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Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sajid Javid)
We want a relationship with the EU that is based on friendly co-operation between sovereign equals and is centred on free trade. The economy has grown every year since 2010. Employment is at a record high and wage growth has outpaced inflation for 17 consecutive months. The upcoming Budget will set out ambitious plans to level up across the UK and usher in a decade of renewal.
Matt Western
The Chancellor will be aware that the CBI has spoken out and claimed that business is not ready for Brexit, which has already cost businesses billions of pounds in planning. But the advice is unclear. I spoke to the Federation of Small Businesses and to several small businesses last night, and they are extremely concerned that neither the infrastructure nor the advice is in place.
Sajid Javid
I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we are working very closely with individual businesses and their representative groups. The one thing they have certainly welcomed in the past few weeks is that we have ended the uncertainty around Brexit by actually leaving the European Union, as we said we would. We will be working very closely with business as we forge that new free trade agreement, which I know we will do.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
Three years ago, at my first shadow Treasury questions from this Dispatch Box, I asked the Government about their plan to continue market access for financial services to EU countries after Brexit. Since that time, the Government’s ambitions have faded from the wide-ranging access-all-areas free trade deal that we were promised, to a basic agreement barely covering goods. The Chancellor has announced this morning that he is asking for enhanced equivalence for financial services, which the EU has already ruled out and which does not even exist in sectors such as insurance. This is our largest export sector, so how is it that we are still waiting for a credible plan after three years?
Sajid Javid
The hon. Gentleman needs to get his facts right. The EU has not ruled out equivalence. Indeed, it agreed in the political declaration to work at speed on an equivalence decision by the end of July this year, and that is welcome.[Official Report, 13 February 2020, Vol. 671, c. 12MC.] We are working very carefully and closely with the EU on having a broad agreement that will mean that our financial services continue to thrive—not only for our benefit, but for its benefit.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
Figures released this morning by the Office for National Statistics show that GDP was flat in quarter four, growth is at one of its slowest rates since the financial crisis, the service sector is stagnating, and manufacturing has been particularly hard hit. When will the Chancellor accept the reality that these Tory Brexit plans are playing havoc with the economy, and damaging the wellbeing and prospects of all our constituents?
Sajid Javid
The hon. Lady will know that growth would have been hit by the uncertainty created in this Parliament before the general election. Since the general election, confidence is back because this country has said no to Marxism and has got on with Brexit.
Alison Thewliss
The Chancellor puts forward a ridiculous prospect of the choices facing this country, because Brexit is the real and present danger for the economy. Just-in-time manufacturing is a critical part of the economy. Elizabeth de Jong of the Freight Transport Association has said of the revelation that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster’s smart border will not be ready until 2025:
“Frictionless trade has been kicked to the touchline… It’s going to be really costly for business.”
Can the Chancellor tell me what impact four years of Brexit chaos at the border will have on the UK economy and jobs in manufacturing in all our constituencies?
Sajid Javid
The hon. Lady talks about the importance of manufacturing. Since the change in Government in 2010, we have seen 58% growth in auto manufacturing and 22% growth in aerospace manufacturing. Again, because of the recent general election result, a survey of manufacturers carried out by the CBI a few weeks ago saw the biggest increase in confidence in the history of that survey—in more than 60 years.
Greg Hands (Chelsea and Fulham) (Con)
The financial services sector generates 7% of UK GDP, provides 1.1 million jobs and is responsible for £29 billion-worth of tax revenue. Does the Chancellor agree that we need to ensure that the financial services sector is looked after in any trade agreement with the European Union if we are to pay for the infrastructure projects that we expect an announcement on today?
Sajid Javid
My right hon. Friend, as always, is absolutely right. The financial services sector employs millions of people—not just in London, but in Edinburgh, Birmingham and so many other parts of our great country—and generates more revenue for public services than any other industry. He is right that financial services will be a key part of forging that new relationship with our European friends.
Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the best way to boost our manufacturing sector, and the economy, is by creating 10 new freeports—and the best place for a freeport is, of course, in Redcar?
Sajid Javid
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend on the importance of freeports. It is a reminder that, as we forge a new chapter for our country outside the EU, there is so much we can do to boost opportunity in our country, and freeports are a key part of that.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
About 3,000 people work in the insurance sector in Chelmsford—it is a massive contributor to our economy and to the tax take. Given that the EU grants equivalence in the insurance sector to countries such as Bermuda, is it not perfectly reasonable that the EU should offer the UK the same?
Sajid Javid
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. On day one, we will have exactly the same rules. We will not be rule takers. We will have the right to diverge in future, but on day one we can absolutely see why the EU will be looking very carefully at the equivalence decision.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
In the South Lakes we have 3,000 local families waiting for a council home, yet the Government’s own Migration Advisory Committee says that the Government’s plan for visas and migrant pay will see an 8% reduction in the construction workforce. So will the Chancellor explain who is going to build the homes that families in the South Lakes so desperately need?
Sajid Javid
The hon. Gentleman will know that, under this Government, since 2010, we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of homes being built. I think that last year there was the highest number of homes built in all but one of the past 30 years. When it comes to building more of those homes, of course we do need enough workers in the industry. That is exactly what our points-based system is about—making sure that it focuses on those areas where we need most support.
Katherine Fletcher (South Ribble) (Con)
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)
Nicola Richards (West Bromwich East) (Con)
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Rishi Sunak)
Better transport is central to our ambition to level up and spread opportunity across the United Kingdom. That is why the Chancellor will be unveiling, alongside his Budget, the national infrastructure strategy, which will set out further details of our plan to increase capital investment to record levels and transform the UK’s infrastructure.
Katherine Fletcher
South of Preston, there is only a single crossing of the River Ribble and a single-track bridge crossing the River Douglas, creating massive choke points for the residents and workers of Lancashire. Will my right hon. Friend consider additional bridges at these crossing points, which are strategically important for the whole of Lancashire as well as South Ribble?
Rishi Sunak
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the importance of relieving congestion for improving day-to-day quality of life and driving economic growth. I am pleased that last year her constituency benefited from a £30 million investment to do just that. But there is always more we can do, and I would urge her to consider the Department for Transport’s pinch points fund.
Alicia Kearns
Places such as Melton Mowbray in my constituency have very low unemployment thanks to a thriving food manufacturing sector and the business-friendly policies of this Government, but we need to see wages rise locally. What investment has my right hon. Friend’s Department made to make sure that local councils can provide the transport needed, particularly buses, so that people can get to work and revitalise our high streets?
Rishi Sunak
I am delighted to hear about the economic growth that is happening in my hon. Friend’s constituency. I know that her local councils are a key part of driving that. I am pleased to say that the Government announced today a £5 billion package to support local transport infrastructure such as buses and cycleways, alongside our existing £3.6 billion towns fund, which 16 different places across the east midlands have benefited from.
Nicola Richards
Andy Street’s vision to revolutionise our transport networks in the west midlands, coupled with the continuation of the HS2 project, will hugely benefit my constituents in West Bromwich East, especially those in Great Barr. The vision that Andy set out only last week included the expansion of the West Midlands Metro system. Ahead of the Budget next month, will my right hon. Friend look at what further funding can be made available to level up our transport infrastructure in the west midlands?
Rishi Sunak
My hon. Friend is right to highlight the importance of local intra-city transportation. Obviously the Prime Minister will be making a statement later about national infrastructure. We heard what Andy Street had to say. We are engaging with the Mayor on his exciting plans for intra-city transport and the expansion of the metro line in the west midlands area.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
May I press the Chief Secretary on infrastructure funding for south Wales, and particularly our railways? I have been asking for three years for additional investment in station improvements, electrification and the level crossing issue in my constituency. If there is any additional funding for infrastructure, please do not forget Wales.
Rishi Sunak
I am happy to tell the hon. Gentleman that this Government are committed to improving transport infrastructure across the United Kingdom. Obviously, some matters are devolved. Network Rail has a £48 billion plan for rail infrastructure. I would be happy to hear from him about the specific projects that he is interested in taking up with it.
Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)
Reports over the weekend that the Bradford city centre stop is to be dropped from the Northern Powerhouse Rail route are extremely concerning. Given the importance of NPR to any improved transport infrastructure, can the Minister confirm here today that the Government’s preferred route still includes Bradford?
Rishi Sunak
I am a passionate believer in improving east-west connectivity across the north. I am pleased to say that I met the leader of Bradford Council just the other week. Bradford has an exciting future as one of the younger cities in the country. I believe that the plans that NPR has put forward include Bradford. We are happy to look at those. Transport for the North is actively engaging with local stakeholders on the various routes for improving connectivity between Manchester and Leeds, and that includes Bradford city centre.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
What progress has been made on the feasibility study on a bridge between Northern Ireland and Scotland, as promised by the Prime Minister? More immediately, have there been any discussions with the Scottish Government on the upgrading of the A75—an important road link to Northern Ireland and important to the economic corridor in south-west Scotland?
Rishi Sunak
The Prime Minister is passionate about improving connectivity across the United Kingdom. As my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) will know, that is one particular project that the Prime Minister has expressed interest in and he can assume that we are busy at work fleshing out what it might look like.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Simon Clarke)
The clean growth strategy sets out our proposals for decarbonising all sectors of the UK economy through the course of the 2020s. This year, the Government will be setting out further detail on plans to reduce emissions in key sectors such as transport, energy and buildings, as well as publishing our net zero review.
John Howell
The next UN climate conference is the perfect opportunity to set out exactly what we are doing to get our emissions down to net zero by 2050. Can the Minister assure me that the Government are committed to doing all they can to achieve that and to delivering the green jobs that come with it?
Mr Clarke
I am a passionate believer in the net zero agenda, and I believe that it is perfectly congruent with economic growth. COP26 presents a huge opportunity for the UK and globally. We are already a leader in tackling climate change, having reduced the emissions intensity of our economy faster than any other G20 country. We will be doing more at Budget.
Sir George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)
The Minister will be aware that, as part of the drive towards zero emissions, there was a recent announcement about bringing forward the phasing out of diesel, petrol and hybrid vehicles to 2035. What assessment has he made of the economic and fiscal impact of doing so, and in particular the loss of jobs that will happen, because the industry is in imminent danger of collapse?
Mr Clarke
We are consulting on the option of accelerating the phasing out of petrol and diesel cars, because the average lifespan of a vehicle is around 14 years, and if we are to hit our net zero targets by 2050, we need to be sensitive to that. I can reassure the right hon. Gentleman that we are listening carefully to the industry on this issue. Just last week, I met the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders for a productive conversation on how we can do this in a way that supports the sector.
Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)
Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen)
The UK’s 5.8 million small businesses play a vital role in our economy. We have lowered corporation tax from 28% in 2010 to 19%. We have introduced the employment allowance, to reduce employers’ national insurance contributions bill by £3,000 every year, and we have reduced the business rates burden, so that more than 675,000 of the smallest businesses pay no rates at all.
Anthony Mangnall
Last week, Members from across the House came together to celebrate our beers, breweries and pubs. Will the Chancellor and his team raise a glass to our pubs and breweries and lower the duty on those institutions?
John Glen
The Treasury team love pubs, and we recognise the importance of pubs to the economy and to community life up and down this country; they provide a place to socialise and drink responsibly. That is why we have frozen the duty over six of the last seven years, which means that a pint of beer is 14p cheaper than it would have been otherwise, and we are now at a 30-year low in real terms.
Sir David Evennett
We all know that small businesses are the driver of growth and prosperity across our country, but too many struggle because of high business rates. Can the Minister confirm that the Conservative Government will extend the retail discount of 50% later this year, giving a much-needed tax cut to millions of small businesses on high streets across the country?
John Glen
I am delighted to confirm that the retail discount of 50% will operate from 1 April this year. We will also extend the discount to include cinemas and music venues, extend the duration of the local newspaper office space discount, and introduce an additional discount for pubs, worth £1,000, for up to 18,000 pubs up and down the country.
Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)
Most businesses in my constituency are microbusinesses employing one or two people. The biggest problem they have is larger firms not paying their bills on time. What measures can be put in place to ensure that larger companies pay small companies on time so that they can continue with their business?
John Glen
The hon. Gentleman is right to raise that point. That is why we have the Small Business Commissioner. We are working closely with trade bodies to ensure best practice. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy leads on this, but we work closely with that Department so that more progress is made on this vital matter.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
But small businesses will be affected by the news over the weekend that there will not be frictionless trade and that the Government are insisting on not sticking to a level playing field, which will affect small businesses, whether they import or export. So what is the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his Department doing to prepare small businesses for the inevitable changes that that will bring?
John Glen
We are working closely with the representative organisations to understand those concerns, but it is important that we move forward, secure a free trade agreement and give certainty to small businesses. Their principal concern over the past year is a lack of progress, and it is our responsibility to remove that uncertainty and reach a clear position.
Paul Holmes (Eastleigh) (Con)
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sajid Javid)
Infra- structure is a top priority for the Government, which is why we are publishing the national infrastructure strategy alongside the Budget. It will set out further details of the Government’s plan to increase investment to transform the UK’s infrastructure.
Paul Holmes
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s commitment to vital national infrastructure, but does he agree that bespoke local infrastructure projects benefit the national infrastructure network by increasing connectivity? An example is the much-needed Chickenhall Lane road link in Eastleigh, for which my constituents have been waiting for over 20 years.
Sajid Javid
My hon. Friend is right. Local transport is the backbone of our community, which is why hopefully a welcome announcement will be made today on buses and cycling—a new £5 billion package on local transport. There is also the £150 million fund for smaller projects to deal with congestion hotspots. I would be pleased to consider the Chickenhall Lane link road in the next available competition.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
Blaenau Gwent needs investment in the Ebbw Vale to Cardiff train line for extra services. The shared prosperity fund could be a crucial route to providing that. When will the fund be ready to support infrastructure projects in our eastern valleys?
Sajid Javid
The hon. Gentleman will know that, as we transition from EU structural funds to the shared prosperity fund, it will be important that we set out exactly how that will work. With reference to his question, it means that the Welsh Government will have to work closely with us to see how we can use that for infrastructure projects in Wales.
Claire Coutinho (East Surrey) (Con)
Thanks to heavy usage by HGVs, Surrey is sometimes called the pothole capital of England. What steps is the Department taking to invest in tackling potholes nationally, which I am very keen to see in East Surrey?
Sajid Javid
My hon. Friend raises an important issue that affects many communities. All our constituents would say that the number of potholes is unbearable nowadays, which is why we made it clear in our manifesto that we will have the largest fund ever put in place by any Government to tackle potholes, with more details at the Budget.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jesse Norman)
The review of the off-payroll working rules reform was announced on 7 January 2020. The reform is due to be extended to medium and large-sized organisations in all sectors from 6 April. It is determining whether any further steps can be taken to ensure smooth and successful implementation, and a series of roundtables with stake- holders has already been conducted. The review will conclude by mid-February, after which recommendations will be made public.
Jessica Morden
With the roll-out of IR35 in the private sector fast approaching, there is already concern that companies are making blanket determinations, forcing genuine contractors into contracts that tax them as employees but with no employment rights. Ahead of the protest here tomorrow, will the Government listen, pause the process and work with the industry to do a proper review?
Jesse Norman
The hon. Lady may be aware that we have already made a small but important change to the roll-out as a result of the review. We are not aware of blanket determinations being made, although it must be said that many firms are choosing to acknowledge disguised employment and bring those contractors in-house. The hon. Lady should also be aware that there are various routes by which determinations can be challenged, including, if necessary, a submission under the income tax self-assessment process, for a final determination.
Kate Green
We all want to crack down on tax avoidance but legitimate contractors in my constituency face uncertainty about their status and tax liability thanks to unclear HMRC guidance and the unreliability of CEST—check employment status for tax—and the firms they work for are cancelling contracts because of the confusion. What is the Minister doing to address their concerns?
Jesse Norman
We are conducting a review to ensure that this is as smooth as possible. We recognise that there is difficulty here. Some 18 months have passed since the original reform of status determination was announced and in that process we have had a consultation, draft legislation and further discussions and consultation, and we are having a further review now to make sure it is properly and smoothly rolled out.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
Against how many of the pillars of taxation did the Economic Affairs Committee in the other place judge the 2010 legislation on the loan charge to have failed?
Jesse Norman
We have a question about the loan charge later on, so I look forward to my right hon. Friend’s further question then. He can answer on the number of pillars because I am sure he has scrutinised the Committee’s hearings very carefully. What I can tell him is that the fundamental principle of tax is that it should be properly collected from people who owe it and who may be avoiding it, and that is what this is designed to do.
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jesse Norman)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question about e-publications and see by the way, Mr Speaker, that your predecessor Speaker Bercow’s book, aptly named “Unspeakable: the Autobiography” has just been published. Apparently it is an online bestseller in the rather surprising, slightly niche category of blues musician biographies. Unlike many other e-books, it is considerably cheaper than the book itself; whether that will remain so is not clear. I do not know whether you have had a chance to peruse the work, Mr Speaker, but if you have, I am sure you will agree that no reader would have their appetite to read it affected by a reduction in tax. What this brings out is that the pricing of e-books is a commercial decision, and it is far from clear whether changing the tax would affect that decision.
Martyn Day
I thank the Minister for his entertaining answer. Scottish National party Members are very disappointed that the last Government refused to back our demands to remove VAT from electronic publications. So with the Budget only a month away, will he consider a change of policy so that at the very least, online children’s books and academic journals can become more affordable?
Jesse Norman
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that there are benefits associated with extending the zero rate of VAT in this area, as in others. The task for Government is to work out what is the right thing to do, all things considered. All I can say is that we have responded to the Cairncross review in part of this area, and we continue to keep all taxes under review, especially in the lee of a budget.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
While agreeing with the point made for the SNP by the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day), does the Minister not find it somewhat ironic that the only way we can reduce the rate of VAT to zero is through Brexit, yet the SNP wishes to remain in the EU, and we would therefore not be able to reduce VAT if that were the case?
Jesse Norman
That is a very telling point, and I draw the House’s attention to the parallel issue of sanitary products for women, on which I am pleased to say we will be able to act after we have left the EU.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Rishi Sunak)
The financial health of local authorities remains a priority for the Government and for me personally as a former local government Minister. I am pleased to say that next year’s local government finance settlement outlines and will deliver the biggest year-on-year increase in local government spending power for over a decade.
Bambos Charalambous
For over 10 years, Enfield has been significantly underfunded, which has had a huge impact on the provision of local services. The proposed settlement goes nowhere near addressing the shortfall. Will the Minister meet me and the Enfield Borough Over 50s Forum to discuss Enfield’s needs?
Rishi Sunak
I am pleased to say that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government is undertaking a review of the funding formula for local government, and I am sure that Enfield Council has participated in that. There will be a formal consultation later this year, and I encourage the council to input its particular needs if those are not adequately captured by today’s formula. In the forthcoming financial year, Enfield can look forward to an almost 6% cash increase in the spending power it has available for its residents and communities.
Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
In addition to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, has the Chief Secretary had any discussions with the representatives of Hyndburn, Burnley, Leigh, Blackpool South, Colne Valley, Durham North, Keighley, Stoke-on-Trent Central and North or Workington concerning the adequacy of the funding for the councils covering their constituencies?
Rishi Sunak
In my previous role I had many conversations with councils up and down the country. Indeed, in this job I take representations from the Local Government Association, the District Councils’ Network and the Core Cities consortium, among others. The point is that this will be an evidence-based formula that looks at the various needs of all authorities up and down the country. It is being done in partnership with independent academics to help us arrive at a formula that is fair for every part of the country and every local authority.
Peter Dowd
Clearly those discussions were not very productive, were they? I can tell hon. Members that, according to the LGA, the likely outcome is 6.6, 6.6, 6.5, 6.4, 6.2, 10, 10, 9 and 4. I am referring not to Olympic ice skating marks, but to the additional millions that will be lost respectively by the councils of the hon. Members I listed. In all, 37 councils of the 50 new Tory MPs—that is 70%—are set to lose millions under the Government’s so-called fair funding formula. Did the Chief Secretary mention that to his new colleagues, or has he been too busy keeping an eye on the potential job vacancies?
Rishi Sunak
The figures the hon. Gentleman refers to are pure speculation. The formula has not been concluded yet, so it is a bit difficult to talk about the conclusions in advance of that. There will be a consultation. Regardless of the type of area that any Member in this Parliament represents—rural or urban, north or south—it will be an evidence-based formula. All the various criteria that drive local government spend, whether it is rurality or deprivation, will be taken into account. All Members can have input into that process and can have confidence that the final formula will be fair and, importantly, evidence-based.
Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)
The Treasury team will know how difficult it is to get a funding formula to operate for places like the Isles of Scilly, which are remote and sparsely populated. Good work is being done to bring health and social care together under one roof. Can the Minister shed more light on how difficult areas such as this can be funded in the future?
Rishi Sunak
My right hon. Friend the Chancellor met my hon. Friend and his local authority recently to discuss this issue, and I have taken representations from them in the past. My hon. Friend is right that rurality and the particular geographic challenges posed by his constituency should be taken into account in the new formula. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government will do that when he looks at all the representations in the spring.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
In addition to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, has my right hon. Friend had a chance to speak to the Secretary of State for Education about the pressure on school budgets from the local government pension scheme? On a visit to the excellent Hanley Castle High School in my constituency last week, I discovered that almost half its payroll is covered by the local government pension scheme and that it is experiencing a lot of budgetary pressure from that.
Rishi Sunak
The local government pension scheme is fully funded, which means that all local authorities contribute on an annual basis. It is right that that is taken into account when setting annual budgets. I am pleased that the Government have outlined a three-year school settlement, which will take school funding up by £4 billion in real terms over the forthcoming spending period. Those extra resources will allow schools to deal with the pension pressure and invest in our classrooms, which is where the money needs to go.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
It was extraordinary to hear the Treasury Minister talk about the biggest year-on-year increase in funding after a decade of major cuts. He knows, because he can do the maths, that that is nowhere near making any recompense. The Public Accounts Committee looked in detail at local government spending and we concluded that in simple terms, it was being squeezed massively, particularly for children’s and adult’s social services. When will he acknowledge that for many things that his Government purport to want to deliver, local government is key and that it needs sustainable and increased funding to make up for the cuts of the previous decade?
Rishi Sunak
Local government deserves enormous praise for the hard work that it did in helping to restore this country’s public finances to a sustainable state. We all know why we were in that situation a decade ago, but we can now look forward with confidence. Local government is benefiting from a very significant increase in spending power this year. The hon. Lady is right to highlight the pressure on social care, which is one of the largest areas of spend, which is why the Government have just committed an extra £1 billion in social care grant to help local authorities to alleviate that pressure this year and into the future.
Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sajid Javid)
We will level up opportunity across the UK to ensure that every region and nation benefits from growth, including through better infrastructure, public services and investment in skills. I will set out more details in the Budget through the national infrastructure strategy.
Tom Randall
Many of my constituents are delighted about the Government’s plans to level up funding across the country. Will my right hon. Friend tell me what that will mean for the people of east midlands and my constituents in Gedling?
Sajid Javid
As we level up opportunity in every region, we will make sure that the whole country benefits, including the east midlands. That includes, for example, the £3.6 billion towns fund that we have announced, with 16 town deals in the east midlands. The Government are also committed to the £250 million growth deal, which provides funding for the Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire areas and will include projects such as the Gedling access road.
Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
This is beyond parody. The reality is that after 10 years of Tory rule, the five richest families in this country own more wealth than 13 million of us put together. Fourteen million of us live in poverty. Two out of three of those are in working households. Childcare, transport and the cost of rent hold millions back, so will the Chancellor accept some tests for his Budget? Will he cut child poverty? Will he cut homelessness? Will he end the need for food banks? Will his Budget match his words? The hell it will.
Sajid Javid
Let me tell the hon. Lady what we have seen under 10 years of Tory rule, after Labour’s great recession. We have had nine consecutive years of growth. We have an economy that is nearly 17% bigger than it was in 2010, and 3.9 million jobs have been created—I would think that a party that calls itself the Labour party would welcome that. Unemployment is at its lowest level for 45 years, and according to the International Monetary Fund, our economy will grow faster this year than those of Italy, Japan, France and Germany.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
Small and medium-sized enterprises are critical to economic opportunity and would undoubtedly benefit from greater access to business finance, yet challenger banks suffer from the same capital requirements as larger banks, despite the fact that they do not present the same systemic risk. Will my right hon. Friend say what he might be able to do to change that situation?
Sajid Javid
This is something that I have discussed with regulators. My hon. Friend is right in his general point about challenger banks and the risks that they may or may not represent. It is right that we take a fresh look at this because having more competition in the banking sector is a good thing, especially for SMEs.
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen)
I recognise the positive impact that co-operatives and mutuals have across all sectors of the economy, including retail, agriculture and financial services. No assessment has been made of the amount of tax paid by co-operative and mutual businesses, but I note that the report last year from the all-party group for mutuals found that mutuals generate over £130 billion to benefit the wider economy each year.
Jim McMahon
It is a matter of fact that the three largest co-ops in this country pay more tax than Facebook, Amazon and Caffé Nero combined, so not only are they creating jobs but; they are also paying fairly into the Exchequer. Will the Minister meet me and representatives from the co-op and mutuals sector to discuss that part of the economy and make sure that Britain can thrive in an inclusive way?
John Glen
Yes, I will. There are 7,000 co-ops across the United Kingdom, employing nearly a quarter of a million people. I have had numerous meetings over the past two years with representatives of co-ops and mutuals, and we had a mutuals workshop last July. I am very happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss the recent Manchester mutuals report and to see what we can do together.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker—[Interruption.] I am sorry, Mr Speaker—it has been so long!
Perhaps I should declare an interest as a member of the Midcounties co-operative. Will my hon. Friend consider broadening the eligibility for social investment tax relief so that more mutuals and social enterprises can deliver excellent services and outstanding social value?
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jesse Norman)
Of the estimated 50,000 individuals affected by the loan charge, the Government currently estimate that more than 30,000 will benefit from the changes. That includes about 11,000 people who will be taken out of paying altogether. In addition, individuals who have settled or who are settling their tax liability with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs will be out of scope of the charge.
Seema Malhotra
Neither the law nor HMRC made clear the position regarding loans and self-employed people. Indeed, it was not until 2016 that it was announced that the law would be changed to include the self-employed and others who did not even find out until a year or two later, such as my constituent Dhruv Salotra. Will the Financial Secretary do the obvious thing, get rid of all retrospection and apply the loan charge from when the law was clear and applied to everyone, including the self-employed, and, in addition, clamp down on those who promoted these disguised renumeration schemes in the first place?
Jesse Norman
The hon. Lady is absolutely right that it is important to crack down on promoters, and at the Budget we will bring forward a package about how to do that. Her wider point, however, is wrong: this is not a retrospective measure. It is also true that the Government have to some extent been vindicated by Sir Amyas Morse, who found that the loan charge was an appropriate way to respond to tax avoidance and, after detailed argumentation, suggested a date in December 2010 as the correct date from which to date the legality of it.
Mr Robertson
But even 2010 is 10 years ago, so if the law was clear then, as the report suggests, why did HMRC not act then? Surely this matter is its responsibility.
Jesse Norman
HMRC did pursue these cases quite vigorously. Sir Amyas found, on the basis of detailed consideration, that the law was clear then, and therefore HMRC rightly believed that people would accommodate it. Of course, it pursued people who had been avoiding tax through disguised renumeration schemes for many years before that, and it will continue to do so for those that have been carved out by the loan charge review.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
The Treasury has accepted some of Sir Amyas Morse’s recommendations, but there is confusion about some of them. A constituent of mine got caught in a disguised renumeration scheme before 2010, and yet he is still not convinced that he is in the clear and has that fear hanging over him. What does the Financial Secretary have to say about that?
Jesse Norman
The hon. Lady is quite wrong. We accepted all but one of Sir Amyas’s recommendations, and we did not accept that one because the issue he raised was already being handled very well within the system. If the hon. Lady has a specific concern, she is very welcome to raise it with tax commissioners or, indeed, with me, although on an anonymised basis because obviously I cannot deal with specifics.
Alan Mak (Havant) (Con)
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sajid Javid)
You ain’t no Deputy, Mr Speaker!
Increasing productivity is the best way to boost wages and improve living standards. We have worked hard to build a stronger, fairer economy, dealing with the deficit, helping people into work, and cutting taxes for families and businesses.
Sajid Javid
I thank my hon. Friend for all the work that he has done to put the UK at the forefront of the fourth industrial revolution. He is right to raise the importance of research and development. We are committed to investing an additional £7 billion in R&D by 2021-22 —the largest increase in 40 years—and, as my hon. Friend will know, in our manifesto we committed ourselves to going even further.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
The people with the least productive, lowest-paid jobs, although often highly skilled, are women working in care, retail or hospitality. Where is the Chancellor’s productivity plan for the women in our country?
Sajid Javid
The hon. Lady will be pleased to know that we have more women in employment than ever before in our history, and that the gender pay gap is the narrowest ever recorded. However, she is right: we need to do more, and more investment will help, whether it is in infrastructure or skills. What will also help is our new points-based immigration system. Too often businesses have sought to take unskilled labour from abroad and cut the wages of people locally, and we must put an end to that as well.
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sajid Javid)
We have ended the uncertainty over our departure from the European Union, and we stand at the beginning of a new chapter. I know that the future is bright as we level up our country and unleash Britain’s potential. We have confirmed that 31 million people will receive a tax cut in April, and in the Budget on 11 March I will continue to lay the foundations for a decade of renewal. We will also set out our plans for an infrastructure revolution and for better investment in our most important asset of all, our human capital.
Stephen Crabb
Will my right hon. Friend reaffirm that when we talk about levelling up, we are indeed talking about levelling up the whole United Kingdom—all regions and all nations? May I encourage him to show real determination to ensure that the devolved nations also see and feel the benefit of his ambitious infrastructure proposals?
Sajid Javid
I can absolutely confirm that to my right hon. Friend. We are blessed with talent throughout our country. Wherever we look, we have talent. Our country is oozing with talent, and that, of course, includes Wales: we have just seen a demonstration of that talent. We need to ensure that there is much more opportunity, which means investment in infrastructure and skills and retaining a dynamic, competitive economy.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
In the last month we have seen the Financial Times predicting that the Chancellor will miss his balanced budget target, and today we have seen zero growth in the economy. At the same time, Mr Dominic Cummings has demanded cuts in taxes and massive spending commitments, so the Chancellor has resorted to floating a possible raid on middle-income pensions, a mansion tax—once described as Marxist—and a 5% cuts round to find some money to pay for Mr Cummings’s demands. Yet in the real world out there, the victims of Wonga, the payday loan company, were told a fortnight ago that they would receive less than 5% of the compensation that they are owed. Will the Chancellor take a break from his arm-wrestling with Mr Cummings, and introduce measures to compensate the Wonga victims fully?
Sajid Javid
I think that I have to correct myself. I said that there was talent throughout the country, but, judging by what we have just heard, I do not think that that includes the Labour party.
There is all sorts of speculation about the Budget, and I am not going to respond to that. However, the right hon. Gentleman will know that when the Budget is published, it will be published alongside a report by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility. Those are the figures that are going to matter, not the ones that are speculated about in the press. As for growth, the right hon. Gentleman will also know that although there has been a fall in global growth, the International Monetary Fund forecasts that Britain will grow faster this year than France, Germany, Italy and Japan.
John McDonnell
I asked about Wonga. [Hon. Members: “You did.”] On the basis of that answer, I can see why No. 10 nicknamed the right hon. Gentleman CHINO: Chancellor in name only.
Wonga is just one example of the recent scandals in the financial sector. We have seen the scandals of closet tracking last year, London Capital & Finance, Woodford Investment Management, the tax avoidance by Lycamobile —a Tory party donor—NMC Health’s misreporting today, large-scale money-laundering, and audit failure after audit failure. Regulation of the finance sector—I say it again—is clearly failing, and now there is the risk to jobs resulting from the tardiness of a post-Brexit settlement. Let me put this to the Chancellor: can he assure me that the White Paper that he has promised today will address the failure of regulation and the culture of recklessness and abuse that has developed in some sections of the City, in addition to the risks from Brexit, so that we can plan a long-term stable future for our finance sector?
Sajid Javid
I remember that not long ago the shadow Chancellor stood here and said that he wanted to be known as the “people’s Chancellor”. I think the people had a very different idea, however. On his question about high-cost credit, when I was last in the Treasury as Economic Secretary, that was the first time that any Government had introduced proper regulation around high-cost credit. This is something that we keep under review, which is why, as we present our White Paper, we will be looking to see what more we can do.
Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)
Sajid Javid
Yes, I agree with my hon. Friend. Equivalence arrangements, done properly, would require a period of stability to be agreed, and that is exactly what we are working on with our European friends.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Simon Clarke)
The UK takes our climate commitments exceptionally seriously, and we have pledged to end the use of unabated coal here in the UK by 2025. Clearly we want to ensure that that applies to our work overseas as well, and that is something that the Government as a whole take very seriously. It is the subject of ongoing ministerial discussions and we are determined to ensure that we support the right initiatives across the world.
Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)
Sajid Javid
My hon. Friend is right to raise this matter. The Government have already put in place the gigabit broadband voucher scheme and the rural gigabit connectivity scheme, which is available to small and medium-sized enterprises and gives support of up to £3,500 per company. She will also be pleased to know that the Government have committed £5 billion to invest in new infrastructure to ensure that every part of our country has the best possible broadband.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
Mr Simon Clarke
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. Tomorrow I am attending a roundtable at 11 Downing Street with representatives of the advanced manufacturing industry, and we are determined to take their views into account as we make this transition. We are supporting the industry through initiatives such as the Advanced Propulsion Centre and the Faraday battery challenge, and we are determined to ensure that the sector evolves in a way that boosts our growth prospects as we decarbonise.
Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Rishi Sunak)
As the Chancellor said, the Government are committed to levelling up across the country, and part of that involves our town deals to help to revitalise our high streets. Also, as the Prime Minister will say later, we have unveiled a £5 billion package to improve local connectivity, including bus and cycle lanes, to improve the quality of life and economic opportunity in local towns.
Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
Sajid Javid
With respect, I think the hon. Gentleman is confusing cutting spending and tackling waste, and we know that the previous Labour Government was good at neither of those, with overspending and loads of waste. It is right that as a Government we look carefully at every single pound that is spent and make sure it is done so appropriately.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen)
I thank my right hon. Friend for his comments, and I am very pleased that the breathing space scheme is moving forward. We published the impact assessment last week, and 700,000 people will benefit from the scheme next year when it comes into force. That number will rise to 1 million in the following year.[Official Report, 24 February 2020, Vol. 672, c. 2MC.]
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
Depending on which briefing to today’s newspapers was accurate, the infrastructure announcement will fund a grand total of either 250 or 1,000 miles of new designated cycleway. That is to be compared with the 1,800 being provided by the Labour Mayor in Manchester alone. How can a small city such as Exeter hope to get any of the help, resources or the powers it needs to deliver on the cycling infrastructure as it desperately wants to do?
Sajid Javid
I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that the announcement today was of £5 billion of fresh funding for local transport—buses and cycling. When it comes to cycling—something we all want made easier to access for all our constituents—there will be 250 miles of new dedicated cycle track.
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
Sajid Javid
I understand my hon. Friend’s concerns and he is right to raise this. He will be pleased that Highways England is conducting a supplementary consultation on the lower Thames crossing to make sure that any benefits are maximised. The consultation will close on 25 March, and I will then look at it carefully. I would encourage him to have his say.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
As a former teacher, I know that a good education is a key driver to economic opportunities for young people, but sixth forms have been heavily damaged by years of under-investment. Will the Chancellor commit to implementing the recent recommendation from the Education Committee and Ofsted to raise the rate of funding per pupil to at least £4,760 in next month’s Budget?
Rishi Sunak
Post-16 education and skills are a priority for the Chancellor and the Government. I am pleased to say that the recent spending round delivers a £400 million increase in funding for post-16 education, which makes it the fastest rise in a decade and means that the per pupil base rate that the hon. Lady mentions will go up faster than the schools total.
Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)
My right hon. Friend the Chancellor will know that I have written to him about the legal duty that the OBR has to produce two economic forecasts in each financial year, which of course has been complicated by the cancellation of the last Budget. Can I ask him to set out for the House the approach that he intends to take and how he will avoid the necessity of having two forecasts very close together saying essentially the same thing?
Sajid Javid
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on being elected as the Chair of the Treasury Committee. I look forward to working with him and to the scrutiny that he will provide, as he is doing right now. The issue about the forecasts the OBR needs to provide is a live one, and we will make sure that the OBR meets its statutory requirements. I am pleased that the head of the OBR, Robert Chote, has discussed it with my right hon. Friend, and I would be happy to discuss it with him too.
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)
The Chancellor will know of the association between productivity, economic opportunity and regional productivity. Noting that Flybe is in the news again today, and knowing how important it is to Belfast City airport in my constituency and regional hubs throughout this United Kingdom, will he remember those three principles as he charts a course to find a permanent solution for that aviation company?
Sajid Javid
Of course I will keep that in mind. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the Government are absolutely committed to spreading opportunity throughout the country—throughout each of the nations that make up the United Kingdom—and we want to look at all the ways we can improve connectivity.
Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)
The Goodwin International training school in my constituency is an exemplar of skills training by a successful modern manufacturer with a world-class reputation. For less established firms such as challenger small and medium-sized enterprises, what support is on offer to level them up to Goodwin International standards?
Mr Simon Clarke
I had a good meeting yesterday with my hon. Friend and fellow Stoke and north Staffordshire MPs. The Government are supporting small firms across England through the network of 38 growth hubs, one of which is based on Stoke-on-Trent. In our manifesto, we announced our intention to create a national skills fund, which will help to transform the lives of people who have not got on the work ladder and lack qualifications, as well as people looking to return to work or to upskill.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
Every year Scotland exports a quarter of a billion pounds worth of salmon to the European Union. This week, the Scottish Salmon Producers’ Organisation expressed serious concern about the continuing uncertainty of Brexit. What assessment has the Chancellor of the Exchequer made of the impact on this vital industry of the Chancellor of the Duchy Lancaster’s announcement that “as friction-free as possible” trade with the EU means “not friction-free at all”?
Sajid Javid
I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are working closely with the fishing industry, including salmon producers, to make sure that as we put in place our new free trade agreement, it will continue to thrive.
Petition
(4 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Glasgow University’s Student Action for Refugees recently hosted the Museum Without A Home exhibition, displaying everyday objects in solidarity with migrants and refugees around the world. At the same time, it collected more than 600 signatures for the Families Together petition, calling for refugee children to have the right to be reunited with their parents in their home. A smaller number have signed the petition that I am now presenting in the House of Commons style, which makes the same demand.
The petition states:
The petition of residents of Glasgow North,
Declares that under current family reunion rules adult refugees can only sponsor their partners and children under 18 years old to join them in the UK; further that child refugees in the UK have no family reunion rights so they can’t bring their parents to join them; further that the lack of opportunities for refugees to reunite with family members forces people to turn to smugglers and exacerbates the humanitarian crises in Southern Europe; and further that, for refugees already living safely in the UK, the enforced separation from their families and constant anxiety about their wellbeing can be devastating, preventing them from rebuilding their lives and undermining their successful integration into their new communities. The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to expand the criteria of who qualifies as a family member for the purposes of refugee family reunion, including by allowing adult refugees in the UK to sponsor their adult children, their siblings that are under the age of 25, and their parents; further to give unaccompanied refugee children in the UK the right to sponsor their parents and siblings that are under the age of 25 to join them under the refugee family reunion rules; and further to reintroduce legal aid for refugee family reunion cases.
And the petitioners remain, etc.
[P002555]
Transport Infrastructure
(4 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister (Boris Johnson)
With your permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement on the transport revolution that we intend to bring about.
There are all sorts of reasons why the city in which we now sit is the most productive region in the whole of Europe. We have the time zone, the language and the agglomeration of talents. Above all, we have a mass transit system that every day conveys millions of people efficiently and affordably, with tubes and trains and 8,600 buses, into the central activities zone in the morning and out in the evening, like the respiration of some vast undersea coelenterate. As the public transport network has expanded in the last 150 years, it has brought hope and opportunity and job prospects to people growing up in every part of the city and beyond. It is the ambition of this Government to employ that same utensil—fantastic transport infrastructure—to unite and level up across the whole country.
Of course there is far more to do in London—frankly, the present Mayor needs to be shaken out of his complacency—but there is even more to do across the nation as a whole. Whether they are stuck in a jam on the A303 or on the outskirts of Lincoln, whether they are trying to get from Warrington to Manchester or toiling across the Pennines by rail, people know that this country is being held back by our inadequate infrastructure. So in the next few weeks this Government will be setting out more details of the transport revolution, because we all know the potential of transport to change people’s life and the life of their town or city. We know that efficient transport can clean the air and cut pollution and get cars off the road. We can simultaneously reach our ambition of net zero by 2050 and shorten people’s commute, giving them more time with their family, increase productivity and bring business and investment to left behind communities.
That is why we are embarking now on a massive programme of investment in local transport, starting with a record-breaking £5 billion of new investment in buses and bicycles. That investment will mean bus passengers across the country seeing a dramatic improvement in their daily journeys, with more than 4,000 brand-new buses—zero-carbon, British-built buses—on the roads of places such as Ashfield, Barnstaple, Southampton, Manchester and many more towns and cities besides. There will be more services, including in the evenings and weekends, as well as simpler, cheaper and more convenient ticketing and properly designed priority schemes to speed passengers past the traffic jams. It is an investment that will also mean cyclists enjoying hundreds of miles of brand-new separated lanes, with “mini-Hollands” blooming like so many tulips in towns and cities right across the country.
That £5 billion is just the start. My very good friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be making a full announcement in next month’s Budget, and I have no desire to steal his thunder, but I can signal today that we are taking forward transformative improvements from Cornwall to the A1 north of Newcastle, from south Salisbury to south Ribble, from Cheadle to Chiverton, with dual carriageways, roundabouts, bypasses and underpasses—and those are just the roads. We have already set out plans to explore new investments in the rail network across the north, developing proposals to reopen the Fleetwood line in Lancashire and the Ashington to Blyth rail line in the north-east, improving track and platform capacity at Middlesbrough station—
The Prime Minister
Thank you. We will be installing new signalling at Harrogate, one of North Yorkshire’s busiest stations. Further south, I can today announce that we will be upgrading the Bristol east junction, a major pinch point in the rail network of the south-west that limits access to the Brunel-designed Victorian splendour of Bristol Temple Meads station.
This transport revolution is local, because it must be local. We can unite and level up across the country with fantastic local improvements: better rail; less congested roads; and beautiful, British-built buses that are cleaner, greener, quieter, safer and more frequent. Above all, we can improve the quality of life for people and improve their productivity. We can make places more attractive to live in and to invest in. But we cannot make these improvements in isolation from one another, because we will be doing only half the job; we will not fix the great musculoskeletal problem of UK transport. Yes, we must fix the joint between the knee bone and the thigh bone and the shin bone and the ankle bone. Yes, we must fix the arthritis in the fingers and the toes, but we also have to fix the spine, and our generation faces a historic choice. We can try to get by with the existing routes from north to south. We can consign the next generation to overcrowding and standing up in the carriageways, or we can have the guts to take a decision—unlike the party opposite—no matter how difficult and controversial, that will deliver prosperity to every part of the country. This will take 50 minutes off the journey time to Glasgow.
When it comes to advocating HS2, it must be said that the task is not made easier by HS2 Ltd, the company concerned. Speaking as a Member of Parliament whose constituency is on the route, I cannot say that HS2 Ltd has distinguished itself in the handling of local communities. As everybody knows, the cost forecasts have exploded, but poor management to date has not detracted from the fundamental value of the project. The review recently conducted by Douglas Oakervee, copies of which will be placed in the Library of the House, leaves no doubt of the clinching case for high-speed rail: a vast increase in capacity, with hundreds of thousands of extra seats, making it much easier for travellers to move up and down our long, narrow country. That means faster journey times. It means not just more capacity, but faster journey times—extraordinarily fast journey times. Passengers arriving at Birmingham Airport will be able to get to central London by train in 38 minutes, which compares favourably with the time it takes to get from Heathrow by taxi, a point I just draw to the attention of the House.
But this is not just about getting from London to Birmingham and back. [Interruption.] It is also considerably faster than the Piccadilly line. This is about finally making a rapid connection from the west midlands to the northern powerhouse—to Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds—and simultaneously permitting us to go forward with northern powerhouse rail across the Pennines, finally giving the home of the railways the fast connections they need. None of that makes any sense without HS2. The Infrastructure and Projects Authority considers that the first phase can be delivered for its current projected cost of £35 billion to £45 billion in today’s prices. The designs have been improved immeasurably thanks to the tireless contributions of campaigners, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan), who I do not think is in her place.
If we start now, services could be running by the end of the decade, so today the Cabinet has given high-speed rail the green signal. We are going to get this done, and to ensure that we do so without further blow-outs on either cost or schedule, we are today taking decisive action to restore discipline to the programme. I will be appointing a Minister whose full-time job will be to oversee the project, a new ministerial oversight group will be tasked with taking strategic decisions about it, and there will be changes to the way HS2 Ltd is managed. In line with Mr Oakervee’s recommendations, we will interrogate the current costs to identify where savings could be made in phase 1 without the costs and delays that would be associated with a detailed redesign, and so that the company can focus solely on getting phases 1 and 2a built on something approaching time and budget, I will create new delivery arrangements for both the grossly behind-schedule Euston terminus and phase 2b of the wider project.
Before those designs are finalised and legislation is introduced, we will also present an integrated plan for rail in the north. Informed by an assessment from the National Infrastructure Commission it will, in line with the findings of the Oakervee review, look at how we can best design and integrate rail investments throughout the north, including Northern Powerhouse Rail between Leeds and Manchester. I have just spoken to the Mayor of Greater Manchester, who has warmly welcomed the project, which I committed to supporting, I seem to remember, during my first days in office.
I want the plan to identify the most effective design and sequencing of all relevant investments in the north. For example, with many in the north crying out for better east-west links instead of improved north-south ones, which we have heard about many times in the House, some have suggested delaying or even cancelling HS2 in order to get Northern Powerhouse Rail done more quickly. I say to the House that it is not an either/or proposition: both are needed and both will be built as quickly and as cost-effectively as possible. To make sure that that happens we will, working closely with northern leaders, explore options for creating a new delivery vehicle for Northern Powerhouse Rail, and we will start treating HS2 north of Birmingham, Northern Powerhouse Rail and other local rail improvements as part of one integrated masterplan: high-speed north.
Something has to change. Those who deny that—those who say that we should simply build phase 2b and Northern Powerhouse Rail according to the plans currently on the table—are effectively condemning the north to get nothing for 20 years. That would be intolerable, so as we draw up this plan, we are not asking whether it is phase 2b or not 2b. That is not the question; the question is how we can bring a transport revolution to the north sooner.
Altogether, this revolution in local and national transport has the potential to be truly transformative for the entire country. Yes, it is ambitious, but ambition is what we have lacked for far too long. Two centuries ago our ancestors could have been content with breeding faster horses; instead, they invented the railways—they created the transport network on which the United Kingdom rose to economic pre-eminence. They looked to the future of transport and they made it happen. Today, it is our duty to do the same. Let us bring about a future where high-speed trains glide between our great cities, where electric buses convey us cleanly around our towns, where self-driving cars roam along roads that are free of the congestion that causes so much pollution, and where a new generation of cyclists pedal safely and happily to school and work in tree-dappled sunlight on their own network of fully segregated cycle paths—[Interruption.] As we did in London.
This Government will deliver a new anatomy of British transport—a revolution in the nation’s public transport provision. It will be a sign to the world that, in the 21st century, this United Kingdom still has the vision to dream big dreams and the courage to bring those dreams about. I commend this statement to the House.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
I thank the Prime Minister for an advance copy of his statement.
Once again, we see the Government taking ideas from the Labour party, adopting our language, but falling a very long way short on the substance of it. This is a Government who are unwilling to make the scale of investment needed to revive parts of this country that have been decimated by successive Conservative Governments. This is a Government who have proved themselves unable to manage infrastructure projects properly and incapable of keeping a lid on the costs.
Today’s piecemeal announcements do not add up to a serious plan to rebalance the economy or to tackle the serious climate emergency that we all face. They do not even come close to repairing the damage done by a decade of Tory Government—[Interruption.] Well, it is true—they know it. The Prime Minister laments our inadequate infrastructure, yet it is his party that has been starving the country of investment over the past 10 years, resulting in the worst regional inequality in Europe. Today, the Prime Minister is selling his announcement as a prize for parts of the midlands and the north. I simply tell him this: people in those regions to whom he promised so much in the general election are going to be sorely disappointed when they see what actually happens.
Let us take HS2, for example. The Labour party supports HS2 as a means to boost regional economies and to reduce climate emissions. It is essential for boosting rail capacity and freeing up other lines for increased freight use and so on, but we do not see why the Government should get a slap on the back for announcing that it is going ahead. After all, it is only because of the abject failure of successive Conservative Governments to keep on top of the costs that the project’s future was put in doubt in the first place.
Today’s proposed boardroom shake-up comes far too late to avoid the public having to fork out tens of billions more than was forecast in the first place. It is money that has already been wasted because of the incompetence of this Tory Government and their predecessors. The leaked Oakervee review, which apparently will come out later, was correct to say that HS2 must be fully integrated as part of the modern railway system. It must extend to the great northern cities, linking up with Northern Powerhouse Rail, and eventually to Scotland to end the need for domestic flying in this country at the earliest possible opportunity.
We are concerned that the links to Manchester and Leeds are now under review and could, reportedly, be even downgraded. HS2 must be developed with more sensitivity to local communities and much more sensitivity to the environmental impact, particularly on modern and ancient woodlands across the country. If it is to have public support, the fares on HS2 must be affordable and comparable with the rest of the fare system on the railway network. Will the Prime Minister tell us where the trains will be built? Will those jobs and training be done in this country? What about other parts of the country such as, for example, the far south-west? When will the Prime Minister match the £2.5 billion commitment to upgrade the Great Western main line as our only train line into the south-west? We need better connectivity beyond Bristol to Devon and Cornwall.
We believe that the case is now unanswerable that our railways should be publicly owned and publicly run, to improve the service and to cut fares by 33%. Does the Prime Minister recognise that too many people are simply priced off the railways? The average commuter is now paying £3,067 for their season ticket, £873 more than when the Conservatives came into office in 2010. Why will the Prime Minister not cut the cost of travelling? Why should people in Britain have to pay so much for expensive fares—much more expensive than those in any other comparable country?
When I first raised the question of buses at Prime Minister’s Question Time, I was ridiculed by many Tory MPs and by many in our media. From the look of the front pages of our papers today, those same quarters now regard the focus on buses as a political masterstroke. Well, I will take the credit for it. It is fine. In reality, however, what the Government have said today about buses is frankly woeful. They have cherry-picked policies from the Labour manifesto but have underfunded them. That does not make up for the deep cuts since 2010. Funding for buses has fallen by £645 million a year in real terms since 2010, 3,300 routes have been cut or withdrawn, and fares have soared at two and a half times the rate of average wages.
It is councils that keep bus routes open. We need long- term funding for local authorities, which have suffered such severe cuts and now face a further £8 billion black hole over this Parliament because of underfunding. The Government are still refusing to give all councils the powers to improve local bus services and the option of public ownership of their services.
On cycling, all the Prime Minister is actually offering is 250 miles of cycle routes. Our manifesto promised 3,300 miles of cycle routes all across the country. Again, that is just plain inadequate from this Government.
Underinvestment by the Conservatives has created problems that they are forced to acknowledge, but they simply are not serious about fixing them. Is regional inequality going to be solved by 10 freeports? Is this not just a gimmick creating the storage spaces for the super-rich to dodge taxes and launder money?
The Prime Minister is clearly fond of announcing big shiny projects, such as the scheme to build a bridge over the Irish sea. Why not go the whole hog and make it a garden bridge, connected to an airport in the sea? It stands as much chance of actually being built as any of those failed projects put forward by the former Mayor of London. Or why not make it a cable car between Scotland and Northern Ireland, or better still a giant zip wire? The Prime Minister could be the first to try it out.
The saddest thing about today’s announcement is the high likelihood that so much of it will not be delivered, with the Prime Minister demanding 5% cuts in the very Departments that are supposed to carry out these policies. I fear that the communities that desperately need investment in new infrastructure will be let down when today’s headlines become yesterday’s news and they find that nothing has changed.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. To help the House, I am expecting to run this statement until about 1.40 pm. Some Members may not get in, but if we all help each other we will be much nearer to getting everyone in.
The Prime Minister
I thought the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) made a manful attempt to conceal his fundamental agreement with what we are doing. He raised some interesting points. We are actually doing a transport revolution across the whole of the south-west, not only by investing in the sea wall at Dawlish, on the railways, but by upgrading the roads, including the A303 through the south-west. We will be doing improvements in Wales, and I think that it is high time that the Brynglas tunnels were unblocked. We encourage the Labour Government in Wales to do that. Do not forget that HS2 brings 50 minutes off the journey time to Glasgow. It is for every part of this country.
As for fares, I remind the right hon. Gentleman that fares rose twice as fast under the Labour Government—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) is trying to interrupt me from a sedentary position, and I remind him that the whole point of putting in another 200,000 seats in capacity is that it thereby drives down prices for the consumer. It is about competition.
I thought that the right hon. Gentleman made a heroic attempt to cavil and disagree with what is fundamentally a wonderful project for this country. He even tried to dislike our bus plans, I do not know quite how—[Interruption.] No, no, he claimed them for himself. I will take that; the Leader of the Opposition, as far as I understand the position, actively supports the Government’s announcement today. I congratulate him on that.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
The additional £5 billion for buses and cycle links is greatly welcome. Last year, the Select Committee on Transport called for additional funding for buses and a buses strategy, both of which are coming to fruition. How will the Prime Minister ensure that the money allocated to local authorities for these projects is spent by local authorities on these projects? Will it be ring-fenced? If not, how will we really ensure that we are levelling up our public transport system?
The Prime Minister
I congratulate my hon. Friend on the work he does for his community. I can assure him that we will ensure that when money is allocated for buses or cycling projects, it is spent on buses and cycling projects.
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
I thank the Prime Minister for an advance copy of the statement. Let me be mindful of one reality. No number of prime ministerial vanity projects will ever heal the economic damage and the damage to connectivity that this Tory Brexit will inflict.
In terms of the HS2 announcement, enhanced rail infrastructure is obviously welcome, despite the indecision and waste that have been synonymous with the project. We will wait and see whether the Prime Minister is capable of getting this decision through his own party and past his own chief adviser. However, if the Prime Minister is truly committed to rail connectivity across these islands, will he engage with the Scottish Government to improve rail links from Scotland to the major cities of the north of England, such as Manchester, Newcastle and beyond? Will he also explore collaboration on the extension of the borders rail line, and what resources will be provided?
The Prime Minister may talk about his priorities of one nation; we know what nation he is talking about, and it definitely does not include the Scottish nation. Can I further ask, given his previous opposition to the Barnett formula and his party’s repeated failure to implement it fully, whether he can confirm that all the spending he is determined to engage in will be subject to Barnett consequentials? Yes or no?
I welcome the fact that the UK Government are following the lead of the Scottish Government, who announced a £500 million bus infrastructure programme last September. Given the Prime Minister’s previous association with buses, however, can he reassure the House that false advertisements will be banned from the new bus fleet?
Finally, on the bridge, this is a Prime Minister who could not even build a bridge across the Thames, so he will therefore have to forgive those of us who are sceptical that he can build one over the 20-mile expanse of the North sea. Will the Prime Minister therefore provide the estimated £20 billion for this project to the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive so they can spend those moneys on their own priorities?
The Prime Minister
I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that we will of course collaborate with the Scottish Government on projects that will be of massive benefit for the whole of our United Kingdom. On his substantive question about Barnett consequentials, yes, of course there will be Barnett consequentials as far as the buses are concerned. As for his plan to build a bridge across the North sea, I think he needs to look at the geography of the United Kingdom again. The only obstacle standing in the way of HS2 is the crackpot SNP plans to put an economic border between England and Scotland, break up the United Kingdom and have a border at Berwick.
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
My right hon. Friend’s comprehensive announcement will be widely welcomed across the west midlands and in Birmingham, and nowhere more so than in the royal town of Sutton Coldfield. Will he pay tribute to the superb leadership of our West Midlands Mayor Andy Street in marshalling the arguments and in putting the case for something that will underwrite our economic prosperity for the future?
The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I salute the work of Andy Street and his vision for transport in the west midlands, which will be supported, encouraged and fomented by HS2.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
I very much welcome the announcement as far as HS2 and the integration into HS3 are concerned. Does the Prime Minister agree that his statement could be improved and bring more immediate jobs to the north of England if, as well as building HS2 from London to the north, we also started building HS2 from the north to the south? Finally, for real ambition, would he agree that HS2 should go to Scotland, which would help to unite the two countries?
The Prime Minister
We will certainly get on with building phase 2a immediately, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman that HS2 already does go to Scotland; that is one of the great advantages of the project.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
The Prime Minister will understand that Andy Street and I tend to talk about soft furnishings, as the subject tends to avoid argument, because I am less than enthusiastic about the route of HS2, which connects with neither Eurostar, Birmingham New Street nor St Pancras. However, I am delighted to hear the Prime Minister say that the organisation of HS2 Ltd will be revised. As HS2 is now going ahead, does he agree that it is important that we compensate well those people in my constituency—and in his—who will be affected by it?
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
The confirmation that the full HS2 route has been given the go-ahead is welcome news, and there is a strong case for building the Birmingham to east midlands part early, but if the project is to deliver on its potential for our region, we need assurances that the phase 2b Bill will receive Royal Assent in this Parliament, and that it will not be delayed further or downgraded to cut costs. Will the Prime Minister give us those assurances today?
The Prime Minister
Of course we are committed to phase 2b, but I think the hon. Member will appreciate—given what has happened in the past 10 years with phase 1—that it is vital that we use this inflection point to ensure that the taxpayer gets maximum value as we proceed.
Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)
My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan), who is recovering from a major operation, has asked me to thank the volunteers and donors from all over the nation who have fought against HS2 over the past 11 years. The last three years have given us a few lessons in what gracious defeat looks like, and although I remain worried by the environmental, financial and governance issues of the project, I really do wish it all the best. I was particularly pleased to hear what the Prime Minister said about the northern section and the speed with which he intends to deliver it, and about buses and bikes. I have one ask, on taking a holistic approach to blight; if it is impossible to regrow ancient trees or to get rid of congestion where it exists, can we please compensate communities by, for example, building their local hospital?
The Prime Minister
We can certainly ensure that we restore areas where there is environmental damage—and there will of course be effects on woodlands. We will be planting 7 million trees, which is many more than will be destroyed.
Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)
On balance, I welcome the news that HS2 has been given the go-ahead, for the capacity gains that will benefit the north-west region and for the construction and rail supply firms in my constituency, which I hope will receive a fair shot at winning contracts associated with the project. However, my constituents in Culcheth, Croft, Risley and Hollins Green in particular will be looking for assurances that the unnecessary Golborne spur will be removed from the proposed route. This is an issue that transcends party affiliations and on which local MPs are in agreement. Will the Prime Minister give us those assurances?
The Prime Minister
I have heard representations on the Golborne spur from many people in this House, and we will certainly be looking at the matter.
Sir Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale West) (Con)
I welcome the increased priority for Northern Powerhouse Rail and the link from Manchester to Leeds in particular, but will my right hon. Friend ensure an urgent review of parts of the route for phase 2b, including the Golborne spur, which is entirely unnecessary and likely to cost more than £1 billion—completely wasted money? Will he also look at the fact that the station for Manchester airport is absurdly not at Manchester airport, and will instead be built on ancient woodland at Davenport Green in my constituency?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes excellent points about the Golborne spur and Manchester airport. We will certainly be looking at both issues.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
Key to cutting carbon emissions and tackling climate change is cutting domestic flights and moving people on to our railways. That is why the HS2 announcement is to be welcomed and building a third runway at Heathrow is an act of environmental vandalism. Will the Prime Minister now prove his credentials on climate change, make good on his promise of lying down in front of the bulldozers, or—far more simply—just cancel the third runway?
The Prime Minister
I see no bulldozers at present, nor any immediate prospect of them arriving.
Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
Local authorities have limited resources to deliver their new local cycling and walking infrastructure plans. Would my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister support the delivery of parts of those plans through appropriate local charities, such as the Derwent Valley Trust in Derbyshire, that are capable of implementing key sections of the network?
The Prime Minister
Yes. It will be very important to collaborate with appropriate delivery vehicles, such as the charity that my hon. Friend mentions.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
It is good to have certainty over HS2, but the Prime Minister has unveiled a raft of big spending projects. Where is the money going to come from?
The Prime Minister
The money is coming through the hard work and effort of the British people. This Government will manage our finances prudently and ensure that the economy is not wrecked, as it was by the last Labour Government.
Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
HS2 will connect with the Elizabeth line and Heathrow airport at Old Oak Common station—a station that will become every bit as famous as Victoria or Waterloo. But Old Oak Common will be neither old nor common, so does the Prime Minister agree that it should have a name that is iconic and in keeping with its importance—maybe after the first woman Prime Minister of our country?
The Prime Minister
That is a brilliant idea. Let us try that one out on the Mayor of London.
Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)
May I ask the Prime Minister about the prospects for change in relation to the eastern leg of phase 2b? The original HS2 vision was to serve and regenerate our towns, but towns in South Yorkshire are facing all of the pain and none, or very little, of the gain. May I commend to him the HS2 North concept, which local campaigners came up with—they got there first—and which has an integrated plan to help towns such as Doncaster and Mexborough?
The Prime Minister
The right hon. Member makes a very good point on behalf of Doncaster. We are certainly looking at the plan that he mentions.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
The Prime Minister knows how bitterly disappointed my constituents in Staffordshire will be about the decision. May I simply ask him, when he is considering the question of review, to include phase 2a from Birmingham to Crewe—and the rest of that part of the constituency, which is going to be so badly affected? We need a proper link with Handsacre to ensure that Stoke and Stafford are properly serviced. Does he understand that, and will he do everything to ensure that we are kept in the review?
The Prime Minister
Absolutely; on Handsacre, my hon. Friend has my full support.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
I welcome the Prime Minister’s announcement but, given what he has said about reviewing phase 2b, could he tell the people of Leeds when he now expects the new HS2 station to open?
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
May I congratulate the Prime Minister on this statement? He is so right when he says that the economy of the north needs both east-west and north-south connectivity. Does he agree that the challenge we face in transport is not, as sometimes articulated, between local and national investment—what we need is both?
The Prime Minister
Absolutely. We cannot have the gains of one without the other. Local productivity will not be boosted unless we improve national connectivity up the spine of this country, and that is what HS2 is all about.
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I strongly welcome the announcement today on HS2, but let us be clear: the question mark was written by the Prime Minister and his Government, and it should not have been written at all. Under the terms of the review we are now seeing, can he ensure that the full benefits of NPR and HS2 are fully integrated at Manchester Piccadilly station and that no stone is left unturned in making sure that that can happen?
Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)
Infrastructure costs are frequently driven up by unforeseen ground conditions. Can the Prime Minister remind the House of the commitment by this Government to increase spending on research and development, such as at Birmingham University, which is working on quantum technology to map those ground conditions?
The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend. He is entirely right. HS2’s investment will not just drive the construction sector—it will drive the economy across this country, including in higher education.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
Last time I looked on a map, London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds were all in England. So can the Prime Minister explain why Scotland and Northern Ireland get a 100% Barnett rating from HS2 while Wales gets nought per cent?
The Prime Minister
Of course, as the hon. Gentleman knows very well from looking at the map, north Wales will benefit from the Crewe link. I might say to the representative from Wales that it is high time that the Welsh Labour Government got on and delivered the M4 bypass at the Brynglas tunnels. If they will not do it, we in this Government will.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
HS2 is unloved and unwanted, and has been grossly mismanaged. It very adversely affects my constituents. Does the Prime Minister appreciate my and my constituents’ concerns that this could well be an albatross around this Government’s and the country’s neck, and does it not set the bar very low for the delivery of infrastructure projects on time and on budget by all future Governments?
The Prime Minister
Every great infrastructure project is opposed by people at this stage. The M25 had 39 separate planning inquiries. The Treasury was against the M25, and, I seem to remember, delivering the Olympics, and it tried to get rid of Crossrail. Every single infrastructure project is opposed at these critical moments. We have got to have the guts and the foresight to drive this through.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
In London, thanks to Sadiq Khan’s Hopper fare, I can travel across the entire Greater London area on two buses—up to 30 miles—for £1.50. In Newcastle, £1.50 will barely get me four stops up West Road. Will this funding bring north-eastern bus fares into line with those in London, or is this all bluff and bluster signifying nothing?
The Prime Minister
I remind the hon. Lady that bus ridership has fallen catastrophically under the current Labour Mayor because of his mismanagement of the system. Crime has risen precipitately. We will ensure not only that we drive down crime, in spite of what the current Labour Mayor is doing, but that we have fantastic, cheaper, greener, cleaner buses across the country.
Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)
I welcome this statement, particularly the decision to start treating the local rail improvements under HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail as one integrated masterplan—High Speed North. As the design stage is brought forward, how are we going to ensure that local business leaders and communities are included in deciding what is best for their area locally in terms of this high-speed rail project?
The Prime Minister
We will make sure that businesses and communities are fully involved in the preparations for High Speed North.
Sir George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)
The devil, as the Prime Minister well knows, is in the detail. May I cautiously, though, welcome the announcement on HS2, and the announcement about linking up the northern powerhouse great cities? In the course of that, he said, “and Liverpool”. Could he give us some indication as to what he meant by that?
Theo Clarke (Stafford) (Con)
The Government have ended uncertainty for those who want HS2, but will my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister also end uncertainty for my constituents in Stafford who have waited years for their houses to be bought and for compensation to be paid?
The Prime Minister
Yes, we will do just that. I apologise to everybody for the uncertainty that has been involved.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
I welcome the commitment both to HS2 and to Northern Powerhouse Rail, but in neither case did the Prime Minister mention Sheffield. Could he therefore confirm that the Sheffield loop will go ahead as planned in HS2, and that the Northern Powerhouse Rail improvements are about not just Manchester to Leeds but Manchester to Sheffield as well?
The Prime Minister
We are proceeding with the whole of the HS2 plan, but, as the House will appreciate, given what has gone before, it is right that we interrogate the methods and costs as we go forward with phase 2b.
Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)
My right hon. Friend knows that I do not agree with the decision he has reached on HS2, but I respect the fact that it was a difficult decision and I am grateful to him for listening to both sides of the argument before he made it. Now that it is made, is it not right that HS2 Ltd needs not just to compensate more swiftly and more fairly than it has, but to communicate better than it has with those affected by the line? Will he make that specifically part of the remit of the new HS2 Minister?
The Prime Minister
My right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right. The record of HS2 in engaging and communicating with local people has been woeful, and we will ensure that that changes from now on.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
The Prime Minister said that it was the SNP that was standing in the way of high-speed rail to Scotland; in fact, it is his Government who are doing that. So can he tell us precisely: what year will the line be extended to Scotland?
The Prime Minister
I am delighted, in the first place, that the hon. Gentleman supports high-speed rail and that he supports HS2. As I say, the only obstacle to that great project is the deranged SNP plan to install an economic barrier—including an immigration barrier, for all we know—between England and Scotland.
Amanda Solloway (Derby North) (Con)
I am delighted by the statement today. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it supports growth not only in the north but in the midlands, including the constituents and businesses of Derby North?
The Prime Minister
Indeed. I thank my hon. Friend for her support. You can go to the midlands and see the investment already flooding in as a result of HS2. Let us turbo-charge that now.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
It is kind of funny, in a way, to see the Prime Minister come here to gleefully re-announce a project that he himself and his office tried to put a stop to. But while he is in train set-building mode, can I draw his attention to the Wrexham to Bidston line that would connect north Wales and Liverpool? Will he put some extra investment in there so that we can speed up improvements?
The Prime Minister
We will certainly examine very carefully the proposal that the hon. Lady makes, and whether it qualifies under our £1.5 billion Beeching plan.
Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)
As my right hon. Friend knows, Calder Valley has been hit again by flooding, with the third most devastating flood in seven and a half years. Getting across the Pennines is a struggle at the best of times, let alone after flooding, so the news about Northern Powerhouse Rail is fabulous for us in Calder Valley. But can he assure the House that we will not wait for HS2b to be determined before we start Northern Powerhouse Rail?
The Prime Minister
First, I extend my commiserations to all the people of Calder Valley who have experienced flooding. We all know how traumatic a flood can be. I can assure my hon. Friend that we will certainly allow no delay in pushing ahead with all the branches of the project.
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)
The HS2 project, albeit somewhat shambolically handled, is great news for England, but it shows once again the contempt in which this Government hold the people of Wales. The entire budget for electrifying the main line to Swansea would be less than 1% of the vast sums that are being talked about today. So will the Prime Minister commit today to electrifying the main line to Swansea, or will he continue to hold the people of Wales in contempt?
The Prime Minister
As I just said to the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards), north Wales will benefit from the line to Crewe. We have already electrified the line to Cardiff. I urge the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) to get on to his friends in the Welsh Labour Government, who squandered £144 million on a study for the bypass of the M4, which they then decided not to do.
Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)
I warmly welcome what my right hon. Friend has said today, particularly the announcement on HS2 and the review of the governance arrangements. Can he confirm that he will use this as an opportunity to embed the skills we need to deliver that infrastructure and open academies such as the tunnelling academy he opened during the Crossrail construction period?
The Prime Minister
Yes, indeed. I well remember working with my hon. Friend on that project and many others. This will drive jobs and apprenticeships for young people for a generation to come.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
I welcome the Prime Minister’s investment in the skeleton of the UK economy—the thigh bone, the knee bone and the ankle bone, to use his words—but he has forgotten about the red hand of Ulster, which appears to be detached from his plan. Could he outline what procurement and project opportunities there will be for Northern Ireland, including a commitment to a bridge between Northern Ireland and the UK, which would improve the sinews of the arm and the attachment of the hand to the rest of the body?
The Prime Minister
The right hon. Gentleman’s characteristic optimism is in marked contrast to the negativity that we heard from the Leader of the Opposition. Of course there will be opportunities for procurement in Northern Ireland and, indeed, elsewhere. Buses spring to mind.
Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)
Redditch is only a short hop away from the HS2 terminus in Birmingham, so I welcome today’s announcement. Does the Prime Minister agree that, because my constituency has the highest rate of people going to work by bus, Redditch is the perfect candidate for Britain’s first all-electric bus town?
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
This is welcome, if delayed, news, in particular for Manchester and Greater Manchester. Will the Prime Minister ensure that metro Mayors and council leaders are hard-wired into the review? Will he also consider starting at Manchester and meeting in the middle, to ensure that we get the benefits early on, particularly for education, skills and jobs in my town?
The Prime Minister
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. We will indeed be working with the metro Mayors and are already consulting them on exactly that.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
We have had the fluffy end of the lollipop for too long in the north on transport funding, so I am made up by this decision on HS2 and HS3, and I support the comments of the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband). Will the Prime Minister look at the operator service option fund for underutilised lines? There are just two services on the Goole-Snaith-Leeds line every day, which is not enough to allow the people of Leeds to come and enjoy Goole, so can he look at that and ensure that those lines are better used?
The Prime Minister
I would be only too happy to look in detail at the Goole-Leeds line and see what we can do to assist—we will suck it and see, as they say.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
Newcastle and the north-east need this infrastructure investment in both HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail without any further delay. Will the Prime Minister make an immediately deliverable improvement to our national infrastructure, to ensure that the north-east and Newcastle are NPR and HS2-ready, by investing in our east coast main line, which needs urgent infrastructure investment between York and Newcastle?
The Prime Minister
The hon. Lady makes an excellent point, and we are indeed upgrading the digital signalling on the east coast main line.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
The Prime Minister spoke about the “spine” of our rail network, which is currently provided by the west coast main line. The upgrade of that line a few years ago led to many businesses being attracted to Rugby. What reassurance can he provide to them that, with HS2 bypassing Rugby, we will retain fast services on a well-maintained railway?
The Prime Minister
I have looked at that issue, and I am convinced that the existing capacity will continue to be extremely important and drive jobs and investment in Rugby, where my hon. Friend and I opened a fantastic electric taxi factory.
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
Despite going under my house, HS2 will reduce journey times from Manchester airport in my constituency to London from two hours 24 minutes to 59 minutes, opening up a plethora of opportunities for the poor people of the south-east and the great city of Manchester. The Prime Minister dodged the question from my hon. Friends the Members for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) and for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer). If he wants to level up and have a northern powerhouse, why does he not start building the line from Manchester down?
The Prime Minister
We are building Northern Powerhouse Rail as fast as we can, but the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that that project is not in the state of readiness of the Birmingham to London route.
Edward Timpson (Eddisbury) (Con)
How do we realise more benefits for towns such as Winsford in my constituency by integrating Northern Powerhouse Rail, the conventional rail network and HS2? Can my right hon. Friend confirm that the Cheshire salt mines and the threat of sinkholes will be considered as part of the next review?
The Prime Minister
I can certainly confirm that the threat of sinkholes from the Cheshire salt mines will be considered as part of the review.
Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)
I welcome the announcement that the northern section of HS2 will go ahead because, crucially, it will be integrated with NPR. As the Prime Minister said, this country has been held back by inadequate infrastructure, so does he agree that Northern Powerhouse Rail must include a city centre stop in Bradford?
The Prime Minister
I thank the hon. Lady for the representation she makes on behalf of Bradford. I see the point that she makes, and we will consult on that issue shortly.
Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)
I welcome the announcement today—the Prime Minister has well and truly swept the leaves off the line of transport infrastructure investment in this country. I know that jobs and businesses will benefit not in London but locally, in Crewe and Nantwich. When it comes to bus investment, can we ensure that local residents have a strong voice in deciding where the new buses go and how often they go there?
The Prime Minister
Of course, it is vital that the expansion of local bus services meets local demand. In my experience, there is no shortage of local demand in most parts of the country.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
HS2 is a dire reflection on this Government’s environmental credentials, with the destruction of 100 ancient woodlands and a miserably small modal shift of just 5% of passengers who would otherwise fly or drive. Indeed, the Government’s own figures show that HS2 does not cut carbon emissions. If it is to go ahead, surely it should be required to meet at the very least the European average for high-speed rail modal shift, which is 15% for cars and 30% for planes —why does it not?
The Prime Minister
We have just announced the biggest ever package in history for zero-carbon buses and possibly hydrogen buses as well. HS2 is the most low-carbon, efficient way of getting around this country. Will nothing please them?
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
I congratulate the Prime Minister on grasping the nettle and building this infrastructure in the north, which is really welcome and delivers on our manifesto promises. One reason for the rising costs in Leeds is the incompetence of Leeds City Council—with a Labour leader, who, quite frankly, could not organise an event at one of the local breweries—which is putting the station in a totally inappropriate place. As part of the review, will my right hon. Friend look properly at where the station is located and the ability to use existing rail routes and infrastructure?
The Prime Minister
There will be a review—I must be clear with the House. We will be going forward with the whole programme, but we will ensure that we get proper value and proper political leadership and grip of the whole programme.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
For four decades, the east midlands economy has been losing skilled work, which has caused extraordinary damage to our communities. HS2 is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reverse that decline and add tens of thousands of skilled jobs to our community. The Prime Minister has taken a difficult but welcome decision. Can he reassure east midlands people that there will not be any unnecessary delay to HS2b and that Midlands Engine Rail will be woven into the scheme?
Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)
I particularly welcome the Northern Powerhouse Rail connection with HS2. Will the Prime Minister look at the procurement process and ensure that UK-based companies, such as Hitachi Rail in my constituency, have a real chance of getting the business out of it? Can it be done as quickly as possible, so that they have an opportunity to plan?
The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend. He has lobbied me personally several times on that issue, and I can assure him that the plant and the jobs in question will be uppermost in our minds.
Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
At the last count, HS2 was projected to cost the city of Aberdeen £220 million. Based on that figure, does the Prime Minister agree that HS2 will be an economic disaster for my city?
The Prime Minister
On the contrary, HS2 will shorten journey times across the whole United Kingdom, in particular Scotland. Indeed, as I said earlier, there will be Barnett consequentials following the fantastic announcements that we have made today about buses and other modes of transport.
Holly Mumby-Croft (Scunthorpe) (Con)
I am grateful to the Prime Minister for his statement and vision to power up the north through transport. Historically, Scunthorpe steel has been used for many national infrastructure projects such as the two HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carriers. Does he agree that we should use our world-class steel such as that we produce in Scunthorpe for such projects?
The Prime Minister
I pay tribute to the workers of British Steel for what they do. Most of our train tracks come from British Steel, whether in Scunthorpe or elsewhere, and we will do our utmost, notwithstanding the difficulties that the plant faces, to ensure that that remains the case in future.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
When we first talked about HS2 10 years ago, we were not talking about a climate emergency. Given that the landscape has changed in that respect, the Government should invest significantly more than proposed in sub-regional transport systems such as buses and cycle routes, as the French and continentals are doing.
The Prime Minister
I think I can say without fear of contradiction that I have built more cycle lanes than anyone else in the House—that was not always popular—but that is nothing compared with what we are about to do. The investment that we are about to make in buses is absolutely colossal, and I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman finds grounds for criticism.
Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con)
I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s attention to the spine of the country, but will he apply his orthopaedic talents to what should be the muscular limb that connects London to Hastings, as it will take longer to get to Hastings than the hour that it will take to get to Manchester in future?
The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend makes an extremely good point, and I shall certainly examine the London to Hastings route. I do not know which part of the anatomy it should be, but it is vital to our nation’s prosperity, whatever it is.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Is the Prime Minister seriously suggesting that there will not be a single extra penny for Wales as a result of today’s announcements? Before he gives me any bluster about anything else, the truth of the matter is that they promised that they were going to electrify the line all the way to Swansea. They said that by 2017 the valleys lines to my constituency would be electrified. None of that came to pass. All we want is a new railway line in the Rhondda Fach, and to open the tunnel from Blaencwm to Blaengwynfi. Will he promise that today?
The Prime Minister
As I have told the House, we have electrified the line up to Cardiff. When it comes to tunnels—it is not a widely known fact—the Welsh Labour Government, which the hon. Gentleman supports, spent £144 million on a study on whether or not to open the Brynglas tunnels. Open the tunnels and unblock the muscles of the Welsh dragon.
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
I very much welcome the statement, particularly my right hon. Friend’s commitment to a more convenient ticketing system. Many of my constituents commute into London three or four days a week for a better work-life balance, but find that they have no choice but to pay the cost of a full-time season ticket. I urge him to ensure that the trial of part-time season tickets is rolled out nationwide so that we have a ticketing system that suits the modern-day reality of our flexible labour force.
The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport assures me that that is indeed his intention.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
We have had 10 years of rail downgrades in Hull, from cancelling electrification to older trains taking longer to arrive at their destination. While I would like to welcome Northern Powerhouse Rail, I am slightly disappointed that whenever the Prime Minister mentions it he does so between Leeds and Manchester, as we all know that it begins in Hull. From now on, I would like him to talk about it coming from Hull, and will he tell me when we will see the benefits in my constituency?
The Prime Minister
The road to Hull is paved with good intentions, and we intend to build it. We will make sure that we have Hull fully as part of our vision for High Speed North, and I am sure that the hon. Lady’s contribution will be warmly welcomed.
Miriam Cates (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for his announcement, and I agree that we need both buses and trains to connect our communities. However, can he reassure my constituents in Penistone and Stocksbridge, which has many rural areas, that investment in buses will benefit our rural towns and villages, not just our big cities?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, which is indeed the point of the investment in buses. Everyone knows from talking to their constituents that a decent, reliable bus route can be absolutely transformative of their lives and of their kids’ prospects, so we will do that across the country.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
With Birmingham airport 30 minutes from Old Oak we will not need a third runway at Heathrow, I am sure the Prime Minister agrees. However, will HS2 terminate at Old Oak for three years while Euston is under construction, as the press are reporting and, if so, what will he do about the disruption and overcrowding at Old Oak? It is already the biggest development and an interchange site, and is very happy with its historic name, by the way.
The Prime Minister
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support for the name of Old Oak Common. We will make sure that we take control properly of the management of that fantastic project. There is huge potential for success at Old Oak. Indeed, it presents a potential link between the great west line and HS2. We will also ensure that we take proper control of what is happening at Euston which, he would agree, has been a shambles. We have a special purpose vehicle established to get the maximum value for the taxpayer from that project.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
I welcome entirely the statement by my right hon. Friend. Anyone who is interested in increasing productivity and global Britain could not fail to do so. In response to the question that he was asked a moment ago, would he take into account, with regard to rural bus provision, the fact that social mobility in our rural areas needs a boost? These buses can help to achieve that. When taking funding decisions, will rural sparsity be taken into account as a trigger?
The Prime Minister
Yes, of course. Rural need and rural sparsity will certainly be taken into account, as we will take into account the needs of all towns and communities. It is not only that these buses will help people to get to work or wherever they need to go; they give businesses the certainty and confidence that they can invest in that town, in the knowledge that they can employ people who can commute easily.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
I welcome today’s announcements, both on rail and on buses. In relation to buses in Greater Manchester, can we have an urgent decision on funding for the clean freight and clean bus funds?
The Prime Minister
These will be the cleanest, greenest buses that the country has ever seen, but we will certainly make use of the clean bus fund.
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
May I urge my right hon. Friend and, indeed, anyone who seeks to celebrate the HS2 decision to keep central in their mind the blight that it will bring to communities up and down the route, not just on the landscape but on people’s lives? Throughout the enabling works so far, people have been left in severe financial hardship. Can we have an independent body with real power to scrutinise every decision that HS2 Ltd makes?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is entirely right in what he says. I speak as an MP for a seat on the route. As in his constituency, thousands of people have faced confusion and uncertainty about HS2, and it is vital that they are treated properly, which is why the construction commission will look at making sure that everyone is treated fairly.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
The Scottish environmental journalist Rob Edwards has warned since 1995 about the munitions dumps by the Ministry of Defence in Beaufort’s Dyke, the deepest point in the north channel of the Irish sea, and the exact route of the Prime Minister’s latest fantasy bridge. Will the Prime Minister abandon the project and give the money to the Northern Irish and Scottish Governments directly so that we can invest in priorities for Scotland and Northern Ireland, rather than his fantasy plans?
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
As a west midlands MP, I warmly welcome today’s announcement, and I thank the Prime Minister and the Transport Secretary for working with West Midlands Mayor, Andy Street. Will he confirm, as we move towards net zero, that the extra capacity on our railways will allow lorries carrying freight to come off our motorways?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: that is one of the many advantages of the proposals before the House today.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
As a nearby west London MP, may I ask the Prime Minister over to my patch, where HS2, Crossrail and Heathrow are already impacting on lives, to make the much promised visit—his officials will know that I have been promised this for years now—to see the reality on the ground of what a super-development opportunity area looks like for people who tend to be forgotten between historic Euston and countryside beauty?
The Prime Minister
I have fond memories of walking the streets of the hon. Lady’s constituency and listening to her lobby me in person; no doubt I shall be doing so again all too soon.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
Does the Prime Minister agree with me that we now have a wonderful opportunity to win hearts and minds on High Speed North by getting thousands of SMEs involved in procurement and tens of thousands of young apprentices trained up, and the Huddersfield University Institute of Railway Research doing innovation and, most importantly of all, fully integrating it with Northern Powerhouse Rail, linking the northern cities and my local town of Huddersfield?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend speaks eloquently and passionately for Huddersfield, which is among the many towns and cities that will benefit from HS2.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
To announce 250 miles of new cycle routes as a big green infrastructure investment is a complete joke; it will mean only a few extra miles per local authority, and we cyclists know what they look like. If the Prime Minister agrees that we need many more continuous segregated cycle routes, how can he begin to explain how 250 miles across the country will cut it?
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
I am delighted to hear that when it comes to buses and bikes we are all going Dutch. Will my right hon. Friend make sure that rapidly growing areas like Essex and the east of England get our fair share of the funding?
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
To double the rate of cycling from 2% to 4% of all trips will, according to Government figures, require £5 billion-worth of funding at least, so how much of today’s announcement of £5 billion for buses, cycling and walking will actually be spent on cycling?
Wuhan Coronavirus
(4 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)
With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will update the House on the response to the Wuhan coronavirus.
I have laid an instrument before the House to confirm the power we have taken to isolate those at risk of spreading the virus, and if necessary to keep them isolated as part of our belt-and-braces approach to protecting the public. The powers are proportionate and will help us slow down transmission of the virus and make it easier for NHS and public health staff to do their jobs.
The clinical advice about the risks to the public has not changed, and remains moderate. As of today, eight people in England have tested positive for coronavirus; all are receiving expert care from the NHS, which is well prepared and equipped to deal with this kind of situation. Contact tracing of the first four cases has been undertaken rapidly and is now complete, while tracing for the latest four cases is ongoing. This contact tracing itself identified five of the cases, a tribute to the skill and tenacity of Public Health England staff, as well as finding a further five British nationals in France, who have also tested positive for the virus. They are now receiving treatment, and the Foreign Office is following up with consular support.
On Sunday, 105 more British nationals and dependants from Hubei province landed safely at Brize Norton. They are now in isolation facilities at Kents Hill park in Milton Keynes and are receiving all the necessary medical attention. I want to pay tribute to the Foreign Office and the MOD, as well as Milton Keynes Council and Milton Keynes hospital and my own team, for their hard work and efficiency in ensuring that this all went smoothly. These steps are, of course, in addition to those for people now reaching the end of their isolation on the Wirral.
Turning to the efforts to contain the outbreak in China, the Foreign Office is advising against all travel to Hubei province and all but essential travel to mainland China. Last week, we issued new advice to all travellers returning to the UK from China, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand. That advice is clear: if you develop symptoms of cough, fever or shortness of breath, you should call NHS 111 and immediately self-isolate for 14 days, even if symptoms are minor; if you have returned from Hubei, you should self-isolate and contact NHS 111 even if you have no symptoms.
My officials discussed the incubation period with the World Health Organisation this morning. The current evidence shows that a 14-day incubation period remains appropriate. We will continue to monitor emerging evidence closely with our international partners.
As I said last week, dealing with this disease is a marathon, not a sprint. The situation will get worse before it gets better. We will be guided by the science. Be in no doubt: we will do everything that is effective to tackle this virus and keep people safe. We are investing £40 million in vaccine research and are working with international efforts on therapeutics, and today I can announce to the House the immediate launch of a capital facility to support any urgent works the NHS needs for the coronavirus response, such as the creation of further isolation areas and other necessary facilities.
Finally, there are actions each and every one of us can take—simple but effective steps like washing hands and using tissues. We will take all necessary precautions to keep the public safe, and I commend this statement to the House.
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of the statement and advance notice of the regulations and steps he was going to invoke yesterday.
Our thoughts must be with all those diagnosed with novel coronavirus and those in quarantine, and I place on record again our thanks to NHS and Public Health England staff and all other staff involved in responding to the outbreak.
On the specific issue of the quarantine arrangements, I understand the approach the Government have taken, and the Secretary of State will recall that in response to last week’s statement I asked him what would happen should an evacuee wish to leave Arrowe Park. In response he understandably reminded the House that evacuees had signed contracts that effectively offered passage back to the UK in return for compliance with the Government’s quarantine arrangements. However, given that questions were raised around how practically enforceable those contracts were, and indeed wider questions about what was allowed under human rights legislation, I understand why the Secretary of State has invoked the regulations that he is entitled to do under the Public Health Acts. He has our support.
Quarantine arrangements must be seen to be necessary, proportionate and in accordance with the law, and enforcement of those quarantine arrangements, including with powers of restraint where necessary, must be fully transparent, and the rights and freedoms of the quarantined evacuees must be fully understood so as to ensure they are treated with dignity and respect. We agree that a legislative framework for this is far preferable to the ad hoc contracts that were the original basis for the quarantines.
In order to maintain public confidence in these arrangements, that framework must be understood and scrutinised by Parliament. With that in mind, on the instrument the Secretary of State laid before the House yesterday, at what point will the House get an opportunity to consider the regulations and will that be on the Floor of the House? I appreciate that the Secretary of State is not one of the business managers—although there is going to be a Government reshuffle so who knows by the end of the week—but if he can give us some clarity at this point on that, we will appreciate it.
Turning to the UK response more generally, can the Secretary of State tell the House if he is asking clinical commissioning groups and trusts to make plans should this outbreak turn into a pandemic in the coming months? What work is he doing to ensure that the local plans are robust, and can he guarantee they will be fully resourced? What communications have directors of public health in local authorities received and how will they continue to be kept informed?
Is the Secretary of State confident that NHS 111 has sufficient capacity to deal with increased numbers of calls? Will community health trusts, which I understand will be tasked with visiting suspected patients in their homes to carry our swab tests, be given extra resources to scale up capacity, or will they be expected to fund this extra work from their existing baselines?
With respect to the capital facility the Secretary of State has announced, I understand that hospitals are being given specialist pods to quarantine patients and access to this facility. Can he tell us whether GPs have the necessary equipment and resources to cope with patients who may present with novel coronavirus? Will they be able to apply for this capital facility?
I welcome the Secretary of State’s advice on travel arrangements, not least with school holidays coming up next week. Many people will want clarification. Can he assure us that Foreign Office advice is fully aligned with Public Health England advice, and tell us what monitoring arrangements are in place at airports for flights returning not just from China but other places across the world where there has been a coronavirus outbreak?
Finally, can the Secretary of State update the House on international efforts to share research and intelligence, as well as attempts to find a vaccine, and a timescale? He will know that there is a World Health Organisation summit today, for example.
On behalf of the official Opposition, we again thank all our hardworking NHS staff, particularly those on the frontline, some of whom have been diagnosed with coronavirus. We thank the Secretary of State for coming to the House, and reiterate our hope that he will continue to keep the House updated in the weeks ahead.
Matt Hancock
I am grateful for the support of the Opposition for the measures we have taken. The best way to deal with an outbreak like this is on a bipartisan basis. The approach the House has taken has thus far helped to enable as efficient and capable a response as possible to what is obviously a very difficult situation. I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman that the use of the powers we brought into force yesterday must be proportionate. Enforcement, too, needs to be reasonable. That is a very important consideration.
The hon. Gentleman is right to ask about NHS 111. We will ensure that NHS 111 services have support available. We have plans in place to expand support for those taking the calls on 111 if necessary. Thus far, we have not had to do that. Compared with the huge scale of the millions of calls to NHS 111 that are made, the number concerning those who think they may have coronavirus is still relatively small, but of course we stand ready to do that if necessary.
On timing, as far as I understand it business managers have not yet scheduled the debate on the affirmative procedure for the statutory instruments I presented yesterday. They are made affirmative—as in, they become law—the moment they are signed and thus are law now. They remain in force, with the requirement for Parliament to debate and pass them within 28 days. We will ensure that that happens. They then stay in force for two years, or until the end of the public health emergency is declared.
The hon. Gentleman asked about links with the local authority in Brighton. That is an incredibly important question. I understand that the links have been very close and that the public health officers in Brighton have been working very closely with Public Health England. I thank them, as well.
The hon. Gentleman asked about access to capital for GPs. If GP facilities or other parts of the NHS need capital upgrades, we will of course look at that. In the first instance, though, it is very important that people do not go immediately to their GP, but rather call NHS 111. If they do go to A&E, we will ensure that pods are available so that people are separated from the vast majority of those going to A&E, as we do not want them to be contaminated.
The advice remains absolutely clear: if you suspect that you may have coronavirus, call 111 and do not leave home until you have spoken to a clinician.
Jeremy Hunt (South West Surrey) (Con)
I thank the Health Secretary for the way he has handled this crisis. We are all very aware that appearances before this House are only a tiny fraction of the huge amount of work going on behind the scenes. I also thank the shadow Health Secretary for the non-partisan way his party is approaching this public health crisis.
One of the most distressing things we see on TV in relation to what is happening in China in the affected province is people being denied basic hospital treatment because the hospitals are full, whether because of coronavirus or another illness they happen to have. Will the Health Secretary give some idea of the preparations that are being made to protect people who will continue to have urgent illnesses, such as cancer, which will continue to need to be dealt with very promptly, even in such a situation as the virus exploding in the UK?
Matt Hancock
This is a very important strand of our prepare and mitigate policy to ensure that should things get worse here the NHS is fully prepared. The NHS has the capability now to cope with the very highest level of intensity and isolation with 50 cases, and the capability to expand that to 500 cases without an impact on the wider work of the NHS. If the number of cases gets bigger, we will of course need to take further steps. As my right hon. Friend knows from his time in my shoes, extensive plans are already in place for how they should happen if we reach that eventuality.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
I, too, welcome the Secretary of State’s statement, and we support the use of powers to maintain isolation, as they are critical for the health and safety of other people in the country. I would, however, also support their being transparent and proportionate. I also welcome that the four chief medical officers across the UK are working together on this issue.
The Government are advising symptomatic returnees from the high-risk countries, but should that not be all people returning from high-risk countries? We simply do not know what the prodromal part of the incubation period is, nor how infectious someone actually is before they have any symptoms at all. I have to say that I was surprised to see the bus drivers, who were driving those on their way to quarantine, sitting in the front seat in shirt sleeves besides someone in full hazmat gear. That seemed to me to send out a rather strange message.
It is also advised that only those from Hubei province should self-isolate even if asymptomatic, but we see from the cases in France that this is spreading very quickly, and we already have 40,000 cases across 28 countries. Therefore, if anyone is flying and going through airports, there is the risk of spread, from simply being on an aeroplane with someone coming from China.
I welcome the funding for vaccine research and the expansion to 12 test centres across the four nations, but what publicity campaign is planned to educate the public upfront not to go to their GP and not to go to accident and emergency, where they will actually spread it to someone else? I understand that the information is there on the Scottish NHS inform system or 111, but if someone is not looking maybe we need to be proactive about the message.
Finally, the UK is no longer part of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. While we are able to take part in the early warning and reporting system during transition, we are no longer part of the decision making or central procurement of vaccines. How much of that system is the UK still able to be part of at the moment during transition and in the long term? Does that perhaps raise up the agenda some of the areas of co-operation that need to be sought with European Union agencies?
Matt Hancock
I am grateful for the broad support expressed by the hon. Lady. I am also very grateful for the work of the devolved authorities in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the work of the four CMOs across the UK, who have worked very closely together on what is a public health emergency.
To answer the hon. Lady’s specific questions, all those returning from any of the named countries, which I reiterated in my statement, should, if they are symptomatic, self-isolate. We are taking all measures that are deemed to be effective on the clinical advice. As a clinician herself, I am sure she will recognise the importance of following the epidemiological science wherever possible to make sure we take steps that will be effective and proportionate to the scale of the challenge.
The hon. Lady also asked about the monitoring of those returning on flights. We have enhanced monitoring in place for all those returning, as I said. She also asked about a publicity campaign to get the message across about what people can do—people should wash their hands and follow the advice in the “catch it, bin it, kill it” tissue-use campaign—as well as the important message that the first thing that someone should do is call 111. We have a very significant publicity campaign and I will double-check that that is being co-ordinated with the devolved authorities—I think it is but I will double-check, because that is very important.
Finally, to answer the point about the bus drivers, that decision was again taken on clinical advice to promote the safety of the passengers and balance all the considerations that needed to be taken into account.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. I will spend approximately 20 more minutes on this statement, so I urge brevity in questions and answers.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
The Secretary of State said that this public health emergency is likely to get worse before it gets better, so will he reassure the House today that we are well prepared for any new cases in the UK and that the NHS has the capacity to cope with those new cases, wherever they occur across the country?
Matt Hancock
Yes, of course I can give that assurance. We have been clear all along that we have expected cases and that we are doing everything we can, but we also need to prepare for what might happen in future.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
Given that we are now experiencing spread between people who have not been to China, as the Brighton cases show, will the Health Secretary say something about how people can distinguish between the ordinary symptoms of flu and the novel coronavirus symptoms, because China is now not the only lexicon?
Matt Hancock
That is a very good point. People should follow the clinical advice for the symptoms they have, with there being, of course, a much higher risk if they have travelled to one of the affected areas. In that case, they should call 111 and present, and have the test. The testing is available precisely to distinguish the difference, because it is not reasonable to ask ordinary members of the public to know the difference between an old coronavirus and the novel coronavirus, or indeed, between flu and coronavirus.
Dr James Davies (Vale of Clwyd) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend provide an update on the likely timescales for the development of a vaccine for Wuhan coronavirus, and on Britain’s contribution to that?
Matt Hancock
We have put £40 million into the global and domestic efforts to find a vaccine, and the work got under way fast. That work is progressing, but it takes time not just to develop a vaccine, but to ensure that it is assured and safe to use. It is in the nature of these things—because of incubation periods and the nature of the science—that it does take time.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
Should the outbreak become more widespread, will the Secretary of State say what advice he is preparing for employers, because many people, such as those on zero-hours contracts, will be severely financially penalised, which will create a big incentive for them to turn up for work when they are feeling ill? Will he say what preparations he is making for employers to avoid those circumstances?
Matt Hancock
That could become an important consideration in due course, but I am glad to say that, at the moment, the impact on employment is very small, because we have only eight cases. However, I will certainly take that into consideration.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for updating the House today. I think that that statement will reassure my constituents, some of whom have contacted me with concerns about the way that the disease is spreading. Will he continue to keep the House updated, particularly as infection control measures are rolled out, should they be necessary?
Matt Hancock
I hope that I have demonstrated my willingness to keep the House informed. In the way that we respond to these public health emergencies, it is incredibly important that we are clear, straightforward and transparent with the public. The ability to communicate in what is inevitably a fast-moving situation is always a challenge, but I pay tribute to Members of the House for responding—and probing, of course—in a reasonable and sensible way, and to large swathes of the media, who have reported on the coronavirus outbreak in a way that is essentially guided by the science.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
In Brighton and Hove, our thoughts are with those who have tested positive in our city and those linked to them who are in isolation. The Secretary of State will know that there are real concerns locally, with another health centre closing today. People need and want more timely and accurate information—not just about washing hands and tissue use, vital though that is, but about such things as what self-isolation actually looks like. I think we need a much higher-profile public health campaign, so what steps is he taking to work across Departments—including with the Department for Education, the Department for Work and Pensions and so on—to proactively disseminate key public health messages without causing panic or compromising patient confidentiality? Will he also assure me that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office consular department is proactively offering support and assistance to people who are isolated in countries such as France?
Matt Hancock
The hon. Lady makes an important point, especially in relation to communicating through, for instance, the Department for Education and schools to make sure that schools get the reassurance that they need. I pay tribute to the way the hon. Lady has conducted herself, given the number of cases in her constituency, and the impact on local health services. We have taken action urgently where contact tracing has shown that it needs to be taken, and we will take that proportionate action. I am also very keen to be able to provide reassurances to people that we are taking the action that is needed and that the threat to the public remains moderate, even as we have seen the increase in numbers.
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
In my local hospital, staff are being provided with specially fitted masks to ensure their safety when treating patients who may or may not have the coronavirus. Will the Secretary of State confirm that that is part of a wider package of ongoing policies and procedures in the NHS to keep our staff safe when treating these patients?
Matt Hancock
Yes, of course. Making sure that we have the equipment to keep our staff safe is a very important consideration—keeping medics safe is very important not only for them but for the public, because they provide such an important service.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State tell the House about the latest scientific advice he has had on when, as we all hope, a vaccine might be available?
Matt Hancock
The estimates vary and the answer is uncertain. There are promising signs of the very early stages of development seeing breakthroughs, but after the early stages of development, there need to be pre-clinical trials and then clinical trials to make sure that any vaccine is safe, especially given that—thankfully—the mortality rate from this coronavirus appears to be relatively low, at around 2%. Therefore, it is very important that a vaccine does not do more harm than good. I am pushing as fast as I can on the development of a vaccine, but I am also highly cognisant of the scientific advice and the need to ensure that it is safe.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
On the point about mortality, leaked reports are coming out of China that the number of those who are dying is considerably higher than we first anticipated. Is that true? Is that what my right hon. Friend is hearing? Will he also tell the House, and thereby the country, who is most vulnerable? Who is most likely to be seriously affected by this terrible disease?
Matt Hancock
It is difficult in a country dealing with a very large-scale outbreak, as China is, for the information to be completely accurate. However, a report published in the last 48 hours of a study of 1,099 cases from China has demonstrated that in those cases, the number of children who have been affected and symptomatic is very small. That gives us hope—and some evidence—that the impact is largely on the elderly and frail, less so on people of working age and much less so on children, which is a very good thing for children themselves and for everyone else, because with the flu, if children are spreaders, they tend to spread fast. That is the latest scientific advice coming out of China, although given the nature of the challenges the Chinese health system is facing, it is difficult to get an entirely clear picture.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
The Secretary of State has fielded various questions on the timescales for a vaccine. If I may be so bold, the chief medical officer told MPs last week that nothing less than a year should be promised for the development of a vaccine or treatment. Does he agree, therefore, that this is very much a long-term solution and that we must redouble our efforts on the public communication campaign on preventive and self-isolation measures?
Matt Hancock
Yes, I do. On isolation, in particular, the two go hand in hand. People can play a part in combating this virus by washing their hands and using tissues and, if they are symptomatic, by calling 111 before going to a doctor and self-isolating when necessary.
Ben Everitt (Milton Keynes North) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State and his team for keeping me and my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) updated throughout this process. It has been a very worrying time, but that information has been very useful. I am sure the whole House will join me in congratulating the professional way the local healthcare professionals, including those at Milton Keynes hospital and beyond, and our wonderful council officers have risen to the challenge of hosting a coronavirus facility in Milton Keynes. It is also worth mentioning the police, who now have additional powers to keep that site safe. Can the Secretary of State assure me and the people of Milton Keynes that all the appropriate processes, procedures and powers are in place to keep our residents and their families safe?
Matt Hancock
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart), who, as a Whip, cannot speak but who has also been working incredibly hard on behalf of people in Milton Keynes to reassure them, as my hon. Friend rightly says, that the extra 100 people from Wuhan that the town has welcomed are now safely there in Milton Keynes. The council and the hospital have gone out of their way to make this as efficient as possible and to make those returning from Wuhan comfortable.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
My constituents’ mother/mother-in-law has been visiting them from Wuhan on a six-month visa that is due to expire at the end of this month, when normally she would expect to go home. What advice are the Government giving to visiting Chinese nationals, particularly from Wuhan and Hubei province, about extending their visas in this unusual situation? I cannot see anything on the UK Government website, but I can on the Norwegian Government website.
Matt Hancock
I am very happy to ensure that that case is taken up with the Home Office.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the way he and his officials have handled this crisis, which has helped to keep the threat at “moderate”, and Members across the House on the non-partisan approach they have taken. I am concerned, however, that because we have broadcast that the threat is moderate people may become complacent. Will he increase the number of public health messages? I have heard them on the radio, but it struck me at motorway service stations on the way down yesterday that there was no public health information there. In areas of handwashing and bathroom use, it would probably be quite advisable.
Matt Hancock
That is an excellent idea. We are open to all ideas of that kind and I will look directly into it.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for coming to the House and making this statement. I have a question about the use of this term “super-spreader”. In past outbreaks, people categorised in that way have often been demonised. Will he take this opportunity to explain to people that these so-called super-spreaders might have no idea they have contracted the virus and should in no way be blamed or demonised for spreading it?
Matt Hancock
This is a really good point, and I want to make two points on it. First, those who have contracted the virus are ill and deserve our sympathy and support. I know from the incredible way they have responded to the need to undertake contact tracing that all those in the UK who we have been working with because they have tested positive have acted in an exemplary way and done everything that society could have asked of them to make sure the virus is contained. I pay tribute to the way they have responded to public health officials and the NHS and thank them for doing that.
On a second connected point, anybody who thinks it appropriate, in response to this challenge, to demonise or abuse anybody from the British-Chinese community, or anybody of Chinese or east Asian origin, is completely wrong and is being counter-productive to the efforts being made across the country and the world to tackle this virus.
Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for his measured statement. Does he agree that we should not allow our proper focus on the risk from coronavirus to blunt our efforts in respect of seasonal flu, which, as the chief medical officer indicated, kills around 8,000 people a year? In those circumstances, the precautions taken—handwashing and observing basic hygiene—are important for all sorts of good reasons.
Matt Hancock
It is absolutely true that handwashing and “catch it, bin it, kill it” are the right responses to flu as well as coronavirus. We are coming towards the end of the traditional flu season, which this year in England came early, in December, and thus far—touch wood—has thankfully been largely mitigated and gone away. Next year, of course, we will be even more vigilant than normal.
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
With regard to the capital facility that has been announced, can the Secretary of State outline the total amount of funding allocated to the NHS and can he say whether this is new money or a loan that will have to be paid back?
Matt Hancock
This will be new money to those NHS organisations bidding for it, and we have not put a cap on it. We are inviting bids from NHS organisations and will very rapidly assess those bids.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
With universities in Northern Ireland cancelling trips to China individually, can the Secretary of State outline whether the Government intend to issue guidelines to stop travel between and to infected areas? Further, is there any intention to do routine tests on anyone recently returned from the infected areas?
Matt Hancock
We have enhanced monitoring in place on flights from the areas I mentioned, which is important, and of course we keep all options under review, because the most important thing is to follow the scientific advice wherever possible and to keep people in this country safe.
Business Statement
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees- Mogg)
Madam Deputy Speaker, I informed the House last week of the Government’s intention to introduce legislation to stop the automatic early release of prisoners convicted of terrorist offences.
Today, the Government will introduce that legislation and tomorrow’s business will now be consideration of a business of the House motion, followed by all stages of the Terrorist Offenders (Restriction of Early Release) Bill
Thursday’s business will be as previously announced: a general debate on matters to be raised before the forthcoming adjournment.
I shall also make a further statement announcing future business on Thursday.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
I thank the Leader of the House for advance sight of the emergency business statement. The Opposition repeat that terrorist prisoners should not be released automatically but be subject to Parole Board assessment before release while serving their sentences.
I have three quick questions for the Leader of the House. First, when is the Bill likely to be published? Will it be published immediately after the statement? Secondly, what sort of timetable, in terms of protected time, does he have in mind for tomorrow? Thirdly, will he clarify if there will be a further statement on what resources will be available for the Parole Board and probation service? We want to keep our citizens safe.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I thank the right hon. Lady and the Opposition Front Bench for the support that they have given. I understand that they have worked with my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor to ensure that there is satisfaction throughout the Chamber in respect of this very important business.
Let me respond to the three questions that the right hon. Lady asked. The Bill will be presented today; the time will be protected, so it will not be affected by statements or anything else tomorrow; and the Treasury has approved an increase in resources to ensure that the cost of maintaining people in prison and the associated costs are affordable.
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to ensure that this business has priority over all others, but can he give us the proposed timetable for the debates on the police grant and local government finance grant motions? Those also involve important and timeous issues—not as grave as this, but important to local authorities that are seeking to set their budgets.
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend is right: those matters are indeed important, and they are being delayed. The local government finance motion must come before the House by 1 March to help councils. It will be introduced as a matter of priority, and on Thursday I will announce when it will be introduced. The same applies to the police grant motion. Both are relatively time-sensitive, and they will be returned to the House as urgently as possible.
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)
Like the shadow Leader of the House, we support the intentions behind the Bill. As all Scottish Members will know, we long ago separated the concept of early consideration from the actuality of the outcome of that consideration, so we look forward to seeing the details of the legislation. However, the Government have said that they regard this as a matter of extreme urgency. It will be possible to conclude the Bill’s Commons stages tomorrow, but if it then goes to the other place and its Members choose to make amendments, when will this House consider those amendments, and when might there be a prospect of our actually getting the Bill on to the statute book? We seem to have approached this in a somewhat haphazard way when it comes to making a timetable.
Mr Rees-Mogg
My right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor has been in touch with the justice Minister in Scotland, and I am grateful for the collaboration that there has been across all parties in the House. The other place obviously regulates its own business, but the urgency and the message coming from this House are very clear to its Members, and I therefore expect that they will handle this in a reasonable manner. Of course if they make amendments those will come back to this House in the normal way, but as there is cross-party agreement and the Opposition Front Bench has considerable influence in the other place, I anticipate that the business will be concluded swiftly in both Houses.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
My right hon. Friend has made an important statement, and I welcome the fact that both my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary have been present to hear it.
My right hon. Friend will be aware that the difference that the Bill would make is to early release and not overall sentencing. Will he make time available for a debate on the law of treason, which dates back to 1351, a little before even his time? Perhaps we could find time in our calendar to update it as the Commonwealth of Australia did in 2018, and perhaps, in considering how to update it, he would like to read a rather interesting Policy Exchange report written in July last year and entitled “Aiding the Enemy”.
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend is very well versed in these matters and is aware of the danger that treason may present to a nation, but I hope I can give him some reassurance about what happens next. He rightly said that the Bill would only stop early release, but offenders will be subject to robust safeguards on release, which could include terrorism prevention and investigation measures or serious crime prevention orders, among other existing measures. So, even at the point of release, they will not be let out among an unsuspecting public, because our top priority is to keep the public safe.
My hon. Friend’s proposal for a debate on the Treason Act 1351 interests me, because I am always interested in historic Acts, and I quite like the fact that one of our most important Acts of Parliament dates back to the 1350s.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
The reference to TPIMs may resonate on this side of the House. They are, of course, much weaker than the control orders which were previously in place but were watered down.
Obviously, because this is emergency legislation, there is no time for a full impact assessment, but the Leader of the House mentioned the extra spending allocated by the Treasury. Will there be full details of what that will entail at the time of the Bill’s publication?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I think that those details are really for the Second Reading tomorrow, when it will be possible to provide the information that hon. Members will want. However, I can reassure the House that the Treasury is happy with the cost, and that the cost is not enormous. It is not as much as will be spent by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, as was clear from his statement earlier.
Point of Order
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. On 14 August 2019 I met my constituent Jennifer Dees, whose six-year-old son Stanley had been killed with an airgun by his great-grandfather. We discussed the campaign that Jennifer was running for tighter regulation governing the ownership of these weapons, and she sought, through me, a meeting with the Home Secretary.
Since 15 August, when I first wrote to the Home Secretary, my office has made four further attempts to obtain a response. I am very disappointed to have received no formal response from the Home Secretary for six months. Even allowing for the five-week general election period, that is a disrespectful and distressing way in which to treat a bereaved constituent wanting to raise an important issue. Could you, Madam Deputy Speaker, advise me on what can be done to remind the current Home Secretary of the need to observe basic ministerial courtesies, and to respond to Members of Parliament in a timely manner?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I thank the hon. Lady for her point of order. The Home Secretary happens to be here, and I understand that she is happy to give a response immediately.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Priti Patel)
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I must say that this is news to me. I will certainly note what the hon. Lady has had to say and make inquiries of my office, and she is very welcome to come and see me.
Bill Presented
Terrorist Offenders (Restriction of Early Release)
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
The Prime Minister, supported by Michael Gove, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Priti Patel, the Attorney General, Brandon Lewis, Lucy Frazer, Wendy Morton and Chris Philp, presented a Bill to make provision about the release on licence of offenders convicted of terrorist offences or offences with a terrorist connection; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed (Bill 88) with explanatory notes (Bill 88-EN).
Prisoners (Disclosure of Information About Victims) Bill
Tuesday 11th February 2020
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Robert Buckland)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
This is a short Bill—it consists of just three clauses—but its importance cannot be underestimated. It responds directly to real-life issues that we know have caused, and continue to cause, immense distress to the families of victims of serious crimes.
Despite its full and proper title, this is a Bill that we have all come to know as Helen’s law. Helen’s mother, Marie McCourt, has long campaigned for this change to the law. I want to take the opportunity—and I am sure that the whole House will want to join me—to pay tribute to her bravery, her determination and her tenacity. It is in large part thanks to her that we have reached this point at all.
Let me tell the House something about the case with which we are dealing. Helen McCourt was a 22-year-old insurance clerk from the village of Billinge, near St Helens in Merseyside. On the evening of 9 February 1988, just over 32 years ago, Helen disappeared while on her way home from work. The following year, Ian Simms was convicted of her murder and ordered to serve a minimum of 16 years in prison as part of his mandatory life sentence, but he has never revealed where Helen’s body is, and, despite extensive searches, her remains have never been found, which has compounded the misery and the grief of the McCourt family.
I have had the pleasure of meeting Mrs McCourt and her family on several occasions, often in the company of the hon. Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn). Their dignity in the face of such unimaginable distress is something quite astonishing. All they want is the opportunity to lay their dear daughter to rest.
We have all lost people who are dear to us. We all know the closure and comfort that can arise from laying a loved one to rest. When we take into account the horrific circumstances of Helen’s death, a proper burial and an opportunity to say goodbye must take on a wholly different dynamic for the McCourt family and others in their position. The campaign has resulted in this legislation. We have responded to the issues raised by it to identify a solution that works within the existing sentencing, release and Parole Board framework to ensure that a failure on the part of a prisoner to disclose such vital information is rightly and properly taken into account as part of the risk assessment of the prisoner before any release. It is the least we can do to support the victims of such horrendous crime, and I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary—who is present in the Chamber to lend her consistent support to victims, their families and those who have suffered as a result of criminality—for the close partnership working that we have in Government to deal with this important agenda.
I shall now deal with the clauses in the Bill. Clause 1 will amend the release provisions that apply to life sentences for murder and manslaughter in order to place a statutory obligation on the Parole Board to consider a non-disclosure of information about a victim’s remains when making a public protection decision—that is, a decision to release—about such a prisoner. In order for the Bill’s provisions to apply, the Parole Board must not know the location of a victim’s remains, and the board must believe that the prisoner has information about this that he or she has not disclosed to it. This is the essence of the prisoner’s non-disclosure, and it is this that must be taken into account by the board when assessing whether a prisoner can safely be released on licence.
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
My right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right to say that the Bill is morally necessary and the right thing to do. Does he agree that this is really no more than an extension by analogy of the way in which remorse will be taken into account in sentencing, in that those who admit guilt and give full assistance to the police are regarded as more likely to have accepted their guilt? That is true in relation to the approach of the Parole Board too, and this is therefore just a simple extension of the fact that someone who has done their best to accept what they did, even in the most awful of crimes, may be less of a threat to the public in the future than somebody who makes a blanket and wilful denial and is therefore likely to be much less reformed and much less safe to let loose.
Robert Buckland
My hon. Friend, the Chair of the Select Committee on Justice, like me has much experience in the criminal justice system. He will know that deciding whether remorse is real or feigned is sometimes a difficult judgment for a court to make. He makes his point very well.
I think it is right for me to deal at this stage with the concept of whether we should have gone further and introduced a rule of “no body, no release”. Tempting though that might be—and I listened carefully to the arguments—there is a danger that if we proceed too far along that path, we could inadvertently create an artificial incentive for people to mislead the authorities and to feign co-operation or remorse. Of course, in another context, we see the dangers that are inherent in what I have described as superficial compliance with the authorities. There is a fine balance to be maintained, but I think that the Bill as presented maintains it in a way that is clear, that increases public confidence in the system and that makes it abundantly plain to those who are charged with the responsibility of assessing risk that, in the view of this House, this issue is of particular public interest and public importance when it comes to the assessment that is to be made.
I was dealing with the essence of the non-disclosure, and I would add that the Parole Board must in particular take account of what, in its view, are the reasons for the non-disclosure. This subjective approach will allow the board to distinguish between circumstances in which, for example, the non-disclosure is due to a prisoner’s mental illness, and cases in which a prisoner makes a deliberate decision not to say where a victim’s remains are located. This subjective approach is fundamental to the proper functioning of the Bill. It ensures that the non-disclosure and the reasons for it—in other words, the failure by the prisoner to say what they did with the victim’s remains—are fully taken into account by the board when it comes to decision making. It is then for the Parole Board, as an independent body, to decide what bearing such information has on the risk that a prisoner may present and whether that risk can be managed safely in their community. It reflects the established practice of the Parole Board, as included in its guidance to panel members in 2017, but it goes a step further in placing a legal duty to take a non-disclosure into account. This, as I have already mentioned, is part of our intention to provide a greater degree of reassurance to victims’ families by formally setting out the guidance in law.
I turn now to the second part of the Bill, which deals with the non-disclosure of different types of information by offenders. This has been prompted by the horrific case of Vanessa George. I am glad to see the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) in his place. Vanessa George was recently released by the Parole Board after serving 10 years in prison, following conviction for multiple counts of sexual abuse against children at the Plymouth nursery where she worked. She also photographed the abuse of those children in her care and sent the images to other paedophiles. This was a horrific case, which those of us who had young children at the time, me included, remember all too graphically. Vanessa George’s crimes have caused widespread revulsion. Her abuse of the trust placed in her by the families of the children she was meant to care for and protect is shocking. Their pain has been compounded by the fact that the children she photographed cannot be identified from the images, and that she has refused to disclose their identities to the authorities. All the families involved have been left in a truly terrible limbo, not knowing whether their child has been a victim.
Again, we are seeking to respond by stipulating in law that such appalling circumstances must be fully taken into account by the Parole Board when making any decisions on the release of such an offender. Clause 2 of the Bill will amend the release provisions that apply to an extended determinate sentence that has been imposed for the offence of taking or making indecent photographs of children and, as in clause 1, we will place a statutory obligation on the Parole Board to consider the non-disclosure of information about the identity of a child or children featured in such images when the board makes a public protection decision, including one to release the prisoner. The provision will apply when the Parole Board does not know the identity of the child or children in such an image but believes that the prisoner is in a position to disclose it and has chosen not to do so. It is this non-disclosure and the reasons for it, in the view of the Parole Board, that must be taken into account before any release decision is made.
Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)
I heartily applaud the Government for taking this important step. Does the Secretary of State agree that we also need to reassure people that when such an individual comes to be sentenced in the first place, if they have not at that stage disclosed where the body is or the identity of the victims of their crime, the judge should be able to take that into account in setting the minimum period that they should serve? In other words, will my right hon. and learned Friend ensure that the impact does not simply crystallise at the point of release?
Robert Buckland
My hon. Friend speaks with much experience as a counsel who has prosecuted and defended in cases involving serious offences. He is absolutely right to remind us that it is the function of sentencing either to reflect remorse and give credit for a plea of guilty, which is a mitigating factor, or to reflect an aggravating factor such as the complete non-co-operation that we sometimes see from offenders in this position. Indeed, he knows that that is properly reflected in the sentencing guidelines where applicable, and that in offences of this nature, the court uses schedule 21 as a starting point when it comes to the gradations of seriousness in the offence of murder. This allows judges to move up, as well as down, from that starting point.
Sir Robert Neill
My right hon. and learned Friend makes a fair point. Is not that reinforced by the fact that the sentencing judge in the Vanessa George case specifically referred to the gravity—“indecency”, I think his phrase was—of her non-disclosure? Is it not only logical that the Parole Board should be able to take equal regard when considering release?
Robert Buckland
My hon. Friend is quite right. Indeed, that was an aggravating factor that was specifically taken into account by the sentencing judge.
I was drawing a comparison with clause 1. As with clause 1, the provision is already standard Parole Board practice in that panels routinely take such circumstances into account as part of their decision making, but I believe that the issue of non-disclosure of vital information is of such importance—and causes such distress to families and victims—that it must be addressed in statute.
This is a narrow Bill, but it has wide implications. It ensures that a failure or refusal to disclose specific information on the whereabouts of a victim’s body or the identity of child victims of indecent images is always taken into account by the Parole Board. A murder such as that of Helen McCourt and the depraved crimes of Vanessa George are not things that people can easily move on from, but the ability to lay a loved one to rest or to find out for certain whether children were abused may offer the families and young victims themselves an opportunity to find at least some closure and to address the long-lasting effects of such horrific crimes. I very much hope that the Bill will attract support on both sides of the House and can enter the statute book as soon as possible. The acute distress that such cases cause cannot and should not be overlooked.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
First, I pay tribute to those who have worked so hard to bring the Bill before Parliament. Marie McCourt’s formidable campaign for Helen’s law in memory of her daughter, Helen McCourt, is the reason we stand here today for the Bill’s Second Reading. Helen McCourt was murdered in 1988. Her body has never been found. Helen’s murderer was released from prison last week and has provided no information about the whereabouts of her body. The unimaginable pain caused to Helen’s family and other victims of such unthinkable crimes is only compounded when they are denied the dignity of laying their loved ones to rest. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn) for his support for Helen’s family with his campaign.
Secondly, I would like to highlight the case of a serious sex offender whose non-disclosure of information about their living victims will cause untold distress to a community for years to come. Vanessa George abused multiple children at the Little Ted’s nursery, where she worked in Plymouth. She was sentenced in December 2009 after being charged with seven offences, including sexual assault and making, possessing and distributing indecent images of children. She was given an indeterminate sentence for reasons of public protection to serve a minimum of seven years for her crimes against toddlers and babies.
Vanessa George was released in September 2019 with a number of conditions, but to this day she has not revealed the names of the toddlers and babies she abused. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) campaigned for such offences to be included in the Bill. He also strongly objected to her release from prison, as he believes, rightly, that her non-disclosure shows no remorse. The nursery where she carried out her horrendous crimes, and the wider community that have been so profoundly affected by her actions, fall within my hon. Friend’s constituency. As the identities of all of Vanessa George’s living child victims are not known, they will not be able to access the emotional and psychological support services that they need as a result of the crimes that she committed against them.
Vanessa George’s conditions of release state where she cannot live and work, and that she cannot use the internet, but they are almost impossible to regulate. More profoundly, affected families were not informed that she would be released and only found out through social media and local news. Put simply, victims and their families who have already suffered psychological harm should not be put through the additional emotional trauma caused by offenders who refuse to disclose information about their victims. When offenders do refuse to disclose information, it is right that they are viewed as still posing a threat to the public.
My party supports the Bill as it will put into statute already established guidance for the Parole Board when making decisions about the suitability of serious offenders for release. The Parole Board’s role is to protect the public by carrying out risk assessments on prisoners to decide whether they can be released safely back into the community. The decisions the Parole Board makes can be life-changing for victims and prisoners, so we must never underestimate the gravity of the conclusions that the panel members come to. The Parole Board’s guidance advises panel members to consider any failure or refusal by an offender to disclose the whereabouts of their victim’s remains when assessing suitability for release. It is also established Parole Board practice to consider the non-disclosure of relevant information by offenders in cases involving living victims. That guidance and practice will now become law under the Bill. It does not change the statutory release test, but rather the Parole Board must consider the non-disclosure of information when applying the release test and making its assessments.
The Bill puts into statute two requirements for the Parole Board. The first is in relation to offenders convicted of murder or manslaughter. The Parole Board will be legally required to consider whether the offender has refused to reveal the details about the location of the victim’s body. The second requirement is in relation to offenders convicted of taking or making indecent images of children. The Parole Board will be legally required to consider whether the offender has refused to reveal details about the identities of the victims.
Some will be disappointed and question whether the Bill’s provisions will make any practical difference, given the guidance that is already followed by the Parole Board. Some may believe that we need a policy of no body, no parole, such as that in force in parts of Australia. As many will know, the Bill is a variation on a ten-minute rule Bill tabled in 2016 by my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North. His Bill proposed an assumption against eligibility for parole in cases of a convicted offender’s non-disclosure about their victim’s remains. However, it is still right that the Bill is before us and will be put into statute. It has taken over three years, two general elections and two Prime Ministers for the Government to offer their own variation of Helen’s law.
This is a simple Bill, but one that we wholeheartedly welcome. However, as it relates to the release of offenders guilty of some of the most serious crimes imaginable and, according to the Government’s explanatory notes, the consequences of causing additional distress to victims and their families, it is concerning that the Government should have taken so long on such a serious matter. It suggests that the Government still have a long way to go on their commitment to putting victims’ views at the heart of the criminal justice system.
There is much to be done to support victims. Before becoming a shadow Justice Minister, I sat on the Justice Committee for over two years. In 2018, we raised serious questions about the transparency of the Parole Board’s decision making, about the lack of information given to victims and about the lack of emotional and practical support that is available to help victims through the whole process. We raised questions in particular about victims being kept up to date with decisions about the release of prisoners.
The Victims’ Commissioner recently reported on victims’ levels of satisfaction and found they were less satisfied than ever before that their views are heard and taken into consideration. That is no surprise to us, given the distress caused to victims in the cases that I have already spoken about. When victims choose to present their victim support statement to the Parole Board panels, they are agreeing to take part in an incredibly stressful, upsetting and emotional experience as they seek to uphold justice. We raised concerns that not enough is being done to give victims the practical and emotional support they need during these oral hearings. In the two serious and well-known cases that I outlined at the start of my speech, victims have voiced their anxiety, distress and frustration at the parole process.
In another well-known case, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley refused to disclose the location of the body of Keith Bennett, the young boy they murdered in 1964. Keith’s mother, Winnie Johnson, tirelessly made the case to keep Ian Brady from being released into the community, unless he revealed information about the whereabouts of Keith’s body. Winnie was denied the right to give her son a dignified burial and to lay him to rest, and she died before ever finding her son.
I know that society can never fully take away the grief and distress of victims of serious crimes, but the Government should be putting every effort into alleviating some of the pain and making the parole process at least bearable. Years of cuts undermine the hard work of staff across the criminal justice system and specialist support services. As I mentioned, the decisions the Parole Board takes are life-changing for victims. So, to conclude, it is clear that, although Labour Members welcome this Bill, we will not allow the Government to be complacent, either in their duty to protect the public or in their duty to support victims who are already suffering such immeasurable pain.
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me so early in this important debate.
I warmly welcome today’s Second Reading and the introduction of a Bill that will place a statutory obligation on the Parole Board to take into account an offender’s non-disclosure of certain information when making decisions about the release from prison of certain prisoners. It is right, proper and decent that the Parole Board should be required to take into account the failure of a prisoner to disclose the whereabouts of a victim’s body, or the identity of a child victim in indecent images.
I want to focus my remarks on non-disclosure about murder victims. The Bill has been a long time coming, and at times I was concerned that we may never see it come forward. It is most welcome because this is not some technical law change; it is about real people, real victims, real families, and real hurt and anguish. This is about Helen McCourt and her family. It is about my constituent Linda Jones and her family, and her murdered daughter, Danielle Jones. It is about all the families who have been denied the opportunity to put to rest a loved one who was killed or murdered in the most distressing way. The number of families involved in the non-disclosure of victims’ bodies may be small, but however small the cohort is I am sure we can all understand the pain and hurt caused by withholding the whereabouts of a loved one’s body. This legislation is welcome, but, unfortunately, Helen’s law comes too late for some.
I believe that Marie McCourt is watching these proceedings. Together with my hon. Friend—I will call him that—the Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn), she has campaigned for many years for the introduction of such a Bill. They will have to live with the fact that for Marie this comes too late. Despite pressure on the Parole Board, attempts at a judicial review and an application for reconsideration from the Justice Secretary, all of which were unsuccessful, the Parole Board stuck to its original decision and a few days ago Helen McCourt’s killer, Ian Simms, was released, having never disclosed the whereabouts of Helen’s body. I can only imagine how distressing it must be for Marie to hear us talking about those tragic events, and to know that Simms has been released must be heartbreaking. I can only express my personal sorrow that this legislation did not come earlier and that we were not able to stop Simms’ release.
I do hope that Marie will take some comfort from knowing that her dedication to this cause, her steadfast belief that the law should change and her determination not to give up is what has brought us here today, and that it will provide some comfort and hope for other families affected by the cruel and heartless actions of those who refuse to reveal the location of a victim’s remains. On behalf of all the families and victims, I thank you, Marie. I thank you on behalf of Linda Jones, the mother of Danielle Jones, who was last seen alive on 18 June 2001.
First, the police thought that Danielle had been abducted. I do not wish to go into all the details of the case, for fear of causing renewed distress, but I can say that ultimately the investigation became a murder inquiry. On 14 November 2001, Danielle’s uncle, Stuart Campbell, was charged with murder, although her body had not been found. At the ensuing trial, in December 2002, Campbell was found guilty of both abduction and murder, and sentenced to life imprisonment for murder, to run concurrently with a 10-year sentence for abduction. The High Court later ruled that Campbell should serve a minimum of 20 years before being considered for parole, meaning that in November 2021, despite never revealing the location of Danielle’s body, Campbell could be considered for release.
The loss of a child—the murder of a child—would be hard enough, but to never have the opportunity to say goodbye and know where they are must be an intolerable burden for Linda and the family to bear. Although this Bill will not bring Danielle back, I hope it will encourage Campbell and others who withhold such information to reconsider their actions and give families some small comfort by revealing the location of victims’ remains. If they do not, I, for one, believe—and I am sure others agree—that parole should be denied. With all the caveats that we have heard from the Justice Secretary, if the victims have to live with the indeterminate pain of not being able to get some form of closure, I see no reason why the perpetrators should be able to move on. This welcome Bill goes some way to achieving that. It will therefore receive my full support, and I hope the support of the whole House, so that Helen’s law can stand as a memorial to all the victims, their families, and, in particular, Marie’s tireless campaign to see justice done.
Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe), who has been with me and other colleagues every step of the way on this campaign in Parliament over the past three years. For Marie McCourt, it has been much longer than that, and I want to acknowledge her. It might seem a strange thing to say when we are discussing what I suspect many would view as a technical Bill, but the genesis of our being here today to debate it on Second Reading is in love—the love of Marie McCourt for her daughter, Helen. I am so proud and pleased to see Marie and her husband, John, and their close family friend Fiona Duffy, who has done so much work in the campaign, here to see this come to fruition today.
I want to pay tribute to the Secretary of State for Justice and his ministerial team for the way in which they have approached this legislation. As I will go on to say, it is not everything that we had wanted or hoped for, down to the crossed t or the dotted i, but he is a man of his word and put a significant amount of effort into ensuring that all the legal complications that were put before us were overcome. I also want to acknowledge the presence of the Home Secretary on the Front Bench, because from the Back Benches she strongly supported our efforts and used her influence on government, and it is good to see her return to her place. I want to thank her for her support for this Bill.
As has been said, Helen McCourt was murdered in my constituency, in Billinge, which lies between St Helens and Wigan, in 1988. The death devastated her family—Marie, her mother, and her brother, Michael—but it was the love they had for Helen and for each other that allowed them to remain together as a family unit. It was the love that the community in Billinge and St Helens have shown for Marie since then, up to this very week, which has been a tremendous testament to the strong sense of solidarity that we have there. Marie’s campaign, driven entirely by Marie, not only attracted half a million signatures from people across the country, to the purpose of what the Bill is today, but meant that many more families, such as the Joneses, and others, knew that they were not alone. They knew that it was not just them, that they were not the only ones facing the horror, trauma and awfulness of not only having a loved one murdered, but then not being able to give their loved one a final resting place. For Marie, that feeling is centred very much around the church in Billinge where, two years ago, for the 30th anniversary of Helen’s death, hundreds of people from across the community came out to show their love, solidarity and support for Marie.
The Bill applies only to England and Wales, but only yesterday in Northern Ireland the murderer of a young woman called Charlotte Murray was sentenced to 16 years. He has not revealed the location of her remains. Her sister Denise very eloquently and profoundly—I do not know where she got the strength from; it was incredible—talked about the especially cruel suffering that families like hers endured. The judge said that the murderer’s not revealing the location of her remains was the most serious aggravating feature of the case. That is why this Government Bill, based on the private Member’s Bill—Helen’s law—that we first brought before the House to unanimous support three years ago, is so vital, not just for the families we know about already, but unfortunately for the families who will face this heinous and terrible scenario in future.
Today is bittersweet because, as many in the House will know, just last week Helen McCourt’s murderer was released from prison. Marie has shown dignity, tenacity and sacrifice in continuing to pursue the campaign throughout the frustrations of Helen’s law falling because the House was prorogued and Parliament then dissolved. The fact that she has stuck with it because she knows that it will help other families is testament to her and to her character.
Ian Simms was released. The Parole Board in my view made an appalling decision that, to his credit, the Secretary of State for Justice gave it the opportunity to rectify. The Parole Board did not do that. Arising from this Bill and that case are wider questions to be asked about the Parole Board and about how victims feel in relation to its conduct vis-à-vis assessing dispassionately the actions of the perpetrator rather than concentrating on the sensitivities of the family. The fact that he was released just days before the 32nd anniversary of Helen’s death was quite frankly incomprehensible to me and caused additional suffering and hurt to the McCourt family.
The reason I took on the campaign in Parliament on Marie’s behalf was not just that she is my constituent and a dear friend, but that it was the right thing to do. This is very simply a case of what is moral and what is just. If a person murders someone, is convicted of that crime and does not reveal or give information as to the whereabouts of their victim’s remains, they should not be entitled to be released from prison, because the families of victims are never released from their sentence, especially because they have no right or recourse to give their loved ones that final place of rest.
Although the Bill is not absolutely a “no body, no parole” law, I understand that it will hugely strengthen the criteria that have already been laid down by the Parole Board. It would ill behove anyone watching this debate or hearing about the sequence of events that led up to Ian Simms’s release not to ensure that this legislation is a hugely significant factor when they look at parole for convicted murderers.
As I did in the discussions on the initial private Member’s Bill, I wish to address the justifiable concerns of those who ask, “What if someone is innocent?” Of course, the Bill will not take away the right of any convicted criminal to appeal his or her sentence. In the case of Helen McCourt’s murder, he did appeal and has done so on multiple occasions. If anything, his guilt, and the proof thereof, has only been enhanced by that process. The Bill will not in any way absolve our judicial system from the principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty; all it does is ensure that when someone is convicted of a crime and proven to be guilty, they should be held accountable and made accountable for what they have done.
I thank the Daily Mirror for its support for this campaign over many years, and my local newspaper, the St Helens Star, as well as so many colleagues from all parties who, in discovering that they had in their constituencies families in awful situations similar to that of the McCourts, made a huge effort to support, reach out to and involve those families in an inclusive, passionate and ultimately just campaign.
I am very proud to see the Government bring forward this Bill, which challenges a few orthodoxies. One is that the Government do not listen; the second is that we cannot change the law from the Back Benches; and the third is that one citizen does not have the power, solely based on her love for her daughter, to do right by her memory.
Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)
I pay tribute to the hon. Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn) and his excellent campaign, and echo many of the sentiments that he expressed in the superb speech that he just delivered to the House. I also express my gratitude to my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor for all his work and efforts, since his appointment, to focus on victims and to put their rights front and centre. I am also extremely grateful to the Home Secretary for her work that focuses on the rights of victims, which traditionally we perhaps have not put so much centre stage. The Government do themselves proud by making such a commitment to victims, and the Bill is an example of that desire to put victims front and centre.
I of course welcome the Bill, understand the rationale behind it and support it, but I wish to make some remarks that I should be most grateful if Ministers considered. Those remarks relate to the Parole Board’s role, which the hon. Member for St Helens North alluded to just a short moment ago. The placing of a statutory duty on the Parole Board to ensure that the issue of non-disclosure is properly considered is a positive step and a very welcome gesture, but the Bill will not fundamentally change the Parole Board’s current practice. The families in such cases will still have to rely on the Parole Board’s discretion, and that raises some questions about the Parole Board’s role when it comes to victims’ interests.
We have already heard about concerns relating to the Parole Board’s accountability and transparency, and there are clearly some gaps in its duties relating to responsibilities to victims. In the light of recent high-profile cases—for example, the Worboys case—there has clearly been a loss of public confidence in the Parole Board. There is a real need for the law to be seen to be on the side of victims. Yes, that is exactly what the Bill seeks to achieve, but in relying solely on the Parole Board’s discretion, it does not quite achieve that.
In the Worboys case, the Parole Board decided in January 2018 to release this serial offender early, after only eight years. The then Lord Chancellor was unable to intervene—in fact, he backed the Parole Board’s decision—leaving it to victims to mount a judicial review, which fortunately found that there had been shortcomings in the decision-making process. The courts were therefore able to require the Parole Board to revisit the decision, more information then came to light, and Worboys was sentenced further for additional attacks.
A feature in the Worboys case was the Parole Board’s failure to notify victims of Worboys’s forthcoming release. Another feature was that the Government felt completely powerless to intervene on behalf of victims. The case was not a one-off. The Parole Board is, of course, bound to balance the need to keep the public safe against the human rights law that prevents the arbitrary detention of offenders—that is the Parole Board’s job and its duty, and that is what it does—and the Bill will still allow the Parole Board to release an offender who has failed to disclose the known whereabouts of a victim’s body or failed to disclose the identity of a child victim. The Parole Board is not bound, by this Bill or by any other requirement, to take into consideration the rights of victims. I would very much like Ministers to consider how in future they can look at the Parole Board’s role and augment it to ensure that victims’ rights are up there with the rights of offenders. Clearly, this Bill will still allow a killer, sentenced to life, to be released, even if he has failed to disclose the whereabouts of a victim’s body. Most people would say that such a person may not be properly rehabilitated if he is refusing to co-operate on something as basic as the location of a victim’s remains, or the identity of a child.
The Bill raises issues about the Parole Board that were out there and being discussed, but that were not satisfactorily addressed in the previous Parliament under previous Lord Chancellors. Perhaps this new Government, with the new approach that has been so much on display with the current Lord Chancellor, could consider how the role of the Parole Board could be looked at in more depth. I know that there was a review of the Parole Board in 2018. One recommendation was that there should be a further, more in-depth review of the Parole Board’s activity to see how legislation might actually make it a more transparent and accountable body. I would very much welcome such a review, especially if we could pursue it in a little more depth. We must continue to ensure that the rights of victims are equal to those of the offenders.
I also wish to touch on another issue around the Parole Board. In Telford, I have been trying to find out whether a serious perpetrator of child sexual exploitation, who was sentenced to a 26-year extended sentence in 2012, has been released. He was eligible for parole seven years later, in December 2019, and I cannot get an answer on whether that has happened. I cannot get an answer because I do not know his prisoner number. If I am unable to learn whether he has been released, the community I represent is also unable to know. The victims and their families also want to know. We do not want a Parole Board that does not feel that it has any duty to the victims. That is something that this new Government, with their commitment to victims and their families, can do so much about. I know that victims’ families and the wider community would truly appreciate such a step.
Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)
I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker, for being late for the start of this debate. The Liberal Democrats also welcome this Bill. It is a good move and we are glad to see it here today. I am pleased that the hon. Member has been talking about the rights of victims in particular. The Bill responds to a number of cases, including that of Vanessa George, a nursery worker who was convicted of multiple counts of sexual abuse and of taking and distributing indecent images of children. She then refused to name those victims. Does the hon. Lady agree that we need the Government to take many more steps to provide support and advice to victims of sexual abuse, including by providing sustainable grant funding for specialist independent support services in relation to those who are survivors of violence against women and girls?
Lucy Allan
I am grateful to the hon. Member for raising the rights of victims, particularly of women and girls, in this place.
Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)
I just wish to thank the Secretary of State for this Bill. On the issue of victims of child sexual exploitation and sexual abuse, there is nothing better than holding abusers to account for those whom they have victimised. Forcing them to disclose their victims takes away their power, which is why this is such a welcome Bill. It shows that we are listening to the victims and saying to the perpetrator that they can no longer hold in their heart the secrets of the people that they have abused. I very much welcome that, and I thank the Secretary of State for his boldness in taking this forward.
Lucy Allan
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention, and I agree with every word that she has said.
I wish to conclude by saying that this is a Government who are on the side of victims and their families, and that this is exactly what this excellent Bill intends to achieve. I urge Ministers on the Front Bench to continue their good work in this arena, and particularly to place some pressure on the Parole Board to focus on the rights of victims. Again, I thank the Government for all their good work.
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) who has done so much to champion justice especially for those people who have been abused as children. I welcome the two sets of provisions in the Bill. I will restrict my remarks to Vanessa George and the abuse of babies and toddlers in Plymouth. First, though, let me say how grateful I am to Mr Speaker and to the Opposition for allowing me to speak from the Back Benches instead of from my usual spot on the Front Bench. This is a very important constituency issue for those whom I represent.
Speaking up on behalf of those children who attend Little Ted’s Nursery has been, although very difficult, a privilege and an honour. The experiences of those children have been so utterly harrowing. Because their identities are still unknown and because there is a desire to keep what is left of their childhood innocence intact, not many people have come under the media spotlight and been recognised publicly for what they have done. I want to thank all the families for their courage, their steadfast determination and for their love of their kids. Without them and their work, we would not be here today with this Bill in front of us. I would love to name all of them and give them credit, but I prefer to give them the even better privilege of just knowing that they were listened to and that their children’s innocence is safeguarded.
Ever since the news of Vanessa George’s release came to light, I have been campaigning to keep her behind bars. I am not a hang ‘em and flog ‘em politician. That is not my style. But when it comes to the abuse of babies and toddlers, what Vanessa George did both in terms of the acts she committed and of her continual refusal to name which children she abused and which she did not has cast a whole new light over my views on the Parole Board and her release.
As the Front-Bench teams have touched on, the case around Vanessa George is exceptionally disturbing. The abuse, including the penetration of babies and toddlers and the photographs of that penetration and abuse, is something that is really, really difficult for many of us to understand—how someone could do that and how someone could then share those images. The severity of that case was part of the reason why she was given an indeterminate sentence. It was for reasons of public protection. The indeterminate sentence has somewhat complicated this case along the way due to its particular legal position. When sentencing, the words of the judge to Vanessa George were quite profound. She said:
“I cannot emphasise too strongly that this is not a seven-year sentence. It is emphatically not. It is, in effect, a life sentence. Many, and I suspect everyone deeply affected by your dreadful deeds, will say that would not be a day too long.”
The parents of those babies and toddlers were let down twice: first, by a system that did not protect their children in a place where they should have been safe; and, secondly, as one parent told me through tears, that George was released with the identity of those children still not known.
When we talk about matters such as this, we sometimes talk about the identity of the victims, but, in this case, it is not only the victims, but those young children who could be victims. We do not know precisely which children she abused. I have heard the stories of what happened when this news came to light. Parents gathered in a hall and were separated into two groups. One group was the parents of the children who could have been abused and the other the parents of those who were probably not abused. Hearing about how friends were separated into two groups was just harrowing.
I will return to that in a moment, but there is a point about communication that is also key. Many of the families heard about this on social media. The campaign that the parents and I started after her release called not only for a change in the law, which is what we are seeing today, but for a change in how the Parole Board works. The hon. Member for Telford spoke about the operational side of this, which is also really important. Changing the law to keep people like Vanessa George behind bars is important, but how that is communicated and how parents and victims are involved is especially important.
I want to echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn) in thanking the Secretary of State for the way in which he has engaged on this. Much in this place is a disappointment, but in this case the cross-party working and the professional way that not only the Secretary of State but his Ministers engaged with me and with the families’ concerns are truly remarkable. It is an example that shows that cross-party working can deliver results, and I thank the Secretary of State sincerely for that work.
Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)
This is a commendable step brought about through Marie McCourt’s tremendous efforts over 32 years and the efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn). Does my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) agree that although we still have a long way to go, this is a huge step in the right direction for justice for victims?
Luke Pollard
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and the way in which Ministers have merged two campaign asks in a single piece of natural justice is quite sensible.
I have some concerns. Personally, I think that Vanessa George should still be behind bars. I do not see how a woman who refuses to name the children she abused should be let out and, indeed, I believe that if someone abuses a child, the state should say that for the childhood of that victim the perpetrator should be behind bars. That would give those children the entirety of what remains of their childhood in a protected space away from the accused. The fact that Vanessa George has been released without naming the children she abused shows that something was not right with the law and the experience of many of the parents throughout this process has been to stumble across deficiencies and difficulties in how it has worked. That needs to be addressed.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
With all his experience in this tragic case, does the hon. Gentleman believe that the fault lay with inadequate powers for the Parole Board, in that it felt that it had no option, or did the Parole Board have the power not to release Vanessa George and choose not to exercise that power, in which case there is something terribly wrong with the recruitment practices for membership of the Parole Board?
Luke Pollard
The right hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. I would not wish to sit on a Parole Board for all the money in the world. It must be incredibly difficult to choose whether or not to keep what are in many cases very serious offenders behind bars. As regards Vanessa George, I think the Parole Board had no choice but to release her, and that is why this change of law is so essential. Indeed, initially I called on the Secretary of State to reopen the investigation to ensure that no stone was left unturned, and no charge was missed that could be put against her to try to keep her behind bars. The dedication and professionalism of Devon and Cornwall police in reopening the file and ensuring that nothing was left in it showed that the system had done as much as it could do, which is why a change in the law is absolutely necessary in ensuring that we can keep someone like Vanessa George behind bars.
I would be grateful if the Minister could address my concerns about how the law will be implemented. Thankfully, there are very few cases like that of Vanessa George and very few cases in which there has been child abuse on this scale where, when it has come to light, the names have been withheld. But there are many more cases in which a charge of taking an indecent image of a child sits alongside other more serious charges, and reading the Bill I am unsure how these provisions will work alongside additional charges when the primary charge is more severe. If the conviction is spent on the first charge, does the ability to withhold information on a subsequent charge of taking indecent images mean that the whole sentence could be locked down?
There is a concern, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous), who made a professional debut at the Dispatch Box, about what happens to Vanessa George regarding licence conditions. I am grateful to the Parole Board for setting such comprehensive licence conditions that mean that she cannot go back to Plymouth, that she should never bump into or to be seen near any of the children that she abused, and that she should never be able to access the internet. We can now buy internet-enabled fridges, so there is a real difficulty in enforcing some of the minor points of those conditions. May I ask the Minister whether, if a licence condition is now triggered and she is called to jail, the provisions in the Bill would apply? Or would they fall away, and would these provisions apply only to new offences?
Very briefly, as I am grateful for the time the House has given me to speak, the operation of the experience around Vanessa George has shown that it is not only the deficiency in the words of the law that needs to be looked at but the whole journey for victims, particularly those brave and courageous parents who gave evidence at the parole hearings. I would like the Government to look into introducing a system of video links through which victims—or, in this case, the parents—could give evidence. Going into a jail where the perpetrator of such heinous crimes against their children is being held—especially when that jail is far away from where they live—is a really harrowing experience for parents. The ability to give evidence via video link from the local court is common in the rest of the criminal justice system, but not in Parole Board hearings.
There is also a point about communications. Many of the parents who were involved in the Vanessa George case found out about her release on Facebook or via our local paper. That is not because of a lack of willingness from the authorities to keep those parents’ details. It is that there have been 10 years of changing email addresses and addresses. For some parents, the stress of the abuse even broke the relationship and couples went their separate ways, meaning that the communication point was held by just one person. The process needs to be looked at again. I encourage the Secretary of State to look at the principle that was adopted with the new organ donation law: an opt-out system. This would mean that everyone, especially for these most severe cases, would be automatically included in the system, unless—for very good reasons that I think we can all understand—those people choose to opt out of getting regular updates. Implementing such a system would make a substantial difference.
There is a real opportunity to take some of the lessons learned from the Vanessa George case and not only to make better law, but to ensure better operation of the Parole Board’s processes. I believe that many of the children she abused still do not know what has happened to them. Many will not know how they feel or that they are feeling the way they do because of their childhood experiences; they will not know what is going on. Having spoken to many of the parents, I know that there is a daily worry. They ask themselves, “What happens if my child asks me about her?” or “What happens if they ask, ‘Did I go to that nursery?’” These are live questions for many of the parents.
The parents and children I have spoken about this afternoon have a life sentence ahead of them. There is no escape. Just as my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North mentioned that there is no escape for families who cannot have a body to bury, so there is no escape from the realities of this sentence. Now that Vanessa George has been released, she may be watching these proceedings. To her, I say: name those kids and let us give the families the peace that they deserve.
Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)
It is an honour and a pleasure to follow so many thoughtful and compassionate speeches, and to see such cross-party consensus. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn) for his campaign, and to the Home Secretary and fellow Ministers for bringing the Bill to the House.
On 10 September 2001, I was in New York and had lunch with my wife at the World Trade Centre. The next morning, I saw the twin towers collapse. I was a journalist at The Observer at the time, so while others were fleeing ground zero, I went down there and saw the world’s worst terrorist incident close up. The reason I mention this is that the biggest impact of that terrible tragedy on me was the response of the relatives of victims. From Tuesday lunchtime—a few hours after the attacks—pictures of people started popping up around Manhattan, stuck to lamp posts and railings, with messages asking, “Have you seen this person?” By the evening, whole areas in New York, such as Union Square, were covered with pictures of faces of people who were missing, put up by relatives who were desperately searching for them.
I spoke to many relatives of the missing, as they went from hospital to hospital, visited known favoured places, went to work and called friends to see if they could find their missing husband, wife, brother, sister, son or daughter. There were literally thousands of people, all looking—looking even when, really, there was no longer any hope. The relentless energy they put into it was astonishing. The one thing that they could not do was what they were told to do, which was to stay at home and wait for a phone call. There were thousands of people with missing loved ones, and all their reactions were fundamentally the same. As the hours turned to days and the days turned to weeks, it remained all-consuming: the need to know; the need for some form of closure.
When reading the case of Helen McCourt, this is what I was reminded of. The circumstances are different from what we are discussing today, but this most powerful and natural human reaction—this psychological imperative in response to loss—is what motivates the legislation that is Helen’s law.
As we have heard, on 9 February 1988, Helen McCourt, a 22-year-old insurance clerk, went home after work and got off a bus just 500 yards from her house in Merseyside. She was never seen again. Her body has never been found. She had worked as a barmaid in the local pub, the George and Dragon, which was next to her house and where she was also a regular. The publican, Ian Simms, was convicted of her murder on overwhelming evidence. Her blood and fingerprints were found in his flat above the pub. Part of her earring was found in the boot of his car. He was imprisoned, but has always refused to say where her body is. He has just been released from prison, but is still refusing to say where the body is.
Helen’s mother, Marie McCourt, has campaigned relentlessly since her daughter’s murder. I want to join the tributes that we have already heard to Marie McCourt and to that campaign, without which this legislation would not be here today. Without the body of her daughter, Marie McCourt cannot bury her. She cannot have full closure with a funeral. She cannot visit her daughter’s grave to lay down flowers and to remember her daughter. She cannot properly grieve.
Not knowing the location of the body does not just mean that the victim’s family suffer even more than they already are. For the murderer, not revealing the location of the body means that he retains some control over his victim’s family. Those involved have talked about how it can give the murderer gratification. It certainly shows that the murderer has not properly taken responsibility for his crime or felt remorse. If the murderer is released without revealing the location of the body, it compounds the family’s suffering. The family do not know where their loved one’s body is, and the one person who does know is walking around freely and refusing to say. It is unconscionable. But this is what has now just happened.
Ian Simms may insist that he is innocent, but that is simply not the case: the evidence was utterly conclusive. He is still refusing to let Marie McCourt have a proper funeral for her daughter. That is why I support Helen’s law and why over half a million people signed a petition to for it to be made law. That is why I support this Bill. I regret, as some said earlier, that the Bill did not come in time to stop Ian Simms being released from prison.
The number of cases that the Bill affects may be small, but the injustice it corrects is huge. The issue of murder without a body has a long and difficult history. Courts used to be very reluctant to convict someone of murder when there was no body. But more recently, forensic science has become far more sophisticated, and, as with the case of Helen, courts are now more willing to pass convictions for murder even when there are no bodies. Cases like this are bound to become more frequent.
This Bill does not go as far as some campaigners have called for: an automatic ban on release from prison for murderers who do not reveal where the bodies are. But it does impose a legal requirement on parole boards to take into account the fact that a murderer has not revealed the location of their victim’s body. That sends a very clear message to parole boards of what society and Parliament expect of them. Putting that into law will ensure a more consistent and fairer approach.
I agree with the Government that we cannot automatically impose a ban on the release of murderers who refuse to reveal the location of the body. What happens in cases where the murderer would be willing to reveal the location of body but genuinely does not know where it is? What if the murderer cannot remember, perhaps because of dementia? The variety of cases means that parole boards have to have some discretion, and I think this Bill gets the balance right.
I have always believed that justice needs to focus far more on the rights, wishes and needs of victims, and for that reason I commend this Bill to the House.
James Daly (Bury North) (Con)
It is an honour to take part in this debate, in which I have heard one of the finest speeches since I have been here. The hon. Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn) articulated for us all the emotion, the feeling and the motivation behind the long campaign that his constituent has waged on this issue. I have been a criminal defence solicitor for 16 years. This legislation should have been on the statute book 16 years ago: it has been far, far too long. It is reasonable, it is proportionate, it is morally correct, and it is a matter of blinding common sense.
In the short time that I have, I want to make two points and pick up on a comment made by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) regarding Vanessa George’s case. Two things dominate criminal proceedings, whether it is a less serious offence or the most serious offence. The first is public protection. Vanessa George could not be released by the Parole Board unless it felt that there was not an issue of public protection. The Parole Board somehow came to the conclusion that a lady who was withholding the names of victims was not a threat to the public. That defies logic and common sense. The Parole Board could have held Vanessa George in custody but chose not to, and these are the issues we are talking about.
Public protection and the protection of victims are central. When I used to stand up in the magistrates court and a defendant pleaded not guilty, I made bail application after bail application, some successful and some not. The reason why some were not successful was that the courts prioritise the interests of victims—they prioritise the public interest, and that is what the Bill does.
The second point I would like to make is about rehabilitation. We can all say warm words about the concept of rehabilitation, but sadly, in my experience— certainly for the vast majority of those whom I represented —I cannot say that rehabilitative sentences worked, nor had the impact of custodial sentences. I agree with the discretion provided for in the Bill. We cannot have a situation where defendants with mental health issues or suchlike can be judged on events that happened a long time ago. But if there is evidence to suggest or to state quite categorically that somebody who has received a substantial custodial term is aware of where their victim’s body is, or is aware of a child victim, it seems obvious to me that that person is not rehabilitated. If they are not rehabilitated, they continue, in my view, to pose a threat to the public. These matters should be at the forefront of the Parole Board’s decision-making process. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) that we should review how the Parole Board discharges its functions, but this is a good Bill and a much needed one, and I am glad to be part of this debate.
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
I would like to pay tribute to the hon. Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn), who made an incredibly powerful speech, and to the Government for bringing forward this legislation, which is not before time.
I want to make a small point about my constituency. There were more than 1,800 victims of sexual assault at the Medomsley detention centre between the 1960s and 1980s. The perpetrators included a gentleman called Neville Husband, who raped boys every day for 15 years and is now known to have had at least 300 victims locally. While I welcome the Bill, I would like to see it extended beyond the crimes mentioned today for those who do not reveal information about victims. Many of those men died before they could come forward, often by suicide. It is incredibly important to recognise that more cases would benefit from the Parole Board bearing in mind the fact that people are not willing to put on record the crimes they have committed.
I would like to mention other cases in the public domain in which criminals have been convicted but their victims have still not been identified. In the recent case of Reynhard Sinaga, we know that there are more victims of his rapes in Manchester, but they have not been identified, and he has never sought to help the police identify them. It would be right for the Parole Board to take that into account in his case and that of others who have acted in a similar way. Similarly, in the case of John Worboys, which my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) raised, the names of some victims are still not known. In some cases, mementoes are taken from crimes, and often the perpetrator will know the victims but still will not reveal their names.
While I welcome this Bill for victims of paedophilia, murder and manslaughter, I urge the Government in future criminal justice Bills to look at extending this provision to cover other victims.
Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)
First, I add my name to the chorus of tributes to Marie McCourt and her family and to Opposition Members who have campaigned for the measure heartily and brilliantly for a number of years.
I welcome the Government’s Bill as part of an overall move to restore faith in the system, and to keep people who are a risk to the public behind bars. We should be in absolutely no doubt that people who refuse to acknowledge where bodies are, or where their victims are, are trying to replay the crime to the families over and over again. It is clear from the speeches that we have heard that that is something that the Parole Board should take into account.
That is possible only because we are talking about extended determinate sentences. The Parole Board is involved with people on those sentences, not with those on standard determinate sentences. There is a universal belief about the importance of remorse in those cases. When standard determinate sentences are used—for example, in rape cases—remorse cannot be taken into account. That ties into conversations that we have had about delegated legislation and other Bills, so I add my name to that of my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden) in urging that the measure should be extended to other cases.
Time is short, so I shall make three brief points. First, I should like reassurance that offences under clause 2 with regard to indecent images should not ever fall under standard determinate sentences. We have discussed serious offences that are subject to such sentences, and I should be grateful for reassurance from the Minister that that will not be the case. Secondly, on the duty for the Parole Board to take this into account, as numerous pieces of testimony have shown today, the Parole Board is not always as efficient in doing that as it should be. It would be useful if the Department monitored the impact of the Bill on sentencing and the extension of sentences as a result of its introduction. Things that people have been asked to look at do not always translate, so I add my name to those of many other Members in urging that we make sure that that happens.
Finally, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), who is no longer in his place, said, courts do not take this into account in sentencing as much as they could. It is not necessarily the case that the Bill should address that, but the more that we can do to encourage that and put pressure on courts to do so, the better. No one can argue that people who commit these terrible crimes should not be in prison for a very long time, and the sentences that we have discussed are, in my view, and that of many members of the public, nowhere near long enough. The idea that people who have committed these heinous crimes are walking the streets with no notice for the victims’ families grieves me furiously, as I am sure it does many hon. Members, so reassurance on that would be helpful.
Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)
I have two sons and I cannot imagine life without them, let alone losing one to a murderer. When Helen McCourt was murdered in 1988 her family lost a beautiful young lady with her whole life ahead of her. It is impossible to understand the pain that they must have felt all those years ago, but of course the pain has not stopped, because the cruelty continues. It is indeed cruel not to allow grieving families the opportunity to lay their loved ones to rest. This cruelty must be dealt with.
Helen’s law will mean that the Parole Board must consider this cruelty when reviewing an offender’s suitability for release. A murderer who refuses to reveal the location of a victim’s body is not suitable for release. Parole Board guidance makes it clear that offenders who withhold information may still pose a risk to the public and could therefore be denied parole. Helen’s law will, however, make it a legal requirement for the Parole Board to consider the withholding of information when deciding whether an offender should be released.
Helen’s law follows the tireless campaigning of Marie McCourt, Helen’s mother. I want to praise the bravery and tenacity of Helen’s mum, who through a terrible tragedy has managed to bring about these much-needed changes. Murderers who refuse to disclose where their victims are located only prolong the suffering of innocent families and deny them a proper burial. This legislation will mean that families will not have to endure a lifetime of suffering and not knowing where their loved ones’ remains are. It is said that time is a great healer, but not in cases like this. The only thing that can help to start healing the wounds is to support victims’ families through this Bill.
Bambos Charalambous
With the leave of the House, it has been heartening to hear so many thoughtful and passionate contributions to this debate from across the House. One thing that is very clear is the universal support for the Bill to pass through its next stages and become law.
I wish to pick up on some of the points raised in the debate. The hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe) gave a moving account of his constituent and her suffering. The facts of that case are very similar to those in the case of Helen McCourt. My hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn) spoke with great passion in a brilliant speech that encapsulated the spirit and essence of why we are here today. The hon. Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) shared her insightful experience of her dealings with the Parole Board and explained why there is a need to reform it. That may be outside the terms of this Bill, but it is also an issue that we take into account.
My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) spoke with genuine passion about the need to learn from experience and the need for change and why the Bill also encapsulates the abuse of children and the unspeakable and unimaginable pain and suffering when victims are not identified. The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne) talked about the need for closure, his experience at the twin towers at ground zero and the people who are unable to find closure, and why this Bill is so important to find closure. The hon. Member for Bury North (James Daly) spoke about his experience as a criminal lawyer and the need for public protection and rehabilitation. Again, these are areas that need to be impactive.
The hon. Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden) spoke about the need for the Bill to be extended to other areas, which was also touched on by the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott). That may be an issue that we can come to in Committee, but these are important issues that we need to consider. The hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) talked about the cruelty that continues if the location of the body is not disclosed. That is the enduring suffering that the families of the victims who are unable to get closure have to experience.
I hope the Minister considers the important points raised in this debate. There is an issue about the Parole Board, the need for communication, the need for regular updates and transparency about the workings of the board. The Bill is right and we need to make sure it passes through all its stages. Knowing where a victim’s remains have been disposed of, or the identity of children who are the subject of indecent images, and not disclosing the information must surely be an indication as to whether a prisoner has truly shown remorse or not. The victims must be properly supported and must be put at the heart of our justice system.
Serious concerns have been raised in the debate, particularly about the transparency of the Parole Board’s decisions, the lack of information communicated to the victims and the lack of support they are given throughout the parole process. However, as has been stated by Members, the Bill is an example of what can be achieved through cross-party co-operation. I very much hope that it is put on to the statute book as soon as possible. Labour will certainly be voting for the Bill today on Second Reading. I very much look forward to taking part in the Committee stage and Third Reading.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Philp)
We are standing here today because of two incredibly tragic cases: the tragic murder of a wonderful young women, Helen McCourt, 32 years ago at the age of just 22, in the prime of her life with everything to look forward to; and the terrible abuse committed by a nursery teacher, Vanessa George, who abused the trust that was placed in her by parents of tiny children. Yet from these tragic cases, today’s debate shows some good can come. I pay particular tribute to Marie McCourt, who I believe is in the House today, for her tireless and very brave campaigning. I can only imagine the grief and anguish she must have experienced every day that she has campaigned on this case, bringing back, as it must have done, the terrible memory of what happened to Helen. Yet she has persisted and she has persevered, because she has been determined that others will not suffer the terrible grief and anguish that she has. There can be few sacrifices for a parent more poignant than to go through this sort of experience, reliving terrible events, simply to help others avoid the same experience. As a parent myself, I thank her and pay tribute to her for the enormous sacrifice she has shown by campaigning in this way over so very many years. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] I would also like to thank the hon. Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn), her constituency Member of Parliament, who has campaigned with energy, vigour and, I must say, a great deal of charm in making sure that this issue has not been forgotten, despite the political upheaval of the past few years. There may have been general elections, referendums, Dissolutions and Prorogations, but thanks to his hard work, persistence and perseverance this issue has not been forgotten. The Second Reading of the Bill today is testament to his hard work on this topic.
I might say the same thing about the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), who has campaigned for his constituents; parents who, for reasons he explained, have not wanted to come forward into the public gaze, not wanting to expose their children to the publicity that would have accompanied them stepping into the limelight. He has spoken for them: he has spoken for those parents and for those children. He has made sure that the Bill encompasses those particular circumstances as well. I thank him and pay tribute to him for the fantastic work he has done in making sure that those children are not forgotten by this House.
As hon. Members have said, the Bill is a testament to the House of Commons and our system at its best. We have worked together. We have co-operated. We have overcome obstacles where we have encountered them. I think everybody who has been involved in this process can be extremely proud of the part they have played in it. I thank the shadow Minister for the support he has shown today in backing the Bill.
I would like to pick up on one or two of the points raised by hon. Members in the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) reminded us that victims should be at the heart of the process. I entirely agree. The victims Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), is on the Front Bench listening to the debate, together with the Lord Chancellor. It was only last September that the Government put more money into independent sexual violence advisers, who are there to help victims of sexual violence, and into rape centres. I very much hope there is more the Government can do in the weeks and months ahead.
My hon. Friend the Member for Telford also mentioned the fact that there is still an element of Parole Board discretion, as there has to be, for the reasons the Lord Chancellor clearly outlined in his opening speech. We are very mindful that the operation of the Parole Board does need careful consideration. A number of Members have made reference to that this afternoon. In addition to the review already under way, we will be conducting a root and branch review of the way the Parole Board operates to make sure the points raised by hon. Members are fully taken into account. That follows a relatively recent change whereby the Lord Chancellor can ask the Parole Board to reconsider a decision if he believes that it was not right the first time. That was introduced following the John Worboys case. I know that he has used that power a number of times and that it has, on some occasions, been successful. I take on board entirely the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Telford made.
The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport asked some questions, one of which was: if there is a number of offences that somebody is serving a prison sentence for and only one of the sentences qualifies under clause 2, would the provisions still apply? The answer is that they would still apply, if the qualifying offence is one of a number of qualifying offences. He mentioned such things as video links for parents or families of victims to give evidence at Parole Board hearings, as well as contact details and opt-out, rather than opt-in communications, and those points were extremely well made. I hope that the root-and-branch review will look at them and I thank him for raising them.
The hon. Gentleman asked about recall. The provisions that we are debating apply to the first release that may occur. If a prisoner is released and then recalled, the statutory provisions that we are enacting will not apply, but the Parole Board guidance will, requiring it to take into account the non-disclosure—so the statutory provisions will not apply, but the Parole Board, under its guidelines, will have to account for those matters.
I turn to the questions that were raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott), who I can see is showing an interest in these topics. Where there is a standard determinate sentence, the provisions of the Bill do not apply because there is no Parole Board decision—release is automatic. Whether a sentence is a standard determinate sentence is a matter for the trial judge at the point of sentencing and it depends on whether the trial judge decides that the offender is dangerous. Clearly, for murder cases, for example, a life sentence with a tariff is mandatory, but with some of the indecent image offences in clause 2, it is conceivable that if a judge did not find that the offender was dangerous, they might hand down a standard determinate sentence. However, that was not the case with Vanessa George—it was an extended determinate sentence—and the expectation is clearly that any serious offender who is dangerous will receive an extended determinate sentence, and therefore, the Bill’s provisions would apply to those offenders.
On standard determinate sentences and releases more generally, the House rightly passed a statutory instrument a week or two ago moving back the automatic release point from half-way to two thirds for longer sentences, of seven years and over. We intend to go further in the sentencing review and Bill later this year to make sure that the most serious offenders serve more of their sentence in prison, respecting the expectation of victims, which so many Members have spoken about this afternoon.
This law places on a statutory footing the fact that the non-disclosure of a victim’s whereabouts or the identity of child victims of indecent imagery must be considered by the Parole Board. That means that there is no discretion for the Parole Board to disregard these considerations—it has to take them into account—and there is no way that anybody, other than this House, can ever change this provision in future. This is a significant step forward for victims. It will make sure that non-disclosure is properly and fully considered by the Parole Board in all circumstances, and it sends a clear message to any prisoner who is currently serving one of these sentences that this House finds it unacceptable that they fail to disclose the whereabouts of a victim’s body or the identity of victims.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe) talked about his constituent, Linda Jones, and her daughter, Danielle Jones, who was murdered by Stuart Campbell, who is currently serving a prison sentence. The message that Stuart Campbell and others like him should hear loud and clear, on this day, from this House, is that their failure to disclose is unacceptable and abhorrent and that they should make that disclosure straightaway. We are striking a blow today for the rights of victims and their families, who deserve to be able to move on with their lives following crimes of the most appalling kind. I pay tribute again to the bravery of Marie McCourt in bringing this matter forward over so many years. The Bill is a testament to her bravery and to her daughter, and it is right that we shall know it as Helen’s law.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time.
PRISONERS (DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION ABOUT VICTIMS) BILL (PROGRAMME)
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7))
That the following provisions shall apply to the Prisoners (Disclosure of Information About Victims) Bill:
Committal
1. The Bill shall be committed to a Committee of the whole House.
Proceedings in Committee, on Consideration and up to and including Third Reading
2. Proceedings in Committee, any proceedings on Consideration and any proceedings in legislative Grand Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion two hours after the commencement of proceedings in Committee of the whole House.
3. Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion three hours after the commencement of proceedings in Committee of the whole House.
4. Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings in Committee of the whole House, to any proceedings on Consideration or to other proceedings up to and including Third Reading.
Other proceedings
5. Any other proceedings on the Bill may be programmed.—(Maria Caufield.)
Question agreed to.
Opposition Day
(4 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Migration and Scotland
(4 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
19:00 - The House divided: - Ayes: 46 / Noes: 322 - Question accordingly negatived.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I inform the House that the Speaker has not selected the amendment.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
I beg to move,
That this House condemns the UK Government’s response to the Scottish Government’s publication of 27 January 2020, Migration: Helping Scotland Prosper, setting out proposals for a Scottish visa scheme within a UK-wide system; welcomes support for the Scottish Government’s proposals from the business and rural communities in Scotland as well as the Scottish Trades Union Congress, Federation of Small Businesses Scotland and Scottish Council for Development and Industry; notes Scotland’s unique demographics in that all population growth for the next 25 years is projected to come from migration; recalls comments from the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in June 2016 that Scotland would decide immigration numbers if the UK were to exit the EU; and calls on the Home Secretary to engage positively with the Scottish Government in relation to these proposals before introducing the Immigration Bill and to devolve powers to the Scottish Parliament to enable a tailored migration policy for Scotland.
It is a pleasure to introduce this significant and serious debate on migration and to support the incredibly reasonable and considered policy proposals recently published by the Scottish Government—proposals that would ensure migration policy worked for every part of the UK but could also be tailored to reflect Scotland’s particular needs and circumstances. Indeed, those two features go together, for it is only by making sure the system is tailored to the different parts of the UK that we actually ensure that it can work for all the different parts of the UK.
From the outset, it is important to emphasise that these proposals have been widely consulted upon and developed collaboratively. The report flags up support for a tailored system from organisations such as the Federation of Small Businesses in Scotland, the Scottish Council for Development and Industry, the Scottish Trades Union Congress, the Law Society of Scotland, the David Hume Institute and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Many more names could be added to the list, from the all-party group on social integration to think-tanks such as the Institute for Public Policy Research. A range of academic reports have set out options for differentiation, including Dr Christina Boswell and Dr Sarah Kyambi at the University of Edinburgh and Dr Eve Hepburn for the Scottish Parliament. Lessons from international examples have been learned, from, among others, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Switzerland.
During the Brexit referendum campaign, we were told by the now Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster on the matter of future immigration numbers:
“It would be for Scotland to decide because under the proposals that we have put forward we believe that a points based immigration policy…would be the right approach.”
He went on to say that the head of the Leave campaign in Scotland had written to the First Minister explaining how Scotland
“can have a greater degree of control over immigration policy”
after Brexit. So I look forward to the support of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
The simple proposal put forward by the Scottish Government is for an additional visa route for people to come to live and work in Scotland. Learning, in particular, from Canada’s provincial nominee programme, it would ideally be for Scottish Ministers to set out criteria and rules for selecting who could get one of those visas. The Scottish Government would then accept and reject applications against those criteria. The application would then transfer to the Home Office, not for reassessing the merits of the application, but to verify identity, check immigration history and satisfy security requirements. The visa granted would include a requirement that the visa holder live in Scotland for its duration. There would ideally be routes to settlement after that, probably at the five-year mark. It is acknowledged that a range of different models would be possible. The details and the numbers involved would be subject to negotiation.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
I agree that we need to make sure that our immigration system is fit for purpose and meets the needs of the UK’s economy, but the hon. Member said he would expect people granted a visa to stay in Scotland for the duration. How would he police and enforce that? There is a great difference in scale between Scotland and England and Canada and America.
Stuart C. McDonald
I shall come to that point later in my speech, if I may, but I can think of examples that are much closer to home than those that the hon. Gentleman has given. For instance, the Republic of Ireland has an open border with a country that has a completely independent immigration system, but no one seems to think it necessary to close the border to the north, or to introduce routine checks at ferry ports or anywhere else.
All the reasons why such a tailored approach is necessary have been rehearsed repeatedly by my hon. Friends in the House for several years, and have been set out in a series of Scottish Government papers as well as in independent reports. Historically, Scotland’s population story has been one of out-migration. Only since 2001 has the country seen a sustained period of net in-migration, driven by a growth in both the number of EU citizens and the number of people from the rest of the UK who are coming to live and work in Scotland. While that recent history of in-migration and population growth has been welcome, the old history has left us with a legacy of a rapidly increasing older population and a smaller share of younger working-age people. Those challenges are not unique, but they are more pronounced in Scotland than in other parts of the UK and, indeed, Europe.
Looking ahead towards mid-2043, even as matters stand, we see that all Scotland’s very modest projected population growth is set to be from in-migration, with more deaths than births expected each year. Our working-age population is expected to remain the same size, but the population of older people will increase. Those trends are either distinct to Scotland in the UK context, or far more pronounced than they are in the UK as a whole.
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful case, but is there not also an economic imperative? As he has said, Scotland’s working-age population is going to decline, which means that there is a price to be paid not only by Scotland but by the rest of the United Kingdom in the loss of tax receipts. My hon. Friend is outlining a common-sense solution that will enable us to learn from practices elsewhere in the world, so that we in Scotland can increase our prosperity and our population. What does he believe is driving the UK to simply say no to the Scottish Government, other than just sheer vindictiveness?
Stuart C. McDonald
That is a very interesting question, and I look forward to hearing the reasons offered by the UK Government. Hopefully, having listened today to the case that the Scottish Government and my hon. Friends have made, Ministers will open their eyes and at least engage constructively with our proposals.
Against the background that I have described, surely no one in the House can seriously suggest that if changes were being made to the immigration system for Scotland alone, the policy goal would be a reduction in the modest but sustainable levels of migration that we have seen in recent years. Analysis shows that any such reductions in levels of EU migration will make all those trends worse, and will risk a decline in both Scotland’s working-age population and the overall population.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) has pointed out, it cannot be overstated that all this has huge implications for economic growth, for GDP, for GDP per head, for our tax base and public finances, and for our economy and our society. Yes, we need the very highly qualified and well paid, but we also need those who are making an immense contribution to our country and economy but are not earning £25,000, whether they are in the care sector or the tourism industry, are starting out in research, or are working in food and drink, agriculture or retail, or many other sectors of our economy.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
According to the Higher Education Statistics Agency, the average starting salary of graduates in Scotland is £23,500, which puts them significantly below the reduced salary thresholds that the UK Government are considering. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need a full roll-out of post-study work visa routes to ensure that talented graduates can make their careers in Scotland?
Stuart C. McDonald
My hon. Friend is right, and the sooner that happens the better.
So what do we seek to achieve through today’s debate? I have been in this place long enough to know that even in the rather unlikely event that I make one of the greatest speeches in Parliamentary history, neither the immigration Minister, the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), nor the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross), is going to suddenly perform a 360-degree U-turn and wholeheartedly embrace every aspect of these proposals, much as I would love that to be the case. I am simply asking the Ministers, particularly the immigration Minister, to engage with them seriously. Indeed, I make that request of all Members in all parties.
After the recent publication of the report from the Migration Advisory Committee, the Scottish Chambers of Commerce said:
“Business will want to see the Scottish and UK Government working seriously and closely together on these and future recommendations, ensuring appropriate policies are devised and implemented that work for businesses and our economy”.
In anticipation of the Scottish Government’s report, Scottish Labour’s external affairs spokesperson said
“Scottish Labour supports exploring a degree of flexibility within an overarching UK immigration system”.
A spokesperson for the Scottish Conservatives said:
“We’re willing to look at any proposal which helps Scotland prosper in this new era.”
I say to the Ministers that if they were to speak to their MSP colleagues, I think they would find—privately, at least—a degree of sympathy for the proposals that the Scottish Government are making, so I ask them please to engage with them as well.
In contrast, all we had from the Home Office was an unnamed spokesperson dismissing the proposals before they could possibly have been read, and we have since had a fortnight not so much of serious engagement but of knockabout politics, nonsense and soundbites. To draw a line under this skirmishing and to show that the UK Government do indeed treat with respect the suggestions put forward by the Scottish Government and supported by Scottish business, unions and civic society, will the immigration Minister meet Scottish Government Ministers and officials before he finalises the new immigration White Paper and introduces the new immigration Bill? That was something that his predecessor bar one, the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), did on a regular basis when she attended Cabinet as immigration Minister, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman can take his Department back to that form of constructive engagement. That would be far better than the nonsense and soundbites that we have been served in the fortnight since the Scottish Government’s paper was launched.
I want to address some of those soundbites now. We have been told for the 100th time that the UK Government want an immigration system that works for the whole of the UK. Believe it or not, I am quite happy to support that ambition too, as it is entirely consistent with what the Scottish Government propose. We simply believe that a system that works for the whole UK can—and, indeed, must—reflect the different needs and circumstances of its different parts. The Scottish Government paper expressly proposes further change to the UK-wide immigration system. This would involve changes that could benefit all of the UK as well as practical, tailored policies that provide solutions to Scotland’s needs, drawing on international models. There is a whole chapter in the report dedicated to whole-of-the-UK policy change, if only we could get people to read it. Is the Minister seriously saying that the Canadian migration system does not work for all of Canada because it has different rules for different provinces? In fact, most people there would say that the systems and rules work better for the whole precisely because they are tailored to suit the different parts.
We have also been told for the 100th time that immigration is a reserved matter. We are all absolutely aware that that is the case for now, but it does not have to stay that way, and we certainly would prefer that it did not. Once again, however, nothing in the Scottish Government’s paper is inconsistent with that. I have explained that, ideally, it would be for the Scottish Government to draft the criteria and to consider applications for a Scottish visa. However, it could be the UK Government who define the criteria and rules, receive and assess the applications and issue the visas. The UK Government do, of course, implement a shortage occupation list for Scotland, illustrating that tailored approaches are perfectly possible, even if they are not willing to go as far as formal devolution. Again, this is all in the Scottish Government’s paper, and I encourage people to read it.
We have also been told a few times that the Migration Advisory Committee has rejected the idea of a devolved system, but that is absolutely not a fair representation of what the MAC said. It is true that the Committee decided, on balance and accepting that there were good arguments on both sides, that if the Government want a salary threshold for tier 2 visas, it should be one salary across the UK. That went against the majority of stakeholder submissions, particularly from Scotland. Nevertheless, it is totally wrong to say that the MAC rejected the case for devolving migration powers or introducing tailored rules for Scotland. To quote the MAC report directly:
“We acknowledge the desire of the Scottish Government for immigration to become a devolved rather than a reserved matter, a question on which the MAC takes no position seeing it as a political rather than an economic question.”
The one part of the MAC report that we do call on Ministers to implement is its recommendation that a pilot project should be established to look at retention of migrants in remote and rural areas. That is a recommendation that the former Home Secretary—now the Chancellor of the Exchequer—accepted in a written statement back in July last year. An entire chapter of the Scottish Government paper is about wanting to engage in the pilot process, and the Scottish Government have tasked their own expert group on migration and population to consider how that could best benefit Scotland’s rural communities. Again, our ask is simple: will the immigration Minister meet Scottish Government Ministers and engage with them on how that pilot scheme could work in Scotland?
Another old chestnut is the argument that issuing a small number of Scottish visas would make the UK system too complex. That takes some brass neck, given the state of UK immigration law and the complexity and bureaucracy that successive UK Governments have imposed on those who come into contact with it. When it comes to work visas, it is widely accepted that while the bureaucracy of the tier 2 system might be surmountable for large multinational companies, it is ill suited and incredibly cumbersome for the small and medium-sized enterprises on which the Scottish economy is more reliant. The Scottish Government paper expressly adopts as one of its principles the need for the migration system to be easy to access and understand, and indeed the MAC and the UK Government have accepted the importance of making the process simpler. The visa proposed by the Scottish Government seeks to make things simpler still for employers by avoiding the burden of formal sponsorship and ensuring that salary thresholds do not exclude particular jobs. There is every opportunity for the Scottish visa to make life simpler for employers and applicants, rather than more complex.
Finally, the Prime Minister brought up the ludicrous old argument about a tailored system making a border a necessity. Hon. Members will know that successful tailored so-called regional migration systems exist right across the globe, including, of course, in the Government’s favourite Australian system. Not a single one requires internal borders. I might also quietly point out that the UK is happy enough to share an open land border and a common travel area with a country that has an entirely independent immigration system. Over the past five years, Ireland has issued an annual average of 27,000 visas to non-EEA nationals who of course have no right to live and work across the border in Northern Ireland or in any other part of the UK. Next year, EU migrants going to Ireland will fall into that bracket as well, roughly doubling the number of people who will arrive in Ireland with the right to live and work there, but not in the UK. But no one is saying that we need additional checks on people coming into other parts of the common travel area. That is because thinking of immigration control as simply what happens at the border is to fundamentally misunderstand it.
Most immigration control depends on what happens in country. Successful enforcement includes selecting people who are most likely to comply with their visa restrictions, then on placing appropriate conditions on what people can and cannot do once they have passed through the border, and only then on the enforcement action and sanctions that are applied if people do not comply.
The UK’s main work route for non-EU nationals, soon to be rolled out to EU nationals, operates in precisely the same way. People have a visa that is tied to a particular employer. We do not make them comply by erecting a border around them or their workplace; we simply recruit a person we trust to do the job, place conditions on their visa and rely on enforcement and sanctions in the small number of cases where that is needed.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman is right that much of the enforcement of our immigration system are the in-country rules, but I have read his paper carefully and he is proposing a Scottish visa that is not tied to the sponsorship of a particular employer, has no requirements for a minimum salary, and would therefore be a complete open door for people to get into the country that way with no one to carry out any in-country enforcement. He has just destroyed his own argument.
Stuart C. McDonald
I have not destroyed my own argument, because the parallel is with Ireland. The in-country checks would take place in those parts of the United Kingdom where people are not entitled to live and work. It is often said that that would be a back door to working in other parts of the UK, but the checks exist there. If somebody with a Scottish visa applies for a job in London, they will be turned down because there are sanctions for employers who break the rules and for the people who actually do that. It works perfectly well. Nobody suggests that we need to take any action in relation to the people coming in via Ireland, and it would be exactly the same for the far smaller number of people using the Scottish visa.
It is not just Ireland that we are talking about: our friends in the Isle of Man get to issue their own visas and yet the UK is happy to operate a common travel area with them. If the Isle of Man can do that, why not Scotland?
The Lib Dem amendment has not been selected, but I will address it. There is little in its critique of the UK immigration system that I could possibly quibble with, and it is consistent with the principles of dignity, fairness and respect that the Scottish Government’s paper refers to. The amendment also reiterates the party’s call to end limitless immigration detention and to close Dungavel detention centre. My party and I have been making those points for years on end, and we did so in one of our most recent Opposition day debates last summer. Indeed, my party was making those points even while some Lib Dems were part of the coalition Government delivering aspects of the hostile environment that they now condemn. As their amendment states, I want a fair, effective immigration system for the whole of the UK, but again there is absolutely no reason why that cannot incorporate tailored approaches for the different parts of the UK. I urge hon. Members to engage positively on the issues. Their amendment should have added to our motion, not attempted to replace its substance.
The case for a devolved, or at least a tailored, system for Scotland is powerful and verging on the unanswerable. We are at a pivotal moment for migration policy and for Scotland’s population. The overarching objective of UK Government policy is to reduce migration. Nobody in this Chamber can seriously dispute that such a policy goal is wholly inappropriate for Scotland. The Scottish Government, after extensive consultation with stakeholders, have put forward serious but reasonable proposals for a Scottish visa based on a wealth of research and international experience. I urge Ministers and Members across the House to engage seriously with the proposals, because failing to do so risks drastic consequences for Scotland. If that engagement does not happen, if those proposals are not taken seriously and nothing is done to avoid those drastic consequences, more and more people will consider the other way to avoid those drastic consequences. That is, of course, to push through our own independent migration policy, just like Ireland does, as an independent country.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Douglas Ross)
I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) on how he has presented his case today and, indeed, on how Scottish National party Members have promoted the Scottish Government’s recent report.
The hon. Gentleman and I served together on the Home Affairs Committee in the previous Parliament, and I hope he will agree that, although we robustly debated a number of issues, we respected each other’s differing opinions and views. One thing I can agree with, in response to his direct request of me and other Ministers, is a 360° turn of my position—I will turn my decision through 360° and return to exactly where I started, just as he asks. When he asked me to make a 360° turn, I wondered whether he was taught by the same person who told the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) that a bridge between Northern Ireland and Scotland will cross the North sea, but perhaps that is the SNP Scottish education system coming out.
There will not be a meeting of minds between me and the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East on this matter, because this Government are committed to introducing a new immigration system that works for the whole UK—for Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. That is why the Government have engaged, and continue to engage, extensively with many stakeholders across Scotland, including the Scottish Government and, crucially, businesses across a wide range of sectors. Their views have helped us to develop our plans for the future immigration system. We will introduce a firm and fair immigration system that focuses on what individuals contribute, not on where they come from—it will focus on those who would benefit the whole UK.
The Scottish Government’s recent report outlines the demographic challenges facing Scotland, but those challenges are manifest in other parts of the United Kingdom, too. We are committed to devising a system that helps address those challenges, but we have no plans to devolve powers on immigration. Introducing a devolved or regional immigration system would bring about significant complexities and would simply not be practical. Instead, we will introduce a new system that recognises the needs of all the nations and regions of the United Kingdom and that offers more of the flexibility for which employers and others have called.
Indeed, on the day the Scottish Government’s report was published, the Immigration Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), was in Glasgow to announce this Government’s commitment to the science community through our new global talent route, which will attract people from around the world with special skills, including the top researchers, scientists and mathematicians. We will create bespoke visa schemes for new people who will fill shortages in our public services and build the companies and innovations of the future, benefiting Britain for years to come.
Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)
What the Minister is saying is that, if we developed a system for Scotland that suited Scotland’s immigration needs, it would not be suitable if it did not work for other parts of the United Kingdom.
Douglas Ross
What I was saying, if the hon. Gentleman had listened, is that the problems in Scotland are not unique to Scotland. We face these problems across the United Kingdom, and it is surely better if we address them across the United Kingdom. The SNP seems to think these problems are unique to Scotland, but they are not.
We will create a fast-track NHS visa for medical professionals with NHS job offers, thereby reducing risk, reducing visa fees and providing support for them to come to the UK with their families. Of course, the Scottish national health service will benefit equally with the rest of the United Kingdom.
As I have said, we have laid rules to introduce new visa routes to recruit leaders in their field by offering the best graduates and winners of scientific prizes fast-track entry to the United Kingdom.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
Surely the Minister must agree that what we are seeing is the jagged edge of devolution. Powers are being given on health and developing the economy, yet the Open University business barometer estimates that it will cost businesses in Wales £150 million a year to try to fill the skills gap. What we do not have, just as in Scotland, is the means to fill that skills gap tailor-made for Wales. That is the jagged edge of devolution, and it is not allowing us to develop properly.
Douglas Ross
I have experienced politics in Scotland for a long time, and I believe the Scottish Parliament has a great deal of powers to improve the lives of the people of Scotland—the problem is the people currently operating those powers; the SNP Government are letting down the people of Scotland.
We have already announced the creation of a new graduate route, which will help our world-leading universities, including those in Scotland, to continue to attract talented young people, and allow students to stay and apply for work for up to two years after they graduate. It is important that these changes are introduced to the United Kingdom as a whole. Under the devolution settlement, immigration is reserved, and it is right that it continues to be so. It is also better for those using the system, both migrants and those who sponsor them, such as employers and educational institutions. There are many workers whose jobs are necessarily peripatetic, and trying to pin a worker down to a particular location is not a straightforward proposition. An assessment of an individual’s tax code would not be sufficient to determine their immigration status. It might indicate where an employee spends some of their time or even where a company’s head office is—for example, where payroll is managed—but it would not provide any certainty as to where an employee spends the bulk of their working time.
Let us imagine the burden for an employer who is constantly having to determine whether he or she can deploy particular workers to certain areas depending on the terms of their visa. Let us consider the example of an engineer who works for a company that has several contracts in both England and Scotland. Could a migrant on a Scottish visa fulfil that role? I foresee significant complications and litigation resulting from that.
Stuart C. McDonald
There are different ways we could do this. I, for one, suggest that these people should be allowed a limited number of days working in other parts of the UK. A firm such as that would simply use the main UK immigration system and apply for a tier 2 visa in the normal way. We are talking about additional visas to allow employers to bring in people who would not qualify for the main UK visas. This is about additionality; it is not an alternative and more complicated way of doing things.
Douglas Ross
Unfortunately, the hon. Gentleman, who is promoting this debate, is coming up with more and more add-ons to this. His own party’s paper, which I have read from cover to cover, says that this proposal is to deal with the majority of people who will be working in and only in Scotland. The example I have given is just one of many where people could be employed by a company in Scotland yet be working in other parts of the UK. I foresee significant problems with that.
Douglas Ross
I want to make a bit of progress, if I may, because I have given way several times.
We also need to consider the economic justification of what is being proposed. We are very fortunate in this country that we are able to rely on the independent and impartial advice of the Migration Advisory Committee. The MAC is appointed by fair and open competition, and always issues a call for evidence when conducting its inquiries to ensure that it has the widest range of evidence to draw on. Its recent reports show that Scottish interests were well represented in the evidence that the MAC received, and MAC members visited all parts of the United Kingdom as part of the process of coming to its conclusion. Given that the MAC consults so widely in producing its advice, it is worth reflecting on what it has said. In its report “EEA migration in the UK”, published in September 2018, the MAC said, on regional differentiation in the immigration system, that
“we do not consider that there is sufficient evidence to make such a differentiation on economic grounds.”
In the same report, it went on to say:
“In previous reports the MAC has recommended against introducing more regional variation for a number of reasons. We have considered it desirable to keep the system as simple as possible and the salary thresholds have been set based on national pay distributions and not by the demands of higher wage regions. Similar arguments have been used against regional variation in setting the national minimum wage.”
However, that clear advice from the MAC was not sufficient to end the calls from the Scottish Government for a separate system, so the MAC was obliged to return to the issue again. The most recent MAC report, “A Points- Based System and Salary Thresholds for Immigration”, was published only last month. Again, the MAC’s recommendation was clear:
“We have considered regional salary thresholds and can see the arguments on both sides and on balance, we have concluded that the relevant salary thresholds should apply across the UK. This is in line with previous MAC recommendations but also in line with other bodies such as the Low Pay Commission that has always recommended a UK-wide minimum wage. Although there are some economic arguments for regional variation these are not large enough to justify the added complexity of regional variation in salary thresholds.”
Stuart C. McDonald
I have two points to make on that. First, it is slightly rich of the Government to be hiding behind the MAC report, given that they have just sacked its chairman because it did not buy into the Australian points-based system bonanza. Secondly, if the Minister was listening to my speech, he would know that the MAC was considering salary differentiations throughout the UK there and said specifically that it was taking “no position” on the issue of whether or not migration should become a devolved rather than a reserved matter, because that is
“a political rather than an economic question.”
So it did not come to a view on whether migration should be devolved.
Douglas Ross
It is rather rich for the hon. Gentleman to criticise me for quoting from the MAC report and then to quote from the MAC report himself. If it is good enough for him to quote from that report, it is good enough for me to quote from it.
I have a final quote from the MAC report, which said:
“We also don’t want to institutionalise some parts of the UK as ‘lower wage’; regional inequalities should be addressed through equalising wages.”
The Government share that view and are committed to the levelling-up agenda, and I would like to believe that that view is shared in all parts of the House.
I wish to say something on the role of the Scottish Government, who commissioned the report we are discussing.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
May I take the Minister back to his enthusiasm for the work of the Migration Advisory Committee? According to the committee’s own website, its six good citizens consist of two from the London School of Economics, one from the University of York, one from the University of Warwick in Coventry, one from the University of Oxford and one from the University of Southampton. According to the biographical information on the MAC website, none of them has declared any previous experience working in Scotland or, as far as I know, in Wales or Northern Ireland, either. Although I welcome the Government’s new-found enthusiasm for the virtues of elite academic experts, as these people no doubt are, if the Minister wants an immigration system that works for the whole UK, surely that system should be looked at and analysed by people with experience of working in all parts of the UK. [Interruption.]
Douglas Ross
I am extremely sorry to hear that an experienced SNP Member, backed up from a sedentary position by the Chair of the Scottish Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart)—[Interruption.] Will he allow me to continue? The hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) does not think that the MAC reports are in any way relevant to Scotland because there is no one Scottish on the committee. The MAC consults widely with Scotland. That report is clearly worthy of quoting, as it has been quoted twice now by the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East. The MAC’s membership is made up of experts who consult and engage with Scotland before they commission any report. We should thank them for their efforts rather than criticising them for not being Scottish enough. It is a particularly separatist argument that we get from the SNP time and again.
Douglas Ross
I want to start to bring my remarks to a close.
I was saying that I wanted to mention the role of the Scottish Government—I wonder whether that is why we now suddenly have a number of SNP Members trying to interject. The Scottish Government have considerable powers at their disposal on education, infrastructure, economic incentives and taxation that can deal with many of the concerns that are being raised. If there is concern about falling population in Scotland, I encourage SNP MPs to engage with their colleagues in the Scottish Government and look into how they can make Scotland a more attractive place to live and work.
The Government recognise the value of immigration, provided that it is properly controlled, which is why we are ending free movement and introducing a new points-based system that will ensure that the best and brightest talent from around the world will be able to come to the United Kingdom. That will enable us to exercise control while at the same time reducing overall migrant numbers. Further details of our future system will be set out in the near future.
Douglas Ross
I am bringing my remarks to a close because I know that a number of people want to speak.
This is a Government with an ambitious agenda. We are going to transform the immigration system, creating a world-leading points-based system that works for each and every part of the UK and gives people in the United Kingdom the assurance that we have control but can also bring in those who can help our country. We will speed up and simplify the system but, crucially, avoid the complexities that will ensue from having different arrangements for different areas. I do not believe it would benefit any part of the United Kingdom to adopt an approach based on fragmentation.
The Government believe in a migration system that works for the whole of the UK. Unlike those who secured this debate, the Government believe in the notion of the United Kingdom. I personally will continue to have an open and frank dialogue with SNP Members and the Scottish Government. Scotland’s two Governments can work together on this important issue, and I assure SNP Members and Members from all other parties that the Scotland Office door will remain open to discussion on this issue.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Streatham) (Lab)
I thank the SNP for securing this debate. It is often falsely claimed that we never talk about migration in this country; on the contrary, it seems that many on the Government Benches and their supporters never stop talking about immigration. What separates today’s motion from so much else is its attempt to talk rationally about migration. That alone is a breath of fresh air.
Furthermore, today’s motion sets the discussion in terms of what our needs are, wherever we are located. It sets it in terms of what is needed for our society, our education system, our public services and our economy. That must be the right overall approach, otherwise people would be arguing about what immigration system we want, irrespective of the consequences on our society and on our economy. Only a charlatan or worse would argue that they wanted an immigration policy that disregarded the consequences. On close inspection of today’s motion, I can say that it contains nothing objectionable. However, there is one point of disagreement, to which I will return.
It is clear that this Government have taken a high-handed and dismissive approach to the publication of the Scottish Government’s migration needs in “Migration: Helping Scotland Prosper”. It must be correct that the Home Secretary should engage positively with all elected politicians, although yesterday’s urgent question on charter flight deportations shows that that is still a work in progress. Of course, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster should be a man of his word and keep the promises that he made on devolution, all which is entirely reasonable. This is the main content of today’s motion.
My one caveat in relation to the motion, which does not negate my previous remarks, is that we on the Labour Front Bench do not believe that Scotland is a uniquely special case that would require a tailored migration policy. Skills and labour shortages are a common feature across the country. For example, there are more than 100,000 vacancies in the NHS alone. There are enormous shortages of workers in social care. The country lacks skilled engineers. We have labour shortages in agriculture and skills shortages in science and research and in the academy. The Office for National Statistics reports that, altogether, there were still more than 800,000 vacancies in the job market at the beginning of this year. They are concentrated in healthcare and social work, but there are huge shortages of professional and scientific workers.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
We are all grateful to the hon. Lady for her support for this motion. May I gently say to her that I know that there are issues across the rest of the United Kingdom, and that there are skills shortages in large parts of the UK—we found that in our Scottish Affairs Committee inquiry—but in Scotland, we can do something about it. We have a democratic political institution called the Scottish Parliament that can assume these powers and at least make it better for Scotland. Surely, if we can do that, we should do that.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his remarks.
There are huge shortages of professional and scientific workers, as well as of workers in the wholesale and retail trade and in the hotels and restaurants all across the country. Of course, the Government’s plans for a new migration system do not take that into account. They pretend that they have an Australian-style points-based system, which Professor Alan Manning, the departing chair of the Migration Advisory Committee, has derided as a “soundbite”.
What the Government actually propose is a crude income threshold for immigration, and on that we can agree. It ignores completely those underpaid sectors and jobs where there are skills or labour shortages. It is a system that is set irrespective of the consequences on our society and on our economy. Hospitals need not just brain surgeons but cooks, cleaners and porters too. That applies not just in Scotland but in all the countries and regions.
There are further concerns about what might amount to a devolution of immigration policy. The value that workers provide is the most important contributor to production. There are severe problems created by artificially limiting the flow of labour to where the jobs are, as this Government will do with their Brexit policy. There are further, if less significant, difficulties created by limiting the flow of labour within our nations and regions, as a Scottish-only immigration policy would do. For example, a Scottish NHS trust may recruit a junior doctor from overseas, but, after a few years, that junior doctor may need to further their training, and the best place in which to do so is Birmingham General. How would a Scottish-only visa help them? We could also take the example of an engineer recruited to Aberdeen, who now seeks to fill a post in Leeds, and so on.
Stuart C. McDonald
I thank the hon. Lady for giving way, and I welcome her to her new role. I agree with much of what she says, apart from on this particular point. The whole idea is that the Scottish visa would mean that that doctor was able to come to Scotland when, otherwise, they would not have been able to do so. If that doctor, or any other employer, had to move around different parts of the UK, they would do so using the mainstream UK immigration system. This is additionality; it is not an alternative. If the Scottish visa does not exist, those people cannot be here at all. That means that the issue of mobility around the whole UK does not arise.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy
I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. I do appreciate that. In the case of the Scottish Government, there is currently a very welcome, rational and reasoned approach to migration—in case that compliment was not obvious, I will make sure that it is. However, no one can say that that will always be the case, or that it is even the case in all the nations and regions now. The widespread use of devolved powers in immigration could create bizarre and unworkable recruitment process and practice across the regions if others started to take a less rational approach because of changes in Government. It would impose non-tariff barriers on us and on the most important factor in production—workers themselves. Instead, we should aim for a reasonable and fair migration system that benefits us all.
Just so that no one confuses my remarks with those of the Minister, this is not the same immigration policy as that of the Government. We would rather welcome those who contribute to our wellbeing in the widest possible sense, and uphold their rights to a family life as equals in the workforce, and their rights as citizens when it comes to voting and access to public funds. I am sure that the Scottish National party would agree with that. “No taxation without representation” remains a great rallying cry, and we can add to that “no taxation without access to the benefits of taxation”. That should be our approach to the migrant workers we have welcomed here and their families.
Although I share the Scottish National party’s frustrations and many of their views on subjects such as immigration detention, I would say that the best way to have a fair, humane and economically sound immigration policy that benefits us all would be to see off the current Government. I am sure that the SNP would agree.
I reiterate that I welcome today’s motion, its tone and its overall approach, but we do not agree with the proposal to devolve immigration policy. I also note that the motion only calls for the Home Secretary to “engage positively” with that proposal. That is an entirely reasonable and democratic demand, given the status of the Scottish Government.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy), but I must confess to being slightly confused. I listened to her opening remarks, in which she welcomed the motion from the SNP and said that she broadly agreed with it, but she then spent the rest of her speech going through all the areas where she did not agree with it. I do however welcome the fact that, post general election, she effectively confirmed what the Labour conference said it supported last autumn. She confirmed that Labour basically wants an open-door policy for migrants, and she specifically said that she wanted migrants to have access to the benefits system from day one. It was very helpful that she confirmed that.
The hon. Lady also confirmed that Labour does not believe in having any detention centres, and she mentioned the recent Home Office flight. I am pleased to see the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), in his place, and as a former immigration Minister I congratulate him on the Home Office’s fortitude in ensuring that around 20 foreign national offenders guilty of very serious criminal offences have been removed from our country. They were not British citizens. They were foreign nationals who abused the hospitality our country offered them by committing very serious criminal offences, and I for one—I think I speak for many members of the public—am pleased that they are no longer here. I congratulate my hon. Friend on standing up to the pressure he was put under by those who forget that we are supposed to be in the business of protecting the public and removing serious offenders.
Let me turn to the motion on the Order Paper. In his wide-ranging speech, the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) talked about Scotland as a proportion of the United Kingdom population and its share of migrants. It is very interesting to look at the data. We have a significant number of migrants coming to the United Kingdom, whether we look at it in net or gross terms, and it is very interesting that when we consider Scotland as a proportion of the United Kingdom’s population and do the same for the other constituent parts of the UK, and look at where migrants choose to go, it is clear that the gap between the number of migrants choosing to go to Scotland and its population is the biggest anywhere in the UK. In other words, most migrants who come to the United Kingdom prefer to go to England, Wales and Northern Ireland—
Several hon. Members rose—
Pete Wishart
Of course, we remember the right hon. Gentleman’s contribution of the “Go Home” vans, which he introduced when he was immigration Minister—but we will leave that aside just now. By pointing out that such a low number of migrants are coming to Scotland, surely he is actually making the case for allowing Scotland to have the ability to recruit more migrants.
Mr Harper
First of all, I make no apologies for wanting people who are in the United Kingdom illegally to go back to their countries of origin. People should obey the rules and follow the law, and they should not be here when they shouldn’t be here. I make no apology for that.
The point I was making was that we need to look at the reasons why people may not be choosing to go to Scotland. One of the clear points made in the Scottish Government’s own paper, in which they look at the experience of Canada and Australia, is that it is the economic performance of countries that determines their attractiveness to migrants. I simply note that the United Kingdom’s economy is forecast to grow more quickly than Scotland’s over the next four years, according to both the independent Office for Budget Responsibility and the Scottish Fiscal Commission, which says that the Scottish economy will grow by less than 1% in 2019, less than 1% in 2020, just over 1% in 2021 and just over 1% in 2022—significantly lower than the projected growth rate for the United Kingdom. That suggests to me that if the Scottish Government were more effective in increasing the Scottish growth rate, more migrants may choose to go to Scotland.
Stuart C. McDonald
This is a chicken and egg situation, and the right hon. Member has got it the wrong way around, if that is possible. The point is that all those papers and the MAC itself suggest that, if countries are able to attract more migrants, their economy will grow. We need the powers to attract and allow in more people, and to grow our economy faster. The Minister referred to that point on a previous occasion in the Home Affairs Committee. He was very good at pointing out how the tier 2 system was wholly unsuitable for Scotland. That is one of the key reasons why Scotland—and pretty much everywhere outside London—struggles to compete to attract migrants.
Mr Harper
I am very interested that the hon. Member says that. He was chastising people before for not having read the Scottish Government’s paper. In their paper, they talk about the Canadian experience. I mention Canada and Australia because those are the two models that the Scottish Government talk about, ignoring the fact that both Canada and Australia are geographically vast countries and their geographical experiences are not particularly relevant to the United Kingdom’s. On page 81 of their paper, the Scottish Government specifically say about the Canadian experience:
“Migrants reported that the most significant factor affecting retention in the province of nomination”—
in other words, migrants staying in the province where they originally went—
“was economic: onward movement was most likely to occur where they considered that better or more job opportunities were available outside of their original province. This points to the importance of linking provincial migration with labour market opportunities.”
The hon. Member has argued that London is a much more attractive place for migrants. Following the logic of the arguments made in his own paper would result in the conclusion that the Scottish Government would allow lots of people to go to Scotland, and that those people would then look across the United Kingdom at more attractive job opportunities, which he has just pointed out are in London; they would then not stay in Scotland, thus effectively nullifying the policy.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman can explain something to me—and I hope the Minister will pay attention—because we will all experience these kinds of cases in our surgeries. I have a young constituent who is from Australia. Her name is Jessica, she works for the Beatson cancer clinic in Glasgow and she wants to stay there. Her colleagues also want her to stay. She is making a hugely valuable contribution to the workplace, the economy and the culture. But she cannot stay because of the arbitrary salary thresholds imposed by this Government, who are actively excluding people from our economy who want to stay here. That is why we need these powers in the Scottish Parliament.
Mr Harper
That is a very good question because it provides me with the opportunity to say one or two words about the Government’s proposals for their Australian-style points-based system, which allows for some of the flexibilities—the Minister alluded to them—that would deal with some of the concerns that Jessica might have.
Under those plans, which are to be published later this week, there would be skilled migrants who get points for a job offer at the appropriate skill level, which would clearly be appropriate for Jessica; a job offer with an approved sponsor company; and a salary of at least £25,600. The plans make it clear, on the score awarded for salary, that people on £23,000 will still be able to earn points, and those who earn less than £25,600 will score double points for working in a sector where there is a skills shortage. That is a more flexible approach than that taken at the moment. There would also be more points available for younger applicants and for those planning to work outside London, thus dealing with the point made by the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East about the attractiveness of the labour market in London. Given that this system has not yet come into force and has not yet been set out in detail, it would be sensible for us to at least give it an opportunity to see whether it deals with some of these complexities, and the experience of Jessica, before throwing it away.
Hannah Bardell
On what the Migration Advisory Committee says about the points-based system, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his own Government have not provided sufficient information for it to advise on whether the current system or a future system will work well? It says in its report:
“We have little idea whether the current system works well because we have not been able to obtain relevant data. We recommend a pause in the proposed increases in the settlement income threshold. We also recommend that there should be a review of the criteria for settlement, though that can only be done if there is better data available”.
Does he agree that his Government seem to be thwarting the efforts of the Migration Advisory Committee, which does not seem to be in favour of the system that he is suggesting?
Mr Harper
No, I do not. The Migration Advisory Committee—the clue is in the name—provides advice to the Government. I am very pleased that we live in a country where decisions are taken by Ministers who are accountable to this House. I look forward to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary setting out the Government’s plans once they have been approved by the Cabinet.
I have never quite understood one point. It was touched on by the hon. Member for Streatham, who speaks for the Opposition. It is the issue about pay and skills shortages. I suppose it is because people on the left broadly do not believe in a market economy, but my view is that, if there are sectors of the economy where employers are having trouble recruiting people, that rather suggests that they should increase the pay in those sectors, or improve the training that they provide for people—the economic value to those constituents. We should not simply acquiesce in allowing businesses to import an unlimited number of people to keep down the wages of the people working in the sector. Sometimes, as a Conservative, that is an uncomfortable message to deliver, because we are the party of business and economic growth: that is certainly the view of business. Sometimes we should say to business, “You should not be able to employ an unlimited number of people from overseas and keep wages down; you should actually increase the salaries you pay to your staff or increase the training opportunities to improve their productivity.” The Government having that level of creative tension with business would be more healthy than simply allowing it to import cheap labour.
Peter Grant
If the response to staffing shortages and skills shortages is to pay people more, can the right hon. Gentleman explain why it is that when the health service was experiencing desperate shortages of staff right across the board, his Government imposed year after year of public sector pay cuts in real terms?
Mr Harper
Opposition Members always find this tiresome—although it tends to be ones from the official Opposition—but the hon. Gentleman will know that when the Conservative Government came into office in 2010, we faced a significant deficit in the public finances—[Interruption.] SNP Members immediately start jeering, but it is true. That needed dealing with, and Government Members had to take some very difficult decisions to get the public finances in order; I commend Liberal Democrat Members, who took part in the coalition Government. I am surprised that Scottish nationalist Members of Parliament do not understand big deficits in the public finances, because Scotland has in its public finances a significant deficit of around 7%, which is significantly higher than the rest of the United Kingdom.
Neil Gray
I take the right hon. Gentleman back to the view of business. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) outlined in his very good speech, considerable support was garnered from business groups and other stakeholders across civic Scotland, who supported the Scottish Government’s plan and thought it was a good idea. Does he therefore regret the fact that his Government took a whole 20 minutes to denounce and disagree with the Scottish Government’s proposal, and does he find that disrespectful to the groups who provided that support across civic Scotland?
Mr Harper
I will come back at the end of my remarks to what should happen, when I set out why I think the House should oppose the motion. On the point about business, the hon. Gentleman has just proved my point. Of course business—particularly big business—is in favour of having an open-door immigration system, which enables them to import labour from around the world, keep down wages and not have to pay people to reflect skills and training properly. I had this conversation with business when I was immigration Minister and subsequently. Sometimes we have to push back a bit and explain to businesses that they need to increase their salaries and training and increase their productivity in order to pay those salaries. That is a good message for the public.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
I do not rise in connection with the right hon. Gentleman’s reference to my party. To take a broader view of this issue, while his points are well made about the economy and pay and conditions, does he agree that attracting people who might be useful to our economy to move here, contribute to the economy and bring their families here is about more than just working conditions and the economy? It is also about services such as health, transport, education and, in the context of my constituency, even broadband connectivity.
Mr Harper
I do. I did not want to labour the point about all the areas in which the SNP-run Scottish Government are failing the people of Scotland—I simply focused on economic growth—but if I were pushed, I could focus on their underperformance on health and on education, as Scotland falls down—[Interruption.] I do not think that the Scottish Government missing all their targets for the performance of the health service is a laughing matter. The SNP ought to take that a little more seriously.
I have three more points to make before I conclude. The first is on enforcement. I challenged the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East on this and drew attention to the fact that, in the Scottish Government’s proposals, there is no sponsorship role for employers—that enforcement mechanism would not be there—and no salary threshold. He pushed back and said that, if a person chose to work elsewhere in the United Kingdom, that is where we would catch them out, but he is forgetting something.
Many people wish to come here from many parts of the world—I do not blame them, because the United Kingdom is a very attractive country to come to—and we stop them coming here by not issuing them with a visa. Once they are in the country, it becomes quite difficult and very costly to remove them when they have no right to be here. They often work under the radar, illegally. They are often exploited by rogue landlords, and they may make an argument that they are claiming asylum, which means that we have to go through a long and complicated process to demonstrate that they do not have entitlement to be here before having to remove them. By not having sponsorship, or that mechanism for employers with a record of proven success in employing staff from overseas, the hon. Gentleman is throwing away that significant enforcement mechanism. We would open up that risk not just in Scotland but in the whole United Kingdom, which is one reason why I do not find his proposals acceptable.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that we should make the point to business that, if it invites in people at the low end of the income scale, there may be large set-up capital costs such as extra social housing, school provision, health provision and in-work benefits, which is a charge on the taxpayer and ultimately a charge on British employers?
Mr Harper
My right hon. Friend is exactly right.
To make my penultimate point, in the documents there are a number of references, as I have said, to Canada and Australia. Canada and Australia both allow free movement around their countries. The point is made in the Scottish Government’s own document that there are significant problems in retaining staff who have come in on the regional visas in the areas where they were supposed to stay, largely driven by the more attractive economic offers in other parts of the country. That is a real challenge, given that the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East accepted that the present system is that there are more attractive economic opportunities for migrants in other parts of the United Kingdom than in Scotland—that was his own argument—and I do not see anything in the document that suggests that the Scottish Government would be able to retain those migrants in Scotland.
Finally, to turn to the motion, I think that the hon. Gentleman and the SNP have got it the wrong way round. They have published a document and called on the Home Secretary to engage with them on their proposals. Given that the Government have not yet set out their proposals in detail and they have not been agreed by the Cabinet, a more sensible approach, now that we have left the European Union—that battle is over for now; given the SNP’s position on Brexit, it was challenging for it to accept that it was happening— would be for the SNP to engage with the Government. I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, who opened the debate and who I am pleased to see in his place, made it clear that his door was open. The SNP should engage with both the Home Office and the Scotland Office to look at how the measures that will be set out in our points-based system—I have set out one or two of them—could best engage with Scotland’s needs.
We are keen that we have an immigration system that works for the whole of the United Kingdom, to make every part of our country more dynamic, and to increase pay and opportunities for people across the United Kingdom. That is the best way of proceeding, so I suggest that the House, when the time comes later today, reject the motion. I urge the SNP to engage seriously with the Government. If it does so, it will find a listening ear and a willingness to engage on that basis, which is the best way for us all to move forward.
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)
I fear that sometimes in politics people oppose propositions for the wrong reasons. I do not regard myself as immune from that tendency by the way, but quite often, people are in a political bunker, and they have predetermined attitudes about the meaning of a proposition. Before someone expresses even a single word in support of that proposition, their mind is made up on the basis of who is making the argument.
I fear that this is one of those occasions. No matter how convincing the arguments from SNP Members, the Government will not listen to them—those arguments will fall on deaf ears. I am saddened by that, because it is not a good way to approach such a serious subject. There are probably Government Members—I do not know whether I would include the Under-Secretary—who simply reject any proposition on visa controls or anything else from the SNP, because they would regard giving in or moving towards that position as being the thin end of the wedge of Scottish independence, so no quarter must be given.
Let me be clear, SNP Members very much want Scotland to become an independent country with full and absolute control over all matters to do with nationality and the movement of people into and out of the country. I very much look forward to the day—I hope it will not be too long ahead—when we can establish an immigration system in Scotland that gives people Scottish citizenship with a very generous attitude and encourages people to come and make their homes in our country from all corners of the globe: a country made up of first-class citizens rather than there being different attitudes to different people depending on where they come from. But that is not where we are, and it is not what is being proposed in this debate.
What is being proposed is a simple policy to have a work visa in one part of the United Kingdom because of very clear, overwhelming arguments in favour of it. I might almost suggest that a Unionist-minded politician could support many of the propositions contained in this motion, because the purpose behind it is to try and make up for and deal with the consequences of Scotland being part of a centralised single state where economic planning, and strategic economic planning in particular, is very much done from the centre and where the Scottish economy risks becoming a peripheral regional economy in a much larger entity.
We all know the economic pressures that that creates. I moved to this city in the 1980s for work, as did many other people I know. It is still happening today—this gravitational pull that draws people in and overheats the south-east of England. That is precisely why a one-size-fits-all policy is not the answer to anything.
For the last 20 years or so the Scottish population has been growing slightly, but only as a result of immigration; had it not been for that, the population would have been in decline. For that period up until the end of this year, we have been blessed in many ways by having access to the free movement of people across this continent, which has allowed many people from other European countries to come and make their home and live and work in Scotland. But now that that is at threat of disappearing, it is all the more important that we address what sort of immigration system we have in the United Kingdom and whether Scotland, as part of that, is going to have its needs satisfied. And I would say that with the current proposals on offer—
Tommy Sheppard
Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman can enlighten me, but from what I know of the current proposals on offer, that is most definitely not the case.
John Redwood
Part of centralising Scotland and England and the rest of the Union in a single economic policy is, of course, sharing a currency, so does the hon. Gentleman now think that Scotland should leave the pound in order to have an independent policy, because otherwise it would obviously be very dependent?
Tommy Sheppard
I am not sure of the relevance of that question to the current debate, but let me answer. It will not be too many years until Scotland is a strong and prosperous economy with its own currency, its own central bank and punching well above its weight compared with today.
Various arguments have already been made against this proposal by those on the Government Benches, but they do not hold water, because they are not, in essence, arguments against what is being proposed—
Tommy Sheppard
Let’s see if there is another one before I start going through them.
Simon Hoare
Clearly the buoyancy of the economy and how it works would either attract migrants to Scotland or not, but in the situation of independence, my understanding is that SNP policy is to rejoin the European Union—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] SNP Members confirm that from a sedentary position. In that case, surely the currency of Scotland would be the euro.
Tommy Sheppard
No it would not, nor is there any requirement for it to be so. This is very much the season of dead cats, and I am not going to respond to that one being thrown on the table; I am going to focus on the arguments about having a Scottish visa.
There are some arguments that have been put against this that I want to deal with. The first is the suggestion that this is some sort of backdoor into the United Kingdom; that we are going to open a portal through which lots of migrants are suddenly going to come to the shores of Britain and then find their way to the constituencies of Government Members and cause unknown terror for their constituents.
Much as they might want to blow those dog whistles and whip up fears about immigration, that is not what is being proposed. We are proposing a simple measure that could be enforced through as simple a mechanism as the national insurance stamp, where somebody has the right to seek employment, be employed and pay tax in Scotland, but not in any other part of the United Kingdom. What would happen if they decided they were going to get on a train and take a job in London? They would give their details to their employer, who would say, “I’m sorry, we can’t actually make this offer of a job because you don’t meet the requirements to work in this part of the United Kingdom. You are only validated for working in Scotland.” It might be said, “But what would happen if people just ignored that and somehow unofficially or illegally went to seek work?” Well, that could happen, but that could happen now. This argument makes no difference to that actually happening. In fact, that is an argument for controlling the work permit situation within the United Kingdom to a much better extent than it is being done now.
The other point being suggested—we have heard this several times—is that somehow the SNP proposals are an alternative to the grand, yet-to-be-unveiled new immigration system that the United Kingdom is going to have. That has been said, I think, four or five times already in the debate, but Members are deaf to our arguments. We are not saying that this is a delete-all-and-insert policy; we are saying that this could be brought in in addition to the United Kingdom procedures to provide for the very particular circumstances that operate in Scotland.
The other argument that has been thrown against us is, “What’s so exceptional about Scotland? Why Scotland? You could make this argument about other parts of the United Kingdom.” Perhaps, but probably not a whole country and probably not a whole country where there is already a semi-autonomous devolved system of government—an Administration—where it would be simple to bring these proposals in. I say to Conservative Members: embrace this idea, because what if it worked? Then it would be an argument for having provincial government in England and for having differentiated systems that take into account the fact that this is a large country with very diverse economic needs in different parts of it. If Conservative Members and the Government are serious about their platitudes on investment and growth in the north of England, then this might be one of the vehicles they could choose to deliver that.
This debate takes place in a context. I said at the beginning that we were not advocating Scottish independence. This is a very mild-mannered proposal to try to cater for particular economic circumstances in Scotland: an additional power to a Scottish Government who already have significant powers in many other related aspects of social policy. But understand the context in which we are having this debate. I know that the Government have the numbers to defeat this proposal in the Lobby tonight. Everybody watching this debate knows that this Government have more votes throughout the United Kingdom than the Scottish National party. But understand and understand this well: while the Conservative party has a mandate in most of the United Kingdom and in England in particular, it has no mandate whatsoever in Scotland. It was roundly defeated in Scotland at the general election on 12 December when people voted for 80% of their representatives to this place to come from the Scottish National party.
People are watching debates such as this very carefully. There is a clear desire and aspiration now in Scotland for people to be able to choose their own future: to be able to make a judgment as to whether the course that the United Kingdom has set, by leaving the European Union and setting itself up in a fairly insular and isolated situation, is the path we wish to follow. Many people—a clear majority of people—would express the wish that we should choose a different path, an independent path where we control our own destiny, make our decisions, make our own mistakes and learn from them, because the people who live in that country, and only the people who live in that country, have the right to determine how they are governed. That sentiment is growing now in Scotland. Much as the Government may want to put their head in the sand and ignore it, that is happening. I caution them to engage with public opinion in Scotland. Every time they refuse to do so, they simply fuel the appetite for change. They fuel the number of people who say, “We don’t want to put up with this any more. We now look with fresh eyes at the alternatives on offer.”
In many ways, the Government, since the election, have been doing the SNP’s job for it. The opinion polls are rising. More and more people in Scotland are demanding and getting behind the cause of independence, and we have not even started the campaign. This is all the work of the United Kingdom Government. If they throw out sensible proposals such as this one—which would be to the benefit of the Scottish economy and the people in Scotland, and might also be something sensible while Scotland remains in the United Kingdom—and ignore the arguments that we are making, they will fuel that appetite and desire even more.
Miriam Cates (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Con)
Thank you for allowing me to make my maiden speech, Mr Deputy Speaker.
My interest in this place began when I was 11 years old and somehow I acquired an ancient, long-wave radio that would only tune to Radio 4. In the 1990s, before YouTube and Candy Crush, I had to make do with the “Today” programme and “Westminster Hour”, but I was hooked—captivated by the history of our democracy, the workings of our politics and its power to bring change.
My first big political experience was the 1997 general election. Growing up in Sheffield, in what was the capital of the socialist republic of South Yorkshire, this was no ordinary election. I was fascinated by the whole campaign and I sent off for and displayed posters from every single political party, including the Referendum party. I even had a Liberal Democrat board on a post in our front garden, but we all make errors of judgment in our youth.
Despite this early interest, I did not become involved in party politics for another two decades, instead pursuing a teaching career, setting up a business with my husband and spending rather a lot of time being pregnant and changing nappies. Five years ago, I became a parish councillor, and I started to see the opportunities for elected representatives to bring real change. To cut a short story even shorter, I found my home in the Conservative party and I now stand before you as the Member of Parliament for Penistone and Stocksbridge. Apart from a three-year stint at university, I have lived in the Sheffield area for my whole life, so it is a profound privilege to represent a community that I call home.
Penistone and Stocksbridge is a truly remarkable constituency. We have stunning scenery, moorland and reservoirs. We have beautiful rural villages like Bolsterstone, Wortley and Cawthorne. We have the historic market town of Penistone, which received its market charter in 1290 and where Penistone Grammar School, founded in 1392, still provides an excellent education to local children. The school’s original motto was “Disce Aut Discede”, which means learn or leave. This sentiment clearly held sway in the 2016 referendum, where the constituency judged that the EU had failed to learn and so we should indeed leave.
The town of Stocksbridge, with its industrious history of steel manufacture, boasts the proud legacy of Mr Samuel Fox, inventor of the Paragon umbrella frame, and whose wire factories were responsible for the development of the town we know today. We have many other wonderful communities, like Dodworth, Pogmoor, Chapeltown, Ecclesfield, High Green, Grenoside and Burncross, and numerous rural villages, each with their own unique character.
Ten years ago, I moved to Oughtibridge, one of these villages, and, being until this point a city girl, I was utterly unaware of the strength and depth of community that I was about to encounter. Throwing myself into village life, I discovered voluntary groups, the school PTA, the local church and the parish council, bringing together people of all ages and from all walks of life. The wonderful thing about a village is that when everyone shares the same school, the same park and the same pub, it is natural to form friendships that are based on a common interest and a common geography, and not on social background or political worldview.
It was in my capacity as a parish councillor that I first met my predecessor, Angela Smith. I found her to be hard-working, sincere, thoughtful and helpful, and I want to thank Angela for the part that she played in securing an £8 million investment in the Fox Valley shopping centre, which has been responsible for significant regeneration in Stocksbridge and the surrounding area. In more recent times, Angela became known for her inclination to switch allegiances, being, at different times during 2019, a member of no fewer than five political parties or groups. I am heartily glad that the people of Penistone and Stocksbridge shared this enthusiasm for switching parties and in December elected me as their first Conservative MP. On the topic of Scottish migration, perhaps the Scottish Government would want to offer a visa to any of my constituents who want to complete the set and experience representation by the SNP, although I feel sure they would only require a temporary visa.
We have heard much about how we Conservatives won seats such as Penistone and Stocksbridge for the first time. Like my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, I understand that many people lent me their votes, and I take seriously my responsibility to deliver on the commitments we made. One of the most important of these commitments is the pledge to radically improve public transport in the north of England. When I was first selected as a parliamentary candidate, I began by going around our communities asking people what changes they would like to see, and public transport was raised time and again.
We desperately need to level up our northern transport and infrastructure. Public transport is not just about getting people from A to B; it connects people with well- paid jobs, training and education, hospital appointments and shops, and it prevents loneliness and isolation. Transport is the key to spreading opportunity and investment. That is why I am campaigning with the Don Valley railway group to see a Stocksbridge to Sheffield passenger train line reinstated and with Thurgoland Parish Council public transport working group to secure better rural bus services. I am delighted therefore by today’s announcement on funding for buses and trains, which demonstrates that this one nation Conservative Government are committed to an ambitious programme of levelling up.
Levelling up is not just about financial investment, bricks and mortar, and miles of train track. The national soul-searching of the past four years has demonstrated that there are areas of our country, particularly northern towns such as Penistone and Stocksbridge, that have been left behind—not just in an economic sense, although that is certainly the case, but in terms of how our communities and our culture are understood and valued as part of our national life. As I said, I have lived in the area my whole life, and that is by no means unusual. Our towns and villages are wonderful places to live, not least because of the strength and depth of community life. Social mobility should not mean having to leave your home, your family and your community to find work, training or investment. We do have ambition, aspiration and talent, but we are also rooted in a deep sense of place. We need opportunities right in the heart of our communities, and this Government’s initiatives, such as the towns fund and the shared prosperity fund, will help us to deliver.
I want to finish where I started. A quarter of a century on from when my interest in this place began, I still believe that politics has the power to bring change and that we should celebrate our history as a democratic nation—not a perfect history by any means, and one with many dark moments, but one where the trend has been towards progress and fairness. To continue this progress we must begin to heal the very real divides that have been exposed, between north and south, towns and cities, leave and remain, old and young. We need to find a way to recognise and value our differences while celebrating what we have in common as citizens of this great nation. However different our life experiences, our place of birth, our social background, we have a shared identity as human beings. Whether this identity derives from an acceptance of our intrinsic worth as people or a belief, like mine, that we are all children of the same heavenly father, we need to cherish what we have in common.
There are many different opinions in this country, and we have given each other many different labels, but the vast majority of us want to make this nation a better place for everyone who lives here. We may disagree, sometimes passionately, about how that should be done, but if we can respect each other’s motives and leave the labels behind, be slow to judge and quick to forgive, the healing will begin. December marked a fresh start for our democracy, and a fresh start for Penistone and Stocksbridge. I am honoured to serve this wonderful constituency, and I will work hard to deliver for all of my constituents.
Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates). Listening to her describe her constituency, I was tempted to take her up on the offer of a visa, but I am a bit too attached to my own community, although others might take her up on that.
Thank you for calling me, Mr Deputy Speaker, to make my first full contribution since my return to Parliament. If you will indulge me, I shall take a moment to recognise the contribution made by Danielle Rowley, from whom I regained my seat in December. While I may disagree with Danielle on many subjects, there are probably more on which we agree, not least our wish to see the best for our community of Midlothian. I know all too well how tough it can be when the results do not go your way on election night—not only for Members but for their staff teams—so I wish Danielle and her former team the very best for the future.
Let me now turn to this afternoon’s debate. We have heard from my hon. Friends many of the reasons why it is so vital for Scotland to have an immigration system that actually supports our economy, not one that stifles it. Unfortunately, we find ourselves with an imposed UK Government who seem to care not one bit what is in the best interests of Scotland. Perhaps that explains why their party has not won an election in Scotland since the 1950s.
The impacts of the Government’s narrow-mindedness will indeed be significant for my constituency of Midlothian. We know that migrant workers are more likely to work in sectors such as retail, manufacturing, education, health and social care, all of which are vitally important to the Midlothian economy. Nineteen per cent. of workers in Midlothian are employed in retail and wholesale, a figure that is over 5% higher than the Scottish average. Food and drink alone contribute more than £7 million to our local economy. We also have higher than average employment in education and in manufacturing, sectors in which we have long relied on international workers from the EU and elsewhere. So when we look at the approach taken by the Government, which completely ignores the needs of Scotland, it is easy to see the catastrophic effect that it could have on my community.
There are also a great many positive things happening in Midlothian. It is often said that we are the fastest-growing local authority area in Scotland. That may well be the case, and it brings real opportunities. According to research compiled for Skills Development Scotland, the largest contributing region to the Scottish economy in 2019 was Edinburgh, East and Midlothian, with a gross value added of £26.6 billion, or 19% of Scotland’s total output. The fastest growth is in the professional, scientific and technical activities sector, with an average growth rate of 3.3%, and that includes life sciences.
I know that some Members may wonder why this is such a big deal for a former mining community, but Midlothian is the local authority area in Scotland with the highest proportion of jobs in the life sciences sector. That includes the Midlothian Science Zone, the Roslin Institute, Moredun, the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, Scotland's Rural College, and the Edinburgh University Easter Bush Campus. At Easter Bush alone, 26% of the workforce is from outside the UK. Employment in the sector has increased by 12% over the last year across Scotland, and exports have also increased by 12%.
This is a massive and growing success story, supported by smart policy from the Scottish Government, yet while the Scottish Government seek to drive forward our global competitiveness, barrier-building policies from this place are cutting the legs from under us. The lack of willingness on the part of the UK Government even to contemplate the proposals from the Scottish Government shows a contempt for the communities of Scotland, and they will pay the price for their narrow-minded intransigence.
We were told to live in a union of equals, to lead not leave, and that we would be pooling and sharing. That was all hollow rhetoric that we can now see through. Thankfully, however, our communities do not need to be saddled with the destructive polices of yet another Tory Government. Thatcher decimated the Midlothian communities when she obliterated the mining industry, and I am certainly not going to stand by and watch as this Government commit the modern-day equivalent. The people of Scotland, and the people of Midlothian, can follow another path—an independent path. That day is coming, and it is coming soon.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
We have a problem in Scotland, as I think everyone has recognised. [Interruption.] We have many problems in Scotland, most of them emanating from Holyrood, but that is for another day.
As a country, we are simply not attracting enough people to Scotland to live, work or invest. According to the Office for National Statistics, between 2016 and 2018 Scotland attracted, on average, only 8% of immigrants to the UK, fewer than the north-west of England, Yorkshire and the Humber, the west midlands, the east of England, the south-east, London and the south-west.
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
Would the hon. Gentleman concede that one of the problems is that when migrant workers are attracted to come to live in our communities, there are pen pushers at the Home Office who prevent them from coming? I am thinking particularly of the fishing communities on the west coast that are looking for non-European economic area labour. Year upon year, one person in Westminster says no even though the communities say yes.
Andrew Bowie
It might surprise the House to hear that I agree with the hon. Member, although not to the extent of describing some of the hard-working civil servants in the Home Office as pen pushers. They are doing a valuable job, but I think we have to look more imaginatively at how we attract labour to the sectors that are crying out for them, and particularly to the fisheries on the west coast of Scotland, which he ably represents in this House.
Compared with what we were previously, we are now a country of in-migration. We have a growing population in Scotland, but if Scotland’s economy is to continue to grow, there is a concern that, even with freedom of movement, we are not attracting enough people to make up for what will soon become a declining population through a simple lack of natural growth, with deaths already outnumbering births. Last year, there were already 7,000 more deaths than births in Scotland, and the problem is even more stark in rural communities.
There is not a country in the world where the Scots have not left their mark. By virtue of our being part of a larger United Kingdom, the door was open to Scots to travel the world and to build, engineer and prosper in every corner of the globe. That is a fact that, as Scots, we are incredibly proud of.
Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (SNP)
Would the hon. Member at least accept that there has been a constant drain on Scottish talent over the last 50-odd years, through people moving from Scotland to London? As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) pointed out earlier, talent must move to London because that is where all the opportunity lies, because of the policies of this place.
Andrew Bowie
Yet again, I do not disagree with the hon. Member. It is incumbent on all of us to do what we can to make the economy grow in Scotland, so we can keep talent north of the border and grow the economies in Aberdeenshire, which I represent, and in Edinburgh and Glasgow, near to her constituency. It is for all of us to do that, so that people do not feel the need to move out of Scotland to find success.
Andrew Bowie
If the hon. Member will have patience, I will come to that later in my speech.
I return to the subject of Scotland building the world, which was fantastic, but of course it came at a price. Historically, Scotland was a country of out-migration and population decline, and while recent immigration has reversed that trend, although by no means enough, the legacy in some communities, particularly rural communities, remains. Rural communities lost not only those who left initially but the generations who would have come after them. I represent a rural constituency in the north-east of Scotland, a part of the world dominated by the energy sector. Thankfully, this means that we have little problem with unemployment, but it brings its own problems, especially for rural industries. I am acutely aware of those issues. That is why it is now more important than ever, as we complete the process of transitioning out of the EU, that we should have a measured and reasonable debate about the future of our immigration system, and particularly how it relates to Scottish agriculture. Put simply, Scottish agriculture needs and relies on seasonal labour. If we are to have this sensible and reasonable debate—as we are doing here in the Chamber today—about immigration post Brexit in Scotland, it is vital to recognise that the issues surrounding seasonal labour are not caused solely by Brexit.
David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)
My hon. Friend is bringing up the issues that we have in agriculture not just in Scotland but around the UK in places such as Lincolnshire and East Anglia. The issue that I know well, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil), is also shared by the fishing communities of Northern Ireland. So is there any reason why a UK immigration policy cannot address all these issues, particularly with 59 representatives of Scottish seats in this place who all have a voice to help to achieve that?
Andrew Bowie
No, I do not think there is any reason why a UK-wide system could not address those issues. In fact, on the very issue of attracting talent to the fisheries sector, I have written to the Home Secretary to ask if we could develop similar processes to the one we have for seasonal agricultural labour for those who want to engage in the fisheries sector. There is absolutely no reason why we could not find a solution within the wider UK framework.
Just as Scotland has been failing to attract many immigrants to settle in Scotland while we were a member of the EU, so the number of seasonal workers willing to travel to Scotland to perform seasonal labour has been in decline for some years. Castleton Farm, for example, in my constituency—best jam, bar none, you will ever taste—saw a 15% shortage of seasonal labour last summer, leading to an estimated loss of over 100 tonnes of produce. And that was while we remained in the EU. In the same way as we must look at why Scotland is not attracting enough immigrants to stay in Scotland, we must also ask why Scottish farming is not attracting enough labour.
Part of the reason, of course, is that there is a labour shortage across Europe. Belgian, German and Irish farmers are increasingly sourcing their seasonal labour from outside the EU, chiefly from countries such as Ukraine. Non-EU seasonal labour is evidently part of the solution in Scotland, just as it is in agriculture in the remaining 27 states. Much of the decline in available European labour is down to the rapid and, of course, welcome progress that many eastern European countries have made in developing their own domestic economies.
Angus Brendan MacNeil
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his earlier kind words, but can I put the political point to him that Ireland can look further and act on its wishes because it has the independence to do so? Unfortunately, Scotland does not have the independence to make the decisions that Ireland can make to get labour from Ukraine when it needs it.
Andrew Bowie
The hon. Gentleman obviously makes a very good point. However, as I said in answer to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid), there is no reason why we cannot address those issues as part of a wider UK immigration system.
Those who want to travel to work in agriculture have other options apart from Scotland, and Scottish farmers have been in direct competition for available labour with French and German farmers for some time, as well as with farmers from across the rest of the UK. I was pleased to see that the Government have pledged to extend the pilot of the seasonal agricultural workers scheme to 10,000 workers a year, up from the current limit of 2,500—thanks to the lobbying and hard work of Scottish Conservative Members of Parliament, I might say. That is a step in the right direction, but I hope it is a signal of intent and the beginning of a direction of travel. I also hope it will be delivered in a timely fashion. It is critical that farmers have time to plan for next summer.
Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)
I am very concerned that my constituency neighbour is talking about the opportunity for farmers to prepare for next year. It is this year that farmers are trying to prepare for. He should also sound a note of caution when he celebrates the increase to 10,000, because that figure is still patently insufficient—that is what the industry is telling us. Why are the Government not listening? An independent Scotland would listen.
Andrew Bowie
Although I disagree wholeheartedly with the hon. Gentleman’s point on an independent Scotland, I completely agree with his other point, and that is why I have called for the seasonal agricultural workers scheme to be increased. Somewhere in the realm of 70,000 would be a reasonable number, and that is something else that I have asked the Home Secretary to comment on. That is why I said I hoped the increase from 2,500 to 10,000 was a signal of intent, and a direction of travel. I hope the number will grow further over the next few years.
On the hon. Gentleman’s point about preparing for this year, I would remind him that we still remain, and we still have freedom of movement. It is for next year, when we will be outside the EU and not have free movement, that farmers will need to have certainty.
Carol Monaghan
Believe it or not, I am enjoying the hon. Gentleman’s speech, but he must appreciate that some of the issues that he raises will mean labour shortages this year. They are issues because of Brexit and because people currently living in Europe do not feel welcome, or do not know whether they will be able to come here. That message is not getting out to those who would still be able to come here this summer.
Andrew Bowie
If people do not feel welcome here, or if they feel they will not have certainty when they come here, it is a gross misrepresentation of the position of this Government and of the situation in this country. Everybody in this Chamber and across the country needs to show that our doors are open to anybody who wants to come here to contribute, work hard and play by the rules. That has been the position of this Government and the Conservative party for many years, and it will continue to be so.
There are wider issues in attracting people to work and invest in Scotland. I do not think anyone on either side of the House has all the answers. This Government are committed to introducing a points-based system that will attract the people we need to these shores, while maintaining our commitment always to be the open and welcoming place this country has always been. That is the right thing to do. It is what we promised in our manifesto and, of course, we must deliver it.
We must think imaginatively about how we address the specific issues in Scotland, and we must do so in a non-partisan and constructive fashion. That is why I read the Scottish Government’s paper, “Migration: Helping Scotland Prosper”, from cover to cover, and I found very little with which I can disagree. It is a useful contribution to the wider debate about how we deal with immigration in this country.
This is an important debate, and it is one we must get right. However, I do not think a separate Scottish visa is the right way to go, because of all the complexities and challenges it would bring. I urge everyone in both of Scotland’s Governments to think imaginatively and to work together, as we should on quite a few issues, so that we can find a solution and prosper together, as the United Kingdom.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
I am glad to follow the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie), because he makes some interesting points. Although we disagree on how these issues might be resolved, it is interesting to hear his views.
Of all the constituencies in Scotland, Glasgow Central has the most constituents who were not born in the UK. I have been totting up the Library’s figures from the 2011 census and, with 21,283, I have more people in my constituency who were not born in the UK than the five previous Conservative speakers put together, so I will take no lessons on the value of immigration to my constituency from people who have so little immigration and, I am sure, so few concerns raised at their surgeries.
Week in and week out, I have people in tears at my surgeries because of how this UK Government and the Home Office have treated them. They have been treated without respect, they have been treated arbitrarily and they have been treated cruelly for many years. Something has to change, and this is a small proposal from the Scottish Government to mitigate some of that damage. One of my reasons for supporting independence is that I do not want people to go through what my constituents have been through at the hands of the UK Government.
Have no doubt, the SNP believes immigration is a good thing. As the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine said, we are a country that has suffered from emigration over many years, with our people leaving and going to other countries. We have no right to deny people the chance to come and make their home in Scotland, and to do us the privilege of making their lives here.
Not only is the UK Government’s policy on immigration immoral in many ways, but it makes no economic sense. As we are all aware, Scotland has an ageing population. We need to grow our population to keep our economy afloat and to help people have a decent standard of living in old age. The Tories have decimated support for families and, through policies such as the two-child limit and the rape clause, they have actively discouraged people from having more children. The only remaining option is to encourage migration, but they have not done that, either. Instead, they have imposed arbitrary targets on migration over the years, which is sheer economic illiteracy. It is completely unsustainable.
Conservative Members have talked about attractiveness, but we are fighting that battle with one hand behind our back because of the hostile environment, the “Go Home” vans and the Home Office’s policies. We can only do our best to try to mitigate that. We can only do our best to say that Scotland is a welcoming country, that we want people to come and we want them to stay.
For the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), who has 3,014 non-UK citizens, to tell me that my constituency and my country are unattractive is, frankly, insulting. Unless substantial changes are made to Scotland’s ability to encourage immigration, we are looking at a ticking demographic time bomb. Average earnings in Scotland are less than £24,000 a year, but the immigration salary threshold is £30,000. What is that a measure of? It is certainly not a measure of how much a person is valued. How precious are the workers and care nurses in hospitals to a family? How valuable are social care workers to our future? It is shameful that any arbitrary value has been put on people who choose to come to build their lives here. That arbitrary target is above what can be reasonably earned by skilled worker.
Recently, a constituent came to my surgery who worked by day as a mortgage adviser in a bank—one would imagine that is a fairly good, high-profile, skilled job—and by night as a shelf stacker in a supermarket. He was working all the hours he could get so that his wife and son could come to live in Scotland. He should not be absolutely wearing himself down to do that. He is doing a good job that is valuable. We think it is important to society, but that is not how he felt. He felt as though he was doing everything he could against a system that did not even care—that did not even value him. I get this time and time again at my surgeries.
Jamie Stone
I am listening with great interest to a well thought out speech. Members will recall that some months ago I unwittingly invited the former Prime Minister to accompany me to a hotel in the highlands and laughter overtook the Chamber. The point I was making was that the hotel and tourism businesses in the highlands depend on migrant workers. That was a problem then and I suspect it will be a problem now. I want to put that on the record, because we need to remember it.
Alison Thewliss
The hon. Gentleman is correct about that. As a member of the all-party group on hospitality, I agree very much that that sector needs to have people coming in here to do those jobs and that we value them as well, because they bring not only their skills to our restaurants and catering services, but their food, which we enjoy. We should thank them, rather than making them feel unwelcome.
Let me move on to people in the care sector and the issues they face. A couple came to see me on 16 December 2015, having worked in care homes and been very much valued there. They were then at the point of working in their care home voluntarily because the Home Office had rescinded their right to work. They had a son they are putting through school. They came to see me at my surgery on 13 January to say that finally, after five years, they had been granted their status. They were looking forward to going back to work in the care home, because that care home had kept the faith that they would eventually get the chance to work and be paid for it. During that period of many years they were hosted by volunteers from Positive Action in Housing, and they were supported by the British Red Cross, their solicitors McGlashan MacKay and a range of services that provided them with food for free, with food banks and with other things. They had to come to my office to get school uniforms for their growing son. During that time they were destitute. What does that say to that family? They want to come here and work hard, they are in a valuable role, but the Home Office says, “No, actually, we don’t need you.” We know that we do. We know that we need people in the care sector, yet a couple who have dedicated their lives to caring are being told that they cannot do that. So I have no confidence in the UK Government to make the required changes that will allow constituents such as these to manage their lives, to be a success and to feel welcome in this country.
Angus Brendan MacNeil
I echo the point made by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) about this being a well thought out speech. I also echo his point about hotels and my hon. Friend’s point about the care sector. At the heart of this debate is surely the one-size-fits-all approach the UK Government take. They do not do what Switzerland or Canada do; they think that Whitehall and Westminster know best, but in the west highlands we have needs, and Glasgow has needs. We need to have a decentralised policy—not one that suits the headline writers of the Daily Mail, but one that suits Scotland.
Alison Thewliss
My hon. Friend is absolutely right on that. In many ways, his constituency could not be any more different from mine, but the needs are not being catered for by the Home Office in any way.
We have been expecting an announcement from the Government on what the new post-Brexit immigration policy will look like, and there has been a lot of speculation that we will have an Australian-style points-based system. However, there has been no acknowledgement that Australia’s system allows for a degree of autonomy for territories to decide their own criteria on migration, with the ability to adjust their policy to their own diverse needs. There has been no acknowledgement, either, that the Australian system is much more generous than the one we have here just now, or that in her first speech after she demitted office as Prime Minister the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) got up and said pretty much to the Home Office, “Good luck. We looked at it.” So I wish the Minister all the best of luck in trying to establish a system that does not have the evidence to back it up.
We on the SNP Benches have long called for a separate immigration policy for Scotland, and we have long been told by the UK Government that that would not work. We do not believe them on that, as on so many other things, because research from the Fraser of Allander Institute and the David Hume Institute has shown not only that it would work but that it is vital if Scotland is to meet the demographic challenges of the future. It is not good enough for the UK Government to take this one-size-fits-all approach when there are pressing concerns in Scotland. If they will not take action to address this issue, perhaps they should allow the people of Scotland to decide for themselves who they want to be in charge.
If you will indulge me and allow it, Mr Deputy Speaker, I wish to highlight a couple of cases from my recent casework. The Scottish Government said as part of their Budget last week that they are going to look to set up some means of addressing the issue of “no recourse to public funds”. This relates to what the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean said about people not being allowed to access the benefits system in any way. I had a woman who had been coming to my surgeries for many years. She was No. 3 on my books after the election in 2015. She was working hard in a low-paid role and doing everything that she could but, because she had no recourse to public funds, she was just about managing the rent and her electricity, but she could not buy Christmas presents or school uniforms or put food on the table. That is not fair: she is doing everything that she can, yet because of “no recourse to public funds” she cannot do anything about it. The Home Office is sneaky on this, because every time somebody tries to find a workaround for “no recourse to public funds”, the Home Office promptly shuts it down. The Scottish Government want to help. The Scottish Government do not want people to face destitution. It is immoral and wrong for the UK Home Office to decide that it wants to make people destitute and to make people struggle so hard that they want to leave this country in poverty.
I also wish to mention the case of a particular constituent who came to me. I do not want to mention names because the case is quite sensitive, but this man is a local imam and his wife had complications giving birth, lost 17 litres of blood and was given a transfusion during a horrific ordeal in her pregnancy. They applied for the imam’s mother to come over to support her after the birth, because she was in desperate need and, because of parental leave issues, he had to go back to work. The Home Office refused that reasonable visitor’s visa. There is a lack of compassion that runs through the Home Office and prevents people from getting visitors’ visas on very reasonable grounds. Week in, week out, I see people who are desperate, broken and sad. They are people who want to show off Scotland and their new home. Members have talked about not being welcoming enough; the visitor visa system, which refuses people for no reason whatsoever other than the fact that they come from a country where people are brown, is a system that cannot stand and must stop. [Interruption.] The hon. Member shakes his head; he can come and sit in my surgery. [Interruption.] He is looking about. You know who you are. The Minister, the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross), shakes his head; he can come and sit in my surgery and he can listen to the people who come to my surgeries from particular countries who get refused visitor visas time and time again.
Douglas Ross
I am sure the hon. Lady did not mean to mislead the House, but I can assure her that I did not move my head in any way. I am listening intently to her speech and the cases she is raising. It would be wrong to mislead the House and people watching by suggesting that I did otherwise.
Alison Thewliss
The hon. Member moved his head. Perhaps he was not shaking it. He certainly did not look like he was taking on the points that I raised.
The point is that not all constituencies are the same. Perhaps I could forgive those on the Tory Benches who do not have constituencies that look like mine and who do not have surgeries that feel as desperate and as sad as mine. I invite them to come and sit in my surgeries if they want to—if they are willing to and are bold enough to—because they need to know that the system as it stands does not work. It does not work for people, businesses or the economy at large.
Alison Thewliss
I am just finishing up.
If Members on the Tory Benches are telling me that they know better than the experience of my constituents at my surgeries every week, they are wrong. If the Labour party is telling us that it will all be fine if we wait for an indeterminate period of time until Labour comes back into office, when things will be better, I am sorry but I do not believe that, either. I do not think that is good enough. How long should my constituents have to put up with this? Would it not be better if we had the full powers of a normal independent nation, and could support ourselves and decide who is worthy of coming into our country and doing us the honour of making Scotland their home?
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss). Although I did not agree with everything that she said—she will not be surprised by that—whenever she speaks in this place, her sincerity and the affection that she has for her constituents and the work that she does on their behalf shine through every word that she says.
While I am feeling in a magnanimous mood, may I also congratulate—for what it is worth, coming from me—the hon. Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy), who is new to the Front Bench and gave a compelling speech that was professionally delivered? Of course, it paled in comparison with the maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates), which the House was very interested to hear—although she is not that interested to hear what I have to say about her speech; she has left her place. There we are. That is the benefit of making a maiden speech.
A number of Members on the Opposition Benches have referenced the Migration Advisory Committee. I have to say that, if I had my way, I would abolish it—in the same way that I would either abolish or ignore the organisation Migration Watch. Neither of them is anywhere on pace when it comes to the needs that our country, as a united country, faces when it comes to migration. In a post-EU membership age, it is perfectly proper that our immigration policies, to meet all quarters of the United Kingdom, are forged in this place by Ministers, scrutinised by this House and approved, and then they can change. There should be receptiveness and fluidity within whatever system we alight on to meet the needs of our country.
Angus Brendan MacNeil
I could perhaps double underline what the hon. Gentleman said about the Migration Advisory Committee, which opines on all various levels of skill. We have challenged the MAC: if it thinks that skilled workers who are going to work on fishing boats are not that skilled, would one of the people on the MAC care to go out on a fishing boat and show us how unskilled the job is? We have yet to see one of them, after a number of years of asking.
Simon Hoare
I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I welcome wholeheartedly what appears to be the mood music coming out of No. 10 from my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister: scant regard is going to be paid to the MAC’s advice on a salary threshold. It is entirely immoral to put a value on a person principally predicated on what they earn. There are millions of people in this country who do vital work— Members across the House have referenced them—whether it is in agriculture, hospitality, social care, or the national health service. Some of those jobs will be skilled, and some of them will not be skilled, but they are absolutely vital. I always think to myself that the skilled Nobel prize winner, or the great scientist coming up with some whizzy thing, needs the person in the despatch department to pack it up and send it out, and make sure that the factory or the laboratory is clean. A functioning economy is a network: it is a spider’s web of different skills at different pay grades, of different people all making a contribution.
Angus Brendan MacNeil
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way again. He is being very generous. I have a point to add to the excellent point that he made about salaries. Again, there is a centralisation of thinking. We know that average salaries are not the same across Scotland—I am talking here about Na h-Eileanan an Iar, as well as other places. They differ again, depending on whether the policy is set in London, Manchester, or Birmingham. The idea that salaries are uniform across the United Kingdom is clearly a nutty one. I am glad to hear that it is going.
Simon Hoare
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is not just the regional and county variations, but the spending power of that salary. A salary of £20,000 earned in North Dorset is going to get someone far more than they would get if they were living in north Westminster or north Harrow—[Interruption.] Or Chelmsford, says my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford). The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to make that point. I think my figures are correct, but the average annual take-home salary is now £24,500. In North Dorset, it is £18,500. There are huge variations and it is just 122 miles from this place to the edge of my constituency.
I would understand the motivation behind this motion if it looked as if the Government were going to be moving to some sort of draconian Trumpian suite of immigration policies. I would suggest from all that I hear and listen to that nothing could be further from the truth. I am convinced that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has the most liberal of instincts and global of outlooks when it comes to immigration. One need only look to the time when he was Mayor of London to see a practical example of that, rather that its being a merely theoretical proposition.
I do not see the need or desirability for, and I am unconvinced by the deliverable workability of, this separate approach to immigration. I accept that the motion advocates an add-on rather than an instead-of—I get that, I understand that—but given that all the noises coming from Downing Street, both No. 10 and No. 11, are that we want to have a suite of immigration policies that is rapidly responsive to economic needs, whether that is in Northern Ireland, Scotland, England or North Dorset, I would suggest to SNP Members that at this stage in the proceedings there is nothing to worry about. There are concerns, of course. We will want to make sure that those policies are delivered on, but I do not think we need to worry about them just yet.
With the indulgence of SNP Members, whose motion this is, may I make a general point? In 2015, when many of us came into the House at the same time, I spoke on Second Reading of the Scotland Bill from almost this position on this Bench. The circumstances were similar. The SNP had done fantastically well in that general election and Members had a spring in their step. Those of us who are Unionists need to reflect on those results and calibrate a persuasive narrative to underpin, revitalise and reaffirm the benefits we see in the maintenance of the United Kingdom. To be a Unionist is not to be anti-Scottish. To be anti-separatist is not to have a grudge against the Scottish people. It is not to try to slam all of the doors to Scottish aspiration merely because we think that separation is wrong.
I am very pleased, and honoured in fact, to call very many Members on those Benches my friends. When I talk to constituents in North Dorset, they often ask what it is like with the SNP—
Simon Hoare
I do not always say that, but what I do say is that they should not judge politics on what can often be those fractious discourses taking place on the Floor. We will have an argument here, and temperatures get a bit heated and blood pressure goes up, but outside in the Members’ Lobby, the Dining Room, the Tea Room or wherever we might happen to be, I will not say that everything is friendship and honeymoon music, but it is a lot better—[Interruption.] It’s not far off, the hon. Gentleman says. But it is a whole lot better than this Chamber often allows people to think.
Angus Brendan MacNeil
On sunshine and honeymoon music, will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Simon Hoare
I do not know which the hon. Gentleman is offering me, and I am rather worried to give way, but in the interests of curiosity, which I know killed the cat, I will of course do so.
Angus Brendan MacNeil
Talking of sunshine and honeymoon music, I was listening to the hon. Gentleman’s passionate plea on the case for Unionism, but when he looks over the past century and sees the Republic of Ireland as the independent state that it is, does he not think that Scotland could do just as well or a little better if it could make its own decisions as Ireland can, both on immigration and on a raft of other issues, rather than having them being made by a Government from a party that we have not voted for since 1955?
Simon Hoare
As far as I am concerned, it is not about whether Scotland could or could not do the job. There is an advanced and deep political skillset, a developed civic society, academia and all the rest of it. [Interruption.] I am not going to be the first SNP Member for Dorset—don’t worry. It is a tempting offer, but I am going to have to decline. But in theory, could this be done? Of course. I am a Welshman. Could Wales go it alone? In theory, yes. But just because something is feasible does not necessarily make it desirable. Just because science can does not necessarily mean that science has to.
Deep within my DNA is a belief that the four quarters of the United Kingdom—through acts of history, politics, religion, shared interest, language, war and defensive values—are better, stronger and a more potent force for good in the world standing together. I do not say that to be offensive to Scottish Members, or to offend residents and fellow citizens of Scotland; it is just deep within my DNA.
I hope that the House will not find it too schmaltzy or amusing if I say that a number of Government Members often feel put off, or inhibited from, treading into the choppy and potentially dangerous waters of these debates and exchanges in this place, and we do so sometimes with a feeling of foreboding. I cannot speak for my colleagues, but actually—this may be the word that generates some titters, I do not know—as a Unionist, and having explained why I am a Unionist, I get personally upset when some SNP Members, for reasons best known to themselves, seek to portray my Unionism as being anti-Scottish. I would never portray their proud nationalism as being anti-English, anti-Welsh or anti-British. It is simply a different set of values that take us to a particular judgment.
It is possible to be vehemently pro something without being anti, per se, the alternative that is on offer. Whether it is migration, or the dust and sands that settle in this post-EU membership world, let us at least say to all our constituents—in the north of Scotland, the north of Dorset or wherever they may be—that we can engage in these debates in a vigorous, respectful and friendly way. Let us ensure that our motivations as Government Members are not portrayable as the narrow bigotry of some caricature of little England. That belies our motivations and our beliefs, and it has a negative impact on this place. If our constituents expect anything from us, particularly after the last three years, they are expecting all of us to put our shoulders to the wheel to try to raise the quality, tone and temper of our political discourse as we engage in our passionate arguments.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
From the midst of the choppy waters, I have some life rafts. When the “Migration: Helping Scotland Prosper” report was published by the Scottish Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) stated that, as a result of the work of the Scottish Affairs Committee, it was clear that the immigration needs of Scotland would be best met on a sectoral, rather than geographical, basis. The Scottish Affairs Committee was told that the UK can vary visas for different areas and sectors under existing laws. I therefore urge the Government to use these powers in consultation with the Scottish Government.
Agriculture is a key sector in my constituency of North East Fife that relies on a migrant workforce throughout the year, particularly at peak harvest times. The National Farmers Union estimates that 80,000 people are required to harvest crops across the UK each year, and a good proportion of this workforce is mobile, moving from location to location throughout the season. Borders within the UK can create barriers to work for such individuals. Our departure from the EU is already impacting on farmers’ ability to recruit staff, so we should be doing all we can to mitigate these difficulties rather than potentially exacerbating them. The need for visas for non-EEA nationals to crew fishing boats is acute in Cornwall, as it is in East Neuk and elsewhere in Scotland.
The Scottish Government’s migration report states:
“The current UK immigration system is complex and consists of a number of different routes and visas for work and study in an unclear system of tiers alongside a restrictive approach to family migration.”
I agree. That is why we proposed an amendment to the motion that focuses on the failings of the current system and the creation of the hostile environment that impacts on people across the UK, and the need to develop a system that treats everyone with dignity and respect.
Yesterday, I was approached by one of my constituents who had previously sought the support of my predecessor, Stephen Gethins. I thank Stephen for the support he gave to the family concerned. Valentyna Yakoleva is Ukrainian national who lives in my constituency with her son-in-law Andriya, her daughter, and their two children. She moved to the UK in 2010 at the age of 60 and has lived with her family in my constituency since then. After her travel visa expired, she should have been eligible for a family reunification visa, for she had no surviving spouse. She applied for the visa through a law firm based in Dundee, with the family making the assumption that it would be granted. She has spent this last decade raising her two granddaughters. Andriya, her son-in-law, told me that he would not have been able to work if his mother-in-law had not been looking after their daughters. Andriya sadly lost his job in 2015 but is now close to qualifying as a student teacher, thanks to Valentyna’s help.
But following errors in her initial application, and a failed appeal, Valentyna faces deportation back to Ukraine. She was held in the detention centre at Dungavel in South Lanarkshire following her arrest by the police in Fife, and was then held, away from her family, for two weeks before being released on bail following a judicial review. She has been given two options: to leave the UK now, voluntarily, with the prospect of returning for visits only after a period of a year; or to be forcibly evicted from the UK and unable to return for five years.
I find this utterly appalling. Valentyna is nearly 70—the same age as my own mother, who likewise supported me with care for my children in their early years, and indeed still does. Valentyna has lived in this country for a decade. She has helped to raise her grandchildren, allowing her son-in-law to contribute to society and the economy, and to pay taxes. She now faces being sent to a country where she has no family, no property, and no prospect of employment. In addition, she has a number of health issues that she needs support with. Her son-in-law has said that Ukraine
“is no place to be sending her back to. She has no family there and her pension was frozen around seven years ago with no prospect of her ever having access to it. Valentyna is our family, she has brought up our children and has been part of this community for almost a decade. Sending her back will be an absolute breach of her human rights and devastating for all of us.”
I agree. This is a total breach of Valentyna’s human rights, causing untold anxiety and distress.
Cases like these are a black mark against our society. I ask the Minister to intervene in this case. Clearly, it is totally unacceptable to deport Valentyna, sending her somewhere where she has no family, has not lived for a decade, has no prospect of finding a job, and has her health put at risk. We should aim to be judged on how we treat the most vulnerable people in our society. We are failing Valentyna and many others like her.
As a newly elected MP, it is incredibly worrying to see the clockwork regularity of constituents contacting my office because they or their family face deportation because their visas have not been processed or their settled status has not been granted. Other Members have referred to that today. You do not have to be a Member of Parliament for long for it to be clear, if it was not already, that our immigration system is not working. It is not fair—
Peter Grant
I agree with pretty much everything that the hon. Member is saying. If we were to devise an immigration system that we thought would work for our respective communities, they would not be that different. But will she explain why she wants us to support the Lib Dem amendment and to wipe out the whole of the motion that the SNP has put forward? She is asking us to wipe out condemnation of the Government’s response to the Scottish Government White Paper. She is asking us to delete the bit that says that we welcome the support that we have had from across civic Scotland. She is even asking us to delete the part that says that the Home Secretary should
“engage positively with the Scottish Government…before introducing the Immigration Bill”.
If she wants the House to support the Lib Dem amendment, could she explain why she wants to delete all those parts from our motion instead of adding them to what she has put forward herself?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. Before the hon. Lady comes back into the debate, can I just advise her gently that the amendment was not selected and therefore should not be referred to in any depth during the debate?
Wendy Chamberlain
I am aware that my amendment was not selected. All I will say is that, although there was support from civic bodies across Scotland, it was support for the debate to be started, rather than necessarily for the proposals.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Kevin Foster)
If the hon. Lady wishes to supply my officials with the details of that case, I would be happy to look into it.
Wendy Chamberlain
I thank the Minister for that, and I will follow it up.
I am certain that every Member of this House has a Valentyna in their constituency. All Members must be aware of the scale of this problem. Yesterday was further proof, when Members on both sides of the House spoke on Second Reading of the Windrush Compensation Scheme (Expenditure) Bill, and we heard again and again of the inhumane treatment of ordinary people just trying to go about their lives. Three weeks ago, the other place returned the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) to this House with a number of amendments, one of which required the Home Office to provide physical documentation to evidence EU nationals’ right to remain in the UK as part of the settled status scheme. Is it any wonder that those who come to live in, work in and contribute to this country have no confidence in the current processes?
We, as a collective, are the lawmakers. We could change this, but it will require political willpower on all sides. I hope we can all agree—and there has been an element of consensus in the debate—that when we are talking about immigration, the question should be: what do we need to do to create an immigration system in which every person has their dignity respected, a system that is compassionate and effective; that works for both ordinary people and UK employers; and that works for Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland?
I thank the SNP for using this opportunity to highlight the failings in our immigration system, because it is broken for the whole of the UK. Trying to fix the system on a geographical basis is, however, not the answer and only serves to further fracture the complex processes that currently exist. We need an immigration system that treats people with humanity and works for the whole of this country.
Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, because it is an incredibly important one. Indeed, this is one of the defining issues of Scotland’s future, and I do not say that lightly. The hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) reflected upon one reason why this is such a huge issue for Scotland. For want of a better phrase, we face a demographic time bomb. We are fortunate that we have so many older folk who are living longer, but our working-age population is decreasing. There are two obvious solutions to that. The first solution is for people to have more babies—lots of them, and very soon. Obviously nobody can control that, but we do have control in relation to immigration.
We currently face a UK Government who have nothing but hostility towards migrants coming into this country. The hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) said that we should wait and see, and that
“there is nothing to worry about.”
From my position, there is a lot to worry about. If he listened to the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) or the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain), he will know that the record of this Government when it comes to migration is utterly appalling. The manner in which people have been treated is disgusting. I am sorry if I am not willing to accept that things are going to get better just because the Conservatives say they will, but I simply do not believe that—the evidence says the complete opposite.
We have heard from No. 10 and No. 11 that the Government are seeking an Australian-style points system. But as my colleagues have pointed out this evening, the Australian system, however we look at it, allows for regional visas, and it does so to ensure that the system meets the needs of all the different areas of that country.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
Is the hon. Member aware that the evidence given to the Scottish Affairs Committee in the last Parliament was that there is room within current UK legislation and the Home Office to differentiate visas for different parts of the country, so regional visas are actually available in this country?
Stephen Flynn
I thank the hon. Member for her contribution, but the UK Government should put in place processes that ensure that regionality exists. When I asked the Minister only yesterday whether he would look at that—Australia is discussed in glowing terms, and the Government fawns over it—his answer was no. When my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) asked a similar question in relation to Canada, exactly the same answer was forthcoming—no. Australia, as I have said, is the beacon that we need to look at, but when it comes to looking at the entire system in Australia we seem to be awfully selective about where we want to go.
The justification offered by Government Members, as we heard earlier, is the artificial, mythical concept of creating a border on this island but, as we have rightly heard from my colleagues, Ireland manages to get on just fine. Indeed, Conservative Members will be aware that their Government are working incredibly hard to make sure that there is frictionless movement on the island of Ireland, and rightly so. Why is it good enough for Ireland, but it cannot be achieved in this country? Why does there need to be a border on these isles? I respectfully suggest that the only people who are interested in borders in that regard are Government Members. What we have proposed, and what the Scottish Government are seeking to discuss, is a regional visa that is frictionless and allows Scotland to benefit. That is something of which we should all be incredibly supportive.
With your indulgence, Mr Deputy Speaker, I would like to reflect on further concerns about what the Government are seeking to do. We heard from one Government Member that the threshold might no longer be £30,000 a year and that the salary limit might be reduced to £25,000. I do not know about Government Members, but £25,000 is still beyond the reach of many individuals living and working in Scotland, whether they work in the NHS, the care sector, our hospitality sector, our agriculture sector or, indeed, our fish-processing sector.
What is being proposed is simply not viable for Scotland’s needs, which is ultimately the crux of our debate. I would like to pick up the point about the hospitality sector. On Monday afternoon, I think, there was a debate in Westminster Hall about beer taxation and duty. There were more Government Members present for that debate than there are for this one. They chastised their Government for the fact that beer duty is too high. They wanted it to come down to keep local pubs open. There is consensus that reform is needed, but in Scotland, 11.5% of our hospitality workers are non-British nationals. There may well be a situation where we have cheaper pints, but ultimately there will nae be the folk there to serve them. In Scotland, the self-service mechanism might be something that goes down a treat but, in all seriousness, that is the reality of the situation that is facing us. The Press and Journal, the local newspaper in my part of the world, reported last year that there was a local facility—The Tippling House, a wonderful place—where 60% of staff were non-British nationals. Without knowing the detail, I respectfully suggest that few, if any, of them will reach the thresholds promoted by the Government.
What will become of such establishments? What will become of the hospitality sector in Scotland as a whole? Indeed, what will become of the public sector, including Aberdeen City Council? I am still a member of the council.
Christine Jardine
I am fascinated by the very good point that the hon. Member is making. In my constituency and in Edinburgh as a whole, 50% of the hospitality workforce comes from other parts of the European Union. As a member of the Scottish National party, he will have valued freedom of movement, as I did. Does he accept that many of us fear that imposing separate visas for different parts of the United Kingdom, rather than for a sector such as tourism, would limit freedom of movement within the UK, and would hamper us in encouraging people to come and work here?
Stephen Flynn
We have stumbled here upon language that has been a problem throughout this debate, and that is the notion that what we are proposing is a separate visa; the reality is that what we are proposing is additionality so that the needs of Scotland can be met.
It is on that point that I want to finish my contribution. The Scottish Government have put forward this proposal in good faith; we want to have a system that is to the benefit of Scotland and our collective futures. It is simply despicable that this Government dismissed that out of hand in the space of just 20 minutes, particularly when, on page 20 of the “Migration: Helping Scotland Prosper” paper, at points 1, 2, 3 and 4, they can see that they would still be the final arbiter of any visa decision. We came forward in good faith and they rejected that, as indeed some of my colleagues have suggested. If they are unwilling to put in place a system that meets the needs of the people of Scotland, they should give those powers to the people who will.
Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Ind)
I shall begin my remarks this evening by paying tribute to the many people who have come to Scotland to build a life among us. Each plays an important and valued part in Scotland’s story and their contribution to the tapestry of Scottish life makes Scotland a richer place to live, work and thrive in. I know that because, while I was not born in Scotland, Scotland made me welcome and it will forever be the place that I call home.
While I spent my early years in the north of Ireland immersed in the Unionist tradition, the years in Scotland that followed made it clear to me that there is no homogenous British identity: no such thing as one nation. We are very different countries with differing values, principles and politics.
In the early ’90s I, like so many in Scotland, left for work, moving to London to pursue professional opportunities not available to me at home. My return in 2009 was a revelation. The success of the devolved Government with their limited powers had begun to bring life to our distinct body politic, and this was inspiring. However, that optimism was quickly tempered in 2010 by the return of a Tory Government Scotland did not vote for, and it is my view that since that day this place has worked to stymie the advances Scotland has made and to pour scorn on our ability and our ambition.
The most recent example of that is the offhand contempt the UK Government have shown the people of Scotland in their response to the Scottish Government’s proposals for a Scottish visa scheme in a post-Brexit UK. It is simply not credible that any meaningful consideration of the proposal took place; we must wonder if the Government’s policy on Scotland is filed under B for bin. In this particular case they dismissed the views of the organisations that support the Scottish Government’s proposals, including business and rural communities, the Scottish TUC, FSB Scotland and the Scottish Council for Development and Industry.
As noted in the motion, Scotland has distinct and different migration needs to sustain our population and help meet demographic challenges. The sole concession is alleged recognition of the need for “some regional variation” and claims that Scotland benefits from a separate shortage occupation list.
The first issue I have with that position is fundamental: Scotland is not a region, it is a country. The second point illustrates the complete lack of understanding of Scotland’s needs by the Government and, indeed, the Minister. Perhaps he should have a chat with his hon. Friends the Members for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) and for North Dorset (Simon Hoare). While the Government continue to promote their reductionist and hostile environment, Scotland wants to encourage and welcome people to build their life with us, among us, as one of us; if the Government can add “new Scot” to their shortage list, that would be a start.
Turning to the local impact in my constituency, Innovate Foods in Dysart is a company that manufactures food for restaurants, retail and catering wholesalers. It employs 65 people, almost half of whom were born overseas. Some of the workers have been with Innovate for nearly 20 years, and the company has translated instructions and recipes into Polish, with some Scottish staff learning Polish to speak to their colleagues in the workforce. The director, Tony Dumbreck, told me that having a large migrant workforce has been a positive experience, remarking that they are generally well educated, they have brought skills that are in demand and they work very hard. He wants them to have as much stability and security as possible and considers them as part of the Innovate family. That attitude is emblematic of the warm, inclusive attitude of the people and the communities I serve to those who choose to make Scotland their home. Since Brexit, he has lost some staff as a result of the toxic hostile environment rhetoric. However, that is not his only concern. He told me:
“Even with the reduced earnings threshold of £25,600, that will be a constraint to try to employ production workers. We perceive that fewer people will be coming here.”
Of course, that is not a surprise. Although my immediate predecessor made no reference to migration in this place in her two years as an MP, save to criticise fellow Scottish MPs standing up for Scotland, her predecessor, Roger Mullin, did give this matter appropriate focus both here and at home. In a debate in this place in 2017, Mr Mullin stated:
“Scotland has different productivity needs, one of which relates to our attitude towards immigration. I would argue that we need more immigration, of the right type.”—[Official Report, 28 February 2017; Vol. 622, c. 199.]
Locally, Roger convened meetings with groups of constituents to listen to and support them in their anxieties about a post-Brexit Scotland. He also worked with Fife Migrants Forum, based in Kirkcaldy, to better understand the challenges of the communities it serves.
Under current UK immigration rules, highly talented workers are subject to the costly and bureaucratic tier 1 exceptional talent visa process. The Migration Advisory Committee has said that this system “does not work well” and found that only 600 main applicants had been admitted, despite a cap of 2,000 visas. The UK Government have announced that a new, global talent visa will be launched on 20 February 2020 as part of a post-Brexit immigration system, but many believe that with it being open to highly talented individuals only, it will still fail to address chronic skills shortages. Of course visas serve an important function, but when they set the bar at an unrealistic or unnecessarily high level, they become an impediment to growth and ambition. Recognising that there are differing needs across the nations and regions of the UK while applying a one-size-fits-all is as senseless as it is reckless.
Inward migration is undeniably important, but Scotland also faces a retention challenge. The process to ensure that applications for settled status are completed before the 30 June cut-off is sadly farcical. Yesterday, representatives from Fife Migrants Forum attended the EU settled status conference here in London in the hope that it would get answers to vital questions. On 31 March, its funding runs out and, having already suffered due to impediments placed on it by the Home Office, it has only been able to process about 700 of the expected 3,000 applications from some of the most vulnerable people across Fife. Without appropriate funding, some of those constituents may fall through the cracks if the knife falls in six weeks’ time. They are particularly concerned about those members of our community who may now be in care homes. Who will fund them? Will they be removed? These are outrageous suggestions, but it is the reality of UK Government policy. It also applies to students, employees, older people and those in the rural parts of my constituency. Yesterday they were told that “everything is in the hands of the politicians”. Well it certainly is not in the hands of the politicians they elect.
The Government’s continued hostile, unhelpful and toxic environment, which weaponises the word “migrant”, is anathema to me and many in Scotland. We do not call them migrants in such a pejorative way. To us, they are friends, neighbours, partners and workmates. When we ask where you are from, it is with warm and genuine interest rather than suspicion and mistrust.
Yesterday, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), erroneously claimed that the independent Migration Advisory Committee has consistently recommended against regional differences in salary thresholds for skilled worker visas, but its most recent report to the Government on a points-based system and salary thresholds did recommend that the Government pilot a separate visa for remote areas of the UK, including and involving all the devolved Administrations. The current buzz line in the Government is “oven-ready”. Well, they know that Scotland has an oven-ready scheme—why not try it?
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
After listening to the contributions from Government Members, I have to say that it is a great pity that the UK Government are taking such a careless approach to the Scottish Government’s proposals for a tailored migration system for Scotland. As well as disregarding the need that lies behind the very sensible visa proposals that the Scottish Government have put forward, they are also disregarding the views of the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Trades Union Congress, the Federation of Small Businesses and the Scottish Council for Development and Industry, among many others.
That matters, because the UK Government are messing with the future of our country when they refuse to consider that all those people who are telling them that their system does not work for Scotland might be right. However, they still continue with their inward-looking Brexit Britain, the ever-more hostile environment and their approach of pulling up the drawbridge. That is not the best way for Scotland and it is no wonder that we see a better future as an open, outward-looking, independent country, but they are determined to plough on down that road, wilfully disregarding the thoughtful and sensible visa proposals that the Scottish Government have put forward to help to deliver the sustainable future that we need in Scotland.
The thing is that we need migration. Scotland is not full. We need people to come and live in Scotland and we want them to come. They are welcome. We need to make sure that we can sustain and grow our population levels, and even if the UK Government do not, we realise how crucial that is to our future.
In Scotland, all our population growth for the next 25 years is projected to come from migration, so it is really beyond unhelpful that the UK Government are rowing back on commitments such as the ones made by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who said that when it came to immigration, it would be for the people of Scotland to decide. It is a different story now, so it must have been convenient then for him to say that Nicola Sturgeon’s approach was the right one—as it is—but we are now back to the same old, same old, with the UK Government just expecting us to get on with it and hang with the consequences for Scotland.
John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)
Will the hon. Lady give way?
Kirsten Oswald
I do not have much time, so I am sorry—I will not.
The consequences for Scotland are serious. Our population growth is slowing, our birth rate is falling and we are ageing as a population. It is a mystery to me, though perhaps not a surprise, why the UK Government seem so intent on avoiding any engagement with the Scottish Government on the Scottish visa, despite the serious and constructive nature of the proposals that have been put forward for discussion.
I live in one of the most diverse places in Scotland, and it is home to people who have come from all over the world. It is a brilliant thing—it makes my community better. The people who have migrated to Scotland recently and over the decades have made Scotland better and richer for their presence. People have come to work in the NHS, in hospitality, in education and in public services—I could go on—but as things stand, the UK Government will be imposing harm on our communities now that will only be greater in the future if they do not take our approach into account.
We need this power in Scotland for population and economic reasons, but it is about much more than that. We benefit so much from the rich diversity that people coming to Scotland bring with them. In Scotland, the people who want to live, work and raise their families as part of our communities are very welcome, and they have enriched our society. They do that now and they have done that in the past by coming to live in Scotland, and I am thankful for that. Our country is home to people with histories in all kinds of other places and that makes us better now, and it will make us better in the future.
I will finish by reflecting on the words of our First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, in her speech at the opening of the Scottish Parliament in 2016. She said:
“Whether we have lived here for generations or are new Scots, from Europe, India, Pakistan, Africa and countries across the globe, we are all of this, and more. We are so much stronger for the diversity that shapes us. We are one Scotland and we are simply home to all those who choose to live here.”
Migration is good for Scotland. We want migration. Scotland is open and we wish to remain so. We need to be able to make the decisions that allow us to do the right thing for our country.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
I declare an interest that many Members will know of: my husband, Hans, is German and has worked as a GP in Scotland for over 30 years, looking after Scottish people when they are ill, as indeed have many migrants from all sorts of places—not just Europe but across the world. I am talking about our colleagues, our friends, our neighbours, and I follow my colleagues in celebrating them.
There has been a failure to recognise the sheer scale of the challenge Scotland faces. Scotland is one third of the UK landmass. It is enormous. I know on the weather map it looks small, but it is not; it is actually huge. The James Hutton Institute points out that half of that is defined as sparsely populated, and those areas could lose a quarter of their population by the mid ’40s unless action is taken. Because of freedom of movement, Scotland had a growing population for a number of years, but Scottish net migration fell across the EU referendum from 31,500 in 2015 to 21,000 in 2017. That is a fall of a third. That was the impact of Brexit, even though we had not left.
Scotland has faced forced out-migration over centuries, right back to the clearances of the 18th and 19th centuries, when people were forcibly put on ships and sent elsewhere in the world. As the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) pointed out, we did not just lose the individuals who left; we lost their children and grandchildren; we lost generations of people. As he also mentioned, in 2017-18 there were over 7,500 more deaths than births, with 2018 seeing the second lowest ever number of registered births. Scotland’s natural growth is falling, and all our population growth over the next quarter century is expected to come from immigration. Without it, we face a falling working-age population by the mid-2030s that will struggle to support our ageing population.
The hon. Member highlighted this demographic time bomb, but I did not hear him offer a solution. Some 14 local authorities in Scotland already have a falling population, and that includes my constituency in the south-west of Scotland. In remote and rural areas, it becomes a worsening spiral. We are left with older communities, so young people go on leaving, which means there are fewer children. The population becomes smaller and ages rapidly. These are often stunningly beautiful parts of Scotland to which people from elsewhere in the UK and Scotland retire. Now, they are very welcome, but unfortunately that actually adds to the problem of ageing. We can end up with communities that simply do not have enough young people within them to provide the health and social care, or even just the support that they need.
The right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) said that Scotland needed to up its GDP growth—that was the issue—but the Fraser of Allander Institute highlighted that GDP growth rates were directly linked to population growth rates. It is predicted that the UK’s population will grow by over 7% in the coming years but that Scotland’s will only grow by 1%. Indeed, if action is not taken, it may start to fall. The Migration Advisory Committee pointed out that EU citizens contributed £2,300 more in tax than natives, because they come here after someone else has paid for their education and training. Isn’t it a pity that that report was requested in 2017, and not in 2015, before the EU referendum, of which getting immigration down was made a central plank?
Our problem is that we need young people; we need young migrants to come into Scotland. I am talking about people of working age, who are low users of welfare, low users of the NHS and not collectors of pensions. We need to attract them, not with a job they can do for a few years, but to settle. That is what points-based systems are about—giving someone early on in the process the right to settle somewhere, make their life there and have a family there—and that is what Scotland requires.
These people bring to our communities the diversity, energy and vitality that can help us to retain our own young people. At present UK visas are based on earnings, so younger people earn less—even on the minimum wage—which means that they will not qualify for visas. Salaries are often much lower in rural areas, so they cannot attract migrants because of the salary thresholds. That hits key sectors in which Scotland is highly represented, such as tourism, food and drink, agriculture and fishing. I agree that is great to know that the number of seasonal workers will increase from a paltry 2,500 to 10,000, but before the earlier cut, the UK had 64,000. As the Member for West Aberdeenshire admitted, 70,000 might be a more realistic number, but when on earth will we reach that if the 10,000 is only a proposal?
As for fishing, many boats are tied up on the west coast of Scotland because of a lack of crew. That highlights the need for non-EEA visas, particularly for Filipino fishermen who come here. They do not bring families and they are not intending to settle, but they help to provide the training that can attract local young people to the industry. I have written to the Secretary of State in the past, I have written to Immigration Ministers, and the possibility of a seafarers’ visa has been discussed in the House. However, each time that possibility is raised, we are told that there cannot be any sectoral visas. So I can tell those who have said, “Oh, let us have sectoral visas” that this Government have already refused to allow them.
There has been a drop of a quarter in the number of European doctors coming to the UK since the Brexit referendum, a 90% drop in the number of European nurses, and a one-third increase in the number of European nurses leaving. In particular, young medical trainees cannot come here. Those who wish to become—like me—a surgeon are committing themselves to training that will last between 10 and 14 years. They can move when they are untrained and they can move when they are consultants, but they cannot afford to be kicked out in the middle, and they therefore require long-term security. According to the Nursing and Midwifery Council, 80% of UK-trained nurses are over 50, while 72% of EU trained staff are under 40.
The problem is that the Government are judging on the basis of earnings. They are judging on the basis of money rather than worth. They are not judging on the basis of the contribution that people make to the system and the wellbeing of the community. The hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) admitted that we need a range of skills. As a surgeon, I can tell the House that I need an anaesthetist, but I also need an orderly, and I need someone who cleans the theatre. We need everyone, so there is no sense in this narrative of excluding unskilled people, or allowing them to come for no more than a year. Who is going to invest in their training?
Dr Whitford
No, there is no time.
The UK Government said they wanted a system that would work for all parts of the UK, but when the Scottish Government came forward with their proposal, they refused it without even reading it.
The hon. Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) highlighted shortages in other parts of the UK, including the north of England. In October, the Home Secretary said that the Government wanted to add extra points to a points-based system to attract people to the north of England and coastal areas, so why have they refused to consider a very similar system for Scotland? At UK level there is simply no visa that is aimed at settlement—at providing security at an early stage, so that people will come and make their homes and their lives here. A points- based system would be based on migrant characteristics, not just on someone’s having a job. Canada and Australia are often cited, but the provincial nominee programme allows the province to set the criteria and assess the applicants. If an application is successful, it is the central Government who actually issue the visa.
This is a very modest request. It is supported by civic Scotland, including the Scottish Trades Union Congress and the Federation of Small Businesses. Our proposed system is based on residence, as the Scottish tax code already is. However, this modest proposal simply was not considered. Members say that they have read it, but they read it after it was refused.
Let me just gently say that it is not possible to keep a relationship or marriage together by force. It must be done through respect, and through recognition and consideration of someone’s needs. Failure to do that simply ends in divorce. Immigration is existential for Scotland, and the failure to recognise that means that people in Scotland, and businesses in Scotland, will see that there is only one way for us to get the policies that we need.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Kevin Foster)
It is a pleasure to wind up this important debate, and I would like to thank the SNP for this opportunity to highlight the needs and challenges faced not only by Scotland but across our United Kingdom. In starting, it is right for me to reflect on the maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates), and to congratulate her on her passionate explanation of what drove her into politics. I know that she will be a strong representative of her community.
As Members on the Scottish National party Benches will know, I am always keen to discuss a range of issues with all 59 of Scotland’s Members of Parliament here in this Chamber. I understand that remote areas and island communities face demographic pressures that have eroded the local workforce, leaving opportunities unfilled and threatening the stability of the rural economy. However, it has to be said that that has happened with freedom of movement in place. We need these issues to be addressed across our Union, not just by individual parts of our Union, yet the Scottish Government’s policy paper proposes measures that go against the recommendations of the independent and impartial Migration Advisory Committee. The MAC has consistently advised against applying different immigration arrangements to different areas of the UK. That cannot be stressed enough. As such, we have no plans to devolve immigration and create invisible borders within our United Kingdom—in effect, creating an economic version of Hadrian’s Wall or Offa’s Dyke. This Government are clear that our points-based immigration system will serve the needs of the whole United Kingdom, including Scotland. It goes without saying that any national differences in the rules or visa offers around the UK would result in an overly complex system at a time when we are trying to streamline and simplify the process, and would create additional burdens for businesses, employers and migrants.
I appreciate the comments of the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy), and of the spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats, the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain). We might disagree on aspects of migration policy, including where we would draw the line, but I think we can agree that implementing a system based on whether someone’s job was in Gretna or Gateshead would present challenges—[Interruption.] I hear chuckling from the Benches opposite, but there are many workers whose jobs are necessarily based across our United Kingdom. Members of Parliament are a good example. I am in Whitehall and the Palace of Westminster during the week, but Torbay is also my main place of work. I know that many Opposition Members are in a similar position. My point is that there are millions of workers whose work regularly requires them to move between locations, and we do not wish to create a border for them within our United Kingdom.
It is unrealistic and undesirable to create a visa that binds a person to one part of the United Kingdom, opening the door to uncertain enforcement and complex bureaucracy, and creating routes to avoid and abuse the provisions by those seeking to undermine other areas of immigration policy. That is why we do not believe that this is the appropriate process to adopt. However, that does not mean that we do not want to hear what people have to say about our policies. One of the first suggestions from the Scottish National party in this debate was a graduate route for those who have been here on a tier 4 visa studying a course. Members may be interested to note that university-sponsored applications have increased by 14% over the last year to over 220,000, which is the highest ever level.
Kevin Foster
I am afraid I will have to make progress, due to the time and the length of the debate. I also noticed that not many interventions were being taken on the Benches opposite.
Next year, we will be opening the graduate route to allow those who have been here at any skill level to work for two years after completing their studies. Again, we are showing that we are listening, and we are making a difference. I listened to the points made by the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) about the fishing industry, and I know that this is an important issue for Members on the SNP Benches. We will look carefully at the recommendation of an immigration pilot for remote communities, and how that could potentially assist in this area. I would say, however, that I have never considered the vibrant cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh remote, and I do not think anyone else would.
Similarly, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) pointed out, we have already taken the decision to increase the seasonal agricultural workers pilot to 10,000—again following feedback about the needs of the Scottish economy. So there are many areas where we are taking on board the views that have been expressed. The best example is where I was on the day the Scottish Government produced their plans—at Glasgow University, talking specifically about the changes to tier 1 to create an uncapped global talent route that will allow universities to put together research teams based not on passports, but on the skills they need to deliver accredited projects. I heard the excitement when they saw the opportunity for Scottish interests and Scottish stakeholders to be at the heart of designing the UK’s immigration policy in a way that assists them. Similarly, we are looking further at how we can work through the tier 4 system with those organisations, particularly universities with a high compliance rate, to make sure it works even better for them.
The key is ensuring that talent across the world sees the great potential of Scotland, as the UK Government do, and that means creating an attractive environment for investment and for working there. The Scottish Government, of course, have power over vast swathes of public life in Scotland—education, healthcare, infrastructure and taxation—and they perhaps may wish to question the impact, in terms of welcoming people, of making Scotland the highest taxed part of the United Kingdom with their policy decisions. The Scottish Government have control of all the necessary levers to encourage investment, to build an educated and skilled workforce, and to secure Scotland’s economic future. With all those tools available, why do they still seek to stoke division? It is because separatism, not Scotland’s future, is their first priority. SNP Members should ask themselves whether the failings in education that Nicola Sturgeon has presided over have anything to do with Scottish companies seeking talent from elsewhere, or whether any number of overseas medical professionals will deal with the issues in the Scottish health service. This Government will create an in-response-to-demand NHS visa system that makes it easy to recruit health workers, but again, that will not necessarily tackle the core issues of the failure of domestic policy set by the Scottish National party.
As pointed out in this debate, immigration has brought a vast wealth of experience, expertise and diversity to the United Kingdom, and we have heard some great examples in this debate of where that has taken place, but that cannot be used as a stopgap or to make up for the failings of nationalist policies elsewhere. Above all, those who choose to come and make their lives in the United Kingdom should be welcomed across all four nations, not used to stoke constitutional grievances or in an attempt to set up a border at Berwick.
The United Kingdom Government have looked at the proposals, which talk of settlement. Is that settlement purely in Scotland or elsewhere? For us, the key is to look at the themes, the needs and the requirements, rather than to just look at how we can break up the United Kingdom. I am clear that there will be challenges to address across our Union, but the idea that we should do that based on the nations of the United Kingdom misses the point. The idea, for example, that Torbay’s economy is instantly comparable to London’s because it happens to be in England, or that the appropriate solution for the Scottish highlands would be to have the same visa as in Edinburgh, misses some of the key ways our economy works. Again, I am conscious that this is something that was decided more by a Government who set up a review to look for their destination of separation, rather than a genuine look at how life patterns work across our United Kingdom.
We are clear that we will listen to feedback. We have written back to the Scottish Government and we will listen to feedback from stakeholders and the Scottish Government about how a future migration system can work. We will look at what their policies would deliver and whether they would deliver success across our United Kingdom. That will be the focus of our policies and plans for taking this forward and making ourselves a nation that prioritises and embraces a bright, optimistic future for Scotland, a place whose natural beauty is second to none. But we will also reject the separatist view of a grievance-based culture of constitutional argument, as I know the House will tonight.
Question put.
Business without Debate
(4 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Refugee family reunion
(4 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Glasgow University’s Student Action for Refugees recently hosted the Museum Without A Home exhibition, displaying everyday objects in solidarity with migrants and refugees around the world. At the same time, it collected more than 600 signatures for the Families Together petition, calling for refugee children to have the right to be reunited with their parents in their home. A smaller number have signed the petition that I am now presenting in the House of Commons style, which makes the same demand.
The petition states:
The petition of residents of Glasgow North,
Declares that under current family reunion rules adult refugees can only sponsor their partners and children under 18 years old to join them in the UK; further that child refugees in the UK have no family reunion rights so they can’t bring their parents to join them; further that the lack of opportunities for refugees to reunite with family members forces people to turn to smugglers and exacerbates the humanitarian crises in Southern Europe; and further that, for refugees already living safely in the UK, the enforced separation from their families and constant anxiety about their wellbeing can be devastating, preventing them from rebuilding their lives and undermining their successful integration into their new communities. The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to expand the criteria of who qualifies as a family member for the purposes of refugee family reunion, including by allowing adult refugees in the UK to sponsor their adult children, their siblings that are under the age of 25, and their parents; further to give unaccompanied refugee children in the UK the right to sponsor their parents and siblings that are under the age of 25 to join them under the refugee family reunion rules; and further to reintroduce legal aid for refugee family reunion cases.
And the petitioners remain, etc.
[P002555]
Media Diversity
(4 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
I am pleased to have secured this important debate. The media is a fundamental part of the way that we see and understand the world. According to Ofcom, 79% of adults get their news information from broadcasters and 40% from newspapers, but, while white adults are using TV, radio and newspapers, people from ethnic minority backgrounds and young people are turning away from them. Instead, they are using the internet, social media and alternative media sources. That is because traditional media sources are failing to represent the society on which they report. Today, I will talk about how there continues to be a systemic lack of race, class, disability, LGBT plus and gender diversity across the media, but particularly in broadcast and newspaper journalism.
Last week, the BBC misidentified me as my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler), Britain’s first black female Minister, while I was making a speech in this House. The error was compounded by the report on the issue in the Evening Standard, which confused a picture of my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) with me. The Evening Standard had used photos from Getty Images which had wrongly captioned me as my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham—you quite literally could not make this up. In the space of a few days, three separate news outlets, Getty Images, the BBC and the Evening Standard, had confused me with another female black MP. This was not the first time: it has happened time and again to me and my other colleagues of colour in Parliament. As journalist Gary Younge put it:
“The message is clear. It really doesn’t matter how prominent, accomplished, integrated, qualified or celebrated non-white people become to a significant number of others, including their peers. They will always just be another black person: interchangeable.”
In the eyes of much of the media, it is impossible for me to have my own identity outside of being a black woman. In that sense, I am invisible to them. This is one of the many incidents that exposes a problem within our media—a problem that exists because the workforce who make up our media, the journalists, producers, commentators, editors and presenters, do not reflect modern British society. Jobs across the sector continue to be inaccessible to those without privilege or resources. Just 7% of the UK is privately educated, and roughly 1% graduate from Oxford and Cambridge, but according to the Sutton Trust, 43% of the top figures in news media are privately educated and 36% went to Oxford. We should never forget that Oxbridge makes more offers to one school, Eton, than to all the children on free school meals. It is almost as though there is a direct pipeline from Eton, Harrow and Westminster to Oxbridge and to the heart of our media.
It simply is not getting any better. Social mobility in the United Kingdom is low and not improving.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Lady, who is a doughty campaigner on many subjects in this House. I wish her well on this one. Does she agree that there should be a natural spread of disability, gender, age, colour, class and creed in the media and the paid rates for this diversity must equate to fitness of purpose for the job and not what sex a presenter or reporter is? The way to do that is better enforcement of pay structures in both the public and private sectors.
Marsha De Cordova
I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. He is absolutely right, and I will come on to talk about the pay gaps and problems in those structures.
As I said, things are simply not getting better, and according to the Sutton Trust elite voices continue to dominate our media, as they have since the 1950s. In fact, according to the Government’s own figures, journalists are second only to doctors as the most exclusive profession in Britain, with the majority of journalists coming from middle-class backgrounds.
The lack of working-class representation in our media also means a lack of black, Asian and other minority ethnic group representation. A study by City University and the Sutton Trust shows that 94% of journalists are white and only 0.2% of journalists are black. In a recent report, Ofcom criticised this “woeful” lack of diversity in broadcast television. And I can understand why. There is not a single high-profile British news programme or current affairs series headed by a non-white person. Growing up, I was used to seeing Trevor McDonald and Moira Stuart on my screen. As I grew older I expected to see more people of colour reading the news or providing political commentary, but progress seems to have ground to a halt. The National Council for the Training of Journalists found that the proportion of black broadcast journalists has remained unchanged at 1% since 2002. Figures from Ofcom show that only 10% of those in leadership roles in news and current affairs at the BBC are from a black, Asian or minority ethnic background and that only 7% of ITV and 11% of Sky employees working in journalism are from a black, Asian or minority ethnic background.
There are 8 million black and ethnic minority people in this country and 14 million disabled people, but neither group is given a proper voice in our media. The United Nations convention on the rights of disabled people is clear that all disabled people should have the right to
“effectively and fully participate in…public life on an equal basis with others”,
and that includes the media. The failure to recruit disabled journalists has done little to change that. It is time that we saw blind and partially sighted people like me and disabled people anchoring the news on TV and radio and as political commentators. It is time that we read more columns, op-eds and analysis by wheelchair users. And it is time for all broadcasters to recognise their responsibilities by ensuring that disabled people are recognised in our media.
We cannot forget that diversity in our media means off-screen diversity as well as on-screen diversity. Under a third of TV occupations are held by women, and less than a fifth are from a working-class background. From 2013 to 2016, just 2.2% of British TV episodes were made by ethnic minority directors. That means that entire series of dramas, comedies, sketch shows, reality TV shows, and their story arcs, have been created without any black, Asian or minority ethnic group input. It is time that Ofcom introduced a regulatory mechanism to monitor the make-up of all workforces, on-screen and off-screen. We must not be afraid to say that, like many other areas and sectors of society, our media are a bit pale, a bit male and a bit stale.
I recognise all the important work done by broadcasters and news organisations across the media, but we must ask why there has been so little improvement. Some key factors are making this systemic lack of diversity worse. First, unpaid internships continue to be a key way in which people enter journalism. Recent figures reveal that more than 80% of new entrants to journalism do internships that are unpaid. Working for free is something that can only be done by a select few—that is, by people who live in urban centres and who are supported by their families. An element of the old boys’ club still reigns strong in the media; in some instances, it seems to be a case of not what you know, but who you know. Any Government who are committed to a real living wage and believe that everybody should have an equal chance to work should act to abolish unpaid internships. Secondly, the decimation of local news sources has had a negative impact on aspiring journalists from outside the urban centres, because it has removed the pipeline from local and regional up towards national press and broadcasting.
When the Minister responds, will he tell me whether he agrees that there is a systemic problem with diversity in the media? What are the Government doing to ensure that they fulfil the commitments set out in the industrial strategy, and deliver a media sector that is open to all talented people, irrespective of their race, disability, class or gender? Will he call on all major media corporations to report on all aspects of the diversity of their workforce, including their socioeconomic make-up, and will he legislate to ensure that these organisations publish their pay gap data for gender, disability and ethnicity? Will he introduce a regulatory requirement for organisations to publish the data on their black, Asian and minority ethnic, disability and LGBT workforce from senior executive level to entry level? And will he confirm that the rumours circulating that the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport will be dissolved are not true?
As I come to the end of my speech, I would like to put on record my recognition of the important work done by organisations, such as Channel 4, to increase socioeconomic and regional diversity in their workforces. I commend it for its target to have 12% disabled staff across the organisation by 2023. But we know that there is an unacceptable divide between media and society, as was articulated well by Jon Snow from Channel 4. In the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, he lamented the media’s failure to recognise what was happening, saying:
“in an increasingly fractured Britain, we in the media”
have
“little awareness, contact, or connection with those not of the elite.”
A media dominated by the elite means that broadcasters, newspapers and our stories do not reflect the rich diversity of our society. For instance, with so few Muslim journalists—0.2%—it is no coincidence that over a third of newspaper articles “misrepresented or made generalisations” about the Muslim community, according to the Muslim Council of Britain. When disabled staff make up just 5.5% of off-screen staff at major broadcasters, it is no wonder that they are not represented on our TV screens.
Without a diverse workforce made up of every part of our society—without reporters with an understanding of, say, Bristol and Birmingham, and without executives from Oxton as well as Oxbridge—the media will always fail to speak for us all. It is time for real action and time for real change so that our media is by us, for us and about us.
The Minister for Sport, Media and Creative Industries (Nigel Adams)
I am delighted to respond to this debate and really grateful to the hon. Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) for securing it. Before I came here this afternoon, my son said to say hello as she is his local MP, so he is delighted that we are having this debate.
Nigel Adams
Indeed. It is a great surprise to be giving way to the hon. Gentleman.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. I think that is an inadmissible question.
Nigel Adams
I love him dearly, but I can confirm that he did not vote for the Conservative party at the general election. But that is a matter for his own conscience—and at some point his own bank balance, no doubt.
Unfortunately, the experience of the hon. Lady is not the first of its kind and is unlikely to be the last. There have been a number of other high-profile examples, including recently when the basketball player Kobe Bryant was mistaken for LeBron James during a BBC news report, and the musician Stormzy has previously been mistaken for the former Manchester United player Romelu Lukaku. In addition to the other negative experiences that she has raised, these examples all point to a wider issue directly linked to, as she rightly points out, a lack of diversity in our media.
The media play a vital role in British society and therefore have an important responsibility to reflect the reality of modern Britain. This can only be possible with a representative and diverse workforce. It is the Government’s view that everyone, regardless of their background, should have the same opportunity to be successful and to go as far as their talents and hard work take them, including in the media and the wider creative industries. This Government are committed to working together with the industry to achieve this and to support greater diversity.
As one of our most cherished institutions, the BBC has an important role to play in the diversity debate, and we expect it to lead the way. In 2016, the Government embedded diversity in the BBC’s new public purposes to make sure that it delivers for everyone in the UK. That gave the BBC a general duty to make sure that it considered diversity in the programmes and shows it makes and in the way that it is organised and run. This Government’s position is clear: the BBC should be leading the way in both on-screen and off-screen diversity in equal measure.
Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)
I am sure that the BBC itself would accept that it needs to go further. In 2017, its BAME representation was 14.8% across the workforce. There is more to do, but does my hon. Friend agree that it is endeavouring to improve the situation?
Nigel Adams
I believe that the BBC is incredibly conscious of this. I think the numbers may have crept up a little bit, but there is still an awful lot more to do.
The BBC has conducted reviews on improving its diversity, and it is continuing to implement those findings. It has announced that it will be appointing two advisers to every senior leader group across the business to increase BAME representation at senior levels. The Government expect the BBC to make significant progress in delivering against those challenges, including on the proportion of women and BAME people represented in its leadership.
Marsha De Cordova
I appreciate that the BBC is trying and aspiring to do better, but does the Minister agree that it needs to look at not only race and gender but disability?
Nigel Adams
I do, and I am about to come on to the very valid points that the hon. Lady made.
As of 2019, the proportion of women in the BBC was 47%, and the proportion of BAME people was 15%. That is better than the national labour population in general, but it falls behind other public service broadcasters. The proportion of women at Channel 4, for example, is 57%, and the proportion of BAME people is 19%.
As Members will be aware, the BBC charter establishes Ofcom as the independent regulator for the BBC. Ofcom must therefore continue to hold the BBC to account on its diversity requirements. Ofcom’s review of BBC representation and portrayal on TV in 2018 set challenges for the BBC, and the Government expect the BBC to keep working towards being a more diverse and representative organisation and broadcaster.
Ofcom’s responsibility to hold the BBC to account on its diversity requirements is part of its wider role to monitor the diversity of the UK television sector as a whole. Ofcom has a duty to promote equality of opportunity in relation to employment in the broadcasting sector and has powers to ask broadcasters to provide information about their equal opportunities policies and the make-up of their workforce. Ofcom’s findings are published in its annual report on diversity and equal opportunities in television. In its latest report, it notes that 13% of the UK television industry identifies as BAME, which is just above the average of the UK labour market. The number of women—45%—is only just below the average of the UK labour market. It is with disability that Ofcom identifies a real issue, with 6% of the UK television industry reporting as disabled, which falls well below the 18% of the UK labour market. Clearly, more needs to be done in that regard.
A big issue is the availability of data on the diverse make-up of the media industry. Ofcom says that, while gaps in the data are decreasing, the number who report as “undisclosed” is increasing, and therein lies the issue. It is important that, in acknowledging that more could be done to support the industry, we understand that part of that is ensuring we have the available data to support the case for change and to measure success when it comes. Without doubt, UK television should reflect modern Britain, both on and off the screen, and the Government are supportive of Ofcom’s work to drive improvements in that area.
The hon. Lady referred to social mobility, which remains a problem at many media organisations. For example, it was reported last year that only 9% of staff at Channel 4 identified as coming from a working-class background. Even at the BBC, which has the highest number of staff from lower social classes, 61% of staff identify as coming from a higher social class. However, I would like to applaud Channel 4 for taking this problem seriously and acknowledging that it wants to be a place where the doors are open to everyone. This is a difficult problem to tackle. Those from higher social classes have the capital to afford to take low-paid or unpaid internships, to get a foot in the door.
The hon. Lady also asked whether the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport will be dissolved. On my behalf and that of the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman), I very much hope that that is not the case, but we will have to wait until Thursday.
Marsha De Cordova
I thank the Minister for giving way again, and I am pleased to hear that the Department will be staying intact; I hope he will remain a part of it. When we talk about diversity and representation in media outlets—be it the BBC, Channel 4, Channel 5 or ITV—it is important to acknowledge that certain roles, such as those in finance or HR, are separate from those on-screen or as part of the off-screen editorial and production side of things. Does he agree that there needs to be proper data gathering about those roles, as well as the other aspects of the industry?
Nigel Adams
I agree—that is the challenge in data collection, which should be more transparent. The hon. Lady makes a very good point.
In the time that is left, I will make some progress. The situation differs from that of print media. Newspapers tell the stories that reflect modern Britain. As a result, it is important that those working in print media are representative of the diversity of our country. The Government are committed to a free and independent press, and we do not interfere with what the press can and cannot publish. Of course, editors have responsibilities to the public, and should be held to account if they infringe individuals’ rights.
The press is subject to independent self-regulation. Anyone who is concerned about something published by a newspaper can make a complaint, either to a self-regulatory body, or to the publisher directly. As we said in the Government’s response to the Cairncross review, public interest news and journalism should reflect the diversity of the United Kingdom. Improving the diversity of newsrooms could help newspapers appeal to under-represented audiences. Appealing to under-represented audiences could also have a positive impact on sustainability. Many newspapers are doing good work in this area, with a number of national newspapers running diversity schemes.
The Government do not wish to interfere in any way with editorial freedoms, operations or decision making in newspapers, but we encourage the press to do more to increase diversity in journalism. The Government are committed to ensuring that equality and diversity are a key feature of all our interactions with industry. The work that is being done on improving the diversity of the print and broadcast media is part of the wider steps being taken within the creative industries. I am happy to say that much is being done in the creative industries to reflect our diverse country. Only last week I had the pleasure of attending the launch of Ukie’s “Raise the Game” diversity pledge with five founding partners, including heavy hitters Microsoft Xbox and Jagex, which aim to redress the balance of the games workforce which is currently 70% male and 12% privately educated—almost double the national average. Initiatives such as these and the “Creative Pioneers” of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising or Penguin Random House’s “WriteNow” programme, which has engaged 450 writers across nine regional workshops, provide positive first steps across sectors traditionally seen as a closed shop.
The Government recognise that much more can be done to bring about widespread and long-lasting change. Through the Creative Industries Council, we are working with industry to show strong leadership in this area. The recently announced diversity charter commits the creative sector to improving the quality of its diversity data as well as its recruitment practices, development, promotion and retention of staff at all levels in order to create a more diverse workforce and develop more output that appeals to people from all backgrounds and regions of the UK.
I thank the hon. Member for Battersea again for bringing this incredibly important debate to the Floor of the House. I am pretty sure that my son will not thank me for mentioning him, but there is important work being done across the media and creative industries to improve the diversity of the industry. I am pleased that organisations such as the BBC and other UK broadcasters have taken this seriously and are moving in the right direction. I want to finish by reiterating that there is still much to do and that the Government will continue to encourage the media industry to continue these efforts.
Question put and agreed to.
Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill (First sitting)
Tuesday 11th February 2020
(4 years, 10 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 11 February 2020 - (11 Feb 2020)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 10 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 10 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Chair
I have a few preliminary points. Please switch electronic devices to silent. Tea, coffee and other hot beverages are not allowed during sittings. We will first consider the programme motion on the amendment paper. We will then consider a motion to enable the reporting of written evidence for publication. I hope that we can take those matters without too much debate. I call the Minister to move the programme motion, which was agreed by the Programming Sub-Committee yesterday.
Ordered,
That—
(1) the Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 9.25 am on Tuesday 11 February) meet—
(a) at 2.00 pm on Tuesday 11 February;
(b) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 13 February;
(2) the proceedings shall be taken in the following order: Clauses 1 to 2; the Schedule; Clause 3; new Clauses; new Schedules; remaining proceedings on the Bill;
(3) the proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 5.00 pm on Thursday 13 February.—(Matt Warman.)
Resolved,
That, subject to the discretion of the Chair, any written evidence received by the Committee shall be reported to the House for publication.—(Matt Warman.)
The Chair
Copies of written evidence that the Committee receives will be made available in the room.
We will now begin line-by-line consideration of the Bill. The selection list for today’s sitting is available in the room. It shows how the selected amendments have been grouped for debate. Grouped amendments are generally on the same or similar lines. Please note that decisions on amendments take place in the order not in which they are debated, but in which they appear on the amendment paper. The selection list shows the order of debate. The decision on an amendment is taken when we come to the clause that it affects.
I have the pleasure of calling Chi Onwurah to move amendment 9 to clause 1 and to make some brief general remarks.
Clause 1
Code rights in respect of land connected to leased premises
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 9, in clause 1, page 1, line 17, at end insert—
“(c) the operator intends to provide an electronic telecommunications service that can deliver an average download speed of at least one gigabit per second.”
This amendment is intended to ensure that operators could apply for Part 4A order only if they intended to provide gigabit-capable broadband.
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Davies. This is my first time on a Public Bill Committee for a number of years, so I hope that you will be, if not indulgent, at least understanding of any errors that I should make.
It is also a pleasure to serve on such an important Committee. We are often told by Government Ministers and by wide-eyed techno optimists that we are going through a digital revolution in this country. When hon. Members are uploading videos to TikTok, and centuries-old parliamentary regulations are accessible via an Android app, it is hard not to feel that we have entered a brave new world of connectivity.
That is the case not just in this place, of course; the internet is central to our lives and those of our constituents. Some 99% of adults under 45, and 81% of the adult population as a whole, use it regularly. Those are impressive figures, so let us hear some more: 98%, 97%, 8%. Those numbers represent the full-fibre coverage of, respectively, Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom.
The previous Labour Government brought first-generation broadband to 50% of all households within 10 years. Over a similar timespan, Conservative Governments have managed to bring full-fibre broadband, the current generation of technology, to only 8% of households, while our economic competitors have been achieving full-fibre coverage. We are 35th out of 37 in the OECD rankings of broadband connectivity. When it comes to broadband, the only global race that the Government are running is a race to the bottom.
In the past 10 years we have witnessed a lost decade for telecoms infrastructure. The Government have repeatedly left our national infrastructure needs to the market, resulting in a deepening of our country’s regional divide, which was already the worst in western Europe. Regional studies show a 30% gap in internet usage between the south-east and the north-west. In London, 85% of the population are internet users compared with 64% in my city of Newcastle. It is welcome that the Government have finally woken up to this problem, but I am still none the wiser about what “levelling up” actually means in this case.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend is making important points, particularly about the regional disparities and inequalities. Is she aware of any differences in who is using the internet? There might be differences in relation to children being able to study at home and people being able to work at home, which is critical for self-employment and for small businesses that might be starting up.
Chi Onwurah
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and her past experience in the IT sector leads her to understand and see the divides that exist—for example, people on lower incomes are less likely to use the internet and have access to broadband. There is also a real rural divide, with our rural telecoms infrastructure not enabling the kind of economic success stories of small businesses that she mentions. Unfortunately, the Bill does not address that. Indeed, many of the operators, such as TalkTalk, Mobile UK and Hyperoptic, have said that we need to upgrade our infrastructure, but the Bill does not address that.
In the last six months the Prime Minister has held three different positions on what kind of telecoms infrastructure we need: when he was standing to lead his party, he promised to deliver “full-fibre connectivity” to all households by 2025; the Government manifesto talked of “gigabit-capable connectivity” by 2025; and the Queen’s Speech dropped the 2025 reference altogether, promising instead to accelerate the roll-out. Will the Minister clarify exactly what the Government’s target is for broadband connectivity? Whatever the target is, and whatever the lofty ambitions are, I am afraid that the Bill will not achieve them.
The Bill is designed to enable people who live in flats and apartment blocks to receive gigabit-capable connections where their landlord repeatedly fails to respond to telecom operators’ requests for permission to install their infrastructure. The network builders say they face significant challenges in connecting people living in flats and apartment blocks when they do not receive a response from the building owner to requests for access. According to Openreach, 76% of multi-dwelling units miss out on initial efforts to deploy fibre because of challenges in gaining access.
The Bill provides a bespoke process for telecoms operators to gain access to MDUs in order to deploy, upgrade or maintain fixed-line broadband connections in cases where a tenant has requested an electronic communications service but the landlord has repeatedly failed to respond to an operator’s request for access. For a telecoms company to install equipment such as cables on public or private land, formal permission through an access agreement with the landowner/occupier is required. Under such an agreement, the landowner grants the communication provider a licence to install, access and maintain equipment on their land. The Bill takes into account the fact that landlords are not always responsive or eager to meet their tenants’ needs.
The measures in the Bill are welcome and the Opposition will not be voting against it. In the context of the lost decade, however, we are truly dismayed by the Bill’s limited scope. It proposes only minor measures to ease infrastructure build-out by giving operators more powers to access apartment blocks when tenants request service. The sector has welcomed the Bill but without any great enthusiasm, saying that the difference it will make will be marginal. The trade body for the tech industry, techUK, says it does not go far enough, stating that
“from new builds to street works”,
many issues
“have not been tackled by the Government’s Bill.”
We have tabled several amendments to improve the Bill, but before I speak to amendment 9, I will briefly mention additional flaws that the Opposition have not sought to fix through amendments. There is the matter of consistency with other regulations. The internet is now an essential utility for modern life and, as such, telecoms operators should possess the same powers as those who provide other utilities, but the Bill does not go far enough on that. We appreciate that the Government acknowledge the necessity of broadening the rights of telecoms providers, but they have not actually done so in the Bill. They have given no statutory rights of access to telecoms companies and placed no obligations on landlords to facilitate access.
Do the Government recognise that the internet is an essential utility, and do they believe that telecoms should be brought into line with other utilities, for which forced entry is permitted on the grounds of ensuring that there is no threat to life or safety? Obviously, that might not be the case with telecoms, but I want to understand the comparison that the Government make between the telecoms utility and other utilities.
The amendment is intended to ensure that operators can apply for a part 4A order only if they intend to supply gigabit-capable broadband. Of course, we need to understand what gigabit-capable broadband is, but I am sure that the Minister will relieve us of that uncertainty. As I said, we have suffered 10 wasted years under Conservative Governments of various types, a unifying theme of which has been a misunderstanding of technology interspersed with a misuse of it.
Given that the Prime Minister has expressed three different positions in six months, what is the aim of the Bill? Does it aim to provide gigabit broadband? On Second Reading the Minister said that the legislation will be a “hammer blow” to crack our woeful broadband nut. I can only assume therefore that the legislation does not serve simply to give operators opportunities to lock in my constituents to slow broadband. The Minister said that it must deliver gigabit-capable broadband, so I cannot imagine that he will have any objections to enshrining that in the legislation by supporting the amendment.
I also seek clarification on whether anything in the Bill confines it to fixed-line operators. Will the Minister confirm whether, under the terms set out in the Bill, it would be possible for a mobile operator to install a mobile base station, for example, for the purposes of delivering gigabit-capable broadband, either to one building or another? How does the Bill ensure, in the case of wireless or mobile broadband, that services are limited to a particular building only?
The amendment would make it clear that the Government are proceeding with their commitment to deliver on gigabit-capable broadband and that the Bill cannot be used to deliver slower broadband, so it will contribute to our broadband infrastructure.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Matt Warman)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I welcome the hon. Lady’s acceptance that the Bill is an important part of the Government’s programme to deliver gigabit-capable broadband as quickly and as far across the country as possible. She is right that we have not got the numbers that some of our European competitors have, although we are now up to 3 million premises with full-fibre broadband in this country—the latest figure is 11%, rather than the 8% that she quoted. None the less, the Government are significantly more ambitious than that, so today we are delivering this narrowly focused Bill that will quickly address a pressing issue that the industry faces. As she also said, the industry has broadly welcomed it.
I will address the main parts of the Bill in the stand part debate later. As the hon. Lady has said, the Bill will introduce, when demanded by occupants of a building, a right for communications providers to access a building to provide a service that is fit for the 21st century when landlords have been unresponsive. It is, as she has said, a pressing issue for the industry that has affected too many tenants already and in part has affected too many tenants because the existing process is overly cumbersome. The Bill introduces a process that is far more speedy and cost-effective for operators.
Seema Malhotra
One issue that is not clear to me in the Bill or the explanatory notes is whether there is a time limit within which the operator might need to respond to a request from a tenant. There is more about the operator giving notices to the landlord—the grantor—but what about a deadline by which an operator might need to respond to a request from a tenant?
Matt Warman
There is no set deadline imposed on a private commercial organisation because individual operators are not all regulated in the same way. For instance, Openreach is regulated differently. It is a commercial decision for them, and the Government will do all that they can through processes such as this to try to encourage a speedy response. It is for Ofcom to regulate responses, as it does in the complaints procedure. As the legislation comes into force, Ofcom will consider whether response times to complaints might be thought of in the same way.
Seema Malhotra
Currently, in the way that the implementation of the Bill is envisaged, if an operator chooses not to respond or takes many months, is there anything in place to sanction or challenge that?
Matt Warman
The answer is that at the moment that is one of the problems. The Bill introduces the process by which we might look at whether the responsiveness to requests is something that Ofcom might look at. However, the hon. Lady is right to ask. We want to see a speedy roll-out, and the response from operators is an important part of a speedy roll-out. We are very much on the same page. We would not want to see operators ignoring the requests of potential customers, and I hope that neither would the operators, because in many cases they have a potential commercial opportunity.
Let me address the two specific questions asked by the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central. As discussed on Second Reading, we see broadband as an important utility but, as she acknowledged in that debate, it is not the same as other utilities. It is obvious that as time goes on more and more essential services will depend on connectivity. As that situation evolves, we will need to keep it under review. However, she is accurate when she says that the threat posed by a lack of water is different from that posed by a lack of broadband. We should treat them differently; it is horses for courses.
Matt Warman
Yes, I am not sure how I would cope myself, but the principle is the same.
We sympathise with the spirit of the amendment. There is currently little evidence that anyone seeks to install services that are not gigabit capable; if one goes into an MDU, it is almost always fibre that is being installed. However, as the hon. Lady said on Second Reading, being technology-neutral is important and might enable the speedier roll-out of a service. If a group of residents or a telecoms operator sought to install a service that was not gigabit capable, although that is extremely unlikely, I do not think the Government should seek to withhold better broadband from a block of flats, for instance, simply because that is the only option available. Nor do I think, to be fair to the hon. Lady, that that is her intention. We should maintain technology neutrality and the commitment to speed and a possible service sooner rather than later, rather than have the Bill restrict it, when it is in most instances a hypothetical problem—we are not aware of a situation in which a slower service would have been suggested or provided by an operator.
On the hon. Lady’s point about mobile base stations, again the Bill is technology-neutral, but it is important to note that placing a base station on the top of one building usually benefits the buildings around it, as she knows, rather than that building itself. The triggering of the request that the Bill covers would not necessarily be valid because it would be a different building. It does not imply rights to install equipment on a connected piece of land rather than on the building itself. That is an issue we discussed at some length earlier. Both points indicate that although the measure is technology-neutral, it is more likely that it will not apply to either 5G or to base stations.
Chi Onwurah
I appreciate the points that the Minister is making, and the tone with which he is making them. Gigabit-capable broadband is technology-neutral. That is the only justification for having the full-fibre broadband that the Prime Minister initially promised. I therefore still do not understand why the Government are reluctant to put that in the Bill. As the Minister says, although there is no evidence of a desire to roll out a network that is less than gigabit capable now, once we have competition for a gigabit-capable network, some operators might seek to capture buildings and deliver broadband that, although better than what we have in some of our areas—the broadband in some areas is very poor—is not actually gigabit capable.
Matt Warman
I genuinely sympathise with what the hon. Lady is seeking to do, but her amendment also constrains a Bill that benefits from taking the approach that it does. Technically what she proposes would amend only one part, but amendment 9 would not amend the circumstances under which the part 4A order can be made because they are set out in paragraph 27B. There is a logical inconsistency in what she proposes, but the principle is very much the same as what the Government are seeking.
The hon. Lady would also inadvertently be delaying the roll-out of a service that would be a significant improvement even if it were not gigabit capable, and she undermines the principle of aspects of technology neutrality. Our intention has always been for the whole code to be technology-neutral. There would be no direct benefit from her amendment, although we very much share her ambitions. We want the Bill to benefit tenants whatever the service they request and, with that in mind, although the Government sympathise with her ambitions—
Seema Malhotra
I would like some clarification on a couple of points. What might the minimum speed be and would it be out of scope for a part 4A order to be used to upgrade broadband from copper networks to fibre, for example, if broadband were not fast enough for whatever reason? Do these plans sit alongside, or are they separate from, plans to implement the universal service obligation for a decent service broadband speed of 10 megabits per second, which is clearly much less than 1,000 megabits per second?
Matt Warman
I thank the hon. Lady for intervening just as I was finishing my remarks. There is no legislative flaw on the speed of a service that a commercial operator might seek to install, but the market is obviously going upwards rather than downwards. We have seen no evidence that anyone is seeking to install copper, for instance. The direction of travel in the market is clear across the country. When the USO comes into force, it will sit above this legislation. On her question about the scope of the Bill, I can confirm that those matters would be out of scope.
The Government want all networks to be gigabit capable, and through the work that we and Ofcom are doing, everything is moving in that direction, in terms of both market forces and the Government’s legislative programme. Although I sympathise with the spirit of what the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central is seeking to do, I ask her to withdraw the amendment.
Chi Onwurah
I am grateful to the Minister both for his response and for his sympathy with what we are trying to do, despite his inexplicable reluctance to actually do it.
Part of the Minister’s critique of the amendment is that it is not comprehensive in amending other aspects of the legislation. He is actually critiquing his own Government’s approach, because the problem is that we do not have a comprehensive strategy—or any kind of strategy or plan—to deliver the gigabit-capable broadband of which he and the Prime Minister have spoken. I remain concerned that the legislation may well be used to deliver broadband that does not meet the expectations or the just deserts of British citizens, whether or not they live in apartment blocks.
I look forward to the Minister setting out at some point a plan that enshrines gigabit broadband in our lives, just as the Prime Minister enshrines it in his speeches. I do not believe that it is worth pressing the amendment to a vote. I note that the Minister’s commitment to gigabit broadband is on the record, as is his expectation that the legislation will be used to deliver it. That will have to suffice for today. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Chi Onwurah
I beg to move amendment 7, in clause 1, page 2, line 1, after “lessee in occupation” insert
“, or a person who is a legal occupant of the property and who is in a contractual relationship with the lessee or freeholder,”.
This amendment is intended to expand the definition of persons who can request an operator to provide an electronic telecommunications service to include rental tenants and other legal occupants who may not own the lease to the property they occupy.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 4, in clause 1, page 2, line 2, after “premises”, insert
“or an operator requests to provide an electronic communications service to the target premises,”.
This amendment would provide for situations where the request for access is initiated by the operator.
Chi Onwurah
These amendments seek to improve the legislation to enable others to make requests. As I understand it—I hope the Minister will clarify this— only freeholders and leaseholders can use the legislation as it stands.
Mr Chairman, I will not try your patience by expounding at length on the dire state of both home ownership and leasehold, or “fleecehold”, as many of my constituents call it. Home ownership rates among young people are a third lower than in the noughties, and for far too many, the leasehold system is broken. There are now 4.5 million households in the private rented sector, a jump of 63% in a decade, and we also know that tenants can easily find themselves in precarious and insecure circumstances through no fault of their own, or even with nowhere to live via a section 21 notice. All of this makes tenants dependent on the whim, or the pleasure, of their landlord. The upshot is that a large proportion of our population is condemned to renting for life, but with few rights and less certainty. We in this Committee can do something about that, at least when it comes to broadband.
Amendment 7 is intended to expand the definition of persons who can request an operator to provide an electronic telecommunications service to include rental tenants and other legal occupants who may not own the lease to the property they occupy. As the Bill stands—the Minister will correct me if I am wrong, I hope—only the freeholder or the leaseholder can make that request, so what of the poor tenant who is desperate for gigabit broadband to enable them to work from home or grow their business? What if their landlord is difficult to reach or indifferent to their predicament? Should the person actually living in the building not have some rights here?
Furthermore—while we are considering who can make these requests—why are businesses left in the cold, particularly those in business parks, where there has often been great unmet demand for broadband? I hope the Minister will provide clarity as to whether business tenants and traders based in properties can use this legislation to upgrade their infrastructure and grow their business.
Amendment 4 is more of a probing amendment, designed to understand whether the Government know what they are doing when it comes to broadband deployment. Before I entered Parliament, I spent a significant number of years rolling out broadband networks in the UK, France, the US, Nigeria, Singapore and Australia, so I know that building out a telecom network requires a plan; it would be nice if the Government understood that keeping networks secure requires a plan, too, but we will come on to that later. In any case, building out a telecom network requires a plan with a business case, predicted revenues, and—well, I am sure the Minister gets the picture.
As the Bill stands, the operators can plan to pass a building, but they cannot plan on getting any revenue from that building, because they cannot make the request to access the buildings that they pass. If the landlords do not respond, the operators cannot use this legislation unless and until a leaseholder or freeholder makes the request.
Seema Malhotra
My hon. Friend is making an important point, on which I would like to support her. The situation has been very different on the ground, and from the experience I have had with leaseholders in blocks, it is sometimes very difficult to get individuals to come forward. When they talk privately with each other, they say that they do want something to happen, and they want an operator to take the lead. In order to provide some flexibility to achieve the outcome we want to see, does she agree that it would be worth considering the right of operators to make the requests?
Chi Onwurah
My hon. Friend is right. I seek to understand whether the Government have considered that, and what their plans are to reflect it. As my hon. Friend says, it may be that tenants and leaseholders do want broadband access. We all have busy lives and are not full-time network engineers. They are not necessarily going to focus on that, whereas a mobile operator has the resources and expertise to make such a request. Tenants may feel that they do not want to annoy their landlord further in case they find themselves subject to an eviction notice or something similar. Mobile operators are in a better position to take on the power of the landlord in making that request. Operators acknowledged that potential logjam in the consultation on the Bill. Virgin stated that they would recommend that the Bill remove the requirement for tenant requests to trigger the process and that they typically
“will not attempt to seek a wayleave from a landlord unless…convinced of the prospect of selling services to the tenants within the MDU.”
Virgin also stated that demonstrating a tenant’s interest added another layer of administration to an already costly and bureaucratic process.
The Internet Service Providers’ Association, a trade body, also recommended an amendment to allow operators to use this mechanism where they are met with an “unresponsive” landlord, regardless of a tenant’s requests. ISPA would further recommend that all landlords be compelled to engage meaningfully with the code, regardless of any tenant request.
Why have the Government apparently ignored or rejected the industry’s requests? There may be a number of reasons. Perhaps the Government do not trust telecoms operators to make credible requests, perhaps they are afraid that big operators—given their deep pockets and big legal departments—will capture all the buildings. Perhaps they simply want to reduce the legislation’s scope so that it is less effective than it would otherwise be. Amendment 7 seeks clarification from the Minister of why the circumstances in which requests are initiated are so limited, and why the Minister has not given operators the opportunity to also make the request.
Matt Warman
Once again, I absolutely understand the spirit in which the hon. Lady raises the amendment, and I admire her gymnastic ability to bring all the points about leasehold into a telecommunications Bill. It is admirable. She is right to address her point specifically on business parks, and will know that the Bill does include the power for the Secretary of State to expand the types of land covered by the Bill, when there is evidence, to business parks, for instance. We do not have all the necessary evidence to do that. The issue of speedily fixing the problem for MDUs while also having the opportunity to fix the problem for business parks in the future is in the spirit of the Bill. I hope that she understands that it makes sense. She knows that there are almost half a million MDUs in this country. It is important to address that problem as soon as we can.
She will know that the Bill is ultimately about a relationship between a telecommunications provider and an unresponsive landlord. The provision can be triggered by a tenant of a building. That is an important factor. However, she will also be aware that the Bill contains the important concept of the “required grantor”. Proposed new paragraph 27B(1)(c) of schedule 3A to the Communications Act 2003, with which I know we are all intimately familiar, confers on the operator a code right in respect of connected land, or allows a person to be bound by such a code right exercised by the operator. In practice, that means that anyone with an interest in the land will have to be contacted. Therefore, when it comes to the operation of the Bill, there will be an opportunity for communications providers in practice to work with anyone in a building to seek to trigger what they would hope to go on through improved provision of broadband. Ultimately, however, the relationship is between the communications provider and the landlord, or the unresponsive landlord.
I think the hon. Lady seeks to expand the number of people who can have an impact on the process. Obviously, the consent of a freeholder, for instance, would still be required even though the property was sub-let. I hope she understands that, while we envisage everyone being able to trigger the process, the legal mechanism under which it operates ultimately is between the communications provider and the landlord—or the unresponsive landlord or the tribunal.
Chi Onwurah
I thank the Minister for giving way. I should say that I am familiar with the electronic communications code, having worked for years with it on my desk at Ofcom. It certainly is not a piece of regulation that I would expect tenants of buildings to be familiar with. Will the Minister clarify whether he is saying that the tenant can make the request, or that the tenant can work with the leaseholder, the freeholder and the telecoms operator to make the request? Can the tenant make the request?
Matt Warman
Ultimately, it is for the telecommunications provider to make the request, having been contacted by people with an interest in the building. However, it is important that it does that in the context of the person who is the leaseholder or the freeholder in any particular building. Obviously, there is nothing to stop an individual getting in touch with a potential telecommunications provider and saying they would be interested in taking up a service, but the formal relationship ultimately has to be with the person who has the leasehold or the freehold. It has to be between the communications provider and, in due course, the landlord, responsive or otherwise. I hope that clarifies some of what the hon. Lady asked about.
I appreciate that amendment 4 is probing, and I understand what the hon. Lady seeks to do. In the usual course of business, any communications provider would seek to expand its network because it knew there was demand. To enable a provider to seek to expand its network without doing any work with a potential tenant that may, in due course, trigger the code would expand that process significantly.
We have tried to take a balanced approach to accessing land to deploy or maintain networks, and it is essential that we try to keep that balance. We believe that allowing operators to access property without the landlord’s agreement is justifiable only in limited circumstances—where a customer has expressly requested a service, or where the operator has taken the steps outlined in the Bill to evidence that it has tried repeatedly to contact the landlord. It seems to me that that combination is the fair and balanced approach, and that if we allowed operators to do that without the consent, in effect, of either an absentee landlord or the people in a building, we would go further than we would reasonably want to. Actually, I think in some ways that would go further than what the hon. Lady suggested, but that would be the consequence of amendment 4.
We remain mindful of striking a careful balance between the rights of both landowners and telecoms operators. The need for a request to come from a tenant is an important element of that careful balance. Ultimately, a tenant, under whatever type of leasehold or contract can make that request. With that balance in mind, I hope that the hon. Lady is content to withdraw both amendment 7 and amendment 4.
Chi Onwurah
I thank the Minister for his response, which has given some more clarity, but I am afraid he has not clarified what the situation will be.
Amendment 4 highlights the lack of a coherent telecoms industrial strategy and a plan for the delivery of gigabit broadband to the country. Opening it up to mobile operators could have unforeseen consequences, which the Government apparently have not had the foresight to investigate fully. While limiting it in this way could be detrimental, I see no alternative but not to press amendment 4, because the Government have apparently not investigated the best way of opening this up to mobile operators.
In relation to amendment 7 the Minister talked about leaseholders, freeholders, tenants and customers, but I remain unclear whether tenants—those who are not the leaseholder or freeholder but are occupying the building or the land—who make a request for service from a broadband provider are within the scope of this legislation.
Matt Warman
They can make the request but, within the scope of the Bill, there is also a requirement for consent from the freeholder, for instance.
Chi Onwurah
I thank the Minister for that. Will he point to where in the Bill it says that a tenant can make the request? I am sorry to put him on the spot, but the Bill seems to refer to leaseholders and freeholders, and I do not see tenants there. That is the reason for amendment 7. On that basis, and in order to provide clarity, I would like to press the amendment to a vote.
Matt Warman
My understanding is that, within the context of this Bill, a tenant would absolutely be within the legal definition. I am not pretending that I am wholly answering the hon. Lady’s question, because there is still a requirement for the freeholder, for instance, to be a part of the process.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Chi Onwurah
I beg to move amendment 8, in clause 1, page 2, line 14, at end insert—
“(f) the proportion of the operator’s network which uses vendors defined by the National Cyber Security Centre as high risk vendors does not exceed 35%.”
This amendment would prevent operators which heavily use high risk vendors from being granted Part 4A orders.
I want to move to an issue that has dominated our discussions on telecoms infrastructure for the past 18 months and is not reflected in the Bill at all: the role of high-risk vendors such as Huawei in the UK’s full-fibre, 5G and gigabit-capable future. The Foreign Secretary recently said that he wanted to
“legislate at the earliest opportunity to introduce a new, comprehensive telecoms security regime to be overseen by the regulator, Ofcom, and Government.”
He also said that the Government would
“legislate at the earliest opportunity to limit and control the presence of high-risk vendors in the UK network, and to allow us to respond as technology changes.”—[Official Report, 28 January 2020; Vol. 670, c. 709-711.]
Just this weekend the Minister’s senior colleagues on the Back Benches continued to express dismay at the rejection of our technological sovereignty.
I therefore want to give the Minister an opportunity to do what the Foreign Secretary called for—I hope that the Minister agrees that a Bill on telecoms infrastructure might be considered the earliest opportunity to legislate—by taking the first step in achieving the aim of limiting the role of high-risk vendors in our telecommunications networks. The amendment would limit the use of high-risk vendors so that
“the proportion of the operator’s network which uses vendors defined by the National Cyber Security Centre as high risk vendors does not exceed 35%.”
The National Cyber Security Centre stated in a recent report that for mobile operators security does not pay, and that market incentives had to be changed to deliver on security. It also made it clear that having high-risk vendors in the network was a risk, which seems obvious, but that the risk could be mitigated if the Government took certain steps, such as limiting the vendors to 35% of the network. The Government have yet to make clear the 35% of which network, when it should happen by and what enforcement powers would apply to the operators that do not meet the requirements. Although the Bill focuses on fixed-line operators, I am sure that the Minister and the Committee are aware that with the convergence of fixed-line and mobile operators, the core networks and aspects of the access network can be shared.
The amendment would prevent operators that heavily use high-risk vendors from being granted rights under code powers. It would therefore send out a clear signal that the Government are serious about following the recommendations of the National Cyber Security Centre, and as a consequence would lead to some monitoring of what is already in place and some reporting of that in order to meet the requirements.
Mr Davies, I am sure you agree—and I hope the Committee agrees—that nothing is more important than our national security. I am equally sure that you will not allow me to set out all the issues raised by the challenges of national security and our mobile networks. I will test your patience by saying that I have been highlighting for years the fact that there is a hole the size of a mobile network in the Government’s cyber-security strategy.
The NCSC says that the market is broken. Well, the Minister will not be able to fix it today, but I do expect him to answer some questions. Will he at least give some practical detail regarding how the recommendations of the National Cyber Security Centre will be implemented? Also, can he confirm that operators that heavily use high-risk vendors will not benefit from code powers, including those enabled by the legislation?
Matt Warman
I once again admire the hon. Lady’s ability to get national security matters into the discussion, as she herself to some extent implied, although her doing so was a lot less gymnastic than her peroration on leasehold. Although today is the first opportunity that we have had to talk about telecommunications since the announcement, there will be a far broader important debate on national security and high-risk vendors. That legislation will, of course, overarch many pieces of legislation, including this Bill.
We have listened carefully to the broad debate, both on high-risk vendors and on the amendment. I know that Members are interested in this matter, following the Government’s decision. In that decision, it was made clear that there will be new controls across the board on high-risk vendors, who will be excluded from all safety-related and safety-critical networks in critical national infrastructure, excluded from the security-critical core network functions, limited to a minority presence of up to 35% in the other parts of the network, and subjected to tight restrictions, including exclusions from sensitive geographic locations.
The Government made the decision on high-risk vendors after considering all the necessary information and analysis from the NCSC, industry and our international partners. It was an evidence-based decision, taken on a comprehensive security assessment, and noting the realities of the telecoms market. Members will be given a full opportunity to contribute to the important debate on high-risk vendors when the relevant legislation is brought before Parliament. However, as I think the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central knows, to do so for this piece of legislation risks introducing a degree of incoherence in what is an important debate. We will do it in a coherent, sensible way in due course, and I hope that Members are reassured that the Government remain committed to working with Parliament as a whole to protect our future telecoms network, important though this Committee is.
Seema Malhotra
This is indeed a very important area. I slightly disagree with the Minister on whether referring to high-risk vendors is to extend the debate on today’s legislation. However, in terms of the implementation of the legislation, and operators and leaseholders going through the process, assuming that those operators obtain permission from the granters, will it be Ofcom that works to ensure that they abide by today’s legislation and the future high-risk vendor legislation?
Matt Warman
The hon. Member asks me to pre-empt what will be an important piece of legislation. What I can say is that we will ensure that nothing in today’s legislation could be used to circumvent that broader and more important piece of legislation, because obviously we have to ensure that 35% means 35% in whatever context.
I hope that Members understand that this is a hugely important issue. The Government are intent on doing things in a coherent and sensible way, so that we deal with matters of national security in the appropriate place rather than in a patchwork of measures with bespoke things in such places as this legislation. I therefore hope that the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central will withdraw her amendment.
Chi Onwurah
I thank the Minister for his response. I understand that he is in a difficult position. He talked of a coherent response from the Government, but it is the lack of any coherence in our telecoms infrastructure that has placed us in this position. My deep and real concern is when the Minister says “in due course”. We know that this form of language avoids any precision as to whether something will happen in the next few weeks, months or years. Telecoms infrastructure providers are taking decisions on their equipment suppliers as we speak. Customers and businesses, but also the public more broadly, are concerned about the security of their broadband networks. The Government have said that there will be a plan to ensure that security, but the only detail we have is that it will come forth “in due course”. Will he give a little more precision?
Matt Warman
The hon. Lady asks for coherence, but when I offer it to her she says that she does not like it. It is important to say that guidance from the NCSC is already out there, and the Government are seeking to put that on a statutory footing as soon as possible. The idea that information is not already out there is unfair, not least on the NCSC, which has worked incredibly hard on this. It is now the Government’s role to have a parliamentary debate and put that on the statute book.
Chi Onwurah
I thank the Minister for that response. He is right that I am seeking coherence in a plan, rather than coherence in rejecting changes to the legislation. The important point is that the NCSC guidance mainly takes the form of excellent blogs written by the technical director, which are very helpful in many ways but do not go into detail about, for example, what the 35% means in practice, how it will be measured, how it will be enforced, who will regulate it and at what point these enforcement measures will start.
I accept that “as soon as possible” is slightly more enthusiastic than “in due course”, and I recognise the difficult position that the Minister is in. While noting my real concerns that to deliver on our gigabit-capable infrastructure we need greater clarity on the role of high-risk vendors as soon as possible, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Chi Onwurah
I beg to move amendment 5, in clause 1, page 3, line 23, at end insert—
“(9) The Secretary of State must by regulations define—
(a) what constitutes a request notice for the purposes of paragraph 27B (1) (d)
(b) what constitutes a response for the purposes of paragraph 27B (1) (e).”
This amendment would require the Government to define what constitutes a legitimate request and a legitimate response, as asked for both by landlords and telecoms companies.
We are coming close to the end of our amendments—I know that the Committee is saddened by that prospect. After almost 10 years in this place, this is one of the few occasions we have had to discuss in detail our telecoms infrastructure. It is not possible to say too much on this subject. However, with your indulgence and guidance, Mr Davies, I will confine myself to two more amendments.
Amendment 5 seeks clarity from the Government on the legislation’s general references to “a legitimate request” and “a legitimate response”. During the consultation phase and after it, landlords and telecoms companies asked for greater clarity about what would constitute a legitimate request and a legitimate response, particularly from a landlord. For example, if a landlord responds to a request with an out-of-office reply, saying “I’ll be back in six months”, does that constitute a legitimate response? Would that mean that the operator could not move on to request the access powers enshrined in this legislation?
Will the Minister set out here, or in the legislation, what constitutes a request notice for the purposes of proposed new paragraph 27B(1) and what constitutes a response for the purposes of proposed new paragraph 27B(1)(e)?
Matt Warman
I do not wish to sound less conciliatory than previously, but those matters are already defined in the Bill. I will briefly go through them, but the definitions that the hon. Lady seeks are already in the Bill, which renders the amendment unnecessary.
First, new paragraph 27B(1)(d) makes it clear that a request notice is a notice in accordance with paragraph 20(2) of the electronic communications code. That sub-paragraph is clear that it constitutes a notice in writing from the operator to a person setting out the code, rights and terms of agreement sought by the operator. The notice states that the operator is seeking the person’s agreement to those terms. In addition, the hon. Lady will know that Ofcom already produces template paragraph 20 request notices to ease the burden. I am confident that the request notice is already defined.
Secondly, the hon. Lady asks about the response. That answer lies in new paragraph 27B(4), which makes provision for how the required grantor—the landlord, as we might say in common parlance—responds to the operator. That provision states clearly two ways in which a landlord can respond: he or she either
“agrees or refuses, in writing”
or
“otherwise acknowledges the request notice in writing.”
That makes it straightforward and transparent for landlords. The amendment risks upsetting that balance by unnecessarily introducing additional regulations.
I am confident that those terms are already defined and I consider that it would be unhelpful for us to make additional requirements.
Chi Onwurah
I thank the Minister for his clarification regarding the request. I acknowledge that there is detail on requests, as requests have been required previously, as the Minister said. With regard to the response, the term “otherwise acknowledges” is quite broad. Given that the next step is to go to a tribunal, which will incur costs, it would be helpful to have greater clarity on that term.
Matt Warman
The important point is that there has to be a formal response “in writing”. By definition, in responding a landlord ceases to be unresponsive. This legislation aims to deal with unresponsive landlords.
Seema Malhotra
It would be an interesting exercise to go through all the different ways in which one could respond, but we would then be here for the afternoon session. The purpose of the Bill is to speed up the process for residents to secure superfast broadband. New paragraph 27B(4)(a) reads
“agrees or refuses, in writing, to confer or otherwise be bound by the code”
and so on. A response will surely be either an agreement or a refusal, or a point of clarification. The “otherwise acknowledges” could be as simple as an email saying, “I have received your notice.” For the purpose of speeding things up rather than providing new ways in which blocks could be put in place, it is important that the Minister provides further explanation of what is intended to be covered by “otherwise acknowledges” and how it helps, given the clarity of 27B(4)(a).
Matt Warman
I come back to my central point, which is that the Bill addresses the problem of landlords who do not respond. Ultimately, it does not confer a right to install equipment against the will of a landlord. Once a landlord engages with the process, they are not considered unresponsive and are not covered by the Bill. Obviously, a landlord has the right to prevent access—either through prevarication or by withholding permission—in almost all circumstances, whether for telecommunications infrastructure or for anything else.
I completely understand what the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central is seeking to do, but ultimately the things that she wants defined are already defined on the face of the Bill, and they will clearly not benefit from being separately defined again. It is important that we are consistent with the electronic communications code and, although I sympathise with the hon. Lady’s desire to see broadband rolled out wherever it can be, I ask her to withdraw the amendment.
Chi Onwurah
I thank the Minister for his response. He said that the Bill does not confer a right to install equipment against a landlord’s will, and I am concerned that that effectively means that tenants do not have a right to superfast or gigabit-capable broadband, which I would argue is an increasingly important part of modern life. We joked earlier about the difference between access to water and access to broadband, but for many people broadband is an absolutely essential part of their working and social lives, and a forward-looking Government would ensure that citizens have a right to gigabit-capable broadband. Although the universal service obligation confers some rights, it does not deal with recalcitrant or unwilling landlords.
Seema Malhotra
Does my hon. Friend agree that there could be a compromise or third way on this? The terms of new paragraph 27B(4)(b)—
“otherwise acknowledges the request notice in writing”—
are superfluous if a landlord is seeking to push action further down the road. If that is an incentive for landlords to engage less positively with those seeking to build networks, would the Minister at least consider reviewing—if not deleting—sub-paragraph (4)(b)? If responses from landlords fall considerably under that option, rather than agreeing or refusing with the reasons that one would expect in a positive dialogue, will the Minister consider whether that option should stay in the Bill?
The Chair
As a matter of procedure, the Minister may wish to respond to the intervention by way of intervention, which I would welcome.
Chi Onwurah
Thank you for that guidance, Mr Davies. I want to emphasise that my hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I am sure that the Minister will agree that the Committee should look for a compromise that allows this important legislation to pass. Landlords may be eccentric and unwilling in their responses, and people’s gigabit-capable broadband should not depend on that. If the Minister is interested in intervening, I will happily give way.
Matt Warman
I am delighted to intervene spontaneously. Essentially we are having a conversation about whether there is a universal right to internet access, and whether that should be something that people can request by one means or another. That concept has been widely explored in many ways. It is surely not right to introduce a universal right of access for people who happen to live in blocks of flats via a small route intended to speed up one process. If we wanted to do that, we would surely seek to do it in a coherent and wide-ranging way, rather than in an incoherent way that I am sure the hon. Lady would criticise at great length.
Chi Onwurah
That is an interesting response from the Minister, because having coherent legislation—I think the Opposition called it a “digital bill of rights”—was exactly what we sought, in order to protect citizens and offer them the kinds of digital rights that are required in the digital age. We have not had such a response from the Government; we have incoherent and ad hoc legislation. That was one part of the argument being made.
My hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston mentioned another part of the argument. Landlords are individuals, and we have all had experience—I certainly have—of landlords who were eccentric or who responded in ways that were unresponsive. Perhaps it would be a positive step to consider how the legislation works in practice. If unresponsive landlords are an issue, will the Minister at least commit to reviewing the situation?
The Chair
Obviously the Minister is free to intervene, but we will have to move on. Do you want to withdraw the amendment or press it to a vote?
Chi Onwurah
Given the debate that we have had, and given that we have registered our concerns on the record, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Chi Onwurah
I beg to move amendment 6, in clause 1, page 5, line 12, at end insert—
“(8) Any operator exercising Part 4A code rights is obliged to ensure that alternative operators can easily install the hardware needed to provide their own electronic communications service.
(9) The definition of “easily” in sub-paragraph (8) is to be provided by Ofcom.”
This amendment is intended to ensure that tenants are not “locked in” to using services provided by a single operator.
This is a key amendment, and the fact that it is necessary highlights why the past 10 years have been such a wasted opportunity for telecoms infrastructure. The Opposition are ready to help the Government implement a long-term telecoms industrial strategy. It is a long-held basic tenet of telecoms deployment that infrastructure competition drives investment, innovation and choice. That is the reason why, under Labour, first-generation infrastructure was rolled out to half of all households within 10 years. Under this Government, by contrast, full-fibre broadband has reached only 11% of households, according to the Minister. I believe that the figure is 8% but, either way, it is barely one in 10 households. That is over the same time frame of a decade. With the advice of Ofcom, the previous Labour Government realised that we had to enable infrastructure competition. That was what unbundled local loop was—bringing infrastructure competition to first-generation broadband deployment. You may find it strange, Mr Davies, for a Labour Member of Parliament to be giving instructions to a Conservative Government in competitive market economics.
Chi Onwurah
Well, I am glad you do not find it strange, because it reflects what I am afraid experience has taught me—that the present generation of Conservatives appears to be willing to sacrifice competition to vested interests. Under the Bill one operator could capture a building, roll out infrastructure to that apartment block and fleece the tenants there for ever—having had the first mover advantage in a block, and/or having installed infrastructure so that other competitors cannot install further infrastructure. Examples of that might be using very small ducts, or taking up all the equipment space in a basement.
The amendment would ensure that tenants could not be locked into a particular operator, by requiring that it should be possible for the infrastructure to be shared easily. It would give Ofcom the duty to define what “easily” means. Having worked for Ofcom, as I have said, I know that that can be done quite easily.
Other countries require shared access to building infrastructure. Has the Minister looked at that? Both France and the Netherlands have a much higher proportion of apartment blocks than we do in the UK. As I am sure Members of the Committee are aware from visiting those countries, proportionately many more people live in apartment blocks, and their approach to broadband regulation has ensured that there is better access for competition through a requirement for infrastructure sharing. Could not the Government take stock of those pre-existing solutions, just across the channel, to respond to some of our competition concerns?
Ofcom is taking steps to promote infrastructure competition in what is known as ducts and poles. At this point I should probably declare another interest, in that I was responsible for Ofcom’s 2009 survey of the availability of duct and pole infrastructure. I hoped that it might be taken up a little more quickly than this. Companies laying high-speed fibre cables for broadband and mobile networks may benefit from greater access to Openreach’s telegraph poles and underground tunnels under decisions announced last year by Ofcom, so I would like the Minister to confirm whether similar ease of access can be a part of the Bill. The opportunity to let rival companies access the new buildings when a company such as Openreach provides access represents a real opportunity to increase competition in the market and avoid operator lock-in for what is an essential utility, as the Minister has said. Will the Minister confirm, therefore, that in the spirit of recent Ofcom initiatives we can also extend the scope of the Bill?
Matt Warman
I can return to my conciliatory tone, in the sense that in this case we are interested, through both Ofcom and the Department, to see what can be done on infrastructure sharing. The hon. Lady is right that it is potentially a hugely important initiative, and I enjoyed her account of her 2009 duct and pole work; but she is also right to say that the work is still ongoing, because it is a hard thing to do and it is important that we take a coherent approach to it. In that spirit, I am afraid I would argue that we should be coherent in our approach to infrastructure sharing across the piece, rather than simply introducing a separate regime for people living in multiple dwelling units.
The Bill aims to support leaseholders to access the services they request from the providers they want. It already ensures that leaseholders are not per se locked in to services provided by a single provider; nothing in the Bill prevents a leaseholder with an existing gigabit-capable connection from one service requesting an alternative network to come in and request code rights as well. The Government cannot and should not compel independent commercial companies to alter the way they choose to deliver their services unless there is evidence that a problem exists. That problem is one that we are looking at more broadly.
Far from improving competition in access to gigabit services, the amendment may actually have the unintended consequence of doing the opposite. As the hon. Member knows, much of the cost of connecting premises is in the initial installation. The amendment could therefore seriously undermine the case for operators to make that initial installation, as they risk being undercut by second or third movers who would not have to bear the same costs. Forcing network builders to deploy in a way that allows competitors easy access is likely to benefit only the largest players in the market.
While I sympathise with the aim of the amendment, I do not think the hon. Member seeks to entrench the position of any one large operator further. Part 3 of the code already provides for operators to be able to upgrade electronic communication apparatus and to share use of such apparatus with another operator, should they wish.
The hon. Member might alternatively be seeking to test our thinking about the terms of what an agreement to be imposed might look like. It is worth saying that the process of that agreement is dictated in paragraph 27E(6) of the code, which makes it clear that before we make regulations in relation to the terms that she has discussed, which will be under the affirmative resolution procedure, we must consult interested parties, including operators. The Bill already envisages that the views of interested parties such as other operators will be invited before the details of a regulation are made.
I hope that the hon. Lady understands that we are looking at this more broadly, that we are seeking to do it in the coherent way that I know she is so keen on and that we are going to look at making sure that that is fair and compatible with our other approach. It would surely not be right potentially to restrict the advantage of investment in a particular MDU in a way that could actually discourage that investment in the first place and leave people stranded without the broadband that the whole Bill is intended to produce. With that in mind, while I sympathise with what the hon. Lady is seeking to do, I hope she understands that what she is proposing does not actually do what she seeks to do and could hold back some of the progress that we seek to make with the Bill. I ask that she withdraw the amendment.
Chi Onwurah
I want to continue in the conciliatory tone that the Minister has returned to, so I start by saying that I welcome his clarification that nothing in the Bill prevents a tenant who already has a broadband service from making a request for another broadband service and so invoking the code rights that the Bill gives. I know that that will be welcomed by tenants who have an unacceptable service or receive bad customer service, of which there are unfortunately far too many.
I welcome that clarification, but I cannot be so welcoming of the rest of the Minister’s speech, which raises many issues of competition and economics within the telecoms network sector, with which I am very familiar. When he says that the amendment would not do what I am looking to do, I am afraid that we will have to agree to differ on that. I find it strange that I should say this to him, but the key difference is that Opposition Members do not believe that there is a contradiction between investment and competition, which was the implication of his comment that the amendment, by opening up access to competitors, might chill investment. All the evidence shows—I again refer him to Labour’s example of unbundling local loop—that competition drives investment; it does not chill investment.
I think the Minister was trying to say that a small operator looking to put infrastructure into a 100-apartment block would do so only if it knew that it had exclusive access to that building for a number of years, to recoup its investment, which means that he acknowledges that tenants of that block would likely be locked into using that operator. However, smaller operators could benefit from having easy access to infrastructure installed by larger operators.
On that basis, the Minister’s comments do not reassure me. I gently say to him and the Government that saying that we cannot take measures now because at some point in the future we will have a coherent framework is partially what got us into this position of incoherent ad hoc responses to legislation that is obviously obsolete. While we cannot solve all problems with this legislation, we can at least help to solve problems for tenants and leaseholders in apartment blocks by ensuring greater opportunities for competition. As such, I will press my amendment to a Division.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
The Chair
We now come to the question that the clause stand part of the Bill. Members who have not spoken may want to make a short speech, but I am not requesting it.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Matt Warman
I will be considerably briefer than I would be in a normal stand part debate, because we covered a lot of ground in discussing the amendments. However, suffice it to say that the purpose of the Bill is to create a bespoke process for telecoms operators to seek access to leased premises, starting with MDUs in cases where a landlord repeatedly fails to respond to an operator’s requests for access. As we have discussed, part 4A is the crux of the Bill. To be brief, new paragraph 27A is an introductory provision that explains the ambition of a court making an order imposing an agreement that provides rights under the code between an operator and a landlord. That will be where: first, those rights are required in respect of land that is connected to the lease premises; and secondly, the occupier or another person with an interest in the land has not responded to repeated notices given by the operator seeking agreement to confer or otherwise be bound by those rights.
The Bill sets out the time period between giving and receiving notices, and it is only in the case of unresponsiveness that an operator is able to apply for a part 4A order. Crucially, an effect of new paragraph 27D is that a landlord who responds in writing to any of the operator’s notices will come out of the scope of the part 4A process, as we discussed at some length earlier. The Bill makes it clear that access rights may be used only for the purposes of providing an electronic communications service to the target premises.
Therefore, I hope that you will agree, Mr Davies, that this clause, in terms of both its length and the matters contained within it, is central to the Bill and to the policy underpinning it. It provides a much-needed process that will play a large part in ensuring that many tenants are part of this Government’s nationwide gigabit broadband upgrade.
Chi Onwurah
I am disappointed that the Minister has not seen fit to accept any of the amendments that we have put forward.
Chi Onwurah
The Minister indicates from a sedentary position that he has accepted the spirit, and I welcome his conciliatory tone in that respect. I hope that the clause will achieve its objectives by making it easier for telecoms operators to gain access in order to deploy gigabit infrastructure. I remain convinced that this will not do much to make up for the time lost in deploying gigabit-capable infrastructure and that, in rejecting our amendments, the Minister has lost an opportunity to improve the Bill. However, we accept that the Bill is positive and will support the clause.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 2
Related amendments
Question proposed, that the clause stand part of the Bill.
Matt Warman
Clause 2 is a brief but important clause that introduces the schedule that makes related amendments to two pieces of legislation to complement the Bill. That legislation is the Communications Act 2003 and, contained within it, the electronic communications code and its related jurisdiction rights.
Chi Onwurah
I rise simply to say that we are happy for clause 2 to stand part of the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 2 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule
Related amendments
Matt Warman
I beg to move amendment 2, in the schedule, page 9, line 17, at end insert—
“(10A) In paragraph 95(1), after paragraph (a) insert—
(aa) in relation to Wales, the First-tier Tribunal, but only in connection with proceedings under Part 4A;”.
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 3.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government amendments 3 and 1.
New clause 1—Report on resources to deal with proceedings arising under Part 4A of the code—
“The Secretary of State must prepare and publish a report on the adequacy of the resources available to First-tier Tribunal to deal with proceedings arising under Part 4A of the electronic communications code and must lay a copy of the report before Parliament within six months of this Act receiving Royal Assent.”
Matt Warman
At its heart, the Bill is about making it faster and cheaper for digital infrastructure providers to seek rights to install their services in leasehold properties. The Bill is also concerned with not permitting consistently unresponsive landlords to stand in the way of receiving the connectivity that households need. The Government have tabled three amendments that respond to helpful suggestions, first made by the senior judiciary of both the first-tier and upper tribunals. Our amendments also respond to the welcome interventions made by hon. Members on Second Reading—I am glad to see some of those Members here today.
Without these amendments, applications would commence in the upper tribunal in England and Wales and the Lands Tribunal for Scotland, and would be dealt with in the county court in Northern Ireland. Commencing cases in the upper tribunal is a reasonable route, because it aligns the new process with the electronic communications code. The process still works in principle, but we should also ensure that it works as well as possible in the real world to deliver the faster, cheaper outcomes that we seek. We continue to be mindful that, with up to an estimated 2,650 cases per year in England and Wales, we need to hear cases at the most appropriate level.
Presently, the upper tribunal hears cases and makes determinations in respect of disputes concerning the interpretation. As such, the Government need to continue to work with that tribunal and its equivalents elsewhere. The need to ensure that the upper tribunal has the capacity to deal with the part 4A applications was raised on Second Reading. The matter has also been the subject of discussion between my officials and their counterparts at the Ministry of Justice, as well as senior members of the judiciary from the relevant chambers of the first-tier and upper tribunals.
The number of part 4A cases is estimated to be significant. The upper tribunal, with just two judges, would not have the bandwidth to deal with that volume of cases, regardless of the fact that the applications are expected to be relatively straightforward. While the process as drafted continues to work in principle, therefore, in practice we agree with the representations that we have heard that placing an additional burden on the upper tribunal would not necessarily provide us with the resources that we need. We are grateful to senior members of the judiciary from the first-tier and upper tribunals with whom my officials met.
In the light of those considerations, the amendments provide for applications for part 4A orders to commence in the first-tier tribunal in England and Wales and the sheriff court in Scotland. I hope that Committee members agree with that important change. In comparison with the small number of judges that I mentioned, 15 salaried judges and an additional 125 fee-paid judges sit in five courts across England, and 142 sheriffs preside over 39 courts in Scotland, so the change significantly increases the resources available and addresses some of the concerns expressed, sensibly, by hon. Members from both sides of the House on Second Reading. I am glad that we have found a sensible way forward that increases the resources available. It is a sensible and pragmatic move that has a significant effect but does not alter the principle of the Bill.
New clause 1 proposes that a report be made to make it clear that we have the necessary resources. As I said, we are confident that applications for part 4A orders will, in due course, be heard on the papers—without the need for an oral hearing—and our intention is for the process to be as low in burden as possible. Of course, we will monitor the resourcing of the first-tier tribunal to ensure that it has the capacity to dispense with those cases. Ultimately, that information can be obtained in a number of ways, such as by tabling parliamentary questions or through the fact that the proceedings are public.
Again, we sympathise with the intentions of the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central, but it is clear from the amendments tabled in my name that we are already addressing the substance of what she asks. Ultimately, the information that she seeks is already widely available in equivalent cases and will continue to be in future, so introducing an additional administrative burden would neither provide more information nor be a sensible use of resources. I hope that she will withdraw the new clause in that spirit.
Chi Onwurah
It is a pleasure to respond positively, and not just in spirit but in practice, to the Minister’s amendments. They respond to concerns that we raised on Second Reading and those raised by others about increasing resources. The number of judges available to consider those requests and cases leaves much to be desired. Hopefully the Government’s amendments will make the limited scope of the Bill more effective, so we are happy to accept them.
New clause 1 responds to that by acknowledging that our judiciary is under severe strain at every stage. The new clause is designed with accountability and transparency in mind, so that we can see the impact of the new legislation on the resources available. The legislation sets out new legal functions. As with all good legislation, we must ensure that the new mechanisms are robust and well-resourced to ensure that the legislation does what it is meant to do, and does not fail when it makes contact with reality.
The new clause would require a report on resources to deal with proceedings arising under part 4A of the code be prepared and published within six months of the Act receiving Royal Assent. It aims to ensure that we see the impact on our judiciary. Although the information may be available, I am sure that the Minister is aware that nothing concentrates minds as much as laying a report before Parliament for scrutiny by right hon. and hon. Members. That gives an opportunity to see how the legislation works in practice. I am sure the Minister is proud of the legislation and the impact it will have, so he must welcome the opportunity to speak to that in the House.
We do not have an impact assessment for this legislation. It is a short Bill, but that does not mean that its impact may not be important. When I spoke to operators, they estimated that it might cost around £30,000 to take a request through the tribunal. That is their estimate—I have not seen any Government figures to confirm whether they consider that to be high or low, but that would have been a welcome part of an impact assessment. The sum of £30,000 for a tribunal to access an apartment block with 10 apartments means an additional cost to the operator of £3,000 per customer. That has an impact on the business case for that investment in the first place.
Seema Malhotra
I am not seeking to incur the Minister’s displeasure by bringing in wider issues on leaseholding, but when landlords may be taken to court for any matter, they potentially charge their fees back to their leaseholders. Perhaps we should make sure that there is some protection.
Chi Onwurah
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Without raising all the concerns surrounding leasehold, it is well known that freeholders may charge the leaseholders for the costs they incur when seeking legal judgments. In addition to the £30,000 that the operator would put on to the cost of the service deployment, therefore, the leaseholders and ultimately the tenants may also find themselves facing the costs incurred by the freeholder going to tribunal.
Matt Warman
I take the hint, Mr Davies. I will briefly address a couple of issues raised by the hon. Lady. The cost of an application by an operator will be determined by the court, but we anticipate that the application fee will be under £500. She might have been including the cost of investment, which by definition is an investment that the operator is seeking to make by applying through the code.
Chi Onwurah
To clarify, I am not including the cost of investment. From talking to operators, on top of the cost of applying they will have lawyers’ fees and internal costs. Those are the costs that I have been told about—not the cost of the infrastructure, but the cost of going to tribunal for an organisation, as part of its daily operating costs.
Matt Warman
None the less, the legislation cuts a tribunal process from several tens of thousands of pounds to a £500 fee, which is indisputably a significant reduction.
The hon. Lady talked about focusing the minds of Ministers. I would say gently that parliamentary questions, oral questions and indeed Westminster Hall debates also focus minds. I look forward to celebrating the success of the Bill through that means, rather than through the proposal set out in the new clause.
Amendment 2 agreed to.
Amendment made: 3, in the schedule, page 9, line 22, leave out paragraphs 4 and 5 and insert—
“4 The Electronic Communications Code (Jurisdiction) Regulations 2017 are amended as follows.
4A In regulation 2(1) (interpretation), after the definition of “the code” insert—
‘“Part 4A proceedings” means proceedings under Part 4A of the code;’.
4B (1) Regulation 3 (conferral of jurisdiction on tribunals) is amended as follows.
(2) The existing text becomes paragraph (1).
(3) In that paragraph—
(a) in the words before sub-paragraph (a), after “Subject to” insert “paragraph (2) and”;
(b) for sub-paragraphs (a) and (b) (including the final “and”) substitute—
“(aa) in relation to England and Wales, the First-tier Tribunal and the Upper Tribunal, and”;
(c) omit the words after sub-paragraph (c).
(4) After that paragraph insert—
“(2) Functions are exercisable by the First-tier Tribunal under paragraph (1)(aa) only—
(a) in connection with relevant proceedings in relation to England that have been transferred to the First-tier Tribunal by the Upper Tribunal, and
(b) in connection with Part 4A proceedings (whether in relation to England or Wales).
(3) Any provision of the code which confers a function on the court is, to the extent that the function is exercisable by a tribunal under this regulation, to be read as if the reference to the court included reference to that tribunal.”
4C (1) Regulation 4 (jurisdiction for commencement of proceedings) is amended as follows.
(2) In the heading, for “relevant” substitute “certain”.
(3) The existing text becomes paragraph (1).
(4) After that paragraph insert—
“(2) Part 4A proceedings must be commenced—
(a) in relation to England and Wales, in the First-tier Tribunal, or
(b) in relation to Scotland, in the sheriff court.”
5 The amendments made by paragraphs 4 to 4C do not limit the provision that may be made by regulations under paragraph 95 of the code.” —(Matt Warman.)
This amendment provides that proceedings under new Part 4A of the Code must be commenced in the First-tier Tribunal (in relation to England and Wales) or in the sheriff court (in relation to Scotland), instead of in the Upper Tribunal or the Lands Tribunal for Scotland respectively.
Question proposed, That the schedule, as amended, be the schedule to the Bill.
Matt Warman
I shall be brief. The schedule sets out related amendments to other legislation which were introduced by clause 2. It contains the amendments to section 402 of, and schedule 3A to, the Communications Act 2003, also amending the electronic communications code. We have already discussed the consequences of the schedule so, with that, I commend it to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Schedule, as amended, accordingly agreed to.
Clause 3
Extent, commencement and short title
Amendment made: 1, in clause 3, page 7, line 21, leave out—
“amendment made by paragraph 4 of the Schedule extends”
and insert—
“amendments made by paragraphs 4 to 4C of the Schedule extend”.—(Matt Warman.)
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 3.
Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
Matt Warman
The clause makes an important provision in respect of the Bill’s territorial extent and commencement. As Members may be aware, telecommunications is a reserved matter in all three of the devolution settlements. The territorial extent of the Bill is to England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, but there is one exception: the amendment made by paragraph 4 of the schedule, which extends only to England and Wales, and Scotland because the statutory instrument being amended by paragraph 4 does not extent do Northern Ireland. It is important to have that on the record. I commend the clause to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 3, as amended, accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Matt Warman
On a point of order, Mr Davies. I will briefly do the customary thing of thanking the Bill Committee members who have had such a full and compressed day. I also thank all the officials who have worked so hard on the Bill and you, Mr Davies, for such brilliant chairmanship.
Chi Onwurah
Further to that point of order, Mr Davies. I echo the Minister’s thanks. I also thank the officials who have helped us in drafting and tabling our amendments.
The Chair
Let us hope that the broadband is as quick as this Committee.
Bill, as amended, to be reported.
Agriculture Bill (First sitting)
Tuesday 11th February 2020
(4 years, 10 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 11 February 2020 - (11 Feb 2020)
The Chair
Before we begin, I have a few preliminary points. Please switch off mobile phones. Tea and coffee is not allowed; that is not me being pompous—the Speaker does not allow tea or coffee in the Committee Rooms. Until that changes, Lent has come early and it is definitely water only.
We will first consider the programme motion on the amendment paper. We will then consider a motion to enable the reporting of written evidence for publication and then a motion to allow us to deliberate in private about our questions before the oral evidence session. In view of the limited time available, I hope we can take those matters without too much debate.
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)
I beg to move, Date Time Witness Tuesday 11 February Until no later than 10.30 am Nature Friendly Farming Network; Farmwel; LEAF; British Growers Association Tuesday 11 February Until no later than 11.25 am RSPB; RSPCA; Rare Breed Survival Trust; Traceability Design User Group; Livestock Information Ltd Tuesday 11 February Until no later than 2.30 pm Ulster Farmers Union; DAERA Tuesday 11 February Until no later than 3.00 pm NFU; National Federation of Young Farmers Clubs Tuesday 11 February Until no later than 3.30 pm Cooperatives UK Tuesday 11 February Until no later than 4.15 pm Campaign to Protect Rural England; Kings Crops; Holkham Estate Tuesday 11 February Until no later than 5.00 pm Country Land and Business Association; Tenant Farmers Association Thursday 13 February Until no later than 12.15 pm NFU Cymru; Farmers’ Union of Wales; Welsh Government Thursday 13 February Until no later than 1.00 pm Soil Association Thursday 13 February Until no later than 2.30 pm NFU Scotland; Quality Meat Scotland; Scottish Government Thursday 13 February Until no later than 3.00 pm George Monbiot, The Guardian Thursday 13 February Until no later than 3.30 pm Professor Bill Keevil, University of Southampton Thursday 13 February Until no later than 4.00 pm Unite; Landworkers Alliance Thursday 13 February Until no later than 4.30 pm Sustain; Compassion in World Farming Thursday 13 February Until no later than 5.00 pm Which?
That—
(1) the Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 9.25 am on Tuesday 11 February) meet—
(a) at 2.00 pm on Tuesday 11 February;
(b) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 13 February;
(c) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 25 February;
(d) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 27 February;
(e) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 3 March;
(f) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 5 March;
(g) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 10 March;
(2) the Committee shall hear oral evidence in accordance with the following Table:
(3) proceedings on consideration of the Bill in Committee shall be taken in the following order: Clauses 1 to 28; Schedule 1; Clause 29; Schedule 2; Clauses 30 to 34; Schedule 3; Clause 35; Schedule 4; Clauses 36 to 43; Schedule 5; Clauses 44 and 45; Schedule 6; Clauses 46 to 49; Schedule 7; Clauses 50 to 54; new Clauses; new Schedules; remaining proceedings on the Bill;
(4) the proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 5.00 pm on Tuesday 10 March.
The programme motion was agreed by the Programming Sub-Committee yesterday. I hope we are all agreed on the programme motion, and I look forward to hearing evidence from witnesses in the order set out.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That, subject to the discretion of the Chair, any written evidence received by the Committee shall be reported to the House for publication.—(George Eustice.)
The Chair
Copies of written evidence that the Committee receives will be made available in the Committee Room. Colleagues can get papers on that table over there. The helpful Clerks will indicate where they are; if Members go around, behind me or the witnesses, they can pick up the papers.
Resolved,
That, at this and any subsequent meeting at which oral evidence is to be heard, the Committee shall sit in private until the witnesses are admitted.—(George Eustice.)
The Chair
Q
Jack Ward: My name is Jack Ward, and I am the chief executive of the British Growers Association, which predominantly operates in the fresh produce sector—fresh fruit and fresh vegetables.
Caroline Drummond: I am Caroline Drummond, the chief executive of LEAF—Linking Environment and Farming—a farming environment charity promoting more sustainable agriculture and a whole-farm approach, with demonstration farms, the LEAF marque and a public outreach area. I am also married to a dairy farmer.
ffinlo Costain: I am ffinlo Costain, the chief executive of Farmwel, which was established to develop a really positive outlook on reform of the common agricultural policy post Brexit. We work very closely with the FAI—Food Animal Initiative—farm in Oxford, which is one of the world’s largest food sustainability consultancies.
Martin Lines: I am Martin Lines, an arable farmer from Cambridgeshire. I am the UK chair of the Nature Friendly Farming Network. We have farm membership across the UK, as well as public membership and organisations that support the network.
The Chair
May I say to our witnesses, if you have never previously appeared before a Committee, that there is nothing at all to be worried about? My colleagues are very friendly. They are just trying to get information from you to use during the Committee stage of our proceedings. The session ends at 10.30 am, so it will go very quickly.
George Eustice
Q
ffinlo Costain: One of the key challenges with the common agricultural policy is that it has largely rewarded farmers for owning land, and it has presided over an enormous disconnect between farmers, other people in the countryside, and customers, and often the supply chain as well. The huge advantage of the new legislation is that, in changing the funding system to public funds for public goods, we will be able to deliver the changes that we need—the farm animal welfare improvements, the sustainability improvements, the climate mitigation, and the biodiversity restoration, which has been so degraded under the common agricultural policy.
Make no bones about it: we are facing a climate and nature emergency that is upon us now, not tomorrow. It is critical that we get this right. For me, getting land use right is the golden ticket. Having the opportunity at this time to reform land use—so that we can continue producing good food and good nutrition, delivering national security in that way, which is critically important, as well as delivering climate mitigation, land adaption to help with climate change, and biodiversity restoration—is absolutely critical. The Bill comes at the perfect time, and it is well set up. There are some challenges within it, and some issues that I think we will address, but in general terms it is very positive.
Martin Lines: As a farm owner and a tenant, under the current system, with the single farm payment, I am encouraged to farm to the very edge of fields. Biodiversity and other bits of the landscape are not rewarded. As a tenant, my landlord takes away most if not all of my single farm payment on top of the rent. If we move to a public goods model, I actually get rewarded for the delivery of services as a land manager—as a farmer—so we would move into a system that better supports actual farmers, rather than the ownership and management of the landscape.
Caroline Drummond: One of the real challenges of the past system was the capability to drive ambition for farmers. It was a “Tell me what I’m doing” type of approach, so going forward, we have a real opportunity to demonstrate leadership, vision and ambition for our farming sector. Ensuring that we get the right governance is going to be really important. There needs to be partnership and development of trust between Governments, from voluntary approaches that are externally, independently verified such as farm assurance schemes, right through to building on some of the success stories of capability and innovation that we have seen among some of the farmers who are already thriving and doing very well in this country.
Jack Ward: The fresh produce industry has not benefited that greatly from the CAP. We are about 170,000 hectares; we have an output of about £2 billion from that area, and the contribution from the basic payment scheme is about £40 million. However, the contribution from the producer organisation scheme, which is broadly equivalent, has been incredibly important. I think we would like to see that continue in some shape or form.
In terms of opportunities, there is a terrific opportunity to increase the amount of fruit and veg that we currently produce. In some sectors, such as tomatoes, we are very dependent on imports. We import eight out of 10 tomatoes that we consume in the UK; we must be able to do better than that.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
Q
ffinlo Costain: It is really important for Government to set a framework, but if there is a criticism of the way that Europe and the common agricultural policy have worked in the past, it is that it has been way too prescriptive. That has meant that, to a large extent, farmers have learned to do what they are told, rather than to properly understand and integrate what they are doing on their land.
My own view is that Government should become more goal-centred. They need to set the right metrics and to understand what outcomes they are trying to achieve, but then they need to take a step back and allow farmers to farm. Farmers understand their land, and if they have a funding model that supports environmental excellence and other public goods—restoration of soil health and so on—they can work out ways to do that. I would hate to see a situation where there is a continuing prescriptive approach, but it is focused on the environment rather than on how to produce cattle, and we end up with farmers still not really understanding what they are doing and simply farming the subsidy.
We need ownership of change, and farmers can do that. Farmers understand their land; they know their land, and if we give them the freedom to work within that public goods model, they will deliver the outcomes. They will step up. They are a standing army out there, ready to do this, and they will step up and do it.
Martin Lines: I have concerns about what the ELM for England would look like, the transition period, and how the funding is going to work. We need more detail about what the future will be, so that the farmers can start changing and adapting now to the model of what is coming. There is some concern, particularly about the transition period. As we go into the new system and payments under the current system tail off, what is going to bridge the lull in the middle, and how do we get farmers to step across to the new system at speed?
Caroline Drummond: I agree. There needs to be the policy documentation, so we can identify what this is going to look like and how the knitting all joins up—there are lots of balls of wool, but what are we trying to knit at the end of the day? Not much has been left out of the Bill, which is really key, but we need to know how it will be interpreted and how the ELMS projects will be carried out. There are a lot of them going on, and we need to know how they will be brought together to demonstrate the delivery against metrics, outcomes and, ultimately, impact. Ultimately, the Government have to deliver against the global and national targets around the sustainable development goals, the Paris agreement, and so on, but the farming sector has the opportunity to support us in demonstrating that we are helping on issues around climate change, biodiversity, soil improvement and those matters.
The Chair
Before bringing in Danny Kruger, I should have told new Members that, when they start questioning—they do not have to do it every time—they should declare any financial interest they have in these areas.
Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)
Q
Martin Lines: For many of the tenancies, the price per hectare per area went up, compared with the payment, so they see that as a benefit of owning the land. Many landlords get the payment directly and the farmer has to manage, which disconnects the reward from managing the landscape, so the current system does not benefit the farmer. It challenges cash flow, because as a tenant I am paying rent for six to 12 months before I get it back under the payments system, so there a problem with cash flow, particularly with late payments. There is a big issue with the new system about payment timings. There are huge challenges under the new system.
Under the current system, we know that some landlords are trying to get the stewardship payment, or parts of it, but under the new system, if you are delivering habitat, or pollen and nectar, bits and pieces, you are the farmer doing the work. You should be getting the reward. There will be an increase in capital, and the landlord will be rewarded for capital aspects and other things that are delivered on the landscape.
The Bill should be about encouraging the whole-farm approach of better farm land management and looking at all aspects, not just food production—pollination, flood mitigation, soil health improvement and public access. The farmer’s role is not just about food production; it is about providing goods and services. The definition of a farmer is someone who manages land to deliver goods and services. One of those is food, but many other things can be delivered, and if we move the system, we can be rewarded for those and create a better system.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Q
ffinlo Costain: I think you are quite right about the key concern that I and other colleagues I have spoken with have. There has to be a whole-farm approach. If public goods are being delivered, it has to be a combination of public goods and we need baseline assessments supporting that around carbon and biodiversity that are whole-farm. From our perspective, it would be horrible if we go through all this work and have all this ambition but end up with a sparing approach, where we have one bit of land put off for sequestration with Sitka spruce, creating the various challenges that that does, another bit for rewilding, and another bit for ever-more intensive food production. It is critically important that we face the challenges of the whole-farm approach. The best and most efficient way to make progress is for every hectare, as far as possible, to deliver good, nutritious food, climate mitigation and adaptation, and biodiversity restoration. A whole-farm approach is absolutely critical, and we would welcome an amendment that crystallises that and makes it clearer in the Bill.
Martin Lines: The only concern is with those who do not engage in the system and choose not to take public goods money. How are they going to be legislated for against the minimum standards?
Kerry McCarthy
Q
Martin Lines: Under the current system we have cross-compliance. With those who choose not to engage in the system, because they want to push for productivity, how is the system going to legislate for and regulate the basic standards? Who is going to be the policeman for the countryside, to raise standards and make sure they are enforced? We have seen many problems already with soil health degradation and other environmental issues that are not being addressed.
Kerry McCarthy
Q
Martin Lines: We are not sure who is going to be holding them to account or what kind of standards there are. Nor do we know how those who choose not to engage in the system will be held to account, because you cannot withhold a payment if they are not receiving a public goods payment. We need to make sure that that standards system is in place.
Caroline Drummond: I think there are some nuances, in terms of the “mays” and the “musts”—there should be a bit more “must” in some areas. Whole-farm approaches are absolutely critical. I have been an advocate of the whole-farm approach for the last 30 years, and I think it is absolutely key to making sure that soil management, climate change mitigation and biodiversity, and indeed landscape and cluster-type approaches, are driven in. That is where the ELMS projects will be really vital. A lot of their design is based around land management plans, which I imagine will be whole-farm. A lot of the third tier is proposed to be around cluster groups and landscape scale-type approaches. It goes back to this question of farmers choosing not to be engaged at all, how do we account for that? How do we really drive and match the ELMS within the ambition of the Bill?
Jack Ward: While there is a lot of focus on public money for public goods, making sure that UK agriculture is inherently profitable is hugely important, because no amount of public funding is going to supplement an overall lack of profitability. If in five years’ time we have an inherently unprofitable farming industry for whatever reason, I just do not think there is going to be enough public funding available to make good that shortfall. Alongside public money for public goods, we really have to ensure that basic agriculture can wash its face.
The Chair
Mr Costain, and then we really must move on.
ffinlo Costain: The issue of eligibility for public funds is really critical. What Wales is planning is interesting. It is planning that there will be a requirement for baseline assessments on carbon and biodiversity before farmers are even eligible for the public goods payment. That will take place annually to continue that eligibility. That is a really positive approach, and it is important. Whole-farm, getting the eligibility, making sure of that baseline and continued monitoring of metrics are critical.
Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
Q
Caroline Drummond: I am not too sure. It is interesting that there is a lot about livestock production in here, but a lot of that level of detail will have to come through the policy support, because upland farmers are under a huge amount of pressure. There are discussions around the meat challenges of Veganuary and climate change mitigation, but we should look at what they offer in terms of tourism and capability to manage. For those very sensitive land areas, right through to some of the high-value peat areas, I think there will be the need to get some really good ELM projects to better understand how we can support those farmers. Exeter University is doing a lot of work in this area at the moment to find out how those farmers, as Jack just said, can actually make a profit at the end of the day. There are a lot of social services, public goods, environmental goods, tourism and additionalities that these farmers offer on incredibly tight margins.
Martin Lines: I think there will be movement with payments. As an arable farmer in Cambridgeshire on a large field system, the productivity of my landscape is really good. Most years it is quite a good, profitable system. If you are in the marginal areas—the uplands, in the west country where there is a smaller field-scale system—the public goods should be rewarding you more. I will probably receive less public goods money, but that will be moved, hopefully, across to the uplands and those cherished areas that cannot deliver more productivity, but need to be supported to deliver the public goods and with the landscape delivery stuff. It should be swings and roundabouts, but it should be fair. The detail is not in there and we need to see that transition. It is going to be about the journey if we move from one to the other and give farmers confidence about the future.
ffinlo Costain: I understand your point, Mr Goodwill. There is one farmer we work with in Northumberland with 1,000-odd acres on a sheep farm. When we have run the metrics of looking at his carbon footprint with GWP*—global warming potential “star”—the new accurate way of accounting for methane, which is very different from the way methane was accounted for 18 months ago and was recognised in the Committee on Climate Change land report just a couple of weeks ago, his farm impact is less than the average household of four, which is astonishing. We want to make sure that farm continues to get the funding as well.
We have proposed in the past that an acreage basis for that continuing maintenance of excellence could be a way to go because we need to make sure—exactly as I think you are saying—that we do not just restore biodiversity, we do not just mitigate climate change, but we hold and maintain that excellence afterwards. I hope that, within public goods applications, farmers will be able to make the case that they are continuing to deliver excellence. All farms can be better managed. We never achieve sustainability; it is a journey. However, if farmers can make the case that they are delivering public goods and continuing to deliver that—I would like to hear from Ministers on that—I hope they will continue to be eligible.
Jack Ward: From the fresh produce industry, in terms of sector, I think there is a lot of interest in what the ELMS might offer. Just coming back to the earlier question: until we see the detail it is difficult to make a judgment.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
Q
Martin Lines: If we do not have the rug taken from under our feet: we are told to produce to a standard, but if different standards are allowed to be imported, how can we compete? Our costs are different. If the standard is positive across the platform, we can compete. It may be a different price model, but we can compete with that standard. We should export our environmental footprint. We can bring in produce from around the world to the same standard, so other people’s standards can increase. There is huge risk because if we are told to produce goods to a standard, then yes, there needs to be something in the Bill or an assessment of the amount of stuff allowed in that is below our standards. We already allow in a lot of products below our standards. We are not allowed to use neonicotinoid treatments or genetically modified processes in the UK, but we import huge quantities. So there needs to be that sort of balance. I would struggle to say none, but there needs to be balance and fairness for the whole farming industry.
Caroline Drummond: It would be fair to say they are extremely concerned, and I think the majority of farmers are very concerned about not undercutting the capability and the investment that they have made. We are very fortunate. We work with a lot of can-do farmers who have made a huge investment in making sure they reach the level of trying to be more sustainable; trying to ensure that welfare standards are meeting and going beyond the regulation; and driving for new innovation and ways of improving and doing things. As Martin has said, offshoring the environmental and animal welfare delivery and the learnings we have made from those practices that are just not acceptable—not only to our farmers but to our customers—is not good news. There is a double whammy because although many countries say they do not support their farmers, they do in many different ways. That will be through investments and free advice. You just have to go on to the United States Department of Agriculture website to see the substantial amount of money that is going to support marketing, drainage schemes, flood alleviation, irrigation and so on. We need to be very careful. There is that second hit of not only importing produce that potentially does not meet the standards or requirements of our farmers, but in addition to that is also being supported through different ways.
Jack Ward: In the fresh produce industry, we already import from about 90 countries, so there is a fair degree of free trade within fresh produce. I think the areas that would concern our growers are particularly around production systems that would be unlawful in the UK. That is particularly around crop protection and labour welfare standards. Those are two very key areas for the sector.
ffinlo Costain: I think it is terribly important, exactly as everybody else has said, but there are two sides to this particular coin. I understand, hear and welcome what Ministers have said repeatedly, that standards will not be lowered and that trade deals will not allow that to happen but, in terms of farmer and public confidence, it needs to be written in the Bill. I think it is really important that it is there.
I think that partly because of the impact that it could have on food, but also because of the impact it has on the industry that grows up around excellence: the marketing, the branding, the new technology, which Britain can become excellent and fantastic in. Associated with that—the other side of it—is what does brand GB look like? What are we exporting?
The opportunity here is to get something right in Britain, to do something excellent in terms of food production and the environment, and to export that knowledge and those brands and that technology around the world. When I look at Ireland, with Origin Green, it is the only example that exists of a national scheme of metrics. In Ireland, it is only around carbon; it does not yet incorporate GWP*, so it is flawed. It does not include biodiversity.
There is an opportunity for Britain when we get the metrics right, when we are collecting these at a national level, which also, by the way, means that we can better inform policy making in future, that this can underpin the British brand. If we allow food in that is undercutting our standards, it undermines our brand. It not only undermines our farmers, but the industry as a whole.
Caroline Drummond: We operate a global standard with LEAF marque; 40% of UK fruit and veg is LEAF marque certified. The fresh produce and the farmers that we work with on a global scale are meeting the same requirements demanded of our farmers in this country.
The Chair
We are now halfway through the evidence session. I have lots of colleagues who want to ask questions and I want to ensure that they are all called.
Miss Sarah Dines (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)
Q
Martin Lines: It would be a mixture of both. Many of the tenancies that are currently written are too short, with many of three to five years, because of the uncertainty ahead. They would be rewritten and reframed. The person doing the job— the work, the delivery of those public goods—should receive the income.
If it is about land, natural capital and something infrastructure-wise of trees, the landowner may get some of that. If it is about the delivery of habitat and flood mitigation, so that you are losing crop yield or change of land use, the tenant can manage some of that. It will be a redefining, but I think the industry will cope with it. We just need the timeframe for how we deliver it.
Daniel Zeichner
Q
Caroline Drummond: I think potentially farmers will walk away from supporting them ultimately, if the marketplace is not delivering against the requirements expected of the imported produce and farmers are increasingly required to deliver against goods that are costing them from a business perspective. That is one of the big dangers. A bigger issue is offshoring, and the fact that we have nine years to deliver against the sustainable development goals. We have the Paris agreements. We have a fantastic opportunity with the conference of the parties talks on climate change being held in this country later this year to herald our ambitions for delivering and demonstrating leadership in environmental delivery and in climate change mitigation delivery.
We might think we can compete on a global level in terms of a huge productivity market, but actually we are just small producers on a global scale. Our real opportunity lies in being the best at what we do. We already have such a good background: despite all the criticism that farmers get for delivering or not delivering against the environment, they have been hugely committed since 2001, after foot and mouth, through entry level stewardship and higher level stewardship agreements, to deliver vast changes and improvements, with strong ownership in how farmers are farming in this country. It would be a real shame to lose that. The Bill is an opportunity to build on that backbone and to place our farmers in a position whereby we continue to be world leading, but with more focused ambition and strong clarity on what we deliver from an environmental perspective.
Jack Ward: In terms of delivering environmental outcomes, we are looking at a balance between a farmer or grower’s own investment and public money. If you start to cut away at the farmer’s ability to invest as an individual, you lose an important part of the funding that will deliver the overall environmental improvements that you are looking for.
ffinlo Costain: I think the future for UK farmers has to be in quality. Volume production will increasingly become a mug’s game. I would not advise farmers to go into it. It should be about environmental excellence, animal welfare excellence and sustainability excellence. The danger is that if it comes into the country, some customers—perhaps quite a lot of customers—will buy it. That is where the undermining happens: it undermines our ability to develop that comprehensive basis for environmental excellence, and it will challenge emerging supply chains in particular. Part of our big challenge over the next 10 years is to shorten supply chains and to make sure that farmers are better able to claim decent farm-gate prices by selling direct or through many fewer cogs before they reach the customer. I worry about those smaller and emerging supply chains being undermined.
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)
How do you assess that the security of food supply will be improved by the Bill? What do you see as the UK’s greatest threat to food security?
Martin Lines: Food security can only come from healthy soil and a healthy environment. If we over-produce from our soils, we degrade them and there will be no food security for future generations. We need a balance of how we manage our landscape and how much we can produce from that balanced landscape. We can then consider what products we need to import, and whether we need to do other things or change diets or change tjhe system. There needs to be an assessment of how our landscape looks, with a joined-up approach to landscape productivity.
ffinlo Costain: Traditionally, food security has been about volume and about being able to feed everybody. That has led us to the challenges we now face, which Martin just referred to. Food security comes from being able to produce good, nutritious, diverse and seasonally available food. That means we need to restore soil, have good water management, and good community dynamics, with complexity returned to our swards and landscapes where nature works with farmers to produce that food.
Looking forward 40 years to how society could break down as a result of climate change and biodiversity loss, food is the critical factor. If you look around the world at conflicts, including Syria, food is the critical factor that creates conflict. The way that we deliver national security is not by producing volume, but by ensuring that every hectare of our land can produce really good food, and by maintaining the rural economies and the ability of farmers to farm that land. That is why it is critical that we do not go down the route of sequestration here, wilding there, and food here. We need to be able to build broad diversity so that we have national food security in the future.
Caroline Drummond: There is often a lot of confusion around food security. There is the issue of our capability to grow, and having the infrastructure to support farmers with seed, fertiliser, tractor tyres, and investment in that area. There is the issue of what we actually mean by self-sufficiency, how we build our targets, and whether we are ambitious enough. There is food safety. We have some concerns about imported produce in terms of food safety challenges. That has been well heralded. There is also the issue of food defence—our capability to trade confidently, and to have the opportunity to receive food where we do not have self-sufficiency or sufficient produce.
It is a highly complex area. I think it is one area in the Bill where we would report every five years. Perhaps that could be amended to reporting every year, because it is so important.
Jack Ward: In the fresh produce industry, we are very dependent on imports to meet our needs. Arguably, it is the one area of food production where we want to increase consumption. Ultimately, the ability to increase our food security is down to grower confidence, and a willingness by growers to keep investing, and the returns that they can generate from that activity. The last six months have not done great things for grower confidence.
Daniel Zeichner
Q
Martin Lines: If I am producing wheat, I can increase my yield by putting more products on, but that has a higher environmental risk, because a lot of those nitrates and products will leave the soil, because the crop has not used them in some years. If we hit the sweet spot with the productivity of our landscape, we can produce what the landscape can cope with, and push it some years, when needed, as well as ease off. It is about finding the balance point. We know from many livestock farmers that reducing livestock numbers actually makes them healthier, better animals, and they produce quicker because there are fewer there and the grass is better.
We have focused for so long just on yield and output, not profitability. Reducing my overall output gives me more profit at the end of the day. It is a funny way to look at how it works, but you end up spending more than you get in return. You chase the extra yield by spending more money. We need to find the place where we deliver as much as we can. Sometimes we can push that if we need to—if there are weather challenges, or other issues—but we should not be out there just to push it, doing environmental damage as a consequence of my farming operations.
ffinlo Costain: The most intensive food systems are environmentally damaging. They are damaging in terms of farm animal welfare, and often just in terms of the jobs that are provided for people, which are not pleasant. The death knell needs to be rung for those sorts of farms.
There is an assumption that with environmental excellence, because of our association with going from mainstream to organic, comes a reduction in yield. There does not need to be a reduction. There are so many examples, here and around the world—Martin being one—of regenerative agriculture, which is giving environmental excellence and social excellence. Farm animal welfare is not an issue on his farm, but elsewhere there are regenerative beef and cattle systems where yield is being maintained in terms of mainstream amounts, and even increased.
There is an assumption that high environmental standards mean a reduction in yield; that is not necessarily the case. It is not just about looking at volume; it is about looking at a whole range of different changes. We need a dietary shift in Britain. That does not mean no meat and dairy, but it probably does mean a bit less meat and dairy as we go forward, and a bit more fruit and vegetables. We can deliver that, with agroforestry approaches and regenerative approaches. We can more than sufficiently provide food for the people of this country—I have no doubt about that—but it will mean changes in diet, and a little bit of change in the way that we farm, at the same time as focusing on multiple outcomes, rather than simply the outcome of producing lots of food. It is food, climate and biodiversity.
Caroline Drummond: We have a tremendous amount of evidence and case studies to demonstrate the importance of integrated farm management practices and how farmers have increasingly adopted them, in terms of economic viability, good performance and optimising the capability of the land. That is a really strong driver. One of the big keys will be how we link the Agriculture Bill with the Environment Bill and the national food strategy—this is such an opportunity for really trying to work out what it is that we want to develop and to balance and to build in what we grow, how we grow it and how we improve the health of our nation as well.
Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con)
Q
ffinlo Costain: My hope is that we would see growth in all of those areas. In order to have farming excellence we need to have working farms. In the future, there may be fewer farmers spending their days on tractors, but there will be more farmers doing more high-value jobs and more marketing within the countryside. If we look at cattle and shortening supply chains, we ought to be supporting—we can through the Bill—new infrastructure, such as local abattoirs and co-operatively owned abattoirs. That creates new jobs and infrastructure within the countryside, which can then be sold with the marketing and branding jobs that go along with that. I want to see good-quality jobs, not just jobs, and there is the opportunity here, if we get it right, to create good-quality jobs, and more of them.
Caroline Drummond: Maybe I missed it, but I do not know whether the Bill itself would be the driver for more people to say, “Yay, I want to go into agriculture.” There is an opportunity to go into agriculture, with exciting innovations and technology, and the fact that we touch each of the five senses, which no other industry does. We do a lot of education programmes at LEAF. We run Open Farm Sunday. From that point of view, it is about getting more people more connected with their food. Some of the supporting information around things like the national food strategy and the 25-year environment plan have to help to support and drive enthusiasm—have to help to inspire a younger generation to recognise that the food sector, the farming sector and its associated industries are really fantastic. We have fewer young people coming through and we just have to compete a little bit harder than every other industry.
Jack Ward: There will be more competition for labour, and trying to attract people into the industry will be more difficult. Certainly, within our sector there will be a big drive towards automation to take labour out of the equation, because it will be harder to come by. As earlier speakers have alluded to, as a consequence we will see higher-value jobs. We will see more technologists and more people designing and managing systems, rather than doing some of the manual work that we have seen them do over the past 25 years.
The Chair
We have 15 minutes left and at least five colleagues want to ask questions. I call Kerry McCarthy.
Kerry McCarthy
Q
ffinlo Costain: The first thing that needs to happen is that the metrics need to be right. At the moment, the Government are still wedded to GWP100—global warming potential over 100 years—which is focused on emissions, rather than warming from emissions. That is critical, because it really changes the role of cattle and sheep.
Oxford Martin brought out science by Professor Myles Allen, who was an author on the IPCC’s 1.5° C report. We now have an accurate metric for accounting for methane, and it changes things. By and large, the warming impact of cattle and sheep farms will be about 75% down in terms of methane. If we focus on emissions, it drives very different actions. If we focus on warming, we see that cattle and sheep on grazing land that is really well managed, ideally in a regenerative way, can contribute to the climate mitigation, climate adaptation and biodiversity that we are all talking about.
Before we start talking about hard targets, we need to make sure that those metrics are there, because at the moment, farmers are being undermined because they do not trust the metrics. That is critical. The Government clearly have ambitions and goals for net zero elsewhere. Farmers are working towards their own goals. We are working with farmers in Northumberland who control most of the national park there. They are committed to net zero by 2030. We can deliver it rapidly when we get the metrics right.
Fay Jones (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)
Q
Martin Lines: Yes, there is a risk. It is not clear how that regulatory authority and the baseline will work, who will police it, and how that will be transferred across the four nations. If you are farming either side of a border, will you have two different standards? How will you compete with those together?
A lot of what is in the Bill is focused on England. We are waiting for Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland to develop their plans. It is about how we link it together, not race away with just England, because if you are farming both sides of the border, move from one side to the other, or move products from one side to the other, you will have real complications. We do not see that journey of who is going to manage that regulatory authority and baseline.
Jack Ward: If I may chip in on producer organisations, it would be helpful if we could have commonality within producer organisations, and not have one system in Scotland, another in Northern Ireland and another in England.
ffinlo Costain: This touches on non-regression from EU rules, which is really important. I would feel more comfortable if it were stated that there was going to be non-regression on standards.
Regulations are a safety net; they are there so that nobody goes below them. I want farmers to go above them, to tell customers about how they are going above them and delivering, and to brand around that. Theoretically, it should not be an issue, if farmers are going above, stepping beyond, managing to deliver what Kerry was talking about with net zero at an earlier stage, and telling customers about that. The fact that there is a safety net there, and that there may be a bit of divergence between different nations, is less important than the fact that people are going beyond it and they are making money because they are telling customers about it and customers are buying it.
Caroline Drummond: Ultimately, there is the opportunity to create a new governance, in terms of how the Government work with the industry and non-governmental organisations through to farmers and landowners. Some of the reporting that came out of Dame Glenys Stacey’s report demonstrated that there may be new ways for us to make it move forwards effectively.
Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)
Q
Caroline Drummond: Potentially, that all goes back to the metrics, and what we are looking to ultimately deliver. The Environment Bill has set out some of the requirements in that area, although that obviously goes beyond farming as well. The 25-year environment plan also covers that area. We have seen, through things like the sustainable development goals and all our global commitments, that there are some really good opportunities to align our ambition here in the UK with delivering against some of those areas. It all depends on how ELMS are going to be managed and developed, but this is where some good environmental performance metrics and targets are starting to come through—hopefully from some of the targets that farmers are setting and working with Government on in a particular area.
ffinlo Costain: There are two aspects to your question. The first is what those measures are. As many Members here and Ministers know, we have been working very closely with Government, particularly on the farm animal welfare metrics and how those relate to the environment. That is critical; what those metrics are is really important, and Government needs to start collecting those.
Then there is the question of the mechanisms—who collects those metrics, and how. From that perspective, Government could work much more closely with assurance schemes to make sure that the metrics that they are collecting are good proxies for what Government wants, and that the new metrics that the Government are looking at are then embedded within those assurance schemes, so that assurance schemes that are already going on farm can do that metrics collection. Then farmers can sign to say that they are happy for some of those metrics to be self-reported. For example, RSPCA Assured may be collecting 500 metrics, perhaps in terms of pigs or sheep, but Government does not want all of those. There are perhaps 15 key ones that Government wants, and farmers need to tick a box to say that they are happy for those to be self-reported, perhaps through the assurance schemes. So there is what the metrics are, and the mechanisms for collection.
Caroline Drummond: We have already earned recognition with the Environment Agency, Red Tractor and LEAF Marque, in terms of helping support that relationship.
Theo Clarke (Stafford) (Con)
Q
Martin Lines: We need guaranteed long-term funding or the ambition to deliver it. On a five-year rolling plan, I am planning eight or 10-year rotations in farm planning. If you are taking on tenancies for longer than that, the business risk is huge. It is about that long-term development. In the transition that we are going to have from one system to the other, we need to be clear and transparent about how that will fit and how we can move. It has become clearer that if we can enter into a stewardship agreement now, we will be able to move into the ELMS when it becomes available, before the end of the period. It is about how we are flexible within those schemes. The current system has been delayed payments, with a nightmare bureaucracy. It has over-measured and over-regulated, and there has been no trust in the farmer to deliver. We need to build that into the new scheme, and build trust with farmers to work to that system.
ffinlo Costain: Countryside stewardship has been very input-focused. Often farmers have done something because there is a box to tick—because they are getting paid for x, rather than because it necessarily delivers the outcome. I think that is what Martin was alluding to. It is not the most successful scheme. There is this five-year transition, where the basic payments are going out. In that time, it is for farmers to step up and understand how to deliver these outcomes, and to develop, either individually or across landscapes, proposals that deliver those public goods. So long as we are focused on outcomes rather than inputs, we will make progress. Farmers should be absolutely at the forefront of that.
Caroline Drummond: A little bit more security and clarity in the timescale is really important. Obviously, farmers do not make decisions today for tomorrow; many decisions are made three or four years in advance. Many crops are grown for nine or 10 months—for livestock, it is a longer time span—before you get any level of return. That timescale is at the moment not 100% clear, because decisions could be made at the very last minute. That is a big concern.
We must not forget that although a lot of the stewardship has not been ideal, for every pound that farmers get from support mechanisms they are delivering so much more from an environmental perspective, because it is good for their business and because, obviously, they fundamentally believe it. We do need to build confidence that the system will work, and that farmers really want to adopt it. We are involved in some of the trials for the ELMS project, and it is really encouraging to see farmers very much embracing it and saying, “Yeah, we want to be involved.”
ffinlo Costain: I said earlier that land use—the way we farm—is the golden ticket for getting us out of the challenges we face and continuing to support food production. I want to give you a couple of statistics. Funding for agriculture is £3.1 billion, but that is tiny in terms of Government expenditure. For every citizen in Britain, we are paying less than £1 per week to farmers for all the good work they do, which we have been talking about. Compare that with £42 per citizen per week for the NHS. Just administrating central Government is £3.57 a week per citizen, so farming is getting very little.
In terms of managing the transition and making sure that farmers can deliver, somebody has to say it: farmers should be getting more because they are doing such a good job. In the future we will be expecting so much more, and I would like the budget to increase.
Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) (Lab)
Q
Jack Ward: I think the two are largely unrelated. One is an income issue, and there is a separate farming issue. Conflating the two is a problem because the food we produce is often not leaving the farm at a sustainable price, and the opportunity to drive that price down is very limited.
Martin Lines: We need clear transparency within the supply chains, and parts of the Bill address that. Who is getting the benefit out of the produce? Farmers are selling at a gate price that is way lower than the retail price, so who benefits? How can we join up the supply chains to shorten them and give farmers the opportunity to market more directly? There will be lots of exciting technologies and systems that may be able to do that, but it is about incentivising that opportunity.
ffinlo Costain: I think you have highlighted a real challenge, and I am not quite sure how we address it within the Bill. We do not want to see farmers in Britain uniformly producing high-quality produce that just fuels middle-class meals and those of affluent people. We need to recognise that an awful lot of people live in poverty or relatively close to poverty, and we need to be able to feed those people as well. But I do not think that we do that just by continuing with the model that we currently have, which involves ever more intensive volume production and low-nutrition food. We need good food. That is about the supply chain. As Martin said, it is about how we connect people who are living in more disadvantaged areas, with food. Often, if you are buying directly—if you are buying food and making meals yourself—it is a hell of a lot cheaper than living on Pot Noodle or whatever else.
Caroline Drummond: One of the scary facts is that 50.8% of the food we eat in this country is ultra-processed; in France, it is 14%. We do not know about the sustainability of highly processed food, and we often do not know its country of origin. This is where the national food strategy is such a core part of trying to understand what our ambition is for the health and the connection of what we grow. It is out of kilter at the moment and in a very difficult place.
Going back to Jack’s comment, the Bill is about trying to drive the ambition for a highly productive, responsible and sustainable farming system. We need to be very careful. There is often confusion. Poverty is a social issue, rather than necessarily an issue that farmers can respond to, and we need to be very careful that, as an industry, we are not subsidising the social challenge of poverty.
Nadia Whittome
Q
ffinlo Costain: Funding of infrastructure, which is partly in the Bill. It is perhaps about broadening the definition of “infrastructure”. In the same way that people ought to be able to apply for funding to put up the local abattoir that will make a big difference to the farmers, the land that they are presenting, the prices that they are getting and their ability to sell directly to the public locally, you are perhaps right to say that there needs to be support for those sorts of schemes as well.
Caroline Drummond: Interestingly, food productivity is mentioned in here. One would hope that that is going to be the link in terms of trying to define what the national food strategy looks like, because—
The Chair
Order. I am afraid that brings us to the end of this session, but on behalf of the Committee, many thanks to our witnesses. You gave us invaluable information. Thank you very much indeed.
Examination of Witnesses
Thomas Lancaster, John Cross, Simon Hall, Christopher Price and David Bowles gave evidence.
The Chair
Q
Thomas Lancaster: My name is Tom Lancaster. I am the acting head of land, seas and climate policy at the RSPB, so I oversee our work on the Agriculture Bill, but also lots of our work on forestry, climate change, marine policy and similar issues.
Simon Hall: I am Simon Hall. I am the managing director of Livestock Information Ltd, which is a very new company, set up on 1 October, with a remit to design and implement a new multi-species livestock traceability service in England, but also to potentially provide some UK capabilities. Just so you know my background, I am on secondment into this role from DEFRA, so I am substantively a civil servant, but on secondment for the next two years to deliver this programme.
John Cross: I am John Cross. My roots are in farming, and I still have a farming business. For the past three years, I have chaired a pan-industry and Government design working group that has worked with Simon to co-create the new traceability system that will be delivered by LI Ltd. For the sake of openness, I should say that I have just been appointed as chair of that company, so I will be working with Simon, who is the managing director.
Christopher Price: My name is Christopher Price. I am chief executive of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, an organisation that exists to promote and conserve the use of native breed livestock.
David Bowles: I am David Bowles. I am the assistant director of public affairs at the RSPCA. The RSPCA writes the standards for RSPCA Assured, which is the UK’s only higher welfare assurance scheme.
The Chair
I know that at least one of you has given evidence to these sessions before—maybe two or three of you—but please enjoy the session, which runs until 11.25 am.
George Eustice
Q
Christopher Price: I speak particularly on behalf of native breeds, rather than livestock generally, but I think that promoting our native breeds is hugely important. Dealing with economics first of all, you have pointed to the uplands as an area where it is harder to grow crops and where people therefore keep livestock, but that does not rule out having livestock elsewhere. If we have the right sort of livestock, grazed at the right density and in the right place, we are providing environmental benefits because we are creating the sorts of habitats we want. We are keeping down import costs—that helps the climate—which reduce farm incomes. There is a business and an environmental side to livestock, which are an important landscape feature as well. There is something exciting about seeing interesting animals wandering around our farms. It all helps towards tourism, and a sense of place and location. There are huge arguments to support increased livestock use.
John Cross: I speak as a mixed arable and livestock farmer, as opposed to my involvement with Livestock Information. There is absolutely no doubt that the combination of livestock on arable land has a profound effect. It is something that I would encourage the whole industry to look at, because as soon as you start to improve the organic matter levels, the vibrancy and the life within the soil, you realise the benefits that come with drought resistance and inherent fertility. In particular, if you involve a blend of, say, pigs and ruminants on arable land, you also have a profound effect on the birdlife that then decides to come to live on that farm. It is something that I believe in passionately, and it works, but certainly—as I heard referred to in the earlier session this morning—you have to be mindful of stocking densities. In particular, it is a matter of making good use of grazing legumes, which we are pioneering. It is a valuable mission that the Bill mentions, because we need more organic matter in arable land.
David Bowles: Just picking up on that point, I have been working on CAP issues for 20 years, and this is the first time that we have had the opportunity to get animal welfare into the new farm support system. We have only ever had one animal welfare scheme in the last 20 years, which was in Scotland, so it is really important that we start to get animal welfare payments into the system and, particularly on the stocking point, make sure that farmers are paid to go higher than the welfare standards they have at the moment. I think you will get win-win situations, with benefits to animal welfare, benefits to the environment, benefits to rare breeds, et cetera.
Thomas Lancaster: The RSPB is a big landowner and farmer—we have 30,000 livestock across our estate. In a lot of cases, those livestock are essential to the public goods that we deliver, particularly the high nature value farming systems that, again, have been a key feature of many CAP schemes in the past. We want to see future schemes in England supporting those high nature value farming systems. Extensive livestock production will be a key feature of those systems in future and is important in supporting species such as curlew and other breeding waders, or habitats such as upland hay meadows.
John’s point about densities is absolutely right, because overgrazing is a major problem for a lot of our designated sites and habitats. The opportunity we have in the Agriculture Bill, and with environmental land management schemes specifically, is to support farmers to find that optimum balance, which Martin Lines talked about a lot in the previous session and which can go hand in hand with a more profitable livestock farming system as well.
George Eustice
Q
David Bowles: There are huge opportunities. We have only ever had one scheme in the UK, but we have had something like 52 schemes over the 28 EU member states. The RSPCA Assured scheme is very successful in certain areas, such as laying hens, where we probably have 55% of production, but it is very unsuccessful in other areas, such as sheep, beef, dairy and even chickens, which are all sectors where we have under 5% and in some areas under 1%. The market is therefore not delivering the higher welfare assurance schemes that we want in that particular market.
That is the exciting thing about the Bill, because it will provide the opportunity to give farmers a leg up through, for example, one-off capital grants, and then provide them with payments to ensure that, where the market does not deliver, they can deliver those higher welfare schemes. The RSPCA is very happy that the Bill provides for that two-step process. We think there are very exciting times here for farmers, particularly in those areas where we have not traditionally gone into higher welfare schemes. For instance, at the moment, 0% of ducks in the UK have access to full-body water. The expression “taking a duck to water” does not exist for UK duck farming. That is a tragedy, not just for ducks, but for UK farming.
Simon Hall: There are undoubtedly opportunities in the marketplace if we can evidence welfare standards, provenance, and so on. The Livestock Information programme will put in place a new multi-species traceability service that brings together data based on animals, keepership—the people who have been responsible for the animal throughout its life—and location, the farm where it is based. The whole proposition of the programme that we are delivering is about using that data not only to better inform Government responses to animal disease control and ensuring food safety, but to enable the industry to take advantage of that data to evidence its standards and demonstrate to its consumers, domestically or internationally, the standards to that livestock is produced, the provenance of the animals and so on in real data. Working in partnership with Government and industry, there is an opportunity to set out our stall in a world-leading manner.
Christopher Price: To build on what has been said, an important aspect of the Livestock Information service—if it goes as far as I hope it does—is that it will give greater recognition to individual breeds. It will make it clear that what you are buying is a saddleback or whatever. At the moment, it is very difficult for the consumer to know that what he or she is buying is what the butcher or supermarket purports it to be, or to know when they use nebulous language to imply that it has a particular provenance. If we can get to a system whereby people are promoting particular breeds associated with a particular area, we will do well to create a much stronger sense of place and local identity, which will help with creating new markets.
Daniel Zeichner
Q
David Bowles: For the RSPCA, this is probably the biggest omission in the Bill. The Government have resisted putting anything in the Bill that says that we will not import produce or food to lower standards than those of the UK. I cannot see why they have resisted that. The Secretary of State said, “Trust me, because it’s in the manifesto.” Frankly, I do not think that is good enough. Last year the Government tabled their own amendment to the Trade Bill that said exactly that. I hope they do the same here, because if they do not, they will leave British farmers who are producing to those higher welfare standards open to US imports.
For instance, 55% of the pork meat and bacon that we eat is imported. Virtually all that comes from the EU. If you start importing that from the USA, where they still have sow stalls, where they still give their pigs ractopamine, which is an illegal drug in UK pig farming, you are opening up to cheaper imports coming in, particularly if you do not have consumer information and labelling. I am pleased that labelling is in the Agriculture Bill, but this needs to be part of a matrix. You need to have the same standards for food coming in. The RSPCA is not afraid of higher welfare food coming in. What we are afraid of is food coming in that is illegal to produce in the UK.
Christopher Price: I agree with everything that has been said, but I think we need to be careful about putting too much trust in labelling. I cannot see that people are going to make many purchasing decisions on the basis of labelling. Something like less than 5% of decisions nowadays are based on labelling, which includes all the various organic and assurance schemes. This has to be dealt with by legislation and regulation. You cannot leave it to consumer good will in the supermarket.
Thomas Lancaster: I agree with all that. We worked very closely with the NFU to co-ordinate that letter. We view assurance around import standards as a foundational element of the whole future farming policy and as really important to farmers’ ability to invest in public goods schemes with confidence.
The letter not only touched on a defensive ask, but pushed a more aspirational agenda around a role for the UK to set out a world-leading trade policy that takes account of societal demands such as climate change, biodiversity and all those sorts of issues, which are not reflected in modern international trade policy, and certainly not at the World Trade Organisation.
This is often reported as: “We want protection.” Actually, as David said, we want to be able to compete on common standards. No UK farmers are calling for protectionism for its own sake, but there is an opportunity to call for a more sustainable trade policy that has a bit more imagination regarding how we can fight the climate and environment emergency, while embarking upon a new international trade policy, as we now will.
John Cross: It has been very well addressed already, but briefly, if society is sincere about animal welfare and is aspirational—which it should be—then it should not look for one set of standards domestically and, to a certain extent, export its conscience and accept lower standards from elsewhere. You should be consistent in your attitude to animals.
Simon Jupp (East Devon) (Con)
Q
David Bowles: Yes; the RSPCA, as I said earlier, is delighted that for the first time we have the opportunity to provide financial assistance to farmers. One of the things that is missing from the Bill—it says it in the explanatory notes, but it is not explicit—is that financial assistance should be given only to those above baseline standards. We had a system where farmers could have been paid even if they were doing things that were illegal. I do not want to replicate that in the new farm support system.
There are a lot of things that we would like the Government to introduce to give farmers a leg up—for instance, providing brushes for cattle, hoof-trimming for cattle to reduce lameness, rubber matting for cattle to give farmers a leg up to farm at higher welfare standards, and then giving them the opportunity to get money that is not provided by the marketplace, which is the difference between farming at higher welfare and what the marketplace delivers.
There is a whole range and suite of issues that could be gathered. The RSPCA is delighted that the Government are looking at them seriously, and we hope that some can be trialled in the next year.
Christopher Price: There are two aspects to your question. The first is whether we have got the regulations right in the first place. Although we might have the right standards, I think that most people on our side of the table would hope that Dame Glenys Stacey’s report is implemented, if not in full, then to a large extent. It might be useful to expand a bit on that in a moment.
In terms of paying for meeting regulatory standards per se, I think this is something that applies throughout. Farming will go through the most immense structural change over the next four or five years, as we move to an unsubsidised, more market-facing world. There will be an incredible variety of costs for people as a result. I do not think that there is anything untoward about the Government helping people to make that transition over the short term. I am talking about significant short-term capital expenditure on the Government’s part, to get the industry match-fit—not only in terms of welfare, but in terms of having the right business processes and practices in place. After that, you can say, “Now you’re on your own. We’ve helped you to get up to the standard that we expected of you. Now it’s for the market to support you going forward.”
Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)
Q
Christopher Price: Most legislation nowadays gives powers not duties. There is nothing unusual about the Agriculture Bill in that regard. The Bill is about the tool used to implement the policy; it is not the policy in itself. It would be useful to have the Government’s policy, to know what they are going to try to implement.
Having said all that, we are talking about some really quite complicated stuff. Food production, which is fundamental to our existence, is all based on natural processes that are really complicated. We are going through huge structural changes and as a country we have not been great at managing structural change. Bearing all that in mind, it is important that Government have a full range of tools to do as they see fit, in consultation with stakeholders. I would hate the idea that, for reasons of legislative propriety or whatever, we ended up constraining Government so much that they could not do things that, in a few months’ time, we might decide are absolutely essential.
Thomas Lancaster: We are very sympathetic to having more duties to balance the range of powers. A report from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee the last time the Bill was in Parliament was quite scathing on that point. Clauses 4 to 6 are a positive step in setting out strategic objectives and they come with a range of duties on Ministers to have multi-annual financial plans, set objectives for those and have regard to those objectives when setting the budget for those plans. That is a big step forward in this Bill on the duties-not-powers point.
We would like to see a duty in the Bill to have an environment and land management scheme. At the moment, it is a legal requirement under CAP-funded rural development programmes to have an agri-environment scheme—you cannot not have one anywhere across the UK. We want to see that duty replicated in the Bill.
It would be interesting to look at other areas in the Bill as well. There are lots of powers in the Bill around fair dealing provisions and supply chain transparency, but there are no duties on Ministers to use those to improve supply chain transparency. That is another area where you could include a duty to clarify how those powers were going to be used and that they were going to be used.
David Bowles: Clause 1(1) says:
“The Secretary of State may give”—
and then it lists the public goods. We would like to see a “must”, and the RSPCA would like to see that too. The Secretary of State would still be applying the letter of the law if £1 went to animal welfare in the next five-year period. We would like to see some minimum payments under those particular public goods.
Fay Jones
Q
John Cross: I had quite a lengthy history in the levy sector. The complexity around this issue is really quite deep, because it depends on where the benefit of the levy investment is secured, where the products derived from the industry are consumed and where the supported supply chains sit. As for the desire to capture and formalise a more even-handed distribution back to the devolved regions: from what I have seen of it, it does do enough. We live in a very complex domestic market; 50% of Scottish beef production is consumed within the M25. That illustrates how complex the mix is. The red meat levy is designed—yes, funded by farmers and processors—to make the best of a supply chain and to deliver business enhancement throughout for the good of consumers and producers. It is quite a complex issue and it is not just as simple as three separate lots of industry all wanting to do their own thing in isolation, because they are all interdependent.
Deidre Brock
Q
John Cross: I will leave some of the technical detail to Simon, but in principle, this is how we arrived where we are now. Yes, we have established traceability systems in this country and they work but, as we speak, they still tend to be a blend of paper and digital—sometimes both at the same time. They work but they are high-maintenance. They are sub-optimal and they take a lot of resource to keep them going. They were, of course, designed to hoard data on behalf of statutory obligations, as opposed to share data, so the design principle needed to be completely different.
I think it is fair to say that Government was faced with the reality of having to achieve an IT refresh at some stage, with some fairly urgent timescales. For a long time, industry has wanted to have the benefit of the use of its own data. Data was being collected about the industry, but the industry could not use it to enhance itself.
We came to a moment after the referendum where the industry and Government were faced with a series of scenarios that required them to think differently and start to think together—this is where the principle of co-creation came in—right across DEFRA and all its dependencies, the Food Standards Agency, the Rural Payments Agency and the others, and right across the industry to form a think-tank as to how you design, hopefully, the optimum traceability and information system that enables Government to fulfil its statutory obligations, but better and faster, while allowing industry to start adding value to itself with information.
If it is a matter of exploring global markets, you can evidence a brand vastly better. In the global marketplace, traceability is king. In that area, you have huge opportunity. Similarly, from the viewpoint of the industry looking to eradicate non-notifiable endemic production diseases, again, to tackle disease risk you need information—you need data. As soon as you have got a unique identification of any one animal, the information you can attach to that provides almost endless opportunity.
Deidre Brock
Q
John Cross: This is an English system; yes.
Simon Hall: But it is in the context of a UK story. This is quite complex. In the current situation, traceability services are delivered through a bit of a mixed economy in the UK. Northern Ireland has a multi-species service operating there for cattle, sheep and pigs. Scotland has a traceability service for sheep and pigs. Wales has a traceability service for sheep. England operates a GB service for cattle, and we operate a pig service for England and Wales, and a sheep service in England.
So, it’s quite complicated. Then, within that, there is a mix of services and databases that come together to provide a UK view of that traceability data, so that colleagues at the Animal and Plant Health Agency, for example, can use that data to respond to an animal disease outbreak or a food safety concern, or whatever.
We have an ambition in England to create a single multi-species traceability service, or a single service capability, including help desk and so on, a single IT system, underpinned by the ambition to exploit data, not only for the benefit of Government and statutory disease control, but to deliver a range of outcomes externally. In that context, the Scottish Government and Welsh Government have decided to bring the cattle services into their own Administrations, and in the case of Wales, to bring the pig service in-house as well.
We are all moving at the same time to a position that respects devolution, where every Administration will have its own multi-species traceability service. Particularly in the context of cattle, that creates a new requirement to ensure that we have a really good UK view of cattle, recognising that we are disaggregating services that are currently delivered through one service, so we need to ensure that that comes together.
DEFRA has asked Livestock Information Ltd, as part of the process of designing and implementing the traceability service in England, also to ensure that there is a way—a mechanism, a service—to ensure that we have good visibility of that UK data. That approach is supported by UK CVOs and so on.
We are, though, at a very early stage of designing exactly how that would work. So, we do not have a technology strategy yet for exactly how that would work and whether that means that Livestock Information Ltd would have a copy of all the UK traceability data, or whether it is just providing a window into each of the services and each of the Administrations for the Animal and Plant Health Agency to look at, for example.
We have really good relationships with colleagues in each of the UK Administrations and we are having regular dialogue around how this would work and whether there would need to be some specific governance arrangements around the UK view, and so on.
Deidre Brock
Q
Simon Hall: Quite the reverse.
Deidre Brock
As you have elaborated, they already have quite developed traceability schemes
Simon Hall: This is seeing a move to devolve traceability services that comes together seamlessly at a UK level, recognising that disease and food contamination does not respect borders.
Deidre Brock
Q
Simon Hall: There are two questions there. The first is easy: our governance arrangements are that Livestock Information Ltd is a subsidiary of the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, which is the levy body in England. AHDB is a non-departmental public body of DEFRA, so it is accountable to DEFRA but funded by the levy payer, and therefore responsible to the farmer, grower and processor in England.
For us, the attraction of using AHDB as the parent body for this company is the way in which we can embed the traceability service as close to industry as possible, while retaining the sufficient control needed by Government. That model has already been adopted in Scotland, Wales and further afield, in Australia. Livestock Information Ltd is a company limited by a guarantee; it is a subsidiary of AHDB; it has a 49% ownership stake from DEFRA directly—DEFRA is important, but if it wants to exert control it does so through the levy body.
Deidre Brock
Q
Simon Hall: The business case has been approved; we have funding in place; we have procured IT systems; we have a team of around 50 people delivering; we are working very closely with devolved Administrations, and we are aiming for implementation from the autumn. There is lots to do. There is lots of complexity. The No. 1 thing we must not do when we effect this change is compromise our quality of traceability. If we are not ready, we will delay, but there is no indication that we will need to at the moment. We are planning for implementation from the autumn, starting with cattle, sheep next year and pigs later next year.
John Cross: A parting message: the important thing for us is to be smart and collaborative with the devolved regions, because disease pathogens—whether notifiable or not—and disease outbreaks do not recognise any political boundaries. We have to be smart and have a UK view on disease. If you look around the globe, on the international trade stage we are seen as the UK. It is a UK story if a product goes out, so from the point of view of access, wherever you go internationally, the UK is the recognised body. It is important that we have a smart, collegiate view on this.
Simon Hall: This Agriculture Bill does support the delivery of the programme in the way we set out. In part 4, clause 32 talks about granting additional functions to AHDB that will allow it to deliver that English traceability service through the subsidiary body. It currently has the function to deliver the programme and to design and implement the future service, but not to run it. The Bill provides the functions to do that, and the flexibility to provide any UK functions required, or that are sensible. For example, one might imagine that allocating a unique identity for an individual animal might be something that we choose to do once only in the UK, and we may choose to do it from here or from somewhere else.
The Bill provides the functions that we need to deliver this programme in the way that we want in the future service; it also provides some flexibility, should we work together and decide that we want to carry out some UK responsibilities.
Danny Kruger
Q
My question is on behalf of our producers. The paradox is that everybody complains about the complexity of CAP, and farmers have a tough time filling in the forms. Of course, the principle of CAP is very simple: you just pay for the amount of land that you have. We are proposing to introduce a system with a lot more complex objectives—quite rightly—for all the different public goods. I share Ms Whittome’s point about the opportunity for community-based markets and more locally based producers—more local sourcing. Do we think that those community groups and small farmers will be able to navigate what sounds to an outsider like a very complex set of objectives, and therefore potentially some complex subsidy systems?
John Cross: I can make a comment as a farmer rather than chair of Livestock Information. You make a very good point: we are entering a very different scenario. Some farmers will need considerable help in changing that mindset and getting used to a new environment, because it will require a lot more proactivity from the point of view of seeking rewards for those public goods. It will be a more complex—
Danny Kruger
Q
Thomas Lancaster: Advice is a really important part of the story. We would like to see more clarity from DEFRA as to what advice will be made available to farmers, particularly during that transition period. We also understand that the evidence base around environmental advice is a really good investment. All the evidence, particularly from work commissioned by DEFRA and Natural England, suggests that providing advice to farmers as to how they can meet environmental outcomes and navigate some of the paperwork necessary to access the public money is well worth the investment in terms of the outcomes. We know that outcomes supported by advice are better than outcomes not supported by advice.
We have done some social science research recently on farmers’ experience of those schemes with farmers that we have been working with in south Devon for 30 years on species recovery projects for the cirl bunting. That social science shows really strongly that advice is the key element, not just in getting that environmental outcome but in ensuring that farmers are bought in to the schemes, that they understand the outcomes that they are seeking to deliver, and that they are able to get past some of the bureaucracy, which is an inevitable element of this.
Although direct payments sound simple in concept, you have the eligibility rules, particularly the land eligibility rules; the land parcel identification system; and the fact that you have to measure things to four decimal places. The fact that it is a very poor use of public money and no one really knows what it is for any more, drives a lot of those eligibility rules, because you have to provide some controls around it.
Our experience of the best agri-environment schemes in England, particularly higher level stewardship, is that, supported by advice, they are much more intuitively understandable for farmers—as to why they are receiving that money—than direct payments. Analysis that we have done of Natural England data, which we have not published but will probably publish in the coming months, suggests that payment rates for small farms, on the first 30 hectares or so of agreements, are higher than for larger farms, which is obviously not the case with direct payments. We know that small farms, again when supported by advice, can profit from public goods schemes, given our understanding of higher level stewardship and similar schemes in the past.
Christopher Price: It is important to recognise just how much farming is going to change. It is not just a matter of changing the subsidy rules; it is a much bigger structural change. Farmers will be producing much more to the market, which means that we will have a different type of farmer. We are already starting to see those people—people who do not necessarily come from a farming background, who have made a bit of money doing something more commercial, who are coming to farming with business and marketing skills, and who are making a go of things in a very different way. You will know some of them—Lynbreck Croft, the Good Life Meat Company, Hilltop Farm.
People are already doing it and they have quite a big presence. They think in a different way. It is not just about who can take the biggest beast to the market every week or month. It is about sweating all your assets, so you will be selling the meat, but you will be selling meat with a good provenance, to high welfare standards and with a low environmental impact. If you are savvy, you will be finding markets for the skins, the wool, the horns. It may not be much money per item, but together it starts to create more produce with more of a brand.
If you start thinking in terms of your public goods as well—many farms are starting to—and working out what has a benefit, what you can do to improve your soil or your water quality, what plants you can grow that have biodiversity or climate benefits, and start ticking off those, you can get there. It does not need to be particularly complex. In many ways, although I hear what Tom says about the importance of advice, the way that most farmers learn is from other farmers. It is about encouraging farmers to go and see what their neighbour is doing, and not thinking of their neighbour as being their competitor, but as someone who can be a source of guidance.
So, I do not think we need be worried about complexity. Conceptually, what is being promised is more straight- forward. Of course there will be compliance requirements, but many of us think that a lot of the previous compliance requirements were more to do with EU standardisation across 28 member states rather than being particularly necessary to ensure the efficient use of public money. So, I think we can be optimistic about what is happening.
Kerry McCarthy
Q
Thomas Lancaster: We, the Wildlife Trusts and WWF commissioned the report from IEEP, who are independent consultants, to look at a future regulatory framework. Because the Bill includes provisions to move away from cross-compliance, and in particular to delink payments from land, that potentially opens up gaps in aspects of current environmental regulatory protections that exist only in cross-compliance, particularly around soils and hedgerows—for example, cutting of hedgerows during birds’ breeding season and hedgerow buffer strips. We think there is a gap in the Bill in terms of powers necessary for Ministers to bring forward regulatory protections for soils, hedgerows and other environmental features, and we would like to see the Bill amended to plug that gap.
There is a big opportunity coming off Dame Glenys Stacey’s review. The farm inspection and regulation review the Government commissioned reported in 2018. It called for a more comprehensive regulatory framework that enables a more advice-led approach to enforcement, so that, rather than farmers being penalised but not really understanding the underlying issue and therefore not able to address it, the approach would seek to blend penalties with advice and incentives to ensure that you get better environmental outcomes.
There is an existing model of that in the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and its approach. When a breach is detected, there is a visit from an adviser or a member of staff, who says, “You have to address this breach. You can either go and seek advice or invest in infrastructure if necessary.” They come back a second time. If the breach has been addressed, everything is fine; if it is not, they give them a third visit and, if it is still there, then they penalise them. That approach, which Dame Glenys Stacey supported, and we supported at the time, gets better environmental outcomes in a way that farmers also appreciate and can understand, whereas at the moment our regulatory enforcement is very substandard, it is fair to say.
Again, Dame Glenys Stacey found that of 10,600 staff at the Environment Agency, only 40 do farm inspections. As a farmer, you have a one in 200 chance of being inspected by the Environment Agency, and we know that the agency is again cutting back on some of those regulatory compliance visits. There is a huge challenge in the future, not just in how we reward good practice but in how we ensure a level playing field so that the progressive best farmers out there are not undercut by, effectively, cowboys—unfortunately, there are some. The Bill is silent on that, and for us that is one of the biggest gaps and omissions.
John Cross: The only comment I would make—again as a farmer—is that any more regulation would need to be fit for purpose, logical, proportionate and enforceable. Regulation is fine, but unless it is logical so people can understand it, and it is relatively easy to comply with, it is just a source of frustration to everyone. Certainly, the industry is very keen to move towards an outcome-based form of regulation as opposed to constantly arguing about whether a particular margin is six inches too narrow or not. The industry would be interested in seeing a much more outcome-focused approach.
David Bowles: The EU has been moving towards an outcomes approach, but obviously leaving the EU gives us huge opportunities in the animal welfare sectors, such as sheep, beef and dairy, where there are no specific baseline species standards at the moment. There is a real opportunity to introduce those baseline standards, which will help not just the Bill, but in establishing what the baseline is—and then establishing how to move farmers up the scale, through capital inputs or through specific measures, and paying them where the market does not deliver. There are huge opportunities to improve the baseline regulatory standards in those areas where they do not exist now.
Alicia Kearns
Q
Christopher Price: I will take the second part first. Should we be supporting rare breeds? Yes, we should. You probably expected me to say that.
Alicia Kearns
I thought you might, but you never know.
Christopher Price: We should do it, first, for economic reasons. These breeds were bred to be in a British landscape. They can survive in parts of the country that other breeds cannot, or cannot without significant inputs. In many parts of the country, people are farming the wrong animals and are doing so expensively, because they are using certain inputs to support them. We need some help in getting farmers to transition away from the old way of doing things into going back to native breeds.
Native breeds can also provide a wider range of products than many other breeds. I mentioned wools, skins, horns and so on, which all have markets, if people think about it, or are incentivised to start thinking about it rather more. There is a role for Government in that.
Then there is the environmental side of things. The grassland habitats that we so cherish are there because they were grazed by certain animals over generations. If we are going to restore those habitats, the easiest, most straightforward way to do it is by using the animals that created them in the first place.
Lastly, there is the social side. Many of these breeds are part of our history. White Park cows came over Dogger island from mainland Europe before Stonehenge was built. They were part of the Cistercian monks’ currency. Some of the earliest Welsh laws are about how you regulate and use those animals. Herdwick sheep were bred to live on top of hills in the Lake district. Swaledales were bred to be a bit further down the fells. They are an immense part of our culture.
Those are all reasons for supporting them. In terms of how you support them, I would be reluctant for us to go down a simple headage route; I think that would just create the wrong sort of incentives. If a farmer chooses to use native breeds to graze for particular conservation purposes that do not bring him or her a direct financial benefit, that is about the public benefit, which should be rewarded, but it is more about making sure that we have the right infrastructure in place.
There is a lot to do with promoting local produce. We have talked a bit about creating local markets. Some of the more savvy farmers I was talking about are doing an excellent job of that, and part of their brand is selling local breeds and local products from those breeds within a fairly narrow radius—30-odd miles. That is where the premium comes from. It is not for everyone, but people are starting to do it, which is interesting.
Perhaps the single most important thing—we touched on this a bit in the earlier session—is abattoirs. For many of the people that I work for and represent, abattoirs are at least as important an issue as support going forward. We have huge numbers of people who are producing the right animals to the right standards in a very environmentally friendly way. You hear people talking about how their motivation in life is to ensure that their animals have a life worth living and then only one bad day—the day they go to the abattoir—and you have people who want to buy the products, but the whole thing is being stymied in significant parts of the country because there is no abattoir that can cope. If there is an abattoir, it generally will not be able to take the small numbers of non-standard animals and give you back the by-products—the horns, the skins and so on. In many cases, there is no abattoir at all.
If we are talking about short-term Government capital investments, it seems to me that there is a desperate need to invest in pop-up abattoirs or mobile abattoirs. There are practical problems with all of that, but if I could get anything across to the Committee, it would be the need to make sure that we have an abattoir network that is fit for purpose over the next few years, and for the Government to invest in creating that. It does not need to be a long-term investment; once it is there, the market can function and support it, but it is getting us there that matters.
Daniel Zeichner
Q
Thomas Lancaster: We have supported in the past, and would still support, a sector-specific target for net zero by 2040, to reflect the ambition of the NFU and others. We would support an amendment to that effect in Committee and beyond. As a statement of intent and clarity on the role that the sector could play in that climate emergency, it is still a really useful thing to look at. We would also stress that, although this is the Agriculture Bill, in the climate change world there is a lot of talk about nature-based solutions such as peatland restoration, coastal habitats and woodland creation, and the Agriculture Bill, particularly through the land management schemes that flow from it, will be the central mechanism for delivering those nature-based solutions and the aims of the Environment Bill.
Thinking about how public money for public goods can support more sustainable food production that is also carbon and climate friendly, it has an important role to play in building soil carbon, potentially supporting minimum tillage systems, cover crops and other land management interventions that build resilience to climate change in the future. We see climate change running through public money for public goods, from farmed and non-farmed landscapes, and the Agriculture Bill is one of the most important pieces of legislation that we have had in the past decade or probably will have for decades to come in helping to meet the climate emergency that we all face.
Christopher Price: I would support—
The Chair
I am going to interrupt, because there are two colleagues who have been asking to put questions very quickly, Robert Goodwill and then Virginia Crosbie. Please put your questions to everyone.
Mr Goodwill
Q
Virginia Crosbie
Q
Thomas Lancaster: I will pick up on Robert Goodwill’s question. There is a lot of debate about payment for actions and payment for results. On payment for results, we would see it as the logical thing to pay for the habitat condition, not the number of species or number of birds, because that is not something that is necessarily within the farmer’s control.
There is potentially a role for predator control in future schemes, but there are a lot of steps that need to be gone through before we get to that point, because often predation pressure is a proximate cause, not an ultimate one. The ultimate cause might be forestry providing a reservoir of foxes, crows and other predators on breeding waders on neighbouring moorlands, so removing a block of conifer might be the one thing that you need to do, not investing in very expensive predator control in perpetuity. Getting an understanding of those landscape dynamics is an important part of that question.
Christopher Price: In response to the question about selling farming, to a large extent that is up to the individual farmer. It is the farmer who creates their brand, and you would hope that their brand would focus on all the good things they are doing—high welfare standards, low environmental impact, sense of place, provenance and so on. Many of the new-style farmers that I was talking about are doing that; it is fundamental to them.
Having said that, there is a role for Government at the higher level in “Brand GB”, and one thing we might want to look at is greater use of geographical indicators. There are certain breeds that are associated with Wales that the Government—possibly the Welsh Government, I am not sure—have a role in promoting and helping businesses with.
David Bowles: Just before the clock ticks over, method of production labelling is an opportunity in the Bill to give the consumer that link in to the farmer.
The Chair
I thank our witnesses very much for the time you have spent with us. The Committee is very grateful. If you feel that you were not given time to respond to colleagues’ questions, you can still submit evidence about those answers. The room will be locked, colleagues, and we start again at two o’clock in this room, where Mr Stringer will be in the Chair.
Agriculture Bill (Second sitting)
Tuesday 11th February 2020
(4 years, 10 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Agriculture Act 2020 View all Agriculture Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 11 February 2020 - (11 Feb 2020)
The Chair
We will now hear oral evidence from the Ulster Farmers Union and the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs. Thank you very much for coming today. We have until 2.30 pm for this session. I would be grateful if you introduced yourselves for the record.
Norman Fulton: My name is Norman Fulton. I am deputy secretary within the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs for Northern Ireland. I head up the food and farming group within the Department.
Ivor Ferguson: I am Ivor Ferguson, the president of the Ulster Farmers Union. We are an organisation in Northern Ireland with roughly 11,500 members spread across all sectors.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
I am sorry, but I wonder if we could ask the witnesses to speak up slightly.
The Chair
The acoustics in this room are appalling, which is nobody’s fault apart from the architect’s. If witnesses and members of the Committee could speak up, we would all be grateful. Thank you.
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)
Q
Norman Fulton: Our motivation in drafting the schedule was to retain options for incoming Ministers—obviously this was done in the absence of an Executive—so we developed it to be able to preserve the ability to continue to make payments to farmers under pillar 1 and to enable us both to continue to deliver schemes under pillar 2, until such a time as Ministers wish to change those measures, and to keep pace with appropriate changes elsewhere in the UK. So it was really to provide that framework for incoming Ministers but not really to set out any particular direction in policy, which is clearly something that Ministers will need to take a lead on. There is some scope for simplification in the powers we propose, but it is really for Ministers to decide which of those powers they might want to move forward on.
In terms of the future direction of policy, we engaged with our major stakeholders from the farming, food and environmental sides, and we produced a draft outline framework for agriculture, which we published for consultation in August 2018, really around the four pillars of resilience, environmental sustainability, productivity and supply chain functionality. It is a very high-level document and it received a good response from our stakeholders. Now that we have a Minister and an Executive in place, we need to work to flesh that out and to start to chart a way forward in the longer term.
Ivor Ferguson: From the farmers’ point of view, we had negotiations with our farmers and discussions on how we would like to see payments going forward. We produced a discussion document. We felt that we were quite happy for farmers to be rewarded for activity, whether that be agricultural production or environmental activity. We were quite happy with that because a large number of farmers were not fully happy with area-based payments, in that they felt that the landlord or people who owned vast areas of land received most of the benefit. Our farmers will be quite happy to have money directed to people who are engaged in activity, be it production or environmental.
Having said that, we would not want to see area-based payments disappear completely. We would like to keep that in the form of a resilience or volatility payment, bearing in mind that we have a land border with the Republic of Ireland where they will still receive land-based payments. We could not be disadvantaged in any way with our farming colleagues in southern Ireland.
From that point of view, we would like to see some form of a resilience or volatility payment. If we look at the recent farm income figures for Northern Ireland, the profitability figure has fallen from well over £300 million down to £290 million. That is a similar figure to what comes in in farm support to Northern Ireland. It is a stark reminder of how dependent some sectors are on basic payments.
George Eustice
Q
Ivor Ferguson: If there were vast changes in the market for whatever reason, we would certainly need more support. This resilience payment would be much less than the payment today—perhaps 30%, 40% or at the most 50%. We have not put a figure on that yet; it is something we would have to discuss with our farmers fairly quickly now.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
Q
Norman Fulton: This is certainly an issue of concern to us. We have to be mindful of the fact that we now have the Ireland/Northern Ireland protocol under the withdrawal agreement, which means we will need to align with the European systems, whereas those in the rest of the UK could diverge. Therefore, we would be concerned that, within what will be the single UK market, there could be different approaches to marketing standards, for example. Obviously, that is something that we will all need to be mindful of. I suppose it will be managed through common frameworks across the UK. A lot of work needs to go into thinking through how we will operate across the UK, to ensure that the UK market is not distorted in any way and there is a level playing field for all players in that market.
Daniel Zeichner
Q
Norman Fulton: Well, we are very clearly in one system, so we do not have the scope to change under the protocol. In the schedule, you will see that on marketing standards, for example, we have taken the ability to set standards, but that was drafted in advance of the withdrawal agreement, so it would not be enabled. At some point in the future, if we ever left the protocol, it could be brought into play. For now, our future is pretty much mapped out when it comes to marketing standards, but that is not the case elsewhere in the UK. Although we know what our standards will be, they may change elsewhere. That will create the issue of how we ensure that there is a level playing field within the UK/GB, which remains our biggest market.
Ivor Ferguson: As Norman just said, it is our most important market. At least 50% of what we farmers in Northern Ireland produce goes to the mainland GB market, and in some sectors it is 70% or 80%. If we were to diverge and the standards were to lower in the GB market, lower standards means lower cost of production, and we would be tied to the cost of production within the EU system in Northern Ireland, so it would be very difficult for us to compete in that market. From that point of view, it would be a disaster for us if the standards changed or diverged a great deal away from where we are today.
Daniel Zeichner
Q
Ivor Ferguson: Take the beef sector in Northern Ireland. All the products that we produce, or 95% of them, are produced to Red Tractor quality-assured standards. A lot of them go to the major retailers in the UK, which support us well with the Red Tractor standards. For beef production in Northern Ireland, the returns to farmers are down in the last 12 months by £36 million, so there is no profit in the job at the present time. We could not accept a lower price for product, so a lot of our farmers at the moment are finding it very difficult to stay in business. If there were a lowering of the price in the marketplace, that would be a disaster for us.
Fay Jones (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)
Q
Norman Fulton: Again, this is something that all Administrations need to be very mindful of in the choices they make. Agriculture is a devolved matter, so each of the Administrations can set their own policy direction and agenda. Under the protocol, which we will now be operating under, certain restrictions will apply in the case of Northern Ireland. We will have an overall envelope for state aid cover, but within that a percentage will have to be green box. That will put certain restrictions on the choices we make in future policy. That does not necessarily apply elsewhere in the UK. Scotland, Wales and England will all be able to set their own policy choices.
Again, we need to be careful that we do not start to open up distortions in competition, which could arise from all this. Although these matters are devolved, GB/UK is our domestic market, and we need to make sure we do not end up trying to undercut each other by using our support mechanisms to facilitate that. There is a great deal of responsibility on all the Administrations on this matter.
Ivor Ferguson: I fully agree with Norman. If we take Northern Ireland at the moment, we would like to think that we will have the same level of support. We will certainly need the same level of support. The fact that it is paid in a different way should not distort our market all that much, if there is the same level of money that comes in. We have to be mindful that our farming colleagues in southern Ireland will have a basic payment too, so we need a level playing field. We have to be very mindful of that going forward.
Thangam Debbonaire
Q
Norman Fulton: The schedule is primarily about rolling forward what we have, with options for simplification and options to keep pace with potential changes that may have happened elsewhere. It is not really about setting our future policy direction, which is something that we now need to take forward ourselves in the Northern Ireland Assembly, now that Ministers are back and we have an Executive.
On the WTO issue, yes, that is a reserved matter, but there is nothing in the Bill that we feel will constrain our ability to set our policy agenda. For example, there are no restrictions on green box support in WTO rules, and none at this time on blue box support—for example, headage payments. Hopefully, the UK’s share of the amber box coming out of EU will be well in excess of what any region, or the UK as a whole, could ever hope to spend on agriculture, so we do not see that as a practical restriction on our room to manoeuvre in any way.
Your final point was around distortion in the UK?
Thangam Debbonaire
Q
Norman Fulton: It is something we all need to recognise. For example, if a region were to decide to go back to something we had in the past, a slaughter premium, you could easily see how that could attract animals for slaughter into that area. You would be starting to distort the movement and processing of livestock. A region probably would not want to do that because you would end up spending your regional support to support farmers located outside your region. Those are the types of things that could happen in theory, but I hope in practice they will not.
Thangam Debbonaire
Q
Norman Fulton: That is a very difficult question, because at the end of the day agriculture policy is devolved, so all the Administrations have the flexibility to deploy the budget that is at their disposal. I do not think there is a lot more you can do in the Bill to address that. It is more in the area of the common frameworks that govern how the regions co-operate across this area .
Ivor Ferguson: I will just add that we are mindful of regional variations across our areas. The future trade policy to be worked out will have an effect on that. If we diverge a lot, product coming from Northern Ireland into the GB market and vice versa will have added costs with the border inspection posts, or whatever you want to call them. There will be added costs. That is something that, if a trade deal did not go for us, or if there was a large-scale divergence, that would add a lot to our costs and we would need extra funding. We are very aware of that.
Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
Q
Norman Fulton: There is an overall cap on the current area-based system, but very few holdings hit that limit at this point in time. Again, those are the sorts of things we will need to consider in relation to the architecture we put in place. Certainly, if you were talking about large areas of land that needed to be brought back into good management and good condition, you would want that to be encouraged and incentivised, and any disincentive that might arise from a cap would have to be considered very carefully. At this point in time, there is no cap on agri-environment—well, there are caps on the amount that individual farmers can get. I know it is an issue that some farmers want to do more, and that is something we will have to consider in our next iteration of agri-environment.
Mr Goodwill
Q
Norman Fulton: It is a bit of a mixed picture. Certainly, it has encouraged conversations around the farm table that would not otherwise have happened. We actually put in place in addition—it was an optional addition to that measure—a requirement for the young farmer to have a level 2 qualification in agriculture, so it was a way of bringing young farmers into the whole area of technology transfer. Some, who had perhaps gone out and got jobs in other professions or trades, were coming back to the farm but did not really have the agricultural training in place, so this got them on to the stepladder. Quite a proportion then decided they would go on and take on further training and qualifications, so it was very positive from that perspective as well. The motivations on that one were good, but I think we could improve on it by looking at the restrictions and issues facing young farmers, and at how we can tailor a package to help generational renewal on farms.
Mr Goodwill
Q
Ivor Ferguson: Yes indeed. Coming back to the discussion document we produced after some consultation with our farmers, our idea was that when we moved away from the basic payment to a payment for productivity and environmental measures, it would mean that some of the farmers who wanted to do extra environmental schemes on their farms would be able to avail themselves of a grant to do that, so it would encourage environmental measures as well as production measures. That is something we are very happy about.
On the young farmers scheme, as Norman said, some young farmers certainly benefited from the scheme and it does encourage young farmers. However, going a bit further, we would like to see a succession plan put in place for older farmers to pass on to the next generation, and we would like to see some incentives, like they have in southern Ireland, such as tax incentives and that sort of thing. That would make the transition from the older generation to the next generation a lot easier, and it would be more encouraging for our young farmers.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
Q
Norman Fulton: Yes. I think the frameworks will be important. Up to now, we have operated within a regulatory framework, the CAP, which gave us a degree of flexibility, although it was ultimately constrained. Going forward, we will no longer have that regulatory framework. It then comes back to the politics of devolution and the fact that agriculture is fully devolved. I think all the devolved Administrations will jealously preserve that flexibility, but they will also need to recognise that we will operate within a single market, and that there will therefore have to be ground rules—
Deidre Brock
Q
Norman Fulton: Of the UK, yes, which is obviously of utmost importance for everyone.
Ivor Ferguson: I agree. For us in the Ulster Farmers’ Union, we would certainly have to have some ground rules. We meet our colleagues in the NFUs in England, Scotland and Wales on a regular basis, and we certainly discuss all those matters. We fully agree that we will have to have some ground rules, but we do keep in touch with farmers in the other regions.
Deidre Brock
Q
Ivor Ferguson: Yes.
Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)
Q
Ivor Ferguson: We certainly would not be happy at all with a review every five years. We would certainly want to see this reviewed at least once a year. Especially in the transition, as we move forward, we would think that five years would be far too long a period, and that it will have to be reviewed a lot sooner than that—at least annually.
The Chair
If there are no further questions, we have finished two minutes early. Thank you for your time.
Examination of Witnesses
Nick von Westenholz and David Goodwin gave evidence.
The Chair
We will now hear evidence from the NFU and the National Federation of Young Farmers’ Clubs. For this session, we have until 3 pm. Would you please introduce yourselves?
Nick von Westenholz: Nick von Westenholz, director of EU exit and international trade at the National Farmers Union.
David Goodwin: David Goodwin, chair of agriculture and rural issues for the National Federation of Young Farmers’ Clubs, and I farm in south Northamptonshire.
George Eustice
Q
Nick von Westenholz: First and foremost, the content or focus of those simplifications is not as important as giving information to farmers. During the previous Parliament, as the previous Bill was going through, there was increasing anxiety that, while simplification may or may not be coming down the line this year, farmers would not be informed about what those simplifications were, and therefore would be unable to properly prepare in order to meet the requirements of whatever the scheme is. First and foremost, farmers need early guidance about the requirements of the scheme they will be subject to, well in advance of that scheme year beginning. That information is almost as important as what the simplifications might be.
In terms of what the simplifications are, we are engaging with officials at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, as you will know. It will not surprise you that some of the current requirements, such as the three-crop rule, have been criticised by many farmers as overly bureaucratic without really achieving the greening aims it may have hoped to address; that one comes up most often in our conversation with members.
David Goodwin: All our members are keen to get on and farm. That is what we are hearing a lot of at the moment. They hope that this Bill will enable them to do that, to look for opportunities and to expand their businesses. We keep talking about simplification; anything we can simplify will be a good thing. There is a real worry that we will not meet environmental and welfare aims. We need to ensure we maintain our high standards and do not let them slip.
George Eustice
Q
David Goodwin: Access to land is obviously a key concern for our members, but access to land is good only as long as the land they are looking to farm is profitable and viable. Finding ways to enable that is also important. From that point of view, a subsidy system of some description, where farmers are rewarded for the good work they are doing, is still quite high on our agenda.
George Eustice
Q
Nick von Westenholz: I am not aware that we have looked at that sort of detail on where land rents might sit. It is an interesting question and one we probably ought to look at.
Daniel Zeichner
Q
Nick von Westenholz: The obvious omission from the Bill, in our view, is anything around import standards. It is absolutely right that that should be in the Bill, because if the Government are trying to promote, which we would support, more sustainable production and food systems domestically in the future, which is the core aim of the Bill—to provide a support framework for farming in a high welfare, environmentally sustainable way—they will be fundamentally undermined in that objective if there is not a concurrent trade policy that prevents farm businesses from being undercut by substandard imports. A two-pronged approach in policy terms—trade policy and domestic policy—is needed to prevent undermining that sort of farming, in which UK farmers excel.
The detail of how the Bill is amended or of the terms of the legislation that can achieve that may be quite complicated and something that the Committee needs to consider as it goes through the Bill line by line, but at the core there must be a requirement that if the UK is going to import food, that imported food meets the same standards of environmental protection, animal welfare and food safety as UK producers are required to meet. Of course, the Government have been very reassuring on that point in recent weeks and have given some guarantees in that regard, but we feel that that needs to be underpinned by legislation, because there are real technical challenges in doing this that any Government, whether this Government or a future Government, are going to come up against as they negotiate trade deals and as they pursue a new role for us as an independent member of the WTO.
Fay Jones
Q
David Goodwin: There has been a lot of talk within our membership about support for schemes whereby we are looking at contract and share farming arrangements, particularly in the livestock sector, to enable young farmers to come on to land alongside an existing farmer who is perhaps getting a bit older and does not want to do it himself. Quite how the framework for those sorts of things fits and how you make them work has always been a challenge. I have just come back from New Zealand, and it is interesting to talk to farmers out there. There is a lot more progression on units and farmers do not seem to be so static. I think that is perhaps the other issue in UK agriculture: it is very parochial—which is traditional. It is difficult to really say how we could break that mould, but certainly from our members’ point of view, any new, innovative ways we can find to get young people on to the land—not necessarily as managers or owners, but also as good skilled workers—would be good.
Fay Jones
Q
David Goodwin: It seems to be very quick. I would repeat Nick’s point from earlier: for things to happen in farming, we need to remember how long some of the cycles in agriculture are. For farmers and farm businesses to prepare for that, they need to know what they are preparing for, and they need to know what they are preparing for a long time in advance of it happening. If you are putting a bull in today, you are not going to be selling the calves, potentially, for three years. We just need to be mindful of how agriculture works and how that fits with the legislation’s aims.
Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)
Q
Nick von Westenholz: I think, taking a view of what the Bill is trying to achieve in totality in terms of a sustainable food production system, that the need to provide consumers with affordable and safe food must remain fundamental to that.
One concern we have is that a singular focus on some of the public goods aspects might lead to the food production aspect being overlooked. Indeed, that was a criticism we made of the original Bill. That is not to downplay the importance of the clause 1 public goods elements and the development of the land management scheme, but we have been clear from the outset of the process, some years ago, that a really comprehensive agricultural policy needs to be built of three key blocks. You need a sustainable, environmental block—the sort of stuff that this Bill does very well—but you also need to keep in mind the need to produce food, which is what farmers do as well. You need to encourage increased and improved productivity in the farming sector. Again, the Bill provides the powers to do that, although we are waiting for details from DEFRA about exactly what schemes and measures might be introduced to achieve that.
We also have a concern around what we call volatility, or what might be called stability. That is the stuff that farm support systems around the world generally do, which is underpin the farming sector as food producers to provide a certain degree of food security and affordable food for their country. Obviously, there are new, welcome food security clauses in the Bill. Our concern is that as we go into the next few years, direct payments will be reduced and replaced with a scheme that is focused on environmental land management, and we will potentially be in a very difficult trading environment, depending on how the next 10 and a half months of trade negotiations go. That perfect storm will seriously undermine our ability to provide food. We try to make clear that this system needs to be as much about providing food for the country as it is about looking after our countryside and our farmed animals.
The Chair
Before you do, I have a large number of people indicating that they wish to speak. Please could Members and witnesses be brief.
Abena Oppong-Asare
Q
Nick von Westenholz: Yes. We have good communication with DEFRA officials and conversations are ongoing. Given the immediacy of some of the changes coming in, we are looking for assurance that schemes are going to be developed and deployable quickly. There are concerns over that.
Theo Clarke (Stafford) (Con)
Q
Nick von Westenholz: As far as they go, we are pleased with the inclusion of the tenancy clauses in the Bill. They are quite technical and we are looking to develop some amendments to strengthen them, which we will be happy to share with members of the Committee. In particular, we want to bring in more of the recommendations of the tenancy reform industry group, which has been up and running and working for some years now, so that those are properly reflected in the Bill. We will suggest some improvements, but we generally welcome the clauses that have been introduced in this Bill that were not in the last one.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Q
David Goodwin: Yes, very much so. County farms have been a shining light for getting younger people into holdings. In the counties where it works well, it works very well. Obviously, there are counties where there are challenges and more pressures on estates. Unfortunately, we see those in the news regularly at the moment. There are some good examples. The number of county estate farms is very small, compared with the number of people who are perhaps looking for opportunities. Some of those individual holdings are very small and do not always offer the stepping stone that is needed. Going on from there, there is still a lack, particularly with tenanted farms, of progressional farms to go on to from a county starter farm.
Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)
Q
Nick von Westenholz: It is a fair point, because the question of how you compare standards in this country with those in other countries is very complicated. I think there is a way that you can still build requirements into the Bill that address those concerns. Basically, you can provide safeguards to the Government’s stated aim on these issues. I should add that that is one reason that we very strongly called for a commission with the Government, stakeholders and industry to be set up that would examine these very difficult issues and make clear recommendations for precisely how the Government can safeguard our standards in future.
In terms of the Bill, you could require the Government to produce a register, for example, of what our food and farming standards are, or certainly the ones that we are keen to safeguard. We can then put in a requirement that imports should meet those standards or should have to demonstrate that they do, and possibly some sort of reporting mechanism to demonstrate whether imports are meeting those standards. There have been several amendments to this Bill and the last Bill to attempt to address that.
You could introduce amendments that are much more explicit. For example, they could set out the sorts of veterinary medicines—whatever it might be—that are prohibited and would not be allowed to be put on the market, as well as goods treated with those medicines that could not be put on the market in this country. That would be a very clear and straightforward legislative safeguard on standards, but you would be looking at quite a lot of text if you were to go completely across the board. There are a number of options.
Thangam Debbonaire
Q
Nick von Westenholz: I think as a point of principle, we would not just argue that any mays need to be turned into musts. We recognise that this is an enabling Bill and the merit of the Government’s having legislation that gives them flexibility. There would probably be some points where we would be more forceful than others, such as the powers around exceptional market conditions. At the moment, there is a “may” power for Government intervention when exceptional market conditions are adversely impacting agriculture—this speaks to that point I was making about volatility, as agriculture, probably more than other economic sector, can be subject to climate volatility, weather volatility, market volatility and so on—but we think there should be a trigger there that requires a “must” for intervention. I know some have argued that there should be more of a “must” clause around the financial assistance powers. I am not sure whether that would do the trick, because it could still be an inadequate amount of financial assistance that is provided.
The new clauses addressing multi-year financial plans and reporting are important and we are pleased to see them; we think that those, alongside the Government’s guarantee on the total budget, are just as important in giving farmers certainty and the ability to plan for the long term.
I did not quite understand the question on the WTO agreement.
Thangam Debbonaire
Q
Nick von Westenholz: Not that we have identified, but I will have another look at it after the session.
Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con)
Q
David Goodwin: We are working closely with various county agricultural colleges at the moment. We have just run an event in the north—I have forgotten the name of the college—in association with DEFRA, through our DEFRA grant holder, to engage with our members about this Bill in particular and the ELMSs that are coming forward. That is a project that we were looking to roll out considerably further; unfortunately, our timescale was put back when Parliament was prorogued and we had to postpone a lot of events that we were planning to run. Agricultural colleges lend themselves well to setting up and running events with our members and our target audience of potential members and people who are looking to come into the industry. We are certainly doing as much work as we can with county colleges and the universities, which are all struggling a little bit for students at the moment.
Abena Oppong-Asare
Q
David Goodwin: As we have touched on at various points in this session, the crux of the matter is this Bill’s enabling farmers to run effective, efficient and sustainable businesses, both environmentally and economically. From a young farmer’s point of view, the foundation of all this must be a strong, stable agricultural industry. The only way to attract young people into agriculture is to offer them opportunity; it is difficult to sell the idea of working 150 hours a week and being paid less than the minimum wage to people who are not necessarily in love with agriculture. There are no specifics that spring to mind, but anything we can do to support agriculture is a positive.
George Eustice
Q
David Goodwin: I have a very quick point on that, specifically pertaining to the lamb industry. We have had quite a lot of feedback from our members about lack of transparency: under the sheep legislation as it is at the moment, we are forced to electronically tag and identify all the sheep, but currently the abattoirs and processors are not required to pass that information back down the chain or identify those carcases as pertaining to those animals. There is a perceived transparency issue with some processes. It is not that potentially we are not being paid the right amounts, but I think people would like to know what our killing out percentages are, so that we can improve performance and make better informed decisions.
Nick von Westenholz: We are working through our commodity boards, which is the way we cover the different steps in the NFU to address exactly how the powers will be used. We are pleased that those powers are in the Bill, but lots of them rely on secondary legislation to operate, so it seems that potentially there is still quite a job to do once the Bill is enacted to ensure that the powers can be used properly to do what they are supposed to do. We look forward to working with officials to work out exactly how those powers can be deployed once the Bill is enacted—that is a feature of the enabling aspect of the Bill. We certainly think the focus on improving the supply chain is a critical bit of the Bill.
Daniel Zeichner
Q
Nick von Westenholz: Yes, absolutely. We would like more detail. We understand there was an intention to consult on them at some point under the last Bill, so presumably that will still happen. You are absolutely right that there are potential unintended consequences, not least because those aspects of the Bill relate to England, and there could be a very different way forward in other parts of the UK. That would potentially lead to a very different looking system between England and other parts of the UK. We need to understand the details. Some people might be attracted to the implications of delinking, superficially. Once you delink—particularly with the potential to move to lump sum payments, which is one of the reasons for doing so—you are moving away from some of the things I spoke about earlier, such as being able to manage the transition for the next few years, particularly in the volatile circumstances that might arise for farming. So yes, the long-winded answer is that we would like more detail.
David Goodwin: We tend to agree on the whole. There is a feeling of quiet optimism that it might offer opportunities for young people to come into agriculture. Without some detail to see exactly how that might work and whether it is feasible, people are keeping it at arm’s length.
Daniel Zeichner
Q
Nick von Westenholz: The main parts of the Bill that are relevant are around the transition. Currently, the Bill still has the timetable of beginning to phase out of BPS next year and going over a seven-year period. We have called, as have others, for a delay in that process. That is still absolutely right because we are unlikely to know the trading environment in which farming will operate until potentially very late this year, possibly even into next year, yet the schedule has us beginning to phase out of BPS next year. As David mentioned, agriculture works on very long timeframes.
While we do not know what the future looks like, delaying that is important, not least because this Bill, the previous Bill and the health and harmony consultation that it was predicated on, all took place in a very different political environment where the future relationship with the EU and some other aspects were envisaged very differently. Things have changed, and the Bill and the transition period should also change. We could face some very volatile times ahead and we need to be able to manage that.
The Chair
Order. I am afraid that brings us to the end of the time allotted for this session. I thank the two witnesses on behalf of the Committee. We will move on to the next evidence session.
Examination of Witness
Richard Self gave evidence.
The Chair
We will now hear oral evidence from Co-operatives UK, and we have until 3.30 pm. Welcome. Would you like to introduce yourself?
Richard Self: I am Richard Self, agriculture manager with Co-operatives UK, supporting our farmer co-operatives up and down the country.
George Eustice
Q
Richard Self: We are broadly happy with the way the Bill is set out. The detail will come in secondary legislation for the areas of co-operation and collaboration that we are interested in. The main concern is around exemptions. The exemptions are currently very supportive of co-operatives, but there is some room in the Bill for that to be narrowed, and we need to ensure that the current exemptions are carried through to this new environment. We want to encourage our co-operatives, not discourage them.
On subsidy payments, we accept that. It will create a new environment and a new world for farmers to operate in. Again, co-operation and collaboration can help farmers become productive and efficient within that new world.
George Eustice
Q
Richard Self: It is an interesting area. I am not an expert on the dairy sector, but in milk co-operatives the first-stage processor is owned by the farmers. If that processor takes a high price, farmers will get that back at some stage; in another situation where they do not own the processor, they will not. Therefore, it inhibits them from reacting to the market, because ultimately in a situation where the farmer owns the processor, the benefits will eventually come back to the farmer because they own the business.
Daniel Zeichner
Q
Richard Self: Producer organisations have done a good job, but I think some people would say they could do a better job if they were better organised. I think we could have made better use of them in the past—other countries have made very good use of their POs. One concern we have around POs is that they might be too narrow. We want to ensure that all types of co-operative have the chance to be a PO, and that extra hoops and barriers are not put in the way of existing co-operatives, making it more difficult for them to get to that PO status.
Daniel Zeichner
Q
Richard Self: Other countries have taken those funds that they get through being a PO, and the help with their technology, productivity and so on, but they have also changed their business models. What is important is to get the right business model in place, where you can add value, capture it and bring it back to the primary producer. I think what we have done is just take the money for the grants, if you like, as opposed to changing the business model and the way that the supply chain works.
Daniel Zeichner
Q
Richard Self: I think it can do. As I said, I think the detail will be in the secondary stage to this, and how that is built up, but the foundations are there. We can make that PO scheme work, as long as we are inclusive of all the different co-operative structures that we have got within that, and do not create extra barriers and hoops for people to jump through to get into the PO scheme.
Daniel Zeichner
Q
Richard Self: There is nothing specific that I would like to see. At this stage, it is about trying to keep it as wide as possible, so that we keep our options open and look at every stage of making the environment right for co-operatives to thrive and succeed.
The UK is well behind most other developed agricultural systems in its use of farmer co-operatives. France, Germany and the USA are all developing a number of co-operatives, while the number of our co-operatives is reducing. We need to change that balance around. Our market share of co-operatives, based on my most recent figures from a few years ago, is about 6%, compared with Germany’s 17%. I think France has something like 55% and Denmark somewhere over 60%. Their market share is much greater. The value added that those co-operatives bring is returned to the primary producer.
The other advantage with co-operatives is that they make the markets less volatile. That is one of the things we are worried about in the future—volatile markets. A co-operative can help balance out that market to make it work well, so that there is less volatility in the price of goods—the primary produce. It also makes sure that the supply chains are fairer for the farmer because they are working together.
Mr Goodwill
Q
Do you think that, under the old system as part of the European Union, we have in many ways been trying to squeeze a square peg into a round hole, and fit what is going on here into the way that we can access funds? How do you think in future we can actually produce a system to encourage co-operatives, of the sort that would maybe work in the UK, rather than trying to emulate those across the water?
Richard Self: Generally, we have some very good co-operatives out there. The governance angle of co-operatives is the key thing. If we get that right, and get them well managed at the leadership level, that will help to address the sort of thing that we have had in the past.
We have large farmers in our country, compared with some of the others, but in fact it is the small farmers who do not tend to collaborate so much. I think the larger farmers tend to be very professional in what they are doing, and they are looking at this as a business arrangement, as opposed to the smaller farmers, who want to do things themselves. The evidence I have seen basically says that we need to target smaller farmers probably more than we do the larger farmers.
Danny Kruger
Q
Richard Self: No; that was a good point. Education is good point. I looked at this last year. I looked at our universities and colleges, and they do not do anything on the co-operative business model and how it works round the world, and how farmers benefit from getting engaged. Last year, the Royal Agricultural University did some work for us. It highlighted the lack of understanding of how the business model works and brings benefit back to the farmers—it is about adding and capturing that value and bringing it back. Some farmers have said to me, “Is there any point in us adding value, because someone else captures it?”, whereas a co-operative makes sure that that value is brought back.
We need to educate—“inform” might be a better word in some ways. We do proper case studies and show how, around the world, co-operatives are used in such an effective way, and how their use continues to be developed as they go forward. We were doing quite a lot of work after the Curry Commission report. I was involved in Share to Grow initiatives to get production collaboration going, and we were making some good ground, but then 2008 happened and the cash—the support—stopped. Since then, progress has basically stopped. We have probably moved backwards, if anything, since then in terms of the level of collaboration and co-operation. External support is required to make this happen; it will not happen without that external support to carry it through.
George Eustice
Q
Richard Self: Obviously, marketing and consolidating products to make efficiencies in the supply chain are really important, but as we move forward, there are lots of other opportunities for co-operatives to get involved and for farmers to work together. Data is one—we talk about “big data”—and co-operatives are in an excellent position to harvest that data and to use it, not just for their benefit, but for the benefit of the whole supply chain. It will be important, going forward, that we have really efficient supply chains, so that we compete with external supply chains. Working with a co-operative at the centre of that, at the production level, is important both upstream and downstream. If we can have PO schemes that run across different areas and different sections of that supply chain, it would be good.
George Eustice
Q
Richard Self: I think that the existing competition law that we enjoy now—or did, under EU law—would be good to carry through. That is how I understand it, although I am not an expert in this area. The worry is that it might be narrower in the future, so that the onus comes to fall on the co-operative to show that it is not competing unfairly, whereas at the moment it can say, “We’re a co-operative,” and then someone else has to prove that it is competing unfairly. The problem with that is that co-operatives would have more risk and more uncertainty when they were trying to grow a particular business and so on. That is why we would like to keep it as it is at the moment.
George Eustice
Q
Richard Self: I think that would be sensible. It would be a good aspiration for some areas.
Ruth Jones
Q
Richard Self: I am probably not qualified to say how well the Bill does in that sense, but I believe that if we can have a policy with an almost horizontal theme of collaboration and co-operation that runs through the environmental or production side of it, or anything else, it would be good to improve that. In particular, that strengthens up the position of the primary producer working in a co-operative, in terms of balancing out.
Some processors and suppliers are worried about this, if farmers get together. In some situations, they have—how should we say?—been proactively discouraging it, and we need to avoid that happening. It is to the benefit of the whole supply chain if it works with that co-operative—they can get economies of scale, help manage supply and demand, and use the branding of the co-operative, if you like, to get to the end consumer to show the traceability, the welfare and the quality of the product when working with a co-operative. There are win-win situations for both co-operatives and businesses up and down the supply chain if it is looked at the right way. They can see it as a threat to their profitability.
Miss Sarah Dines (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)
Q
Richard Self: I think the only thing I would change is to make sure that the exemptions are firmed up and protected over the next few years. We are worried about that, in terms of suddenly making it more risky for our co-operatives to develop.
Miss Dines
Q
Richard Self: There is a two-year period on this. It could be managed more flexibly, so it would be good if that could be extended for two years.
Miss Dines
Q
Richard Self: Five years would seem like a good period, but I do not have significant knowledge on that front.
Theo Clarke
Q
Richard Self: I’m sorry; what would that be?
Theo Clarke
Q
Richard Self: I probably do not know enough about that. The code does a good job in helping the process. Co-operatives are my area of expertise. It would be good if that included co-operation and collaboration as it would help redress some of the balance of fairness within the supply chain, but would be for the benefit of the whole supply chain if handled the right way.
George Eustice
Q
Richard Self: Obviously, there is a democratic process within the co-operatives in which you can vote people on who have a particular stance. The idea is to help control your own co-operative in doing what the membership wants. A co-operative should have a process in place whereby that can be fed into the co-operative to get the criteria right for that membership. The process of democracy within the co-operative should allow for that. I cannot comment on an individual case, but it is up to the members how they run their business. They should be able to set it up the way they want it.
George Eustice
Q
Richard Self: I would hope so, yes. But I am not an expert in the dairy industry, so I would need to investigate that further; we are happy to look into that. I have good contacts with our dairy co-operatives and can help feed that into the system.
Daniel Zeichner
Q
Richard Self: Increasingly, farmers will have better data on their anticipated crop yields, milk yields or whatever. They can collect that raw data, and farmers can trust their co-operative to handle it in the right way for them. That data is useful and is worth money to others in the supply chain. It is a question of how they can work together to maximise the use of that data for the benefit of the supply chains they are working in.
Daniel Zeichner
Q
Richard Self: Obviously, the more data you have across an area—information on yields, or even perhaps on the supply side, on agrochemical use and the anticipated use of crop-protection products—the more it helps you to manage supply and demand going forward, which helps improve efficiency and productivity. Co-operatives are in a really strong place because they are working on behalf of their farmer members, and they can use that data in the right way to help the whole supply chain.
Fay Jones
Q
Richard Self: On risk management, the problem is that you put your crops in the ground or start to produce your animals well ahead, and you do not know what you will get for them. Mechanisms to control those risks against unforeseen events and so on are really important. If they could be built in, that would be very useful. Again, co-operatives have a role in that: you can pool your crops or your fertiliser payments to average out prices within a co-operative. That is the sort of thing that helps to manage risk. If you have a known price for a thing, or you get an average price over a period, you do not get hit hard if the price suddenly goes up or down.
Danny Kruger
Q
Richard Self: I would say both.
Danny Kruger
Q
Richard Self: I think there are some wins there for local things, but if we really want to make a difference, it has to be about getting a good market share of UK supply chains and then working with those groups to see how we can develop export markets around the world for high-value, high-welfare, quality products. There are some opportunities for that. It is a difficult area to get into—obviously, it is highly competitive—but with the story we have through our production methods and so on, we should be able to do that. Again, the point is that you need the right business model to add that value but then capture it back to the primary producer. The problem is that when a farmer produces something and it just goes off on a lorry and they do not know where it is going, they are price-takers and somebody else is capturing the value they have created. That is why we need to get the business model right for those groups.
The Chair
If there are no more questions, I thank Mr Self, and we will move on to the next panel.
Examination of Witnesses
Graeme Willis, Jim Egan and Jake Fiennes gave evidence.
The Chair
We will now hear evidence from the Campaign to Protect Rural England, Kings Crops and the Holkham Estate. We have until 4.15 pm. Would the witnesses like to introduce themselves first?
Jake Fiennes: I am Jake Fiennes, the general manager of conservation at Holkham Estate in north Norfolk.
The Chair
Before I move on to Mr Egan, may I say that this is a huge room and the acoustics are terrible, so can people speak up?
Jim Egan: I am Jim Egan, technical advisor for Kings Crops.
Graeme Willis: I am Graeme Willis, agricultural lead for CPRE, the countryside charity.
George Eustice
Q
Jim Egan: From my perspective, one shortcoming is that the current system does not allow fully integrated environmental and farming management. It does not let the whole lot sit together, which causes issues. One of the biggest shortcomings of the current system is its administration in my specialised area, agri-environment schemes, which will put people off, as it has in the past. I do not really want to go much further than that, Minister. There are lots of things, but that is my area of expertise.
In terms of modifying in the short term, my personal view would be not to, particularly on countryside stewardship. I do a lot of work directly with farmers on getting stewardship schemes in, and I have never seen so much demand as this year. I already have 65 people on my books wanting to do the modified schemes. There are obviously things pushing them towards that, but the simplification of the actual stewardship process has been good. We just need to get the payments and other things right in the short term, to provide certainty.
If I was going to modify anything within the wider BPS system, I would perhaps modify the three-crop rule, so I could say that we had done something. However, I think people are used to it, and it is actually very important, in a time of turbulence, that we keep it as stable as we can at the moment.
Sorry; what was your third question?
George Eustice
Do you support the general thrust of the future policy, moving from subsidy on land tenure to—
Jim Egan: Yes.
Jake Fiennes: If we split it into pillar 1 and pillar 2, the current BPS is rather clumsy and, in places, overly simplistic. We have the ecological focus area ruling within that, which, as Jim refers to, is cumbersome. The three-crop rule and hedge-cutting dates sort of tie farmers into a knot; they are unable to be flexible.
In the short term, farmers are preparing for a transition period, which will start in 2021, according to the current Secretary of State, although I know that some are pushing for that to be extended, because we have just seen a delay of this whole process. However, farmers are slowly taking on board that there will be seismic change within their business. It has happened over a very static two years, but we have seen a real momentum, and there is a general acceptance among those within the industry that this is coming around the corner. If they have an ability to prepare their businesses by going into the current schemes—I think the new stewardship scheme was opened today. I have not looked at it, but I think the detail made it easier and more user-friendly.
We have to put the past aside, with all the issues that we had with the RPA, Natural England and late payments. I think we have moved on from that, and I think this year was an example of the RPA demonstrating very swift payments, and the current stewardship payments are being rolled out as we speak. That is all very positive. Again, I see a greater uptake of the current schemes—the countryside stewardship higher tier and middle tier, and also the simplified scheme.
That will get farmers ready through the transition period, which comes on to the Minister’s third point, where I am in full favour of it. A slight redrafting of the Bill—talking about soil and productivity—basically got the entire land-based community on board.
Graeme Willis: I think it is well attested that the CAP scheme is inefficient, ineffective and inequitable. People such as Allan Buckwell and Alan Matthews have made that point, and DEFRA’s own research has shown that, and there have been statements, so we very much support that view. In terms of the current countryside stewardship schemes, as Jim said, it is very important that farmers keep faith with those schemes. The simplification has been very helpful.
Certainly within DEFRA, I have been making the point that those schemes are probably under-commented on, because we have a 2030 deadline for addressing climate change by cutting emissions very significantly. Four years through to when ELMs beds in is a very important period in which to get trees in the ground and to get peatland and other high-carbon soils restored. It is very important in this phase to keep putting money in and investing in farming. It is very important that farmers keep faith with that, and the schemes have been expanding, which is very welcome after a rocky start.
We believe that public goods for public money is the right way forward. It is the absolute crux for enhancing the environment, obviously addressing climate change and biodiversity issues. But, as Jim said, it is very important to harmonise what farmers do in producing food and other goods with environmental improvements which we know are very necessary. Bringing those two together is critical so that they are not seem as oppositional.
George Eustice
Q
Jake Fiennes: Are we referring to the blueprint of ELM?
George Eustice
Yes, in the new scheme.
Jake Fiennes: We have the regulatory payment. I hear of calls for up to 30% of existing payments that farmers receive, which is about £200 per hectare. I am certainly not in favour of that, because it will not encourage stakeholders to go into the middle tier and I think you will see a great uptake in the middle tier. On the final tier, which is landscape restoration, whether it is on a catchment basis, if we are going to have sustainable, functional land use, it has to be at scale and deliver all the climate change issues and soil regeneration. All these processes will go into the final tier and, having listened to some of the comments earlier about the smaller farmers not working well together but the bigger ones working better, we are seeing a great uptake of facilitation funds and cluster groups. This whole movement is happening. I would not encourage the lower payment to be a major factor, because we would basically go back to a reverse BPS system.
Jim Egan: My way of answering that would be to look at the fact that in the majority of lowland England, if you split it that way, you will find farmers taking up more than you think, if it is properly rewarded, if it is linked in by the rest of the industry and it is linked together. You quite commonly talk to farmers now who take out anything between 5% and 15% of their land to manage it “for the environment” and also recognise the real benefits of changing what they do: introducing grass lanes to help with grass weed control and to build soil fertility, which helps with cleaner water and so on.
I agree wholeheartedly with Jake that there is a sea change coming. A lot of people stood back, because of the political uncertainty, but they are ready for that. The higher extremes you referenced, such as peat restoration, will be a focus in an area where it can happen, getting those landowners together and talking about it. It will take time. I do not think they are completely divorced and different.
On woodland, it will fit when people start to see natural capital, particularly the natural capital potential of their land, and they have choices of what to do. Then woodland will start to happen, especially where you can get people working together and you can make the links. I would be positive about that.
Daniel Zeichner
Q
Graeme Willis: In terms of maintaining standards, we are very concerned—I know that statements have been made about supporting high standards—that undercutting those standards through imports would undermine farmers’ incomes, as well as their ability to perform environmental management. I know that an amendment previously tabled to the Bill sought to introduce a broad requirement that any international trade agreement that was to be ratified must be compliant with UK standards. We think that is a major omission and one of the major things that needs to be addressed in the legislation. We have a common cause with the whole of the farming sector on that. The whole of the NGO environmental sector takes that view. It is a very important element and condition.
Daniel Zeichner
Q
Jim Egan: Regarding possible current uptake this year, I have always been positive, and I have been proved wrong, year on year, as I am often told by DEFRA’s agri-environment group. This year, in particular, people have heard for a long time that BPS will start going down. They have seen their neighbours’ farms going into the simplified scheme, although not in huge numbers. I work with a company that provides agronomy advice, and the agronomists are starting to understand it.
The weather this year in the east midlands, my patch of the country, has meant that there are farms with no combinable crops in the ground at all—not 5% or 10%, but none. That has made people think. It has made people think about sustainable income streams, support, unproductive areas and what they could do differently. There is a whole raft of different things. There is also a question of who sells it. If you sell it directly and positively, people will do it. If you are negative and you harp on about late payments and so on, the meeting will leave you. I tend to be positive about it. Perhaps that is why I have a long list of people wanting to work with it.
Jake Fiennes: When you put economically sustainable agriculture to a farmer, he may have had 47 years of being paid just to produce food, irrespective of the quality, quantity and yield he produces on his land. They must realign their business. If we see this transition period take place as of next year, some famers will lose anything from 5% to 20% of their support income.
Agri-environment helps them through the transition period financially, but it also gets them to understand. At the moment, farmers lack good agricultural environmental advice. That is what we don’t see enough of: advice on the ground. Farmers are a particularly fickle community. They are wary of individuals they do not know, so the advice has to come from individuals with whom they have had previous relationships, whether through their agronomy, because we are seeing agronomy become more open to environmental delivery, the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Groups throughout the country, or Natural England, which changed the game of agri-environment 20 years ago. The advice on the ground is key.
If farmers are sold an economic reason and then have an ability to deliver the environmental goods, whatever they may be, through sound advice, we will see greater uptake. The reason we had the stop-start scenario with agri-environment was, as Jim referred to, late payments—“Am I going to get paid for it?”—or commodity prices. We have seen the volatility in commodity prices. If I am getting £200 a tonne for my milling wheat, why do I need to go to an agri-environment scheme when I have already invested in the men, the machinery and the infrastructure to deliver that crop? It is an evolving, moving process, but they are definitely coming more on board with it.
Daniel Zeichner
Q
Jim Egan: I think there is underlying capacity out there. There are enough people to do it. There will be a change of mindset in some sectors, but bear in mind that business is seeing some of the opportunities here as well. Jake is right: it needs to be somebody the farmer trusts—there is a wide range of advisers trusted by farmers—and the advisers need to believe in the scheme. Many advisers have not sold environmental work for the past five years, because they do not believe in the scheme; they do not want to put their name on the line when the payments are late, and when the agreement does not turn up for a year after you have entered into it.
You should not underestimate the impact that that has, because if your adviser walks up the drive and says, “I can’t put my name to that, because I can’t advise you about that future income and part of your business,” it puts people off. We are starting to get a lot of certainty now about stewardship. I know it will change and evolve, but we need that certainty of scheme and of process. The advice is there; people just need to believe in it.
Mr Goodwill
Q
Graeme Willis: Referring to uplands, we have signed a letter to say that we want peatland burning to end rapidly, and the Committee on Climate Change has taken the same view. I want those landscapes to be managed in a re-wetted form, which might help different forms of game. It might not be the same kinds of game management.
Mr Goodwill
Q
Graeme Willis: The blanket bog, essentially. That could be re-wetted and improved upon, and I think you would get different game. You would not necessarily get the same driven grouse shooting, but it is important to take into account what game management could do in those areas and how it might adapt to that. It would be a different form of activity, but very important. I take the point about large estates, but Jake can say far more about that; it is important that you maintain that kind of management. It has a lot of environmental benefits, certainly in integrating woodland into those environments and into the farming.
Jim Egan: I have no experience of upland, so I will not try that one. I used to work at the Allerton project for GWCT, and my experience of lowland game management is that, where it is done very well, it is very good. It encourages woodland management, habitat management and the provision of wild bird seed mixes, pollen and nectar. You are right to reference the fact that many of those estates were doing that work before agri-environment and working with agri-environment. We need to be careful to ensure that that management is positive and good, because, like everything in life, there are good and bad shooting estates. For me, it comes back to farming and the environment, completely melded and meshed together. Sporting activity is part of the rural environment and needs to mesh in with it.
Jake Fiennes: It is an Agriculture Bill and game is not agriculture. We have to remove game, because it is just a landscape pastime. The environment can benefit game. The game community has enough issues to deal with on its table, but we can see that game interests have evolved over the centuries. They will be more crucial in the delivery of environmental goods. Those with a history of managing with a game interest see the benefits. The Allerton project is a great example. The Duke of Norfolk’s estate in Peppering is specifically targeting game, but the benefits to the wider environment are huge. All the game interests form part of an agri-environment scheme, so they are sort of intrinsically linked. Where it is done well, it is done very well, and where it is done badly, it is an environmental disaster. Those with game interests will have to change, which is no different from how those with food production interests will have to change.
Mr Goodwill
Q
Jake Fiennes: I think the ELM schemes will do exactly that. If we can demonstrate better land use for our land that is less productive—use for the environment, biodiversity, carbon storage, cleaner water and cleaner air—everyone gets to benefit.
Kerry McCarthy
Q
Jake Fiennes: Game is not agriculture. Game has never been part of agriculture. Forestry is agriculture; farming, dairying and beef production are agriculture, but game sort of sits on the sidelines and is not part of agriculture.
Kerry McCarthy
Q
Jake Fiennes: It is a technicality, but game has never been—
Kerry McCarthy
Q
Jake Fiennes: But a game farmer is not a farmer. He is not a poultry producer either, strangely. Sorry, but it is a real technical difference.
Kerry McCarthy
Q
My other question is that you mentioned your views about county farms, and I am keen to see what you think should be in the Bill. I think there is general support for the idea that county farms are a good thing, but that does not necessarily mean that they need to go into the Bill. Can you say what you think needs to be in the Bill on that front?
Graeme Willis: On peatland, it interesting how broad that goes in terms of land management. Going back to the Minister’s question, I would imagine that large-scale restoration might well be part of ELM. The public goods statements are quite broadly framed, but they do talk about soil, and the supporting position statement talks about soil and peat.
Kerry McCarthy
Q
Graeme Willis: Yes, climate change being one of the objectives. It is very important, given we know the level of emissions from upland peat, that the intentions of the Bill should cover those areas and ELM should be able to deliver on that within that wider land restoration component, if that be. I think that will be very important, because where else will the resource come from to do that? The 25-year plan had a £10 million fund. Scotland has committed £250 million for restoration, so we need money to be identified that can go towards that restoration over the longer period. There is an issue about the viability of those peatlands in the long term in a warming climate if they are managed in a different way. That makes things even more contentious.
I am pleased that you mentioned county farms. I am not a specialist on entrants, but I think something on supporting new entrants should be in the Bill through an amendment to that effect. The Minister has spoken about investing in county farms on several occasions and to the EFRA Committee. He welcomed the idea as a very interesting development. The farms could be invested in so that they can produce more peri-urban horticulture, for example, which might be one way to make smaller units viable. As was referred to earlier, there is an economic question around those. An amendment to invest and fund—or to give the Secretary of State powers to invest and fund—county farms to be developed and improved for wider purposes, would be great.
We would also consider asking for a protective lock on county farm estates while they can develop new wider sets of purposes, so that they can be invested in for the future. Wider purposes in terms of mitigating and adapting to climate change, supporting connection to the countryside, access to land and landscapes and the realities of farming, would be very welcome.
Virginia Crosbie
Q
Jim Egan: When you are on the receiving end of the inspection regime does not seem proportionate at all at the moment. It is heavy-handed. We all accept that there must be rules and that there has to be an inspection, but you are working on a farm, on a shop floor that has no straight edges. When somebody can come and deduct a payment for being four decimal places out in area, which is what it could go to, it does not feel right. It actually puts an awful lot of people off engaging with agri-environment schemes and measures because of the pure fear of the inspection. The inspectors are great people—they are doing a job—but they do not engage during their inspection process. There is a finality to the inspection process that says, “Mr Egan, you are wrong.” There is an appeals process, but there is no face to face. That is not a very nice place to be.
It would be better if it was done in a much more approachable way. We all accept that a lot of money goes into the industry, but we should be approachable. We should be able to say, “Oh, I didn’t quite get that right.” If it is a minor infringement, it is nothing. There will be something else on the farm that delivers above and beyond what it was intended to, but it is never taken into account.
When I worked at the Allerton project, we had three inspections in seven years. That is in a place where there is a board of trustees, a management team and we all get on. There is a lot of pressure on the people responsible for that. Imagine being on a farm on your own. It is not a good place. It needs to be more human and a better process.
As for success for me, do you mean in terms of the scheme or the inspection regime?
Virginia Crosbie
In terms of the scheme.
Jim Egan: In terms of the scheme, it would be everybody engaging, and engaging willingly and talking about it.
Deidre Brock
Q
Jake Fiennes: I don’t think I was referring to grouse moors specifically. I was referring to game shooting as a community.
Deidre Brock
Q
Jake Fiennes: Well, no, I think there are clear benefits from grouse shooting. We can see greater biodiversity on well managed grouse moors. If we look at the burning of peatlands, on Saddleworth Moor last year a huge area of moor had very deep burning within the peat; that was an area of moor that was not managed for grouse, because the heather was very poor, and it was a tinderbox that caught fire very quickly. We must understand the benefits of well managed grouse moors to a landscape that is iconic to the English uplands: 70% of the world’s heather moorland is in England, so it is a key habitat. Admittedly, there are some quite extreme management techniques in places, which we are quite aware of, and the industry is looking inward on how to address that.
Deidre Brock
Q
Jake Fiennes: A payment system that rewards farmers and land occupiers for delivering public goods should not exclude anyone. As Jim just said, this has to be open to everyone.
Deidre Brock
Q
Jim Egan: I do not get involved in policy; I have never worked in it.
Graeme Willis: In terms of the breadth of it, I think it is still open to question as to how wide it goes. I am on the stakeholder engagement group, so I am limited in what I can say because of confidentiality about that. However, I have certainly seen a slide that shows how wide it might go, and there might be questions around whether it includes, for example, airport operators, which have large tracts of open grassland that they need to manage to keep trees off. Could they do positive things with that?
I think there is a very important question about the amount of resource available and whether those are the right people to receive that resource, as against farmers, given the context we talked about, the viability issues going forward and the cuts to basic payments during the transition. However, something to address the issues across a broad landscape is very important.
On whole-farm areas, we would not want large areas of farmland managed very intensively within a system in which other areas are just managed for public goods. I think they need to be combined and harmonised, as we said before, so that land is shared and used in the very best way, for the environmental benefits and for good, sustainable food production.
George Eustice
Q
One thing we have described for the future scheme is that you would instead leave all that behind, and individual farms would have a trusted, accredited adviser on agri-environment schemes. That could be a trusted, accredited agronomist, or someone who works for the Wildlife Trust or the RSPB, and they would be trained to help put the schemes together. They would visit the farm, walk the farm with their boots on and then sit around the kitchen table and help an individual farmer construct a scheme.
We are obviously testing and piloting and trialling that now. If that system could be made to work—an altogether more human system, as you said, because a trusted adviser would do the initial agreement and would maybe visit the farm three or four times a year, not to inspect but to be a point of advice—how many farms can a single agri-environment adviser with that type of remit realistically do?
Jim Egan: It would depend very much on type, size, place, aspect and everything. I do not think you can put a number on the people that you could hold as clients. I actually do not know how many clients my agronomy colleagues have, because I am new to that business. However, where I work, I would be perfectly comfortable managing 40 or 50 clients and working through with them.
The main premise is not to overlook that that process of walking the farm with a trusted adviser already happens for countryside stewardship. Most farmers will take advice and will rely on somebody working with them. The opportunity that comes from splitting out and putting everything into ELMS—including all the basic payment elements, so that it is one big agricultural and environmental processing scheme—actually means that you can widen that advice and make it broader. The trick will be that those advisers will have to have knowledge of the farming business and will have to talk to others within the business. Even on a small dairy farming unit, they will have to talk to the vet, the feed merchant and the farmer. It is a facilitation skill as much as anything else, and it will require an understanding of how those farming sectors work.
This is definitely the right way to go. We will need professional advice to do that. A farmer doesn’t grow an arable crop without an agronomist. You don’t grow beef cattle without a vet or a feed merchant. So why should you not have what I would call environmental facilitators?
George Eustice
Q
Jim Egan: First, I do not think they should be recruited by Natural England or the RPA. Within the supply chain, there are probably sufficient people. An agronomist has to be trained and to get your agronomy diploma you have to do a BETA—biodiversity and environmental training for advisers—certificate in conservation management. It is only a three-day course, but it is about awareness. Whoever is drawing up the scheme will need to pull on other skills and pull and bring the environmental community and the farming community together. A good person does that already. I do not think you need a new qualification. The qualifications are there. The BETA certificate in conservation management and that type of approach already addresses some of the issues. It would probably need an upland module and a little bit more focus on grassland, because it is an arable-focused course.
I also believe that it is Natural England or the RPA’s responsibility, if they get a bad application, to send it back. I went to DEFRA and Natural England about eight years ago and asked for that to happen and it never did. Natural England continues to re-work bad applications. Once you do that, the farming community will soon know not to go to that person. It doesn’t need degree level; it needs an element of a qualification, a CV and management by a managing authority that is not afraid to take people off the list if they are not doing the job properly.
Fay Jones
Q
Jake Fiennes: If I am brutally honest, I do not think the Treasury would sign up to that. If we all opted out, we couldn’t afford it. I am intrigued that that is still on the table.
Earlier you referred to land values. How to devalue very quickly? Everyone opts out and land values plummet —in an industry that is generally reliant on that support in the way it currently manages land.
Graeme Willis: When I heard about this in the original Agriculture Bill, I was concerned that no constraints were placed on that money. I was not clear about the rationale for that. If the rationale is for new entrants, there is an issue if that is only done through land prices falling. I am not convinced that we can guarantee that when a farm is sold, a new entrant will get that farm. There is no control over that, so it seems too broadbrush. It also seems somewhat a hostage to fortune because large amounts of public money being paid out for what is not a clear set of purposes could play very badly with the public; other people have raised that concern. If that were tied to some investment into the farm, there is an element of advantage there to having a lump sum to invest that could meet the other purposes to improve the farm’s environmental performance and productivity. Also, it could be good if it were tied in some shape or form to supporting new entrants.
Earlier, there was a mention of share farming—some form of succession where there is no son or daughter to pass the farm on to, some mechanism where that was locked in to ensure that a new entrant could get on to a farmstead and actually learn. You mentioned skills: they could learn from the skills of the farmer on that farm and not lose the knowledge of the land, the aspect, the farming and the culture of that farm, and pass that on to a new, younger or older person with a different set of skills. That would be really interesting.
I see it as too broadbrush and not clear at the moment, and I have concerns. I understand that that will be consulted on, but I am not sure whether that is clear from the Bill as it stands, or whether that can be clarified.
Miss Dines
Q
Jim Egan: I think it can be achieved. The current example of facilitation funds in cluster groups is an absolute classic for that type of farming. I think that there is a facilitation fund in your constituency; there is certainly one not far away. Those farmers could come together. I am not a believer in “one farm, one advice”. If there are six people who farm together with smaller farming units who want to go into a scheme, and will achieve better environmental outputs if they all work together, we can give one set of advice to all of them.
We need to think really differently about where we are going now. It is not just about one-to-one advice; it is about one-to-six advice. It is about, when you put the scheme together, providing the training to those six to implement the measures. I think that it is completely affordable, and it works. We just need to think differently about how we put these things together.
Daniel Zeichner
Q
Graeme Willis: On where those targets are expressed, we know that the Environment Bill has been laid before Parliament. The relationship between the Agriculture Bill, the Environment Bill and all the other policy instruments is very interesting, and remains to be resolved. If you had gone in the right order, it might have been that you had the Environment Bill, then the 25-year environment plan, and then the Agriculture Bill, because the main funding mechanism seems to be environmental land management, which would deliver on the kind of targets that you set through the 25-year plan. That can be established through the legislation in the Environment Bill.
I am not sure whether it is right to put a target in this Bill at the moment—it may be a commitment by the Minister—but I think there is a possibility of introducing further regulation that might address that. Obviously, there is the Environment Bill. One of the complicated issues is whether the Agriculture Bill could reference the Environment Bill, because it has not received Royal Assent. There is a question about how we address targets, and whether that is set out through the Office for Environmental Protection, for example. It is a complicated relationship.
I think that the situation has changed, and therefore what the Agriculture Bill is able to do, and the amount of funding that comes forward to deliver on those targets, is critical. Clarity about the long-term funding arrangements is therefore very important, as well as how those would seek to address the climate change issue.
Daniel Zeichner
Q
Graeme Willis: A target for the sector would be very interesting. I know that the NFU has come up with its own leadership statement of a 2040 target. It would be interesting for the sector. I would flag up that when emissions from agriculture are referenced they are land use, land-use change and forestry emissions, which relate to agriculture. Peatland use, particularly, is not mentioned, which is very high indeed—particularly on lowland peat. Those need to be factored in. It is of great concern that those do not get mentioned adequately. I think there are powers within the Bill to address those.
I suspect that if you had sector targets for agriculture you would argue for targets for other sectors. I am not sure whether those are in place. In the agriculture sector, I think that there will be ambition, given the right funding, to do a lot more on climate change, certainly in terms of locking carbon up in soils, where it belongs, rather than losing it to the air. There is great potential for that.
Mr Goodwill
Q
Jake Fiennes: There could be a technical mechanism relating to tenant’s dilapidations from the landlord’s perspective. The landlord could seek to recoup that if he was going to devalue the land by taking those future payments away. There is a technical mechanism that allows that to happen. That strengthens the landlord’s ability to retain that land to rent to others or to new entrants. It is important that there is some kind of mechanism within the Bill for that. Potentially there would be land abandonment because it has no value, or we would see deep intensification of land areas that have no support mechanism. Then we are trying to deliver environmental land management on a landscape scale, and we have these blackspots in between with no support mechanism. That would be my concern.
George Eustice
Q
Jake Fiennes: Land rents are artificially high based on the support mechanism. We will see that slowly diminish. Commodity prices will periodically affect land prices. The horticultural sector does not rely on support at all. The average age of the British farmer is 62: land rents are overly high and they will be reduced, thereby suddenly allowing new entrants to come in who will be more open to environmental land management and public goods proposals. We will see a wholesale change. We are expecting a recession in agriculture through this transition period, for all the reasons being discussed today. Where there is change there is opportunity, and the opportunities are there for another generation to move in and manage land environmentally, economically and sustainably.
Chair
We will now hear evidence from the Country Land and Business Association and the Tenant Farmers Association. We have until 5pm. Welcome; please introduce yourselves.
Judicaelle Hammond: I am Judicaelle Hammond. I am the director of policy and advice of the Country Land and Business Association.
George Dunn: I am George Dunn. I am the chief executive of the Tenant Farmers Association of England and Wales.
George Eustice
Q
George Dunn: That is an interesting question, and one to which there is no simple answer. There are two codes of tenancy in play. One is the code under the Agricultural Holdings Act 1986, and one is under the Agricultural Tenancies Act 1995. The 1986 Act has a formulaic approach to rent. It steers you away from the market. In my view, if you look at the rents that are on Agricultural Holdings Act tenancies, they are probably more akin to an affordable level of rent. We are seeing around £80 per acre on arable, £50 to £60 per acre on grass and up to £100 per acre on dairy.
The farm business tenancy rents, which are driven by tender rents quite a lot, are far too high. We often see rents for arable ground in excess of £200 per acre and over £200 per acre for dairy ground. Those are clearly unsustainable. I would direct the Committee to look at the sorts of evidence you would get from the 1986 Act as to what a reasonable level of rent is.
Judicaelle Hammond: I do not think it is that easy. As George was saying, several things make up land rents. One of them is what you can get for what you do with that land. It is right that it should be left to the market. It may well be that some of the rent levels are unsustainable. I think they will probably adjust as we change regimes, but I do not think that being bound by a formulaic rent system is a good idea in a system where there is uncertainty in trading conditions and there needs to be some flexibility.
George Dunn: To add to that, the problem with an open market system is that the market is so slim, and the evidence is so hard to come by. Therefore, you tend to be driven by the froth in the system—the tender rents. If you look at DEFRA’s own figures, the average farm business tenancy rent on an arable farm is about £100 per acre, but the tender rents suggest they should be double that. I just think we need to ensure that we are not wholly going with the market level.
George Eustice
Q
George Dunn: On that point, we would see the farm business tenancy rents under the 1995 Act move more towards the level of rents we would see under the 1986 Act. They might fall a little bit, but because they take into consideration the productive and related earning capacity of the holding, that would reflect better what that holding can physically produce.
George Eustice
Q
Judicaelle Hammond: There is no easy answer to that, because the circumstances will vary. I think it very much depends on what the person who owns that land wants to do with their holding. It may well be that, due to questions other than just land rents, they want to bring it in hand. It may be that there are other things they want to do on that land—for example, tourism or something completely different to agriculture—or it may be that renting the land to tenants suits them and they will continue doing that. That will vary according to the owners’ vision for the land and the stage they are at in terms of their business.
George Eustice
Q
Judicaelle Hammond: We would totally agree, as the CLA, that this move is the right move. We have been a proponent of moving towards payment for public good for a while now. The Bill is welcome. We also welcome the inclusion of soil quality, for example, and the consideration of sustainable food production and food security in the Bill. The fact that there is now going to be a multi-annual framework for financial assistance is also important, as is assistance for productivity improvement.
Regarding what we would want to see, there are two main aspects, as well as a number of other improvements, which I might talk about later. One is making sure that the transition is right. At the moment, we are missing information, not just about what is going to happen next year, but about residual payments for individual businesses over the rest of the transition years. We are missing the kinds of details about ELMS that will make it possible for those businesses to make decisions about where they want to take their business, and in particular, of course, about payment rates. In the absence of those details, and given the uncertainty in trading conditions, we would like the start of the transition period to be pushed back by one year without moving the start of ELMS.
The other issue that we have is about trade standards, which the NFU and others have spoken about. We certainly share their concerns.
George Dunn: I would take you back a little bit, Minister, and just say that we need to be really careful. Despite the fact that there is a great deal of criticism of the CAP, and the way in which the basic payment scheme operates and its impact on rents, we need to be clear that those payments are being received by individual farms right up and down the country that are doing the right things on the environment, animal welfare, consumer safety and all those issues. If we simply remove the BPS payment without properly thinking through the changes that we need to make, we risk the good work that we are doing. That is why we have been saying that we are making changes for a generation, and they need to be done well rather than quickly, so we support the CLA’s stance on delaying the transition. We think that we have concertinaed the work on ELMS, for example, too much to try to bring that forward into a sensible place.
Also, while we support the general move towards public payments for public goods, we see that move alongside the productivity elements, which we believe are really important as well. The Bill has a couple of lines on productivity, but we want to see much more about how that can work alongside creating resilience within farm businesses. There are also the trading elements and ensuring that we are not undercut by cheap imports from abroad, produced to standards that are illegal here; the fair dealing practices; and the issue of access to the tenanted sector. Schedule 3 goes some way towards addressing that sector, but it needs a little bit of work.
Daniel Zeichner
Q
Judicaelle Hammond: The main one, as I said—I will not labour the point—is the delay in the start of the transition. It also seems to us that a couple of other things would be improved if they were done differently. For example, the multi-annual framework for financial assistance is five years. I can see why it has been done like that, but that means that it is at risk of being entangled with the political and election cycles. As far as I know, farmers in the EU—which is going to be our closest competitor—will still have seven years to plan. That is closer to the business cycle in agriculture, so we would favour lengthening the period covered by the multi-annual financial assistance framework.
The other thing that could be added to the Bill is a provision on rural development and, in particular, socioeconomic funding schemes. In the new world, that is going to be done via the UK shared prosperity fund, but that is not due to arrive until 2022 at the earliest. What would happen if that got delayed, or got into other difficulties? We would like to see some provision to make sure that it is possible for Government to continue socioeconomic schemes.
Those are two important improvements. We would also want to make sure that any moneys that are recouped from direct payment, particularly in the early part of the transitions, are used for productivity and ELMS pilots and do not go back to the Treasury.
George Dunn: We agree on the issue of trade standards. We think we need to nail that wholly into the Bill to ensure that we are not undercutting our high standards here and offshoring our issues abroad.
While there have been some helpful statements from the Government, we are concerned about some of the rhetoric that appears to be emerging, particularly from the Prime Minister’s Greenwich speech, where there was an indication that we would not necessarily insist on our laws being protected in trade deals, which is rather worrying. Of course we were also promised free and frictionless trade with the EU on leaving the European Union, but we hear the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster saying today that we need to prepare for issues at the border when we end our implementation period.
On the fair dealing section of the Bill, we should nail down the fact that that should be regulated by the Groceries Code Adjudicator. The Bill leaves it hanging as to who should be the regulator. There is a suggestion that the Rural Payments Agency has a role to play; I would disagree. As the CLA has said, we need a delay in the transition period by one year, which will give us sufficient time to think about these things more deeply.
The access for tenants to schemes needs to be addressed, because schedule 3 to the Bill provides a provision only on a “may” basis. We want it to be a “must” basis that the authorities come forward with regulations. Currently, that applies only to the 1986 Act tenants, not the 1995 Act tenants. As that is half the tenanted sector in agriculture in England, we think that should be changed.
On the food security section, we want the report to be annual, not five yearly. Finally, in the financial assistance plans, the missing thing is the word “financial”. There is no commitment to say what the finances are going to be in any one year over the five-year period. That needs to be nailed into those plans as well.
Daniel Zeichner
Q
George Dunn: There is nothing in the Bill that will affect the lengths of tenancies per se. Obviously there is the welcome inclusion of soil health within the public payments for public goods element of the Bill, which might encourage people to go for longer tenancies, depending on how the ELMS fits into that, but there is nothing specific that will do anything about the lengths of tenancies.
The Tenancy Reform Industry Group made a suggestion, because one of the things that landlords are concerned about is how they get land back if the tenant goes into breach. We are not interested in protecting tenants who are in breach. If we had easier-to-use provisions that allowed landlords to take land back if they had let for a long period of time, that might make them freer to do that.
There is also a need to look at the taxation framework, which goes beyond the Bill, but we hope that the Chancellor might say something about that on 11 March.
Judicaelle Hammond: Interestingly enough, we would support the introduction of provisions that enabled landlords, as you might expect, to get possession of the land in the case of breach. The question for us is whether there should be a threshold on that. Our answer would be that two years or more would be better than any arbitrary longer threshold. That is certainly an additional provision that we could support if there were not an arbitrary threshold.
George Dunn: Our view would be that there would be no public policy use for such a short-term clause. If we are looking at longer tenancies, we need to find a way of encouraging them, so it needs to apply to tenancies that are of 10 years or more.
Danny Kruger
Q
Judicaelle Hammond: It is really important to understand that, in most cases, we would expect agreement to be found. I think the reason why we do not like one of the particular provisions in schedule 3, which has to do with arbitration in case of disputes, is that at the moment it very much looks at the interests of the tenants, who might be gaining financially quite a lot, without necessarily having a balance of the interest of the landlord.
I will give you a few examples of why landlords might withhold consent. It might be about landscape protection. For example, the National Trust will have properties where they want to make sure that the landscape continues to be enjoyed as it is. Or it might be that something does not fit with the business planned for the whole of the holding—in particular, if you are looking at other areas of the holding that are currently in hand or are farmed by somebody else, which might be better suited to planting trees, because trees cannot grow very well in all places. Or it might be about putting buildings on land in order to create new activities.
As drafted, the schedule would mean that, in the case of a dispute, it would go to an arbitrator, and then the decision is binding on the landlord. That means that there could be really long-term and possibly irreversible decisions being imposed on the landlord. We see that as a really fundamental infringement of property rights, and that worries us. It is the absence of balance that worries us.
Danny Kruger
Q
Judicaelle Hammond: Ideally, we would not want this in the Bill at all. Certainly, if it were to stay in the Bill, we would want to see assurances that would redress that imbalance.
George Dunn: Just to correct something that you might have said in your question, for the basic payment scheme, which is being phased out, in 99.9% of the cases that would be going to the tenant, the occupier, who has the land at their disposal.
Obviously, within some of the newer farm business tenancies under the 1995 Act—which I referred to earlier, following the Minister’s question—a landlord might expect to receive at least the basic payment scheme in rent, plus more, in terms of the tenant’s willingness to pay rent on that basis, so there is a secondary move of the payment to the landlord, but the claimant is the tenant, and that is what the regulations say.
The bigger area that we have concerns about is the agri-environment scheme, where there has been this idea that you could have dual use, where a landlord could claim countryside stewardship and environmental stewardship while the tenant is claiming the BPS. We think that is wholly inappropriate, and we will ask for amendments to the Bill to define the rightful recipient of some of this money. It should be the active farmer who is in occupation of the land.
Responding to what Judicaelle said about the need for tenants to have access, all of Judicaelle’s members will be entirely reasonable and will give consent to our members to go into these things, but we are looking for those beyond the CLA’s membership, who are not always as reasonable. Sadly, we do see landlords withholding reasonable consent very frequently. “Reasonable” is the key word here. We are looking for a set of regulations. The Bill provides that there should be regulations, and those regulations will set out what are the reasonable terms upon which a tenant should be able to apply and insist upon a consent, for either fixed equipment or for access to a scheme.
If we take the issue of trees, for example, trees are normally reserved out of tenancy agreements. It is the landlords who hold the trees, so if there are any carbon credits available under the Bill, they will not be accessible by the tenant because those trees are reserved to the landlord. Perhaps that is something that needs to be thought through, if trees are going to be a really important part of the Government’s policy going forward.
Simon Jupp (East Devon) (Con)
Q
George Dunn: The majority of my members are looking for longer terms; they want security. The average length of term on a farm business tenancy today is 2.9 years. Think of agriculture in terms of its long-term need to look at soil management, agri-environment schemes and so on. If you take land that has buildings it goes up to about seven, if you have land with housing, it is up to about 10 or 11, but we would expect those later ones to be even longer than that. Our members consistently ask for greater length of security of tenure. For example, if you go to a bank to borrow money to invest in your business and you can only show a three-year or a four-year time horizon, why would the bank lend you money to do any substantial investment if it only has a four-year period to pay that back? Even those tenancies that the CLA often claim get renewed year after year, are only for annual security. How do you go to a bank asking for support for something where you have annual security? We think there is a great deal of appetite for longer-term tenancies.
Judicaelle Hammond: I think my members want good tenants who look after the land and can pay their rents. They want tenants who are willing to innovate and continue to develop their business. It requires flexibility on both sides. I understand the appetite for longer tenancies and that can be agreed. However, what we do not want is a third party determining how two parties who are free to contract, contract.
Rolling tenancies happen and I therefore think that the figure of 2.9 years is a little misleading. We want a system that works for both parties, particularly in times of uncertainty. I would add that an awful lot of my members are somebody else’s tenant. They have land of their own, but they might add to it, for scale, for example.
George Dunn: In a situation where we have 90% of all farm business tenancies in England now being let for periods of five years or less, there is market failure here, which the Government need to address.
Thangam Debbonaire
Q
George Dunn: From our end of the spectrum, we do not want the Bill to have a minimum term for agricultural tenancies, because that will not help our sector at all. We want to see the ability for landlords, where they let long term or where they are nervous about letting long term, in case they get a tenant who they do not get on with or who does not pay their rent, or who does something to the historic landscape, if the landlord is the National Trust, to feel confident to let for a longer time, because they know they can get the land back early if there is a problem. We are absolutely on the money with that. There is what might be called an oven-ready amendment that could go into the Bill to achieve that.
Thangam Debbonaire
Oh, please don’t call it that!
George Dunn: More widely, we think the taxation system needs to be looked at to incentivise longer-term tenancies and penalise shorter-term ones through the taxation system. Ireland has done some good things on the income tax side, which the Treasury could look at, but that is not something that would be put in the Bill.
Judicaelle Hammond: You will not be surprised to hear that I do not agree with that. I do not see that there is a market failure. There might be things in the market that are happening at the moment, because of the way that the system works, that may be unsustainable. We will see what happens when the BPS ends. If you look at some of the reforms that have been made, not in Ireland but in Scotland, it all but killed the rental market. That would not be good for my members or for George’s. We need to be extremely cautious about putting things in legislation and rushing them through without proper consideration of the consequences for both parties. That could lead to a market that is even more nervous than it is now and, as a result, becomes ossified. I do not think that would be good.
George Dunn: We certainly need to learn the lessons of what happened—what is happening—north of the border, but that should not be an excuse to do nothing south of the border.
Theo Clarke
Q
George Dunn: All businesses operate within a sphere of uncertainty about the future for their market and how they intend to run their businesses in the long term. Anybody who thinks they can do a 10-year business plan and stick to it after year five is thinking wishfully. The idea of having multi-annual plans is really good, but they need to highlight how much money will be spent and how it will be spent through those plans, rather than just vague indications of the way in which the financial systems powers will be played. If farmers had a reasonable five-year horizon to work through, that is as much as I think they would be looking for.
Judicaelle Hammond: I totally agree with the TFA that the more certainty in the future, the better. Part of the problem we have at the moment is that we do not have certainty past next year. Although there have been commitments to maintaining the current level of funding, so far they are, unfortunately, just commitments. We would welcome a quantification as part of the multi-annual financial assistance frameworks.
Theo Clarke
Q
Judicaelle Hammond: I am sure it could be improved.
Theo Clarke
Q
Judicaelle Hammond: I think that my lawyers would probably have my guts for garters if I tried to answer that question on the spot.
George Dunn: I think it is good that there is the facility to pause or extend. One would hope that there would be close consultation with the stakeholders to consider that. There is a doubt as to whether we can reverse, which might be possible. There is also the issue, which I know other witnesses have raised, that if you are taking money out of the BPS, and, for whatever reason, we are not ready to spend that through the new public payments for public goods or productivity schemes, that money needs to be paid back to the recipients from whom it has been removed, until such time as the Government are ready to commit to that expenditure.
Mr Goodwill
Q
George Dunn: Yes, and I think that is what the Bill intends. My reading of the Bill would suggest that that is what would happen under those circumstances. To go back to the previous question, if money was taken out of the system that was not able to be spent through the new arrangements, that would have to be paid back, in our view.
George Eustice
Q
George Dunn: My view is that the answer you were given was nonsense. There would have to be a very specific clause in a tenancy agreement that provided for the circumstances that you are describing—for a landlord to be able to dilapidate a tenant for taking away the payment, which is rightfully theirs anyway, because it is their entitlement to do with that what they will.
We are actually quite excited by the provisions on the lump sum and the extent to which that could generate some really good restructuring within the sector. I do not think there will be an impact on land values as was suggested, because land values are driven by much more than the agricultural return, which is about 2% of the average land value, when you look at how agriculture operates. There might be an impact on rent, which could be a good thing for the sector in terms of productivity and margin and efficiency, but we think that the lump sum elements are certainly something worth pursuing.
Judicaelle Hammond: I think we are a little bit more cautious without more detail. We look forward to the consultation that will happen on the secondary legislation. It is hard to say how it would work and whether there would be any unintended consequences without more detail. The same thing is true of the lump sum. We can see opportunities, both for retirement and investment in the farm, but at the moment, we also see that it could have all sorts of unforeseen consequences. We really do need to have a thought-through view of how the system would work.
George Eustice
Q
George Dunn: Minister, you would be surprised to hear me say that we are absolutely content and there are no other changes that we would want to make, and I am not going to say that. There are elements that we think need to be added—for example, what we were talking about earlier in terms of the provision for farm business tenancies, for encouraging longer-term lets, to give landlords the option of ending those early, but only for those who are letting for a long time. We think that the provisions in relation to tenants’ access to diversification, financial assistance and fixed equipment need to be extended to include 1995 Act tenancies.
I noticed that a question was raised by a Member on Second Reading about widening the franchise of succession to include nephews, nieces and grandchildren, which was not adequately answered by the Secretary of State. Perhaps there is an amendment that could be brought to look at widening the franchise. Very often, it is the nephews and nieces and grandchildren, rather than the sons and daughters, of farmers, who are the active individuals. So there are certain changes that we will promote through amendments to the Bill.
Judicaelle Hammond: What I have said before about schedule 3 stands. We do not particularly like the commercial unit test removal; we think that it is actually well worth having and it should be strengthened. Why would individuals who are already successfully farming elsewhere have the privilege of reduced rent? It does not seem fair and it does not make sense. Apart from that, my significant concern is with the arbitration proposal for dispute resolution on landlord’s consent.
There are a number of things that the CLA welcomes in there, for example provisions relating to landlord investments, which we think will provide protection for both the landlord and tenant, and the removal of the minimum retirement age of 65 and also the widening of the pool of potential arbitrators. We are not opposed to the whole of schedule 3, but we certainly have significant concern with what is in there at the moment. We certainly would not favour any extension to the AHA tenancies, which we regard in this day and age, and given the flexibility that the market requires, as an outdated system, which certainly should not be prolonged.
George Dunn: You would not expect me not to disagree with what Judicaelle has said about AHA tenancies. If we trusted the landlord community with farm business tenancies to deliver sustainable, long-term, sensible tenancies, we would not be hanging on to the AHA tenancies as much as we are. Sadly, the landlord community has not played the game well in terms of farm business tenancies, in the way that they have delivered those.
The commercial unit test that Judicaelle talked about is a capricious test. It hits people when there is a death out of time, or people who are badly advised. That is all. It is a very expensive test to have advisers help you through. In essence, the Bill is about productivity and increasing efficiency. Having the commercial unit test in place hits those individuals who have been go-ahead, and have been looking to get themselves on rather than waiting for dad or mum to die in order to get the tenancy of the farm. Why should they be penalised when they have been the ones who have been go-ahead, and those who are not so go-ahead get the opportunity to succeed?
Ruth Jones
Q
George Dunn: We are in discussions with Welsh Government officials, as you might expect. This morning, I was having discussions with their policy lead on tenancies. Certainly, I would take from the discussions that we have had to date that there is a real understanding of the need to ensure that they are moving at a pace that allows tenants to have access to the new arrangements.
In the context of having devolved Government, there is no point in having devolved Government if you just do what England does, so there will be specific things for Wales that we will need to look at. I know that the Welsh Agriculture Minister has some aspirations for that in Wales. We are waiting for a White Paper from the Welsh Government that is coming later this year. We are having input into that White Paper. Obviously, they have not reserved the rights for the financial assistance powers within the Bill, but the agricultural tenancy section—schedule 3—applies to Wales and England equally.
Judicaelle Hammond: We represent farmers and landowners in Wales as well. I think that, given the framework of devolution, there needs to be some flexibility. Like previous witnesses, we are a bit concerned where either the implementation of the Bill or, indeed, the way that the money is allocated across the UK changes to such an extent that we see intra-UK market disturbances. We would certainly argue that that should be avoided.
The Chair
If there are no more questions for Members, I thank the witnesses for giving evidence this afternoon.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(James Morris.)
Westminster Hall
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Waste Incineration Facilities
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered waste incineration facilities.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. Here we are again, talking about what for some of us in the Chamber seems to be our favourite subject lately. We have had similar debates, including one held just last month—I spoke in it, and other hon. Members present attended—but I wanted a much longer debate, to give everyone who wants to speak the opportunity to do so. The issue is particularly relevant for me due to a planning application for a waste incineration gasification facility in my constituency at Hillthorn Park—the appeal process against it is due to start a week today.
Nick Thomas-Symonds
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, and I congratulate her on securing this debate. She mentioned the appeal process. Constituents who contacted me about this debate are concerned that the voice of the local community is heard throughout the planning process. Does she agree that that is essential for large projects such as this?
Mrs Hodgson
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I will come on to the 10,800 of my constituents who have been in touch with me. They signed a petition, and they certainly want their voice to be heard.
I wholeheartedly oppose this planning application, and I will come to the reasons why shortly. Before I do, I thank hon. Members present who will be expressing their opposition—I assume it will all be opposition—to waste incineration facilities.
On Saturday, I held a public meeting about my local planning application, to give constituents an opportunity to express their opinions, as my hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) said. It was well attended, despite the short notice—I arranged it only the week before—and people came from across the community and the political spectrum, with Labour, Lib Dem and Green councillors and activists in attendance. As this debate shows, this is a cross-party issue, and I am pleased to see colleagues from all parts of the House.
As I said at the public meeting on Saturday, which was attended by more than 100 people, no one in that room was in favour of a gasification plant being built in our area. In my 15 years of being an MP, no other issue has galvanised so many people and brought them together against something in the way this issue has. It really is a community movement, with campaign groups such as No Monster Incinerator in Washington or Washington and Wearside Against Gasification leading the way to oppose the application by informing local residents and getting signatures on petitions. As I mentioned, 10,800 people have so far signed a petition in opposition, which I presented to Parliament last month.
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
I thank the hon. Lady for organising that meeting and the debate today. To pick up on what she said, does she recognise the expertise in highly technical matters that has been built up in communities by the groups she mentioned? They scrutinise legislation and regulations closely. In my constituency, the Docks Incinerator Action Group has drilled down into the detail and caused real problems to the proposers of a development.
Mrs Hodgson
That is an important point. I will come on to someone without whom I and most of the campaigners would not have been able to launch such a strong and informed appeal against this decision, making a world of difference.
I am so proud to represent and work with people who show such determination and community spirit. Like them, I oppose the planning application and will be speaking at the appeal process, which begins next week. I also thank the United Kingdom Without Incineration Network and Shlomo Dowen, in particular, for his work and support on this campaign. We could not have got this far without his expertise—a point the right hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) touched on.
As the shadow Minister for public health, it would be remiss of me not to point out the public health implications of gasification and incineration, which need to be taken into account. In the planning application in my constituency, we still do not know what technology will be used, even though the application has reached this stage. We know that the technology has never been used in the UK before, although we are told that it has been used in Japan, a country with very different safety standards and regulations from the UK.
The lack of information and transparency from the planning applicant does little to allay the fears of my constituents and me. On Saturday, constituents told me that young families were moving away from the area because of the fear of carcinogenics, diseases and birth defects. My constituents should not have to live in fear of being test subjects for something such as that.
Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
I thank the hon. Lady for securing this debate. In my constituency, an incinerator is due to be built near our local primary school and a number of local houses in Torry. Does she share my concerns about the potential public health impact on residents and the children at that school?
Mrs Hodgson
I absolutely do. In our previous debate, I spoke about how nine primary schools in my constituency, as well as many thousands of homes, are within a one-mile radius of this development. That is unacceptable, so I agree with the hon. Gentleman. Also, a technology that has never been used in the UK before is not welcome in Washington and Sunderland West—or, probably, in any of our constituencies.
Surely a technology that is expected to release millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide during the anticipated lifetime of the gasification facility should not be backed by the Government. Indeed, that is a direct contradiction of the Government’s policies on climate change and waste processing. For every one tonne of plastic incinerated, approximately two tonnes of CO2 are released into the atmosphere, therefore contributing to climate change, whereas, perversely, one tonne of plastic in landfill releases zero CO2, so incineration cannot be and is not the solution we seek—it has to be more recycling.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech on an important issue. She just mentioned recycling. Does she agree that much more needs to be done to encourage more recycling so that we do not have, or reduce, the need to rely on incineration or landfill?
Mrs Hodgson
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. More recycling has to be the solution; it will never be landfill, and certainly not incineration. How does the Minister expect to meet the Government’s climate target of being carbon neutral by 2050 if planning applications for waste incineration continue to go ahead?
A recent study by Waste and Resources Action Programme Cymru found that 75% of commercial and industrial waste sent to incineration or landfill in Wales is recyclable. With recycling rates flatlining, will the Government consider introducing a tax on incineration, as promised in 2018, to address climate harm and encourage recycling rates? There is a precedent, as that is what the landfill tax aimed to do. Surely it is counter- productive to have a landfill tax to deter burying plastic, which causes no CO2, but not to have an incineration tax for incinerating plastic, which causes masses of CO2.
Another issue that neighbouring MPs and constituents might not yet have fully realised exists is that, due to the prevailing winds, the people to the east of our proposed site, in Sunderland and South Shields, may also find themselves harmed by the plant. I hope that this debate will help to alert a bigger audience across the wider area to the impending threat that is being discussed just a few miles from them.
Sunderland City Council is aiming to be carbon neutral by 2030—a target that will be totally scuppered if the planning application for Hillthorn Park is approved. The problem is the emissions from not just the plant but the 110 HGVs that will work around the clock to ship waste to it.
Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)
The hon. Lady is making a powerful case. Does she agree that the issue is not just the incinerators but all the traffic that comes with them to transport the waste? That adds to pressure on local roads, which is concerning because of CO2 emissions.
Mrs Hodgson
Absolutely. Residents raised that point on Saturday—especially those living around the proposed site, who will be bothered by the congestion, extra fumes and mess from those heavy goods vehicles. The HGVs are supposed to be strapped and covered, but every day stuff flies off the lorries that go to the other waste recycling plants in my constituency.
In 2017 I attended the planning exhibition for this plant. I was told that living next to it would be 40 times safer than living next to a major road. I find that dubious, to say the least, but surely, in time, with greater numbers of greener vehicles, that would not be such a defence, even if it was true. We should be going forwards, not backwards, so that argument cannot be valid. Local roads in Washington are already congested, with the added problem of HGVs parking up alongside roads and drivers leaving their litter—perhaps I will have a full debate on that issue another day. That shows how problematic some nearby businesses already are to the people of Washington and Sunderland West—they are not all the best of neighbours.
A constituent told me on Saturday that he could not have his windows open or sit in the garden on some days because the noise and pollution from nearby roads was overbearing—that is without the extra 110 HGVs per day. Constituents have raised similar issues over the years about the smell and vermin from nearby waste processing sites such as Teal Farm. The last thing we need is another contributor to the problem.
My constituents and I know that the Environment Agency is a little toothless in tackling the problems that waste processing sites cause. We are rightly concerned that any issues arising from this gasification plant will bring just more of the same. If the planning application is approved, my constituents fear that their houses will suddenly become worthless; because of all the concerns I have mentioned, no one would want to buy a house next door to a plant such as this.
It is not known yet who will use the energy generated from the gasification plant. It was thought that Nissan, which is almost next door to the site, would use it—a pipe from the plant to Nissan was visible on the plans when I saw them—but, as far as I am aware, no such agreement has been made. Sunderland City Council is keen to work with Nissan to negotiate a safer and affordable means of generating energy, so there really is no need for this plant at all with regard to Nissan. I should make it clear that the Sunderland City Council planning team rejected the plant and is making a strong defence against it. We are all united against it, from politicians to the council, residents and everyone else.
The chair of the Teal Farm Residents Association wrote to me recently. He said:
“Over the years, the environment and landscape of this region has suffered greatly and we are just starting to move on from the effects of all of that not just environmentally but also the health and well-being of the community.
The region now boasts some old and new landmarks which we are justly proud of, from Penshaw monument to the Spire bridge.
We don’t want an ecological eyesore to become the new ‘landmark’ which tells visitors they’ve reached Sunderland and we don’t want the health and welfare of residents to be jeopardised by having this proposal inflicted upon them. This is a proposal which is unwanted and unnecessary.”
It is exactly that: unwanted and unnecessary.
There are no benefits to be reaped from this planning application. There would not even be huge numbers of jobs created, as only 35 new full-time jobs are being offered. But the jobs pale in comparison to the public health concerns and climate change challenges. I hope I have made it clear, even in these brief comments, that the gasification plant at Hillthorn Park in Washington must be opposed, and I will continue to do just that.
Several hon. Members rose—
Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)
Order. A significant number of Members wish to speak. I will not impose a formal time limit, because I do not want anyone to win an extra minute of injury time, but if colleagues could confine themselves to six minutes, we should manage to accommodate everybody. I call Caroline Nokes.
Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
Thank you, Sir Roger. I congratulate the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on securing this important debate. Her parting shot was that her constituents do not want an ecological eyesore as their new landmark, and my constituents feel exactly the same way about the proposals to build a giant incinerator between the villages of Longparish and Barton Stacey. Only two weeks have passed since we last debated this subject, and it is right that we should do so again, because the Minister did not have time to respond. It is imperative that she should have the opportunity to give a fuller answer than she had time to do last time.
I regret to have to rehearse the issue we face in Romsey and Southampton North, where American conglomerate Wheelabrator seeks to build a massive, industrial-scale incinerator the size of Battersea power station in the Hampshire countryside. Billed by the applicants as a green waste-to-energy scheme, locally there are serious doubts that a proposal such as this can ever be green. So enormous is the development that it is to be determined by the Secretary of State—it is classified as a nationally significant infrastructure project—rather than by the local waste and minerals authority, Hampshire County Council or the local borough council, Test Valley Borough Council. I commend both those councils for being resolute in their opposition to it.
I will not rehearse the many good planning reasons why the scheme should be refused, but there are serious questions about whether it will ever generate the amount of power required to achieve the level of a national infrastructure project. On its website, Wheelabrator proudly proclaims that the scheme will have an energy generating capacity of up to 65 MW, but in public consultations with residents, the company has acknowledged that that is entirely dependent upon the calorific value of the feedstock. We know we have to get better at removing plastics from the waste stream, and those plastics have some of the highest calorific values when burned. I commend the steps the Government have taken so far, but much more can and must be done.
I visited a packaging manufacturer in my constituency with the Minister’s predecessor, the right hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey)—we look terribly attractive wearing blue hairnets. The company’s managing director kept making the point that they wanted to use high-quality recycled plastics in their packaging, but it was too difficult to get hold of them. They used a percentage of recycled, but it was easier and cheaper to get fresh plastics than to extract plastics from the waste stream. They wanted Government action to ensure that the plastics that we all know are in the waste stream can be redirected into businesses such as theirs.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
In Scotland, any new incinerator is required by law to remove all metals and plastics from the waste product before it is incinerated. Would the right hon. Lady welcome similar legislation in England?
Caroline Nokes
It is critical that we redouble efforts to ensure that anything that can be reused and recycled is extracted from the waste stream, whether metal or plastic. At Barton Stacey Primary School, the children have embraced the message we heard a few weeks ago in another room in Parliament, when a giant Womble urged us to repair, re-use, recycle and reduce. We have to keep striving to reduce the amount of material going into the waste stream.
Two weeks ago, I raised the issue of an incineration tax. I do not recall whether the Minister responded to that point, but I fear she did not, so perhaps she can today. Before I came to this place, I was a borough councillor in Test Valley. I always said I represented the ward with the most landfill sites—existing, former and proposed. Landfill is subject to a tax, and it is absolutely right that the next step up the waste hierarchy should be similarly taxed. The Budget statement of October 2018 included a reference to the consideration of an incineration tax. The time for consideration has passed.
Turning to emissions—I recognise that I only have a minute left—we all recognise that the EU relatively recently tightened regulations governing permitted levels of emissions from incinerators, but is the Minister content that being within permitted levels is good enough? Where is the aspiration and ambition? Surely, at a time when we are seeking to improve air quality, we should be looking to reduce the levels of emissions that are allowed. I have lost count of the number of times over the last three and a half years that we have been told that leaving the EU will provide us with opportunities. Surely, this is one area in which we can go further and faster than would otherwise have been allowed. We must do more and not slip back into the lazy argument that development will be allowed only within current regulations.
When it comes to monitoring emissions, the Environment Agency technique has been to sample test. The new BAT—best available techniques—measurements appear to require continuous monitoring. Certainly, should the abomination in my constituency go ahead, local people will demand continuous monitoring of key pollutants and an assurance that the EA will hold companies’ feet to the fire—apologies for the pun—to ensure that they abide by those standards.
The World Health Organisation indicates that there is no such thing as a safe level of particulate matter in our air, and that is echoed on the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs website. The particulate plume from the proposed incinerator in my constituency would cover the primary schools of Barton Stacey, Longparish, Wherwell and Stockbridge, and many other primary schools in the constituencies of my hon. Friends the Members for Winchester (Steve Brine) and for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse).
We have declared a climate emergency. We have bold ambitions, through the Environment Bill, to make radical strides forward in creating a cleaner and greener environment for ourselves, our children and generations to come. We cannot do that if we keep pumping pollutants into our atmosphere. I urge the Minister, who I believe genuinely cares about these issues, to ensure that she has as tight a grip as possible on our future waste strategy so we simply do not keep doing that.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. I congratulate the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on securing the debate. We were here two weeks ago to debate this issue, and it is very important that we raise it.
For too long, waste incineration has been labelled as energy from waste and seen as part of the circular economy and a green way of disposing of our municipal waste. Councils have been struggling with their budgets, and they look into anything that saves money. Bath and North East Somerset Council has just agreed a big contract for a waste incinerator. I have raised concerns about that, and I am still arguing with the council about whether it is actually a green solution. We have been looking at ways of diverting waste from landfill because it creates methane, a potent greenhouse gas, but burning waste creates very high carbon emissions, too. That must get into the public domain so that people who make decisions know what they are doing.
I believe that we should not send waste to incinerators. Every tonne of municipal waste that is incinerated releases between 0.7 tonnes and 1.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide. Recovering energy from waste produces more carbon emissions than burning gas. As was mentioned, incinerators need a blend of waste materials, including plastics, to have the calorific value to create enough heat. Incineration is just a cheaper option than landfill for getting rid of municipal waste. The result is that we become a lot less active in avoiding, reducing and recycling. The order of the waste hierarchy is: avoid, reuse, recycle, incineration and then landfill. Incineration is only one step above the landfill solution.
The more incineration plants are built in this country, the less likely we are to achieve our target, because local authorities need to fill incinerators with waste for them to function. I have been a councillor and tried to ensure that people recycle more. It costs a lot of human resources to go around and ensure that households—particularly hard-to-reach households—recycle in a particular way, and it costs councils money. It is no wonder that cash-strapped local authorities are looking at cheaper options, but incineration is not the right option. The real way to reduce carbon emissions is to recycle more or, indeed, to find compostable materials. I had a meeting yesterday with an interesting company that is looking into compostable plastics, but those are not the plastics that an incinerator needs. We need to look at actual green solutions, not at incineration.
I recognise that 10 years ago, energy from waste seemed like a way to get to a low-carbon economy. When our target was to reduce our carbon emissions by 80% by 2050, it was an option, but everything has changed since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. We now know that we have to get to net zero by 2050. The last 20% of emissions are crucial, and they are very difficult to get out of the atmosphere. For that reason, low-carbon solutions are no longer an option. We have no time to invest in low-carbon technologies; we need to put all our efforts into net zero solutions. I believe that incentives and disincentives are the way forward. I also support the idea of an incineration tax. The landfill tax has made a massive difference in diverting waste from landfill; an incineration tax would ensure that we do not just divert all our waste to incinerators.
Jane Hunt (Loughborough) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on securing this important debate.
Research shows that the PM2.5 emitted by incinerators can penetrate deep into our lungs and impair lung function. The taskforce for lung health has stated that
“exposure to PM2.5 can cause illnesses like asthma, COPD, coronary heart disease, stroke, and lung cancer”.
I therefore echo the concerns of colleagues that incinerators may put the health of local residents at risk.
Unfortunately, however, that is only half the story in my constituency. As I mentioned in my maiden speech, the UK’s leading university for sport, Loughborough University, sits at the heart of my constituency and is home to a variety of world-class sport programmes. As its reputation for sporting excellence has grown and it has gained international recognition, the university has invested heavily in its sports infrastructure so it can continue to attract and train the best athletes from around the world. The university also plays host to international Olympic and Paralympic teams, which come to take advantage of its unique facilities. The university is a jewel in the crown of the United Kingdom.
I understand that the average resting human breathes approximately 5 to 6 litres of air per minute. However, a typical endurance athlete may breathe around 150 litres a minute, and some world-class athletes may breathe 300 litres a minute. That increased ventilation means that elite athletes are far more susceptible to respiratory problems such as asthma. Colleagues will therefore be shocked to learn that planning permission has been granted for an incinerator to be built in proximity to the university and its sport facilities. It is simply unacceptable for people who breathe up to 60 times more air per minute than the general public do, and who are more susceptible to respiratory problems, to be put at risk in that way.
The World Health Organisation’s air quality guideline values are based on general ambient air concentrations and do not take into account the impact of physical activity, exercise, sports participation, or elite athlete training or competition. More research therefore needs to be undertaken into the impact of incinerators on those who participate in sporting activities.
I am also concerned about the impact of incinerators on the environment and the Government’s commitment to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. The Government’s own statistics show that in 2017, 4% of total UK greenhouse gas emissions were from waste management. Although I appreciate that some may consider that a small amount, if we are to achieve the target that we have set, we must work to reduce emissions from all sources. I agree with the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) on that.
The Government have published a policy paper on how we can preserve material resources by minimising waste, promoting resource efficiency and moving towards a circular economy in England. As we are actively encouraging individuals and companies to recycle more and produce less waste, in time we will become less reliant on incinerators, and there will not be enough waste to keep existing incinerators open, let alone justify building new ones. Leicestershire is already a top-performing waste disposal authority with respect to recycling and composting, so there is clearly not enough commercial and industrial residual waste locally to keep the new incinerator in my constituency going. Therefore, waste will inevitably be brought in from afar by road, leading to increased vehicle emissions around the M1 and A512, and creating further pollution in our area.
It is clear that a moratorium should be placed on the building of new incinerators. That moratorium should be extended to those that have been granted planning permission but not yet built, such as the one in my constituency, because they are a barrier to reducing emissions and achieving a circular economy. More research also needs to be undertaken to better understand their impact on people with higher activity levels.
Kate Osamor (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)
I really appreciate you calling me to speak, Sir Roger. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on securing this timely debate.
Edmonton has one of London’s three major waste incineration facilities. The incinerator serves the North London Waste Authority and the seven north London boroughs of Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Hackney, Haringey, Islington and Waltham Forest. The current facility, which is over 45 years old, is reaching the end of its life, and a decision has been reached to replace it with a new energy recovery facility, which it is claimed will supply both heat and power. Last year, construction of the north London heat and power project began. Many of my constituents are incredibly concerned about the decision and what it will mean for their health and their children’s future.
I argue for an immediate pause and review of the construction of the new facility for three main reasons. First, there is growing evidence that the new incinerator poses a major health risk. Across London, our children already face a toxic air pollution crisis, and residents in Edmonton are at the centre of it, not least because of the constant traffic on the North Circular. According to King’s College London and the international clean air summit, high pollution days in London lead to an extra 87 cardiac arrests, 144 strokes, and 74 children and 33 adults being treated in hospitals for asthma attacks. That is why we must listen to the evidence on waste incineration.
Zero Waste Europe recently released an in-depth study on a waste incineration plant in the Netherlands, revealing how even state-of-the-art incinerators emit dangerous pollutants far beyond EU toxic emissions limits. The study found, for example, that eggs laid by chickens in people’s backyards within a 2 km radius showed dioxin and furan contamination exceeding the limits for safe consumption. We know that, as a result, the developing lungs of children can be irreparably damaged and have their function restricted, making illnesses such as asthma and respiratory disease worse.
It is thought that the new incinerator in Edmonton will produce more than 700,000 tonnes of CO2 every year. Research shows that particulates such as those currently emitted at the Edmonton incinerator cause the loss of an area the size of two large eggs in the lungs of every child. There is no filter on the planet that can capture those particles, which are free to lodge themselves deep in our lungs and other organs and cause permanent damage.
In Edmonton, the incinerator under construction is in close proximity to schools including Raynham Primary School, Meridian Angel Primary School, Wilbury Primary School, Eldon Primary School and the Latymer School. All the evidence suggests that, once it is completed, it will pour even greater amounts of pollution into my constituents’ bodies, with long-term public health consequences. All environmental and public health policy should be based on the precautionary principle that, where reasonable doubt exists over the safety of an initiative, it is paused or blocked until rigorous, independent evidence can be heard to inform a proper decision. That simple principle is why I ask the Government and Enfield Council to pause, review and consult on the decision.
Secondly, the new incinerator threatens to undermine and take resources away from London’s waste management strategy. The Mayor’s London environment strategy aims for 50% of waste to be recycled, up from the current rate of 33.1%. Enfield Council is rightly backing the push and has launched a new recycling arrangement across Edmonton. The vast majority of my constituents welcome the new recycling and reuse centre as a necessary addition to the Barrowell Green site. It will give the east side of the borough much easier access to recycling facilities, but if the Government or the council are serious about achieving these green strategies, we must back them with proper resources.
The new incinerator will have a vast capacity of 700,000 tonnes of waste per year, but if we deliver on London’s plan to increase recycling, it is hard to conceive why we could possibly need that much capacity. We all know that money is tight. In April, Enfield Council will make bin collections fortnightly in a bid to save £12 million, yet the projected cost for the rebuild of the incinerator is an astonishing £650 million, funded by a loan that will end up being repaid by council tax payers across the seven boroughs.
The London Mayor has been clear that central Government and local council support for incinerators is critically undermining the capital’s fight against air pollution. Speaking about a proposed incinerator in Bexley, he called on the Government not to grant permission for an unnecessary new incinerator and instead
“focus on boosting recycling rates, reducing the scourge of plastic waste and tackling our lethal air.”
That same principle applies to the new incinerator in Edmonton.
Thirdly, I know the Minister will not want to impose a new incinerator on local residents without properly engaging with what they have to say. Toxic air pollution is worsening and our health is at risk. London has signed up to increase and to resource recycling, our Mayor is against unnecessary incineration, our residents are against the incinerator, and the Government have just been elected on a platform of promising to listen to people and put decision-making power in local hands. I am confident that the Minister will want to keep that promise and avoid forcing a decision on local residents in Edmonton.
I conclude by inviting the Minister to come to Edmonton and chair a roundtable discussion with my constituents, Enfield Council and local environmental groups. I firmly believe my constituents must be at the heart of deciding what happens next. I hope the Minister will agree at least to listen to what they have to say and to the growing evidence against the new incinerator in Edmonton.
Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I congratulate the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on securing the debate so quickly after we last chatted about this issue. It is good to see so many familiar faces from the previous debate.
Members present at that debate will remember that I brought up the Beddington incinerator in my constituency, and I will give an overview of what it is like to live in the shadow of one of these things. I spoke about the harm it does to my constituents in Carshalton and Wallington and about my campaign to improve air quality monitoring near the site, both to prevent operators from regulating their emissions and to take into account the effect on local roads, congestion and air pollution of taking the waste from four London boroughs into that one site.
In this debate and the previous one, Members from all parties spoke of their concerns about what might happen to their constituents if incinerators are granted approval in their patches. I am sad to report that our previous debate was met—as I am sure this one will be—with scorn by my local Lib Dem-run council. Just to recount some of what has been said to me since the last debate, I have been told that we surely understand that there is no alternative to incineration; that Members attending these debates prefer landfill; that we do not recognise the benefits of district energy schemes—not the least of which is to lock residents into energy prices at least three times higher than the market average; and that none of us understand that incinerators are not nearly as bad as we have made out. That is the gist of the stories and labels that have been thrown at me since we last discussed this matter. However, I have not heard a single Member today—or ever—say that landfill is any better. None of us is saying that. Many have pointed out that incineration is considered only slightly better than landfill. In many cases, incinerators are worse—particularly when they burn plastics. That point has been powerfully made today.
Something the council should find sobering is the fact that the emissions figures for January 2020 have just been released, and they demonstrate how out of touch it has been on the issue over the years.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that factually based information about proposed and existing sites is crucial, to enable local people to take decisions that will affect them and future generations?
Elliot Colburn
I absolutely agree. That is part of the reason I am campaigning for additional air quality monitoring near the Beddington site. I appreciate that incinerator operators are supposed to monitor their own emissions, and that the information is sent automatically to the Environment Agency. However, many of us are trying to make the point that it is not just a question of the incinerator itself: a lot more is going on—especially with the transport of waste to the site. That produces CO2, but it does not get taken into account in the emissions figures. That is why additional air quality monitoring and factually based evidence are important. I will move on to some facts, which the hon. Gentleman may find interesting.
Because of the consistency of breaches at the Beddington incinerator, the Environment Agency has increased the frequency of reporting from every half hour to every 10 minutes. The 10-minute maximum imposed by the Environment Agency is, I believe, 150 mg per cubic metre. On 26 January, the emissions from just one of the Beddington incinerator’s two chimneys were nearly five times that level, and consequently it was shut down for two days. The other chimney was even worse and exceeded emissions limits on 2, 14, 20 and 26 January. On 26 January the level was 10 times over the limit. To add insult to injury, the operators were still registering at least one invalid report almost every day of the month.
No one says that landfill is the alternative, or any better. However, we—both councils and the country—need to be much more ambitious about cleaning up our air. With advances in technology, there are more air quality-friendly options even in the energy recovery stage, which is only one better than landfill on the waste hierarchy—things such as mechanical and biological treatment. Of course, as we have all said, we need to look much further up the waste hierarchy as we look towards a greener future. That means boosting recycling rates and reuse wherever possible.
However, as in everything, prevention is key—saying no to unnecessary waste and cutting it out of the system altogether. We can do much more than follow the poor example set by the council in my area. None of us has the power to promise our constituents that we can stop incinerator proposals or get live incinerators decommissioned, but, representing an area where an incinerator is already operational, I will continue to hold the council to account for its failure and to do whatever I can to mitigate its effects. As I have said, that includes improving both air quality monitoring and traffic measures on the Beddington Lane and insisting on the rapid completion of the proposed Beddington Farmlands, which is supposed to act as a CO2 capture for the incinerator site.
My hope is that those Members facing the threat of incinerators in their constituencies will be able to use the Beddington example to convince local authorities and the Government, where necessary, that there are better alternatives and to deliver a much greener waste disposal programme in their areas, rather than just having to carry out mitigation.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), and congratulate her on setting the scene so well, as she did in her speech last week.
The thrust of the debate so far is how we get rid of waste in a way that meets the environmental standards we all want. It is clear that something must be done to address the disposal of waste. The first thing is for more people to realise that they should reuse and recycle or pass things on to others to use. The world cannot contain a continued throw-away mentality. I have seen such a change in my local area from the encouragement of recycling—not only kerbside recycling, but also at household recycling centres, where people are asked to categorise their waste. That encourages much more recycling and less landfill waste.
I agree that we cannot continue to use landfill as we have done, but it must be acknowledged that there is still a need for an end destination for products that cannot be recycled—and the sea is not the place for them. We all know about the number of plastic articles in the sea; it is very obvious. By way of illustration, The Times today has a story about a whale with waste material wrapped around its body. Divers went down to cut that away from it. I am all for the end of single-use plastic and was heartened to read of a plant that might possibly be used as a plastic substitute that biodegrades. I am happy to see that some supermarkets are considering refill stations for cereal and even shampoos. However, while we can do much in that way, there still must be waste. Shipping it to other countries for disposal is not the answer. We cannot continue to use landfill as we do.
As the Minister knows, the matter is a devolved one for Northern Ireland. I want to refer to a project that has just been given approval by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency on behalf of councils. The key point for Northern Ireland, looking forward, is that landfill across Great Britain and Europe will be an option for only between 5% and 10% of waste by 2035, or 2025 in Scotland and Wales. That is the direction of travel, and for Northern Ireland to keep up we must build energy recovery infrastructure to process what is not recyclable.
I had a meeting to address the matter last Friday—it just happened to be then, with this debate happening today—to discuss proposals by arc21, where six local authorities come together. That body is attempting to design a programme to support and enhance recycling targets and waste issues. One of the projects deserves a closer look, and I met representatives to discuss it last week. The Becon consortium has developed plans to co-locate a mechanical biological treatment plant and an energy-from-waste plant using an incinerator with an energy recovery process at the Hightown quarry site on the Boghill Road, Mallusk. A visitor centre will be part of the project. A briefing I received on the proposed project states:
“This project represents a private sector major investment for Northern Ireland—approximately £240 million in development and construction alone. In the construction of the new waste facilities, local contractors will be used wherever possible, thereby maximising opportunities for employment and benefiting the wider local economy.”
Some 340 permanent direct and indirect jobs will be created, as well, when the plants are operational. The briefing says the project will provide a sustainable, long-term solution for the management of residual municipal waste in the arc21 area, assisting the six councils, including the one I represent, and where I live, to meet future climate change targets such as landfill diversion and increasing recycling. The briefing says it will increase arc21 constituent councils’ overall recycling rates by up to 10%, through the extraction of plastics, metals, aggregates and other valuable materials through the MBT. That could divert up to 250,000 tonnes of municipal waste from landfill per year and contribute to Northern Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions targets through a reduction of approximately 57,500 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year, relative to sending waste to landfill.
Obviously, air quality is a massive issue for us as well. Last week I asked a question in the House about the fact that two hours of exposure to diesel emissions leads to 24 hours of negative effects. The briefing I have been referring to states that the project it describes would enhance Northern Ireland’s security of supply and increase diversity of energy production by exporting 18 MW of electricity to the national grid—enough to power in excess of 30,000 homes annually and help Northern Ireland to become less reliant. The correct energy efficiency balance is needed to ensure that the air quality is right and ensure that waste materials are disposed of.
Thanks to the return of devolution, our local authority and Ministers in the Northern Ireland Assembly will, I am sure, consider every facet of that proposal, although I do not know what their deliberations will result in. I do know that it is important that we think outside the box on this issue and that we secure a better way of doing things. If that means that block grants are needed, let us sow into the lives of our children’s children and use our finance now to make a real difference to the country that we leave them.
I honestly believe that we must have a UK-wide strategy; while that is not the Minister’s responsibility, it is important that we have one. I look forward to her response. I believe that the end of the world will not come a second before the Lord ordains it, but I also believe that we have a duty to be good stewards of this wonderful world that has been granted to us. It is past time that we do what we can to be invested in our world and not simply to survive our time in it.
Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I ought to declare my interests as set out in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: my wife is employed at the Association for Decentralised Energy.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on once again securing a debate on this topic. I am pleased that she has done so, because I had to miss the previous debate secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), and I feared I might miss out on this series of debates about waste processing. Many hon. Members and I return to this issue because of the adverse experiences of our constituents who live alongside waste processing facilities, and whose voices often get lost in the decision-making process.
It has been four months since I secured a debate in this place to highlight the experiences of people in Avonmouth in my constituency. Avonmouth is home to a significant number of waste processing plants, and in the past decade it has seen a hundredfold increase in the tonnage of waste passing through our local facilities. That is not just waste from Bristol or the greater Bristol region; it comes from London on trains every night. We are processing waste from across the country. That exponential growth has real consequences for local people, the most challenging of which has been an annual spike in the fly population during hot weather periods, especially when there are large quantities of bundles of waste stored on open land.
I have had to raise this issue frequently since my election, and it is all the more depressing because so little seems to change. The persistence of the problem has understandably intensified local people’s sense of powerlessness over a decision-making process that has concentrated this number of plants in the area, often without local consent. People are angry, and I share their anger, not least because it is clear where the system has been going wrong. In Avonmouth, as in Sunderland and other parts of the country, these plants have not arrived by accident.
Bristol City Council changed planning policies in good faith in 2011 to try to favour the circular economy approach to dealing with waste, as opposed to landfill. Its intention was not for Avonmouth to become a dumping ground for the nation’s rubbish, but when the city council opted to reject planning permissions for large-scale incinerators and other companies in Avonmouth, those decisions were just overturned by national planning authorities. The Mayor is trying to do his best in Bristol City Council. He has invested a significant amount in the recycling centre and in opening a brand-new reuse centre, where people can reuse white goods and other types of furniture instead of putting them into waste, but on this issue he seems to be unable to fix the problem.
As I have argued in the past, two main things must happen. First, the Environment Agency must be given a much broader range of powers to allow it to deal more quickly and effectively with minor and frequent breaches that do not immediately lead to the revocation of a licence. Secondly, the planning system must better reflect the clear human cost associated with the concentration of individual sites processing waste in a particular area. I have said before, and I say again, that I do not believe the cumulative impact of individual sites or their proximity is properly considered.
Avonmouth is a classic example of those issues. In my debate last year, I drew attention to a series of breaches by a company operating locally that had violated its permit more than a dozen times in the space of a year. It was eventually singled out by the Environment Agency, but a very high frequency of breaches had to occur before action could be taken. It should not take bad behaviour on that level to warrant enforcement action. Even when permits are revoked, the resulting appeals process is long, complicated and costly, imposing an obvious disincentive for the Environment Agency to deal with the individual breaches that collectively create such massive problems for local residents. The agency should have at its disposal a wider range of remedies, sanctions and fines that fall short of outright revocation.
Of course, we recognise that waste processing must happen, and we would rather that it be done in a way that is not landfill and that has wider circular economy implications. However, frameworks for granting permits and planning permissions need to work in tandem to consider the concentration of existing waste processing facilities locally, as well as their proximity to each other and to local residents. The local planning system must therefore work more intelligently and more compassionately, recognising that capacity considerations must be weighed against the wellbeing of the people who are most directly affected by the processes.
I am conscious that there has been quite a lot of change in Secretary of State and ministerial roles, although I am pleased to see the same Minister back again for this debate. I wrote to the previous Secretary of State, I have resent my letter to the current Secretary of State and no doubt I will need to resend it again next week, but I hope to get a response about how the Government can take action on this issue. The debate today shows that this is not an isolated problem in Avonmouth, but a problem right across the United Kingdom.
In my debate here in Westminster Hall last year, the Minister shared my concerns but seemed to suggest there was nothing further that the Government could really do at that time. I find that hard to believe. Will the Minister today set out what her Department plans to do about this issue, perhaps in the Environment Bill that is coming to the House soon, and whether, given the obvious national concern expressed here today, a wider review of waste processing in the UK is required?
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
I am pleased to be able to begin the summing up in this debate. I will try to be brief, because I think that the hon. Members who have spoken want the Minister to be given a significant amount of time to respond. It is quite clear from the number of hon. Members who have spoken, and from the unanimity with which they have spoken, that there is a major problem.
It struck me that anyone who seriously believes that Britain is a model of modern democracy in action should watch this debate. Something must have failed in this democracy for so many people, from so many different political standpoints, to have come here and said, “No, we can’t have this.” How did we get to a position where the planning framework, energy production regulation and all the rest of it are so out of touch with the real people for whose benefit the energy is supposed to be created? I will leave that question there, because it is a much bigger question than I can answer today.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on securing the debate and on the way she introduced it, and I congratulate everybody else who has spoken, because there has been a remarkable degree of unanimity. It seems to me that there is a major problem here: if it is decided by the Government that energy from waste is an essential part of the United Kingdom’s energy production to meet the country’s needs, where are we going to build those facilities? If all the facilities that people are complaining about today were scrapped and planning applications were put in in 10 other constituencies around the UK, we would have 10 other MPs complaining, backed by 10 other sets of councils, and so on.
It is not good enough just to say, “They are a bunch of nimbys.” There are clearly concerns about the incineration of industrial and domestic waste that go well beyond the attitude of “not in my backyard”. I think it was the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) who commented that she had been assured that the danger to her constituents was less than it would be if they lived next to a major road. If I was a parent worried about my children living next to an incinerator, telling me that some other poor MP’s children or constituents were going to be made even sicker than mine would not be a particularly sensitive or sensible way to present the case.
I mentioned some of the steps that have been taken by the Scottish Government. I will list some of them and hope that the Minister will either confirm that these provisions are in place just now in England, or say whether there is any intention to introduce them. The Scottish Government are taking steps to try to get a balance between our obvious need for energy and the even more obvious desire to produce and distribute it in a way that does not affect people’s health.
For example, the Scottish Government have already put a ban on the landfill or incineration of anything collected for recycling, because there have been so many scandals where companies would collect stuff that people had carefully separated out for recycling and then throw it into a hole in the ground because doing so was cheaper than recycling it. From 2025 there will be a ban in Scotland on any local authority sending biodegradable waste to landfill and, as I have mentioned, any new incinerators that are being planned now will be required to separate out plastics and metals before the stuff gets incinerated.
To my mind, those provisions do not go far enough. We should look to move quickly to a point where our energy supply does not rely on energy from waste at all, because it does not appear to me as though there is any way to indiscriminately burn waste material without creating an unacceptable health hazard to those who live close by. As has been pointed out, children and those who are more active tend to be the ones who suffer. I thought the hon. Member for Loughborough (Jane Hunt) spoke very well about the almost ridiculous fact that for people living near an incinerator, exercise might actually make them more ill, rather than helping them to get healthy.
I have a couple of questions for the Minister. First, we are covered at the moment by the European waste incineration directive. Can she give an absolute, unconditional guarantee that there will be no lessening of the standards contained in that directive once we have left the European Union? There will be pressure from big business to relax those standards, as there will be to relax a lot of other standards that are there to protect us.
Secondly, what assessment have the Government made of the amount of energy that we are likely to need to produce from waste to fill the gap in the United Kingdom’s energy needs? It is all very well for us to sit here and say, “I do not want this here or that there,” but if the Government’s energy planning has not provided for enough production to meet anticipated consumption, we have a problem. The power stations and incinerators will have to be built somewhere.
My final point, which has already been made by other hon. Members, is that if our energy supply depends on having waste to burn, we will have to keep producing waste. That is a bad thing. We should be reducing the amount of waste we produce. The fact that waste can be used to create energy does not make its production a good thing. We heard some good examples of that, and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) listed some steps that have been taken in Northern Ireland. As a priority, we should reduce the amount of waste that we produce. If that meant that it was no longer economical to build an incinerator to burn waste because waste was no longer being produced, that would be a good thing.
Can the Minister tell us what assessment the Government have made of the amount of energy that is likely to be produced from waste in future? How does that fit with the United Kingdom’s ambition to become a zero-waste society?
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on securing the debate. As she said, it is our second debate on the matter in recent weeks, and it is one of a series of contributions from her on the question of waste incineration, particularly in relation to what she described as the “monster” incinerator that is planned for her area.
Other hon. Members used that phrase, as well as the words “giant” and “enormous”, today when they spoke about planned or active incinerators in their areas. As the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) said, we need to understand why, in an era of zero-carbon ambitions for our economy, the idea of granting permission for such enormous plants to deal with our waste is still being contemplated.
In general policy, we must recognise that the age of incinerators is over. A decade or two ago, perhaps we could have said that incineration was an improvement on the previous practice of landfill. Indeed, in this country incineration has increased in inverse proportion to the reduction in landfill over the last few years. However, as we move towards net zero, we are in danger of freezing in time our waste strategies by granting permission for large incinerators that capture waste streams over time. That will prevent us from moving up the waste hierarchy in dealing with our waste generally, and in looking at it as a resource to be recycled, reused and put back into the circular economy—rather than put in landfill or burned, usually for minimal energy recovery.
It is significant that only 16 of the country’s 44 incinerators are enabled for anything more than minimal energy recovery. They are enabled for combined heat and power, to capture the heat as well as the electricity that comes out of the process, but only half of them actually produce any heat and power. The vast majority of large incinerators do not produce much energy, and they certainly do not capture the heat that comes out of the plants.
On the other hand, they capture the waste stream over long periods of time. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) described that process in his area, with waste arriving from all over the country to feed the furnaces of the incinerators. From the description of the plans for the new north London waste incinerator given by my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor), I suspect that is also the case in her area. We are in danger of ossifying the process of waste disposal. Now is not the time to go down that route; it is the time to move rapidly up the waste hierarchy and think about different ways of disposing of waste.
Wera Hobhouse
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we are not here to blame local cash-strapped councils for going down that route? To recycle properly, councils need resources.
Dr Whitehead
The hon. Member read my mind. I was about to say that I do not want to blame local authorities for the actions that they have taken over a time when they have had no money to deal with the issue. They have merely had exhortations from central Government, and there have been no resources to go alongside the actions that they are required to undertake. There is a temptation to try to resolve the problems in a local area by going into partnership with a waste company. That may produce a solution to the local waste disposal problems, but it will do so at the cost of a 20, 30 or even 40-year contract that will fix the future policy of that local authority or consortium of local authorities.
It is imperative to recognise that to move up the waste hierarchy nationally, we need the resources to get away from incineration. There are further exhortations on the matter in the waste strategy. We cannot simply say that local authorities must have separate arrangements for collecting all the waste food in their area; we need to ensure that local authorities have the resources to enable them to move up the waste hierarchy without being subject to the temptation of using large incinerators to solve their problems.
We are at a turning point. The future is net zero; it cannot be incineration. We have to move rapidly up the waste hierarchy, and there are challenges and obstacles to that ambition. There will be some residual waste, but, as hon. Members have mentioned this morning, the current definition of residual waste encompasses things that it should not. For example, only 9% of plastic film is recycled. Most of it is incinerated or goes into landfill. Recently, I asked questions about 47 containers of plastic waste that were exported to Malaysia, and that the Malaysians did not want. They sent the waste back and said that it had been illegally exported to Malaysia.
Jim Shannon
When we recycle, we think that the waste will go wherever it should go. However, those containers of plastic that went to Malaysia and are now sitting there, waiting to be returned, show us that there needs to be accountability in the process. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we need to know where recyclable waste ends up?
Dr Whitehead
Absolutely. Part of moving up the waste hierarchy involves a proper and full accounting of what goes in and out at each stage of the process. I recently asked the Minister to assure me that the plastics that come back to the UK in those containers will be properly dealt with and will not just go into incineration or landfill. Other countries have started to bar us from using waste export as a route out of doing a proper job of recycling and moving up the waste hierarchy. We therefore need the next generation of resources to deal with that move up the waste hierarchy. We simply do not have enough plants in this country that can properly recycle all the different grades of plastic waste, and we do not have enough anaerobic digestion plants to deal with the putrescibles that will come out of the waste stream. The Government have a substantial responsibility to ensure that those facilities are available, so that we can move up the waste hierarchy as fast as we need to on our path towards a net zero economy.
I am sure that the Minister will have words to say on this, and I hope to hear from her plans to make real the Government’s rightful exhortations to move up the waste hierarchy. She will be delighted that, unlike last week, I will now cease my comments and give her plenty of time to tell us what the Government will do in the new era that we are moving into.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I congratulate the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on securing the debate. She raised particular concerns around the proposed incinerator at Hillthorn Park in her constituency. The debate has sparked heated interest; one might say it is something of a red-hot topic. I thank everyone who has taken part.
I make clear at the outset that waste and air quality are devolved matters, and stress, as I did on 28 January, that the Government’s intention is focused purely on reducing, reusing and recycling waste and on the whole idea of moving to a circular economy to achieve greater resource efficiency, as many hon. Friends and hon. Members have referred to. Measures that we are introducing will help us to do just that.
Evidence of the Government’s commitment to that aim can be seen in our landmark Environment Bill, introduced on 30 January, which, among other things, contains broad powers to establish deposit return schemes, such as those for drinks containers; provides for consistency in the materials collected from households, including food waste; and sets out services that businesses must take part in. I am pleased that the devolved Administrations joined us in the extended producer responsibility scheme, resource measures and eco-labelling. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned some of those.
I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) was clear that businesses making products such as plastic bottles want consistent waste recycling collections —as a Back Bencher, I met Coca-Cola, which reiterated that. People want more consistent collections. The Bill will help us drive towards an ambitious 65% municipal waste recycling rate by 2035 and a minimum 70% recycling rate for packaging waste by 2030.
I point out that it is a Labour-run council in Sunderland, where the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West comes from, and has been since 1974. In 2018-19, its household waste recycling rate was just 27.1%, compared with the national average for England of 43.5%, and its total waste incinerated was 71% of collected waste. It is telling that the hon. Member herself calls for a great deal more recycling and consistent collecting, rather than incineration, which is the direction her council has gone down.
Many other hon. Friends and hon. Members stressed that they would like to move in the direction that the Government are trying to move us, including my hon. Friends the Members for Loughborough (Jane Hunt), whom I welcome to her place, and for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn). Interestingly on that note, while the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) was strong in her case against incinerators, it was actually the Lib Dem-led Sutton Council that approved the Beddington incinerator that my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington talked about, and a Lib Dem councillor who publicly campaigned against it was expelled from his own Lib Dem group. We need to get our messaging right about what we are calling for.
Wera Hobhouse
I really do not believe it is good to play the blame game here. Cash-strapped councils have looked at many areas for affordable alternatives to landfill, because it became very expensive. As a councillor from a deprived area, I know that recycling schemes and enforcing recycling are very human and resource-intensive. Councils need more money from central Government in order to get proper recycling schemes off the ground.
Rebecca Pow
I must be clear that local waste planning authorities are responsible for identifying their waste management facility needs and for working out the best direction to take. The hon. Lady will be pleased to hear that the measures in the Environment Bill that will be placed on local authorities will all be costed and funded.
Even after delivering high recycling rates, there is still waste that cannot be recycled or reused because, for example, it is contaminated or there is no end-of-life market for that material. There are choices about how we manage that unavoidable residual waste, and in making those choices we obviously need to consider the long-term environmental impact and the value of the waste resource. Methane is a potential greenhouse gas, and if we landfill biodegradable waste, for example, which is a component of many mixed waste streams, we face the prospect of significant methane emissions and toxic leachates over many years.
The legacy of our reliance on landfill is responsible for around 75% of the carbon emissions from the waste sector. We do not wish that to continue, which is why, as in our resources and waste strategy, we want to reduce the level of municipal waste sent to landfill to 10% or less by 2035, which I think all hon. Friends and hon. Members suggested is a good idea. That is why we are actively exploring policy options to eliminate sending any biodegradable waste to landfill by 2030.
On taxing incinerators—I did not manage to get this point in last time, and I thank the shadow Minister for giving me a bit more time this time—if the wider policies set out in the resources and waste strategy do not deliver our waste ambitions, as laid out in the Environment Bill and the strategy, including higher recycling rates, the Government outlined in the 2018 Budget that we will consider introducing a tax on the incineration of waste, operating in conjunction with the landfill tax and taking account of the possible impact on local authorities.
Caroline Nokes
I respectfully point out that the Minister has 12 more minutes. This issue is important. We heard the comment in the October 2018 Budget statement, and we have heard the Minister’s comments on it now. Is she prepared to put a timescale on that?
Rebecca Pow
No. Processes will be followed. So much of what is coming down the tracks, through the resources and waste strategy and the Environment Bill, should introduce a paradigm shift in the way we treat waste. The intention is that a tax may never need to be introduced, but one will have to watch the direction of travel and whether we are really cutting down on waste, because that is the intention before we ever have to introduce a tax.
As Members pointed out, incinerating has a carbon impact, but the evidence available is that the carbon impact of most mixed waste streams commonly sent to energy-from-waste plants is lower than if we sent it to landfill. Every day that passes brings new advances in carbon capture, and I am pleased to report that the Government will invest £800 million in this technology to deploy the first carbon capture clusters by the mid-2020s.The technology could potentially be applied to energy-from-waste plants to capture the carbon emissions from incinerating waste, thereby reducing carbon dioxide emissions even further. I point out, because the shadow Minister mentioned this issue, that all municipal waste incinerators are combined heat and power-enabled. Only nine deliver heat, but they all supply electricity.
The Government are clear that energy from waste should not compete with greater waste prevention, reuse or recycling. Currently, England has enough operational energy-from-waste capacity to treat about 38% of residual municipal waste, including a proportion of commercial and industrial waste. The majority of the 40 or so existing plants use conventional incineration with energy recovery, as that is tried and tested, but other technologies, such as pyrolysis and gasification, could achieve greater efficiencies, reducing environmental impact and delivering outputs beyond electricity generation. This is a changing space, and science is obviously benefiting the sector. Nevertheless, for the foreseeable future, conventional energy from waste will continue to have an important role in diverting waste from landfill, and it is the best option for most waste that cannot be reused or recycled.
I mentioned on 28 January that the Government are working to drive greater efficiency of energy-from-waste plants. That is largely through Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy initiatives and it includes encouraging use of the heat that the plants produce, in addition to the electricity generated. The Government have in place other, wider measures that help to draw waste away from landfill and incineration. There is an opportunity to deliver significant greenhouse gas savings by converting the wastes into transport fuel, for example. Through the renewable transport fuel obligation—that is quite a mouthful—the Government incentivise the use of organic waste such as cooking oil and food waste to produce renewable fuels. The Department for Transport is examining the potential to support innovative waste-to-fuel technologies that have the capacity to produce advanced fuels, including even jet fuel.
Many hon. Members touched on regulation. Energy-from-waste plants in England are regulated by the Environment Agency and must comply with the strict emission limits set down in legislation. That includes plants using gasification technology. Every application for a new plant is assessed by the agency to ensure that it will use the best available techniques to minimise emissions and that it will not have a significant effect on local air quality. The Environment Agency will not issue an environmental permit if the proposed plant will have a significant impact on the environment or will harm human health.
Darren Jones
Does the Minister agree that the cumulative impact of the number of these facilities in a geographical area must also be assessed and that there must not be just an assessment of the individual application when each application comes forward for consideration?
Rebecca Pow
I obviously answered the debate earlier in the year about the incinerator in the hon. Gentleman’s area. He raises an important point. Certainly, local authorities are responsible for their own areas and should be looking to see how they can best deal with the waste in their areas.
Making decisions on planning applications is normally a matter for the local planning authority. They should be determined in accordance with the development plan unless other considerations indicate otherwise. Those would include, among other things, the assessment of the impact of the traffic generated, which has been mentioned. Indeed, when it comes to planning applications for waste management facilities of such a scale as the one that prompted this debate, there is a requirement to undergo an environmental impact assessment.
Rebecca Pow
I am going to plough on, because I want to get some of the points across that I could not make last time.
As the planning application referred to by the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West is subject to an appeal, it is the role of the Planning Inspectorate to consider all the material planning considerations that are relevant to the case, and from all parties, including the local planning authority, the applicant and those who might have made representations on the application—and of course all those people who signed the petition. However, I note the request made to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government for him to recover the appeal for his determination. As it is a live planning appeal, I am sure the hon. Member understands that it would be inappropriate for me to comment further.
Once operational, energy-from-waste plants are closely regulated through a programme of regular inspections and audits carried out by the Environment Agency, which also carefully considers the results of the continuous air emissions monitoring that all plants must do to meet the conditions of their environmental permit.
The hon. Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) raised the issue of air quality in particular, but air quality is of course devolved to local authorities, and the Greater London Authority is responsible for what happens in London. However, energy-from-waste plants must report any breaches in respect of emissions to the EA within 24 hours, so there are strict controls.
Health issues were touched on in particular. As part of the permitting process, the Environment Agency consults Public Health England and the local director of public health on every energy-from-waste application that it receives and takes their comments into account when deciding whether to issue a permit. I must point out that our clean air strategy has been commended by the World Health Organisation, and there are aims in it to halve any harm caused to human health by air quality. We therefore have strict controls coming down the tracks, and local authorities are all becoming engaged with them. Hon. Members should note that the position of Public Health England-remains that modern and well run and regulated municipal waste incinerators are not a significant risk to public health. That is what that body itself has said.
Caroline Nokes
My hon. Friend appears to have only one page of her speech left, so I am sure we have plenty of time for her to read that out. I am conscious that she has made many comments about municipal waste facilities, but unfortunately the proposal in my constituency is not for a municipal one but for an entirely commercial one. Although I accept her reassurances about current standards and EA monitoring, does she think that that goes far enough?
Rebecca Pow
Of course there is a place for commercial waste incinerators, which is what my right hon. Friend refers to. We have in place an entire system of structures, permits, and checks and balances, but it is essential that they are seen to function properly and that they are monitored closely and conducted in the right way.
To conclude, I thank the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West for bringing forward this debate. This clearly is a heated issue, which has raised a lot of concerns, but I hope I have made it clear that harnessing energy from residual waste has its place as part of a wide, holistic waste management system. That will deliver value from waste as a resource. I wanted to be very clear, and I hope it has come out in what I have said, that the measures in the resources and waste strategy and the Environment Bill will enable a paradigm shift, in relation to reducing, reusing and recycling our waste, that should limit the amount that ever has to go to incineration and landfill. I hope that, from what I have said, hon. Members understand what is happening, the direction that the Government are absolutely committed to, and the move to a circular economy.
Mrs Hodgson
I thank the Minister for leaving me some time. This has been an excellent debate—the latest in an ongoing series. I have no doubt that, as the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) said, if it was not us here, it would be a different 10 MPs, but the message would be the same. I hope that Rolton Kilbride, the applicant for the proposed gasification plant in my constituency, has been listening—I am sure that it has—and that it withdraws its appeal. I live in hope.
The Minister mentioned the low rates of recycling in Sunderland, and I agree that they need to be much better, but that needs investment, as other hon. Members have said, and the hard truth is that the Government have cut Sunderland City Council’s budget by £350 million in the past 10 years, so perhaps the Minister can address investment to support councils to recycle more—I am sure they would.
The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) mentioned the Environment Agency—that is who the Minister said would monitor the plant in my area if it went ahead—and the number of breaches at his local plant being unacceptable. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) said that the Environment Agency needs more powers, and I agree, especially on powers to spot-fine and revoke permits—I have raised that in past debates—without needing to go through protracted legal processes in the courts.
The solution to all this has to lie in more and better recycling and looking to other countries that are doing so much better than we are, but we also have to look to ourselves and how we live and consume and to be more considerate consumers. We need to create less waste.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered waste incineration facilities.
Consumer Rights Act 2015 and Consumer Ombudsman Scheme
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)
In a half-hour debate, the hon. Lady or Gentleman in charge may give way to interventions as they please, but any speeches must be cleared with the owner of the debate, the Minister and the Chair.
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and the Consumer Ombudsman Scheme.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I thank hon. Members for attending. I thank the House of Commons digital engagement team for its contributions to this debate, in which I want to highlight a failing in the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and to call for its unambiguous enforceability in the future.
I have previously raised the 2015 Act on behalf of my constituents in a public petition more than two years ago, highlighting that it does not do enough to protect consumers against rogue traders who do not comply with the terms of the Act. To recap, the changes made by the Act give consumers the right to reject goods within 30 days and to receive a refund when the goods received are not as described or faulty. However, there is nothing built into the legislation to enforce the right to reject. Moreover, consumers cannot act against companies that do not participate in the consumer ombudsman scheme. Therefore, if the company does not co-operate, the only recourse for the consumer is to undertake the laborious and protractive process of raising legal action, either in a small claims court in England or via what is known as a simple procedure in Scotland, which is essentially the same process.
The petition I presented in December 2017 urged the UK Government to review the 2015 Act to ensure better protection for consumers. It also asked for a review of the terms of the Act, to make membership of a professional body compulsory for traders, thereby giving consumers the ability to pursue a complaint with the consumer ombudsman. In response the Government stated that
“if a consumer has a complaint and is not satisfied with the company’s response to it, they can go to an ombudsman or other alternative dispute resolution (ADR) provider.”—[Official Report, 4 December 2017; Vol. 632, c. 6P.]
Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)
I call Margaret Ferrier to make an intervention.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Martin Lewis, the money saving expert, has done a significant piece of work on this issue in his 2017 report, “Sharper teeth: the consumer need for ombudsman reform”. Does my hon. Friend agree that membership of ombudsman schemes, which can legally enforce decisions, should be mandatory of all organisations, and that that is at the heart of the problem? Those ombudsmen would be answerable to Parliament for how they enforce decisions on behalf of consumers, thereby protecting everybody from the kinds of mistakes highlighted by my hon. Friend.
Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)
Order. Interventions should not be fiddly, disguised excuses for speeches. The Chair takes a rather dim view of it.
Martyn Day
I agree with the course of action suggested by my hon. Friend. It would benefit consumers and traders.
As I have pointed out, membership of an ombudsman scheme is voluntary, and a company can refuse to participate in an alternative dispute resolution process. Even though it may be in the best interest of consumers and companies to deal with problems quickly, effectively and amicably, I am sure no one will be surprised that unco-operative companies prefer to be obstructive, to prevent a quick, effective and amicable resolution. That was the experience of a constituent of mine with one such company, which I will come to shortly.
The Government response conceded that
“there is no mandatory requirement to use ADR although it is available for any dispute should the business decide they want to use it.”
This debate and my prior petition are about the Consumer Rights Act 2015, so it does not compute that businesses can decide whether they want to use an alternative dispute resolution while customers’ wishes are overlooked. It would be helpful if the Minister could explain how that relates to consumer rights. The production of the consumer Green Paper—a positive outcome of my petition—was meant to
“closely examine markets especially those which are not working fairly for consumers.”—[Official Report, 4 December 2017; Vol. 632, c. 6P.]
The example I will give is a good case of that. As my constituent’s experience will show, there are markets that are not working fairly for consumers. Despite the Green Paper, no amendments have been made to the 2015 Act to address the situation.
Among other things, the Green Paper consulted on two matters directly related to my constituent’s case: how to improve the system of alternative dispute resolution, and how to support local and national enforcers to work together to protects consumers. I draw Members’ attention to “Creating a successful enforcement system for UK consumers”, a policy report published a year ago by Which? Among other things, it directly addresses those two relevant matters. It proposes seven changes to create a regime that will protect consumers effectively, because the current system is, unfortunately, too weak.
The report proposes:
“A robust and accessible ADR system is vital for people who have been unable to resolve their complaint directly with the business concerned.”
It further states:
“Key to a successful system is… fair and enforceable decisions by ADR bodies”.
I fully endorse and agree with those points. The report goes on to address the proposed obligation for an ombudsman scheme to be compulsory, stating that
“an obligation on sectors (particularly where significant or essential purchases are involved)”
should be “part of a scheme”.
Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the landscape of ombudsman schemes is very confusing, and that a single access portal would help the consumer?
Martyn Day
I fully agree. I hope the Minister will address that.
The Green Paper consultation closed on 4 July 2018, some 19 months ago. Despite the Which? report being published 12 months ago, the UK Government’s website advises me that the feedback is still being analysed. I ask the Minister: when is the analysis of the “Modernising consumer markets” Green Paper expected to be completed?
That brings me on to my constituent’s situation, which exemplifies the ambiguity of the 2015 Act and the failure to enforce it. In March 2017, my constituent Mrs Johnston and her husband purchased a new leather living room suite from R&J Leather (Scotland) Ltd, which is based in Uddingston. The suite duly arrived on Friday 30 June 2017 while Mr and Mrs Johnston were at work. A third party was at home to accept the delivery. However, when my constituents came home, it was evident that the type of leather used was not as agreed and the workmanship was unsatisfactory. Therefore, it fell far from meeting their expectations after making such an expensive purchase.
The very next morning, Mr and Mrs Johnston visited the showroom where they had purchased the suite, to say that they rejected it. They were asked to intimate their rejection to R&J Leather’s head office, which they did by telephone and email, including pictures of the faults. Subsequently, on 3 July R&J Leather telephoned my constituents to say that a driver would be sent to their home. My constituents believed this meant the suite would be removed. It did not. Instead, the employees of R&J Leather had been sent to correct another fault—a defective mechanism in the suite—so they left the home without uplifting the suite, fully knowing it had been rejected, while Mr and Mrs Johnston were on the telephone to their employer’s head office.
Mr and Mrs Johnston wrote again to R&J Leather on 6 July intimating rejection under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, and seeking an uplift of the suite and a refund of payment. R&J Leather rejected this letter on seven separate occasions. Frustrated by the lack of response, Mr and Mrs Johnston sought my intervention on 17 July. I sent a recorded delivery letter and two emails to R&J Leather but received no acknowledgement. My constituents sent another recorded delivery letter to R&J Leather on 22 August, offering alternative dispute resolution. Again, the company declined to accept.
My constituents were, therefore, left with no alternative but to raise a court action. R&J Leather did not defend the claim. The sheriff court made an order for payment in Mrs Johnston’s favour on 14 December 2017, some six months after the suite was delivered.
It would be understandable to think that that was the end of a stressful process, but that was not the case. Mr and Mrs Johnston still had possession of the defective suite, which was unused and restricted the use of another room in their home. Mrs Johnston had asked the court to order R&J Leather to remove the suite, but the order made was purely for her to receive a refund of her moneys. Believing that the matter had now ended in her favour, Mrs Johnston gave away the offending suite, so that her home could be restored to its normal living capacity, which I think was a perfectly reasonable position to adopt.
R&J Leather proceeded to lodge an application to recall the order. The order was duly recalled and led to a court hearing that took place over two days spanning June and July 2018. The decision held in favour of the Johnstons. R&J Leather then appealed against the order for payment, based on the point that my constituents no longer had the suite and therefore could not return it. As a result, the company questioned whether Mrs Johnston was entitled to a refund for rejection of the goods.
The subsequent sheriff appeal court hearing took place on 14 December 2018. R&J Leather’s legal representation argued that, based on a proper construction of subsections (5) and (8) of section 20 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, the buyer was obliged to make the rejected goods available to the seller without limit of time, and that that applies irrespective of any intervening developments or actions of the seller. In other words, it was argued that R&J Leather was not obliged to make a refund if the suite was not available for return.
My constituents argued that they had done everything that they were required to do in exercising their right of rejection and had given R&J Leather many opportunities to uplift the suite. The sheriff appeal court decision refused R&J Leather’s appeal and held in favour of the Johnstons. The ruling stated that having properly exercised their right of rejection, my constituents were entitled to the original order granted by the sheriff, and that that right was not undermined by the unavailability of the suite.
Interestingly, when reaching that decision, the sheriff appeal court made several observations. The first was that the argument that there is an unqualified duty, without limit of time, to retain the goods has a superficial attraction, given the wording of the Act, but such an interpretation has the potential to lead to both unfairness and absurdity. Secondly, when a consumer exercises a right to reject faulty goods, there is no duty for them to return the goods to the seller; all the consumer needs to do is make the goods available to the seller. This imposes an onus on the seller to come and collect the goods. Thirdly, the duty to make the goods available cannot be construed as being without limit of time or unqualified. In considering the nature and extent of the duty to retain goods that have been rejected, the court is entitled to take account of several factors, including the timescale within which rejection was intimated; the nature of the goods; the practicality of providing storage; the nature, extent and frequency of communications sent by the buyer to the seller; any response, or lack of response, by the seller; the length of time for which goods were retained; and whether proceedings have been raised. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the sheriff appeal court judgment remarked that R&J Leather had
“only themselves to blame for their inability to recover the item”.
Even after that court ruling, Mrs Johnston still had to pay for the services of a sheriff officer to obtain a warrant before the money was eventually refunded on 15 February 2019, which was nearly two years after the original purchase was made. No one should have to go through such a long, drawn-out process, which in this case involved spending four separate days in court and the associated stress and expense that that experience involved, and neither should anyone have to go to such lengths to exercise what are their basic consumer rights.
Furthermore, besides the direct financial implications for the consumer and the business involved, this single case used significant public funds—in the form of court facilities, time and staff—over four days. Those costs would not have been required if the Consumer Rights Act 2015 was clear about the consequences of non-compliance.
This single case that I have highlighted shows undeniably that the Consumer Rights Act 2015 does not do enough to protect consumers against rogue traders who do not comply with or seek to obscure the terms of the Act. My constituents were lucky, in so far as they had the intellectual and financial resources to see this matter through to a conclusion that forced R&J Leather to abide by the law. I suspect that many other people would have given up long before then, or would not have had the time available to spend days in court or the money to pursue the action. However, the Johnstons were still out of pocket, due to loss of work and other expenses, such as for the engagement of the sheriff officers. Can the Minister tell me what would happen to other consumers who do not have such assets?
If businesses were obligated to join an ombudsman scheme, the process would be simplified for both consumers and businesses. If that obligation was brought into force, an independent assessment could be made, which could rule in favour of either the consumer or the business, without the stress and the expense that my constituents had to endure to get what they were legally entitled to.
Such cases are brought every day throughout the UK, and the court costs must be astronomical. I do not know what the numbers are, but I dread to think. Yet a simple change to the Consumer Rights Act 2015, with an obligation for a business to participate in an ombudsman scheme, would substantially mitigate the need to bring such cases to court.
Of course, it is fortunate for other consumers that Johnston and Johnston v. R&J Leather (Scotland) Limited [2019] SAC (Civ) 1 is now a case in law and will set a precedent to help other Scottish consumers who find themselves dealing with an uncooperative company. However, my point is that people should not have to go to court in the first place.
I am a Scottish MP and this debate centres on my constituent’s Scottish legal case, which has no binding effect on English claims. However, the Consumer Rights Act 2015 applies throughout the UK, and given that the ultimate decision was made by the Sheriff Appeal Court, this ruling has the potential to be highly persuasive to county court judges in England and Wales, where similar issues are regularly raised.
To summarise, I find it deeply regrettable that the situation that I have highlighted, and the other situations that I have recently been made aware of through the efforts of Parliament’s digital engagement team, clearly indicate that the Consumer Rights Act 2015 is not working fairly for consumers in some markets. Based on the case that I have discussed, I hope that the Minister will agree that the Act needs to be reviewed, due to its legislation being ambiguous and, I believe, unenforceable.
Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)
Before we proceed, I apologise to Ms Gibson for incorrectly identifying you when I called you for an intervention earlier.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Kelly Tolhurst)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I congratulate the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) on securing today’s important debate, and I thank the other hon. Members who have made interventions.
In this country we have a strong consumer rights framework, which gives most consumers the confidence to settle any disputes directly with businesses. And they do—around six out of 10 such disputes are resolved directly with the business concerned. However, this debate has rightly highlighted the real problems that some consumers have in enforcing their rights, and addressing that issue is my top priority as the Minister with responsibility for consumers.
No consumer, and in fact no business, would want to go to court to resolve a dispute; the experience of the hon. Member’s constituent, Mrs Johnston, illustrates what a daunting experience that can be. Indeed, many consumers lack the confidence or the capability to use the courts, so they may be forced to abandon legitimate complaints. That is not an acceptable outcome.
We know that many consumers would prefer to have different ways to settle their differences with businesses. Alternative dispute resolution schemes, such as the Financial Ombudsman Service, give consumers and businesses a quicker and cheaper way to resolve disputes than going to court.
Alternative dispute resolution takes different forms; it is a flexible tool, which makes it very suitable for such civil disputes. For example, it can involve mediation to help consumers and businesses to reach a solution that satisfies both sides.
Kate Osamor (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)
I am sure that the Minister will agree that we are all consumers, whether we are a member of the public or a Member of Parliament, and so I will quickly raise a case with her about my constituency office. We have a lease with Apogee and our rental agreement is for a photocopier, but that photocopier has not worked for two years. We have gone back and forth, but the photocopier is not fit for purpose. I have been trying to get out of the contract, but Apogee has said that I have to pay £28,000—of taxpayers’ money—to do so. Is the Minister available to meet me to discuss the matter further? It is part of the wider issue that we are discussing today.
Kelly Tolhurst
I am happy to meet the hon. Lady. Without knowing the specifics or the details, it is difficult to comment, but she mentioned contracts.
If parties cannot reach an agreement, alternative dispute resolution can also involve a final arbitration of the case that the business accepts as binding. Alternative dispute resolution has benefits for both parties, but I am concerned that tens of thousands of consumers still go to court to resolve disputes with business. I am also unhappy that many do so because the business refuses to participate in a cheaper, quicker and less adversarial alternative dispute resolution process. I want to make it easier and quicker for consumers to obtain redress across all sectors of the economy when things go wrong.
The Government consulted on the issue in the Green Paper “Modernising consumer markets” and launched a review of the consumer redress system. The review addresses in particular how Government can improve business take-up of the alternative dispute resolution, increase consumer awareness and raise quality standards. Consumers have a right to take a dispute to ADR in the finance, energy, telecoms, estate agent and legal services sectors. In other sectors, there is no mandatory requirement to use ADR, although it is available for any dispute should the business decide it wants to use it.
Yvonne Fovargue
The Minister has mentioned a number of areas where there are ombudsmen, but the system is extremely confusing. Is it not time that the Minister committed to a complete overhaul of the ombudsman system to bring them all into line, to give them proper teeth and to make them mandatory, so that they can enforce their judgments?
Kelly Tolhurst
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention and note her particular interest in the area as chair of the all-party parliamentary group. As I will come on to say, we are committed to making the process easier for consumers to get redress. I hope that the response to the Green Paper, and the Command Paper that we expect to publish later in the spring, will give her some confidence in that area.
ADR is not mandatory for the furniture and home furnishings sector, where the furniture ombudsman provides dispute resolution services. The furniture ombudsman is a highly regarded service, but it can only offer its services when businesses join the scheme. I understand that in the case highlighted by the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk, the furniture retailer in question had not joined the furniture ombudsman. That is why it was unable to help his constituent, Ms Johnston, leaving the courts as her only route to redress at the cost of much distress to her.
Patricia Gibson
The Minister has conceded that the problem is that not all ombudsmen are equal, so what we need to do is level up. She will be aware of calls to refer the entire ombudsman landscape to the Law Commission to sort it out. How does she respond to that?
Kelly Tolhurst
As I have suggested, much work has gone on since the Green Paper was launched. We have looked at these things, and our intention is to publish a Command Paper in the spring. In my role as Minister, I have been particularly focused on addressing consumer detriment wherever it exists and ensuring that consumers can get redress.
A key question that Government asked in the consumer Green Paper was whether there should be an automatic right for consumers to access ADR. In some sectors where participation is not mandatory, the volume and value of disputes have been high, but business take-up has been low. The Government are particularly keen to see a higher rate of business participation in sectors where there are significant levels of consumer complaints. Since the consumer Green Paper was published, my officials have been working closely with consumers, businesses and dispute resolution groups to develop practical and pragmatic solutions to increase the use of ADR.
I have taken a close interest in the work of the all-party parliamentary group on consumer protection and its helpful reports on ombudsmen, which looked at the effectiveness of ombudsmen from the consumer perspective. Those reports have provided valuable insights and proposals that have helped to inform our work.
My Department has announced its intention to publish a Command Paper in the spring of this year. In that Command Paper, we will bring forward a package of reform to make it easier and quicker for consumers to use ADR services. It will also cover ways in which we can strengthen our public enforcement system to tackle consumer rip-offs.
In the context of this debate, Members may be interested to know that the Government will carry out a five-year post-implementation review of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 later this year. The Act introduced some important new rights, such as rights to protect consumers buying digital content, including music and online games. The review will consider, among other things, whether the legislation has met its objectives.
When competitive markets are working well, consumers should be able to resolve most problems for themselves. Companies should be incentivised by a desire to win and maintain custom and promote their reputation. An important part of that is ensuring that consumers are satisfied and that disputes are resolved appropriately. I believe that alternative dispute resolution plays a significant role in supporting consumers to resolve complaints against traders. It is worth reflecting that more than 2.5 million disputes have been resolved through ADR in the past six years. BEIS research has found that 80% of consumers who used ADR thought that their problem would not have been resolved without it.
I recognise that the system is not working as well as it might. I assure Members that I am committed to making the system more effective, with better access. Through the forthcoming consumer and competition Command Paper, we will be closely examining the areas of the dispute resolution landscape that are not working for consumers and laying out our proposals for reform. Respondents will be able to comment on them and present evidence regarding the effectiveness of consumer redress mechanisms, including the role of ombudsmen and alternative dispute resolution provision, before the Government take any final decisions on the scope and nature of reform.
Again, I offer my sincere thanks to the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk for securing this debate and highlighting the case of his constituent. I am sure it will resonate with many who are watching this debate. We know how stressful it can be for our constituents throughout the United Kingdom to try to get simple redress. I thank Members for taking part, and I look forward to updating them in the spring when we launch the paper.
Question put and agreed to.
Apprenticeship Levy
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the effectiveness of the apprenticeship levy.
It is almost exactly 10 years since I secured my first debate, which was on apprenticeships, in this very Chamber. Ten years on from the arrival of the new coalition Government, with that a huge and welcome emphasis on apprenticeships, and three years on from the introduction of the apprenticeship levy, today’s debate is a good opportunity to review how the levy was introduced, what it aimed to achieve and how the levy process has gone so far.
However, let me first go back to 2010 as a starting point. At that time, I and various colleagues, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), who is beside me today, were desperately keen to recognise the value of apprenticeships, to restore their role in our nation as a key motivator and opportunity for social mobility, to improve the opportunities for our manufacturers, and to introduce apprenticeships into many of the service sectors where they did not then exist. We were looking for a renaissance of apprenticeships, and a boosting and strengthening of them, and we did that, broadly, in the first five years of the Government that was formed in 2010. Then there was the introduction of the levy.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
I well remember that debate in 2010, not least because it had to be postponed because the Minister did not turn up on time, and so was held later. However, as the Minister with responsibility for apprenticeships immediately prior to the 2010 election, I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman would care to acknowledge that there was a big expansion of apprenticeships up to 2010, just as I would acknowledge the increase that happened thereafter. However, is not one of the problems with the current apprenticeship levy that it is too rigid, so lots of industries, including creative industries such as the film industry, find it impossible to offer apprenticeships?
Richard Graham
The hon. Gentleman is kind to recall that first debate; in fact, I had a printer problem and so, in addition to the Minister, I myself was late—it was a promising start to a promising career.
Richard Graham
The hon. Gentleman kindly glossed over that. Some of the points he made about the flexibility of the apprenticeship levy are important, and I promise that I will come on to them.
In that debate—I have reviewed what I said then—all of us recognised that some work on apprenticeships had been done under the Government in which the hon. Gentleman served. There was no doubt about that, but we needed to put a rocket-boost into the system, and I think the figures confirm that we did, with 2 million apprenticeships being created between 2010 and 2015. Businesses and Government organisations, together with what the Government introduced by way of funding, made a huge difference. However, let us not go over that too much, because I want to see where we are today.
I will start with what the aims of the apprenticeship levy were. It is fair to say that the Government wanted to double the investment in apprenticeships, from roughly £1.2 billion to £2.5 billion, and at the same time deliver on their commitment in the 2010 manifesto to take the number of apprenticeships from 2 million to 3 million by 2020. Right at the beginning, there was also a quality expectation—an ambition to raise the level of the apprenticeships that were being studied for and to have more higher apprentices, who in turn would contribute to some sectors where we had and still have key competitive advantages—cyber and aerospace are obvious examples. In addition, there was certainly the implication of reducing the costs to the taxpayer by getting a greater contribution from the larger employers in particular.
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. The points that he has just made are really important, and I share his view of apprentices—until recently, I had a living-wage apprentice in my constituency office. However, when I met representatives of Barnsley College recently, they shared his views, but one of their concerns was that the apprenticeship levy is not benefiting the school leavers it was intended to benefit and that those who do benefit often are mid-career and doing things such as extra degrees, which is of course to be welcomed but is not what the levy was set up to do. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman has any comments on that.
Richard Graham
That is an important point, and the hon. Lady anticipates what I was coming on to. I have had my own apprentice now for nine years; they do a level 3 business administration course, and there will be other Members here who employ their own apprentices. There is a question mark about whether those at the starting levels of apprenticeships have been supported as well as they could be through the apprenticeship levy.
Interestingly, when I arranged an interview between Business West, which effectively took over the running of apprenticeships from the chamber of commerce in Gloucestershire, with the previous Minister with responsibility for apprenticeships, she said very clearly that in terms of small and medium-sized enterprises
“it has been difficult for the non-levy payers, but we are now transferring them over to a new system which we do want to be simpler for them.”
The Minister who is here in Westminster Hall—the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan)—is not formally the Minister with responsibility for apprenticeships. Indeed, I believe it is true to say that there is still a gap in the Department for Education in terms of an actual apprenticeships Minister, which I hope will be filled soon through an appointment by our new Prime Minister. Nevertheless, I hope the Minister here today will be able to say a little about the speed of transferring the non-levy payers to the new system and how that has progressed. The previous Minister with responsibility for apprenticeships made her comments in July last year, so I hope there has been some progress in that regard.
However, just to respond to the point made by the hon. Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock), it is quite true that the numbers of level 2 and level 3 apprentices have come down sharply since the introduction of the apprenticeship levy, just as it is true that the numbers of levels 4 to 7 higher apprentices have risen sharply.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. He is absolutely right in his analysis of the figures. Last week, I had the great pleasure of shadowing a degree apprentice from my constituency who is studying at the University of Salford while working for Russell’s Construction—it was great to see a young woman taking such a good course in the construction industry. However, I asked Russell’s Construction what opportunity there was for it to deploy the levy through its supply chain to SMEs. The company seemed to be interested in doing that, but it could not see an easy process for doing it. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that is something the Government might like to think about?
Richard Graham
The hon. Lady is absolutely right in one way, but of course a lot has changed relatively recently. Levy employers can now transfer 25% of their levy to other organisations, and the obvious opportunity there is to do it through their supply chain. For example, in a briefing I received from it in November, Tesco said it contributed roughly £20 million a year to the apprenticeship levy but that it is able to spend only about 15% of it, due to the inflexibility of the system. We will come on to the inflexibility of the system, but the key thing is that there is now this opportunity for Tesco to deploy a quarter of its levy, which would be £5 million, to some of the companies in its supply chain, which are typically SMEs. That is incredibly valuable, and I hope it is something that Tesco has taken up.
As a result of the hon. Lady’s question, I hope that other levy employers out there will be more aware of this opportunity. Business West asked a very similar question of the previous Minister with responsibility for apprenticeships:
“What would you advise colleges to do in September if they have gone over their non-Levy allocation and have 16 year olds wanting to start an apprenticeship with a non-Levy employer?”
The previous Minister—the former right hon. Member for Guildford—replied:
“I would approach the larger Levy paying firms in the area…There are lots of Levy payers who have not spent their levy pots.”
That is quite true; the question is whether it is as well-known as it should be. I know of examples from Gloucestershire Engineering Training where our county council and I think another public sector employer have used part of their levy to help an SME to ensure that its apprentice receives the training they need. However, such opportunities are not as widely known about as they should be.
Paul Girvan (South Antrim) (DUP)
I welcome the opportunity to speak on the importance of apprenticeships and the benefits that they bring to our overall economy. However, in Northern Ireland we face a difficulty in that, although firms contribute to the apprenticeship levy, no one has access to it. That came from the absence of an Executive, but now that we have one up and running, I hope we can level the playing field and ensure that we get an opportunity to comment on any new scheme that is introduced.
Richard Graham
I think the hon. Member was highlighting the issues faced by some small and medium-sized enterprises. There will be great opportunities through some of the larger manufacturing companies with a turnover of more than £3 million in Northern Ireland. I am thinking particularly of companies such as Thales. They have a wonderful opportunity to use some of the levy to help SMEs. It may just be about publicising those opportunities, both among SMEs and larger employers.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
On devolution, the four Welsh police forces give £2 million between them through the apprenticeship levy. Policing is reserved, but education and training are devolved. The Welsh Government insist that they are not responsible for the policing education qualifications framework, while the Home Office insists that apprenticeship funding is a devolved matter. There was a one-off funding package in 2018-19 to resolve that position, but it remains uncertain who will fund what sort of training in Welsh police forces, whether those forces are out of pocket, and what is expected of them from the reserved aspect in Westminster and is not being passed through from the Welsh Government. On such matters, the reserved-devolved interface really requires further discussion. There were warnings at the time that that would happen.
Richard Graham
I thank the hon. Member for her point. I think that the Welsh Assembly’s Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee published a report last week highlighting the fact that the levy was introduced without the Assembly being consulted. I have no doubt that the Minister will respond on that issue.
Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a well-informed and excellent speech. He spoke about the potential benefit to SMEs from the changes to the apprenticeship levy. However, I am sure that he recognises that there is sometimes quite a challenging relationship between the different parts of the supply chain in agriculture. The introduction of agricultural apprenticeships has not always been very successful. What would be a good way to address that problem, and what advice would my hon. Friend give the Minister and the Government?
Richard Graham
I intended to raise that issue in relation to the timber industry, but perhaps I will do it now. The timber industry has certain similarities with the agricultural sectors to which my hon. Friend alluded, because it too has found enormous difficulty in creating standards and courses that are applicable to a sector that employs some 75,000 people. The Timber Research and Development Association, TRADA, which is the national body, still does not have accredited apprenticeships. It has been unable to get a course accredited—it believes accreditation takes 12 to 18 months—and is deeply frustrated.
There have been similar comments from other sectors. My hon. Friend mentioned agriculture. The Minister will know that there are significant pockets of huge dissatisfaction. TRADA states that the
“Institute of Apprenticeships are trialling the concept of a face to face interview panel…But we are not being offered this interview as things stand.”
It also states that the institute has been interested in creating a course for a “timber product technician”, but that term is apparently not actually used in the timber industry.
There are detailed frustrations about how to get the right standards and courses accredited. I hope the Minister will be able to offer us reassurance that for any sector, or indeed any significant levy payer, somebody from the Institute for Apprenticeships will be available to have a face-to-face meeting to try to resolve these issues, giving us all the confidence that it will not take 12 to 18 months to set up a course, during which time employers are contributing to the apprenticeship levy, but it is not being used for their own employees.
That, of course gives rise to one of the big issues with the way in which the apprenticeship levy was structured—namely, that it is seen by many people as a tax. The principal of South Gloucestershire and Stroud College said that many major companies now contributing to the levy see it as such. They are unable to spend their levy, and
“rather than transferring this money to the restricted non-levy pot, which benefits smaller employers…the money is being held back by Treasury”
and not reinvested into training and skills for the younger generation.
As I said earlier, I do think that, to some extent, the emphasis is on levy employers to understand what the offer is and how they can use the pot more creatively. There will be individual cases where companies are not investing enough in training and skills, and should be proactively doing more to engage with the Institute for Apprenticeships to design courses, and so on. None the less, the perception that the levy is a tax is large enough that it would be helpful for the Minister to clarify whether it was always intended that there would be an element of tax contribution to the levy, and whether the £2.5 billion that I believe is being invested this year in apprenticeships by taxpayers, via the Government, is a gross or a net figure? That is to say, to what extent is the apprenticeship levy used to reduce the total cost, or is it a net figure, regardless of what comes into the apprenticeship levy?
That is important because for as long as employers view the levy as a tax and not as something that can benefit them and their supply chain it is less likely that we will have their complete buy-in. I cannot help wondering whether part of the solution might be to increase again the figure of 25% that can be passed on or traded, like carbon emissions, to SMEs. I cannot help but feel that that would increase the number of apprenticeships, which is clearly where the problem has been in delivery, and reassure businesses that the Government really do want the levy to work, maximising opportunities for both big and small employers.
I do not feel that today’s debate should be about trying to beat up the Government, either for their failure to deliver 3 million apprenticeships or for some of the complexities of the apprenticeship levy. The scheme remains relatively young, and the direction of travel should be to reform rather than scrap it. I think that that is also the view of the Chartered Management Institute and other employers’ groups. None the less, we have to recognise some of the challenges.
On the positives, the increase in higher apprenticeships has undoubtedly paid off, particularly in sectors such as those in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti), where aerospace is a huge driver of employment, growth and exports for the nation at large. We have doubled the number of higher apprenticeships over the past three years, from 36,000 to 75,000. There are literally thousands of employees through some of the larger companies, such as Channel 4, Royal Mail and Lloyds Banking Group, as well as the NHS and our armed forces in the public sector. They are very comfortable, by and large, with what has been introduced, and just raise very specific implementation issues, which I will touch on.
The challenges are the fall in the number of apprentices and the complexity of some of the bureaucracy around the levy. According to the University of Gloucestershire, there have been further Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education delays to approvals of standards through each stage. The university gave the example of the senior leader master’s degree apprenticeships, noting that
“the standard did not achieve full approval (i.e. was not ready to be delivered)”
until several months after the launch. The university also stated:
“There is a significant administrative burden as the funding claims process is not straight forward, and subject to frequent policy and regulation changes.”
During the debate on the health Bill in the House the other day, I raised the issue of the complexity created by nursing apprentices, who must be supernumerary because the Nursing and Midwifery Council has ruled so. That makes nursing degree apprentices unaffordable for many local NHS trusts, so that issue has to be resolved.
I have been told by an intermediary business that works with large employers all over the country that
“the bulk have millions of unspent levy funds”
and that this particular company has
“attempted to introduce leadership training for which the levy would be used”,
but that there are
“so many hoops to jump through in order to get something up and running”
that it has given up. I was also emailed by the owner of a small business that employs one apprentice, who said that employing an apprentice is
“far greater a challenge than anticipated. Support in numbers, time or financial resource is limited.”
Of course—this has been said previously—one reason for employing my own apprentice was to find out precisely how complicated the process is. I do not think it needs to be that complicated, but clearly, the message from some SMEs is that it is that complicated. I hope that a change of direction to make the process simpler has taken place, and that the Federation of Small Businesses is completely behind it.
I am conscious that time is moving on, so I will just touch on a handful of key points I hope the Minister will be able to respond to. First, a number of colleagues have mentioned complexity, so any news about how the levy can be made less complex would be welcome. Some Members have also touched on the issue of inflexibility; there is a constant question mark about whether the apprenticeship levy has to be spent on only those courses that are accredited by IFATE. I understand the reasons why that might be the case, but it puts the onus of responsibility on IFATE to approve these courses—agriculture, timber, or whatever—much faster, so that people can get on them. I welcome the reduction in the amount that non-levy payers contribute to the cost of apprenticeships; it has been halved from 10% to 5%. I wonder whether that contribution is financially important, or whether it is symbolically important.
By implication, Members also mentioned the current restriction whereby at least 20% of apprentices’ time has to be spent training off-site. That is a real issue for many employers, particularly smaller ones, so I ask whether that can be either waived or improved. As has been touched on, there is a question mark about the amount of knowledge in the supply chain regarding the transferability of the apprenticeship levy, so anything the Minister could say about being able to increase that would be welcome.
Ultimately, this programme was introduced as part of the Government’s commitment to improving an apprenticeship programme in order to deliver the skilled workforce that employers need. We know that employers need more skills and more apprentices, so we need those numbers to rise, as well as the percentage of higher apprentices. A more transparent breakdown of the levy, and whether it is a net or gross contribution to apprenticeships by the Government, would be welcome. I hope that by the end of all this, IFATE and the Government will be listening more to business, so that there will be more voices out there strongly supporting the apprenticeship levy and encouraging other employers to make as much use of their levy as possible. I also hope that a new apprenticeships Minister can be appointed who will listen, oversee, champion and communicate what should be a really good, positive story for Government, business and the country as a whole.
Several hon. Members rose—
Caroline Nokes (in the Chair)
Order. I have five Members indicating that they wish to speak and we have about 35 or 40 minutes, so there need not be a time limit.
Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Nokes, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) on having secured this debate. I will drill a little bit further into the issue raised by the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts).
Apprenticeships are a devolved issue in Wales. Although I praise the Welsh Labour Government for doing what they can to make the levy work and to ensure that apprenticeships are delivered according to the needs of communities and of the Welsh economy, funding for apprenticeships and graduate training is an ongoing issue for Welsh police forces. The UK Government need to provide clarity and to resolve this issue, because for over two years Welsh police forces have been forced to use their own budgets to fund those apprenticeships.
Although training and apprenticeships are devolved to the Welsh Government, policing remains a reserved area. As such, if the Government apply their apprenticeship levy policy to Wales and to all employers with a wage bill of £3 million or more, including police forces, they must also commit to provide the funding for it, not just pass the buck and shirk their responsibilities. My constituency of Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney crosses two police force areas—namely, those of South Wales police and Gwent police. Gwent police have paid some £400,000 into the apprenticeship levy every year, while the figure for South Wales police is closer to £1 million. Collectively, the four Welsh police forces pay over £2 million a year into the levy, but they do not receive that money back from the UK Government.
Liz Saville Roberts
Does the hon. Gentleman agree with the report of the Commission on Justice in Wales, chaired by former Lord Chief Justice Thomas and commissioned by the hon. Gentleman’s Welsh Labour Government, that now is the time to demand that policing in its entirety be devolved to Wales? That would bring us clarity on exactly this matter.
Gerald Jones
I thank the right hon. Lady for that intervention. That is a wider issue, one that is probably too large for this debate, but it should certainly be considered going forward.
In England, the money that police forces have contributed to the levy fund has been reimbursed—they have had their fair share of the funding back—but that is not the case in Wales. This is another example of the Government dodging responsibility on funding and trying to shift the blame, based on a technicality of devolved and reserved powers. The Government must devolve the money required to go alongside their policies, including the apprenticeship levy, not just devolve the policies themselves. At a time of rising crime levels, when we need to be investing heavily in our police and providing them with the support they need to keep our communities safe, the Government should provide the money that Welsh police forces need and deserve so that they can fund those critical apprenticeships.
Jeff Cuthbert and Alun Michael, respectively the police and crime commissioners for Gwent police and for South Wales police, have repeatedly called on the UK Government to provide the funds for those apprenticeships. The Home Office previously advised Welsh forces that from 2019 onwards they would be provided with their fair share of the levy. It is now 2020, more than a year on, and that has still not happened. Welsh police forces have still not received a penny of that funding. With apprenticeships providing an established way for police recruits in Wales to enter the force without a degree, it is crucial that police forces in Wales receive their fair share of the funding as soon as possible.
We know that once the Government’s planned police recruitment drive is complete, whenever that might be, overall police numbers will still be lower than those inherited from the last Labour Government in 2010, as will police numbers in both of the police areas in my constituency. If the Government will not commit to providing the funding for apprenticeships lost through the apprenticeship levy, there will be even fewer police officers on the streets of Wales. This issue has gone on for a very long time and that funding is needed to support police forces across Wales, so I hope the Minister can provide clarity and reassurance.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
It is an honour to serve under you, Ms Nokes, and to be sat next to my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), who has done so much to support apprentices. Like me, he understands the importance of promoting the prestige of apprentices, which is why he employs one. My own apprentice, Dan Swords, is present in the Public Gallery. That prestige is incredibly important.
I will make a general point before talking about the levy specifically. The solutions proposed by my hon. Friend are very important, but a number of other things need to be considered. We can tune the apprenticeship levy as much as we want, but we have to address prestige and careers as well; otherwise the levy, however good or bad, will not succeed in the way we would like. Prestige is important. The fact that Mr Speaker is going to employ an apprentice in his office sends an important signal to millions of people across the country about how prestigious apprenticeships are. More parliamentarians should employ apprentices.
One of our biggest problems in terms of the prestige of apprenticeships and the number of people who want to do them comes from the fact that apprenticeship careers are so poor. One of the last things I did as Skills Minister in 2017 was to introduce the Baker clause, which compels schools to invite apprentices, apprenticeship organisations and further education colleges into schools, but that is not happening as it should be. I strongly welcome the letter that Lord Agnew is sending to schools, but a letter is not enough. The Ofsted guidelines must be much tougher and look at the outcomes. How many children in those schools are going on to apprenticeships, further education qualifications, or technical education as that comes through the system? We will not change the attitudes of parents and families unless we transform careers.
There is an incredible duplication of careers organisations from the Departments for Education and for Work and Pensions. I would like there to be one organisation—a national skills network—and a UCAS-type system for further education, skills and apprenticeships, which would also include universities. Rather than having separate education systems, there should be a one-stop shop for students or apprentices to get advice on the best FE college or kind of apprenticeship. That is the way to promote parity of esteem, not by having separate systems. We have talked for a long time about a UCAS-type system for FE, skills and apprenticeships, but it has still not happened.
Unfortunately, there has been gaming of the levy system. The Times Educational Supplement has published a report today saying that more than £100 million of apprenticeship levy funds have been spent on masters degrees for managers. New polling by YouGov for the Centre for Social Justice shows that in the last 12 months almost one in five businesses has used the levy to accredit skills that their workers already have. We need to reform the apprenticeship levy so that funds are used more productively. The Government could do that by restricting funds for employees who are already qualified to degree level, or by allowing employers more generous terms when they create apprenticeships for low-skilled workers. In other words, if employers used their levy for gaming the system, they would use a tiny part of it, but if they used it to get more young people, more 16-year-olds, doing apprenticeships that meet our skills needs, they would use much more of it. We need to look at the levy in that way.
We also need to do more to ensure that the disadvantaged have access to degree apprenticeships, which are my two favourite words in the English language, as those who know me know. I am not talking about the gaming of the system for masters degrees, but degree apprenticeships in law and engineering. Last week, during National Apprenticeship Week, I went to the TUI holiday store in my constituency of Harlow and met a degree apprentice who is doing law for TUI. She is an outstanding individual who wanted to earn while she learned, so she has no debt at all. She is virtually guaranteed to get a job with TUI at the end, so her career is made.
We should be doing more. We should have an ambition that at least 50% of our students do degree apprenticeships. We need to increase and ring-fence funds from the apprenticeship levy. We could do that by broadening its remit so that employers with a salary roll of £2 million qualify.
We have to be more imaginative in removing the bureaucracy, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester has said. He touched on nursing degree apprenticeships, on which the Education Committee did an inquiry. There could be many more if the bureaucracy, the rules and regulations, and the apprenticeship levy were more flexible in all sorts of ways. We are missing an opportunity. We had an argument about the bursary—I am glad it has come back in one form or another—but it would be better if the vast majority were doing nursing degree apprenticeships, and if the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education and the Department had the vision and provided strategic guidance and a more flexible levy and rules. There has to be flexibility.
Better-off families are two and a half times more likely than their disadvantaged peers to know about degree apprenticeships, and that is linked to careers advice. The Government should hardwire apprenticeships into all careers advice and we should enforce the Baker clause more stringently. In my previous job as a Minister, and in my current job as Chair of the Select Committee, I have gone around the country visiting incredible providers—private providers and FE providers—but in 2018-19 only 56% of providers inspected were rated good or outstanding. The Government should strengthen Ofsted’s capacity to carry out monitoring visits much earlier for new market entrants and across a large part of the market.
Let us think imaginatively. We have a research and development tax credit. Why on earth do we not have a skills credit to help companies that are doing the right thing, such as smaller companies employing apprentices? We need to look at wider issues, such as whether we should extend the levy across the board, as proposed by the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, whose representatives are also in the Gallery, and get rid of the training costs for employers.
Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)
Could university technical colleges play a bigger role?
Robert Halfon
I support university technical colleges, and I think that the entry age should start at 16. My dream would be to have a technical school in every town in the country, because they have good outcomes, but they need to be reformed.
My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester mentioned that from 2020 we have a £2.5 billion budget. We need to know what the apprenticeships budget will be over the next five years. If the Minister cannot provide that information today, I hope we will find out in the Budget.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) for setting the scene. It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) and to participate in this debate.
I have always been a great believer in education in its many equally important forms. Some people excel in academic subjects, such as science, mathematics, literary subjects, medicine and languages. We need people who excel in all those things, but we equally need people who excel with their hands and understand how a car works, how to make electrics safe, how to build and how to create. Society cannot function without all sorts. That is what the debate is about, as apprenticeships cover many different aspects of life, and that is why I was thankful that the Government recognised the need to push apprenticeships.
One of my constituents, a mother, came to see me about a different issue and told me an interesting story. She said that she tried to save half her daughter’s child benefit each month in an individual savings account. Her reason for doing so was simple. She and her husband both worked, so their children would never be entitled to grant aid, but their wages were not high enough to allow them to put aside much money. Her endgame has stuck with me for the five years since she came to see me: “I need to save as much of my daughter’s child benefit as I can to help her with university or to buy her the tools of whatever trade she goes into. Whatever job she gets, she will have help to be the best at it.” That mother understood the importance not just of academia, but of ensuring that her child would have help to get into a trade if academia was not her calling. Today everyone, male or female, has or should have equal opportunity for an apprenticeship. If mothers are making sacrifices so that they can invest in their sons’ and daughters’ futures in trades, should we likewise invest more? I look to the Minister to address that.
On 6 April 2017 the apprenticeship levy came into effect, with all UK employers with a pay bill of more than £3 million per year paying the levy. The levy is set at 0.5% of the value of the employer’s pay bill, minus an apprenticeship levy allowance of £15,000 per financial year. The levy is paid into an apprenticeship service account, and funds in the account have to be spent on apprenticeship training and assessment. The Library briefing states that since the changes in 2017
“there has been a large fall in the number of apprenticeship starts, leading to criticism of the levy and other reforms that have been put in place.”
The hon. Member for Gloucester referred to that. In 2016-17, before the changes, there were 900,000 new starts. That system worked. Perhaps the Minister will outline why we cannot revert to a system that seemed to work.
I have read statements that indicate that the quality of training is better under the new system, and I understand the logic behind that. In Northern Ireland, where big companies are scarce, it is imperative that apprenticeships are available in SMEs as well. The hon. Member for Gloucester referred to apprenticeships and SMEs in his introduction. He understands the issue clearly, and I hope we will come to a better understanding.
Apprenticeships are vital for the construction sector in my constituency. I met someone there a few weeks ago and was impressed by what they were doing. The apprenticeship levy that they pay enables them to make a long-term commitment to those they bring on board. Bombardier, part of which was recently bought by Spirit, is committed to apprenticeships. It had some events here at the House of Commons, and its commitment to giving boys and girls opportunities in engineering was great. I was encouraged to meet some of the apprentices.
We now have a Northern Ireland Assembly that is up and running. It is good to see it working, and we look forward to what it can deliver. Whether the responsibility for this matter lies with the Department for the Economy or with the Department of Education, my hon. Friend the Member for South Antrim (Paul Girvan) and I will be in touch with the Minister responsible to push for apprenticeships in Northern Ireland.
In Northern Ireland, 16 to 24-year-olds made up some 89% of participants starting in the academic year 2018-19, and level 3 apprenticeships accounted for some 47% of all participants starting in that academic year. Electrotechnical, engineering and food manufacturing were the most popular frameworks. Males accounted for 71% of all participants, and the proportion of male participants was highest in the level 2 and 3 apprenticeship group at 91%. More than three fifths—62%—of those who left level 2 apprenticeships in 2018-19, up to April 2019, achieved a level 2 framework. More than three fifths—61%—of those who left level 3 apprenticeships achieved a level 3 framework.
I understand that others wish to speak, so I will finish up now. I am convinced that apprenticeships work, but we must make them accessible and attractive to providers. Complicated frameworks and buy-ins are not the way to do it. Sufficient time has passed to make such a judgment, and we must review the funding mechanism. Although this is a devolved matter—the Minister does not have responsibility for Northern Ireland—the ball must start rolling on the review in this place for the sake of those who are labelled as underachieving males, but who in reality need to be given a chance to find their niche and their chance to excel. I hope the Minister will take the opportunity to talk it over with the Minister in the Department for the Economy or the Department of Education in Northern Ireland. It is important that we have uniform rules and regulations in a system that takes in all the devolved Governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), who, along with my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), has done so much to promote apprenticeships and to ensure they are a regular subject of debate here in Parliament. There have always been very high quality apprenticeships in this country. Multinational companies in engineering and automotive have long offered apprenticeships that compete and are comparable with the very best in the world, but not all apprenticeships have been very high quality. Within sectors there have always been companies that have seen it as part of their duty, responsibility or mission to invest in the next generation coming through, but there have also always been companies that have not seen that imperative and benefit instead from the training provided by competitors.
The levy must be seen in the context of a package of measures introduced in the 2015 summer Budget and autumn statement, which included the reductions in corporation tax and included the national living wage and this third arm, the apprenticeship levy. With that package, the Government effectively said to companies, “We will give you a very competitive corporation tax regime, which will lower the hurdle for investment. It will mean that businesses can grow, but we need to make sure that people are paid properly and fairly, and we need to ensure that everybody invests in the next generation of talent coming through.”
There have been some difficulties with the levy, some of which have been referred to. One is the speed of approval of certain standards, which has got better over time but needs to carry on getting better. Fundamentally, there has been a great quality uplift in apprenticeships. Thanks to the levy, the amount of cash in apprenticeships has doubled over the decade in cash terms. We have seen a move to longer, higher level apprenticeships, and the move from so-called frameworks to standards. That is all a bit jargonistic, but it basically means that there is a more exacting standard for the apprenticeship, with a greater degree of employer approval. Effectively, business has voted for a higher standard of apprenticeship, which creates some tension against a numerical target.
I want to talk briefly about each of the three main objections to the apprenticeship levy: first, it is just a tax; secondly, it is too inflexible; and thirdly, “I can’t manage to use the whole amount.” On the first point, the apprenticeship levy is a non-optional deduction levied by Government, so it does bear some tax-like features, but it is not exactly the same as a tax. Of course, money is extracted from business as part of the overall Exchequer requirement.
Something that I discovered when I worked at the Treasury was that for every tax, there is a really good argument against it. Corporation tax? Too many companies avoid it. Business rates are a fixed cost, as we all know, and that can be difficult for certain companies. National insurance is a tax on employment. Sales tax, or VAT, may apply at an early stage of development. Even excise duty, which is based on volume, inevitably involves problems with whatever system is set up and whatever threshold is set.
It is right that we rebalance the approach over time and right that we look again at business rates and introducing a digital sales tax, because there are concerns about some companies being able to avoid corporation tax, and, conversely, there is the strain on some of our shops on the high street and elsewhere,. Fundamentally, in that suite of taxes and ways of getting money out of business, the levy solves the free rider problem when it comes to investment in skills and, relatively speaking, rewards the companies that make a greater investment. I suggest that, as part of a suite of approaches, it has an important role to play.
The second big argument is that the levy is too inflexible. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow mentioned, there is always a question of re-tagging: of training that would happen anyway, or re-accrediting skills that exist already, and it is always a strain. The apprenticeship levy already covers quite a lot. Let us compare what the apprenticeship levy in the UK covers compared with the German apprenticeship system, which is commonly regarded as the gold standard in apprenticeships. The minimum specification for our apprenticeships is lower in terms of duration; the age range that it covers is considerably wider than is common practice in Germany and some other countries; and, as has been alluded to, it covers apprenticeships at numerous different levels.
We can argue legitimately that there are more things that it should be possible to use levy money for, such as pre-apprenticeship programmes, and so on, but the mathematical reality is that if we were to do that, other things being equal, we would need a higher levy or we would need to take something else out of eligibility for levy spend.
Finally, there is the objection, “I cannot spend it all.” It is worth bearing in mind, of course, that some companies do spend it all, or almost all of it. It is also true, and relevant, that sectors vary. In the engineering sector, for example, there is typically a very high apprenticeship spend. In retail and hospitality, it is typically lower. Again, we need to recognise the mathematical reality, which is that the levy is designed so that levy payers cover the apprenticeships in their own companies but also cover the cost of apprenticeships for non-levy payers. To change the system, it would be necessary to extend the scope of the levy or raise its level.
I think it is right at this point to review and reform the levy. It is legitimate to look at such things as coverage of MBAs, although it turns out that it is hard to define where the line should be drawn on post-level 6 qualifications. I think we could look more at tailoring the specifications of difference to different age groups and sectors, and I think there is an argument around pre-apprenticeships and that particular social justice agenda. The overall principle, however, is good. It has increased the amount of money and investment available for apprenticeships and skills and protected it, and it solves the free rider problem. I would say that, along with T-levels, higher level technical qualifications and our school reforms, apprenticeships are key to reforming productivity, and they deserve our support.
Caroline Nokes (in the Chair)
I now call John Howell. Please can comments be kept to four minutes, so that the Minister and Front-Bench spokesmen have time?
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
I shall do my best, Ms Nokes.
I want to draw Members’ attention to a new apprenticeship training centre in my constituency at the Culham science centre, to illustrate some of the points that have been raised and to make the point that we should not throw the baby out with the bathwater. The apprenticeship centre is in a new purpose-built building that has been paid for by the Government. It is a partnership between the UK Atomic Energy Authority, the Science and Technology Facilities Council and the Manufacturing Technology Centre as the training provider. It offers very good apprenticeships in engineering for many high-tech industries—high-tech individual businesses in the Thames valley.
The reason that the levy comes into it is that it pays for the entire running of the centre. It also, particularly, goes to try to achieve what I think the levy was initially designed to achieve, which is social mobility. A key part of the levy has been the attempt to allow individuals to achieve the best, and to be the best that they can be. I was therefore disappointed when the Social Mobility Commission warned that we were pretty close to a two-tier system that was emerging, based on background. That is not the case in the centre in my constituency, which takes a lot of people from varied backgrounds.
It appears that since its introduction, the levy has shifted provision away from the lower-level apprenticeships that can serve as a ladder of opportunity for young people, and towards the rebadging of existing training for already highly skilled, highly paid employees. That has been described as the gaming of the system. At the same time, people from deprived communities are being squeezed out of higher-level apprenticeships. In 2015-16, before the introduction of the levy, the most deprived 20% of the population accounted for 21.9% of apprenticeship starts at level 4 or higher. By 2018-19 that figure had dropped to 16.4%. We need people who have the confidence to navigate the system and the ability to lead, so apprenticeships lead on to good jobs with progression opportunities. I think that the science centre at Culham provides that.
We have talked about a number of issues, in relation to flexibility and such things, but I will leave it at that with my remarks on social mobility. I was taught, “If you have a good point, make it and sit down,” and that is precisely what I am going to do.
Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak today, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) on securing this hugely important debate. Given our manifesto commitment to investigate how the levy can be improved, I know that Ministers will have listened to his excellent speech carefully. I am certainly pleased to follow in my hon. Friend’s wake. I share his concern for SMEs and challenger firms looking to provide apprenticeships. I also wish to stress the challenges faced by further and higher education providers in delivering their vital role.
In particular, I want to set out the work of Staffordshire University, which is based in my constituency and with which I had a meeting last week to discuss National Apprenticeship Week. I look forward to further meetings with the university in the near future, especially after the lessons of this stimulating debate. There are 750 apprentices studying at Staffordshire University, and more than 450 of them are based with an employer. The apprenticeship programme is a major local asset, with more than 150 employers engaging with the university on it. Of course, apprenticeships are not just about numbers; they must also be about quality. The standards at Staffordshire University are high and meaningful. Engagement with best practice providers will be the key to improving and reforming the levy, and I hope the Department will be as keen as I am to meet with Staffordshire University for further discussions.
I am told that an estimated 300 potential apprenticeships have been lost because of drawbacks in the current system, with the non-levy allocation making it particularly challenging to work optimally. Only three applications are allowed per SME, and I would like improving that to be a key focus of the policy process. The promise was that employers would be put at the centre of the system. That needs to include smaller employers with apprenticeship needs.
It also means making sure that all employers understand how the system works. I understand that opportunities are currently being missed because the digital application service is not sufficiently well known or embedded in business practice. I would be interested to hear, for example, how the Department is engaging with local chambers of commerce on that. That is particularly important because I am told by Staffordshire University that the rule changes of the past few weeks are making a positive difference, as non-levy payers can now use the digital system. I hope that there are measures in place to ensure that no business misses an opportunity that could benefit the economy as a whole.
Staffordshire University is certainly playing its part, offering courses, advice and support around enterprise, continuing professional development certification and skills for those not yet ready to take on apprentices. That is extremely important. I know from having set up my own business that it is always daunting—exciting but daunting—to try something new, and taking on a first apprentice will be a key step in a business’s development. The most daunting word is always “compliance”, and I hope Ministers agree that support must be on offer so that businesses are not put off by concerns about compliance.
At Staffordshire University, there will soon be a £40 million new university building called Catalyst. It will focus on digital skills, include an incubation centre and act as a base for apprenticeships, with the aim of having 6,500 apprentices in place by 2030. I cannot stress enough how important that will be to the continuing efforts to level up skills in Stoke-on-Trent and retain talent within the city. While apprenticeships must be about quality, not quantity, we need to look at how to address the gender imbalance in apprenticeships, which is something we should not ignore.
In conclusion, apprenticeships are vital to levelling up skills, but the levy must work to deliver the right quality of programme, with the right portable qualifications and the optimal level of awareness among employers of all sizes.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to speak in this afternoon’s debate, Ms Nokes, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) on securing it. It is a strange one for a Scottish MP to be speaking in, because it is one of those that crosses the boundary between reserved and devolved matters—that point was clearly made by the hon. Members for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones) and for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts). There are challenges for us in Scotland as well. In Scotland, our businesses must pay the apprenticeship levy, but they are not tied to the same restrictions in terms of how apprenticeships are delivered.
A strong economy with growing, competitive and innovative businesses is essential to supporting jobs and our quality of life. To achieve that, we must prioritise education, from early years into employment. There is a real need for young people to train for work, be that through further education, higher education or apprenticeships. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) set out clearly the importance of that education process, whatever it may be. The best situation is one where all the options have equal status. The hon. Member for Gloucester talked about the importance and value of apprenticeships, with which all of us here this afternoon would agree. Unfortunately, in many circles, apprenticeships are still considered second best.
The right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) talked about the possibility of a further education UCAS option, which deserves further investigation. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) talked about the great work done in Staffordshire University with apprenticeship programmes. Although many still prioritise the number of young people accessing university, other life choices are not given the place they deserve. We should not be talking about the route that our young people take, but about their positive destinations. The hon. Member for Henley (John Howell) talked about social mobility, which sums it up nicely. How do we make our young people mobile? Not everyone takes the same route.
It is important that we recognise what apprenticeships should and should not be. The right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) talked about some responsible employers and the excellent programmes they provide for the apprentices in their care, but that is not always the case. Apprenticeships should not be used by employers to attract funding without producing positive outcomes. They should not be used to plug temporary employment gaps. They should be used when the apprenticeship can lead to a full-time position, and apprenticeships should always be matched to skill shortages.
Since the introduction of the apprenticeship levy, we have seen a drop in the number of apprenticeships in England. The hon. Member for Gloucester talked about the levy as a tax. One third of businesses reportedly view the apprenticeship levy primarily as a tax, without training benefits. The British Retail Consortium has said that the levy is “failing retailers”. It appears that it is a clumsy tool that is not doing everything it should be.
Despite that, we in Scotland are making excellent progress to ensure that young people have the skills that they need to exploit current and future opportunities. We have had discussions with key stakeholders and have established a national retraining partnership, with the aim of helping workers and businesses prepare for future changes in their markets by enabling the workforce to upskill and retrain where necessary. The commitment to skills is ambitious, building on a number of initiatives already in place to boost employment and create positive pathways for young people.
Of course, the UK Government are stepping on a devolved responsibility here. We pay the levy, but the training is devolved. The Scottish Government have worked with employers to mitigate this unwelcome tax. They have extended the £10 million flexible workforce development fund to continue to support investment in skills and training. Employers have been encouraged to link with colleges to learn more about the opportunities available to them. All that work is paying dividends. The Scottish Government have exceeded their apprenticeship target every year for the last eight years. Skills Development Scotland statistics also show that the Scottish Government’s commitment to increasing apprenticeships to 30,000 by 2020 is on course to be met.
The right hon. Member for Harlow talked about degree apprenticeships. The apprenticeships currently on offer in Scotland include, this year, around 900 graduate opportunities, up from only 278 in the previous year. Massive steps have been made in that area. Some 93% of Scotland’s young people now go on to positive destinations—that is the highest of anywhere in the UK. We will continue to enhance the apprenticeship opportunities available to provide the right balance of skills to meet the needs of employers, including prioritising higher skilled apprenticeships and STEM—science, technology, engineering and maths—occupations.
As an example, an Edinburgh school is teaching construction skills. The infrastructure company Balfour Beatty is co-funding that project with the University of Edinburgh. It aims to inspire the next generation of specialists in engineering and the built environment. Pupils at Castlebrae Community High School in Craigmillar take subjects including maths, science and technology, while learning about the latest practices demanded in construction. The pupils acquire real-world, practical experience and employability skills as part of the course, which brings industry professionals into the classroom to support teachers.
Young people have to know that there is no wrong path, and #NoWrongPath trends every year roundabout exam results time, to show young people that there are many routes into employment and on to a positive destination. We all need to ask ourselves whether we would be happy for our own children to take each of the different routes into employment. If the answer is no, we have to question why we are here.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
It is a genuine pleasure to sum up on behalf of the Opposition, and I thank the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) for securing the debate. He gave a thoughtful and considered overview of concerns about apprenticeships. I was particularly interested in his points about the concerns of small and medium-sized enterprises and that businesses paid the levy before many of the standards had been developed and they were able to use their money efficiently.
My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones) made a clear and convincing argument about why policing needs to be funded effectively in Wales. I hope the Minister will address those specific concerns about the apprenticeship levy in in Wales.
I am delighted that the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) is back as Chair of the Select Committee on Education. I pay tribute to him for the work he has done. His protégés are here in this Chamber. He is passionate about apprenticeships, and the Education Committee has been committed to using them as a tool for social mobility. He made many interesting points. I hope the Committee will delve into the concerns about the apprenticeship levy and investigate them further.
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made an important point about the diversity of skills and equality of access to apprenticeship opportunities. He also made an interesting point about SMEs. Northern Ireland does not have many large industries, so how can companies there benefit most effectively from the levy? Will the Minister comment on regional differences and how they impact on the levy’s effectiveness?
The right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) was marking his own homework by commenting on the apprenticeship levy, but he made some excellent points. I agree that the levy should not be seen as a tax. Using the levy as a way of dealing with the free rider problem is an excellent incentive. I also agree that we need to examine the flexibility. Given that it has been running for three years, it is time for a general review of the apprenticeship levy. I echo his calls for review and reform.
The hon. Member for Henley (John Howell) spoke passionately about social mobility, which many Members have addressed, and about the importance of engineering apprenticeships and how the levy has been used in a more imaginative way in his constituency. I wish all the apprentices well on their route forward. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) paid credit to the fantastic Staffordshire University, which sounds like it deserves a visit from our Front Benchers.
If they are done well, apprenticeships can provide employees with the skills, knowledge and behaviours required to survive in today’s workplace. They create new pathways for employment and can be a lightning rod for social mobility, but data from the Office of National Statistics show that our country currently has a huge productivity gap—productivity is 30% higher in France and 35% higher in Germany. The widening gap cannot be ignored as we stand as an independent nation and try to obtain the easy post-Brexit deals promised by the Government.
Given that the Government’s own skills adviser, Alison Wolf, who is hugely respected across the sector, stated to the Education Committee in June 2016 that she “suspected” the decision to make the levy applicable only to large businesses with £3 billion of staff costs was
“one of the things that was decided the night before”,
it is fair to say that the Government’s rushed implementation of the apprenticeship levy has resulted in unforeseen consequences and perverse incentives.
Although I agree that the 2017 reforms have started a national conversation on apprenticeships, and I agree with the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) that we should look at prestige and whether we would want our children to follow that pathway—I would definitely encourage my girls to go forward with a degree apprenticeship model—we have to recognise that the overall number of apprentices has dropped since the levy was introduced. Some 509,000 apprentices started a programme in 2015-16, and only 393,000 started in 2018-19—a drop of 23%.
The levy has been overspent and the funds have been rationed for smaller employers. The fall in the number of SME apprenticeships is about 171,000—down an estimated 49% since the levy was introduced. Many colleges ran out of funds for new starts in SMEs, and by the end of 2019 they were not able to meet the demands, particularly in construction and engineering, which are the industries that the apprenticeship levy was meant to support. The Association of Employment and Learning Providers estimates that there are about 30,000 to 40,000 unfilled apprenticeships in SMEs due to the lack of funding.
A recent newspaper report states that the Secretary of State has said that this issue could be solved by moving to the Digital Apprenticeship Service. However, it makes no difference what system is used if there is not enough money in it to start with. The hon. Member for Gloucester commented on passing on part of the levy funds, but SMEs and large businesses have found it overly bureaucratic, complicated and difficult to find a partner to match up with. If the Minister wants to pursue that avenue, we need to consider simplifying the process and making it run a lot more smoothly. The change in the number of apprentices—and the level at which they start, which I will come on to—has been disastrous for some sectors, particularly the care sector. Many care homes are SMEs, and the sector is low margin and low wage. They have been hit really hard by the difficulties in finding apprentices to work there.
Young people have been affected more than anyone else. The number of those starting on level 2 and level 3 apprenticeships, which are predominantly provided by SMEs, has fallen by about 20%. That will not help social mobility. We are not giving our young people the access required to climb the ladder of opportunity. They cannot even get on the first rung.
I am also concerned—this has been echoed by other Members— about the apprenticisation of existing training courses. Chief executive officers have reduced or replaced other training so that they can use the levy. The right hon. Member for Harlow alluded to today’s report in the TES that since 2017 more than £104 million of apprenticeship levy money has been spent on putting senior managers through masters degrees and apprenticeship programmes. David Hughes of the Association of Colleges said:
“This is draining a fixed pot of money dedicated to apprenticeships.”
I support degree apprenticeships and masters apprenticeships, and I support retraining the workforce, but there always needs to be a balance. At the moment it appears that the system is designed to help existing employees who already have higher-level qualifications—sometimes degree and management qualifications—at the expense of 16 to 18-year-olds who are just beginning their careers and need to start at the lower levels. Does the Minister agree with Amanda Spielman of Ofsted, who says there need to be more reforms to the levy to ensure that it is used effectively? I would not want to limit businesses’ freedom and flexibility to use the levy in a way they see fit, but it seems that its design creates perverse incentives for it to be used it at the top end of the levels rather than at the bottom.
As we face our post-Brexit future, we need to look at level 2 starts. I have found some quite scary figures. If we continue on our current trajectory, by 2024 there will be more than 4 million too few people to take up the high-skilled jobs available. There will be 2 million too many with intermediate skills, and more than 6 million too many who are low skilled. Rather than waiting another year or so for the apprenticeship levy review, we need to do it immediately in order to avoid ending up with a problem by 2024, when so many people will be unable to access quality work.
I will make a few comments about social mobility. Before the introduction of the levy, the most deprived 20% of the population accounted for more than 21% of apprenticeship starts at level 4 and above. By 2018 the figure had dropped to 16.4%. With the current levy design, people from more deprived backgrounds are less likely to be able to access higher-level apprenticeships. I wonder whether that is because we have pulled away level 2 and 3 access points, which would previously have enabled them to move up to level 4.
I will now give a list of recommendations, which I am sure the Minister will jot down enthusiastically. We should consider providing guaranteed funding for 16 to 18 year-olds who want to do apprenticeships, be they levy funded or non-levy funded, and they should be treated in the same way as 16 to 18 year-olds who attend college and continue into sixth form. Their apprenticeship should be funded, and I would like to know how we are going to resolve that.
The Treasury should increase the overall spending in schools to match inflation. SMEs should be involved in the standard designs and funded under the current levy system, and the Government should commit to a ring-fenced and guaranteed non-levy budget of at least £1.5 billion, and to separate segregated funding approaches between levy and non-levy employers. Apprenticeships need to be more flexible so that they are able to adapt. We need to consider a three-year cycle of standards reform, and that should involve businesses as well.
I have huge respect for the Minister, with whom I served on the Education Committee, but I believe the Government could show their commitment to FE and skills by appointing a separate FE and skills Minister.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Michelle Donelan)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) on securing the debate, and I warmly welcome his ongoing interest and engagement with the Government’s work on high-quality apprenticeships. It is vital that we advocate for businesses and apprentices alike up and down the country. I am delighted to see so many Members present, and I recognise the work they have already done on this issue. I hope my hon. Friend will agree that we have made huge progress on building a world-class apprenticeship system that creates opportunities for people of all ages and backgrounds, wherever they are in the country. It is great news that there have been 11,000 more apprenticeships in his constituency alone since 2010.
As Members will know, last week was National Apprenticeship Week, our annual celebration of everything that apprenticeships have to offer employers, individuals and society. Many Members present will have heard some inspiring stories. The highlight for me was presenting the awards at Wiltshire College apprenticeship evening, where I met many extremely enthusiastic apprentices of different ages and at different stages of their career. Many Members will agree that the message of optimism in our outreach work, and the determination to challenge the outdated perception that university is the only desirable option for the ambitious and motivated, are quite rightly at the top of our agenda.
Many may have also heard the frustrations. Although we have made a great deal of progress, we cannot be complacent. We know that the levy remains a source of concern for some employers, and many Members spoke about the complexities and inflexibilities of the present system. I want to assure them—in particular, the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy)—that we are keeping the apprentice system and levy under constant review to understand how it works for employers of all sizes, and most importantly how it can deliver for our economy and for social mobility.
On the timing for creating standards, which my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester raised, we introduced a faster, better programme, which has made significant improvements. In fact, the institute has exceeded its own targets. I appreciate that there is further work to do, but we are making progress.
It is vital to recognise that the levy is at the centre of our ambitious apprenticeship reform. Less than 2% of employers pay the levy, but 56% of starts—almost 225,000—were supported by the funds in the employers’ levy accounts between 2018 and 2010. The apprenticeship levy is helping businesses large and small to access the high-quality training that they need. More funding is available for apprenticeships than ever before. We will make more than £2.5 billion available for investment this year—double what we spent in 2010. That point was noted by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), whose insight from leading the Department was of great use today. His excellent speech highlighted the benefits of the apprenticeship system and how it works in practice.
Robert Halfon
Like the shadow Minister, the Minister is a graduate of the Education Committee—it is a true ladder of opportunity. She spoke about reform of the levy, but are the Government open to the idea of extending it, or are they just looking at reforms to the current system? Could she also say something about whether she has any figures for the budget for apprenticeships over the next few years?
Michelle Donelan
My right hon. Friend gives me more credit than my position is due. I am afraid that I do not set the budget, but I assure him that we are keeping everything under review. As he knows only too well, the apprenticeship levy is worked on in conjunction with the Treasury. We will be considering the impact that it has on businesses, on social mobility and on opening up apprenticeships in the long run, so that the system is not only sustainable but opens door after door for young and older people in our communities.
Hon. Members mentioned SMEs, and I assure them that we are putting those on the same footing as big business. The apprenticeship service includes an award-winning digital service to support employers to manage their funds and choose the training they need from a register of approved providers. We are rolling out the benefits of that service to smaller employers too, moving away from the previous procured contract system to give SMEs more choice than ever over the opportunities that they create. Putting employers that do not pay the levy on the same footing as big businesses will allow them to choose the training providers that suit their individual needs. As that transition takes place, we are supporting SMEs by making funding available for more than 15,000 additional apprenticeship starts this financial year. I hope that addresses some of the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon).
I note the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), the Chair of the Education Committee, which I formerly served on. He talked about the issue of gaming, and mentioned second degrees. We have to be really careful, because there are a number of sectors in which we have to recruit more people because we have skills gaps, including the NHS and the police, so we actually want people to do a second degree to get into those sectors. I hear the concerns about that and the MBA debate. I want him and other Members to know that I am personally looking at that to ensure that we get it right.
We are confident that our work to improve the working of the levy will respond to the rigidity of the system, which hon. Members mentioned, and open up more opportunities for individuals and businesses. I assure hon. Members that we will continue the progress with this so we support employers in the sector. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester said, starts have fallen since our ambitious reform programme began. We will continue to carefully monitor falls in apprenticeship starts at level 2 and by younger people, as our reforms bed in and the balance of the programme continues to shift. Apprenticeships at level 2 can provide significant returns to individuals and may be the starting point for further progression—or, as my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) neatly said, act as the ladder of opportunity. However, it is also vital that young people and those from disadvantaged backgrounds can realise the benefits of apprenticeships at higher levels, so we will continue to look at this.
[Sir Gary Streeter in the Chair]
I want to stress the importance of quality, because apprenticeship standards are central to driving forward our reforms. Employers often told us that the quality of the training was inconsistent and inappropriate. Standards today ensure that apprentices train for a minimum of a year, with at least 20% off-the-job training, and receive a rigorous assessment at the end. All apprentices will be starting on these high-quality standards by the start of the 2020-21 academic year. We listened to employers’ concerns around their engagement in developing the apprenticeships. We have established the independent Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, which was mentioned several times. It is working with employers of all sizes to ensure the standards deliver for them.
When we reach National Apprenticeship Week 2021 and look back on the achievements of the coming year, I am confident that we will still be proud of the progress we are making. By this time next year, all apprentices will be starting on high-quality standards, developed by employers to deliver the skills they need.
Gerald Jones
The Minister talks about the funding for the apprenticeship levy and the scheme, and some reforms, but I ask her to look carefully at the issue with the Welsh police forces, because it is causing real concern and has been going on for quite some time. If she cannot address it today, will she respond over the next few days?
Michelle Donelan
I am conscious of the fact that I need to give my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester time to sum up. I will certainly meet any Members from the devolved nations to address the issues in their areas or meet my counterparts to discuss them.
By next year, we will have continued our engagement with employers, and will have brought thousands of small and medium-sized employers on to the apprenticeship service. I also want to ensure that we are doing more for those from disadvantaged backgrounds. I am personally passionate about that issue, and I will be driving it forward.
I am grateful for the support of my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester and for the fact that he has raised the issue of apprenticeships again and is ensuring that it is at the top of our agenda. I am glad that a number of Members share my passion for ensuring that apprenticeships are a true vehicle for social mobility.
Richard Graham
This has been a valuable debate about the best way to structure the provision of apprenticeships and their financing. There was widespread agreement about their value as the ladder of opportunity and social mobility, and there were different ideas about how best to use and reform the apprenticeship levy.
However, given that a quarter of apprenticeship starts have been lost over the past three years, and that the FSB says that urgent action is needed—my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) highlighted the challenges for SMEs—I hope the DFE will reflect on the need for further reform. Although I recognise the Minister’s commitment to apprenticeships and to making the levy work better, further announcements of reform are needed soon, as promised by the Prime Minister. Leaving things as they are will not be enough to provide the skills needed by global Britain or for an ambitious programme of levelling up.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the effectiveness of the apprenticeship levy.
Hinckley National Rail Freight Interchange
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the proposal for the Hinckley national rail freight interchange in South Leicestershire.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I thank Mr Speaker for granting the debate and I welcome the Minister to his place. I will say at the outset that the Minister and I spoke about this last night, and I am very grateful for his comments and his time. I know that he has quite a few words to say today, so I may curtail my speech. I also thank colleagues for joining me in this debate, which, although it is on an issue unique to South Leicestershire, is representative of something that other hon. Members may encounter in their constituencies.
The proposal for the Hinkley national rail freight interchange is for the construction of a purpose-built logistics hub to the south of the village of Elmesthorpe in my constituency. The hub would be operational 24/7 and built with access to the existing two-way railway track between Birmingham and Leicester to allow for freight train entry, along with local road access for the entry of a quite substantial number of heavy goods vehicles.
Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate, because I represent a neighbouring constituency on which the plans will have a knock-on effect. What impact does he think the 24/7 operation of the hub might have?
Alberto Costa
Before I answer my hon. Friend’s question, I welcome him to this Westminster Hall debate. I appreciate that he cannot speak this afternoon because he has yet to make his maiden speech. The rail freight interchange will have as much of an impact on his constituency of Bosworth as it will on my constituency of South Leicestershire. The 24/7 impact on the current infrastructure—let alone the very modest additional infrastructure that has been proposed—will be detrimental to his constituents as well as to mine.
I will put the location of the proposal into context. The planned site for the Hinkley rail hub would, in its totality, encompass a 440-acre area; for comparison, that is almost a quarter of the size of Gatwick airport. We are talking about a very large area that is currently beautiful rolling South Leicestershire countryside. The site will neighbour the historic and picturesque county villages of Elmesthorpe, Stoney Stanton, Sapcote, Sharnford, Aston Flamville, Potters Marston, Croft, Huncote, Thurlaston and Wigston Parva, which are collectively and colloquially referred to as the Fosse villages.
I appreciate that people in the Chamber—with the exception of those in the Public Gallery—will not be familiar with the Fosse villages, much to their detriment. The settlements, many of which date back to medieval times, vary in size and, because of their location, share a collective bond in this area of Leicestershire. My constituents in the Fosse villages contend with overburdened infrastructure at the very best of times.
Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)
Looking at the overall picture, will there not be an environmental benefit in getting freight off roads and on to rail, and should a study be done to try to demonstrate that?
Alberto Costa
I entirely agree. Government policy is to reduce HGV traffic by moving freight off our principal road arteries and on to rail, but the concern about this specific proposal is that developers often propose a purported rail freight head development when all they want is a very large logistics park. We must be ultra-cautious that this particular development is not just a front for yet another large-scale logistics park.
Dr Luke Evans
Taking freight off the roads is a great idea. A problem that worries me for my constituency, however, is that if the rail freight hub went ahead, there would be more congestion on our already congested roads, particularly the A5. If money were spent on improving the A5, that would perhaps allow proposals like this to go forward in future.
Alberto Costa
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As I mentioned a moment ago, at times the existing infrastructure is already at capacity. For three or four years we have been discussing dualling the A5 all the way to the M1, and that has not yet happened—there are safety issues with the A5. My constituents—and, no doubt, my hon. Friend’s constituents—are concerned that the proposal will add to a road system that is frankly not equipped to take such an extremely large amount of proposed HGV traffic.
As I have said, my constituents in the Fosse villages contend with overburdened infrastructure at the best of times. Furthermore, the proximity of the site to the existing logistics hubs in Leicestershire is paramount. Magna Park is one of Europe’s largest logistics parks and is proposed to double in size. It is near the market town of Lutterworth, only a few miles south of the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans), while the proposed rail hub would be only a few miles north. To give hon. Members an idea of the sheer size of Magna Park, its footprint is directly comparable to, and perhaps larger than, that of Lutterworth. The existing logistics park is enormous—particularly if it doubles in size—so another large logistics park, developed under the guise of a rail freight head terminal, would be problematic and grossly unfair to people who like the quality of life in that part of Leicestershire.
I appreciate the strategic importance of sites, such as Magna Park and the proposed interchange, situated in the so-called golden triangle—the intersection of the M1, M69 and M6 motorways—meaning that about 80% of the British population can be reached within five hours. However, some deeply concerning factors must be considered. The environmental impact of the proposal has been at the fore of many of my constituents’ concerns, and the plans are to concrete over the existing site, which is beautiful rolling countryside of lush green fields stretching as far as the eye can see.
Anyone standing in those glorious South Leicestershire fields today would quite easily spot the nearby local nature reserve of Burbage common, most of which is located in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth. If I may speak for my hon. Friend, the common is a 200-acre mix of semi-natural woodlands and unspoiled grassland that is used daily not just by his constituents, but by mine, for walking, horse-riding, exploring and orienteering. Quite frankly, I am more than a little jealous that the common sits in his constituency, but as he knows, we might have a boundary review, and I know what I will be asking for.
Dr Luke Evans
My hon. Friend may not be surprised to hear that I would be reluctant to see Burbage common moved. Has he ever been to Acorns coffee shop and seen how well used it is by walkers, ramblers and dog walkers? People enjoy having a coffee and using that time to relax after walking around the beautiful Burbage common.
Alberto Costa
Sadly, I have not yet visited that particular locality, but my constituents do visit. I look forward to being taken there by my hon. Friend to celebrate his maiden speech, once he has made it.
Burbage common is a site of unspoiled and unrivalled natural beauty. Significantly, it is also home to Burbage wood, which is a site of special scientific interest, with rare wild flowers, more than 20 species of butterfly, more than 100 different species of fungi and more than 25 different mammals. The Hinkley rail hub site would be situated directly next to Burbage common and would therefore have an indescribably detrimental impact on that unspoiled local nature reserve and the various wildlife and plants that currently thrive there.
On the supposed employment benefits of the proposed development, the developer has stated that in excess of 8,000 jobs will be created. I am a proud Conservative and always favour free enterprise and the creation of employment, but I have very serious concerns about the filling of those supposed vacancies.
Alberto Costa
I am not aware of specific plans for counteracting that. Constituents are certainly expressing concerns about those things, and rightly so.
Earlier, I mentioned nearby Magna Park, which purportedly employs more than 10,000 people. My constituency has a welcome unemployment rate of less than 1%, so who will those employment opportunities be for? They will not be for my constituents, and I doubt they will be for neighbouring MPs’ constituents either. In reality, if the proposal were to go ahead and so many employment opportunities were to be created, we would find people commuting from up to an hour away, from as far afield as Milton Keynes, and taking rat runs through the Fosse villages to get to the proposed railway hub terminal. That would put even more pressure on the already problematic infrastructure of the Fosse villages.
At this point, I will bring in the views of Blaby District Council, one of the two excellent Conservative-led local authorities in my constituency. The rail hub is a nationally significant infrastructure project, so Blaby District Council will act as a statutory consultee on the application. The final planning decision will lie with the responsible Secretary of State.
Blaby District Council has informed me that, although the plans are in their pre-submission stage at present, its elected members have made it clear that they cannot support the development in question. They share concerns similar to those that I have expressed today. They are concerned about the impact of heavy goods vehicles travelling through rural villages, the environmental impacts such as light and noise pollution, and the huge increase in traffic, with ecology and the protection of local biodiversity high on the political agenda.
Alberto Costa
Local district councillor colleagues would certainly be concerned if an unhealthily high number of HGVs used existing roads. Clearly, the existing roads would not be sufficient to deal with the thousands of employees on the rat runs and the HGV traffic, much of which would no doubt use the smaller B-class roads rather than the A-class roads even though it is obliged to use A-class roads.
Blaby District Council has advised that many factors will need to be addressed in order for the proposal to avoid a formal objection. The site has no status in the council’s local plan, and therefore it has not been envisaged or planned for. The council is concerned about where the required employment would be sourced from and what provisions would be made to accommodate those employees. Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council is the other statutory consultee on the application and, although it is in the neighbouring constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth, I understand that it shares similar concerns.
I will now discuss my constituents’ views of the proposals. Considering the historic collective bonds in the Fosse villages that go back many years, it comes as little surprise that the vast majority of my constituents are opposed to the plans. Scarcely a day goes by when my inbox or my constituency office is not informed of a resident’s concern about the rail hub proposal. In order properly to gauge the strength of feeling among residents on the matter, last year I issued a survey to all residents in the Fosse villages. I received almost 2,000 responses in less than four weeks—a huge return for a survey of that nature.
Almost 80% of Fosse village respondents said that they were against the development, with impacts on local infrastructure and the environment being the predominant concerns. Furthermore, more than 83% responded that they thought it would be detrimental to their village’s identity.
Alberto Costa
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I will be pleased to ask my team to share the data with him. Perhaps we can consider what further surveys we might wish to do jointly, given the joint impact on our constituents.
I fully appreciate and understand the serious concerns of many of my constituents about this proposal. I am pleased to say that some of the brilliant district councillors for the Fosse villages have joined us in the Public Gallery this afternoon. Those councillors have worked tirelessly on behalf of their local residents—their electorate—to oppose the plans. They have attended every public meeting and every engagement event. I pay tribute to the fantastic work of Councillors Maggie Wright, Sheila Scott, Iain Hewson, David Freer and Deanne Woods, to name but a few.
The reasonings against the proposal are varied in their multitude, but they are all of equal importance. With little or no legislation in place governing the provision and placement of such logistic hubs, I fear that rural areas such as South Leicestershire and Burbage common, which already carry their fair share and do their part, are being somewhat overburdened. Will the Minister, the Department and the Secretary of State—I know that the Minister will discuss the matter with him—kindly look into it and consider my constituents’ concerns, to ensure that the plans for the Hinckley rail hub and similar such proposals are given the scrutiny they require and deserve? Will they commit to ensuring that the views of the people of South Leicestershire, Hinckley and Bosworth are properly taken into account before any decision is made?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Luke Hall)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) for securing a debate that is clearly important to many people in his constituency and beyond its borders. We have had an informative discussion.
Before describing our policy on the development of strategic rail freight interchanges, I am glad to be able to provide some context for this debate. As a Government, we absolutely recognise the important benefits that rail freight offers to the United Kingdom, including substantial benefits for the environment, as one of the most carbon-efficient ways to move goods over long distances. The sector also delivers economic and social benefits through cost savings to industry, and by supporting employment and reducing congestion, with rail freight resulting in 7.2 million fewer lorry journeys each year. Industry estimates that rail freight provides £1.7 billion of benefits to the United Kingdom economy.
The Government are committed to the growth of the rail freight sector and recognise the role of rail freight in helping Government to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Between 2014 and 2019, Government invested £235 million in improving capacity and capability for rail freight. Recently, we also increased by 28%, to £20 million, the budget for a freight grant scheme to support the carriage of freight by rail and water on routes where road haulage has an advantage.
To be helpful, I will also set out the purpose of strategic rail freight interchanges. Such interchanges are large multi-purpose rail freight interchange and distribution centres linked to both the rail and the trunk road systems. They enable freight to be transferred efficiently between transport modes. Many rail freight movements are unable to undertake a full end-to-end journey for relevant goods.
The development of a network of strategic rail freight interchanges is a key element in reducing the cost to users of moving more freight by rail and in reducing the number of freight movements on our road. The interchanges also facilitate important trade links, improve international connectivity and enhance port growth. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire acknowledged, it is Government policy to support the development of an expanded network of strategic rail freight interchanges. We consider the interchanges to be of national significance.
My hon. Friend has a specific interest in the proposal for the Hinckley national rail freight interchange in South Leicestershire. From this debate and others, I know that he is a passionate advocate for his community. He is absolutely right to bring this debate to the Chamber, and he has made his thoughts and concerns heard at a ministerial level. Absolutely, we are having those discussions with the Secretary of State. Importantly, this debate has been a good opportunity for us to understand the depth of feeling in my hon. Friend’s constituency. Let me reassure him that he has absolutely achieved the objective of ensuring that his voice is heard at that level, and residents across South Leicestershire are having their voices heard, too.
I join my hon. Friend in placing on the record my gratitude to Councillor Maggie Wright, representing Normanton ward, Councillor Iain Hewson, representing Stanton and Flamville ward, and other councillors. I know they all have strongly held views on this issue and that residents will be grateful for the diligent and professional way in which they have approached the matter, working with their Member of Parliament to bring this case to the House today.
I understand that the Hinckley SRFI proposals are at the pre-application stage. As part of the process, the developer has held two rounds of informal consultation on its proposals, which has included a number of public exhibitions. When the applicant submits the development consent order application to the Planning Inspectorate, my hon. Friend’s constituents, as interested parties, will be able to make representations in writing on the scheme. During the examination process, interested parties are invited to provide more details of their views in writing or they can speak at hearings. I know that my hon. Friend will use those mechanisms to again raise his concerns about the impact on the local environment, but I am very happy to ensure that a record of our debate today is also included in the process.
I hope my hon. Friend will appreciate that as the proposed strategic rail freight interchange in question is currently in the planning process, I am not able to comment, as the Minister responsible for local government, on the specific merits of the proposals at this stage. That is because the Government may be asked to opine on the development at a later stage. Under the Planning Act 2008, the Secretary of State for Transport has a quasi-judicial role in issuing decisions on applications for development consent orders for strategic rail freight interchanges.
It may be helpful, though, if I set out the rationale for strategic rail freight interchanges being considered nationally significant infrastructure projects, and the process for considering development consent order planning applications for strategic rail freight interchanges. The nationally significant infrastructure projects regime was established by the 2008 Act and is a bespoke consent regime for nationally significant projects in the fields of energy, transport, water supply, waste water and waste. The regime’s aim is to simplify and speed up planning consent for such projects by reducing the number of separate applications and permits that are required and enabling faster decision making. That helps the benefits of nationally significant infrastructure projects to be realised more quickly.
The Act sets out thresholds that determine which projects must submit applications for consent under the nationally significant infrastructure projects regime. For strategic rail freight interchanges, that means that a development larger than 60 hectares and capable of receiving at least four trains a day is considered nationally significant for the purposes of the regime. Establishing thresholds of that kind provides certainty for our country’s most complex infrastructure schemes. The statutory timescales under the regime give applicants and communities predictability, which is essential to provide the confidence needed to bring forward nationally significant infrastructure projects that the country needs. That of course includes strategic rail freight interchanges.
The nationally significant infrastructure projects regime also allows Government, through national policy statements, to set the policies for how schemes are to be considered. The national networks national policy statement, approved by Parliament in 2015, sets out the need for, and Government’s policies to deliver, development of nationally significant infrastructure projects on the national road and rail networks in England. It provides planning guidance for promoters of nationally significant infrastructure projects on the road and rail networks. It also provides the basis for the examination by the Planning Inspectorate and decisions by the Secretary of State for Transport. The Secretary of State uses it as the primary basis for making decisions on development consent applications for strategic rail freight interchanges and other national network significant infrastructure projects in England.
The national policy statement provides a clear framework for strategic rail freight interchange developers, local authorities and the Planning Inspectorate. Planning guidance set out in the national policy statement for national networks states that
“a network of SRFIs is needed…to serve regional, sub-regional and cross-regional markets.”
Furthermore, it states that there is a “compelling need” for an expanded network of strategic rail freight interchanges. It does not, however, specify where those interchanges should be located. Instead, it provides a framework for private sector developers to bring forward proposals through the planning system if they are deemed to be operationally and commercially viable.
Alberto Costa
This is one of our core problems—the lack of Government guidance on where these logistics parks or nationally significant infrastructure developments should be located. I would be grateful if the Minister could ask the Secretary of State or the other responsible Minister to write to me about the lack of a Government framework policy on the location of large logistics parks.
Luke Hall
I am very happy to have that conversation and ensure that my hon. Friend receives the information and assurance that he has asked for.
The development consent order planning application is tightly bound by statutory timescales that Parliament has set. The application and examination in respect of a proposed development is undertaken by the Planning Inspectorate, on behalf of the Secretary of State for Transport. The inspectorate will decide whether the application meets the required standards before proceeding to an examination. I can assure my hon. Friend that the views of communities affected by interchanges are fully taken into account as part of the planning process.
In deciding whether the application can progress to examination, the inspectorate will consider whether the developer has fulfilled its statutory duty to consult local communities and local authorities affected by the scheme. Indeed, community engagement is fundamental to the nationally significant infrastructure projects regime’s operation. Developers are required to consult extensively before an application is submitted and considered; and where the consultation has not been carried out in line with the statutory requirements, the Planning Inspectorate can refuse to accept the application. Local authorities and communities also have the right to be involved during the examination of a project: they can set out their views in written representations, which can then be taken into account in decision making.
Local authorities also have a particular role to play in the development consent order application process. In addition to submitting written representations, relevant local authorities can submit a local impact report, which sets out details of the potential impacts of the proposed scheme on the authority’s area and how it envisages that those impacts could be mitigated. The examining authority and the Secretary of State must have regard to that under the 2008 Act. The Planning Inspectorate has six months to carry out the examination of the proposed development, which may include a public inquiry, where the views of the affected communities can be expressed.
A report of the findings and conclusions in respect of the proposed development, including a recommendation, is then issued by the Planning Inspectorate to the Secretary of State within three months. The Secretary of State then has three months to issue a decision on the proposal. If for any reason a decision cannot be issued in that time, a written ministerial statement setting out a new deadline will need to be laid in Parliament.
I assure my hon. Friend that in considering any proposed development, the Planning Inspectorate and the Secretary of State weigh its adverse impacts against the benefits. That includes the facilitation of economic development, including job creation, housing and environmental improvement, any long-term or wider benefit and any longer-term and cumulative adverse impacts, as well as any measure to avoid, reduce or compensate for those impacts.
Luke Hall
I will not, because I am about to conclude.
The rail freight sector is vital to the prosperity of the United Kingdom economy, delivers important social benefits and is key to meeting net zero targets. An expanded network of strategic rail freight interchanges is key to harnessing the benefits of rail freight, and the Government support the development of that network. We of course do not specify where the locations should be. We believe that it is for private sector developers to bring forward proposals that are viable and have regard to the guidance of the policy statement.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire for initiating the debate. I want to reassure him again—he can be assured—that his community’s voice will be heard in the course of the process. I thank him for the discussions that we have had and for today’s debate. I want now to leave him a short time to sum up the debate.
Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)
I am afraid that in a half-hour debate, the hon. Member does not get the chance to sum up.
Question put and agreed to.
Retail Workers: Protection
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered protection of retail workers.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. The simple reason for calling this debate is that I want to raise the issue of attacks on and threats to retail workers. Although the issue has been given more attention in the House in recent years, we need this opportunity to talk about the violence and threats faced by thousands of constituents in their day-to-day lives and to press the Government to take action.
The retail industry is the single largest private employer in the UK, with 3 million employees and sales of more than £3.8 billion. About one in 10 workers works in the industry. The services they provide up and down the country are invaluable to our communities, but those workers are increasingly under threat from the rising epidemic of violence and abuse from some members of the public. By the end of today, up to 115 retail workers will have been attacked, according to the British Retail Consortium. The Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers—the union representing retail workers—estimates that the figure is even higher; after surveying its members, it believes that around 280 shop workers are assaulted daily. Research by the Association of Convenience Stores suggests that violence has significantly increased in recent years.
Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Does he agree that there is a particular problem with lone workers in the retail sector, and that it is something we need to pay attention to?
Mike Amesbury
I agree, and I will come to that. The consistent threat faced by retail workers is despite the fact that retailers spent nearly £1 billion on crime prevention last year alone. The real issue is the human aspect. Staff are being put in danger by simply doing their job. All the organisations and individuals I have spoken to highlight the dramatic impact of assaults and threats at work.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
This is an important issue, which is why so many Members are here. A massive part of protecting retailers comes in the knowledge that a police force is close at hand, ready and able to respond quickly. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we need a visible community policing presence on the high street, as a deterrent to retail crime? One way of achieving protection is CCTV on the high street and in shops, but we need a police presence too.
Mike Amesbury
I agree. Community policing is a vital resource. Following up crimes with prosecutions, and deterrents such as CCTV, are powerful and pertinent.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
This is such an important debate. We face this problem in Huddersfield. Does my hon. Friend agree that being a member of a good trade union such as USDAW is a great protection for workers in this sector? Organisations such as the Co-op—I do not mean the Labour and Co-operative party, of which I am a member—protect workers much better than many major high street retailers.
Mike Amesbury
I agree wholeheartedly; trade union membership should be encouraged. Trade unions work in partnership with organisations such as the British Retail Consortium and the Co-op, as they have done to prepare for this debate.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
Some large retailers discourage trade union membership in their own employee handbooks. Is that not something that we should highlight? We should name and shame the companies that discourage trade union membership in their handbooks; it is a vital protection for workers in this country.
Mike Amesbury
I agree, and I will come on to the progressive work that some of the hon. Gentleman’s Scottish comrades are doing elsewhere.
Working every day in a situation where they were attacked or threatened, and facing a constant stream of strangers, is more than enough to cause retail workers panic attacks and anxiety after an assault. Retail workers, especially those working at night—as touched on by my hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds)—or tasked with selling alcohol, simply do not have the option of avoiding the anti-social behaviour of others. Dr Emmeline Taylor, in collaboration with the Co-operative Group, traced the psychological impact of the epidemic of violence. She highlighted the incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder in employees after their assaults. In the most severe cases, they were too traumatised to return to work—assaults literally cost them their livelihood.
In preparation for this debate, the House of Commons digital engagement team last week put out a survey online. Some of the responses received were absolutely shocking: stories of employees being racially abused, watching colleagues being stabbed and punched, and even being held at gunpoint. Andrea from Sheffield told us that:
“we are threatened...daily...with…needles, flick knives...colleagues have been headbutted and punched. Shoplifters feel it is their right to assault us”.
The psychological impact described by Dr Taylor is all too clear in many responses. One worker from Bristol said that he developed severe PTSD and panic attacks after he was assaulted at work—another victim of these callous criminals, who affected his livelihood, and who affect that of major retailers.
Looking at the responses, it is obvious that some retailers can do more to support their staff, as many do not feel protected or defended by employers. It is also clear that staff want legally set and enforced standards of behaviour from the public. One respondent, Fiona, stated:
“Customers see retail workers as ‘fair game’, things they wouldn't say to a stranger in the street, they are quite happy to say it to us...I believe for our protection, it should be made clear that verbal or physical abuse would result in prosecution”.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. I wanted to raise the point he just made, because the authorities are giving the wrong signal. The setting of the figure of £200, which has almost become an acceptable figure for shoplifting, is signalling that the police do not need to intervene at that level. Provided the shoplifter keeps it under £200, they will get away with it—the worst that will happen is they will get a fine by post, a bit like a parking offence.
Mike Amesbury
I concur wholeheartedly. Anyone who is assaulted deserves to be protected by the law, but it is clear that retail workers face a particular threat. What is more, despite ample evidence, some cases are not being prosecuted, as rightly pointed out by USDAW, even when there is clear video footage of an assault. A lack of sentencing leads to a lack of reporting, which leads to even fewer prosecutions. USDAW found that 17% of attacks are never even reported to the police.
There is another reason why we need urgently to review how we handle assaults on retail employees. We put a statutory responsibility on retail workers to uphold the law and to protect the public from dangerous items getting into the wrong hands.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
Does my hon. Friend believe that we in this place have a special responsibility towards shop workers? We are the ones saying, “Please don’t sell some people alcohol. Please don’t sell children cigarettes. Please don’t sell offensive weapons and acids.” By making all those restrictions, we put shop workers in a difficult conflict situation. Does he think that gives us an extra responsibility?
Mike Amesbury
I agree. I thank my hon. Friend for the ten-minute rule Bill he introduced recently, which addresses this very issue. USDAW has found that 25% of incidents of people assaulting or threatening retail workers are triggered by staff challenging shoplifting, 22% involve age-related sales, and 21% involve the sale of alcohol.
Paul Girvan (South Antrim) (DUP)
I appreciate that this is a sensitive issue. Unfortunately, I witnessed an armed robbery in Belfast in which a young girl who was left on her own to look after a shop was attacked and robbed. There is a responsibility on shop owners, too, to ensure that staff are not left vulnerable and on their own without any cover whatever.
Mike Amesbury
I agree. Certainly, lone working should not occur in such situations. We need responsible employers to ensure that that does not happen.
Staff who fear for their safety and do not believe they will be protected are less likely to challenge those who seek to get their hands on something they should not. We ask retail workers to do an important civic role in policing the sale of restricted items. It is a role we often forget they have to do. Surely, it is right that we protect them while they do it.
The current sentencing guidelines for all types of assault take into account as an aggravating factor the fact that the victim was
“providing a service to the public”.
However, that is one of 19 aggravating factors, which are measured against 11 mitigating factors. The experience of retail workers is that the impact of an assault on their lives is not fully taken into account during sentencing. They feel they do not receive appropriate justice. A separate offence of assaulting someone serving the public would be simpler to determine. I have seen multiple cases that show that the Government need to do more to encourage prosecutions and appropriate sentences that do not leave victims feeling abandoned. Creating a specific offence would also send a message that violence and threats against retail workers are not acceptable.
Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)
Having been a retail worker for six years, I have come across some of the experiences my hon. Friend has shared. He referred to research by the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers. In June last year it conducted one of its surveys of thousands of retail workers, which highlighted that 62% of retail workers have been victims of verbal or physical abuse. Does he agree that abuse has no place in any workplace, and that retail workers must be respected with proper protection of the law?
Mike Amesbury
I do, and I thank my hon. Friend for his powerful contribution.
I know that the Minister will point to the call for evidence that closed in June last year as a sign that the Government are listening to retail workers about this issue. I am pleased that that call for evidence took place, following hard work by my colleague David Hanson, the former Member for Delyn. I am sure that people across the House will recognise his campaigning on this issue.
Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech. I congratulate him on securing this important debate—the attendance is excellent. I represent a constituency with a large shopping centre at its heart. We are reliant on our shop workers for so much of our economy’s success. Will he join me in congratulating the British Retail Consortium on its campaigning on this issue?
Mike Amesbury
I certainly will. In my short time in Parliament—two and a half years and two general elections—I have had the pleasure of meeting representatives of the British Retail Consortium.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
In my constituency, 24% of jobs are in retail, either at the massive Metrocentre or in small shops. Clearly, my constituents—including Co-op staff Dan, Calum, Kate and Caroline, who wrote to me—are really worried about this issue. My hon. Friend noted that the call for evidence ended on 28 June last year. Is it not about time we had some action, rather than just gathering more evidence?
Mike Amesbury
Action is the key word—definitely. Some quick maths tells us that, in the 228 days since the call for evidence, 91,200 more workers have been assaulted. Will the Minister be clear and tell us when we will get the Government’s response? The Government claim that they are keen to apply tougher sentencing to criminal offences. There are plenty of upcoming opportunities to create the tougher, clearer sentences that retail workers, as well as the British Retail Consortium and the Co-op Group, are asking for. A serious violence Bill and an employment Bill were announced in the Queen’s Speech. As I mentioned, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) introduced a Bill on this issue less than two years ago.
A Bill to protect retail workers by creating a new statutory offence of assaulting or abusing them has received cross-party support in Scotland. Does the Minister agree that English and Welsh retail workers are just as deserving of protection as their Scottish counterparts? If he does, will he commit to including measures in an upcoming Bill to protect people doing their jobs? I am sure there would be plenty of cross-party support for that. Additionally, will he ensure that he attends meetings of the national retail crime steering group, a vehicle he has cited as an opportunity for people to provide feedback, as a matter of course? Finally, will he assure us that he will take steps with his Department to prioritise this issue by including it in the strategic policing requirement?
We are in a unique situation: from the shop floor to senior executives, those working in the retail industry tell us with one voice that retail workers who interact with customers are being put in harm’s way. We need greater cultural change, and an end to the attitude among some that people who serve us in shops are fair game. They are spat on, racially and sexually abused, kicked and punched. They are threatened with knives, guns and dirty needles. Nobody should be treated in that way—especially not in their workplace. Those who would do retail workers harm need to hear a clear message that that is not acceptable, and that we value retail workers and the retail industry. I call on the Government to act.
Several hon. Members rose—
Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)
Order. Five colleagues are trying to catch my eye. The winding-up speeches will begin at 5.10 pm, so you have four minutes each. I call Meg Hillier.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) on securing the debate.
My hon. Friend covered most of the important points, so, given the time, I will cut to the chase. However, it is important for me to put on the record that my constituency, which is in the borough of Hackney, has a high percentage of small businesses. More than 95% of them employ fewer than six people, and a large number of them are retail premises. A lot of them are small, family-run businesses. We pride ourselves on our independent shops, but I also want to focus on employees of larger organisations. As a number of Members highlighted, with more than 50 types of products restricted by law, many small retail premises deal with the frontline interaction between enforcement of the law and people who may not want the law to be enforced.
I have some simple asks of the Government. First, as was highlighted, it is now more than 200 days since the Government closed their call for evidence on violence and abuse towards shop staff. It is estimated that there have been 200,000 incidents of violence towards shop workers in that time. Around 12,500 of those incidents—I am a Labour and Co-operative MP—involved Co-operative colleagues. That is just unacceptable. If that were happening in any other sector, we would be having a hoo-hah in the main Chamber rather than a small, albeit important, debate in Westminster Hall. It is not acceptable that people have to face such abuse when they go to work.
That is not all in the hands of the Government, but I want to touch on what the Government could do. First, they could publish their response to the call for evidence. Even an interim response would help those of us who have an interest in this issue, including the bodies that my hon. Friend named, to get to grips with what can be done practically. We would rather get it right than have the Government wait ages and produce a blueprint that they think is right but that cannot be changed. We must engage from all our different perspectives. We have a shared agenda—I hope—to ensure that the people on the frontline are protected.
Secondly, it should be a legal requirement that shop workers who are employees and lone workers get proper support. If there is an argument for having lone workers—there may be challenges for employers if we suddenly say, “You must always have more than one person there”—proper devices should be available to them. Petrol stations, for example, have well worn routes for this, and bookies also have a process, although it is not always perfect. In many shops, people are very vulnerable: they are often right out there, loading the shelves and very much in the frontline. I do not think lone working is acceptable in most cases, but where it happens there must be proper support, which could be enshrined in law.
Thirdly, there need to be security guards. Big chains and employers should ensure that they have proper security and people trained to deal with conflict. Fourthly, we need more prosecutions. The number of prosecutions is just woeful.
Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)
I thank the hon. Member for giving way and I thank the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) for securing the debate. Last week, just outside my constituency, a lone worker was attacked when gunmen entered Bingham’s shop just outside Katesbridge. Does she agree that there needs to be tougher sentencing and more involvement from the police in setting up provisions for lone workers in shops in rural areas?
Meg Hillier
As I have reached the end of my time, I cannot go into any of the horrific examples, but I know all hon. Members are aware of such examples. I completely agree that we need more prosecutions and tougher sentences.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury), who is a great champion of working people, the safety of working people and the right of working people to go to work without fearing violence.
Five years ago, I stood on a platform at the USDAW conference with a convenience store manager who told this story. One night, a group of under-age young men arrived and tried to buy drink, and they were told to leave the store. A security guard was abused. The manager went to help the security guard, and the young men left. The following night, they came back again. This time, there was a black security guard, and, shamefully, they racially abused him. The manager intervened in support of the security guard, and he was then so violently assaulted that he died three times. He was eventually saved by the ambulance crew. He, a fine man in his forties, told his story in the most heartbreaking way. He spoke of how he used to love to go mountain biking, and to play football with his son on a Saturday. He said, “Never again will I be able to do that.” It is utterly shameful that shop workers should, in the most extreme cases, be treated to that kind of assault, changing their lives forever.
It is right that today’s debate has been initiated, not least because although Government have made some progress, they need to go much further, to be perfectly frank, to protect shop workers from that kind of assault. We have all seen it, including in our own constituencies. I have seen the problems at Tesco at Six Ways at one end of the high street and the Co-operative store at the other end. They all tell stories of staff members who, in one way or another, have suffered abuse.
We are seeing a rising tide of violence against shop workers. Recently in my area, in a Co-operative store survey, one manager said:
“I’ve been punched in the face, threatened with a dirty needle and spat at more times than I can remember.”
Another said:
“They held me hostage. The safe was open, but they wanted more. They broke my nose and eye socket. I have nightmares to this day.”
A third said:
“I’ve witnessed many horrific incidents. The worst was when a masked criminal fired a sawn-off shotgun…on another occasion a colleague was struck with a medieval mace, and she lost her sight in one eye”.
Utterly shameful. USDAW has been outstanding in the leadership it has given to the campaign for the safety of shop workers. I also pay tribute to the work of both the British Retail Consortium and the Association of Convenience Stores, who have taken this issue seriously.
Having said that, crucially, what action is demanded in the next stages? Of course, it starts with the retailers, because they do not always get it right—that is for certain—on issues ranging from the problems associated with lone working to basic safety measures such as CCTV. Action is also demanded of the police and Government. There is no doubt that the police must give greater priority to retail crime—in fairness to the police, they have lost 20,000 officers, so the problems are immense and growing—including response times. Time and again, the story is told that the police were called and they took too long to get there. I stress again that having lost 20,000 police officers, by definition they have a problem, but retail crime needs to go up the police service’s list of priorities. That means featuring in police and crime commissioner crime plans and, crucially, being part of the strategic policing requirement.
Finally, I turn to sentencing. Building on the progress that has been made, and as powerfully argued by my hon. Friend, we absolutely must have tougher, simpler sentences that send the unmistakable message: “If you assault a good man or a good woman for no other reason than that they are serving behind a counter in a store and you want to buy drink—it does not matter what the reason is—there are never circumstances in which that is justified.” An unmistakable message needs to be sent: “Behave that way in future and you will pay a price with your liberty.”
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
I thank the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) for securing the debate. I am delighted to participate. I should declare that some 30-plus years ago I worked in betting shops, and I know all too well the threats, abuse and intimidation that workers in betting shops—and all shops—face on an all-too-regular basis. That gives me a particular insight into, and appreciation for, the kinds of days often faced by my constituents who work in shops. The same goes for shop workers across Scotland and, of course, right across the UK.
The hon. Gentleman is correct, and we in Scotland are looking at creating a specific offence to do with assaulting, abusing, obstructing or hindering retail workers, who simply turn up daily to do their job. I have been contacted by a number of constituents who work in shops and who wished to express concerns about safety in their workplaces. It is interesting to note, by way of an example, that more than 12,000 staff who work in Co-op stores have been subjected to verbal abuse, 1,300 have been subjected to physical abuse or threats and 800 have been attacked with weapons including knives, syringes and hammers. That is a snapshot of one group of workers in one retail chain. In that context, we can better understand and appreciate the concerns raised by the Association of Convenience Stores about the 200,000 incidents of violence towards shop workers since the call for evidence to the Home Office closed in June 2019.
As we have heard, apart from the threats of violence that shop workers face all too routinely, there is a psychological and emotional impact that cannot be easily ignored or dismissed. I look forward to the UK Government publishing the findings of their call for evidence on violence and abuse towards shop staff, and I am frustrated, as I know many people are, about the repeated delays. I understand that the findings are to be published shortly to inform consideration of what more can be done to protect those who work in our shops. All workers in all sectors must be protected from harm as far as is possible, and it is no different for shop workers. Of all workers, they are perhaps the most vulnerable to the kind of intimidation we have heard about.
Those who turn up to their jobs have the fundamental right to be as safe as they possibly can be. I hope the Government will work with shop staff, the retail industry and trade unions to achieve that outcome.
Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) for securing this important debate. Before I begin, I will declare an interest: I worked for five years for the trade union USDAW, which has done fantastic work alongside the British Retail Consortium in raising awareness of and tackling violence against shop staff. In the context of the TUC’s HeartUnions Week, I want to put that good work on record. I particularly highlight the work of the research and economics department, who are so often the unsung heroes behind the scenes of the union’s campaigning work on this issue.
Shop workers in my constituency, many of whom are on zero-hours contracts with poor terms and conditions, are expected to enforce the law on age-related sales. That is one of the key trigger points for violence. Having worked in the retail sector myself, I know from experience only too well how things as benign as not having someone’s preferred sandwich in stock, or asking whether they would like a carrier bag, can result in a volley of abuse being unleashed. Sadly, management may treat staff even more poorly than the customers do.
Retail is the largest employment sector in our country. If the Government are serious about levelling up, alongside a desperately needed industrial strategy in retail, they should do more to end the scourge of violence against retail staff; that should never be part of the job. That includes working constructively with trade unions in the retail sector to create a working environment that is free from violence and the fear of violence; reforming the criminal injuries compensation scheme to ensure that low-paid retail staff on insecure contracts who have been assaulted are eligible for the maximum possible compensation, including covering any loss of earnings; and reforming sentencing legislation to make assaulting retail staff in the course of their work a specific offence. I hope this important debate will kick-start that work.
Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)
Everyone has been so concise that the hon. Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) now has eight minutes.
Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
Thank you for calling me to speak, Sir Gary. I join others in paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) for continuing the good work of our former colleague, David Hanson, in keeping this issue in front of the House.
I have taken part of a number of debates to which the Minister has responded. I genuinely believe he is serious about wanting to tackle the epidemic of violence facing shop workers in this country. My hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale referenced the figures from USDAW, which is a great campaigning union. It found that there were some 288 incidents of violence against shop workers every day in 2018. I understand that the figures for last year show a further steep rise in the incidence of violence. That only underlines the importance of this debate and the need for the Government to respond appropriately to the rising tide of evidence that action is needed.
I want to focus specifically on the work of Dr Emmeline Taylor, a leading criminologist who was asked by the Co-op Group to explore the context and the reasons behind the growing level of violence faced by its employees. She came up with seven clear recommendations, which I want to put on the record. Will the Minister be good enough to address—if not today, in the future—each of the recommendations?
Other hon. Members have already talked about the need for a specific, standalone offence to give additional protection to retail workers, so I will concentrate on the other six recommendations. The first is a review of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, which introduced the £200 threshold that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) mentioned as being a significant problem in creating expectations that people could get away with shoplifting. It would be good to hear whether the Minister accepts that that is a problem, and that a review is under way.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
I agree with the hon. Member’s comments about the £200 threshold. I have raised the matter with my own police force in Humberside. Those officers tell me that they do not treat it as an absolute, and they will treat each case as a matter of priority. I hope that the Minister will confirm that it is vital that that message goes out to police forces up and down the country. It is not absolute, and some cases deserve much more attention than others.
Gareth Thomas
It is interesting that the hon. Member says that. I welcome his comments and the conversations he has had. The lack of prosecutions suggests that the issue is still not being taken seriously enough by the Crown Prosecution Service or by the understaffed police forces in our country. I hope that the Minister will be able to demonstrate that that will change.
Sir George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the problem with the £200 threshold is that it puts a monetary value on something when, as my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) demonstrated, the personal consequences of such offences are much greater than the monetary value?
Gareth Thomas
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. The fact that post-traumatic stress disorder is being suffered by a number of shop workers who have been on the receiving end of intimidation or actual violence is a powerful demonstration of his point.
Dr Emmeline Taylor recommended a publicity campaign to promote zero-tolerance of violence towards shop workers. That seems eminently sensible and it would be comparatively easy for the Government to encourage that and make it happen. It would be good to hear whether the Minister will support such change. Dr Taylor recommends changing expectations, such that evidence of age should be provided more often to purchase age-restricted items such as alcohol, knives, aerosol paint and tobacco. Again, that seems eminently sensible.
Dr Taylor also recommends measuring hate-motivated offences in shops. Hate-motivated crime was one of the drivers that she identified as being behind the increase in violence against shop workers. Another recommendation was for drug testing on arrest for shop theft and violence against shop workers. She identified the rise in drug use—particularly of heroin, among other substances—as a significant problem, set against the sharp decline in the availability of services to help people deal with addiction. It would be interesting to hear from the Minister whether the rise in police numbers will be matched by a rise in access to drug and alcohol treatment services, and whether he specifically supports drug testing on arrest for shop theft and violence.
The last recommendation was about streamlining the reporting of incidents to the police and an effort to improve the accuracy of data, so that we can properly understand and, over time, tackle the sheer scale of violence against shop workers, which, as we can all clearly report anecdotally, is on the rise. Without accurate data, that will be more difficult to handle. I look forward to the Minister’s response, and again congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale and others on keeping the campaign very much alive in the House.
Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary, and to take part in this important debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) on securing it and on highlighting the increase in assaults and threats faced by retail workers across the United Kingdom.
We have had some fantastic contributions. The hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) highlighted just how well versed retail staff and workers have to be in particular laws, including on sales of alcohol, tobacco and offensive weapons, and other age-restricted items such as books and DVDs. We ask them to enforce those important laws to ensure that we keep our streets safe. We should be ensuring that these workers are afforded that same safety as they go about their business. They play an important role.
We have heard from some Members about drastic injuries sustained by workers going about their day-to-day employment. I hope that steadies the resolve of the Minister and the Government, to ensure that we put as much protection as possible in place for those workers.
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) highlighted the lack of resources for local police and community policing. They are important points, because the lack of policing in our local communities and town centres is having a deep and detrimental impact on the safety of our shop workers.
My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) spoke, of course, about the importance of union representation for shop workers. We have heard about the great work of USDAW and other unions. It is an excellent point because, as he says, some of the largest retailers actively discourage people from signing up to unions. I can speak with authority on that matter, as a former employee or partner of the John Lewis Partnership, one of our most iconic retailers, which actively discourages its members from signing up and being unionised. It is a very important role. This is an issue close to my heart, having built a career for myself within the retail industry before my foray into local politics. In fact, I was specifically dealing with problematic customers and difficult situations, both internally and externally, in matters of fraud and theft.
The protection of shop workers is critical to the success of our high streets. My own local city of Glasgow has a renowned shopping district, known as the style mile, which is the lifeblood of the city and its economy. The same is true of many towns and villages right across the United Kingdom. My own constituency has two large shopping precincts in Coatbridge and Bellshill.
Customer service or customer-facing roles are often the last we think of when considering the dangers faced by people at work. We rightly condemn anyone who perpetrates any crime against our protective services—police, fire, ambulance and so on—who face assaults, attacks or even just obstructions while they are simply going about the roles that they are paid to do, and I think we should take the same approach to all people in their working environment.
There were an estimated 10,000 reported incidents of violence against people working in small local shops in the past 12 months, 41% of which resulted in injury to a worker. That figure is far too high. One person sustaining an injury while simply carrying out their employment is one too many, but I am sure all hon. Members will agree that it is staggering that 41% have been afflicted with an injury. Some 83% of workers in the industry have at some point suffered verbal and threatening abuse for simply doing their job.
The top triggers for said abuse are enforcing the laws and facing difficult situations. I go back to my own bread and butter: people who are in the middle of committing a crime, or who have just committed it, have a fight or flee response, and nine times out of 10, when people are consumed by drug or alcohol addictions, their first reaction is to fight to ensure that they are not locked up.
What is needed from the Government is an urgent response to the Home Office’s call for evidence on violence and abuse towards shop staff. Since that call for evidence closed, we have seen little to no action. We need robust action now from the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice and the police commissioners, to tackle these violent crimes and their perpetrators and to protect the retail workers who are on the frontline every single day.
I also call on the Government to review the out-of-court disposal system. Shoplifting is often considered a victimless crime, but we know that that is simply not the case, especially having heard what so many hon. Members have said today. I ask for the introduction of tougher penalties for any attacks on shop workers. We can look at that in the sentencing Bill and in the sentencing guidelines for assaults.
Finally, I want to say to any young person who may be watching that retail work is a fantastic opportunity for people to learn a whole array of different business attributes. It is a really important role and a really important sector, and we should be actively encouraging people to choose it as a career path. By and large, it is a very safe environment for people to work and go about in, and of course there are some fantastic employers.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. This is an incredibly important debate, and it has been one of remarkable consensus on the scale of the problem. I hope the Minister will have some good news in a few minutes’ time in response to the call for evidence, because 115 retail workers have been attacked every day since it closed, according to the British Retail Consortium—a total of 24,000 retail workers. The Association of Convenience Stores estimates that 300,000 retail workers have been either attacked or threatened in that time. In responding to the debate here on 5 November, the Policing Minister described the levels of crime as “obviously unacceptable”.
It is time for me to pay tribute to my friend and former colleague David Hanson, who led that November debate and who championed the cause of retail workers alongside my trade union, USDAW, and many business organisations. I am proud to be an USDAW member and a member of the Co-op as well, because in the context of this debate, their advocacy on behalf of retail staff—both USDAW’s Freedom From Fear campaign and the Co-op’s report, “‘It’s not part of the job’: Violence and verbal abuse towards shop workers”—has been phenomenal. Today, 228 days after the close of the call for evidence, I repeat David’s call for a response that delivers a crackdown on this pernicious blight on our retail sector and the appalling catalogue of attacks on shop workers, which, sadly, we have heard described in graphic detail by a number of hon. Members during this debate.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) , and I thank all those who have contributed to the debate. I thank the business community and trade unions alike for their contributions. My hon. Friends the Members for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) and for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) all spoke brilliantly, and I thank all hon. Members who intervened as well.
That brings me to my questions for the Minister. Police numbers have declined by 21,000 since this Government came to office. The Government have now promised an increase; indeed, the last Prime Minister started action to increase the recruitment of police officers, but she found that police officers are leaving the service nearly as fast as they can be recruited. The Policing Minister will be acutely aware of how difficult a promise that is to keep, but he must keep it, and in a timely fashion.
We require shop workers to uphold legislation passed by Parliament, so the least we can do is ensure that we protect those same workers. Legislation on solvents, knives, alcohol and tobacco must all be enforced by staff, and all can be the subject of tensions and verbal and physical attacks. The least we can do is ensure that the police have the resources to prevent assaults. Having more police is an essential prerequisite for the prevention of retail crime. Industry is taking steps—£1 billion-worth of steps—and employers absolutely have a responsibility, which they should be held accountable for meeting, to look after their workers. However, the public authorities should act as well, and that is why I repeat that call for the police officers on our streets to support retail workers.
Retail staff should also be able to rely on the justice system. That means prosecutions for violence, abuse, theft and shoplifting, and support for businesses and their staff. Failure to prosecute lets down the victims, so the Government need to ensure that the criminal justice system is equipped to act. The alternative is repeat offences and ongoing intimidation, threats and violence. A caution is not the answer. Consequences must be meaningful, not meaningless; that is why the Association of Convenience Stores calls for a review of the out-of-court disposal system, which needs attention and a response from the Minister. The association’s concern is that it is not disrupting offending and, indeed, is allowing repeat offending against retail workers.
That brings me to the call for tougher sentences and an answer to the question asked by David Hanson and by my hon. Friends. Will the Government legislate to protect shop workers, including, but not exclusively, when enforcing legislation such as age restrictions on sales of corrosives and knives? We have protections in place for emergency workers, and rightly so. Is it not time we did the same for retail workers? Will the Government create a specific offence of assault on a retail worker? Will they review the £200 shoplifting limit, below which no action is taken on thefts? Will they look at the role of organised crime gangs in attacks on shops—an added threat to staff and communities that also needs attention?
As Helen Dickinson of the British Retail Consortium put it:
“No one should ever go to work in fear for simply carrying out their job. Retail workers are at the core of our communities across the country and these horrific crimes impact these skilled, passionate and determined individuals that make the industry what it is.”
This is an incredibly important industry, and I hope that the long-awaited industrial strategy for retail includes an element of protection for retail workers. I hope the Minister comments on that.
My friend David’s last words in Hansard were that
“this issue will not go away and will be dealt with by Parliament.”—[Official Report, 5 November 2019; Vol. 667, c. 252WH.]
I hope he is right, and that the Minister will give some hope that the Government will give retail workers the support and protection they need and deserve.
The Minister for Crime, Policing and the Fire Service (Kit Malthouse)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I make no complaint that this subject has been brought up twice in three months. It is obviously extremely important and affects all our constituents in many ways.
Frankly, I have experienced this issue myself. When I was a young man, as a relatively penniless student, I worked behind a bar in a pub for about six months. I well remember the tension when denying another drink to those who had perhaps drunk a little too much. I am a big fellow, and if I felt threatened, there is no question but that people who do not quite have my physical stature might have felt deeply anxious and threatened. Fortunately, I never faced violence, but I am aware that lots do. As an MP representing a constituency with a small town in it, I am aware of the violence prevalent on the high street, and particularly in retail premises.
In the debate back in November, on the last day of the last Parliament, I took Members through the initial findings of the call for evidence. To be honest, although my speech was going to rehearse that again, it sounds as if people are a little more interested in a sense of action and movement, so with the forbearance of Members I will skip to that part. Having sat as a Back Bencher through a lot of ministerial speeches, I have found that there is quite a lot of flannel in a lot of them, and this is an area in which we need to see action more swiftly.
First, we will publish the response to the call for evidence next month; it will come shortly, in the next few weeks. I hope that that will be the start of action, not the end. I refer everybody to the speech I gave back in November, which indicated some alarming developments in violence towards retail workers and, sadly, the sense that that community of workers is starting to feel that it is just an acceptable part of their existence, which, from our point of view, is completely unacceptable. There is much more that we can do.
Secondly, as I am sure Members know, we co-chair the national retail crime steering group with the British Retail Consortium, through which we can do a number of things. One key theme coming through from the call for evidence is about really understanding the data and what is going on and disseminating that to the organisations that need to be doing something about it, both private and public. I will set up an intelligence-sharing group, made up of some members of the steering group, to work through what the data tells us and some of the practical solutions that we need, and then to report back to the wider group, which can help to implement this on a national scale.
Another thing that came through was about messaging effectively—to customers and staff—about the unacceptability of violence in a retail environment. As mentioned by the hon. Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas), we should take a zero-tolerance approach towards this sort of violence, so a second group will try to develop some of that effective messaging, which we then hope to promote among retailers, learning from some of the good practice we have seen in sectors elsewhere and trying to bring the worst up to the standard of the best.
Thirdly, there is a big job for policing in terms of violence generally across our streets, but in retail in particular. As a couple of Members mentioned, we are recruiting 20,000 extra police officers by the end of the next 36 months. We will have to replace all the ones who retired as well, so the overall target will be to recruit between 40,000 and 50,000 over the next three years. It is a huge task, but it has nevertheless started well, and the first batch of recruits are already out and in training, on top of some of the recruits put in place last year off the budget settlement that policing got then.
Critically, we said that those first 6,000 police officers, whom we are relatively confident we will get in the first 12 months, have been designated to be territorial police officers, so they will be out in our communities and on the streets, able to respond to incidents that take place in a retail environment. That is an investment of something like £750 million, and it is the first instalment of a three-year programme that we hope and believe will significantly increase the police presence in our high streets and shops. We have also given the Crown Prosecution Service an extra £85 million to enhance its ability to prosecute.
I am conscious that my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) raised the issue of making sure that our police and crime commissioners and chief constables are aware of the issues around the £200 limit. I will write to them all to point out that the £200 limit is optional. It is no brake on their ability to prosecute or arrest somebody, which is effectively for their judgment. I will also include in that letter a requirement for chief constables and police and crime commissioners to examine their data too, to understand what is happening and to respond to concerns in their own communities about this kind of crime in the priorities that they set in their police and crime plans. Hon. Members will be aware that police and crime commissioner elections are coming up in May. This is such an important issue that I think all candidates should be apprised of it. We should put it on their agenda, so I will write to them as well.
That is the start of what I hope will be a huge collective effort to combat violence in retail and generally across the country.
Sir George Howarth
The Minister will have noticed that several colleagues raised sentencing and available sentences. Is he able to say anything about that?
Kit Malthouse
I am not at the moment. I will consider the seven points raised by the hon. Member for Harrow West to see what more can be done, whether that is a specific sentence or whether we need the Sentencing Council to look at assault and think about aggravating factors that might be taken into account.
I definitely recognise that asking shop staff to arbitrate or to enforce legislation puts them in a particular position of vulnerability that may induce violence. There is a case there that needs to be addressed, and I am certainly happy to talk to the Lord Chancellor about his views on sentencing. We obviously have a general offence of assault, which can be used, and aggravating factors in particular circumstances should also be taken into account in sentencing, but we will certainly have a look.
Patricia Gibson
Will the Minister tell the Chamber whether he has looked at the measures put in place in Scotland, and what, if anything, the Ministry of Justice in England can learn from what is going on there?
Kit Malthouse
I definitely think that part of our response and the work that we need to do following the publication of the call for evidence will be to look at not only Scotland but other countries around the world. This phenomenon will be common to most countries, certainly in Europe and elsewhere, and it will be interesting to see practices from across the world, to see if there is anything we can do to improve. We should not believe that if it is not made here, it is not any good. In my time in policing in the past, I found that learning what other countries do is often helpful, so we will definitely look for that evidence.
This extremely serious phenomenon contributes in many ways to the lack of health of our high streets and the unwillingness of our constituents to use their high streets, set against the internet retail and shopping phenomenon, which is already cutting away at the foundations of the health of the high street. If we can make high streets peaceful and attractive places where people want to go, we will put the heart back into our communities. Hon. Members have my commitment that we will do our best to make that so.
Mike Amesbury
I thank all hon. Members for their contributions, including the Front-Bench spokespeople, and I thank the Minister for his quite detailed response. This is an important phenomenon, and the action it requires is what works, including in other countries, whether Scotland or elsewhere. We need legislation to protect retail workers.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered protection of retail workers.
Written Statements
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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National Minimum Wage Enforcement
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Kelly Tolhurst)
I am writing to inform the House of changes to national minimum wage enforcement. We want to make it as easy as possible for businesses particularly small and medium sized enterprises to comply with the law, whilst ensuring that workers get the wages that they are entitled to, and if they don’t, we will continue to crack down on companies that underpay their workers.
Last year, we consulted on specific aspects of the national minimum wage regulations (salaried hours and salary sacrifice). Following this consultation, we are making technical changes to the national minimum wage regulations. These changes will address areas of the regulations that are tripping up employers, without reducing worker protections. Businesses are supportive of these technical changes.
Salaried workers must be paid an annual salary for working a particular number of hours over the course of a year and paid in equal instalments. Changes to the regulations will widen the range of pay arrangements that are compatible with workers being treated as salaried hours workers to increase flexibility for the worker and employers, including:
increasing the range of compatible payment cycles to salaried hours workers, such as every two weeks or four weeks—currently only monthly or weekly payment cycles are compatible;
making premium payments to salaried hours workers compatible—such as for working on bank holidays—including where a salaried hours worker’s contract specifies a premium pay arrangement; and
enabling employers to specify the “calculation year” for their salaried workers, the reference point to identify when in a year a worker’s basic annual hours, for which they receive their salary, are exceeded.
The Government will also continue to name employers who fail to pay the national minimum wage, following a review of the scheme. We are making the public naming scheme more effective. We are increasing the frequency of naming those companies who underpay, and from now on, the threshold for naming employers who do not pay national minimum wage will rise to £500, meaning that any firm which owes arrears of more than £500 in national minimum wage payments to its workforce will be named. Whilst still tough on business, this will ensure that those that underpay by a minimal amount can set things right and correct their mistakes.
We recognise that there is a need to educate employers and support them to comply before enforcement action becomes necessary. To achieve this, future naming rounds will be supported by a quarterly educational bulletin to highlight details of common compliance issues, including anonymised case studies demonstrating how employers can become compliant. To better contextualise the relative severity of breaches we will publish additional information wherever possible.
Finally, as part of our drive to support businesses to comply with the legislation we are:
providing support via a helpline for employers who operate deduction or salary sacrifice schemes. Employers will be able to access support and information directly from HMRC;
requesting HMRC to do more to proactively support new, small businesses. HMRC will visit selected new, small businesses to educate them on the national minimum wage and support those businesses in getting their practices right from the start; and
producing enhanced, business facing national minimum wage guidance, which will be published shortly.
We will continue to look at these issues; for salary sacrifice and deductions we are waiving financial penalties for employers for certain breaches of rules—subject to eligibility criteria—recognising that, in some limited instances, employers may be penalised for offering these benefit schemes to workers and misunderstanding the rules. For example, those that offer a benefit to their workers, such as nurseries offering discounted childcare for staff, may find that they have inadvertently breached pay rules, as they make deductions which takes the take-home pay below minimum wage. Subject to strict criteria, including that the worker opted into the scheme, we will waive financial penalties for such breaches.
We are determined to increase compliance, whilst ensuring workers receive the pay they are entitled to, continuing to be tough on enforcement with companies that break the rules.
[HCWS107]
UK Statistics Authority Contingencies Fund Advance
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chloe Smith)
The statistics board—known as the UK Statistics Authority—has sought a repayable cash advance from the contingencies fund of £33,000,000. The cash advance is required to support additional resource expenditure including the census data collection transformation programme (CDCTP) throughout 2019-20. The need for additional funding for 2019-20 is particularly due to revisions to the timing of the programme budget as set out in the programme full business case as approved at a Treasury approval point in July 2019. The revisions were identified as the financial modelling matured from the previous outline business case. The overall multi-year programme budget has not increased.
As a non-ministerial department, the authority has its own principal accounting officer and is responsible for its own estimates, separate to the Cabinet Office.
However, a written ministerial statement is required to give Parliament notice of the authority’s intention to seek an advance from the contingencies fund, and can only be made by a Minister.
These funds will be included in the supplementary estimates that will be published in February. The funds will only be released once the Supply and Appropriation Bill receives Royal Assent which is scheduled for March 2020. This is a standard process, available to all Departments if the required criteria are met and regularly used to allow cash to be drawn down prior to Royal Assent of the Supply and Appropriation Bill.
Parliamentary approval for additional £29,462,000 resource, £601,000 capital and £2,937,000 cash will be sought in a supplementary estimate for the statistics board. Pending that approval, urgent expenditure estimated at £33,000,000 will be met by repayable cash advances from the contingencies fund.
[HCWS105]
Reserve Forces and Cadets Associations External Scrutiny Team Report 2019
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Ben Wallace)
I have today placed in the Library of the House a copy of a letter that I have sent to Major General (Retd) Simon Lalor, the chairman of the reserve forces and cadets association external scrutiny team, to respond to the recommendations contained in the team’s 2019 report. I am most grateful to the team for their work.
[HCWS106]
Multilateral Development Banks
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for International Development (Alok Sharma)
Delivering the sustainable development goals (SDGs) will make the world wealthier, healthier, greener and more equal. Multilateral development banks, such as the World Bank and the African Development Bank, provide financing and expertise at scale, playing a central role in helping the world’s poorest countries to meet the SDGs, supporting UK development, security and prosperity priorities. The World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) and the African Development Bank’s African Development Fund (ADF), which provide support to the world’s poorest countries, are replenished by donors every three years. Given the close fit with UK priorities, the UK has been the largest donor to recent IDA and ADF replenishments.
In December, IDA concluded negotiations of its 19th replenishment (IDA19), covering the period from July 2020 to June 2023. Participants agreed that the replenishment would support $82 billion of development financing. IDA has a track record of achieving results and IDA19 is expected to support:
immunisations for up to 140 million children;
safe childbirth for up to 80 million women; and
an additional 10 gigawatts of renewable energy generation capacity.
Following successful engagement from the UK and others, IDA19 includes significant commitments from the World Bank to further enhance IDA’s impact. These include: enhancing its support for fragile and conflict-affected countries; increasing to 30% the proportion of support to tackling climate change; more focus on jobs and skills; and increasing attention on inclusion with a new focus on supporting people with disabilities and an enhanced focus on gender equality.
Given IDA’s close fit with UK priorities, and the results and commitments it is expected to deliver, the Government pledged £3.062 billion support to this replenishment. This represents an inflation-adjusting increase on our pledge to the previous IDA replenishment, and the UK remains the largest donor.
In December, negotiations on the 15th replenishment of the African Development Fund (ADF15) also concluded. The ADF is the African Development Bank’s (AfDB) concessional lending and grant-giving arm, that operates in the poorest countries in Africa. The total ADF15 resource envelope for the period January 2020 to December 2022 is the equivalent to almost £6 billion.
The fund has a track record of delivering results in the poorest countries in Africa. With these resources ADF15 is expected to deliver the following results over the replenishment:
improved access to transport for up to 20 million people;
improvements in agriculture for up to 6 million people;
new electricity connections for up to 5 million people;
up to an additional 170 megawatts of renewable energy capacity;
up to 4,150 kilometres of roads built; and
up to more than 1 million jobs created.
The UK has pledged to contribute £633.09 million to this replenishment, which includes a performance incentive component of £102 million to support the AfDB to meet its reform objectives (including those set out below).
In October, shareholders and management of the AfDB concluded negotiations for a seventh general capital increase (GCI7) [1]. This will enable the bank to increase its overall annual lending to Governments and the private sector, from approximately £5.5 billion currently, to over £13 billion in 2030, supporting progress towards the SDGs in Africa. The cost to the UK to buy new shares allocated to it as part of this capital increase is £1,576,230,660. Some £94,569,682 will be paid in over eight years and the remaining £1,481,660,970 is a contingent liability that can be called on if needed. It is worth noting that no contingent liabilities have been called in by the AfDB previously.
Through the negotiations the UK and others secured a range of reform and policy commitments from the AfDB, including: a $25 billion investment in climate finance between 2020 and 2025; improved operations in fragile states by recruiting and deploying more expert staff to fragile environments; and new strategies on staffing, climate change and energy, governance, gender and the private sector.
Consistent with the International Development Act 2002, and before any financial contributions are made, the Government will lay statutory orders relating to the IDA19 and ADF15 replenishments and the AfDB capital increase for the consent of the House of Commons. Consistent with HM Treasury guidance, the Government will also lay a departmental minute relating to the callable capital associated with the AfDB capital increase.
[1]A general capital increase is where shareholders provide additional capital in line with their existing shareholdings.
[HCWS108]
Personal Independence Payment
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Justin Tomlinson)
I would like to update the House on the Department’s progress in making backdated payments to personal independence payment claimants who are benefiting from the MH and RJ decisions of the upper tribunal.
The MH decision changed how overwhelming psycho- logical distress is considered when assessing someone's ability to plan and follow a journey. The RJ decision concerned how we decide whether someone can carry out everyday activities safely or not, and whether they need supervision.
We are committed to ensuring everyone with a health condition or disability gets the support they are entitled to. This is why we have dedicated substantial resource to checking claims, so that we can pay eligible people as quickly as possible. We remain on track to finish this exercise in 2020.
Thanks to our continuous monitoring of the exercise, we know which claimants are most likely to benefit. This now allows us to focus on those cases and to make backdated payments to eligible claimants more quickly. We will write to all other claimants in scope of the exercise, explaining the upper tribunal decisions and how they can get in touch with us if they think they may benefit and want to ask us to review their case.
We have said that we will keep the House updated and I can announce that the Department has today published the third ad hoc release of management information on this exercise: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pip-administrative-exercise-progress-on-cases-cleared-at-5-january-2020
Since the exercise began on 25 June 2018 (HCWS793) up to 5 January 2020, we have cleared 720,000 cases against the MH decision and 820,000 cases against the RJ decision, with most cases being cleared against both upper tribunal decisions. In total, we have paid £28 million in arrears to 5,900 claimants.
We are continuing to monitor the numbers of revised awards closely and have a comprehensive quality assurance framework in place to ensure we make the right decisions. In addition, my officials and I are always happy to hear of any specific feedback on the exercise.
We have set out new and updated information on the administrative exercise in the updated frequently asked questions. I will deposit a copy of this document in the Library.
I will continue to update the House.
[HCWS104]
Grand Committee
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (Commencement No. 14) Order 2019
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Keen of Elie
That the Grand Committee do consider the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (Commencement No. 14) Order 2019.
Relevant document: 3rd Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, Session 2019 (special attention drawn to the instrument)
The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Keen of Elie) (Con)
My Lords, I begin with a short apology for the delay in commencing. The purpose of this draft instrument is to enable the Secretary of State to make the alcohol abstinence and monitoring requirement available across England and Wales.
This legislation gives the court a new tool directly to address alcohol-related offending. As part of a community sentence, judges and magistrates will be able to impose a ban on drinking alcohol for up to 120 days, and we will monitor this using continuous electronic monitoring, which is referred to as alcohol tagging. I am grateful for the comments made by the Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and intend to address them below and in the course of this debate.
Alcohol-fuelled crimes put a huge strain on front-line services. Problematic alcohol consumption is associated with crime, particularly heavy or binge drinking and violent crime. The latest published figures from the Crime Survey for England and Wales, in 2018, estimated that in 39% of violent incidents the victim believed the offender to be under the influence of alcohol. Alcohol-related crime is estimated to cost the taxpayer up to £13 billion per year. Public Health England estimates that the total social and economic cost of alcohol-related harm was £21.5 billion in 2018.
AAMRs have a punitive effect on offenders by restricting their ability to drink alcohol while the requirement is in force. In addition, the pilots have shown us the potential of this measure to address the purposes of sentencing more widely. Where the criminal behaviour is driven by alcohol, an alcohol ban has the potential to reduce crime and provide the opportunity for reform and rehabilitation. Through enforcing abstinence, AAMRs are designed to mitigate offending behaviour which is driven by alcohol. Where alcohol is driving or triggering criminal behaviour, the AAMR will interrupt it and should give individuals and communities a break, reduce the number of victims, protect the public and save the costs of dealing with the crimes.
The monitoring will be continuous and delivered via electronic ankle tags, providing assurance with compliance. If alcohol is detected, or attempts are made to avoid the monitoring, the offender can be returned to court. These requirements may not be imposed on dependent drinkers or alongside an alcohol treatment requirement. They are only for adult offenders.
Harnessing innovative technologies such as alcohol tags can not only punish offenders but help turn their lives around. This legislation plays an important role in a wider package of reforms of community penalties that the Government plan to bring forward in due course, which will ensure that community sentences can offer an appropriate level of punishment while effectively tackling underlying drivers of offending.
The alcohol abstinence and monitoring requirement was introduced by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. This legislation creates a new requirement within the Criminal Justice Act 2003 that can be used where a community order or suspended sentence order is imposed. The 2012 legislation requires the order to be piloted before it can be rolled out. This requirement has been met. There have been two pilot schemes: one in London, initiated by the Prime Minister when he was mayor, and the other in Humberside, Lincolnshire and North Yorkshire. These pilots have shown us that this new measure will be welcomed by criminal justice partners.
The two AAMR pilots were run respectively by the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime in London, and by the police and crime commissioners and the Humberside, Lincolnshire & North Yorkshire Community Rehabilitation Company. I appreciate that the absence of published findings was criticised by the Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. I am pleased to say that findings from the pilot in the north-east have now been published and I am happy to be able to highlight some of them during this debate. Some 1,500 orders were imposed during the pilots.
The pilots had significant differences in how they were run, but the compliance rates are very similar, which gives us confidence in the utility of this measure. Compliance was very high indeed—the figure for the requirement itself was 94% for both pilots; and for abstinence from alcohol it was 98% in the London pilot and 97.4% in the Humberside pilot. That is the percentage of monitored days that were free from both alcohol and interference with the equipment. There was significant use of the order in the sentencing of violent offences in the pilots. In London, 45% of requirements were for violent offences, and in the north-east 31% were for domestic abuse offences.
This measure is welcomed by those on the front line. Indeed, as the Humberside police and crime commissioner Keith Hunter said:
“The period in which the offender is tagged will give rehabilitation agencies a real opportunity to work with the individual and get them to recognise and change their behaviour, hopefully for good. I would like to see these orders available nationally as a standard feature of the Criminal Justice System.”
Sentencers in the London pilot were frustrated that they were unable to impose the order on offenders who fell outside the pilot area.
Reports from the pilots demonstrate that offenders also recognised benefits. They were generally optimistic about the requirement and felt that it had a positive impact on their lives, particularly around their health, well-being and offending behaviour. In the north-east, 81% of those surveyed at the end of the requirement reported that they thought they would drink less or no alcohol when the tag was removed.
The scrutiny committee commented on a lack of information about rollout of the new measure. We plan to begin the introduction of the order later this year. Our intention is to take a similar approach to that used for the successful rollout of location monitoring and so avoid disruption to the core electronic monitoring service. We will balance an incremental rollout that allows us to respond to learning from early deployments and further findings from the pilots if necessary, alongside opportunities to prepare stakeholders and inform decision-makers appropriately, with ensuring that the tool is available across England and Wales as quickly as possible. We estimate that when the requirement is fully rolled out and in use nationally, in around 2023-24, some 2,300 people will be sentenced to these orders each year. This will mean that approximately 400 orders will be active at any given point in time.
The order’s requirement imposes an alcohol ban of up to 120 days, while continuous monitoring provides assurance regarding compliance with the sentence of the court. We believe that the introduction of this measure strengthens the community sentence response to alcohol-related offending and is a powerful message that we are tackling this issue. We should not lose time in introducing a new measure which means that our courts can directly address a driver of crime and stop the drinking of those who cause misery, damage and fear by their behaviour, for up to four months. We strongly believe it is in the public interest to introduce this measure. I beg to move.
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)
My Lords, there is widespread agreement that a great deal of crime is related to and fuelled by alcohol. Indeed, Members of your Lordships’ House have been saying for many years, in debate after debate, that much offending in this country is related to excess alcohol and drug abuse, so the passage of Section 76 of the LASPO Act was unsurprising. There is also widespread agreement that we all should support measures to reduce the consumption of alcohol in relation to crime, and thus alcohol-related crime.
The alcohol abstinence and monitoring requirements, which I shall call simply alcohol monitoring requirements, use electronic tagging technology to ensure that offenders reduce or eliminate alcohol consumption for a period. The essential elements for the application of Section 76 of the LASPO Act are: first, that the offences concerned are alcohol-related; secondly, that during the period of the order the offender will take no alcohol, or alcohol reduced to a specified level; thirdly, that the consumption of alcohol will be electronically tagged; fourthly, that the period of the requirement will not exceed 120 days; fifthly, that it can be imposed only together with a community order or suspended sentence; and finally, that a breach of the requirement is punishable by a sentence for that breach.
The Committee has heard from the Minister that there have been two pilots. The London pilot ran from 2014 to June 2018, while the Humber, Lincoln and North Yorkshire pilot—which I shall call the northern pilot—ran from after the 2017 election until April last year. There were different methodologies. The London requirements were imposed on a stand-alone basis, whereas the northern pilot imposed the orders together with community orders, while monitoring and fitting of the tag was carried out by probation staff. In addition, the northern pilot included domestic abuse offenders whereas the London pilot did not.
The only question that warrants the Committee’s attention at this stage is whether enough evidence has been gleaned from the two pilots that alcohol monitoring requirements are or will be effective to justify Parliament’s commencing the section now and rolling out alcohol monitoring requirements. Your Lordships’ Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee clearly concluded that there was not. Central to its view was that the results of the northern pilot had not been published, although we have heard from the Minister that they have been now; that was predicted for this month. But published or not, it follows from their recent nature that the results cannot have been publicly evaluated.
The Ministry of Justice sought to justify its position in its Explanatory Memorandum at paragraph 7.3, which bears reading because, I suggest, it is unconvincing. It says that the evaluation of the northern pilot
“is not due until February 2020 but sufficient learning has been shared with the department, through ongoing involvement with the pilot and its evaluation, to indicate findings consistent with, and complementary to”,
the London pilot, and that:
“In addition, the department conducted a proof of concept for using the alcohol monitoring technology for suitable offenders released on licence. This has provided considerable insight into how alcohol monitoring can support the management of risk and rehabilitation. On this basis, we consider that we have a good evidence base around the utility and practice”
of alcohol-monitoring requirements
“which has informed our plans for England and Wales roll-out.”
What the Ministry could not assess was the impact of alcohol monitoring requirements on reoffending. Indeed, paragraph 29 of the committee’s report quoted the department’s response to Questions. It said:
“Reoffending findings will be available well in advance of commencing roll out and will inform the delivery of AAMR. However, it is our view that the findings we already have from the”
pilots
“indicate that AAMR is an effective sentence option. It is the department’s intention to assess impacts much more substantially, including to inform the better targeting of resources to address alcohol harms, when we roll out AAMR.”
The reality is that assessing the effect on reoffending will have to await medium-term evaluation of the behaviour of offenders who have been placed under these monitoring requirements. The Government appear to have accepted that in their impact assessment.
Lord Beecham (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his explanation of the order. I concur very strongly with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Marks. The documentation produced about the order makes it clear that the proposals are meant to punish the offender by ensuring that they do not consume alcohol. However, as has rightly been said, there is little to back that up. What will be the role of the probation service in supporting those involved, given the pressures on the service to which the noble Lord referred? For that matter, what is the role of the NHS? If one of its patients is involved, will doctors or general practitioners also be involved and invited to support individuals through the period during which the order applies? It would seem sensible for another professional who knows the person in question to offer support, in addition to the very overstretched probation service.
It is clear that, while the proposal is seen in the impact assessment as
“punitive as well as rehabilitative”,
there needs to be clear evidence that adequate support is available for those going through the process. Otherwise, it may be simply the temporary response to which the noble Lord, Lord Marks, referred, without any guarantee of a significant impact on future conduct. The objectives described in the impact assessment’s limited explanation of the proposal, which says that AAMRs
“are meant to punish the offender by ensuring they do not consume alcohol during the period in which the AAMR is in force”,
may be attained, but the long-term situation does not seem to be addressed by anything alongside this order. I therefore invite the Minister to say what discussions, if any, have taken place with the Department of Health and Social Care on what support can be given to patients of general practitioners who are in this position. Without that support, the chances of an enduring response are somewhat limited.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, I do not want to be repetitive, but I will add a couple of extra thoughts. No one has spoken against the principle of these orders, or of this legislation. The concerns are more about the adequacy of the rollout process, particularly the information that has been made available. I note that the legislative framework was passed in 2012 and, as the Minister said, the final rollout across the jurisdiction will not be until 2023 or 2024. That is a very long time between the passing of law and order legislation and rollout across England and Wales. The piloting of such orders is a very good idea if it is done well and the data is independently evaluated and shared with the public, professionals and so on. However, if the pilots, followed by incremental rollout, go on for too long, it creates a different legal and punitive regime for people across the jurisdiction, with the potential under Article 14 for arguing that people are not being treated equally in sentencing and rehabilitation. Does the Minister have thoughts on what good governance looks like and the appropriate balance between experimentation and piloting new orders, on the one hand, and equal treatment in sentencing across the jurisdiction, on the other?
In the light of previous contributions, I am sure the Minister will say whether he now thinks that the concerns addressed by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee have been met. As the noble Lord, Lord Marks, said, the comments about limited information being “unacceptable” are very strong. I also hope that the Minister will respond to what my noble friend said about the tension whereby such an order is described as being both a punishment and a rehabilitation measure in the context of abstinence. It is hard to see how telling offenders that their abstinence is a punishment is going to achieve voluntary abstinence and rehabilitation at the end of the relatively short enforced abstinence.
I am also interested in the choice of pilot areas, from the point of view of equal treatment and Article 14, particularly given that there is such a long period before national rollout. How are areas chosen for such pilots? Is the same methodology applied to both datasets to aid evaluation? Is there an independent element in the evaluation? Many of the comments seem to come from enthusiastic stakeholders and the offenders them- selves, many of whom said that they would drink less at the end of the process. With respect, they would say that, wouldn’t they? What is the non-profit-driven, independent element that does not involve those who are monitoring the orders, or the offenders themselves?
Lord Keen of Elie
I am grateful to noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. I will address a number of the points that have been raised. First, the results of the second pilot in Humberside were known to the ministry as it brought forward this order. The results have now been published and they are quite compelling. We are talking about a compliance rate well over 90% in both pilots. Indeed, it was 98% in the case of the London pilot and 97.4% in respect of Humberside. They were carried out over different periods and applied in the context of different offences. That gave us a spectrum of results, but all were very encouraging. Of course, we should consider not only the immediate importance and impact of the orders—because they stop people taking alcohol for a period of up to 120 days—we should like to be informed whether there is an ongoing impact. In the Humberside pilot, about 81% of those who had undergone such an order were contemplating either stopping taking alcohol or reducing their alcohol intake at the end of the period. It was clearly having an impact, therefore, on people’s intentions—but they were only intentions, of course.
As regards reoffending, it will take time to go through that process. As the noble Lord, Lord Marks, himself said, that is something for the middle term, not something we can immediately analyse. As the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, said, the primary legislation was enacted in 2012. The pilots were completed only last year. For how many more years are we to analyse the data before we commit to rolling out what appears on the face of it, and on the basis of the pilots already carried out, to be a very successful programme?
On the issue of resuming alcohol consumption, raised by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, yes, that is always a risk, but there are two benefits. First, there is the immediate benefit of taking someone off alcohol for a period after they have committed an offence, one that may well have been induced by excessive alcohol consumption. Secondly, there is the potential for them to learn from the experience that they do not wish to imbibe alcohol to excess in future, in order to modify their behaviour. However, I accept that you cannot guarantee that.
The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, raised the question of medical assistance. Let me be clear: an order of this kind will not be made where an individual is alcohol dependent. It is difficult to see how you could bring in and use doctors in the context of someone who is not alcohol dependent but is being taken off alcohol for 120 days because of a violent crime committed under the influence of alcohol. I find it difficult to understand what their contribution would be. On the other hand, in cases where someone is alcohol dependent, provision is made through the Community Sentence Treatment Requirement Programme for Health and Justice partners to work together to deal with such dependency, be it on alcohol or drugs.
At the end of the day, we have to bear in mind that we intend to roll out this programme on the basis of the probation areas, so we will learn even as we roll out the programme between now and 2023 how effective it is being. But we have already seen the results of the original pilots, and I suggest that they really are impressive. In the circumstances, we consider that now is the time for us to respond to the issue of alcohol-related offending and alcohol-related violent crime by taking the steps proposed in the order. It is in these circumstances that I commend the draft instrument—
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames
My Lords, before the noble and learned Lord sits down, is it intended that the alcohol monitoring requirements be imposed as a generality in the first stages of the rollout, together with rehabilitative requirements, so that the probation service will be involved, or is the stand-alone imposition of alcohol monitoring requirements likely, as in the London programme? It seems to me that there may be a substantial difference in the effect on future behaviour.
Lord Keen of Elie
My understanding is that the monitoring will not be carried out by or related to the probation service; it will be carried out independently. But clearly, the justice system will have an overall picture because, where someone is in breach of the order, that individual will be brought back to court.
May I just clarify a point I made earlier? The period 2023-24 is when we intend to reach steady state and to have completed the rollout. The rollout itself is intended to take place over the next 12 months. I hope that assists noble Lords.
Lord Beecham
What does the Minister envisage the role of the probation service to be under this new arrangement?
Lord Keen of Elie
Clearly, probation staff will have access to the monitoring data and will therefore use it to inform their supervision of individuals who are under licence, for example.
Lord Beecham
Has the matter been discussed with the probation service, and does it have the resources to do this? It is very stretched, and this will be an additional responsibility, presumably. The question therefore arises: can it meet it?
Lord Keen of Elie
There is no suggestion that it will not have the resources to address this matter. It will receive data in circumstances where there will be some 400 active monitoring requirements at any one time. That, I respectfully suggest, is not an overwhelming imposition in addition to the demands made upon the probation service.
Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitri Kovtun Freezing Order 2020
(4 years, 10 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
The Earl of Courtown
That the Grand Committee do consider the Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitri Kovtun Freezing Order 2020.
Relevant document: 3rd Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
The Earl of Courtown (Con)
My Lords, first, I would like to draw noble Lords’ attention to the fact that the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee described this order as an “instrument of interest” in its third report of 30 January. The order was laid before the House on 17 January under the “made affirmative” procedure and came into force on 19 January. It maintains a freeze of any funds or assets that the two individuals hold in the United Kingdom or with any United Kingdom-incorporated entities, denying them access to the UK financial system and prohibiting UK persons from making funds available to them.
The order was made because in 2016 an independent inquiry, chaired by Sir Robert Owen, concluded that Mr Alexander Litvinenko was deliberately poisoned in 2006 by Lugovoy and Kovtun through the use of polonium-210. The inquiry also concluded that there was a “strong probability” that Mr Litvinenko, an ex-KGB and ex-FSB officer and critic of the Russian Government, was murdered on the order of the FSB—the Russian domestic secret service—and furthermore that the killing was “probably approved” by then head of the FSB, Nikolai Patrushev, and by the Russian President, Vladimir Putin.
As part of its response to the gravity of these findings, the Treasury imposed an asset freeze in January 2016 on Lugovoy and Kovtun by making a freezing order under the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. A second order was imposed in January 2018 which expired at the end of 18 January this year. The order that I am commending to the House was therefore put in place to ensure there was no gap in the freezing measures that have been enforced against Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitri Kovtun since 2016.
Under Section 8 of the Act, the duration of a freezing order is limited to two years. Since 2018, as required by Section 7 of the Act, the Treasury has kept the order under review. In May 2019 the Treasury reviewed the facts of the case against the relevant statutory criteria and concluded that the criteria continued to be met in respect of both individuals.
Prior to the expiry of the 2018 order, the Treasury again reviewed the facts of the case and decided to make a new order to maintain the asset freeze against these two individuals. The Treasury believes that making a new order is an appropriate and proportionate measure to take. The relevant conditions required to be met, as set out at Section 4 of the Act, are still being met. In this case, these are that
“the Treasury reasonably believe that … action constituting a threat to the life or property of one or more nationals of the United Kingdom or residents of the United Kingdom has been or is likely to be taken”
by a person or persons resident in a country or territory outside the UK.
The freezing order is one of a limited number of measures available to the UK authorities to act directly against Lugovoy and Kovtun. We continue to believe that it acts as a deterrent and a signal that the Government will not tolerate hostile acts on British soil and will take firm steps to defend our national security and rule of law. The new order maintains a robust approach on Russia, in line with our Russia strategy, and maintains unity of approach with the United States, which also sanctions these two individuals. Continued close co-ordination is a vital part of our joint effort in countering the Russian threat.
Were we not to maintain asset freezes against Lugovoy and Kovtun we would risk sending a damaging signal that the consequences of murder in the United Kingdom are limited and timebound if you choose to evade the UK justice system by remaining overseas. Not maintaining asset freezes against these individuals would be likely to be perceived as the UK softening its stance towards Russia. Furthermore, it would risk signalling to the Russian state that the UK is looking to normalise relations. This would be contrary to and directly undermining of Her Majesty’s Government’s consistent message that there can be no change in UK-Russia relations until Russia desists from attacks that undermine international treaties and security.
The current bilateral relationship is not the one we want. We continue to remain open to a different and co-operative relationship, but this depends on Russia stopping its destabilising activity, which threatens the UK and its allies. We engage with Russia on a guarded basis, defending UK national security where necessary while ensuring we address the global security issues of the day.
In summary, the Government believe that maintaining asset freezes against Lugovoy and Kovtun is an appropriate and proportionate measure to take and that not to do so would run counter to the national interest. I hope noble Lords will join me in supporting the order. I beg to move.
Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)
My Lords, I hear the noble Earl, but I hope he will understand that I am not wholly convinced by the case he has deployed for continuing the order in respect of the two Russians. Indeed, I question whether it serves any useful purpose. We are dealing with a freezing order in respect of those two people, prohibiting persons from making funds available for their benefit. In my judgment, it is unlikely that the pair are dreading the result of this debate.
I ask three key questions. My first question is: why now? The short answer is of course that this is the second order made against the two men following the Owen report in January 2016. The order has expired and must now be renewed. The question must arise: at what point will this two-year cycle end? What criteria did the Treasury use in looking at the case for its continuation? Are we to anticipate that this two-year continuation will go on ad infinitum?
The Government have clearly put much effort into the order’s renewal, as shown by the timetable I just mentioned and some of the many committees that have looked into it. The instrument was made on 17 January. It was laid before both Houses. A Motion to approve has been made. It has been before several similar committees. There are also the English votes for English laws certification, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, the Delegated Legislation Committee and so forth. It is a pretty formidable series of consideration. I wonder whether it smacks a little of a job creation exercise and whether the Treasury is doing its job properly in asking whether there is value for money in what we are doing. For example, before or after the order made on 19 January, was any effort made—if we consider this so important—to persuade other countries to follow suit in respect of these two Russian gentlemen?
Baroness Kramer (LD)
My Lords, I believe that on balance it is necessary to renew the order, simply because not to renew it would send the wrong message, but I agree with many of the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson. I spoke on this issue back in 2018—I will not repeat the whole of that speech, as that would be to test the patience of the Committee. I used that opportunity to pay tribute to Marina Litvinenko, who fought so hard against the Home Secretary of the day for the public inquiry that should have come almost automatically but did not. The reality is that, because of the many delays, Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitri Kovtun had years in which to move out any assets that they had in the UK or within the scope of the UK. From the moment that the order was established, it was unlikely that it would have any personal impact on them, but at least it sent some sort of message.
At the time, I asked the Minister of the day to be sure that all assets were encompassed by the various definitions, including crypto-assets, and I received an assurance that they were. Is there an ongoing mechanism to make sure that, as new financial mechanisms develop, they are covered and automatically caught by the order? That would be a useful discipline to have in these instances.
I was also concerned to know to what extent these two individuals would be able to make use of Crown dependencies and overseas territories, many of which do not have a public register that would enable any civil society person to identify whether they were making use of financial services capabilities in those locations. Without that, the UK or the enforcement arm, presumably the Metropolitan Police, would need to initiate an investigation into assets in the names of the two individuals and into any shell companies that they might be involved in or any other kind of entities that were making use of those Crown dependencies and overseas territories. I am not sure how active that process is and whether we are serious about making sure that these two individuals are at least excluded from UK-related financial capacity.
I also asked about property ownership. As the Minister will be aware, we have public registers of beneficial owners, but not yet in the case of property, although I believe that that process is in train. I very much hope that he can assure me that the necessary monitoring is in place to ensure that neither of those individuals, or the shell companies that they use, has managed to get around the system by using the loophole of the absence of beneficial ownership.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
Surely the argument put forward by the noble Baroness would have some merit if one had any suspicion that those two individuals had any form of asset—be it property or finance—or any possibility of obtaining a loan, given their lack of creditworthiness.
Baroness Kramer
I think it is understood that those two individuals at some point had assets in the UK. Hence my frustration that the long delay and the public inquiry meant that they had every opportunity to remove those assets. We cannot guarantee that they used them, but they certainly had the opportunity. I fear that, with the way that various shell companies work, it is not as simple as looking at one individual’s creditworthiness: there are many other ways. I assume that these two people, within their own context, are considered to be very successful individuals who are not short of the ready, and therefore have the opportunity through various mechanisms to exploit financial services. If the order is to mean anything, there must be some enforcement capability to it, and I am inquiring whether there is.
I noticed that the debate that we had in 2018 was in February, towards the end of the month. To reinforce the point of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, that this is not really a deterrent of any sort, the attack on the Skripals happened on 4 March that year, days later. That says everything about the weakness of the deterrent effect. It would be incumbent on the Treasury to rewrite its note in the light of the Salisbury poisonings. We need to pay great respect in understanding the suffering not only of the Skripals but of Dawn Sturgess, who died as a consequence.
I also wondered—I ought to know the answer to this but do not, so I am simply inquiring—whether the same orders now apply to the two individuals identified as being involved in the Skripal poisonings, Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga and Dr Alexander Mishkin, both of the GRU. If this is a principle, it ought at least to be more broadly applied. I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, that we need to implement the legislation passed in both Houses.
A more robust response to the poisoning of Litvinenko and the attempted poisoning of Skripal is fundamentally necessary. Will we wait for a third or fourth poisoning before we start looking at more senior figures within the Russian establishment? Clearly, all the people we have mentioned who face freezing orders were under orders from far more senior people. It is a great weakness in our position not to have recognised that much more clearly and to have considered whether, if we believe that constraining people from using UK financial services has an impact on their behaviour, making that work up the chain will be a lot more useful than simply applying it to the individuals who we have been able to identify but who are, frankly, in every case, pretty small fry.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, it is not the intention of the Labour Front Bench to oppose this order nor to rehearse the merits of the case. However, as a matter of principle, I would like the Minister to explain why he had to use the “made affirmative” procedure. When a two-year order is about to expire, the one thing you know is that you would have had two years’ notice of that. It is not clear why a perfectly normal order could not have been made. This procedure should be used only in emergency circumstances.
The Earl of Courtown
I thank all noble Lords for their contribution to this short debate. I will do my best to cover all the points raised but should I miss any out, I will write to noble Lords. The noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, asked how the asset freeze affects real property—land, buildings et cetera. She also mentioned cryptocurrencies, which she had referred to in the previous debate, two years ago. Under an asset freeze, all funds and economic resources must be frozen. No funds or economic resources can be made available, directly or indirectly, to a designated person or for their benefit. To do so may be a criminal offence. Funds generally mean financial assets and benefits of every kind. Economic resources—this relates to the noble Baroness’s point about property—generally refers to assets of every kind, tangible or intangible, moveable or immoveable, which are not funds but which may be used to obtain funds, goods or services. This includes, but is not limited to, property. As confirmed in the previous debates, crypto-assets are also covered by this.
Baroness Kramer
I do not want to create a problem for the noble Earl, because this may be outside his general scope, but where there is no public register of beneficial interests, the problem is that civil society groups—which do a lot of the monitoring on behalf of us all—cannot see through to identify whether there is abuse. In those particular circumstances, the only way to find out whether somebody has acquired property in the UK, which will be under various other names, shell companies, and whatever else, is by active intervention by UK enforcement authorities. Until we get the public register, that is limited. That was the question I was trying to focus on.
The Earl of Courtown
The noble Baroness’s point is basically about transparency. I do not have any information on that issue to hand, but I will write to the noble Baroness.
The next point was about a link between the 2018 order and the Salisbury event. As noble Lords are aware, the murder of Alexander Litvinenko and the attack on Salisbury are part of a pattern of Russian aggression over the past decade, which includes its actions in Georgia, Crimea and Ukraine, and campaigns of reckless and irresponsible cyberattacks. We took a range of measures following the attacks in Salisbury, including co-ordinating the expulsion of 153 Russian intelligence officers, the largest mass expulsion in history. We continue to believe that, in conjunction with the other measures which the Government have taken in response to the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, this freezing order sends a message to others who might consider committing similar acts in future that the UK Government will not tolerate such action. After the Salisbury attack, four Russian individuals were sanctioned under the Chemical Weapons (Asset-Freezing) and Miscellaneous Amendments Regulations 2018 for their roles in transporting and using a toxic nerve agent—Novichok—in Salisbury in March 2018.
The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, raised a number of issues relating to his thoughts on whether it was worth while going through this exercise. Obviously, Her Majesty’s Government feel that it is, but he also mentioned the Magnitsky sanctions and asked why we were not introducing the asset freeze under them. The Government have announced their intention to establish UK-autonomous global human rights Magnitsky-style sanctions, as he said. These will be coming forward shortly, once we have left the European Union—which I imagine we have.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
How shortly is shortly? Since the 2018 Act, the Government have had two years in which to implement this. They are not in fact constrained by the European Union. I pose the same question again: do the Government have any suspicion at all that these two individuals mentioned have any assets, or any other form of property or whatever, in the UK? If not, this is surely a totally pointless exercise.
The Earl of Courtown
As the noble Lord is well aware, “shortly” is a term often used in this position from the Dispatch Box. I cannot give him any more details on that at the moment. He also raised another point which he had already raised in his earlier speech; I will come to that.
Another point raised by noble Lords was on the GRU in the UK and what we have done about that. As I mentioned, there was asset freezing following the Salisbury event, but we have exposed the role of the GRU in the despicable attack on Salisbury. We have exposed its operatives and the methods it used. The actions of the GRU are a threat to all our allies and we have shared the information with them. We have stepped up our collective efforts to disrupt and dismantle the GRU networks in this country, with the expulsion of these Russian members.
The noble Lord also asked whether there was any evidence of these individuals actually owning assets in the United Kingdom. Her Majesty’s Treasury has received no information about frozen funds in respect of designations in place against Kovtun and Lugovoy. However, the asset freeze continues to deny those individuals access to the UK financial sector. Beyond the financial impact, this order is part of a package of measures which send a clear message that such illegal acts will not be tolerated.
In the absence of bringing the killers of Litvinenko to trial in the UK, the Government believe that it is important and appropriate to maintain these measures against the two individuals—including the asset freeze, the European arrest warrants and the Interpol red notices—as a deterrent against others conducting such unacceptable actions in future. We continue to believe that this freezing order sends a message to others, who might consider committing similar acts in future, that the United Kingdom will not tolerate such action. Despite the poisoning of Sergei Skripal in Salisbury in March 2018, we cannot discount the possibility that the 2016 and 2018 orders have had a deterrent effect on the Russian state, or indeed on other states.
The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, asked at the beginning of his speech at which point these orders will end. Under Section 7 of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, the Treasury is required to keep a freezing order under review. In accordance with this obligation under Section 7, in May 2019 Her Majesty’s Treasury conducted a review of the facts of the case against these individuals. The Home Office and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office were consulted as part of that review, which established that the then-existing freezing order was an appropriate measure to maintain. The new freezing order will lapse two years after it is made, as set out in Section 8 of the 2001 Act. Her Majesty’s Treasury will continue to monitor the evidence and review the facts of the case against these two individuals while the order is in force.
The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, asked about the made affirmative procedure. Section 10 of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 requires that freezing orders under it are made using this procedure. The procedure allows for immediate action followed by debate in the next 28 days. If Parliament does not agree the order, the asset freeze falls away. Freezing orders under the Act are designed for situations in which events require an urgent response and/or in which there is a risk of asset flight. The original 2016 order against Lugovoy and Kovtun was made one day after Sir Robert Owen’s inquiry reported, concluding that the two individuals had deliberately poisoned Litvinenko. The Treasury continues to believe that the conditions for making the order set out in this Act remain satisfied.
Public Bodies (Abolition of Public Works Loan Commissioners) Order 2019
(4 years, 10 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
The Earl of Courtown
That the Grand Committee do consider the Public Bodies (Abolition of Public Works Loan Commissioners) Order 2019.
Relevant documents: 2nd Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, Session 2019, 3rd Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, Session 2019, 1st Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
The Earl of Courtown (Con)
My Lords, the draft order, which is being introduced under the Public Bodies Act 2011, abolishes the office of the Public Works Loan Commissioners and transfers their power to lend and all other functions to Her Majesty’s Treasury, including interests in land, liabilities, property and all other rights. This draft order does not affect the essential role of the Public Works Loan Board as a lender to local authorities. Instead, it will resolve ambiguities in the governance and accountability arrangements of this vital body to ensure that it can continue to support local capital investment across the country.
As noble Lords may be aware, the PWLB was formalised by an Act of Parliament in 1817, and has supported local authorities in England, Scotland and Wales through major historical events, from the Napoleonic Wars and the formation of Trafalgar Square to our recovery from two world wars, as well as the construction and maintenance of essential infra- structure projects. By funding public utility and sanitary improvements, conservation of harbours and housing developments, the PWLB has created employment prospects and enhanced the quality of life for our citizens over generations.
Over the years, the role and legal basis of the PWLB has transformed. It is now a statutory body of up to 12 independent commissioners that issues loans from the National Loans Fund to local authorities and other specified bodies. The PWLB operates within a policy framework set by Her Majesty’s Treasury and delegates the practicalities of lending to the UK Debt Management Office.
It is important to note that, since 2004, all borrowing decisions have been devolved to the local authorities under the prudential regime. The commissioners no longer assess applications and retain only a ceremonial role, serving in office so that central government lending complies with statute, rather than serving any executive purpose. The recruitment of commissioners for these posts has predictably become more difficult as the role has diminished over time. Were the board of commissioners to become inquorate, the PWLB would be unable to lend or collect repayments. This would have substantial repercussions on local authority budgets and financing plans, jeopardising essential capital works.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I remind the Committee that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association.
This is an appropriate measure for all the reasons the Minister set out. Indeed, the responses to the formal consultation indicate broad agreement. In paragraph 7.14 of the explanatory document, there is a reference to annual reporting to Parliament, which sounds as if it is going to be enhanced. I suggest that when the Government report to Parliament, they comment on whether they see the level and nature of borrowing causing any concern, generally or specifically, in relation to a single council. It is important that local councils do not turn into property companies, with council services becoming an ancillary function. That would be a very rare event, but it is something one has to guard against. It is reported in the media that councils have spent around £5.5 billion in property acquisitions over the past three years, with a quarter of that being invested in the retail sector. Issues arising include whether they may have paid more for the property they have acquired than the market value. Is there any evidence of local authorities borrowing from the Public Works Loan Board and paying over the odds for what they are purchasing?
Secondly, it is important for the Government to report on whether there is a danger of assets declining in value. We have recently seen some of the problems that there are with retail shopping centres. I find it entirely understandable that a local council might wish to invest in its own retail shopping centres or in property within its own borders, but I find it harder to understand why some councils are investing in places a very long way from their immediate responsibilities in their area.
Finally, there is social housing. As Members will know, last year, there was a 1% increase in the interest rate for loans from the Public Works Loan Board. I am interested to know what the Government think the impact of that is on the ability of local councils to build social housing. Most Public Works Loan Board borrowing now relates to social housing. The removal of the borrowing cap on housing revenue accounts was welcome, but the rise in the Public Works Loan Board interest rate may have negated some of that positive impact. How do the Government plan to judge the correct level of interest rate that encourages the building of social housing?
Lord Deben (Con)
My Lords, I follow the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, on the first of his points. It is a great pity to abolish things that have been going on for so long, but if we are going to do it, it is perfectly sensible. I am not really arguing about that. However, there is an opportunity here to make sure that there is better understanding about some of the decisions that are made.
I declare an interest because one of my businesses advises companies on sustainable development in the sense of building. Obviously, we see what the market for development is; it is very noticeable that, on quite a number of occasions, developers have decided that the price being offered for a particular development has been too great but a local authority has been prepared to pay that price. It may be that the local authority is clever enough to be cleverer than the developer, but in the one case, it is quite a difficult profession, and in the other case, it is an ancillary activity and sometimes one notices a certain belief by the local authority that it knows better. I am not saying that that is always true but I suggest, as the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, rightly said, that it is a question we have to ask.
My worry is that, with the very serious downturn in shopping, particularly in the kind of malls that have been bought by local authorities, it must be true—it is not a question of asking whether it is true—that quite a number of local authorities have spent above the odds and now hold significant assets that may be worth considerably less than they actually paid for them. To give them some uncharged advice, if I may: it ain’t going to get any better. This is not an area where sensible people would invest, except in circumstances where they really did have a plan for the future that is very different from others.
It is important for us to have much more independent reporting from the Treasury if it is to take over this role in name as well as in fact. Parliament ought to be much more aware of these matters—not because we should be interfering with local authority decisions in single cases, but if there is a general change where we are seeing some real concerns, it is important that Parliament should be warned of it because it could have serious effects in a number of local authorities that are seeing their purchases as a mechanism for supporting both the government resources that they get and their own local rates.
I hope that we can have an undertaking from my noble friend that the Treasury will look with great care in its report and think seriously about enabling Parliament to take some interest, not in individual decision-making but in the overall issues thrown up by local authorities’ investment from borrowings from the Public Works Loan Board.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, the Labour Front Bench does not intend to oppose these statutory instruments but the essence of the case for getting rid of the commissioners is that, essentially, they do not do anything and taking them away will have no impact or a benign impact. That is quite an attractive argument, until it alerts one to the question of how these loans are actually managed and controlled.
So, my first question is: can the Minister flesh out a bit more how loans to local authorities are managed and controlled? I realise there is a letter from John Glen that may answer this question but there is a crucial difference between a letter that floats around among Peers and a record in Hansard. Local authorities will be reading this debate—poor souls—and a clear statement by the Minister in the record is worthwhile, so can he explain how loans to local authorities will now be managed and controlled?
Secondly, I come to the exact point that was made previously. I do not know, but it sounds as though it is true that some local authorities have been taking loans and investing their money in property, perhaps as a straightforward business exercise to support their other incomes. If the answer to that is yes—it seems that it is—is this practice legal, or at least is it seen as undesirable? In the light of the fact that it has been debated in other places, has it now been stopped?
My next question is: why were interest rates raised—last autumn, I believe—from 1.8% to 2.8%? I do not know the system, so does this apply to current loans or just to new ones?
The Earl of Courtown
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their contributions and questions.
My noble friend Lord Deben asked how Parliament will be kept informed. I may have to write to him with the exact details on that issue, but I will take it back to the department and try to get some clarification on it.
First, I will deal with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, and explain how loans to authorities will now be managed and controlled. The statutory instrument does not change how loans are managed or controlled. The purpose of the statutory instrument is to resolve to administrative risk around the recruitment and maintenance of a quorate board of commissioners, as I said earlier. There is no change to existing debt or to lending terms. Day-to-day operation of the PWLB will continue to be managed by the Debt Management Office. No action is required by local authorities. The Government consulted on this change in 2016 and found widespread support.
Lord Tunnicliffe
With respect, that does not answer the question. To be fair, I gave him a few hours’ notice of it. Subsequent questions suggest that it has not gone exactly right—that this money has not been used for general purposes. I cannot take a view on that unless I know how the Debt Management Office does its job. For example, what criteria does it use? How much direct control does it have, or is it a big bag of money? I know that I should know that, but given the number of portfolios I have, please forgive me for not knowing the answer to my own question.
The Earl of Courtown
I understand that the noble Lord is for ever on his feet on a wide range of issues. I am probably putting the cart before the horse. If we go to the cart, I will come on to aspects of the management of the governance relating to these loans.
The noble Lords, Lord Shipley and Lord Tunnicliffe, and my noble friend Lord Deben referred to property investments being made by local authorities. Decisions on borrowing and spending capital are devolved to local authorities. They pick capital projects in line with local priorities and choose how to pay for those projects, including whether to borrow. Where local authorities borrow, they must have regard to the prudential framework—as set out by CIPFA and MHCLG, or the respective devolved Administration—to ensure that they borrow prudently.
Lord Deben
If I may say so, the phrase “to ensure that their borrowing is prudent” covers a multitude of sins. My issue is not that local authorities should not be able to borrow or to make their own decisions, but if they make a number of decisions that mean that there is a change in the way in which the Public Works Loan Board is being used, does my noble friend not think that that issue should be raised in Parliament, not just left to the local authorities?
The Earl of Courtown
My Lords, my noble friend makes a good point. I will come to that issue in a couple of paragraphs and will point it out when we get to it.
Under the prudential system, local authorities should not look to take on disproportionate levels of financial risk, especially when that is funded by additional borrowing. On the point raised by my noble friend and the noble Lords, Lord Tunnicliffe and Lord Shipley, the Treasury is concerned about local authorities investing in commercial assets that do not directly serve policy objectives, especially when these investments are financed by debt, including from the Public Works Loan Board. The National Audit Office is currently reviewing the issue and intends to publish a report into this activity in the coming weeks. We will continue to keep this situation under review.
In his intervention, the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, asked for an explanation of how loans to local authorities will now be managed and controlled. Decisions over whether to borrow and how to spend borrowing are devolved to individual local authorities. Each council must appoint a qualified finance officer and have regard to statutory guidance published by MCHLG and CIPFA. This is called the prudential regime, as I mentioned earlier. As decision-making is local, the PWLB does not ask what loans are for. If there is anything more I can add on that, I will write to the noble Lord.
The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, also asked about the interest rate being raised. There is a statutory limit on the total amount of PWLB loans that can be outstanding at one time. Some local authorities substantially increased their use of the PWLB in 2019. If PWLB borrowing had reached the statutory limit, it would have effectively been unable to issue new loans. That would have been very disruptive to local authority capital plans. To ensure that lending continued to be available, the Government legislated to increase the statutory lending limit from £85 billion to £95 billion and raised the interest rate on new loans by one percentage point. In making this change, the Treasury restored rates to levels available in 2018. The cost of PWLB loans has fallen significantly over the past decades, even accounting for changing policy margins.
The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, asked about the impact on social housing. By ensuring that the PWLB can continue to lend, the rate rise supports social housing delivery.
On whether Her Majesty’s Government should have oversight, in general, it is right for decisions to be made locally by the elected council. Most borrowing is spent on schools, roads and waste services. I commend this instrument to the Committee.
Scotland Act 1998 (Transfer of Functions to the Scottish Ministers etc.) Order 2020
(4 years, 10 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Viscount Younger of Leckie
That the Grand Committee do consider the Scotland Act 1998 (Transfer of Functions to the Scottish Ministers etc.) Order 2020.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Viscount Younger of Leckie) (Con)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for the opportunity to debate this order, which is part of the Government’s ongoing commitment to devolution. I will begin by providing background to the order, which is made under the Scotland Act 1998. The 1998 Act devolved powers to Scotland and legislated for the establishment of a Scottish Parliament. The Scotland Act 2016 was the second major update to the settlement, making amendments to the 1998 Act and delivering the cross-party Smith commission agreement, which was established following the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. As a result of the 2016 Act, a wide range of powers, including welfare powers, has now been transferred to the Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament.
Scotland Act orders are used to implement, update or adjust Scotland’s devolution settlement. The order before the Grand Committee today is a Section 63 order, which provides for functions to be shared by Scottish Ministers concurrently with a Minister of the Crown. This is commonly known as executive devolution. Section 63 orders are Orders in Council and are subject to approval by affirmative resolution in both Houses of this Parliament and the Scottish Parliament. Indeed, this order was approved by the Scottish Parliament on 4 December last year.
I will now turn to the instrument itself and explain exactly what it does. The Scottish Government have committed to introducing a grant, known as job start payment, for young people aged 16 between 24 who have been out of paid employment for six months or more and who make an application. The Scottish Government do not currently have the executive competence to provide assistance to this cohort of young people to help them retain employment. This order is therefore required to enable the introduction of the Scottish Government’s job start payment.
To be clear, the order only gives Scottish Ministers the necessary powers and does not set policy. Furthermore, the powers of the UK Government will not be reduced as a result of the order as the functions are simply being shared with the Scottish Government. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has agreed to share the function of making arrangements to provide assistance to this cohort concurrently with the Scottish Government.
The order will achieve this by amending the Employment And Training Act 1973 to make certain existing powers for the Secretary of State exercisable concurrently by Scottish Ministers. Section 31 of the Scotland Act 2016 created exceptions to the reservation of the subject matter of the Employment And Training Act 1973 in order to give the Scottish Parliament certain powers in this area. However, those exceptions did not extend to providing assistance to retain employment to this cohort of young people. The amendment is therefore required to enable the introduction of the job start payment as without it, Scottish Ministers would not have the necessary powers.
I will now explain what the Scottish Government intend to do with the powers transferred through this order. I previously explained the nature of the grant. In targeting young people, the Scottish Government are targeting the people who need support most. Evidence suggests that the unemployment rate for young people is higher than for those over 25. The unemployment rate for young people in Scotland was 9.1% from October 2018 to September 2019, compared with an overall unemployment rate in Scotland of 3.9%. The proposed payment will consist of a one-off cash payment of £250, or £400 for young people who have children. This will help with the initial costs associated with entering and remaining in work. It could be used to pay for food and clothing and to help towards travel costs, thus removing some of the initial pressure of starting a new job.
Young people will have a three-month window from receiving an offer of employment to apply for the benefit. Upon receipt of a job start payment application, the Scottish Government anticipate that it will take 21 working days and a further three working days for payment to be made. Care leavers will be able to apply for an additional year compared with other young people and will have to be out of paid work only on the date of the job offer, rather than for the previous six months, to be eligible.
The job start payment is expected to be introduced in spring 2020. This is of course dependent on the order being made. Job start payment will be administered by Social Security Scotland, the Scottish Government’s benefit delivery agency. Any costs associated with delivering the payment will fall solely on the Scottish Government. In the Scottish budget 2020-21, announced on 6 February, £2 million was allocated to fund the benefit expenditure for job start payment.
The UK Government do not view the order as controversial and are fully supportive of the Scottish Government’s plans to support young people to retain employment through the introduction of the job start payment. Indeed, we take no issue with the Scottish Government using their budget to support young people in this way, in addition to the support provided across the UK by the UK Government within reserved competence.
The order demonstrates that the UK Government remain committed to strengthening the devolution settlement and shows Scotland’s two Governments working well together. I commend the order to the Committee, and I beg to move.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that introduction and explanation. As he said, this is a relatively small measure, it is not contentious and it is clearly the wish of the Scottish Government, so in that sense we do not need to detain the Committee for long. I commend the basics of the grant, accept that there are circumstances in which young people might find it difficult to get work if they have been unemployed for a long time, and accept that this would be a benefit, but is there any accountability for this money, or is it simply cash in hand for young people to do with as they wish?
My second point concerns perhaps a more general characteristic of the Scottish Government’s campaign to secure control over social security and welfare payments in Scotland—they proceed very slowly and with some timidity in implementing them. We know how big the welfare bill is, and the Minister has put a maximum figure of £2 million on this measure. I know that this is a very small cohort of people and that is probably as much as it deserves; nevertheless, against the big picture of welfare and social security it is a very modest measure. When we compare that with the profligacy with which the Scottish Government have managed to nationalise, at great expense, significant sections of the Scottish economy—shipyards that cannot complete ships, airports that do not run planes and trains that do not run at all—one would like to think that they might be a little more ambitious in saving money on those projects and using it for more radical welfare benefit measures in Scotland.
Many of us had hoped that the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government would use the transferred powers to show how Scotland and its needs are different, and possibly to develop different ways to deliver welfare and social security peculiar to those needs, but in ways that also might influence delivery methods in other parts of the UK. It is disappointing that the Scottish Government do not seem able to show a great deal of imagination and vision. While one would of course not object to the transfer of these powers and to the processes whereby it is co-determined—I guess that means that each decision is sanctioned by the appropriate Minister in the UK Government—it is nevertheless worth putting on record that the Scottish Government need to show a little more vision and imagination if they really want to demonstrate that their campaign to get these welfare powers was worth the effort.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, I also thank the Minister for outlining this modest, minor order. We are happy to support it, given that its whole purpose is to enable Scottish Ministers to help young people who have been out of work for six months or more by giving them a £250 grant to help them take up a job. That is pretty important because, as the Minister said, the unemployment rate for those aged under 25 is higher than for older people. Having supported the order’s aims, I have a few brief questions for the Minister.
First, could he outline what consultation, if any, took place, particularly with the young Scottish people who will be affected by this? Secondly, and I guess this will have a technical answer, why is it necessary to have a whole statutory instrument for what seems a very minor issue? Why was it not included in the Scotland Act 2016? It seems even more minor than I thought when I first read it. If the expenditure is still a joint responsibility, it is giving only a little bit to Scotland and it seems extraordinary that it needs all this. I am delighted to be here with colleagues this afternoon to deal with it, but it is hard to understand why it needs a whole SI.
Thirdly, given that the Minister said the figure would be £2 million for the total pot, does he happen to know how the Scottish Government propose to raise the money to fund this? Fourthly, to his knowledge—I understand this is not his responsibility—are the Scottish Government planning any evaluation to ascertain the scheme’s effectiveness? Before the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, got in first, I was going to ask about accountability for this expenditure. Lastly, should a young Scottish person be awarded this £250 grant, is there any risk that they would lose access to any UK-wide funding?
As I said, we welcome any initiative that helps young people into work, but do the Government have any explanation for how an SNP Government are overseeing such a horrendously high level of youth unemployment? According to the Scotsman, the figure is even higher for this age cohort than the Minister said: 9.8%, which is three times higher than that in England and a rise of 0.8% in the year to July 2019. Does the Minister have any thoughts about that? Do the Scottish Government have any other plans in hand that are more meaningful than a £250 grant to ensure that these youngsters have a more successful entry into adulthood? If I may again borrow the words of the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, should the Scottish Government perhaps be a little more ambitious in seeking to reduce young people’s unemployment in Scotland? Nevertheless, we agree to the order.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
My Lords, I thank the Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Bennachie, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, for their points and questions. I will do my best to answer them. The first question to address is about accountability for this money. A young person receives the £250 cash in hand; the point is to allow the young person to spend the money in the way they feel is right. It is designed to go on travel or food costs to help them in their early days in work. However, they could easily decide to spend it on a PlayStation or something. That is the truth. The only answer I can give is that there is trust that once young people have the job they will decide to spend the money wisely.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
That may answer the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce. I meant what accountability do the Scottish Government have in setting up this scheme that they are choosing the right people and that the pot is being handled efficiently. I recognise that this is not an issue for this government department, but the Minister might know from discussions. He might want to write, if it is not within his knowledge.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
The noble Baroness makes a good point. I will need to write. On how wisely the £2 million is being spent by the Scottish Government, the assumption is that the £250 grants will go to the right people at the right time for the right reasons. I will write if we can get some more information on that point.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie
Do the Government have any plans to monitor this? It may well be a very good idea and prove to be very effective, and that is fine, but it may be found that it is just cash in hand and is not really used for good purposes. It is presumably worth doing some systematic modelling. It may not be an awful lot of money, but simply handing out money for a purpose without seeing whether it is used for that purpose seems not entirely right.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
I feel sure that we should be able to get some information for the noble Lord. I asked these questions as part of my briefing, but I will see what more I can get. That leads on nicely to take note of the points the noble Lord made about the Scottish Government. He made the point that it is a modest measure that lacks imagination and vision. The only thing to say is that I have noted that. I think it is a fair point, but I should be careful not to criticise the Scottish Government. Again, if there is something I can put in writing on that I will certainly do so.
Moving on, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, asked why there is an order for such a minor provision and why it was not in the Scotland Act 2016 in the first place, which is a fair question. The intention to develop the job start payment first appeared in the SNP manifesto in April 2016 and the Scotland Act 2016 completed its passage through the UK Parliament in March 2016. The 2016 Act devolved the competence to legislate for new benefits, but only for benefits which were not connected with reserved matters. The relevant powers relating to assisting persons to retain employment are reserved under the Scotland Act 1998 under the job search and support reservation. The message is that it just missed the cut, if that is the way to put it.
The noble Baroness also asked where the money for the job start payment is coming from. The Scottish Government announced their budget last week and committed money from the Scottish Consolidated Fund. I cannot say which source of money goes to which expenditure. The Scottish Consolidated Fund comes from a range of sources, including the block grant from the UK Government, Scottish taxes and borrowing. That includes the Scottish tax-raising powers as well, which, as the Committee knows, the UK Government gave the Scottish Parliament.
The noble Baroness asked whether I am concerned that the SNP Government are not properly addressing the high level of youth unemployment. She made an extremely good point. I am concerned that my colleagues in the Scottish Government are more focused on constitutional conflict and their own agenda for independence than on using the powers that they have to address the issues that people in Scotland badly need to be addressed and which they care about. That is not just youth unemployment but failings in education, healthcare and a range of other devolved responsibilities. I suspect that the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, would probably agree with me on that front.
The noble Baroness asked what consultation exercises the Scottish Government have undertaken. To be fair to them, they ran a public consultation on the proposed format and the key eligibility criteria of the job start payment between 16 January and 9 April 2019. The analysis of 96 responses showed that the majority of individuals and respondents believed that the job grant, as it was then called, met policy intent.
The noble Baroness also asked what support was in place for unemployed young people across the UK. The people receiving the £250 would not lose out on the benefits that they might receive in addition. There are existing UK-wide benefits that support unemployed people while they search for work. Young people may also be able to access funds from other sources to support them with some of the costs associated with applying for and starting a new job. These include the flexible support fund, which is not just for young people. It is offered by jobcentres across the UK at the discretion of work coaches, who have the flexibility and discretion to make awards that will enhance the employment prospects of the claimants and other customers with whom they are engaged, if there is a need. The difference is that, unlike job start payment, the flexible support fund does not specifically apply to young people; it extends further.
Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, asked whether UK Ministers sanction decisions. The answer is no. Scottish Ministers will have discretion as to how to use the power once it is shared. It is just that UK Ministers also retain the competence.
I hope that covers all the questions. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, for their support in principle for this.
Northamptonshire (Structural Changes) Order 2019
(4 years, 10 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Viscount Younger of Leckie
That the Grand Committee do consider the Northamptonshire (Structural Changes) Order 2019.
Relevant document: 4th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, Session 2019
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Viscount Younger of Leckie) (Con)
My Lords, this order was laid before the House on 28 October. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee published its report on 4 November. The good people of Northamptonshire then had a significant wait before yesterday’s debate on this order by the Second Delegated Legislation Committee in the House of Commons. I understand that the order was welcomed and was considered fairly swiftly.
Let me start by setting out the background to this order. Your Lordships may recall that just over two years ago my predecessor, my noble friend Lord Bourne, informed this House that the then Secretary of State had concerns about financial management at Northamptonshire County Council and whether it was failing to meet its best value duty. Your Lordships may also remember the reports in the press relating to this story. An inspector was appointed under powers given by the Local Government Act 1999.
I would like to quote directly from the report of that inspector:
“To change the culture and organisational ethos and to restore balance, would, in the judgement of the inspection team, take of the order of 5 years and require a substantial one off cash injection. Effectively, it would be a reward for failure. Even under a Directions regime, it is not considered likely that councillors and officers would have the strength of purpose to carry through such a long running programme of recovery potentially crossing two electoral cycles. In the meantime, it would be the people of the county who would suffer. A way forward with a clean sheet, leaving all the history behind, is required.”
The independent reviewer recommended that local government in Northamptonshire should be reorganised into two unitary councils, one covering the areas of Corby, East Northamptonshire, Kettering and Wellingborough and another covering Daventry, Northampton and South Northamptonshire.
The order before us today creates just this new start for local government in Northamptonshire, which has been described by the councils themselves as a
“once in a generation opportunity to develop and transform services so they are modern, financially resilient and future-proof, learning from national best practice and making informed decisions about the future.”
This order, if approved and made by Parliament, will provide for the establishment of two new local government areas. For each new area a new unitary council will be established; they are to be known as North Northamptonshire Council and West Northamptonshire Council. The order also provides important transitional arrangements, as is usual in such cases. In particular, provision is made to replace the district council elections in May 2020 with elections to the new unitary councils, which will be shadow authorities until 1 April 2021.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
I remind everybody of my entry in the register of interests, as a councillor in Kirklees in West Yorkshire—a unitary council—and as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. The order enacts decisions made in response to the financial calamity that befell local government in Northamptonshire through its county council. It was clearly imperative that action was taken; it is my understanding that change had to be made. However, I would like to comment on and perhaps challenge some of the decisions that have resulted from the decision to reorganise local government in Northamptonshire.
First, it seems that we as a country are in danger of taking the “local” out of local government. I say that as somebody who serves a very large ward—not the largest in the country, but one of the largest—at a unitary level and understands the demands on the three councillors who serve a population of 16,000. From my experience, it means that some of the very local issues become less important to councillors, who have to deal with high-level strategic decisions, but remain very important to local people. When you have a big ward, there is a tension between the strategic and the local. If we are not careful, local people often miss out. That is more so with large wards serving rural communities.
I do not know the county of Northants very well, but I guess that some of its wards will be significantly rural in nature. In my experience, this creates a potential disconnect between decision-makers and the people they serve. There is potential for the Government to give additional powers to parish and town councils, so that they can take up some of the very local responsibilities that would previously have been the remit of district councillors. That would enable a local element to be retained in local governance. I will leave it there and hope that the Minister will have some sort of response to it.
The second element is the size of the two unitary councils and the number of councillors they have. One has got 93 and the other has 78. In my experience, that is quite a large number. The Explanatory Memorandum states that there will be a boundary review for those wards before the next local elections in 2025. Are the Government thinking about reducing the number of councillors, because that is what a boundary review could achieve? On balance, having fewer councillors might improve governance but, on the other hand, it increases the size of wards and makes it more difficult for ward councillors to undertake their local responsibilities. Is that in view?
My next point is a general one about when there are 93 councillors—even 78—and only 10 of them are actual decision-makers. They are in the cabinet; they make the decisions for the council. That leaves another 83; they can do scrutiny, but they are not taking decisions, which is what local people expect them to be doing. Apart from the annual budget, the local plan and, perhaps, an annual children’s plan, there is not much that every councillor has to take decisions on. There has to be a rethink of the roles and responsibilities of councillors who are not in a cabinet. It can make councillors feel remote from decision-making. As ward size makes people feel remote, councillors feel remote if they are not in the cabinet. In my experience, remote decision-making fuels discontent and we should take note of that.
Paragraph 7.6 of the Explanatory Memorandum, which the Minister referred to, outlines the benefits of the new structure:
“aligning infrastructure; housing and environment services to help deliver growth; advantages in … health and wellbeing; improved education and skills provision”,
though I have to say that the responsibilities of local councils regarding education are very limited these days. The levers that they have to change anything are minimal, so I would not have referred to education in that way. Does the Minister agree that there could be an alternative to achieving that aim, which I think will come up in the next few months in a number of ways? A constructive collaboration, formalised between districts and the county, could achieve the same aims without the upheaval of a structural reorganisation. This would be an upheaval, and it takes a long time—several years—for councils to get on their feet and begin delivering strategically, not operationally, the services that they should.
Lord Deben (Con)
My Lords, I query the process. Having been the Secretary of State responsible for local government reorganisation, I find this process extremely peculiar. The Secretary of State asked the principal councils in Northamptonshire to decide how they wanted the future to be, but he said that Northamptonshire could not be a single unitary and if it were going to be three unitaries, they had to find some extremely good reasons for it. What we have here is a series of commissioners proposing a particular answer and the Secretary of State thanking the commissioners for all their work and presenting local people with a choice that is not a choice. I am not happy with that as a procedure.
Then we discover that we are supposed to think that the local people will be thrilled about it because there were 300-odd responses to a statutory consultation from a population of something like 700,000. We also had a number of businesses and others who thought it was a frightfully good idea. One of the questions that was asked—this is fascinating—which was thought to be a very good argument, was about whether there should be fewer councils. That is not the issue. The issue is why should we have two councils rather than three or one. That is the first question. I find the process very peculiar.
The second thing that seems odd about it is the decision that the historic county of Northamptonshire should be treated differently from the historic country of Cornwall. I am not suggesting that either is the right answer, but it seems that you have to have a reason for it. When I had to deal with Sir John Banham’s report, one of the things I found very difficult was that a number of the proposals did not seem to tie up with other proposals; it was therefore quite difficult to present them to the House of Commons because the other place, quite naturally, asked why it was that the proposals for this place were based on these arguments and the arguments were overturned in the proposals for some other place.
That leads me to question whether we have any idea about what we are trying to do. What is the Government’s view of local authorities? If we are going to do them piecemeal because of a disaster, I understand that we have to do it quickly—I will not hold up the proceedings any longer than I have to in asking these fundamental questions; I certainly will not suggest that one is not content with this—but it does not seem to be very good business. It does not seem to be a sensible way to proceed.
That leads me to my third point, which is simply this: we have had some quite successful changes in local government. If I remember rightly, the original changes in 1974, which were Conservative ones, were largely bad because they were based on the principle of having a whole lot of councils, many of which were not viable. For example, in my county of Suffolk, we should have had two unitary authorities: the old county council of east Suffolk and the old county council of west Suffolk. That would have been sensible. Instead, we had eight district councils and a county council. It is a very large area, much bigger than Northamptonshire, and it was not a sensible thing. Ever since, there have been attempts for councils to work together. That is now happening. East Suffolk Council is an amalgamation of two district councils. It is true of Mid Suffolk District Council and Babergh District Council and of the western district councils, which are now working together because that is the only way in which they can provide proper services at a proper price.
I do not particularly like neatness. It is the enemy of civilisation. I do not like the concept of being neat for the sake of it, but I do like rationality, and my problem here is that I see no rationality behind this. It looks to me as if there was a failing county council, it was a disaster, we put in some people to hold the place together and now let us get some answer, which we will have, but let us not be too careful about whether we have a philosophy behind it. What sort of numbers should we be dealing with in the historic county of Northamptonshire? Somebody should have said, “What about a unitary authority?” That is one answer. I am not suggesting that it is necessarily right, but should it not have been a question that was asked? Would it have been significantly more expensive? Then you would not have had to have a children’s trust. I am a bit worried about the need for a children’s trust but nobody thinks that you have to have any other, countywide, for what is not an enormous county and one that is quite a reasonable shape.
I have stayed behind because I want to know what the Government’s philosophy is. I know a number of the Minister’s civil servants from my own history—they have been around for quite some time—and I always want to know why we decide on a particular answer. This decision is not based on a “why”; this decision says that we are doing it because it is the easiest, quickest, simplest way—and pray to God it works. I am not sure that that is government.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a county councillor in Cumbria, and some of my remarks are going to relate to Cumbria in the context of what the Government have decided on Northampton- shire. I agree with many of the general points that the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and the noble Lord, Lord Deben, have made, but I am rather concerned that the Northamptonshire model is being seized on by Ministers as something that they can go around the country imposing on people, whatever they think. The cause of that suspicion is that Mr Jake Berry, the Minister for the Northern Powerhouse, summoned the leaders of the councils of Cumbria to see him and basically told them that the only option for the way forward was two unitary authorities in Cumbria—a county of some 500,000 people but obviously a vast geographical area—and that that was basically the Government’s intention. I realise that the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, may not be in a position to answer my questions, but I would be very grateful if he would commit to send me a letter in answer to the points I am about to make.
First, what is the current position on ministerial powers in relation to local government reorganisation? As I understand it, there was a provision in the Local Government Act to allow the department to impose schemes on areas but these powers have now lapsed. I am not sure whether I am right about that, so I want to know what the statutory power is at present and whether the Government are considering—because I know that there is talk of a devolution White Paper later in the year—taking on the power to reorganise local government even if there is not unanimous agreement? I rather gathered from what the Minister said that although seven of the eight authorities said they would accept the two-unitary structure in Northamptonshire, it was not necessarily unanimous of all the authorities. I do not know what the position is there. So, the first question is: where do we currently stand on ministerial powers and on the Government’s intentions for the future, given the Prime Minister’s laudable desire to make local government work better as he sees it and to devolve power?
Secondly, do the Government have rules about what they regard as the minimum size of a unitary authority? Again, there is talk of the normal rule being a population of 300,000, but is that a rule or is it just a thought when people are looking at these questions?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, I apologise for being slightly late. I was stuck in a committee. I declare an interest as a vice-chairman of the Local Government Association and president of the National Association of Local Councils. Probably more importantly, I am a member of Wiltshire Council. For 10 years, I led a unitary authority and for the six years before that I led a county council, leading it and its four districts in to a unitary authority. So I know quite a lot about unitary authorities. I agree wholeheartedly with the noble Lord, Lord Deben, that this is a mess. For many years, since I started in local government about 25 years ago, I have hoped that government would grasp hold of this and look at the reorganisation of local government so that we were more similar and sensible and would therefore have a stronger voice with central government because we would not be so complex in the way we do business.
I know a little bit about Northamptonshire, and I wish it well in the future. I think this is the right thing for that county, although personally I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Deben: I would have had one single unitary authority. Northamptonshire is about the same size as Wiltshire—about 500,000 people—which, in my experience, is about right, although I always said that if somebody gave me another 200,000 to 300,000 people, I would take them. I would have become much more efficient and been just as local. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and I have talked about this in the Chamber a number of times. There is no reason for a unitary authority to become divorced from its communities. People in Wiltshire will tell you that Wiltshire Council is now much closer to its communities. It takes work, planning and a system to do that, but it can be done. It can also work much better with its parish and town councils and start to look at devolution downwards. We talk a lot about devolution from central government to local government, but we forget the people on the ground. The people to deliver playgrounds, parks and gardens, swimming pools and things like that are towns and parishes. They do not cost the central taxpayer any money, because that is local precepting. It is easy for a town or parish to have a scheme, ask local people for the money, and be challenged on whether it has delivered it with the money it has got from local communities. I do not worry about size.
The other issue about size is that county councils now deliver more than 85% of the services across the county area. We are probably talking about 13% to 15% of the services, so why are we not thinking about a million? It would not worry me, providing that each of the unitary authorities is big and strategic but looks at how it can be local as well. That is possible. Cornwall and Wiltshire are doing this very successfully. They are also saving the money. I am sorry to say to the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, that it does not take long. In Wiltshire I was bothered, as every leader who changes a local government system must be, that local services would take a dip. I assure the Committee that every performance indicator in Wiltshire got better when we went to unitary and did so straight away. It did not dip. Not only that, we expected to make the savings in two years; we made them in 18 months. This is not a bad news story; it is a good news story. That is why I would support Northamptonshire all the way.
I would be concerned about children’s trusts. What Mr Berry said recently about Cumbria is concerning. It concerns me because if we take children’s services and adult care services out of local government, what is left? In local government over the past 10 years, we have shown how efficient and effective we can be. Just because there might be one difficult apple—not a bad apple, but experiencing difficulties—it does not mean that the system has to change. In both children’s and adults’ services, it is important that there is democratic accountability locally. We have seen what happens in the health service when there is not democratic accountability. Please do not do that to us for children’s and adult care services.
I could go on a great deal, but I will not. Northamptonshire has been through a very difficult time, and this is its chance to step up to the mark and deliver the services that its people deserve. I wish it all the best.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I refer to my relevant interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I thank the Minister for explaining the order. I agree with many of the points made by every Member here. Like my noble friend, I am generally a supporter of unitary authorities. I think they are the way to go, generally speaking. However, this is quite a sad day in some ways. We are not here because councils have come together and decided that this is what they need to do for their county. They have not had discussions and worked out that this is the best way forward. We are here because of complete incompetence and bad management at Northamptonshire County Council. This unitary authority decision has then been imposed on people. As we have heard, they could not have one unitary council—I do not know why, but they could not—and they could not have three. It had to be two. That is very disappointing.
I know the area really well. I lived and worked in the east Midlands for a very long time. I like Northamptonshire a lot. The town of Northampton got its charter in 1189. It has a beautiful town hall. The town was incorporated in 1835. The county itself is wonderful. As has already been said, it has a very compact shape and great road and rail links. There are great businesses there. Dr. Martens is in Wellingborough. The county also has Weetabix, Barclaycard and Carlsberg —all really good businesses. It is the home of the motor industry, with Silverstone and the Rockingham Motor Speedway. These are Premier League businesses with a Sunday league county council working for them. It is dreadful that we are where we are today.
Corby is another great town, with a great history in the steel industry. We may not all remember, but it was 40 years ago that the steelworks closed. Some 10,000 people lost their jobs in one fell swoop. However, the local community, the local authority and the councils came together, and they reinvented themselves.
I am also disappointed in the names of these two councils: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. They are terrible, dreadful names. Where have the historical county names gone? I mean names such as Northamptonshire, Kettering, Wellingborough, Corby and Daventry. We must also remember that we can have all the new names and structures and we can dismantle what has gone before, but unless the structure is sound, the funding is stable and the officers and members understand the challenge before them, this will solve nothing at all and we will back here again in a few months or a few years’ time.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
I thank the noble Lords who took part in the debate, which has been not only interesting but informed. It has also been somewhat philosophical, particularly in the remarks made by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock.
The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, and my noble friend Lady Scott referred to the children’s trust. I absolutely take note of their comments. All I can say is that I will take these concerns back as I am not in a position to answer them; perhaps these views are of a more philosophical sort.
In the same breath, let me say in response to the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, that a letter will be delivered to all noble Lords who took part in the debate, perhaps to put a little more meat on the bones of that particular comment relating to the children’s trust, but also to answer his questions. In fact, I will attempt to answer some of those questions during my closing remarks, but I suspect that I will not answer them in full.
Perhaps this is me being a bit philosophical, but this subject leads to endless debate. Everybody has their own view on how local services are best met and how local authorities and local councils come together best. I understand that. I have my own views; obviously, they are the views of the Government.
I start by setting out our high-level policy: what are we trying to do in local government reorganisation? I hope to allay some fears. The Government are open to innovative, locally led proposals that will improve services, enhance accountability and deliver financial sustainability. Any proposal considered under the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act process will require unanimous consent from all councils. Alternatively, the Secretary of State may issue a formal invitation for proposals.
Two circumstances will be considered in issuing such an invitation. The first is where the following two conditions are met: there is a local request for an invitation, and that request demonstrates that local opinion is coalescing around a single option that is reasonably likely to meet the existing publicly announced criteria for unitarisation. The second circumstance is where it is considered that this action would be appropriate given the specific circumstances of the area, including the long-term sustainability of local services. We are clear that any change to council structure should not be dreamed up or imposed by Whitehall, but led by councils and local people. Councils are much better placed to develop proposals that suit the unique needs of their residents and businesses. That is the overarching policy, which noble Lords have no doubt heard before.
Lord Deben
I am sorry to press my noble friend on this, but this proposal does not meet any of those things. First, it was not unanimously accepted by the local councils. Secondly, it was the Secretary of State who said what they could and could not agree to. There was no opportunity for innovative proposals; indeed, they were told precisely that there could not be innovative proposals. It is that that worries me. It is not that there is not a philosophy; it is that in no single case have I found that philosophy being followed. My noble friend, the former leader of Wiltshire Council, pointed out that Wilshire works perfectly well and so does Cornwall. Why was Northamptonshire not given the choice to have a single unitary authority? It is that that worries one. We are not keeping to what we said was our policy; I therefore wonder whether we really have a policy.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
I hear what my noble friend says, but I do not agree with him on this. There are several reasons for that. Of course he will expect me to say that; I will say it. We see a fresh start for the people of Northamptonshire. It will provide new councils in which local people can have confidence, providing effective, modern and sustainable services. Like the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, I thank the leaders of the eight—not seven—Northamptonshire councils and the commissioners for the leadership that they have shown to take us to this point.
On the lack of unanimity and there being one council —Corby—that was not entirely on board, it has consistently shown great strength of purpose in nearly supporting things, so when we say that it is not entirely unanimous, Corby was behind many of the issues. Perhaps a letter is required to give a little more information on that.
One of the most important things in this process is consultation. The local consultation described the majorities in favour as overwhelming, with 74% support overall and 77% and 70% in West Northamptonshire and North Northamptonshire respectively. I do not want to be drawn in on the names—I do not think that I can comment on that—but I take the noble Lord’s point on the names that were given.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
Where are West Northamptonshire and North Northamptonshire? They are dreadful, dreadful names. The Government could certainly have done something about that. Northampton got its charter in 1189. They are dreadful, dreadful names. Something much better should have been done.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
I think that I heard “dreadful” at least four times. I say, perhaps as a reassurance—although I do not think that it will wash with the noble Lord—that the names have been chosen locally. Admittedly there was no competition, but they were chosen locally rather than being imposed on them.
I shall go further on the consultation. The Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and Healthwatch Northamptonshire support a reduction in the number of councils. They both welcome the closer integration possible as a result of having to engage with fewer authorities, and agree that this is a positive opportunity for change to secure a sustainable future. The Northamptonshire police and crime commissioner is supportive and stated that the
“creation of unitary authorities would bring about clarity for the public and present opportunities for greater co-ordination, realisation of efficiencies and simpler partnership working.”
Finally, the Northamptonshire County Association of Local Councils reported that an overwhelming majority of town and parish councillors supported the principle of unitary authorities being established. We should not dismiss the opinions of local people in this respect. This allows me to pick up a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, about taking “local” out of “local government”. I point out to her that the new parish and town councils are in the process of being established, including in Kettering, Northampton and Wellingborough—note those names. I welcome and encourage this as an important way to strengthen local democracy and enable decisions to be taken to reflect the needs of local communities. I do not agree entirely with the noble Baroness that the local is being taken out the process. In my view, we still have some very robust local democracy.
I will pick up another point made by the noble Baroness about the role of councillors in the cabinet system. I think her point was that only 10 were making decisions, as opposed to the other 93—sorry, 89; my maths is bad. It will be for the new councils to determine the role of councillors and to ensure that all councillors can take a full role in representing their residents and ensuring an effective local democracy.
Furthermore, as to the size of wards, for the election in May 2020, each ward, which are county electoral divisions, will have three members. For the next election in May 2025, we expect the independent boundary commission to undertake a full electoral review. It is for the commission to decide the number of councillors and the size of wards. Experience shows that the new unitary councils establish strong and effective arrangements at parish and community levels, to add a little more to what I said. We would expect the new Northamptonshire councils to follow best practice—as, for example, in the unitary Wiltshire Council, led by my noble friend Lady Scott, if I may spare her blushes.
The noble Lord, Lord Deben, spoke and expressed concerns about process. My guess is that a letter will better satisfy him, but the start of the process was the independent inspector. The proposal made follows exactly the inspector’s recommendation. The consideration behind the inspector’s recommendation was that a new start was needed, with two new councils. In the inspector’s view, two unitaries best met this aim and the criteria for unitary local government: improving local government; a credible geography with a population substantially in excess of 300,000; and a good deal of support. That penultimate figure perhaps answers the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle. To clarify, the figure is substantially in excess of 300,000. A unitary county would risk being seen as replicating and rewarding a failing county.
The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, spoke about Cumbria with great passion, for obvious reasons. The position in Cumbria is all about a devolution deal. It is for Cumbria to decide whether it wishes to have a devolution deal; initial discussions are continuing. Major deals have involved a mayoral combined authority. If Cumbria wished to have a mayor deal with a mayoral combined authority, it would point to a simplification of current local government structures: establishing unitary councils. We know that there are different local views about unitary structures for Cumbria. As I am sure the noble Lord will tell me, discussions are continuing. We will want to hear more from the local area in this respect.
The noble Lord made points about the elected mayors. The idea of elected mayors arises in major devolution deals where substantial powers and budgets are devolved over a functional economic area. An elected mayor is seen as providing a strong single point of accountability for the exercise of those powers and for managing those budgets. That elected mayor can be a combined authority mayor if there is more than one authority in the functional economic area, or if that area comprises a single unitary council or an elected mayor of that council.
Lord Liddle
I would take that point if the elected mayor had substantial powers and there was a substantial devolution of the budget. As I understand it, in my county—I could be wrong and I am quite happy to be corrected by the noble Lord’s officials—Mr Berry is talking about a devolution deal that might give Cumbria £10 million a year. That is a very small amount of money compared with the county council’s revenue and capital budgets, never mind the other district councils. I think that our net revenue budget is more than £400 million; the districts must have another £80 million. We have a LEP, of course, which is already in place and deals with economic development. I do not quite understand whether the Government are saying that, if there is a reorganisation in areas such as Cumbria, the mayor will replace the LEP. I was against the abolition of regional development agencies—it was a mistake for the coalition to do that—but the emphasis then was put on local enterprise partnerships. Are we now, hardly a decade later, shifting on to mayors as something completely different?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
That just proves that there are different views; the noble Lord will have his views and other noble Lords will have theirs. Setting up mayoral authorities is not a case of one system fits all—it comes down to the ongoing discussions that are taking place. My understanding is that the mayors would not replace the LEPs, but I do not want to prejudge the negotiations. There are going to be different setups. As the noble Lord will know, there are already different setups in existing mayoral authorities. Regarding the figures that have been mentioned, a substantial deal would be one on the size and scale of that for Greater Manchester or the West Midlands.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I used to keep saying these things when the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, was the Minister: the idea is that these things just evolve, but it always looks like a confused mess to me. Local government looks like a real mess in England outside of London. It is all over the place and I really do not think this is good. I know it is not the Minister’s fault, but the department is not clear on what it is trying to achieve. I remember discussions with the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, who lives in Cambridge. He described all the tiers of government in his county—and next door, there was just one tier. It is just shambolic.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
I cannot agree with the noble Lord. Surely, he would agree that there is good sense in talking to the locals to work through the issues and to get their buy-in to what they want, within the parameters I have set out. I cannot see the problem with that. Already, a format is evolving: that this is the wish of local people all around the country, particularly up north, where 37% of people are under the aegis of mayoral authorities; that this is actually what local people want.
This is not so much a philosophical thing, but as the noble Lord will know, we have announced the devolution White Paper. This is an opportunity to reflect and review. I do not know what is going to be in it or what will come out of it, but we are going to look at all aspects of local government in the White Paper, which will be produced in due course. I hope it will help to allay the noble Lord’s fears. It might answer the question of my noble friend Lord Deben as to why Northamptonshire is treated differently from Cornwall. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. For example, discussions are going on in North Yorkshire about York being a unitary. Cornwall, as we know, is treated differently. It is important to come back to the point that this has got to be driven by local people deciding what they wish.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
Again, I would agree with that statement, but the problem is that it is not the case. The Minister says that local people can decide, but they are given only one or two options. The Government are not letting them decide; they are narrowing down the options to a specific number and ruling things out before people get the chance to decide. They are setting a rigid framework and saying, “You can have that or nothing at all”. That is not letting local people decide, and that is the basic problem.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
I take note of what the noble Lord has said. Actually, it falls in line with what I said at the beginning, which is that a letter is due. I will do my best to set out our approach in more detail, because there is sense in what we are doing. This is not a scattergun approach and nor is it chaotic.
I want to answer a question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, concerning Northamptonshire and the new arrangements. He asked: why not one or three unitaries, rather than two? The inspector recommended that a two-unitary solution was best because a one-unitary council was perceived as replicating and rewarding the failing county council, and three was seen as not meeting the criteria on credible geography with councils of adequate size.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook
I urge the Government to look again at the issue of consulting. I fully agree that it is about consulting local communities, local people. I have a problem when we take too much notice of those district and county authorities that are still there. With the greatest respect, they are trying to protect themselves, their officers—which is understandable —their members and their authority. Their views are sometimes challenged by that. It should be local communities that make the decision, not the local authorities within them.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I promise that this will be my last comment. The argument that we could not have a unitary authority for the whole county because it would be seen as rewarding the county council that has failed is rather weak. There was a failure of political leadership. The way to deal with that is to remove the people and not let them stand again. Not going forward with the one-council option because it could be seen as a replica of the failed county council is a weak reason.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
I pledge to write on that point and to tie it in with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. I have not addressed the review of savings made. In my letter, I will attempt to give the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, a response on that matter and address the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, on the position of ministerial powers. That comes down to giving a coherent view of how ministerial powers juxtapose with local ones.
I hope that that is helpful and that I have addressed the many points raised. As I said, a letter will be coming that fully addresses the points that were made. Once again, I thank noble Lords for their contributions.
House of Lords
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Oaths and Affirmations
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Housing: New Homes
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Neville-Rolfe
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they intend to further their aims of (1) building 300,000 new homes each year for the next five years, and (2) making the planning system simpler.
Baroness Berridge (Con)
My Lords, we have delivered more than 1.5 million new homes since 2010, with last year seeing over 241,000 net additions—the highest level delivered for over 30 years—but there is much more to do. We will review everything from planning reforms to housing zones, backed with more than £44 billion of support, over five years. To make the planning process simpler, we will publish a planning White Paper in due course. These actions, taken together, will see us deliver 300,000 homes yearly by the mid-2020s.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My noble friend’s Answer confirms that increasing the availability of housing is a complicated matter with many facets, two of which I probed. It is vital to look forward, to have a clear strategy and to deliver on it, and not to twist and turn. Does the Minister agree that policy on building and planning needs to go with the grain of economics and take proper account of incentives to the private sector, including to smaller builders? Does she also agree that one important factor on which UK Governments will be judged is their success in meeting voters’ aspirations to own their own home?
Baroness Berridge
My noble friend is correct that economics and the prompting that the Government can give this sector are important. That is why local authorities must now have a five-year land supply as part of their reporting requirements. Within that, they have to identify small and medium-sized sites, because we have recently seen a decline in the number of small and medium-sized enterprises. We need to encourage those businesses and make funding available to them, because they are so important, particularly in training the next generation of the workforce and apprenticeships.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I draw the attention of the House to my registered interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. What are the Government going to do about the crisis of planning permissions being granted but not a brick being laid? At the last check, there were well over 250,000 applications with nothing happening on those sites. If you have land and have received planning permission to build homes, but you do not take action, surely the Government should do something. If nothing has happened in 12 months, surely the Government should find somebody to build houses on these big sites.
Baroness Berridge
The noble Lord is correct that, once planning permission is granted—which can take about two years—it is in everyone’s interests, including the developer and the local community, that the site is built on. Last year, we saw more than 375,000 grants of planning permission. The noble Lord is aware that in 2018 Sir Oliver Letwin was asked to review whether there was a hold-up of what is called the build-out rate. His main conclusion was about the absorption rate of bringing large numbers of units into the local market. He recommended that we diversify the type of units on each site, so they can be put on the market in smaller groups, appeal more widely and not affect the market price.
Lord Krebs (CB)
My Lords, the Minister will be aware that many new houses are being built in flood-risk areas. Between 2001 and 2014, 250,000 new homes were built in such areas and currently the number being built in them is increasing year on year. Many of these houses are being built against Environment Agency advice. Although some are protected by hard flood defences, does the noble Baroness agree that two measures should be crucial to all new building developments; namely, the installation of sustainable urban drainage systems and, secondly, the removal of the automatic right to connect to often overloaded Victorian drains?
Baroness Berridge
The noble Lord is correct to raise this issue, given the effects of the recent storm. Many communities are today living with the effects of flooding in their properties. However, it would be unrealistic to ban all development in flood-risk areas because around 10% of England and parts of London are viewed as being at high risk. These decisions need to be taken locally and carefully, and the Environment Agency is one of the statutory bodies that needs to be consulted on planning.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
My Lords, one of the tools the Government are using is the housing delivery test. I believe it is designed to put even more pressure on councils to deliver even more development and I can see where the Government are coming from. However, the regime is forcing councils in already built up and congested urban areas to accept applications for large tower blocks ranging from 20 storeys to, in Croydon for example, 65 storeys in height. Do the Government accept that these developments are very unpopular with the public and do they recognise that these concerns are justified? Such buildings will impact on the townscape and the built environment, and certainly on quality of life. The jury is still out on the quality of family life on the 61st floor of a major tower block.
Baroness Berridge
The noble Baroness raises an important issue that will be part of the planning White Paper: how do we involve communities in the planning process and is guidance to consult before a planning application sufficient, or should there be consultation before that? The housing delivery test mentioned by the noble Baroness is one of the tools the Government are using to hold local authorities to account for the part they play in delivering the number of houses needed in their local communities—and they are best placed to know that. The good news is that in 2018, two-thirds of local authorities had indeed delivered to the correct threshold under the housing delivery test, but we have promised to review it after 18 months, which I believe will be in August of this year.
Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)
My Lords, does my noble friend recall that the last time a Conservative Government built 300,000 houses a year was under Harold Macmillan, when Ernie Marples built them for him? He found that private housebuilders were not capable of building at that rate because they had to depend on investment by local authorities and housing associations. Would she welcome that in this target?
Baroness Berridge
My noble friend is correct about the rate of housebuilding, but given that we completed 241,000 builds last year, there is evidence that such a figure can be delivered. Housing associations, councils and small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as self-build and custom-build, all need to be part of this, with a particular emphasis on small and medium-sized sites. Some 10% of the land in a plan must be of less than a hectare in size, so we need to use all those means to deliver the 300,000 homes a year that this country needs, because 90% of young people want to own their own home.
Lord Cunningham of Felling (Lab)
My Lords, seven years ago the Government made a commitment, setting a target to build 160,000 public sector houses by 2020. That target has not been met. Given that the Government are, among other things, encouraging public sector bodies—hospitals, schools and local authorities—to surrender what is termed “surplus land” for housebuilding, why have they made such a mess of reaching that target?
Baroness Berridge
My Lords, there is now a longer timeframe for the target of 160,000 homes to be delivered from public sector land use, but 51,000 homes have been delivered under that. It has not been for lack of effort by government departments. There have been complications in releasing some of the land, and some of the land has been repurposed by departments. For instance, the Department for Education has used some land for schools that is then not available for housing. It will take longer, but the Government take seriously their responsibility to meet that target.
Housing: Social Homes for Rent
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Shipley
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to increase the number of social homes for rent.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and remind the House of my registered interest with the Local Government Association.
Baroness Berridge (Con)
My Lords, this Government’s priority is to boost the housing supply. We remain committed to increasing social housing, with £9 billion in the affordable housing programme delivering around 250,000 new affordable homes, including homes for social rent. We have fully supported local authorities to build by removing the HRA borrowing caps and setting a long-term rent deal, and are committed to renewing the affordable homes programme.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply, but I point out that social rented housebuilding has decreased over the last year, and only 6,287 new social rented homes were delivered in England in 2018-19. Despite increases in housebuilding overall, social rent made up only 2.5% of all homes delivered in England in 2018-19. Of the affordable homes delivered, to which the Minister refers, only 11% were for social rent, while 51% were for affordable rent and 37% for intermediate tenures, including shared ownership. Do the Government accept that the housing crisis will never be solved unless more homes for social rent are built?
Baroness Berridge
The Government accept that councils and housing associations need to play their part in building the number of homes we have outlined—there are 4.14 million homes in this country that are housing association or local council owned—and that is why the Government have reintroduced the grant for affordable homes, with a minimum of 12,500 social rent homes within the affordable homes programme. That is in addition to local authorities now having the borrowing cap removed, so that they can build more, particularly on those small and medium-sized sites that I have outlined.
Baroness Greengross (CB)
My Lords, the number of people aged over 65 in the UK—many of whom need and deserve social housing—will rise by over 40%, to more than 16 million, in the next 17 years. The number who have four or more diseases is expected to double by 2035. The fact that two-thirds are unable to invite a wheelchair user into their home is absolutely appalling. The government consultation on mandating accessible and adaptable housing was promised in the autumn, but we are still waiting for it. Will the Minister confirm when that consultation will start? We have now been waiting for eight months since the initial announcement.
Baroness Berridge
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her question. A specific question I asked of officials was about accessibility for older people and disabled people. However, I may disappoint her by saying that all I can tell her is that we will consult shortly on raising the minimum standards for accessible housing in all new homes. The revised National Planning Policy Framework in July 2018 strengthened policy in this area. It is the responsibility of local authorities, which know the demographics of their area, to include in local plans the amount of housing that they need for older people and adults with learning disabilities.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, many of the social homes for rent referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, are built under Section 106 agreements by developers with local authorities. My noble friend will know that, once development has started, quite often the developers, using a so-called viability assessment, then wriggle out of the commitment to build social homes. Is my noble friend aware of this loophole? What action are the Government taking to close it?
Baroness Berridge
Noble Lords have previously raised this issue in debates on this topic. Social housing in this country comes from the budget in the affordable housing programme and the borrowing that local councils can now do, and, yes, under Section 106 agreements. There has been a problem with developers then saying that they are not economically viable. In the plans I have mentioned, there are now requirements that landowners and site purchasers will know the likely costs up front, so they will know the types of affordable housing provision they have to provide and the levels of it. They will know that up front, before they buy the land, so they cannot then come back to the council and say, “Oh, we purchased the land for a different sum of money, and it is now no longer economically viable”. I hope that that will close the loophole.
Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I note with some caution the noble Baroness’s confidence about private sector housing. From my knowledge of places such as Tower Hamlets, I know that huge development has not necessarily yielded a social rent market in any meaningful way. What are the Government doing to ensure that her department is working with the housing associations, which have a long, honourable history of creating quality housing for social rent purposes? I declare my interest as on the register.
Baroness Berridge
Both councils and housing associations can bid to the affordable homes programme for that money. Housing associations now have the benefit of a 10-year secure, £2 billion-worth of funding; they have never had that, under any Government. They should be able to plan to deliver the homes that we need. We recognise that, particularly for those at risk of being homeless and for particular families, we need to increase the number of homes available for social rent. We want to see a new generation of council housing, built both by housing associations and by local councils.
Victorian Mills
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Pinnock
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to bring back into use empty Victorian mills in the Pennine area of the North of England.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Barran) (Con)
My Lords, England’s mills are the engines of the original northern powerhouse. With 2 million square metres of unused floor space, there is enormous opportunity to repurpose these historic buildings for residential, commercial and community use. We will capitalise on this, combining Historic England’s expertise with the Government’s £4.5 billion home building fund. Forty-five places identified as eligible to apply for the Government’s £3.6 billion towns fund are also located within the northern powerhouse, providing further opportunity to level up through returning the north’s industrial heritage to viable productive use.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
I thank the Minister for her reply and for the meeting we had last week to discuss this. Historic England reports that there are more than 500 former textile mills in the Pennines region that are disused and falling into disrepair. These are iconic buildings, and many are listed. Conversion will bring many benefits; for example, an estimated 120,000 apartments could be put into these mill buildings. This would, at the same time, preserve a source of civic pride. Will the Government commit to housing funding to kick-start their regeneration?
Baroness Barran
I thank the noble Baroness for her Question. She is right to highlight the potential of these buildings and the important place that they hold within their communities. I have already touched on some of the big funding streams that will be going into this area; we hope that the combination of skills that organisations such as Historic England bring, in partnership with local authorities and those major funding streams, will result in a number of these buildings being redeveloped.
The Lord Bishop of Leeds
My Lords, there are some wonderful examples of how old mills being rejuvenated and given new life, such as Salts Mill in Saltaire and Manningham Mills, although there is a vast amount of empty space there. If they were icons of the old northern powerhouse, they are now becoming icons of dereliction. Does the Minister agree that if nothing is going to happen, then it would be better to knock them down? I do not favour that, but there needs to be a strategy that allows these wonderful buildings to be brought back into life, to be given a sort of resurrection.
Baroness Barran
The right reverend Prelate is right: the pattern of development and disrepair is very uneven. It often reflects the strength of the local economy, which in some areas permits commercial redevelopment and in others makes it much more challenging. With our arm’s-length bodies, we are exploring how to address the areas that the right reverend Prelate is concerned about.
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)
My Lords, these are such interesting questions, and there is such a diversity of interests around the House. I once taught Anglo-Saxon literature. “Beowulf” is full of allusions to decrepit buildings left behind by the Romans. This seems as endemic a feature of the British landscape as its history. There are five hundred and something of these mills still standing, asking for something to happen to them. The tourist industry comes to mind—our industrial heritage is an important part of our history that it could well incorporate—but could priority be given to those mills that stand in places which do not, at the moment, attract that many visitors, to give them a focal point that could create a little bit of energy from the touristic side and in terms of our heritage?
Baroness Barran
There is a lot of energy going into these issues. The noble Lord is right that tourism is an important beneficiary of these mills’ regeneration. As he will know, the Government have just developed a new tourism deal. All these issues will be considered as part of it.
Baroness Eaton (Con)
My Lords, I have spent a great deal of my life living in an area of textile mills. Can the Minister suggest how we overcome the challenges presented by the original use of these buildings; for example, where oil from the woollen industry has impregnated the floors and the fabric of them?
Baroness Barran
My noble friend raises a point about how previous usage impacts on the ability to regenerate. This is true across a range of historic and industrial heritage buildings, not just mills. Again, Historic England can provide a lot of expertise in this area, but I am aware that this is a matter of concern. Sadly, as a result of arson, in the last decade there have been more than 100 fires in the Bradford mills close to my noble friend’s home, but we are working with the fire and rescue services to address this.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, will the Government replace the money we have received up to now from the EU for heritage projects, without which mill conversions will be significantly more difficult?
Baroness Barran
The details on that are not yet fully worked out but the noble Earl will be aware of the shared prosperity fund which is looking to address a number of areas of previous EU funding.
Lord Greaves (LD)
My Lords, Brierfield Mill, a large grade 2 listed building in east Lancashire, now known as Northlight, is being redeveloped as a joint venture between Pendle Borough Council—I declare my interest—and a local development company, with a £32 million project of investment in leisure, arts, apartments, work spaces and canal-side moorings, with much more to come. Will the Minister take back the lessons from Brierfield Mill that the way to carry out successful projects of this kind is for them to be promoted and carried out by the local authority, working together with local businesses and local people, and for the Government to provide the necessary funding for it to happen, but then to strictly avoid the time-wasting and energy-sapping temptation to micromanage the project from Whitehall or even from the LEP?
Baroness Barran
The Government are keen on devolving power to the regions and this type of partnership and community engagement is exactly what we are aspiring to.
Hate Crime: Anti-Semitism
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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The Lord Bishop of St Albans
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they have taken to address antisemitic hate crime.
Baroness Berridge (Con)
My Lords, the Government are committed to combating all forms of antisemitism. Our cross-party working group ensures that we are alive to Jewish community concerns and can respond effectively, alongside the advice of the noble Lord, Lord Mann, as our independent adviser. We have spent nearly £860,000 this year on projects tackling religiously and racially motivated hatred, including almost £150,000 to tackle anti-Semitism online.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans
I thank the noble Baroness for her Answer. According to the Community Security Trust, the number of anti-Semitic instances has risen for each of the past four years. It is a growing problem. We in the churches have been exploring with Jewish groups any role that we may have played in the past with any stereotyping. Recently, the entire College of Bishops of the Church of England signed up to the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism. Education will be key. I am grateful for what the noble Baroness has said, but can she tell us not only about the funds but which projects and resources Her Majesty’s Government are making available so that we can address, through education, the stereotyping and the troping of Jewish people to address this scourge.
Baroness Berridge
I am pleased to note that the right reverend Prelate said that the bishops have adopted the definition. In 2016, this Government were the first to do so. The Department for Education specifically teaches on the Holocaust in schools through programmes such as lessons on Auschwitz and the work of the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education. It is the only compulsory named topic in the history curriculum. We agree that the effective teaching of pupils can help them understand the possible consequences of anti-Semitism. I am sure that the right reverend Prelate is taking his experience back to the many schools that the Church of England runs in our country.
Lord Mann (Non-Afl)
I refer to my declaration in the register of interests. As well as the bishops, six football clubs—Chelsea, West Ham United, Newcastle United, Bournemouth, Brighton and Crystal Palace—have all adopted the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism. Does the Minister agree that if it is good enough for the Church and football clubs, then it should be good enough for employers, trade unions, universities and other institutions of civil society?
Baroness Berridge
I agree with the noble Lord. He will be aware that the relevant Ministers have written to local authorities and universities asking them to adopt this definition. Noble Lords will be aware that I answered this question on behalf of the Department for Education not many months ago. The rate of take-up is not what the Government want. There is now a proposal that information about those universities and local authorities which have not signed up to the definition will in some form be made public.
Lord Pickles (Con)
My Lords, I draw noble Lords’ attention to my declaration of interests and associate myself with the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Mann. Given that anti-Semitism is often an open gateway to violent extremism, does the Minister think that now is an appropriate time for the Government to incorporate anti-Semitism into their Prevent strategy?
Baroness Berridge
My Lords, I am unfortunately not aware of whether that has been proposed although, as noble Lords will know, we have recently reviewed the Prevent strategy. I will take my noble friend’s suggestion back, write to him and put the letter in the Library.
Lord Singh of Wimbledon (CB)
My Lords, anti-Semitism is evil and should be combated in every possible way, but will the Minister make it clear that the Government are equally committed to tackling hate crimes against all communities, even those of non-Abrahamic faiths?
Baroness Berridge
My Lords, the Government abhor all hate crimes committed on the basis of religion or of lack of religious belief. In relation to the legislative framework in this area, I am pleased to tell the House that, due to the of prevalence of these offences online, the Law Commission is currently looking at the Malicious Communications Act and will shortly be announcing a consultation on hate crime legislation to see whether it sufficiently covers all religious groups. There are peculiarities in relation to the legislation when a religious group is also a racial group.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I agree with others in this House that anti-Semitism is an evil prejudice and that we must do everything to drive it out. Will the Minister agree to speak to the Cabinet Office Minister Chloe Smith to look at the possibility of changing the nomination process for all public elections, to require candidates to confirm their opposition to anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and all other race and hate crimes, as well as changing our code of conduct in this House? If anyone falls short of their commitments, swift action can be taken by the relevant authorities, up to and including expulsion from the relevant House, Parliament, Assembly or local authority.
Baroness Berridge
I thank the noble Lord for his suggestions. In relation to the Cabinet Office, I am sure that officials are listening to today’s debate and will act upon it. The code of conduct is for the authorities here, but the noble Lord will be aware that the APPG has been asking all MPs to sign the declaration; 641 out of 643 have signed the definition. Unfortunately, two sitting MPs and seven Sinn Féin MPs—who do not take up their places—have not signed.
Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)
My Lords, we have just marked the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, but this shocking report referred to by the right reverend Prelate shows that levels of anti-Semitism have never been higher. I fear that we have not learned the lessons of the past. What will the Government do right now to stem this tide of what the Home Secretary herself has called
“this shameful stain on our society”?
Baroness Berridge
My Lords, I have outlined some of the actions that the Government are taking. However, it is for all of society to take responsibility: families, communities and faith groups. Yes, the Community Security Trust figures are the highest on record; they match the Home Office figures, which show that a greater proportion of religiously motivated hate crime is against the Jewish community. The Government have now announced funding of half a million pounds to take 200 university students to Auschwitz so that they can then go back to their campus and educate others.
Transport Infrastructure
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement made in the other place by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister. The Statement is as follows:
“With permission, Mr Speaker, there are all sorts of reasons why the city in which we now sit is the most productive region in the whole of Europe—the time zone, the language, the agglomeration of talents and, above all, the mass transit system that every day conveys millions of people efficiently and affordably, with tubes and 8,600 buses, into the central activities zone in the morning and out in the evening, like the respiration of some vast undersea coelenterate.
As that public transport network has expanded in the last 150 years it has brought hope and opportunity and job prospects to people growing up in every part of this city and beyond, and it is the ambition of this Government to employ that same utensil—fantastic transport infrastructure—to unite and level up across the country. Of course there is far more to do in London—frankly, the present mayor needs to be shaken from his complacency—but there is even more to do across the nation as a whole. Whether you are stuck in a jam on the A303 or on the outskirts of Lincoln, whether you are trying to get from Warrington to Manchester or toiling across the Pennines by rail, you know that this country is being held back by our inadequate infrastructure.
So in the next few weeks this Government will be setting out more details of a transport revolution, because we all know the potential of transport to change your life and the life of your town or city, and we know that efficient transport can clean the air and cut pollution and get cars off the road. We can simultaneously reach our ambition of net zero by 2050, shorten your commute and give you more time with your family, increase productivity and bring business and investment to left-behind communities. That is why we are embarking on a massive programme of investment in local transport, starting with a record-breaking £5 billion of new investment in buses and bicycles.
That investment will mean bus passengers across the country seeing a dramatic improvement in their daily journeys, with more than 4,000 brand-new buses—zero-carbon British-built buses—on the roads of places like Ashfield, Barnstaple, Southampton, Manchester and many more towns and cities besides. There will be more services, especially in the evenings and weekends, simpler, cheaper and more convenient ticketing, and properly designed priority schemes to speed passengers past the traffic jams. It is an investment that will also mean cyclists enjoying hundreds of miles of brand-new separated lanes, with ‘mini-Hollands’ blooming like so many tulips in towns and cities right across the country.
That £5 billion is just the start. My very good friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be making a full announcement on this in next month’s Budget, and I have no desire to steal his thunder, but I can signal today that we are taking forward transformative investments: road improvements from Cornwall to the A1 north of Newcastle; from south Salisbury to south Ribble; from Cheadle to Chiverton; dual carriageways, roundabouts, bypasses, underpasses—and those are just the roads.
We have already set out plans to explore new investments in the rail network across the north—developing proposals to reopen the Fleetwood line in Lancashire and the Ashington-Blyth rail line in the north-east, improving track and platform capacity at Middlesbrough station, and installing new signalling at Harrogate, one of North Yorkshire’s busiest stations. Further south, I can today announce that we will be upgrading the Bristol East junction—a major pinch point in the rail network of the south-west that limits access to the Brunel-designed Victorian splendour of Bristol Temple Meads station.
This transport revolution is local, because it must be local. We can unite and level up across the country, with fantastic local improvements—better rail and less congested roads, beautiful British-made buses that are cleaner, greener, quieter, safer and more frequent, and above all, we can improve the quality of life and improve productivity, and make places more attractive to live in and to invest in. But we cannot make these improvements in isolation from one another, because we will only be doing half the job. We will not fix the great musculoskeletal problem of UK transport.
Yes, we must fix the joint between the knee bone and the thigh bone—and the shin bone and the ankle bone. And yes, we must fix the arthritis in the fingers and the toes. But we also have to fix the spine. Our generation faces a historic choice: we can try to get by with the existing routes from north to south and consign the next generation to overcrowding and standing up in the carriages, or we can have the guts to take a decision, no matter how difficult and controversial, that will deliver prosperity to every part of the country. This will take 50 minutes off the time to Glasgow.
When it comes to advocating HS2, it must be said that the task is not made easier by HS2 Ltd, the company concerned. Speaking as a Member of Parliament whose constituency is on the route, I cannot say that HS2 Ltd has distinguished itself in its handling of local communities and, as everyone knows, the cost forecasts have exploded. However, the poor management to date has not detracted from the fundamental value of the project.
The review recently conducted by Douglas Oakervee, copies of which will be placed in the Library of the House, leaves no doubt of the clinching case for high-speed rail. A vast increase in capacity, with hundreds of thousands of extra seats, making it so much easier for travellers to move up down our long, narrow country, means not just more capacity but extraordinarily faster journey times. Passengers arriving at Birmingham Airport will be able to get to central London by train in 38 minutes, which compares favourably with the time that it takes to get from Heathrow by taxi, a point that I just draw to the attention of the House. But this is not just about getting from London to Birmingham and back considerably faster than the Piccadilly line. It is about finally making a rapid connection from the West Midlands to the northern powerhouse to Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds while simultaneously permitting us to go forward with Northern Powerhouse Rail across the Pennines, finally giving the home of the railways the fast connections that it needs—and none of this makes any sense without HS2.
The Infrastructure and Projects Authority considers that this first phase can be delivered for its current projected cost of £35 billion to £45 billion in today’s prices. The designs have been improved immeasurably thanks to the tireless contributions of campaigners, including the right honourable Member for Chesham and Amersham, who I do not think is in her place. If we start now, services could be running by the end of the decade.
So today the Cabinet has given high-speed rail the green signal. We are going to get this done and, to ensure that we do so without further blowouts on either cost or schedule, we are today taking decisive action to restore discipline to the programme. I will be appointing a Minister whose full-time job will be to oversee the project. A new ministerial oversight group will be tasked with taking strategic decisions about it. There will be changes to the way that HS2 Ltd is managed. In line with Mr Oakervee’s recommendations, we will be interrogating the current costs to identify where savings can be made on phase 1 without the costs and delays associated with a detailed redesign. So that the company can focus solely on getting phases 1 and 2a built on something approaching time and budget, I will be creating new delivery vehicles for both the grossly behind-schedule Euston terminus and phase 2b of the wider project.
However, before those designs are finalised and legislation introduced, we will also present an integrated plan for rail in the north. Informed by an assessment from the National Infrastructure Commission, it will, in line with the findings of the Oakervee review, look at how we can best design and integrate rail investments across the north, including Northern Powerhouse Rail between Leeds and Manchester. I have just spoken to the Mayor of Greater Manchester, who has warmly welcomed this project, which I committed to supporting, I seem to remember, during my first days in office.
I want the plan to identify the most effective design and sequencing of all relevant investments in the north. For example, with many in the north crying out for better east-west links instead of improved north-south ones, which we have heard many times in this House, some have suggested delaying or even cancelling HS2 in order to get Northern Powerhouse Rail done more quickly. I want to say to you, Mr Speaker, and to the House that this is not an either/or proposition. Both are needed, and both will be built as quickly and cost-effectively as possible. To ensure that this happens, we will—working closely with northern leaders—explore options for creating a new delivery vehicle for Northern Powerhouse Rail. We will also start treating HS2 north of Birmingham, Northern Powerhouse Rail and other local rail improvements as part of one integrated masterplan: high-speed north.
Something has to change. Those who deny this, who say that we should simply build 2b and Northern Powerhouse Rail according to the plans currently on the table, are effectively condemning the north to get nothing for 20 years. That would be intolerable. As we draw up this plan, therefore, we are not asking whether it is phase 2b or not 2b—
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
That is not the question. The question is how we can bring a transport revolution to the north sooner. Together, this revolution in both local and national transport has the potential to be truly transformative for the entire country. Yes, it is ambitious—but ambition is what we have lacked for too long. Two centuries ago, our ancestors could have been content with breeding faster horses. Instead, they invented the railways. They created the transport network on which the United Kingdom rose to economic pre-eminence. They looked to the future of transport and made it happen, and today it is our duty today to do the same. Let us bring about a future where high-speed trains glide between our great cities; where electric buses convey us cleanly around our towns; where self-driving cars roam along roads that are free of the congestion that causes so much pollution; and where a new generation of cyclists pedal safely and happily to school and work in tree-dappled sunlight—
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
—in tree-dappled sunlight on their own network of fully segregated cycle lanes, as we did in London.
This Government will deliver a new anatomy of British transport—a revolution in this nation’s public transport provision and a sign to the world that, in the 21st century, this United Kingdom still has the vision to dream big dreams and the courage to bring those dreams about. I commend this Statement to the House.” [Applause.]
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, that has rather spoilt my opening lines. I was of course going to thank the Minister for repeating the Statement, and also to suggest that if it were not for the conventions of the House I could congratulate her, knowing that there would be a natural instinct to follow that with a round of applause. The trouble is, there was actually a round of applause. I am afraid that my response will be nothing like as entertaining.
Lord Tunnicliffe
No, it is an impossible bar. Perhaps the noble Baroness would consider writing for the Spectator.
I welcome the Statement—not for what it says, which I will go through with some care—but for what it does not say, because the essence of this Statement is that it does not say “HS2 is cancelled”. That is, frankly, the only substantial point it makes. I want to make it very clear—to avoid all doubt—that Labour supports HS2, Labour supports northern rail and Labour supports the whole concept of a fully integrated, nationally owned railway system owned by the public and operated for the whole nation.
I will try to point out where the hard commitments are in this Statement—so it will not be a very long speech. I was involved in the improvements at London Transport and subsequently TfL, from the King’s Cross tragedy in 1987 until today. I am very proud of my involvement in that and of the people who worked with me. I did not expect to be praised by the Prime Minister in a Statement about northern rail, but I thank him very much. As one who has spent most waking moments over the past 12 years trying to screw more money out of the Government, I am very pleased that the Prime Minister has not forgotten his London roots and ends up saying not only how wonderful the mass transit system is but that there is more to do in London. Can I take that as a commitment for more money and, if so, how much and when? I find no other possible interpretation given the general speech.
The next commitment is, like most of the commitments in the Statement, pretty fluffy. The Prime Minister goes on to say that we are
“being held back by our inadequate infrastructure and so in the next few weeks this government will be setting out more details of a transport revolution”
When is the “next few weeks”? I thought about that phrase. A few weeks is sooner than a few months and more than a few days. Could we settle, say, on the end of March? Can the Minister give us a commitment on when this will happen? We know in this House that Ministers sometimes slip from commitments unless they are very clear, so I hope that she will be able to give us a date.
The first spending commitment is the record-breaking £5 billion of new investment in buses and bicycles. Can the Minister indicate a timeframe for that? It could be anything from a year to 50 years; it has to be set against the fact that, since 2010, the Government have inflicted cuts of £645 million a year in real terms on bus services, with 3,300 routes cut or withdrawn and fares soaring by two and a half times average wages. Just how immediate a commitment is this? Is it over 10 years? Is it over five years? Is it over an even shorter time?
I then ploughed on to see whether there was anything of substance and found nothing more until I got to page 5 of the printed version of the Statement, at which point the Prime Minister said that
“that £5 billion is just the start”.
I love these phrases: “just the start” means there is more. Does the Minister agree that that means that there is more than £5 billion? Will this be set out in the Budget?
The Statement then goes into a whole series of road improvements—you will notice that there is no commitment to any particular project; there is no money; there is no deadline. On the next page, it talks about
“new investments in the rail network across the North”
and then repeats three schemes which have already been announced, once again with no deadlines and no budget. The paragraph concludes with one of the singular commitments in the Statement:
“I can today announce that we will be upgrading the Bristol East junction”.
What a delight that that is picked out to be in the midst of this splendid speech.
I could not find anything of substance on pages 7 or 8, but then I got to page 9. There, the Prime Minister slags off the management of HS2:
“Speaking as an MP whose constituency is on the route I cannot say that the company has distinguished itself in its handling of local communities. The cost forecasts have exploded. But the poor management to date has not detracted from the fundamental value of the project.”
What is he going to do about the management? At no point in the speech that I read does he make any recommendations about that.
Page 10, once again, contains absolutely nothing in terms of commitments. When we get to page 11, we are beginning to creep up to a commitment. It starts in the middle of the page:
“The Infrastructure and Projects Authority considers that this first phase can be delivered for its current projected cost of £35 billion to £45 billion in today’s prices … if we start now, services could be running by the end of the decade.”
Then, on the next page, he says:
“So I am giving high speed rail the green signal.”
That might reasonably be interpreted as a commitment to deliver the first phase, for between £35 billion and £45 billion, by 2030. Will the Minister please confirm that that is a hard commitment?
Further on, on page 12, we now know what the decisive action is going to be to bring this project to boot: we are going to appoint a Minister. Let us hope that he or she is a near relative of the Almighty. There will be a
“Ministerial oversight group … tasked with taking strategic decisions”.
At least we will know who to blame if it all goes wrong.
The Statement goes on to say:
“There will be changes in the way HS2 Ltd is managed”,
and from page 13 we know what these are: the company will be divided in two—at least that is what I think it says. It says,
“so that the company can focus solely on getting phases 1 and 2A built on something approaching on time and on budget, I will be creating new delivery arrangements for both the grossly behind-schedule Euston terminus, and phase 2B of the wider project.”
Am I right in assuming that HS2 Ltd will be divided in two?
Now we come on to the really important question: are these hints and words an equal commitment for the whole project? Is this Statement a commitment for the whole project—phase 1, phase 2 and the northern rail? There is a little hint at the end of page 13 where the Prime Minister says,
“Northern Powerhouse Rail between Leeds and Manchester, which I committed to supporting during my first days in office.”
Once again I ask: is this Statement a commitment to all of HS2 and the northern rail project?
The Statement often says very little, except that,
“we will … explore options for creating a new delivery vehicle for Northern Powerhouse Rail. And we will start treating HS2”—
At that point, I think that the Statement changed things slightly from what has been said previously. I think it suggested that the two halves of HS2, north and south, phase a and phase b, have been divided into two but will now be in one company called High Speed North. I hope that the Minister is capable of working out how that is going to streamline the project and deliver it.
The next two pages are blank of comment. Then the Statement ends with:
“This government will deliver a new anatomy of British transport”.
But what do they actually commit to? Five billion pounds for buses and bicycles, with no programme or timetable; a commitment to build phases 1 and 2a at between £35 billion and £45 billion by 2030; at best an implied promise to do phase 2 and northern rail, with no figures, no timescale and no detail; and upgrading Bristol East junction. This is the most vacuous Statement I have ever heard repeated in this House. To thrive, the north needs a hard, measurable commitment; this Statement does not meet that test.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, I feel sorry for the Minister, having to repeat all that. But what the Statement boasted in juvenile, rhetorical flourishes it lacked in detail on all fronts. It reminded me of one of those exercises that teachers give primary school children to expand their vocabulary. But it lacked detail, and transport is all about detail.
Like the noble Lord, I went through the Statement carefully and was struck by the fact that the first thing this Government apparently committed to was net zero by 2050, and the first thing they are going to do is build lots of new roads. Everyone who knows about transport knows that if you build a road, it gets full of cars immediately. We will still have cars from today on the roads in 20 years’ time. The electric vehicle revolution will not come that quickly and we cannot reach net zero if we go on with large-scale road-building projects.
What was said about east-west rail links is good, but it needs to go way beyond the few examples here. There is a lack of detail on buses beyond a nice big, shiny figure. I ask the Minister to provide us with more detail on the buses, because we can have the bus revolution a great deal more quickly than we can have the railway revolution. We could revolutionise our buses within a couple of years if we had the money and the legislative framework to do it.
I was very pleased, of course, to hear that HS2 is not going to be cancelled, but again disappointed and really frustrated by the fact that there are just a few hints of how this will go ahead in the future—a couple of avenues have been closed off, but there is no detail on how it will work or how the future will be better than the past. “We are going to change it, we are going to have a Minister”—with all due respect, it is not ministerial control that has been lacking, but good, solid day-to-day project management. However, we will obviously have to wait patiently for some time still to get the detail that we need.
I say to the Minister that this is a very grandiose series of visions but, in reality, people need certainty and consistency. They need to know the details of what will happen and, given the scale of the ambition in this announcement, it is way beyond the capacity of the Department for Transport to deal with. Work will have to be done across government. I will give just one example of what needs thinking about. If you are to have all these new buses—one hopes they will be electric or hydrogen, but in the short term we are probably talking about electric—we will need to totally reinvent the electricity grid to cope in certain parts of the country. The Minister looks doubtful: I have just come from a lunchtime event where experts in the field confirmed that we need a massive increase in our electricity capacity in parts of the country. There are lots of questions for her to answer.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
My Lords, I have four minutes to answer as many of those questions as possible.
Lord Tunnicliffe
If the Minister consults the Companion she will see that she can extend the 20 minutes as necessary to reply fully.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
With the leave of the House, I will certainly do that to answer the questions as fully as I can at this stage. I was slightly disappointed that the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, felt that there were not enough hard commitments: I felt that the Statement was full of very hard commitments. The commitment to HS2 draws a line in the sand and removes any doubt about whether the project will go ahead. It means that phase 1 can continue at pace and that the Bill for phase 2a can come back to your Lordships’ House, because I know there is work to be done on it. We will be pushing the western leg towards Manchester and look at the eastern leg and other northern areas, where we are looking at connections into Northern Powerhouse Rail too. A very quick infrastructure plan for rail in the north will be carried out to make sure that that entire structure works well together. If it does not, clearly HS2 will not be as beneficial as it would otherwise be.
I shall stay with HS2 and then move on to buses in due course. The noble Lord mentioned governance and accountability. That is key to the way we approach HS2 and the way we interact with HS2 Ltd in future. This is not necessarily to denigrate the current management of HS2 Ltd: over successive managements there have been a series of failings, as I am sure a number of noble Lords will agree. We want to draw a line under this and start a new relationship between it and the department, representing the taxpayer to make sure that we get the best result.
This new Minister—poor thing—will have an incredibly important role to play. They will hold HS2 to account and report to Parliament every six months on its progress. Furthermore, we will encourage a culture of transparency and accountability, as stated by the Secretary of State some time ago. That is particularly important. There will be members on the board of HS2 Ltd from both the DfT and the Treasury to make sure that taxpayers’ money is spent as effectively as it possibly can be. We will also ask the IPA to report on progress every year. There will be a step change in the governance of HS2 going forward.
I apologise if I did not explain the delivery arrangements well enough. HS2 Ltd will continue as currently on phases 1 and 2a and there will be separate delivery arrangements for Euston and phase 2b. The schedule for phase 1 is 2029 to 2033; the ambition is to get trains on the track by the end of the decade.
Beyond HS2, there is the issue of buses. I have a personal love of buses. Being the Buses Minister, I obviously welcome this funding of £5 billion over five years. Noble Lords have said that there is no detail. There is a reason for that: we wanted to show local authorities and bus operators the scale of our ambition for buses. Historically, buses have known roughly what they were going to get, but this is a step change in ambition. We wanted to get that message across so that our national bus strategy, which we will develop at pace over the coming months, will set out how this investment can best be spent. There will be investment in capital and in revenue but until we have the national bus strategy I cannot say for certain exactly where all this money will go.
Another reason I cannot say this for certain is that, as we look at integrated transport systems going forward, the most important thing to think about is place-based funding. Often funding based on places is not single-modal. There might be some bus funding from one pot and some cycling funding from another pot, but a certain place will bid and, rather like with the TCF, it will offer a cohesive and integrated plan for improving local transport. We cannot just say, “Here you go, Barnsley, have an extra £1 million.” It must be more thought through than that. That will come out of how we look at the framework for the national bus strategy and how we integrate the strategy with getting local authorities to step up in partnership with their bus operators, which is essential, to make the best use of the money.
I wanted to talk about this very important issue and that same partnership. We do not need new legislation to do this. We already have the Bus Services Act, which has partnerships in it. Where partnerships exist, the ridership of buses goes up significantly. Bristol has seen amazing gains, as has South Gloucestershire, because the local authority has a really good partnership with the bus operator. The local authority puts in place bus priority measures, steps up and says, “I will give you your buses and services.” That will come to fruition over the coming months. We will work closely, as we have already started to do, with local authorities and bus operators to make sure that they are ready to seize this level of ambition. It must be collaborative.
Cycling is at a very similar stage to the bus strategy in that we need to consider the means by which we can get it to the most needed places, alongside other funding, if that makes sense.
I think I have answered all the questions. If not, I will write.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, I was Secretary of State for Transport in 1996, when we gave the go-ahead for HS1—the fast link between St Pancras and the Channel Tunnel. It was opposed by local MPs and challenged through the courts. People said it was too expensive and it was challenged on environmental grounds. People said we should spend the money on local lines instead. Today, not a single Member of your Lordships’ House would argue that HS1 was not the right decision to take. Will it not be the same in 25 years’ time about HS2?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
I thank my noble friend for his question, which was not a plant. Last Friday I went on HS1 and had the honour of being in the cab. It was amazing, although they did not let me drive the train. I drove the simulator afterwards. It was striking that when you are in the cab and looking down the track, it is beautiful, it is straight and it works. There is little clutter and you can see that it is modern. Barrelling along at 140 miles per hour, you think, “I could go a bit faster, actually”. I went from St Pancras to Ashford, an area that has been revolutionised. The development there has been amazing. I agree with my noble friend; HS1 was a great boon and HS2 will be, too.
Baroness Blackstone (Ind Lab)
My Lords, there has been comment on the lack of detail and substance in the Statement. If a little less time had been expended on corny analogies and flowery phrases, there might have been a bit more space for some of the core issues that need to be addressed. One is the speed proposed for HS2. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Young, that HS1’s speed is hugely slower than that proposed for HS2, which is far faster than any other high-speed rail system, apart from that in China. Can the Minister comment on why this important issue has been omitted from the Statement, particularly given that the cost of the proposed speed is so high? If it was somewhat slower, the savings could be used for some of the other projects set out in the Statement.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
The noble Baroness will be well aware that we had an extensive debate on HS2, its speed and all the various elements. These issues have been well debated and the Government agree with the spirit of Oakervee. His report discusses speed among many other things. Indeed, there were 60 conclusions in the report, and it would have been impossible for the Government to discuss every issue in it. We will respond in full in due course and that will cover the issue of speed. However, we are not minded to slow the train down. Phase 1 has been designed with speed in mind and it is not going to be redesigned. There is therefore no need to reduce the speed.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, the problem was that the Statement was the least professional and most hyperbolic pile of nonsense from a government spokesperson—not the noble Baroness. It was an appalling abuse. It read like a Telegraph column, so we know who might have written some of it. There are two big problems with HS2. First, it is extremely damaging to our environment. We are losing 108 ancient woodlands, five wildlife refuges, 39 nature reserves and 33 protected sites. The project is also a huge emitter of CO2 . Does the Minister agree that, as a result of that and the extra road extensions and plans proposed in the Statement, the Government will be unable to meet their CO2 reduction targets?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
The Minister does not agree. I take it that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, is not a fan of the Prime Minister, but the sort of words she uses are somewhat inappropriate. On the substance of her question about the environment and ancient woodlands, noble Lords have had the opportunity to discuss those issues in significant detail. HS2 is committed to no net loss of biodiversity. We believe that it is an important part of achieving net zero emissions by 2050. Lost wildlife habitat will be replaced and, as I have said in your Lordships’ House, on the stretch from London to Crewe 43 ancient woodlands will be affected, but only 20% of each. That is out of a total of 52,000 ancient woodlands. I see the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, who will say, “But that is salami slicing”. That is the thinnest slice of salami, which will not make even half a breakfast.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, I declare an interest, as in the register, and as a former Transport Secretary, of which there are quite a few in this House. Does my noble friend recall that over 40 years ago, Germany developed an elaborate system of bus-type vehicles which travel by rail as well as road? I welcome the part about buses but our roads are very crowded, and there is still a big network of completely disused rail tracks in this country. Will my noble friend undertake that this technology, which is quite well advanced, will also be included in our great transport revolution?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
I thank my noble friend for raising that issue. It is of course critical that where tracks already go into major towns or cities—some might be Beeching line closures—the opportunity for reopening those lines may not take the form of heavy rail; there are many new and innovative ways. I know that the one my noble friend referred to is from 40 years ago, but nowadays there are some lightweight, low-cost alternatives to building heavy rail, which could effectively, and with good value for money, get people to where they need to be.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, a long time ago the Government made a commitment that, before construction started on HS2, they would produce a new cost-benefit analysis and business case. That was confirmed to me in a letter from the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, when she was Minister, on 18 December 2018. Has that cost-benefit analysis and business case been published, and if not, when does she expect it to be, and can she confirm that it will be published before permanent construction starts and the formal go-ahead is given?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
Yes, the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, will be well aware that we are due a final business case, which will set out the benefits and costs for the phase. The notice to proceed will be published alongside it.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I can find no mention in the Statement regarding HS2 and the north-east of England. Can the Minister confirm that there is no change in the plan in relation to that? That is, HS2 rolling stock will run on conventional track north of Leeds, joining the east coast main line just north-east of that city. As I raised when we debated HS2 a couple of weeks ago, to be successful, that link to Newcastle upon Tyne, where I live, needs four tracks on the east coast main line as opposed to the current two. Will the Minister confirm that the Government would be willing to look closely at the case for expanding the number of tracks north of Leeds?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
I will certainly take that point back to the department. The parts of the track that the noble Lord mentions will all be part of the integrated plan for rail for the north, which will be an important, if fairly short, project to make sure that HS2 works with NPR and all the multibillion pounds of rail investment that we are already putting into the north. It would be absolutely wrong for us to undertake such a massive and costly project unless we squeeze every single benefit out of it that we can.
Lord Blunkett (Lab)
My Lords, there were six mentions of Manchester and, quite rightly, mentions of both Liverpool and Leeds in the Statement, but not a single mention of Sheffield, the fourth-largest city in England. Can the Minister confirm that there will be an eastern leg rather than linking Manchester through Leeds to the north, and that that leg will go through the east Midlands, South Yorkshire and then through Leeds, so that we can have some benefit to a county which has a population greater than that of Scotland?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
I absolutely understand the noble Lord’s desire to get improved connectivity to Sheffield. Indeed, we want improved connectivity between all the major cities in the north, which is why we are doing the integrated plan for rail for the north.
Lord Haselhurst (Con)
My Lords, as the completion of the HS2 project will lead to a dramatic slashing of journey times between Manchester, Birmingham and London, does the Minister agree that it would be sensible, at this stage, to make more effort to promote Manchester Airport and Birmingham Airport as points of entry into this country, attractive to all categories of visitor? This would take some of the pressure off the London airport system, as well as contributing to levelling up the economy of our country, as the Government are set upon.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
I thank my noble friend for that question. One of my first visits, when I was Aviation Minister, was to Birmingham Airport and that is precisely what they said to me: once HS2 is up and running, the journey time to London will be slashed. For example, if you live in north-east London or close to Euston, you will be able to use Birmingham rather than a London airport.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
My Lords, I strongly support the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Young, that yesterday’s pessimists about HS1 are today’s enthusiasts for HS1. The same point can be made about the first London-to-Birmingham railway, which was ferociously opposed on cost and other grounds. Since it was built in 1838, it must represent, though no one can calculate it, the most phenomenal return on capital of any project ever constructed, which we could not possibly do without. I ask the Minister, given that the Victorians built the first London-to-Birmingham railway in five years, with picks, shovels and wheelbarrows, if it is too much to expect a better completion date. I think the one she offered was somewhere between 2029 and 2032, or something like that. If she gives an option, it will be the latter of those dates. Can she not be firmer and speed it up a bit?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
My Lords, Members across the Government would very much like to speed this up, but a process needs to be gone through and this is a highly technical line. The noble Lord is quite right, and I mentioned during the recent HS2 debate that four lines went under construction within 10 years back in the 1830s and 1840s. Many considerations must be gone through to build these lines and, nowadays, we have far more concern about the environment than we have ever had before, and about stakeholder and community engagement, and making sure that local communities feel happy about the construction.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, in the prologue, long before we got to the dappled trees, my noble friend referred to Lincoln. I am glad that she recognised the congestion outside that great city. Can I infer from that that Lincoln will be high in the order of priorities as our roads are improved?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
I thank my noble friend for his local question about Lincoln. I do not have statistics to hand about our roads investment in Lincoln. I am fairly sure there will be something, and I will write to him.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)
My Lords, first, I thank the Minister for the letter of 4 February that she wrote to all Peers who took part in the debate on 23 January. I certainly found it very helpful and encouraging, although not all her noble friends did. I will raise a question that was touched on by her noble friend Lord Haselhurst. The Minister says that, if the project goes ahead, HS2 will create a long-term carbon alternative to domestic flights or driving, and that HS2 can play a key role in achieving the transition to carbon net zero by 2050—something that I wish the Green Party would occasionally take seriously. The Prime Minister’s Statement says that:
“Passengers arriving at Birmingham Airport will be able to get to central London by train in 38 minutes, which compares favourably with the time it takes to get from Heathrow by taxi”.
Presumably we are not now going to have a third runway.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
My Lords, the third runway at Heathrow is a private development. If it falls within the criteria of the airports national policy statement, it will go ahead.
Lord Greaves (LD)
My Lords, I give a perspective from the hills in the middle of the Pennines. I am interested in knowing that we are going to have more tree-dappled sunlight. We welcome the trees; the sunlight might be beyond even the present Prime Minister. I just point out that those of us who live in the corridor between east Lancashire and Skipton in the Aire Valley in Yorkshire are not bothered about having high-speed rail. We want our railway back: the 11 miles between Colne and Skipton. We would be quite happy for the trains to go at a normal speed, but please can we have our railway back?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
The noble Lord is a doughty campaigner on this matter. We have heard his message and, as he knows, we are working on it.
The Lord Bishop of Durham
My Lords, perhaps we might return to the north-east. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and I, along with many others, have argued previously that this infrastructure should have begun in the north and the south at the same time. In the review, can we please ensure that we are working not just south to north but north to south? This would help speed up the process. Can the Minister also answer a question on the production of the trains and the carriages? Companies such as Hitachi and Bombardier have been mentioned. Are the contracts going to be given out in Britain?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
The right reverend Prelate refers to an issue that is raised fairly frequently. I think that we can all agree that phase 1 will go ahead straightaway because enabling works have already taken place. Part of the integrated plan for rail will look at ways of getting the benefits of this new railway more quickly, and it may be—I am not prejudging this at all—that construction starts in several places at once, as well as at different points, in order that it can join up. To me that seems quite sensible, but I am sure that someone technical will tell me that it is not. However, it is our ambition to get the benefits more quickly and to keep the costs as low as possible. We will certainly look at all the eventualities when it comes to that part of the railway.
On the construction of the rolling stock, this does not need to be considered for some time yet. Of course it would be very good if the trains were built in Britain, but I happen to know that the HS1 trains were built in Japan and that they function very well. But, again, we cannot prejudge that and it will be some time before that contract is awarded.
Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)
My Lords, can the Minister give us some assurances about the management changes at HS2? I worked first with HS1 from an environmental point of view and then with Crossrail. I have been appalled by HS2’s environmental illiteracy. Can we make sure that in the future phases of this development, the company that replaces HS2, or its reconfiguration or whatever arrangements are made, is required to use its best endeavours to avoid going through ancient woodlands and other sensitive sites? About half of the sensitive sites that are being trashed by this development were not even identified by the company when it carried out its reviews, and that is negligent.
Perhaps I might also make the point that as far as the 52,000 ancient woodlands are concerned, it used to be one woodland, but it has been so split up and hacked into small fragments that now there are only 52,000 small pieces of it. If we keep on doing that, we will not have any at all.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
I hope to be able to put the record straight. I do not propose that there will be changes to the management of HS2; rather, changes will be made to its governance. As I explained earlier, the DfT and HMT will be on the board and there will be a new Minister. I will ensure that I mention to the new Minister, whenever she or he takes up their role, that stakeholder engagement and ensuring that environmental stakeholders are included as part of the process is absolutely essential.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, this is a hugely welcome announcement as far as the economy of the West Midlands is concerned. While I understand that the Statement needs to make a lot of references to the northern powerhouse, it makes no reference to the issue of east-west links in the Midlands. The Minister will know that it takes almost as long to go from Leicester to Derby or from Leicester or Derby to Birmingham as it does to go from Manchester to Leeds, so this is a real issue. Can she assure me that in the work that is being taken forward, the links within the Midlands will be given full consideration?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
The noble Lord is right and we intend that the work on the integrated plan for rail should include the Midlands and the north. Of course, the department is engaging with Midlands Connect because of its interest in the Midlands rail hub, which would certainly lead to improvements in east to west connectivity. We are well aware of the issue and we are working on it.
Fisheries Bill [HL]
Tuesday 11th February 2020
(4 years, 10 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Gardiner of Kimble) (Con)
My Lords, as we are an island nation, our seas are integral to our history, economy and culture, so it is a great privilege to open this debate. A rich diversity of fish and shellfish provides us with nutritious, valuable food and employment. I recognise at the outset the dangers of this harvest: seven lives were lost in 2019, and I pay tribute to the bravery of those at sea and their families.
Together with the Agriculture Bill and the Environment Bill, this Bill creates a strong and legally binding framework to deliver this Government’s ambition to leave the natural environment in a better state than we inherited it. It is crucial that we are successful. The Government’s vision is to build a sustainable fishing industry, with healthy seas and a fair deal for UK fishing interests. This Bill is a key step towards delivering that vision.
Fisheries management is complex and requires responsive, science-based policy-making. Data on fish stocks must be gathered and analysed. The safe levels of exploitation of those stocks must be considered, as well as the allocation of those resources and the granting of rights to use them. On top of this are technical rules on matters ranging from the use of types of fishing gear to minimum landing sizes of species—all required to allow the harvest of our fish while avoiding damage to stocks and the environment.
The European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 ensures that the existing legislative framework to manage our fisheries remains in place after the transition period. Along with earlier pieces of fisheries legislation, this Bill gives us the powers needed to manage our fisheries more effectively in future, ensuring that we can meet our international obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea—UNCLOS—and the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement—UNFSA—and become a global leader in fisheries management as befits our island nation.
The Bill’s objectives for sustainable fisheries management ensure a UK-wide framework to manage the fish that live in UK waters. We have worked closely with the devolved Administrations in developing this framework to ensure that our approach fully respects the devolution settlements, while recognising that we have a shared responsibility to protect our marine environment and to support a thriving industry across the UK. The Bill provides the powers to manage and support the recreational sea fishing community too, as well as the commercial sector.
First and foremost, this Bill confirms in law our commitment to environmentally, economically and socially sustainable fishing. Healthy fish stocks are the basis of a thriving and profitable fishing industry. We must therefore ensure that we apply science-based management approaches both to the benefit of the environment but also, crucially, to the long-term profitability of our fishing industry.
This Bill takes and reforms the EU’s sustainable fishing objectives and commits to a new, ambitious set of UK objectives, which are in the Bill. These include a climate change objective, to ensure that the impacts of the fishing industry on climate change are minimised while ensuring that fisheries management adapts to a changing climate; objectives to further the collection of scientific evidence across the Administrations and to take the precautionary approach to fisheries management in the absence of such evidence; and the national benefit objective, which seeks to ensure that a benefit to the UK is felt as a result of UK boats fishing stocks from UK waters—the first time such a requirement has been included in our legislation.
The Bill requires the Government and devolved Administrations to set out in a joint fisheries statement how we will together contribute to the achievement of the objectives. Our intention is for all policies that achieve the objectives to be included in the joint fisheries statement. There is, however, a provision in the Bill to allow the Secretary of State to set out reserved or non-devolved policy in a Secretary of State fisheries statement.
The Bill includes the requirement to produce fisheries management plans, alongside the devolved Administrations where appropriate, delivering on our manifesto commitment. These plans will set out on a stock-by-stock or fisheries basis our plans for achieving the sustainability of those stocks. The plans go further than we have gone before in relation to stocks, for which assessing sustainability is much harder. Many of these are valuable shellfish stocks. The plans commit us, in those circumstances where we do not have the scientific data to assess their health, to develop the scientific evidence base on which we will then be able to do so. The fisheries statements and the fisheries management plans will be legally binding.
The Bill also extends the powers of the Marine Management Organisation and the devolved Administrations to protect the marine environment, strengthening them so that they can be used to restore and enhance, as well as conserve, the marine environment.
Secondly, the Bill creates the powers that the UK needs to operate as an independent coastal state and fulfil our international obligations. From 2021, the UK will be an independent coastal state, able to control who can fish in our waters. We will be responsible for setting annual total allowable catches of fish species within our waters. For stocks that are shared with other coastal states such as the EU and Norway, we will negotiate to agree fishing quotas. Currently, the EU distributes quotas between its member states using a principle called relative stability, which provides a fixed percentage of quota based on fishing patterns from the 1970s. This gives an unfair share of quota to UK fishers, not reflective of what is found in UK waters, and so we will negotiate to move towards a fairer, more scientific method for the allocation of shared stocks.
The Bill will put in place the powers we need to operate as an independent coastal state by allowing us to set fishing opportunities and to determine which vessels may enter our waters. Any decisions about giving vessels from the EU and any other coastal states access to our waters will be a matter for negotiation. This Bill provides the framework to enable us to implement whatever is agreed internationally. For example, it ensures that should we negotiate access to our waters, vessels from other coastal states will have to hold a licence. This is equitable and ensures a level playing field between UK and foreign boats.
Enforcement in UK waters is a devolved matter, and each fisheries administration is responsible for control and enforcement in their waters. In England, the Marine Management Organisation has assessed, and continues to assess, the levels of enforcement capacity required for fisheries protection and the options for best delivering this. It is undertaking a significant increase in the number of personnel and surveillance assets relating to fisheries protection, with a sizeable increase in support, much of which is already in place. We are committed to continuing to work closely with our neighbours to ensure the sustainable management of shared fish stocks.
Thirdly, the Bill introduces powers to make reforms to our fishing industries across the Administrations, while respecting the devolution settlements. Many of the regulations that form the common fisheries policy will be retained as part of UK law, providing legal certainty to fishers at the end of the transition period. It is right that while the Bill gives us the powers to move away from this law, we make evidence-based changes.
The management of fisheries is devolved and this Bill respects that. Officials from the devolved Administrations have been closely involved in the development of the provisions in the Bill. I am pleased to say that the Bill reflects this joint working by legislating on behalf of the devolved Administrations in some areas, at their request. In most cases, the powers provided are equivalent to those provided for the Secretary of State in the Bill, within the devolved Administrations’ competence.
The dynamic nature of our fisheries, and the importance of keeping pace with scientific developments, mean that both the Government and the devolved Administrations, at their requests, need powers to amend the highly technical regulations governing rules such as the size of fishing nets or the grading of fish, and to amend measures so that we can control aquatic animal disease.
Beyond this, the Bill creates new schemes to help fishing fleets thrive across the UK. These include broadening grant-making powers, creating powers for England and Wales to tender some of the additional quota received after we become an independent coastal state, and establishing a new scheme to help the fishing industry comply with the landing obligation in England.
The Bill also makes a technical correction to the Welsh devolution settlement by extending the competence of the National Assembly for Wales in relation to fisheries in the Welsh offshore zone, from 12 nautical miles to 30 nautical miles at its greatest extent. The Welsh Government previously devolved Executive responsibilities in this area.
These new powers for the four fisheries administrations ensure that the fishing industry across the UK can be supported appropriately. However, in some areas, it makes sense to continue having a common approach. The Bill creates common approaches where the Government and the devolved Administrations have agreed this is necessary—for example, a joint approach to managing the access of foreign vessels through licences given by the single issuing authority.
I am pleased to say that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee published an exceptional and highly positive report relating to the powers contained in the previous Bill. We await its report into this Bill with considerable interest. It should be noted that there are no additional delegated powers contained in this Bill, beyond the extension of some powers to the devolved Administrations, at their request. It is important that we are clear to your Lordships and the other place on precisely what these powers are about, why some of them are extremely technical and why it is important that we take advantage of them as we have more technological advances. Where we have legislated within devolved competence, we have sought legislative consent from the devolved legislatures. Our objective is to ensure that the fishing industry across the UK is supported and can thrive under the governance of the relevant fisheries administration.
The Bill puts sustainability at the front and centre of our future fisheries management policy. It sets us on a path to building a sustainable and profitable fishing industry, with healthy seas and a fair deal for UK fishing interests. Importantly, it respects and enhances the devolution settlements, giving the devolved legislatures more powers and responsibilities than they have ever had. It will allow us to control access to our waters by foreign fishing boats, and, for the first time in 45 years, to place equitable rules on them while they are in our waters.
A sustainable harvest of our waters is our objective. The objectives in the Bill make the direction of our future policy abundantly clear. The future of our fishing fleet is intrinsically bound up with the vitality of the marine ecosystem. There are noble Lords here who have considerable experiences of fisheries, some as former Fisheries Ministers. Seafaring and fishing the seas have a very long history, and many in the fishing fleets feel that they have not been cared for. This is an opportunity for us all to ensure prosperity for this important British industry. I emphasise that this will be possible only if we are, above all, wise custodians.
I beg to move.
Lord Grantchester (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction to this important and strategic Bill.
In the region of 470 days has passed since the Government published the first version of their Fisheries Bill, back in October 2018. The then Secretary of State, Michael Gove, spoke of how the Government was finally putting our hard-working fishers and hard-up coastal communities first after years of them being ignored and undermined by the workings of the common fisheries policy of the EU. However, as the Conservative Party found itself in trouble and its numbers in the Commons began to fall, this Bill was mysteriously stalled before Report. It never made it to your Lordships’ House—meaning that we are now looking at implementing an entirely new fisheries regime on an accelerated timetable. That hardly provides the due consideration to bring the clarity that UK fishers urgently require.
I am sure we will hear some of the same rhetoric from the Minister today, but we are all serious about improving the prospects of the UK’s fishing industry and coastal communities. The Minister shares this commitment—he has demonstrated that in his correspondence and briefing to Peers, for which we are most grateful—but Labour needs to be sure that this Bill does all that it needs to do to have confidence in the Government’s proposals.
I certainly welcome the more collaborative approach that has been adopted with the devolved Administrations. We have not always seen such a productive approach in relation to Brexit legislation. The priority now is to instil the further confidence that devolved Ministers will be able to play their role in shaping the delivery of the new regime, with the inclusion of their priorities.
As was the case with the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill—and as we will see with the Agriculture Bill and Environment Bill when they reach this House—the Government have chosen to amend the legislation following the recent election. Following some of the criticisms of the original Bill, many of these changes are welcome. However, some need to be enhanced further. For example, we recognise and appreciate the clarity provided by the new Clause 1. This replicates and adds to the number of principles and objectives which underpin the common fisheries policy that has governed access to British waters in previous decades. However, the clause does not include the necessary objective to land fish from British waters at British ports if it is to bring prosperity back to coastal communities.
Several other aspects of the Bill do not quite meet Labour’s hopes and expectations. The Minister will tell us that the Bill has sustainability at its heart, and I agree. However, there is a worrying lack of detail over the Government’s plans regarding maximum sustainable yield. The common fisheries policy has disappointed in relation to the protection of fish stocks, but we will need more detail from the Minister to be confident that the new regime will present a genuine step forward. As part of that, we will explore mechanisms for the Government to provide periodic reports to Parliament on the impacts of their new fisheries regime.
We also see in the Bill that the Government have inserted new commitments on climate change. This is great news. However, there is no mention of how fishers will be assisted in cutting down on the use of harmful plastics or adopting the use of greener technologies, both at sea and during processing. Nor is there any statutory commitment for the sector to meet net-zero emissions. The challenge is that the Bill needs to bring across aspects of the commitment of public goods in other Defra Bills into this framework. There are areas where we would like to see real progress over the course of the next decade, and I certainly do not want us to look back on this Bill as a missed opportunity.
We are not alone with such concerns. While they acknowledge the progress made since publication of the first Bill, groups including the Marine Conservation Society and Greener UK have called for the toughening and tightening up of the Bill’s measures on climate change and ecosystem sustainability. We stand ready to work with those organisations and others to facilitate those debates. It is encouraging to see that your Lordships’ sub-committee report on discards has been well receive and that the Government have included new mechanisms in the Bill to tackle this. Amendments will be tabled in Committee to examine how this will work. We certainly welcome the increased responsibilities of the Marine Management Organisation.
Having promised to cut the much-derided red tape of Brussels, the Government have produced a second iteration of the Bill that has somehow become more cumbersome. The fishing industry needs the Government to understand that many regulations must be much clearer, more viable and realistic, in tune with the evidence from those who have to abide by them. After all, that was the promise made so frequently and forcibly during the campaigns.
Despite 40 pages having been added since the first Bill, the document omits other important topics. While we accept the need for a new licensing regime and a new power to set annual fishing quota opportunities, there is very little information on the interplay between the two. Will a boat need a licence to secure quota, or will having quota be a precondition of receiving a licence? How will the quota regime operate? What will happen with regard to the UK’s share of UK quotas on 1 January 2021? With Britain now an independent coastal state, will the Government unilaterally take back 100% of the quota on day one, before redistribution, or will they adopt a phased approach? Will Ministers seek continued access to non-British distant waters where some of the UK fleet has such an interest?
While the Bill introduces offences for illegal fishing, we do not yet know what enforcement will look like on the ground—or, rather, on the open seas. Recent media reports suggest that the Government are bolstering the number of both boats and personnel, but I know of colleagues, including my noble friend Lord West of Spithead, who want more detail; indeed, he has put down a Question on the Order Paper for tomorrow.
The Bill lacks detail on how fishers will be protected and conflict avoided. This will need to be tested long before the joint fisheries statement and the Secretary of State’s fisheries statement. In Committee, we will be probing the Government’s plans to ensure that a fair quota is allocated to small boats, facilitating the creation of new jobs at sea, in ports and in the food supply chain. There will be amendments to ensure that a majority of catch in UK waters is landed at UK ports, that UK-registered boats have the first option to take up further quota, that the Government retain a strategic reserve of quota to assist with achieving maximum sustainable yield and that foreign vessels cannot undercut UK boats on safety or employment standards. The Minister referred in his opening remarks to the dangers faced by those at sea. Recognising this, we call for the raising of standards and not an undercutting of UK livelihoods.
I very much hope that the Minister and his colleagues in the Commons are willing to work collaboratively on this legislation. It can be improved and, whatever the changed circumstances in the other place, it is clearly in the interests of our fishers that the Government approach this process with a commitment to work with your Lordships’ House. We will be tabling a number of amendments, some of which we have already suggested to the Minister and his departmental officials. I very much hope that the responses to those amendments throughout Committee stage will be constructive and that, whether through government or opposition amendments, we will ultimately send a much-improved Bill to our colleagues in the House of Commons.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his informative introduction to this important Bill and for his time and that of the Minister of State for fisheries. I also thank those organisations who have sent me information, and in particular the House of Lords Library for its briefing, which was comprehensive and excellent.
It would be completely dishonest of me to pretend that I am an expert on fishery matters but, luckily, we do have an expert on our Benches in my noble friend Lord Teverson, so I will leave all technical matters to him and deal with those matters which I am able to comprehend—I have warned him of this.
I welcome this Bill, which is a definite step in the right direction of returning control of our fishing waters to the UK. Sustainability is everything. I believe this Bill moves us in the right direction of helping to preserve fish stocks and build up those in danger of being depleted. But I have grave concerns about the way in which sustainability is enshrined in the legal process of the Bill.
As we have heard, there are eight objectives at the beginning, which at first glance look sensible but on more careful examination appear, in some cases, to contradict each other. Clause 1(2)(a)(i) clarifies the first of those—the sustainability objective—as meaning that activities must be
“environmentally sustainable in the long term”.
But in paragraph (a)(ii) there is a commitment to
“achieve economic, social and employment benefits and contribute to the availability of food supplies”.
I believe that is at odds with the preceding statement in sub-paragraph (i). Sustainability and economic benefits are not easy bedfellows, and the Government will have their work cut out to ensure that the Bill produces both. I am sure we will return to this subject in Committee.
The Bill sets out the need to produce both a joint fisheries statement and fisheries management plans. As with everything, planning ahead is essential both to secure economic investment in equipment and to preserve stocks. But under the procedure rules, we read that the fisheries policy authorities may, at any time, prepare and publish a replacement joint fisheries statement or amendments to a joint fisheries statement. I am sure there will be good reasons for this, but I fear that it will not lead to security for our fishermen. It is also unlikely that chopping and changing the JFS will lead to sustainability.
There is no timeframe in the Bill for the preparation and implementation of fisheries management plans. I ask the Minister whether there is an anticipated timetable when all species will be covered by individual FMPs. It is essential to sustainable fishing that these plans should be in place as quickly as possible.
The joint fisheries statement must be reviewed every six years from the day on which it is first published. So far, so good. But the reports on fisheries statements and fisheries management plans must be published every three years, for each subsequent three-year period. There will, of course, be only one overarching joint fisheries statement, but there will be a fisheries management plan for each species of fish to be caught in our waters. Those two are inextricably linked, so I am curious as to why different timeframes have been specified. Perhaps the Minister would care to comment.
I am also concerned that a fisheries management plan will refer, among other criteria, to a “geographical area”. Fish are not like cows or pigs in being able to be corralled into a specific area; they are completely free creatures. Of course they will have their preferred spawning grounds, but we are beginning to see that the pattern of fish movements is changing. Cod are moving further north, as climate change begins to warm the waters further south. Mackerel are being caught by the pelagic fleets and are no longer making their way down to Cornwall in what was the traditional mackerel-fishing season. I am, therefore, intrigued as to how fisheries management plans will specify geographical areas for some species of fish. Perhaps the Minister could clarify this point in his summing up.
I am somewhat addicted to television documentaries that deal with real people in real situations. “Helicopter ER” and “Saving Lives at Sea” are among my favourites. I have, therefore, been watching the six-week series about fishing around the coast of Cornwall. This is fascinating, dealing for the most part with the lives of those who own or work on vessels under 10 metres. Each weekly programme begins with a series of clips of fishermen around Cornwall, generally fishing for different species. But the message is the same: young men with families are struggling to make a living from their traditional career—and it is a career. We see young men following in their fathers’ footsteps, learning the trade from them, working alongside them, borrowing from them, and saving to buy their own boats and start out on their own. But this is a rough and hard trade.
For me, one of the most poignant scenes was the harbour front at Mousehole one evening in the middle of winter: there was not a light from a house to be seen. All were either holiday lets or second homes. The fishermen were housed up on the hill outside the town in social housing, which was all they could afford. The average wage was £15,000; the average house price £300,000. The fishermen’s cottages on the quayside, which they would previously have occupied, were now well out of their price range, snapped up by those who visit for their annual holidays or the odd week. This cannot be right. We are a nation of coastal waters. Up and down the country, we see local people engaged in essential work that is not highly paid being priced out of their villages by second-home owners and holiday lets. While the tourist trade is an important part of many rural and coastal economies, it really is time the Government grasped this nettle and did something about a tourist tax and second-home owners. Sorry, that is the end of the rant.
There is a vast difference between the pelagic fishing fleets and the smaller vessels under 10 metres that operate inshore and off the coasts of our country. I have seen some very interesting adaptations to boats that have had the end cut off in order to bring them under the 10 metre rule. Those fishermen operating on such vessels represent 79% of the fleet but hold only 2% of the quota. Some 20% of the vessels are the large pelagic fleet, which receive the vast majority of the quota. There is a desperate need for fishing quotas to be redistributed to bring a much fairer share to the smaller fishers who are struggling to make a living. The UK’s fishing quota is owned or controlled by just five families. I ask the Minister to give assurances that these inequalities will be effectively dealt with in the Bill.
There is concern that a legal maximum sustainable yield for each stock, which was a commitment in the Conservative manifesto, will not be achieved if scientific evidence is not used to determine what an individual stock’s MSY should be. Since there is currently no fail-safe mechanism for ensuring that the total allowance catch is not exceeded, just how will the MSY be arrived at and how will it be monitored and policed?
When it comes to the Marine Management Organisation granting licences to foreign fishing boats to fish within British fishery limits, I fear that, for me at least, the Bill causes confusion. The MMO will grant licences but only for use outside of the devolved Administrations’ waters, but boats licensed by the Scottish Minister will be valid throughout all UK waters. Can Minister explain just how this will work in practice?
I welcome the licensing of foreign vessels. This is essential to ensure that the total allowable catch is not exceeded and our own fishing fleets are able to prosper, but it is also important that TACs are set at a level that is supported by ICES scientific advice, not set higher due to pressure from the large pelagic fleet owners.
There is a great deal of technical detail and some loopholes in the Bill, which we will return to in Committee. I shall finish by raising Clause 23(6), which allows the Secretary of State to set a catch or effort quota of zero, or to replace a quota already set, provided that this is done before the end of the relevant calendar year. What will happen if the Secretary of State adjusts a quota down to below the amount of fish already taken in that year, thus making the catch over quota? What will happen to the unlucky culprit who has fished according to his or her quota but then suddenly finds himself in breach of the legal limit? I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, I suggest that the Fisheries Bill to which we are giving a Second Reading today is no more than a picture frame without a picture. What that picture will be—the detailed shape of Britain’s new post-Brexit fisheries policies—remains as shrouded in mystery as ever. I note that I am the first person speaking in this debate who has even recognised that quite a lot of this will have to be thrashed out in negotiation with the European Union and Norway and cannot just be decided unilaterally by us—although we will of course have a much bigger say than we had before we left the EU. Moreover, as with other aspects of post-Brexit legislation, the detailed implementation and filling-out of that picture is very much conferred in wide-ranging powers for the Executive, with only a pretty vestigial role for Parliaments and Assemblies.
Thirdly, while I note what the Minister said about fisheries being a devolved subject, and due account of that having been taken, there is not a lot about how the devolved Administrations in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast are to be brought into policy-making for a sector of great importance to their economies and electorates—of proportionally greater importance, incidentally, than it is to the English economy.
That is quite a long list of gaps that I hope the Minister will fill when he replies to this debate. With regard to filling in the details of that picture, I have not the slightest intention of asking the Government to divulge their negotiating position in the talks, which will probably get under way in March—even if they knew what it was, which I rather doubt. I will be neither surprised nor particularly disappointed if the Minister says that at this stage he will not go into that detail. But it is important to go into those negotiations, which will inevitably be tough and difficult, with a set of realistic and realisable objectives, not just a collection of slogans and mantras—which is all that has been unveiled in the past three and a half years. We should also be prepared to reach compromises along the way, since an all-or-nothing approach would be all too likely to inflict damage well beyond the fisheries sector itself.
It is not rocket science to suggest that any decent deal will have to cover three crucial elements. The first, and most sensitive, will be access by other parties to fishing grounds lying within our exclusive economic zone and territorial waters. Secondly, there will need to be shared arrangements for fish stocks in those waters, particularly the North and Irish Seas and the English Channel. The third crucial item will be the tariff and phytosanitary control arrangements applying to both our exports and imports. If we gave total priority to one of those three, or excluded one of them from consideration, the results would not be as we wished.
Access to waters is a hugely sensitive issue. It is not a new one, nor did it first arise in the context of our membership of the European Union or the common fisheries policy. In 1964, when the Government of the day decided to extend Britain’s territorial waters from six to 12 miles, we negotiated the London Convention, which gave what were called historic rights to continue to fish in our waters to a number of European countries. At that time, it is important to remember, we were not a member of the EU, and the common fisheries policy did not exist. That has to be borne in mind, because that history will be on the table when we come to negotiate. It will not decide how we handle it, but it needs to be taken into account. That is not just a legal issue—I am not making a legal point here at all—but a political issue: what is pragmatic and practical. I believe that an all-or-nothing approach to that issue will work to our disadvantage.
There is then the hugely important issue of shared management and conservation of stocks. That must be a shared responsibility with the EU and with Norway, given the inconvenient tendency of fish not to know when they are crossing a boundary. In the earlier years of the common fisheries policy, that issue was badly mishandled and stocks were grievously damaged, with decisions taken that rode roughshod over scientific advice. That must not happen again, and I recognise that it is one of the aims of the Government in this legislation, which I welcome. We must not slip back into that period where the politics of allocating shared stocks gained over the science. Neither, again, should we take an all-or-nothing approach.
The third element is the trade in fish and fish products. Over the 47 years that we have been in the EU, we have benefited, of course, from zero tariffs, zero quotas and common phytosanitary rules. They have covered our exports and our imports of fish and fish products, both wild and farmed. Those exports have grown exponentially during that period. They are pretty substantial now, as they were not when all this started. That gives the possible outcome on access to fisheries markets great importance, and we should not delude ourselves that, if we acted in a way that led to the loss of those continental markets, we would be able to replace them quite easily, because that is not the nature of this highly perishable product.
On devolution, I will merely say that every aspect of our new fisheries policy will directly or indirectly involve the devolved Administrations, so it will be important to build them from the outset into the negotiating and implementing process—all the more so as fisheries are such an important subject for them. The alternative, to have a kind of running battle between the devolved Administrations and the UK Government, will only feed the fissiparous tendencies already undermining the unity of the United Kingdom.
So it is a complex picture, but I see no reason why our fishing industry should not emerge quite a lot better placed than it is now, so long as we do not insist on negotiating overreach and do not play about with fancy ideas of linkages with other sectors, of the sort that were put forward recently by the Taoiseach when he suggested some kind of linkage with financial services. That would make a balanced fisheries deal on the three crucial decisions that I have suggested far more difficult to reach, and it would be a mistake if we went down that road.
Baroness Byford (Con)
My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. Perhaps I should be more upbeat than he was, but he has wide experience and knowledge which I certainly recognise.
This is an important, positive Bill; it has many challenges and, as the noble Lord said, it is a complex picture, so there are no easy solutions. But I welcome the Bill and the changes made to the original Bill debated in the Commons over a year ago. At the end of December this year, the UK will no longer be constrained by the common fisheries policy, which I believe has failed to protect fish stocks, the seabed or its marine life.
As others have said, the Bill gives the UK powers to establish a sustainable approach to the way in which fishing will be allowed in future years. But successful changes can be achieved only by the devolved Administrations working closely together. The Bill creates a common approach, preserving the right of UK vessels and any licensed foreign vessels to fish across our four zones in United Kingdom waters. The Bill sets out detailed objectives, and I am pleased, like others, to see a climate change objective in there as well. It requires joint fisheries statements, fisheries management plans and reports to be laid and reviewed.
I will turn directly to the practice of discarding. Only two weeks ago we had a debate on the EU Select Committee’s reports on the EU fisheries landing obligation, in which the Minister acknowledged that the landing of undersized fish had increased, but not by the amount that was anticipated. The National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations is pleased to see in the Government’s proposals a discard prevention charge scheme, recognising the importance of reducing discards. It will give a truer picture and truer data of the fish stocks that are collected and whether they are landed in a proper way rather than just thrown over the side. We need to know about the fish stocks’ long-term ability to reproduce.
I take this opportunity to put on record the valuable work done by the then Fisheries Minister, Richard Benyon, when he introduced the fisheries landing scheme. Further improvements have been made in this Bill. Last year Mr Benyon was asked to review the highly protected marine areas, which I think will add substance once we come to debate this in Committee.
In becoming an independent coastal state, the United Kingdom will have the power to set catch limits for all vessels. Foreign boats wishing to fish in UK waters will have to follow UK rules, abide by catch limits set and, I hope, be required to have remote electronic monitoring equipment on those vessels. I would be grateful if the Minister would clarify this when he responds.
Clause 44 creates new measures to help the Marine Management Organisation to protect marine ecosystems. Back in 2008, a POSTnote commented that, at that stage, no UK body had the responsibility of creating new marine conservation zones; nor were targets set for the area to be covered at that time. In this Bill, amendments to the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 confer powers to make by-laws and orders relating to the exploitation of sea fisheries resources. I ask the Minister: will that include the awful practice that has gone on for many years of bottom-trawling, which has devastated parts of the seabed? I also ask the Minister: if data is available for all areas around our coasts, are those shores fully mapped? If so, how far out to sea does such mapping information go? In looking at the 12-mile limit, have the Government considered, with regard to the seabed and marine conservation, whether it should be regarded in a similar way to the way we have planning on land? It is all too easy to forget what is under the sea because we do not see it, whereas we see it on land.
The Bill is of great importance. Those involved in catching fish work in rough seas and in some of the most demanding circumstances. Indeed, my noble friend said that, tragically, seven of them lost their lives last year. The fish caught and returned to UK shores bring additional jobs to local communities and provide us with good nutritious food. While, as has been said, most of the fish caught by UK fishermen is actually exported to the European Union and other areas and the proportion consumed in the UK is very low, I look to the Bill to enable us, through extra quotas, to eat more of the fish that we catch in this country than has been possible in the past, and that the fish landed will be sold and consumed directly through UK markets. Fishermen will be looking to the Bill to bring certainty for their future. Catches taken must be decided on the best scientific data available, stocks protected and fishing licences granted on actual known stocks, rather than on historic agreements.
ln our desire to see healthy seas around our shores and more widely, we must not forget the continuing need to tackle plastic waste. Whether we are fishermen, individual recreational fishers or simply people who care about our oceans, the Bill is surely a step in the right direction. There will be much to do but I welcome and support it.
Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)
My Lords, this is a really historic Bill. For the first time in 50 years, we can design our own fisheries policy; it will be one of the few silver linings of Brexit, if we get it right. It will be a real test of the Government’s approach to the UK-EU negotiation. There will be lots of pushing and shoving between now and December, and the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, rightly pointed out that there are big shares of quota at stake for other EU states and a big share of markets for us. We need to watch that the needs of sustainable fisheries do not get traded away for other trade-deal requirements
The Bill is an unprecedented opportunity to demonstrate that, in totally rethinking how we manage our fisheries, we can ensure a sustainable future for the marine environment, the fishing industry and coastal communities, as the Minister said. Current fisheries policy, of course, is in no way sustainable. Government assessments have shown that we are not on track to meet the commitment to reach good environmental status and healthy seas by 2020. That is particularly so for fish stocks, shellfish, birds and benthic habitats. Last year, only 59% of UK fish stocks were fished at or below sustainable levels, down a whole 10% on the previous year. North Sea cod stocks have declined to critical levels, due to lax setting of quotas and failure to manage effectively. North Sea cod has lost its Marine Stewardship Council certification, with an impact on valuable market share. This is bad not only for the fish and the environment but for fishers and fishing communities.
The UK Government are currently challenging the global community to increase protection of the world’s oceans to 30% by 2030. If we are to do that without being laughed at, we need to demonstrate world-leading fisheries management and to measure this by recovery of nature and recovery of stocks. The Bill is a welcome improvement on the Bill in the previous 2017-19 Session, but it is very much a framework Bill, whose implementation raises many questions. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, called it a picture frame without a picture and I very much appreciate that analogy. I hope the Minister can give us some assurances about painting in the picture frame at the end of this debate, and I shall raise some of the issues on which I think further answers are needed.
I welcome the new climate-change objective in the Bill. We must ensure that it is about not just low-carbon fishing technology but the importance of recovering fish populations and restoring marine habitats, such as kelp forests, deep sediments and coastal seagrass meadows, as effective natural solutions to tackling the twin emergencies of climate change and biodiversity together.
My second anxiety concerns future trade deals with the EU and other states, where the Government are saying that fisheries negotiation will be a separate annual bilateral agreement. I thoroughly endorse that approach: we must avoid the overall UK-EU negotiation sliding into a link between access to UK waters for the EU states and other states and access to EU markets for us.
The Bill is very much a framework Bill, leaving a lot to the devolved Administrations and secondary legislation. I urge the Minister to let us see the secondary legislation in draft before it is laid or, even better, produce co-management arrangements involving all key stakeholders to ensure that the painting in of the picture that secondary legislation will represent suits all stakeholders.
Many of the objectives listed at the beginning of the Bill are to be applauded: the sustainability objective, the precautionary principle, an approach that involves ecosystems, the climate change objective and the importance of science and evidence-based decisions. However, somewhere in the mix we need a legal duty on relevant public authorities to achieve these objectives and be accountable by publishing specific regular reports on their achievement of the objectives, not just on their activities.
The Conservative manifesto promised
“a legal commitment to fish sustainably”,
but in the Bill there are no legally binding targets or timeframes for bringing unsustainable fisheries stocks to sustainable levels. I am sure the Minister will say that there will be fisheries management plans, but there is nothing in the Bill to say when these plans will be made, what they will cover and when the actions outlined in them will be achieved. I will talk about that in a moment.
There needs to be a legal commitment in the Bill not to fish above independent, scientifically recommended, sustainable levels. Even the rotten old common fisheries policy set catch limits in article 2 to be within maximum sustainable yield by 2020. In the Bill we simply have an aspirational objective to achieve a healthy biomass of stocks, a rather woolly objective that is neither legally enforceable nor subject to any deadline, to be taken forward by way of a policy statement that the Bill says can be disregarded in a wide variety of circumstances. All that represents a potential regression in environmental standards.
There is also no firm commitment to ensure that the stocks we share with other countries are managed sustainably. The Bill needs to set an objective for the Secretary of State in his or her negotiations with the EU and other countries to be directed by clear sustainability criteria, including a commitment to agree catch limits in line with scientific advice. We need to learn from past situations such as the interminable disputes over mackerel between the European Union, Norway, Iceland and the Faroes, which resulted in 35% overfishing and loss of MSC status for that catch. We share over 100 stocks with the European Union, so an effective, evidence-based process is important.
We used to call those the mackerel wars. I turn now to other potential wars. I regret that the noble Lord, Lord West of Spithead, is not in his place—I am sure he would have relished this. We need to think about monitoring and enforcement of our new approach, which the Minister touched on in his introduction. I hope the cod wars will not return; the circumstances are different now that territorial waters have been delineated, but can the Minister say exactly what resources—by way of ships, technological kit and monitoring offices—the Government envisage either to have been recently provided or to be provided in future?
In his response to the committee report of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, on the landing obligation six months on, the Minister of State cited some interesting figures on Marine Management Organisation inspections annually since 2016. Inspections of onshore vessels and premises have greatly increased, but the number of inspections at sea, which are vital, has stayed completely flat. Can the Minister tell us the exact scale of additional resources for monitoring and enforcing under the new arrangements, at least in England, if he cannot speak for the devolved Administrations?
The major feature of the Bill is that it is a high-level framework—the phrase of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, about it being a picture frame with no picture is rather good. There are lots of stages that will follow the Bill and many a slip between cup and lip. The devolved Administrations will be in the driving seat in many cases and we need to see what proposals they will bring forward to paint this picture. The negotiation of a joint fisheries statement will, I suspect, be fraught and there is no guarantee that the joint fisheries policy statement will achieve the objectives outlined in the Bill or by when.
The national authorities have a “get out of jail free” card. The Bill specifies that they can disregard the policy statement where evidence changes. That might be regarded as admirable flexibility but it risks meaning that the fisheries objective will take priority, especially where the interests of the UK fishing industry are at stake. It can shout at the expense of fish stocks and biodiversity, which of course cannot shout.
Fisheries management plans will be important and much will hang on them, but they are optional. The only requirement on authorities in the legislation is to issue a statement explaining how they intend to use fisheries management plans. I suspect they will not come out with a statement saying that they do not think they will use fisheries management plans much. However, they could, given the way the Bill is framed. There must be a legal requirement for authorities to introduce fisheries management plans where stocks are currently fished above sustainable levels or for data-deficient stocks. There are no timescales for laying out or achieving the plans. We need statutory timescales. National authorities have a similar “get out of jail free” card on fisheries management plans, which could mean caving into socioeconomic pressures at the expense of environmental protection.
I started off thinking that this was rather a good Bill but, having thought about it for some time, the fact that it leaves so much unanswered is worrying. It needs to be a tougher framework and I hope the Minister can assure us that the Government’s manifesto commitment to sustainable fishing can truly be guaranteed through the mechanisms outlined in the Bill, especially where the devolved Administrations are concerned. We need that to work for the benefit of fish ecosystems, the fishing industry and coastal and fishing communities.
Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)
My Lords, I support the Bill for many of the reasons already given and will not repeat them. However, there is one point for which I thank the Minister: the evident hard work undertaken by his department in seeking co-operation with the devolved Governments in the drafting and framework of the Bill.
There are three matters, however, on which I should like briefly to touch. First, as reflected in the debates on the withdrawal agreement Act, it is essential that the devolved Administrations are involved in a meaningful and systematic way in the negotiations. I am sure, in the light of the assurances given by Ministers then, that this will happen. However, it will be important to check from time to time that it is happening. It would not be good for the future of the union if we went into negotiations when there was not the greatest possible degree of consensus between the devolved nations, given their responsibilities proposed under the Bill.
Secondly, it is important that every attempt is made to reach a consensus on the position that the United Kingdom Government will take on their negotiations with the European Union and any other states or organisations. It would be a serious matter if the Secretary of State was put in a position where he had to exercise the powers under Clause 23 to force the devolved Administrations to alter their policies, unless every possible attempt had been made to reach a common negotiating position.
Thirdly—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and the noble Baroness Lady Young, whom it is a privilege to follow—the Bill is lacking much detail, particularly regarding how the policies are to be agreed between the various Governments and legislatures. It would be far better, sooner rather than later, to spell out the mechanisms that are intended to be deployed to try to reach consensus, to say what is to happen if there is not consensus, and to do everything possible to reach common policies. Furthermore, it may well be that the fisheries sector and the way it emerges from the frameworks will have an effect on the internal market. Therefore, I suggest that it is important that we address the issue now and see what the picture is, rather than leave it until months or years later.
No doubt many of these issues will require discussion in Committee but it is important that they are grappled with now, because they go to the maintenance and strength of the union.
Lord Selkirk of Douglas (Con)
My Lords, it is refreshing and a great pleasure to follow a distinguished former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, who has a reputation for justice and fairness. I hope that the Minister will consider his wise words with care.
There is no doubt that the negotiations between the Government and the European Union to secure the future of the United Kingdom’s fishing industry after we leave the common fisheries policy are one of the trickiest and most challenging aspects of the trade talks now beginning. They will require cool heads all round and, on the Government’s part, a steely commitment not to let down our fishing communities. Hopes and aspirations in this iconic industry are high, from Peterhead to Cornwall, and what a blow it would be if they were dashed by some financial trade-off. That is not to mention the political gift such a perception would be to some, who would seek to ruthlessly exploit it to further damage the union, as their eventual aim is to destroy it altogether.
In stark economic terms, the UK fishing industry may be responsible only for around 1% of GDP but it has an emotional hold on the hearts of this island nation. In this respect, I hope that during the forthcoming talks with the EU, Ministers will keep in mind that famous definition of a cynic in one of Oscar Wilde’s plays:
“A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
It is indeed the case that the intrinsic value to the United Kingdom of these small but indomitable communities can never be assessed simply on a spreadsheet.
The Bill we are debating today sets out a new framework for managing our fisheries in a sustainable way as the UK emerges as an independent coastal state after over 40 years of being inside the EU’s common fisheries policy. It also details welcome plans for how the UK will take into account the impact of climate change on the health of the ocean and indeed our entire planet. The Scottish Government are unlikely to show a great deal of appreciation, but it must be drawn to their attention that the Bill also gives important new powers to the devolved Administrations to help conserve and enhance the marine environment, and conservation is of course enormously important.
When I first spoke on this subject some three years ago, I acknowledged that some compromises might have to be made in the interests of the fishing industry’s sizeable export trade—70% of the catch goes to European markets. However, it is unfortunate that some EU countries seem to want the UK to concede that their access to our fishing grounds should remain very much as it is at present. Setting out their template for talks, their negotiator, Michel Barnier, has said that he wants to uphold EU fishing activities and that any agreement should
“build on existing reciprocal access conditions.”
This clearly cannot be the case, as the Bill removes the EU’s automatic right to fish in our waters. It is to be hoped that the Government will stick to their commitment for annual negotiations to be held, resulting in improved quotas for our boats and the licensing of access for foreign fishing vessels to the United Kingdom. These would be based not on historic quotas but on scientific data about sustainable catch levels. It is a system strongly supporting conservation, which has already been put into practice by Norway, Iceland and the Faroes. At the same time, the Government have to bear in mind, during the talks, that any barriers and tariffs erected because of UK divergence from EU regulations and standards would be bad news for those who need to get their fish and other seafood produce swiftly to the available markets.
There is also the problem that the EU is insisting that negotiations should be inextricably linked to the wider trade talks. The Government are adamant that this will not be the case, and rightly, in my view. We are dealing with a situation on which an expression has been made by no less a person than Barrie Deas. He issued a statement of powerful wording, which he sent to me this morning. He said:
“We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to secure a better deal for the UK fishing industry and revive coastal communities across the country. The Government must not backdown on their promises to UK fishermen. If it does, many of the objectives that the Fisheries Bill is aiming to achieve will be impossible”.
He is chief executive of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations.
Speaking previously, I stressed the totemic nature of the United Kingdom’s fishing industry and spoke of the sheer spirit and bravery shown over the years by those who work at sea, as well as the dangers faced. As an example, at Eyemouth, down the coast from where I live, a starkly poignant granite memorial depicting a broken mast commemorates that Black Friday when, on 14 October 1881, a terrible storm took the lives of 189 men from the port and left 267 children without their fathers.
Last week, the Prime Minister chose to set out the Government’s vision of its post-Brexit future economic relationship with the EU amid the splendour of the Painted Hall of the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich. He spoke of the United Kingdom being “on the slipway”, recalled our “seafaring ancestors” and claimed we are now embarking “on a great voyage”. We must hope that all those who ply their trade in our historic fishing communities around the United Kingdom will still share that same spirit of optimism and of new beginnings once the trade talks with our European neighbours have concluded.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Non-Afl)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Selkirk, and my contribution will do so from a Northern Ireland perspective. I live in County Down, and three principal ports associated with the sea fish sector are in County Down: Portavogie, Ardglass and Kilkeel. Two of those, Ardglass and Kilkeel, are among the top UK ports. In a Northern Ireland Assembly report of 2015, which is the last known record, the value to the local economy of the fish landed was £20.8 million.
Yesterday evening, I had an opportunity to talk to the Minister about issues that appertain to the sea fishing sector in Northern Ireland. I am reminded by our fishermen and their representatives of a phrase that has been used throughout this process, which neatly sums up the position that the fishing industry finds itself in today. That is: nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. Like noble Lords who spoke earlier, I agree that this Bill is a framework and that much has to be coloured in with what the devolved Administrations come up with, and with what happens in the negotiations between the UK Government and the European Union. So, with the UK’s formal departure from the EU, the Fisheries Bill we are discussing today is an important stepping stone in the process.
As we have been reminded by Boris Johnson, his predecessor and others, the UK will be an independent coastal state and as such we should be able to unleash the potential of the fishing industry. For 47 years it was subjected to the management of the common fisheries policy, which some within the fishing industry believe was mismanagement. We are told that the Bill will deliver a legal guarantee that the UK will leave the common fisheries policy at the end of the transition period in December 2020. Nevertheless, the reality is that, before the potential referred to by the Government can be realised, the UK and the EU have to use their “best endeavours” to agree a new fisheries relationship by the middle of this year. This agreement will be critical to the future continued regeneration of the ports I have referred to, but our fishing industry remains some way off a final agreement in terms of resolving the imbalances in fishing quota allocations, most notably from an Irish Sea perspective.
We also want to see the ending of the annual reallocation of quota from UK fishermen, especially those from Northern Ireland, in favour of their colleagues in the south of Ireland under the so-called Hague Preference. Yesterday evening I had an opportunity to talk to the Minister and I mentioned the voisinage agreement that was originally a gentlemen’s agreement between the old Northern Ireland Parliament and the Government in Dublin. It enabled fishermen from County Down to fish in Dundalk Bay but, because of a Supreme Court judgment in Dublin in 2016, it had to be suspended. The Irish Government have since put the voisinage agreement into legislation. I say this to the Minister: we do not want that agreement dismantled in any way, because good relations have now been resumed and fishermen are continuing to ply the Irish Sea in pursuit of their best endeavours. Now, with a future Irish Government who it is hoped should be in place in the next couple of weeks, I hope that the good relationship with the previous Minister will continue with the noble Lord the Minister.
We should recall that securing a new fisheries agreement between the UK and EU is not about inventing the wheel. Other independent European coastal states, most notably Norway, have fisheries agreements with the EU. Last week, we heard about the EU’s ambition for the new fisheries agreement with the UK. It includes an aspiration for a more detailed agreement than the Norway-EU agreement. Given the huge implications that the UK-EU fisheries agreement will have for the success of this Bill, it would be useful to learn what the UK has in mind.
Reference has already been made to the previous incarnation of the Fisheries Bill, which was addressed in late 2018 in the other place, and to a House of Lords EU Committee report that provided the basis for this legislation. One of the biggest changes is that it delivers on the Government’s manifesto aim to manage our fisheries at their maximum sustainable yield levels under a wider ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management. This is obviously very important, and the application of MSY levels to fisheries management has been the subject of extensive debate since they were adopted by the EU at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002. For some, MSY is a conceptual theory that has little applicability to an ocean environment that is subject to constant change—change that has been accelerated by climatic change. So it is important that the Bill is shaped in a way that allows it to evolve and does not provide for unachievably hard MSY targets.
Another feature that local fishermen have raised with me is a fairer share of fishing opportunities. They suggest that they would like to see, as part of the management framework outlined in the Bill, a quota allocation system that is appropriate for Northern Ireland. What is suggested for England might not necessarily work in Northern Ireland. Fishermen in Northern Ireland should not be penalised, because they have taken all the—let us say—outstanding resilience measures over the last number of years and have been able to deal with discards, by-catches and the landing obligation. They introduced and got patented some areas of gear changes, which it would be useful for the Minister to have a look at.
While the fishing industry welcomes Prime Minister Johnson’s commitment that there will be no checks on the trade of seafood and other products from GB to Northern Ireland, it looks forward to hearing how the Government will deliver on that commitment—in particular with seafood brought to Northern Ireland for primary processing before being returned in its entirety to GB.
Last night I raised with the Minister the issue of allowing non-EEA fishermen to continue to work on County Down boats. In fact, they work on other boats throughout the fishing industry in the UK. So far, in spite of our best endeavours, the Home Office has not come forward with a legal formula to enable them to continue to do this work. In many instances, our local fishing industry could face tie-up without the expertise of these people. The Northern Ireland fishing industry faces a compromised position, because back in 2016 the Irish Government provided a legal framework to enable these non-EEA crew to fish in Irish waters. They can move from one Irish-registered vessel to another, so our local fishing industry in County Down, which relies largely on fishing in the Irish Sea, feels compromised.
I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments in response to the issues I have raised and to participating in Committee on the Floor of the House. I hope that the Bill will lead to the continued regeneration of coastal communities. Other noble Lords have mentioned the issues raised by environmental organisations about the need for greater sustainability and reflection of climate change. While that is referred to in the Bill, they want to see consideration given to binding commitments not to fish above independent, scientifically recommended sustainable levels. To allow an industry such as fishing to grow, develop and nurture, we have to adopt a balanced approach to all this.
In conclusion, I look forward to working with the Minister and noble Lords across the House to develop an enhanced Bill that will bring benefit to fishermen, particularly those I know in County Down fishing villages.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)
My Lords, I begin by associating myself with what the Minister said about the dangers encountered by those who go to sea, especially those who go fishing. In my connection with Trinity House, I come across some of these from time to time.
My first connection with the common fisheries policy was shortly after I became Lord Advocate in 1979, when a number of cases were brought by the Commission against the decisions of the previous Government. In accordance with the proper practice, the new Government found themselves defending these decisions. The decisions had been referred to one of the leading silks of the day, Tom Bingham, who ultimately became Lord Chief Justice, a senior Law Lord and a very distinguished judge. I did not know it at the time, but he had advised the Attorney-General that none of these would succeed; in other words, that in every case, the defence would fail. In pursuance of his policies in relation to the appointment of the judiciary, shortly after that the Lord Chancellor appointed Tom Bingham as a judge, and therefore he was no longer available to defend the cases. I was appointed to defend these cases and, sure enough, Lord Bingham’s prophecy was fulfilled to the letter. I was glad afterwards to know that he had advised that before I had begun at all.
One of the last of the cases was an extraordinary case about the common fisheries policy’s application to the waters around the Isle of Man. It showed me that the provisions of the common fisheries policy did not come naturally to the Government of the United Kingdom as something to be observed in every detail. As time has gone on under that policy, that hesitation has been demonstrated as growing. Anyhow, we are to come out of the common fisheries policy soon and the question is: what will replace it? As has been said, that is really what makes the picture in this Bill. Until we know that, it is very difficult to know exactly what will happen. Of course, it is right to be prepared for what will happen, whatever it be, and we need a structure to replace the common fisheries policy.
I agree with a good deal of what has been said already about the law, and I will not repeat it. I want to say one thing on what the noble Baroness said about legal enforcement of the policy statements mentioned at the beginning. I rather think it is implied that the policies to be adopted are to be in accordance with these objectives. Precise legal provisions may not be needed to require that, but I certainly think it is implied at present.
Clause 12 appears to require that fishing in the territory of the United Kingdom should require a licence. It is a very reasonable requirement for every fishing boat to have a licence. But the clause specifies that not only will fishing boats be required to hold a licence but that they must be in accordance with international law and international agreements to which the UK is a party. I can see the force of that, but I do not see how that kind of thing would be decided in a discussion on the high seas. Take the territorial waters of the North Sea: the enforcing boat might come along and the skipper of the fishing boat could say, “I’m here for a purpose recognised by international law.” Can you imagine how that would be resolved? Alternatively, they might say, “I’m here by virtue of an agreement or arrangement to which the United Kingdom is a party.” I do not know how well equipped the fisheries protection vessels will be, but I imagine that they may be hard put to test that kind of thing. I would have thought it might be wiser to require that, if a boat is coming on that account, it gets a licence before it comes. I am sure it would be much easier for the enforcing authority to look at a licence than to try to find out what international law was defending the incoming fishing boat.
Although not dealt with in this Bill, the arrangements for selling the products of the sea to Europe are extremely important. That is certainly true in some parts of Scotland, particularly the north-west, where I happen to know the ports of Kinlochbervie and Lochinver, which lie on each side of the distinction between my title and that of my noble friend, the chief of my clan. Lochinver and Kinlochbervie are both quite small, but they attract a great deal of seafood, which is sent by road to many parts of Europe. These small communities very much depend upon that. Therefore, the last thing I would like to see is that kind of arrangement being damaged in the result. I mention that not as part of the Bill, but as part of the negotiations, which will be, without any doubt, difficult to conclude satisfactorily. One can see the desire of the European nations to get what they can out of it, and we must be careful about that.
I strongly support what was said by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, about the involvement of the devolved Administrations. Without getting into too much detail, I have to say that that could be pretty difficult if the fundamental policy of the devolved Administration is not in accordance with the present situation. One can see the difficulty of that, and I hope that what my noble friend said in opening will be true: that the co-operation of the devolved Administrations in working out the detail of this will be forthcoming and helpful.
Earl of Devon (CB)
My Lords, I am not a fisheries expert; other than sporting a beard worthy of Captain Haddock and managing medieval manorial interests on the foreshore of the River Exe, I am a novice. I am thus grateful to the Minister for his introduction and to many other noble Lords for their expertise.
My law firm represents clients with commercial sea fishing interests and I know a number of local inshore fishermen in and around the Exe. I have been able to discuss this legislation with them. While happy to be free of the common fisheries policy, and the havoc it wreaked upon our fishing industry and our marine environment, their consensus is apprehension that their remaining livelihoods and coastal way of life may be sold down the river in forthcoming trade negotiations. The industry is also nervous that departure from the CFP will result in new systems that will cause uncertainty and delays. It seeks assurances that investments made in equipment and quota will not be undermined by administrative delays. Banks are currently reluctant to lend to fishing enterprises, and continued uncertainty will only make this worse.
As a Devonian, I am aware of the importance of the fishing industry to the local, regional and national economy. Devon is proud to host a large proportion of England’s fishing fleet, and in Brixham it has England’s largest fish market by value—approximately £40 million per annum.
Fishing has been core to the county’s economy for centuries. My home was built by an admiral of the Western Fleet during the Hundred Years’ War. Much of his time was spent defending English waters from marauding vessels from Brittany and Iberia. I hope that this will not be a task for the Earl of Devon in future, and that we can settle peacefully the fair allocation of our maritime resources towards the long-term health of our fisheries and the communities that depend on them. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young, noted, fisheries monitoring and enforcement will still be key to the exercise of our sovereign control and to achieving the bold ambitions set out in this legislation. What additional investment do the Government intend to make?
As many of your Lordships will be aware—because I have mentioned it—2020 marks the 400th anniversary of the sailing of the “Mayflower” from Plymouth, a commemoration of which I am a patron. This momentous voyage set sail from Devon because of the sophistication of local fishermen who ventured for months, from small ports such as Teignmouth and Kenton, over the vast north Atlantic, to catch and salt cod in enormous quantities. It was much due to the efforts of these modest West Country folk, who established seasonal encampments on the east coast of North America, that we achieved the early English settlement of those distant shores. The trading relationships they operated were complex and cross-border, combining fishermen from Devon, fish from the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, salt from the Bay of Biscay, wine from Bordeaux and consumers on the coasts of the Mediterranean. As the Government head into trade negotiations with Europe and the United States, I hope that they will take lessons from this history, not least the need to work closely with our neighbours and to care for our fish stocks.
With respect to these negotiations, as the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, noted, the political declaration committed the UK and the EU to use their best endeavours not only to conclude but to ratify a new fisheries agreement by 1 July 2020. This seems a little ambitious. Can the Minister describe the progress of those negotiations?
As to the new fisheries objectives, the bycatch objective is laudable. Minimising wastage is essential to the sustainability of our fisheries. In pursuing this objective, we must take account of the peculiarly mixed nature of certain UK fish stocks, which makes for a higher rate of bycatch compared with others. We must be cautious about burdening UK vessels with well-intentioned objectives that render them uncompetitive. We must also ensure that the fisheries management plans not only become compulsory but are localised in their requirements. What may be good for the North Sea fleet may not be good for the south-west, where conditions are so different. How will the Government ensure, post CFP, that quota is allocated more smartly, providing benefit to the fish and the fishers?
I note that the recent debate on the EU fisheries landing obligation concluded that compliance with the discard ban has been impossible to evaluate, through a lack of data. The consensus in favour of remote electronic monitoring in UK waters is shared by fishermen, but they are concerned that this must apply to all vessels fishing in UK waters, not just those landing in UK ports. A level playing field is essential.
The UK is a champion in the area of fisheries technology. At the universities of Plymouth, Falmouth and Exeter, the south-west boasts world leaders in marine and environmental engineering and sciences. How will the Government harness that expertise to ensure that we accelerate productivity, increase sustainability and build the competitive advantage of our fishing fleet? Also, what plans do the Government have to develop skills in fishing and in the onshore processing of fish for the food industry?
The climate change objective is an important addition. Given our location at the end of the Gulf Stream, UK fisheries will be impacted more than most by rising sea temperatures. Does the Minister have data on the carbon footprint of the UK’s fishing fleet, and do the Government have specific targets to address it? Is the Minister aware that offshore fishing vessels from Brixham are currently forced to steam all the way up the channel to Holland for all but the most basic maintenance, because there is no facility in the entire south-west peninsula with the capacity for such work? It surprises me that after more than 500 years of offshore fishing, we have lost the ability to repair our own fleet. The Minister will be aware of recent progress towards reopening the shipyard at Appledore. Are the Government able to support that endeavour and reverse this terrible decline in local shipyard services?
Finally, can the Minister acknowledge the importance of the continental market for UK-caught fish? The vast majority of the fish landed in Devon are sold across the channel. The Brixham market uses state-of-the-art online auction technology to ensure the fastest and most efficient sale of the daily catch. Given the inherent perishability of fish, any delay in transportation will impact sales dramatically, and any increase in border checks will destroy this important regional industry. I realise that Mr Gove thinks a degree of cross-border friction is a price worth paying. However, there is no point in securing the right to fish our own waters only to destroy our ability to sell the fish that we catch; otherwise, it will be fish fingers for tea, for everyone, every day.
Viscount Hanworth (Lab)
My Lords, the Fisheries Bill has huge potential to cause trouble among the nations of the United Kingdom and with our European neighbours. What is written on the face of the Bill is, in the main, unexceptional. Indeed, the environmental precepts are laudable. In the words of a letter from the Minister, the Bill will be a major step forward in the Government’s vision
“to build a sustainable fishing industry with healthy seas”.
We will be moving away from a common European fishing policy that has been vitiated by the competitive bidding among the European fishing nations for quotas that determine their allowable catches. The quotas have invariably exceeded the levels recommended by scientists; the common understanding is that they have been consistently breached and widely ignored. Even when the quotas have been observed, the practice of discarding fish that are undersized or in excess of species-specific limits has subverted policies aimed at conserving stocks.
The competitive animosity of the nations bidding for quotas has been fuelled by the grievances that the British brought to the negotiations. The British fishermen were still smarting from their exclusion from Icelandic waters when, on joining the EEC in 1973, free access to our surrounding waters was granted to the other European nations. The situation was worsened by the severe contemporaneous decline in fish stocks on account of the overfishing. Now, in the words of our Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, Britain will “take back control” and have full jurisdiction over its “spectacular marine wealth”. He has asserted that:
“We will make sure we don’t trade away Britain’s fishing rights as they were traded away… in the early 1970s.”
The Prime Minister has given voice to a common sentiment that has been expressed enthusiastically by fishermen and their representatives. When it becomes independent of the European Union at the end of the transition period, Britain will be surrounded by an exclusive economic zone—an EEZ—over which it intends to assert its fishing rights. The zone will extend as far as 200 miles from our coastline, when it is not constrained by the proximity of an adjacent coastal nation. In that case, a median line will separate the British zone from that of the neighbouring nation.
The concept of an exclusive economic zone, which was established to protect the fishing rights of Iceland, now redounds to Britain’s advantage. It is enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Geography has endowed Britain with an exorbitantly large zone in comparison to the zones of other European fishing nations such as France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark, whose EEZs are limited by the median lines.
The outrage at Britain’s pre-emption of fishing areas to which other nations have traditionally had access is now palpable. It threatens to have a detrimental effect on the forthcoming trade negotiations. Already, the granting of a European passport to our financial services sector has become conditional upon our granting fishing rights to other European nations. However, any concessions to those nations are liable to enrage British fishermen, who are looking forward to greatly increased fishing quotas.
There is also a potential for conflict among the nations of Britain over the control of fishing rights. The Fisheries Bill declares that the management of fisheries is a matter that is devolved to the regions of the United Kingdom. Hitherto, a consistent UK-wide approach to fisheries has been maintained because all the fisheries administrations have been required to comply with European law, which has imposed the common fisheries policy. In consequence of our leaving the European Union, that constraint will no longer apply.
Clause 18 of the Fisheries Bill of Session 2017-19, which has become Clause 23 of the current Bill, gives the Secretary of State the power to determine the quantity of fish that may be caught by British boats. Although the Secretary of State must consult with the devolved Administrations in determining this quantity, the UK Government views the determination of fishing opportunities as a reserved function. However, both the Scottish Government and the Welsh Government have disagreed strongly with this. Given the spirit of disagreement and grievance against Westminster that prevails among Members of the Scottish Parliament, one can imagine that this will become a major point of contention. Scottish parliamentarians will be backed by a powerful fishermen’s lobby, which will point to the fact that over 60% of the UK catch is landed by the Scottish fishing fleet.
More must now be said about the attitudes of fishermen and their organisations. It is clear that the fishermen expect there to be large increases in the allowable catch. In a briefing from the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, we are told that it expects to see an immediate and significant uplift in the quantity of fish available to its fleets. It expects, moreover, that this will be followed by further year-on-year gains. Although the fishermen and their representatives tend nowadays to pay lip-service to the nostrums of conservation, their words and deeds show that in practice they are likely to resist any resulting restrictions on their activities. In particular, they bridle at the injunction that fishing opportunities should be limited by the maximum sustainable yield, the MSY, of fish stocks. The MSY is the maximum rate at which the fish can replace themselves under conditions of human predation or harvesting. If the harvest exceeds the MSY for any length of time then the fish will be destined for extinction.
The objective of fishing at the MSY was incorporated into the rules of the European common fisheries policy. However, certain exceptions have been allowed. One of the principal documents states that, if fishing at the MSY would imply very large annual reductions of fishing opportunities that seriously jeopardise the social and economic sustainability of the fleets involved, then a delay in reaching that objective would be acceptable. This is profoundly illogical. Any such allowance can have arisen only as a consequence of fraught negotiations. Fishing above the MSY will jeopardise the survival of the fish and of the industry. Attempting to fish at the MSY is also dangerous because of the likelihood of exceeding that level inadvertently.
Nevertheless, a recent briefing from the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations has militated against the imposition of any constraint based on the MSY. It seeks the allowances that are recorded by the European common fisheries policy. It is clear that, if they are to achieve some of the more reasonable objectives of the Fisheries Bill, the Government will have to stand firm against the onslaughts of numerous parties.
Lord Dunlop (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Viscount and to support the Bill, which enables the UK to be, in the Prime Minister’s words,
“an independent coastal state from the end of this year, controlling our own waters”.
While the Bill is not directly about the negotiations to come with the EU, it provides the legal framework for the future of fisheries management and is therefore inextricably linked.
I want to focus my remarks on the importance of the Bill to Scotland, which has already been mentioned on several occasions. After seeing their interests subordinated in the 1970s to other priorities in the UK’s negotiations to enter the Common Market, it is understandable that fishing communities are nervous of the same thing happening again as we exit. That is why the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations welcomed the Prime Minister’s speech on 3 February, in which he reiterated his commitment that:
“There would be annual negotiations with the EU, using the latest scientific data, ensuring British fishing grounds are first and foremost for British boats.”
This is a promise that must be kept—a promise that has particular significance for Scotland.
Scottish boats in 2018 were responsible for 64% by volume and 58% by value of all UK landings. While fishing makes a relatively small contribution to our overall GDP, it is disproportionately important for often fragile coastal communities. For example, fishing is a significant part of the local economies of the Western Isles and Shetland. According to the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, more fish are landed in Shetland alone than in the whole of England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Also, Scottish towns such as Peterhead—which invested £45 million to create one of the largest and most modern fish markets in Europe—are heavily reliant on fishing.
Let us not forget the political significance of fishing for the union. A majority of Scots need convincing about the benefits of leaving the EU, and fishing is an area where the potential benefits are perhaps most immediately apparent and where the UK Government can demonstrate they are delivering for Scotland.
The Scottish Fishermen’s Federation has described the move to independent coastal status as offering a “sea of opportunity”, and it is hard to disagree. As a member of the EU, the UK was allocated around 40% of total allowable catch in UK waters. For the purposes of comparison, the equivalent figure for Norway is around 85% and for Iceland 95%. Moreover, EU quotas are based on historical fishing patterns established nearly 30 years ago. They take no account, for example, of the impact of climate change, which has seen stocks of fish such as cod, hake and tuna moving further north.
It is sobering to consider the combined impact of the CFP on a place such as the Western Isles since the UK joined the EU: the number of vessels has reduced by one-fifth; the number of fishermen has fallen by nearly one-third. So, Western Isles fishermen are already looking to secure fresh opportunities. To take one small example, seasonal bluefin tuna are found increasingly in UK waters—and it is a valuable fish. So, the Western Isles see an opportunity to develop its own rod and line fishery, strengthening its tourist offering and increasing local economic resilience.
Currently there is no UK quota for tuna and the UK, as an EU member, has not had its own seat at the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas. The prize in prospect is clear: to increase the quota opportunities and to ensure that they are spread more widely and fairly, playing a part in coastal community regeneration. I hope the licensing regime encourages new entrants and avoids additional fishing opportunities becoming overly concentrated in a few hands. I hope the Minister will address this issue when he winds up.
It is of course self-defeating to create new fishing opportunities for British boats without access to markets. The EU proposes that provisions for fisheries should
“build on existing reciprocal access conditions, quota shares and the traditional activity of the European Union fleet.”
However, access to waters is not the same as access to markets. The UK is party to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and, according to the excellent House of Lords briefing:
“Coastal states have exclusive rights to the natural resources, including fish, in their exclusive economic zone.”
The UK should therefore have the opportunity to negotiate annually reciprocal water access with Norway, the Faroe Islands, the EU and others. After all, this is how Norway, a member of the European Economic Area, negotiates with the EU and how the EU negotiates with every other third country. We should move on from quotas based on historical patterns to zonal attachment, calculating shares using best science of where fish are today, not where they were 30 to 40 years ago.
None of this means that EU vessels should or will be denied access to our waters, but relative opportunities need to be more balanced and managed over time—not least to allow the EU fleet a period of adjustment to avoid dislocation and to give our fishing industry time to expand its onshore infrastructure to cope with new opportunities.
When it comes to market access, trade in fishing products is not a zero-sum game. The EU exports as much fish to the UK as it imports from the UK: over £1 billion of trade in each direction. It must surely be in the interests of both parties to avoid restrictions on trade or the introduction of tariffs.
My final point concerns devolution, which is an important aspect of the Bill. Our withdrawal from the EU has often strained relations between the UK Government and the devolved Administrations. However, the discussions among the Administrations about fishing are an example of best practice. As the Law Society of Scotland’s Bill briefing says:
“We welcome the recognition given by Defra of the importance of engaging with the devolved administrations and legislatures and the collaborative approach taken by the Bill.”
This is reflected in the arrangements in the Bill for a joint fisheries statement and for individual fisheries management plans. The provisions in Clauses 14 and 16 that require UK Ministers to secure the consent of devolved Ministers in exercising their licence regulation-making powers are also examples of a collaborative approach.
Clause 23, which has been mentioned, gives the Secretary of State a power to set
“the maximum quantity of sea fish that may be caught by British fishing boats”
and
“the maximum number of days that British fishing boats may spend at sea.”
When making a determination under Clause 23, the Secretary of State is under an obligation via Clause 24 to consult the devolved Administrations, but their consent is not required. This seems to strike the right balance. International relations are a reserved matter and the UK has responsibility to establish quotas for the purpose of complying with an international obligation of the UK to determine fishing opportunities. How quota is then allocated within the UK is governed by a well-established concordat agreed in 2012 between the UK Government and the devolved Administrations. This appears to work well.
In conclusion, I welcome the Bill. It paves the way for new economic opportunities. It will improve fisheries management, making it more sustainable and environmentally friendly. In the negotiations to come, the UK Government must stand firm and the United Kingdom’s status as a normal independent coastal state should be non-negotiable.
Lord Krebs (CB)
My Lords, as the Minister so clearly set out in his introduction, sustainability is at the heart of this Bill. The Defra briefing Sustainable Fisheries for Future Generations tells us:
“Underpinning everything will be our commitment to sustainability—supporting future generations of fishermen and allowing our marine environment to thrive.”
Clause 1 of the Bill, as we have heard, sets out the fisheries objectives, the first of which is sustainability. If this is what the Bill really delivers, in a world where scientists estimate that in the order of two-thirds of the world’s fish stocks are overfished and in which, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, mentioned, only 59% of UK stocks were fished at or below sustainable levels last year, who could object? However, I will argue that the Bill may not be all it seems.
When you look at the Bill in more detail, you begin to question whether or not it will deliver on this sustainability promise—but first I must digress. “Sustainability” is, unfortunately, one of those words used by too many people to mean too many different things and therefore runs the danger of becoming almost meaningless, unless we define our terms. It was not always like this. The term was coined with a very specific purpose by the German forester and land- owner Hans Carl von Carlowitz, whose treatise on Nachhaltigkeit, the German word for sustainability, appeared a year or so before his death in 1714. Von Carlowitz was concerned about the rapid deforestation of western Europe to provide wood for buildings, ships and fuel. He set out the principles by which forests should be managed for their long-term viability for future generations. Nowadays, however, the term is used for a much wider range of objectives. For example, the UN’s 17 sustainable development goals, descended from the 1987 Brundtland report, range from ending poverty and hunger to securing economic growth, justice and gender equality.
So, what does the Bill mean when it talks about sustainability? Does it really mean securing the long-term health of fish stocks and marine ecosystems or does it mean something vaguer and more general? I am sorry to say that, as it stands, the Bill does not guarantee the long-term health of either our fish stocks or our marine environment. Why do I say this? The clue, as has been said, lies in Clause 1(1). This clause lists eight objectives of the Bill, but contains a fundamental category error by listing sustainability as merely one of the eight. If the Government really meant sustainability in the von Carlowitz sense, there would be just one objective: sustainability; the other seven would be subordinate to this as a means of achieving sustainability.
Noble Lords may think that I am making a rather technical—even academic, as suits my background—and abstruse point. However, when we move to Clause 1(2), the alarm bells start to ring loud and clear. This is where the Bill declares its hand. I refer to a point touched on by the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, my noble friend Lord Hannay and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell. In this clause, the sustainability objective is defined not merely as ensuring that fish stocks are sustainable in the long term, but also as ensuring economic, social and employment benefits.
This is precisely why, under the common fisheries policy, so many stocks have been overexploited. The argument for going beyond the scientifically recommended quotas is that, by adhering to these quotas, the livelihoods of fishermen and communities are put at risk. In other words, in the trade-off between the different elements of sustainability, short-term gain has taken precedence over longer-term pain. By fishing more now, fishermen have good livelihoods today, but their descendants will not have this tomorrow. I therefore ask the Minister, in his reply, to explain to us how the trade-off between these elements of sustainability in the Bill will be calculated, and to assure us that short-term interests will not be placed ahead of the longer-term objective of ensuring that fish stocks are there for future generations. In short, can the Minister commit to a legally binding obligation not to exceed the scientifically recommended levels of quota?
However, the problems do not end there; the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, has already referred to this. The fisheries management plans covered in Clauses 7 to 11 of the Bill are designed, as Defra’s briefing on the Bill says, to
“achieve maximum sustainable yield for all stocks.”
One of the standard textbooks of ecology that I have used for teaching undergraduates at Oxford says that
“a fixed quota strategy at the MSY level might be desirable and reasonable in a wholly predictable world about which we have perfect knowledge. But in the real world of fluctuating environments and imperfect data sets, these fixed quotas are open invitations to disaster.”
The Peruvian anchovy stock was the world’s largest single fishery from 1960 to 1972; it was managed by MSY quotas and collapsed in 1972, taking 20 years to recover. Does the Minister have a view on whether MSY is indeed the measure through which to manage quota? There are alternatives that are well known in the fisheries science literature.
I wish to raise a couple of final points, one of which has already been mentioned—namely, the importance of data. The only way to get real data on what is being taken out of the sea, as other noble Lords have said, is to have remote electronic monitoring or CCTV cameras on board all fishing vessels. Why is that not part of the deal?
My very final point is something that has not been mentioned before: fishing vessels are continually increasing in efficiency. One estimate in the literature is that the introduction of GPS and sonar on fishing vessels has resulted in an increase in efficiency—catch per unit effort—of between 300% and 400% in recent decades. It seems an ineluctable consequence that, if we are to fish at sustainable levels, the fishing industry will in the future have to shrink. There will have to be fewer fishermen, each operating a more efficient vessel. Do the Government acknowledge that one element of sustainability in the future will be a smaller fishing industry?
Lord Lansley (Con)
My Lords, I do not want to embarrass the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, but I thought that was an excellent speech. It reminded me of an important point about the drafting of legislation. As the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, may recall, when one asks any administration to adhere to a series of duties or objectives, the more one adds in, the greater is the difficulty in the administration thereof. And, indeed, the Bill before us is different from the Bill as introduced in the other place, and has further objectives. Until the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, drew our attention to it, I had not noticed that even the sustainability objective has more than one objective within it. There is a heaping up of objectives, which is why either we would have to put into the Bill some kind of hierarchy of objectives—as noble Lords will recall, that has been done in relation to other regulators—or the Government and the fisheries administrations would have to proceed to a joint fisheries statement that provided clarity to all concerned about their balancing of the several objectives at an early stage. The noble Lord helped us greatly by what he said about that.
I share with the noble Earl, Lord Devon, the fact that I am no fisheries expert, but I do have to declare an interest: my wife’s company in Brussels is a partner to an agency that has UK Fisheries as one of its clients. I would not want anyone not to recognise that I have that interest to declare—although I have received no briefing particular to me in that respect, and what I say is not derived from that.
I share with many of my noble friends a feeling, expressed admirably by my noble friend Lord Dunlop, that expectations about our establishment as an independent coastal state from the beginning of next year are, justifiably, high. They ought to be high. If leaving the European Union is intended to deliver significant economic benefits to the United Kingdom, they should be visible—hopefully, dramatically visible—in relation to the fishing sector, perhaps before any other.
How is that to be achieved? I shall focus on two points. One is about how the Bill takes account of the interests of the fishing industry and secures them. The second comes back to what the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, referred to earlier—something in which I am interested by virtue of our previous discussions on the Trade Bill and other legislation—and that is the question: how shall we here go about scrutinising and contributing to the exercise by the Government of their prerogative powers to make treaties?
On the first point, it is not clear how the Government will consult, beyond consulting the other fisheries administrations. Devolution is a central factor here, but all those administrations must understand how to balance a range of interests. We need to see in the Bill how those interests can be taken on board. For example, what Schedule 1 says about consultation on joint fisheries statements is, essentially, that the Government can consult pretty much anybody they regard as an interested person simply by publishing the document to the general public. Nothing more is required. In our discussions on the Bill, we must require more. We must require the Government to take specific account not only of the scientific evidence but of the views of those who can bring that evidence to bear. They should also take on board the views of the various fishing sectors—not only those of people who, rightly, expect more quota and a greater share of the allocation of catch in coastal zones and in our own territorial waters, but also the interests of the distant waters fleet. Last year, I had the privilege of being on the “Kirkella”, a trawler out of Hull, with two crews overwhelmingly based in Hull and Humberside, that sails great distances. As the Minister rightly said, the resilience of the fishing fleet is much to be admired. They travel a great distance to bring back fish—in their case, generally cod—for us to consume here. Their interests, as well as those of the coastal fishers, must be taken into account.
That brings me to my second point, about treaties and agreements. We are proceeding on the basis that, in an ideal world, in July we will arrive at a fisheries agreement that will, presumably, give us a greater share of the catch and quotas in UK territorial waters, our exclusive economic zone, and the European Union will just say, “Fair enough—that’s not how it’s been in the past, but clearly that’s how it’s going to be in the future, and we’ll leave it at that”. However, there is no evidence that the EU will leave it at that. My noble friend quoted the draft negotiating mandate presented by the European Commission, which, I remind noble Lords, proposed that fisheries should
“build on existing reciprocal access conditions, quota shares and the traditional activity of the Union fleet”.
The Commission has moved from that draft in the past few days and, significantly, replaced the words “build on” with the word “uphold”. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, will know more about that than I do, but it is a hardening of the Commission’s position, not a softening.
We are trying to separate market access from access to waters. They are different things. In an ideal world, access to waters would be subject to one agreement and market access would be as liberalised as we could possibly make it, with zero tariffs and zero quotas. That, doubtless, is our ambition. But let us imagine that we were in a bilateral agreement—with Norway, for example—whereby the Norwegians had access to our markets but we did not have access to their waters. Would we say, “Fair enough—those are entirely separate things and we won’t regard them as even remotely interconnected”? But they are interconnected, and they will be interconnected in the minds of European Union negotiators. It would be unrealistic for us to imagine otherwise.
In terms of treaties, Clauses 23 to 25 are pretty critical. There is a legal structure governing everything else, which is terrifically important, but it could all be overruled by the nature of the agreements that the Government enter into with the European Union, and other bilateral agreements. Clearly, we shall not issue a negotiating mandate for the negotiations, and I do not seek one. None the less, we have a legitimate expectation that those treaty negotiations with the EU, and bilaterally with other coastal states, will be based on a joint fisheries statement that we have examined and considered, and that the Government will give Parliament, along with other interests, a substantial opportunity to comment on the Government’s understanding of what their objectives should be—in the same way as I hope we shall, in due course, be able to do in relation to other treaty negotiations. The Government should at least tell us what their objectives are, so that we can contribute, and hope to hold them to account for their achievement, or otherwise, of those objectives.
That said, expectations are high. The Government have brought forward a Bill that, as I think the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, said, looks pretty good on the face of it; when I went through it, much of the structure seemed entirely logical. It is just that, when it comes to the actual substance beyond the structure, we need to put much more into it to make it work.
The Earl of Caithness (Con)
My Lords, I join the Minister and my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay in paying tribute to our fishermen, who carry out an amazing job in extraordinary weather. Those who have been tossed around in a force 8 gale and run for shelter when the fishermen are working hard in that same gale know the sort of conditions that they have to work in. Safety at sea has of course considerably improved, and I am delighted by that. When I was Fisheries Minister, I was very involved with safety because of some very sad accidents. I particularly remember Albert McQuarrie bringing in the Safety at Sea Act, which all the fishermen wanted except when it came to actually implementing it on their boats and it took up space. The reward that my friend Albert McQuarrie got for all his hard work was that he lost his seat at the next election.
This is undoubtedly a hugely critical area for relationships between the UK and the EU, and for the Government. As my noble friend Lord Lansley has just said, we start from totally different poles. The Government quite rightly, as our own state, want to go in one direction, but the EU will resist tooth and nail moving away from any benefit that the common fisheries policy has. We were misled to some extent when we joined the EEC; the rules regarding fisheries were changed before we joined. That is the lesson for how careful we are going to have to be in our negotiations with the EU. However, there are opportunities, as my noble friend Lord Dunlop said. He mentioned the Western Isles, and my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay mentioned Kinlochbervie and Lochinver. I will of course mention Thurso as being a critical landing port, and a critical point from which the EU gets a lot of its fish. There is a stream of traffic and, when you know that that stream of traffic is going to come, you get ahead of it on the A9 coming south; otherwise, you are going to get stuck behind it all the way to Inverness before you have a chance of overtaking the fish lorries.
Enforcement is critical for the Bill. I join the noble Baroness, Lady Young, in asking the Minister to be a bit more forthcoming about what the UK fishery administrations are planning for in the way of enforcement at sea. We are going to have a new line between us and the EU. If the EU is aggrieved by the deal that will be done with it later this year, a lot of those boats are going to test our resolve and our enforcement at sea to the highest level that they can. If my noble friend could be more forthcoming, that would be helpful.
On the proposed fisheries agreement with the EU, I agree with my noble friend Lord Lansley that this is something that Parliament ought to look at. It intersects with the Bill in a number of areas. He mentioned Clause 23, but I am also thinking of Clauses 7 and 12. In a number of areas, what is going to be agreed in July and in the trade deals cuts right across the Bill and could undermine a huge amount of what it is trying to do. I am not trying to tell the Minister how to negotiate or what his negotiating brief should be, but when we get to a certain point before this becomes a statutory instrument, Parliament really ought to be in a position to debate it and look at its relevance to the Bill.
Talking of enforcement, I would also like more information about how we are going to monitor by-catch. I listened with interest to the debate that the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, had the other day, and what I did not listen to I read. Clearly, this is another area where we need much more information in order to be accurate on the data. As the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, has just said, it is about getting that data. And it is not just about our data; it is about making sure that the EU is doing the same thing. We find far too often that people are working on different bases and do not have the right scientific information.
I turn to the devolved Administrations. I am delighted by the close working relationship that seems to have been developed on fisheries, but there are a couple of aspects that worry me. Under Clause 17, Scotland is able to license a foreign boat, but Clause 17(2)(a) says that boat is not allowed to fish in waters outside Scotland. What happens if the Scottish authority licences a foreign boat and it strays into English waters? Whose responsibility is that? Would it not be better for all the fishing authorities to work together on licences so that there is a common pool of the foreign boats that are licensed as well as the UK boats?
On Clause 33, I am concerned that the power for devolved authorities to help fisheries might lead to an intra-UK state war. I hope this can be avoided, and I hope that by working with the devolved authorities we will all do roughly the same thing, but it would be sad if one devolved Administration used state aid in a way that was detrimental to the rest of the UK. Given the problems that we could have among the devolved Administrations, and between the devolved Administrations and the fishermen who will be seeking to get the maximum catch that they can, is there not an argument that there ought to be some sort of mediation or arbitration service to help in that respect?
I end on a point that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, mentioned. He called them “historic rights” and I remember that, when I was Minister for fishing, we called them “grandfather rights”, but either way they are long-established rights. I am thinking particularly of the fishing boats designation orders in 1965 for France, Belgium and Ireland, which give certain boats from those countries the right to fish in our waters, particularly when they are going to the Isle of Man’s territorial waters, where they have a separate arrangement. I do not think that in the Bill those rights have been extinguished. Could the Minister confirm whether those grandfather rights have been extinguished? What discussions has he had with the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands to make certain that no grandfather rights will continue forward under the present legislation? While we are on grandfather rights, can the Minister be absolutely certain that he is not inadvertently creating new grandfather rights should there be a break-up of the United Kingdom—which I certainly would not like to see—that would cause us problems in future?
The Bill is absolutely going in the right direction and my noble friend has my support, but I hope he will be able to fill in some of the details of the picture that badly need to be painted.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. I know that he cares very deeply about the natural world.
I would like to put the Bill in a political context. We have to remember that “taking back control of our fisheries” was one of the rallying cries of the Brexit campaign. The promise that by leaving the European Union we would develop more sustainable food, fishing and farming systems was what convinced many people like me that Brexit would open up a brighter, greener future. The Conservatives recognised this in their manifesto, which made big promises on the environment and getting Brexit done. The challenge is now to meet those promises in the legislation before your Lordships’ House.
We Brits have a natural affinity with the seas around us and the creatures that inhabit them. Many people are shocked to learn of the impacts that the industrialised fishing industry has had: destroying marine ecosystems, depleting fishing stocks and killing some of the sweetest and most intelligent life forms on the planet. In UK waters thousands of marine animals, including harbour porpoises, dolphins, whales, seals and seabirds, die every year as a result of incidental capture and drowning in fishing gear. Recent estimates of the annual UK fisheries death toll include over 1,500 dolphins and porpoises, 400 to 600 seals, and a concerning and increasing level of entanglements of humpback and minke whales. These problems can be solved in this Bill, but at the moment the words do not match the ambition in the Conservative Party manifesto.
I do not want to pick a fight across the Chamber—although I probably will—particularly with such charming Peers as the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, and the noble Earl, Lord Devon, but there is, for example, no UK quota on bluefin tuna, because it is a threatened species and we are waiting for stocks to recover from past overfishing. Illegal fishing of bluefin tuna is quite a problem: there is a lack of enforcement, and that is something we have seen in the Bill.
“Uncompetitive?” Well, as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said, perhaps we need a smaller fishing industry. We cannot exploit the seas for short-term gain if that means a poorer quality of life in future for more than just fish. I note that the mottos of the noble Earl, Lord Devon, are, “What is true is safe”—to which I subscribe completely—and “Where I have fallen, what have I done?”, which I am afraid I will have to have explained to me.
Proper monitoring and enforcement of the fishing industry are necessary and should begin with modern electronic systems such as CCTV cameras on fishing vessels and sea-to-plate traceability. That would help people who eat fish products to be confident about conditions and the minimisation of environmental impact. Retailers, too, could be sure that no dolphins were harmed in their products.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Young, mentioned, the Bill falls short of the commitment to fish sustainably. There is no legal commitment in it. The sum of the parts of the Bill do not amount to a legal commitment of any kind. Many of the ingredients are present, but the Bill reads as though someone started with a lot of ambition and promise and then someone else went through it with a red pen, which sadly has enfeebled it.
I offer to work with noble Lords across the House, including the Minister, to turn the wishy-washy parts of the Bill into something strong, with legal mechanisms, to make good on those promises on Brexit and in the Conservative manifesto. If, however, the Government resist important amendments, your Lordships’ House might be well justified in insisting that the amendments are written into the Bill. A legal commitment to fish sustainably is now, unquestionably, the will of the people.
The Duke of Montrose (Con)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, particularly when she is encouraging the Government to carry out their manifesto. I welcome the chance to examine this legislation so early in the parliamentary Session, as it will be a prime illustration of the Government’s approach to relationships with the devolved Administrations. Many of the powers that will now come back to the UK involve devolution.
On the repatriation of fishing, in October 2017 the Joint Ministerial Council reached an agreement that there would be a need for a legislative framework for regulation as we leave the EU’s common fisheries policy. Here we begin to see what that would mean. Can the Minister say when the final meeting of the Joint Ministerial Council that addressed the Bill took place, and how much agreement was achieved?
The tone of the Bill strikes me as incredibly optimistic in comparison with the norms of most of our legislation, but perhaps it is impossible for it to work otherwise. Many clauses call for consultation, and there is to be an appeal or dispute resolution process for the charges on discards—but, interestingly, not on the allocation of licences or on many other issues. As my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay emphasised, the presumption has to be that everyone will remain co-operative and ready to agree. If, however, they do not, we are in unknown territory.
From briefings that we have received from the industry, it appears that the new mechanism for regulating catches is much more acceptable than the old common fisheries policy concept of “relative stability”. This is a hopeful sign. However, the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, pointed out where the criteria that we are adopting fall short of what might be required for true sustainability.
The fact that in Clause 1(6) there is to be a requirement to record all catches, including bycatch, should—as was mentioned by my noble friend Lady Byford—give a far more comprehensive and acceptable record on which to base policies. Furthermore, it is supported by fishermen. I believe that we all recognise that in the fishing industry, when an edict comes down from on high—as currently happens—it is usually not something with which fishermen will meekly comply. The challenge for the new policy is whether it will trigger a change in the culture of some of the more belligerent elements in the industry, and whether there will be a sufficient number of responsible fishermen to set a new tone that will encourage others to comply.
My noble friend Lord Selkirk of Douglas reconfirmed the general idea proposed in regulation to reflect the pattern that has been developed in the Norwegian fishery over the last 20 years, and the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, mentioned that we should look for an improvement in what has been developed there. However, until we have a little more detail on implementation and monitoring, it is hard for us here to know how successful it will be in protecting vulnerable species.
One area where devolved rights seem to be a very contentious issue is quotas. A number of noble Lords who have spoken find, as I do, that the different elements in the Bill paint a very confusing picture. In Clause 2, the Bill very properly says that all must agree on policy in a joint fisheries statement. However, when we get to Clause 23 we see that it will be up to the Secretary of State to set out the quantity of fish that may be taken or the number of days that boats can be at sea. Having spent many days—like many earlier speakers—in your Lordships’ Energy and Environment Committee debating the uptake of the EU’s new discard policy, it would be interesting for me to get some indication from the Minister about what criteria the Government are thinking of using in this judgment.
In Clause 25 it is the national fisheries authorities who appear to be responsible for distributing fishing opportunities to fishing boats. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Dunlop for explaining what will govern the distribution of quotas among the four Administrations. Does the Minister not think that it would be helpful for some reference to this mechanism to be mentioned in the Bill? Otherwise, we are left with very little indication.
How different national fisheries authorities should conduct their own distribution is, quite appropriately, not addressed in the Bill, but an exception is made when it states that the Secretary of State should have power of regulation over any sale of English catch quota. Can my noble friend the Minister indicate whether in England, or even in other authorities, sales to foreign vessels will be in the hands of the fisheries authorities, or will it be merely an opportunity for individual fishermen to dispose of the catch as they wish?
It is welcome that one of the objectives of the Bill is to bring social and economic benefits to any part of the United Kingdom, but I think we can all agree that the real issue for our fishermen will be the deals that the Government make to secure a reasonable level of income for their industry.
Lord Mountevans (CB)
My Lords, I note my maritime interests recorded in the register, particularly as a council member of Maritime UK, which brings together the UK’s major maritime trade associations, and as a trustee of Seafarers UK, the leading national maritime charity. Both organisations are concerned for the economic and social welfare of the UK’s coastal communities, not least fishing communities.
I shall not rehearse again the numerous positive features of the Bill, which your Lordships have heard about already, other than to say that I support it. It is an enabling Bill, and I am sure that many in the House will look forward to working with the Minister to achieve its desirable goals and others that have been suggested.
The Bill and what will follow offer a unique opportunity to address the severe challenges facing the under 10 metre fleet. This once-vibrant sector of our fleet used to supply fresh fish, employment—often in areas where few, if any, alternatives were present—and a sense of worth. There is a historical disparity in allocation of quota, in the form of fixed-quota allocations, which has seriously disadvantaged the smaller sector, which, despite making up 80% of the UK fleet by number, has access to less than 2% of our national allocation. I welcome the aims of Clause 25, which seeks to utilise social, economic and environmental criteria when allocating quota rather than continue to rely only on the highly controversial historical rights as a basis for allocation. I agree with the Fisheries Minister, George Eustice, who made clear in evidence to a parliamentary committee recently:
“As we depart from relative stability and have new fishing opportunities coming in, I do not think it makes any sense at all to compound the injustice of the FQA system.”
If I might make one suggestion to the Minister, an easy win for the under 10 metre sector would be for him to intercede to ensure that delays in granting the Coastal Producer Organisation the same rights and privileges as other producer organisations in the country are dealt with by the Marine Management Organisation. The under 10 metre fleet could then benefit from tailored quota management in the same way as the over 10 metre fleet currently enjoys. This could be profoundly beneficial to the fortunes of the small-boat sector.
Staying with quotas, it is clear that, in real terms, its effective privatisation has led to increased consolidation to the detriment of the small-scale fleet, which simply does not have the resources to compete with far better-resourced corporate bodies. There are some alarming figures out there: a recent investigation found that the five largest quota-holders control more than a third of UK fishing quota. Around half of England’s quota is ultimately owned by Dutch, Icelandic or Spanish interests. I have found, as I am sure have others, that the deeper one goes into this, the more complex the whole subject is.
On the basis of the above, I am concerned to see that Clause 27 promotes an annual auction of fishing rights. If the Government are looking at this approach as a method of generating revenue, surely a more equitable method would be simply to increase the levy currently attributed to the Sea Fish Industry Authority rather than effectively sell off a chunk of quota annually to the detriment of the great majority of the fleet, not least those who do not have the financial reserves to enter into an auction race and those new entrants where it has been recognised that a major impediment to their ability to enter the catching sector is the cost of quota. Such an auction would without doubt serve only to benefit already wealthy operators at the expense of other fishermen. and would ostensibly be open to resale or lease under the proposed rules, further underpinning the current imbalance in allocations.
In addition, Clause 27(3)(n) states that the regulations may include provision for
“the payment of compensation to a person who holds but does not use rights sold in accordance with the regulations.”
In much the same way as UK fishermen are regularly disenfranchised by the quota held by slipper skippers—those who have been awarded quota but lease it out rather than fish themselves—and quota traders, anyone other than genuinely working fishermen holding quota should arguably do so only on a “use it or lose it” basis.
On access to our waters by EU fishing vessels from January 2021, it is of paramount importance to the fishing community that, whatever arrangements the Government finally come to with the EU, the absolute red line for the UK’s inshore fleet is that the 12-mile fisheries limit is made sacrosanct. This move, together with the increasingly urgent need to develop, in the words of Michael Gove, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, world-leading fisheries management linked to a fairer and more equitable allocation of quota, would do much to begin to rejuvenate many of our coastal communities and the small-scale fishermen and women who support them.
The Bill and the welcome accompanying debate around the UK fishing industry afford a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for government and society to address some of the challenges that I and other noble Lords have noted. The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, noted the dangers of this calling. In the past 10 years, 94 fishermen have died off the UK, 529 have suffered serious injury and 210 fishing vessels have been lost.
As noted by the noble Lords, Lord Grantchester and Lord Lansley, we must not overlook the importance and value of our distant-waters fishermen who fish the north Atlantic waters of the Barents Sea, Greenland and the Faroe Islands. In the context of the negotiations with the EU, it is vital that the UK retains access to these waters. At the same time, these countries will want continued access to the UK market for their fish exports. But as far as I can see, their interests are not addressed in the Bill. This may be appropriate, as the Bill seeks to address the opportunities of an independent state. Can the Minister say that their interests—essentially, continued access to the waters of Arctic Norway, Greenland and the Faroe Islands—will be assured? Their major concerns can be summarised as follows: a statutory requirement to consult industry, including the distant fishing fleet, in agreeing fisheries statements or in respect of bilateral or multilateral fisheries agreements; including in the Bill reference to the objectives and processes for UK participation in the future management of fisheries in the so-called northern external waters, and ensuring that the competent authority secures continued UK access to fisheries in respect of those non-EU coastal states with which the UK enters bilateral trade agreements.
I draw the attention of the Minister and the House to a forthcoming report from Liverpool John Moores University to be published by Seafarers UK. This follows the study, Fishing for a Future, which Seafarers published in 2018. That wide-ranging study covered multiple aspects of the industry and helped raise awareness of the safety, welfare and social issues affecting many of the UK’s small-scale coastal fishers and their communities among government and other policymakers. I commend the report, the final draft of which I hope I have seen.
Since I have the attention of a well-informed and very engaged Minister, I want to conclude with mention of some of the study’s recommendations. On the need for access to affordable credit, a proposal is made for a national credit union offer. A second proposal is for financial education for those employed in the “share fish” community; here, as with those employed in the gig economy, government clearly has a key role. Regarding PAYE, tax and national insurance, we recommend that charities, third-sector organisations and government departments initiate interventions to support fishermen where support and guidance with form-filling, assessments et cetera is required. To modernise share fishing, it is recommended that the larger-scale fleet more widely introduce employment status in its sector and that, within the smaller-scale fleet, a debate is had on the value of moving from a share fishing model to one based on co-operative principles. Finally, a national plan for the development and sustainability of small-scale fishing is proposed. This would need specific action to support the financial resilience and business success of small-scale coastal fishers.
Baroness Worthington (CB)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak in this debate and to follow so many learned noble Lords and the excellent points they have made in relation to this Bill. I agree with many who have said that this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to introduce new framework legislation to address the management of our fisheries.
Fisheries management is the ultimate tragedy of the commons. We have a collective resource, yet it is in everyone’s individual interests to exploit it to maximum economic yield in the short term to the detriment of the long term; a number of noble Lords have pointed out that this is true fisheries. Add to that that in the marine environment it is almost impossible to carry out effective MRV—monitoring, reporting and verification —and you get a really wicked problem. Therefore, the chance in the UK to write new framework legislation is hugely exciting. In the tragedy of the commons, the normal way to try and resolve the issue might be to form multilateral approaches. We are here doing the opposite; we are going to use unilateral policy, and there are challenges in that.
Of course, we have talked about the negotiations that we had with the European Union, but the best way we can go forward, I think, is to take more time to create exemplary policy in this area. If we are to be unilateral about it, let us write gold-standard, world-class legislation and hope that that then promulgates itself into other parts of the world where it is much needed, and that includes within the European Union because—let us be honest—the CFP is failing, for two important reasons. The first is that maximum scientific yield is disregarded. The scientists spend lots of time poring over data and trying to estimate in this horribly changing world what a safe yield might be for fisheries stocks. Then a political horse trading takes place on top of that, in which case the maximum scientific yield values are then disregarded and a new maximum quota is set which takes into account socioeconomic factors—meaning jobs in the near term in countries, places and regions of countries where politicians care about the jobs. We already see that the CFP is failing on that basic test of whether it can successfully manage the tragedy of the commons. It has resulted in overfishing. In the UK now, 40% of our stocks are deemed to be overfished. That is up from 30% just a year ago, so something clearly is not working; and this is after successive rounds of reform of the CFP. We have a chance now to get it right. Another fundamental failure, apart from the MSY-plus-plus model that was adopted, is the relative stability, the model by which we grant access to quota. That has been done on the basis of a historic catch, which now no longer has any bearing on the modern fishing fleet or indeed the actual availability of fish in our waters, so being able to move away from that and to develop a much better system is a real prize.
EO Wilson, a famous conservationist, once said that the problem with humanity is that we have Palaeolithic brains, medieval institutions and godlike technology; I think this definitely applies in the fishing sector. The godlike technology, as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and others have mentioned, has basically made us capable of extracting resource from the marine environment in ever more efficient ways. We are literally hoovering masses and tons of biomass out of our oceans and into commodity supply chains. The bucolic vision of a small fishing fleet leaving a harbour, getting a lovely fresh catch and bringing it back to shore, which we all then enjoy and eat, is not the reality of the industry today. It is hugely industrialised, hugely concentrated in its power and hugely influential in its lobbying. There is a tragedy of the incumbents that is writ throughout the sector, and they will put pressure on all the people involved in this new system to ask for a greater quota and more access to immediate cash in the short term. I am sure that in those negotiations the €500 million being taken by overseas vessels out of UK waters will be front and centre in their minds about how this should be managed.
As a society, we must really think about what we are doing in granting a quota. We are giving a right to a common asset that belongs not just to us but to future generations. There is an intrinsic value in what we are doing. We are taking something of great worth and giving it to the private sector to exploit. We should ask for far higher standards in that transaction. Think about what we are asking now in the common agricultural policy—there is another Bill in another place going through the same process, trying to reinvent a framework piece of legislation that can show the world how we do this sustainable management of our commons correctly. There, we will establish a principle that no public money should be spent without public good coming back in return. By granting quota and giving grants—I note that the Bill enables the continuation of grants—we have to apply strict criteria that this public money is being spent for the public good. I see no reason why we should not treat the fishing industry the same way as we treat the agriculture industry, in moving us forward into a much more sustainable management system.
The other thing, which many noble Lords have mentioned, is the use of MRV in technology. The godlike technology cuts both ways. It obviously enables us to catch and find fish far more effectively, but it also enables us to keep an eye on what we are doing in this tragedy of the commons. There has to be much more in this Bill that signals to the fleet that we will use MRV to oversee this management process, to ensure that we see fish come back into our oceans and a return to the time when our oceans were abundant with life. That is what we need to get back to, both for the short term and for the longer term. How will we use MRV to ensure not just that we are policing what is happening in our waters but, if we sell off quota to overseas fisheries, that we know what they have caught if it is not landed in the UK? What will be the reciprocal reporting arrangements so that we can make sure that our quota is genuinely sustainable and not continuing this pattern of business-as-usual overfishing and all the problems that brings?
Finally, another thing that we ought to think about strongly is the fact that our oceans, in terms of climate change, are a natural sink of carbon. They can help us in meeting our carbon budgets in the sense that they store carbon and lock up carbon in our waters. I might table a probing set of amendments in relation to this Bill, but I see no reason why we cannot think now about some of the methodologies we could introduce that would encourage fishermen, the fishers and stewards of our coastal communities, to be rewarded for doing the right thing in terms of climate change. That might mean a return to much more coastal fisheries, a low-impact aquaculture—returning to bivalves as a key source of protein, which locks up carbon; seagrass plantations; and the preservation of seaweed beds. We must think carefully about the effect of bottom trawling on our deep sink of carbon on the floor of the oceans. It is a much less studied issue, but our seas store more carbon than the rainforests, and by allowing fishing to carry on unrestrained we are losing carbon sinks and adding to a possibly unmonitored and unreported source of climate damage. This sector has huge potential to help us in both restoring carbon and drawing it down, while providing good, fresh protein sources for our people. Locally caught fish are some of the best forms of protein that we could possibly imagine. They have a very low carbon footprint, and we are much better eating local fish than importing meat from overseas.
We have a possibility here of bringing life back to our oceans, stimulating our local communities, helping with climate change and stopping the fishing industry from making it any worse. That can all be achieved with the right framework legislation. I have been involved in another form of framework legislation on climate change, from which I learned that to make a Bill successful and to make the legislation truly framework, you need clear targets in legislation, a clear timetable that holds the Government to account, and independent advice. This Bill does not contain any of those things, I am afraid, so it misses that important opportunity to learn from what we know has worked in other sectors. This Bill is that famous empty picture frame. We need to fill it with a wonderful picture and a vision that will bring money and life back to our oceans and will help show that there is some benefit to us becoming unilateral, in a time in the world when I think we need much more multilateralism. But that is another discussion.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, we are at a historic moment where the UK is in transit to leaving the European Union, and we need to negotiate new arrangements in that process. We are leaving the common fisheries policy and there will be major changes, with, I hope, not unexpectedly high expectations, as other noble Lords have referred to. This is a framework Bill, and much of the detail, by necessity, will be set out in subsequent regulations.
It is generally understood that fish stocks are a shared resource. After all, they do not swim around with union jacks on their fins. An extra complicating factor is the warming of the waters, and the fact that fish stocks are moving further north out of UK waters.
The Bill is based on the 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone agreed under UNCLOS—the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea—which allows us to exploit resources from the water and the seabed. The 200 nautical mile limit is modified by median lines drawn between inhabited areas, occupied islands and mainlands. For the UK, the median lines define the limits in all areas to the south, which is France; to the east, the North Sea countries; and to the north, Norway to the north-east and the Faroes to the north-west. Yet in fact in only two places do we reach 200 nautical miles.
I was very taken by the accounts of the court cases shared with us by my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern. I do not know if he remembers one in 1983, with the arrest of the Danish skipper and Member of the European Parliament, Kent Kirk, who was fishing in the 12-mile limit and was eventually referred, after his arrest in South Shields, to the European Court of Justice.
My interest in fisheries derives from my student days learning the international law of the sea from the legendary Pat Birnie, who was also the legal adviser to the Government at the time, from my time in Maryport as a parliamentary candidate, through to representing the Essex coast as a Member of the European Parliament and then, for a time, being MP for Filey. There is an issue I have come across in all those scenarios, which I thought the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, put very eloquently, which is the plight of the inshore fishermen. That is not something that has ever been a problem under the common fisheries policy: it could easily be resolved by our Government and I hope the Minister and the Government will now take the opportunity to resolve this issue. I am also interested in the issue of bycatch, particularly the issue of salmon as bycatch to the main catch of shellfish, and I hope that that can be resolved. I was not entirely satisfied by the responses in the briefing we received prior to the Bill being published.
The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, referred to sustainability. He would like to see Clause 1 relate entirely to sustainability, but I believe it is very important—indeed, crucial—that sustainability must be based on research. That is why I welcome the scientific evidence objective. I also welcome the fact that the Government are committed to continuing the work of ICES—the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea—which is based in Copenhagen but relies heavily on research input from the UK. The Government have said they will continue to fund this, but my understanding is that it is currently funded up to 50%, in our case, by the European Union. How will that research continue to be funded?
I believe that where we have gone wrong in the past, which has led to overfishing, is that we have not relied enough on the research that has been handed to Fisheries Ministers. There is a very real concern, which my noble friend the Duke of Montrose referred to, that conservation is being left entirely to the fishing industry to uphold. I hope my noble friend the Minister will reassure us on this point. I am mindful of the history; notably what was referred to as the black fish scam, in which, over a three-year period between January 2002 and March 2005, 17 fishermen were brought to court and found to have illegally landed mackerel and herring at a Shetland factory in Lerwick. This was a £63 million scam, leading to a fine of almost £1 million, so I hope we will not see the likes of that again.
I welcome the Second Reading of the Bill. During its passage I would like to explore a number of issues. The first goes to the heart of fisheries policy post Brexit: how will the UK access fish stocks and how will our erstwhile EU partners have access to those stocks in our waters? The Government oversimplify things by saying that claiming our waters is their priority, because that is only part of the issue. Is it not the case that the UK will potentially lose some useful areas outside UK waters where we currently fish, but potentially gain exclusive access to less useful areas? While almost all the economically significant stocks are in the UK exclusive economic zone, there are others that we fish in the waters of other EU member states.
UNCLOS requires the UK to participate in a management based on the straddling fish stocks agreement, which means that we need to negotiate almost everything. I would welcome greater emphasis on the fact that the Government do indeed intend to meet their international obligations under UNCLOS. How will the UK access the market, given that we currently sell 50% of the UK quota to the EU? Given the high price that fresh fish raises, which a number of noble Lords alluded to, and the fact that fresh fish can be taken rapidly by lorry—typically to French markets aimed at the restaurant trade there—it is very important that we keep this flexible, quick trade open. If it is interrupted, we must recognise that the value of landings may drop. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that seeking agreement with the EU in all things in fisheries, including markets and access, is important, however complex the negotiations might be?
I am mindful of the fact that the implications of breaches of any such agreement can be serious. We should learn from past experience. When the Faroes, which are not in the EU, broke a quota agreement on mackerel, the EU blocked all fisheries imports from the Faroes. What happens to that part of the UK’s current quota that is owned by EU fishermen in the Netherlands and other EU countries, notably herring, plaice and sole quotas? These species are often caught under the UK quota, using UK-flagged vessels, and landed directly into the Netherlands. Who should have rights of quota ownership in the new situation under the Bill? Will the UK reallocate all quota which is owned—in other words, already bought—by UK-based but foreign-owned fishing companies? What will the solution be to each of these issues, which are, after all, linked?
One fact I have not heard raised this evening is that most Danish fisheries, and certainly most Danish fishing companies, are owned by the Norwegians, which is how they manage to get into the single market and the customs union. That is often overlooked.
There are number of omissions in the Bill that I will pursue in Committee. In particular, why were discards dropped as an objective in Clause 1, and why is there no mention in Clause 1(4) of endangered species? Sharks and ray reproduce more slowly than most commercial fish and are therefore deemed to be vulnerable and perhaps worthy of protection. There is lots to explore in Committee, but I give the Second Reading a warm welcome.
Earl Cathcart (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady McIntosh. When I was about nine or 10, my father took me from our home on the River Dart in Devon to Brixham harbour to watch the fishing fleet leaving port on the tide. There were dozens and dozens—it seemed like hundreds to me—of trawlers fanning out to sea to their favourite fishing spots. It is a sight that I have never forgotten. Of course, we will never see the like of that again, because since joining the Common Market, the size of our fishing fleet has reduced to only a fraction of what it was. Indeed, in the last 20 years 750 vessels—about half—have gone out of business. This has had a devastating effect on the way of life and jobs throughout UK harbours.
The common fisheries policy has been called the EU’s most unpopular and discredited policy, leaving the UK with only about 40% of the fish caught in its own waters. The Bill is about recovering the responsibility for the management of our fishing waters, which was lost to Brussels when we joined the Common Market. I support the Bill, which is also supported broadly by all the fishing organisations. Under international law, from 1 January 2021, the UK will become an independent coastal state and, as far as the EU is concerned, a separate country. As such, the UK will determine who may fish in UK waters and under what conditions, just as the EU will determine if UK trawlers may fish in EU waters and under what conditions. It will work both ways.
It is interesting that in money terms EU catches from UK waters are worth about five times as much as what our fleet catches in EU waters. One can understand why the EU wants a 25-year settlement based on the current quota system—in order, it says, to avoid economic dislocation for its continental fishermen and their communities. What a pity that Brussels was not just as concerned to avoid economic dislocation for our fishermen and their communities when we joined the common market.
I have no doubt that the negotiations will be difficult, but what if no agreement can be reached by January 2021? Under international law, the UK and EU fleets will be able to fish only in their own zones until an agreement is reached. This happens from time to time when there is an impasse in the annual negotiations between the EU and Norway—both fleets are restricted to their respective zones until agreement is reached.
As my noble friend Lord Dunlop said, last week the Prime Minister said that any agreement on fisheries
“must reflect the fact that the UK will be an independent coastal state from the end of this year, controlling our own waters.”
Interestingly, he has proposed annual negotiations, like those between the EU and Norway, to ensure that
“British fishing grounds are first and foremost for British boats.”
That is a good starting point. This Bill is about taking back control of our fishing waters. Quite what will be given away is anyone’s guess, and I am sure that the negotiations will be tricky. Already the EU is trying to link fishing with finance. But there are high expectations, as has been said, from the fishing communities that a deal will be reached which will ensure a reinvigorated and vibrant fishing industry with a sustainable future. By that I mean fish stocks, but I will have to read the excellent speech of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, again. I just trust that the fishing communities will not be too disappointed.
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, one thing that I have come to learn about fisheries is that, the more you learn about it, the more you do not understand it. It is absolutely true; if there is one sector where the more you know, the more you do not know, this is it. Following on from that, it is very easy for us, quite rightly, to criticise the common fisheries policy—I have been one of its fundamental critics in the past—but no fisheries policy is perfect. Nowhere in the world can you find a perfect fisheries regime.
The closest I have ever got to seeing one was in New Zealand, which is seen as having one of the most successful systems that works well for producers as well as conservation. It has complete control of its continental shelf, which helps, but strangely enough its industry is totally concentrated. In fact, we would find it completely unacceptable in this country because there are no fishing coves with small boats; it is dominated by large vessels with tradeable quotas that everybody bids for annually or triennially—I cannot remember which. Because of that, those few boats can be controlled very strongly by the authorities, and it is in the interests of the three or four producers not to keep an eye on each other—and the problem, actually, is recreational fisheries, which I am pleased to say come under this Bill.
That model is absolutely inappropriate for the United Kingdom, but we should not forget that we have a very disparate industry here. Some in the industry make a shedload of money in this country. We all think of these sectors—which I know in Cornwall and others will know on the west coast of Scotland, the east coast of England and, I suspect, Northern Ireland—where fisheries are a really hard living. However, the big companies make a lot of money, so we should not think too sentimentally about a large proportion of this industry in terms of money and volume. Good luck to them; I am not against that, but there are certain things which come from that. We think of fisheries in terms of the products we eat for our supper or have with chips, but the shellfish industry is also incredibly important to the UK—going out with pots and all those other things are important as well. It is a very varied industry.
Scotland is very different from England as well. I was slightly surprised by the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, who I think said that the Shetlands lands more fish than the whole of England. I may be wrong, but I think Peterhead is the largest fishing port in the UK by far, followed by Fraserburgh, then Lerwick and Scrabster. However, Newlyn and Brixham are not far behind, certainly compared to Lerwick, but they are very different industries looking at different things.
We on these Benches are looking for four principles in this Bill. The key one is sustainability. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, has said that that must be defined better, and I accept that entirely. The amendments I have been thinking about do not do so sufficiently, so I look forward to his intervention.
The second principle is looking at how the inshore fleet—particularly the fleets with boats under 10 metres—are dealt with. Exactly as the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, said, ironically it was completely in our power to give that sector as much of our total quota as we wanted. To give George Eustice, the Fisheries Minister, his due, he started to reallocate some of that quota to the under 10 metre or inland fleet over the last couple of years. That is an important area.
Another important issue for these Benches, which I do not think has been mentioned, is transparency. This is a national resource, yet there is little transparency about how quota is divided up and who owns what among the producer organisations. We talk about statistics of foreign-owned British flag vessels, but no one has an exact percentage of what quota they have. Much of this area is not easily understood, and we would like to see a dose of transparency about the industry—this is not to threaten commercial confidences in any way, but we need to understand how a lot of these mechanisms work. There is an incumbency at the moment; it is not necessarily just for the future.
The final principle for us, coming back to what the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, said, is that we should never forget that this is a national resource. We are talking about the UK taking back control; this should be a resource that is nationally ours as citizens. We should take care over how it is distributed and looked after.
I will go through a couple of things in the Bill. To come back to something said very well by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, the objectives at the beginning of this Bill are seriously muddled. There is the sustainability objective, yet most of that is about a socioeconomic objective. I would not be averse to maybe having a separate socioeconomic objective. The sustainability objective must be the prime objective among all the others. We have confusion with eight, potentially nine, objectives, and that is almost impossible. Organisations such as Ofgem in the energy area have a number of objectives that can become confused. We need to indicate which objectives are the most important and which are not. The sustainability objective needs to stand by itself and the rest should be shifted elsewhere.
The socioeconomic aspect is important, but there are other ways to solve that issue other than going for short-term non-sustainability. We can fund fleets—the EU does that—and there are ways in which we can finance people not to fish, if necessary, to protect our national resource. It would not be perfect, but it is a way in which to do it. There have been decommissioning schemes in the past, and one of the main reasons why all fleets have reduced in size is nothing to do with the common fisheries policy specifically but because we are much more efficient in how we operate our fishing vessels. Of course we are. They innovate with larger vessels, larger nets, bigger engines and all the technology that allows them to fish more intelligently. Therefore, fleet sizes are going to come down. The biggest example of that was when sail was replaced by steam. The whole of the south-west fishing fleet halved in a matter of years. It is around technology.
The objective on equal access also concerns me. It sounds reasonable and means effectively that wherever vessels are registered—in Scotland, Wales, England or at a particular port—they can fish where they want. That is my understanding. My concern is because the industry is highly concentrated and wants to concentrate more. It has large returns and big financial resources. The Bill proposes a method by which quotas can be auctioned, tendered or used, but what is to stop additional concentration and for those vessels to come to other parts of the UK and start to take away other stocks that are relied on by other regions? I can imagine a situation whereby there was an auction for a quota in the south-west and Scottish vessel owners said, “Yes, we will try to buy that up”, but the Government said, “No, we want that for the south-west”. Given the current objective, I would say that that situation would be a matter for judicial review and the Government would lose. I am concerned that having a stated objective would be a potential threat to other regions that the mobility is no good for. However, I am not trying to stop that mobility because, in Plymouth, Scottish vessels are important for a lot of the fish processing. I am just concerned about having equal access as an objective.
Another issue in the Bill is the stock management plans, which, as proposed, are a fiction. As we know, some 80% of our precious stocks swim outside our EEZ, and quite a few of the spawning grounds for those stocks are also outside it. It is therefore impossible to have a credible fisheries plan—the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, mentioned this—just for one’s own territorial waters. That does not work around the United Kingdom. I should be interested to hear from the Minister what will happen to what has been the relatively successful regional management of the common fisheries policy, with agreements on regimes for the North Sea and the western waters. Will we try to continue those? We must try to make them work first before we go down the route of national plans, which need to be produced as a result of the overall plans in those fishery areas. Otherwise, the national plans cannot work and I do not see that sequence provided for in the Bill.
Another issue is data, which has been mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Byford. There must be more transparency within producer organisations. They effectively run the business and sort out quota, which has huge value, but they are pretty opaque organisations. There should be a public duty to have much more transparency in their actions, allocations and how they are run. A lot of that is there to some degree already, but it would be a lot healthier for what is a national resource if there was more transparency.
I am delighted that the landing obligation remains in the Bill and that the Government still see it as important. However, as has been said in previous debates and mentioned by a number of Members, if the landing obligation is to remain, we must have remote electronic monitoring. One cannot have non-discarding regimes that work without it. That obviously needs to apply also to foreign vessels that come into our waters. As has been stated by, I think, the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, there also must be a way in which we can access the data from foreign vessels that land abroad in order to have joint management.
The Bill is necessary. The marine environment is under pressure. Fisheries must become sustainable, not just in the long term but in the short term—and that is possible. The noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, who is a valuable member of the committee that looked at this area, was right to say that maximum sustainable yield may not be the right measure and is something that must be looked at. That area gets complicated.
The Bill is needed, but we must put that painting that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, talked about into the picture frame before the legislation leaves this House. Understandably, a lot of downstream regulation in terms of technical measures and so on has to be done by secondary legislation. However, we have to get the Bill right. I am not sure about banning foreign landings by UK vessels. I have talked to the industry about that and it takes away part of their commercial ability. Now that we will have the friction of phytosanitary controls on land borders—although they will still be in operation at ports—such a ban would make it even more difficult to keep our markets open in the European Union. It is an interesting concept, however.
The Bill is important. We agree on a number of areas, particularly on the landing obligations and on getting the objectives right, and we very much look forward to Committee.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for setting out the purpose of the Bill so clearly, and for organising some helpful briefings with officials beforehand. As many noble Lords have also admitted, I have been—and am still—on a steep learning curve, but we battle on. As my noble friend Lord Grantchester made clear, although the Bill has been a long time coming, we welcome its intent and many of the modifications made since the original version was published. We all want to see a more sustainable fishing regime, with scope for our declining fishing stock to be replenished, and we all want to see a better deal for UK fishers to have access to our own territorial waters. As with many of the Bills we will deal with in the coming months, our divergence from the Government is on the detail rather than the principle, but before I get into the detail I shall make a more general point about consistency.
We will shortly consider the Agriculture Bill and the Environment Bill in quick succession. These three Bills together make up a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to transform our environmental footprint and clean up our air, water and land to create a green—and blue—renaissance. Delivering on our Paris agreement obligations and our new ambitions for COP 26 will be key, as will robust targets and measurable outcomes. In this respect, it is welcome that tackling climate change has been added to the Bill’s objectives. But we need something more than an aspiration to minimise the adverse impacts of fishing. We need to agree the current carbon footprint of the UK fleet, and we need a statutory commitment to deliver net zero emissions within a defined timescale. It is vital that these three Bills are consistent in their aspirations, targets and timescales. I therefore hope that when the Minister winds up, he will be able to confirm that a process of cross-referencing between the Bills is taking place to ensure that policy priorities do not slip through the cracks or suffer from conflicting narratives between the Bills.
As many noble Lords said, much of the detailed future for UK fishers will be dealt with elsewhere, in trade negotiations, rather than in the detail of the Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said—he has been quoted several times—it is a picture frame without a picture. It is therefore a real concern that our sustainability objective could be traded away for other priorities or subsumed under more pressing economic interests. We will need to address and bottom out that issue as the debate goes on, and we will need to understand quite how much influence we can have, not over the detail of the trade negotiations but over the essential priorities that we have all outlined today. Meanwhile, there are a number of details in the Bill where we would like to see some improvement, some of which I will set out.
First, a number of noble Lords raised concerns about the loose commitment on maximum sustainable yields in the Bill, although that looser wording seems nevertheless to have the support of the fishers’ organisations. However, we know from our experience with the common fisheries policy that warm words without distinct obligations are all too easily circumvented. We would therefore like to see that wording tightened up, although I am rather chastened by the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, who said that “maximum sustainable yield” might not be the best terminology in the first place. I am sure we can debate that as we go forward. We agree that there is a case for quotas to be set below maximum sustainable yield to allow a period of stock and marine habitat regeneration, and this coming period would be the ideal time to do this as new fishing opportunities come online. However, at the very least, we would expect to see a binding legal commitment running through the Bill not to fish above scientifically agreed sustainable levels, applicable to all the players responsible for oversight of the fishing allocations. As the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, said, we expect to see delivery of real investment and support for our scientists. If ours are to be the most sustainable fisheries in the world, we need the best and most trusted science in the world.
However, as my noble friend Lord Grantchester made clear, our scientific data is of use only if it is backed up by proper enforcement. As we discovered with the rollout of the discard ban and our wonderful debate on the Lords committee report on it, there is far too little real evidence of whether it is working. That is why, along with several noble Lords this evening, we support the use of compulsory surveillance technology on board boats, and an increase in inspection and enforcement vessels. We welcome the Government’s proposal in the Bill for charging those who land over-quota or unauthorised fish, and we think that will help to address this matter. It will also help to address the complexities of mixed fisheries, but we can explore that further in Committee. We will want to explore these things in more detail as the Bill progresses.
Secondly, we would like to see the majority of the new fishing quotas that will come on stream being allocated to the smaller boats and fleets. As several noble Lords said, the current fixed-quota system has not been updated since the 1990s and is outdated and unfair, with quotas increasingly consolidated in the hands of a few rich families. We therefore believe that the smaller fleets should now be given preference, particularly as they tend to use less damaging gear and create significantly more jobs per tonne of fish landed than the larger-scale sector. We are particularly concerned that a tendering process for new fishing opportunities, as envisaged in the Bill, will preclude those small operators unless quota is set aside for them. A number of noble Lords talked about the olden days and how they remember them, and I suspect that most of the great British public, when they thought we were getting our fishing waters back, expected that advantage to be given to smaller fishing fleets rather than the larger, more industrial fishing boats. It is what we want and I think it is what the public would want. We will also want to ensure that where foreign vessels are licensed to fish in our waters, they have to abide by the same safety and surveillance standards as we demand of our domestic vessels.
Thirdly, we expect to see specific measures to help regenerate our struggling coastal communities. My noble friend Lord Bassam’s committee last year produced an excellent report showing that seaside towns are some of the most deprived in the country. They have the highest rates of unemployment and lower wages, and many suffer large outflows of younger workers. They urgently need new and sustainable businesses in their locality to give them hope. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, that affordable housing has to be in that mix as well. The Bill could provide an impetus for regeneration, providing new jobs in commercial and recreational fishing at sea, and support services on shore. However, it will happen only if the socioeconomic concerns identified in the Bill are turned into something positive. I was rather taken by the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, that those socioeconomic concerns should perhaps be set out somewhere else in the Bill. We can certainly explore that in more detail. That is why we will propose amendments to require the majority of the catch caught in UK waters to be landed in UK ports. We may have a difference on that, but we can talk about it in more detail. That could provide the crucial sea change that makes our ports and harbours live again and turns around the fortunes of many of those communities.
Finally, as the Minister pointed out, this is a framework Bill, and it leaves many of the questions about the future of the UK fleet unanswered. As such, it will provide little comfort for the fishers, who have to await the outcome of the trade talks still to take place. However, it seems ironic that the Bill seems to describe a process for allocating quotas just as complicated as the much-derided common fisheries policy. Again, I agree that a little more transparency would not go amiss where that is concerned. The Bill also gives the Secretary of State considerable powers to vary the terms of the fisheries management plans and the licence allocations. Therefore, while several noble Lords welcomed the collaboration with the devolved nations which led up to the framework Bill before us, it is also vital that there is a degree of ongoing generosity and diplomacy in ensuring that the particular interests of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland continue to be properly reflected. Several noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, and the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, described the disproportionate impact on fragile, localised communities, so it is not just a case of the four devolved nations; more specific and delicate negotiations will need to take place. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, described very well the particular dexterity needed to balance those different needs, particularly when they are so disparate. We want to ensure that there is proper consultation and parliamentary scrutiny of the powers given to the Secretary of State. I was very taken by the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, that the joint fisheries statement could provide something more proactive in taking negotiations forward. I like the idea that it ought to happen now, rather than later. Maybe we can explore that further.
Finally, we want more information about the proposed transition to these new arrangements, including, for example, on points that noble Lords have raised about the status of existing quotas, which have historically been purchased by foreign vessels. Will they still apply on 1 January next year? I am conscious that I have not done justice to all the points made, but I look forward to working with noble Lords on their many good suggestions as the Bill moves through the House. This is a vital Bill for the future livelihoods of UK fishers and the future health of our marine environment. It is important that we all play our part in getting it right, and I look forward to the debate.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to the debate. I say from the outset that so many points have been made that it would be impossible to answer them all, even if I persuaded the Chief Whip to give me an hour. I have taken all the points on board, but I cannot answer every one during my reply. I regret that, but that is where we are.
There are around 12,000 people employed in the UK fishing fleet and the UK seafood sector employs 33,000 people in total. The Bill provides the powers to continue to support this important sector, which is intrinsically bound to our island heritage. One of our experts in this House, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, quite rightly said that it is such a varied industry. I was pleased that the noble Lord raised shellfish. The noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, mentioned a national resource. Absolutely it is. A number of your Lordships mentioned that we have some of the best scientists in the world on this matter, and we should be proud of that.
I return to my noble friend Lord Cathcart speaking of his early memories of fishing fleets at Brixham. Indeed, some of your Lordships have spoken of what has happened in the intervening period. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, referred to a number of Defra Bills. In conjunction with the Environment Bill and the retained EU law that will be in place from 2021, this Fisheries Bill is key to ensuring that we manage our fisheries in a sustainable and coherent way, respecting the devolution settlements and, as has been mentioned before, supporting our coastal communities. In the interconnection, the proposed office for environmental protection will have a role in scrutinising all environmental law, including that which relates to fisheries and marine conservation.
A number of your Lordships raised this, but we have worked extremely closely with the devolved Administrations to establish fisheries objectives for the whole United Kingdom, for which we will set policies in the joint fisheries statement. The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, and the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, raised this. These policies will focus on key areas of fisheries management, both to protect the environment and to enable a thriving fisheries industry. It is important, in the Government’s view, that each of the objectives is applied in a proportionate and balanced manner, when formulating policies and proposals. We have therefore committed to the joint fisheries statement explaining how the objectives have been interpreted and proportionately applied. This provides an additional guarantee that we will not implement policies that promote one objective at the expense of delivering others.
On the devolved Administrations, I was very pleased by what was said by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and my noble friends Lord Selkirk and Lord Dunlop. Defra considers its relationship with the devolved Administrations to be vital. The noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, gave what I thought was a rather too pessimistic analysis of how we have been conducting business with the devolved Administrations. We have worked extremely closely with colleagues in the Administrations on a range of marine fisheries matters, including during the annual negotiations. This Bill has been much improved as a result of the input of each of the Administrations.
I had the privilege of representing the United Kingdom in the 2018 fisheries negotiations, and I can attest to the closeness with which we worked with the devolved Administrations—through the night, I have to say. This work was an example of that. I was pleased that my noble friend Lord Dunlop raised Scotland, but I would say this also for Wales or Northern Ireland. Our work has been very close. It is why, for elements that need resolutions that are more difficult to manage, the Government are developing a memorandum of understanding with the devolved Administrations. This was a matter my noble friend Lord Caithness particularly raised. It will enshrine co-operative ways of working, and a mechanism for escalating and resolving disputes, should they arise.
Consultation with the devolved Administrations was raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, and my noble friend Lord Dunlop. International fisheries arrangements are a reserved matter under the devolution settlement. On that basis, the Secretary of State has the responsibility for setting the quota but, again, the devolved Administrations are always consulted. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, asked whether the joint fisheries statements would be legally binding. The joint fisheries statement is legally binding for the four fisheries administrations, which again is clear.
I think I heard the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, say that no speaker before him had raised the issue of negotiations. I made it clear in my opening remarks that access to our waters will be a matter of negotiation. As all noble Lords have referred to, this Bill is the framework to enable us to implement whatever is agreed internationally. I say also to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and my noble friend Lord Selkirk that the UK has always said that it is seeking to put in place new arrangements for annual negotiations on access to waters, with the sharing of fishing opportunities based on fairer and more scientific methods. The UK and EU commit to use best endeavours to have a fisheries agreement in place by 1 July 2020. This will allow us to negotiate as an independent coastal state for access and fisheries opportunities. I know we all need a reality check, but some of your Lordships have suggested that they almost will these negotiations not to be successful. It is our job always to ensure success in these negotiations.
The noble Earl, Lord Devon, and the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, noted that discussions with the EU on the structure and frequency of negotiations have begun. We expect negotiations to begin in the first week of March, once the EU’s mandate process is complete. We expect them to be conducted between sovereign equals on the basis of mutual respect.
As was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, and the noble Lords, Lord Mountevans and Lord Hannay, meetings have been held with Norway and the Faroe Islands. Initial discussions focused on future fishing partnerships. Informal talks have also taken place with Iceland and Greenland. This emphasises the bona fides of the United Kingdom Government, as well as a recognition in all parts that these are shared stocks, so we have to work collaboratively.
The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, referred to the regional fisheries management organisations. The UK will join those organisations after the transition period and will continue to collaborate with other coastal states where there are shared interests in fisheries. There will be no gap in membership, which is very important. I should also say that through these bodies and our membership of ICES, the international body which advises on the status of fish stocks, we will continue to contribute our own scientific data to help set catch limits. UK data is and will continue to be collected by the world-leading Cefas.
The noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, asked about scrutiny. Powers contained in the Bill require public consultation before they can be used. In addition, 11 of the 15 powers require the affirmative procedure. The fisheries White Paper sets out our commitment to working in greater partnership with industry and stakeholders, and we have already started to deliver on that by working with industry and the Sea Fish Industry Authority to develop improved management for shellfish and to consider the reform of inshore fisheries.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Bakewell and Lady Young, asked about timetables. The timetables for producing fisheries management plans will be set out in the joint fisheries statement and will go out to public consultation as a part of that process. The joint fisheries statement must be adopted at least 18 months after the Bill receives Royal Assent.
The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, talked about quota. After 1 January next year, quota will be a matter for negotiation as an independent coastal state. We have been clear that any additional quota we negotiate may be distributed in England through a new method and we are working with the industry on this.
The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, talked about transparency. The Bill will provide greater transparency on how we manage and allocate quota in the United Kingdom through the Secretary of State’s determination of UK fisheries opportunities, which will be laid before Parliament. Furthermore, we will continue to work with the other fisheries administrations and the industry to revise the UK quota management rules. We have already published details on how we receive quota in the UK through the FQA register and we will continue to do so.
A number of noble Lords raised the issue of the under 10-metre fleet. The Government recognise the importance of the fleet and the actions we have already taken helped it land 36,000 tonnes of fish in 2018. We should also not forget that some under 10-metre vessels have sold their quota, while other fishermen have sold their quota for larger boats and have bought boats of under 10 metres.
On quota allocation, raised by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, we do not need new powers in the Bill except for where we may tender for quota. Perhaps I may write to him in further detail about this because the subject is quite complex and I really ought to try to make progress. I was asked by my noble friend the Duke of Montrose whether there will be a guarantee that additional quota will not be sold to foreign vessels. In England, we will consider how best to use any additional quota in a way that maximises support for coastal communities. We will consult on the proposed approach enabling the industry, coastal communities and the wider public to have their say. The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, asked about the determination of quota at a lower level than has been fished, which is covered in Clause 23. If necessary and appropriate, the Secretary of State can replace a determination during the calendar year, as is the case now, but if fisheries exceed their quota limits, they may be subject to sanction.
The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, asked whether maximum sustainable yield is the best measure. MSY is the standard internationally recognised measure in, for instance, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. However, in our view, MSY used is isolation is not sufficient to ensure the true sustainability of our fisheries. That is why we have proposed the development of fisheries management plans, which will allow us to take a wider-ecosystem approach. A number of noble Lords, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Jones of Whitchurch, and the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, also spoke about MSY. Due to the international nature of fishing and fish stocks, which span national boundaries, MSY for many stocks can be achieved only through international negotiations and relies on the good will and shared ambition of other parties. That is why the EU as a whole has not met the 2020 target. It is also why achieving MSY by 2020 was a target for the EU as a whole and did not apply to individual member states—precisely because many stocks cover broad geographical areas. This demonstrates how critical it is to seek to achieve MSY through negotiations with other coastal states, and we will use our negotiating power as an independent coastal state to seek to achieve sustainable fishing at the international level.
I agree with my noble friend Lady Byford and the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, that we must cut down on the use of plastic. We are committed to protecting the marine environment, and tackling marine litter is a matter that we need to address both domestically and internationally.
On climate change, raised by the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, and the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, there are new grant-making powers for environmental conservation which cover climate change further. Emissions from fishing vessels count towards national emissions and are part of the national plans to address them over the longer term as part of the Climate Change Act.
My noble friend Lady McIntosh asked why we have removed the discards objective. While of course we are committed to ending wasteful discards, discarding is a symptom of bycatch, and this objective aims also to address the root causes of the issue. That is why it is now called the bycatch objective. My noble friend Lord Caithness asked about bycatch monitoring. Clause 1 on bycatch will require fisheries administrations to introduce policies that will deliver an improvement in the accuracy of the data available on catches.
My noble friend Lord Caithness asked about the licensing of foreign vessels in Scotland. The fisheries administrations have agreed that the MMO will act as a single issuing authority and issue licences to foreign boats on behalf of the four fishing administrations. As regards the plans on targets, these will set out the steps that the UK fisheries administration will take to achieve the objectives of the Bill. However, many of our fish stocks are shared with other coastal states, which means that we cannot unilaterally commit to time-bound targets for their restoration. This may well come up in Committee, but the Government are clear that this is an issue that we need to deal with on an international basis and we must not prejudice our own fishing interests on the back of it; we need to work collaboratively.
My noble friend Lord Lansley raised fishing data, as did other noble Lords. We are a strong advocate of collecting data to support the sustainable management of fisheries. Grandfather rights will be extinguished automatically, but the Crown dependencies will license foreign vessels in their waters. We are in discussions with the Isle of Man and the Crown dependencies.
My noble friend Lady Byford talked about the seabed. Some 25% of the UK seabed is currently protected by marine protection zones and the UK marine strategy includes a framework for assessing its health. I should also say to the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, that we have included new powers in the Bill to enable the Marine Management Organisation and Welsh and Scottish Ministers to protect and conserve the marine environment.
Again on the issue of discards, in England the discard prevention charging system is intended to work to help in this, and I am most grateful to my noble friend Lady Byford for mentioning Richard Benyon in that regard.
The Bill provides the powers to introduce the remote electronic monitoring—REM—of fishing vessels at sea. We continue to explore the potential use of REM, which was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and my noble friend Lady Byford, alongside other monitoring and enforcement tools, as a cost-effective and efficient way of monitoring fishing activity. In future we will be able to specify the requirement that foreign vessels wishing to fish in our waters have to comply with the conditions of access.
My noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern spoke about Clause 12. This replaces a similar provision in the Fishery Limits Act 1976. Its aim is to recognise that boats may enter UK waters for purposes such as navigation or in cases of force majeure recognised by the UN convention.
The noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, raised the voisinage agreement. The UK Government remain committed to the voisinage arrangement and to protecting continuing co-operation between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Methods for the allocation of the Northern Irish quota will be for the Northern Ireland Executive to consider and manage. The Prime Minister has been clear that beyond the limited changes introduced by the protocol, there will be no changes to trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland remains part of the UK customs territory.
The noble Earl, Lord Devon, and a number of other noble Lords raised the issue of trade. Of course, we absolutely wish to trade. The political declaration sets out as an aim a zero-tariff and zero-quota FTA, and we are working to ensure that.
The noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, asked about grant-making powers that will allow us to support the reorganisation, development and promotion of commercial aquaculture and commercial fishing activities. There were all sorts of other questions on the further support that we will have in the Bill. I am afraid that many other points were raised—I have gone through at the briskest gallop I could—but at this stage I look forward very much to a collaborative endeavour with your Lordships on the further stages of the Bill. For today, I commend this Bill to your Lordships.
Wuhan Coronavirus
(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 right honourable friend the Health Secretary regarding the ongoing situation with the Wuhan coronavirus. The Statement is as follows:
“I have laid an instrument before the House to confirm the power that we have taken to isolate those at risk of spreading the virus, and if necessary to keep them isolated as part of our belt-and-braces approach to protecting the public. The powers are proportionate and will help us slow down transmission of the virus and make it easier for NHS and public health staff to do their jobs.
The clinical advice about risks to the public has not changed and remains moderate. As of today, eight people in England have tested positive for coronavirus. All are receiving expert care from the NHS, which is well prepared and equipped to deal with this situation. Contact tracing of the first four cases has been undertaken rapidly and is now complete, while tracing for the latest four cases is ongoing. This contact tracing itself identified five of the cases—a tribute to the skill and tenacity of Public Health England staff—as well as finding five further British nationals in France who also tested positive for the virus. They are now receiving treatment, and the Foreign Office is following up with consular support.
On Sunday, 105 more British nationals and dependants from Hubei province landed safely at Brize Norton. They are now in isolation facilities at Kents Hill Park in Milton Keynes and receiving all the necessary medical attention. I pay tribute to the Foreign Office and the MoD, as well as Milton Keynes Council, Milton Keynes hospital and my own team, for their hard work and efficiency in ensuring that this all went smoothly. This is, of course, in addition to those now reaching the end of their isolation on the Wirral.
I turn to the efforts to contain the outbreak in China. The Foreign Office is advising against all travel to Hubei province and all but essential travel to mainland China. Last week we issued new advice to all travellers returning to the UK from China, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand. That advice is clear: if you develop symptoms of cough, fever or shortness of breath, you should call NHS 111 and immediately self-isolate for 14 days, even if the symptoms are minor. If you have returned from Hubei, you should self-isolate and contact NHS 111, even if you have no symptoms.
My officials discussed the incubation period with the World Health Organization this morning. The current evidence shows that a 14-day incubation period remains appropriate. We will continue to monitor emerging evidence closely with our international partners.
As I said last week, dealing with this disease is a marathon, not a sprint. The situation will get worse before it gets better. We will be guided by the science. Be in no doubt: we will do everything that is effective to tackle this virus and keep people safe. We are investing £40 million in vaccine research and working with international efforts on therapeutics. Today I can announce to the House the immediate launch of a capital facility to support any urgent works the NHS needs for coronavirus response, such as the creation of further isolation areas and other necessary facilities.
Finally, there are actions that each and every one of us can take—simple but effective steps such as washing hands and using tissues. We will take all necessary precautions to keep the public safe. I commend this Statement to the House.”
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. Of course, our thoughts are with those who have been diagnosed with coronavirus and are in quarantine. I place on record these Benches’ thanks to our NHS and public health staff.
On the specific issues of quarantine arrangements, we understand the approach the Government have taken, particularly to deal with anyone who seeks to break the quarantine. We understand why the Secretary of State has invoked the regulations; he is entitled to do so under the Public Health Act, and we offer our support for that. Quarantine arrangements must be seen to be necessary, proportionate and in accordance with the law. Their enforcement, including with powers of restraint where necessary, must be fully transparent. The rights and freedoms of the quarantined evacuees must be fully understood to ensure that they are treated with dignity and respect. The media coverage so far certainly suggests that that is exactly the case.
To maintain public confidence in these arrangements, the framework must be understood and scrutinised by Parliament. With that in mind, I ask the Minister when we in this Chamber will deal with the regulations laid. The progress of this virus is rapid; there seems to be rapid change from day to day. We are due to break next week and it seems that 24 February may be too late, because it is moving so quickly. What arrangements are the Government making for us to deal with the regulations in this Chamber?
I feel that I need to declare an interest in the register: I am a member of a local clinical commissioning group. Perhaps the Minister could tell the House what clinical commissioning groups and trusts are being asked to do in terms of making plans in the coming months if this turns into a pandemic. Can she assure the House that local plans are robust and fully resourced? Are we confident that the 111 helpline has sufficient capacity to deal with increased calls? Will the community health trusts that are tasked with visiting suspected patients, and will have to visit people’s homes to carry out swab tests, be given extra resources to build up the capacity to be able to carry that out properly?
Finally, will the Minister update the House on international efforts to share research intelligence and attempts to find a vaccine, as well as the likely timescale? I understand that there is a summit of the World Health Organization today. On behalf of the Official Opposition, I thank all our NHS staff and reiterate our hope that the Secretary of State will continue to keep the House fully informed.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, I begin my remarks from the Liberal Democrat Benches by echoing those thanks to all staff who are involved, not just on the front line but in the large amount of planning that is going on. We would also like to thank the patients who have self-isolated in calmness, accepting what has happened and moving a long way from home, and those who after flying back from abroad have quite contentedly gone on elsewhere. The advantage of social media, television and radio is that we can hear how they are managing.
I note that the Secretary of State has declared that transmission of coronavirus is a serious and imminent threat to public health, despite the fact that the current situation remains moderate. The regulations for England only—to isolate and hold those at risk of spreading the virus—is, I hope, a last resort. So far, that has not been necessary, but we on these Benches understand that there may be occasions when it is. Will the Minister confirm that the devolved states will follow suit? We would not want Gretna Green suddenly to have a reputation for the wrong reasons, with people trying to remove themselves to somewhere that the regulations do not apply. It seems sensible in the United Kingdom to make sure that there is consistency among the four states.
What safeguards are in place for those conducting the quarantines and isolation to ensure that they are kept safe, along with the patients, and to prevent them contracting the virus?
I note also the regulation that came into force at the end of January, ensuring that no charge is to be made or recovered from overseas visitors who may have to be diagnosed with, or treated for, coronavirus. We believe that that is right, but how is this information being disseminated to healthcare bodies? I see nothing at all about it on the department’s website. The regulation appears for parliamentarians via Hansard, but I can see nothing else anywhere that might help inform hospitals and other bodies.
Today’s Statement from the Secretary of State, the department’s daily 2 pm statement, and the report from the Chief Medical Officer all talk only about those travelling from a number of Asian countries—which the Minister read out in her repeat of the Statement—and who have come from those countries in the last 14 days. This is echoed in the department’s advice to healthcare professionals. So, despite being updated daily—and the number of patients was up to date as at 2 pm today—these Statements do not reflect the fact that some of the eight UK-based cases contracted coronavirus in France, or possibly even in the UK.
Today on radio and television, we have heard a number of experts from China, from John Hopkins University and from UK universities all talking about the possibility of substantial transmission. Indeed, the department has confirmed that this is a high-consequence infectious disease, with all the concerns and constraints that go with it, which include being
“often difficult to recognise and detect rapidly … ability to spread in the community and within healthcare settings … requires an enhanced individual, population and system response to ensure it is managed effectively, efficiently and safely”.
We now have cases in York, in Brighton and its area, and in the specialist receiving hospitals in London and Newcastle, in addition to two GP surgeries in Brighton that have been closed for cleaning. There are local concerns in Brighton about a community centre, and some schools appear to be making the decision to allow children not to come in, after two people were told to self-isolate. But there does not appear to be any formal advice being offered to councils, councillors, schools, prisons and other public bodies. Can the Minister explain why the Statement seems to take no account of what is happening in the UK at the moment? What advice is being given to local councillors, schools and other bodies about early planning for their area, what they should do if a person may have coronavirus, and what happens once they are diagnosed, so that they are ready in the event that there are cases in their area?
I specifically want to mention the role of councillors here. Elected members are often at the heart of their communities, and an informed councillor can calm worries, particularly at the school gate, if they can say that they have been briefed. These days, briefings do not have to happen face to face; there are mechanisms through technology for people to be brought up to date.
Finally, in Brighton, it has been reported in the local media that a number of people with cancer and other long-term conditions are understandably worried about what they should do. They are asked to make sure that they have their annual flu jab, but at the moment there seems to be no specific advice for people regarded as vulnerable patients. Public Health England’s very helpful flow chart on the management of a suspected case runs through very sensibly what to do with the patient, but nowhere does it suggest to ask the patient whether they have any vulnerable people in their family or their contact, nor can I find any advice, anywhere at all, about what primary care doctors should be saying to vulnerable patients in their area—I am thinking particularly of Brighton, at the moment—to make sure that they feel comfortable about this.
These are concerns that could, I suspect, be resolved with effective planning. However, it seems that, at the moment, there is a bit of a lacuna, and I hope that the Minister will be able to help fill the space.
Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
I thank the noble Baronesses for those important questions and, like them, I thank NHS and PHE staff for their extraordinary work over recent days, and those patients who have acted so responsibly in self-isolating. In doing so, they have slowed the transmission of coronavirus in the UK and protected many, including those who are particularly vulnerable. I also thank both Benches for their support of these regulations, which hopefully will not be needed, but should they be needed, could play a crucial role going forward.
I wish to clarify that these regulations will apply only to coronavirus. They will be in force for two years and will be triggered only in the instance of a serious or imminent threat to public health by a person not complying with public heath advice and therefore putting themselves and/or others at risk.
The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, asked about the devolved Administrations. These regulations apply only to England, but we are in touch with the devolved Administrations, and they will consider this. Obviously, CMOs are acting in concert, and we think that the devolved Administrations will want to take this forward. The question of the scrutiny by Parliament is one for duty managers, but we have come back to the House with this issue on a number of occasions and we are very committed to keeping the House updated on this and will continue to do so.
On the point about how the NHS is being kept updated and prepared, we have announced the capital arrangements today to ensure that the NHS can be prepared for different isolation measures, but the NHS is always ready to provide world-class care, with expert teams in every ambulance service and a number of specialist hospital units that can respond to this. I am pleased to report that the latest data from PHE indicates that, in the past week, flu activity has once again decreased, against all indicators, the rate of GP consultations remains below baseline levels and the rate of ICU and HDU admissions and hospitalisations remains low, which is an encouraging background for us.
The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, also asked about those who are vulnerable. This is factored into the NHS 111 algorithm, where we advise individuals to call should they have any concerns, as part of the public health advice. I take on board her point about those individuals who may be useful for community communications with councils, schools and others. Obviously, the first place for advice is Public Health England, but there may be activity which I do not have in my brief, so I will come back to her on this.
We have cascaded very detailed information through the NHS about coronavirus—what to look out and what actions to take—which has come from the Chief Medical Officer and those leading the response, to ensure not only immediate response and preparedness, but also on what actions can be taken by healthcare professionals to protect themselves.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, asked about vaccines. She will know that we have pledged £20 million for the new vaccines to combat this. Every day that we slow down sustained transmission is a day closer to development of that vaccine. Developing a new vaccine is not necessarily a quick process; I think it will be in months rather than weeks, but we will put every effort into making sure that we can take part in that.
Finally, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, asked about the differential advice regarding travel from Wuhan and travel from other Asian states and about where that stands at present. The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies and UK Chief Medical Officers have given that advice, on those who have travelled from mainland China and the other nations that I stated versus those who have travelled from Wuhan, based on evidence now available on sustainable transmission. Should there be person-to-person transmission at a different rate, it would be kept under review and the advice would change.
I hope that I have responded to most of the questions. Should there be further questions, I am happy to respond in writing.
Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)
My Lords, I do not want to overreact, but this is a very dangerous condition, and prevention starts at home. The average age in this House is 70. We therefore form part of the most vulnerable group, the group most susceptible to viral infections. Bearing in mind the pressures on Members to attend, should not the House authorities be preparing advice for us on what action should be taken to avoid cross-infection within the House, including, in the event of an infection breakout in London, the wearing of face masks on these premises, not only for self-protection but also for the protection of other people in the House?
Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
The noble Lord is quite right that each of us has a role to play in preventing the spread of infection. At this point, the advice is that, if you have travelled from any of the infected areas or have been part of the contact tracing, you should self-isolate. Should you have any of the symptoms associated with coronavirus—a cough, fever or shortness of breath—you should stay indoors and call 111, even if the symptoms are mild. Outside the question of whether you have had any contact or travelled to the affected areas, the advice from the Chief Medical Officer is that effective handwashing and the “Catch It, Bin It, Kill It” concept—to use tissues when you sneeze or cough and to throw those tissues away—is the most effective way of limiting the passing on of infection, and each and every one of us has a role to play in doing that. However, I am happy to pass on to the House authorities the point the noble Lord has made and ask for communications to be sent from Public Health England with the most up-to-date information.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for bringing the update to the House. Among all those people to whom we owe a debt, we should particularly single out the chief medical officers, led by Chris Whitty, who is an epidemiologist and therefore has an in-depth understanding of the science. We should also thank the owners and crew of, and all those on board, the “Diamond Princess”—a British-owned vessel—who are working with the Japanese authorities and doing all they can to contain the outbreak that has occurred there.
One of the difficulties—this was alluded to by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, who is not in her place at the moment—is that in the early stages this is like the common manifestation of any other viral disease. Therefore, self-isolation and being responsible by staying away from people is everyone’s responsibility with all such infections. Unfortunately, some turn out to be coronavirus. Are the diagnostic kits for Covid-19, which I think is now its official name, available to adequate numbers of hospital laboratories which are under public health supervision? Are those diagnostic kits available across all four nations of the United Kingdom? Are they linked to Colindale so that there is good co-ordination of the way in which the diagnostic procedures are undertaken?
Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
The noble Baroness is quite right. We are aware that there are British nationals on board the “Diamond Princess” in Japan and that six more people have tested positive for coronavirus, none of whom is a British national. We have offered consular assistance to those British nationals—we have been in touch with the “Diamond Princess”—including one who is in hospital. We obviously pay tribute to the work being done in trying to contain the situation there. I identify myself with the thanks and tribute paid to the work of the CMOs, who are doing an extraordinary job right now to make sure that the UK is prepared.
We are one of the first countries in the world to have an effective test; it is working well. Now that the protocols have been sent to the devolved Administrations, testing centres in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast have started testing already. Labs in Cambridge, Bristol and Manchester have started testing today and Birmingham, Newcastle and Southampton will come online shortly. I hope that reassures the House about the capability already available within the NHS.
Lord Lansley (Con)
My noble friend’s appreciation of what is being done in contact tracing and the urgency that has been invested in that and other aspects of containment of the disease is welcome. I share the appreciation that there is across the House for that.
I am sure my noble friend agrees that the effort put in now to try to contain the virus is not disproportionate, even if it includes the powers under the new regulation, because it buys us time. She referred to buying time for research into a potential vaccine. I have not seen any reference to other antiviral treatments that might be identified and be of use. For example, if a new flu-like virus was circulating we could use our stockpiles of Tamiflu. Have any viral treatments been explored for this particular virus?
Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
As ever, my noble friend is astute on this issue. Contact tracing has been hugely effective, particularly for the 1,466 passengers and 95 staff who arrived in the UK on direct flights from Wuhan between 10 and 24 January. All those have now passed through the incubation period and none of them was a confirmed case. Of the remaining cases that we have found, a number are linked to contact tracing. We should be very proud of the effectiveness of our system.
On the question of antivirals, work and research is ongoing in regard to a particular HIV retroviral which has been used in this measure. That is being considered. There are three projects which aim to advance the vaccine candidates into clinical testing as quickly as possible. We are also looking at some correspondence from both diagnostic kit manufacturers and potential end users, and we are considering whether we can also improve the diagnostic kit.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to correct the former Secretary of State for Health. This virus is RNA in its genetic makeup. H1N1—the previous pandemic that we were worried about when we stockpiled the antivirals—had a DNA genetic make-up. Some antivirals work better with DNA than RNA, although the Minister was correct to say that there are several antivirals currently being tested to see whether they will work against the coronavirus. As far as a vaccine is concerned, it takes a long time to develop a vaccine; when you develop one, it takes even longer to see whether it is effective.
Last time we discussed this, I said that the Government were taking a proportionate action to contain the virus in the United Kingdom. I believe that to be so even today. However, we might be on the knife edge of a pandemic. If a pandemic is declared, the whole attitude to how we contain this changes. It becomes much more draconian, to stop the movement of people, isolate the index cases and identify the contacts. Currently, asking the Members of this House to wear masks would only make the public panic and ask why we are protecting ourselves when they are not being protected. It can be a good measure, but we have to wait to see how things develop. I would like to hear reassurance from the Minister that there are plans in place, so that if this becomes pandemic, the Government will take the draconian action that is required.
We are fortunate that, apart from the Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty, who is a first-rate epidemiologist, we have Professor Piot, who discovered the Ebola virus, and Jeremy Farrar, chief executive of the Wellcome Trust. They have better knowledge on containing pandemics than anyone else in the world; I hope the Government will use their expertise.
Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
The noble Lord has demonstrated, far more eloquently than me, why we have more expertise in public health, and in particular in infectious diseases, than many other nations; we of course share our expertise through the WHO with Professor Piot, Professor Jeremy Farrar and our own Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty. We operate using the best scientific evidence and advice from SAGE, which is currently advising the risk level of moderate. We keep that under constant review and are not complacent in any way. Through the preparations that we are putting through the NHS and all other parts of the system, we will be prepared for whatever situations might emerge should there be more sustained transmission in the UK. We will take the measures necessary to protect public health. The steps that we have taken so far have been proportionate and appropriate; they also demonstrate that the Government will act as necessary to make sure that we protect public health.
Viscount Waverley (CB)
My Lords, these are indeed worrying times, with self-isolation a necessary measure to control transmission. In the spirit of informing government, in the context of borders, is the Minister aware that mandatory forced isolation is contrary to provisions in the Portuguese constitution? This might become relevant when protecting our shores in future risk management efforts, to which she referred.
Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
I believe there are some legal specialists in the Chamber. I note the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, sitting at the front on his Bench, who may be able to answer more effectively than I can. However, I believe that the regulations as they have been drawn up are legally appropriate and proportionate. As I have said, they apply only to coronavirus, are in force for only two years and are triggered only by a serious and imminent threat to public health and where a person has not complied, or will not comply, with public health advice and is therefore putting themselves and others at risk. This is well in line with other legal measures.
Baroness Masham of Ilton (CB)
My Lords, will the Minister give more information on people, including parliamentarians, attending conferences and functions in various parts of the world? Is there a risk of picking up coronavirus at airports and on long-haul flights? Many of your Lordships attend conferences and one noble Lord has asked me to relay this question.
Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
The travel advice, as it stands, is against travel to Hubei province, and against all but essential travel to China. There is no advice against other travel. People should be reassured that there is no problem there.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, perhaps I could follow up on that very subject. This afternoon the set of barristers’ chambers to which I belong advised any of its members who had returned from any of the named countries to self-isolate, irrespective of whether they were showing symptoms. I think that is because it is so difficult, at the beginning, for the symptoms to emerge to a point at which somebody realises that they have reached the stage of being able to transmit the disease. This set of chambers has taken rather an extreme measure; maybe others are doing the same. Do I gather that that is not yet the CMO’s advice? On the other hand, would the CMO be considering whether the advice should be not just to self-isolate if symptoms develop, but for people returning from such places to self-isolate anyway as a precaution?
Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
I am sorry that I had not noticed the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope—who is of course also an excellent legal mind— sitting right behind the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. We are very grateful for the precautionary measures being taken by a number of individuals and organisations. However, the advice from the Chief Medical Officer and SAGE is proportionate. At the moment, the available evidence is that transmission while asymptomatic is very unlikely. That is why the advice stands as it is: where the risk is highest and where transmission is sustained, people should self-isolate immediately on return—which means on return from Wuhan and the rest of Hubei province. On return from other areas where transmission is less sustained, people should self-isolate on the arrival of symptoms.
Sentencing (Pre-consolidation Amendments) Bill [HL] (Law Commission Bill)
Tuesday 11th February 2020
(4 years, 10 months ago)
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The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Keen of Elie) (Con)
My Lords, the sole purpose of this Bill is to pave the way for the Law Commission’s sentencing code, a consolidation of legislation governing sentencing procedure in England and Wales, as well as sentencing procedural law as it applies to the Armed Forces. I reiterate that the task before us today is to consider this necessary first step in the long-awaited consolidation proposed by the Law Commission. Noble Lords will have the opportunity to discuss wider issues relating to the substance of sentencing and release legislation in due course.
During proceedings on the Bill in the previous Parliament we heard many examples of highly experienced lawyers and judges spending too much time trying to disentangle which law applied to particular offenders. That challenge is made no easier by having to deal with multiple changes to the statute book, which may determine what sorts of disposals are available in particular cases.
It was with this in mind that the Government agreed in 2014 that the Law Commission should undertake a project designed to consolidate the law relating to sentencing procedure. The resulting sentencing code aims to assist judges and legal professionals in identifying and applying the law, thereby reducing the risk of error, appeals and delays in the sentencing process. It should also enhance the transparency of the process for the general public. However, for the sentencing code to work effectively, some technical changes need to be made to legislation that will be consolidated in the code.
In broad terms, the current Bill before the House does two things. First, it brings about something that we can call the “clean sweep”, which does away with historic layerings of sentencing legislation. Secondly, it makes various pre-consolidation amendments needed to tidy the statute book and make it ready for the ultimate consolidation process.
A key cause of the current complexity in sentencing procedural law is the need for courts to refer to historical sentencing provisions to ensure that sentences passed are in accordance with the applicable sentencing law at the time of the offence. The clean sweep mechanism in Clause 1 attempts to remedy that complexity by removing the need to identify and apply historic versions of the law. As a result, the current law of sentencing procedure as enacted in the sentencing code will apply to all offenders convicted after its commencement. Importantly, the clean sweep is subject to exceptions to protect the fundamental rights of the offender. These exceptions ensure that when an offender is sentenced under the sentencing code, they will not be subject to a greater penalty than was available, or to a minimum or mandatory sentence that did not apply, at the time they committed their offence.
Then there are the amendments and modifications of sentencing legislation contained in Schedule 2 to the Bill. These are referred to in Clause 2. These pre-consolidation amendments are generally limited to correcting minor errors and streamlining sentencing procedural law. They are a standard measure that often precedes a consolidation Bill. It should be emphasised that none of the pre-consolidation amendments makes changes to existing offences and penalties, nor do they introduce any new sentencing law.
The Government have made some changes to the Bill since it was most recently considered in the last Parliament. These are the result of the ongoing work of the Law Commission, working with parliamentary counsel, on readying the sentencing code Bill for introduction. The pre-consolidation Bill now includes a number of technical amendments that were tabled by the Government ahead of the scheduled Third Reading in the last Parliament. These include pre-consolidation amendments that seek to tidy up a few provisions of sentencing law as it applies to the Armed Forces, to ensure that the sentencing code can apply Armed Forces sentencing law as clearly and consistently as possible.
Further pre-consolidation amendments limit the provisions of primary legislation that can be amended by statutory instrument so that the sentencing code can contain more precisely targeted powers than is the case under the current law. Other pre-consolidation amendments reflect the recent coming into force of provisions in the Crime and Courts Act 2013.
Some further technical amendments that were not tabled in the last Parliament have now also been incorporated into the Bill. These amendments broadly fall into four categories. First, a minor drafting change has been made to Clause 5(3) of the Bill to accommodate a drafting change to the commencement clause in the sentencing code Bill itself. This will make clear, in the context of legislation to be consequentially amended by the sentencing code, to which offences the amendments apply where a person has been convicted over time of two or more offences. This change does not affect the way that the code will apply to a person convicted of an offence but is necessary to make clear that those amendments apply only in relation to offences for which a person is convicted after the commencement of the code.
Secondly, the Bill now includes some additional pre-consolidation amendments that will correct anomalies in references in existing legislation to provisions that will be rewritten in the sentencing code, so that the resulting references to the code in existing legislation are correct.
Thirdly, the Bill now makes provision at paragraph 133 of Schedule 2 to provide that where powers that are to be included in the sentencing code which are subject to different parliamentary procedures are exercised in the same instrument, the highest level of parliamentary procedure of the various powers will apply. For example, where provisions that are subject to negative resolution procedure are included in the same instrument as provisions that are subject to affirmative resolution procedure, affirmative resolution procedure will apply to the whole instrument. That is necessary, as the code will consolidate a number of different powers to make subordinate legislation that do not currently deal consistently with cases where powers that are subject to different levels of parliamentary scrutiny are exercised in the same instrument.
Finally, paragraph 134 of Schedule 2 provides the Secretary of State with the power to state the effect of savings or transitional provisions on the face of the sentencing code where uncommenced provisions in the code are brought into force. For example, if the Government wished in the future to commence a provision in the code only for offences committed on or after the date of commencement, commencement regulations could amend the code to state that date on its face. This should help provide courts and legal advisers with the full benefit of the clarity that the code will bring.
I finish by reiterating the Government’s gratitude to the staff of the Law Commission, and indeed to parliamentary counsel, for their exceptional efforts and continuous expertise and energy throughout the sentencing code project. It is a formidable achievement. I beg to move.
Lord Judge (CB)
My Lords, this process has been moving at a speed that would attract the unrestrained admiration of an indolent sloth—and an indolent sloth has no interest in the administration of justice in England and Wales.
As the Minister set out, this process began in 2014. In fact, even before that judges had been trying to persuade the ministry to let a code be created. The final report on the draft code became available in November 2018. As the Minister has said, it has been a work of astonishing complexity—a prodigious effort by the Law Commission, led for this work by Professor David Ormerod. Unsurprisingly, it has been greeted enthusiastically, rightly, by anyone with any real experience of the problems, not of sentencing decisions as such—although any judge who passes sentence will tell you that those decisions are difficult enough—but of sentencing technicalities; statutory pitfalls; optimistically drafted regulations; regulations that are drafted, come into force and disappear after three or four months; and, with no disrespect to Parliament, general parliamentary tinkering with the sentencing processes. This has resulted in a morass of confusion.
Every Government, of all colours, going back years, have added their own ingredients and then left it to the courts to sort out the puzzle. Sentencing decision is, however, not a game. Every single case involves a defendant, and from time to time people forget that every case involves a victim. The sentence matters to the victim, too, and it should be right. In every sentencing decision—of which there are tens of thousands every year—the first question is: “What are the powers of the court?” The second question that should be asked is: “What are the legislative requirements and constraints that apply to this case?” The decision of the court should always be lawful, but too often, because the relevant law is obscured by technicalities and legislative confusion, it is not. This is unacceptable, it is inconsistent with the rule of law and it has been besmirching our system for years. A remedy is urgently needed and this sentencing code, the Bill and the processes that we are now reviewing will provide the desperately needed remedy—not because it is needed by lawyers but because there are daily miscarriages of justice. It is a miscarriage of justice for a court to pass a sentence that is unlawful. Those miscarriages result directly from the chronic state of our legislation.
I will make two further points. First, the code and Bill simultaneously avoid any retrospective increase in sentencing: the date of the commission of the offence is the starting point for the sentence. Secondly, it provides for a degree of flexibility, so that as new legislation creates further crimes—as happens constantly —it can all be worked into the code, so that we do not have to come back in 10 years’ time and say, “Ten years have gone by and we need another code”. We shall soon be looking at the counterterrorism Bill. That can be fitted into this code. If I were in charge—and I am not—I would get this done first and then look at the sentencing decisions which will arise when we consider that Bill.
The committee of the House which I had the honour to chair examined the proposed Bill and was enthusiastically in support of it. Members of that committee are here to speak, and those who for different reasons cannot be here have asked me to convey on their behalf their continuing support. What is surprising and disappointing is that the proposal has received the wholehearted support of Parliament, yet we have had to wait. I am not blaming anybody for this, but here is the fact: the Bill was introduced into this House on 22 May. It completed all its stages up to Report. It was ready to go, and it was lost when Parliament was prorogued. There were more significant consequences of the Prorogation of Parliament, but this was one of them. Then the process started in the next Session, and again the Bill was taken forward. Everything was in sight, the cup about to be grasped. A number of small amendments were introduced by the Government at that stage which were sensible, so that the Bill would be ready for enactment, but it was torpedoed by Dissolution—again, the Dissolution process had rather greater consequences than this.
Now we are here a third time. The amendments suggested by the Government again make good sense; they serve to improve the Bill. I did my own cross-check, but I ran out of energy just because we need a sentencing code. So I sought the advice of Professor Ormerod, who was able to assure me that he was prepared to give his blessing. If he had not, I would have complained—not to him but to the Government. A particular point to raise is that amendments should be commenced which, whenever possible, follow the “clean sweep” model and, again, reduce to extinction the risk of retrospectivity. A second is that any new legislation can be made compatible with the code. That, I earnestly urge should happen.
There is a solitary advantage in us having to address these issues again: it will give the House the opportunity to hear from my noble and learned friend Lady Hallett, who will be making her maiden speech. She is a very long-standing friend. There are many things that could be said, but I want to highlight this: she was the judge to whom I turned to conduct the harrowing inquest into the tragic consequences of the murderous terrorist attack in London in July 2005. We will all remember the transport disaster which resulted in so many deaths. I know her well enough; I have heard her say that she would be the first to extol the fortitude and courage of the families of the victims and the survivors who appeared before her at that inquest. But she will not say it, so I will. The sensitivity of her approach to each individual human tragedy encompassed in that long, sad catalogue of murder can, even at the risk of embarrassing her, be highlighted.
More to the present point, she was until a few months ago the vice-president of the Court of Appeal Criminal Division, much of whose work involves dealing with appeals against sentence which would have been quite unnecessary if the legislation had not been impenetrable and the proposed code in force.
This is the third time in a few months that this issue has been addressed. Even the journey of an indolent sloth eventually reaches a sluggish conclusion. Can we not have any more sloth-like behaviour? Can we have urgent attention so that, third time lucky, we will be quick?
Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)
My Lords, I am looking forward very much to the maiden speech of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett. Like myself, she is of a police family and a veteran of the criminal Bar, although she subsequently rose to dizzying heights that I never attained on the Bench. We need her contribution at this time, and no doubt in the future.
As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, said, the Bill was pored over in the last Parliament. I have little to add generally, save to welcome it as a precursor to the sentencing Bill. The Leader of the House in another place has promised us that Bill in this Session. I assume that the sentencing Bill will introduce the excellent sentencing code, and I too congratulate the Law Commission and parliamentary counsel for the years of expert work that they have done in producing it.
I am grateful to the Minister for his letters of 23 October and 5 February. In his first letter, he informed me that work was continuing to include Armed Forces sentencing law in the code, and the new provisions in this Bill do indeed include tidying up pre-consolidation amendments. As chair of the Association of Military Court Advocates, I naturally have an interest in this area, and my comments will be directed to that.
The Law Commission, in paragraph 3.23 of its report, had decided that, by reason of pressure on resources, it was unable to draft the necessary amendments to the sentencing code to apply it to the service jurisdiction within the timeframe of this project. It also pointed out that the application of the code to the service jurisdiction could be achieved by way of the next Armed Forces Act, which must be passed before the end of 2021. It noted the ongoing review of military justice, the report of which will no doubt be published shortly. Is it now intended that the sentencing code will be brought to bear on courts martial in the sentencing Bill, or will the Government wait for the review report and for the Armed Forces Bill to be brought forward in 2021?
I thoroughly approve of the “clean sweep” principle, not least in connection with service criminal law. Service law and procedure have been built up piecemeal. I want to make some comments about an important procedural issue which in my view has gathered barnacles and needs to be challenged in the light of the Law Commission’s report. It is the current sentencing role of a court martial panel, against which I have argued on previous Armed Forces Bills. I take my text from the Law Commission’s report itself, paragraph 1.16 of which states that
“the law governing sentencing procedure is complex, difficult to locate, and difficult to understand, even for experienced judges and practitioners.”
The services, as represented in Parliament, have always been proud and protective of the military justice system. In history, there is not much to be proud of. In the 18th century, general courts martial, before a panel of 13, followed the rudiments of a trial as in a civilian court. Regimental courts martial, on the other hand, before five or three officers, were much easier to summon and consequently more popular with authority. They were, however, much more informal. Witnesses did not give evidence on oath, and severe and unusual punishments were meted out. An example was the wooden horse. This instrument, invented by the Inquisition, resembled a carpenter’s sawhorse standing on four legs, save that the crossbar was not flat but a triangle, the upper point of which was suitably shaved to a sharp edge. The convicted soldier had to sit astride the horse on this edge for the prescribed period, elevated in the air, often with weights tied to his legs to increase the pain and add to the injury.
Records were generally not kept, but a fragment has survived from 1722. Within a five-week period, seven prisoners were sentenced to the wooden horse, some for insolence to an officer, others for going out of camp. Another punishment popular with these regimental courts martial, also recorded in this 1722 fragment, was running the gauntlet. The prisoner would be lashed by a company of soldiers drawn up in two files through which he would be slowly marched, an officer in front of him with his sword pointed backwards and another behind with his sword pointed forward. It could be lethal. Another case is recorded in that fragment where the prisoner was found to have absented himself from guard duty, his punishment being to have his neck and heels tied together.
In the army, flogging was standard. One sentence recorded in 1750 was 600 lashes for being absent without leave. In 1777, one Elijah Reeves received 500 lashes for visiting a whorehouse that had been declared off limits. Military justice very slowly improved, but there was always resistance to change. Flogging was not abolished until 1881, despite campaigns against it throughout the earlier part of the century, led by parliamentarians such as John Bright and Joseph Hume. The military always argued that it was essential for officers to have the power to flog,
“to curb the natural passions of men”,—[Official Report, Commons, 16/2/1880; col. 1167.]
as the Tory MP Colonel John North put it.
As for the informality of these proceedings, a Bill was introduced in 1805 to require that the evidence given in a regimental court martial should be on oath. In the debate on that Bill, Lord de Blaquiere, a supporter, told the Commons that he had
“seen a man sentenced by a regimental Court-martial to receive one thousand strokes, for an offence, which, on board a ship, would not have been punished with more than a dozen lashes”.—[Official Report, Commons, 12/3/1805; col. 860.]
Sir John Wrottesley, on the other hand, a major in the militia as well as an MP, opposed the Bill, arguing that “petty fogging attorneys” would always be lying in wait to interfere with military justice.
As a pettifogging attorney myself, I recall moving amendments to the 2006 Armed Forces Bill, one of which proposed that members a court martial panel should, as in the United States, be drawn from other ranks as well as officers. Another proposed amendment was that members of a court martial panel should be mixed, drawn from all three services instead of solely from the prisoner’s service. These amendments were opposed by the Minister, Lord Drayson, strongly supported by a noble and gallant Lord who later, in a touch of banter outside the Chamber, told me that my amendments were outrageous and asserted, with the approval of two other noble and gallant Lords from different services, that I should be shot.
There have been significant improvements over the years, despite such resistance. However, both the services and the Ministry of Defence have insisted up to now that sentencing should be the responsibility of the court martial panel—its decision being, of course, by a simple majority. Under the current law, the role of the judge advocate at the sentencing stage is merely to advise panel members of the extent of their sentencing powers, rather like a clerk to the justices. Under Section 160(4) of the 2006 Act, the judge advocate has a casting vote only in the event that the panel is equally divided on sentencing. He has no vote, of course, on the issue of the finding of guilt or innocence. I remind your Lordships of the comment of the Law Commission that the law is incredibly complex and difficult to understand, even for experienced judges and lawyers. One wonders at the faith placed in a court martial panel to get a sentence right, particularly when it may be dealing, under Section 42 of the Act, with a most serious crime, all the way up to rape, manslaughter and murder.
In the civilian courts, where a person has been convicted of manslaughter, I have known sentences of life imprisonment, but also sentences of lesser severity, all the way down to an absolute discharge. How can a court martial panel deal with that? Remember that, unlike a much more experienced bench of magistrates, whose powers of sentencing are limited to two years’ imprisonment, the officers on the panel, save for the president, may well be new to the job. For many, perhaps the majority, this will be the first and last time they are called upon to sit in judgment. Surely it would be more sensible to leave sentencing as the responsibility of the judge advocate, assisted by the panel on any service issues that may arise.
I have no doubt that I shall return to this point when we consider the sentencing Bill in this Session, or the armed forces Bill in the next. As we await anxiously the findings of the current review, I wish this Bill a fair passage.
Lord Bates (Con)
My Lords, I rise as testament to the grace of the open speakers’ list offered by the Whips’ Office that a non-lawyer should be able to speak on a Law Commission Bill, in a debate in which will take part two former Lord Chancellors, a former Lord Chief Justice and a Deputy President of the Supreme Court. I also stand between your Lordships and the very welcome maiden speech of a former High Court judge.
I am speaking because I read the written evidence provided to the Special Public Bill Committee on this measure by the Prison Reform Trust, which welcomes the Bill but remains
“concerned that Parliament risks missing a vital opportunity to scrutinise the impact of the current sentencing framework on outcomes in the criminal justice system.”
With your Lordships’ forbearance, I want to test for a few moments the effectiveness of those custodial sentences.
It goes without saying that it is right that those convicted of a criminal offence are punished for that offence. It is important that victims see justice being done. A custodial sentence can serve as a deterrent and protect the public from those who pose a serious threat. However, the objective of sentencing should also be that the offender may on completion of their sentence be rehabilitated and leave their criminal behaviour behind them.
Yet it is in this final area that we seem to be having most difficulty. The prison population in England and Wales was 83,430 in 2019. In 1900 the prison population was around 17,400; over the next 90 years it doubled to around 40,000 and over the past 30 years it has doubled again. It is projected to continue to grow to 85,800 by 2022 and at that rate we will hit around 100,000 in England and Wales by 2030. The average cost per prison place in England and Wales is £40,843. There are fewer than 100 prisoners serving whole-of-life sentences, so while we are locking more people up we are also letting more people out. Last year 69,622 prisoners were released from prison. Reoffending rates are 48% for all adults released, rising to 65% for those serving sentences shorter than 12 months. A survey published by the Ministry of Justice last year put the economic and social cost of reoffending at £18.1 billion. Where have we gone wrong and what can we do to put it right?
Prevention would be best. We know that fewer than 1% of school pupils have been permanently excluded from school in the general population, but in the prison population they account for 42%. We know that 2% of children have been taken into care in the general population but they form 24% of the prison population. We know that 64% had used illicit drugs before entering prison, that 46% had alcohol problems and that 40% have mental health problems. We know that 62% of prisons are currently rated as overcrowded, with cells intended for one person often used to house two. We know that many prisoners are locked in their cells for all but a few hours of each day.
I suggest another reason why prison is failing to be as effective at rehabilitation as we wish: while we have strengthened a little our belief in judgment and demands for retribution, perhaps with the advance of social media and the web, at the same time, perhaps with the decline in religious belief, we have weakened a little our understanding of and belief in concepts such as forgiveness, mercy, grace and redemption. Redemption: the belief that though you have done something terribly wrong, at the end of your punishment and displaying remorse there is afforded to you a second chance to start afresh and make a positive contribution to society.
In his book No Future Without Forgiveness, the Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu wrote the following:
“Forgiveness is taking seriously the awfulness of what has happened when you are treated unfairly. It is opening the door for the other person to have a chance to begin again. Without forgiveness, resentment builds in us a resentment which turns into hostility and anger”.
If all that sounds a bit too woolly for my noble and learned friend on the Front Bench, let me pray in aid a Conservative Lord Chancellor who said in the House of Commons:
“It is because I am a Conservative that I believe in the rule of law as the foundation stone of our civilisation; it is because I am a Conservative that I believe that evil must be punished; but it is also because I am a Conservative, and a Christian, that I believe in redemption, and I think that the purpose of our prison system and our criminal law is to keep people safe by making people better”.—[Official Report, Commons, 26/1/16; col. 149.]
Those were the words of my right honourable friend Michael Gove in 2016, someone who in the intervening years has demonstrated the benefits of political redemption.
When my noble and learned friend responds to this debate, can he say whether the purpose of prison is still to keep people safe by making people better? If so, when will we have an opportunity to scrutinise the effectiveness of the Government in doing so? Custodial sentences have an important part to play in keeping the public safe and ensuring justice is seen to be done; but an over-focus on longer sentences resulting in an ever larger prison population without an equivalent focus on redemption and rehabilitation may only serve to ensure that those people leave custody bitter but not necessarily better.
Baroness Hallett (CB) (Maiden Speech)
My Lords, as a barrister for 27 years and a judge for 20 years, I am accustomed to speaking in public, yet I confess that I find the task before me now somewhat daunting—a feeling that has been exacerbated by the relatively long wait today. The good news from your Lordships’ point of view is that, as every hour passed, I deleted yet another passage from what I had intended to say.
My feelings of trepidation stem from the knowledge that becoming a Member of this noble House is both an honour and a privilege. I am extremely grateful to those who played a part in my appointment and to my supporters, especially my noble and learned friend Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, who left his sick bed to be with me on the day of my introduction. I shall do my utmost to prove that their trust in me is well placed.
I am also extremely grateful to the staff, to officials and to noble Lords and Baronesses who have proved so helpful and welcoming since my arrival. I should also like to thank my noble and learned friend Lord Judge and the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, for their kind remarks. If I had to leave the justice system—which I did because of an Act of Parliament and I was getting too old—I can think of no better place to be. The justice system will, however, remain close to my heart.
My father, as noble Lords have heard, was a police officer, who taught me at an early stage the importance of the justice system. I am proud to have played a part in it, particularly as I was told more than once that people from my background, especially women, could not cut it as lawyers.
I shall therefore follow with interest steps taken to ensure that the justice system of this country remains one of the best in the world. A fully functioning and properly funded justice system is essential to a healthy democracy. We have the excellent business and property courts, but they are only part of the equation; we must not allow other parts of the system to crumble. It is the system as a whole that makes this country a desirable place to invest, to do business and to litigate, and it provides access to justice for all our citizens.
This is not the time to list the problems that beset judges, magistrates and practitioners. The Bill aims to address just one of them. The idea is simple, as noble Lords have heard. It is to streamline the sentencing process; it is not about outcomes. It is the sentencing process that affects hundreds of thousands of cases each year. The aim of the Bill is to make it quicker and easier for a sentencing judge and practitioners to find the relevant sentencing provisions.
As your Lordships have heard, at present sentencing provisions are extraordinarily complex. Experienced judges and lawyers struggle to interpret them even when, in the Court of Appeal, there is rather more time than is available to the sentencing judge in the Crown Court, who may have nine other cases in her busy list that day. The provisions are scattered among several statutes, and in the case of one defendant different statutes may be in play.
Back to that busy judge, who has a list of 10 cases —one of them involves four defendants, one of whom is under 17, one was 17 at the time of the commission of the offence and is 18 at the time of sentence, one may attract the dangerousness provisions, and one may be lucky to get away with a suspended sentence and possibly a community penalty. I cannot tell your Lordships how many statutory provisions would be involved in the judge trying to work out how to sentence the four—and do not forget that she also has nine other cases to deal with that day. The scope for error is huge.
As vice-president of the Court of Appeal Criminal Division until last October, I promise your Lordships that I lost count of the number of unlawful sentences put before us, costing time and money to rectify and, in the process, causing unnecessary distress to the victims of crime, who were uncertain of the sentence passed on the perpetrator of the crime against them and who were extraordinarily, and obviously rightly, angry when we were forced to quash a sentence because it was unlawful.
When Professor David Ormerod QC first announced that, as a Law Commissioner, he intended to embark upon a codification of the sentencing process, many experienced criminal lawyers—and I confess that I was one of them—thought it was an impossible task. But with the help of parliamentary counsel the Law Commission has done it, and after much consultation, the code has been greeted with acclaim by the informed legal community.
It is worth repeating that, if enacted, the code will not: alter any maximum sentences currently available for offences; subject any offender to a harsher penalty than could have been imposed at the time of the offence; or affect the release dates as currently set. Those are all matters that may have to be considered on another occasion, as will the point about the principles of sentencing, rehabilitation, deterrence and the like. But that is not for today.
This Bill is about process. It will, at a stroke, simplify sentencing, save unnecessary distress, money, time and effort, and it will not cost any money. I know of no criminal lawyer or judge who objects to it. On the contrary, they are impatient for it to be enacted. They have been disappointed twice; there is no reason for them to be disappointed a third time.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)
I speak for the whole House in congratulating the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett, on her absolutely excellent maiden speech. The House has got a taste of what is to come. For me it is a huge personal pleasure to follow her in this debate. I have known her for very many years. She is one of quite a small number of people who have been profound change-makers in the law, and without any fuss. As she said, she was an advocate for 27 years; she did not mention that she was the chair of the Bar. As it happens, she was the first woman chair of the Bar, but that makes no difference to the fact that she was among the best of them. She was a judge who was in effect in charge of criminal sentencing for a long period of time in the Court of Appeal. She is testament to the stupidity of the judicial service arrangements that forced her to retire too young, and testament to the inadequacy of the judicial appointments arrangements in that she did not become the Lord Chief Justice. One of the things about the noble and learned Baroness is that she knows just as much about human beings as she does about the law. I am absolutely sure that the best is yet to come.
I move to the Bill. I, like all other noble Lords who have spoken in this debate, commend this short but important paving Bill towards a sentencing code. The effect of this Bill and the Bill it paves the way for will be very significant to the performance of the criminal justice system. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett, have explained the current position. As a result of a random test in 2012, the Law Commission made available to us the statistic that 36% of sentences are unlawful. That does not mean that they were just too long as judgments, but that they were passed contrary to the terms of the statute allowing them. We are a country that prides itself on the rule of law. If over a third of the sentences that are passed are unlawful, there is something wrong with the law and we need to change it.
There is unanimity among those who practise in the criminal justice system, whether advocates, prosecutors or judges, that there should be change. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, has pointed out, this Bill and that which it paves the way for has been, as the Prime Minister would say, oven-ready since May 2019. Some time will pass before this paving Bill gets through and thereafter—and only thereafter—does the sentencing code come. I strongly urge the Government, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, has done, to deal with this as quickly as possible. It is something on which Parliament agrees; there is no reason for delay.
I will mention three specific points. First, I congratulate the Law Commission on its work, particularly the clean sweep principle, which allows the courts to adjudicate what the right sentence is based on one statute only, in effect the sentencing code when it comes. I congratulate the Law Commission on coming up with a principle as sensible and simple as the clean sweep.
Secondly, I agree with the Law Commission that it has to protect the principle of retrospectivity and particularly that you cannot be sentenced at a higher level than the sentence that applied at the time you committed the offence. It preserves that in the Bill and it is right to. The House is going to come back to that issue in the Terrorist Offenders (Restriction of Early Release) Bill that was published today. The effect of that Bill is, for no doubt good policy reasons, to transform the time before release for terrorist offenders on determinate sentences from half way through the sentence and automatically to two-thirds of the way through, and then with the approval of the Parole Board only.
A question arises as to whether that changes a sentence after the commission of the offences. I am aware of cases, particularly that of Uttley in the House of Lords in 2004, which suggest that it is relevant to focus on the maximum in the sentence, and only if the new sentence is higher than the maximum would it be retrospective. I have anxieties about that, because a statute is being passed that will unquestionably increase significantly the time that people spend in prison. The principle of preventing retrospectivity is that you should not, after the event—maybe by a statute driven by public opinion—change somebody’s sentence for the worse. It should be the courts, in accordance with law, that fix the sentence, not public opinion subsequently. But that is a debate for another day.
My third point is again one that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, has already made. The intention of the sentencing code is that it is to be one statute to which judges can refer in order to determine what the sentence is. That works only if in years to come, amendments to sentencing abide by the principle of the sentencing code. It is worth drawing attention to the fact that substantial changes were made to sentencing in 1991, 1993, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2018 and 2019. I say in parenthesis that even Brexit did not stop the change in sentencing. It is extremely unlikely that that pattern will not continue after the sentencing code is passed.
In order for the code’s principles to be given effect, four principles need to be adhered to. First, any changes in sentencing should be made by changing the terms of the sentencing code, not in a new document. Secondly, if any changes do not come into force straightaway, they should be put into Schedule 22 to the sentencing code so that people can see that it is one which has not come into force straightaway. Thirdly, any new arrangements should maintain the principle of the clean sweep, and fourthly, any commencement information should be included in the Bill. Only if the principles of the sentencing code are adhered to as we go forward will the very brilliant work of Professor Ormerod and his team take us through into the future.
I strongly support this Bill and I hope that it becomes law, and that the sentencing code which is to follow it becomes law as quickly as possible.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)
My Lords, it gives me the greatest possible pleasure to follow the excellent maiden speech of the noble and learned Baroness—which, of course, having known her for some time, I expected to be of the highest quality.
This Bill forms part of the extremely valuable consolidation procedure. For a short time, I had the honour of being the chairman of the consolidation committee, but I was saved from continuing in the role by being appointed Lord Chancellor. I discovered that, of all the committees which serve Members of both this House and the other place, the difficulty of convening a quorum for the consolidation committee was the probably the highest. That suggests to me that the process of consolidation is not as precious, or perhaps as fully understood, as it should be. That is because, unless we have reasonable consolidation, our statute book will become less and less intelligible.
I had the honour of being a member of the Scottish Law Commission for a time, and like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, I was the Minister for the Law Commission during my time as Lord Chancellor. I think that it was a marvellous institution which was set up by Lord Gardiner, with a certain amount of query from some lawyers, as is usually the case if you make an improvement, and the result has been absolutely excellent. One of the features of the Law Commission as I knew it was that it usually had the services of a parliamentary counsel, then detached from the ordinary office in Whitehall. I suspect that the parliamentary counsel involved in this Bill was seconded to the Law Commission.
In the past I have had a little experience of the relationship between the Law Commission and Her Majesty’s Government. One of the features of the criminal law of England and Wales is that it is principally statutory law and not all of it is absolutely at the peak of modernity. In fact, it is extraordinary how old some of the essential provisions that are in day-to-day use are. When I was concerned in these matters, there was a move to codify the criminal law. A certain office of state had responsibility for the criminal law and was reluctant to see anything of the kind happen—but somehow the Law Commission managed to start a procedure for codifying the criminal law. It was eventually able to excise a bit that seemed reasonably attractive to the office in question—but, so far as I know, it never got any further.
We have here an example of modifying and modernising the process for sentencing, as has been pointed out. We are not able today to give effect to my noble friend Lord Bates’s sentiments, which I very much share. It is not part of this Bill, which is concerned only with the sentencing process. It deals with it in a very effective way; it could not possibly do it simply by a consolidation Bill. This pre-consolidation Bill is able to make the corrections that, when fitted in, will bring in a sentencing code that will be absolutely excellent. I hope—I feel certain this will be the case—that there will be many fewer unlawful judgments from now on. Even judges can make mistakes, but the chances of mistakes in this situation are very much reduced.
The noble and learned Baroness pointed out in her maiden speech how much she values the judiciary of this country. As it happens, I was coming from Inverness last night on a plane that was a little later than it might have been if the weather had been different, and I was talking to a gentlemen who was much in business and somehow knew my line of life. He began to talk about the judiciary and said, “I have had experience of many countries and of employment law in many countries. The unique feature of the United Kingdom is the absolute honesty of the judiciary.” It is an extremely precious quality, and I honestly am not absolutely certain that it is fully appreciated in every quarter as it should be.
It is extremely important that the status and remuneration of the judiciary, including pensions, should match that very big quality. It is not that they are paid for honesty, but they are employed and continue to be employed because they are honest. Sometimes some statutory instrument comes along and their termination appears, but it is nothing at all to do with any fault in them. It is simply what some mistaken people in the past have brought in as the ultimate age for service. This is an extremely important matter. I certainly believe that that quality is in a way preserved by this Bill, which will help honest judges get the answer that is right.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, it is an honour for me to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern—my former devil-master, from whom I learned so much. I take this opportunity to congratulate the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett, on her excellent speech. She demonstrated very well what the House is gaining by her membership, because of her remarkable and deep experience of criminal law at every level, from the Bar right up to the very high level she reached on the Bench. Her remarks about the difficulties that sentencing judges face, which she observed so well from her position in the Court of Appeal, are extremely valuable in the context of the debate we are having.
I have no hesitation in welcoming the Bill, and I am delighted that it is being sponsored by the Government. As chairmen of the Law Commission, I have known only too well for decades, that it is not easy for Law Commission Bills to make progress in Parliament. Parliamentary time is often at a premium and, without sponsorship from the Government, it would be difficult—probably impossible—for any progress to be made at all. We must be grateful to the Government, not only for being willing to sponsor the Bill but for being willing to find time for it, at the third time of asking, only six weeks into the new parliamentary Session. This is, of course, only the first stage of the further process which will, we hope, end up with the approval of the code itself. I hope, as others have said, that the progress made so far in this Session—let us ignore the fits and starts of the previous ones—will be maintained, and that rapid progress will be made to get us to the stage at which we may be able to consider and approve the code itself.
It is very easy in a debate of this kind to be drawn into a broad discussion of sentencing policy, as the noble Lord, Lord Bates, demonstrated in his entertaining and fascinating speech. If I had freedom to do so, I would say something about the disturbing, inevitable creep in the level of sentences: up and up they go, without any obvious benefit. However, I will leave that all aside because, as has been said already, the Bill, as its long title makes clear, does no more than lay a sound basis for the enactment of the sentencing code itself.
I pay tribute to the Law Commission and parliamentary counsel for the immensely impressive and painstaking work put into the schedules, particularly Schedule 2. I did my own research when comparing this Bill with its predecessor, in June of last year. I was looking for what used to be paragraphs 90 and 92 of Schedule 2, which I commented on at Second Reading last time. They dealt with the transfers of community orders and suspended sentences from England and Wales to Scotland under the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000. I could not find them, because the numbers had changed. I was rather startled to find that what were paragraphs 90 and 92 had moved to paragraphs 101 and 103. As I looked further into the schedule, I found another nine new provisions, including paragraphs 133 and 134, to which the Minister has already made reference. It is to be admired that, although the Bill was becalmed in the summer, work to make sure that the schedules were absolutely up to date did not cease; I am sure we will all benefit from the work that has been put in.
I will say no more about the problems that sentencing judges and magistrates face; it is a morass of confusion, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, said. However, I want to draw attention to one point. In his celebrated book The Rule of Law, the late Lord Bingham of Cornhill identified eight principles of the rule of law that he thought we should bear in mind. The first was this:
“the law must be accessible … intelligible, clear and predictable.”
The law which magistrates and judges should be required to administer should be accessible, clear and intelligible. It is absolutely plain from the noble and learned Baroness’s speech that that is very far from the case, and indeed that we are in serious risk of failing to observe the rule of law in the situation as it is at the moment. I mention that just to underline the point others have made—I am referring in particular to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, and his impressive speech—of the urgency to make progress with the Bill to the stage which we all wish to reach.
Finally, I pay tribute to the care which has been taken in the drafting of Clause 1(3) and (4), which are designed to ensure that those convicted after the code comes into force will be dealt with according to the most up-to-date law, and also the corollary: that the convicted person is not dealt with by the imposition of a penalty of any kind that is more onerous than that which applied when the offence was committed. Perhaps there is a difference in the uplifting and administration of a penalty which the court has imposed, which may be a riposte to the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, on the Bill he referred to. If the judge is not required to increase the sentence, but only to deal with the way that it is administered by changing terms of parole and so on, one might not think that that is the case, but we are not really concerned with that here, because every effort is being made—and should continue to be made—to ensure a clean sweep in both these respects.
This is a supremely well-drafted and very carefully put together Bill, and I offer it my full support.
Lord Adonis (Lab)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to join in congratulating the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett. She made what has been, in my time in the House, the briefest but most authoritative maiden speech. I can see why she has such an impressive record as a judge. We are extremely fortunate to have her in the House for the future.
Clearly, the arguments for this Bill are overwhelming. They have been made by the Minister, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and all other noble Lords who have spoken. We look to the Minister to facilitate the passage of this Bill so that we can get on with the substantive Bill. It says something about the complexities that we are dealing with that it takes a prior Bill to get to the consolidation Bill to bring about the reforms that we want. This further demonstrates the need for these pieces of legislation. My noble and learned friend Lord Falconer said that in a sample of sentences, 36% were found to be unlawful, which is truly shocking. As the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett, said, for a nation that prides itself and exhibits itself to the world in respect of the rule of law and setting high standards, that is not acceptable.
I hesitated to speak, because these points are agreed among us, and because this is a debate dominated by very experienced judges and lawyers. However, fortified by the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, who took us into courts martial in the 18th century, and the noble Lord, Lord Bates, who talked about the wider principles of sentences and outcomes, I will make a few wider remarks. To the lay person coming into this field, the fundamental issue is not the operation of the law—although clearly that needs to be improved—but the outcomes. To anybody looking at this from the outside, the fact that in the last 40 years the prison population has doubled, the average length of sentences has significantly increased, and concern about crime and recidivism has not improved in society, proves that we are out of step. I hesitate to say it in this company, but Scandinavia and other countries have lessons to teach us on how to manage crime in society. We are way out of step with those societies in the numbers that we incarcerate and the lengths of sentences. The question must be asked—and if not in this debate, there needs to be an appropriate time—what are we going to do about it? Are we going to let this continue?
I look at most of the things we did when I was a member of the same Government as my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer with great pride. In most areas of public policy, we left things better at the end than at the start, but I do not look back with any pride at the fact that we had a larger prison population at the end of our time than the beginning, nor that we had a criminal justice system that evidently was not working better. My noble friend recited a long list of statutes which have been passed, making the point that the law on sentencing has changed virtually annually in the last 30 years. What struck me as I listened to the debate and read the material relevant to it was that very few of those statutes have taken a wide-ranging and comprehensive view of sentencing. All of them, except perhaps the Criminal Justice Act 2003, have been incremental reforms to sentencing, in response to issues of public concern and often not dealt with in the best context. They have not been properly co-ordinated and have added to the complexity of the statute book, which the noble and learned Baroness referred to. They have all had the effect of ratcheting up, bit by bit, the prison population and the length of sentences.
The question I wish to put into the debate—I came here partly to form views as to how we might tackle the problem—is: how are we going to address this wider issue? The noble Lord, Lord Bates, did it by reference to wider moral principles, which I fully respect, and he referred to Michael Gove’s speech. However, we are legislators—we should obviously be guided by moral principles but we also need to have regard to how we can change the law—and we need an opportunity to get to grips with the issue of sentencing and its relationship to crime and public confidence in a comprehensive way. I am not sure how we can do it—clearly, this Bill is not the appropriate vehicle—but we need a process which gives a comprehensive view of sentencing at large.
I thought I had an answer as I listened to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, referring to the committee he chairs. That committee is not directly relevant to this issue but it prompted the thought in my mind that, as we are currently looking for new subjects for Select Committees of the House—ad hoc committees—to examine, it would be fit and proper for the issue of sentencing at large to be examined comprehensively by a Select Committee of this House. Perhaps the noble and learned Baroness, in the new duties she is going to undertake in this House, could play a prominent part in that, given that she has more experience in this field than anyone.
We have a duty to society at large to undertake this exercise at some point. It may be that doing it in parallel with the sentencing code being put on a statutory basis in the legislation that follows this would be an opportunity to do so. There is certainly no body in Parliament or the country that is more fit to undertake this exercise. I put the thought to the Minister and other noble and noble and learned Lords that the time has come for us to seek to address what should happen to sentencing policy and to give our advice to Parliament and the public at large.
The facts are stark: we have a prison population that has doubled, we are seriously out of step with international opinion and best practice, and the prison estate is in a scandalous state. Given the reports of the prison inspectorate that come forward month after month, if any other field of public service—I have significant experience of education but one could look at any of the others—was addressing reports of this kind, we would close down those institutions immediately. Obviously, we cannot close down prisons because we have to have places where we can incarcerate criminals. However, the time may have come when we need to take a comprehensive view of this issue and a Select Committee of this House might be the way to take it forward.
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)
My Lords, I will be relatively brief for a number of reasons. First, it is late. Secondly, this Bill has had a unanimous welcome and support from around the House; and, thirdly, we debated this Bill in almost identical terms on 12 June last, and again we have had an excellent debate in which a number of brilliant speeches have powerfully made the case for the Bill.
I too welcome the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett, to this House and congratulate her on her excellent maiden speech. I have admired the noble and learned Baroness for many years as an incisive advocate, as an extremely distinguished judge in the High Court and the Court of Appeal, as a forward-looking chair of the Bar Council, as an effective treasurer of my Inn, the Inner Temple, and in many other roles. She expressed concisely and brilliantly, with all her vast experience of the Court of Appeal Criminal Division, the reasons why this Bill is so welcome when she described the crazy complexity of the existing statutory provisions and expressed the view that this Bill and the sentencing code will, at a stroke, simplify sentencing. The Bench’s loss is of course our gain and we look forward to the noble and learned Baroness’s future contributions to the work of this House.
Perhaps I may add a few words from the perspective of these Benches. First, we are completely committed to the mission of the Law Commission to ensure that the law is as fair, modern, simple and cost-effective as possible. This Bill is essential to that mission and in an area that is central to our law and liberties. We have heard accounts from speakers from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, onwards—including from my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford, on military law in particular—of anomalies in existing sentencing law; its fiendish complexity and inaccessibility, to judges and counsel, let alone to the public and defendants who most need, and are entitled, to understand it; the passing of unjust and unlawful sentences, with a frequency that defies belief; and the delays and cost caused by bad sentencing.
The Bill has at its heart the Law Commission’s stated aim
“to codify the law, eliminate anomalies, repeal obsolete and unnecessary enactments and reduce the number of separate statutes.”
But I add a few notes of plea and of warning. First, the code will work well only if future sentencing changes are not only incorporated into the code, as the Bill promises, but are themselves kept simple. It has not just been difficulties of understanding that have made sentencing law inaccessible. There have been too many complex variables in the substance of sentencing law, as to when and under what conditions particular sentences may or may not—or must, or must not—be passed. These have made it very difficult for lay people and lawyers to understand the courts’ powers and the rationale for them.
Secondly, I applaud the clean-sweep provisions. It is essential that everyone understands what sentences can be passed by the courts, and I agree that the best reference date for that understanding is the date of sentence. That is subject to the exception outlawing retroactive sentences imposing penalties that would not have been available at the date of the offence. This principle was described in the Explanatory Note, and by the Minister at Second Reading last year, as ensuring
“that the clean sweep does not contravene the general common law presumption against retroactivity”.—[Official Report, 19/6/19; col. GC 15.]
I agree with what the Minister said today: this principle is necessary to protect the “fundamental rights” of the offender. The principle was then rightly described by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope—and effectively repeated today—as incorporating a requirement
“that the convicted person must not be dealt with by the imposition of a penalty of any kind which is more onerous than that which he would have faced when the offence was committed.”—[Official Report, 19/6/19; col. GC 19.]
As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton said, we will consider that principle further in connection with the Bill concerning changes to release dates, published today, which we will debate later this month—and I share the noble and learned Lord’s anxieties.
Thirdly, those drafting legislation would be doing lawyers and lay people alike a kindness if they used less cross-referencing. Definitions reading that “phrase A in Act B shall have the meaning ascribed to it in Act C”, should cease to be a feature of our statutes. Simplicity and clarity are all; codification is part of the battle but, alone, it goes nowhere near achieving a statute book that is readily intelligible to the public. And that is what we must aim for, particularly in a society where computer literacy is now happily widespread, so that statutes can be easily researched by many, and also where citizens’ access to legal representation and advice has been substantially diminished by extensive cuts in legal aid.
Finally, as has been said, this Bill will not of itself improve sentencing policy. The Minister in opening made the point that it makes no changes to substantive sentencing law; nor does it. From these Benches, we will continue to argue for a sentencing policy: that puts rehabilitation at its heart; that will involve more community sentences, with improved and better-resourced supervision of community sentences and supervision during and following custodial sentencing; and that will reduce prisoner numbers, improve the prison regime and introduce a presumption against ineffective short sentences. These themes were addressed by the noble Lords, Lord Bates and Lord Adonis, in their welcome broadening of the ambit of this debate.
We want to see a penal system dedicated to helping offenders turn their lives around—so also cutting reoffending. Perhaps those are matters for another day, but they will nevertheless bear consideration throughout our consideration of sentencing. We will argue for the development of the code, when it comes, in that direction.
Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)
My Lords, I take great pleasure in joining in the general congratulations to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett, on her excellent maiden speech. The words I jotted down immediately were “Brevity welcome”. It was a powerful speech, and made with great concision. I know that we shall benefit greatly from her wise words in future—especially, I hope, when we consider legislation such as this, which deals with sentencing issues.
Like others, I am delighted that the Bill is back before us; I am only saddened that it has taken three goes to get here. However, this Second Reading debate is somewhat better, perhaps, for having waited to come round this third time. We have certainly heard a wider range of speeches than we did the first time, some touching on the grisly impact of sentencing in courts martial, with a learned discourse from the noble Lord, Lord Bates, on the statistics—grisly statistics, one might say—of our judicial system and of law and order in this country.
We have also had the advantage of hearing the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, make a powerful speech advocating better-paid judges. He should probably become the chief negotiator for the judiciary as it seeks to improve its pay and conditions. There was also a bid by my noble friend Lord Adonis for a sentencing Select Committee. He is lucky, because the usual channels are on our Front Bench tonight, and I am sure that my other noble friend will have taken careful note of that bid.
We very much welcome the Bill, as we did last time. We know that the justice system faces extreme challenges: the decimation of legal aid has reduced access to justice for those who need it most; the courts are facing budget cuts and are also, sadly, haemorrhaging experienced staff. The Government have been pushed by voluntary organisations, campaigners and MPs to review the workings of the family courts, as they are failing survivors of domestic violence. In the face of that, and more, we must get sentencing right. I welcome the Bill in that regard, as we did previously. We too want to put on record our thanks to the Law Commission for its work, and to all the other stakeholders who have contributed to the years of research and consultation that have brought the Bill before us, and which will inform the consolidation Bill that will follow it.
The profession has welcomed the Bill. In its briefing, the Bar Council referred to existing sentencing law as a patchwork quilt, and urged the introduction of the sentencing code without further delay—quite right. That patchwork is derived from three statutes, including the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000 and the Criminal Justice Act 2003. I think I may have been responsible for one of those pieces of legislation, but I shall not apologise for that; it was my duty as a Home Office Minister.
The Law Commission estimated that there had been at least 14 major Acts covering sentencing in the past 40 years—and my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer read most of them out. At least one of them repealed legislation that had created sentences only six months before. The point about de-layering is well meant, and well met. The Law Commission wrote that the law on sentencing procedure was
“extremely difficult to locate, interpret and apply, even for an experienced lawyer or judge”.
The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett, gave a good example of that, which illustrated the sheer mind-boggling complexities that confront judges when they have to unravel and locate the different sources for a sentence.
What hope, then, is there for a lay person? Apparently very little, we are told, as it can be “practically impossible” for someone to locate and understand parts of the law. To illustrate the complexity of the current system, the commission gives two very good examples. At one point, it points to a maximum fine that can be unlimited but you have to read about it somewhere else. The second example is about the effect of commencement dates recorded separately from the provisions that they apply to, concealed in secondary legislation.
It is well evidenced that the case for change is overwhelming because of the frankly alarming number of wrongful sentences that are passed—the estimate is in the region of 36%—and the cost of delays and appeals. The complexity of the current layers of law comes at a high price. Beyond lengthy procedure and the public purse, there is a human aspect. The impact on those sentenced, on witnesses and, particularly, on victims and their ability to trust in our justice system is immense.
This can be described as a Bill of two parts. The clean sweep, as it has been called, is the more novel part. We appreciate the detailed work done on the possible human rights implications of the sweep and its retroactive remit, particularly on our rights under Article 7 of the ECHR. I welcome the exemptions that have been identified and included in Schedule 1. Clause 1 includes a regulation-making power to allow the Secretary of State to specify other provisions that the clean sweep will not apply to. It would be helpful if the Minister could outline today in what circumstances that power might be used. Is the intention for it to be a back-up in case any exemptions have been missed out of Schedule 1?
The clean sweep that we are legislating for is a one-off so there are key questions about how we intend to retain the benefits of the exercise and prevent layers of new law developing once again. Is it the Government’s intention that where amendments are made to the code, they will also be commenced so that they apply to everyone convicted after that date regardless of when their offence was committed?
Previously the Law Commission said that the best estimate of the financial benefit that the sentencing code would offer was savings of some £250 million over the next 10 years. What plans do the Government have to put any savings back into the justice system to fund desperately needed legal aid and improve overall access to justice?
With those comments, we very much welcome the Bill. We welcome the additions to it, particularly those that we asked for regarding the Armed Forces. We wish the Bill well on its journey through Parliament.
Lord Keen of Elie
I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to the debate. I join other noble and noble and learned Lords in thanking the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett, for her maiden speech and her contribution to the debate. I welcome her to her place in this Chamber. I fear, however, that I must contradict her upon one point made in her maiden speech. She said that she had left the judiciary because, and I quote, “I was getting too old.” With respect, I would correct that assertion and suggest that what she had done was to trigger a statutory limitation introduced by the Judicial Pensions and Retirement Act 1993, which I suggest is really something quite different.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, implied that we were experiencing déjà vu all over again. There is an element of that, no doubt, but nevertheless the time that has elapsed has allowed this Bill to be improved, a point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. So while I regret the delay that has occurred, that time has not been entirely wasted. We can therefore look forward, with the universal approval of all sides of the House, to introducing much-needed reform to the English law on sentencing procedure. It gives me particular pleasure as a Scottish lawyer to be introducing these measures.
The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, inquired about the position of the sentencing code in the Armed Forces. It is intended that it will apply to the Armed Forces. I make one point clear: we are talking about the sentencing code Bill, not the sentencing Bill as anticipated in the Queen’s Speech. I want to make that absolutely clear.
My noble friend Lord Bates, and the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, raised wider questions about prisons, the impact of sentencing, crime, rehabilitation and the purpose of prison, and I quite understand their wish to address these matters going forward. However, while I acknowledge the importance of the points they raised, they are not for this Bill and I do not intend, at this time, to take them any further.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, and the noble Lord, Lord Marks, referred to future amendments to sentencing. Clearly it will be imperative, in taking forward further legislation on sentencing after the code is in place, that we ensure that Parliament abides by the principles of the code, so that it remains effective and workable. It would be of no benefit to anyone if we were to render such an important code effectively redundant by misadventure or inappropriate future amendments to sentencing.
Further points were made by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, about the power to carry out further amendments. That power is essentially there in case there has been any oversight in what is an extremely complex area, or if there is any change in sentencing law between Royal Assent for this paving Bill and the passing of the sentencing code Bill. It is included essentially for those purposes.
The savings that might be made by introducing the sentencing code have not been costed. We will have to wait to see what savings can be made, but, as the noble Lord observed, the Law Commission itself expects some savings to be made.
There were wider contributions from noble Lords, which I readily acknowledge, but at this stage—and at this point in the evening—I would like to repeat the thanks already expressed to all those who have contributed to this work, both at the Law Commission and within parliamentary counsel. I also acknowledge that, across the House, there is a recognition of the need for clarity to be introduced into this complex area of the law. I finish, therefore, by thanking all noble Lords for their contributions, and I commend this Bill to the House.