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Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con)
Craig Williams (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and First Secretary of State (Dominic Raab)
NATO protects nearly 1 billion people across 30 countries. It is the most successful alliance in history, and we are proud to be a leading member.
Gagan Mohindra
Does my right hon. Friend agree that NATO is the cornerstone of UK and Euro-Atlantic security? Will he support all efforts to increase burden sharing across the alliance?
Dominic Raab
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Non-US defence investment has increased by £130 billion between 2016 and 2020. It is expected to rise further, by £400 billion, by 2024, and that is progress, but allies need to increase their defence spending in the way that he described. Of course, the UK is one of nine NATO allies meeting its 2% commitment, including a 20% increase in investment in new capabilities.
Craig Williams
Does my right hon. Friend agree that NATO is the cornerstone not only of UK security, but of Euro-Atlantic security? Will he prioritise it—I ask on behalf of Montgomeryshire constituents who have been asking me—to strengthen that alliance, to deal with the malign Russian threat?
Dominic Raab
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We need to use NATO, and it will require reform to adapt to meet new threats. The way to do that is to strengthen and reinforce NATO, so that it can deal with state actors, including Russia, cyber, and all the modern threats. We are absolutely committed to doing that, and bringing our European and north American allies together.
Aaron Bell
With the American primary season upon us, political tensions both within and between our NATO allies seem to be higher than ever. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that means we have a greater responsibility than ever, here in the UK, to promote diplomacy between our allies, and to speak judiciously when commenting on their internal politics?
Dominic Raab
My hon. Friend is right. He knows, from the last NATO leaders’ meeting, which the Prime Minister hosted and chaired, that we take that very seriously. We contribute to every NATO mission. We are the top defence spender in Europe, the second-largest in NATO as a whole, and the leading contributor to the NATO readiness initiative.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)
During the recent NATO summit, there was a concerted effort by President Erdoğan of Turkey to block progress unless fellow NATO members agreed to label our Kurdish heroes in northern Syria as terrorists. After my last visit to Syria, the Secretary of State dismissed me and my concerns to try and reach out on that point. So maybe, if he refused to take advice from me and other members of the Opposition—and his two colleagues who came with me on that trip—he might take a lead from the Belgian court case that said that the Kurds were not a terrorist force; or the French, who objected publicly at the NATO council, as did Poland, the Baltic states, and even Donald Trump. I ask the Foreign Secretary: why did our own Prime Minister say nothing to defend the British interest and our Kurdish allies?
Dominic Raab
The hon. Gentleman is simply wrong. We have raised our concerns in relation to Turkey’s incursion into Syria, which obviously has affected some of our Kurdish partners in the region. We had a very successful NATO summit, precisely because the Prime Minister and the UK Government are focused on making NATO work, bringing all our allies together and making sure that our foes cannot exploit weaknesses or divisions between us.
Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
Turkey’s relationship with its NATO allies is becoming ever more strained. Turkey’s incursion into northern Syria, which we have just heard about, and an increasingly close relationship with Russia are two clear examples of how tension is being created within the alliance by Turkey. As we are a leading member of NATO, how do the Government think NATO should respond to the situation?
Dominic Raab
As with all strong partnerships within NATO, if we have issues we raise them candidly and clearly, and the relationship has the depth and the maturity to enable us to do so. We have expressed our disappointment, for example, that Turkey chose to acquire Russian S-400 air defence systems. None the less, Turkey remains a valued NATO ally, on the frontline of some of our most difficult security challenges, and I raised with the Turkish Foreign Minister on 5 January the positives and our concerns.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
The Minister rightly speaks of the success of NATO as an international peacekeeping force. Does he agree that part of the problem is that it does not get the international recognition for being that successful alliance? What more can we do to ensure that that is the case?
Dominic Raab
The hon. Gentleman is right: a lot of the solid, steady work that NATO is doing, and the work in bringing our allies together, goes unnoticed, as is often the case in security. The most important thing the UK can do is continue to lead by example. We contribute to every NATO mission. This includes: leading the enhanced forward presence battle group in Estonia; contributing to the US battle group in Poland; and working with our NATO allies on operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and we will continue to do all those things.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
Dominic Raab
Following the protocol at international meetings to make sure that the UK is asserting its voice confidently, and in tandem with but independently of our allies, is absolutely the right thing. That is what the referendum required and that is what we are doing.
Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
The Minister for Europe and the Americas (Christopher Pincher)
The United Kingdom is a strong supporter of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and President Zelensky’s commitment to reform and fighting corruption. We have provided financial support to the tune of £38 million this year, across multiple areas, and we lead robust sanctions on Russia for its attacks on Ukraine’s sovereignty. We look forward to welcoming President Zelensky to the UK as soon as a date can be found.
Mr Whittingdale
Will my right hon. Friend welcome President Zelensky’s decision to extend the visa-free regime for UK citizens for another year? Does my right hon. Friend share his ambition for Britain and Ukraine to conclude a new framework agreement as soon as possible, including possible liberalisation of the visa regime for Ukrainian citizens?
Christopher Pincher
My right hon. Friend is a doughty champion of Ukraine’s determination to look westward and be a modern European country. We will certainly welcome, as soon as we can, the ratification of such an arrangement, and I congratulate the President on his announcement on visa-free access for UK nationals. That will certainly help trade with the UK, which we want to ensure is successful, but we also need to protect our own borders. The Home Secretary is responsible for border control, but we keep our border policy under constant review, and visas to and from Ukraine is something I discuss with her regularly.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
On political development and the importance of having human rights protected, including in Ukraine, I am aware of a number of examples where Christians have been persecuted, injured and politically challenged for their beliefs. What has been done in discussions with Ukraine to ensure that human rights are protected and people have the right to express themselves?
Christopher Pincher
I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for his question. We of course discuss these matters with Ukraine. I am particularly concerned about the repression of fundamental human rights—the right to speak the Crimean language—in Crimea by the annexing forces, and I raised that issue when I went to Kiev last year. We will always place these issues, be they in Ukraine or elsewhere, high on the agenda.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)
Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mrs Heather Wheeler)
Climate change is not a distant threat. We must act together to accelerate action. The UK has already doubled its international climate finance funding from £5.6 billion to £11.6 billion, and is investing £220 million in a new international biodiversity fund.
Henry Smith
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that answer. Does she agree that increasing the UK’s climate diplomacy capabilities is important for a successful COP26 conference in Glasgow later this year, so that we can be more successful than last year’s conference in Madrid?
Mrs Wheeler
The UK was disappointed at the lack of progress made at COP25 in Madrid. The UK and Italian diplomatic efforts will be squarely focused on achieving a successful COP26. COP is about more than negotiations; it is about real change happening across countries, civil society and the private sector. These broader elements will be a primary focus of COP26.
Siobhan Baillie
At the weekend, I had the pleasure of attending a Stroud Greenpeace exhibition about climate change and protecting our oceans. Will the Foreign and Commonwealth Office continue to advocate for international agreement on climate change at the United Nations? Will the Minister tell us more about the Government’s commitment to protecting our oceans and the work on the UN global treaty negotiations?
Mrs Wheeler
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. This is the first time I have answered a question from her, so I welcome her to her place.
I welcome my hon. Friend’s view on international oceans. We are looking for a maximum ambition on oceans to protect them for future generations, and I am working hard with Lord Goldsmith on that ambitious project.
Paul Howell
Both the councils in the Sedgefield constituency—Darlington and Durham—have declared climate change emergencies, but given the relatively low impact of the UK on climate change compared with places such as China, how do we convince our constituents to engage? Does the Minister agree that it is imperative that we not only challenge other countries to make progress but share the efforts that our international colleagues are making, in order to motivate and share good practice?
Mrs Wheeler
I hope my hon. Friend, whom I welcome to his place, will excuse my having my back to him as I speak to the Chair.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that climate change is one of the most urgent and pressing challenges we face today, so no country can solve the problem alone. COP26 in November will bring together more than 300,000 delegates from around the world to tackle climate change. It is vital that all countries come together and come forward with increased pledges and nationally determined contributions in the coming months. The UK has committed to increasing our international climate ambition and NDCs before COP26.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
We meet today on the 75th anniversary of the Yalta conference, at which Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin carved up post-war Europe, and in doing so unwittingly created the conditions for half a century of cold war between east and west. Their mistakes were eventually fixed, but when we have conferences that affect the climate emergency today, we have to realise that it is too late to fix any more mistakes as we rapidly approach the point of no return on global warming, so let me ask a specific question. When the Prime Minister hosted the UK-Africa trade summit just a fortnight ago, he told its delegates that
“we all suffer when carbon emissions rise and the planet warms.”
Will the Minister tell us what percentage of the energy deals that were struck at that summit were based on the mining of fossil fuels?
Mrs Wheeler
I thank the right hon. Lady for that question. She always puts her questions so perfectly; her diction is superb for the House. Everybody was clear about what she said.
We are weaning all the world off coal. The Powering Past Coal Alliance, which is clearing away from coal, is very important. We are leading on that and my hon. Friend the Minister for Africa, who led at the Africa conference, has managed to secure an amazing deal on that. We are looking towards the bright future that that Prime Minister has been talking about today.
Emily Thornberry
The hon. Lady focuses on coal and boasts about the announcement on coal, but according to the Environmental Audit Committee, UK Export Finance has not supported a single coal project since 2002. I do not know whether she is uncertain about the answer or just too embarrassed to answer, but the reality is that more than 90% of the £2 billion of investment in energy deals that was agreed at the UK-Africa trade summit was committed to new drilling for oil and gas—more fossil fuels. None of that was mentioned in the Government press release, which focused instead on the paltry figures for investment in solar power. Does the Minister accept that she is part of a Government who talk the talk on climate change but never walk the walk? They make symbolic moves on the domestic front but will never take any global lead. Worst of all, they refuse to stand up to the climate denier—
Mr Speaker
Order. We have to get to the question; we cannot keep reading out a statement. A quick question, please.
Emily Thornberry
Worst of all, the Government refuse to stand up to the climate denier-in-chief, Donald Trump. Does the Minister not realise that in the face of this climate emergency we no longer have time for cowardice?
Mrs Wheeler
Shall I be succinct, Mr Speaker? We recognise that countries will continue to need to use a mixture of energy sources, including renewable energy and lower-carbon fossil fuels such as natural gas, as part of the transition towards a low-carbon, sustainable economy. I am afraid the right hon. Lady is making too much hot air today.
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
What evidence does the Minister have that the Government’s diplomacy is having an impact on the biggest polluters, such as China and United States, in that those countries are prepared to do something more than they are doing now?
Mrs Wheeler
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. We are working very closely with countries around the world. I have been to five of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations so far, and, at every opportunity I have asked them to have more ambitious targets for reducing their carbon emissions, and that is exactly what will happen when our Secretary of State meets representatives in China very soon.
Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and First Secretary of State (Dominic Raab)
I spoke to Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on 28 January about the evacuation of UK nationals from Wuhan and also about UK medical supplies to help the Chinese authorities tackle the coronavirus.
Andrew Rosindell
I thank the Foreign Secretary for his reply, but does he agree that the safety and security of British nationals must be our primary concern, and will he therefore press the Chinese authorities to co-operate in granting any assistance necessary to ensure that our nationals are looked after while they remain in China?
Dominic Raab
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and those are precisely the issues that I raised with the Chinese Foreign Minister. In fairness, we have seen 83 British nationals repatriated on Friday, and another seven British nationals and four dependants evacuated on a French flight that returned to the UK on Sunday. I can also tell him that we have been allocated 14 places on an Air New Zealand flight today for UK nationals and their dependants.
Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
The evacuation of British nationals and their families from Wuhan has been nothing short of a shambles, given the delays, the lack of information and the terrible cases of family separation that have occurred. Why on earth does the Foreign Office not have protocols and plans in place to manage these crises when they occur?
Dominic Raab
The hon. Gentleman is quite wrong on everything that he has just said. I visited the crisis centre yesterday. We have an excellent cross-Whitehall team, including the Ministry of Defence and the Department of Health and Social Care working with our consular officers. There are challenges dealing with the Chinese authorities in relation to the permissions to get the charter flight in and to get people to the muster points. We hired four coaches for the first flight that arrived on Friday, and we delayed the flight for three hours on the tarmac to ensure that all the people who needed to get on could get on, and of course we will continue working with our international partners and the Chinese to get those who need to come home out of the country.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
Mark Fletcher (Bolsover) (Con)
The Minister for Africa (Andrew Stephenson)
Increased trade and investment in Africa will improve African Government revenues, and support job creation and economic growth, which is beneficial for African states and the United Kingdom. On 20 January, the Government hosted the UK-Africa investment summit, where £6.5 billion-worth of commercial deals and £1.5 billion-worth of Government funding initiatives were announced. Commitments announced at the AIS will help to drive prosperity across the continent.
Harriett Baldwin
I congratulate my hon. Friend and everyone involved in the very successful Africa investment summit. Will there be another one and, if so, what would the African countries that were not invited to this one need to do to get an invite to the next one?
Andrew Stephenson
I start by paying tribute to my predecessor for the work that she did in the early preparations for the summit. The summit achieved its objectives of laying the foundations for a new, stronger relationship between the United Kingdom and Africa, based on mutually beneficial trade and investment. Following our departure from the European Union, the Government will build further on those foundations in a range of ways, and we are currently looking at the feedback from the summit.
Mark Fletcher
I echo the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) on the Africa investment summit. Too often, Britain’s interests when it comes to Africa are piecemeal and we are not good enough when it comes to sustained engagement, so what plans does the Minister have to engage with the African Union on a regular basis?
Andrew Stephenson
Excellent. I very much welcome that question. The African Union is justifiably seen internationally as a strong and influential partner, able to bring African countries together. During the Africa investment summit, chairperson Faki met the Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary. To support the development of the African continental free trade area, the Secretary of State for International Trade announced a £200 million southern African regional trading connectivity programme and a £20 million trade connect programme at the summit, which will further and deepen our partnership with the African Union.
Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)
May I ask the Minister how much time during the UK- Africa investment summit last month was dedicated to discussing the elimination of corruption and the protection of human rights, as two of the key preconditions of any new trade deals, especially given the presence of a notorious human rights abuser such as Egypt’s President Sisi?
Andrew Stephenson
The subject of human rights was raised by the Foreign Secretary in every single one of his bilateral meetings. Corruption is a barrier to business and growth, which is why the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, through the prosperity fund, is investing in extensive anti-corruption projects in Africa, including legal reforms, policy reforms and transparency reforms, and operational work to recover the billions that have been stolen from the African people over the years.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
As trade negotiations progress with Africa, there will be conflicting pressures with our trade negotiations with the US and South American states. What reassurance can the Minister give me that he will put pressure on the Department for International Trade to ensure that Africa is prioritised when it comes to trade deals, and does not lose out as a result of US or South American deals?
Andrew Stephenson
The very fact that we have hosted an Africa investment summit indicates the Government’s strategic priority towards Africa. We are opening five new missions in Africa, and are increasing the number of our staff—including Department for International Trade staff—across the continent by 400. Africa is a key trading partner, and UK-Africa trade increased by 7.5% last year to £36 billion.
Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)
The Minister for Africa (Andrew Stephenson)
Our consular staff help more than 20,000 British people abroad every year. The support is tailored to the individual circumstances of each case, and prioritises those who are most in need. We constantly strive to improve our support, and use customer feedback to improve our services and staff skills.
Anthony Browne
I very much welcome the assurances that this Government have given to the 3 million EU nationals who will continue living in the UK after the transition period, but we have heard far less about the rights of the 1 million UK citizens living in the EU post Brexit. What work is the Department doing to help preserve those UK citizens’ futures?
Andrew Stephenson
Protecting citizens’ rights in the EU is absolutely a priority for the Government. The withdrawal agreement provides certainty for UK nationals living in the EU about their rights going forward. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is proactively engaging with EU member states to ensure full and timely implementation of the withdrawal agreement.
Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)
Do the Minister, the Secretary of State and the Government believe that UK citizens deserve the right to consular services and support enshrined in law?
Andrew Stephenson
There is currently no legal right to consular assistance. Domestic law would not improve the outcomes for our most complex cases. Even if there was a right to assistance, the Government’s ability to provide it would remain dependent on other states respecting that.
Hannah Bardell
I thank the Minister for his answer, but with respect I disagree. In December last year, the all-party parliamentary group on deaths abroad and consular services and assistance—which I founded and chair, and of which many of the Minister’s colleagues have been members—published its report, with 92 recommendations. We took evidence from more than 60 families from across the UK whose loved ones died abroad in suspicious circumstances or are being incarcerated against their will, and they said that they feel they are being let down by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. With Brexit set to make international co-operation harder and this Government’s cuts resulting in the reduction of more than 1,000 diplomatic staff, UK citizens deserve better. Will the Secretary of State or the Minister meet me to discuss enshrining into law—
Mr Speaker
Order. We must have short questions. I call the Minister to respond.
Andrew Stephenson
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I have already agreed to meet her, as did my predecessor, but neither offer has been taken up. On 23 January, the consular murder and manslaughter team held a workshop bringing together key stakeholders, including Murdered Abroad, the Help for Victims homicide service, the Ministry of Justice, the Metropolitan police and the Chief Coroner’s Office to focus on always improving our support for bereaved families. I participated in that meeting. We will always strive to improve the service that we provide to those who have loved ones murdered abroad.
Jeremy Hunt (South West Surrey) (Con)
One of the consular cases most on the minds of people in this House is that of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. Does the Minister agree that western countries need to work together to call out the vile practice of hostage-taking by countries such as Iran? Article 4 of the NATO treaty says if that one country is invaded, all have to treat it as if they have been invaded. Should we not do the same when our innocent citizens are taken hostage?
Andrew Stephenson
I applaud my right hon. Friend for his question and the work that he did on this case when he was Foreign Secretary. The Prime Minister met Richard Ratcliffe on 23 January. We continue to make strong representations to send a clear signal in this case that Iran’s behaviour is totally wrong and unacceptable.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and First Secretary of State (Dominic Raab)
We welcome the US proposals for peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians based on recognition of the two-state solution. We support this initiative to get both sides around the negotiating table.
Mr Hollobone
Does the Foreign Secretary agree that the United States’ “Peace to Prosperity” plan is a set of serious and constructive proposals that deserves more than instant rejection, and that whatever the pros and cons of the plan, if we are to secure a lasting peace, the only way to do so is through direct talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis?
Dominic Raab
I thank my hon. Friend. This is a first step on the road back to negotiations. The absence of dialogue creates a vacuum that only fuels instability and leads to the drifting of the two sides further and further apart, so whatever the different views, we want both sides to get around the negotiating table to work to improve the plan and to get peace in the middle east.
Wes Streeting
A peace plan without Palestinian participation is not a peace plan—it is an annexation plan. Can the Secretary of State assure us that the Government will not accept either this plan or any unilateral annexation plan, and perhaps take the step now to recognise an independent Palestinian state before there is no state left to recognise?
Dominic Raab
I certainly agree with the hon. Gentleman that any annexation unilaterally would be contrary to international law, damaging to peace efforts, and cannot go unchallenged, but the answer is to get both sides around the negotiating table. That is why not only the UK but the French, the Italians, EU High Representative Josep Borrell, Japan, India, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Oman have all called for the parties, based on this initiative, to come back to talks.
Chi Onwurah
I am sure that the Secretary of State considers himself a friend of the people of Israel, as I do, and of America, and, I hope, of Palestine. Does he agree that it is the duty of real friends to speak the truth at difficult times? The truth is that this is no peace plan: worse, by making the Palestinians spectators in their own land, annexing illegal settlements and destroying hopes, it paves the way for further conflict. Will he speak that truth to Israel and America?
Dominic Raab
The hon. Lady is absolutely right that we need to speak candidly on all sides of this debate. I have spoken to the Americans. I also spoke to President Abbas on 27 January. The reality is that whatever concerns any side has about this set of proposals, they will get resolved and improved only with both sides around the negotiating table. Rejectionism—the current vacuum—is only making matters worse. We would like to see peaceful dialogue and a negotiated solution, and that must be based on the two-state solution and the principles of international law.
Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)
The 22-member Arab League and the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Co-operation have both rejected the so-called Trump peace plan, because they recognise that it has no benefit for the Palestinian people, so why do the British Government continue to support it?
Dominic Raab
We support it along with—the hon. Gentleman failed to mention this—the Saudis, the Egyptians, the Omanis and Qatar. They have all given statements saying that it is a first step on the road to negotiations that can resolve the conflict. [Interruption.] They put out two statements. I heard the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) chuntering from a sedentary position. The reality is that rejectionism—the vacuum that currently exists—will only make matters worse. We want to see a negotiated two-state solution. That will happen only if both parties come to the negotiating table.
Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)
The Minister for the Middle East and North Africa (Dr Andrew Murrison)
The Berlin conference attended by the Prime Minister on 19 January showed wide international support for a ceasefire, resumption of UN-led political talks and an end to external interference. International actors agreed to freeze military activity on the ground, not to send reinforcements and to respect the UN arms embargo. All parties must honour their Berlin commitments and demonstrate their support for the UN-led political process.
Giles Watling
I thank the Minister for his answer. Libya seems to have drifted out of the headlines somewhat, and this war has been going on for 11 years. The Russo-Turkish Libyan initiative has now failed, and we must not take our eyes off the ball. Are we sure that we are not being short-sighted and piecemeal, when what Libya really needs is long-term international efforts diplomatically and on the ground?
Dr Murrison
My hon. Friend is right to say that this is a very busy region indeed. However, I disagree that the international community is taking its eye off the ball—witness the Berlin process and activities at the United Nations. I shall be going to Ankara tonight, and I will of course be talking about Libya, among other things, with my Turkish interlocuters tomorrow.
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)
The Minister for Africa (Andrew Stephenson)
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. We are concerned that the political protests on 26 January turned violent. We are monitoring the investigations into that incident closely through our high commission. The UK is clear that the right to peaceful protest and media freedom must be upheld without recourse to violence and intimidation.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and First Secretary of State (Dominic Raab)
Now that we have left the EU and regained control of our sanctions rules, we will be bringing into force our own global human rights Magnitsky-style sanctions regime, which will give us a powerful new tool to hold the world’s human rights abusers to account.
Tim Loughton
Does my right hon. Friend agree that any new Magnitsky legislation must be targeted at the worst human rights abusers, including those perpetrating terror against minorities in China, most notably the Uighurs and the Tibetans? To that end, will he support my Tibet (Reciprocal Access) Bill, mirroring legislation passed in the US which is throwing a spotlight on some of the worst human rights abuses against the Tibetans within China?
Dominic Raab
I thank my hon. Friend for his question and pay tribute to his tenacious efforts in this regard. When I was in Washington, on the hill, I had a number of conversations about US legislation and the approach it is taking. He is right to say that our regime should target the worst human rights abusers. He will see the individuals designated in due course, but I can reassure him that our approach will be universal in its scope.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
The 6,500 children fleeing Idlib in Syria daily, where barrel bombs are being used on hospitals and schools, must wonder where on earth the protectors of their human rights are. Unfortunately, in this House we have all but forgotten them. What is the Foreign Secretary’s plan to ensure that those children know that their human rights are protected?
Dominic Raab
I share the hon. Lady’s concern about the situation in Syria. We encourage all the actors—whether it is the Russians, the Turks or, indeed, the Assad regime itself—to find a peaceful way through. We support the UN efforts to find a peaceful solution and, in particular, the humanitarian relief, which will provide relief to the children and other vulnerable people suffering in that terrible conflict.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
The Minister for the Middle East and North Africa (Dr Andrew Murrison)
The security situation in Iraq is deeply worrying. The threat from Daesh remains, and the recent attacks by Shi’a military groups on diplomatic premises are unacceptable, as is the use of disproportionate force against demonstrators. We are committed to supporting the Government of Iraq to face its profound security challenges. The Prime Minister reaffirmed that with his Iraqi counterpart on 5 January, and we stand ready to work with the new Prime Minister Mohammed Allawi.
Jessica Morden
Members of the Kurdish community in Newport have contacted me as they are very concerned that the recent vote in the Iraqi Parliament on expelling foreign forces will leave the Kurdish people, scarred by war over many years, even more vulnerable. What will Ministers do to act on their behalf?
Dr Murrison
I thank the hon. Lady for her supplementary question. I spoke to the Prime Minister of the Kurdistan region of Iraq, Masrour Barzani, recently—last month—and we discussed this issue, among others. She is right to say that the security of the region is of vital importance, and we will do all we can to work with our friends to assure that, including helping to train the peshmerga.
Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)
Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)
The Minister for the Middle East and North Africa (Dr Andrew Murrison)
As I said on 14 January, our strategic aims remain to de-escalate US-Iran tensions, constrain Iran’s nuclear development and hold Iran to account for destabilising activity in the middle east. We remain fully committed to the joint comprehensive plan of action. The Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, the Defence Secretary and I have all spoken to counterparts in the United States, Iran and across the region to underline the need for de-escalation on all sides.
Caroline Ansell
Any unified and prosperous Palestinian state living peacefully alongside Israel is unrealistic as long as the Hamas terror group continues to be committed to the destruction of Israel. Will my right hon. Friend join me in calling for renewed international pressure on Hamas to renounce violence and to disarm?
Dr Murrison
My hon. Friend is of course absolutely right. The renunciation of violence and the return to the political process are of crucial importance in trying to get towards what I think we all want in this House, which is a peaceful and amicable settlement that respects the 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as a shared capital, and in particular a deal that gives refugees, of whom there are a huge number in the region, a proper future.
Jack Lopresti
Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the ways we can help to secure a long-lasting peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians is by working with our allies to support initiatives that promote dialogue and co-existence, such as the international fund for Israeli-Palestinian peace, as well as ensuring that UK taxpayers’ money is not misdirected or misused but goes to the people who actually need it?
Dr Murrison
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are of course a large number of projects and initiatives, many of them funded by the United Kingdom, that are aimed at promoting peace. He will be aware that we are one of the major contributors to the humanitarian situation—we hope, of course, pro tem—before we get a definitive political process that enables a viable Palestinian state to live alongside the state of Israel.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
In relation to de-escalating tensions, may I thank the Minister for having met my constituent Mr Robert Cummings, the grandfather of Luke Symons, who is being held by Houthis in Sana’a? May I convey, through him, a request for an opportunity to meet the Foreign Secretary himself to discuss the case further?
Dr Murrison
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. We have discussed the case of Luke Symons at some length, and of course my door always remains open. We continue to do what we can in a very difficult and challenging situation with our interlocutors and partners to secure the outcome that I know the hon. Gentleman wants for Mr Cummings.
Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mrs Heather Wheeler)
The UK deployed a team of experts on 8 January to assess what support Australia needs, and we are working with Australia to establish where we can work together on this issue.
Peter Gibson
I welcome the Government’s pledge to create 500 new hectares of vibrant ecosystems here, but Australia’s ecosystems are facing unprecedented threats following these bushfires. What steps is the Department taking to assist the Australian Government in the recovery of these precious habitats?
Mrs Wheeler
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. One of the pieces of work we are doing with Australia, I hope, is on biodiversity and specifically on seeds. We are hoping to work with Kew so that the re-energising of that biodiversity area, which has been so badly affected, will come to fruition, if I can use that word. It is excellent that our experts will be working completely hand in hand with the Australian authorities.
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
What discussions have the Government had with the Australian Government about the link between the bushfires and climate change to make sure that the Australian Government get serious about tackling carbon emissions in their country?
Mrs Wheeler
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. Australia is a signatory to the Paris agreement, and a number of Australian states have already committed to net zero by 2050. Ahead of COP26 we look forward to working with Australia to increase its climate ambition, in line with principles that it has already agreed to.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and First Secretary of State (Dominic Raab)
Last week we left the European Union to become an independent country, delivering on the promise made by politicians to the British people. Later today I will be departing for Australia, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore, to deliver on this Government’s vision of a truly global Britain.
Alison Thewliss
Yesterday the World Health Organisation evacuated 30 patients from Yemen who needed urgent medical treatment, including several children, but those are very much the lucky exceptions. What is the Foreign Secretary doing, together with his international counterparts, to negotiate peace in Yemen, so that all its people can receive medical assistance when they need it?
Dominic Raab
The hon. Lady raises a conflict that I, and the whole Government, are very concerned about. We work with all our international partners, and in the past week I met the Saudi Foreign Minister to consider how we can pursue dialogue and get a peaceful resolution to that conflict, not only for the parties and the region, but also for the vulnerable people affected.
Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mrs Heather Wheeler)
What an excellent question, particularly bearing in mind how important soft power is to our standing in the world. We are proud to host the best league in the world, showcasing the greatest talent in the world, and this year we will welcome our European friends to Glasgow and London for Euro 2020—yes, my hon. Friend can be assured about that.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
Mrs Wheeler
That is exactly what we would like to happen. The Foreign Secretary has already underwritten financial arrangements between Interserve and the employees, and we would like everybody to go back to ACAS and get this settled.
Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)
The Minister for the Middle East and North Africa (Dr Andrew Murrison)
My hon. Friend is right, and she will be aware of the support that we give for health and education in the occupied Palestinian territories, pending the definitive political solution that we would like to see in the not-too-distant future, which remains a huge priority. She will also be aware of concerns about things such as teaching materials in schools, and of the active role that we have taken to ensure that no inappropriate material is used. I spoke recently to the Palestinian Education Minister. I know that this issue is at the top of his agenda, and in advance of the academic year in September, changes will be made.
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)
Dominic Raab
I think the hon. Gentleman has misunderstood the UK position. There is a proposal for peace talks, which would require a two-state solution, based on both sides agreeing. We have made it clear that we would disagree with and challenge any unilateral annexation on the basis of settlements.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
Mrs Wheeler
I thank my hon. Friend for that very interesting question. He is quite right: the BBC World Service does reach 319 million people weekly. It is incredibly important that that carries on. We have the 2020 agreement between the BBC and Her Majesty’s Government to invest huge amounts of money and we want that to continue.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
The National Federation of Indian Women estimates that 13,000 teenage boys from Jammu-Kashmir have been detained following the revocation of article 370 on 5 August. Will the Secretary of State support a fact-finding delegation from the all-party group on Kashmir to the region, given that so many of the UK’s Kashmiri diaspora still have family members there?
Mrs Wheeler
The Foreign Secretary raised this issue with the Foreign Minister for India. Perhaps I could write to the hon. Lady afterwards.
Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)
Dominic Raab
I appreciate my hon. Friend raising this very important issue. There are huge challenges in dealing with the coronavirus outbreak. We are working collaboratively with the Chinese. There is clearly a tension between the desire from our point of view to ensure that UK nationals and their dependants, whatever their nationality, can return to the UK, and the legitimate desire of the Chinese to prevent the spread of the virus. I have spoken to the Chinese Foreign Minister and received reassurances that no UK-national-related families who want to return to the UK will find themselves divided on the basis of dual or split nationality among their families.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
Does the Minister agree, with regard to the Trump so-called peace deal, that since no Palestinians were involved in negotiating it, it is not a negotiation or a deal but an imposition and that therefore an imposition is no basis for a lasting peace?
Dominic Raab
The hon. Gentleman is putting the cart before the horse. He is right that both sides will need to agree a two-state solution based on coherent, credible states on both sides and with the security considerations without any lateral annexation—[Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) is again speaking from a sedentary position. There will need to be the resolution of all the key final status issues, including Jerusalem and refugees. But we have to get out of this vacuum and the only way we will do that is if both sides come to the negotiating table.
Dehenna Davison (Bishop Auckland) (Con)
Dominic Raab
My hon. Friend is right to tirelessly champion freedom across the world. I met interim President Guaidó. We continue to want a peaceful resolution of the situation in Venezuela and a transition to free elections which are credible for the people of Venezuela.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
This morning, the now-sacked President of COP26 said that the Prime Minister has shown,
“a huge lack of leadership and engagement”
and “doesn’t really understand” climate change, which has led to the UK being “miles off” globally from where we need to be. Now rumours are flying around suggesting that the Government are planning to shift COP26 from Glasgow to an English location. What on earth are the public supposed to make of this shambles?
Dominic Raab
The hon. Lady will not need to wait long, because today, with Sir Richard Attenborough, the Prime Minister is launching and setting out the detail of our approach to COP26, where we will lead in bringing the world together to tackle one of the global challenges of our age.
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)
Dominic Raab
The BNO passport holders have, by definition, a bespoke status. They have Chinese and British nationality, but they are not British citizens. They hold a BNO passport, which entitles them to consular support when travelling away from home. It also entitles them to six months entry clearance into the UK. That, as I think my hon. Friend will know, was agreed as part of the arrangements around the joint declaration in 1984. We support that. We want to see one country-two systems upheld, precisely because it is the best way of ensuring the freedoms and the autonomy of the people of Hong Kong.
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
My constituent, Jagtar Singh Johal, has been incarcerated in the Republic of India for 830 days. Will the Foreign Secretary consider meeting me and Jagtar’s family to assure them that while he is pursuing a free trade British agenda, he will not sacrifice our commitment to openness, transparency and due process in any future free trade agreement?
The Minister for Africa (Andrew Stephenson)
We take allegations of torture and mistreatment very seriously and we raise them with the Indian authorities. I know that the hon. Gentleman recently met Lord Ahmad on 23 October and 19 December. I am happy to arrange another meeting with Lord Ahmad or to have a meeting with him myself.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has touched on the COP26 preparations. Will he talk a bit about the strategy that the FCO will take on the Kunming biodiversity conference and the UN ocean conference in Lisbon, because clearly, climate change diplomacy will be absolutely front and centre of his agenda?
Dominic Raab
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that in all those conferences, we want to lead with an ambitious approach to tackling climate change. The Prime Minister is setting out with Sir Richard Attenborough today the approach to COP26, and if my hon. Friend would like any more detail, I would be very happy to write to him.
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
With the rights of indigenous peoples in danger around the world—particularly from the Bolsonaro Government in Brazil—does the Minister agree that the rights of indigenous peoples should be embedded in the proposed international treaty on human rights and transnational corporations?
The Minister for Europe and the Americas (Christopher Pincher)
I think the hon. Gentleman was present at a Westminster Hall debate last year when I made clear the work that the British Government are doing to help indigenous peoples in places such as Brazil. We have to make sure that we support such people. I think the point was made by the former Member for Bishop Auckland that tariffs are a good thing. Tariffs hurt the poorest and tariffs on food hurt the very poorest. We will make sure that we support indigenous peoples wherever they are, and particularly in Brazil.
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
I note the Minister’s earlier remarks about the Iran nuclear deal, but does he accept that since it was signed in 2015, Iran has launched major cyber-attacks against the UK, including on this Parliament? It has used its warships to harass our fleets in the Gulf and it has supported a huge arms build-up in the middle east. Where is the evidence that Iran can be a trusted partner for peace?
Dominic Raab
My right hon. Friend is right to point out not only the systematic Iranian non-compliance on the nuclear front, but its wider destabilising activities in the region and its use of covert cyber-attacks against western interests. The reality is that we want to hold Iran to account every time it steps beyond the international pale, but we also want to leave the door ajar for it to take the confidence-building steps—when the regime in Tehran makes that decision, as only it can—to come in from the international cold.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Can the Minister outline the discussions that he has had with our Commonwealth ally, India, about its industry and climate change and how we can help it to be sustainable, environmentally friendly and reduce emissions while carrying on with its industry?
Dominic Raab
My hon. Friend is right not just to ask that specific question, but to do so in that tone. As COP26 beckons, we want to see increased ambition right across the world in terms of nationally determined contributions to get emissions down. We also want to work with big developing countries such as India and China, with the technology and the innovation that the UK is particularly adept at providing, to help them to transition to a greener economy.
Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)
Following the acquisition by Turkey of certain key military equipment from Russia, what is my right hon. Friend doing to try to maintain strong bilateral relations with Turkey as a key NATO ally?
Dominic Raab
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right—we have, as I mentioned, expressed our concern to Turkey about its acquisition of Russian-made weapons. That is against not just the letter, but the spirit of NATO. Equally, we value Turkey as a trusted NATO ally. It is often on the frontline of some of the greatest challenges that the alliance faces, so we are working with Turkey and all the European and North American partners to try to bring it into the fold and make sure that it is focused on NATO’s priorities.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
I think the Foreign Secretary inadvertently said that the Prime Minister was launching the COP26 plans with Richard Attenborough today, but of course he is no longer with us. He might want to take the opportunity to correct the record.
Will the Foreign Secretary consider the request I made earlier through his colleague to meet my constituent, Robert Cummings, in relation to the case of Luke Symons in Yemen?
Dominic Raab
I am happy to correct the record as to which Attenborough I meant. We are lucky to have had so many fantastic Attenboroughs in this country. I also repeat that we are ambitious for COP26.
Of course, I will look carefully at the case the hon. Member raises. In all these consular cases, we want to provide the most effective representation to secure people’s release and to provide the reassurance they need and comfort to the family.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
What proposals has the Minister for the Wilton Park conference on Nigeria later this month as regards reducing the persecution of Christians in that country?
Andrew Stephenson
As my right hon. Friend knows, we take freedom of religion and belief extremely seriously, and the Prime Minister’s envoy, my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti), is working closely with me on the plans for that conference.
Petition
(4 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
I am pleased to present a petition on behalf of my constituents who oppose the establishment of quarries in the immediate vicinity of our communities. Quarrying generates considerable dust, especially silica particulates. The people of Barford, whom I support, have begun a national campaign to stop such quarries, which started with the recognition of the huge risk to health that those such as the one proposed at nearby Wasperton present to human health. The petition reads as follows:
The petition of residents of the constituency of Warwick and Leamington,
Declares that Warwickshire County Council’s plans for a minerals quarry in Wasperton, near the village of Barford, should be withdrawn.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to ensure that Warwickshire County Council’s plans for a minerals quarry in Wasperton, near the village of Barford, should be withdrawn.
And the petitioners remain, etc.
[P002554]
Universal Credit: Delayed Roll-Out
(4 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Speaker
We now come to the first urgent question, which I expect to run for 45 minutes.
Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to make a statement regarding the delay to the full roll-out of universal credit.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Will Quince)
The Secretary of State and I informed Parliament yesterday that we had revisited our forecast for universal credit and were extending its completion date to 2024. Our planning for universal credit relies on assumptions about the number of people whose circumstances will change each day, thereby naturally migrating. Our forecasts to date have relied on 50,000 households experiencing a change in circumstances each month. Based on this, we had predicted that the process of natural migration to universal credit would be completed by December 2023.
Information collected on changes to people’s circumstances suggests that natural migration is happening less frequently than we expected. This suggests broad stability in people’s lives and can be attributed to a number of reasons, including the robustness of the labour market. We now estimate that 900,000 fewer households will naturally migrate between now and December 2023 than we had forecast. Given that we expect to manage about 100,000 households to universal credit each month, it necessarily follows that if we are to protect the interests of claimants and move them to universal credit safely it will take a further nine months to complete the implementation of universal credit.
I can assure colleagues that claimants will not lose money from their universal credit award owing to this forecasting change. We will always put the best interests of our claimants first, and as we move into the managed migration phase protecting the vulnerable will be our utmost concern.
Neil Gray
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question, which I believe is the first to be granted to the SNP under your speakership.
The UK Government still have no respect for the House. They let the BBC announce this delay as part of a news trail for the documentary being aired tonight, without a written ministerial statement—I have not seen one, so can the Minister tell the House where it is?
I feel for the Minister, being forced to stand here today, because I know it was not his decision to withhold that information from colleagues. Where is the Secretary of State? This should have been an oral ministerial statement.
Quotes from the documentary seem to suggest that this decision was taken by a senior official, not the Secretary of State. Has she abandoned decision-making oversight? When did she sanction this decision? Perhaps there was no oral ministerial statement because she found out only last night, like the rest of us—what an absolute shambles.
Universal credit was supposed to have been fully rolled out by 2017. This further delay means that it will have been delayed by a further seven years at a potential cost of £500 million. It highlights how far universal credit is from getting it right, as does the fact that this delay is needed to avoid further hardship to those in receipt of the benefit.
Ministers say, as the Minister said again just now, that the delay is needed because people are scared to go on universal credit. They say it like they are actually surprised. The great irony is that if this Tory Government were to listen and do what expert charities and those actually in receipt of universal credit were saying, these delays would not be needed.
Will the UK Government use this delay productively by making a meaningful investment in universal credit to see it fixed, scrapping the two-child cap and rape clause, ending the debt and poverty-inducing five-week wait and making work pay by fully restoring work allowances?
Finally, will the Minister confirm that this delay means that more people will be part of the natural rather than the managed migration process, which in turn will mean that those recipients will lose out on transitional payments, thus saving the Government more money at the expense of people who actually need it?
Will Quince
I have not yet seen the BBC documentary, and I suspect that the hon. Gentleman has not done so either, because it is due to be aired shortly. However, it is important to stress that officials discussed advice to be sent to Ministers late in 2019, and the final discussions were held with Ministers in 2020. Parliament was then informed. This relates to the back end of the timetable, which concerns people moving to universal credit in 2024-25, so the change was communicated in good time.
The hon. Gentleman referred to cost, and it is important to put that in context. This is additional money that will go into the pockets of our claimants, some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in our country. About 900,000 people could now receive transitional protection who would not have been able to receive it through natural migration.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
I welcome my hon. Friend’s clarification of the need for this reforecasting. May I invite him to restate the Government’s total commitment to a universal credit arrangement that simplifies the system? It means dealing with one Department rather than three, it combines six benefits into one, it helps people to get into work more quickly, and it smooths their transition into work thereafter.
Will Quince
I thank my right hon. Friend for his question, and for all the work that he did in our Department. He is absolutely right: universal credit is a modern, flexible, personalised benefit that reflects the rapidly changing world of work. Conservative Members believe that work should always pay, and that we need a welfare system that helps people into work, supports those who need help, and is fair to everyone who pays for it.
Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)
Yesterday the BBC reported that the Government had decided to delay the roll-out of universal credit until September 2024, adding £500 million to its overall cost. That is hugely embarrassing for the Government: yet again, they have had to delay what is meant to be their flagship social security policy. Last week the Minister told the House that they had managed to process fewer than 80 households since July, as part of what was meant to be a pilot of up to 10,000 households in Harrogate, and that only about 13 of those households had transferred to universal credit. At that rate, it would take the Government more than 380 years to complete their managed migration pilot.
Universal credit was supposed to make work pay, but instead it has caused misery for thousands across the country. It seems from yesterday’s report that senior civil servants think people are too scared to transfer to it. Can the Minister tell us why so many people are scared? Is it because of the five-week wait that is pushing so many families into debt and rent arrears, and making them turn to food banks to survive? Is it because of the two-child limit, which the Child Poverty Action Group has described as
“a policy designed to increase child poverty”?
Is it because of the sanctions regime that has made some of the most vulnerable people in our society destitute? Or is it down to the fact that, according to the Government’s own research, nearly 50% of claimants were not able to make a claim online unassisted?
It is clear that the Government have been forced to delay universal credit yet again because people do not have confidence in the system. Can the Minister tell us what they intend to do with the extra time? Will they get rid of the five-week wait? Will they scrap the two-child limit? Will they call a halt to the sanctions regime that is pushing people into destitution? And will they now apologise to all the people whom they have pushed into hardship through universal credit, and create a social security system that protects people from poverty and treats them with respect?
Will Quince
The hon. Lady says that I should be embarrassed. I will never be embarrassed about putting the most vulnerable and disadvantaged people in our society first, and neither will the Government. She talked about cost. As I have said, this is up to £500 million of additional money that will go into the pockets of our claimants. When she referred to the pilot, she was conflating two very separate issues. She also said that people were scared. Perhaps if members of the Labour party desisted from their scaremongering and spent more time in our jobcentres speaking to work coaches, they would have a better understanding of universal credit and how well it is working.
Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)
I am certainly no fan of the Department for Work and Pensions and its campaign to improve universal credit, but I do know that this Minister cares about making universal credit work, and this Minister has my full backing to make it work—and I have worked with many Ministers over the last 10 years. Will he tell me clearly, however, whether my constituents will be better off or worse off because of the way in which the migration works?
Will Quince
I thank my hon. Friend for his question and for his kind words. The answer is a categorical yes: his constituents will be better off. Under our forecasting, around 900,000 people will now be eligible for transitional protection, and as a result they will be better off.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray) on securing this urgent question. Claimants are extremely reluctant to be moved on to universal credit. It has a dreadful reputation, largely because for the first five weeks that they are on it the only help they can get is a loan. Claimants on universal credit are two and a half times more likely to need a food bank than those on the previous benefits. Will Ministers look urgently at drastically cutting that five-week delay?
Will Quince
First, I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his election as Chairman of the Work and Pensions Committee. I take all issues around policy in my Department, in the areas in which I have control, very seriously and I am happy to work with him. Are there improvements that we can make to universal credit? Yes, of course there are, and I look forward to working with him find some of those solutions.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
Is the Minister as surprised as I am that, when questions about universal credit come up, people have a clear tendency to forget that the legacy benefits system leaves a lot to be desired and traps people in jobs where they cannot work more hours? Universal credit is a massive improvement. Of course there are going to be issues, but I for one am pleased that the Minister is taking this cautiously and carefully. Universal credit helps people to get into work and makes work pay, and he should not be embarrassed about it at all.
Will Quince
I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. The previous system has been described as clunky and confusing, as leading to overpayments and therefore ongoing deductions, as acting as a disincentive to work through cliff edges at 16, 24 and 30 hours, and in some cases as a marginal tax rate of 90p in the pound. Labour was content to have people trapped in a life on benefits. What did that mean for the life chances of people and their children? Under universal credit, it always pays to work and increase your hours.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
The final delivery of universal credit seems to be even later than a Northern train. It is a demonstration of the incompetence of this Government that they have wrecked the benefits system in this way. When universal credit was rolled out in my constituency as one of the experiments—they never do experiments in their own constituencies—it caused a tenfold increase in food bank usage and huge hardship—[Interruption.] The Minister can pretend all he likes that that did not happen, but I know from my own advice surgery that this benefit causes misery.
Will Quince
Let us instead look at the facts. Universal credit will give claimants an extra £2.1 billion a year, once it has been fully rolled out, compared with the system that it replaces. Around 1 million disabled house- holds will receive an average of around £100 more a month, and 700,000 families will get the extra money that they are entitled to—around £285 a month—under universal credit. Claimants will have access to around £2.4 billion of previously unclaimed benefits—benefits that they did not receive under the legacy benefits system of the previous Labour Government.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
I simply do not understand why Opposition Members are so against this system, which is helping people into work. I have visited my jobcentre in Poole, where work coaches are so positive about the universal credit system because it gives them the tools to get people into work. It is not just Conservative Members who support universal credit; it is also those who have been helped into work by our work coaches.
Will Quince
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I thank him for visiting his jobcentre. If more Members across the House did so, they would have a better understanding of the system and of how our work coaches feel about it. They would find that, as my hon. Friend rightly says, it is a valuable tool to help people to get into work and to progress in work. We should all be proud of it.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
In a written answer to me, the Secretary of State has conceded:
“As the two-child limit policy was introduced in April 2017 there is insufficient data to assess any impacts of the policy on low income.”
Almost three years on, we still do not have sufficient data to assess the impacts. Will the Secretary of State and the Minister take the opportunity provided by this period of grace that they have granted themselves to get proper statistics on the effect of the two-child rule on people of ethnic and religious backgrounds, and at local authority and parliamentary constituency level?
Will Quince
I am not entirely sure about the correlation between that question and this urgent question but, nevertheless, the hon. Gentleman can write to me, or I would be happy to meet him to discuss the issue further. I cannot guarantee that we will agree, but I will be happy to listen to him to understand the issues he raises.
Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)
When I visited my jobcentre in Redditch, which, contrary to some suggestions from the Opposition, has had full roll-out of universal credit since October 2017, I found work coaches to be incredibly positive about the transformational help being given to their clients. Does the Minister agree that the constant scaremongering and muddling from Opposition Members is the problem? First they want to scrap universal credit, then they want to pause it—who knows what they would do? We need to be on the side of the people, and I am glad that this Government are.
Will Quince
My hon. Friend is quite right. At every single jobcentre that I visit—I visit one every week on average —I get that same feedback, and the one thing that staff would like to change is the reputation. It would be helpful if Opposition Members visited their jobcentres, spoke with work coaches, got that understanding, and desisted with the unhelpful scaremongering.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
My constituent, a mature student with a wife and child, claimed UC and provided all the information that was required. The DWP later announced that it had made an error and asked my constituent to pay back £2,416. He has had to give up his studies, and his family is now in hardship. Does that incompetence not demonstrate why people are so scared to make a UC claim? While the Minister for deep-fried Mars bars is at the Dispatch Box, will he explain why he still has not apologised to me and my colleagues?
Will Quince
I hope you recall, Mr Speaker, that I did make a full, frank and unreserved apology in this Chamber. As for the case that the hon. Lady raises, if she would like to write to me with the details, I will happily look into it. There are strict Treasury rules about errors and deductions, but I will be happy to look at them.
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend confirm that today’s announcement does not change the fundamental course of our policy, which is to move away from a perverse legacy system that incentivised claimants to minimise the number of hours worked to one that incentivises them to maximise their hours and gives them a chance to move away from long-term benefit dependency?
Will Quince
I thank my hon. Friend for that question and for his support for universal credit and, indeed, his local jobcentre. We believe that work should always pay, and we need a welfare system that helps people into work, supports those who need help, and is fair to the taxpayers who pay for it. It is important to stress—my hon. Friend is right about this—that it always pays to work and increase one’s hours under universal credit. That was not the case under the legacy benefit system.
Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)
Overwhelming evidence from the pilot areas such as Wigan and debt charities such as StepChange shows that the five-week wait is causing further debt problems. Will the Minister use this delay to rescind and reconsider this policy urgently?
Will Quince
I have huge respect for the hon. Lady, and I would be happy to visit her constituency to meet some of the organisations she references. It is important to state that nobody has to wait five weeks for an initial payment, which can be done on day one. It is repayable over 12 months but, as of next year, that will be extended to 16 months. We also have additional measures such as the two-week housing run-on and, as of July this year, a further two-week run-on of other legacy benefits. Are there further improvements that I would like to make? Yes, of course there are. They would all require Treasury approval, but I would be happy to work with hon. Lady to look at them in further detail.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
I, too, have visited my jobcentre and its staff universally welcome universal credit—there is no doubt about that—but there have been one or two hiccups. When an employer tends to pay early, say at Christmas, that does tend to muck up the next month’s universal credit payment. Are we trying to resolve that issue?
Will Quince
My hon. Friend asks a pertinent question that was raised by six separate colleagues at oral questions only last week. I am looking closely at this area and intend to organise a roundtable with interested colleagues and officials to explore how we can tackle the issue.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray) on his urgent question. Policy in Practice analysis shows that disabled people lose an average of £3,000 a year, but they are not the only group to lose money under universal credit. In addition to considering the five-week wait, about which so many of my colleagues have raised issues, will the Minister examine increased support for disabled people? Disabled people and children are being plunged into poverty as a result of this benefit.
Will Quince
I think I have already answered this question. Around 1 million disabled households will receive an average of £100 more per month under universal credit. Importantly, the claimants will have access to around £2.4 billion of previously unclaimed benefits that, for all sorts of reasons, they did not claim under the legacy benefit system.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
Harrogate and Knaresborough has been a trial area for universal credit since it started, including being the location for the legacy migration. I have therefore followed universal credit for many years and I have spoken with claimants, employers and the team at Harrogate jobcentre who have done a great job. They all report positive feedback. There are obviously some problems, but there were problems with the previous system. Universal credit is helping people to get into work and to make work pay. Will the Minister continue the focus on making work pay?
Will Quince
I thank my hon. Friend for his very helpful question and for his support of universal credit and his local jobcentre. I am full of praise for those staff working in the jobcentre at Harrogate and the work that they are doing on the pilot. That is hugely important work, because it sets the scene and gives us the all important data and learnings we need to move out universal credit at scale and pace.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)
In the last 18 months, a food bank in my constituency has seen an increase of two thirds in people using it. Will the Government accept that more people in the UK—including those in employment—are using food banks than ever before, as a direct result of policies such as universal credit, the five-week wait and the two-child limit?
Will Quince
I do not want anyone in our country to have no choice but to use or visit a food bank. I visit food banks regularly, and I want to get a clear understanding of food insecurity in our country. That is why we have commissioned questions for the Family Resources Survey, which started in April last year. I am also working with food banks and other organisations that tackle food insecurity to better understand the issue. If we better understand the issue, we will know how to tackle it.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend recognise as I do that the opening of the food banks that serve my constituency in 2009 was a response to the deep-seated problems at the height of Labour welfare spending? Does he agree that the feedback from local authority areas where universal credit has been rolled out has been that it is a much more supportive system than the legacy system?
Will Quince
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. He is absolutely right: it is a far better system than the previous legacy benefit system. We know it is working better at helping people to get into jobs and stay in them. Is it any surprise that under this Government the number of people in work is up more than 3.8 million since 2010, and the employment rate is 76.3%, a record high?
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
Given this latest delay, which follows endless repeated delays over the last few years, can the Minister assure the House that sufficient investment is being made to maintain the legacy systems, which will now have to last an additional seven and a half years longer than originally envisaged?
Will Quince
I can of course give that commitment, but I stress that this is a change in policy based on forecasts. Forecasts do change, and it is responsible of Ministers to look at them and change policy accordingly. If the forecast changes, I will of course look at it, as will the Secretary of State, and where necessary, act accordingly.
Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)
We hear a lot from the Opposition, and we certainly did during the election, about scrapping universal credit or sections of it, but I and many people in this Chamber would much rather have a change of forecast than a change to the entire system, and certainly the jobcentres would agree with that. Will the Minister tell us what, if anything, claimants will notice on the ground from the change in forecasts?
Will Quince
I thank my hon. Friend for that question, and I welcome her to her place and indeed to her position on the Select Committee. Most claimants will not notice any difference whatever, other than that an extra 900,000 will be eligible for transitional protection. She raises an important point. The IFS slammed Labour’s pledge to scrap universal credit as uncosted and
“unwise…expensive, disruptive and unnecessary.”
It is important to point out that no Labour Government have ever left office with unemployment lower than when they started.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
The Minister is correct that he apologised to Glasgow MPs, but he told us he would write to us that day and we are still waiting. Delays seem to be an important part of his stewardship.
On the five-week wait and given that we now know from parliamentary answers that the Department receives £50 million a month in repayments from advances, surely that now tells us to scrap the five-week wait and make sure the first payment is not a loan or an advance payment, but a first payment for universal credit.
Will Quince
It is a system based on arrears, not on advances, unlike the legacy benefit system. The hon. Gentleman knows that people are able to access an advance on day one repayable over 12 months. That will extend to 16 months next year and I am looking at whether we can explore options to extend that further. We have made further changes—scrapping the seven-day wait, the additional two-week run-on, the two-week run-on starting in July of legacy benefits—and, where there are further changes we can make, I am of course willing to look at them and act where appropriate.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
I commend the Government for delaying the roll-out of universal credit and, indeed, for the changes that they have made to the system over the last four years or so, but may I ask the Minister to give serious consideration to getting rid of the five-week wait, notwithstanding the answer he gave to the hon. Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue)? In my experience, it is causing very serious challenges for my constituents.
Will Quince
I thank my hon. Friend for his question and the constructive way in which he put it, but I must respectfully disagree with him. There is no five-week wait. People are able to access their advance on day one.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
Can the Minister tell us whether we can now expect to see an improvement to the kind of delays that many applicants are experiencing in their applications being processed? Will the Minister commit himself to publishing some statistics so that we can see whether the impact of this delay has resulted in an improvement to those kinds of delays?
Will Quince
I am a little confused, because my understanding is that those performance stats are indeed available. The Department has a very good record on payments and payment timeliness. Can we improve? Of course we can, and I meet with officials on at least a weekly basis to discuss that. In many cases, it is down not just to the Department but to how the claimant provides information. We are putting in additional resource, where appropriate, to help people to help themselves to get us that important information that we need to process the claims.
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
Will the Minister confirm that one solution to this would be to get more uptake for the excellent help to claim service through Citizens Advice? Will he confirm that service will be extended so that it is there for the whole period through to the end of the roll-out?
Will Quince
I thank my hon. Friend for that question and for his work on the Select Committee. He is right: help to claim, commissioned via the Department and run by Citizens Advice and Citizens Advice Scotland, is working really well. We are now in detailed discussions in relation to a second year, but I want to go further and in April we will launch a £10 million transitional fund for UC, in particular to support disadvantaged and vulnerable groups. It will also help Members, because organisations in their constituencies will be able to bid for that funding.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
The Public Accounts Committee is not in the business of scaremongering, but from the very beginning we have raised concerns about the pace and the over-ambitious nature of this policy. Only today, the Minister listed so many changes that have taken place since it was rolled out that it shows there is a problem. In our last session on this issue, we heard from local authorities about the millions of pounds they are having to put aside to help people. With this extra time, will he look at what support he can give local authorities who are having to backfill mistakes by his Department?
Will Quince
Universal credit is an evolving system and it is a relatively new system. I meet with stakeholders and Members from both sides of the House on a regular basis, and where there are improvements that we can make quickly, I will of course look at them and make them. Where there are changes that can take a longer period of time, I can start setting those in train. I would be very happy to meet the hon. Lady and discuss the issue she raises in further detail.
Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)
One of the very first constituency visits I made as a new MP was to Aylesbury jobcentre. Does my hon. Friend agree with me, and with the work coaches and claimants I met there, that universal credit is a much better system than what went before because it positively incentivises people to find a job?
Will Quince
My hon. Friend is right for all the reasons that he points out, but I would go further and say that it is the personal relationship with a work coach that makes it so very different to the legacy benefits system. Work coaches will work with people to help them get work ready, to get into work and then to progress into the job that they want and that suits their family.
Sir Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)
My constituency was one of the trials for universal credit, and all we have seen since its introduction is debt, poverty, hunger and homelessness. How is that putting the claimant first?
Will Quince
I do not recognise those statistics, or indeed the correlation. I do not know when the hon. Gentleman last visited his jobcentre, but I would strongly recommend he does so to discuss with work coaches the difference that universal credit is making in his constituency. If he has specific concerns, I invite him to write to me and I will look at them in detail.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that if people out there are scared, the blame, at least in part, is with the Opposition parties, whose reckless, irresponsible scaremongering paints a picture wholly at odds with the picture on the ground in jobcentres across the UK?
Will Quince
My hon. Friend raises a good point. When I speak to and visit jobcentres and work coaches, they always tell me that the one thing they want to change is reputation. While Opposition Members continually talk down universal credit and say they would scrap it—against the advice and guidance from organisations such as the IFS and many charities—they are not helping the situation a jot.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
If I accept that part of the Minister’s motivation is to protect the interests of those on legacy benefits, will he equally accept that those who are wrongly transferred to universal credit because of erroneous advice from a jobcentre, should have their interests protected by an automatic right to at least have their legacy benefits restored?
Will Quince
The hon. Gentleman raises a pertinent point. I am looking at that very issue. I would be happy to meet him to discuss it further; it does concern me. On his first point, I will always put disadvantaged and vulnerable residents at the forefront of my mind in any decision making that I undertake while in this role.
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
The Minister is exactly right in the careful, pragmatic approach that he is taking to roll-out; it is what responsible Ministers do. However, may I encourage my hon. Friend to follow his instincts and, in his discussions with the Treasury, make the case for improving universal credit? The truth is that if we are to improve this good policy further, it will require resource.
Will Quince
I thank my right hon. Friend for his helpful question and for all the work that he did while at the Department. He, like me, believes that work should always pay, and that we need a welfare system that helps people into work. My mind is full of ideas on how we can improve universal credit, and if he would like to help me in persuading the Treasury to get behind those, I would very much welcome that.
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
Barnsley food bank gave out over 4,000 food parcels to people in crisis in a year. The Minister appears to be in complete denial. Why will the Government not accept that the increase in food bank use has a direct link to policies such as universal credit, and that it is about time it was scrapped?
Will Quince
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I could not disagree more, but I do agree with her that I do not want to see anybody feeling that they have no choice but to visit a food bank. I want to better understand this issue, which is why I visit food banks. I meet food bank organisations and other organisations that help to tackle food insecurity. I would be happy to meet the hon. Lady to discuss this further. There is a huge amount of ongoing work.
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)
I very much welcome the approach that the Minister and his predecessors have taken on this issue, keeping universal credit under review and making changes where appropriate, but can he assure me that some things about universal credit will not change—that it will always be a system that is fair to claimants and the taxpayer, and that being in work will always pay?
Will Quince
I can absolutely give my hon. Friend that assurance. Under universal credit, it will always pay to work and it will always pay to do more hours. That is the principle that we stand by, and we will stick by it.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
My constituency was the guinea pig for universal credit, and we had no protection over our transition. By 2024, Inverness will have endured 10 years of chaos, delays and hardship. What will the Minister do to compensate those claimants who have already been through this mill, and will he do something about repaying the £3 million in additional administration costs that Highland Council has incurred in order to operate universal credit?
Will Quince
First, I do not recognise the statistics and figures that the hon. Gentleman raises. I feel that he has a permanent prejudice against universal credit in principle. If he would like to write to me with any statistics or figures that support his claims, I would be happy to look at them.
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)
The Minister accuses charities of scaremongering, but are not people right to fear the debt, poverty, food bank reliance, homelessness and even survival sex work that universal credit and the five-week wait have been evidenced to create—even seen by the Work and Pensions Committee?
Will Quince
I have worked very closely with the hon. Gentleman on issues such as homelessness. He knows that I share his passion to ensure that our welfare system works, and supports the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in our society. However, it is important to point out that we spend £95 billion a year on benefits for working-age people, so we will continue to reform our welfare system so that it encourages work while supporting those who need help—an approach that is based on the clear evidence that work offers families the best opportunity to get out of poverty.
Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)
On Friday I visited Coventry food bank, where demand has shot up in the past few years. I asked the staff why. Their answer was immediate and unequivocal—universal credit. Will the Government finally accept that many more people than ever before, many of whom are in employment, are using food banks as a direct result of universal credit, the five-week wait and the two-child limit?
Will Quince
I thank the hon. Lady for her question but do not accept the anecdotal points that she makes. Governments and Ministers make and take decisions based on evidence. I am building the evidence base within the Department based on the family resource survey and the questions in it in relation to food insecurity, and working with food bank providers—the Trussell Trust being one, but there are around 800 independent food bank providers—to better understand the issues and how we can tackle food insecurity in the round and for good.
Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP)
This Government need to take a long, hard look at themselves and the pressures they are placing on hard-working, low-income families and individuals. I do not trust the Minister’s pledges. For a hard-working, loving parent, it is absolutely, gut-wrenchingly worrying—which is no doubt beyond the comprehension of many of the privileged folk of this place—to find out that the moneys they are depending on, and entitled to, will not be coming. I do not need to visit a jobcentre to know that; I speak with some authority on the matter, because until my election to this place, I was a universal credit claimant, as a single parent. I ask the Minister to scrap the five-week wait and stop plunging hard-working families and individuals into further debt by making it necessary for them to avail themselves of a loan from the DWP.
Will Quince
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I would suggest very strongly that he should visit his local jobcentre, because he would have a better understanding. [Interruption.]
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
Will the Minister reconsider the ill-advised and, frankly, insulting use of the word “scaremongering”? It is not scaremongering when food banks talk about a massive increase in demand, and when local authorities report huge increases in rent arrears; nor is it scaremongering for local authorities to report having to spend a lot of their scarce resources to make up for the shortfalls of universal credit. If the Minister wants to insult me by accusing me of scare- mongering, that is fair enough; when he insults me for raising the concerns of my constituents, he insults my constituents. Will he apologise for that, and will he reconsider the inflammatory language he has used?
Will Quince
I meet stakeholders in relation to the Department every single week, and I take the concerns and issues they raise very seriously because they are largely based on evidence. When I refer to scaremongering, I refer to the tone and language and rhetoric so often used by Opposition Members.
I did not quite get to answer the question by the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Steven Bonnar) and in fairness, I should. He mentioned hard-working people. It is important to stress that income inequality has been falling under this Government in real terms. The national living wage will rise to £8.72 in April, and to £10.50 by 2024. Our tax changes will make a basic rate taxpayer more than £1,200 better off. We have doubled the free childcare available to working parents. We are doing a huge amount to tackle the cost of living and to support working parents.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I think the Minister is quite a fair-minded man, but does he agree that the best policies for our welfare state are evidence-based? That means not just visiting constituencies and looking at jobcentres, but looking at the health sector. Ask GPs; ask the people running our hospitals and healthcare. They will tell us, and him, the real impact on people’s health up and down the country as one of the side effects of this silly, misguided policy.
Will Quince
I meet all sorts of organisations up and down the country, and they often raise some of the issues that the hon. Gentleman raises. Where there are issues with our system that I can make changes to quickly, I look at them, and if they do not have a huge fiscal impact, I will make them. Otherwise, we have to look to fiscal events. However, universal credit is an evolving process. If there are improvements that we can make—and I believe that there are—we should make them. I am looking at those very closely; if the hon. Gentleman has ideas, I would be happy to hear them.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
The National Audit Office has said there is no evidence that universal credit gets people into work, and that there is no way of measuring it from the Government’s perspective. The roll-out of universal credit in my constituency has caused council housing rent arrears to double, so that is putting a burden on local rent payers. In November 2018, income assessment period deductions for people getting two pay packets were found to be illegal. The Minister says he has lots of ideas to improve universal credit; can he give us an idea to improve at least one of those aspects?
Will Quince
Let us look at some facts: the number of people in work has increased by more than 3.8 million since 2010; the employment rate is 76.3%, which is a record high; the unemployment rate is 3.8%, having gone down by more than half since 2010; and 80% of the growth in employment since 2010 has been in full-time work. We are very proud of our record, but we are not complacent and our ambition is to go much, much further.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
Perhaps if the Tory MPs had my case load, they would recognise the misery and poverty that their policies caused. This week, another constituent contacted me because she had been denied the vital UC cash she needs, as she is paid four-weekly and this last month she received two payments from her employers. When will this anomaly be sorted out and people not be left unable to pay their bills?
Will Quince
I believe I answered this question a little earlier today. I am looking at the issue, and I will invite the hon. Gentleman, along with other colleagues who have an interest in this area, to the Department to raise it with officials. We are looking at solutions. It is not potentially an easy or quick fix, but if we can address this, of course we will.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I see the delay as a wise step by government to reassess, and I congratulate the Minister on not enforcing a transfer to UC on people, who know it will see them in a five-week freeze. Will he use this delay to introduce a smoother, more workable transition period, to prevent people from getting into debt?
Will Quince
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question. The important point here is that when we talk about the £500 million cost, we are talking about £500 million that will go into the pockets of claimants up and down the country, including some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged people in our country, who previously would not have received that transitional protection under the legacy benefits system or in their transfer over under natural migration.
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
Although I would visit jobcentres in my constituency on a more regular basis, it does not help when the Department shuts them, as it did the one in the Vale of Leven. Given a substantial increase in the uptake of support through the two food banks, Food for Thought and West Dunbartonshire Community Foodshare, although we may disagree on the implementation, I hope the Minister takes the opportunity to agree with me that with this extension and additional moneys going into the process there is an opportunity to reflect on what has gone on before, especially for those Members, such as myself, whose constituents do not feel as though they have been treated properly.
Will Quince
We have more than 630 jobcentres up and down our country, so there will be a jobcentre within reach of the hon. Gentleman. He raises a number of points. We are always looking at how we can improve UC, and if he has ideas, he can either write to me or come to see me, because I am very approachable—we could even share a deep fried Mars bar together.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
No one should agree an embargo with the BBC and expect it to be kept, should they?
Will Quince
It is probably best that I do not comment on this. We had intended to come to this House this week to announce this. Unfortunately, we got this done yesterday via a letter to the Work and Pensions Committee Chair and indeed a “Dear colleague” letter to myself, and I am here today to answer Members’ questions, which I hope has been valuable.
Lobby and Media Briefings: Journalists' Access
(4 years, 10 months 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.
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Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will make a statement on the barring of certain journalists from official civil servant media briefings at the direction of special advisers and the arrangements for future lobby and media briefings.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chloe Smith)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to clarify this situation. This Government are committed to being open in their dealings with the press and to the principles of media freedom, and the events of yesterday were a good example of that. The Prime Minister delivered a speech on the future of the UK-EU relationship. He also took extensive questions from journalists. Following that, there was a further briefing for journalists by the Prime Minister’s official spokesperson, which was made available to any journalist who wanted it directly after the speech and was all on the record.
Lobby briefings typically take place twice a day. All those with a Press Gallery pass are able to attend these briefings and to question the Prime Minister’s official spokesperson however they wish. No journalists are barred from official media briefings hosted by the Prime Minister’s official spokesperson. It is entirely standard practice for the Government to host additional technical, specialist briefings, as was the case yesterday. This particular briefing, which the media have reported on, was an additional, smaller meeting due to be held by a special adviser in order to improve the understanding of the Government’s negotiating aims for the future relationship. I am delighted that there are so many right hon. and hon. Members here today who would also like to improve their understanding of such things.
Tracy Brabin
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this timely and important urgent question. The ability of the lobby to have access to briefings without favour is a long-standing tradition, and one vital to the health of a functioning democracy. Yesterday, certain publications were barred from a briefing on future trade deals with David Frost, the Prime Minister’s adviser on Europe. According to reports, when journalists from other news outlets arrived, the Prime Minister’s director of communications, a special adviser, said:
“Those invited to the briefing can stay—everyone else, I’m afraid, will have to leave.”
When challenged, he added:
“We’re welcome to brief whoever we like, whenever we like.”
The code of conduct for special advisers states that
“special advisers must not: ask civil servants to do anything which is inconsistent with their obligations under the Civil Service Code”.
On the David Frost briefing yesterday, will the Minister tell us who decided which journalists could attend and what the selection criteria were? If that decision was made by a special adviser, are they in violation of both the code of conduct for special advisers and the civil service code? Can she confirm whether civil servants were in attendance?
Sadly, yesterday was not an isolated incident; the Huawei briefing last week was exactly the same. I understand that that was given by Ciaran Martin of the National Cyber Security Centre, plus civil servants from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. So will the Minister tell us who decided which journalists could attend and what the selection criteria were? If that decision was made by a special adviser, are they in violation of both the code of conduct for special advisers and the civil service code? In addition, where is the reply to the letter to the Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill reported in The Times, as, apparently, he does not have “a problem” with this? Can the Minister confirm what the Cabinet Secretary’s advice is and whether he believes there have been breaches of the special adviser code of conduct in either case?
Finally, on 13 January the editors of those national newspapers, with the Society of Editors, wrote to the Prime Minister, but we still do not have the reply. When was it sent? Has it been written? The Government’s behaviour in these matters threatens the civil service’s core values of impartiality and objectivity. It also brings into question the integrity of future Government media briefings and the conduct of their special advisers, and it damages a free and vibrant press, which is central to this parliamentary democracy.
Chloe Smith
I am more than willing to repeat the points I made, which were that this briefing was additional to normal lobby handlings. Those lobby handlings are entirely normal, standard and routine, and have been so over successive Governments. I am not taking any further lectures from the Labour party, which needs to look in the mirror a little on this. The hon. Lady is part of a shadow Government who wish to regulate and introduce Soviet-style licensing of newspapers; and whose leader and shadow Chancellor take money from media organisations, such as Press TV, which are owned by foreign, hostile Governments. Under that culture, a BBC editor had to have protection at the Labour party conference, and the shadow Chancellor encourages direct action against journalists who do not write what he likes. Conservative Members strongly support the free press. I have set out the ways in which we do that. In addition to the briefings and the very normal routine operation of the lobby, the Prime Minister has a huge amount of further appointments and engagements on a range of channels. For example, he did more than 120 media engagements during the election. Senior members of the Government come to this House to answer those questions again, and we intend to continue doing those things. That choice is absolutely clear, and we on this side of the House stand up for a free and vibrant press. The hon. Lady needs to ask herself and her colleagues the same questions.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
I do not think that anything has happened so far that matches what Alastair Campbell did in trying to get political editors sacked and saying that the then Government would not co-operate at all. It would be sensible for the Government to consider talking to the senior political editors who walked out, to see whether there is a way of getting over this problem and resolving it. Much of what my hon. Friend has said is fine, but the last bit leaves unresolved problems. There is no greater competition for an MP trying to get themselves into the media than from media people trying to get themselves reported and on air, but they walked away from it, so there is a problem and it needs solving.
Chloe Smith
I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend the Father of the House for his wisdom and long sight on this issue. He shares with us exactly what these things looked like over successive Governments, which is to say that it is quite routine for there to be lobby briefings on a regular basis—we run them twice daily—and in addition to that some specialist and technical briefings. I understand the point that my hon. Friend closed his contribution with and am sure that that will be correctly considered. It is so valuable that we hear from him, given his long sight on this issue, which reminds us how these things look over history.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
What the hon. Lady said is woeful and desperate. It makes Comical Ali look like a Pulitzer prize winner. Yesterday was a black day for press freedom and no amount of sleekit, self-justifying nonsense from the hon. Lady is going to get her off the Trumpian hook. The next thing will be the Prime Minister talking about fake news and banning broadcasters—oh, wait: he already has. Just how sinister can it get? The names of journalists were read out and groups assembled on either side of a rug before it was announced who would have access and who would be excluded. No Scottish media outlets were even told about the briefing. I congratulate all the journalists involved yesterday for showing solidarity with their colleagues and refusing to participate in that circus. We know that the Prime Minister dislikes scrutiny and actively hides from the press; we know that Dominic Cummings and his henchmen have their own agenda and are actively trying to bypass and diminish the media; and we all know that the Prime Minister looks like a prize buffoon under the hard questioning that he does not like. Is that not the real reason why we have this particular agenda, Minister?
Chloe Smith
The short answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question is no. The longer answer is that he, too, should be careful about what he says. If he wants to hand out prizes, perhaps he might look back to the days when Alex Salmond, formerly of this parish, used to routinely exclude journalists from his briefings. There is a tinge here, Mr Speaker, of people who are not willing to look at their own record before they come here and prance around with a few too many adjectives.
The other thing I would add is that we on the Government Benches, like others in other parties, are proud Unionists. We recognise that there are national broadcasters that deal with all parts of our country. Long may that last.
Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)
There clearly do need to be better arrangements for lobby briefings than was the case yesterday, but I detect the faint air of fake outrage. When I was a journalist, I regarded it as my job to talk to the people who could tell me what I needed to do to provide the story. Indeed, when I was a Minister, if I wanted to talk to individual journalists, there were ways of doing so that might be useful to me and to the individual journalists. I agree with the Father of the House that there need to be improvements in the system, but does my hon. Friend the Minister agree that what we are seeing here is some fake outrage and a mass outbreak of snowflakery?
Chloe Smith
I am grateful for that view from a senior Member of the House. My right hon. Friend is correct: what we are seeing here is a very normal operation whereby a specialist briefing is offered. That is a good thing, and we are doing that to support the other ways in which we are already an extremely open and accessible Government, providing briefing and access through a range of channels so that people can be well-informed.
Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)
Mr Speaker:
“Attacks on media freedom are attacks on human rights…Too often, it is governments who are the source of threats to media freedom. Governments—which are responsible for protecting human rights—instead are the ones to violate them.”
Those are not my words, but words taken directly from the global pledge on media freedom that was signed last July by the then Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt). The Minister clearly does not understand what media freedom means; does she understand what hypocrisy means?
Chloe Smith
I do not think the hon. Lady understands that her party has been the worst of all on this point. Her party is the one that has offered to open up journalists’ tax returns and has had to provide bodyguards to journalists. All that is because the leader of her party is of the kind of bent that looks down a camera and says, “Change is coming.” Well, the British people ensured that he was the one who was changed. The hon. Lady should heed that.
Bim Afolami (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
Will the Minister confirm two things for the House—first, that the Government will of course look at making sure that briefings are done in a sensible way, with the agreement of all members of the lobby over the longer term; and secondly, that this Government and, indeed, this House should always be committed to there being no political interference in our media, because that is a foundation of our democracy?
Chloe Smith
My hon. Friend is right on that point. As I have said, the Government are upholders of freedom and accessibility for Government briefings. We take it as a matter of pride that we are an extremely open Government, ensuring that there are briefings available across a range of channels. As I have already said, what has been happening recently, and the subject of today’s question, is in fact the perfectly normal operation of the lobby: twice daily briefings and, in addition to that, the offer of further specialist briefings. There is clearly the ability to hold the Government to account, and that is how we intend to continue to work.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
Does the Minister agree that, unlike what happened in the US, it was brilliant to see our journalists showing solidarity with those journalists who were barred from the briefing and staging a joint walk-out? On another note, does the Minister think that the Prime Minister and his advisers are merely trying to copy President Trump’s tactics and trying to stifle our free press?
Brendan Clarke-Smith (Bassetlaw) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that it is ridiculous for the Labour party to pose as champions of press freedom when, as mentioned earlier, the BBC’s political editor has to be assigned a bodyguard to attend the Labour party conference? Does she agree that that is unacceptable and that our press should be able to report without fear?
Chloe Smith
The press certainly should be able to report without fear. We are strongly in support of there being a free press. Let me point to another example, which is that of the Cairncross review. The Government are pressing forward with ways to support our media to adapt to the digital age, and that is in addition to what I have been saying about the way the Government are ensuring that lobby briefings are available.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
I congratulate the Minister on the Orwellian double-speak of her opening remarks. I am sure she will go far in this Government.
Those of us who support independent press regulation have, over the years, received a number of lectures on press freedom from those on the Government Benches, so it ill behoves the Minister to dodge our reasonable questions today. She has mentioned how important the Union is to her. I spoke to members of the Scottish lobby about this issue this morning and it is well established that the Scottish media outlets were excluded from the briefing yesterday. Will the Minister clarify a very simple question—was that an oversight or was it deliberate?
Chloe Smith
I have already explained that this particular briefing was arranged to provide further specialist briefing. It was not in itself a matter for the kind of questioning that the hon. and learned Lady is putting about around whether it should be for Scotland or the United Kingdom. That question is rightly subject to a far greater debate on which, I gently point out, she is on the wrong side. The point is that the British people have asked for a clear resolution of our relationship with the European Union. We got Brexit done last weekend and we now move on to the next stage of the negotiation. We all want the lobby to be able to benefit from a good understanding of the negotiating objectives of the UK Government. The UK Government speak for all parts of the UK in that, so such matters are not really the subject of the kind of questioning the hon. and learned Lady is asking after.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)
Given that the Labour party called for the resignation of BBC journalists who had the courage to report on antisemitism, does the Minister agree that it is the Conservative party that stands up for a healthy, vibrant and independent press?
Chloe Smith
I welcome my hon. Friend’s contribution. He is absolutely right that what we are talking about here today is how the Government are, ought to be and will be, committed to being open in their dealings with the press and to the principles of media freedom. That is something that we stick by firmly as a matter of principle and of practice.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
I am really puzzled by what the Minister says, because lobby journalists walked out in solidarity with each other, and they said that there was no precedent for this, so either they are wrong, or she is wrong. I want to know why she is saying, as she seems to be, that the lobby journalists are wrong, that the National Union of Journalists is wrong, that everybody else is wrong and that this Government are not trying to hide from scrutiny, which is how it appears.
Chloe Smith
I cannot account for the hon. Lady’s understanding, but what I can say is that this Government are making themselves available across a range of briefings and across a range of channels—I have already covered that point—including social media, broadcast channels and innovations such as the people’s Prime Minister’s questions, which is a very good thing. What I can add is that the standard practice of the lobby is that all members with a press pass are able to attend and ask all questions that they would wish to ask. That is how the lobby functions, and we absolutely uphold that. That is happening twice daily and, in addition to that, we are offering further specialist briefings, which is what we are talking about here today.
James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)
I declare an interest as a former special adviser, most recently in No. 10. I endorse the comments that my hon. Friend has made: there is nothing unusual in providing specialist briefings. Indeed, I was there when we provided one on the Prime Minister’s excellent Brexit deal, which has happily now passed through this House. Is it not important that we keep perspective? In my experience, lobby journalists are well able to look after themselves.
Chloe Smith
I welcome that glimpse of experience. It is important to say again that what we are discussing here today are the normal operations of the lobby. We are making sure that that is supplemented by these additional briefings.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
These are the words of the Prime Minister in 2017 when he was Foreign Secretary:
“Where governments fear freedom of expression they often try to shut down media and civil society, or clip their wings.”
He also said:
“A free media is vital to creating a vibrant, informed and engaged population and helps to support a safer, more prosperous and progressive world.”
Why does he now think that freedom of the press is important everywhere except Downing Street?
Chloe Smith
Because the hon. Lady is wrongly describing the situation. The Prime Minister stands by those words, as do I.
Dehenna Davison (Bishop Auckland) (Con)
While the Labour party, true to form these days it seems, is obsessing about the London bubble, will my hon. Friend confirm that the Treasury is looking at how best it can support the media across the country? What impact does she believe that the recently announced business rates relief for local newspaper offices will have, particularly on great Bishop Auckland organisations, such as the Teesdale Mercury and The Northern Echo?
Chloe Smith
My hon. Friend makes a helpful wider point, which is how we, as a Government, can use policy and indeed scrutinise it here in this place—I say this as the Budget and other such vehicles come up—to look at ways to support the vibrancy of our press and media across the country. I referenced the Cairncross review earlier. These things, together with fiscal measures, are important in that debate.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I confess that there is one journalist I would quite like to keep out of Downing Street, but he is the Prime Minister and, unfortunately, he won the general election.
There is a serious issue here: every political generation in government want to try to avoid scrutiny if possible, and it is the job of this House to try to ensure that they do not get away with it. So, all the whataboutery in the world will not stop us complaining when we see a clear pattern of the Prime Minister running his leadership campaign, running his general election campaign and now running the Government in a way that is trying to avoid scrutiny. I am sure that, in private, the Minister would agree.
Chloe Smith
This is simply barking up the wrong tree again. The Government are ensuring that they are open for scrutiny. The Foreign Secretary stood here yesterday and took scores of questions on the very same subject matter. He was again on television shows on Sunday. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury was on a number of programmes yesterday. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was out this morning; the Home Secretary was out this morning. The Prime Minister himself took many questions on the subject matter in hand yesterday. Nobody is hiding from scrutiny.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that this very much has the flavour of a storm in a Westminster bubble? Will she outline what further steps she might be taking to improve the ability of our regional and local newspapers to hold all of us as politicians to account, outside of that bubble?
Chloe Smith
This is an important point. As we have already discussed, there are ways to do that, and this Government are committed to them. We have mentioned some points of policy, and we have looked at the business rates point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison). To that, I add the way that this Government are making sure that they are available on social media, which, by its very nature, does not require to be inside any Westminster bubble. That is a way for people rightly to be able to hold this Government to account. It is that kind of principle that we hold very highly, and what I have been able to outline today are all the ways in which we are doing that.
Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
Clearly, the Minister cannot defend what has happened and therefore she is providing a master class in whataboutery. Yesterday, Downing Street announced that there was a new show in town and that it was doing it simply because it can. It was deliberately sinister and knowingly provocative. I am sure that those involved are celebrating the fact that they have an urgent question out of it. What happened yesterday was out of President Trump’s playbook for bullies, and I am sure that those involved are feeling pretty smug about it. Did the Minister and her colleagues know that this was the type of Government they were voting for when they so enthusiastically backed Boris?
Chloe Smith
The type of Government we are talking about is the type that has just won a resounding majority at a general election and has the support of the people. I think that is a pretty good answer to his question.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
This does smack of either a deliberate decision to make sure that the mainstream press is being discussed in this way in this House today, or it was just an almighty mistake. Will the Minister, who is a reasonable woman, not use this opportunity to say sorry and that it will not happen again?
Chloe Smith
The hon. Lady takes us on to very, very sober ground, and rightly so. She has great experience as a scrutiniser in this House, but the fact is that that is the wrong characterisation of what has happened. I have set out what the facts of the matter are: what we are dealing with is standard lobby procedures supplemented by an additional specialist briefing. There is nothing more sinister than that, and I think that even she, who is also a very reasonable Member of this Chamber, is just going a little too far.
Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)
It is quite extraordinary that the Government say that there is effectively nothing to see here, when the News Media Association and the National Union of Journalists have both said that this potentially represents a threat to the freedom of the press, and both have asked for the Government to consult them on the changes. Once again, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and the Prime Minister are missing in action in this House, but I wonder whether the Minister could tell us what action she thinks they would have taken, as former journalists, if they had found themselves excluded from a No. 10 lobby briefing.
Chloe Smith
I think the hon. Lady knows—or she should know, or she will come to know—that, as a Minister at the Dispatch Box, I speak for myself and I do not need to speak for two more senior colleagues. I speak for myself as part of the Government—as part of collective responsibility. Therefore, all Ministers are part of the same message, and that message is absolutely clear here today. It is that we run routine lobby procedures that are more than adequate for ensuring that, if they wish to, everybody with a press pass can ask any question of the Prime Minister’s official spokesperson. That is how that operates, and we are supplementing that with the additional briefings, which I have now mentioned many times. [Interruption.] I am sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker, if this is coming across as boring to some opposition Members, but it is the fact.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
The Prime Minister’s head of communications, who is a political appointee, tried to fix access to a briefing by David Frost, who is a civil service appointee. That is such a breach of protocol that the entire press lobby refused to attend that little soiree. Can the Minister confirm that Sir Mark Sedwill, the Cabinet Secretary, will be investigating this matter?
Chloe Smith
I am afraid the hon. Gentleman has his facts wrong. Mr David Frost is a political appointee.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
The Scotsman journalist Paris Gourtsoyannis tweeted that Downing Street did not tell Scottish or regional journalists about the briefing. Can the Minister tell me why she does not value Scottish media? Does she agree that is difficult to report outside the Westminster bubble if the Government do not invite Scottish journalists?
Chloe Smith
I have already answered that point a few times. Again, the answer is that, under the lobby arrangements, any member of the lobby with a press pass is more than welcome to put any question to the Government. That goes for journalists from any corner of our United Kingdom. We on the Government Benches are a Unionist party, and we think that that it should be more than possible to run that kind of practice across the nations of our wonderful country. We welcome close co-operation between the people and the press of Scotland and every other part of our United Kingdom, which I hope will stay united. Again, all of that is supplemented by what we are offering as technical briefings, which I hope can be read as spreading across the Union in that way.
Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)
I was interested to hear the Minister refer to the people’s PMQs on Facebook and engagement on social media as some sort of alternative to proper scrutiny of the Government’s decisions by the press lobby. The Prime Minister cannot even answer what shampoo he uses in the people’s PMQs on Facebook. Why is he running scared?
Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)
The Minister has the unenviable task of coming to the House to answer this urgent question, and implying that something that resulted in journalists walking out en masse is perfectly ordinary and nothing to be concerned about. One of her critical defences is, “Well, everybody else did it before we did it, but there’s nothing wrong with it anyway”, which is concerning in and of itself. As a former civil servant, will the Minister tell the House emphatically whether the civil service code was left intact after yesterday’s decision —yes or no?
Chloe Smith
I am a little confused by the hon. Gentleman’s question. I do not know whether he thinks I am a former civil servant, but I am happy to make it clear that I am not. Forgive me, I do not know his biography—[Interruption.] He is a former civil servant; I see. In that case, I am delighted to hear from him given his experience. The only thing I can say is what I have already said—that the person who was providing the briefing was a political appointee, David Frost, and that it is not uncommon for senior civil servants to brief the media on a range of technical issues. The rest of his point goes to questions about codes that are not relevant because of my clarification as to Mr Frost’s status.
Stephen Farry (North Down) (Alliance)
From the Minister’s previous role in the Northern Ireland Office, she will be aware that a major public inquiry will report shortly, covering—among other things—the role, conduct and behaviour of special advisers. In terms of Whitehall, what can the Minister say to reassure the House that special advisers cannot give directions to civil servants, and that there is a culture in which civil servants can safely resist inappropriate instructions that they are given by special advisers?
Chloe Smith
I am grateful for that question. As the hon. Member notes, there is much road ahead in Northern Ireland in the restoration of the institutions and the work that goes alongside that. All the codes that buttress our public work—whether for the civil service or special advisers—remain as they were and will be upheld.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
May I advise the Minister that if she is trying to come across as representing a Government who are in favour of freedom of expression and freedom of the press, it is not a particularly good look for each question to be preceded by somebody from the Whips Office scurrying along the green Benches, desperately handing out crib sheets to tell Government Back Benchers what questions to ask and not to ask?
This is the Government who responded to critical coverage on Channel 4 by suggesting that Channel 4 should be closed down, and who responded to critical coverage from the BBC by suggesting scrapping the licence fee—effectively closing down the BBC—so the media have good cause to be concerned. As far as I can tell, the Minister’s excuses are twofold. The first is that it was a specialist briefing; so, presumably the journalists who were thrown out were not clever enough or specialist enough to understand it. The second is that somehow only certain newspaper readers would be interested in what was to be reported. Who decides what the press are interested in reporting? Surely freedom of the press means that the editor decides what the readership are interested in, not the Prime Minister.
Chloe Smith
And that is why we have lobby arrangements whereby every editor—any journalist—with a press pass is more than able to ask any question they like of the Government.
Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
The briefing that took place was on our future relationship with the European Union. My constituency is in Aberdeen, which is projected to be the hardest-hit city in the entire UK as a result of Brexit, yet the Westminster correspondent for the Aberdeen’s local Press and Journal was not invited. Indeed, no Scottish lobbyists were invited to that briefing. Does the contempt that this Government show to Scotland now extend to our press corps too?
Chloe Smith
No, it does not, because we are proudly serving the people of Scotland in ensuring our future prosperity and opportunity through the negotiations on our future relationship that we are conducting with the European Union. I have every hope that the outcome will be as good for the hon. Member’s constituents as it is for my constituents and constituents represented across the Chamber. It is right and proper that it is the United Kingdom Government who do this on behalf of the whole country, and can be held fully to account here in the Chamber and through the very many channels that I have spoken about throughout this urgent question.
Paterson Inquiry
(4 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Ms Nadine Dorries)
This morning the independent inquiry into the issues raised by the disgraced surgeon, Ian Paterson, published its report. The inquiry was tasked with reviewing the circumstances surrounding the jailed surgeon’s malpractice that affected so many patients in the most appalling way. As the report states, between 1997 and 2011, Paterson saw 6,617 patients, of whom 4,077 underwent a surgical procedure in the independent sector. Between 1998 and 2011, Paterson saw 4,424 patients at the Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust, of whom 1,207 underwent mastectomy.
The report contains a shocking and sobering analysis of the circumstances surrounding Ian Paterson’s malpractice. It sets out the failures in the NHS, the independent sector, and the regulatory and indemnity systems. As a result of these failures, patients suffered unnecessary harm. Their testimony in the report makes harrowing and appalling reading. As such, it is with deep regret that we acknowledge the failure of the entire healthcare system to protect patients from Ian Paterson’s malpractice and to remedy the harms.
Nothing I can say today can lessen the horrendous suffering that patients and their families experienced and continue to go through. I can only start to imagine the sense of violation and betrayal of patients who put their trust in Ian Paterson when they were at their most vulnerable. That the inquiry reports today—World Cancer Day—makes this all the more poignant. I apologise on behalf of the Government and the NHS for what happened, not least that Ian Paterson was able to practise unchecked for so long. I pay tribute to the bravery of all the former patients who came forward to tell their stories to the inquiry, and whose anonymised accounts have been recorded in the report. The report will make for difficult reading, as it highlights the human cost of our failure to detect and put a stop to Ian Paterson’s malpractice.
There was a catalogue of failings that resulted in harm to thousands of patients, causing devastation to countless lives. Some of these patients were let down several times, not least by the providers and the regulatory system that should have protected them, and by the failure of the medical indemnity system to provide any kind of redress at the first time of asking. From the outset, Bishop Graham wanted patients and their families to be central to the inquiry’s work and to be heard. It was right, therefore, that patients and their families saw the report first, early this morning, shortly before it was presented to Parliament.
Two aspects of the report are particularly striking to me: that the various regulatory bodies failed in their main tasks; and the absence of curiosity by those in positions of authority in the healthcare providers in the face of concerns voiced by other healthcare professionals. The report presents a tangled set of processes. Accountability was not exercised when it should have been. Some of the problems arose from not following through on established procedures, as opposed to insufficient procedures being in place.
We must take full responsibility for what happened in the past if we are to provide reassurance to patients about their protection in the future. I am therefore very grateful that the suite of recommendations, based on the patient journey, presents a route map for Government. The recommendations are extremely sensible and we will study them in detail. I can promise the House a full response in a few months’ time. That response will need to consider the answer to some very important questions that cut right across the healthcare sector. Unequivocally, regardless of where patients are treated and regardless of how their care is funded, all patients should be confident that the care they receive is safe, that it meets the highest standards with appropriate protections, and that they are supported by clinicians to make informed decisions about the most appropriate course of care.
I am very aware that this is not the first time that regulatory failure has been highlighted in an inquiry report. We have done much to make the NHS a safer system in recent years: revalidation, a reformed Care Quality Commission, and work by the Independent Healthcare Providers Network to establish the medical practitioners assurance framework to oversee medical practitioners in the independent acute sector. In the case of Ian Paterson, the system did not work for patients. Recent events at Spire Healthcare show that there are still serious problems to address. Patient safety is a continual process of vigilance and improvement. The inquiry does not jump to a demand for the NHS and the independent sector to invent multiple new processes; it says that they must get the basics right, implement existing processes, and ensure that all professional people behave better and take responsibility.
Last summer, NHS Improvement and I published a new patient safety strategy, led by the national patient safety director, Dr Aidan Fowler. It focused on better culture, systems and regulation—very sensible and familiar words, yet all things that this inquiry says were not delivered. What we need now is action across the NHS and its regulatory bodies, and the same determination to change in the independent sector.
We are absolutely committed to ensuring that lessons are learned and acted on from the findings of this shocking inquiry, in the interests of enhancing patient protection and safety both in the NHS and the independent sector. For today, I apologise again on behalf of the Government and the NHS, and send my heartfelt sympathy to the patients and their families for the suffering they have endured.
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Minister for advance sight of her statement. I welcome her apology on behalf of the Government and the national health service. I agree that the issues raised in this report are, as she says, shocking, serious and harrowing. Our thoughts are naturally with all the innocent victims of Ian Paterson. As the Minister rightly acknowledged, today is indeed World Cancer Day. We all know that a cancer diagnosis is frightening. When we hand ourselves, or a loved one, over to the care of a medical professional, we are literally trusting them with our lives. For that trust to be callously betrayed for financial gain is unforgivable, and indeed, as it has been found, criminal. I associate myself with the Minister’s remarks in paying tribute to all the patients—all the victims—for their bravery in speaking out. I thank all those who have represented them, including the various legal firms such as Thompsons, and thank Bishop Graham for putting together this report.
The findings from the inquiry were published at 12 noon today, so the House will want time to fully digest and reflect on the recommendations. However, I think we all agree that while we cannot undo the awful harm that Paterson’s criminal action has caused to so many, lessons must be learned and changes made so that something so heinous does not happen again. This report must not remain on a shelf to be forgotten, because it is clear that this was not just the action of one rogue lone surgeon; systemic organisational failures were at fault as well.
Fundamentally, it is time that we addressed the question of safety in private healthcare providers and the way in which clinicians are able to operate in private providers with little oversight. Paterson worked under the so-called practising privileges model, effectively as a self-employed contractor whereby people get a fee on top of their NHS salary for each funded NHS operation carried out in the private sector. Moreover, private hospitals would often, and still often, incentivise referrals from consultants by giving them, for example, shares in those private hospitals. This model creates financial incentives to distort clinical decision making and can lead to over-treatment, as we saw in the Paterson case. Indeed, as the Minister said, earlier this month something similar happened at Spire Healthcare when it was forced to recall hundreds of patients amid concerns over operations carried out by another surgeon.
The inquiry makes a number of recommendations and it is right that we reflect on them, but what is clear is that we need full transparency and accountability. I hope the Government mandate health bodies to quickly implement many of these recommendations. The fight that patients had to go through for compensation is, quite frankly, shameful. Surely it is time that private hospitals employed surgeons directly and required them to be fully liable for their actions. In that way, we would resolve the liability loophole.
About a third of all private hospital income now comes from the NHS for hip replacements, hernia procedures, cataract procedures and so on. Yet safety standards in the private sector leave much to be desired. Unlike in an NHS hospital where there are multi-disciplinary teams on standby to deal with potential complications post-op, in the private sector, post-operative care for patients is often left in the hands of a single junior doctor—a resident medical officer often working many hours, 24/7. In private hospitals there are few critical care facilities available if something goes wrong. Indeed, many patients are often referred back to an NHS hospital when complications occur. In 2018, the previous Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt), wrote to the private hospital sector telling it to get its house in order on patient safety.
Patient safety must always be a priority. If this demands legislation to change the regulation of private hospitals, I hope the Minister can bring such legislation forward. We would work with her constructively to ensure that it finds its way on to the statute book. It is time to take these issues in the private sector seriously, and we will be happy to work with the Government on that front.
Ms Dorries
The hon. Gentleman raises many issues that we can agree on. I am not here to defend the private sector, but I would like to reiterate that women were affected both in the national health service and in the private sector. It does not take into consideration the suffering of those women in the NHS if we just focus on one particular area.
The CQC has had a duty with regard to the private sector since 2015. These cases took place between 1997 and 2011. In 2012, the CQC introduced the revalidation system for doctors, with responsible officers attached to each organisation and an appraisal process that consultants and doctors go through to assess their performance. That happened in 2012 and was introduced by the General Medical Council.
In 2014, we instructed the CQC to appraise the private sector in the same way and hold the private sector to the same standards as the NHS. As I said, I am not here to defend the private sector, but in the CQC examination it came out as good, and I believe that Spire scored 85%.
The hon. Gentleman is right—this is about patient safety and all providers raising their game. As I said, healthcare providers and healthcare professionals have a responsibility to speak out. The time that it took from complaints being made about Paterson to action being taken was too long. We need people in the NHS and the private sector to speak up, to listen and to act more quickly. That is one issue we want to take forward. I will take all his points on board. There is much we agree on. As I said, I am not here to defend the private sector, but women in the NHS suffered as well.
Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)
I thank the Minister and shadow Minister for the tone and content of their comments.
Scores of women and their families in Solihull have been dramatically affected by Paterson, who chose—for want of a better word—to experiment on his patients, seemingly for personal profit, ruining and shortening lives. They want to know that this can never happen again, with proper measures taken and recommendations followed. Does the Minister have confidence in the new whistleblowing procedure at Spire Healthcare? Is she, like me, disquieted to hear that the same hospital is currently reviewing 217 cases regarding another doctor, Habib Rahman, who is under suspension?
Ms Dorries
My hon. Friend is right; Rahman has been suspended. He is not practising at the Spire group. However, he is still in a non-patient facing role at the trust, and we are querying that.
My hon. Friend is right to say that this has been harrowing, and many women were affected. I do not think I can give him a guarantee that this would never happen again, because for that to happen we would have to have somebody reviewing every single appointment, operation and case that any doctor undertook. We have a process in place now that was not in place then. The CQC was not inspecting the private sector then, and it was not inspecting the NHS robustly enough. That has now changed. We also have the revalidation system, brought in by the General Medical Council in 2012 after Paterson. It is really important to point out that Paterson is in jail and has been for some time. This inquiry came after Paterson had gone to jail, and the purpose of the inquiry is learning, so that we can look at the recommendations and improve our service to patients in both the NHS and the private sector as a result.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
Having been a breast cancer surgeon for 33 years, I find this case heartbreaking, and I can only apologise on behalf of the profession. The hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) highlighted that the way in which women were treated after the event and the fact that they had to fight for help and compensation added insult to injury.
As the Minister said, this was not a failure of processes not existing; it was a failure of processes that were not enforced. This scandal went on for 14 years, which highlights a failure to listen to people who raised concerns early on and the fact that there was a power differential between Paterson and people who were raising concerns. It should have been striking that his rate of surgery was so much higher among his private patients than his NHS patients. His practice was not being looked at within NHS quality audits, which might have shown that up. What will the Government do to ensure that all units are taking part in national audits, which faded away over the last decade, and in Getting it Right First Time, so that units cannot just opt out? Will that be rolled out to the independent sector, to ensure that units take part in national audits?
Breast cancer is a multidisciplinary team specialty, but we have to do a 360° appraisal only every five years. To me, that is the most telling and most important part of appraisal, and the Government should look at that part of appraisal being made more frequent and, again, being extended to private hospitals.
The Health Service Safety Investigations Body is currently envisaged as working only in NHS hospitals and for NHS patients treated in independent hospitals. Surely the Government recognise that the Bill legislating for that will need to be amended, to ensure that the HSSIB can investigate across the piece.
Once again, we come back to whistleblowers who have raised concerns, have not been listened to and have been suffering detriment, and an opportunity to stop Paterson many years earlier has been missed. What reforms are the Government planning genuinely to support whistleblowers? I am presenting a private Member’s Bill tomorrow, because we need a root-and-branch reform of how whistleblowers are treated.
Ms Dorries
The hon. Lady raises a wide range of issues, which I will try to go through. First, I reassure her that, at the time Paterson was practising, the CQC was not investigating or assessing the private sector; that was introduced in 2015. Whistleblowing was in an entirely different place from where it is now. We now have 500 lanyard-wearing national guardians across the NHS, and we encourage people to raise their concerns with those national guardians, the guardians to listen and the trust to act quickly on the concerns raised. I think it is fair to say, that since 2012, when the CQC introduced revalidation, a number of regulatory processes have been put in place. There was shockingly little at the time that Paterson was practising. The system is now much more robust—and yet, I completely take her point; much more still needs to be done.
We are learning the lessons from Getting it Right First Time. In fact, that is a subject of discussion within the Department. We are looking at how the lessons have been applied and what we can learn.
The hon. Lady is right about revalidation and 365° appraisal every five years. As she will know, the CQC is an independent body. It introduced revalidation and appraisal. Our job is now to ask the CQC to make that system more robust and look at how to improve it, because that is an important part of the equation, ensuring that something like this does not happen again. I say here and now at the Dispatch Box that I would like the CQC, as a matter of urgency, to look at how it can make that system more robust and effective, so that we can quickly identify doctors—not those like the hon. Lady—who are not up to standard, who are outliers and who should not be practising.
We will look at the hon. Lady’s point about the HSSIB. I do not think that there is a role for the HSSIB in the private sector. The private sector is a matter of personal choice. It is our job to ensure that healthcare reaches the same standard across the board, whether it is in the private sector or the NHS. The CQC does that, and that is how we hold the private sector to account. Then it is down to patients to make the choice about where they wish to be treated; that is their independent choice. That is a matter of consent, which is something else we need to look at—how do conversations about consent take place? Does the patient have the capacity to take in the information being given to them? Are they making an informed choice? Do they have enough information about the surgeon they are seeing to make the right choice? Those are the issues we need to focus on.
Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)
If patients are to be kept safe, several things need to be true. First, as the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) said, medical professionals who have concerns about the practice of other medical professionals need to have their concerns properly listened to. Is it not therefore a matter of serious concern that four of the six whistleblowers in this case—one of whom I have the privilege to represent in this place—found themselves subject to fitness-to-practise reviews after reporting their concerns?
Secondly, is it not right that medical organisations—public or private—need to act on those concerns? It is profoundly troubling that concerns were reported to the Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust in 2003, but it did not suspend Paterson until 2011.
Thirdly, is it not important that regulators do what they need to do? It is also profoundly troubling that concerns about Paterson’s malpractice were reported to the GMC in 2007, and his suspension by the GMC came only in 2012.
Ms Dorries
I would like to make an apology. I mentioned the CQC in response to the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford)—the acronyms!—but it was the GMC.
My right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right. I reiterate that Paterson is in jail, and that the processes now in the regulatory framework did not exist at the time Paterson was practising. The culture towards whistleblowers is very different now from what it was then, as demonstrated by the roll-out of the national guardians scheme. The national guardians are there for whistleblowers to go to. We want—we absolutely want—people to report when they think somebody is acting inappropriately, or a surgeon or doctor is not practising to the standards they should be. We want to know that as soon as possible. There will be no investigations of whistleblowers’ fitness to practise; that will apply to the people they are reporting. I do not think the national guardians scheme has had enough press or that people are aware enough of it. It is about speaking up, listening and then the trust acting on the information it has. One of the outcomes of this report will be that we can reassure both healthcare professionals and the public that we want them to speak up. We actually want them to be a whistleblower because only by doing that can we guarantee patient safety.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
I think all of us are shocked to hear that patients have been let down yet again over these events. I was surprised that the Minister did not refer in her opening comments to the Health Service Safety Investigations Bill. I want to back up what the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford), who speaks for the SNP, said. Along with her, I was involved in the draft scrutiny of the Bill in the previous Parliament, and it is very clear now that the Bill needs to be extended to include the private or independent sector. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to give us good news about when the Bill will be brought before the House.
Ms Dorries
I hope the Bill will be brought before the House in the autumn. As I have said, we got the report only this morning, and we need to look at the recommendations. I am sure her suggestion will be one of the recommendations that we will look at in detail. I got the report myself only a couple of hours ago, so we need to study the recommendations. We will report back to the House in three to four months’ time about the report itself.
Saqib Bhatti (Meriden) (Con)
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight), my constituency neighbour, I too have many constituents who suffered at the hands of Ian Paterson. On Saturday, I met survivors of this awful ordeal, and there are no easy words. I thank the Minister and the shadow Secretary of State for their sobering words. Will the Minister join me in commending the survivors for their bravery, and does she agree that there have been serious failings on the part of the Spire hospital? What assurances can we give the survivors that we will take heed of this report, and what more should we do to ensure that this is never allowed to happen again?
Ms Dorries
I thank my hon. Friend, and if I did not do so in my opening statement I would like to thank the patients, the survivors and the groups that have helped those survivors. I also thank Bishop Graham James, who has provided us with such a thorough and detailed report, with seriously robust and practical recommendations to take forward. Again, I can only give my assurance that we will read this report and study it carefully. If there is anything we can do as a result of the recommendations that will enhance and guarantee patient safety, we will, because patient safety is a paramount concern for us in the Department of Health and Social Care. It is absolutely at the top of our agenda, and we will be taking this forward.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
In the Minister’s statement, she referred to two striking aspects of the report: the failures of a number of regulatory bodies, and the absence of general interest in the concerns raised by the very people in a position to take action. Sadly, the inquiry suggests that such a case could occur again. Given that the Government have promised to provide a full response to the inquiry in three to four months’ time—I believe that is what she said—how will the Government work with the devolved Administrations to ensure that all health services can take up the same safeguards?
Ms Dorries
I am sure we will work with the devolved Administrations in the normal way we do with all healthcare policy. Again, I give my assurances that we will be taking the recommendations and studying them seriously.
Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)
Ultimately, this is all about behaviour—not just the criminal behaviour of Ian Paterson, but the behaviour of the professionals and the wider health establishment that came into contact with him. I associate myself with the comments of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright) about the behaviour towards the whistleblowers. Frankly, they faced intimidation, and we saw exactly the same thing at Gosport when whistleblowers reported to the Nursing & Midwifery Council. I would like to put it on record that it is high time this Government challenged the self-regulatory aspects of both the NMC and the GMC, if we are really to consider and improve patient safety.
Ms Dorries
I thank my predecessor in my post for her comments. She did an amazing job, and I am sure she will have been involved in this at the time. She is absolutely right: whistleblowers, we want you! We want them to speak up and to speak out; we want people to listen; and we want to act. However, she is also right that there is still a culture among staff within the NHS and the independent sector of reluctance to speak out, to listen and to act, and we need to change that culture. The culture now has to be that we want whistleblowers to speak out, and we want trusts to listen and to take their concerns seriously, because we want to act.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
What has happened is horrific, and my heart goes out to all the people who have been affected, but surely this could not have happened without the collusion of others. It is not just a question of turning a blind eye; there must have been others involved. What has been done to investigate those individuals? Is the Minister clear that whistleblowers have a sufficient pathway to independent investigators outside an organisation? Quite often, it is very difficult within an organisation and it takes someone very brave to go to a senior manager and whistleblow. Is she confident that whistleblowers have access to independent ears to bring their concerns to light?
Ms Dorries
The national guardians scheme involves 500 healthcare professionals, who are identified by their lanyards alone to show that they are people to whom whistleblowers can speak both independently and in complete confidence. I think that is important because those people are in the NHS—the private sector has rolled out its own similar system—and people can see them, identify them and act immediately. Sometimes things are left for another time or place, but when people see somebody act inappropriately or in a way they should not, we want to know that they speak out about it immediately.
I will say it again: we want people to speak up, we want trusts and the private sector to listen, and then we want to act. It is the case that we can change this culture and let whistleblowers know that we will protect them. We also have a line at the Department for people to ring in on, because we want to hear from them.[Official Report, 12 February 2020, Vol. 671, c. 10MC.] There is only one way we can guarantee patient safety, and that is to know where inappropriate practice is taking place so that we can stop it. We absolutely open our door to whistle- blowers, and we want to hear what they have to say.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Can the Minister explain under what circumstances this criminal behaviour was finally exposed? Has anybody from the regulatory side been sacked as a result of their abject failure to discover it earlier?
Ms Dorries
There was actually quite a long process. As I say, Paterson practised between 1997 and 2011, and there was quite a long process of reporting and of concerns being raised about his behaviour and his practice. Eventually, somebody listened; I believe that it was a new chief executive at the Spire hospital trust at the time.[Official Report, 12 February 2020, Vol. 671, c. 10MC.] Somebody spoke out to him, he looked at the history of what had happened and he decided to take action. That is not good enough, however, because reports had been made on a number of occasions previously. In fact, there were two reports. One, by a consultant, looked at 100 of his cases in 2011, but no action was taken. Another report, by another NHS consultant, downplayed and focused on the wrong elements of Paterson’s care, and it took somebody to speak to a new chief executive for action to be taken. The process was all wrong, but that is how it was then, and it is very different now.
As I have said, the GMC has introduced revalidation and appraisal. We have been speaking to it, and we want it to make that process more robust so that we can assess doctors in a more appropriate and frequent way. The CQC is holding the private sector to account, as well as the NHS. Those of us who have been here for more than a few years know that a few years ago the CQC was not the organisation that it is today, and it is now much more robust and effective. We therefore hope that we can pick up cases such as this as they happen. However, the only way to crack patient safety in this country is if somebody who is practising alongside a surgeon, doctor or nurse speaks out, and for those to whom they speak to listen, so that we can act.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for her remarks. I welcome her mention of culture and cultural change, but I wish to push her a little further. She spoke about cultural change in relation to whistleblowers, but that is after something has gone wrong. I would like junior clinicians to feel able to challenge senior clinicians before something has gone wrong. Is anything happening to shift the culture, so that a culture of learning is encouraged among senior clinicians, and so that they welcome challenges and questioning from junior clinicians, in order to prevent something such as this from happening?
Ms Dorries
I am totally with the hon. Lady, and as a nurse myself, I know that that happens with senior nurses, not only senior doctors, because there is the same culture of fear, and of not wanting to challenge a superior who is more experienced in what they are doing. Such a change cannot happen overnight. It will take time, but I think it is already happening as a result of increased confidence. We have recently had a few inquiries, and I think patients now have more confidence to speak out. Under the national guardians scheme, whistleblowers have more confidence to speak out. I think that cultural change is happening, and last week I visited a hospital where I saw that in process.
Our job is to ensure that we introduce whatever needs to be put in place. No one is God. When I trained as a nurse, doctors were like God, but that is not true; that is not the case. This has been a long road, and we need to challenge that culture even further. Those who have been practising for some time are esteemed, and we value their experience. We value those people, but we must also break the culture that means they are not to be challenged. Making the revalidation and appraisal system more robust is one way to do that.
Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)
I thank the Minister for her heartfelt apology for what has happened, and for her commitment to patient safety. Does she agree that there are clear commonalities between this case and other tragedies, such as those at Morecambe Bay and Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust? As the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) said, there is an imbalance of power between male consultants, and in this case female patients, who often just accept what they are told by a more powerful figure.
Ms Dorries
This day is about the victims of Paterson and the women he treated, and I do not want to detract from that by going down another road and talking about another inquiry. My hon. Friend is right: often women are those most affected by these issues, which is why I spoke about the importance of consent. We as a Department must consider how such consent is gained, and I think the Cumberlege report, which we are expecting to come to Parliament soon, will help with that.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
No amount of money can repair the suffering of Paterson’s patients and their families, but an inability to pay for treatment or support that might mitigate that suffering can make an already horrific situation even more difficult. Will the Minister look at the adequacy of medical indemnity cover for healthcare professionals, whether they work in the NHS or in the private sector?
Ms Dorries
The Government are currently undertaking a review of the clinical negligence indemnity cover market, to determine whether wider regulation is an appropriate means of addressing concerns in the market. As part of that they are consulting on the viability of introducing professional or financial regulation, or a combination of both.
Points of Order
(4 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Today the Prime Minister is holding an important strategy meeting about COP26—a meeting that many think should have been held before the former President of the COP was appointed, never mind sacked. Have you received any indication from the Government that a statement will be made in the House about perhaps the most important issue facing our country over the next 12 months, which is the climate conference in Glasgow in December? We want to be absolutely bipartisan and ensure that that conference is a success, but we need it to be discussed and debated in this place. The Government must be open with us about the strategy that they want to adopt, so that we can back them and ensure that we achieve the real objectives of the COP.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving me notice of his point of order. I am sure that those on the Treasury Bench will have heard his kind offer and his request for a statement to be made, but I have received no notification about a statement.
Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wish to raise a point of order about the Minister’s response to my urgent question on universal credit earlier today, because I believe he may have inadvertently misled the House. I understand that he was defending the Secretary of State from the beleaguered position and shambles that the Department found itself in, which led to the need for the urgent question, and I have informed the Chair and the Minister in question of my intention to raise this point of order.
The Minister first said that he had informed the House about this issue “yesterday”, and went on to say that he had written to the Chair of a yet-to-be-appointed Select Committee in order to do so. Do you believe, Madam Deputy Speaker, that that is informing the House about a major change to our social security system such as this delay to universal credit? My understanding after five years in this House is that properly informing the House is done by a written ministerial statement, or by an oral ministerial statement.
I have since been advised that last night the Minister sent round a “dear colleague” letter, but that is still not informing the House because the Whip’s assistant to whom that letter was sent in our Whips’ Office has been off ill, and I am still to receive a copy. It appears that Ministers sent that letter to people as an afterthought, rather than as a proactive way of informing the House. Do you expect Ministers to inform the House via statements, Madam Deputy Speaker, as I believe has normally been the practice, rather than by letters that can be lost, and do you expect the Minister to clarify the remarks that he earlier put on the record?
Madam Deputy Speaker
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving me notice of his point of order. He raised a number of issues about what the Minister said and subsequently did, and I am sure that the Minister will want to check the record of what he said in response to the urgent question. Having looked at the record, if the Minister considers that anything he said was in any way inaccurate, he will want to put the record straight and issue a ministerial correction in the usual way. It is important to be clear about what was actually said and subsequently done.
NHS Funding Bill
Tuesday 4th February 2020
(4 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Legislative Grand Committee (England) Amendments as at 4 February 2020 - (4 Feb 2020)
17:32 - The Committee having divided: - Ayes: 163 / Noes: 300 - Question accordingly negatived.
18:03 - The Committee having divided: - Ayes: 161 / Noes: 298 - Question accordingly negatived.
18:23 - The Committee divided: - Ayes: 162 / Noes: 298 - Question accordingly negatived.
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I remind hon. Members that if there is a Division only Members representing constituencies in England may vote.
Clause 1
Funding Settlement for the health service in England
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 2, page 1, line 10, at end insert—
“(1A) The amount spent on mental health services in each financial year set out in the table must be set out in a statement laid before the House of Commons by the Secretary of State no later than 30 June in each year.
(1B) The statement in subsection (1A) must be accompanied by a statement on the Secretary of State’s plans to achieve parity of esteem in mental health services.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to report annually on the amount actually spent on mental health services, and on the Secretary of State’s plans to achieve parity of esteem in mental health services.
The First Deputy Chairman
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 1, page 1, line 14, at end insert—
“(2A) For each year in the table in subsection (1), the Secretary of State must specify the amount of the allotment that is for mental health services.”
This amendment requires the Secretary of State to specify the amount to be spent each year on mental health services.
Amendment 5, page 1, line 14, at end insert—
“(2A) For each year in the table in subsection (1), the Secretary of State must specify the amount of the allotment that is for training for staff to improve maternity safety and care for mothers and babies.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to specify the amount to be spent each year on improving maternity safety and care for mothers and babies.
Amendment 3, page 1, line 18, at end insert—
“and that the sums set out in the table are not permitted to be augmented by or composed of any virements from NHS capital budgets.”
This amendment would stop the Secretary of State meeting the NHS England allotment for resource spending by using funds from NHS capital budgets.
Clauses 1 and 2 stand part.
New clause 1—Annual report on mental health spending—
“The Secretary of State must lay before the House of Commons an annual statement of the outturn of NHS England spending on mental health services no later than six months after the end of each financial year, beginning with the year ending 31 March 2020 and up to and including the year ending 31 March 2024.”
This new clause requires the Secretary of State to report each year on the actual level of spending on mental health services.
New clause 2—Annual Report on Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services spending—
“(1) The Secretary of State must lay before the House of Commons an annual statement of the outturn of NHS England spending on Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) no later than six months after the end of each financial year, beginning with the year ending 31 March 2020 and up to and including the year ending 31 March 2024.
(2) The annual statement from subsection (1) must report figures on—
(a) CAMHS expenditure per head,
(b) the percentage of the annual NHS England budget allotted to CAMHS, and
(c) the percentage of the annual mental health budget allotted to CAMHS.
(3) The figures in subsection (2) must be broken down by standard regional units in England or by such territories as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.
(4) Each statement under subsection (1) must include an assessment by the Secretary of State on whether expenditure on CAMHS has met the aims of the NHS Long Term Plan.”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to report each year on the actual level of spending on CAMHS. It requires figures to be broken down by regional units and for the Secretary of State to include an assessment of whether expenditure on CAMHS is meeting the aims of the NHS Long Term Plan.
New clause 3—Allocation of funding—
“The Secretary of State must lay a report before the House of Commons no later than 31 July each year setting out how much in percentage and in cash terms in relation to the amounts set out at section 1(1) has been spent on mental health services in the most recent year ended on 31 March.”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to report annually on the amount and proportion of NHS England spending devoted to mental health services.
New clause 4—Annual statement on performance—
“The Secretary of State must make a statement to the House of Commons no later than 31 March each year setting out—
(a) whether in the Secretary of State’s opinion the amount specified in section 1(1) for the following financial year is sufficient to meet the performance targets set out in the NHS constitution, and
(b) if in the Secretary of State’s opinion the amount specified in section 1(1) for the following financial year is not sufficient to meet the performance targets set out in the NHS constitution, what steps Secretary of State is taking to ensure that those targets are met.”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to report annually on whether the allotment to the health service specified in section 1(1) year is sufficient to meet the performance targets set out in the NHS Constitution and, if not, what steps Secretary of State is taking to ensure that those targets are met.
New clause 5—Inflation—
“(1) The Secretary of State must make a statement to the House of Commons in the event that the annual rate of inflation as set out in the Consumer Prices Index is greater than 3.3% in any six months out of twelve after the date on which this Act is passed.
(2) The statement under subsection (1) must specify whether, and by how much, the allotments to the health service in England set out will exceed the amount specified in the table in section 1(1).”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to make a statement on the impact of inflation above a certain rate on the allotments to NHS England.
New clause 9—Annual parity of esteem report: spending on mental health and mental illness—
“Within six weeks of the end of each financial year specified in the table, the Secretary of State must lay before each House of Parliament a report on the ways in which the allotment made to NHS England for that financial year contributed to the promotion in England of a comprehensive health service designed to secure improvement—
(a) in the mental health of the people of England, and
(b) in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of mental illness.”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to make an annual statement on how the funding received by mental health services that year from the overall annual allotment has contributed to the improvement of mental health and the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of mental illness.
New clause 11—Annual review of adequacy of allotment to NHS England—
“The Secretary of State must lay before each House of Parliament within 14 days of the Treasury laying the annual main estimate for the Department of Health and Social Care an assessment of the extent to which changes in the costs of pharmaceutical treatments, medical devices and service delivery since the date on which this Act is passed have affected the health outcomes in England achieved as a result of the amounts in the table in section 1 of this Act allotted to NHS England.”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to publish an annual assessment of the impact of changes in the costs of pharmaceutical treatments, medical devices and service delivery on the expected outcomes from the allotted amounts under this Act.
Justin Madders
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Dame Rosie. In my speech I will address amendment 2 and, as we are dealing with everything in one go, the other amendments and new clauses submitted in my name and the names of my right hon. Friends.
It seems that Members across the House are anxious that the Government’s laudable aims on parity of esteem for mental health services are given some legislative teeth. The NHS long-term plan rightly calls for more investment in mental health services to give mental health the same priority as physical health. That is the right approach and it is one that we support. However, as we can see by the amendments that have been tabled today, there is scepticism about how that will actually be delivered. Investment in mental health services has been seriously neglected in recent years and mental health patients are some of the people who have been most let down by the Government in the last decade.
No doubt we will hear from those on the Government Benches that mental health spending is increasing, and that the funding set out in the Bill will benefit mental health services, but the reality is that on this Government’s watch, we have seen a mental health crisis emerge. We are not getting the investment at the level required and services are simply unable to keep pace with demand. As a consequence, the number of people living with serious mental health problems is rising. Patients are unable to access vital psychological therapies within six weeks and often have to wait over 100 days for talking therapy treatments. Thousands of mental health patients continue to be sent hundreds of miles from home, because their local NHS does not have the beds or the staff to provide the care they need. These are often young people in desperate circumstances being sent away from their family and friends—their support network, as it were—and that to me sounds a long way away from parity of esteem. We know that adults in need of help with eating disorders are waiting more than three years for treatment, while hospital admissions for eating disorders increase year on year. The number of people living with serious mental health problems is continuing to rise and suicide levels are at their highest since 2002.
Even against this awful backdrop, however, it is children’s mental health services that are suffering most from the chronic lack of funding. Children’s mental health services account for just 8% of total mental health spending, and the Government’s continual failure to prioritise children’s mental health has led to services for children effectively being rationed. We know that on average, children and young people visit their GP three times before they get a referral for specialist assessment. They then have to wait more than six months for treatment to start. Suicidal children as young as 12 are having to wait more than two weeks for beds in mental health units to start treatment, despite the obvious risk to their lives.
Three out of four children with mental health conditions do not get the support they need. With over 130,000 referrals to specialist services turned down, despite children showing signs of eating disorders, self-harm or abuse, the problem has become so bad that some children and families are being told by their GPs to pretend that their mental health problem is worse than it is to make sure they get the help they need. Four hundred thousand children and young people with mental health conditions are not receiving any professional help at all—400,000. That is a scandalous figure. We know that mental health conditions in adults often begin in childhood, so it is not only an outrageous dereliction of duty to our young people; it will also end up costing the NHS and society far more in the long run.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
I do not want to detain the hon. Gentleman too long, because he is making a very good speech and very important points, but I just wonder whether he has any views about the setting of this debate in the Legislative Grand Committee, the de facto English Parliament. SNP Members are excluded from voting in this debate and excluded from tabling any amendments, yet the Bill will have a fundamental impact on the health funding of Scotland through Barnett consequentials. I am interested in his views on that process, so will he say something about them? Can we have Labour support, so that this nonsense stops and we go back to one class of MP in this House where everybody can participate equally?
Justin Madders
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I understand his frustration absolutely. I think he has a very fair point, Dame Rosie, that because of the Barnett consequentials there is a role for SNP Members—indeed, all Scottish and Welsh Members—in this debate. Clearly, that is a separate issue to the whole English votes for English laws process, but the fact is clear that on the face of the Bill there are Barnett consequentials, which mean that the devolved nations ought to have a say.
It is really no wonder, given the background I have just set out, that children are reaching a crisis point before getting the support they need, and that the number of children attending accident and emergency for their mental health in a situation of crisis is increasing year on year. That is not inevitable. With real investment, we could reverse the trend of long waits, rationed treatment and inadequate care if we allocated more of the NHS budget to mental health. As we know, mental health illnesses represent 23% of the total disease burden on the NHS, but just 11% of the NHS England budget. That is a long way off the parity of esteem that we all seek to achieve.
We know that the Government plan to put in an extra £2.3 billion a year by 2023-24, but that is not enough. The Institute for Public Policy Research has said that to achieve parity of esteem for mental health services, funding for those services needs to grow by 5.5% on average not just next year, but over the next decade. The NHS plans to spend £12.2 billion on mental health funding in 2019, but the IPPR estimates that that needs to reach 16.1 billion by 2023-24 alone.
Of course, we support the increased funding for mental health in the Bill, but we know the NHS has to live within the 3.3% uplift provided under the Bill. The Institute for Fiscal Studies, the Health Foundation, NHS providers, the British Medical Association and many of the royal colleges say that health expenditure should rise across the board by 3.4% just to maintain current standards of care. By definition, there will actually be less money for funding in other areas. That means there is a risk of further raids on the mental health budget. In previous years, money allocated to mental health services, particularly children and adolescent mental health services, has been diverted back to hospitals to deal with the crisis there.
Labour would have done what was desperately needed. We would have put in an extra £1.6 billion a year immediately into mental health services, ring-fenced mental health budgets and more than doubled spending on children’s mental health. That is why we are seeking to amend the Bill to ensure mental health services do not lose out because of other financial pressures in the system. We are calling on the Government to ensure that guarantees for mental health funding are protected by ring-fencing mental health funding. We also seek to require the Secretary of State to come to the House annually to report on the amounts and proportion of funding allocated to mental health services, and on their plans to achieve parity of esteem for mental health services.
On the Labour Benches we are not convinced that mental health is a priority for this Government, despite what they say. They may want to position themselves as the party of the NHS, but as long as they continue to neglect mental health and push services deeper into crisis, they will not come near that aim. We intend to push amendment 2 to a Division, because we want to hold the Government to account. We want transparency on mental health spending and we want a clear road map from the Secretary of State on how he intends to make parity of esteem a reality.
Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
I wonder if I could raise with my hon. Friend an example that I think makes his point, which is the state of NHS finances in north-west London, in particular of the acute hospital that serves my constituents, Northwick Park Hospital, and the clinical commissioning group. Both the trust and the CCG are over £30 million in deficit. As a result, they have cut back on community mental health services and, indeed, on a range of other things. Unless there is parity of esteem and unless there is a significantly higher funding boost for the NHS in north-west London than that currently being suggested by the Conservative party, I fear that mental health services, as he so rightly says, are likely to be cut even further.
Justin Madders
My hon. Friend sets out very clearly the challenge that the Government face from the debt situation in the NHS. Both in-year deficits and total debt to Government have not been addressed adequately or taken into account in the Bill and that is clearly of huge concern.
Amendment 5 deals with patient safety, which should be front and centre in the NHS. When things go wrong, as they sadly do from time to time, it can have tragic consequences for patients and their loved ones. When three in four baby deaths and injuries are preventable with different care, it seems particularly tragic when things go wrong during birth, leaving families devastated by the loss of a child or having to cope with the long-term impact. There have been many things over the years that I have disagreed with the previous Secretary of State—the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt)—about, but on Second Reading he raised the important issue of maternity safety training, calling on the current Health Secretary to reinstate the maternity safety fund. We absolutely agree with him on that, which is why we have tabled amendment 5.
Improved maternal health is one of four priority areas in the long-term plan for care quality and improved outcomes, and it includes action to achieve 50% reductions in stillbirth, maternal mortality, neonatal mortality and serious brain injury by the middle of the decade. As a party, we have pledged to legislate for safe staffing and to increase funding for NHS staff training, including reinstating the maternity training fund to help to improve maternity safety in our hospitals. The leaked interim report of the Ockenden review last year exposed widespread failures in maternity care at Shrewsbury and Telford hospital trusts and demonstrated, sadly, that Morecambe Bay was not a one-off.
An evaluation of maternity safety training from 2016 found that it had made a difference and improved patient safety, yet it was still axed. Just two years later, the “Mind the Gap” report found that fewer than 8% of trusts were providing all training elements and care needs in the “Saving Babies’ Lives” bundle and called for the maternity safety training fund to be immediately reinstated to address, as it said, the
“clear…inadequate funding for training”.
Given the clear evidence of the need for the training fund’s reinstatement, I very much regret that it is not within the scope of the Bill for us to submit an amendment to include its reinstatement. However, with the amendment we seek to put a greater spotlight on the issue, and hopefully, that will require the Government to set out how much they are spending on improving maternity safety and care for mothers and babies each year in order for them to demonstrate their commitment to improving maternity and foetal safety. I believe that that will enable us to judge and evaluate their commitment to those aims.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
It is not within the Bill’s scope to press the Government on the need to have funding restored to smoking cessation services so that they can have multimedia campaigns to reduce smoking in pregnancy and smoking generally. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is a shame that the Government cannot address that at this time?
Justin Madders
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: it is a matter of some regret that public health has not been included in the Bill. As we have said repeatedly, we have to look at the health system in the round and include public health and, of course, social care. We cannot deal with those matters in isolation and I believe that it was a mistake for the Government to restrict the Bill in this way.
Despite the many tragedies that we know about in maternity care, it is worth restating that we still have fantastic midwives and fantastic maternity care in this country. That is to be celebrated, but we also need to ensure that when things go wrong—when there are failures and safety issues—we address them and lessons are learned so that no more families have to experience such tragedies.
Amendment 3 is about genuinely giving trusts the certainty that the Bill only purports to do, as well as beginning to tackle the appalling maintenance backlog that has arisen on the Government’s watch. As we know, trusts are around £14 billion in debt to the Government and are currently predicting a £571 million in-year deficit. That is a truly shocking and unsustainable situation. Only short-term fixes have prevented the situation from getting even worse. Such fixes are a symptom of structural long-term underfunding, and like most short-term fixes they create bigger problems further down the road.
We have been absolutely clear that the funding settlement proposed in the Bill is inadequate and that it will not be enough to keep up with demand. As I said, that analysis is shared by just about every major health expert, including the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the Health Foundation, most royal colleges and NHS providers, and the BMA.
Gareth Thomas
In support of the case that my hon. Friend is making, I again mention Northwick Park Hospital, which serves my constituents. It has a huge maintenance backlog. Since the cancellation of the Government’s “Shaping a Healthier Future” NHS reform plan for north-west London in June last year—that programme of reform had been going on for seven years —there has also been no replacement money identified for investment in intensive treatment beds, an extra 30 of which are needed to help to tackle some of the problems in A&E at Northwick Park Hospital.
Justin Madders
My hon. Friend is again showing what an assiduous and determined constituency MP he is. He might want to look at the NHS providers’ report today, which sets out some of the challenges from the lack of a long-term capital investment programme. As we have heard, including from him and in relation to other various examples around the country, this is not just about a lick of paint, but about really vital work that impacts on patient care.
Alex Cunningham
When my hon. Friend talks about capital, I think of the hospital that was cancelled for my constituency by the Tory-Lib Dem Government 10 years ago. Does he share my opinion that when it comes to the capital programme and NHS funding, the Government should consider the life expectancy in different areas? In my constituency, it is 14 years lower than in the Prime Minister’s constituency, so I desperately need a new hospital for my area.
Justin Madders
I am sure that if my hon. Friend continues with his determined campaign, he will see that hospital appear. His point about health inequalities is really important. It is absolutely scandalous that we see such disparity in this country, and we want to see further and more determined action from the Government on that.
Patients ultimately pay for the increasing backlog. Between 2017-18 and 2018-19, there was a 25% increase in clinical service incidents. These incidents are caused by estate and infrastructure failure that leads to clinical services being delayed, cancelled or otherwise interfered with.
Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman is making some very fair points about the importance of investing in hospital infrastructure. A number of years ago, we were promised a paperless NHS, but the reality today is very different. In fact, NHS IT infrastructure is creaking at the seams. There has been a complete failure to invest adequately in that infrastructure, which is compromising patient care. Far too many staff hours are lost on IT systems that are not fit for purpose. Will he join me in urging the Government to take that issue very seriously, because it is about improving patient care as well as improving productivity and better using staff time?
Justin Madders
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. We have all heard horror stories of workers in the health service having to turn on seven or eight different computer systems and use fax machines and pagers— there were so many fax machines in the NHS I used to think the previous Health Secretary was sponsored by Rank Xerox. It is a serious point though. If we are to improve patient outcomes, we will need to move with the times and get the benefits of technological improvements.
Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)
My hon. Friend will agree on the importance of the Countess of Chester Hospital to his area and mine. It is quite a unique hospital, in that it was built to serve the people of Deeside in north Wales as well as Chester and the surrounding area, so is it not strange that, although many in my area rely on it, I will not be allowed to vote on the Bill today?
Justin Madders
My hon. Friend makes a pertinent point. Both my parents are residents of north Wales but on occasion use the Countess of Chester Hospital. This process does not take account of the reality on the ground. As I said before, the fact that there will be Barnett consequentials from the Bill suggests that we have made a serious error in not allowing those from the devolved nations to vote on it.
We know what some trusts have told us about the lack of capital investment and what that means on the frontline: Morecambe Bay has said it has “unsuitable” environments for safe clinical care that have led to the closure of its day case theatre; the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Lynn has warned of a direct risk to life and patient safety from the roof falling in; and at the Royal Derby Hospital, a failing emergency buzzer system in the children’s ward means that staff would be unable to warn colleagues if something went seriously wrong. That is not acceptable.
The capital maintenance backlog will not be addressed unless the Government take note of what NHS Providers says in the report that came out this morning. It talks about the need for the NHS to have a multi-year capital settlement and a commitment from the Government to bringing the NHS capital budget in line with those in comparable economies, which would allow the NHS to pay for essential maintenance work and invest in long-term transformational capital projects of the kind we have touched on. One of our criticisms of the Bill is that capital allocations have not been included in the figures in clause 1, so in order to protect those allocations we have tabled amendment 3, which we hope to push to a vote, to stop the Government’s continual sticking-plaster approach.
I move now to performance targets and our new clause 4. We all know about the record investment and record patient satisfaction levels that the last Labour Government bequeathed to the Conservatives, but another part of their legacy was the NHS constitution, introduced as part of a 10-year plan to provide the highest quality of care and services for patients in England. It included a clear statement of accountability, transparency and responsibility, and standards of care for accessing treatment. These are the figures we often trade across the Dispatch Box.
Only last month, across this very Dispatch Box, the Prime Minister gave us assurances on performance. He said:
“We will get those waiting lists down”—[Official Report, 15 January 2020; Vol. 669, c. 1015.]
We would all like to see that, but we should remind ourselves of the Government’s sorry record: the target for 95% of patients being seen within four hours in A&E has not been met since July 2015; the target for 92% of people on the waiting list to be waiting fewer than 18 weeks for treatment has not been met since February 2016; the target for 1% of patients waiting for more than six weeks for a diagnostic test has not been met since November 2013; and the NHS has not met the 62-day standard for urgent referrals for suspected cancer treatment since December 2015. I fail to see how the Prime Minister can drive down waiting lists when the level health expenditure he is proposing is not enough to meet existing demand.
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
I note the statistics the hon. Member has shared with the House, but how do they compare to the outcomes that my constituents in Wales face? I would suggest they fare much worse.
Justin Madders
Across the piece, some areas in Wales are actually performing better than areas in England. The direction of travel is the right one. If the right hon. Member is so interested in the performance in Wales, he should stand for the Welsh Assembly; he will have the opportunity to do so in the not-too-distant future. I am sure he was aware when he stood for this place that health was a devolved issue.
Gareth Thomas
I want to raise again the example of Northwick Park Hospital, which serves my constituents. It has not met the four-hour A&E target since August 2015. One of the latest issues responsible for the increasing pressure on waiting times at Northwick Park is the closure of our walk-in services, which were one of the great reforms of the previous Labour Government. Alexandra Avenue, which served my constituency, closed in November 2018, and Belmont health centre, which served the constituency of Harrow East, closed in November 2019. The last walk-in service in the London Borough of Harrow, the Pinn medical centre, which currently is in the constituency of the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), is also due to close, and yet it is increasingly difficult to get an answer to a request for a meeting to discuss that closure with Ministers or the chief executive of NHS England.
Justin Madders
There has to be a correlation between the number of closures my hon. Friend is seeing and his CCG’s debts, which he was referring to earlier. The pressure on frontline services is making these decisions, which it is more and more likely can only impact on performance. I hope that when the Minister responds he will be able to give him the satisfaction of at least a meeting to discuss the issue further.
The funding in the Bill is insufficient to reverse the decline in recent years, let alone deliver the aspirations set out in the long-term plan. It is not just the opinion of Her Majesty’s Opposition that the performance targets cannot be met; NHS England has also made it clear that the core treatment targets cannot be met because of the funding settlement imposed by the Government. And who loses out month after month when performance targets are missed? It is patients. Whether for pre-planned surgery, cancer treatment, diagnostic tests or emergency care, our constituents are waiting longer and longer, often in pain and distress, to access the health services they need. The figures do not lie.
We must remember that the figures are also real people. They are real people stuck on waiting lists: the total number of people on waiting lists in England is now 4.41 million, which is the highest since records began, and up from 4.1 million, when the right hon. Member for West Suffolk first became the Secretary of State. They are real people waiting for treatment: the target to treat 92% of patients within 18 weeks has not been met for four years—not since February 2016—and obviously has never been met by the current Secretary of State. They are real people waiting for cancer treatment: the Prime Minister himself agreed last month that it was unacceptable that the target for treating cancer patients within 62 days of urgent GP referrals had not been met for five years. That is five years of failure. They are people waiting on hospital trolleys: the number of people waiting four hours or more on hospital trolleys reached 98,452 last December, which is not only a 65% increase on the same point the previous year, but the highest on record.
As we heard on Second Reading, the failure to meet these targets has real consequences. Research from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine shows that almost 5,000 patients have died in the past three years because they spent so long on a trolley waiting for a bed in an overcrowded hospital. As we have said several times during our consideration of the Bill, the true increase in funding is about 4.1%—I will not list again all the bodies that agree with that figure—yet the money in the Bill will not be enough.
This is all before last week’s news about the Chancellor looking for 5% savings in all Departments, including this one. That might not affect the figures in the Bill, but there might be cuts across the wider Department that do have a knock-on impact on service delivery. Let us take a look at A&E. There is increased demand on our A&E services, for many reasons, including the years of cuts to social care, but that is not covered in the Bill. Will the 5% cut come from there—if it does, more and more people will be forced into A&E by a collapsing social care system—or from public health, as we have heard previously, which would inevitably store up problems in the short and longer term?
None of this can be said to be likely to have no impact on performance targets, which for too long have been treated as a poor relation by this Government. The Government have widely ignored them, to the extent that they are spending more time dreaming up ways to get rid of them than to meet them. We say that patients deserve better. We will push the new clause to a vote, because we believe it is clear that the Secretary of State will not be able to drive down waiting lists or drive up performance with the level of health expenditure that he proposes to enshrine in law.
Rather than presenting the Bill as a panacea, let us ensure that the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister are held to account for the promises that they make, and that the Secretary of State comes to this place every year to tell us whether, in the Government’s opinion, the funding allocated for that year will be sufficient to meet those performance targets. If it is not, the Government must set out what they are going to do about it. It is simply not good enough to continue, year after year, to have a Government who treat the targets as an inconvenience. If those standards are to mean anything to patients, and if the Government are serious about persuading us that they mean something to them as well, they will have to come here every single year and tell us, unambiguously and with reference to the funding package for this year, how they intend to meet those targets.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
Is that not the most critical weakness in the Bill? Given that inflation is expected to rise after Brexit, the figures for 2023-24 are just guesswork. There should be a commitment to £20 billion by that year, in real terms.
Justin Madders
There are indeed many weaknesses in the Bill, which, given that it is so short, is quite an achievement on the Government’s part. That is the point of the new clause. We cannot say with any certainty what the rate of inflation will be in a few years’ time. It is important for funding that is seen as adequate now—at least by Conservative Members, if by no one else—not to be downgraded further as a result of economic turbulence. We have had no guarantees that a different economic picture will change the Government’s stance. Indeed, when on Second Reading we sought assurances that the NHS would still receive the real-terms increases envisaged in the Bill should inflation run at unforeseen levels in the future, no commitments were forthcoming. When pressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), the Secretary of State could not give the cast-iron commitments that are needed by those delivering the services. Even if this is an unsatisfactory settlement, they deserve some certainty that the sums involved will not be eroded by spikes in inflation.
As the Secretary of State said on Second Reading,
“The crucial thing in this Bill is the certainty.”—[Official Report, 27 January 2020; Vol. 670, c. 560.]
We are not sure whether he meant certain failure, because we know that the sums set out in the Bill are not enough to keep up with demand, but the new clause seeks to ensure that the NHS is, at least to some extent, insulated against unforeseen economic shocks. It would act as a safety net in the event that inflation ran above 3.3% for more than six months in any 12-month period. It also requires a statement from the Secretary of State about whether any additional funds will be made available to supplement the sums set out in the Bill. That would at least provide some clarity and certainty about whether there will be any real-terms reduction in funding as a result of a sustained rise in inflation.
Let me finally say a little about new clause 11, and the adequacy of the allotment to NHS England. As I have already made clear, the Bill sets NHS expenditure for the next four years at a level that is not sufficient to put the NHS on a sustainable footing or to improve performance. That is why we are seeking to ensure that the impact of unforeseen changes in the costs of pharmaceutical treatments, medical devices and services—possibly as a result of our leaving the European Union, or of the trade deals that we sign—are reviewed by the Government so that adequate funds are available to meet any uplift, and so that there is no negative impact on health outcomes. Much has been said about the possibilities in new trading arrangements, but not enough about the risks, of which this is only one.
Jeremy Hunt (South West Surrey) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders). We were on opposite Front Benches for many years, but I always had great respect for his detailed understanding of healthcare issues and the integrity of his approach. He once wrote me a private letter. I will not divulge its contents; suffice it to say that it demonstrated his recognition that we are human beings on this side of the House. That was a rare admission from a member of the Labour party, and I am very grateful to him for it.
I will not be supporting the hon. Gentleman’s amendments and new clauses, but I think he is right to raise the issues that he has raised, and I want to propose some different ways of achieving his objectives. I am very pleased that he has raised the issue of mental health and mental health funding, and I therefore wish to speak to amendments 1 and 2 and new clauses 1, 2 and 3.
I think that all hon Members have knocked on the doors of constituents—I did as Health Secretary—and been confronted by people who have been given a totally inadequate service in relation to their mental health or that of their children. One person I met, who was not a constituent, was a very remarkable gentleman called Steve Mallen. He had a son, Edward, who had an extraordinarily promising life in front of him. Edward had secured a place at Cambridge, he was very musical, he had friends; and then, in the year before he was due to go up to Cambridge, he had a six-month period of severe mental illness and ended up killing himself, five years ago this Sunday. I think that all of us have to have people like Edward Mallen at the back of our minds, and to remember, as we enjoy a normal weekend, that for Edward’s family Sunday will be a very, very challenging day.
I believe we could all come up with stories like that. I mentioned Steve Mallen because he has chosen to relive the grief that he feels for his son Edward. He made a promise at Edward’s funeral that he would campaign to ensure that other people received the mental health provision that Edward did not receive. He subsequently set up the Zero Suicide Alliance with an inspirational NHS chief executive called Jo Rafferty, who runs Mersey Care. It is a fantastic project, and I am pleased to say that the Health Secretary has agreed to a meeting to discuss continued funds for the alliance. As we think about people like Edward, it is important to understand just why funding for mental health has not increased at the rate at which it should have, and why we do not have the service provision that we should have.
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
Does the right hon. Gentleman share my concern about the fact that the mental health charity Combat Stress has said it is unable to accept any more new cases? Support for the charity, which helps military veterans, has fallen in the last few years, and 90% of its income consists of public donations.
Jeremy Hunt
I am well aware of the fantastic work done by Combat Stress, and I think it is important for it to receive the funds that it needs. However, when we look at the root cause of the problems in mental health funding, we see that on both sides of the Committee there is some culpability, and that on both sides it was completely unintentional. I hope that the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), will forgive me if I start with the other side.
The truth is that when targets were introduced in the 2000s for A&E and elective care waiting times they were hugely effective, but they were introduced only for physical healthcare. As a result, during the austerity period when the budgets of clinical commissioning groups or primary care trusts were under pressure, money was sucked out of community and mental health services. That is at the heart of the problem that has bedevilled mental health care. The position changed in 2012, because a Labour amendment to the Bill that became the Health and Social Care Act 2012 instituted parity of esteem between mental and physical health. We were the first country in the world to do that.
As a Conservative, I am always deeply sceptical about legislating for principles, because I am not totally convinced that it ever changes anything, but that amendment did bring about a significant and very practical change, which I discovered myself as Health Secretary. No Health Secretary and no NHS chief executive ever wants to have to say publicly that the proportion of funding going to mental health has fallen on his or her watch, because that would be a direct contradiction of the principle of parity of esteem. That is why, since this became law, we have seen the proportion of funding of the entire NHS budget going into mental health either stabilised or starting to go up. That should put to rest some of the Opposition’s concerns about the risk of a decreasing proportion of NHS funding going into mental health, but it does not solve the problem.
The issue when it comes to mental health services for our constituencies is not about political will or funding; it is about capacity. We have an enormous number of ambitious plans on mental health. I unveiled one—in 2016, from memory—that said we would treat 1 million more people by 2020 and increase spending by several billion pounds. The mental health “Forward View” had some very ambitious plans, and we had the children and young people’s Green Paper. There are also targets to increase access to talking therapies, which are essential for people with anxiety and depression. But if we do not increase the capacity of the system to deliver these services, in the end we will miss the targets. For example, the children and young people’s Green Paper is an incredibly important programme, with a plan for every secondary school in the country to have a mental health lead among the teaching staff who would have some of the basic training that a GP would have to spot a mild mental health illness, anxiety or depression, or a severe one such as OCD or bipolar, and therefore know to refer it—[Interruption.] I am getting a look. I understand, and I will draw my comments to a close—
Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)
No, you are meant to face the Chair.
Jeremy Hunt
Thank you. I am sorry—I am new to this Back-Bench stuff. Apologies for not facing the Chair. I will now do so more diligently.
The point I wanted to make, Dame Rosie, is simply that the children and young people’s Green Paper requires an increase in the children and young people’s work- force of—from my memory as Health Secretary—9,000 additional people. The CAMHS workforce is actually only 10,000, so the Green Paper alone requires a near doubling of the mental health workforce. Far be it from me to teach experienced Opposition Members how to scrutinise the Government or hold them to account, but if they really want to know whether we are going to deliver on those promises, looking at the workforce numbers in children and young people’s mental health in the CAMHS workforce is the way to understand whether we are going to be able to deliver those extra commitments.
Mark Tami
Is not that the key point? Young people’s experience of CAMHS on the ground is that they just cannot get an appointment. Rather than being seen in the early stages, as they should be, they often get seen only when they have become suicidal or have tried to commit suicide. That is the wrong way round.
Jeremy Hunt
The hon Gentleman is absolutely right. On both sides of the Chamber, we are totally committed to the NHS and totally committed to transforming mental health services, but I am afraid that young people are regularly turned away from CAMHS and told, “You are not ill enough yet. Come back when things get worse.” Why is that such a tragedy? Because half of all mental health conditions become established before the age of 14, and the way to reduce the pressure on the NHS is to intervene early. That is what does not happen.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
In support of what my right hon. Friend has said, I think that one of this Government’s great initiatives in respect of children’s mental health in the past decade has been the work done through the health and wellbeing boards. I know that this was strongly supported by him when he was Secretary of State and by other Ministers since. Every local authority, using its connections with the schools and general practitioners in its local area, has a plan that reflects local need. This has evolved over the years to change the commissioning priorities at local level, which is reflected in what is purchased from NHS providers to address local need. I offer as an example an online counselling service that has been introduced to serve my constituents. The feedback from young people is that it is tremendously more accessible than what was there previously, and it is a lot less expensive than the type of services previously being commissioned. That demonstrates the commitment we have on the Government Benches to addressing children’s mental health.
Jeremy Hunt
My hon. Friend has huge experience of this in local government, and he is absolutely right. The big surprise for me when we were conceiving of the children and young people’s Green Paper was the willingness of NHS professionals to accept that the people who know the kids best are their teachers, rather than GPs, because the teachers see them every day and are probably going to be better at spotting a mental illness and being able to do something about it.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
I would like the right hon. Gentleman to consider whether he supports an important proposal that we put forward at the general election. It was that there should be a trained counsellor in every school to spot mental health problems. Putting that burden on to teachers and others in the teaching profession is the wrong way forward. In Wales, we have the experience that having trained counsellors in schools relieves the pressure on CAMHS. If we want to take children’s mental health seriously and relieve the pressure on CAMHS, we should do this. I have a couple of schools in my constituency that have trained counsellors, and it really helps. The other thing that we proposed was to have a mental health hub in every local authority area, so that children and their families in crisis would have somewhere to go where there would be professionals and charities that work in mental health. Those ideas that we put forward really should be considered, and I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman supports them.
Jeremy Hunt
They are both interesting ideas. The plan at the moment is that resource will be given to schools for a teacher to volunteer to devote a proportion of their time to this, and that there will be funding for them to do so, similar to the way in which schools have a special educational needs co-ordinator who is a teacher devoted to the special needs of the pupils in that school. I personally would have no objection if that were a separate counsellor, but this needs to be a resource inside the school—someone who is regularly at the school and who knows the children there. That is the important thing.
With permission, Dame Rosie, I would like to comment on some of the other amendments and on some of the comments made by the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston. He rightly talked about the issues around maternity safety, and I agree that it is vital that we continue the maternity safety training fund. That is not directly the subject of one of his amendments, but it is indirectly connected to it. Twice a week in the NHS, the Health Secretary has to sign off a multi-million pound settlement to a family whose child has been disabled for life as a result of medical negligence. What is even more depressing is that there is no discernible evidence that that number is going down. The reason for that is that when such tragedies happen, instead of doing the most important thing, which is learning the lesson of what went wrong and ensuring that it is spread throughout the whole country, we end up with a six-year legal case. It is impossible for a family with a child disabled at birth to get compensation from the NHS unless they prove in court that the doctor was negligent. Obviously, the doctor will fight that. That is why we still have too much of a cover-up culture, despite the best intentions of doctors and nurses. This is the last thing they want to do, but the system ends up putting them under pressure to do it. That is why we are not learning from mistakes. I am afraid that that is the same thing that was referred to in the Paterson inquiry report that was published today: the systemic covering up of problems that allowed Mr Paterson’s work to carry on undetected for so long. The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston is absolutely right on that.
I think it is a fair assessment of safety in the NHS to say that huge strides have been made in the past five or six years on transparency. It is much more open about things that go wrong than it used to be, and that is a very positive development. But transparency alone is not enough. We have to change the practice of doctors and nurses on the ground, and that means spreading best practice. Unfortunately, that is not happening, which is why, even after the tragedies of Mid Staffs, Morecambe Bay and Southern Health, we are facing yet another tragedy at Shrewsbury and Telford—I see my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) in her place, and she has campaigned actively on that issue. The big challenge now is to think about ways to change our blame culture into a learning culture.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)
I declare an interest in that, a long time ago, I was a personal injury barrister, including in cases of medical negligence. Does my right hon. Friend think a possible solution to the resistance to blame in the national health service might be the adoption of a no-fault compensation scheme much like that in the personal injury sphere in New Zealand, for example?
Jeremy Hunt
My hon. Friend makes an important suggestion. We considered such a thing when I was at the Department of Health and Social Care, but we decided that it would be very expensive. One of the tragedies is that many people who suffer actually make no legal claim because they are so committed to the NHS, so we have a system that gives huge amounts of money to one group of people and nothing at all to those who decide that they do not want to sue the NHS.
We need to look at tort reform, because most barristers and lawyers working in this field want the outcome of their cases to be that the NHS learns from what went wrong and does not repeat it. Unfortunately, that is not what happens with the current system. The involvement of lawyers and litigation causes a defensive culture to emerge, and we actually do the opposite. We do not learn from mistakes, and that is what we now have to grip and change.
I want to say something positive, because if we do change that we will be the first healthcare system in the world to do it properly. We are already by far the most transparent system in the world, mainly because people in this place are always asking questions about the NHS—and rightly so. Healthcare systems all over the world experience the same problem. It is difficult to talk openly about mistakes because one can make a mistake in any other walk of life and get on with one’s life, but if someone dies because of the mistake, that is an incredibly difficult thing for the individuals concerned to come to terms with. That is why we end up on this in this vicious legal circle.
On capital to revenue transfers, I was a guilty party during my time as Health Secretary. There were many capital to revenue transfers because we were running out of money, so capital budgets were raided. I fully understand why the Opposition wanted to table amendment 3, but I respectfully suggest that the trouble is that it would result not in more money going into the NHS but in more money going back to the Treasury from unspent capital amounts. The real issue of capital projects is getting through the bureaucratic processes that mean that capital budgets are actually spent.
Pete Wishart
I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing the chairmanship of the Health and Social Care Committee, and I look forward to joining him on the Liaison Committee. He is a former Secretary of State, so he surely understands and appreciates that this Bill has a significant impact on Scotland, because it will affect our budgets through the Barnett consequentials. Does he think it is right that we are excluded from tabling or even voting on any amendments?
Jeremy Hunt
I do, because this Bill about the NHS in England. It would be nice if we occasionally had a word of thanks, because the Bill will result in a lot more money being made available for the NHS in Scotland. The hon. Gentleman should, if I may say so, welcome that, because I think that will be as welcomed among the Scots as it will be welcomed by the English.
My point about capital to revenue transfers is that it is a big deal to get a hospital building project off the ground. So many get delayed because hospital management teams are very busy. They may have struggling A&E departments and are trying to meet other targets and to deal with safety issues—whatever it is—and they do not have the management resource to invest in putting together the case that, quite rightly, the Treasury and the Department of Health and Social Care demand is extremely rigorous and thorough. That is why things get delayed. If we want to ensure that these 40 hospitals get built, the Government should consider a central team at the Department of Health and Social Care to put at the disposal of hospitals that we want to build extensions or new buildings, so that they can actually navigate those hurdles—[Interruption.] I am getting nods from the very capable Minister for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), so that might be under consideration.
Alex Cunningham
I am grateful to the former Secretary of State for giving way. I admire his admitting his role in converting capital to revenue, and I am sure he regrets that he was unable to build the hospital we need in Stockton to close the health inequality gaps in our society. If he has any influence left in Government, perhaps he will have a word in some ears and say, “They really do need a new hospital in Stockton-on-Tees.”
Jeremy Hunt
I can be honest with the hon. Gentleman and say that I regret not being able to build lots of hospitals around the country in that period, because funding was short. Now, however, we are in a different situation. It is important that we build these extra hospitals, but there will be some big challenges in ensuring that we do so.
Dr Whitford
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. I welcome his suggestion of a central design team, because the NHS is over 70 years old and we seem repeatedly to reinvent the wheel. Does he recognise that it is not just about building new hospitals, because maintenance has also been allowed to slide? There are leaking roofs and leaking sewers, and patients are still in hospitals that are basically not fit for use. Maintenance is most urgent.
Jeremy Hunt
I agree with the hon. Lady. Maintenance is a big issue in many hospitals. A number of hospitals are still essentially prefab buildings that should have been torn down a long time ago, and there are others where maintenance can solve the problem. I think we have to attack all of that, and I welcome the fact that there is a real commitment from the Government to do so.
Finally, I want to talk about new clause 4, which relates to whether the Government are giving enough to the NHS to meet the current waiting time targets for elective care, A&E, cancer and so on. I welcome the Opposition’s focus on this matter, because the public absolutely expect us to get back to meeting those targets. It was an important step forward for the NHS that we did bring down waiting times, and I have often credited the previous Labour Government for that happening, as I hope the Labour party will credit this Government for the focus on safety and quality in the wake of Mid Staffs. However, as we focus on safety and quality, I would not want to lose the achievements that were made on waiting times, because it is fundamental to all patients that they do not have to wait too long for care. Indeed, waiting times themselves can be a matter of patient safety.
David Simmonds
My right hon. Friend mentioned targets and people getting access to care. The hon. Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) referenced Pinn Medical Centre, which is in my constituency, and the impact on Northwick Park Hospital in his constituency. This is a really good example of when the issue is not with the total sum of funding but with how the NHS is spending it. If the system can afford £300 to pay for each A&E attendance, I am sure it can afford £70 for those patients to attend a walk-in centre instead. This is not about an arms race and who can spend the most, but about who can bring the most focus to spending the money in the way that benefits patients and our constituents the greatest.
Jeremy Hunt
My hon. Friend neatly makes the point that I was hoping to make next. I will elaborate on the brilliance of his insight and simply say that when we think about waiting times it is very important that it is not just a debate about money. I appreciate that the Bill is about money, and that is why amendments have been tabled about money, but I want to give the example of the annual cycle of winter crises that we seem to have in the NHS now. I looked up the figures and, over the past five years that I was doing the job, in the first year I gave the NHS £300 million to avoid a winter crisis; in the second year, £400 million; in the third year, £700 million; in the fourth year, £400 million; and in the fifth year, £400 million. In four of those five years, we still had a winter crisis. That is because in the end it is not about money as much as it is about capacity.
Jeremy Hunt
It was always the final point, and it is very much the final point.
The other area that is essential for capacity is the social care system. My hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) talked about how money can be wasted. One of the biggest wastes of money is that we pay for people to be in hospital beds, which cost three times as much as care home beds, because we do not have the capacity in the social care system. It is very important that we encourage people to save for the future and protect people against losing their homes, but if we want to see a change in the NHS in the next five years it is fundamental that we increase the ability of local authorities to deliver adult social care to people who cannot afford it. At the moment, they do not have enough to do that, and we must put that right.
Patrick Grady
Finally, here we are, in the English Parliament after all these years. Isn’t it great? The Mace is down, the signs are up, and the dream of David Cameron has finally been realised. For the first time since 1707, English Members of Parliament will get to vote on English legislation to the active exclusion of the rest of us. I wonder if the Minister could have even dreamed, when he and I were but lowly Back-Bench members of the Procedure Committee back in 2015 and scrutinising the EVEL processes, that this is where we would end up today.
On 19 September 2014 David Cameron promised, in response to the independence referendum in Scotland, that we would have English votes for English laws. Three general elections, two Prime Ministers and countless Leaders of the House later, here it is in all its glory. I wonder, given the responses and speeches that we have heard today, whether anyone on the Government Benches really understands what is going on. We are debating clauses and amendments to a Bill that has been certified as being only relevant to England, but as the amendment themselves demonstrate, and as we have heard in speeches, it will have implications for health spending policy across the whole of the United Kingdom—and very serious issues, too—for mental health, for the construction of hospitals, and for the difference between capital and revenue spending on the NHS.
Pete Wishart
I wonder whether, like me, my hon. Friend feels that this English Parliament is actually pretty similar to the usual Westminster Parliament that we do all our business in. Does he agree that the English votes for English laws procedure has been about the most divisive, disruptive and useless procedure ever put into this House? It makes distinctions between classes of Members of Parliament in this House, and what we are doing today is disallowing us to vote on issues that are vital to the Scottish health service. Does he agree that it is a disgrace, and that it must go?
Patrick Grady
Yes; I absolutely agree. My hon. Friend is right: I barely noticed the difference as this place magically transformed itself into the Legislative Grand Committee (England). Incidentally, I do not know whether he remembers, from his time here, whether the Scottish Grand Committee was ever permitted to meet in the Chamber of the House of Commons. I fear it was not, so quite why the English Grand Committee enjoys that privilege and does not have to meet elsewhere in the building or elsewhere in England is kind of beyond me. But my hon. Friend is right that those of us from seats in Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland are, for the first time, being actively excluded from the opportunity to vote on amendments.
The right hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) may also have been a member of the Procedure Committee back in the day; I certainly seem to remember points about the cross-border hospitals being raised. He has constituents in Wales who use hospitals in England that will be affected by this legislation, and he is unable to vote on or amend those provisions.
Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)
My hon. Friend’s secondment to the English Parliament is going rather well so far, although it is rather similar to the UK one. Does it not distil the ridiculousness of the EVEL procedure that we have before us a Bill that clearly impacts on the funding of the NHS in Scotland, as the former Secretary of State mentioned, and yet the Government have put the Chair in the invidious position of deciding on the issues that we can or cannot vote on, instead of our making that decision about the issues that are important to our constituents?
Patrick Grady
My hon. Friend is absolutely right; and we raised those points five years ago, when the EVEL process was being introduced.
Mark Tami
I have never been a member of the Procedure Committee. The Countess of Chester, which is a foundation hospital, has trustees who are elected from Wales. They are elected and can take part in decision making, but as an elected representative in this place, I cannot, apparently.
Patrick Grady
There we go. We have now had as many Welsh and Scottish Members contributing from the Floor, as Members from elsewhere in the United Kingdom. These points were raised back in the day, on the Procedure Committee, even if it was not the hon. Gentleman who gave that evidence.
This morning, the Prime Minister turned up at the Science Museum in London to launch a conference that is taking place in Glasgow. That probably tells us all we need to know about the Government’s concept of how the United Kingdom works. Four days after the UK leaves the European Union, and the Tory Government choose to display their love for the precious Union on these islands by creating two classes of Member in the House of Commons—those who can amend legislation and those who cannot. Well, as the Chair of the Health Committee asked us to say, “Thank you.” Thank you so much, because the polls are showing that support for independence in Scotland has reached 52% and growing, and that support will not go away. Constituents in Scotland will be watching today’s proceedings, wanting to know why their Members of Parliament are not allowed to vote on amendments that could increase health spending, not just here in England but throughout the United Kingdom.
Labour’s new clause 5 rightly calls for the Government to analyse the effect of inflation on the figures set out in the Bill.
Dr Whitford
Does my hon. Friend agree that, as I mentioned earlier, the fact that inflation could make these cash rises meaningless makes it very difficult for the Scottish Government to predict what Barnett consequentials they can count on in 2023 and 2024, so it should be committed to in real terms, not just cash terms?
Patrick Grady
Yes; my hon. Friend is absolutely right, and we would be very happy to support new clause 5 if the procedures of the House allowed us to. It is absolutely crucial to what the Bill is trying to achieve.
We know it is a showpiece Bill anyway, but the Government are getting a showpiece English Parliament out of it as well. Of course, the terms of the money resolution are so restrictive that amendments intended to amend the figures in the Bill are completely out of order. The Labour party tried that—that point was raised by more than one Opposition Member at Second Reading, and I am not sure that Ministers could answer it.
Labour’s amendment 3 prevents capital funding from being transferred to revenue streams. That is hugely important as well, because any increases in the revenue funding—the figures on the face of the Bill—have to come from new money. Otherwise, the whole thing is pointless: it is just shuffling things around. It is new money that would give rise to Barnett consequentials, and that is where our interest comes in.
New clause 4, on performance targets, makes exactly the same point, and we support that as well. That is also relevant to us.
Dr Whitford
It is often cast up here that the Government in Scotland are not spending all the Barnett consequentials on health, but they do. The problem is that although the Government here keep talking about the rise they are giving to the NHS, there are cuts to public health and social care, and there have been cuts to education and training. In Scotland, we still take the whole responsibility of a health Department seriously.
Patrick Grady
My hon. Friend is absolutely right on that. The Scottish National party has always pledged—we have done this throughout our time in government—that any Barnett consequentials that arise from health spending in England get passed to the NHS in Scotland. Any time the figures set out in this Bill increase, those Barnett consequentials would be expected to fall to the Scottish block grant, so it is well within the interests of Members from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to seek to amend this Bill. Our own unselectable suggestions that appear on the amendment paper require analysis of what would happen if health spending per capita in England and Wales was raised to the level in Scotland. That was part of our manifesto commitment; by raising health spending in England, we would also raise spending across the United Kingdom. But here and now, on the Floor of the House of Commons, in the UK Parliament, that idea cannot be tested, voted on or even, technically, discussed.
Dr Whitford
Does my hon. Friend agree that “per capita” is a much more informative way of describing spending, because demand is increasingly rapidly, with an ageing population that is not ageing healthily, and just talking about the headline numbers does not show whether the amount provided for each person is sufficient to provide their services?
Patrick Grady
I thank my hon. Friend for that. The contributions she is making demonstrate precisely why Members from Scotland should have been allowed to participate fully in this stage of the Bill and the whole process.
If the official Opposition choose to press any of their amendments this afternoon, we will seek to express our views, on behalf of our constituents, by walking through the Lobby. We will walk past the signs that say, “England only” and if the Tellers from the Government Whips team choose not to count us, that will be their decision. Of course they will also have to discount any of their own colleagues from Scotland and Wales who deliberately or accidentally end up in the Lobby; perhaps that is also an argument for getting rid of this ridiculous voting Lobby system, but I appreciate that that is for another day.
The Government could have avoided this situation, by allowing proper time for a Report stage, where Members from Scotland and elsewhere could move amendments. They could have committed the Bill upstairs to a Public Bill Committee, but they chose to convene an English Parliament here in the Chamber of the House of Commons, which is supposed to represent the whole of the UK.
Pete Wishart
My hon. Friend has taken over the EVEL mantle with great aplomb. I understand that the “England only” signs are already in the Lobby, and this in the UK Parliament of Great Britain and Northern Ireland! What does that say to people from Scotland? What does it say, given that this Bill determines so much of our health spending in Scotland? Surely the days of EVEL have to come to an end. We cannot go on like this. This is the Parliament for everybody across the United Kingdom; it is not their Parliament to squat in.
Patrick Grady
It really does not feel like that at the moment, does it? Hear no EVEL, see no EVEL, speak no EVEL should be the mantra, because my hon. Friend is right; this might not be the last time.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for allowing me to speak in the English Parliament for the first time. Does he agree that one way to get around this whole EVEL conundrum is simply for the English Parliament to be made officially an English Parliament and then we can all have our own national Parliaments in our own countries?
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. I am sure colleagues will appreciate that it is important that we actually talk about the Bill.
Patrick Grady
I wholeheartedly agree, Dame Rosie. I have addressed the amendments that we have an interest in, and I am contextualising why they are relevant to our constituents, but points are being extremely well made by my colleagues. There is a simple solution to this, which we in the SNP have been promoting for 84 years, since 1934: Scotland can become an independent country and England can have the Parliament that it wants. As my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray) says, with the greatest respect for the Speaker, it should not be for the Chair or for the Government to decide what does and does not apply to Members from different parts of the UK. My job and that of my colleagues is to look at each measure before this House and determine for ourselves whether it is relevant to our constituents and act accordingly. Today, we are being actively prevented from doing that. There are amendments and new clauses on the amendment paper that we deem to be of interest to people in Scotland, which would take forward commitments in our manifesto, but we will not be able to vote for them. That is not a precious Union. That is not a partnership of equals. That is not leading instead of leaving. It is not something that is going to be sustainable for much longer, and 52% of people in Scotland seem inclined to agree.
Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)
I rise to speak to new clause 9, tabled in my name and those of the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) and my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Sir Charles Walker). I am pleased that Scotland will have its say, at least with regard to this new clause.
Conceptually, the Bill will absolutely do the right thing, because for long-term decision making we need some clarity as to how much money there will be. As I said on Second Reading, my concern is about whether or not the figures are right, and at that point I proposed a formula that would enable the figures to be flexed to properly determine the need and whether the figure would to be sufficient to meet it.
New clause 9 deals specifically with the issue of mental health. There is agreement among all parties that it is crucial that we get mental health right. It is crucial that it is properly respected and properly resourced. Members from all parties have talked about and supported parity of esteem between physical health and mental health. It might be useful—this is not in the new clause, but we are talking about the issue more broadly—if at some point the Government could give some clarity on, if not a formal definition of, what parity of esteem means.
Dr Whitford
We have discussed today, and on many other occasions, the issues relating to child and adolescent mental health and the pressure that young people are under right across the UK, and training for teachers to support them in schools was mentioned. In Scotland, we are putting 350 counsellors into schools. Does the hon. Lady recognise that putting that level of investment into education, where these young people are, would reduce the pressure on CAMHS, and that any assessment would need to include that? If children end up in CAMHS who do not need to be there and who could have been helped earlier, that is also a failure.
Anne Marie Morris
The hon. Lady makes an apposite and correct point. We cannot talk about mental health just within the health and care bucket, so to speak. What do we do to help young mums? What do we do in the school environment for youngsters, who are increasingly put under huge pressure, with cases of stress and depression growing daily? What are we doing in the workplace? Historically, mental health has been something that we do not talk about; indeed, people almost dare not to for fear of being demoted and losing their job. There are many aspects of mental health that need to be taken into account if we are truly to deliver parity of esteem. I would like to think that the Government, and perhaps the Minister when he responds to the debate, would acknowledge the breadth of the need to work together across Government Departments so that we look properly at the outcomes and at the different pieces that affect those outcomes, which go well beyond the Minister’s particular brief.
Dr Poulter
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. She is making some very good points. An interesting amendment has been tabled by the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) on the need for greater transparency more generally in mental health funding. It is difficult to understand properly what level of investment is currently going into mental health services, be it CAMHS or general adult mental health services. Would it not be a good thing if the Government took on board the spirit of that amendment and published data on mental health spend on an annual basis across all mental health services, from CAMHS and general adult to older adult and learning disability services? That would help to make the argument that money is actually going into what has been a Cinderella service for far too long.
Anne Marie Morris
My hon. Friend is right in that the things that are relevant to mental health cannot exclude the budgets in other parts of the system. He is absolutely right, as the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) is, that these things need to be looked at together. Yes, I certainly agree that a written report that sets out what money is being spent where would be very welcome, but I guess that my amendment goes beyond that and says that we should be sure that we are getting something for that money, rather than simply putting in that money and not having any grasp as to whether it is actually making a difference, which is crucial.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
I should like to reinforce that point. I in my constituency, as she in hers no doubt, have need that should be tackled and that requires support and treatment, but it is important that it is worthwhile treatment under the right protocol so that things get better. I would value much more information on who is being treated and whether the treatment is working rather than more information on money.
Anne Marie Morris
That point is extremely well made. Let me say, if I may, that there is also a challenge for any Government to be able to properly ascertain what the actual need is. There is a lot of hidden need. In rural communities such as mine, the real challenge lies with isolated elderly people and with lone workers—whether it be a farmer or a policeman. We know that farmers have the highest rate of suicide of any profession. Much of that mental health challenge is not understood or measured, which makes it critical that we look at that need and then, as my right hon. Friend sets out, make sure that what we do properly meets that need. He is absolutely right.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
I agree with the hon. Lady’s point about measuring outputs as well as inputs, but does she agree that one of the big challenges with CAMHS is the real dearth of data? There are many gaps in the data that is collected. I make this point advisedly, because there is another challenge in gathering more data. I have been lobbied in my own constituency by a charity supporting children and young people with mental health issues. Its funding has been put under threat by NHS England unless it starts to report the date of birth of the young people accessing its service and other information, which then undermines the anonymity that it guarantees to those children and young people, so reporting on the outputs is not actually that straightforward.
Anne Marie Morris
The hon. Lady makes a very good point—I think there are probably two points there. The first is what we should be measuring and when, and the second is about data and the privacy issue. The points are related, but separate. The first one, which is about measurement, is a point very well made. Certainly, the point at which my constituents are counted as being in the box and in need and being referred for mental health can be very far down the line from their first presentation. The figures will often not properly represent the number of people who are actually in need, so I think she is right that we need to be clear at what point we measure an individual coming into the system. I am not clear from what I have heard anecdotally that it is. Some clarity and perhaps an investigation into that would be very helpful. The hon. Lady’s point about privacy is a much broader issue, and I think it would be beyond the scope of this debate to look at it now. The point was well made, but it is a much bigger point for another day.
Through new clause 9, I am asking for an annual report that would show how mental health provision has improved. Such a report would state how we identified what we included in the mental health bucket that I mentioned; how we identified who is in need; how we measured whether that individual received an intervention, and whether any such intervention was timely; whether the individual’s condition has improved or got better; and how any improvement has been assessed, because that can be a very difficult question. I appreciate that for many individuals with mental health concerns, these are lifelong conditions. We would therefore not simply be measuring whether somebody is “cured”, but looking at the level of improvement and the extent to which the intervention has helped—or not helped—that particular individual. It is very complicated.
My new clause would require the Government to look specifically at how we are going to measure the extent to which we have been able to prevent mental health problems. Specifically, we need to start looking at the support we give in schools, to pregnant mothers and in many other situations. This provision would also require information on how we have diagnosed mental health problems. Too often in constituents’ cases, I find that it is only when a diagnosis is finally and formally made that there is any intervention or help. I have heard from a number of parents of young children and teenagers who have faced problems such as eating disorders and attempted suicide, but much to my concern and that of the parents, as no diagnosis has yet been made—because they cannot get an appointment and so on—the individual youngster who is self-harming is not yet considered to have a mental health problem. The consequence is that they do not get the support and assistance they need, so diagnosis is very important.
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
I support what my hon. Friend is saying in her new clause about outputs. This is an issue that I tried to address—and failed, I readily admit—when I was the primary care Minister. She will be aware of the NCT’s Hidden Half campaign, which aims to improve the six-week postnatal check. Does she agree that there are opportunities for the NHS to make an intervention and assessment, but that those opportunities are currently missed? For example, we should be changing the GP contract so that when new mums go for the six-week check with their babies, they get a maternal mental health check at the same time. There are already opportunities, but we are missing them.
Anne Marie Morris
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Just like physical health checks, which are very much part of the standard GP system, mental health checks should equally be a part of the standard checks that take place when people present at surgeries. I entirely agree.
Dr Whitford
Does the hon. Member recognise that we all know what we should be doing to look after our physical health—there is a handful of five key points—but that most of us have no idea what we should be doing to look after our mental health? As well as talking about primary care in schools and workplaces and public campaigns, we should all be being taught how to develop our own resilience and how to look after our own mental health better.
Anne Marie Morris
That is one of the best points that I have heard in this debate, and it is extremely well made. However, it is a real challenge trying to help individuals to accept even that they might be vulnerable to mental health problems, because it has been such a taboo—let alone the second stage of learning what we can do to try, as the hon. Lady says, to make ourselves resilient. I am pleased that we are having mindfulness classes across the House, not just for MPs but for our researchers. That is not the total solution, but it is at least a step in the right direction. However, her point is about something much bigger than just an intervention—it relates to a big piece missing from this whole agenda. We spend a lot of time talking about illness and not enough time talking about wellness.
Dr Whitford
Is it not particular to mental health that when we use the phrase “mental health” we actually mean illness? We all have mental health, sometimes good and sometimes bad. If we changed the language, it might be easier for people to talk about.
Anne Marie Morris
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. The challenge, as she recognises, is how we change the language in a way that is accepted and becomes the norm. Part of this is having a much greater focus, as I hope the Secretary of State and his team ultimately will, on wellness, because that is absolutely as important as dealing with the illness when it happens.
We need to remember that in terms of stages of intervention, the whole lifecycle is not just about birth, education and the workplace; it is also about the elderly and veterans, for whom there is often not as much done to identify need and provide support. An older person in a rural area will often have the need but because they are simply out of scope—under the radar—they will, for a very long time, suffer in silence to a point beyond which they cannot be helped. The challenge of mental wellness/illness for older people needs to be a specific focus.
For all that we say, and rightly, about the importance of ensuring that our veterans are properly diagnosed and properly supported, I am certainly conscious of veterans in my constituency who are struggling to get help and support, or even an initial diagnosis. Sometimes the support they need is so complex that they can only get it in London. For somebody who does not have good mental health, the journey from Devon right the way up to London is something they simply cannot conceive of and make a reality.
I am extremely grateful to the Minister for sitting and listening to my thoughts, and for understanding my approach in terms of looking at this in a much more holistic way and seeing how we might measure and report on it so that we can demonstrate to people that we are making progress on parity of esteem. We should look at inputs as well as outputs. I look forward with a great deal of interest to his reply on the points that have been made, particularly on outputs in mental health.
Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)
I rise to speak to the amendments in my name and the names of my colleagues.
As we have all heard, our NHS needs to be properly resourced in both physical and mental health, but far too often patients are losing out under this Government, with longer waiting times, a huge increase in cancelled operations, and crumbling hospitals. Colleagues have already raised these important issues. I urge the Government to accept the amendments in the name of the Leader of the Opposition as a real signal of their intent to reverse the damage that their party has done to our national health service over the past 10 years.
My amendments focus specifically on mental health. The Government have made much of the need to ensure parity of esteem. This would mean us valuing mental health equally with physical health and adopting an approach that tackles it using the same standards that we expect for physical health patient treatment as a template for treatment that we provide for mental health patients.
I have heard warm words from the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State and Ministers about the importance of mental health and the growing need to tackle mental ill health as an urgent priority, but I have not yet seen that wholehearted commitment manifest itself in actions to tackle the situation we are in. The British Medical Association found that the mental health workforce has had little growth over the last 10 years. The Royal College of Psychiatrists found that the rate of unfilled NHS consultant psychiatrist posts in England has doubled in the last six years. The first briefing paper from the Centre for Mental Health’s Commission for Equality in Mental Health found that mental health inequalities are closely linked to wider injustices in society. Far too many patients with a mental illness are still being sent hundreds of miles away from home.
By accepting the amendments in my name, the Government would show that they are willing to be transparent about the way they go about achieving their long-stated aim of parity of esteem. The Government have already shown, with the presentation of this Bill, that they think it is a good idea to commit, in law, to a minimum allotment that the Secretary of State will make to the health service in England in each financial year for the next four years. That is designed to show that their promise is legally binding and can be scrutinised by Parliament and the public if they do not reach those targets.
To ensure that our mental health services are properly resourced and truly responsive to the various complex conditions that people present with, the public need to know how much is being spent, including how much is being proposed, and what happens in practice. That is all my amendments seek to do—they would provide Parliament and the public with the opportunity to compare the proposed allotment with the final allotment across different years.
Of course, that is not enough, and it is clear that additional resources for mental health services are only one part of the answer to tackling the mental health problems in this country. We know that education and training services are essential to bring about the necessary increase in the workforce. We know that local government provides significant elements of mental health support through public health, youth services, housing and social care, and two thirds of schools fund their own mental health support. We also know that the Government’s roll-out of universal credit will exacerbate mental health inequalities, which all too often relate to people’s economic and social circumstances. This is not the time to go into those in detail, but I urge the Government to remember the need for those essential services to have a long-term funding settlement and, in the case of social care, an agreed basis for future financing. With ambitious targets to meet in the long-term plan, there is a risk that resources will be diverted from other areas of mental health support to achieve compliance.
I would like to invite colleagues across the House to join me on Thursday for my adjournment debate on Children’s Mental Health Week, which is this week, to discuss these issues further. I know what a commitment to transparency on mental health spending would mean for all those suffering mental ill health and those fighting for them. I hope that the Secretary of State will accept amendment 1 and new clause 1, to ensure that mental health services get a fair deal from the legislation and that pledges made by the Government and NHS England are realised in practice.
Bim Afolami (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, because it is a rare one in so far as there is quite a lot of agreement across the Committee on the substance of it. There appears to be agreement—I await an intervention if anybody disagrees with this—that increasing funding for the NHS is a good thing, that it is good that mental health is a Government priority and that it is very important to establish what parity of esteem means in practical terms.
I would like to take this opportunity to describe what I have seen in my constituency in terms of the importance of mental health and how the increased funding will make a practical difference. One way in which the funding will make a difference is with mental health support teams. There are mental health support teams in 25 areas in the country. Hertfordshire was picked as one of those 25 areas, and we have two teams—one in my constituency, and one just outside it—that effectively piloted a hub-and-spoke model. As the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill) said, it is Children’s Mental Health Week, and the aim of that model is to ensure that young people get better mental health support in and around their school, working in conjunction with the NHS.
As I have seen in my constituency and everywhere I go, when I speak to young people, one of the first things they ask me is, “How can we improve mental health?” Whenever I have spoken to young people, their teachers or local NHS staff, they say this model has the potential, as it is rolled out and developed over the coming months and years, to make a real, fundamental difference. If people are looking for the practical impact of our increased funding for mental health, these teams are one way in which we are already starting to make a difference, not just in my constituency but across the country.
I would like to mention a couple of charities I am involved with that are starting to work in an integrated way with the NHS in improving young people’s mental health. There is a charity called GRIT—a word in politics that we should all remember—or Growing Resilience in Teens. It was set up by a fantastic doctor in Hitchin called Dr Louise Chapman, and it does what it says on the tin: it is about growing resilience in mental health.
As politicians, when it comes to legislation or speaking to each other in the Chamber or outside, we think often about pounds and pence and talk about structures such as hospitals and stuff that can be measured in a very easy way, or at least what we think is an easy way. However, growing resilience is one of the things we need to ensure the NHS does more effectively. Not just in mental health, but particularly in mental health, growing resilience in our young people is an integral part of prevention. The former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt), talked about that in his speech, saying that half of mental health problems are established before a young person is 14.
We need to grow resilience among young people to future-proof each and every one of us, and our communities and our society, against serious mental health problems in the future, at the same time as investing in mental health services such as CAMHS, which has already been mentioned several times in this debate. However, we need to do both: to grow resilience and to improve the institutional frameworks. Again, that is what the money this Bill is providing will go towards.
Another charity is called Tilehouse Counselling, which again is based in Hitchin. I do not mean to say that Hitchin has all the charities in my constituency, but in this area Hitchin is a real regional leader and, indeed, a national leader. Tilehouse Counselling provides counselling services to young people, and young people often find themselves at Tilehouse when CAMHS does not have the capacity.
I urge the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries), who is on the Treasury Bench—she knows this because everybody knows how much she cares about the NHS, how much she knows about it and her own personal experience in it as a professional—to use the money provided by this Bill to increase the workforce and to improve the state of CAMHS so that it can treat more people. Again, that means helping the mental health hubs to work with young people and the education system to improve prevention and, when mental health intervention is needed later on if things have got more serious, making sure that CAMHS has more capacity. Again, the money in this Bill will help to provide that.
Another new organisation in my constituency is called GoVox. It has already been in discussions with NHS Digital, and NHSX, about online ways of improving mental health for young people. Increasing funding matters, and it is always worth stating and restating in the Bill that these are minimum numbers, not maximum numbers. This money is hugely needed, and it should make a big practical difference.
On the pleas from Opposition Members—in relation to new clauses 1, 2 and 9, and a few others, which say that the Government must report on this or must do that—I urge the Minister for Health to commit in his response to showing how he and the Government will improve the existing reporting procedures and mechanisms so that the House can be kept fully informed. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) spoke about how Members of Parliament often feel distant, not from information about funding, but from outcomes. Will the Minister explain how the Government could improve that delivery mechanism, as that would allay some concerns across the Committee?
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
I wish to speak to new clause 2, which is tabled in my name and those of my Liberal Democrat colleagues. As you know, Dame Rosie, I intended to push the new clause to a vote, but I understand that time pressures will not allow me to do so. I am disappointed by that, but I will be pressing the Government on this issue time and again. I want them to make it a high priority and to put it at the forefront of their policy making and commitments to the mental health of children and young people.
It is a pleasure to hear such a unified voice across the Committee about the importance of mental health, and there is a clear commitment to parity of esteem and to ensuring that mental health across the board gets the funding it deserves. I am therefore encouraged by the amendments, many of which I and my colleagues will support.
New clause 2 focuses specifically on the crisis—I used that word advisedly—in the provision of child and adolescent mental health services. It places a spotlight on the chronic underfunding of CAMHS, and seeks to encourage the Government and NHS England to deliver on their promises and improve transparency and accountability on those priorities.
Before I arrived in this place, I was aware of this significant and pressing issue. Less than two months since my election, however, I am utterly horrified by the cases of children and young people in crisis that cross my desk on a weekly basis—or more often—either through my surgery, my inbox, or anecdotally when speaking to acquaintances and contacts in my constituency and well beyond. New clause 2 seeks to make the Government and NHS England more accountable for the funding that they provide annually to CAMHS. That is very much in the spirit of the Bill. The Government are seeking to codify their promised expenditure on the NHS, and the new clause seeks simply to do the same thing in this important area, given that a number of welcome commitments have been made about CAMHS spending.
There are concerns that that funding is not reaching the frontline. Indeed, the evidence is clear. Just last week a report by the Children’s Commissioner stated that many CCGs are spending less than 1% of their mental health budget on children and young people. In 2017, the CQC revealed that CCGs have prioritised adult mental health over CAMHS because of the need to ration services. Other amendments seek to talk about mental health more broadly, but that is the reason why we need a particular spotlight on children and young people’s services.
The phrasing of new clause 2 seeks to ensure accountability against the ambitions of the long-term plan. Subsection (2) would help to demonstrate whether the promises on the growth of CAMHS spending outstripping mental health spending, and NHS spending across the board, are kept.
Subsection (3) shines a spotlight on regional variability. The Children’s Commissioner’s report last week talked about the enormous postcode lottery of spending on services. The numbers cited were staggering. In terms of low-level services, they ranged from 72p in some areas to £172 per child. On specialist services, they ranged from £14 to £191. We all expect some level of variation, but I am sure the Government would agree that that level of variation is utterly unacceptable. It needs to be tracked very publicly, so that spending and services can be improved to meet need.
Why is that so critical? As has been stated by various Members, half of all mental health problems are established by the age of 14. We know that 1.25 million children and young people had a mental health disorder in 2017. We have heard that since 2010 there has been an increase of 330% in admissions to A&E of children and young people diagnosed with a psychiatric condition. We know that only one in four children and young people is being seen by a specialist when they need to.
It is very easy to cite statistics, but behind them are individuals: children and young people and their stories. The stories I have heard are of teenagers self-harming, teenagers who are suicidal, teenagers who are a danger to themselves and their families, and young people who are excluded from school or are taking themselves out of school because of their mental health conditions. One piece of correspondence I received from a parent talked about her 17-year-old being referred for specialist treatment last November. He might be assessed, if he is lucky, in March and he will not get treatment for four to six months after that. That cannot be right. This child has at times been suicidal. I have also had a case of a 10-year-old with tier 3 needs waiting a similar amount of time for the initial choice assessment, who will be waiting a similar amount of time again for treatment.
We have had many plans, many vision documents and many strategies setting out wonderful lofty ambitions for the NHS. As I said, the long-term plan has some very laudable commitments on CAMHS. The Bill seeks to put into law what the Government promise on NHS spending. New clause 3 simply seeks to put into law the Government’s promises on spending on children and young people’s mental health disorders. I cannot press new clause 3 to a Division, but I very much hope that the Government will accept the spirit of my new clause and look to see what measures they can put in place to improve transparency and accountability. We owe it to those children and young people, because this really is a crisis and they need us to step up to the plate.
I will end my remarks with a quote from the mother of the 17-year-old I referred to earlier, because she puts it far better than I could:
“All these young people are our future and if we do not help them now, we are looking at a bleak future as these young people will end up being isolated from society, lack skills for work and relationships, find employment hard, perhaps even get into crime and ultimately will end up not having fulfilled lives and maybe end up being yet another statistic. We have not got this right and it is not just about the budgets or party politics; we need all of you to work together on this and treat this as an emergency.”
Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)
What a pleasure it has been to listen to so many excellent speeches. In particular, I want to say how much I value the contribution of the former Secretary of State for Health, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt)—I am sure that Ministers will have listened to what he said. I thank everybody who has tabled amendments, which are very thoughtful and well considered. I am particularly grateful for the amendment on patient safety, and again, I am sure that Ministers will have heard what has been said on that issue.
It is a pleasure to speak in a debate where we are not politicising something that matters so much to our constituents and where we are coming together to contribute our experiences, either in our constituencies or professionally. For that reason, I am delighted to be speaking.
I do not support the amendments, however well intentioned, well formulated and well thought out many of them are. However, I would like to speak to the amendment on capital budgets because there are some learning opportunities for the Government in how they spend significant capital investment on hospitals, upgrades and reconfigurations of hospital services. Those upgrades and reconfigurations are indeed happening now, as was set out in the manifesto, but they were also happening before that. My constituency and the county of Shropshire have experienced significant capital investment, but there has been a very difficult, painful and protracted process in trying to bring that forward as something that will benefit the whole community and improve patient care across the county.
I raise that issue because I hope that Ministers will take away from that experience the fact that it is fundamentally wrong to have significant capital investment where local communities are pitched against one another, as has happened in Shropshire. We saw local CCGs propose that Telford should lose all its acute services and be stripped of its A&E and women and children’s services, with them being transferred to another community some 20 miles away that is significantly more affluent and has better health outcomes. In addition, it was intended that that community would also receive £312 million of capital investment in new facilities. I am sure that hon. Members can imagine how that would make our community feel, particularly when it is disadvantaged in many respects. It is a growing new town that will have 200,000 residents in the next 10 years. We have to provide services with equal access for all, because as this Government have said, they are about one thing: levelling up. They are about narrowing health inequalities and ensuring that there is equality of access to health services across our communities. Of course, the NHS has always been about need. Funding in the NHS should follow need.
I will not delay the House too much with further discussion of the situation in my constituency because I believe that my CCGs, after six years of debating this issue, have had another thought about how they might resolve the problem. It will require more Government funding, but they have already made it clear that the proposal that is currently on the table will also require more Government funding. It will provide a fantastic opportunity for us to resolve this situation, which has been ongoing for so long. So, if the Minister is listening to pleas for more capital funding, may I ask that we complete the proposal in Telford, which will be of such value to our community?
There are other learning points that come from the capital investment programme. CCGs and health trusts have a duty—indeed, the Secretary of State has a statutory duty—to narrow health inequalities. We see that across the country where there have been controversial reconfigurations of local hospital trusts and hospital builds. It is not just in Shropshire either; many MPs on both sides of the House have spoken of the need to narrow health inequalities and to ensure that more affluent communities do not benefit at the expense of more disadvantaged ones. This new Government could not tolerate that continuing in areas of disadvantage.
Alex Cunningham
You, Dame Eleanor, were not in the Chamber when the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) indicated that SNP Members might pass through the Lobby, although of course they will not be counted. I seek your help. I want to make sure that the Government Whips do not get confused by my accent and count my vote on behalf of the people of Stockton North when I support the amendment.
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Eleanor Laing)
The hon. Gentleman asks for clarification and raises a point that I have many times had cause to raise myself, so I am in total sympathy with him, and I am quite sure that his plea has been heard.
Alex Cunningham
I am very grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Amendment 2 concerns spending on mental health services and the Secretary of State’s plans to achieve parity of esteem. Mental illness is often not viewed as a risk to human life, but it is exactly that. In 2018, according to the Samaritans, 6,507 deaths in the United Kingdom were registered as suicides—an increase of 10.9% on the previous year. That means that nearly 7,000 people did not believe that there was help, or another way out of what they were going through.
It can be hard for adults to talk about the feelings that come from being mentally unwell. The words are in their vocabulary, and it may be simple enough to string them together into a sentence, but it is incredibly difficult to say them out loud. I can only imagine how hard it must be for children to express how they are feeling when something is not right. Perhaps they do say the words that are in their heads, but they are not taken seriously. It is a scandal that there are suicidal children as young as 12 who are having to wait more than two weeks for a mental health bed. By not viewing mental illness as life-threatening, we are letting generations down.
There is much debate about what causes mental illness and what is the best form of treatment, but it can take several visits to a GP for people to be taken seriously about not being OK—although many GPs, of course, respond immediately. When parents are fighting for their unwell children to be taken seriously and receive the urgent care and treatment they need, it is horrifying for that to be delayed.
At this stage I should pay tribute to my former colleague Paul Williams, who was the Member of Parliament for Stockton South. He is a GP, and as a member of the Health Committee he spoke extensively about health matters, but locally he took on the child and adolescent mental health services. He knew, as I did because we shared the same area, that it was taking well over two years for young people to be seen by CAMHS. As a direct result of his work, that ended, up to a point, because some children who were due to be seen quickly were actually seen when they should have been. However, those long waits still exist in our area. As we heard earlier from the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt), the former Health Secretary, sometimes children are just not taken seriously.
It is right for the Secretary of State to answer to the House on exactly what the Department is doing, because this is a matter of life and death. Not only the House but the country needs assurance and answers. The state of mental health services will only get worse unless we take action to deliver what is required. The additional money is more than welcome, but I see the amendment as the first, necessary step to provide the funds that are so desperately needed. Equally important is the ability to monitor what those funds are being spent on, and how.
There are many other services on which people depend heavily, including some that we may take for granted, such as smoking cessation services. There is widespread concern about existing funding for services to help people stop smoking. Nearly a third of local authorities no longer provide specialist “stop smoking” services. Stopping smoking is not just a matter of nicotine patches or vaping; people need behavioural support as well, particularly pregnant women, children, and people who are already unwell. One ward in my constituency has some of the highest incidences of smoking in families—whole families smoking—but we also have some of the highest incidences of smoking during pregnancy, and that is not good for the unborn child.
We cannot afford to lose the progress that we have made. We have made tremendous progress over the years, but we need local services that are effective and properly funded. The Government also need to return to funding the multi-media approach to smoking cessation services. I was particularly pleased to learn last week that research has shown that the ban on smoking in cars when a child is present has produced a 75% drop in children being exposed to cigarette smoke in a car. I led on that issue during my first few years as an MP, through private Members’ Bills and a ten-minute rule Bill. The Bills were unsuccessful, but I was delighted when the Government adopted my clause a few years later. We still need to be ambitious and bold about helping people to quit smoking, but services need the resources. I hope the Minister will commit to ensuring that such services are provided, whether for mental health or for smoking cessation, and that they are fully funded so that we can continue to make real progress in that area.
Finally, I shall turn to the matter of capital. The Minister has already heard me talk about the needs in my own constituency. In one ward—the same one I referred to earlier: the Town Centre ward in Stockton—men live 14 years less than those in the Prime Minister’s constituency. His constituency is getting a new hospital, but there are no plans yet for us. However, I have good news for the Minister, because the plan for our hospital is still sitting there. I met the chief executive of North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust just two weeks ago, and she told me that they were ready to dust off the plans again and see how we could provide a hospital. At the time we asked for £100 million from the Government as a guarantor in order to make the project work. The numbers do work, and the health inequalities need to be addressed.
We need to be able to attract the best doctors and clinicians that we can to address the problems in our society. The heart problems are higher on average than anywhere else in the country. We have smoking problems, as I have mentioned, with their related lung and respiratory problems. We also have the legacy of our heavy industry on Teesside, where men who have now retired are in extremely ill health but sometimes cannot get the support they need because we do not have the experts locally to provide it.
In my final sentences, I appeal to the Minister to meet me and the trust members so that we can sit down and talk about this project.
Alex Cunningham
I am glad that he is nodding his head. Ten years ago, the Tory-Lib Dem Government cancelled the project, despite the fact that it was a priority for the country and for the national health service, so I hope that we can now have a meeting and actually start to motor on this. I am pleased to see the Minister smiling, and I hope that he can leave me smiling as well.
Suella Braverman (Fareham) (Con)
I rise to speak in favour of the clauses in the Bill and against the amendments. I do not think that the latter add anything material, and they ignore the vast improvements in mental health under this Government in recent years. One in four adults will experience mental health illness in their lifetime, and that is obviously a high incidence of mental health illness. It shows the growing concern around this issue as well as a growing awareness, and, I have to add, a growing commitment by today’s Government, but we cannot ignore the fact that there are many challenges in the system and many areas for improvement.
I want to talk briefly about the Government’s record. I fully support their commitment to providing funding for mental health services, which will mean that those services’ funding will increase faster than in other areas of the NHS. I hope that much of that funding will go towards the frontline in teaching and education. Perhaps the Minister will address this in his closing remarks.
I meet many education professionals in Fareham who report an increase in the incidence of mental illness among their young people and finding the cost of providing counselling and support an additional burden on their budgets.
It is important to note that by 2023-24, under the proposals in the Bill, at least an additional 345,000 children and young people under 25 will be able to access support via NHS-funded mental health services. That is a welcome aim, and I am confident that we will meet that target under this landmark funding commitment. That progress is hugely welcome, and I am glad that the Government have made children and young people’s mental health a top priority within the NHS, which is halfway through a major programme to improve access to specialist services, supported by £1.4 billion of funding. I congratulate the Front-Bench team and the Government on that work.
Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)
Members across the House have spoken about the importance of unanimity of purpose on mental health and maternity, but I want to speak against amendments 2 and 5, for the simple reason that this funding, although so welcome and necessary in my constituency—and those of Members across the House—will be useless to my constituents unless it results in improved outcomes. Rather than talking about ring-fencing funding for specific things, we should be talking about outcomes—what they mean for our constituents, and how we make their healthcare better.
My hon. Friends the Members for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) and for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami) raised similar points. The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) rightly drew attention to the ambitious targets in the NHS long term plan. Those are the targets that we should be tracking ourselves against. Those are the targets that we should be talking about, and we should monitor whether the improved funding has enabled us to make progress against them. We should not just talk about whether to put a certain amount of money into a certain pot; on its own, it makes no sense and will not make anyone’s life better. The main point I want to make is that we should focus on outcomes rather than forever tracking inputs that do not improve our constituents’ lives.
The NHS long term plan has some very ambitious targets for maternity and mental health. I shall dwell on the target to achieve 50% reductions in stillbirth, maternal mortality, neonatal mortality and serious brain injury by 2025. It is incredibly important, and it is crucial that the House is updated on our progress against it. We shall do that, yes, through funding, but funding linked with policies that will drive that outcome and drive improvements.
I want to focus on midwives and maternity care. Under the coalition Government, a commitment was made to give each mother a named midwife. That is obviously extremely important, both for the mental health of the mother and for her care, because it means that there is someone who, throughout, is observing how that woman is doing—understanding how she has changed from one appointment to the next. It is not just a tick-box exercise, with a person who has never met the mother before looking at a list and saying, “Have you actually done this? Then you must be fine.” It is a person looking at the woman and thinking, “Actually, is this someone who needs a bit of help—whose mental health has deteriorated since the last appointment, who is looking a little bit more anxious?” Ring-fencing the funding is not enough in itself.
In addition, the long term plan talks about the shortage of neonatal capacity. As someone who has had the misfortune to have to use a neonatal unit recently, I know the tragic and immense strain that the movement of babies can put on parents who have to use neonatal units. We absolutely must put this money into expanding capacity in our neonatal units, and try to ensure that parents are assured that when they move into high-dependency units, they will never be downgraded because of capacity. That is incredibly important.
My hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) spoke very movingly about the issues that she had in her trust. Moving forward with policies such as these will prevent any repeat of such issues.
On a linked issue, it is important that we look at outcomes for multiple births. Neonatal capacity is part of that, but in addition the Twins Trust has been doing fantastic work in terms of a maternity checklist, which has been piloted by a number of trusts but not yet all. We can look at funnelling some of the money into increasing those trials. That will drive outcomes, which is what we are all here to ensure.
Finally, I want to mention money for anaesthetists. We talk about mental health outcomes for mothers. Part of the problem has been that, according to frightening reports, women who are in terrible need of pain relief during childbirth have not been able to get it. That is a cultural issue in some trusts. They seem to view childbirth as different from having an operation on one’s leg. I would like to see anyone who would undergo an operation on any other part of their body without pain relief, but that seems to be something that some trusts believe women are able to do, and it is wrong. Investment in anaesthetists, and funnelling money into that area of the NHS, is incredibly important.
To summarise: outcomes, please, not just pots of money. That will make everyone’s constituents’ lives better.
Lee Rowley (North East Derbyshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott), not least because her last sentence is what the next 10 minutes of my speech are about. [Interruption.] I am sure many Members probably want me to sit down now, but I will continue none the less.
Jane Hunt (Loughborough) (Con)
I am grateful to my east midlands colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley), for that excellent speech. He made some important points, particularly about outputs, the specific healthcare that is needed and the support required throughout the NHS.
I am grateful for this opportunity to speak to amendments 1, 2 and 3. The funding in the Bill will be administered by NHS England. The Bill guarantees long-term funding to implement the NHS long-term plan. It commits the Government to a £33.9 billion increase for the NHS by 2023-24, bringing the total spend to £148.5 billion. It also provides certainty through a double-lock agreement that places a legal duty on the Secretary of State and the Treasury to uphold this level of funding as a minimum over the next four years.
We are putting our money where our mouth is. Our manifesto clearly stated that
“within the first three months of our new term, we will enshrine in law our fully funded, long-term NHS plan”.
Since our success in December, we have consistently put forward and agreed steps to meet the commitments in our manifesto. We are delivering on the promises that we have made.
One of the most important aspects of the NHS long-term plan is its approach to mental health. It is crucial that people have access to mental health services where and when they need them. I, therefore, welcome the fact that the plan commits to ensuring that mental health receives a growing share of the NHS budget, which will be worth at least a further £2.3 billion a year in real terms by 2023-24. This will enable further service expansion and faster access to community and crisis mental health services for adults and particularly for children and young people.
Given that many people living with mental health issues may need to access health services more often, the NHS long term plan also allows for better and more consistent working between all parts of health care and voluntary elements of the sector. As we have seen in west Leicestershire, for example, primary care networks have formed, grouping GPs and other partners together to the benefit of their patients.
As NHS England sets out, primary care networks build on the core of current primary care services and enable greater provision of proactive, personalised, co-ordinated and more integrated health and social care. Clinicians describe this as a change from reactively providing appointments to proactively caring for the people and the communities that they serve.
Linking this local working together with the benefit and knowledge of vanguard projects from across the country and giving experienced local trust leaders, who have a deep understanding of the physical and mental health needs of their local area, the freedom to make appropriate funding decisions will improve the overall experience of the patient and provide better health and lifestyle outcomes. That is to be welcomed and celebrated, and I ask my fellow colleagues to support the Bill and reject the amendments today.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
On a point of order, Dame Eleanor. I notice that it is now 5.10 pm and that the Minister is about to get to his feet. If the knife falls at 5.30 pm, while the Minister is still speaking, or a Division is under way, can you confirm that that means there will be no Report stage, and no chance for the SNP amendments to be tabled or voted on?
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Eleanor Laing)
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right in regard to the procedure. If we finish this part of the procedure before 5.29 pm, there will be a very short time for the next part of the procedure. If this part of the consideration of the Bill goes to 5.29 pm, there will indeed be no time for the Report and consideration stage. That is correct, as is normal in any Bill, but I am grateful to him for pointing it out so clearly.
Edward Argar
In the 15 or so minutes remaining to me, I will endeavour to address all the points that have been raised. First, I thank Members on both sides of the House for their contributions and for the amendments that have been tabled. I particularly thank the shadow Minister for his typically reasonable tone in making his case forcefully. This Committee debate has been a wide-ranging and important one.
I will turn in detail to the amendments shortly, but, in the interests of time, I will swiftly address the requests for meetings or visits. The hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) was right when he said that he saw me nodding. I will be very happy to meet him, my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) and the chief executive of his hospital trust to discuss the issues that he raised. I will also be very happy to meet the hon. Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) separately to discuss the issues that he raised.
Edward Argar
I will give way very briefly, because the hon. Gentleman is eating into his own time.
Pete Wishart
The Minister is in a very accommodating mood. Does he accept that this Bill has funding implications and consequences for health spending in Scotland?
Edward Argar
As has been very clear throughout the progression of this Bill so far, there are Barnett consequentials, which will be dealt with in the usual and appropriate manner.
I will turn to the detail of the amendments in a moment, but before I do, let me say that my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) addressed the debate in Westminster Hall just before the general election. In that, I said that if her constituents wanted a strong voice in this place, they should vote for her. I am very pleased that they did exactly that. Her speech shows exactly why.
This legislation is a simple Bill of two clauses. The substantive clause—clause 1—puts a double-lock duty on the Secretary of State and Her Majesty’s Treasury to ensure that NHS England will receive, as a minimum, £33.9 billion extra a year by 2024, enshrining in law the NHS England revenue budget rise in line with the Government’s manifesto commitment. The Bill has deliberately been drawn narrowly to focus on that core commitment.
Theo Clarke (Stafford) (Con)
This Bill is about funding, but buildings and services are key to delivering on our national health service priorities, so may I highlight the importance of the A&E at the County Hospital in Stafford and ensuring that we are supporting NHS services in my constituency?
Edward Argar
My hon. Friend is a sound and vocal champion for her constituents in Stafford. I am sure that she will continue to champion their cause, and I am happy to meet her to discuss the specific issue she raised.
I turn to amendment 3, in respect of capital-to-revenue transfers. Clause 1(2) ensures that the funding specified in the Bill can only be used for NHSE revenue spending, meaning that day-to-day spending for the NHS is protected. As we have highlighted in the House previously, the Government have made a range of capital commitments to the NHS, including the commitment to 40 new hospitals. Nevertheless, going to the point in the amendment itself, we have been clear that the transfers from capital revenue should have only been seen as short-term measures that were rightly being phased out, and we are doing so. My right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt), the former Secretary of State, did, however, set out why a degree of flexibility is required, and we would not believe that a blanket ban set in legislation was the right approach.
Edward Argar
I will not, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, as I only have 10 minutes or so left.
There are sometimes very good and logical reasons why adjustments between capital and revenue are needed. As the former Secretary of State highlighted, in some cases, for perfectly good reasons a capital pot may not be spent fully within a year and there is an opportunity to achieve patient good from transferring it. While I take his point and believe it is right that we should continue to move away from such transfers, I would not wish to see that rigidly set in legislation.
Amendments 2 and 1, and new clauses 1, 2, 3 and 9, relate to mental health services both for children and adults, and accountability to Parliament and reporting mechanisms. We have rightly seen considerable interest in mental health in this debate, so I will seek to address both those points together. I begin by paying tribute to Paul Farmer of Mind, Sir Simon Wessely, Professor Louis Appleby, the Mental Health Foundation, Rethink Mental Illness, YoungMinds, the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and a host of other individuals and organisations up and down the country, for their fantastic work in making mental health such a feature in our debates and in the public consciousness. It is absolutely right that they have done so.
I pay tribute to the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries), and her predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price), who brought to the role of mental health Minister passion, dedication and a determination to make a difference. I should also reference some former Members of this House: Norman Lamb, who did so much in this area; the former Prime Minister, David Cameron; and of course my right hon. Friends the Members for South West Surrey and for Maidenhead (Mrs May), who ensured that it was front and centre of this Government’s commitment.
I want to be totally clear that the Government are fully committed to transforming mental health services. That is why we enshrined in law our commitment to achieving parity of esteem for mental health in the Health and Social Care Act 2012. As my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey said, that is driving real change on the ground. We have also committed to reforming the Mental Health Act 1983 to provide modernised legislation. I would also highlight that at £12.5 billion in 2018-19, spending on mental health services is at its highest ever level.
We have made huge strides in moving towards parity, but there is still so much more to do. We are ensuring, through the NHS long-term plan, that spending on mental health services will increase by an additional £2.3 billion by 2023-24. This historic level of investment in mental health is ensuring that we can drive forward one of the most ambitious reform programmes in Europe. It will ensure that hundreds of thousands of additional people get access to the services they need in the lifetime of the plan. I flag that up because we can and will always strive to do more, and it is right that we are always pressed by this House to do so. While proposals for a ring fence in mental health spending are understandable, the approach that this Government have already set out, with long-term commitments to funding, is already driving the results we wish to see.
I now turn to new clause 9, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris). If I may, I will also address new clause 2 in this context because there is a degree of overlap. I welcome my hon. Friend’s new clause. Although I hope that, as she indicated, she will not press it to a vote—and I heard what the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) said in respect of hers—the sentiment behind it is a good one, particularly the focus on outcomes and outputs rather than simply inputs and the amount of money going in, and on adopting a holistic approach. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot recently met the Secretary of State to discuss the matter, and I am happy to meet both her and the hon. Member for Twickenham. While we do not believe it is the right approach to set additional reporting mechanisms in legislation over and above the different reports that NHS England and the Secretary of State already make to Parliament, which offer opportunities for debate, we are happy to consider whether, within the existing reporting mechanisms, there is a way to better convey to the House and the public more widely the progress we are making against those targets.
The NHS long-term plan represents the largest expansion of mental health services in a generation, renewing our commitment to increase investment faster than the overall NHS budget in each of the next five years. Not only will spending on mental health services increase faster than the overall NHS budget as a proportion, but spending on CAMHS will increase at an even faster rate. The hon. Member for Twickenham was right to highlight the importance of CAMHS. In our surgeries, we have all had constituents come to see us who are deeply worried and concerned about the mental health and welfare of their children, be that in relation to eating disorders, which I focused on when I came to this place, or a range of other factors. We are committed to delivering the NHS long-term plan to transform children and young people’s mental health services, with an additional 345,000 children and young people being able to access those services.
While we are deeply sympathetic to the spirit behind the amendments on mental health spending, we do not believe that putting a ring fence into the Bill is the appropriate way forward, given the work already being done, the money already being spent and the outcomes already being delivered. We believe that the reporting requirements are already extensive and varied. They already give the public and Parliament the opportunity to scrutinise the work of the Department and NHS England. We are happy to look at ways in which those reports might be more accessible and include different metrics, but we believe it would be wrong to legislate on them at this point.
As I said on Second Reading, this is a simple Bill. It has two clauses, of which one is substantive. It has a single, simple aim: to enshrine the funding settlement behind the NHS long-term plan in law. It delivers the funding that the NHS said it needed and wanted, and it delivers on this Government’s pledge to do so within three months of the election. In the light of that, while the amendments are clearly well intentioned and we appreciate the spirit behind them, they are unnecessary additions to the Bill, and I urge their proposers not to press them to a vote. I appreciate that Members have indicated their intention to press some amendments to a vote, I urge them, in the short period remaining before Committee ends, to reflect a little longer on whether they might reconsider and not move their amendments to a vote.
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Under the programme order of 27 January, I must now put the Questions necessary to dispose of the proceedings in the Legislative Grand Committee (England) on the Committee stage of the Bill, and on the consideration —Report—stage and the consent motion in the Legislative Grand Committee (England). I can see some puzzled faces around the Chamber, and not only among those who have newly been elected to this place, so for the sake of Members unfamiliar with our procedures in respect of Legislative Grand Committees, I will set out what is about to happen.
I will put the Question on amendment 2, which has already been proposed from the Chair. I will then call a member of the Legislative Grand Committee (England) to move amendment 3 to clause 1. When he has done so, I will put the Question on that amendment. I will then put the single Question that clause 1—or clause 1, as amended, if it has been so amended—and clause 2 stand part of the Bill. I will then call a member of the Legislative Grand Committee (England) to move new clause 4. When he has done so, I will put the Question that the new clause be added to the Bill.
The Chairman
I could, but we might get to the stage where there are no votes at all.
When the proceedings in the Legislative Grand Committee (England) on the Committee stage of the Bill are concluded, I will resume the Speaker’s Chair for the Whip to report the Bill from Committee. As the three-hour knife has now fallen, there are no amendments for consideration on Report, as the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) rightly pointed out in his point of order earlier.
The House will again resolve itself into the Legislative Grand Committee (England) to give consent to the Bill as a whole. I will call the Minister to move the consent motion formally, and I will put the Question on the consent motion forthwith. I can see that everybody understands this a lot better now. When the proceedings in the Legislative Grand Committee (England) on the consent motion are concluded, I will resume the Speaker’s Chair and call the Minister to move the Third Reading of the Bill.
I remind hon. Members that, if there is a Division in the Legislative Grand Committee, only Members representing constituencies in England may vote. All Members may vote on the Third Reading of the Bill.
Pete Wishart
On a point of order, Dame Eleanor. I am very sorry, but although I was listening very carefully, I did not quite catch all of that. Do you mind repeating it once again, please?
The Chairman
I fully appreciate that the hon. Gentleman may not have caught all of that, but I happen to know that he is one of a handful of people in this House who does actually understand this procedure. I hope that I am one of the others, and everyone else will pick it up as we go along.
The Chair put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair (Standing Order No. 83D), That amendment 2 be made.
The Committee having proceeded to a Division.
The Chairman
Will the Serjeant at Arms please investigate the delay in the Aye Lobby?
Patrick Grady
On a point of order, Dame Eleanor. I think that we should mark this moment. This is the busiest that the English Parliament has been since 1707. I have never seen so many people so keen to take part.
I am interested in the numbers that have just been read out, Madam Deputy Speaker, because 163 for the Ayes seems very low to me. Just by means of a headcount, I counted a significant number more than that. In fact, according to my calculations, at least 46 Members from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were in the Lobby just now. Can you tell me whether the number that was read out in the House accurately records the number of Members of Parliament who wished to express their view on the amendment?
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for expressing his concerns in such an articulate fashion, and I note the words that he has used. I can confirm to him that, although his count of the number of Members who wished to express their view might well be correct, the numbers that I have announced to the House and on which I will rely from the Chair constitute the number of Members who have a right to vote on this matter. As the hon. Gentleman knows, under the procedures set out in Standing Order 83W—with which he, if not the rest of the House, must of course be familiar—Members who do not represent constituencies geographically situated in England do not have a right to vote in these particular Divisions.
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
On a point of order, Dame Eleanor. Perhaps you can enlighten me. Is this indeed the first time that Members from Scotland have had their votes discounted in this place? What conclusion should we draw, Madam Deputy Speaker, when an item such as this Bill will have spending consequences for Scotland, and yet Scottish MPs are locked out of this place? Can we not draw our own conclusion that this is indeed the English Parliament? The answer to the people of Scotland is very clear: if you want your votes to be counted, we had better become an independent Parliament in Scotland.
The Chairman
I am afraid that the right hon. Gentleman does not quite explain the situation as it really is. You see, this Parliament, as the Parliament of the United Kingdom, passed certain rules some time ago, and it is not correct to say that Members from Scottish constituencies are locked out; far from it. Members from Scottish constituencies, and constituencies in every part of the United Kingdom, have not been locked out. They have been allowed to participate in the debate, but not to vote in it. Members from Northern Ireland constituencies and from Welsh constituencies are similarly categorised for the purpose of these particular Divisions.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Michael Gove)
Further to that point of order, Dame Eleanor. Is it not the case that health is a devolved matter, and that the NHS in Scotland is the responsibility of the Scottish Parliament? Is it not the case that, therefore, Members of this House have no votes on, or say in, what happens in the NHS in Scotland, and is it not appropriate to point out to SNP Members that while they stage these stunts here, the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh, for which they are responsible, remains closed, and cases of poisoning in hospitals in Glasgow for which they are responsible remain undealt with? Until the Scottish Government make sure that the health of the people of Scotland is looked after, the people of Scotland will regard this as a transparent stunt on the part of people who, instead of representing their constituents, seek to manufacture grievance.
The Chairman
I fully appreciate the point—[Interruption.] Order. This will not degenerate into a shouting match.
The right hon. Gentleman has expressed his view with his usual rhetorical flourish. My only comment must be that this is a very narrow Bill, specifically making provision for the funding of the health service in England. I have to go with what it says on the Bill, and it is therefore correct for it to be administered in this way.
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
On a point of order, Dame Eleanor. I have due regard for your judgments. When I first rose to speak in the House in 2015, I said to the then Speaker that, while I was no Unionist or home ruler, I would stand shoulder to shoulder in defending the role of the Speaker. My concern, if this is the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, is that this Bill has Barnett consequentials for the nation of Scotland, the nation of Wales and the communities of Northern Ireland. Therefore, I am gravely concerned that the EVEL system is being used to exclude the notion that there are Barnett consequentials. You may wish to clarify this for the Members of the Conservative and Unionist one nation party.
The Chairman
I fully appreciate the point that the hon. Gentleman raises, and there may well be Barnett consequentials—[Hon. Members: “Ah!”] There may be further opportunities when further legislation about these matters comes before the House, but this particular Bill is a very narrow one, and therefore the ruling is quite clear. I appreciate what the hon. Gentleman says about protecting the Chair and rulings from the Chair. In this case, there is no grey area. Under Standing Order No. 83W, no matter who passes through the Division Lobby in these three Divisions before us—or however many Divisions there might be—only the votes of Members sitting for English constituencies will be counted.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
On a point of order, Dame Eleanor. I know that Mr Speaker has strict rules about the use of promotional material in the Chamber of the House of Commons, and I am sure that, quite unintentionally, some Members might be displaying material that perhaps would be inappropriate. Will you point out that there are strict rules on that, and that it should not be done in the way that it has been done?
The Chairman
I am grateful to the right hon. Lady. I must say to her and to the Committee that I was hoping that I would not see any promotional materials—[Interruption.] Oh no! I see one! I was hoping that such an occurrence would not happen right now. No promotional materials should ever be displayed in the Chamber. For the avoidance of doubt, I refer hon. Members to paragraph 21.29 of “Erskine May”—Mr Blackford, you will like this one—which states clearly that
“all Members should be sufficiently articulate to express what they want to say without diagrams”.
I will now proceed to amendment 3 to clause 1, which I have selected for a separate decision.
The Chair then put forthwith the Questions necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that time (Standing Order No. 83D).
Amendment proposed: 3, in clause 1, page 1, line 18, at end insert—
“and that the sums set out in the table are not permitted to be augmented by or composed of any virements from NHS capital budgets.”—(Justin Madders.)
The amendment would stop the Secretary of State meeting the NHS England allotment for resource spending by using funds from NHS capital budgets.
The Committee proceeded to a Division.
The Chairman
I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the Aye Lobby.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
There are no amendments on consideration.
Patrick Grady
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is great to be back in the United Kingdom Parliament—just like magic! I congratulate you on your skilful chairing of the English Parliament from the lower Chair over the last three hours. You have just announced that there are no amendments to be considered on Report as none had been tabled because the knife fell more than an hour ago. Could you confirm that that is correct? I notice that the selection list says:
“Mr Speaker has provisionally selected…New Clauses…as long as the 3 hour time limit has not expired: NC6 [SNP] + NC7 [SNP].”
For the record, can we confirm that the effect of all this has been that amendments tabled by Members of the Scottish National party have not been debated tonight and could not been divided on because the Government did not provide enough time, or Members took up so much time in the meeting of the English Parliament—the Legislative Grand Committee—that they have effectively denied the rights of SNP Members to table amendments to a Bill that directly affects our constituents?
Madam Deputy Speaker
The hon. Gentleman’s analysis is not wrong. The knife has fallen. The House voted some days ago to provide three hours, or four hours in total, for consideration of this Bill, and it is indeed the case that because those four hours have passed, there is no time for debate on consideration and Report—that is absolutely correct. There is also no time for debate on Third Reading.
As to whether the Government did not provide sufficient time, or Members of this House took up all the time in the early part of the proceedings, that is not a matter for me to judge; I have merely facilitated it. Members might have decided not to speak for very long at the beginning. If so, the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues would have had the opportunity to discuss the matters that they had tabled. I thank him for his further points.
Does the Minister intend to move a consent motion in the Legislative Grand Committee?
Edward Argar
indicated assent.
The House forthwith resolved itself into the Legislative Grand Committee (England) (Standing Order No. 83M(3)).
[Dame Eleanor Laing in the Chair]
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I remind hon. Members, although I do not think there is any need for reminding at this stage, that if there is a Division, only Members representing constituencies in England may vote.
Patrick Grady
On a point of order, Dame Eleanor. We are back in the English Parliament again and the absurdity of this procedure is now being laid bare. [Interruption.] I am delighted that Conservative Members are groaning because several of them voted for it when it was introduced way back in 2015. They did not have to—it was a choice. I am not trying to beat the record of my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), who has spoken in the Legislative Grand Committee for England more times than any other Member of this House over the past four years, but can we just confirm again that, as you said, if Scottish Members, for whatever reason, were to object to the consent motion, you would not even be able to hear their voices —it is as if we are invisible?
The Chairman
It is not as if any hon. Member of this House is ever invisible or, indeed, inaudible, but merely, once again, following Standing Order No. 83W, which this House resolved to put into the Standing Orders of the House.
Pete Wishart
On a point of order, Dame Eleanor. [Interruption.] I hear the groans from my Conservative colleagues. I have to keep my record of speaking in the English Parliament—it is a record that I very much cherish and look forward to maintaining. These events are being televised and people throughout the United Kingdom, particularly those in Scotland, are observing our proceedings with a degree of mystification and bewilderment. What Scottish viewers will see is the baying, groaning and booing of Conservative Members about Scottish Members of Parliament asserting their rights to have their say on the funding of the national health service. Can you confirm that that is the case and that this House really needs to grow up, behave itself and come into the 21st century?
The Chairman
I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman makes. I would say, as Mr Speaker always says, and as every occupant of the Chair always says, that our behaviour in this Chamber should, at all times, be of a standard that makes us never ashamed to be watched by anyone on television or in any other way, regardless of the subject of our proceedings. I notice that that has engendered some slightly better behaviour—thank you.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith,
That the Legislative Grand Committee (England) consents to the NHS Funding Bill, not amended in the Legislative Grand Committee (England).— (Edward Argar.)
Under the terms of the Order of the House of 27 January, I must now put the Question necessary to bring to a conclusion the proceedings in the Legislative Grand Committee on the consent motion. The question is the consent motion. As many are of that opinion say “Aye”—[Hon. Members: “Aye!”]—of the contrary “No”—[Hon. Members: “No!”]. The Ayes have it—[Interruption.] We now come to a scientific matter. Members representing Scottish seats are well aware that they do not have the right to vote on this particular motion. They therefore do not have the right to shout “No” when I put the question. I can hear “Aye” from the Government Benches. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) knows that I am more than capable of discerning a Scottish “No” from a non-Scottish “No”—[Interruption.] Order. I am ruling that the shouting of “No” from the SNP Benches does not mean that we are going to have a Division.
Question agreed to.
Martin Docherty-Hughes
On a point of order, Dame Eleanor. I always have due regard for you and anyone who sits in the Chair of any Parliament. You said that you could discern Scottish MPs shouting “No”; I fully understand that. Can you advise me whether you can hear Scottish constituency MPs on the Government Benches shouting “Aye”?
The Chairman
I believe I can, but as their voices have been drowned out by the English “Ayes”, I cannot hear the Scottish Members on the Government Benches. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) points out that, although he has a Scottish voice, he has an English vote. We have had enough of this.
Ian Blackford
On a point of order, Dame Eleanor. I am grateful to you for allowing this point of order. I wonder whether you can help me. When we were all elected to this place in December 2019, we were sent here to represent our constituents. What message does it give to the people of Ross, Skye and Lochaber and the constituents of my many hon. Friends that we are not permitted to vote on matters in this House that have direct consequences for spending in Scotland?
The Chairman
That is not a point of order for the Chair, and my opinion on the matter is irrelevant. We have had enough points of order; it is time to continue with business.
The occupant of the Chair left the Chair to report the decision of the Committee (Standing Order No. 83M(6)).
The Deputy Speaker resumed the Chair; decision reported.
Rating and Valuation
(4 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jesse Norman)
I beg to move,
That the Local Government Finance Act 1988 (Non-Domestic Rating Multipliers) (England) Order 2019, which was laid before this House on 4 November 2019, in the last Session of Parliament, be approved.
This order makes a small but important technical change to business rates. Specifically, it changes the annual inflationary increase in the business rates multiplier from the retail prices index to the lower consumer prices index for the coming financial year. As hon. Members may know, the multiplier is effectively the tax rate applied to the calculation of business rates, be it through the standard multiplier or the small business multiplier. Historically, these multipliers would rise in line with the preceding year’s RPI figure. On this basis, the multipliers were due to increase to reflect the September 2019 RPI figure, which was 2.4%. In Budget 2016, the Government announced that they would switch the multiplier uprating from RPI to CPI indexation from April 2020. [Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. Will Members leaving the Chamber do so quietly, please?
Jesse Norman
The autumn Budget 2017 brought forward this implementation date to April 2018. The switch makes a reduction to business rates that is estimated to be worth more than £6 billion over the next five years, and the benefit to business will continue to grow as the business rates multipliers are uprated by the lower rate of inflation year on year. The Government introduced regulations to make this change for previous years, and we are bringing forward this order to do the same for 2020-21.
Before I proceed to outline the detail of the order itself, I would like to set out some of the background for the benefit of the House. The Government recognise that business rates can represent a high fixed cost for some businesses—indeed, many businesses—and we have taken repeated steps to reduce the burden of the tax. Reforms since Budget 2016 include, first, making 100% small business rate relief permanent and doubling the threshold of this relief from April 2017. As a result, more than 675,000 of the smallest businesses do not pay business rates at all. Secondly, increasing the threshold for the standard multiplier to £51,000 from April 2017 has removed many properties from the higher rate of the tax. Thirdly, moving to more frequent valuations by bringing the next revaluation forward one year to 2021 and moving to three-year revaluations after that will make bills fairer by ensuring they more closely reflect properties’ current rental values.
Finally, introducing a new retail discount has cut the business rates bills of small retailers by one third for two years from April 2019. This is providing up-front support to the retail sector at what is proving to be a challenging time for many retailers, and it is worth about £1 billion to businesses.
Looking forward, as confirmed in the statement I made on 27 January, from 1 April this year the Government will increase the retail discount to 50% in 2020-21, and extend eligibility to independent cinemas and grassroots music venues for the first time. We will provide additional support to pubs through a £1,000 discount for pubs with a rateable value of less than £100,000. We will extend the duration of the £1,500 discount for local newspaper office space for a further five years. However, it is important to be clear that the Government recognise that concerns remain about the impact of the tax. That is why we are committed to a further review of business rates, details of which will be announced in due course.
The order before the House is the necessary secondary legislation required to effect the change in the inflationary increase for business rates from RPI to CPI in the financial year 2020-21. It sets out the new equation for setting the business rates multipliers for the coming financial year, so that the September 1.7% CPI figure is used instead of the 2.4% RPI figure.
Given the difference in the multiplier from uprating this year, the small business multiplier in 2020-21 will be 49.9p, rather than 50.3p. The standard multiplier in 2020-21 will be 51.2p, rather than 51.6p. That change represents a cut in business rates every year, benefiting all rate payers and freeing up cash for businesses. The order applies to England—unlike in the last debate, Madam Deputy Speaker, there has not been quite the same interest from Scottish nationalists about this measure, although both provisions apply to England. The Government will provide the devolved Administrations with funding to enable them to offer similar support if they wish, and they will fully compensate local authorities for the income they will lose as a result of this measure.
This measure should not be viewed in isolation, and as I have said, it is one of many introduced by this Government, and their predecessor Governments, to support business. I have mentioned numerous cuts to business rates, including the two-year business rates relief for small retailers. Looking more widely, the UK corporate tax regime remains highly competitive, with the Government having lowered corporation tax from 28% in 2010 to 19% today—the lowest rate in the G20. Beyond that, businesses are benefiting from enhanced tax incentives, including the introduction of the new 2% structures and buildings allowance, and a temporary increase in the annual investment allowance to £1 million.
The statutory instrument that we are legislating for today will contribute to the Government’s efforts to reduce the burden of business rates and make them fairer for taxpayers. As I outlined, on top of the reliefs already in place, the Government are committed to a review of the business rates system, details of which will be announced in due course. In conclusion, this order will change the annual inflationary increase in business rates from the retail price index to the consumer prices index in financial year 2020-21, thereby reducing costs for all business rate payers in England and giving the economy a further boost. I commend the order to the House.
Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)
I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation of the order, and broadly supportive of its contents. It does, however, raise some significant questions about the Government’s continued use of the retail price index as against the consumer prices index, and about their approach to business rate reform and local government funding more widely.
Members will be aware that there has been continued argument about the use of RPI as an inflation indicator, as against CPI and CPIH. RPI was de-designated as a national statistic back in 2013, yet it is still often used in areas such as the regulation of train fares, student loan debt, and many occupational pension schemes. CPI has been adopted in this case, but we have no clear explanation why the use of RPI continues in other areas. The Royal Statistical Society has been highly critical of that approach.
After many years of confusion, the Chancellor has now agreed not to cease the production of RPI statistics, but to slowly align them with CPIH, thus ending the situation of, as The Financial Times put it,
“the Office for National Statistics and UK Statistics Authority publishing a key economy measure every month which they accept is wrong, but doing nothing to improve it.”
That is what has been happening over the past few years. I therefore find it quite revealing that, rather than amending the Local Government Finance Act 1988 through primary legislation to make that change permanent, the Government choose to make it yet again, year on year, through secondary legislation. Is this use of orders, rather than primary legislation to designate the relevant inflation measure, to retain flexibility for the Government, or for some other unexplained reason? Either way, it creates a potentially unstable environment for businesses and local authorities, perhaps up to 2025 or beyond.
We have seen no uprating in the existing thresholds at which discounts on business rates apply. I accept that the retail discount has increased from one third to 50%, and been extended to some additional categories of economic operator. I am probing, through parliamentary questions, what proportion of rateable businesses are actually covered, given the low thresholds at which those discounts apply, especially in areas of high property costs.
The Conservative manifesto said that the Government would go further and fundamentally review the business rate system, so it was disappointing that the Minister said—twice—that this would happen “in due course”. Will he please tell us once when that review will at least begin, and what its scope will be? According to the British Retail Consortium, 2019 was the worst year for retail in 25 years. We need some urgency from the Government in dealing with this issue. We also need to deal with the impact of the business rate system on preventing the investment that is required to ensure environmentally friendly business and manufacturing.
Finally, we need to put rating in the context of the overall local government funding settlement. It was disappointing that the Minister did not talk about that at all, but merely about compensation for this measure in the settlement. All Labour Members realise that the Government are suggesting a real-terms cut to local government. Even worse, the alleged increase they are putting into local government is predicated on all councils increasing council tax by the full amount, which they blatantly will not do—smoke and mirrors yet again. We have seen a concerning trend where funding from local authorities in less affluent areas is stripped back at a far faster rate than it is in more affluent areas. The Government’s laughably named fair funding approach would see almost three-quarters of the so-called red wall seats losing out even further. There is great concern among those in local government that reforms to business rates could make this even worse, with 77% of councils saying that they lack confidence in 100% business rate retention.
I hope the Minister will address these concerns, outline a timetable for the review of business rates, indicate whether that review will include considerations of local government, and, above all, let us know whether we will see an end to the current uncertainties around CPI adoption.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
It is with great pleasure that I call Paula Barker to make her maiden speech.
Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to make my maiden speech in this place. I congratulate you on your election and wish you the very best for the future.
I want to take a brief moment, at the beginning of this speech, to pay tribute to my predecessor, Luciana Berger, who served my constituency for nine years. In particular, her commitment to raising the profile of mental health issues was very encouraging. Although it is an issue more widely talked about than ever in society, it sits far too low down on the political agenda. I wish Luciana and her young family the very best for the future.
My wedding day was the best day of my life and my two sons are my proudest achievement in life, but it is the greatest honour of my life—and a most humbling one—to sit in this Chamber as the Labour Member of Parliament for Liverpool, Wavertree. I represent a wonderfully diverse constituency in south Liverpool. It has a number of communities—from Childwall to Church, from Kensington to Old Swan, from Picton to Wavertree itself—unique with their own characteristics, rich in their own history and proud of their contribution to our city’s story. I will speak for all our people in all their diversity, not least for some of the longest-established minority communities in our nation. Our Yemeni community, our Jewish and Hindu communities, and our Afro-Caribbean and African communities. I cannot go on without mentioning how much it means to our city to finally have a black MP from Liverpool sitting on these Benches—my good friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson).
My constituency is economically diverse, too, and that is something I am less inclined to celebrate. Liverpool, Wavertree is the story of two constituencies. The economic disparity between the wealthiest and poorest parts of my constituency is far too great. My socialism is aspirational: it is not about levelling down, but rather levelling up communities that for far too long have suffered at the hands of crushing Tory austerity.
I was born in the constituency at Sefton General Hospital. My mother and father both worked at the sweet factory, Barker and Dobson—the name a mere coincidence. Both were workers on the shop floor and members of the Transport and General Workers Union. When my dad tragically died two weeks before my second birthday, my mum raised me as a single mother—so, according to the Prime Minister, in his own words that makes me “ill-raised, ignorant” and “aggressive”. In all honesty, I may well be the latter—it comes with the territory of being a woman with an opinion, and a Scouse one at that.
I joined my trade union, Unison—or NALGO, as it was then—on my first day working for Liverpool City Council, so it is apt that we are discussing a statutory instrument on local government finance today. Liverpool City Council is a council that has had its funding reduced by 64% since 2010, equating to £640 million; a council that is the backbone of our communities, providing services from cradle to grave; and a council that, along with so many others, needs to be funded properly and equitably.
I did not find politics; politics found me. I owe most things in life—I make no apology for this—to the trade union movement. It was that movement that gave me security at work. It was that movement that made me understand the power of solidarity. And it was the working-class movement that made me realise that we, the collective, are the tide that lifts all boats. All these principles were reaffirmed—and thank you to Conservative Members—by the Conservative party, which waged an unrelenting assault on my city, attempting to put us into a state of “managed decline”.
We are self-reliant, hard-working and independently minded people. There is no such inclination towards “welfarism” or a prevailing sense of “victimhood”, as The Spectator once asserted while the Prime Minister was undertaking tough, arduous graft doing real work in that infamous sweatshop that was its editorial room. Like my party, we are a city of work and workers—human beings with long memories, united in our ideals and fundamentally optimistic about our collective future. I will always champion my constituency, my city, wider Merseyside and our beloved north-west region, so long as the good people of Wavertree continue to put their faith in me.
I want to give a warning to Conservative Members using a contemporary example, but before I do, I must say that the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government is not better qualified to understand the problems that our city faces than the actual people who represent it. The point is this: if devolution is to mean anything whatsoever, it is Liverpool City Council and the city Mayor who should have the power to decide whether to continue the successful landlord licensing scheme. I know that my constituents will suffer on the back of the decision to withdraw the scheme, and we will not take it lying down. We seldom take anything lying down in my part of the world.
Bill Shankly had it right when he said:
“The socialism I believe in is everyone working for each other, everyone having a share of the rewards.”
It is the way he saw football and life. I and my fellow Scousers are not much different. My party has a long road back to power. United in our common aims and values, we can and will overcome the odds to achieve power, because it is only through power that my constituents will be able to realise their hopes, dreams and aspirations.
Jesse Norman
Let me start by responding to the comments from the Opposition Front Bencher, the hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), who raised a series of questions of a technical nature. She asked why the Government are continuing to use RPI versus CPI, and I was grateful that she acknowledged that the policy has been one of slow alignment. In September 2019, the Chancellor announced that the Government and the UK Statistics Authority would jointly consult on proposals to address shortcomings in RPI. We expect that consultation to launch at the time of the Budget.
I am sure the shadow Minister is aware—I think she hinted at this—that since 2010 the Government have been reducing the use of RPI, and we will continue to do so where practicable. She asked why primary legislation had not been used in the context of this instrument. The answer is that the Government have made a commitment that this will be permanent and that they will use CPI for the uprating of business rates. We have also said—if we have not, let me say it now—that we will consider introducing primary legislation in due course, but the parliamentary timetable is very congested and we have to make sure it can fit alongside many other items, including items to which I am sure she is thoroughly committed.
The shadow Minister talked about raising thresholds. As I think she will acknowledge, we have increased the rate for the retail discount, and the pubs discount has been set at a high level and so includes a great number of pubs. She asked about the review. We have said we will launch a review in due course. I will not go further than that, although at this time of the year it does not require the application of rocket science to see when “in due course” might ultimately land.
Finally, the shadow Minister talked about local government. Of course, she is right to focus on the importance of business rates to local government funding. I had the British Retail Consortium in to see me only recently, and I talk closely with all those affected by the rate. As she will be aware, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government published the provisional 2020-21 local government finance settlement in December, which set out an additional £2.9 billion in core funding, as announced in the spending review 2019. As she also knows, however, it is not just a matter of what funding is provided by central Government; it is also a matter of what core spending power is available to local authorities.
I am pleased to welcome the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker), who made her maiden speech. I congratulate her and welcome her to her place in the House. She got wonderful support from her colleagues on the Opposition Benches, which is always a comfort when doing one’s maiden speech, so I congratulate her on that as well. She described herself as a woman with an opinion. In this House, anyone who can describe themselves like that will go a long way, so I congratulate her again. Just to correct the public record, however, I hope she will recognise that Tory support for Liverpool goes back a long way. Michael Heseltine was recently given the freedom of the city in recognition of his support, and I think that everyone can see the difference and the energy the city has at the moment. The Government are seeking to support it and the mayoralty in many different ways.
Question put and agreed to.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wonder if you could assist me. When we have a public health scare, we expect the Government to be in control. Yesterday, I raised the serious issue of how information about the coronavirus infection was being shared and how getting communications right was crucial to alleviating public concern while also protecting the public. Today we have learnt that the information provided concerning those infected with coronavirus was incorrect. The student did access student accommodation—Vita Student accommodation—despite our being told they had not. There is confusion over how information is being gathered and shared, which could have a serious impact on public confidence in how the coronavirus is being managed. The Government need to get a grip as we may be in the early stages of the management of this infection. Could you, Madam Deputy Speaker, advise the House on whether the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care intends to make a further statement to the House, in particular to address the management of communications surrounding coronavirus, in the light of the latest developments?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I thank the hon. Lady for her point of order, and for giving me notice of it. Obviously the Secretary of State is responsible for the accuracy of what he says in the Chamber, and for the information that is given to the public about this extremely important matter. I have not heard of any intention on the part of Ministers to make a further statement, but those on the Treasury Bench will have heard the hon. Lady’s point of order, and I know that she is well aware of the further routes that she can pursue if she remains dissatisfied with the situation.
Business without Debate
(4 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Delegated Legislation
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Business of the House (11 and 12 February)
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Minerals Quarry in Barford, Warwickshire
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
I am pleased to present a petition on behalf of my constituents who oppose the establishment of quarries in the immediate vicinity of our communities. Quarrying generates considerable dust, especially silica particulates. The people of Barford, whom I support, have begun a national campaign to stop such quarries, which started with the recognition of the huge risk to health that those such as the one proposed at nearby Wasperton present to human health. The petition reads as follows:
The petition of residents of the constituency of Warwick and Leamington,
Declares that Warwickshire County Council’s plans for a minerals quarry in Wasperton, near the village of Barford, should be withdrawn.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to ensure that Warwickshire County Council’s plans for a minerals quarry in Wasperton, near the village of Barford, should be withdrawn.
And the petitioners remain, etc.
[P002554]
Rail Services: North-East England
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I am very pleased to have secured the debate, but it is sad that it also gives me another opportunity to raise the poor service that constituents of mine who travel from Chester-le-Street railway station are still receiving. I initiated a similar debate on 15 January 2019, highlighting the poor service that was being generated from the change in the timetables in May 2018. The Minister who replied was the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), and I think it is worth reiterating what he said. He said:
“There will be no repeat of the processes that led to the failure of May 2018 and that timetable change.”—[Official Report, 15 January 2019; Vol. 652, c. 1139.]
He also said that he entirely agreed with me that services offered to several parts of the country, including the north-east, had been “unacceptable”. Then, trying to strike a bright note and thinking that it was a positive gesture, he said that new rolling stock which would be brought into service in the coming months should make life easier for passengers using Chester-le-Street railway station.
All I can say is that nothing could be further from the truth. We have now experienced the impact of the new timetable that was introduced in December 2019. Given the combination of shocking incompetence on the part of those responsible for the timetable and the blatant disregard of operators—mainly TransPennine Express—for the wishes of the travelling public, the situation is just as bad, and not just in my constituency: I know that it has been affecting others across the north-east.
Mike Hill (Hartlepool) (Lab)
Hartlepool is the third busiest train station in the north-east, which shows that there is great demand for rail travel, yet the trains to Newcastle run only once an hour, and even then they have only two carriages. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is completely unacceptable and that more resources should be put into stations that are well used, such as Hartlepool?
Mr Jones
I totally agree; it is the same story that we get all the time. If Hartlepool, a town adjacent to the two major conurbations of Teesside and Tyneside, were in the south-east of England, it would have a service every half hour, rather than the one my hon. Friend has just outlined.
That brings me to the changes that were brought in in 2019. The timetable for my constituents got off to a flying start, because the two peak-time commuter trains, at 7.10 and 8.03 in the morning, were both cancelled on the first day. A further 11 daily TransPennine services to the north-east were withdrawn by the end of January, which left only 50% of TransPennine’s timetable for the north-east operational. TransPennine had given clear commitments to Transport for the North that there would be a seamless integration of the new timetable.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The hon. Member is right to bring this issue forward, and he is always very assiduous for his constituency. Does he not agree that in order to have a thriving industry and business district, there must be a reliable, dedicated public transport service? Does he also agree that that takes funding and a forward-thinking strategy, and that more of both must go into the rail network in his area and into public transport in general throughout the United Kingdom?
Mr Jones
I agree with the hon. Member. Chester-le-Street in my constituency is a commuter town for Teesside and Tyneside, and it relies on good public transport.
The timetable got worse, and by January it had still not been fixed. Between 1 January 2020 and 24 January 2020, 17 TransPennine services were out of action. The managing director of TransPennine said that performance was “not up to scratch”, but I think some of my constituents would use more forceful language to describe it. The Department for Transport said that it was “completely unacceptable”, which again is a bit of an understatement.
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. He is absolutely correct. It is not just in North Durham but in my constituency that the services are a disgrace. The trains are often filthy and they often have only two carriages so people cannot get on to them. We were promised that the ancient Pacer trains would be replaced by Sprinter trains, but they are actually trains of the same age. How can we address the problem of the regional disparities and level up on transport infrastructure investment in rail services, given the terrible state of the services and the terrible record that we have to cope with at the moment?
Mr Jones
My hon. Friend makes a good point. We have seen a lot of promises recently about investment in transport infrastructure in the north, but there is a combination of two things here. It is about cash, but it is also about competence in running the network. Before we start opening up new lines, we need to ensure that the existing ones work properly. The franchising system in this country has clearly failed. His constituency, like mine, is next to two large conurbations, Tyneside and Teesside, and his constituents should be able to travel there easily. Again, if it was in the south-east of England, they would be able to do so.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
I thank the hon. Member for securing this important debate. I agree that the TransPennine service has been dire. It was already the second-worst performing franchise in the country, but in December it got much worse. Only half the trains were on time, and 33% were either significantly late or cancelled. Does he agree that there should be a more punitive system of fines to focus the attention of the management and to ensure that these services run on time?
Mr Jones
I will come on to my response to TransPennine, but the underlying problem is how the timetable was drawn up. Durham County Council clearly indicated what it wanted to see at Chester-le-Street, a growing commuter town, only to find that services were taken away. When I wrote to the Transport Minister, I received a letter saying, “Well, you’ve got more stopping services.” We have, but not at the times when people actually want to travel. For example, the popular 7.17 am train was taken off the timetable and the equally popular 5.15 pm train southbound from Newcastle was moved over half an hour later. It is no good arguing that more trains will be stopping if they stop at times when people do not want to travel. It is a fundamental flaw. Frankly, Transport for the North should be renamed “Transport for Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester and Liverpool” because it clearly does not seriously consider representations from anywhere north of York.
The ongoing effects have had an economic impact, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned. This is not just about the frustration of individuals who find that trains have been cancelled, because there is an equal economic impact. As I said in my previous debate, people have had to give up jobs or not accept promotions because they cannot get into work, and families who want to come back to look after their children find it difficult to do so. That is just not acceptable.
I would like Transport for the North to tell me about another town like Chester-le-Street, where 30,000 people live, that has such a poor service and is totally disregarded. The facts speak for themselves, because train usage at Chester-le-Street is actually declining—it dropped by more than 9% between 2017 and 2019—and my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) saw usage at Seaham drop by 2.5%. There is this great mantra that we should be getting people out of cars and on to public transport, but the mess with the operation of the timetable is driving people off the railways, and that cannot be good for congestion in Tyneside and Teesside.
Turning to the point raised by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), I have to say that TransPennine is appalling. I hate using the term, but it is not fit for purpose. It could not run the proverbial in a brewery if it was given the instructions. It does not care about passengers. There is no information when services are cancelled. People turn up and they are told the train is late, and then it is just cancelled, leaving people to their own devices. No information or alternative buses are provided. The situation is not down to any lack of trying, because I have raised the matter directly with TransPennine officials, including at a public meeting I held with them two years ago where they said they would provide information, but they just do not care. Their attitude stinks.
I thought April fools’ day had come early last week when TransPennine put out its stakeholder newsletter. I do not know whether any other colleagues received it, but it included a big photograph showing how proud it was to win rail operator of the year at the business travel awards. All I can say is that I would hate to see what the competition was if TransPennine won, and it is quite clear that the judges did not speak to many of my constituents or those of many colleagues. It was a further insult when TransPennine announced on social media that from this week, it is going to stop people buying tickets on its trains, saying that if people get on without a ticket, they will be fined.
Since the ticket office was closed, Chester-le-Street station only has ticket machines on the southbound platform, and they are often not working, but people getting on the train without a ticket will be fined.
In the last week, two constituents have complained to me that they have bought tickets on trains, but have been treated in a threatening manner and told that in future they will be fined. I am sorry, but if the company cannot maintain a network and provide the service, it is an insult to my constituents, and other travellers, to make such threats. My constituents do not want threats. They want trains to turn up on time and, in some cases, to turn up at all.
The hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton asked what the answer is. I have to say that TransPennine needs the franchise taken away. Northern has had its franchise taken away in the last few weeks, and we need to follow. Ironically, at Chester-le-Street, the trains that turn up on time have actually been Northern, which I know is not the experience of other colleagues. If Northern has had the franchise removed, so should TransPennine. What will happen to the investment that Norther earmarked for improvements at Chester-le-Street station, because there is clearly some doubt about what will happen now? TransPennine has been given enough chances. As I said earlier, its attitude stinks. It is not customer-focused and it is having a detrimental effect on many of my constituents.
Finally, I want to raise a broader issue. I know that in the near future—perhaps this week—the Government will make a decision on HS2. Personally, I have never been a great fan. I do not think it will affect many of my constituents, apart from swallowing large amounts of public investment over the next decades, but there is an issue that the Government could address now. We have had various promises thrown around about opening the Beeching closure lines and others in the past few weeks, but if HS2 is to benefit the north-east—look past York, because there is more to the north than York and Leeds—what is needed is the upgrade of the east coast main line. Without that, HS2, when it finally does arrive—if it ever does—will not be able to increase capacity from the north of York to further north.
Mike Hill
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way again. First, I wish to correct the record as I ambitiously stated that Hartlepool was the third busiest station in the north-east: I meant on Teesside. Important to that is the condition and state of that line. The Durham coast line has needed an upgrade for years and years. Does he agree that that investment is absolutely necessary?
Mr Jones
I do, and my fear about HS2 has always been that investment will be sucked out of the rest of the network. Although we have now got the magic money tree—if not an entire equatorial rain forest of money trees—from the Government for HS2, plus all the investment in lines such as my hon. Friend’s, we will have to wait and see what actually happens. It is important that if the north-east is to benefit from HS2, that investment is put into capacity in the east coast main line north of York. The Government could do that now, and it would have a beneficial effect for the travelling public by helping capacity, and that should be addressed if we do have the announcement on HS2.
My constituents are frankly fed up with the service that they have received from the rail services from Chester-le-Street. My broader concern is the one raised earlier about the economic impact on my constituents, because Chester-le-Street is a great place to live. People move there because it is a great place to bring up families, with good schools, but people need to be able to travel to jobs in the south of the region and in the north of the region. Without a good rail service they cannot do that. What they want is not warm words or political promises of funding tomorrow: they want action now.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Chris Heaton-Harris)
I thank the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) for securing this debate on rail services in the north-east and I thank all Members who have contributed to what has been quite an informative debate.
I bumped into the right hon. Gentleman earlier today, and I looked up the report of his previous speech on this matter, on 15 January. I note that he has not really had to do much work to improve his words, because it is very similar to the speech that he unfortunately had to make a year ago.
A number of issues were raised, which I shall address. I would like to reassure the House that the Government’s priority is for the country’s trains to run on time, and to drive growth by giving local leaders a greater say in the running of their railway. As such, we are investing billions of pounds in the rail system, from which passengers can benefit. The right hon. Gentleman was slightly dismissive of that investment, but it is worthwhile investment in infrastructure and will level up the country.
I note that a number of other hon. Members intervened —the hon. Members for Hartlepool (Mike Hill), for Strangford (Jim Shannon), for Easington (Grahame Morris) and for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake). A couple of right hon. Gentlemen would have loved to intervene in the debate but could not—my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill) because he could not be here, and the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown) because he is the Opposition Chief Whip. I take the opportunity to record their concern about what has been going on with TransPennine Express services.
As the right hon. Member for North Durham said, my Department said recently that those services had been unacceptable, and we believe that is the case. In the December 2019 timetable change, TPE planned to increase the number of calls that it made at Chester-le-Street from 21 to 23 per day. That included a new southbound 7.52 am service to help passengers travelling at peak times to Durham, Darlington, York, Leeds, Manchester and Manchester Airport from his constituency. Unfortunately, following delays to the introduction of new rolling stock, a temporary timetable was put in place, which impacted TPE trains scheduled to call at Chester-le-Street. I have been advised that the full December timetable will be reinstated in the next few weeks.
Chester-le-Street is a station served by TransPennine Express services on the Manchester Airport-Newcastle route, and since 20 December 2019 TPE has extended the Liverpool-Newcastle service to and from Edinburgh. That service, when it functions properly, will provide Morpeth with an hourly service for much of the day to and from Edinburgh for the first time in years—something that has been welcomed, if it were only to be delivered on a regular basis.
TPE also provides a through morning service from Chester-le-Street to Edinburgh. During this month, TPE will have 13 of its Nova 1 trains in service to and from Newcastle, providing an inter-city level of comfort and additional seating per train. Those trains will call at Chester-le-Street. As the right hon. Gentleman is aware, Chester-le-Street is on the east coast main line, which is a very busy line, thus limiting any extra services that TPE could possibly provide.
However, we all know of the issues that the service has had in the past couple of months. Issues with training drivers and getting the rolling stock in on time have led to all sorts of different issues—for example, with signalling.
Mr Kevan Jones
I accept that there have been issues with it being a busy line, but the new timetable took out, for example, the 8.17 am northbound to Newcastle and the 5.20 pm southbound, both of which were very busy with commuters; the two most popular trains were taken out of the timetable. For what reason?
Chris Heaton-Harris
I guess that is a question for the franchise to answer for itself, but I completely understand the right hon. Gentleman’s frustration, and that of his constituents who would like to use a service to go to and from work at times when ordinary people would be commuting.
Grahame Morris
I know the Minister is in a terribly difficult position. I do not know whether the theme tune should be “Things can only get better”, but the theme of the Adjournment debate is rail services in the north-east. Northern provides a once-an-hour service for my constituents, whose only station is Seaham, and it consists of two carriages. My right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) shared some statistics that had been produced today, showing that passenger numbers are falling at Seaham station. The truth of the matter is that the trains are so packed people cannot get on at peak times, particularly at weekends. So, perversely, the figures are showing that rail usage is declining, whereas it would increase if we had more capacity.
Chris Heaton-Harris
“Things can only get better” is the most new Labour thing the hon. Gentleman has ever said, but I completely understand the point he is making. In fact, it is very Kevin Costner: if you build it, they will come. That is the case with the railways nowadays.
I was trying to talk about the problems that there have been with services. As right hon. and hon. Members in the Chamber well know, to try to correct problems with the service within timetable, TPE has been stopping services at York, meaning that lines further north to places such as Scarborough and Whitby, Thirsk and Malton and others have not been provided with the timetabled service that people would expect.
TPE is investing heavily in its rolling stock. As part of its £500 million investment in trains, it is currently introducing three new fleets into passenger service. Trains in all three fleets will be operating across the north and into Scotland by the end of this year, providing 13 million extra seats a year. We hope to be able to address some of the capacity problems that hon. Members have outlined, and TPE will have 44 brand new, state-of-the-art trains, with five carriages each, which will provide an opportunity for new routes and services, and increase capacity by more than 80% on a seven-day-a-week timetable.
TPE is gradually re-introducing some pre-cancelled services. On 3 February, yesterday, 22 of the 32 Liverpool to Edinburgh/Edinburgh to Liverpool journeys were reintroduced, and on 17 February the remaining 10 journeys will be reintroduced. On 30 March, the Northallerton and Darlington skip stops will also be reintroduced. However, because of the late delivery of and technical issues experienced by some of its new trains, and the unavailability of train crews as a result of shortened timescales for training, TPE customers are experiencing an unacceptable level of service cancellations and disruption. TPE is, therefore, compensating some customers for the disruption. Passengers who held a season ticket between 1 October and 31 December in 2019 will be eligible for a 3% rebate, which will more than cover the 2.8% average increase on regulated fares. In the short term, from yesterday TPE has improved its compensation arrangements so that passengers will get money back from the price of their ticket if trains are delayed by 15 minutes or more.
Chris Heaton-Harris
I will happily look into how compensation is paid to TPE customers. I understand completely the right hon. Gentleman’s point about how poor the information to TPE customers has been. Something that we would think would be quite easy to get right, and that rail passengers across the piece appreciate, is honest information on why services cannot run. A bit more transparency could help to lessen some of the anger that is quite rightly felt by passengers when they are literally left in the dark.
Let me turn to the franchise itself. We have been clear with the operator that it must take urgent steps to address the poor performance. If necessary, my Department will take action under the terms set out in the franchise agreement. As I mentioned earlier, over the next two months TPE will reinstate the services that it took out as part of the temporary timetable that followed the issues with the delayed introduction of rolling stock in December. The Secretary of State and I recently met the managing director of the franchise, Network Rail and the manufacturers of the new trains, CAF and Hitachi. We did not use Anglo-Saxon language, as many customers might have been using recently, but we made it perfectly clear that they must take urgent steps to improve their services.
I did not know about the issues with ticket machines at the right hon. Gentleman’s local station. I will take that away, find out a bit more and come back to him, if that is okay. If a ticket machine is broken, we would always expect the train operating company to use the discretion available to it. We would not expect people to be charged penalty fares in such circumstances, so I will happily take that issue away.
I will check and come back to the right hon. Gentleman, but I would expect the improvements to the station by Northern to continue to go ahead as normal. I know that he is fairly sceptical about the opening of new lines, but I have been contacted by a local activist near to the right hon. Gentleman called Christopher Howarth who is keen to see the railway between Sunderland and Durham reopened. As a viaduct fan, I can say that there is one of the most beautiful viaducts I have ever seen along that route, so I very much hope that those plans will come to fruition.
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the way he has gone about this debate. He has been as positive as he can be and quite rightly demanding for his constituents. I hope and expect that in a year’s time he will not have to come back and go through all this again because we will have sorted this: the new rolling stock will be working properly, the timetables will work properly and, indeed, all the drivers will be trained appropriately.
Question put and agreed to.
Ministerial Corrections
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Education
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Those who serve in Her Majesty’s armed forces represent the very best of British. What is being done to turn troops into teachers when veterans leave the armed forces?
Nick Gibb
My hon. Friend raises a good point. Veterans make attractive members of staff in our schools, they inspire young people and help to improve behaviour. Our Troops to Teachers scheme was slow to begin with, but it is now proving successful in recruiting Army leavers.
[Official Report, 20 January 2020, Vol. 670, c. 6.]
Letter of correction from the Minister for School Standards, the right hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Nick Gibb):
An error has been identified in the answer I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone).
The correct answer should have been:
Nick Gibb
My hon. Friend raises a good point. Veterans make attractive members of staff in our schools, they inspire young people and help to improve behaviour. Our Troops to Teachers scheme was slow to begin with, but its successor, the Troops to Teachers initial teacher training bursary, is now proving successful in recruiting Army leavers.
Further Education
The following is an extract from Questions to the Secretary of State for Education on 20 January 2020.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
More than three quarters of sixth-form colleges do not believe they have the funding they need to support disadvantaged students. The FE sector, the Education Committee and the Labour party speak with one voice in supporting the Raise the Rate campaign to increase per-pupil funding to £4,760. Despite warm words from the Secretary of State, the funding needed has not appeared. He talks about it being a crucial sector, so when will he make good on his promise to work hand in glove with the FE sector by both restoring the position of FE and Skills Minister and raising the rate to £4,760?
Gavin Williamson
I welcome the hon. Lady to her position and wish her the very best in her new role, although I thought she was a little ungenerous in her comments. Just in the past six months, we have delivered an extra £400 million for 16-to-19 education; committed an extra £1.8 billion to FE colleges’ funding; and created a national skills fund to be delivered over three years, worth more than £3 billion. In my judgment, that is a lot of money and a real investment in our college sector. We are giving them the opportunity to achieve so very much. We see the opportunity and have every confidence they will deliver.
[Official Report, 20 January 2020, Vol. 670, c. 12.]
Letter of correction from the Secretary of State for Education, the right hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson):
An error has been identified in the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy).
The correct answer should have been:
Gavin Williamson
I welcome the hon. Lady to her position and wish her the very best in her new role, although I thought she was a little ungenerous in her comments. Just in the past six months, we have delivered an extra £400 million for 16-to-19 education; committed an extra £1.8 billion to FE colleges’ funding; and created a national skills fund to be delivered over the course of this Parliament, worth more than £3 billion. In my judgment, that is a lot of money and a real investment in our college sector. We are giving them the opportunity to achieve so very much. We see the opportunity and have every confidence they will deliver.
Westminster Hall
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Net Zero Targets and Decarbonising Transport
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered net zero targets and decarbonising transport.
It is a genuine pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Nokes, and to have an opportunity to serve under your chairmanship. Tackling climate change is the defining challenge of our age. In the developed world—the rich world, with our higher per capita emissions—our responsibility is all the greater. I was proud last year when the UK became the first advanced economy to set in legislation a date for net zero, and I am pleased today that we are taking a further practical step by bringing forward the phase-out of petrol and diesel vehicles to 2035.
The UK has been decarbonising more quickly than any other G20 country, although one would not know that from hearing most commentary in this country. One would think that it is because of some accounting methodology, the cunning exclusion of some categories, or the financial crash of 2007-08. One would think that it all happened before 2010 and that nothing has improved since, or that it was because we have exported all our emissions to somewhere else in the world. But no, this country has made good and sustained progress on decarbonisation under Governments of both types. The greatest part of that progress has been made on energy decarbonisation, and the reality is that there is a limit on how much further we can go in that area with current technology, because of the intermittent nature of the sources—the sun and the wind. It will change as battery technology improves, but that is the situation today. We have made good progress, but it is not enough. To hit our net zero 2050 target, we need to increase the decrease, as it were, in our rate of emissions by about 30% compared with what we have managed per annum since 1990. Partly because of the success in energy, transport is now the biggest single source of emissions.
There are many different aspects of decarbonising transport, and we have only 90 minutes for this debate. Other colleagues might talk about active travel, such as walking and cycling, or about shipping, on-demand buses, the electrification of rail, heavy goods vehicles, the development of autonomous vehicles, alternative jet fuel technology or what could be the huge potential, eventually, of hydrogen—and it would be a turn-up for the books if nobody mentioned either HS2 or Heathrow airport. We could talk about many different aspects, but I will concentrate on roads, which is the biggest category, and specifically cars.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
I congratulate the right hon. Member on securing the debate, and I agree with him on road transport. Will he join me in urging the Minister to let us know as quickly as possible about the funding available in Greater Manchester for the clean freight and clean bus funds? We have good transport and clean air strategies, which were launched by the Mayor of Greater Manchester, but we need money to help small businesses and our bus network to become green.
Damian Hinds
I know the hon. Lady’s part of the world well, having stood for Parliament there in the mid-2000s. Buses are an important part of the overall mix, and for Greater Manchester, although I will let the Minister deal with her point in his own way.
On electric vehicles, there is a wide range of Government support and good cross-industry co-operation. There is a subsidy programme for vehicles, home charging points and workplace charging, and there are grants to local authorities for a number of different purposes.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
Electric vehicles need electrical steel, and the only electrical steel maker in the UK—the Orb works in Newport, which was owned by Tata—was mothballed just before Christmas. Does the right hon. Member agree that supporting our steel industry at this crucial time will be vital for an end-to-end supply chain in this country?
Damian Hinds
Steel is of great importance, and the hon. Lady knows better than most people how important it is to our industrial base. It is also important to the development of many green technologies. As she knows, steel has its own challenges. It is a very energy-intensive sector; in time, hydrogen technologies and others might help in that regard, and we need to ensure that we maximise our efforts towards them.
We now have over 22,000 public charging points for electric vehicles. There is a particular concentration in London, but also in places such as Dundee. We have 125 rapid charge points per 100 km of highway, compared with the EU average of 25. In 2018, the UK was the second-largest market in Europe for ultra low emission cars and the fourth-largest market for electric cars, and one fifth of battery electric cars sold in Europe had been made here in the UK. For actual sales as a percentage of the total car market, we were above France and Germany but, as colleagues will know, we were below some of the very high-percentage countries, particularly the Scandinavian nations and others such as the Netherlands. It is the growth curve—the year-on-year growth, albeit from a small base—that is particularly encouraging.
Alongside changes in electric vehicle technology, a lot of other relevant changes are happening in society and the economy. We have been changing the way we shop, and how and where we work, and those things potentially have material implications for the number, type and length of people’s journeys. The product itself—the performance of cars—has been improving. At the same time, the charging technology has been evolving with things such as induction pads. We have the development of autonomous vehicle technology, which is likely to be particularly significant in the future for heavy goods vehicles.
I suggest that the most important change of all is one that has already started: a change in how we buy our own transportation. “Mobility as a service” includes everything from Boris bikes to car clubs. In the car market, it includes the growth of personal contract purchase plans and, significantly, personal contract hire plans. Why do I say that is so significant? Is it not just a way of financing a vehicle? It is significant because it changes the way that people think about the cost of a vehicle. Historically, people would compare the sticker price of a car separately from the monthly running cost, but with different types of paying for mobility, the formula has changed significantly.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
I thank the right hon. Member for securing the debate, and he is making some important points. He says we need to change the way we do things. Does he agree that we need a modal shift away from cars and towards less carbon-emitting transport? Buses are key, and we need to shift bus pricing to invest in that sort of transport. If two or three people are travelling together in Sheffield, it is cheaper for them to get a taxi than to go on a bus. Does he agree that we have to change that by investing properly in our bus services?
Damian Hinds
As ever, the hon. Member makes an important and incisive point. A modal shift is clearly part of the response to this issue, but it will not be the whole response. As I mentioned earlier, buses are an important factor too, but there will always be a need for domestic passenger transport—cars, as we tend to call them. In a constituency such as mine, which is very rural and spread out, people need cars if they want to go to work. Making cars as environmentally friendly as possible, in terms of both carbon emissions and air quality, is an important goal.
It feels as though we are on the cusp of some quite significant change or what might be called a watershed moment. With the conversion to electric vehicles, however, we are up against some quite significant challenges from a consumer perspective. The first is cost. There is a gap between the cost of electric vehicles and the cost of internal combustion engine vehicles. Although that gap is narrowing all the time, however, I do not think that, in general, the sector or the public sector has yet made the clear and compelling case for how close those costs are—looking not at the purchase price, but at the total cost of ownership over the car’s lifetime—as well as it could have been made.
The second challenge is so-called range anxiety—“What happens if I leave home and can’t get back again because the battery runs out?” That is a perfectly good, rational fear, part of which will be addressed by improvements in infrastructure. As an aside, although scientists would say that there is no benefit to having a spare battery, and that we should just make a bigger battery, I wonder what the psychological effect might be of having one.
The third perfectly rational worry is about the car’s residual value, particularly as a result of battery degradation. That is particularly rational, given what we have been told over the years about mobile phone and laptop batteries— we have been told, “This is the generation that will not lose any of its performance,” and it has never turned out to be true. Again, if the car is not owned in the same way, that worry should be somewhat dissipated.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
The right hon. Gentleman is making valid points about the roll-out of electric vehicles, but in Norway sales of electric vehicles is hitting 60%, which shows that it can be done and the anxieties can be overcome. Is it not a matter of looking at what Norway is doing and how its Government have incentivised electric vehicles and helped consumers get over any such anxieties?
Damian Hinds
That is perfectly worthwhile and reasonable. In preparation for this debate, I looked at countries such as Norway and other Scandinavian countries. It is usually instructive to start with the more comparable countries—those of a similar size and complexity, with a similar industrial base, traditions and so on—but the hon. Gentleman is quite right to identify that Norway in particular has a high penetration rate of sales, which is also linked to very high differences in the taxation regime.
I want to talk briefly about the shift to electric vehicle technology and what I would say is overwhelmingly a consumer acceptance challenge. The shift in the way people own cars, towards personal contract hire, is a great opportunity to convey how the whole-life cost compares for different groups of consumers, rather than comparing the sticker price of one car against another. It is also a way of allaying fears about residual value and battery performance. Allied to that, when it comes to cost, it would be helpful—I realise this is not in the Minister’s gift—for the Treasury to give a clear forward view on the vehicle excise duty regime so that people can project into the future.
Clearly, these technologies eventually have to be subsidy-free. It has to be business as usual, so subsidies will have to be withdrawn, but doing so smoothly will be of great benefit to the industry and the consumer. The experience from elsewhere shows that if subsidies are suddenly withdrawn, there tends to be a massive spike in demand just beforehand, followed by a return. That is obviously not good for meeting production schedules.
On the infrastructure network, there is a lot that the Government can do through a mixture of regulation and their convening power. We need to do better and go further on full roaming and interoperability. We can do a lot better on the visibility of charging points. There has been a lot of focus on visibility to users of electric cars, but I am actually less worried about them right now than everybody else. The point is that to get consumer acceptance, non-users of electric cars need to know that there are plenty of places to charge them.
Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)
The right hon. Gentleman is making a very important point. It is especially important in rural areas, such as those that he and I represent, that people who have not looked at electric vehicles in the past know that it is feasible for them to make that shift.
Damian Hinds
That is absolutely right, and showing it on sat-nav tech is important. There are some good sat-nav applications, such as Zap-Map, but it is difficult to guarantee that such things are absolutely comprehensive. There is some old-fashioned technology that could be improved, such as common signage. National brand partnerships mean that people know that whenever they go to any branch of supermarket X, if it has a car park, they will always find a minimum of x number of charging points.
Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is making a powerful speech about the importance of electric cars and how we meet our net-zero targets. Does he agree that we cannot escape the fact that electric vehicles are themselves pregnant with carbon? A huge amount of carbon goes into manufacturing them. One of the best and most effective ways to meet our net-zero target its not to use vehicles at all, and to ride bikes as much as possible, particularly in urban areas such as Cheltenham. Just 2% of our journeys are on bikes; in the Netherlands, it is closer to 35%.
Damian Hinds
My hon. Friend is not only an advocate for walking and cycling but, in his high-vis jacket, a very visible advertisement for it. He is absolutely right, and that is another type of modal shift. Holland is in a slightly different position, in that it is a lot flatter than this country, which makes a huge difference. That should not take away from the fact that there are plenty of places in this country—London is one of them—that are pretty flat, and where there could be more cycling. Throughout our country, there is an opportunity for more walking and cycling. Those things have great benefits beyond decarbonisation, in terms of health, fitness and being outdoors.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
To echo the point made so well by the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), something like 80% of journeys are less than 2.5 miles. Therefore, if we can make a modal shift, so that that type of journey is made by bike, on foot or by public transport, we will make a huge difference.
Damian Hinds
I will let that point hang in mid-air because, like the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) and the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake), it is spot on. Those things are all part of the mix.
On electric vehicles and the infrastructure network, there is quite a spread in the concentration of publicly available charging points in local areas. That is partly because some areas have more on-street parking than others. Some have more off-street parking, and we would expect more private charging points there. The conventional wisdom would suggest that we should look at the places that have a low concentration and try to get them up. Actually, I think there is an argument the other way: places that already have quite a high concentration of charging points benefit from network effects, and we could concentrate on building up the number of electric vehicle users there. They are in very different types of places. London has a significant concentration, but so does Milton Keynes, Dundee, Oxford, West Berkshire and South Lakeland. A wide variety of places have relatively high concentrations of charging points relative to the population.
On regulation, I hope that the Minister will be able to say more about the required availability of charging points in new-build homes. I also hope that he will say something about electricity tariffs and ensuring that all domestic consumers can benefit from lower-cost electricity overnight, when the market rate is cheaper, in order to charge vehicles. I think this is outside the remit of the Department for Transport, but if fleet buyers create an extra surge of demand for electricity in one particular area, who bears the cost for upgrading the kit?
Most important of all on the issue of consumer acceptance is the fact that the product has to be in the consideration set. Whatever other cars consumers look at buying or hiring, they should at least think about an electric vehicle. Therefore, just getting people behind the wheel of one of these cars to try them out is a great opportunity. I wonder about the potential of a mass test-drive campaign across the country.
We should also think, perhaps less ambitiously, about the role of the dealer. We have concentrated an awful lot on manufacturers and consumers, but we have not thought much about the car salespeople.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Damian Hinds
I am not sure how many colleagues intend to speak, but I have taken quite a few interventions and did not plan to go on quite so long. I will take my cue from Ms Nokes, but am very happy to give way.
Lilian Greenwood
The right hon. Gentleman spoke about the importance of ensuring that people think about purchasing an ultra-low emissions vehicle when they buy a car. Many people buy second-hand cars, a lot of which are ex-fleet. Does he agree that if the Government want more fleet purchases, they should consider their own fleet buying? Ensuring that fleet managers buy ultra-low emissions vehicles will, in turn, feed the second-hand market. The Government have an important role to play as a large fleet operator.
Damian Hinds
The hon. Lady tees me up with precision and grace. I was just coming on to the role of Government and the wider public sector. The Government car service has bought a lot of electric vehicles. Something of premium significance is what I would call totemic fleets. Seeing police officers driving electric vehicles has quite an effect on people’s perceptions of the performance of those cars.
Most of all, we need debate, conversation and analysis centred not on the machine and the technology, but on people and the different segments of the population whom we need to persuade to take up electric cars. We need to think about who the first target is and, although fleet buyers are an obvious and important segment, beyond that, should the target be drivers who have the highest mileage per year, or drivers who change their car most often? Evidence from consumer surveys suggests that it is much easier to persuade someone to get an electric vehicle as the second car in a two-car household than as the first car—we need to think about that. The requirements of commuting and the school run, for example, are very different.
I have spoken for longer than I anticipated, but I will briefly mention something slightly off-topic that could reduce the overall number of journeys. In the last few years, there has been a big growth in home shopping, with vans driving around delivering parcels, some of which are very small, to people’s homes. I welcome the e-cargobike initiative, which seeks a modal shift to electric bikes for the last mile of deliveries, but I wonder whether we could be more ambitious. Amazon lockers are fine for Amazon, but they are a proprietary facility. Our massive network of post office retail outlets has potential as a hub and spoke system for home shopping purchases to be dropped off and collected, which also bring much-needed business and footfall to post offices. That was slightly off-topic, so I will return to the broader point.
This country has an important and special role to play in decarbonisation. As well as domestic action, we have a role through international development and climate finance. We showed great leadership in Paris for COP 21, and we have in COP 26 another great opportunity to convene and make global progress.
So much can be done locally. Many councils are doing innovative things, including my own in East Hampshire, with walking and cycling initiatives, plans to plant a tree for every resident and local housing development, particularly in the town of Bordon. Like colleagues in the Chamber, I have local groups in my area that show remarkable leadership, starting with children. I am always impressed that schoolchildren are showing thought leadership on climate change. We have great local groups, such as the Alton climate action network and, soon, the Petersfield climate action network.
The greening campaign began in my constituency back in 2008, and was all about helping individual families and households to know what simple and practical things they could do to help tackle climate change. The campaign eventually spread to 100 towns and villages far and wide. Colleagues may disagree, but in terms of civic society action on climate change, East Hampshire is perhaps the most active area in the country. Members of Parliament can play a really important role to make those things happen.
We should recognise success in decarbonisation in the UK, while acknowledging that we need to step up our efforts. We must never underestimate the scale of what we need to do—I doubt that anybody here in Westminster Hall is likely to do so—but we should not suggest that nothing has been achieved, because if we do that, people begin to feel disheartened and we will lose public confidence and engagement.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Damian Hinds
I am sorry, I had better not.
People need to know that there is a big problem, but we are making progress and need to accelerate that progress. They need to know that we can and will do what is necessary. Ultimately, countries like ours need to do more than our fair share because people look to us for leadership. We had our industrial revolution first, so it makes sense to have our decarbonisation revolution first too. Transport must be at the heart of that.
Several hon. Members rose—
Caroline Nokes (in the Chair)
Only five Members wish to speak, so I hope that each will be generous with the time that they leave for others. I call Lyn Brown.
Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
I am very grateful to serve under your chairship for the first time, Ms Nokes, and I look forward to doing so again in future.
I am grateful for the opportunity to talk about the green transformation that our transport system needs. More than anything else, we need affordable and accessible public transport, with electric buses and zero-carbon trains, right across the country. We need to make good green investments now, and to stop making dirty investments.
City residents already emit far less carbon from travel. Londoners’ transport emissions are less than half the UK average. That is because we have a decent bus, tube and train system—we have to invest those systems to create the benefits in our cities and towns—but we still have to make London’s transport greener.
We must stop making dirty investments. The dirty investment closest to my constituency is City airport in Newham, from which I am sure that many hon. Members have flown. It is a lovely little airport, I will admit, but I have constantly opposed its expansion. As a young woman, I even went to the public inquiry to advocate against it being built. I heard all the rubbish that residents and my friends and neighbours were told about how the airport would be contained, would not grow and would not impact on their lives. When I visited my mum and dad in the block of flats where I grew up, however, the back of my throat was coated with fuel—I could taste it. Dad has had throat cancer and mum has had breast cancer, although I am sure that none of that is related.
It is not just about airports. I want to focus on another big local decision: the Silvertown tunnel. In east London, we have a problem with public transport connections across the river. Some might say, “Who wants to go to the south side?”, but some people do and the lack of connections is a major problem. The lack of decent public transport links means that people drive—they see no other option. The Blackwall tunnel and all the roads around it are hugely congested; the queues go on for absolutely miles, pumping out carbon and deadly pollution all the while. The new tunnel is not the solution.
I am told that building Silvertown will cost an estimated £1 billion, using a private finance initiative, so local residents will have to pay for the construction of the new tunnel through tolls. To ensure that the tolls pay, we will also toll the Blackwall tunnel and probably the Rotherhithe tunnel, while the crossing down at Thurrock is also tolled. So, the people of east London, where child poverty is massive and poverty in general is undeniably high, will pay for the joy of going south of the river, while the people of west London can pop across a number of bridges. There are also good transport links in west London—but not in the east. That, however, is not the only reason I am against Silvertown. I am against the tunnel because its construction alone will cause massive carbon emissions: more than 153,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, the same as the total emissions of more than 28,000 UK residents last year.
If everything that the tunnel’s big business backers say about the construction of the tunnel were true, at least there might be some benefits from having it once it is built. I am afraid I do not believe that, and I am sure that many Members in the Chamber would not believe it either. We know that when a road is put in, people use it. They see it as an even better opportunity to get into their car and to drive and, before long, that road too is congested. I am not the only one who does not believe in those benefits, because on the record are my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) and Newham, Hackney and Lewisham Councils. We all oppose the tunnel, as do more and more of my residents as they find out what is happening on their doorstep.
The truth is that the roads leading up to the tunnel are already massively congested, and no one is planning to widen them, so the congestion is likely to continue. In a best-case scenario, the queues will possibly die down in the immediate lead-up to the tunnel—to begin with. Even if that happens, however, I fear that all the extra traffic will simply be diverted to a bottleneck further down the road towards Barking and out to the east, or on to our already choked local roads, as people attempt to divert around the problems. Congestion might therefore not fall at all, despite the new tolls on all the crossings in the east—I think I mentioned that, but it is a bit of a bugbear.
Why is big business so in favour of a tunnel at Silvertown? It will be taller than the Blackwall tunnel, which was built almost 150 years ago, I think, and massive lorries will therefore be able to go through it from south to north. Also, those heavy goods vehicles, unlike bicycles, have been promised a special lane of their own—they will share the bus lane. HGVs, the big nasty polluters on our roads, will get special concessions to get through the new tunnel. We know why they are so keen to see HGVs going through the Silvertown tunnel: conveniently, a three-storey, 24-hour warehouse and lorry park is planned for not far away from it. That will be at least 2,500 extra lorries a day from that distribution centre alone.
The stakes are high in such decisions—we all accept that. In Newham, 16,000 children attend schools close to the feeder roads in Silvertown, with a similar number in Greenwich. We already have high air pollution at illegal levels. Newham, where Silvertown is—in case anyone was in any doubt—has the worst toxic air quality in the country. The British Heart Foundation estimates that breathing the air is as bad for health as smoking 159 cigarettes annually, stunting child development and leading to 96 premature deaths every year.
The impacts are not just local. This is not only about Silvertown but about the type of decisions that we are making. We need to make the right decisions now in order to prevent a climate disaster. We need to protect our children from these outrageous decisions that will significantly impact on their health. I plead to anyone who will listen: please, think again: stop expanding Heathrow or City airports, stop the Silvertown tunnel and do not build that lorry park. Let us invest in green transport links instead.
Caroline Nokes (in the Chair)
I now put Members on a five-minute time limit.
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) on securing this debate. It is an interesting subject, and one that I had personal experience of not that long ago, when I was a special adviser in the Department for Transport.
I am proud that the Government have set the net zero target for 2050, and glad that today we saw two further moves in that direction: the 2035 target to stop new diesel and petrol vehicles, and the aviation sector moving towards net zero by 2050. Over the past couple of decades, it has been wonderful to see the UK at the forefront of the major developed economies of the world in slashing its carbon emissions, and I hope that that continues.
I will pick up on a few things, the first local to North West Durham. We are without any form of rail network at all. In order for my constituents to move towards decarbonised travel, we need better bus networks for our rural communities and in particular for Consett and the conurbations around it in the north of my constituency—one of the largest conurbations in the country without any form of rail access. I am campaigning for the Government to look at rail in the area there as part of their scheme to reopen lines.
Consett had four railway lines in 1950 but has none today. Rail is imperative not only for the environment but for productivity and to link Consett and the surrounding villages into the northern powerhouse. We need to be linked properly to the national rail network, whether by light or heavy rail.
Alan Brown
The hon. Gentleman is making a good point about the lack of rail connectivity in his constituency, and that is replicated pretty much across the UK. Does he agree that the UK Government’s £500 million Beeching replacement fund is totally inadequate to increase the rail connectivity required?
Mr Holden
The entire purpose of the fund, in my understanding, is for a couple of rail schemes that are almost ready to go and for an investigation into further schemes. I agree 100% that the fund will not put many lines back in place, but for that to happen they would have to be shovel-ready. The funding that the Minister is dealing with is to investigate and to conduct feasibility studies for a lot of those lines. I desperately hope that my line from Gateshead to Consett will be one of them.
My right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire also made an important point about walking and cycling. The Derwent Walk replaced our rail line—as many Members know, when rail lines were dug up, they were often replaced by walking and cycling lanes. I am keen for those to be kept in place, so that the rail line has walking and cycling alongside it. That is important, because the car parks at stations are already clogged and overcrowded, as other hon. Members know if like me they commute from far away. As much as possible, I want people to walk and cycle to stations, to help move towards net zero, in particular as regards transport emissions.
In my constituency, too, we have a huge amount of new building. We are one of the fastest-growing parts of the north-east. I would like to see all new-build homes having electric charging points for cars, as mentioned. We have Nissan in the north-east, which I visited recently; it is making a massive move towards electric car production. Now that the Government have announced that they will introduce the target, it is important that new-build homes all have charging points in place.
My final point relates to vehicle excise duty; we need to ensure a stable system in the long term. Vehicle excise duty on motor homes, which are produced in my constituency, increased by 705% in September last year, from £260 to over £2,000. That means that it is less affordable to buy new motor homes, which obviously are cleaner and have Euro 6 engines. It will push people towards foreign flights and travel rather than domestic travel. In the UK, the average motor home travels between 3,000 and 6,000 miles. To tax it as a car is madness, and hurts domestic tourism to places such as Weardale in my constituency, other places across the north-east and other rural parts of the UK.
I urge the Minister to push his Treasury colleagues to look at these changes to vehicle excise duty, which came through last year from European Union regulation 2018/1832. VED has hit domestic manufacturing. The production of ever-cleaner motor homes creates 600 jobs in my constituency. It is incredibly important that we support the motor industry where we can, as well as our domestic tourism, to reduce international flights. That will contribute to exactly what we want to see: the decarbonisation of our transport economy.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Nokes. It is important to acknowledge where we have made progress. We do not want to discourage our citizens and make them so afraid that they cannot get behind the big changes that we need to make. It is also important to point out where we have made no progress at all, namely on surface transport. It stubbornly remains one of the biggest contributors to carbon emissions in our country, which is why it is so important that we concentrate on it. A lot of the problem has to do with our focus over decades on transport by car. I do not blame anybody; I suspect all hon. Members here are motorists, at least part time. The real issue is, how do we achieve a big shift in this country when there has been a lot of focus on car transport and when there are no proper alternatives?
It worries me that the Government make a haphazard announcement such as that made today about the ban on petrol and diesel cars by 2035 without having a proper plan behind that for infrastructure to support a big shift towards electric vehicles. The Government need to put their mind to that. To give an example, in a consultation meeting with Highways England about new road building in the south-west, which was all well and dandy, I said, “All right, you are building new roads, but what about the infrastructure that we need for fast charging points along our new highways and motorways?” I was told that it was not their problem, so who is talking to who about building new roads and the infrastructure to integrate them with the capacity in our electricity grid? The Government need to put a plan together to ensure that people work on these things in partnership, rather thinking in silos.
Another important issue is how to structure buses and public transport. I went to Berlin over Christmas, but not by plane. Travelling by train on the continent was perfectly competitive, but the bit from London to the channel was incredibly expensive. Unless we change the cost of travel, consumers will go for what is cheapest, and they will continue to fly unless we make train journeys a lot more affordable, particularly in this country.
I am a cyclist, in addition to being a motorist, and have been for many years and have campaigned for cycling. The main problem in this country is not the weather or the hills. There are now electric bicycles and, because Bath is quite steep, I bought myself one, as did my husband, and we got rid of our second car. Those things are important considerations for households. The main hindrance is not the weather or the topography, but safety. As a parent, I was scared to let my children cycle, as are lots of parents. One of the biggest contributors to air pollution and surface transport in my constituency is the school run.
We have been consulting young people about how they would like to travel. Their preferred mode of transport would be cycling independently, but the parents do not want that, so they take them to school by car. That creates a vicious circle. The roads in Bath are full of cars during school time—during school holidays they are not—because parents do not allow their children to go on the road because it is dangerous. We need to break that vicious circle. I urge the Government to look at Cycling England’s proposals for how to create safe cycle routes.
Alex Chalk
The coalition Government granted large sums of money—I think £20 million went to Manchester and a similar sum to Leeds and Birmingham—under the cycling city ambition grant scheme, and lots of safety measures were rolled out. The problem is that, in towns such as Cheltenham, a lot of that learning is not being rolled out. Does the hon. Lady agree that there is a role for councils to liaise with one another to ensure that safety schemes can be applied?
Wera Hobhouse
Absolutely; the Lib Dem Bath and North East Somerset Council is looking at how to provide local leadership, but we also need leadership from central Government to ensure that councils can fulfil their net zero ambitions. I urge the Government to look at proposals from Cycling England about safe cycle routes, because safety is one of the main reasons that young people do not cycle. If they have not grown up cycling, as adults, they do not cycle. We need a big shift to create safe cycling routes.
James Daly (Bury North) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) on securing this important debate.
I am going to talk about the X41 bus service. When I was elected, the major issue in Bury North was a bus service that connects the north part of my constituency in Ramsbottom with the centre of Manchester—a service that has been withdrawn because of losses suffered by the provider. That service is the only public transport link between central Manchester and the north of my constituency. In London, it would probably take 15 minutes by public transport to cover the same geography to get to the centre of London. I have one bus that takes the best part of an hour, or an hour and a half when it is busy.
When the bus provider gave notice of its intention to take off the bus service, Transport for Greater Manchester shrugged its shoulders. There was no proactiveness from local authorities to try to save the service. I give that as a practical example of a bus service that takes motor vehicles off busy motorways and A roads. Local authorities and other relevant bodies are not doing enough to support public transport, which is critical for connectivity. Although we may talk nationally—I have noticed in this place that we talk generally about money—on the ground, that bus service matters and continues to matter in my constituency. I am glad to say that the Government supported local MPs to provide assistance to make sure that the service remained.
Buses are crucial in my constituency as a link to other areas in Greater Manchester. The debate about buses must be at the forefront of transport discussions in our area. The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) spoke about franchising; all Members representing Greater Manchester want a better bus service. I spoke to Transport for Greater Manchester about that. It answered that franchising would guarantee the level of bus services that we have now. The bus services in Bury North are rubbish, so I do not want that. We need a public transport system that encourages people to get out of their vehicles and use the services of good providers such as Transdev. We certainly are not there at the moment.
I will touch on another of the hon. Lady’s points: the clean air charge, which is affecting Greater Manchester. Some £116 million of funding has been provided to assist the region’s freight and logistics, taxi and other operators to upgrade their vehicles. I have many taxi drivers in my constituency who operate in the area. They will not be provided with the funding required to upgrade their vehicles and they cannot afford to do so. This is an important sector—probably the largest self-employed sector in my constituency—and we Conservatives do not wish business to be burdened, so I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to see whether there are ways to provide moneys to support taxi drivers who need their vehicles to be upgraded and are barely scraping a living as it is.
Kate Green
I strongly endorse what the hon. Member is saying. Small businesses across Greater Manchester, including the taxi firms in our constituencies, are keen to play their part, but they of all businesspeople will struggle to meet costs without financial assistance. We need information about the clean bus and clean freight funds.
James Daly
I completely agree. A number of small businesses in my constituency are coach companies, which own older buses. Again, those businesses run at very small profit margins, and they need assistance to allow them to continue to provide a service. I hope we can have more information on that.
Those are two important issues, and I know that colleagues in the Government will continue to look at how transport infrastructure and connectivity can be improved in the north and how bus services and all public transport can be supported to ensure that our residents do not need to use their cars. A majority of Bury North residents work outside the constituency, so while cycling and walking is to be admired and supported, they cannot do that to get to work. They want good public transport links. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister and colleagues in the Government will do everything possible to invest in the north to ensure that Bury North’s residents are connected to the other urban areas.
As a Conservative, I hope we can find a way to support those local businesses and small businesses that are concerned about their futures and concerned that the cost of clean air charges will be unsustainable for them. I hope my hon. Friend the Minister will comment on that.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I congratulate the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) on securing it and setting the scene so well. The contributions so far have been pertinent to the debate.
Our environmental duties are massive, and the more knowledge we have, the more it is incumbent on us to do all we can to safeguard this planet for our children. As a Christian, I am well aware that the end will be when God ordains it, but we are called to be good stewards and caretakers of this wonderful planet that has been gifted to us. Over the holidays, I had an opportunity to do some hunting and shooting over the farm with my son, granddaughter and friends—I declare an interest as a farmer—and while the fresh country air was sharp and cold, it none the less reminded me of how important what we do is. Later that night, there was a programme on TV showing India and perhaps other parts of the world where air pollution was extreme and people were having difficulty breathing, which made me not take for granted the fresh clean air that we have. That is part of the reason why I, along with my son, planted 3,500 trees on farmland about 10 years ago, and I am caretaking areas of biodiversity on my farm. I cannot save the world by myself, but I can make a small contribution, and I intend to do my best to keep our air clean and healthy.
Air quality has been very much in the news in the past few weeks, with the number of deaths in the UK due to air quality at its highest for some time. The figures are high even in Northern Ireland. UK industries account for 1% of air pollution, yet we can do more than make the equivalent of a 1% improvement in the world. It begins in our own homes and stretches out to the influence we have in this place to encourage people to make good decisions and better choices.
Just this morning, the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association had a drop-in event in room N in Portcullis House—Members who did not go are too late now—where it referred to the need for hybrid and electric cars. The BVRLA also outlined five policy measures that it would like to see, which include, as I am sure the Minister is well aware, tax benefits, new vehicles, charge points, which are critical, and user sentiment, because at the end of the day, the owners and users of those cars need to be convinced that they are necessary.
I caveat my remarks by saying that I firmly believe that if we want to change people’s routines, we can do so by encouragement and not enforcement. We can jail someone and find they are still not rehabilitated after their incarceration, yet when we take the time to work with people and encourage them, lives are turned around. Let us look at how we make that happen, because the secret to our future security is educating the younger generation and encouraging the older generations—I count myself in the latter category—to do what needs to be done.
The Minister will be aware that in Strangford and Portaferry we had a tidal project, which involved Queen’s University, where we tried to harness the waves. The pilot and initial investigations provided some good ideas, but we need investment for the project to go forward. There are things that we can do; we just need that wee bit of financial assistance to help to make it happen.
We are the generation, as some here will acknowledge, who had milk delivered in glass bottles, and we washed and put out the bottles for the milkman to reuse. We do not mind recycling and we are doing our best, but it must be made clear what is expected of us to do our bit. We are the generation who did not always have a car. We used bikes—we probably do not use them as much as we did in the past—took buses or went by Shanks’s pony. Walking was probably easier for us in those days, as some will understand. We do not mind doing so, but it is important to explain and encourage.
In Northern Ireland we have the Glider bus system from Dundonald right into Belfast. The idea is simple: it is park and ride, whereby people park in Newtownards or the on the edge of Dundonald and get the Glider bus straight into town. It is easier and less hassle, it gives people a bit more time to do something while on the bus, and it produces less emissions. That shows there are good schemes that we can use. The key is not lectures and browbeating, but information and encouragement. Tax breaks and perks for businesses are useful, but we need better infrastructure to encourage public transport and ensure that our young people have their independence while still being safe when travelling. We must encourage the use of car pools and shared resources.
To finish, there is much that can be done from this place, but my word of caution, from an old dog that is learning new tricks, is this. Go easy and bring us with you, and the generation who are used to hard work and innovation will not let you down.
Caroline Nokes (in the Chair)
The mover of the motion has indicated that he does not need time to wind up the debate, so that leaves the Front-Bench spokesmen with just over 10 minutes each.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
Thank you, Ms Nokes. It is great to see you in the Chair for the first time; I look forward to many more such occasions. I congratulate the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) on securing this debate on a vital topic. Clearly his sabbatical from the current regime has been time well spent in bringing forward such topics. I am delighted that we are having this debate because it tackles the most pressing issue we face as a society. Few discussions in this place are as fundamental or urgent as climate change.
In kicking off proceedings, the right hon. Member spoke of his Government’s excellent record. I have to say I disagree with most of that, as I will explain in my speech. He spoke at length about electric vehicles, range anxiety and so on. He also spoke about changing behaviours, and he is right, but there is a need for the Government to provide just as big—if not bigger—a carrot as a stick, not just financially but in providing proper public transport alternatives outside London. That topic came up in the Chamber last week, and there is definitely a need for substantial investment.
Last week, I spoke about the disparity in infrastructure spending across England. The hon. Member for West Ham (Ms Brown) spoke of the disparity in London—the east-west divide—which I was not aware of. Perhaps I will look into that more after the debate.
A new Member, the hon. Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden), rather uniquely, in my experience, began by admitting that he was an adviser in the Department for Transport, and potentially to blame for current policy. That was not how he put it, but it is how I heard it. He made several good points, including his last one, on vehicle excise duty on motorhomes, which I think most of us would is agree is egregious.
The hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) spoke of the Government arrangement to bring the ban on petrol and diesel cars forward, albeit without a proper plan to build the infrastructure of charging points. I think I will be able, later in my speech, to develop the point that the Scottish Government have not fallen into that trap.
The hon. Member for Bury North (James Daly) essentially spoke about the disparity between bus services in the north and the south, and about the fact that the bus service in his constituency is extremely poor—something that many in his constituency could agree with. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) speaks on a vast number of issues for his constituents, and I agreed with him when he said that behaviours will be changed by encouragement, not enforcement.
I mentioned the urgency of dealing with the issue that we are debating, and that is reflected in the action being taken in Scotland right now. The Scottish Government’s aim is a 75% reduction in emissions a decade hence and, 15 years after that, a 100% drop, or net zero. Those are ambitious targets—the most ambitious in these islands, no less—but they are achievable without disruption to our economy. Indeed, they have huge economic benefits and use existing technology. Given that 31% of our total emissions come from transport, and more than four fifths of that figure is related to road transport, it is clear that the hard action needed to curb emissions and move to net zero must come through investment and policy decisions aimed at how we move goods, services and ourselves.
Before I move on to the substantive points I wish to make, I want to ask the Minister, on behalf of the large number of hauliers in my constituency, whether he will give an undertaking to bring forward the conclusion of the longer semi-trailer trial, which has now been extended to 10 years. We are eight years into the trial, and many companies, whether they are in the trial or not, need information for the purpose of investing in their future fleets of trailers. They need to know whether the trailers they buy will become obsolete just as they buy them. Some information on that would be useful for hauliers across the country.
The establishment of the UK’s first electric highway along the A9, Scotland’s spine, is the type of bold action that is required if we are to make a successful transition to a net zero economy and the decarbonisation of our transport network. By the end of the first tranche of funding, more than 2,500 charging points will be in place across Scotland. That first step is part of the investment in infrastructure that is needed to phase out the need for new petrol and diesel cars by 2032—investment covering not just public charging points but also charging points at workplaces and in domestic settings. Members will note that I said 2032. That target is still three years ahead of UK Government ambitions despite this morning’s welcome announcement.
In recent years we have had a rail electrification programme that is the largest in our nation’s history. Edinburgh to Glasgow, Paisley Canal, Stirling Dunblane Alloa, and the Shotts and Whifflet lines—in fact all the lines between our country’s two biggest cities—are now all-electric. Virtually all the west of Scotland network has ditched diesel.
Lilian Greenwood
Is not there something we should learn in the rest of the UK, given what has happened with rail in Scotland? Does the hon. Gentleman share my disappointment that the previous Government cut back on electrification of our rail network? The learning from Scotland is to keep doing it, because it becomes more cost-effective. There should be a rolling programme, rather than the stop-start that we have seen in other parts of the UK.
Gavin Newlands
I totally agree with the hon. Lady. I was coming on to say that the amount of money that has been wasted on cancelled electrification schemes is shocking. The Government’s commitment must be called into question. We have ambitious plans in Scotland, but if the Government here were to get a move on and invest properly it would release more capital for the Scottish Government to increase their ambitious plans with regard to decarbonising transport.
Wera Hobhouse
Is it not true that we always count the costs in the wrong way? Not doing the things we are talking about will ultimately cost us a lot more. Cancelling projects because they are getting more expensive does not take into account the cost if we do not do those things.
Gavin Newlands
The hon. Lady makes a good point. It is a very short-term approach to look at such things in terms of their initial cost. They have to be considered in the medium and long term, particularly in the light of the climate emergency that the Government have announced. Cutting back on such schemes is disgraceful.
Work continues in Scotland, in planning future works. Those include the new metro running through my constituency, which will give Renfrew—currently the largest town in Scotland without a rail station—its first fixed rail link in more than 50 years; and the future decarbonisation of the Barrhead and East Kilbride lines. Scotland aims to make sure that all rail journeys are carbon free by 2035. Perhaps that is the sort of ambition that England and Wales need from their rail policy makers, who have wasted tens of millions of pounds on cancelled rail electrification schemes. That is entirely the wrong signal to send at this time to the public and the rest of the world.
The Scottish Government are doing what they can under current financial and constitutional constraints, but hon. Members who have had the pleasure of hearing me speak on this topic will not be surprised if I bring up Norway at this point. The right hon. Member for East Hampshire has already alluded to results there in response to an intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown). Norway’s population is less than one tenth of the UK’s, and it is a country with a great many similarities to Scotland. Its electric car sales outstrip the UK’s, with an almost exponential growth rate. Last year alone, electric car sales increased by 31%, while the figure for petrol cars dropped by the same rate and that for diesel cars fell 13%. The car industry in Norway predicts an even greater demand for electric vehicles this year. By the end of this year there is every chance that half of all new cars sold in Norway will be electric. In the UK, the figure stands at 2.1%, while fossil-fuel cars continue to increase in number.
The difference is that Norway has a Government who are taking concrete action to push electric vehicles, and who are investing in the infrastructure needed, with nearly as many charging points as the entire UK. An independent, northern European, energy-rich country with full access to the single market and the European economic area is leading the way on the sort of bold transport policies that others can only follow, which are possible only with the full powers of a sovereign, independent Parliament and Government. Norway now, and Scotland in the future: one has only to look at the polls over the past week or so to see that the writing is on the wall for Scotland’s continued membership of the United Kingdom. However, I digress, and time is slightly against me.
Norway and Scotland show that leaving decarbonisation to the free market simply does not work. It needs strong policy and intervention from the Government, investment at a local and national level, and the commitment to match. I said before that the Scottish Government do an outstanding job, despite operating with one hand tied behind their back. Indeed, Scotland has shown global leadership by being the first country to include international aviation and shipping emissions in its statutory climate targets. Given its nature, aviation is the toughest of transport modes to decarbonise, but I welcome today’s news that the UK aviation industry has vowed to decarbonise by 2050. The Scottish Government are working with Highlands and Islands Airports and the aviation industry to bring to Scotland trials of cutting-edge zero-emission aircraft, using battery and hydrogen fuel-cell technologies, starting in the Orkney archipelago, where no flight lasts longer than 20 minutes. Indeed, it boasts the world’s shortest scheduled flight, from Westray to Papa Westray, which is shorter in distance than most airport runways, and lasts a minute or so. The Scottish National party will decarbonise flights within Scotland by 2040, and is aiming for the world’s first zero-emission aviation region, in partnership with HIAL.
Meanwhile, the UK Government’s track record is disappointing, to say the least—just ask the former president of COP26, Claire O’Neill, for her take. The feed-in tariff has been scrapped, and Scotland’s renewables have been subjected not just to discriminatory but to utterly shameful transmission charges. Both are key inputs to a decarbonised transport system. The tax and licencing regime delivers little benefit to those switching to electric vehicles, who play their part in driving the change that is needed. It is surely time for the Government to look to our European colleagues for inspiration and ideas. Perhaps that approach is not in vogue down here at the moment—it is certainly not within the present Government—but it would assist massively in delivering the transformational change needed across our network. If the Government are not prepared to do that, they should make sure that Scotland’s Parliament and Government have the powers and the finance needed to do the job properly.
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Nokes, and to respond to the debate. I thank Members who have contributed, and a number of excellent points have clearly been made. I particularly thank the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) for securing the debate.
I will make three key points. First of all, on the scale of this problem. Secondly, on the need for an urgent response, as discussed by a number of hon. Members. Thirdly, on the series of policy choices facing the Government now that they have a significant working majority. Before I do that, I will comment, without intruding into private grief too deeply, on the tussle that is quite clearly going on in Government at the moment. It is deeply unfortunate that a former climate Minister has quite clearly had a difference of opinion with her colleagues, which reflects rather badly on the Government’s ability to focus on this vital issue. I urge the Minister—a thoughtful and gentle chap who is very interested in key policies relating to climate change—to please have a word and see if he can sort things out.
We have focused on the technical points, but it is quite simply no exaggeration to point out that the climate crisis is the most urgent and serious problem facing the British Government and, indeed, the wider world. There is quite clearly a need for every Government, private individual, business and charity to take urgent and determined action. However, it is also clear from the debate that this is simply not happening, and that the Government, I am afraid, are failing in this vital area of policy.
I will address the series of policy choices facing Ministers now that they have been returned with a significant majority. My question to the Minister, whom I am sure is listening attentively, is: will the Government now step up to meet these challenges? Will they look at the difficult choices in front of them, or will they yet again fail the public and, more importantly, future generations? So far, I am afraid that the evidence points to continued failure. I urge the Minister to once again refer the matter to his colleagues and urge them to take serious action and to look once again at the fundamentals of these problems.
First and foremost, as the right hon. Member for East Hampshire rightly pointed out, the issue before us is one of road transport. The UK has a car-dependent economy, and we need to address that. This not only is a matter of technical detail but is fundamental, affecting planning and everyday life. I call on the Government to look not only at the subsidies and time limit for selling vehicles but at the whole planning system and the priority it gives to new road building. As I mentioned, the Government have so far taken the wrong choices on this matter. They are putting £30 billion from vehicle excise duty into a hypothecated fund, which is being allocated to new roads. Colleagues who attend Transport Question Time, as many in the Chamber today do, will note a series of Back-Bench Members pitching to the Government for new road building in their constituencies. That is not the way forward; we need to move away from car dependency.
I urge the Minister to listen carefully to my following points about the importance of other modes of transport, which were also ably made by other colleagues.
Lilian Greenwood
I very much welcome my hon. Friend’s approach of looking across the whole of transport, rather than focusing only on cleaner vehicles, because that will help us to tackle wider policy issues, including health and social justice. Does he agree that, when making difficult choices—there are difficult choices ahead—the Government should look with interest at the outcome of Climate Assembly UK, which was brought forward by six Select Committees, to see what the members of the public taking part have to say and what recommendations they make?
Matt Rodda
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I urge the Minister to familiarise himself with her work as the Chair of the Select Committee on Transport. The public are further ahead on this matter than we parliamentarians, so it is important that we address these issues. Let me make one further point about the strategic nature of our dependence on road and the policy mistakes so far. There is a stark contrast between the effective subsidy for road use and the use of carbon-powered transport—through the effective cut to petrol duty—and the lack of subsidy for rail travel and other forms of public transport.
To turn to rail, the Scottish National party spokesman, the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands), made an excellent point about the need for rail electrification. In my own region of south and south-west England, there is a clear contrast with other parts of the UK. On the railway line just beyond Reading, the electrification abruptly stops at Newbury, which is a long way from the end of the line, which goes all the way to St Ives. I urge the Minister to look again at rail electrification, and to ask his colleagues, particularly the Rail Minister, to look with urgency at this matter. In the Great Western region, there has been a complete failure in the Government’s commitment to electrification. On lines into Wales, the electrification stops at Cardiff, and the whole of south Wales continues to be served by dirty diesel vehicles.
However, similarly to road issues, rail issues go way beyond the technical nature of the vehicles involved. There are also wider questions about the priority given to rail travel over road travel and the strategic choices made by the Government. I urge the Government to look at the work of the German Government, which was mentioned by a colleague earlier. The German Government recently instituted a 10% cut in rail fares across Germany which, as mentioned, is in many ways a comparable northern European country. Labour proposed a 30% cut in rail fares. Cutting fares is likely to have a significant impact on rail use and in taking people out of polluting road vehicles and on to rail, which even with diesel locomotives will reduce carbon emissions significantly. With electrification, it has enormous potential benefits.
However, there is also an issue about ownership. I welcome the Government’s recent renationalisation —as my colleague said, we wish them a happy rail renationalisation day—but would like to see them go further and look at the whole network, and to introduce a clear strategy for managing and developing that network and avoiding the current poor performance of the franchise system and the failure of the complicated ticketing system.
It is a little-known fact that buses are actually the major form of public transport in the UK. I urge the Minister to completely rethink the Government’s failed policy on buses, which is in many ways one of their worst areas of transport performance. Funding for buses has been cut by 45%. The hon. Member for Bury North (James Daly) talked about his own issues on the outskirts of Greater Manchester, which I will come to shortly, but for many colleagues in rural areas, there has been a notable impact on services. Near to my own seat in Reading, Oxfordshire County Council rather foolishly cut all bus subsidies, affecting the population of more than half a million people. There is clearly a need for a complete rethink. Hundreds of routes have been lost.
However, as with rail, there is also a need to strategically rethink the strategy for the whole system. Since the Transport Act 1985, bus patronage has declined and there has been an over-emphasis on a small number of highly profitable routes, because of the nature of the system. We need to look again at the possibility of greater franchising. The hon. Member for Bury North makes a good point about the issue of communities on the edge of networks. However, franchising was retained in London and has been shown to lead to much higher bus patronage.
We also, as a country, need to address the success of municipal bus companies. In Reading, the bus company is outstanding and has growing patronage, and the same is true of Nottingham, where my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) represents a seat. Municipal firms have a great deal to offer. Municipal transport is widely known on the continent and is associated with many centre-right Governments, so I urge Ministers to reconsider the previous—somewhat ideological—opposition to this common-sense, practical and effective form of local accountability.
In summary on buses, I call on the Minister to look at the overall level of subsidy and to address capital investment in the sector, with a view to encouraging more electric buses, and also to look at the management of bus services, to make them more effective and more responsive to local needs. This was so wisely pointed out in the case of Greater Manchester, where I believe that the Mayor is looking at franchising with a view to improving services in the very outer boroughs, which the hon. Member for Bury North mentioned.
James Daly
I agree with a lot of what the hon. Gentleman says. As a new Member of Parliament who has spoken to those who are in charge of the consultation and putting forward the policy, my concern with franchising is that I have not been told that the services are going to be expanded, or that services in my area that are completely reliant on some form of subsidy will receive that subsidy. I support the idea in principle, but I fear that it will not lead to the expansion of the service, a better service or a more regular service. Does he have any views on that?
Matt Rodda
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point. I think that the issue is local accountability. Certainly, when we look at franchising in the country as a whole, it is clear that the franchising system has worked extremely well in London where it was retained. There is a widespread desire among Mayors and other leading figures in local government to expand franchising. I ask the Minister to allow all local authorities to consider both franchising and remunicipalising bus companies to improve services in areas such as the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and many others around the country, including rural constituencies.
I appreciate the pressure of time, Ms Nokes, and will be brief on my final point. As the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) pointed out, it is crucial that we do not address transport just through vehicles, but look at active travel. There is huge scope in this country to encourage walking and cycling. Points were made about the topography of some British cities, but they do not apply in many parts of the country. Many urban and many semi-rural areas are relatively flat, but we perform very badly compared with other northern European countries. We are way below the levels that we should be achieving. At the moment, the projected increases in walking and cycling are not taking place—we are clearly flatlining. When we look at the wider context of the lack of investment in this area compared with road transport, it is clear that greater capital investment is needed. That is why we would have committed substantial moneys to that, and I urge the Minister to do that.
In my own town of Reading, the simple measure of a bridge across the Thames specifically for walking and cycling has led to a transformation in the journeys made by commuters to Reading station. That is a simple example of the many benefits of capital investment in this sphere. That issue has been noted as regards London and Manchester, and I am sure that the Minister will address it in his closing remarks.
I am aware of the time, Ms Nokes, but I also ask the Minister, as he considers this, to please talk to his colleagues in other Departments and integrate policy with wider measures to tackle climate change.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (George Freeman)
May I say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Nokes? In the time available, I shall do my best to set out the Government’s strategy and to deal with the many points that were raised.
First, I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) for calling this debate on the importance of decarbonising the transport sector. As the first Minister for the decarbonisation of transport, I welcome this opportunity and the many contributions from Members from, I think, all parties in the House. We have seen quite a lot of expertise, including from the former Chair of the Transport Committee, the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), and I have heard an awful lot with which we agree, including on the scale of the challenge of global climate change and the imperative of gripping transport decarbonisation now. There was an important point about avoiding climate anxiety while stressing the urgency of the situation. We do not want to depress people, particularly the young, by making out that this task is impossible.
We also heard about the real strides that we have made as a country and the need for the transport sector now to lean in and show the leadership that the energy sector has shown. I was particularly interested in the points that my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire made about behavioural insights and understanding the real barriers to EV uptake and modal shift—indeed, we are putting a lot of emphasis on that in the strategy—and about the need for a smooth evolution of the support framework.
As the first Minister for the future of transport, focusing on decarbonisation, digitalisation and disconnection, I, with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, am absolutely determined that we will take an integrated approach. That means putting people and places—neighbourhoods—at the heart of the vision for transport, looking at what the transport sector needs to do to put people and places first and looking at our research and development programme across Government to ensure that we are backing the right innovations in technologies to support future green transport. To that end, we have established in the DFT a new directorate for the future of transport, which has seven workstreams and seven directors, dealing with R&D, finance, place, data, regulation, decarbonisation and the importance of behavioural insights as well of ensuring that we go with the grain of people’s aspirations for their families and their constituencies.
I do not want to take up too much time agreeing with everyone on the scale of the crisis. We have only to look to what has been happening in the past few months around the world—to Australia, to our own floods and to the rate of polar ice melt and the rising sea levels—to know that this is the defining global challenge of our generation. I can feel in this Chamber the appetite across the parties to show the electorate in this country, after the divisions of the past few years, that we are united in ensuring that we tackle it.
Let there be no doubt that this Government are 100% committed to leading—not just delivering but leading —and therefore we must accelerate our action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to avoid longer-lasting consequences. That will mean reducing car dependency and building lower car dependency into the new houses that we are building, and that is why I was delighted last week to announce on the east-west arc, for example, that we are focusing on rail links to the new housing.
The decisions that we make will affect the future of the planet for generations to come. This is urgent. I am delighted that, as I am speaking, the Prime Minister is sitting down having just given his keynote speech defining how important this is for the Government. We will have to show new models of leadership globally, and that is why hosting COP this November is vital.
I will just take this opportunity to say that since Mrs Thatcher was, famously, the first western leader to warn of the pace of this back in the 1980s, we saw a few decades of quite slow progress until the last decade. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), David Cameron and Nick Clegg for putting together a consensus that we needed to act 10 years ago.
The Climate Change Act 2008 was the first of its kind in the world and made the UK the first country to have legally binding long-term emissions reduction targets, and we should be proud of that. Since 2000, we have decarbonised our economy faster than any other G20 country. Last year, with support from this House, we became the first major economy to set a legally binding target to achieve net zero emissions from across the UK economy by 2050. That will end our contribution to global climate change, but it does not mean the end of prosperity. I am equally proud that we have created more than 400,000 jobs in this sector. We need to be clear that green growth is more sustainable, resilient and globally exportable, and creates more opportunities for the next generation of people in this country.
Between 1990 and 2017, we reduced emissions by more than 40% while growing our economy by more than two thirds. Green growth works. However, we are not complacent—
George Freeman
I will not, just because I am very short of time to respond to the debate.
Delivering net zero will require genuine transformation of our economy and society, including our homes, transport systems and businesses. Although challenging, it offers tremendous social and economic opportunity, but we will have to go further and faster to build on our track record, with transport front and centre.
I shall list briefly the things that we have done. This is a very significant demonstration of leadership. Our £1.5 billion ultra low emission vehicle programme is the envy of the world. We have just announced the £400 million charging infrastructure fund, which will see thousands more electric vehicle charge points installed across the UK, both superfast chargers at motorway service stations and domestic chargers. The first £70 million of that will create another 3,000 rapid charge points. With the private sector, we are on track to deliver £1 billion for charging infrastructure. I am genuinely delighted that the Prime Minister has this morning announced the Government’s intention to bring forward the ban on petrol, diesel and hybrid cars and vans to 2035, in line with the Committee on Climate Change’s advice.
On shipping, we have the clean maritime plan. On rail, we have set the ambition to remove all diesel-only trains from the network. On aviation, we have helped to lead the world in setting up that first and seminal international agreement for emissions reduction, and here in the UK we are investing £1.5 billion in future aviation technology. Yesterday, I visited the E-Fan X, a partnership between Rolls-Royce and Airbus at Cranfield pioneering the first electric plane.
We will have to invest in science and technology longer term, as well as modal shift for healthier and happier places short term, and to that end I will shortly be announcing with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State our first ever transport decarbonisation plan. That will set out for the first time an approach for each mode—road, rail, shipping and aviation—and an approach by place. We want to look at the worst motorway junctions and railway stations, and we want to use digital tools to help to track standard emissions per passenger kilometre. And there will be a plan for science and R&D investment longer term, including for important technologies in areas such as hydrogen and carbon capture and storage—there is a whole range of technologies that can help us to drive both the modal shift and the emissions reduction.
This is about harnessing the power of our science and innovation and our digital economy to help lead the world in how to empower today’s travellers, passengers, drivers and households to make green choices. Imagine the power of a green Citymapper that will allow people to choose low-emission journeys and then reward them. That is very powerful and something that we need to look at.
Crucially, this will not all be done by top-down diktat from central Government; it will require—this is one reason why I welcome it—a bold new deal of devolution with towns and cities, and so I am in the process of working round all the Mayors of combined authorities.
We are short of time. Let me close by saying that if we are to achieve this objective, which we are determined to do, it will require not just science and not just devolution for modal shift; it will require, I suggest, a pan-Government approach on a par with that which we took in the build-up to the Olympics—a genuine decarbonisation olympiad, which will need to happen on a cross-party basis and inspire the next generation with the belief that we can do it.
Perhaps, with their permission, I can write to the hon. Members who raised specific questions with the detailed answers that I have written out but have no time to read out now.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered net zero targets and decarbonising transport.
Innovation in Hospital Design
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered innovation in hospital design.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Nokes, and to hold this important debate. Last September, the Government gave the green light to 40 new hospitals, as part of the health infrastructure plan. For my Basingstoke community this means support for a hospital replacing a much-loved building, built over 40 years ago.
We wanted a new hospital six years ago. While it is important to refresh those plans, because we are now talking about a district hospital, not just a critical treatment hospital, we already have a great deal of work in place. The initial community consultation has identified widespread support. The ambulance service has identified the location that would save more lives. The local council has given planning consent for a hospital to be built.
What about the building itself? If we are to realise the full benefits of this once-in-a-generation opportunity for our healthcare infrastructure, we need not the fad of the moment, but the best design for our hospitals based on evidence and the needs of clinicians, patients, staff and the community, as well as research at home and abroad, to create the best blueprint for local trusts to use for the next generation of NHS hospitals.
Guidance on how to design a new hospital, provided by the NHS to hospital trusts, has been called “out of date” by Architects for Health, an organisation dedicated to improving healthcare design. That should concern us. I hope that the Minister will reassure me that any new hospital will benefit from the best design thinking based on the best evidence around the world.
Many of the crucial design factors identified through research by design experts are completely absent in many hospitals within the NHS estate. Many of our hospitals, including our hospital in Basingstoke, were built for a different era of medicine. The buildings have been modified, added to, partially knocked down and rebuilt, and prefabricated units have been built in front of old units. Any sense of coherence in the design of our hospitals has long been lost.
Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)
I hope the right hon. Lady agrees that, historically, hospitals have been built away from where those services were most needed, causing issues with the recruitment of consultants and doctors, who then have to work with a demographically and geographically diverse population. I hope that location is given full consideration when new hospitals are designed.
Mrs Miller
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. That is why I was pleased that the NHS trust in Hampshire went to the emergency services and asked where the best location for a hospital would be. They identified junction 7 on the M3—an area not unknown to you, Ms Nokes—as a fantastic location. It would be convenient not only for staff, but for the ambulance service, so that it could can save more lives. All these issues must be taken into account.
We have experience of building hospitals since Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital was built in the 1970s. Newer private finance initiative hospitals have often been debated in this place. Interesting research has been done on their design, showing that the innovative use design was inhibited because private finance saw those hospitals foremost as an investment vehicle, and tried to reduce risk by using conventional design and construction methods—looking to the past rather than the future. We cannot make the same mistakes again.
What makes a good hospital for now, or, better still, for 2060, when these hospitals will still be operating? Based on the past 40 years of experience, we know the next generation of hospitals must be flexible in their design, not only to accommodate change, but to be built with change in mind and not as an afterthought. I am sure that some elements can be standardised, but the overall design must be flexible. Some new hospitals are built with the intention that they may have an entirely different use in the future. In our communities there are successful examples of buildings that began with one intended use and have moved to another, but they are few and far between. We need to ensure these hospitals have that flexibility, to scale up, change, scale back and even change use entirely.
Patient treatment is the prime function of a hospital, but so is patient recovery. The prevalence of multimorbidity requires a different way of thinking. Perhaps people with mental and physical illness—indeed, those with both simultaneously—should be treated side by side. Rightly, our focus is on early detection and prevention, so part of any new hospital must be mobile, to take prevention of disease into the heart of our community, with the permanent migration of some services from hospitals to the community, including simple diagnostics and therapies.
Research from the US demonstrates the importance of the right environment for patient recovery, including noise reduction, air quality, green space, daylight and seeing nature. Unsurprisingly, all those elements promote good health in well people, too. In 1984, a study by Roger Ulrich proved that a view through a window of a natural setting—perhaps the Hampshire countryside—would aid recovery. Those who had a view of a natural scene had a shorter stay and fewer complications and required less pain relief than those with a window facing a brick wall. Those are not new ideas. Florence Nightingale insisted on every ward being flooded with sunlight, with windows that opened to bring in light and ventilation lifting the spirits, but that is not the case for every ward in my hospital and hospitals around the country.
Staff retention is one of the most acute issues for the NHS. NHS staff are hugely loyal and dedicated. The hundreds of people in Basingstoke who work in my local hospital go above and beyond every day in bringing the best care to my constituents. However, where we work matters, and we should not rely on that loyalty and dedication but reciprocate it. We need to think about how design can improve everyday working lives.
Office design has evolved over the past 40 years, creating spaces that encourage creative collaboration. However, in hospitals things have not changed much at all, yet collaboration and creativity are just as relevant in medicine as in commerce, as are training and upskilling, which should be designed into these new buildings.
Of course, a hospital’s environmental impact also needs to be minimised. The importance of renewable energy and public transport links goes without saying, but we need to take account of the actual design of the hospital, to ensure that it is a design that the surrounding community can be proud of, and so the hospital does not look as if it has landed from outer space and instead fits with the natural setting; a hospital should be a building that will add to that natural setting and not detract from it.
For this new generation of hospitals to be truly sustainable, there needs to be a move away from the disposable hospital design of the 1970s, which was perhaps used when the hospital in Basingstoke was built back in 1972. A building that is flexible and that can be repurposed is a building that is sustainable, which is the approach that we must take.
Each and every one of the 40 new hospitals will be a huge investment for taxpayers, and it is right that approval procedures are rigorous. However, I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister can assure us that, despite that rigour, the long-term benefits of the best working environment for staff are not traded for a short-term reduction in cost.
Hospitals are absolutely extraordinary places that do extraordinary things on a routine basis. They are places where we experience the most emotional experiences in our lives; they are the places where new life is brought into the world and where we face our darkest moments. I will always remember the birth of my three children in Queen Charlotte’s Hospital in London, even though there was a decision to move the hospital after the birth of my second child and I had to go to a new location for my third child. Nevertheless, to be surrounded by experts in maternity and midwifery was an extraordinary experience, and we always have a debt of gratitude to hospitals that have served us in that way. Now Basingstoke hospital is looking after my mother and my father in an extraordinary way, and we should always recognise the incredible lengths that the NHS goes to, in order to ensure that we have the right support in place at the right time.
That is why communities have such a profoundly emotional attachment to their hospitals. That is a challenge that the Government face as they introduce their plans for 40 new hospitals, because they must recognise the impact of any change to a building with which people have an emotional bond and attachment, whether they have had a baby or visited a dying relative there. We need to understand that and take the community with us.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister can outline today how the Government will ensure that this once-in-a-generation opportunity—these 40 new hospitals for communities right across the nation—involves good design. That means design that helps to provide the best treatment, the best recovery, the best staff retention and the best for our environment, and such design should be at the heart of each and every new hospital, because we must build hospitals for the future and not simply replicate the past. We also need to recognise the emotional role that hospitals play in the lives of our families and our communities. We must work with the people the NHS serves to ensure that this groundbreaking development of the NHS estate is understood, embraced and welcomed.
The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)
It is a huge pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Ms Nokes.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) on securing this incredibly important debate about innovation in hospital design, which I know is an important subject for her. She has worked tirelessly to secure a new and better hospital to serve her constituents in Basingstoke, who I know are grateful for the enormous amount of work that she done. I also know that she will continue to hold our feet to the fire in the Department of Health and Social Care, to ensure that the new hospital is the very best that it can be.
As my right hon. Friend said, the Department has invested heavily in the NHS, providing large amounts of capital investment to hospitals, as announced last year by the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. Ensuring that this investment delivers innovation in health infrastructure is absolutely vital, as we move forward towards a health estate that is fit and able to face the challenges of the future.
We announced a new health infrastructure plan, or HIP, to deliver a long-term programme of investment in our NHS estate, buildings and equipment. This will be the biggest and boldest hospital-building programme in a generation, supporting our health service so that dedicated NHS staff, who are quite marvellous, can give patients world-class care in world-class facilities.
Under the new HIP, we have made a long-term commitment to build 40 new hospitals over the next decade, including to the Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in my right hon. Friend’s constituency. As she knows, the trust will receive £5 million in seed funding to develop plans to renew the ageing estate and better align services at the hospitals in Basingstoke and Winchester.
The 20 hospital upgrades that we previously announced are already under way. That is on top of a capital commitment, amounting to around £3.3 billion, provisionally awarded to over 170 sustainability and transformation plans since July 2017. That capital investment is going into a wide variety of programmes right across the country, including new urgent care centres and integrated care hubs—which bring together primary and community services—and, of course, new mental health facilities.
This investment programme will totally transform the health infrastructure in this country. It presents a unique and exciting opportunity to implement the latest innovation in healthcare design, with all the benefits and advances of modern methods of construction. Getting this right will ensure that patients receive the right treatment—treatment that speeds up their recovery and makes the most of the working environment, ensuring that our wonderful NHS staff can work in facilities that support them to deliver the very best in patient care.
The impact of the built environment on patient outcomes and staff satisfaction is increasingly clear. My right hon. Friend has already referred to it, but academic research conducted by the University of Sheffield shows that patients make significantly better progress in new, purpose-built and designed buildings than in old ones. There are a range of impacts, including reductions in pain medication needs and shortening hospital stays. In the mental health sector, treatment times were reduced by 14%, and in the general medical sector, non-operative patient treatment times were reduced by a staggering 21%. That is the prize here.
There is also growing evidence that access to and visibility of green space is vital to promoting therapeutic environments that aid recovery, with positive health outcomes including reductions in stress and anxiety, increased social interaction and, of course, an improved healthcare experience.
There has been some really interesting recent work in this space, which the Department welcomes. For instance, the Royal Horticultural Society donated its feel-good garden from the 2018 RHS Chelsea Flower Show to Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust. Its permanent home is now at Highgate mental health centre, one of the trust’s two in-patient psychiatric sites, and it is dedicated to improving the care of older adults with acute mental illness.
As my right hon. Friend said, there is nothing new about that approach. Florence Nightingale—who I know is deeply ingrained in your constituency, Ms Nokes—had it right from the beginning. My constituency of Gosport houses Haslar, a military hospital built in 1756 that has long, well-lit buildings, beautifully landscaped gardens overlooking the Solent and, critically, many out-buildings—smaller structures where the war-wounded would be wheeled out to take the air and look at the beautiful views of the Solent that we still enjoy today. Buildings designed to maximise natural light and views of green space, with increased natural ventilation and reduced noise levels, make for a much more pleasant environment, not only for the patients, to aid recovery, but for the staff going about their work.
As my right hon. Friend said, there is mounting evidence that there are strong links between the design or layout of buildings and the job satisfaction of staff, thereby improving staff retention. Buildings should be designed in a way that makes it easier for staff to do their job. For instance, designing the layout of a health building in a way that aligns with patient flow and clinical pathways also contributes to increased staff satisfaction, which makes sense. Staff can dedicate more time to patients because the time spent walking between linked wards and clinical services is reduced.
Naturally, we want to ensure that the modern clinical design of buildings is also cutting-edge in the way it supports environmental sustainability. The large hospital projects selected for phases 1 and 2 of the Department’s health infrastructure programme have been instructed to ensure that they combine and contribute to the reduction in the NHS carbon footprint by following the framework developed by the UK Green Building Council on net zero carbon buildings.
As well as seeing innovation in hospital buildings, we want to see environmentally conscious design. The NHS has led a new-for-old programme, which improves delivery of local community-based infrastructure as well, so these things are not only for the big new acute hospitals. The new-for-old programme is adopting a variety of sustainability measures, including something called BREEAM, which stands for the Building Research Establishment environmental assessment method—that slips off the tongue. It will be incorporated as standard, as independent third-party verification of sustainability performance in infrastructure.
The design of estate has a massive part to play in achieving net zero carbon targets, and carbon efficiency measures can have a positive effect on both patients and staff. For example, installing energy-efficient LED lighting in every hospital will produce average energy cost savings of up to £33 million and, importantly, improve the clinical environment for patients and staff. Adopting renewable energy solutions in the design of clinical facilities also contributes to cleaner air for our communities and better health outcomes.
Our building programme will take advantage of innovative design and innovative construction methods, and we are encouraging the NHS to take advantage of a range of modern construction approaches, including off-site manufacturing and standardisation, such as repeatable room design. Such methods can enable new and better buildings to be built quicker than otherwise would be possible. They can open their doors to patients sooner.
Mrs Miller
The Minister rightly talks about new and innovative methods to build buildings quicker, and that is very important, but my concern about getting these things finished is not about the building; it is about the approvals processes. Given the benefits that she so eloquently outlines in having the additional 40 new hospitals—benefits to patients, but also to the taxpayer—what space is there for the NHS to speed up the programme? It is clearly long overdue and to the benefit of all our constituents.
Caroline Dinenage
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that point, and I will come to it later in my speech. The key thing is to ensure that all the relevant stakeholders and partners are brought to the table very early so that everybody understands exactly what the plan is and has a feeling that they have bought into and invested in how that plan unfolds.
Earlier, I mentioned the importance of innovation, repeatable room design and standardised components, which very much lead to the flexibility that my right hon. Friend talked about. That means that the NHS can adapt to future advances in delivering modern patient care, and it delivers time, cost and efficiency benefits. For example, the Wrightington Hospital orthopaedic centre uses repeatable rooms, and that is already delivering benefits to patients and staff, but it also means that the rooms can be changed in future as modern innovation delivers changes. It is also critical that innovative building design integrates the benefits of technology and infrastructure to make full use of its transformative potential for service delivery and patient care.
As my right hon. Friend says, it is important to ensure that the designs are delivered fast. The schemes must be built in a way that works with the local community. The buildings must be easily accessible, sustainable and integrated with the local planning infrastructure, and scheme proposals and business cases developed in partnership and in alignment with sustainability and transformation plans, integrated care systems and clinical and estate strategies. They need written commissioner support, alongside evidence of engagement with local stakeholders and their support for the plans. We hope that will speed up delivery of the buildings.
I hope that goes some way towards reassuring my right hon. Friend that the Government are absolutely committed to maximising innovation in the high-quality hospitals that we are delivering. We are going to seize this once-in-a-generation opportunity, and we will work tirelessly to ensure that the people of this country are receiving the care they deserve in buildings that are modern, functional and beautiful. I thank her for securing this debate, because it has given me an opportunity to outline how we intend to do that, but I am sure she will continue to hold us to account when it comes to delivering on that commitment.
Question put and agreed to.
Climate Justice
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered climate justice.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. I thank Mr Speaker for granting the debate, and I welcome the Minister to his place. I also thank colleagues for being present, including those who have long spoken out in this place on climate change, climate justice and ecology.
Climate justice is a term often brandished around, but personally, and for the purposes of the debate, I take it to mean addressing the climate crisis in a way that is fair and equitable. Climate justice links human rights and development to achieve a people-centred approach, safeguarding the rights of the most marginalised people and sharing the impact of climate change equitably and fairly, because we know that those least responsible for climate change suffer its gravest consequences.
Disadvantaged groups will continue to be disproportion- ately affected as climate change persists. Those groups will be affected due to inequalities that are based on differences in gender, race, ethnicity, age and income. The fourth national climate assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that low-income individuals and communities are more exposed to environmental hazards and pollution.
Climate change is already forcing people from their land and homes. Oxfam found that climate-fuelled disasters were the No. 1 driver of internal displacements over the past decade, forcing an estimated 20 million people a year from their homes.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
Is the hon. Lady aware that the New Zealand Government have awarded visas for climate refugees so that they can live in New Zealand, and does she think that that will develop further over the coming years?
Nadia Whittome
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention; that is a very good point. I certainly think that in the wake of the climate crisis we have to reassess our definition of economic migrants.
The World Bank warns that, without urgent action, 143 million people will be displaced in sub-Saharan Africa, south Asia and Latin America by 2050. As the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has rightly stated, climate justice is about not only ensuring that nobody is unfairly affected by climate change today, but recognising that future generations have rights too.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on the debate. She is making an excellent speech. Does she agree that, based on some of the analysis that she has already referred to, the costs of not dealing with climate justice will far outweigh those of doing so, given the legacy that we will leave for future generations and what they will have to clear up?
Nadia Whittome
I agree with my hon. Friend. There will be no future generations on a dead planet. As the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has stated, climate justice is not just about us here and now; it is about future generations too. I thank her for raising that point.
Continuing to burn fossil fuels or expand aviation, and compensating by paying poorer countries to offset those emissions, risks only worsening and entrenching current inequalities. Will the Minister categorically rule out the UK dumping our carbon reduction obligations on to developing countries? Failure to reduce emissions and adapt to the impacts of drastic climate and ecological breakdown threatens to reverse hard-won development gains and to increase poverty, inequality, hunger and humanitarian disasters.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for introducing this important debate, especially in the light of the fact that the UK will host the COP26 vital meeting later this year, which is really our last chance to come up with a meaningful plan to tackle carbon emissions. The Government have used very warm words on tackling the climate emergency, but does she agree that those words ring hollow when a UK Government agency, UK Export Finance, continues to fund new oil and gas projects across the world that, when complete, could amount to as much as a sixth of the UK’s total annual carbon emissions?
Nadia Whittome
My hon. Friend makes a pertinent point. Indeed, current emission reduction pledges from the international community are insufficient to meet the Paris agreement goals and instead put us on track for a terrifying 3° of warming.
Despite the UK hosting COP26 later this year, more than 90% of the £2 billion in energy deals struck at last month’s UK-Africa investment summit were for fossil fuels. Will the Minister clarify how the deal struck by the Prime Minister last month is consistent with the Government’s stated aim of tackling climate change and setting an example for other nations?
Even with all the evidence before us, and in spite of the rhetoric, the UK Government are pressing ahead with Heathrow expansion. They have effectively banned the cheapest form of renewables, new onshore wind, through restrictive planning measures and removal of subsidies. They have cut frontline environmental agencies, such as Natural England, to the extent that they cannot even meet their basic statutory duties. Meanwhile, the UK is missing nearly all our international biodiversity targets, and species decline and habitat neglect and destruction are taking place at an alarming rate.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
The hon. Member is making a compelling speech. Does she agree that we should add to that litany of charges against the Government the fact that they continue to measure their emissions in terms of our production emission reductions rather than our consumption emission reductions? If we started to take account of what we consumed in imported emissions, the very bad progress that we have already made would look even worse.
Nadia Whittome
My hon. Friend makes an important point. I thank her for that, and for her many years of work in Westminster on climate justice.
In the light of all this, it comes as little surprise that on BBC Radio 4 this morning, Claire O’Neill, the former president of the UN climate summit in Glasgow, said that the Prime Minister has admitted to her that he does not even understand climate change. Will the Minister lay out what major changes—not promises, consultations or strategies, but tangible changes—have taken place or been set in motion since the House passed Labour’s climate and environment emergency last May?
Does the Minister agree that it is imperative that the UK gets our own house in order, and is seen to be making substantial progress on decarbonisation, climate change, adaption and habitat restoration, ahead of hosting COP26? Will he outline investments and actions in the pipeline between now and November—specifically, investments in infrastructure to create the green, clean jobs of the future? Will he clarify whether the Prime Minister is indeed entirely ignorant about climate change, as claimed by his former colleague? Lastly, is there a reason why the climate sub-committee has not met since it was first announced, and on what dates is it scheduled to meet?
There is a huge opportunity in Glasgow later this year, but decisions must be made and acted upon that keep fossil fuels in the ground, transform our food systems, decarbonise our production and consumption, restore ecosystems, and completely change our economies at a scale that matches the enormity of the crisis at hand.
Many Members will be alarmed by reports from the former president of the UN climate summit that the Government are
“miles off track”
in setting a positive agenda for COP26, and that promises of action
“are not close to being met”.
What does the Minister have to say in response to assertions that preparations for COP26 are
“mired in chaos and confusion”?—[Official Report, 3 February 2020; Vol. 671, c. 34.]
In the light of those significant concerns, will the Minister agree to provide the House next month with a substantive briefing update on preparations for COP26?
The question of how to support the countries most affected by the impacts of climate change has been a long-running debate at COPs over the years and is an important factor in achieving climate justice. After a year that has seen the likes of Hurricane Dorian and Cyclone Idai inflict extreme losses on disadvantaged communities across the developing world, addressing the issue of climate finance can no longer be delayed. Will the Minister outline for us the UK’s position on climate finance for poorer nations? How does he propose to involve disadvantaged groups in the planning and policy-making process, so that those individuals have a say in their own future?
It is imperative that developing countries receive the support they need to adapt to the impacts of climate change and reduce their own emissions. Developing countries should not be forced to choose between schools and medicine and coping with climate breakdown. Will the Government commit to working with others at COP26 to develop new sources of climate finance, such as a polluters’ tax, so as to not rely on the overseas aid budget alone?
With the addition of paragraph 51 to the COP21 decision accompanying the Paris agreement, developing nations reluctantly agreed that loss and damage could not be used to claim compensation from richer nations. Will the Minister outline the Government’s position on paragraph 51 and say whether he supports calls by the US to further exclude countries not signed up to the Paris agreement from any liability for the impacts of climate change?
Action to tackle climate change is increasingly being viewed through the lens of human rights, internationally and legally. As has been seen in some key strategic cases, the human rights basis for litigation on climate change has increasingly resonated with judges. New lawsuits have been able to draw on advancements in attribution science to establish a critical causal link between a particular source of emissions and climate-related damage, so the message to the world’s biggest polluters is clear: “Your time is up.” The communities most impacted by the reckless and short-termist actions of Governments and major polluters are, with increasing frequency, having their day in court. Will the Government take a human rights-based approach to climate change ahead of COP26, supporting those most impacted by, and most vulnerable to, the impacts of climate breakdown?
People of my generation are here to claim our right to a stable planet. We are here to shake decision makers out of their comfort zones, because the kind of action needed to address the urgency and scale of the climate and ecological crisis can take place only outside of those comfort zones. If the Government are sincere about the scale and urgency of the problem, we will not continue to hear about endless plans, pledges and consultations, but will see concrete actions in the here and now. COP26 is a historic opportunity that simply cannot be botched, yet sadly everything we have seen and heard points to this whole process being recklessly mismanaged under the stewardship of this Prime Minister. I will end with some advice from the outgoing president of the UN climate summit:
“My advice to anybody to whom Boris is making promises—whether it is voters, world leaders, ministers, employees or indeed, to family members—is to get it in writing, get a lawyer to look at it and make sure the money is in the bank.”
That is what all of us in this room must resolve to do.
Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)
If everybody sticks to about six minutes, we should get all Back Benchers in. If you do not stick to six minutes, I will introduce a time limit.
Theo Clarke (Stafford) (Con)
I begin by congratulating the Prime Minister on launching the UN climate summit in London today. I had the pleasure of working with Sir David Attenborough last year on tackling plastic pollution, and I am delighted that such a revered conservationist has today supported the Government and the UK’s role as a world leader in tackling climate change. I welcome the call this morning for international action to achieve global net zero emissions. I also thank the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome) for securing today’s debate on the important subject of climate justice.
In my view, the science is clear: if we continue to pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, climate change will continue to get worse and temperatures will continue to rise, along with associated impacts and risks—particularly severe and frequent extreme weather, including flooding, which affects my constituency of Stafford. To avoid the worst impacts of climate change, we need to stop adding to the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. I was pleased that in 2008, the UK passed the Climate Change Act with huge cross-party consensus, becoming the first country in the world to set a legally binding target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. I am also pleased that the target is now to achieve an 80% reduction in those gases by 2050 from their 1990 levels. The Government should be congratulated on their support for, and investment in, clean energy since 2010.
Reducing the impact of climate change is a matter of great interest to my constituents. We are currently having a public consultation across Stafford borough, through which residents, businesses and organisations have the opportunity to give their views on the draft climate change strategy produced by Stafford Borough Council. This follows the council’s declaration of a climate change emergency last year, with a commitment to be carbon neutral by 2040.
Seema Malhotra
I am very pleased to hear about what is going on in the hon. Lady’s local authority; a similar approach has been taken by Hounslow council, and I congratulate it on having done so. Does she agree that not only should everybody participate in those opportunities where they are available, and that the House should send out that message, but that where local authorities are not taking those steps, they should be strongly encouraged to do so by the Government?
Theo Clarke
I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady. I congratulate Stafford Borough Council on having been recognised as one of the leaders in our region by a Friends of the Earth survey of local authorities, showing that it has done a huge amount on this issue. I also draw attention to the city’s successful introduction of a number of initiatives to reduce carbon emissions, as well as the number of plans for the future that the council has introduced, such as installing solar panels on the roof of our civic centre and attempting to reduce energy consumption in our county council buildings.
I am pleased that last year, the UK became the first major economy to legislate for net zero by 2050. By having declared net emission goals, Britain is a front runner, along with a number of other countries including Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Costa Rica, France and New Zealand. I was also pleased that this morning, the Government announced that we will be moving away from petrol and diesel vehicles, bringing the phase-out date forward by five years—from 2040 to 2035—or earlier, if a faster transition is feasible. Of course, that must be subject to consultation. We should also consider including hybrids for the first time.
The Government should continue to work with all sectors of industry to accelerate the roll-out of zero-emission vehicles, helping to deliver green jobs in the UK, including in my constituency of Stafford.
Seema Malhotra
As somebody who has had an electric vehicle for a few years, I can attest to how incredible they are. However, there continue to be issues with easy access to vehicle charging, as well as the costs of the vehicles themselves. Does the hon. Lady agree that, if there is to be the roll-out we want, prices need to come down and the industry needs to do more to ensure that electric vehicles are affordable for ordinary families across the country?
Theo Clarke
The hon. Lady makes a good point. In my constituency, it is hard for someone with an electric vehicle to find a charging point, so I am encouraging the borough council to roll them out across the constituency.
Climate change is a global challenge that affects us all, not just within our national borders in the UK but around the world. It makes us vulnerable to the impact that rising temperatures are having on the weather, food production and water resources. As climate extremes worsen, the world’s poorest countries and communities will be most affected. I agree with some of the points made earlier by the hon. Member for Nottingham East.
I acknowledge the work of UK aid, which has helped more than 47 million people to cope with and adapt to the effects of climate change and natural disasters. I am proud of the Government’s commitment to spend 0.7% of our gross national income on overseas development assistance. We must ensure that our aid is congruent with the goals of the Paris agreement.
I will give a few examples to show how the Department for International Development makes a real difference on environmental issues. UK aid works with the Met Office to provide communities in developing countries with state-of-the-art weather information. In Uganda, it helps urban planners to identify the impacts of long-term climate change on urban water, sanitation and hygiene systems.
Cutting-edge British research has identified the fact that the Sahel faces three times more mega-storms, some of which are the size of England, than previously. I am proud that British scientists are working with city planners and officials in Burkina Faso to help to decide where hospitals and schools should be built and to protect them from future disasters. UK aid has provided 17 million people with improved access to clean energy, which should be commended and, I hope, continued by the Government.
I encourage the Government to continue to invest in clean green technology, to preserve our natural habitats, and to take measures to improve resilience to climate change. I am pleased that today, the Prime Minister reinforced his commitment to tackle climate change and biodiversity simultaneously, recognising the important role of restoring our natural habitat.
Hosting COP26 will be a major opportunity for the UK and nations across the globe to step up the fight against climate change. Five years on from the Paris agreement, it is a fantastic opportunity to build on our world-leading net zero target and push for international progress to tackle climate change. I am pleased that the Government have set out an ambitious 2050 net zero target. We must also remember that, last year, the UK went coal-free for 18 days, which is a record. The UK has also pledged to phase out unabated coal completely by 2025. We must use COP as a springboard to expand the Powering Past Coal Alliance and to urge others to join us in pledging net zero emissions. There is no greater responsibility than protecting our planet and that mission should be central to the Government.
The UK has a proud record of tackling climate change. We should raise our ambition this year to enable a greener future for all our children. I welcome the fact that today marks the kick-off of a year of climate action, with events taking place in all four nations of the UK. I encourage fellow hon. Members, businesses and charities to participate in the run-up to the upcoming summit in November.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Charles. I congratulate the new Member, the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome), on securing this timely debate. I am sure there will be many more, but it is good to start having the debate as early as possible.
The climate crisis will affect us all, but not everybody will be affected equally. If we allow it to get worse, it will create huge global inequalities on a scale that we have never seen. Some parts of our planet will be much worse hit than others, which will create extreme poverty, hardship, displacement and possibly even war. Those who are worse hit will be those already living in poverty and struggling against extreme weather conditions.
As a Liberal, I care deeply about people from every part of the world. People in China, Argentina, Nigeria and Iran are our neighbours, which is why I try to call out human rights abuses wherever I witness them. The point has already been clearly made that climate justice and the fight for human rights are directly linked. I feel called upon to avert the climate emergency, because it is about justice across the world and, ultimately, the human rights of people who live in areas of the world that will be much worse affected than here.
At our last conference, the Liberal Democrats agreed a credible plan for how the country could cut most of its emissions by 2030 and get to net zero by 2045. Our approach is evidence-based and pro-innovation. We need to put British innovators at the forefront of the fight against climate change. I agree with many hon. Members who have said that we do not need to be doom and gloom, but we do need a plan to effect change. The most important question for this debate is how we do that fairly in this country.
In the context of climate justice, fairness means protecting the low paid, the elderly and the just about managing from higher costs. It means an understanding that if an electric car costs more, only some people will be able to buy one, and thinking about how we can continue to offer choices that are affordable to everybody. Of course, we need to make sure that we build sustainable public transport links and that public transport is affordable—currently, even that is not an affordable choice for many.
Fay Jones (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)
Does the hon. Lady agree that there are opportunities in the housing sector to embed renewable infrastructure in new housing developments and flats, so they are built with renewables and electric charging points in mind, and that we can take the opportunity to embed sustainability in the construction sector in this year of all years?
Wera Hobhouse
I completely agree, but unfortunately, the path to building net zero homes was stopped under the last Government. As a new Member, the hon. Lady is probably best placed to encourage the Government to make sure that we build carbon zero homes. In fact, our target is for them to be carbon zero by 2021 and at Passivhaus standard by 2025, because that is where we ultimately need to get to. That cannot be the reserve of only those who can afford it, however, so how do we build a sustainable housing programme for social and affordable homes, not just the private sector?
Fairness means that the energy efficiency of social housing and rented property cannot be an optional extra but must be a requirement for anyone wishing to be a landlord, so that it is part of letting a property for social housing providers and private landlords. A fair transition is the only way to fight the climate emergency while protecting the ideals of climate justice. A fair transition also ensures that people buy into the more radical choices involved in climate action. The climate emergency will affect us all, but it will affect some of us more than others. The longer the Government wait to implement meaningful climate action, the more people will suffer. We are running out of time to smoothly switch to a net zero Britain without compromising our health, happiness and freedoms.
At the core of the Liberal Democrat plan to get to net zero is a just transition commission to understand where the biggest economic impacts of changing to a net zero society will be, and to create future jobs before the job losses in fossil fuel industries are incurred. We need to set up citizens’ assemblies to involve all parts of the public in the discussion, so that we formulate together the aims and ambitions for getting to net zero fairly. Most of all, the Government have to set out a credible coherent plan to set the direction for how the UK will get to net zero.
As the country that led the industrial revolution, we have been one of the biggest polluters over time. We as a country have a moral duty to provide global leadership to tackle the climate emergency here and across the world without delay.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome) on securing this very important and timely debate. Today, the UK published its 2018 carbon emissions, which showed that carbon emissions in the UK fell by 2.1% in 2018, down to 451.5 million tonnes. I mention that number because it helps to put into perspective the challenge ahead of us.
I want to speak to a solution that might not immediately jump to colleagues’ minds as a cost-effective course of action for the UK Government to take. That solution is empowering women and ensuring that girls have access to 12 years of quality education and to the same family planning choices as women get here in the UK. I was astonished to learn that that intervention alone is the single most powerful and most cost-effective step that we can take, as a world, to reduce the amount of carbon that we will emit by 2050. It is truly astonishing. Some studies have said that such a step could save as much as 120 gigatonnes of carbon from being emitted by 2050; other studies have it at more than 100 gigatonnes. A gigatonne is 1,000 million metric tonnes of carbon and the UK emits 451.5 million tonnes of carbon, so we could save 240 times what we currently emit annually.
It is a startling statistic that I thought deserved further investigation, and I discovered that it comes about through a range of different interactions. Education speaks for itself, as we can see from extensive studies. For example, the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis discovered that a woman in Africa who has no access to any kind of family planning will have, on average, 5.4 children, if she has no education at all—that is the mean outcome. If she goes to secondary school, she will have, on average, 2.7 children. If she goes on to a college education, she will have 2.2 children. One of the effects of girls’ education is that women choose to have their families later and they tend to have closer to a replacement number of children. It also, of course, has an incredible impact on the ability of a women to earn over her lifetime, but it is the impact on carbon emissions that I found particularly startling. Some 214 million women do not have access to modern birth control. If we give them the same kinds of choices that we have in the UK, that would add up to some very startling statistics.
To put the numbers in perspective, if we had comprehensive global coverage in onshore and offshore wind, that would save 98.7 gigatonnes. If we completely managed our refrigerants, that would save 89.74 gigatonnes. Reducing food waste would save 70.53 gigatonnes; switching to a plant-rich diet would save 66.11 gigatonnes.
Girls’ education is so valuable on so many fronts—as is, within that, the Government’s objective to champion 12 years of education for everyone. It is not just a good thing in and of itself, and good for the world economy; there is this startling statistic of how education combined with access to UK levels of modern family planning would save 120 gigatonnes of carbon being emitted into the atmosphere by 2050.
Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Sir Charles. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome) on securing this debate.
My generation grew up to the sound of climate warnings. Before I was even born, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had said that human activity was to blame for a planet that was quickly getting hotter, and every few years since, it has warned that we are on course to do “irreversible damage” to ecosystems and species. Two years ago, it said that preventing climate catastrophe would require,
“rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society”.
Since its first meeting more than three decades ago, CO2 emissions have risen by more than 40%. They continue to rise, and the powerful continue to ignore the warnings.
The effects are with us now. This winter, Australia burned and Indonesia drowned. Twenty-nine people died in the fires and 66 people drowned in the floods. Across the world, we see it again and again. The Solomon Islands are disappearing beneath the Pacific, forcing people to flee. Mozambique was battered by two of the worst storms in the continent’s history last year, which claimed the lives of more than 1,300 people. The Amazon rainforest—the lungs of our planet—was set alight by warmer, drier weather and reckless profiteers. Here in Britain, floods are hitting us harder and more often. Climate breakdown is with us already, but still the powerful ignore the warnings.
Zarah Sultana
I apologise to the hon. Member—because of the time limit, I must progress.
There was a time when many denied the science, but today there is a different kind of denialism. They do not deny the science—they deny the politics. They pretend that business as usual can combat the climate emergency, and that banning plastic straws, using bags for life or tweaking the system is enough. I am sorry—it is not, because the problems are not individual. They are collective. It is the same politicians who tell us to ban plastic straws who have left MPs’ pensions invested in deadly fossil fuels, so hon. Members will understand why we do not have high hopes for COP26 later this year and why we expect more platitudes and more hypocrisy. I ask hon. Members to take a lead from the students who have forced their universities to divest, and to divest now.
To prevent the climate emergency from becoming a climate catastrophe, we have to face up to what is driving the crisis. The answer is clear. It is a capitalist crisis, driven by capitalism’s need for expansion and exploitation. It is not the fault of a few bad apples; the entire system is rotten. It is a system that rose with the coal mines and steam mills that powered Britain to global dominance, and trashed the world’s climate to win wealth for colonial powers. Today, the global south still pays the price. If the climate crisis is a capitalist crisis, it is a neocolonial crisis too. Those least to blame—the global south and the global working class—will be hardest hit. While the world burns, the rich will build higher walls to protect themselves. They will let climate refugees drown and the dispossessed starve.
That is one future, but there is another. If we unite people across borders, and recognise that in this fight our enemy travels by private jet and not migrant dinghy, we can have a global green new deal, and it will look like this: dismantling the fossil fuel industry; taking resources away from a handful of private profiteers, and using them to plan a better future; insulating our homes and designing new green industries; building free public transport and creating millions of good, unionised jobs. That is how we unite black and white, north and south, migrants and those born here, people in Britain and people overseas. We all have an interest in survival. That is how we can build a world that is truly our own, with opportunities for all.
Plenty of people will call me naive, but the real naivety is to pretend we have another choice. My generation grew up watching global leaders bail out banks but ignore the warnings of a planet on fire. To stop that, we must finally make good on the promise of an old socialist hymn. With a global green new deal, we will
“bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old”.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Charles. I congratulate the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome) on a compelling speech and on securing this important debate.
Climate change is happening now, and those who have done the least to cause it are the ones who stand to lose the most. Climate justice, to put it bluntly, is a question of who lives and who dies. With a commitment to reaching net zero emissions now in law, I want to look at three areas that will determine whether the UK’s climate pathway will be a just one: the speed at which we decarbonise; how we decarbonise; and the degree of co-operation shown to other nations as we do.
First, speed. From a climate justice perspective, a net zero target of 2050 is simply not good enough. The Paris agreement commits countries to try to hold the global temperature rise to 1.5°. In its landmark report, the IPCC headline was clear: to stay below 1.5°, global emissions must halve by 2030 and reach net zero around mid-century. Let us remember that that is for only for a greater than 50% chance of staying within this level of heating, which, to me, does not sound like comfortable odds. By any measure of fairness, the UK has a clear responsibility to go faster than the global average. We are historically one of the biggest emitters. We started the modern fossil-fuel age with the industrial revolution, and the UK is one of the very largest per capita contributors to present climate change. We also have a greater capability than other countries. We are the fifth biggest economy and we have a GDP per person over two and a half times the global average, so we have to go further.
What would an equity-based emissions reduction target for the UK look like? Professor Tim Jackson from the University of Surrey has given us a rough guide. By taking the IPCC’s per capita carbon budget for 1.5° and adjusting it to allow each person in the poorest half of the world 33% higher emissions than each person in the richest half as an example of how to work on an equitable basis, Professor Jackson estimates the UK’s share of the remaining global budget as two and a half gigatonnes of CO2. On our current emissions reduction trajectory, counting only the UK’s production emissions, we will smash through that target in 2026. If we aim to reach net zero in 2050 on a linear emissions pathway, we will use around two and a half times our fair share of emissions, but if we are to include our consumption emissions—something I will return to in a moment—the budget on our current trajectory is exceeded in 2023, and a linear emissions pathway to net zero in 2050 would consume around four times our fair share.
There are many other ways of trying to cut the climate cake. Looking at it from a from an equitable perspective, a greenhouse development rights framework was set out in the 2019 report by the Committee on Climate Change on net zero. It cut the cake slightly differently, but it pointed out that the UK would have to reach 100% net emissions reductions by 2033 at the latest if we were to proceed on an equitable basis, and that means that by 2050 we would need to be net negative, drawing down more than half of our 1990 level of emissions. To be absolutely clear, however politically expedient a 2050 net zero target might be, it cannot be said to be just. It will further exacerbate the inequalities that climate change presents and push the burden once again on those who have done least to cause it.
A second consideration when it comes to the issue of justice is about how we make the transition, which has major justice implications both for those in the global south and for future generations. Now that net zero has become the established shorthand for climate action, let us examine what that little word “net” in net zero actually means. In the Committee on Climate Change pathway to net zero there lies positively heroic, for which read criminally reckless, assumptions about the potential for negative emission technologies to suck carbon out of the atmosphere. Let us be really clear that the technologies are mostly yet unproven and in some cases entirely unknown. In other words, we are simply passing the buck to our children. They are the ones we hope will sort it out with some kind of technology. We do not even know what it is yet, and I think we should be honest about what we are doing. The level of warning we have currently locked in means that we are bequeathing to future generations a more dangerous world to inhabit. Leaving them with the burden and cost of highly speculative technological solutions is a grave injustice that we should avoid.
Finally, I want to talk about international co-operation. The UK does not exist in a climate vacuum. We have emitted far more than our fair share of the historic carbon budget. It has seen our economy, our wealth and our living standards increase dramatically, but it has also seen the lives of other people imperilled. We and other rich nations have used so much of the atmosphere’s capacity that we have pulled up the ladder behind us, excluding developing countries from the path that we have travelled. Natural justice dictates that we must now support other countries to adapt to the growing impact of climate change and compensate them fairly for losses and damages where adaptation is no longer an option. It requires a new fossil fuel-free development pathway, where less affluent countries leapfrog to a clean and sustainable future of higher living standards. One aspect of that concerns the transfer of technology. The UK leads the world in offshore wind and CCS development. We must transfer and make them available for the poorest countries to harness cheaply. As hosts of the UN climate summit this November, we have an incredible opportunity to reach out internationally in true climate leadership, to begin to make the reparations for the injustices of climate change and to take responsibility for the full impact of our trade, money and influence.
I have spoken about the kind of accounting that allows us to make it look as if our emissions have reduced far faster than they have. When we account for consumption emissions, our progress looks much less significant. It is also the case that our money and influence is used to actively fuel emissions overseas and lock other countries into the next generation of fossil fuel infrastructure. As the hon. Member for Nottingham East pointed out, more than £1.5 billion of UK Export Finance money went into oil and gas projects. It is no wonder the Environmental Audit Committee and Bond, the UK network for development organisations, have called for an end to all UK Export Finance support for fossil fuels. That is what I want to underline yet again. I know that it has been asked before by the hon. Member for Nottingham East, but I want to urge the Government Minister to demonstrate some seriousness when it comes to climate justice and at the very least to rule out any further use of UK Export Finance for fossil fuels.
Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome) on securing this debate and on giving us an opportunity to discuss the climate crisis. It is the greatest existential threat of our time and climate justice is becoming increasingly urgent. It is timely that this debate has been called ahead of Parliament’s voting on the Government’s Environment Bill. As colleagues know, much has been made of the Government’s ambitious target to decarbonise by 2050, but it is simply a headline. At the moment, it is a plan.
When we talk about climate change, we speak about the climate emergency. The summer saw swathes of the Amazon burn, and Australia is currently fighting the wildfires that have gripped areas the size of our own counties, so we are right to speak in terms of an emergency. However, I fear there is no recognition of that emergency in the Government’s response to the crisis so far beyond declaring one. There is no sense of urgency. There is more CO2 in our atmosphere now than at any point in human history, so before we pat ourselves on the back for small reductions in production—as has been mentioned, the offshoring of our share hides the truth on consumption—we must remember that we need to up our game and set out a radical course of action. We cannot let COP26 be a cop-out. It is our last chance to correct the path to climate disaster.
Locally, Sheffield City Council has declared a climate emergency and has set out a carbon budget with the Tyndall Centre, which shows the city would use its entire budget for the next 20 years in less than six. Rightly, it has set a course to try to get to net zero by 2030. Before Christmas, again, communities across South Yorkshire experienced flooding. The impact of an international crisis played out locally. If the UK was serious about preventing climate breakdown, we would not be seeing more investment going into drilling in new oilfields or building more pipelines. Instead we see UK-headquartered banks and the Government bankrolling fossil fuel extraction and directing more and more finance to fossil fuel companies, rather than solutions to the crisis. If we were serious about climate justice, the Government would regulate and penalise private banks for providing billions for fossil fuel extraction at home and abroad.
Between 2016 and 2018, HSBC gave $57 billion to the fossil fuel industry. Barclays, the biggest funder of fossil fuel infrastructure in Europe, gave almost $25 billion to fossil fuel companies in 2018 alone. The Government offered only £100 million of private investment for renewable energy investment in sub-Saharan Africa in 2018, which shows the difference in scale. Through their campaigns, organisations such as People & Planet and Greenpeace have brought to light the fact that our banks have been acting like fossil fuel companies with the amount of extraction they are financing, showing a determination to see the industry continue. It needs to stop. Without further regulations and legislation for our financial system there will be almost free rein to continue to make our worlds toxic and to continue to push us over the cliff we are balanced on, with temperatures potentially soaring by three degrees, which we know will be catastrophic.
Average wildlife populations have already dropped by 60% in 40 years, so we must act now and take our responsibilities seriously or risk further loss of species and populations. The Government are not exempt, either. In June, the Environmental Audit Committee exposed how UK Export Finance had been using British capital to finance fossil fuel extraction in the global south, undermining the effect of the UK’s carbon emissions cuts and any commitment to climate justice.
The climate crisis is a threat to us all, but we do not all face it equally. In fact, we must remember those who have already tragically lost their lives, swept up in the climate disaster, trying to protect communities and fight for the frontline of public services across the world. The Government need to end their support for climate colonialism and penalise banks that are accelerating climate breakdown at the frontlines. Climate justice absolutely requires recognising and mitigating the worst effects of the crisis and facilitating environmental migration in response to disaster displacement, which is unavoidable at this point. Fundamentally, we need to take a radical approach. Let us take as our starting point the root cause of the issue—where our Government are accelerating and exacerbating climate breakdown. Climate justice means acting now to stem the worst effects of the crisis, and for that we need to take aim at the banks that are choking our future. Our inaction is also choking our future. We continually raise the issue not to try to be a thorn in anyone’s side, but to be the roots that can lead to a shoot of hope for future generations.
Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)
Thanks to the discipline of colleagues, the Front-Bench speakers have approximately 12 minutes each, leaving two minutes at the end for the Member who moved the debate to sum up.
Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)
As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. I congratulate the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome) on securing this hugely important debate. The beginning of the new Parliament is the perfect time to raise the issue.
I am delighted to be continuing in my role as the Scottish National party shadow International Development Secretary. I am particularly focused on the need to tackle climate change globally and to ensure that there is climate justice. That, I believe, will be a regular topic, if not the key topic, in this Parliament, and the defining feature of the next decade. Prior to last year’s general election, I was proud to propose the opening resolution—passed by acclaim—at the SNP conference on climate justice. We recognise that, while it has been the most developed and industrialised countries that have been the biggest contributors to carbon emissions, it is the poorest communities in the world who feel the devastating impact of climate change. We must recognise this reality and our obligation to right this wrong. Countries that have become prosperous while damaging the environment have a responsibility to help developing countries adapt to the consequences of climate change.
That is not just empty rhetoric. The SNP Scottish Government have been at the forefront of the global fight, tackling climate change and delivering climate justice, and showed bold leadership in establishing the world’s first climate justice fund in 2012. By 2021, £21 million will have been distributed through the fund, which is now supporting projects in Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania and Rwanda. Some of the fund’s successes so far include establishing 217 village-level committees to support water resource management and resilience, improving agricultural practices and irrigation services for more than 11,000 people, and providing 110,000 people with training in climate change. Going forward, the climate challenge programme in Malawi will support rural communities to identify and implement their own solutions for adapting to and building resilience against the worst effects of climate change.
Similarly, the climate justice innovation fund will support projects that are developing innovative solutions for strengthening African communities against the effects of climate change. The most recent projects to have secured funding address deforestation, food security and rural water supplies, while also empowering women, youth and other disenfranchised, vulnerable stakeholders in those communities. Through the climate justice fund, the Scottish Government are promoting the economic benefits of a just and fair transition to a low-carbon economy. The fund aims to share the benefits of equitable global development and the burdens of climate change through a people-centred, human rights approach.
What I have outlined has been done with a fund of £21 million over nine years, which has delivered incredible results. Just think of the potential if the UK were to follow the same model, given the scale of its resources. We hope that, through our example of leading on the issue of climate justice, we can embolden others in the international community. It is therefore vital that the UK Government follow the Scottish Government’s lead. Indeed, last year’s report by the International Development Committee on UK aid for combatting climate change highlighted the usefulness of climate justice as a framework for policies and programmes and called for the UK Government to adopt the concept of climate justice explicitly, to guide its international climate finance spending. However, that has so far been misrepresented or misunderstood by Secretaries of State or other Ministers when addressing the House of Commons, or has simply fallen on deaf ears.
The report was also clear that DFID must have adequate resources. Evidence to the Committee suggested that DFID’s capacity and expertise on climate had been reduced in recent years. That is not indicative of a Government who are tackling climate change and climate justice at the heart of their agenda. It is vital that DFID rectify that and that it should have sufficient members of staff who have climate expertise and are focused on climate programming. Furthermore, DFID must remain a strong stand-alone Department if the UK is serious about climate justice. Development spending must be focused on helping the poorest and most vulnerable, and on alleviating global poverty. If we are to embrace the concept of climate justice and help the worst-off deal with the effects of climate change, we must have a Department equipped to do that, rather than one that views development through the ideological prism of national and commercial interest.
Trade and development are distinctly two different areas and they must not be forced together at the expense of the world’s most vulnerable people, particularly in the midst of a climate emergency. That is a growing concern for me and my party, and for NGOs at national and international level. In addition, there must be policy coherence on climate change across Government. We simply cannot have the situation that currently exists, whereby international climate finance spending to tackle climate change is undermined by support for the fossil fuel economy in developing countries by UK Export Finance, as has been mentioned several times in the debate. That will leave a legacy of dependency on fossil fuels and will disincentivise investment in renewables. Therefore, climate change should be an explicit strategic priority across all Departments. It is overdue and needs to be addressed now.
The sacking last week of Claire O’Neill, the former Minister of State at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, as president for COP26 has shown what a complete shambles the UK Government are in. Their approach to international climate change policy has been patchy at best. On Radio 4 this morning Claire O’Neill said that the Prime Minister has shown
“a huge lack of leadership and engagement”,
and that he
“doesn’t really understand climate change”,
leading the UK to be
“miles off globally from where we need to be”.
It is therefore little wonder that the Prime Minister is doing everything in his power to stop the Scottish Government being represented at COP26 in Glasgow later this year. To put it simply, the Prime Minister does not want to be upstaged and embarrassed by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who certainly does recognise the urgency and moral responsibility that we have with climate change, and who leads a Government whose work has been described by the UN climate change secretary as “exemplary”.
Putting it frankly, if the UK Government are not willing or able to properly prepare to host what is a major international event, perhaps they should speak with the First Minister for some blunt advice. As things stand, it is impossible to conclude anything other than that the UK Government are in a shambles and are playing politics with the global climate emergency. Therefore, if the UK Government are serious about alleviating the harm that climate change will bring to some of the world’s most vulnerable communities, they must follow the bold leadership of the Scottish Government and the recommendations of the International Development Committee and explicitly adopt the concept of climate justice to guide their climate spending. To do anything less is to reject our global commitments, our global partners and our global responsibility. While it is obvious to most that Brexit will undoubtedly make the UK smaller and poorer, not taking climate justice seriously will also make it both short and brutish.
The SNP has every reason to be proud of its record in championing climate justice abroad. More than 75% of the mentions of “climate justice” in the past decade in this Parliament have come from SNP MPs. I hope to see the same interest in the subject on the UK Government Benches in this Parliament. The simple fact is that we face a climate emergency that threatens us all. It will result in a less safe world, where ecological and demographic crises are unmanageable and where the development gains that have been made will be reversed. What good is our work on delivering aid for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable if it is undermined by disasters, disease, and displacement caused by climate change? It is now time to put climate justice at the forefront of aid spending and urgently do all we can to address the crisis.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Charles. When I saw this debate on the list of upcoming Westminster Hall debates, I was keen to participate not only because it is such an important topic, but because it is being led by my constituency neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome). It is a real privilege to respond for the Opposition.
My hon. Friend is quickly making her mark on the House, and I know she will be a strong voice for our community in Nottingham and for communities around the world who need people to stand up for them. I have known her for a number of years, and she has shared her voice, her power and her platform—be it for a popular or an unpopular cause—with people who are in need and who are without a voice or power. I know she will bring great credit to herself and our city in her time as an MP. We in Nottingham are proud that we will be the first city in this country to be carbon neutral, which was born out of community activism and campaigning. People took to the streets of Nottingham and pestered their elected leadership by being clear about what they wanted on this issue. Local leaders then reflected that by making it into policy, which is exactly how things should be.
Members of different parties have made a number of excellent contributions to the debate. I took double pleasure in the contribution from the hon. Member for Stafford (Theo Clarke), who has such a strong record from her professional experience. I know she will be a strong advocate for an independent, well-resourced DFID. My previous winding-up speech for the Opposition was in the dying embers of the last Parliament, and sitting about three chairs down from where she is sitting was her predecessor, Jeremy Lefroy, who is remembered fondly in this place for his contributions on a variety of issues, but especially on international development—there is clearly something in the water in Stafford. I take her point on the importance of the congruence of ODA policy and the Paris goals, and Britain’s climate obligations. I will return to that later, because we are at a point where they are starting to diverge.
I turn to the contribution from the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), who made an important point about our neighbours. Everyone is our neighbour. We talk about constituency neighbours, but our fates are so intrinsically linked these days. We are on the same planet currently hurtling headlong towards the same dreadful fate, so we have a real job of solidarity and responsibility to each other. I was very pleased to hear her talk about the importance of citizens’ assemblies, as other Members did. I will make a shameless plug as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for deliberative democracy—all allies are welcome. For the climate emergency and many more issues, our democracies would be strengthened by bringing people in and having proper, evidence-based conversations on thorny topics.
The hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) mentioned an extraordinary fact about the impact of gender and of all girls around the world getting 12 good years of education. My heart leapt when she brought gender into the discussion, as we ought to be feeding it into every debate in this place. Meeting only a basic decent standard would help us tackle climate inequalities and all sorts of inequalities around the world. She talked about enormous scales of improvements and carbon reductions, but they do not even factor in that, if we had a basic level of education for women and girls around the world and the freedoms that go with it, we would also have better leadership. The scope for making much greater inroads into other knotty climate challenges—in fact, into all our global challenges—would be enormous, too.
My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana) made a critical point that came up in the election when we talked to people on the doorstep, and to which we have to keep returning at all times: climate change is not a theoretical exercise, but is happening now. That not only behoves us to take immediate action, but reminds us that our actions are late. As such, they need to come with the scale and ambition that mean we are catching up. In that vein, the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) reminds us of our historic obligations—the duality of having both a historical legacy but also the greatest capacity for change.
We in Britain have a real responsibility to take global leadership. I suspect the Minister will start with that, because most, if not all, Government Ministers do so. We are in danger of believing our own hype that we are doing enough with our current emissions reductions. It is great to see the reductions, but they are not enough. We must take a real global lead by using our assets. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) said, that is inconsistent with the decisions being taken on drilling, oil deals and fossil fuels, to which I will return shortly.
I will make a couple more points. We had the COP26 announcements today, but I want to talk about an announcement from two weeks ago, not least because I raised this issue at departmental questions last Wednesday and the Minister accused me of not having read the announcement. I thought it slightly unkind, not least because I was quoting verbatim from a written answer from the Minister for the Middle East and North Africa, the right hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison).
Two weeks ago, the Prime Minister stood at a podium—he was probably waving his hands around—at the UK-Africa investment summit and made his flagship announcement on the climate emergency. He told 16 heads of state and the world’s media that the UK would stop investment and development assistance for coal mining and coal-fired power stations overseas. Garlands flowed from virtually all our newspapers, and there was a real sense that it was a seismic and totemic moment for such a promise to come from the Prime Minister. Looking at the announcement and what it really means, the reality is that UK aid funds have not been used to support coal since 2012, nor had UK Export Finance supported coal overseas since 2002. It was a re-announcement of something that had happened many years ago.
There is nothing new in spin—I confess that I have used a bit in the past—but this is too important an issue on which to equivocate. Although the Government were briefing one thing on climate and saying what wonderful progress was being made, they were actually very busy doing quite the opposite at the summit. The Government helped strike £2 billion-worth of energy deals, 90% of which were for fossil fuels, primarily oil and gas. The five fossil fuel deals include an investment of £26 million in gas assets in Tunisia by Anglo Tunisian Oil and Gas, and an investment of £1.2 billion in oil production in Kenya by Tullow.
The Government might well make a case for why they should support and broker investment in fossil fuels, and they ought to, clearly and honestly. The Minister has a platform, and I call on him to make it clear what was done at the summit and why it is important. It should be debated publicly—that is how it should work. The public ought to be able to make their own assessment of whether their leaders understand the greatest challenge of our time, and whether our actions match up with the rhetoric. When we stand at a podium and say we are doing one thing, and then quietly do another in the backrooms, it serves nobody. It certainly does not serve debate and will not tackle the existential challenge that we collectively face. As we go into COP26, I hope we can use the announcements, including today’s, to have proper and honest conversations about climate justice and the climate emergency.
I will make a point on climate justice and ask the Minister a few questions. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East for raising this issue—we talk a lot about the climate emergency, and we ought to do so. It is the question of our time and leads to a technical question: what can we do to tackle the issue? What should we do to reduce carbon, and how can we save our planet for future generations? In answering that, we miss the challenge of fairness and justice, because it is seen as a lesser emergency. However, there is no true solution to the climate emergency unless it is just.
I will put on record five ways that the UK could adopt a full climate justice approach at COP26, and I would be interested in the Minister’s reflections on them. First, we need to provide climate finance for adaptation, resilience and mitigation, which should be targeted at the people who are worst affected. Will the Minister consider embedding the principles and standards of the ODA in climate finance spending, to ensure that it explicitly reaches those who are most marginalised?
Secondly, it is long overdue that the UK ends its investment, finance and aid funding for oil, gas and fossil fuels overseas. Will the Government immediately switch their support for energy overseas to renewable energies? In the light of what outgoing COP chair Claire O’Neill said, did the Prime Minister understand the other elements of his announcement on coal? Will the Minister make it clear how the announcement of divestment from coal, which has previously happened, is compatible with the deals that were struck?
Thirdly, as the demand for renewable energy expands, we cannot simply replicate previous injustices by allowing large corporations to extract raw materials for products such as solar panels on the back of cheap labour and conflict. Can the Minister assure us that people in the global south will not be exploited anew in the quest for new resources? What will we do differently to ensure that outcomes are more just in the future?
Fourthly, those affected will not get justice until the international community and the UK start to find ways to make amends for our role in historical emissions—that relates to the point made by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion. The UK can start by recognising the need for financing for loss and damage, so will the Government consider doing so ahead of COP? Will the Minister ensure that the tab is picked up by the world’s worst polluters, and that it is not subsidised solely by British taxpayers, the vast majority of whom have not benefited and, indeed, are living with the impacts themselves—another hidden local injustice?
Fifthly, we urge the Government to take immediate action to cut the UK’s carbon emissions in the coming months before the conference so that we set an example for other wealthy nations. We should be pleased with the progress that has been made—I know what the Minister will say about our record in recent years—but we should have an honest conversation with people, because this is about not just our raw top-line emissions figures but our consumption figures, as the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion said. Let us have an honest, in-the-round conversation, and be really clear about what we are doing and the improvements we are making so that we can be global leaders.
It is time for us to step up as global leaders, not just on tackling the climate emergency so that future generations have a planet, but on ensuring that the outcomes are just and that we do not make the same unequal errors that we made in the past. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s views. I once again express my gratitude to my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East for securing and leading this important debate.
Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)
Minister, would you leave two minutes at the end, for the mover to wind up?
The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Andrew Stephenson)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome) for securing this important debate on climate justice. I am also grateful for the contributions from my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Theo Clarke), the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin), and the hon. Members for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana), for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake), for Dundee West (Chris Law) and for Nottingham North (Alex Norris). It is particularly apt that every Back-Bench speaker has been female, given that my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire, touched on the role that women can play in addressing the injustices of climate change.
At same time as severe drought across east Africa has left 15 million people in need of food aid, devastating fires have raged across Australia. These events serve to remind us again that no country is immune from the effects of climate change and environmental degradation. Here in the UK, the Met Office predicts that our summers will become hotter and drier and our winters increasingly warmer and wetter. As recently as November 2019, flooding across South Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire and West Mercia, left more than 1,000 homes flooded and over 500 businesses impacted.
As all hon. Members said, on a cross-party basis, the science is clear: carbon levels in the atmosphere have reached their highest for 3 million years and climate extremes are already damaging prosperity, security and human safety globally. I am proud that the UK is at the forefront of action to tackle climate change, both domestically and internationally. In June 2019, we set a legally binding target to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions across the UK economy by 2050. We are the first major economy in the world to legislate for a net zero target, which will end the UK’s contribution to climate change.
We have already shown that, with our world-leading scientists, business leaders and innovators, it is possible to cut emissions while growing the economy. Between 1990 and 2017, we reduced our emissions by more than 40% while growing our economy by more than two thirds. We have decarbonised our economy faster than any other G20 country.
Caroline Lucas
Not only is the Minister once again looking only at production emissions, not consumption emissions, he is refusing to accept the fact that, when talking about emissions reduction—sorry, it has gone out of my head. I am going to sit down and come back to it because it has just gone, but it will come back any second.
Andrew Stephenson
I can predict what the hon. Lady was going to say, and I am sure she can predict my answer.
Caroline Lucas
It has come back to me. Does the Minister really think that it is possible to absolutely decouple growth from emissions reduction? His statement implies that he thinks that that absolute decoupling is possible, and that one can get to the point of separating growth from emissions growth. There is absolutely no evidence anywhere in the world that decoupling on the scale, speed and absoluteness that we need is possible. There is nothing to reassure us that it is possible to go on growing while bringing down our emissions.
Andrew Stephenson
The hon. Lady and I take a different approach. The Government believe that it is important to protect jobs and the economy. We can still grow the economy, but we can do it in a sustainable, balanced way. A lot of people, including the hon. Lady in the past, are guilty of suggesting that we have to stop all economic growth in order to achieve that, but we cannot. We have to harness the expertise of the private sector and the public sector. Everybody must work together to achieve what we want. That is what we have done: we have led the G20 over recent years by taking that balanced approach.
Since we set our net zero target, we have committed around £2 billion to support clean growth in a range of sectors, from transport to industry. In July, we published our green finance strategy, setting out our approach to catalysing the investment in green infrastructure, technologies and services that will be needed to deliver net zero. Earlier today, the Prime Minister announced that a ban on selling new petrol, diesel and hybrid cars in the UK will be brought forward from 2040 to 2035 at the latest, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford said.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)
On the point about vehicles, in my constituency of Vauxhall, which is the start of the congestion charge zone in London, young people in a number of schools are having to use masks because the air quality is so bad. Does the Minister agree that the lack of an emissions target in the Environment Bill means that it will not address the problem? Until the Government commit to that, it does not matter if we continue to change our vehicles. We need key action on this really important issue.
Andrew Stephenson
I agree: we need to go further and faster. Today’s announcement is encouraging. As a former Minister for the automotive sector, I remember working on the “Road to Zero” policy paper, which looked at how we can roll out electric vehicles across the UK even faster than we planned. We were always keen to review the evidence and be guided by the science on how we can move these things forward. I welcome the Prime Minister’s announcement today on that increasing ambition, but we always need to look at ways to go further. This debate is about climate justice, and air pollution disadvantages disproportionately the most disadvantaged communities in this country. We need to work together and be ambitious. We need to look at decarbonising the whole transport sector. We have been most successful so far in the energy sector, but transport still has a long way to go. I welcome the ambition today, but I agree with the hon. Lady that we need to go further and faster.
We need to invest more in our world-leading expertise, particularly in the north of England, where one in five of all the electric vehicles sold in Europe are made, the world’s biggest offshore wind turbines are being built, and carbon capture and storage is being pioneered. In addition, last week in the House of Commons we introduced the Environment Bill, which sets out how we plan to protect and improve the natural environment in the United Kingdom. The Bill will ensure that the environment is front and centre in our future policymaking. It will support the delivery of the most ambitious environmental programme of any country in the world. That landmark Bill will enhance wildlife, tackle air pollution, transform the way in which we manage our resources and waste, and improve the resilience of our water supplies. The speedy return of the Bill to Parliament following the general election underlines our commitment to tackling climate change and protecting and restoring our natural environment for future generations, as we maximise the opportunities created by leaving the European Union.
We are making net zero a reality as we raise our ambition at home. We will use the opportunity of COP26—officially launched by the Prime Minister earlier today—to demonstrate global leadership on climate action and bring the world together to achieve real progress. As has been said, it is often the poorest countries and people who are the worst affected and least prepared to deal with the impacts of climate change, environmental degradation and biodiversity loss. That triple threat threatens to undo decades of progress towards the sustainable development goals. The World Bank estimates that, unless serious and urgent action is taken, 100 million people are at risk of being pushed into poverty by climate change by 2030.
We are committed to supporting the most vulnerable countries adapt and build their resilience and to supporting low-carbon growth and development. We remain the only major economy in the world to put into law our commitment to meet the internationally agreed target of investing 0.7% of our national income on international development. That shows that we are an enterprising, outward-looking and truly global Britain that is fully engaged with the world.
We are committed to transforming the lives of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people by giving them access to quality education and jobs, about which my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire, spoke so eloquently, and by supporting millions in dealing with the impacts of climate change and environmental degradation while promoting Britain’s economic, security and foreign policy interests.
Since 2011, our international climate programmes have helped 57 million people cope with the effects of climate change; provided 26 million people with improved access to clean energy; and helped to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 16 million tonnes, which is the equivalent of taking three million cars off the road for a year. In September, the Prime Minister committed to doubling our international climate finance to at least £11.6 billion over the next five years, which will make us one of the world’s leading providers of climate finance.
That funding really works. In 1991, a category 6 cyclone hit Bangladesh, killing 139,000 people. In 2007, an even stronger cyclone killed 4,000. That is still far too many deaths, but the incredible 97% reduction was achieved by Bangladesh’s investment in better disaster preparedness, with support from international donors.
UK Government research into drought-resistant wheat varieties has delivered benefits more than 100 times greater than costs, delivering an annual economic benefit of between $2.2 billion and $3.1 billion. Our forestry programmes have supported Indonesia in introducing regulatory changes, including setting up independent monitoring and improving law enforcement. Today, 100% of timber exports are sourced from independently audited factories and forests, and over 20.3 million hectares of forest are independently certified. In Ethiopia, our productive safety net programme helped to prevent 4.2 million people from going hungry when the country experienced severe drought. Our programmes have helped smallholder farmers in Burkina Faso deal with increased rainfall variability and higher temperatures; have assisted with the production of Kenya’s national climate change action plan; developed early warning systems to reduce the impacts of disasters in Chad; improved flood defences in South Sudan; and delivered solar power to clinics across Uganda .
Addressing the contribution from the hon. Member for Dundee West (Chris Law) gives me the opportunity to acknowledge the efforts of the Scottish Government, who have also recognised that the poor and vulnerable at home and overseas are the first to be affected by climate change and will suffer the worst. The Scottish Government’s work—particularly in Malawi, which he mentioned—continues to be cited by the Department for International Development as a really good example. I take exception, however, to the hon. Gentleman’s claim that DFID’s expertise has been reduced in this area. We have made a number of investments, and I hope that he welcomes this Government’s appointment of Lord Goldsmith as a joint Minister for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and DFID, to bring expertise to both Departments and determine how we can better collaborate to tackle the issue.
Turning to the UK-Africa investment summit, which was also mentioned, we may not agree, but energy is essential to economic growth and poverty reduction. Currently, 840 million people have no access to electricity, and 2.9 billion have no access to clean cooking. Our priority is to help developing countries to establish a secure and sustainable energy supply while supporting climate and environmental objectives. Increasing our overseas development support for renewable energy has been the top priority. Since 2011, UK aid has provided more than 26 million people with improved access to clean energy and installed 1,600 MW in clean energy capacity.
We recognise that countries will continue to need a mix of energy sources as part of a transition to a low-carbon sustainable economy, including renewable energy and lower-carbon fossil fuels such as natural gas, which produces significantly less carbon than coal or other commonly used fuels. Our approach to fossil fuels is therefore to support them where there is a clear development need and as part of a transition to low-carbon economies. When assessing new support, we will ensure that assistance does not undermine the ambitions of a country’s nationally determined contributions, and that an appropriate carbon price is used in the appraisal of the programme.
Wera Hobhouse
We have about 30 years to get to net zero. How long does it take to develop new fossil fuel industries and then see them as a transition? They will just remain in place even though we have to reach net zero. Does the Minister not recognise that we have run out of time for a proper transition and have to get to net zero as soon as possible?
Andrew Stephenson
We have to get to net zero as soon as possible, but we have to do so in a balanced and proportionate way. To give an example, the oil and gas sector contribution to the Scottish economy is £16.2 billion in gross value added, and some 105,000 jobs in Scotland are dependent on it. It would be slightly hypocritical of us to continue employing so many people in the oil and gas sector in the UK—we see it as part of our energy transition, using gas in particular to decarbonise our economy—if we were to say that other countries around the world could not use gas as a low-carbon alternative to the dirtier fossil that they use, particularly coal. We take a balanced approach on those matters, but I know that there will be disagreement across the House.
I was pleased that in addition to the £6.5 billion-worth of deals that were announced at the UK-Africa investment summit, we announced £1.5 billion of new DFID programmes to support sustainable growth across Africa. We will continue to work in partnership with African countries as part of our broader strategy for Africa, which has seen a significant uplift in our resources on the continent for the first time in decades.
Successfully tackling climate change will require action from the whole of society: Governments, business, communities and each of us in our individual choices. We know that the impacts of climate change will not be borne equally between rich and poor, women and men, and older and younger generations. At the start of her speech, the hon. Member for Nottingham East said that climate justice means
“addressing the climate crisis in a way that is fair and equitable.”
I agree, and that is fundamental to the Government’s approach.
As an international community, we must renew our efforts to achieve the sustainable development goals and fulfil our commitment to leave no one behind. The UK will not only play our part in that domestically, we will provide global leadership, as we invite the world to Glasgow in November to agree on and increase the urgent action that we need to take to protect our planet.
Nadia Whittome
I thank the Minister for his response and every hon. Member who attended for their contribution. I am reassured by the widespread recognition that climate change does not impact everyone and every nation equally. It crosses borders and there is an urgent need to invest in infrastructure and adaptation, and to decarbonise. I was particularly pleased that the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) and others made the point that 2050 is not good enough as a target for decarbonisation. I was also pleased to hear examples of local authorities across the country leading the way to reach net zero, particularly in our own city of Nottingham, which is on track to be the first carbon-neutral city in the UK.
Whoever is in government or opposition, the climate emergency cannot wait. I look forward to working with Members across the House to hold the Government to account on their pledges. In that vein, I will follow up with the Minister and I hope that he will respond in more detail to the questions that I have raised, particularly about whether the Government will rule out carbon offsetting, why the climate sub-committee has not yet met and when it will do so, and whether he is prepared to give a substantive update briefing on COP26 preparations in the light of the serious concerns that have been raised.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered climate justice.
Local Housing Allowance: Homeless Young People
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered local housing allowance rates for homeless young people.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Hollobone.
Clearly, we have a severe homelessness crisis. The number of people sleeping rough on the streets of England has increased by a huge 165% since 2010, and 103,000 young people were homeless or at risk in 2017-18. In my own city of Brighton and Hove, the scandal and tragedy of homelessness is acute. Vulnerable young people are being let down, left to sleep on sofas, in hostels and on our pavements, cold, frightened and desperately unsafe.
The Minister himself has said, in answers to questions in the House, that the causes of homelessness are numerous, varied and complex. He is right. In the short time we have today, I will address the specific problems caused to vulnerable young people by the significant gap between the cost of renting in the private sector and the local housing allowance rates provided to the young people who need support.
Private renting is expensive, but because there is not enough social housing, young people are forced into the private rented sector as the only alternative to homelessness. The House of Commons Library points to evidence that in many areas, especially areas of high housing demand such as Brighton and Hove, there is a growing gap between the lowest private rents and the amount of local housing allowance. Young people in Brighton and Hove have a particularly hard time because the amount of LHA is calculated by lumping our city in with other towns in the locality where the cost of housing is much lower. The amount of housing support is therefore artificially depressed, leaving young people in an even more desperate position.
Research by the Chartered Institute of Housing illustrates the dire situation for young people. In Brighton and Hove, 30% of properties should be available at or below the LHA rate, yet LHA is so much lower than local rents that only 10% of shared properties and only 5% of one-bedroom properties are affordable. Evidence is also provided by the National Audit Office, which in 2017 concluded that housing benefit changes were contributing to an increase in homelessness.
As hon. Members know, the Government have taken some action. This April, there will be a one-off, 1.7% increase in LHA rates. That sounds positive until we look at what that means for the figures. In Brighton, young people will receive only £5 extra a month. That is a kick in the teeth for homeless young people who are already more than £140 a month short of the average rent for a room in a shared house, as I will explain. Furthermore, because the increase is a percentage, it locks in the freeze of the past four years.
To illustrate the point, the charity Centrepoint analysed the new LHA rates for 2020-21 alongside the average rental costs for the 247 local authorities where rental data are available. It found that, from April, a room in a shared house would be affordable only in three of those 247 local authority areas for those in receipt of the shared accommodation rate. Rightly and urgently, homelessness charities are calling for the local housing allowance, including the shared accommodation rate, to be set at the 30th percentile of local rents, as it was until 2012. I hope that the Minister will push the Treasury for the restoration of that link to rents.
My more specific purpose in securing today’s debate, however, is to urge the Minister to champion two other actions that will cost the Treasury relatively little, but will have a massive impact on two groups of extremely vulnerable young people. The first group to need the Minister’s help is homeless young people under the age of 25 who are ready to move on, but who are trapped in hostels because they cannot find anywhere to rent on the shared accommodation rate. In effect, therefore, they are left locked into emergency accommodation, unable to find a safe place to live and unable to move on. Moreover, in the process, they prevent those in urgent need from finding shelter at the emergency accommodation.
Young people under the age of 25 make up fully 44% of those living in supported accommodation. They end up trapped in hostels, because our welfare system is rife with age discrimination. If I am over the age of 25 and previously spent three months in a hostel, I will be given a higher local housing allowance to help me find a place to live, but if I am under 25 and in exactly the same situation, I still receive the lowest rate. Young people entering a homeless hostel at the age of 18, therefore, will have to wait as long as seven years before they benefit from the rate that would help them to move forward.
Why have the Government turned their back on vulnerable young people who so clearly need support to find a home? Young people experiencing homelessness cannot rely on the bank of mum and dad and cannot move back into the family home to save up, yet they receive the lowest minimum wage and the lowest benefit rate.
In 2018, the charity Depaul UK looked at the shared rooms available in 40 local authority areas in England where official statistics showed that a total of 225 young people were sleeping rough on a single night. Across those 40 areas, only 57 rooms were found to be available for young people at or below the shared accommodation rate. Nine of those 225 young people sleeping rough were in Brighton and Hove, but the research found literally no rooms in our city that were available within the shared accommodation rate for young people claiming benefits.
In Brighton and Hove, the shared accommodation rate for homeless young people is just £360 per month. If we search on Rightmove for shared room rooms for that amount, I promise that all we get coming up on the website are parking spaces or garages. That is shameful. The average rent of a room in a shared house is £507 a month. That is a shortfall of more than £141 a month, leaving homeless under-25s unable to move out of a hostel and find somewhere safe to live. In the Prime Minister’s local authority, from April 2020 the monthly shortfall will be more than £236 a month. In the Minister’s own area of Colchester, the shortfall, as I am sure he knows, will be £153 for a homeless young person.
The Minister may ask why young homeless people need the exemption from the shared accommodation rate when the Government have introduced some measures intended to mitigate the impacts of LHA restrictions. For example, in answer to a recent written question, the Minister replied:
“For individuals who may require more support and whose circumstances may make it difficult for them to share accommodation, Discretionary Housing Payments are available.”
I urge the Minister, however, to consider the fact that discretionary housing payments, or DHPs, are not a sustainable solution. They are supposed to be a temporary measure until a household finds more affordable accommodation. Yet for homeless young people, affordable accommodation simply does not exist, due to the reduced rate of housing benefit that they receive.
Moreover, in order to access DHPs, young people need to approach their council or MP for support in applying, and many homeless young people at crisis point may simply not have the know-how or capacity to do that. Furthermore, the state already has the information needed to make a fair decision on providing extra support without forcing someone in that position to apply for discretionary and temporary help—the information is that being homeless and living in a hostel for three months is, in itself, qualification enough for needing more support, whatever age someone is.
Centrepoint, which works daily with young people aged 16 to 24 in that position, estimates that it would cost just £3.68 million a year for the Treasury to exempt such young people from the shared accommodation rate, giving them the higher one-bedroom rate and a chance to move on. That does not even take account of the savings that would accrue from providing stability—the cost of emergency accommodation is high, as is the cost to the state and the young person of the consequences of homelessness.
I appreciate that Ministers accept the logic of providing an exemption to the SAR to people in need, because they are able to find such funding for over-25s who are experiencing homelessness. All I am asking for today is that they will find it in their hearts and budgets to help younger homeless people too.
My second specific ask of the Minister relates to that group of young people who have left care. Care leavers deserve somewhere safe to call home. Many have experienced unspeakable trauma, and surely that is the least we can provide. Again, it is shocking that the local housing allowance received by care leavers drops on their 22nd birthday, putting them at risk of eviction and homelessness. When I say “drops”, I mean it literally plummets. In Brighton and Hove, there are about 300 care leavers aged between 17 and 21. On a care leaver’s 22nd birthday, what does the state do? It takes away £330 a month. In the Prime Minister’s area, a care leaver surviving in the private sector loses a whopping £437 a month. What a birthday gift to vulnerable young people who are on their own, having faced unimaginable trauma and difficulty.
The Government’s rationale for creating such instability, difficulty and risk for 22-year-old care leavers is not at all clear. Perhaps the Minister will explain. The policy seems strongly at odds with previous Government statements. For example, in 2016, the Government rightly accepted the moral obligation to provide care leavers with the support they need, stating:
“The government is passionate about improving the lives and life chances of care leavers. Young people leaving care constitute one of the most vulnerable groups in our society, and both government and wider society have a moral obligation to give them the support they need as they make the transition to adulthood and independent living.”
I could not agree more, and I urge the Minister simply to extend that understanding until a care leaver is 25.
Homelessness charities estimate that the number of care leavers aged 22 to 24 affected by the reduction in housing support is relatively small. The cost of extending their exemption from the low shared accommodation rate until the age of 25 would be in the region of £6 million. As with the previous ask for hostel leavers, it would save the Government money overall by reducing homelessness, distress and all the personal and financial costs associated with crisis management.
To try to demonstrate the genuine need for support for care leavers until the age of 25, I would like to tell the Minister about a case from my local area. A girl in both foster care and residential care was placed with foster carers from the age of 14; as a result, she built a solid relationship with the family she was finally placed with. She has learning difficulties, so any changes to her environment or living circumstances are destabilising. To her great credit, she found a job and established a good routine in the local area, and she maintained a tenancy on a bedsit. She was able to cover the rent between the LHA one-bed rate and her weekly wage. Since turning 22, she is in receipt of the lower shared room rate of local housing allowance. That means she does not have enough to cover the cost of rent each week from earnings and benefits. She is now at risk of homelessness.
It would cost just £3.7 million a year to give vulnerable homeless young people the chance to move on, and just £6 million to continue supporting care leavers with their housing costs until they are 25. That support would save the state money overall, because stable, supported young people could fulfil their potential rather than suffer in chaos and danger. Less than £10 million to make such a huge difference to young people’s lives is not a lot to ask. Will the Minister urgently meet with the homelessness charities and MPs to work on these specific asks ahead of the Budget—the critical moment? Will he use his influence with the Chancellor to provide that relatively small amount that would make a huge difference to young people in my constituency and right across the country?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Will Quince)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, and I thank the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) for securing this important debate. Since my election in 2015, I have been passionate about tackling homelessness. Before my appointment as a Minister, I served as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on ending homelessness, where I engaged and built relationships with many brilliant charities, a number of which the hon. Lady mentioned, to work with them to end homelessness and rough sleeping.
Since my appointment as Minister, I have worked and continue to work closely with a number of those charities and other organisations to help to inform my work and that of my Department, to ensure that the Department for Work and Pensions does all we can to support those who are at risk of homelessness and that we are getting housing benefit right to provide the support that people need. As a Department we support the wider Government aims and ambitions to end rough sleeping and tackle wider homelessness.
My role as the Minister for welfare delivery has enabled me to go to all parts of the country, and subject to reappointment I look forward to continuing to do so. I have visited a number of charities and organisations around our great country that support those who have experience of homelessness and rough sleeping. That has enabled me to get a better understanding of those issues. I include among those organisations a number of arm’s length management organisations and housing associations that have a role to play.
The hon. Lady will no doubt recognise that this is not an issue that the Department for Work and Pensions can tackle alone. I am working with my counterparts in several Government Departments as part of cross-Government efforts to tackle this issue. Sadly, these debates are always far too short; I have no doubt that the hon. Lady and I could discuss this and associated issues at great length. We could probably spend most of the day talking about the issues she raised: rough sleeping and the broad rental market area in Brighton, local housing allowance, Centrepoint’s analysis and young people under 25 with experience of homelessness, as well, of course, as care leavers, not to mention the point she makes about social housing. I would very much welcome her at the Department to chat through some of those issues at greater length with officials, as appropriate.
I will try to cover as many of the issues as I can in the time left. First, we have to address the elephant in the room, which is the root cause of this issue: in parts of our country, we have massive supply and demand issues. The hon. Lady’s constituency is an example of that; my own constituency is another. As a result, although there are parts of the country where the ambition was to have the local housing allowance rates set at the 30th percentile, there are many parts of the country where the local housing allowance is sub-5%. That represents an issue. The root cause of that—my officials will not like me for saying it—is that successive Governments have failed to build enough houses, in particular affordable housing and homes for social rent. That is something we need to look at.
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on securing this important debate. On affordable housing, does the Minister share my concern about the research by the charity Crisis, which showed that cuts to housing benefit mean that in 94% of areas across the country, only one in five private-rented properties are affordable to young single people? Obviously, we need to do much more to tackle that.
Will Quince
The hon. Lady is partly right; the solution is not just about local housing allowance. We can continue to pump money into housing benefit, which unfortunately in many parts of the country lines the pockets of private rented sector landlords. But if we are to tackle this in the long term, it is about affordable housing and a mixture of tenure between ownership, affordable housing, which is up to 80% of market rent, and homes for social rent, which is significantly lower. It is about addressing the supply issue as well as the demand issue, to ensure that we tackle the problem for the medium to long term. That is why the Department and I are working closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, not to mention the other Government Departments involved. Between us, we hold the key—we hold the housing benefit bill, but they have a lot of the levers to address the supply side.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
I commend the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on securing this debate. The Minister will be well aware that only something like 6,480 social rent properties were built in 2018. We have a huge undersupply, as the Minister highlights. The other day, Shelter told me that people are finding themselves under so much financial pressure that they cannot meet the rent because of the low payment being given to them. People are moving from a two-bedroom to a one-bedroom and are doubling up in the properties. That is putting more pressure on single occupancy and double occupancy.
Will Quince
There is no question that the Government are committed to increasing the supply of social housing. Through the affordable homes programme to March 2022, we will deliver 250,000 new homes on a wide range of tenure. We will renew the affordable homes programme, building hundreds of thousands of new homes.
It is important to stress that, since 2010, we have delivered more than 464,000 new affordable homes, including 331,800 affordable homes for rent. As I said, I am working very closely with my counterparts at MHCLG on the interaction between housing supply and housing benefit. Until that supply is addressed, local housing allowance rates will continue to play a part. That is why we have increased LHA by 1.7%, in line with CPI. Of course, the ambition is to go further, and I personally would like to see it go back up to the 30th percentile. That comes, as I think I have said in response to written parliamentary questions, to the tune of about £1 billion. It is not a cheap intervention, so we have to address the supply issue alongside it.
The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion rightly raised the broad rental market area in Brighton. That is not an easy issue to address. There are 192 broad rental market areas and 960 local housing allowance rates, so looking at them is a considerable piece of work. I am doing that work, and it is important that we do so, but it cannot be done in one financial year. Unfortunately, since there are so many of these issues in all parts of the country, there are unintended consequences. However we draw the boundaries, there are winners and losers. I understand that there is an issue in Brighton at the moment. The same is true of Blackpool and, close to my constituency in Essex, of Jaywick, Frinton and Clacton. These issues do arise. I encourage the hon. Lady to write to me with the specifics—alternatively, I would be very happy to visit—so we can look at them in more detail.
I work very closely with Centrepoint, which is a wonderful charity. I have been on several visits and I intend to do far more. We have already done a considerable piece of work in this area. I can touch on the Government’s action on homelessness and local housing allowance, although I probably do not have enough time to go into the detail I would like. There have been considerable amelioration measures, such as discretionary housing payments, which we are increasing by a further £40 million this financial year to help local authorities support people where local housing allowance is not sufficient. Over the past three years we have also had targeted affordability funding; as I understand it, in the last financial year, that increased about 45% of shared accommodation rates by 3%. Nevertheless, I would like us to go further, and I think the steps we have taken to increase rates by CPI will make a difference.
The hon. Lady referred specifically to care leavers. We know that people leaving the care system can be particularly at risk of homelessness. We have provided £3.2 million per annum to 47 local authorities with the highest number of care leavers at risk of homelessness. That has led to a number of innovative ideas to support those leaving the care system into safe, secure and long-term housing. However, I understand the case put by Centrepoint, the hon. Lady and others about the rate. She suggested two items that would cost a little under £10 million. That is still a significant sum and would require Treasury approval. She may have got the impression that she is pushing against a half-open door. I am very sympathetic to that view, including in relation to those who have experience of homelessness. She asked me to commit to meeting charities and Members with specific interests in this area. I would of course be delighted to. Actually, I think a number of those meetings are already in train, but I will of course continue to do that.
On the shared accommodation rate, our approach is based broadly on the principle that young single people in the private rented sector should have their housing benefit limited to the rate appropriate for shared accommodation, but the hon. Lady rightly made the point that there are exceptional circumstances and there need to be exceptions to policy. We already have a number of exceptions, as she pointed out, but where there are opportunities for us to go further and there is a clear evidence base for doing so, of course we will look at that.
An obvious example of other interventions is the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, which has enabled us to make great strides in the support that we can give to young people in particular. Many of them would not have been eligible under the previous system of priority need but now will be eligible on the basis of the duty to refer. The Act is making a huge difference, and I have no doubt that the hon. Lady knows that from speaking to her local authority, as I do to mine. We must ensure, through the MHCLG, that it is suitably resourced, but we know it is making a difference, including to young people. Importantly, the Act also places a duty on public bodies, including children’s services, youth offending institutions and youth offending teams, to ensure better partnership working. That is really important for ensuring that young people get the wraparound support they need.
The MHCLG is the lead on broader Government action on homelessness, but we very much support its efforts. The Government are committed to tackling homelessness and rough sleeping. As the hon. Lady will know, we committed in our manifesto to end rough sleeping by the end of this Parliament and to fully enforce the Homelessness Reduction Act.
There are a number of issues, including local housing allowance rates, that I would love to cover in more depth. As the hon. Lady rightly pointed out, we have an opportunity ahead of the fiscal event—the Budget—on 11 March to look at housing in the round. We are having conversations with the MHCLG and the Treasury to see how we can look at supply and the way that investment in supply—in particular supply of affordable homes and homes for social rent—would interact with our housing benefit bill. It pains me that we spend around 30% of our housing benefit bill on the private rented sector. It pains me even more that, because of LHA rates and other demand and supply issues, a percentage of that—I do not have a figure, but there is research to be done there—is spent on housing that I do not believe is of a standard that the taxpayer and the Government should fund or invest in.
In conclusion, I would be very happy indeed to work with the hon. Lady—
Caroline Lucas
I really appreciate the Minister’s response, and I would very much like to take him up on his offer of meeting him and his officials. I know that he is broadly on side. He pointed to supply, which is very important—we need more affordable housing, particularly for rent—but we also need immediate action. As he knows, discretionary payments are not a sustainable solution. They are for moments of crisis; they are not for an ongoing payment situation. Right now, there are not any mitigating circumstances for the particular groups that I and Centrepoint have identified, so I urge him again to take up those cases.
Will Quince
I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. As a Department, we set no timeframe or parameters for how long discretionary housing payments are available. We leave that up to local authorities. However, I very much take her point, and I thank her for the constructive way in which she has put the case for those two groups. There is a strong argument there, and I will have to take it away and work it up with officials, including by having conversations with Centrepoint and others.
We are committed to providing a strong safety net for those who need it. That is why we continue to spend more than £95 billion a year on working-age benefits, including around £23 billion to help people with their housing costs. We are meeting our manifesto commitment to end the benefit freeze and the freeze on local housing allowance rates. I hope the hon. Lady has got a sense of my passion on this issue and my desire to go further. That is why, as I have said a couple of times, work is under way between my Department and the MHCLG. Where there are opportunities to bring in Members from across the House and charities—charities have some really good ideas and quite reasonable requests of Government in this area, with strong cases—I am very happy to work with them.
Question put and agreed to.
Lloyds, HBOS and the Cranston Review
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered Lloyds, HBOS and the Cranston review.
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Hollobone. I think this is the second time I have spoken under your chairmanship about banking matters. This story is at least as shocking as the last one we discussed.
The story starts back in 2007, when Nikki and Paul Turner, who were then customers of HBOS, told the bank of a huge fraud in its organisation that was affecting them and many other customers. The bank denied all knowledge of the fraud. It sought to suppress the evidence that Nikki and Paul Turner had and to ensure they could not speak out by trying on 22 occasions to repossess their home. Without the Turners, I do not think we would be here today, but they found out, and their determination has brought these matters to this point. The fraud was finally proven in court in 2017, 10 years later—imagine those 10 years of denial.
Despite the fraud happening within HBOS, which was part of Lloyds Banking Group by that point, we were willing and happy for Lloyds to take on its own customer review and compensation scheme for those victims, many of whom had been denied any justice and had it denied to them that any fraud was going on whatsoever. Lloyds set up the Lloyds Bank customer review, also known as the Griggs review because it was headed by Professor Griggs, who was appointed by Lloyds to undertake compensation payments to victims.
The Turners were compensated, but they decided to help other people navigate the Griggs process. They formed an organisation called the SME Alliance, which has been proactive in making sure that people get justice. Not only did they warn Lloyds about the initial fraud; they started to warn Lloyds about how unfair the Griggs review was and how partial the process was to the interests of the bank. In fact, they went as far as commissioning their own review of the review, undertaken by Jonathan Laidlaw in 2018-19, which endorsed the Turners’ findings and said that the process was truly unfair and partial to the interests of the bank
Throughout the process, others were warning Lloyds that the Griggs review and the scheme was completely unfair. Following all those calls and the Laidlaw review, the Minister kindly supported those calls and commissioned a review, carried out by Sir Ross Cranston.
Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)
We have had many reviews and redress schemes in different forms over the past eight years. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that to provide comfort to people, the methodology of those reviews should be independently tested against the benchmarks that Sir Ross set out in his report?
Kevin Hollinrake
The hon. Member is absolutely right. The biggest learning we have is that the whole process must be independent. It simply cannot be fair to have any review carried out within the bank’s boundaries that provides compensation for victims. It must be independent and independently verified. I very much appreciate her work and support on the all-party parliamentary group on fair business banking.
The all-party group, which I co-chair, made many calls saying that the process simply was not right. The Minister supported those calls, and we commissioned a review. Andrew Bailey, head of the Financial Conduct Authority , and the future Governor of the Bank of England, engaged in constructive collaboration with us and made an excellent choice of reviewer in Sir Ross Cranston, who has done a tremendous job. Most importantly, he got every stakeholder round the table before he properly commenced the review. He consulted us on many occasions, and we had great confidence in his ability to assess properly whether the review was fair.
Sir Ross’s findings were shocking—that is, shocking to anyone not familiar with the process. Anybody familiar with it, whether a victim or victims’ support group, knew exactly what he would say. We should be very grateful to him. It is a long report, but its essence is that: the Griggs review did not deliver fair or reasonable offers of compensation; it was not open or transparent; it had serious shortcomings; it took too adversarial an approach to assessing consequential loss; and, crucially, its design meant that it could never deliver fair and reasonable outcomes. Those were his findings.
We are pleased that the chief executive of Lloyds, António Horta-Osório, has written to us and the victims, and he met us. He has apologised unreservedly for the bank’s conduct in the review and committed himself personally to getting this right. It should not have been a surprise to anyone—he had been warned on many occasions that the process was flawed. Nobody should be surprised about the result if we allow a business to mark its own homework—it shows a fatal misunderstanding of how businesses operate. I speak as a businessperson who has been in business for 28 years and is still in business today. I do not think I should be allowed to regulate my business or regulate where I have customer complaints; independent oversight is critical.
Milton Friedman, the leading economist, once said that the social responsibility of business is
“simply to increase its profit”.
Warren Buffett recently said that the Government have to play their part in modifying the market system. We cannot simply leave this stuff to business; we must ensure independent oversight and fair regulation. Business is not afraid of regulation; it just wants stable, fair regulation, not over-regulation.
A bank found guilty in court of defrauding its own customers, which denied that fraud and even disgracefully mistreated whistleblower Sally Masterton in her efforts to keep the fraud out of the public eye, is allowed to compensate its victims, through its own process. The lessons we learn from the process are not just about how to compensate victims fairly and give them justice for their mistreatment but about how the regulators have dealt with it. We undermine our system of free market capitalism if we let these powerful and dominant capitalists go unchecked.
I will briefly list some of the representations that the all-party group has made over the years. My predecessor as chair wrote in February 2017 to António Horta-Osório about Lloyds’s plan to take forward the review. He said that there were unacceptable exclusion clauses, the process would be poor when it came to the consequential loss and it was critical that redress was transparent, balanced and legally binding. That was three years ago. We recommended the use of an independent process through the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators which would have been much fairer.
We did not leave it there. Over the past three years, I have had many meetings with the senior management team at Lloyds—I recently met the chief executive—including Lord Blackwell, the chair of Lloyds, as has the director of policy for the all-party group, Heather Buchanan. There has been much correspondence between us. In July 2018, we wrote again to Lloyds and said that the victims were still being treated with contempt. The reply from Lloyds—from Adrian White, the chief operating officer—said:
“We strongly believe that the offers made are both fair and reasonable.”
That demonstrates the institutional arrogance of Lloyds and the wider sector, as people were constantly pointing out that the review was not fair. Any protests about the process were simply ignored. For us, it is not that the bank did not know about it; it simply chose to ignore us and many others.
The key is where we go now. Perhaps this is not the first step, but it is incredibly important that the FCA undertakes an investigation under the senior managers regime on both the Griggs review and the people responsible for that review within Lloyds. Lloyds must take responsibility for the review and other things connected to the whole saga, including the disgraceful treatment of Sally Masterton, the whistleblower, who was mistreated for five years. She was discredited by Lloyds to the FCA, for which she was finally compensated in 2018, yet nobody has been held to account for the mistreatment of a whistleblower pointing out some of these very issues.
Another thing we will need to look at is the people who are not part of Lloyds but are connected to the review. The legal advisers Herbert Smith Freehills are clear that they misled the Financial Conduct Authority about Sally Masterton, the whistleblower. They advised Lloyds on the establishment of the Griggs review, on its operation and on some legal points incorrectly, according to Sir Ross Cranston. It is unthinkable that Herbert Smith Freehills should have any influence on the future redress scheme. That must be an absolute minimum; it cannot happen as we go forward. They should also be the subject of an investigation by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
The Cranston review offers us a crucial opportunity; it is a watershed moment. It is not just about Lloyds but about the wider banking sector.
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that a freedom of information request to the Financial Ombudsman Service showed that, between 2015 and 2018, complaints about Clydesdale Bank, now Virgin Money, were disproportionately high in comparison with their larger competitors? There were 404 complaints in total and, worryingly, the percentage of those upheld was only 13%. Does he agree that it is time for the chief executive officer of Virgin Money, as a self-professed challenger to the status quo, to step up and make sure that these legacy cases are dealt with?
Kevin Hollinrake
I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady. This is not just about Lloyds. A number of independent reviews have taken place, but they have been undertaken by the relevant banks. That simply cannot be right, in terms of justice for victims or their feeling that justice has been done. Justice being seen to be done is a basic principle that, it seems, the banking sector does not have to adhere to.
When the APPG was initially talking about future redress, it proposed a financial services tribunal, similar to an employment tribunal, where there would be no adverse costs, so a claim could be taken forward more easily. That would help to reduce the power imbalance between banks and businesses. A comment that came back from one of those commissioning the review on behalf of UK Finance, the banking representative organisation, was that the courts were not the right place for banking disputes to be settled. Well, they are the right place for the rest of us to settle disputes—that is what our system is built upon.
We need impartial, independent processes. I will talk about the right process for that moving forward, because there is an obvious new alternative approach we can take.
Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for the way in which he has championed justice for those wronged by Lloyds. He is right to describe this case as one of the worst examples of corporate abuse that many of us in this House can remember. Would he be attracted by the consumer ombudsman model? In this case it was not consumers who were primarily affected, but consumer ombudsmen in other countries—crucially, those with class action powers—can bring actions against big businesses that are guilty of the type of behaviour that the hon. Gentleman describes, on behalf of both consumers and small businesses. Would that not be a powerful addition to the regulatory field and help to hold big banks to justice?
Kevin Hollinrake
The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point, although that is not a model I am familiar with. Class actions are definitely opportunities that are not well exploited the UK because of our legal system. I would be keen to talk to him further about that approach.
Within our system we have the Financial Ombudsman Service, which does not necessarily have the best reputation, although I know the hon. Gentleman is talking about something different. It is a problem that whoever is overseeing cases has to be competent and have the right understanding, because there are complex cases that take into account issues around complicated banking products. We have to ensure that the calibre of arbitration or adjudication is at the right level—I will say more about that shortly. We certainly need reform. Moving forward, we think we have a good solution, but we need to continue to improve on that.
This is not just about Lloyds. There are a number of other redress schemes for banking malpractice and mistreatment that have already been conducted by relevant banks. Banks were the principal arbiters of deciding how much compensation people were allowed to have relating to the interest rate swaps schemes and interest rate hedging products, many of which had a devastating effect on businesses. The debates that we have had about the Royal Bank of Scotland, over the past months and years, have raised similar problems about the mistreatment of small businesses. There are problems with their review process and with others, as other hon. Members have said.
I will describe cases that put that into perspective. The first person to write to me about a business banking dispute was Jon Welsby from Filey, when I first became a Member of Parliament. He showed me a huge file of evidence about his business, but the dispute came down to quite a simple problem. He had been sold a swap by Lloyds bank—they were sold by many different banks—that had had a devastating effect on the interest rates he had to pay. The amount he had to pay rose from about £5,000 a month to £17,000—perversely, as interest rates fell, as that was the way swaps worked. He was given direct losses, but he was not assessed as being due any consequential losses by the bank-led review. He was able to gather together the resources to take his claim to court. It was a £10 million claim, although I am not clear exactly how much he received, as he settled out of court. He was able to settle the claim, whereas most people cannot get the money together to take their claim to court. He had had his claim assessed by the bank and was not happy with it, but because he had the money to get to court, it was settled for a much higher figure. It cannot be right that the only people accessing justice are those with the wherewithal to get to court. Given that imbalance of power, people would need millions of pounds to take a bank to court. It is simply unfair.
The constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), Dean D’Eye, came to us about the RBS Global Restructuring Group scheme. He had a property development business and loans to the value of around 60%. He never missed a payment to RBS. He was sold a swap, which damaged his business, but the key moment came when money from a property sale he had made, to add cash flow to his current account, was taken away by the bank and used to reduce debt. According to Mr D’Eye, that broke the agreement and had a devastating impact on his business.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
It did not just affect Dean D’Eye but it deeply affected his father, who was almost bankrupted and lost his home.
Kevin Hollinrake
Absolutely, and we see that time and time again. It is not just about businesses or jobs—although clearly businesses and jobs are lost—but about the effect on people’s lives. I understand that as a business person myself. My business has been my life. If somebody had taken my business away from me in those circumstances, I do not know how I would have coped.
The Minister may say that many cases are not proven or that the banks may write with various reasons why claims are wrong. That is why we do not put the APPG forward as an arbiter of whether the customer or the bank is right in such cases. We do not think the APPG, the victims or the banks should play that role; it must be somebody entirely independent. As I have said before, we recommended a tribunal approach to solving this imbalance of power. What my hon. Friend the Minister has managed to bring about is something new, called the Business Banking Resolution Service, which we think is a great step forward. We in the APPG have been working with the BBRS for the past year. It will mean that we can look at historical cases and at cases going forward, and at larger businesses too. It is absolutely the right thing, and we believe that the method of adjudication is good.
Our concern is, of course, as I have discussed with the Minister on many occasions, that that approach excludes people who have been through other independent bank-led reviews, which we think is wrong. We think the banks should look at such cases again where there is material evidence that something has not been settled fairly, but with the BBRS as a fallback. We think that is fair, and that should go for all victims of all bank-led remediation schemes who feel there is still a case to answer.
We also think there are other issues that need to be dealt with within the Lloyds Bank Review, certainly on eligibility. The review had very tight restrictions on eligibility: the victim had to have dealt directly with one of the two people convicted of the direct fraud, Lynden Scourfield or Mark Dobson. We think that is an unfair restriction. Lloyds has made ex gratia payments—I think £65,000 in total—that are only allocated to certain people who have been through that scheme or are assessed as being appropriate to go through that scheme, which, again, we think is unfair. Lloyds should look again at that.
We see a lot of people now putting their cases forward for the Business Banking Resolution Services. Our constituents who have these kinds of problem can put their cases forward, and we urge them to do so, but when they do, while their cases are being assessed, we think the bank should declare a moratorium or a stay of proceedings on any cases going through that process.
To conclude, we see this as a crucial opportunity, not only for Lloyds to get this right now, but for the wider business-banking relationship. We are very grateful to the Minister for the steps he has taken, both in appointing Sir Ross Cranston and on the Business Banking Resolution Service. We very much thank Sir Ross Cranston for his excellent work. We see this as a crucial opportunity to restore confidence in the free market system, to ensure that individual victims have access to justice and compensation and to improve the appetite for SMEs to borrow, start businesses and grow them, thereby giving a timely boost to UK plc. Let us ensure that we do not waste the opportunity.
Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)
The debate can last until 5.30 pm. If there are any Back-Bench contributions I can take those, but I need to call the Front Benches no later than 5.7 pm. The guideline limits are five minutes for the SNP, five minutes for Her Majesty’s Opposition and 10 minutes for the Minister, and then Mr Hollinrake has a few minutes to sum up the debate at the end. The latest intelligence I have received is that we are expecting Divisions at 5.30 pm, but that they might come earlier. Members will know that if a Division comes during the debate, we have to adjourn for 15 minutes or half an hour, so Members might want to be mindful of speeding up their contributions to ensure that we finish the debate before a Division occurs.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I apologise for not being on time, Mr Hollobone; I had a short-notice meeting with the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) on Northern Ireland issues, and we had to go to meet him. I talk very fast, Mr Hollobone, as you know, but in the next few minutes I am going to get more words to the minute than any other person ever got, if that is possible. I hope I do not talk so fast that Hansard cannot follow it—I will certainly do my best.
On 18 December 2018, 13 months ago, we gathered here in Westminster Hall for a debate on the same subject of Lloyds HBOS, some nine years after the matter was first raised in the House in June 2009 by Sir James Paice MP. My substantive support for a proper and independent review of the Griggs HBOS bank-led remediation scheme is a matter of record in that debate. Less well-known is what has happened since, so let me put some of that on the record from my perspective today.
I begin by drawing the House’s attention to a few paragraphs of an excellent article that I read, by Helen Cahill in The Mail on Sunday on 25 January. Helen wrote:
“Sources said Horta-Osorio, who has been at the helm of Britain's biggest retail bank since 2011, is keen to salvage his reputation before departing as chief executive.
He has also halted three legal battles with victims in an effort to repair relations between the bank and its small business customers.
Victims have been fighting for fair compensation for more than a decade. Nikki Turner, director of victims’ group SME Alliance, said: ‘We have struggled with this for years. We hope this will encourage other chief executives to be more hands-on. How do you know what’s going on in the bank, if you don’t know about it personally?’”
Then, in what in my view will prove to be a seminal article, for Reuters last Wednesday, under a section entitled:
“Chief executives at a conduct crossroads”,
Rachel Wolcott wrote:
“Bank chief executives face a choice in 2020. They could take actions to resolve fairly disputes and claims stemming from past misconduct. That then would set the tone for how such problems are solved in future and reinforce cultural transformation messaging.”
There are a lot of things that can be done.
“Alternatively, they could continue approaches that resulted in unfair customer redress schemes, customer claims being wrongly denied, and vulnerable customers hauled through the courts.”
The article quotes Ruth Steinholtz as saying:
“They can’t have it both ways.”
They think they can, but they cannot. Ruth Steinholtz is further quoted as saying:
“They say they want to increase trust, but they can’t do that if they don't take responsibility for their actions and admit they got it wrong. I do think there has to be some sympathy for the reason they have difficulty admitting getting it wrong, which is they get slammed by the regulators every time they do”—
but if it is wrong, it is wrong and they should say that.
The article continues:
“The Cranston Review, which saw Lloyds Banking Group’s handling of HBOS Reading victims criticised, may have been a catalyst for that very change in approach required to take Lloyds’ cultural transformation work forward. Lloyds has invested in efforts to improve culture, making key hires and revamping its purpose, values and behaviour statement. Recent decisions by Antonio Horta-Osorio, chief executive to increase HBOS Reading fraud victims’ compensation, pre-empting further unflattering investigation results expected in the Dobbs Review, was deemed as a step in the right direction.”
It is, and it should be seen as such. The article goes on to say:
“If this approach continues to influence Lloyds’ engagement with mortgage prisoners, cases that come through the Business Banking Resolution Scheme (BBRS), PPI claimants and yet to be uncovered conduct problems, its chances of achieving meaningful cultural improvements may increase.
Barclays, RBS, Virgin Money and other UK banks have not made public any change in attitude towards legacy conduct issues, however.”
It is disappointing that they have not.
“Banks, via UK Finance, contested the eligibility criteria for the BBRS, which is aimed at putting SME mistreatment in the past.”
Regrettably,
“Most banks have made few meaningful actions to help mortgage prisoners or customers whose loans were sold to debt collectors and vulture funds.”
That includes Lloyds as one of the culprits.
“David Duffy, chief executive at Virgin Money Holdings, in contrast to Lloyds’ recent approach, has rebuffed the FCA’s Bailey’s specific requests to ‘deal with’ some of its most troublesome and longstanding SME customer disputes.”
Mr Duffy is noticeably where his Lloyds CEO counterpart was a few weeks ago, pre-Cranston, and in my view he needs to move his position to remove the shackles strangling this bank.
The Minister will be well aware of the case of John Guidi, the CYBG, now Virgin Money, hunger striker, and his recent correspondence, now publicised on Twitter and elsewhere, detailing the implications of both his case and many others. It is insightful to read the Reuters article by Lindsey Rogerson on 24 January, headlined:
“Outgoing FCA chief advocates for bank victims inclusion in new resolution scheme”.
That is good news.
The article addressed Andrew Bailey’s public and private view on both Mr Guidi’s case—I have probably pronounced his name wrong there—and those of the other victims of banks that are not yet participating in the BBRS, such as Zurich Dunbar. I ask the Minister, in his concluding remarks, to respond by giving his view and that of Government on the following observation by Mr Guidi:
“Meanwhile, the Vulture funds appear to be untouchable by the law yet they use their distorted version of law for their own benefit to destroy the honest and hardworking, tax paying SMEs and individual people of this country and leave them destitute as a burden on the state while they themselves pay no taxes in the UK, Ireland or anywhere else.”
I turn now to an instance that I witnessed, together with our voluntary adviser, Brian Little at Westminster for Banking, who has assisted with auditing and whistleblowing since that December 2018 debate. I was approached by Lloyds Banking Group’s public affairs director, Mr Benedict Brogan, who asked to speak with us about the content of various parts of my speech, which Brian and I were very willing to do. Our first meeting took place immediately on the resumption of Parliament after Christmas 2018.
A number of matters were discussed, including—specifically relevant to the debate—the importance of a meaningful and competent review of the Griggs scheme, together with the crucial involvement of victims’ representatives in the recently announced dispute resolution scheme, now called the Business Banking Resolution Service. From our experience in Northern Ireland, we believe that all the people cannot really move on until the victims’ aspects are properly considered and a closure and reconciliation process undertaken, as the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) mentioned; I only caught the tail end of his speech, but I have spoken to him about this. He and I both requested this debate, and I am pleased that we got it.
As a result, over the next couple of months, Mr Brogan engaged with other banks, and centrally Mr Horta-Osório suggested that Nikki Turner of the SME Alliance be invited to join the independent steering group, or ISG. Bearing in mind that Paul and Nikki Turner had been the subject of 22 applications for eviction by Lloyds, and that the Lloyds CEO was subjected to calls for his resignation in Parliament in that December debate, this was an enormous ask, and impossible in many people’s eyes; in effect, a few of us were thought of as mad. We understand that, when António was approached on the subject, after several seconds of reflection and following his interview by CNBC in Davos in January 2019, he looked up and said words to the effect that “it was the only way forward”, and so it is.
Shortly afterwards, on 12 March 2019, Nikki and the SME Alliance released to the press that they had been invited and were joining the ISG of the DRS. That press release also referenced Mr Ian Lightbody from the CYBG Remediation Support Group. Unfortunately, the DRS chairman, Mr Lewis Shand Smith, did not follow Ian’s involvement through, despite another small business representative board member from Make UK being unable to attend. That was, and remains, a huge disappointment to Financial Conduct Authority CEO Andrew Bailey, the SME Alliance and the all-party parliamentary group on fair business banking.
Despite the time pressures across many fronts on Andrew Bailey, who is soon to be Governor of the Bank of England, we witnessed his personally taking charge of the interviews for the chair of that review with an unwavering commitment to the values and intent of that process, which we welcomed. After a couple of challenges in securing other candidates, Sir Ross Cranston was selected. He has proven to be exactly what was required—independent, evidence-led, competent, fair and robust. I put on the record our thanks and gratitude to both Andrew Bailey and Sir Ross Cranston for their work on this in 2019. I must also add thanks to the Lloyds CEO, Mr António Horta-Osório, who devoted some of his time to overseeing not only the HBOS aspect of this but the treatment of other victims, such as victims of Lloyds business support unit. I wrote to António to thank him personally on Monday 20 January.
Yes, Rachel Wolcott is right: bank chief executives are at a conduct crossroads in 2020. How true that is. This is the year that their actions, including active support for the BBRS, will communicate to their staff, the victims and the public at large whether cultures are really changing.
My final point relates to a victims’ conference I attended and spoke at on 17 September last year in London, where I heard Brian Little tell a story to victims that got everyone’s attention. It is on YouTube; most things seem to be nowadays. Back in 2011, Brian was a constituent of mine, and he still is. He had a mental breakdown for some 17 months, during which time I, as a new MP, and with my parliamentary aide, assisted in keeping his whistleblowing case alive during his diagnosis and recovery.
During that time, we met the now-Lord Andrew Tyrie, in his role as Chairman of the Treasury Committee, in relation to independent reports and assessors. By coincidence, António was the subject of stories on the front page of The Daily Telegraph on 4 May 2011. While only just in the CEO role, António had taken the brave step away from the UK Finance position on PPI and stated that Lloyds must address the compensation issue. Back then, that was perhaps £5 billion to £10 billion across the banks; it is now more than £50 billion, but it was the right thing to do. Brian’s story was about cover-ups in reports; the court eventually found that he had made 12 protected disclosures.
On Saturday, I read an article in The Times in which Katherine Griffiths wrote that António was now the longest-serving CEO in the FTSE 100, and that the search for his successor is imminent. Whether accurate or not, I ask through this House that Mr Horta-Osório continues what a number of us have witnessed in the last few months: personal involvement and oversight of the Cranston compensation review and active support for the BBRS, and perhaps even the involvement in a closure and reconciliation process at Lloyds, which we would be more than happy to discuss with him prior to any departure or retirement.
I am conscious of the time, so I will scoot forward to near the end of my speech. In relation to third-party debt, can I ask that the Minister takes similar action immediately? Most of this will not be about individual cases, but I am concerned that the BBRS will not be ready in time to hear the case of Nigel Henderson, as he is terminally ill. While the Minister consistently states that he is unable to address individual cases, which I understand, I should think that he would wish to publicly endorse the emergency cases policy of the BBRS that James Hurley reflected in his recent article in The Times, in which he wrote:
“Bosses of the service have been asked to prioritise cases where business owners are terminally ill and where there are imminent repossession or bankruptcy issues.”
It is morally right to do that, so why should we not?
An open letter to the Prime Minister last Wednesday from the Banking Victims for a Future groups stated:
“The objective is to have Banks put things right, redress customers, where they should be redressed, and continue to reinforce our work that Banks really need to earn people’s trust. Without this redress through a credible Business Banking Resolution Service (BBRS) followed by an appropriate closure and reconciliation process, within each bank, for the last 20 years we will not help this nation and its people, through many small businesses, PROSPER in a post-Brexit United Kingdom.”
Everybody will want that, whether they are in favour of Brexit or not.
I will conclude with this comment from UK Mortgage Prisoners:
“We do not want to be left behind within our Prime Minister’s hope for our nation. We didn’t deserve this and should not continue to suffer. We insist that our ‘People’s Government’ provide a solution and reflect it in the chancellor’s budget speech on 11th March 2020, to the nation”.
I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to my two key points and to whether he endorses these aspirations of the Prime Minister. I thank you, Mr Hollobone, and hon. Members for enduring my speaking at 60 words to the second, or thereabouts.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) for his diligence and for his role in the all-party parliamentary group on fair business banking, and for bringing yet another debate. I also pay tribute to Heather Buchanan for her diligent work behind the scenes.
If this process has taught us anything, it is that we need urgently to look at reforming the banking system into an ethical model that works for customers, whether they are private individuals or businesses, because this scandal has evaded every safeguard that ought to protect customers. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said in hope, there should now be a positive influence on the behaviour and attitude in banks, but an awful lot still needs to change. As he also mentioned, this is much bigger than only Lloyds and HBOS, and we need to look more widely at the issue.
Customers were defrauded of millions of pounds, and there was nothing short of a corporate strategy within Lloyds to cover that up. There is evidence that the bank’s own compliance officers were involved in the cover-up. The scandal was not uncovered by a regulator but by whistleblowers such as Sally Masterton, who was treated appallingly by Lloyds—as the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton laid out—and put on enforced leave for her part in bringing the issue to light. She was even prevented from working with the police to bring about an end to the scandal. If we cannot rely on whistleblowers to be supported through this process, we have a serious problem. The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the Turners, and we should pay tribute to them for their 10-year battle through this as well. It should not take 10 years for people to get a reasonable response and to get justice when they have been wronged.
The independent Griggs review was supposed to deliver compensation to the victims, but this too fell short of expectations. The role of the independent reviewer was to oversee cases to ensure that they were fair. However, customers criticised the process, owing to the unaccountability of the reviewer, who would often fail to disclose what information had been provided to them from the bank. Some described it as corrupt, and many have reported it as being a thoroughly awful experience. Cranston himself described the banks as confrontational and, at times, forceful, which is completely inappropriate, regardless of the situation. Customers had no way of knowing what was fair or of seeing the working behind it. As the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton mentioned, there is an inherent power imbalance within this, with people having to go to court and pursue this over many years, which many could not afford to do.
I know that Members across the House will be grateful for Sir Ross Cranston’s diligent work in his review of this fiasco, and we thank him for that. Particularly welcome is his recommendation that customers should be released from egregious settlement agreements, which many customers agreed to as they were offered on a take-it-or-leave-it basis by the bank; customers often felt that they had no other choice.
Sir Ross Cranston also recommends that the bank must arrange for the reassessment of direct and consequential losses by an independent body. In his report, he says that
“this part of the Customer Review, both in structure and in implementation, was neither fair nor reasonable… Other inconsistencies also resulted in unfairness… The general failure to communicate in a sufficiently clear and transparent way caused confusion”.
The bank did not make a single redress payment for direct and consequential losses to any business individual affected by the scandal. This could cover such damage as loss of opportunity, loss of profits, reputational damage, and claims for the impact of the scandal on a customer’s personal life. Given the time period over which this took place, it is clear this could have had a huge impact on the lives of the victims of this scandal.
It is unfortunate that banks cannot always be relied on to act in the best interest of their customers without adequate enforcement of the rules. We cannot allow them to mark their own homework. I urge the Minister to investigate the possibility of creating a permanent commercial financial dispute resolution platform, which would allow a streamlined process for consumers to hold banks to account and go some way towards alleviating the suffering of victims of mis-selling.
Although there is no doubt that some individuals went to great efforts to bring justice to the victims of this scandal, there is still no straightforward recommendation for redress for customers, for them to achieve the fairness and justice they deserve. We have seen people lose their businesses and livelihoods before any justice was served. People such as those mentioned by the hon. Member for Strangford, who have suffered through ill health or who have aged in the intervening years, need to see that soon. For many people, those opportunities may be lost forever. The Treasury must act to ensure that a scandal of this magnitude cannot happen again. The legacy of this saga must be change across the board.
My hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) mentioned Clydesdale and Virgin Money. We know other issues are brewing out there. I ask the Minister to take those into account. Again, I thank Sir Ross Cranston for his report, and the significant pressure for change, which leaves it to us and the UK Government to act.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
I am grateful, Mr Hollobone, for giving me the chance to respond to this debate. I thank the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) for securing this debate and the all-party parliamentary group on fair business banking for all its efforts to secure justice for victims of banking fraud and misconduct.
The hon. Gentleman has made clear the significance of the Cranston review in reconsidering the process by which banks compensate business customers where there has been historical misconduct. I add my voice to his. Strangely, this is now a positive story: we finally have the review we all wanted, although the journey to get here has been fairly tortuous.
Everyone here has been involved in these issues for some time. In my time as the shadow City Minister I have had to become familiar with and speak about an appalling litany of complaints about how business customers have been treated, not multinational businesses, but the small businesses that we would all recognise as the backbone of our constituencies and this country. The stories have been of livelihoods and relationships destroyed, and of entrepreneurs and companies losing family businesses they have spent years building.
We are here to discuss Lloyds. The HBOS Reading issues were clearly an issue of criminal liability in that bank. In the wider sector we have discussed a whole range of unacceptable conduct: the mis-selling of interest rates and hedging products, the mistreatment of companies in distress by pushing them into restructuring, and the unscrupulous sales of loan books to vulture funds. That is why the question of how redress happens has become so important.
Research shows that a frighteningly small number of small businesses in this country believe that their bank will do the right thing by them. Given the reports detailing the historical conduct we have discussed, we cannot blame them. We must all improve on that. Whether we are politicians, banks or businesses, this lack of confidence is not in our interest. We need to be able to tell our constituents that there is a level playing field when they find themselves in conflict with their bank, and that there is a path to fairness, justice and proper redress.
Too often, in recent years, the response from banks to us has been, “Systems are in place and we believe they are fair. All the historical issues have been sufficiently dealt with.” This report has shown unequivocally that not to be the case, vindicating those of us who have campaigned in this area for years, particularly the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton.
It is not acceptable for industry to equivocate on this any longer and, to use the hon. Gentleman’s phrase, to mark its own homework. Key problems identified in the Cranston review include the lack of independence in assessing complaints and the benchmark for compensation being so high that no customer could hope to meet it. It is important that we, as parliamentarians, learn the lessons from these observations and embed those principles in any new schemes. I look forward to the Minister’s response to the review.
There are other avenues we must continue to consider, to get to the root of this problem. I believe we should consider a full public inquiry into business banking scandals. This review is about the shortcomings of one bank compensation scheme, but it emphasises the importance of investigating all areas of misconduct, not just to ensure that victims get fair compensation—that is the minimum—but to identify systemic problems at the root of these scandals, to prevent them happening again. That could be challenging to us as parliamentarians.
I always worry that the model of banking in this country, whether for customers or small businesses, effectively relies on upselling products, so we do not really pay for the cost of our banking services, and therefore we have business models where products must be sold on to banking customers. Perhaps we need to look at that. We must continue to work towards the success of the business banking resolution scheme, to assess how successful it is in addressing these problems.
Kevin Hollinrake
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point about products and services being sold to consumers and businesses. The royal commission in Australia determined that one of the biggest drivers of mistreatment of businesses and consumers was the incentives paid to people at the sharp end to sell those products. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. A public inquiry might well identify where this is going so badly wrong.
Jonathan Reynolds
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. We must look at the issue that he raises. In some ways, we have already addressed some of the things that the Australians had not yet got round to, as the scope was different, but that must be part of the conversation, because we can go back, decade after decade, and find historical problems in the sector. Clearly, something is happening, whether it involves the incentives for staff or the structure of the sector, that we might want to change.
I mentioned the business banking resolution scheme. Historically, I have always supported an independent tribunal system and I still believe that that proposal has merit, but perhaps we need to revisit regularly the BBRS’s work to ensure that it is getting the results that it requires in the timeframe.
My final point is on whistleblowers. Sally Masterton was mentioned. She was treated disgracefully. Other countries have much stronger protection for whistleblowers. I think we could look at that issue. If I were, as I have always wanted to be, in the Minister’s place, responding to the debate, I would want us to take that forward, to ensure that we really had an appropriate system that addressed all the needs.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Hollobone. I, too, pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake). Obviously, in this role, I have shadow Ministers shadowing my every move, but I also have my hon. Friend, who has spoken up very effectively on these issues over the past 25 months. We have had a constructive dialogue on many matters, and I look forward to addressing the points he and others have made in my response.
It has been just over a year since I announced that Lloyds would commission a review into the Griggs compensation scheme, which is another stepping stone in Lloyds’ journey to right the wrongs of the past and rebuild trust with their business customers. From the outset, I was clear that if the findings of the review were to hold up to scrutiny, the person overseeing it must be truly independent. I was therefore delighted by the appointment of Sir Ross Cranston, a former Labour Member of Parliament who was Solicitor General between 1998 and 2001 and is a professor of law at the London School of Economics, a Queen’s counsel, and a retired High Court judge. I met him on two occasions to check on progress, between May and when purdah commenced. That was not to influence him regarding the particular conduct, but to encourage him to look at this issue as thoroughly as possible.
Sir Ross found that the Griggs compensation scheme had serious shortcomings, as has been expressed fully in this debate, and that it did not achieve the stated purpose of delivering fair and reasonable compensation offers. Assessments of direct and consequential loss were too adversarial and legalistic, which was unfair and unreasonable for the customers it was designed to support. Sir Ross also found several other inconsistencies, along with a general lack of clarity underpinning the scheme, while the bank’s failure to communicate with customers in a transparent manner caused further unnecessary confusion.
Sir Ross found that some elements of the compensation scheme were good. For example, Lloyds provided generous legal assistance and wrote off some customer debts, as well as paying substantial distress and inconvenience redress. Nevertheless, the overriding conclusions were hugely disappointing, and Sir Ross has made it clear that Lloyds has more work to do to achieve the stated aims of its original compensation scheme.
The most substantial of Sir Ross’s recommendations is that customer claims for direct and consequential loss must be reassessed, and Lloyds is working with customers and relevant parties to agree the details of this process. I know that representatives of Lloyds have been mentioned in this debate, and I have been given assurances that they are eager to get on with things. That could be through the new Business Banking Resolution Service, which has been referred to in today’s debate, or through an equivalent scheme that is committed to achieving the same rigorous outcomes. Either way, it is pretty clear to me that these cases must be considered by an independent body in a transparent manner.
There has been work on this issue by the all-party parliamentary group on fair business, with support from Heather Buchanan, who was mentioned earlier, and the SME Alliance. I also know that Sir Ross Cranston himself is engaged in this process, which must continue, and must be thorough and rigorous.
Sir Ross has also recommended that Lloyds make payments to cover the debts of customers who repaid or refinanced loans, as well as releasing customers from certain aspects of their settlement agreements. It is vital that Lloyds now implements the recommendations as quickly as possible and continues to support customers as they navigate this process. I will follow progress closely and I expect to be regularly updated; I have made that clear.
I turn now to some of the points made by hon. Members throughout the debate this afternoon. The hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), who is no longer in her place, asked whether all reviews should be tested against Sir Ross’s methodology. I will just say this: I think that all banks have a responsibility to reflect on the findings of the Cranston review and consider whether their own redress schemes achieved fair and reasonable outcomes for customers. Obviously, people have different interpretations, but the Cranston review is a wake-up call to banks to examine whether the appropriate transparent processes have been followed. That should happen now.
John Glen
I will just make my next point, then I will give way to my hon. Friend.
My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton asked about the appropriateness of the Financial Conduct Authority carrying out a review under the senior managers and certification regime. As he will know, the FCA is operationally independent of Government and it is for the FCA to consider whether there is sufficient evidence for such an investigation.
I know that we have spoken previously about Dame Linda Dobbs’s investigation, which has been ongoing for a considerable amount of time. That really needs to come to a conclusion; we need to see the results of that investigation. However, I cannot say more than that, because it is a matter for the FCA to consider. Now I am very happy to give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart).
Bob Stewart
I thank the Minister for giving way; he is an honourable and decent man. However, what shocks me most about all of this is that some banks are not acting decently and honourably. That really worries me; they should do that naturally. They are a bastion of our society, just as business is.
John Glen
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point, which goes to the core of this matter. The Cranston review points to the fact that we now have a higher bar of expectations in terms of how these redress schemes should be operated in a transparent way. He has spoken in this debate and previously about the distress that has been caused to his constituents, and many other Members have also made points during this debate.
The wider banking industry has a responsibility to reflect on the review’s findings and act accordingly, so I welcome the banking industry’s commitment to creating a new scheme to address unresolved historic complaints from small and medium-sized enterprises that have not been through a formal independent process, and to address future complaints made by slightly larger SMEs that are just outside the remit of the Financial Ombudsman Service.
John Glen
I will in a moment.
The aforementioned Business Banking Resolution Service opened to expressions of interest last November, ahead of its full launch later this year. Meanwhile, the expansion of the FOS last April means that over 99% of all SMEs now have access to fair, free and fast dispute resolution.
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) asked me to give way; I am happy to do so, but I want to refer to the points that he made. He referred to the eligibility of the BBRS. It is not for me to determine the eligibility of the BBRS, but his points about the prioritisation of cases will have been heard very clearly by those who have set up that service, and I urge the BBRS to reflect on his contribution to this debate.
The BBRS and the expansion of the FOS build on several initiatives that the Government have introduced, including the senior managers certification regime, which will hold key individuals at banks to account for the decisions that they make, including decisions that could impact on their SME customers. The industry has also made changes. For example, all major lenders are signatories of the standards of lending practice, ensuring that banks treat their customers in a fair and reasonable way. I hope that these steps, together with the work carried out this year to address historic SME disputes, will bring unresolved disputes to a close and prevent the same circumstances from occurring again.
I will conclude by saying that over the past year Sir Ross has taken considerable time to discuss sensitive and often distressing matters with customers; he has had 49 meetings with 62 customers, alongside his adopting a detailed and forensic approach to the cases he has reviewed, so I thank him for his efforts.
I welcome the commitment of Lloyds to implementing the recommendations of the Cranston review, and I will follow progress closely. I note the points made by the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) and others, and I will reflect on them carefully.
The establishment of the Business Banking Resolution Service provides a further means of redress, and I look forward to seeing it bring closure to many long-running disputes. I am confident that we can continue to build on the good work that industry, small business representatives, regulators and Government have begun to rebuild trust, so that small businesses can access the finance they need to prosper and grow.
Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)
I call Kevin Hollinrake to sum up the debate.
Kevin Hollinrake
I am grateful to you, Mr Hollobone, for calling me again, and to the Minister for his comments.
Sir Ross Cranston has left a tremendous legacy with his report, and I am very pleased to hear that the Minister thinks similarly. This matter is not just about this individual review process—the Griggs review. An industry benchmark should be set on how to do things and how not to do them, and on what “good” looks like. The Minister is absolutely right that all banks should look back again at their processes and reviews, and make sure they have got things right.
The other thing we need to learn from this matter is that when these processes—these redress schemes—are set up, we have to put the victims at the heart of them; we have got to get the stakeholders at the heart of them. Lloyds did not do that and nor did Royal Bank of Scotland. Sir Ross, more than anybody else, has done that, which must be the lesson that we learn.
I will conclude by saying that Churchill once said of the Americans that they always do the right thing but only after they have tried all the alternatives. That is what we must consider when we try to hold businesses to account; we must assume that they are not going to do the right thing. They are many very decent people in the banking sector and in business more widely, but we simply cannot trust that people will do the right thing. People do what is inspected and not what is expected, so we must absolutely make sure that we do our bit. I know the Treasury will do its bit to try and ensure that we get this matter right, but the FCA, the BBRS and all those different stakeholders need to ensure this time that we get things right.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered Lloyds, HBOS and the Cranston review.
Written Statements
(4 years, 10 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Parental Bereavement Leave and Pay
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Andrea Leadsom)
The Government are committed to supporting working families to balance work with their caring responsibilities. We have laid regulations in Parliament which, subject to parliamentary approval, will implement our commitment to give employed parents a statutory minimum right to time off work in the devastating circumstances where their child dies or they suffer a stillbirth.
Parental bereavement leave and pay are the first of a raft of new employment reforms which will make the UK the best place in the world to work and to start and grow a business. As announced in the Queen’s Speech, the Employment Bill will introduce further measures to benefit employees and their employers, including carer’s leave and neonatal leave and pay.
The Parental Bereavement Leave Regulations 2020; the Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay (General) Regulations 2020; and the Parental Bereavement (Leave and Pay) Act 2018 (Commencement) Regulations 2020 (collectively referred to as “the Parental Bereavement Leave and Pay Regulations”) were laid in Parliament on 23 January 2020. Taken together, they implement a statutory right to a minimum of two weeks’ leave for all employed parents whose child under the age of 18 dies or who suffer a stillbirth from 24 weeks of pregnancy.
Employment law is a devolved matter in the case of Northern Ireland so the new entitlement to parental bereavement leave and pay will only apply to parents in Great Britain (GB). There are around 7,500 child deaths a year in GB, including around 3,000 stillbirths. The Government estimate that this new entitlement will help to support over 10,000 GB parents a year.
The entitlement to parental bereavement leave will be a “day one” right which means that employed parents will be entitled to time off work to grieve irrespective of how long they have worked for their employer. Parents who have worked for their employer for six months or more at the time of their child’s death will also be able to claim statutory parental bereavement pay.
Employed parents will be able to take their leave and pay as either a single block of two weeks, or as two separate blocks of one week each.
The right to parental bereavement leave and pay makes GB one of a very small number of countries worldwide to recognise the impact that the death of a child has on parents and to offer such support to parents. We are the first to offer a full two weeks of leave and pay and this is the most generous offer on parental bereavement leave and pay in the world.
Both the leave and pay can be taken at any time in the first 56 weeks after the child’s death. The ability to take time off work over a long period recognises that grief is a very personal matter—whilst some parents may want to take time off work immediately, others may prefer to take time off work on the first anniversary of their child’s death or to enable them to attend the funeral or inquest.
The new entitlement will be known as Jack’s law in memory of Jack Herd whose mother Lucy has campaigned tirelessly on this important issue.
Subject to parliamentary approval, the new entitlement will apply to parents who lose a child on or after 6 April 2020.
[HCWS90]
State of the Estate: 2018-19
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Jeremy Quin)
I have today laid before Parliament, pursuant to section 86 of the Climate Change Act 2008, the “State of the Estate in 2018-19”. This report describes the efficiency and sustainability of the Government’s civil estate and records the progress that the Government have made since the previous year. The report is published on an annual basis.
[HCWS91]
Bilateral Loan to Ireland
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen)
I would like to update Parliament on the loan to Ireland.
In December 2010, the UK agreed to provide a bilateral loan of £3.2 billion as part of a €67.5 billion international assistance package for Ireland. The loan was disbursed in eight tranches, and the final tranche was drawn down on 26 September 2013. Ireland has made interest payments on the loan every six months since the first disbursement.
On 3 February, in line with the agreed repayment schedule, HM Treasury received a total payment of £404,714,183.56 from Ireland. This comprises the repayment of £403,370,000 in principal and £1,344,183.56 in accrued interest.
As required under the Loans to Ireland Act 2010, HM Treasury laid a statutory report to Parliament on 3 October 2019 covering the period from 1 April to 30 September 2019. The report set out details of future payments up to the final repayment on 26 March 2021. The Government continue to expect the loan to be repaid in full and on time.
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/bilateral-loan-to-ireland
The next statutory report will cover the period from 1 October 2019 to 31 March 2020. HM Treasury will report fully on all repayments received during this period in the report.
[HCWS89]
Counter-Terrorism Asset Freezing Regime
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen)
Under the Terrorist Asset-Freezing etc. Act 2010 (TAFA 2010), the Treasury is required to prepare a quarterly report regarding its exercise of the powers conferred on it by Part 1 of TAFA 2010. This written statement satisfies that requirement for the period 1 July 2019 to 30 September 2019.
This report also covers the UK’s implementation of the UN’s ISIL (Da’esh) and al-Qaida asset freezing regime (ISIL-AQ), and the operation of the EU’s asset freezing regime under EU Regulation (EC) 2580/2001 concerning external terrorist threats to the EU (also referred to as the CP 931 regime).
Under the ISIL-AQ asset freezing regime, the UN has responsibility for designations and the Treasury, through the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI), has responsibility for licensing and compliance with the regime in the UK under the ISIL (Da’esh) and al-Qaida (Asset- Freezing) Regulations 2011.
Under EU Regulation 2580/2001, the EU has responsibility for designations and OFSI has responsibility for licensing and compliance with the regime in the UK under Part 1 of TAFA 2010.
EU Regulation (2016/1686) was implemented on 22 September 2016. This permits the EU to make autonomous al-Qaida and ISIL (Da’esh) listings.
It can also be viewed online at: http://www.parliament. uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2020-02-04/HCWS88/.
Tables set out the key asset-freezing activity in the UK during the quarter.
Counter-terrorist asset freezing regime Q3 2019 (TAFA Q3 2019 Table.pdf).
[HCWS88]
Paterson Inquiry
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)
Today the report of the independent inquiry into the issues raised by the former breast surgeon Ian Paterson has been published.
This report follows two years of work by the inquiry, led by Bishop Graham James. The Bishop has adopted a strong commitment to a “patients and families first” approach to public disclosure, which means that the process of public disclosure began earlier this morning with the patients and families themselves.
The report contains an analysis of the circumstances surrounding Ian Paterson’s malpractice that has affected so many patients and considers other past and current practices. It also tells the stories of patients who came forward to provide evidence to the inquiry, which bears testament to their courage. As such it makes for difficult reading and it is with deep regret that we have to acknowledge the failure of the NHS and the independent sector to protect patients from Paterson’s malpractice.
The public should be able to trust that a health professional will never again be allowed to place personal gain or advancement over the best interests of his or her patients whether care is funded by the NHS or privately. It is therefore essential that the whole of the health sector responds quickly and effectively to the lessons of this inquiry. The Government will give a thorough and detailed consideration of their findings over the coming weeks.
We expect now for all the relevant agencies and organisations both nationally and locally, and across the whole healthcare sector to give this report urgent and thorough attention.
Once that work is done, the relevant agencies will decide what steps to take next.
Copies of the report will be laid before the House and will be available from the Vote Office and at: https://www.gov.uk.
An oral statement will be delivered to the House today.
[HCWS87]
Contingencies Fund Advance
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Alister Jack)
I hereby give notice of the Scotland Office and Office of the Advocate General’s intention to seek a repayable cash advance from the Contingencies Fund of £1,900,000. The Department requires an advance to meet its cash requirements pending parliamentary approval of the supplementary estimate 2019-20.
The Department is operating within the budget agreed in the main estimate. However, it will be seeking an increase in net cash requirement in the supplementary estimate. Accessing the Contingencies Fund will allow the Department to cover existing expenditure consistent with existing parliamentary estimates and does not represent additional spending.
The advance will be repaid immediately following approval of the supplementary estimate.
Parliamentary approval for additional cash of £1,900,000 will be sought in a supplementary estimate for the Scotland Office and Office of the Advocate General. Pending that approval, urgent expenditure estimated at £1,900,000 will be met by repayable cash advances from the Contingencies Fund.
[HCWS92]
House of Lords
Post Office: Prosecution Powers
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what recent assessment they have made of the Post Office’s powers to conduct prosecutions.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and Northern Ireland Office (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)
My Lords, the Post Office’s powers to bring a private prosecution, which fall under Section 6(1) of the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985, are not specific to that company. It has the same right as any other person, whether an individual or a company, to bring a private prosecution.
Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that Answer. Last year, the Post Office had to settle litigation brought by 555 sub-postmasters at a cost to it of nearly £60 million. The Court of Appeal described the Post Office as treating sub-postmasters
“in capricious or arbitrary ways which would not be unfamiliar to a mid-Victorian factory-owner.”
The judge at first instance held that a Post Office director had set out to mislead him. How can such an organisation possibly conduct its own prosecutions when it cannot command the trust of the courts or, indeed, of the country?
Lord Duncan of Springbank
My noble friend raises challenging points. I must stress that the leadership of the Post Office got it badly wrong and, as a consequence of those actions, people have experienced unfortunate situations. That has changed. There has been a change in culture, a new chief executive and a new recognition that the old ways of doing things cannot go on. That is why the Minister responsible in my department, Kelly Tolhurst, now has quarterly meetings with the National Federation of SubPostmasters as a way of ensuring a better relationship with those who are at the sharp end of the Post Office.
Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)
My Lords, this is far more than “unfortunate”; it is a shocking story of obfuscation, cover-ups and downright abuse of sub-postmasters—the face of arguably the most trusted brand in this country—by the most senior people running it, yet they were able to do this because they had the power to conduct their own prosecutions with no independent assessment of the case for the defence or the prosecution. Can I therefore I join the sub-postmasters in asking the Government to review this and other issues that this sorry case has thrown up through a full, independent public inquiry?
Lord Duncan of Springbank
The individuals affected are indeed the face of the Post Office in towns and villages up and down the land. The situation which arose was unacceptable and the courts have shown that. There needs to be manifest change in the way the Post Office does business and a recognition that that way is not acceptable going forward. We will be doing things differently; we will bring in a new national framework to ensure that the past situation cannot be repeated. This is the time for us to bring about the real change which is required right now.
Lord Morris of Aberavon (Lab)
My Lords, when I was a law officer, we brought most governmental and quasi-governmental organisations which did prosecute under the supervision of the Attorney-General. Would that be appropriate in this case?
Lord Duncan of Springbank
I suspect that it will be quite some time before the Post Office embarks upon another adventure of this sort, for many obvious reasons. We need to recognise that a number of manifest failures led to this situation. These need to be understood, and they are being by the new culture inside the Post Office. The reality remains that the Post Office got it wrong. For that, there needs to be a serious change, and at the heart of it must be not just profits but recognising the role of the sub-postmasters themselves.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, as the Minister responsible at the time, I was uneasy because it involved claims of dishonesty by apparently honest citizens. I therefore advised the Post Office to take outside legal counsel to try and get at the truth. Now that we have reached the present stage, what arrangements for compensation have been, are still being or will be made for those affected?
Lord Duncan of Springbank
My noble friend is right to draw attention to this. As my noble friend Lord Arbuthnot said at the outset, there will be a settlement of nearly £60 million for those who brought the class action itself. There will also need to be individual criminal examination for those who have experienced the sharpest end of the law. I cannot comment on these matters, but I recognise how important they are to bring about the justice required.
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)
My Lords, there are a number of points to pick up on, but I will focus on the £60 million. How much of that will the sub-postmasters themselves receive? My understanding is that, unlike in many other cases, the legal fees have to come out of that £60 million, which is one of the reasons for the settlement. Some clarification of how much the sub-postmasters themselves will receive would be welcomed by all.
Lord Duncan of Springbank
The simple answer to that question is: not enough. The reality is that perhaps only a fraction of the money which has been won in this court case—around £12 million of the £60 million—will end up in the pockets of the sub-postmasters. That is a shocking realisation but it is, unfortunately, the answer to the noble Lord’s question.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, what action are the Government going to take against the people who were running the Post Office when all this was going on? Have they just been moved to another job and got promotion, or will some action be taken against them? As other noble Lords have said, people have died, committed suicide and lost their businesses.
Lord Duncan of Springbank
There is a new chief executive and a new regime is in place. I cannot comment on the individuals who were in positions of power during that time because I simply do not have the answer. I recognise the anger the noble Lord brings to his question, and that it is shared by the House today.
Lord Polak (Con)
My Lords, the department has a representative on the board of directors. What is his exact role?
Lord Duncan of Springbank
We have a non-executive director who is responsible for representing the department and the Government. His role has evolved from a perhaps more passive approach to a much more active one going forward. We have to have a much stronger view about how we manage this area, through the chief executive, the chairman and the non-executive director with responsibility for governance and clear adherence to the responsibilities of the board itself.
Lord Bichard (CB)
My Lords, a large corporate organisation such as the Post Office can always point to the fact that it has changed its ways and things will be better in future. Some of these people have lost their lives; £12 million compensation does not seem enough. In fact, no financial compensation would seem enough. Is the Minister satisfied that these people are getting due recompense?
Lord Duncan of Springbank
Those who have lost their lives could not possibly get due recompense throughout this process, no matter what the answer might have been. The situation is clear: during a significant period in the history of the Post Office, wrongdoing took place. It has admitted that it got it wrong and it is bringing about change now. I do not believe you can compensate adequately for those who have lost their lives.
Cash Machines
Lord Naseby
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they intend to take to ensure free cash machines are available for cash withdrawal for all communities in the United Kingdom.
The Earl of Courtown (Con)
My Lords, the Government recognise the importance of free access to cash and so have launched the Joint Authorities Cash Strategy Group, bringing regulators together to ensure comprehensive oversight of the overall cash infrastructure. The government-established Payment Systems Regulator has powers to regulate LINK, the scheme that runs the UK’s largest ATM network. The Payment Systems Regulator is holding LINK to account over its commitment to protect the broad geographic spread of free-to-use ATMs in the UK.
Lord Naseby (Con)
I am grateful to my noble friend for that quite full Answer. I have had extensive representations on this from Which?, Age Concern, the Association of Convenience Stores and about half a dozen other companies. Is not the nub of the problem twofold? First, convenience stores and places such as garages have to pay business rates on through-the-wall ATMs; secondly, free use of ATMs is being withdrawn because of adverse changes in the ATM interchange fee. In this situation, will my noble friend undertake to make representations to the Chancellor on this aspect of business rates and ask the regulator to sort out the situation on the interchange fees so that the number of free ATMs does not continue to decline but is put back on a full basis to meet the needs of all our rural people in particular?
The Earl of Courtown
My Lords, I understand the concerns my noble friend has expressed. At the moment there are 45,000 free-to-use ATMs, which represent 75% of ATMs. This is 13% higher than it was a decade ago, although I am aware there has been a fall during that period. I will draw his comments on business rates to the attention of my colleagues in the department.
Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Lab)
My Lords, the decline in access to free cash machines, especially in poorer and rural areas, is a significant problem, but in one report I read, a consumer said, “There’s no point in having cash if you can’t use it in the shops.” Will the Government work with our financial institutions and the regulator to address the rising costs of handling and banking cash that lead local retailers to go cashless and work to keep a cash infrastructure for the millions of people who will be left behind without one?
The Earl of Courtown
My Lords, the noble Baroness brings up access to cash. As she will be aware, there was an independent review chaired by Natalie Ceeney, which was a valued contribution to the debate. Her Majesty’s Government are considering its recommendations. The review also highlighted that it is not just about ATMs, as the noble Baroness said, but about access to cash. Her Majesty’s Government support further industry collaboration to promote alternatives such as cashback and cash collection and delivery services.
Lord Sharkey (LD)
My Lords, yesterday the CEO of LINK said in the Times:
“Most parts of the country are just not ready to go cashless and Link is committed to ensuring that every high street has free cash access via ATMs and post offices.”
Can the Minister say how many high streets still do not have free access to cash? LINK has also promised to pay to install free ATMs where they are needed. How many free machines has it paid for and installed to date?
The Earl of Courtown
My Lords, the noble Lord brings up the £5 million fund provided by LINK and its members to fund requests for new ATMs in local areas with poor access to cash. This is an incredibly popular scheme, and there have been a number of successful applications. I do not know the exact numbers that have been installed so far under this scheme, but I will write to him on that issue.
The Lord Bishop of Southwark
My Lords, the Minister will be aware that the research last autumn by Which? indicated that nearly a quarter of people in the poorest areas use only cash. Will he consider a minimum service guarantee for free cash machines to stem this growing injustice?
The Earl of Courtown
My Lords, the right reverend Prelate mentions access to cash in rural and more deprived areas. At the moment, 73% of free-to-use ATMs are within 300 metres of the next one, and 94% are within one kilometre. The right reverend Prelate also talked about minimum standards. I do not have that information to hand at present but I will ensure that he receives it.
Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)
My Lords, should not the Chancellor also be looking at this issue? Is it not quite clear that small shops are having the greatest difficulty in sustaining their ATMs, yet the bigger shops can of course bear the cost? Should not the Chancellor look at business rates, which are causing such a problem for shops in this country? That problem merely exacerbates a quite unacceptable situation.
The Earl of Courtown
The noble Lord brings up business rates, as did my noble friend. As I said, I will draw this to the attention of the department. He also brings up the subject of whether we will legislate in any way to protect access to cash. The Government will consider carefully whether legislation is required. However, steps can be taken to safeguard access to cash, even without making changes to the law.
Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)
My Lords, Knaresborough in North Yorkshire used to have six banks. It is now to have no banks, and each time a bank moves, the cash machine is removed from that location. Can my noble friend speak to the banks and try to make sure that in future, when banks close in vital areas of that kind, some form of ATM or cash removal facility is nevertheless maintained by those organisations? We are relying on retailers such as the Co-op, with its garages, to provide facilities which ought still to be provided by the banks that are leaving.
The Earl of Courtown
My Lords, of course, bank branch closures are a commercial decision for banks. However, the Access to Banking Standard commits banks to inform customers of closures and options for continued access to banking services. The Lloyds Banking Group has announced that it will close 56 branches, but all are within half a mile of a post office, and 53 branches are also within 0.3 miles of a post office. That links in with the banking framework agreement with the Post Office, which allows 95% of business customers and 99% of personal banking customers to carry out everyday banking services at the 11,500 post offices across the country.
Data Science: Government Processes
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to consult Parliament on proposals to improve the use of data science in government processes.
Earl Howe (Con)
My Lords, as set out in their manifesto, the Government are committed to improving the use of data, data science and evidence in the process of government. The use of data science across government to help improve public service delivery is underpinned by strong regulatory frameworks, which can be found on GOV.UK. We have engaged with the Science and Technology Committee and the Communications and Digital Committee, and will continue to do so.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, the noble Earl will be aware from the Science and Technology Committee report of a feeling that the Government have lost momentum since 2015 in the transition to digital government. Is he aware that many of us welcome an active role in making government more digital, but we are conscious that there is a naturally suspicious public out there? The public are particularly suspicious of the sharing of their data with the private sector, and the Government therefore need to carry Parliament and the public with them by being as open as possible. If data science is pushed by the Government from No. 10, with people who used to work on data mining for Vote Leave, under the manically enthusiastic leadership of Dominic Cummings, we are unlikely to get to where we need to.
Earl Howe
My Lords, public trust goes to the heart of the Government’s work on data science. People need to know that data is being used wholly ethically by government. They can be reassured on that score by the data ethics framework, which the public sector has to abide by, by the work of the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, which advises government on how innovation in AI and data science can be deployed safely and ethically and, of course, by legislation, which protects personal data and people’s privacy.
Lord Maxton (Lab)
My Lords, is not the answer—to start with, anyway—a compulsory smart ID card for everybody in this country?
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, I understand that we have been promised a national data strategy at some point. What level of scrutiny will Parliament have over that strategy and will it be able to amend and improve it?
Earl Howe
Transparency is very important to DCMS, which is leading the work on the national data strategy. Last June, it published a call for evidence. It also conducted more than 20 round tables, structured around the three themes it had identified—people, the economy and government—with around 250 organisations. That first phase focused on engaging with academics, civil society and small and medium-sized enterprises, but DCMS also intends to hold vision workshops to include the public in discussions of what the strategy should include. I do not doubt that parliamentarians will be included.
Baroness Browning (Con)
I assure my noble friend that I do not wish to reopen the identity cards debate, other than to say that, although I voted against them in another place some years ago, I have changed my mind, for this reason. Data is captured at all times, but one of the main reasons given against ID cards last time was that the individual would not have access to the data captured on their own card, whereas third parties, including government, would. Given developments in recent years in the way that many bodies, including government, capture our data—often willingly given by the individual—could we not revisit it to look at what the science has now provided to ensure that individuals are able to access all data captured on their card? That, I think, might change a few minds.
Earl Howe
My noble friend raises some important points of principle, which I think can be addressed other than by issuing a compulsory ID card. We are working hard to ensure that data held on individuals is easily accessible by them and that, more widely, individuals can more easily navigate government websites and be assured that their personal data is not being compromised.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, we welcome the Tory manifesto saying, as we just heard, “We will improve the use of data and evidence in the process of government.” Can the Minister explain how the biggest IT project affecting the public, universal credit, was launched despite all the evidence from my noble friends Lady Drake and Lady Sherlock and our late colleague Baroness Hollis that this would not work because of its timescale and complexity? That was done against the evidence. As we have heard and will discuss further, UC is further delayed until 2024. What comfort can the Minister give that the Government can be trusted with our personal data to set up a system that will work for those most vulnerable in society?
Earl Howe
I recognise the noble Baroness’s concern on universal credit. It is slightly wide of the Question on which I have been briefed; nevertheless, her points are well made. She asks how people can trust the system. The Government take the privacy of citizens’ data extremely seriously. The Government Digital Service is proceeding with work that takes into account both the data protection regime and other guidance, such as the Government’s data ethics framework. I want to be absolutely clear that the work being undertaken by the GDS removes personal data before any analysis takes place. It is not about profiling citizens; it is about enabling citizens to have better and easier access to government online systems.
East Africa: Locusts
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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The Lord Bishop of St Albans
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of (1) food security, and (2) food scarcity, in areas affected by locusts in East Africa.
The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Baroness Sugg) (Con)
My Lords, we are deeply concerned about the devastating locust outbreak in east Africa. It is destroying crops, livelihoods and essential food supplies. Millions of people already face food insecurity and acute malnutrition caused by humanitarian disasters in the region, and more are displaced by conflict. An outbreak exacerbates these challenges. Anticipatory action is needed to reduce the risks to the upcoming agricultural seasons; UK aid is supporting the UN in controlling the outbreak. We are monitoring the situation closely and stand ready to help further.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans
I thank the noble Baroness for her reply. It is perhaps appropriate that a Member on these Benches is raising issues about plagues of locusts, but a humanitarian crisis is unravelling in front of us. In some parts of Ethiopia, 90% of the crops have already gone and 20 million people face no food. Last Thursday, the UN said that we need $76 million now to begin to address the problems. What are Her Majesty’s Government doing to ensure immediate food aid if it is required and, in the longer term, that there is seed for next year’s crops so that people have security?
Baroness Sugg
I thank the right reverend Prelate for highlighting this issue and the outbreak in his Question. He is quite right to explain its devastating impact. He asked about DfID’s work. Our existing humanitarian development programme works in the region to address food insecurity and poverty challenges. We are ready to flex in response to this crisis. He also spoke about the $76 million appeal to curb the spread of desert locusts. There is still a gap of around £40 million in that fund despite recent contributions from Germany, ECHO and others. UK aid is helping to tackle the outbreak through our funding for the UN Central Emergency Response Fund, but we are considering the case for additional support.
Viscount Ridley (Con)
Will my noble friend agree to look into reports that one of the reasons for the re-emergence of massive locust plagues in this part of the world is that, under the banner of agroecology, agencies and non-governmental organisations have increasingly advised farmers not to use pesticides when that is a sensible use of technology?
Baroness Sugg
My Lords, we are clear that the best way to deal with this outbreak is through pesticides. The primary method of controlling the swarms is through vehicle-mounted and aerial sprayers. That is what we will continue to advise and what the FAO, which is leading on the response, recommends as the best option.
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)
My Lords, I readily recognise the superior intelligence of the right reverend Prelates in the matter of locusts and plagues. I cannot help thinking of all that is happening to combat the coronavirus epidemic, which has activated responses from all the continents of the earth, and contrasting that with foreseeable and regular outbreaks of the pestilence that we have recently seen television shots of—whatever we ascribe as the causes of all this. Many of us have lived in countries where that kind of thing happens and therefore cannot see them other than from the perspective of the people affected. When will the world wake up to the need to address, on behalf of the voiceless, as much of its energy and heartwarming sympathy to areas like this as it does to the other instance—without wanting to simplify or compare them in an inappropriate way? Is it not time for our Government, speaking perhaps for the global community, to increase levels of awareness and response?
Baroness Sugg
My Lords, we have locust swarms on a yearly basis, but this is a larger swarm than has been seen in decades. With the swarm increasing twentyfold over each breeding season and with planting activities for crops taking place, there is a need to undertake effective control measures right now. I certainly agree with the noble Lord that we need to address the global challenges we face, and I point him towards the UK hosting COP 26, which will be a great opportunity for the UK to show our world-leading efforts to get to net zero by 2050 and to address the impacts of climate change.
Lord Chidgey (LD)
My Lords, the UN FAO states that Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya are dealing with desert locust swarms of unprecedented size and destructive potential. They threaten to engulf the whole east African region, with South Sudan and Uganda also at risk. Will the Government investigate the potential linkage of the massive growth of desert locust swarms to unusual climate change conditions? Will they also vigorously support the UN programmes of both pest control and livelihood protection, with the added help of advanced drone technology where needed?
Baroness Sugg
My Lords, we will absolutely support the response to this. One of the main ways in which we are dealing with it is by helping with surveillance—making sure that through DfID support we look at the regional climate so that we can predict these things better. We act particularly through control methods. I mentioned the UN FAO through CERF, which helps with the spraying of pesticides; the UK is the highest donor. I agree completely with the noble Lord that we have to ensure that our humanitarian programmes in the region are sufficiently flexible. We have in place significant programmes there with partners such as the World Food Programme and UNICEF, which are ready to flex and respond to the outbreak.
Automated Facial Recognition Technology (Moratorium and Review) Bill [HL]
Tuesday 4th February 2020
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children (Legal Advice and Appeals) Bill [HL]
Tuesday 4th February 2020
(4 years, 10 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Period Products (Free Provision) Bill [HL]
Tuesday 4th February 2020
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Age of Criminal Responsibility Bill [HL]
Tuesday 4th February 2020
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Finance Committee
The Senior Deputy Speaker
That Baroness Noakes be appointed a member of the Select Committee, in place of Lord Cope of Berkeley.
Pension Schemes Bill [HL]
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Stedman-Scott
That it be an instruction to the Grand Committee to which the Pension Schemes Bill [HL] has been committed that they consider the bill in the following order:
Clauses 1 to 6; Schedule 1; Clauses 52 to 57; Schedule 4; Clauses 7 to 17; Clauses 58 to 68; Clauses 18 to 23; Clauses 69 to 74; Clauses 24 and 25; Clauses 75 and 76; Clauses 26 to 30; Clauses 77 to 81; Clauses 31 to 44; Schedule 2; Clause 45; Clauses 82 to 95; Schedule 5; Clause 96; Clause 46; Clause 97; Clause 47; Clause 98; Clause 48; Schedule 3; Clause 99; Schedule 6; Clauses 49 to 51; Clauses 100 to 116; Schedule 7; Clause 117; Schedule 8; Clauses 118 to 120; Schedule 9; Clauses 121 to 123; Schedule 10; Clauses 124 to 128; Schedule 11; Clauses 129 to 131; Title.
Universal Credit
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Stedman-Scott) (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat in the form of a Statement the Answer given to an Urgent Question in another place on the extension to the universal credit implementation date. The Statement is as follows:
“Mr Speaker, the Secretary of State and I informed Parliament yesterday that we have revisited our forecast for universal credit and are extending its completion date to 2024. Our planning for universal credit relies on assumptions about the number of people whose circumstances will change each day, thereby naturally migrating. Our forecasts to date have relied on 50,000 households experiencing a change in circumstances each month. Based on this, we had predicted that the process of natural migration across to universal credit would be completed by December 2023.
However, the information collected on changes to people’s circumstances suggests that natural migration is happening less frequently than we expected. This suggests broad stability in people’s lives and can be attributed to a number of reasons, including the robustness of the labour market. We now estimate that 900,000 fewer households will naturally migrate between now and December 2023 than we had forecast. Given that we expect to manage around 100,000 households to universal credit each month, it necessarily follows that if we are to protect the interests of claimants and move them to universal credit safely, it will take a further nine months to complete the implementation of universal credit.
I can assure colleagues that claimants will not lose money from their universal credit award due to this forecasting change. We will always put the best interests of our claimants first and, as we move into the managed migration phase, protecting the vulnerable will be our utmost concern.”
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating that Answer. Universal credit should have been rolled out by April 2017. It will now be September 2024—seven and a half years late. There have been many delays. After each one, Ministers normally get up and say something like: “We’d rather be right than on time.” At this stage, I would settle for either. We are not very close to either of these happening.
We were told in the Statement and the noble Baroness’s letter that the reason for the delay this time was that fewer people had had a change in their circumstances that meant they moved across to universal credit early rather than waiting for their benefits to be shut down. That was due to good news, like the labour market. Alongside the official Statement, yesterday the BBC—which is filming in DWP for a series on universal credit—filmed the director-general in charge of universal credit, who said this:
“We’ve got a lot of anecdotal evidence of people being scared to come to universal credit.”
This is another way of thinking about the delay.
People are scared, but in the Commons today the Minister blamed the Opposition for scaremongering, which I find disappointing. I am relieved to be in the House where I know the Minister will not try out a line like that. People are scared because universal credit is full of problems. They are especially scared because you wait five weeks for your first payment. You can get an advance, but that is just debt that gets taken off your universal credit week by week. People can only live on it as it is, so they are scared of that as well. I have only one question for the Minister: will the Government please abolish the five-week wait in universal credit once and for all?
Baroness Stedman-Scott
My Lords, the five-week wait is a cause for concern for many people; I am not denying that at all. I have been out on visits and spoken to various work coaches and Jobcentre Plus staff, and I am assured that if people come with the right paperwork—I accept that some do not—and need an advance there and then, they will get it. I accept that it has to be paid back. At the moment, many people are raising the five-week wait. I hope all noble Lords believe that we are listening. We are aware of the vulnerability of the client group, but our work coaches are doing a great job. We are listening and hearing.
Baroness Janke (LD)
My Lords, I do not know whether Ministers are aware, but Macmillan Cancer Support has observed that the five-week wait is preventing cancer patients taking up their entitlement to universal credit. It is not that they would not have a loan—of course they would—but, as a result of their circumstances, they do not have the savings and resources to pay the money back when they have to. People lose a lot of money when they have cancer. They would like to know what the Government will do to look into the causes of this delay, what they will do to look into the five-week wait, what evidence they will provide us of the need for it, and what analysis has been done on the rollout of the universal credit managed migration period altogether. I would be grateful for her answers.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
I accept that people with cancer have enough on their minds without having fiscal worries. If the noble Baroness could give me the details of someone at Macmillan, the best I can do is invite them to the department to have a full and frank discussion about the issues. We will incorporate the remaining questions that she raised. All I can say again and again is that the department is reviewing these matters daily. I know that it cannot come quick enough for people, but we are listening and really researching the points the noble Baroness made, which are valid.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My noble friend said that those seeking a loan have to bring the appropriate papers. Would my noble friend be good enough to say what those papers are?
Baroness Stedman-Scott
I am not able to give my noble friend a list off the top of my head but I am very happy to write to him. If people do not have the paperwork, they are not just sent away to get it—the work coaches actively try to help them to get it.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister’s helpful letter to Peers ends by saying that the Government have always said they will proceed with each new phase of universal credit only when it is safe to do so. Civil society organisations working with claimants are clear that it is not safe to proceed further with natural migration because of the recurring problems with it and with universal credit itself, which might explain reports that many people are scared to move to UC. Will the Minister, who I know does listen—I am grateful to her for listening to me this morning—take the message back to the department that it should be using this delay constructively to pause, address these problems and, if necessary, delay further in the best interests of claimants to get it right?
Baroness Stedman-Scott
The noble Baroness knows that I will certainly take that point back to the department. However, I would like to share something with noble Lords. I have been making lots of visits and meeting lots of clients, not just work coaches. We know there are issues with resolving universal credit. That is why we are extending the period, because we are not in the business of going full blast ahead with something that will go wrong and make life more difficult for people. However, one of the things that comes up time and again—I promised that I would say this to noble Lords when I got the chance, but I did not realise that I would get it so quickly—is that work coaches are saying to us that, while there are issues, a lot is going right with universal credit. It is making a difference to people’s lives and getting them into work, it is personal and one to one, and it is really doing well, so please can you help by trying to balance the observations made about universal credit? As to a further delay—I never thought I would get that today—it is best to say that I am unable to commit to one and I jolly well hope that it will not be necessary.
The Lord Bishop of Durham
My Lords, can we honour the DWP staff for allowing the BBC in? Many of us look forward to seeing what comes out. They have been very brave; many departments do not do that. I understand that the Minister does listen but some of these things have now been going on since the system’s very inception. Yes, many people at food banks and people who talk locally say that the work coaches are doing a wonderful job. That is great, but it is the most vulnerable who are suffering. Could we please listen to their voice and make some changes very rapidly?
Baroness Stedman-Scott
I can give a commitment that we are listening to the most vulnerable. We will make changes as soon as we can, once they have been agreed. There is nothing in it to delay things or to make life worse for people. I certainly do not want to be a Minister who is known for that.
On food banks, I have no doubt, and the previous Secretary of State confirmed it, that usage of food banks was up due in part to universal credit. I do not run away from that point. Last Thursday I sat down in a food bank in Hastings called The Pantry. I will arrange it for any noble Lord who wishes to go there, because it is a most dignified example of a food bank. I asked them: “Why do people use it?” Relationships break down, or people’s priority is to fund their addiction. When their money comes through from universal credit, they are at the cashpoint at 1 am or 2 am to get the next fix or the next drink. One person left a job on a Friday, went to a new job on Monday and by Monday evening it was all over. He found himself in a very difficult position. All credit to the food banks for what they do, but please, do not lay the increase completely at the door of universal credit.
Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)
My Lords, are we collecting any central statistics on the increasing rent arrears for some people on universal credit? There is a real challenge, particularly for people in London, where rents are high in relation to universal credit. We are very concerned that some people are going without food in order to pay their rent.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
I thank the noble Baroness for raising what is another very valid point. Rent arrears is a problem, but the majority of arrears were incurred with the legacy benefits. It is not just universal credit. I am not saying that there is not a contribution, but 12% of social-rented households are on universal credit. It cannot be laid entirely at that door, but the issue is live, and we are on it.
Media and Lobby Briefings
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Earl Howe (Con)
My Lords, I shall now repeat in the form of a Statement an Answer given earlier today by my honourable friend the Minister for the Constitution to an Urgent Question in another place on allegations of the barring of journalists from Civil Service media briefings. The Statement is as follows:
“Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to clarify this situation. This Government are committed to being open in their dealings with the press and to the principles of media freedom, and the events of yesterday were a very good example of this. The Prime Minister delivered a speech on the future of the UK-EU relationship. He also took extensive questions from journalists. Following this, there was a further briefing for journalists by the Prime Minister’s official spokes- person. This was made available to any journalist who wanted it directly after the speech and was all on the record.
Lobby briefings typically take place twice a day. All those with a Press Gallery pass are able to attend these briefings and to question the Prime Minister’s official spokesperson however they wish. No journalists are barred from official media briefings hosted by the Prime Minister’s official spokesperson. It is entirely standard practice for the Government to host additional, technical, specialist briefings, as was the case yesterday. This particular briefing which the media have reported on was an additional, smaller meeting, due to be held by a special adviser, in order to improve the understanding of the Government’s negotiating aims for the future relationship.”
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)
My Lords, I am amazed at the straight face the Minister kept throughout that Answer. I had little time to prepare myself to interrogate him and limited my research to visiting the Library. It is clear from the coverage in today’s press that a number of senior journalists for very important newspapers take a slightly different view from that expressed a minute ago by the noble Earl, who was repeating the Answer given in the other place. I cannot believe that the disparity between the way in which it was reported in the newspapers and the Statement that this Government are
“committed to being open in its dealings with the press and to the principles of media freedom”
can be easily reconciled. I am trying to avoid my suspicion of paranoia on the part of the Prime Minister by being myself paranoid. Yet I wonder on the basis of yesterday’s incident, which exemplifies a number of other well-known and well-reported incidents, whether we should not be a little more frank than the reply given in this particular Statement.
Earl Howe
My Lords, I have to say to the noble Lord and your Lordships that, having myself been briefed earlier today, it became clear to me that a certain amount of disingenuousness has entered the public debate on this matter and in some of the press reporting. Briefings to selected journalists have been common practice across government for many years. I know that myself from my time in the Ministry of Defence. We had regular selected briefings for journalists. The briefing in Downing Street yesterday that has been covered in the press was explicitly billed as one such selected briefing, and I understand that invitations were issued to between five and 10 journalists. There should have been no misunderstanding about that. There is therefore nothing unusual in briefings for selected journalists.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I declare an interest as the mother of a journalist. Will the noble Earl take back to No. 10 the fact that this House clearly did not believe that Statement? Both sides of the Chamber were laughing at the Statement that has just been given to us. Will he take back the message that, in a democracy, a free press does not have to express loyalty to the Government? In fact, it is their job to critique it.
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury (LD)
My Lords, Downing Street’s director of communications, Lee Cain, said:
“We are welcome to brief whoever we want whenever we want”.
But does the noble Earl not agree that this democratically elected Government are not welcome to ban whatever news outlet or journalist they want whenever they want? What were the criteria for this smaller meeting and where was the transparency? When does a smaller meeting shrink so much that it becomes Dominic Cummings or some other special adviser on his or her own?
Earl Howe
As I said, my Lords, this was a technical and specialist briefing for selected journalists. There is an opportunity, twice a day, for anyone with a Press Gallery pass to attend lobby briefings and no journalists are barred. There was a lobby briefing yesterday afternoon when journalists had yet another opportunity to ask questions on the UK-EU relationship, which the Prime Minister had been addressing earlier in the day, or indeed to ask questions on any other topic. I am afraid that I cannot identify with the slant that the noble Baroness has put on this matter.
Viscount Hailsham
My Lords, I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter. Unfortunately, I am deaf in one ear and I do not always spot where people are speaking from. I hope that she will forgive me.
I must ask my noble friend: if the facts were so clear and in accordance with precedent, why did several respectable journalists from respectable organisations feel they had to leave as a protest?
Baroness Andrews (Lab)
My Lords, we are lucky in this House to have a Minister who has the trust of the House, but we are in a situation where trust and transparency are at grave peril for all manner of different reasons, and not just in this country. It behoves the Government at this time to act in as trustworthy and transparent a manner as possible. In the interests of transparency, can the Minister provide a list of those journalists who were invited? Can he tell us whether they were indeed technical and specialist journalists? I would have thought that, if one is doing a technical and specialist briefing, it is more important to get the generalists inside the circle to understand these complex matters. Does he have a list, or did No. 10 compile a list, of people who were not invited and for what reason?
Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)
My Lords, if the Government are committed to freedom of the press, why are government Ministers boycotting the “Today” programme?
Earl Howe
My Lords, there is no boycott of the “Today” programme. It is entirely up to Ministers what programmes they choose to appear on. The “Today” programme does not have a constitutional right for Ministers to appear on it. Government Ministers have appeared on a range of national and regional programmes only this weekend and, indeed, yesterday and today. We have to remember that every government department has communication teams who communicate the work of the Government and Ministers very regularly indeed.
Baroness Wheatcroft (Non-Afl)
My Lords, can the Minister tell the House who decided who should be included in the briefing? It seems that, increasingly, decisions in No. 10 are taken by a very limited number of individuals. I wonder whether on this particular occasion it was the man who wants to recruit weirdos or the man who used to be employed to dress as chicken and harass former Prime Ministers.
Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, may I gently point out to the noble Earl that I do not think this was just a normal selective briefing? My understanding is that one of the reasons that so many journalists were keen to go to this briefing is that, rather than being one of the Prime Minister’s unseen spokesmen, the person who was going to give the briefing was Mr David Frost, the chief negotiator with the European Union, hence the degree of interest.
Earl Howe
The noble Lord may be quite right. There probably was a lot of interest, but I say again that this briefing was to selected journalists. Other journalists had every opportunity yesterday at Greenwich and after the Prime Minister’s speech to ask any question they liked through the lobby process.
Lord Puttnam (Lab)
My Lords, can the Minister help me with at least this? When I first came to this Chamber, I was taught that the key quality of this House was to spot the slippery slope when it saw it. That has been absolutely true of the 20 years I have been here. Is it reasonable for this House to point out the slippery slope when it becomes obvious?
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, to return to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, about the absence of Ministers on the “Today” programme, I think the “Today” programme has improved enormously. Without having a large number of interviewers interrupting Ministers all the time, it is now much better to listen to.
Extradition (Provisional Arrest) Bill [HL]
Tuesday 4th February 2020
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, I start by making clear what this Bill does not do. It does not change our extradition process or any of the existing safeguards in extradition proceedings. It does not make it more or less likely that a person will be extradited. It does not in any way affect the current judicial oversight of the extradition process or the character of the court proceedings themselves. Nor is it concerned with the UK’s extradition relationships with other countries or the recent case of Anne Sacoolas. It is concerned only with how suspects enter the court system. The only thing that this Bill changes is when and how a fugitive wanted for a serious offence by a trusted country is brought before the UK court.
Currently, when UK police have a chance encounter with a suspect who is wanted by a non-EU country, they cannot arrest them. The officer is required to walk away and obtain a warrant from a judge, only to try to relocate that individual later to make the necessary arrest. This means that fugitives known to the police to be wanted for serious offences remain free on our streets to abscond or offend. In 2017, an individual wanted by one of the countries in the scope of the Bill, for the rape of a child, was identified at a routine traffic stop. Without the power to arrest, the police had no power to detain him then and there. That individual is still at large.
This Bill will change that. It will ensure that fugitives identified by the police or at the UK border can be arrested immediately. They can be taken off our streets and brought before a judge within 24 hours. This ability for the police to arrest these fugitives as soon as they are encountered will prevent them escaping and evading justice or harming the UK public. The usual way in which police officers become aware of an international fugitive is the circulation of alerts through Interpol channels. Interpol alerts from all countries are now routinely available to UK police and Border Force officers. This circulation of Interpol alerts has created a situation whereby a police or Border Force officer might encounter an individual whom they can see, by performing a simple database check, is wanted for a serious offence by another country. These front-line officers need the power to act immediately on this information to keep our citizens safe.
Many countries, including most EU member states, afford their police the power of immediate arrest on the basis of Interpol alerts. The Bill will create a limited version of that power, with appropriate safeguards. It will apply only to alerts from countries that do not abuse Interpol systems, that respect the international rules-based system and that have criminal justice systems we trust; and only to alerts relating to sufficiently serious offences.
The need for this immediate arrest power is clear. Noble Lords will no doubt be aware that the European arrest warrant carries an immediate power of arrest for individuals wanted by EU member states. Last year, over 60% of the EAW arrests made by the Metropolitan Police were the result of a chance encounter. Without a similar immediate power of arrest for people wanted by non-EU countries, known fugitives walk free. I will give noble Lords a further example. In 2016, UK authorities were alerted that a fugitive wanted by a country in the scope of this Bill, for crimes involving sexual offences with a minor, had entered the UK. He could not be arrested there and then, although the police did obtain a warrant. However, that suspect was not arrested until he was re-encountered in 2019. For those three years he was at large on our streets. We cannot allow that situation to continue.
I turn to the provisions in the Bill. The Bill proposes a power for UK law enforcement officers to arrest an individual on the basis of an international arrest request, typically an Interpol alert, without a UK warrant having been issued first. The new power will apply only where the request has been issued by a specified country. These countries are ones in whose criminal justice systems and use of Interpol alerts we have a high level of confidence. Initially the power will apply to requests from the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Liechtenstein and Switzerland. It will also apply only where an individual is wanted for a sufficiently serious offence, one that would be a criminal offence in the UK and which could result in a custodial sentence of three or more years.
It is not front-line police officers who will have to decide whether an Interpol alert is from a specified country or for a sufficiently serious offence. The National Crime Agency receives Interpol requests and it will identify which alerts have been issued by a specified country and for a sufficiently serious offence. The NCA will then certify those alerts as carrying the power of immediate arrest. These certified alerts will be clearly distinguishable on the databases available to police officers and Border Force officers. Those officers will be able to tell which alerts relate to individuals who are eligible for arrest. This process will ensure that the power is used appropriately and as we intend it to be.
The arrested person must be brought before a judge within 24 hours of arrest. Thereafter, this legislation does not change any part of the subsequent extradition process. The safeguards that exist in extradition proceedings, set out under Part 2 of the Extradition Act, will continue to apply. For example, the person will not be extradited if doing so would breach their human rights, if the request is politically motivated or if they would be at risk of facing the death penalty.
Without this power, a potentially dangerous individual who is known to the police can remain at liberty on UK streets, able to offend or abscond. The new power will see people who are wanted for a serious crime by a trusted country, and who may be a danger to the public, off our streets as soon as they are encountered. We will continue to strengthen our security with like-minded security partners across the globe. In future, additional countries whose criminal justice systems and use of Interpol systems we trust can be specified within the legislation, if both Houses approve.
Our commitments to human rights protection and the rule of law remain unchanged. The arrested individual will be in front of a judge within 24 hours of arrest, and the existing safeguards afforded to each and every person before the UK courts for extradition will remain as now. We are not removing any of this judicial oversight from the extradition process; in fact, we are not making any changes at all to extradition law. We are making changes to police powers of arrest for international fugitives.
As a global leader in security, we want to make the best use of our overseas networks and international tools. The new power will enable us to do so. The Government are committed to doing all that we can to protect the public, and the Bill is directed to that end. I beg to move.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her explanation of the Bill. We understand its limited scope but she will understand that the subject of extradition is bound to tempt observations on the whole issue of extradition, not just on the narrow scope of the Bill. No doubt there will be some creative attempts, though not from me, to bring concerns within the scope of the rather cunningly narrow Long Title.
The big question for me, and the immediate one, is not just “why?” but “why now?” The Minister is clear that this has nothing to do with leaving the EU and the unavailability of the European arrest warrants but, frankly, given the timing of the Bill, that defies credibility. The game is given away by the letter from the Metropolitan Police, the National Police Chiefs’ Council, Counter Terrorism Policing and the National Crime Agency which the Government have prayed in aid for the need for the Bill. They start their letter to the Home Secretary of 6 January by saying that they are writing to highlight the operational gaps to which the Minister referred. They say:
“The risks in this area are not new, but have been brought into sharp focus as a consequence of our collective efforts to plan for the United Kingdom’s exit from the EU. The European Arrest Warrant enables an officer to arrest a wanted subject there and then.”
They go on to explain the process used when that is not available.
We will not oppose the Bill from these Benches but we will take opportunities to explore some of the issues it throws up and get some assurances on the record. However, I am afraid it will not be possible to avoid mention of our leaving the EU entirely. I wish we were considering the security and law-enforcement measures that will be needed in the absence of our EU membership as a package, because they are interconnected. However, some of them may be a way off.
The political declaration stated that the EU and the UK should
“establish a broad, comprehensive and balanced security partnership.”
Even without the reference to a balanced partnership, however, I would have expected reciprocity in the arrangements between the UK and each other state. In an extremely helpful briefing meeting yesterday, for which I thank the Minister and her officials, the Minister told us that the Government were not seeking reciprocity. Could she unpack what that means and explain why not? Could she tell us the position regarding Germany, whose constitution precludes the extradition of German nationals to a non-EU state? I understand that there are similar issues regarding Austria and Slovenia.
During the transition period, Article 185 of the withdrawal agreement allows any member state that has raised reasons related to fundamental principles of national law to refuse to surrender its nationals to the UK in response to a European arrest warrant. This is an issue for now, not the end of the implementation or transition period. The House would welcome being informed on this.
No two states are the same, so I would be grateful for a specific assurance on the following point; the Minister is aware that I will ask about this. Under the Bill, countries can be added to the schedule through a statutory instrument subject to the affirmative procedure. Of course, statutory instruments are not amendable, so it seems to us that it would be inappropriate for any SI to add more than a single country. It would not be possible for your Lordships to delete one country from a list presented in a statutory instrument, so I hope the Minister can confirm that there will be no bulk orders, if I may put it that way.
I shall make a wider point relating to EU states, but it is relevant to replacements for the EAW. As I said, states are not the same as one another. I recall evidence given to the Select Committee on Extradition Law, which sat in 2014, I think. I was a member and we may hear more from the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, who chaired it. We heard concerns about the treatment of prisoners in other states, for instance. The extradition power of arrest introduced by the Bill raises human rights issues, as well as political motivations. The courts have applied a human rights lens, including, for instance, on the condition of prisons in EU states.
The Minister mentioned the death penalty. It is a matter for the Secretary of State. There should be no extradition if the person
“could be, will be or has been sentenced to death for the offence”
unless the Secretary of State receives a written assurance, which he considers adequate, that the sentence of death will not be imposed, or that, if it is imposed, will not be carried out. That is in the 2003 Act. However, we have had a recent example, in quite a different context, of where death penalty assurances were not sought by the predecessor to the current Government—which I think of as the same Government.
There are ethical issues, too. Topically, is live facial recognition technology being used to find the subjects of extradition requests? Are the subjects of Interpol red notices on watch lists? The use and reliability of the technology are controversial.
Other noble Lords may refer to the United States and its criminal justice system. That is not a new issue, and it is very important—but I think I have made the general point.
When one thinks about safeguards, that is in part a question about holding to account and the governance of the arrangement. How will the designated authority, the NCA, be held to account? In particular, how will it demonstrate the steps taken before certifying a request? This is the triage process referred to in the impact assessment.
Finally—for today, at any rate—I will ask about consultation. What discussions have there been on the Bill with interested organisations—apart from the police, of course—and what consultation will there be as countries are added? We know that the police are keen to see this implemented and we understand the benefits. What is proposed by way of consultation when it comes to adding category 2 countries?
I am not surprised that this is one of the first Bills of the Session. It will have fitted the Government’s agenda well. As I said, we are persuaded that it is right to go ahead, and the police have explained that very clearly. But I will quote from an article by a solicitor, Rebecca Niblock, to which our ever-excellent Library has pointed us. She wrote:
“Whilst the impact assessment makes reference to the possibility of using the scheme for arrests which would have been EAW arrests but for Brexit, this is painted as an additional benefit, ancillary to the primary one. This seems, at best, disingenuous. Whilst speeding up the apprehension of six serious criminals a year is a laudable aim, a far graver concern is the immediate loss of the EAW scheme. Promoting the Bill as one which is primarily concerned with the problem of arrests from non-EU countries has the benefit of avoiding an emphasis on what will be lost when we leave the EU, whilst giving the appearance of enhancing law and order.”
We on these Benches heartily concur.
Lord Judge (CB)
My Lords, there was a beguiling opening to the debate from the Minister. “Really, this is no more than a new extradition-based arrest power.” And so it is. Of course, we all want criminals, whether they are British criminals or foreign visitors, to be arrested to face justice. The process envisaged in the Bill for this purpose is on the basis of a warrant issued in a foreign country, and then a certificate issued here by an authority designated by the Secretary of State. You may be arrested by a police constable or others—I need not go through them—without any pre-reference to any domestic judicial authority.
The reference to the domestic judicial authority occurs after you have been arrested. So the entire fairness of the process—its “trustworthiness”, to use a word that has been used in the papers—is dependent on the quality of the judicial processes available in the foreign country.
The six countries identified range from tiny Liechtenstein to probably the most powerful nation on earth, the United States of America. Speaking personally, I have no problem with them.
However, the Bill gives the Secretary of State wide powers. When did a modern Bill not give the Secretary of State wide powers? To the six territories currently listed there may be added 16 or 60, or every single country in the world, by the Secretary of State in making his or her decision. While I certainly excuse our present Minister from this, in the real world we are surely not going to be so naive as to believe that all sorts of motives—a possible trade deal, a plea just to be good friends with us, political beliefs, sympathy with a tyrannical regime—may not lead a Minister, at some time in the future, since elections bring different parties to power, to be subordinated to the single imperative that the only question which needs to be answered is that the country to be added to the list should have a credible, independent judicial system, so that when the request is received, it is based on an entirely—to use the word again—trustworthy system of administering justice. This is a huge power being given to the Minister.
Being modern legislation, that is not the end of it, of course. We have that monstrous ogre Henry VIII in full operation, tucked away in paragraph 29(2), by which regulations can be made which would
“amend, repeal or revoke any provision made by primary legislation”.
Then, we have the great advantage of the Bill going on to tell us what primary legislation is. I am sure we all know, but it tells us: every Act of this Parliament, the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales and the Northern Ireland Assembly. All this is to be done by secondary legislation. We have to be tough about extradition, as I said, and the Minister is entitled to point out, as no doubt she will, that all this will be based on affirmative resolution.
I should like to focus attention on paragraph 29(6), which contains a power to annul regulations. That is a welcome addition to any Bill. This Bill would be so much more impressive and hold the balance so much better if all regulation-making powers, including the use of Henry VIII regulation-making powers, were made subject to annulment on the basis of a resolution of either House of Parliament. That, I respectfully suggest, would be proper and sensible parliamentary control over the processes. It would also provide us, the nation and its citizens with a serious safeguard against an overambitious Executive or, as the years unfold, what may become an unduly craven one bowing to a foreign power. Will the Minister consider at least reflecting on the constraints currently imposed on the annulment process? Will she also assure us that in whichever form the annulment process is finally left, the use of it by this House will not be treated as a constitutional outrage?
Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)
My Lords, I am not happy to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, into his legal arguments. I will leave the Minister to deal with them because, having listened to the noble and learned Lord, I simply make this point: where are we coming from, where have we been, and to what extent were some of those arguments relevant under the European arrest warrant and current procedures as well?
I strongly support the Bill. My question is not “Why are we doing it now?” but “Why didn’t we do it some time ago?”. If the European arrest warrant made sense, what about all the other countries where we could have made this possible with, in the phrase used in the literature, a “trusted partner” whose legal systems and the fairness of whose operations we respect? If we look at the situation, although the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, saw frightfully sinister timing in it, if we should have done it before, let us get on with it now. Realising the problems that could arise if the European arrest warrant was not proceeded with begs the question: why do we not have a proper procedure to deal with this? The government briefing assumes that the European arrest warrant will continue, but if it does not, we need something to put in its place very quickly, or we will see a huge waste of police time as they chase after people whom they were not allowed to arrest when they saw them and whom they have to try to find again if they can.
I am afraid that I worry very much about the world in which we now live. This has become a much more dangerous world, in which the role of the police becomes ever more important for the maintenance of public confidence and security. Looking at yesterday’s Hansard, I was struck that three of the items that occupied the House’s business were, respectively: “Coronavirus”, “Streatham Incident” and “Terrorism: Contest Strategy”, all of them representing in their own different way extra problems and challenges for the police—a police force which I have to say was unfortunately reduced at a time when things seemed a little quieter but which now quite clearly faces serious challenges in making our country safe. The Contest strategy was yesterday discussed in the context of safety in public arenas. Opening the newspapers today, I noticed the argument about the COP—the climate change conference—in Glasgow, where a key issue seems to be the huge cost of policing it, with 200 world leaders turning up, and the amount of additional police responsibility involved. That is not in the original five-year police programme; it has suddenly been introduced and will put enormous extra responsibility on them.
Some noble Lords may have seen the headline in the Times today about the unfortunate and terrifying incident in Streatham, and it being the ambition of the perpetrator to murder an MP. What does that mean for extra police responsibility? I had to live for 20 years with police security. As threats and issues arise, I know the extraordinary manpower challenges they represent. We know that the gentleman in Streatham is not a lone eccentric; my understanding is that there are very many in our prisons who might be much like him and pose a similar threat.
Added to that challenge are the complaints of police failure to follow up all the incidents of internet fraud that there are—the number of people being hacked, the amount of money they are losing. They are completely new challenges that certainly did not exist 20 or 25 years ago, but they now put extra demands on the police.
Knife crime is prevalent. I listened with interest to the Question earlier on cash machines. I think that noble Lords are aware that cash machines are not the safest bits of equipment in the world. We need think only of the amount of crime and the number of attacks associated with them, and the difficulties they present for our police as they become more isolated. There is the growth of serious organised crime as well. I noticed in the government briefing on this that, in 2018, 352 arrests were made under the European arrest warrant, half of them after chance encounters. The other half—I make it about 180—came from following up known criminals or someone for whom there was an overseas request for extradition. There is little argument about the extra police hours represented by having to go off and get a warrant then going to look for the person again.
In this troubled world, with the mass migration of people and the growth of transnational crime, the capability gap has been clearly exposed. There is a shortage of manpower to deal with these issues. We should support anything which the Government or the legislature can do to make the police’s job more efficient and effective. This should not be without proper safeguards, including the phrase about dealing only with trusted partners, in whose handling we can have confidence. As I understand it, this does not make any difference to the standard extradition arrangements and the requirements that have to be observed. It deals merely with the specific issue of somebody being recognised as being wanted as an established criminal somewhere else and an extradition request existing for them. It would be quite unsatisfactory for the policeman to have to say: “Sorry, I can’t do anything about you now. I’m just popping off to see the judge. Make sure you’re here when I come back.”
Without belittling it, this is an important, sensible step. I hope to goodness that the European arrest warrant remains operational and well. If it does not, the Bill, when it becomes an Act, will be important in replacing it with an effective arrangement. I hope that, with our trusted partners, we can be a reliable ally in fighting crime, wherever it comes from.
Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)
My Lords, extradition has long been an area of our law in which I have been interested and concerned. For some years before my retirement in 2012, I appeared in most of the cases on this sometimes rather arcane topic. It was, therefore, a great pleasure and privilege to have served, alongside the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, on the Extradition Law Select Committee of this House chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, in 2014-15. Its report on extradition law and practice, the EAW and our relations with the States and around the world is a sound text on which to consider any future development of this topic.
I speak today not because I have any particularly penetrating questions for the Minister, nor to note particular areas of concern. Rather, in the same spirit as the noble Lord, Lord King—whom it is always a privilege to follow—I lend the Bill my full-hearted support. Various questions will, no doubt, arise in today’s debate. My noble and learned friend Lord Judge raised the ever-possible threat that regulation-making powers may be abused. We may need to reconsider aspects of those in Committee; they will then be considered on their merits. Meanwhile, the Government have my backing on a sound, sensible and essentially modest piece of legislation. Despite the Government’s disavowals, I rather hope that the Bill is designed, at least in part and prospect, to meet the threats that would arise if we were to lose the EAW scheme following Brexit.
Echoing what the noble Lord, Lord King, said, in the global and all too lawless world in which we now live, cross-border crime is an ever-growing threat to international peace and prosperity. It is difficult to overstate the importance of extradition in the armoury of the law-abiding majority. I emphasise that effective extradition is an imperative for both states in the process. It is essential for both the country where the criminality occurs and the country to which the perpetrators have escaped to bring the fugitive perpetrators of crime back to their home country to stand trial and, if they are convicted, be punished for their offence. If not, one finds oneself with sanctuaries and safe havens, and those countries to which fugitives flee and in which they feel safe will inevitably attract others to do likewise.
It was those sorts of considerations that led to the framework decision in Europe in 2002, the European arrest warrant and, in turn, the 2003 ruling Act in this country. It is all that which makes the prospective loss of the scheme deeply concerning to so many of us. Plainly, it is therefore sensible to do what we can now in advance to seek to combat the risk that one day we may lose the benefit of that scheme.
This modest Bill will not—and, alas, cannot—fill all the gaps in extradition law to which the loss of the European arrest warrant would give rise, but it can certainly help enormously in at least making this country a less appealing sanctuary for those who have committed crimes and are wanted to be extradited for their trial or to serve a punishment or sentence already imposed abroad. Its initial, immediate effect, as the Minister has explained, is entirely independent of the future fate of the European arrest warrant: to plug a gap which has now existed for some little time in the extradition process with regard to the arrest of those who flee from certain non-EU states. EU states are covered by Part 1 of the 2003 Act; it is the non-EU states that have concerned us hitherto. In the language of the governing 2003 legislation, it is for those fugitive, as explained, from six Part 2 countries: the other four in the Five Eyes agreement—New Zealand, Australia, Canada and America—and Switzerland and Lichtenstein.
As it is now, having initially spotted somebody you need to arrest, you need to obtain in advance a court warrant as a requirement to arrest and extradite them to one of those countries, with the delay and inevitable opportunity to reoffend or, more likely, go to ground to which that gives rise. Under this Bill it will instead be possible, with what I suggest are the ample safeguards put in place, to arrest initially with no court warrant, although of course you have to take that person to court in 24 hours. That then locks in all the safeguards which exist under the legislation.
If we are to lose the European arrest warrant scheme, this Bill cannot improve the prospects of our receiving here those who have fled from criminality in the UK and whom we want back here for trial. For that we will need to look elsewhere. It is my fervent hope that the Government are earnestly in the process of looking elsewhere against the risk that the EAW may all too soon disappear. I support the Bill.
Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)
My Lords, the objective of the Bill is worthy and uncontroversial: to enable persons wanted in approved countries to be brought more efficiently into extradition proceedings, so as to reduce the prospect of absconding or further offending while they are in the UK. I entirely accept that, as the Minister said, it does not diminish the safeguards in the extradition proceedings themselves. However, the chosen mechanism is a new power of arrest without warrant. That is sufficiently unusual to require a little more reassurance than appears in the Explanatory Notes, helpful though they are, and I would be grateful if the Minister would comment now, or at any rate before Committee, on six gentle questions on this short Bill.
First, could the Minister explain why the existing powers of urgent arrest under Sections 73 and 74 of the Extradition Act 2003 before an extradition request has been submitted or certified are not considered sufficient? There may be a good reason but it needs to be made known. My understanding is that a request from the issuing state for the accused’s provisional arrest can already be the subject of a provisional warrant application by the CPS to the court—an application which, in urgent cases, can be made out of hours to the relevant duty judge, if necessary by email.
Secondly, does the Minister accept that the new procedure will itself take time? The NCA, as designated authority under the Bill, will have to review any extradition request and decide whether to certify it as creating a provisional arrest power. That may be a substantial exercise, given the need not to interfere arbitrarily with the rights of extradition subjects, even for 24 hours, the well-documented abuses of Interpol red notices, and the possibility that the list of category 2 territories may be substantially expanded in the future—to which I will return.
Thirdly, and staying on that subject, can the Minister tell us more about the nature of the triage process that the designated authority will conduct? In particular, will it be part of the NCA’s function to verify that extradition requests comply with the human rights requirements under Interpol’s constitution, and with any procedural or human rights requirements under the US-UK extradition treaty or its equivalents? Finally, the impact assessment states that the new policy is
“expected to result in 6 individuals entering”
the criminal justice system
“more quickly than would otherwise have been the case.”
It seems pretty plain that this Act of Parliament has not been constructed just for those six people, whoever they may turn out to be, and that the list of specified category 2 territories is likely to be significantly expanded.
Therefore, my fourth question is: the Minister spoke of trust, but what precisely are the criteria that will be applied by Ministers in determining to designate a new category 2 territory for new Schedule A1, and, in view of the potential for abuse identified by the noble and learned Lord, Judge, why are they not set out explicitly in the Bill? I remind your Lordships that category 2 territories include the likes of Russia, Turkey and Zimbabwe.
My fifth question: is it envisaged, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, thought, that the member states of the European Union, or some of them, will find their place in the schedule?
My sixth question: will reciprocal powers to those in the Bill be sought from the EU in negotiations for whatever will replace the European arrest warrant and, more broadly, can the Minister give any further indication of the type of replacement to which we aspire? Are we aiming to adapt the European arrest warrant itself, or the Norway-Iceland agreement with the EU, or are we looking for something of a different nature?
As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, just said, many of us would greatly regret the loss of the European arrest warrant, which, since its political awakening in the weeks after 9/11, has exemplified both the effort required for meaningful co-operation in Europe and the enormous benefits to be derived from it. We can be particularly grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, who will follow me, for her tireless work on improving it over the years.
Forebodings that any replacement will be inferior have already been borne out by the EU’s declaration of 31 January that Germany, Austria and Slovenia will not surrender their own nationals to the UK, even during the transition period. But Brexit has happened, its consequences must be faced, and we all share the same objective of ensuring that the best possible alternative is negotiated. I hope that the Minister will at least be able to tell us what we are aiming for.
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, there is a technical problem with the clocks. We have moved to using the old-fashioned clocks, which we believe are still working. An engineer has been called and we hope to resolve the problem shortly.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
So I have not already been speaking for 13 minutes.
The justification for the Bill rests on the claim that there is a gap in law enforcement capability which requires primary legislation to create the power for UK police to arrest immediately if an individual is wanted by a trusted partner. We were told in a briefing session yesterday that there are possibly 20 to 30 persons at any one time from across the world in a police “wanted pot”, but that does not equate to the number of cases where police actually come into contact with someone—perhaps through a stop due to a traffic offence—discover that the person in front of them is wanted for a serious offence and fear that they may abscond before a judge’s warrant can be obtained unless arrested on the spot.
The impact assessment states that the policy is expected to result in six individuals entering the criminal justice system more quickly than would otherwise be the case. As the assessment period is 10 years, this is less than one person a year. In her speech, the Minister gave one example from 2016. It is important to get clear the real necessity for the Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, mentioned, the provisional arrest powers under Sections 73 and 74 of the Extradition Act 2003 already adequately cover urgent arrests before a full extradition request is submitted from a category 2 territory, with the CPS able to request a provisional warrant from the court which can be made urgently out of hours.
In addition, the impression conveyed that the Bill will give an instantaneous power of arrest once a warrant is issued in a designated Part 2 country is not true. The warrant would still have to go through a review and certification process at the National Crime Agency and there would be a triage process to ensure that only alerts which conform to legislative intention are certified. Perhaps the Minister can confirm that all those three steps—triage, review and certification—will have to take place. Can she also confirm that the NCA would be able to filter out cases where it has reason to believe that one of the statutory bars to extradition, such as the human rights bar, will apply, and that a victim of a politically motivated request would be able to provide the NCA with advance notification why it should not be certified? Will the NCA also ensure that any requests comply with the human rights requirements under Interpol’s constitution and with any procedural or human rights requirements under the US-UK extradition treaty?
While, if all those filter mechanisms apply, it would provide some reassurance, it would also mean that the new process was not necessarily very speedy. It would require careful scrutiny, not an instant, heat-of-the-moment decision after a person is identified entering the country. While that is good from the point of view of the care to be taken in the process, it means that the new power is unlikely to save time, as well as applying only to a handful of people, which makes the power, as justified by the Minister, largely otiose. The new power permits someone to be arrested and their liberty restricted without judicial oversight—a potential interference with Article 5 of the ECHR. The justification is pretty vague. Bypassing the judicial warrant is premised in the impact assessment only on the rather vague aspiration of
“reducing the opportunity for the subject to escape and potentially commit further crime, which may lead to an economic and social impact upon society”,
but:
“It is not possible to give a precise estimate of the impact of the legislation as it is unclear how much re-offending will be prevented”.
That is hardly convincing in justifying the potential interference with convention rights. Although the Bill covers any international request for extradition, it seems clearly anticipated that an Interpol wanted person alert or a red notice against a person would be the primary trigger. It is crucial that the Bill is not taken as a stamp of approval for such red notices, as they are not trusted enough to be in themselves a basis for an arrest. Under the Bill, the NCA will have to assess the validity of such a notice and the degree to which it is based on evidence, rather than mere assertion, without any judicial, or even prosecutorial, oversight.
Like the UK, many countries do not allow warrantless arrests based on Interpol red notices. The US does not allow them because it does not view red notices as satisfying the probable cause standard required by the US constitution to arrest someone. It is well known that Interpol red notices have been misused for political purposes by a number of its member countries, targeting political opponents, journalists, peaceful protesters, refugees and human rights defenders. The UK should continue to push Interpol to introduce safeguards against abuse. Can the Minister tell us what action the Government have taken in that respect?
It is critical that the list of specified category 2 countries in the Bill is limited to those where there really is a basis of trust—not countries such as Russia, Turkey, Venezuela or Syria. What factors will the Government take into account when proposing to add countries to those covered by new Schedule A1? It is already of concern that the US is on the list. While the ability would still exist to seek assurances that a person would not be subject to the death penalty, there was a case in July 2018 when the Government did not exercise that option, which caused deep concern.
As I have said, the necessity for the new power seems pretty slim in the case of existing trustworthy Part 2 countries but, as other noble Lords have said, in paragraph 7 of the impact assessment we get to what must surely be the real reason for this Bill, even if the Minister demurred at her briefing session yesterday. It is worth reading it out:
“In a ‘no deal’ scenario or in the event of a Future Security Partnership which does not support the retention of EU Member States in Part 1 of the Extradition Act, the current capability gap would extend to EU Member States. 15,540 requests were made under the EAW process in 2018/19. In that same year, 1,412 arrests were related to EAWs”.
That is more than 150,000 EAWs over a 10-year period, compared to the six EAWs forecast for the new procedure under the Bill. I think we can gather what scenario the Bill is really planned for. Can the Minister give us an update on the prospects for future UK-EU criminal justice co-operation, including extradition? Although there are concerns about the operation of the EAW—six years ago, my last project as an MEP was a report calling for its reform; I thank the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, for his kind remarks—it is much better than the alternatives.
Both my noble friend Lady Hamwee and the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, referred to the Commission declaration under Article 185 of the withdrawal agreement in which Germany, Austria and Slovenia may not extradite their own nationals—even during the transition period, let alone after December. This was expected but it is still discouraging. How will we get any reciprocity? If the Bill covers incoming extradition requests, what will happen to outgoing ones to EU and EEA countries?
Finally, how does yesterday’s categorical assertion of no alignment advance the prospect of the UK retaining something approaching the EAW without legal challenge if the minimum rights of defendants developed by the European Union are not respected?
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, some seven years ago I chaired, together with the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, an inquiry at whose heart was the issue of whether it was in this country’s interest to remain within the scope of the European arrest warrant. The evidence we took demonstrated overwhelmingly that it was in Britain’s interest to do so. I am glad to say that that view was shared by massive majorities in both Houses and we did, indeed, stay within the European arrest warrant.
I note from the impact assessment with which we have been provided for the Bill—for which I express my gratitude as impact assessments for Brexit-related Bills are rare birds indeed—that in 2018 and 2019, as the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, just mentioned, 1,412 arrests related to European arrest warrants were made and a substantial number of possible criminals returned to their own countries for trial. I suggest that those figures show that the European arrest warrant has come through with flying colours. It is for that reason, if for no other, that I personally welcome the Bill, one of whose objectives, if I understand it rightly, is to enable us to continue to operate something that could perhaps loosely be called a European arrest warrant-type procedure, even now that we are no longer a member—and will no longer be a member—of the European Union. I would be most grateful if the Minister, when she winds up, could answer the following questions. They cover similar ground to those of my noble and learned friend Lord Brown and my noble friend Lord Anderson.
First, is it correct to think that the Bill will enable us to operate something that could loosely be described as an EAW-type procedure, even after we have left the European Union and even after we have exited the transition period?
Secondly, will the powers in the Bill actually be needed during 2020 with respect to EU member states, while we are still in the transitional period provided for in the withdrawal agreement, or does that agreement suffice for the calendar year 2020?
Thirdly, if by mischance—I think no one who has read the Prime Minister’s speech made in Greenwich yesterday could doubt that mischance could happen—we found ourselves without a new relationship agreement with the EU at the end of this year, would the powers in the Bill enable us to respond to requests from any of the 27 EU member states in a manner similar to the way we have responded to European arrest warrants?
Fourthly, as several noble Lords have asked, will we, in the negotiations that will begin in March, try to achieve some degree of reciprocity with the 27 member states so that they too will operate something similar to a European arrest warrant procedure, even if the conditions for that are not yet agreed in the new relationship, or if the possibility of a new relationship has collapsed? I know that the answer for this Bill is that it does not and cannot provide those powers.
These are important matters. I think we can reasonably ask the Government simply to say now that, yes, when we sit down in March and work with the European Union on a security agreement that covers this area, we will be asking for reciprocity and we will be offering procedures that are as solid as we can make them and similar to the European arrest warrant. If, as I hope, the answer to all four questions I have posed is positive, I would be a strong supporter of the Bill. It will send a good signal that we are entering the post-Brexit negotiations in a positive spirit and with a determination to continue the closest possible co-operation with our former EU partners in the fight against serious international crime.
Lord Bethell
My Lords, I can confirm that the new clocks are now working, and those are the ones we will use.
Lord Robathan (Con)
My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, because I agree with most of what he said—which, I think he will accept, has not always been the case. My noble friend the Minister has a galaxy of learned and expert people to speak on this Bill. It seems to me that the Government should be grateful that they are getting legal advice from three very learned retired judges. It would cost the Government a great deal of money if they had to ask for the advice, so I think she should be grateful.
My contribution will be much more modest. I say to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, who speaks with great authority and expertise on these things, that I do not see that we need to be particularly concerned that China, let us say, should be allowed to extradite people under this measure. Given the problems that China has had with Hong Kong, which started off with extradition from Hong Kong to China, we would be unlikely to take that sort of decision. It seems to me, and others have said, that the Bill rightly and sensibly caters for the changes to the European arrest warrant now that we have left. The 24 hours within which somebody arrested under this has to be seen by a judge is reasonable. I agree with the noble and learned Lord—I will come to this later—that not all countries share the same standards as us. That also applies to European Union countries.
I support the Bill because it is sensible and very modest. So far it is certainly countries that we trust to abide by the rule of law that are included. For instance, Australia, New Zealand and Canada all take a great deal of their legal systems from us anyway—so, given the situation, it is not controversial.
Part 1 of the Extradition Act 2003 was about the European arrest warrant. I will concentrate on that, because it is more controversial. Like the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, I think the European arrest warrant can be hugely valuable. For instance, it gets nasty criminals out of the UK to face justice—paedophiles, drug dealers, murderers, whoever. That is all to be welcomed. I think the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, said that in 2017 there were 15,000 or so requests to the UK; I thought it was more like 17,000, but I may be wrong. I think we issued fewer than 400, but with my limited knowledge of the internet I had some trouble getting the correct details.
I will concentrate on Romania, which I think is the country that issues the greatest or second-greatest number of European arrest warrants in the European Union. That may be a reflection of crime in Romania. I will concentrate first on the general situation and then on one case, which shows why we should be very wary of believing that, just because a country is in the European Union, it follows all the rules and values that we have in this country and follows the rule of law as we do. We assume that because a country is in the European Union, it abides by the rule of law.
I will not mention the case I know of for two reasons. First, it is sub judice and, although I believe that under parliamentary privilege I could mention it, it would be improper to do so. Secondly, I used to have—I stress that I used to have—a financial interest in the case, in that I was advising somebody on this. That ended several months ago, but again it would be straying into difficult territory if I were to mention the case in particular.
The issues I will raise now on Romania have all been covered in the press. I start with a newspaper article from 10 April last year. I mention only this one—there are many others—because its headline is: “Romania’s child traffickers walk free to mock the British police”. It was an operation called Golf, and the person in charge of it said:
“Let me tell you, there was tonnes of evidence against that gang … Dozens of child witnesses were interviewed, and we found hundreds of forged birth certificates. It beggars belief that all 26 suspects have walked free. On our side, we secured convictions, but Romania has not … If we cannot get Romanian courts to convict the most serious crimes it has an impact across the whole of Europe.”
The case that I know about concerns political interference and deaths in prison. The Prime Minister of Romania stated on television before an arrest that an arrest would happen. I think we would all agree that that would be completely improper in this country. The same person died in prison. That was surely political interference. I would say so, but so does the European Bar Association—the Fédération des Barreaux d’Europe—which mentioned in a resolution on 19 April 2018
“the right of access of Romanian citizens to a free and independent court and about the situation of judges, prosecutors and lawyers from Romania, noting that there is an interference with the independence of judges, prosecutors, lawyers and the administration of justice due to the intervention of Romanian Intelligence Service”
and called on the justice organisations to “cease the secret protocols” with the intelligence services
“and to restore independence of the judicial system by destroying also secret Protocols and … respect the right of Romanian citizens to a fair trial.”
If that was said about the United Kingdom, we would rightly be horrified.
The issue of prison conditions is more difficult. We would wish to send back a murderer from Romania, but I note that the European Court of Human Rights said some two and a half years ago that the detention conditions in Romanian prisons are in breach of the convention and
“a violation of Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) of the European Convention on Human Rights.”
As I said, the case with which I am dealing involved somebody dying in custody because he was not given proper treatment. In his judgment on that case, which, again, I will not name, a UK judge said not two years ago, after the events I have cited, that Romania was a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights and that he was
“entirely satisfied that it will abide by its Convention obligations”,
which the European Bar Association and the European Court of Human Rights did not agree with.
I ask my noble friend the Minister: should we see some changes to the European arrest warrant, as I believe is likely, could we look very closely at the conditions in each country in Europe and at how they follow the rule of law? It is not just Romania, but I will not spread my wings too far on this. We need to make sure that other European countries are abiding by the rule of law as we see it before we admit them into what is already working under the European arrest warrant.
Baroness Clark of Calton (Non-Afl)
My Lords, it is a great privilege to appear again and speak in your Lordships’ House after a long absence. I listened with interest to the Minister’s speech about the Bill’s context and purpose. I also thank her for being so open and willing to meet with people to discuss it.
The extradition Bill might appear deceptively modest, but does it propose a mere technical amendment? In essence, it sets out a new system to justify arrest without advance judicial scrutiny and will give sweeping powers to the Secretary of State to change extradition law by delegated legislation.
The Bill seeks to amend complex legislation in the Extradition Act 2003. Many Members of this House know how complicated that Act is. It was the result of detailed domestic review, public consultation and development in international criminal law that introduced fast-track extradition arrangements, mainly for EU states, using the European arrest warrant. The 2003 Act introduced two very different systems of extradition. It distinguished between category 1 territories, based on the European arrest warrant, and category 2 territories, where there was no agreed reciprocal recognition of the judicial process.
The concept of provisional arrest in this Bill will no doubt take many people by surprise, particularly if they are reflecting on that concept from a police cell. A person is either under arrest or at liberty. There is nothing provisional about the consequences of being arrested. The 24-hour limitation period provided in the Bill excludes weekends and bank holidays. The consequences of provisional arrest are serious and would not be eradicated by any subsequent decision of a judge to discharge the person.
I share the concern of noble Lords who have queried the Government’s justification for introducing this Bill: that there might be a delay of some hours in obtaining an arrest warrant from a judge, creating the possibility that the person concerned could offend or abscond before being detained. We hear that the numbers are tiny. However, Section 73 of the 2003 Act already allows a provisional warrant for arrest to be issued by a justice of the peace. This may be used by the police in an emergency, for example. Can the Minister tell us what the difficulty is with using it in the circumstances she has talked about?
So far, I am not persuaded by the factual evidence that there has been a problem in the extradition process caused by police and judicial delay, resulting in an inability to bring to justice individuals sought for extradition. To assist our understanding, if possible I would like some statistics to be provided before Committee stage: the number of arrests over the last three years under Sections 4 and 5 of the Extradition Act 2003, and the number of cases refused a certificate by the designated authority when performing its statutory function in relation to category 1 territories under Section 2. In relation to category 2 territories, I would be grateful for similar statistics for warrants issued under Sections 71 and 73 respectively.
If, as the Government contend, there is a problem in relation to extradition to category 2 territories, any solution may lie in better co-ordination between the police and the judiciary to enable a warrant to be obtained at an early stage. Another solution might be the involvement of the judiciary in a screening process, instead of the designated authority which the Bill seeks to establish.
I understand that the Government intend that the National Crime Agency be appointed, in regulations made by the Secretary of State, as the designated authority. The NCA is essentially a police body, not a judicial authority. Such a body is not a proper substitute for the independent scrutiny and decision-making of a judge in the UK. In any event, it is surely unacceptable that a body meant to carry out a function which directly affects individual liberty is not even named in this Bill.
The Government may seek to rely on the existence of a screening process by a designated authority—the National Crime Agency—in Part 1 of the Extradition Act 2003 in relation to category 1 territories. However, this is very misleading and does not bear scrutiny.
It is clear from the history and development of the Part 1 legislation that the justification for arrest flows directly from a judicial source: the judicial grant of a European arrest warrant by the foreign territory. The European arrest warrant scheme is complex, with detailed codes of procedure. Extradition to category 1 territories has become exclusively a judicial procedure; that contrasts with category 2 territories. The category 1 scheme in the 2003 Act is tied to that. The legal basis for arrest is founded on the decision by a judge from the foreign territory to issue a European arrest warrant. Any later screening process by the designated authority in the UK postdates that earlier judicial decision, and it is the judicial decision which provides the legal basis for the arrest.
The scheme applying to category 2 territories under the 2003 Act is very different. There is a total lack of that agreed basis of common rules and the complex safeguards which have been built into the European arrest warrant scheme. A decision by a judge from one of the UK jurisdictions provides the legal basis for arrest in category 2 territory cases. This Bill seeks to introduce a form of arrest where there is no advance judicial scrutiny and no judicial warrant from this country to justify arrest.
I am particularly concerned about the terms of new Sections 74A and 74B. I note that there is no limitation in the wording to restrict this to an emergency situation where obtaining a judicial warrant is somehow impossible. In summary, the new sections allow a provisional arrest to be made provided that the designated authority has issued a certificate. The designated authority is required to apply legal tests which can be complex and are appropriate for judicial determination.
There is nothing in the Bill to stop this easy certification process becoming the normal procedure in all or most cases. So, if someone somewhere sends the appropriate paperwork to the designated authority and this non-judicial authority issues a certificate, many people may find themselves in custody without any judicial consideration in this country. All of this affects the system of justice in Scotland. I would be very grateful to learn from the Minister the views of the Scottish Government. I would be surprised if there was support in Scotland for a system of arrest being legally justified by certification by a police body, rather than a judge.
I also note with concern, as have other noble Lords, the terms of paragraph 29, which gives the Secretary of State powers, including the power to
“amend, repeal or revoke any provision made by primary legislation”
in certain circumstances. None of this is acceptable in such wide terms.
It is plain that we are all aware that there may be problems for the Government if, as a result of their Brexit policies, the UK is unable or unwilling to participate in the European arrest warrant scheme. But in that event, we need a mature debate about extradition to find a way forward. We cannot permit the Secretary of State merely to certify any territory that he or she wishes, and allow the arrest by the police of potentially thousands of people, including many UK citizens, on the certification of the National Crime Agency or some other non-judicial authority thought up by the Secretary of State.
I am not opposed to reform of the Extradition Act, and I am certainly not opposed to a system of extradition that works effectively. But the proposed changes in the Bill cause me concern in their present form and I hope that in Committee, we will be able to consider them further.
Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)
My Lords, I support the Bill and have just one suggestion for how it could be improved. Martin Hewitt, chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, described this legislation as filling a loophole in the law, which is a fair description. It is also supported by Lynne Owen, the Director-General of the National Crime Agency. Neither person would generally want to widen police powers, but they do want to make them effective.
Presently, police officers have powers of arrest only for category 1 countries, which includes all members of the European Union, so it is not a radical departure to give them powers to arrest before the extradition warrant has been agreed. Although people have expressed concerns about that, in this sense, it is a power that exists already for category 1 countries, unless a judicial warrant has already been sworn.
The problem is that in category 2 countries, an officer may become aware that a person has been notified as wanted for extradition, but until the warrant has been sworn out, they cannot arrest. Of course, there is no warrant because the UK was not previously aware that the person was in the UK—or I guess police would have been looking for them—and therefore no one has been able to apply for a warrant of extradition. I wonder whether the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, about Sections 73 and 74—neither of which I am an expert on—rely on the fact that someone knows that those people are in the country. These changes are merely to cope with the fact that an officer may come upon or discover that someone who was not previously known to be in the country is available and may therefore need to be taken into custody for a warrant to be applied for.
A series of helpful and reasonable steps have been put into this Bill. It does not cover all category 2 countries—it is the Five Eyes countries. They are all our significant partners, relying on jurisprudential rules which are very similar to ours, as well as Switzerland—I do not think anybody would doubt that it observes the rule of law—and Liechtenstein. Some people have expressed a view that perhaps Russia might be included as a category 2 country. It is not. We have no extradition agreement with Russia. In fact, I think its constitution prevents anybody being extradited from Russia, so even if we were to decide to have an extradition treaty, it would have something of an obstacle to overcome should it decide to agree with us.
The circumstances that this power might be involved are: a stop and search of a pedestrian or a vehicle, which has already been mentioned; an arrest for another offence when the arrest is refused or when the person is released before the warrant can be sworn out; or when an officer starts an investigation, during which they come across a suspect or witness who is wanted.
Although it has not been mentioned tonight, it is possible to argue that the officer should not advise the person that there is a notice in place and that there is to be a hearing to avoid warning him and him absconding. However, if that was a strong argument we would not already have this power for category 1 countries, so I do not think that is the best argument to pursue. It is quite possible that if someone is arrested in this country from a category 2 country for an offence that is nothing to do with the extradition and is then released it might put him on notice that the police might start checking to see whether there is an extradition warrant and if the individual knows he is wanted for a serious offence he may then abscond, or certainly be hard to find, so there are good reasons why the arrest power for category 2 countries is a good idea. It creates a level playing field with category 1 countries. I do not think that is unfair or unreasonable.
A further safeguard is to be added for category 2 offences, which is that the offence for which the suspect is wanted needs to be classified as serious. That test is whether somebody in this country would serve three years’ imprisonment. That is not available for category 1 countries, such as those in the European Union. Poland has not been mentioned today, but it has been criticised for seeking extradition of its citizens for very minor offences, such as shoplifting, and clearly wasting everyone’s time. Poland is a member of the European Union and a category 1 country.
The first test is whether a three-year term of imprisonment is available. If it passes that test the second test is whether the National Crime Agency is prepared to certify that the offence remains serious. Someone can go to prison for 10 years for criminal damage, but criminal damage worth £25 will not lead to a 10-year prison sentence. It would lead to a minor outcome. It is therefore very unlikely that the NCA would certify that it was an offence that should be put on the police national computer to make sure that that person was excluded from the country.
Some people expressed the view that the NCA may not apply human rights conventions. It already does that, even with European Union extradition warrants. Those rules will not change. It has excluded some applications on those grounds, such as sexual orientation, political affiliations or things that are disproportionate.
Baroness Hamwee
I do not doubt what the noble Lord is saying, but my question was about how we can be assured about transparency in holding to account those issues. We may know that things are hunky-dory now, but I am sure that the noble Lord would accept that that is not quite the same has having the procedures available to test them.
Lord Hogan-Howe
I agree. We should be reassured in two senses. The NCA is one arbiter. It has been putting things on the police national computer for many years. Individuals can pursue their civil rights if they think or find they have been wronged. If an arrest is made, these cases will of course be heard in a court, where suspects are legally represented and able to make the case that this is an improper allocation of a notice. It is a fair challenge, but there are systems in place that would provide a remedy within a fairly short period of time.
We all understand why it is difficult to calculate how often the power of arrest for category 2 countries will be used. However, we know that in 2018 there were 1,394 arrests in England and Wales for category 1 offences. Interestingly, only 28% of those cases would pass the seriousness test if they were moved to category 2. Fewer people would be affected by the powers of arrest and extradition if any European countries were to come within category 2.
Some may argue—and have argued—that, in negotiating with other countries, we put ourselves at a disadvantage by unilaterally helping another country to extradite criminals it takes to its country. However, for serious offences, the UK has the benefit of excluding a suspect from the UK until their criminal justice process is completed; we get a definite benefit from that.
It is also true that the constitutions of some countries require another country to have constitutional arrangements in place to enable extradition before they can reciprocate. In that sense, this is an enabling provision; it allows a country to respond to the fact that the UK would have this in place.
I have a quick suggestion for improving the extradition process—which, in my view, has long been unhelpful. All those arrested, with or without warrant, have to be transported to one court in Westminster. These are long journeys for the suspect, their families and everybody else involved in the case—the police, witnesses et cetera. It takes time and money, and with weekends, and this potentially extends to a four or five-day period. Surely it should be possible to have regional courts in our big cities, which could hear these cases. I think it has been suggested in the past that, due to its specialised nature, the London Bar is the best place to respond to these cases. However, surely there should be a system designed for the suspects and, in this instance perhaps, not for the Bar.
I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, that we do not want to see countries added to the list if they have systems that we do not respect. I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, that there are already at least two countries in the European Union which we might challenge as to whether they would pass that test. In one country—we do not need to name it—political interference, or attempted interference, has been apparent in the selection of judges, yet there is a very low bar for getting an extradition warrant. In another country, both politicians and police are corrupt. Noble Lords may ask why we have extradition treaties with these countries, but we do—we still allow for extradition to these countries. That seems quite a challenge in the European Union, let alone somewhere else; we have to be careful and ensure that we are on a level playing field with everyone.
I support the Bill, which will create a level playing field and, in part, provide a flexible opportunity to retain an effective process as we leave the European Union—although I acknowledge that the Government have said that that is not their intention.
Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)
My Lords, as a number of noble Lords have commented, it was my privilege and pleasure five years ago to chair the House of Lords committee on the workings of the Extradition Act 2003. I found it a challenging assignment; while once upon a time, long ago, I knew a bit of law, I had forgotten most of that and this involved areas I had never known about in the first place. However, we reached the conclusion—shared, I believe, not only by members of the committee but the House—that our extradition arrangements were, essentially, systemically acceptable, albeit involving a series of problems and shortcomings and, in some respects, less than perfect.
I remember becoming very clear on the importance of understanding that extradition is based on the principle of comity; in other words, it is based on a recognition of other people’s criminal laws, which may be a bit different from your own. At the same time, this recognition has to be locked together with recognising the importance of human rights; the one thing you cannot do is triangulate one off against the other. That is why in my view, when thinking about the extradition system generally, it is important to be clear about what bars exist under our system regarding people who otherwise would be extradited, and the protections that that confers.
Against that background, the essential case for the Bill has been that we should change the basis on which a person subject to extradition proceedings abroad could be arrested when identified. The basic principle seems to me, as for almost all Members of the House, to be a sound one, and to bring Part 2 of the legislation in line with the reality of the processes in Part 1 is a good step. However, as a number of your Lordships have said, this particular Bill really falls into two parts: there are the specific provisions about provisional arrest that are contained within the Title of the Bill, and then there is the dog that does not bark, or perhaps the dog that just whines in the corner: paragraph 29 at the end of the Schedule, which in my view is a completely separate issue from the specific one.
In his remarks at the beginning of the proceedings, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, rightly focused on the potential mischief that these provisions, as drafted, could bring about. After all, we know that we are in a world where any piece of legislation that the word “European” comes into is as toxic to the Government as the coronavirus. The reality, which has been accepted by almost all the speakers this afternoon, is that the workings of the system of the European arrest warrant are to everyone’s advantage, yet we are living at a time when we are almost certainly going to see changes introduced to that. Exactly what they will be, no one knows—anything from a slightly tweaked version of the existing form of arrangements through to, I suspect, adding some or all the European countries to Part 2 of the Bill. Who knows? This issue is very important for this country, and I do not think that kind of thing should be determined by secondary legislation.
There is an important fundamental principle here, quite separate from the specific business about provisional arrest, that this House ought to take extremely seriously. To encapsulate it in a few words, it seems strange that we need an Act of Parliament to bring about changes regarding provisional arrest while by secondary legislation we can turn the system of extradition law that we have in this country on its head.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I have very much enjoyed the contributions to this debate—particularly the ones that I agreed with, obviously. I do not have the legal knowledge that so many of the noble and learned Lords in this House do; on the other hand, I have quite a lot of common sense, and I can spot something that is a complete nonsense.
Noble Lords have called this measure modest; well, it is so modest that it is almost invisible. The biggest question facing the Bill is why we even need it. The size of the problem that we are seeking to resolve—the seriousness of the threat—has still not really been fully explained to us. The Minister might explain in exactly how many cases the police and other authorities have failed to lawfully detain a suspect as a result of the current legal requirement to obtain an arrest warrant. Put simply, how many people have got away? We have heard about two cases from the Minister and both of them involved paedophilia offences, which of course are a red flag. I would like to know exactly how many people have escaped.
The Home Office explains in its analysis in the published full economic impact:
“The policy is expected to result in 6 individuals entering the CJS more quickly than would otherwise have been the case.”
Is it correct that the Home Office is saying that only six people a year will be arrested under the powers in the Bill? Even then, it is only a question of that happening more quickly regarding these six people who would otherwise have escaped. If that is the case, is the size of the problem really so substantial that the Bill is necessary or even a worthwhile use of precious legislative time when so many other much more important Bills are coming to us in this House? I would like to know just how serious the threat is. It would also be good to have some idea of the threats that offenders have posed under the current system which would be fixed by this power to arrest six individuals.
The threat has to be real and significant if we are expected to remove the judicial process of granting an arrest warrant. However, at the same time, the Government cannot perceive the threat to be too great because they have chosen to limit this arrest power to extraditions to only a handful of countries. If a dangerous criminal is wanted in America or Australia, then they will be arrested without a warrant. However, the same dangerous criminal could, according to the Government, escape as long as they are wanted in countries that we do not consider trustworthy.
In this debate, some noble Lords have suggested that this is a sort of backstop to the European arrest warrant. If that is so, the Government ought to be open about this. We should know exactly why they want to introduce it. That would certainly make a lot more sense than this forecast of six people. We cannot have a Government asking for powers without being honest about what they are for. The Bill poses an ineffective solution to a tiny, or even imaginary, problem. There is absolutely no justification for removing the arrest warrant process and, if there were, it would be applied to a much longer list of countries. I suggest that the Government drop this Bill, do not bring it back for any further stages and stop wasting our time.
Lord Ricketts (CB)
My Lords, I have followed this debate with enormous interest. I feel a little daunted, given the enormous experience of many of the speakers so far. In fact, it has been so fascinating a debate that I thought time had stood still, but then I discovered that actually the clocks were not working.
I am here really as an informal emissary from your Lordships’ European Union Select Committee, chaired by the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and the EU Home Affairs Sub-Committee, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Jay, neither of whom can be here. As a member of both committees, I wanted to at least draw attention to the work on the issue of extradition done over a number of years by the two committees and, in particular, do a little plug for two of the committee reports done under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Jay: Brexit: Judicial Oversight of the European Arrest Warrant of July 2017 and Brexit: The Proposed UK-EU Security Treaty of July 2018. Both are very relevant to the wider context of this debate.
Like others, I wanted to explore a little the relationship between the powers sought in this Bill and the EAW world—this has been a theme throughout the debate. As other noble Lords have noted, there is a somewhat delphic remark in paragraph 7 of the Explanatory Notes which says that, should the UK lose access to the EAW, a statutory instrument could be made to designate some or all EU members. This has been the elephant in the room throughout this debate, but it appears only very briefly in the explanatory material. I think it deserves a little more explanation.
There is a lot of useful detail about the value of the EAW in the reports that I have mentioned, as was apparent in the statement we had this afternoon. As a lay man, it has always seemed to me that it is a way of making extradition far easier, more rapid and more straightforward than the alternative, the 1957 Council of Europe convention. Under that, it took an average of 18 months to achieve an extradition; that fell to below two months with the arrival of the EAW. Given that we are talking about exporting—to use that word—up to 1,000 people a year under the EAW, the idea of going back to the 1957 convention arrangements seemed to us and all the expert practitioners we heard from in the sub-committee to be an enormous retrograde step. I think of my own period as ambassador in France. A regional procureur’s office in a small French city will have got completely out of practice with the 1957 arrangements, which involve diplomatic notes and passage through interior ministries. This risks a considerable delay in what has been a very effective process.
A number of noble Lords spoke in the conditional tense about “if we lose access” to the EAW arrangements. But it is clear that, at the end of the transition period, Britain will not be in the EAW process, which is for EU member states, and that, as others have made clear, the process of disengagement has already begun, with the operation of Article 185 and the own-national provision. Germany, Slovenia and Austria have already applied it—so even now, in the transition period, we are already seeing a restriction of our access under the EAW. The issue therefore is whether we will be able to negotiate an agreement with the EU that allows what the then Minister of State in the Home Office, Nick Hurd, spoke to the committee about in 2018: “effective arrangements” on the lines of the EAW.
The only precedent for this is the agreement that the EU has with Norway and Iceland. But we should not hold our breath—that negotiation took 13 years. It was finally agreed in 2014 but, as far as I know, is not yet in force. So there is potentially a very long time gap between us leaving the transition period at the end of this year and reaching an agreement.
The European Commission published its draft negotiating mandate yesterday, which indeed contains a reference to continued extradition arrangements. It uses the term “effective arrangements” but there are markers about judicial control and the own-national provision.
Given the importance of the EAW for the whole law enforcement process in this country, I therefore think that it is worth the Minister responding to a number of the questions that have been asked in this debate. I too came armed with many of them, but I have tried to filter mine, given that a number of other noble Lords on the list asked them. It would be helpful if the Minister could make it clear that, as from 1 January 2021, we will not be part of the EAW, and whether it is still the Government’s intention to negotiate effective arrangements to parallel it as far as possible. If so, what is the likely timescale and what about judicial control, given the EU’s attachment to ECJ involvement in the arrangement?
Secondly, given that it is very likely that we will not have an agreement by the end of the year, will the Minister accept that the designation arrangements in the Bill are in no sense a substitute for the speedy and effective arrangements in the EAW, and that they do not begin to address the issues of mutual recognition and the own-national problem. Personally, I can see the importance of the Bill for closing a gap in the UK domestic arrangements for arrest, but it is very important that it should be recognised that it can be only a very small step in addressing the much larger and more difficult problem of how to replace the many advantages we have had through the EAW.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, this has been a fascinating debate, as the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, has just said. The Minister said in her briefing yesterday to noble Lords and again today that the Bill was nothing to do with the UK leaving the European Union and nothing to do with losing the European arrest warrant. She will certainly correct me in her summing up if that is not the case, but she is nodding. So, despite what the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, has just said—I was very grateful for his contribution—I think that it is very relevant, despite what the Government say. As my noble friend Lady Ludford asked, if that is the case, is this legislation therefore really necessary?
In the briefing yesterday was the lead on this for the National Police Chiefs’ Council. We asked him—I think before the Minister arrived in the room—“What is the biggest problem in this area?” He said, “The biggest problem is getting police forces to take international criminality seriously.” Arresting people wanted for crimes committed overseas is not seen as a priority by forces, according to him. Yet it seems to be a priority for the Government, to the extent that they need to bring forward this legislation.
The question we have to ask is: if it is nothing to do with the European arrest warrant, what problem is the Bill trying to fix? The noble Lord, Lord King of Bridgwater, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, asked why this has not been done before if it closes a loophole. But how many Interpol red notices are there from countries listed in the Bill? In how many live cases of Interpol red notices was there intelligence that the person wanted may be in the UK? We were told it was between 20 and 30; as other noble Lords pointed out, the impact assessment refers to perhaps six people being brought to justice under these provisions. When we asked how many instances there were of people subject to red notices being encountered by police who could not arrest the person there and then, and where the police then sought a warrant but were subsequently unable to locate that person—the loophole that this legislation is supposed to close—nobody knew; not even the police, or the lead for the National Police Chiefs’ Council, knew what problem the Bill is aimed at fixing.
The Minister mentioned a case where intelligence was received in 2016 that a person who was wanted for sexual offences was in the UK; a warrant was obtained but the subject was not re-encountered until 2019. She said that the Government could not allow such a dangerous person to be on our streets for so long, but that begs the question: how dangerous was this individual? How many offences did that person commit between 2016 and 2019, while at large in the UK? I did not hear—perhaps the Minister can enlighten me—whether that person was encountered in 2016.
Other noble Lords, including the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Clark of Calton, and the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, mentioned the urgent applications for provisional warrants under Section 73 of the 2003 Act. Can the Minister explain whether a warrant can be issued on the basis of intelligence that a person who is wanted under a red notice is in the UK, even if they have not been encountered by the police? If that warrant can be issued, why is the Bill necessary?
My noble friend Lady Hamwee asked: why now? Until recently, the fact that someone was subject to an Interpol red notice was not recorded on the police national computer; that is what we were told in the briefing. So a police officer could have been talking to someone who was wanted but did not know that, and now they would know.
As I said, the Minister assures us it has nothing to do with the European arrest warrant. But I will refer to the letter written to the Home Secretary by the Metropolitan Police, the National Police Chiefs’ Council, and the heads of counterterrorism policing and the National Crime Agency—and here I fear that I may take issue with the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe. Contrary to what the Government say, the letter keeps referring to the European arrest warrant and the loss of it. The letter says:
“The risks in this area are not new, but have been brought into sharp focus as a consequence of our collective efforts to plan for the United Kingdom’s exit from the EU. The European Arrest Warrant enables an officer to arrest a wanted subject there and then. Outside of this mechanism a domestic warrant must be obtained; a process that can take up to 24 hours and sometimes longer.”
That translates to me as, “We’ve been asked to write this letter to support a government move”, but apart from the European arrest warrant—noble Lords have said how many cases there have been under that—they seem to be scratching around and wondering why the Government are bringing forward this legislation.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Clark of Calton, pointed out that the Bill places a lot of power in the hands of Ministers in terms of adding countries that could be included in the list. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, said, countries could be added for ulterior motives, perhaps because we want to have a free trade agreement with them and want to be in their good books. As my noble friend Lady Hamwee said, if a group of countries is included in the statutory instrument that comes forward under the affirmative procedure, we cannot edit the list. The question asked by my noble friend is therefore important: will those additional countries come in one at a time or will more than one country be in those statutory instruments?
The noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, and others said that we will definitely lose the European arrest warrant because it covers only European Union members. The noble Lord mentioned Norway and Iceland. After 13 years, they now have an agreement—it came into effect on 1 November last year—but that agreement says that European Union countries do not have to extradite their own nationals. That is completely different from what the European arrest warrant says. Not only do we not know how long it will take for us to get a replacement for the European arrest warrant but the best that we can hope for is that it will be a shadow of its former self in that we are unlikely to be able to extradite own nationals from other countries.
The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Clark, made the important point that, in respect of category 1 countries, the warrant issued by that foreign country which leads to a European arrest warrant is issued by a judge there, whereas category 2 requests—red notices—are not necessarily at the request of a judge; presumably in the United States of America the district attorney can make the request for somebody to be arrested, without the judicial oversight. That is a crucial difference between category 1 and category 2 countries. This legislation fundamentally changes that. At the request of a foreign country, somebody can be arrested without warrant or any judicial input, whereas at the moment all requests from foreign countries for somebody to be arrested, whether it is under the European arrest warrant or otherwise, must have judicial involvement before the person is arrested. Yes, we are talking about 24 hours before it comes before a judge, but it fundamentally changes the situation.
Despite all this, the Government still try to give the impression that this has nothing to do with leaving the European Union, in the same way as letting other countries use e-gates at UK airports has nothing to do with the European Union. Suddenly e-gates at UK airports become available to American, Australian, Canadian, Japanese, New Zealand and South Korean nationals. Why and why now? It is perhaps because, as part of taking back control of our borders, the Government promised that we would not give EU citizens preferential treatment, but, instead of curbing the right of EU citizens to free movement across the UK border, they give it to the citizens of half a dozen other countries just to prove that they are not giving EU citizens preferential treatment. Of course, if every EU citizen had to be spoken to by an immigration officer, the system would collapse under the pressure. Meanwhile, while American citizens can use the e-gates at UK airports, if UK citizens go to the United States they have to convince the immigration officer that they are not going to stay longer than they said were, and have their photograph and fingerprints taken. However, as the Minister said, we are not seeking reciprocity.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, talked about the importance of extradition, which is absolutely right. However, the Bill is a unilateral move, with no attempt to encourage other countries to do the same—a point also made by my noble friend Lady Ludford. Now, suddenly, one serious foreign fugitive on the streets of the UK—who might be stopped by the police, but the officer cannot make an immediate arrest because they need to get a warrant, and the person has not committed an arrestable offence in the UK—is one too many. That was the explanation given yesterday, and the Government try to tell this House that this is nothing to do with losing the European arrest warrant. We are not as green as we are cabbage looking. The noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, also mentioned people being extradited using the European arrest warrant for minor offences such as shoplifting. Will the Minister confirm that the maximum penalty for theft is 10 years’ imprisonment, so it would be covered by the three-year maximum in this legislation?
Most science is accepted as fact when in fact it is the simplest and most plausible theory that fits the facts. My theory is that this is everything to do with losing the European arrest warrant. If it is not, then there are far more important matters that this House should be considering, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, has said. It is time for the Government to decide. Is it to close our side of the gaping hole left in our security by losing the European arrest warrant, in which case we should support it, or is it to catch little more than a handful of foreign fugitives who might otherwise escape justice? I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, this Bill is short, but has important implications and will need careful consideration in your Lordships’ House. As has been said, the Bill creates a power of arrest, without warrant, for the purpose of extraditing people for serious offences, particularly as a result of an Interpol alert. It will apply to the countries specified in the Schedule to the Bill. I can, generally, support what is being proposed here but that is not to say that I will not propose amendments—or support those proposed by other noble Lords—that seek to provide protections, and conserve important freedoms and rights, highlighted by many noble Lords this afternoon.
We are told that the Government have identified a problem with category 2 territories under the present system which means that it can take at least a matter of hours. This creates the possibility that an individual could abscond or commit further offences in the UK. The Minister gave one example in her opening remarks. We need more than one Can she give the House some more examples when she responds to this debate?
The Bill proposes to amend the Extradition Act 2003 to get over this problem so that constables, customs officers or service police officers, on receipt of a certificate, following a valid request from a country listed in the Schedule to the Bill, can make an arrest quickly. Can the Minister set out what the designated authority in the UK—I believe it is going to be the National Crime Agency—will be required to do to satisfy itself about the request received before action is taken? What does she expect the timescales will be from receiving a request to an arrest being sought? I get the point about speed, but we must also be satisfied that due care and consideration is given to the request before a certificate is issued to authorise the arrest.
The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Clark of Calton, questioned the need for the powers in the Bill. Apparently, we already have the powers. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s response to that. When a person is brought before the court, having been arrested, the court is making a judgement on the evidence before it and, if necessary, the proceedings can be adjourned for more evidence to be provided before a decision is made. If the proceedings are being adjourned for more evidence to be provided, what would be needed by the National Crime Agency to issue the certificate in the first place? How do we ensure that, as far as possible, the evidence to issue a certificate would be at a level to satisfy a court without the need for adjournments? What I am trying to get at—I am probably not being very clear—is that the National Crime Agency can issue a certificate only where, among other things, it is satisfied that the seriousness of the conduct constituting the offence makes it appropriate to do so. That should be at the level we have today; I hope we are not proposing a lower level just to be able to issue more certificates. It is just not very clear and it would be helpful if the Minister could explain it further, to reassure me and other noble Lords.
I further understand that powers taken in the Bill would enable a process to be put in place with some EU member states if we lose access to the European arrest warrant. It seems many noble Lords think it is lost already. That is a terrible situation. We have to have something in place. The only beneficiaries will be criminals if we end up with less than we have now. I note the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, in that regard. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, asked “Why now?”, and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, referred to this. She made a valid point about the European arrest warrant and the risk that losing these powers will entail to our safety and security. I fear that she was right to voice her concerns. I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, that the Bill will help make the country a less attractive place to find refuge from the authorities in the countries in the Schedule. If we lose the power of the European arrest warrant, we have to have something in place; this is about that as well. I also support his call for the Government to look for mechanisms to ensure that we can get individuals wanted in the UK back to the UK if we lose the powers we have presently.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hannay of Chiswick, about reciprocity. It will be a very important principle if we find ourselves outside the European arrest warrant scheme in the coming months.
A number of category 2 countries are specified in the Schedule, and there is a power to add further countries. Can the Minister confirm the UK Government’s position on this in respect of the death penalty in the United States? I think she said to us that that will never happen but, as other noble Lords have said, in one case we did not ask for the assurance, so we need to know the Government’s position on this. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, referred to in her contribution, can the Minister set out the process to add new countries to this list?
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, made an important contribution on the constraints in the Bill, specifically the Henry VIII powers set out in paragraph 29(2) of the Schedule. I am drawn to support his suggestion to allow all powers to be subject to the annulment procedures.
The noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, made a valid point suggesting a reasonable change to allow courts in our major cities to hear these matters in addition to the courts in London, particularly where suspects are arrested many miles from London.
I am happy to support the Bill generally but will seek further reassurances from the Minister as it proceeds through the House, and support amendments that in my opinion strengthen the Bill and introduce necessary safeguards and protections.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords across the House for their very good contributions to this debate. We should not forget that without this new power a potentially dangerous individual encountered by the police, whom they establish is a fugitive, might remain at liberty on UK streets, able to offend or abscond before they can be arrested. I can confirm that in both the cases I voiced today the individuals were encountered by chance; the police did not have the power to arrest them and had to let them go.
I am sure everyone in this House will agree that we should unite across parties to give the police the power they need to protect the public, while always ensuring that the appropriate safeguards are in place. My noble friend Lord King and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, described in great clarity not only the changing face of crime and the huge demands on the police but the international aspect of crime in all its forms.
Several noble Lords have voiced concerns that this Bill is an attempt by the Government to replicate the capability of the EAW. As I hope I have explained, this is not the case. The new power is about only how wanted individuals enter the court system, not how the courts will conduct their extradition proceedings. I emphasise that, with or without access to the EAW, UK police officers are unable immediately to arrest these fugitives wanted by countries outside the EU without first going to the court for a warrant.
The noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, rightly raised the future of the EAW post transition period. The UK will approach the negotiations on these issues with practicality and pragmatism. The political declaration calls for practical operational co-operation, data-driven law enforcement and multilateral co-operation through EU agencies. The detail of this agreement will be a matter for negotiation, but it does not just apply to the EAW. It applies to several other instruments of the EU. I absolutely acknowledge his concern.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, asked whether the EAW would continue to be enforced during the transition period; they talked specifically about Germany, Slovenia and Austria. It applies during the transition period, but where a member state cannot for reasons related to the principles of their national law surrender an own national to the UK during the transition period, they will be expected—as they have been—to take over the trial or sentence of the person concerned. UK policing and courts have extensive experience of working with these countries to ensure that justice is carried out. By way of background, since 2009 five German nationals, one Austrian national and no Slovenian nationals have been extradited to the UK from those countries. We are well used to the situation. It is nothing to do with this Bill. The power of provisional arrest is for Part 2 non-EU countries.
The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, asked about replacing other aspects of the EAW. He asked whether the power will replicate other aspects of capability from the EAW such as the expedited extradition process. It will not. This new power is similar to the EAW only in so far as it provides for an immediate power of arrest. It does not change the subsequent extradition proceedings or the role of the Home Secretary in extraditions, which are dealt with under Part 2 of the Extradition Act. The person who has been arrested must be brought before a judge within 24 hours of arrest—although I take the point of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Clark, that if it happens on a Saturday night it might be a bit more than that—and the subsequent extradition process remains as it exists now.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and my noble friend Lord King of Bridgwater asked two equal and opposite questions: why now, and why not before now? Interpol data is now routinely uploaded to UK systems to make it available to front-line law enforcement officers. This means that the UK police might encounter an individual who, by performing a simple database check, they can see is wanted for a serious crime abroad. That was not previously the case. As I said, within the current system, the police are unable to arrest the individual immediately. There is an obvious gap, we have responded to that with the Bill, and Interpol is now available to front-line police.
A couple of noble Lords asked about reciprocity. Why is the power being extended to cover countries that will not arrest on the basis of an Interpol notice issued in the UK? Why is there not a reciprocal arrangement? We need to be clear that under the Bill we are creating powers for the UK police, not obligations to the countries concerned. The Bill will enable UK police officers to protect the public more effectively. It is about ensuring that UK police officers have the power to remove dangerous individuals from our streets before they can abscond or offend, not about bringing more wanted individuals back to the UK from other countries. Were this new power restricted to operating on a reciprocal basis, police officers could be put in a situation of encountering a dangerous individual on the street but being unable to arrest them due to the legal provisions of another country, and that does not make any sense.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, asked what safeguards there are to show what steps the NCA has taken. It is a requirement of the Bill that the NCA issues a certificate setting out the category 2 territory, confirms that it is a valid request, certifies that it has reasonable grounds for believing that the offence is a serious extradition offence, and that the conduct is sufficiently serious that the certificate must be given to the arrested person as soon as is practicable after that arrest. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, talked about sentences such as 10 years for theft. In fact, this not only applies to prison sentences of at least three years but, as I said, it applies to sufficiently serious offences. Offences such as stealing a bike or shoplifting would not satisfy that second point.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, talked about human rights considerations. It is right that noble Lords interrogate this point, but the Bill is purely about shifting the point at which the police can intervene and arrest a wanted person. It in no way reduces the safeguards that must apply to any subsequent extradition proceedings considered by the court or the Home Secretary. Judicial oversight will continue as it does now after any arrest. The courts will continue to assess extradition requests as they do now, to determine, for example, whether extradition would be compatible with the individual’s human rights or whether the person would receive a fair trial. If they would not do so, extradition would be barred. That would include things such as the prison conditions that they might face and of course the death penalty, which the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, raised.
The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, asked about the triage process. First, it applies only to specified countries; countries with a poor human rights record are not in scope. The addition of any other country will require the consent of both Houses of Parliament. Secondly, it applies only to sufficiently serious offences; the power will be available only in relation to offences that would be criminal in the UK and for which an offender could receive a prison sentence of at least three years.
The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Clark of Calton, my noble friend Lord Inglewood and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, asked whether we already have the power to get an emergency warrant in urgent cases under the current mechanism for provisional warrants—basically, do we not already have the correct provisions in place? Crucially, however, under the current mechanism the police must already be aware that the individual is in the UK. It is not relevant here, as this legislation is concerned with chance encounters. The Bill creates an additional, different mechanism, which deals with these chance cases.
The noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Clark of Calton, my noble friend Lord Inglewood and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, interrogated again the necessity for the Bill because of the numbers that might be involved. Obviously, it is a new power, so there is no accurate way to predict how many people it will apply to, and there is no quota, which makes this the right thing to do for security and public safety. It is about ensuring that UK police officers have the power to arrest dangerous individuals whenever they come across them on the street, to prevent them offending or absconding. However, I am clear today, as I was yesterday, that one dangerous fugitive on the streets of the UK whom we cannot arrest is one too many.
On some of the figures we have now, as of 31 December last year, over 4,000 Interpol alerts were in circulation from the countries specified in the Bill. Not all will be for fugitives in the UK, and not all will meet the seriousness criteria for this new arrest power. However, they include requests relating to terrorism, rape and murder, and if any of these wanted fugitives enter the UK or are encountered by police on UK streets, the police would not currently be able to arrest the individual. One dangerous fugitive is one too many.
The other question about necessity relates to the point made by my noble friend Lord King, which I echoed, on the international nature of crime now.
The number six in the impact assessment has been interrogated widely. It is not an indication of the number of dangerous individuals who would be arrested under this power; it is an analysis to assess the economic impact on the wider system. It is not a prediction of arrest numbers; that is to misunderstand the analysis. We cannot quantify how many opportunities to arrest dangerous fugitives have been missed because they have been missed. We can quantify the 4,000 Interpol alerts currently on the UK systems from specified countries; of course, the police would not have powers to arrest without the Bill.
Baroness Ludford
I put it to the noble Baroness that the statement in the impact assessment seems pretty clear. It says:
“The policy is expected to result in 6 individuals entering the CJS more quickly than would otherwise have been the case.”
That seems pretty simple. How can it mean anything but that?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I am clarifying why that is not the case but if I am not clear, I will write in further detail to noble Lords before Committee. I am aware that time is pressing and I have a few more points to cover.
The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Clark, mentioned the lack of judicial scrutiny. That will come after the 24-hour period through the courts.
The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, talked about abuse of Interpol channels. International organisations such as Interpol are critical to our vision of a global Britain and international law enforcement co-operation beyond the EU. Interpol provides a secure channel through which we exchange information on a police-to-police basis for action. The UK continues to work with Interpol to ensure that its rules are robust. The former chief constable of Essex was recently made the executive director of policing services for Interpol—the most senior operational role in that organisation. Also, a UK Government lawyer was seconded to the Interpol legal service to work with it to ensure that Interpol rules are properly robust and adhered to by Interpol member states. I know the issue to which the noble Lord refers, but I hope that this gives him some comfort.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb
My question is crucial to my understanding of the Bill. If it not a replacement for the European arrest warrant, can the Minister confirm that the Government will not add the list of EU countries to the list we have already?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I said that it is not a replacement for the EAW, but of course the Government can make that request of Parliament. I was going to come to that point a bit later; in fact, no, I think I answered it. The Government can request Parliament, through the affirmative procedure, to add countries.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness but I simply do not understand why she spent a huge amount of time telling us that this has nothing whatever to do with the European arrest warrant—that it has no relevance and is not in the same context. She has told us that again and again. Why on earth did this point elude police officers who wrote about this measure? Why did it elude a large number of extremely well-informed—much better informed than me—people in this House who think it relevant? I simply do not understand why she is so determined to say so. All my questions, which she has not answered, were designed to get a positive answer, which would increase support for this measure—for example, if she said that it was a step that would enable us, in certain circumstances, where we have definitively lost the European arrest warrant, to do things that might then enable us to have reciprocal arrangements with other members of the European Union. She has not said a word about the security negotiations with the European Union.
Nobody asked that this measure should not be reciprocal; I did not and neither did any other noble Lord. We asked whether we will use this legislation—these powers—to persuade the other members of the European Union that we need a solid reciprocal arrangement if, by any chance, we get to the end of this year and such an arrangement has not been negotiated. Can the Minister explain why she is so keen not to refer to any of these issues?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I hope that I talked about the other EU instruments we are negotiating on; I think I did so at the beginning of my closing speech. I was asked about reciprocity twice, which is why I answered. I also stated quite clearly that it was our intention to do this with or without our membership of the European Union, which is why the Bill was put forward. I am not trying to deny anything about the European arrest warrant; all I am saying is that we are doing this with or without our European Union membership because it is a gap in our capabilities regarding category 2 countries.
Lord King of Bridgwater
My Lords, as I understand my noble friend’s position, she is not going to stand at the Dispatch Box and say that she is sure that all the negotiations that are now going to be conducted will go wrong. For a Minister to admit that in the House of Lords would be a remarkable headline, and if I may say so, her position is exactly right. At the moment, we hope that we will travel happily and arrive successfully. If we do not, then the Bill will come into play and obviously it will make sense.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I thank my noble friend for being much clearer than I can be. The whole point is that we have identified a gap. The police now have access to the Interpol red notice system, and we should use it to pick up international criminals who are walking our streets.
I have gone over my time, and because of the interventions I cannot respond to the further points noble Lords have made. I shall answer those points in a letter, and I will follow up on any further questions. On that basis, I beg to move.
Paterson Inquiry
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford) (Con)
My Lords, with permission, I will now repeat a Statement made by my honourable friend the Minister for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety regarding the Paterson inquiry. The Statement is as follows:
“This morning, the independent inquiry into the issues raised by the disgraced surgeon Ian Paterson published its report. The inquiry was tasked with reviewing the circumstances surrounding the jailed surgeon’s malpractice that affected so many patients in the most appalling way. As the report states, between 1997 and 2011, Paterson saw 6,617 patients, of whom 4,077 underwent a surgical procedure in the independent sector; and between 1998 and 2011, Paterson saw 4,424 patients at HEFT, of whom 1,207 underwent a mastectomy.
The report contains a shocking and sobering analysis of the circumstances surrounding Ian Paterson’s malpractice. It sets out the failures in the NHS, the independent sector and the regulatory and indemnity systems. As a result of these failures, patients suffered unnecessary harm. Their testimonies in the report make harrowing and appalling reading and, as such, it is with deep regret that we acknowledge the failure of the entire healthcare system to protect patients from Ian Paterson’s malpractice and to remedy the harms.
Nothing that I say today can lessen the horrendous suffering that patients and their families experienced and continue to go through. I can only start to imagine the sense of violation and betrayal of patients who put their trust in Ian Paterson when they were at their most vulnerable. That the inquiry reports today, World Cancer Day, makes this all the more poignant, and I apologise on behalf of the Government and the NHS for what happened, not least that Ian Paterson was able to practise unchecked for so long.
I would also like to pay tribute to the bravery of all those former patients who came forward to tell their stories to the inquiry and whose anonymised accounts have been recorded in the report. I know that this will make for difficult reading, as it highlights the human cost of our failure to detect and put a stop to Ian Paterson’s malpractice. A catalogue of failings resulted in harm to thousands of patients, causing devastation to countless lives. Some of these patients were let down several times, not least by the providers and the regulatory system that should have protected them, and by the failure of the medical indemnity system to provide any kind of redress at the first time of asking.
From the outset, Bishop Graham wanted patients and their families to be central to the inquiry’s work and to be heard. It was right, therefore, that patients and their families saw the report first—early this morning, shortly before it was presented to Parliament. Two aspects of the report are particularly striking: that the various regulatory bodies failed in their main tasks; and the absence of curiosity on the part of those in positions of authority in the healthcare providers, in the face of concerns voiced by other health professionals.
The report presents a tangled set of processes. Accountability was not exercised when it should have been, and some of the problems arose from not following through on established procedures, as opposed to insufficient procedures being in place, so we must take full responsibility for what happened in the past if we are to provide reassurance to patients about their protection in the future. I am therefore grateful that the suite of recommendations based on the patient journey presents a route map to government. The recommendations are extremely sensible and we will study them in detail; I can promise the House a full response in a few months’ time. That response will need to consider the answers to some very important questions that cut right across the healthcare sector. Unequivocally, regardless of where patients are treated and how their care is funded, all patients should be confident that the care they receive is safe and meets the highest standards, with appropriate protections, and that they are supported by clinicians to make informed decisions about the most appropriate course of care.
I am also very aware that it is not the first time that regulatory failure has been highlighted in an inquiry report. We have done much to make the NHS a safer system in recent years: revalidation, a reformed CQC and the work by the Independent Healthcare Providers Network to establish a medical practitioners assurance framework to oversee medical practitioners in the independent acute sector. However, in the case of Ian Paterson, the system did not work for patients and recent events at Spire show that there are still serious problems to address.
Patient safety is a continual process of vigilance and improvement. The inquiry does not jump to a demand for the NHS and the independent sector to invent multiple new processes, but to actually get the basics right, to implement existing processes and for all professional people to behave better and to take responsibility.
Last summer, NHSE/I published a new patient safety strategy, led by the national patient safety director, Dr Aidan Fowler. It focused on better culture, systems and regulation—very sensible but familiar words; all things that today’s inquiry says were not delivered. What we need now is action across the NHS and its regulatory bodies, and the same determination to change the independent sector.
We are absolutely committed to ensuring that lessons are learned and acted on from the findings of this shocking inquiry, in the interests of enhancing patient protection and safety in both the NHS and the independent sector. For today, I apologise again on behalf of the Government and the NHS, and send my heartfelt sympathy to the patients and their families for the suffering they have endured.”
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement made by the Health Minister in the Commons today. Two hundred and eleven former patients of Paterson, or their relatives, shared their experience with this inquiry. This report makes for harrowing and appalling reading, as the Minister said. Ian Paterson wilfully abused the trust placed in him by patients at their most vulnerable. At his hands, hundreds of women underwent extensive, life-changing operations for no medically justifiable reason. His unregulated cleavage-sparing mastectomies, in which breast tissue was left behind, meant the disease returned in many of his patients. Others had surgery they did not need and needlessly lived under the shadow of cancer for many years. This should never have been able to happen, let alone go on unchecked for so long.
As the Minister has done, I pay tribute to the courage, tenacity and persistence of many of these women and their families in exposing the injustice. I thank the panel, under the leadership of its chair, the right reverend Graham James, for uncovering the extent of Paterson’s malpractice and the systems that allowed it to continue despite repeated warnings.
The victims of Paterson’s malpractice were let down time and again by the NHS trust and an independent healthcare provider, which failed to supervise him appropriately and did not respond correctly to well-evidenced complaints about his practice, and by the wholly inadequate recall procedures in both the NHS and the private sector. The report identifies failures on the part of individuals and institutions, saying that
“a culture of avoidance and denial”
meant that those working closely with Ian Paterson did not spot his behaviour or were unwilling to challenge it. On the contrary, the report concluded that
“Paterson’s behaviour and aberrant clinical practice was excused or even favoured.”
What action does the Minister propose to support a change in the culture of the health service that encourages staff to speak up?
There is a potent example on page 130 of this report:
“The operation and awarding of practising privileges is defined in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 … Practising privileges are based on the ‘scope of practice’—that is, the procedures a consultant is competent to perform in the independent sector are based on what they undertake in the NHS … In Paterson’s case … he did not limit himself to operations he was competent to perform in the independent sector. He was undertaking operations and procedures he did not do in the NHS. Measures to monitor and limit this at Spire were inadequate.”
What has changed? Is this still the practice in the private sector? Indeed, is it still the case that private hospitals incentivise referrals from consultants who have been given shares in their private hospitals? That is what the report suggests.
Can the Minister confirm that the Government will urgently bring forward legislation to give private patients the same protection provided by the NHS, as called for by the lawyers representing hundreds of Paterson’s victims? The Centre for Health and the Public Interest has called for Paterson’s income and earnings, as well as the profits made by Spire Healthcare, to be treated as income from criminal acts, which could mean that they could be reclaimed. Can the Minister advise on whether this aspect has been referred to the CPS?
The Independent Healthcare Providers Network, which represents the sector, has already said that more needs to be done to ensure that information is shared between the NHS and private companies about their doctors. What action are the Government taking to facilitate this information sharing?
We cannot undo the awful harm that Paterson’s criminal action has caused so many, but we must act to ensure that lessons are learned and changes made so that something like this does not happen again. This report must not remain on a shelf to be forgotten, because it is clear: this was not just the act of a rogue, lone surgeon; systemic organisational failures were at fault as well. Fundamentally, it is time we addressed the question of safety in private healthcare providers and the way in which clinicians can operate in private providers with little oversight. I would be grateful if the Minister could share her thinking about this with the House.
The inquiry makes a number of recommendations about transparency and accountability, and I hope the Government mandate health bodies to implement those quickly. As the Minister said, the fight that the patients had to make for compensation was shameful.
Around a third of all private hospital income now comes from NHS procedures such as hip replacements, hernia repairs and cataract procedures, yet safety standards in the private sector often leave much to be desired. How is the NHS addressing patient safety in this regard? Apart from anything else, there are very few critical care facilities available in private hospitals, so patients are transferred to NHS hospitals when things go wrong and complications occur. I would like to know whether private hospitals can be held liable for this use of the NHS. The previous Secretary of State wrote to the private hospital sector in 2018, telling it to get its house in order on patient safety, and he was absolutely right.
If it is decided that the Government wish to legislate on this matter, I urge them to do so swiftly and bring forward proposals. I promise the Minister that she will have constructive co-operation from these Benches, so let us get on with it.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, I echo the points just made about the speed of the Government’s reporting. It is extremely helpful that the Minister in another place apologised clearly for the failures in the system and paid tribute to the victims. I too pay tribute to them and their families for their tenacity over many years, when it was clear that something was going wrong but the people who were in a position to gather information and do something chose not to.
The Statement says:
“I can promise the House a full response in a few months’ time.”
This public inquiry has rightly taken two years—it was slightly delayed by the general election and purdah—but it was clear in 2017 what many of the issues were. The excellent report from the Centre for Health and the Public Interest published in November 2017 entitled No Safety Without Liability: Reforming Private Hospitals in England after the Ian Paterson Scandal set out in a slightly different format many of the recommendations in front of us. I am sure that the Department of Health, the NHS and the independent hospitals will have looked at those recommendations.
I ask the Minister right up front: how long will it take before recommendations come back to the House from the Government on where they want to take things? After all, we have a Bill that is almost ready to go—or perhaps, as I said yesterday on the Second Reading of the Birmingham Commonwealth Games Bill, Groundhog Day is coming around again for us. Let us use that opportunity, at the very least, to remedy the obvious shortfalls in the system.
One of our major concerns is regulation of indemnity procedures for healthcare. There are serious shortcomings that must be dealt with as soon as possible. I was extremely concerned to read in the recommendations about the arrangements private hospitals have with clinicians to carry out their own activities that are rather like self-employed contractors almost renting an out-patient desk and in-patient beds. That is similar to renting a barber’s seat but without the overseeing regulations you need when people’s lives and health are absolutely at risk. That must be managed immediately.
Independent hospitals must take responsibility for their actions, so it is good that one of the key recommendations tries to focus minds on filling the gap between responsibility and liability. The report from CHPI two years ago said that this was vital and that independent hospitals must employ doctors and healthcare professionals, because without that responsibility on their behalf they will continue to wriggle out of liabilities and choose not to monitor clinical practice, missing either ill-meaning or incompetent surgeons. That cannot happen in the NHS and trusts have to take responsibility, as they do when things come to light. This hole in the current system needs to be remedied swiftly.
The inquiry also makes the important point that boards must apologise meaningfully and as early as possible. The UK health system, whether NHS or independent, has an extremely poor record of apologising, or of even commenting at all. Worse, it often tries to bury problems, denying whistleblowers any access. I am afraid that this is part of the systematic culture exposed in this very important inquiry—one that fears liability above apology and, equally importantly, does not learn well from mistakes, especially if through malpractice.
It is shocking that patients were often not guided to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman or the Independent Sector Complaints Adjudication Service. Compare that with the Financial Ombudsman Service: financial services companies must signpost access to the ombudsman at every step of the way when people buy financial products. A financial service problem could result in a loss of money, but a medical problem could end up changing lives for ever, as in the Paterson cases, so when will the Government deal with this issue? Will there be compulsory signposting for patients and clarity over whether all independent hospitals have to sign up to an independent complaints adjudicator—preferably just one, but I understood from what the Minister said in another place that they cannot regulate the independent sector completely? Frankly, as far as healthcare is concerned, my party believes we should.
Once again, the Paterson case demonstrates the need for effective whistleblowing processes. Will the Government commit to an office of the whistleblower to, through legislation, give more protection to patients, whether they are in the NHS or the independent sector? Spire Healthcare has said that it has put more measures in place to encourage staff and patients to speak out since the Paterson case, but even the Statement refers to there still being problems in Spire Healthcare. This just demonstrates that this is not working. Paterson’s victims are very clear: we need a system within the NHS that protects patients and staff. That is equally true of the independent sector.
I end by repeating my initial question: can we please have a timetable for the Government to come back to Parliament with proposed changes, given that a Bill is waiting that could easily be amended for both Houses to attend to speedily?
Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses for those very important questions on this very serious inquiry. I will try to respond to as many as I can in detail, bearing in mind that the Government are carefully considering the recommendations on an issue that deserves serious consideration.
I will reply first to the question on the Government’s responsibility for the independent sector. As I stated, patients in England have a right to safe and proper healthcare regardless of where it is provided and how it is funded. We are committed to ensuring that public and private sector providers adopt proper measures for protection of their patients, as was rightly raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. As she said, following a CQC report on acute care in the independent sector, my right honourable friend Jeremy Hunt wrote to the NHS Partners Network and chief executives, seeking their co-operation on a range of safety and quality issues, which will be followed up. Further, the independent sector has published a medical practitioner framework requiring consultants’ practising privilege to be reviewed regularly. Furthermore, the regulatory system has evolved since Paterson was practising, with fundamental standards of care, intelligence-led inspections and greater scrutiny of clinical governance as part of the well-led domain. However, this report is a rightful challenge to us to take a more strategic approach, and to regulate smarter and not harder when problems arise so that we can make sure these issues do not arise.
I would like in particular to pick up on the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, that it is vital that the NHS has excellent directors to ensure that it can deliver the right standard of care. The Government have accepted in principle recommendations 1 and 2 of the Kark review,
“to develop specified standards of competence that all directors who sit on the board of any health-providing organisation should meet, and to create a central database of directors.”
The noble Baroness, Lady Harding, the chair of NHS Improvement, is taking this work forward as part of the people plan. This should also improve the standards available.
I must make the point that Paterson is in jail. This demonstrates that action has been taken. We have moved further from where we were. The GMC introduced revalidation in 2012 and the CQC started inspecting the independent sector in 2014. However, we will never be complacent because we recognise that there is much more to do, as the report makes clear. The staff and clinicians need to be more open, as has been stated. That is one reason why we introduced the 500 “freedom to speak up” guardians in 2015. When we speak to people, we know earlier where there are problems. As the inquiry says, we need better systems. I will go back to the national guardian, Henrietta Hughes, to ensure that she is as supported as possible in making these systems work effectively.
Regarding indemnity products, we understand how important it is, not only that patients are able to obtain compensation but that the process for assessing that compensation is easy to understand. We are considering this carefully as part of the response, and whether regulation is an appropriate means of addressing concerns about the indemnity cover of health professionals not covered by a state-backed scheme. This includes the consideration of clarity for patients seeking redress. I hope this reassures the noble Baroness.
There are widespread considerations about how cosmetic procedures not currently covered by the CQC are regulated. I hope I have answered most of the questions. We also recognise that while ISCAS is a second line of complaints system for independent patients, it may not be working for PPUs in the NHS. We will be considering that as part of our response. As for the timeframe for that response, we are looking at a three-month window, but want to ensure that we respond appropriately, carefully taking into account the points raised. As pointed out by the noble Baronesses, there are some quite knotty questions to take into account, which may require regulatory or even legislative responses. We must ensure that we get that right and respond in an appropriate timeframe.
The one further point to put into the mix is that it is still appropriate to take into account that there are many good-quality care providers in the private sector, so NHS commissioning through those providers is still appropriate. We must ensure that the regulatory system works in an appropriate manner and that, where there are concerns, people feel free to speak up and action is taken to protect any patients who may be at risk.
Lord Ribeiro (Con)
My Lords, as a past president of the Royal College of Surgeons, I wish to associate myself with the comments of the current president, Professor Derek Alderson. In response to the report, he said:
“The horrific experience of patients at Paterson’s hands is laid bare in today’s report. The healthcare system has failed hundreds of patients and their families, and we must learn from what went wrong. Following their thorough investigation, we welcome the inquiry’s recommendations today, designed to improve patient safety.
We have repeatedly called for the same safety standards to be enforced across both the NHS and private healthcare sector. The inquiry has also stressed this and agreed with our recommendation that a single repository of information about consultants’ practice should be created. We recommended this in our evidence to the inquiry because it allows the NHS and private sector to share information and raise any concerns about patient safety much more quickly.”
When the Bill comes before us, we will be discussing the health service safety investigation body—HSSIB. Can the Minister say whether, in the light of the Paterson inquiry, the Bill might be amended to ensure that HSSIB has the power to investigate all patient safety incidents that occur in the independent private sector as well as in the NHS, not just NHS patients referred to the private sector?
In his introduction, Bishop Graham says:
“It is wishful thinking that this could not happen again.”
Well, this week the British Medical Journal reports on an orthopaedic shoulder surgeon working in the same Spire Parkway Hospital who has had 217 patients recalled because of concerns about his practice. A solicitor for the patients involved said:
“The main concern seems to be that people were having unnecessary surgery under general anaesthetic.”
There are echoes of Paterson’s behaviour. Another recall at the same hospital suggests systemic failings. Given the outcome of the Paterson inquiry, which showed that lessons have still to be learned, how can we ensure that these lessons are learned?
Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
I thank my noble friend for that question, and for his important contribution. He is of course very experienced in this area. Obviously we are looking for time in the legislative agenda to bring forward HSSIB. It is appropriate that we consider the patient safety elements of this report’s recommendations in the context of that Bill. In the previous Second Reading debate, which we look forward to repeating, we discussed the issues around the independent sector. But we will also separately, and perhaps in conjunction with that, consult on the key changes necessary to enable data on admitted patient care to be transferred from the Private Healthcare Information Network and independent providers directly to NHS Digital, which should start to take us in the direction of closing the gap, which I know that many noble Lords in the House are rightly concerned about.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a board member of the GMC. I also chaired the Heart of England Foundation Trust from 2011 to 2014. Mr Paterson worked for the trust as well as in the private sector hospital that the Minister mentioned. I would like to add my personal apology to that of the Minister to the patients and families for the suffering that they endured. Mr Paterson was suspended shortly after I became chairman and we instituted Sir Ian Kennedy’s review. We now have a second inquiry and I pay tribute to Bishop Graham for his work. I have only had the chance to read the Statement quickly, but it seems a thorough piece of work and has many far-reaching lessons and recommendations for the health service.
I have a couple of suggestions for the Minister. First, one of the recommendations is around the way that regulators work together, or not. At the moment, legislation is rather out of date and sometimes gets in the way of collaborative working, although one should never use that as an excuse. As part of the legislative review, I wondered whether the need for reform of the whole regulatory system will be kept closely under review.
Secondly, I want to follow the Minister on this issue of NHS bodies being reluctant to own up to things that have gone wrong because of the potential legal liability. I have discussed this with bodies at the national level and they all say that that is nonsense and organisations should not fear apologising, but it is heavily in the culture of the NHS not to apologise because of potential liability. As part of the consideration of these recommendations, I suggest that the Government seriously look at giving an explicit statement to the NHS on the facts of this and encourage those working in the NHS always to be open about things that have gone wrong.
Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
I thank the noble Lord for that important and knowledgeable contribution. His point about the sharing of lessons between regulators was well made. Part of the reason for proposing HSSIB is for systemic learning of lessons that might otherwise not be available because an inquiry might happen in one trust or group of trusts and lessons might not transfer across the entire system. The whole principle of HSSIB is cross-system learning. We already have evidence that that is working.
Furthermore, the principles at the heart of the patient safety agenda that my right honourable friend Jeremy Hunt put in place were to embed a culture of learning and not blame within the NHS so that apologies can be forthcoming. We have some way to go in achieving that change of culture, but the noble Lord is quite right that leadership starts from the top and having the right statements is a good start. The principles around the place of safety, the protection of whistleblowers and allowing people to come forward and say when they think that things are going wrong without fear of retribution are steps in the right direction. The right action after that is transparency and the recommendations in this report about transparency lead to the right actions being taken from that point.
Eating Disorders: Provision of Care
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Parminter
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to improve the care offered to sufferers of eating disorders.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)
My Lords, since this business is time limited, I draw noble Lords’ attention to the fact that the clocks that normally flash are not doing so, so we have reverted back to the older model which will require noble Lords taking part in the debate to exercise the customary discipline in recognising when their time is up.
Baroness Parminter (LD)
My Lords, I declare an interest: one of my daughters suffers from anorexia. We have experienced NHS eating disorder services both for children and young people and for adults in the community, and specialist in-patient care, and it is clear to me that while advances have been made, insufficient progress has been made to date in improving the care for people suffering from these life-threatening diseases. Noble Lords should be in no doubt that they are serious mental illnesses. They can cripple lives physically, emotionally, socially and can ultimately take them. Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any mental illness and, like cancer, if eating disorders are not caught early, they are much harder to treat.
There are waiting-time targets for children and young people to access eating disorder services, but none for adults. The Royal College of Psychiatrists found that people can wait up to 41 months for treatment, with adults waiting up to 30% longer than those under 18 years of age. Those delays to get treatment have devastating and life-threatening results, like the death of Averil Hart aged just 19 from anorexia. Her death and those of two other young women were investigated by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman in 2017 and followed up by the House of Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee in 2019. Both those inquiries found that it was time to ensure that young people and children’s services were in parity with those provided for adults. I am delighted that the Government are now piloting a waiting time for adults to receive eating disorder services. But when those eight pilots end next year, there is no ring-fenced money in the budget for adult mental health up until 2024 to roll out a national scheme for adults for a waiting time standard. Given that it is now three years since the first inquiry said that this was a matter to be treated with urgency, will the Minister say when the Government think it will be possible to roll out a national waiting time standard for adults with eating disorders?
It is not just about having access to early treatment. It also about ensuring that when people go to their GP there are medics who know how to identify, manage and safely refer those patients. Research in 2018 by Dr Agnes Ayton showed that on average there is less than two hours of medical training on eating disorders, with one in five medical schools offering no training whatever. Ellen Macpherson, a final-year medical student in Manchester, says:
“I’ve had around 10 hours of teaching on schizophrenia, which affects one-fifth of the numbers affected by an eating disorder and has half the mortality rate.”
A survey of medical schools by the General Medical Council echoed Dr Ayton’s research. It concluded that doctors are not sufficiently prepared to manage patients with eating disorders. Recent initiatives by the GMC are welcome, but progress is painfully slow. When she responds, will the Minister tell us how the Government are ensuring that the GMC, medical schools and the royal colleges are undertaking their responsibility to ensure that medical professionals are teaching people properly about these life-threatening diseases?
There is also a need for more research. There are excellent examples of clinic-based treatment here in the UK. When I recently visited the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust I heard about FREED—first episode and rapid early intervention for eating disorders—and I was told about how early intervention and evidence-based treatments can work, but we still do not have a full understanding of, or know how best to treat, eating disorders.
Research levels for mental health are woefully low. Analysis from the charity MQ recently identified that just 96p per person affected is spent on eating disorder research, whereas a physical health condition which affects twice the number of people receives £228 per person affected. When will the Government review the level of funding given to mental health research? Only by looking at funding as well as services will we deliver the parity of esteem for mental health enshrined in legislation by the coalition Government, and the Government have made welcome signs that they are still committed to that.
Recruiting and retaining staff is also a real challenge, given the pressures, especially in adult services. The Royal College of Psychiatrists survey showed that vacancy rates for psychiatrists have more than doubled in the past six years and eating disorder services are among the most seriously affected services. In England, there are only 81 psychiatric posts in eating disorder services, and last year 12 of them were vacant. This directly impacts on the time people wait for treatment. While NHS England and NHS Improvement have been tasked with ensuring that local plans are drawn up to meet staffing requirements for mental health, they will not be able to deliver them unless some of the underlying reasons causing those shortfalls are addressed. This may be an issue that the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, will touch on, so I shall not say much more: only two things. First, increasing the pipeline of medics by creating more psychiatric foundation training places with direct experience of eating disorders would help and, secondly, better resourcing eating disorder services would allow workloads to be managed better and stop people leaving as they are overworked and carrying risks that are too high.
Those risks are exacerbated by dangerously low in-patient capacity. As some Members of the House will know, 19,000 people needed hospitalisation in England last year for eating disorders. That figure has doubled in 10 years but no extra beds have been provided. There are only 649 beds in England. That means that patients with BMIs of under 12 are sent to units while they wait for hospital beds to become available and that patients, who are often children, are sent hundreds of miles away from their families for months on end. When our daughter needed specialist in-patient care there were no beds available anywhere in the country. She was kept alive by the local hospital for a month until a bed became available 144 miles away. She received excellent care, for which I am truly grateful, but I am in no doubt that the distances that people have to suffer at these very difficult times often make it an unbearable situation.
What makes it, frankly, shocking is that commissioning decisions about how many beds and services we have are being made without the NHS having even basic data on the number of people suffering from eating disorders in the UK. You cannot manage what you do not measure. I call on the Government to institute a review of eating disorder services, informed by accurate prevalence data.
While there is much more to do to improve the lives of sufferers of these diseases, there is much to be thankful for: the staff who care and battle on despite the workforce shortages and resource limitations; voluntary organisations, such as Beat and TasteLife; the families and carers who may rage in private but refuse to give up on their loved ones; campaigners, such as Hope Virgo and others, who use their lived experiences to offer much-needed hope of a better tomorrow; and—if I may say so—the Minister, whose willingness to listen is genuinely appreciated.
With the help of this Government, we can take the actions necessary to improve the lives of people suffering from these dreadfully cruel diseases. They deserve nothing less.
Lord Giddens (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, on having secured this debate and introducing it so ably.
I start, somewhat improbably, in China—a part of the world currently in the news for reasons other than what I want to talk about. Only some four decades ago, 40 million people starved to death in the country during Mao’s rule; far greater numbers suffered from pronounced malnutrition. Switch to the present and things look very different indeed. Some 800 million people have been brought out of poverty over that period. Huge urban centres—several far larger than London—have emerged where there was once barren countryside.
I do not know whether noble Lords saw the TV programme on Shenzhen the other night. It was amazing—40 years ago nothing was there but green fields and a river; now, it is a massive high-tech centre, outstripping Silicon Valley. As noble Lords will learn in a moment, I am not in the wrong debate. Nothing like this has ever been accomplished before. Yet not all such change is positive. Some 30% of the population in China today—300 million people—are overweight or obese. An estimated 50 million still suffer from food deprivation, but now as a result of anorexia. A whole spectrum of online “vomit bars” has sprung up in which people encourage each other to vomit after eating.
As China goes, so goes much of the rest the globe. The number of people either overweight or obese in the world now surpasses those who live at near-starvation levels—an amazing, but not wholly positive, turnaround. What a reversal of history this is, and, totally unlike in the past, the vast majority of obese people are not the rich but those in lower income groups. The poor used to be the ones who were undernourished or starved to death. Today, in complete contrast to starvation in the past, anorexia across the world is mostly a pathology of the more affluent.
All this may seem a bit remote from the Question posed by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, and indeed from the UK. However, I see it as an essential backdrop. It shows the sheer scale of the issues involved, based on a sort of global reversal of traditional diets and eating habits. It was good to see Health Secretary Matt Hancock taking a similarly macroscopic view in a speech to a recent conference on eating disorders.
The term “eating disorder” is usually reserved for those suffering from anorexia and/or bulimia. Yet the only genetic factor involved in these conditions is dispositional, not causative, which is exactly the same in the case of obesity. The health implications are far-reaching indeed. Two-thirds of adults in the UK are classified as overweight or obese, with a full third in the second of these categories. Anorexia and obesity used to be thought of as two distinct populations; to some degree this is true, since the former is more often linked to high levels of distress and malfunction. However, the incidence of anorexia is much lower. Recent research indicates that those at the more extreme levels of obesity show comparable levels of anxiety, stress and depression to those with anorexia, particularly in the case of female sufferers.
I welcome the Government’s initiatives for raising consciousness in schools about eating disorders and their parallel reforms to provide early treatment within the NHS. More than one report in the Commons has warned about the serious lack of training on eating disorders for doctors. Just as important is ensuring that GPs are up to date with the most recent research in a field that has a strong medical pathology yet is closely embedded in lifestyle.
Since the Minister has strong Oxford connections—and speaking as an academic myself—I should like to ask her views on the avant-garde research into anorectic disorders being carried out by the Department of Psychiatry at Oxford University. The interest of this work is the attempt to link the biological, emotional and somatic processes involved in anorexia. There is a shortage of evidence-based treatments for anorexia and eating disorders more generally. The Oxford Centre for Human Brain Activity—a really interesting research organisation—is working together with psychiatrists and social scientists on this.
We need further long-term studies of eating disorders, in the wide sense in which I am using the term. A study carried out at Harvard University showed that fewer than half of adults in the US achieve recovery from anorexia or bulimia nervosa over the long term. It is good to see that this research explores the links between those apparent opposites—anorexia and obesity—which I am saying are part of a connected syndrome. The common link is a compulsive relationship to food coupled with distorted but powerful body imagery. Some of the underlying neural mechanisms seem to be the same. One piece of research in the US describes anorexia and obesity as—going back to Chinese—the yin and yang of bodily weight control.
“Go on a diet!” That is the common-sense response to obesity. However, both anorexia and obesity stem from the fact that we live in a world where we are all on a diet. For the first time in history, an almost endless array of foods is available on a daily basis. Every day, consciously or not, we have to decide what to eat in relation to how to be. Even noble Lords have to take these decisions since there are so many cafés on site here; I never quite know which one to go to at a particular time.
I have a couple of questions for the Minister in concluding, as one is supposed to. First, what procedures have the Government established to track and assimilate cutting-edge research on the diagnosis and treatment of eating disorders? By that I mean international research, not simply research in this country; as I am trying to stress, this is an amazing global reversal in human beings’ relationship to food and the body, so the research needs to be transnational. Secondly, and in conclusion, will the UK follow the lead of other countries in recognising the need to explore the aetiological parallels between anorexia and obesity?
Lord Lexden (Con)
My Lords, I cannot claim to be an expert on the subject of this very important debate, for which we are indebted to the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, who has done so much to help make known the extent of the suffering associated with eating disorders and involved herself so fully in the work of bringing relief to those who suffer, while promoting greater understanding of the causes of this deeply distressing condition.
My participation in this debate stems from my admiration for all that is being done by our remarkable health professionals—often in difficult circumstances, as we have heard from the noble Baroness—and by so many members of staff in our country’s schools to help those afflicted by eating disorders. It is on education that I will concentrate, drawing on the work and great experience of my friend and close colleague, Neil Roskilly, chief executive of the Independent Schools Association, a body that represents the interests of some 550 smaller independent schools, and of which I am president. Our member schools are increasingly sensitive to the needs of children who develop eating disorders or are at risk of doing so. Forming small, closely knit communities, they are only too ready to share the expertise that they are accumulating with state schools in the spirit of partnership that increasingly characterises the relationship between the two sectors of education. The more closely that they can be drawn together, the more our country will gain.
Schools in many parts of the country can now benefit from the excellent work being done by the charity Beat, which was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, and with which she is closely associated. It is making a major contribution, particularly through its expanding programme of training for schools, and is keen to do more. I shall return to it later in my remarks.
Schools are inevitably in the front line where eating disorders are concerned. Teachers and others in the school community, including of course catering staff, occupy a key position. They can spot the warning signs and so secure early recognition and intervention, which are vital if young people are to gain access to the expert support that they need in the early stages of their difficulties. As we all know, eating disorders are ultimately not about food; rather, they are symptoms of underlying mental health needs that, through training the key people, can be recognised and addressed, so the resources must be adequate to provide the essential training in schools.
Public discussion and debate are essential too in helping sufferers overcome the shame and the need for secrecy that they often feel. Weight loss is only one of the possible symptoms. No less important can be indicators such as mood and behaviour. Irritability, restlessness and difficulty in concentrating in class can all too easily be explained away if school staff have not received the training that is needed to probe the real difficulties successfully, so equipping school staff with the skills to encourage children in the most sensitive way to talk openly about their feelings must be a central part of any training.
It is so very important to combat the stigma that still attaches to eating disorders, the stigma that treats them as a sign of vanity or a means of gaining attention. The Government’s recognition that more needs to be done in training schools to banish stigma and identify the early signs of trouble is to be warmly welcomed. The funding announced last year for the national mental health programme, working with the NHS, is an important start, although the target of training a senior member of staff to lead on mental health issues in all schools over the next four years is not perhaps as ambitious as many hoped.
More thought needs to be given to the long-term improvement of clinical referral services for children. With more teachers trained to lead on mental health issues in schools, demand for early access to expert NHS clinical support will increase. At the moment services vary far too much in quality and extent across the country. Instances of children being turned away by the NHS because their condition has not become life-threatening are a cause for grave concern.
A mentally ill child faces an almost insurmountable barrier to learning. In view of the need for early intervention, and the large potential cost to the NHS and families of the growing number of severe cases, the vital work of charities such as Beat in schools should be recognised and supported.
Working in co-operation and in partnership with the Government, charities can help achieve the progress we all want to see accomplished. Beat’s Spotting the Signs training for schools is now available widely in the north and in some other parts of our country. It will be extended as further resources allow. Beat is also working with organisations such as the Independent Schools Association, which I mentioned at the outset, to make more teachers aware that a child’s mental health is just as important as their physical health. That surely is an absolutely fundamental point.
It is in schools that part—a significant part—of the answer to the urgent problems at the centre of this important debate can be found. I end by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, again for initiating it.
Baroness Hollins (CB)
My Lords, I will speak a bit more about workforce issues in this very important debate. As the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, mentioned, nearly one in seven consultant posts in this specialty in England is vacant. I think this reflects the state of the psychiatry workforce across all of its subspecialties. In 2019, the Royal College of Psychiatrists found that around one in 10 consultant psychiatrist posts in England were unfilled. These “missing” psychiatrists in our NHS have an obvious and detrimental effect on patient care in eating disorders and across the rest of psychiatry too.
This also has a secondary and confounding effect on the psychiatric profession itself. A report this year by the BMA found that more than three in five mental health professionals worked in teams with gaps in the rota and that more than half reported feeling too busy to provide the care they wanted to on the last shift they worked. No wonder psychiatry has perennial recruitment problems. I will share an interesting statistic. Of 74 medical subspecialties, 50 are more competitive than general psychiatry and 72 are more competitive than my specialty of the psychiatry of learning disability.
The shortfall in psychiatrists cannot be resolved without addressing the ongoing underresourcing and understaffing of mental health services, especially when people’s lives are at stake. The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, made a very important point about the high mortality rate in eating disorders compared with, for example, schizophrenia, which people think of as a serious psychiatric disorder. Reversing the workforce shortfall requires a joined-up and concerted effort. Could the Minister comment on the Government’s current plan to improve the recruitment and retention of psychiatrists?
Doctors will choose psychiatry when they feel that mental health is given the same priority and concern as physical health. Although that is now policy, mental healthcare is still treated as physical health’s poor cousin. In 2019, the OECD estimated that mental ill-health costs the UK £94 billion a year. Contrast this with the £2.3 billion extra pledged by this Government for mental health by 2023-24. It is clear that more needs to be done now; the human and economic costs are far too high. Can the Minister advise the House on what steps the Government are taking to address the shortfall in spending on mental health?
It is not just the medical workforce which has suffered over the last 10 years. Since 2009, the mental health workforce has also lost 7,000 nurses and 6,000 clinical support staff, and more than one in 10 clinical psychology posts is vacant. The sorry state of the workforce is only one part of the story. The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, emphasised that early intervention is key to success in the treatment of eating disorders and spoke clearly about the need to introduce waiting-list standards for adult services. However, early identification of eating disorders has to happen before anybody can intervene. That means that all doctors need basic knowledge about how to recognise them. The noble Baroness notes that one in five UK medical schools seems to teach very little about eating disorders, although I understand that the GMC has specified that all medical schools should teach this. It is crucial that staff across the health service, including in primary care and general hospitals, have a basic working knowledge of eating disorders and other common mental health presentations. It is not something to leave just to specialists in psychiatric services.
On 10 February, I will be asking the Minister about the Government’s plans for mandatory training for health and social care staff in learning disability and autism. There is a relationship between eating disorders and learning disability and autism. As many as 90% of children diagnosed with autism have some form of disordered eating, and some estimates suggest that up to one in five women with anorexia has autism. The situation is complex when multiple mental health conditions coincide; there is no substitute for better trained and supervised staff.
There are many possible responses to the issue of training. The House of Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee recommended last year that all newly qualified doctors should work in psychiatry in one of their six foundation placements and gain some experience of eating disorders. This request has been made many times before by the Royal College of Psychiatrists and others, including when I was president earlier this century. The Government’s response to the committee’s recommendations in August 2019 stated that
“the GMC will host a roundtable with HEE, NHS England and NHS Improvement, key bodies within the Devolved Administrations, the AoMRC and individual royal colleges, the Medical Schools Council and other key bodies.”
Could the Minister provide an update on the status of these discussions?
I will end by commenting on the importance of generalism. A suggestion is gaining ground that all subspecialists should be generalists as well, with the aim of minimising the gaps that can arise between specialisms—whether the specialism is eating disorders, learning disabilities, autism or anything else. Is it time to consider additional postgraduate qualifications for generalists, while ensuring that all general psychiatrists have training in these conditions?
I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, on securing this important debate, on speaking so frankly, honestly and powerfully about the subject, and on allowing me to speak about some broader, related issues in the mental health workforce.
Baroness Janke (LD)
My Lords, I too am grateful to my noble friend Lady Parminter for the debate today. I will speak particularly about anorexia, a killer disease that frequently affects young girls and women between 14 and 25. That is the area I have had most experience of, although, as other noble Lords have said, anorexia also affects adults.
As other noble Lords have said, anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder. The death rate associated with anorexia nervosa is 12 times higher than the rate for all other causes of death for females aged 15 to 24. Yet, as other noble Lords have said, there is much to be grateful for in that there can be a recovery, with enough support and treatment. Research suggests that 46% of anorexia patients fully recover, 33% improve and 20% suffer chronically. I am grateful that my daughter was one of the 46% who recovered.
According to Beat, the eating disorders charity, the average duration of the illness is eight years, but it can become severe and enduring, lasting for many years and having a hugely debilitating effect on the sufferer and their family. Thinking about people at the younger end of that age group, we know that the teenage period is a time of such emotional development as well as physical growth. It is a time of intellectual development and moving into the adult world. For sufferers of anorexia, isolated not only in their body but socially, the illness brings this growth and development to a halt. Cognitive development at this age is of huge importance, as it is often much more difficult to catch up afterwards, even if there is a full recovery. Eight years is the average time it takes to recover. Eight years in the life of a 14 year-old is a lifetime, and a huge loss of a key period in anyone's life.
The disease is sometimes considered not so much a disease as a life choice. There is perhaps a lack of awareness that the obsession with weight and body is so compulsive; that there is an overwhelming fear of gaining weight, and a distorted body image. Sufferers will do anything to get thinner, and the thinner they get, the more they think they need to become even thinner.
Sufferers also change personality. If somebody in your house is suffering from anorexia, you will find that your cheerful, open teenager can become aggressive, abusive, deceitful and manipulative, and an expert in inflicting pain on their loved ones. It is very hard for anyone who has not had first-hand experience of this debilitating and vicious disease to imagine what it is like to have to keep up surveillance and constant care just to keep your precious child alive. It is a deadly disease but, as the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, said, it is often seen as an extension of vanity—the obsession with image and appearance. It is far more complex than that, as other noble Lords have said in the debate.
It is alarming that the January NHS figures show that hospital admissions for eating disorders have risen by 37% across all age groups in the last two years. Hospital admissions are only for those who have to be prevented from starving themselves to death, so this is just the tip of the iceberg. It is a huge issue, and sufferers need intensive support and early intervention. As other noble Lords have said, the sooner they get the treatment they need, the more likely they are to make a full recovery. Prompt access to high-quality treatment and support can prevent people getting to the point where hospital admission is the only course of action that will keep them alive.
I agree with what has already been said: research has been starved of funding. My experience was quite some time ago, but there was very much a feeling that this was not really an illness but the teenage behaviour of adolescent girls, and a failure to recognise the results that could occur when people did not get the care that they needed.
I was interested to hear that research has proposed the idea that there may be a hereditary aspect, for example, and also that people are now looking into a metabolic dimension. As has been said, the relation to obesity is something that appears to be being looked into more. Certain individuals may be much more likely to suffer from anorexia when they experience stress, bullying or very severe pressure. I feel that we need to raise awareness of this as a disease that kills people, not a lifestyle choice, affectation or folly of teenage girls.
I hope that treatment and support will be made available consistently across the country. Whether you survive this disease should not be a matter for a postcode lottery. In my opinion, eating disorders have for many years been a Cinderella service within mental health, which is itself a Cinderella service. I hope, from the information we have had, that the Minister will reassure us that this will not continue to be the case. If not, there will be more and more tragic and unnecessary deaths, as sufferers’ lives continue to be at risk. Again, families and carers live with that risk of death every day. I hope that we are to get assurances from the Minister, as more and more families will be torn apart if there is not very prompt and urgent action to provide support and treatment for people suffering from all eating disorders. However, I make a special plea for anorexia.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
My Lords, I too am extremely grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, for securing this debate, for the great knowledge she has on the topic and for the great campaigning she has done. I am also grateful to the group that she accompanied last week, when we met the head of Public Health England to talk about this issue and some others. We were pressing PHE to perhaps review its approach.
I am also grateful to others who have contributed to this quality debate, and to my noble friend Lord Giddens. We once had a debate in his name on this topic. I looked it up today and way back on 25 February 2013, we identified some issues arising that needed addressing; here we are in 2020, with many of the same problems around. They may be on a bigger scale but call for similar solutions. Back in April 2013, I was one of those who helped create the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Obesity. We had not had one before but it got off the ground then. Look at what has happened between 2013 and 2020: on almost every count, obesity is now worse. There are very few areas in which we can point to progress.
I was at the London School of Economics last night—my noble friend Lord Giddens has strong past connections with it, as he was the head of the LSE. I was there to listen to an address by Professor Richard Layard—my noble friend Lord Layard, one of our colleagues. He was speaking on the publication of his latest book, which is on the topic of happiness. That relates directly to what we are debating this evening. What are we about with health? We seek a better life and happiness. My noble friend has done much work in this area in the past, particularly on mental health, and was closely associated with the introduction of talking therapies under the Blair Government. I think over 20,000 new staff came in to work especially in that area; it was not enough, but it was a major change. We now find many people complaining of having to wait too long before they get assistance on talking therapies, while the length of many courses on talking therapies has been reduced to a point where their impact is perhaps not quite so significant as previously.
I will not repeat all the points that my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, made but we have a grave shortage, right across the board. We have shortages in addiction generally; in psychiatrists; in doctors, nurses and staff at many levels right across the mental health field. We look forward to having some comforting response, I am sure, from the Minister on how we are going to see improvements in those areas. They are sorely needed because we seem to have a shift from physical health into mental health, and the caseload is growing all the time.
I spent many years working on addictive issues. I have a personal history of problems with alcohol and drugs. I was on my knees and had to find a way forward, and I did that nearly 40 years ago. Since then, I have spent much of my life working with people with addictions—not just in alcohol and drugs but food, too, and at both ends of the spectrum with food. My dismay is that we have a divide between the approach on obesity and that often taken on eating disorders, when in fact there is so much commonality between them. As others have said, it is time that we started trying to bring some of these elements together, and to work closely in a more overarching way than in the past.
I am pleased that the Government have announced that they are to introduce a cross-departmental approach on a number of addictive issues. Can the Minister say why the subject we are talking about and obesity have not, so far as I can see, been specifically included? They are not being addressed within that approach. When will the work get under way? Can she give us a little more information about its timescale and who will be involved with it? What does she expect to come out from the new review that is being established? But overall, I welcome that development.
Having examined some different types of addiction, my experience is that in many areas they seem to have common themes running through them. Look at how we address it within Public Health England; it is interesting that it has separate units dealing with drugs, alcohol and the problems arising with food. We should look at the structures within that major organisation to see whether it is properly set up for prevention, given that the Government have now decided that they need a cross-departmental approach on reviewing addiction.
It is not easy to find solutions, particularly on anorexia. Among the addictions I have looked at, it is one that hits quickly and is very difficult to reverse. It also has quite dramatic impacts on families, relatives and other people around them. In looking for solutions we should not limit ourselves to dealing with the individual; families should be involved, too. We should look to have the widest possible participation, not just from professionals—we are short of them and need more—but more across the voluntary sectors. We should look at what alternatives may be available.
I am quite open in saying that I believe that there is a requirement for a spiritual approach. That is not something that we frequently talk about in the Chamber, but I have certainly seen many people whose lives have been written off yet who have found by one means or another, using the 12-step recovery programme, their way to a better, fruitful life. I am pleased to report that, in March, we will set up for the first time an all-party parliamentary group on this topic. The inaugural meeting will look at the 12-step recovery programme on addictions to see how it might be applied over the widest possible area to help people who have problems which seem difficult to resolve and who may find an answer in it. I would like to hear whether the Minister welcomes that development.
Baroness Murphy (CB)
My Lords, I think that it was Wallis Simpson who famously said that you cannot be too rich or too thin. We never in this House debate being too rich, but we occasionally debate the problems of those who aspire to be too thin. Wallis Simpson, famously, ate almost nothing and was probably mildly anorexic.
The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, has outlined the terrible situation that families find themselves in when they have a child or young person suffering from this terrible disorder, whether or not it is anorexia nervosa, obesity or bulimia—bulimia in particular is very difficult to treat, as is anorexia.
While I was driving down from Norfolk this morning, I listened to an excellent edition of “Woman’s Hour”, on which a young woman called Hannah described her own anorexia and how it felt to her. She had been waiting for treatment in the Greater Manchester area for 18 months, and she was offered just one of a group of services that were available in the area, with no thought as to whether it was appropriate for her. Even then, it was a great time coming. Dr Agnes Ayton, chair of the eating disorders faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, made many of the points, brilliantly and articulately, about the difficulties that people have in accessing services, saying that while we have invested in young people’s and children’s services through child and adolescent mental health services, we have left young adults far behind in their ability to gain access.
Having re-read the debate instigated by the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, back in 2013, it strikes me that we have repeated this evening exactly what was said during that debate: that there has been very little improvement—and, of course, the numbers have gone up. As to why the numbers have gone up, the noble Lord’s own specialty has told us: they have perhaps been rising since the 1960s. We are very keen to say that it is not a lifestyle choice, but it is lifestyle factors that have made people want to go down this route in the first place. Biological triggers turn a normal seeking of a slim, elegant, beautiful figure into something much more pathological. That is the thing that we really do not understand.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, said, the report by the NHS ombudsman on how patients are failed was truly shocking. Since then, we have had much better guidance in commissioning, but those documents are often ambitious, noble but pie in the sky and are not widely taken up, for all the reasons which have been articulated. Eating disorders are more common than people realise. Some 80% of people who have them never go to a doctor, and many episodes are managed in families with no access to specialist services. Such services may not be needed, because, within a few weeks or months, the child or young woman has tackled the disorder themselves and has been able to get to grips with what has become a pathological desire to be thin without flipping over into something that does not get better. It is important to remember that, because those who are referred are therefore often in great need of specialist care, and that is the thing that is so difficult.
Eating disorders are of course prevalent in young men as well, particularly those with a gender disorder of some kind or who are troubled by their sexuality. I have treated at least two young men with anorexia nervosa and found them quite as difficult as young women to reach and help through their disorder. It is also common—and getting commoner—in older people. My Aunt Florence never recovered, and died when she was in her 90s. She was slim, but healthily so, all her life until she was in her 80s, when she started to adopt strategies identical to those of a much younger woman. This was similarly pathological, and she starved herself almost to death. Elderly people who get these disorders are often inappropriately investigated, because of the link between physical ill-health in old age and loss of appetite. Perhaps “inappropriately investigated” is not fair, but these things are much commoner in later life than one might imagine.
We have had the commissioning help after the ombudsman’s report and we got the extra £30 million put into young people’s services, but it has simply not touched adult services. Other noble Lords have already mentioned the mortality rate, so I will not stress that.
Historically, such disorders were a lot commoner than we think. There is a description of an illness suffered by Mary Queen of Scots which is a classic eating disorder. There are explicit medical descriptions from about 1670. In the 19th century an awful lot of young women had a condition called chlorosis. People turned slightly green because they had iron deficiency, but it is also thought that this was largely caused by anorexia. There were pressures on young women then which they too addressed in that way.
Treatment is extremely difficult. Evidence-based treatments are few and far between. What we try to do is keep people alive and at a healthy weight long enough for them to get a grip on it and recover for themselves. That is true not just for anorexia nervosa but for many other mental health disorders, for which we do not have the specific treatments we have for psychoses. People need a lot of help, support and psychotherapeutic approaches. The ones that are good for some people may not be for others. The commissioning document makes it clear how important it is for people to be given choices.
My time is up. I stress that we need more investment in a choice of services which are readily accessible for people locally, so that they do not have to just accept what their local service provides. That is the major thing the Government should be doing. What are they intending to do?
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, I too offer my thanks to my noble friend Lady Parminter for securing this important debate. For many years, this has been an invisible disease without enough resources to ensure that those who present to doctors get the vital support that they need immediately. I pay tribute to my noble friend for her tireless work on eating disorders, based on her own family’s experience. I also pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Janke for speaking of her family experience. My noble friend Lady Parminter talked about the lived experience of sufferers who are champions but my noble friends both showed, through their contributions, the effort it takes to hold a family together while supporting a child going through this terrible disease. I remember a friend of mine disappearing from school some 50 years ago at the age of 14 and never returning to mainstream school. Until I met her sister, some 30 years later, we never knew that she had had anorexia. It was not spoken about and there was hardly any treatment at all.
It is important to recognise that support and treatment have improved substantially in recent years, including the extra £30 million for young people with eating disorders, but it is clear from this debate that the context of resources is vital. Clinical approaches to eating disorders have changed, but the number of patients and the support they need is at crisis point. We have heard that in 2018-19 there were more than 19,000 patients admitted to hospital with eating disorders but only 649 beds in England. That is an astonishing two patients per hour per day, yet we know that resources are so scarce that patients are now routinely turned away for not being sick enough.
The noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, spoke about Hannah on “Woman’s Hour” today. I suspect it was the same Hannah whom the Sunday Times talked to last Sunday; she was turned away from the Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust because she was not ill enough and her BMI had not dropped to the point at which it would automatically guarantee entrance, even though in her experience of the disease there was evidence that she was deteriorating rapidly. She is very brave in speaking up. We need to know the reality of what is happening. I am afraid that one of the reasons for this—other noble Lords have been discreet, but I will not be—is that clinicians are having to ration support for eating disorders. The parity of esteem enshrined in legislation under the coalition is still a pipe dream.
A further problem is touched on in some of the helpful briefing we have had, including that from the GMC and the Library: the transition of young people from CAMHS to adult services. In my family’s experience of CAMHS—everyone should recognise that there is usually some experience of mental health services—the transition period was a complete nightmare, even though we got an extra year after the age of 18 to transition through. The attitude and approach were completely different and led to a crisis within a year. That problem of transition, which has been recognised and understood in education and children’s services for the most vulnerable young people who are looked after or have learning disabilities, also needs to be applied to children with mental health problems, particularly those with eating disorders since we know that this disease targets those aged between 15 and 25. To suddenly change everything at 18 is an extremely traumatic experience for the young people and their families. What plans are there to extend access to children and young people’s mental health services up to the age of 25, obviously transitioning as is best for the individual concerned?
While the Government discuss abolishing the four-hour accident and emergency targets overall, what plans are there to introduce waiting time targets for adults as well as children in accessing mental health services, and specifically for eating disorders? Currently only a third of young people with diagnosable conditions get NHS treatment without long delays. Liberal Democrats believe that we should ensure that 50% of children and young people with diagnosable conditions should have treatment by the end of this year, improving to 100% by 2025. Currently, only four in 10 adults get access to treatment. We believe that seven in 10 adults should get access to treatment by 2022. We must set an ambition that everyone who needs treatment gets it by 2025. That will be the point at which we can believe that we have parity of esteem in mental health services.
Other noble Lords have spoken about the importance of early diagnosis. Currently, medical students receive on average less than two hours’ teaching on eating disorders throughout their undergraduate training. By improving training, we will be able greatly to improve early intervention, especially for those on the front line—GPs and more general physicians. Other noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, have spoken with experience and expertise on this.
There are other workforce issues. The helpful briefing from the GMC pointed out that there are only 70 posts, mainly in CAMHS, of which a substantial number are vacant. Both the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, and the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, talked about the practicalities of gaps in the rota, which inevitably impact on patient care. How on earth can you attract young medics to psychiatry if candidates know that resources are not just scarce but will rely on them turning away those patients they know need urgent intervention?
The noble Lord, Lord Lexden, spoke about the importance of educating school staff in recognising the difficulties that some young people face and in helping to signpost them to their families to get help. I too pay tribute to Beat and other charities that provide that expertise to those who can help. However, above all, it is the patients and their families who need help and support. We are overcoming the burden of secrecy in eating disorders, which is good, and the voice of Hannah and many others who have a lived experience of eating disorders is vital. However, we also have a duty to provide the resources for beds, access to clinics, staff and support staff to help people overcome this disease. None of that can happen without money. Therefore, my final question to the Minister is to ask about the increase of funding for adult services and treatment of eating disorders more generally in this area over the next five years.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, on securing this debate and on her moving opening remarks, as well as all other noble Lords who have participated in the debate today on this important and growing challenge.
As we have heard today, eating disorders are complex mental illnesses. I absolutely agree with my noble friend Lord Brooke that we need to see progress. I spent a few minutes looking on my iPad to see whether I had answered the debate in 2013 from this Dispatch Box. I am sure that I would have remembered if I had, and indeed, I did not—one of my colleagues dealt with that issue. But it is remarkable that that debate very much reflected the things that have been said this evening, and it is a bit depressing that we still need to make some progress today.
The thing about eating disorders is that you can develop one no matter your age, gender or background. Some examples of eating disorders have been mentioned: bulimia, binge eating, anorexia and obesity. There is no single cause of this, as noble Lords have said; it can be very complex, and people might not have all the symptoms for any one eating disorder. I echo the thanks expressed by other noble Lords to the General Medical Council and Beat in particular for their information about this matter.
The General Medical Council noted at one of the round tables that it organised on this in November 2019 that there is a lack of eating disorder specialists in the UK. There are only 70 posts, mostly in child and adolescent mental health, with some in adult, and approximately 15% of posts are vacant. Coupled with the lack of beds and the stories that noble Lords have recounted, that makes this situation very serious indeed.
We know that there is an important link between obesity, mental health and eating disorders. My noble friend Lord Giddens definitely expressed this eloquently and in greater depth, but this relationship is often neglected. Awareness of this is neglected as well, as several noble Lords said. Medical training across the board does not adequately recognise the seriousness of this condition.
I think we all welcome that the NHS long-term plan and related initiatives which emphasise mental health provide a unique opportunity to make progress on improvements to eating disorder services and the relationship with education and training. For example, I am pleased to hear that the General Medical Council is now working with the Faculty of Eating Disorders Psychiatry and other key stakeholders. That is some comfort, but I was very disturbed by the contribution by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, when she addressed the workforce situation; she posed some serious questions to the Minister.
In December 2017, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman published Ignoring the Alarms: How NHS Eating Disorder Services are Failing Patients. The report made five recommendations for improvements in NHS eating disorder services. Indeed, the Public Accounts Committee went on to say that this was important and needed to be acted on. We all know, as noble Lords have said, that collaboration is needed at both service level—as the PHSO report highlighted in terms of, for example, handover and continuity of care—and at system-wide level with regulators, commissioners and others working jointly to identify and implement improvements. The PHSO also recommended a public health campaign, which would help to raise awareness of the impact of this condition. Is that likely to happen?
Noble Lords will know that a Guardian investigation established that coroners in England and Wales have served a prevention of future deaths notice in at least 12 cases, identifying problems that have been mentioned tonight, including a lack of staff or beds. Coroners were so alarmed by these failings that they sent official warnings to 11 trusts that provided care for people with anorexia and bulimia between 2013 and 2019. Grace Freeman, a policy and campaigns officer for the mental health charity Mind, said that the cases were a
“shocking reminder of the poor quality of care too many young people receive from mental health services, particularly those living with eating disorders.”
The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, made a plea, saying that science and research needs investment to provide the evidence base that the Government want, to make sure that eating disorders are dealt with with the seriousness they deserve. For example, there is no official data on deaths due to eating disorders; at a recent inquest, a doctor said cases were not being properly recorded by the NHS. As we know, suicide is one of the biggest risk factors for people with the condition, with between one-fifth and one-third of patients taking their own lives.
As far as I, aged 67, can see, if I develop an eating disorder, it depends on where I live but I would not be eligible for treatment in one of the 49 adult eating disorder clinics in England and Wales. According to an investigation by the “Victoria Derbyshire” programme, three have a cut-off age of 65, with older patients referred to general geriatric mental health units, which are likely to be unable to provide the same level of tailored care as would be required.
Finally, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, that it is awful that our clinicians face rationing treatment for eating disorders. It is completely unacceptable. This condition requires more investment, more choice and more money being available to combat it.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford) (Con)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their expert contributions. In particular, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, for securing what has been a significant debate, and those noble Lords who spoke of their lived experience tonight. That is brave and an important contribution, both to inform policy and to let people outside this place know that there should be no stigma in speaking up. I wish to thank each and every noble Lord who has contributed tonight.
We know that eating disorders can be utterly devastating for the people suffering from these conditions and for those around them, including their families and friends. We know that they are not an aspect of vanity, as the noble Baroness, Lady Janke, said, but serious, life-threatening conditions with some of the highest mortality rates of any mental health disorder. They can have severe psychological, physical and social consequences—sometimes for a lifetime—and are more prevalent in young people but can occur at any time in life and in someone from any background. That is why we want to ensure that people have access to the right mental health support in the right place at the right time. We know that we have more work to do to ensure that we get there.
Improving eating disorder treatment services is a key priority for the Government; it is a vital part of our work on improving mental health services. As the noble Baroness, Lady Janke, rightly said, we know that the earlier an intervention is made and treatment provided, the greater the chance of recovery. That is why the Government set up the first standards to improve access to eating disorder services for children and young people, which will ensure that by 2020-21, 95% of children with an eating disorder will receive treatment within one week for urgent cases and within four weeks for non-urgent cases. We are on track to meet that commitment.
As raised first by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, and subsequently by others, in-patient treatment is also important, although we want it to be a last resort. That is why in 2014 we announced that we would invest £150 million to expand community-based care and why we are making good on that promise. It has resulted in 70 dedicated new or extended community services now either open or in development, which has led to faster access to eating disorder treatment in the community, with the number of children and young people accessing earlier treatment up from 5,234 in 2016-17 to 6,867 in 2017-18. The services are designed to give young people early access to services in their communities with properly trained teams. They include extended access to talking therapies, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, pointed out, are very important. In that way we can avoid extended hospital stays wherever possible.
Although eating disorders are commonly first experienced by people when they are young, conditions can continue into adulthood, as has been noted. Following the PHSO’s report, NHS England has convened a working group with NHS Improvement, Health Education England, the Department for Health and Social Care and other partners to address recommendations to take into account planning for improvements in adult eating disorder services.
As has been mentioned, there are currently 649 beds for treating eating disorders. We recognise that there is demand for extra beds, which is why we have developed a comprehensive activity dashboard—it is not very well named—which provides current and trend data regarding the use of in-patient services for adults with eating disorders. We shall use this to inform decisions regarding in-patient capacity requirements for local populations both in the short term and over the longer term to improve access.
In addition, for children and young people, the national accelerated bed programme for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services is already supporting the delivery of care closer to home, and we hope that this is starting to improve the situation. Issues regarding geographical variation were raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Murphy and Lady Thornton. We want to ensure that patients with eating disorders can receive treatment as close to home as possible. NHS England has recently created a review of NHS in-patient and community eating disorder services so that it can understand current provision, measure levels of geographic variation and allow the modelling of workforce implications to try to respond to those services.
I want to respond to the point raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Hollins and Lady Brinton, as well as by others, regarding investment in mental health services. As I have already said, we have increased funding for eating disorder services, but we have also ensured that investment in mental health services must rise at a faster rate than in overall published funding. Each CCG must meet the mental health investment standard by which their 2018-19 investment in mental health rises, at a faster rate than the overall published programme of funding. CCG auditors will be required to validate their 2018-19 year-end position in meeting the mental health investment standard. In 2018-19, 100% of CCGs met that mental health investment standard. This is to ensure that we see an increase in the mental health investment standard, so that improvements can be made to access times, to the workforce and to all the other areas which have been referred to in the debate.
I would like to move on to the questions raised regarding access and waiting times for adult services. As the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Parminter, will know, we have brought in the eating disorder waiting time for children, but we are also trialling a four-week waiting time for adults and older people community mental health teams in local areas in order to understand how they should best be introduced. I understand the impatience for waiting time standards to be introduced immediately. Given the nature of our debate today, I ask for some understanding; we are building on a low base across the mental health system. We want to make sure that the waiting time standards we introduce are clinically appropriate, that the system is able to respond and that they are on track for delivery and sustained once brought in. I am happy to respond in a more detailed way subsequently if that is not a sufficient answer, but that is why we are bringing in the waiting time standards in that way.
On the question regarding transition that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, asked—rightly, given the questions identified across not only health but education and social care systems—two areas of the country with eating disorder services that are new care models, including West Yorkshire and Harrogate, are starting to make important progress in joining up young people’s and adults’ eating disorder services and improving the treatment and care received as close to home as possible. They are modelling services that, as we evaluate them, we hope could be rolled out in other parts of the country. I hope that answers the question of how we are trying to improve that.
On the question about workforce raised by a number of Peers—the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornton and Lady Hollins, and others—it is quite right that we recognise the need to recruit more mental health nurses and psychiatrists into the system. As was rightly said, there have historically been challenges in bringing in psychiatry trainees. We now have 300 more consultant psychiatrists than in 2010, so we are starting to make progress. We have focused on driving forward work to improve recruitment into psychiatry, working with the Royal College of Psychiatrists on its Choose Psychiatry campaign. To attract more junior doctors into psychiatry, the new junior doctor contract gives psychiatry trainees a £21,017 pay premium in addition to their normal pay. This is an additional £3,507 per annum for a typical six-year training programme. We also have additional support and similar additional payments in the nursing arena to attract nurses into specific specialties, because we recognise the need to do so.
In addition to this, questions were raised about prevalence. The important question was asked: how can we possibly make policy if we do not have up-to-date and accurate data on which to make that policy? As a data geek, I could not agree more. Therefore, while we have some useful data from the 2017 mental health of children and young people in England survey, which is helpful, we want to improve the information we have, so we have included—I am really sorry to use this acronym—the SCOFF eating disorder questionnaire in the 2019 health survey for England, due for publication in December 2020. We are working on securing a financial agreement for the next APMS in 2021. Content for the survey will be prioritised during the scoping phase, which I know will provide important prevalence data—something we want to see.
I have two final points regarding training and research funding, both of which are essential if we are to move forward. We certainly agree that mental health should be an integral part of medical education, and we thank the GMC for the work it has been doing to explain and illustrate by professional experience the principles of identification, self-management and referral of patients with mental health conditions. We are committed to providing the best training experience for all junior doctors. We will work with the GMC and relevant stakeholders to try to improve the training available. I know that the noble Baronesses, Lady Parminter and Lady Hollins, have been particularly involved in this. Perhaps we could take up this point afterwards.
When it comes to the questions of research raised in particular by the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, but also by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, of course we need to understand these questions with much more granularity if we are to improve services, be more targeted with our policies and spend money more effectively. This year, we invested about £93.4 million in mental health research, which is up from last year. We are committed to having mental health research as a priority area. In particular, I was always very proud that the only biomedical research centre that focused on mental health was at Oxford Health. I was very proud to have opened that as the previous Mental Health Minister.
I am not aware of the specific research paper that the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, raised, but I am very happy to look it up after this debate and come back to him on it. When it comes to what I think he referred to as the ecological relationship between obesity and eating disorders, as a department we definitely consider that we must work very hard on making sure our prevention agenda works holistically across the entire addiction panoply. Indeed, we will be taking forward the prevention Green Paper in a way that ensures joined-up policy, not only in the department, but across government. I am very happy to follow up on the question regarding the 12-step approach.
I think I have touched on the majority of the commitments in the long-term plan, so I will not go into details because I have come to the end of my time, but I conclude by thanking all Members who contributed, in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter. I hope I have reassured noble Lords about the Government’s commitment to improving eating disorder services, that we recognise the devastating impact of eating disorders and that we want to ensure that all those with eating disorders can access high-quality and vital mental health support much earlier, because we understand the impact this can have.