.
Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)
I thank the shadow Chancellor for giving way. It is very generous of him.
The Labour party’s policy of a four-day week will reduce the earnings of the poorest workers in the country. Those are not my words, but the words of a Labour peer, Lord Skidelsky.
John McDonnell
Lord Skidelsky’s report suggests a 32-hour week—not a four-day week—but one without loss of pay, which will be achieved over a decade as a result of our investment in the economy to increase productivity.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that perhaps one of the reasons why the Government are so anxious not to publish an economic impact assessment of their Brexit proposals is that it would show that our economy will suffer under their hard Brexit, that our public finances will suffer under their hard Brexit and that the promises that they have made about investment in our police, our schools and our health service could not possibly be met under those Brexit proposals?
John McDonnell
Although the Government will not publish their economic impact assessment, others have made such assessments and have concluded that a hard Brexit could cripple our economy in the short and long term. We need to have a proper debate in the House to consider the consequences and discuss what amendments can be made to protect our economy.
Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)
My hon. right Friend is absolutely right about those economic impact studies. Has he had any conversations with the Welsh and Scottish Governments about the huge impact that a border in the Irish sea will have on Welsh and Scottish communities? It appears that the Government have not done so.
John McDonnell
Is it not interesting that virtually every Government apart from this one are willing to undertake an impact assessment of some sort? What does that display? I am not usually a suspicious person, but I think we have our suspicions.
Let me say to the Chancellor that he has a role to play in shouldering his responsibility to provide us all with the fullest possible information on the basis of which we can make our decisions. That means publishing a full economic impact assessment and doing it fast, so that we can have a proper debate.
As the Government have a working majority of minus 45, it is obvious that the Queen’s Speech is little more than a pretty crude election stunt. In all their various comments in the House and the media, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have depicted their programme as “the people’s priorities”. As a political artisan, I can admire a good turn of phrase—
John McDonnell
I have been here for 22 years. That is a long apprenticeship—and sometimes the apprentice can point out the truth as well.
As I say, I admire a good turn of phrase, and I congratulate the creatives in whatever PR agency the Conservative Party now uses for coming up with that one—it must have tested very well in the focus groups—but that is all it is: a slogan, a turn of phrase. The reality, as demonstrated in the Queen’s Speech, is that after something approaching a decade of harsh and brutal austerity, a few cynical publicity stunt commitments to paper over the massive cuts in our NHS, schools, policing and care will go nowhere near what is needed. A slogan will not suffice.
People know—and this is relevant to the Brexit debate—that if the economy hits the buffers again, as a result of Brexit, economic mismanagement by the Tories or both, and when a choice must be made by the Tories about who will pay, they will always protect their own: the corporations and the rich.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
Before he ends his speech, will my right hon. Friend say something about the impact of future cuts on women? Over the past 10 years, 80% of austerity has fallen on their backs.
John McDonnell
I met members of the Women’s Budget Group again yesterday, and they said that 86% of cuts were falling on women. Our society remains patriarchal, and many caring responsibilities still fall to them. Cuts in social care undermine the basis of support for many elderly people in particular, and that falls on the shoulders of women. This is what austerity has done over the last nine years. We are committed to providing free personal care for everyone, and that is what we will do.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
The right hon. Gentleman has said that the Conservatives look after their own, and I agree with him. That is why we have cut the taxes of 32 million working people. That is why we are cutting taxes on businesses that are generating growth and employment for the people of this country.
John McDonnell
Tragically for so many at the lower levels, all those tax cuts have been cancelled out by cuts in benefits and the introduction of universal credit. Some of the most vulnerable, particularly disabled people, have been forced to the wall as a result of the brutal implementation of the work capability assessment and the scrapping of the independent living fund. There is a litany of attacks on ordinary working people that Labour Members should consider a disgrace.
John McDonnell
No, I will press on. I understand that we are short of time.
The Tories will indeed protect their own. Under them, it will always be the people who are burdened with cuts in services and pay and benefit freezes. What people need now is real change. They need real change in our economy, so that we can face up to the existential threat of climate change through Labour’s green industrial revolution; real change to provide the scale of resources that our NHS, our schools and our police services need, funded by a fair taxation system in which we will tackle tax evasion and avoidance; real change to bring forward the scale of investment that our infrastructure needs to compete in the global economy and meet the challenges of the fourth industrial revolution; and real change to ensure that our people share in the prosperity that we will create through decent wages, ownership and an end to the rip-off of privatisation.
Only a Labour Government can bring about the real change that our country needs after a lost decade under the Tories. What does that say? It says that it is time for a Labour Government.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sajid Javid)
I have been sitting here for the last 30 minutes or so listening to the shadow Chancellor, and I have to say, “The brass neck of the shadow Chancellor!” No mention of the jobs boom and rising wages; no mention of bringing the deficit down by four fifths; no mention of our huge investment in public services; and no support at all for this Queen’s Speech, which delivers on the people’s priorities and moves this country forward from a decade of recovery to a decade of renewal. It is a Queen’s Speech that backs our NHS with £34 billion a year of new investment by 2024, that backs law and order with 20,000 new police officers, that backs the next generation with £14 billion more funding so that every school has more money for every child, that takes great strides towards decarbonising our economy and that boosts our economic infrastructure, increasing investment in roads, railways and energy.
Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)
Will the Chancellor publish today an economic impact assessment—an assessment of the public finance impacts —of the Prime Minister’s hard-deal Brexit, and if he won’t, why not?
Sajid Javid
If the right hon. Gentleman bears with me, I will come on to that issue in just a moment.
We can only do all these things that I have just mentioned because of the strength of our economy and our commitment to fiscal responsibility, and because of the hard work of the British people over the last decade. We will not throw that away.
One of the most important measures in the Queen’s Speech is of course the withdrawal agreement Bill. Passing this Bill will allow us to get Brexit done, to focus on the people’s priorities and to move forward as a country.
And let me be clear about one thing: people said that we could not do it—they said that we would not be able to reopen the withdrawal agreement—and we did; they said that we would not be able to get rid of a backstop, and we did; they said that we would not be able to negotiate a better deal, and we did. And then they said that we would not get Parliament to support that deal, and, guess what, we did that too. They were wrong, wrong and wrong again, as they always are.
Let me address the issue raised by the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey) and the shadow Chancellor about concerns expressed in this House about the impact assessment of the deal. What Parliament is being asked to vote on is the withdrawal agreement, which covers the deal on the budget, citizens’ rights and Northern Ireland. The Government have already provided and published a full impact assessment; it is a shame that the shadow Chancellor has not even bothered to look at it yet. The political declaration lays the groundwork for our future relationship, and with those final details still to be negotiated the only thing blocking us from getting on with Brexit is the Labour party and its disposition to dither and delay. Once we leave the EU we will start those talks, and of course we will keep Parliament fully informed at every stage of the process.
Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)
I knew I had a sense of déjà vu when I heard the Chancellor speak, and I remember from when: it was from when I was a child listening to “Jackanory.” This is exactly the same: story time. The previous Prime Minister published a proper economic assessment of her Brexit deal; why will this current Prime Minister not do the same? For heaven’s sake, just answer the question.
Sajid Javid
The hon. Lady was a fan of “Jackanory”; now I know why she joined the Labour party. It is all fitting into place.
On that point, some Members may point to the economic analysis, as the hon. Lady has, that was published by the Government in November of last year, but that document looks at the possible economic impact of a generic average free trade agreement; it does not represent the ambitious free trade agreement that we have agreed. We have agreed with the EU that both parties will have a deep, best-in-class free trade agreement that is far more ambitious on things like data exchange, tariffs, energy and financial services, and none of those benefits are captured in the Government’s previous modelling. So it is clear that what we need to do is this: end the dither and delay and move forward as a country.
Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)
The Chancellor said that the economic prosperity has been delivered by the hard work of the British people. Does he agree that that is the 14 million people who are now in poverty and the 4.5 million children who are living in poverty, and why is his Queen’s Speech silent on how to lift those people out of poverty and end what he calls their hard work?
Sajid Javid
I would think that, being a member of a party that is called the Labour party, the hon. Lady would understand that the best way out of poverty for anyone is a growing economy that creates jobs. Since 2010, there are over 1 million fewer workless households—a record low—there are 730,000 fewer children living in workless households, also a record low, and there are 50,000 fewer households where no member has ever worked.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
Will the Chancellor in his excellent speech also tell the House how much better off someone on low pay is, because, with the increases in the living wage and the increases in the tax-free threshold, households are taking home much more, particularly the lowest paid?
Sajid Javid
I am pleased that my hon. Friend has raised that, because it allows me to remind the House that since 2010, because of the actions that we have taken, including the rise in the minimum wage and tax cuts, the average person working full-time on the minimum wage is around £3,500 better off a year—that is because of actions we have taken.
Our relationship with the EU is a critically important factor affecting the UK economy, but it is of course not the only one. Unlike the Labour party, we will never talk down Britain’s economy. The shadow Chancellor has predicted a recession almost every year since we came into office, as he was doing just a moment ago—he does it all the time—but the underlying fundamentals of our economy are incredibly strong: nine years of growth; a healthy labour market with the lowest unemployment rate this country has seen in 45 years; low and stable inflation; and an attractive environment for foreign investment.
So I am optimistic about the future, but I am not complacent. We need to prepare our economy to seize the opportunities of leaving the EU, and that is why we are putting to the House the programme in this Queen’s Speech.
Tom Tugendhat
My right hon. Friend has already addressed one issue in looking at the impact assessments of various plans. Has he done an impact assessment of what the implications of borrowing £200 billion would be on the British economy—what it would do to future investment and future pensions, and what it would actually do to the working people of this country and how it would destroy their futures?
Sajid Javid
Even my nine-year-old daughter could do that impact assessment; she would not even need a calculator. It would crash the economy, like every Labour Government do.
Ben Bradley
My hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) has somewhat stolen my thunder. There is a lot of talk about economic impact assessments, but what about rising income tax, rising corporation tax, death duties, taxes on flights and holidays, and voting against nearly £10,000 of tax cuts in this place under this Government? That is the shadow Chancellor’s Policy. What is my right hon. Friend the Chancellor’s economic impact assessment of what that would do to the pockets of my constituents?
Sajid Javid
I will come on to just that, and I thank my hon. Friend for reminding us; we know the impact of that would be again to crash our economy.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
The Chancellor knows that under the British Government’s Brexit plans, the no-deal cliff-edge would only move to the end of phase 2. So if we do get to his Budget statement on 6 November, can we ask the Office for Budget Responsibility to give us some analysis of what that would mean for the British economy?
Sajid Javid
First, there is no no-deal cliff-edge. If the hon. Gentleman wants to have a smooth exit from the EU, he knows what to do—vote for the deal and support the Government’s programme motion.
Sajid Javid
Sound public finances are the foundation of economic prosperity and strong public services, and we have come a long way since 2010. We inherited a deficit of 10% of GDP. At that time, that was the biggest Budget deficit of any advanced economy. It was equivalent to borrowing £5,000 every single second.
Sajid Javid
The hon. Gentleman says we caused it. That was what was in place when Labour were in office —£5,000 every second. Let us address that point. [Interruption.]
Sajid Javid
I think what the hon. Gentleman wants to hear is the point I am going to make next, because I think he wants to be reminded that the whole economy was scarred by Labour’s great recession. It gave us the biggest banking crash, not just in British history, but in global history. [Interruption.] The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), from a sedentary position, asks why; let me tell her why. The shadow Chancellor—[Interruption.] Let me explain. The shadow Chancellor referred to the work of Gordon Brown as though Gordon Brown did some good things. Gordon Brown was the Labour Chancellor that deregulated the banking and financial sector, and—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. It is a very important debate, but I do not want the Chancellor of the Exchequer to be shouted down.
Sajid Javid
As I was saying, Gordon Brown, as Chancellor in 1997, boasted about deregulating the banks and the financial sector. At the time, he was warned by the then shadow Chancellor—the Conservative shadow Chancellor—Peter Lilley, that deregulation would
“cause regulators to take their eye off the ball”—[Official Report, 1 November 1997; Vol. 300, c. 731-2]—
and that it would be a field day for spivs and crooks everywhere. That is what he said, in this House, and during Labour’s term in office, bank leverage rocketed from an average of 20 before they came to office to an average of 50 times during their entire time in office. Labour was responsible for the biggest banking crash in global history, and they had better get used to it.
Sajid Javid
I will give way when I have made some progress.
We have turned the economy and the public finances around, and I am not prepared at all to throw away that hard work. The Queen’s Speech puts fiscal responsibility at the heart of our plans, with a clear commitment to ensuring that we keep control of borrowing and debt. I will set out our detailed plans in the Budget.
Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)
I just want to highlight the brass neck of the Chancellor, having worked in the banking sector, not to accept that it is the banking crisis—the clue is in the name. He then came into Parliament and presided over dreadful, drastic cuts on our constituents—police cuts, school cuts; the list goes on. Now he has the brass neck to say that it is all going to be fine—that we can have our cake and eat it. Having damaged people’s lives, he should take responsibility before he starts attacking the Labour party.
Sajid Javid
Now, I know the hon. Lady has to say those things, because I think she is applying for a job as well, but she knows that when she became an MP, in the same year as I did, the deficit that the new Government inherited was 10% of GDP. She talks again about the banking crisis. She has to ask herself: why did Britain have the biggest banking crisis in global history? The answer is, because of the Labour Government.
Sajid Javid
I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake).
Kevin Hollinrake
One of the worst effects of the banking crisis was the impact that it had on many thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises in this country, who lost their livelihoods and sometimes their homes. The Business Banking Resolution Service, which has been set up to deal with historic complaints, is excluding many people on very tight eligibility criteria, which I regard as unfair, as someone who sits on that steering group. I believe it requires the intervention of the Chancellor to get UK Finance to come to the table, to be fairer about those eligibility criteria. Will he commit to do that?
Sajid Javid
Look, first I commend my hon. Friend for all the work that he has done, and continues to do, to support small businesses throughout the country. He has raised an important issue. He knows that work is ongoing to address that, but I would be happy to meet him and discuss it further.
Kirstene Hair (Angus) (Con)
Is it not because of the hard work of this UK Government to balance the economy that we are spending more in the devolved nations, with an extra £1.2 billion for Scotland in the latest spending review? Does he agree that that is in stark contrast to the shadow Chancellor, who would enable a second independence referendum in Scotland on a whim, despite the will of the Scottish people, who do not want that referendum, despite the economic damage that that would cause, and despite the fact that he used to belong to a Unionist party?
Sajid Javid
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In fact, the SNP’s obsession with another damaging referendum on independence is already hitting growth in Scotland, and that is why Scotland is lagging behind in growth terms compared with any other part of the UK.
Sajid Javid
I will make some progress and then I will give way.
I want to contrast our approach with that of Labour Front Benchers, who have demanded higher borrowing and higher taxes at every Budget and Queen’s Speech for the past 40-odd years. Their tax rises would hit hard-working families, and they will not be clear on that. Their tax avoidance plans contain a £2.5 billion mistake, and that is according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Their spending promises would cost far more than they say. Their manifesto contained £1 trillion of spending commitments. For the shadow Chancellor’s benefit, let me say that that is £1,000 billion of spending commitments. They have not costed expensive promises such as renationalisation, and they have made dozens of unfunded promises since the last election. And you know what is even worse than that? The shadow Chancellor has admitted that the huge borrowing plans that he has are just “the first step”—he means the first step back to the road of ruin.
Matt Rodda
I wonder whether the Chancellor remembers the following statement, which is from his own website; it is still there today:
“The only thing leaving the EU guarantees is a lost decade for British business”.
Perhaps he would like to comment on that.
Sajid Javid
I will comment on that because, probably like the hon. Gentleman, I campaigned for remain, and I lost the argument; but I am a democrat, unlike the hon. Gentleman.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
I am glad to report that Shropshire has the lowest unemployment in its history. In fact nationally, as the Chancellor knows, there are over 1 million vacancies, which in itself raises a challenge for the Government as a result of their own success. As we discuss the points-based migration system with colleagues across government, given that many vacancies in Shropshire need to be filled in agriculture, in the NHS and in manufacturing, can we ensure that we still secure the very best and brightest for our jobs market not only domestically, but from the international community—Commonwealth, non-Commonwealth and the EU?
Sajid Javid
Yes, I agree with my hon. Friend. When I address amendment (h), I will say a bit more about that.
Sajid Javid
I will make some progress.
There are some who would have us abandon fiscal responsibility altogether, and to those people I say this: it is only because of the hard work of the British people that we can now afford to invest more, and that is what we are doing when we kick-start a decade of renewal in this country. Our top priority is economic infrastructure. High-quality and reliable infrastructure is essential to how we live, work and travel. The UK is the fifth-largest economy in the world, and it is not good enough that we have fallen so far behind other nations on infrastructure, so we are going to fix that. I can therefore confirm today that our national infrastructure strategy will be published at the Budget. That strategy will deliver better transport, faster broadband and wider mobile coverage. It will level up every region and nation of this great United Kingdom and deliver an infrastructure revolution. The strategy will take great strides for the decarbonisation of our economy, which is one of this country’s most important challenges, by building on our record as the first major economy in the world to legislate for net zero by 2050.
Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)
I thank the Chancellor for responding so positively to a joint campaign by me and Andy Street, the Mayor of the West Midlands, for funding to open two additional train stations in Walsall, including one in Willenhall in my constituency. I thank the Chancellor for that money.
Sajid Javid
That is exactly what I mean when I talk about levelling up the economy and ensuring that all parts of our great nation are benefiting from the infra- structure revolution.
Tim Farron
The Chancellor is being generous in giving way. As taxpayers, the British people collectively bailed out the banks a decade ago, and the banks have repaid taxpayers by closing down branches on every high street and in every village in the country. Just in the past two weeks, we have seen Barclays withdraw from the scheme that underpinned the Post Office, which now does its work for it. Will he stand up to Barclays and demand that it remains part of that Post Office scheme?
Sajid Javid
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the banks should think carefully about their responsibilities to all communities, and the Economic Secretary to the Treasury met the chief executive of Barclays just today to discuss that very issue.
Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s announcements on infrastructure and broadband, which will also apply to Scotland. Will he also confirm that we were spending around £20 billion more on interest payments when the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats came into government? Those interest payments were going to international bondholders, so the friends of the international bankers and financiers are, in fact, in the Labour party, not the Conservatives.
Sajid Javid
My hon. Friend is right. A Labour Chancellor deregulated banking and created a light-touch system, and we all paid the price.
I want to compare my approach to infrastructure with Labour’s. I am going to invest in new infrastructure that will grow the economy. Labour would borrow hundreds of billions to renationalise productive assets and then run them into the ground. I want to unleash all the talent and expertise of the private sector. Labour says—I quote the shadow Chancellor here—that business is the “enemy” and would tax it into submission. I will do all my work within a careful and credible fiscal framework; Labour would simply waste the money just like last time.
Clive Efford
There is a real credibility gap in what the Chancellor is saying, because if austerity was the right thing to do in 2010, why is it not still the right thing to do now, given that debt has doubled to £1.8 trillion or 80% of GDP? How can we believe that the Government intend to go on this huge spending spree when they have been doing quite the opposite to try to tackle the problem? The Chancellor is keen on quoting the Institute for Fiscal Studies, but it predicts that we will need another dose of austerity if he carries on. This economy needs investment, not the austerity that the Government are planning.
Sajid Javid
First, the IFS does not predict that at all, so the Gentleman should check his facts. Secondly, I gently point out to him that debt is brought under control by controlling borrowing. Borrowing is the deficit, and the deficit was what the Labour party left at 10% of GDP, but it is now four fifths less than that. Controlling borrowing is how we bring debt under control.
Better infrastructure and fiscal responsibility will enable our future economic growth, but so will trade. Ninety per cent. of future global economic growth is estimated to be outside Europe, with more than a quarter coming from China alone. Britain has always been an open country that believes in free trade. British businesses have strong trading relationships around the world. The new deal that we have agreed with the EU will allow us to have an independent trade policy and to strike new trade agreements with countries around the world, and the new trade Bill will put that into practice. Let me compare that with Labour’s position on trade. Labour would lock us into the EU customs union, ending any chance of an independent trade policy. How did Labour’s head of trade policy describe Labour’s views? He said:
“We reject the whole principle of free trade.”
Our support for free trade is not the only thing that marks Britain out on the global stage. Our remarkable financial services sector, which is now back to good health, does so, too. It is not just the City of London; our financial services sector involves the entire UK. All our financial and professional services firms truly are a national asset, employing more than a million people and contributing more than £130 billion to our economy every year. The financial services legislation that we brought forward in the Queen’s Speech will maintain and enhance our position as a world-leading financial centre after we leave the EU.
This Queen’s Speech gets Brexit done, invests more to grow the economy and delivers on the people’s priorities: action on infrastructure, trade and financial services, and a new economic plan for a new decade of renewal.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
I am sure that the Chancellor is correct that some parts of the economy will benefit from a number of the changes, but other parts of the economy, particularly in the north-east, will be heavily damaged by the plans that he is outlining and that are outlined in the deal. The north-east exports over 60% of its goods to the EU, and hurting that relationship will be hugely damaging to our region. He does not seem to be taking any account of the disparate regional impacts around the country.
Sajid Javid
I do not accept the hon. Lady’s analysis. Once we leave the EU with the close economic partnership that is set out in the political declaration, our economy will continue to be one of the strongest in the world, unleashing many new opportunities for all parts of our country, including the north-east.
Turning to the amendment tabled by the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), let me be clear about one thing: Britain will always be an open, global, outward-looking country. I am proud of living in a country as diverse as this one. We have dropped arbitrary immigration targets and recently announced new highly flexible fast-track visas for scientists; none of that will change as we leave the EU. We will continue to welcome the best and the brightest from across the world. I therefore urge all hon. Members to vote against amendment (h) because it is important that we end free movement as we regain control of our borders.
I turn now to the shadow Chancellor’s amendment. There are no mainstream parties in the developed world with an economic agenda as extreme as the one now proposed by Labour. There is no tax that the Labour party would not hike, there is no business that it would not nationalise, and there is no strike that it would not support. Instead of embracing the future, the shadow Chancellor demands that we turn back the clock on progress. He claims that 95% of people would face no income tax hikes under Labour, but then proposes more than 20 new tax hikes. He claims that he would protect pensioners, but tell that to the millions whose pensions will be smashed by Labour’s threats to renationalise vast swathes of the economy without any proper compensation. He told businesses he had nothing up his sleeve, but then he announced plans to confiscate £300 billion of shares from private investors in the biggest state raid this country will ever see.
The shadow Chancellor has never worked in a business. He does not get business. He even refuses to name a single business that he admires. And guess what? He calls business the real enemy. Given his threats to hike taxes, to renationalise businesses and to load them up with new bills and regulations, I am pretty sure the feeling is mutual.
We have even heard Labour officials suggesting—I am not making this up—the nationalisation of travel agents. It will be free trips to Havana for Labour Front Benchers, and perhaps a ticket to Siberia for the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Tom Watson). The simple truth is that Labour is not fit to govern. It would wreck the economy and hard-working families would pay the price, just like last time.
These are the fundamental dividing lines in British politics today. We will raise wages; Labour will raise taxes. We will back business; it will smash business. We will get Brexit done; it will dither and delay. A Conservative party that believes in free enterprise and that will get Brexit done and deliver the change people want; or an anti-aspiration, anti-business Labour party led by a pair who would wreck the economy, cancel the referendum and leave Britain less secure and less safe.
I know the shadow Chancellor is a fan of the little red book, but these days he is less Chairman Mao and more Colonel Sanders—too chicken to face an election. Let us back this deal; let us back this Queen’s Speech; and let us have a general election. I commend the Queen’s Speech to the House.
Catherine McKinnell
Out of respect I did not want to interrupt the Chancellor’s speech, but is it in order for him to impugn the motives of my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) in raising concerns on behalf of her constituents? Is it not unparliamentary for somebody holding his high office to do that, especially when he refuses to appear before the Treasury Committee to answer directly for his plans?
Madam Deputy Speaker
I sort of thank the hon. Lady for her point of order. I really do not want to see the debate interrupted by points of order that are, frankly, matters of debate. It is a matter of debate whether people think what the Chancellor said is appropriate. I want to get on with the debate.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
I am not standing up to make a job application, as some people have suggested. In fact, we are trying to work ourselves out of a job by securing an independent Scotland, not one that has to send representatives to this place.
I take this opportunity to introduce amendment (h), in the names of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts)—the leader of Plaid Cymru in the House of Commons—and many other SNP Members.
This place has been nothing short of chaotic over the past few weeks and, in fact, over the past three years. If Members are looking on in horror at the childish behaviour of the UK Government, I can only imagine how people out there are feeling as they watch the utter chaos created by the actions of this Tory Government.
This year’s Queen’s Speech comes in the most turbulent and uncertain times these isles have seen in decades. In the pursuit of a hard Tory Brexit that rips us out of the single market, the Scottish economy is already £3 billion smaller than if none of this had been foisted upon us by this Government. UK in a Changing Europe estimates that GDP per capita will be some 6.4% lower in the long run compared with the UK remaining in the EU. That represents, on average, every person in these isles missing out on £2,000 of income each year.
This deal proposes the loss of the single market. The world’s largest economic bloc gives businesses in Britain access to 500 million customers, with no barriers, no tariffs and no local legislation to worry about. It is no surprise that nearly half our exports go to other EU nations. Those exports are linked to 3 million jobs in the UK. Today, almost 80% of British jobs are in the services sector, a sector with £226 billion of exports, nearly half of which go to Europe.
“I can see why some people want to leave the EU. Arguments about national identity and sovereignty pack an emotional punch. But for anyone who cares about British jobs, it comes down to one key question. Do businesses want the benefits and security of continued access to the Single Market, or the instability and uncertainty of a lost decade?”
Those are not my words but the words of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is now willing to tip businesses into that lost decade in pursuit of this hard Tory Brexit.
Luke Graham
The hon. Lady talks about childish behaviour, but it was, of course, the SNP that walked out of proceedings in this House rather than participate in debate.
On her point about tipping over the economy, I would say that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer understands the irony of a nationalist standing up in this House to talk about leaving an internal market, costing billions of pounds, when that is the SNP’s reason for existence.
Kirsty Blackman
The SNP only walked out of this place because our leader was chucked out. We followed him out because we were standing up for the rights of the Scottish Parliament to stand up against the power grab this place was foisting on us.
A Panelbase poll came out a couple of weeks ago showing that more people in Scotland believe they would be better off in an independent Scotland within the EU than in broken Brexit Britain. We are winning the economic argument, and the Conservatives are losing it.
The Conservatives know they are losing the economic argument, which is why they are unwilling to publish an economic impact assessment of this deal. They are unwilling to allow the Office for Budget Responsibility to publish the figures on what will happen to the economy as a result of the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal. That is why they are wavering about the date of the Budget. If the Chancellor would confirm that the Budget will be on 6 November and that the OBR’s figures will be published, that would be welcome news, but he does not seem keen to see those figures come forward.
Jamie Stone
A vibrant Scottish economy, whether independent or within the UK, relies on a viable banking network. I will shortly have only one bank branch left in the whole county of Sutherland. Every time I have raised this, the Treasury has given me comforting words about 99% of the population having access to a local post office. Many of my constituents live 20, 30 or 40 miles, or even further, from the nearest post office or bank branch. Surely now it is time to take action on this serious issue, which fundamentally undermines the economy not only of Scotland but of the UK.
Kirsty Blackman
I agree. In fact, the SNP has been at the forefront of fighting rural bank closures, saying that post office services are inadequate and unable to take on the role being foisted upon them by the closure of banks. We will continue to do everything we can to support our communities and to ensure they have access to free local banking services, local to them, that they can get to by public transport, if at all possible. We will keep doing what we can.
Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)
My hon. Friend, as ever, is making a fantastic speech. Does she agree that this Tory Government are the biggest threat in a generation to Scotland and its economy? The tourism sector, in particular, benefits all our constituencies. Scotland is rightly recognised as one of the most beautiful countries in the world, and 70% of businesses in the tourism sector are worried about the end of free movement of people, the loss of access to the vital member states of the European Union and the loss of labour for their businesses.
Kirsty Blackman
I absolutely agree. I was about to come on to the details in our amendment about the loss of freedom of movement and the problems it will cause. As our amendment sets out, we believe
“that freedom of movement has brought immeasurable social, cultural and economic benefits to the people of Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland and the European Union as a whole”.
I wish to focus for a moment on the economic benefits of immigration and the significant problems that will be caused by the implementation of the immigration Bill that the Government intend to bring forward.
Each EU citizen who comes to Scotland adds £34,400 to GDP each year. That is not an insignificant number. Those people who choose to come to live and work in Scotland are largely young and working, they have relatively few healthcare needs and are contributing economically to our country’s wealth. Reducing the number of EU migrants by setting arbitrary salary levels and reducing our ability to attract both long-term and seasonal migrants will hit our economy even harder than some of the other things associated with Brexit. We do not want this future. We want our country to continue to be the welcoming, inclusive, outward-looking country that it is and we absolutely reject the Tories’ proposals on immigration.
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
Is it not the case that, over the last 100 years, Scotland has faced a unique challenge in growing its population and it is only since being in the EU, with the benefit of EU migrants, that Scotland’s population has begun to grow? What right-minded person would put that rising population—that rising workforce—at risk by ending free movement?
Kirsty Blackman
One of the first political moments I remember came when Jack McConnell was talking about Scotland’s population dipping and about the massive concerns there were around the millennium about its population going below 5 million; I think that was the number at the time. I recall hearing that and thinking, even as a 14-year-old in 2000, how devastating it was. I am so pleased that we have had the freedom of movement that has come as part of the EU.
My kids go to school with so many children from so many countries around the world, and a huge number of them are from the EU. They are living in Aberdeen. Outside London, Aberdeen has the highest percentage of non-UK-born people in the UK, which is amazing for a place that people think is quite far away. Actually, we are pretty good at attracting people. But we struggle with the immigration rules. Every week people come to my office and sit around my table crying because the UK Government are saying that, despite the fact that they have jumped through every possible hoop that has been put in front of them, they are not able to stay and they must return to Nigeria, Poland or whichever country it is that they originate from. This UK Government are attempting to make that situation worse, not better.
I wish to look at the economic impact of failing to support technologies that help to meet our climate change targets. In Scotland, we have the skills, ability, capacity and geography to become world leaders in these technologies, but we need the UK Government to stop messing around and to take their responsibilities seriously. We must have immediate action to support and invest in carbon capture and storage technologies. We are uniquely placed, with our geology, to capitalise on this and to become world leaders in this space, and we cannot have the situation that happened when George Osborne was in the Treasury: he pulled funding at the last moment for these vital future technologies for our country.
We also need the UK Government to take their responsibilities seriously on this. They cannot just set a target of 2050 and then refuse to set out a plan for how they are going to get there. They should look at what the Scottish Government have done on the green new deal, which sets our targets and makes clear how we are going to reach our target of 2045, rather than just having an arbitrary, pie-in-the-sky target. As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) said, the UK Government are doing lots of talk, but no actual action. So we would like them actually to take action through the environment Bill.
Albert Owen
The hon. Lady makes an important point about different devolved Administrations going at difference paces, but we have actually seen cuts to energy-efficiency measures in England, whereas Scotland spends four times more on energy efficiency, Wales spends twice as much, and Northern Ireland, which does not even have a Government, spends one and a half times more than the UK.
Kirsty Blackman
This is a hugely concerning direction of travel and it comes despite climate change and things potentially warming up. We need to have energy-efficiency measures. For example, if we want to decarbonise our gas networks, we need to do things such as adding hydrogen and biomethane into the mix. We also need to do things such as ensuring that we have incredibly energy-efficient homes, be that in new homes or through retrofitting older homes. Aberdeen has a campaign to put insulation in granite tenements, which are particularly difficult to insulate and particularly common in Aberdeen. That has made a massive improvement not just in terms of energy efficiency and climate change targets, but in terms of the wealth of those people, who no longer have to pay those immensely high heating bills.
Several hon. Members rose—
Kirsty Blackman
You are looking at me, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I will make some progress.
I am going now to focus on tackling inequality. This Queen’s Speech offers no rays of sunshine. In Scotland, we are bringing forward all our spending review plans, our programme for government and our national performance framework and looking at the plans on the basis of the wellbeing of people who live in Scotland. Scotland and New Zealand are leading the way in the world in this space. The UK Government are not taking account of wellbeing, as we can see by the fact that every time Conservative Members stand up they talk about how great it is that we have such low unemployment, how rich everybody is, how well everybody is going and how much higher their wages are. If we ask people in the streets and people at our surgeries whether they feel as though they are richer than they were before a decade of austerity, we find that they all say that they are not richer and that this Tory Government have catapulted them into poverty. We are seeing increasing numbers of children in poverty. In Scotland, we are doing everything we can to combat that, through things such as the baby box and the Scottish child payment. Our Government are doing everything they can but they cannot mitigate every one of the excesses of Tory austerity, no matter how hard we try, because we do not have all the levers that would be available with independence.
Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)
Does the hon. Lady share my disappointment that in opening this debate the Government were unable to give us a date when they are going to close food banks?
Kirsty Blackman
I agree. I am incredibly concerned about the increase in food bank use that there has been, particularly among people who are working. The Government talk about the fact that so many more people are at work, but so many more of those people who are at work are having to go to food banks. People are having to make the choice between heating their homes and feeding their children. Half of families have less than £100 in savings and, if their washing machine breaks down and their kid needs a new pair of shoes, they are into debt. That situation cannot continue. We need this UK Government to step up to ensure that people are paid a living wage that they can actually live on. It does not matter what age they are, be it 19, 29 or 59, they should be paid a living wage that they can live on.
Hannah Bardell
I share my hon. Friend’s sentiments. Our SNP-led Scottish Government are fed up with filling in the black holes of this Westminster Government, who are destroying the fabric of our society. Does she agree that it is time they got their house in order? This week, I have had contact from constituents who are waiting for their maternity allowance and have been told by the Department for Work and Pensions that there is a backlog to June. Families and women who are due to have babies are going to be left in poverty because of this Government’s mismanagement. Does she agree that that cannot continue?
Kirsty Blackman
That is genuinely shocking. Maternity allowance is something that people absolutely need to get if they are entitled to it, and this UK Government need to step up to the plate and ensure that the women who are entitled to it get it, without months of backlog.
The Government keep talking about “Getting Brexit done.” But the reality, as set out in the piece the Chancellor wrote in 2016, is that, whether a deal is passed this week or not, there will be years, if not decades, of negotiations with the EU. This Government need to be honest with people about that. The Government are not going to be able to get Brexit done in the next week, whatever happens. We need that extension to happen and we need to ensure that there is no cliff edge.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
Does my hon. Friend share my concern at reports that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, addressing a Committee in the Senedd in Cardiff, has just told us that there are no impact assessments for Holyhead?
Kirsty Blackman
I am shocked that the UK Government would try to convince us to vote for anything that they refused to do an impact assessment on. I take this opportunity to throw down the gauntlet to all MPs who represent Scottish or Welsh constituencies: they should all walk through the Lobby with us to support amendment (h). If they do not support the rights and desires of the people of Scotland and of Wales, they will be doing a disservice to their constituents, their constituencies and their countries. The amendment must be agreed tonight, because we must recognise the importance of freedom of movement and the negative impacts in respect of inequality that the Government are having, and we must do everything we can to recognise that there is a climate emergency and to ensure that solid action is taken to step up to the plate and become world leaders.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. It is obvious that this debate is very well subscribed, so after the next speaker I shall impose a five-minute time limit. It may then have to come down, but after the next speaker it will be five minutes.
Sir Michael Fallon (Sevenoaks) (Con)
I remind the House of the interests recorded in my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
In supporting the excellent Queen’s Speech, I wish to touch briefly on just three areas: expenditure, the new borrowing framework, and what more we can do to make our capitalism inclusive.
On expenditure, the new money for the NHS and for schools is extremely welcome. With regard to the NHS, I hope it will help to relieve the pressure on our general practitioners, to get more resources into mental health and to start to fill the gap between health and social care. I hope it can do all that without involving us in yet another bureaucratic reorganisation, at any level.
The extra money for schools is particularly welcome in Kent. At long last, it addresses the inequality of funding between some of our shires and the metropolitan areas. It will mean more for primary schools in my constituency, which have been historically underfunded. As that money comes through, I hope the Secretary of State for Education will also look into how we can better protect the main schools block, which authorities such as Kent are currently having to raid to cope with the increasing demands for special needs provision.
Having welcomed the extra expenditure, given that the previous fiscal framework is clearly under some stress, I also welcome the Chancellor’s ambition to set out in his Budget a new fiscal framework for the future. I hope the framework will be clear and credible for the markets, and I also hope he will avoid some of the fudgeable targets and fuzzy definitions and classifications that we saw in the later years of Gordon Brown’s chancellorship.
I hope that, as Conservatives, we will continue to look at how we defend and refresh our capitalism and make it more inclusive for all our country. Back in the 1980s, we developed popular capitalism: 11 million people in this country held shares and had a stake in the privatised industries. Thirty years on, too many of those private industries are too poorly regulated, and we have seen share ownership in decline. Let me give an example of two of those industries.
The first industry is rail. Last year, we Members of Parliament—my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) was with me—had to intervene in the timetable chaos and persuade one rail operator that shared a line with another to pick up passengers who had been stranded by that other operator. Both rail operators were subsidiaries of the same group, so why did Members of Parliament have to intervene? Where was the rail regulator to sort it out? I welcome the proposals in the Queen’s Speech to look again at the structure of the industry and ensure that it is more accountable and better regulated.
The second industry is water. Thames Water has been privatised for 30 years. It pays hundreds of millions over to its shareholders and to its parent company, yet it is behind on its leakage targets and behind other water companies on the installation of smarter meters. Because it is behind, it is bleeding the chalk streams around London, including the River Darent, with the extraction of water that it needs to top up its supplies in the centre of London.
Tom Tugendhat
My right hon. Friend has been an example in helping to bring together the various companies to realise their duties. Does he agree that there are also good examples? Greggs has done an enormous amount by pushing share ownership to employees and has massively improved the equity stake that individuals have in the product of their own labour.
Sir Michael Fallon
I certainly understand that, and my hon. Friend takes me to the point with which I wish to conclude, which is what more we can do to encourage share ownership. Some of the employee share schemes we have—I have written to the Chancellor on this—are still very complicated. The qualifying periods are still very long and do not reflect the mobility of the modern workforce. I am afraid some of the lower-paid staff simply cannot afford to participate in them. I hope that when it comes to his Budget, the Chancellor will keep looking at how we can do more to promote employee share ownership in particular, by reducing the qualifying periods and giving people a real incentive to save.
Sir Michael Fallon
I am sorry but I will not; I am just finishing.
One of my heroes of the year—there may be many other candidates—is an entrepreneur called Julian Richer, who is now coming up to retirement and is handing over 40% of his company, Richer Sounds, to the employees, ensuring that they have a stake in the future. We need more incentives like that to promote loyalty and give people a real stake in their future. I thoroughly support the Queen’s Speech.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
It is hard to take the Queen’s Speech seriously as a statement of intent from a Government who have no majority and are hellbent on taking us down a reckless route out of the European Union. I am sure my constituents wanted to believe it when the Government promised to address violent crime, measures to support and strengthen the national health service and investment in education, but I am afraid they will be disappointed. If the Government press ahead with their plans for a hard Brexit, there is a good chance that not only will there be no extra money for our police, health service and schools, but there will be less money for all our public services. My constituents will have less money in their pockets, and the future opportunities for their children and grandchildren will be diminished.
The Government have refused to publish any economic impact analysis of their great new deal, but fortunately others have. Professor Anand Menon, director of the UK in a Changing Europe, published a report last week that models the economic impact of the Prime Minister’s proposals. The report suggests that income per capita in the UK would be significantly lower under his deal and that the Government finances would suffer, too. Even in the most optimistic scenario, the report suggests that the Prime Minister’s deal would leave the public finances £16 billion worse off. In the most pessimistic scenario, the forecast is of a much greater hit to the public purse of around £49 billion. Economic modelling is inherently uncertain, but my constituents need to know that the promises in the Queen’s Speech about investment in vital public services are hollow and cannot be relied on.
People in Nottingham need assurances about the future of the services they rely on, because after nine and a half years of deep and damaging cuts, our local police, schools and health services are under extreme pressure. Last week, I was out with the street offences team in Radford. I saw at first hand some of the challenges that our police officers face and heard about the rise in serious violence, often related to illegal drugs. We have fewer police officers in Nottingham than we had nine years ago; our youth services have been decimated; and many families are struggling to get by, working multiple jobs but still in poverty. It is no coincidence that too many young people are falling prey to gangs and criminal behaviour.
My constituents regularly tell me that they cannot get an appointment to see their GP and that they cannot get the help they need with their mental health. When people cannot access the services and support that they need in their local community, sooner or later the problem becomes acute, and they go to the place where the lights are always on: A&E. The emergency department at the Queen’s medical centre has seen a 9% increase in attendances in the past year alone. Our hospitals provide excellent care, but that level of pressure takes its toll, and, I am afraid, that is reflected in sickness absence, staff turnover and poor retention rates.
Many Nottingham hospital staff are also working in inadequate conditions, because the trust, which is one of the biggest and busiest in the country, has the highest critical infrastructure risk in the entire NHS outside London. There have been 11 major incidents in the past three years, including power failures and water leaks. Urgent fire safety works are needed, including £24 million to replace highly polluting 40-year-old coal-fired boilers. Where is that £30 million a week extra for the NHS when we need it?
If there were time, I would raise the crisis in social care that is particularly acute in cities such as mine, serving deprived communities with higher need and lower resources. That is impacting older people, disabled people and carers. I would highlight how the lack of affordable housing, cruel benefit cuts and the loss of support services have resulted in a homelessness crisis. I would talk about the impact on students, teachers and support staff doing exceptional work in our schools and colleges in Nottingham South despite every single one of them suffering real-terms budget cuts under this Government.
I do not trust this Government with our economy, and I do not trust them with our public services. My constituents deserve so much better, and only Labour will deliver it.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I am under pressure to reduce the time limit, but I do not want to do that. If we can all shave off a few seconds, that will hopefully hold the time limit.
Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)
May I start by saying what an honour it is to have been elected as the Chair of the Treasury Committee? I pay tribute to my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan), who did such sterling work on the Committee, particularly with women in finance, the gender pay gap and other such important issues, all of which I intend to press forward with.
It is very early days. I was elected only yesterday and I have not even had a proper chance to sit down with the other members of the Committee to consider what we will be looking at in detail over the coming period. However, as this is an opportunity to bend the Chancellor’s ear, I thought that I would raise one or two extremely important points, which have been reflected in the debate so far this afternoon.
The first is Brexit. It seems to me that there is plenty of sound and fury around the issue, but what we need is some illumination and light. We will never all collectively agree in this House or indeed in the Treasury Committee on exactly where we want to end with Brexit, or indeed how we are going to get there. None the less, what we can all agree on is that information is important and that we need to know the data. I accept the Chancellor’s point that the political declaration is not the same thing as what is going through in the Bill at the moment; none the less, an assessment was made of the previous set of deals—on a broad range of circumstances, admittedly—and I think and fully expect that the Committee will be pressing at as early a stage as possible for some kind of assessment to be made of the likely outcomes of the deal that is under consideration.
The second point is about the Budget. A Budget will be coming very soon, which we will be scrutinising very closely. My message to the Chancellor is that after hearing from colleagues, we want to look at the regional distribution of the Budget. The Committee has already done some very good work on regional imbalances across the UK economy, and we will want to look at that closely. We will also want to look at how rural communities—
Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)
May I add my congratulations to my right hon. Friend on his election to what is one of the most important Select Committees of this House? Does he agree that in addition to the comments he has just made, another very important area for the Treasury to consider is the way in which fairer funding for local councils—for example, for Leicestershire County Council—has to operate?
Mel Stride
I agree with my hon. Friend entirely. In fact, one of the prisms through which we should view this Budget is also how well-funded rural communities are compared to urban communities. That is a very important point. Moreover, we need to look at the tax impacts of the measures that come forward in the Budget, not least on those who are the least well-off. Those on the Opposition Front Bench will have heard me tirelessly repeat the mantra that 28% of all income tax is paid by the wealthiest 1%. However, although that is true, it is not the same thing as saying that we should not keep an eagle eye on the bottom quintile and make sure that they are fairly treated.
I also want to consider the issues that my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) has often raised with me about the interaction of the universal credit taper and the income tax regime, and the fact that, for some lower-income families with children, that leads to marginal tax rates of 70% or more. That is unjust and something on which the Committee may wish to focus.
My final point on the Budget is that, as a global economy, we are facing a slowdown. Most projections now have gone from growth of 4% to about 3%. There are corporate debt issues in China, which are weighing down investment globally, and we have a trade war between the United States and China. With regard to our own fiscal numbers, we have had a reclassification of the student loan debt such that some £12 billion has been taken out of the so-called headroom between what we can spend and the meeting of our fiscal mandate in 2020-21. Given all the expenditure commitments that are being made at the moment, the Committee will be looking very carefully at the issue of fiscal prudence and making sure that the new fiscal targets that the Chancellor may come forward with are, first, appropriate and, secondly, actually achievable.
There are some other important issues that I wish to raise. The Chancellor used the expression, I think, that he wants to come forward on the people’s priorities. I call that the “Dog and Duck” test. What is it that people, when they are down the local pub—if they still have a local pub—talk about and care about? I wish to raise two priorities. One is access to local finance. That was raised very eloquently by the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) and also by way of intervention by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone). I call on Barclays to reconsider its decision in relation to the availability of cash over the counter at post offices. I know that my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary had a meeting with the chief executive of Barclays just yesterday and that he is working very hard on this issue. None the less, in many communities, including those in my constituency, where the last bank has gone, it is the Post Office to which we turn. I pay tribute briefly to Stuart Rogers, the postmaster at Ashburton post office and a leading member of the National Federation of SubPostmasters, who has done such brilliant work in this area. I know, in fact, that he is known to many Members in the Chamber for his work up here in Westminster.
In my final 20 seconds, let me say that we need to get fairer taxation internationally for those online businesses, which create value through internet platforms such as search engines in social media and marketplaces. People expect them to be taxed fairly. It is a matter not of avoidance, but of having a tax regime that is fit for the 21st century.
Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)
Every month, Ministers stand at that Dispatch Box and boast about the unemployment figures—we heard some of it from the Chancellor today. They pat themselves on the back and tell themselves how well they are doing, but there are parts of the country where this boasting sounds like something from another planet. Figures from the House of Commons Library show that, last month in my constituency, there were 4,020 people unemployed. That is higher than a year ago, and higher than July of this year. This is the figure that takes account of the roll-out of universal credit. Although unemployment may be stable or falling in some parts of the country, in my constituency and others like it the figures have been going up month on month for a long time. Unemployment at these levels gives my constituency a jobless rate of around 9%—more than double the national average. Of those 4,000 people, we have more than 700 unemployed young people. This is a criminal waste of talent and an appalling denial of opportunity for those affected and their families.
For those who are in work, pay is much lower than average. Full-time workers in my constituency earn around £100 a week less than the national average. People are working hard and trying to do the right thing, but they are not getting the rewards that they deserve. No wonder people feel that the system is not working for them when their chances of getting a job are lower than average, and the pay they get when they do get a job is also lower than average. We need an economy that works for every part of the country, not just some of it, but right now we do not have that.
The pattern of low pay and high unemployment is reinforced by the number of adults of working age with no formal qualifications. But look at what is happening with skills funding. According to the Education Policy Institute, real-terms spending per student in the further education sector has fallen by 18% in the last nine years. The IFS estimates that there was a cut of £3.3 billion in real terms across the whole further education and skills budget between 2010 and last year. In my region, apprenticeship starts have fallen by 9,000 in the past year. Instead of funding a platform for opportunity at the very moment that people need help, the Government have kicked the ladder away. How can we give people the best possible chance in life if the funding for the organisations that equip them for the jobs of today and tomorrow is being cut? Yet that is precisely what this Government have done.
On top of all that, the Government are now committed to cuts in corporation tax, which will cost the Exchequer billions of pounds a year. That money could be used to support working-class communities across the country. My constituency has already suffered from benefit freezes and tax credit cuts, which hurt low-income families. We have also faced cuts to police numbers, and schools—which can barely make ends meet—are doing their best and struggling heroically to help local children. If we really want to help working-class communities, we need a proper long-term plan for the smaller cities and towns, which for too long have been left out of economic prosperity. We need something that really tackles the long-term legacy of industrial closures in years gone by, and gives those areas a new and prosperous future.
A couple of months ago, I published a proposal with the think-tank Global Future to take the money that the Government are proposing to give away through the planned cuts in corporation tax, and instead to use that money to create a long-term fund for smaller cities and towns. Not going ahead with these proposed tax cuts—without raising a penny in tax anywhere else—would give us a fund of £4 billion to £5 billion a year; just think what we could do with that over a 10-year period. We could really invest in the childcare essential to help young parents take up jobs and boost their incomes. We could reclaim the land that is still derelict as a result of industrial closures and get it fit for housing again. We could give those adults who do not have enough qualifications the chance to succeed in the labour market of today. We could build a platform where we did something about the two-speed nature of our economy—a bridge between the areas already doing well and those struggling with the legacy of high unemployment, low income and low skills. That is the kind of plan we need for the future, and it is sadly missing from this Queen’s Speech.
Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to contribute to this debate about the economy. It is an economy that is changing, and I want to use my few minutes to speak about that change.
Technology has already transformed many of our businesses and much of our economic activity is now happening online, but of course some things have not changed. The Government still need businesses to create wealth to tax and spend on public services, and businesses still need the Government to provide the environment in which wealth can be created. But in the new digital economy, Government policy making needs to be quicker and more imaginative, and it needs to do several things at once.
Policy making needs to provide for necessary infra- structure, including broadband. It also needs to deliver the increased investment in science and research referred to in the Gracious Speech, and an immigration system designed to allow the brightest minds to contribute to our ongoing prosperity. But there is something else that policy has to do. It needs to create the ethical and regulatory frameworks within which technology advances. Now, some fear that innovation is stifled by ethical safeguards, but I think it is the opposite; I think that it can be the absence of ethical safeguards that holds innovation back.
Let us take artificial intelligence as a good example. The real potential for AI is in the intelligent utilisation of data, and lots of it. It cannot bring truly transformative improvement without that data, and much of the data it needs—some of it very sensitive—it is in the hands of individuals who understandably worry about what may be done with it. They will not make their data available if they are not persuaded that there are ethical safeguards in place to protect it. The Government need to design and implement those safeguards.
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. May I suggest that if there are lots of interventions, people who wish to make speeches are going to end up with a reduced time limit?
Stephen Metcalfe
I just want to make a comment in the light of what my right hon. and learned Friend was saying about ethics in the use of data. Does he agree that the UK has historically led the field in the creation of ethical frameworks, and that we are well placed to do so again when it comes to AI?
Jeremy Wright
I agree with my hon. Friend. In the interest of saving time, he takes me directly to my next point, which is that we in the UK are well placed to do the work to which he refers. We are respected not just for our scientific expertise, but also for our regulatory expertise. I hope very much that the Government will engage fully in that task.
Finally, I urge the Government to maintain their commitment to internet safety and the reduction of online harms. I was very proud to bring forward the online harms White Paper in conjunction with a number of ministerial colleagues, including my right hon. Friend the Chancellor when he was Home Secretary. That White Paper sets out a response to online harms in social media and other user-generated content that seeks to balance freedom of speech with protection of the vulnerable in a fast-moving landscape where, frankly, hardly any rules have been applied so far. I believe that the approach it sets out strikes that balance well, but we certainly heard arguments that said, “Hold back. Let someone else regulate first, in case all the investment coming into the UK now from Google, Facebook and all the rest goes somewhere else instead.” Well, I rejected those arguments then and I reject them now—not least because, as these companies generally accept, if social media and other online spaces are not seen as safe spaces, people will increasingly choose not to be there, and if people are not there, they cannot be sold anything there, so it is good business as well as good policy to make them safer. I am therefore pleased to see in the Gracious Speech a commitment to continue to develop proposals to improve internet safety, but I am disappointed not yet to see a commitment to legislate to do so. I understand Ministers’ preference to pursue pre-legislative scrutiny first, and it is important to get this right, but I urge them not to lose momentum.
At this crucial moment in the development of the digital economy, we should not just act to protect the vulnerable in our own communities; with that well-deserved reputation for both innovating and regulating effectively, we should also be proud to lead the world in making the internet a safer place.
Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)
This debate about the economy gives us an opportunity that the shadow Chancellor tried to take and the Chancellor missed, although the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon) started to get to where I think this debate on the economy should be taking us. Let me explain what I mean.
My constituents in all parts of Gedling—in Carlton, Arnold, Netherfield, Colwick and Burton Joyce—say exactly the same as is being said by many people in the country: that the system, as it is currently, does not work for them. They do not believe that the way the system operates is fair and they want something done about it. And what they want from this Parliament is a vision of an economy that is different from the way it functions now.
It is such a big issue that the Financial Times—the doyen of the City of London—recently ran an editorial that itself asks the question,
“How to build a more responsible…capitalism”.
It talks about how that can be done. I hope that the new Chair of the Treasury Committee will consider whether his Committee should look at how we are going to deliver a market system that regulates itself in a way that does not allow the excesses that we have seen. This is a quote from a Guardian report on the Panama papers:
“Twitter and Facebook received hundreds of millions of dollars in investments that can be traced back to Russian state financial institutions…Aggressive tax avoidance by multinational corporations, including Nike and Apple…billions in tax refunds by the Isle of Man and Malta to the owners of private jets and luxury yachts.”
None of us, whether we are Labour, Liberal, Scottish nationalist or Conservative—whoever we are—can believe that is right. Where in the Chancellor’s speech did it say that whoever was in government they would tackle that?
It cannot be right that multinational companies are shifting a growing share of profits offshore—£600 billion in the past year alone. Then we turn to the people who HMRC pursues for a few pounds that they owe, or the Benefits Agency pursues for a few pounds that they owe. That is not the sort of society that people want. That is not the sort of society that people think is fair. The Sunday Telegraph, on page 5, laid into the way in which investment funds work. Nigel Woodford—I have never heard of him—
Vernon Coaker
Well, there you go—Neil Woodford. I have still never heard of him. We read about Terry Smith, Nick Train and Anthony Bolton, and millions of pounds of investors’ money. The money that we—hon. Members on both sides of the House—pay into savings, trust funds and pensions is put together and invested on our behalf by a system that has short-term interests and profit at its heart rather than the long-term benefit of communities. It cannot go on.
It cannot be right that my own brilliant BEIS Committee reported that the average FTSE 100 chief executive is on £4 million a year compared with the average worker on £30,000. It cannot carry on. All I wanted to hear was a Chancellor of the Exchequer who put at the heart of his Queen’s Speech contribution equality, a responsible capitalism, a change to the fast buck and a change to those people who seek to make money rather than putting people first. That is what I wanted to hear and it was seriously lacking.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), who made a very powerful speech. I am proud to have been part of a Government who helped to bring in changes to tax rules and the living wage that have meant that, as the Resolution Foundation has said, we have had the biggest fall in the number of those on low pay in our economy in 40 years.
That is not what I was planning to talk about, however; I plan to talk about an industry that has not had a lot of focus over the past three and a half years. I welcome the fact that there is a financial services Bill in the Queen’s Speech. Over the past three and a half years, we have talked a lot about some very important industries. We have talked about dairy farmers and fishermen, and about the importance of car manufacturing and manufacturing generally, but we have not spent a great deal of time talking about our biggest export sector: the financial services sector. I think all of us on both sides of the House can agree that when that sector works well, it is the driver and the engine of our economy. It employs about one in 14 of all our constituents—2.3 million people, two thirds of whom are outside the M25. It pays a lot of taxes—£75 billion last year. About £1 in every £10 of public spending is funded by the financial services sector. Let me give some concrete examples. Instead of 20,000 extra police, we would be able to pay for only 18,000 extra police if those tax revenues were not there. Instead of 40 hospital expansions, we would be able to pay for only 36 if those tax revenues were not there. It is therefore a very, very important sector.
I am keen to hear from Ministers exactly what is going to be in the financial services Bill. After all, it is a sector where we have made substantial progress in terms of sound regulation. I want to know whether this Bill will be similar to the one that fell at Prorogation. I want to hear what the Government’s vision will be for regulation in this sector after we leave the EU. I see from the political declaration on the future partnership that the vision is a great deal of equivalence between the UK and EU sectors. I would be interested to hear from the Government what their vision is for how that equivalence might work. In the third declaration, only three paragraphs —paragraphs 35 to 37—cover that vision so far, so it would therefore to be good to hear Ministers elaborate on how the equivalence mechanisms might work. How will there be arbitration in terms of those equivalence mechanisms? How will there be a process of notice if one sector does not meet the equivalence criteria? How will things change when the in-flight files that currently exist in the EU in this sector have to be incorporated into UK law? What degree of manoeuvre will this place have in relation to this sector when we have left the EU? These are very important questions that we have not had enough time to debate over the past three and a half years. This sector has already seen a change in export earnings—down to £60 billion last year compared with £69 billion in 2015. It would be very valuable if, when she winds up, the BEIS Secretary could talk about how she would view this mechanism working.
The financial services sector is vital to our economy. It is vital to every single one of our constituencies and every single person who relies on financial services for their business to grow, right across the country. It would be good to hear the Government’s plan for the sector in terms of that future partnership.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Just to let people know, after the next speech I will have to go down to four minutes to get everybody in.
Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin), who I voted for yesterday.
Rarely before in our history have a Government presented a Queen’s Speech that will do so much damage to our economy. By placing Brexit at its heart, the Prime Minister is delivering on one promise: his crude, four-letter pledge to business. This hardest of hard Brexits is as bad as it could get, save for a no-deal Brexit. The Conservatives once claimed to be the party of business, but they can never make that claim again. Let us just go through the basic economics. Reducing access to our closest international markets is highly damaging. Tearing up our membership of the EU’s customs union and single market, the best trade deal this country has ever had, is very destructive. Exiting our country from the multiple external trade deals that the EU has achieved is simply dreadful. Then we add the red tape that our exporters will be tied up in, at a cost to the private sector of at least a whopping £7.5 billion a year.
The Conservative’s central policy of the Queen’s Speech not only harms our economy, but will plunge our public finances into crisis. Regrettably, we do not yet have an official estimate of the red ink that this hard Brexit deal will pour over Britain’s finances but, as the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) said earlier, a report by UK in a Changing Europe estimates a cost to the Exchequer of between £16 billion and £48 billion a year, and a cumulative hit to borrowing of nearly £100 billion. This Government are sowing the seeds of a new austerity—a Brexit austerity, and a totally avoidable austerity.
If this Conservative Government are economically illiterate and fiscally incontinent, Labour’s shadow Chancellor is doing his best to give them cover. Take Labour’s plans to renationalise water, railways, energy and the Royal Mail. What is the cost—£100 billion, or perhaps £150 billion? Whatever the cost, it would be a calamitous waste of money. Of course there are problems with aspects of how our utilities have been operating, but there are positives, too. Just as we can fix the problems in Europe without the cost of the Conservatives’ ideological Brexit, we can fix the problems in these utilities without Labour’s costly ideology.
Take energy, for example. With the climate emergency, we must accelerate the pace of decarbonising energy, but instead Labour wants to spend years legislating for energy renationalisation—what a climate catastrophe! Liberal Democrats showed in government that if we intervene intelligently, we can harness the market to tackle climate change. Thanks to our decisions, Britain is now the global leader in offshore wind. Offshore wind farms now have much greater UK content than people ever imagined possible, and future offshore wind farms will no longer need a subsidy to be built. So if you want to go green, don’t go red, go yellow—and don’t destroy capitalism; decarbonise it.
It is this practical, business-like approach that goes through all Liberal Democrat economic policies. We start with a positive belief in markets, trade and competition, and we believe that responsible capitalism is possible. Liberal Democrats want to celebrate responsible business, and our policy of remaining in the EU is phenomenally popular with responsible business. It gives us a remain bonus to invest in our public services and our economy, to make them fairer and to equip them for the future.
On the likely eve of a general election, the voters are faced with a choice between two visions of the past and one vision of the future. In the blue corner, we have a return to the 1870s, in a colonial-style global Britain so well personified by the laid-back Leader of the House. In the red corner, we have a return to the 1970s, stoking up old class divisions when our country so desperately needs to come together. Fortunately, there is a yellow corner, from where we can go forward to the 2070s, full of hope and optimism that our country can survive this current nightmare, invest in our children and tackle climate change. As we vote against this damaging Queen’s Speech tonight and prepare to face the electorate—preferably in a referendum but, if not, in a general election —the voters can be in no doubt: the Liberal Democrats are the party for Britain’s future.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
I listened carefully to the speeches made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer. The shadow Chancellor said that there is too much inequality in the UK—I absolutely agree. As a one nation Conservative, I believe in equal opportunity for all, but I guess that the method of getting there is where we differ. In my view, we get there through a balance between free markets and capitalism, and a sensible amount of state intervention, to ensure that the free markets work for everybody, not just the privileged few. The difficulty is that, if we look at future challenges for the taxpayer, our scope for intervention will be very limited. Our current debt-to-GDP ratio is 80% of GDP. That is forecast to grow to 280% of GDP by 2060 unless we change our tax system. There are huge challenges ahead and huge burdens for the taxpayer, particularly in the areas of pensions, social care and healthcare. Free market opportunities will be more important than ever.
I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon) about the reduction in the number of capitalists in this country for various reasons. G. K. Chesterton once wrote:
“Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists.”
If we look at where we normally get capitalists from in our society, we see that it is SMEs—young businesses starting up and building—and people getting into either the stock market or the housing market. Of those two cohorts, SMEs in particular face bigger challenges than ever in today’s economy because of the imbalances and unfairness. As other Members have said, larger companies—the Amazons, Tescos and Starbucks of this world—are able to take competitive advantage of the tax system, and as a consequence, the growth rate of SME start-ups has started to falter. Their growth rate today is lower than it has been for the last 10 years.
We know how important SMEs are. There are 5.7 million of them in the UK, and 99% of all businesses in the UK are SMEs. They employ 60% of the private sector work- force, and they are more productive in their start-up years than the rest of the economy. It is hugely important that we support the dynamic creation of new businesses.
With limited room for intervention, we have to ensure that the playing field is fair and level for all businesses. As I said in my earlier intervention, one of the imbalances is between SMEs and banks, which are so important to them, when things go wrong. We need a proper resolution process. We have seen disgraceful treatment of SMEs by banks. Where do they go when things go wrong? The new Business Banking Resolution Service is promising, and I am working with the steering group, but it unfairly excludes 85% of businesses that could apply for resolution of historical complaints. That cannot be fair.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend accept that, during the transition period, it is essential that we protect ourselves from legislation from the European Union on tax and business, which could do enormous damage to our vital national interests?
Kevin Hollinrake
My focus in this speech is SMEs, and I will stick to that, but my hon. Friend raises an interesting point.
If we are to have a fair and level playing field, we must ensure that our investment is spread more fairly across the regions. It is wrong that this country is firing on one cylinder when it could be firing on three or four. This is not about the north-south divide; it is London versus the rest of the country. For every £3 spent per capita in London, only £1 is spent in the regions. We need a fairer deal to help to level up our economy in the UK.
Finally, it is a shame on this country that we do not do more about tax avoidance. New rules are coming in to try to level the playing field, such as the diverted profits tax, but we must do more to ensure that everybody in the business environment pays their fair share of tax. That is how we build a fair and level playing field, encourage more SMEs to start up and scale up, and become a more productive economy. That is how we get a bit less capitalism, but a lot more capitalists.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
This Queen’s Speech is nothing but a wish list, setting out a programme for government that completely ignores the new reality that looms large over our economy: the big unknown that is the post-Brexit world. The Government’s withdrawal agreement marks the most profound peacetime transformation of the economy in our country’s history. That is why, in my brief but timely tenure as interim Chair of the Treasury Committee—I welcome and congratulate the newly elected Chair, the right hon. Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride)—I wrote to the Chancellor last week to ask the obvious question: what is the Treasury’s analysis of the economic impact? Unfortunately, the Chancellor’s reply flatly declined to provide any such analysis. He ended his letter by saying:
“trust in democracy and bringing an end to the division that has characterised this debate over the past three years is something that cannot be measured solely through spreadsheets or impact assessments, important though they”.
What patronising drivel! This Government think they can take us for fools.
The Chancellor does not think there is any need for an economic assessment. He tells us that the previous assessments do not apply, but he will not produce a new one. He says that the new deal is
“self-evidently in our economic interest”,
but it is not at all self-evident. The overwhelming evidence is that any Brexit would lead to a weaker economy compared with staying in the EU. If the Government had evidence to the contrary, they would produce it. The Chancellor is basically telling us to ignore the economics. How can the Government have any credibility when they announce their Budget next month? If the Treasury is not interested in the economics, who in government is? Economic analysis matters. It affects our constituents’ jobs, taxes, spending, prices, interest rates, wages, and imports and exports. Surely we should have the latest and best economic evidence as we make a decision of this magnitude. We must make this decision with our eyes wide open. It is the least the public deserve from us.
As founder and co-chair of the all-party group on the east coast main line, I want to highlight the pressing need for investment in my region. The details of the Government’s proposals on rail reform are still to be finalised, but simply changing the way train operating companies work will not improve our railways in the way we need. The east coast main line is a critical piece of national rail infrastructure. It is one of the country’s most strategically important transport routes, linking the north-east to London, the east of England, the east midlands, Yorkshire, the Humber, and the east and north of Scotland, but the line cannot cope with the demands upon it. Instead of being an asset, it is now holding back the communities and economies it serves. It does not have enough capacity for today’s growth in passenger and freight, let alone for the future. Figures from the Library show a 73% rise in delay minutes on the London North Eastern Railway route connecting Newcastle and London, and around 60% of that is due to Network Rail. The Government must commit additional funding for Network Rail as a matter of urgency so it can invest in the east coast main line and improve reliability.
That is not enough though: we also need HS2 to go ahead. If we want to run more regional and local services, we need the capacity that HS2 will free up, and I am pleased to have had much support from business communities and stakeholders on this. I can understand why fellow northerners might look at the cost of HS2 and think that this money might be better spent elsewhere, but I have never seen this as an either/or choice. London has multiple infrastructure projects at any one time. Do we ever suggest it should only have one? There are worrying rumours that the Government are planning to scrap HS2. It would make a mockery of the Prime Minister’s pledge to empower the north and do nothing to solve the problems on our network. If they scrap the investment in the north, will we really get it back in another form? I do not think so.
Ross Thomson (Aberdeen South) (Con)
It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell).
The Government’s Queen’s Speech sets out a bold and ambitious domestic agenda, focusing on the priorities of the people: sorting Brexit, investing in public services, tackling crime, boosting productivity and attracting investment. The Government are committed to creating new jobs and helping individuals and families with the cost of living. In fact, they already have a clear record of action on delivering jobs. The latest jobs figures confirm this, with over 3.6 million more people in work since 2010, meaning more people with the financial security to serve themselves and their families the length and breadth of Britain.
Further, projections from the IMF show that our economy will grow faster than those in France, Germany and Japan. Once the House finally gets its act together and delivers on the instruction of the British people in 2016 to leave the EU—an instruction that this House asked the British people to make—we will be able to realise the full benefits of Brexit and build a brighter future for our country.
We all know that no-deal Nicola and the SNP are utterly obsessed with independence, but voters across Scotland are all too acutely aware of what an absolute catastrophe independence would be for their jobs, living standards, public services, their families and the Scottish economy. Beyond the recent announcements from the Prime Minister on supporting our farmers and protecting defence jobs, let us never forget that each man, woman and child in Scotland is more prosperous and secure within the Union and the United Kingdom internal market.
This United Kingdom is the most successful union of nations the world has ever seen, and this Government are working day and night to strengthen the bonds that tie us together as one United Kingdom as we leave the European Union. As our economy transitions into a new dynamic age, spurred on by developments in artificial intelligence, precision medicine and new energy technologies, this programme for government lights the way for us to move with confidence and to reap the full benefits of the future.
As we leave the EU, we will regain control of our independent trade policy, which will allow us to discard the protectionist shell of the EU and turn our attention towards the growing markets around the globe. The siren voices of protectionism will never be silenced, but free trade is good for all, and by becoming the torch bearers of free trade, we can show the world that we are open for business and that we want to be more outward looking than ever. As part of that, I will continue to campaign for a free port for Aberdeen. I know that energy companies and subsea manufacturers in my constituency are increasingly looking for markets in Asia, Africa and the Americas. This programme will not only allow them to do so more easily, but support them to do so. This will be good for the national economy, the local economy and the financial security of my constituents.
In representing Aberdeen South, the core of the UK’s oil and gas industry, I am acutely aware of the impact of the loan charge. I have been campaigning on this and urge the Government to act and to bring something forward with immediate effect, because there are people in dire circumstances who need our support and help. I believe, however, that the Government recognise the need for a healthy and robust private enterprise economy in order to properly fund the public services that people rely on every day, which is why I welcome this Queen’s Speech. It is a Unionist programme from top to bottom, and one that will provide the stability and certainty our economy needs. That is why, without hesitation, I will vote for it tonight.
Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)
Last week, union representatives from Rolls-Royce came to see my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) and me. Rolls-Royce is one of the main anchors of the UK’s aerospace sector and has operations in no less than nine EU member states. They came to tell us about their worries, the most direct and immediate being the disastrous impact that a no-deal Brexit would have on their sector. They were also clear that avoiding a no-deal Brexit was not enough, and they left us in no doubt about the importance to the long-term health of their company and their sector of preserving the frictionless trade that is key to their sector’s success and that prevents the dislocation of the integrated operations of that company and its supply chains across the EU. In short, they echoed the very issues that the aerospace, food and drink, pharmaceuticals and automotive sectors had put to the Government in a letter just the week before.
Together those sectors employ more than 1 million people in this country and contribute £98 billion to the UK economy every year. They are very concerned about the downgrade that the Prime Minister’s political declaration will mean for the economic relationship between the UK and the EU—a downgrade not only from the close alignment we already have with the EU, but even from that envisaged in the political declaration brought forward by the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May). That downgrade was forensically exposed by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) in Saturday’s debate.
I will give a few examples. The first is aerospace. Post Brexit, the UK will either be part of the European Union Aviation Safety Agency or it will not. EASA is a mechanism for aligning standards that ADS, the aerospace industry body, describes as “vital” for the sector. But we still have no clarity at all about whether the UK will remain a member.
Chemicals is not only a key industry in its own right, but an essential part of the aerospace supply chain. Sixty per cent. of UK chemical exports go to the EU and 75% of the UK’s chemical imports come from the EU. Chemicals or products containing them are bought, developed and sold backwards and forwards repeatedly between the EU and the UK. That can only happen without checks and delays and because they are governed by a common set of regulatory standards held in place by the UK’s being part of the EU’s REACH—registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals—safety programme. Will we stay part of that after Brexit? We simply do not know and the political declaration leaves us none the wiser.
The automotive sector is the UK’s biggest single exporter of goods. We know that WTO tariffs, which would immediately kick in in the event of a no-deal Brexit, would be a hammer blow for the industry. However, it is not just avoiding no deal that is important; it is also about having a common rulebook of regulatory standards that remove the need for checks on goods that move over national borders.
I say to Ministers that constantly repeating the mantra that they are looking to have a “best in class”—their words—free trade agreement just will not cut it. That will not cut it, unless they provide the real and specific answers that are needed to the real and specific questions that UK industry has put to them. Unless they do that, either we will be back to the disaster that a no-deal Brexit would mean for our economy, or we will end up with something so half-baked that UK competitiveness will end up in a not very slow-motion car crash.
Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)
Nothing matters more to families and communities than creating good jobs and improving the cost of living. We have witnessed incredible economic success for our country, thanks to the careful economic management of Conservatives, and it is with confidence and positivity that I can tell the House that Stoke-on-Trent is on the up. The city’s population, economy and house prices are experiencing among the very highest growth in the country. Although we still have our challenges to overcome to reach our full potential, our local economy is now stronger and more diverse than ever before. We have a whole range of sectors calling Stoke-on-Trent their home, with companies from highest-end manufacturing to the most advanced digital industries flourishing.
Tragically, under Blair and Brown, we lost many of Stoke-on-Trent’s biggest pottery names and factories and this has left us with brownfield sites that need to be redeveloped. The Conservative-led city council is working constructively with the Conservative Government to ensure that redevelopment takes place, and the ceramics industry has experienced a revival. For example, the historic Duchess China works in Longton, which I visited recently, has been taken over by Heraldic Pottery of Newstead, with fantastic plans to increase production at this iconic site. Staffs Fitness Ltd, a supplier of gym equipment, has just moved into buildings that were once part of the Fenton Glebe colliery site. Last week, I was delighted to visit and open what is a fantastic new home for this business, demonstrating what can be achieved.
However, while we are seeing new private investment in the city, many sites remain challenging, needing remediation due to former industrial uses. It is essential that we do more to address viability constraints that hold back brownfield sites from being developed. Especially, we must build on the huge success of the Ceramic Valley enterprise zone. As I discussed with the Secretary of State for Business recently, I hope that enterprise zone can continue and can expand to cover additional sites, particularly brownfield sites in Fenton, so that we can continue to see these sites redeveloped to create good-quality jobs.
It is vital that we do more to revive our high streets, incentivising the conversion of empty properties for new businesses and residential uses, and improving our town centre infrastructure. Stoke-on-Trent is made up of six historic market towns, and Longton and Fenton are within my constituency. I am pleased to have secured a heritage action zone that is focused on Longton town centre, which I hope will address this, but to be truly transformational and to maximise the heritage action zone’s potential, we need some additional investment. I am deeply disappointed that we have so far missed out on future high streets funding, stronger towns funding and access for all funding for Longton station. The time to address the decline of our high streets in Stoke-on-Trent is now, and I know from discussions that I have had with the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government that he is well aware of the importance of overcoming these challenges.
On transport infrastructure, I hope that the transforming cities fund will help to address this and it is essential that Stoke-on-Trent receives the full ask of Government in the second phase. I also hope that we are successful in our bid for a fair share of the £200 million bus fund. Bus services in Stoke-on-Trent are currently dire, having been reduced beyond recognition. My constituents are regularly raising the fact that they no longer have services at all, or that services finish too early to get them home from work. The city council’s intentions are nothing short of revolutionary, and increasing the number of fast, direct, reliable, affordable and popular bus services is an absolute must.
We must also improve traffic flows. As I have long advocated, junction 15 of the M6 needs to improve and we need additional work on the A50 and the A500 to address traffic hotspots. I am delighted by the work of Midlands Connect in its strategy to address that. I also welcome its work to address rail services on the North Staffordshire-Crewe-Derby line. I am delighted my efforts have already helped to secure improvements that will soon see longer trains to address overcrowding, more services in the evenings and at weekends, and most services extending to Nottingham.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The theatre of calling on Her Majesty to read the Government’s manifesto; the drama of Parliament being called to sit on a Saturday, when all the Prime Minister had to do was write a letter; the cost to the taxpayer—all that is nothing to the elites running their show, but to my constituents it was pounds and pence that they desperately need. They are paying a far heavier price, however, for a decade of failure, which was emphasised again in the Queen’ Speech.
The Queen’ Speech exposed two things. First, the list of Bills demonstrated that Brexit will not be “done”, and that this is the start of at least a decade of Brexit talks, pushing out legislative space to deal with our national crises. Housing—not mentioned; poverty—not considered; jobs—not offered; inequality, which is stifling talent and opportunity—not even on the agenda. We should be in no doubt about the stark contrast between this Tory programme and a Government who will say anything to retain power, and a Labour programme that seeks to do everything, in a fiscally responsible way, to address people’s very real needs. Labour has a robust programme to end poverty, sort out Brexit, fix our public services, tackle climate injustice, and grow the economy through the creation of good-quality jobs.
The pursuit of Brexit, deal or no deal, will make my constituents poorer. Indeed, York will be the eighth worst hit place in the country should we leave with no deal. A deal will increase inequality in one of the UK’s most inequitable cities, yet the Government’s programme does not address how my constituents will survive this economic shock. That is why we need an economic impact assessment.
Secondly, I must draw attention to the sheer number of criminal justice Bills that are proposed, as they are symbolic in exposing how a failed decade of cuts has put my community at risk. More prison places is a sign of failure; more draconian policing is a sign of being out of control. This Queen’s Speech may result in more law, but it exposes no order.
When the wrong interests shape the economic priorities, society breaks down, and this Queen’s Speech was not the antidote. Labour has long understood that, and just as when Keir Hardie set out Labour’s first programme of policies, or when Clement Attlee rebuilt our nation after the war, today Labour’s programme will fix the broken economy. The values are the same, the priorities are the same: building the housing that families need, fixing the services they use, and creating the jobs on which they depend.
Let us not pretend that the economy is working for all—it is not. In York, the boom in luxury housing means that my constituents cannot afford to live in their city, and they have to pay more than 10 times their annual wage for a home. Waiting lists in the NHS mean that my primary care mental health service is not just being cut but is being scrapped, despite the fact that we have some of the highest levels of self-harm, eating disorders, suicide and deaths from substance misuse in the country. We hear that millions and billions are being spent on the NHS, but that is not saving lives in my constituency. I know the fixes that York needs to function, and Labour’s programme will address them. When the pursuit of power is the only objective, the cornerstones to rebuilding our communities get lost.
Behind the boisterous bluster, there is a chilling, calculated populist pursuit for power. We have seen it before; I know the story. I have read the history books, and it does not end well. This nation must wake up and recognise the signs; and in this place, from these Benches, Opposition Members have a duty to call them out. Populism does not work; it does not build houses, it does not put money into schools, it does not create jobs and it does not tackle inequality. Populism will not save my health service, but Labour will, and that is why I am proud to speak from these Benches.
Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)
I am proud that this Government have set an ambitious agenda that focuses on our priorities, not only in the short term but for once we have got Brexit done, setting out a clear vision for Britain on the issues that matter to people, such as tackling crime, boosting our NHS and dealing with the cost of living. I pay tribute to the former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May). Her leadership of the country over the previous three years, and her stewardship of the economy, allowed this Government to inherit a booming UK plc and push forward on all the fronts.
In my constituency, the NHS is often raised with me on the doorstep, and I look forward to new proposals to fix the crisis in adult social care and give people the dignity and security that they rightly deserve. My constituents will also appreciate efforts to reform the Mental Health Act 1983 and ensure that people get the support they need. I am pleased to have on my patch the first in-patient adolescent mental health facility in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly for young people aged between 13 and 18. I joined Phil Confue, chief executive of Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, for a tour of the recently opened Sowenna unit, and it is great to see the funding that the Government have allocated to the NHS being spent on the ground to do the things that people want. NHS England describes the facility as the best young person’s mental health facility in the country and it is right on our doorstep, in Bodmin. Children in Cornwall will no longer have to access services way out of county. This type of facility is the kind of blueprint that other rural constituencies need.
The Government are committed to tackling violent crime, strengthening the criminal justice system and ensuring that victims receive the support they need and quite rightly deserve. A new sentencing Bill will change the automatic release point from half sentences to two-thirds sentences for adult offenders serving sentences for four years or more for serious violence and sexual offences. Thanks to the fantastic work of the Blue Collar Conservative movement in this House, a police protection Bill will support the police by establishing a police covenant that recognises the bravery, commitment and sacrifice of our police officers.
Once we leave the EU, we will have an agriculture policy that will reform UK agriculture. Rather than tell my farmers in North Cornwall how their industry should be run, we have listened to them and are working with them so that they can run the land, rear their livestock and harvest their fields. It is clear from my farmers that they want better standards and increases in protections. The fisheries Bill will enable us to reclaim control over our waters, righting a historical injustice that has existed in this industry for a long, long time.
A financial services Bill will provide certainty and stability to maintain our world-leading regulatory standards and keep the UK open to international markets after Brexit.
As part of the greenest Government ever, we have an Environment Bill to protect our planet for future generations, with measures including a new office for environmental protection, more local powers to tackle air pollution and charges for single-use plastics. We do not just talk about climate change; we deal with climate change.
Finally, some have raised this issue previously, but on the doorsteps in North Cornwall at the moment the biggest issue outside Brexit relates to Barclays bank and the post office. I implore the Treasury to apply as much pressure as it can for my constituents to ensure that they are able to access cash. Many of my constituents do not want to use cashpoints or online banking; they want to have access to cash, and the post office is the last port of call in many of my villages. Please, Minister, put all the pressure on Barclays you can, because my constituents are rooting for you.
Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)
I would like to use the short time I have to focus on the issues of fiscal responsibility, public spending and public debt, which have been much debated in the Queen’s Speech, including by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor. I make it clear that I welcome the Government’s public spending commitments, which are long overdue. As they stand they are inadequate, but they are a step forward. However, what is significantly absent from the Queen’s Speech, and from any other pronouncement I have heard from either the Prime Minister or the Chancellor, is how they will be funded.
Will the Government’s public spending commitments be funded through economic growth? I doubt it. Last quarter, debatably, we were in recession. Even the most optimistic estimates reckon that we will be flatlining for months to come. Indeed, if we look at current investment in our manufacturing, which is so crucial to economic growth, the idea that we will fund them through economic growth is, quite frankly, fantasy.
What about taxes? The Government are placed to reduce taxes; they are not demonstrating how they are going to increase them, so no information there. The fact is that the only alternative has to be borrowing and that is already looking pretty dicey. Even the current level of borrowing is an increase of 20% on the previous year. The deficit is currently projected to be in the region of £40 billion this year. That is expected to rise to a deficit of £50 billion-plus, with the £13 billion we are committed to spend next year.
In a moment, I will come on to talk about the impact of no deal and even the Government’s withdrawal agreement. This is incredibly worrying, because the Government have not indicated how we are going to fund all this. I welcome it, but it is potentially very damaging indeed.
The Government have not given any economic impact assessment of the withdrawal agreement. On the one hand, they tell us we have to decide within two days of debating, because we have had three and a half years of debate, but on the other hand they say, “We haven’t enough time to do an economic assessment.” Perhaps someone can square those particular arguments; I cannot. Happily, a number of organisations have done an assessment, and they have made it clear that under the withdrawal agreement, we will potentially be £50 billion a year out of pocket—£20 billion more than the Office for Budget Responsibility estimates. We are heading towards the sort of debt levels that were portrayed under Labour as a prelude to economic apocalypse. Indeed, this argument was rehearsed again by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I would like to know why something that was portrayed 10 years ago in such a light should suddenly have morphed miraculously into a springboard for some sort of economic growth in the halcyon years that will come post Brexit. That does not make sense. The fact is that the Government were wrong in 2010 and they are wrong now. That is why I will vote against the Queen’s Speech.
Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)
I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
Let us contrast where we are today with the background we inherited in 2010. We have unemployment down by 1.3 million—a 50% reduction from 2010. We have halved the number of young people who are out of work. We have made progressive increases to the national living wage. We have had a tax cut for 32 million through much bigger than inflation increases to the personal allowance, meaning that a basic rate taxpayer—the lower-paid—are paying £1,205 less in tax. Add that to increases in the national living wage, and the take-home pay—what lands in people’s bank accounts—is £4,000 more for the lower-paid, and that really matters.
We have reinforced our position as a world leader in financial services. That industry provides £127 billion of value added to our economy, paying £29 billion in tax and with a trade surplus of £61 billion. We have seen corporation tax reduced from artificially high levels of 28% to 19% today, and that will come down to 17%. That is a key driver in making sure that Britain remains a place to do international business and in keeping businesses that might consider going abroad in this country earning money for us. We have an infrastructure plan of the kind that we have never seen before to increase services on our roads and rail, and, of course, superfast broadband, on which we have been lagging behind for some time.
In the limited time left to me, I want to concentrate on our tax system. We need a debate about liberating our tax system to make sure that risk versus reward is properly in place and we do not penalise those who are willing to take risks and employ people to earn the money in the future. We have done very good work with the personal allowance, increasing it from the 2010 rate of £6,475 to £12,500 today. If we had had an inflation rate of 27%—on the figures during that period—we would have had a personal allowance of only £8,230, so we have got rid of the fiscal drag in that system. I am asking the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as he progresses towards his Budget, to consider the other aspects of fiscal drag that we have seen over the years.
For instance, on inheritance tax, the £325,000 limit has remained unchanged since 2009, whereas the house price index shows that house prices have increased quite substantially. We have had the main residence nil-rate band, but it has its complications, so this is a plea that we address fiscal drag across the system. We should treat tax not as though it is one move at a time; we need to play it strategically. We have done lots to improve the stamp duty system by getting rid of the rather hated slab system some years ago, but we are now seeing the additional 3% second property surcharge and, with the rates that exist at higher levels, a reduction in the tax take. We saw an increase in the tax take when we reduced the higher rate of income tax from 50p to 45p, and I propose that we can do the same with stamp duty.
I have advanced many of my proposals on capital gains tax to the Treasury, because I perceive there to be hundreds of thousands of properties stuck in second ownership owing to the application of penal CGT rates to those who own second properties but do not rent them out. We have a great opportunity to put our tax system back on the right footing—and please, please, let us not return to those old times when we penalised such people; let us support them.
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
Let me begin by informing the House that I am a vice- chair of the all-party parliamentary group on blockchain.
At a time of great change, politically, economically and socially, we should be mindful of the technological change that is taking place in these momentous days. From the challenges posed to liberal democracy though the industry of fake news—mentioned by the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker)—to the unbridled and unregulated sphere of social media, the economy of today in no way reflects the economy of yesterday. It is, indeed, an economy about to be further brutalised by a Government who are wedded to the worst types of mercantilism. This is a world in which we must challenge that economic vision with a simple word: trust.
How is it possible, in the 21st century, for the Government of the UK to fail to recognise the simple fact that trustworthy economies are more stable and have more positive economic and social outcomes that benefit their citizens? What is trustworthy about a Government who place one part of the Union at a competitive advantage at the expense of the rest? How is it possible that the Government have thrown the Democratic Unionist party under the Brexit bus, and also seek to remove Scotland from the largest liberal democratic single market and customs union in the world? The simple fact is that this Government cannot be trusted with Scotland’s economy.
It would be easy to list the Government’s failures, but I am sure that that litany of despair requires a debate of its own, so instead I shall mention some of the innovative and dynamic opportunities that are available to nations that are willing to participate in a trustworthy fashion. We need to look at new technologies such as blockchain, which, although not in itself a panacea, can be a valued asset in the delivery of public services by a range of public and private agents. According to the recently published European Commission report “Blockchain now and tomorrow’’, this technology can assist the delivery of transparency, security and increased trust across a range of fields including medicine, asset transaction, finance, education and the energy sector, and, critically, it can assist the resilience of the economic infrastructure. Only last April, the United States Department of Energy announced, through its National Energy Technology Laboratory, phase 2 of its blockchain-based electricity grid security pilot. Meanwhile, the UK thought that it might be good to give Huawei the 5G network and allow the People’s Republic of China to build our nuclear power stations.
The last thing that Scotland needs at this critical point is removal from the largest coherent customs union and single market in the world, so let us look to its closest allies and EU partners to see how we can combat that narrative. One of those partners is none other than Estonia, a nation of 1.5 million with a rather large domineering neighbour in a state of flux, and a nation whose only contact with the outside world at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union was a single secret mobile phone held by the then Prime Minister. Cut to 2019, and it is a digital society like no other, sitting at the top table of the European Union and named as the most advanced digital society in the world. Yet in 2007 the impact of a cyber-attack closed down its Parliament and major public services. That attack had a profound and, indeed, practical outcome for Estonia.
Even before Satoshi—of whom most people in the Chamber will never have heard—released their blockchain paper, the Estonians were ahead of the game. They called it “hash-linked time stamping”. Since 2012, blockchain has been at the centre of its national economic infrastructure, in its health service, its judiciary, its legislature and its national security, as well as across a whole raft of commercial fields.
I am heartened by the fact that at least the Scottish Government, even with their limited powers, are pushing ahead. We need only read their report entitled “Distributed Ledger Technologies in Public Services” to see that blockchain represents a new opportunity for the creation of natively digital public services, building on the substantial policy framework of the Christie report on public service reform.
I hope the Minister recognises that the future is already here. If the Government are unable to commit themselves to achieving trust in the digital age by ensuring honesty, consideration and accountability, they should get out of the way and let Scotland set its own economic destiny.
Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I obviously want to praise the Government for their Queen’s Speech. Some of today’s announcements on infrastructure and broadband will bring real benefits to Scotland, actually delivering where the devolved authorities have failed on so many measures—failing on their R100 targets, failing on their landfill targets, failing on their education targets, failing on their mental health targets. Even in areas that are exclusively devolved, the SNP continues to underperform, and that is why it is so important that the UK Government make it clear that they are there for every constituent in Scotland, as they are for those in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and anywhere else in our United Kingdom and overseas territories.
Unsurprisingly, we will talk about Scotland, and we have been talking about Scotland today, but I shall focus on some aspects in the Queen’s Speech that will improve our infrastructure and help boost our productivity. The broadband investment and the increase that, hopefully, will be coming through the shared rural network will help increase mobile connectivity in the most hard-to-reach parts of my constituency and also further north up into the islands. It will also give us the opportunity for further investment in our local communities, which I will come on to in just a minute.
Labour Members were taking issue with the economic literacy and performance of the United Kingdom Government. I would just like to say that, even in spite of some of the issues and challenges that are exposed through Brexit—let us face it, GDP growth has slowed since the referendum was announced in 2015—the UK is still performing pretty strongly in a European context. Its performance is still stronger than that of Germany, which is not facing Brexit and is a well-known advanced economy. So I do not think Brexit is the cause of all our ills. It is also not right to blame any of our European partners for some of the structural weaknesses in our country, such as our productivity and labour market capacity, which, of course, we need to increase.
The Queen’s Speech is important and the Budget will be even more important in showing my constituents why the UK Government actually work for them. Yes, over the past two years, we delivered the VAT changes to get £35 million back for our police and fire services; yes, we corrected the historical injustice of 2013 to make sure that our farmers got the right amount of convergence funding, and got £50 million on top of that to put us on a fair footing looking forward, so our agricultural and rural communities get the funding they deserve; and yes, in this last spending review alone, we got £1.2 billion more put to the Scottish block fund, which is more than we received in EU structural funding between 2010 and 2016. That shows the value of the United Kingdom and the performance of this United Kingdom Government.
Meanwhile, back in Edinburgh, we have a Government who continuously underperform. Business confidence has been trailing behind that in the rest of the UK since before 2014, and we have a £1 billion tax gap that was exposed just in the last year. So the SNP consistently asks for more powers, but every time it gets them it underperforms. On economics, we have that £1 billion tax gap and, as I have said, business confidence is way behind the rest of the UK. On welfare, we were told that a welfare agency could be established within 18 months, yet it has been deferred for over seven years. So the SNP is completely underperforming for our constituents.
It is vital for my constituents to understand that the UK Government are there for them. Whether in our rural towns such as Crieff or in former industrial areas such as Alloa and other towns in Clackmannanshire, it is clear the Government mean to deliver. I hope that in the Budget they will expand the stronger towns fund to Scotland, and I also hope they will continue to look at the Budget references and proposals from the Scottish Conservative and Unionist group, which will support our whisky industry, help our rural towns and communities and give us the opportunity to show that, actually, when our Government work together—central, devolved and local—we can perform for all our constituents and be proud to be Scottish and British together.
John Grogan (Keighley) (Lab)
I have always thought that the operation of democracy in a marginal seat is rather like the operation of capitalism: red in tooth and claw. Defending a majority of, say, 249 is rather like trying to run a company in a market that is very competitive; I have done both and what it teaches me is that we must concentrate on what is important in life. Therefore, following the passionate speech about Scotland made by the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham), I intend to speak about a region that has just a slightly larger population: Yorkshire and the Humber.
I welcome in the Queen’s Speech the reference to a White Paper on English devolution; this is unfinished business for us all. Some 18 councils from all parties in Yorkshire have come up with a scheme for One Yorkshire devolution. Economic analysis of that suggests it could add £30 billion to the Yorkshire economy, using the Yorkshire identity and the Yorkshire brand to promote and get inward investment to improve transport and skills.
It is a welcome sign that the Prime Minister has said that he is “mad keen” on the principle of a One Yorkshire deal, but is that going to go the same way as his belief that there should not be a border in the Irish sea? There is a degree of worry in Yorkshire: how much does this promise mean? The Yorkshire councils have all said that they would move to a situation where they would agree to limited deals—not involving the whole county—until 2022, when the term of my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis), the Mayor of South Yorkshire, ends, if the principle of One Yorkshire devolution is accepted.
But there is the problem of the Yorkshire backstop. The Government are saying that they will not agree to these interim deals unless there is agreement to balkanise Yorkshire in 2022 if no further agreement is reached. There would be four Mayors across the whole of Yorkshire, all competing with one another. We must stop that waste of public money and this balkanisation. The good news is that the Archbishop of York came down to this House and the Labour party, the Liberals and the Greens all agreed to support One Yorkshire in their next manifestos. It is to be hoped that the Government will, too.
Moving on rapidly to transport, I was in Transport questions this morning, and there does now seem to be doubt about whether HS2 will come to Yorkshire. If it does come to Yorkshire, it looks like it will go via Manchester, for some reason. It is always good to go to Manchester, but it is not the most obvious route for a train from London to Leeds. I call upon Transport for the North. John Cridland, who is the current chair has got a big job. He is also on the HS2 review committee. Which side is he going to be on—Transport for the North or that review committee? He must make that decision because we need Transport for the North to bat for the north.
My hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) made a passionate speech. He spoke about the inequalities in our society, as did the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake). I suggest just two texts that we should look at in that regard. The other day, the Employee Ownership Association published a report calling for a national strategy on employee ownership. Seven per cent. of firms, including John Lewis, are employee-owned. The report suggested giving tax advantages, and making funds available when there are succession problems and so on, to create employee-owned funds. That could transform our economy, because such firms tend to be firms where there is higher productivity.
Finally, let us not forget the Asda workers. Next week, many of them will have to sign on the dotted line to sign away their rights in favour of so-called flexible working. The sooner we get a right at least to request a more stable employment contract, the better our society will be.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
I take the opportunity to welcome His Excellency Antonio Jose Ardila, the ambassador of Colombia, to our proceedings today.
Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)
I welcome the Queen’s Speech. It is wide-ranging and relevant and it has ambition for the country and the regions.
As a Greater Manchester MP, I understand the importance of ensuring that the benefits of a prospering economy reach every corner of the UK. For decades, the north of England has lagged behind the rest of the UK, especially London, economically, but the devolution agenda, in the guise of the northern powerhouse, set in motion by the Conservatives in government, has changed and empowered the ambition of the northern city regions and Greater Manchester has been at the forefront. The plans for a national infrastructure strategy are timely and I welcome its two key aims.
Investment in vital infrastructure and improving living standards are principal drivers of change, and the ability to deliver better jobs and opportunities is the foundation of a healthy and productive local economy. Opportunity begins with education. Because of the historically low levels of funding in Stockport, our schools have received significantly less per pupil than other areas, so I welcome the recent increase in funding, with all but three of the schools in Cheadle benefiting, in some cases by almost £500 extra per pupil.
When we properly fund our children’s education we are investing in their future and expanding their opportunities in employment. Low unemployment in Cheadle indicates a strong economy, but the ambition across our region is also for greater employment opportunities, particularly in developing a high-tech, digital and biotech business environment that will see the Cheshire-Manchester science corridor rival that of Cambridge. The first industrial revolution began in Manchester, and this national infrastructure strategy heralds the emergence of the fourth industrial revolution in the north.
Delivering higher-quality, better-paid jobs is not simply an end in itself, but links to a healthier population and a more productive workforce and economy. We can close the productivity gap between London and the north more easily with a healthier workforce. Health is a driver of a strong economy. Recently, the Northern Health Science Alliance highlighted the link between increased health spending in the north and productivity. Its “Health for Wealth” report indicated a strong link between health spending and the boost in productivity that we can expect. That is why the increased funding package for the NHS and the £30.6 million for Stepping Hill Hospital in my constituency are most welcome.
Transport is also devolved in Greater Manchester, and while I await the Mayor’s plans for the implementation of measures made possible through the Bus Services Act 2017, I ask the Government to consider how they can support any changes that may be implemented. My constituents should not have to endure an undue financial burden to accommodate the Mayor’s franchising proposals.
A national infrastructure strategy needs a national infrastructure project. I was initially pleased to hear the Prime Minister’s commitment to Northern Powerhouse Rail between Manchester and Leeds, and I, along with other northern MPs, will continue to press for its full completion. Delivering on the Northern Powerhouse Rail proposals would mean that businesses and commuters will be within 90 minutes by train of four or more of our largest cities. I have also made representations to the Oakervee review, stressing the importance of HS2 to the north and to my constituents. Rail projects between north and south and east and west should be delivered from the north and delivered as one national infrastructure project.
The second key strand to the strategy is addressing the critical challenges posed by climate change, building on the UK’s world-leading commitment to achieve net zero emissions. I therefore welcome the Environment Bill. However, I urge the Government to consider what more can be done about flooding, because homes and livelihoods in my constituency have been put at risk. Repeated flooding has caused many people to be out of their homes for some time, yet they are unable to access resilience funding, so I ask the Government to consider a permanent resilience fund.
Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)
The Queen’s Speech had nothing to say about debt but, unfortunately, debt continues to blight millions of our citizens, and the situation is getting worse. Nearly a third of people expect their finances to worsen in the next year, with only 14% expecting their situation to improve. The number of people saving is dropping, with a quarter of British adults having no savings at all. I am pleased that the Government have committed to breathing space, even though it will only come in in 2021, but what about the other plank in that strategy: statutory debt repayment plans? They will need primary legislation, and I was surprised to see no plan for that in the Queen’s Speech.
In the meantime, the Government can do much more to help those who have fallen into problem debt. We need increased funding for debt advice. I am not just talking about public money; I am talking about initiatives such as the Financial Conduct Authority’s levy on lenders and the “fair share” scheme. The banks are simply not paying enough, and the utility companies are not stepping up to the plate by joining the scheme. It is great to have policies for vulnerable customers and to try to prevent debt, but people will fall into debt because they lose their job or become sick. If organisations will not act voluntarily, there is a strong case to compel them, and Her Majesty’s Treasury should take note.
The Government also have an important role to play in reducing debt by overhauling their own debt collection practices, particularly the use of bailiffs. At the very least, we need an independent regulator of bailiffs and a commitment to use a fairer and more enlightened form of debt collection that puts the ability to pay first. The Government should also look at the policies that are helping to create debt in the first place, such as the freezing of benefits since April 2016 and the five-week wait for universal credit claims. Some 49% of benefit claimants affected by the freeze have struggled to meet essential costs, and many are using food banks. The Government should end the freeze and reduce the five-week wait by bringing forward the first non-repayable payment to no later than two weeks into a universal credit claim.
Another struggling group are the 1950s-born women. They did the right thing. They worked; they brought up their children, and many looked after elderly relatives, but they have been hit by successive rises to the pension age. The women who had just 18 months’ notice under the Pensions Act 2011 were particularly hard hit, so it is of no surprise that many of them tell me that they are falling into debt or using food banks. They are angry, and rightly so, that their great contribution has been of so little value to this Government.
I commend St John Rigby College, Winstanley College and Wigan and Leigh College, which take students from across my constituency. They have struggled with underfunding for many years, but they continue to provide an excellent education for young people. It is time to raise the rate.
Older people, families and young people are all struggling. Few have any confidence that their finances will improve. There is much this Government could have done not just to improve the safety net when people need a little help but to ensure that the safety net is needed less and less.
Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
It is always a pleasure to follow my neighbour, the hon. Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue). What she says about debt and the issues around debt needs to be addressed.
On this final day of debate on the Queen’s Speech, it is right that we focus on the economy, which underlies and funds all the vital public services on which we depend. Without a strong economy, we would not be able to invest in law and order to recruit 20,000 extra police officers. I agree with the Prime Minister’s focus on reforming sentencing, and we also need the 10,000 additional prison places. That is a key part of what we can do with a stronger, more robust economy.
There is more money for education, with £14 billion to level up standards and to level up investment in education right across the country.
A stronger economy delivers for our local communities, too. The Mayor of Greater Manchester created the town centre challenge fund a couple of years ago, and I wanted Atherton in my constituency to receive money to improve our town centre. Unfortunately, Wigan Council, which has been running the show so badly for such a long time, said that Atherton town centre needs so much more work than the fund can afford that it had decided not even to put Atherton forward for the funding. The contrast between the leadership of Wigan Council and the leadership of Bolton Council is profound.
I am pleased the Government are championing the cause of our towns. For so many years, we have heard about the north-south divide, and we are increasingly hearing about the divide between our cities and our towns. I am pleased the Government are supporting Bolton with £25 million from the stronger towns fund, which is incredibly important. The future high streets fund is also investing up to £150,000 in the town centres of Bolton and Farnworth. Such rebalancing between our cities and towns is important.
The leadership of Bolton Council is looking after the smaller towns and villages in the Borough of Bolton, as well as looking to secure £1.2 billion of investment in Bolton. As the centre of our borough, it is important that we get investment in Bolton. The council is also investing £4 million each in four of our smaller towns and local centres to make sure our local towns get the investment they need. It is about rebalancing the north and south and rebalancing our cities and towns, but it also about rebalancing between the larger towns and smaller towns in boroughs such as Bolton.
I am pleased the Government have a strong focus on health, which is incredibly important. I am particularly pleased to see the investment to create a medical training college in Bolton. Bolton College, Bolton University, the local clinical commissioning group and Bolton Council have a vision for investment in health, which is so important to the country.
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bolton West (Chris Green). This Queen’s Speech shows an incredible level of ambition, with 26 Bills and no Government majority to deliver them. High hopes indeed this Government have for our nation. Or could it be, just possibly, that the Government have no ambition at all to deliver this programme and it is nothing more than a naked pre-election stunt? Please do not call a Division on that, Mr Deputy Speaker.
The Prime Minister claims to be turning on the spending taps, but the truth is that the trickle of money from the Government goes nowhere near reversing the level of cuts the Conservatives have introduced since 2010. For the Welsh Government, that has meant a decade of diminishing budgets; even with the Chancellor’s extra £600 million for Wales, the Welsh Government’s budget for 2021 will be £300 million lower in real terms that it was in 2010-11. My Neath Port Talbot Council has had to remove more than £80 million from its budget since 2010 and it is expected to find a further £42 million of cuts between now and 2023. Some 28,000 local government jobs in Wales have been lost since 2010.
As budget cuts have gone deeper and deeper, it has become impossible to sustain local services. Dedicated residents have volunteered to run libraries in Taibach, Briton Ferry and Cymmer, as well as the Noddfa community hall, the Gwynfi miners hall and the Afan Valley swimming pool. While the Government have stood by, our communities have stood up, but they should not have to; community action should be in addition to the state, not in place of it.
Fair funding also means replacing EU funding postBrexit. Regional development funding has been crucial in boosting less prosperous areas all over the UK. My constituency is one of those areas that has benefited. Last year, I set up the all-party group on post-Brexit funding for nations, regions and local areas, which I chair. We have a real fear that the promised UK shared prosperity fund, which will replace EU funds, will be not only a financial grab, but a power grab by a UK Tory Government clawing back powers that sit naturally with the devolved Administrations. The great advantage of the current EU system is that it is data-driven and evidence-based, thus guarding against pork barrel politics. There is a real worry that the SPF will become a politicised slush fund, with a Conservative Government using it to buy votes in marginal seats. There is still no news on the SPF from Ministers. It has already been delayed and time is now running out for organisations on the ground, which need to plan for the future.
The Welsh are a proud, resilient people. We are not looking for special treatment. We are looking for a fair deal, and that is true of people across Britain. The Government like to cite headline employment figures, but when we scratch below the surface, we see insecure work and low pay, and, as a result, low productivity. In the UK economy, all that glitters is not gold. The Chancellor offers warm words on an infrastructure plan, but does this really cut the mustard, after 40 years of an economy built on the agglomeration of wealth, power and opportunity in our major cities, at the expense of industrial, rural and coastal areas? We need real change; a national investment bank with regional divisions; a green jobs revolution, underpinned by a 21st-century steel industry; and a proper alterative to post-16 academic education. This is the whole-nation politics that Britain, Wales and the people of Aberavon need and deserve. This is the vision, and the Queen’s Speech will fail miserably to deliver on it.
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
Thank you for drawing me out first in the ballot this morning, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am not sure how long we will have to get the Bill through, but perhaps I should be less keen on an election now than I was first thing this morning.
This Queen’s Speech offers a plethora of things that will be warmly welcomed in my constituency: getting Brexit sorted; £34 billion for the NHS; £14 billion for schools; 20,000 more police officers; longer prison sentences; a world-leading Environment Bill; faster broadband; and investment in infrastructure. With a list like that, what’s not to like? It is almost churlish to think of some ideas that the Government have not included, but I have three and a half minutes left, so I ought to have a go. First, may I urge the Government that we need a bit of a focus on what we need to do to improve things in the harder-to-reach parts of the country? I would include in that the smaller towns in constituencies such as mine, where investment has not come at the rate it has into cities or other parts of the country and where investment in schools has lagged behind. The rise to £5,000 from next year gives my local schools a 6% increase overall and is greatly welcome, but we have not got school standards in the white working-class areas of the country, especially for boys, anything like as good as we would need them to be. Perhaps it is now time for a targeted focus on how we get standards in areas that are behind up to the national average.
Another issue is how local economies retain the skills of people when they have perhaps been to university or elsewhere, rather than having brain drain when they move elsewhere. I support an idea from local employer David Nieper Ltd, which would like to have some extra support so that small and medium employers can sponsor young people from the area through university courses that their businesses need, in return for those young people working in the businesses afterwards. Perhaps a version of the R&D tax credit for a skills tax credit could help in that situation. It would keep people in the local area and they would end up with less debt. It would be a win all round.
Let me touch on what else we could do to boost the regional economy once we have left the EU and have much more freedom for our tax regime. One thing we should look into is what tax-varying powers we could use for the regions of England, rather than thinking that that can be done only for the devolved nations. I cannot see any reason why we could not have a lower corporation tax rate in the midlands and the north, to encourage business investment in those areas rather than just in the south-east. Why could we not have a different business rates regime? Why could we not have lower air passenger duty to boost connectivity into regional airports, rather than the crowded south-east? All these things would boost the regional economy, and they would not need to be applied in London so would not cost quite so much money.
Finally, I should mention the very welcome Pension Schemes Bill that was announced in the Queen’s Speech. It has not been the subject of much excitement today. The really important measure in it is the one on the pension dashboard, which will mean our constituents will all be able to find out exactly how much pension they have saved. There is a real risk, though, that they will find out that they do not have enough. We need to do more to boost saving, for both pensions and other things. I urge the Government to think about that.
We have successfully escalated auto-enrolment levels without the opt-out levels that were feared. Is it not now time to try to increase savings levels a bit earlier than the mid-2020s, so that we can try to get people to save the amount that we know they really need? Is there any way that we can add some flexibility into the system, so that perhaps people in their early 20s are not faced with a choice between saving for a pension and saving for a deposit on a house? Is there a way they could use their pension to get on the housing ladder? That would be a huge asset in their retirement and save them paying housing costs.
Overall, I am more than happy to support the Queen’s Speech. It delivers on most of my constituents’ priorities, and I commend it to the House.
Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)
This is a Queen’s Speech for a parallel universe. It was called to set out an electioneering position for a Tory party that had planned that, by now, we would be about to launch into a general election. I am afraid it has all the hallmarks of a hollow, shallow, arrogant Government who seek to put party before country, with a hard Brexit that will hit my area and the people I am so proud to represent harder than anywhere else in the country.
We have already had decades of being left behind in this unequal, loaded economy. Through no fault of their own, the people of Teesside and Redcar are struggling more than most. Unemployment in our area currently stands at 4.8%, as opposed to 3.1% nationally. Some 43% of our households have no adult in work and a third have at least one person with a long-term health problem or disability. The number of young people not in education, training or employment is two and a half times the national average. Why should the young people of Redcar and Cleveland not have the same opportunity as those elsewhere in the country to live, work, flourish and prosper?
One in 10 people in my area have no qualifications at all. There are seven secondary schools and a college in my constituency, yet only one of those institutions offers A-levels. Out of our total of 54 schools, 53 have had funding cuts—that is £27.8 million taken out of our local schools, or £349 taken from every single one of Redcar’s children.
There is a wider crisis in respect of the children in our borough and the challenges for the families who look after them. A quarter of our children live in poverty and, since 2012, Redcar and Cleveland has seen a 73% increase in the number of children going into care. This is a crisis, and all while £90 million has been cut from Redcar and Cleveland’s budget by the Tories and their coalition with the Lib Dems. It is not sustainable.
It is upsetting for me to have to say all this—I do not want to have to stand here and plead our poverty. We should not be in this situation, with the use of food banks surging as universal credit has left people in debt and desperation, and as crime rises out of control because we have lost 500 officers and £40 million has been cut from our local police force. Drug dependency and suicides are on the increase as people feel bereft of hope and opportunity. This is a failure of Tory policy. It is a failure of our economy and our society to ensure that towns such as Redcar and the people I represent can fulfil their potential. That is why I will not take one single step towards a Brexit policy that, as its own architects admit, will make our people poorer. We have so much potential to flourish and succeed. Just as we were once the old smoggy engine of the industrial revolution, so we can be the new, clean, environmentally friendly engine of the green, low-carbon industrial renaissance.
We need a Government who will invest in us. Where is the money for the reclamation of the SSI steelworks site that the Chancellor himself closed four years ago, costing us 3,000 jobs and ending 175 years of steelmaking on Teesside? The Government have turned their back on us and are leaving the reclamation to be funded by potential future business rates, robbing our local authorities of even more money and threatening that dangerous and even deadly work could be done on the cheap.
Where is our investment for carbon capture and storage that could create 1 million jobs in the chemical industry? Where is the support for great institutions such as TTE Technical Institute and Redcar College to give young people the skills and apprenticeships they need? Where is the support for Teesside’s hydrogen economy to produce heat, to green our transport and to help us to hit our net-zero targets? Where is the Government’s backing for the huge Sirius Minerals project that is now at risk, along with 1,000 jobs? Three hundred jobs are already gone because the Treasury pulled the plug on its support. British Steel still sits on a knife edge. The people of Redcar and Teesside stand ready to get back on their feet. They are desperate to work, but they cannot do it alone. There is nothing in this Queen’s Speech for them.
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
I am pleased to be able to make a short contribution in response to the Gracious Speech. There is much to be welcomed in this Queen’s Speech, and it is a testament to the Government’s stewardship of the economy that we are able to put some of these actions forward.
I had wanted to remind the House a little bit about the toxic economic inheritance that we received back in 2010 and then how, over the past decade, we have transformed the UK economy, which has allowed us to invest in our important public services, but I fear that I do not have the time. We have come a long way, but there is always more to do. This Queen’s Speech, I believe, starts that process and builds on the progress.
We are putting more money into hospitals. We have heard about the £14 billion that is going into schools, and we are funding 20,000 extra police officers, 135 of whom I will see in my Essex constituency. There is therefore much to welcome, but I cannot make a contribution to this debate without talking about the first and foremost Bill in the Queen’s Speech—the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill.
I was very pleased when, earlier this week, the Second Reading of the Bill received approval, but I was disappointed when the programme motion failed. Had it passed, there would have been a huge sigh of national relief, and it is a shame that we have a Bill that has passed but can go no further. Some 73% of my constituents voted to leave the EU and, three and a half years on, they cannot understand why we have not left. Just pushing the can further down the road will not solve this problem. Everything that can be said about Brexit has been said twice already. No vote will change because of words spoken in this Chamber. We just need to get on with it. If we cannot get on with it, we will need to have a general election.
There are other things to which I want to refer. I particularly welcomed the announcement of the proposal to introduce the Prisoners (Disclosure of Information About Victims) Bill. I am sure that the hon. Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn) also welcomes that Bill. It is of particular importance not only to me, but to my constituent Linda Jones. Her daughter, Danielle, was murdered by her uncle, who has continually refused to disclose the location of her body. The Bill is also important to numerous other families affected by this tragic and cruel crime, including Marie McCourt, whose daughter, Helen—after whom Helen’s law is named—was murdered. Although the announcement is welcome, the Government need to ensure that all relevant parole hearings that are in process are paused until the Bill is enacted so that no one is disadvantaged by the timing.
While there are all the other Bills that I welcome, I want to focus on the science aspect of the Queen’s Speech for the last 45 seconds of my contribution. As a former Chair of the Select Committee on Science and Technology, chair of the all-party parliamentary group on artificial intelligence and the Government’s envoy for engineering, I recognise that this Government have done a huge amount for science over the last 10 years and have promised to do more, including by investing £7 billion in our research and development base over the next five years. We are a global science power. We punch well above our weight; pound for pound, we create more citations internationally than any other country. This Government are doing all they can to protect and nurture that base. I ask Ministers to please continue to make scientists from around the world welcome in the UK so that the best and brightest always base themselves here.
Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)
This will be my last Queen’s Speech after 18 years in this place, as I have announced that I will not be standing at the next general election. I will miss some things, but not jumping up and down for hours to get the opportunity to speak—I have to say that I have not enjoyed that at all.
Let me begin with the withdrawal agreement and Brexit itself, because it will have a huge impact on my constituency and the port of Holyhead, which is the fastest growing port in the whole United Kingdom in terms of trade with Europe. It is massive. A border down the Irish sea will mean tariffs and added costs for Welsh communities and businesses, and checks that will take time and delay cargoes. For the Chancellor of the Exchequer to say in his opening remarks that no economic impact assessment is necessary shows his lack of understanding of the policy that his Government are pushing through. The Brexit Secretary does not understand the implications of tariffs and customs checks either, and of course the Prime Minister said that there would never be a border down the Irish sea. It is not a border; it is an economic iron curtain for many of us in Wales, and it is really disappointing that the Government have done this.
We have no impact studies, but the Welsh Government reckon there will be a 7% reduction in the Welsh economy over the next 15 years. That is probably why the Chancellor of the Exchequer does not want to produce the figures—because he knows that there will be a negative impact.
I want to try to be as positive as I can about the Queen’s Speech, although it will be difficult. I welcome the Environment Bill because we need to build consensus on the challenge of climate change and a low-carbon economy. I want to see a UK Government working with the devolved Administrations on this. There are good practices in other parts of the United Kingdom that we need to adapt into Bills here, including on a low- carbon infrastructure.
If we are serious about climate change, we need a revolution in renewables, but we also need to invest in carbon capture and storage—and, yes, in new nuclear. If we are to reach our target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050, we need to double our low-carbon infrastructure. We have an infrastructure plan, but it is not ambitious enough. We need to work together on this now. We need a low-carbon revolution—not just in energy generation, but in our homes and the built environment. We need to do it street by street and community by community, with gas fitters being replaced by solar and underground storage engineers. It has to be done now and it can be done. Mr Deputy Speaker, you and I are old enough to remember North sea gas coming online. That revolution employed thousands of well-paid engineers and fitters, and that is what we should be talking about now.
This Queen’s Speech lacks content, because it should mention how we will make a material change to the lives of the people we are sent here to represent. In that respect, it has failed on all scores and I will not be supporting it tonight. I will, however, work with the Government if they want to improve people’s lives through a green revolution and ensuring that there are high-quality green jobs in this country. My constituency has a proud record and we have the ability to move forward, but there are new projects that lack a funding mechanism—another missed opportunity. Tidal and marine energy does not have the necessary funding for it to become a mature and much-needed technology for the future. The Government have missed that opportunity. We need lagoons—not just in Swansea bay, but in Colwyn bay and in Cemaes bay in my constituency.
Trudy Harrison (Copeland) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen), because he and I share so much in our love for the nuclear industry. I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
I welcome the Government’s national infrastructure strategy that is set out in the Queen’s Speech because of its long-term vision to improve our digital, transport and energy infrastructure. Such a vision, and the action taken through Government policy and in financial terms, will transform the lives and livelihoods of communities such as mine in Copeland. The first ever national infrastructure assessment has informed the strategy, which will close the productivity gap between London and other parts of the country.
It is important to recognise the incredible, proven ability of producing clean nuclear energy over many decades in countries around the world. Nuclear is tried, tested and trusted. It is a vital component in reducing our carbon emissions and hitting the net zero carbon commitment. The renewables sector has been well supported by this Government. They have quadrupled our renewables capacity since 2010 and reduced carbon emissions by 42% compared with 1990, while growing the economy by two thirds. That is brilliant progress, but renewables alone are not the answer, because when the sun does not shine and the wind does not blow, we still need electricity, heating, cooling, power and transportation every hour of the day, and every day of the year. That must be consistent and controllable, working with renewable energy.
The benefits of nuclear go beyond one industry or a local community near a reactor. A long-term commitment will bring huge benefits to research and development, science and industry, manufacturing, construction, apprenticeships, and the UK’s export potential. One aspect I would really like the Treasury to look at, however, is the cost-benefit analysis that is deployed through the Green Book, because that will never prioritise the population. It does not encourage a realisation of the true potential of communities such as mine that are northern, coastal and rural.
The benefits that come from our nuclear industry will be played out tomorrow when I visit the Sellafield graduation event, where I will see more than 130 apprentices, over 40% of whom are young women, graduating to follow their dreams in the nuclear industry. I must add to my declaration of interests, as my youngest daughter has now joined the nuclear industry as an apprentice in the sector.
As a region, the north-west has lagged behind London and the south-east. The national infrastructure strategy recognises and tackles that. The investment in local skills and industries that the Queen’s Speech promises will rebalance the economy, empower communities and decarbonise the world. That is why I shall vote for it tonight.
Mr Sam Gyimah (East Surrey) (LD)
This Queen’s Speech is a pre-election stunt, as many have acknowledged today. As such, it is long on spending promises—what some would call pork barrel politics—and short on a real plan for the economy. This Queen’s Speech has 25 words devoted to the economy, whereas the 2017 Queen’s Speech had five paragraphs and in the 2016 Queen’s Speech the economy was the main priority. This would be fine if our economy was going gangbusters, but let’ us all face it: 1.5% economic growth is not much to sing about, not to mention the problems of low productivity and wage growth that has been relatively low.
The reason for this is that the party of which I was a member, the Conservative party, has moved away from being the party of economic competence. There was a time when rising stars in that party were credited with coming up with ingenious ideas to create prosperity and growth, but now the minimum requirement to become a Minister is to support no deal. In other words, they are willing to throw the economic cards up in the air, and that is why the Conservative party is not emphasising the economy as much in this Queen’s Speech.
I was surprised when the Chancellor said that he was not going to produce an economic impact assessment for the Government’s Brexit plans. We can argue that we do not trust economic evaluations because they underestimate how great Brexit will be, or we can say that people care more about GDP, so economic evaluations of Brexit are irrelevant—but we cannot argue both, or we risk mimicking the 10 leaky buckets.
My main concern with the Queen’s Speech is that at the heart of it is a deceit, which Conservative Members know very well. Every election comes down to two things: it is either more of the same or time for change. The Conservatives are arguing that our country can have more of the same on the economy—to give them credit, they have done a lot of good work to rescue it from the financial crash, helped by the party that I am currently a member of—while at the same time taking the biggest gamble on our economy. They are effectively saying that people can still have all the benefits of leaving while retaining the benefits of remaining. That is what this Queen’s Speech suggests is possible, and we know that it is not, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey) said.
When we come to the big economic divide in our country, between the north and the south, all the economic analysis shows that the recovery from the last recession has been unbalanced. Left-behind towns, post-industrial towns and seaside communities are all struggling, but they will not benefit from this Queen’s Speech. Yet the electoral strategy of the Conservative party is to win those people’s votes, to get an increased majority.
This Government have deprioritised the economy and are taking a huge gamble on it. Every assessment says that our growth will be lower. The Government will not be able to deliver these spending plans, and they will be going back to those same people who are crying out for change to ask for an increased majority. That is a serious deceit, and those of us on the Opposition Benches who stand for remain know that we can give the country what it needs to invest and grow.
Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), who manages to expose both the extremism and the opportunism of the current Government. There was a time in history when some parliamentarians were given four hours to speak in the Chamber. Today we get four minutes, so I am sure Members will forgive me if I concentrate on one of the many issues that is missing from this Queen’s Speech—or, should I say, the phantom Queen’s Speech, since we know it will not really be enacted.
I want to touch on a subject that is of great concern to my constituents and without which I do not believe we will have any economic justice, which is the need for the total overhaul of universal credit. I am cautious about calling for things to be scrapped, but the current set-up is so irredeemable that that is probably the only remedy. The ridiculous waits of five, six or more weeks were always going to lead to debt and inhumane food bank usage. The creation of a system where housing payments did not go to landlords was always likely to create a nonsensical set-up, which my grandmother would probably have referred to as money down the drain. Tied in with that is the random, ineffective and, in some cases, downright inhumane ways in which people with terminal conditions are assessed.
My constituent Jenny puts it rather better than I can, and this is a metaphor of what has gone wrong. She writes:
“In June I was told I needed to apply for universal credit, moving my existing housing benefit claim and child tax credits over from the Council and HMRC to Universal Credit. I was told that there was a 5 week assessment period, followed by a 1 week payment verification period so 6 weeks. My Child tax credit was stopped completely leaving me with no income for 6 weeks. When I complained, they said I could loan the money but needed to repay it. I was initially advised by the Job Centre to apply for Job Seekers Allowance even though they didn’t think I was eligible and they were vague. I ended up complaining. Then I was advised to apply for both Jobseekers Allowance and Universal Credit. They said it would be back dated to June and corrected if wrong.”
On and on this continues:
“Weeks passed and my Universal Credit was calculated. They are taking £120 per month from me for the ‘loan’ of money so I get this instead of receiving child tax credit. Technically I have lost out on 6 weeks of child tax credits. It’s a lot of money to lose, people are still eligible for it, yet it’s been stopped for 6 weeks. Now I’m expected to pay back this loan that I was forced to take to feed my children while they take their time assessing what they already have on record.”
So this continues. She now says:
“I’m just going through a few tests at the moment as I’ve been immobile and in severe pain with my spine. I have to provide proof of medical appointments, private Osteopath receipts and NHS reports which are private. A sick note from a qualified GP won’t do. I’ve also had to deliver my GP sick note in person as they will not allow me to email it to them. I live in a village and it can be difficult to get to town when I’m in debilitating pain and on strong medication. Susan, I hope you can raise these points in the House of Commons as in this day and age, no families with young children should be forced into debt by Universal Credit and the Government. There are families left in debt depending on food banks etc once their Universal Credit loans are deducted. All this has a terrible effect on people’s mental health and I feel the system is just trying to trip people over with sanctions.”
The Government may have warm words, the Prime Minister may even have words in Latin—well, I have a few in English and Welsh that I could give back to him. [Interruption.] No, no, I don’t swear, but I will tell you this: it is about time we had a Government who listened to people such as Jenny and who combined prosperity and social justice in this country.
Faisal Rashid (Warrington South) (Lab)
Hunger is becoming normal in modern Britain. Is that not the most scathing indictment of today’s broken economy? In my town of Warrington, our local food bank has just had to open a new distribution centre to cope with rising demand. It was set up in 2012, just two years after the Tories came to power with the help of Liberal Democrats, and now it distributes about 46,000 meals, 35% of which go to children.
The Prime Minister has previously said he thinks that food banks are fantastic and boasted about setting up loads during his time as London Mayor. Just think about that—an Eton-educated man born into extreme wealth and privilege celebrating the fact that more and more people in our society cannot feed themselves and their children. There can be no doubt that he is ruling over an economy run in the interests of a privileged few: more people in this country going hungry, homelessness at a record high, millions of children in poverty, the nightmare of zero-hours contracts.
Our NHS used to be the envy of the world. Its hard-working staff still are, but it is being run into the ground after almost a decade of Tory rule. People in our country today work the longest average full-time hours in Europe, apart from Greece and Austria. Has this translated into a rise in wealth and living standards for the average worker? Absolutely not. According to analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, annual wages were £760 lower last year than they were a decade ago. Productivity also continues to decline. The average employee today works more, earns less and produces less than a decade ago. Families are forced to borrow to cover basic expenses. An estimated 8.3 million people cannot keep up with debts or bills. The housing market is in crisis, with young people set to be poorer than their parents.
These are the symptoms of a deeply broken economy that requires a radical overhaul. Yesterday, the Prime Minister boasted of his party’s sound management of the economy. I find that remarkable. Despite the Tories’ bogus claims about getting the deficit down, Government debt is now 10% higher as a proportion of GDP than it was in 2010. They have presided over a lost decade of economic stagnation, with ordinary workers paying the price. It is clear that the UK’s failing economic model demands bold ideas and leadership. These are clearly in short supply on the Government Benches. In government, Labour would rewrite the rules of the UK economy, fundamentally redistributing wealth and power and putting it in the hands of ordinary working people. We would not see food banks expanding under Labour; we would see them shut down for good.
This Government are intent on tearing the country apart over Brexit. Labour would rebuild it with properly funded public services, investment in local businesses, a comprehensive green industrial strategy and a plan to revive communities and businesses that have been cast aside and left to rot under Tory rule. The truth is that we do not need a Government on the side of remain or on the side of leave—we need a Government on the side of the many, not the few.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
I rise to speak in favour of the amendment in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford). Ordinarily, the Queen’s Speech is the set-piece occasion for the British Government. It normally outlines the Government’s domestic priorities and legislative proposals for the year ahead. Instead, this Queen’s Speech is a total charade. In fact, it is nothing more than a fantasy wish list from a Government who have lost their majority and are now completely out of control.
To be frank, even if the Government did have a majority with which to plough ahead with the proposals in the Queen’s Speech, the legislative programme is still bereft of ideas and ambition for Scotland. All of us who undertake weekly surgeries know the priorities of the people whom we seek to represent in this place. Those priorities should be reflected in the Government’s legislative programme, but they are not. In Glasgow, people tell me that they want to see justice for the WASPI women, and this Queen’s Speech has failed to deliver that. In Glasgow, people want to see universal credit fixed and the most punitive measures removed from it, and this Queen’s Speech has failed to sort that out. Put simply, this Queen’s Speech fails Scotland and it demonstrates why we need to be a normal independent state.
Let us look at the proposed initiatives in the Government’s legislative programme that will have an impact in Scotland. The Government’s immigration Bill will end free movement, which has been critical to growing a strong and diverse economy in Scotland. Put simply, ending freedom of movement could cost Scotland £2 billion in tax revenues. That is why, since December 2018, the Scottish Government have been making the case for permanent membership of the single market and customs union. That has been deemed to be fine for Northern Ireland, but not for Scotland, which is a pretty peculiar approach for a supposed Union of equals.
We know that Scotland’s population growth over the next 25 years is predicted to come from migration. This makes the case for continuing freedom of movement, which, sadly, the immigration Bill will put an end to. That comes at an economic cost. When we do an analysis of the tax taken from EU citizens in Scotland, it shows that there will be a 4.7% reduction in Scotland’s revenue by 2040 if EU migration falls by 50%, as is projected following Brexit. So there is a hit to the economy from the immigration Bill, which will be bad for Scotland.
I want to turn to the consequences of Brexit, which continues to cast a dark shadow over these islands and our economy in particular. This week we have seen the introduction of the withdrawal agreement Bill, which, among other things, makes provision for Northern Ireland continuing to have access to the single market and customs union. It is an inescapable fact that this puts Scotland at a competitive disadvantage, which is bad for jobs and bad for our economy. But Brexit does not just pose a future threat to our economic prosperity, because Scotland’s economy is already £3 billion smaller than it would have been had the Government not pushed ahead with a damaging Tory Brexit.
If this Queen’s Speech and the Brexit process have done one thing, it has been to crystallise things for people in Scotland who are beginning to consider an alternative future and pathway. Throughout the Brexit negotiations, we have seen a tale of two Unions. In the European one, the small, independent Republic of Ireland has been shown immense solidarity from the European Union, which treats it as an equal member state and listens to its needs and sensitivities. In this British Union, Scotland and its people have been shut out and ignored by an intransigent Westminster Government, who are obsessed by the politics of little England. This Queen’s Speech simply makes the case that Britain has nothing more to offer Scotland. It makes the case that we must have the right to choose our own future and take our own path away from Brexit Britain and failed Tory economics.
Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to follow my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden), in this debate on the Queen’s Speech.
Surveying what was said earlier in the debate by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to me it felt like a speech made from a parallel universe, to be quite frank, with no resemblance to what I see happening on the streets of my city and my constituency. Looking at the pain and the hurt visited on this country by this Government, we see an act of deliberate and calculated economic sabotage. In fact, it is an act of economic and social vandalism by this Government.
There have been 10 lost years in which wages have stagnated, or are lower than they were 10 years ago. That fed into a recent report by Menu for Change—an alliance between Oxfam Scotland, the Poverty Alliance, the Child Poverty Action Group Scotland and Nourish Scotland—which showed that people are facing severe despair. I see such despair in my constituency surgeries week after week. People are emaciated, starving, and struggling to feed their children. They feel humiliated and suffer from poor mental health as a result of the anguish they face and the problems visited on them by this Government.
This is not a joke or something that can be theorised; this is experienced week in, week out. I have seen it in the cuts to disability allowance. My constituency is the worst affected in Scotland, and the change from disability allowance to the personal independence payment is affecting my constituents who lose £1.9 million in disability benefits every year as a result. In some constituencies that are already on the breadline, the effects of that lost income is causing a mini-recession.
The report by Menu for Change highlighted that hunger is increasingly a feature of our communities in a way that it has not been since the creation of the welfare state 70 years ago, and people are increasingly becoming suicidal with despair because of the impact it is having. The solution is not food banks or more food—a lack of food is not the problem; the source of the problem is a lack of income. We must get more money into people’s pockets to solve the problem, and the Government have fundamentally failed to address that issue. Child poverty and the impact of universal credit are related. The biggest achievement of the previous Labour Government was to reduce child poverty by record levels, from 3 million children living in poverty in 1998 to 1.6 million in 2010. This Government’s austerity policies have reversed that achievement, and child poverty now stands at 4.1 million. That shameful epitaph hangs over this Conservative Government in their dying days, and they should feel the shame of that as they try to make their case for forming the next Government.
The Government’s policies on the future of the European Union are an act of economic sabotage. In my constituency, the largest single employer, Allied Vehicles, is a fantastic example of industry and entrepreneurialism. It was created in a community that had suffered significant deindustrialisation, and the business grew from having just a few employees in the 1990s to now employing 700 people in skilled, well-paid jobs. It is the largest importer of Peugeot, Citroen, Ford, Volkswagen and Mercedes vehicles in the UK. It converts them into wheelchair accessible vehicles, and it has the largest market share of wheelchair accessible car production in Europe. It is scared that in a no-deal scenario, or if the transition period ends before a customs union or free trade deal is agreed, under World Trade Organisation terms its products will face a 10% levy on exports from the UK to the EU. That is more than the total margin on its sales, and it will stop that export business dead in its tracks. That business is projected to create another 200 jobs in my constituency by 2025, and to increase vehicle production from 500 to 3,800 per year.
That is the economic vandalism I speak of when I look at this Government’s policies on the European Union, and it is directly related to my constituency. Such vandalism is utterly shameful, and when we try to get clarity, there is none. This Government are not fit to hold office—they must go, and go quickly.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
Having sat through much of the debate over the past five days, I am reminded of Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing”. This debate seems to have been entirely fatuous, other than to highlight the failings of this Government, and the previous coalition Government, of which I am afraid there are many. Even Her Majesty looked understandably disinterested as she delivered her Gracious Speech—a lot of pomp and much circumspect. It all seemed farcical, and so it proved—the debate was pulled after three days to make way for a Brexit debate. A suspension after a suspension: anyone would think the Government were playing for time and actively seeking to undermine our parliamentary democracy.
The Gracious Speech was full of warm words, but they bear little correlation to the reality on our streets, especially in Warwick and Leamington. When I talk to people on the streets or in my surgeries, or visit businesses and schools, those people—the teachers, the business leaders, the nurses—tell me that they are frustrated and angered by this Government. They see a Government who do not truly care about homelessness and rough sleeping, and who have no vision for the future. The Government’s ambition is to eliminate rough sleeping by 2027—that is eight years away—and the good people of Warwick and Leamington find that unacceptable. We want that issue to be addressed urgently.
People see an economy stacked against them. They are working longer hours, and driven to zero-hours or flexible contracts. People such as those working at Asda, down the road from where I live, have to accept what they view as a Martini contract: they have to work anytime, anyplace, anywhere. It is totally unacceptable. Many women work in retail, so they are the ones who are affected. They are the ones who are so hard hit.
I therefore take issue with people I hear talk about a great jobs miracle. It is not a miracle; it is an utter jobs mirage and we have to understand what is really behind it. A few decades ago, people had 40-hour-a-week contracts. Now, perhaps two people may fill that role, but they are on zero hours and are deemed to be employed. The reality, of course, is quite different. It is the uncertainty of those contracts, the underemployment in our society and the penalising process of universal credit that hurts so much and has led to a rise in homelessness and child poverty.
In Warwick and Leamington, 16% of all children live in poverty, while 10% of all households live in energy poverty. In 2018, 2,500 people had three-day emergency food supplies handed to them. Our homelessness is a scandal. The big six housebuilders are making billions, despite the supposed viability issues of delivering housing. They are building the wrong homes in the wrong places. We need social rent homes, and I will campaign hard to deliver the ones that we need. They should also be zero carbon. What a great opportunity. That is the great vision that Labour has: to deliver real, good-quality housing under its green new deal. That is what we will be pushing for when in government.
Businesses are not impressed by what the Government are doing. They are frustrated and angered. They want greater ambition on the transition to a cleaner future. They want investment in infrastructure. They want to see the vision. They want to know that they should be investing now. But they are not prepared to, because they see what France does. France has invested so much more in electric vehicle charging points—four times as much as the UK—so, of course, more investment and more development goes into France from our automotive sector. Education has been frustrated, and likewise healthcare, by a lack of investment. These are the things that the economy should be delivering. That is what I will be pushing for.
James Frith (Bury North) (Lab)
This is a Government who are working for themselves and no one else. Their economy fails as many as they seek. Underemployment is rife and underfed families a way of life. Away from the cities and the shires, overlooked towns miss out. This is a Government for the market, not the market stall.
Local businesses cannot access new talent. They are hampered by poor public transport. Entrepreneurs, the real wealth creators, are unable to secure funding without putting the family home on the line, and they are paying over the odds for business loans. Food banks and homeless charities have seen a rise in the destitute seeking help, with 30% of all children in east Bury in absolute poverty. Denise—there are many like her—got in touch with me last week. Despite working full time, some days she is unable to feed herself and sits at home in a cold house. There is an overriding sense that decisions taken by the few impact the everyday lives of the many.
Voters put their faith in me in 2017, making history in a seat that always went the way of the Government. They finally have a voice refusing to sponsor the cuts to our town, instead defending and championing improvements to everyday life: saving Bury walk-in centre after local Tories supported its closure; demanding the protection of more green-belt land; convincing bus companies to put on new bus routes; and changing the fortunes of our most vulnerable by seeking access to their entitlements, whether helping children to access their special educational needs and disability support from a depleted education budget or demanding benefits for the terminally ill who have worked all their life and are told by this Government that they are not near enough to death to qualify for their entitlement. I am also delighted today to welcome the news about the campaign for cystic fibrosis sufferers to be able to access Orkambi. This was an issue from my first constituency surgery. I welcome the NHS deal announced today.
However, so much of what is done in Bury is despite the Tory Government, not because of them. In Bury, we keep the faith in each other and we carry on. We keep going, with innovators and enterprising spirits. We are top of the league in Greater Manchester for start-up businesses. Tech companies with investment from California are developing “Silicon Rammy”. Barclays is in partnership with Bury’s schools via Labour’s Bury Council.
However, Bury’s sunlit uplands will not come with a Tory hard Brexit, just as they have not come with the Tory Government who sponsored the hardship for Bury and Britain this last decade. Change will not come from a Government who serve the stock market short-sellers, but short-change Bury and Britain. A £37-million black hole remains in Bury’s NHS funding, with in-year cuts of £12.5 million still to come. Our nurseries, schools and colleges face dire budget straits, and jam tomorrow will not tend to our children’s needs today.
Our beloved football club, Bury FC, faces ruin. It is a town grieving. With 135 years of history in the English football league, it is one of the oldest clubs in English football. Dale, Day, the EFL—culpable. It was bought for £1 and sold down the river. The whole mess confirms a feeling across the country; we value everyday life but it is changing for the worse. Traditions have been lost, with social, economic and cultural capital torn from our town. We now face an identity crisis, but I say: the Shakers will rise again if we keep going. Whenever the general election comes, Bury knows that we have unfinished work to do together. I will ask that they keep their faith in me, as I keep my faith in the work that we will do together—and we will keep going.
Jo Platt (Leigh) (Lab/Co-op)
It is an honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Frith); his passion and resolve to highlight the injustice of what happened to his town’s football club must be commended by us all in this House.
Our country is more divided than ever, but beyond the current inflamed debates in this place, the root of the division is fundamentally about inequality in this country—inequality between the north and south, inequality between towns and cities, inequality that this Tory Government have shamefully widened under their rule. Their shambolic, reckless and cruel handling of the economy over the last decade, in partnership with the Lib Dems, has ripped the soul from towns such as Leigh, the one I represent. Decades of under-investment left us reeling and in desperate need of a Government on our side to help us to thrive.
In 2010, we were promised by the Government that we were all in this together. How wrong they were. Instead, we have seen 3,500 bankers earning incomes of almost £10 billion between them, with grotesque bonuses on top. These are the same people who crashed our economy, leading to the vicious austerity that has been inflicted on the hard-working grafters in Leigh. The Conservative party even had the audacity to lower the tax rate for millionaires and billionaires while introducing a bedroom tax, cutting welfare benefits and starving our NHS. Meanwhile, in our towns such as Leigh we have seen a rise of almost 20% in food bank usage last year. Disgustingly, last year we issued over 5,000 emergency food parcels, 2,000 of which went to children. After housing costs, one in four children live in poverty.
Locally, we have seen a rise in drug and alcohol issues and more homeless on our streets, so when the Conservatives parade statistics about GDP and sound economic records, they do not realise how out of touch they are. Their trickle-down system of economics fails working people. The rich have got richer and the rest of us—the hard-working many, the working classes—are left struggling to make ends meet. Their priorities will always be about their entitled chums who bankroll their party, while Labour stands up and fights for the hard-working many and our proud trade union movement.
If the Conservative party was really on the side of constituencies like mine, maybe it could answer these questions. Where is the Bill to abolish universal credit and personal independence payment assessments? Where is the Bill to abolish food poverty? Where is the Bill to abolish child poverty? Where is the Bill to give proud former mining constituencies such as Leigh our fair share of investment to rebuild our towns? Where is the Bill to put power back into the hands of our community and out of those of the establishment, which has run this country for decades?
This Queen’s Speech is nothing other than a pre-election broadcast—read out by Her Majesty—that fails our communities and our economy, and it should thoroughly shame the Government. Towns like Leigh will never be fooled by their bluff and bluster. Their actions speak louder than their words in our communities, and I will have no hesitation in voting down this Queen’s Speech later today.
Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate on the minority Government’s Queen’s Speech. There are so many different issues that could be covered in a debate on the economy, and that is because without an economy that works for everyone, we are not able to address or solve the problems that affect anyone.
The new Brexit deal that was debated on Saturday is significantly worse than the one proposed by the previous Prime Minister. It is, in short, a sell-out when it comes to our vital workers’ rights, our economy, our manufacturing base—including the Orb steelworks in Newport—and, most important, people’s jobs, in Newport West, across Wales, and in Northern Ireland, Scotland and England, too. My community in Newport West want and need a Government in Westminster who are on their side. They deserve a Government who ensure that those who earn the most pay the most, that tax evaders and avoiders are brought in line and that our vital public services are funded, defended and invested in.
So much was lacking from the Queen’s Speech. There was nothing about reducing poverty for our children and young people or pensioners, and there was nothing about reversing the proposal to take away the television licence for the over-75s. Let us not forget that the TV is a vital lifeline for many of our senior citizens. It is their only link with the outside world for, sometimes, hours or days on end. It is well documented that social isolation leads to loneliness and depression for many. That could be avoided if the Government would only change their decision and return to their manifesto promise of 2017 to keep TV licences free for all those aged 75 and over. The 4,000 people in my constituency who are affected will not let the Prime Minister get away with this. Indeed, I have received many letters from constituents expressing anger or sorrow about the Government’s rash decision.
The Government talk about improving the financial situation for the people of the UK, but we know the reality. We know that wages have still not returned to the levels at which they were before the Tories took office in 2010. In reality, people are worse off now than they were before the Tories took office. This Government talk the talk, but they do not walk the walk.
As we have already heard today, another side-effect of the worsening economic picture is the increase in the use of food banks and the number of people sleeping on our streets. I appreciate the efforts of the thousands of volunteers, and the donations of food from thousands more. When I visited a food bank at the King’s Church in my constituency a few weeks ago, I was struck by the amazing love and warmth of those volunteers for people less fortunate than themselves. However, in 2019, we should not need food banks, and we should not see people rough-sleeping. We are the fifth richest economy in the world, and we have enough resources; they just need to be apportioned fairly.
Last week, along with many other Members from both sides of the House, I had the pleasure of meeting a number of WASPI women. They came to Parliament once again with their campaign for justice and fairness, but once again the Government failed to act, and let the opportunity to sort out this injustice once and for all go by. I know that those strong, articulate women will be back to fight for justice, and I am proud to line up with them and be counted as they continue on their journey towards fair compensation.
The Government could also have delivered a fair tax for motor homes. New motor homes registered after 1 September 2019 are no longer subject to a commercial vehicle tax band in the United Kingdom; for the purposes of vehicle excise duty, they are now taxed as cars, and the tax payable on first registration has been increased by 705%.
Our country finds itself at a hugely important junction. It saddens me that we have a Government with no agenda and no real understanding of the many issues that are being experienced by my constituents in Newport West and throughout the UK. This Queen’s speech was a wasted opportunity, and it confirms that we need a Labour Government now more than ever.
Hugh Gaffney (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones).
It is a new Session of Parliament, but we are still hearing the same old ideas from the Government. This was not a Queen’s Speech offering a serious programme for government; it was a pre-election stunt by a Prime Minister who promises everything but can deliver nothing. He has no majority, no mandate and no policies to tackle the real issues facing this country.
We have a poverty crisis in the UK. There are 14 million people living in poverty, one fifth of our entire population, and 4 million of them are children. It was once said that the best route out of poverty was to secure employment, but the growth of insecure employment—for instance, zero-hours contracts—has led to rising levels of in-work poverty. Sixty per cent. of those living in relative poverty reside in working households. The UK’s poverty crisis is real and the Government continue to ignore it at their peril. Sixty per cent. of the public believe that the Government have caused poverty through their austerity policies. When will we see action from this Government? When will they tackle low pay with a real living wage of £10 per hour for all workers, starting from the age of 16? When will they scrap failed welfare reforms like universal credit, which are directly responsible for the rise in food bank use, and when will they end insecure employment by abolishing the exploitation of zero-hours contracts? The public are demanding action, and if the Government are not prepared to act, I say to them: stand aside because Labour is ready.
There are clear examples of workers’ rights under attack, which the Government have chosen to ignore in the Queen’s Speech. The Queen’s Speech contained no proposals to scrap the undemocratic Trade Union Act 2016, which undermines the right to strike. There are no proposals to support the Asda workers, who face a disgraceful choice between accepting cuts to their terms and conditions or losing their jobs, and there are no proposals to support the postal workers who face threats to both their jobs and their terms and conditions despite agreements.
I congratulate the postal workers and the Communications Workers Union for a fantastic ballot result, which saw an overwhelming 97% vote in favour of strike action. I say today to Royal Mail, “Honour the agreement that was made and we can avoid any industrial action.”
The Government have chosen to impose austerity on our communities for the last 10 years, despite the clear damage that has done. Only Labour are committed to investing in our public services and our communities and ending austerity. The real tragedy of austerity has been the impact upon the lives of ordinary people, people like the 75-year-olds who have seen a broken promise on their TV licences. That is why I tabled amendment (b), and I thank all those Members who supported it. There is a simple answer, and I hope the Government will listen and think again: let us get the free TV licences back for those 75-year-olds.
We have seen rising levels of poverty, attacks on workers’ rights and austerity imposed upon our communities under this Government. When I stood for election in 2017, I asked the good people of Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill to send a working man to Parliament. I am here to fight for my constituents and to fight for the workers; that is why I will be opposing this Queen’s Speech tonight.
Ged Killen (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney).
It does seem rather bizarre to be talking about a Queen’s Speech that the Government have no intention or any ability to implement, and I would not exactly describe myself as a monarchist but I do think the way the Prime Minister has treated Her Majesty through all this is shameful.
First, I want to touch on the implications for the UK. The Government say:
“The integrity and prosperity of the union that binds the four nations of the United Kingdom is of the utmost importance to my Government”
and Scotland will see a £1.2 billion cash bonus as a result of the latest spending round, but this Queen’s Speech ends freedom of movement, which will have a disproportionate impact on Scottish sectors, and even by the least damaging Brexit that would mean a reduction in Scottish GDP of 2.7%, and we know that a disastrous no-deal exit could mean a loss of economic output for Scotland of as much as £12.7 billion by 2030.
And it is not just prosperity in Scotland that is under threat from the Government; so too is the very existence of the United Kingdom itself. We have seen over a decade of austerity that Scotland did not vote for; we had David Cameron’s English votes for English laws speech on the steps of Downing Street on 19 September 2014; of course we had the Brexit referendum in 2016; and now we have this Government’s reckless deal, which tears up workers’ rights and simply delays a no-deal Brexit until the end of next year. The Conservative party, in truth, has done almost as much as the Scottish National party to undermine the United Kingdom. It is no longer the Conservative and Unionist party; it is the Conservative and Brexit party.
I was deeply disappointed, once again, to see nothing for 1950s-born women who are being denied a pension. That is a huge missed opportunity. Just as we are seeing with PPI repayments, we could have seen a boost for the economy had those women been paid what is rightfully theirs. As one of the leading members of the local WASPI branch in my area put it,
“these women are not going to be squirrelling this money away in offshore accounts.”
It will be spent in our local towns and on our high streets. However, the campaign will go on and I can assure them of my continued support.
Lastly, I want to touch on the lack of any new measures to protect free access to cash. I have been campaigning on that issue since my election. It has become increasingly clear, from the work of consumer rights groups, from international examples, from what is happening in many of our constituencies and from reports like the Access to Cash review, that this issue will not simply resolve itself. The banks have made a conscious decision to shift responsibility for running ATMs to private companies, and now they have decided that they really do not want to have to pay for that either. So the pressure they have put on LINK means that the fee being paid to the operators has been cut, and we are now seeing free-to-use ATMs closing, or turning fee-charging. That is having a particularly difficult impact in rural communities and in small towns such as those in my constituency, where businesses on the high street are already struggling and do not need any new additional barriers, such as a lack of availability of cash.
The Joint Authorities Cash Strategy Group, which the Government have set up to look at this issue, is no more than a talking shop.
Ged Killen
The Minister shakes his head, but what has that actually done since it was set up? The Government have to get real, or millions of people—some of the most vulnerable in society—will be left behind in a so-called cashless society.
In conclusion, this is a completely unnecessary Queen’s Speech, which has wasted everyone’s time and will do nothing at all for my constituents in Rutherglen and Hamilton West.
Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
There were around 39 speeches today, so obviously I cannot go through them all, but I would like to thank the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon)—although, given all the cuts we have had under the Tory Government, I am surprised it is not “Sixoaks”—for his support for Labour’s policy on share ownership. I also offer my congratulations to the right hon. Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride) on his appointment to the Treasury Committee, and commiserations to the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake).
The right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey) said that the Liberal Democrats were the yellow party. They certainly were the yellow party, in that they did not stand up to the Tories when they were in coalition with them. That is the sort of yellow party they actually are. So I will not be taking any sermonising whatever from that shower at the back of me—none whatsoever.
May I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen), thank you for all the work that you have done, given that this is your last Queen’s Speech—and yours was an excellent speech, too.
The Chancellor’s performance was excruciating. Judging by the faces of the Members sitting on his side of the House after he had made it, I thought I had walked into an embalmers’ and morticians’ conference. Thinking of the global banking crisis, does he not remember collateralised debt obligations—otherwise known as financial weapons of mass destruction? Has he forgotten that he had a great part in promoting them? That is the cause of the global financial crisis—reckless speculation, dependence on credit and grossly unequal distribution of income. It applies to this day. [Interruption.] Members on his side of the House may mutter all they want; that is the fact. They and their friends were the cause of the global crisis, not this side of the House—[Interruption.] Not this side of the House.
The topic today is the economy—an economy that the Tories are in the process of systematically wrecking. As many have pointed out today, after nine years in charge of the economy, their strategy has proven to be a total failure. Nine years of austerity, combined with Tory infighting over who can deliver the worst Brexit for our economy, has made us all poorer. Wages have stagnated. The queues at food banks have grown almost as long as the incoherent responses of the Prime Minister at PMQs.
Albert Owen
My hon. Friend is talking about the Chancellor’s opening speech in which he tried to mock Labour’s nationalisation plans, saying that we would even go as far as nationalising travel agents. I remind him that Thomas Cook made a profit when it was in public ownership between 1948 and 1972, but it went bankrupt under this Government, with people losing their jobs and their holidays.
Peter Dowd
My hon. Friend refers to just some of the many thousands of workers who have been let down by this Tory Government. We all walk past people sleeping rough on the streets every day, but what have the Government done about that? Nothing. Despite endless promises of jam tomorrow, there looks to be little respite ahead under this Government. Their approach to this is writ large by the smirks on the faces of the members of the Government Front Bench.
Manufacturing output in August dropped at the fastest pace in seven years, with EU-based customers rerouting supply chains away from the UK in anticipation of 31 October. Consumer and business confidence is tumbling. Anecdotally, we know that a worrying proportion of businesses are moving their operations and investment elsewhere.
My right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor said:
“We have heard the Prime Minister’s previous crude dismissal of British business. Now we are seeing his words become Government policy.”—[Official Report, 8 October 2019; Vol. 664, c. 1650.]
Businesses are responding in droves. The Centre for European Reform says that the economy is already £69 billion smaller as a result of Tory turmoil and uncertainty since the Brexit vote. That is their responsibility on their watch—nobody else’s. Time and again, they put party over country while the economy suffers. The Government’s false dichotomy of no deal versus a bad deal amounts to an attack on the economic wellbeing of our citizens. Our economy needs cast-iron guarantees of frictionless free trade and strong regulatory alignment with the European Union. It needs a targeted industrial strategy to turn the biggest threat of our time into an economic opportunity, but not with the Tories.
The only threat we face that is equal to the continuation of this Government is the climate emergency. We need a green industrial revolution: a rapid and far-reaching transformation of the UK’s infrastructure, from our homes to our transport and energy systems. That requires investment on a scale that makes the Government’s programme pale into insignificance. Labour is offering—
Peter Dowd
I am sorry, but I will not at this stage.
Labour is offering a national transformation fund and a national investment bank that would invest £500 billion of lending and spending over 10 years, with tackling climate change as a central mission—a concept alien to that lot over there. It will include targeted investment to develop and commercialise new technologies so that they are designed here, assembled here, installed by a well-paid unionised workforce here, and then exported to the rest of the world. It is a far-reaching programme of economic revival that will create the industries of the future here. This is a Government of yesterday. We are the Government of tomorrow.
With its wind and marine resources, the UK has some of the best potential in the world for renewable energy. Renewable energy should be to the UK what tech has been to California, but the Government’s failure to support these nascent industries has held us back. We should be building on our existing strengths, such as the automotive sector, which could, with the right support, lead the world in electric vehicle and battery production. At the Labour party conference, my hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey), the shadow Business Secretary, announced a multibillion-pound package of investment to kick-start the electric revolution. That is the scale of targeted support that our automotive industry needs—not just green number plates. Today, she announced plans to create a carbon-neutral energy system by the 2030s, including insulation upgrades for every home in the UK and enough new solar panels to cover 22,000 thousand football pitches, including Anfield.
This is not just about avoiding a climate catastrophe. The green industrial revolution is about building the world we deserve, not the world that the Tories think we deserve. We will ensure that nothing is too good for the working people of this country. We can tackle climate change while transforming our economy so that it works for the many, not just the privileged few.
As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has said, this is not the time for despair; it is the time for action. I hope the Chancellor—hope does spring eternal—will act by accepting amendment (g) so we can begin to rebuild our economy in the interests of the many, not the few. Under this Government of yesterday, I will not hold my breath.
The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Andrea Leadsom)
This has been an interesting debate, in which strong views have been expressed by 41 Back Benchers.
Let us look at the UK economy. This year, we have seen more people in work than ever before, with more women in work than ever before. The number of workless households is down by more than 1 million since 2010, and there are 200,000 more businesses than last year. Wages have grown at their fastest rate in 11 years, and there has been the biggest ever increase in the national living wage. We are investing in the skills of the future, with more than 800,000 people participating in an apprenticeship in England in the last full academic year.
We have every reason to believe in our ability to succeed. We are the world’s fifth biggest economy and the ninth biggest manufacturer. We speak the world’s international business language. We have the best contract law and one of the most trusted judicial systems in the world. We have the most creative and innovative financial services sector anywhere, and three of the top 10 universities in the world. For the seventh year in a row, we have the most powerful capital city on earth.
But let us look at what Labour has on offer. Labour has proposed a punitive new tax every two months since Corbyn took office. Jeremy Corbyn’s party—
Mr Speaker
Order. Resume your seat. I very gently say that, when names are put into these speeches, it is the responsibility of the Secretary of State to delete those names. We do not name people in the Chamber but refer to them by their title. That is a pretty obvious point.
Andrea Leadsom
Thank you so much, Mr Speaker.
The Leader of the Opposition has voted against £7,800-worth of tax cuts for hard-working people, and the British Chambers of Commerce has warned that Labour’s plans for our economy would send an “icy chill” up the spines of business owners and investors.
There have been too many contributions for me to mention them all, but I have picked out some that were particularly interesting. The hon. Members for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) and for Glasgow East (David Linden) both talked about the importance of immigration to Scotland, and I am delighted to mention at the Dispatch Box the amazing contribution that EU citizens have made to our country. That is why I am so pleased that over 1 million people have already been granted settled or pre-settled status under the EU settlement scheme, enshrining their rights in law.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride) on being elected as the new Chair of the Treasury Committee, and I commend his call for Barclays to reconsider pulling out of the new UK banking framework, which was agreed with 28 UK banks. He is right to look into that issue.
The hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) talked about the tax gap. He should be reassured that, since coming into office, this Government have secured and protected more than £200 billion that would otherwise have gone unpaid. Our tax gap is at a near record low.
My hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) talked about the financial services Bill. I can assure her that that Bill will maintain the UK’s world-leading regulatory standards and ensure that the UK remains fully open to international markets after we leave the European Union.
The right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey) was right to welcome the United Kingdom’s amazing efforts on offshore wind. I commend him for the part he played in ensuring that the UK is a world leader in the deployment of offshore wind.
My hon. Friends the Members for Aberdeen South (Ross Thomson) and for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham) spoke as true Unionists and supporters of the Union. They highlighted how no-deal Nicola is not acting in the interests of Scotland.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Scott Mann) talked about how this Government are dealing with climate change, not just talking about it. Labour, however, has promised something that it cannot deliver and does not understand. Several unions have voiced their concern about the damage of a 2030 target for decarbonisation. The GMB dismissed it as threatening “whole communities” and “jobs”, as well as being “utterly unachievable”. The “30 by 2030” report put out by Labour today shows plans to hike up stamp duty on millions of homes, with home owners forced to spend tens of thousands to move home and local communities losing any say on onshore wind. However, this Government have a positive record on decarbonisation. We are the first major economy to legislate for net zero. Since 1990, we have reduced carbon emissions by 42% while growing our economy by nearly three quarters. We have shown that decarbonising can create jobs and prosperity. It has already produced 400,000 jobs in the low-carbon sector, and we hope that the number will reach 2 million by 2030. Our path to reaching net zero is realistic. It is based on science and has been supported by the Committee on Climate Change. We care too much about this issue to make pointless political promises that are just not deliverable.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) welcomed the Government’s investment in towns and cities, with the £3.6 billion new towns fund, which will support our high streets. I also wish to mention the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen), who highlighted the fact that this would be his last Queen’s Speech. I wish him well and thank him for his contribution in this place. My hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison) talked movingly about her daughter’s new apprenticeship in the nuclear sector—we wish her well with that. My hon. Friend is rightly a great champion for new nuclear.
The hon. Member for Bury North (James Frith) raised the issue of Orkambi. All of us across the House are delighted by the achievement of my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary on Orkambi, which can be a vital drug for many cystic fibrosis sufferers. I also wish to mention the hon. Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones), who is calling again for the BBC to honour the right of the over-75s to get their free TV licences. I completely agree with her about that.
Finally, may I say that it is very refreshing to have spent a whole six days—albeit with a brief interval—debating the exciting positive future that awaits this country? As the Prime Minister said, this is
“a new age of opportunity for the whole country.”—[Official Report, 14 October 2019; Vol. 666, c. 19.]
As MPs, we should never lose sight of whom we serve, and this Queen’s Speech is about the people’s priorities. It is about the things that really matter to people in their everyday lives: more police; better schools; a stronger NHS; more support for those in need; and a United Kingdom that rewards hard work today, that protects the environment for tomorrow, that spreads opportunity right across our shores and that flies the flag for global free trade.
Instead of self-doubt, we need self-belief in ourselves and in our abilities as a country to build the low-carbon, high-tech, business-backing United Kingdom we all want to see, spreading opportunity right across our shores. From our universities to our creative industries, from offshore wind to outer space, we have so much to shout about in this great country, and this Queen’s Speech will help us to do even more. From attracting the best minds in the world to exporting the best products to the world, we can make the United Kingdom the greatest place on earth. I commend this Queen’s Speech to the House.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Business of the House
(5 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
We will take a business statement now from the Leader of the House and Lord President of the Council, Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg.
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees- Mogg)
Having made one earlier, I knew that the House could not wait for another statement from me. I should like to make a very short statement this evening regarding Monday’s business. Before the House considers the Second Reading of the Environment Bill, Members will have an opportunity to debate and approve a motion relating to an early parliamentary general election. The business for the rest of next week remains as I announced earlier.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
I thank the Leader of the House for making this business statement. Tomorrow, we will find out what extension has been granted. We opposed the Prime Minister’s withdrawal agreement Bill but it passed Second Reading. Several of my Labour colleagues have voted for that Bill, not because they support the Prime Minister’s deal, but because they wanted to scrutinise it, amend it and debate it—[Interruption.]—as is the normal process in this House. We offered the Prime Minister our support for a proper timetable to enable the withdrawal agreement Bill to be dealt with properly, but the Prime Minister has rejected our offer in his letter to the Leader of the Opposition because he does not want that scrutiny.
I want to make it clear that Her Majesty’s Opposition, the Labour party, will back an election once no deal is ruled out, and—wait for it—if the extension allows.
Mr Rees-Mogg
The right hon. Lady says that the Prime Minister has not made sufficient time. In his letter to the Leader of the Opposition, my right hon. Friend says:
“we will make available all possible time between now and 6 November”.
We are willing to start work tomorrow, Mr Speaker, if you are willing to recall Parliament. We are willing to work 24 hours a day between now and 6 November. What are the words of that hymn?
“e’en eternity’s too short
to extol thee.”
It seems to me that eternity is too short for the Opposition, because their opposition is fantasy opposition. They do not want Brexit, and, however much time we give them, they will come up with some foolish objection.
Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)
This will be the third time that the House will have voted on a general election. Can the Leader of the House recall any other occasion on which the Opposition have been offered an election three times and rejected it?
Mr Rees-Mogg
Earlier today, I was actually praising the Leader of the Opposition, and now I am able to quote him. His words are words of wisdom. On 24 September 2019, exactly one month ago, he said:
“This crisis can only be settled with a general election. That election needs to take place as soon as this government’s threat of a disastrous No Deal is taken off the table”.
We have met the condition that he set. The Prime Minister has got a deal; no deal is off the table. And yet, for some reason, the Opposition still do not want a general election. We know why that is: we know why they will not have an election. It is because they are afraid of the voters. So alienated are the voters—so disenfranchised do they feel by their socialist friends—that the socialists are running away from an election.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
What an extraordinary business statement, once again, from the Leader of the House.
This simply confirms that the Queen’s Speech has been nothing but a charade, a simple electioneering stunt. For us the priority remains the same: we need to see an extension secured, and that extension must be long enough to protect us from the cliff edge of a no-deal Brexit. We have seen the Prime Minister’s letter to the Leader of the Opposition, and we need to know that this Tory Government cannot play any games or tricks to use an election period to engineer a their way to secure their no-deal Brexit. The Scottish National party is clear: we want the opportunity to stop this Prime Minister, and to stop this toxic Tory Brexit that Scotland did not vote for. If there is to be an election, that election should be a chance for people to deliver their verdict on the deal and for the House to reflect it. That should come first.
Tomorrow the EU will make a decision on an extension, and we patiently await confirmation from Brussels and the terms that the Prime Minister proposes. We will not be pushed today by this Prime Minister. He may be hoping that the electorate will fall for his con tricks, but the SNP certainly will not.
Mr Rees-Mogg
Is it not saddening that “Scotland the brave” used to be the call but now it is “Scotland the runaway,” “Scotland the let’s not have an election”? The SNP, who wish to challenge the Government, actually want us to stay in office; I never thought that the broad coalition of the United Kingdom would have the Scottish National party supporting a Tory Government remaining in office. I look forward to that appearing on our election leaflets. It occurs to me that tomorrow is St Crispin’s day, the anniversary of Agincourt; what a good day it might be for us to meet and show our independence of spirit.
Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement, and may I just remind him that people in this House are blocking Brexit in the name of the sovereignty of Parliament, but whose is this sovereignty? What sovereignty do we hold that does not come from the British people? And should the British people not now be allowed to decide who represents them in this House?
Mr Rees-Mogg
As so often, I bow to my hon. Friend’s constitutional expertise. It is quite clear that the sovereignty of this House did not fall upon us like a comet from heaven; it comes to us from the British people. It is the people’s sovereignty delegated to Parliament. We need, as we are incapable of using it, to return it to them and ask them to have another election and decide how their sovereignty should be used.
Mr Speaker
This is absolutely fascinating, but we are not going to embark upon a philosophical discussion on the matter of sovereignty. This treats of the business of the House for Monday, nothing more, nothing less; brevity is required.
David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
I just want to be clear: is the Leader of the House’s motion on Monday under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011?
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
Irrespective of whether people are Brexiteers, remainers or reversers, does my right hon. Friend agree that the fundamental question before the House on Monday regarding an early general election is about their democratic decision to be governed by themselves through their representatives in Parliament?
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
This House had 41 days for Maastricht and 25 for Lisbon, and now the Prime Minister expects us to rush through this legislation in less than a dozen days, and he expects us to do that because he has failed. He tried to prorogue Parliament to rush this through and get us off the cliff without a deal; he has failed. The Liberal Democrats will not support this until we can be sure that this country will not be crashed out of Brexit and the electorate has the choice.
Mr Rees-Mogg
It is always exciting to discover what the position of the Liberal Democrats is, because it changes like a weather vane.
Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that if the President of France stands firm and declines us the extension, there is still plenty of time next week to get the withdrawal Bill passed in this House and the other place, given the position taken by all on the Opposition Benches on the unacceptability of no deal? Then the general election itself can decide who is negotiating the future relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union.
Mr Rees-Mogg
If there were a will to get the Bill through, it could of course be done. Yes, my hon. Friend is absolutely right, and it would satisfy the European Union. It would get the deal done; we would have left; and we could do it by 31 October, and that is what we should aim to do.
Mr Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (IGC)
I wonder if the Leader of the House is familiar with what is known as the wash-up between when an election or a Dissolution is announced and when Parliament then stops. It is normally a time when, through the usual channels, Bills that remain are carved up because they are not controversial. But his attempt to use that period to basically seek a carve-up of the momentous future of generations to come with this Brexit settlement—which, by the way, should never have got a Second Reading but did—is an abuse of the procedures of this place.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am sufficiently familiar with the wash-up to understand what it actually means and what it is for. At the end of a Session, normally of a year or more, Bills that have completed a lot of their passage are concluded. This Session has only begun. There is no washing-up to be done; the cupboards are full of clean crockery.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
Could the Leader of the House enlighten the House? If we vote for a general election on Monday, what will happen in relation to the Speaker election scheduled for the following Monday? Would Mr Speaker be invited to stay on until the Parliament ceases?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The rules on this are absolutely clear. Mr Speaker has set out the timetable for his leaving office, and we will still have tributes to him on Thursday, during my statement. People can draft away—they have a few days in which to do it—and I expect they may be allowed a little latitude in the length of their questions on that occasion. However, once this House has no Speaker, and is sitting without the Speaker—I am looking at the Clerks for some help—the priority of this House will be to get a Speaker, whatever else is happening. I am getting lots of nods from very distinguished personages.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
Many Opposition Members may allow a deal through this House holding their nose, but if, and only if, the public are given the final say in a people’s referendum before an election. Can the Leader of the House undertake to say that it is, and will be, possible to negotiate a situation where his deal can be put to the people before we have a general election?
Mr Rees-Mogg
Leaving the European Union was put to the British people on 23 June 2016, and a general election surely is consulting the people, if nothing else.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
Can the Leader of the House confirm that 95% of the Prime Minister’s deal essentially remains unchanged from the deal that preceded it, and we had three and a half years to scrutinise that, so this should not take too long?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend is correct, but the Prime Minister got rid of the undemocratic backstop, which made the deal acceptable.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Can the Leader of the House confirm that if the House decides on Monday not to hold a general election, he will still bring forward a programme motion at some point thereafter?
Mr Rees-Mogg
We hope that the House will vote for a general election on Monday, because we need to clear this up. We cannot go on endlessly, not making any decisions, and that seems to be the situation this House is in. It won’t say yes and it won’t say no; it won’t say stay and it won’t say go. We need to bring this to a conclusion and the hard stop of a general election may help focus minds, because nothing else seems to.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that for those who do not want Brexit there will never be enough time to debate it, and for those who do not want a general election there will always be an excuse to avoid it, and it would appear that those two positions are not mutually exclusive?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend is right. I think there may be a developing desire in some quarters in this House to suspend the quinquennial Act.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
This is a handy way of distracting from the reality that the Prime Minister has not succeeded in delivering Brexit by 31 October. Those of us who have been here longer than the Leader of the House know the fun and games, the jiggery-pokery, that he specialises in. When he does not get his election, perhaps he could then consider putting the Bill down with a proper timetable, so that we can debate it.
Mr Rees-Mogg
We have just offered all the time that is available between now and the 6th. We could sit 24 hours around the clock. The hours that are available are equivalent to over 20 sitting days. But it is rejected, and the rejection is phoney because the people who reject it do not want Brexit.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
Can the Leader of the House confirm that if Opposition Members wish a referendum to overturn the decision of the last referendum, they are perfectly at liberty to stand on that basis in the general election—put it in their manifesto—and if they win that election they can legislate for one?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend’s point is brilliant, and an incisive explanation of how democracy works. Is it not extraordinary, Mr Speaker, that though they stand up and call for a referendum, they do not wish to put that to voters? If it were in their manifesto and if—heaven help us—they won, then they could do it, but they are so worried that they cannot win, and that they would not win their referendum, that they just try to use legislative legerdemain to try and frustrate the will of the British people.
Mr Speaker
Well, whatever the merits, I do like the word legerdemain. It is a splendid word. It has been resuscitated by the Leader of the House.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
The Leader of the House wants a general election on 12 December. Can he explain to the House what the purpose of the Queen’s Speech was?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The purpose of the Queen’s Speech—the Gracious Speech—was to set out the legislative programme, and what a triumph it has been already. The Queen’s Speech has been adopted by this House with a comfortable majority and a flagship piece of legislation has already passed its Second Reading. Who would have thought that we could have succeeded so much in so short a time? It is hard to think of a greater political success in modern history.
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)
Just for clarity, can I be sure that the position of Her Majesty’s Government is that they will agree to an early election only if this Parliament is prepared to railroad through their terrible deal? If that is the case, they know that they will be defeated, so is it not the truth that it is the Government who are running scared of an election?
Mr Rees-Mogg
No. I must confess that the logic of that point defeats me, and it seems that it defeats most Members of this House. This will be the third time that the Government have offered a general election, so we are clearly willing to have one. We are willing to take our case to the British people. Why? Because we are confident that our case is strong, just and right. The reason why the Opposition are so afraid of an election is that their case is weak, wobbly and futile.
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
Is it not a fact that, halfway through a parliamentary term, Parliament has got a dangerous Prime Minister in a cage and that Parliament would be wise to keep that dangerous Prime Minister in a cage at least until we remove some of his teeth, if not all of them?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am afraid that that reminds me of the joke about the time that one should go to visit the dentist, which is, of course, at two thirty. But the hon. Gentleman—[Interruption.] Somebody laughed. Thank you so much. These sort of jokes amuse my children. We cannot possibly want to remove the teeth of Prime Ministers unless they are rotten, but the Prime Minister has a fine set of gnashers with which to bite through these difficult problems.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
I hope that hon. Members will oppose this dangerous and cynical manoeuvre, not least because no deal remains a real possibility until the trapdoor is closed in the withdrawal Bill that currently allows us to crash out if no future relationship is agreed at the end of the implementation period at the end of December next year. That is dangerous.
Mr Rees-Mogg
That tells you all need to know, Mr Speaker. The leader figure of the Green party says that an election is dangerous and cynical—dangerous and cynical to trust the people, dangerous and cynical to go back to our voters, dangerous and cynical to report to our employers. That is contempt for democracy.
Mr Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)
For greater clarity, will the Leader of the House please confirm that he referred in his business statement just now only to a motion on Monday in relation to holding a general election? In the event that the European Commission comes back offering a further extension, would it be reasonable for the House to assume that the Leader of the House will make a further business statement at the start of business on Monday to allow for debate and a programme motion on the withdrawal agreement?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I have currently been averaging a business statement a day, and I am unsure whether that is a habit that will be unduly encouraged by you or by others, Mr Speaker. However, in the normal course of events, if there were some major development in our relationship with the European Union, a statement would be made by the appropriate person: either the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union or the Prime Minister himself.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (IGC)
It is now clear that, instead of dying in a ditch, the Prime Minister has ditched the ditch. Is the Leader of the House aware of the problems will be caused in many communities by having an election as late as 12 December in terms of dark evenings and short hours—
Mr Speaker
Order. I do not wish to be unkind or discourteous to the hon. Gentleman in any way but, with the very greatest of respect, that is a matter to be treated of in the debate on the motion on Monday, upon which I feel confident that the hon. Gentleman will wish to expatiate to convey those concerns to the House. Would he mind that? I actually think it is best for Monday. I genuinely do.
Mr Speaker
If the Leader of the House wants to respond, he can do so briefly.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I thought we were getting a ditch joke, to which I was going to say, “Ha-ha.”
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)
Why is the Leader of the House playing games with resolutions rather than taking up the Opposition’s offer to programme the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill properly?
Mr Rees-Mogg
We have done both, but offering an election is not playing games but trusting the people. Her Majesty’s Government, the Conservative and Unionist party, trust the British people; the Opposition do not.
Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
(5 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
This is the second Adjournment debate I have been granted in 16 months on Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and concerns about its governance. In the first debate, last June, I expressed profound concerns about the processes and lack of transparency leading up to the appointment of the trust’s current chair, Pearse Butler. As I said then, it was the first time in my 20-year relationship with the trust and its predecessors, as a Blackpool MP, that I felt it necessary to express such concern in an Adjournment debate. I felt I had no choice, given the catalogue of errors, evasion and lack of transparency that had accompanied the process, including failings within NHS Improvement.
Last year I said:
“I am forced to conclude that the nominations committee thought that it could get away with evading proper scrutiny and transparency—that a thin veneer of irritated politeness attempting to conceal a determined effort to override public governors unless they were rubber-stamped…would do the trick. Well, it does not do the trick”.
The Minister’s predecessor, the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay), said in his reply that the issues I raised
“are clearly a cause for concern…it is clear that the recruitment process for the new chair had a number of irregularities.”
He criticised the trust’s failure to give decent or timely advice to MPs and stakeholders or to give suggestions for people who might apply. He assured the House that he would be
“working with NHSI to ensure that the irregularities regarding this appointment do not occur in the future. The hon. Gentleman has done the House a service in highlighting the clear irregularities in respect of this appointment.”—[Official Report, 27 June 2018; Vol. 643, c. 1005-9.]
Indeed, when I met the new chair, Pearse Butler, in August 2018 for a review and a discussion of all the hugely important issues affecting our trust, which not only serves 330,000 acute patients on the Fylde coast but provides community health for nearly half a million patients into Wyre and north Lancashire, he hastened to assure me that he had taken on board the critique and would ensure new openness and transparency on these issues. I accepted the assurance at face value. I little dreamed that, just over 12 months later, I would have to return to the subject, but this time with him not as the passive beneficiary of a flawed process, but as an active agent—probably the leading agent—in another area.
I make it clear that my concerns in no way reflect on the vast majority of hard-working staff in the trust or on the challenging financial and other circumstances, especially in my Blackpool South constituency, which is the most deprived in England—overall health in Blackpool is the worst on 23 of the 32 health indicators. Their work, and many examples of good care under extreme pressure, were noted in the recent Care Quality Commission report, and I associate myself with those comments.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing yet another Adjournment debate on the Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. It is, indeed, a sorry state of affairs when we find ourselves debating the trust once again. He makes important points about the staff, who work incredibly hard. Does he share my concern that the CQC report said that the staff did not always feel respected, supported or valued, and were concerned about the culture within Blackpool Victoria Hospital?
Gordon Marsden
I share those concerns, and I will show how they are inextricably linked to some of the shenanigans in the confirmation of the chief executive. It is all the more reason why staff might share the concerns and sense of grievance to which I will refer.
In the autumn and winter of last year and into this spring, as the trust’s chair settled into his new position, the problems of cuts, waiting times and cancelled operations, which still leave the trust with some of the worst mortality rates and waiting times in England, continued. A snap visit by the CQC in January found patients waiting on the floor of Blackpool Victoria Hospital, because of a lack of space, and triage delays of more than three hours. As Blackpool’s The Gazette said when the report finally came out, the CQC was demanding that
“bosses must improve the standards of care and staffing…in the emergency department”.
Unfortunately, by this time, the trust had a further shadow hanging over it, with a police probe into issues of alleged poisoning in the stroke unit. That situation remains unresolved and I do not intend to talk about it further. The then chief executive, Wendy Swift, had left fairly unexpectedly in April, and the chair was at pains to tell The Gazette that her departure was
“in no way related to the trust’s performance.”
But he struck a very different tone last month when he told governors that the trust had
“needed a leader with gravitas and experience who could lead a different type of engagement with our staff.”
That person was Kevin McGee, who was appointed as the interim temporary chief executive for the six months to 31 October. Naturally, when I heard of that, in May, I spoke to the chairman, who assured me that there would be a full and proper process for appointing a permanent chief executive in due course. I said in a subsequent letter to him, on 10 June, that it would be helpful to confirm when the process would begin, with details of the period between stakeholders being advised and of the closing period, and that this had been one of the issues in respect of his appointment as chair. I heard no more until 20 June, when the trust’s secretary sent me a note, which said that the post had been advertised on 9 June and the shortlisting process would take place at the remuneration committee on 27 June. I want to emphasise that that was an even more rushed deadline that the one that the Minister’s predecessor had criticised for the chairman’s own appointment. In effect, it blocked MP stakeholders from having any ability to inform other potentially suitable applicants.
I began to be concerned, but what I did not then know was that the timeline described in the note to governors on 16 September to rubber stamp Mr McGee’s appointment as the permanent chief executive without due process had been given the following rationale:
“On 27th June, the Remuneration Committee reviewed the shortlist provided by Odgers”—
the recruiters—
“and determined that the candidates presented did not demonstrate either the experience or the leadership…required for the post…The Non-Executive Directors and myself did not believe that re-advertising the post would result in a stronger field of applicants and this had been discussed with, and agreed by, the Regional Director of NHS Improvement, after a range of discussions with experienced Chief Executives across the sector.”
How cosy! It was very cosy, and I think that to any impartial outside observer it would look like a complete stitch-up by the great and good of the region. The only communication I had received from the trust between June and 16 September was a staff bulletin from Pearse Butler, in which he had confirmed the cancellation of interviews and said
“we will now take a few weeks to consider our options”.
In the meantime, my attention had been drawn to an article published on 9 August in the Health Service Journal headed “Chief executive makes bid to lead second trust”. The journalist, Lawrence Dunhill, had interviewed Mr McGee about creating chain models and shared leadership. Mr McGee was admirably concise about what he thought—they were a jolly good thing. He told Mr Dunhill:
“Take personalities out of it, just the ability to work together in a different way”.
When asked whether he wanted to lead both trusts permanently, he said:
“If we can look at working in a different way across Lancashire then it would be a really good thing to do and I’d be really interested in doing that.”
The article stated:
“As reported last month, former Salford Royal chief executive Sir David Dalton…has been brought in to help trusts in Lancashire look at options for closer collaboration.”
Incidentally, this was the same Sir David Dalton who had been the independent assessor for the process of Pearse Butler’s own appointment as chair, which the previous Minister referred to last year.
I want to make it clear that I am not making any judgment—certainly not yet—on whether Mr McGee will be a good, bad or indifferent chief executive. He comes with some reputation, but as he has not met me since his appointment in May, I cannot say more. What is very clear is that for the second part of this exercise, having got Mr McGee as an interim chief executive of Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, in addition to his existing position as chief executive of East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, there was a clear determination on the part of the chair at least to push through his confirmation without any attempt to reopen the selection process. We know that because of the answer to a parliamentary question that I received from the Minister on 8 October. I asked in what capacity NHS Improvement had given advice on discussing the possibility of mergers, and the reply said:
“The Chair at Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the Chair at East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust sought the views of NHS England and NHS Improvement on the possibility of merging services and provision between the two Trusts.”
When the chairman had secured the agreement of the governors at the meeting to his proposal for Mr McGee, he finally decided to tell certainly me, and I think my parliamentary neighbour, the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), of his news. This consisted of a rushed phone call to me, I think out in the countryside, just before he was about to go on holiday to Japan. I made it clear to him that I was surprised that he seemed to have learned nothing from the failings of process and transparency in his own appointment, that he was now preparing to foist a merger between the two trusts, that this was a major step and that there should be utmost clarity and transparency in the process. When I asked him why he had not taken that option in respect of Mr McGee, he dodged the question about putting him automatically on the shortlist and said that it would be a great move. When I said to him that it was effectively a merger, it said that it was not, saying that it was an alignment and that no decisions had been made about any merger. We know from the answer to the parliamentary question that that was incorrect. Perhaps the House will not be surprised that in the article in The Gazette entitled “More controversy at Blackpool Victoria Hospital”, I said that the process had been
“at best ambiguous and at worst evasive”
in respect of the merger and that we needed confirmation of what was proposed. I have no doubt that the chair will continue to try to muddy the waters but, to continue the analogy, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck.
We now have clarity from the answer to a second parliamentary question that I received from the Minister that Mr McGee will receive a single salary, agreed by both remuneration committees, although the trust still refuses to tell us what it will be. I said to The Gazette that the situation “beggars belief” after last year’s debate, and I still believe it does. It appears I am not the only one. The smooth and slippery stakeholder brief that was put out by way of formal amendment for the trust talks of “strategies of collaboration” and extensive discussions with, among others, the governors at Blackpool foundation trust. I am reliably informed that that is not the case. At least one governor has said that they were called on 16 September simply to ratify McGee’s appointment and that nothing was said about the implications of a merger. I gather that others are asking for more clarification. The Gazette, which was initially fobbed off about the truth and timing of the appointment, told us the same story. It seems that a number of other non-executive directors have also been confirmed without further press or selection.
It has to be said that this is not the first time that Mr Butler has attracted controversy with governors. When he was chair of the Morecambe Bay trust and outsourced Barrow hospital’s out-patient services, the media reported governors as saying, “I do not believe you got any influence on this structure. You drove the decision and due process was not done.” Governors were not informed of what was happening until July. In this case, it was not only MPs who were not consulted, as is confirmed by the Minister’s answer to my parliamentary question, and nor was the chair of the clinical commissioning group, or the CCG itself. Sadly, in the “not good enough” CQC report on the June inspection that came out just last week, this is amply and damningly exposed.
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman refers to the CQC report, which sums up what is quite frankly a failing of management and senior administration at the hospital. We have a litany of records going missing—paper records like something from the 1950s—for months on end, and patients not being informed if their records have been found. Today, one of my constituents went to the hospital for an appointment only to be told that that appointment had been cancelled, although they had never been informed. This is not about money; it is about basic admin and basic management. Quite frankly, I say to the Minister that if these people cannot sort themselves out, the time is up. We should send in a taskforce, take these people in hand and sort it out. Our constituents demand better. We are putting the money in and we need to sort these people out if they cannot sort themselves out. My patience has worn out.
Gordon Marsden
The hon. Gentleman speaks very powerfully about the whole process, and I agree with him exactly. Sadly, in the “not good enough” CQC report about the inspection in June, which came out just last week, ample and damning concerns are exposed. There was a continuing series of “requiring improvements” for safety, effectiveness and responsiveness; and one “good” for caring, which speaks volumes for the staff. The biggest black mark went against leadership. When asked to judge whether the trust was well led, the CQC said that it was not and that it was “inadequate”. It gave chapter and verse on the issues. I cannot read all of it out, but I will give the Minister a selection:
“There was limited understanding of the importance of culture…Staff did not feel respected, valued, supported or appreciated by some members of the board…When something went wrong, people were not always told, did not consistently receive an apology…There were levels of bullying, harassment, discrimination and the organisation was not taking adequate action to reduce this…When staff raised concerns, they were not treated with respect, or the culture, policies and procedures did not provide adequate support for them to do so…We heard from several staff groups particularly those from a BME background.”
I have spoken to the CQC since the report came out and asked it to clarify exactly when it got these comments from staff and when it investigated them. It was confirmed that it was the period between March 2018 and June 2019, three quarters of which had been under Pearse Butler’s chairmanship. I asked whether there had been any discussion about the possibility of any future merger/collaboration, and was told that there had been discussions with NHSI and that it was likely—this was in June—that Mr McGee would be able to take that through. That is further evidence, if any more were needed, of this all being sorted out by the people in the bubble between June and August. There was very little evidence that they thought there was anything wrong, but of course there is something wrong—massively wrong. Let us add to this a small number of people in that bubble, in this case spearheaded by the chief executive. Yes, these decisions will affect all our constituents.
The fact of the matter is that the implications of this merger—because that is what it is—are massive. Will the two organisations fit? How will Mr McGee handle both? Why were the governors not given the full facts? East Lancashire, which is a good trust, covers Blackburn, Accrington, Burnley, Clitheroe, Pendle, Colne and Darwen. They are all very different places in terms of geography, demographics and ethnicities. All are a very long way from some of the coastal concerns of this hospital trust. If the people of East Lancashire look to anywhere, proud inland communities though they are, they look— dare I say it?—to the Pennines or to Greater Manchester. The idea that this is going to work very easily is for the birds.
Foundation trusts were established under a quid pro quo system. They have wide powers of initiative, but in return, the public and external stakeholders have a right to be properly informed, consulted and assured that process is properly applied. In this case, that has not happened. What was needed was proper scrutiny, not winks and nods from a cosy clique within the bubble and nothing that would make the culture inadequate, as was so devastatingly laid out by the CQC. I have no doubt that some of these appointments may in themselves be good—I have met the new nursing director—but the culture over which Pearse Butler has presided over the past year has attracted these black marks.
I will conclude by saying that we really must make sure that we see a turnover from this catalogue of half-truths and evasions, and that there is a proper consultation, involving all stakeholders, about a process that is effectively a merger. Perhaps someone needs to say to the chair and some others in the trust the good words of Robbie Burns:
“Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive.”
The Minister for Health (Edward Argar)
On the final point made by the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden), I would be cautious about that quote because the next line is:
“But when we’ve practiced but a while,
How vastly we improve our style.”
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate. I note that my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), who is an extremely strong advocate on behalf of his constituents in respect of medical care and the hospital, is here today to listen to the debate.
The hon. Gentleman set out clearly the challenges faced by the trust and the hospital in terms of the geographical context, multiple indices of deprivation and health factors, and the performance and financial issues facing the trust. He is right to emphasise that leadership is a key part of an effective trust. Before turning to that and to the specific points he has raised, I join him in paying tribute to the fantastic work of the staff at the trust, all the way from the consultants to the cleaners and porters—every single person in that team, who I know do everything they can to deliver top-quality care every day. I think we would all recognise that; it is a point of consensus.
The hon. Gentleman rightly highlighted the situation that had gone on in respect of the chair—an issue to which my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay) responded during the hon. Gentleman’s Adjournment debate just a little over a year ago. I would not dispute what the hon. Gentleman said about that experience, including the need for proper governance processes to be followed and lessons to be learnt.
Let me turn to the appointment of the chief executive and the process that was followed. I will come to progress made and the broader issues shortly, but I think this was the crux of the hon. Gentleman’s concerns, as it goes to a broader concern he expressed about what this may signify in terms of attitude and approach. The focus must always be on what delivers for patient outcomes and patient care, and I will come in a moment to Mr McGee’s qualifications and track record.
The hon. Gentleman says that he—I understand that this is also true for my hon. Friends the Members for Blackpool North and Cleveleys and for Fylde (Mark Menzies)—has not yet had the offer of a meeting from the new chief exec. While that is a matter for the chief exec and the trust, I would give some gentle and friendly advice. In my experience, engagement, meetings and an open and trusting relationship with local Members of Parliament is to the benefit of the trust and those who work in it, as well as to the benefit of Members of Parliament. I therefore suggest that holding a meeting swiftly would probably be in everyone’s best interests. I hope that the offer is forthcoming to the hon. Member for Blackpool South and to other hon. Members who have either intervened today or have a constituency interest.
As the hon. Gentleman knows, the appointment of a chief executive in an NHS foundation trust is the responsibility of the trust’s non-executive directors, including the chair, with approval from the trust’s council of governors. He touched on the circumstances in which this situation came about—that, following the retirement of former chief executive Wendy Swift in 2018, Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust undertook an extensive recruitment exercise to look for a chief executive.
It is my understanding that that exercise failed to find the right person from the point of view of the trust and those responsible for appointments. The chair of the trust and the chair of East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust then sought the views of NHS England and NHS Improvement, as they are entitled to do, regarding their proposal for a joint chief executive working across both organisations. Both trusts provided assurances that these proposals would bring benefits to both organisations and, crucially, would improve the care of patients in Blackpool and East Lancashire. On that basis, NHS England and NHS Improvement had no objections to the proposal that was put to them.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned his concerns about the interview process, including the cancellation of interviews. I do not have details about that, but if he writes to me, I would be very happy to look into that specific point, if that is helpful to him.
In the light of the advice from NHS England and NHS Improvement, Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust announced in April that Kevin McGee had been appointed as interim chief executive of the trust from 1 May 2019 while retaining his previous post as chief exec and accountable officer of East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust. On 4 October, both trusts announced they had agreed to work in closer collaboration and to support the appointment of Mr McGee as the chief executive and accountable officer of both trusts and on a permanent basis, which understandably prompted some written parliamentary questions from the hon. Gentleman.
The arrangement that has been put in place for Blackpool is genuinely designed to deliver several benefits, including enhanced quality of care, financial sustainability and improved performance. Mr McGee has a strong track record of significant care quality improvement in the NHS. Under his leadership, he has improved East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust’s CQC quality rating from “requires improvement” to “good”. Furthermore, in a previous chief executive role, he led George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust out of special measures for quality reasons in 2014.
My hon. Friend—indeed, my friend—the Member for Fylde made a typically passionate intervention on behalf of his constituents. I understand that entirely; he is absolutely right to be concerned for their care and always to be promoting the best possible care for them. Clearly, the hospital has need of strong leadership and a chief executive who has experience in turning around and improving hospitals, and since his appointment the new chief executive has commissioned an external review of governance processes.
On the basis of the information that I have from the trust, and NHS England and NHS Improvement, I understand that proper and due process was followed in the chief executive’s appointment, but I take on board the point made by the hon. Member for Blackpool South about the cancellation of interviews and similar. As I say, if he wants to add to the letter any other facts that he feels are relevant, I will of course look at them and respond to him as swiftly as I can. As he will know, in addition to appointing a new chief exec, the trust appointed a new director of nursing and medical director in October this year.
The Care Quality Commission published the report of its June 2019 inspection of the trust, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned, on 17 October. While it rated that the trust “requires improvement” for quality overall, it did recognise that there had been recent significant leadership changes and that Mr McGee had been in post for only a short time prior to the inspection. I am pleased to note that the CQC rated Blackpool “good” for caring, as he said. That is a testament to the staff, but also, I believe, a positive indicator of the direction of travel.
In the few minutes remaining to me, I will touch on a couple of other factors. The hon. Gentleman talked about mergers. I suspect that part of his concern is that this is a precursor to something that he would not support. It is important—I have spoken to my hon. Friend the Member for Fylde about this—that any decisions or discussions reflect the views of local stakeholders, including local Members of Parliament. I would say to the trust that my hon. Friend has been very clear with me that he believes that any merger would be the wrong way forward, and the hon. Member for Blackpool South has also been pretty clear on that. I would hope that the trust will listen to what informed local stakeholders such as Members of Parliament say.
I believe that the trust is learning from its mistakes and that the current chief executive is determined to tackle the quality issues and bring improvements to patient care. It must be given the space to do that. I have put on record what I believe it should reflect on, and I know that the hon. Member for Blackpool South will continue to make his points. I am very happy to meet him, my hon. Friend the Member for Fylde and, indeed, other hon. Members on this matter if they feel that is helpful.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Government of Wales Act 2006 (Amendment) Order 2019
(5 years ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Kevin Foster)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Government of Wales Act 2006 (Amendment) Order 2019.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. The draft order covers both the ministerial hats I wear. It amends the consent requirements in schedule 7B to the Government of Wales Act 2006 in respect of electoral registration officers. It also makes clear how that amendment interacts with provisions in the Welsh Ministers (Transfer of Functions) Order 2018, so that functions over EROs are transferred to Welsh Ministers.
The UK, Welsh and Scottish Governments have committed to reforming the annual canvass process, and those reforms will improve the ability of EROs to identify properties where household composition has changed, allowing them to target resources towards those properties. Today’s changes are part of that.
Electoral registration officers are appointed under section 8 of the Representation of the People Act 1983, and under the Welsh devolution settlement are classed as reserved authorities. That is because, although they exercise functions in relation to Assembly and local government elections in Wales, which are devolved matters, they mainly exercise functions in relation to reserved polls, such as UK parliamentary elections or police and crime commissioner elections.
Paragraphs 8 and 10 of schedule 7B to the 2006 Act place restrictions on the Assembly’s ability to impose, modify or remove functions of reserved authorities without the consent of the UK Government. That means that, although the National Assembly for Wales has legislative competence for Assembly and local government elections, it cannot modify the devolved functions of EROs without a Minister of the Crown’s consent. Let me assure the Committee that that was not the Government’s intention.
A small number of reserved authorities are carved out of the consent requirements, because they, like EROs, exercise a mix of devolved and reserved functions. Such authorities include the Electoral Commission and the Food Standards Agency. Article 2 of the draft order addresses the issue by adding EROs to the list, so that in future the Assembly can modify their devolved functions without needing the UK Government’s agreement.
Article 3 makes clear the effect of carving out EROs from the consent requirements in the Welsh Ministers (Transfer of Functions) Order 2018. The 2018 order sought to transfer the remaining Minister of the Crown functions in devolved areas to Welsh Ministers. That included all the functions within the devolved competence of the Assembly contained in the main pieces of electoral legislation. However, the effect of paragraph 12 of schedule 7B to the 2006 Act is that reference to the devolved competence of the Assembly in the 2018 order does not include an Assembly provision requiring the consent of a Minister of the Crown.
Owing to the consent requirements related to EROs that I have already outlined, it follows that Minister of the Crown functions related to the devolved functions of EROs did not transfer to Welsh Ministers through the 2018 order as was intended. The draft order therefore provides that powers to modify the devolved functions of EROs will be treated as transferring to Welsh Ministers under the 2018 order on the date that the draft order comes into force. That will enable Welsh Ministers to make the necessary regulations for the canvass reforms in respect of devolved polls.
I welcome the very positive engagement that has taken place with the Welsh Government in developing the draft order, which has also been laid before the National Assembly for approval.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
May I say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David? This is the second such occasion in less than a week, as I attended the meeting on endometriosis that you chaired last week, and I pay tribute to your qualities as a chairman. I also pay tribute to the Minister. He is a consensual and easy-going Minister, and I do not intend to give him a hard time on this occasion, because I fully support the draft order and this transfer of functions to the Welsh Government. It is a sensible way of doing business with Wales.
I was at a meeting yesterday where, on other issues, Welsh and Scottish Ministers feel that they have been treated like children, and not in a very mature way. Today that is not the case; I think we are treating the Welsh Government and politicians in Wales in an adult way, and it is long overdue.
Giving the Welsh Government, with all the functions they have, full licence to do what they want in this area without coming back to London to seek permission for this or for that means that all the ducks are in a row now and they can pursue the initiatives that they want to pursue. That is the great thing about devolution. We have four Chambers—five, if we include London—where good practice can be looked at and experimented with. The best practice can then be spread around the whole of the United Kingdom.
The measure is eminently sensible. In fact, Lord Griffiths of Burry Port highlighted a great Welsh word, which describes what has gone on in the Lords and what will hopefully go on here today: “tidy”. This is tidy; we have tidied things up, made them presentable and allowed the Welsh Government to do what they are supposed to do.
I could bore for Britain on this subject. I have been switched on to the issue of electoral registration since 2001, when I found out that 4,000 of my constituents had disappeared—not physically, but they were off the register. I have maintained an interest in it. I think that I have tabled 1,000 questions on electoral registration and registration issues.
I question what the Government are doing nationally with individual electoral registration and photo ID. I believe that those measures have been used in America by the Republicans in their attempts at voter suppression. However, this order is not voter suppression; it extends the ability of the National Assembly to get on with its job.
The National Assembly already pursues many excellent policies on electoral registration, including extending the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds for local elections and National Assembly elections. I hope that what we are passing here today will enable the National Assembly to go on and do even bigger and better things. It should explore the ways in which young people can be registered to vote at the age of 15 and three quarters. On the day that they get their national insurance number at 15 and three quarters, hopefully the National Assembly will now have the powers to register them, perhaps even at school.
I hope that the National Assembly ensures that all EROs fulfil their statutory responsibility and knock on every door of every non-responder, and take forceful action against those who do not respond. That work has not been done across the whole of the country; many EROs and many local authorities have not done the annual canvass for years on end. The measure will allow the National Assembly to pursue those policies.
This process is not just about taking a big stick to the EROs; much more needs to be done to celebrate them. They are magnificent people. They develop the building blocks of our democracy—the electoral register. So, hopefully, the National Assembly will celebrate them, perhaps even giving civic awards or national awards every year, and celebrating a democracy day with democracy awards for those EROs who more than fulfil their responsibilities.
I hope that these comprehensive powers will be used to develop service-level agreements with people who have a track record in registering people and groups who are unregistered; I am thinking about Operation Black Vote and Bite the Ballot. Bite the Ballot can go into a sixth form, engage with young people and ensure that 100% of that sixth form is registered. The average cost of doing so is 25p per registration. We see the Electoral Commission, with its advertising campaigns. When it compares the cost of those advertising campaigns with the number of downloads of electoral registration forms that they generate, the cost can be up to £95 per registration.
I hope that the Welsh Government and the National Assembly will use the powers to the full. They fully support the changes that we are considering here today, and I also welcome them.
Kevin Foster
I will keep my conclusion brief. I very much welcome the support of the shadow Minister. I agree with many of his comments, although not necessarily all of them.
I emphasise that the core of the order is about modernising the process of the annual canvass. At the moment, it is based on paper forms being sent out and, in theory, exactly the same effort going into areas where there is no particular evidence that people are not registered or that households have changed as goes into communities where there may be a greater chance of people not being registered to vote. The order allows, in devolved and reserved elections, resources to be focused on getting people on to the register who might otherwise be excluded. A constructive piece of work has been done with the Welsh Government. The Cabinet Office, the Welsh Government, local government in England, and Scotland are looking to see how we can improve the process.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
On the point about the UK Government supporting the Welsh Government and EROs in boosting electoral registration, when talking to my ERO in Blaenau Gwent, I found out that when young people try to register to vote, the single most common reason for them not registering to vote properly is their inability to provide their national insurance number. It is a simple thing, and many of us know it off by heart, but young people have not learned it yet. Will the new regulation allow EROs in Wales, or Welsh Government Ministers, to have stronger influence over the Department for Work and Pensions, so that there is better digital transfer of information, particularly around NI numbers, allowing EROs to target young people and provide that information as part of their boosting of electoral registration to support the growth of our democracy, as recommended by my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd?
Kevin Foster
I thank the hon. Gentleman for the interesting intervention. He may want to look at the main canvass reform orders that will be laid, which look at how DWP data could be used to identify those who may be being excluded from the electoral roll. He will notice that there are some clear safeguards around such data matches being used, so that ERO teams can target exactly who might be most likely to not be registered or households where there may have been a change in composition. Again, we realise that those who are in receipt of particular DWP support are perhaps most likely to not be on the electoral register.
There are also some specific provisions in the English orders, which have now been laid before the House by the Cabinet Office, to look at issues such as specialist accommodation. Rather than just firing out random paper forms, we can do better work to identify a responsible person to then identify those who may be being excluded from the electoral roll. In some cases, it is about people literally not knowing how to get the form done or make declarations of local connections. Our priority is to target resources and move away from a bureaucratic method where we send a form and do not get a reply, then send another form, then knock on a door—that is from another era.
Welsh Ministers will also want to engage on the franchise that has been set for the devolved elections and how they can reach out. Speaking as the UK Minister with responsibility for democratic engagement, we welcome the steps that are being taken in all the nations of the United Kingdom to try to engage more people and get them to participate in our democracy. As hon. Members will appreciate, however, there is a separate system in Northern Ireland under the chief electoral officer, for fairly obvious historical reasons, where a requirement for an annual canvass does not exist under the laws that pertain there.
To use the earlier expression, this has been a tidy debate that has elicited a wide consensus. I commend the order to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Ministerial Correction
Defence
(5 years ago)
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Bob Blackman
I thank my right hon. Friend for his answers thus far. Clearly the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is a constant threat to shipping in the strait of Hormuz. Does he agree that it is now time that the entirety of the IRGC was proscribed, with their assets sequestered and sanctions imposed on them and their leadership?
Mr Wallace
My hon. Friend makes an important point about the threat that the IRGC poses to not only the region but countries such as ours. The Quds force is currently proscribed. Further proscription considerations are a matter for the Home Office. However, what is really important is that, where the IRGC poses a threat, like-minded countries around the world challenge that threat and ensure that it is dealt with.
[Official Report, 21 October 2019, Vol. 666, c. 676.]
Letter of correction from the Secretary of State for Defence.
An error has been identified in the response I gave to myhon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman).
The correct response should have been:
Mr Wallace
My hon. Friend makes an important point about the threat that the IRGC poses to not only the region but countries such as ours. The Quds force is currently sanctioned. Further proscription considerations are a matter for the Home Office. However, what is really important is that, where the IRGC poses a threat, like-minded countries around the world challenge that threat and ensure that it is dealt with.
Rights of British National (Overseas) Passport Holders
Westminster Hall
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Plastic Food and Drink Packaging
(5 years ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the Sixteenth Report of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Session 2017-19, Plastic food and drink packaging, HC 2080.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. It is also a pleasure to see the new Minister in her place and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ipswich (Sandy Martin), here as well.
Plastic waste has been at the forefront of public interest for the last few years. There is, quite rightly, outrage about the impact of plastic pollution on the natural environment and about the amounts of recyclable waste exported, only to pollute other countries. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee set out to examine whether enough is being done to reduce the use of plastic and properly manage waste in the food and drink sector.
It is worth reflecting on the fact that plastic is everywhere for a reason. For food and drink, it is lightweight and flexible, and it ensures high standards of hygiene. We should also remember that when plastic is used properly, it can help us to prevent food waste, which is a big contributor to carbon emissions. We do not want to increase the amount of food that is wasted.
Plastic’s durability is both a blessing and a curse. The properties that make it useful for food preservation also mean that it lingers in our seas for decades. We need to manage our waste better. More materials need to be captured for recycling. The Committee was supportive of the Government’s proposal to introduce consistency in recycling collections and simpler labelling for consumers. We would like to see that across the whole country.
Unfortunately, it is not particularly clear how much of our plastic waste is actually recycled. The Government often cite a 46% recycling rate for plastic packaging. However, businesses that produce fewer than 50 tonnes of packaging per year do not have to report on how much they place on the market or recycle, so there is a gap in the figures. We think that threshold should be lowered to 1 tonne of packaging. I ask the Minister to consider that.
On top of that, 60% of what is classed as “recycled” is actually exported abroad. Members will have seen media reports that our plastic exports can end up in countries where they are landfilled or burned instead, which can really affect villagers and others in those countries. We must recycle our own waste. We do not currently know how much plastic waste is recycled—it is likely to be less than 46%—and, if we cannot measure recycling, we cannot know whether policy changes are having the right effect. It is vital that we get the right figures.
The introduction of a deposit return scheme was another focus of our inquiry. We heard convincing evidence that a DRS would boost recycling of plastic bottles. I am convinced that if plastic bottles are to be recycled, that must be done through a reverse-vending machine so that the same bottle can be made again from that plastic. Hon. Members may ask: why am I saying that? It is because most recycled plastic is not used to make the same item again; we get a much lower-quality waste plastic. We need to ensure that the label, the top and all those things are recyclable so that we can make another bottle out of the bottle that went through the reverse-vending machine.
We have also heard concerns from local authorities that taking that valuable material away from kerbside collection would undermine the viability of their wider recycling efforts. We therefore recommend that the Government monitor carefully the financial impact on local authorities of introducing a deposit return scheme.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
In Northern Ireland, we already have kerbside collections—indeed, we have moved on marvellously with recycling materials. It is incredible what a household can do when it commits to recycling. Has the Chair of the Select Committee had an opportunity to look at any of the other regions—Northern Ireland, for instance—where kerbside collection is already in place and working well?
Neil Parish
We did not look at the situation in Northern Ireland, although I understand that that is a good method of collection. In England, we found that because there are so many authorities with so many different contracts, there are totally different methods for what is recycled where. To put on my local government hat from many years ago, local government likes its own views and ways of dealing with things. However, in this case, we need to know how to recycle properly.
Jim Shannon
The hon. Gentleman is very kind to give way again. In Northern Ireland—let us be honest, we are a smaller region—we may have six or 10 councils working together. Perhaps that is something that England could look at.
Neil Parish
The hon. Gentleman makes the point that Northern Ireland is naturally a more compact, smaller community. Recycling works quite well in Wales, where again there are fewer authorities, which can come together better. Given its size and the number of its authorities, England is more difficult. Somehow or other, the Government must send down an edict to local authorities to pull them together. Some local authorities will have long-term contracts that will take a while to get out of, but the Government must pull them together, because what we recycle and how we do it here in London is totally different from what we do on the farm back in Somerset, for instance.
Neil Parish
I give way to the hon. Gentleman, who is on the Select Committee.
David Simpson
During our inquiry, witnesses regularly made the point that kerbside collections and all the legislation can be in place, but if the general public do not take part, stiff penalties in some shape or form are required to force them to. Otherwise, we will have a major problem—more so than now.
Neil Parish
I agree, but before we bring in stiff penalties we must ensure that there is a similar system all over the country. Otherwise, people can quite rightly say, “We didn’t know what we had to do.” The hon. Gentleman is right in his assumption, but let us get the system right. That is clear. There is the old adage, “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.” We must keep going with people to make sure they are more concerned. They are concerned about plastic and recycling and want this all to happen, but we must make sure that some of those who are not quite so keen will take part in future. We need a system with a penalty, but let us get the system similar first—perhaps a carrot before the stick.
Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP)
I have spent quite a bit of time working with schools in my constituency, and Commercial Primary School and Carnock Primary School are leading the field on the green agenda and sustainable development. In the last few weeks, we have also seen one of the first plastic-free hotels in Dunfermline.
There is great enthusiasm at grassroots level for recycling and how we dispose of plastic waste and waste in general, but the point, which I think the report covers, is: how do we get that linkage between local authorities, central Government and policy to ensure that we are working with communities and people, with everyone buying into the concept of looking at our environment in general and seeing how we can improve it?
Neil Parish
The hon. Gentleman is exactly right. We must ensure that we explain what we are doing and what it will achieve, and that the public buy into it. I had one of my local schools come in the other day from Axminster, and they said, “What can we do for the environment?” I said, “Why don’t we work to get a water fountain in the middle of Axminster, so that you can refill your bottles rather than buying new plastic ones?”
Schools and others are buying into all this, and students go home and say to their parents, “Why haven’t you recycled this? What have you done?” There is nothing like children being critical of their parents. This is all good stuff, and I think it will work, but we need to work together to make things similar across the country—I keep repeating that, because otherwise people do not actually know what to do.
Our plastic food and drink packaging inquiry also looked at the alternative materials being used instead of plastics. Some were conventional materials, such as paper, and others were more novel, such as compostable plastics. It is easy to think that the solution is to ban plastics, particularly single-use plastics, but, as always, the truth is more complicated. We need to think about what replaces those plastics, and whether they are actually better for the environment.
The society we live in now is in danger of just doing things that make us all feel better—it is right that we do those things, but they must actually be better for the environment and not worse. We need to look at that very carefully. For example, replacing plastic with heavier paper or glass could increase the carbon emissions associated with transporting those products. Compostable plastics are becoming more common, and hon. Members will have noted that here on the estate we have switched towards compostable packaging in our catering facilities. They have probably seen it.
The downside of compostables is that they require a separate waste stream so that they can be industrially composted. They need to reach 60° before they actually compost, and if we are not careful they can end up contaminating recycling, if there are non-compostable plastics as well. They work well at a pop festival or an event where they can all be collected, but when they are mixed, it can be a problem. We found throughout the inquiry that there is a real lack of consumer understanding of waste infrastructure. On this point, we have recommended supporting compostables for “closed loop” environments such as here in Parliament, where we can better control how they are disposed of. That is essential.
The Government and industry have focused on recycling and replacing plastic packaging, but less emphasis has been placed on reducing plastics in the first place. Yet, as we know from health issues, prevention is often better than cure. We therefore looked at how to reduce the amount of single-use plastics that we use. I ask the question, “Do we always need to wrap our carrots and potatoes?” We do not. Other vegetables such as cucumbers perhaps need to be wrapped in plastic so that they last longer. We need to be thoughtful about all these things.
Consumers are increasingly interested in reusable and refillable packaging. We have already seen the shift from disposable bottles and coffee cups towards refillable drinks containers, and that is very good news. Some retailers are experimenting with refillable packaging for food too, which would mean taking our own containers when we go shopping, just as most of us now take reusable carrier bags. We must also ensure that they are clean and that retailers are able to put food in them with confidence. Some vegetables, as I said, will keep longer if wrapped in plastic, but others can be sold loose.
However, refillable packaging is a bit trickier, because it will require a huge shift in the way we shop and consume. People want to use less plastic, but they also like to maintain their lifestyle, so it is a question of getting this exactly right. We like the freedom of a disposable, on-the-go culture, and we do not all have time to remember to wash and bring our containers when we go to a supermarket. On top of that, there are questions about how many times a container would need to be reused before it becomes environmentally better than single-use packaging. We have therefore called for the Government and the Waste and Resources Action Programme to take a closer look at refillable packaging systems and find out what actually works.
John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)
As my hon. Friend will know, the food and drinks manufacturing sector is the largest manufacturing sector in our country. It is very innovative, it is a big employer and exporter, and it clearly has a major role to play in the reduction of the use of plastics. Does he agree that it is important that the Government work with the industry to look for solutions, rather than trying to impose solutions on it, as those might not actually work?
Neil Parish
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He does a great deal of work with the food and drink sector, and he is right. It is a question not only of working with the food and drink sector in this country, but of imports. As we change things—as we start to put taxes on plastic, and so on—we must ensure that our businesses here are not affected more than businesses that make the goods that we import. That is very important, and I am certain that the Minister has taken a great deal of notice of what my hon. Friend has said.
We need to take the industry with us, because they are the ones who will create the packaging in the first place and will then need to have a method of disposal through the retail system; they will need to work with retailers and consumers to ensure that we get it right.
To conclude, we in Parliament need to lead by example, by removing all single-use packaging from our catering facilities. Will the Minister work with House authorities to help us achieve a plastic-free Parliament?
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for giving way. Will he join me in congratulating Surfers Against Sewage for all the work it has done on a plastic-free Parliament? We have been doing it through the all-party parliamentary group on ocean conservation. As he says, there is some way to go—that is why I brought my own cup today rather than using the compostable ones, just in case they are not composted—but the organisation has done a good job in trying to get the parliamentary estate to change its ways.
Neil Parish
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention; she is an excellent member of the Select Committee and I know she has also done a great deal of work on food waste. This is important. We have all worked together with the authorities here to deliver a much better system, but we must ensure that we carry on to conclude it. That is why I ask whether the Minister will work with House authorities to help us to achieve a completely plastic-free Parliament. We have made a lot of progress, but we need to finalise it.
We also need consistency in recycling collections and simpler labelling for consumers—not just putting a green dot on things, because a green dot means nothing; it just means that somewhere along the line, something might have been recycled. It does not mean that that particular item is recyclable. When does the Minister expect new systems to be introduced—knowing her, it will be immediately—and will she commit to ensuring that businesses that produce 1 tonne of packaging per year report on how much packaging they place on the market? That is important, because a lot of plastic is coming through that is not being measured.
Finally, the most important message of our report is that reduction of plastic in the first place is the best way to prevent plastic pollution. Will the Minister work closely with the industry to ensure that we stop the use of unnecessary plastics in the first place?
Graham Stringer (in the Chair)
Would any hon. Members wishing to speak stand up so I can see them? [Interruption.] It looks as though we have plenty of time, so there is no need for any kind of time limit.
Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)
I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton and Tiverton—
Derek Thomas
I commend my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish)—Tiverton is obviously first—for securing the debate and for all he does with his Select Committee. This is such an urgent issue, and the report is timely. It contains some helpful work and recommendations, and I hope that the Government take seriously and implement them all. It is urgent that we cut plastic pollution.
I declare an interest: I am the Member for west Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, in the most beautiful constituency—that is undisputed.
Derek Thomas
I will not comment on Tiverton and Honiton again. I say that my constituency is the most beautiful because, apart from a short section that neighbours the constituencies of my hon. Friends the Members for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) and for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton), we are entirely surrounded by the sea. However, although ours is a beautiful, unspoiled part of the world where every Member—as well as most of the country—gladly chooses to holiday during the summer, the truth is that we do see plastic pollution.
Kerry McCarthy
My researcher loves going to Scilly; he is going there for Christmas. He was showing me in the office just now that it is 12 °C in Scilly and the sun is shining. He was rather wishing, given the weather today, that he was there. Beautiful as Bristol is, I might have to agree with the hon. Gentleman.
Derek Thomas
I welcome that intervention, and the fact that we agree on that is brilliant. The hon. Lady is right: I always say to everyone who comes down, or who wishes to, that the sun always shines—which is true, although sometimes the rain gets in between.
Derek Thomas
I can, but the clouds sometimes obscure it.
On the Isles of Scilly, where it is 12 °C and warm and beautiful, there is no hiding the fact that plastic pollution is taking its toll. I am the parliamentary species champion for the Manx shearwater, a ground-nesting bird that was in significant decline. We have been able to turn that decline around on the Isles of Scilly because we have been able to get some of those islands—they are both inhabited and uninhabited—completely clear of plastic pollution and rats. As a result, the birds are now thriving, and last year they were the fastest recovering species at risk in the UK. They nest only in two parts of the British Isles. That is an example of the immediate benefit of getting on top of this problem for wildlife.
I was shocked by something that I learned when I went on a visit to Nancledra school, which was holding an eco-fair. People took shovelfuls of sand—anyone who looked at it would have assumed that it was just ordinary sand from the beach, as it was—and poured it into water. As they did so, the plastic came to the top. Anyone who has not done that experiment should do so when they—or their member of staff—go on holiday to Cornwall. If we pour sand that looks perfectly ordinary into a bucket of water, we will find it startling how much plastic is in that water. That plastic harms our marine life, so we really must get on top of it. We will never get on top of all the minute plastic pieces that are in the sand but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton says, we can certainly stop contributing to that.
In my constituency and around the country, as we heard from the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Douglas Chapman), who is from way up north—I have not been here long enough to learn all the pronunciations—there is a huge amount of effort and will from people on the ground. Right across the Cornwall coastline, organisations continue to undertake regular beach cleans, and they are now moving inland because of all the plastic caught up in bushes and hedgerows. We will see less and less plastic there, but mainly because people are working so hard to clear it up.
Every year, I run an outdoor adventure camp, and I have done for 20-odd years. This year, we decided that we would be plastic free. I cannot tell hon. Members how difficult it was to run a camp for 100 young people and not bring on to the site unnecessary plastic packaging. Schools tell me exactly the same. Mounts Bay Academy in Penzance held a huge event to celebrate its plastic-free status, but staff kept telling me that they could not get suppliers to stop sending into the school stuff that was wrapped unnecessarily in single-use plastic. We need to address that, and I hope that the Government will do so as a result of this report.
There are a couple of things I want to commend. Penzance was the first town to become plastic free. Surfers Against Sewage was started in Cornwall 20 or 30 years ago, campaigning to clean up our beaches. We were pumping raw sewage into our beaches, but we have been able to address that and now we have blue flag beaches that are the most beautiful in the country. SAS staff have now rightly turned their attention to plastic, and they have done amazing work. They have been into Parliament—I am sure that most Members will have met them already—to make the case for bottle deposit schemes and legislation from the Government to change things. SAS also supports the industry to move away from unnecessary plastics.
Despite all that effort, herein lies the problem: there is still no let-up in the use of unnecessary plastic packaging. Supermarkets continue to use it for no good reason. If there is a good reason, I would be delighted if someone—perhaps the Minister—could correct me. I am an old-fashioned person of faith, and I believe that we are provided with what we need. Fruit and veg are provided with their own natural wrappers and protections. Why do our supermarkets choose to shrink-wrap cucumbers—or swedes or turnips, depending on the part of the country—and other fruit and veg? It is completely unnecessary, and it amazes me that we continue to do that.
Kerry McCarthy
There is a counter-argument for some of this packaging, particularly when it comes to cucumbers. The hon. Gentleman will find people who say that if we are trying to address food waste, such packaging is the way to keep cucumbers fresh. However, the Select Committee had a really interesting session with people who are developing alternatives, and the seaweed-based alternatives in particular were absolutely fascinating. Perhaps that is the route to go down.
Derek Thomas
I completely accept that. Cutting down on food miles and getting better at using food when it is available, and from close to where it is supplied, might be part of the solution to food waste. I agree with the hon. Lady, however, and I will come to the alternatives in a moment.
Jim Shannon
I am most intrigued by the hon. Gentleman’s comment, and what he said was true. Those of us who come from the countryside probably expect our potatoes to have a bit of soil with them, and maybe a wee distortion or a growth on either side. That does not really bother us. However, the housewife does not see things as we who live in the countryside see them. The housewife sees things as products and, with respect, she probably has no idea where they come from or what they are like; they just have to look good. As far as the supermarkets are concerned, products must look good; as we all know, that may not make them good.
Derek Thomas
I will not criticise my own Government, but I learned home economics in school, which taught me what cauliflowers and so on look like when picked from the ground. There is a joke around in Cornwall about children thinking that bottles of milk are literally collected from nests, rather than that milk comes from cows. However, the point has been properly made that we need to get to a place where people understand—or have the opportunity to learn, if they choose to—how food is produced, and how they can use it in a much more natural way. I will not say much more on that.
I come back to the intervention about shrink-wrapped cucumber. I accept the points that have been made, and that we can use alternatives to keep cucumbers fresh, but we cannot use the same argument for tinned vegetables. Baked beans, which are already wrapped in tins, are wrapped again in plastic. I cannot see the need for that. Some producers find that cardboard is a useful alternative. I think that the supermarkets and food packagers need to be leaned on by the Government to get rid of unnecessary single-use plastic. I do not think that there is any excuse for using it. I do not want to pick on Mr Kipling, who was a favourite of mine when I was younger, but he likes to wrap his cakes and biscuits in far too many wrappers. It would be great for people to take action about the lack of movement, not only from the Government but from some of the companies that continue to use unnecessary plastic.
The hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife—I am sorry; I am really not familiar with his constituency—made a good point about the enthusiasm of local people. There is enormous enthusiasm and determination among the people I meet to cut plastic where possible, so I have three, or possibly four, simple asks.
First, what I hear from people is that when they buy biodegradable or compostable products, they want to know what that actually means. If we buy biodegradable nappies, as I did, how long does a nappy sit in our compost heap before it disappears? I put the nappies in my compost heap—and then I had to put them in the bin about four years later. We need to be really clear with people and have a proper legal definition of what biodegradable actually means. How long should we expect something to take to rot down? What is compostable?
Neil Parish
That is what we found in the inquiry. Compostable plastic has to reach 60°C; it has to be industrially composted. That will work, but not in someone’s garden. That is why the material has to be collected separately. Somehow or other that has to be explained to the public, because at the moment they are rather confused about the whole matter.
Derek Thomas
I agree, and I intended to refer to the report picking up on that point, so I thank my hon. Friend for the intervention. First, therefore, let us get that issue properly sorted out and the information communicated clearly, so that we have practical measures to deal with items described as compostable and biodegradable.
We need to support the innovation of alternatives. A number of organisations have come into this place in the last year or two, as we have talked more and more about alternatives to plastics, and demonstrated what they have produced—we heard about seaweed earlier. We need to find a way whereby Government can really encourage that research and development.
David Simpson
I refer back to what the Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), said: we have to get the system right. But supermarkets, of course, are sometimes governed by public health in what they should do, so it is a multi-agency decision on all of this. There needs to be a partnership, as the hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) has said, to try to relieve the difficulty that we have with plastic, but this is a multi-agency situation.
Derek Thomas
I agree, and I welcome that intervention. It is true that there will be some single-use plastic that we cannot avoid. If we go into a hospital, we will find items that are wrapped for what are obviously good reasons. I will name-check now if I am permitted to, Mr Stringer. There is a large outlet—retailer—in my constituency called Thornes. It sells a lot of fruit and veg and all sorts of other items. It decided, very early after the Government launched their 25-year environment strategy in January 2018, that it would not use single-use plastic, and it has moved away from it, including for its fruit and veg. That outlet certainly compares in size to a small supermarket, so if it can do it, it must be possible for supermarkets to take greater measures than they already do. But I accept that we need real leadership from Government, and urgently.
I have two or three more asks. We need legislation—I hope that we will do this through the Environment Bill—to ban unnecessary single-use plastic. That is the only way we will get businesses to really respond and urgently develop the alternatives. We also need legislation to ensure that all remaining plastic that is necessary—my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton was right to say that there is necessary plastic—can be recycled. We still purchase plastics and products that cannot be recycled, and that just needs to come to an end.
Jim Shannon
It would be remiss of me not to commend some of the supermarkets for what they are doing. In my constituency, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson) and, I suspect, in everyone’s constituency, the large supermarket chains, come Friday and Saturday night, have a system whereby if a product, such as fresh fruit or veg, is coming near its end of life, they disperse the produce among community groups. As I said, that is done in my constituency, and it works exceptionally well. It does away with the loss of the product and someone gets the benefit of it. Supermarkets are chastised, but sometimes they do a lot of good things.
Derek Thomas
I am not here to beat up the supermarkets, and if I have done so, I apologise. I welcome the intervention, and the hon. Gentleman is right: in Cornwall, we have an excellent project—it is very early in the embryonic stage—called Hive, which is doing just what he describes. Already this year, it has taken 8 tonnes of food from the local supermarket, turned it into nutritious meals and distributed it to families who need it.
There is some really good work, and supermarkets are playing an important part in that. Obviously, it saves them a lot of money as well, because they then do not have the costs of having to dispose of the products. All I am saying is that much more can be done across supermarkets and retailers. If there are people, as there are in Cornwall, who are determined to reduce their use of single-use plastic in particular, they must be allowed to do that. They must be able to buy items and products that are not unnecessarily wrapped.
I want to draw the House’ s attention, before I conclude, to one fantastic piece of technology that has been developed in the UK, supported by Government funding. Called the HERU—home energy resource unit—it is the solution when we just cannot get rid of or cannot stop altogether the use of plastics and other items in our house. This appliance can at the moment be purchased and go alongside our home—outside—and every piece of rubbish from our home, such as nappies, coffee cups and plastic packaging, can be dropped into it. The rubbish is incinerated, which deals with the 60° issue, and then that generates energy for our home. At the moment, it is a brand-new product and an expensive appliance to purchase, but it would be great, as Government move forward on the issue of decarbonising our nation and addressing the question of how we get rid of waste sustainably, to look at an innovation such as the HERU to see how that can be used to support homes and communities and even to help councils to get on top of the challenge that they have.
I shall return to the Isles of Scilly, as it were, once more. They collect very little in the way of council tax from their residents: just over 2,000 people live there. They spend hundreds of thousands of pounds every year moving rubbish from the Isles of Scilly to the mainland and wherever it goes from there. A piece of technology such as the HERU could be the solution for the Isles of Scilly in seriously reducing their carbon footprint, but also their costs, so it would be great if the Minister could continue to work with me and with our right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to see how we can support the Isles of Scilly to use such innovation to address many of their challenges.
Thank you, Mr Stringer: you have been very patient.
Gillian Keegan (Chichester) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer, and a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas), whose constituency includes the Scilly Isles.
Plastic packaging and its impacts on the environment, for many of us and certainly in my case, burst into our consciousness when Sir David Attenborough put a spotlight on the impacts that our activities are having beneath the waves. Perhaps it is because my hon. Friend and I both represent coastal constituencies that that really hit home. I probably do not have quite as much coast around my constituency as he does, but I do have in my area the extremely sunny Selsey, the Witterings, which also has blue flag beaches, Bracklesham Bay, Chichester harbour itself, which is an area of outstanding natural beauty, and Bosham. This issue really matters to people in my constituency, because the coast really matters—for many reasons, ranging from tourism to fishing.
Those programmes about plastic really did cut through. So much so that some surveys have even suggested—get this—that the British public care more about plastic pollution than Brexit. Obviously, being in this place, we find that incredibly hard to believe, but apparently 82% of people are now trying to reduce the amount of plastic packaging that they throw away, and I know from meeting people across my constituency that they feel the same. Everyone wants to do the right thing. I am always struck by the fact that the British people are very good at trying to do the right thing, but often we confuse them with mixed messages. The education that we give is not sufficient. The situation is so difficult because we have introduced systems that are non-standardised and are incredibly difficult for people to follow.
The recent report from the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), whom I thank for securing this debate, highlights the huge amount of work ahead of us if we are truly to get to grips with this issue. I fully agree with many of the recommendations in the report. It was a very thorough report, on which the Chair and the other members of the Select Committee are to be congratulated.
Douglas Chapman
On consistency across the UK and trying to have a more joined-up approach, in Scotland, we are about to launch the deposit return scheme. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) has said, there are good examples from across the country, which we can evaluate and spread wider, to share that benefit across the UK.
Gillian Keegan
The hon. Gentleman is right. We have an opportunity to standardise a new scheme—well, an old scheme that has been brought back—that we are not introducing. I hope the Minister takes note that we should be working together to ensure we have standardised schemes.
We need to get to grips with the current situation. As my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives mentioned, the report rightly emphasises the current inadequacy in the monitoring of plastic usage. That impacts our ability to accurately calculate our usage. Some surveys suggest that we are putting about 2.2 million tonnes of plastic packaging into the UK market each year, but we need to do more to know exactly how much we are using.
Our priority must be to use less plastic. There is a whole host of solutions to help us achieve that. We have seen fantastic results from the 5p plastic bag, which led to a significant reduction, with 15.6 million fewer bags used since 2015. There is scope to extend that to other forms of packaging and products where suitable alternatives exist.
We all know that immediate changes can be made. The thing that bugs me is crisps: every packet I buy is half empty. Introducing regulation around packaging, so that it is designed around product size, instead of making things look bigger, would be a good start. Many shops and some supermarkets are going further.
Jim Shannon
As my friend, the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Douglas Chapman), mentioned, some of the schemes run in Scotland have been done in Northern Ireland, too. The plastic bag charge has been incredibly successful in Northern Ireland, to such an extent that the use of plastic bags has reduced to about 20% or 25%—a massive reduction. It has been successful because people want it to be successful, because children tell their parents that they must do it and because that money goes back into society and can help environmental projects. We should be pushing more on that.
Gillian Keegan
I completely agree. As well as being influenced by children, consumer behaviour can take some time to change. I remember coming home from this place late at night and I would never have plastic bags with me to go shopping—I am sure many of us have done the same—but I have solved that problem by buying one of these little fold-up bags, so at least I always have that. We also have reusable plastic bottles. I have lost mine again today. I do not know how many I have lost. I am sure my impact on the environment in lost water bottles is greater than what I have saved, so now I have taken to reusing this plastic bottle. I think I am not supposed to refill it, but I do anyway.
There are plenty of opportunities for us to move towards being plastic-free. Everywhere we go, we see more and more plastic. Once we become conscious of it, that is it, we see it everywhere. Some supermarkets are moving to packaging-free aisles and even the funny-shaped potatoes, which my friend, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), referred to—I have seen them with a little bit of soil on them, but I am sure that is just for authenticity.
Last year, I opened Stansted Park farm shop, in my constituency. The whole business has an environmentally friendly ethos. Most of their produce is loose. It has drastically reduced all plastic use. There is a future model in package-free and refill shops, similar to the old-fashioned way. My grandmother used to have glass jars for everything. We used to take them to the shops and they would be refilled from huge sacks. I can see the hon. Member for Strangford nodding, because he remembers the same. We are obviously around the same age.
E-commerce could play an important role in this area by delivering food in reusable boxes on a subscription or bespoke order model. We need to do something about e-commerce. I do not know if you have noticed this, Mr Stringer, but when I order my stuff, it comes in several different deliveries, with several different delivery drivers coming to my house two or three times a day. Maybe I am just a prolific shopper, but they could deliver them by a more transport-friendly mechanism. Moving to online shopping does not necessarily mean it is environmentally friendly, so we need to encourage those businesses, as well.
The humble cucumber has been mentioned a few times. Apparently, wrapped, they have a shelf-life of 15 days when chilled, but only nine days when unwrapped. That is true. They go all soft when they are unwrapped, and they are inedible. Removing plastics in some cases can increase other forms of waste. I do not think there is much market for an end-of-life cucumber. Other forms of waste and emissions are released when we consider the entire carbon budget of products. We need to get this right.
I am still driving a diesel car. Why? Because I followed the advice and bought a diesel car. Now, of course, I cannot get rid of it. The market share of diesel cars went from something like 14% to 65%. Everybody followed the advice and then we realised the advice was wrong. We must get the advice right. There are many alternatives, as the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) suggested, such as seaweeds and potato starch wrapping. That innovation will come the more the Government incentivise innovation.
Most of us have the ambition to use less single-use plastic. Many people now use alternatives. I try to use less in my day-to-day life. I mentioned my water bottle. I also gave up plastic for Lent. It was a nightmare. It was incredibly different and I had to change my whole life for six weeks. I chose an easier option this time, because it was so difficult to give up plastic for six weeks. We need to make this easy. We are consumers and we simply will not do it, if it is incredibly difficult and everybody must carry around glass jars and things that do not fit into everyday life.
Jim Shannon
The hon. Lady referred to consumer behaviour. As I was saying to the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife, the greatest scourge of this modern age is probably takeaways. I am in the takeaways regularly, but I am talking about the materials they use to wrap the product in. I am old enough—I do not think the hon. Lady is, despite what she says—to remember fish and chips wrapped in newspaper, and they tasted great. This system does not allow that to happen. Some of the takeaway companies have come up with some ideas for reducing the products they use. I think the Chairman is looking at me—I think this is an important point. If we want to do something specific and great, we should look at methods to reduce takeaway packaging. That would make a magnificent change to the disposables market.
Gillian Keegan
I completely agree. There were some mentions of takeaways in the report. We could also not have as many takeaways. That is another thing that has changed in the last 20 to 30 years: we eat a lot more takeaway food. It is not very good for us, so there are many reasons, not only environmental, to cut out takeaway food to some degree, and to use more locally sourced products and to cook ourselves. My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives mentioned home economics. I cannot say that my home economics classes were very successful. When I brought my rock cakes home, my father said he now understood where the name came from and I have not made a cake since.
Gillian Keegan
It was harsh, but, unfortunately, it was true.
Making it easy for people to use less is the first thing. Recycling has a major role to play. We have all said that we need to standardise recycling. Between my home in London and my home in Petworth what and how I can recycle is completely different. When I go back to my parents in Knowsley, their system is not only different, but the opposite of what I do at home in Petworth, so I am always putting things in the wrong bin. Even things such as colours could be made so much easier. We have allowed every council to design it. I think that is driven by the design of the equipment at their local recycling centre, what it can do, and how it manages bottle tops and various bits of plastic. That has driven the standards, just by what local authorities have invested in for their recycling facilities.
As part of the endeavours to increase recycling rates, the Government have proposed a new tax system to ensure that at least 30% of packaging is made from recycled material, and I fully support that direction of travel. However, I also think that the Committee’s recommendation to have a more modulated tax system might be more effective in incentivising the use of a greater percentage of recycled material.
We have talked about the deposit return scheme. When I was reading about it, I remember thinking, yet again, “That sounds almost exactly like what used to happen many years ago.” I remember the Alpine lemonade man coming round when I was a child. The bottles then were glass. We used to collect them; in fact, it was the only way we made any pocket money. In fact, for today’s children, there would be a financial incentive for them to collect all of this plastic if they could make some money out of it.
There is not a single school that any of us go into in which we are not asked about insects that are no longer around, which we never even knew existed. Children today are so well educated on the environment; indeed, they are already forcing a generational change. We have a beach school at Chidham, run by one of my schools, and I will ask the staff if they have done the sand experiment for our area. We also have forest schools. I go to schools in Southbourne, Sidlesham, Harting, Loxwood and Rake, and they all have eco-warriors and eco-councils. The questions I get asked in schools are the hardest questions I get; I can talk about Brexit all day long, but with some of these environmental questions, the children have studied to a much greater degree than we ever did. In fact, we did not do any of that in school and now we are struggling to catch up. The children really have a fantastic approach and I am pretty sure that if they were incentivised with cash, they would make sure that they collected everything for deposit return schemes, because it would be a good way of topping up their pocket money.
The 1st Chichester Brownies unit in Christchurch wrote to me recently to ask me to support its plastic promise, which of course I have agreed to do. It aims to raise awareness of plastic pollution and to reduce our reliance on single-use plastics. So those children are not only telling their parents what to do but telling their MPs what to do, which is very welcome. In the letter I received, it was obvious that the Brownies were very excited by the deposit return scheme; they really welcomed it and I can see them going round in their uniforms to pick up all the plastic, and making some cash in the meantime. Probably, that cash will go to good causes, because that is another thing that children get involved in.
I will conclude by emphasising the importance of international co-operation in tackling this issue. Currently, of the estimated 8 million tonnes of plastics that enter the oceans each year, the US, the UK and Europe collectively contribute about 2%. Therefore, the Government’s investment of over £60 million to help the Commonwealth nations improve their waste management is vital and is the right approach. We have to show leadership and there is much we can do to help other countries. That would also make a massive impact. I hope that we can continue our domestic journey of self-improvement in this area, and I believe the best way to instil change abroad is to lead by example at home. I also look forward to seeing the technology and innovation that will rise to this challenge, to make sure that we free our world from plastic pollution.
John Mc Nally (Falkirk) (SNP)
As always, Mr Stringer, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.
I, too, welcome the Minister to her place. I am cautiously optimistic—maybe even optimistic—that she has the ability to deliver improvements on environmental issues for this Government, and that is not a first: I believe it.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) on securing this particular debate. I agree with the hon. Member and I share his concerns on the gap figures, our export figures and the systems of collection. I think that we are all on the same pilgrimage on this matter. As a point of information for him, a water fountain will be installed in my constituency by Scottish Water on 31 October. I might be going to another destination that day—maybe even one from the Prime Minister—but I hope that I can manage to get back to my constituency. It is exactly the same thing as the hon. Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan) mentioned—people will be able to fill their bottle of water in the street, as was normal further back than she can go. Fountains were common in every town and city.
Regarding the other interventions, in particular that by the hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas), I am extremely intrigued to hear about the schools the and initiatives that are happening; I will come on to that issue later on.
The hon. Member for Chichester was absolutely right about the 5p charge on plastic bags. That initiative has been a success and the easiest way to witness that success is to consider the lack of plastic bags lying about the streets. Before, there were so many that it was a pitiful and disgraceful sight. We could see them around every supermarket; indeed, flung about everywhere we went. So I am impressed by the hon. Lady’s little bag and I might purchase one myself soon.
The plastic waste and the crippling cost of it to our planet, with debris that lasts forever, simply has to cease. If we want to change the world, we should get busy in our own little corner of it; I have believed that for a very long time and we should all do that.
At this point, I must declare a non-financial interest. I am a member of CGI, the community green initiative, in Falkirk, and of the Communities along the Carron Association, or CATCA. I am also trying to establish youth climate ambassadors in Falkirk schools, and an all-party parliamentary group on youth action and climate change, to make children’s voices heard in this Parliament, the devolved Administrations, local authorities and possibly even—with a bit of good luck—at COP 20 next year in Glasgow.
The Committee’s report highlights that it is important to engage with young people about recycling, because they often educate their parents, and we must be mindful of that.
Douglas Chapman
I am just looking at a document on the sustainable development goals: No. 4 is on education and No. 13 is on climate change. No. 4 says that all learners should
“acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development”.
In Scotland, that fits very well, for example, with the curriculum for excellence, whereby all schools encourage their pupils to be responsible citizens. So, regarding my hon. Friend’s proposed all-party group to support young people in their efforts, he can put me down to be No. 1 on the list. I am sure that some other Members will also be happy to join him in his efforts.
John Mc Nally
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I agree with him; in fact, it has already been very encouraging to see the number of Members who have requested to join the APPG. We must engage with future decision makers, who will come from all pairts, not just from middle-class backgrounds, and with children who have got little voice. The point of the APPG is to bring that out. I have met the director of education in Falkirk. He will try to get all the local schools to participate and try to identify children who normally do not have a voice, and to bring them forward to participate.
Even going round various schools, such as St Bernadette’s primary school in Falkirk, I have been astonished by seven and eight-year-olds, with their in-depth knowledge of what is happening, and what they knew about palm oil and the devastation it causes to the Amazon, the lungs of the world. They are aware of what is going on and Greta Thunberg must be praised for her efforts on this issue; she has brought it into our living rooms.
All of us know of the very successful environmental leaders and community litter clean-up organisations in our constituencies. There are many such examples of volunteers across Falkirk, the rest of Scotland and indeed the world. I believe that a world conversion is taking place in how we treat this planet and how we lead our lives. That behavioural change is happening, and not before time, because we just do not have time on our side.
What impact do the real ultimate decision-makers have on our daily lives, to reduce waste? Well, I will have to get a wee bit political here, Minister, because the austerity measures of successive Tory Governments have held local authorities back and restrained them from delivering improved recycling services in England. Spending on the environment has been cut by 20% and half of English local authorities are planning further cuts to services.
I will quote the evidence from St Helens Council to the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee:
“When faced with a desperately strained social care system…trying to look after elderly people…and increasing numbers of children being taken into care, issues such as recycling rates cannot possibly be considered a priority.”
That statement should worry everyone here and I hope that the Minister will address that concern when she sums up today. Taxes are the price that we all pay for a civilised society. Austerity affects the poorest in society for the mistakes of the richest. Local authorities should not be forced into making those choices.
Standardising and simplifying the collection of material for recycling has been identified as being key to improving kerbside recycling rates. There is an opportunity to nudge us all into better habits. We are at a pivotal moment in time and we need to start ridding the planet of the filth we are creating. Two or three Members have referred to our collections systems. I have met professionals, partners and stakeholders, whether that is here in Parliament, at conferences or at the Environmental Audit Committee. All agree that a new waste collection system needs to be designed. We certainly would not want to start from here with the system we have.
The conclusions of the Committee’s report highlight inconsistency in collections. It is impossible for consumers to understand the on-pack recycling labelling scheme. We heard that the binfrastructure should be harmonised. A traffic light, colour-coded system was suggested, where the colour symbol on a bottle or paper cup could be matched to the appropriate colour-matching bin lid. That nudge would take the confusion and dilemma out of thinking, “Which bin do I put this product in?”
As manufacturers move to make packaging simpler and easier to recycle, colour coding could be added to all packaging to simply tell people which bin disposable items go in. For example, I have to look at the bottom of this plastic cup to see where it should go. Imagine a harmonised colour-coded bin system at airports, bus stations, train stations, football and rugby grounds and venues across the country. Will the Minister tell the Chamber whether that suggestion has been discussed at any level in Parliament?
The SNP Government in Scotland are leading by example. We take the environment very seriously in Scotland. We aim to make Scotland a zero-waste society with a circular economy, and we have ambitious targets in place to make that vision a reality. The Scottish Government are committed to minimising the population’s demand on primary resources and maximising the reuse, recycling and recovery of resources, rather than treating them as waste. There are ambitious targets in place for reducing waste and increasing recycling. For example, by 2025, we want to reduce total waste arising in Scotland by 15% against 2011 levels, to reduce food waste by 33% against 2013 levels and to recycle 70% of the remaining waste, sending no more than 5% of the remaining waste to landfill. Those are ambitious targets, but furthermore, we aim to match the EU ambition for all plastic packaging to be economically recyclable or reusable by 2030.
For information, the Scottish Government have banned personal hygiene products containing plastic microbeads and have launched a consultation on a ban on plastic-stemmed cotton buds. We are keen to follow best practice and improve standards. Scotland’s people expect that, and the recent EU plastics directive will be adopted imminently, leading to the banning of plastic straws, stirrers and other throwaway items.
The Scottish Government support the EU Commission’s vision that all plastic packaging should be easily recycled or reusable by 2030. We are a founder member of the plastics pact. Scotland is also the first part of the UK to commit to introducing a deposit return scheme for drinks containers, and we aim to have that up and running within the next two years. The purpose of that scheme is to increase the quantity of target materials captured for recycling and improve the quality of material captured. That will allow for high-value recycling, and, most importantly, build and encourage wider behavioural changes in the use of materials to deliver the maximum economic and social benefit to Scotland.
Graham Stringer (in the Chair)
Order. May I ask the hon. Gentleman to bring his speech to a conclusion within the next couple of minutes so that there is equal time for the Labour spokesperson and the Minister? I have divided the time from the start of his speech to the end of the debate approximately into three. I would be grateful if he began to bring his speech to a close.
John Mc Nally
That is lucky, because my voice is beginning to give way anyway. There is real concern that Brexit poses a real threat to environmental standards in the UK, with DEFRA being singled out as the least-prepared Department for the UK’s departure from the EU. The best way for us to achieve our environmental ambitions is to ensure that Scotland’s devolved powers continue to be respected.
Graham Stringer (in the Chair)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his co-operation.
Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer.
I was delighted to read this report, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) and his Select Committee on its production. It is wide-ranging, insightful, accessible, level-headed and challenging —all in just 41 pages of actual text. I actually enjoyed reading it; I apologise to any Members who might think I need to get out more. I fully support the emphasis that the report puts on using deposit return schemes to increase the quality and value of recycling, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for emphasising that today.
I hear what the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is saying about the importance of working co-operatively with councils. That needs to come in before the strategy is created, as well as during the operation of any waste strategy. I agree with the Chair of the Select Committee about ensuring that a convenient and effective regime is in place for people to use before we start to impose any penalties on people for not using it. I agree with the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Douglas Chapman) about the necessity for education and public information, to ensure that people know how the regime is meant to work.
The hon. Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson) said that he did not want us to impose things on people. Of course we need to work with industry and retailers, but we also need regulation to prevent bad practice from crowding out and undercutting good practice.
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
My office and I ran a survey of small businesses in my constituency, and we discovered that many small business people are keen to support that work. They would be interested to read the report, although perhaps not quite as interested as my hon. Friend. Their issue, however, was that they wanted leadership from central Government. It is wonderful to see the level of agreement among the different parties represented in the Chamber today, but does he agree that what is needed is that leadership?
Sandy Martin
I absolutely agree. Far too much of the discourse about waste and the environment has been couched in terms that sound as though they are intended to make people feel guilty. We do not need to make people feel guilty; we need to put in place the regimes that enable them to do the right thing. I very much welcome the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) about the importance of Parliament’s setting a good example. That can extend to us as Members of Parliament—not only here in Parliament, but in our constituencies.
The hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) spoke about the unspoilt countryside in Cornwall, which I have enjoyed, like almost everyone else in this country. The important issue of plastic litter is clearly one of the public drivers in the debate about waste, and that is one of the good reasons why deposit return schemes are effective. In Germany, more than 98% of applicable packaging is recycled through deposit return schemes. As the hon. Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan) pointed out, we could have people scouring the countryside, picking things up and ensuring they were not left lying around.
There was some discussion about local foods. The day before yesterday, I was rather distressed to see a response from DEFRA about Brexit, saying that we will need to rely more on local food and mentioning our ability to change over to root vegetables. I would support that, but they referred to cabbages and leeks as root vegetables; given that, I am not sure quite how much guidance we will get from DEFRA about what we should be eating. I absolutely agree about the need to get away from wholly unnecessary packaging and I am sure—well, I hope—that any strategy that the Government bring in will help to address that.
I also agree with the hon. Member for Chichester that people want to do the right thing. I had experience of that in Suffolk when we introduced a three-bin doorstep collection system, and there was an enormously high level of compliance. If we do the right thing, we will get people to comply with the regime.
The past year has been a bit of a roller-coaster ride for waste, and I feel we are on one of the high-speed sections at the moment—I very much hope that the wheels do not come off. A year ago, I was asked to take on the role of shadow Minister for waste and recycling. Within weeks, the Government published their strategy document “Our Waste, Our Resources”. Arising from that have been several extensive consultations, and several petitions and debates have arisen as the general public have made us all aware of the seriousness with which they take the issue.
Running in parallel with all that, the EFRA Committee committed to an in-depth examination of many of the trickier issues, of which the report is the result. Now, of course, we have the new Environment Bill, part 3 of which, on waste and resources, covers many but not all of the issues raised in the report. I say “covers”, but not necessarily “resolves”. I am certain that the work that went into the report and the evidence collected by the Committee were very valuable in informing the new Bill, but there are clearly concerns in the report, which I share, that are not yet resolved in the Environment Bill.
The report is extremely timely as it can inform any amendments that Members might wish to make to the Environment Bill; I am sure that there will be some. I will mention a few of the main themes, and ask the Minister for her reaction. First, and most importantly, the report is not complimentary about the Government’s lack of focus on waste reduction as the first priority. The industry tells us that there has been a significant reduction in the weight of some packaging, but that does not necessarily translate into a reduction in the environmental impact; if a turtle suffocates on a plastic bag, it makes little difference whether that plastic bag weighs one gram or two grams. Substituting plastic for card may well reduce the weight of the packaging but not its carbon footprint.
Between 2000 and 2010, there was a revolution in the recycling of waste in this country, driven largely by the landfill tax. During that revolution, household recycling rose by 235%. The landfill tax was a weight-based system. It was straightforward to understand and simple to administer, but recycling has plateaued for the past 10 years and it is time to move on to new, more effective ways of dealing with the problem. The highest priority has to be reducing the amount of waste that we generate, not just its weight. I ask the Minister whether the Government recognise the need to move away from weight as the prime factor in waste targets, and whether carbon impact might not be a better measure.
Secondly, I concur with the findings of the report, which, while clearly recognising the carbon footprint of plastic packaging and the potential environmental impact of plastic waste that is not properly disposed of, points out the danger of demonising plastic and letting other materials off the hook. As the report says, we urgently need more information about the overall life-cycle impacts of various packaging solutions, and the figures quoted in various parts of the report—and the inconsistencies between some of them—clearly demonstrate that we cannot rely solely on data from the industries involved to inform policy decisions.
There needs to be a far more effective independent research and data regime for waste and resource use. More significant investment in the area is likely to save huge amounts in developing our waste policies in the future. I challenge the Minister to tell us whether the Government intend radically to increase the resources available to the Waste and Resources Action Programme as a matter of urgency, and what other research and development investments in waste management the Government are contemplating.
Thirdly, the report rightly highlights the laxity of the current reporting regime for producers, with the threshold for reporting on packaging set far too high. I would be interested to hear whether the Minister believes that the statutory duty to comply with whatever waste regimes are introduced through the new Environment Bill should apply to all—or almost all—producers, or whether, once more, a substantial number of businesses will simply escape the system.
Fourthly, the report examines in some depth the problems associated with compostable plastics. The desirable disposal methods for compostable plastics and for recyclable plastics are completely different, and it is essential that they should be kept separate. Yet there is very little recognition of that in the Environment Bill, so I would be interested to hear from the Minister whether she will be guided by the report in amending the relevant sections of the Environment Bill when the time comes.
Finally, an issue that is touched on in the report, and has been mentioned by the Chair of the Select Committee, but is not, I believe, given sufficient emphasis, is the lack of recycling facilities in the United Kingdom, and the tragic impact on our oceans caused by the export of waste to countries that were clearly not equipped to deal with it in a sustainable way. That issue has, however, been extensively covered in a previous report this year from the Environmental Audit Committee, so I understand why the EFRA Committee would not want to repeat those findings.
There is plenty more that I could say about this excellent report, but most of it has been said by others already, so I will take my seat and listen with interest to what the Minister has to say.
Graham Stringer (in the Chair)
Minister, may I ask you to leave, if possible, 90 seconds to two minutes for the Chair of the Select Committee to wind up?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)
Thank you, Mr Stringer; it is a pleasure to serve under you today. I will endeavour to leave a minute for my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), whom I must thank for introducing the debate and for all the work of his Committee. I was previously a member of the esteemed EFRA Committee, and I know what excellent work it does and how important this inquiry was in informing what is, as we can tell from today’s debate, an engaging and really important subject. As constituency MPs, plastic packaging is a subject that so many people come to us about, so the information was—and is—really useful. The Government will publish their formal response shortly.
Clearly, plastic from packaging is a really serious issue. It makes a huge contribution to the overwhelming amount of plastic in the world around us. Some really excellent points have been raised today, as they were in the inquiry, but I wish to assure hon. Members that progress is being made—hopefully I will make that clear in what I will say—and leadership is being shown on the issue.
First and foremost, we have set out our ambitious 25-year environment plan to eliminate all avoidable plastic waste within the lifetime of the plan. For the most problematic plastics, we are going faster. In the resources and waste strategy for England, which was published last December, we committed to working towards all plastic packaging placed on the market being recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2025.
We have already made good strides. We banned microbeads in cosmetic and care products. I thank the hon. Member for Falkirk (John Mc Nally), who was very involved in that campaign, as was I on the Environmental Audit Committee. Of course, waste and recycling is a devolved matter in Scotland, but we worked together on that. We will also ban plastic stirrers, cotton buds and straws by 2020.
I will mention four areas of overhauling the waste system. We have had four major consultations on that. People say, “Why do you keep consulting?” but we have to have the data before we know what the right steps to take are. We have consulted on the consistency of recycling collections, which has been mentioned by so many Members. That consultation had a phenomenal response, and we intend to introduce consistent collections in 2023, subject to further consultation. That will be in the Environment Bill, with further consultation, and is a firm commitment.
Neil Parish
That is a laudable approach, but how will the Government guide local authorities to ensure that they change their contracts and collections actually are more uniform?
Rebecca Pow
That is a good point. Members touched on funding. We will give increased powers to local authorities, fully funded through the producer responsibility scheme, which I will go on to talk about. They should not fear; they are going to be a key part of this. As so many Members have referred to, achieving this alignment is critical to the future of the plastics world. That is all being listened to and consulted on, and there will be further consultation in the environmental improvement part of the Environment Bill.
The Government also carried out a consultation on producer responsibility, which will be a radical reform for producers of packaging. It will put the onus entirely back on them to be responsible for what happens to their product, how much recyclable material it contains, where it will go at the end of its life and all that.
Kerry McCarthy
On a point of clarification, I understand that the EU is currently reviewing both the extended producer responsibility rules and the essential requirements in the packaging waste directive. How does that fit with the reviews that we are carrying out here if we are to leave the EU?
Rebecca Pow
I urge the hon. Lady to look at the detail of the producer responsibility scheme and the consultation. We will develop our own bespoke system. This is all being done in conjunction with businesses, and there is a great deal of support for it.
A point was raised about the thresholds for reporting the amount of packaging waste. Some consultation has been done on that and feedback has been provided, and I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton that information will be available in the near future. Similarly, we want consistent labelling on packaging so that consumers know what to recycle, in order to reduce the confusion that everyone keeps talking about regarding what is and is not recyclable. Another consultation is being carried out on that to gather yet more data.
We have also consulted on the deposit return scheme—one of those critical subjects that everyone seems to contact us about. The details of that scheme will come forward in the Environment Bill, with a view to introducing what we hope will be the best system in 2023. There will be a further, final consultation on that in the second part of the Bill to make sure we get it right. As I am sure Members are all aware, there is so much to this: what are we going to include? Will it be glass? Will it be plastic? What does the industry want, so that the scheme is usable by them when they gather all the material? It is not quite as straightforward as people think, but it is definitely coming forward.
Rebecca Pow
I just wanted to address the point, which I think was made by the hon. Gentleman, about local authorities no longer being required to collect DRS material. Obviously, their new systems of collection will be funded through the producer responsibility scheme, so I hope that puts Members’ minds at rest.
Her Majesty’s Treasury has also consulted on a plastic packaging tax on the production and import of plastic packaging, to encourage the use of more recycled content. DEFRA’s proposals will work to increase the quality and quantity of the supply of recycled material; the plastic packaging tax will work in parallel, meaning that the amount of recycled material has to be incorporated into products. If producers do not reach the right level, which is purportedly going to be 30%, they will pay a tax.
I will now move on to the Environment Bill.
Rebecca Pow
I want to get through all of my information, but go on, then. Make it quick, sir. [Laughter.]
Douglas Chapman
I will take as much time as I need, but I thank the Minister for her comments. My hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk (John Mc Nally) mentioned the EU directive on single-use plastics, which is a policy that the Scottish Government support. Beyond 31 October, what does the Minister anticipate will be the view of the UK on keeping pace with environmental policy across the rest of Europe? Obviously, we will still be trading with other member states, and in this case the directive is a force for good. The Minister has talked about bringing in something as an alternative to the directive, so what would that look like?
Rebecca Pow
We have committed to maintaining our environmental standards, and will always keep a weather eye on what is going on in Europe. We will be moving on in our own way, but it is crucial to maintain very high standards in all these areas and we have committed to do so in the waste strategy, the Environment Bill and the 25-year environment plan.
I hear Members say, “It is all very well having all these consultations, but how do you bring them into practice?” As I have mentioned, we will make these measures a reality through the Environment Bill. All the measures I have mentioned—deposit returns, producer responsibility and consistent gathering—will come forward in that Bill, which will be quite radical in getting rid of the “take, make, use, throw away” world that we live in and introducing a much more circular economy. To respond to the point made by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ipswich (Sandy Martin), many of those measures will, of course, result in less waste being produced in the first place.
Much has been said about consumer confusion, and my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton and the shadow Minister mentioned biodegradable plastics in particular, which I hope will be addressed as part of dealing with the labelling issue. It is an area in which data is so important—what is biodegradable? What do things break down into? What do they produce in the soil, and what runs off into the water? All those questions need to be carefully researched. As a consequence, the Government published a call for evidence in July 2019 to help consider the development of the standards and the certification that might be given to biodegradable and compostable plastics. That call for evidence has only just closed, on 14 October, and its findings will be published in due course.
I was very interested in the point about nappies made by my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas)—I used washable nappies for my first child, and it nearly killed me because it was such hard work. We will need to address the issue of proper biodegradable nappies in the future. I also wanted to mention the 5p charge, which demonstrated how bringing in such a measure can cause a paradigm shift, making the whole of society change how it acts.
My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton mentioned his water fountains, and I commend him on those; they are a great idea for his local area. He may want to contact Water UK, which advises on introducing water fountains in public and the refillable bottle scheme in cafes and shops. The shadow Minister and I share our bottles in common, and I was one of the people who worked on the plastic-free Parliament initiative—lots of Members did that, across all parties—and on giving up plastics for Lent, which was very hard. Those are great initiatives, and they are moving forward.
I also commend the UK Plastics Pact, the first initiative of its kind in any European country, which is run by the Waste & Resources Action Programme and supported by 80 Members. It contains key issues and objectives for 2025, including the elimination of problematic or unnecessary single-use packaging through design and innovation; for 100% of plastics packaging to be reusable, recyclable and re-compostable; for 70% of plastics packaging to be recycled and composted; and for there to be an average of 30% recycled content across all plastics packaging. Its endeavours are excellent. I know that Scotland was an early member of that group, and it has got a lot of support from businesses including Waitrose, Morrisons and Tesco. Many of those companies are trialling loose and unpacked vegetables. I still use my Somerset wicker basket, which I try to mention in any debate I can possibly get it into, rather than plastic bags. I have run a one-woman campaign on this all my life; we should all have a wicker basket, which also help to take in carbon through growing the willow for the baskets.
A lot of funding and effort is going into research and development and into innovation, which are absolutely key to reducing our plastic use, as has rightly been said by the shadow Minister and many other Members. Already, £20 million has gone into a plastics research and innovation fund, £20 million into a plastics and waste innovation fund, and £60 million into the smart sustainable plastic packaging challenge. A lot is going on in this space, and I commend and welcome it.
This is a complex area, but I assure Members that I feel we are making progress. If Members join in with the Environment Bill, we will get some measures through that will change our lives.
Neil Parish
I thank all Members for participating; there has been much cross-party support today. We all want to reduce the amount of plastics we use, to recycle more and to make sure that the Government take action.
I welcome the Minister’s enthusiasm in her new role, and I also thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ipswich (Sandy Martin), for actually reading the report—perhaps we should recommend it to all Members of Parliament. I thank my hon. Friends the Members for St Ives (Derek Thomas) and for Chichester (Gillian Keegan) for speaking, and the two members of the Select Committee who are present for their support.
Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).
Diabetes: Tailored Prevention Messaging
(5 years ago)
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Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered tailored prevention messaging for diabetes.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Buck. It is good to see a group of MPs here who have made the effort and taken the time to come to a Thursday afternoon debate. I am pleased to see the Minister in her place. As she knows, I am particularly fond of her as a Minister and look forward to her response. I have given her a copy of my speech, so we can perhaps get some helpful answers. I thank her in advance for that. I am also pleased to see the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), who is always here, and other right hon. and hon. Members who regularly come to diabetes debates.
I am particularly glad to see the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who chairs the all-party parliamentary group for diabetes, of which I am the vice-chair. We have many things in common. Not only are we both type 2 diabetic—I make that clear at the beginning—but we are faithful fans of Leicester City football club. We have followed it for years, and it is third in the premier league. Tomorrow night, as I understand, it plays Southampton away, where I hope Brendan Rodgers will do the best for us again.
We are here to discuss diabetes. I have been a type 2 diabetic for 12 to 14 years or thereabouts. I was a big fat pudding, to tell the truth—I was 17 stone and getting bigger. I enjoyed my Chinese and my two bottles of Coke five nights a week. I was probably diabetic for at least 12 months before I knew I was. When I look back, I can see the symptoms, but I never knew then what the symptoms were—I was not even sure what a diabetic was. When the doctor told me that I was a diabetic, he said that there were two things to know. They always tell people the good news and the bad news, so I said, “Give us the good news first.” He said, “The good news is that you can sort this out. The bad news is that you’re a diabetic.”
I went on diet control and stayed on it for four years. When I talked to my doctor again, he told me that the disease would get progressively worse. Even after four years of diet control and dropping down to 13 stone—about the weight I am now, although I am a wee bit lighter at the moment, because of not being that well for the last couple of months—I went on to metformin tablets. A few years later, they were no longer working, so he increased the dosage. He also said, as doctors often do, “You might have a wee bit of bother with your blood pressure. You don’t really need a blood pressure tablet, but take one just in case.” I said, “Well, if that’s the way it is, that’s the way it is”, but he said, “By the way, when you take it, you can’t stop it”, so it was not just about blood pressure.
I say all that because diabetes is about more than just sugar level control. It affects the arteries, blood, kidneys, circulation, eyesight and many other parts of the body. If people do not control it and do not look after it, it is a disease that will take them out of this world. That is the fact of diabetes.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. He is an assiduous attender; he attends so much that I think the Speaker of the House said on one occasion that he thought my hon. Friend actually slept in the Chamber. He is alluding to his personal circumstances, but I and other hon. Members have raised the issue of juveniles and underage individuals who have an obesity problem that, over time, begins the process of type 2 diabetes. Although we need to tackle the problems in adulthood that he is raising, we also need to tackle them among children.
Jim Shannon
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The figures that he and I have indicate that almost 100,000 people over the age of 17 live with diabetes in Northern Ireland, out of a population of over-17s of 1.6 million. We know it is more than that and that there are a lot of diabetics under 17, so he is right to bring that up. Northern Ireland has more children who are type 1 diabetic in comparison with the population than anywhere else in the United Kingdom.
David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. He referred to having been a big fat pudding; well, I probably am, but we will not go there. Importantly, we have young children in schools who need insulin, but there is a difficulty with teachers and classroom assistants giving it to them. What more can we do about that? How can we encourage the education people to do it?
Jim Shannon
I know the Minister will reply to that, because that is one of the questions that I had hoped to get an answer on.
On the Monday before last, we had a diabetes event in the House. Before I came over, some of my constituents said, “Will you go along to this event about diabetes? It is really important, because some great things are being done in some parts of England and we would like to know about them.” When I got there, the people were most helpful and informed me that Northern Ireland has one of the better type 1 diabetes schemes, which is reaching out to 70% of people. As we often do in Northern Ireland, in this case we have a scheme in place that is almost voluntary. We have an un-functioning Assembly, which is disappointing, but we have a system whereby that scheme is working. Some of the things that we are doing, we are doing quite well.
There are 4.7 million people living with diabetes across the UK, each of whom should be treated as an individual. In Northern Ireland, we have 100,000 people with diabetes in that 17-plus bracket, but obviously it is more than that when it is all added up. Every day across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 700 people are diagnosed with diabetes; that is one person every two minutes.
I had a good friend—he is not in this world any more, but that is not because of diabetes—who was a type 1 diabetic. He ate whatever he wanted and I always said to him, “You cannot eat all those things.” He said, “Oh, I can. All I do is take an extra shot of insulin.” I said, “That’s not how it works!” I do not know how many times I told him that. My three hon. Friends—my hon. Friends the Members for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell), for South Antrim (Paul Girvan) and for Upper Bann (David Simpson)—will know who it is, so I will not mention his name. He was very flippant about the control of his diabetes, but it seemed to work for him. I could never get my head around the idea that an extra shot of insulin seemed to cure the problem.
Paul Girvan (South Antrim) (DUP)
I thank my hon. Friend for bringing this important debate to the Chamber. My wife is a type 1 diabetic who is insulin-dependent. She has already—she is a bit younger than me—lost a kidney, because of lack of control, which can cause problems. That needs to be identified: control is vital, and it is important for people to monitor regularly. New technology is available that can actually give readings constantly, as people go. It is important that people start to use the available technology, so they do not have to take more insulin than they need, but can take it only when it is needed.
Jim Shannon
Like my hon. Friend, my wife is younger than me. It must be a Northern Ireland DUP MP thing—we look for younger wives to keep us young. I am not sure if that is right or wrong, or if it is politically correct to say that, but my wife is nine years younger than me. She understands the issue of me and diabetes.
Some 10% of people with diabetes have type 1 and 90% have type 2. I will refer to both throughout my speech, and I encourage hon. Members to do the same and to acknowledge the different factors at play with each. We can manage type 2 with medication, provided we control what we eat and what we put in our bodies. Of those living with diabetes, we have the broadest cross-section of society. The condition affects all genders, ages, ethnicities and financial situations. However, too often I see that policy makers and clinicians fall into the trap of treating people with type 1 or type 2 diabetes as homogenous groups that will respond to the same approach and message, but they respond in different ways.
During this debate I want to focus on four things: the primary prevention of type 2 diabetes; the need to offer different messaging to ensure that the support is appropriate for each individual living with diabetes; the necessity of preventing the complications of all forms of diabetes; and innovations in technology—there is marvellous technology —and patient pathways that can improve outcomes for people living both type 1 and type 2 diabetes. I wish that I had known 12 months before I was diagnosed that the way I was living—the lifestyle, the stress—was putting me at risk. We all need a bit of stress; it is good and keeps us sharp, but high stress levels with the wrong eating and living habits is harmful. I do not drink fizzy lemonade any more because it was one of the things pushing me over the edge. That was probably why I lost most of the weight fairly quickly.
Let us talk about prevention. Today more than 12 million people are at increased risk of type 2 diabetes across the UK. More than half of all cases of type 2 diabetes could be prevented or delayed. If I had known a year before my diagnosis, I could have stopped the downward trend in my health, but I did not know, and I wish that I had done. Many in this House offer leadership on type 2 diabetes prevention; the right hon. Member for Leicester East is certainly one of them. England is a world leader on this front, having recently committed to doubling its national diabetes prevention programme.
I was pleased to attend a roundtable discussion last summer, chaired by the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous), at which we considered the link between obesity and diabetes and the importance of tailored messaging for the different subsets of the population. During the discussion I met the inimitable Professor Valabhji, the national clinical director for obesity and diabetes at NHS England, whose leadership in this space should be celebrated. I put that on the record because his knowledge and help for those around him, and his research into and development of how we deal with diabetes, are incredible.
For people with type 2 diabetes, there is the additional aspiration of achieving remission. I echo colleagues’ congratulations to the deputy leader of the Labour party, the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Tom Watson). We watched him almost shrink. One day I stopped him and said, “Tom, is everything all right?” He was losing so much weight, but it was his choice to diet as he did. He is an inspiration for many people because of what he has done, and I commend him for it. The concept of remission can be alienating, however, because it is not possible for every person with type 2 diabetes.
Central to the effectiveness of all types of support for the individual and the wider population is the messaging used, which is what this debate is about. Tailored messaging should be developed for the sub-groups most at risk of type 2 diabetes. For example, those in the most deprived areas of the country are nearly 50% more likely to be obese and have type 2 diabetes than those in the most affluent areas: there is type 2 diabetes in areas where people do not have the same standard of living.
Obesity is responsible for around 85% of someone’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Additionally, south Asians are six times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than Europeans are. It is a well-known cliché that men are not so open or proactive—I can say this is true—about their health needs, and men are 26% more likely than women to develop type 2 diabetes. I am willing to speculate, as one who fell into that category, that that is in part due to messaging not being in a format that reaches men. I did not know what it was, did not know what it meant, did not know what the symptoms were, but it was happening.
We need to focus some of the messaging on the importance of prevention and the risk of type 2 diabetes for men. Will the Minister commit to ensuring that all messaging to support those with type 1 and type 2 diabetes, as well as for type 2 diabetes prevention, is tailored to the relevant sections of our society?
I have to manage my diabetes every day. I take my tablets in the morning and at night. I am careful about what I eat. By and large, I manage it. I check my sugar levels every morning. The doctor tells me to check and I do it every day so that I know where I am. I am a creature of habit; I do it all the time so that I know exactly where I am. Some days it is out of kilter, probably because I transgressed and had a cream bun when I knew it was the wrong thing to have. None the less, we do such things.
On self-management, the average person with diabetes will spend just three hours a year with a healthcare professional. That means that they will spend most of their time managing the condition themselves and will need appropriate education. The right hon. Member for Leicester East chairs the all-party parliamentary group on diabetes. He organised a seminar where we looked at healthcare professionals and how people manage their own condition and therefore need appropriate education. The current delivery of structured education does not reflect the varying needs of each individual living with diabetes. We are all different.
The best efforts of healthcare professionals and those who provide education often focus on perfect self-management or no self-management at all. In reality, the daily struggle of living with a long-term condition means that every marginal improvement should be seen as a true achievement. We have to manage it and encourage ourselves as we move forward. We have to make sure that by moving a step forward we can then move forward again. There has been an admirable drive to increase the uptake of education, but education alone will not help an individual manage the ups and downs of living with the condition. They need the tools and confidence, as well as the education, necessary to manage their condition.
When I speak to people in my constituency who live with diabetes, they often highlight the feeling of isolation. I am sure we can all agree today that there is a need to provide each of those individuals with the support they need to take away the isolation. Being a diabetic can be lonely if someone does not know how to manage it. They might think they are doing the right thing when they are not. Issues have been highlighted to me about the delivery and format of education programmes. Digital solutions and coaching services should be explored. The Minister referred to that in a conversation that we had prior to this debate. I look forward to her response. We always get something positive from her, and we will certainly get something positive today.
Will the Minister commit to ensuring that the delivery, format and content of structured education programmes is improved through the use of digital solutions, and that national guidelines are adapted to accommodate that? Health apps could also be used to refine and augment diabetes training programmes by enabling clinicians to learn from patients about what motivates them and therefore what support to provide.
I want to congratulate the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Eleanor Smith) on her leadership on how health apps can be used to improve care and patient self-management. Many MPs in this House are diabetic or have an interest in diabetes. That is why we are here today. We are either diabetic or interested in the matter and here to make a contribution. I commend and thank right hon. and hon. Members for their commitment.
Will the Minister commit to undertaking an extensive public engagement and education programme, using digital platforms where appropriate, to showcase effective and evidence-based health apps and encourage their wider usage? Support needs to be tailored to individuals’ particular needs, in recognition that no single solution works in self-management for everyone. Everybody’s needs are different. I was the first diabetic in my family. When the doctor diagnosed me as a diabetic he asked me about my mum and dad and my wife’s mum and dad, and whether there was anybody in my family tree with the condition, but there was no one there. Unfortunately, my condition was caused by my diet and my lifestyle, so I created the problem. It was not hereditary, but it is how we deal with such things and tailor our responses that matters.
I have recently been convinced that health coaches—the Minister will comment on this—can play a key role in this space. Coaches can bring a distinct non-clinical skillset that poses questions for patients to help them devise the solutions that work for them, to help build their self-confidence and self-motivation—in stark contrast to the more prescriptive approach taken in clinical settings. Coaching needs to be clearly defined, and the full range of support that coaches can provide to support tailored prevention messaging needs to be identified. I look to the Minister’s response, because I believe it will have some positivity in relation to what we seek and what will happen.
It has been brought to my attention that the health service may ultimately need to decide whether to adopt a population-based approach to support improved outcomes across the entire population, or a more targeted approach aimed at those facing the greatest barriers to effective self-management. Will the Minister ensure that the health system explores the full range of ways in which health coaches can support people living with long-term health conditions, as well as carers and family members, through the development of an NHS definition of health coaching? Does she agree with me—and I hope with others in the House—that the UK has an opportunity to be an exemplar in the use of health coaches? It is an excellent opportunity and I hope that through the Minister we can make those changes.
I want finally to discuss the potential of innovations and technology in addressing issues related to self-management. That is what I do—I self-manage my diabetes. A flexible approach to the provision of structured education is vital to support self-management. Once equipped with the information and skills necessary to self-manage, people must have access to, and choice from, a range of proven technologies to help them manage their condition in everyday life. There has been a big investment in technology recently in the NHS.
We welcome the Government’s commitment to the extra spend on health, which we talk about regularly. All us in the House are particularly appreciative of the Government commitment. People with type 2 diabetes are now provided with glucose monitors; my hon. Friend the Member for South Antrim (Paul Girvan) referred to those in an intervention. However, people are offered little education on how to use them appropriately. There may be something more that we can do about that. It is good to have the technology, and to be taking steps forward, but it is also good for people to understand how to use it appropriately for management.
The level of investment in innovative hardware for people with type 1 diabetes is substantial and should be commended. However, individuals can be left lost if timely support is not available to help them to interpret and utilise those tools as a means of preventing complications. Many people with type 1 diabetes choose not to access the technologies now available to them. Why is that? I do not know the reason, but it is a question we must ask. I believe that it is partly because of a lack of individual awareness. In the case of my diabetes, that would be right. It could, potentially, be linked to a lack of information. If information is not being provided, I should hope that something could be done about that.
Later in the month an event is being held in Parliament, chaired by the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Sir George Howarth). The event, held in partnership with the type 1 diabetes charity JDRF, is to do with the development of a new report on access to technology for people with type 1 diabetes, “Pathway to Choice”. I look forward to reading the report when it is published, and I know the Minister will be keen to read it.
All of us with an interest in diabetes—and that is why Members are here for the debate—will be interested to read it. Can the Minister inform colleagues here today what measure will be introduced to ensure that all people living with either type 1 or type 2 diabetes can access the latest proven technologies that are right for their situation?
Sir George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman has highlighted two important themes: self-management and knowing how to go about it properly; and the more recent theme of the potential of technology to achieve good control. He knows I am keen on both. However, does he accept that artificial intelligence can never replace the human element of having someone to talk to, who can give good, accurate information about how to deal with the condition?
Jim Shannon
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Artificial intelligence is beneficial: it can help where it can help. However, it is better for people to have the chance to talk to someone who can instruct them. I think probably we all want to talk to someone face to face, so we can understand the issues better.
An event that I attended here—with the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes), I think—was about diabetes and also bariatric surgery. It may have been in the Thames Pavilion. I mention it because sometimes bariatric surgery may be the only way to reduce weight and enable someone to get to the other side, to address the issue of diabetes. That, as the right hon. Member for Knowsley said in his intervention, is something that people need to talk about. It needs to be discussed so they know what the options are. It is not for everyone, but it is for some people. A number of my constituents over the years have had that surgery and it has always been successful. It has reduced their weight in such a way as to control their diabetes. They are fortunate. Not everyone would have been able to have that surgical operation, but bariatric surgery is important.
To conclude, there is no one solution to diabetes prevention or management. Sometimes, no matter how well informed we are, diabetes can present new and potentially insurmountable challenges. I have some recommendations for the Minister. Primary prevention of type 2 diabetes should take a broad population approach, while ensuring that there is a range of programmes, including digital ones, so that no groups are excluded. There should be someone to speak to—access to someone to converse with who can advise and take things forward. Messaging should be varied and regularly re-evaluated, to ensure that there is engagement from those subsets of the population at the highest risk of type 2 diabetes. We cannot ignore the issue of obesity and diabetes. That was referred to at business questions and will probably be referred to during Health questions on Tuesday.
Finally, a holistic approach should be taken to diabetes care both to ensure value for the individual and to maximise the benefits to the NHS. When we are dealing with the NHS we must look at the money we have to spend, and how to spend it better. Prevention and early diagnosis are among the ways to do that, and the area of type 1 diabetes technology is important. Over the years I have had a number of constituents under the age of 10 who had early-onset type 1 diabetes. I can picture some of their faces, as I speak. They will always have to manage their diabetes. Mine came about through bad diet and bad management, but for some people it is hereditary. I ask the Minister to ensure that the Department for Health and Social Care will continue to focus on the important issue of messaging, in relation to diabetes.
Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairwomanship, Ms Buck. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for bringing this important debate to the Chamber today and for his comprehensive introduction to the subject, which included his own personal experience. I speak in my capacity as co-secretary of the all-party parliamentary group for diabetes, and I recognise the hon. Gentleman’s active role as vice-chair of the group.
My interest in diabetes comes from my background as an NHS clinical scientist, as well as the major health issues presented to our communities by the prevalence of diabetes. My constituency has a higher than average incidence of diabetes—8.5% of the population compared with 6.7% overall in England—so I am always interested in what steps can be taken to improve control of the condition and what preventive measures can be taken to lessen the risk of type 2 diabetes developing.
I want to draw attention to the difference between type 1 and type 2 diabetes, and I sometimes think it would be helpful if we considered them to be two completely separate and distinct diseases. I stress that while being overweight or obese is a major risk factor in type 2 diabetes, type 1 is caused by the body not being able to produce enough insulin and is an autoimmune disease. Although diet and exercise have a role to play in type 1 diabetes management, they cannot reverse the disease or eliminate the need for insulin. It is important to stress that, because of the number of times I have stood in this Chamber and listened to MPs saying, “If only people would lose weight their diabetes would be cured.” It is misleading, and it is unfair to people who are unfortunate enough to suffer from type 1 diabetes.
Sir George Howarth
I am grateful that my hon. Friend made that point. She knows that I, too, insist that we deal with them as two separate diseases. There are consequences to the myth that everyone’s diabetes is lifestyle-related. In some cases children are bullied at school for having an autoimmune condition that they have no control over. Yet people believe they have caused it themselves.
Liz McInnes
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is an unfortunate blame culture and children can be quite cruel to each other at times; we, as adults, must be careful about the language that we use about diabetes. If I achieve one thing in this place, I would like to get people to understand the difference between type 1 and type 2 diabetes—then I would feel as though I had achieved something.
Despite the growing public pressures associated with both type 1 and type 2 diabetes, a person living with diabetes only spends, on average, three hours a year with a clinician. People with diabetes are often put under a great deal of stress, because of the challenges and complexity in managing the condition and the multiple day-to-day decisions they have to make. In order to allow them to develop the necessary skills to manage their own condition, further support is required—including, but by no means limited to, weight management support.
This debate is very timely and follows a meeting we held in parliament in June of this year, which was attended by the hon. Member for Strangford and my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Sir George Howarth), among other MPs. The meeting was about realising the potential of health coaches in diabetes care, which the hon. Member for Strangford has already mentioned, and it was supported by Roche Diabetes Care—although of course I have to say that other diagnostic companies are available.
The meeting heard from health coaches about how they support participants in a lifestyle management programme, using their professional expertise as qualified nutritionists to support people to better manage their weight.
Paul Girvan
Does the hon. Lady agree that sometimes GPs do not give the right advice to patients? Perhaps a patient who presents with a bad infection is put on antibiotics, which can have an impact on their absorption of insulin, and as a result they can go into a hypo or take a low. That can cause major problems unless they have someone who knows them well, who can watch the signs and knows how to deal with them. Some GPs do not relay that information to patients when prescribing.
Liz McInnes
The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point, which I will come to later in my speech, about the need for all health professionals to be aware of diabetes and the complications that can arise, particularly in the situation he describes, where a GP may prescribe something without asking how it will impact on other conditions. The hon. Gentleman highlights the need for more and better training for health professionals around the whole condition of diabetes.
The meeting held in Parliament in June had three main themes. The first theme was relieving workforce pressures in diabetes care by providing non-clinical advice where there are gaps in clinical capacity, which refers back to the point that the average diabetic does not spend a lot of time every year with a clinician. The second theme—it is very pertinent to this debate—was about helping people to find their own tailored solutions to immediate health challenges such as weight management, as well as changing the way they think about their situation. The third theme, which the hon. Member for Strangford mentioned, was digital solutions to deliver 24/7 services to users. The health coaches explained to us how, through apps and other devices, users can message them at any time of day or night. The health coaches will get back to the individual, talk to them and help to address the issue.
Health coaching should be seen as a complement to clinical work and not as a tangent to it. It does not necessarily have to be done by discrete health coaches and could be incorporated into the day-to-day work of NHS staff; that relates to the point made by the hon. Member for South Antrim (Paul Girvan) on GP coaching. It should be incorporated into the day-to-day practice of all staff who work with people with diabetes. That is a point that NHS England and Health Education England should be considering.
Some would say that coaching on lifestyle and weight management is a role that should be fulfilled by the diabetes specialist nurse. I am interested to hear the Minister’s comments on the decline in the numbers of those who perform that very important specialist role. The National Diabetes Inpatient Audit reported that more than a quarter of hospital sites do not have a dedicated in-patient specialist nurse—there is a real gap that we need to examine. The specialist nurse is recognised by most diabetics as their go-to person, so it is quite shocking to hear that they are no longer available in a quarter of our hospitals.
I agree with the basic premise of the hon. Member for Strangford on tailored solutions and prevention messaging for diabetes. I hope the Government will follow the issue up, as well as ensuring that provision is equitable and that variations in uptake are addressed.
Of course, underpinning the whole issue is the need for better public health funding. It is no coincidence that just yesterday in this very Chamber in a debate on the declining numbers of health visitors, I quoted the figures for the national reduction in public health funding and the local reduction in my own borough of Rochdale. Nationally, there has been a reduction of £531 million on public health spending. In my local borough, there has been a cumulative reduction of £8 million over the last four years.
We cannot provide important services on an ever-decreasing budget. It was short-sighted of the Government to try to cut costs by reducing public health funding, and the chickens are now coming home to roost on this ill-thought-out decision. Given the emphasis on prevention in the NHS long-term plan, I will be interested to hear what the Minister has to say about how the cuts to public health funding will be reversed, and how quickly.
Finally, I understand that a National Audit Office report on health inequalities will come out at midnight tonight. I suspect that that report will lay bare the health impacts of cuts to public health services. I will certainly read it with great interest, and I hope the Minister will too.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure and honour to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Buck—for the first time, I think. I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing this debate, not only as vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on diabetes, but as a fellow Fox—a supporter of Leicester City Football Club. As we heard from the hon. Member for South Antrim (Paul Girvan), he is also probably one of the most assiduous Members of this House.
I am pleased to see the Minister in her place and congratulate her on her appointment. I hope she will last longer than the last three diabetes Ministers—I am not one of those who wants a general election tomorrow, and we would like to see her build herself into her portfolio. I hope she will last as long as the shadow Minister, who has been there a while and so has been through many Ministers. We hope they will be able to share information. Let us keep the Minister in her place for some time—until the election, of course.
I declare my interest as a type 2 diabetic and chair of the all-party parliamentary group on diabetes. I have a family history: my mother, Merlyn, and my maternal grandmother both had diabetes, which gave me a 4% higher than average chance of getting diabetes. Added to my south Asian heritage, that makes me six times more likely than my European counterparts to be someone who would get type 2.
We have heard some amazing statistics. We should all just sit down, as if we were sitting in the Supreme Court, and say, “We agree with the hon. Member for Strangford,” because we agree with practically everything that he and my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) have said. However, it would not, of course, be the nature of Parliament if we all just agreed with the speech of the person before us, so I will plough on; I apologise if I repeat some of the things already mentioned.
As we know, every two minutes someone is diagnosed with diabetes. In my own city of Leicester, a higher than average number of people have diabetes—8.9% compared with 6.4% nationally—and that is expected to rise to 12% of the city’s population by 2025. That is due to the higher proportion of black and minority ethnic residents compared with the UK national average—BAME communities are genetically more likely to get diabetes.
In the time that I have spent as a type 2 diabetic, which is about 10 years, and as the chair of the APPG, I have come to the conclusion that there are five pillars of diabetes care, and I want to talk briefly about each one. The first is putting consumers first: we must put diabetics at the heart of diabetes care. There are meetings, seminars and events—a whole industry around diabetes care. We need new technology, experts and so forth, but we must never forget that it is the consumers—the diabetics—who should be put at the forefront of the debate on diabetes. Sometimes we forget the user: the people at the end of the process.
As we have heard, we need better technology. Members of the APPG and I visited the Abbott site in Witney in July 2019. I was first invited to go there by the former Prime Minister, in whose former constituency Abbott is based, because we wanted to look at the company that produced flash glucose monitoring devices, which have transformed the lives of so many people with type 1 diabetes. We went there because there are shortages of the equipment. In the past, one could go on the website and take one’s own device. There has been a shortage since the Government very kindly decided that everyone with type 1 diabetes would be able to get a machine on World Diabetes Day last year, so we went to talk to the chief executive about it. I know the company is working hard to ensure that the situation is reversed—I suppose we win the lottery by being able to provide the machines, but then we find that we do not have enough machines. I hope that this is going to improve.
I would like to show you my fingers, Ms Buck, so you can see the holes from my twice-daily finger pricking—I am surprised that I have any blood left. I use my GlucoRX device in the morning and am shocked at the reading in the evening, but I just carry on. I would love to have a flash glucose monitoring device—I cannot get it on prescription, because it would probably bankrupt the NHS if all type 2 diabetics received it, but it is a very important device.
My hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton, who is an assiduous member of the APPG, reminds us of the importance of diabetes specialist nurses such as Debbie Hicks in Enfield and Jill Hill, who have both given evidence to the APPG at one of our meetings. They have an incredible amount of knowledge. To go back to what the hon. Member for South Antrim said, we know that doctors are gods—they have a better reputation than MPs, anyway. Who wants to listen to an MP when they can listen to their local GP? However, they do not have the time. From our constituents, we all know that doctors are unable to see all their patients and spend sufficient time with them talking about diabetes. The point that has been made about diabetes specialist nurses is very important: we need to ensure that we have more of them.
The second pillar of diabetes care, after the need to put consumers first, is awareness. We all know that diabetes is a ticking timebomb. There are 4.6 million people with diabetes in the country, but an additional 1.1 million people, which is equivalent to the entire population of Birmingham—imagine the whole of Birmingham suddenly getting diabetes overnight—are undiagnosed. We therefore need to support awareness campaigns, which have been led very much by the private sector but supported by the Government, because that is the best way to tell whether people have type 2 diabetes and whether they can change their lifestyle.
We have heard from the former Chinese-meal eating, lemonade and fizzy drink-drinking hon. Member for Strangford how he changed his lifestyle. If only he had been told before, he might have changed it earlier. I remember that when my mother had type 2 diabetes, I had just been appointed Minister for Europe by Tony Blair and had no time to look after my mother. I was flying around Europe trying to enlarge the European Union by bringing in Poland and Hungary—as we are about to leave the European Union, I will not start another debate about that. The fact is that I did not spend enough time with my mum, which is a source of great guilt for me personally—finding out about diabetes, how she got it, what she was doing about it, and why she was still eating chocolate when she was a type 1 diabetic. Looking back at it, it seems amazing. It is important that we diagnose earlier, because then we can take our medication.
Jim Shannon
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and I thank him for putting forward his own personal story. The Government have taken some steps in the right direction on the sugar tax. Does he think we should be looking at things such as a soft drinks levy; trying obesity reduction through sugar in schools, in food and in the standards that are put forward; addressing the issue of takeaway food and restaurants, where the level of sugar in meals is incredibly high; introducing a 9 pm watershed for junk food advertising; banning multibuy offers; and providing clearer labelling? Those six things would be a step in the right direction.
Keith Vaz
I say yes to the hon. Gentleman on all those points—I agree with them all. I will come to the sugar tax later, but I can take a chunk out of my speech by saying that I agree with all those six points. His shopping list is fine with me, and I will happily copy it.
However, campaigns are extremely important. Very soon, we will have World Diabetes Day. Diabetes UK writes to everyone, asking them to turn buildings in their constituency blue. That is in just 26 days’ time. As chair of the APPG, I have written to mayors across the country, asking them to turn their landmark buildings blue. I ask the Minister to turn the Department of Health and Social Care blue on the outside—it may well be blue on the inside—on World Diabetes Day. I say to the hon. Member for Strangford that he should turn the Castle Ward or the statue of St Patrick blue in his constituency to raise awareness. Of course, one day we will have a statue to the hon. Gentleman himself in Strangford, next to the one of Jamie Vardy, and we will turn them both blue.
We in the all-party parliamentary group, of which we have so many members here—one could call them the usual suspects, but I call them the all-stars—meet every month. We produce reports, one of the most important of which is on mental health and diabetes, something that diabetics are simply not aware of when they get diabetes. I certainly was not aware of it. Support for mental health and wellbeing is critically important to people who have type 2 diabetes. It is an ongoing thing; people do not know why they have depression or why their lifestyle has changed, but it is to do with diabetes. I pay tribute to Diabetes UK, to Chris Askew, and to Nycolle Diniz for the work she does for the APPG.
It is not only specialist nurses who can help us, but other professionals, such as pharmacists. Everyone knows that pharmacies and pharmacists have great expertise in diabetes. My mum—I go back to talking about my mum—could spend more time with her pharmacist in Evington in Leicester talking about her condition than she ever did with her doctor. Maybe the Government should run the awareness campaigns through the pharmacies. That would mean reducing the money going to the doctors a little, and they will quaff around and complain—but if we fund pharmacies to do the testing, we will save so much money in the end. Pharmacists such as our APPG ambassador, Jimmy Desai in Ilford, have done an amazing job. Let us empower them to do things.
The third pillar is prevention, which we have all talked about, and reversal if possible. The hon. Member for Strangford has changed in terms of his weight; we have heard from people such as Dr David Unwin, another of our ambassadors at the all-party parliamentary group, that around 60% of cases of type 2 diabetes can be delayed or prevented by making those lifestyle changes and having a healthy, balanced diet.
At the Health Hub in Doha, which I recommend the Minister visits—although obviously not if there is a crucial vote, as the Government will need her here; I am happy to pair with her and we can go together—if a doctor says, “You are borderline diabetic,” they do not give the patient tablets. Rather, they say, “Here is a prescription to go to the gym downstairs. Start doing your gym work, and don’t see me again until you get your lifestyle sorted out,” because lifestyle makes a great deal of difference. Some of us have our watches connected to our phones—I do not know whether my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Sir George Howarth) does—so we know about our steps. I very rarely hit 10,000, but at least there is a willingness to try to do more exercise, and walking round the Palace is a way to make sure we do that.
As we have heard, obesity is a killer. Obesity-related conditions cost the NHS—cost the Minister—£6.1 billion a year. I adopt as my own the shopping list of the hon. Member for Strangford: the six things he has asked for, from the watershed to multiple offers in supermarkets. We should all do that and say, “Let’s do it.” The private sector has done its bit. Kellogg’s has put traffic light labelling on most of its cereal packs sold in the United Kingdom since 2018—well done to it!
Paul Girvan
On food and how manufacturers can help, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that much of the focus is on sugar, and little is on carbs, which normally convert to sugar in the body? With the Dose Adjustment For Normal Eating—DAFNE—programme, instead of counting sugar, people count carbs. It is really only for type 1 diabetics, but it helps them administer their insulin according to the carbs they have eaten during the day.
Ms Karen Buck (in the Chair)
Order. I gently encourage the right hon. Gentleman to stay within the topic.
Keith Vaz
I will. I hope that was not related to my mentioning George Osborne. We want to thank him for introducing the sugar tax, which has made a huge difference. Sugar in soft drinks has gone down by 28.8%, which is a huge achievement.
We have all praised the great Jonathan Valabhji, but I also want to mention the work of Partha Kar, who only this morning set right the statement by Mr Paul Hollywood on “The Great British Bake Off”, who said that one of the dishes looked like “diabetes on a plate”. I am sure he meant it as a joke, but for type 1s it was a real surprise that someone should speak like that. We desperately need structured education. We have all talked about the three hours of care, but there are 8,757 other hours.
In a few days’ time, we will be launching in Leicester the diabetes log book by the Leicester physician Dr Domine McConnell. I hope the Minister will spare some time to come and read it and perhaps launch it with us. It will give patients a better understanding of how they can record and monitor information. They can keep it with them and take all their readings wherever they go. Far too often, when I visit my GP I cannot remember my last HbA1c reading, and I need to make sure that is done. I realise that it can be done on a phone, but not everyone is able to do that.
My last plug for Leicester before I end is about the pilot that has been put together by the chair of the clinical commissioning group, Dr Azhar Farooqui, and Sue Lock, its retiring chief executive. It allows, on a Thursday, all diabetics to go to the Merlyn Vaz Health and Social Care Centre in Leicester. It is a very important initiative. People can have their feet looked at, their eyes looked at, their blood tested, their lifestyle dealt with—all the things they need to do, on one morning in one place. The opportunity to put that together makes a great difference.
Jim Shannon
In my GP surgery, and I think across the whole of Northern Ireland, GPs have classes for diabetics. They bring them in and do all those things: they do their feet, check their blood, check their eyes, talk about their health and check them over physically. They send those tests away, and they are brought back to make sure they are clear. Things are often done in other parts of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland that could be used as examples here. The right hon. Gentleman is talking about what is happening in Leicester, and it is good to hear that, but we are very fortunate to have that in my clinic and other clinics across Northern Ireland, where we get those checks twice a year.
Ms Karen Buck (in the Chair)
Earlier, I was advising the right hon. Gentleman not to stray in terms of breadth, not in terms of length.
Keith Vaz
Well, I will go on longer, then—excellent! That makes me feel much better.
I hope the Minister will come and visit the Merlyn Vaz Health and Social Care Centre. People like me and the hon. Member for Strangford have to go to eight different professionals to have our diabetes checked. In one visit on one morning in Leicester, people can have it all done, from the top of their head to their feet and everything in between—they can get it all tested.
I will end with an anecdote; I was going to end, Ms Buck, because the House has heard enough from me. I recently saw a film—the hon. Member for Strangford will like this, because it was about the Beatles, and people of our general age will remember them—called “Yesterday”, directed by Danny Boyle. It was about how the internet went down on a particular day, and references to the Beatles disappeared, so nobody knew about them. Nobody knew their songs or who they were. When they typed in “Beatles”, they just got a beetle on the screen.
There is a scene in that film when somebody turns to another person and says, “I’m going outside to have a cigarette.” The person says, “What’s a cigarette?” because the cigarette had disappeared from the internet along with the Beatles. No one could remember it. When we introduced the smoking ban, it had a profound effect on cancer issues. We want to ensure that diabetes is reversed for type 2s and that we are able to manage and help those with type 1. We start that with a war on sugar and changing the way we live. Working together, I think the House can achieve that.
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing this debate and for his personal account of his experience. He covered diet, control and tablets in his general summary of the issue. He highlighted the importance of prevention, the correlation between poverty and lifestyle, the importance of messaging to different sections of our society and the value of digital solutions.
We also heard from the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes), who also has direct experience of the issue. She emphasised the importance of the difference between types 1 and 2. Most of my comments will be about type 2. The right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), a very knowledgeable Member, covered a range of points. It is impossible to disagree with anything I have heard today. I thoroughly enjoyed the presentations.
I am not diabetic, but when I phoned my office to tell my office manager that I had a debate about diabetes today, she thought I said that I had diabetes. She said, “I’m not surprised, with your lifestyle and diet.” There may be some lessons there that we all need to take away. We need to look at our diets, in particular.
We have heard about the scale of the problem in Northern Ireland and England, and I have to say that the Scottish situation is not dissimilar. In 2016, more than 257,000 people were living with a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes across Scotland, and every year 17,000 people are diagnosed with it. It is estimated that about 10% of cases of type 2 diabetes remain undiagnosed. Diabetes Scotland estimates that more than 500,000 people in Scotland are at high risk of developing type 2 diabetes. The NHS spends about 9% of its total health expenditure treating type 2 diabetes.
It is estimated that more than one in 16 people across the UK has diabetes, whether diagnosed or undiagnosed. Around 80% of diabetes complications are preventable, so just think how much we could save the NHS by tackling the problem, as well as the benefits that could be brought to people’s lifestyles. We should not short-change ourselves by cutting back on the diabetes spend—it is a spend-to-save area. Many of those complications are preventable or can at least be significantly delayed through early detection, good care and access to appropriate self-management tools and resources.
Being overweight is the most significant risk factor for the development of type 2 diabetes. Diabetes can be prevented with targeted weight management interventions that provide individuals with the support, skills and resources to improve their health and delay the onset of type 2 diabetes. As we have heard, recent studies have shown that it is possible to reverse a recent diagnosis of type 2 diabetes through intensive weight management programmes, which would enable the individual to achieve remission.
As obesity and lifestyle are such significant factors, what we do with our young people is critical. The SNP Scottish Government have a plan to halve childhood obesity by 2030, and that sits at the heart of the diet and healthy weight delivery plan. The Scottish Government’s commitment to legislate on the restriction of point-of-purchase junk food promotions will be a major help. I hope that we will see action from the UK Government on advertising, particularly on TV and in the media, because that would make a big difference. In 2019-20, the Scottish Government invested an additional £1.7 million in weight management services for children and young people. Targeted messages are a key component of the Scottish Government’s diabetes prevention, detection and intervention framework.
The Scottish Government’s framework “A Healthier Future: Framework for the Prevention, Early Detection and Early Intervention of type 2 Diabetes” was published in 2018—the Library briefing contains links to it, so hon. Members can see the full details. The framework is supported by £42 million until 2023, and it was produced in collaboration with the prevention sub-committee of the Scottish Diabetes Group, which comprises informed specialists in diabetes, dietetics, maternal health, public health, primary care and obesity.
Wider support should be available for all individuals who have been identified as at risk. Health and social care professionals should signpost individuals to the support groups that are available to them. A Local Information System for Scotland, or ALISS, is a programme funded by the Scottish Government and delivered by the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland. The objectives are to increase the availability of health and wellbeing information for people living with long-term conditions, disabled people and unpaid carers, and to support people, communities, professionals and organisations who have information to share. The sharing of information is critical. The Scottish Government also published the diabetes improvement plan in 2014, with prevention as its No. 1 priority.
It is important to get the right messages to people, and methods of communication must also be considered. Modern-day flexibility and the use of mobile phones in everyday life means that they are an ideal tool to support people with diabetes, whose conditions needs constant management. Additionally, they can provide effective methods of support to patients in rural and remote locations where access to healthcare providers is limited. However, we must be careful when adopting such practices because there are drawbacks, such as the digital divide. Mobile phone use is lower among some groups, such as the elderly, the poorest and people with disabilities, so face-to-face contact remains a vital communication tool.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Buck. In my long tenure as shadow Minister for Public Health, it has been a pleasure to speak in many debates with the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), on all sorts of health issues. I congratulate him on securing this debate and on his excellent speech. I know that diabetes is an important issue to him and I thank him for speaking so honestly about his own journey with diabetes. In the past, I have spoken about my own journey, but I do not plan to dwell on that too much today.
I thank other hon. Members for their excellent contributions: my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes), my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) and the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day). Although there are not many of us in attendance, we have heard some excellent contributions and the debate has been full, detailed and excellent. I also thank charities such as Diabetes UK for the work that they do, both to support people with diabetes and to prevent diabetes.
Like the Secretary of State and, I am sure, the Minister, we all believe that prevention is better than cure. We all say that, and I honestly think that we all believe it. As hon. Members have said, however, the Government repeat that mantra but have cut public health funding to the tune of £700 million since 2013. Those cuts have had a serious impact on the nation’s health, but they have hit those in low-income areas the most, as we have heard. That is particularly concerning, given that children and adults living in deprived areas are substantially more likely to be obese, and obesity is a risk factor for diabetes—particularly type 2 diabetes, as my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton made clear.
According to NHS Digital, one quarter of people living with type 2 diabetes in England are from the most deprived fifth of society, compared with 15% from the least deprived. We have had that knowledge for a long time, so it really is time that the Government used the knowledge and took action to tackle both the obesity and the diabetes epidemic, both of which disproportionately affect those in the most deprived areas.
Opposition Members have been clear that there is no silver bullet to fix the issue. However, we support the proposal to introduce a 9 pm watershed on the advertising of food that is high in fat, salt and sugar. We also support a restriction on the sale of energy drinks to under-16s and clearer labelling on food and drink—that would help us all. Those are all policies on which the Government have consulted, but we have yet to see anything from the Government setting out whether they will be implemented. Can the Minister update us on the consultations when she responds?
Jim Shannon
I congratulate the hon. Lady on her contribution and her comments. I was sitting here thinking about families and diabetes. In a family of four or five, there may be one diabetic member of the household. I believe that the whole family—mum and dad, brothers and sisters; whoever it may be—need to give consideration to the person with diabetes to ensure that their battle with diabetes is one that the whole family fights together. That is difficult to do, but it is important that families realise that they have a job to do.
Mrs Hodgson
I am not sure whether there is a hereditary aspect to it, but I am aware that sometimes there can be a number of people with diabetes in the same family. I am the only one I know of in my family with the condition, but then again I do not know my father’s side. My mam always says that I take after my dad with regard to my size, so perhaps there is a link and I am just not aware of it. The eating habits of members of a family can be very similar. If eating habits have led someone to get diabetes, the condition could have affected others in the same family, so the hon. Gentleman makes a valid point.
The evidence shows that the policies proposed by the Government, if they are fully and quickly implemented, could help us to make real progress towards reducing childhood obesity by 2030. Will the Minister tell us what the delay is? Instead of just window-dressing with the childhood obesity plan chapters 1 and 2 and the former chief medical officer’s special report on childhood obesity, which we had in the past couple of weeks, the Government must now take bold action and implement all the policies in the reports. The time for reports and consultations is over. We all know what needs to be done, and now we need urgent action.
According to NHS England, managing the growing incidence of diabetes in England is set to become one of the major clinical challenges of the 21st century, as we have heard expressed clearly in this debate. Estimates suggest that the number of people with diabetes is expected to rise to 4.2 million by 2030, affecting almost 9% of the population, with all the associated costs.
More than half of all cases of type 2 diabetes could be prevented or delayed. The hon. Member for Strangford and my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East both spoke about that in detail. By reducing the number of people who are overweight or obese, we can reduce the number of people who develop type 2 diabetes and live with the life-changing complications that are associated with it. Like the hon. Gentleman, I wish I had known much sooner the irreversible damage that I was doing to myself. I have done a detailed blog post about it, which is available online, if anyone is interested in my thoughts—I will go into them no further in this debate. Steps that the Government take today will benefit people greatly tomorrow, so will the Minister please outline the Government’s plans to prevent further incidence of diabetes?
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to diabetes, which is why targeted messaging and support is so important, alongside societal and environmental changes to tackle obesity, as I have mentioned. Interventions such as NHS health checks, weight management programmes and the NHS diabetes prevention programme should therefore be offered and taken up more often in order to identify risk and to prevent diabetes. Many people who are eligible for the NHS health checks are not invited to them or do not attend.
What will the Government do to encourage people to attend their NHS health check and to ensure that everyone who is eligible is definitely invited for a check? About 1 million people live with undiagnosed type 2 diabetes, and one in three people already have diabetes complications by the time they are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, so that service could be invaluable in preventing further incidence of diabetes and of the complications that sufferers experience.
Those who have diabetes know that it is possible to put type 2 diabetes into remission through substantial weight loss. As the hon. Member for Strangford mentioned, my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Tom Watson) has been incredibly vocal about his very visible journey. He has been an inspiration to many. We need to make sure that when people go into diabetes remission, they continue to get support, access to diabetes monitoring and, where necessary, care, because, as I was told, “You are never cured.” Even if someone with diabetes is in remission through diet, they will still forever be a diabetic—we have broken our bodies, basically.
People who wish to go into remission must have continued support. There is still a need for more research to understand the long-term impact of remission on reducing complications, but for now the future in that regard looks positive. This debate has been excellent, and it has demonstrated that there are clearly steps that the Government can and should take to prevent diabetes. I hope that the Minister will take them on board. I look forward to her response.
In closing, I thank and congratulate—on behalf of all us who are living with diabetes—Professor Ian Shanks, the inventor of the blood glucose monitor some 40 years ago. I was so pleased to hear the news overnight that he is to be paid a small award. I say “small” because, although it is £2 million, I understand that most of it will be eaten up by the legal costs of a 13-year battle. He might not be a rich man after he has paid all his legal bills, but he will be rich in terms of gratitude for the millions of lives he has saved, and no doubt improved, with his invention.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Jo Churchill)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Buck.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on securing this important debate, on its tone and on how informative it has been. It is a powerful indicator of how a debate in this place can help to educate and spread information. As the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) said, types 1 and 2 are distinctly different conditions. It is important for us to note that so that when people talk about diabetes, they do not talk about it in the round as one condition, but nuance it. That goes to the heart of what the hon. Gentleman was asking for—information to be tailored to the patient and every individual, so that people receive the information appropriate for them.
I thank the hon. Member for Strangford and all Members who sit on the all-party parliamentary group for diabetes for their fantastic work. It is one of the most dynamic APPGs in this place. In particular, I thank the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who chairs it. I am afraid that I do not share his and the hon. Member for Strangford’s love for Leicester City, but as a regular visitor to Welford Road, I know his city and I like the tiger in it. I will leave it there.
More than 3 million people in England have been diagnosed with diabetes and, as the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) said, an estimated further 1 million remain undiagnosed. Public Health England estimates that 5 million people are at high risk of developing type 2 diabetes, and that number rises each year. Like everyone in this room, and probably everyone in the country, I know someone with diabetes. My mum is in remission—she has lost a lot of weight and she exercises, but she is in her 80s, which shows that no matter people’s age, they can take steps to help them live healthily, even with a condition.
The hon. Member for South Antrim (Paul Girvan) spoke about his wife, and the importance of people looking after themselves during their journey with diabetes, so that they know they are as in control of their condition as they can be. As we have heard from several Members, diabetes has other effects on the body, and it is important that people with the condition look after their eyes, their kidneys and, in particular, their feet. That presents challenges for people attending multiple different clinics for multiple different things.
I will also mention Professor Jonathan Valabhji, the national clinical director for diabetes and obesity. I look forward to working with Jonathan, who strikes me as a truly inspirational person in this area. Only last week, he told me not to be too hard on the situation, and that we have come a long way over the decades. We no longer see the same number of amputations or complications. There has been improvement in the treatment, and it is important to recognise that clinicians have done an awful lot.
Preventing type 2 diabetes and promoting the best possible care for all people is a key priority. I am proud to say that NHS England, NHS Improvement, Public Health England and Diabetes UK have had great success with the first diabetes prevention programme to be delivered at scale nationwide.
Keith Vaz
With a new Minister, we get a new broom and, therefore, a fresh pair of eyes. The collection of data is a key issue. We have tabled parliamentary questions to Ministers and asked, for example, how many diabetic nurses there are in the country or how many doctors have a specialism in diabetes. Those facts are available in Scotland, but not in England. Will the Minister make it a priority, as a result of this debate, if nothing else, to get more of that data? With good data, we can plan better.
Jo Churchill
I certainly agree that good data and evidence lie at the heart of delivering good patient-centred programmes. I will take that issue away to look at it and write to him on it.
Sir George Howarth
Further to the points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), I tried to get information about waiting times in clinics and hospitals for various kinds of appointments related to diabetes out of the Minister’s Department, but I was unable to. When she looks at my right hon. Friend’s list, will she look at mine too?
Jo Churchill
I truly will. That brings me to the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton, who wrote to me about the meeting she mentioned. I have written back to say I would really appreciate the chance to meet her to discuss the various challenges. Having already had an obesity roundtable and a Green Paper roundtable, I know there is an awful lot of overlap in these areas. I feel we could work on that. If she will forgive me, I will get back to answering the hon. Member for Strangford.
Over 2018 and 2019, the diabetes prevention programme achieved full national roll-out, making England the first country in the world to achieve full geographic coverage, which is a great achievement. There is strong international evidence demonstrating how behavioural interventions that support people to maintain a healthy weight and be more active can significantly reduce their risk of developing the condition in the first place, which I think the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West referred to. The programme identifies those at high risk and refers them on to behaviour change programmes, which, as we know, is very much more likely to lead to positive results than sending someone away and telling them, “Get on with it yourself.”
The NHS long-term plan commits to doubling the capacity of the diabetes prevention programme to up to 200,000 people per year by 2023-24 to address the higher than expected demand and specifically to target inequalities. Furthermore, NHS England and NHS Improvement have enabled digital routes to access the programme, which will support individuals of working age in particular. As the hon. Member for Strangford pointed out, it is important that people can get information where it is most accessible. Those digital routes went live across nearly half the country in August 2019, and full digital coverage is expected in the next year.
The hon. Members for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) and for Upper Bann (David Simpson) spoke about children. That is where the prevention Green Paper, “Advancing our health: prevention in the 2020s”, targeted support, tailored lifestyle advice and personalised care using new technologies will all have an effect. I take on board the point that there have been a lot of consultations and so on in this area. We received an awful lot of responses to the Green Paper and we are considering them, but I will make announcements shortly, particularly on ending the sale of energy drinks, on promotions and on one or two of the other areas the hon. Member for Strangford mentioned, so watch this space. I have been in position for only 12 weeks, but this whole area is of huge importance to the nation’s health. I hope that, if we can target children and young people through their lifetime, we can stop problems later on.
Jim Shannon
I am very encouraged—I think we all are—by the Minister’s response on that point. When she brings recommendations and legislation forward, I think she will find that Members across the House will be very supportive of them. I am greatly encouraged by what she says.
Jo Churchill
I thank the hon. Gentleman. I hope Members noticed that yesterday we launched the National Academy for Social Prescribing. I think Members across the House understand that people do not always need a tablet when they go to the doctor. The hon. Gentleman spoke about the importance of mental health support, referral to exercise classes and various other things for people with diabetes. I was lucky enough to go to Charlton Athletic yesterday and see some brilliant things being put into practice in the community, where the messaging was much better received. Twenty-six per cent less men feel able to go and talk to their doctor, so perhaps we can give them the message at their football club, their rugby club or just their workplace. That applies to women too, now they have much busier lives and many more of them work. Targeting people appropriately so we can get messages to them in the right places about how they can look after themselves better has to be the right way to go.
A dedicated Type 2 Diabetes Prevention Week campaign was launched in 2018. The campaign aims to raise awareness among healthcare staff in primary care about the causes, complications and groups at risk of type 2 diabetes, which I think was mentioned, and the services available to manage patient health. Following the success of the last two years, the campaign will be rolled out again in 2020.
The hon. Member for Strangford mentioned the importance of ensuring that messaging to support those with diabetes is tailored to relevant sectors of society. In June 2018, Language Matters was launched to encourage positive interactions with people living with diabetes, to ensure tailored messaging to relevant sectors of society and to expand routes into the prevention programme. It is a little like health checks: people have to know about it, and know how to use it, in order to access it.
In 2017-18, and again in 2018-19, an additional £5 million per year was made available for diabetes specialist nurses. There is a need to beef up support in that area. Diabetes UK, which I have already met—I happen to be lucky enough to have known its chief executive for some time, and it was at the obesity roundtable, as was Cancer Research UK—does a fantastic job in helping to spread that message and to provide information. Another message that has come out is “think pharmacy first” to empower pharmacists. The 11,500 pharmacists on our high streets are a resource that is just waiting to be used, and I hope the new pharmacy contract will be the start of that relationship.
We will do more in the future to support those with type 2 diabetes. There are a range of apps in the NHS app store to further overcome many of the issues people currently face with traditional, face-to-face structured education. NHS England and NHS Improvement are developing online self-management support tools called Healthy Living for people with type 2 diabetes. Many in the Chamber will be familiar with DAFNE and DESMOND—dose adjustment for normal eating, and diabetes education and self-management for ongoing and newly diagnosed—as well as other programmes for those living with diabetes.
Healthy Living will consist of a structured education course with additional content focused on maintaining a healthy lifestyle, including content on weight management, alcohol reduction and cognitive behavioural therapy for diabetes-related distress. Once the course has been developed, NHSE hopes to commence its roll-out from January 2020. It will have universal availability, it will be free to users and local commissioners, and it is intended as an online resource to supplement other quality assured digital coaching programmes that can be commissioned in local health economies. However, it will be in addition to face-to-face support, because everyone has a preferred method of getting information.
As the right hon. Member for Leicester East said, the risk of developing type 2 diabetes is higher in black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. I am pleased to say that NHS England and NHS Improvement are working with the Cultural Intelligence Hub to deliver an insight project to support future communications and improve engagement with those communities. The aim is to support an increase in available places on the NHS diabetes prevention programme and the take-up of those places; to raise awareness of type 2 diabetes, its risk factors and complications, and ways to prevent it; and to promote messages.
NHS England and NHS Improvement have invested £39 million in each year of transformation funding. That funding is key to improving structured education, reducing variation and helping with foot care for diabetic foot disease.
I agree that new technology is key to the management of diabetes. I hope the shortage in the supply of flash monitors will be overcome shortly, but what fantastic news it is that so many people, including many of our colleagues in this place, now have access to those monitors. I know how much difference they can make to people’s lives, and that is only to be welcomed.
I thank the hon. Member for Strangford for highlighting this issue. I look forward to meeting the all-party parliamentary group and working further with it on these messages. I hope I have demonstrated that we are working hard so people can receive the treatment and support they need to live longer but enjoy quality of life.
Jim Shannon
I thank the right hon Members for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) and for Knowsley (Sir George Howarth); the hon. Members for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) and for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day); the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson); and my hon. Friends the Members for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell), for Upper Bann (David Simpson) and for South Antrim (Paul Girvan). Most of all, I thank the Minister. We are all greatly encouraged by what she said and look forward to working with her to deliver a good, effective, positive and evidential diabetes strategy that can make lives better. All of us here are committed to that. Let’s do it together.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered tailored prevention messaging for diabetes.
Written Statements
European Union (Withdrawal) Act and Common Frameworks Report
(5 years ago)
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The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Michael Gove)
I am today laying before Parliament a report, the “European Union (Withdrawal) Act and Common Frameworks - 26 June 2019 to 25 September 2019” as required by paragraph 4 of schedule 3 to the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. The report is available on gov.uk and details the progress made in discussions between the UK Government and devolved Administrations regarding common frameworks in the fifth reporting period covered under the legislation, and sets out that no “freezing” regulations have been brought forward under section 12 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act. A copy of “The European Union (Withdrawal) Act and Common Frameworks - 26 June to 25 September 2019” report has been placed in the Libraries of both Houses. The publication of the report reflects the Government’s continued commitment to transparency.
Attachments can be viewed online at
http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questionsanswers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2019-10-24/HCWS41/.
[HCWS41]
Capacity Market
(5 years ago)
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The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Andrea Leadsom)
I am pleased to announce that today the European Commission has confirmed its original decision in 2014 to grant state aid approval for the capacity market, enabling this vital tool for electricity security of supply to be restored and payments that have been suspended since November 2018 to be made.
The Commission opened an in-depth investigation to gather more information on certain elements of the capacity market after the General Court of the Court of Justice of the European Union annulled the Commission’s earlier state aid approval of the scheme on procedural grounds on 15 November 2018.
The Commission has now satisfactorily concluded its investigation and has concluded that the capacity market as operated since 2014, including during the investigation, complies with state aid rules. Notably, the Commission did not find any evidence that the capacity market puts demand side response or any other capacity providers at a disadvantage with respect to their participation in the scheme.
The Government welcome the Commission’s decision, which enables the capacity market to resume its important work as Great Britain’s principal tool for ensuring electricity security of supply and provides confidence that its design is fit for purpose.
We are awaiting the Commission’s full decision, but expect that its decision means we will be able to:
Restart the mechanism for making payments to capacity providers, including the c.£1 billion of deferred payments that have been suspended because of the standstill period as well as future capacity payments. The vast majority of the back-payments will reach capacity providers in January 2020;
Invoice suppliers for the supplier charge relating to the standstill period which will be used to fund the deferred capacity payments. The Government have been engaging with suppliers during the standstill period to ensure they have been setting aside funding to meet what will be a substantial post-standstill invoice;
Confirm that the conditional capacity agreements awarded in the replacement T-1 auction, held in July 2019, have become full capacity agreements. This will ensure we have in place all the capacity needed to ensure security of supply this winter; and
Confirm the three capacity auctions scheduled for early 2020 will take place. These will secure the majority of our capacity needs out to 2023-24.
The Commission’s decision also notes that the UK has committed to implementing a number of improvements to the capacity market’s design to reflect recent market and regulatory developments, including those identified through our recent five-year review of the effectiveness of the capacity market. These will ensure the continued compatibility of the capacity market with state aid rules in the future and relate to: (i) the lowering of the minimum capacity threshold for participating in the auctions; (ii) the direct participation of foreign capacity; (iii) the participation rules for new types of capacity; (iv) the access to long-term agreements; (v) the volume of capacity to be secured in the year-ahead auction and (vi) compliance with the new electricity regulation.
My Department will shortly consult on arrangements for implementing these commitments.
I will be writing imminently to our delivery partners responsible for delivering the capacity market—the capacity market delivery body (National Grid Electricity System Operator) and the settlement body (Electricity Settlements Company)—to notify them of the Commission’s approval decision and confirm the occurrence of the deferred capacity payment trigger event and T-1 capacity agreement trigger event (the triggers for the resumption of capacity payments). These bodies will subsequently be required to resume making capacity payments, carry out new duties arising from the triggers, and restart any duties that had been suspended during the standstill period. Our delivery partners have worked closely with my Department to ensure that their systems and processes remain fit for purpose; they stand ready to support the restart process immediately.
[HCWS38]
Insolvency Service Performance Targets 2019-20
(5 years ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Kelly Tolhurst)
I have set performance targets for the Insolvency Service for the financial year 2019-20. The Insolvency Service is the Government agency that provides public services to those affected by financial distress or failure. Ministerial Target 2018-19 target 2018-19 performance 2019-20 target Delivering economic confidence Per cent of users[1] who are satisfied with the Insolvency Service 85% or greater 84% 85% or greater Supporting those in financial distress Average calendar days taken to action a redundancy claim 14 days or fewer 12.2 days 14 days or fewer Tackling financial wrongdoing Average time taken to obtain a disqualification 21 months or fewer 19.9 months 20 months or fewer Average time taken to obtain a bankruptcy restriction 10 months or fewer 8.6 months 10 months or fewer Average time taken to instigate a criminal prosecution 24 months or fewer 25.9 months 24 months or fewer Maximising returns to creditors Per cent of reports to creditors issued within 15 calendar days of an attended interview [2] 90% or greater 92.6% 91% or greater Total value distributed to creditors [3] £55m or greater £61.3m £60m or greater Financial management Expenditure to be managed within budget Achieve Achieved Achieve
The Insolvency Service provides the frameworks that deal with insolvency and the financial misconduct that sometimes accompanies or leads to it. Its aim is to deliver economic confidence through a corporate and personal insolvency regime which is regarded as fair and that gives investors and lenders confidence to take the commercial risks necessary to support economic growth.
In 2019-20, an important priority for the Insolvency Service will be to maintain its current high level of customer service whilst delivering a major change programme. I have set measures and targets at a level which reflect the challenges that the agency continues to face.
[1] a) Debt relief order debtors; b) approved intermediaries; c) bankrupts; d) directors of insolvent companies; e) redundancy payment claimants; f) institutional creditors; g) non-institutional creditors; h) insolvency practitioners.
[2] Or where a decision is made that no interview is required or the agreed point of non-surrender.
[3] Excludes distributions relating to Carillion.
[HCWS36]
Post-October Environment Council
(5 years ago)
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The Minister for Business, Energy and Clean Growth (Kwasi Kwarteng)
My noble Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Minister for Climate Change, Lord Duncan of Springbank has today made the following statement:
I attended the EU Environment Council on 4 October in Luxembourg. Roseanna Cunningham, Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform, also attended. I wish to update the House on the matters discussed.
UNFCCC COP25 preparations - adoption of conclusions
The presidency invited member states to discuss and adopt conclusions on the 25th session of the conference of the parties (COP25) to the United Nations framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC). The presidency set out four objectives for COP25: (1) complete work on the implementation guidelines of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement on “co-operative approaches”, including the international trade of emissions reductions; (2) complete the second review of the Warsaw international mechanism for loss and damage; (3) complete the review of the Lima work programme on gender; and (4) advance technical work under the enhanced transparency framework.
All member states intervened. A grouping of ambitious member states, including the UK, called for the conclusions to state that the EU will “enhance” its nationally determined contribution (NDC -2030 emissions reduction target under the Paris Agreement), while a grouping of other member states supported softer language that the EU would “communicate” or “update” its NDC.
The UK intervened to support the inclusion of a reference to the intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 °C and ambitious language calling on all parties to the Paris Agreement to enhance their NDCs by February 2020. The UK stressed the importance of the EU committing to reach climate neutrality (net-zero greenhouse gas emissions) by 2050. The UK also supported calls for there to be five-year common time frames for NDCs and for ruling out carry-over of pre-2020 over-achievement of emissions reductions under the Kyoto Protocol. Finally, the UK noted that it will double its international climate finance to £11.6 billion over the next five years and called on all countries to consider similar pledges that they can make.
The presidency circulated a final compromise text of the conclusions which struck a balance between member states, which the Council adopted. The final conclusions highlighted that the EU will “update” its NDC, stressed the need to step up global efforts in light of the latest available science and in particular the IPCC Special Report on 1.5 °C, stressed that the EU is discussing climate neutrality in light of the Commission’s proposal for an EU-wide 2050 net-zero greenhouse gas emissions target, recalled the importance of striving towards common time frames for NDCs, and expressed commitment to setting up a new mechanism under Article 6.4 of the Paris Agreement that can lead to the closure of the Kyoto Protocol mechanisms.
Clean planet for all - EU long-term strategy - policy debate
The presidency invited member states to discuss the Commission’s proposed long-term strategy, “Clean Planet for all: EU’s strategic long-term vision for a climate neutral economy” and the proposal for an EU 2050 target of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. The purpose of the debate was to take stock of member state positions and discuss the conditions, incentives, enabling framework, and measures needed for climate neutrality in the EU, ahead of the European leaders reaching a decision at the European Council in December.
The Commission intervened expressing confidence that the EU would reach agreement on the proposed EU net-zero 2050 target by the end of the year.
The majority of member states intervened and were in broad agreement on the need to ensure a fair and just transition, to mobilise investments from the private sector, and ensuring policy and sectoral coherence in the transition. On the EU achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, member states fell into three categories: ambitious member states who stressed the need for the EU to show leadership and seize the first-mover benefits of the transition to net-zero emissions; supportive but more cautious member states highlighting the economic and geographic challenges and issues concerning carbon leakage; and the three remaining member states, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary, opposed to the EU net-zero target. The latter emphasised the differential impacts and costs of decarbonisation, relative wealth, and emissions reduction potential among member states, and therefore the need for funding and support mechanisms for those member states who would be most affected by the transition to a net-zero EU.
The 8th environmental action programme - adoption of conclusions
The presidency invited member states to adopt Council conclusions on the European Commission’s draft “8th Environmental Action Programme—Turning the Trends Together”.
Seventeen member states intervened, all in support of the programme, with some member states calling for the Commission to come forward with proposals as soon as possible. The UK intervened to note our support for the draft and the high level of ambition outlined in the conclusions. The UK also noted that these were global environmental challenges not restricted to the EU, and the UK looks forward to continuing to work with the EU collectively and member states individually on these challenges.
The presidency closed the discussion and the Council conclusions were adopted.
“More circularity” framework - adoption of conclusions
The presidency invited member states to adopt Council conclusions on the circular economy framework, “More circularity—a transition to a sustainable society”. This was the second debate on the circular economy following on from the previous discussion at the informal meeting of the Environment Council in June in Helsinki.
Some 21 member states intervened, all supportive of the position taken by the Commission, and saw the circular economy as a key part of meeting the 2030 and 2025 environmental targets and the Paris Agreement. Many member states identified the key sectors where action was needed, including textiles, water reuse, and plastics.
The presidency concluded the debates and the Council conclusions were adopted.
AOB items
The following items were also discussed under Any Other Business.
Communication on protecting and restoring forests—information from the Commission
The Commission presented its communication “Stepping up EU action to protect and restore the world’s forests”, adopted on 23 July 2019, the objective of which is to strengthen international cooperation to protect and improve the health of existing forests and increase forest coverage worldwide.
Nine member states intervened in support of the Communication, welcoming ambitious action from the EU in halting deforestation and forest degradation and highlighting the benefits for biodiversity, absorbing CO2 emissions, and livelihoods.
Transition to a fleet of zero-emission passenger cars, information from the Danish delegation, supported by the Luxembourg delegation
The Danish delegation presented a paper on the transition to a fleet of zero-emission passenger cars for accelerating the decarbonisation of the sector at the same time as preserving its competitiveness.
Eighteen member states intervened. Some member states expressed agreement that further action on zero-emission vehicles is needed to meet the existing targets and contribute to the pathway towards climate neutrality. Other member states highlighted that further action was premature given the recent agreement of CO2 targets for vehicles at the EU level. These member states also highlighted financial, competitive, and infrastructural concerns and the differential purchasing power of consumers among member states, and the increased export of second-hand cars to Central and Eastern Europe.
The Commission welcomed the discussion and stated that the new Commission, as part of the proposed European green deal, will have to consider its existing suite of policies for reducing emissions in the transport sector. The presidency concluded the discussion.
Regulation on type approval of motor vehicles—information from the presidency
The Council noted the information from the presidency on the new legislative proposal amending the regulation on type approval of motor vehicles with respect to emissions from light passenger and commercial vehicles. The legislative proposal follows the judgment of the General Court on 13 December 2018 that the Commission did not have the competence to amend the limits for real driving emission (RDE) tests. Eight member states intervened, all supportive of the swift adoption of the legislation. Interventions were divided between those supporting setting a lower conformity factor for the RDE tests compared with tests under laboratory conditions on the basis of improvements to testing equipment and the need to take action on air quality, and those supporting retention of the already-agreed limits in order to ensure legal certainty for the automotive sector and their investment decisions.
Regulation on sustainable finance taxonomy—information from the German, Luxembourg, and Austrian delegations
The Council noted the information from the German, Luxembourg, and Austrian delegations on the proposal on taxonomy for sustainable finance, who object to the current approach which classifies nuclear energy as sustainable. Fourteen member states intervened; Belgium and Italy were supportive of the effort to declassify nuclear as sustainable, while other member states stressed the importance of maintaining technology neutrality and the role of nuclear in meeting emissions reduction targets.
Report on the 18th meeting of parties to the convention on international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora—information from the presidency and Commission
The Council noted the information from the presidency and Commission on the 18th meeting of the conference of the parties (COP18) to the convention on international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora (CITES) in Geneva on 17-28 August 2019.
The 7th high-level dialogue conference of the China Europe Water Platform—information from the Portuguese delegation
The Council noted the information from the Portuguese delegation on the upcoming 7th high level dialogue conference of the China Europe Water Platform in Guimaraes on 6-9 November 2019.
[HCWS37]
General Affairs Council October 2019
(5 years ago)
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The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Stephen Barclay)
I represented the UK at the General Affairs Council (GAC) in Luxembourg on 15 October 2019. A provisional report of the meeting and the conclusions adopted can be found on the Council of the European Union’s website at:
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/meetings/gac/2019/10/15/
Enlargement and stabilisation and association of Albania and North Macedonia
The Council discussed enlargement and the stabilisation and association process as regards Albania and North Macedonia. The presidency recalled the conclusions of 18 June 2019 Council to revert to the issue no later than October 2019. However, the discussion concluded without resolution due to a lack of unanimity. The presidency issued procedural conclusions stating that the Council would return to the issue after the October European Council.
Preparation of the European Council on 17-18 October 2019: Conclusions and European Council follow-up
Ministers continued preparations for the European Council on 17-18 October. The presidency split the discussion into multiannual financial framework (MFF) and other agenda items. There was a lack of consensus among member states on the MFF proposal presented by the presidency. Leaders discussed EU priorities for the next five years; Turkey; and climate change.
AOB: Transparency seminar
The presidency briefed Ministers on the outcomes of the future of EU transparency seminar it held on 24 September in Helsinki.
[HCWS40]
Foreign Affairs Council 14 October
(5 years ago)
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The Minister for Europe and the Americas (Christopher Pincher)
The High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (HRVP), Federica Mogherini, chaired the Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) in Luxembourg on 14 October. My right hon. Friend the Minister for the Middle East and North Africa attended the meeting.
Current affairs
The HRVP and Foreign Ministers had an exchange of views on a number of pressing issues. On Iran, they recalled their commitment to the joint comprehensive plan of action (JCPoA) and highlighted the importance of continuing efforts to de-escalate tensions. The United Kingdom highlighted the importance of the joint comprehensive plan of action, the instrument in support of trade exchanges (INSTEX) and our participation in the international maritime security construct.
On Libya, Ministers expressed their support for the resumption of the UN-led political process. The United Kingdom expressed full support for German efforts to boost regional co-operation, and the importance of strict enforcement of the UN arms embargo.
The HRVP encouraged Ministers to participate in the international solidarity conference on the Venezuelan refugee and migrant crisis on 28-29 October in Brussels.
Syria
Ministers discussed the latest developments in Syria. The UN special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, briefed Ministers on the political process and preparations for the Constitutional Committee’s first meeting, due to take place at the end of October. He also expressed his concern over Turkey's military action in north-east Syria and the risks for the political process. Foreign Ministers reiterated their full support for the special envoy.
North-east Syria
The Council condemned Turkey’s unilateral military action, noting its impact on regional stability and security and the UN-led peace process, humanitarian assistance, and the global coalition’s progress to defeat Daesh (which remained a threat to European security as well as Turkey’s, regional and international security). The conclusions, while noting that Turkey was a key partner of the European Union and a critically important actor in the Syrian crisis and the region, urged Turkey to cease its unilateral military action in north-east Syria and to withdraw its forces. They also reiterated the EU’s commitment to the unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Syrian state, and urged a political and diplomatic resolution to security concerns in north-east Syria.
The conclusions recalled some member states’ decision to immediately halt arms exports licensing to Turkey and called for a ministerial meeting of the international coalition against Daesh to address how to pursue its efforts in this regard.
The conclusions reiterated that the EU would not provide stabilisation or development assistance in areas where the rights of local populations are ignored or violated, and that it remained engaged in addressing the humanitarian and refugee crisis.
Turkey’s drilling activities in the eastern Mediterranean
Ministers discussed Turkey’s drilling in the waters around Cyprus. The United Kingdom stressed that Turkey must respect Cyprus’ sovereignty and supported calls for dialogue.
The Council adopted conclusions reaffirming the EU’s solidarity with Cyprus regarding the respect of its sovereignty, and noted that delimitations of exclusive economic zones should be addressed through dialogue and negotiation in full respect of international law and in accordance with the principle of good neighbourly relations.
The Council agreed to put in place a framework regime of restrictive measures targeting natural and legal persons responsible for or involved in the illegal drilling activity of hydrocarbons in the eastern Mediterranean.
Ukraine
Ministers had a brief exchange of views in preparation for the discussion with the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko over the working lunch.
Afghanistan
The discussion was postponed to the Foreign Affairs Council meeting of 11 November 2019 due to time constraints.
Lunch with the Minister of Foreign Affairs for Ukraine Vadym Prystaiko
Over lunch, Foreign Minister Prystaiko briefed on Ukrainian reform plans. The Minister for the Middle East and North Africa underlined the United Kingdom’s commitment to supporting Ukraine on reforms and stressed the need for the EU to remain focused on Russian influence. Ministers reaffirmed the EU’s strong commitment to Ukraine, both to its territorial integrity and security and to its Government's efforts on the reforms process.
Council conclusions
The Council agreed a number of further measures:
The Council adopted conclusions on the continued presence of Operation Althea in Bosnia and Herzegovina to support authorities in maintaining a safe and secure environment for its citizens.
The Council adopted conclusions to extend restrictive measures addressing the use and proliferation of chemical weapons until 16 October 2020.
The Council adopted conclusions renewing its commitment to democracy in a changing global context.
The Council adopted conclusions to adopt a framework for targeted restrictive measures in light of the situation in Nicaragua.
The Council adopted conclusions on its engagement with Thailand.
The Council adopted conclusions on human rights, the rule of law and the fundamental freedoms of the citizens of Cameroon.
[HCWS35]
Health and Social Care
(5 years ago)
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The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)
The Department’s remit formally expanded from the “Department of Health” to the “Department of Health and Social Care” in January 2018. Our health and social care services continue to meet the challenges of rising demand and ever more complex need. In 2018-19, there were 24.8 million A&E attendances, 4.3 million more than were seen in 2009-10 and 1.7 million more within four hours. 1.8 million requests for adult social care support from 1.3 million new clients were received in 2017-18. This is down to the commitment, compassion and professionalism of the 1.3 million people who work in the NHS and the 1.6 million people working in adult social care services across the country. As at June 2019 there were over 17,300 more doctors and over 8,000 more nurses and health visitors since June 2010, with plans to recruit even more.
Since 2017, the Department has achieved a significant amount—continuing to drive forwards its strategic priorities to help people live more independent, healthier lives for longer. In July 2019, the Department reached an important milestone: the 100th anniversary since the Ministry of Health was established. It has also been working to ensure the health and social care system is as prepared as possible for EU exit.
A stronger NHS, driven forward by the ambitions set out in the NHS long term plan and significant funding commitments that support it. In July 2018 we celebrated the 70th anniversary of the NHS. Accompanying this significant milestone, the Government announced the single biggest cash increase made in the NHS’s history—an extra £33.9 billion a year by 2023-24 (compared with 2018-19). This backs the NHS’s clinically led long term plan (LTP), which sets out a bold and innovative vision, safeguarding our nation’s health for generations to come.
A healthier nation, with prevention at the heart of our strategy to tackle the causes of poor health and ongoing efforts to ensure we play a leading role in confronting global health challenges.
Prevention remains a high priority for the Department. Important progress has been made across a number of areas, including: the tobacco control plan published in 2018; extending the HPV vaccine to boys; a new £6 million scheme to improve outcomes for children with alcohol dependent parents; exceeding the NHS diabetes prevention programme commitment a year early; being one of the first countries in the world to achieve the UN’s “90/90/90” goals on HIV prevention; creating the first Minister for Suicide Prevention alongside the cross-Government suicide prevention workplan; and introducing the soft drinks industry levy in April 2018, which has been hugely successful—the average sugar content of drinks subject to the levy decreased by 28.8% between 2015 and 2018.
The Prevention Green Paper published in July 2019 signalled a new approach for the health and social care system. This included chapter 3 of the childhood obesity strategy and driving forward policies in chapter 2, such as ending the sale of energy drinks to children and exploring what additional opportunities leaving the European Union presents for front of pack food labelling in England.
The Government have continued to protect and promote the health of the nation, including through: consulting on proposals to reduce ill-health related to job loss; fully establishing the Northern Ireland abortion scheme in 2019; announcing a new network of eight walk-in FGM clinics; new legislation on organ donation; and leading the healthcare response to emergency incidents, such as the Novichok poisoning in Salisbury.
We continue to play a leading role in global health security, through our work with the G7, G20, World Health Assembly and the UN. The Government have published a 20-year vision and a 5-year national action plan for how the UK will contribute to containing and controlling antimicrobial resistance by 2040.
A transformation in care, to make sure we are supporting the most vulnerable in our community with joined-up, compassionate and modern services.
We have been supporting primary and community services through: investment which will grow faster than the overall NHS budget; a new 5-year contract for GPs; expanding evening and weekend GP appointments; rolling out the NHS comprehensive model of personalised care; improving diagnosis of dementia with record recent monthly figures; a new clinical negligence scheme for general practice; and we now have record numbers of GPs entering training, with 3,415 acceptances in 2018, we expect that trend to continue this year.
The Government and the NHS are continuing to make progress towards parity of esteem for mental health, including: spending on mental health rising to £12.5 billion in 2018-19; NHS LTP committing to spending a further £2.3 billion a year by 2023-24 to transform mental health services, and support 380,000 more adults and 345,000 children and young people (aged 0-25); publishing the 2017 Green Paper on children and young people’s mental health and creating the first wave of schools and college-based mental health support teams; modernising the Mental Health Act 1983; hosting a global ministerial mental health summit to put mental health on an equal footing with physical health; and contributing to the Government’s first strategy to tackle loneliness in England in October 2018. Overall, waiting time standards and the IAPT recovery rate continues to improve and we are consistently exceeding the targets: 52.1% of patients who finished a course of psychological therapy recovered in 2018-19 (up from 50.8% in 2017-18), this is the second reporting year in a row when the recovery rate has surpassed the Government target that 50% of eligible referrals to IAPT services should move to recovery; and 89.4% of people were seen within six weeks for their first course of treatment, against a target of 75% (an increase from 89.1% in 2017-18).
Tackling cancer remains a priority for this Government. In October 2018, the Prime Minister announced measures with the aim of seeing 75% of all cancers detected at an early stage by 2028 to save 55,000 lives a year. Survival rates are at a record high, increasing year-on-year since 2010. One-year survival rate for adults diagnosed in 2016 is over 70%, an increase of around 10 percentage points over the last two decades. A recent international study showed that the five-year net survival rate for breast cancer increased by 7% between 2000-04 and 2010-2014—among the fastest in western Europe. In 2018-19 the NHS carried out almost 23 million diagnostic tests, eight million more than in 2010 (an increase of 53%); 2 million people were seen by a specialist for suspected cancer, over 1 million more than in 2010 (an increase of 124%); and 310,700 patients started treatment for cancer, around 70,900 more than in 2010 (an increase of around 30%).
The Government have given councils access to up to £3.6 billion more dedicated funding for adult social care in 2018-19. In total, the Government have given councils access to around £10 billion more adult social care funding from 2017-18 to 2019-20. In the recent 2019 spending round we announced councils will have access to a further £1.5 billion for social care—£1 billion through a new grant and £500 million through the adult social care precept. This will support councils to meet rising demand and continue to stabilise the social care system. We ran two new national adult social care recruitment campaigns to raise the image and profile of the sector and encourage people with the right values to apply for current vacancies. In June 2018 we published the cross-Government carers action plan 2018-20.
We announced new landmark arrangements for community pharmacy, which came into force from October 2019. In addition, working with the branded pharmaceutical industry, represented by the ABPI, we agreed the 2019 voluntary scheme for branded medicines pricing and access, which began on 1 January 2019 and will run for five years. The NHS is expected to save around £930 million on its medicines bill for 2019 as a result.
In July 2019 the new NHS patient safety strategy set out NHS actions to continue to improve patient safety. We published the Health Service Safety Investigations Bill, which will establish the world’s first independent body to investigate patient safety concerns and share recommendations to prevent incidents.
A workforce fit for the future, created by recruiting, retaining and developing the people we need to deliver and by making the health and care system a rewarding place to work.
The interim NHS people plan, published in June 2019, set out proposals to grow and support the NHS workforce. As part of the 2019 spending round every nurse, midwife and allied health professional will receive a new £1,000 personal development budget over three years.
In September 2019, we agreed a new contract deal for junior doctors in England, successfully bringing an end to the junior doctors dispute, following a review of the 2016 contract.
In June 2018, we agreed a new multi-year pay and contract reform deal for agenda for change staff which benefits nearly 1 million NHS workers over three years.
Better technology and data, which will harness the full potential of technology to modernise and improve the way we deliver healthcare for the 21st century.
In October 2018, we published the Secretary of State’s technology vision “The future of healthcare: our vision for digital, data and technology in health and care”. In July 2019 NHSX became operational to drive transformation and lead policy, implementation and change—leading the largest digital health and social care transformation programme in the world; and in August 2019 we announced a new artificial intelligence lab, to help solve some of healthcare’s toughest challenges. In total, over £250 million will have been invested nationally to improve the cyber security of the health and social care system between 2016 and 2021.
We have supported and funded the ambitious and world-leading 100,000 genome project, reaching the goal to sequence 100,000 whole genomes in December 2018. We established the genomic medicine service in the NHS—the first of its kind in the world to integrate whole genome sequencing into the healthcare system.
The Department has maintained its focus on investing in infrastructure and research, through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). In 2018-19 there have been over 1 million participants in NIHR-supported health and social care research studies. We have maintained spending on dementia research and are on track to meet our commitment of £60 million spent annually to March 2020.
In December 2018, the Government, in collaboration with industry, launched the second life sciences sector deal, backed by a range of organisations from across the sector and £1.2 billion of new investment from industry.
[HCWS34]
No-deal Brexit: Immigration
(5 years ago)
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The Minister for Security (Brandon Lewis)
The Government priority remains to leave the European Union on the basis of the draft withdrawal agreement reached on 17 October 2019. However, it is appropriate that we also continue to make the preparations necessary in the event that we leave without a deal.
To that end, the Government are laying before Parliament today the Immigration (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019. Further to the written ministerial statement made by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary on 4 September 2019 (HCWS1817), this will deliver changes in immigration arrangements for EU citizens which reflect the fact that, in a no deal scenario, free movement as it currently stands will end when we leave the European Union.
In particular, to increase security and better protect the public, the measure, and associated changes in the immigration rules contained in the “Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules” (HC 170) which the Home Secretary is laying before Parliament today, will mean that a UK conduct and criminality threshold rather than an EU threshold will be applied for EU citizens and their family members moving to the UK after a no deal Brexit. The measures will also apply those thresholds to the post-exit conduct of EU citizens and their family members living here before a no deal Brexit, or who have EU settlement scheme status, and to their pre-exit conduct where their post-exit conduct results in a sentence of imprisonment. This will bring the approach to EU citizens more into line with how we treat non-EU nationals and make our system simpler and fairer.
In addition, the Immigration (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 make changes to the documentary evidence which may be relied upon by EU citizens and their family members for admission to the UK. They also remove the scope for EU citizens and their family members moving to the UK after a no deal Brexit to acquire permanent residence under EU law and the scope for UK nationals and their family members moving to the EU after a no deal Brexit to return here under current EU law-based arrangements.
The “Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules” (HC 170) establishes the European temporary leave to remain scheme, for European economic area (EEA) and Swiss citizens moving to the UK after a no deal Brexit and before the start of the new points-based immigration system from January 2021, and for their close family members, to enable them to obtain a UK immigration status so that they can continue living and working here for a temporary period after 2020. In line with previous policy announcements, it also provides access to the EU settlement scheme—under which EEA and Swiss citizens resident here before Brexit can obtain UK immigration status—for relevant family members joining them here after a no deal Brexit, by 29 March 2022 in the case of existing close family members and by 31 December 2020 for other relevant family members.
Taken together, these changes will begin the process of taking back control of our borders and preparing the way for a new, fairer immigration system which operates in the national interest.
Copies of the statement of changes in immigration rules will be available in the Vote Office and online at gov.uk.
[HCWS42]
Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse: Ealing Abbey and St Benedict’s School
(5 years ago)
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The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Priti Patel)
Today the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse has published its latest case study report, which can be found at www.iicsa.org.uk.
This report relates to Ealing Abbey and St Benedict’s School in the inquiry’s Roman Catholic Church investigation. I pay tribute to the strength and courage of the victims and survivors who have shared their experiences to ensure the inquiry can deliver its vital work.
Government will review this report and consider how to respond to its content in due course.
I would like to thank Professor Jay and her panel for their continued work to uncover the truth, expose what went wrong in the past and to learn the lessons for the future.
[HCWS39]
House of Lords
Transport: Buses
(5 years ago)
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Baroness Randerson
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to encourage more people to travel by bus.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)
My Lords, the Government are boosting bus services, harnessing bus data and tackling congestion. To boost services, the new bus deal includes an additional £30 million on top of the £43 million already paid to local authorities. To harness data, the bus open data digital service will collate real-time location and fare data. On congestion, we will update guidance to local authorities on bus priority measures.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, despite some one-off initiatives, which of course one welcomes, we continue to face a bus emergency. For instance, 65% of local authorities no longer provide free transport for 16 to 18 year-olds, and many bus services have been cut. Does the Minister agree that we need a national bus strategy to promote increased usage, zero-emission buses and more integrated services? Do the Government intend to reform and significantly increase funding for bus services to address the £650 million funding gap faced by local authorities and operators over concessionary fares?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
I am pleased to be able to agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. It is critical that we have a national bus strategy. The Government have already announced that we will put in place such a strategy. Going alongside that will be our commitment to long-term funding for the bus sector.
The Earl of Listowel (CB)
My Lords, I welcome the news of this bus strategy, but will the Minister look at vulnerable groups, in particular parents who are in temporary accommodation such as hostels and bed and breakfast accommodation? Very often, they can be extremely isolated and may have to make many bus journeys to see their family and friends. Will the Government please look at that in their bus strategy?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
I thank the noble Earl for raising this issue. As the Minister for loneliness in the Department for Transport, I know how important it is that we make sure that our transport system is able to get those people to where they need to go. We are currently scoping the bus strategy. I shall certainly include that within its remit.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, in relation to a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, will my noble friend the Minister try to ensure that all new buses have details of concessionary fares on the side?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
I shall certainly take that very good point back to the department. It is also important to make sure that we make the most of the data that local operators have about their buses and collate it in one place, so that people can see information about where their bus is, and how much it will cost them, when they get on it.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans
My Lords, in welcoming the strategy, I am aware that we have seen numerous stories this week about levels of pollution, particularly along school runs, so we should do everything we can to get children on to buses where appropriate. However, many buses are still very poor in terms of the pollution they create, which might take some years to go through. Is there any way in which the Government can help bus companies move more rapidly to zero emissions?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
The right reverend Prelate is right, and pollution is a key element that we are taking forward in our strategy. To date, the Government have provided £240 million, which went towards 7,000 cleaner and better buses, but we must do more. In the new bus package that was announced recently, one provision was £50 million for the first all-electric bus town or city.
Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab)
My Lords, this week, the Government announced that electric cars will be allowed to use bus lanes. Have the Government done a risk assessment of whether there will be any delays to buses using their own lanes, therefore making bus journeys longer for passengers?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
The noble Lord is right that that is one proposal on the table. It is not set in stone that it will indeed be allowed to happen, but it is important that we make sure that people feel able to take up electric vehicles. They are very important to our future carbon strategy, and of course we are looking at the impact on buses.
Lord Tebbit (Con)
Is my noble friend aware of the problems that are sometimes faced by rather old-fashioned people seeking to take a journey by bus who want to proffer their fare in money—cash?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
I thank my noble friend for his question. I am aware that that may be an issue for an increasingly small number of people.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
I would encourage them to make full use of the different fare payment options that are available.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, for two years I was chairman of London Buses—it is the best bus service in the country—and I learned that buses are a key part of a fair society, carrying the young, the old, the sick and the poor. That is why the Labour Party has committed to £1.3 billion of additional funding to restore the 3,000 cuts made by this Government, to local regulation to optimise net social benefit and to free bus fares for young people. Will the proposed strategy match these commitments?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
I thank the noble Lord for his question, but I also point out that this Government support the bus sector to the tune of £2.2 billion from the taxpayer. That is 12% higher in real terms than under the last Labour Government. I also point out that the £1.3 billion that the Labour Party proposes putting into buses seems to be coming away from road maintenance and upgrades. That is a false economy, because one of the key issues in getting people back on buses is journey reliability, and that relies on good roads.
Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)
My Lords, important new powers were introduced in the Bus Services Act 2017, but because they are available only to areas with elected mayors, most rural areas are excluded from them. If experience shows that these powers are effective, will the Government rethink their availability to rural areas?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
I hate to disagree with the noble Baroness, but there are two different types of powers that came in under the Bus Services Act. The first is the franchising power, and in that regard, she is right; it is available only to local elected mayors, because it needs a significant grouping of bus operators and also the population. What is available to all local authorities, and is really important, is enhanced partnerships, where the local authority works with the operator. The local authority can put in place bus priority measures and parking enforcement and, in return, the bus operator can provide better ticketing information and faster services.
Healthcare: Brain Tumours
(5 years ago)
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Baroness Wheeler
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking (1) to improve access to palliative care, rehabilitation and psychosocial care for people living with a brain tumour, and (2) to provide support for their carers and families.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford) (Con)
My Lords, the NHS Long Term Plan sets a clear ambition that, where appropriate, every person diagnosed with cancer will have access to personalised care by 2021. Personalised care includes support planning based on holistic needs assessments, end-of-treatment summaries, health and well-being information and support and a cancer care review with GPs. These interventions align with the comprehensive model for personalised care and should be made available for all cancer patients, including those in need of end-of-life care.
Baroness Wheeler (Lab)
My Lords, International Brain Tumour Awareness Week starts on Saturday, so it is timely to remember both patients and carers. Living with a brain tumour often means coping with life-changing symptoms, such as mental and emotional health issues, communication and mobility problems. Carers also need support in adjusting to these changes in the person they care for, including coping with difficult behaviour and personality changes, disorientation and confusion. Both Marie Curie and the Brain Tumour Charity have highlighted strong concern about inadequate support for carers and the impact on the care journey that carer breakdown in these circumstances can have, often leading to emergency hospital admission. What action are the Government taking to ensure that people with brain tumours, their carers and their families receive care and support that meets their needs and wishes?
Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
The noble Baroness has raised a very important issue. Obviously, the Government are working to deliver the Carers Action Plan, which retains the strategic vision of recognising, valuing and supporting carers. It includes a commitment to 64 actions across five priorities to ensure that we improve support for carers, including recognition and support, and build evidence to improve outcomes, especially in these very difficult areas. We are also working hard with the Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission to ensure that we improve pathways for those with very challenging brain tumour diagnoses.
Lord O’Shaughnessy (Con)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a patron of the Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission. The noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, has highlighted a very important topic, because the outcomes and experiences of people with brain tumours and brain cancers are terrible and have not improved in decades. The actions my noble friend has set out are important, but it took the leadership of our late and much missed noble friend to galvanise action. Part of that action was a pledge from the Government of £40 million from the National Institute for Health Research to improve research into treatments, therapies and care for people with brain tumours. Can my noble friend update the House on what progress has been made on that and how the money is being spent?
Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
I thank my noble friend for his question and I pay tribute to his leadership on this issue. He is absolutely right that we must improve outcomes for those diagnosed with brain cancer, and one of the ways of doing so will be through earlier diagnosis. That is why the Prime Minister announced measures with the aim of seeing 75% of all cancers detected at an early stage by 2028 to save 55,000 lives a year. My noble friend is right, however, that we will deliver this only through improved research specifically targeted at brain cancers. The Government announced £40 million over five years for brain tumour research. This can be delivered only through the submission of high-quality research and I know that the Tessa Jowell mission is working to ensure that that becomes a reality.
Baroness Jolly (LD)
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, outlined a perfectly reasonable list of requirements and I am pleased that they all fall within the NHS long-term plan. However, “long-term” is slightly ill defined—by when will all these requirements be met?
Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
We are working to deliver earlier diagnosis to improve survival of 75% of cancers by 2028. We are also working to improve the one-year survival rates of adults diagnosed since 2016 over the next 10 years. We are also making sure that we improve the commitment of the £40 million over the next five years. I hope that answers the noble Baroness’s question.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
My Lords, I am a vice-president of a hospice in Exeter which is raising money to provide 24-hour care at home. Does the Minister recognise how important it is for those in palliative care, particularly those with brain cancers, to be able to spend the rest of their lives—and die—at home?
Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
The noble and learned Baroness is quite right that people should have a choice in end-of-life care. The long-term plan recognises that we need to improve that choice and the quality of discussions around it. That is at the heart of the drive to improve personal health budgets and help staff identify personalised care planning for end-of-life care. I hope that reassures the noble and learned Baroness that this is seen as a top priority in end-of-life care planning.
Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister has mentioned NHS support, but she will know that by far the majority of support for carers in these circumstances comes from local authorities. How does she react to all the current research showing that not only are services diminishing for carers in local authority areas but also the number of assessments, in contradiction to obligations under the Care Act and the carers action plan?
Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
The noble Baroness will know that this has been identified as a priority, not only from the call to action from carers themselves that services and systems that work for them should be improved, but also because it is one of the 64 actions in the carers action plan. It is something the Government are determined to take action on. We are concerned by the reports and taking action to improve it.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, has my noble friend noticed that at its conference the Labour Party adopted as its policy on social care pretty well the recommendations of the all-party Economic Affairs Committee of this House? Is there now a unique opportunity for us to get a political consensus on the need to provide free personal care? The root of this problem is that access to free personal care depends on diagnosis, not need. Is it not now time for the Government to produce a White Paper and work with the Opposition to produce the consensus that everyone concerned with this matter realises needs to be achieved?
Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
I first congratulate my noble friend on his leadership on this issue; it has been noted by the House and very much welcomed. He is absolutely right that leadership on social care is essential and that it is time for action on this. The Prime Minister has been clear that he wants to end the suffering in social care once and for all, and will bring forward announcements on his immediate plans for that very soon.
Polio: Pakistan and Afghanistan
(5 years ago)
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Baroness Sheehan
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress has been made to eradicate polio in (1) Pakistan, and (2) Afghanistan.
The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Baroness Sugg) (Con)
My Lords, Pakistan and Afghanistan are the last countries in the world with cases of wild poliovirus. Conflict and inaccessibility make delivering the polio vaccine to all children there very difficult. Nevertheless, we assess that there has been good progress. The eradication programme is deploying new strategies to ensure that no one is left behind, such as tackling misinformation about vaccine safety head-on. The UK remains steadfast in its resolve to rid the world of this debilitating disease.
Baroness Sheehan (LD)
I thank the Minister for her response. We are on the cusp of eradicating polio and Pakistan and Afghanistan are chief among the very few problem areas that remain. One reason for this is the attacks by anti-vaxxers; tragically, in April this year a vaccinator and two security men were killed in Pakistan. Today is World Polio Day and I would like to take a moment to pay tribute to them and all aid workers everywhere who continue to risk their lives. What urgent action are we taking together with the Government of Pakistan to quell fears about the polio vaccine?
Baroness Sugg
I thank the noble Baroness for her question—on World Polio Day, as she highlighted. I am absolutely in agreement that we must ensure that those trying to bring life-saving support to the most vulnerable are not subject to violence. She is sadly right that we have seen attacks on vaccinators both in Pakistan and Nigeria, and we are working very closely with Governments to ensure that those attacks stop. We are also working with religious and traditional leaders to ensure that these people are kept safe. We have recently seen a very welcome fatwa issued supporting Pakistan’s polio vaccination programme in an effort to end that violence.
Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)
My Lords, are the Government aware of the recent outbreak of polio in the southern Philippines, where there have been two confirmed cases and a number of tests are outstanding which might produce more confirmed cases? Is this not the result of protracted conflict in Mindanao and the resulting poor health and vaccination services, and does the international community need to do more to ensure that areas affected by conflict and the poor local health services that result do not suffer these outbreaks of polio that can then spread the disease much further than Afghanistan and Pakistan?
Baroness Sugg
The noble Lord is quite right; we have recently seen two confirmed outbreaks of vaccine-derived polio in the Philippines, which is such a shame, coming 20 years after the country eradicated that disease. We are running a campaign in the Philippines, in collaboration with the WHO and UNICEF, to launch a widespread immunisation campaign to give millions of children the polio vaccination there. The noble Lord is quite right that we must ensure that we continue to invest in water, sanitation and hygiene in the poorest parts of the world to ensure that this disease is not spread. It also shows that we must not take our foot off the pedal on this; we have seen a country that has not had an outbreak in 20 years suffering, so we must continue until we completely eradicate this disease.
Baroness Eaton (Con)
My Lords, as has already been said, today is World Polio Day. Will my noble friend join me in paying tribute to Rotary International for being in the forefront of the work on eradication for over 30 years?
Baroness Sugg
I am very pleased that my noble friend highlights the work of Rotary International. As she said, it has been at the forefront of the work to eradicate polio for more than 30 years, and it is a founding member of the WHO Global Polio Eradication Initiative. I will certainly join my noble friend in paying tribute to it today and I sure that many noble Lords will want to do the same. Rotary International has contributed more than £1.3 billion to the global initiative, which includes more than £32 million raised in Great Britain and Northern Ireland alone. My Secretary of State, Alok Sharma, was pleased to attend an event with Rotary International yesterday, where he met fundraisers and survivors of the disease.
Baroness Hayman (CB)
My Lords, I welcome the strength of the commitment in the Minister’s remarks today. Going the last mile and finding those most difficult cases—going from elimination to eradication—is a very expensive and difficult exercise. However, does the Minister agree that it is in fact an investment, which is the only protection for the world against the resurgence of such diseases? Therefore, will she also look at the Lancet Commission report on malaria eradication and the measures set out there, and again take that concerted approach that will allow us to rid the world of malaria? I declare my interest as chair of Malaria No More UK.
Baroness Sugg
The noble Baroness is right: the last mile is often the most difficult. We must not be complacent; we do have remaining challenges as we work towards complete eradication. We must continue the support from the UK and the international community on that. It is absolutely in the UK’s interest and the global interest to ensure that we do not see the return of this disease. Some figures say that even within a decade, we will see hundreds of thousands of new cases if we do not continue this. We must also look at how we combat malaria as well—absolutely. We were pleased to make such a significant contribution to the Global Fund recently, but both the UK and international partners must work together to tackle these diseases.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister is absolutely right that we must not take our foot off the pedal. Even in countries such as India, it is vital that we continue to support initiatives and ensure vaccination. I welcome the commitment to Gavi and other global partnerships. Can she tell us more how we will continue to support Gavi and such global partnerships to ensure that we not only halt the progress of these diseases but eradicate them forever?
Baroness Sugg
I will take a moment to highlight the great news today: the historic announcement that the world has been certified free of type 3 of the wild poliovirus. That significant achievement should help reinvigorate the process and provide motivation for the final step. The noble Lord is right to highlight both the Global Fund and Gavi; we must continue to contribute to these funds and work together. We are pleased that the UK will host Gavi next year in London and Liverpool, where we are looking forward to demonstrating our continued commitment and galvanising the international community to do more.
Baroness Janke (LD)
My Lords, as the global polio eradication initiative winds down, what action are the Government taking to ensure that this transition does not undermine the achievements made so far?
Baroness Sugg
On World Polio Day, we should celebrate the success of the achievements so far—but, as I said, we must ensure that we continue on that. The transition point is very important. As was highlighted in the case of the Philippines, even 20 years after an outbreak we cannot be sure that it will not come back. So we must continue with the fight and continue with vaccinations and make sure that we reach the last, hardest-to-reach people—but we must ensure, as we transition, we hope, into a polio-free world, that it stays that way.
Syria: British Armed Forces
(5 years ago)
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Lord West of Spithead
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether any British Armed Forces, in particular air assets, are involved in operations over Syria identifying and targeting ISIL.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Baroness Goldie) (Con)
My Lords, UK air assets are currently involved in operations over Syria as part of the global coalition against Daesh, and we remain fully committed to the coalition and the air campaign.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness for her Answer. It is extremely worrying that our ally President Trump has turned that arena into an extremely dangerous place. There is no doubt that President Putin has a visceral dislike of NATO, yet the Turks, who are part of NATO, now have double digit SAM missile systems. These need the SIF settings, which enable a very special type of fire. Those settings are available to the Turks as members of NATO. Therefore, they are available to the Russian technicians as well. Russians are working with the Turks on the border. This is highly dangerous, and I have real concerns. Our airmen, who have done a splendid job out there, have been put in a position where it is not at all clear who is actually controlling the air region—there is a threat from Turks as well as Russians and Syrians. This is a different situation. Are we absolutely sure that we have in place the mechanisms to ensure the safety of our brave airmen?
Baroness Goldie
I thank the noble Lord for making a very important point. He is absolutely right: this is a situation of turbulence and uncertainty, and implicit in that is great potential risk and danger. The United Kingdom has always been clear in relation to Syria as a whole that we want a political solution. We are focusing our attention on trying to deal with Daesh. Turkey of course remains an important ally within NATO. It may be reassuring to know that the Secretary of State for Defence is meeting NATO allies today and tomorrow, and north-east Syria will be very much on the agenda.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, can we assume from my noble friend’s answers to the noble Lord, Lord West, that we continue to support our old friends and allies the Kurds in their efforts to fight ISIS, despite the fact that Turkey and Russia are now taking over control of the region?
Baroness Goldie
My noble friend raises an important point. We will be looking very closely at Monday’s agreement between Turkey and Russia, including any impact on the local population. I make clear to the Chamber that the United Kingdom will not recognise any demographic change in Syria brought about as a result of deliberate attempts to force population changes. We are very clear that parties need to act on a properly negotiated and sensible basis.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)
My Lords, on 17 October our two NATO allies, the US and Turkey, agreed that operations must target only terrorists, their hide-outs, et cetera. Who do Her Majesty’s Government understand the terrorists to be? In line with the question from the noble Lord, Lord Howell, can she reassure us that that does not include the Kurds, with whom we have been working in Syria? Even if our NATO allies identify some people as terrorists, we need to be sure that we support the Kurds.
Baroness Goldie
Let me be clear that the United Kingdom focus on Syria has always been on Daesh, which is a lethal, toxic threat. That continues to be where our efforts are focused.
Lord Craig of Radley (CB)
My Lords, has the Minister seen the report that the mayor of Limassol, the town close to the Akrotiri peninsula, wishes to expand its tourism arrangements on to the peninsula and believes that it is time that the United Kingdom gave up the sovereign base area there? Have the Government reacted to these proposals?
Baroness Goldie
I should say to the noble and gallant Lord that the United Kingdom enjoys a very good relationship with the Republic of Cyprus, which includes a cordial relationship as regards our sovereign base areas. Of course, our sovereign base areas have been critical to our capability to endeavour to take action against Daesh in Syria.
Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)
My Lords, is it not clear that, as a result of President Trump’s decision, we are witnessing a major geopolitical shift in the region in favour of Russia? What protocols or understandings are there with Russia to ensure that there is no clash between Russian planes and our own?
Baroness Goldie
I can reassure the noble Lord that we have set procedures for handling the airspace above Syria. He is right that, given the number of parties operating over Syria now, the airspace is congested, but that is no different from the conditions during earlier counter-Daesh operations. There are procedures to ensure that air activity is appropriately deconflicted and handled in a safe and professional manner. Those are the rules by which the United Kingdom abides, as do our allies.
Lord Elton (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend has referred twice to Daesh, which is much bigger than ISIL. Events are moving very fast in the region, but Daesh goes by different names in many different parts of the world. Can she assure us that the Government are still firmly fixed on their main objective, which is the overall defeat of Daesh?
Baroness Goldie
Let me reassure my noble friend without any ambiguity or ambivalence that the answer is yes. Daesh is the focus of our activity. I said earlier that Daesh is a lethal, toxic entity, and we owe it to the safety and security not just of the United Kingdom but of our friends and allies throughout the world to play our part in addressing that threat.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, having said that, has the noble Baroness had a chance to read the report in this morning’s Times by Anthony Loyd that the ISIS flag has again been flying above the al-Hawl camp where 68,000 family members of ISIS are held? Has she also yet had a chance to evaluate the list that I sent to her department naming jihadists who are now fighting alongside the Turkish army? Where does this leave the fight against terror and Turkey’s membership of NATO, as well as our obligations to bring those who are responsible for this genocide against minorities, both in northern Iraq and north-east Syria, to justice?
Baroness Goldie
I am aware of the noble Lord’s earlier inquiry and, if he will permit me to do so, I shall respond to him in more detail. I said earlier that these are turbulent, difficult and unpredictable times. The United Kingdom is clear that we must be consistent and resolute in our approach to these difficult circumstances. I emphasise that the focus of our activity is, if we can, to assist in a political solution within Syria but also, unequivocally, to deal with the continuing threat posed by Daesh.
Extradition (Provisional Arrest) Bill [HL]
Thursday 24th October 2019
(5 years ago)
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Duty to Plan for Terrorism (Consultation) Bill [HL]
Thursday 24th October 2019
(5 years ago)
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Storage Period for Gametes Bill [HL]
Thursday 24th October 2019
(5 years ago)
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Access to Palliative Care and Treatment of Children Bill [HL]
Thursday 24th October 2019
(5 years ago)
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Elections (Candidates’ Expenditure and Nominations) Bill [HL]
Thursday 24th October 2019
(5 years ago)
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Business of the House
(5 years ago)
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Earl Howe (Con)
My Lords, in the absence of my noble friend the Leader of the House and on her behalf, I beg to move the Motion standing in her name on the Order Paper.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, I raise a small but important point about the allocation of time for Thursday debates. We have two debates today: one introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, on an important local government matter, and one on a very important international crisis in Hong Kong. The allocation of time for speakers in the first debate is 15 minutes, and in the second debate—in which two former Governors of Hong Kong are speaking—only five minutes. I believe it would be appropriate for the allocation and division of time in Thursday debates to be looked at.
Earl Howe
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. He is right to observe that Back-Bench speeches will be limited to 15 minutes in the first debate and five in the last. Because these are balloted and not party debates, we can move only 30 minutes from one to the other. In the normal course, we would have allocated equal time to both. We have given an extra half-hour to the final debate, so we have maximised the speaking time in that debate as best we can. I am sure my noble friend’s remarks will not be lost in the usual channels.
Brexit: Movement of Goods between Northern Ireland and Great Britain
(5 years ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Exiting the European Union (Lord Callanan) (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will now repeat in the form of a Statement the Answer given in the other place earlier today by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union:
“On 17 October the United Kingdom and the European Union reached political agreement on a new withdrawal agreement and political declaration for the future relationship. This includes a revised protocol for Northern Ireland/Ireland, which has been extensively debated in this House. This agreement is clear that Great Britain and Northern Ireland are one customs territory. Goods that are not at risk of moving to the European Union will attract no tariffs.
These arrangements mean that Northern Ireland would remain in the UK’s customs territory and could benefit from the UK’s new trade deals with third countries. For goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, those destined for the European Union will have to comply with European Union rules. To ensure that the correct tariffs are applied and that goods comply with the rules of the single regulatory zone, some information will be needed on goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.
The deal also explicitly allows for the United Kingdom to ensure unfettered market access for goods moving from Northern Ireland to Great Britain. There will be minimal targeted interventions designed to prevent, for example, the trade in endangered species—something I would have thought this House agreed on. We will work with the European Union to eliminate these limited processes as soon as possible after Brexit.
The most important point is that these arrangements automatically dissolve after four years unless a majority of the Northern Ireland Assembly in Stormont votes to keep them”.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
Perhaps I may help the Government because I do not think they understand their own deal, which effectively ends the UK’s single market by imposing different tariffs and rules between Northern Ireland and Wales, Scotland and England. The Prime Minister keeps insisting that there will be no checks between GB and Northern Ireland, but Steve Barclay had to admit to our own committee that exit summary declarations will be required between Northern Ireland and GB. Today’s words were “minimal interventions”. Well, Mr Johnson, that means “checks”. The impact assessment says that some 215 million import and entry or exit declarations will be needed at a cost of between £15 and £56 each.
The Answer we have just heard states that the withdrawal agreement will ensure,
“‘unfettered’ market access for goods moving from Northern Ireland to the rest of the United Kingdom’s internal market”.
However, if you look at the Bill—which some of us have to do—the word “unfettered” has disappeared and it allows for regulations to facilitate access to the market in Great Britain. Can the Minister come clean and admit that trade between Northern Ireland and Great Britain will now be like sending something to a foreign country?
Lord Callanan
First, the noble Baroness is wrong: there will be no tariffs on goods from Northern Ireland to the UK. We have agreed these arrangements because of the unique situation of Northern Ireland. As we were told extensively when the original customs proposals were produced that this would result in checks in Northern Ireland, we compromised for the sake of getting a good agreement, which we were constantly urged to do. We have recognised the unique situation of Northern Ireland: we have provided a consent mechanism for Northern Ireland’s elected representatives to decide whether they wish to take part in these arrangements. Importantly, it ensures that there are no checks in Northern Ireland between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, and that there are no borders. It is important to bear in mind that there are already checks because of the single epidemiological unit of Ireland—for example, on live animals going between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. We are proposing a small number of administrative checks and we will work with the European Union to ensure that these are as minimal as possible, if they are needed at all.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)
Will the Minister acknowledge that before this deal there was—and if this deal is accepted there will not be—friction-free movement between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK? In reality, businesses across the whole of Ireland will have to fill in tens of millions of forms to carry out the business they can do today without any such bureaucracy. This is hardly a free trade agreement of any validity. Is it not also a denial of the Government’s claim that the referendum was a UK-wide referendum that demanded a UK-wide solution? How dare a party that calls itself the Conservative and Unionist Party claim that it is defending the union when what it is actually doing is driving a coach and horses through it.
Lord Callanan
I do not agree with the noble Lord: Northern Ireland is leaving the EU with the rest of the United Kingdom. It was a UK-wide referendum. There will be no forms to fill in. We think that all these checks, if they are required at all, can be done electronically. However, as I said, a joint committee has been established in the withdrawal agreement. We will work with the European Union through the implementation period to ensure that these interventions are as minimal as possible.
Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP)
On 8 December 2017, the then Prime Minister gave this emphatic unilateral commitment:
“There will be no new borders within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”.
How does the present Brexit deal square with that commitment? Have the Government not sacrificed Northern Ireland in the present deal in the interests of getting a deal for Britain irrespective of its implications for Northern Ireland? Are the Prime Minister and the Brexit Minister actually aware of what they have agreed to?
Lord Callanan
The noble Lord speaks with great authority on these points. We accept that we have compromised with the European Union to get a deal. We think that these arrangements will be acceptable. The consent mechanism is built into them, by which, after four years, elected representatives in Northern Ireland will be able to decide whether they continue. During the implementation period, we want to work with the EU and the Government of Ireland to make sure that this new procedure works as satisfactorily and smoothly as possible.
The Earl of Kinnoull (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the European Union Select Committee held a public evidence session on Monday and the Secretary of State gave evidence. He was asked during that session whether Northern Ireland businesses sending goods to Great Britain would have to complete export declarations. In answer he said:
“Just to be clear, the exit summary declarations will be required in terms of Northern Ireland to Great Britain”.
My question to the Minister has a yes or no answer: does he stand by the words of the Secretary of State?
Lord Callanan
It is right that some administrative processes will apply to goods moving from Northern Ireland to Great Britain. In the coming months, we will work with the EU and the Irish authorities to make sure that we can eliminate those processes in the detailed implementation of the new agreement.
Lord Lilley (Con)
My Lords, can the Minister confirm that the original withdrawal agreement included paper declarations A.UK for any exports from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, but that did not require the consent of the Northern Irish people? Can he further confirm that these documents are identical to those that Turkish imports into the European Union must fulfil, even though Turkey is part of a customs union, so the idea that a customs union obviates all border controls with the European Union is not true?
Lord Callanan
These are not customs controls; they are administrative checks that need to be made because of single market rules and single market membership. They are the result of international obligations that the EU implements through single market rules. However, my noble friend makes an important point.
Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)
My Lords, every individual consignment from an individual supplier on the UK mainland to every individual customer in Northern Ireland would, under the proposed scheme, be the subject of an individual customs entry, so 100 separate Northern Ireland deliveries from a UK-mainland supplier could be the subject of 100 separate customs entries, possibly under different tariff headings. How else can you control fraud?
Lord Callanan
I do not believe the noble Lord is correct about that. On the details of implementation and exactly how the arrangements will be implemented on the ground in practice, we want to work through the joint committee with the EU, Northern Irish and Irish authorities to make sure that implementation is as smooth and frictionless as possible.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, 53% of all goods and services for sale in Northern Ireland come from GB and 65% of all exports from Northern Ireland come to GB, resulting in 419,000 HGV crossings over the Irish Sea. I telephoned the Brexit imports and exports helpline this morning to ask what information was available to businesses conducting this trade and was told by the Government, “We have absolutely nothing on this. Sorry”. Will the Minister apologise for trying to ram through an agreement in three days in the House of Commons and in a short time in this House when no information would have been provided to Parliament or to Northern Ireland businesses conducting this business on the costs and burden inflicted on the UK internal single market?
Lord Callanan
I have made the point a number of times that we will work with the EU and the Irish authorities to make sure that these interventions and processes are as smooth and pain-free as possible. However, I readily accept that to get an agreement and a good deal—as we have done and as we are constantly urged by the Opposition to do—we have to compromise. I think this is a good deal. We have worked collaboratively, as we have been urged to do. The Opposition told us that they did not want no deal; they wanted a deal. We have now concluded two different deals, both of which they keep telling us they do not like. The Opposition should just admit that the reality is that they do not want to leave the European Union at all—they do not want to implement the result of the referendum. I am pleased that the Liberal Democrats are happy to acknowledge that.
Neighbourhood Services: Government Support
(5 years ago)
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Lord Greaves
That this House takes note of the levels of government support for neighbourhood services provided by district councils and other local authorities.
Lord Greaves (LD)
My Lords, in moving this Motion, I remind the House of my registered interest as a member of Pendle Borough Council.
I refer noble Lords and the Minister to previous debates that we have had on this matter and in which I have taken part. Having read what I said then, I simply reiterate that it is all still true, because the concerns that I put forward at that time, along with other noble Lords, have simply not been taken up by the Government. On 19 October 2017 there was a debate on the future availability of resources for the provision of district council services; a debate on local government finance generally was introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, in July 2017; and on 25 September this year I made a speech in the debate on the public spending review, which I shall refer to later. However, nothing has changed. Neighbourhood services continue to be the Cinderella of public services in this country. Things such as bin collection, street cleansing and local leisure facilities have less and less money spent on them every year, and the quality and quantity of what is happening, taken as a whole, is deteriorating.
These services comprise much of the work of ordinary district councils in two-tier areas—I am a member of one—but they are also carried out by unitary authorities, metropolitan councils and London boroughs. Some services, such as the maintenance of local highways, are carried out by county councils. However, the amount of funding provided and allowed for them by central government is the same whichever council carries them out, and it is going down. Indeed, an increasing number of these services are being provided by town and parish councils. In many areas, county, unitary and district councils are deliberately seeking to transfer some services to town and parish councils, which can levy an extra council tax to pay for them as an alternative to the services being closed down or seriously deteriorating.
We are told by our new Prime Minister that austerity is over, yet, as far as local government is concerned, the only real increases in funding, with a few exceptions, are for social care. As we know, that itself is inadequate and the social care system is in serious crisis but, nevertheless, there is real extra money going to those authorities that deal with social care. For neighbourhood or street-level services, whether they are provided by districts or larger authorities, there is no extra money at all. In fact, in real terms, the money this year is being reduced yet again.
What are these services that people like me go on about? They include street cleansing—where sweepers and other people clean up litter—and litter removal generally, as well as the local highways and streets services which tackle the potholes that the Government panicked about last year. Other services include local traffic management, street lighting, pavements and housing standards. The increasing number of private landlords in many areas of poor housing mean that housing standards are a growing problem; housing stock that had been improving over several decades—50 years, perhaps—is now in many cases deteriorating again. There are services addressing environmental health, pollution control and antisocial behaviour measures, for which district councils have responsibility following legislation a few years ago. There are local public health initiatives and all the services that safeguard the local environment, with green spaces, local amenity areas and mini parks. All this concerns not only the green environment but the whole urban environment and any public spaces.
If the district councils and local authorities do not go out deliberately to look after these areas and keep them decent, they deteriorate. It is an easy thing not to do. We are talking about children’s play areas, parks, leisure facilities, sports pitches and facilities, community centres and community facilities generally—the whole question of managing the local environment. Town centres, and towns, pose a huge problem at the moment; we are not talking about the big cities here but towns that may be large, small or medium sized. The local authority is very often the body that has to try to get a grip on maintaining viable, decent, properly maintained town centres. If it does not, who else will?
At the moment, there are lots of competitions that authorities can enter to get extra money for town centres, but they are competitions. People spend a lot of time and effort entering these competitions. Some win and get amounts of money—but resources are required for local authorities generally to look after their town centres, not just those lucky enough to win competitions. At a local level, the planning system is absolutely crucial for keeping areas as good places to live.
Refuse collection is on the front line of recycling, which is so important as part of climate initiatives. On community safety, councils may work with the local police and other bodies. The local authority has no duty to get involved but, if it does not, efforts will often not succeed. All this has a particular impact on ordinary districts, because this is what they do. It also affects everybody else and neighbourhood services everywhere.
The fabric of communities all over the country—not all of them, but many—is falling apart, as is the structure of the local services which maintain that fabric. There are rich areas and poor areas, and there are areas which are more affected by this than others. As far as the climate emergency is concerned, local authorities have an absolutely crucial role to play. A large number—maybe over 200—have declared a local climate emergency, but without the resources to do things to tackle climate issues locally, across the wide range of everything they do, it will not come to anything.
On resources, according to the National Audit Office, since the 2015 spending review, districts have had a 13.9% reduction in core spending power in real terms. That feeds across to non-districts in relation to the services they carry out, which would otherwise be district services. Since 2010-11, the median reduction in core spending power for all districts is over 30% in real terms. For the worst-hit districts, including my own, it is 50% or more. If a local authority’s spending power is cut by more than half over 10 years, it has a huge effect on what it can and cannot do. The areas that are affected are very often the poorest areas, because they are the ones which do not have the ability to raise extra money in other ways.
I raised this on 25 September in the debate on the public spending review. The Minister at that time, the noble Lord, Lord Duncan of Springbank, promised to write to me to explain how everything was happening. I have his letter here. It says:
“The Government also announced that it will consult on a 2% core council tax referendum principle, which will allow councils to access additional funding for their local services”.
We know that, but of course 2% is less than the rate of inflation. So it is not enough even on the amount to be raised by the council tax alone, and the amount from other sources is either static or has gone down. The Minister’s letter also says that,
“local authorities should be able to make decisions to meet pressures where appropriate, informed by local knowledge, and be accountable for them”.
I am afraid that if that is what the Government are saying, it will result in a lot of belly laughs in a lot of local authorities.
I am not here to engage in any special pleading for my own local authority in Pendle, although I will mention as an example that the number of people employed by that authority has halved since 2010. Local authority services depend on employing people. There may be greater efficiencies—I am certain that there are—but when you slash your staff numbers by half and many of your remaining staff have gone down to a three- or four-day week, and you are trying to do the same things you did before, it is impossible.
The affected authorities are often old industrial towns in the north of England and elsewhere. Generally, they are places on the edge and in the areas in between. Even in the south-east, authorities are affected. We are not talking here about major cities, but about all the ordinary places that get missed out. I had better be careful about what I say with my noble friend Lord Goddard sitting in front of me, but the north of England is more than just Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield.
One very good example is the new homes bonus, which was introduced to encourage local authorities to give planning permission for new housing. In practice, it top-sliced government money for all local authorities, including the poorest, and redistributed it to those that could build new houses, which were very often already in the pipeline. The truth is that it resulted in the redistribution of money from poor areas and areas where people did not want to build houses to places with high demand for houses and where new housing had already been planned and agreed. It resulted in a redistribution of funding from the north of England to the south-east, the south-west and the east taken overall, with individual exceptions, of course. Now that the new homes bonus has been cut, the top-sliced money has not been returned to the poorer areas from which it was taken in the first place.
I could talk for the whole of this debate, but I will not. The dark clouds of austerity still hang over far too many of the ordinary streets and roads, towns and communities of England. Further cuts are not sustainable. It is no wonder that people in many of these areas are fed up with the system, fed up with everything and vote for unicorns. Two years ago, in a debate in 2017, I said that things were “at breaking point”. They are not broken yet, thanks to the efforts of the staff, the councillors and everybody working in these areas, but it is pretty damned near broken. Something has to happen to put more resources into the ordinary services that people expect when they pay their council tax.
Baroness Redfern (Con)
My Lords, I am pleased to take part this afternoon. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for moving this debate on government support to help local authorities fulfil their statutory duties and provide a good range of services to our communities. As the noble Lord alluded to, those services include education, child and adult social care, waste collection, public health, planning, housing, road maintenance and library services, and I too pay tribute to the excellent staff delivering them. It has certainly been a continuing challenge against a backdrop of successive Governments reducing funding for local government, as well as changed funding arrangements that place new pressures and demands, but local authorities have, to their credit, risen to the challenge and responded by opening up and creating new opportunities against possible further pressures for the sector.
In my allotted time, I will focus on libraries, which, in their own way, can be sometimes misunderstood or remembered only as a Cinderella service. That is far from the case. That is why I will concentrate my focus on the importance of libraries, which are continuing to strike out and innovate in our neighbourhood services offer.
I welcome too the local core spending power, which is estimated to increase by £2.9 billion in total in 2020-21, but of course, as I have alluded to, there are financial challenges for councils. I am therefore pleased that local government is demonstrating how it can deliver services, for now and for the future, and that authorities and many others are making an impact by working collaboratively and sharing those precious resources, as well as co-locating with other government, partner or voluntary services. Thinking outside the box is now a must for many councils, which I know are already working and delivering in new and different ways, and making the case for the importance of neighbourhood hubs.
Libraries play an integral part in community hubs. The libraries of 2019 are not the libraries we knew 10 or 20 years ago. They are diversifying, and have to diversify, their funding, generating income streams and developing new ones. They can often play a crucial role in revitalising or helping our high streets. They help remote workers and small businesses by renting out space or by co-locating in local sports facilities, as is happening in my local unitary authority. They can also offer to develop even outreach post offices within those hubs.
Of course, we always need well trained, experienced staff, but at the same time it is amazing to see that the number of library volunteers has increased by 187% over the past seven years. Importantly, that opens up opportunities to encourage those volunteers who may be lonely and suffer from social isolation, or those they know who may be lonely, to participate in some form of further education or to join in other activities.
Many libraries have spare floor space that they can turn around by offering residents the use of online services, helping them to improve their basic digital skills and thereby helping to reduce digital exclusion. Community hubs are also the place to go for accessing all local authorities’ resources and activities.
In 2019, lending books is not all that libraries do, although it is important to be able to continue that service for young and old. They also offer a wide range of health and other social activities, as well as a place to meet or to study.
In North Lincolnshire, our libraries link with arts and cultural organisations, increasing people’s access and participation, and inform people of future cultural events. A must, though, is to continue ongoing dialogue with customers regarding their possible future demands. In our neighbourhood hubs, we also offer the opportunity to display community collections; the translating of information resources into other languages; a programme of physical and social well-being activities for adults; programmes and advice for those who want to make positive sustainable changes to their health, such as weight management and stopping smoking; health checks; and, in particular, activities for young people. It is about having a building that is designed to allow multiple community groups to use it at the same time, where its many doors are all open.
This is where our CallConnect buses come into play—a service with no fixed timetable but which responds instead to passenger requests made by telephone or online. It improves transport opportunities in our rural communities, and some market towns, where there is an infrequent conventional bus service. And it works, together with the confidence that comes from the pooling of local authority budgets, rather than just thinking in silos. I welcome what the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, said earlier about support for a national bus strategy and long-term funding for transport.
Neighbourhood services are a core aspect of our communities and of how we continue to engage with and improve service delivery in our many different geographical council areas, and from council to council. The multi-year funding settlement has allowed councils to plan ahead. However, the four-year settlement is now coming to an end, which is resulting in uncertainty. Local government needs clarity for future investment, so I ask the Minister if he can update the House on possible future developments.
Lord Adonis (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness. Her remarks about community bus services, having new request bus services and refashioning libraries as community hubs, and co-locating other community services, were extremely well made. It is vital that we deal with underfunding, but it is also important that we get the best value from the resources, the infrastructure and the funding that is currently available, and redesigning services along the lines that she was discussing in relation to Lincolnshire, which she knows well, is a point well made.
I have a gentle criticism of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. He said that there were problems, “even in the south-east”. Can I inform my noble friend that there are many problems in the south-east, and most of the issues that he talked about apply equally to London and the south-east as other parts of the country? It is a very bad idea for us to be setting the north against the south, as if somehow the south is a land of milk and honey and the north is all starved. These problems are fairly common across the north and the south, and many of the issues which the noble Baroness referred to about redesigning services are equally important in the south-east.
Recently I visited the wonderful new library and community centre run by Oasis, a brilliant charity run by the outstanding community leader the Reverend Steve Chalke in Waterloo, in the London Borough of Lambeth. He has turned a library that was threatened with closure into a community centre. It also has a school and a debt advice service. The police station next door, sadly, is being closed, and Oasis is hoping to bring that into the community hub, too. There is a community centre and a café there. It is a vibrant community service that has enabled the local authority, working in partnership, to keep open a service that would have been closed even without the cuts which the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, referred to. What we need to do—this is part of the role that noble Lords in this House can play—is showcase successful models of delivery, even though politically some of us would like to see fundamental changes in national policy, so that we can make the best of what we have got and utilise our still-rich panoply of local community institutions and infrastructure to provide still-better services.
I of course agree with the substance of what the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, says. We need to join up the big picture here. Part of the reason why we are going through this Brexit crisis, and a massive crisis of confidence in our political institutions and our Government, is because the services on which people depend, all of those neighbourhood services, street collections, libraries, schools, housing—which I will have more to say on—have been seriously cut back in recent years, and people make a connection between the two. They think that the fact that they are getting such a raw deal in terms of their local services is part of the reason why they should lack confidence in their national Government. Alas, three and a half years ago the only question they were asked in a referendum was: “Do you want to leave the European Union?” They are now taking it out on politicians, particularly in communities more distant from London, such as Lincolnshire and parts of the north, that voted to leave.
It is very clear to me that, if we are going to deal with the massive crisis that we face as a country, we have to end austerity and fundamentally invest in our local communities—particularly poorer communities—and stop Brexit. We need to do the two together. It is a somewhat sad commentary on our failure in Parliament to put these together that this debate is so poorly attended, with so few of your Lordships taking part—because we must crack this issue of investment in local services. I am delighted to see that my noble friend Lord Kennedy is replying to the debate. He is a distinguished local councillor. Of the few of us who are here today, many are distinguished leaders of or have played parts in local authorities. Unless we can get this right, we are not going to crack the bigger problem of our whole relationship with Europe and our membership of the European Union.
I want to address the issue of housing. The speech by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, was interesting and revealing. He talked about improving housing administration and the quality of local authority housing stock, but I suggest that that prospectus is not bold enough for the future.
Lord Greaves
I apologise for intervening, but we have plenty of time today. I was talking not about local authority housing but about private sector landlord housing in areas of poor housing.
Lord Adonis
The point is the same, my Lords. If we are to tackle this housing crisis, what is needed is a bold new programme led by district councils and lower-tier authorities—because they are housing authorities—of building new council housing. They should work in partnership with housing associations to improve dramatically the stock of social housing and affordable housing, which is a significant part of the social crisis that the country faces.
One of the biggest changes in public policy over the past 40 years has been that the provision of social and affordable housing, which was regarded as a core function of the state until the 1980s, has totally ceased to be. We need to be self-critical in this: I do not think that the Government of which I was a part did nearly enough. We thought that market-based solutions would meet needs for lower-cost housing; they manifestly have not.
I spent, for my sins, a large part of last night reading the third volume of Charles Moore’s biography of Margaret Thatcher, which I recommend to your Lordships—indeed, some of those whom I see here in the House today feature in it. It is an important contribution to political history. One of the most remarkable things about it is that council housing, which used to be one of the biggest political issues in the 1960s and 1970s, does not feature at all in that volume—it covers the years from 1987 to the end of Lady Thatcher’s career—except in one passing reference to council house sales, which was the only council house policy that Margaret Thatcher had in her 11 and a half years in Downing Street.
The facts are now the facts: the average home in England this year costs eight times more to buy than the average salary; the average share of income that young families spend on housing has trebled over the past 50 years; because of the shortage of social and affordable housing, the number of people living in the private rented sector has doubled in the past 20 years, and private renters spend on average 41%—nearly half—of their household income on rent. Surprise, surprise, a majority, 57%, of private renters are now struggling to pay housing costs, and one in three low-earning renters has to borrow money to pay their rent. Some 800,000 people who are renting cannot afford to save even £10 a month; 27% of private renters receive housing benefit or the housing element of universal credit, which is approximately 1.3 million households nationwide. Meanwhile, the Government spend £21 billion a year on housing benefit because of the very high level of rents, which they have jacked up by removing subsidy and not building more social homes. Last year, only 6,463 new social homes were built nationwide. There are about 1.5 million fewer social homes today than there were in 1980.
I do not want to do death by statistics, but I think that your Lordships get the picture. What has essentially happened in the last generation is that we totally stopped building new social homes publicly. Housing associations filled the gap to a very modest extent, but not nearly sufficiently. We have had significant population growth in that time, alongside the cessation of social home building; a substantial proportion of the country cannot get near the affordable housing ladder, let alone buy housing; and we have a private rented sector in which Rachmanite, disgraceful, slum-type conditions are increasingly common, with local authorities having neither the power nor the resources to deal with them.
What should be the policy? It is very clear to me, because to all big questions there is usually a simple and correct answer—there is often a simple and wrong answer, too. The simple and correct answer to this crisis is for local authorities to start building social housing again. They should do this in partnership with housing associations, but they should be the prime movers because they are the public authorities—and they should build social housing at the level at which they did in the 1960s and 1970s, to deal with the chronic housing crisis.
At the moment there is precious little movement towards this. It is true that councils are building houses again in a very modest way, compared to the period from the mid-1980s until a few years ago when they were building none at all. But it is very modest; it is scratching the surface, and we now need a revolution in policy. To give some idea, the London Borough of Lambeth, for which I was looking at the statistics recently, is building fewer than 100 new social homes a year; it needs to build 1,000-plus to deal with this issue. So we need about a tenfold increase in the rate of new building at the moment. To put that in context, in just that one London borough, Lambeth—I am sorry to keep referring to London and the south-east, which may offend the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, but there are big problems there, too—the council house waiting list is 28,000. That is in a London borough that is able to build fewer than 100 new homes a year. We need to move these two figures much, much closer to each other.
The noble Viscount, who always does his best to reply to our debates, will I hope be able to give us some facts, and I would like to put a few questions to him. The situation that we are in now, which I have seen very often in public policy, is that everyone admits there is a problem—I do not think that anyone who follows me in this debate will say that there is not a big problem—but the difficulty that we face is that the policies do not remotely match the scale of the problem that most people have identified. At the moment, the noble Viscount and his party are in government, so this is a charge which faces them as to what they are doing about it. They have accepted that there needs to be new social housebuilding, but they are doing precious little about it.
I have three specific questions about policy. First, if there is to be significant new housebuilding led by local authorities, it can come from only one of two sources: either grant funding from central government and/or the capacity of local authorities themselves to borrow in advance of the receipts that they will get from then renting out the social housing. Of course, it was a combination of the two that produced the scale of council and social housebuilding in the 1960s and 1970s. The Government have introduced two policies in this respect. They have restored some grant funding to local authorities in respect of housing, but the amount is pitifully small and typically provides only for less than one-third of the cost of new social units. So what is the Government’s policy going forward? Are they going to significantly increase grant funding in respect of new social housing provided by local authorities and, if so—since I am told that unless that grant funding is in excess of 50%, it is very difficult to get building at volume—will the Government be prepared to look at increasing the grant funding to 50% of the cost of providing new social housing?
In respect of borrowing, the situation is more urgent. What we are seeing at the moment is a serious regression in policy on the part of the Government. One of the most welcome things that Theresa May did in her time as Prime Minister was announce an end to the borrowing cap in respect of local authorities building new housing. This was a deeply felt restraint on local authorities that had applied for the best part of a generation. Even though they could borrow cheaply from the Public Works Loan Board—which was the way that local authorities borrowed—and were able to service debt from rents to build new social housing, they were banned from undertaking the borrowing. Theresa May lifted that borrowing cap, which was extremely welcome, but earlier this month the Government announced unilaterally, with no consultation—smuggled out in a Statement on one of those many days when there were many other Brexit-related announcements so that almost no one noticed—that the borrowing rate from the Public Works Loan Board was going to be increase overnight from 1.81% to 2.82%.
We should let that sink for a moment: an increase of nearly 50% overnight in the borrowing rate levied on local authorities in the only place that they can borrow— except at the going market rates, which of course would make all of this totally unaffordable. The word on the street, which I put to the noble Viscount so that he can deal with it when he replies, is that the reason this was done is that the Treasury, which never wanted the borrowing cap lifted in the first place, is now trying to sabotage the whole principle of public borrowing by local authorities by massively increasing the interest rate, hoping that no one will notice.
I was, until the Brexit crisis came along, chairing the National Infrastructure Commission, so I know only too well how the Treasury works in these matters. That interpretation of what is happening seems to me to be extremely plausible. Can the noble Viscount tell the House why the borrowing rate from the Public Works Loan Board for local authorities wanting to borrow to build new housing has been increased from 1.81% to 2.82%? Is this a fixed policy? Finally, because I am always trying to be constructive—and I know the noble Viscount is, too—will he consider reviewing that policy? Will he meet me and other noble Lords who are concerned about this issue to discuss public borrowing by local authorities to build new social housing and how it can be done on an affordable basis?
Lord Marlesford (Con)
Is the noble Lord satisfied that there is space in Lambeth to provide housing for 28,000 more people? It is all very well to say that we have to provide housing for people who need it, but if you are talking about a particular area they want to live in, there has to be the space for the housing.
Lord Adonis
Yes, I am satisfied, and I would be very glad to do a walking tour of the London Borough of Lambeth to explain to the noble Lord how it can be done, starting with the huge issue of the redevelopment of Waterloo station. It desperately needs redeveloping; Waterloo is the biggest terminus in Europe and if it were redeveloped it could provide huge opportunities for new social housing. If the noble Lord is up for it, we will do it and we will work out how we can provide that housing—and I would like the Minister to come along, too, because then something might actually happen.
Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)
My Lords, far be it from me to interrupt the private arrangements of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, but I too am grateful to my noble friend Lord Greaves for securing this timely debate. I hope I will not tread on his toes with my comments, but I want to build on what the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said about more collaborative working, as well as on the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Redfern, about the need for libraries.
I begin with the position of local councillors, because they are at the other end of the spectrum. To give a brief example, in a previous life, as a young councillor in Stockport, I collected the diaries of Tony Benn. They are an interesting insight into being in government, in opposition and—as at the unfortunate time when I got the book—in what are called the wilderness years; the term is quite apt at the moment. I got my copy and went up to Manchester to get him to sign the book for me. He found out that I was a councillor and said, “I really feel sorry for you, because local councillors have the worst of all worlds. You’re not MPs and you’re not Ministers. You get all the money from government and you have no power. If something goes right, the Government claim it. if something goes wrong, you get blamed for it locally”. It was a position he would not have wanted to be in. I left with my shoulders down, thinking that my career was starting on a pessimistic note. Having said that, we carried on and we petitioned the Government. All Members here who have been in local government have probably made the trek on the train, with the chief officers, to meet a Minister for a nice drink of tea and a biscuit. They will have received the warm words and been sent back on the train—another day of your life gone when nothing happened. That was the never-increasing circle of how local authorities used to work.
Fast forward another 15 or 20 years, and I became leader of Stockport Council, albeit in a different political party—I was in the Liberal Democrats by then. I was determined to change the perception of local councillors and to try to affect the funding formula, because it was the funding formula that was always the problem. As fate would have it, devolution was coming to Greater Manchester. There was an appetite and a belief that we could do things differently and more collaboratively to get more bang for our buck. That was thanks to Howard Bernstein, Richard Leese and one or two others. We 10 councils stuck together and decided to pool our wits and, more importantly, our money, and we got the first ever city deal, the first ever combined authority and the first ever LEP in the country.
We are seeing the benefits of that now: Greater Manchester gets a £7 billion health budget in one lump sum. Those 10 leaders distribute that on the basis of need, instead of it being salami-sliced, with every council not getting enough. The ability to do that is really what I want to talk about. It can filter down even to a local council such as Pendle, and to small authorities and district councils. If there is a will to work together, we can get better bang for our buck, but there needs to be more trust and we need more faith in each other: we need to believe that this is for the greater good.
Today, LGA surveys paint a different picture of councillors. When asked, “Who do you trust to deliver local services?”, 75% answered local councillors, 12% MPs and 12% government. I will not read the percentage for government Ministers for fear of embarrassment, but be assured that it was a single digit. The irony is that local councillors now get less funding, have more public trust and have to deliver worse services. Quite frankly, I am glad I do not have to be involved in that.
I make the following observations on this timely debate. Government funding comes in strategic and non-strategic forms. We know what strategic funding is for: services for older people and children’s services—the essentials. But non-strategic funding is just as important, for libraries, heritage and sport. These are the services that take the brunt now because other services have to be protected. But more people a week now go to libraries than to Premier League football matches. They are no longer dusty old places where pensioners go for a drink of tea. They are learning hubs and fantastic assets to local authorities, and they should be protected.
There are other things local councils can be involved in. The creative industries are worth £84 billion a year and include museums and places that can attract people who spend the money that creates the jobs in your economy. The tourism industry is worth £127 billion. These are big numbers and local authorities should be getting their slice. If you are a bit more imaginative about partnership working, you can begin to get some of that money back. It is not all doom and gloom, but the Government are not going to change the funding regime overnight—it is not going to happen. We have to be smarter and cleverer about how we stretch that money.
I want to talk about the housing plan of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. I am not saying that in Stockport we have a silver bullet, because we do not, but over 20 years ago we sat down with five local social housing providers and we offered them land for free—we gave it up. They built the houses and we put the tenants in. We built thousands of houses that way in Stockport, to such an extent that, when it was finished, they came back and said, “We’ve actually have a surplus, so we can either reduce the rent or build some more”. We said, “Build some more!”. That model worked, even then, and I see no reason why it should not work now. We now have Stockport Homes, an arm’s-length company. It has enormous headquarters with a board, and is building homes in Stockport town centre, where you need to build homes and can really connect communities. It is not building flats but one-bedroom, two-bedroom, three-bedroom and four-bedroom houses, in town centres where people come to work and thrive. When you do that, you begin to get an economy, and it is the dividends from that economy that bring things forward.
My two thoughts, for what they are worth, are these. Government is almost like Newton’s theory: for every action, there is a reaction. As you cut and make things more difficult—fewer police, less youth provision, fewer parks and recreation facilities—the people affected by that will do something else. In my opinion, that something else will cost more. If we can turn that egg-timer over and get it going back the other way, toward investment, that is how we can have more social cohesion, fewer gangs, less theft and less lack of respect for property and people. It can be done.
It does not happen automatically for local councils. But my noble friend is right that, for somewhere such as Pendle or a small district council in the south, you can make a difference if you work together with other people. You have to understand that, sometimes, you have to put tribal loyalties aside—perhaps I will get into trouble with my Whips for saying that. We are here for one thing: to serve the people. We have to deliver services for local people as best we can. There is no money tree, but if we work together correctly across political parties, as we have done in Stockport for years, we can move forward.
Finally, on sport, Bury Football Club is going out of business, and the effect that will have on the economy in Bury will be critical. Stockport was in a similar position. The Liberal Democrat group supported Stockport County and the Labour group now running Stockport do the same. We secured the Stockport County ground. Stockport County’s average gate at home is about 3,000 to 4,000, plus away people, so every other week the economy of Stockport and Edgeley gets 4,000 people in the cafes, bars and food places. People need to understand that. They say, “Football clubs—nothing to do with us”, but clubs in small towns are just as important as factories. I make a plea to people. When they say, “Oh, Bury Football Club—too bad. How sad”, that is not the answer. You need to give it support. I understand that there are upwards of 20 football clubs on the edge, and if 20 more go, we really will see a decline in town centres and in living standards. We should resist that.
The Earl of Listowel (CB)
My Lords, may I speak briefly, for four minutes perhaps if I am permitted, in the break? I thank the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for calling this important debate. In listening to what has been said, I reflect on the difficulties politically that we have been facing for quite some time now. We seem to be talking about a lack of stability and extremism, moving from “spend, spend, spend” to “cut, cut, cut”. We talk about the decision to stop building social housing and sell it off, and the consequences of that. I compare that to a country like Germany, for instance, which obviously has its own challenges, but it seems to have achieved a level of stability and continuity of policy over time. Looking at that from the point of view of children, young people and families, what they need above all is continuity and stability. Perhaps, therefore, the current crisis may be an opportunity to think about whether we might do politics a little differently in this country, being a bit more collaborative and consistent and a bit less confrontational and adversarial.
I will address three points briefly: housing, young people and the funding of strategic services. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, spoke eloquently about housing. Over the years, I have spoken with mothers in temporary accommodation, and it has been troubling to hear of their experience, most obviously of isolation. So often, because of the shortage of housing, they are placed a long way from their community—perhaps their ethnic community—and their family and friends, so they struggle because of that. They struggle with great uncertainty. I was speaking with a woman who had experienced domestic violence over many years. She had finally managed to escape from her husband, spent some time in a refuge and was then in temporary accommodation. She spoke of her great anxiety that she might be placed way outside London, where she had lived for many years and brought up her family. Obviously, this was impacting on her mental health, and brought with it the risk that her granddaughter, whom she was caring for, might be removed into local authority care. That is perhaps another reason for us to wish to remain in the European Union or to rejoin it. The housing issue, which people on the continent seem to address far better on the whole, is perhaps just one example of the success of the social contract there, which we seem to have been struggling with for many years. In the United States, which we seem now to be turning towards, they have a very shaky social contract.
On young people, the BBC recently produced a report on children and young people in Barrow-in-Furness. For many years, young people have been struggling there—there have been issues to do with drug and alcohol misuse—and the programme highlighted that younger and younger children are being drawn into evening activities around drinking, often turning up to school when they are unable to concentrate and falling asleep. We also have the continual worries about children and young people being involved in knife crime. Most of the victims of knife crime are young people themselves. I once worked in a hostel where I met a young black woman serving the food whose son had been knifed just recently, and we saw the impact that had on her.
I welcome the efforts that the Government are making to address that, but I worked for three years in various local authorities across London with children and young people—from 1982 to 1985, I think. I went with my gang of local young people to the local swimming pool and we made use of local parks. We need consistent investment in those assets for children and young people. We need to invest in youth services. I was sorry to hear that Pendle has lost half of its workforce. There are two key things if one wants to keep young people out of crime: you need to give them something to do, and you need to give them someone responsible and helpful to whom they can look up to do it with. In a sense, you are making a little gang of your own, you are doing something interesting together and they have a good person to do it with.
Finally—I may have spoken for too long already—is it reasonable to expect local taxpayers to fund strategic services, such as children’s services? Surely the Government need to invest more in children and family services from the national budget so that local taxpayers do not have to pay for children’s homes and the costly interventions that are a statutory duty on local authorities to deliver.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my registered interests as a councillor and a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I thank my noble friend Lord Greaves for initiating this important debate on the current state of, and future prospects for, neighbourhood services. I also draw the House’s attention to the fact that our Benches are less full than they would have otherwise been because today many are attending the funeral of a very special Liberal Democrat.
The National Audit Office produced an excellent report last year on the financial sustainability of local authorities. The data provided in the report admirably illustrates the spending cuts meted out to neighbourhood services. It states that there has been a 49.1% real-terms reduction in government funding since 2010, which translates into a 28.6% real-terms cut in spending power. However, that paints only part of the picture, as there is considerable variation between local authorities. For example, metropolitan and unitary councils have seen a 38% cut in spending power on non-social care services, and the shire districts a 25% cut. Even then, there is huge variation within those figures. As my noble friend Lord Greaves demonstrated, areas of greater deprivation are less able to raise funding through local taxation, thus the cuts there have been even greater. Fifty per cent is a huge cut in any local authority’s funding to provide services.
Further detail of service cuts in this invaluable report shows that libraries have experienced cuts of 33%, parks 27%, community safety 51% and highway maintenance 37%. The LGA survey of public perception last year shows that resident satisfaction rates with services is falling and, for highway maintenance, falling quite sharply—no surprise there for anyone who has to use local roads. The service cuts are becoming increasingly obvious to our residents.
What does that mean in practice for people who are, after all, paying more and more in council tax for less and less? Local authorities have protected spending on vulnerable adults and children in local authorities with those responsibilities, and focused budget cuts on neighbourhood services. In my own council of Kirklees, this has resulted in, for example, the Red House Museum being closed. It was the home of a close friend of Charlotte Brontë and features significantly in her novel Shirley. Of course, local people want to keep the Red House open to the public and a recent petition attracted more than 3,000 signatures from all over the world in a matter of days, but to no avail.
Libraries have been transferred for volunteers to run, while parks have much-reduced grass cutting, with some areas being neglected altogether. Local roads are in a poor state, as they are everywhere, with the Local Government Association reporting this year that funding available for the maintenance of local roads has dropped by £400 million. Across the country, residents have seen the closure of services such as libraries and museums, or a significant reduction in their opening hours, along with a considerable downgrading of the standard of service in, for example, parks and play areas. Provision has virtually disappeared in, for example, services for young people, or, as some people still call them, youth services. These cuts have been made by closing buildings and, in many cases, then selling those assets. In other cases, the service reduction has been achieved by cutting employees, as my noble friend Lord Greaves pointed out. We now have 34% fewer professional librarians than eight years ago and professional food safety inspector numbers have dropped by a staggering 60%.
The cuts to some neighbourhood services would be even worse if it were not for the increase in or introduction of fees charged by local authorities, as the report from the NAO clearly shows. Although it is difficult to be precise, the figures point to the fact that around 10% of the costs of providing neighbourhood services are now being borne by fees and charges, which means that in a sense they are just another tax on local people. Services are being diminished and the costs, either through taxation or charges, are rising as a direct result of the Government’s savage cuts to local funding. Here I disagree with the comments of my noble friend Lord Goddard, who believes that all this could be transformed by greater collaboration and more efficient, effective working. Yes, some of that can happen and that action taken by local authorities during the austerity years has shown that services can be provided more efficiently and effectively. However, you cannot keep cutting funding. In the end, public funding is an essential requirement for the delivery of public services.
The other way that councils have sought to manage the sharp reduction in funding is by increasing the number of volunteers. Volunteers are a huge asset to any council and enable local people to get involved and to shape service provision in a way that was not as readily available just a few years ago. Valuable though they are, however, volunteers cannot be expected to be completely responsible for council buildings or to take responsibility for running a service formerly provided by paid professionals. Volunteers are frequently drawn from the ranks of retired people, so the sustainability of a heavy reliance on them has to be questioned.
What are the consequences of these dramatic changes in public service provision? The impact on individual services is well documented in expenditure reductions, employee cuts, building closures, council tax rises and increases in fees and charges. What is not yet clear is the totality of the impact measured across a community. What the Government do not seem to appreciate is that councils are not simply the commissioners and providers of disparate services. All councils aspire to create healthy, safe and vibrant communities. Each of these service cuts has a different impact on individuals within a community: children who find that the football pitch is not being maintained to its former high standard; young people for whom diversionary youth services are appropriate, who now find alternative distractions, not always to their benefit or that of local people; readers wanting to use a now closed library, or unemployed people who need a library with public access to computers to complete job applications; and those suffering from mental ill health for whom a calming park or open space is a refuge, who find that it is now not as clean and well cared for. As for potholed roads, they are an unwelcome cost to individuals and businesses. Can the Minister let us know whether the Government have made an assessment of the cumulative impact on communities and individuals of this very significant reduction in neighbourhood services?
Parish and town councils in many areas have been able to take over the provision of some neighbourhood services to the benefit of local people. Can the Minister say whether the Government will actively encourage the creation of parish and town councils, including within metropolitan and unitary district council areas?
Neighbourhood services provide a vital lifeline for many individuals, as well as opening opportunities for those in more deprived communities. Flourishing communities with effective neighbourhood services help reduce demand for front-line services such as the NHS and social care. I hope the Government will begin to understand the enormous contribution of neighbourhood services to the well-being of local communities and begin to reverse the cuts in funding that have had a devastating impact on these much-valued and essential services. We on this side understand the vital nature of community services and will invest in them, and give powers to communities to make the decisions that affect them, for the well-being of all.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, first, I refer to my entry in the register of interests as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. Secondly, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, on securing this important debate.
The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, has vast experience in local government, which he clearly demonstrated with his introduction to this debate. He has raised the important issue of the levels of government resources for neighbourhood services provided by district councils and other local authorities. We have received some excellent briefing notes, which have been helpful in the preparation for this debate, from the Local Government Association, the Library of the House, the District Councils’ Network and others, and I thank them all very much for that.
I join noble Lords in paying tribute to elected councillors and the staff of local authorities. As the noble Lord, Lord Goddard of Stockport, said, when you visit local government you see that the work that councillors do is so important. They are the glue that keeps things together. It is really important to respect and value the work they do.
Things have been tough financially, and it is due in no small measure to the dedication of people elected and working in local government that many more crises have been averted in recent years. A 32.6% cut in real terms in local authority spending in non-social care services between 2010 and 2017 has created huge pressures on councillors, staff and communities. Although I accept that there have been some increases recently, the National Audit Office’s prediction is that, by the end of 2020, the reductions in funding from central government to local government will be 56.3%—a huge figure. Many organisations would have ceased to exist with a cut in expenditure of that level.
My noble friend Lord Adonis is absolutely right: we need to end austerity. We also need to stop Brexit. I agree with him in both respects. I am so pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Deben, is in the Chamber now. I recommend that noble Lords read yesterday’s Hansard. His contribution on the regulations on the European elections in Gibraltar was marvellous, and every noble Lord should read it when they leave the Chamber.
Local government delivers a huge range of services, and district councils deliver 86 of the 137 essential services to cover 22 million people—40% of the population in England—and more than 68% of the country by area. They approve 90% of planning applications and enabled most of the housing completions in their areas in the last year. That gives noble Lords some idea of the work that district councils do. Those services and more are delivered by unitarity authorities and, in the two-tier county areas, social services, education and other services are delivered by county councils.
The noble Lord, Lord Goddard of Stockport, was absolutely right when he spoke of the benefits of local authorities working together. Greater Manchester is a great example of that; it has seen much success. Regardless of the political control over those authorities—various parties have had control in different years—they have continued to work together. As the noble Lord said, they have reaped the benefits of working together, and that is to their credit.
I agree generally with all that the noble Lord said in what was an excellent speech, and I fully support the points he made about Bury Football Club. What has happened there is tragic, and I support the local MP James Frith for the work he is doing. I had some problems with Dulwich Hamlet Football Club a year or so ago. We made some progress there, and the club is back in its place. Many noble Lords supported my campaign in the House, so I am grateful for that. I am also grateful that in Lewisham, where I live, the council and the new mayor saw the error of their ways and withdrew the CPO around Millwall Football Club. Hopefully, that club will go from success to success, with notable thanks to the campaigns by fans and local residents on its behalf.
The Motion from the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, raises the issue of government support for neighbourhood services. We know that local government gets most of its funding from three main areas: council tax receipts; retention of business rates; and central government grants. I have already outlined the huge cuts in resources provided by central government.
Let us just look at some of the issues that local government is dealing with, with reduced resources, such as housing and homelessness. Money provided to reduce homelessness is very welcome, obviously, but for me there is too much emphasis on the Homelessness Reduction Act without a corresponding increase in resources to make that very desirable outcome a reality. I have raised this many times in this Chamber. Councils need long-term funding in place to deal with the problem of homelessness on a sustainable long-term footing. I do not believe we have that yet. The number of homeless people when you come to this House from any of the nearby stations—Waterloo, Charing Cross or Victoria—or through Westminster Tube station is a tragedy. That was not the case some years ago, and the Government have to do much more about it. In its excellent briefing, the LGA estimated that homelessness services are dealing with cost pressures from demand and inflation alone of £100 million a year. Statutory homelessness continues to rise, and 1.1 million remain on council housing waiting lists. That will remain the case unless a long-term solution is found.
One of the most frustrating things I hear is that, somehow, the local authority planning department is some sort of barrier to building houses. This is utter rubbish. Councils approve nine out of 10 cases that come before them, yet approximately 250,000 applications are approved without a brick being laid. Every year they give permissions, and it is very frustrating to hear this. Also frustrating is the position whereby the council tax payer is still subsiding the whole planning process. The LGA and others have for many years called for that to be dealt with. There has been an increase in the fees, which obviously is welcome, but the Government were also consulting on a further 20% rise in planning fees and have not decided yet. They need to decide that. From this Dispatch Box I have also called for the Government to find just one council in England to pilot some sort of transparent scheme of local fee setting and see where that goes. That could be very helpful. I cannot see the objection to finding one authority to pilot that and have a look at it.
As noble Lords have heard, waste and recycling services are important to local communities and are very much more in the public eye now. Since 2010, councils have continued to increase recycling rates, although central government funding for this has been reduced by about 60%. The Government’s resources and waste strategy is a significant step in the right direction towards improving waste and recycling services, and the LGA has called for businesses and manufacturers to pay the full cost of recycling in their areas. Much more needs to be done to boost recycling rates, raise standards and meet national targets and to improve important services such as street sweeping, refuse collection, caretaking and cleansing services.
Local authorities are responsible for the majority of the estimated 27,000 parks and green spaces in the UK, but they are struggling to continue to maintain them. They have been exploring a range of models for maintaining them, including working with voluntary groups and trusts to generate income. Where I live in Lewisham, there are a number of initiatives to get local people involved in maintaining their local green space. These have been moderately successful, but they are no substitute for park keepers and their staff keeping the place clean, tidy and looking nice.
Councils in England run a variety of leisure facilities, including grass pitches, swimming pools, sports halls and various other amenities. It is important for people to keep active as they get older, because it is good for their physical and mental health, but these services are under pressure. Many facilities are ageing, particularly swimming pools, and need to be updated and made better.
I agree with the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Redfern, about community libraries. There are many good examples where local communities have taken over and run libraries. In Lewisham, there are good libraries at Crofton Park, New Cross and elsewhere run by the communities. They are providing community cafes and getting better footfall through the door but, again, these services are under pressure.
District councils are often responsible for maintaining key cultural infrastructure. They maintain the local heritage of their communities in local museums and afford residents the chance to see what is going on in their areas. The Mendoza review found that local authority museums were experiencing challenging circumstances. I grew up in Walworth, where the local museum was bequeathed to the borough by the Cuming family. It contains a valuable collection reflecting Southwark’s history and is much loved by the local community. However, it also needs to be supported.
We have a social care crisis which the Government need to address with new additional funding, recognising that we are all living longer. That is good news but medical advances mean that we could live 10, 20 or 30 years longer, often with chronic conditions with which we will need help and support, and it is important that there are local services available for local people. It is important that we get an agreed cross-party settlement on social care, which can stand the test of time, on how to fund these services. The issue cannot become a political football.
The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, referred to the new homes bonus. I have spoken before about the robbing Peter to pay Paul strategy of the Government—taking from one area to fund another area—and that cannot carry on.
My noble friend Lord Adonis is right about the crisis in housing. I grew up on a council estate in Walworth. The home was clean, safe, warm and dry. My mum and dad worked and paid their tax and rent until they retired, and we were happy there. That is not the case now for young families who are trying to get a home. They cannot get a council house and getting something they can afford is a huge problem. I now live in an ordinary terrace house in Lewisham, which I bought 15 years ago with my wife, the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley. I could not afford to buy the same house today—I could not afford the deposit or the mortgage payments—even though we are not badly off. People have that problem in many parts of our country.
My noble friend Lord Adonis has invited colleagues to go to Lambeth. I will invite them to come to Newham. I took the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, to Newham a few months ago, and he saw the great work being done by the council and the mayor, Rokhsana Fiaz, in tackling rogue landlords. The council is doing a good job, and the noble Lord was impressed by the council but shocked by what he saw of the conditions that people have to live in. When he asked about the rent they were paying, the reply was shocking. I know the noble Viscount will visit there and any other noble Lord will be welcome. We could perhaps organise a trip there together. It would be good for noble Lords to see the conditions that people have to live in today.
I mentioned briefly the new homes bonus. When the noble Viscount replies to the debate, perhaps he will tell the House where we are on that.
District councils provide a variety of services which have a positive effect on public health and the public generally. I believe in the old adage that prevention is better than cure. Keep-fit classes, swimming, walking and other events are helpful and are important local services. In bringing my remarks to a close, I again pay tribute to local council and local authority staff. They do a wonderful job under difficult circumstances and they deserve our support.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Viscount Younger of Leckie) (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for securing this debate and all noble Lords for their remarks. This is my first debate in my new role, although I have covered the department in the past as a Whip. I am, however, only too aware of the experience of the noble Lord in local government. If there is a verb “to Pendle”, the noble Lord could be described as a “much-Pendled” Peer. I am also aware of the experience and knowledge of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, in this sector and the length of time that he has spent in his role on the Front Bench.
All types of local authorities play a central role in supporting communities, including the most vulnerable, across the country, and district councils are at the heart of delivering many of the key services that matter to communities. We have heard a lot about that today. We are grateful for the transformative changes they have championed and for their continued commitment to providing the day-to-day services that their residents rely on. The Government make it a priority to visit councils—including, I understand, Pendle this month—in order to see the issues and opportunities at first hand.
I want to be clear that it is not only upper-tier authorities that are a priority for this Government: we want all authorities, regardless of size, to know that their concerns are being heard. However, while we seek to understand and address the daily issues faced by councils, it is right that we step back and ask ourselves some strategic questions. What is the best model to serve local needs, especially for the most vulnerable groups? How do different authorities best work with their communities to meet the needs and priorities of local areas, which will no doubt differ across the country? The noble Lord, Lord Goddard, alluded to this in his remarks. What is the right balance between state intervention and support and the power of local democracy for local decision-making and authorities?
These are big questions and we must raise them. Indeed, it is not only me asking questions about the role of local government; the sector itself, including the Local Government Association, is constantly challenging itself to do better for all the people it serves. As my noble friend Lady Redfern said, there have been tough times. There continue to be challenging issues to address, but authorities are being innovative.
Social care services are essential to protect our most vulnerable. This is a priority for this Government. The Prime Minister has been entirely clear on this matter and I am keen today to dedicate some time to how we are supporting district councils and the universal services which neighbourhoods rely on. I will also be reflecting later on the important issues of empowerment and community—which I feel strongly about and which was a major theme in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves.
I turn first to the spending round. This Government understand their responsibility to make sure that local authorities are adequately funded. I was pleased—as I am sure were all noble Lords—with the positive outcome of the spending round. Core spending power, the measurement we use for local government funding, is expected to grow by £2.9 billion for England, which is an estimated 4.3% real-terms rise. I know that the Secretary of State was delighted to have secured the largest year-on-year increase in spending power since 2010—a package which will allow councils to,
“provide more support for areas such as adult and children’s social care and make sure that we are supporting the most vulnerable people in our local communities”.
Beyond social care, we are protecting vital front-line services by increasing the biggest elements of core settlement funding in line with inflation, and we are consulting on a 2% core council tax principle for all councils next year. I take account of the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, on that issue. This significant result is a testament to what happens when we work together with the sector. I am grateful to councils up and down the country which fed into our preparations. The LGA has said that we provided local authorities with,
“much of the funding certainty and stability they need for next year”.
I shall address the point raised by the noble Lords, Lord Greaves and Lord Kennedy, on the new homes bonus. The Government have previously noted that 2019-20 was the final year of new homes bonus funding as agreed in the spending review 2015, and that any funding beyond 2019-20 would need to be agreed as part of the next spending review. I understand that the new homes bonus represents an important part of district council budgets and can form a large percentage of core spending power. We have listened to requests from local authorities to honour previously announced legacy payments totalling £624 million. As part of the roll-forward settlement, the Government are minded to make a new round of allocations for 2020-21, and I would welcome views on our proposals.
The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, raised a point on the Public Works Loan Board. I am not particularly familiar with it, but I hope I can reassure him that the Treasury recently increased the margin that applies to new loans from the PWLB by 100 basis points on top of the usual lending terms. The Government also successfully legislated to increase the lending limit of the PWLB from £85 billion to £95 billion to reflect their commitment to ensuring that local authorities can continue to access the financing that they need to support their capital plans. Since this change took effect, my department has been engaging with the sector to understand the potential impact that it could have on its capital plans and strategies, especially with regard to housing and regeneration.
Lord Adonis
The Minister has not addressed my point about the substantial increase in the interest rate. I am not expecting him to be able to do so across the House, but will he write to me about it? Would he be prepared to meet me and other noble Lords to discuss this issue, which I understand is central to the ability of local authorities to borrow to build new housing?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
I was coming on to address some of the other points on the subject of housing. I will come to the noble Lord’s point in a moment. He raised a number of questions and I want to be sure that he receives full answers.
The Government remain committed to business rates retention, which is yielding strong results, including for district councils. We are aiming to increase the level of retention from 50% to 75% from 2021 to give councils greater flexibility over their funding and to reward authorities for generating economic growth.
I now move on to the important issue of relative needs and resources. The noble Lord, Lord Goddard, warned against an easy formula of salami-slicing as opposed to better targeting. That is a very good point. The Government understand that demographic pressures have affected local areas in different ways, as has the cost of providing particular services. Councils told us that they wanted a simpler, up-to-date funding formula based on the best available evidence, and that is exactly what we are working to deliver. We are working closely with local government representatives to consider the drivers of local authorities’ costs, the resources available to them to fund services and how to account for them in a way that draws a more transparent and understandable link between local circumstances and local authority funding. This is a thorough, evidence-based review of the costs faced by all authorities. We have confirmed that we now aim to implement the review in 2021-22 so that the sector has the certainty that it needs to plan for 2020-21. It is important that we get direct feedback from local authorities, and we are grateful for the trusted links that we have across the sector. The more that we can consult, the more likely it is that we can get it right.
In looking ahead to the upcoming local government finance settlement, we have set out our proposals in a technical consultation which will close on 31 October. It sets out the package for local government in more detail and responds to the calls from the sector for certainty and stability. We will listen closely to the views and contributions from representatives of local government and aim to publish a response in the provisional local government finance settlement in early December.
I shall now address a number of questions that were raised. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, mentioned the critical services on which all communities rely. He mentioned street cleaning, recycling, community services, libraries, housing and many others. I, too, recognise the critical role that all local authorities play in delivering these services. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, is right that parish councils play an important part in local services. I reassure her that we want them to grow and expand and that we are doing our best in our communities brief to do that. Councils have managed reductions in funding and people’s satisfaction with waste collection and libraries has largely held up. Satisfaction levels are high—but that does not mean that we are complacent.
The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, spoke about provision of park and community services. We continue to support parks and community spaces. In fact, I am looking at this area particularly strongly at the moment to see what more can be done. In 2018-19, we invested £15 million in an innovative parks programme, and we will launch a new £1.35 million programme to support the next round of pocket parks very soon. Working with our partner, Pub is the Hub, we have funded almost 200 pub diversification projects, introducing new services that are of value to the community. The noble Lord spoke about waste management and climate change. He was right to raise these important global issues. Like the whole of government, my department supports the objectives of the Environment Bill. Local authorities, as local leaders, experts, place shapers and convenors of local communities, are empowered to play a fundamental role in delivering the environmental action needed in their areas.
My noble friend Lady Redfern, the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, referred to libraries. I thank them for that. I have spoken on libraries in the past. I recognise the work of staff and volunteers. I know that the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is working closely with the noble Lord, Lord Bird, to look at the future of libraries in the 21st century. I understand that it is called the libraries task force. Many innovative approaches are being taken across the country, for example in Warrington, to bring services together in communities. My noble friend Lady Redfern and the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, spoke about libraries having to innovate, and they are right.
Councils across the country are transforming not just how they work but their role in leading local places, strengthening local infrastructure and reinventing localities. Many areas are achieving fantastic results, such as district councils in former coalfield areas collaborating on First Art.
The noble Lords, Lord Adonis and Lord Kennedy, spoke about social housing. I shall make a few remarks about housing; there is a lot more I could say, but I am not sure I shall have time. I am delighted to accept the invitation to visit. I think there were probably two visits, one with the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and one with the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. We have announced a comprehensive package of reform, which will support our ambition to raise housing supply by 300,000 per year by the mid-2020s. We are driving the delivery of affordable housing through measures such as the £9 billion affordable homes programme, abolishing HRA borrowing caps and setting a long-term rent deal for social landlords from 2020. This Government have seen housing supply increase by 1.3 million since 2010. We have also backed schemes such as Help to Buy and Right to Buy, which have supported more than 566,000 households to purchase a home.
The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, raised a number of questions. I shall look at Hansard to make sure that his questions receive detailed answers.
I shall pick up on what the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, said about homelessness. It is an issue that we take incredibly seriously in the department under my honourable friend Luke Hall. I thank the noble Earl for his contribution, and I was saddened by the stories he shared with us. He is right that funding is needed alongside community support. That is why, alongside the additional £2.9 billion for local government, this Government are committing over £1.2 billion to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping, and a flexible homelessness support grant of £670 million. The Chancellor also announced an increase in the level of funding for public health grant so that local authorities can continue to invest in prevention, which, as I am sure the noble Earl agrees, is most important.
I now turn to the communities section of my remarks —an area I regard as very important. The Government are committed to continuing to build strong communities where people feel proud of their neighbourhoods and are actively involved in local decision-making. As my noble friend Lady Redfern said, local government, including the district councils that provide important neighbourhood services, is a vital partner in supporting communities across the country. We also want communities themselves to take an active role in changing their area for the better, because there is much power and potential in our communities. Across the country we see examples of local people coming together and leading change, from community clean-ups and community groups running valued front-line services, to volunteers in libraries, mentioned by my noble friend Lady Redfern. The Government want to continue to unlock that potential and help create an environment where all our communities feel empowered.
That mission is at the heart of the Government’s approach to communities, and, in case there was any doubt, I can say that I am involving myself with great enthusiasm in this area. As the noble Lords, Lord Goddard and Lord Kennedy, said, it is a question of collaboration and integral working to achieve more. As we have discovered, when organisations work together, they are better placed to apply for specific new funding.
This summer my department published a new communities framework, setting out a vision of how we can strengthen our communities with four areas of focus. The first is building trust and local pride. High levels of trust and social capital are a crucial building block for a thriving integrated community and for our nation’s well-being and economic prosperity. We want people to feel a sense of pride and connectedness in where they live and to build strong local relationships. That is why my department is supporting work to overcome barriers to integration and help bring people together. That work includes the Near Neighbours scheme, which has supported over 1,600 local community projects, bringing together people from different backgrounds to tackle local issues; programmes to help people improve their English skills, which I believe was mentioned this afternoon, so that they can become part of community life—some people who have been in this country for decades have not addressed that, so we have high hopes—and the Integration Area programme, which is working with five local councils to overcome integration challenges and share their learning, with an additional £10 million announced for the second wave of areas in 2020.
Secondly, I want to focus on active citizenship and giving communities control over local decision-making. This Government are focused on pushing power down and enabling decisions that affect local people to be made at the local level. We will continue to support the community rights and powers established under the Localism Act, such as neighbourhood planning, which enables communities to develop a shared vision for their area for the future.
The third area is shared community spaces. In our busy world, it is becoming increasingly challenging to connect with one another, but shared spaces such as our parks, which were referred to this afternoon, community centres, pubs and libraries provide the vital community infrastructure that brings people together. We have provided additional funding for our parks, which I mentioned earlier, with a new £1.35 million programme, working with our partner Pub is the Hub, which I also mentioned earlier.
The fourth area is shared economic prosperity, with no community left behind. We know that some communities have not shared in the wider economic growth experienced in the UK. The Government are committed to building strong communities that help create a thriving and inclusive economy, and to ensuring that prosperity is shared.
The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, spoke about towns and high streets. He will know about this but we have committed to a £3.6 billion towns fund, and local people will have a say in how that money is spent. He spoke about competition but it is right that there is a competitive approach. Towns are being invited to approach us and to put in, in effect, business plans setting out how they can reinvigorate their high streets. We want to work closely with them to make sure that funding is directed to the right place. I hope he will forgive me when I say that, in this area, I think competition is a good thing.
Through our support for those four areas of work—trust and local pride, active citizenship, community spaces and shared prosperity—the Government will continue to work to empower communities.
I recently visited Walsall, which is one of our integration areas, and met several community groups and organisations doing amazing work to support local people. I met groups running English classes to enable people to increase their confidence, make the most of the opportunities available, and play a full and active role in the local community. I also heard about the Places of Welcome scheme, which tackles loneliness and social isolation by providing places where people can go simply to see a friendly face or have a cup of tea and connect with others. This is an example of what can be achieved when local government works in partnership with local actors to build stronger and more integrated communities. It is one thing that I will definitely continue to press ahead with.
In conclusion, I assure noble Lords that this Government are committed to providing local government with the funding it needs and to ensuring that the funding is both flexible and proportionate to an area’s demographic needs. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, spoke about homelessness and I want to write to him on that specific point.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I thank everybody who has contributed to this debate. At the beginning I was a bit worried that not enough people were taking part, but I think we have proved that, if the people taking part have a good enough argument and narrative and know what they are talking about, allowing them time to develop what they say can be better than them having to rush through a two or three-minute speech.
I think I have a couple of minutes in which to speak —I cannot see anyone objecting to that—so I would like to respond to the noble Baroness, Lady Redfern, and my noble friend Lady Pinnock on libraries. If anyone ever finds themselves near the town of Colne, they should give me a ring and I will take them to Trawden in the Lancashire Pennines. It used to be a weaving village but is now very much a middle-class professional village. The Trawden community centre, which used to be run by the council, has taken over an old nursery and turned it into the only village shop, which is thriving as a community shop, and it works in partnership with the county council to run the local library. That is a superb example of how that kind of thing can be really successful. I should declare an interest as a non-active member of the community interest company that runs it. Therefore, it can be done and the service provided is far better than it ever was under the council. However, that will not happen everywhere. In poorer and working-class areas, it can be, and often is, done, but it requires a greater input of resources and harder work if the people taking part do not already have the skills that retired professional people have, so it is not the answer to everything.
I say to my noble friend Lord Goddard that what Stockport Council has done with the ground at Stockport County FC is brilliant. In Colne, where I live, Pendle Council owns the land of Colne FC, another up-and-coming non-league club. Colne FC has a free 99-year lease on the ground. That is the sort of thing that can be done. I know of other non-league clubs that have been put out of business by their councils demanding unpaid rent and the clubs having to go into liquidation. You can see the difference when a council regards its community as important, even if something like a local football club is owned not by the council but perhaps privately.
I shall not go through everything the Minister said—apart from anything, he would not allow that—but I will read what he said very carefully. I am very grateful for his comments and no doubt we will have many discussions about them in the future.
I have one final thing to say about neighbourhood services. I stress that I am talking about neighbourhood services, not local government as a whole. We have squeezed the pips until they squeal. We have cut to the bone. We have built partnerships with the private and voluntary sectors and got private sector money in. We have transferred services to town and parish councils, which often run them in a more community-oriented manner and much more cheaply. We have harnessed the volunteers who are there and will continue to do so. As I said in my original speech, however, we are reaching the end of this process in many places. Neighbourhood services will start to collapse seriously unless more resources are put into them. For as long as I am an active Member of your Lordships’ House, I shall continue to harass the Government over this matter.
Syria and Iraq
(5 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the situation in Syria and Iraq following Turkey’s invasion of Syria.
Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome this opportunity to discuss the recent events in north-east Syria, and their implications for the wider region, and to ask a number of questions of the Minister. I start by saying how grateful I am that he is in his place today. This issue is of such importance that I believe it is important that we see him respond to the questions that will be posed. I also thank those noble Lords who have stepped forward to speak today. We have an excellent range of contributions ahead; I look forward to hearing the many points that will, I am sure, be made in our short debate.
I am realistic about the role of the United Kingdom in the region, and in the current power politics and power diplomacy at play in Syria and its neighbourhood. However, the current situation is so unacceptable and so strategically disastrous that it is right that we have a voice and take a view. As a country, we must act where we can to influence affairs. The emergence of a new vision for a global Britain may well be about the promotion of British trade and the sale of British goods around the world, but it must also be about our security and our values. That is why these important events demand our attention.
My first point is that while the actions of the current Administration in the United States of America might be unpredictable at times, what has happened in these past two weeks was entirely predictable. Turkey threatened regularly to take the action that it has, while the USA has, from time to time over the last few months, indicated that it might allow it to do so. My first question is about those few months. What representations did the UK Government make, inside NATO or bilaterally, to either Turkey or the United States, to try to deter what we have seen emerging over recent days?
The outcome, of course, was also predictable. We have seen our allies, the Kurds, abandoned. We have seen over 160,000 people, including around 80,000 children, displaced from their homes and now at serious risk. We have seen religious minorities, already persecuted by some of the armed gangs operating in the area—at times in close co-ordination with the Turkish army—now displaced from their ancestral homelands. We have seen captured fighters from Islamic State, or Daesh, potentially let loose. We have seen British children in some of these camps at serious risk and not yet able, or assisted, to return home. We have seen the possible use—or allegations, at least—of chemical weapons by the Turkish army. At the end of the day, those who have in recent times stood against democracy and human rights and for other forms of action—Syria, Russia and, indeed, Turkey—have been strengthened in their positions, regionally and globally. This is a desperate state of affairs and it poses a number of questions for the Government.
The first question relates to security. It was estimated by the United States Government in a public announcement yesterday that at least 100 IS, or Daesh, fighters have already been released from the camps. This figure was minimised by the spokesperson for the United States Government who announced it. He is clearly not aware that even one suicide bomber can cause carnage on the streets of Europe or North America, or indeed in the region, in Iraq or elsewhere. Our first priority has to be the continued capture of those IS, or Daesh, fighters, and the protection of those who guard them in the camps. What action are the Government taking as part of the coalition to ensure that this will be the case?
Secondly, we need to commit right now to reviewing our role, not only in a coalition that seems to be struggling to hold together with a proper sense of purpose in the region but in relation to what is acceptable within NATO. I do not advocate action against Turkey’s membership of NATO but I do think that, despite the fact it is a NATO member, we need stronger action on arms sales to Turkey, if this is the purpose to which those arms might be put.
In relation to our values, I am horrified by the idea that Turkey could use this military exercise to return hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria—who fled the Syrian regime and the violence, torture and chaos that has gone with the conflict over the last few years—back to within the Syrian border, and potentially, given the agreements of recent days, place them back under the jurisdiction of the Syrian Government, the Syrian army and their Russian allies. It would clearly be contrary to international law and to our expectations of a country that still aspires to join the European Union—even as we leave—and is a member of NATO. What representations have the Government made, and what action shall we take, to ensure that international law on refugees is upheld by the Turkish Government and that they do not forcibly repatriate refugees from their territory back into Syria, where they might be in grave danger?
Although we had many opportunities yesterday, for which I am sure we are all grateful, I want to use this opportunity to again ask the Minister for an update on the position of British children, both orphans and other unaccompanied minors, who are in these camps with those who were either fighting for or living with Islamic State, or Daesh. What opportunities will there be in the coming days to repatriate all these children back to the United Kingdom?
We have a role as a major international humanitarian force in providing humanitarian assistance for those displaced. There are serious concerns about basic services, such as the provision of water, in some of the affected towns. Having visited the internally displaced persons camps in Syria and northern Iraq in the summer, I know the pressure that they were already under. Thousands of people have already crossed the border into Iraq. What action is being taken using UK resources, inside Iraq and inside Syria, to help address the humanitarian needs that will undoubtedly develop?
Finally, what action will we take in the coming days, weeks and months to reinforce the international system? Will we continue to press for the justice required by those immediate victims, particularly the Yazidis and other persecuted religious minorities? What action will be taken to provide justice for them and to try members of Islamic State/Daesh for their rapes, beatings and murders in attempting to carry out genocide against the Yazidis and others? However difficult it might be, we cannot ignore the alleged use of chemical weapons, not just by the Syrian regime but now by the Turkish Government as well. What action will we take to try to ensure that anybody who is alleged to have used chemical weapons is successfully investigated and, if necessary, prosecuted?
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, this is a very topical issue and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, on promoting this debate. Just when some people believed that things could not get any worse in the Syrian theatre, it now seems that the real danger is that they are indeed getting worse.
From the start, the United Kingdom’s policy has been a classic example of tramline thinking and assuming that the future will be like the past. First, right at the start, there was the Arab spring, which everyone thought would be like the Prague spring. The very word “spring” was misleading; people thought that dictators would fall and democracy would blossom. None of that has happened. Secondly, Syria was assumed to be the same as other Arab countries with tyrants overthrown, when of course it is really quite different. Thirdly, there was inadequate taking into account of the realities of the digital age, when foreign and international policy issues are working out quite differently from in the past. That applies to the whole range of foreign policy, as a matter of fact.
Right from the start, we were warned by ex-ambassadors of great distinction in this House—at least two of them, if not more—that we were on the wrong track. I have nothing but huge admiration for the Minister who will answer, and this is nothing to do with him at all, but the truth is that our policy has been an unmitigated disaster. We have now got to the point where NATO is being threatened in a very dangerous way. There are huge threats to the supply lines and security of the NATO structure. America has shown itself to be an utterly unreliable and erratic ally, changing its policy from day to day. Russia is in the driving seat. I suppose all one can say on that is, “Good luck”, because it too will be sucked into the quagmire in due course. I expect that, in the end, it will find the same experience as it has in Afghanistan. However, for the moment, it is riding high and in cahoots with Turkey, so far as one can make out.
What is the way forward out of all this? I think there are just two things we can do. First, we can at least understand Turkey’s fear of PKK terrorism. No one likes terrorism, or bombs going off in their territory; we have to understand that. That does not mean for a second that we can condone what Turkey is doing in trying to grab the top part of Syria. It does not mean that we condone for a second the summary executions and the violence that has been shown in the last few weeks. Maybe it will stop for a few days, but there is no guarantee that it will not resume immediately.
Secondly, I believe the British should continue to support the Kurds in every way we can, although it is bound to be limited. They are old friends and allies and we have given them certain undertakings in the past which I believe we should now try to stick to, limited though our abilities and capacities are in this whole muddled scene. Let us at least rescue some principle out of this whole imbroglio. That is my plea to the Minister and I would dearly like to know whether we will indeed give the support we can to the Kurds, even while they are being attacked from all sides, by Assad, Russia and Turkey. They are our friends. We should stick by our friends.
Lord Alderdice (LD)
My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale. He is absolutely consistent in addressing violent conflict and promoting development internationally. This debate is another example of his consistent commitment. There are some things about which we should be consistent and others that we should change. I want to speak about some of the things that ought to be changed that are not being changed, and those things that we ought to be consistent about.
The noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, talked about the disastrous policy that we have adopted in Syria. I come back, as I have done repeatedly since the start of this whole sorry episode, to my warning that the British Government’s adoption of a policy of getting rid of Assad as a primary requirement was a disaster. It was always going to be a disaster. I was not the only one who issued warnings in your Lordships’ House. Others who knew the region said the same thing and the Government refused to listen. It is time for the Government to understand how disastrous that has been and to change that policy.
The second thing that the western world has done consistently and that we need to change is betraying the Kurds. In 1920, under the treaty of Sèvres, there ought to have been a Kurdish state, but in the subsequent treaty of Lausanne, they were abandoned. They have been abandoned time after time after time and have now been abandoned again by the United States, which benefited so enormously from their courage and commitment in dealing with Daesh. That betrayal of the Kurds is something that has not changed, but must be changed, not just for good moral reasons but for political and strategic reasons too.
There are some things that are changing, but it were better they did not. When Mr Erdoğan became Prime Minister of Turkey, before he became President, I visited on quite a number of occasions and met his Ministers, police, security forces and so on. He was interested in applying the Northern Ireland experience to the Kurdish problem and started down that road. There were talks for a period of time and then, in a characteristically emotional outburst, he threw his head up, abandoned the whole business and turned everything on its head. That is a change that we need to stop.
The other change also emerges from Turkey. Turkey has been our ally, but it is not behaving like an ally now. It is not behaving like an ally in its relationships with Russia and its obtaining of weapons. It would have been inconceivable some years ago for a NATO ally to obtain weapons in that way. It is a signal that things are going the wrong way in Turkey’s relationship with us. However, there may be worse to come because, in the last few weeks, there have been indications from Turkey that it may wish to obtain nuclear arms. What are the Government doing to inquire after this question and to address it? We know the Saudis have been talking in similar terms and that they have relationships with Pakistan. Turkey talking in such a way, along with the breakdown of the treaty with Iran and the situation in Israel, creates a situation that is potentially globally catastrophic. I hope that the Minister can indicate that HMG are taking it seriously.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale, for initiating today’s debate and giving us the chance to return to questions that a number of noble Lords raised during the debate on the gracious Speech. I raised these questions on 16 October—at col. 116—and earlier today, in the Oral Question answered by the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie. I will ask the Minister a specific question at the outset which I put to the noble Baroness earlier today. It concerns the camp at al-Hawl, which is just a few miles from the so-called safe zone. It is a desolate place where some 68,000 ISIS family members are held and where the ISIS flag has been flying again in recent weeks. What are we doing to ensure that those inside those camps are kept there and that they are brought to justice in due course? It would be utterly inconceivable to talk about a war on terror and the pursuit of justice if we allowed them simply to walk away.
The Minister will recall that I sent him and raised in earlier interventions a list of known jihadists fighting alongside the Turkish army in this conflict. What is being done to evaluate the credibility of those names and how are we holding Turkey to account?
Other noble Lords have referred to Turkey’s NATO membership. I took the trouble to look at what a new applicant to NATO would have to do to satisfy membership. Turkey today is very different from the Turkey that joined NATO in 1952. Candidates need,
“to have stable democratic systems, pursue the peaceful settlement of territorial and ethnic disputes, have good relations with their neighbours, show commitment to the rule of law and human rights”.
I hope the Minister will say, on the basis of Turkey’s actions in northern Syria, which of those criteria still apply to it.
I hope the Minister will also address some points that I have put to him through Written Questions and in correspondence. What assessment has he made of reports that 13 year-old Mohammed Hamid Mohammed, admitted to Tal Tamir hospital following the bombing of Ras al-Ain by Turkey, is a victim of white phosphorus? Do the Government intend therefore to refer this issue to the International Criminal Court to seek justice for the reported violations of the Geneva conventions and the Chemical Weapons Convention?
What assessment have the Government made of whether the execution of Hevrin Khalaf, the secretary-general of the Future Syria Party, constitutes a war crime, along with the claim by the Syrian Democratic Forces that nine executions of civilians have been carried out since the invasion of Syria by Turkey?
What information have the Government received about the plight of religious or political minorities, referred to by the noble Lord in his introductory remarks, who are at risk from genocidaires in north-east Syria? What action are they taking in accordance with the requirements of the convention on the prevention of genocide to protect them and to bring the perpetrators to justice? What progress are they making in establishing international judicial mechanisms to bring those responsible for genocide to justice? What steps are they taking to assist other national partners in planning an exit strategy for Christians, Yazidis and other minorities who now might face genocide?
Those are legitimate questions that have been put to the Minister in writing. I hope he will take this opportunity to actually answer them.
Lord Hylton (CB)
My Lords, we should remember that the Turkish attack of 9 October was unprovoked and not authorised by the United Nations or NATO. It included undisciplined militias, whose previous record in Afrin was appalling. White phosphorus inflicted serious burns in at least 15 to 20 cases. This must be investigated. Kobane, which heroically resisted ISIS, was attacked by Turkey. Water supplies and hospitals were damaged. The ceasefire therefore came as a merciful relief, but it has been broken by both sides. It needs independent verification and should be made permanent. Will UN observers be available for this?
There should be clear principles for the future. Displaced local people must be enabled to return. Property rights should be respected. No refugees from other parts of Syria should be settled in the so-called safe zone, even temporarily, without their explicit consent. Secondly, Turkish, Russian and Assad forces should be restricted to the frontier area, which is 20 miles deep.
A huge task exists for UN agencies to help restore water supplies, hospitals, schools and IDP camps. Local authorities should be fully involved in this. Such reconstruction should have a guaranteed budget.
Will Her Majesty’s Government call on Turkey to compensate Syrian civilians for those killed and seriously wounded? Will compensation also be available to local authorities for damage to civil infrastructure? Will Her Majesty’s Government work, as a permanent member, for a UN Security Council resolution providing for ceasefire observations and full access for UN agencies to all of Rojava east of the Euphrates?
For too long, Syria has been a free-fire zone for outside states and factions with almost unlimited resources. It is high time that international law was reasserted. This must be in the interests of the Syrian people. Agencies such as NATO, the OSCE and the Council of Europe might have useful roles in this. British and European military exports should be resumed only if the ceasefire is maintained and Turkish forces withdraw from Syria. The same should apply to any sanctions.
I stress the value of the US/Turkey statement of 17 October:
“The two countries … pledge to uphold human life, human rights, and the protection of religious and ethnic communities”.
Perhaps we should all use our moral senses to imagine and then to work hard to improve what now exists.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, what is happening in north-east Syria is a tragedy for many thousands of individuals, most of them ethnic Kurds who were our allies quite recently in fighting IS. That is not in doubt. Were it to lead to IS terrorists escaping from confinement, it would adversely affect our own security—that is also not in doubt. That the power relationships in the region and even more widely have been thrown out by two of our allies, the US and Turkey, to our and their long-term detriment, can hardly be gainsaid. Noble Lords might think that that is quite a score for an ill-considered telephone conversation between President Trump and President Erdoğan and the series of intemperate and ignorant tweets that followed it.
Our own role in all this has hardly been glorious. We have not been consulted by our closest ally, even though some of our own Armed Forces were involved. Our attempts to stop the Turkish military operation have been brushed aside. We are still dithering about taking back orphans and young children who are British and whose lives are now at risk.
Here are one or two questions that I hope the Minister can answer. First, is it the Government’s view that, if the Turks were to force Syrian refugees to return to Syrian territory that their troops have now occupied, that would be contrary to the refugee convention and to their obligations under international law? Secondly, is it the Government’s view that, if Turkey were to remove the Kurds from that territory to make way for Syrian Arab refugees, that would amount to ethnic cleansing and thus potentially be a war crime?
Thirdly, however sympathetic one might be to Turkey’s suffering over recent years from terrorism—I am myself so—how on earth can pushing the effective border some 30 kilometres to the south solve that problem? Might it not very well make it worse? Fourthly, and most important to us, how can the damage to the confidence of those who depend for their security on their alliance with the United States be restored?
This whole sorry story has started as badly as it could have done. What do the Government intend to do to ensure that it does not end in an even worse place? President Trump would have us believe that it is all a strategic triumph. Is that the Government’s view?
Baroness Stroud (Con)
My Lords, it goes without saying that we are at a critical juncture. While the focus of international attention—and outrage—has rightly been on the nature of the US withdrawal from north-eastern Syria, our attention should also be on those at risk from the latest outbreak of violence. An estimated 300,000 people have now fled violence in northern Syria—almost double the figure stated by the Foreign Secretary in his response to an Urgent Question last week in the other place. Reports continue to surface of widespread casualties, including from the alleged use of white phosphorus munitions in Turkey’s aerial and artillery bombardment of Kurdish forces, with innocent civilians, including children, among the victims.
Turkey’s incursion has upended the fragile security of the region and poses grave questions about the fate of an estimated 100,000 ISIS militants in detention within areas under Kurdish control. The agreement struck between President Putin and President Erdoğan is intended to create a 30 kilometre-deep exclusion zone along the Turkey/Syria border, not only to tackle the perceived threat from Kurdish militants but to repatriate some or all of Turkey’s sizeable population of some 3.5 million Syrian refugees. I want to focus my remarks specifically on the issue of these refugees.
For more than three years, Turkey has generously hosted the world’s largest population of refugees, with close to 4 million refugees and asylum seekers residing within its borders, including more than 3.5 million Syrians. This equates to around 20% of the total Syrian population and almost two-thirds of all Syrian refugees worldwide. With the civil war in Syria entering its eighth year, the prospects for their repatriation from Turkey appear limited; and public opinion at the ballot box inside Turkey has begun to turn against the refugees.
We in the West must also acknowledge our own responsibility. Three years on, the EU has yet to meet its own pledge, as part of the deal struck with Turkey in 2016, to pay Ankara the second instalment of funding to help Turkey meet the costs of hosting such large numbers of Syrian refugees. But even against this backdrop, we must recognise that it is an extreme response to growing consternation within Turkey over the long-term viability of such a large refugee population. Also, President Erdoğan’s apparent intention forcibly to repatriate large numbers of Syrian refugees within the exclusion zone threatens to undermine the good will he and his Government have fostered through their role in supporting vulnerable refugees.
As we have heard this afternoon, the current situation requires our urgent attention. Already, it is becoming clear that, like any conflict, the incursion will create winners and losers. The losers will be those Syrians, including Kurds, from whom so much has already been taken. The winners will be Russia, Assad and ISIS. That cannot be in our national interest. Turkey has been an important ally in a volatile region, but we must make it plain that Turkey’s actions risk further destabilisation and will potentially place millions of Syrian refugees in intolerable danger. We must encourage Turkey to show restraint. I ask my noble friend the Minister to outline what plans he has to encourage Turkey to do so and to think again about the forced repatriation of Syrian refugees.
The fate of millions quite literally hangs in the balance.
Baroness Northover (LD)
My Lords, I have looked at the Order Paper and, perhaps like Ronnie Corbett, I know my place and it is before the Official Opposition.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, for putting down this urgent topic for debate. This very short debate has been both overarching and detailed. Noble Lords have made plain their concerns about what is following from President Trump’s extraordinary decision to give the green light to Turkey to invade northern Syria. The Americans are rightly seen as having betrayed their Kurdish allies. Following my noble friend Lord Alderdice, may I ask what exactly is our policy towards Syria now and what do we make of the pressure on NATO? What consultation is going on with the Americans in the aftermath of their decision? What joint approach are we taking with other EU countries? Is the Foreign Secretary not even attending the relevant EU meetings, and why, I ask again, did the Foreign Secretary not raise Turkey’s action in his speech at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly? Does the Minister agree that this move has given Russia extraordinary extra influence in the region, although I note what the noble Lord, Lord Howell, has just said?
Nearly all US forces have now left Syria but they have not gone home—they are mostly redeployed in western Iraq. The US and Turkey have reached a deal on a ceasefire which lasts until only next Tuesday. Neither the Syrian regime nor the SDF were parties to the agreement. Turkey has said that military operations will resume if the SDF has not withdrawn. May I therefore ask what plans there are for deconfliction between the Turkish armed forces, the Syrian regime forces and the SDF in this circumstance?
We now hear reports of even more possible war crimes, in a region with an appalling toll already. So what assessment have the Government made of the reports of Turkish use of white phosphorous against civilians, as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Alton and the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, and the use of political assassination by Turkish or Turkish-backed forces in north-east Syria? Have the Government looked at the likelihood that the Syrian regime will round up thousands of political opponents following its renewed control over north-east Syria?
President Erdoğan has declared his intention to settle 1 million to 2 million Syrian refugees in the occupied the zone, as other noble Lords have mentioned. Does the Minister agree that as the occupying power, Turkey does not have the right to confiscate land to re-house refugees, and neither should people be forced into an area from which they have not come, as the noble Lords, Lord Hylton and Lord Hannay, have just mentioned?
There are seven camps in Syria where Daesh fighters and their families are being held, and we know that the SDF warns that it can no longer guarantee security. We discussed in Questions yesterday the position of British citizens, particularly children; I look forward to the Minister’s response.
America’s actions have just made an incredibly unstable region even more dangerous. If this does not illustrate why we need to work together internationally and not retreat into “America first” or “England first”, it is difficult to think of what would.
I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, I too would like to thank my noble friend for giving us the opportunity to return to this highly topical and important issue this week. What we have seen in the last 48 hours is what many saw coming after the unilateral US withdrawal: a stich-up over territory between Turkey, Russia and the Assad regime, with the Kurds, as ever, caught in the middle. As the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, reminded us, throughout history the Kurdish people have been betrayed in brutal conflicts and have repeatedly been ignored when suffering at the hands of others.
As our allies, what role does the Minister believe there is for the Kurdistan Regional Government in future peace negotiations? Sochi may mean an end to the fighting and displacement of people that we have seen over the past fortnight, but it will not solve the humanitarian crisis facing that region. We need to work urgently through NGOs operating on the ground to get support to those who need it. Thousands of Kurds are fleeing with frantic urgency. The Bardarash refugee camp, in Iraq, alone has reported that more than 7,000 Kurds have arrived, with many thousands more attempting to reach similar locations. Can the Minister detail what support and advice the Government are offering to the Iraqi authorities to assist with this crisis?
Throughout the conflict in Syria, NGOs have operated on the ground to provide crucial humanitarian support to save lives and alleviate suffering. Can the Minister explain what support is being offered to these organisations to promote the safe delivery of aid? Many of us have heard on the “Today” programme the first-hand account of a British citizen giving support. What advice is being given to UK citizens who are part of these organisations and remain in the region? What steps has the UK taken to seek international agreement for humanitarian corridors, to allow for the safe evacuation of civilians?
The Government’s review of arms sales to Turkey is welcome, but it will not put an end to UK arms being used in the conflict. Last week, the Minister assured this House that the UK had a robust regime for our arms and defence exports and would continue to look at the situation very carefully. He told the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, that he would examine the French and German policy and consider whether we could have concerted action. Are we taking similar action? Have we considered halting existing licences, as Amnesty International now suggests? As many noble Lords have said, Kurdish forces have been safeguarding security, ensuring that thousands of militants are not able to roam freely and cause havoc in the region. This instability may mean that many will escape. What assessment have the Government made of this risk to the future security of the region, and what is the Government’s strategy to deal with it?
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, for this timely opportunity to debate what is a very fluid but very worrying situation in northern Syria. I am also grateful for the exchanges that we have had outside of your Lordships’ Chamber on this matter. He has long shown a keen interest in the plight of displaced people in Iraq and Syria, and I pay tribute to his efforts in that regard. I share his vision of the relationship that we have, and the role that the United Kingdom plays is not diminished but remains an active one, as it should be. It covers issues beyond just humanitarian support; it includes issues of security. He and other noble Lords have heard me time and again, I am sure, agreeing about the importance of stressing our credentials as an advocate of human rights, wherever we are operating in the world and wherever we see human rights abuses.
Let me say at the outset that the Government have been clear that we oppose Turkey’s military action in Syria. My noble friend Lord Howell, the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and several other noble Lords, made the point that Turkey does have some legitimate concerns relating to the 3.6 million Syrian refugees. We pay tribute to the fact that it is hosting these refugees, and Her Majesty’s Government have helped to support the refugees. We also recognise the threat posed by the PKK to security on Turkey’s southern border. However, I share the views of the noble Lords, Lord McConnell and Lord Hannay, and of my noble friend Lord Howell that a Turkish military operation would, as we all feared, seriously undermine the already fragile stability and security of the region. There is a worsening humanitarian crisis, and the incursion has increased the suffering of millions of people. We feared that it would distract the international community from defeating Daesh—the noble Lord, Lord Alton, raised that issue—which should be our primary focus, and it has. We also feared that it would play into the hands of Russia and the Assad regime, and the frank assessment is that it has done so. That is why we repeatedly appealed to Turkey not to take this step.
The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, when we were debating this previously, and in his discussions with me, commented that we have acted within the context of the UN Security Council. Other members of the Security Council shared this view. When we met on 10 and 16 October, they warned of the severe risk of Daesh fighters dispersing and expressed concern over the possible further deterioration in the humanitarian situation. It is therefore deeply regrettable that Turkey went ahead with its operation, not heeding the appeals of its friends and NATO allies. Sadly, those fears are being realised, as we have seen. While it is a fluid situation, at least 160,000 people have been displaced and dozens killed, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, reminded us, a number of Daesh detainees appear to have escaped from prisons they were being held in by Kurdish fighters.
The noble Lord, Lord Alton, also raised the deeply concerning issue of credible reports of the execution of civilians by Syrian armed groups supporting the Turkish operation, including the killing of the politician Hevrin Khalaf on 12 October. I put on record that we utterly condemn these incidents and have made clear the need to investigate them fully. We also condemn incidents of shelling by the YPG into Turkey, which has also been concern which I am sure noble Lords share, which has resulted in civilian casualties on the Turkish side. We call on all sides to respect their obligations towards civilians under international humanitarian law.
We welcome the ceasefire brokered by the United States, and in the area of the Turkish operation so far it has held. It is also important that this cessation of hostilities continues.
We also note the agreement reached between Turkey and Russia on 22 October. This agreement clearly has significant implications, and we are seeking further information—the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, among others, raised this issue—on its potential impact on the civilian population.
Several noble Lords asked about specific UK action, and I just want to lay out some of the steps that we have taken so far. The noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, rightly raised concerns about the relationship that we have with Turkey. Turkey is a partner. We have security interests, on aviation security and humanitarian support, and, as the noble Lord reminded us, Turkey is a NATO ally. In this regard, my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary expressed our grave concerns to the Turkish Foreign Minister on 10 October. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister spoke to President Erdoğan two days later, urging restraint and offering UK support in negotiations towards a ceasefire.
The Foreign Secretary has also addressed the issue. The noble Baroness, Lady Northover, mentioned the NATO Parliamentary Assembly on 12 October, and it is my understanding that that was certainly part of the discussions—I know that she has raised this issue before. Regarding another question that she raised, on 14 October we supported our EU partners in the EU’s statement condemning Turkey’s unilateral military action, calling on Turkey to withdraw its forces. We also joined with fellow European members of the UN Security Council to request a discussion of the situation at the Security Council on 10 and 16 October. As I have said before, I have been directly involved in the discussions with our European partners, not just on this issue but on how we continue to strengthen co-operation with all European members of the Security Council.
The noble Lords, Lord McConnell, Lord Hylton and Lord Collins, mentioned arms export licences. On 15 October, the Foreign Secretary announced that no further arms export licences would be granted for items that might be used in the military operations in Syria until we have completed a thorough review. That position remains.
The Prime Minister spoke to President Erdoğan again on 20 October, expressing his hope that the ceasefire agreed with the United States would be made permanent. The Prime Minister invited him to meet, alongside President Macron and Chancellor Merkel, to discuss the current situation and broader issues, including counterterrorism and migration. That was something that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister directly offered to the Turkish president.
The noble Lord, Lord Collins, rightly raised the issue of humanitarian aid, and I know that is a concern of many noble Lords. My noble friend Lord Howell talked of the UK’s role. While I respect his position, I am sure that he would acknowledge that when it comes to humanitarian support, the UK has really been at the forefront in providing assistance to many of the suffering people of the region. That also was the case in northern Syria before the Turkish actions. The UK has already committed £40 million to the region in this financial year to help address some of the most acute needs, including those issues noble Lords raised: water, food, shelter and healthcare. We are hopeful that this money can be spent as planned.
However, I recognise that the situation on the ground is volatile, fast moving and dangerous, and therefore contingency plans must be made and we must understand the lie of the land to ensure that the safety and security of those providing assistance can also be guaranteed. The Department for International Development is in daily contact with local partners, including the UN and local agencies—the noble Lord, Lord Collins, asked a question on this—to deliver assistance on the ground and to ensure the safety and security of those delivering aid.
The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, my noble friend Lady Stroud and the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, talked of the return of Turkey’s refugees. While we recognise Turkey’s generosity, I make it clear that any return of refugees to Syria must be voluntary and in line with international law. We have made that point in our exchanges with Turkey. I make it explicit for the record that we do not and would not support forced returns to areas that have not yet been declared safe by the UN. Furthermore, we have no intention to support Turkey’s plans for reconstruction in the secure zone, nor do we recognise any demographic change brought about as a result of this incursion.
My right honourable friend the Development Secretary will work with the UN emergency relief co-ordinator, Mark Lowcock, and spoke to him on 14 October about ongoing plans on the ground. I am sure that all noble Lords agree that it is essential that humanitarian agencies are able to operate safely. We call on all parties to ensure that principle is upheld.
Several noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, raised the issue of British orphans. We are making provision to ensure the safe return of unaccompanied minors and orphans, and we will continue to examine the circumstances of all other identified British citizens on a case-by-case basis.
Lord Howell of Guildford
I am sorry to interrupt the Minister when he has only minutes left, but can he give us some hint of what British Kurdish training units and British troops are left on the ground in this turmoil in the northern Syrian region?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My noble friend will appreciate that I cannot go into the details of the specific British presence there, but we are working on the ground to ensure that we lend support to our allies. We are very cognisant of the situation of the Kurds.
My noble friend spoke about support in Iraq. I assure him and others that we are extending our support to the Kurdish regional Government and the Kurdish community in Iraq, particularly as displaced people cross the border. We continue to work closely with the Government of Iraq.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I am very conscious of time.
Specific questions were asked by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, among others, about white phosphorus. I am fully aware of the worrying allegations that white phosphorus was used against civilians. We are working to establish the full facts.
Co-operation with NATO was raised. While noble Lords will recognise that NATO does not investigate breaches of international humanitarian law, NATO Defence Ministers, including the Defence Secretary, will discuss north-east Syria in their meeting on 24 to 25 October.
A number of other questions were raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton. If I may, I shall write to him on those issues and on any other questions that I have been unable to cover.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, said, this is an extensive subject which perhaps requires more than just the time allowed in a Question for Short Debate. I am sure that it is not just me who recognises that; I am sure that we will return to this issue in the coming days and weeks.
Let me assure noble Lords that the UK remains committed to continuing to play our part as a strong ally to the communities across the region. We remain committed to assisting unaccompanied minors and those identified as British citizens to ensure that we can represent them and examine each case.
We have a strong relationship with Turkey, and this should not be underestimated. We supported its application to join the EU. I think that is recognised. I have seen the detail of the discussions that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has had with the President. The nature of that relationship allows us to play a role with Turkey. I am sure that all noble Lords recognise the importance of the invitation that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has made to the President of Turkey, while also recognising that our key partners, especially France and Germany, should also be involved in that meeting.
The UK has opposed Turkey’s recent offensive in north-east Syria. As several noble Lords said, it is not an action that we would expect from a staunch NATO ally. It has caused unnecessary further bloodshed and suffering in a region that has already suffered too much, and it has diverted international attention from ensuring the lasting defeat of Daesh.
The UK has been active in pressing Turkey to end its operation. We will continue to make clear to Turkey the depth of feeling in your Lordships’ House and elsewhere about its continued actions. We remain committed to advocating the interests of the local population, including respecting the rights of the Kurds in both Syria and Iraq. We remain committed to the global coalition against Daesh, in which the Kurdish communities and representatives play an important part, and to the long-term stability of Syria, Iraq and the wider region. We will continue in our humanitarian efforts in this respect.
I thank again all noble Lords for their contributions to this vital debate, and I look forward to further discussions on this important matter.
Hong Kong
(5 years ago)
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Lord Alton of Liverpool
That this House takes note of the recent political unrest in Hong Kong, and of the calls to offer residents of Hong Kong citizenship in another country.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, the purpose of today’s debate is to gain a better understanding of why up to 2 million people have felt compelled to participate in mass popular protests in Hong Kong; of how regressive changes in China have created a storm of anxiety; of why the UK has a moral and legal obligation to stand with its people, and of how the international community, including the Commonwealth, can provide guarantees to Hong Kong that will give its people an insurance policy of security and solidarity.
On more than 20 occasions in the past year, I have highlighted the weakening of the guarantees contained in the 1984 Sino-British joint declaration—which is an international treaty—the disturbing erosion of “two systems, one country” and the changes in China that have caused such apprehension in Hong Kong. The joint declaration, through the Basic Law, enshrines the fundamental principles of the rule of law, democracy, human rights and free speech—not just a treaty but for Hong Kong’s people a way of life, now placed at grave risk.
What began as a rejection of Beijing’s erosion of the territory’s Basic Law and Carrie Lam’s unjust extradition Bill has become a broader fight about Hong Kong’s autonomy and very future. It is hard to disagree with the proposition that Hong Kong is the new front line in a clash of value systems. In the aftermath of the 1997 handover, Beijing upheld “one country, two systems”, but in the past few years, both Hong Kong’s freedoms and trust have been undermined and eroded increasingly dramatically.
The final straw was Beijing’s attempt to compromise the judicial system. The people of Hong Kong are well aware of how the Chinese courts administer justice. In 2018, according to the Wall Street Journal, the courts in Jiangsu province acquitted just 43 people while convicting 96,271. They are the ones who are actually given a trial, unlike Lam Wing-kee, a bookseller in Hong Kong for 20 years, who was abducted and incarcerated for eight months, and whom I met in Taiwan last month. He told me that highly placed Communist Party officials bought books from him. Without irony, he said that his bestsellers included George Orwell’s Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. The Chinese authorities told Mr Lam, “If we say you have committed a crime, you have committed a crime”. Denied all contact with his family and left in degrading conditions, he contemplated suicide.
Belief in the rule of law has been further compromised by Carrie Lam’s unenforceable ban on face masks and her decision to invoke emergency powers—always a harbinger of autocracy and the latest in a long list of blunders. Amnesty accuses the Hong Kong police and points to,
“an alarming pattern of … reckless and indiscriminate tactics”,
beatings and torture. Dominic Raab has condemned the use of force as “disproportionate”, with calls for an independent inquiry.
The brutality of China’s agents was underlined last week when Jimmy Sham, a leading voice for democracy, was viciously attacked by five hammer-wielding assailants. You will never create a harmonious and law-abiding society by using agents provocateur, tear gas, iron bars and live ammunition. Shooting teenagers is no solution. The rule of law is not rule by law; it is simply inflammatory. If all this leads to diplomats issuing a formal warning to businesses in the region, there will be a flight of capital. Beijing would therefore be far wiser to seek dialogue and compromise, rather than killing the goose and the golden egg—China’s most profitable financial centre.
In recent months, I have asked about the expulsion of journalists and the banning of political parties, and I have worked with Hong Kong Watch, of which I am a patron. I particularly thank Luke de Pulford and Ben Rogers for their work and for bringing to Westminster the umbrella movement’s founders, Nathan Law and Joshua Wong, both of whom are totally committed to peaceful, non-violent protest but were jailed, with Nathan disqualified from the legislature. During this debate, we must discuss what the future holds for young people like them and for the city’s courageous people. Some 173 Members of both Houses have pressed the Foreign Secretary to lead an international initiative to guarantee second citizenship. The noble Lord, Lord Popat, will say more about this later, and I will refer to the position of BNO passport holders, but I think it would be helpful to the debate if, when the Minister comes to reply, he could tell us exactly how many people he believes are currently BNO passport holders. We will also hear today from many noble Lords with a great love of Hong Kong and its people, not least the noble Lord, Lord Patten of Barnes, and my noble friend Lord Wilson of Tillyorn, and many others with incredible knowledge about Hong Kong and China.
My own Hong Kong connections began when I was a student volunteer teaching English to families who had settled in Liverpool—home to one of Britain’s oldest Chinese communities—having escaped the cultural revolution. One of their descendants is my goddaughter. Liverpool was also the birthplace of William Gladstone, a vociferous opponent of the appalling opium trade, which he said was “at variance with justice”. The Opium Wars led, in 1842, to the treaty of Nanking, to the opening of five treaty ports to foreign merchants, and to the ceding, of course, of Hong Kong Island to the British Empire. It was in 1980, as a young Liverpool MP, that I first visited Hong Kong, and I subsequently went to Shanghai. There, I secretly met persecuted Christians whose bishop, Cardinal Ignatius Kung, had languished for 30 years in Chinese jails.
In 1979, it was against this backdrop that Margaret Thatcher had to negotiate with Deng Xiaoping the restitution of Hong Kong. In 1982, Deng told her:
“I could walk in and take the whole lot this afternoon”.
In a characteristic retort, the Prime Minister replied:
“There is nothing I could do to stop you, but the eyes of the world would now know what China is like”.
That is equally true today. The eyes of the world must stay trained on Hong Kong. Last week, the free world did just that when the US House of Representatives passed four pieces of bipartisan legislation, three of which were related to Hong Kong. But our eyes have seen other things too.
Thirty years ago, in Tiananmen Square, we saw the Red Army massacre 10,000 pro-democracy demonstrators, many of them young. We have also seen how Xi Jinping has been turning the clock back on Deng Xiaoping’s welcome attempts at reform. In June, on the 30th anniversary of Tiananmen, the regime said that the brutal suppression of those pro-democracy demonstrations had been good for society, describing it as a “vaccination” against political instability. We have also seen how Xi is repressing political dissent and religious belief. The assault on religion in China is the most systematic since the lethal cultural revolution, when churches were desecrated, looted, and turned into storerooms and factories. The religious were incarcerated, tortured, some burnt alive, some sent to labour camps, with Christians publicly paraded through cities and towns and forced to wear cylindrical hats detailing their crime of belief.
Over the summer I met Hong Kong’s Cardinal Zen and Martin Lee, the founder of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party—a meeting that the Chinese authorities tried to stop. I heard their fears that religious persecution will be visited again on Hong Kong. President Xi may not yet have a Little Red Book, but he has replaced the 10 commandments with his sayings. In addition to the lack of religious freedom, churches, mosques and temples have been shut or demolished, leaders imprisoned and surveillance cameras installed. The European Parliament described the situation as “a new low”. Writing about surveillance, George Orwell famously said in Nineteen Eighty-Four:
“Big brother is watching you”.
But not just watching—Orwell said:
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever”.
and that:
“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history”.
For Buddhists in Tibet and Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang, Xi’s Sinicisation programme seeks to do just that. To ensure that their history is obliterated, over 40 Uighur cemeteries have been destroyed, with bones and ancestors’ remains scattered. At the APPG for Uighurs, of which I am vice-chairman, we heard disturbing evidence about the vile incarceration of 1 million Uighur Muslims, for them to be re-educated, brainwashed, intimidated, and reprogrammed. We have also seen disturbing evidence suggestive of why Uighur DNA is tested. Falun Gong practitioners told a parliamentary hearing how bodies have been turned into sources of forced human organ harvesting. An independent tribunal, chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, concluded that there is “incontrovertible evidence” that this has happened. We will hear more about this from my noble friends Lady Finlay and Lady Grey-Thompson. The Minister has the names of Chinese officials involved in this and other forms of persecution. Perhaps he will tell the House whether Magnitsky powers will be used to pursue those culpable.
Ministers and their officials need to be alive to China’s use of censorship, economic pressure and fear and favour to try and silence criticism and to close the world’s eyes to what is happening in Hong Kong. Perry Link, a Princeton academic, describes China’s heavy-handed attempts to close and censor debates as the “anaconda in the chandelier”. But the anaconda is not just in the chandelier—it is the chandelier. President Xi’s “great firewall” and dystopian “cyber sovereignty” is entrenched by laws that can result in job loss, years-long prison sentences or exile. This is not the free air of Hong Kong with unimpeded access to the internet, and Hong Kong has been watching all this with alarm.
In 2008, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate the late Liu Xiaobo, along with hundreds of others, published the pro-democracy and human rights manifesto Charter 08. He received a sentence of 11 years’ imprisonment. He wrote that his crime was to,
“oppose systems of government that are dictatorships or monopolies … Opposition is not equivalent to subversion”.
He looked to the day when,
“different values, ideas, beliefs, and political views ... can both compete with each other and peacefully coexist”.
The same thought was captured in the 1984 joint declaration, which said that Hong Kong’s,
“life-style shall remain unchanged for 50 years”.
This included,
“freedom of the person … of the press, of assembly, of association ... of demonstration ... of belief”.
But we have watched with dismay as promises have been broken, legislators disqualified, mass arrests take place, employees dismissed and live ammunition replace any attempt to cultivate dialogue or to find solutions. And we have seen China tell the UK—the only other signatory to a legally binding joint declaration—that we have no right to express a view. We have seen China say that the 1984 treaty is null and void: a “historical document”, with “no practical significance” and no binding effect on the Chinese central Government’s management of Hong Kong. So what must we do?
The United Kingdom has a unique moral and historic duty to bring together the international community in defence of the rule of law, democracy, free speech and human rights, and of “two systems, one country”. We should form an international contact group of like-minded nations to co-ordinate an international response. At next year’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, in Kigali, countries should be urged to give all Hong Kong citizens an insurance policy of second citizenship and a place of abode, to be available if China continues to resile from the joint declaration.
I chaired a hearing about British National (Overseas) passport holders, including former police officers and the 250 military who served the Crown. Their plight was said by the late Lord Ashdown to be “worse than Windrush”. In a letter to me this week, the Home Secretary said that the Government have,
“no plans to amend the law”.
BNO passport holders are vulnerable and so are others with proven UK links. Perhaps the Minister can confirm that there is no legal impediment to us giving full British citizenship to those at risk and say whether we will help forge a comprehensive international solution for the people of Hong Kong.
Nobody wants anyone to have to leave Hong Kong. People are more likely to stay if they know that there will be ways to leave should the need arise. We should join the US in introducing legislation to strengthen the monitoring of the Sino-British joint declaration, with Magnitsky sanctions and the enactment of a Hong Kong human rights and democracy Act to hold perpetrators to account when it has been breached. We should ensure that, after Brexit, no free trade agreement is made with Hong Kong or China without a robust clause tied to the freedoms guaranteed in the Sino-British joint declaration. Trade law is critical and more enforceable than other forms of international law.
To conclude, the answers to Beijing’s fears about separatism and its desire for unity, and a stable future are to be found in the free air of Hong Kong, not in the Uighur re-education camps of Xinjiang or in a repeat of the massacre at Tiananmen, or through surveillance cameras or oppression. As Margaret Thatcher rightly said, the eyes of the world are on Hong Kong. We must stand in solidarity with them. In our day, we must neither avert our eyes or silence our voices. I beg to move.
Lord Pendry (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on giving the House the opportunity to discuss the current problems in Hong Kong. His Motion is commendable and worthy of the support of this House. Yes, we should encourage countries with better democratic and human rights policies to accept the people of Hong Kong to their shores at this time, but the conflict in Hong Kong is surely mainly the responsibility of this country; it is this country that should be in the forefront of doing what the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has ably given this House to discuss.
There are those who urge countries outside Hong Kong to avoid getting involved in a domestic dispute, but the conflict affects many other countries. In this vein, I was impressed to read in the Washington Post last week how the US Congress is being positive in its support for Hong Kong’s struggling democracy by promoting legislation advancing in both the House of Representatives and the Senate to amend the United States–Hong Kong Policy Act 1992, a pillar of America’s economic relationship with China and its special administrative region. Until now, the USA has treated Hong Kong differently from the People’s Republic of China for trade purposes, but that is currently very much under review. Under the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act 2019, the US Secretary of State is required to certify whether Hong Kong remains,
“sufficiently autonomous to justify special treatment by the United States ... including the degree to which Hong Kong’s autonomy has been eroded due to actions taken by the Government of China”.
The Bill would, under the terms of Magnitsky Act, require the President of the United States to freeze the US-based assets of, and deny entry to the US by, any individual formerly responsible for abducting human rights activists in Hong Kong. Surely, this lead is very helpful and commendable and puts our own Government to some shame, considering our governorship of Hong Kong before the handover. Our Government should be in the forefront of opposing the barbaric measures taking place in Hong Kong today.
By way of conclusion, because of the time limit, I draw attention to an issue I raised last week in a debate, whereby students from mainland China in British universities are bullying and harassing fellow students from Hong Kong who support those demonstrating in support of the Sino-British declaration’s initial aims. I did not get a response from the Minister when he wound up then; perhaps I will today. Students at our universities should be given proper guidance on freedom of speech as part of their conditions of entry to universities in this country. It is important that students supporting the Beijing Government should not bring their standards of speech and tactics to these shores and our universities. If the Government are not prepared to take the lead in defending Hong Kong students and others at our universities, the obvious leader of that battle for freedom of speech should be the most qualified of all—none other than the noble Lord, Lord Patten of Barnes, who is in his place. He is chancellor of the best university in the land—Oxford—and I hope he does not mind me landing him with another job at this time.
Again, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alton, a great advocate for freedom and justice, not only in Hong Kong but universally.
Lord Patten of Barnes (Con)
I think my interests are all registered, not least the fact that, like my friend the noble Lord, Lord Wilson, I had the privilege of being Governor of Hong Kong for five years, the greatest privilege I have ever had.
The joint declaration incorporating “one country, two systems” was an extraordinary clever, adept way of coping with an issue that was politically and morally difficult for both China and the United Kingdom. It was morally difficult for China because it knew that more than half the population of Hong Kong were refugees from events in China under a communist regime. It was morally difficult for Britain because it was pretty well our only colony that we were not preparing for independence with democratic structures. When occasionally in the 1960s and 1970s Britain talked about greater democracy in Hong Kong, Chinese officials, including, famously, Zhou Enlai, made it clear they did not want that, because it would give people in Hong Kong the idea that they were going to turn out something like Singapore or Malaysia one day—an independent country.
Moreover, it was always the Chinese Government's position that the future of the people in Hong Kong was nothing to do with the people of Hong Kong. It all had to be determined by the British and Chinese Governments. Nevertheless, it is fair to say that for a dozen or more years after 1997, one country, two systems worked extraordinarily well. There was some rowing back by the Chinese Government on the pledges they had made on the introduction of greater democracy in Hong Kong, saying at a number of points that this was a matter for people in Hong Kong. The joint liaison office, their main point of contact in Hong Kong, threw its weight around too much, but by and large things went pretty well. I think the caesura in Hong Kong, and in the development of China, in the past few years has been the election of Xi Jinping as head of the Communist Party and President of China. Just as that has changed attitudes to economic matters in China, it has had an impact on political issues as well. There has certainly been a tightening of Beijing’s control over Hong Kong in the past few years.
That is the backdrop to what has happened since the extraordinarily foolish introduction of the extradition Bill. That was seen, not just by pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong but by the business community, as an attempt to dismember the firewall between the rule of law in Hong Kong and whatever passes for the law—I note what the noble Lord, Lord Alton, had to say—in mainland China. We saw the huge demonstrations, which began peacefully but have unfortunately developed a violent edge in the past few months. Bear in mind that this has been going on for four months now.
I commend to the House an extremely good article in Asian Affairs by a retired Hong Kong police officer about what has happened in dealing with those demonstrations. First, he pointed out that, starting with the demonstrations on 12 June, which were around the government buildings, the police began to target not just the people behaving violently but a lot of those who were being perfectly peaceful. Secondly, we had the appalling affair in the MTR station and Yuen Long in July, when it was plainly the case that triads and other gangsters were used to beat up demonstrators to help in the policing. All those issues, along with the broader economic and social matters, justify establishing a commission of inquiry. That has been pressed for some months, including by the former Chief Justice Andrew Li and others. It is the most sensible way forward, and I implore the Government to do that in Hong Kong.
I also implore the demonstrators to recognise that they play into the hands of the Communist Party when they are violent. However, you have to understand that, when you say to them, “You will lose the moral high ground if you behave violently”, they say, “If we are on the moral high ground, who will be there with us? Who will be talking to us?”, because nobody addresses them or tries to form some sort of consensus with them. They are also extremely critical of the way the demonstrations have been policed, which has not been the greatest example of the behaviour of what used to be—and I hope still will be—a great Asian police force.
I will say three things in conclusion. First, I implore not just the demonstrators to give up the violence, but also Beijing to give the Government in Hong Kong, whether Carrie Lam or anybody else, the elbow room to make some accommodations with the demonstrators. Secondly, I implore the Chinese Government to behave more sensibly in general; most of us have received a rather impertinent letter this morning from the Foreign Ministry, which is a very good example of how the Chinese think that international laws and treaties they have signed must be followed by everybody else but not by them. Lastly, I refer to the Foreign Minister saying that all this has been whipped up by the CIA and foreign forces. It is always a weakness of authoritarian regimes that they do not understand what is happening below. That always causes difficulties.
I have one final point—I am sorry for going on for slightly longer than I should have. In 2016 I made a speech in Hong Kong saying that I would always support movements for democracy but was totally against any efforts to campaign for independence for Hong Kong, because it was not going to happen and it would be immoral of me to support it. Joshua Wong and others said, “Would you go along and talk to students, and say exactly the same thing?” I addressed 700 students at the University of Hong Kong and made those same points; I did the same the following year, and in between nobody from the Government had talked to them. At the end of that first session, the students said to me, “It’s all very well, Governor Patten, you coming along and making those sorts of remarks, but what happens if the Chinese continue to squeeze us? What will the rest of the world do? What will you do in Britain? What will the United States do? What will Europe do? What will you do personally?” It is a very good question.
Lord Alderdice (LD)
My Lords, it is a great honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Patten of Barnes, not just because of his distinguished governorship of Hong Kong but because of the time he spent in Northern Ireland, a place beloved by both him and me, and his distinguished chancellorship of Oxford University, where I find great intellectual nourishment and run a small centre dealing with intractable conflict. It is also always a great pleasure to participate in debates led and hosted by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, who brings not only all his passion and enthusiasm but a thoroughly well-grounded and well-informed speech to start us off. I ask myself what I can usefully contribute after such valuable, insightful and experienced contributions. I will pick up where the noble Lord, Lord Patten of Barnes, left off: what can we do?
Can the Minister say whether there is any preparedness on the part of Her Majesty’s Government seriously to review the whole approach that has been taken to engagement with China over the last 20 years? I think it was largely informed by a view that, if markets were opened and there was economic engagement with China, a more liberal, democratic approach would, if not inevitably, most likely follow. There is a great vogue for evidence-based medicine. If there was any such thing as evidence-based politics, the evidence is clear that economic openings have not led to liberal democracy. On the contrary, the situation is getting much worse.
The Minister has freedom of religion or belief as one of his many responsibilities in government. As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, pointed out, the situation on freedom of religion or belief in China itself is deteriorating in a quite extraordinary way. The Chinese Government do not make any apology for it or try to hide it; it is absolutely up front as part of their policy that, unless you follow the beliefs, culture and approach of the Chinese Government and the Communist Party, you are to be squeezed out. I read phrases such as “their bones will be crushed and thrown aside”. These are incredibly dangerous, as well as obnoxious, words from anyone, but from a Head of State and Government they are unforgivable. Are Her Majesty’s Government therefore prepared to review the approach that we have taken?
When Mr Blair was in government, he was very much of the belief that this was the way to engage. Resources were taken away from many other parts of the world and put into engagement with China because this was the way forward and we could not do without it. If China believes that that is the case, anything we say about Hong Kong or any of the other abuses in China will simply be brushed aside. What does this require? I make one specific proposition: that when it comes to business, our approach to human rights becomes an important agenda item. One reason why Hong Kong was allowed to continue as it was, at least for a period, was that it was the jewel in the crown of China’s economic prospects.
It is absolutely clear that many businesses are now reassessing whether Hong Kong is the place to be; some are moving to Singapore, others elsewhere. However, it will not do what is necessary if they simply quietly slip away. It is important that it is made very clear to Beijing and the current Administration in Hong Kong that businesses will leave, should leave and may well be encouraged to leave if the human rights situation does not improve and more prospects are not given. I support the call that, at the next Commonwealth meeting, the question be raised of whether—we must do this along with other countries, though we will have to take a lead if we are to ask others—BNO passport holders will be given the opportunity to relocate. It is the best possibility not only for their future but for maintaining them there with some confidence that they have alternatives.
The Lord Bishop of Salisbury
My Lords, I too am grateful for this debate, initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Alton. There is a very high level of knowledge and expertise in the House: therefore, I make this contribution with some diffidence. However, the church in Hong Kong plays a significant part in the life of the community there, where it is distinctive, both in terms of worship and religious freedom but also education and social care. Hong Kong has a unique history, and this country has particular responsibilities.
The parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields, where I was vicar before becoming Bishop of Salisbury, has had a Cantonese-speaking, Hong Kong-based congregation for more than 50 years. At the handover there was some anxiety and much hope for a Hong Kong which developed as a special administrative region and was able to look both ways, inside China and out from China, uniquely connecting China to the wider world.
We want to stand with the people of Hong Kong. The question is: with which people, and how? It is a place with, to some extent, competing different views of the world. For mainland Chinese, the pride of the nation’s development is measured in education, employment, economic prosperity and healthcare. In Hong Kong, there is a deep commitment to democracy, the rule of law, human rights and religious freedom. The way in which the protests have been challenged and policed has been exacerbated by the use of artificial intelligence in the visual recognition of protesters, the ban on face masks, and so on. The different views of the world are not necessarily opposites, but they are very different emphases. Maybe the role of those of us outside is to exert pressure—to push together the best of what it is to be human, and people together.
The current disruption has its roots in the extradition Bill, as well as in housing, income inequality and a lack of social mobility. However, it is much more to do with identity. At the handover, it was assumed by some, for better and for worse, that in time, Hong Kong would lose its distinctiveness. For others, Hong Kong brought something distinctive to the Chinese polity, religion, and social and economic life. Now, those aged under 35 in Hong Kong see themselves as Hong Kongers first and Chinese second. In other words, Hong Kong’s identity has been hardened and has grown more significant, not less.
Of course, the Anglican Church in Hong Kong condemns violence but supports lawful and peaceful protest. From the perspective of Hong Kong leaders, it is less than helpful for foreign politicians to tell Hong Kong and Chinese people what to do and how to behave. The task for us is to work out how to exert pressure from outside so that we stand alongside those to whom we have not just a historic but a present commitment, to encourage the keeping of treaties and international law, and the finding of a peaceful resolution to the present conflicts.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
My Lords, it is a great privilege to be able to participate in this debate.
For decades, when visiting vibrant, colourful, lively, bustling Hong Kong, we have seen rapid change melded with Chinese culture, keeping traditions alive, including music on ancient rare instruments. When Bradbury Hospice opened in 1992, supported by Lady Patten and the Jockey Club, several fine compassionate doctors sought palliative medicine specialist education through Cardiff and established world-class services, founded on deep humanity and high clinical standards, sensitive to Cantonese culture. When SARS happened, they cared for those dying and helped contain it.
As we have heard, Cantonese religious traditions are broad and varied. Some British, interned by the Japanese invaders during the last war, gained inner strength from St John’s Cathedral church’s ad hoc services, and today its Filipino Christian fellowship supports those in domestic service.
Following handover, Hong Kong’s gentle realignment with mainland China became palpable, while keeping its own distinct identity. Meanwhile, China has developed at an astonishing rate, across all disciplines. To the outsider, China has nothing to fear from Hong Kong—but Hong Kong now fears China, whose more than 1.4 billion people represent almost 19% of the world’s population.
In the early 1990s, Falun Gong, with its Buddhist origins and fundamental tenets of truthfulness, compassion and forbearance, was favoured by the People’s Republic of China. As it became popular, it was proscribed by the atheistic state, and adherents appear to have been systematically persecuted, imprisoned in labour camps without cause, tortured and an unknown number killed. They are prisoners of conscience, along with Uighurs, house Christians, and Tibetans.
Those of us in rich, vibrant societies cannot understand what the perceived threat is to the communist state from people whose philosophy is non-violent and peaceful at all times. Yet now there is extensive evidence that China has been killing its Falun Gong prisoners of conscience to remove organs for commercial human transplantation. I recently met Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, chairman of the Independent Tribunal into Forced Organ Harvesting from Prisoners of Conscience in China, whose judgment makes harrowing reading. That evidence-based judgment, delivered in June this year, followed the earlier interim judgment that:
“The Tribunal’s members are certain—unanimously, and sure beyond reasonable doubt—that in China forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience has been practised for a substantial period of time involving a very substantial number of victims”.
Is it possible that some doctors could perpetrate such crimes against humanity, even at times taking organs before the person was clinically dead? Shamefully, it seems so. The tribunal’s findings cannot be buried along with the bodies of the victims, so will the Government support the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, to cut off demand from any UK residents who want to participate in this transplant tourism?
How do we come to terms with this huge country, with whom we work well and trade on a daily basis? We welcome Chinese students to our universities and work with China on many major projects. Cardiff Metropolitan University, which I chair, recently welcomed the Deputy Premier of China and his team to our ZER02FIVE Food Industry Centre to help China develop public health training programmes in food handling. In many scientific and medical disciplines, excellent quality work in research and teaching is being undertaken. Collaboration across boundaries should benefit all.
Now, as Hong Kong cries out for open government, we have a moral duty to all those British passport holders. We must not abandon the strength and integrity of these people. We will lose highly skilled Europeans through Brexit, yet Hong Kong British should have open entry to the UK. China has nothing to fear from open ethical practices, but much to fear from abusing human rights. Meanwhile, the British people of Hong Kong, living by our code and legal system, must not be abandoned through wilful blindness.
Lord Carrington (CB)
My Lords, I have lived and worked in Hong Kong and have been a frequent visitor to China since the early 1980s. This debate comes at a time when tensions in Hong Kong are extremely high, and the prospects of greater violence are increasing. Estimates are that up to 10% of the demonstrators are using violence, and that these people are well resourced and uncompromising. I see nothing to be gained by raking over the recent events and trying to apportion blame. For every rumour of the involvement of PRC undercover agents there is a counter-rumour of CIA interference. This gets us nowhere. The overwhelming priority is to end the violent protests of the extremists, who are damaging the very cause that they uphold, as well as at the same time moving quickly to much-needed and unforgivably delayed reforms in Hong Kong.
I am a supporter of the joint declaration and the approach of one country, two systems. This was a substantial victory for common sense and was to the advantage of all sides. Unfortunately, rather than seeing this as a holistic concept, some people have concentrated on one rather than the other, which has led to many of the problems we see today.
An old Chinese saying describes this perfectly: “two people sleeping in the same bed dreaming different dreams”. However, on balance China has adhered to the agreement because it is in the interests of China so to do. Hong Kong remains the pre-eminent financial centre in China and Asia. It is also of paramount importance to Chinese relations with Taiwan going forward.
Unless there is a complete breakdown of law and order in Hong Kong, I do not see the likelihood of a Chinese invasion. I also do not believe that, if the authorities introduce the necessary reforms, the structure will change even after 2047. If it works, it is good for China and Hong Kong.
The problems in Hong Kong are principally home grown, in that it has had various ineffective Governments since 1997, which have failed to introduce much-needed reforms in a variety of sectors, both social and structural. While the population of China has become increasingly affluent, the population of Hong Kong, with the exception of the rich, has become poorer and consequently more disaffected. Some of this is due to the dollar peg, which has caused massive asset inflation, which benefits the haves rather than the have-nots.
The incompetence of the Administration has not been assisted by its poor briefings and overall handling of the media, which sometimes gives a very one-sided view of events. The constitution and performance of LegCo is a big stumbling block. It is less than representative and too pro-Beijing. Its composition needs to be changed. The fault is not all that of the Government, as the behaviour of some democratic Members has been appalling, with outright and needless insults to the very name of China. This lack of respect does no one any good.
Much needs attention, and we in Britain should be clearly pointing this out to the Hong Kong Government. These matters are arguably more important than issues around passports which, we hope, will never be required. If the “one country, two systems” framework is made to work, it is to the overwhelming advantage of both Hong Kong and China. Hong Kongers will have little interest in passports. That is why all our current efforts should be directed to this objective alone.
First and foremost, the Government must restore law and order by giving their wholesale backing, including resources and training, to the police. The police are the first and only line of civic defence in Hong Kong, unlike in other countries. They are fellow Hong Kong citizens speaking Cantonese and with houses and children at the same schools in the community. They are not the PLA, which has none of these features or local relationships. It does not matter where in the civilised world you are: if you stab a policeman carrying out his duty, you are likely to get hurt as well as arrested, even if you are a 12 year-old. In the current circumstances, now that the Government have enacted the emergency law, they need to enforce it. The implementation of the face mask ban was a farce.
The police are already stretched and, unless they get full support, disintegration of the force could well begin. There have been no fatalities yet, but that is where things are headed. Once violent demonstrations are ended and there is a return to peaceful protest, the chief executive can start the conciliation process with inquiries and measures to reform LegCo, housing and much else. With compromise, good faith and good will, and without stirring nationalist sentiment, this can be solved. The Hong Kong Government’s withdrawal of the extradition Bill and their apology for the unintended spraying of paint at the Kowloon Mosque is a good start.
Lord Chidgey (LD)
My Lords, the Chinese position now—that the “one country, two systems” agreement is obsolete and no longer valid—is a clear breach of an international treaty, ratified in the UN, which enshrines the autonomy, rights and freedoms in the Hong Kong Basic Law. In response to an Urgent Question on 26 September, the Foreign Secretary confirmed that the United Kingdom expected China to live up to its obligations. He confirmed that he had spoken to the Hong Kong Chief Executive, Carrie Lam, and the Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, and made clear our concerns about human rights and the mistreatment of those exercising their right to lawful and peaceful protest. He said that their concerns should be addressed, not crushed by force.
That is a fine and noble sentiment from the Foreign Secretary, but there is scant evidence, more than a month on, of a positive Chinese reaction—until this morning, when it was announced that the extradition Bill had been withdrawn, according to the Times. But that is only one of five key demands of the protesters.
The Foreign Secretary also said that our international partners had placed on record their strong support and that the Prime Minister had raised Hong Kong at a recent G7 meeting, where all partners supported the joint declaration and called for an end to violence. The Foreign Secretary stressed to the Chinese Government that it was Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy that guaranteed its future prosperity and success.
Again, there was no positive response from the Chinese, apart from saying, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, mentioned, that the Sino-British joint declaration was an historical document that no longer had any practical significance and had no binding effect on the Chinese central Government’s management of Hong Kong. The British, the statement said, have no sovereignty after the handover, nor power to rule or power to supervise. That is a pretty clear statement, but wildly divergent from the fact that the treaty is registered with the UN, remains in force and obliges both signatories to adhere to the terms they agreed.
Over the past several weeks, Members have received a steady flow of emails from Hong Kongers, some setting out their analysis of the situation with great fluency. I will not give names, for fear of retribution, but outstanding arguments include:
“Unlike other British Overseas Territories, the British Hong Kong residents were denied a vote on the future. The land and the people were handed over to the Chinese without asking their consent”.
“Hong Kong Britons born in British Hong Kong before the handover were British by birth. After the handover, those of Chinese descent had Chinese nationality brutally imposed by Beijing. It is now impossible for them to register as British citizens due to the imposition of Chinese nationality”.
“Beijing is not concerned about the justifiable rights of the Hong Kong people, but only on how to silence opposition views”.
That is just a sample of the many emails that I and others have received appealing for help.
Should the situation in Hong Kong be seen as part of the broader picture of Chinese foreign policy? Most people will be familiar with China’s belt and road initiative—a massive infrastructure and investment project, a new Silk Road to transport Chinese goods through the heart of central Asia and into Europe, with defined maritime routes through and beyond the Indian Ocean, served by a string of naval bases, including in Sri Lanka and Djibouti, to protect their passage.
It smacks of imperialism on a global scale not seen since the 18th and 19th centuries. Chinese foreign policy includes extending territorial claims to a network of disputed islands, reefs and atolls throughout the South China Sea, stretching into the Pacific and closing on Australia. Harbour and airport facilities with military capabilities and defence infrastructure have mushroomed on islands that make up the Paracels and Spratlys.
China has just secured a 75-year renewable lease on the whole of the island of Tulagi in the heart of the Solomon Islands, complete with fully functional naval and air bases initially provided by the Allied forces in World War II. Last month, China persuaded the Solomon Islands to join Kiribati in switching diplomatic ties from Taipei to Beijing.
There are worries, particularly in the US and Australia, that these developments provide a foothold for establishing a military presence in their backyard. The annual Bersama Lima military exercise is currently in full swing, with the intention of five nations combining to provide defence across Asia from a potential Chinese conventional threat: the front line. However, the allies’ combined power compared to China’s is extraordinary: the details do not bear reading. However, given that military engagement would seem an invidious course of action, we must examine combined economic and other actions to persuade China to address the plight of the Hong Kongers. In the words of Hong Kongers:
“Hong Kong is not Hong Kong anymore. No freedom, no justice, not safe. Please help to save the Hong Kongers’ life”.
I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Alton for tabling this debate and for his continued interest in this area. I am speaking today in part not only because of the significant number of emails that I have received on this issue even before I put my name down to speak, but also because I have visited many countries that are being ripped apart by genocide, war and civil unrest. I have also been fascinated by the evolving relationship between sport and politics as countries have transitioned away from the Empire into the Commonwealth, which has led to my interest in Hong Kong.
I watched in real time the handover of Hong Kong in 1997, although personally I have never been comfortable with the word “handover” when talking about people. I was fascinated by the provisions of the joint declaration and how citizens would be protected during the transition and beyond. Many of the letters I have received are from individuals asking for protection and support as British national overseas citizens. They talk about feeling abandoned and their only protection being to look to us to hold China to account. Many say that we have a historical and moral responsibility to do so. They talk of cases of universal suffrage not being upheld, activists being banned from running elections and the impact of religious intolerance. Perhaps there are not many positive things about Brexit, but one is that in this country we have the right to protest in relative safety. In Hong Kong, however, we see real fear playing out on the streets.
As I researched this subject, I became aware of the work of Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, a distinguished prosecutor and respected expert in crimes of mass atrocity and forced organ harvesting. One could say that on the one hand that China has been at the forefront of medical developments, but we have to consider at what cost. In 2004, 13,000 organ transplants were carried out in China, but where are the organs coming from? It has been publicly known for many years and was reported on in 2009 in China Daily that approximately 65% of transplanted organs still come from death row prisoners. That brings me back to the work of Sir Geoffrey Nice. In the final judgment of the China tribunal, he said:
“Forced organ harvesting has been committed for years through China on a significant scale and that Falun Gong practitioners have been one—and probably the main source of organ supply. The concerted persecution and medical testing of the Uyghurs is more recent and it may be that evidence of forced organ harvesting of this group may emerge in due course”,
and that,
“forced organ harvesting continues till this day”.
We can perhaps understand why Chinese transplant professionals and the Government chose not to participate in the tribunal. Lu Kang, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said on 30 June:
“Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China and Hong Kong’s affairs are China’s internal affairs ... Now that Hong Kong has returned to its motherland for 20 years, the Sino-British Joint Declaration, as a historical document, no longer has any practical significance, and does not have any binding effect on the Chinese central government’s management of Hong Kong”.
That does not fill me with positive hope.
I should like to ask Her Majesty’s Government whether this is really acceptable. Where is our moral responsibility? I have a number of friends who have received organ transplants. I have seen them wait, I have seen the pain they go through and I have seen those who have passed away. Organ transplantation saves lives, but there is no place for organ tourism or for enforced organ harvesting. This is just one of many fears we must address for the citizens of Hong Kong.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, Hong Kong had everything going for it, including a fabulous future as part of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay area, which was and still is destined to be one of the richest, most innovative and powerful regions on the entire planet. Mention of the British national (overseas) passport issue sent me to my filing cabinet, where a dusty file reminded me that 24 years ago I had the privilege of leading the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee to a five-day inquiry in the old LegCo on Hong Kong island, where we conducted hearings on exactly the same issue: whether the British national (overseas) passport should give right of abode to the United Kingdom. We concluded that it should not, but that we thought that certain categories of people should be admitted. They have been admitted progressively under quotas since then. We thought that the passport status was part of the Sino-British declaration that had been signed a year before in 1994, that we should leave it as part of the declaration, and that we should respect the whole declaration because we hoped and believed that it would give Hong Kong 50 years of prosperity and stability.
For 20 years it did, but what on earth went wrong? We know that the clumsy extradition law was the trigger and that it has now been withdrawn. However, in my view there is blame that lies in Beijing, in London and in Hong Kong itself. Whether we like it or not, the international legal position is clear. Under the declaration and our agreements, Hong Kong is now a sovereign part of the People’s Republic of China. The joint declaration was always based on an understanding that in the future, after signature, there would be a degree of trust and respect, along with constant dialogue with Beijing, as well as with the Hong Kong authorities, on the necessary reform and modernisation that has taken place, given that the whole world has been completely transformed since those days.
There was also a degree of ambiguity and compromise in the declaration. There had to be—there always is in these complicated situations. One problem is that in the digital age, when everyone is pushed to extremes, moderation is cast aside and all nuances are neglected, there is hyper-communication that is very difficult to handle because everyone is driven to taking extreme positions. For instance, China simply carries on asserting that the declaration is null and void and Britain has nothing to do with it and should stay out of the picture, while we, the other hand, keep on bravely asserting a point that is legally true, which that it is a binding agreement. These are counter-assertions that get us nowhere. They are exactly the sort of megaphone diplomacy that the father of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, warned us against many decades ago. There has to be a dialogue of respect, trust and understanding, and the positive necessity is for that to be recreated now.
I think it was the former Prime Minister John Major who said to the people of Hong Kong, “We will never forget you”, but in fact we did forget them. We forgot the essential dialogue element needed to keep the situation under proper control. It is now utterly in China’s interests to see the Hong Kong situation restored and pacified. It is also utterly in Hong Kong’s interests to see that it reassumes its place in the fantastic and fabulous financial future as a hub of the whole world’s system of modern government and trade.
What do we need now and what can we can do? We can urge that a detailed inquiry be held into the grievances. It may be that a new Chief Executive is required to bring a new approach to the whole situation. Above all, we need full and continuing dialogue with the PRC and the people in Beijing, who are not totally ignorant of what is happening or the dangers it poses for China and everyone else, about what was intended when we signed the declaration and how it needs to be constantly nurtured and reformed. That is where we should put all our efforts. It is something we have not done; now we should start doing it.
Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for this opportunity to speak. I am no great expert on Hong Kong but I hope to make clear why I wanted to speak today. Previously, I was chief constable of Merseyside Police which lays claim to the oldest Chinese community in Europe and has the largest Chinese arch outside China. It is a great community, as is the large community in London. Its members are always very law-abiding, integrated with the wider community and supportive of each other. There are links historically to the former Royal Hong Kong Police Force through visits and trips.
The situation in Hong Kong appears to be deteriorating rather than improving. Large-scale protests are being held on a daily basis, with reports of serious violence and damage. My concerns relate to the behaviour of the Hong Kong police in dealing with those demonstrations. I remind the House in passing that, although the Hong Kong authorities have been criticised for passing legislation making it illegal to wear a mask, it is illegal to wear a mask in this country when, under certain conditions, a person refuses to remove it on the request of a police officer. It is not only in Hong Kong that we see this type of legislation.
I know just how difficult it is to police protests. The people protesting always feel strongly about the issue they are advocating. It can be a serious issue of principle for those people and often involves a passionate commitment to the cause they espouse. The majority of a crowd usually do not wish to be involved in violence, but their presence can be a way for those who intend to be violent to be hidden and to make it difficult for law enforcement agencies to deal with them.
My natural sympathies can therefore lie with any police force faced with that type of operation. However, I am afraid I have become increasingly concerned by the TV images of the police response in Hong Kong and the reports of respected bodies that have observed serious police misconduct and have evidence of human rights abuse. Both Hong Kong Watch and Amnesty International have published worrying accounts of police excesses.
As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, mentioned, a recent Amnesty International report confirms,
“an alarming pattern of the Hong Kong Police Force deploying reckless and indiscriminate tactics”,
in their arrests, as well as beating and torturing people in detention. The same report states that detained protesters have been “severely beaten” and that this,
“appears to have been meted out … for talking back”,
or being unco-operative. Worryingly, there are repeated reports of sexual violence in police detention. Further, as we have heard again today, there are reports of police firing live ammunition at protesters.
I accept that Hong Kong police are armed and, if they become isolated in a crowd, may use a weapon for self-defence—but I am afraid that the use of a firearm in a political protest is always a very serious development and increases the risk that the protesters will respond by arming themselves and using firearms in return. That is always the most serious turn of events at a protest, politically as well as practically. Finally, we have seen reports of a journalist being shot with a rubber bullet despite being clearly identified as a member of the press.
What steps are the Government taking to make sure that the Hong Kong Government establish an independent judge-led inquiry into these abuses? Have the Government considered raising with the UN Security Council the recent breaches of the human rights captured in the Sino-British joint declaration? What steps have the Government taken to investigate reports of sexual violence against young protesters in detention? Finally, will the Government make formal diplomatic representation to raise concerns about all these issues?
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)
My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Alton for bringing this debate and for his ongoing commitment to raising the issues of China and Hong Kong. I say “my noble friend” advisedly. I have not slipped into the wrong Benches; I think of the noble Lord as a friend.
Like the right reverend Prelate, I speak with some diffidence this afternoon. Hong Kong is not my area of expertise, and in your Lordships’ House it is always a little dangerous to speak from a position of no expertise. In particular, I am aware that—apart from former governors—we have young Hong Kongers watching us today. I agreed to speak precisely because, like my noble friend Lord Chidgey, I started receiving emails. Some probably came to all Members of your Lordships’ House. One came from somebody I knew, no longer resident in Hong Kong, who said, “I want you to make clear to Parliament what the real situation is like in Hong Kong”.
My sense is that noble Lords contributing to this debate need no lessons on what the situation is like in Hong Kong, but I felt that so many people were writing that it was important, as an ordinary Member of the Lords, to take a bit more time to find out what is happening in Hong Kong and at least raise my voice in support of those people in Hong Kong seeking what so many young people in the United Kingdom want. They want freedom, democracy and autonomy. After all, what have we been doing for the last three and a half years but trying to talk about freedom, democracy and autonomy, albeit in a slightly different format?
The situation with Hong Kong is a sui generis case. If what is happening in Hong Kong were happening in mainland China, the Chinese authorities would simply say, “This is about our sovereign territory. Please go away. We don’t interfere in your politics. Please don’t interfere in ours”. But the situation with the Sino-British joint declaration is different.
One of my questions to the Minister is: to what extent do the Government really feel they can play a part? In answer to my noble friend Lady Northover on 7 October, he said the Government are,
“fully committed to upholding Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy and its rights and freedoms as enshrined in the ‘one country, two systems’ framework”.—[Official Report, 7/10/19; col. 1903.]
How do Her Majesty’s Government plan to do this? We have not so far seen much evidence of it.
Among the other areas that have not been much discussed today are fake news and suicides. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, said that there have not yet been any fatalities, but various people have said in their emails that what has changed in recent months is the number of unexplained suicides: people who appear to have perhaps fallen from a building, but nobody saw or heard them fall. Is it possible for Her Majesty’s Government to ask what is happening with this and whether the rule of law is being upheld? There are clearly questions about people dying in unexplained circumstances.
We are in a very difficult time. Several Members of your Lordships’ House have already mentioned residency for British nationals overseas, but there is a clear disparity among Hong Kongers. Some have BNO status, some have BOC status and some born after 1997 have neither status. They would not have a right of abode even if Her Majesty’s Government decided to give BNO citizens the right to reside in the United Kingdom.
What are Her Majesty’s Government able to do about the rights of Hong Kong citizens? Clearly it is vital that Hong Kong becomes again a place where people want to remain and exercise their rights under the Sino-British agreement. However, if that is not possible, what guarantees can be given to Hong Kong citizens, whatever their original nationality? If we have one country, two systems, there should not be three or four different citizenships.
Baroness Hooper (Con)
My Lords, although I cannot claim the same extent of expertise in relation to Hong Kong and China as many who have spoken so far and many from whom we are yet to here, I have had the pleasure of going to Hong Kong on several occasions and I have friends who live and work there.
I also was asked to add my signature to the letter initiated by Hong Kong Watch and sent to the Foreign Secretary recently, and I welcome the tone of his reply. However, one point arising from the Foreign Secretary’s reply to that letter—which I hope my noble friend the Minister can clarify—is the reference to his having spoken to a wide range of his counterparts internationally to encourage their support. Does this include the European Union? It was not listed in the Foreign Secretary’s letter, and we are after all still members and can still benefit from a united voice from Europe to carry weight in China. I hope he will tell us that this issue has been raised at that level. I would like to hear more about the reaction from other Commonwealth countries.
It is always difficult to know how best to support action against human rights abuses, and some of the horrific examples quoted today and the limitation on freedoms in Hong Kong require positive action by the United Kingdom. So, in spite of the advice to the contrary of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, I support the suggestion that the United Kingdom should provide an insurance policy of second citizenship and the right of abode. I see this as a part of our responsibility under the joint declaration. Can the Minister give an indication of the numbers involved if this approach should be taken?
On the wider issue of the protests, I have mixed feelings. I agree with those who consider that they have gone on too long, and I deplore the increasing violence on both sides. At the moment, protests and lengthy demonstrations seem to be springing up all over the world—witness Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Barcelona, and even here we have seen the recent paralysis of central London for almost two weeks—so we can all understand how the consequences of such protracted action can impact on the lives of ordinary citizens. However sympathetic one might be about the cause of the protest, patience can wear thin. We do not want that to happen in Hong Kong. I hope, therefore, that we can show tangible support for the grievances of the protestors and, by doing so, encourage them not to further provoke and escalate the violence and disproportionate force that we have all witnessed on our television screens.
I congratulate and thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on giving us this opportunity to show our support for the people of Hong Kong.
Lord Loomba (CB)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Alton for securing this important debate and ensuring that the voices of the supporters of democracy in Hong Kong are heard in this House.
Hong Kong was my second home, as I had my office there from 1984 to 1995, and I always found it a peaceful place. The recent scenes of unrest in Hong Kong have become increasingly disturbing as hostility towards the pro-democracy protestors grows. The ban by the Hong Kong Administration on wearing face masks has been counterproductive and only served to increase protests. Many people in Hong Kong believe the umbrella revolution in 2014 did not work and their frustration at the perceived violations to the “one country, two systems” agreement is growing.
As I am sure your Lordships’ House is aware, the protests began over an extradition treaty that would have allowed citizens of Hong Kong to be extradited to China. This caused alarm, a public outcry and led to the huge conflicts between police and protestors which have shocked the world. While the Bill to enact this legislation has been withdrawn, there are still many issues to be addressed.
Both sides, the UK and China, signed up to the Sino-British joint declaration agreement to respect Hong Kong’s traditions and way of life. Any actions contrary to the agreement should be swiftly addressed by the UK Government. We must do more—and fast— to ensure that democracy in Hong Kong is preserved and that the values the people hold dear are not eroded beyond all repair. Having an elected Administration and not one appointed by the Chinese Government, so that Hong Kong residents have faith in the running of Hong Kong, is a first step. The UK Government should insist this on to achieve real results.
While the calls to offer citizenship here and in other Commonwealth countries to BNO passport holders may help in the short term, and I support any moves to do so, it does nothing to resolve the issues faced by Hong Kong residents in the long term. The key issue is the fragility of democracy in Hong Kong at present. With more and more stories surfacing of ill-treatment of protestors by the police, the rule of law appears to be being violated. It cannot be right that the police can act with impunity and without proper systems in place to hold them to account for their behaviour.
Another issue that particularly stands out for me is the need to protect protesting citizens from being targeted by the Hong Kong Administration and the Chinese Government. What is being done by the Government to create dialogue with the protestors in order to bring about democratic reform in a reasoned way and to ensure that the dialogue is with bone fide protestors and not infiltrators? This is an important point, as it is only through careful and considered dialogue on all sides that we have any hope of bringing the situation to a peaceful resolution.
Lord Sassoon (Con)
My Lords, I refer to my business interests in Hong Kong and mainland China as set out in the register. As someone involved in business in Hong Kong, I record my sadness and concern at the events of recent months. I add my condolences to all those affected by the news that 39 citizens of China died in yesterday’s appalling lorry tragedy.
Like other speakers in this debate, I condemn the violence. It has seriously threatened the well-being of the community and has taken a significant toll on the whole of Hong Kong and its international standing. I strongly support efforts to restore law and order for the greater good of the people of Hong Kong. To move forward, Hong Kong’s community needs to work together to restore the confidence of that great city and ensure the well-being and harmony of all its people.
The rule of law and the “one country, two systems” principle enshrined in the Basic Law are fundamental to the strength and stability of Hong Kong. Will the Minister confirm that the Government’s view is that “one country, two systems” has worked well over the 22 years since 1997? Will he also confirm that the Government have identified only one case in those 22 years which they believe to have been a breach of the joint declaration?
Hong Kong has become one of the world’s most successful financial and business cities and a city in which many British people and businesses have prospered since 1997. Hong Kong is Asia’s dominant equity market, and it has become the key conduit for Chinese inbound and outbound investment, including into the UK, so I urge the Government to continue to support and enhance the UK’s economic links with Hong Kong. To that end, will the Minister confirm that high priority will be given to a free trade and investment agreement with Hong Kong as part of the UK’s post-Brexit trade architecture? Will he confirm that work with Hong Kong under the UK’s global financial partnerships strategy continues to be a priority?
It will be for the people and the Government of Hong Kong to resolve the very concerning current situation, but the UK can and should play its part in supporting the prosperity of Hong Kong as a great, open trading city.
Lord Luce (CB)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, who has great business experience in Hong Kong and China. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on setting the scene for us so well. I recall that it was exactly five years ago this month, I think, that I led a similar debate on Hong Kong following the so-called umbrella demonstrations, which were not as serious as the demonstrations in the past four months.
As a cosignatory to the international treaty, we clearly have a duty and a responsibility to the people of Hong Kong to take an interest and to express our views constructively about their future.
My mind goes back to a weekend in 1984 when I was Minister of State with responsibility for Hong Kong. The Prime Minister asked me to be on duty throughout the weekend because Geoffrey Howe, as Foreign Secretary, was having vital discussions in Beijing with Chinese leaders, including Deng Xiaoping. I sat waiting for news, and late on that Saturday news came from the British ambassador. Deng Xiaoping, he said, had told him, “I trust Geoffrey Howe and therefore I have given an instruction that we will go ahead and draw up an agreement”. Trust was at the heart of the issue and it is what started the whole process moving forward, to the extent that by the end of the year we had signed the joint declaration. It is one of the most remarkable declarations in the history of any country, with the juxtaposition of two totally different and contrasting systems of government: one an autocracy; the other with a relatively free way of life and rule of law.
At that time, and I believe that it applies just as strongly today, there was a mutual interest among all of us—the people of Hong Kong above all, the Chinese Government and the British Government—in seeing the successful implementation of that treaty and the Basic Law that went with it.
It seems that Hong Kong is facing one of the biggest challenges in its history. It has been through the 1967 cultural revolution, the 1984 anxieties about its future, the transition of the 1990s and the Umbrella Revolution, but this seems to go even deeper. Clearly, the young people are frustrated and worried about their future, their freedom, their jobs, their housing and the contrast between the wealthy and the less well-off. Alongside that, as we have already heard, China today under President Xi has stronger political and security control over the country. In Hong Kong itself, there has been a lack of political leadership by successive Chief Executives, and therefore a lack of confidence and trust.
What needs to be done? First, it would be sensible for Hong Kong to have a sharp look at the way it chooses its Chief Executives. The Basic Law allows the system to be devised in such a way that it is possible to elect a Chief Executive who is directly accountable to the people. However, if, as is the case at present, the means of appointing and electing a Chief Executive is through a body of 1,200 people who largely lean towards Beijing, with candidates who have to have Beijing’s approval, there is bound to be a large element of mistrust. That, I believe, needs to be looked at.
Then there is the question of an independent inquiry into the police. I would hope that such an inquiry would restore confidence in them. For the young, there needs to be improvement in their housing and conditions and in their job opportunities. I hope that businesses in Hong Kong will help them in that respect.
On citizenship, I have only one point to make, not that we need to dwell on the broader issue. There is a group of 260 Hong Kong former servicemen who served in the Armed Forces under the British Crown and they are getting extremely nervous about their position and their security. This matter has been raised regularly in Parliament with the Home Secretary and I would be very grateful for the Minister’s view on whether they can be given right of abode.
I believe that what is needed and what we should encourage—we cannot dictate; all we can do is persuade —is sustained dialogue in Hong Kong so that it can strengthen all that is embodied in the framing of the joint declaration and the Basic Law with imaginative leadership, and with us encouraging the international community to support it. That is the least we can do for the people of Hong Kong.
Lord Marlesford (Con)
My Lords, I refer the House to my entry in the register of interests. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on introducing this debate. He has long been a beacon of morality in your Lordships’ House.
I first went to work in Hong Kong in 1961 and I have made numerous visits there over the last 58 years, most recently in May last year. In 1975, when I was a journalist, the Economist sent me to write a survey of Hong Kong, for which I had the most generous guidance from Sir Murray MacLehose. Sir Murray was Hong Kong’s longest-serving, hugely respected and, in the view of many, greatest governor. He served four terms from 1971 to 1982; from 1982 he was, of course, a distinguished member of your Lordships’ House.
I pay tribute also to my noble friend Lord Patten, whose governorship I was able to observe quite closely. Two parts of his legacy are especially relevant. First, during the run-up to the handover, he focused the eyes of the world on Hong Kong. Secondly, he taught the people of Hong Kong how to stand up for themselves.
I refer to Lord MacLehose because, together with Sir Philip Haddon-Cave, the financial secretary, he oversaw the development of Hong Kong from a trading outpost of the British Empire to a flourishing city state. He did so by advocating the interests of Hong Kong in London during the height of the British political struggle between socialism and capitalism. This aspect of the role of the British governor is, I believe, a clue to the cause of the tragic events over the last five months in Hong Kong.
Under the imaginative formula of “one country, two systems”, Hong Kong has for 20 years had a Chief Executive, selected—as the noble Lord, Lord Luce, explained—after some sort of consultation with Hong Kong, but really chosen by Beijing. Unfortunately, each Chief Executive has been perceived by Hong Kongers as representing the interests of Beijing in Hong Kong rather than being an advocate for Hong Kong to the leadership in Beijing. Indeed, Carrie Lam seems to have tried to anticipate what would please Beijing. That seems to be how the disastrous extradition Bill was conceived. The obvious sensitivities should have excluded such a provocative initiative, especially as we gather that it was not initiated by Beijing. When the storm first burst, it should have been withdrawn immediately, instead of which matters have been allowed to drag on and, indeed, deteriorate for some months.
During this period, Beijing has actually been remarkably restrained, and rightly so, in its own interests. I have sympathy also with the Hong Kong police, although they have not behaved perfectly. The initial protests were wholly justified, but the escalation into violence was not. It has become counterproductive to the cause and concerns of the protesters, rather as the actions at Canning Town tube station last week have been for Extinction Rebellion.
Let us face the fact that the “one country, two systems” regime will continue for another 28 years and that this is not likely to mean full democracy for Hong Kong; certainly, it will not mean any form of independence. Beijing was fortunate to inherit the world’s third most important financial centre. For China, that was indeed a treasure. While Shanghai is a world-class commercial centre, it is not under starter’s orders as a global financial centre to replace Hong Kong. There are many reasons for this. Perhaps the most obvious is that the judiciary in China is under the control of the Communist Party and will remain so. The only challenge to Hong Kong’s financial role comes from Singapore.
Mrs Lam should be allowed to retire. China’s leadership—which means President Xi Jinping—should rise to the challenge of appointing a successor who can acquire and maintain the trust and respect of the people of Hong Kong, without forfeiting the confidence of Beijing.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I commend the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for giving the House the opportunity for this debate. Its depth is testimony to the continuing close ties between the UK and Hong Kong.
I was warned by a veteran staffer in the office of Caroline Lucas to beware of becoming involved in too many foreign affairs issues, because there are so many, and the human needs are so pressing, that they can quickly consume every hour of your day and more. So many tragedies around the world have a British link, for the disastrous history of British colonialism continues to play out in the current day, as well as the destructive and counterproductive policies of military adventurism in Iraq and Afghanistan.
However, the issue of Hong Kong is one to which I have a personal tie. As a young journalist, I oversaw the Bangkok Post’s coverage of the Hong Kong handover, now more than 22 years ago. What is more, the young people engaged in the struggle for democracy in Hong Kong have much in common with the climate strikers here in the UK, young people whose elders have failed them and who are now bravely taking the future into their own hands. Like many Members of this House, I have been contacted by multiple individuals asking that Britain both acknowledge and act on the actions of the Hong Kong and Chinese authorities and the state of repression and fear in Hong Kong. I could not resist their calls.
In 1997, I thought that the British would stand up for the democratic rights of the people of Hong Kong. I remember being shocked by the final agreement. Earlier, the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, talked about how the idea of handing over people is deeply disturbing and this really sums up what I thought at that time.
As a nation, we bear responsibility for the state of Hong Kong today, and that, as we have heard from so many noble Lords, is a frightening breakdown of the rule of law and abuses by officialdom of their power and resources. The Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, calls on us to note the political unrest. I want to go much further than that. I want to condemn the clear human rights abuses and repression that are occurring and call for the British Government to take concrete action.
I will quote a few words from a woman who I will not name, for obvious reasons. She describes herself as an “ordinary working mother”, who is experiencing “the worst moment of my life”. This reflects the accounts mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith. This mother in Hong Kong speaks of living in a city where floating corpses, sometimes decapitated, are being found in the sea, and where there are alleged suicides in and around residential buildings, with police culpability widely thought to be involved. She speaks of a city where people are understandably feeling “hopeless”. Reference has been made to this week’s report from Stand with Hong Kong on the conditions of the San Uk Ling detention facility and the broader treatment of protesters by police. There are deeply disturbing reports of beatings, sexual violence against young women and the denial of medical treatment.
So what should we do? When I stand up in this House, I will aim always to not simply condemn, but ask for action. Surprisingly, we can look to the United States of America to see the kind of action that could be taken. The House of Representatives has passed, and the Senate is expected to pass, bills condemning China’s actions and supporting the right to protest in Hong Kong, and also requiring annual reviews of Hong Kong’s special economic and trade status. It is thought that the numbers exist to override any potential veto of those bills by Donald Trump. I hope that we can at least match this action in the UK. In Germany, the Foreign Minister met a visiting Hong Kong activist to hear his concerns. I hope that our Government would do likewise, should a request for a similar meeting be made. Of course, there is also the special issue that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, raised, about the holders of British national (overseas) passports. Britain cannot simply abandon these people.
The joint declaration on the question of Hong Kong agreed two decades ago contains no enforcement provisions, but this year the Government, in response to the Question from Caroline Lucas referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, said that they accepted that China had breached its obligations under the joint declaration, that this would,
“be a bilateral matter between us and China”,
and that the Government “would pursue it accordingly”. Given the widely reported state of Hong Kong today—the abusive behaviour of the police on the streets, the dreadful treatment of prisoners and the deaths linked to official action—I look forward to hearing from the Minister what action the Government plan to take.
Lord Wei (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for tabling this very timely debate. I refer to my registered interests, to my role as chair of the Hong Kong subgroup of the APPG on China, and to my being a British-born Chinese from Hong Kong.
The unrest in Hong Kong lately has been a cause of great concern to me personally and to those close to me. It is a beautiful place and its people possess a tremendous calling, not just to generate wealth and to be an entrepôt between mainland China and the rest of the world, but to be a source of people, ideas, and resources for the world. My ancestors left their village in Zhongshan, just across the border, after 23 generations via Hong Kong to join our global diaspora, like millions of others, by sea and air.
So it is especially heart-breaking to see the violence that has arisen on both sides of the divide in Hong Kong, in the streets and over the airwaves, as a city turns in on itself even as the world watches. This reflects a wider trend globally, where it seems that disagreement, fuelled by the internet as well as economic and political factors, is stretching our governance arrangements to the limit, whether in our own constitution, the situation in the US, in Northern Ireland, or indeed in Hong Kong with its “one country, two systems” model. It seems the hardest thing in the world right now is how to share power peacefully, whether you are being called to give some of it away or whether you want more of it. Evidently, the status quo everywhere needs to adapt. That is true even of the situation here in Westminster, but the question is always what we change the system into. As we well know, constitutional reform requires time to do well, and to listen to all parties and views. The unintended consequences of change can be severe further down the track.
However, to resort to violence seems to militate against carefully considered reform. All sides in the conflict in Hong Kong need to explore non-violent ways to move ahead and show restraint—I know that many do and they ought to be applauded—because the violence distracts from the real issues that need to be addressed around the world, whether around the rising cost of living, the creation of laws that infringe on individual freedom, especially of conscience or belief, intergenerational inequality and increasing monopolies of land, technology and talent. Doing nothing is not the answer to addressing these issues, nor, sadly enough, as we can see in the UK itself, is greater democracy in its current form necessarily a full-blown panacea to addressing the challenges we have here, which mirror those in Hong Kong and elsewhere.
The best way forward is for those who have the means and influence to help instigate change at the local level by bringing in responses based on truly listening to those who are protesting and the condition of the silent masses who sympathise with them. For example, how do we quickly build more affordable housing? I refer to the Bristol Housing Festival, which I am involved in, for a local UK response. How do we give our young people more hope, better jobs and opportunities, and empowerment in their lives generally? How do we curtail monopoly and monopsony domination of our markets?
Indeed, an era is coming soon when we will need to upgrade democracy itself. Our current model favours majorities over minorities and incumbents over new entrants, but in the age of the internet and social media a minority or new challenger that loses in our current democracy is no longer always content to let the matter rest. We need mechanisms to involve people and to get consent and buy-in at every level, not just at the headline majoritarian stage or in our formal legislatures. This is true in Northern Ireland, in Asia, in the US and around the world. Personally, I favour not just asking people who they like or what idea they like, which is expressed in our currently populist representative democracy and referenda model that we have inherited from over a century and decades ago, but asking directly what they think will work and allocating resources accordingly.
I have chosen so far not to engage with the top-line questions arising from this debate since I believe to focus on them is to miss the essential issue, which is how places such as Hong Kong can become better environments in which to live, in which their citizens feel they have a future and where no one is left behind or becomes so frustrated that they are tempted to rise up violently. Should we give all Hong Kong citizens full passports? That depends on whether doing so would help to increase the peace and address the future of Hong Kong, or risk antagonising an already tense and volatile situation.
Should the UK take a stronger stance with China on human rights abuses and back all pro-democracy protesters in the streets? The UK has been clear about its position on human rights, and has already made known its concerns about police conduct and rightly called for an inquiry. On the rule of law and the rising constraints on freedom in the region, the question is whether violent confrontation is the most effective way to address and convey these concerns, or whether there are other ways to help all our citizens have better lives.
I was encouraged, for example, when one of the developers in Hong Kong recently donated 3 million square feet of land to the Government to create affordable housing. It is a first practical step to change. While reform of governance is vital, the urgent way forward in many parts of the world is bringing immediate and long-term relief to workers and young people who have suffered a real-terms decline in wages over the last 20 years or more, compounded by rising housing and living costs. Only innovative and radical action by those who have the land, money and people resources can move the dial, working with protest groups as well as with government. It has happened in the past in our country, with Cadbury, Shaftesbury and Spedan Lewis, who founded the John Lewis model. Without them, we could well have suffered a bloody revolution here. We need similar Asian reformers now to step up and take their place in history.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, whose ability to make this House have a conscience is enduring. I hope that he continues to do so.
My own relationship with Hong Kong began when, in 1976, I was taken on a tour of south-east Asia by my mother, the highlight of which was a week in Hong Kong. Nearly a decade later, the Hong Kong handover and the plight of Hong Kong citizens was the reason why, as a newly naturalised Briton, I instantly became a political activist, driven by Paddy Ashdown’s passion for the rights of Hong Kong Chinese.
That support for Hong Kong’s people also prompted me to go there and support the umbrella protests in 2014. The remarkable determination of a new generation of young people so clearly expressing their identity in the face of retreating rights was a revelation that enables me to understand what is happening there now.
First, although housing and jobs may be important, the movement now is about much more than economics: it is about identity and a political culture—and that is the Chinese Government’s first miscalculation. The Chinese believe that their plans to build an economic powerhouse in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay area, which is intended to rival Silicon Valley, Tokyo and New York, will tie Hong Kongers into the Chinese dream—in other words, subsuming them into greater China. They hope that young people will be enticed by the trade-off they offer, whereby consumption is a proxy for freedom.
China’s second miscalculation is to keep Mrs Lam in office. For all her attempts at resolving the situation, it is too little, too late, and her credibility—such as it was—is entirely shot. There has been a profound miscalculation on China’s part, starting with the abduction of the staff of Causeway Bay Books—that China can act with impunity, prioritising its own interpretation of the Basic Law.
A further miscalculation is Beijing’s increasing use of its powers to interpret the Basic Law, eroding the independence of Hong Kong judges. So, as the Foreign Affairs Select Committee in the other place has said, it is starting to be “one country, one-and-a-half systems”. This loss of confidence in their constitution is surely fuelling the protesters’ anger. Who would not fight for their future, when they have only to look at Xinjiang province to see what it means to be a minority in China? Apropos Mrs Lam, a wiser Government in Beijing would see that a more pragmatic person, given some slack from Beijing, may be better able to start the confidence-building exercise so necessary for a political resolution to these issues.
So, what is the UK’s role in resolving this? I refer to the calls today for people of BNO status to be given indefinite leave to remain. But unilateralism, in my view, is not the answer to the UK’s obligations. What is needed as an insurance policy is for a significant number of countries to act together to provide those assurances. In a case such as this, multilateralism is the only way to send—if we want—a message to China.
We are too diminished a power to be able to make a difference on our own, so I ask the Minister to assure us that he is working with the European Union and the Commonwealth, as well as with the US, to advance the interests of Hong Kong’s citizens.
However, it is a mistake to think that these brave young people necessarily want to move abroad. They are fighting for their future in their own land, not somewhere else. They wish to remain within their culture and their identity group, and, above all, not to let their fellow protesters down by pulling the ladder up and leaving them behind. The UK must do its best to provide such safety nets as it can, but above all, to marshal its resources for a co-ordinated and joint response with all other like-minded countries. It should convince its friends and partners that if a bully can run riot at home, he will run riot in his neighbourhood, and eventually, more widely. It is not a matter simply for the UK, but for the whole international community.
My final thought goes to the pivotal question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Patten of Barnes, the question that the students put to him about what will happen if China continues to tighten the screws. I think that the answer lies with China as well as with us. The regression of China’s political trajectory is less than a decade old. Xi Jinping has been in power for only six years. While he has abolished term limits, he has not abolished longevity itself. He has not found the elixir of life yet. While 2047 is 28 years away, it is still a generation away. China may yet pivot away from its current trajectories. It is for us, and the rest of the international community, to ensure that it does so.
Lord Popat (Con)
My Lords, I too wish to pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for bringing this timely and necessary debate, and for his continued work championing human rights.
We heard today that Hong Kong is an amazing place, a global centre for trade that has thrived for decades. It is a mini-Britain, with its love of trade and commerce, its commitment to democracy, its relentless work ethic and the importance it places on education. The residents of Hong Kong should have no reason to be concerned. After all, the articles in the joint declaration agreed between Britain and China guarantee the people of Hong Kong their rights to economic and political independence for a period of 50 years following 1997. Yet that is not the case, and when you hear that the Chinese Foreign Ministry called the treaty merely,
“a historical document”,
that,
“no longer had any practical significance”,
it is no wonder that the people of Hong Kong are so distressed, and fear for their livelihoods.
My noble friend Lord Patten of Barnes said that the extradition Bill earlier this year was a tipping point, with millions of Hong Kong residents taking to the streets before it became too late. Many of those protesters have said that they consider themselves to be more British than Chinese. They have gathered outside the British consulate, singing “God Save the Queen”. These protesters want to escape the darkness of communism and bask in the light of democracy, and they are risking their lives to send us that message. We cannot and should not ignore them.
The making of modern China as a global power was done by copying Hong Kong’s success on a wider scale, opening up its markets to the world. Over the past decade, Britain has built strong relations with China and has considerable good will in China, perhaps helped by our £60 billion trade deficit with it. My noble friend Lord Howell often says that the Commonwealth is our family, and that, I strongly believe, applies to the residents of Hong Kong. I am very much in agreement with those organisations and members of both Houses that have said that Britain and the Commonwealth should play a proactive role in protecting the residents of Hong Kong and offering them an alternative to remaining in their current homes, ideally giving them second citizenship. In 1997, Hong Kong residents could apply for British national overseas status, giving those residents the right to a UK passport but not the right to live or work in the UK.
I can hear the echoes of my own history in this predicament. We Ugandan Asians were British overseas citizen passport holders, which included a subset known as British-protected passport holders. When we were expelled by the brutal dictator Idi Amin, this status was our lifeline—our greatest gift.
The situation facing the residents of Hong Kong is very familiar to me. I am drawn to the steps taken by the then Prime Minister Edward Heath, in the face of considerable opposition to the Ugandan Asians. This country welcomed 28,000 Ugandan Asians; 19,000 stateless Ugandan Asians were welcomed by the Commonwealth countries, including Canada taking 5,000 and Australia taking 2,000. New Zealand took a few thousand, as did some parts of the then European Community. Heath ruled that Britain had a legal and moral responsibility to take in those with British passports, saying: “This is our duty. There can be no excuse. They are being expelled from a country which in many cases is the land of their birth. They are entitled to come here and they will be welcome here”. I strongly urge the Government to take inspiration from those words today and to ensure that, if the situation does not improve in Hong Kong, these residents will be guaranteed a home in either Britain or other Commonwealth countries.
There can be no excuse. These are British nationals and our family. They need our support and deserve our compassion. They are English-speaking, highly educated people who are entrepreneurs by nature. They would be a tremendous asset to Britain or any Commonwealth country. When the Ugandan Asians arrived in Britain, we were given the warmest of welcomes and have never wavered in our loyalty to Britain. I am convinced that the same situation will arise again if we open our homes and our hearts to the people of Hong Kong.
Lord Wilson of Tillyorn (CB)
My Lords, I come at the end of a long list of distinguished speakers. Two things are evident from that. In your Lordships’ House there is great personal experience of Hong Kong—people who have lived there and people who have worked there. There is also a universal affection for Hong Kong and its people, and there is universally deep concern about what has been happening there over the past few weeks. That can surely be no surprise. There were weeks of demonstrations, which started peacefully, with a majority of young people who were clearly well-intentioned and concerned about their own future. They were possibly not well informed about what they might reasonably achieve, but they had good intentions. There was then an increasing amount of violence. That is distressing to see, and not at all the way in which Hong Kong usually acts. It will be totally counterproductive and should not be tolerated.
There has been no occurrence of that degree of violence in Hong Kong that I can think of for some 50 years: in 1967, during the Cultural Revolution, there was serious violence. Then, the Hong Kong police behaved with great steadfastness. At the end of that year, so well had they behaved that they were given the accolade of being called the Royal Hong Kong Police.
There has been a good deal of criticism of the police recently, some of which your Lordships have shared. I noticed that my noble friend Lord Hogan-Howe could see how difficult it is to carry out such operations and probably how mistakes could be made. Such mistakes need to be remedied, but it is worth remembering not only that the police have been under enormous strain week after week, weekend after weekend, but that their families have also been threatened—their children going to school have been threatened—and their position has been extremely difficult.
I think it is clear enough that all of what has been going on is a consequence not just of the so-called extradition Bill, or the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance, as it is properly called. That has been widely misunderstood. I think that a majority of those taking part in the demonstrations sincerely believed that they might be picked up for something that they had said about the Chinese leadership and sent to mainland China for trial Of course, it was for extradition for alleged offences in mainland China, not picking up somebody who had allegedly done something in Hong Kong. The people who were, in a way, rightly concerned were business people going into China who feared that there might be some artificial accusation against them by rivals that would enable there to be a demand for them to be extradited to China. It was an ill-conceived measure; it was in the “too difficult” box, to put it mildly, and was not a sensible idea to put forward.
What it showed was that there was a great pile of dry timber in Hong Kong. The extradition Bill was the light that set that on fire, and it has remained on fire. Noble Lords have referred to a number of the concerns that young people have about housing, job opportunities and their freedoms, and simply what will happen to them in the future and whether they will lose some of the privileges that they have at the moment. Behind a lot of that has been a growing concern and worry about the extent of mainland China’s involvement in Hong Kong. It is not a simple issue. My impression is that what tends to happen is that, when there is a period of confusion in Hong Kong and uncertainty about what is happening, all sorts of different organisations in mainland China send their representatives into Hong Kong to find out what is happening—and to influence what is happening, if they can. That begins to build up into a picture of much greater involvement in Hong Kong than should be the case.
At the time of the signing of the joint declaration, there was a strapline, or a slogan that was often put out from Peking: “gang ren zhi gang”, which I will translate as, “Hong Kong people running Hong Kong”. That seems to me to be an admirable objective. That was what it was said would be the future of Hong Kong after the implementation of the joint declaration and the transfer of sovereignty. But it needs the Hong Kong Government to be effective in what they are doing, the Hong Kong Legislative Council to be effective in backing up or questioning the Hong Kong Government, a mechanism for putting into effect laws and decisions, and for the Hong Kong people to show that they are capable of running Hong Kong. It is now more than 22 years since Hong Kong was returned to Chinese sovereignty. It is now a special part, a unique part—but a part nevertheless, as the noble Lord, Lord Howell, said—of the People’s Republic of China.
There have been a number of references made by noble Lords to the joint declaration. My impression, like that of the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, is that the only clear-cut case of the breaking of the joint declaration has been the bookseller in Hong Kong, Lee Bo, who was, without doubt, taken out of Hong Kong without legal process; he was kidnapped and taken to China. It would be interesting if the Minister could say whether the British Government think that there have been other straightforward occasions of the breaking of the joint declaration.
It is worth saying that, although it is possible to say, as some Chinese officials have said, that the joint declaration is no longer applicable, that is only the case if you refer to the joint declaration as being just that bit that says that Britain will return to China sovereignty over Hong Kong. The vast bulk of the joint declaration is in its annexes, which lay down in terms the policies of the People’s Republic of China towards Hong Kong for 50 years. That is where what that means is written down precisely and in great detail. Those are Chinese policies laid down there. That remains applicable; it cannot not remain applicable.
I will revert, if I may, to our own role. Since we no longer administer—
Baroness Berridge (Con)
I am sorry to intervene. I extended some generosity, in consultation with the Whips, to the other former Governor of Hong Kong. Would the noble Lord now wrap up? Although we are not tight on time, I want to be equal to both noble Lords.
Lord Wilson of Tillyorn
I am so sorry: I will wrap up. I just want to say that we cannot and should not try to tell the Hong Kong Government what to do, but we can hope for various things to happen. One would be a commission to look at the whole issue, which the noble Lord, Lord Patten, referred to. We share the position of being the only two survivors of an extinct species: Governors of Hong Kong. There are other things that could help to resolve the present situation. We must all hope that it will be resolved soon, for the good of Hong Kong and all the people who live there.
Baroness Northover (LD)
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for securing this debate and for introducing it so powerfully. He is indeed a formidable champion of human rights worldwide and our conscience in the Lords, clearly. It has been a passionate and extremely well-informed debate. We are especially fortunate to have heard the contributions of the noble Lords, Lord Patten and Lord Wilson, with their different perspectives, maybe, on Hong Kong, as well as those of the noble Lord, Lord Luce, and of the noble Lord, Lord Wei, with his family background. We are also privileged, it seems to me, to be joined today by a number of young people who are quietly listening to our debate—I am not supposed to be referring to them, and I am not—and who I gather are from Hong Kong. We also have a former LegCo member here. Again, I am not referring to him, am I?
Like my noble friends Lord Chidgey and Lady Smith, I too have received a series of individual, very cogent emails from people in Hong Kong. I share the huge concern expressed today about Hong Kong. It is indeed a beautiful and dynamic place. I first visited in the mid-1980s, on my way to an academic conference in Japan which turned out to be much duller—it was on the slopes of Mount Fuji but not quite as exciting as my visit to Hong Kong. I was very much blown away by my visit and I still feel that excitement, even though the airport there is somewhat less terrifying than it used to be.
My last visit was a year ago, before the current protests, but you could see the challenges below the surface. In 1997, one-third of Chinese GDP was from Hong Kong; now, it is 3%, reflecting the growth of the mainland. That is a worrying statistic. It can be argued that this undervalues Hong Kong—the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, has made that point to me—because of its position as a financial centre. Some 70% of RMB are traded in Hong Kong and three-quarters of foreign direct investment comes via Hong Kong. I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, says about Hong Kong’s current leading position.
Hong Kong has a rules-based system which is valued internationally, and that has been vital for Hong Kong, China and the world. My noble friend Lord Alderdice stated that businesses will leave, should leave and should be encouraged to leave if things do not improve. Clearly, the current position is unsustainable.
It was fascinating to hear the noble Lord, Lord Patten, on how challenging but imaginative was that Sino-British declaration. That declaration is a treaty lodged at the UN, yet this year, as other noble Lords have mentioned, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson described the handover treaty as,
“a historical document which no longer has any practical significance”.
Is that spokesperson till in place? If so, what does this say about China’s position?
The extradition treaty, which was the initial trigger, not the overall cause, of the protests, has now been fully withdrawn by Hong Kong’s Chief Executive, Carrie Lam, but the protests show little sign of letting up. Clashes and violence have escalated, as we have heard. Satellite photos show what appear to be armoured personnel carriers across the border in Shenzhen.
There are now reports that the Chinese Government are planning to replace Carrie Lam with an interim Chief Executive. Any such change must be accompanied by reform in Hong Kong, and not the opposite. There has still been no independent investigation into police violence, despite the UK Government apparently urging this. Does the Minister accept that the UK Government should now suspend all export licences for crowd control equipment to Hong Kong?
The noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, mentioned the police. In response to a Written Question from my colleague in the other place, Alistair Carmichael, the Government said that we are providing training to the police force in Hong Kong. If that is still the case, what steps are being taken to ensure that this training includes the need to uphold human rights and freedom of expression?
Now we have the Chief Executive using emergency powers—many noble Lords have made reference to this. The ban on face masks is a serious breach of freedom of assembly and the right to protest, as others have said. Does the Minister agree that the use of emergency powers is a clear breach of the declaration? The EU issued a démarche a few months ago because there was a risk to EU nationals from the extradition treaty. Will the UK encourage the EU to issue a second démarche on the Chief Executive’s new powers? What are we doing to work with our EU allies?
The events of recent months, alongside the Chinese Government’s claims that the joint declaration is no longer a valid document, pose a serious challenge. The noble Lord, Lord Luce, spoke of how vital trust was and is. Lord Ashdown led a campaign 20 years ago to give the people of Hong Kong British citizenship, including the right to abode, if China ever reneged on its promises. Does the Minister not think we have reached that point?
The concerns of those in Hong Kong are informed by the human rights abuses known to have taken place on the mainland. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, has mentioned a number of these: the lack of freedom of expression; Tiananmen Square; what has happened to certain booksellers. Most recently, we have had the report from the China Tribunal on forced organ harvesting in China. The chair of that tribunal, Sir Geoffrey Nice, is present here today. The tribunal on organ harvesting concluded that the,
“Commission of Crimes Against Humanity against the Falun Gong and Uyghurs has been proved beyond reasonable doubt”.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Finlay and Lady Grey-Thompson, laid out the tribunal’s appalling conclusions. Can the Minister say whether he has personally read the China Tribunal’s report? If he has not, will he go away and do so? This issue will not go away. If he has, can he say what action the UK Government will take on the matter, particularly as he is Human Rights Minister?
China has made astonishing progress over the last few decades, pulling people out of poverty and engaging on the world stage. It is producing extraordinarily able students who are studying around the world, including in this country—including at the clearly wonderful university over which the noble Lord, Lord Patten, presides. China is the superpower of the 21st century, but with that power should come responsibility. In what may seem the microcosm of Hong Kong, how China wields that power may become apparent. We know that China has responded to criticism of engagement in Latin America and Africa. It is vital for all of us that we engage globally when so many other pressures seem to be on us to turn inwards and put up barriers. What China does in Hong Kong matters. What the UK, as it contemplates Brexit, does in this circumstance matters. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)
Like many noble Lords before me, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for securing this debate. It follows on from a number of Oral Questions and Private Notice Questions that have been debated in this House over the past few months.
The relationship between the people of the UK and the people of Hong Kong is built not only on the foundations of our history but on shared principles. As I understand it, with 170,000 British passport holders currently living or working in Hong Kong, and up to 100,000 Hong Kong nationals in the UK, we remain very much interconnected today. For those reasons and others, it came as no surprise that this House has taken such a great interest in recent events. Having listened to noble Lords in today’s debate, it is clear that the insight this House offers on Hong Kong is likely to be unparalleled. I hope that both the Hong Kong and Chinese Governments are listening to this debate and to many of the issues and concerns that have been raised.
As we near close to five months of widespread political unrest in Hong Kong, the situation seems to escalate almost with each passing week. Earlier this month, we heard the shocking news that live ammunition had been used against protesters. Although I have not been made aware of any recurrences, there have been repeated reports of beatings of peaceful protesters, aid personnel and journalists, as well as attacks with batons and the misuse of non-lethal weapons. Indeed, only last week, the police responded to protesters with an onslaught of rubber bullets, tear gas and baton charges. As the weekend comes upon us, I worry about what could result from any further clashes between the protesters and the police. Therefore, in the immediate term, I hope that the Minister can assure the House that he is urging restraint by the Hong Kong authorities, and will be taking all necessary steps to persuade them to show such restraint and end this violent escalation.
On human rights, I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm whether the Government are exploring any options to urge the authorities to respect freedom of assembly. This principle and other rights are enshrined by international conventions and law, and there can be no excuse for any infringements. Of course, as the noble Lord, Lord Patten, said earlier, we all condemn any protesters who have turned to violence, especially during the events of last weekend, when a small number crossed that line and turned to violence, with a few targeting businesses that had been deemed pro-Beijing. But at their core the protesters have been peaceful, and the cause that ignited the unrest ultimately remains unresolved.
When the Foreign Secretary was asked in the other place about an independent inquiry he responded:
“The Administration in Hong Kong have not gone the full way we would like them to, but they have taken steps to reform and reinforce the independence of the police complaints council”.—[Official Report, Commons, 26/9/19; col. 866.]
As that was in September, can the Minister update us on whether there have been any advances or any further pressure put on the Hong Kong Government for an independent inquiry?
Although the proposed amendments to allow the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to extradite individuals to mainland China to face trial has been withdrawn, there is still immense frustration at their initial introduction and the manner in which the authorities proceeded with them. The noble Lord, Lord Wilson, is correct about the intent of the original extradition laws, and in his analysis that they were “ill-conceived measures”. However, rightly or wrongly, there was fear that those changes could be the thin end of a wedge or could lead, if changed in the future, to individuals in Hong Kong who had criticised the Chinese Government, either on social media or in other ways, being extradited to the mainland. As we heard, the judicial system in mainland China records a conviction rate of more than 99%. A lack of trust has clearly led to these issues.
We also cannot separate the issue of the Sino-British joint declaration and its associated democratic foundations, set out so well in 1984. In recent years, China has steadily eroded and undermined the joint declaration. There have been increasing restrictions on electoral rights and crackdowns on dissent, with pro-democracy candidates being disqualified and the Hong Kong National Party being banned by the Government in September last year.
We must remember that the people are protesting in the streets of Hong Kong simply for their judicial independence, human rights and democratic freedoms. Those are three principles that the 1984 agreement was designed to protect. As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said in his introduction, we have a moral and legal obligation to the people of Hong Kong. Despite the UK’s responsibility to stand up for the declaration, the Government have remained not quite silent, but too quiet. It would be good to hear the Prime Minister speak up and stand firm in defence of the declaration. I ask the Minister to encourage the Prime Minister to do just that.
I am sure that, like me, many other noble Lords participating in today’s debate received emails from Hong Kongers. If the situation worsens in Hong Kong, I wonder whether we will be able to hear from those individuals in future. Will it be possible for them to email Members of this Parliament to outline their concerns and their plight, and will they feel comfortable doing so?
In conclusion, as all noble Lords have said, it is in the interests of both the people of Hong Kong and the authorities for a resolution to be found. The groundwork for such resolution can be found only if the authorities immediately practise restraint and respect for the primacy of the Hong Kongers’ human rights. I hope that Her Majesty’s Government will now use their role on the global stage and our unique relationship to urge the authorities of both Hong Kong and China to do so.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, first, I join all noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for tabling this important debate. Many words have been used about him, and rightly so. I stand before you as perhaps the person most greatly challenged, at least from a parliamentary perspective, by the tenacity, but also great strength and expertise, that he brings to debates on human rights generally. I am sure that he also knows that I respect his insights and very much welcome the expertise, direction and advice that he gives, and I am very grateful for his contribution to this important debate.
I start by aligning myself with the words of my noble friend Lord Sassoon. I am sure I speak for all noble Lords when I say that we stand together in remembrance of and prayer for the 39 nationals who have been reported to have died in the incident in the lorry. We are all equally appalled by that tragic incident, and I express condolences to all the families of those victims on behalf of your Lordships’ House.
This was the first opportunity for me to hear from one of our newer Members, the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. I listened carefully to the advice she was given about how foreign affairs can be all consuming. When you are the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs you do not have much choice in the matter, and I am sure she will agree that when we hold debates of this quality we are provided with great insight and expertise on the important matters confronting the Government and our country, as well as into the role played by Her Majesty’s Government on the world stage. I welcome her contribution.
As observed by the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, I am sure that all noble Lords will join me in singling out the contributions of my noble friend Lord Patten and the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Tillyorn. They brought their experience, insight and expertise to bear, and the value they brought to the debate because of their service in Hong Kong is well worth noting. I listened carefully to their contributions, particularly on how we should move forward in what is now clearly a very challenging situation in Hong Kong. I thank them both and acknowledge the indulgence of noble Lords; it was right that they were both given an extended time to speak, and I am particularly grateful to my noble friend Lady Berridge for ensuring that that was done in a seamless fashion.
Hong Kong has been a subject of long-standing interest in your Lordships’ House, and rightly so. Concerns were raised in the debate about the ongoing situation, as they have been in the other place. They have also been expressed in correspondence that Members of both the other place and this House have received. Among other noble Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, pointed out that many people will be listening intently to this debate.
The Government share the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and indeed of all noble Lords, about the situation, in particular the violent clashes between protestors and the police. The noble Lord, Lord McNicol, asked whether the Government are taking steps to raise the issue. I hope that he will be reassured by some of my responses, which will show that we are doing just that.
My noble friend Lord Marlesford rightly described Hong Kong as being once upon a time a real flourishing city. No doubt we will reflect on those times and ask that, with hope and ambition, it will again be the case in the not too distant future. I agree with my noble friends Lord Carrington and Lady Hooper, who both drew attention to the importance of peaceful and lawful protest while recognising that anyone who resorts to violent action should rightly be condemned. It is right that the majority of Hong Kong citizens have exercised over many months their right to protest and that they have done so through peaceful and lawful means. That needs to be recognised. Equally, I am sure that I speak for all noble Lords in saying that we must condemn the hardcore minority of protestors who at times insist on using violence. As the noble Lord, Lord Wilson, reminded us, the police have shown restraint in many instances when there have been direct attacks on them. We have seen the use of petrol bombs, while recently a police officer was slashed with a knife. This violence, as my noble friend Lord Carrington rightly said, must stop.
Lord Patten of Barnes
My Lords, perhaps I may intervene briefly to make one point to my noble friend. Criticisms have been made of the policing in Hong Kong, but the real problem is that public order policing has been regarded by the Government as a substitute for politics. Tear gas is not a substitute for talking to people and trying to deal with their real grievances. That has put the police and their families in a very difficult position.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I concur with my noble friend, who is of course right. That is why the ultimate solution to the challenge is political dialogue, which I will talk about in a moment or two.
The noble Baroness, Lady Northover, asked some specific questions about the situation on the ground as regards the use of emergency powers, which I would like to deal with at the outset. While of course Governments need to ensure people’s security and safety, as my noble friend has just reminded us, they must avoid aggravating situations and instead seek to reduce tensions. She also asked whether the introduction of emergency regulations is a breach of the joint declaration. Our assessment thus far is that they do not breach it. Again, Governments need to ensure that the security and safety of their citizens remains paramount. She also asked about crowd control equipment for Hong Kong. As my right honourable friend the then Foreign Secretary stated in the House of Commons on 25 June,
“we will not issue any further export licences for crowd control equipment to Hong Kong unless we are satisfied that concerns raised about human rights and fundamental freedoms have been thoroughly addressed”.—[Official Report, Commons, 25/6/19; col. 551.]
The noble Baroness also raised police training. As she will be aware, an additional risk-management process is used with police training for all security and justice programmes to assess and mitigate human rights risks. The aim of the training we have provided to Hong Kong is to improve a foreign authority’s ability to deploy human rights-compliant, modern policing techniques. It is a fine balance, but we are keeping that situation under review.
The noble Lord, Lord Wilson, talked of the breach of the joint declaration, as did my noble friend Lord Sassoon. Both rightly pointed out the importance of one state, two systems continuing and continuing well. Her Majesty’s Government have not to date assessed that China has explicitly breached the joint declaration, with the exception of one well-documented case.
The police response was raised by several noble Lords. We had an expert contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, who asked about reports of sexual assault by the Hong Kong police. This was also a concern expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. I am aware of these reports, and we remain extremely concerned by reports of violence by the police. We also note that the Hong Kong police have announced that they are investigating a recent allegation from a university student, and that the student has said she is seeking legal advice. We will continue to monitor that situation. We have always sustained the position that the police response must be proportionate. We are seriously concerned by the instances of apparent mistreatment of protesters by the police. Of course, I note the words of my noble friend Lord Patten in this respect.
My noble friends Lord Patten and Lord Howell, the noble Lords, Lord Hogan-Howe and Lord Luce, and several other noble Lords all raised a police inquiry. We maintain that there must be a robust, credible and independent investigation into these incidents. Such an inquiry would be an important step towards healing divisions and rebuilding trust. The noble Lord, Lord McNicol, asked whether we are continuing to raise this bilaterally with the Chinese authorities. The short answer is that yes, we are.
As I have said, Her Majesty’s Government believe that political dialogue—as several noble Lords have expressed—is the only way to achieve a peaceful resolution to this situation. While we have welcomed the Chief Executive’s initial steps towards dialogue, it is clear that further clarity is required and that further steps need to be taken for the Chief Executive and her team to reach across communities and directly address the people’s concerns. Crucially, if the process is to succeed, it is incumbent on all to be involved and engaged in good faith.
I agree with my noble friend Lord Sassoon’s views on the importance of the strength and stability that the one country, two systems framework has provided to Hong Kong over the past 22 years. Hong Kong is already a valuable trading partner for the UK, and the UK for Hong Kong. We look forward to seeing this trading relationship develop post Brexit. Similarly, we enjoy deep and close co-operation with Hong Kong as a leading financial centre, which I hope and expect we can build on in the months and years to come.
We have rightly heard about concerns and the need to uphold rights and freedoms. This was a point made by the noble Lords, Lord Carrington and Lord Alton, and others. I was particularly taken by the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, who talked about businesses working in Hong Kong. As someone who spent 20 years in the City of London and dealt regularly with Hong Kong, I know the city well. Those ties are important. However, as a co-signatory to the Sino-British joint declaration, the UK is committed to promoting and upholding the rights, freedoms and autonomies enshrined in it. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, that we have worked intensively in recent weeks and months to support a positive resolution. Those factors will be sustained and will continue to be part of our dialogue in this respect.
Several noble Lords raised the Prime Minister’s direct engagement on this issue—the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, mentioned it specifically—and they will recall that the Prime Minister raised Hong Kong at the G7 meeting in August, where G7 leaders reaffirmed the importance of the joint declaration and called for an end to violence. This also addresses in part the issue raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith. Furthermore, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister also wrote to President Xi on 30 September and underlined the importance of upholding the joint declaration under the one country, two systems framework.
My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has also set out our concerns directly in his engagement with the Hong Kong Chief Executive, Carrie Lam, and the Chinese Foreign Minister and State Councillor, Wang Yi. Regrettably, he was unable to meet Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the UN General Assembly as planned because he needed to return to London. However, following this, the Foreign Secretary wrote to him on 30 September and we continue to have regular exchanges with both the Chinese and Hong Kong authorities.
On the issue of our European partners, raised by my noble friend Lady Hooper and the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, as I said, we meet with G7 partners on a regular basis. We also raised Hong Kong at the Human Rights Council in September and at the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly in October, where the UK underlined the importance of upholding the right to peaceful assembly.
Issues were raised around aspects of human rights—an area close to my heart, as noble Lords will know—and it is important that we address them. We continue to do so at ambassadorial level and the most recent meeting with the Chinese ambassador in London was earlier this week. We have also regularly raised the issue with the leadership in China and Hong Kong, who remain in no doubt about our concerns over the current situation.
On the Commonwealth, our recent exchanges on Hong Kong—including those by my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary—have included some with Australian Foreign Minister Payne and European counterparts. At the United Nations, for which I am the Minister responsible, we raised Hong Kong in our national statement to the September session of the Human Rights Council, and last week we underlined the importance of upholding the right to peaceful assembly in a national statement to the UN General Assembly.
The noble Lord, Lord Alton, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Finlay and Lady Grey-Thompson, raised the issue of the Falun Gong and its practitioners. The noble Baroness, Lady Northover asked me specifically about the tribunal and I note the presence in the Gallery of Sir Geoffrey Nice. I had occasion to meet him recently to discuss this issue and I can assure all noble Lords that we are aware of the findings. A final report is still due but we are watching this space carefully. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, specifically has had various exchanges on this issue. It is not lost on us; it is an important priority and I assure noble Lords that I will continue, as Human Rights Minister, to keep an eye on this issue.
On the wider issue of religious freedoms in China, again raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Salisbury and the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, among others, I can assure all noble Lords that this remains a priority for both Her Majesty’s Government and for me as Minister for Human Rights. We have not held back. We have regularly raised the issue of human rights and religious freedoms in our expressions, statements and formal contributions, particularly at the Human Rights Council. I recognise the immense work that has gone on to address concerns around Falun Gong in particular. Equally, we remain deeply concerned—and have raised these concerns—about the persecution of Christians, the Uighur Muslims and other minorities within China and we will continue to do so.
The noble Lord, Lord Alton, asked about the sanctions regime. The noble Lord will recall that we have passed legislation on this and we are seeking to bring forward the statutory instruments. That will provide the UK with an autonomous global human rights sanctions regime after we have left the European Union and will also allow us to respond to serious human rights violations.
I am conscious of time, so I want to move on to the right of abode. This was rightly raised by several noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Popat, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, asked me about numbers. There are currently 248,000 holders of BNO, but there are 2.73 million people who are eligible for it. I note the points raised by all noble Lords in this respect, and I emphasise this Government’s commitment to and support for British nationals overseas, who are known as the BNOs. As my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary set out in the other place on 26 September, the status of BNOs was part of the delicate balance in the negotiations that led to the Sino-British joint declaration. The joint declaration is crucial to the future stability and prosperity of Hong Kong and the rights, freedoms and autonomy of its people. I would add that this only applies effectively for both sides to respect what is within the agreement.
I assure the right reverend Prelate and other noble Lords that we believe that the best outcome for the BNOs is the high degree of autonomy, rights and freedoms set out specifically in the joint declaration. The noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, raised this, as did other noble Lords, including my noble friends Lord Howell and Lord Marlesford, and the noble Lord, Lord Luce. My noble friend Lord Wei, who provided a particular insight from his Hong Kong background, talked of reforms within Hong Kong.
I think that we are all clear that the way forward must be, first, constructive and meaningful dialogue with all communities, as my noble friend Lord Patten said. Bridges must be built to address their concerns directly. Our long-standing view is that transition to universal suffrage for the elections for the Chief Executive and the Legislative Council, as provided by Hong Kong Basic Law, would be the best way to guarantee Hong Kong’s stability and prosperity in the long run and would be in everyone’s interests.
We take the issue of the BNOs very seriously. The Foreign Secretary and his ministerial counterparts are listening to the concerns that are being expressed. The Government are not immune to receiving representations. We have received them directly and we will consider the best way forward to continue to support and strengthen our work with the BNO community. The Government have given careful consideration to the letter from the noble Lord, Lord Alton, dated 9 September and signed by 176 noble Lords and other parliamentary colleagues. I welcome the broad spectrum of support for Hong Kong and its people and note the points that have been raised.
With regard to Commonwealth countries, it is not in my remit to talk about the immigration policy of other Commonwealth countries, but I reiterate my view that the best way for any like-minded countries to support BNOs is to defend the joint declaration, which they are doing. We have received strong support for that, including in discussions we have had with other Commonwealth partners, most notably recently with Australia.
The noble Lord, Lord Luce, mentioned Hong Kong servicemen and a number of noble Lords raised the status of former members of the Hong Kong Military Service Corps. I assure the noble Lord that the Home Secretary is listening very carefully to the representations that have been made on behalf of former Hong Kong Military Service Corps personnel who were unable to obtain citizenship through the selection scheme.
The noble Lord, Lord Pendry, raised the issue of Hong Kong students who are studying in the UK. My short answer is that it is unacceptable for anyone to be intimidated by any bullying. Universities have a duty of care to protect all students. If there are particular instances, I urge the noble Lord to make the Government aware of them.
The noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, asked about unexplained suicides. This is a very sensitive situation and I am aware of it. We have had one formal request from one family, and we urge people not to speculate on the reasons behind the issue. The circumstances are obviously very tragic for the family. If there are further details on this, I will share them with the noble Baroness.
Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and my noble friend Lord Popat talked about the Chinese view of the joint declaration, describing it as a “historic document”. The short answer from Her Majesty’s Government is that it is absolutely not. It is a legally binding treaty, registered at the UN, and it remains in force. As a co-signatory we have the absolute right to speak out when we have concerns about its implementation. I assure noble Lords that we will continue to make this point consistently in public, bilaterally and in private to the Chinese Government.
Once again, I thank all noble Lords for their insightful and expert contributions to this very comprehensive debate. I am sure that questions will be asked of me and I will continue to update noble Lords as and when we have further updates to provide. Ultimately, I am sure that we are all committed to encouraging all the parties that are directly concerned—the Hong Kong Administration, the Chinese Government and all international partners—to do all they can to realise and uphold the peaceful vision of a thriving Hong Kong and a thriving China under the “one country, two systems” model.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, the entire House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, the Minister of State, for the thorough way in which he has just answered the issues that that have been raised and for his promise to come back and keep us briefed on developments as they occur.
The noble Lord, echoing the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, reminded us of the tragic news that the 39 people who have been found dead in a lorry were of Chinese origin. We do not yet know their story, but we do know that they shared our humanity. Shared humanity has been a theme that has informed every contribution in today’s debate.
Many noble Lords referred to moving correspondence from Hong Kong. This morning, I received an email from a lady who said, “I don’t know if you will really read my email, but please try to do something so people know the pain we are suffering in Hong Kong”. I think that our speeches today, from every part of your Lordships’ House, have demonstrated that we have listened and that we have heard, and we have tried to articulate some of that pain.
In a range of knowledgeable and measured speeches, we have heard considerable support for finding an international approach to providing an insurance policy of second citizenship and a second right of abode. We have heard universal support for “one country, two systems”, yet we have also heard how that has been emasculated. Yesterday, I met Alan Leong, a barrister and one of the leaders of a Hong Kong political party, who set out a number of examples of where he believes that the 1984 agreement has indeed been breached.
We have spoken with depth, knowledge, passion and commitment. All of us have said that the best way forward—a point that the noble Lord, Lord Patten, made so well—is to try to find a way ahead that does not involve violence but ensures that constructive solutions and political answers are found, as were found in 1984 in what all of us have referred to as an act of diplomatic genius, to paraphrase something that the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, said earlier.
I hope that the lady who wondered whether her email would be read or whether we have understood the pain of Hong Kong will have heard our debate today and that, like the young people whom we are not supposed to mention—although the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, quite rightly did—and who have packed our Galleries, she will know that they and their concerns have not been forgotten. It is a signal from a great and free Parliament that we will not forget our historic, moral and legal responsibilities. This Parliament will not be silenced in its responsibilities to safeguard “one country, two systems”, the rule of law, democracy, human rights, free speech and autonomy.
I end by saying that we must always replace fear with hope and indifference with solidarity and never neglect our common humanity. It only remains for me, once again, to thank all noble Lords who have spoken so eloquently today.