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Oral Answers to Questions
(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Darren Henry (Broxtowe) (Con)
Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Con)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Michael Gove)
The transition period ends on 31 December 2020. Under no circumstances will the Government accept an extension. Indeed, we have a domestic law obligation not to accept. Extending would simply delay the moment at which we achieve what we want and what the country voted for: our economic and political independence.
Darren Henry
I am keen to ensure that new arrangements following the end of the transition period work for small businesses in Broxtowe. Will my right hon. Friend outline what steps he is taking to support small businesses facing considerable uncertainty over their future because of the covid-19 pandemic and the end of the Brexit transition period?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is right that small and medium-sized enterprises face particular challenges at this time, and that is one reason the Government are doing everything they can to ensure that customs intermediaries and others who can support small businesses to continue to export—indeed, to enlarge their export profile—are put in place.
Christian Wakeford
Does the Minister agree that businesses, not just in Bury South but right across the country, simply want to remove the uncertainty that comes with prolonging negotiations and feel safe in the knowledge that a firm mandate for the negotiations will allow businesses to prepare properly and prosper?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I know that the businesses for which he speaks up so effectively in Bury South and elsewhere want uncertainty removed. That is why we are clear that we will end the transition period on 31 December, which is a position I understand the CBI is now in favour of.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
The Minister talks about certainty, and he is right: businesses need certainty on the outcome of the talks. On Tuesday, the Paymaster General told the House:
“On… zero tariffs and zero quotas, our policy has not changed.”—[Official Report, 9 June 2020; Vol. 677, c. 161.]
That was the pledge the Conservative party won the election on. But last week, the Government’s chief negotiator wrote:
“we would be willing to discuss a relationship that was based on less than that”.
Who is speaking for the Government—the Paymaster General or their chief negotiator?
Michael Gove
The Paymaster General speaks eloquently and powerfully on behalf of the Government, and it is right that we seek what the political declaration also commits the European Union to, which is a zero-tariff, zero-quota arrangement.
Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)
Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Michael Gove)
UK and EU negotiators held discussions last week via video conference and covered the full range of issues. Both sides engaged constructively, but sadly there was no movement on the most difficult areas where differences of principle are most acute—notably on fisheries, governance arrangements and the so-called level playing field.
Mrs Murray
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that he will not sacrifice access to our waters for any trade deal with the EU and will he make it clear to Mr Barnier that that is not negotiable?
Michael Gove
Our excellent chief negotiator, David Frost, has made it clear to Michel Barnier that we will be an independent coastal state, that we will control who has access to our waters and on what terms, and that access to our waters will be subject to annual negotiations.
Michael Fabricant [V]
Is not the real problem that Michel Barnier has absolutely no room for manoeuvre because he has to do what has been agreed with the other 27 countries? Is not that lack of agility and flexibility the very reason we have decided to leave the EU and why companies such as Nissan and Unilever, which has announced this today, are centring their operations here in the United Kingdom?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend puts it perfectly, and his question is its own answer. I do not think we have heard any sage of Lichfield since Dr Johnson who has put things quite so well.
Anna McMorrin
With such slow progress on the talks, the Government somehow believe they can hold the EU bloc to ransom, but all they are doing is taking the country perilously close to no deal. Will the Minister confirm that the Government will do everything in their power to reach an agreement and translate legally what is written in the political declaration? On one specific point, will he push for the ability of the devolved Governments of Wales and Scotland to participate in the Erasmus programme and other schemes, so that students do not to miss out, if he will not stand up and do that for England?
Michael Gove
We all want an agreement, and I am grateful for the support and help that the devolved Administrations have given. I talk regularly to them, as does my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General. We know how important Erasmus is to many, and we will continue to seek membership of those programmes across the United Kingdom.
Alison McGovern
The British people were promised an oven-ready deal, but given the speculation in recent weeks, what they have is half-baked. Will the Secretary of State therefore commit to no unpicking of the political declaration or the withdrawal agreement—the work of the past three years?
Michael Gove
Not only was an oven-ready deal secured, but we had that oven-ready deal delivered and agreed to by this House earlier this year, which is why we left the European Union on 31 January. Of course, we will always honour the withdrawal agreement and, as far as the political declaration goes, it commits the European Union to use its best endeavours to secure a zero-tariff, zero-quota arrangement, and we hope that the EU will do that.
Robert Courts
As my right hon. Friend knows, article 184 requires both parties, including the European Union, to use their best endeavours to reach that agreement. Will he update the House on the progress that has been made, and cite one significant thing that he thinks would help things further?
Michael Gove
Progress has been made and, on a number of issues—on fisheries and on state aid—Michel Barnier has indicated that he is inclined to move. Some EU member states have been a little more reluctant. It would be in everyone’s interest—EU member states, the Commission and, of course, the United Kingdom Government—if Michel Barnier were able to use the flexibility that he has deployed in the past to secure an arrangement that would work in everyone’s interests.
Sir David Evennett [V]
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s hard work in this area. He has been quite clear that we will have full control over our economic destiny in future. Does he agree that, now more than ever as we emerge from this pandemic, it is vital that we look to forming new trade relationships and partnerships around the world?
Michael Gove
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is one of the reasons why the Secretary of State for International Trade opened new trade negotiations with Japan this week and why she is in trade negotiations with the United States. However, it is not just trade deals that matter; it is also export promotion. The Department for International Trade is doing a superb job in making sure that businesses are equipped to take advantage of the new markets, which I know that he, as a strong voice for business, is committed to supporting.
Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)
The Government’s approach to trade negotiations with the EU and with the US will have huge implications for all of us. The Government’s election manifesto guaranteed that food imports would have to be produced at the same standards as in UK farming. The EU also says that a free trade deal depends on the UK maintaining those high standards. Does this remain Government policy in our approach to EU and other trade negotiations, and, if it does, why were such commitments not upheld in the Agriculture Bill?
Michael Gove
It is absolutely our commitment to make sure that we uphold those very high standards. The Agriculture Bill will ensure not only that those high standards are upheld, but that public money is spent on public goods and that environmental enhancement is at the heart of how we manage our countryside alongside high-quality food production.
Rachel Reeves
I am afraid that that does not quite answer the question about why the amendment from the chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee was not accepted. Let me push the right hon. Gentleman a bit further. He said on “Countryfile” in October 2018 that
“there is no point in having high animal and high environmental standards if you then allow them to be undercut from outside.”
When pressed on whether it would be a red line in any trade discussions, the Minister stated, “absolutely”. Yet on Tuesday in this House, in an answer to a question about such standards, the Paymaster General said that
“we should trust the consumer.”—[Official Report, 9 June 2020; Vol. 677, c. 162.]
Are we, or are we not, able to trust the Government to maintain such standards? Can the Minister guarantee absolutely that there will be no dilution of environmental or animal welfare standards, and that the Government will not risk our ability to secure what is supposed to be an oven-ready trade deal with the EU for the sake of getting any deal with the US that would hurt British farming and water down environmental and animal welfare standards?
Michael Gove
Not only was our deal oven-ready, but anything that goes into UK ovens will always meet high quality standards. More to the point, the Paymaster General and I, and the whole of Government, are like peas in a pod. We are committed to making sure that high animal welfare and environmental standards continue to characterise British farming, which is the best in the world.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
We all know that the right hon. Gentleman is not very keen on economic forecasts, but given the growing warnings from business—the latest today has come from the CBI—he must be aware of the damage that would be inflicted on businesses by red tape, tariffs and loss of access if there is no agreement reached with the European Union in the next four months. We all want a deal, but, with British businesses already reeling from coronavirus, what does he propose to say to those businesses come January if the Government’s gamble does not pay off?
Michael Gove
The Government are not gambling. The Government are holding the European Union to account for its commitment to secure a zero-tariff, zero-quota deal and to use its best endeavours, and I have confidence that the European Union will do that.
Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Chloe Smith)
The Government have implemented the technology code of practice and service standard, which provides Departments with technical support and case studies to improve how they design, build and buy digital technology to give citizens the best services. The Government Digital Service is also building digital capacity through the Digital Academy and applying the innovation that we might find in the private sector at public sector scale through the GovTech Catalyst fund, to support the use of emerging technologies.
Andrew Griffith
I thank my hon. Friend for her reply, and I add my thanks to the amazing work that Jen Allum and her gov.uk team have done during this crisis. Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a huge opportunity in the fact that the UK has moved quickly to cashless transactions and digital government, and that as we move beyond this crisis, it is important that we do not regress and that we unleash the opportunity for economic growth?
Chloe Smith
Yes, I do, and there are two points to make here. First, the Government have taken unprecedented steps to support the economy through the immediate crisis, looking towards a strong and sustainable recovery. Secondly, I think we all recognise that digital payments have positively transformed the way that many people buy things and transact, and we are committed to supporting those payments while protecting access to cash for those who need it.
Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
The Paymaster General (Penny Mordaunt)
We are supporting the Department of Health and Social Care to get personal protective equipment to those who need it. We have expanded both overseas supply and domestic manufacturing and scaled up our logistics network for delivering that PPE to the frontline.
Elliot Colburn
I have been proud to join Carshalton and Wallington residents who are volunteering to deliver PPE, and, thanks to the voluntary sector in my area, St Helier Hospital and GPs are well stocked. What assurances can my right hon. Friend give me that as lockdown measures are eased, PPE will continue to reach the frontline, particularly in care homes and on public transport?
Penny Mordaunt
We have 400 officials working on ensuring that we have robust PPE supply chains. I thank my hon. Friend and all those who have volunteered alongside him. That last-mile delivery has been critical in getting equipment to the many hundreds of organisations that have needed it in our constituencies, and volunteers have been critical to doing that.
Jason McCartney
Will my right hon. Friend join me in thanking all the wonderful volunteers on my patch who have been making scrubs and all the local textile companies that have switched production to help produce PPE, including McNair Shirts in Slaithwaite, which has been producing gowns for my local hospital? It needs help in getting specialist material, which is being bought up centrally by Government and is sitting in a warehouse. Can my right hon. Friend see whether we can get some of that material to McNair so that it can make gowns for the local hospital?
Penny Mordaunt
I thank all those people in my hon. Friend’s constituency, no matter which sector, for the work they have been doing on PPE. It just shows what can be done when the private, public and third sectors work together and are facilitated in doing that. If he writes to me with the details of those organisations, I will see what we can do to get them those raw materials.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Chloe Smith)
The Parliamentary Constituencies Bill received its Second Reading last week. It delivers our manifesto pledge of equal and updated parliamentary boundaries. The Bill determines that the next boundary review, due to start in 2021, will complete by 1 July 2023 at the latest, and after that boundary reviews will take place every eight years.
Bob Blackman [V]
I thank the Minister for that response. The building blocks for all the new constituency boundaries are local authority ward boundaries. In London, the vast majority of local authorities have recently had boundary reviews within their boroughs by the Local Government Boundary Commission for England, but they await orders in the House of Commons to implement them. When will my hon. Friend implement those orders, so that the new ward boundaries in London come into operation and the Boundary Commission can commence its review of them?
Chloe Smith
I thank my hon. Friend for that important question, which allows me to clarify that the laying of the orders is the Local Government Boundary Commission for England’s responsibility. I understand that, following a pause because of coronavirus-related restrictions, the commission intends to resume laying the orders before Parliament this month. There are nine areas in which revised electoral arrangements are agreed but an order is not laid, all of which are in London, and the commission intends to lay those over the summer and autumn.
Chris Clarkson
My constituency is one of 27 in Greater Manchester, where electorates range from 63,000 to 95,000, and it is under-represented in this place. Does my hon. Friend agree that more up-to-date equal boundaries will give people fairer access to their elected representatives?
Chloe Smith
Yes, that is exactly what they will do. That range in constituency sizes is unacceptable, and the Parliamentary Constituencies Bill will achieve not only updated but equal constituencies and fair votes. A vote cast in any part of Manchester should be just as good as one cast anywhere else in that city or the UK.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
As a result of the Bill, England looks set to increase its number of constituencies at the expense of Scotland and Wales. What action are the Government taking to prevent the weakening of Scottish and Welsh voices in this place and to both strengthen and defend the Union?
Chloe Smith
There is an awful lot of action on those scores. The boundaries Bill does an important thing first—paying equal respect to all nations of our United Kingdom—because we on the Government side believe in the Union. We believe it is incredibly important, and we believe that people’s voices ought to be equal between and within the countries of our United Kingdom.
Cat Smith
It is interesting that the Minister talks about the importance of equality and ensuring that every vote counts equally when her Government is pushing a policy that could see some votes count more equally than others. In the light of the Windrush scandal, where we discovered that some communities find it harder to access proof of identification than others, in the days following the Black Lives Matter protests, and knowing that, for instance, 76% of the white population hold a driving licence compared with 52% of black people, if she really wants to ensure that every vote counts equally, will she ask herself: why continue with these discriminatory policies?
Chloe Smith
Because they are not discriminatory. The hon. Lady sees evils where they do not exist. Everyone on the Government side of the House, and I hope everyone in the House, agrees that black lives matter. She is wrong and has been wrong every time she has tried to run that argument about voter identification. It is a reasonable thing that many other countries do, and it will improve the security of our voting. The evidence shows there is no impact on any particular demographic group.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
The Paymaster General (Penny Mordaunt)
We recognise the range of emotions that people are feeling about the lifting of restrictions. Tremendous sacrifices have been made to get the virus under control, and incredible patience shown. We published our recovery strategy on 11 May and each day our measures follow the approach it sets out. Protecting public health is, and must always be, our No. 1 priority.
Sir Desmond Swayne
To avoid a damaging second spike to our economy, is not a yard more than sufficient?
Penny Mordaunt
We are determined to get the UK economy—including the hospitality sector—up and running again and our schools reopened. Research published in The Lancet last week showed that a physical distance of at least 1 metre—or, if my right hon. Friend insists, 1.09 yards—
Penny Mordaunt
I thought he might. That was strongly associated with a lowered risk of transmission, but a distance of 2 metres was likely to be more effective. The advice therefore remains that wherever possible the public should keep two metres from one another, but the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies keeps that under review.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
Can the Minister think of one specific episode in the past few weeks that might have done more than anything else to undermine the Government’s public messaging on covid? If she is struggling, let me give her a clue: Specsavers.
Penny Mordaunt
The hon. Gentleman raises a serious point, but if he thinks that that has undermined public health messages, I would strongly suggest he might like to stop banging on about it.
Pete Wishart
The failure of this Government to take the Cummings episode seriously has not just compromised the public messaging; it is worse than that for them—it has compromised their credibility and popularity, which have now taken the catastrophic nosedive they thoroughly deserve. The public anger over Dominic Cummings has not abated, as the right hon. Lady will see if she looks at her inbox. The whole battle against covid has been wrecked by the pathetic protection of this odd man. Is Dominic Cummings really worth all of this?
Penny Mordaunt
It is absolutely vital in every part of our United Kingdom that people follow the advice of our respective chief medical officers. They should do that not because I, the hon. Gentleman, any politician or any adviser asks them to, but because it is the right thing to do to protect our families, our communities and our NHS and to get the economy moving again. I know that the hon. Gentleman is angry, and many people are angry, but that is what we need to focus on and that is the message we need to deliver. I thank everyone in this country who has followed that advice, because they are beating the virus.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Chloe Smith)
Paragraph 9 of the code of conduct for special advisers states:
“The responsibility for the management and conduct of special advisers, including discipline, rests with the Minister who made the appointment.”
It is therefore for each appointing Minister to ensure that their special advisers operate within the terms of the code of conduct.
Margaret Ferrier
I hope you had a pleasant birthday yesterday, Mr Speaker.
Public health experts have voiced concerns that Dominic Cummings did undermine public trust in lockdown rules, going against the principle of integrity that is in the code of conduct. Will the Cabinet Office conduct an investigation into potential breaches of the code of conduct by Mr Cummings, or have Ministers yet again decided that they have had enough of experts?
Chloe Smith
I am not sure whether the hon. Lady listened to the answer I gave, which was that the responsibility for those decisions rests with the appointing Minister. In this case, that is of course the Prime Minister, who has accepted Mr Cummings’s explanations and has defended that at this Dispatch Box and elsewhere. There is little further to add to that. Of course, if it helps you, Mr Speaker, I can also add that Durham constabulary has said that there is nothing further to do, and the Cabinet Secretary has responded to Opposition Members, including the SNP party leader in this place, to say he is also satisfied.
Alan Brown
The Minister referred to the code of conduct for special advisers in her earlier answer. Paragraph 14 states:
“advisers must not take public part in political controversy”,
including speeches to the press. The Prime Minister says that, somehow, Cummings did not offer his resignation, and nor did the Prime Minister think about asking him. What does the Cabinet Minister think would be adequate sanctions for Dominic Cummings to face for breaking the code of conduct?
Chloe Smith
I have answered that question. It is extraordinary that we have heard four questions in a row from the Scottish nationalist party, who have little more to say on the subject of how, as a country, we should emerge from coronavirus and how we should continue, as my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General explained, leading people and asking them to follow the remaining stages of the plans, so that we can keep safe and move the country on. Have they nothing better to say?
Chris Stephens
Thank you, Mr Speaker. First, it is the Scottish National party—I would hope the Minister would at least get the political party correct. We know that Mr Cummings is in contempt of Parliament for refusing to appear before the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster also said previously that Mr David Frost should be able to appear before Committees, but he could not guarantee it. Is it okay for this country to be run by unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats?
Chloe Smith
Allow me to let the hon. Gentleman into a secret: the country is not run that way; the country is run by Ministers who are accountable at this Dispatch Box. I do, of course, accept that Scotland runs its affairs in respect of what is devolved to it, as does Wales and Northern Ireland. However, we have a huge opportunity here to be working together not only for the good of the Scottish people or people anywhere else in the country, but together as a United Kingdom. I am so sorry that we have not seen a better attempt to do that from the hon. Gentleman and his team this morning. They are focused on the past, not the future.
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
The Paymaster General (Penny Mordaunt)
In step 2 of our road map to recovery, we are committed to exploring how we can enable people to gather in slightly larger groups to better facilitate small weddings. My right hon. Friend the Justice Secretary is exploring with ministerial colleagues a range of measures to do that.
Steve Brine
Thousands of couples planning to tie the knot this year have had their plans postponed by the pandemic. The next few weeks, as we approach midsummer day, would of course have been peak season. Through no fault of their own, they will have none of the legal protections of marriage until next year—maybe longer—when they can reschedule. Will the Government consider creating a temporary declaration of intent for those couples, backed by the state, so that they are not prejudiced in law or taxation before they finally take the plunge?
Penny Mordaunt
May I thank my hon. Friend for the campaign he has been running? I have spoken at length with him on many Cabinet Office calls about the cases he has in his constituency. I know that some of his cases, and those of many hon. Members across the House, will involve older people who are taking greater risks. Many people will have gone back into work for the NHS and are deeply concerned, should they become infected, what that would mean for their fiancé/e. The Justice Secretary is apprised of the issue. I think there are some difficulties with the particular route my hon. Friend sets out, but I know that my right hon. Friend will be bringing forward measures very soon.
Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Michael Gove)
The NHS test and trace service is already alerting the close recent contacts of everyone who tests positive for the virus, so that they can self-isolate to prevent the spread. The app is intended to complement that service and continues to be piloted on the Isle of Wight. Consideration is being given to next steps in light of the wider NHS test and trace programme.
Afzal Khan [V]
Given that we have known for months about the disproportionate impact of coronavirus on black, Asian and minority ethnic communities across the UK, I am confused as to why the Government chose to trial the NHS contact tracing app on the Isle of Wight, an island with an overwhelmingly white population. We know that BAME communities are less likely to trust the app due to their experiences of discriminatory policing and there is potential for existing biases to be amplified by algorithms. With that in mind, does the Minister still think that the Isle of Wight was the right place to trial the app?
Michael Gove
The hon. Gentleman makes a series of very important points. The Isle of Wight was an appropriate place in which to trial the app, because by definition trialling it in a geographically secure, as it were, community was one way to make sure that we could conduct that trial in an effective way and in a way that allowed us to learn lessons rapidly. Trialling the app in other parts of the United Kingdom would have posed significant challenges, but he is absolutely right to remind us that the BAME community is more affected by covid-19, and that there are elements within the BAME community that have concerns about the exercise of state power in maintaining public order and in other areas. We are very sensitive to both of those issues. It is absolutely critical that we continue to work to identify more effectively those factors among the BAME community and others which predispose them towards either catching the virus or suffering more adversely. Of course, when it comes to our proud tradition of policing by consent and the protection of civil liberties, we need to maintain those traditions in order to command the confidence of all our citizens.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
It’s been a shambles, hasn’t it? Announced in May, hiring paused in mid-May, targets missed, tracers reporting that they have been paid to sit at home and watch television as there is no work for them—and now, changes to the app are being considered and it is not going to be working properly until the autumn. Does the Minister stand by his fulsome praise of the Health Secretary or agree with scientists who said only days ago that the Government’s whole test-and-trace strategy is simply not fit for purpose?
Michael Gove
Well, I think it is fit for purpose—not just that but it is an effective way of ensuring that we can work together in order to contain the virus. [Interruption.] The hon. Lady says from a sedentary position that the scientists are wrong. I disagree with her; I think the scientists are right.
James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)
The Paymaster General (Penny Mordaunt)
Each Government Department is responsible for the resilience of critical national infrastructure in their sectors. They report to the Cabinet Office on their plans through annual sector security and resilience plans. The Cabinet Office co-ordinates the work of Departments where risks require a cross-sector response.
James Wild
While we welcome investment into the UK, our national security powers on the ownership and control of companies, including national infrastructure, urgently need strengthening. So when the Government bring forward measures, hopefully shortly, will they ensure that telecoms, nuclear and other critical national infrastructure, as well as our technology base, will be protected from hostile states and state-backed enterprises, including protecting assets such as intellectual property?
Penny Mordaunt
My hon. Friend raises an extremely important and relevant point. I would expect nothing less from him given his experience in working at the Ministry of Defence. He will know from that time why it is appropriate that we bring forward the national security and investment Bill.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
The Paymaster General (Penny Mordaunt)
The private sector has been absolutely vital to the covid response and continues to be so. Despite the speed that procurement has had to run at, value for money and quality remains our top focus.
Liz Twist
Contact tracing is highly skilled and sensitive work. Does the Minister really believe that recruiting contact tracers to work for little more than the national living wage in call centres run by Serco, which in 2019 was investigated by the Serious Fraud Office, is the best way to deliver it?
Penny Mordaunt
If the hon. Lady has concerns about any aspect, whether related to a company or practices within a company, she should please raise it with the Cabinet Office. People have raised questions about Serco which I understand have been answered, and it has self-reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office.
Mr Dhesi
Rather than relying on local authorities and public services, since the start of the covid crisis, well in excess of £1.7 billion of taxpayers’ money has been spent by this Government on outsourcing directly related to coronavirus. Given that normal procurement rules have been suspended by the Government, there is no requirement for companies to go through the usual competitive bidding process to be awarded contracts. But lo and behold, major Tory party donors and prominent Members on the Government Benches—including Ministers, may I add—have major shareholdings in or are inextricably linked to many of these firms. So will the Minister commit to making public details of all negotiations pertaining to those companies?
Penny Mordaunt
First, procurement rules have not been suspended. One of the absolute key focuses is to ensure that the very many companies that have stepped forward to help this nation in this response are appropriate. We know that the quality of what they are offering to procure has been absolutely where it needs to be. A huge amount of work has gone into that. I pay tribute to the civil service, and particularly to the procurement team in the Cabinet Office, for the sterling work they have done.
With regard to any allegations the hon. Gentleman might make against Ministers— and if he is referring to my hon. Friend in the other place—the Cabinet Office has confirmed that there have been no breaches of rules, and I would urge caution that, having had those categorical responses, people are very careful about what they say in impugning the character of colleagues.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
The Minister without Portfolio (Amanda Milling)
As we tackle the covid-19 outbreak, it is crucial that Government contracts are awarded efficiently and responsibly to business of all sizes. Paragraph 24 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 ensures this by requiring all contracting authorities to take appropriate measures to effectively prevent, identify and remedy conflicts of interest arising from the conduct of procurement procedures.
Lilian Greenwood
Further to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), it was clear that transparency is absolutely vital to public trust in Government. Given that the Minister for the Cabinet Office, Lord Agnew, is responsible for the Government’s policy on coronavirus procurement and is also a shareholder in Faculty, a company that has recently been contracted to provide coronavirus-related services to Government, should not the Government make public the details of the services that Faculty will be providing and Lord Agnew’s involvement in any negotiations?
Amanda Milling
I refer the hon. Lady to the previous answer from my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General, which sets out the situation very clearly.
Mr Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con)
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Chloe Smith)
The Government are, as I referred to, committed to introducing voter identification to strengthen the integrity of our electoral system and give the public confidence that our elections are secure and fit for the 21st century. As promised in the Queen’s Speech and our manifesto, we will bring forward legislation to do that.
Mr Mohindra
Across this House we need to make sure that we trust the results of the ballot box to protect our democracy. What assurances can my hon. Friend give that every eligible voter, irrespective of their socio-economic background, is encouraged to vote?
Chloe Smith
I can absolutely give my hon. Friend that assurance. This touches on the answer I gave earlier, whereby the evidence of our pilots shows that there is no impact on any particular demographic group from this policy. Indeed, the experience of it in Northern Ireland shows that turnout and participation do not come down. Furthermore, I am doing work throughout this with various organisations that represent groups who may have anxieties on any of these scores, and I am extremely keen to make sure that we resolve those concerns and, as he says, encourage everybody to register to vote.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Michael Gove)
We have no plans to change the size of the negotiating team working on the future relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union. As Eric Morecambe said of Ernie Wise, it is “small and perfectly formed”.
Mr Sheerman [V]
Some of us on the Committee on the Future Relationship with the European Union are very worried about the Secretary of State. He was very lacklustre when he gave evidence to the Committee recently, and we are very sympathetic. This is a tough job. In reality, we have only five months to get it right for the country. Is it not a fact that there is a rift between him and the Prime Minister? The Prime Minister is not good on detail. There is a rift between them—does he need more help to overcome that?
Michael Gove
I am always grateful to the hon. Gentleman for offering to step in as a marriage counsellor. I have to say, notwithstanding my earlier reference to Morecambe and Wise, that the Prime Minister and I, when it comes to everything, are like the two Ronnies, so it’s goodnight from me and it’s goodnight from him.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
The Minister without Portfolio (Amanda Milling)
The whole country is facing an unprecedented crisis, and British businesses have risen to the challenge with offers of help. Businesses across the UK have stepped up to provide PPE including aprons, face masks, visors and gowns. We have now signed contracts to manufacture over 2 billion items of PPE through UK-based manufacturers, and we have already taken delivery of products from new certified UK manufacturers.
Justin Madders
There is no doubt that the devastating consequences of covid-19 were exacerbated because the Government allowed stockpiles of PPE to be run down and were too slow to anticipate the level of need that there would be. Given that in a worldwide pandemic there will inevitably be worldwide demand for PPE, do the Government now accept that it was a mistake to place so much reliance on overseas investors?
Amanda Milling
The Government have been working around the clock to get frontline NHS and care workers the equipment that they need to do their jobs safely and to save lives. Since the start of the outbreak, we have delivered over 1.7 billion items of PPE across the health and social care system within England. Plus, tens of millions of items have been distributed to the devolved Administrations. We will continue to pursue every possible domestic and international option for PPE procurement.
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Michael Gove)
Tomorrow I will chair the UK delegation at the second meeting of the Joint Committee overseeing the withdrawal agreement, and I look forward to having productive discussions with Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič.
Lucy Powell [V]
It is marvellous here, Mr Speaker. Given the Cabinet Office’s unique role in co-ordinating across Government, will the Secretary of State commit to taking up the Leader of the Opposition’s call for a national mission to get children active, social and ready for learning this summer by using charities, clubs, theatres, musicians, libraries and others, given the damage caused by his Government’s mismanagement of school reopening?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Lady. She is very knowledgeable and committed when it comes to ensuring that our schools do better for all students. We will work not just with the Leader of the Opposition but with others across civil society and do everything possible to ensure that those children who have lost out as a result of not being able to be in school can benefit from appropriate learning in appropriate circumstances.
Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will know more than most that under the amended lockdown regulations, the Government must now review the need for those regulations periodically. Will he commit to publishing a statement at the end of each review period, explaining the reasoning for either amending the regulations or, indeed, keeping them as they are?
Michael Gove
That is a characteristically good idea from the Chairman of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, and I will discuss it with my Cabinet colleagues.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
The terms of reference for the Public Health England report on covid-19 disparities promised recommendations for further action to reduce disparities in risk and outcomes, yet the report did not include a single recommendation. The Government have since announced that the equality hub in the Cabinet Office will review existing actions, commission further data and undertake further engagement. I ask the Minister: where is the urgency? On what date will we see a clear, detailed action plan to stop further preventable deaths and address the appalling inequality of this pandemic? When will the Government demonstrate, with their actions, that black lives matter by putting in place the protections that black, Asian and minority ethnic workers and communities need to keep them safe from coronavirus?
Michael Gove
The hon. Lady raises a very broad question. As the Secretary of State for Health has pointed out, many of those who have been in the frontline of the fight against coronavirus have come from BAME communities. We know that they have been disproportionately affected both by the spread of the virus and by its severity. It is vital that we not only develop a more sophisticated scientific and medical understanding of why, but also protect those communities and do everything to ensure that they are safe from the virus and supported if it affects them or their families. Every day, I and other Ministers are asking for more evidence and more action.
Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)
Michael Gove
I know that my hon. Friend is a working mother as well as someone who is committed to improving social mobility. She is also an effective champion for the excellent schools in her constituency of Sevenoaks. She is right: we all need to do more to ensure that children can be in appropriate environments, learning, growing and developing. My right hon. Friend the Education Secretary is utterly committed to that. One or two people in the trade union movement have perhaps not been as constructive as they might be, but I hope that they heed the wise words of my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell).
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP) [V]
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question and to Ministers and officials in the Scottish Government for their work in helping us to co-ordinate a response to the coronavirus. The hon. Gentleman is right that because of different situations, geographies and considerations, at different times the devolved Administrations have fine-tuned or tailored their policies as appropriate. However, when it comes to the economy, one thing is clear: the strength of the United Kingdom, the strength of the UK Exchequer and the strength of Her Majesty’s Treasury has underpinned the economic resilience of the whole United Kingdom. We know that if Scotland were independent, as the hon. Gentleman fervently and honestly believes that it should be, Scotland would have the largest budget deficit of any country in Europe. It is only in the interests of the Scottish people to maintain our Union, and that is why we need to maintain the power of the Treasury to support Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish and English citizens.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
Michael Gove
It absolutely does. I know that my hon. Friend has spoken up passionately for fishermen in Lowestoft and indeed for inshore fishermen across the United Kingdom. I look forward to continuing to work with him to ensure that they can benefit from the sea of opportunity that leaving the EU provides.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP) [V]
Michael Gove
We cannot have a no-deal Brexit because we had a Brexit deal that was agreed and voted on in the House of Commons, which is why we left the European Union on 31 January.
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the sad phenomena of last two or three decades is the way in which divisions in our society have grown deeper. It is vital that we heal, unify and level up, never more so than after the coronavirus pandemic. The communities of Rother Valley and others in South Yorkshire are at the heart of the Government’s commitment to making sure that opportunity is more equal. That is why my hon. Friend is such an effective voice for those communities that have been neglected in the past.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
Michael Gove
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I know that even before she was in this House she had a very distinguished career in speaking up for the disadvantaged, particularly children and young people, who need the helping hand of Government as well as the support of civil society in order to achieve everything they can. She is absolutely right: there is much more that we need to do. We have touched on schools, but there are many other areas where we need to improve what we do—from child and adolescent mental health services to making sure that those in care are better supported. She is absolutely right.
Dr James Davies (Vale of Clwyd) (Con)
Michael Gove
The joint biosecurity centre is a very welcome addition to the armoury of weapons that the UK Government have in fighting this infection. It is the case that, for the JBC to work effectively, it needs to work across the whole United Kingdom. I can confirm that devolved Administration chief medical officers and Health Ministers have been working very successfully with the Secretary of State for Health in order to ensure that information can be shared in a way that benefits us all.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
Michael Gove
I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that point. I will be talking to the team who are operating the JBC later today, and I will raise that specific point with them. I am really grateful to her for raising it with me.
Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)
Michael Gove
I know that in both Wrexham and Denbighshire there have been recent incidences of the spread of infection that have been concerning, and I know that my hon. Friend, along with colleagues in local government, has been highly effective in making sure that we deal with those in the most appropriate way. He is absolutely right: it is joint working with effective local councils and energetic Members of Parliament like himself that is critical to making sure that we deal with this infection.
Dame Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con) [V]
Michael Gove
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I know that people in Chesham and Amersham, and elsewhere in Buckinghamshire, have benefited from her advocacy and from the energetic work of the local authority. She is right that we will, in appropriate time, need to recognise the commitment of those in civil society and elsewhere. I know that her championing of their cause has been heard in other parts of Government, and more will follow later in order to recognise exactly the validity of the argument she makes.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con) [V]
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Attracting people from a wide range of backgrounds into Government and into public service is essential for making sure that we have cognitive diversity, as well as entrepreneurial skills. When we look at how the Government use data, it is vital that we get people in from organisations such as Amazon who have experience in this area. When we think about how we communicate our intent to the broader public, it is also vital to have people who have extensive experience in local radio as entrepreneurs. They can often be some of the most effective communicators, managing to combine authoritative communication with a lightness of touch.
Mr Speaker
In order to allow the safe exit of vulnerable Members participating in this item of business and the safe arrival of those participating in the next, I am suspending the House for three minutes.
Sitting suspended.
Planning Process: Probity
(4 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if he will make a statement on the need to maintain public confidence in the probity of the planning process and his quasi-judicial role in these matters.
The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)
The Government are committed to maintaining public confidence in the probity of the planning process at all levels, including the Secretary of State’s role in deciding called-in planning applications and recovered appeals. Rightly, Parliament has, through the planning Acts, delegated to local planning authorities the powers to determine things at their level. However, Parliament has also created provisions whereby a small proportion of cases are determined by central Government.
The written ministerial statement of June 2008 sets out clear criteria for the use of the powers. For example, some decisions are recovered because of the quantum of housing they involve and thus their potential effect on the Government’s objectives for sustainable communities; others are recovered because of non-determination by the local authority. The involvement of Ministers in the planning system is a very long-established process that is clearly guided by both the published ministerial code and the guidance published by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government on planning propriety, which focuses on the duty on Ministers to behave fairly and to approach matters before them with an open mind.
The vast majority of planning decisions are determined at a local level by local planning authorities. However, as I have said, the planning system provides for decisions to be sent to Ministers for determination, including on the grounds that they involve developments of major importance. In fact, Ministers were involved in 26 planning decisions out of a total of 447,000 planning cases last year. The small number of cases that are referred to planning Ministers for determination are often among the most controversial in the planning system—for example, the 500 dwellings in the Oxford green belt that were recently allowed, and the 500 dwellings in the York green belt that were refused.
Given the nature of the cases before them, it is not uncommon for Ministers to determine against the planning inspector’s recommendation, as has happened in around 20% of cases in recent years. In conclusion, I stress that each planning decision is taken fairly and on its own merits.
Steve Reed
The Secretary of State will not have the public confidence that he needs to overhaul the planning system until we have full transparency over his unlawful decision to force through the Westferry development. He gave consent to the scheme on 14 January, in the teeth of opposition from Tower Hamlets Council and his own planning inspector, who both considered the scheme oversized and lacking in affordable housing. When Tower Hamlets took up a judicial review to challenge the Secretary of State, he took the extraordinary step of admitting that his decision was unlawful because of apparent bias. That meant that he avoided publishing in open court all correspondence revealing the true reasons behind his decision. Will the Minister tell us what that apparent bias was?
The developer, Northern & Shell, is owned by the billionaire Conservative party donor Richard Desmond. Mr Desmond sat next to the Secretary of State at a Conservative party fund-raising dinner just two months previously, and he admits that they discussed the scheme. The ministerial code requires Ministers to act with integrity; did the Secretary of State disclose his conversation with Mr Desmond to the Department before he granted permission? As the circumstances clearly raise a question of bias, why did the Secretary of State not immediately recuse himself from taking the decision?
The Secretary of State gave the scheme consent one day before a community infrastructure levy came into force; did he know that he was helping Mr Desmond to dodge a potential £50 million tax bill? Will the Secretary of State now disclose what contact he or his representatives had with the developers about that tax?
By an astonishing coincidence, just two weeks after the Secretary of State took his decision Mr Desmond made a generous donation of £12,000 to the Conservative party. This sequence of events raises grave concerns about cash for favours. If he wants to restore trust, the Secretary of State must immediately publish all documents and all correspondence relating to this decision. The public need reassurance that the integrity of the planning process cannot be auctioned off at Conservative party fund-raising dinners.
Christopher Pincher
The hon. Gentleman’s comments remind me of the adage, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try and try again,” because I think, Mr Speaker, that this is his sixth attempt at an urgent question on this matter. I do not deny—
Mr Speaker
Order. We do not discuss urgent questions, and I am the judge of what is right and wrong on the numbers, so we will leave that for today. Mr Pincher, I have the greatest respect for your job, and you need to have the same for mine.
Christopher Pincher
Indeed, Mr Speaker. I was simply going to observe that the hon. Gentleman has shown great persistence, although after listening to his questions I do not think there was much in them that was new or different. He asked four fundamental questions, Mr Speaker.
Mr Speaker
Order. I am sorry. That is questioning the judgment of decisions we take in a meeting on whether there was something different. You were not present at that, Mr Pincher, and I do not believe that you are aware of our discussions—and if you are, you should not be. So I think we can leave that for now.
Christopher Pincher
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am very happy to answer the hon. Gentleman’s question, and certainly never question your judgment.
The hon. Gentleman asked first about the nature of the decision of the Secretary of State for a redetermination. The Secretary of State, with the support of the Mayor of Tower Hamlets and others in the local planning authority, believed the best course of action was for a swift redetermination of this particular issue. The way to achieve that, technically in law, is to accept the action that was brought by the local authority to the court. That is why the Secretary of State made the decision that he did.
The hon. Gentleman also asked whether the Secretary of State acted properly and with propriety in making clear to the Department all discussions that he has had with applicants; yes, he did. At all times he has disclosed any conversations that he has had with applicants.
The hon. Gentleman also requests me to describe my right hon. Friend’s relationship with the applicant. My right hon. Friend has no relationship with the applicant, so that question is irrelevant. Both the applicant and the local authority have asked my right hon. Friend to make a site visit. My right hon. Friend, in discussion with officials in our Department, weighed up the pros and cons of such a site visit and decided against.
As for the decision on 14 January, which is outlined publicly and which the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members can see online, that decision is all very clear. There were no discussions about the CIL issue between my right hon. Friend and the applicant. My right hon. Friend has been very clear about his involvement with the applicant. I do not think anything further needs to be added.
The applicant has, I think, paid for tickets to a Conservative party event. That is apparently where the funds came from. Ministers have no knowledge of funds provided to political parties through donations or through payment for tickets. These are spendings made by donors which go to parties of all persuasions. They are declared in the proper and usual way. None of this is known to Ministers, and none of it is discussed by Ministers. It certainly was not discussed on this occasion.
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
When it comes to planning, nowhere offers greater opportunity for house building, of all tenure types, than here in the capital, yet a total lack of ambition by the Labour-run City Hall leaves a shortfall. What steps can my right hon. Friend outline to get the planning system working in London?
Christopher Pincher
One reason why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has called in the Mayor’s plan is that we believe it to be insufficient; it has a paucity of ambition for the sorts of houses and the number of houses we need in London. By his own admission, the Mayor is missing his own target. The reason why this particular application came before my right hon. Friend was the failure of the local authority to properly determine upon it. He came to the conclusion that it should go ahead because of the number of homes and of affordable homes that were going to be built—the sorts of homes the Mayor of London is not building.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
This is like the Dominic Cummings affair and we have a Minister defending the indefensible. When the Secretary of State personally approves a planning application a day before the deadline, which saves the developer £40 million of fees in infrastructure payments, it raises serious questions. When it transpires that the developer then donates to the Tory party, to the public this matter simply stinks. Worse, the Secretary of State’s actions overruled the planning decision of the local council and it was against his own Planning Inspectorate advice. Why did he think he knew better? Why do the Minister and the Secretary of State not think it would be better to have more affordable homes funded? Surely they must agree that a multi-millionaire funding a £1 billion development helps fund future infrastructure for the greater good. Why was the Secretary of State content with his decision until legal action was raised by Tower Hamlets Council? Why do the Government think it is acceptable for the Secretary of State to remain in place after an unlawful decision, which he admits shows apparent bias? This is a party whose former Prime Minister and current Prime Minister once auctioned off a tennis match with themselves for £160,000. Does the Minister understand what these fundraising events look like to the public when other decisions then get made that seem to favour those who attend the events? For a Tory Government, it is one rule for them and one rule for another. Fortunately for us in Scotland, many people in Scotland now see independence as a better option, because nothing the Minister can say gives confidence in this place.
Christopher Pincher
I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for his question. As I said, it is not unusual for Ministers to look at and call in significant applications, and for them to come to a different conclusion from that of the Planning Inspectorate. My right hon. Friend’s reasons for his decision were clearly outlined in his decision letter of 14 January. He makes it clear that one reason for his decision to allow the application was the very significant number of homes that were going to be built as a result of it, including affordable homes. I might say in response to the hon. Gentleman that in the same week, in an application to the same authority, my right hon. Friend came to a very different conclusion when he refused a planning application made by and supported by the local authority to demolish the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, the one that created Big Ben and the Liberty bell. The local authority, the well-known tribunes of the people in Tower Hamlets, wanted to demolish it and build a luxury boutique hotel. My right hon. Friend will always come down on an application based on its merits and in the interests of the people. That is what he did on this occasion and that is what he will always do.
Mr Speaker
Just to help the House, I should say that I am expecting to run this until 11.05 am.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend set out his plans to increase the supply of affordable homes to rent and to purchase through the excellent first homes programme that he has brought forward, particularly for key workers, the heroes of the covid crisis? Will he consider directly commissioning the construction of those homes on surplus public sector land?
Mr Speaker
Let me just say that we are straying from what the urgent question is about, so, unfortunately, we will have to move on.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
In the interests of transparency, may I say that the Select Committee has not considered this matter? Last night I did receive a letter from the mayor of Tower Hamlets, but the Committee has not given consideration to that. Does the Minister agree that such matters as this are best dealt with when all the facts are in the public domain, otherwise judgments will be formed along the basis of supposition and conjecture, and, were the Committee to make a request to the Secretary of State, would he be willing to provide us with all relevant documentation so that the Committee could give proper, careful consideration to these matters, based on the facts that are available?
Christopher Pincher
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. I remind him that the decision of the Secretary of State, as I have already said, is in the public domain. The application is a live one, and documentation will be published in the usual way. We always take seriously, and consider weightily, requests from the Committee, and I am sure that we will happily consider this one. However, my right hon. Friend has published his decision, it is a very clear decision, and all documents will be published in the usual way, as they are through live planning applications.
James Daly (Bury North) (Con)
While the Conservative Mayor in the West Midlands is getting homes built by making the best use of brownfield sites, the Labour Mayor in London keeps missing his housing targets and the Labour Mayor of Greater Manchester proposes ripping up the green belt against the wishes of my constituents. Is it only the Conservatives that are able to get it right on housing?
Mr Speaker
Order. Unfortunately, we need to get the question right. The Urgent Question is certainly not about Manchester, and certainly not about that. [Interruption.] I think it is for me to decide. It might be helpful if Members were to go and read what the Urgent Question is about, and then we can link the two. I call Rachel Hopkins.
Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I speak as a local councillor. We are regularly reminded to abide by our code of conduct, based on the Nolan principles, including integrity, accountability, openness and honesty, and declare personal or pecuniary interests, be them real or perceived, in decision making. With that in mind, is it a coincidence that Mr Desmond made a substantial donation to the Conservative party just days after the Secretary of State rushed through permission for the Westferry development, against the advice of his own planning inspector, and one day before Mr Desmond would have become liable for a £50 million tax bill?
Christopher Pincher
I do not know when Mr Desmond made donations or, in this case, payments for tickets to a Conservative party event. I believe he has donated to other political parties, including the Labour party. He is clearly a very generous man. I do not know that, and nor does my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, because we have no knowledge of those political donations when we are making planning decisions. My right hon. Friend has laid out very clearly his reasons for his decision, which he has made honestly and fairly. He is mindful, as am I, of his responsibilities according to the ministerial code and MHCLG propriety codes. We will always make decisions fairly, based on their merits and in the interests of the people.
Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)
One way we can ensure trust in the probity of the planning process is to ensure that it relates to the needs of people on the ground in communities. I was saved by social housing. Were it not for social housing, I would not be here. How can we ensure that the planning process that local authorities follow respects the communities that they represent and, more importantly, that the standards of social housing are improved? I know that this is an issue that the Minister finds very important.
Christopher Pincher
On the question of social housing, and indeed affordable housing, we are committed to increasing the numbers of affordable homes and social rented homes. It is worth while noting that in the last year alone this Government have built more council homes than the last Labour Government did in the entire 13 years of their history. My hon. Friend has an absolute guarantee that we will work, as will Mayor Street, for the interests of local people, building the homes that they want.
My hon. Friend also makes a point about the planning system. I am keen to ensure that the system acts with speed and transparency, and in the interest of local people. He can always be assured that the Conservative Government have that interest at heart.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
Did major Tory party donor Mr Desmond ask to sit next to the Secretary of State at the Conservative party dinner, on a table where—by mere coincidence, according to accounts—other developers involved in the scheme were seated? Mr Desmond himself has admitted that they discussed the scheme over dinner, but the Secretary of State says that they did not. Who, out of the two, is misleading the British people?
Mr Speaker
We must be very careful about the word “misleading”. I am sure that no Member of this House would ever mislead anybody.
Christopher Pincher
My right hon. Friend has been absolutely clear: the applicants raised the issue of Westferry with him at that dinner, my right hon. Friend made it clear that he could not discuss planning matters and would not discuss that planning matter, and the issue was closed. I have no idea what Mr Desmond asked for at that dinner, where he wished to be seated or who made the decision on where he was seated, because Ministers in my Department and others do not know what donations or funds are being spent by donors on political parties. There is a firewall, quite properly, between the two.
Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)
I completely agree on the need to maintain public trust in the planning process. I have the honour to represent the historic market town of Newcastle-under-Lyme, and one concern people have is that our historic buildings and heritage are not always protected in the planning process. What steps is the Ministry taking to ensure that buildings of importance, such as the Guildhall in Newcastle-under-Lyme, are protected in the planning system, in the public interest?
Christopher Pincher
Heritage assets are vital to us all, and we want to ensure that they are protected. The Guildhall is clearly of great interest to my hon. Friend and his constituents. One reason why my right hon. Friend made the decision he did with respect to the Whitechapel bell foundry was its huge historic interest to the people of Tower Hamlets and to people in this place. His decision there was the right one, and I think all his decisions have been right.
Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP) [V]
To recap, we have a planning decision that is unlawful, weaved through guidance on tall buildings, downplayed the heritage impact on the Greenwich world heritage site, increased the intensification of the housing units by 113% at the same time as reducing the proportion of affordable units by 40%, was taken on a timescale that exempted the developer from making contributions and saw a substantial donation to Tory party coffers. Does the Minister not understand how bad this looks? Why is the Secretary of State not coming to the House to explain why he sought to exercise his powers in the manner in which he did? Will he now ensure that all the documents and correspondence germane to this decision are released, so that people can understand for themselves the nature of the apparent bias in this case?
Christopher Pincher
My right hon. Friend’s reasons for his determination are quite clear—as I have said already, they are laid out in his decision letter of 14 January, which is open to public scrutiny and, indeed, legal challenge. My right hon. Friend made a decision in favour of local homes for local people, including more affordable homes. I remind the hon. Gentleman that, when it comes to tall buildings, other Ministers in my right hon. Friend’s position have made decisions in their favour, including John Prescott, who in 2003 accepted a building for 750 asylum seekers that was particularly tall. My right hon. Friend will always act in the interests of local people and will act fairly, proportionately and properly.
Brendan Clarke-Smith (Bassetlaw) (Con)
I welcome the additional investment in the affordable homes programme secured by my right hon. Friend in the Budget in March—a scheme responsible for the delivery of almost half a million new homes since 2010. What assurances can the Minister give me that developers will continue to be held to their obligations to provide affordable units within residential developments?
Christopher Pincher
We have a very effective affordable homes programme under way. As a result of the work of this Government and previous Conservative Governments, we have built something like 450,000 affordable homes in the last 10 years. We should compare that with the 399,000 built by the previous Labour Government during their nine years in office, at a time when apparently the economy was rosy and they had lots of money to spend. The Chancellor announced at the Budget £12 billion for the next affordable homes programme. We will make sure that the tenure and geographic mix is right for local communities and that it builds affordable homes and the homes that people want and need.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
Given that the Prime Minister pushed through the original scheme for the same developer when he was Mayor of London, did No. 10 have any involvement in events or conversations leading to the Secretary of State’s unlawful decision to grant approval?
Christopher Pincher
With respect to the hon. Lady, she is wrong. That was an entirely different application. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was determined to leave a legacy in London of more homes—more of the right homes in the right places—so that people could live the lives they wanted to live. In comparison, the present Mayor of London is missing his own targets and the Government’s targets. It is the reason we have had to call in his plan—to demonstrate that he must do better.
Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Con)
I thank the Minister for his responses on this very important topic. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Daly) for raising his concerns about the green belt, which I share. With public engagement in the planning process at an all-time low, because meetings are now held online or not at all, what advice is the Minister giving to planning authorities to maximise public probity and prevent any decision from being steamrollered through?
Christopher Pincher
As I said in my opening remarks, planning is essentially a local matter. The vast majority of local planning decisions are made locally. Sometimes they are appealed against to the Planning Inspectorate, but only on a small number occasions will those applications come to a Secretary of State. I am very keen to ensure that the planning system is swift, transparent and reflects and adheres to local needs, and I shall make sure that my hon. Friend’s comments and concerns are properly reflected in all our considerations about planning processes.
Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)
Campaigners in Warrington North have been battling to save Peel Hall from development for over three decades. With planning law already weighted so heavily in favour of development, what assurances can the Minister give that the developer cannot simply make a substantial donation to the Conservative party to subvert the process and that residents will get the fair hearing they deserve and can have confidence in that process?
Christopher Pincher
The planning law in this country is very clear, as the hon. Lady knows. I suggest that she go and read it.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the probity of the planning system has been enhanced by the Secretary of State’s decision to proceed with South Oxfordshire District Council’s local plan and that the holding of an examination in public online is a very good, transparent way of proceeding?
Christopher Pincher
Virtual proceedings are an effective way of ensuring that the light of public interest shines upon planning decisions, and I think the decision made in respect of South Oxfordshire was the right one. As I have said before, we will act always with fairness and probity, but we will also act to make sure that the Government’s objectives to build more homes in the right places—the sorts of homes people want and need—are met.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)
When I was elected to the council, one of the first things I did was sit on a planning committee. Does the Minister agree that transparency in that quasi-judicial role is really important, especially when constituents still feel there is a lot of secrecy around the planning process? Does he believe that there needs to be that full, transparent process in order not to undermine the planning system for our constituents?
Christopher Pincher
I certainly agree that transparency in planning is important. That is why the decisions that Ministers make, if they are involved in those planning decisions, are properly published and open to full public scrutiny, as they have been in the case that the hon. Member for Croydon North (Steve Reed) has raised.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
Like the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi), I sat on my local planning committee and in my training I learned that only the most contentious of applications, or those of national significance, come before the Minister. We have an example on our doorstep, just over the road, where the 50-storey St George’s Tower was granted by John Prescott against the wishes of the local council. Can the Minister clarify why certain applications require a ministerial decision?
Christopher Pincher
There are some applications which, because of the number of homes, will involve a ministerial decision. Other applications, which are timed out because the local authority has not been able to come to a determination and the applicant appeals, also come before a Minister. That happens in a small number of cases. It happened in the Westferry case, but I remind the House, because I think it bears repetition, that the issue came before the Secretary of State because the local authority failed to make a determination. It came before the previous Secretary of State in the early part of last year and went through the normal adjudication process in MHCLG.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
In my constituency, the local planning authority has just rejected a planning application aimed at reducing the number of affordable housing units. What confidence can my constituents have that the Government will not overrule that decision? Most importantly, should Ministers who are making planning decisions not be under the same obligation as local councillors working on planning decisions to declare personal and prejudicial interests?
Christopher Pincher
Ministers are obliged to adhere to the ministerial code and the MHCLG proprietary and ethics policy. We will build the homes that we think people need. We are going to spend £12 billion on the affordable homes programme to ensure that the right sort of homes are built in the right places. It is for the local authority, whichever local authority it is, to determine need and to bid for some of that AHP money if it wishes to build socially rented homes. Homes England will also take bids from applicants to build homes according to the land supply of local authorities. Let us see what the hon. Lady’s local authority achieves. I trust that it will build the right sorts of homes for the people of Bath.
Mr Speaker
In order to allow the safe exit of hon. Members participating in this item of business and the safe arrival of those participating in the next, I am now suspending the House for three minutes.
Business of the House
(4 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House please give us the forthcoming business?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)
May I belatedly wish you many happy returns for yesterday, Mr Speaker? I hope it was duly celebrated across the land.
The business for the week commencing 15 June will include:
Monday 15 June—Motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to the draft Electricity Capacity (Amendment etc.) (Coronavirus) Regulations 2020; followed by a motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to the draft Environmental Protection (Plastic Straws, Cotton Buds and Stirrers) (England) Regulations 2020; followed by a motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (Amendment) (No.3) Regulations 2020; followed by a motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to the draft Fatal Accidents Act 1976 (Remedial) Order 2020.
Tuesday 16 June—Opposition half day (8th allotted day—1st part). There will be a debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition, subject to be announced, followed by a motion to approve statutory instruments relating to the draft Over the Counter Derivatives, Central Counterparties and Trade Repositories (Amendment, etc., and Transitional Provision) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 and the draft Financial Services (Miscellaneous Amendments) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020; followed by a motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to the draft Public Service Vehicles (Open Data) (England) Regulations 2020.
Wednesday 17 June—Committee and remaining stages of the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill [Lords].
Thursday 18 June—Motion to approve statutory instruments relating to the draft African Development Bank (Fifteenth Replenishment of the African Development Fund) Order 2020, the draft African Development Bank (Further Payments to Capital Stock) Order 2020, and the draft African Development Fund (Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative) (Amendment) Order 2020;followed by a motion to approve statutory instruments relating to the draft International Development Association (Nineteenth Replenishment) Order 2020 and the draft International Development Association (Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative) (Amendment) Order 2020; followed by a debate on a motion relating to the effect of covid-19 on black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. The subject for the debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 19 June—The House will not be sitting.
Valerie Vaz
I thank the Leader of the House for the forthcoming business and for the unexpected treat of an Opposition day—we did not even have to ask for it—but could he also confirm the recess dates? He alluded to them being moved slightly over for the summer recess. It would be really helpful if he could, in his reply, give us those dates.
Mr Speaker, a belated happy birthday to you. It is a birthday you share with His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh. My hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) wants us all to join her in wishing Gabriella Zaghari-Radcliffe a very happy sixth birthday. How sad that an innocent child must suffer in this way. Clemency is all we ask for our British citizens: Nazanin; Anousheh, who is facing a covid-19 outbreak in prison; and Kylie. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) has consistently raised the case of Luke Symons, who is being held hostage by the Houthis in Yemen. Would it be possible for the Foreign Secretary to update the House next week on our British citizens? They belong here at home.
The other place is moving to a virtual Parliament and remote voting next week, while we are sort of moving backwards. However, I am pleased that the proxy voting system has been extended and I hope it is given the widest possible interpretation. Perhaps the Leader of the House will look again at the possibility of not excluding hon. Members from substantive proceedings, so that they can take part in legislative debates too.
I was quite surprised that, given the events of this week, the Prime Minister did not come to the House to make a statement on what the Government will do on the Black Lives Matter movement that is sweeping the world. The Leader of the Opposition mentioned inaction on a number of reports: the Public Health England report, the Lammy report and the Windrush report.
To that, I would add the McGregor-Smith review of race in the workplace. It was commissioned by the former Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), and found that helping black, Asian and minority ethnic people to progress in their careers could add £24 billion to the economy. This is not an economic issue; it is a moral issue, too. Its report gave signposts for action. The only action we have seen is that by the chief special adviser marching a young BAME woman out of her job and out of No. 10.
These reports are so numerous that I hope they are not becoming a footstool for the relevant Minister in the race disparity unit. I asked last week which Minister is responsible for taking all those reports forward. I hope the Leader of the House can write to me and place the letter in the House of Commons Library at to who is responsible, because there seems to be a crossover between two Ministers. Could the Prime Minister make a statement on this race tipping point? We need points of action and a timeframe.
I notice that the No. 10 Downing Street spokesperson said that the Cabinet did not observe the minute’s silence that you, Mr Speaker, had across the House for George Floyd on Tuesday. I suppose it is too much to ask that they would take the knee. We also had a minute’s silence for those who died in Grenfell Tower three years ago. Is it too much to ask for an urgent statement for an update on what is going on now?
Speaking of the Cabinet, we see that zoos are opening next week, but the Secretary of State for Education has no plan for the reopening of schools. Headteachers, teachers and the teaching unions—who, let us remember, continue to work to teach our children—said that the return could have been eased back safely. The Government always talk about Labour in Wales, but Labour in Wales consults, discusses and then announces, while the UK Government seem to be announcing first and then scrambling back. May we have an urgent statement from the Secretary of State for Education?
This is Carers Week, and the deputy leader of the Labour party has said that one in four adults now has a caring responsibility. Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that covid-19 deaths account for 28% of all deaths in care homes and nursing homes. We have previously raised the delay in the Government response to the virus. We ask again what happened in January and February. The Prime Minister missed Cobra meetings because he did not clock that this was a pandemic sweeping the world. We were told that sporting events could not be cancelled because people would meet in the pub. Public Health England said that we were two weeks behind Italy, so there were many countries we could have learnt from. That is why we need an urgent explanation from the Secretary of State for Health, not just about his bunions but about the breach in patient confidentiality.
Finally, it is our gracious sovereign’s official birthday on Saturday. Trooping the colour will take place in Windsor. We thank her for all her public service.
Mr Rees-Mogg
May I begin at the end? Yes indeed, that will be a proper occasion on which to celebrate the Queen’s official birthday and an extraordinary period of decades of service to the nation as our longest-reigning monarch. May the Queen live forever—amen, amen, alleluia, alleluia, amen.
As for recess dates, those are always subject to the progress of Government business, and the right hon. Lady will be aware that the Government’s business has inevitably been delayed because of the current crisis, but I can assure her that as soon as it is practical to bring forward any changes to dates, they will be brought forward.
May I join the right hon. Lady in wishing a happy birthday to Gabriella Zaghari-Ratcliffe? We remain very concerned about this situation, and I remain grateful to the right hon. Lady for raising it every week. It is continually taken up by the Foreign Office and by our diplomatic service in Iran. The Foreign Secretary will be here to answer questions later in the month, on 30 June, and the issue relating to Luke Symons in Yemen can also be brought up at that point, but the right hon. Lady knows that I pass messages on to the Foreign Office after these sessions every week.
As regards virtual participation, the Procedure Committee is looking into the possibility of people participating in non-interrogative sessions—or substantive sessions, if the right hon. Lady prefers—and we will have to wait and see what that Committee comes forward with.
In relation to the Government’s record on race and faith and equality since 2010, a great deal has been done. The race at work charter was launched, helping to create greater opportunities for BAME employees. The apprenticeships diversity champions network was set up. In other areas, the right hon. Lady mentioned the Lammy review of the criminal justice system. That is being looked at, as well as how to collect and publish more and better data on race, improving diversity in the prison workforce, and working towards incorporating ethnicity when gauging performance. So this is work that is under way within the Government. The Prime Minister was obviously here yesterday to answer questions, as he is every week. The Government are very well aware of these important and sensitive issues and are committed to improving equality in this country. We take the issue with the utmost seriousness.
The right hon. Lady mentioned the third anniversary of the Grenfell disaster. Once again, the Government would like to reiterate their heartfelt condolences to the survivors and recognise what a terrible tragedy it was. The Government are committed to ensuring that something like this does not happen in future. That is part of the reason the Fire Safety Bill was introduced and is making progress through the House.
Coming on to the schools question, the Secretary of State was here on Tuesday to make a statement with regard to what was happening in schools. It is an issue that we are all facing as to how things reopen in a way that protects safety and health.
The right hon. Lady referred to what has been going on in care homes. It is now good news that the deaths in all settings, including care homes, are falling, but every death is a tragedy—we must always remember that. Early death is something that Government policy has sought to avoid. That is why we have had the lockdown. It is why steps continue to be taken to help care homes, with testing kits, an overhaul in the way that personal protective equipment is delivered, and provision of very significant funds to local authorities, including the £600 million infection control fund to tackle the spread of covid-19 in care homes. In the face of an unprecedented pandemic and emergency, the Government have taken the steps that are suitable and the best steps that they could take at the time.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
Will the Leader of the House introduce a measure next week which will efface all remaining trace that there was a Roman civilisation on this island?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My right hon. Friend, as so often, comes to the heart of the matter. I am surprised that he has not raised Stonehenge, which is known for being the site, or thought to have been the site, of human sacrifice. It does occur to me that if it were removed, then of course the A303 could be widened more easily, making it easier to get to Somerset.
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP) [V]
First, may I associate myself with the comments of the shadow Leader regarding Black Lives Matter? I think most people will find it astonishing, given the depth of feeling in the country, that the Government do not wish to lead a parliamentary debate on the matter.
The Scottish National party did not oppose the motion to establish proxy voting last night, because we believe that something is better than nothing, but the Leader of the House should not think we are in any way satisfied with the Government’s defence of democratic expression in the age of coronavirus—we are not. Given that the right hon. Gentleman has been dragged kicking and screaming to accept the right of Members to vote by proxy if they cannot attend in person, why does he continue to oppose electronic voting through a system that has already been perfected by our staff? Switching that back on would not only allow Members to vote remotely, but would permit those on the premises to vote safely without the need to congregate in one place.
Secondly, does it not seem odd that there is no place in our future agenda for Parliament to debate the overall approach of the Government to the covid-19 pandemic? We need a full debate on that, not just glib 20-second answers and well-rehearsed soundbites. Given that the Government seem to be losing their grip and are in danger of losing public confidence, is this not the time to reach out and engage all parties in a renewed consensus?
Finally, can I ask for a statement on the Government’s willingness to answer questions from elected Members? Many of us have raised repeated questions with the Chancellor on behalf of our constituents relating to the various support schemes run by his Department and its agencies—most notably, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. It now seems that the Treasury is refusing to answer individual queries and has taken to issuing generic circulars instead. That is not acceptable, and it marks a serious departure from the way in which the Government are held to account in Parliament. I am well aware that things are not normal at the moment, but elected representatives must be able to get answers from those who serve the public. Does the Leader of the House agree?
Mr Rees-Mogg
With regard to the final part of the hon. Gentleman’s question, I agree absolutely. I view it as one of the roles of the Leader of the House to take it up with Departments when answers are not felt to be satisfactory by Members, and I will unquestionably take up what he has said with the Treasury. Answers ought to be specific to the question raised by a Member of Parliament. That is one of our rights as a Member of Parliament, and if that is not happening, that is a lacuna in the service the Government are providing, so I assure him that I will take that up.
The hon. Gentleman started by saying that he was not satisfied. I so look forward to the day when an SNP Member stands up and says he is satisfied about anything of any kind whatever. He conjured up this fascinating image of my being dragged kicking and screaming. I have to confess that since my earliest infant years I have not been one of the greatest kickers or screamers in any circumstances. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) says I am now, but no, no kicking, no screaming; just listening and seeing how things can be done and working out a system that ensures we have a physical Parliament that can get through the Government’s busy legislative programme. We now have three Public Bill Committees up and running, and we will have four. That is very important and it is why we had to come back physically, while recognising that circumstances require some Members to be absent from this House.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) sort of made my point for me, because he asked for an overarching debate on the coronavirus. He has clearly forgotten that we had one lasting two days when we had a virtual Parliament. Clearly, what went on in the virtual Parliament was so unsatisfactory that it has passed from people’s memory.
Mr Speaker
Just to help, I ask Members to speed up questions and answers, because we are going to run this until about midday.
Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on Sessional Orders, which determine how close to this building demonstrations can take place? Over the weekend, Winston Churchill’s statue was desecrated, a flag was burned at the Cenotaph and two wicked people threw bikes at horses. Parliament needs to act.
Mr Rees-Mogg
My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has been quite clear about these criminal acts, which are entirely unjustifiable. We are lucky in our police who, according to Sir Robert Peel’s principles of policing, police with consent. It is absolutely right that peaceful protest should be allowed. That is part of a democratic system, but people have to obey the law. That is incumbent upon all of us, but my hon. Friend will know that to ensure access to Parliament, discretion is given to constables by the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis under section 52 of the Metropolitan Police Act 1839 to
“disperse all assemblies and processions of persons causing or likely to cause obstructions or disorder on any day on which Parliament is sitting”.
In the past, both Houses passed Sessional Orders at the beginning of each Session, but the effectiveness of that is a matter of debate, and something where I think you and I do not necessarily share the same opinion, Mr Speaker.
Mr Speaker
If we want to make a real difference, we should add it to a Bill.
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)
Mr Speaker, we have something in common, because you share your birthday with the Duke of Edinburgh, and I share my birthday with Her Majesty the Queen, so we are a match made in heaven.
We anticipate an allocation of time in early July for debates on departmental estimates. I remind Members on both sides of the House that applications for those debate days should be submitted to the Backbench Business Committee by a week tomorrow—19 June.
The tap has been turned on: we have an allocation of time for a Backbench business debate next Thursday on the important issue of coronavirus and its impact on black and minority ethnic communities. However, there is other business that day, and there could be urgent questions or statements, so would the Leader of the House please look at providing a measure of protected time for that debate? It is an important subject, and it would be dreadful if the debate was foreshortened by other business that came up on the day.
Can we arrange a better flow of information from Government sources to local health public health officials about the results of covid-19 tests? Quite often, local public health officials are in the dark as to the whereabouts of someone in their locality who has tested positive through the national testing system, so could we have a better flow of information to local public health officials? That is vital.
Lastly, in his response to the shadow Leader of the House, the Leader of the House did not mention the recess dates. If there is to be a change, Members on both sides of the House would welcome knowing about it sooner rather than later.
Mr Rees-Mogg
Celebrating birthdays is becoming a theme, which we should try to bring up at all business questions. My birthday happens to be shared with Her late Majesty Queen Victoria, so we all have some royal association somewhere or other.
Mr Rees-Mogg
If only I were as time honoured as that would indicate.
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point about protected time.
I am not unsympathetic to that, but I will ensure that it is discussed, in the way these things are. As regards co-ordination with public health officials, there are the local resilience forums, which are probably the right place for that to be organised.
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, during the coronavirus crisis, local papers have provided an essential lifeline for many in our communities? However, as we come out of the crisis, we also need our papers to help bolster our economy. Will he join me in applauding the Rotherham Advertiser’s Restarting Rotherham campaign, which will help to get the local economy back on its feet? May we have a debate in Government time to discuss that important issue?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I thank my hon. Friend for his question and commend him for highlighting his local paper’s superb initiative. I hope it will devote pages to his campaigning for the interests of his constituents. That is one of the important contributions that local newspapers can provide, as one of the public’s most trusted and cherished sources of news, and they deserve credit for their journalism and local campaigns. The spotlight of media attention has always played an important role in encouraging considered decision making. Local newspapers, radio and television are fundamental to our democracy, holding local government to account in much the same way that national press and broadcasters hold the Government in Whitehall to account. I commend my hon. Friend’s local paper, and I commend him for bringing the issue to our attention.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
After my repeated questions regarding the locations, admissions, recorded deaths and usage for the Nightingale hospitals and temporary mortuaries, the Government’s responses have been nothing short of stonewalling. When it comes to the costs and the private firms that built the Nightingales, they simply will not say anything. Will the Leader of the House explain what the Government are trying to hide and how I can get answers to these very straightforward, simple questions?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that. The Government always seek to provide information in a timely fashion. I would point out that the relevant Departments have been exceptionally busy recently dealing with the coronavirus crisis, but if any right hon. or hon. Member is concerned about the quality of answers being received, I am happy to take that up. If people get in touch with my office, I will see what I can do to assist.
Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)
I am afraid I can claim no royal birth connections, but I do share my birthday with Muhammad Ali, which is my best bet. I am sure that like me, my right hon. Friend wants to see the UK sign a trade deal with the EU before 31 December. He will be aware that if that does not happen, the disruption threatened to my constituency and large parts of east Kent will be huge, and disastrous for the local economy. Will he guarantee that the Government will not only keep this House updated regularly on the progress of the negotiations, but do everything in their power to avoid the terrible disruption that would come with a disorderly end to the negotiations?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My right hon. Friend no doubt, like Muhammad Ali, floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee with his political insights and precision. The negotiations between the Government and the European Union on our future relationship continue, but we did get a deal back in January, and that is the basis for now going on to a future relationship. However, I assure him and his Kentish constituents that planning for the end of the transition period is well under way to ensure that we are ready to seize the opportunities of being outside the single market and the customs union. We are engaging with industry, including ensuring that our borders are ready by the end of the year, and we will continue to do so. I hope that my right hon. Friend can share my confidence in our ability to manage our borders both as the global pandemic continues and in relation to the EU. I am happy to say that our negotiators are working valiantly with their European counterparts to reach a deal on our future relationship, but whatever the outcome of the negotiations, we will be leaving the single market and customs union at the end of the year and plans are being made for that.
Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP) [V]
I invite the Leader of the House to reflect on his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard), and may I gently suggest that it was offhand, dismissive and wholly inadequate? Members across the House are experiencing significant problems in getting responses, be that to parliamentary questions or letters—particularly from the Treasury but I am waiting for a letter from the Health Secretary that was promised a month ago. We are aware that there is a pandemic happening, but Ian and Lesley McIntosh have been waiting nine and a half weeks for a reply to a letter that I sent about an urgent tax matter on 7 April. An airy assurance from the Leader of the House is not sufficient. We are aware there is a pandemic. We are aware that officials are stressed, but the House is experiencing a systemic problem in holding the Government to account, and we need a proper debate on it.
Mr Rees-Mogg
The hon. Gentleman simply did not listen to what I said—that is the problem with not listening and having a pre-prepared question. I have given really serious consideration to these issues and will continue to do so because I think they are of fundamental importance. The role of this House to seek redress of grievance for our constituents, and Ministers have to respond to questions that are asked. That is what I said to the hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) and to his hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard). I have continued and will continue to take up these matters up with other Ministers to ensure that proper responses are received. My office is looking very carefully at the level of responses to written parliamentary questions to ensure that Departments are doing well. I add one crucial caveat to that: I do have sympathy for the Department of Health and Social Care particularly, under these current circumstances, because the people drafting the answers are the people who are dealing with the pandemic, and I think that the House must have patience with that Department.
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
Can we have an urgent debate on changing from a 2-metre to a 1-metre social distancing rule, because that is the only way we will save hundreds of thousands of jobs in pubs and hospitality, tourism and hotels?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My right hon. Friend raises a crucial point. The Government are, of course, considering this with their scientific advisers, but we need to think back to our school days, because it is all about Pi R squared—if the radius is doubled, the area quadruples. That is the difference that is made, but it applies both to the numbers we can include in an area and the transmission of disease, and that is why the Government are considering these issues in both directions.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has published this morning its six-monthly report on Hong Kong, and for once I can tell the Leader of the House that it is a refreshingly robust piece of work in both its tone and content. Can we have a debate in Government time on our relationship with Hong Kong and China? It is something about which I wrote to the Prime Minister, along with 58 other Members across all parties in this House. We need to hear in detail, and with some urgency, exactly what the Government mean when they say that they will provide a “pathway to citizenship” for British national (overseas) passport holders.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising that crucial topic again, because we obviously have, as the Prime Minister said, a duty to those with British national (overseas) status. If China continues down the path it has gone down, undermining the principle of one country, two systems with its national security legislation, the Government will look to amend the arrangements for BN(O)s, to allow them to come to the UK and apply to work and study for extendable periods of 12 months. The Government are deeply concerned about China’s plans. This is very important. The Chinese Government need to remember that they signed the joint declaration, which Deng Xiaoping authorised in agreement with Margaret Thatcher, and it is expected that the Chinese will follow their international obligations.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
Last November, a horrific mass brawl broke out on Norwich Road in Ipswich. Last month, only one of the 11 people required to attend Suffolk magistrates court in connection with the incident bothered showing up. So far, one of the 10 has been arrested, and Suffolk constabulary is currently working with the other EU country in question to try to locate these individuals, because they are all foreign nationals. Will my right hon. Friend find time for the House to debate how we can ensure that such people are brought before our courts, even after the end of the transition period, and will he urge his colleagues in government to work with Suffolk constabulary to fulfil any European arrest warrants issued?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I share my hon. Friend’s concern. He raised the issue of law and order, which should be taken with the utmost seriousness by the Government and by society as a whole. That is part of the reason why the Government are seeking to recruit 20,000 more police officers. With regard to the specific case he mentions, it is shocking and outrageous that 10 out of 11 suspects refused to attend court and fled the country. I will pass his concerns to the Home Secretary, who is always very robust on these matters and will, I am sure, follow up with great seriousness.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Streatham) (Lab)
As other Members are talking about important anniversaries and dates, I would like to remind the House that today is the 33rd anniversary of black Members being elected to this House. I, for one, am proud to be part of the most diverse Parliament we have ever seen. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”]
I was going to ask about the farcical parliamentary procedure, but something that the Leader of the House said irked me. He did not really respond to the question asked by the shadow Leader of the House, and I would like to associate myself with the remarks of the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard). They asked specifically whether there would be a statement from the Prime Minister on Black Lives Matter and asked for a debate. I would like to take it one step further and say that it is very important for us to have a full debate on this country’s history with slavery and colonialism and the racism that has stemmed from it. No one is born racist. Rather, it is something that we learn. It is very important that this is in our education system. Some of the comments that I have heard give me the view that people do not really understand the mood of the country at the moment. We in this House far too often find ourselves removed from the public mood, so I think it is very important that we have this type of debate. I would like a straight answer from the Leader of the House: will he ask the Prime Minister to make a statement, and will he give us a debate in the House?
Mr Rees-Mogg
May I, as I noticed those on the Benches behind me did, join the hon. Lady in celebrating the 33rd anniversary of the election of the first black person to the Houses of Parliament and the desire for this Parliament to represent the nation as a whole, which is fundamental to the way our debates are conducted? She will know that the Prime Minister is here every week at Prime Minister’s questions, and that regular interaction with the Prime Minister is a very important part of how the Government are held to account. She will understand that the difficulty for me in promising individual debates is the pressure of parliamentary time and the loss of time over the coronavirus period. We are behind with the legislative programme delivering on the commitments made to the electorate last December, but we have made time for both an Opposition half day and a Backbench half day, and therefore there are opportunities to get the debate she wants outside of Government time.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
May we have a debate, or at least a statement, specifically on incorporating black history into the national curriculum? I say that quite aside from recent events; the period when the former colonies gained their freedom and the people who took part in that struggle is now slipping from memory and into history. We do not want that collective memory to be lost. Just to add one other thing, the first non-white person to be elected to this place was actually Shapurji Saklatvala, who was elected just after the first world war. I would like that to be on the record.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point. It is always important that we have as full an understanding of our history as possible. By understanding our history, we avoid making mistakes in the future, so I am always sympathetic to requests for debates on our history. The difficulty is the pressure of parliamentary time and the full legislative agenda that we have.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
Mr Deputy Speaker, I am the chair of the all-party group on Belize—[Hon. Members: “Mr Speaker!”] Goodness me! That’s it: I am finished—I’m dead. I am so apologetic. It is not your birthday as well, is it, Mr Deputy Speaker? [Hon. Members: “Mr Speaker!”] Oh, that was yesterday. I had better get back on track, as we were told to keep our questions short.
I am the chair of the all-party group on Belize, and I once commanded the north of Belize for six months in the defence of Belize, so I have a lot of sympathy with Belize and like it a great deal. May we have a debate about how we can support smaller Commonwealth countries such as Belize after the implementation period? Belize in particular is very worried about its trading relationship with the United Kingdom, as are a lot of the others.
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: the economic health of our Commonwealth allies is of key concern to this country. One of the great opportunities—one of the reasons why I have supported Brexit so enthusiastically—is that we have the ability to strengthen our economic ties with our friends throughout the Commonwealth, be it the giant that is India or the littler powerhouse of Belize.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
If any schoolchildren are watching our proceedings rather than being at school, I should point out to them that the Leader of the House’s hand gesture when describing the radius of a circle earlier indicated, in fact, the circumference of a circle. I do not know what they teach at Eton College, but it was important to clear that up, just in case.
On a more serious point, I thank the Leader of the House and the shadow Leader of the House for mentioning the case of my constituent Luke Symons, who is held captive by the Houthi rebel regime in Yemen. May we have a debate on Yemen? I know that Foreign Office questions are coming up before the end of the month, as the Leader of the House quite rightly said, but in a debate there is an opportunity to range more widely than at Foreign Office questions and we can cover a number of subjects. Will he give that some consideration?
Mr Rees-Mogg
For the sake of clarity, I was talking about the area of a circle, which is obviously encompassed within the circumference. I hope that is helpful to any schoolchildren—
Mr Rees-Mogg
I was talking about the circumference, which is 2πr, and the area, which is πr2, as we all know.
Let me turn to the important issue of Mr Symons. I suggest to the hon. Gentleman, who knows the House’s procedures extraordinarily well, that an Adjournment debate would be the suitable way to start, as it is a specific constituent matter. The whole House sympathises with what he is trying to do. It is important always to encourage the Foreign Office to do its best.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
May we have a statement from the Home Secretary on the excellent idea from my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland), so far supported by 125 colleagues, of a desecration of war memorials Bill? Such a Bill would enable special circumstances and special penalties to be considered when memorials to those people of all races who saved the world from Hitlerism and Nazism are attacked. I hope it is common ground on both sides of the House that we want to honour those who died, including such people as the black airmen of the Tuskegee squadron, led by one of my personal second world war heroes, the great Benjamin Davis.
Mr Rees-Mogg
In our island story, we have stood up against tyranny in the 16th century, twice in the 18th century and twice in the 20th century, and that has led to a lot of lives being lost by brave warriors, and they are commemorated across the country. They are commemorated at the Cenotaph in a coming together of our national sentiment about people who gave their lives, they are celebrated in every village churchyard across this country, and they are commemorated abroad in the churchyards that are run by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The desecration of these sites is contemptible, and there is no Government, no Minister, no Member of this House who would think anything else. Therefore, the Government will undoubtedly consider earnestly any proposals that are made.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD) [V]
It would be very ill-mannered of me to miss this opportunity to thank the Leader of the House for granting me the right to vote by proxy; I am grateful, my constituents are grateful, thank you.
Tourism is crucial to the economy of the highlands. It employs many young people. Tourism has been clobbered by the pandemic. Does the Leader of the House agree that it would be appropriate to have a debate about how we can safely look after tourists for the next 12 months, and by “safely” I mean in a manner that will not spread the virus?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am very grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s characteristically kind words and gentle approach to parliamentary proceedings. His question is very important. Tourism is the industry that is most affected by these closures, and the Government have taken huge steps for the economic revival of the country, with the furlough scheme, the schemes to help small businesses get access to loans from banks and the rate cancellations so that they have less cash outflow, but no doubt other things will need to be done to help people get the confidence to travel once again without risking the health of the nation.
Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
Following on from the previous question, will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate in the House on supporting seasonal businesses as we move out of the covid-19 crisis? One in five jobs in Cornwall depend on tourism, but actually the figure is much more than that as we have a lot of musicians and actors, and people who work in sectors such as the music festival industry and outdoor theatres, who are also struggling with what they are calling “the three winters” of poor trade or no trade at all. It is incumbent on us as representatives to find time, if we can, to discuss how we can best support those businesses going forward.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I thank my hon. Friend for her question and know that the tourism and hospitality industries are exceptionally important to the economy of her constituency and indeed to her county. It is essential that we make every effort to try to restore the economy to full health, and as the economy opens up I hope that the seasonal economy in and around Cornwall will benefit, although I note her point about three winters, and it is particularly difficult. I would reiterate the points I have made about the huge sums of money the Government have provided to businesses struggling in the pandemic—more than £33 billion of loans and £10 billion of grants offered to small and medium-sized enterprises, and the abolition of business rates—but my hon. Friend makes a good point about musicians, actors and the festival industry beyond what one naturally thinks of as the tourism industry, and that is of course a matter of concern.
Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP) [V]
Following our convivial meeting pre-covid-19, what progress has the Leader of the House made on re-establishing the Scottish Grand Committee?
Mr Rees-Mogg
We did manage to get the Scottish Select Committee up and running, after objections and filibustering from the Scottish National party at an earlier stage, but there are no immediate plans to re-establish the Scottish Grand Committee.
Neil O'Brien (Harborough) (Con)
May we have a debate on the production of personal protective equipment by volunteers? In my constituency, people like Aaron Shrive, Chris Lee and Thomas Barwick have been working through the night to produce much-needed equipment, but they have been stopped in their tracks by the costs of getting accreditation. I know Lord Deighton is working on pre-accreditation, but this is an urgent issue that we must solve, so may we please have a debate on it?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend is right to raise this issue. Finding enough PPE is an international challenge that many countries are facing, and I commend his constituents for their vital public-spirited efforts to manufacture equipment for careworkers. Such work is something in which the whole country should take pride.
In this national effort, I hope that we can make it as easy as possible for small producers to contribute to the PPE supply, just as the little boats assisted the Royal Navy in the evacuation of Dunkirk. Some 1.7 billion pieces of PPE have been delivered, but my hon. Friend is right to highlight the frustration when bureaucracy stops people doing what the country needs, and what everybody wants to see done. I shall therefore take up the matter within Government.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab) [V]
Yesterday, I met in a safe, socially distanced manner with small hospitality traders in Heaton Chapel in my constituency, including the award-winning Heaton Hops and Feed. They are concerned that they will still be unable to trade within the guidance when the food and drink restrictions are lifted because of the lack of space available to them. Will the Leader of the House relay those concerns to the relevant Ministers, and can we have a statement from Ministers on how the Government will assist the small independent hospitality sector to continue when the measures are eased?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The concerns that the hon. Gentleman raises are well appreciated. It comes back to the issue that was raised with me earlier about the six-and-a-half-feet rule, which is based on the scientific advice, but the Government are keeping that rule under review.
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
Many children in Buckinghamshire are due to take their 11-plus examinations in September, but given the obvious disruption to so many of their educations due to covid-19, our excellent grammar schools are looking to the Government for advice on how they may push them back to October or November. Can my right hon. Friend arrange for an urgent statement to give our grammar schools the advice and guidance that they need?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that crucial point. It is an unsettling time for children facing important exams, and I will pass on his concerns to the Education Secretary to see whether a full reply can be given to him in that regard. I remind him that Education questions are on Monday 22 June, but again, the subject may well be suitable for an Adjournment debate.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
I regret that the Leader of the House did not announce the albeit unlikely Second Reading of my Employment (Dismissal and Re-employment) Bill, which would protect workers across the UK. Perhaps he would facilitate a debate on the protection of workers such as those at a hotel in Erskine in my constituency, which was bought over. The appropriate paperwork was filed with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, but the real-time information was sent one day after the arbitrary and retrospective cut-off. Some 73 employees have had continuous employment but no wages and no follow-up support from the Government.
Mr Rees-Mogg
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. It is very difficult when some bureaucratic accident leads to a perceived unfairness for a constituent. That is exactly why we are here: to seek redress of grievance. I assume that he is taking it up with the relevant authorities, and if my office can give any help in seeking a detailed answer I will certainly do what I can to facilitate him.
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend join me in welcoming the return of the physical Parliament, as well as the measures to allow Members who cannot be present to contribute, and could he update the House on how many Bills are now progressing through Public Bill Committees, such as the Immigration Bill Committee, on which I am sitting and to which I shall return shortly?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I thank my hon. Friend for his commitment to a physical Parliament and for taking up his share of the burden by being on a Public Bill Committee. We have three Public Bill Committee going at the moment, and we will shortly have four. That means that the sausage machine of legislation is back in action. We in the Chamber essentially create the outer covering, but it is the Committees that push the meat inside before it comes back here to be finally tied up and sold in strings—or sent in strings, actually, to the other place. That process is now back in operation. The sausage machine is working and the sausages that we promised in our election manifesto will soon be barbecued.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House ask the Government to review the role of Babylon GP at Hand in the NHS, following the extraordinary breach of personal data security whereby subscribers were given access to private consultations of up to 50 other patients, especially because the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is not only the leading cheerleader for Babylon but a patient? He, presumably like all the other 2.3 million patients, is entirely ignorant of the breach.
Mr Rees-Mogg
Breaches of data are always a serious matter, and we have the general data protection regulations in place, which are there for the Information Commissioner to take action if there are these breaches. This is, in essence, a legal, rather than a political, matter.
Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Con)
We all appreciate the great work that our charities are doing, and last week’s national Volunteers’ Week gave us a great opportunity to show that appreciation to the likes of the Friendship Circle and the blind society in Whitefield in my constituency. I appreciate the funding that the Chancellor has provided to charities so far—and I have done my own bit by shaving my head for The Fed and raising vital funds for it in my constituency—but will the Leader of the House commit to a debate or a statement on the impact of covid-19 and on what further support is needed as we come out of lockdown?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his noble efforts on behalf of charity. I am not going to follow his example, but people are doing wonderful things to raise money for charities across the country in these difficult, unprecedented circumstances. That is why the Government have provided a package of support, so that charities can help vulnerable people who need it most. We have spent up to £750 million of taxpayers’ money for frontline charities, including hospices and those supporting domestic abuse victims. On top of that, charities can benefit from the coronavirus job retention scheme and the coronavirus business interruption loan schemes, but he shows that charities actually do best because of individual effort by committed people of good will, and he is leading by example.
Mr Speaker
In order to allow the safe exit of Members participating in this item of business and the safe arrival of those participating in the next, I am now going to suspend the House for three minutes.
Probation Services
(4 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Robert Buckland)
With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I should like to make a statement on the Government’s plans for the future of probation services in England and Wales. I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the commitment and hard work of staff in both the national probation service and the community rehabilitation companies who have jointly risen to the challenge of covid-19 in swiftly adapting to the new restrictions, and who have continued to deliver critical frontline services during this difficult time.
Beyond the immediate changes to our ways of working, however, covid-19 also presents an ongoing challenge to the implementation of our ambitious programme of probation reform. Probation services are currently split between the NPS, supervising high-risk offenders, and private sector CRCs, supervising low and medium-risk offenders. Those changes were made as a result of a 2010 manifesto commitment to end the situation where short-term offenders received no support after their release from custody. That commitment was the right one to make and, of course, it still stands. The current CRC contracts will come to an end in June next year, and last year my predecessor announced plans in this House to replace the current CRC contracts by moving to a unified model. This will see responsibility for the supervision of all offenders transfer to the NPS, while each NPS region will have a private sector partner—a probation delivery partner—responsible for providing unpaid work placements and behavioural change programmes.
Covid-19 does not change our ambition to cut crime, to keep the public safe and to tackle reoffending so that fewer people become victims of crime. Strong and reliable probation services are essential in realising that ambition. However, given the significant operational impact that covid-19 has already had and the uncertainty it brings for the future, it is right that we should reassess our plans. Protecting the public is my and the Government’s absolute priority. For that reason, I believe it is essential that we continue to deliver changes to how offenders are supervised by June next year as planned. However, the disruption caused by covid-19 makes delivery of other parts of our plans considerably more complex, and looking ahead, it is vital for public and judicial confidence that we have the flexibility to deliver a national response to any future challenges that covid-19 presents. For these reasons, I am today setting out changes to streamline the reforms, giving priority to unifying the management of offenders under a single organisation by June next year as planned, while giving us greater flexibility to respond to an uncertain picture across the criminal justice system and beyond.
Under those revised plans, we will end the competitive process for probation delivery partners. The delivery of unpaid work and behavioural change programmes will instead be brought under the control of the NPS alongside offender supervision when the current CRC contracts end in June next year. This will give us a critical measure of control, resilience and flexibility with the services that we would not have had were they delivered under 12 contracts with a number of organisations. We can reassure the judiciary and the public that, whatever lies ahead, offenders serving community sentences will be punished and make their reparation to society, and that programmes to address their behaviour will be delivered.
In making these changes, we cannot forget the role of specialist and voluntary organisations, which are vital in providing rehabilitation and resettlement support to more vulnerable individuals, such as women being released from prison or serving community sentences. They have also shown great innovation in continuing to deliver critical services during this challenging time, for which I commend them and express my deep gratitude. I am determined to preserve a role for these types of organisations, as well as the private sector, in the delivery of probation services. In the future system, we will, therefore, retain a dynamic framework for specialist rehabilitative services, but we must take account of the pressures that the market is currently facing. We will therefore prioritise the delivery of those specialist resettlement and rehabilitative services that are most needed in order to build a solid foundation that can be delivered within this timeframe and later built upon. We will be opening the dynamic framework for eligible organisations to register their interest in the coming days, and I encourage all organisations with an interest in providing rehabilitative services to register.
The unified model for probation delivery will ensure that we make the best use of the talents and skills in the public, private and voluntary sectors. For staff currently employed by the CRCs, the arrangements will mean that they will be in scope to transfer into the national probation service or to dynamic framework providers once CRC contracts expire in June 2021, depending on the work that they do. As we adopt a whole-system approach to criminal justice reform, it is vital that we continue to work together in partnership.
The Government remain fully committed to a mixed market in delivering custodial services, including our private sector partners, who run a high number of high-performing prisons in our estate. We are currently running a competition to operate the new prison that we are building at Wellingborough, which is due to end shortly, followed by a further competition to operate another new prison at Glen Parva. Our private sector prison partners will thus continue to play an important role in the custodial services sector, including as we deliver our ambitious programme of prison reforms, investing up to £2.5 billion to transform our prison estate and to create an additional 10,000 prison places.
I am confident that the changes I have set out represent the most sustainable approach for probation to deliver justice and to cut crime in the face of an unprecedented crisis. This approach will allow us to gain a critical measure of control over their recovery from covid-19 and to ensure that we are best placed to respond to any future disruption. I believe that these changes will also support our proposals to reform the sentencing framework, as I set out to the House last October. We have already made significant progress as a Government in delivering that agenda, including longer prison sentences for serious, violent and sexual offenders, but there is much more work to do if we are even better to protect the public and restore fuller confidence in the justice system. As part of this package of reforms, I want to deliver robust community penalties that offer an appropriate level of punishment while tackling the underlying drivers of offending.
These changes to the probation structures will help us to realise that ambition by giving us greater control over the levers necessary to strengthen community sentences. My officials will work closely with current providers, stakeholders and staff to ensure a smooth transition during this challenging time, ready for the new unified model to come into effect in June next year. I commend the statement to the House.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. I, too, want to give my thanks to the National Probation Service and for the work of our CRCs, particularly at this challenging time. The Opposition welcome the U-turn that the Government are announcing. It is a U-turn that we have called for for many years. Anyone who looks at Hansard for debates in this Chamber and indeed looks at successive Select Committees will be aware that the Secretary of State has made an important announcement.
The playwright Alan Bennett wrote that the probation service is about the
“remedying of misfortune…which…has no more to do with profit than the remedying of disease”.
The probation service may seem abstract to many who have had lives of privilege. Unlike the health service, most of us will never come into direct contact with it, but every Member of Parliament knows that a properly run probation system is essential. At its best, it can be the national service of second chances: offenders rehabilitate, former criminals become good citizens and people are allowed to make up for their past mistakes.
Just as our national health service must be publicly run, so, too, must probation services, but the Conservative Government’s part-privatisation of the probation service was the deepest privatisation that the criminal justice system has ever experienced. The reforms led by the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling)—it is such a shame he has not made it to the Chamber—transferred 70% of the work done by the public probation service to private and voluntary sector providers. Coming in 2015, in the middle of a decade of austerity, these were, in essence, cost-cutting measures. The Government were warned, but, as we have seen with so many of their attempts to cut corners through underinvestment, ultimately these measures have cost much more in the long run. Since the reforms, reoffending rates have climbed up to 32%. Members of the public and victims of crime across the country would not have been subject to the trauma they were put through had this privatisation not been introduced in the first place. One service provider, Working Links, was found to be wrongly classifying offenders as low risk to meet Government targets. Profit was put before public safety, ethics were compromised and lives were lost. It does not matter what language the Secretary of State uses in this House, he should apologise for that mistake made by his party.
The Government cannot say that they were not warned about the devastation that their part-privatisation of the probation service would cause. Trade unions, including Napo and Unison, have been campaigning for probation services to be fully publicly run for seven years. The Labour party, too, has warned this House of the dangers of these reforms again and again. The chief inspector warned that the use of private firms to monitor offenders serving community sentences is irredeemably flawed. Lord Ramsbotham, the former chief inspector of prisons, even produced an interim report on how the Government can best return the services to public hands.
The Opposition welcome the Government’s U-turn today, but the obvious question is why the Government tried to make profit out of probation in the first place, and why it took so long for them to realise their mistake. More than a year ago, the Justice Secretary’s predecessor announced that the system was not working. He outlined that offender management would be renationalised, so why did the Government fail to renationalise the second pillar of the private probation service then? Why were unpaid work programmes and accredited programmes still put out for private tender? When the Government knew that their model was broken, why did they only go part of the way in fixing it?
As we move towards the return of the probation services into public hands, this Opposition will scrutinise every detail seriously. Probation services are too important to be messed around with again, so what is the timescale for reintegration of all probation services into the state? Can we be assured that this will not be used as an excuse for any more cuts? Will all the savings from not renewing private probation contracts go towards an improved, better staffed, trained and managed National Probation Service? Keeping expertise is vital. How will the Government ensure that private probation staff will be encouraged to continue their work? Local probation services must be able to draw on the voluntary sector and create connections with local employers, adult education colleges, health authority and jobcentres. How will the Government ensure that the National Probation Service is organised so that there are those strong local links?
Many prisoners are released without suitable accommodation, so the connection to local authorities is absolutely vital. Ex-offenders need to be helped to find a home from which they can start a better life. The Government want to frame these reforms as purely down to the coronavirus, but we all know the truth: the problems are much deeper than that. Let this momentous U-turn be the end of the assumption that the private sector always knows best. The Government outsourced school dinners and we ended up with obesity and turkey twizzlers. The Government outsourced the cleaning of hospital beds and we ended up with the highest rates of the superbug. The Government outsourced probation and we ended up with higher reoffending rates. The private sector is not the answer for everything.
However, probation is founded on the idea of second chances. It is in this spirit that we are open minded to the Government as they try to atone for their past sins. Will the Government commit to making these changes part of a broad, coherent strategy for investment in rehabilitation and greater safety for the public? The Government should not just try to put the clock back. They should work with the Opposition, work with our unions and work with our non-governmental organisations and other experts to build a better probation service than we have had before. This is how they can make up for their past mistakes.
Robert Buckland
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. He talked about turning the clock back, and in some of his remarks I felt as if the years had fallen away and we were back in the 1980s in some sort of ideological death struggle—public good, private bad. Let me reassure him that I take no ideological view as to what works. I will follow the evidence, and when the facts change I will change my mind. I make no apology for doing that today. He will of course acknowledge that the course was set last year, when the announcement was made by my predecessor and I, as the Minister of State, very much supported that decision. This is a necessary adjustment in the way in which we are going to deliver the new service.
I am not going to dwell for too long on the rhetoric; I will deal with the substance of what the right hon. Gentleman asked, and he asked a number of questions. [Interruption.] Well, rhetoric has its place, but we are talking here about the lives of people we are under a duty to protect and to support. I can tell the Opposition that I spent the best part of 30 years working with probation officers and with the probation service, reading hundreds of pre-sentence reports and respecting the professionalism of probation officers in court, both as counsel and as a part-time judge, so I do not need noises off to tell me what I know or do not know about the probation service, with the greatest of respect.
This is a service, as the right hon. Gentleman said, that is unsung. Its work is vitally important, but often goes unnoticed, unheard and unobserved. That is something that I am doing my very best to put right, and I can reassure him that those dedicated public servants who are working in the CRCs will have the opportunity to transfer, as I said in my statement, to the NPS, when the time comes in June next year. That is the timescale that we have kept to.
The right hon. Gentleman is right to talk about the need to focus on the reduction in reoffending. He will be glad to note that in last year’s spending review I secured an extra £155 million for probation services—one of the biggest rises and cash injections that the service has seen in many a year—and it is my aim to keep annual expenditure well over £100 million for each of the next several years. That is our ambition, and it is matched with investment and with a bold agenda on embracing technology. This is a service that will not only be able to keep pace with change, but be very much in the vanguard of it.
I am proud to be at the helm of a Department that has such a set of dedicated public servants. This is the right decision at the right time. I make no apology for it whatsoever, and I look forward to a non-ideological future in which the right hon. Gentleman and I can genuinely work together in support of the probation service that he says he values.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I am going to try to get everybody in. However, I need to finish the statement at 12.50 pm. That will require short answers and short questions.
Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)
Madam Deputy Speaker, I will do my level best, but I was the probation Minister between 2010 and 2012. One of the proudest moments of my time was attending a dinner where the Princess Royal presented the British Quality Foundation’s gold award to the National Probation Service. The reforms that subsequently were done to probation service would not have been done by me. They were visited upon the Department to a degree by some whizz kids—bright people—some of whom are now very senior in the Government.
There were two faults. The first was that the companies were too large and did not equate with the geographical area of the police force. I would have given them, had I done it, to the police and crime commissioners, saying that they were responsible for the input and the output. A very good point was made by the shadow Lord Chancellor about engaging local authorities in all the services we have to bring to an offender for there to be a decent chance of getting them rehabilitated.
Secondly, I say to my right hon. and learned Friend that, attractive as going back to the position of 2012 might seem to me, we were trying to find the opportunities to make sure that we can get the charities, the private sector and everyone else engaged in the great work of rehabilitation of offenders. We are in many ways back to square one, but there is a huge opportunity to be grasped.
Robert Buckland
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend. I pay tribute to the work he did as a Minister in the Department. I can reassure him that this is not a return—a “back to the future”—but a new departure. He is right that I will focus relentlessly on the need to harness the smaller organisations; we are going to do that. At force level, we will do it by working with PCCs. I have already engaged with them on several occasions about the need for co-commissioning. Where we have PCCs working together in reducing reoffending boards, I see that as another vehicle for the commissioning of truly localised services. I hear my hon. Friend, and we are going to act on it.
Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)
I am pleased that the Government are recognising what Labour Members and many others have known—that privatised probation is a flawed system that enables companies to put profit before people. I would like to thank my trade union, the Public and Commercial Services Union, as well as Napo and Unison, and their members, for highlighting the failures of privatisation. How will the Secretary of State improve morale in the profession, particularly after many experienced and highly skilled probation staff were lost as probation services were part-privatised?
Robert Buckland
I am sure that the hon. Lady would seek to qualify her remarks by paying tribute to the ethos that I have seen among the CRCs and their teams in terms of their dedication to the public service approach to probation that we all believe in. I do not want to ignore that for one moment, and I pay tribute to them for their work. With regard to morale, she will be encouraged to know that it is my aim, as a result of the increased funding we are providing, to reduce the workload of individual probation officers by about 20%, and to mix that workload so that they are able to manage it in an even more effective way. That will, I believe, help to increase morale and a sense of value. I hope very much that we can attract new talent, and indeed bring back talent that has left the service. That is something that I am very, very focused on.
Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)
In Kent we have an excellent community rehabilitation company. I am pleased that the Lord Chancellor has confirmed that the staff can transfer across, but can he also reassure me that their expertise overall will not be lost, and that there will be no disruption to the offenders they manage?
Robert Buckland
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend, who has long taken a keen interest in these issues. She is absolutely right to highlight the good work of that particular organisation—in particular, its specialised work with regard to stalking and the victims of stalking, which is very much on my mind. I want to harness the best of that in the future with the dynamic model, and dedicated staff would indeed be able to transfer across.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
One of the biggest causes of reoffending has been the failure to ensure properly effective through-the-gate services. We know that suitable housing, stable employment and strong family relationships all help to reduce the risks, so will the Government now ensure that the last few months of the custodial sentence are devoted to creating that foundation, and involve third sector organisations in that work?
Robert Buckland
The hon. Lady makes a very good point. She will be glad to know that last year we invested a further £22 million in through-the-gate services in England and Wales. I have seen for myself how probation officers working in prison on offender management in custody really creates a cohesive approach where the prison officers, together with the probation service, are working weeks or even months in advance of release. That is very much part of our ethos. We are going to increase our emphasis on that and use tools such as release on temporary licence in order to make the transition as smooth and as safe as possible, not just for the offender but for the public.
Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)
I very much welcome what my right hon. and learned Friend has said about the involvement of voluntary sector organisations in the delivery of rehabilitation. As he has recognised, private sector organisations have played a role in the criminal justice system and its central challenge of reducing reoffending over many years, under Conservative Governments and Labour Governments. Does he agree that it is important now not to denigrate the efforts of anyone who has worked hard to reduce reoffending, whatever the correct shape of probation services in future, just because they have a private sector employer?
Robert Buckland
I am very grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend, who served with distinction in the Department I now lead. He is right to make that point that this is not about blind ideology, but about people and the shared values we have across the sector. That is very much within the CRC. I will make this point, and he will remember this: it was this Government who finally created licence and supervision periods for people on short-term prison sentences. That was a singular omission from the system that the previous Government failed to address.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
Two years ago, the Justice Select Committee, on which I served, produced its highly critical report, “Transforming Rehabilitation” on the performance of the privatised probation service. One of the criticisms was how those contracts were measured on outputs, not outcomes. Will the Secretary of State confirm that sufficient funding will be available to tackle the issues of heavy caseload, poor IT systems and the need to work with specialist services and the voluntary sector to ensure that probation officers can deliver a decent service and help reduce reoffending?
Robert Buckland
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who I know has a long interest in these issues, but I remind him of what I said a few moments ago about the £155 million uplift in this current financial year that we secured as part of the highest increase in the Ministry of Justice revenue budget in more than a decade. We will continue to match that in the years ahead with more investment, and he can be confident that that will translate not only into reduced workloads, but increased sophistication and development when it comes to the harnessing of new technologies and better ways of working. We have learned a lot from the current crisis about how we can do things even better.
Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)
I regret to say that I am worried by the statement that my right hon. and learned Friend has made this morning, for the simple reason that I have seen probation services for my constituents improve over the past few years, with more people given the second chance that the shadow Secretary of State referred to. He has just praised the work of the Kent, Surrey and Sussex CRC, as he has done in the past from the Dispatch Box, so can he give me some reassurance that with this statement today he is not in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater?
Robert Buckland
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, and I can give him that reassurance because, as he reminds us, we are talking not just about a service, but the people who deliver that service. Those dedicated public servants will be able to transfer across to the NPS, and I want to retain the ethos that they have and the specialisms that they bring, so that we can enhance the probation service and make it even better in the future.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
This has been a sorry episode, and it is a sobering reminder of what happens when we let ideology push ahead of the evidence in public policy making. That is something I hope those on the Government Benches will reflect on, but frankly it is something for all of us to reflect on. Secretary of State, you have a real opportunity as you build your unified model. There is so much talent in the NPS and those CRCs, so will you commit to getting staff around the table, finding the best of their experiences and building on them?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that he really should not be referring to the Secretary of State as “you”.
Robert Buckland
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who I know takes a keen interest in these issues. Perhaps I will emphasise the second part of his question. I thoroughly agree about the need to harness that experience and talent. That is what we are going to do. We will work with the unions and all the representative bodies to make sure that as we emerge from June of next year, we will be in an even better position to reduce reoffending.
Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)
Having been a non-executive director of HMPPS before my election to the House, I was privy to some of the challenges that have perhaps contributed to the decision today. With that perspective in mind, the timetable for reintegration seems tight, and I wonder whether my right hon. and learned Friend has considered further extending the CRC contracts, as is permitted, by six months, to enable that to happen smoothly. When that transition does happen, can we make sure that we keep the ethos of innovation, flexible staff and empowered staff so that we bring the very best back into the public sector?
Robert Buckland
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He knows that I value the work that he did prior to his election to this House very greatly indeed. He is right to outline some of the options that were before me. I looked very carefully at that option among others. I could not see that bringing real value in time or space in order to make the necessary changes. The Government rightly committed to June or to the spring or summer of 2021 as the time by which we had to make these reforms. I thought that we needed simplicity and clarity, which is why I have elected to take this course.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement this morning—it is an important discussion area. Brixton prison sits in the neighbouring constituency to mine and I used to be the ward councillor for that prison. I will always remember the first time I visited and my conversation with the governor and his staff members. They said to me that short sentences do not work because the reoffending rates are so high. Will the Secretary of State consider the fact that to get those reoffending rates down, there needs to be a link with the local community? Will he look at ensuring that local links are formed with colleges, other education provision and local employers to make sure that we work to get those reoffenders back on track?
Robert Buckland
Like the hon. Lady, I have visited Brixton prison. I know the current governor well and I know a lot about the importance of having those establishments within a community. The hon. Lady makes a powerful point about the need to link community education facilities and structures that provide a support network for released prisoners or people on community orders. My ambition is to ensure that community sentences are so robust and effective that, when it comes to decision making by judges and magistrates, they will be the default choice as opposed to very short sentences that can frankly do more harm than good.
James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)
I commend everyone at the Ministry of Justice and in our Prison and Probation Service for their hard work at this challenging time. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the debate about the creation of new, modern prison places should focus on the need to create better educational, training and rehabilitation outcomes?
Robert Buckland
My hon. Friend has put his finger on it, as usual. He is absolutely right to talk about the focus and purpose of the prison and probation environments. We must relentlessly think about the future: what will be the outcomes? How do we reduce offending? I always say that there are three things: a home, a job and a friend. If we can get those three right, we will do right by the community.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
I am very pleased that the Secretary of State has had the good grace today to admit that the ideological experiment has failed. What can he say to residents in my constituency who feel that the regime that his Government brought in lacked accountability in places such as the Beverley Road spine in Hull, a large area where many ex-offenders lived? What accountability will be put in place by the Secretary of State’s measures?
Robert Buckland
I know that the hon. Lady will be familiar with this: the structure will be regional, within the national framework of the national probation service. The accountability will then of course be through Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service and ultimately me. Locally, it is important to get that link with police and crime commissioners—the “and crime” bit of commissioners should come into play. That is why I want to focus on more localised commissioning. I want to get a sense of responsiveness and more than that, get ahead of trends in local areas such as Hull. The hon. Lady makes a good point, which we understand very well.
Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)
Education, health and social policies are key to supporting the work of the probation system. What does the Secretary of State make of the findings of the Thomas Commission on Justice in Wales? In particular, does he agree that the devolution of responsibility for the probation service would allow for better integration with Welsh health and education policies, thereby improving rehabilitation outcomes?
Robert Buckland
The hon. Gentleman makes a thought-provoking point and links the Thomas commission to it. Of course, the Welsh Government must respond to that, but we are ahead of the hon. Gentleman. As he knows, in Wales, the probation service was unified from the end of last year and is already supporting the people of Wales. The unified service, headed by Amy Rees, an outstanding civil servant, is delivering that integrated service that the hon. Gentleman so badly wants. We do not need further devolution or a separate jurisdiction.
Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
I would like to think that private enterprise has no greater friend than me on this side of the House, but I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend’s announcement because we should follow the facts, and there are a great many benefits in the statement in terms of unified leadership, clear accountability and mobilising resources.
Robert Buckland
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. These decisions are never made lightly or easily, and I can assure him that they are made on the evidence and not as a result of ideology, which, I am afraid, still seems to infect some of the comments of my friends in the Labour party.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
I welcome this announcement, because probation privatisation has failed, and a cohesive outcomes-led rehabilitation strategy is key. The Secretary of State spoke about links with the police and crime commissioner, but how will he ensure that accountability is improved in probation services? Is there an enhanced role for devolved English authorities such as the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, where the Mayor has PCC powers?
Robert Buckland
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He knows that there is already an agreement between my Department and Greater Manchester to devolve more powers and to work on a commissioning basis, to allow the authority to commission the sort of services that he and his residents want to see. I am extremely driven towards that model, and I am working with PCCs across the country to help deliver that flexibility.
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
It is deeply worrying that young men from the black community are disproportionately likely to end up in the criminal justice system. Will the Secretary of State encourage the probation service to engage intensively with that cohort so that we can ensure that all offenders have the chance to move on from their past mistakes and make a success of their lives, whatever their background?
Robert Buckland
My right hon. Friend raises an important point. She will be glad to know that a lot of work is being done to improve the training of probation officers, particularly as regards the preparation of pre-sentence reports, which are vital documents for judges and magistrates to make decisions—in other words, to be more informed about black and minority ethnic issues, the services that might be available and the alternative ways of dealing with matters for members of that community. I would also make the point that, when it comes to the delivery of services, we are extremely privileged to have higher than average BAME representation among the probation workforce, which is a really good example to the rest of our community. However, it is about more than just getting people; it is about getting that ethos right and making sure people understand the alternatives that are available.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
Probation services have without doubt suffered immensely because of deep Government cuts and the increasing fragmentation and privatisation of the service, as highlighted again and again by Napo, PCS, Unison and the Labour party, so I wholeheartedly welcome today’s momentous Government U-turn. However, will the Secretary of State establish a strategy for the resettlement of offenders, to link all the aspects of probation together—from through-the-gate support, planning and assessment in prisons to more frequent contacts and relationship building with offenders?
Robert Buckland
The hon. Gentleman will be glad to know that that is precisely the approach I take. I have a strategy—it is called reducing reoffending. He will know that that means bringing together all agencies—not just criminal justice. Frankly, they have more of a role to play, whether that is public health, education—which has been mentioned—housing or other vital local services. We cannot do this on our own. The criminal justice system is often the repository of failure caused by other factors. Unless everybody puts their shoulder to the wheel and realises that all parts of public service have a criminal justice dimension, we will not achieve what we need to achieve for our communities.
Mr Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend’s statement. Can he confirm that a key element of the future probation service system will be focusing on reducing the £18 billion cost to the taxpayer of reoffending?
Robert Buckland
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is right to highlight the stark figure for the financial cost of reoffending—of course, it does not deal with the emotional, physical and mental cost of reoffending. Reducing reoffending means fewer victims of crime. We have succeeded in reducing it in certain parts of the criminal justice system, but I am afraid there is still a lot of work to do, particularly with offenders on short-term sentences. The focus will be very much on reducing reoffending levels among that cohort in the years ahead.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
I want to stand up for the Lord Chancellor, who is being attacked from both sides of his own Benches today. Either it should not have happened at all, or the renationalisation should not be happening now. Why have we waited until now, when most of the service was taken back in-house last year? Does he want to take credit for that? As he is known—perhaps more than some of his colleagues—for his candour and thoughtfulness, will he admit that this privatisation has been an unmitigated disaster from start to finish?
Robert Buckland
As ever, the hon. Gentleman is the champion of the leading question, and I am not going to fall for that old trick. As he knows, I do not take an ideological view of this. There are aspects of the last few years that have brought much new learning and experience that we will incorporate into the National Probation Service. I am talking about the people who have delivered for the CRCs on the ground. There are plenty of examples of local best practice that we want to hold on to and propagate and that we will expand through the dynamic framework.
Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)
I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for his statement. One of the frustrations I see in magistrates courts in Cheshire and Merseyside, particularly for victims, is when probation staff cannot conduct stand-down reports on the day, which means that justice is delayed. How will the steps he has announced today improve efficiencies in magistrates courts?
Robert Buckland
My hon. Friend asks a very pertinent question. There is a tension, as I think he would acknowledge, between the need for swift justice and the value that properly crafted and prepared pre-sentence reports can play in the sentencing process. Where the ground has been prepared before the hearing and the options are very clear to the court, there should be no obstacle to the passing of a swift sentence. I will pray in aid the value of pre-sentence reports. I want to see more of them used, but with the eye to case management that delivers the swift justice that he and his residents want to see.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
Short prison sentences do not work, especially for women, because the whole life of that woman and her dependants falls down. What can the Ministry of Justice do to instil confidence in the whole system that alternatives to prisons, such as women’s centres, work?
Robert Buckland
The hon. Lady will be glad to know that, as part of the female offender strategy that we agreed in 2018, we are making investments in organisations that work in that specialist sector, and we have also announced that we will fund a new centre in Wales, which will be delivered by the end of next year. It is a smaller unit that will cater for more localised sentencing and will support women effectively, albeit in a secure setting, but in a way that aids rehabilitation rather than the cycle of reoffending.
Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)
Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that it is correct for any Government to try different mechanisms for delivering the best outcomes for service users and for the taxpayer? Leaving the word “ideology” to one side, is it not right to follow in the footsteps of former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who introduced independent sector providers to the NHS?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. We need very short questions without long preambles, and a short answer.
Robert Buckland
My hon. Friend, who speaks for the residents of Dudley so powerfully, is right to remind us about those ideological experiments indulged in by a Government of which the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) was a member not so many years ago. It pays us all to focus on the evidence, rather than the ideology.
Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)
I want to thank the Government for finally doing the right thing and ending privatisation in the probation service. Let us hope that this is a catalyst for bringing detention centres, prisons and other criminal justice services back within public hands. Most of all, I would like to thank the probation unions Napo and Unison, and their members, who have waged a hard-fought seven-year campaign against this wasteful and ideological experiment. Will the Secretary of State join me in paying tribute to those unions and encourage all workers across the UK to join a trade union?
Robert Buckland
I am always happy to encourage free association of workers. It is part of who we are as a civilised society. The hon. Lady represents the great city of Durham, so many of her constituents will be public sector workers in Durham prison and Frankland high-security prison, which is not too far away. We should value that ethos of public service, wherever it comes from, and I am sure she will join me in paying tribute to those CRC members of staff—we hope they will make the transfer to the NPS—who have been serving the public diligently, even though they have been in the so-called “bad” private sector.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
The Secretary of State may not wish to talk about ideology, but will he reflect on morality? Does he think it is morally right to make private profit out of incarceration and rehabilitation, because I do not?
Robert Buckland
I think it is morally right to harness whatever we can to help us deal with not only offenders, but the causes of offending. That will often be Government-led and state-led, and that is right—we have a duty under law to do that—but there will be plenty of occasions when the genius and talent that might be in the voluntary and private sectors should also be harnessed. So I do not accept this suggestion that somehow there is a moral difference between the mixed approach that I want to take and one that rigidly sticks to an ideological position that I do not really think the hon. Gentleman believes in.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Places such as Eden House in Bristol provided an important alternative to custody for vulnerable female offenders, but the services were slashed under privatisation. Will the Minister commit, based on the work of my predecessor in this place, Baroness Corston, to making sure that services such as Eden House are returned to full capacity, so that we can fulfil that agenda of trying to keep women out of prison and providing a safe alternative for them?
Robert Buckland
I pay tribute to the work of Baroness Corston, which has informed policy over many years. I know that she would welcome the female offenders strategy, which enjoyed cross-party support in 2018. We are now putting that into implementation. I have announced a centre in Wales, which will really help to provide that small-scale residential but secure environment. I am keen to try to replicate that wherever possible. I have to work within a budget, but, as I have announced, it has seen an overall increase, and I want to make sure we can drive that forward in a way that I think the hon. Lady will applaud.
Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)
The Secretary of State has acknowledged today, as he did last year, that the employee-owned CRC in Kent is an example of good practice and innovation, and it has rightly received national and international recognition. Given the ambitious timetable that he has set out, will he confirm that he remains committed to a mixed market, so that the likes of our employee-owned CRC can continue to make a positive contribution to delivering services that matter in terms of keeping my constituents safer and helping to change lives?
Robert Buckland
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who has consistently raised these issues in the past year to 18 months. She is right to hold me to account on that need to maintain a mixed economy approach, to harness the excellent work of the employees that she talks about in the new structure and to make sure that that initiative—that sense of personal ownership of the programmes—is not lost as we make that transition. I am grateful to her.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
In order to allow the safe exit of hon. Members participating in this item of business and the safe arrival of those participating in the next, I am suspending the House for three minutes.
Virtual participation in proceedings concluded (Order, 4 June).
Birmingham Commonwealth Games Bill [Lords]
Thursday 11th June 2020
(4 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Birmingham Commonwealth Games Act 2020 View all Birmingham Commonwealth Games Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 11 June 2020 - large font accessible version - (11 Jun 2020)
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Before I say a few words on the importance of the living wage, I just want to say that the games are a massive opportunity for Birmingham, one of the most important cities in our country, and the west midlands. I pay tribute to all those, including my predecessor in this role, who have seen the Bill through its stages so far. Glasgow, Manchester, Edinburgh, London and Cardiff have all hosted the games at various points in their almost 100-year history. Birmingham more than fully deserves this opportunity, particularly given the circumstances under which the city has taken on hosting the games. I would like to take a moment to pay tribute to everybody in the west midlands who I know is working very hard to get ready for the games. It is a challenge made all the more difficult by the current virus outbreak, but I know they are working with complete dedication to make sure that, as much as possible, Birmingham will be ready for the games.
In a way, the situation we are in makes 2022 all the more important as a date to look forward to. I know that sport is only relatively important, whatever people from my native Merseyside might think, in comparison to the challenges we face as a country, but I know that many people will be looking forward to the Commonwealth games as a moment that near enough represents a return to the great sporting culture of our country. In many ways, the Bill is made more important by the current coronavirus context.
This week, we think about our diversity as a country. It is poignant to end this week in Parliament with a Bill that will enable one of our country’s most diverse cities to host an esteemed sporting event which, as well as competition, has at its heart a celebration of that diversity. We will celebrate the games bringing together 71 teams from around the world, and it will feature 24 disciplines from across 19 different sports. Three new sports will be introduced—women’s cricket, beach volleyball and para-table tennis—and I am sure the Minister will join me in celebrating that this Commonwealth games has the potential for more female medals than male medals, and will also host a fully integrated para-sport competition. So sport can be—I stress can be, not necessarily is—an important vehicle for diversity.
Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)
I will speak in favour of new clause 1 in slightly blunter terms than my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern). The message to the Minister is pretty simple: this is his last chance to tell the House that he shares our ambition that the Commonwealth games organising committee will be accredited as a real living wage employer. He has hummed and hawed about this throughout the passage of this Bill and during his time as a Minister. Today is decision time, and we are looking for a clear commitment from him that the organising committee will be accredited as a real living wage employer.
The Commonwealth games, as my hon. Friend said, is an extraordinary opportunity for our city at an extraordinary time. It will be the greatest Commonwealth games that we have ever seen. I join others in putting on record our profound thanks not only to the chair, John Crabtree, and Mr Ian Reid and the team, but to Ian Ward and Yvonne Davies and the teams at Birmingham and Sandwell councils, as well as the team at West Midlands Combined Authority, for doing the impossible—bringing forward these games in four and a half years, against a timetable of normally seven years, which is what it normally takes to put a Commonwealth games in place. They stepped up when Durban stepped out, and that is why we will be the host—because people were prepared to have that ambition for the festival that my hon. Friend spoke of.
Opposition Members know that we will be judged not just by the medals that we win, but by the lives that we change. This great festival of Commonwealth sport is also for us a great festival of civic spirit. It is a chance for us to reanimate the spirit of one of the great founders of our city, the most extraordinary civic entrepreneur of the 19th century, Mr George Dawson. He was the author of the civic gospel and he inspired six Lord Mayors, including someone called Joseph Chamberlain. He was one of the reasons why we became known as the best governed city in the world, but one aspect of his genius was that he knew that culture, like sport, should be an entitlement for all, not just a privilege for some. But that civic spirit that we want to celebrate with great pride demands that the Commonwealth games organising committee is accredited as a real living wage employer.
Why is this important? Because 571,000 people across our region are paid less than they actually need to live on each week, including, I might say, many of the carers we have been clapping for every Thursday night. Let me tell the Minister the real-world consequences of living in a place where about one in five people are not paid enough to live on. It means that, in constituencies such as mine, more than half of children grow up in poverty. Fifty-three per cent of the children in my constituency live a life of poverty. That means that during the summer holidays, the food banks run out of food—literally. In the second city of the fifth or sixth richest country on earth, food banks are running out of food because people are not paid enough to live on. I challenge the Minister to stand, as I have done, in a food bank in Birmingham and watch the little arms of a nine-year-old boy strain as he picks up the food bags to help his mum carry them home. I ask the Minister to tell me that that experience is not going to scar that child for life, and tell me how many thousands of children in our city, Britain’s second city, are in exactly that position, because so few people are paid enough to live on.
Across our region, only one in 1,000 businesses are accredited as real living wage employers. We need all of them to be accredited, and if we are to achieve that, we need to set an example and that example—the best example available—is the Commonwealth games. That is why we need the organising committee to accredit as a real living wage employer.
The time has come in this debate for a bit of honesty. We know that officials from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport have said to the organising committee, “Please don’t accredit as a living wage organisation, because it undermines the case that the Government’s so-called living wage is not enough to live on.” Well, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South brilliantly rehearsed, the so-called living wage that this Government introduced is not a living wage; it is a living lie. It is £8.72 an hour, which is not enough to live on. What people need per hour to live on is not £8.72, but £9.30. I know that that 58p per hour does not sound a lot to many people in this Chamber, but over the course of a 40-hour working week, that is worth £23 a week. That £23 extra income a week makes a difference when it comes to taking decisions on heating and eating. That £23 a week extra in the pocket of my constituents lifts children out of poverty; it actually allows people to live. That is why this debate is so important.
We have offered this new clause to the Minister. I am full of hope that he will stand up and cut the argument away from me, by saying that he agrees with it and that the organising committee must now accredit as a real living wage employer. Let me warn him that, if he does not, over the next year, as he knows, I will be mounting something of a political campaign across the west midlands. If this Government refuse to take on board the new clause, I will hang that decision around every Conservative running for office next year in the west midlands from the Mayor down. This is an opportunity for the Government to do the right thing—the right thing against the judgment of history, the right thing for the people of the west midlands and the right thing for those who live their lives in poverty today.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
May I say how pleasing it is to hear us debating this Bill yet again, as we did in Committee when I was the shadow Sports Minister? I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) for doing such a wonderful job of promoting sport, particularly women’s sport, through her Twitter feed. One of the exciting things about the Commonwealth games is that women’s sport will be up in lights. For the first time in the Commonwealth games, we will have women’s cricket, which will provide a fantastic backdrop and a great example for the many girls who live not just in the midlands, but across the UK, as it will enable them to think of themselves as potential first XI players for the women’s cricket team and even to play internationally.
Following my visit to Birmingham, I want to put on record my thanks not just to my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne), who has already spoken today, but to the team at Birmingham City Council, who are the best example of municipal pride, putting on a wonderful show for visiting Members of Parliament. We saw all the exciting preparations going on around the stadium and the swimming pool—that was particularly exciting for me as chair of the all-party group on swimming—which will be finished in Sandwell in time for the 2022 Commonwealth games.
As the Bill has made its passage through the House, this has been a really important time to debate principles in sport: not just ticket touting and how ticketing will be done properly for the Commonwealth games, which I am sure the Minister will come to, but gambling issues and the promotion of alcohol, where the games can promote best practice in stopping some of those rather negative images seen throughout the sporting world.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Nigel Huddleston)
I thank the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) for tabling the new clause and congratulate her and the hon. Member for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens) on their appointments to the shadow ministerial team. I look forward to working with them in the run-up to the games and on many other issues. I also thank them for the constructive way in which we have already discussed many issues, which has proven that sport can indeed be a great unifier. Long may that continue.
Members of the House may know that, as an arm’s length body of Government, the Birmingham 2022 organising committee has its pay scales set in line with civil service pay rates. All direct employees of the organising committee are paid above the level of the Living Wage Foundation’s rates. While these rates do not apply to the organising committee’s contractors, I am confident in the steps being taken across the partnership to ensure that an excellent example is being set, and will be set, on fair pay. Of course, all employers must pay at least the national living wage, which has recently risen to £8.72 for the over-25s, and the Government have set an ambition for that to rise to £10.50 by 2025, should economic conditions allow.
Let us not forget, as the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) seems to have done, that under Labour in 2010 the minimum wage was £5.93, compared with £8.72 now. The tax-free allowance was £6,475 under Labour; it is now £12,500. There is a party and a Government that have taken quite a lot of action on raising the standards and wages of the lowest paid in society, and it is the Conservatives. That is a record of which I am proud. Much as the hon. Member may wish to talk about the efforts that he would like to make to raise the living standards of the lowest paid, perhaps he would like to take action. The reality is that, in government, it is the Conservatives that have taken more action than his Government did.
Liam Byrne
I am proposing some action that the Minister can take this afternoon. He could tell us whether he is confident, as he just said a moment ago—I think “confident” was the word he used—that contractors across the supply chain will be paid more than £9.30 an hour. Will he just tell the House whether he hopes that the Commonwealth Games organising committee can accredit as a real living wage employer? A simple yes or no will be fine.
Nigel Huddleston
I expect—in fact, the Government require—all employers to pay at least the national living wage. That is Government policy. I respect the right hon. Gentleman’s goals and ambitions, but I wish he would stick to the reality of what actually happens in government, rather than playing politics in terms of conversations and ambitions.
In the aftermath of covid-19, the games will be more important than ever in supporting the economic, cultural and social renewal of the west midlands. There will be more than £300 million in procurement contracts for local businesses, support for thousands of jobs and an integrated trade, tourism and investment programme, which will help to ensure that the games are at the heart of recovery efforts across the region.
Alison McGovern
I really must draw the Minister back. This is not a matter of party politicking; this is about whether we have food banks or not. Given what he has said, could he just answer the question about the actual real living wage that my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill just asked him? Does he believe that the organising committee will be able to accredit to the Living Wage Foundation and meet its standards or not?
Nigel Huddleston
As I said, the Government’s policy is already for a national living wage. That is Government policy. I understand the ambition and intent of the Opposition. It is the same as the Government’s: to raise the living standards of the lowest paid in society, and that is what this Government are delivering on, instead of just talking about it.
In 2020 alone, £145 million-worth of contracts will be available, with the organising committee continuing to promote these in recent weeks through webinars involving the local chambers of commerce. The trade, tourism and investment programme will showcase the best we have to offer a global audience and strengthen our economic ties with our friends right across the Commonwealth. It will be supported by £21 million of Government funding, ensuring that we can take advantage of the economic opportunities created by the games to deliver on the ambition that Opposition Members have just talked about. The Mayor of the West Midlands, the fantastic Andy Street, also announced just a few weeks ago that the West Midlands Combined Authority had launched a new Commonwealth jobs and skills academy to improve regional skills and employment opportunities through the games. This will be underpinned by a further £1 million of public money.
Nigel Huddleston
I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman one final time.
Liam Byrne
I am grateful, but if the Minister refuses to answer the substance of the argument, I will keep seeking to intervene. While he is on the subject of not playing politics and celebrating the role of the Mayor, will he confirm to the House whether the Mayor of the West Midlands has written to him to ask him to ensure that the organising committee accredits as a real living wage employer? Has the Mayor written that letter—yes or no?
Nigel Huddleston
I have no reason to respond to the right hon. Gentleman’s comments. I have a regular and very constructive dialogue with the Mayor of the West Midlands, who is doing everything he can to ensure that the games are highly successful. He has been absolutely pivotal in the success achieved to date, and will continue to do that for as long as he is in office—hopefully for a much longer period of time.
Let us not forget that the Birmingham 2022 games will be the first Commonwealth games with a social values charter. Accordingly, the organising committee has ensured that its procurement processes place added value on promoting those values. Added weight is being given to those companies that prioritise local employment opportunities and skills development. Alongside that, work continues to ensure that local organisations and voluntary, community and social enterprises can benefit from the opportunities of the games.
The best way to improve the economy and pay in the west midlands is to invest in skills and support business growth, which is exactly what the Commonwealth games programme will do. I hope that with those assurances, and taking into account the significant economic uplift that the games will generate for the local and regional economy, the hon. Member for Wirral South sees fit to withdraw her new clause.
Alison McGovern
Having listened to the case made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne), I simply do not know why the Minister would not get to his feet and just say yes. This is not about some political to and fro; it is about the important distinction between what has been sold to people as a living wage and what is in fact a wage that is calculated on the basis of people being able to live on it. That is the difference; that is what we are arguing about. It is a simple choice: food banks or not. I think the answer is not.
The social values charter that the Minister mentions is welcome, if woolly. It is a good ambition, but it does not really commit the organising committee—it certainly does not commit them to enough, and it does not commit them to the specifics. People will judge the games by not only how successful they appear but the reality of their lives when they have been able to participate in them. As I withdraw the clause, with your leave, Madam Deputy Speaker, I say simply that this will not end here. We will not stop going on about this, because the money in people’s pockets is of the most profound importance. Until the Minister is able to make that commitment, we will go on, but I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 2
Local Commonwealth Games levy
‘(1) The Secretary of State must make regulations to provide the powers necessary for the relevant local authorities to levy charges on hotel occupancy and short-term rentals in their respective areas for the duration of the Birmingham Commonwealth Games in the United Kingdom.
(2) The regulations must define “relevant local authorities” to include the local authorities for each Games location.’—(Alison McGovern.)
This new clause would provide for money to be raised during the Games by the relevant local authorities charging a levy on hotel occupancy and short-term rentals.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Alison McGovern
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
I am tempted to engage the House in a long discussion about local government finance in relation to new clause 2; however, I will try not to go on and on. The hotel levy proposed in new clause 2 has been previously proposed by Members of the House of Lords—Lord Rooker of Perry Barr and Lord Hunt of Kings Heath—and is supported by not only Birmingham City Council but, to my knowledge, a number of local authorities that have strong experience of hosting large cultural and sporting events.
Without going into too much detail about the terrible impact that austerity policies have had on local government over the past 10 years—I hope that most Members are more than well aware of that—the fact is that we in this country now have a national challenge to figure out how we can properly fund local government. Local authorities are struggling through the coronavirus crisis, having been told by the Government to do whatever it takes to fight the virus, and now the Government are falling short of their commitment to fund local authorities to do whatever it takes. That is the background and the backdrop to the situation in which we find ourselves.
Catherine West
Does my hon. Friend agree that, given that coronavirus is currently so job-destroying, the Government should look at this particular measure urgently?
Alison McGovern
My hon. Friend pre-empts what I am about to say. She is absolutely right, and of course as an experienced leader in local government herself, she would know more than anybody that the challenge in funding for local government has been exacerbated over the past 10 years.
We need to focus on means by which we can enable local authorities to do what they do best, which we are seeing with the work of Birmingham, Sandwell and all the boroughs across the west midlands. They know their areas best and they are able to create amazing events and opportunities that not only drive forward a city’s and a region’s economy but are a game changer in the status of a place whereby people can experience, perhaps for the first time, or the first time in a long time, what that place is like. That has incredible knock-on positives for that place.
We therefore need to concern ourselves, as a House, with opportunities to enable funding for these events. The Commonwealth games is a massive opportunity to pilot an idea that has huge support from various city leaders right across the country. The idea of applying a small levy to hotels has been discussed and investigated for quite some time now. I encourage the Minister to look seriously at this option, given the possibilities that it could create.
There are a couple of reasons why I suggest that the Minister take this seriously. The visitor economy is a growing area in our country. Until the recent coronavirus crisis, I am not sure that that was widely understood or accepted, but given the impact that the measures needed to control the virus are having on the economy, I do not think anybody would doubt it now. As a country, we rely hugely on the tourism and visitor economy, but that part of our economy must be sustainable. It takes considerable investment to get the right facilities and the right infrastructure, and to make sure that people’s experience of visiting a place is good. We need to consistently offer people a really enjoyable place to visit so that the reputation of an area grows and grows over time. That is where events like the Commonwealth games come in. They are showcase opportunities. They are a reason to visit for many thousands of people who will be excited to go to Birmingham and Sandwell. Therefore, in order to make these places sustainable, they need sources of income. That is just an economic fact of life.
With the undoubtedly positive impact of the Commonwealth games on the economy of the west midlands, we need to be sure that it is worth it to Birmingham and the wider west midlands to be hosting these games. There are measures in the Bill that require reporting by the organising committee on the impacts of the games, but we also need to be clear about how we measure the economic impact.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
I hope the Minister is going to accept this suggestion, but if he does not it would be helpful if he at least offered to discuss it with the Chancellor, because surely our tourism and hospitality industry is searching for new ideas to stimulate it, and the Chancellor would welcome a chance to look at these proposals.
Alison McGovern
I thank my hon. Friend. I trust that the Minister was listening carefully and will respond to that request. In my experience, Members of Parliament who go to the Chancellor or the Treasury with requests for funding get one kind of response, and Members of Parliament who go with ideas on how to raise funds get a different kind of response, so I can only be encouraging of my hon. Friend’s suggestion. I hope the Minister will beat a path to the Treasury door, and might take with him some colleagues—perhaps my hon. Friend and some from the other place, where there are experienced leaders of local authorities who would help him to make the case. I think that would be an excellent thing to do.
I say this in all seriousness: I have a strong suspicion that people in the world of economics and finance have slightly pooh-poohed the impact of tourism and the visitor economy on the UK and the role it plays. We talk about the service sector in these broad, sweeping terms without ever really breaking down what that means, the jobs that people do and the roles they play. That is why it is important that we seek these opportunities to put the tourism and visitor economy on a sustainable and solid footing, and this idea ought to be considered as part of that.
Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)
I have been listening carefully to what the hon. Member is saying, and I am trying to understand it. Is she arguing for more tourism by taxing more people? I cannot get my head around that, so could she explain it a little better? She says, “We want more tourists to come, but when you come, we’ll tax you more.” Is that it?
Alison McGovern
On the face of it, the hon. Member makes an argument that is understandable, in that taxes might constrain economic activity. However, many years of having taxes on economic activity show that the thing we use those taxes for can also generate and sustain economic activity. I am arguing that we ought to have a stream of investment to help local authorities sustain themselves and be able to put on events like the Commonwealth games now and in the future. If he thinks that that is not necessary, I would simply invite him to discuss the matter with any leader of a large local authority in the United Kingdom.
Catherine West
Does my hon. Friend accept that it might help to burden-share across the region, so that local council tax payers do not have an increase in their council tax bill? If some of the funded visitors were able to pay a small amount extra on their hotel bill, that could spread the burden of this exciting international opportunity, so that not just Birmingham has to pay for this, and it can be spread a little wider.
Alison McGovern
My hon. Friend, with her experience, makes a very good argument: it is important that we spread the burden. In any case—
Alison McGovern
If Members want to make arguments against taxation, who am I to stop them?
Saqib Bhatti
Prior to entering the House, I was the president of the Greater Birmingham chambers of commerce—
Saqib Bhatti
I appreciate the positive remarks. I can assure you that no business in the tourism and hospitality sector would advocate a levy on people coming to stay, especially when you yourself have accepted—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. We really must not refer to individuals as “you”. You can refer to the hon. Lady or shadow Minister, but not “you”. I hope you understand that.
Saqib Bhatti
I realised that as soon as I said it, so I appreciate that intervention.
The hon. Member has said that the coronavirus has impacted jobs. Surely an additional levy—an additional cost—impacting demand is not something that businesses in the west midlands would want.
Alison McGovern
I welcome the hon. Member to the House. He has worked in the service of a city and a region of our country that is one of the finest anywhere, so I applaud his work in that. I simply disagree with him. I am sure he is right about the situation that tourism businesses are in. The problem is that we need local authorities to be sustainable, so that they can provide the environment in which those tourism businesses can succeed.
Liam Byrne
Sometimes it helps to read the clause. If a £1 per night levy will be a significant deterrent for the hotel industry, why is such a tax in place in Austria, Germany, France, Spain, Greece—in fact, most of western Europe? Has it been a significant deterrent to hotel stays in western Europe, in my hon. Friend’s experience?
Alison McGovern
In my experience, it has not. My right hon. Friend makes an extraordinarily good point. What I think is a deterrent to the tourism industry is when local authorities cannot afford to fund the things that make events like this a success. Local authorities need the ability to make these events sustainable.
Gary Sambrook (Birmingham, Northfield) (Con)
Will the shadow Minister give way?
Alison McGovern
I will in a moment. Just let me finish responding to my right hon. Friend, although the enthusiasm for debate in this place is always to be welcomed.
Local authorities need the ability to make sure that events are a success. That is what they do best, and I know that Birmingham City Council, Sandwell Council and all the other boroughs are working their fingers to the bone to make sure that in 2022 we have a games that the whole country can be massively proud of. All the new clause seeks to do is levy a very modest amount on hotel bills so that they can succeed in those efforts.
Gary Sambrook
I get the point about councils needing the budget to do things, but Birmingham has proved itself to be completely useless at managing a budget. The Perry Barr bus depot will be three times over the original allotted budget. Another example is the Paradise Circus development in the city centre—all three phases of that budget were spent in the first phase. Birmingham City Council is badly managed and cannot manage a budget properly.
Alison McGovern
I am sure that that intervention would be excellent content in a party political leaflet, but it is not really the subject of the new clause in hand.
Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)
The point was made that the levy is a small amount of money, but there is an administrative cost as well. Does the hon. Lady think it right at this moment, when the hospitality industry is already struggling, to place extra burdens on it?
Alison McGovern
I am sure the hon. Lady wants to defend hotels and tourism, as I do, but I simply make the point that I made previously: local authorities are crucial to making sure that the tourism and visitor sector is successful in Birmingham and other boroughs in the west midlands, and everywhere in the country that has a significant visitor economy. The level of austerity and the funding cuts that local authorities have borne to date have been significant and are causing problems and challenges for our ability to host such events. This is a modest proposal in pursuit of the sustainability of such events.
Liam Byrne
Is my hon. Friend aware that the Birmingham Hippodrome made significant job cuts this week, that the Birmingham Rep is running a significant deficit this year, and that the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery is also running a significant deficit? Is she also aware that a crisis in the cultural sector is breaking upon us now? Those institutions will be coming to the Secretary of State next week to ask for his help, so he has a choice: either he can find the money himself or he can support small, common-sense measures such as this.
Alison McGovern
I was not aware of the specifics, though it is no surprise to me, because I am aware of the situation in the cultural sector right across the country. My right hon. Friend knows very well that the art collection in Birmingham city is one of my favourites. It is a brilliant art collection that will do a great deal for the cultural offer alongside the Commonwealth games. It is a reason people go to Birmingham. Without funding, such things cannot be sustained, and their loss would fatally undermine the tourism offer in cities up and down our country. Again, I simply say to Government Members that this is a modest proposal. Do they think, at this point in time, that the Treasury and the Conservative Government could do with a few modest proposals to bring in a small amount of income? Might the Minister not therefore consider this seriously?
Finally, it is important that we have proper metrics and measures to assess the economic impact of these games. It could be substantial—it could be substantially positive for the economy—so will the Minister commit to discussing with me a set of metrics that we can agree on to monitor the economic impacts of the games on all the various sectors that Members on both sides of the House have discussed, so that we can make the case that cultural and sporting events do properly benefit the economy? Will he consider this fully and take seriously the question of sustainability for the tourism and visitor economy, which at the moment should be at the heart of all our concerns?
Liam Byrne
I, too, wish to speak in support of new clause 2; we would be content this afternoon with a commitment from the Minister that he will explore this proposal with the Chancellor in the spending review, which we know is forthcoming.
I shall give some numbers, because I think they will help this debate. The total cost of the Commonwealth games is about £778 million, about three quarters of which is being provided by Her Majesty’s Government. Some £184 million is coming from Birmingham City Council and its partners, with £25 million going towards the Alexander stadium from the combined authority, plus a further £165 million going to kick-start the housing development, including the athletes’ village, from the combined authority.
I say that because the Minister will be aware of two significant risks to the local contribution, which makes up about a quarter of the budget. First, there is a risk to the local government contribution. At the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, the Prime Minister and the Cabinet said to local authorities up and down the land, “Do whatever it takes to get through this crisis, keep the receipts and we will pay you back on the other side.” The House will be amazed to learn that the deal is now beginning to unravel and the Minister’s Cabinet colleague in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government is beginning to query whether all the bills will be paid. In a city such as Birmingham, that means we could be confronting a deficit of £164 million this year. That is why the Minister has an obligation to take steps now to de-risk the local contribution to the games.
It is not just Birmingham City Council that is in jeopardy; the combined authority is, too. We revealed just a week or two before the elections were postponed that the Mayor’s budget has a £1.2 billion black hole in it. He has made commitments £1.2 billion in excess of the funds he has available. That is because he failed to get his precept through, he failed to get any movement on supplementary business rates and the funding that was going to novate from the local enterprise partnerships to the combined authority has not come through. In addition, there is a £700 million funding gap on the transport plan, because the Department for Transport is beginning to query some of the transport schemes. The broad point I want to make is that coronavirus has created a significant risk to the local authority contribution, and it would appear that there is a significant risk in respect of the combined authority as well.
Gary Sambrook
On the point of commitment, it is cheap to try to bring coronavirus into this, given that we were having this discussion about the city council’s contribution before the pandemic started. I have to remind the right hon. Gentleman that it was the leader of the council, in order to get the Birmingham Commonwealth games through his own group, who made the commitment that the contributions of the city council would not have an impact on the revenue budget. He has gone back on that commitment, one that many Labour councillors are very annoyed about. So does the right hon. Gentleman share my disappointment in the leader of the council who cannot keep his own budget in order?
Liam Byrne
I can scarcely believe what I have heard this afternoon. This council has had its budged halved by this Government over the past 10 years, yet its area is home to some of the worst deprivation in the country. The leadership of the council in the past few years have been miraculous, given the challenges that they have had to go through. They have gone over and above that, helping the country out by offering to host the Commonwealth games when Durban pulled out, and we should be grateful for that, not curmudgeonly, like the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Gary Sambrook). He should be less curmudgeonly and more welcoming of the leadership the city is providing.
I do not want to let hon. Members escape from the substantial point we are confronting now and going forward. Coronavirus has created a fiscal risk to the city that totals about £164 million, because of the umming and ahhing from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. That is not unique to Birmingham. The Local Government Association and Tory and Labour Members alike have written to the Government about this situation. One way we can de-risk it a bit is to have a pilot scheme in which a £1 levy on hotel rooms is created to help to fund some of the brilliant cultural work that needs to go on around the Commonwealth games.
Just so that hon. Members know, we have two risks coming up in the west midlands. The city of culture in Coventry has now been moved from January to June next year and that will run straight into the Commonwealth games, which will start in the summer of 2022. Frankly, it will be a pretty thin affair if all of the cultural institutions in the west midlands have collapsed. I say to the Minister today that they are on the brink of collapse now. The Hippodrome is already firing people. The Rep, which is a signatory to the letter to the Secretary of State from UK Theatre, is running a serious fiscal deficit. Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery is also looking at a serious deficit. In fact, when I convened a meeting with Culture Central from the west midlands last week, they were all reporting significant deficits.
I know that the Minister, because he is a responsible sort, will be working on a rescue plan for the cultural sector. I know that he is going to have difficult conversations with the Chancellor and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. I know what the other side of those conversations looks like, because I had them with Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Ministers in my time. The Minister’s arm will be strengthened if he is able to bring to the table imaginative proposals such as that in new clause 2. We are not asking for the moon; we are asking for £1 a night. That could, across the region over the course of four or five years, create a fund of about £4 million or £5 million, which could offset some of the costs that are needed and help to save the magnificent cultural institutions in Britain’s second city.
Catherine West
My right hon. Friend is making some excellent arguments. Does he remember that during the London Olympics—as a London MP, I remember this well—a series of MPs went to the Government to say that it was an extra thing for our city and therefore more resource, ideas, innovation and creativity were needed? The west midlands taxpayer cannot fund the whole project, so it is well within the remit of every MP in the region to be asking the Government for specific help and this proposal is a particularly imaginative solution.
Liam Byrne
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It could be that the Minister has a better plan, in which case now is the time to set it down. The letters from the cultural sector are coming to him next week. I hope they will be signed cross-party, because we share an interest in the rich cultural life of Britain’s second city. If this is not the way forward, I ask him please to tell us a better way. If there is not a better way, I hope he will accept new clause 2.
Nigel Huddleston
We have discussed the issue of a hotel tax at great length during the Bill’s passage, but may I first say that I completely support and appreciate the comments on the importance of the tourism sector made by the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) at the beginning of her speech? It has perhaps not been recognised as so important partly because of the fragmented nature of the industry, but I assure her that I consider the tourism sector to be of great importance and will be doing everything I can to support it.
The Government have always been clear that the Bill is not an appropriate vehicle for a proposal such as the hotel tax. It is not a money Bill; that would be for Her Majesty’s Treasury to bring forward. My colleagues in the Treasury have been crystal clear that any case put forward for a hotel tax would need to be fully costed, including balancing the additional burdens on businesses. In any event, were such a tax to be introduced solely for the duration of the games, it is estimated that it would raise for Birmingham City Council about £4.5 million to £5 million for the whole year. That would be only a small part of the financial contributions owed by the council and its partners to the games. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) mentioned the £184 million contribution from Birmingham City Council, and of course central Government will contribute nearly £600 million directly.
Alison McGovern
I want to stop the Minister at that point. He mentions the relative investment of the Treasury and the city council, but surely he accepts that the resources of those two bodies are not the same. We are trying to come up with proposals to help the city council and other authorities. Will he concede that the proposal is something that should be taken forward?
Nigel Huddleston
I do not believe that the proposal should be taken forward for a variety of reasons. The discussion about the financials of the Commonwealth games was sorted out and agreed some time ago—and it is still agreed.
We should consider the wider context. The tourism and hospitality sector has been impacted by covid-19 and the Government are focused on doing what they can to support the sector throughout this challenging period. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North (Marco Longhi) said, I cannot see how an additional tax would help. Only a few moments ago, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill lectured me about the importance of £1 and what a big difference that would make. Now he tells me that it is trivial. Which is it? It would not just be £1; it would be another pound and another and another. The potential for incremental increases in that kind of taxation is dangerous.
Liam Byrne
I respect the economic argument that the Minister tries to make, but the proposal is for a pilot scheme, which can be governed jointly, that delivers a £1 a night tax. A pound a night in the context of the average hotel bill in Birmingham is frankly pretty insignificant, but across a spectacle as grand as the Commonwealth games, it could mean a significant amount of money. If the Minister has got a better way of de-risking what is now a dangerous fiscal situation for the Commonwealth games, let us hear it.
Nigel Huddleston
I will come on to the financial contributions in a moment.
The new clause would or could inadvertently discourage people from staying overnight in Birmingham and the west midlands at games time—the very time we want to welcome the world to the west midlands and when the region is doing whatever it can to increase visitors and the opportunities generated by the games. On top of that, even though we do not charge a tourism tax in the UK, we charge full VAT on hotel stays, which many other countries do not. Many other countries do not charge full VAT rates on hospitality and leisure.
Furthermore, local authorities have a range of existing revenue-raising and fundraising powers that they could explore to support them to meet financial contributions that are associated with events such as the Commonwealth games. Most important, the council has always been clear that it can and will deliver its financial commitments to the games without the need for a hotel tax. As ever, we remain in close contact with the council on all aspects of the games, including the budget. It is also worth noting that early analysis of the financial impact of covid-19 has demonstrated that the additional costs arising from the pandemic can be met from the existing games budget.
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
Thanks to the miracle of modern technology, I have managed to elicit a direct response from the fabulous Mayor of the West Midlands to the suggestion that there is a black hole in his budget. Rather than test your patience with a long intervention, Madam Deputy Speaker, I shall reserve his comments for the House if I catch your eye on Third Reading.
Nigel Huddleston
I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention and look forward to his contribution on Third Reading.
There should be no increase in Birmingham’s financial contribution. Although we recognise the additional pressures that local authorities are under in dealing with the covid-19 pandemic, central Government have already announced additional funding of £3.2 billion to support that.
All games partners continue to work closely together to ensure that any additional cost resulting from covid-19 can be absorbed in the current budget so as not to increase Birmingham’s financial contribution to the games, to which it has already committed without the need for a hotel tax. That close partnership and working relationship will ensure that we deliver a memorable games with lasting benefits in Birmingham and the west midlands. I therefore ask the hon. Member for Wirral South to withdraw the motion.
Alison McGovern
I thank the Minister for his comments, but as one of my hon. Friends has just pointed out, £1 is about half an hour’s parking. In the context of what we are talking about, the idea that that would massively dissuade people from a hotel stay would probably bear interrogation. However, this idea, similarly, is not going anywhere, and it is well supported across the country by civic leaders. For now, however, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
Third Reading
Nigel Huddleston
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
We are moving at speed today. I would like to thank the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West), who led the Bill through Committee for the Opposition, and to wish her all the best in her new role. I would also like to thank all Members who sat on the Public Bill Committee and who have otherwise contributed to the Bill’s passage, including the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Mahmood), the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne), the hon. Members for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill) and for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Northfield (Gary Sambrook), for Dudley South (Mike Wood), for Dudley North (Marco Longhi), for North Warwickshire (Craig Tracey), for Stourbridge (Suzanne Webb), for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon), for West Bromwich East (Nicola Richards) and for West Bromwich West (Shaun Bailey), and many more.
I would also like to thank all the games partners, including Birmingham City Council; the West Midlands Combined Authority and the Mayor, Andy Street; Transport for West Midlands; West Midlands police; and, of course, the organising committee itself. As a games partnership, they have provided excellent support during the passage of the Bill. As I am sure hon. Members would agree, they have been open and have engaged with Members right across the House.
My thanks also go to the officials, who have worked so hard on this Bill since its first introduction last year, and to my noble Friends Baroness Barran and Lord Ashton, for steering the Bill through the House of Lords in such a collaborative and accomplished fashion. I would also like to thank Members of this House and the House of Lords for their scrutiny and for the thoughtful and constructive contributions we have seen throughout the Bill’s passage. Indeed, we have seen many positive changes on the back of that scrutiny—for example, the organising committee is now required through this legislation to report on certain areas of games delivery, ensuring full transparency and accountability.
Now seems the right moment to reflect on the preparations for the Birmingham 2022 games, which have already had to overcome an unprecedented level of challenge and uncertainty. We started out with a truncated delivery timeline of four and a half years, rather than the usual seven for a full games cycle. We should not forget that the games were originally awarded to Durban, and it was not until the end of 2017 that Birmingham picked up the baton. Of course, the current pandemic has also brought its own set of challenges. However, despite that environment, great progress has been made to ensure that we are still set to deliver a fantastic games on time and on budget, delivering real benefits to those in the region and beyond.
As Members know, significant upheaval has been caused in the international sporting calendar because of the impact of covid-19, with many major competitions being postponed or cancelled altogether. Following collaborative discussions with the organisers of other major events, including the world athletics championships, I am pleased to confirm that the start of the games will move back by one day, with the opening ceremony now taking place on 28 July 2022. That change will ensure that there is a summer showcase of major events in 2022, and Birmingham 2022 will continue to get the exposure it deserves, as broadcasters showcase the games to over 1 billion people across the world. Further, the change will ensure that the opening ceremony of the games does not clash with any matches of the UEFA women’s European football championships, which were due to be held in England in 2021, but which have now been moved back to 2022—they are still in England, of course.
All of this will ensure that 2022 continues to be a fantastic year of celebration for our country and an opportunity to champion all that is great about this United Kingdom—a year where, alongside welcoming the world to Birmingham for the 22nd Commonwealth games, we will be celebrating Her Majesty the Queen’s platinum jubilee, marking the 100th anniversary of the BBC and staging a major nationwide festival showcasing our creativity and innovation.
I would also like to reflect on and celebrate those things that will make the Birmingham 2022 games unique. This will be the first time in history that a major multi-sport event features more women’s medal events than men’s, as well as featuring the largest integrated parasport event. We have seen the Birmingham 2022 organising committee publish the Commonwealth games’ first ever social values charter, helping to ensure that the important values discussed both here and in the House of Lords remain at the forefront of games delivery. Such values are those of accessibility and a lasting games legacy.
Earlier this week, the Birmingham 2022 organising committee formally announced the new Birmingham 2022 inclusive games standard, alongside its commitment to accessibility and inclusivity. It is hoped that the BIG standard, supporting the Birmingham games to be the “Games for Everyone” will become a blueprint for future editions of the Commonwealth games.
Turning to legacy, the importance of the games as a catalyst for the economic, cultural and social renewal of the west midlands is underscored now more than ever as we look to restore livelihoods and rebuild from the current situation. In 2020 alone, £145 million of organising committee contracts will be available for tender across a broad range of services, and the organising committee will see its workforce double. In recent weeks, it has held webinars with local chambers of commerce to promote these tenders, and it will continue to do so. All these opportunities are listed on the Birmingham 2022 website.
Saqib Bhatti
I thank my hon. Friend for bringing the Bill back to the House, and for talking about the legacy and the economic positives that will come from this. Does he acknowledge the role that the Mayor of the West Midlands, Andy Street, has played in making sure that this Commonwealth games was brought to the west midlands, thrusting our region on to the international stage?
Nigel Huddleston
My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Indeed, all stakeholders, but I have to say Andy Street in particular, have been very focused on the legacy, plus the trade, investment and tourism opportunities that could come. He played a pivotal role in securing additional money in the Budget earlier this year for those initiatives.
We must ensure and continue to ensure that the benefits brought by the games are lasting ones felt long after the 11 days of sport. A director of legacy has recently been appointed to help ensure we can meet this ambition, driving forward and embedding this work across the games partnerships. I know the organising committee has already reached out to hon. Members across the House to ensure that these benefits can be realised across the west midlands and beyond.
The Government and all games partners remain fully committed to delivering a fantastic and memorable games in 2022, building on our excellent reputation for staging major events, and showcasing the best of Birmingham, the west midlands and the entire country to the world. Although today marks the final stage of debate on this Bill, there will be many more opportunities for the House to keep up to date on the delivery of the games and its legacy, and I hope hon. Members can take advantage of those opportunities.
I thank the House once again for its support for the games and for this Bill. As we have heard, the Bill is integral to ensuring that these games are a success, and it is an important milestone in the ongoing preparation. I am very happy to have led this Bill’s charge to the finish line, and I look forward to seeing it reach the statute book very soon. I commend the Bill to the House.
Alison McGovern
I thank the Minister for his comments. It has been a joy to be a part of this Bill, even if only for a short time. In the main, it was ably steered through its Committee stage by my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West), who is no longer in her place. As the Minister said, our thanks should go to her and to all the Members who took part in the Bill Committee. I particularly thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), who have both made compelling contributions today, and I hope—and I wish—that the Minister will listen carefully to the points they have made. All Birmingham Members, and others from the west midlands, have contributed to the process of getting this Bill through, and we should be thankful to them, as well as to our colleagues in the other place who have brought significant expertise to producing it.
I am also thinking today of colleagues in local government, who have had a rough time over the past 10 years and are currently dealing with a challenge that is so great that I think that they are proving to be some of the best and finest public servants that we have anywhere in government. Local government should be much more recognised across Whitehall than it actually is. I am thinking particularly of those in Birmingham and in Sandwell and across the west midlands authorities who are working so hard to defeat the coronavirus outbreak as well as preparing for what will be a hopeful and happy event in a few years’ time. I am thinking of them today; they are working so very hard. We have also mentioned Coventry, which is going to be city of culture and is preparing for that. I thank the organising committee of the games, which has been kind enough to brief me in my new role, and has done so diligently and expertly.
It is easy to wonder, in the face of such events around the world, whether sport means anything. Obviously, we all know that the real answer is that it does not. In the face of people dying of a terrible virus outbreak, of course sport is highly unimportant. However, it is something that we can lose ourselves in. We can enjoy sport, and for a short time just marvel at the abilities of other human beings enjoying themselves and competing for fun against one another. It is that idea that we can lose ourselves in the enjoyment of it that I think of as we finalise this Bill’s progress through the House.
I think back to moments in my own city region, when Liverpool was European capital of culture in 2008, and the joy that that brought to our city. I think of this city, London, in 2012, and the enjoyment, renewal and sense of civic pride that the London Olympics brought. I know that, as we have said, Birmingham—and the west midlands— is a place more than capable of inspiring not just our nation but countries around the world in the celebration of human endeavour. That is what sport is really about and that is the good that it does.
That much should be obvious, but there are 2.3 billion people in the Commonwealth and that means that the games are really important as a global event that will place Birmingham and the west midlands on the world stage where they belong. Birmingham is a fantastic place. Being from Merseyside, I have high standards when it comes to the friendliness of people, their sense of humour, and the enjoyment that you feel when you get off the train in a city. Birmingham meets all those tests. There is no better feeling than getting off the train at New Street—
Alison McGovern
Yes, nearly as good as Scousers. Birmingham is a fantastic place that I am only sorry I am unable to visit at the moment. But as soon as the regulations lift and we are able to travel in a more normal way, I shall be there, with bells on. It is a diverse place. It has beautiful buildings. Its art collection, as we have mentioned, bows to no other in the quality of its works. With its theatre, and its orchestra, in every respect, it is a vital part of our cultural life in this country. I fully anticipate that in the period of the Commonwealth games people will revel in the opportunity to visit and to enjoy everything that Birmingham, Coventry and all the other places in the west midlands have to offer.
I now turn briefly back to the Bill itself. For all the sporting, civic and cultural reasons I have mentioned, this is a very important Bill and the Commonwealth games will be a truly important event. However, we must go further than that, because this is not just about the games: it is about being ambitious for people in the city region. While there are new homes being built in Perry Barr as part of the infrastructure investment that the games are bringing, and better stations and better bus routes are being created as part of them, people are truly ambitious about how we can lift up their wages, skills, and ability to create businesses and really play a full role in the economy of the west midlands and our country.
The Bill has reporting requirements in it, but I repeat to the Minister that, if he is really to ensure that the games are a success for every single person in the west midlands who is ambitious for their future, he could voluntarily go further and do more. The reporting requirements about the values of the games, the commitments on accessibility for disabled people, the promotion of sustainability, and maximising the benefits being derived from the games are good ambitions, but they are, as I said, a bit woolly. Perhaps the Minister should work with colleagues, or voluntarily go even further than the Bill requires, because people will remember the games and the good that they did for a long time. It would be a hollow promise if we were unable to really progress the economy of the west midlands.
The Minister has heard the ferocity with which many Members from Birmingham have spoken, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill, who I thought made a serious and devastating case. The Minister has heard how people feel about food banks, and the role of low wages in creating the necessity for those food banks. I would simply say to him again that the problem is not going away, and it is on all of us, including him, to try to progress a solution. Decent though the Bill’s laudable aims are, we should all want to go much further for people. Sport is one thing, but fundamentally changing people’s lives in addition is what we should really aspire to.
We meet at a time, as many Members have mentioned, that is truly challenging for our country, but hopefully the Commonwealth games come at what could be a perfect moment, in that 2022 feels near enough to be truly something to look forward to, but far enough away to ensure that the dedicated team of the organising committee, and all of us, can work together to create all the infrastructure and aspects of organisation that are needed to create a successful games.
As much as anything, the Commonwealth games should be about hope—not just hope for our country, and hope that we will deal with the current situation and improve on the challenges that we face in dealing with coronavirus, but a much greater hope that the representation of the Commonwealth games, in all the diversity of the athletes who will come to participate and the varied number of people who will come to witnesses them, and its unity can drive forward a better standard of living and an improvement for people in the west midlands and right across our country. It is about our ability to look forward in hope.
Mr Mitchell
I will start where the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) finished, but before I do I congratulate both Front Benchers on, if I may use a sporting analogy, being thrown in the deep end in order to take the Bill through. They both spoke really well about the importance of the games and of the Bill. They also both look very fit and well following the dreadful lockdown, which has affected us all. I may be stretching a point, but perhaps we will see them both training in Sutton Park, which will play such an important part in the games.
The Bill provides an optimistic and encouraging moment because, as the hon. Lady said, it gives us a chance to look beyond the acute challenges that our country is facing at the moment and is genuinely something to look forward to. Boy, are we going to need it. Quite apart from the games, the sport, the fun and the excitement, all of which mean so much to so many people around the world, for us in the west midlands it is about the boost to our local economy, which we all know we must maximise. It is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create thousands of jobs, new homes and a massive improvement to the public realm.
At a local level in Sutton Coldfield, we are delighted that our historic park is going to come into active use. It is the place where King Henry VIII used to hunt and where soldiers undertook their training in trench warfare before heading off to the western front in the first world war, and it was also visited by Her Majesty the Queen and 30,000 others to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the scouting movement in 1957. In Sutton Coldfield, we will proudly host the triathlon for the games.
In a virtual meeting with the leadership team of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth games, I was pleased to hear about the progress. Nearly three quarters of a billion pounds is involved, and it will leave a tremendous legacy. Locally, I was pleased to hear from the leadership of the Commonwealth games committee that co-operation with Royal Sutton Coldfield Town Council under its leader Simon Ward has been going so well.
My constituents will hopefully benefit greatly from the improved infrastructure in our park, which I believe is the largest municipal park in Europe. It will improve the facilities to be used, including for future events. The gain is not just for businesses locally, but for jobs, community projects and volunteering. The games will require 10,000 local volunteers to welcome people from all over the Commonwealth, as well as to perform in the opening and closing ceremonies and to host athletes and teams at sporting facilities for training purposes. In Sutton Coldfield, we are deeply grateful for the opportunities and very excited by the prospects.
We need to ensure, as the Minister made clear, that all the different organisations involved play their part and work together from now on until the games open. I have worked extremely closely over the past three months with Birmingham City Council and, in particular, with the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne). He and I co-chair a committee that tries to bring together all the local interests in order that we can tackle some of the problems that affect us across Birmingham.
I will leave others to underline the importance of the council’s role and local government, if I may. Instead, I want to refer to the role of the Mayor and the West Midlands Combined Authority, which is absolutely crucial both for the games and for the legacy. I have seen what the London Olympics have done for the east end of London. In particular, through the legacy that went on afterwards, including with the International Inspiration programme chaired by Lord Coe, I saw the huge ability of sport not only to energise children and improve education, also to help health, education and vaccination in the developing world. There is a huge importance to focusing on the legacy that will follow in all its many forms.
I salute the efforts of Andy Street, our Mayor. He was teased, I think, by the right hon. Gentleman earlier about the so-called black hole in the budget. I have said to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I have, through the miracles of modern technology, been able to elicit a response from the Mayor. He said this:
“There is no black hole. Every year, the West Midlands Combined Authority has lived within its budget—both in-year finances and also within investment ceilings. It has been well managed and for example at last week’s board the annual finance review was fully accepted. Citizens of the west midlands have not paid a penny for a Tory mayor, but over £2 billion of new Government cash has been brought into the region since Andy Street was elected. Yes, we are still short of funds for some investments, but they are steadily closing as further new investment comes in.”
Those are the other words of Andy Street, delivered through me to the House on this important point this afternoon.
Liam Byrne
That was a fantastic defence of the Mayor, and it only lacks the very best wishes conveyed to the Mayor of the West Midlands on the occasion of his birthday today. None the less, all I would ask by way of intervention is for the Mayor to speak to his finance director, because during the transition talks before the mayoral elections were cancelled, it was not my analysis that revealed the £1.2 billion black hole; it was the analysis of his finance director. Admittedly, it took her three weeks to crunch the numbers and produce that figure. This is a gentle ask, I suppose, that we work together to try to repair this rather large hole that the WMCA finance director herself has identified.
Mr Mitchell
It is extremely decent of the right hon. Gentleman, given his current position, to send his best wishes to the Mayor on his birthday. I am sure the Mayor will receive them, if not from one of us Conservative Members then over the airwaves. I reassure the right hon. Gentleman and the House that the Mayor of the West Midlands needs no lectures on financial success, financial ability or financial probity: he ran John Lewis, one of the most respected and most brilliant retail organisations in the country. I have no doubt whatsoever that we are all grateful for that experience, which he is sharing with the people of the west midlands through his mayoralty.
The Mayor has personally lobbied for £21.3 million to support the TTI—tourism trade and investment—programme to maximise the Commonwealth games opportunity, and that is, of course, in addition to the Mayor’s pivotal role in securing for Perry Barr, in respect of the games, £165 million of housing infrastructure fund money, which will help to regenerate a swathe of north Birmingham and leave a legacy of additional housing. All that was agreed in the March Budget this year, and last week, on 5 June, the West Midlands Combined Authority signed off a further £2.6 million as a regional contribution to the programme.
Given the current economic impact of covid-19, all that will have even greater significance, as it will enable us to raise the profile of the region’s businesses and to promote trade and work to secure jobs. In that respect, I particularly welcome the focus that the Mayor, the WMCA and all its partners have placed on using the opportunity of the games to accelerate and improve regional skills and employment opportunities. To help to achieve that, we have the new Commonwealth jobs and skills academy; the Mayor has put £1 million of the devolved adult education budget into funding technical skills for the development for the games.
The £100,000 skills hub in Perry Barr, in partnership with the main contractor, Lendlease, is very encouraging. We know that the construction industry in our region will need 50,000 more trained staff by 2030. The hub, funded by the WMCA, offers local people free skills training and a guaranteed job interview once a 20-day course has been completed. We hope the programme will help 4,600 young people and 2,600 unemployed people to gain skills, experience and then jobs. The games will also benefit, along with the rest of us in the region, from the wider transport investment programme that the Mayor is promoting, including the expansion of the metro network and investment in the rail network.
Having looked at severely local and regional aspects and aspirations, I wish to end by considering the international dimension, to which the hon. Member for Wirral South referred towards the end of her speech, and the Commonwealth itself. By ensuring that the world-class games succeed and bring pleasure to millions, perhaps billions, of people around the globe, Britain underlines the community of nations that is the Commonwealth. It is a north-south organisation, a family of countries co-operating in many different ways. At a time when narrow nationalism is rampant and the case for the international rules-based system is severely on the back foot, let us hope that the games will remind us all that we have much to gain from international co-operation and much to lose when the structures that sustain it breakdown.
Liam Byrne
What a marvellous opportunity to follow a marvellous speech, which I felt hit almost all the right notes.
The Commonwealth games that we will host in Birmingham in the West Midlands will be the greatest Commonwealth games that the world has ever seen. It will be not only the most spectacular festival of Commonwealth sport, but a magnificent festival of our civic spirit—the civic spirit that helped to build our city in the 19th century and propelled our city to become the second city of this nation. I very much hope that the games will not be the last word in the renaissance of culture and sport in our region; they will be just a first step.
If there is one ideal that I hope we can put centre stage, it is the words that Jo Cox gave us: that we have more in common than anything which can ever divide us. I hope that will be the animating spirit of these games. As the youngest city in Europe, I hope we can use that ethos and ethic to act as an inspiration for a revolution in the youth work we have across our city. On Second Reading, I called for the creation of a young Commonwealth leaders’ programme, because, as a city of 160 different nationalities, we need to look to the next generation to help lead the business of bringing a diverse city together to live and play well. I hope we will find it in ourselves to put youth workers back in every ward, with safe spaces for our young people, to connect the inspiration of “more in common” to the great, animating festival of the Commonwealth games so that a young generation will work not only to bring our communities together but to strengthen the relationships in Birmingham and the west midlands with Commonwealth countries around the world. I am grateful to the high commissioners from around the Commonwealth who have begun to talk through that programme with me.
I hope that these games are the catalyst for a transformation of disability sports. As many people know, our city is home to the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine: a place that, frankly, works miracles. I hope that in due course we can bring that centre together with the Commonwealth games team to create, in our green heart of Britain, the great new centre for the Invictus games for the years to come. That is a practical thing that we could do quickly and well.
I hope that these games are the catalyst for an extraordinary cultural renaissance in our part of the world. We are looking forward to an extraordinary decade with not just the city of culture in Coventry, starting most likely in June next year, but the Commonwealth games and then the arrival—when it is finally built—of High Speed 2. There could be an extraordinary transformation of the cityscape in our city region. As the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) said, this is an optimistic moment and the Bill will give the decade an extraordinary kick-start.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
Following on from what my right hon. Friend and the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) said, this Bill is of enormous importance not only for the future of Birmingham and the wider west midlands but for the here and now. As we face a tidal wave of redundancies, this boost to the construction sector, keeping our construction workers in work now, will be enormously important for the long term.
Liam Byrne
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is the second big point I want to make. This is a partnership. I am grateful for the investment that the Government have made, which will not just help unlock the greatest festival of Commonwealth sport that we have ever seen but bring 5,000 new homes to the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Mahmood), who I know is watching us. That gain, however, would not be happening without the leadership of Ian Ward and the team at Birmingham City Council. Together, the city council is putting in about £184 million. It had the political courage to step up to the mark when Durban pulled out. Given the halving of Birmingham’s budget in the last 10 years, that was a brave act, a courageous act and a wise act. We will be grateful for that political decision for decades to come.
My right hon. Friend puts his finger on something critical. In the debate we just had on new clause 2, the Minister did not betray much sense of how the world had changed. I hope he will reflect on that remark and what he has heard this afternoon. If the Bank of England is correct—you never know. it might be—we will see unemployment in our region rise by 192,000 next year, to 320,000. That will put unemployment in our region at the highest level we have seen since 1987. The fiscal maths tells us that we need a capital kick-start of about £3.5 billion to deal with unemployment of that significance. As I said in earlier debates, our cultural institutions are crying out to the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport for help. The DCMS must look at the realities of what is going on in the sector and work with the Chancellor to do whatever is necessary to de-risk our bridge from where we are now to the beginning of the city of culture next year.
The prize is significant. I agree with the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield that this Bill is an optimistic moment. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for us, but it has to lift a generation out of unemployment, out of poverty, out of hunger, and out of hopelessness. We have to make sure that, when the eyes of the world —of 1.5 billion people—are on us in 2022, we dazzle them not simply with an extraordinary spectacle of sport, but with an extraordinary society that, together, we have built.
Craig Tracey (North Warwickshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne). I find myself agreeing with some of the points that he has made. The idea that HS2 is the right thing for the region is perhaps something that we will continue to disagree on, but I will move on from that because this debate has the potential to be an uplifting one.
I am delighted to speak in this debate and to have supported the previous stages of the Bill, including as a member of the Bill Committee. At this point, we should certainly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston) on what was probably one of his first outings as Minister. Perhaps we should give him a gold medal—the first medal of the games—for ensuring that the Bill was scrutinised in, if not world record time, certainly Commonwealth record time. I will endeavour to make my remarks with the same brevity today, Mr Deputy Speaker.
What our Bill Committee demonstrated was unity and a desire across the House to ensure that Birmingham delivers in 2022 a games of which we can all be proud. I agree with both speakers on the Front Benches that this Bill has come just at the right time given the current climate. We should never underestimate the power of such events not only as a showcase for the elite of international sport but in pulling the country together. Sport has an almost unique ability to collectively raise our spirits, although as a long-suffering Newcastle United fan, I find that those spirts are often quite quickly dashed shortly after, but I am sure that that will not happen with this event. If we think back to 2012, we will remember how the mood of the country was visibly lifted as we all came together to help deliver, arguably, the best Olympic games ever hosted, and it took place here in London.
It is incredibly important to get this right. It has been great to meet with the organising committee on several occasions. Its outreach to Members across the House has been brilliant—it certainly has been very good for me. It is great to hear about its exciting plans and visions for the games ahead. I have absolute confidence that this first-class team will make a huge success of these games. I have no doubt that people across Birmingham and the wider west midlands, including my constituents in north Warwickshire and Bedworth, will be inspired and ready to pick up the baton handed over by the legacy of the London games.
The Bill will allow us fully to recognise the amazing opportunities that the games can bring to the west midlands region. They are significant opportunities, even for areas that will not be lucky enough to host an event, including my constituency—although, if the Minister and the organising committee are listening, with a legacy of being able to deliver high-class sporting events such as national cycling, we are ready, able and willing to help if they are so inclined. There is still so much potential to be recognised across the whole region. As we have heard, around 41,000 game-time roles need filling, with important economic and employment benefits. I have been assured that those will reach out across our society, including to jobseekers and professionals of all levels, so there really is something for everybody to get involved in.
There has been a debate on the living wage, and I appreciate the assurances from the Minister. Lifting people out of unemployment and looking to people who are desperate to get into work is a really powerful aim of the games. I welcome the announcement by the West Midlands Mayor, Andy Street, of the launch of the Commonwealth jobs and skills academy, which has the aim of improving regional skills and employment opportunities. That will not just help people during the delivery phase; it will undoubtedly be the lasting legacy of these games, providing people with a platform to transfer their skills and upskill, and helping them get into work. That is incredibly powerful.
There are also great opportunities for business. Contracts worth £300 million are available to tender for. It is fantastic that around 4,000 of those contracts will have a value of up to £175,000, providing opportunities to a broad range of small and medium-sized enterprises to bid for them and secure work. Because of the central location of the midlands, we have a great tradition of exhibition, hospitality and event hire companies. I know that a number of those companies have really struggled during the current pandemic, and this gives them an opportunity to showcase their skills on an international stage. I will certainly be encouraging the businesses in my area to apply for these contracts, and I am sure colleagues across the House will do the same.
There is precedent for local businesses getting these contracts. At the Glasgow games in 2014, 76% of contracts went to local or regional businesses. At the most recent games in 2018, in the Gold Coast, that figure went up to 84%. The organising committee has the ambition to deliver as much locally as possible this time round. The bar has been set—it has been proved that it can be done, and now we all need to help deliver that.
There are not only financial and employment benefits; we should not underestimate the education and cultural ones. The games will come right off the back of Coventry being the city of culture, and my constituency falls right in the land between where the two will happen. I am particularly excited about the school engagement programmes that the organisers are looking to undertake. Those programmes will give young people across the region an opportunity to become an integral part of the games and take part in what is probably a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to welcome the world-class athletes competing on the doorstep, while learning about their countries, backgrounds and culture. As I know from speaking to schools across my constituency, they cannot wait to get involved in this.
To conclude, I am delighted that the Bill is making progress. These games have huge potential to provide a welcome boost across the region, which we arguably need now more than ever. For 11 days or so, the eyes of the world will focus on the west midlands for an outstanding spectacle of sport featuring some of the finest athletes in the world. It is a once-in-a-generation—if not a lifetime —opportunity to showcase our region on this stage and make the most of the employment, investment and tourism opportunities that are on offer if we get it right. I, for one, cannot wait to see this happen and have no hesitation in supporting the Bill’s passage.
Nicola Richards (West Bromwich East) (Con)
Like so many of my west midlands colleagues, I am incredibly proud that we have such a high-profile sporting event coming to our fantastic region; with an estimated global audience of over 1.5 million, what an opportunity we have to showcase the potential of our region.
There is something incredibly special about having 71 nations and territories from across the Commonwealth coming to the west midlands; it speaks to our values of diversity and openness. It will last for 11 days, with over 12,000 athletes competing in 18 different sports, along with 41,000 staff, volunteers and contractors, and over 1 million ticketed spectators. I know that many of my constituents are very pleased that the shooting and archery events will be going ahead in India, too.
In many ways, we are lucky to be hosting the Commonwealth games at a time when the economy will still be rebuilding itself after the impact of coronavirus, as the Minister and many others have said in this debate. We must do everything we can to make the most of this opportunity for our region, and I am very pleased that creating thousands of jobs for local people like my constituents in West Bromwich East is at the heart of the vision for the games. It is a great shame, however, that Birmingham City Council has felt it necessary to push through its plans to demolish the Perry Barr flyover. I have already made my concerns about that known in this House, but I want to focus on the many positives of the games.
I welcome many aspects of the Bill. The games transport plan is excellent, and I am excited to see the provisions for training opportunities, too. I am very pleased that the Commonwealth games jobs and skills academy will particularly focus on supporting young people and unemployed adults in the region. Andy Street is already spearheading this drive to ensure that everyone can capitalise on the current opportunities associated with the games. It has been clear that at the heart of all Andy Street has done so far in preparation for these games is ensuring that there is a lasting legacy for the communities of the west midlands. It is also clear that the visitor experience is paramount to our success, so Andy has worked hard to ensure that we have frequent and reliable transport options for athletes and spectators in time for the event. Communities such as mine will benefit for years to come, and we owe it to them to make this happen.
I have already had conversations with the local jobcentre in West Bromwich about how everybody can feel the benefits of the jobs boost to come, especially given the current issues. Not only are we lucky to be hosting the games after the economic impact of coronavirus, but it would be great to focus on healthy lifestyles and the enjoyment to be gained from sport at a time when we must be talking about health inequalities. Sport is a fantastic leveller and unifier, but we can go beyond that: we have an amazing opportunity to use the games as a further platform to address the severe health inequalities our communities still suffer from. I want this to be a priority. In the same way as we are focused on the economic recovery from coronavirus and using the games to address those challenges, I hope that the games can promote good lifestyle choices and inspire the next generation to take up sport.
Above all, I want us to feel pride in our region. One of my main aims is to ensure we can spread the legacy and benefits of the games throughout the west midlands and make sure their positive drive for lasting change and regeneration is not confined to Birmingham. This Government were elected on a platform of levelling up our communities, and the games will be a catalyst to further that work. In many ways, our commitment to levelling up has been a continuation of the inspirational work that our mayor, Andy Street, has been doing throughout his time in office. I have always been proud of my home region, and the Bill has my full support.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
I want to begin by saying that I welcome the measures in the Bill. It has always been important that everyone gets behind these games and makes sure they are a huge success, but, as we have heard, given the economic circumstances we know face, that has taken on added significance.
I particularly welcome the investment that will result in new homes and necessary transport infrastructure, as well as huge improvements in walking and cycling routes. I greatly welcome the A34 cycleway, which will extend through Perry Barr and beyond to revitalise communities and connect new housing with the Alexander stadium and on to Walsall, opening up the west midlands, just as the canals did centuries before.
Birmingham City Council and its leader, Ian Ward, deserve our congratulations on the lead they have taken generally over these games and on the £72 million upgrade plans for Alexander stadium. During the games, the stadium will be viewed by an estimated 1.5 billion TV audience. Following the games, it will retain an 18,000 permanent seated capacity, making it the largest facility of its kind in the UK. It will also provide a teaching base for Birmingham City University’s sports and exercise students. The university is already pushing new boundaries in its work in the areas of sports psychology, medicine and training—all work that has much wider potential benefits for the rest of the community.
As we have heard, it is not just Birmingham, because these are west midlands games. I want to acknowledge councils and organisations across the region, especially Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council, which will be hosting the swimming and diving events. Its new £73 million state-of-the-art venue will be a jewel in the crown of the west midlands long after the games are over.
We have heard today that there are concerns about funding and issues about the economics of the games, but the Birmingham business charter for social responsibility is an example of what we might achieve. It can mean jobs for local people—new jobs and apprenticeships, work experience opportunities, programmes to target disadvantaged residents, opportunities for local suppliers and businesses, school engagement, a community fund, and a commitment to create a carbon-neutral construction environment. These are all things we need if we are to make it a success.
This is our chance for the city of a thousand trades—a city where 46% of the population are under 30; a city which, at the last count, is host to 187 nationalities from the Commonwealth and around the world. This is our chance to make Kare Adenegan, Elise Glynn and Galal Yafai household names. This is our chance to make the games and their legacy an achievement that people will talk about and remember fondly for many years to come.
Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)
This is a debate of many firsts. It is the first I have sat in with my friend and neighbour the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Nicola Richards) and to which here we have both contributed, and it is probably the first in which three of the four Members from Sandwell Metropolitan Borough area have been on the Government Benches at the same time. It is also the first debate in which I have found myself agreeing with the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne). His speech hit most of the points. I do not agree with him on most things, but in fairness it was a very good speech, so I thank him for that.
It is not often that I come to a Third Reading debate so excitable—and no, it is not just because you are in the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker, or because I get to head back to Tipton soon. It is fantastic to talk about what is at the core of this debate: opportunity. That has been highlighted by all the speakers so far. Areas and communities such as mine are crying out for this opportunity to grow and invest.
My hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Nicola Richards) was right when she said that nearly 1.5 million people would be visiting the west midlands during the games. This is our time to shine. That point was echoed by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), who put it very eloquently. The influx of visitors to the west midlands will put it back on the map. Our Mayor, Andy Street, has been advocating at every level to ensure that the west midlands has its voice heard during the games.
The urban west midlands is made up of some of the most diverse and unique communities in the whole country. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East and other Members who represent the West Midlands Combined Authority area would agree that what works in one part of the west midlands, particularly in our borough of Sandwell, might not work in another—go half an hour down the road and suggest it and you will get some raised eyebrows. Indeed, what works in West Brom might not get looked at the same way in Tipton, but that is the joy of our area—that diversity, that coming forward with views, that straight talking is what makes me so proud to be a west midlands and black country MP.
Before I turn to my main comments, I want to make a more sober point about security. As we saw last week, our police are heroes; we cannot deny that. What they put up with last week was abhorrent. It was disgusting, and I want to put it on record that all police officers in this country are unsung heroes, and they deserve our praise and support.
We need to make sure that visitors to the games feel supported and safe and that they can come here without fear of crime. I have talked a lot in this Chamber about the effect that crime has had on my communities in west Sandwell, and nowhere more so than in Tipton, which is set to lose its police station this summer. I must reiterate my utter opposition to that move. It undermines the safety of our communities and, I am sorry, but when the police and crime commissioner can spend £38 million on his ivory tower at Lloyd House but cannot save the police station in one of my most vulnerable communities, that is absolutely out of order. It shows a complete lack of priorities from the administration there.
Mr Mitchell
Is my hon. Friend aware that the police and crime commissioner is also trying to close the police station in the royal town of Sutton Coldfield?
Shaun Bailey
I am indeed, and I am very aware of the campaign that my right hon. Friend has been running to keep the police station open in the royal town.
Security will be key and we need to make sure that people feel safe. I have every confidence that our west midlands police officers will do that. They are, in my view, the best police force in the world, and I am proud of the work that they have done across our community to support cohesion and diversity and to keep our communities safe. I put on record my thanks to them.
I turn to my main point, which is about long-term opportunity, and that comes in the form of long-term investment. Many Members have made points about the crisis we find ourselves in and the economic crisis that we will go into. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) said that we need about £3.2 billion of investment to deal with the jobs crisis. These Commonwealth games go some way towards doing that, but they are not a fix-all. However, their timing could not be better. We need to ensure that we have those long-term opportunities to battle the threat of long-term and increased unemployment, which will happen. My area and the communities that I represent —Wednesbury, Oldbury and Tipton—were absolutely decimated by unemployment last time. I do not want to see that happen again and I will be fighting to make sure that it does not.
The point about community is absolutely crucial. I am very proud to represent Tipton. Many Government and Opposition Members have heard me go on and on about the town. I love Tipton, mainly because it is an underdog. Many people often call Tipton the forgotten city and that makes me angry, because nowhere in this country should be forgotten, and why should Tipton? Why should the people of Tipton feel that they do not matter? People might think that it is a joke or that it is funny, but it is not, because those communities are crying out. When I stood in a school in Tipton and spoke to those students, I took a straw poll and said, “How many of you will come back here once you have done whatever qualification it is you decide to do?”, and 80% of those kids said that they will not come back. That is the reason why we need these games and the long-term investment and opportunities that come out of them. It is for those kids in that school, because they should feel proud of the town and community they come from, and they should feel that they will come back there and live their lives in that community.
The fact is that if we are going to enhance these opportunities, we need to ensure that we respect the fact that the urban west midlands in particular is a patchwork of individual socioeconomic areas. Yes, the games will be in Birmingham, but as many right hon. and hon. Members have said, we need to ensure that the benefits transfer across the urban west midlands, and I am proud of the fact that that will happen. As hon. Members have pointed out, we will have the aquatics centre in Smethwick, in the constituency of the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar), but if we think back to the long-term legacy, we need to look as well at encouraging innovation.
I have been really impressed by the engagement from the Commonwealth games team and the fact that it wants to secure local procurement and local jobs, but we need to tie that into ensuring that we get whatever residual investment comes out of that into Black Country innovation, because that is what makes the Black Country —things such as the Wood Green Academy in Wednesbury making personal protective equipment, and Q3 Academy in Tipton currently completely diversifying the way it teaches its students. It is about latching on to the core principle of ingenuity in the Black Country and that residual investment as it comes through over the years—not just in 2022, but in 2032 and 2042—and absolutely maximising it, so that Tipton is never forgotten again.
I will draw my remarks to a close, because I appreciate that I have been talking for some time and, as one of my predecessors said, sometimes it is better to be a bit quicker and leave them wanting more. We need to join this up; we need to ensure that the opportunity and investment that comes out of these games benefits the whole of west midlands, from Tipton to Tettenhall, from Perry Barr to Princes End, from Wolverhampton to Wednesbury and from Clitheroe to Burnt Tree—
Shaun Bailey
And Shropshire, of course, as my hon. Friend says. These games present a fantastic opportunity. It is not a sticking plaster to the problems we are going to face, and I do not think any right hon. or hon. Members would suggest that it is, but it is a start. If we seize these opportunities, we will succeed, in the way the west midlands does. I commend this Bill to the House.
Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)
It is tough to follow a barnstorming performance such as that, but it is a pleasure to speak in a debate that delivers something that voices from across the House can agree on: the desirability of delivering a successful Birmingham Commonwealth games. I must start with a personal comment, which is that I am delighted that women’s cricket is in the Commonwealth games for the first time. I had the honour and privilege of playing cricket with the icon and pioneer of women’s cricket Baroness Heyhoe Flint, who was a proud West Midlander—she was from Wolverhampton. So it is absolutely appropriate that these are the Commonwealth games at which cricket is introduced—it is wonderful.
This is wonderful opportunity to focus on the positive future after covid-19. The details of delivery are still to be finalised, but the agreement that hosting the games is a good thing is there. Let us not forget that for many potential hosts, including Durban, hosting the games has been seen as a bad financial option. As the finance of the games has been a key part of the debate about Birmingham 2022, we owe it to cities such as Durban, and others across the Commonwealth, to deliver a games with the very best of best-practice lessons to learn from. I am talking about a games that generate a legacy of economic benefits that are clear enough to make raising finance and leveraging partner and sponsor finance easier, and for a far wider, more diverse range of cities.
It used to be thought, particularly after the staggering success of the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, that hosting an international games event was a sure bet for making money, massively boosting the visitor economy and delivering long-term infrastructure assets. The sad truth is that hosting an international games is not a magic wand and that a great deal of work will have to go into delivering a legacy that gets the city of Birmingham and the wider country its money back and more. If we do not do that, we will simply be confirming to underdeveloped cities across the Commonwealth that the games are a rich city’s plaything, and that would be a tragedy. That is not to say that Birmingham is a city with money to burn, because of course it is not, so I see the attraction of considering a hotel tax, as the Opposition have suggested several times as this Bill has progressed. However, as I have said earlier, it is a superficial attraction that does not bear scrutiny.
I absolutely accept the belief that there is an intrinsic link between the games and tourism. The visitor economy needs to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of Birmingham 2022, not just for Birmingham and the west midlands authority area, but for the whole of the west midlands, from Hereford to Stoke-on-Trent, and all that is in between. The games should be about delivering a boost to our regional tourism economy, not an opportunity to impose an additional tax on it. Partners who stand to gain need to step up to the plate and actively ensure that success is delivered by the agencies charged with delivering it. They include VisitEngland and VisitBritain. Our national tourist agencies need to pull out all the stops to secure a legacy from the games across the midlands engine, and Stoke-on-Trent looks forward to working with them. Indeed, Stoke-on-Trent City Council wants me to put on record that it is extremely keen to get involved, to collaborate, to host, to work or to do whatever it takes with any of the games agencies in the interests of the entire west midlands region, but that involves reciprocation of interest from the relevant agencies in collaborating with Stoke-on-Trent. I would be interested to hear from the Minister what the great west midlands cities such as Stoke-on-Trent can expect in terms of engagement, tourism promotion and cultural and volunteering opportunities around the games.
To deliver a clear economic benefit, there needs to be promotion of how well connected Birmingham is to the wider west midlands, and how visitable the wider west midlands is and what its destinations and touristic experiences have to offer. The authentic Potteries, the world capital of ceramics, need a platform from the Birmingham games. They need an opportunity to sell themselves and to be sold by the tourism agencies as a must-see, must-visit experience, as a midlands city and as a cultural experience and investment opportunity like no other.
No Commonwealth games should be about money only. They should be about inspiring involvement in sports, culture, travel and coming together in something that is so much bigger than any one of us. However, if we try to pretend that it is not in any way about money, we will be condemning underdeveloped cities across the Commonwealth never to host the games. We need to prove that the games are worth the partnership funds they can leverage and the long-term socioeconomic legacy they can deliver. I support the Bill as a step towards getting that long-term benefit delivered.
Suzanne Webb (Stourbridge) (Con)
I am delighted to follow my hon. Friends, who are vocal champions for the west midlands, and particularly those Members who represent the Black Country. I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a councillor on Birmingham City Council. I should also like to draw the House’s attention to the fact that I believe I am one of the games’ most enthusiastic supporters, not just because I am a west midlands MP but because many years ago I competed at club level in the very stadium that is to be the focal point of the games. That is, of course, the Alexander Stadium. That club, the Royal Sutton Coldfield Athletics Club, was in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell). Running for that club, I of course had my sights set on greater achievements, but hindsight is always a good thing. In fact, I had to wait until 2012—some 30 years later—to first set foot in an Olympic stadium, and then it was only as a spectator. Members can imagine my anticipation for 2022, when I will see the stadium that I first ran in become a Commonwealth games stadium.
The Bill contains important measures that I very much welcome—namely, those that touch on financial propriety rules and the proposal that the committee should report annually on the delivery of the games. These measures will give assurance to the financial rigour of the investments, particularly when the Government, the Mayor and the West Midlands Combined Authority have been so generous and supportive on the financial side, but we cannot adequately assess an organisation’s financial rigour without also looking at the governance practices and its decision making. This is vital, as Birmingham City Council has its part to play in the planning, preparation and delivery of these games, and it does not have a good track record of governance or financial management. It is on its seventh chief executive in eight years, and it has had three successive section 24s issued in as many years. The power under section 24 of the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014 is used when auditors are concerned about a council’s financial sustainability.
I believe that, to make the games a success, we need to evaluate on an ongoing basis the structures and processes that involve decision making, essentially as a check to determine whether the information given to key stakeholders is reliable. We have the window of the world on these games and there should be a mechanism in place not just to challenge financial rigour but to challenge and scrutinise those who govern. In this instance, that is Birmingham City Council. An essential element of any corporate governance is to do just that, and these games are no different—indeed, the need is even greater as the investment is the hard-earned money of the taxpayer.
I would now like to touch on the fiscal legacy of the games. When the games were awarded, we knew nothing of covid-19 or that the games would play their part in a much-needed antidote to this vindictive and indiscriminate killer. The games will be vital to heal the economic scars that covid-19 has brought. We have a fantastic opportunity to capitalise on the international spotlight that the games will bring. When the games start and the visitors arrive, we will be showcasing a world class destination for trade, investment, education and tourism. The west midlands will benefit from £778 million of sport investment, the biggest since London 2012, which will include a brand new aquatic centre, a redeveloped athletics stadium and 1,400 new homes. What is not to love about these games?
I echo the sentiments of my hon. Friends and welcome with open arms the new Commonwealth jobs and skills academy, an initiative by the West Midlands Combined Authority and its partners, led magnificently by Andy Street. Some 41,000 games-time roles are set to be recruited. For businesses, there are £300 million-worth of contracts to be procured and, of course, impressive feats of engineering to make the city of Birmingham ready. My one wish is to urge the organising committee to procure local, invest local and recruit local, and to showcase all that is great about this region.
This is my shameless plug for my constituency of Stourbridge. I have some fantastic microbreweries—the Printworks brewery at the Windsor Castle Inn and Craddock’s Brewery, to name but two. It would be fitting to see local beers showcased at the games as part of the hospitality. Some suggestions for beer names are “Stourbridge Sue”, “Bostin”—look it up—and “2022”. And we should not forget the awesome pies for which the Black Country is famed, perhaps served on ceramics from the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon).
The games will be a celebration. I will not be donning a pair of running shorts again, but I can assure the Government, the organising committee, the fantastic west midlands Mayor, Andy Street, and all my constituents that I will be a strong and leading voice for the games. I very much welcome the Bill with the gusto it deserves.
Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)
It gives me great pleasure to follow my Dudley borough and Black Country colleagues. I thank the Minister and his team for their efforts to bring the Bill to this stage, and all Members on both sides of the House who have contributed.
Birmingham 2022 represents a fantastic opportunity to showcase the wonderfully diverse offer of Birmingham and the wider west midlands region. The inward investment of some £778 million is also a significant economic opportunity for the region. Birmingham is so often described as the beating heart of the west midlands. I think many people will understand that characterisation, and some possibly even accept it. However, I would not be doing my job if I did not point out that a heart can only function if its arteries are working. Dudley, Walsall, Sandwell and Wolverhampton must be integral to the functionality of that heart.
Places such as Dudley and my neighbours in the Black Country have suffered disproportionately from an industrial legacy and the effects of globalisation, with so many jobs offshored to China and other places. There are swathes of people who have quite simply been forgotten about over the past few decades. It is key that the games are used as a meaningful tool in a measurable way to level up, especially as we enter a post-covid-19 economic environment. We cannot allow the people of the Black Country to be forgotten any longer. The games provide an incredible opportunity to add an additional 41,000 jobs. My aspiration is that as many of those jobs as possible come to Dudley and the Black Country. That is what drives me in politics. We can stand here in this Chamber and offer platitudes and words of hope, but we have a chance to change lives and the benefits can be very real if we deliver.
The Black Country needs help, and it needed help before the onslaught of covid-19. I note with interest that Birmingham 2022 has established a legacy and benefits committee, and I very much look forward to having sight of a detailed legacy plan, which I hope will identify exactly how and by how much the whole region will benefit from this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
The games cannot solve the complex generational problems I have spoken about, but it can provide a stepping stone for change, hope and recovery if opportunities are intelligently targeted to the right people. The Bill has my wholehearted support because, through the financial assistance to the organising committee, it enables the delivery of a great games—a games that could leave a transformational legacy for the rest of the region.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, with amendments.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
We will now have a three-minute suspension of the House in order to allow Members to safely leave and others to safely come into the Chamber.
Zoos, Aquariums and Wildlife Sanctuaries: Reopening
(4 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)
It is with great pride that I rise today to speak up for all those magnificent institutions, organisations and charities throughout the United Kingdom who work tirelessly in the cause of conservation, education and research, the protection of endangered species, and animal welfare. Indeed, our great British zoos, aquariums and wildlife sanctuaries demonstrate the very best our nation has to offer to the world in looking after the amazing creatures of land, sea and air with whom we are so privileged to share this planet.
However, I do so with great sadness and fear—fear of what may be to come as our zoos, aquariums and wildlife sanctuaries now face some of the most challenging times they have ever had to deal with. That is why I call upon all Members of this House, and especially the Prime Minister and Her Majesty’s Government, to take action this day to ensure that these magnificent institutions so dedicated to the survival and welfare of the animal kingdom do not face extinction themselves.
As chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on zoos and aquariums, may I thank the Minister and the Government for the excellent co-operation they have shown in liaising with so many of our animal welfare organisations in recent weeks? The Prime Minister, as we all know, is someone who supports with gusto the fantastic conservation, education and research work being undertaken by zoos and aquariums across the country. It is with great pleasure that I invite the Minister here today, along with the Prime Minister, to visit London zoo with me, as soon as it is possible to do so, to see at first hand our British conservation sector at work here in the United Kingdom, and to learn about all their tremendous achievements in protecting endangered species across the globe. I am proud to support a Government who hold animal welfare in the highest regard, along with the conservation of the natural world.
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
I know my hon. Friend is aware, having just mentioned London, of the very great importance in the scheme of things of Twycross zoo, which is very well run by its chairman and chief executive but is facing significant problems of financing at the moment. What advice does he have for the Government on how an institution like Twycross could be helped?
Andrew Rosindell
I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. I have visited Twycross zoo. It is an excellent zoo. I have met the chairman and chief executive, Geoff Hoon, a former Member of this House, on many occasions. It is an example of a great zoo that is in desperate need of additional support at this time. I hope the Minister will address that very point when she speaks at the end of this debate.
With British families looking for a safe day out from their homes, as they can now do, when we face a mass-extinction crisis that we have never seen before in our history, when the fate of our natural heritage is reliant on the work of zoos, safari parks, aquariums and wildlife sanctuaries, and when the Government have rightly committed to improving the natural environment and supporting conservation, we must not fail to arm and equip this country’s arsenal of conservationists.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I thank my great friend for allowing me to intervene. I do so because my hon. Friend, our colleague, puts a heck of a lot of effort into conservation of species. For example, he raised one hell of a lot of money to look after blue iguanas in the Cayman Islands. I know because I went there with him and they had increased from 20 and 200, largely thanks to my hon. Friend.
Andrew Rosindell
My hon. Friend is too generous. The blue iguana was on the brink of extinction in the Cayman Islands, which is a British overseas territory. I am pleased to say that that risk of extinction has now passed, with the support of many hon. Members. I pay tribute to the Government of the Cayman Islands for their work in ensuring that the wonderful blue iguana species continues to survive and thrive there.
We must support our zoos to carry on their incredible work, which is so admired around the world and supported so strongly by the British people. We are a nation of animal lovers.
Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)
I am glad that, wonderfully, our zoos and safari parks can open again on Monday, but we must also think of our animal welfare charities and sanctuaries. They also need enormous support. Many—80%—are in the open air and they should be included in the opening, but they also need to be looked after financially because many are suffering, and the welfare of our animals in those sanctuaries that do such good work must be considered too.
Andrew Rosindell
I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. He is absolutely correct. The Government have allowed zoos and safari parks to open, but they are just the tip of the iceberg. Huge numbers of animal charities and organisations that care for animals all year round need the opportunity to open up, with social distancing, because they are in desperate straits. This is not just about zoos; it is about all animal welfare institutions across the country. Many Members have them in their constituencies and they all need guidance as soon as possible so that they can open and get back to normal.
Edward Timpson (Eddisbury) (Con)
Despite the fantastic news for zoos, particularly Chester zoo, does my hon. Friend share my concern that there is a risk that the narrow drafting of the regulations on reopening means that the likes of Cotebrook Shire Horse Centre in my constituency will be forced to remain closed for what are, I have to say, spurious reasons: it is not a business whose main activity is keeping for exhibition animals not normally domesticated in England? If those horses were from Ireland, I suspect it would be all right, but the centre faces potential financial ruin. It can open the retail shop on Monday, but has to keep its open fields closed.
Andrew Rosindell
My hon. Friend makes exactly the point that I will make later and that many Members feel strongly about. The matter needs to be resolved for organisations such as the shire horse centre in my hon. Friend’s constituency. They need clear guidance. It is not acceptable that there has been permission only for safari parks and zoos to open, when other organisations are perfectly able to do that and are in dire financial straits at this time. They need the Government to be much faster in their reactions to allow things to reopen as soon as possible.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. I join him in welcoming the Government’s decision to allow zoos and aquariums to reopen on Monday. Does he agree that, on the wider issue of regulations, we are now in the most terrible muddle? The Office for National Statistics dip-test survey of the population that was announced at the weekend mercifully revealed that only one in 1,000 people now has covid-19. That is massively to be welcomed, but in that case, should not we start lifting restrictions much more widely to allow other types of business to reopen to get the country back to work while there is still an economy left that is worth saving?
Andrew Rosindell
We probably cannot extend the debate to other types of business—I am sure you would stop us doing so, Mr Deputy Speaker. However, I sympathise strongly with my fellow Essex MP. We need to get Britain working again; we have been through a terrible trauma, but we now need to get our economy back on its feet. I am delighted that zoos and safari parks are allowed to get back to working again and to open their doors, but we need to widen things further and as fast as possible.
Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way—he is being exceptionally generous with his time. Like him, I welcome the fact that zoos are reopening, and Cotswold Wildlife Park and Gardens in my constituency will also be glad to hear that. However, I also have Crocodiles of the World, which is the UK’s only crocodile zoo and which does essential conservation work. It will probably also be able to put in place social distancing. Should we not also look to see how we can help institutions such as that?
Andrew Rosindell
My hon. Friend is completely right. I did not know that he had Crocodiles of the World in his constituency. That is certainly one animal organisation I would love to visit. I have been to Crocodylus Park in Australia, but I did not know that Witney had such a great collection of crocodiles. However, I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. All these organisations are lacking guidance; they need clear leadership from the Government. All of them need the opportunity to open as fast as possible; otherwise, they will go bankrupt, and we will see animals euthanised. It would be a tragedy if that started to happen.
Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. I, too, welcome the news that zoos and wildlife parks are allowed to open from Monday. One of the most popular attractions in my constituency is Shepreth Wildlife Park, which is popular with not just my family but families across my constituency—so much so that when it had to close because of the coronavirus crisis, it was largely kept going by regular visitors coming in and giving donations of money. It really has been touch and go, but the park will survive, and I am committed to making sure it does. Zoos can reopen from Monday—they cannot completely reopen, because bits such as the aquariums and the insect facilities cannot reopen—but it does not end there. My question to my hon. Friend and the Minister is, will the Government commit to giving support to zoos in the future to ensure that they are not so indebted that they cannot carry on?
Andrew Rosindell
I am sure the Minister will respond to that point at the end of the debate. Suffice it to say that I agree with everything my hon. Friend has said. There needs to be a much more widespread reopening of all these animal institutions. It is not fair to single out some but leave others. Some of them are in desperate straits, and the Government need to act as soon as possible.
This is a precarious time, but thanks to the timely work of the Government, and the tireless dedication of the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums, some zoos and safari parks, as has been mentioned, are now able to reopen from 15 June—and not before time. As members of BIAZA, our zoos and aquariums are world-leading in the care, conservation and research they carry out with their animals. They would normally be inspiring over 35 million visitors a year. That is clearly not going to happen this year, but now our zoos and aquariums will at last be allowed to welcome some people through their doors to inspire them with the wonders of the natural world, while supporting the protection and advancement of nature that we are all so passionate about it in this House.
Mr Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con)
I commend my hon. Friend for this debate. Seeing so many Members in the House during an Adjournment debate is a reflection of the importance of this issue. My hon. Friend correctly pointed out that the number of visitors to zoos and aquariums is markedly lower than normal, but a lot of us have spent a lot more time during this global pandemic reaching out to nature. However, our children and schoolchildren are not yet able to benefit from going to zoos and aquariums. If anything, that makes it even more urgent for these establishments to be reopened.
Andrew Rosindell
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Many children will not be returning to school, so this would be an ideal time to allow them and their parents to visit zoos and animal welfare organisations, given the educational benefits involved. That is another good reason why the Minister needs to hurry up and allow all these organisations to open as quickly as possible.
The limited reopening on 15 June will mean that visitors can once more hear the roar of the lions at Longleat, be inspired by the monkeys at Banham zoo and—my personal favourite—look up upon the astonishing beauty of the giraffes at such places as Twycross zoo, which was mentioned earlier. Of course, Twycross is one of Britain’s leading zoos, doing magnificent work, and is well represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans). He cannot be present, but I pay tribute to him. He has been a great champion in working with me to highlight the plight faced by theó zoo community.
In 2019, BIAZA members contributed more than £31 million directly to conservation, supported field conservation projects in 105 different countries around the world and protected many native species that would otherwise be on the precipice of extinction, including our own Scottish wildcat and pine hoverflies. I pay tribute to Edinburgh zoo, which I visited two years ago. The new director, David Field, used to be the director of London zoo. I pay tribute to the work that Edinburgh zoo is doing, particularly with the pandas. I do not know whether any Members have had the chance, but I recommend a visit to Edinburgh zoo to see the wonderful pandas. That is one import from China that we do not mind, isn’t it, Mr Deputy Speaker?
Zoos, aquariums and all animal welfare organisations will be essential if our Government are to meet their international obligations towards biodiversity, including the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, as well as the commitments that they made to the British people during the election in the 25-year environment plan. I am sure the Minister will refer to those in her closing remarks.
The reopening is something to be truly celebrated. However, we are not out of the woods by a long way. Many zoos, aquariums and tropical houses are still unable to open, as has been mentioned already. Being predominantly indoors, I freely accept that there is a higher risk from visiting those places, although I know that the Government have been listening to the sector very closely and so will understand that there is a pathway forward for those places that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.
The species survival commission of the world’s leading authority in conservation, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, recognises the burden to zoos and aquariums resulting from covid-19 closures. It is urging local and national authorities in the UK and devolved Administrations to reach out and prioritise those facilities for reopening and financial relief.
Jersey zoo is a splendid example of a British zoo that is not under the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom, being within a Crown dependency. This zoo does not have to obey UK Government guidelines, as Jersey has its own laws, and it has been a great example of a zoo that has opened much earlier than ours, and done so safely and with much success. Is it not wonderful that one of our Crown dependencies is leading the way? Perhaps we should follow that example.
In its letter to the Prime Minister, the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria highlights the fact that 25% of its European endangered species breeding programmes are managed by UK zoos and aquariums. It is therefore vital that, as one of the leaders in the field, we ensure that things are moved forward much faster than at present. Such facilities include Hull’s fantastic The Deep aquarium, a linchpin of the local tourism economy, the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth, London’s own Sea Life aquarium and Somerset’s Tropiquaria zoo. Without visitors, their incomes have dropped to zero. That is despite the exceptionally high costs of continuing to provide excellent welfare to some of the world’s most endangered species.
As a closed building with staff furloughed, The Deep—one of the UK’s best aquariums—still has operating costs of £200,000 a month, and lockdown is expected to set back its business by £2.5 million by the end of this year. Sea Life London Aquarium has vet bills, utility bills, food bills and wages to pay, adding up to £100,000 per month to operate over the River Thames, just a few yards from this House. The National Marine Aquarium—the largest aquarium in the UK—which cares for creatures as diverse as barracudas, sharks and sea turtles, says that it costs £10,000 a day to run. The National Marine Aquarium and others need help now. They need help as soon as possible, Minister, or the real fear is that they will be lost.
All these organisations maintain very high standards of animal welfare and conduct vital conservation work. At the aquariums, the costly life-support systems are constantly running, and the operating costs are depleting any financial reserves that they had. Wildlife sanctuaries up and down the country are also caring for thousands of neglected animals. They need clarity and support, as organisations dedicated to animal conservation.
I am proud to be a member of the Wellgate Community Farm, which is located on the boundary of my constituency, in Collier Row, and promotes the care of farm animals in Romford and the surrounding area. I am also honoured to serve as a patron of the Remus Memorial Horse Sanctuary in Essex, which cares for many abandoned horses and farm animals. Those types of organisation need to be allowed to reopen too, and I hope that the Minister will feel able to clarify that point in her remarks.
Reopening is welcome, but it does not fully address the problem that our zoos, aquariums and wildlife sanctuaries are facing. Lockdown has left zoos, safari parks and aquariums reeling from its financial impact. Normally, these institutions receive 80% of their visitor income between the spring and the end of the summer—so we are right in the middle of the season—and they have lost a considerable proportion of that, putting their future in a deeply precarious position. The chief executive of the Yorkshire Wildlife Park recently revealed that lockdown had led to a £5 million loss in revenue for it. Chester zoo has announced that it will likely see a staggering £24 million of debt by the end of the year. The hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) will hopefully say a few words later, and I thank him for all his support as a vice-chairman of the all-party group for zoos and aquariums. We work so well together because we are passionate about this issue, as I know so many Members are.
While safety restrictions limiting the numbers of visitors are required to maintain public safety, for some zoos that further reduces their ability to recuperate from the financial blow of lockdown. Normally, Chester Zoo would be receiving 20,000 visitors through its gates per day at its peak, whereas it is now reopening with restricted entry to only 3,000 visitors.
Already, these organisations have undergone drastic changes in a bid to survive. The Zoological Society of East Anglia, a charity that looks after Banham Zoo and Africa Alive!, is undergoing enormous restructuring, which has included job cuts, as the pandemic has left it with a £1.5 million deficit. Weather conditions in the preceding winter have further rocked the financial starting point. It is fair to say that, in many ways, these fantastic conservation organisations now face back-to-back winters, with not much of a break in between.
I am grateful to the Government for the support they have offered thus far, such as the zoos support fund and the guidance on job retention. But I have to tell the Minister that, while I appreciate it, that support just will not be sufficient—a lot more needs to be done.The time is right for the Government to introduce new, expansive and comprehensive financial aid for the sector, which can then continue its fight for the nature that we all cherish and must not take for granted.
Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Does he share my concern that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs turned down the zoo-fund application by the Isle of Wight zoo in Sandown because it had more than six weeks of operating income? The qualifying period was far too short and has left many zoos under extreme financial pressure.
Andrew Rosindell
My hon. Friend makes an extremely valid point. There are a lot of anomalies in the whole system: some zoos seem to be getting support while others are not, for various reasons, technical or whatever. The reality is that some of these organisations will close permanently if the Government do not rethink the extra support that they need at this time. I thank my hon. Friend for that extremely valid point. I had a great time when I visited the Isle of Wight, including the donkey sanctuary there; I know that my hon. Friend wants me to visit the sanctuary again, which I would be pleased to do.
BIAZA has helpfully suggested a number of ways that the Government could support this essential sector. I know the Minister will carefully consider the proposals, and I am sure she would be willing to meet me and BIAZA to discuss them in greater detail as soon as possible. Grant-based solutions will be the most effective for the sector, but there are a number of other suggestions, too. First, loans with longer repayment periods and more favourable terms would be welcomed, as the repayment plans for coronavirus business interruption loans and other loans are currently unachievable at a time when zoos and aquariums cannot predict how many visitors they will be able to welcome over the coming months.
Secondly, flexibility in the furlough scheme would also allow zoos and aquariums to adapt the scheme to their needs. As it stands, 60% of staff are estimated to have been furloughed across BIAZA zoos and aquariums. That is significantly less than other sectors, as keeping staff are essential to the maintenance of high standards of animal welfare. I can understand the Chancellor’s reticence in not allowing furloughed staff to volunteer their time, but given that we cannot put a lion on furlough, and therefore neither can we furlough its keeper, I wonder if an exception might be made for those hard-working keepers to support critical animal welfare at this time. Why can they not come back as volunteers to help in the zoos and care for the animals that they are used to? The animals are familiar with their keepers. To say that they are furloughed and therefore banned from entering the zoo, even as volunteers, is absolutely wrong. The policy has been wrong right the way through and needs to be changed as a matter of urgency.
Charities are liable to pay 20% of the business rates chargeable, and local authorities have the ability to waive those rates. I ask that across the nation we see that discretion removed and charities given the lifeline of having the charges waved at this time of crisis. The system enabling the deferment of VAT has to be welcomed; however, zoos and aquariums are unlikely to be able to make the deferred payments on the current timetable. Extending the timetable would be most welcomed by conservation organisations. Allowing zoos and aquariums to claim gift aid on 2019 visitor levels would provide a substantial boost to the financial viability of the charities and trusts that run zoos, aquariums and wildlife sanctuaries. There are more suggestions and I could go on for a lot longer, but I know the Minister will explore them all in depth, and I hope we will come back to the matter very soon.
Thanks to the Government’s decisive action and the fortitude of the great British people, we are today meeting the challenges of coronavirus. That means that we can carefully open garden centres, markets and gardens, and, now, some of our essential wildlife organisations. Zoos throughout the country have followed the most up-to-date guidance and shared best practice between themselves. I implore Members of this House to support their local zoos at this time and arrange a visit as soon as they can to see for themselves the amazing work happening, which deserves our enthusiastic support.
I am pleased to be able to extend BIAZA’s invitation not only to the Minister but to the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister to visit one of its member zoos to see for themselves the transformative adaptions of these places to fight against coronavirus and the amazing conservation work they do, and to witness how visitors can enjoy acres of open outdoors without putting themselves or their loved ones at risk. I am sure you will be pleased to hear, Mr Deputy Speaker, that when visiting these zoos, different households will be maintaining a social distance of the length of roughly one average zebra, or the wingspan of a golden eagle, or two thirds of a common hippopotamus from one another. It is possible to visit, and I hope that Members will take that opportunity.
The Government have taken steps to address what was quickly becoming an emergency in our animal sanctuaries, but this is not the end of the story. Financial support must be forthcoming for all zoos and aquariums, because whether they care for big cats or coral reefs, whether they are a sanctuary for native wildlife or reintroducing endangered species, they are still in trouble, and they need our help. We must not let coronavirus make the United Kingdom’s proud record on conservation become endangered itself.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
May I start by thanking the hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) for allowing me to speak in the debate? I pay tribute to his outstanding opening contribution, which set the tone. I go beyond that and thank and congratulate him on the leadership he has consistently shown on this issue over many years. It is inclusive leadership, which takes in the detail of the case so very often. As we saw from his contribution, the work that he does is detailed and well informed, which makes it so much easier for the rest of us, because he does the hard miles. He is a fantastic leader of the all-party parliamentary group on zoos and aquariums, and I for one am extremely grateful to him.
Growing up in Cheshire, a visit to the zoo, whether with my family or with the school, was always a highlight. A visit with my family to Chester zoo, which lies within my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), is always a great highlight, as it is for so many other families around my neck of the woods.
It has been a difficult couple of weeks for the zoo, for the reasons that my friend, the hon. Member for Romford, talked about. It ran a high-profile public campaign, which I must inform the House it did not want to run. For a couple of weeks beforehand, it was briefing me and other interested parties on the difficulty of the situation, for all the reasons outlined by the hon. Gentleman: its responsibilities to maintain animal welfare; its responsibilities to maintain the scientific basis for which it is renowned; and its inability to do so because money was, quite frankly, running out. It made the very difficult decision to go public just over a week ago, when the Government made it clear that zoos were not allowed to reopen.
If I have a criticism of the Government at that point, it is that no reason was given for why zoos could not reopen. We know, for example, that IKEA was allowed to reopen, and I am pleased for it. We know that Kew Gardens was allowed to reopen, and it is a beautiful place to visit. Chester zoo lies in 128 acres of parkland and gardens. The inconsistency was not easy to understand.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the leadership he has shown in the campaign and the excellent result we have got. Obviously, there are further things we need to do to secure the future of all the zoos in the country, but it is a good start. On the point of consistency, part of the zoo is in my constituency, as he has rightly pointed out, but also in my constituency is the Blue Planet aquarium. Unfortunately, as we have heard, it is not going to be able to reopen. Can he understand the confusion we have, where Cheshire Oaks, which has hundreds of shops with confined spaces, is basically next door to the aquarium and is able to reopen next week, but the Blue Planet aquarium will not?
Christian Matheson
My hon. Friend gives the perfect illustration of the confusion that the organisations feel and that members of the public will feel. I say to Ministers, to the Government and to Government Members who are speaking to Ministers that they should try to treat the public with a bit of respect. If there is a reason for the closures, they should explain it to us. They should tell us why some things can open and others cannot, but should not be inconsistent or illogical, for the very reason that my hon. Friend has talked about.
Chester zoo is a huge expanse of parkland and gardens. It is not like some small private animal collection somewhere. It is a big outdoor event, and it is not opening any of its indoor attractions. My personal favourite, the bat house, as well as the camel house and the chimpanzee viewing area—all will be closed. Only the outdoor viewing areas will be open. The zoo has put in place very careful visitor management procedures regulating the flows within the zoo, but limiting, as my good friend the hon. Member for Romford talked about, the number of visitors outside the zoo, including by managing the car parks correctly, so that all visitors will be covid-safe.
Those procedures have been given the seal of approval by safety officers from the local authority, so Chester zoo is akin to so many others in the work that it has done to ensure that it is safe for visitors. The Government, I hope, will take that into account when they are considering further regulations or the relaxation of further regulations right across the patch.
Bob Stewart
I rise as someone who has contributed to Chester zoo—two Barbary apes, Iggy and Flossie. They were married. Well, she was a rather reluctant bride, but they were married. We, the Cheshire Regiment, sent them all the way back from the middle east to Chester zoo. I do not suppose they will still be alive, but there was a little plaque there that stated, “Iggy and Flossie: a gift of the Cheshire Regiment.” The hon. Gentleman knows the story. I say no more.
Christian Matheson
Ah, yes, the story of Iggy and Flossie from the hon. and gallant Member for Beckenham and the contribution of the Cheshire Regiment, as was then. His reputation is very sound in Chester, and it is well known in this House. Mr Deputy Speaker, would the House mind if I did not recount the story of Iggy and Flossie? It is perhaps best left for the bar when it reopens, knowing him, as we all do.
The work of the zoo is not simply as a visitor attraction. The hon. Member for Romford has talked about that. Chester zoo was founded by George Mottershead as a zoo without bars, but it has become a world conservation centre. In particular, I am always proud to talk about the work that it is doing on sustainable palm oil. Chester zoo is itself leading on the campaign to take palm oil produced in mass plantations in south-east Asia out of the food production chain and the consumer products production chain, and instead to use palm oil produced in plantations that do not completely destroy the rainforest in those areas, thereby conserving the habitats of many magnificent creatures, such as orangutans.
Let us be clear: as soon as budgets start to dwindle—the hon. Member for Romford is right that Chester zoo is losing hundreds of thousands of pounds every month and will make a loss this year—those conservation programmes are the first to go. The work that is being led in the United Kingdom and is being undertaken to maintain habitats across the world will therefore be very badly damaged. It is absolutely essential, therefore, that zoos are able to continue to bring in the income, which is providing not just jobs and tourism revenue, but a real difference across the world in terms of ecology.
In paying tribute to the work of the zoo, I have to say that the zoo’s management team has been absolutely outstanding in ensuring that the zoo is ready to open, and that the public will be protected, and I thank it for that.
Christian Matheson
I was just about to turn to my hon. Friend and next door neighbour, so I will give way.
Justin Madders
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. One of the most important aspects of the zoo’s work is with the schools in my constituency, which is, no doubt, the case in his constituency. Does he agree that that kind of important ecological work needs to carry on, and that, given the difficulty we have with schools going back, we need to make sure that that work is given some extra focus in the months ahead?
Christian Matheson
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I visited Chester zoo many times as a child, as I am sure he and other hon. Members did. That link with the natural world ties in with our responsibilities as a human race not to destroy the planet, but to leave it in a better condition than we found it in. That can be done in practical ways, as I have talked about with palm oil and as the hon. Member for Romford has also mentioned. Talking to our youngsters and giving them an appreciation of the wider world is important. Of course, it is about the animals, but it is also about the biodiversity and the habitats in which the animals live.
I want to thank the public for their massive support for Chester Zoo. I had so many hon. Members asking me, “What’s happening with the zoo?” That was because they had received so many emails. In one of numerous conversations that I have had with the zoo management last week, they said, “Chris, we are going to set up an email campaign so that people can email their MPs to tell them that they want to keep the zoo open.” I thanked them very much, but I did not mean it. Hon. Members from right across the House have been touched by this campaign. I will not be begrudging with the Minister at this stage. The hon. Member for Romford was right on that. I am pleased that the decision was reversed. Much more needs to be done, but I am grateful that Ministers did listen finally and took the decision. I thank the public for their support for Chester zoo and their support for the work that Chester zoo has undertaken and will continue to undertake, and I commend the hon. Gentleman for his leadership, which does have an effect in the United Kingdom and right across the globe.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
As hon. Members can see, there is quite a bit of interest in this debate, so please be mindful of that when you are making contributions, particularly of the length of the contribution.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
I congratulate both my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) and the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) on their fantastic speeches. It is a testament to how important this issue is that the Chamber is this full on a Thursday afternoon.
When people ask me where I am the Member of Parliament for, I normally say Whipsnade zoo, because it is by far the best known part of my constituency. It occupies 600 stunningly beautiful acres of the south Bedfordshire countryside and it is a part of the Zoological Society of London, which is joined with Whipsnade zoo, so London zoo and Whipsnade zoo are both part ZSL, the same organisation.
I wish to start with a big thank you to the Minister. I have said on a number of occasions that her Department, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has been—if I can put it this way—on the side of the angels in this debate. It has been standing up for zoos and doing the right thing, so I would like to pass on my thanks to her and the Department for what they have done. Monday will be a great day. At 10 o’clock on Monday morning, Whipsnade zoo will open. There is a morning session and an afternoon session. I urge people to please go on the website and book. If they are going in the morning, they should go early so that they can make the most of it—they should not turn up in the late morning as they will not get full enjoyment from the experience. They should go on the website and book because normally in the Easter and May bank holiday periods Whipsnade will take in just under £8 million of income, so that is £8 million of income that it has lost. It costs the zoo £2.3 million a month to run London and Whipsnade zoos and do all the vital global conservation research work. They are in a £25 million black hole.
As the hon. Member for City of Chester said absolutely rightly, it is the vital conservation work that will be first to go. Of course London and Whipsnade zoos will put the animals—their 20,000 animals—first, as they should, but no one here wants to see that vital conservation work go, because it is so important. The ZSL research provides the Living Planet Index, which tells us of our indescribably awful biodiversity loss. Members will know from the United Nations report last year that 1 million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction, many of those within decades. Since the 16th century, we have already lost 680 vertebrate species, and I do not want us to lose any more on our watch. It is too important: we must stick up for nature and the glorious animal kingdom.
Whipsnade does so much. It has reintroduced tigers to Nepal, Kenya and Indonesia, and rhinos to Nepal and Kenya. It has helped restore coral reefs in the Philippines, and it has helped get angel sharks back off the coast of Wales and even seals and eels in the Thames right next to this building. And these zoos mean so much. I spoke to a lady in my constituency last week who has given all her holiday money to the zoo; it meant that much to her. People really do care about this in this country.
However, the costs are huge and ongoing, and the income has been eliminated. That is why I say to the Minister that the first part—the reopening—is excellent and fantastic, and thank you so much, but we need a multimillion pound package so that we do not lose the vital global conservation work. The research by Whipsnade led to the Dasgupta review, which played quite a significant part in helping to bring COP26 to the United Kingdom.
Not to put too fine a point on it, it is a little irritating to Whipsnade and London zoos that they see institutions such as Kew and the Natural History Museum regularly getting significant amounts of Government money, whereas I do not think any of the zoos we have talked about today are in receipt of Government funding. These are institutions that are normally financially self-sustainable and do not come cap in hand to the Government, but they have had their income taken away and their costs have continued. That is why I have one more request, please Minister, for one more final shove: let us get this multimillion-pound package to help all our zoos survive and not lose that vital conservation work.
Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)
My hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) gets a result before he has even opened his mouth. That is certainly an example to other parliamentarians of how to do things, and I pay tribute to him for his great work in this field.
Just like my hon. Friend, I am an animal lover. In fact, we have been all over the world, and hon. Members can be reassured that whenever I travel with him there is always a visit to a zoo. We have been to Shanghai zoo to see the pandas and to Madagascar to see the lemurs, and all over the world we have seen these marvellous animals. Before I forget, my hon. Friend mentioned Edinburgh zoo and the pandas there—I have been there—and I think we should get our money back. These two pandas were leased from China on the basis that there would be the pitter-patter of tiny feet, and for a long while now the Scottish people have waited for something to happen but it is not happening. However, as my hon. Friend said, it is good that China is at least prepared to lease these animals.
My long-suffering mother had a small child who was animal mad. Every time I wanted to be taken out I wanted to go to a zoo, so we went to a zoo. I wanted to ride on an animal, and there I would be in the queue with the ice-cream—a 99—melting as we eventually got to the animal at the front. In those days, of course, we could ride on practically anything, although I do not think I ever rode on a lion or a tiger. However, I did see Guy the Gorilla.
My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) spoke about Whipsnade, which is an absolutely fantastic place, and I love the giraffes there. Zoos are very controversial, but I will not have a word said against them.
Miss Sarah Dines (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)
Can my hon. Friend update me on the fate of Basildon zoo, a gem of my childhood? It was in a disadvantaged area, and we needed a zoo; it gave me a chance to go somewhere, and we did not have to pay a lot of money to get there. What is the fate of Basildon zoo?
Sir David Amess
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I think she was a small child at the time and lived around the corner from the zoo. When I was the Member for Basildon zoo, the zoo gave a great deal of pleasure to people and the animals were well looked after, but of course there was a campaign to close the zoo, and sadly it no longer exists.
In this modern day and age, in the zoos I have seen the keepers love the animals, which are very well looked after. We do not keep polar bears in zoos, and the big cats are not pacing up and down anymore, so I think, by and large that our animals in zoos are well looked after, alongside those in safari parks.
I am going to say something that will upset—
Bob Stewart
It certainly will upset me.
I am grateful for the opportunity to intervene on my good friend the Member for Southend zoo. I think zoos have a hugely important task in saving animals, and I speak from personal experience. I found a European brown bear in a cage in no-man’s land. It had existed there with nothing for three weeks. My soldiers and I lifted the bear up—it was called MacKenzie and it was big, 7 feet—took it away and managed to get it into Amsterdam zoo, where it had a glorious rest of life, rather than being stuck in a cage in the middle of Bosnia with no food and no water. Zoos do a great job in preserving bears like MacKenzie.
Sir David Amess
My hon. Friend has a big heart, and has just very much proved that by what he has said; that was a wonderful thing to do.
I am going to say something slightly controversial, however: I am not a fan of safaris. In fact, I wish safaris were not advertised as much as they are now, because, frankly, on a number of these safari expeditions the animals which just happen to appear are not kept terribly well.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
The hon. Gentleman mentions safaris. One of the things that strikes me about our zoos and wildlife parks in this country is that they afford the opportunity for families and children to become acquainted with animals, many of them endangered species, or the pandas that I have in the zoo in Edinburgh West—not just in my constituency but almost well within earshot of the lions. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that our zoos are a wonderful educational facility for people who will perhaps never have the opportunity to visit South Africa, or any other part of Africa, and take part in a safari?
Sir David Amess
I absolutely do agree with the hon. Lady, and I must say I think the Isle of Wight zoo is also a superb—I have visited it a number of times.
I am very keen on safari parks. I have been on a number of safaris: we get in all the gear, get in a boneshaker of a vehicle, get bitten by mosquitoes, and then we are told we are going to see all the wild animals, but half the time we cannot see them, but then I do not particularly want to see lions eating other animals.
To get back to zoos, a number of them have rescued animals from circuses. Those animals live a lot longer than they otherwise would, and are very well cared for indeed.
I want to say something to my parliamentary colleagues on this side of the House. This is the best attended Adjournment debate on an animal welfare measure since my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight) had an Adjournment debate about 30 years ago, when the now noble Lord Waldegrave responded, about the little monkeys we used to see sitting on top of pianos and so forth. It is wonderful that so many colleagues on the Government side have become so enthusiastic about animal welfare again.
I want to praise Lorraine Platt, the founder of the Conservative animal welfare group. Given that I have been here a little while, I have observed my party on an interesting journey in animal welfare. I do not wish to upset some of my colleagues, but let me say that we are not going to bring back foxhunting, we are not going to have badger-baiting again and we are not going to be snaring animals. I am proud that my party’s record on animal welfare is first-class, and I congratulate the Minister on that.
I very much agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Romford that this announcement is extremely good. I do not want to be churlish about it, but I just wish to point out the situation of the Sea Life Adventure aquarium in Southend; my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) has left now, but he is right to say that this is another reason why Southend should become a city. We will have a city status contest and it will be to coincide with the Duke of Edinburgh’s 100th birthday next year. The following year, Her Majesty will have been on the Throne for 75 years. This city contest will happen and Southend will become a city. This wonderful aquarium in Southend, which my hon. Friend the Member for Romford has been to, has celebrated its 27th year. It closed on 23 March and is in need of financial support to care for its 2,000 animals. They need a high level of maintenance; the cost is at least £30,000 a month, although this is relatively small in comparison with zoos mentioned by other colleagues. Frustratingly, the aquarium has not been given the green light to reopen, although it could practise social distancing, and when it applied for a grant it was turned down. I hope that she will send messages to her officials and give the aquarium good news.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Romford on his success in securing this Adjournment debate. Given the success he has had before even opening his mouth on the matter, I am sure he will continue to achieve so much more for animals. I say to him: well done.
Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) on securing this brilliant debate, to which I am delighted to contribute. I hope Members will not mind if I return to the theme of Chester zoo, because it is just down the M56 from my constituency. The hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) mentioned the email campaign that the zoo launched. I can tell him that I was inundated with emails and telephone calls. I have even had some letters and Zoom calls. Constituents have used every method to contact me over the past few weeks to tell me about the desperate plight of Chester zoo, and I am pleased to be here today to speak on behalf of those constituents who have raised the issue with me. Many constituents work at the zoo and the situation has been a great concern to them. The past few weeks have shown to me, as a proud Cheshire MP, how deeply people rightly care about the conservation work undertaken by Chester zoo. That support extends not just through Cheshire and the north-west of England, but right across the UK, because of the fantastic television programme that regularly airs, showing the detailed work the zoo does to preserve animals and the environmental work it undertakes.
I was therefore pleased to speak last weekend to Lord Goldsmith, who gave us some reassurances on behalf of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Government that they would commit to any measures necessary to ensure that our zoos would be preserved. I say to the Minister today, following a very positive and reassuring message from the Prime Minister, that it is not just about opening zoos; it is about ensuring that our zoos are resourced properly for the future. I am keen to share with her some more detail about Chester zoo, because it has been particularly badly hit over the past few weeks.
Aside from its environmental work, Chester zoo’s contribution to the economy of the north-west of England is of great importance. It really is an integral part of our visitor economy. If we had lost it, it would have had such a wide economic impact. The zoo alone contributes £47 million to the regional economy. It supports 1,700 jobs, protects wildlife in more than 30 countries around the world, and engages, as the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) said, 150,000 young people every year on the future of our planet. I have to say that one of the highlights of every year for my family is to go to Chester zoo and see what it has done differently each year. It really is a treat to go there. Two million visitors regularly go to Chester zoo. This year it is likely to be half that and that will have a detrimental effect on its ability to work.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
I am not sure whether I need to declare an interest as the adoptive stepfather of a number of the animals at Dudley zoo and even, apparently, a step grandfather now. Does my hon. Friend agree that whether it is Chester zoo, Whipsnade zoo or Dudley zoo, reopening is a fantastic first step, but it is not enough? For zoos to survive and thrive, they will all need the support of their local communities visiting and supporting them to keep them going and helping them to rebuild.
Andy Carter
My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. It is vital that members of the community get behind our zoos, visit when they can and join the charitable foundations that underpin so many of them around the country.
I am confident, from having conversations with the executive team at Chester zoo, that when it does reopen on Monday that can take place very safely. I urge my constituents to go online to book and visit in the coming weeks, so that people in Cheshire can really be a part of that.
Edward Timpson
My hon. Friend will know that Chester zoo has, I think, about 125,000 members, but of course in order to get as much revenue as quickly as possible through visitors, it would be helpful if it allowed others who are not members to go there first, despite the fact that the members are probably champing at the bit to do so. Is that a message that he would also like to send, so that it can get money in as quickly as possible?
Andy Carter
Absolutely. I thank my hon. Friend for that important contribution. Chester zoo already has a programme in place to welcome members in the evening, but it wants non-members to go in the daytime. That is really important. The revenue that comes from welcoming non-members to Chester zoo for the first time is really important to ensure the viability of the zoo.
The zoo has developed some of the most detailed covid-secure plans of any in the sector: carefully regulated numbers, ticketing, and enforcement of social distancing. I was really interested to hear about its programme to make sure children stay in the right place. It has markings on the ground with crocodiles—I am sure they are not real crocodiles—to make sure children know that if they cross the line the consequences will not be good.
No corners have been cut at Chester zoo during the closedown: it has continued to feed the animals and it has not stopped doing its incredible work to prevent animal extinction. What has stopped is the money rolling in and that is where we really need to put our efforts now. Will the Minister look carefully at how her Department can offer continued support to the sector? I am aware of the incredible public fundraising that has gone on for Chester zoo, with in excess of £1 million raised by membership donations. May I ask the Minister to have a discussion with colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to allow the local authority to use some of its unused business support grant to matchfund that £1 million? That would really give the support that Chester zoo needs to continue to be a jewel in the Cheshire crown.
Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) on securing the debate and on making one of the best Adjournment speeches I have heard here. I thought it was thoroughly excellent. Indeed, there were also very feisty and passionate speeches from my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter) and the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson). I did not realise that Chester zoo had so many friends. I wonder what I am missing out on.
The Isle of Wight is fortunate to have several zoos, animal sanctuaries and animal collections. We have the Isle of Wight zoo, Amazon World, Monkey Haven and the donkey sanctuary, which I know my hon. Friend the Member for Romford has visited. Also, my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) says that he has visited Isle of Wight zoo. Prior to covid, it was going from strength to strength. We are a nation of animal lovers, but on the Island, we are an island of animal lovers as well.
I am glad that the Government have responded, and I congratulate the Minister because I know that she is on side and does her job well and diligently. To open non-essential retail but not zoos or animal sanctuaries would rightly be seen to be contrary and wrong. It is also true to say that this is a complex picture. Some of those animal collections that I mentioned are keen to open as soon as possible, but some cannot do so because they are largely indoors. Some are wary of opening because of the potential lack of visitors, which I will come to in a second. However, where they can reopen, they should be given the freedom to act responsibly. Indeed, that is an important motif for going forward in general. It is also important for the Minister to understand that Isle of Wight zoo, the donkey sanctuary and Monkey Haven are not just visitor attractions, important though that is to our economy; they are also last-refuge sanctuaries for endangered animals and animals such as the tigers in the Isle of Wight zoo, which have been poorly treated and faced cruelty in the past. They now have a happy home where they are.
Zoos and animal sanctuaries cannot restrict their outgoings in the way that other sectors, such as non-essential retail, can do. In looking after its animal collection, the Isle of Wight zoo incurs running costs of approximately £50,000 a month in order to do what is morally right, and also to stay within the terms of the Zoo Licensing Act 1981 and the Animal Welfare Act 2006, which I am sure the Minister is very knowledgeable of. I am concerned that, like other zoos, Isle of Wight zoo was turned down for the DEFRA funding package because of its financial responsibility in having more than six weeks of operating income at the time of applying. I will come on to that in a minute. Clearly, the permanent closure of zoos and animal attractions is a significant issue for our communities and our visitor economies, but it is also a moral issue, because the animals could face being put down. The zoo and the other animal attractions have told me that they have tried and tested safety measures in place, should they be allowed to reopen.
I know that others want to speak, so I shall be brief and wrap up now, but may I suggest some measures that may possibly have wider support from here and also from our communities? On the DEFRA support package, can we please look beyond a six-week financial qualifying period in order to work out how we can enable our animal collections and zoos to survive effectively three winters: this winter; the financial winter they are having at the moment, even if they can reopen from next week onwards; and next winter? We need to look at keeping as many of them as possible as viable entities through to next year, when they can start to pick up again.
I want to turn to the proposal for a 1-metre rule. Clearly, for the crocodiles mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts), one would need significantly more social distancing than even 2 metres, but apart from that, I believe that the 2-metre rule is going to have a significant impact on so much that is happening in this country. I would much rather we all agreed to wear masks and had a 1-metre rule, so that we could start to get back to some kind of normality. My zoos and animal attractions would very much welcome a review of the 2-metre rule and the adoption of a 1-metre rule.
Most importantly, zoos and animal attractions not only need the animals and the keepers who look after them; they also need people to visit them, in order to regain an income and to have a purpose. We need to look at the wider visitor economy, in order to extend the payback period for the coronavirus business interruption loan scheme—CBILS—and to establish a regeneration fund for zoos and other visitor attractions to help make them more robust so that they can survive financial traumas like this in future. We need more flexibility for council support, so that my council can step in with some of the leftover funds from the grants, which it is not currently allowed to do. We need to look at reducing VAT on tourism for the next year or two, so that people will want to go to places where there are likely to be zoos and visitor attractions. We also need, as has rightly been said, to look at gift aid.
My destination marketing organisation—my tourism board—has effectively led the country, along with Cornwall, in developing best practice to get visitors back, so that we can again get kids and grannies and people of all ages back to enjoy the zoos and the animal attractions. They include Isle of Wight zoo, which my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West would be welcome to come back to, and the wonderful donkey sanctuary, which my hon. Friend the Member for Romford would be welcome to revisit, as well as Monkey Haven and Amazon World.
Matt Vickers (Stockton South) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) for the opportunity to speak in this very important debate. I want to talk about a place that could be far, far away: a tropical rainforest where people can mingle with a meerkat, tickle a tarantula, sit with a snake or mix with a marmoset, while seeing butterflies of all shapes, sorts, varieties and colours. This tropical rainforest is not the Amazon, but up north, on the banks of the Tees. Butterfly World is a beyond-unique place; an independent, family-owned business, which has educated and entertained families from across the north-east for years—and it enjoys a solid 4.5 on Tripadvisor.
I am sure that all will appreciate and agree—even Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin—the important role that our zoos and aquariums play, from helping with the conservation of some of our most endangered species to educating children on breeds and behaviours. I welcome the measures that the Government have put in place to support zoos and aquariums, as well as the decision to reopen outdoor zoos on 15 June.
However sunny Stockton might get, it would be a stretch for me to describe it as tropical, so unfortunately, this amazing venue is indoors. Despite the greenhouse-like building maintaining its own ecosystem, it is understood to fall in the indoor zoo category, so it will not be able to open. Like many zoos, Butterfly World is reliant on seasonal income and it is open only eight months of the year, so such a long period of closure threatens the future of this regional treasure. While to us this pandemic seems like it has gone on for ever, to some breeds of butterfly, it has gone on a lifetime.
The owners of Butterfly World remain ready with a comprehensive plan to open safely under a series of social distancing measures. The public are ready to visit, and such is the appetite and feeling of support that they have donated to a fund to try to secure the future of this regional gem. Other non-essential venues will open their doors to the public on 15 June. I ask the Minister, my honourable butterfly brooch-wearing friend, whether she might consider the case of Butterfly World—and, should she visit the north-east when things change a little, I would be delighted to welcome her and her brooch to Butterfly World to meet Barry the blue-tongued skink.
Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) not only for securing the debate, but for such a wonderful, detailed and passionate contribution. We have heard so much about Chester zoo in particular today, but there are, of course, many other zoos in the country. If people have already been to Chester zoo and would like to visit a different one that has a castle on its grounds, a living museum within a stone’s throw, a nature reserve and a site of special scientific interest, come to Dudley. I was going to be delivering a slightly different speech, so I cannot overstate just how pleased I am that the Government have given the go-ahead for zoos to reopen on Monday.
Christine Jardine
Does the hon. Gentleman share my disappointment, and, I assume, the disappointment of many hon. Members from Scotland, that the Scottish Government have not extended the same opportunity to zoos and wildlife parks in Scotland, which are not reopening on Monday? Edinburgh zoo in my constituency, in particular, has spoken about how it will not last the summer if it does not get the same sort of support as English facilities have had from the UK Government.
Marco Longhi
Indeed I do, and I was not aware of that—perhaps that is a question for the Minister though.
Dudley zoo in my constituency will be gladly throwing open its doors to ticketed visitors once more. If the number of emails and social media messages that I have received are anything to go by, I have no doubt that my constituents are as excited as I am that they will be able to visit this treasured attraction again next week. I would really like to pay tribute to the zoo’s staff, who have admirably gone above and beyond their remit to ensure that the animals have continued to be cared for despite the uncertainty and anxiety caused by lockdown.
Katherine Fletcher (South Ribble) (Con)
I agree with my hon. Friend on the role that staff play in these institutions. I am another Member of the House who must speak up warmly for Chester zoo—a great inspiration to me as a child—and the staff who took the extra time to support me and many of the people who have written in from South Ribble to advocate for the cause, saying how delighted we all are to see that they can start to welcome visitors again.
Other Members have made the point about the importance of inspiring the next generation and the role that the staff play in that. I am not sure how many Members are aware of this, but I am a qualified field guide—a safari ranger—out in Africa. [Interruption.] Yes, I have been charged by a rhino, and yes, politics can be more scary. The staff at Dudley zoo, and certainly at Chester zoo, in the ’80s helped to kindle that spirit and allowed me to understand the importance of the environment, the importance of viewing this as a whole, and the importance of zoos as part of the conservation effort. I very much look forward to them continuing in that work from Monday.
Marco Longhi
I thank my hon. Friend for that.
Places like Dudley zoo, as we have heard, are more than just visitor attractions. They carry out vital conservation work, ensuring that future generations can enjoy our natural world and the incredible species that live within it. But this is made possible only by paying visitors and vital donations. Some visitor attractions have been able to close their doors and retain business viability because the generous furlough scheme and other financial help has covered most of their overheads while operational costs have effectively reduced to zero, but zoos have still needed to retain many operational functions to keep their animals alive. My own zoo in Dudley has already lost £1.2 million since the start of lockdown and was unable to apply for funding packages for zoos because it, like others, had to retain, through prudence but through necessity as well, more than six weeks’ reserves.
Being able to reopen to paying visitors again will, of course, bring comfort to our zoos, but this is a crucial time for them, as the summer months would normally generate surpluses and build up sufficient reserves to survive through the winter and spring when takings are much lower and costs often higher. However, we all know that this summer’s income will be seriously curtailed, with reserves already depleted. This means that several zoos such as mine in Dudley may face very real difficulties in pulling through the winter months to come. So while I am of course deeply grateful for the £14 million support scheme, my plea to Ministers, on behalf of my constituency zoo and other zoos, as I have heard today from across the country, is to revisit the support package and the eligibility criteria, as many jobs could be lost and animals destroyed if the current six-week model is retained.
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
I start by paying special thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell), who is such a champion for zoos in chairing the all-party parliamentary group, as he was in his inspirational speech. He set the scene so well and provided the framework within which we are all now talking.
I want to speak for a few minutes about Africa Alive! in Kessingland, just south of Lowestoft in my constituency, which is run by the Zoological Society of East Anglia, which also has Banham zoo in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss). This organisation does great work in so many aspects, as I shall explain.
The best part of my job—this tremendous job we all have—is that each summer, I spend half a day at Africa Alive! It is a wonderful experience and probably the thing I look forward to most. My hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) referred to zoos being controversial. I sense that, in many ways, we have moved on from that; we have moved on from the cages. Zoos used to be very inward-looking, and they are not now. Africa Alive! is outward-looking, and that is what so special about it and why it is a linchpin of the local community and the local economy. I want to highlight five points about it.
Africa Alive! does great conservation work, looking after and supporting species from that wonderful continent of Africa. I have never been on a safari, and I do not think I ever will, but Africa is there on the doorstep of places like Lowestoft, Beccles and Bungay for people who will never have the opportunity to go and see those animals.
Africa Alive! also provides employment opportunities, with highly specialist jobs as keepers. For so many people in the area I represent, it is their first rung on the employment ladder—that first job that can lead on to others. So many people I have met say, “I did my first job at Africa Alive!” There is also the education and outreach work. Schools come to it, but it also goes to the schools. The Zoological Society of East Anglia gets out across East Anglia into 1,000 schools.
It is a tremendous tourism attraction. Tourism is very important on the Suffolk and the Norfolk coast, reaching out into the Norfolk and Suffolk broads. As part of someone’s week in our area, they want things to do, and they go to Africa Alive!, which is one of the biggest tourist attractions in East Anglia.
I will make one final point about what Africa Alive! does. I got a number of emails over the last week. One of them was from someone I had not heard from or seen for over 40 years and who is now working in Thailand, saying, “Come on! Pull your finger out! We need to save this wonderful treasure.” The email that struck me most was one that said, “Me and my mother have had tremendous mental health anguish. Going to Africa Alive! and walking round that 70-acre wildlife park gives us the comfort, the rest and the assurance that we need to get away from some very difficult challenges for us.”
The announcement this week was extremely welcome, and it is very good news. I think Africa Alive! would say that it gives it a fighting chance of survival, and that is wonderful. But as my hon. Friend the Member for Romford said, more needs to be done. Animals are not like rides—you cannot turn them off, and flexible furloughing is therefore very important. The zoos support fund is welcome, but as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely), there is an issue with the conditions of it. A lot of zoos are charities, and they have requirements for the amount of money they have in the bank, which automatically precludes them from being able to access that fund. We need to look at that again, and I urge the Minister to do that. As I said, the best part of my job is going to Africa Alive! every summer. I want to be able to do that for the next few summers as well.
Nick Fletcher (Don Valley) (Con)
I thank the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) for allowing me to speak in this debate. Like many of my colleagues across the House, this issue is particularly important to me, as the Yorkshire wildlife park is located in my constituency. Since March this year, the gates of the Yorkshire wildlife park and many other zoos have been closed, and the park has had to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds a month while generating no income.
I fully understand the reason for lockdown, and I thank the good people of Don Valley for playing their part in saving lives and protecting the NHS. That said, as we are now coming out of lockdown I am delighted that the Government are finally allowing zoos and wildlife parks to reopen.
The park will open on Monday 15 June, and with the help of its wonderful staff it has managed to get everything in place for a safe opening. It has also been able to invite environmental health officers to carry out an inspection. They attended the site on Tuesday and confirmed that the park has everything in place. I am grateful that the Government have recognised the steps that wildlife parks and zoos across the country have taken, and I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree that such venues are fully prepared to operate in a way that keeps the public safe.
As my hon. Friend is all too aware, children have spent a huge amount of time away from the classroom as a result of the pandemic. They are our future scientists, teachers and zoologists. It is therefore only right that educational institutions such as Yorkshire wildlife park are reopened. After all, such zoos and parks allow children to learn and develop, as well as to appreciate the importance of nature. The reopening of wildlife parks will therefore offer a great opportunity for children to catch up on the learning that they have missed, and to improve their wellbeing simply by being in a wonderful, safe outdoor environment.
As we come out of lockdown, the Government must begin to take urgent action to save businesses. I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree that, as it was essential that we locked down to save lives, it is now essential that the Government act quickly so that people have jobs and recreational sites to go back to at the end of this. I therefore welcome the recent announcements and I am less anxious about the loss of jobs and educational sites in my constituency.
That said, I will conclude by asking the Minister the following questions. First, can she assure the owners of zoos and wildlife parks that any additional measures introduced for the safe reopening of those facilities will be reasonable and will not overburden such businesses? Secondly, will the Government continue to engage in dialogue with zoos and wildlife parks, and provide them with the extra financial support that they will need beyond the immediate crisis? It will no doubt be in the forthcoming winter months that zoos and wildlife parks will be at their most vulnerable.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)
What a tremendous afternoon! It takes me back to what I think was the most exciting debate in the Chamber since I have been here, which was about hedgehogs. The House was full, wasn’t it, Madam Deputy Speaker? It shows what a nation of animal lovers we are. This is what gets us out. Our constituents are great animal lovers too, and they galvanise us into action. I think it shows that things can work through Government and we are listening.
I thank everybody for taking part, and in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) for raising the matter. As chair of the zoos and aquariums all-party parliamentary group, which I was a member of as a Back Bencher, he has long promoted the cause of well-run zoos, and I know that he has been actively promoting their cause during the pandemic when they have had to close. I thank him for his passion and determination.
What a wonderful story that was about the blue iguana. I do not know if you were in the Chair for it, Madam Deputy Speaker, but what a great tale that was, and congratulations. I thank all Members from across the House who have taken part and mentioned so many zoos, wildlife sanctuaries and aquariums. Just out of interest, there are 269 licensed zoos in England and 338 if exemptions are included, so it is a lot of enterprises.
I will touch first on some of my own experience. Chester zoo has been mentioned so much in the debate. I was fortunate to go there when I was the Tourism Minister briefly. Although it was a brilliant huge open space, with so much education, the thing that I was so impressed with was the conservation work and how, like many of our zoos, it plays such an important role on the global stage. The zoo does incredible work on black rhinos and the greater one-horned rhinos, on Andean bears and, as mentioned by the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson), on sustainable palm oil. It is about not just the animals but food products, too. That is so important.
I want to thank the other Members who mentioned Chester zoo: my hon. Friends the Members for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson) and for Warrington South (Andy Carter), as well as the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), who is no longer in the Chamber. I also thank all the other Members who mentioned other zoos: my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) mentioned Twycross zoo; my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) made such a strong case for Whipsnade zoo; we heard about Yorkshire Wildlife Park from my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher); and my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne) mentioned Shepreth Wildlife Park.
The contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) was more of a waxing lyrical about all animals, but we finally got to the aquarium. My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) mentioned the enterprises on the Isle of Wight; my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) mentioned Butterfly World, which does sound rather captivating; the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) mentioned Edinburgh zoo; and my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North (Marco Longhi) mentioned Dudley zoo. So many places were mentioned.
I wish to voice the Government’s appreciation of zoos—among which I include aquariums and wildlife sanctuaries if they are licensed as a zoo under the Zoo Licensing Act 1981—and all the work that they do. The Government recognise that as well as providing such high welfare standards for animals—which my hon. Friend the Member for Romford voiced so well—many zoos in the UK contribute to so many other things: the conservation work that is so important on the global stage, with so many species under threat because of the pressures on the environment; the education work; and, of course, getting people out into open spaces and engaging with nature, which has a big health and wellbeing impact. On that note, the Government recognise that zoos are excellent for engaging people with nature—a zoo often might be somebody’s first engagement with wider nature, so plays such a vital role.
I am delighted to support the Prime Minister’s announcement yesterday that safari parks and the outdoor parts of zoos will be allowed to reopen from 15 June. It has been necessary, for public health reasons, for the Government to proceed with caution, but we have listened to the many arguments about the benefits of zoos and the access to controlled outdoor spaces that they can provide, which is why we believe now is the appropriate time to allow safari parks and the outdoor parts of zoos to reopen. For the moment, indoor attractions—such as reptile houses and aquariums—at zoos will remain closed for public health reasons. The Government are aware of the work that zoos and aquariums have been doing to prepare for reopening while adhering to the strict social guidance. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is working with the main industry body, BIAZA, on the reopening guidance.
I wish briefly to set out the Government’s rationale for requiring zoos to close from 1 June, as set out in the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations 2020, because colleagues did talk about this. Previously, zoos were not required to close, but given the fact that visiting a zoo was not a reasonable excuse to leave home, zoos took the inevitable decision to shut their doors. Most zoos closed at the end of March, as a result of lockdown. Rather than adding to the number of reasons that people had to leave home, from 1 June the Government switched the focus of the regulations to allow people to leave their homes unless there was a specific reason why they could not. The Government’s primary concern was that we should not open up too many activities at the same time, because the cumulative effect of opening everything up at once would see the number of cases of coronavirus start to increase again. While each zoo can be made safer, it was vital that we did not move too quickly in reopening to ensure that public health is protected. I am sure that all hon. Members understand that step-by-step process. As a result of progress, the announcement on zoos and safari parks was made yesterday. I hope that that reassures the House.
The Government recognise that visitor numbers may not bounce back to the levels zoos would have expected for this time of year. I therefore reassure hon. Members that Government support schemes, which zoos can continue to access, remain in place. Zoos are eligible to apply for VAT deferral, business rates relief, the business interruption loan schemes, the option to reclaim the costs of statutory sick pay, and hospitality and leisure grant funding of up to £25,000. In addition, on 4 May, the Government introduced the £14 million zoo support fund for licensed zoos in England, specifically for zoos in severe financial distress. The fund is open for another five weeks and DEFRA has already awarded grants to many zoos and aquariums.
Some hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Romford, mentioned the rules for the zoo support fund. It has been suggested that they need to be changed so that zoos can access the fund before being at the point of closure. The fund was specifically set up to avoid unnecessary additional euthanasia of zoo animals and capped payments at £100,000. It can be accessed only when a zoo is in severe financial difficulties. However, we are monitoring its operation. Clearly, we are listening to the comments that have been made today. We are keeping the scheme under review in relation to how soon we can provide support when a zoo is running out of funds.
Rebecca Pow
I hear what my hon. Friend says and that has been noted. I also get the message loud and clear that there are calls for a wide range of other wildlife enterprises, including farm parks, and places such as the Cotebrook Shire Horse Centre and Crocodiles of the World near Witney, to open.
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s commitment to looking at the matter again. I double underline the urgency for the Green Dragon rare breeds farm in my constituency, where the animals are now getting fed only as a result of the local community’s generosity in making food donations. If the animals do not get that food urgently, I fear that they will be put down.
Rebecca Pow
That is noted. The exact scope of easing restrictions is being discussed as we speak. We will consider whether other outdoor animal attractions can open safely in future and at the same time. Clearly, many larger zoos face real long-term issues. Discussion about that is also ongoing.
I thank all the zoos and aquariums that played such a key role in the discussions with DEFRA, particularly in highlighting the crucial animal welfare implications. Thanks must go to BIAZA and our hard-working DEFRA team. I also thank my colleague Lord Goldsmith for all his work. He has kept me fully informed of what is happening.
I want to assure colleagues that weekly meetings will continue with the chief executive officers of the largest charitable zoos and aquariums, so that we are fully aware of the situation. I am also happy to meet my hon. Friend the Member for Romford to discuss his further thoughts and ideas, which he has clearly been thinking on very much.
In closing, I want to reiterate—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. Let me just say to the Minister that, although I will have to put the Adjournment again at five o’clock, she can go on speaking after that. It is all right.
Rebecca Pow
Oh, I am terribly sorry. I was informed that I had to stop at five. Anyway, I have almost finished, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I just want to end by thanking absolutely everybody involved and to recognise the role that zoos, wildlife sanctuaries and aquariums play in this nation—the huge conservation role, the animal welfare, the getting people out into green spaces, the health and wellbeing impacts, the jobs, the impact on the economy and all of that. I assure Members that we will continue to assess the situation. I would like once again to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Romford for his terrific work. We will all be the better for it.
Question put and agreed to.
Domestic Abuse Bill (Seventh sitting)
Thursday 11th June 2020
(4 years, 6 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Domestic Abuse Bill 2019-21 View all Domestic Abuse Bill 2019-21 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 11 June 2020 - (11 Jun 2020)
The Chair
Good morning. I have to remind people of social distancing. If anyone is uncomfortable with the social distancing, please let me know. It is most important. The other plea is that if you have notes for your speeches, please send them to hansardnotes@parliament.uk. That is a good idea. I have always found that my speeches improve enormously if I send the actual words to Hansard.
Clause 53
Support provided by local authorities to victims of domestic abuse
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 67, in clause 53, page 34, line 23, after “area,” insert—
“by all persons affected by domestic abuse regardless of status, duly taking into account the special situation of women and children, with reference to a national needs assessment,”.
This amendment strengthens the duty placed on Local Authorities by Part 4 and provides clarity about what Local Authorities will need to consider when exercising that duty.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 68, in clause 53, page 34, line 24, leave out paragraph (b) and insert—
“(b) prepare and publish a strategy for the provision of such support to meet the needs identified in its area by the assessment referred to in subsection 1(a) above, including sufficient specialist support for all persons affected by domestic abuse regardless of status,
(ba) in preparing and adopting any strategy, take account of any strategy to end violence against women and girls adopted by a Minister or Ministers, and”.
This amendment strengthens the duty placed on Local Authorities by Part 4 and provides clarity about what Local Authorities will need to consider when exercising that duty.
Amendment 69, in clause 53, page 34, line 26, after “strategy”, insert
“and publish such evaluation in accordance with subsection (5)(a) and such regulation issued under subsection (8)”.
This amendment strengthens the duty placed on Local Authorities by Part 4 and provides clarity about what Local Authorities will need to consider when exercising that duty.
Amendment 70, in clause 53, page 34, line 26, at end insert—
“(1A) The assessment and strategy referred to in subsections (1)(a) and (b) must, at a minimum, address the following matters—
(a) the prevalence of and trends in domestic abuse including that against women and girls, and the demographic of all persons in the area affected by domestic abuse;
(b) the needs for support, protection and safety of those who are affected by domestic abuse in the local population;
(c) the nature and extent of the need for and provision of specialist support in respect of those persons affected by domestic abuse with presenting characteristics including sex, gender, race, colour, language, religion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, state of health, disability, or such other relevant status;
(d) the specific needs of vulnerable persons including women and children regardless of status;
(e) the nature and extent of the need for and provision of specialist support to women who are affected by domestic abuse and their children;
(f) the need for and provision of refuge services in sufficient numbers to provide safe accommodation for victims, especially women and their children;
(1B) The relevant local authority shall allocate appropriate financial and human resources for the implementation of the strategy, including the arrangement of such specialist support as is set out in the strategy.
(1C) For the purposes of this section—
“domestic abuse support” means specialist support, in relation to domestic abuse, provided to victims of domestic abuse or their children, who reside in relevant accommodation, by organisations whose organisational purpose is to support victims and/or children and young people impacted by domestic abuse.
“relevant accommodation” means accommodation which is safe for victims and their children of a description specified by the Secretary of State in regulations. This must include refuge services, which are provided in separate or single-sex services within the meaning given in Part 7 of Schedule 3 of the Equality Act and the address of which cannot be made publicly available or disclosed.
“status” includes a status for the purpose of Article 4(3) of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic abuse and combined forms of such status.
“national needs assessment” means the needs assessment prepared by the national oversight group referred to in section [National Oversight Group].”
This amendment strengthens the duty placed on Local Authorities by Part 4 and provides clarity about what Local Authorities will need to consider when exercising that duty.
Amendment 71, in clause 53, page 34, line 39, after “area,” insert—
“(ba) any person, group or organisation providing support and services with those affected by domestic abuse in the local authority’s area, whether or not they are commissioned by the local authority,”.
This amendment strengthens the duty placed on Local Authorities by Part 4 and provides clarity of what Local Authorities will need to consider when exercising that duty.
Amendment 72, in clause 53, page 34, line 42, after “appropriate” insert—
“to ensure equal representation and meet their equalities duties”.
This amendment strengthens the duty placed on Local Authorities by Part 4 and provides clarity of what Local Authorities will need to consider when exercising that duty.
Amendment 73, in clause 53, page 35, line 1, after “strategy” insert—
“but only further to undertaking a consultation of the kind referred to in subsection (4) above and taking into account the needs identified in the assessment referred to in subsection (1)(a) and any population and support needs changes in the local authority’s area”.
This amendment strengthens the duty placed on Local Authorities by Part 4 and provides clarity about what Local Authorities will need to consider when exercising that duty.
Amendment 74, in clause 53, page 35, line 1, at end insert—
“(ba) when undertaking a consultation to review or alter the strategy, must publish the timeframe for the consultation of the kind referred to in subsection (4) well in advance, and involve the person, group or organisation providing support and services in the consultation and review of the strategy, and”
This amendment strengthens the duty placed on Local Authorities by Part 4 and provides clarity about what Local Authorities will need to consider when exercising that duty.
Amendment 75, in clause 53, page 35, line 16, after “strategy” insert—
“additional to those identified in subsection (1A)”.
This amendment strengthens the duty placed on Local Authorities by Part 4 and provides clarity about what Local Authorities will need to consider when exercising that duty.
Amendment 76, in clause 53, page 35, line 21, after “strategy” insert—
“(f) how complaints about a local authority strategy will be handled;”.
This amendment strengthens the duty placed on Local Authorities by Part 4 and provides clarity about what Local Authorities will need to consider when exercising that duty.
Amendment 77, in clause 53, page 35, line 25, after “authorities” insert—
“(ba) persons, groups and organisations providing support and services with those affected by domestic abuse locally, regionally and nationally,
(bb) organisations representing the interests of services providing specialist support for women and children affected by domestic abuse,”.
This amendment strengthens the duty placed on Local Authorities by Part 4 and provides clarity about what Local Authorities will need to consider when exercising that duty.
Amendment 78, in clause 54, page 35, line 30, at end insert—
“(1A) The purpose of the board is to establish an equitable partnership that reflects the needs of those affected by domestic abuse in the local area and to deliver quality services that meet the needs of victims in the area identified in the assessment and strategy referred to in subsection (1) (a) and (b) of section 53.”
This amendment strengthens the duty placed on Local Authorities by Part 4 and provides clarity about what Local Authorities will need to consider when exercising that duty.
Amendment 79, in clause 54, page 36, line 3, after “area” insert—
“, and (h) at least one person representing the interests of organisations working with or providing specialist support for women and children affected by domestic abuse”.
This amendment strengthens the duty placed on Local Authorities by Part 4 and provides clarity about what Local Authorities will need to consider when exercising that duty.
Amendment 80, in clause 54, page 36, line 3, at end insert—
“(2A) The domestic abuse local partnership board must establish a reference group of organisations delivering specialist support services to victims of domestic abuse and their children, and respond to recommendations made by the reference group in their decision making.”
This amendment strengthens the duty placed on Local Authorities by Part 4 and provides clarity of what Local Authorities will need to consider when exercising that duty.
New clause 19—Secretary of State’s duty to ensure effective protection and support—
“(1) In exercising functions under this Act, the Secretary of State must take steps to ensure equally effective protection against domestic abuse and support for all victims of domestic abuse irrespective of their status, including steps aimed at ensuring that—
(a) domestic abuse is prevented;
(b) all victims of domestic abuse receive protection and access to specialist services;
(c) all perpetrators of domestic abuse are able to access quality assured perpetrator programmes;
(d) awareness of this Act is promoted.
(2) In discharging the duty under subsection (1) the Secretary of State must—
(a) ensure that sufficient funding is provided annually to ensure that relevant public authorities can meet their statutory duties under Clause [Duty to commission specialist domestic abuse support services]; and
(b) take steps to ensure continuous improvement in the outcomes that are achieved.
(3) The outcomes in subsection 2(b) include, in particular, outcomes which demonstrate—
(a) effective steps aimed at ensuring that domestic abuse is prevented;
(b) effective protection and support for persons, including children, against domestic abuse irrespective of their status;
(c) effective services to all adult and child victims of domestic abuse irrespective of their status;
(d) effective access for all perpetrators to quality assured perpetrator programmes; and
(e) effective steps to promote awareness of this Act.
(4) Every three years from the date on which this section comes into force the Secretary of State must prepare, publish and lay before Parliament a strategic plan setting out their objectives, priorities and the measures they propose to take for the purpose of discharging their duty under subsection (1).
(5) In preparing and adopting any strategic plan under subsection (4) the Secretary of State must take account of any strategy to end violence against women and girls adopted by a Minister of the Crown.
(6) In this section—
“quality assured” means meeting standards determined and published by the Secretary of State.
“status” means a status for the purpose of Article 4(3) of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, and combined forms of any such status.
“victims of domestic abuse” includes—
(a) persons towards whom domestic abuse is directed, and
(b) persons who are reasonably believed to be at risk of domestic abuse.”
This new clause would establish a clear statutory duty on public authorities in England and Wales to commission specialist support and services for all persons affected by domestic abuse, together with a duty on the Secretary of State to ensure sufficient protection and funding for the implementation of this duty.
New clause 20—Duty to commission specialist domestic abuse support services—
“(1) It is the duty of relevant public authorities in England and Wales to commission sufficient specialist services for all persons affected by domestic abuse regardless of status.
(2) To ensure compliance with the duty under subsection (1) public authorities must—
(a) regularly assess population and support needs changes in their area; and
(b) co-operate to discharge the duty.
(3) The Secretary of State may issue regulations making provision for the resolution of disputes between public authorities relating to the discharge of the duty under subsection (1).
(4) In performing the duty under subsection (1) a relevant public authority must secure sufficient specialist services for (among others) the following persons—
(a) any victim of domestic abuse aged 18 or over;
(b) any child aged under 18 who experiences or witnesses domestic abuse;
(c) any child who is a close relative of a victim of domestic abuse;
(d) any person aged 18 or over who exhibits abusive behaviour towards another person to whom they are personally connected;
(e) any child aged under 18 who exhibits abusive behaviour towards another person to whom they are personally connected.
(5) In this section—
“abusive behaviour” is behaviour that is abusive within the definition in section 1(3).
“close relative” includes a daughter, son, sibling, sibling-in-law, step child, step sister, step brother, foster child, niece, nephew or grandchild.
“domestic abuse” has the meaning given in section 1.
“personally connected” has the meaning given in section 2.
“relevant public authorities” are public authorities with functions relevant to the provision of specialist services for victims of domestic abuse, and include but are not limited to—
(a) Ministers of the Crown and any government department in the charge of a Minister;
(b) any local authority in England and Wales;
(c) NHS Trusts in England and Wales;
(d) Police and Crime Commissioners;
(e) Prison, Police and Probation Service.
“specialist services” include but are not limited to the following when provided in connection with domestic abuse, whether provided by a public authority or any other person or body—
(a) protective measures and action taken to protect persons against domestic abuse;
(b) residential accommodation, including refuge services;
(c) counselling and other support;
(d) advocacy services;
(e) access to welfare benefits;
(f) perpetrator programmes;
(g) financial support;
(h) legal services;
(i) helplines;
(j) services designed to meet the particular needs of a group that shares a status to ensure appropriate and effective service provision, including separate or single-sex services within the meaning given in Part 7 of Schedule 3 the Equality Act, and “communal accommodation” within the meaning given in paragraph 3 of Schedule 23 to the Equality Act 2010.
“status” means a status for the purpose of Article 4(3) of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, and combined forms of any such status.
“victims of domestic abuse” includes—
(a) persons towards whom domestic abuse is directed, and
(b) persons who are reasonably believed to be at risk of domestic abuse.”
This new clause would establish a clear statutory duty on public authorities in England and Wales to commission specialist support and services for all persons affected by domestic abuse, together with a duty on the Secretary of State to ensure sufficient protection and funding for the implementation of this duty.
New clause 48—National Oversight Group—
“(1) The Secretary of State must establish a national oversight group to monitor the exercise of local authority functions under section 53.
(2) The members of the national oversight group must include—
(a) The Domestic Abuse Commissioner;
(b) organisations representing providers of specialist support for women and children affected by domestic abuse;
(c) organisations representing providers of specialist support for women and children affected by domestic abuse with protected characteristics;
(d) representatives of local authorities;
(e) representatives of police and criminal justice bodies;
(f) representatives of health bodies;
(g) representatives of health bodies;
(3) The national oversight group must, at a minimum—
(a) undertake a regular national needs assessment for refuge services, including provision for victims and their children with protected characteristics;
(b) undertake ongoing assessment of whether local authorities and local partnership boards are effectively discharging functions under this Part, including monitoring compliance with the Public Sector Equality Duty and implementation of Equality Impact Assessments for relevant commissioning and procurement processes;
(c) ensure that local authorities and local partnership boards are sufficiently and equitably funding services that meet the needs of victims and their children as identified in the national needs assessment, including those with protected characteristics;
(d) provide oversight of local authorities and local partnership boards in funding services that meet quality standards developed by organisations representing providers of specialist support for women and children affected by domestic abuse;
(e) sanction ineffective or inadequate provision and practice by local authorities and local partnership boards as required;
(f) assess compliance with the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence and the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.
(g) consult with relevant monitoring bodies including, but not limited to, the Council of Europe Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women.
(4) the Secretary of State must ensure sufficient funding is provided annually to ensure that national need identified in subsection (3) (a) can be met.”
This new clause establishes a National Oversight Group to monitor the duty placed on the Local Authority by Clause 53.
Jess Phillips
There is a huge number of different proposals in this group. I have tabled two alternative options with respect to part 4 of the Bill, and there is an element of cross-over. Ultimately, however, the purpose of each is different, albeit equally important. Due to the way in which the proposals are grouped, there will be some jumping around, but I will do my best to ensure that it is as easy as possible to follow.
To avoid confusion, I will deal with each option separately. The first serves to strengthen and clarify the existing part 4 of the Bill, and provides for a national oversight group. The second is a brand new broader duty to ensure support and protection from the Secretary of State and to provide for a commission of specialist domestic abuse support services.
I will begin with option one and amendments 67 to 80. These amendments set out to make a number of changes to the current duty on local authorities, dealing with what the Bill currently seeks to do to put a duty on local authorities. It would assess the need for accommodation-based domestic abuse services, prepare and publish a strategy for the provision of such support in the area, and create a local partnership board to oversee those functions.
Currently, the duty provides very little direction or guidance to local authorities in how to assess need for accommodation-based domestic abuse services and develop a strategy to meet their needs. I welcome the duty, for which I have fought for a long time. In fact, it predates the Minister’s elevation to her position, and she seems to have been here forever.
The current problematic trends in local authority commissioning and funding of refuges have led to disparate and inequitable provision across the country. From 2003 to 2011, support in refuges was largely paid for by Supporting People—a programme that was ring-fenced by central Government to local authorities, which funded a range of different accommodation-based support services or refuges. All refuges, my own included, received their funding through the Supporting People funding model.
The ring fence around Supporting People funding was removed in 2009, and in 2011 this funding was rolled into the general local authority revenue support grant. To be clear, this was a centralised funding pot specifically for not only victims of domestic violence, but all accommodation-based services, whether children with disabilities or offenders coming out of prison. They all used to be funded by that. That specialist funding was then rolled into the general revenue grant for local authorities.
The amount of support funding that refuge services receive from local authorities now varies significantly. In 2009 and again in 2011, I recall pointing out that this was going to happen if we removed the support in global funding. Here I am, some 11 years later. In 2019, over one in 10—13%—of refuges stated that they received no local authority funding at all. Many are now only able to deliver life-saving support through charitable funding.
At the same time as these significant changes in the budgets for supporting refuges have been made, there have been significant changes in how those budgets are administered. At the end of the last decade, as domestic abuse began to become a priority for statutory agencies, competitive tendering for service provision began to be used. This has in large part been toxic for specialist refuge services, as those procurement processes favour larger organisations and big contracts above small specialist women’s refuges that are expert in meeting the needs of local survivors.
It was probably the day before yesterday that I referred to Jacky Mulveen, who runs a local domestic violence service in Birmingham. I talked about how in her organisation, which is a three-woman band, she is everything: she is the fundraiser, the manager, the support worker, and she makes the baps when the women need something to eat. Over the past few years, the reality is that the organisations that are definitely best placed to provide these services have been put up against organisations that have teams of people writing commissioning documents. Specialist services run by, and for, black and minority ethnic women are systematically disadvantaged within competitive tendering, which favours larger providers. As a result of those damaging commissioning and funding trends, women are being turned away daily from the support that they need.
In 2019, there were 3,914 refuge spaces for women in England, which according to the Council of Europe recommendation is a shortfall of 30%. Demand for refuge services continues to exceed supply: in 2018-19, 64% of referrals to refuges responding to the Women’s Aid annual survey were declined, with lack of space or capacity to support the survivor cited as the main reason. For anyone who has never had to fill in that annual survey, it is a census of a day in refuge. Hundreds of refuges across the country are part of the Women’s Aid survey, and a whole range of data is collected from it: the refuge gives the number of women and children in its services, and also gives the number of people it has had to turn away. That survey showed that 64% of people who came forward on the day of the census had to be turned away from the service.
Data on bed spaces and demand in isolation masks the significant barriers preventing certain groups of survivors who face intersecting forms of oppression from accessing safety. There are currently just 40 refuges in England that are run specifically for particular groups of women, such as black and minoritised women. As documented by Imkaan, there is a long history of underfunding and political marginalisation of refuges led by and for BME women, which has impacted on the sustainability of their life-saving work. Services led by and for black and minority ethnic women report significant discrimination and disadvantage within commissioning structures and approaches to funding, because their specialism is often unrecognised, misunderstood and devalued.
I will put that in layman’s terms. From the perspective of a nine-bed refuge specifically for women from the south Asian community, if a local authority puts out a commissioning document saying that it wants refuges in the area and is commissioning 80 beds in the borough, what that nine-bed refuge has to offer cannot meet those targets, and it is very rare for such a commissioning document to ask for any specialisation in that particular issue. Next week—I am sure the Minister is looking forward to this—we will discuss some of the barriers to accessing services faced specifically by migrant victims of domestic abuse. This is just another layer. On top of that, the specialist services that cater for those victims are often faced with not being able to take part in more general commissioning rounds.
In 2018, Imkaan reported that just 11% of the income for services led by and for black and minority ethnic women that they surveyed was from local authorities, compared to 40% from trusts and foundations. In London, where the majority of those organisations are based, local authorities are estimated to have cut funding for refuge services led by and for black and minority ethnic women by 50% in the last seven years. The fact that most of those organisations are based in London is nothing to celebrate. It is lucky for London that many such organisations are based there, even though they appear not to be being funded, but the needs for such services outside London are equally great.
Many refuge vacancies are not accessible for women with specific support needs, including those with issues around mental health or drug and alcohol use, those who have children with them, and those have no recourse to public funds because of their immigration status, or lack of clarity about it. Just 5.8% of refuges in England were able to accommodate women with no recourse to public funds. It is essential that the Bill requires local authorities to assess need and develop a funding strategy in a consistent, effective way.
This series of amendments would ensure that local authorities do the following: make arrangements for the provision of all accommodation for all victims, regardless of their immigration status; base their local needs assessment on a national needs assessment for refuge services, which I will discuss the need for later; respond to the prevalence of trends in domestic abuse, including that experienced by victims with protected characteristics, including race, disability and sexual orientation, in the local area; ensure that at there is specialist support to meet the specific needs of women and children experiencing domestic abuse, including refuge services, in sufficient numbers; and provide sufficient funding to implement the strategy, including to specialist support services. Local authorities would meaningfully consult with local specialist domestic abuse and violence against women and girls services in developing, altering or replacing a local strategy. The requirements mirror much of the existing language in the Istanbul convention.
The Bill requires local authorities to establish local partnership boards to oversee how they are delivering their statutory duties. While in some areas strong multi-agency partnership arrangements between specialist services commissioners and other partners are well established, in others there will be significant challenges in setting up collaborative boards that meet the needs of survivors and children. Evidence has been presented to the Government of extremely poor practice in partnership working, including the exclusion of specialist services, particularly those led by and for BME women, in the planning and delivery of services.
The purpose of the amendments is to make it clear that the purpose of the local partnership board is to establish an equitable partnership that reflects the needs of those impacted by domestic abuse in the local area, and works to deliver quality services that meet victims’ needs. They would ensure that local specialist domestic abuse and VAWG services are represented on the board, require the board to establish a reference group of specialist service providers, and ensure that their views and recommendations are responded to in the board’s decision making.
I welcome the boards, but I want to see some safeguards about exactly who will be on them. When I was first elected to Birmingham City Council, the average age of a Birmingham city councillor was around 60. I could not help but be filled with jollity that they were the people who got to decide on youth services in the area. It is important to ensure that the right people are on local partnership boards.
Perhaps confusingly—things will soon become clear—I want to refer back to amendment 70, and particularly the definitions in proposed subsection (1C) that it would insert into clause 53. It is my view that the Bill’s definitions of “relevant accommodation” and “domestic abuse support” do not offer the level of support that the Bill purports to provide.
The Chair
Order. Yes, the Minister should not chunter, but equally I do not think we should widen the debate too far.
Jess Phillips
Absolutely. Sheldon police station is no longer a police station, and there is now a planning application for it to become temporary accommodation. To return to the debate, police stations were often built in communities. My father was born in Sheldon, on the estate that the police station looks over. It is built on a sort of plinth, making it possible to see across the whole community. It can be seen from pretty much everywhere in the Garretts Green Chestnuts estate, as we call it colloquially. It is not hidden; it is not discreet.
The building was sold and, in the planning application that was put in for temporary accommodation, that accommodation was going to be provided for a list of people. One item on the list was victims of domestic abuse. Another was offenders. Another was people with drug and alcohol misuse problems. There was to be no specification about whether there would just be women in the place, or just men. Those people would be housed together. Every single council in the land will have a planning application exactly like this one, through which private landlords seek to make money by turning the property into temporary accommodation for victims of domestic abuse, even though it is completely unsafe. None of us would be happy to place them in such accommodation, but the Bill does nothing to prevent that from happening.
To avoid that situation, the definition must align with definitions established on Routes to Support, which is a UK-wide service directory, partly funded by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, relating to violence against women and girls. The only accommodation-based service on the Routes to Support model is a refuge service. I ran refuge services, and it was not just buildings with different flats in them. It was dispersed accommodation. We had about 18 flats in the community that were single-use, for all sorts of reasons, including the need to provide disability space and space for boys over the age of 14. In sex-based, women-only services, as boys become older there are safety issues involved in having males in a women’s refuge. So, for women with teenage boys—my teenage boy is nearly twice my size and he definitely looks like a man—we made sure that dispersed accommodation was available.
We are talking not just about refuges that people might imagine to be a house where lots of women live together. We are talking about refuge accommodation in its broadest terms, including shared houses, self-contained and dispersed accommodation. The amendment seeks to require that the relevant accommodation, as defined in the regulations, must be safe for survivors and their children.
Julie Marson (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)
The hon. Lady mentions the relevant accommodation. I cannot help looking at subsection (2), which notes that
“‘relevant accommodation’ means accommodation of a description specified by the Secretary of State in regulations.”
What the hon. Lady is covering is covered there, and will be specified in the regulations.
Jess Phillips
Hope springs eternal for what I am covering here being in the regulations. Had we seen the regulations, we would not have to debate whether it is going to be in them. Unless the regulations are drawn according to clearly defined grounds, I fear that there is a real risk that people will just say, “Yes, I am a provider for victims of domestic violence.”
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)
I just draw the hon. Lady’s attention to subsections (9) and (10). Subsection (9) reads:
“The power to make regulations under subsection (8) may, in particular, be exercised to make provision about—
(a) the procedure to be followed by a relevant local authority in preparing a strategy;
(b) matters to which a relevant local authority must have regard in preparing a strategy;
(c) how a relevant local authority must publish a strategy;
(d) the date by which a relevant local authority must first publish a strategy;
(e) the frequency with which a relevant local authority must review its strategy.”
Subsection (10) states that, in making the regulations,
“the Secretary of State must consult—
(a) the Domestic Abuse Commissioner,
(b) relevant local authorities, and
(c) such other persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.”
We are trying to be as open and transparent as possible in drawing up these regulations.
Jess Phillips
I absolutely agree, and I have no reason to doubt that there will be transparency in drawing up the regulations. However, I am not entirely sure why we cannot include in the Bill our opposition to that sort of accommodation. The amendment would require that the relevant accommodation, as defined in regulations, must be safe for survivors and their children and that the definition must include refuge services. All I am seeking is assurances that that will be included in the Bill. What is the point of making laws unless we are going to lean on them when things go wrong? We need a document that states that.
Victoria Atkins
Again, by way of safeguarding, the local authorities are doing what is intended by the Bill. I draw the hon. Lady’s attention to clause 55, which states that the local authority
“must submit to the Secretary of State an annual report in relation to the exercise of the authority’s functions under this Part during the year.”
That is how the Secretary of State can ensure that individual local authorities are doing what they should be doing and meeting the expectations of the Bill.
Jess Phillips
I again thank the Minister, but with the greatest respect to the Secretary of State, unless something is written into the Bill, I do not know whether she will agree with what I am saying about what determines safe accommodation. All I seek to do in amending the Bill is a belt-and-braces job to ensure that that is the case—that what is perceived as good refuge accommodation is written into the Bill.
Peter Kyle
Gentle for the Minister is sometimes brutalising for those on the receiving end. Is it not true that a lot of the Bill, in particular at this point, relies on regulations? That means that we will have to rely not only on those Ministers currently in post but on the whim of future Ministers as well. That is why it is important that we nail down the Bill’s intentions. Rather than criticism of the to and fro in Committee, would it not be great to hear Ministers explain the intention, so that the next incumbents of their roles can see properly what the Bill is intended to do?
Jess Phillips
Absolutely. I have talked about my love of section 17 of the Children Act—I love to turn to a law. Had those issues been left to regulation, they would have been the responsibility of any incumbent Government, even when it seemed that literally anything could have happened in our politics over the past 10 years. Had section 17 not been written into law, it would have had to be done by regulation. As the Minister as pointed out, a law can be updated and be subject to annual reviews, but I want something that is protected forever. Just like section 17, I want this to apply always, because I have seen the degradation experienced by victims of domestic abuse as a result of their accommodation.
This is not about the vagaries of language in the Bill. I saw what happened when ring-fenced funding was removed from Supporting People. It was explicit about what kind of accommodation it would fund, and because it had national oversight, we had to fill in all sorts of protocols and forms. Given my long involvement in this particular sector, I am used to the cyclical debates. Looking back, it is funny. When the Supporting People funding was in place, we used to have to fill in forms about the number of bed spaces per 10,000 people. I remember filling in the little forms and sending them off, but what came with them was the idea that local authority areas had a duty to provide a certain amount of spaces through the Supporting People funding. Yet here we are, back again, rightly and honourably putting that duty into law.
When the national oversight was removed and the fund was no longer specifically about that, I saw all sorts of organisations saying, “Yeah, we provide for victims of domestic abuse.” In my constituency, the Holiday Inn could claim to be a refuge. A commissioning round could include Ibis, because people in my constituency and those of all Members present are being accommodated in Ibis hotels. Do we think that that is a refuge?
A council needs to put people where the space is, and the Bill, through this very good clause, seeks to ensure that councils do that better, but only by regulation. All I ask is that the idea of what a refuge is be written into the Bill, because a lot of councils—especially at the moment, my gosh—have a million different things going on. We need to be really prescriptive.
I referred to Ibis. I have to say that, during the beginning of the pandemic, some of those hotel chains absolutely came to the rescue of people like me. However, I do not think that anybody here wants to see domestic abuse victims living in one room, with all their children, and without any cooking facilities—of course, in the coronavirus crisis, they could not even go to the local McDonald’s. They are literally left resourceless. Although the Ibis might provide someone with a roof over their head, it does not provide them with support for their trauma or an understanding of what move-on actually means.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
I hope that this does not move us away from the text, but on the hon. Lady’s point, it strikes me that a national overview that allowed women to move to different parts of the country might be particularly relevant for migrant women, who do not have any roots in any particular part of the country. If there were a bed that was appropriate for them in, say, Lincolnshire, Carmarthen or Birmingham, they could go there.
Jess Phillips
Absolutely—the hon. Lady makes an important point. Constituents of mine, because of the accommodation that is provided under the contracts for refugees in this country, have moved overnight to different areas. They have pulled their children out of school and been sent to different areas as part of what we used to call NASS—National Asylum Support Service—accommodation. The terminology changes quicker than the weather in this country. That is absolutely the case and, currently, it is exactly what happens in a different part of the Home Office.
In 2017, a joint report by the Work and Pensions Committee and the Communities and Local Government Committee concluded:
“It is essential that refuges are able to operate as a national network, unrestrained by admission restrictions imposed by individual local authorities and with appropriate coverage across the country.”
That national network of services cannot be assessed, planned, commissioned or funded on the basis of local need alone. I am not for one second saying that local needs assessments are not needed, because they absolutely are, but not on their own, which leaves a deficit in the Bill.
Although the Government have stated that they will establish a ministerial-led national steering group to monitor and evaluate delivery of the new duty, that is not set out in the Bill, and we do not consider it robust enough to oversee this life-saving national network of services. On the point made by my hon. Fried the Member for Hove, I have absolutely no doubt that the Minister would seek to have quarterly meetings on national oversight. The Minister sat in front of me is a diligent one who cares just as deeply as me about those services—of that I have absolutely no doubt—but she may not always be in her post. It is very easy for Ministers, because they have a lot on their plate, to sigh when they see in their calendars that this or that particular meeting is next week. I want it stated in the Bill that those meetings must be in those calendars. Basically, I am blocking Ministers’ calendars—consider the Committee the invite list.
New clause 48 would establish a national oversight group that included the domestic abuse commissioner to undertake a national needs assessment for refuge services, including a review of their provision for victims with protected characteristics. The national oversight group would ensure that local authorities and local partnership boards were effectively discharging their duties, including
“monitoring compliance with the Public Sector Equality Duty and implementation of Equality Impact Assessments for relevant commissioning and procurement processes”.
The group would also oversee the delivery of funding by local partnerships and local authorities and would sanction ineffective or inadequate provision and practice—that is my favourite bit; I like a sanction. It would ensure compliance with the Istanbul convention and the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, or CEDAW, as well as ensuring ongoing liaison with relevant monitoring bodies. It is all very well to place a duty on local authorities—it is a good idea—but another issue entirely to ensure that they discharge that duty effectively. There is no provision for that in the Bill. If safeguards are not in place, there is no guarantee that provision will improve. Vulnerable women will remain in precarious situations. The national oversight group is merely a safeguard and I do not think it is a lot to ask.
Christine Jardine
Does the hon. Lady agree that one of the prominent features of our debates on this Bill, over its long life in Parliament, has been the desire on all sides of the House to protect migrant women and to ratify the Istanbul convention? That that has not been done for eight years is a failure that cannot be excused, but these new clauses and amendments could go some way to ensuring that the convention was ratified and that those migrant women, and their children, got the attention that is obviously desired for them by Members across the House and people across the country.
Jess Phillips
I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady from Scotland, which is not currently covered by the Bill. The Home Office is, of course, in charge of the policy that covers Scotland with regard to this area of immigration and the destitution funding that is put in place in those circumstances. She is right that there are hundreds of voices—nay thousands, according to the petitions on this—on one side of the argument, with regard to the need for access to support for all migrant victims of domestic abuse. It seems that there are some in this place, on the other side of the House, who do not agree. However, on Second Reading and in the Joint Committee, every specialist agency, all the commissioners and every expert involved—I have not asked Chris Whitty, but I imagine he might fall on my side about this—stated that the Bill needs to do more and that it needs to look at specific issues around migrant women.
This is not some radical left-wing approach, unless the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) could be considered a radical left-winger. Indeed, the issue was raised by the onetime Immigration Minister on Second Reading. We will speak to the issue in far greater detail next week, but without such provision the ability to ratify the Istanbul convention is null and void. I cannot understand why we would put together a Bill about domestic abuse victims that did not explicitly support every single one of them. That is the simple fact about what we have at the moment.
Throughout the amendment runs the thread of non-discrimination, as the hon. Member for Edinburgh West pointed out. We cannot pass a Bill that discriminates or has a blind spot on the effects of domestic abuse on young children. By providing an inclusive and holistic approach—by working with all those affected—we can truly tackle domestic abuse. These new clauses provide an opportunity for us to make changes now, not in 12 months’ time, and ensure that all victims of this horrific crime are supported.
Victoria Atkins
If I may, I will first explain the duty in clause 53, because the amendment is relevant as it is key to what is intended. I want to be sure that everybody understands what clause 53 does.
We are clear that it is critical that victims of domestic abuse are able to access specialist support, in safe accommodation, when they need it. At the moment, nobody has responsibility to provide this support and, as a result, coverage is patchy, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley set out. That is why I am pleased that we have included part 4 in the Bill, which will put in place duties on tier 1 local authorities in England to ensure a clear framework for needs assessment, commissioning and reporting on outcomes, so that everyone has a chance of accessing the support that they need within safe accommodation.
Clauses 53 to 57 will together ensure a consistent approach to support in safe accommodation for victims and children who are forced to leave home to escape domestic abuse, with national coverage across local authorities. Clause 53 places a duty on each relevant local authority to assess the need for domestic abuse support for victims and their children within its area. Local authorities are best placed to assess the needs of victims in their area, considering the different requirements of all victims, including those with protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010, as well as victims and their children who may come in from outside the local authority area. The local authority must then prepare and publish a strategy for the provision of support within its area, give effect to that strategy, and monitor and evaluate its effectiveness.
The Chair
Order. As the Minister started in this vein, it would be appropriate to have the stand part debate for clause 53 now. She is already speaking to it.
Victoria Atkins
Thank you, Mr Bone. That is very helpful.
Clause 53 defines “domestic abuse support” as
“support, in relation to domestic abuse, provided to victims of domestic abuse, or their children, who reside in relevant accommodation”.
Such support may include the overall management of the service, the provision of emotional support and practical advice such as on housing options, specialist support for victims with protected characteristics, and children’s support.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley raised the spectre of Ibis and other hotel chains. To be clear, the duty only covers support within safe accommodation services. In the majority of cases, the costs of rent and eligible services charges will be met through welfare benefits, housing benefit in particular, so this measure is very much focused on the specialist services within safe accommodation.
Jess Phillips
How do we stop—I quote someone’s email—an “HMO daddy”? How do we stop them claiming to offer all of those things? What will we put in place that is beyond what is currently in place to assess use of the housing benefit system, which, I hasten to add, is not working?
Victoria Atkins
Part 4. I will take the hon. Lady through it carefully, so that she understands how we have cross-checking systems in this part, in addition to all the checks in the rest of the Bill, including the commissioner and local authorities.
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government will specify in regulations a description of “relevant accommodation”. That is intended to be a broad definition in recognition of the diversity of housing in which the victims of domestic abuse and their children may live, from refuges to dispersed housing units. That is one of the complexities that we have had to deal with during the covid-19 crisis.
Clearly, people at the beginning stage of fleeing their accommodation will be in a different state of mind, different physical states and a different state of trauma after receiving specialist support in safe accommodation and when looking to enter the next stage of their life. Therefore, that diversity of accommodation must be reflected in the regulations. That will help to ensure that victims get the right support in the right place for them, which includes refuge accommodation, specialist safe accommodation, dispersed units of accommodation, sanctuary schemes, and move-on or second-stage accommodation.
The duty will require each relevant local authority to give effect to its strategy in carrying out its functions. Before publishing the strategy, the local authority must consult the domestic abuse local partnership board established under clause 54. Looking at the membership of that board, the hon. Lady understandably expressed concerns such as whether we were collecting or aware of data from A&E departments, but we have set out that not just tier 2 local authorities should be represented on the board, if appropriate to the local area, but victims of domestic abuse, children of domestic abuse victims, voluntary organisations and charities that work with victims of domestic abuse, persons who have responsibilities in relation to healthcare services in the area, and policing and criminal justice representatives.
We have very much taken on board the requests in the consultation and elsewhere for a multi-agency approach to this problem. That is very much the direction of travel at national level. Through clause 54, we are insisting that it is the direction of travel at local level.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
May I ask the Minister to comment on community services? The references to the provision of accommodation services are welcome, but she will know that there is a concern in the children’s sector in particular—but not only that sector—about the provision of community services, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley has described, are a large part of the services for children. Will she comment on how that can be secured?
Victoria Atkins
I am going to, but a little bit later in my speech, because I am concerned to ensure that everybody understands the purposes of this part. I sense that there may be a little bit of misunderstanding; I want to make sure we are all clear and will deal with that point later.
The duty will require consultation with the local partnership board—local partnership boards do not exist at the moment; they will be a really important factor in local areas—and will ensure that the local authority draws on the expertise of local domestic abuse services in its area. That provides for local accountability, requiring as it does the consultation.
The strategy that is created by the tier 1 local authority must be kept under review and any alterations, amendments or replacement must be published. That is in lockstep with everything else we are trying to do with the Bill, through the commissioner’s reports, the strategy plans and so on—making sure that this is transparent. At the moment, it will not be very easy in some areas to understand what the local strategy is. We want this section, with all the other parts of the Bill, to make that really clear.
The relevant local authorities have been picked as being tier 1 local authorities because of their larger geographical coverage, which is often coterminous with the footprint of other key partners such as police and crime commissioners, which supports planning of services. Providing support across a wider area will also help those victims who need to move further to stay safe. My own county of Lincolnshire is one of the largest counties in England and is an example of where a tier 1 local authority can help. Someone who lives in one corner of the county may be an hour and a half or two hours’ drive away from my constituency. They have that breadth of service provision and knowledge. That is how we have selected the authority, but we are also clear that tier 2 local authorities, where they exist, must play their part, which is precisely why we want them to be part of the partnership boards.
Of course, tier 1 authorities also have related responsibility in governance arrangements to draw on in leading this work, including their work on adult social care, health and wellbeing boards, community safety partnerships and children’s services.
In London in particular, tier 2 authorities will be critical to the success of this system, because they will have responsibility for housing and in some parts they commission domestic abuse services as well. We are putting the joined-up approach that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley and many others in the sector have been crying out for into the Bill in part 4 at local level.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
I am listening carefully to the Minister, as I did to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley before her. However well-meaning the amendment is—no one can doubt that it is well-meaning—everything the Minister is saying reinforces the impression that the Bill is driving progress and consistency across local government across England. Does she worry, as I do, that the amendment might stymie that progress across local authority areas and prove a block to what we are trying to achieve?
Victoria Atkins
I agree with my hon. Friend that the amendments are clearly coming from the right place, but we share that concern. The system that is being constructed in the Bill has been constructed as a result of intense reflection on consultation and in conversations with our charitable partners, service providers and so on. This is the end of a very intensive exercise of reflection and working out what can best help victims at a local level.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley also raised a fair point about assessing local need for accommodation-based support when victims may have to flee across boundaries. I am alert to that, and we will be developing a standardised needs assessment form to support local authorities in carrying out their needs assessment. Our statutory guidance will make clear the need for all areas to provide support to victims and their children from outside the area, and to work with other local authorities to allow victims easy movement from one area to another, while ensuring their safety.
There are some services that survey national need, such as dedicated services that support the needs of BAME and LGBT+ victims and people of faith. Our statutory guidance will make it clear that local area needs assessments should take those vital services into account.
Clause 54, as I have said, sets up the local partnership boards. A board will support the relevant authority in undertaking a robust local assessment of the need for domestic abuse support in its area. It will support the relevant authority in developing and publishing a local strategy based on the needs assessment. Through the duty to appoint a board, which must reflect the range of skills and expertise of different local partners—I suspect the local board in Birmingham will look different from that in Cumbria, because they are different areas with different populations and needs, and it is precisely that flexibility and responsiveness that we want throughout the Bill—the clause will help to ensure that an effective local domestic abuse strategy is put in place, informed by a needs assessment that has been tested by those who support victims of domestic abuse and their children day in, day out. Those strategies are not being imposed from Whitehall. They are being drawn up in local areas, where the needs are best understood.
The clause sets out the minimum requirement for board members. I have already outlined who is included in that. However, there is flexibility to appoint others as well. Relevant local authorities will be able to decide whether an existing board can fulfil the requirements or whether to create a new, dedicated board to fulfil the duty. Again, we are trying to be as flexible as possible, because we accept the point that some areas have managed to make much more progress in providing the services than others. Clause 54 is an important provision.
Clause 55 relates to the requirement on tier 1 local authorities to submit an annual report to the Secretary of State on how they are doing. The Secretary of State will make regulations about the form and contents of the report, and so on, but local authorities will be responsible not just to the local partnership board and, as democratically elected councils, the voting public, but to the Secretary of State. I imagine that the commissioner, who herself has reporting requirements under the Bill, will pay close attention to those annual reports.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley may be reassured to know, although it is not on the face of the Bill, that as part of the annual report there will be a national steering group. It will be led by an MHCLG Minister and established to monitor and evaluate delivery of the new duty. Therefore, there will be the safeguard of the clause 54 requirements, as well as clause 55, and in addition we will set up an expert steering group, on which the commissioner will sit, to consider the analysed information provided by local authorities.
Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)
When the Minister talks about a national steering body, could she clarify whether she means England and Wales, or England only?
Victoria Atkins
Of course, it will respect the devolution arrangement. I like the phrase “jagged edge”; it describes it well. The group will work within the devolution arrangement. As has been the case throughout the Bill’s passage, we are happy to compare and work with our Welsh partners to ensure a consistent approach and to ensure that there is learning, and so on. We have taken an open approach throughout the Bill.
The group will review the operation of local needs assessments and the provision of domestic abuse support in safe accommodation across the country, specifically considering specialist provision for those who share relevant protected characteristics and services that serve a national rather than a local need. That will allow best practice to be shared and will highlight areas that may need further support to provide the consistent coverage expected by victims and the Government.
Clause 56 deals with guidance in addition to local partnership boards and the annual reports. The Secretary of State will also issue guidance to local authorities in England on exercising their functions in part 4. The clause places a duty on the Secretary of State to consult with the domestic abuse commissioner, local authorities and other persons considered appropriate by the Secretary of State. Subsection (2) requires local authorities to have regard to the guidance when exercising a function to which it relates. We are pleased to say that the guidance —which has been welcomed by local authorities—is to help them to deliver these vital services at local level. It will clearly outline the Government’s expectations for local authorities in delivering this duty.
We recognise that there is a balance between giving local authorities the flexibility to meet particular local needs and the requirement for a consistent approach to the provision of support within safe accommodation across the country. The guidance will help to provide a standardised approach to enable that to happen. We will make it clear in the guidance how that duty interacts with other duties and requirements on local authorities, such as those relating to homelessness.
I hope that colleagues with particular expertise will understand that the guidance will, I suspect, be quite a weighty document in its own right. It will sit alongside the statutory guidance that we have talked about for the Bill as a whole, precisely because we want it to be a working document for practitioners on the ground. We aim to have the draft guidance published in time for the Lords Committee stage. The report stands to be reviewed as necessary, of course. That sets out the framework of the clauses, and I will go into more detail on some of the points raised by the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley and her colleague the hon. Member for Blaydon.
Once again, I emphasise that the statutory duty is to provide support to victims and their children within safe accommodation. Our concern is that new clauses 19 and 20 would apply more broadly to local and other relevant public authorities. The Committee may not be aware that responsibility for the provision of victim support services—including services targeted at perpetrators in order to support victims—has sat with police and crime commissioners since 2014. Local authorities will be bound by the new statutory duty to provide support to victims of domestic abuse residing in safe accommodation within their areas, but responsibility for wider victim support and perpetrator programmes will remain with police and crime commissioners.
Since 2014, PCCs have been funded by the Ministry of Justice to support victims of crime in their local areas and to address the specific needs identified in their local communities. That funding totalled some £68 million in 2019-20. PCCs have unique insight into the crime profiles and demographics of their local areas and thus the ability to allocate funding to those victims in need. Their autonomy to fund victim support services to meet local need should be preserved.
To create a duty that is workable and takes advantage of the considerable knowledge of local and public bodies, it must be placed on the specific authority that holds responsibility for particular services. Just as the new duty in part 4 will apply only to tier 1 local authorities, the commissioning of support for victims in the community must remain with PCCs and, in some cases, clinical commissioning groups. Interventions with perpetrators in the community must remain with PCCs, local authorities and, in some cases, CCGs. There is a variety with community-based services that there is not so much with refuge accommodation.
Victoria Atkins
I know that the hon. Lady cited the fact that 13% of refuge accommodation is not commissioned by local authorities. We accept that. We are looking, as I have said, at the overwhelming majority of refuge accommodation.
Jess Phillips
I thank the Minister for picking up that point. The point that I wanted to pick up on was her two uses of the phrase “in some cases CCGs”. Would it not be nice if it were “in all cases”? Does the Minister think there are CCGs in the country that do not have victims of domestic violence living in their areas?
Victoria Atkins
Sorry, I am not quite clear. Every single police and crime commissioner has victims of domestic abuse in their area, clearly, as do local authorities and, where appropriate, CCGs. To my mind, this is part of the diversity of provision of services. In some cases, it will be appropriate for CCGs to provide services, but I would not say it should be CCGs exclusively.
Jess Phillips
Will the Minister elaborate on that point and say in which CCG areas that would not be appropriate? She is saying that certain CCGs, for whatever reason, would not have to provide services for victims of domestic abuse.
Victoria Atkins
I am not going to cite, out of the hundreds of CCGs, the ones that are appropriate and not appropriate. I assume that what the hon. Lady is trying to get to is that this should be viewed as a medical issue as much as a policing and crime issue. I welcome both approaches. That is precisely why we are introducing the multi-agency approach at local level, through local partnership boards, whereby health services will be represented, whereas they are not at the moment. Policing and criminal justice will be represented, whereas they are not at the moment. Children will be represented, whereas they are not at the moment. This is the multi-agency approach that we are trying to achieve.
The Government do, however, recognise the need to explore the provision of community-based services to domestic abuse victims to ensure that those victims are receiving the right support to cope and recover from this terrible crime. Equally, we are clear that if we do not hold perpetrators to account for their actions and challenge them to make real sustainable changes to their behaviour, we will not stop the cycle of violence and abuse.
Before establishing the new statutory duty in relation to accommodation-based support, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government consulted at length with local authorities, the domestic abuse sector and other organisations involved in supporting victims, to identify the barriers to provision of safe accommodation. That identified the lack of accountability and sustainable funding for the provision of support in safe accommodation as the key issue. Through that detailed engagement, it was possible to design a statutory duty that would tackle that. I am delighted to say that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government has confirmed that the new statutory duty will be appropriately funded.
Jess Phillips
I thank the Minister for allowing me to intervene again—this is almost greedy on my part. She was talking about all the organisations that took part and what they said about what the barriers were. Could she enlighten us on what they said the barriers were in relation to migrant women?
Victoria Atkins
I will deal with that later in my speech. The hon. Lady took some 55 minutes—it is not a competition, but I have to do this justice by drawing out the points as we develop the argument. As with clauses 1 and 2, I want to explain the journey that we have taken to arrive at the statutory duty.
I think we would all acknowledge that the current funding arrangements for community-based services are complex. Although responsibility sits with PCCs, services are funded from myriad routes, including PCCs, local authorities, health partnerships and community safety budgets. That is true of both services for victims and programmes targeted at perpetrators, particularly those who have not been convicted. It would not be right to define what should be available by way of services for community-based support, without conducting a similar investigation as took place for support within safe accommodation and consulting the sector on any proposals.
To that end, the domestic abuse commissioner has agreed to lead an in-depth investigation into the current community-based support landscape, and the Government are committed to addressing its findings. We believe that that work needs to come to fruition before we can properly understand how any wider duty should be framed, on whom it should be imposed, and at what cost. It is also right that we fully consult on any expansion of the duties in part 4. I should add—in trying to describe the interlocking and interweaving web of accountability that runs through the Bill—that the commissioner will publish her report under clause 8, and we are required to respond to it within 56 days. The Bill therefore sets a time limit by which the Government are to respond.
In addition, a number of other areas of work across Government are already taking place to improve the experience of victims who seek help, such as the refresh of the national statement of expectations that is due to be published later this year. That will set out the best practice for commissioning all violence against women and girls services. We are also developing a cross-Government victim funding strategy, which is due to be published by the end of the year. Those developments are part of a cross-Government drive to ensure that domestic abuse victims in the community are receiving the support that they need, and that good-quality work with perpetrators is the norm.
I am afraid that I am not persuaded that the general duty on the Secretary of State set out in new clause 19(1) is necessary or helpful at this time. As we have already debated, the Bill establishes in law that the domestic abuse commissioner’s statutory remit will include the encouragement of best practice in the prevention of domestic abuse and the provision of protection and support to victims and others affected by domestic abuse. As part of her remit, she will necessarily look at the availability and quality of perpetrator programmes and make recommendations based on her findings.
On new clauses 19 and 20, it is worth pointing out the jagged edge, as I have called it: the new clauses do not reflect the devolution settlement in Wales. A number of relevant public authorities listed in new clause 20 operate in the devolved sphere, and we would not normally legislate on devolved matters in Westminster without the consent of the Senedd.
The other amendments in the group relate broadly to the existing provisions in part 4. Again, although I appreciate the intention behind the amendments, they would add more detailed requirements to the Bill, thereby reducing the flexibility of local authorities to meet particular local needs and set up a local partnership board in line with local needs and existing partnership arrangements. I do not believe that they are necessary because much of what they seek to achieve will be in the statutory guidance and laid down by regulation.
Clause 53 places a duty on each relevant local authority in England to assess the need for domestic abuse support for victims and their children within its area. In assessing needs, relevant local authorities will consider the differing requirements of all victims, including those with protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010, as well as victims and their children who come in from outside the local authority area. The local authority will then be required to publish a strategy, which will take effect as I have set out.
The Chair
Order. The Minister is talking about the other amendments; I should point out to the Committee that amendment 77, as printed, refers to line 21, when it should refer to line 25—it is just a typing error. As the Committee knows, we cannot adjourn at 1 pm while the Minister is still speaking; a speech cannot be interrupted.
Victoria Atkins
Sorry, I had thought that we might go on until 2 pm. In that case, I will be very quick; I hope I have set out the framework of the guidance. I am extremely grateful to Mr Bone for that clarification.
We recognise the concerns that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley has set out. I emphasise in relation to new clause 48 that the importance of national oversight is accepted, as can be seen from the setting up of the Minister-led expert steering group. We very much hope that those who are involved in that group will be able to make their views clear and look at the reports with all of the interlocking safeguards we have.
I will sum up by saying that we believe amendment 67 and new clauses 19 and 20 are at best premature, and that the other amendments are unnecessary. We recognise the importance of community-based services for those affected by domestic abuse and the need to address offending behaviour. As I have said, we are committed to investigating, in collaboration with the commissioner, what needs to be done to ensure that victims who stay in their own home, together with their children, are receiving the support they need, and that perpetrators are appropriately challenged and supported to change their behaviour.
Jess Phillips
I will not keep Members for a long time, and I recognise the Minister’s generosity towards other members of the Committee. She has not covered some of the issues that she said she would cover, whether those raised in my speech or through interventions on myself or her. I recognise the reason for that; no doubt we will have plenty of time to debate those issues as the Committee progresses.
I will just pick up on a few small things. The Minister has clarified that the regulations she mentioned will be laid at Lords Committee stage, as opposed to the guidance that she has promised will be laid before the House on Third Reading. As regards the guidance about local authorities’ commissioning of specialist refuge accommodation, the Minister has suggested that some of the things we are suggesting may be premature. I have been having meetings and conversations about these regulations for six years, beginning before I was elected, in the days when MHCLG was still DCLG. I have met with pretty much every housing Minister or MHCLG Minister about this issue, so it does not feel particularly premature to me. However, I look forward to the regulations coming before the Lords Committee.
So much of this regulation is based on trust, and all I was saying to the hon. Member for Cheltenham was that although I like part 4 of the Bill, I think there are areas in which it could be better, clearer and more robust to future-proof it. I will not press amendment 67 or new clauses 19 and 20 to a vote now, because I think the duty on community services is something that the whole House would wish to discuss—and the Lords would certainly wish to see discussed—on Report, and then maybe at the amendment stages in the Lords. I thank the Minister for responding to many of the issues I have raised, which has allayed some concerns, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 53 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Domestic Abuse Bill (Eighth sitting)
Thursday 11th June 2020
(4 years, 6 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Domestic Abuse Bill 2019-21 View all Domestic Abuse Bill 2019-21 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 11 June 2020 - (11 Jun 2020)
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 81, in clause 56, page 36, line 22, at end insert—
“(2A) Before issuing guidance under this section the Secretary of State must lay a draft of the guidance before Parliament.
(2B) Guidance under this section comes into force in accordance with regulations made by the Secretary of State.”
This amendment requires the Secretary of State to lay any guidance under this section before Parliament and provides that this guidance will come into force in accordance with regulations made by the Secretary of State.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 82, in clause 56, page 36, line 28, at end insert—
“(ba) persons, groups and organisations providing support and services with those affected by domestic abuse locally, regionally and nationally, and in particular those working with or providing specialist support services to affected women and children,”.
This amendment sets out additional persons, groups and organisations the Secretary of State must consult.
Jess Phillips
I will not speak for long. We have already gone over lots of what is in this amendment, including in the large and wide-ranging debate we had on part 4 of the Bill. Some of what the Minister has said gives me hope that we will get more detail on how this will be administered. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 56 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 57
Interpretation of Part 4
Amendment made: 36, in clause 57, page 37, line 1, after “London” insert
“in its capacity as a local authority”.—(Victoria Atkins.)
This amendment clarifies that the reference to the Common Council of the City of London in the definition of “local authority” for the purposes of Part 4 of the Bill is to the Common Council in its capacity as a local authority.
Clause 57, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 58
Special measures directions in cases involving domestic abuse
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
I beg to move amendment 54, in clause 58, page 37, line 32, at end insert—
“(3A) In cases where it is alleged that domestic abuse is involved, Chapter 1 of Part 2 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 (special measures directions in case of vulnerable and intimidated witnesses) applies to proceedings in the family court as it applies to criminal proceedings, but with any necessary modifications.”
This amendment extends statutory eligibility for special measures to the family court in cases where domestic abuse is involved.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 45—Special measures (civil and family proceedings): domestic abuse—
“(1) In civil and family proceedings, a witness is eligible for assistance by virtue of this section if they were, or are at risk of being, the victim of domestic abuse from—
(a) another party to the proceedings; or
(b) the family member of another party to the proceedings.
(2) The court’s duty under subsection (1) applies as soon as allegations of domestic abuse are raised after the start of proceedings and continue until the resolution of the proceedings.
(3) In determining the measures to make available to the witness, the court should consider—
(a) whether one or more measures should be made available; and
(b) any views expressed by the witness.
(4) The measures referred to in this section are those which—
(a) prevent a witness from seeing another witness;
(b) allow a witness to participate in proceedings;
(c) allow a witness to give evidence by live link;
(d) provide for a witness to use a device to help communicate;
(e) provide for a witness to participate in proceedings with the assistance of an intermediary;
(f) provide for a witness to be questioned in court with the assistance of an intermediary; or
(g) do anything else provided for in Civil Procedure Rules or Family Procedure Rules.
(5) Rules of court made for the purposes of providing assistance to eligible witnesses shall apply—
(a) to the extent provided by the rules of court, and
(b) subject to any modifications provided by rules of court.
(6) In this section—
“the court” means the family court, county court or the High Court;
“witness”, in relation to any proceedings, includes a party to the proceedings;
“proceedings” means civil or family proceedings;
“live link” means a live television link or other arrangement whereby a witness or party, while absent from the courtroom or other place where the proceedings are being held, is able to see and hear a person there and to be seen and heard by the judge, legal representatives acting in the proceedings and other persons appointed to assist a witness or party.”
This new clause would ensure that victims of domestic abuse have access to special measures in both civil and family proceedings.
Christine Jardine
The Bill extends special measures in criminal courts, such as screens or video links, to include domestic abuse survivors. However, unfortunately, it does not ensure similar protections in civil and family courts. The amendment would extend eligibility for these measures to family courts in cases where domestic abuse is involved.
Special measures were originally implemented in criminal courts by the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999, and are automatically provided to child witnesses, witnesses with mental or physical disabilities, complainants of sexual offences, or victims of serious crime who might also be regarded as intimidated, including victims of domestic abuse. However, in family courts, provision for the use of special measures is not currently based in legislation, but in the Family Procedure Rules 2010. Those rules set out the way in which courts should deal with family proceedings, and include practice directions intended to protect victims. Practice direction 12J sets out the procedure for members of the judiciary and provides for special measures.
In November 2017, the Ministry of Justice introduced a new practice direction setting out the recommended procedure for judges dealing with vulnerable persons in family proceedings, including those with concerns in relation to domestic abuse. It provides for special measures to ensure that the participation and quality of evidence of parties is not diminished. Practice direction 3AA, “Vulnerable persons: participation in proceedings and giving evidence”, states that
“the court may use its general case management powers as it considers appropriate to facilitate the party’s participation.”
According to the 2012 Rights of Women report, however, special measures were not advertised in family court, and were rarely ordered at that time. A more recent report by Women’s Aid in 2018 found that 61% of domestic abuse victims who participated in a survey were not provided with special measures in a family court. I mention these things to draw the Committee’s attention to the fact that, while there might appear to be measures at the moment in family courts, they are perhaps not effective, and many women who appear in the family court in domestic cases are not aware of them. Domestic abuse often surfaces in family law cases dealing with divorce or childcare arrangements. In 2018, 45% of cases in family court were matrimonial matters. Parental disputes concerning the upbringing of children accounted for 20% of cases. Intimate partner abuse has been found to be a factor in around half of child contact cases in England and Wales.
Often, women have been subjected to long-term violent and emotional abuse, and family court proceedings can be a negative experience, in much the same way as criminal ones, where they are offered protection. Such proceedings can even be used as another forum for abuse and control by perpetrators. The all-party parliamentary group on domestic violence and abuse found that victims of domestic abuse reported feeling re-victimised and re-traumatised through the family court process. In 2012, a report by Rights of Women, a women’s charity providing legal information and advice, outlined how victims of domestic abuse suffer intimidation and harassment from their former partners, and that they often feel unsafe during the court procedure in a family court. I cannot imagine what it must be like to be a survivor of domestic abuse, and find myself in a family court in a divorce, which is not easy and can be painful even when it is amicable.
Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con)
Does the hon. Member agree that the Bill, as it stands, will transform the experience of victims of abuse in family courts by banning the cross-examination of perpetrators of domestic and sexual abuse?
Christine Jardine
That is the next clause, I believe. There is no measure we can take in the Bill that goes too far, or that could be regarded as being in any way sufficient, until we can do no more. No length is too great when it comes to protecting women. Banning cross-examination by perpetrators of domestic abuse is valuable, but it must be written in the legislation that special measures are available. It is not just women themselves who will be cross-examined; it might be their children. It is about coming in and out of the court. It is about having to face the person who has abused them—often for decades—in a corridor because they did not have a special entrance. We need to look at all these things. I cannot imagine what that would be like. No step is too far.
In 2018, Women’s Aid found that 24% of respondents had been cross-examined by their abusive ex-partner in the family court, and that was traumatising for them, so I do agree with the hon. Lady. Victims can feel that their experiences have been minimised in proceedings, and if protective measures are not granted by courts, they will be exacerbating that and letting these women down.
Christine Harrison from the University of Warwick has concluded that domestic abuse was and is persistently minimised and dismissed as irrelevant in private law proceedings. Lesley Laing from the University of Sydney in Australia has also found that accounts of engagement with the system often mirror domestic violence narratives. That is known as secondary victimisation, and it is not acceptable.
Resolution, the family justice charity, has said that although there have been changes to the family procedure rules, it is widely recognised that current special measures facilities in family court hearings—such as video and audio link, and screen facilities—are not satisfactory or on a par with the facilities available in the criminal courts. Resolution’s members, who are family lawyers, have raised their concerns.
We have talked about the Bill for three years as landmark legislation—a once in a generation opportunity to tackle domestic abuse. However, if we exclude the family courts from the Bill, we will miss a valuable opportunity to tackle domestic abuse in an area where it has perhaps been minimised and overlooked in the past, which is not acceptable. I therefore ask the Committee to consider the amendment.
Jess Phillips
I will speak to new clause 45, which has been grouped with the amendment. I support everything the hon. Lady has just said. I will not repeat much of what she has said about the number of victims who find they cannot actually access any of the facilities that are said to be available in the family courts. In one recent case—I will not cite the case here, but I have the details in front of me—the victim was denied special measures, even though the perpetrator had been arrested for battery, coercive control and sexual assault by penetration. The victim was also living in a refuge. However, she was denied special measures in the family court.
There is not only an absence of legislative guidance. It is clear, as some of the reports the hon. Lady referred to show, that facilities such as video and audio link are not as readily available as they are in the criminal courts. I absolutely welcome what the Bill attempts to do in formalising in legislation what largely exists in the criminal courts for most criminal court cases. In fact, I think that in every single domestic violence case that I have ever been to court about, special measures have formed a part of proceedings, or at the very least have been on offer. I myself have been offered special measures in cases that I have personally been involved with. Sometimes, victims do not want to use them; they want to sit and face the accused. I cannot remember a case in the criminal courts where special measures were not on offer; sometimes the video links leave a little to be desired, but they were none the less available.
It is great that the Government wish to formalise the special measures in our criminal courts in the Bill, and we support that. We simply wish to see those measures extended to court facilities where family law and civil law matters are discussed.
Stay Safe East, the disability charity that focuses on domestic abuse, has advised us that in the local family courts in its area, only one out of the 12 courtrooms has a video facility. I am sure I am teaching Ministers to suck eggs when I say that someone does not always get to decide which courtroom they go into when they get to court. It is therefore a sort of “luck of the draw” situation at the moment.
Automatic eligibility, which new clause 45 and the amendment would allow for, would place special measures on a statutory footing and ensure that family and civil courts make structural changes to safeguard victims, thereby removing the burden on victims to have to request special measures. We want a situation similar to the criminal courts, where such measures are offered in a very proactive way. In fact, long before someone even knows that they will ever be in court or has been given a court date, they are asked about special measures. The amendments are just about equalising that system across our justice estate, to reduce the variation in judicial approach and provide much-needed predictability for victims.
That is especially important because in lots of the cases we are talking about, victims go through a criminal case and a family case at the same time. It is unusual that they can be in one courtroom on a Tuesday and another on a Wednesday, and have completely different safeguards in place. Their case is exactly the same. The perpetration that they have suffered is exactly the same, yet they are safe in one courthouse and not safe—or do not feel safe—in another. There are, I am afraid to say, some terrible examples of women being attacked by their perpetrators in the toilets of family courts, which were written about in Women’s Aid’s “Nineteen Child Homicides” report for the Child First campaign. We just seek to equalise the situation.
Fay Jones (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)
The hon. Lady mentions some improvements that could be made, but does she welcome our election manifesto commitment about integrated domestic abuse courts?
Jess Phillips
Perhaps I am being a bit premature, but I look forward to the progress on that, because the sectors have been crying out for the integration of different court systems for years and years. As we have said about a million times during these debates, the approach of the specialist domestic violence courts have been patchy across the country. In some areas, they have dwindled, but in others they have come to the fore because of the covid-19 crisis. I would very much welcome anything that would standardise the situation in courts for victims of domestic violence, especially in respect of their experience of the courts, whether they be civil, criminal or private.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
It is exactly on that point that I want to talk about special measures. I hope that it is acceptable to the Chair for me to mention some matters on clause 59 as well, because these things will interact. I will not then rise to speak on clause 59. Much of this is to do with the lack of communication between jurisdictions and the experience of victims and survivors as a result. I welcome the opportunity to speak now because, in December 2017, I brought forward a private Member’s Bill on courts and the abuse of process. From the point of view of the victim’s experience, special measures and cross-examination—those two things—are inter-merged.
Back in 2017, my office carried out research into 122 victims of stalking and domestic abuse, which gave us a snapshot of those individuals’ experiences when they went to court. I understand that this was a self-selecting study, but 55% of those people had had court proceedings taken against them by their abusers. It should be noted that all those victims had restraining orders in place. None the less, that was their experience—court proceedings were brought against them. Two thirds of them then had to appear in court, and a third were personally cross-examined by their perpetrator. In only a quarter of those cases did the police view the court proceeding as a breach of the restraining orders on the perpetrators.
At that time, I was trying to limit the capacity of perpetrators, primarily of domestic abuse, stalking and harassment, to use—indeed, to misuse or abuse—the family and civil courts in a deliberate, calculated effort to continue to distress their victims and manipulate their behaviour to exercise deliberate control over their actions.
At the time, what needed to be sought was the means for the court to have the power to dismiss any meritless applications where it was apparent that the purpose of the application by the perpetrator was specifically to distress or harass the victim, in the guise of an appeal to justice in matters relating to civil or family court jurisdiction. Many of us will have come across instances of repeat applications, particularly in the civil court, but also, from the point of view of the perpetrator, to again be able to hold the victim under their control and, within that cross-examination, gain the satisfaction of that aspect of the relationship again.
I will mention what was proposed at the time, because it was felt to be suitable then. The proposal was that the applicant would be obliged to declare any unspent convictions or restrictions in relation to the respondent, or similar convictions against other victims; the respondent would be given the power to inform the court of any relevant convictions or restraining orders in respect of the applicant; and the court then would have a duty to investigate the claims. In such circumstances, if proceedings were permitted to continue, the respondent would be able to request special measures, such as the provision of screens or video links, and of course there would be a possibility of other special measures in relation to cross-examination.
I will just touch on a couple of examples. I do not want to go on forever with case studies, but they do give some colour as to why this point is relevant. One instance that became apparent to us from our research was of a man who had been a victim of stalking for over six years. His stalker had repeatedly brought baseless, vexatious claims against him through the civil court, and he had no option but to represent himself because of lack of funds. Despite the fact that the stalker was subject to a restraining order, he was allowed to continue to cross-examine the victim in the civil court, and neither the police nor the Crown Prosecution Service recognised those vexatious claims to be in breach of the restraining order. It was difficult to come to any conclusion other than that the court procedures themselves were at that time colluding with the applicant and his continued abuse of the respondent.
I will give a second example, just to give a sense of the costs. It involves another respondent to our research. This woman’s ex-partner had also had a restraining order, having been charged also with stalking her. He had taken the woman to court 15 times, in both civil and family courts. That had cost her about £25,000 because, like many people, she was not eligible for legal aid in those circumstances.
I will not rise to speak to clause 59, because I think this discussion does lead us on and there are a few specific points that I would like to make about clause 59, which is where the concerns are.
The Chair
Order. Despite that, I urge the right hon. Lady to stay well within the scope of the clause that we are currently debating.
Liz Saville Roberts
Thank you, Ms Buck. I will wait until the appropriate time.
Julie Marson (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)
I want to touch on my experience in the courts, particularly the specialist domestic violence courts. However harrowing it has been, it has been a genuine pleasure to be able to sit in those courts.
There are some common themes that I have seen in court. It is usually women and children affected. There is always a power and control dynamic; it is never just about the violence, although there usually has been violence. And there is always fear on the part of the victim, even with the special measures that I have seen—the screens and so on. I could still see the victims, and I saw them crying, shaking and trembling. This is so important. What such a measure does is take away some of the power that the perpetrator has to control the victim in the courtroom environment, because they are still trying to control, even right at that moment, with looks, sounds, movements—with everything they can muster at the time. Therefore, I profoundly support special measures across the piece, because I think that they are really valuable in limiting that control right through the justice system.
Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)
In the hon. Lady’s experience of dealing with these cases and being able to see the impact on victims, was she aware of the challenges that victims have before they get into the courtroom, because often in family courts it is very difficult to separate victims from perpetrators? Was she aware, in her job at the time, that that was also an issue that needed to be dealt with?
Julie Marson
The hon. Gentleman makes a really important point. Long before I ever see a victim in court, there has been a huge process to get there and to provide the right support. Independent domestic violence advisers and different support mechanisms are in place; there are supporting people who come in and sit with the victim in court, but it is a hugely traumatic experience and support is needed throughout that process.
I would add a point about a common theme among perpetrators. When, in normal criminal cases, shoplifters or burglars or other violent offenders are convicted and sent to prison, there is a shrug of the shoulders—it is a part of their life; a general hazard of the criminality that they are involved in. When I have had—I will use the phrase—the pleasure to convict a perpetrator and send them to prison, it is noticeable that all the power has all of a sudden been stripped away. Their indignance and fury is palpable; you can sense it and see it. That is what makes it a different crime and a different experience, and that is why special measures are important. I speak to that experience.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)
Will my hon. Friend indulge me for a moment? I take the point that the hon. Member for Hove made about the geography and layout of court buildings. Some we cannot change because they are very old. Has my hon. Friend seen the measures that clever judges can introduce to control when defendants are permitted to turn up according to the conditions of bail? For example, the defendant is not permitted to arrive at court until 20 minutes before the court case starts, so that the victim has time to get into the building and into the witness room, or wherever she will be based, and there is no risk of crossover. Does my hon. Friend agree that little tweaks such as that can make a difference?
Julie Marson
Absolutely; I completely agree. We cannot legislate for everything you can do in a court—every courtroom is set out differently. I have seen a lady with two teenage daughters, with the husband, and some really clever dynamics were needed to keep everyone separate, including in the toilets. In my experience, such measures have been very positive. There have been specialist domestic violence courts. Everyone is keenly aware of what is needed and is trying to think ahead for the kinds of measures that can make justice effective and make sure that justice is done. Such measures are all part of that.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk)
I am delighted to see you in the Chair once again, Ms Buck. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford for her excellent contribution. It speaks to the strength of the Committee that its members have real-world experience and can apply it to the important matters that we are here to discuss.
Before turning to the amendment and new clause, it is worth taking stock of where we are in terms of the court process and the framework in which the amendment and new clause sit. Over the last 10 years or so—probably a bit longer—the environment for victims and witnesses has been completely transformed. It was not so long ago that a complainant in a case of serious violence or a serious sexual allegation had to turn up at court and eyeball the defendant. It required an extraordinary effort of will, and a lot of people just thought, “This isn’t worth the candle.”
Legislation was introduced that provided the opportunity for screens and giving evidence via live link. At the time, that was considered utterly revolutionary. People were clutching their pearls, saying, “That’s it; justice is dead in our country; there is no opportunity for people to get a fair trial” and so on. The culture has changed. Now, at plea and trial preparation hearings such orders are routinely made and, lo and behold, juries—indeed, benches of magistrates as well—seem to find it perfectly straightforward to make a judgment in the interests of justice on the facts in front of them.
Setting that context helps to bring us up to the situation at the moment. Let us imagine some facts for a moment. The allegation is one of sexual assault on the London Underground. At that early hearing, before the Crown court, long before the trial has even been scheduled, the judge will ask the prosecutor, “Are there any applications for a special measures direction?” The prosecutor will stand up and say, “Yes, there is a complainant in this case and it is an allegation of a sexual nature, so I will be inviting the court to make a special measures direction in the normal way.” That is precisely what will happen, because it will be automatic.
I pause to note one further point. If the complainant says, “Forget this. I don’t want a screen, and I don’t want to give evidence on a live link; I want to be there in the well of the court, because that is how I feel I will get justice”, that will be accommodated as well.
Jess Phillips
The Minister says that the report will be published in the coming weeks. Does he expect that we will see it prior to Report stage of the Bill, or potentially prior to Committee stage in the Lords, as he has leaned on for one particular review? I ask only because I am seeking to understand what will be given to me as I consider whether to push new clause 45 to a Division.
Alex Chalk
I invite the hon. Lady to listen to the end of my remarks. If I can put it in these terms, the words I will use at the end are carefully phrased. I invite her to listen to those and then decide. A huge amount of work has gone into this panel, and getting to a place where we are ready to publish is the stuff of enormous effort. We are moving as quickly as we can, and it will be published as quickly as possible.
On the civil courts, there are no specific provisions in the civil procedure rules that deal with vulnerable parties or witnesses. However, judges have an inherent power, where the court is alerted to vulnerability, to make a number of directions or take steps to facilitate the progression or defending of a claim or the giving of evidence by a vulnerable party.
Liz Saville Roberts
To summarise considerably, I am sure that the Minister is aware that the Civil Justice Council returned earlier this year with the civil procedure rule committee. One of its recommendations was a new practice direction to address vulnerability. I wonder whether he could consider that.
Alex Chalk
The hon. Lady must have a copy of my speech, because I will come to that point in just a moment.
The directions that a civil court can make include, but are not limited to, giving evidence via video link, by deposition, by the use of other technology or through an intermediary or interpreter. On the hon. Lady’s point, following the April 2018 publication of the interim report and recommendations of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, the Ministry of Justice commissioned the Civil Justice Council—an advisory body responsible for overseeing and co-ordinating modernisation of the civil justice system—to consider the issues raised by these recommendations, and to compile a report that was not to be restricted only to victims and survivors of child sexual abuse.
The CJC published its report, “Vulnerable witnesses and parties within civil proceedings: current position and recommendations for change”, in February 2020. It made a number of recommendations, as the hon. Lady rightly points out. On special measures, the CJC report concluded that, in the civil jurisdiction, the issue is one of awareness and training, rather than lack of legal powers or framework. This goes back to my point on the role of this place in promoting awareness while recognising that discretion should be available to the court. That was the CJC’s conclusion. Its suggestion was that special measures were best left to the flexibility of court rules. The Government are considering how the recommendations in the independent report should be taken forward.
What is evident from the evidence received by the family panel and the Civil Justice Council is that the current position is unsatisfactory. The question is how best to improve the situation and ensure that vulnerable witnesses in the family and civil courts receive assistance to give their best evidence, in a way analogous to what the Bill already provides for in the criminal courts. We have the report from the Civil Justice Council to guide us but do not yet have the report of the family panel. However, I hope and expect that we will have it shortly, and it is right that we should consider the panel’s findings before legislating.
I am sympathetic to the intention behind these proposals. If the hon. Member for Edinburgh West would agree to withdraw her amendment I can give her and the shadow Minister an assurance that, between now and Report, we will carefully consider both proposals, and how best to proceed. If they are not satisfied with the conclusions the Government reach, they are of course perfectly entitled to bring amendments back on Report.
Christine Jardine
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 58 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 59
Prohibition of cross-examination in person in family proceedings
Amendment made: 37, in clause 59, page 39, line 32, at end insert—
“(aa) section 80 of the Sentencing Code;” —(Alex Chalk.)
See the explanatory statement for amendment 31.
Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
Alex Chalk
Let me say a little about clause 59. In fact, the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd was starting to talk about it, so I will set out some context. The clause contains provisions to prevent unrepresented perpetrators of abuse from cross-examining their victims in person in family proceedings. It also makes provision to give family courts the power to appoint a qualified legal representative to undertake the cross-examination instead, where necessary.
The Joint Committee on the Draft Domestic Abuse Bill, which undertook pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft Bill, recommended that the automatic prohibition of cross-examination be extended so that it would apply when the victim could provide evidence of abuse, as in the legal aid regime. We have accepted the recommendation in full, and the clause now gives full effect to it.
Some of the most vulnerable members of society come before the family courts, and we are determined to offer them every protection and to ensure that every vulnerable victim or witness coming to the family courts has confidence that the court will not be used to perpetrate further abuse against them. Currently, family judges have a range of powers to make sure that difficult courtroom situations are handled sensitively for vulnerable witnesses. In proceedings where both parties are litigants in person and concerns of domestic abuse have been raised, that may include carrying out cross-examination by way of the judge or the justices’ legal advisers putting questions to the parties themselves. Alternatively, the judge can decide that an alternative form of evidence, such as pre-recorded cross-examination from criminal proceedings, is sufficient.
However, there are cases in which those alternative forms of evidence or cross-examination will not be sufficient to test the evidence in the case thoroughly. We must recognise that for the judge to step into the arena to ask those questions is often—how can I put it politely?—suboptimal. In those instances, the court currently has no power to appoint an advocate to carry out the cross-examination in place of the parties themselves. That can lead to situations in which the court is powerless to prevent a victim from being cross-examined in person by their abuser.
I am sure we would all feel uncomfortable about a situation in which evidence was not challenged. The whole point of an adversarial process is to tease out inconsistencies and omissions in the evidence. If that is not happening, the proceedings are not fair, so it is important that there should be scope within the trial process for frailties in the evidence to be ruthlessly exposed.
We recognise that the issue has been the subject of close attention in the House and among experts in the field. Victims have told us that being subject to cross-examination in person in this way can be retraumatising, and judges have told us that the situation is an impossible one for them to manage. I entirely sympathise. We are determined that the court should never be used as a forum to perpetuate further abuse, and that it should have sufficient powers in all cases to prevent abuse from being perpetrated through court processes.
The purpose of the clause is therefore to introduce a prohibition on victims being cross-examined in person in specified circumstances. In addition, the clause gives the court the power to appoint an advocate, paid for from central funds, for the purpose of cross-examination where there are no satisfactory means to cross-examine the witness or to obtain the evidence, where the party does not appoint a legal representative or themselves to do so, and where it is necessary in the interests of justice to do so.
Jess Phillips
I welcome what the Minister is saying, but on the specific instances he is outlining of who exactly would be able to assess this, does he foresee an element of the judge’s discretion also allowing them to go to central funds where they believe enough that cross-examination would cause distress, regardless of whether there may previously have been a conviction or an order in place? As we all know, there is a disparity between conviction and order rates on the one hand, and domestic violence rates on the other.
Alex Chalk
Courts have a common law discretion to manage their own proceedings, but it will be important for us to assist the them as much as possible by setting out the categories that should trigger the exemption. Although courts can act of their own motion, it is none the less important to prescribe to an extent that the provision applies in circumstances where somebody has been convicted, charged or cautioned. I will develop that point in the following passage.
In the light of the recommendation from the Joint Committee on the Draft Domestic Abuse Bill, the clause now makes provision that the automatic ban will also apply in other cases where a witness has adduced specified evidence of domestic abuse. The evidence will be specified in regulations and, as recommended by the Joint Committee, we intend for this evidence to broadly replicate that which is used to access civil legal aid. That is probably the point that the hon. Lady was driving at.
The prohibitions also apply reciprocally, to prevent a victim from having to cross-examine their abuser in person. Where the automatic ban does not apply, the clause also gives the court a discretion to prohibit cross-examination in person where it would be likely to diminish the quality of the witness’s evidence or cause significant distress to the witness or the party. That is the point about a court’s discretion: the judge has the individuals in front of them, can hear from them and can make a decision based on that.
In any case where cross-examination in person is prohibited, either under the automatic prohibition or at the discretion of the court, the judge must consider whether there is a satisfactory alternative means by which the witness can be cross-examined or the evidence can be obtained. That would include means that already fall under the judge’s general case management powers, such as putting the questions to the witness themselves or via a legal adviser, or by accepting pre-recorded cross-examination. I suppose one might imagine cases where the things that need to be cross-examined on are so narrow in scope that it would not be worth the aggravation of instructing independent counsel if the judge can do it and do justice in that way. It is important that the court can act of its own motion and flexibly, and the clause retains that flexibility.
If there are no satisfactory alternative means, the court must invite the prohibited party to appoint a legal representative to carry out cross-examination on their behalf. If they choose not to, or are unable to, the clause gives the court the power to appoint a legal representative—an advocate—for the sole purpose of conducting the cross-examination in the interests of the prohibited party. The court must appoint an advocate where it considers this to be necessary in the interests of justice.
There could be circumstances where it is not possible to protect the prohibited party’s rights to access to justice and/or a family life without the appointment of such an advocate. This might be in circumstances, for example, where the evidence that needs to be tested by cross-examination is complicated, because it is complex medical or other expert evidence, or because it is complex or confused factual evidence, say from a vulnerable witness. The clause also confers power on the Secretary of State to issue statutory guidance in connection with the role of that advocate.
The clause also confers power on the Secretary of State to make regulations about the fees and costs of a court-appointed advocate to be met from central funds. We understand the particular skill and care that is needed to carry out cross-examination of a vulnerable witness effectively. We will be designing a full fee scheme to support these provisions, in consultation with the sector and interested parties, prior to the implementation of the Bill.
This clause seeks to ensure that, in future, no victim of domestic abuse has to endure the trauma of being questioned in person by their abuser as part of ongoing family proceedings. It makes a big difference, and I commend it to the Committee.
Peter Kyle
It is rare but pleasing when one agrees so fully with the person one shadows, and I am grateful to him. I do not want to shock the Minister—I do not want him to be clutching his pearls as I say such words—but it is certainly the situation we find ourselves in on this clause. We are not opposing or seeking to amend the clause; we agree fully with it and what it seeks to achieve.
However, I want to spend a bit of time explaining how we got to where we are, because it is important. It is important that we make sure the record reflects the situation that this clause seeks to rectify and the impact that the cross-examination by perpetrators of victims has had on people. In so doing, I speak on behalf of a great number of advocates, both in Parliament and outside, over a great period of time. I can speak for myself on this issue, but I am very aware of the fact that I am also speaking on behalf of a lot of other people.
I had personal experience of this issue very soon after getting elected in 2015. Soon after the election, I was sitting on the floor of my campaign office among the detritus of a very vigorous campaign, sorting through things and trying to figure things out, when a very fragile, very vulnerable and very damaged woman suddenly appeared in the doorway. She came in to see me, and said, “Are you the new MP?” I said yes, and she said, “I saw your leaflets. You look like a friendly person. I am now going to flee my relationship, and I will only speak to you about it.” We sat in the corner of the office, and this woman was bruised and bleeding. She had literally escaped from the relationship, and I, as an MP of a few days, was thinking on the inside, “Oh my God, what do I do in this situation? How do I help this extraordinarily vulnerable person?” I just did the best I possibly could, and that involved brokering a relationship between her and the police, about which she was terrified. She was scared of the authorities because the authorities had let her down so many times, repeatedly. I supported that woman, and she went into a protective programme. She now has a new identity and a new life, and although she will never ever be able to escape the horrors of what she went through, she certainly has an opportunity to discover new, more fruitful aspects of life, which she was prevented from doing before.
One of the aspects I experienced very soon after the process of supporting her began was the experience of the family court. I could not believe what I heard when she came to see me after some hearings in the family court, where she was made to share the space of the person she had fled. Having seen her on the day she fled her relationship, it was horrendous to hear that she was forced into the same waiting room as this person, had to be in the same space when their relationship was discussed and, crucially, was cross-examined by him.
At the same time, another constituent came to see me in my surgery. She had just been cross-examined by her abusive partner for the third time. She had previously been hospitalised; the perpetrator had broken more than a dozen or her bones and repeatedly raped her. On the third appearance in the family court, she was shaking so violently that she needed assistance to get to the taxi afterwards. On the journey home, the taxi driver had to stop and help her out of the taxi so that she could vomit on the pavement.
That was happening to people who I was sitting with and who I represented in Parliament. I could not understand that the very institutions that existed to protect people like them were facilitating the abuse—in front of judges, in a room with police officers, abuse was happening, and nobody was offering support. To my shame, I could not quite believe that this was possible in 21st-century Britain. When I came back to Parliament, I sought out my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) and asked him about it. I said, “I am hearing this thing, but I can’t believe it is possible.” He, as the former Director of Public Prosecutions, said, “It is happening, and there is a big campaign out there to try and change it.”
I could not believe that it was still happening, so I went to speak to Ministers. Repeatedly, Minister after Minister told me that a cultural change was needed in the criminal justice system, not a legislative change. I could not accept that. Having gone to speak to judges to understand why change was not happening, and having repeatedly spoken to Ministers, I found it incredibly hard to believe that the Government were not seeing or understanding the abuse. Of course, they were seeing it, but they were refusing to change. There are many lessons here, and I hope Back Benchers realise that persistence is one of them.
On 15 September 2016, I secured a Backbench debate that was led by Angela Smith, the then Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge. We had gone with a cross-party group to get a Backbench debate. There were several Tories in the group, and we worked as a formidable team. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley was not part of the group that went to the Backbench Business Committee, because she sat on the Committee and was supposed to be impartial, but it was clear from her facial expressions where she stood on the issue.
During the debate itself, I was able to put on record the most shocking example of this abuse that I have ever come across. In the eight or nine months leading up to the debate, I met dozens of women who had gone through such abuse. The most shocking case was that of Jane Clough—some people in this room will be aware of her case. I am not the sort of person who normally quotes himself, but in going through all the different debates that have taken place in Parliament in the last five years on this issue, I read some of the examples I put on record, and I want to quote directly from one debate. My reason for doing so is that I want Members to realise, and I want the record to reflect, that this example has been on the House of Commons record for almost four years.
Jess Phillips
Is one reason why Lobby journalists and other journalists did not believe it potentially because of the deep secrecy about what occurs in family courts? In the case of the Cloughs, while they were going through the court, they would have been forbidden from speaking about it.
Peter Kyle
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who makes an important point. She is right about the secrecy of family courts. In a subsequent urgent question that I was granted on cross-examination, I asked for a full review of practices in family courts with that very much in mind. Since then, some journalists have been allowed into family courts, but it is heavily regulated to the point where it still stymies the process, work and operation of the family court. It might interest Members to learn that in that quote from Hansard, I used parliamentary privilege. I broke the regulations of the family court to even describe the process that occurred in that exchange in the family court with the Clough family. That is how heavily restricted the processes of family courts are at times, and that is what has led to the lack of reform in comparison with other parts of the criminal justice system. Everything that we are discussing in this clause is already the case in criminal courts.
If the press and the media had been able to scrutinise, and if we had known what was happening in some of those cases, it would have been dealt with some time ago. That is another important point, because The Times splashed the story twice on its front page over Christmas 2016. On 5 January 2017, it again placed the story on the front page, but at that point with an off-the-record briefing from a source in the Ministry of Justice who said that they were going to review and take action on it.
What frustrated me at that point was the equal opposite to what elated me. I was absolutely punching the air that there was going to be movement. What frustrated me, as a parliamentarian, was that we had given the Government half a dozen opportunities in the previous six months on the record in the Commons using the right procedures to get the change that we needed, but it took getting the media involved to deliver it.
We all know that, no matter who the Speaker is, every Speaker will go through the roof when they see an off-the-record briefing making announcements to the media. I immediately asked Speaker Bercow for an urgent question, which I was granted on 7 January to discuss cross-examination in family courts. The Minister who responded to it on 9 January was the right hon. and learned Member for North East Hertfordshire (Sir Oliver Heald), who was characteristically decent and wholehearted in his response and who engaged with the issue head on. He said:
“Is it necessary to change the law? The answer is yes it is. Primary legislation would be necessary to ban cross-examination…work is being done at a great pace to ensure that all these matters are dealt with in a comprehensive and effective way—the urgency is there…My feeling is that what is required is pretty straightforward: a ban, and then the necessary ancillary measures to allow cross-examination without the perpetrator doing it.”—[Official Report, 9 January 2017; Vol. 619, c. 27.]
Hon. Members can imagine that that was a big moment.
As an aside, I refer to the exchange that just took place between the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley. When she intervened on him and asked, “When will it be done?”, he replied saying, “As soon as possible.” There was a guarantee to sort out cross-examination almost four years ago—the right hon. and learned Member for North East Hertfordshire said on the record, “the urgency is there”—so when we hear such things from Ministers, we sometimes have that experience, which is why we often seek to probe and get things on the record about timings.
We had a huge opportunity for change. We had the commitment of the Government. At one point the then Minister, the right hon. and learned Member for North East Hertfordshire, giddily galloped across the Chamber to put the amendment that he sought to move to the Prison and Courts Bill in my hand and said, “There it is. We’re going to do it.” Then, of course, we fell into the 2017 general election. Repeated attempts to get it fixed in the subsequent period also fell to the challenges of the time. Then, of course, we had the Bill that fell before the 2019 general election.
After the UQ of January 2017, I received over 1,000 messages from around the world—mostly women, but some men—who had experienced this in their own lives and felt an incredible need to share their experiences. I had underestimated the degree to which this is a community of people who have suffered, survived and are connected in various ways to share their stories. I had to take on a team of volunteers just to cope with their specific correspondence. Every single person who contacted me had such stories of pain and suffering, as well as persistence and fortitude to a degree that is almost unimaginable for someone who has not experienced it, that I believed every single one of them deserved a personal response.
What united every single message was gratitude that change was coming and a sense of relief that other people would not go through what they went through. That is why the delay of four years has been so difficult for very many people to stomach. Although the numbers have declined because courts have become more aware of the challenge, even one victim and survivor of domestic abuse experiencing a fraction of what we have just heard about would be one too many. So when my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley, members of our Front-Bench team and I read in clause 59:
“In family proceedings, no party to the proceedings who has been convicted of or given a caution for, or is charged with, a specified offence may cross-examine in person a witness who is the victim, or alleged victim, of that offence.”—
believe, me, I want to jump up and down screaming, “Hallelujah!” This is a very important moment. I wish it had come sooner, but it takes away none of the excitement, elation and gratitude that it is actually coming now. This is a good day and a good moment for very many people.
Some representative organisations and campaigning groups have been in touch with a request to amend the clause. They have concerns that still, within the letter of the law, it would be possible for a perpetrator, or alleged perpetrator, to nominate somebody close to them—a friend or a family member—to do the cross-examination on their behalf who might well act in their interests in terms of carrying on the abuse. I do not believe, from reading the Bill, that that is in the spirit of the proposed law or is something I believe a court would countenance. However, I seek reassurance from the Minister that they are aware of that, and that should it ever happen in court they will not wait six months, a year or four years before fixing it, but do everything in their power, including bringing something to the Floor of the House, to deal with it if that is what it takes.
Liz Saville Roberts
I too very much welcome the drive behind the clause. The hon. Member for Hove expressed so well the sense that victims have been grist to the mill in the past and this measure will re-set the balance to a degree. I very much agree with the spirit of the amendment to the clause, but there are a couple of points I would like to raise to bring to the attention of the Minister potential loopholes that may need attention in future.
Alex Chalk
Before turning to the specific point, I listened carefully to what the hon. Member for Hove said, and it was clear that he has taken a close interest in the issue. I thank him for the energy that he has clearly applied to it. As I was listening to him, I heard about Bills that had fallen, elections that had come and UQs that had happened, and I was reminded of Otto von Bismarck, the German Chancellor, who said: “Laws are like sausages; it is best not to watch them being made.”
That is absolutely right and I felt it about this. Inevitably—not inevitably, but not uncommonly—it can take time to get there, but we are absolutely delighted with where we have arrived at with this important legislation. It is important to note, too, that it takes place in the context of other important legislation that it was possible to get over the line earlier, such as on coercive control or modern slavery. The Bill sits within that wider context in which we take some pride.
I will first address the issue of spent convictions, friends and so on, and that will allow me to go back to a point made by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley, when she in effect said, “What happens in circumstances where it is not necessarily a conviction or a caution, but something else?” If hon. Members turn to page 40 of the Bill, that is the relevant part of clause 59, which deals with how the Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act 1984 will be amended. The clause having dealt specifically with issues of conviction and caution, proposed new section 31U—“Direction for prohibition of cross-examination in person: other cases”— states:
“In family proceedings, the court may give a direction prohibiting a party to the proceedings from cross-examining…a witness in person if…none of sections 31R to 31T operates to prevent the party from cross-examining the witness”—
that relates to people protected by injunctions, convictions or other matters—and
“it appears to the court that—
(i) the quality condition or the significant distress condition is met, and
(ii) it would not be contrary to the interests of justice to give the direction.”
In other words, it would be open to the party to indicate to the court: “Yes, I don’t automatically qualify, but I’m going to provide a statement that indicates that it would adversely affect the quality of the evidence I can give were I to be cross-examined by the other party.” I hope that that will give the courts confidence that flexibility is deliberately built into the system.
Liz Saville Roberts
To return to my concern about the lack of communication between jurisdictions, on spent convictions we are going quite a long way down the road as to what communication is necessary. Is the Minister confident that there is sufficient communication, or that there will be in the wake of the legislation, to ensure that such situations are safeguarded against?
Alex Chalk
Yes, I am confident, but it goes back to the earlier point that we were making about culture. If, by dint of the legislation, the family judges, when deciding whether to make one of the orders, are alive to the fact that they will need to consider whether someone has a conviction or a caution, that will, in and of itself, encourage and require the co-operation of the police. In other words, the court will have to find out what is on the police national computer in respect of the other party.
I am confident that courts will see their way to ensuring that those lines of communication are in place. Quite apart from anything else, if a judge finds himself, or herself, in a situation where he cannot make the order because he has not been provided with the information he needs, we can be very sure that he is likely to say something about that. That will, I am sure, elicit change in the fullness of time, so the short answer to the hon. Lady’s question is yes.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 59, as amended, accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 60 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 61
Offences against the person committed outside the UK: Northern Ireland
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Alex Chalk
Clause 61 extends the jurisdiction of the criminal courts in Northern Ireland in the same terms as clause 60 extends the jurisdiction of the criminal courts in England and Wales. We did not go into clause 60 in any detail, but that is what it is about.
Clause 61 gives effect in Northern Ireland to our obligations under article 44 of the Istanbul convention, as it applies to article 35, which covers physical violence, and article 39, which covers forced abortion and forced sterilisation. Like clause 60, it does so by extending extraterritorial jurisdiction to certain offences against the person, including actual or grievous bodily harm and murder and manslaughter, in circumstances where the courts do not already have such jurisdiction. That will mean that a UK national or a person habitually resident in Northern Ireland who commits one of the offences outside the UK can, exceptionally, stand trial for the offence in Northern Ireland.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 61 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 62
Amendments relating to offences committed outside the UK
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Alex Chalk
The clause simply reintroduces schedule 2, which contains amendments relating to offences committed outside the UK. As with clauses 60 and 61, the amendments are necessary to ensure compliance with article 44 of the Istanbul convention. Part 1 of schedule 2 contains amendments to provide for extraterritorial jurisdiction over certain offences other than those set out in clause 60 under the law of England and Wales. Part 2 of schedule 2 contains amendments to provide for extraterritorial jurisdiction over certain offences under the law of Scotland. Part 3 of schedule 2 contains amendments to provide for extraterritorial jurisdiction over certain offences not including those set out in clause 61 under the law of Northern Ireland.
Schedule 2 contains amendments to a number of enactments to provide for extraterritorial jurisdiction over certain offences under the law of England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Together with clauses 60 and 61 and provisions in the Domestic Abuse and Family Proceedings Bill currently before the Northern Ireland Assembly that give extraterritorial effect to the new domestic abuse offence in Northern Ireland, schedule 2 will ensure that the UK complies with the jurisdiction requirements of article 44 of the Istanbul convention.
Part 1 of the schedule covers England and Wales and gives effect to the UK’s obligations under article 44 as it applies to article 33, which covers psychological violence, article 34, which covers stalking, and article 36, which covers sexual violence, including rape. It does so by extending extraterritorial jurisdiction to offences under sections 4 and 4A of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, sections 1 to 4 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 where the victim of the offence is aged 18 or over, and section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015, which is about coercive control. It will mean that a UK national or a person habitually resident in England and Wales who commits one of these offences outside the UK can, exceptionally, stand trial for the offence in England and Wales. Where the offence involves a course of conduct, the offence may be committed wholly or partly outside the UK.
Part 2 of the schedule covers Scotland and gives effect to the UK’s obligations under article 44 as it applies to articles 33 to 36 and article 39. It does so by extending extraterritorial jurisdiction to the common law offence of assault, to offences under sections 1 to 4 of the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009 where the victim of the offence is aged 18 or over, and to the offence of stalking under section 39 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010.
That will mean that a UK national or person habitually resident in Scotland who commits one of these offences outside the UK can, exceptionally, stand trial for the offence in Scotland. Where the offence involves a course of conduct, the offence may be committed wholly or partly outside the UK.
Part 3 of the schedule, as the Committee will be cottoning on to by now, covers Northern Ireland and gives effect to the UK’s obligations under article 44 as it applies to article 34 and 36. It does so by extending extraterritorial jurisdiction to offences under article 6 of the Protection from Harassment (Northern Ireland) Order 1997 and part 2 of the Sexual Offences (Northern Ireland) Order 2008, again where the victim of the offence is aged 18 or over. It will mean that a UK national or person habitually resident in Northern Ireland who commits one of these offences outside the UK can, exceptionally, stand trial for the offence in Northern Ireland. Where the offence involves a course of conduct, the offence may be committed wholly or partly outside the UK.
Jess Phillips
I simply want to welcome specifically the terminology of “habitual resident” within the UK. The Minister and I have met a number of different families over the years who have suffered violence, and I am afraid to say that those cases we get to see usually involve murder in a different country. Where the perpetrator of the crime was back here in Britain and was not a British citizen but was habitually resident in this country, the authorities had found that their hands were tied. While the measures seem perfunctory and were a lot of words for the Minister to say, to families they mean a huge amount, so I welcome them.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 62 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 2 agreed to.
Clause 63
Polygraph conditions for offenders released on licence
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Alex Chalk
This clause is about polygraph conditions. It is an important clause that relates to conditions for offenders released on licence. It is one of a number of measures in the Bill directed at strengthening the effective management of domestic abuse perpetrators. It allows the Secretary of State for Justice to introduce mandatory polygraph examinations as a licence condition for offenders convicted of a relevant domestic abuse-related offence. The relevant offences include murder, specified violent offences and the offence of controlling or coercive behaviour under the Serious Crime Act 2015. Necessarily, this is a new departure to some extent, but it is kept within tight limits, as members of the Committee would expect.
Jess Phillips
I beg to move amendment 52, in clause 64, page 47, line 15, at end insert—
“(1A) Before issuing guidance under this section, the Secretary of State must undertake a comprehensive assessment of the contribution of the disclosure of police information to the prevention of domestic abuse, drawing on disclosures made by chief officers of police prior to this section coming into force.
(1B) Disclosures of police information for the purposes of the prevention of domestic abuse may only be made—
(a) where reasonable, necessary, and proportionate,
(b) with regard to the best interests of children likely to be affected by the disclosure, and
(c) after ensuring there is an operational plan to support the recipients of such disclosures.”
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 53, in clause 64, page 47, line 17, at end insert—
“(2B) Each chief officer of police of a police force must annually review—
(a) the compliance of their own force with any guidance issued under this section, and
(b) the overall contribution of the disclosures under that guidance to the prevention of domestic abuse in their force area.”
An amendment to demand review from police of how the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme policy is working, and to clarify the ‘pressing need’ test.
Jess Phillips
The domestic violence disclosure scheme, which I will refer to from this moment forward as Clare’s law, was introduced in 2014 after Clare Wood was murdered by her ex-boyfriend, George Appleton. For those who are unfamiliar with the case, Clare Wood had made several complaints to the police about George Appleton before her death. Those complaints included criminal damage, harassment, threats to kill and sexual assault. A panic room had been installed in her house following an attempted rape.
Clare was unaware that George Appleton had a history of violence against women and had been jailed for three years in 2002 for harassing another woman, and for six months a year earlier after breaching a restraining order. However, he was still able to enter Clare’s home, strangle her and set her on fire. The Independent Police Complaints Commission concluded that Clare had been let down by individual and systematic failures by Greater Manchester police.
Clare’s law was designed to set out procedures that could be used by the police in relation to disclosure of information about previous violent, abusive and offending behaviour by a potentially violent individual towards their partner where that might help to protect that partner from further violent and abusive offending. There are two procedures for disclosing information: the right to ask, which is triggered by a member of the public applying to the police for a disclosure, and the right to know, which is triggered by the police making a proactive decision to disclose information to protect a potential victim. Disclosures are made when it is deemed that there is a pressing need for the disclosure of the information to prevent further crime.
While there is no doubt that Clare’s law was introduced with entirely good intentions—I am not here to challenge that at all—there is some concern that this well-intentioned piece of legislation is currently not operating as it should be, and concern about some alarming instances where, as it operates currently, it could be causing more harm.
First, Clare’s law has had limited use since its creation in 2014. According to data from March 2018, there were 4,655 right to ask applications, resulting in 2,055 disclosures, and 6,313 right to know applications, resulting in 3,594 disclosures, so it can be seen clearly that disclosures are not made in every case. In comparison, in the same time period there were just shy of 1.2 million recorded domestic abuse cases in England and Wales, so we are talking about a very small number of cases that seem to be using the scheme. That in itself is not necessarily evidence that it is not working, but I think it is descriptive of where it may work in some places and not others.
In addition, there appears to be a postcode lottery regarding disclosures. It is assumed that that variation is due to the vague nature of the pressing need test that currently exists in the law. For example, in 2019 Kent had an 8.5% disclosure rate for right to ask disclosures, while Hampshire had a 99.5% rate. That is worrisome, but what is of even greater concern is that the average time taken for each disclosure is 39 days. I imagine all will agree that in cases of domestic abuse, that mitigates quite a lot of the potential prevention and could potentially heighten a victim’s risk.
In addition, while there was a review of the initial pilot phase of Clare’s law and a review one year on, those reviews were procedural and did not consider the impact of the scheme on domestic abuse or analyse the scheme’s value for money. There is therefore no evaluation of whether the disclosures made have any benefit to the person they are made to. In fact, one survey indicated that 45% of early-wave recipients of information went on to be victimised by the partner they warned about. In normal language, that means that 45% of the people who have been given the information following one of the variety of requests under this law went on to be victimised and abused by that person.
One such example is Rosie Darbyshire, who was murdered with a crowbar by her partner Ben Topping. Having made an application for information under Clare’s law on 28 January, she was killed just over a week later on 7 February. She was left unrecognisable after sustaining more than 50 injuries.
Other concerns include the impact of coercive and controlling behaviour where women are unable to contact the police or where contact from the police would only serve to make matters worse. At the beginning of a relationship—I think we can all understand this, and it applies not just to women but anyone—women are often not alive to the risk of domestic abuse. Only when it is too late are they advised of their partner’s past.
Gemma Willis from Teesside, reporting to the BBC, was only advised of Clare’s law after her partner was arrested following smashing her head into a window, slashing her neck with a trowel, hitting her with hammers and threatening to kill her family. Also reporting to the BBC, Dr Sandra Walklate from the University of Liverpool said of the scheme:
“We have no real way of knowing whether it’s working or not”.
While clause 64 operates to place Clare’s law on a statutory footing, the proposed amendments are designed to safeguard against circumstances and the case studies outlined above. The amendments would mean that police should evaluate whether disclosures made under Clare’s law are having a positive impact on the safety and empowerment of victims. I am not seeking for police forces just to do a paper-shuffling exercise: “A request has come in. What will we do with this request? Does it meet the tests as set out in the law?” I am rather seeking for police forces to run some manner of risk assessment on the impact of this disclosure being made, not on the perpetrator but on the victim.
The amendments would also require police to undertake an exercise to establish the efficacy of the disclosures that have been made in the past few years, to simply have a look over how well it is working. The pressing need test, which I have already referred to, would be refined and clarified to create uniformity with future disclosures. Based on information set out, it cannot be argued that my amendments are anything less than essential for the Government, if they want to ensure that Clare’s law is as good as it could be and that the protective effect it was intended to have does not, in some cases, cause harm.
Victoria Atkins
I would like to take a moment to reflect on the extraordinary campaigns, charities and local efforts, through which families, such as the Wood family, often find the strength and resilience somehow to campaign and carry on when they have suffered a devastating loss in their family. We have heard why Clare’s law is called Clare’s law: her family felt that had she been aware of her murderer’s background, she would have been able to stop the relationship earlier.
There are so many efforts in the world of looking after and helping victims of domestic abuse, both at the national and local level, where people have done the most extraordinary things. I want to put that on record, because I am very conscious of it as we work through the Bill and our non-legislative work.
We absolutely acknowledge that there is much more to be done to raise awareness of the scheme, primarily with the public, but also with the police. We want to increase the number of disclosures and ensure that the scheme is operated consistently across all police forces.
Jess Phillips
I am indeed content. I look forward to working with the Minister to ensure that the law—it bears somebody’s name and is their legacy—truly does what Clare’s family wish it to do. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 64 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 65
Grant of secure tenancies in cases of domestic abuse
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Victoria Atkins
Part 7 of the Bill is a collection of important measures, although there is perhaps not a common theme running through them other than that. The clause relates to secure tenancies and contributes towards the Government’s wider aim to support victims of domestic abuse to leave their abusive circumstances, and to ensure that they and their families have the stability and security they need and deserve.
Clause 65 does two things. First, it will ensure that victims of domestic abuse who have or had a lifetime social tenancy, and who have had to flee their current home to escape abuse, will retain the security of a lifetime tenancy in their new social home where they are granted a new tenancy by a local authority. The provisions apply to all local authorities in England and protect all lifetime social tenants in such circumstances, regardless of whether they hold a secure local authority tenancy or an assured tenancy with a private registered provider of social housing—usually a housing association.
Secondly, the clause will safeguard domestic abuse victims who hold a joint lifetime tenancy and who want to continue living in their home after the perpetrator has moved out or been removed from the property. It does this by providing that, if the local authority grants them a new sole tenancy, it must be a lifetime tenancy. The provisions apply when the tenant is a victim of domestic abuse, and they extend to situations where a member of the household—for example, a child—has suffered domestic abuse. In the year to the end of March 2019, nearly 1,500 local authority lettings were made to social tenants who cited domestic violence as the main reason they left their former social home. Although that is a small proportion of new tenants overall, the provisions would protect more than 1,000 households affected by domestic abuse.
The measures largely mirror current provisions in the Secure Tenancies (Victims of Domestic Abuse) Act 2018. That Act, which delivers on a 2017 manifesto commitment, ensures that when the mandatory fixed-term tenancy provisions in the Housing and Planning Act 2016 are brought into force, the security of tenure of victims of domestic abuse will be protected. After listening carefully to the concerns of social housing residents, the Government announced in August 2018 that we had decided not to implement the mandatory fixed-term tenancy provisions at that time. In order to ensure that victims of domestic abuse are protected, we also announced that we would legislate to put in place similar protections for victims of domestic abuse where, as is the case now, local authorities offer fixed-term tenancies at their discretion; the clause gives effect to that commitment. The clause also amends the definition of “domestic abuse” in the 2018 Act to bring it in line with the definition in this provision.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 65 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Rebecca Harris.)
Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill (Fourth sitting)
Thursday 11th June 2020
(4 years, 6 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Act 2020 View all Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 11 June 2020 - (11 Jun 2020)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 5 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 8 / Noes: 6 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Chair
I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following:
Amendment 3, in clause 4, page 2, line 34, leave out “, or in connection with,”
This amendment would narrow the scope of the powers provided to the Secretary of State in Clause 4, as recommended by the House of Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in connection with the equivalent Bill introduced in the last session of Parliament.
Amendment 20, in clause 4, page 2, line 35, leave out “this Part” and insert “Schedule 1”
This amendment seeks to limit the scope of the power in Clause 4 to matters concerning the ending of retained EU law rights that currently preserve free movement and immigration-related rights.
Amendment 21, in clause 4, page 2, line 35, at end insert—
‘(1A) The power to make regulations under subsection (1) may only be exercised within the period of one year from the day on which this Act is passed.
(1B) Regulations made under subsection (1) shall cease to have effect after a period of two years from the day on which this Act is passed.”
This amendment would restrict the use of the Henry VIII powers contained in Clause 4 to a period of one year from the date of the Act being passed; and would prevent any changes to primary legislation made by exercise of these powers having permanent effect unless confirmed by primary legislation.
Amendment 4, in clause 4, page 3, line 6, leave out subsection (5).
This amendment would narrow the scope of the powers provided to the Secretary of State in Clause 4, as recommended by the House of Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in connection with the equivalent Bill introduced in the last session of Parliament.
Amendment 15, in clause 4, page 3, line 8, at end insert—
‘(5A) The Secretary of State may make regulations under subsection (1) only if satisfied that the regulations would have no detrimental effect on the children of EEA and Swiss nationals resident in the United Kingdom.
(5B) Before making regulations under subsection (1) the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament, and publish, a statement explaining why the Secretary of State is satisfied as mentioned in subsection (5A).”
Amendment 22, in clause 4, page 3, line 8, at end insert—
‘(5A) Regulations under subsection (1), in relation to persons to whom the regulations apply under this Act, shall be made in accordance with the following principles—
(a) Promotion of family life, particularly that between children and their parents and that between partners;
(b) That persons in the United Kingdom should have a right of appeal to the First-tier Tribunal against any decision to refuse leave remain, to curtail leave to enter or remain or to make a deportation order;
(c) that where leave to remain is given—
(i) on account of a person’s long residence in the United Kingdom; or
(ii) to a person whose continuous residence in the United Kingdom includes five years of that person’s childhood; or
(iii) to a child who has lived in the United Kingdom for a period of seven continuous years;
that leave is given for an indefinite period;
(d) that leave to enter or remain given to a person for the purpose of establishing or continuing family life in the United Kingdom is not subject to a condition restricting work, occupation or recourse to public funds; and
(e) ensure that no change to immigration rules or fees is made—
(i) unless sufficient public notice has been given of that change to ensure any person affected by the change who is already in the United Kingdom with leave to enter or remain has reasonable opportunity to adjust their expectations or circumstances before the change takes effect; or
(ii) that would require a person given leave to enter or remain for the purpose of establishing or continuing family life in the United Kingdom to satisfy more restrictive conditions for the continuation of their stay than were required to do so at the time the person was first given leave for this purpose.”
This amendment seeks to ensure that exercise of the delegated powers in clause 4(1) is guided by certain principles.
Amendment 12, in clause 8, page 5, line 40, at end insert—
‘(4A) Section 4 and section 7(5) expire on the day after the day specified as the deadline under section 7(1)(a) of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020.”
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Kevin Foster)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Stringer. This group of amendments raises important issues about the scope of the regulation-making power in clause 4. I would like to thank the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East for speaking to his amendments and for the effort he has put into them. I know that he has a strong interest in the use of the power in clause 4, as he had when the Bill was previously in Committee, in 2019. However, despite the explanations given to him then, he appears still to be misinformed about how the Government are planning to use this power, and I hope that my response will help. A lot has been said today and in the evidence sessions about this power granting Ministers a blank cheque. That is not the case, and if you will permit me, Mr Stringer, I will set out how we intend to use the power and respond to the hon. Member’s amendments as I do so.
The power is intended to enable three broad things via regulations. The first is to ensure that our laws operate coherently once freedom of movement ends and the relevant provisions in schedule 1 are repealed. There are references across the statute book to EEA citizens, their free movement rights and their status under free movement law, which need to be addressed through regulations made under this power.
For example, regulations made under section 126 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 list the documents that must be provided in support of various types of immigration application. One type relates to applications under the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2016, which implement the free movement directive. That reference needs to be removed because those regulations are revoked by schedule 1, so there will no longer be applications under them. It is therefore important that the power is wide enough to ensure that all references to the EU and free movement rights in primary and secondary legislation can be amended appropriately as a consequence of, or in connection with, the ending of free movement.
That is why the Government do not and cannot accept amendments 2 and 3, as they would prevent us from meeting our manifesto commitment of ending free movement and introducing a new, fairer points-based immigration system. We also do not want the provision drafted so narrowly as to lead to challenge and uncertainty about whether an amendment is “appropriate” or “necessary” “in connection with” or “in consequence of” the end of free movement. Such an amendment would enable those who oppose the principle of ending free movement, which I accept the Scottish National party does, to seek to achieve that through the courts by challenging these regulations, since they were not able to achieve it at the ballot box in December.
The second reason that the power is important is to align the immigration treatment of EEA and non-EEA citizens for those who arrive from 1 January 2021, after the end of the transition period. That will enable us to deliver the new global points-based immigration system under which everyone is treated equally—for example, by removing EEA citizens’ exemption from the immigration skills charge. We also intend to use the power to align the rules on access to benefits, so that EEA citizens and non-EEA citizens are treated the same under the new global points-based system. It is worth me clarifying that the detailed requirements for the future points-based immigration system will be set out in the immigration rules made under the Immigration Act 1971 and subject to parliamentary scrutiny of those changes, not through regulations made under clause 4. Control has been taken back by Parliament and will be there.
Thirdly, the power will enable savings and transitional provisions to be made—for example, to protect EEA citizens’ existing appeal rights under the EEA regulations. That is in addition to the protections to be delivered for EEA citizens resident in the UK by the end of the transition period through statutory instruments, which the Government will bring forward under the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020.
I understand that clause 4 is a complex, technical power. That is why the Government have already produced information to help the Committee understand the power, through the factsheet published on gov.uk. I have also given examples of changes that we intend to make under the regulations. It is absolutely right that Parliament pays close attention to delegated powers such as these. I noted the recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in the report on the Bill in the previous Parliament.
Amendment 4 would remove the provision to make changes in relation to fees and charges. Regulations made under this power may only modify legislation relating to the imposition of immigration fees and charges where that is as a consequence of or connected with the provision in part 1. That enables the application of fees and charges to EEA citizens, who are currently exempt from them, such as the immigration skills charge, which is paid by the employer.
Amendments 20, 21 and 22 would further limit the scope of the regulations made under clause 4. Let me set it out again that we need this power to ensure that our laws operate coherently once free movement ends, to align the immigration treatment of newly arriving EEA citizens and non-EEA citizens from 1 January 2021, and to make relevant savings and transitional provisions for resident EEA citizens that cannot be made under powers in the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020.
Amendment 20 would prevent the regulations from being used to make amendments that are in consequence of or in connection with clause 2, which protects the unique position of Irish citizens in the UK once free movement ends. I understand the queries about that point. To be absolutely explicit, we intend to use that power in a very limited way to amend provisions in the Immigration Act 1971 that cover entering the UK via the common travel area. We will not use them for wider changes. As I said this morning, the Belfast agreement is fundamental international law, as well as a fundamental part of our constitution.
Amendment 21 is intended, first, to sunset the power in clause 4 by setting a deadline for its use of one year after the Bill is passed and, secondly, to ensure that regulations made under the power expire after two years. As the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East is, I suspect, aware, regulations will need to be made under clause 4 to coincide with the repeal of free movement law by part 1. We have endeavoured to ensure that they make all the changes required by primary and secondary legislation, to come into effect by the end of the transition period. Beyond that, I assure him that we would make further changes under the power only if that were required, and Parliament will be fully engaged whenever it is used.
The power cannot be used to make amendments relating to the consequences of exiting the EU more generally; it can be used only in consequence of or in connection with ending free movement and the clarified status of Irish citizens. Changes cannot be made indefinitely, as they would not be in consequence of or in connection with that purpose. For example, the powers cannot be used to amend future primary legislation or general immigration policies.
The second limb of amendment 21 provides that any regulations made under clause 4 would expire after two years. That would mean that the legislation that had been amended reverted to its former state, creating confusion for the public and leading to a partial revival of elements of free movement, which I suspect is the outcome that the hon. Gentleman is partly hoping for. This is not an outcome that we can accept.
Amendment 22 would require that regulations made under the power in clause 4 complied with a specified set of principles. It would have the effect of continuing to treat newly arriving EEA citizens differently from non-EEA citizens. That is not consistent with establishing a new global points-based immigration system focused on the skills and contributions that people have to offer the UK, not where their passport is from.
Amendment 12, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), is also intended to sunset the power in clause 4 by setting the end date for its use as the day after the end of the grace period, on 30 June 2021, by which time EEA citizens and their family members resident in the UK by the end of the transition period must have applied for status under the EU settlement scheme unless, as we constantly repeat, there are reasonable grounds for missing the deadline.
I hope that I have reassured hon. Members concerning the important limitations on the use of the power in clause 4. I emphasise that it cannot be used to make amendments that relate to the consequences of exiting the EU more generally, but only in consequence of or in connection with ending free movement and the clarified status of Irish citizens provided by clause 2.
We will endeavour to make all the changes required to primary and secondary legislation in the forthcoming regulations to be made under clause 4 later this year. However, should we identify the need to make further regulations related to part 1, it is important that we have the power to do so, subject to the full scrutiny and approval of both Houses.
When a power to make regulations expires, so do any regulations made under it, so if the amendment were passed legislation that had been amended would revert to its former state, creating confusion for the public and leading to a partial revival of elements of free movement, which may have been the intention. However, that is not an outcome that the Government can accept.
Amendment 15, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston, would ensure that children of EEA and Swiss citizens resident in the UK were not adversely affected by the ending of free movement rights. She asked specifically about numbers, and I had an opportunity over the break to get the figures for the period up to 31 March 2020—they are published quarterly. Of the under-18s who have applied to the European settlement scheme, and where a decision has been taken, by 31 March, 261,880 were granted settled status and 150,940 were granted pre-settled status. That compares with just 20 refusals of applications from applicants aged under 18. Those refusals may well be on grounds purely of eligibility—that is, not having proof of living within the United Kingdom.
Given the hon. Lady’s specific query, I thought it would be helpful to give that clarity. It is not possible to say exactly how many people may be eligible, because free movement rights and rights relating to those who become eligible to apply to the European settlement scheme still operate up to 31 December. It is impossible to say exactly who will arrive tomorrow, for example, and be entitled under the withdrawal agreement to apply to the European settlement scheme. I hope that gives her some reassurance on where we are. It is worth saying that the overall level of applications to the European settlement scheme is now over 3.5 million and the number of decisions taken is over 3 million, which puts the numbers we are talking about into context.
Amendment 15 would create a two-tier system of family migration, with one set of requirements for the children of EEA and Swiss citizens and another for children of non-EEA citizens. It would lead to EEA citizens potentially being given preferential treatment inconsistent with the new points-based immigration system and with our aim of having a new single approach to migration rules, regardless of where a passport comes from.
The Home Office has, as the hon. Lady touched on, a very clear statutory obligation to take into account the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in the UK when carrying out immigration functions. That extends to all children, not just the children of EEA or Swiss citizens. This is contained in section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009. That, together with article 3 of the UN convention on the rights of the child—part of international law, as she pointed out—means that consideration of the child’s best interests must be a primary consideration in immigration decisions affecting them.
The amendment could create a separate and preferential family migration system for the family members of EEA or Swiss citizens compared with the family members of non-EEA citizens. The proposed condition under clause 4—that the Secretary of State is satisfied that there would be no detrimental impact on the children of EEA or Swiss citizens—could lead to non-EEA citizens with children and the children themselves being treated less favourably for no reason other than their nationality and with no justification for that, given that the United Kingdom has now left the European Union. This is not a basis on which a new global immigration system can be founded.
The Bill’s core focus is to end free movement. The design of the new points-based immigration system will be developed consistent with our international and domestic obligations to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. For that reason, as set out in our published policy equality statement on the immigration measures in the Bill, we have committed carefully to consider all equalities issues, including the impact on children, as these policies are being developed, but not on the basis of a two-tier approach between non-EEA and EEA children.
It is important to debate the appropriate use of delegated powers, and I welcome this, but the Government are committed to ending free movement now that we have left the EU and this clause is an essential part of delivering that. It will be used to deliver a clear and coherent statute book and level the playing field for future migration by removing the preferential treatment of EEA citizens and their family members under EU freedom of movement rules.
In future, the UK’s immigration system will be firmer, fairer and global, rather than one based on where someone’s passport comes from. I suspect that I might not have been able to fully reassure Opposition Members on the power under clause 4, but I ask them not to press their amendments, which the Government cannot accept.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Stringer. I am grateful to the Minister for his extensive response, but he is right in one thing, which is that he has not fully satisfied me about the need for these powers. Much of what he said related to how the Government propose to use these powers or what they are planning to do, but that is not how we should go about assessing whether the scope of the powers is appropriate. We need to assess what the scope of these powers would, in theory, allow the Government to do, and that goes way beyond what he set out.
We do not hand powers to the Government on the basis of assurances that they are going to do only a, b and c. Listening to the list of proposals the Minister made, I am utterly unconvinced that that could not be done very simply with a much more narrowly drawn clause and power. Nothing in any of these amendments would stop the Government bringing free movement to an end—sadly.
The Minister alluded to the fact that some of this is about trying to limit the scope for judicial oversight. I am trying to keep MPs in a job here scrutinising legislation, but I am also trying to make sure the judiciary is not excluded from the proper review of the use of Executive power. The House of Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee said that these are “significant” powers and also used the word “disturbing” at one point, so I am afraid I cannot accept the Minister’s explanation that they are justified.
On amendment 22, I am disappointed that the Minister did not engage with the principles themselves, because other amendments have been tabled with respect to the principles of immigration law and we are constrained by the scope of this Bill to limiting these amendments to dealing with EU, EEA and Swiss nationals. Although that does not mean we think we should be confined in this way to them, it is in the Government’s gift to extend this much more broadly, so I am very disappointed that he did not engage with what those principles are. I hope we will have a fuller debate when we come to other amendments. On that basis, I shall press amendment 2 to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 13, in clause 4, page 3, line 8, at end insert—
“(5A) Regulations under subsection (1) must provide that EEA nationals, and adult dependants of EEA nationals, who are applying for asylum in the United Kingdom, may apply to the Secretary of State for permission to take up employment if a decision at first instance has not been taken on the applicant’s asylum application within six months of the date on which it was recorded.”
May I say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship again this afternoon, Mr Stringer? The amendment would give European economic area and Swiss nationals who apply for asylum in the UK the right to apply to the Secretary of State for permission to work if a decision has not been taken on the applicant’s asylum application within six months of the date on which it is recorded as having first been made.
The amendment is the legislative outcome of the Lift the Ban campaign, a movement headed up by Refugee Action and with the support of more than 200 organisations, including the likes of Oxfam and the British Red Cross; trade unions, including the National Education Union, Unison and the TUC more broadly; industry players such as Ben & Jerry’s and the Confederation of British Industry; and organisations such as the Adam Smith Institute. We worked on the drafting of the amendment with Refugee Action, as well as with legal professionals, and we are of course truly grateful, as ever, to the Committee Clerks. The proposal is limited to EU nationals to ensure that it falls within the scope of the Bill.
This amendment was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston in the Bill Committee on the previous version of this Bill during the 2017-19 Parliament. At that point, the Government argued that the UK is allowed to treat an asylum claim made by a citizen of an EU country as automatically inadmissible unless exceptional circumstances apply, and that a claim made by a non-EU EEA national would be considered on the basis that it is likely to be clearly unfounded. The implication was that there would be no one who would benefit from the amendment, and in any case treating asylum seekers from the EEA differently from those from the rest of the world on the grounds of their nationality was not only illogical but discriminatory.
The Minister and I know, though, that the amendment sets out the proposal in principle, within the bounds of what is permissible in respect of the scope of the Bill. It gives us the opportunity and the platform to outline the case for change, and I am delighted that it also has the support of SNP Members.
In August and September 2018, the Lift the Ban coalition conducted a survey with a group that had direct experience of the asylum process and found that 94% of all respondents said they would like to work if they were given permission to do so. We have all met asylum seekers: they are people not dissimilar to ourselves who have often had to flee their own countries when faced with immediate danger. They are often skilled, able to work and want to work. Rose is one example. She is currently in the asylum system, so I appreciate that she is not an EU national, but hers is the experience that we could start to change and transform if the Government accept the merits of the amendment.
Rose has been waiting for a decision on her asylum claim for three years. Not having the right to work while she waits for a decision on her asylum claim is not only putting pressure on her family life but damaging to her children, who are unable to understand why she cannot work. She said:
“Not being able to work, it cripples you…As a parent, you feel that you are not good enough…When you have kids, their daily needs—there are things that you need to give them. If I were working, I would not have to go to charity shops all the time to get hand-me-downs for my kids.”
Rose wants to be given the opportunity to be productive and show what she is capable of. She said:
“I want to work so I can prove myself to my children.”
The amendment would give people in the future asylum system from EEA countries the opportunity to use their skills and make the most of their potential. It would improve the mental health of people such as Rose in the asylum system by giving them a sense of worth and purpose, and it would enhance the opportunities for integration into their new communities, as well as allowing them to satisfy the strong work ethic that Rose clearly has and wants to pass on to her children.
The impetus for this change has only been intensified by the coronavirus pandemic. The brilliant campaigning and advocacy from the group Freedom from Torture has shone a light on the pittance that asylum seekers receive in support rates. At present, people in the asylum system receive a little over £5 a day per person in allowances. While at the onset of the crisis the Chancellor increased universal credit by £20 a week to “strengthen the safety net”, no proportional measures have yet been introduced for asylum support rates.
The uncertainty and rise in demand for specific items due to the pandemic has only exacerbated the difficulty faced by asylum seekers in finding the supplies they need to keep themselves and their families healthy and safe. Even before the onset of coronavirus, 52% of Refugee Action survey respondents reported having to use a food bank at some point within the last 12 months. If the Government are not minded to increase asylum support rates, it is both moral and logical to grant asylum seekers the right to work after six months. To forbid both options is to back some of the most vulnerable people in our society into an unescapable corner.
The Government could transform the financial health of a vast number of asylum seekers by accepting the amendment. Additionally, it would allow asylum seekers to play an active role in getting the British economy moving again, following the immense disruption caused by the pandemic. Refugee Action estimates that this change in policy could benefit the UK economy through net gains for the Government of £42.4 million. This would also be an overwhelmingly popular policy. Refugee Action carried out a survey of the public where 71% agreed that people seeking asylum should be allowed to work.
Accepting the amendment would help to fix the structural and deeply entrenched problems that exist with the current system. People seeking asylum in the UK can only apply for the right to work after they have been waiting for a decision on their asylum claim for over a year. The UK is the global outlier in time taken to give people in the asylum system the right for work. Ireland, Hungary, France, the United States and Poland, to name just a few, all have a much swifter process.
Even then, the few people who are granted such permission are rarely able to work in practice because their employment is restricted to the list of professions included on the Government’s shortage occupation list. This is the equivalent of putting square pegs in round holes, and disregards the skills and potential of many people in the asylum system. Refugee Action found that 74% of survey participants had secondary level education and 37% had an undergraduate or postgraduate degree. People in the asylum system can and should work in a wide variety of jobs that are hugely beneficial to both the UK economy and public wellbeing.
My involvement with the campaign is largely thanks to two amazing women in my own constituency. I pay tribute to Veeca Smith and Florence Kahuro, who set up the wonderful and incredibly effective local campaign group Sisters United. I am sure they would be delighted to meet the Minister in the not-too-distant future—I am sure he would struggle to get a word in edgeways. They are absolutely brilliant. They both sought asylum in the UK and founded the group to offer peer support to others in their situation and campaign for simple things such as accommodation that is not plagued by health and safety issues, and the right to go out and earn for themselves.
I hope that the Minister will appreciate the broad consensus that exists behind this amendment and accept the multitude of benefits that adopting the amendment would bring. It is time we treated people in the asylum seekers with dignity and as people with unrecognised potential to contribute to our society.
Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer.
I rise in support of amendment 13 and lifting the ban. As with any legislation, there is a requirement to strike a balance between addressing the issue at hand, in this case our withdrawal from the EU, while also being practical and compassionate to ensure that people are not hard done by. The reality is that thousands of asylum seekers in the UK who came here for refuge are unable to work—unable to properly provide for themselves and their children and possibly loved ones, and unable to make what has been a difficult life a reasonable and normal one. Instead, as the Refugee Council highlights, these people must live on as little as £5 a day, which many of us here in this Room could not even countenance. That is £5 a day to feed themselves and loved ones, buy toiletries, pay for transport to go about their everyday lives, and do any other thing that a normal person would do.
Stuart C. McDonald
I echo entirely the comments of both Members who have spoken so far, the hon. Members for Halifax and for Coventry North West. In short, people who apply for refugee status in this country should not as a result be trapped in poverty for months on end, if not years, simply because they made that claim, but that is the situation that far too many asylum seekers find themselves in.
All the arguments in favour of lifting the ban have been set out very well. We all know that an absence from the job market for several months, if not years, can be hugely detrimental to people’s long-term prospects, regardless of all the other challenges that asylum seekers face in terms of integration. This change would provide a route out of poverty, saving money for the Government, given the savings that they would make on asylum support. It is a popular proposal among the public as well and would bring this country into line with many other countries in Europe and beyond.
This proposal should also be popular with MPs right across this House, and I think there are MPs in every single party who support it. While I do not expect the Government to make any major announcements today, I would be interested to hear the Minister say at least something about his thinking on this issue and whether he and his colleagues are giving serious consideration to doing something to stop people being left for months on end without any prospect of work or being able to get themselves out of poverty.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
I, too, endorse the speeches we have heard in relation to this amendment. I only want to make two points to the Minister. First, the long delays in processing asylum applications and then appeals is, I think we can agree, a real concern for everybody in this House. The problem with having a ban on asylum seekers working is that there is very little incentive for the Home Office to make rapid progress in dealing with those cases. Indeed, given that 45% of appeals now succeed, it seems that we are taking a very long time to fail to give the chance to work to people who will ultimately obtain it.
Secondly, I want to ask the Minister a question that follows on from the one asked a few moments ago about his personal attitude towards lifting the ban on asylum seekers’ right to work. In the last Parliament, the previous Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), undertook to carry out a review of the policy and to give consideration to whether it needed to be revised. I do not think we ever heard the outcome of that review. It would be helpful to know whether the Home Office continues to conduct that review, when we might hear the outcome of it and whether evidence to support such a review is being sought from civil society and from parliamentary colleagues who might wish to submit ideas. It has been a long time since that commitment was made to the Home Affairs Committee, and it would be good to hear the status of that review.
Kevin Foster
I could make this a very quick response by saying that EEA citizens’ asylum claims are inadmissible, but given the constructive nature of Opposition Members’ speeches, I will respond more fully than the strict wording of the amendment allows me to. To my knowledge, there is literally no one with an outstanding asylum claim from an EEA country because they are inadmissible and therefore would not have to wait six months for a determination.
To be clear, our rules on the inadmissibility of asylum claims from EU citizens derive from the so-called Spanish protocol—part of the treaty of Amsterdam, dealing with this specific issue—which allows EU member states to treat an asylum claim by a citizen of another EU country as automatically inadmissible, unless exceptional circumstances apply. Those will, by their nature, be very rare. Claims from EEA citizens who are not part of the EU are considered by the UK, but on the basis that they are likely to be clearly unfounded. All EEA citizens, including those not in the EU, are considered to be from safe, democratic countries and are highly unlikely to suffer a well-founded fear of persecution or serious harm there. For those reasons, and because we do not foresee a change in these circumstances given the nature of the countries concerned, we intend to continue our policy on inadmissibility for EU citizens and rules regarding EEA citizens post the transition period. As a consequence, amendment 13 would be inconsistent with our broader policy on asylum claims from EU and EEA citizens.
Turning to Members’ wider remarks, our current policy allows asylum seekers to seek permission to work in the UK if their claim has been outstanding for 12 months through no fault of their own. Those permitted to work are restricted to jobs on the shortage occupation list—to use one example cited by the hon. Member for Coventry North West, a doctor—which is based on expert advice from the independent Migration Advisory Committee. We have recently commissioned the MAC to advise us on the shortage occupation list under the new points-based system. As Members will know, the required skill level is going from RQF6, graduate, to RQF3, A-level, which will potentially expand the number of posts that are available. Given the type of countries and education systems, it is likely that we will have more, for example, skilled chefs, who would be considered to be at level RQF3 and not RQF6.
Holly Lynch
I am grateful to the Minister for the constructive tone of his response. We heard in evidence from the Migration Advisory Committee earlier this week that there is quite a significant delay in determining which jobs are on the shortage occupation list. We may well have skills that could be put to good use but have not yet found themselves on that list. Is there not a more dynamic way that we can have another look at that?
Kevin Foster
I appreciate the sentiment. Traditionally the MAC has only operated on commission, when the Home Secretary or the Immigration Minister asks it to look at something. We are in the process of appointing a new chair of the Migration Advisory Committee, and we are looking at how it can work on a more predictable cycle. The call for evidence on the shortage occupation list is open, and with the skills threshold changing, we need to update the list for 1 January 2021. I would certainly encourage any organisations that the hon. Member is in contact with to make submissions, given the quite significant change, which will allow a wider range of practical skills, not just the purely academic skills that the list inevitably reflects by setting the bar at degree level. Senior careworker is a good example of a position that we expect to be between RQF3 and RQF6, rather than not qualifying, and it is worth remembering that that list will apply on a global basis.
Returning to the amendment, it is important to distinguish between those who need protection and those seeking to come here to work, who can apply for a work visa under the immigration rules. Our wider immigration policy could be undermined if there was an incentive for individuals to try to bypass the work visa rules by lodging wholly unfounded asylum claims in the United Kingdom.
Secondly, unrestricted access to employment opportunities may also act as an incentive for more people to choose to come here illegally, rather than claiming asylum in the first safe country they reach, particularly within the European Union. We cannot have a policy that increases that risk, even though it has to be said that clearly an EEA citizen would not be fleeing war or persecution.
Kate Green
I understand the fear that the Minister is expressing, but does he accept that all meta-analysis of countries that offer asylum seekers a right to work shows that they experience no increase in asylum-seeking, or no relatively higher rate of asylum-seeking, than countries that do not offer such a right?
Kevin Foster
As I touched on, there is some ability to work for those whose claims have been delayed for a significant period of time, but we are not satisfied, given what we have seen with past attempts to use parts of the migration system to avoid the restrictions or avoid having to come through the appropriate process to work here, that what the hon. Lady said would not be the case. We cannot readily dismiss the impact that removing such restrictions would have, nor its impact on our capacity to support genuine refugees who are in need of our protection, given that our system also has to deal with those claims that are unfounded and are more about intending to acquire a right to work in the United Kingdom.
I will take this opportunity to make it clear that I acknowledge the well expressed concerns of Opposition Members. The Government are committed to ensuring that asylum claims are considered without unnecessary delay, to ensure that individuals who need protection are granted asylum as soon as possible and can start to rebuild their lives. As the hon. Member for Halifax will know, once someone is granted asylum they are given immediate and unrestricted access to the labour market.
I heard the points that were made eloquently by the hon. Members for Coventry North West, and for Stretford and Urmston about the time that it can take to make some of these decisions. That is also a concern for me as a Minister and for the Government, because if people have a founded claim, we want it brought to a resolution as quickly as possible, so that they can move on and rebuild their lives. Similarly, if a claim is wholly unfounded or based on—if I might put it this way—inaccurate information being provided by the applicant, we want to come to a speedy decision to facilitate their removal from the United Kingdom, to ensure that our system is fair as well as firm.
The new service standard for asylum applications, which is intended to try to bring back some balance to the system, is currently being developed. UK Visas and Immigration is engaging with stakeholders as part of these plans and considering any insight that those stakeholders offer as it tries to shape a new service standard, which was touched on by the hon. Member for Coventry North West, as a start in attempting to tackle some of these issues.
Finally, the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston asked about the review commissioned under a previous Home Secretary. We are in the process of reviewing the right-to-work policy, with officials looking at the body of evidence available. Therefore, it would be inappropriate for me to comment further until that review is complete, other than to say that that process is ongoing.
Having made those comments, the Government cannot accept the amendment and we hope that it will be withdrawn.
Holly Lynch
I am grateful for the Minister’s constructive response, but as I am sure he will appreciate, I am also a little disappointed by it.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West and congratulate her on what I think was her maiden Bill speech, which was an excellent contribution. [Hon. Members: “Hear, Hear.”] Very well done.
We accept that the spirit of the amendment would not be able to be delivered as intended through this particular measure. However, we will continue to work with Members across the Benches, in coalition, to move towards the change that we would very much like to see. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment proposed: 15, in clause 4, page 3, line 8, at end insert—
“(5A) The Secretary of State may make regulations under subsection (1) only if satisfied that the regulations would have no detrimental effect on the children of EEA and Swiss nationals resident in the United Kingdom.
(5B) Before making regulations under subsection (1) the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament, and publish, a statement explaining why the Secretary of State is satisfied as mentioned in subsection (5A).”—(Kate Green.)
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Stuart C. McDonald
I beg to move amendment 5, in clause 4, page 3, line 9, leave out subsection (6).
This amendment would narrow the scope of the powers provided to the Secretary of State in Clause 4, as recommended by the House of Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 6, in clause 4, page 3, line 14, leave out “other”.
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 5.
Amendment 9, in clause 4, page 3, line 14, leave out from “(1)” to “is”.
This amendment, along with Amendment 8 will ensure that all regulations made under Clause 4(1) are subject to the affirmative procedure.
Amendment 8, in clause 4, page 3, line 18, leave out subsection (8).
This amendment, along with Amendment 9 will ensure that all regulations made under Clause 4(1) are subject to the affirmative procedure.
Stuart C. McDonald
We are back to the nuts and bolts of delegated legislation. This time, rather than considering the scope of the powers, we are looking at the procedures that should be used when they are exercised. Amendment 5 is designed to keep MPs in a job: we should be ensuring that we maximise our role in scrutinising what the Government do with their power to make laws.
Clause 4(6) to (10) sets out the procedures for making these regulations. I apologise in advance, Mr Stringer, if I get some of the terminology wrong. Even after five years in this place, I still regularly confuse my made affirmative, affirmative and negative procedures. As I understand it, the most extreme made affirmative procedure is allowed for the first set of regulations that would be made under the clause. That means that the Government would be able to bring rules into force immediately, before MPs had the chance to scrutinise the proposals. MPs would then have 40 days to pass an affirmative resolution to keep the rules in place. No good parliamentarian should ever be comfortable allowing the Government to bring rules into force before we even have the chance to look at them.
The more usual affirmative procedure would apply to subsequent draft statutory instruments through which the Government were amending Acts of Parliament. That too is a really drastic power, but it would mean that nothing came into force until we positively approved it. Although I object to Henry VIII powers for rewriting Acts of Parliament, if they must exist, that should be the method for regulation making here.
Other regulations that do not directly impact on Acts of Parliament would use the much less satisfactory negative procedure. Although a draft of those regulations would still be tabled before they came into force, they would almost inevitably do so unless, exceptionally, Parliament prayed against that negative resolution. All these amendments do is ensure that MPs have their say, and have a proper role in scrutinising the Government before regulations come into force, which is important given the very important subject, and the effect that these provisions could have on immigration law. I hope the Committee will be sympathetic to what we argue for.
Holly Lynch
As the SNP spokesperson says, this group of amendments, like most of those in the previous group, continues to seek to limit the transfer of powers to the Executive and away from Parliament. We have gone over the arguments against such sweeping Henry VIII powers in principle at length, so I will not repeat those. This group largely seeks to ensure that regulations made under clause 4 are subject to the affirmative procedure, and to leave out subsection (6).
Martin McTague from the Federation of Small Businesses was I think the only witness who said in his evidence on Tuesday that he actually did see some merit in the powers in clause 4, yet when asked further, he was keen to stress that
“the Home Secretary will be answerable to Parliament about the decisions that she or he has made. That would be a way in which Parliament could ensure there was proper scrutiny.”––[Official Report, Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2020; c. 14, Q29.]
However, as the Bill stands, proper scrutiny will be missing.
As has been said, proper scrutiny is exactly what we are in the business of in this place. It is why the Government say they have thrown caution to the wind in returning to a physical Parliament when we could have been undertaking our duties from home, as is still the public health advice. If the Leader of the House is such a big fan of parliamentary scrutiny, why are we going to such lengths to avoid it with these powers? Putting changes through the affirmative procedure has to be the way forward if we are to shape legislation for the better and deliver on parliamentary democracy. That is why we support this group of amendments.
Kevin Foster
I thank the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East for speaking to his further amendments on clause 4. Amendments 5, 6, 8 and 9 deal with the parliamentary procedure for regulations made under the clause 4 powers, as has been outlined. The made affirmatory procedure is needed in the event that there is a short window between the Bill’s Royal Assent and the end of the transition period on 31 December 2020. This is why the provision for the affirmative procedure that the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Halifax have suggested would not work. Free movement must end on 31 December at the end of the transition period, and it is important to ensure that regulations made under this power align the treatment of European economic area and non-EEA citizens who arrive in the UK from 1 January 2021.
To clarify, under the made affirmative procedure, Parliament will be asked to approve the regulations within 40 days of their being made to enable them to continue in force, so Parliament does have scrutiny of the use of this power. If either House does not approve the regulations, they will cease to have effect, but subsection (10) preserves the effect of anything done under these regulations before that point to ensure legal certainty—in essence, for someone who is granted immigration leave after applying under a rule that would come into effect on 1 January.
Using this power does not mean avoiding parliamentary scrutiny. The secondary legislation to be made under this power is still subject to full parliamentary oversight under the established procedures, although I expect the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East may actually be disappointed at just how limited and benign they end up being. It is important to debate the appropriate use of delegated powers, but the Government are committed to ending free movement now that we have left the EU, and this clause is an essential part of delivering that and ensuring that it can be done, with the new system in place, on 1 January 2021. We therefore cannot accept these amendments.
Stuart C. McDonald
I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation. I am not convinced that there will be a time problem between the Bill coming into force and the end of the transition period, so I insist on pressing amendment 5 to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Stuart C. McDonald
I beg to move amendment 1, in clause 4, page 3, line 28, at end insert—
“(11) Regulations made under subsection (1) must make provision for admission of EEA nationals as spouses, partners and children of UK citizens and settled persons.
(12) Regulations made under subsection (1) may require that the EEA nationals entering as spouses, partners and children of UK citizens and settled persons can be ‘maintained and accommodated without recourse to public funds’ but in deciding whether that test is met, account must be taken of the prospective earnings of the EEA nationals seeking entry, as well as an third party support that may be available.
(13) Regulations made under subsection (1) must not include any test of financial circumstances beyond that set out in subsection (12)”.
This amendment would ensure that UK nationals and settled persons can be joined in future by EU spouses and partners and children without application of the financial thresholds and criteria that apply to non-EEA spouses, partners and children.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 34—Visa requirements for certain family visas: coronavirus—
“Section E-LTRP.3.1 of Appendix FM of the Immigration Rules will not apply to persons who have lost free movement rights under section 1 and schedule 1 until the Coronavirus Act 2020 expires as set out under section 89(1).”
This new clause is designed to ensure EEA and Swiss nationals are not prevented from qualifying to remain in the UK as partners, merely because they cannot meet financial requirements in the Immigration Rules during the coronavirus pandemic
Stuart C. McDonald
I have put amendment 1 at the top of my list because the subject is very close to my heart. It is on a huge issue with our so-called family migration rules. I call them anti-family migration rules, because they have been responsible for splitting apart tens of thousands of families; they have some of the most draconian requirements in the entire world. I cannot believe that most Conservative MPs are not at least uncomfortable with the rules, if not downright embarrassed and ashamed. Theirs is the party of the family, for goodness’ sake.
By imposing the financial threshold on our constituents, we say to many of them—half the population, in fact—“You do not earn enough money to live in your home country with your family if you were to marry somebody from outside the EU,” and in future it will be anybody outside the common travel area. We are saying to them: “You have to choose between your country and your family.” That is absolutely barbaric. The impact of the rules will grow every year if we pass this Bill as it is, because the rules that apply to those in relationships with non-EEA nationals will for the first time extend to those in relationships with EEA nationals.
I want to start with a neat summary of the issue in a statement made by Bishop William Nolan and Bishop Paul McAleenan, the lead bishops for migrants and refugees from the Catholic Bishops’ Conferences of Scotland and of England and Wales respectively:
“The minimum income threshold for family visas unjustly separates tens of thousands of couples, parents and children. Without reforms, the end of free movement will result in even more families being kept apart by this policy. Some key workers who have played a vital role during the Covid-19 pandemic are among those who cannot be reunited with their families because they do not meet the minimum income threshold. This separation not only has serious implications on family life, but also has a direct impact on the development and wellbeing of children who are isolated from their parents in another country.”
That is the issue in a nutshell. There are other egregious features of the rules that I will come to in a minute.
The Children’s Commissioner for England prepared a report called “Family Friendly? The impact on children of the Family Migration Rules”, which is a review of the financial thresholds that the amendment and the new clause focus on. It was published in 2015 and it concluded:
“the financial requirements introduced in 2012 have been responsible for the separation of thousands of British children from a parent.”
Such requirements
“cannot be met by almost half of adult British citizens, including many in full-time work, particularly the young, the retired, women, ethnic minorities and those living outside London and the South East.”
What we usually get back by way of defence from the Government is, “We asked the Migration Advisory Committee and it came up with the threshold of £18,600.” It is true that that committee was tasked with a bit of work, but it was not asked to come up with a general view of how the family migration rules should be formulated. It was asked to come up with a figure at which it could be said that people could support a family without becoming a burden on the state; that is how it was put. That is a perverse way to pose the question, given that when people come here on family visas, they are not allowed to become a so-called burden on the state because they are prohibited from accessing public funds.
As the MAC made clear, in doing its work, it was not in any way making recommendations that gave consideration to what is required of the UK under its international and domestic human rights obligations to respect private family life or consider the best interests of children.
Holly Lynch
We are enormously sympathetic to all the points that the Scottish National party spokesperson has just made on amendment 1, but I want to focus my comments on new clause 34, which we support. It would ensure that EEA and Swiss spouses of UK nationals were not ineligible for visas because of job cuts and furloughs resulting from the coronavirus. For many families, the coronavirus crisis has already led to loss of livelihood and prolonged separation. Now, families of British citizens with EU spouses fear that they will be permanently separated if their partner cannot secure a visa because their job security has been affected by coronavirus and they no longer meet the income threshold to settle in the UK.
We feel strongly that we should at this time give families as much security as possible. In the crisis, unemployment has crept up significantly, and there are limited work prospects. A recent publication for the Institute for Public Policy Research, using data from the labour force survey, found that migrants to the UK are far more likely to be working in industries affected by the crisis, including accommodation and food services. Migrants are also more likely to be self-employed and in temporary work, which puts them at particular risk of losing income, or having diminished income, as a result of the crisis.
We can foresee a ruthlessly competitive job market in the aftermath of the crisis. The new clause seeks only an appropriate grace period for the duration of the crisis on the minimum income requirement, for those who were working hard to ensure that they met it. It seems entirely appropriate to use the expiration of the Coronavirus Act 2020, as set out in the new clause, to set that.
A constituent of mine who worked at McDonald’s needed to meet the threshold so that his wife could stay in the country, and will fall short, having been furloughed. Another woman who contacted me has a one-year-old and is pregnant with her second child. Having been furloughed, she has had to get a second job to top up her income, to meet the minimum income requirement for her partner to join her. A raft of visa issues have been exacerbated by coronavirus, and I do not think that I am being unreasonable in saying that the Government have not been particularly swift in offering clear, effective advice about the status of citizens throughout lockdown. That is causing huge additional and unnecessary anxiety for affected families at what is already a worrying time.
We have heard that there has been ambiguity about information on the Government website this week. The Home Office issued information for those on furlough, announcing on 9 June that if someone had earned enough to meet the minimum income requirement in the six months before March 2020 but their salary had dropped on being furloughed, they could still apply as if they were earning 100% of their income. That is welcome, but are the Government minded to extend consideration to those who lost their jobs entirely, and to grant them a grace period of some kind?
I should be grateful if the Minister responded to those points and considered the new clause as a way not to pile further worry and uncertainty on to families who are looking to reunite.
Kevin Foster
I appreciate the intention behind amendment 1, which is to create a means whereby, in future, EEA citizens would be able to join a spouse, partner or parent in the UK who was either a British citizen or settled here, without being subject to the current and established financial requirements for family migration. I also appreciate the intention behind new clause 34, which is to extend the concessions that the Government have already put in place for people subject to the minimum income requirement who are affected by covid-19 and the measures necessary to tackle it.
So that those subject to the requirement will not be unduly affected by circumstances beyond their control, a temporary loss of income during the pandemic will be disregarded. I hope that members of the Committee will appreciate that it would be difficult, and probably not appropriate, for me to go through an exhaustive list of circumstances that we might consider. However, new guidance is certainly online; I have just checked. I have summarised some of the details at least in one answer to a parliamentary question this week. It is my clear understanding that if someone is furloughed and, under their contract of employment, their potential earnings at 100% would be over £18,600—there are a couple of caveats to that, but we will stick with £18,600 for now—but the 20% furlough effect takes them below that figure, that drop in income will be disregarded. It is their substantive income that we will take into account, if they are still in their job and able to return to it when furlough comes to an end. For convenience, I will write to the Committee setting out the guidance we have given so that Members have it to hand, given the concern and interest that has been shown.
Let me be clear from the outset that the effect of amendment 1 and new clause 34 would be to create a separate and preferential family migration system for EEA and Swiss nationals and their families when compared with the situation of British or settled people’s family members who are non-EEA citizens. That is the intention of the amendments. That would lead to a perception that non-EEA family members were being discriminated against for no reason other than their nationality and would likely be regarded as unlawful for that reason, given that we have now left the European Union and the basis for having a two-tier immigration system has fundamentally been removed. I accept that Members would argue that they would like to change the rules overall, not just for EEA citizens, but the focus of the Bill is EEA citizens; it is not a general migration Bill.
Holly Lynch
Does the Minister not accept, however, that the difference for British citizens in EU countries is that when they took decisions to form relationships and families elsewhere in Europe, they did not envisage that the rules would change and that free movement rights would be taken away from them? The immigration rules have changed for them in a way that they have not for other British citizens in other countries around the world.
Kevin Foster
When anyone takes the decision to go and live abroad, there is no guarantee that migration rules will not change while they are living abroad; rules have changed over the years for British citizens living outside the EEA. However, we have put in place a longer transitional period, which I think will be to 2022—it will be nearly six years after the referendum by the time that is implemented—for those who have moved abroad on freedom of movement. Even then, they will still have the ability to move back under the family migration rules, the same as UK citizens living anywhere else.
It is also worth noting that someone who might apply for a spousal visa could also apply under tier 2. To touch on the point about potential earnings in this country, someone who qualified for a skilled work visa would be able to apply through that route if they were not able to apply through the spousal visa route. They would not, for example, be barred from settling with a UK citizen here because they were on a tier 2 visa rather than a spousal visa. Actually, under some of the provisions, particularly if they were a healthcare worker, they would potentially be quicker to settlement overall if they took that opportunity. I know that is a point that has been raised about those who might have an earning potential.
Let me go into some of the details of why we do not think amendment 1 is the right approach. The amendment seeks to replace the minimum income requirement for British citizens and settled persons to sponsor EEA family members with a test that has three separate components: being able to maintain and accommodate the family without recourse to public funds; taking account of the prospective earnings of the EEA nationals seeking entry; and taking into account any third-party support available. Let me address those in turn.
The first component—the simple ability to maintain and accommodate without recourse to public funds—would take us back to the policy that was in place before the minimum income requirement was introduced in 2012. It was partly because the test for whether a family could maintain and accommodate themselves without recourse to public funds was difficult to apply consistently that the minimum income requirement was introduced. The minimum income requirement provides certainty to all by ensuring that family migrants are supported at a reasonable and consistent level that is easy to understand. As Opposition Members have alluded to, the minimum income requirement has been based on in-depth analysis and advice from the independent Migration Advisory Committee.
I turn to some of the points about differentials across the United Kingdom. The Migration Advisory Committee found no clear case for differentiation in the level of the minimum income requirement between the UK’s countries or regions. A single national threshold provides clarity and simplicity. Data also show that the gross median earnings in 2018 exceeded the minimum income requirement in every country and region of the United Kingdom.
Stuart C. McDonald
I am very grateful to the Minister for his response. I will not press either amendment 1 or new clause 34 to a vote, but for slightly different reasons. On new clause 34, I am grateful for the assurances with regard to the impact of the coronavirus shutdown on incomes, and I look forward to the Minister’s letter, which I will obviously look at closely, and the scheme that is being put in place. We will no doubt return to that issue in the weeks and months ahead.
I will not press amendment 1 to a vote because I may wish to revisit it on Report. I do not think that people fully grasp the impact that this issue is having on families out there. The tier-2 alternative is not realistic for lots of families. My recollection of the test of maintaining and accommodating one’s family without recourse to public funds was that it worked perfectly well but, as I said in my original submissions, there are other ways in which we could do it: we could have a lower threshold, such as the minimum wage or the living wage. We could do things differently and still provide certainty.
On the subject of certainty, it is no reassurance to someone if their only certainty is that they cannot live in this country with their loved ones. The Minister said that the threshold had been set at a suitable level, but it excludes almost half of the country from being able to be joined by their husband, wife or partner from overseas—in Northern Ireland, I think, it even excludes more than half, because of the different wage levels.
The so-called “exceptional circumstances” route just does not work; that was the bare minimum that the Home Office had to put in place because of a Supreme Court challenge about how awful these rules were. In terms of public confidence, I think that the more members of the public find out about these rules, the more they will be horrified at how the UK Government treat UK citizens.
These are miserable rules. I hope people will go away and think again, even if they do not want to go back wholesale to the position as it was before 2012. We cannot let this continue—more than that, we cannot let it escalate. Tens of thousands of families are already impacted, and in the next decade there will be tens of thousands more. They will all come to our surgeries. The Government have been warned. But I will keep that point for Report. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Stuart C. McDonald
I beg to move amendment 14, in clause 4, page 3, line 28, at end insert—
“(11) Regulations made under subsection (1) must make provision enabling UK citizens falling within the personal scope of the Withdrawal Agreement, the EEA EFTA separation agreement or the Swiss citizens’ rights agreement to return to the UK accompanied by, or to be joined in the UK by, close family members with whom they lived while residing in the EEA or Switzerland.
(12) Regulations under subsection (1) may not impose any conditions on the entry or residence of close family members which could not have been imposed under EU law relating to free movement, as at the date of this Act coming into force.
(13) References in subsection (11) to the Withdrawal Agreement, the EEA EFTA separation agreement and the Swiss citizens’ rights agreement have the same meaning as in the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020.”
This amendment would mean UK citizens who had been living in the EEA or Switzerland but wish to return to the UK, could continue to be accompanied or joined in the UK by close family members who would otherwise lose their rights (under the Surinder Singh route) because of this Act.
I am being kept busy this afternoon. I am pleased to move amendment 14. Once again, it is all about family. We are talking about what became known as the Surinder Singh route, because of a judgment of the European Court of Justice. I talked in my previous contribution about the unfairness of separation that immigration rules can cause; in the case of the Surinder Singh families, that is coupled with a real sense of unfairness and the loss of a legitimate expectation.
We are talking about UK citizens who have gone to live somewhere in the EEA at a time when the rules were quite clear that the UK was part of the European Union, so there would never be any conceivable difficulty about being able to return to this country with family that they may have settled down with in another EU country.
To my mind, we should say that they had a legitimate expectation when they left that they would be able to return to this country at the appropriate moment with their EU family members. The problem now arises that if they return after the transition period that the Government have put in place—it is better than nothing; that is absolutely true—they will face the £18,600 threshold, which I previously alluded to.
There are folk over there with huge dilemmas to address. The briefing we have had from British in Europe sets out a very typical example. Sarah is a 48-year-old British national living in Germany with her 52-year-old German husband and children. She is the only child of an elderly mother in the UK. Career and schooling reasons mean that she cannot realistically return to the UK by March 2022. What happens if Sarah’s mother becomes so frail or ill that she needs the care of her daughter in five years’ time? Sarah will have a huge decision to make: either to uproot her family at a hugely disruptive and inconvenient time, to come back to look after her mother, or to leave her family behind and come back to look after her mother. Alternatively, she will just have to hope that her mother is able to cope.
Sarah was not negligent in going abroad without taking this future prospect into account when she made the decision to travel and live in Germany, because it just did not arise. We were part of the EU and free movement was always going to be there.
I am grateful for and welcome the fact that the Government have reviewed the immediate cut-off, but 2022 does not give enough time. Why do we not have an open-ended cut-off for the people from this country who have made their lives in other parts of the European Union or the EEA, and let them return here under the regime that was in place when they left? That is the purpose of amendment 14, and I hope it will have a sympathetic hearing.
Holly Lynch
Once again, we are very sympathetic to the amendment. As we have already heard, it is not dissimilar to amendment 1, and it would offer reassurance to the 1.2 million British nationals who live in EU countries. Failure to implement measures such as those proposed in the amendment would show the Government’s indifference to British citizens who decided to make their homes and lives in Europe and, as in the example we have just heard, could force people to choose between loved ones there and loved ones here.
The example provided by British in Europe paints a picture of something that is affecting thousands of people and has the potential to affect thousands more in future, as family members age and their circumstances change. The amendment characterises the significance of forming laws and policies; what is discussed and decided on in this building has far-reaching implications and consequences affecting vast swathes of people in their day-to-day lives.
Until March 2022, any citizen going to live in an EU 27 country did so with the security of knowing that if they were to form a relationship and/or have a family, they would have the right to return to the UK with their partner and family, with no or very few conditions attached. That was the point I made to the Minister in challenging and seeking further clarification on some of his points about differences being potentially discriminatory against returning UK citizens and spouses from other parts of the world, not just EEA countries.
As I am sure we can all appreciate, families and relationships can be complex. The provisions afforded to British citizens through freedom of movement would allow any citizen to return to the UK with their partner and family if a situation arose where they needed to do so, potentially at quite short notice. If the UK citizen returned to be either employed or self-employed, there would be no conditions on their return; if they returned to be a student or to be non-economically active, they would have to have sufficient resources not to become a burden on the social assistance system of the UK, and have comprehensive health insurance.
In comparison, under the proposed new immigration rules, spouses and partners who wish to enter the UK with their British partner will have to meet the minimum income requirement of £18,600, and the figure is increased if the family have children. That is a wholly restrictive requirement that will severely deter families from returning and coming to the UK. In some cases, it may stop British citizens returning to the UK altogether.
As highlighted in evidence by Jeremy Morgan, the right of citizens to return with their families to their country of origin was deemed outside the scope of the UK-EU withdrawal negotiations, resulting in a serious inequality between UK citizens in the EU and EU citizens in the UK. Bizarrely, the UK Government are discriminating against their own citizens in this instance, since nationals continue to enjoy their right to return to their countries of origin with their non-EU family members.
Furthermore, EU citizens resident in the UK and covered by the withdrawal agreement also have an unconditional lifelong right to bring in family members, including non-EU members, to the UK, provided that the relationship existed before the end of the transition period. The amendment tabled would address that discrepancy.
The coronavirus pandemic has only heightened the need for the Government to carry out their basic duty to support UK citizens living abroad. What if the pandemic had occurred after 29 March 2022? As countries began lockdown, British citizens in Europe would have been faced with the unenviable choice of remaining or hastily returning to the UK. The minimum income requirement would have meant that many British citizens and their families would have been simply unable to return, despite both global and personal crises.
Kevin Foster
I again thank the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East and his colleagues for tabling amendment 14 and allowing us to have this discussion. As the hon. Gentleman has said, the amendment would require the Government to include in regulations, made in consequence of this Bill ending EU free movement law, lifetime rights for UK nationals to bring their close family members to the UK on EU free movement terms, where the UK national was resident in the EEA or Switzerland in accordance with EU law by the end of the transition period at the end of this year. Those family members would thereby continue indefinitely to bypass the immigration rules that otherwise apply to family members of UK nationals.
I will set out the Government’s policy for this cohort of family members before I explain our reasons for rejecting the amendment. In certain circumstances, family members of UK nationals who have resided together in the EEA or Switzerland are able to come to the UK under EU free movement law. That applies where a UK national has exercised free movement rights in the host state—as a worker or self-employed person, for example—for more than three months. That is sometimes referred to as the “Surinder Singh route”, after the relevant judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union.
Surinder Singh family members are not protected by the withdrawal agreement, as was said. None the less, as a matter of domestic policy, the Government decided that UK nationals resident in the European Economic Area or Switzerland under EU free movement law until the end of the transition period, which is the end of this year, will have until 29 March 2022 to bring their existing close family members—a spouse, civil partner, durable partner, child or dependent partner—to the UK on EU law terms. The family relationship must have existed before the UK left the EU on 31 January 2020 unless the child was born or adopted after that date, and it must continue to exist when the family member seeks to come to the UK, for obvious reasons.
Stuart C. McDonald
I am grateful to the Minister for his response. I will have to go and look at the drafting of my amendment. While it may not be technically correct, I absolutely stand by the principle of what it is trying to achieve.
The Minister and the Department have listened to UK nationals living in Europe and the EEA, which is why they put in place the transition period and the cut-off point of March 2022. However, I listen to those very same people, who say to me that that will leave an awful lot of them with a huge dilemma. I just do not understand why the UK Government insist that it has to happen like that. There is no need for a balance to be struck or for any cut-off point.
This is not, as the Minister expressed, a question of people bypassing domestic immigration rules. The aim of the amendment is to help people who moved abroad and formed family relationships in good faith at a time when there was no prospect of their right to return to this country with a family being impeded; they could have done so at that time, on the basis of free movement rules. With your leave, Mr Stringer, I will withdraw the amendment. In the meantime, I will go away and work on it, but I stand by the principle and intention behind it.
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Stuart C. McDonald
I beg to move amendment 16, in clause 4, page 3, line 28, at end insert—
“(11) Subject to subsection (13), regulations made under subsection (1) must make provision for ensuring that all qualifying persons have within the United Kingdom the rights set out in Title II of Part 2 of the Withdrawal Agreement, the EEA EFTA separation agreement and the Swiss citizens’ rights agreement and implementing the following provisions—
(a) Article 18(4) of the Withdrawal Agreement (Issuance of residence documents);
(b) Article 17(4) of the EEA EFTA separation agreement (Issuance of residence documents); and
(c) Article 16(4) of the Swiss citizens’ rights agreement (Issuance of residence documents).
(12) In this section, “qualifying persons” means—
(a) those persons falling within the scope of the agreements referred to; and
(b) those eligible under the residence scheme immigration rules, as defined by section 17(1) of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020.
(13) Notwithstanding subsection (11), regulations must confer a right of permanent, rather than temporary, residence on all qualifying persons residing in the UK prior to 5 March 2020.”.
This amendment would mean that EEA and Swiss citizens residing in the UK would automatically have rights under Article 18(4) of the Withdrawal Agreement (and equivalent provisions in the EEA EFTA and Swiss citizens rights agreements) rather than having to apply for them, and ensure that for the overwhelming majority, that status is permanent.
I feel a little like somebody who has been banging his head against a brick wall, and I am sure other hon. Members feel the same. This is a return to the debate about whether the European Union settlement scheme should be a constitutive or a declaratory scheme. That sounds quite technical, but it is not really. The Government say, “We’ll give you a right to remain, and you can retain your rights, if you apply.” That will inevitably mean a—hopefully small—percentage missing out and losing their rights in this country. Scottish National party Members say we should put it into the Bill that EU and EEA nationals automatically have these rights. Doing so would fulfil a promise made by the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and, indeed, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster during the referendum campaign, when they said quite expressly that everybody would retain their right to be in this country, and that there would be no need for any application at all.
Before we go too far into the debate, I want to say that Ministers quite often stand up and tell us about the success, and fairly so, of the settlement scheme so far. Opposition MPs obviously asked questions, such as about why it was not working on the Apple iPhone or whatever else, how the numbers were progressing or why so many people were given pre-settled status. However, I am happy to say, as I have many times before, that it has exceeded my expectations. The Home Office has reached more EU and EEA nationals than I anticipated. It does not have a wonderful record with IT over the last 10, 15 or 20 years, but on this occasion it has done a decent job.
However, the fact remains that—with the best will in the world, even if the Home Office gets to 95% of its target crowd—that still leaves hundreds of thousands of people who will fail to apply in time. I have asked repeatedly what estimate the Home Office has made of how close to 100% it will get, and what the implications of that are, in terms of dealing with the 100,000 folk who will overnight be without rights this time next year. We really need to get to the nub of this.
Other amendments offer alternatives, exploring different cut-off points and different solutions as to how to treat applicants who come to the Home Office after the cut-off date, but we still insist that the much simpler solution would be to say, in this or another Bill, that if someone meets the criteria, they retain their rights, even if they do not apply.
The Home Office seems to suggest that folk will not apply. In fact, during an evidence session on Tuesday, the Minister asked a question on how looked-after children would prove that they had rights. It is simple: they would apply to the EU settlement scheme. We are not saying, “Just ditch all the work that has gone on for the past 18 months to two years.” We are saying, “Keep that work, but make it so that it is not the digital whatever you get that gives you the rights, but that the rights come from the legislation, and you get that document”—if we have our way—“or a digital code to prove your rights.”
Probably the best way to explain this would be with reference to British citizenship, which is the most obvious example I can call to mind of another declaratory system. No one in this room gets their rights as a British citizen from their passport or from any other document; we have our rights to British citizenship declared in law, in the British Nationality Act 1981. It does not cause us difficulties if for the first few years of our lives we do not have proof of that; indeed, if we do not go abroad on holiday, we can actually go through until we are perhaps 14, 15 or even 18 years old without having to access that proof. That is not a problem.
That works perfectly well for British citizenship—it becomes convenient for lots of people, at a certain time, to get a passport or wherever else to prove that they can exercise their rights—and it would be exactly the same with the EU settlement scheme. All these people will want to work or to access social security or housing, if they are subject to the right-to-rent scheme, so they will still have every incentive to apply to the EU settlement scheme. The amendment would just mean that if, for whatever reason, they did not apply, their rights were protected.
Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)
Would the hon. Gentleman consider whether perhaps one reason some people, particularly in Scotland, would not apply for the scheme is because, despite his having praised it today and said it has exceeded his expectations, SNP politicians in Scotland have encouraged people not to apply? I raised this issue when he and I were members of the Home Affairs Committee. The messaging that comes out should be far clearer. Does he accept that, whether or not he agrees with the scheme, the advice not to apply that some SNP politicians are giving is unhelpful?
Stuart C. McDonald
I have had that intervention before, and I think I answered it. There is one individual who would be expected to apply to the scheme but at some point in the past—I am not sure what his current position is—he said that as a point of principle he does not want to apply. I have said previously that I do not agree with him, but the hon. Gentleman cannot possibly accuse the Scottish Government or the SNP of not being clear about the messaging—they have invested considerable sums of their own money in outreach and in attempting to get as many folk as possible to sign up to the scheme. For that reason, I do not accept the premise. I disagree with that one colleague, but I absolutely reject the premise that we have been anything other than clear in encouraging people to sign up.
The reasons folk will not sign up are not related to the position of an individual politician. Folk will not sign up because they are vulnerable, as we have spoken about—care leavers; children; elderly people who perhaps were settled and had permanent residence under the old EU scheme; and people who quite simply just do not understand that they have to do it.
There are really complicated questions involved. For example, lots of folk will think, “Well, I was born in the United Kingdom, so I am British,” but in actual fact whether or not they are British depends on a million different things. It depends on the marital status of their parents, depending on when they were born. It depends on their date of birth. It might even depend on when a particular country joined the EU, as that can have an impact on the conferring of nationality. There are millions of different issues.
It is beyond doubt that on 1 July next year we are going to wake up in a United Kingdom that has 100,000 people who do not have the right to be in this country. We have to be constructive and come up with a solution, but we do not yet have enough from the Government on what they want to do. We get told, “We’ll be reasonable,” but that really does not cut. We need to do better than that, which is why we have tabled other amendments to push the Government to be much more explicit about how they are going to treat folk who apply after the deadline, for whatever reason.
The simple point, which is consistent with all the work that has gone before and does not undermine it in any way, is to turn around now and say, “Right, we are doing well, but we are just going to say that everybody has these rights. Continue to apply so that you can go about living your lives without being refused renting or a job or whatever else, but you have these rights.” It is a simple matter and would avoid a tremendous headache that would make Windrush look almost insignificant. That was cataclysmic; this situation risks being considerably worse.
Holly Lynch
Yet again, I rise to echo a great deal of what has already been said by the SNP spokesperson. The Opposition have spoken consistently in favour of a declaratory approach, and the Home Affairs Committee has also tabled an amendment outlining its preference for that approach, so, while we have sought to deal with the scheme in front of us by way of our amendments and new clauses, should he push amendment 16 to a vote, he would certainly have our support.
In our 2019 manifesto, we committed ourselves to ending the uncertainty created by the EU settlement scheme by granting EU nationals the automatic right to continue living and working in the UK. This new declaratory system would allow EU nationals the chance to register for proof of status if they wished, but they would no longer have to apply to continue living and working in this country. This would help to secure reciprocal treatment for UK citizens living in the EU, prevent a repeat of the shameful Windrush scandal and avoid unnecessarily criminalising hundreds of thousands of EU nationals.
Kevin Foster
This has been a useful debate. As has been pointed out, amendment 16 would require the Government to establish a declaratory system for those eligible for residence rights under the withdrawal agreement or the immigration rules for the EU settlement scheme. That was touched on by the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East, who speaks for the SNP. It is a familiar argument we have been having over the last couple of years, and I suspect we will continue having it over the next year or two.
As the hon. Member alluded, EEA and Swiss citizens resident in the UK by the end of transition period and their family members can secure their rights here through the EU settlement scheme and through applications that are free of charge to make. So far, more than 3.5 million applications have been received and more than 3.2 million concluded, despite the efforts of one or two people to encourage people not to take part, as my hon. Friend the Member for Moray highlighted. This is with still more than a year to go before the deadline for applications on 30 June 2021 for those resident here by the end of the transition period on 31 December.
It is worth pointing out that the UK’s immigration system has long been predicated on individuals applying to the Home Office to be granted leave to enter or remain, under what we call a constitutive system. The Government have repeatedly made it clear that the constitutive system, introduced through the EU settlement scheme, is the best approach to implementing the citizens’ rights elements of the withdrawal agreements. It provides EEA citizens and their family members with clarity about what they need to apply for and by when, and with the secure evidence of their status that they need.
A requirement to apply for individual status by a deadline provides a clear incentive for EEA citizens living here to secure their status in UK law and obtain evidence of this, whereas a declaratory system, under which individuals acquire an immigration status under an Act of Parliament, would significantly reduce the incentive to obtain and record evidence of status. Indeed, the amendment does not include any requirement to do that, so in decades to come it could result in some of the issues we saw in the Windrush scandal: people with a status that has been granted, but for which there is no clear or recorded evidence.
Stuart C. McDonald
I am happy to take on board what the Minister says and redraft the amendment to include, for example, a £50 fine if somebody does not have a document proving their settled status. That would be much less serious than leaving them without any right to be in this country at all. Would he consider a declaratory system on that basis?
Kevin Foster
Well, I do not think I would. Like I said, we would be reasonable in accepting late applications—for example, if somebody did not have EU settled status because they were a child in care or mentally incapable at the time when they should have applied. I suspect that when we publish the guidance those two situations will be among the list of reasonable reasons for late applications. It would be rather odd, however, to then issue them with a £50 fine. We think it right that at some point a line be drawn, although we would be reasonable in respect of the circumstances of a late application. Certainly, in the early stages after the deadline, it is likely that the bar to cross will be fairly low, in terms of what is a reasonable reason for not having made the deadline.
As was touched on, we are up to more than 3.5 million applications already. It has been a very successful scheme. It is slightly ironic that the organisation representing EU citizens in the UK calls itself the3million, because the Home Office has already found 3.5 million and there is still a good stream of applications coming in every day, as there has been throughout the recent period. The Government are confident that we have already found many more than 3 million, and all of them are our friends and neighbours. We want them to stay, and we welcome the fact that they have taken the opportunity to apply to the European settlement scheme to guarantee their rights.
The Government are adamant that we must avoid a situation where, years down the line, EEA citizens who have built their lives here find themselves struggling to prove their rights and entitlements in the UK. That is why we have set up this system. I fundamentally believe that changing a system that is working well would have the opposite effect to that which the amendment is intended to achieve. It would reduce the certainty of a grant of status under the EU settlement scheme, which has already been given to more than 3 million EEA citizens and their family members.
The amendment provides that a right of permanent residence would be automatically acquired by EEA citizens resident here before 5 March 2020—when the Bill was introduced—regardless of how long they had been continuously resident in the UK. I do not wish to speculate about why the amendment is designed to exclude people who arrived on 6 March, or about why the Bill being introduced is a more significant moment than the end of the transition period or the day that Britain left the European Union. The general requirement under the EU settlement scheme to have been continuously resident here for five years before becoming eligible for a right of permanent residence—settled status—reflects the rights under the free movement directive, which are protected by the withdrawal agreement. To reassure hon. Members that we are talking to people who work with the EUSS, there will be efforts put in place, using the contact details provided to the EUSS, to prompt people should they be approaching the five-year period.
It is right that someone should demonstrate sufficiently long residence in the UK, in line with our current EU law rights, before being eligible for all the benefits and entitlements that settled status brings, including access to those provided by public funds. The amendment would mean that any length of residence in the UK prior to 5 March 2020, however short, would be sufficient. I do not believe that is the right approach. It is a rather strange date to choose, even though it is the introduction. Why would that be logical? It is worth explaining why someone was not covered on 6 March but was covered on 5 March. I therefore suggest to the Committee that we should not accept the amendment; we should stick with a system that is working and doing a great a job at getting those who are our friends and neighbours the status they need for the long term and the surety that brings. I therefore suggest that the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East withdraw his amendment.
Stuart C. McDonald
Again, I am grateful to the Minister for his reply. The amendment would not negate the good work that has happened in managing to process applications from EU nationals and provide them with digital proof of their status; it would build on it.
The Minister always insists that such a system would give people less of an incentive to apply, but that is just not the case. We would not say to anyone who was a victim of the Windrush fiasco that they did not have an incentive to apply for documentary proof. In fact, all the Windrush citizens had the right to be in this county, but that was not enough. They had to get documents, and the result of not being able to access documents was that they went through absolute hell. That is a lesson that we must learn. If we make the system declaratory, people will still apply because they need digital proof of their status to access work, social security, education and whatever else.
I do not accept the Minister’s explanation of why we retain the constitutive system. If he wants to talk about incentives, there is a big problem for anyone who misses the deadline of 30 June 2021. When they find out that they have missed it, they suddenly think, “I thought I was British, but I am not. I thought I had rights here because I had status under the old EU system, but it turns out I don’t.” Those hundreds of thousands of people will be absolutely petrified of applying to the Home Office because they have no assurance that they will be granted status here. There are vague words about being reasonable, but that did not really cut it for the Windrush generation, and this is a much bigger problem. I will press the amendment to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill (Third sitting)
Thursday 11th June 2020
(4 years, 6 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Act 2020 View all Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 11 June 2020 - (11 Jun 2020)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 8 / Noes: 5 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 5 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 8 / Noes: 5 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Chair
Before we begin, I have a few preliminary points. Please switch your electronic devices to silent. Tea and coffee are not allowed during sittings, although I might turn a Nelsonian blind eye if I see any. I remind Members about the importance of social distancing—as if you did not know already. The main body of the Committee Room has capacity for a maximum of 11 Members. If more than 11 Members are present, the remainder will have to sit in the Public Gallery, which I am pleased to see some Members are doing already. I will suspend the sitting if I think anyone is in breach of social distancing guidelines. The Hansard reporters would be most grateful if Members emailed copies of their notes to hansardnotes@parliament.uk.
Today, we will 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 together for debate. Amendments grouped together are generally on the same or a similar issue. Decisions on amendments take place not in the order they are debated, but in the order they appear on the amendment paper. The selection and grouping list shows the order of debates. Decisions on each amendment are taken when we come to the clause that the amendment affects.
I will use my discretion to decide whether to allow a separate stand part debate on individual clauses and schedules, following the debates on the relevant amendments. Obviously, if we spend a long time on the amendments, we cover all the ground and so it may not be necessary to have a stand part debate, but I will take advice from the Opposition on that. I am anxious to be helpful to them and to the Government. I hope this explanation is helpful.
I have talked to Graham Stringer, my fellow Chair, about one further point. The Bill is very important but quite narrowly focused. Therefore, I do not really want to have long speeches about how terrible it is to leave the European Union or how wonderful is that we are leaving the European Union. We will just leave that on one side. We are going to focus on the amendments that we have in front of us. Generally, if you focus on the amendments, and if speeches are not discursive, the Committee can hold the Government to account in a better way. I hope you do not mind me saying that, but I had a word with Graham Stringer and we agreed that we should make that clear.
Clause 1
Repeal of the main retained EU law relating to free movement etc.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Kevin Foster)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward, and I will take on board the comments you have just made. If you will permit me, I would like to make a few introductory remarks—at the start of Committee proceedings and before we begin to debate the detail—on the purpose of the clauses.
The Bill delivers the ending of free movement of people and lays the foundations for introducing a fairer, firmer skills-led immigration system. The coronavirus pandemic is the biggest crisis we have faced in our lifetime. We need people, regardless of nationality, to continue coming together, using their skills and expertise to support the United Kingdom’s recovery.
As you will know, Sir Edward, legislating is not an academic exercise; there must be a point to it. The point is that we will introduce a new system by ending preferential treatment for EEA citizens. That will mean a system that prioritises the skills people have to offer and how they will contribute to the United Kingdom, not where their passport comes from.
The Government recognise the tremendous contribution people are making to keep vital services running during this incredibly difficult time and the dedication shown by millions demonstrates to employers the skills and work ethic we have here. Colleagues may well recall that this Bill was introduced in the previous Parliament. There have been no substantial changes to the content since it was previously considered. The only changes made are minor drafting clarifications in places and updates to the list of retained EU law to be repealed.
We remain committed to delivering a points-based immigration system that benefits the whole UK from January 2021. We will open key routes from autumn 2020, so people can start to apply ahead of the system taking effect on 1 January 2021. I want to clarify that the details of the future system will be set out in the immigration rules and not in the Bill, as is the case now for the non-EEA immigration system and has always been the case under previous Governments. The rules will be laid before Parliament later this year.
Turning specifically to clause 1, this introduces the first schedule to the Bill, which contains a list of measures to be repealed in relation to the end of free movement and related issues. The clause fulfils a purely mechanistic function to introduce the schedule.
Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward, as we start line-by-line scrutiny of this particularly important legislation in these highly unusual times.
I thank the Minister for his opening speech on clause 1 and schedule 1. Early in proceedings, I want to put on the record my thanks to the Clerk of the Bill Committee. He has been absolutely invaluable to all Committee members with assistance on the amendments and new clauses before us.
I also want to put on the record—I am sure that the Minister will join me, in the spirit of some early unity, as might you, Sir Edward—an expression of our disappointment about the audio arrangements for Tuesday’s evidence session. The poor sound quality was problematic not only on the day, as on occasion exchanges between Members and witnesses were seriously restricted, but for Hansard during the afternoon sitting. Colleagues worked incredibly hard to make that Hansard report available, but, unfortunately, it was not published until after 11 o’clock last night. That made preparations for today’s line-by-line scrutiny based on that evidence incredibly difficult.
That said, I turn to clause 1 and schedule 1. As the Minister is aware, we voted against the Bill on Second Reading, and the clause is the Bill in a nutshell. We will go on to discuss in great detail the various clauses and to outline our reservations at the different stages, but, ultimately, we fear that the Bill—right now, and in this form—holds none of the answers to the problems facing the country and actually stands to exacerbate them.
It is not difficult to see how implementation of the Bill could have severe consequences for the health and social care sector, a point made by several of the witnesses on Tuesday. The sector will require special consideration. The policy statement published in February on what comes after clause 1 specifically comes into effect simply saying to those earning less than £25,600:
“We will…end free movement and not implement a route for lower-skilled workers.”
Many of the people on the frontline fighting the coronavirus earn less than that. We need them now, and we need them to recover. The policy paper and the Minister state that they are looking to the domestic workforce to plug those gaps, but on Tuesday we heard from the Migration Advisory Committee—we can all see and feel this—that systemic failures underpin the problems in social care, and those will not be resolved by January. If we put a hard stop on free movement without having resolved some of those issues, there will be consequences when the country can least afford that.
Concerns about the clause fall into two distinct groups: ensuring that we have done the right thing by the some 3.5 million EU citizens who are already here under free movement rules when those come to an end, and certain groups in particular, and looking ahead to the future impact of restricted migration flows. Since the Bill’s predecessor was presented to the House in the 2017 to 2019 Parliament, the EU settlement scheme has come into effect to give European citizens who reside in the UK a pre-settled and a settled status.
The numbers coming through the scheme are positive, but there are concerns about certain groups, some with specific vulnerabilities. Eligible children in care, for example, are one cohort that we will return to under the new clauses. The impact of coronavirus on Home Office capabilities alone, in addition to its impact on applicants, inevitably has heightened our concerns that some groups will need more support than ever to access the scheme.
Turning to the impact that ending free movement will have on migration flows in key sectors, the Bill provides more questions than answers. It is incredibly narrow in scope, as we have discussed, which is extraordinary given that it will create the biggest change to our immigration system in decades. Instead of putting forward a new immigration system, which Parliament could discuss, debate, amend and improve, the Bill grants powers to Ministers to introduce whatever system they like with extensive Henry VIII powers.
The Government’s February 2020 policy statement indicated what such a system might be like. Properly debating most of that new system will be deemed out of scope for this Bill and this Committee, but we will do what we can within scope to set out principles and solutions for when clause 1 comes into effect.
A number of the witnesses on Tuesday were critical of the Government’s planned £25,600 threshold—not just on health and social care—and transitioning on to a visa system and sponsorship routes will cause headaches and shortages for a range of businesses, exacerbating economic uncertainty. For example, the Bill fails to address the UK’s need for migrant workers to allow the agriculture sector simply to function, which is another issue that we will explore when we debate the new clauses.
To be clear, Labour has no problem with an immigration system that treats all migrants the same, no matter where they come from, but that is not the system the Government propose. A points-based immigration system could be effective. However, it would be predicated on receptive analysis of occupation shortages, parallel education and skills strategies that seek to fill long-term job gaps with domestic talent, and a pragmatic yet empathetic Border Force. The Bill fails to do any of that, and we will seek to remedy this, within the bounds of its scope, through our amendments and new clauses.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward, albeit at a longer distance than we are accustomed to. I thank the Clerks for dealing with what were probably some horrendously drafted amendments by the bucketful during the last couple of weeks.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to take part in our detailed line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill. It will be with a sense of déjà vu that I am sure the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston also feels, having sat in the same Public Bill Committee this time last year. The real shame is that, this time last year, nobody listened to a thing that we said, and this Bill is in the same form as it was back then. Looking around the room, however, I see a much more discerning Committee this year, so I am filled with optimism that we may indeed be able to deliver some change.
We have serious concerns; we do not just make things up. As Opposition MPs, we have lots of concerns that stakeholders have raised with us. My preliminary point is that the two previous Immigration Acts that passed all the way through Parliament, in 2014 and 2016, contributed in a very serious and significant way to the Windrush scandal. In her review of what happened, Wendy Williams highlighted all the warnings that came from the same stakeholders about the problems that those Bills would cause. Indeed, she quoted from some of the contributions made by Opposition Members during the passage of the Bills. Hon. Members might not agree with everything we say, but sometimes we are worth listening to, even if we do not manage to achieve change in this Committee. I plead with the Home Office and members of the Committee to engage seriously with the concerns that we are flagging up.
At the weekend, the former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), wrote that
“the Home Office has yet to implement the process of root and branch cultural change necessary in the aftermath of Windrush.”
I hope that, during the passage of the Bill, we receive some signals that the cultural approach of the Home Office, and its attitude to listening, is changing.
Clause 1 is the Bill in microcosm. I will not repeat my entire stage 2 speech, which I am sure hon. Members followed very closely indeed, but I take your advice on scope, Sir Edward. I am sad to say again that the SNP totally opposes clause 1, because it brings to an end what we regard as a valuable, simple and well-functioning immigration system of free movement. As a result, it extends what is a complex, expensive and unjust domestic system to EEA nationals. That is bad for the individuals caught up in it, who will face prohibitive fees, complicated procedures, broken families and diminished rights, but it is also bad for the economy. I do not think that any hon. Member present who paid attention to the evidence that we heard on Tuesday can remain 100% enthusiastic about the Government’s proposals for the immigration system come January. It will be an abject nightmare for many industries that have already been totally decimated by the coronavirus shutdown. We did not even hear from the tourism and hospitality industries, which are at the forefront of facing the challenges.
Clause 1 is also bad for Scotland—for our population growth, demographics, economy and tax base. If the task had been to design an immigration system for Scotland alone, nobody in their right mind would have come up with this one. The same is true—probably even truer—of Northern Ireland, with its land border with a country where free movement will continue. We will explore all these issues as we go through the Bill in more detail and discuss the amendments and new clauses that have been tabled. From my point of view, there is nothing much to celebrate and lots to regret about clause 1, and indeed schedule 1, and we oppose them both.
Kevin Foster
I will reply briefly. I recognise the position of the Scottish National party on the Bill and on these particular proposals. There is a fundamental difference, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that he is always worth listening to, even when we disagree. He laments the absence of the tourism and hospitality industries on Tuesday. Regardless of our views on the Bill, we all look forward to an era when those industries will be able to think about recruiting again, rather than being in the position that we expect them to be in of significant job losses, including in my constituency, over the coming weeks and months, given the impact of recent weeks.
To turn to the comments of the hon. Member for Halifax, I was listening on Tuesday to the evidence from Professor Brian Bell, interim chair of the MAC, particularly on social care, and I cannot remember him saying that a general route for employers in the social care sector to recruit abroad at or near the minimum wage would be good news for the social care sector. In fact, I think he said precisely the opposite. To be clear, the general salary threshold is being reduced to £25,600, but where an occupation is deemed to be in shortage, it will be subject to a lower salary level of £20,480 a year.
It is also worth pointing out that for more than 20 categories of healthcare professional and allied healthcare professional, their eligibility will be based on the national salary scales paid in the NHS, rather than the general salary scales set out in the wider immigration rules. That is linked to the creation of what we are looking at as a healthcare visa to give fast-track access and reduced fees to people under that scheme. It is important that we keep placing those facts on the record so that people are aware of them, given some of the not very well informed commentary we have seen in the media, such as the claim that nurses will not be eligible, when in fact they will be fast-tracked and prioritised under our system.
Holly Lynch
I am concerned that the Minister has put words in my mouth in relation to what the MAC said about social care. What we did hear loud and clear from a number of witnesses, however, was that there is no plan to address workforce issues in social care when free movement ends. Is he minded to have specific remedies for social care in his future plans, before we end free movement?
Kevin Foster
Again, if people think, from what we have seen in the last few weeks, that the remedy for social care is to recruit more people at or near to the minimum wage from abroad, that is an odd conclusion to draw.
Kevin Foster
We will certainly talk to the Employment Minister. Again, I am conscious of the scope of the Bill and not going off more widely into our labour market strategies.
One conversation I recently had with the Employment Minister was about how, sadly, a lot of people in my constituency, and I am sure in the hon. Lady’s constituency as well, need to find new employment opportunities. Social care, and the healthcare sector more widely, will be part of providing some of those opportunities, not just through entry level jobs, but by ensuring that education, colleges and others are training people towards skilled jobs and providing real career progression.
For me, that is the solution for social care, rather than looking to the migration system as the overall labour market solution. I am sure we all share the sentiment, whatever any of us thinks of ending free movement, that the sector needs to be more invested in and more valued, and that there need to be clearer paths of career progression that people can see when they are deciding what they want to do for a job and a career.
I am conscious, Sir Edward, of what you said about the scope of the Bill. We could have an interesting discussion about the overall labour market strategy, but for now, this is a focused debate about why clause 1 is important and delivers the core of what the Bill is about.
Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Stuart C. McDonald
I beg to move amendment 18, in schedule 1, page 7, line 26, leave out paragraph 4(2).
I am moving this amendment because, as we heard on Tuesday from Adrian Berry, the drafting of paragraph 4(2) —there are similar paragraphs in schedule 1—is far from satisfactory.
In tabling this amendment, we are asking the Minister, how is it that this paragraph is supposed to work? Why must we leave it to ordinary citizens to work out whether they still have certain rights by checking back whether these provisions are inconsistent with or could impact on the interpretation of decades of immigration laws, both Immigration Acts and legislation made under them? Why has the Bill not done that job for them? As Mr Berry said, the Home Office must know how these rights interplay with earlier provisions of immigration legislation. Why is that not set out in the Bill?
As we just heard, schedule 1 does the heavy lifting of repealing large parts of retained law in relation to free movement of people. Over three parts, schedule 1 lists, in considerable detail, the various bits of primary and secondary legislation of retained EU law that are to be omitted and revoked.
For large parts, the schedule is pretty clear. For example, it says:
“Article 1 of the Workers Regulation is omitted.”
I do not like that, but I cannot complain that it is lacking in clarity. As Adrian Berry pointed out, however, elsewhere the drafting lets people down. Even with the help of immigration lawyers like Mr Berry, it will be incredibly difficult for people to know whether other rights that they have under the workers regulation are still effectively in force.
Other articles in the workers regulation are important. These are not trivial matters. They include, for example, the right to equal treatment in various spheres, such as education, employment rights and family rights. It will be important for folk to know, in a straightforward manner, whether they still enjoy these rights, but schedule 1 totally fudges this question.
The offending paragraph states that these provisions
“cease to apply so far as—
(a) they are inconsistent with any provision made by or under the Immigration Acts (including, and as amended by, this Act), or
(b) they are otherwise capable of affecting the interpretation, application or operation of any such provision.”
I find that very difficult to understand, as a parliamentarian and somebody who many years ago was an immigration lawyer.
For example, is a protection offered against discrimination on vocational grounds in paragraph 6, contrary to the Immigration Acts or any provision made under them? The Immigration Acts are a specific list of provisions. Again, as Mr Berry pointed out, it would not be unreasonable to think that the Home Office knew exactly which workers regulation articles were not impacted at all and which were, and to what extent.
That should be in the Bill, so that folk know where they stand. It is as simple as that. Otherwise, the consequence would be endless confusion and litigation. The query and question for the Minister is, why is the Bill still drafted in this way?
The Chair
Before I call the Minister, does anybody else wish to speak? In that case, over to you, Minister.
Kevin Foster
Thank you, Sir Edward. I just thought I would be courteous, in case there was another hon. Member who wished to speak.
Amendment 18, which stands in the name of the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East, and his colleagues, would remove paragraph 4(2) from schedule 1 to the Bill, which disapplies provisions of the workers regulation, which conflict with domestic immigration law. This would mean that the UK remained bound by EU law in relation to the rights of EEA citizens to access the UK’s job market, which might in part be the hon. Gentleman’s intention, given his well-known view on that subject.
The Government, therefore, cannot support this amendment, because it would effectively result in free movement rights for workers and their families continuing after the end of the transition period. The Government are committed to ending the free movement of people now that we have left the EU, so therefore this proposal is incompatible with that. The Government are committed to ending the free movement of people now that we have left the EU, so therefore this would be incompatible with that.
We have made it clear that we will bring free movement to an end on 1 January, and introduce an effective and fairer points-based immigration system that takes into account the needs of the whole of our United Kingdom and works for the whole of our United Kingdom. It will be a system that reflects the skills and contributions that someone has to offer, not where the person comes from.
Stuart C. McDonald
The Minister is right that I would love to see all these rights retained, but that is not the motivation behind this amendment. I accept that the Government want to go about repealing some rights, but the Bill does not really do that. It says, in a peculiar way, that the rights are “sort of repealed” and one has to check back through immigration legislation for decades to work out to what extent. Why has it been done in this way rather than setting out specifically which rights are retained and which are not?
Kevin Foster
The answer is partly that it is not possible to draw up an exhaustive list of directly affected law in terms of the EU because court judgments will affect that. One reason for the wording is to make it clear that it relates to the Immigration Act 1971 and does not create a wider enabling power around the workers regulation. I am also clear that those who are subject to the withdrawal agreement are covered by those provisions.
During the passage of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 we discussed in great detail the provisions for protecting the rights of EEA citizens resident in the UK by the end of the transition period, which is 31 December this year. The EU settlement scheme, which was fully opened on 13 March 2019, was specifically introduced for this purpose. One of the rights protected by the status granted under the scheme is equality of access to employment, benefits and services, in the manner outlined by the workers regulation.
Retaining sub-paragraph (4)(2) of schedule 1 will in no way compromise our commitments to upholding the rights of resident EEA citizens already working in the United Kingdom. It will simply ensure other provisions of the workers regulation, which are not specific to immigration, do not have ongoing effects on UK immigration law, but continue to have their effects for other purposes, hence the wording of the sub-section. Otherwise the UK would be required, for example, to provide all EEA citizens with an offer of employment as though they were British citizens, meaning they could not be subjected to any restrictions on access in the UK labour market, directly undermining the new points-based immigration system, which will not provide preferential treatment for EEA citizens.
The changes made by sub-paragraph (4)(2) only relate to immigration aspects of the workers regulation and will not affect any other rights provided by that regulation. For example, the right to equal treatment in respect of positions of employment and work, and the right to join a trade union are unaffected by the provision, because this Bill is not the appropriate vehicle in which to consider them or to look for a power to alter or amend them.
It is less than six months since the British people voted to take back control of our borders and introduce a new points-based system to control immigration, which will deliver for the UK for years to come. This provision, ending the immigration rights provided by the workers regulation, is one the steps needed to pave the way for the new system. For those reasons, the Government cannot support this amendment and I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw it.
Stuart C. McDonald
I thank the Minister for his explanation. I absolutely understand what the Government are trying to achieve and that some of the rights in the workers directive have been put in legislation, including in the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020. However, that is not the point that this amendment is trying to make. The point is about how the Bill is—or is not—going about repealing the workers directive.
It is essentially a point about the rule of law. When I intervened, the Minister said that it would not be possible to draw up an exhaustive list of exactly how these rights were affected by Immigration Acts and other provisions. If the Government cannot do that, how on earth is the ordinary citizen supposed to be able to tell what their rights are? I think we should take this paragraph out of the schedule and, if the Government are unhappy with the implications that has in leaving things on the statute book, they should come back on another occasion with a clear list and fix it that way. I would like to push the amendment to a division.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I would like to ask the Minister some questions about paragraph 6 of schedule 1, which potentially disapplies any retained EU law relating to the immigration context. It is a similar set of questions to those we were discussing a moment ago in relation to amendment 18, but with a different focus. It arises from evidence that was given to us on Tuesday afternoon by Adrian Berry on behalf of the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association, which I thank for its help in preparing for this Committee.
I apologise that it was not possible to get an amendment tabled on this paragraph. As my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax pointed out, we have been doing a number of things in relation to this Bill at a rush, and we did not have the transcript of Tuesday afternoon’s sitting until last night. I am very grateful to the Hansard writers for the work they have been doing—I know they have a lot of Bills on—but that has caused part of our problem.
My concern is that the breadth of the wording in paragraph 6 could lead to the repeal of legal protections that go far beyond the realm of free movement, which is the purpose of this Bill. I hope the Minister may be able to put some assurances on the record in relation to my concerns about the Government’s future intentions. As we heard a few moments ago, certain provisions of EU law, as retained EU law, have been brought within UK law by a number of different instruments—some EU law has been brought into domestic law through statutory instruments and so forth. They are saved by section 2 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. Direct EU legislation is saved as retained EU law by section 3 of the 2018 Act. It is explicitly defined and does not include treaties or directives; it is things such as EU regulations with direct applicability.
Any other powers, liabilities, obligations, restrictions, remedies and procedures that could be enforced in the UK because of EU law are carried over by section 4 of the 2018 Act. That includes things like treaties and directives that are directly effective. It is, however, important to note that section 4(2)(b) limits the enforceability of directives to the extent that retained EU law is only the rights, powers, liabilities, obligations, restrictions, remedies or procedures arising under an EU directive that are of a kind that have been recognised by the European Court or any court or tribunal in the United Kingdom in a case decided before the end of the transition period.
Paragraph 6 of schedule 1 disapplies those provisions of EU law to the extent that they are either inconsistent with or otherwise incapable of affecting the interpretation, application or operation of any provision made by or under the Immigration Acts, or otherwise capable of affecting the exercise of functions in connection with immigration. The problem is that the carve-out basically all EU immigration law retained by virtue of paragraph 4, because
“capable of affecting the exercise of functions in connection with immigration”
could basically mean just about anything. The question I am asking the Minister is what EU law that paragraph applies to. What exactly are the Government trying to target?
We get some help from paragraphs 68 and 69 of the explanatory notes to the Bill, which suggest the Government may be trying to affect what we have come to call derived rights cases, in the free movement context. For example, cases of so-called Zambrano carers. These are situations where the European Court has recognised that, because of rights within the European treaties available to European nationals, certain rights must be given to those nationals and their family members or carers in order to ensure that the European national can actually enjoy their EU rights. I accept that, if one is trying to get rid of free movement, as the Bill is, these categories would need to be removed from UK law. That is exactly what ending free movement means, but if that is the scope of the Government’s intentions, it should be much clearer in the Bill.
Unfortunately, paragraph 6 goes much wider than that, addressing not only provisions made under the Immigration Acts, as the Minister suggested a few moments ago, but any matter capable of being seen as in connection with immigration. That could include, for example, the anti-trafficking directive, which prohibits removal of a victim of trafficking if they never received sufficient support and assistance under article 11 of the directive. Other directives that could be caught under involving the exercise of functions in connection with immigration include the reception conditions directive, which supports asylum seekers, the EU victims’ rights directive, and potentially others.
One way of protecting all these directives would be simply to say that paragraph 6 of schedule 1 does not affect directives that form part of retained EU law. After all, the Government’s own explanatory notes do not identify any directives that they wish to disapply in the immigration context, even though I accept that the list in paragraph 69 is described as non-exhaustive. Alternatively, the Government could list the directives specifically to be protected, as set out in the explanatory notes, directly within schedule 1 of the Bill.
I have to say that if the Government do not follow either of those paths, vital protections for vulnerable people could be at risk of becoming collateral damage in the ending of free movement. I am absolutely not suggesting that the Government intend to remove those protections, but if they do not intend that, I hope the Minister can give us clear assurances to that effect today and explain why they appear to fall within the scope of the Bill as drafted.
As things stand, the breadth of the language in paragraphs 6 and a lack of sufficient objective parameters to ascertain its intended targets make it impossible to accurately predict which areas of retained EU law could be affected by the Bill. That is exactly the problem we were discussing a moment ago in relation to paragraph 4. It raises fundamental legal concerns. Migrants and their representatives, Home Office caseworkers and judges must be able to ascertain with a reasonable degree of certainty what the law is. Indeed, that is one of the core lessons learned from the Windrush review carried out by Wendy Williams. I do not believe that this provision meets that standard.
Kevin Foster
I thank the hon. Lady for her speech and her interest in this section of the Bill. To be clear, paragraph 6 disapplies the directly effective rights deriving from the EU law that will form part of retained EU law at the end of the transition period if they are inconsistent with immigration legislation or affect immigration practices. They are being repealed so that people cannot in the future attempt to rely on such directly effective rights to bypass the system to enter and reside in the UK, other than under the points-based system. We have been clear that provision will be made in the EU settlement scheme for those currently exercising their EU derivative right of residence in the UK, and that has now been provided, as I touched on.
Some people have asked for examples of rights that paragraph 6 would disapply. They include the rights of Turkish nationals to preferential immigration treatment under the European Economic Community-Turkey association agreement. They also include, as the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston said, derivative rights of residents under EU law such as Zambrano carers, and the Chen, Ibrahim and Teixeira cases, which will cease from the day that paragraph 6 comes into force. Those rights stem directly from the treaty on the functioning of the EU and need to be disapplied because otherwise people could continue to cite and rely on them to bypass the future immigration system.
The Government do not intend to use the provisions to avoid our responsibilities under international law. We are very clear that our system of protection routes will continue to operate separately from the system of migration rules, as they always have. Family migration will not form part of the points-based system; it will be based on the family migration rules. The wording has to be the way it is so that the paragraph is not too wide in scope. This is about citing it in relation to immigration—trying to cite an EU right to work in the UK rather than applying the provision in a situation where we would, for example, be breaching our international obligations. As I said during the evidence session on Tuesday, under statutory instruments and regulations, Ministers cannot act against international law. We could have a long constitutional debate about whether Parliament can still pass primary legislation in relation to international law, but that is probably not relevant to this particular schedule.
In essence, the schedule is about being clear that it will not be possible to use a range of rights to undermine the points-based immigration system that we are putting in place. We want to make it clear that EEA and non-EEA citizens should look to migrate under the points-based system.
Question put, That the schedule be the First schedule to the Bill.
Kevin Foster
I do not expect this clause to be controversial, but given some of the evidence that we heard, it may be useful to set out one or two responses, especially the Government’s long-standing policy on deportation of Irish nationals. As Committee members will know, clause 2 protects the status of Irish citizens in the UK when free movement ends. British and Irish citizens have enjoyed a unique status and specific rights in each others’ countries since the 1920s as part of the common travel area arrangements.
Under clause 2, when free movement ends, Irish citizens will continue to be able to come to the UK without permission or restrictions on how long they can stay. British citizens, as you are probably aware, Sir Edward, enjoy reciprocal rights in Ireland, again reflecting the unique historical position of the Republic of Ireland and the UK.
The clause provides legal certainty and clarity for Irish citizens by inserting a new section 3ZA into the Immigration Act 1971. New section 3ZA will ensure that Irish citizens can enter and remain in the UK without requiring permission, regardless of where they have travelled from. This is already the position for those entering the UK from within the common travel area, but Irish citizens travelling to the UK from outside the common travel area currently enter under EEA regulations. This clause will remove that distinction by giving Irish citizens a clear status once free movement ends. While that may not have been impactive, it is there in a technical, legal sense, which is why this clause is necessary.
Holly Lynch
I am grateful to the Minister for a lot of the clarification in his opening remarks. We welcome clause 2, and its content is indeed necessary. We will, however, be asking for some further assurances through new clause 27, largely to reaffirm what the Minister has just said. That new clause asks the Secretary of State to
“publish a report detailing the associated rights of the Common Travel Area”.
We heard from both Alison Harvey and Professor Ryan that although clause 2 is welcome and offers a degree of clarity as free movement rights are stripped away from both Irish and British citizens, as well as those in Northern Ireland who identify as both, there are some outstanding areas that require further clarification, including the scope of reciprocal rights under the common travel agreement. Clause 2 shows that many of the rights granted to Irish citizens through the common travel area are facilitated through freedom of movement. If not in the present Bill, do the Government plan to legislate to enshrine the provisions of the common travel area as reciprocal rights, rather than purely as changeable administrative arrangements, and, if so, when?
As Professor Ryan highlighted on Tuesday, more must be done to clarify the status of acquisition of British nationality, for British-born children, children born to Irish parents and Irish citizens wanting to naturalise. At the moment it is incredibly hard to ascertain the exact immigration status of those individuals and to know, for example, whether they have time limits on their visas or have ever breached immigration laws. If the Government truly want to redefine the British immigration system, they must answer those questions to clear up the ambiguity surrounding British citizenship law.
I am sure that the Minister will understand some of the nervousness about deportations. He referred to it in his opening remarks on the clause. To give the Committee some context to work with, I asked Professor Ryan at column 35 in the evidence sitting on 9 June whether he was aware of examples in recent history when an Irish citizen had been deported, either because a court had recommended deportation on sentencing, or because a Secretary of State had concluded, owing to the exceptional circumstances of the case, that the public interest required deportation. If I am not mistaken, the Scottish National party spokesperson also put a similar question to Alison Harvey. No specific examples could be provided. If the Minister is aware of any, I should welcome it if he would share them with the Committee to support the discussion.
We still do not know the Government’s proposed threshold for deportation of Irish citizens. It would be helpful if that could be clarified. Ideally, the Government would enshrine that in legislation or at least make a commitment during the passage of the Bill to state explicitly how deportation and exclusion will be used for Irish citizens in future. Professor Ryan has said that owing to the arrangements in the common travel area the threshold for deportation and exclusion of Irish citizens is notionally higher than that of other nations. Seemingly, it is more rarely, if ever, exercised.
As I have mentioned, the Good Friday agreement allows people born in Northern Ireland the right to identify exclusively as Irish or British, or as both. Irish citizens are referred to in the Bill, so can we assume that that reference includes Northern Ireland-born citizens who do not identify as British? If so, will the Minister make it clear in the Bill that people in Northern Ireland who identify exclusively as Irish, per the Good Friday agreement, are exempt from deportation and exclusion?
Without such a commitment, there is inevitably some anxiety. Alison Harvey made a case for mitigating the risk through the right to abode. If that were implemented, it would guarantee a raft of citizenship rights, so I welcome feedback from the Minister on that approach. As well as clarifying the status of Northern Irish citizens who identify solely as Irish, the right to abode would also alleviate the loophole through which someone with an Irish passport is not granted protections on arriving in the UK, because they have travelled from a country outside the common travel area.
We are supportive of the clause and will not oppose it, but will return to some of its content in debate on new clause 27.
Stuart C. McDonald
Given what the Minister and shadow Minister have said, I can, I hope, be helpfully brief. I am grateful to the Minister for clarifying the position on deportation, but the shadow Minister raises a reasonable point. The Minister has clarified the policy— but why not put it on the face of the Bill? I very much welcome the Minister’s confirmation of how Irish nationals will be able to come from outside the CTA with family members. It is a welcome clarification.
I want briefly to refer to the broader issue of common travel area rights. We are often told about the historic common travel area, and the fact that the rights go back many decades. That is true, but in recent years most of those rights have become embedded in and entangled with free movement rights. In the Bill, we are repealing those rights but not replacing them with common travel area rights. The Government keep talking about reciprocal rights, but we need them to be set down in statute.
So far, as the Minister said, there seems to be a non-binding memorandum of understanding with the Government of Ireland, and a Government position paper, setting out the fact that there will be rights to work, study, social security and healthcare access, and vote. For the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, essentially those CTA rights are “written in sand” and for the Committee on the Administration of Justice the CTA can be characterised by loose administrative arrangements of provisions that can be altered at any time. So we need to return to this issue of when we will actually see a detailed scheme of rights for the common travel area.
There is some urgency about this matter, because at the moment, for example, there are people in Northern Ireland who choose to be Irish citizens and who have the option of applying under the EU settled status scheme, but they will have to make that decision without really knowing how the benefits of the EU settled status scheme compare with the benefits of the common travel area scheme, because that has not been spelled out in great detail yet. There are practical issues that have been flagged up by the organisations I have mentioned about cross-border rights to access healthcare and education, and so on. All these questions need to be answered, and fairly urgently.
Finally, I will echo what the shadow Minister said about Alison Harvey’s evidence on the right of abode, and I would be interested to know whether the Government are considering achieving some sort of resolution of these issues by using the right of abode. However, we will return to these issues when we debate the new clause that the shadow Minister has tabled.
I welcome clause 2, but we still have a considerable way to go in making sure that the common travel area persists and works properly, and that folk know where they stand.
Kevin Foster
I thank the SNP and Labour spokespersons for their overall support of the clause. I think I have been clear that there is a very strong commitment to the common travel area. Elements of its operation are inevitably required due to the provisions of the Belfast agreement, which is actually international law; it is a treaty between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, so it is not something that can just be amended on a whim. Far from it—it is underpinned by the strong consent of both communities, north and south, as expressed in referendums at the time it went through.
The commitment of both Governments to the common travel area has persisted for decades and will continue to do so. Irish citizens can apply to the European settlement scheme. I do not see any detriment that would come to them from doing so, but neither is there a requirement for them to do so, given the clarity that the clause brings to their rights within the United Kingdom. To be absolutely clear, the clause looks to remove that difference in the technical definition between an Irish citizen who has arrived in the United Kingdom on, for the sake of argument, the Eurostar from France, as opposed to arriving in the United Kingdom on a plane from Dublin.
It is probably worth saying that it would be interesting to work out how that definition could have actually affected someone’s life, apart from some of their more theoretical rights. However, I will be clear on that front that the Bill removes that difference. For an Irish citizen within the United Kingdom, it applies regardless of which country they travel from—whether they have travelled to the United Kingdom from within the common travel area or, for example, from the United States of America—[Interruption.] I am glad that the hon. Member for Halifax was reassured by that.
Effectively, Irish citizens become identified —I accept that this is perhaps a slightly controversial thing to say in the context of people’s identity—as British in our system of migration. Effectively, their Irish passport becomes equivalent to a UK national’s passport.
As for the provisions around deportation, I was asked whether there was a particular example. My officials in the Home Office have spent some time over the last week or two trying to find an example under current legislation —not under legislation, perhaps, from previous eras—of someone being deported from the United Kingdom to the Republic. We struggled; so far, I cannot find a specific example. I do not see any Member of the Committee who is about to jump up and give me an example, in order to contradict me on that point.
In particular, we are not aware of there ever having been, even at the heights of the troubles, a particular stream of deportation from Northern Ireland into the Republic. Partly, that is because we would all have to question the practical effect of deporting someone from County Londonderry to County Donegal; how on earth would anyone effectively enforce that in any way? Also, however, the spirit between the two Governments has been very much that we respect the rights of those who are there and, to be clear, that is set out in a 2007 written ministerial statement. That was not done under a Government formed by my party. The written ministerial statement has been there for 13 years. I wrote to the Irish Government about the fact that the provisions were in the Bill, and we have not received negative representations. The minimum threshold would have to be an offence that carried a 10-year prison sentence, so we are talking about very serious criminal offending, or the court would have to recommend it.
Kevin Foster
The clause is minor and technical in its nature, but it is important for the implementation of the Bill and for a fully functioning statute book. Effectively, it states that the Bill will be one of the Immigration Acts. I commend the clause to the Committee.
Holly Lynch
There is so little in clause 3 that we will not make a contribution to it.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 3 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 4
Consequential etc. provision
Stuart C. McDonald
I beg to move amendment 2, in clause 4, page 2, line 34, leave out “appropriate” and insert “necessary”
This amendment would ensure that the Secretary of State may only make regulations which are necessary rather than those which the Minister considers appropriate.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 3, in clause 4, page 2, line 34, leave out “, or in connection with,”
This amendment would narrow the scope of the powers provided to the Secretary of State in Clause 4, as recommended by the House of Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in connection with the equivalent Bill introduced in the last session of Parliament.
Amendment 20, in clause 4, page 2, line 35, leave out “this Part” and insert “Schedule 1”
This amendment seeks to limit the scope of the power in Clause 4 to matters concerning the ending of retained EU law rights that currently preserve free movement and immigration-related rights.
Amendment 21, in clause 4, page 2, line 35, at end insert—
‘(1A) The power to make regulations under subsection (1) may only be exercised within the period of one year from the day on which this Act is passed.
(1B) Regulations made under subsection (1) shall cease to have effect after a period of two years from the day on which this Act is passed.”
This amendment would restrict the use of the Henry VIII powers contained in Clause 4 to a period of one year from the date of the Act being passed; and would prevent any changes to primary legislation made by exercise of these powers having permanent effect unless confirmed by primary legislation.
Amendment 4, in clause 4, page 3, line 6, leave out subsection (5).
This amendment would narrow the scope of the powers provided to the Secretary of State in Clause 4, as recommended by the House of Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in connection with the equivalent Bill introduced in the last session of Parliament.
Amendment 15, in clause 4, page 3, line 8, at end insert—
‘(5A) The Secretary of State may make regulations under subsection (1) only if satisfied that the regulations would have no detrimental effect on the children of EEA and Swiss nationals resident in the United Kingdom.
(5B) Before making regulations under subsection (1) the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament, and publish, a statement explaining why the Secretary of State is satisfied as mentioned in subsection (5A).”
Amendment 22, in clause 4, page 3, line 8, at end insert—
‘(5A) Regulations under subsection (1), in relation to persons to whom the regulations apply under this Act, shall be made in accordance with the following principles—
(a) Promotion of family life, particularly that between children and their parents and that between partners;
(b) That persons in the United Kingdom should have a right of appeal to the First-tier Tribunal against any decision to refuse leave remain, to curtail leave to enter or remain or to make a deportation order;
(c) that where leave to remain is given—
(i) on account of a person’s long residence in the United Kingdom; or
(ii) to a person whose continuous residence in the United Kingdom includes five years of that person’s childhood; or
(iii) to a child who has lived in the United Kingdom for a period of seven continuous years;
that leave is given for an indefinite period;
(d) that leave to enter or remain given to a person for the purpose of establishing or continuing family life in the United Kingdom is not subject to a condition restricting work, occupation or recourse to public funds; and
(e) ensure that no change to immigration rules or fees is made—
(i) unless sufficient public notice has been given of that change to ensure any person affected by the change who is already in the United Kingdom with leave to enter or remain has reasonable opportunity to adjust their expectations or circumstances before the change takes effect; or
(ii) that would require a person given leave to enter or remain for the purpose of establishing or continuing family life in the United Kingdom to satisfy more restrictive conditions for the continuation of their stay than were required to do so at the time the person was first given leave for this purpose.”
This amendment seeks to ensure that exercise of the delegated powers in clause 4(1) is guided by certain principles.
Amendment 12, in clause 8, page 5, line 40, at end insert—
‘(4A) Section 4 and section 7(5) expire on the day after the day specified as the deadline under section 7(1)(a) of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020.”
Stuart C. McDonald
I am pleased to speak in support of the amendments. At this stage I expect to get the Government Members excited because I am urging them to take back control, by which I mean take back control of immigration policy from the Home Office and keep MPs in a job. Like most hon. Members I have become familiar with the broad powers of delegated legislation and sweeping Henry VIII powers in recent years through both immigration legislation and more recently through Brexit. The Government are taking increasingly more and more powers to rewrite not only subordinate legislation but primary Acts of Parliament with very little constraint. I do not think that anyone here would dispute that in certain circumstances such powers can be sensible and useful, but they should be exceptional and limited. Instead, the practice has become so routine that if it goes on we might as well shut down Parliament or end its role as a legislator.
I am grateful to the witnesses who spoke on Tuesday and to the organisations that provided briefings, including the Law Society of Scotland, Amnesty International, the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association, Justice, Liberty, the Equality and Human Rights Commission and others. There are big concerns about this clause.
In tabling the amendments I have also relied on the report of the House of Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and its 46th report in the last Session, which was an analysis of the predecessor Bill. It is fair to say that their lordships were not impressed with clause 4. It is noticeable that they went out of their way to prepare the report in advance of Committee stage so that we could benefit from their advice. I regret that the Home Office is still not listening to that sage advice at all.
The sweeping power is set out first in clause 4(1), where the Home Secretary can make any provision that she thinks “appropriate” in relation to the whole of part 1 —in other words, related to free movement. Clause 4(2) makes it clear that this can include amending any Act of Parliament as well as retained EU legislation. There are various subsections about the procedures that would be required to be used when exercising those powers, which is something that I suspect we will return to later.
The word that appears several times in the House of Lords report is “significant”. Their lordships had significant concerns about significant delegation of powers from Parliament to the Executive on such a significant issue that concerns a significant number of people. Amendments 2, 3, 20, 21 and 4 are designed to cut those powers done to size and to keep MPs in a job. It is quite informative to look at the explanatory memorandum to the same Bill from this time last year. The memorandum explains, for example, how the powers would be used to set up appeal rights for EEA nationals. All those things have already been taken care of in the year that has passed, yet nothing has changed in the formulation of clause 4. The Government still say they need such powers, even though they have done everything that they envisaged using those powers for in the explanatory memorandum from this time last year.
The European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 was passed at the start of the year, and it contains a whole part on citizens’ rights of residence, frontier workers, deportation appeals, non-discrimination and so on. It includes extensive powers of delegated legislation as well, but at least they are constrained by the requirement that they should be exercised in order to implement the provisions of the withdrawal agreement that relate to citizens’ rights. As I say, a lot of what the Government originally envisaged they would use these powers for has already been accomplished.
Amendment 2 refers to an argument that we have had many times before. It is about requiring use of the powers to be “necessary” rather than merely considered appropriate by the Minister. Again, there is no genuine objection to being able to make rules if we suddenly have to make changes for a deal or a no-deal situation in the future relationship, but that should not just be at the whim of Ministers deciding what is appropriate and what is not. Their lordships and various stakeholders have recommended a test of necessity, and that is what is in amendment 2.
Amendment 3 is probably the most critical amendment and takes out the words “in connection with”. I refer again to the House of Lords Committee report, which said:
“We are frankly disturbed that the Government should consider it appropriate to include the words ‘in connection with’. This would confer permanent powers on Ministers to make whatever legislation they considered appropriate, provided there was at least some connection with Part 1, however tenuous; and to do so by negative procedure regulations”.
So their lordships are not very happy at all with what the Government propose.
Amendments 20 and 21 come from the House of Lords Committee report, but there have been perfectly sensible suggestions from Amnesty International, with similar ideas from other stakeholders. Amendment 20 would limit the scope of powers so that regulations cannot be made in relation to any old provision in part 1; they must relate specifically to schedule 1. Again, I emphasise that it can be acceptable to have limited powers in order to tidy up the statute book and the detailed list of provisions in the schedule. As matters stand, however, clause 2 means that we could have sweeping changes made to the rights of Irish citizens on the whim of the Secretary of State. Indeed, on the face of it, delegated powers could be used to alter clause 4 in order to increase the Executive’s powers yet further. That cannot be acceptable.
Amendment 21 would put a simple sunset clause of one year on the use of these powers. Should the Government have not tidied up the statute book by this time next year, something seriously wrong will have happened. Alternatively, something seriously positive will have happened and we will have extended the transition period by a couple of years. In either case, there will be plenty of time to legislate afresh. Everyone gets the argument that sweeping powers should not be left on the statute book forever; hence the sunset clause.
Amendment 22 puts a sunset clause on changes made by subordinate legislation. If the Minister really thinks there is such a rush that he cannot proceed by primary legislation, he should make the regulations. He should then come back to the House of Commons with a proper Bill, so that we can do our job as legislators and decide whether to keep those provisions in force or let them lapse.
In some ways, I am just sticking up for MPs. I want us to be able to continue to be the primary legislators in the field of immigration law and that we should start taking back some control from the Home Office.
Holly Lynch
I rise to speak to amendment 12, as well as demonstrate support for amendments 2 to 4, which also have our full support. With your permission, Sir Edward, I will focus my comments on the amendments relating to the transfer of powers in clause 4, and my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston will speak specifically to amendment 15, which is part of this group but is on a slightly different issue and relates to the impact that this legislation will have on children.
It is a pleasure to follow the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East, who made an articulate speech on the concerns about the Henry VIII powers. The reason we are all here physically today and not fulfilling our duties from home is this Government’s commitment to parliamentary scrutiny. Unfortunately, this transfer of powers seems to be inconsistent with that approach.
The arguments were incredibly well rehearsed on Second Reading during the previous Parliament, in Committee and in the House of Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, as we have already heard. That is why it is so disappointing that the Government have not reflected on that feedback and adapted their approach.
Clause 4 as it stands confers an extremely wide power on the Home Secretary to make whatever legal amendments they consider appropriate in consequence of, or in connection with, any provision of the immigration part of the Bill. That includes the ability to amend primary legislation. I am sympathetic to the Government’s stated intention behind the clause—namely, that it will ensure coherence across the statute book following the substantial changes brought about by the ending of free movement, and deliver the required tweaks to legislation. However, clause 4 is drafted so widely that it could relate to almost any aspect of immigration law, and given that there is no time restriction on the clause or the powers within it, the concern is that there is potential for those powers to be used far beyond the aims of this Bill.
Adrian Berry of the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association, whom we heard from earlier this week, commented on the powers referenced in the Bill, including in clause 4(5). During that evidence session, he said:
“How is the ordinary person, never mind the legislator, to know whether the law is good or not…if you draft like that? You need to make better laws. Make it certain, and put on the face of the Bill those things that you think are going to be disapplied because they are inconsistent with immigration provisions. There must be a…list in the Home Office of these provisions and it would be better if they are expressed in the schedule to the Bill.”––[Official Report, Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Public Bill Committee, 9 June 2020; c. 52, Q106.]
He went on to confirm that any responsible Opposition would have to table the amendments in this group in the absence of that list.
As we have heard, amendment 2 would replace the word “appropriate” with “necessary” in clause 4, line 34 on page 2 of the Bill, and amendment 3 would leave out “, or in connection with,” on the same line. With amendment 4, we seek to leave out subsection (5) altogether. We are also supportive of amendment 20.
On the specific proposed changes, as has already been said, the Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee considered the almost identical version of the Bill in the 2017-19 Parliament. It said:
“We are frankly disturbed that the Government should consider it appropriate to include the words ‘in connection with’. This would confer permanent powers on Ministers to make whatever legislation they considered appropriate, provided there was at least some connection with Part 1, however tenuous; and to do so by negative procedure regulations”.
The Committee expressed significant concerns about subsection (5), recommending that it be removed altogether, which is exactly what we are seeking to do,
“unless the Government can provide a proper and explicit justification for its inclusion and explain how they intend to use the power.”
The reason is that
“it confers broad discretion on Ministers to levy fees or charges on any person seeking leave to enter or remain in the UK who, pre-exit, would have had free movement rights under EU law.”
I argued on Second Reading that this approach is bad not just for parliamentary democracy, but for our public services and for the economy—a sentiment shared by the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry in an evidence session this week. Parliamentary scrutiny is the most effective way for stakeholders to work with MPs to shape legislation to respond to the needs of the country, and they are being denied that opportunity with the transfer of powers in this clause. The Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association, the British Medical Association, London First, Universities UK, the National Union of Students, trade unions and the Children’s Society are just a sample of the cross-section of organisations that have all expressed concerns that this transfer of powers to the Executive is not the way to develop quality and robust legislation.
During the attempted passage of the Bill in the last Parliament, the then Minister, the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), set out a number of reasons why the powers in clause 4 were necessary. As the SNP spokesperson has already said, a number of those reasons have since been addressed, yet the powers remain.
Since then, almost all those powers have been rendered irrelevant by the passage of other pieces of primary and secondary legislation. I will rebut just a couple of arguments. The then Minister said:
“In the unlikely event that we leave the EU without a deal, the power will enable us to make provision for EEA nationals who arrive after exit day but before the future border and immigration system is rolled out”.
There is now a deal on citizens’ rights in place, so they will not be affected by negotiations on the future relationship.
The then Minister also said that the clause would allow the Government to
“align the positions of EU nationals and non-EU nationals in relation to the deportation regime”.—[Official Report, Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Public Bill Committee, 26 February 2019; c. 183-84.]
However, regulation 17 of the Immigration, Nationality and Asylum (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 makes amendments to deportation thresholds, so it is unclear why any further transfer of power is necessary in the Bill.
Kate Green
Amendment 15, tabled in my name and those of my hon. Friends, aims to place the welfare of children at the heart of the way in which Ministers exercise their powers under clause 4. Children’s wellbeing is of central importance, both in UK law and to comply with our international obligations. We are a signatory to the UN convention on the rights of the child and to the global compact on migration, which contains 38 paragraphs on the welfare and treatment of children.
Domestically, the Children Act 1989 sets out the principle of the paramountcy of the welfare of children in matters relating to their care. Section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 provides that immigration functions must be discharged with regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children who are in the United Kingdom. With all that in place, the Committee may feel that we already have a framework that adequately protects children’s interests in immigration matters. However, the powers conferred on Ministers by clause 4 are very broad, and the way in which they are exercised could have a significant impact on children, whose best interests could be overlooked.
My amendment would embed protection against that happening as freedom of movement is ended. It would ensure that policies and rules introduced under the provisions of clause 4 can have no detrimental effect on the children of EEA and Swiss nationals who are resident in the United Kingdom, and would require the Secretary of State to publish and lay before Parliament a statement to explain why he or she is satisfied that that is the case.
The loss of free movement rights in the Bill means that some EEA national children will inevitably fall within the ambit of immigration legislation in the future. Some will be new arrivals to the UK, and others will have been here already but failed to secure the status to which they are entitled, becoming undocumented and subject to the compliant environment as a consequence.
Let me say a word briefly about the children who are at risk of being detrimentally affected, starting with those already in the UK who may none the less have failed to secure status. The number of such children could be substantial. The Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium estimates that there were as many as 751,000 non-Irish EEA and Swiss national children in the UK in 2019, but only 415,140 grants of status were made to children under the EU settlement scheme as at the end of March this year. Some of those children will be very vulnerable. My hon. Friends and I tabled new clause 58, which would secure status for looked-after children and young people leaving care, and I hope the Committee will have the opportunity to debate it in the days to come.
The impact of the Bill’s provision on those eligible for status who fail to apply is not limited to looked-after children alone. For example, parents may not understand whether their UK-born children are automatically British, whether they need to apply to register as British, or whether they should apply to the EU settlement scheme. The complexity of the system and the lack of access to advice means that some children may miss out on getting status or fail to obtain the highest status to which they are entitled. Some may be granted only pre-settled status and will need to be reminded to apply for settled status after five years or risk losing their right to remain in the UK.
Another group of children about whom I am concerned is those who have been in custody. Like adults, children applying to the EU settlement scheme are affected by time spent in custody. As well as not counting towards the five-year qualification period for settled status, periods in custody also reset the clock. Any child who spends time in custody will have to recommence their journey to qualify for settled or pre-settled status upon their release. That represents a troubling anomaly in the treatment of children who offend. Our criminal justice system generally takes the view that juvenile criminal behaviour should be treated differently from adult criminal behaviour, but that is not the case in relation to the EU settlement scheme. Is the Minister able to say how many children have been or may be unable to secure settled status as a result of that provision?
The examples I have cited are just that: examples. Any EEA and Swiss national children who do not secure status—those who were born here and those arriving in the future—could be affected by rules that may be introduced under the powers in clause 4. Hon. Members have already identified a number of potential harmful effects on EEA nationals, including children, as a result of the abolition of free movement and the imposition of new or more stringent rules. Some are reflected in the amendments and new clauses we have tabled and include the impact of fees and charges on citizenship applications; data-sharing policies; the application of income thresholds for the admission of family measures, including parents and children; no recourse to public funds conditions, which can affect children; the position of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children; and provisions relating to detention, deportation and removal. As we discussed earlier, schedule 1 may disapply certain provisions of EU law or EU-derived rights, and that, too, could affect children in some cases, such as those who are victims of crime or trafficking.
In all those circumstances, my amendment would provide assurance that the impact of any rules made using the powers in clause 4 would be subject to the requirement that they have no detrimental effect on the children of EEA and Swiss nationals resident in the UK, whatever led them to be here and whatever their status while here.
The second limb of my amendment refers to the requirement to produce a report to Parliament, which would impel the Home Office to develop processes to undertake a systematic assessment of the impact on children of any planned new immigration rules, which does not appear to happen routinely at the moment. Such an approach would also underpin a best interests approach to the application of immigration rules in individual decisions, buttressing the provisions of section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act. Again, there is little sign that a systematic approach to children’s best interests is embedded in Home Office decision making, and the requirement for immigration rules to protect children’s rights and interests must be supported in the design of decision-making processes and appropriate staff training. I hope the Minister will accept my amendment.
Stuart C. McDonald
I apologise, Sir Edward, but in my excitement over the Henry VIII clause and various other delegated powers, I forgot to speak to amendment 22, so I will speak to it briefly. It is slightly different from the amendments I spoke to earlier, which sought to rein in the powers the Home Office is trying to give itself in clause 4. Amendment 22 is more about setting out some guidance as to how those powers should be used, and to set out some principles. I, and I dare say any MP, could come up with 10 or 20 principles by which we would like the Home Office to abide. I have discussed these proposals with Amnesty International and they are good examples of the sort of framework we should provide at the Home Office, rather than giving it a blank cheque to introduce whatever system it sees fit.
The first of the amendment’s five principles is that these rules should be exercised to promote family life. Why have we allowed the Government to deliver tens of thousands of what England’s Children’s Commissioner called “Skype families”, separated by some of the most draconian anti- family migration rules in the world? Why did we watch as the Home Office simply withdrew the concession that generally allowed families with children who had been here seven years to settle permanently? The amendment would lay down a principle that would guide the Home Office to exercise its delegated functions in a way that promotes family life rather than undermining it.
The second principle relates to appeal rights. Everyone in this room believes in the rule of law, a facet of which is that a person should have a ready and accessible means of challenging their removal from the country in which they have made their home. To disagree with that simple proposition would be to ignore some of the key lessons from Windrush.
Thirdly, we need to stop putting so many people through a tortuous process before they have security of residence in this country. If people have been here for years on end, especially during childhood, why are we charging them many thousands of pounds over a 10-year period, with application after application after application? It is a disaster for the families affected and a total waste of Home Office time and resource. Let people move on.
Fourthly, if people are here for family reasons and fall on hard times, do we really want to say that they will just have to suffer and that the safety net we provide for others in a similar situation should not be available to them? If people are here to accompany family, why are we saying to them that they have to put their lives on hold and that they cannot seek work? These features of our immigration system are regressive, counter-productive and, frankly, prehistoric.
Finally the fifth principle is about treating people fairly and not pulling the rug from under their feet once they are here. Of course, rules and policies will change from time to time, but it is highly regrettable that we allow people to come to the UK on a particular visa route and then change the rules so that they apply not just to new people coming in but to those who are already here, making it difficult, if not impossible, for them to remain. A perfect example was the change to the financial threshold for tier 2 visa holders seeking settlement. Imagine if someone has been here for three or four years and met all the salary requirements, only for the Home Office to then say, with a year to go, “This was the salary threshold you had before, but actually we have upped it by £5,000 or £6,000 or £7,000.” That is a retrospective rule change, and it is totally unfair to operate it in that way.
I could have added many more principles to those I would like to see guiding the Home Office. These principles say that if we are going to give the Home Office these powers, we want them to be exercised in the interests of family, the rule of law and stability, protecting against retrospective rule changes and providing financial security. For too long, the Home Office has disregarded those principles. It is time that we as MPs say that it should stop doing that.
Finance Bill (Sixth sitting)
Thursday 11th June 2020
(4 years, 6 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Finance Act 2020 View all Finance Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 11 June 2020 - (11 Jun 2020)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 10 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Clauses 52 to 55 stand part.
That schedule 7 be the Seventh schedule to the Bill.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jesse Norman)
Clauses 51 to 55 come under the broad heading of a duty to submit returns in relation to the digital services tax. Having established that a group has DST revenues above the thresholds, it is appropriate for a group member, the responsible member, to provide Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs with the necessary information to assess the tax. That is a sensible way of requiring groups to administer the tax. They need to submit a return to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs only when there is a potential liability, and they can stop doing so when it is clear that there will not be a future liability.
The group will be required to continue to submit a single return for each accounting period until an officer of HMRC provides a direction for the group to stop. The direction to stop will be given only when it appears that the threshold conditions will not be met. Put simply, the responsible member will be the point of contact between HMRC and the rest of the group. The effect is to make administering the new tax easier for the groups that will be liable for DST and for HMRC. It means that only a single return for HMRC will need to be produced when a group assesses its DST liability.
Clause 51 sets out which members of the group can be the responsible member and what can prevent a company from being a responsible member. Those are sensible precautions to reduce the burden of the tax as much as possible, recognising that it is intended to be a temporary tax. As we have already noted in Committee, groups are dynamic with members joining and leaving all the time. The best choice as the responsible member for a group at one stage may no longer be the best choice later. It is therefore necessary for groups to have the ability to change the responsible member, but where that happens, it is important that nothing is lost by the change of company, which is achieved by clause 52.
Clause 53 sets out the duty for a group to notify HMRC when it has met the DST threshold conditions set out in clause 45. Groups will have 90 days from the end of the accounting period in which they meet the threshold conditions to make the notification. It is important to say that we have listened to businesses in requiring notification after the period to which the notification relates, which gives groups the opportunity to collect the fullest information possible before making contact with HMRC to notify it of any liability.
As I have mentioned, groups are organic and details will change. Clause 54 sets out the duty for a group to notify HMRC when there is a change to the details registered under clause 53. Finally, clause 55 sets out the obligation of the responsible member to submit a return of information to HMRC.
The clause also introduces schedule 7, which provides further details about the obligations of the group and HMRC in relation to the return and ensures by that means that the figures and the return are complete and accurate. As the tax is new, a new set of rules is required to ensure that HMRC has the powers necessary to ensure that the correct amount of tax is paid by those from whom it is due. The new rules borrow and draw from existing concepts that will be familiar to many tax practitioners. The schedule does not grant HMRC any further powers in relation to the tax that do not already apply to other existing taxes. It grants companies the protections from those powers that they would expect from a fair and balanced tax administration. With that in mind, I commend the clauses and the schedule to the Committee.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
We have no real issue with the clauses, as they are understandable in the context of the overall measures proposed.
I will draw the Minister’s attention to some technical concerns raised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, which I hope he can address. In September 2019, it wrote:
“Given the complexities which a business could encounter in identifying and quantifying DST revenues, we are concerned that notification within 90 days of the accounting period is unhelpful. It would make sense to tie this notification into the deadline for filing accounts—6 months for a plc or 9 months otherwise”.
The institute also states that there should not be a need to notify HMRC in advance of the payment deadline, as
“businesses will require more time to review their accounting records, analyse and quantify revenues to decide whether they are”
required to pay under the tax. It recognises that such obligations would not pose a problem for larger digital companies, but would be more problematic for marginal cases requiring “advice and review”, so
“the notification deadline should be aligned with the payment date.”
Regardless of whether we believe that the measures go far enough, or whether the tax is set at an appropriate rate, we believe that its implementation and administration should be fair, to give businesses—in particular those that fall on the margins of the scope of the measure—adequate time to provide accurate calculations of what they should be paying. I invite the Minister to respond to those points to provide some clarification.
Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)
As much as we have heard excellent contributions on matters of delivery and on technical matters, which are far beyond my knowledge of accounting and such, it strikes me that, as we are talking about the introduction of a new tax, this is the moment at which we should reflect on its meaning and on the purposes behind it.
The phrase that caught my eye is in clauses 53 and 54 —“Duty to”. My sense is that tax should not be, or should not only be, a catch-up exercise—chasing after developments in industry and the disruption brought to different sectors. Nor should it be about how much money we gather, although that is clearly of keen and close interest to us. It is also about the privilege of membership of a community and of participation in the UK economy. I find it interesting that it falls to a Conservative Government to introduce a tax such as this, which I consider to be progressive in its nature and intent.
In support of that, I pray in aid consideration of the principle of permanent residence, for example. Permanent residence was traditionally attached to the ability to trade in a nation, and tax therefore followed. If not trading in—that is, without that permanent residence—someone would be trading with, so coming under a different regime. Now, we have disruption in the digital economy, which means that we are trading in even though there is no permanent residence.
I also point to the development in the understanding of value over the years. At one point, value was measured in amounts of gold, so the question was one of setting a price, or offering gold in return for something; that was in essence a measurement of weight. The free trade argument slugged that one out with the mercantilist over many years, but the free trade argument won because it made the case effectively that the value of gold could be expressed in terms of the labour required to extract it. Discussions of value therefore moved from a physical object to the notion of labour.
As the Financial Secretary to the Treasury mentioned earlier, we are now talking about user-generated value. The notion of value itself has changed, and there are many debates about what value is and how it is best measured and captured. I suggest that they are extremely relevant to a discussion of tax, especially the introduction of a new one.
To look at tax solely in terms of being punitive, a “fair share” or a certain quantum, is to miss the point. Returning to the issue of leadership that was mentioned this morning, tax properly administered is surely more than a statement of how much money we can collect. It is more a statement of what we are trying to become—tax used as an instrument of government. What kind of society do we wish to become? It is not even, as might be suggested, a statement of how well we can co-ordinate with other nations. For this Government—I am interested in whether the Minister agrees with me—it is a statement of leadership, of what we are trying to become as a nation and, in particular, how we are trying to capture value through the proper encouragement of those industries as they participate in our economy.
Jesse Norman
Let me start with the interesting remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy. I think he is absolutely right to notice and bring to public attention the question of the basis of tax. He is absolutely correct to call upon an idea of tax as a privilege and obligation associated with membership of a community, and to highlight that that notion of tax, which in some sense has always been implicit in the idea of tax, is being drawn upon in this wider sense of a UK user contribution. He is absolutely right about that.
All government derives from the consent of the governed, as the cliché goes; but in order to give that consent, the governed must feel not merely that the tax is fair and equitable in its own right, but that it springs from a conception of government that fundamentally puts the wellbeing of society at its heart. In that sense, it is about not just an economic or fiscal change, nor necessarily who we want to become, but, as my hon. Friend said, who we are. It will come to no surprise to members of the Committee that I think Edmund Burke—one of my great heroes—put this well when he spoke about a nation as a moral idea. That is why the nation has historically been the basis of taxation: the nation provides the consent and, therefore, the guarantee of future taxation, which can underlie effective long-term public spending.
Going slightly beyond that point, it is notable that when crisis hits a country, that country and its Government must draw on that moral capital in pulling the alarm cable and using the power of taxation to secure future borrowing or future public spending that may be required to address the crisis. There is a very deep way in which my hon. Friend is getting to the centre of a very important fact about human life in democratic society, so I thank him for that.
On the more mundane and practical, but none the less vital points that the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South made about notification periods, I will simply say this: these are businesses that keep this data in real time. Of course, it is by no means only UK companies that are caught by this tax. The whole point of a UK user contribution is to capture companies’ revenue sources that might be derived from UK users and from that sense of community my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy mentioned, but without being resident as such in a formal tax sense in this country.
The data is immediate. The tax does not merely apply to UK companies. It does apply from the end of an accounting period—90 days after the end of an accounting period. We think that is a proportionate, appropriate and internationally recognised way of levying this tax.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 51 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 52 to 55 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 7 agreed to.
Clause 56
Meaning of “group”, “parent” etc
Jesse Norman
This group of clauses is again of a rather technical character and deals with some of the more detailed technical requirements of the new tax.
Clause 56 sets out the definitions of the terms “group” and “parent”, which are used to define the companies and revenues that will be taxable for the purposes of the digital services tax. It should be read along with clause 57, which makes it clear that the definition of “group” will be the same as that used for accountancy purposes. The choice of using accountancy definitions to define the group is, again, to reduce the burden of this new tax and to make it as straightforward and comprehensible as possible. Wherever possible, the Government are seeking to minimise the burden of administering the tax by using concepts that already exist and are in common use, if for other purposes.
Clause 58 sets out the conditions that determine if a group has remained the same in different time periods. That will be relevant when members of a group change through acquisition, disposal or otherwise over time. Like the changes to the responsible member, these everyday business transactions of companies joining and leaving groups should not prevent the tax operating correctly and this clause ensures that these changes do not prevent the tax from applying.
Finally, clause 59 sets out the treatment of two or more entities that are treated as stapled to each other and are subsidiaries of a “deemed parent”. This is a technical measure designed to enable the tax to work as intended in the widest possible circumstances. I therefore commend these clauses to the Committee.
Bridget Phillipson
These clauses are technical in nature and we have no questions to ask of the Minister.
Jesse Norman
No, I am entirely content with the summary that has been given by the hon. Lady.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 56 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 57 to 59 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 60
Accounting periods and meaning of “a group’s accounts”
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Jesse Norman
These clauses, which are again of a thoroughly technical nature, provide more details on some of the aspects we have been discussing already in relation to the digital services tax.
Clause 60 sets the time period over which a group will account for revenues from relevant business activities for DST. This will usually be the period of account of the parent company of the group, which reduces the administrative burden as far as possible for these groups. They will be able to use figures they collect for other purposes wherever possible.
Clause 61 sets out how revenues and expenditure will be apportioned when a group’s period of account does not coincide with an accounting period. For example, many groups make up their accounts to 31 December each year. For 2020, their accounts will be for the 12 months to 31 December. However, for DST, their accounting period will only be nine months, from 1 April 2020 to 31 December. There is a mismatch in periods, and this clause enables the accounting figures to be used for DST by taking the correct proportion of those accounting figures.
Clause 62 sets out what is meant by
“revenues arising, or expenses recognised, in a period”
for the purposes of the DST legislation. Both of those terms mean the figures recognised in accordance with the applicable accounting standards for that period. Again, this demonstrates that the Government are seeking to minimise the burden of administration as much as possible by using figures that already exist for other purposes. Finally for this group, clause 63 sets out the definition of various terms relating to accounting standards for the purposes of the legislation. I commend these clauses to the Committee.
Bridget Phillipson
Once again, these clauses are technical in nature, and we have no further comments for the Minister in this area.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 60 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 61 to 63 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 64
Anti-avoidance
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Clause 65 stand part.
That schedule 8 be the Eighth schedule to the Bill.
Clauses 66 to 69 stand part.
That schedule 9 be the Ninth schedule to the Bill.
Clause 71 stand part.
Jesse Norman
These clauses and schedules, again technical in nature, are also essential to the effective working of the digital services tax. Clause 64 sets out anti-avoidance provisions for the tax, and I make clear that the digital services tax has not been introduced to counteract avoidance of other taxes by digital groups. It is not about targeting particular businesses; it is a temporary measure designed to address failings in international tax rules. This clause provides HMRC with the power to counteract arrangements that may be designed or used to reduce the amount of DST that a group may have to pay. There are also safeguards within the clause that ensure the counteraction provisions do not apply when the tax advantage obtained was within the spirit of the rules.
Clause 65 sets out the process by which HMRC can collect unpaid DST liabilities from other members of the same group. This is particularly relevant to DST, as the companies liable to the tax may not be resident in the UK. Therefore, to assist HMRC in collecting unpaid debts, it will be possible for it to issue a notice to other members within a group it intends to collect the debt from.
Schedule 8 is introduced by clause 65, and provides further detail about how the notices operate. The combined effect of clause 65 and schedule 8 is to ensure that unpaid debts are collected wherever possible.
Clauses 66 and 67 set out at which rate, and when, interest will be due or required on DST payments that are made early or late, as the case may be. This will mirror the rates and timings found in corporation tax, and will therefore be familiar to many practitioners.
Clause 68 sets out that any DST liability is recoverable as a debt due to the Crown, the effect of which is to ensure that HMRC can collect any amount of DST that goes unpaid.
Clause 69 simply introduces schedule 9, which sets out provisions for minor consequential amendments in other enactments that are required as a result of the introduction of the DST. Primarily, these relate to interest rates, penalties and other tax administration processes.
Clause 71 sets out the meaning of various key terms used in the Bill relating to DST, and I commend the clauses and schedules to the Committee.
Bridget Phillipson
We have no substantial issue with these clauses, and obviously we welcome the inclusion of an anti-avoidance provision. As has been evident throughout the course of the discussions in Committee on this section of the Bill, it is a complex area, and we know that many large digital companies use intricate methods with considerable skill in order to reduce their tax liability. I mentioned earlier that some stakeholders have referred to the need for extra capacity at HMRC to make sure that this tax is properly administered and its impact properly accounted for. How confident is the Minister that anti-avoidance strategies will be adequately detected when the overall difficulties in administering the tax are taken into consideration?
Moreover, the Government’s website states that HMRC must counteract such arrangements by making such adjustments as are just and reasonable. The Minister touched on this in some of our earlier discussions, but I would be grateful if he could elaborate on exactly what a just and reasonable adjustment for tax avoidance arrangements entails. As I have already set out earlier today and in other debates we have had, the scale of tax avoidance practices by digital multinational enterprises is large and the methods that they adopt are intricate. The Government’s record so far in this area does not inspire a great deal of confidence on the Opposition Benches, and I would be grateful if the Minister could allay some of our concerns in this area.
Jesse Norman
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising those questions.
The first question she raised was about extra capacity. I think we touched on this already, but it is worth just saying that HMRC already has a digital services team in place. The tax requires, in the first instance, companies to come forward with a process of self-assessment, which HMRC can then assess and view. From that point of view, this is a tax that is designed to minimise administrative burdens, not merely on the groups being taxed but on HMRC itself.
It is also worth saying that one of the extraordinary aspects of the past few months has been that HMRC has been able to show itself remarkably flexible in the way it has operated, and this might be a moment to pay due tribute in respect of that. Although it is an enormous organisation, it has been very flexible in several different areas. The first was in reconfiguring its business to be able to deal with staff absence in the face of coronavirus, which has been extremely effective. The second has been in being able to configure its services in order to match the evolving demand. A classic example would be that many services that were being handled by telephone interactions are increasingly being handled by text interactions or chats. Many services that were being handled through office phone interactions are being handled through phone interactions at home.
HMRC has been very flexible in that regard. Almost the most salient aspect is that it has been able to bring a succession of schemes into play, such as the furlough scheme, the self-employment scheme and the statutory sickness pay scheme. That flexibility of organisation has allowed it to move incredibly quickly to put those schemes in place and thereby support the lives and livelihoods of millions of people. If someone had asked me at the beginning of year whether I would be publicly accountable for an organisation that would end up supporting the lives and livelihoods of some 10 million to 11 million people, I would have been very surprised indeed, but that is what has happened. I pay great tribute to the officials and staff at HMRC, and of course the Treasury, for their public spirit and service.
The hon. Lady asked how confident I am about anti-avoidance. Of course, anti-avoidance is an ever shifting and evolving pattern, and it is right to raise that question. If the past is any guide to the future, there will prove to be aspects of avoidance that are not contemplated at the moment and against which we may have to take future care, but the Bill provides a very broad capacity for HMRC to counteract arrangements that are designed to reduce the amount of tax that the group may have to pay through the digital services tax.
Bridget Phillipson
I beg to move amendment 7, in clause 70, page 53, line 8, leave out “before the end of 2025” and insert “within a year of Royal Assent and annually thereafter”
This amendment would require the Government to report on the DST annually.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 11—Digital Services Tax: review of effect on tax revenues—
(1) The Chancellor of the Exchequer must make an assessment of the net effect on tax revenues of the introduction of the Digital Services Tax and lay a report of that assessment before the House of Commons within six months of the passing of this Act.
(2) This review must also include an assessment of the revenue effect of the Digital Services Tax on tax payable by the owners and employees of Scottish Limited Partnerships.
This new clause would require a Government assessment of the effect on tax revenues of the DST, and in particular the change in revenues associated with Scottish Limited Partnerships.
Bridget Phillipson
Clause 70 would require the Treasury to conduct a review of the digital services tax before the end of 2025. Our amendment 7 would require a report to be provided annually. It has become clear from our debates in Committee today that the tax poses a number of different challenges to businesses and Government alike. That is why we have tabled an amendment that calls for a yearly report on the tax.
Earlier in our discussions, I highlighted that there is a substantial gap between the revenues of multinational digital companies and their tax liabilities, and that they are ultimately estimated to be underpaying on what is required. Even the Government’s modest predictions of what the tax will generate are in question. I appreciate that, as we discussed earlier and this morning, it can be difficult to arrive at such estimates with any degree of certainty. That said, the figures for the amounts that the Government intend the digital services tax to generate are quite modest.
I refer again to the OBR’s assessment of the Government’s costings methodology in 2018. It said:
“Every stage of this costing is uncertain. We have assigned uncertainty around data as ‘high’, uncertainty around behaviour as ‘medium-high’ and, given the complex multi-stage costing methodology, uncertainty around modelling as ‘very high’.”
Part of that is due, the OBR states, to behavioural responses, which could include
“reclassifying revenue currently in scope as being out of scope, particularly for groups with mixed business models; altering business models to generate new revenue streams that are out of scope; and profit shifting. The costing allows for attrition rising to 30 per cent by 2023-24.”
It is clear that the already limited takings of this tax could be reduced further by the practices of digital companies to reduce their liabilities. Yearly reporting would confirm whether such concerns are justified and would highlight what more the Government need to do to ensure that such companies pay a fair and appropriate amount of tax. A detailed yearly report would also help us to understand the distributional impact of this tax—whether, as the Chartered Institute of Taxation notes, it under-taxes businesses with high profit margins and over-taxes those with low profit margins.
The merits for regular reporting are also made clear in the Government’s response to their consultation in July of last year. They noted that respondents to the consultation believed that thresholds for the tax should be reviewed and potentially increased over time, given that the digital sector is characterised by rapid growth. Again, as we heard from Government Members, the pace of change in technology requires us to be fleet of foot in our response. Does the Minister not agree that the arguments put forward in his own Government’s consultation make the case for more regular reporting, and even a review of these measures?
Despite the strong justification for regular and transparent reporting, the Government have committed only to a review by 2025. We find it strange that they are unwilling to consider a more regular review of what is, to put it quite lightly, a contentious tax, even if one accepts the principles underlying it, as Opposition Members do.
As I have said throughout the debate, the times we are living through demand much more ambitious action. It is imperative that those with the broadest shoulders—including the digital giants, who are doing pretty well out of this crisis—bear a responsible amount of the burden. I am sure that the Minister would acknowledge that that reflects public sentiment on this issue, which has shifted over time; that is why the Government felt capable and confident about bringing forward this tax in the first place.
Perhaps the Government’s unwillingness to report regularly on the tax is a case of managing expectations, as highlighted by the Chartered Institute of Taxation, which says that the measure is not
“aimed at stopping profits arising in the UK being shifted by multinationals out of the UK to tax havens”,
adding that
“it is unlikely to raise amounts that materially affect the country’s finances, particularly in the context of the amounts being spent on COVID-19 measures.”
Therein lies the importance of yearly reporting, so that we can see how much these companies pay in tax, and whether more needs to be done.
That brings us to some wider issues around tax transparency and the Government’s approach to supporting companies during this crisis. We appreciate that the Government had to respond with real speed in making sure that people stayed in work and that our companies remained afloat in order to emerge from this period. However, at the same time, there can be no excuse for the level of tax avoidance in the UK in recent years. The vast majority of businesses do the right thing, including the many on our high streets that are so well respected and are very much regarded as part of the community, providing a much broader service to the public. I think there will be a growing public expectation that businesses should see that there is fairness within the system.
That is why we have also been urging the Government, in the measures brought forward both here and more broadly, to consider issues around fair tax practices, environmental standards and preventing share buy-backs where pandemic-specific Government and public support is offered to particular industries. One need only look at the action taken by the Labour Government in Wales to understand that it is possible for the Government to bring forward additional measures to safeguard public money, so that we do not see abuse in this area and that we see fair and just tax practices.
We discussed international co-operation and the need for a multilateral response. The Minister will be aware that my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden), who is also a member of our Front-Bench team, has raised with him in parliamentary questions some issues around building support at an international level for comprehensive and effective reform of the taxation of multinationals, instead of advocating partial patch-up measures targeting only the very large, highly digitalised companies, while continuing to adopt unilateral measures such as the diverted profits tax.
The issue around tax transparency specifically is that the UK will not allow the OECD to publish aggregate country-by-country data. I am aware that the Minister said in response to my hon. Friend that that was because of technical deficiencies within the system. I would be grateful if he said more about that. We all want to understand any efforts being made by some of these multinationals to avoid paying their fair share, and we all want to make sure, at this time of national crisis, that our public services can rely on the funding they need to get through this time.
If the takings of the tax turn out to be as limited as some might fear, it would of course further the argument that we need to implement more wholesale and ambitious measures to tax multinational digital enterprises. That is the approach that the Opposition will continue to call for.
I also want to highlight a concern raised by many stakeholders, including the Chartered Institute of Taxation, that there is no sunset clause in the legislation. Does the lack of such a clause suggest that the Government are willing to maintain this measure indefinitely, despite its imperfections; or will they continue to keep it under review? If the latter is the case, it strengthens the argument for annual reporting.
Finally, the new clause tabled by the SNP appears constructive. In many ways, it is similar to our amendment on assessing the effect of the tax, although perhaps within a timeframe within which its impact will not have been fully felt. Although we are sympathetic to the proposal, I should be grateful to hear a bit more about the aspect of the new clause that relates to Scottish limited partnerships.
Jesse Norman
I very much appreciate the hon. Lady’s comments. I will speak to the amendment and to clause 70, as well as to the SNP’s new clause 11.
Clause 70 requires the Government to review the DST and submit such a review to Parliament in 2025. It is a Government priority to secure an appropriate global solution to the corporate tax challenges posed by the digital economy, as we have discussed. As we have also said, once such a solution is in place, the DST will be removed.
Should the DST remain in place in 2025, the review will consider whether it continues to meet its objectives and whether international reform means that it is no longer required. However, it remains our strong preference to agree and implement an appropriate global solution, and to remove the DST as soon as possible.
The hon. Lady raised a point about the absence of a sunset clause. The 2025 review allows a context in which the Government can have an in-the-round consideration of whether this tax—were it, unexpectedly, still on the statute book—was doing its job and if it is, how it could be improved, and if it is not, where it could be tweaked to further advantage.
The amendment would require the Government to produce a review of DST annually rather than in 2025. It is not clear what the hon. Lady means by a review, but there are already very substantial processes in place. HMRC regularly reports on the taxes that it is responsible for collecting and DST will be no exception to that. It will be possible for parliamentarians and the public to scrutinise what tax has been collected by this measure. It is a new tax, so there may be some variety or it may come in higher or lower than expectation.
A review in 2025 as a backstop ensures that, should the DST remain in place at that point, its continuing relevance can be considered against the relevant circumstances at the time. However, the Government keep tax policy under continuous review through the annual budget process and, as I have said, it is our strong preference to agree and implement an appropriate global solution.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Streatham) (Lab)
The Minister said that tax policy was constantly under review and that if things changed, so would the legislation. What is the logic against an annual review? Is that not more flexible than waiting until 2025?
Jesse Norman
A review in the formal sense is a substantial undertaking. It is something that is done periodically to assess the viability or effectiveness of taxes. Given the amount of scrutiny that exists on existing tax, and given the fact that this is a new tax, that scrutiny will be carefully exercised. No doubt it will be scrutinised in Parliament as well, through the usual channels.
The case for a review comes when there has been a period of time in which one can establish and look at the track record and effectiveness of the tax. As I have said, however, we do not expect it to be on the statute book, because processes are under way internationally through the OECD that we expect to bring about a global solution that will be satisfactory to us and to the other countries involved.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy
I am trying to understand what the Government’s understanding of temporary is. How long is temporary—five years? The Minister has said that it is a temporary measure. I understand what he is saying about a review being a substantial undertaking, but if the measure is meant to be temporary, do the Government have set guidelines about what they think temporary is?
Jesse Norman
It is not often that I am invited to engage in philosophical speculation on the nature of time. Temporary, as far as I am aware, does not have a definition in law. We are framing the measure in the context of currently existing practices and discussions within the OECD. We expect those to come to fruition in the next five years.
As a long stop date, we have left a review in 2025 in place, but of course the Treasury may decide to vary that, or indeed the Government may decide to take it off the statute book, if such a process is forthcoming. The hon. Lady will be aware that taxes have a tendency to mutate. When the income tax was introduced by William Pitt, it was allegedly temporary, but it was temporary only for a while and then came back. It is a good point, however.
I will turn to a couple of wider points mentioned by the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South. She talked about tax avoidance, and she will be aware that, as I have touched on, the Government have done a great deal to tackle and address tax avoidance; there are several such measures in the Bill, which I thank the Opposition Front-Bench team for supporting. Indeed, it is worth noting that the tax gap has continued to fall, which reflects the excellent work of successive Administrations. That is over and above the passage of a variety of measures designed to cut down on tax avoidance and evasion and, of course, an anti-promoters strategy, which is currently the subject of consultation with the public and which we hope to bring to fruition later this year. A series of initiatives is already under way, in addition to much previous work in that area.
On the issue of country-by-country reporting, the hon. Lady will be aware that we already, with the strong encouragement and support of the Government and our predecessors, have private country-by-country reporting, which was an important move forward. The difficulty is that public country-by-country reporting requires a measure of international consensus. If it does not have that, it runs the risk of setting all kinds of incentives that might actually have the effect of undermining the policy and the transparency that we move to, so it is an evolving position in this country, as in the OECD. We hope that the general move towards more integrated global solutions and greater transparency is one that we can reach in all those areas.
The SNP new clause 11, which would require the Government to report to the House within six months of the Act passing—
The Chair
Order. I am sorry to interrupt, but unfortunately I did not see Stephen Flynn indicate that he wanted to speak. Would the Minister mind if I brought him in first?
Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
Thank you, Ms McDonagh, and I thank the Minister for allowing me the opportunity to speak to new clause 11, of which there are two parts. The first relates directly to the digital services tax and the second relates to Scottish limited partnerships in relation to the DST. I shall come to that in due course, to address, I hope, the concerns of the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South.
With direct reference to the new clause and DST, the Minister has taken great pains to stress that this is a new tax, and because of that we need to take things slowly. However, I feel there will still be a strong element of cynicism in the public domain about how effective the tax will be, which his why we have tabled new clause 11. Such cynicism would certainly be justified. Earlier we heard about Amazon as an example of a large multinational corporation that benefited from the lack of direct taxation. For instance, last year I believe it paid £220 million in direct taxation in the United Kingdom, despite revenues in excess of about £11 billion. That is neither sustainable nor fair.
As to fairness, we heard at great length earlier about online retail’s impact on high streets across the United Kingdom. We need not go far to see that many shop fronts are now derelict because of the change in consumer habits. I suggest that those habits are unlikely to change, particularly for people in the younger generations who have become accustomed to sitting in the comfort of their home ordering what they want, and getting it delivered in a day or two.
That being the case, we need to create an element of fairness, which will allow revenue to be gained and income put back into the system. I imagine Members can think of many avenues for spending that revenue, but perhaps it could be spent to provide local authorities with the finance they require to invest in city centres and transform them into something better. The issues relating to DST have perhaps never been as relevant as they are now, given the prevalence of online retailing.
We also need to be mindful during the pandemic of the fact that many companies in Scotland and the United Kingdom face an extremely bleak future, and will still have to pay their fair share, as they have always done. It is unacceptable for us to be in such a situation. That is why I welcome the measure, although it could perhaps have been dealt with in a way that sought to bring in more revenue. Many companies will be in extremely challenging circumstances, through no fault of their own, and we must have a system that provides fairness, as they would expect.
Netflix was discussed earlier. I understand, as do Members on both sides of the Committee, that it might not have the same financial burden of payment as Amazon. I did not ever think I would use this phrase in the Houses of Parliament, but rather than “Netflix and chill” the expression should surely be “Netflix pay your bill.” The reality is that it has coined it and has not had to pay back. No fair-minded person can support that.
I appreciate the Minister’s comments and understand his position: we need to see where the OECD is coming from in its approach. Ultimately we need a global, sustainable position on online taxation; everyone recognises that, but the Government have been slow in getting to the point where they are now, and they could have gone further. The new clause allows them to reflect on where they will be. As I have said, public cynicism will continue to be rife.
That brings me to the second element of the new clause, which relates to Scottish limited partnerships. As all those present are aware, the future of SLPs has been contentious. My colleagues in the Scottish National party have on numerous occasions suggested to the UK Government that changes need to be made, and that SLPs need to be brought under control. After all, they are not taxable in the UK if none of their members is resident there. There is a concern—a justifiable concern—that SLPs may be used to avoid DST. That is the crux of where we are coming from and it is an extremely reasonable concern, given the propensity of SLPs to be used for tax evasion in the past.
I do not wish to suggest that Amazon or the like will follow the pathways that many of the organised crime groups have in trying to funnel money through SLPs, because that is obviously not the same argument to be having, but the reality is that SLPs and the framework that they provide would allow for avoidance to take place, and we should all want to do everything that we possibly can to limit that.
Up to now, I think it was reasonable to say that the Government’s record on SLPs has not been good enough, to put it mildly and candidly. I hope that a recognition of our proposal in new clause 11 with regard to SLPs will be taken on board, out of a commitment to end the sorry practice of those partnerships.
Jesse Norman
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution to the debate on this clause and for the points he has made.
It is worth pointing out a couple of things. First, I have talked a little about the Government’s record on issues of avoidance. The hon. Gentleman talked about cynicism. What is interesting is that the public are perhaps more discerning than he thinks, and I do not think that there is cynicism about this issue. In fact, although I have not looked at any polling on this issue, I think the public are generally highly supportive of this measure. It is not a tax on retail; it is a tax on user-generated content. However, the understanding that there was a problem in the application of international tax rules and that it needed to be addressed is widespread, and I think there is a recognition—for those who would get their heads around this tax—that this measure is part of a response to that problem, as indeed is the wider OECD programme.
Stephen Flynn
I perhaps did not convey it correctly, but I think the cynicism will derive from the fact that the public will not regard the levels that are being put in place as sufficient to bring in the revenue that they should. These companies have benefited exponentially in recent years, and the figures that the Government expect in terms of revenue pale into insignificance compared with the revenue that these companies ultimately bring in. I think that is where the cynicism will arise.
Jesse Norman
There are two points here. One is the question of what the right level is. As we have discussed, this tax is designed to raise what by any other standard would be a pretty substantial amount of revenue— £2 billion over five years—and at the same time to establish a category of taxation that, in and of itself, is an important category. We have talked about some of the wider philosophical implications of that with my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy as well, so I think there is recognition of it.
Of course, it is also worth saying that, in relation to Scottish limited partnerships, the Government have recognised the problem, we have consulted and considered, and we are framing a legislative response to it. So there is also recognition of that problem.
The effect of the new clause would be to require the Government to report to the House, within six months of the Bill’s passing into law, the effect of the DST on tax revenues, and in particular the effect on the tax payable by the owners and employees of Scottish limited partnerships. Of course, this is a tax on groups, not a tax on individuals, whether those individuals are employees or owners; therefore, that is where the tax will fall.
In addition, DST payments will not be required until after the end of the relevant accounting period for each liable group, and thus payments will not be required until 2021. So the report that the hon. Gentleman describes would not contain any useful information. The DST’s reporting deadlines mean that very few groups would have needed to register and no groups would have been required to send in their return by that point. The report would not provide useful information about DST receipts.
We have talked about the importance of reporting and reviewing, but the effect of the new clause would be to pass a requirement to report with very little information and with very little purpose to it. I therefore commend clause 70 to the Committee and urge it to reject amendment 7 and new clause 11.
Bridget Phillipson
I would like to press amendment 7 to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Finance Bill (Fifth sitting)
Thursday 11th June 2020
(4 years, 6 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Finance Act 2020 View all Finance Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 11 June 2020 - (11 Jun 2020)
The Chair
I remind Members to please respect social distancing guidance. As you are aware, tea and coffee are not permitted in Committee rooms. Please ensure mobile phones are turned off or switched to silent during the sitting. As I have said before, the Hansard reporters will be grateful if Members email their speaking notes to hansardnotes@parliament.uk.
Clause 38
Digital services tax: introduction
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jesse Norman)
Thank you, Mr Rosindell. I am grateful to all members of the Committee for joining us this morning; I am also grateful it is not too hot outside. It is a rare moment in Parliament when one gets to introduce a new tax—the digital services tax—on to the statute book. With the clauses grouped together, it is appropriate to spend some time in my opening remarks outlining the overall architecture of the tax and how it is designed to work; then we can pick up specific details in the clauses as we come to them.
Clauses 38 to 44 introduce legislation to enact the digital services tax, and they set the scope of this legislation. DST will levy a 2% charge on the revenues that groups receive from providing specific digital services to UK users. The specific services in scope of the charge are search engines, social media, and online marketplaces. I will explain later why those three services are in scope of the new tax. DST will apply only to groups with annual global revenues from services of more than £500 million. It will then be charged on the revenues only where they are attributable to UK users, and only on amounts above £25 million.
An exemption will exclude online financial services marketplaces from the definition of an online marketplace. Businesses making low profit margins on their in-scope activity will be able to pay the tax at a reduced rate, while loss makers will pay nothing; that will minimise the distortions that a tax on revenues can create. To further reduce those distortions, a relief for certain cross-border transactions is also included. It will reduce by half the revenues subject to DST where those revenues are derived from an online marketplace transaction between a UK user and a user from a jurisdiction that also levies a DST. As this is a new tax, there are also extensive provisions to ensure the framework of the tax works as intended. These draw on many existing tax concepts to reduce the burden of implementing the new tax for what we hope will be a limited time.
The digital services tax was announced at Budget 2018 as a response to changes brought about by the rapid development of our digital economy. That economy brings many benefits, but it has posed a significant challenge for international corporate tax rules. Under current rules, digital businesses can derive significant value from UK users, but in many cases they pay little UK tax because international corporate tax rules do not recognise the user-generated value when allocating the right to tax profits between jurisdictions, so undermining the fairness and sustainability of our tax system. It is therefore now widely accepted that the rules require updating.
The Government remain at the forefront of international efforts to secure a comprehensive long-term solution to the issue, and we are fully engaged in discussions with OECD and G20 partners. Although we welcome recent progress towards a global solution, there remain important and difficult issues to resolve, so the Government are acting now to address those widely held concerns in a fair and proportionate manner. DST is a temporary measure, until appropriate global reform is in place.
As a temporary measure, DST is targeted at those business models that rely most significantly on user-generated value and that place the greatest strain on current corporate tax rules. It is the Government’s judgement that these services are search engines, social media platforms and online marketplaces. Of course I recognise that a broad range of digital services could be said to derive value from their users, and I am aware that some hon. Members have called for the scope of DST to be extended to include services such as media streaming. However, the services in scope of this tax are those that rely most significantly on user participation in the creation of value: for example, while media streaming platforms may utilise user contributions in the form of reviews or recommendations, users of a social media platform often create the content that is shared across the platform, and users of an online marketplace provide the market liquidity required for the marketplace to function. Also, while we are engaged in OECD discussions about finding a long-term global solution and exploring the case for broader reform, we judge that it would not be appropriate to implement a temporary tax on a broader basis.
DST follows the recommendations of the OECD’s 2018 interim report. Targeting DST at those services that derive the greatest value from their users minimises the distortive consequences of a tax on revenues and minimises the risks of introducing a temporary measure before global reform is agreed. That will ensure that DST is proportionate, while still raising up to £2 billion over the next five years. That in addition to the UK taxes that digital businesses already pay and, as I have said, reflects the value they derive from UK users.
I will now summarise the clauses that form this part of the Bill—clauses 39 to 44. Clause 39 sets out that DST will apply to all revenues that arise in connection with in-scope digital service activity. That is deliberately a very broad test; it ensures that however these businesses make money from their in-scope activity, that revenue will be subject to the tax. The clause also sets out that revenues should be apportioned on a just and reasonable basis when they are not wholly in connection with an in-scope activity.
Once a group’s digital services revenues have been established, the next step is to determine how much of those revenues is attributable to UK users. Clauses 40 and 41 set out the five cases where revenues are attributable to UK users. The first three cases deal with the specific types of revenue that online marketplaces may receive. The first case concerns the revenues that a marketplace earns from facilitating transactions between users; this will include a marketplace’s commission, for example. These revenues are attributable to UK users whenever a UK user is a party to the transaction. It does not matter whether the UK user is the buyer or the seller, or which user paid the revenue; where there is a cross-border transaction between a UK user and a non-UK user, all of the marketplace’s revenue from that transaction is regarded as attributable to UK users, although this may be subject to cross-border relief.
The second case concerns revenues that arise in connection with accommodation and land in the UK—for example when a user books a holiday let on a marketplace. These revenues are attributable to UK users when the property is in the UK. Where the property is overseas, the revenue will only be UK digital services revenue when the purchaser is a UK user. Some marketplaces charge users to list individual items for sale; under the third case, those revenues will be treated as attributable to UK users whenever the user listing the item is a UK user.
The last two cases apply to social media services and internet search engines, as well as to online marketplaces. The fourth case deals with online advertising revenues. These revenues are attributable to UK users when the advertising was viewed by a UK user; the focus is on the viewer of the advertising, not on who paid for it. The fifth and final case is a catch-all, to include revenue that is not trapped by any of the other rules but that is received in connection with UK users. This will cover any other type of revenue earned by social media services and search engines—for example, subscription fees.
Clause 42 defines each of the services in scope of DST. The tax will be charged on the revenues that businesses earn from providing a social media platform, search engine or online marketplace to UK users. The definitions are designed to be targeted and as clear as possible. They have been carefully drafted after extensive consultation periods with business to ensure that they apply as intended. Alongside the three named services, some businesses facilitate online advertising on other websites. The clause ensures that revenues from that source would also be subject to DST when the advertising service derives a significant benefit from operating one of the three named services.
Clause 43 clarifies the meaning of “user” and “UK user” for the purposes of DST legislation. Clause 44 sets out the exclusion of online financial marketplaces from the definition of online marketplaces. The highly regulated nature of financial services limits their ability to engage with users in the ways that other marketplaces do. As such, the clause ensures that they are not subject to DST.
Together, clauses 38 to 44 set out the scope of DST. The digital services tax is a clear signal of the Government’s commitment to ensuring that tax rules reflect the development of our modern economy. Ultimately, as I have said, our strong preference is for a global solution, which will be the most comprehensive and enduring way to address concerns about the current corporate tax rules. Until such a solution is in place, however, DST will ensure that digital businesses pay UK tax that reflects the value they derive from UK users. I therefore commend the clauses to the Committee.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
It a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Rosindell. Like the Minister, I will use this opportunity to lay out our broad views and concerns about the operation of the digital services tax. We will pick up some of the technical issues with the clauses as they emerge later.
We welcome the principle behind the introduction of a digital services tax. It is regrettable, if not unsurprising, that it has taken the Government so long to get to such a measure, given the wider inertia when it comes to making sure that multinational companies pay their fair share of tax. The gap between the profits that digital companies derive from UK users and how much they pay in tax is stark. That fact has been evident for some time and is recognised by Labour Members, which is why for years we have consistently pressed for a far more ambitious approach.
It is not right that, at a time when high street shops are struggling in an unprecedented way, the likes of Amazon have been allowed to pay a much lower tax rate than British bookstores and other businesses of a comparable nature. Our local high streets are incredibly important; they are the backbone of our local economies. Many family-run businesses have found this time incredibly difficult, but they also have many long-standing problems because of the way they have been undercut by some of these big players, which do not have the same overheads or level of corporate responsibility and do not make the same impact in our communities. During this crisis, many of our local businesses—our small businesses on the high street—have adapted to do all they can to make sure that vulnerable people receive deliveries and support, and that they are open as much as they can be within the guidelines. It is only right that we make sure that the bigger players with large profits make a contribution too.
There is still much unfairness built into the system. As constituency MPs, we only have to visit the businesses on our high streets that have been operating for many decades to appreciate the scale of disillusionment that many of those family-run firms feel about the lack of fairness in the system and the need for change. The economic crisis we are facing only strengthens the call for action because it has compounded the impact on our high streets, which have struggled and will continue to struggle. It is such a shame that, in many of our communities, affluent and perhaps less affluent, there are clothes shops that had their shutters down even before we felt the impact of the lockdown.
Vibrant local high streets are central to a sense of pride in the community and to making sure that we can support local jobs and businesses. We want to do everything we can to support that, but hand in hand with the pressures facing many small businesses during this time, there has been an unexpected boon for digital and tech giants, as we have all had to adapt to life in different and difficult circumstances during the lockdown. It is only right that we ensure that those with the broadest shoulders help to bear the cost of the recovery that we must now achieve as a country. It is more important than ever to make sure that those big players are taxed properly, reasonably and fairly.
Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)
I completely agree with my hon. Friend’s comments. Does she agree that large companies such as Amazon are unlikely to be substantially affected? The Bill aims to support start-up companies, but it does not go to the heart of addressing big digital companies that get away with not paying enough tax.
Bridget Phillipson
My hon. Friend makes an important point. That is one of many concerns raised by stakeholders, and an issue that I will be raising further with the Financial Secretary during the course of my contribution. As the he outlined, the measure does not capture media streaming services either, and I intend to say a bit more about that in due course.
The broad campaigning support that we have seen right across the House on issues of tax transparency, led primarily by my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking but with considerable support from Government Back Benchers, demonstrates the appetite both within this House and outside for greater transparency in this area. Tremendous work has been done by the all-party parliamentary group and by the Public Accounts Committee, led previously by my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking and subsequently by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), which has continued to press the need for greater transparency in this area. It wants the Government to act, but it also recognises the need for greater multilateral action. I know the Financial Secretary touched on that point and I will come back to it later.
The Opposition understand the difficulties with multilateral action, but we think that the Government should provide a greater degree of leadership in seeking to resolve the problem. Another reason why the yield as outlined might be so low is the rate at which it is being set: it is among the lowest in Europe. I invite the Financial Secretary to explain why the Government have adopted such a cautious approach when other countries are going further. How did he arrive at the figure? How did he and the Government determine the level of the tax? What assessment was made not just of the yield and the difficulties with determining it, but of whether it is an appropriate level? Have other stakeholders and groups made representations on the level at which the tax has been set?
The modest nature of the measure becomes clear when we consider what some of the tech giants might actually have to pay under the tax. The Minister may well be aware of the research by TaxWatch UK, which estimates that Facebook would face an increased tax bill of £39 million despite estimated UK venues of almost £2.3 billion. Google would pay slightly more: around £168 million, based on estimated UK revenues of £9.3 billion.
Beyond the small impact on the companies to which the tax applies, there is the question of which companies will not be affected by the tax. That comes to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead. Many digital businesses such as Amazon, which blend their activities, will be unaffected by the measure outlined by the Minister; nor, as TaxWatch UK has illustrated, will it apply to Apple’s hardware business, Microsoft or Cisco Systems, none of which involve social media platforms, search engines or online market places.
As I said earlier, my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking has done so much work in this area. I am aware that she pressed the Financial Secretary earlier this year to extend the scope of the digital services tax to include streaming services such as Netflix, which are not included in the measure, and he set out some of the Government’s concerns about broadening its scope. I want to provide a bit of background on the operations of Netflix, on which many of us have come to rely in a much greater way during the lockdown period. Many online streaming services have no doubt seen a real boost at a time when we are all trying to find ways to spend many an hour and entertain our children in the absence of any form of proper childcare.
Netflix’s estimated revenues from UK subscribers was £860 million in 2018, based on analysis from TaxWatch UK, which provides an analysis of Netflix’s corporate structure showing that the company has implemented a similar tax avoidance structure to those used by many other multinational companies operating in the digital sphere. Revenues are not collected in the country where they are made; instead, customers are charged from an offshore company, and profits are then moved from the hub company to a tax haven through the use of an intra-company transaction. Netflix’s historically low profit margins mean that the scale of any tax avoidance will be much lower than that of many other well-known companies that employ similar tactics. TaxWatch UK has argued that it is relatively easy to calculate the revenue of Netflix in the UK: there are surveys of TV usage that tell us how many subscribers it has in the UK, and Netflix publishes data on average revenue per subscriber, which is something that I imagine has grown considerably during this time.
That returns us to the issue of fairness. Despite receiving support from Government, many high street businesses have struggled and will continue to struggle for a prolonged period, while other companies have potentially seen a big increase in their revenues during the crisis. The Opposition urge the Government to consider whether the measure is adequate. As argued by my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking, extending the scope of the tax could feasibly bring other streaming platforms, such as video game streaming platforms, under the ambit of the tax. That would improve its takings and ensure that all companies pay their fair share.
The pattern of profit shifting displayed by Netflix, which I just outlined, reflects practices adopted by others. It is clear that the current system for taxing streaming services is not working. The proposed measure would go at least some way to resolving this, but it is not adequate.
I am aware of the Financial Secretary’s response earlier this year to my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking, disputing the practicability of widening the scope of the tax, but I urge him to look again at the issue, or at the very least to consider other means at the Government’s disposal to ensure that all companies pay an appropriate amount of tax. We will discuss the scope and the yield later when debating Opposition amendments, but I urge him to consider how we can be confident that this measure is working as intended—not only whether it is deriving the income that we need in order to provide support for our frontline services at this difficult time for the country, but whether the digital services tax is operating as it should.
I will also highlight some of the technical issues relating to clauses 38 to 44. Clause 39 indicates that revenue should be apportioned on a just and reasonable basis when not wholly attributable to a digital services activity. Does the Minister accept that there may be a risk in taking businesses at their word here? There may well be some issues in how that is applied, and I would be grateful if he could offer some reassurance in this area. Asking businesses to apportion revenue on a just and reasonable basis may lead them to structure their operations or disaggregate their costs in a certain way to avoid higher liabilities. In the absence of public country-by-country reporting measures to create full transparency, oversight of this will be essential. Can the Minister confirm what will be done to ensure that this has been calculated in a fair and open manner?
A related point is capacity within HMRC. As we have all acknowledged in earlier discussions on the Bill, HMRC and Treasury staff are doing tremendous work at this difficult time for our country, and we all commend them for their dedication and hard work. I imagine it must be a challenging environment in which to work, responding quickly to changes in policy and with the need to support businesses and taxpayers alike, but given the challenges faced, can the Minister assure us that HMRC will have the resources and staffing it needs to make sure that this tax is being applied properly and that revenues are being secured? Some stakeholders have suggested putting in place a dedicated digital services tax team, and I wonder what consideration the Minister and officials have given to that.
Since the legislation was first announced and consulted on, several stakeholders expressed throughout the consultation period concerns around whether the definitions the Government use in these clauses are clear enough and watertight. For instance, there is uncertainty around whether online gambling platforms will fall under the scope of this tax, as set out by the Chartered Institute of Taxation. I appreciate that the legislation has been modified since it was first announced, but I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify the position.
On Clause 43, concerns have been expressed about the difficulty in identifying a “UK user”. The use of virtual private networks presents an obvious difficulty in this regard. The process of monitoring users may also raise concerns around GDPR compliance. I will be grateful if the Minister could set out whether that is the case, and whether there may be difficulties in this area.
I will now touch on the international context in which this measure has been put forward, drawing in part on the Minister’s remarks on the need for both UK action but also global action, as companies work across country boundaries and jurisdictions. The international tax system is fundamentally not fit for purpose: it has not kept pace with the changing nature of technology and many of the changes that we have seen in our economy and the global economy. It was modelled on the trade in goods, rather than services. The challenge of how we respond to the digitisation of the global economy continues, and goes far beyond this measure and other measures that the Government are considering, but the OECD has been pressing on the issue for years, as the Minister acknowledged.
Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)
I am generally a low-tax Conservative. I prefer lower, simpler taxes, but I thoroughly welcome this new tax. It is clearly welcomed across the House. The public are frustrated at seeing these big technology companies and other multinational corporations not paying their fair share of tax.
I have a few observations and then one question for my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary. It is absolutely welcome that he is co-ordinating globally on this. I have led tax talks with the OECD on things like common reporting standards, and they take a very long time, so it is welcome that he has come forward with a national measure aligned with what we expect from the international measures, and we are not waiting for the international measures to come into place.
I notice that the shadow Chief Secretary says that the measure has not gone far enough, but it is still one of the first in the world and it also breaks the mould in being a turnover tax, which the UK Government have always resisted. As globalisation continues apace, the arguments for turnover taxes as opposed to profit taxes get a lot stronger and we now have one in the UK on digital services. I suspect that in years to come there will be arguments made for expanding turnover taxes to other sectors.
The case was made that the tax is modest in terms of revenue, but all taxes start out modestly. When we look at the history of value added tax, stamp duty or income tax, they started out modestly and tended to increase as we saw what their impact was. The digital services tax is an entirely new tax on a sector where we do not really know the dynamics. The data has not been collected by the companies, so it is absolutely right that we see what the impact is before deciding in what way to extend it.
When I was chief executive of the British Bankers’ Association, I was involved in many discussions with the Treasury on new bank-specific taxes. With a new tax, it is always the case that we do not know what revenue we will get. There is always a high amount of uncertainty because people have not collected the data for that tax. It is inevitable that for the digital services tax there will be a degree of uncertainty, as has been pointed out.
My question for my right hon. Friend the Minister is about enforcement and implementation. The digital services companies will have to collect a lot of data that they might not have been already collecting. HMRC will be dependent on them for providing the data because it will not have direct access to all their internal accounts and that level of detail. I want to know what work is being done with HMRC to make sure that it can get the right data and have confidence that the companies are paying the amount of tax that they should be paying and not playing games, as they are sometimes wont to do.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
I am also not usually somebody who likes to find new ways to tax people in the UK. The digital services tax is totally new, but it is the right thing to do. The clauses detail the scope and the mechanisms for the tax and its collection. We even have a clause with an algebraic formula, which should certainly raise an eyebrow. [Laughter.]
The main thing to note is that the economy is changing fast and the tax is a part of that change. The Government’s response is to work internationally as we plot the course to a digital economy. Such economies are by definition international, so it is right to respond in a multinational way. I also know that it is very hard and takes a long time to achieve the objectives, so it is clearly right to proceed in the short term with this measure. Digital firms must pay their fair share.
It is increasingly hard for Governments to raise revenue from their traditional routes. The Government obviously have to raise revenue to fund the public services that we want. There is therefore an underlying, fundamental challenge for the Treasury. Work and consumption patterns change. I recognise that I possibly view this through the prism of somebody who has had responsibility for raising Government revenue—once a Treasury Minister, always a Treasury Minister—but this tax and the thinking behind it are the shape of things to come. Tax has to evolve to reflect the way the economy evolves.
The rise of the digital economy means different things for different companies. The opportunities for productivity and environmental gains are absolutely immense, so we must do all that we can to encourage the shift into a digital economy. Most people encounter it through social media search engines and online retail, which are the target areas for the tax. The growth of online retail has placed ever greater pressure on traditional high street retail businesses: a trend compounded, as colleagues have said, by the current crisis.
There have been concerns about the nature of competition and whether there has been a level playing field between online and offline: the argument between bricks and clicks. We should make every effort to level the playing field and the tax is a part of that. High streets have a role beyond their traditional economic role. They have a social role and bring people together. They create hubs for communities, but they also have to evolve to reflect the changing nature of competition, and a more level playing field in taxation will help give them the space to evolve.
I had some concerns that the tax may discourage digital start-ups; we have seen a good period for start-ups in the UK and I think that we have led Europe in this sector. However, I think those concerns have been dealt with by the threshold at which the tax becomes payable, which will only capture the very largest of businesses.
So, we have a very interesting new area for taxation, which I do not think any Government can enter into lightly. The Minister is an old friend—we have worked together for many years—and I commend him, because this is not easy stuff; it is pioneering for the UK and indeed for the world. But we have found a way forward that updates our taxation system and introduces more fairness to it, and through the operation of the new system we will learn how future taxation may work. So, as we go through further clauses in detail today, perhaps he could comment on how any learnings from this tax might influence and develop future taxation thinking.
Jesse Norman
All I can say to my colleagues on the Government Benches who have made their speeches is,
“soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east”—
and my hon. Friends the Members for South Cambridgeshire, and for Harrogate and Knaresborough. What could be finer? I thank them very much for their interventions. If I may, I will start by responding to those interventions and then come on to the very detailed thrust of commentary from the shadow Chief Secretary.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire rightly made the point that taxes are, of their nature, potentially distortive, and revenue taxes, of their nature, in particular. It is therefore appropriate to proceed with a degree of caution in considering how to introduce a tax, and to acknowledge that. He also made the point that many taxes start modestly. I could not possibly comment on the future direction of this tax, but I will say that I do not think that £2 billion is a trivial sum of money to raise from a new tax. I think the tax has been set at an appropriate level, and officials and the Government believe that, too.
My hon. Friend also asked whether businesses affected by the tax will have to collect a vast array of new information, and whether that may be burdensome to them. This is one area where, on reflection, he may be able to take a degree of comfort, because we are only talking about very large businesses, and about businesses for whom tracking users and extracting revenue from them is what they do for a living. So, it is not our expectation that there should be any enormous additional informational burden; there may be a selection process of pulling information out, but not an enormous informational burden.
I will also point out that the approach taken is one of self-assessment, which is to say that we expect businesses that have UK user-generated content revenue to come forward and self-assess. In a way, that relates to the question put by the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South about whether HMRC has enough resources. I am pleased to tell her that it already has a digital team in place, whose job is to monitor this process of self-assessment. And as with other taxes, I have no doubt that they will become increasingly expert in doing that and evaluating the submissions that are made; of course, submissions will vary in their quality and I am sure that evaluating them will be, in turn, an educative process for tax officials at HMRC.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough, a beloved former Treasury Minister, made a couple of important points. Of course, he is absolutely right that we are talking about a dynamic market or sector. All markets are intrinsically dynamic and we are talking about an intrinsically highly dynamic sector of activity, perhaps never more so than at this particular moment in our history, when we are seeking—internationally and nationally—to find a whole range of new solutions to support people and maintain the economy. So, it is a very dynamic sector.
My hon. Friend is also right to highlight—in a way entirely unscripted and unprepared with me—the “pioneering” nature of this tax. It is a new form of tax, which seeks to tax UK user-generated content. Therefore, it is an important démarche in our history to consider whether this is an appropriate way in which to tax. I believe it is, and I believe that Parliament will think it is, but we will of course continue to review and take feedback on it. I point out that there have been two sets of consultations on this already—an original, principal set and then a more technical one.
Jesse Norman
I appreciate that, of course. I am grateful to the hon. Lady for welcoming the principles behind this, as she is right to do. For the same reasons I described to my hon. Friends, I do not think it appropriate to think of this as in any sense delayed. We are at the forefront of a developing area of tax law. We have not thought it appropriate to wait for international procedures. I am sure that, on reflection, she would prefer that we not have waited, both because of the revenue generated for public services but also because we deem it important—I have no doubt that the Labour party feels the same way—to try to make progress in this important area, removing what we see as ineffective rules or improving the working of the rules within the tax code.
I think it is fair to say, without blowing the Government’s trumpet too hard, that whether it is the diverted profits tax, work on base erosion and profit-shifting, corporate interest restriction rules or, indeed, on private country-by-country reporting rules, the Government have been at the forefront of much of the most progressive tax changes of the past few years, which is entirely appropriate.
The hon. Lady raises the question about the relationship with high streets. No Member of Parliament does not feel the concern about the high street, because they go back to their constituencies every week and see the effects of change. It is important to be aware that this tax is about addressing changes, or the way in which the tax rules are not fully capturing the value that is being generated. The high street is a rapidly evolving entity, as has been pointed out. Many high street businesses—even quite small ones—have online businesses of their own, which are effective supplements to what they do. They will not be caught by this tax, because in many cases their activity will be too small. However, it is in those hybrid models, which are evolving, where I think much of the future of the high street may lie.
It is not by any means obvious that the effect of the pandemic has been solely to privilege the online versus the offline. Plenty of online businesses have been clobbered by the pandemic in a way that many offline businesses have as well.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Streatham) (Lab)
The Minister raises a valid point about this tax generally creating more revenue. However, he mentions the pandemic, and I am clear that we are heading for one of the worst recessions in history. Does the Minister not think that we would do best to do what European countries are doing, with a much higher rate of tax? The £1.3 billion that we will potentially lose is no small fee. The public coffers need that money. Does he not agree?
Jesse Norman
I thank the hon. Lady very much for her question. As I said, the estimate by the independent OBR is of £2 billion over a five-year period. Our estimate is certainly £2 billion over a five-year period. I do not think that is a trivial amount. As has been discussed, we of course recognise the importance of generating revenue, but we also think it important to introduce a tax that is sustainable and that lays a framework that can be effective while it is in operation. There are countries that have had higher taxes, and we have offsetting rules regarding the interaction with those taxes in order to create equity as between the different jurisdictions, so it is a perfectly fair question, but we have taken the view that 2% is an appropriate level for a new tax. As I said, it is a tax that we will be very happy to take off the statute book as and when the OECD process starts to yield effective results, which it may well do before too long.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy
What I cannot seem to understand is why—the Minister mentioned sustainability—if other countries in Europe see it as sustainable and we have no evidence to the contrary, we have decided that it is not sustainable to have a higher rate.
Jesse Norman
That is, of course, a proper question to ask, but we have taken the view that this is a tax that we would like to take off the books in due course, when there is an OECD agreement. That agreement may take a variety of different forms; it may raise more tax or less. Different countries have different overall tax systems and seek to address different forms of corporate behaviour in deriving revenue. In the UK, there are plenty of businesses deriving revenue from user-generated content. Some of them will be over the thresholds that we are talking about, and those are the ones that are within the scope of the tax.
It is absolutely open to other parties to disagree about how they would put it, but the Government have taken the view that this is the appropriate level for a new tax—it is on revenue and, as I have said, is therefore potentially distortive. We have had feedback and consultations that reflect concerns on both sides of the issue.
Andrew Jones
My right hon. Friend makes a valuable point about the multi-channel operations of many retailers. I came to Parliament from a business background that had a mixture of high street and online retailers. From a business perspective, the key thing is to reach customers in the way that is right for them. By choosing either the high street or online, businesses miss out. Customers are open to trading in whichever way is convenient for them, as this crisis has shown.
I want to make a comment about the taxation. Higher taxation rates do not necessarily mean higher tax collected. We also have to recognise that having a tax environment that is conducive to creating a business-friendly environment is a critical part of the economic growth that we have seen over the past few years. We should certainly be looking around the world to see how other countries operate their tax systems, but drawing comparisons with countries that are not creating wealth or jobs might not be the way forward.
Jesse Norman
I thank my hon. Friend for that comment. In a way, he leads me on to my next remarks in response to the hon. Member for Streatham. He is right. The dynamic market that we are seeking to tax is one where revenues are not absolutely predictable; they may be higher or lower than estimated. The tax therefore stands in contrast to a well-established tax such as VAT, because we can be much more certain about how much that tax will raise.
It is also important to understand that this is not a tax designed to penalise certain companies. The strength of our online sector in the UK has been a very important part of the response to coronavirus, as I have mentioned. There is no attempt to pick out companies and target them with the tax. There is a concern about failings in the international tax rules, and that is what the Government seek to address.
The hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South raised the issue of multilateral action and asked whether adequate leadership had been exercised. It has been recognised that the OECD has made some good progress in this area recently, which has been achieved with a lot of urging and support from this country. Ultimately, we all agree that international and corporate tax needs to be addressed in a global and inclusive way. That would be the Government’s strong preference, but we have not waited—I do not think the hon. Lady would want us to wait—because we think it is important to take a lead.
It is also important to say that when we have done that, we have tried—as one might expect with a new tax—to target an area where there is a very clear rationale or justification for the tax that is being levied. UK user-generated content is a strong basis on which to levy a tax. There is a contrast with, for example, media streaming. The hon. Lady talks about how much she has enjoyed various media streaming services, and I welcome that, but we can all be relatively certain that she has not contributed a lot of UK user content to them—[Interruption.] Unless delight and shock are forms of UK-generated content.
I want to reassure the hon. Lady a bit about the apportionment of revenue. She is absolutely right that, as the history of base erosion and profit shifting around the world shows, many companies have found it only too easy to move the effective location where tax is generated. In part, this tax, by taxing revenue overall, is designed to sidestep a lot of the temptations that might exist to work round the edges. A very wide definition of revenue has been adopted, and we can go into that in more detail. As I said earlier, we require companies to do it. It is a self-assessment scheme, and we ask companies to designate, evidence and disclose the UK user-generated revenue of the different kinds that we have touched on.
On GDPR, which is the relative question, the legislation has been written so that businesses are expected to use information that they already have to make the determination. We believe that it is compatible with GDPR, and that it draws on data that is already collected. We are not inviting the groups to collect new information that might be in some sense at odds with people’s rights or in contravention of the law, and of course they will have their own GDPR processes to follow. As I have said, many of them collect a great deal of information, including IP addresses, delivery addresses, billing addresses and so on. To come to a point that the hon. Lady made earlier, that is another reason why the use of virtual private networks is more of an in-principle worry than an actual worry, because famously, so much other information is collected about the users of those services from multiple sources. That should help them to make those disclosures.
The hon. Lady asked about double taxation. It is true that some businesses will pay both UK corporation tax and the digital services tax. For reasons of international law, we are not capable in law of discriminating in favour of UK businesses, and we are not going to. The point, though, is to design a proportionate tax with a low rate, and another reason why we have chosen that rate is that we do not wish to be any more distortive or invoke any more double taxation than is absolutely necessary. As I said, our preference is to move to a global solution.
The hon. Lady talked about international leadership. We look forward to a day when the OECD will be able to pass an agreed set of rules with multinational support that give a proper basis for the levying of tax. As she is aware, a number of proposals are under discussion. They and the processes that generated them are well described in the House of Commons Library note, and I encourage any Members who want more detail to look at that. The Government are clear that we will maintain this tax until the OECD passage of agreement—there may be other supervening factors—causes us to remove it. I commend the clause to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 38 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 39 to 44 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 45
Meaning of “the threshold conditions”
Jesse Norman
We now come to clauses 45 to 50. The last discussion was quite a long one, but hopefully it was helpful in framing the overall legislation within which we can now discuss the more specific elements, so we may not need to dwell as long on these parts.
Clauses 45 to 50 set out how the digital services tax charge will be calculated. The Government have sought to ensure that the DST is proportionate and charged only to those businesses that are best able to generate significant value from their users. As such, it will apply only to groups with annual global revenues from the named services of over £500 million. DST will be charged only on those revenues where they are attributable to UK users and only on amounts above £25 million.
Clauses 45 and 46 set out the thresholds and the allowance, and they set the rate of the charge at 2%. A DST tax rate of 2%, as we have discussed, ensures that digital businesses will make a fair and proportionate contribution to our public finances. Clause 46 also sets out how each member of a group should calculate their DST liability.
The Government recognise that some businesses have concerns about levying a tax on revenues rather than profits. That is why our strong preference is for a long-term profits-based global solution. That can be implemented only following an international agreement, however, so although the DST applies to revenues, the alternative basis of charge will reduce the charge for businesses with low profit margins or losses on their chargeable UK activity. Clauses 47 and 48 therefore set out the alternative basis of the DST charge and how DST liability should be calculated on that basis.
Online marketplace transactions will occur between two users, and those users may be based in different jurisdictions. Where one of those users is a UK user, revenues attributable to the transaction will be subject to the UK DST. Where the other relevant jurisdiction also levies a DST, however, there is a risk that the revenues could be taxed twice. Clause 49 sets out the relief for certain cross-border transactions, minimising that risk by ensuring that, in such cases, only 50% of the relevant revenues will be subject to the UK DST. Finally, clause 50 sets out when DST payments are due and payable.
Together, the clauses mean that the DST charge is proportionate while ensuring that digital businesses pay a UK tax that reflects the value they derive from UK users. Overall, as I have noted, the tax is expected to raise up to £2 billion over the next five years in a proportionate and responsible way.
Bridget Phillipson
As the Minister said, we have discussed at length the broader implications and the necessary measures set out in the clauses, but I have some technical issues relating to them.
On clause 46, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales has said that,
“given the potential compliance burdens imposed by the DST, it is important to ensure that smaller digital businesses are not burdened by DST, so the inclusion of a £25m allowance looks reasonable but should be kept under review.”
On a similar but more general note, the Chartered Institute of Taxation has warned that some businesses will be undertaxed while others may be overtaxed. As we have said before, it is our position on the Opposition Benches that in these challenging times, those with the broadest shoulders should bear more of the load. Can the Minister confirm that he will keep the measure under review to ensure that companies, particularly smaller companies, do not pay more than their larger counterparts, to avoid the distortions that he talked about emerging all the time?
There are perhaps more substantial concerns around clauses 47 and 48 on the so-called safe harbour provision. As HMRC has stated, that is intended to ensure that the tax does not have a disproportionate effect on business sustainability in cases where a business has a lower operating margin from providing in-scope activities to UK users. Its inclusion is obviously well-intentioned, but some assurances will be welcome. It is clear that multinational companies are often adept at structuring their operations in a way that reduces their tax liabilities. Are there safeguards in place to ensure that the safe harbour provision is not used for such a purpose?
Clause 48, for instance, contains a list of excluded expenses that cannot be deducted from a company’s net profit, which goes on to form the basis of the alternative charge. The list, however, does not include royalties, and I am grateful to TaxWatch UK for drawing attention, through the research that it has done, to the implications that that might have, because royalties are at the heart of tax avoidance practices perpetrated by some digital tech companies. It describes how most of those companies’ profits are attributable to various types of intellectual property that they have developed.
By artificially locating the intermediate and ultimate legal ownership of the intellectual property in avoidance-facilitating jurisdictions and tax havens, those companies can avoid tax on UK royalties, and ultimately reduce their taxable profits in the UK. Why, therefore, are royalties not included on the list of excluded expenses? Surely the Minister would accept that that is a potential failure to adequately tackle the use of royalties to reduce tax liabilities, and might further incentivise the use of the safe harbour provision by larger tech companies, which will in turn be able to reduce their taxable profits through their practices with regard to royalties.
More broadly on the safe harbour provisions, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales has also said that in spite of those, it is still concerned that low-margin businesses could face a very high rate of tax on UK-allocated profits. Will the Minister address those concerns?
On clause 49, the Chartered Institute of Taxation has highlighted that the interaction with other national tax regimes, including broadly similar but subtly different unilateral taxes in other countries, will still mean some double taxation, which the Minister talked about in our earlier debate. It describes this as a rough and ready way of reducing such instances by reducing the revenue chargeable by 50% if it arises from a transaction where a user in respect of a marketplace transaction is normally located in a country that operates a similar tax to the DST. Does the Minister agree with its assessment? What analysis has been done in that area? Has consideration been given to other possible approaches to reduce the risk of double taxation?
Jesse Norman
I thank the hon. Lady for her questions. She asks whether the £25 million threshold has the effect of clobbering small businesses. Our view is that the purpose and effect of the thresholds is to levy the tax on the businesses that are best able to afford it, and that to have a global revenue base of £500 million and revenue attributable to UK users above the £25 million threshold is in itself a basis that excludes a vast number of small start-ups—which might turn out to be wildly successful and effective unicorns. We do not believe that the threshold will inhibit growth. If this is a direction in which tax will be going over time, as I rather think it is and as colleagues have suggested, an awareness of how tax will bear on future revenues and profitability is in itself an important part of any business’s market development.
The hon. Lady raised a concern about the safe harbour alternative charge arrangements. That is designed to ensure that the DST is not punitive for businesses with low profit margins or losses, and I think that is appropriate. At the margin, there is a risk that some businesses might try to reconfigure their activities to qualify for that, but I think it will be relatively clear to the Revenue from self-assessment when a business that is intrinsically high-margin is disguising that or is, essentially, seeking to utilise the alternative charge unfairly. It is worth saying that the alternative calculation applies only to in-scope UK activity, so businesses will not be able to reduce profit margins by using out-of-scope or non-UK activity. That is an important safeguard.
The hon. Lady asked about royalties. The tax is designed to work based on the consolidated figures of groups as groups. The concern about royalty payments is that, typically, royalties are used within groups to move revenues around, so, from a gross standpoint, they tend not to fall within the scope of the revenue charge, and they should not. Of course, from a tax-principle perspective, there are perfectly legitimate royalty uses and payments that one would want to continue to allow in any case. The alternative charge takes into account only expenses in the consolidated accounts, and is not therefore principally touched by the concern about intra-group royalties, for the reasons that I have described.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 45 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 46 to 50 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(David Rutley.)
Written Statements
(4 years, 6 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
UK Debt management Office
(4 years, 6 months ago)
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The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen)
The United Kingdom Debt Management Office (DMO) has today published its business plan for the financial year 2020-21. Copies have been deposited in the Libraries of both Houses and are available on the DMO’s website, www.dmo.gov.uk.
[HCWS289]
British Council
(4 years, 6 months ago)
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The Minister for Asia (Nigel Adams)
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has sought an advance of £60 million from the Contingencies Fund in order to provide a loan of up to £60 million to the British Council, which is a key driver of UK soft power overseas. The British Council’s commercial income has been heavily hit by covid-19, leading to significant losses and the risk of insolvency. The British Council has taken measures to reduce its deficit and cut costs, and the FCO has supported the British Council in accessing the coronavirus job retention scheme in line with the scheme’s eligibility criteria for public sector employers, as well as similar schemes in other countries. This has helped it support many of its workforce, and those employed through its partners, funded through the commercial side of its business. The FCO is also working closely with the British Council on its future strategy, operations and long-term sustainable funding models.
However, without additional support from Government the British Council will shortly become insolvent. The FCO is therefore seeking a Contingencies Fund advance to provide an initial loan of up to £60 million to the British Council, drawn down in tranches depending upon need and contingent on the approval of FCO and HM Treasury, to stabilise its financial situation until mid-August 2020. The terms of the loan will be agreed with HM Treasury.
Parliamentary approval for additional capital of £60,000,000 will be sought in a supplementary estimate for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Pending that approval, urgent expenditure estimated at £60,000,000 will be met by repayable cash advances from the Contingencies Fund.
[HCWS285]
Hong Kong
(4 years, 6 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and First Secretary of State (Dominic Raab)
The latest six-monthly report on the implementation of the Sino-British joint declaration on Hong Kong was published today, and is attached. It covers the period from 1 July to 31 December 2019. The report has been placed in the Library of the House. A copy is also available on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website (www.gov. uk/government/organisations/foreign-commonwealth-office). I commend the report to the House.
The attachment can be viewed online at: http://www. parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2020-06-11/HCWS284/.
[HCWS284]
NATO Parliamentary Assembly
(4 years, 6 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and First Secretary of State (Dominic Raab)
The following will represent the United Kingdom at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly:
Lord Anderson of Swansea
Stuart Anderson MP
Harriett Baldwin MP
Alun Cairns MP
Lord Campbell of Pittenweem
Douglas Chapman MP
Feryal Clark MP
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson MP
Nusrat Ghani MP
Lord Hamilton
Kevan Jones MP
Lord Jopling
Baroness Kingsmill
Abena Oppong-Asare MP
Alec Shelbrooke MP (Leader)
John Spellar MP
Bob Stewart MP
Heather Wheeler MP
[HCWS282]
Offensive Weapons
(4 years, 6 months ago)
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The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)
As part of the Government’s continuing action to tackle serious violence and keep dangerous weapons off the streets, we have on 9 June laid draft regulations—Surrender of Offensive Weapons (Compensation) Regulations 2020—before Parliament.
These regulations are required as part of our plans to bring in the weapons prohibitions that are provided for by the Offensive Weapons Act 2019. These prohibitions will apply to specified rapid-firing rifles and certain other offensive weapons—for example, zombie knives
The Offensive Weapons Act provides for the Government to put in place arrangements for the surrender of those items that will become prohibited under the Act and requires that regulations be made to provide for the payment of compensation to those who surrender items.
The regulations which have been laid set out a scheme for compensation, in particular making provision as to eligibility for compensation and the making and determination of claims. The regulations are subject to the affirmative resolution procedure in both Houses. It is our intention to bring the regulations into force at a time when it is safe and reasonable to expect the owners of these weapons to be able to travel to designated police stations in their areas in order to surrender the items.
We will finalise and publicise full details on the surrender and compensation arrangements before they commence. This will include the details on when the scheme will go live and information on how to surrender and make a claim. This will help to ensure that all those who possess the items in question are well informed and are given sufficient opportunity to surrender their lawfully held items to the police and claim compensation for them.
[HCWS286]
Machinery of Government
(4 years, 6 months ago)
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The Prime Minister (Boris Johnson)
I am making this statement to bring to the House’s attention the following machinery of government change.
Policy responsibility for the Official Secrets Acts 1911, 1920, 1939 and 1989 has transferred from the Ministry of Justice to the Home Office, to align with wider Home Office work on counter hostile state activity legislation. This change is effective immediately.
[HCWS287]
Change in Machinery of Government
(4 years, 6 months ago)
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The Prime Minister (Boris Johnson)
I am making this statement to bring to the House’s attention the following machinery of government change.
Responsibility for the border delivery group, henceforth known as the border and protocol delivery group, has transferred from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to the Cabinet Office. This change is effective immediately and will help to ensure readiness of the border for the end of the transition period and lay the foundations for the best border in the world by 2025. Existing ministerial responsibilities remain unchanged.
[HCWS288]
OSCE Parliamentary Assembly
(4 years, 6 months ago)
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The Prime Minister (Boris Johnson)
The United Kingdom delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe is as follows: Full Representatives Substitute Members Lord Bowness Tahir Ali MP Deidre Brock MP Baroness Blower Lord Dubs Sara Britcliffe MP Marcus Fysh MP Martin Docherty-Hughes MP Andrew Gwynne MP Katherine Fletcher MP Rupa Huq MP Peter Grant MP Brendan O’Hara MP Lia Nici MP Nigel Mills MP Kate Osborne MP Royston Smith MP Lord Robathan Craig Tracey MP Selaine Saxby MP Mike Wood MP Bob Stewart MP Nick Smith MP Claudia Webbe MP James Wild MP
(Gareth Johnson MP—Leader)
[HCWS283]
House of Lords
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Speaker (The Earl of Kinnoull) (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the Hybrid Sitting of the House will now begin. A limited number of Members are here in the Chamber, respecting social distancing, and, if the capacity of the Chamber is exceeded, I will immediately adjourn the House. Other Members will participate remotely, but all Members will be treated equally, wherever they are. For Members participating remotely, microphones will unmute shortly before they are to speak—please accept any on-screen prompt to unmute. Microphones will be muted after each speech. I ask noble Lords to be patient if there are any short delays as we switch between physical and remote participants. I remind the House that our normal courtesies in debate still very much apply in this new hybrid way of working.
Oral Questions will now commence. Please ensure that questions and answers are short. I call the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, to ask the first Oral Question.
Children: Exposure to Harmful Content
(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Clement-Jones
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the research by the British Board of Film Classification on the extent of exposure of children and teens to harmful or upsetting content while in lockdown, published on 4 May.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Barran) (Con) [V]
My Lords, children are going online more due to Covid-19 measures. As the British Board of Film Classification’s report has highlighted, this can put them at greater risk of encountering harmful content. DCMS published new online safety guidance on 23 April which includes guidance for parents, including on preventing children’s exposure to age-inappropriate content. There is advice on implementing content filters and on talking to your child about staying safe online. Children’s online safety is a priority for this Government, and new online harms legislation will be ready in this Session.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD) [V]
My Lords, the research carried out for the BBFC has revealed that, in lockdown, 47% of all children and teens—that is nearly half—have seen content that they wish they had not. Given these appalling figures, and previous figures from the Government themselves about children’s access to pornography, will the Minister now make clear the Government’s commitment to urgently introduce long-delayed and much needed age verification for online pornography? This is a vital child protection measure which parents overwhelmingly support, and which Ministers themselves have described as a critical and urgent issue.
Baroness Barran [V]
The noble Lord will be aware that in our proposals we take the duty to deliver a much higher level of protection for children and adults extremely seriously. We are following an approach of requiring a duty of care on social media and other online content providers, and we think that this is more robust than any particular set of procedures, although it would obviously include age verification.
Lord Pickles (Con) [V]
My Lords, notwithstanding that there are some very unpleasant and disturbing images on the web, there is also a problem of addressing mature themes between childhood and adolescence. Can we look at the past success of the British Board of Film Classification? Does my noble friend agree that the 12 classification, between PG and 15, was trans- formative to British films and the video industry? The acceptance of the British Board of Film Classification’s recommendations, and the adoption of classifications by video transmitting platforms, would enable the addressing of mature themes sensitively and responsibly, offering reassurance to parents of those early to mid-teens.
Baroness Barran [V]
I agree with my noble friend that the 12 rating was extremely helpful. The whole system of protection from the British Board of Film Classification was developed over a number of years, with great care. We are actively encouraging video on demand platforms to adopt it, and we were pleased to see that Netflix has done so.
Baroness Kidron (CB) [V]
I declare my interests on the register. The Covid-19 pandemic has thrown into sharp relief the online risks facing children, in addition to age-inappropriate content. There is an emerging picture that includes grooming, child sexual abuse, financial scamming, threats of violence, misinformation and identity theft, at a time when children have no choice but to be online to access every part of their lives, including education and health services. Does the Minister agree that the platforms’ persistent failure to uphold their own age restrictions, which results in 43% of 11 year-olds and millions of much younger children using services while under age, puts children at considerable risk? Does she accept that if the Government had already brought forward their long overdue online harms Bill, the UK would, right now, at this time of crisis, be a much safer place to be a child online?
Baroness Barran [V]
The noble Baroness is right to point out both the benefits for children of being online, through education, entertainment and communication with their friends, but also the risks. We remain committed to bringing forward the online harms legislation in this Session, and I hope she will be pleased to hear that the laying of the age-appropriate design code, in which she was closely involved, is imminent.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab) [V]
My Lords, the figures in the BBFC survey are shocking but not a surprise. Millions of pounds were spent so that effective age verification could be delivered, and it was ready to be introduced. Then, on 16 October, the Government abruptly abandoned Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act, which would have prevented children accessing unsuitable and harmful content. It is all very well talking about the online harms legislation, but it has been delayed and it is still ages away from implementation. Why were the Government so intent on waiting, when age verification was ready to start? Does the Minister agree that the facts clearly demonstrate that the Government have contributed directly to these shocking figures?
Baroness Barran [V]
I cannot agree with the noble Lord’s last remarks. The Government have worked very hard on the guidance that has been published, the funding we have made available to organisations supporting vulnerable people, and the work we have been doing with the sector. As I have already said, we believe that the way to protect children from accessing harmful online content is through the legislation that we will bring forward later this Session, but a number of other elements are also being brought forward, including our media literacy strategy and the safety by design framework.
Baroness Benjamin (LD) [V]
My Lords, the BBFC research shows a clear demand for age ratings online and the value that these can bring to parents around child protection, especially as, unbelievably, there is still no age verification in place for harmful material. It is good to hear that the Government are encouraging more video on demand services to follow the example of Netflix and adopt the trusted BBFC ratings, but what discussions have they had with the technology companies since the start of the crisis to ensure that they are allocating resources to tackling harmful activity online?
Baroness Barran [V]
My department, my colleague the Minister for Digital and Culture, and the Home Office have been actively working with the social media companies. We are concerned that, because of the crisis, there have been resource limitations on the human moderation elements, but we are working closely with them, and welcome the creation of the Online Safety Tech Industry Association.
The Lord Bishop of Derby [V]
My Lords, I echo the concern about the Government’s lack of progress in introducing the measures outlined in their online harms White Paper. The BBFC report found that children are increasingly using pornography as an educational tool, which appears to be normalising such access in childhood. That means that, particularly during the lockdown, there is an increased risk of children being exposed to harmful content. I am particularly concerned that the report also shows that irresponsible commercial adult websites have benefited from the Government’s delay on age verification and are offering access to behind-the-paywall content for free, without age verification. This content is likely to be more extreme and violent. Will the Minister condemn this irresponsible behaviour, agree urgently to look again at age verification for pornography online, and commit to bringing forward online harms legislation as a priority?
Baroness Barran [V]
Bringing forward the legislation remains a priority. We will respond to the consultation this autumn and, as I have said several times, the legislation will be brought forward in this Session. We are also implementing the Audiovisual Media Services Directive this autumn, which will provide higher levels of protection for children around accessing harmful content.
The Deputy Speaker (The Earl of Kinnoull) (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed.
Banks: Authorised Push Payment Fraud
Baroness Ludford
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to introduce legislation requiring banks to reimburse their customers who have been subject to Authorised Push Payment fraud.
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, it is vital that victims of authorised push payment scams are protected. The voluntary contingent reimbursement model code for APP scams, launched in May 2019, sets standards for the prevention of APP scams and for the reimbursement of victims. The Lending Standards Board will review the operation of the code this year. Meanwhile, the Payment Systems Regulator continues to work with the industry to ensure better outcomes for consumers in the fight against APP fraud.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
I thank the Minister for her reply, but the fact is that the PSR believes that, last year, innocent victims lost nearly half a billion pounds to this scam, having been tricked into believing that they were transferring money to a correct account. Only a quarter of that money was reimbursed; some banks reimbursed fewer than one in 20 victims. The voluntary code is not working. Defrauded customers are being betrayed. I am not persuaded by the PSR’s argument that EU payment services law bars a statutory obligation—it was not raised when I asked about this last year. Even if it does, this is one area where the Government’s determination to diverge from EU law in future could have a silver lining.
Baroness Penn
The noble Baroness is right that the Lending Standards Board has looked at reimbursements and found that, under the voluntary code, they have not been as high as expected. It has issued individual reports to each firm, with actions that they should take to improve matters. The industry continues to work on a longer-term solution and, where voluntary solutions are not possible, there is scope for further regulatory action.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab) [V]
My Lords, evidence from the Financial Ombudsman Service, of which I was a director, shows a wide variation in how banks are handling this. It sees firms making decisions based on assertion and not evidence; firms relying on generic warnings, even if they do not work; firms taking an unreasonable view of what an ordinary consumer ought to know, or do, before making a payment; and refunds making only half payments, instead of full. Why is the Minister confident that the code is working? How long will the Government wait before considering giving the PSR stronger enforcement powers?
Baroness Penn
The code is little over a year old. However, the Lending Standards Board will follow up on the review it has made of reimbursements with each of those firms. The follow-up exercise will take place later in 2020, to ensure that all actions recommended are fully embedded and that customers are properly reimbursed.
Baroness Wheatcroft (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, the code is clearly not perfect, but it is better than nothing, yet several significant banks have not signed up to it. Does the Minister believe that those banks should make it crystal clear to their customers that they have not signed up to the code?
Baroness Penn
Some banks have not signed up to the code, because they believe that their actions go further than it but take a slightly different approach. However, 90% of the total volume of transactions is covered by banks signed up to the code, and we welcome further banks signing up.
Baroness Altmann (Con) [V]
My Lords, regulations have failed to keep pace with evolving technology, so scammers are always two steps ahead. Does my noble friend agree that banks need a clearer legal and regulatory framework to help customers, such as being able to prevent payment if they suspect fraud, not being required to make payments within two hours, and not being required to have a court order before retrieving money from a fraudulent account?
Baroness Penn
One of the steps being taken to protect consumers further from the risk of fraud is the introduction of confirmation of payee. That is a new service intended to reduce the number of APP scam attempts succeeding. That was due to be rolled out by the end of March. However, due to Covid, the timeframe was extended to the end of June, with the clear understanding that if any customers had been affected by that delay in rollout—should any fraud have taken place during that time—the banks would compensate them.
Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD) [V]
Articles 4 and 45 of the relevant directive and paragraph 8.298 of the FCA documentation make it clear that it is the payment service provider that will specify the unique identifier to the user in the first instance. Therefore, the point where this is all going wrong is when providers do not specify or check the identifier against the name and address. Is not the confirmation of payee being introduced for just the six largest banks doing only what was intended in the first place, and should it not be rolled out across all payment providers?
Baroness Penn
I am sure that once the confirmation-of-payee scheme has been rolled out across the six largest banks, the regulator will look at how that has worked and any further measures that need to be taken. One of the benefits of the code that is in place is that it ensures that, where victims have done everything that should be expected of them, they receive reimbursement and compensation from the bank.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con) [V]
My Lords, this crime is so prevalent because of the ease with which fraudsters can open bank accounts with false details. Does my noble friend agree that responsibility for paying compensation should rest not with the innocent customer’s bank, as at the moment, but with the bank that allowed the fraudulent account to be opened and the money to be stolen?
Baroness Penn
My noble friend is right that it is essential that banks take proper steps to ensure that bank accounts are not opened fraudulently. The Financial Conduct Authority requires banks to maintain effective systems and controls to prevent the risk that they may be used to further financial crime. However, the code that specifies who pays compensation was drawn up with both industry and consumer groups and is getting reimbursements and compensation to those innocent victims. We should support a model that is supported by industry and consumer groups.
Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB) [V]
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, for asking the previous question, which I was going to ask. Does the Minister agree that, if we made the fraudster’s bank liable—it receives and handles the stolen money —it would greatly incentivise banks to vet customers and monitor suspicious activities much more rigorously, and that it would be more effective than the current situation of the victim’s bank deciding whether the victim has been acting reasonably?
Baroness Penn
As I said to my noble friend Lord Young, there are requirements on banks to ensure that, when bank accounts are set up, the firms identify and verify the customer’s identity. Under the voluntary code which was drawn up with industry, it is currently with the victim’s bank to pay reimbursements if the victim is at no fault in the fraud. Those arrangements expire at the end of this year, and the points that my noble friend and the noble Lord made may be raised with industry when looking at a long-term solution to the issue of reimbursing consumers.
Lord Livermore (Lab) [V]
My Lords, Covid-19 is providing fraudsters with new opportunities to prey on the vulnerable, and there are clearly substantial problems with how APP fraud is handled. I return to the point raised by my noble friend Lady Sherlock. Does the Minister believe that the Payment Systems Regulator has sufficient powers to force banks to reimburse customers if they refuse to do so?
Baroness Penn
I believe that the regulator has sufficient powers. However, the voluntary code is just over a year old. There will be a review of the operation of that code by the end of the year and, should that review reveal that further powers are necessary, of course the Government would consider the case for that.
Lord Sharkey (LD) [V]
My Lords, in February, the PSR allowed banks a three-month delay in implementing the sensible and effective confirmation-of-payee rule. One of the conditions attached to this delay was that customers were not to be disadvantaged. It is very hard to see how that would be possible, since we know the new rule to be effective in reducing scams. How will we know whether the banks have observed this condition and, if they have not, what sanctions will be applied?
Baroness Penn
The implementation of this is monitored by the regulator, and it will be responsible for ensuring that banks comply with that condition. Should anyone have needed to delay confirmation of payment and suffered fraud as a consequence, they will be fully compensated for it.
The Deputy Speaker (The Earl of Kinnoull) (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the time allotted for this Question has now elapsed. We therefore move on to the third Oral Question.
Contact Tracing: Personal Privacy
(4 years, 6 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con) [V]
My Lords, we have prioritised privacy and security in all stages of the app’s development, working in partnership with experts across government and industry, including the Information Commissioner’s Office and the National Cyber Security Centre. Demonstrating our commitment to transparency, we have published a data protection impact assessment and a privacy notice.
Lord Hain (Lab) [V]
My Lords, there have been numerous failings over the Isle of Wight contact tracing app meeting its promised deadlines, alongside other serious errors in the Government’s track and trace system. Also, the NHS failed to carry out its legal data protection obligations prior to the launch and entered into data-sharing relationships on unnecessarily favourable terms to large companies. Will the Government now give full disclosure on every aspect of how its track and trace currently works, and commit to fully disclose details of any changes to that scheme, including the app, before they are rolled out?
Lord Bethell [V]
My Lords, we have agreed up front to an enormous amount of transparency. We have open source for the code, we have published the data protection impact assessment and the privacy notice, we have committed to publish the privacy and security models, and we have published numerous blogs setting out the approach we are taking. The approach towards the app completely embraces transparency and we will continue down that path.
Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, in addition to the questions laid before the House by the noble Lord, Lord Hain, can the Minister address the fact that the Covid-19 impact on minority communities has seen pertinent questions about structural discrimination, and inequality is now rightly acknowledged? Does he accept that the deep-seated misgivings about privacy and protection of personal data management within many communities is real? How will the Government work with community leaders, including women’s and faith organisations, to create confidence in the NHSX contact tracing system in areas such as Tower Hamlets, Newham, Hackney and Brent, which have a disproportionate number of deaths, and where access to smartphones and technologies may be limited and this application viewed with scepticism?
Lord Bethell [V]
My Lords, the evidence before me suggests that the British public have an enormous amount of support for the app. Recent research by Johnson and Lubbock partners for ITV showed that 59% of British adults report that they would download the app. We remain committed to reassuring all British people that the app is safe. I take completely on board the noble Baroness’s recommendations to engage with community and faith leaders who may have particular misgivings; it would be worth engaging with them on a particular basis.
Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford (Con) [V]
My Lords, I understand that a second version of the tracing app is now undergoing testing and that, following the outcome of this trial, the plan is to issue the new version to Isle of Wight residents as an update. Is this the case? If so, what are the differences in the information gathered between the first and second versions? Will Isle of Wight residents have to consent to any update or does their original consent include all future updates?
Lord Bethell [V]
My Lords, we are currently assessing the value of a specific Isle of Wight update and whether it would be worth while before we move on to issuing the full app. When we have finished that assessment, I would be glad to answer the questions asked by my noble friend.
Lord Patel (CB) [V]
My Lords, we need the tracking app to succeed. For this to happen, as has already been mentioned, the Government need to make sure that they are honest and transparent with the public to gain their trust. Can the Minister say when the Government will publish the performance data from the Isle of Wight trial? Further, can he confirm that the Government have been following their own code of conduct for data-driven technologies in healthcare and in the development of the app? For example, principle 4 refers to transparency and principle 10 refers to commercial models. Can he tell us what process will determine secondary uses of the data?
Lord Bethell [V]
My Lords, I can confirm that the Government have been following the code of conduct, as the noble Lord suggested. I am also hungry to publish the performance data. I can confirm that, so far, there have been 73,365 users of the Isle of Wight app, 53,490 of whom were on the Isle of Wight. The user experience has been largely benign, and we look forward to publishing fuller technical and user details shortly.
Lord Whitty (Lab) [V]
My Lords, on timing, was the analysis of the Isle of Wight results, particularly as regards privacy, available to Ministers before we started to roll out the system across England? If so, how did that influence the rollout? On the Isle of Wight, were participants told that management of their data would be contracted out to a private company, now in the national context known to be Serco? If so, what was their reaction?
Lord Bethell [V]
My Lords, the greatest insight from the Isle of Wight experiment was that human contact tracing needed to be the first stage of our rollout of the test and trace programme and that, in the sequence of things, the app should come later, when people have got used to the principle of contact tracing. The use of private companies by the Government is commonplace, and we have had no adverse comment on or reaction to that usage.
Lord Scriven (LD) [V]
Ten years is the norm for holding medical research data, so what epidemiological reasons require data from the app uploaded to the NHS central database to be held for 20 years?
Lord Bethell [V]
My Lords, the data that an individual puts on the app is entirely voluntary. No data is held for more than 28 days until somebody takes a test. Once that test has taken place, the individual has the opportunity to upload further data. That data is held for clinical trials and to help us understand the epidemic. There is the opportunity for us to delete all that data at the end of the epidemic, and that assessment will be made at the right time.
Lord Cormack (Con) [V]
My Lords, like many, I pay tribute to my noble friend for his indefatigable hard work over these past weeks, but does he accept that, following the events of three weeks ago, there has been an erosion of public trust and confidence? It has been seen on the beaches and in demonstrations. Further, does he accept that it is absolutely essential that these tests are conducted in such a way that there is total public confidence in their probity? Can he give me an assurance that everything possible will be done to ensure that no vital personal information is misused in any way?
Lord Bethell [V]
My Lords, the test and trace programme will publish data later today; the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, will do the No. 10 presentation. In that presentation, I hope that noble Lords will see an enormous amount of data suggesting that public trust in the test and trace programme is profound, that it has made an enormous amount of progress and that it will be an important part of our arrangements for Covid. I assure my noble friend that the Government’s approach remains that they put privacy at the heart of all of their arrangements and will continue to do so.
Lord Kilclooney (CB)
My Lords, will this tracing application be interconnected with the tracing applications in the other three nations of the United Kingdom? Secondly, since we have a common travel area with the Republic of Ireland, will its tracing application be interconnected with the four nations of the United Kingdom?
Lord Bethell [V]
The noble Lord makes an important point about Ireland. We have regular conversations with the Irish Government about the app that they are working on. It is our aspiration that the two will work together. That has not been confirmed, since neither has been launched yet, as I understand it, but it is very much at the top of our priorities.
The Deputy Speaker (The Earl of Kinnoull) (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed. Accordingly, we will move on.
Unemployment
(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Randall of Uxbridge
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the projected level of unemployment over the next 12 months.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office and the Treasury (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con) [V]
My Lords, we must accept that the coronavirus will have a very significant adverse impact on our economy. The Office for Budget Responsibility reference scenario assumes that the unemployment rate will rise to 10% in the second quarter of 2020. However, the Government have announced unprecedented support for public services, workers and business to help mitigate the impact of the current economic emergency. As the OBR said,
“the cost of inaction would ultimately have been … higher.”
Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]
I thank my noble friend for his Answer. Sadly, we will hear of many redundancies in the coming weeks and months. Can I ask Her Majesty’s Government to be bold in initiating a range of green infrastructure projects that will provide much-needed jobs as well as improving the nation’s quality of life?
Lord Agnew of Oulton [V]
My noble friend raises an important point. Certainly, a great deal of thinking is going on at the moment about how we can turbocharge investment in green energy. Indeed, our Budget for virus lockdown provided a plank for a lot of these initiatives.
Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab) [V]
My Lords, yesterday, the OECD said that the UK had experienced the worst economic impact in the G7 from the Covid-19 pandemic, which is on top of the fact that we are already seeing a surge in job losses. What targeted help can the Minister offer the hardest-hit sectors of the economy, such as hospitality and tourism which, when the furlough scheme comes to an end, will take longer to reopen and recover?
Lord Agnew of Oulton [V]
As the noble Lord will know, we have announced an unprecedented level of support across the economy which includes these particularly hard-hit areas. As he will also know, we announced yesterday that shops will be able to reopen next week as part of our gradual and phased reopening of the economy. The Government are meeting regularly with members of the entertainment and leisure sectors to look at all possible solutions to help them get back into business as quickly as possible.
Lord German (LD) [V]
My Lords, during this period of great instability for businesses, many self-employed people have received no help at all. Freelance musicians, cleaners, taxi drivers, hairdressers and millions more have seen their incomes evaporate. As we move forward to a staggered start to normality, will the Government put in place a bespoke system of support for the self-employed so that their businesses and jobs do not disappear as well?
Lord Agnew of Oulton [V]
The Government’s overarching priority is to reopen the economy as quickly as is safely possible. That is how the groups the noble Lord has referred to will be able to start earning their incomes again as quickly as they can. We have in place a suite of support mechanisms for all those who have been the hardest hit, including the groups listed by the noble Lord.
Lord Caine (Con) [V]
My Lords, some of the latest forecasts about the economy are extremely worrying, especially for younger people. Is it not the case that the best way to avoid levels of mass unemployment as we exit lockdown is through policies designed to promote enterprise and growth and to set businesses free? Does my noble friend agree that, in this respect, tax rises on business, tempting as that might be for some, would be absolutely fatal to recovery and employment right across the United Kingdom?
Lord Agnew of Oulton [V]
Of course we want to see businesses feeling confident in their approach to coming out of this crisis. However, I cannot give a commitment on behalf of the Chancellor on what the future tax structure will look like. These matters will have to be looked at in the light of how the economy responds over the next few months.
Baroness Meacher (CB) [V]
My Lords, the OECD has predicted that the level of unemployment in this country will reach 11.7% in the third quarter. Will the Minister and his colleagues work with the DWP to adjust the universal credit system and introduce active labour market policies that support unemployed people back into work effectively, as Sweden has shown most particularly? Many of those jobs could be green jobs; such policies could take the place of the sanctions regime in the universal credit system, which does little else other than punish people who are unable to find work.
Lord Agnew of Oulton [V]
As the noble Baroness will know, our furlough scheme has been one of the most generous in Europe, and the whole point of it is to protect productive capacity. We certainly hope that, over the next few months, its gradual withdrawal will give businesses time to adjust and come to terms with what the opportunities are for them to get back into business. We will certainly keep the mechanisms of universal credit under review. However, it is a far more flexible system than existed in the past.
Lord Livermore (Lab) [V]
My Lords, as my noble friend Lord Reid pointed out, the OECD said yesterday that Britain’s economy would suffer the worst damage from the Covid-19 pandemic of any G7 country. I do not think that the Minister gave my noble friend a specific answer to his question, so perhaps I may ask again what specifically targeted help he will be able to offer those in the hardest-hit sectors of the economy, which will take longer to reopen and recover.
Lord Agnew of Oulton [V]
As the noble Lord probably is aware, we have given significant support to areas such as entertainment in the form of grants and business rates relief. For those that missed out on rates relief, we brought in the additional £600 million facility for local authorities to support those businesses that were not in the business rates relief regime. We will continue to assess the situation and we have ensured that several of these types of businesses, such as garden centres, have reopened recently. Yesterday, we announced that zoos can reopen. As we come up with a formula for businesses to reopen safely, we will continue to do that.
Lord Taylor of Goss Moor (LD) [V]
My Lords, millions of people depend on work in businesses that could function well if we had the one-metre rule recommended by the World Health Organization and adopted by countries such as China, which have successfully repressed the coronavirus. We still have a two-metre rule, which makes many of those jobs impossible to do. How quickly will the Government come to a conclusion to change the distance to one metre, which medical advisers have made clear is a decision for Ministers, not simply a medical one?
Lord Agnew of Oulton [V]
The noble Lord makes a good point and I certainly expect the debate about the distance to carry on. I share his concern about seeing the distance reduced, because it would enable a lot more businesses to open. We will see what the outcome of that debate is over the next few days and weeks.
Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab) [V]
My Lords, on 28 May, the Prime Minister said that we needed to work together to get our shared goals, including the sustainable development goals, back on track. He has also spoken about the need to “build back better”. On Tuesday, more than 100 leaders of major businesses and organisations called on the Government to include the sustainable development goals at the heart of their recovery plan. Will they heed this advice?
Lord Agnew of Oulton [V]
The advice will be taken in the context of our overall economic recovery. Our first priorities have to be keeping this country safe and getting our businesses reopened, and it is only by having a healthy economy that we will be able to become heavily involved in the sustainable issues referred to by the noble Lord.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, can the Minister indicate what assessment the Government have made of the number of people who will lose their jobs as a direct result of the two-metre rule? If no such assessment has been made, how is it possible for the Government to credibly continue with this policy in the light of the World Health Organization’s advice that one metre is adequate?
Lord Agnew of Oulton [V]
My Lords, I think that the scientific evidence is relatively clear that the risk of transmission of the disease declines exponentially with the distance between people who are interacting with one another. The argument, of course, is about the level of risk that we are prepared to take—the shorter the distance, the greater the risk; it is relatively simple. However, I support my noble friend’s concerns and I hope that the debate will continue.
The Deputy Speaker (The Earl of Kinnoull) (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the time allotted for this Question has now elapsed.
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Speaker (The Earl of Kinnoull) (Non-Afl)
My Lords, we now come to the appointment Motion in the name of the Senior Deputy Speaker. Last week, the Procedure Committee agreed that this type of business should be conducted as physical proceedings only, with no opportunity to participate virtually other than by the mover, in this case the Senior Deputy Speaker. There is no speakers’ list, but Members present in the Chamber are entitled to participate. The Procedure Committee’s guidance requests any Member intending to speak on such Motions to give notice in advance. If the capacity of the Chamber is exceeded, I will immediately adjourn the House.
Covid-19 Committee
The Senior Deputy Speaker
That a Select Committee be appointed to consider the long-term implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economic and social wellbeing of the United Kingdom; and that, as proposed by the Committee of Selection, the following members be appointed to the Committee:
Alderdice, L, Benjamin, B, Chisholm of Owlpen, B, Duncan of Springbank, L, Elder, L, Hain, L, Harris of Haringey, L, Jay of Paddington, B, Lane-Fox of Soho, B, (Chair), Morgan of Cotes, B, Pickles, L, Young of Hornsey, B,
That the Committee have power to co-opt any member to serve on the Committee;
That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers and records;
That the Committee have power to appoint specialist advisers;
That the Committee have power to adjourn from place to place;
That the Committee have leave to report from time to time;
That the reports of the Committee be printed, regardless of any adjournment of the House;
That the evidence taken by the Committee be published, if the Committee so wishes.
The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith) [V]
My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Deputy Speaker (The Earl of Kinnoull) (Non-Afl)
Two Members have given notice that they intend to speak. I will call the noble Lord, Lord Newby, and then the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, although he has not yet arrived in the Chamber.
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, I welcome the formation of the committee and its composition. I certainly do not want to attempt to dictate to it what it should do, but I will make one very brief point. Two Members of your Lordships’ House have been appointed to senior positions by the Government to undertake work in respect of coronavirus: the noble Lord, Lord Deighton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Harding. There has been some discussion about whether it would be appropriate for them to come to the Chamber to explain what they are doing. I do not think that that would be appropriate, but it would be appropriate if they were to appear before this new Select Committee to explain the work they are doing. I hope very much that that will be one of the first items on the committee’s agenda.
The Deputy Speaker
Does anyone else in the Chamber wish to speak? No? I call on the Senior Deputy Speaker to reply.
The Senior Deputy Speaker [V]
My Lords, I welcome the support of the noble Lord, Lord Newby, for the committee. Its aim is to look at the longer-term implications for the economic, social and international dimensions of the country. Any expertise available is important. Indeed, this Motion allows for co-option of Members who have expertise to be on the committee. I am sure that the committee’s chair, the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, will take these issues up. I will meet her next week to discuss these particular matters.
The noble Lord mentioned two particular Members. They would be a perfect fit for witnesses for the committee on the long-term future of the country post the pandemic.
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Speaker (The Earl of Kinnoull) (Non-Afl)
My Lords, we come now to the Motion in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. A limited number of Members are here in the Chamber, respecting social distancing. If the capacity of the Chamber is exceeded, I will immediately adjourn the House. Other Members will participate remotely, but all Members will be treated equally wherever they are. For Members participating remotely, microphones will unmute shortly before they are to speak. Please accept any onscreen prompt to unmute. Microphones will be muted after each speech. I ask noble Lords to be patient if there are any short delays as we switch between physical and remote participants.
I should remind the House that our normal courtesies in debate still very much apply in this new hybrid way of working. This is a time-limited debate. The time is limited to three hours.
Covid-19: Recovery Strategies
Baroness Hayman
That this House takes note of the case for post-COVID-19 recovery strategies that will contribute to a fairer, cleaner, and more sustainable economy.
Baroness Hayman (CB)
My Lords, I declare my interest as co-chair of Peers for the Planet. I welcome the Minister to what I believe is her first full debate in the House and I thank everyone in the staff administration who has made it possible for us both to be present in the Chamber today.
“This crisis offers us a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to rebuild our economy in order to withstand the next shock coming our way: climate breakdown. Unless we act now, the climate crisis will be tomorrow’s central scenario and, unlike Covid-19, no one will be able to self-isolate from it.”
Those are not my words but those of Mark Carney, the former Governor of the Bank of England, his successor, Andrew Bailey, and other European bankers who argued this week for a recovery that places our net-zero objectives at its heart.
The last three months have been transformative, not just for millions of individuals and families but for institutions—look around this Chamber today—and for the entire governance of our country. The crisis has made us examine what and who we really value, recognise better the people on whom we depend and, amid the pain of separation, sickness and bereavement, appreciate the kindness of strangers and acknowledge our shared fragility and vulnerability.
While individuals have often felt powerless, unable to live their normal lives, the Government themselves have in many ways been empowered by an overwhelming threat and the public response, so unprecedented restrictions have been imposed and unparalleled amounts of public money spent to save lives and support jobs and businesses. Not just the extent but the speed of decision-making, innovation and delivery has been transformed. Government, organisations and individuals have made changes in days that in normal times would have taken years to achieve.
The fight against Covid-19 is far from over, but the first phase and the economic measures that anchored it are coming to an end. We need now to replace those short-term measures with a long-term strategy to rebuild the shattered economy, to replicate the sense of determination, to act at speed, to do whatever it takes.
The pandemic has distracted attention from the climate change crisis, but the imperative of tackling that overwhelming threat has not diminished. Without urgent and radical action, the world faces a dystopian future: extreme weather events; forest fires and melting ice caps; the spread of disease vectors; mass climate migration; and threats to the very existence of countries and communities vulnerable to sea-level changes.
The need for urgent and sustained action has been acknowledged internationally, but reaching the targets set out in the Paris agreement will be extraordinarily challenging. This year, CO2 emissions are expected to fall by 8% because of the global downturn that coronavirus has brought. To achieve our 2050 targets, we need to replicate that fall every year until then—and without bringing the world to a standstill.
After the last recession, there was a sharp rebound in emissions due to a wave of carbon-intensive stimulus packages. While it is tempting to rely on familiar levers, these would in reality bring lower returns and lock us into unsustainable models. Nor, particularly given the disproportionate effect in health and economic terms that Covid has had on the most disadvantaged—the poor, the sick and ethnic minorities—can another round of austerity be contemplated. The 2008 crisis taught us that recovery policies focused on investment were more effective at restarting the economy than austerity-based approaches.
Fortunately, when looking at investment choices and stimulus policies, we do not have to choose between tackling the climate crisis and rebuilding the economy. In fact, the evidence suggests that clean stimulus strategies are likely to result in net positive gains for the economy and for society. This is increasingly recognised through the strategies being pursued across the world, with ambitious and extensive green stimulus programmes. It is also why the business community is restructuring its investment plans accordingly. In the wake of Covid-19, global businesses worth $2.4 trillion have called for a green recovery plan, and over 200 leading UK businesses, investors and industry networks, ranging from Lloyds Bank to Greggs, from Tesco to Sky, have stated publicly:
“Efforts to rescue and repair the economy in response to the current crisis can and should be aligned with the UK’s legislated target of net zero emissions by 2050 at the latest … we must use the recovery to accelerate the transition to net zero.”
So what are some of the practical, high-potential policy opportunities? Renewable energy in the UK has showcased what is possible, making renewables the cheapest form of new power in virtually every major economy. At midnight on Wednesday this week, Britain passed the milestone of having gone two full months without burning coal to generate power; 10 years ago, we depended on coal for 40% of our electricity. As electricity demand bounces back, our energy sector is set to create 400,000 new, clean jobs between now and 2050 to meet our net zero target. Our wind sector has already established pools of technology excellence in former coal communities, while further jobs will open up across the UK requiring a diverse mixture of skills, including, importantly, in rural and coastal areas. But to capitalise on this potential, we need to address barriers such as planning policies which create obstacles to onshore wind projects and the clean electricity they produce. Perhaps I might recommend my Private Member’s Bill on onshore wind to the Minister.
In transport, there are myriad possibilities, from electrifying railways and having overhead cabling on highways for HGVs to investing in clean public transport. Networks for walking and cycling have already been scaled in cities such as Manchester and London since the lockdown. Transition to electric cars needs to be fast-tracked. We need to drive both supply and cost reductions, offer financial incentives to replace polluting vehicles with electric ones, and accelerate plans for a national network of charging points.
During the current crisis, remote working has revolutionised how we participate in the economy. Many people have no desire to return to the tyranny of the five-day office commute and flights to non-essential meetings. We need to build on this. Investment in full- fibre broadband could be one of the most important enablers for behaviour change, reducing journeys, emissions and pollution while promoting social inclusion. Efficiency in housing and building offers another strategy area where what is good for the economy is good for net zero. Retrofit is a resource-intensive job creator, and one of the cheapest ways to reduce emissions, but has suffered from an uncertain policy framework. Fixing that can offer a quick first wave of demand for the construction sector, with knock-on benefits throughout the supply chain, as well as addressing fuel poverty. Public buildings, including schools and educational facilities, could lead the way.
Others will speak, I am sure, of the possibilities that the UK’s world-leading track record in R&D innovation can open up in areas such as hydrogen, batteries, carbon capture and storage, circular business models and much more. Our natural assets also hold immense potential, where investing in large-scale mixed tree planting, creating productive forests, and restoring carbon-rich peatland and marine environments, can act as critical carbon sinks while supporting countryside and coastal communities.
Not all this is down to government alone; our financial system must also play an instrumental role. We already know that, in the last decade, listed companies with green activities have performed better than fossil-fuel stocks and that, during the pandemic, ESG portfolios have fared better than conventional ones. Investors need to align their investments to our obligations under the Paris agreement, report on climate risks and set strategies to mitigate those risks. The pensions industry could and should make a game-changing contribution by setting a trajectory to redirect the $2.9 trillion in pension funds—our money—into sustainable investment.
Clean stimulus strategies have many attractions as a route to recovery. They bring substantial benefits, such as clean air quality, without the restrictions and sacrifices that the pandemic demanded and without a requirement to slash public spending. They generate high returns while many are mature, proven industries and technologies, not risky ventures. They are labour intensive, creating more jobs than traditional stimuli. Renewables projects have been shown to create twice as many jobs as the equivalent investment in fossil fuels.
Jobs matter enormously, particularly to the young, who face the worst prospects in the projected recession and its horrifying unemployment levels. The OECD report this week made very grim reading. The elderly have suffered most in health terms, but the young are most at risk economically. We need to re-gear our national approach to education, apprenticeships, reskilling and life-long learning, not only to ensure a sustainable future but to support workers whose sectors cannot be sustained, and in regions which need regeneration.
In recognising the profound damage done to our economy and the challenges there will be in rebuilding it, public support will be essential. Public support has been shown, in survey after survey across the globe, for Governments to act to avert climate catastrophe. But to maintain that support, the measures taken will need to be seen to be fair. We need fairness between generations, between regions and between industries. The IFS warned in its report today:
“Britain risks entrenching deep class, ethnic, gender, educational … and geographical divides unless the government acts to tackle inequality.”
Public assistance for conventional industries must be transitional and accompanied by obligations to disclose climate-related financial risks and clear decarbonisation targets. Fairness will also need to govern our tax and benefits regimes. That includes how we tax income and wealth, looking at bold new funding mechanisms for social care and, yes, looking at the triple lock on pensions.
The Prime Minister and other Ministers—the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, did it this morning—have spoken enthusiastically of their commitment to greening our economy, but in practice there remains a frustratingly piecemeal and inconsistent approach to policy-making. The urgency of transformation calls for a coherent vision and steely determination to deliver. Will the Minister indicate today that the Government are committed to placing a climate lens on every policy and Bill they introduce and that they will be explicit and transparent about the contribution each of their proposals will make to getting us to net zero?
I have focused so far on UK strategies, but if we did not know before we certainly know now that we are part of a global community. The world will not come out of recession, any more than it will address the climate crisis, by raising drawbridges and retreating into narrow nationalism.
The UK has an historic opportunity to lead concerted international action through our presidency of COP 26 and our hosting of the G7 next year. I have said before that I believe this country’s contribution to the fight against climate change will be measured not only in the scale of our national emissions reduction but, crucially, in the quality of our global leadership. I hope we will hear from the Minister today that the UK is already working to secure international support and co-operation for a global road map to net zero and the philosophy of building back better.
Clean, fair and sustainable strategies offer strong alignment between tackling the climate emergency and generating prosperity for all parts of our country. They will support structural changes that deliver social, regional and intergenerational gains. They can reskill affected workers, improve physical infrastructure, enhance environmental assets and promote well-being for current and future generations.
I end with a question posed recently by Sir David Attenborough: do we invest money into the practices that take us deeper into this crisis or the solutions that get us out of it? The answer this Government give to that question will define the shape of our economy and society for decades to come.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness. As I have only two minutes, I will not develop the many points on which I agree with what she had to say. In the absence of the Government providing us with an opportunity for a two-day debate on the economy, which is what is required, I will focus on the catastrophe—for that is what it is—we face in the fourth quarter of this year as a result of the circumstances we find ourselves in. A great tsunami will sweep away the jobs of many people who thought they were in secure employment. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that we could be looking at 3 million or more people with no jobs.
The extent to which those people will be able to find new jobs will depend on the nature of the recovery. Most people have abandoned the idea that it will be V-shaped; perhaps it will be L-shaped. How quickly the economy recovers will depend on how quickly we can end this lockdown and Ministers can get their act together and decide where our priorities should be.
Earlier today I asked the Minister to indicate what assessment had been made of the number of people who would lose their jobs as a result of two-metre distancing, as opposed to the one-metre distancing recommended by the World Health Organization. He did not answer the question. The Government will have to look at how quickly we can free up the economy and save those jobs that are disappearing even now. Many of the people on furlough schemes are already out of work and will find themselves unemployed when the furlough ends. The solution for the Government is not to put up taxes or cut public expenditure but to go for growth. To quote Ronald Reagan, the deficit is
“big enough to take care of itself”
in the short term.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab) [V]
My Lords, this is an important debate. As we all know, Covid-19 has had an unprecedented impact on the domestic and global economies. Some 3 million people have applied for universal credit and a significant proportion of the workforce is furloughed. We are still uncertain about when schools and universities will return to normal or when graduates will be able to find jobs. Yesterday the OECD warned that the UK is likely to be the hardest hit of all major economies. That should concern us all, but it should also motivate us to break from the past and rebuild in a fairer, cleaner and more sustainable way.
I think we all agree that GDP, despite its importance as an indicator, should no longer be the only way we measure economic success. Among other things, we need to embrace means of improving well-being and boosting social mobility. A fairer economy means tackling health inequalities, rebalancing the regions and getting to grips with the issues that prevent individuals from certain ethnic or socioeconomic backgrounds meeting their full potential.
Doing this will require new policies rooted in a new consensus. We need to change, from how we engage with businesses and citizens to how we restructure central government. For example, should there be a Minister with a formal responsibility for economic fairness? Should that Minister sit in the Cabinet? How will the Government ensure that such a Minister can work effectively across all departments?
The scale of the challenge we face is significant. Very little good will come out of Covid-19, but acceptance of the need to reshape our economy could be one glimmer of hope.
Baroness Kramer (LD) [V]
The horrific killing of George Floyd has forced us to confront race injustice, which must be tackled in the economy we build for the future—just as much as we tackle climate change, Brexit, Covid, generational injustice, regional inequalities and the fourth industrial revolution. I challenge every business to embed diversity and the Government to require every public company to put social and environmental stewardship on a par with shareholder returns. A shift to a green economy is urgent as we run out of time to limit climate change, and I support the proposals my noble friend Lord Oates will detail in this debate.
I turn to the gig economy, because I anticipate that many who have lost or will lose their jobs will turn to self-employment. As the IFS has said, they will be primarily the young, low-skilled and poorly paid—it could have added BAME—workers. The Government must at once implement the Taylor review and remove the abuses within the gig economy. Flexibility for a company should not equate to an absence of rights for a worker. We will need new approaches, such as portable benefits, minimum hours and a tax system that recognises risk.
Secondly, we cannot again face an abyss or allow so many to. The Government need to sign up to the universal basic services agenda, including in housing, to put a proper floor in place for everyone. That would also encourage creativity, innovation and risk-taking, which are vital to our future.
Lastly, in dealing with Brexit we must not take a “charge of the Light Brigade” approach. A senseless order must be countermanded and an effective negotiating strategy put in place to conclude transition, even if it means an extension.
The Lord Bishop of Oxford [V]
My Lords, I warmly welcome this debate. The country faces the triple challenge in the next decade of the threat of climate change, the deepest recession for generations and the health challenges of Covid, all of which will exacerbate existing inequalities. I support much of what other noble Lords have said and will focus my remarks on the vital theme of digital inclusion.
As we discovered through the pandemic, the key to much of life in lockdown has been digital access—in churches, charities, schools, universities and business. As the Government recognise, one of the keys to a cleaner and sustainable economy is a fair and ethical digital sector, but it is the key responsibility of government to ensure equal access for all. The government report exploring the UK’s digital divide is to be welcomed, as is the DCMS industrial partnership through DevicesDotNow, announced in April, to provide equipment and access to as many as possible of the 1.9 million UK households without internet access.
However, the digital divide in this country was already substantial before the exacerbating effects of Covid-19. Only 47% of low-income households have broadband internet at home. Britain is ranked only 34th in the world in the broadband speed league. Brad Smith likens rural broadband to electricity. A fair, clean and more sustainable economy depends on possibility, not just affordability, of access. When will the Government commit to making digital access a fundamental right as essential as access to home heat and safe drinking water? Does the Minister agree that a post-Covid economy that lacks fast and affordable internet access for all cannot be fairer, cleaner or more sustainable?
Lord Mair (CB) [V]
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, on introducing this important debate. I speak as a civil engineer and draw attention to my interests in the register. In the limited time available, I will make three points. These relate to carbon, resilience of our infrastructure and prioritisation of resources.
First, on carbon, the Government have legislated to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. We have a long way to go to achieve this, and we must act quickly. We require smart engineering to minimise the use of materials and energy, while still ensuring the resilience of our infrastructure. This can be achieved by many innovations, including the latest digital and sensing technologies. We must be innovative with green stimulus programmes. We should be planning modern transport infrastructure, reducing car use and pedestrianising cities. We should construct more renewable energy sources such as offshore wind. Carbon capture and storage should be exploited for low-carbon production of cement and hydrogen fuels. All such initiatives will involve welcome new employment opportunities, requiring extensive technical training and reskilling.
Secondly, all the new infrastructure that we build must be cost-effective and resilient. Covid-19 has forced rapid changes in practice on our society. It demonstrates the opportunity to do things differently. We must not revert to designing and constructing infrastructure in the same way as before. We must apply the latest technologies to find ways of doing more for less, but still ensuring resilience.
Thirdly, how should we prioritise our resources? Much of our infrastructure is old; a lot of it is Victorian. We should exploit the latest digital and sensing technologies to optimise the assets that we already have by measuring and understanding their performance. We should fix them before rushing to build new infrastructure. In summary, we should exploit the very latest technologies in the post-Covid-19 recovery plan. We need all our engineering ingenuity to reduce carbon, increase resilience and preserve resources.
Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con) [V]
My Lords, we now know that we have a huge task ahead to secure our economy following the Covid crisis and our post-EU situation. As one of those involved in the rollout of development corporations in the most needy regions of our country in the 1980s and 1990s, I would support their implementation again to help us recover. Choosing the areas of the country most affected by the current crisis and installing development corporations under enlightened and strong leadership, we can replicate the success of the earlier examples that rejuvenated the local economies of many places, including the north-east and Yorkshire. The corporations not only produced fresh enterprise, including many new-technology businesses, but improved the environment in their areas of operation. Maintaining an emphasis on sustainability and job creation with an eye to future opportunities, they could again be the basis for recovery and greater geographical equality in this country.
One of the most important powers ceded to the corporations was that of fast-track planning. Decisions were taken and investment obtained on a new basis that fully considered all aspects of community needs and environmental enhancement. In many cases, we were able to encourage enterprise to come to local populations, thus minimising the need for unnecessary travel. The boards comprised representatives of business, workers and the community. In the main, they made very good decisions, and the evidence of success is still to be seen today.
Looking ahead, the challenges seem enormous, with the shrinking of our GDP predicted to be 12% this year. Many sectors are affected, but the remedies lie not in old approaches but in new technology, job creation and, of course, care for our environment. These things are not incompatible.
Lord Blunkett (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I too believe that we should learn from the past without living in it. In 1998, we introduced the new deal for the young unemployed, which included in it a particular strand for environmental work, but crucially for training and for jobs of the future. We face an even bigger catastrophe now and therefore we should mobilise, learning from what happened previously, and ensure that we link that to further and higher education.
The importance of research and knowledge transfer cannot be overestimated, but this is a devastating moment for our university sector, as money that was previously coming in from overseas students, particularly postgraduates, which funded and cross-subsidised the research agenda, will not be available. I hope that the Minister will be able to encourage the research sustainability task force to come forward urgently and encourage the Government to take up its recommendations and fund them properly, so that we can take up the work of the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre at the University of Sheffield and partnership programmes across the north of England. This will help us to break the triangle of Imperial, Oxford and Cambridge as we rebalance our economy and our future.
Crucially, time is running out: we see from the discouragement of people using public transport because of the two-metre rule that traffic is already returning to previous levels. Pollution can even be tasted in the air that had become so clean over the past two months. Linking job creation for young people and research and knowledge transfer from our universities with immediate action to avoid a return to the pollution that we experienced earlier this year will be vital if we are going to have that sustainability for the future.
Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD) [V]
My Lords, I want to talk about one effect of coming out of lockdown on economic prospects for women. The Government have not published an equality impact assessment for the Coronavirus Act 2020 and other key policies such as the job retention scheme. The Minister for Women and Equalities has said that this would have a chilling effect on the advice given by civil servants.
The post-Covid recovery and the development of many children will be damaged unless the childcare sector is paid fairly by the Government. The government subsidy of so-called “free” childcare places only covers about half the actual cost, and many nurseries had already given up the ghost before Covid. Research by Childcare UK and the Early Years Alliance found that the epidemic could be the last straw for a further 25% of providers and that 150,000 childcare places could be lost. If we want mothers and fathers to play their part in the recovery, we must pay the childcare sector properly and fairly. Will the Minister please commit to looking at this?
Lord Birt (CB) [V]
My Lords, following the global trauma of World War II, a new and more progressive world order was established. At its heart were the UN, the World Bank, the IMF and NATO. At home, in a blaze of activity, we founded the NHS, brought into force the Education Act 1944 and created Beveridge’s welfare state. Our parents built a better world; now we must do that.
A tiny virus has reminded us of the vulnerability of all mankind, and that we are not an island cut off from the world. We must play our full part, but we can mitigate climate change only if the whole world acts together. Let us reinvigorate the depleted forces of global co-operation and collaboration. Let us seek to build on our common interest not to intensify division. Let us renew the attack on poverty and proclaim the advantages of the free flow of ideas and trade. Let us revive the global influence that we have long had.
The UK is at a low. My strongly anglophile French and German friends look askance at our travails. As we emerge from our horror, let us bottle the communal spirit of those who have clapped each week for the NHS. Let us reset our world. Let us drain the poison that has built up in our political system. Let us recover our ability for competent, careful and considered government. Let us address our many problems, as our parents once did, and build once more a fair, tolerant and prosperous Britain.
The Lord Bishop of Derby [V]
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, for securing this vital debate. The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted the life of every child in this country. Many of their households face reduced income, irregular working hours, increasing debt, greater risk of online harm, growing concern over mental health and well-being, and increased prevalence of domestic violence. Already vulnerable children have been made all the more at risk.
My work with the Children’s Society has drawn my attention to the disproportionate and detrimental impact of inequality and lack of sustainability on children and their households. By 2021, it is predicted that more than 5 million children will be affected by poverty in the UK. In Derby, the proportion of nought to 15 year-olds living in income-deprived households is as much as 47%. The gap in life expectancy between the poorest and most affluent areas of the city is eight and a half years, and the gap in healthy life expectancy is 19 years.
The inequalities that affect children in poverty run deep and are systemic, so the solutions need to be long term, taking account of the sustainability of the future for the children’s sake. Responding to the needs of every child in post-Covid-19 recovery strategies means keeping children and young people safe, protecting children and families facing financial insecurity, and supporting the mental health and well-being of all children in ways that support the recovery of the planet which they will inherit, rather than further damage it.
I encourage the Minister to ensure that government finds ways to hear the voices of children as our post-Covid-19 recovery strategies are shaped. Recovery strategies will contribute to a fairer, cleaner and more sustainable future only if they offer hope for every child and young person across the UK. Will the Minister commit therefore, as some previous Governments have done, to using family or young person tests to assess the impact of all Covid-19 recovery strategies as a mechanism for contributing to a fairer, cleaner and more sustainable economy?
Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, on securing this important debate and on her excellent speech. I want to confine my brief contribution to one aspect of the green strategy, or rather a blue one, to help with our post-Covid recovery. The blue in question is not party political but refers to the importance of wetlands. I am much indebted to the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust, a charity of which I have been a member for more than four decades, for working on this concept, which I fully support. Creating new wetlands will not only create much-needed jobs but will improve carbon capture and water quality, provide flood management and—highly importantly—ensure greater public enjoyment and improved physical and mental health. Of course, it will also hugely enhance our much depleted nature. It would assist in reducing coastal erosion and help regenerate neighbourhoods and towns. These projects do not always have to be huge scale, and we can do great things in urban areas too.
The aim would be to restore or create 100,000 hectares of wetlands. We do not always have to talk solely about tree planting and peatland restoration, important though they are. I also suggest that, in the provision of new housing, we could be innovative by creating new wetland cities, like the garden cities of a few decades ago, only wetter.
Following this terrible pandemic, we have an incredible opportunity to reset our world. Let us be bold and imaginative. I hope that my young granddaughter will enjoy a better quality of life than current generations.
Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I declare my environmental interests as listed in the register. A rapid and resilient recovery from Covid-19 cannot be just a reversion to more of the same old ways. I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, for setting out the many ways in which we need to change. We have a real opportunity to grow back better, and that means a green recovery.
The noble Lord, Lord Stern, has elsewhere urged that the Government immediately promote measures that are fast, labour intensive and embed an economic multiplier effect. There are many shovel-ready programmes from the sustainability agenda that can deliver against those criteria, without necessarily using shovels. They can also promote intergenerational fairness by tackling the twin challenges of looming climate change and catastrophic biodiversity loss, which our children will inherit.
Examples of projects which could quickly start across the length and breadth of the country include scaling up energy efficiency retrofits in housing and other buildings, and building new homes that are energy efficient and zero carbon; investment in green infrastructure to enable people to walk or cycle to work, and to work remotely through accessible internet; and expanding tree planting exponentially—I declare my interest as chair of the Woodland Trust—both in urban and rural settings, to sequester carbon and benefit human health and biodiversity. There are many such examples.
Any public subsidy for recovery should pass a net zero test, and major infrastructure proposals should pass a net biodiversity gain test, to make sure that our recovery projects genuinely meet our longer-term objectives.
How about we introduce a national nature service, which could work on a new nature recovery network of projects and provide training, skills, jobs and healthy contact with nature for young people whose futures risk being blighted by the Covid crisis?
Baroness Randerson (LD) [V]
Lockdown has been a cyclist’s paradise, with much talk about active travel, but then the Prime Minister encouraged us to take to our cars again and told us that we must avoid public transport. At a stroke, the benefits of lower emissions, for our planet and for our personal health, are potentially lost. In fact, it is significantly worse than it was before the pandemic, because, normally, 14.5 million people drive to work across England and Wales each day, and 4.2 million people use public transport. A study by Westminster University predicts that there will now be 1 million additional rush hour vehicles using the roads. That is a 22% increase in London, for example, and it is unsustainable in every sense of the word.
Ironically, the virus has given us a glimpse of a less polluted, healthier world. The Government must seize the moment to introduce radical, comprehensive measures to reduce transport-related pollution, because transport is the biggest polluter. Such measures include changing the planning rules so that no new housing developments can be built until a safe, active travel network is in place; moving freight off the roads and on to rail; electrifying the railways; and reinvigorating the bus industry by funding greener buses and devolving real powers to local authorities to control them. We should reward those who work from home, and, wherever possible, we should take services to people in rural areas.
We need a sustainable transport revolution starting now and not at some distant target date.
Baroness Boycott (CB) [V]
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, on securing this debate. This is a key turning point: if we are to successfully transition to a sustainable and green world, we need to change how we value success and worth. The way we live now is almost entirely about the value of money. The success of a company depends on creating share value; the success of an individual is intricately bound up with the material goods he or she has. Even the health of our nation is now judged by targets of longevity rather than of quality of life. To change that, we have to understand that we need different kinds of rewards. This is a huge challenge. If a business depends, say, on growing palm oil in Malaysia or deforesting the Amazon for its key products, what will it say to its shareholders? How can we calculate reward in terms not of money but of public good? How can we start to value people’s happiness and sense of satisfaction over the size of their bank accounts? How can we bring fairness back into our reasonably unfair society? I would like to know from the Government whether these are being debated.
The community spirit generated during Covid shows that there are more rewarding values among us. I much look forward to the day when the shareholder’s value—their prize—is in not cutting down the rainforest. We must invest in a green economy and not return to business as usual, as happened after the 2008 crash. We must involve all, and that means starting with education. Just as we need a green recovery for the economy, we need a green recovery for education.
Our young people, from an early age, need and want to understand resilience and sustainability. As members of the Green Recovery for Education say, there is little point learning how to continue our traditional capitalist systems, as these are in many cases the very systems causing our planetary crisis. I therefore ask the Government a second question: what conversations are going on in the Department for Education to consider the proposals that young people themselves have set out through the Teach the Future initiative, to review our education system and teacher training so that we are equipped for the climate crisis and investing in net-zero facilities?
Lord Robathan (Con) [V]
I agree with a great deal of what the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said about moving further towards a more sustainable economic future. I have been a supporter of wind power for nearly 40 years, and I was vice-chairman of the parliamentary renewable and sustainable energy group for some 15 years in the Commons.
I want to concentrate on intergenerational fairness, which was mentioned by the noble Baroness. Like most noble Lords, I am in my later years; our future is behind us. Young people in this crisis have seen their education trashed, schools and universities closed, and exams missed. When lockdown is lifted, unemployment will shoot up; it will not be a good time to look for a job. We are facing a deep recession, possibly a global depression. The last one did not end well, and it left indelible scars on the world. Our prosperity and quality of life will be severely lessened and healthcare will suffer. If we older people are “all right, Jack”, and while our futures are largely behind us, we have mortgaged our country’s future and our children’s future.
The young are the least affected by this virus. Deaths among the young are very few—negligible in the under-20s and very, very low in the under-30s and under-40s, and only 12% of deaths occur among the under-65s. We, the older generation, have trashed the future of the young to protect ourselves. Will they forgive us?
We made a public health crisis into an economic and social catastrophe. We should lift the lockdown now completely, and those at high risk should shield themselves. My own view is that the virus swept through the population, starting as early as November. There may of course be a second wave, but let us at least give our young people a chance and some hope for the future.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
I declare my interest in universal basic income as set out in the register, and congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, on securing this debate. Today, we are discussing what “strategies” after the Covid-19 shock could
“contribute to a fairer, cleaner, and more sustainable economy.”
Greens on these islands have long been calling for a universal basic income to help us recover from the shock of austerity, privatisation and inequality that our economic model has delivered.
We have also been calling for the universal services to which the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, referred. Universal basic income would dramatically reduce insecurity, a huge driver of unsustainable consumption. The case has been further strengthened in this pandemic, with so many falling unfairly into desperate poverty through the conditionality of our current benefits system and emergency measures.
With great timeliness, the long-awaited report of the study group for Scottish universal basic income—driven from the grass roots up by the Fife, North Ayrshire, Edinburgh and Glasgow councils—has been presented today. The report concludes that a pilot, which would run for three years, could provide a better understanding of how a universal basic income could impact poverty, child poverty, unemployment, health and financial well-being. However, the report says that delivering it would require the UK and Scottish Governments as well as councils to work together. The First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has expressed her “active support” for universal basic income.
Today the House has just made history by casting our first trial virtual ballot, bringing us into the 21st century while 19th-century queues form in the other place. I hope that we can also make history by seeing the noble Baroness the Minister promise for the Government to not get in the way of—and indeed, to actively facilitate—the exciting social innovation of universal basic income, and to take a world-leading role.
Baroness Eaton (Con) [V]
I declare my interest as a vice-president and former chair of the LGA. I thank local government for its tireless work in responding to the Covid-19 crisis in its communities and keeping public services running.
Councils are at the forefront of mitigating climate risks locally and supporting their communities to adapt to future changes. In order for councils to continue to play their full role in delivering a sustainable economic recovery, they need greater powers and flexibilities devolved at pace. As a member of the devolution APPG, which is looking into many of the important issues we are discussing, I encourage the Government to work with councils to develop post-Covid-19 economic recovery options.
A key component of sustainable recovery and growth will be the creation of green jobs. The Local Government Association has just published new research about the opportunities of low-carbon job creation. The jobs outlined in the report will be crucial to meeting the Government’s target of net zero by 2050, as well as aiding the economic recovery from Covid-19. Devolving national skills and employment schemes and funding to councils and combined authorities will be critical to ensuring that everyone benefits from these new local opportunities.
I welcome the Government’s work on devolution and their efforts to build a sustainable economy that levels up all areas of the country. I would also be grateful if the Minister could use her closing remarks to provide an update on the expected timing for the devolution White Paper and whether it will empower councils to deliver a sustainable recovery in their communities. By empowering local government, we can help our economy recover and deliver a fairer and environmentally friendly future.
Baroness Sheehan (LD) [V]
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, for tabling this important debate. The inherent unfairness in UK society has been laid bare. The people who have borne the brunt of the Covid-19 crisis have been key workers in areas that include retail, transport, health and care settings. These essential front-line workers, often on zero-hours contracts, have to work. A disproportionate number of them come from BAME communities.
The Public Health England report of 2 June confirmed that black and Asian ethnic groups are up to twice as likely to die from Covid-19 and, shockingly, that deaths among black males were nearly four times higher than expected between 20 March and 7 May. We must work to still the huge unrest among these communities, and I, for one, want to state my support for the Black Lives Matter campaign. The PHE report failed to delve into the reasons behind the figures, but the Government have many questions to answer in the inevitable public inquiry that must take place.
The world had warning about the pandemic, but Governments, including our own, failed to act. We must not fail to act to tackle the warning of climate chaos that is hurtling down the track. If we do not act, the people who will bear the brunt will again be the most disadvantaged.
In rebuilding our economy, we must place greater value on people and on our planet. It would be foolhardy to do other than heed the many authoritative voices calling for just that, including the Committee on Climate Change, the Oxford Review of Economic Policy and more than 200 business leaders from the Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group.
Lord Chartres (CB) [V]
My Lords, as other noble Lords have said, there is obviously a risk that, as the lockdown eases, we shall be tempted to return to those old ways of thinking and behaving which are at the root of so many of our environmental distresses. However, in order to change ways of thinking and behaving, we need more of a common mind, and we certainly need a strategy for developing and disseminating a code of environmental principles that are simple and memorable enough to be included in the national curriculum. The noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, has already referred to the importance of education in this area. Principles are the vital step in formulating sustainable policies and assisting in their implementation and enforcement.
Of course, we already have a start in the principles derived from European legislation, which figure in the Environment Bill. The principles of “polluter pays”, prevention and the precautionary approach are a very good start, but we need to develop them in the light of recent public debate. It is important not to complicate things but, rather, to lift them out of the realm of international expert conferences and specialist papers so that simple and memorable environmental principles become part of ordinary, everyday conversation. A code of environmental principles ought to be at least as well known as the Highway Code. I believe that it ought to include a commitment to development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The Covid crisis has given us all the time to reflect on how we live now; I hope that we will not waste the opportunity.
Lord Risby (Con) [V]
My Lords, I declare an interest as president of the Association for Decentralised Energy.
The pandemic has reminded us of the importance of local community structures. This is the great challenge and the great opportunity in decarbonising heat, for heat is, at its heart, local. The best solution to decarbonising heat in any area is specific to, and determined by, that area. Coupled with the Government’s commitment to improve energy efficiency in homes, schools and hospitals, locally driven heat solutions will come together to create a decarbonisation landscape.
Heat networks have a unique role in capturing and using otherwise wasted heat. The Government have demonstrated their commitment to heat networks by announcing a new green heat network fund to support, in particular, those using waste heat. An example is a project in Enfield to supply waste heat to at least 15,000 homes. In due course, that will save 5,700 tonnes per year, equivalent to the carbon sequestered by over 6,000 acres of forest.
During the Heat Networks Industry Council’s launch last week, my right honourable friend the Energy Minister, Kwasi Kwarteng, underlined the alignment between government and the industry’s ambitious vision for the role of the heat network sector in delivering a net-zero future. This council is committed to bringing in investment and creating up to 35,000 new jobs. A project in Leeds is specifically committed to new apprenticeships and jobs. It is surely more important than ever to invest in upskilling and retraining to create a green-collar workforce for the future. The heat networks industry is fully committed to playing its part in a fairer, cleaner and more sustainable economy post this pandemic.
Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB) [V]
My Lords, I, too, welcome this debate and express my enthusiasm for using the recovery strategies from Covid-19 to help contribute to a fairer society, a cleaner environment and a more sustainable economy. However, I also advocate that the lessons of the pandemic, and particularly the data that flows from the experience of the international lockdown, are used to inform the ambition of those strategies.
I recently attended, in a virtual way, a RUSI event on the general subject of future energy. Data presented to the discussion indicated that, for an extended period of time this year, 4.2 billion people have been under lockdown, only a fraction of the world’s airlines have flown and most people’s cars have barely moved, yet the forecast impact this year of this unprecedented lockdown, which has brought global economies almost to a halt, is an anticipated 25% drop in oil use and, as the noble Baroness said in her excellent opening speech, just an 8% reduction in carbon generation.
I offer that insight not to discourage ambition but purely to put a reality check on both the time and effort needed to bring about significant change in carbon emissions and to add realism to those who use the language of acceleration. The strategies that we conceive must be bold but they must also be anchored in reality or they will lose credibility and, in the context of COP 26, will most certainly fail to attract international consensus.
Lord Duncan of Springbank (Con) [V]
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, for introducing this timely debate. Covid has affected the way that we see ourselves and how we see the landscape in forming policy affecting our economy.
The COP 26 meeting in Glasgow, which was due to take place this year, has of course been cancelled. Before that, there had been an attempt to create a series of drumbeats to allow policy announcements showing our commitment to net zero and the wider ambition of decarbonising the globe. Most of those have now been placed on hold, but I look to the Minister to give a commitment that this will not be for much longer and that we will begin to hear again about how the Government intend to meet their obligations to deliver net zero and how they intend to work with their global partners. The opportunities are still there, and the technologies, innovations and ideas are all still ready to be delivered. Therefore, I look forward to hearing from the Government when they will institute a timetable for setting out very clearly their ambitions and the concrete policies that they will deliver to meet their net-zero commitments.
Lord Bhatia (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, according to the recent letter from the Prime Minister, as from 15 June all shops will be able to reopen. This means that thousands of small and large shops will open, provided that a safe distance between people is managed. Places of worship will be allowed to open from this weekend, and zoos and drive-in cinemas will also be allowed to reopen from 15 June. All that will bring thousands, perhaps millions, out on to the streets and open grounds. The coronavirus is still alive and the Government’s decisions could cause a spike in the pandemic across the country, thereby putting enormous strain on the NHS and other front-line workers.
All this will require the population to follow the guidelines. The risk lies in whether this will be possible. The videos of the recent processions show that social distancing was not observed. The effects of this will be reflected in coming weeks. The Government might be taking an enormous risk in opening things up prematurely. There is obviously a need to calibrate between priorities of health and the economy. The decision is one of the most difficult for any Government for perhaps the last two centuries.
Lord Sheikh (Con) [V]
My Lords, the conditions created by the pandemic and the lockdown will probably result in this year representing the largest annual reduction in carbon emissions. The crisis and this result should, with the right approach, enable us to achieve reductions in our emissions to zero by 2050, stimulate the economy and create jobs. The crisis should be a springboard to achieving these objectives. It is anticipated that our GDP will fall by 12.8% and unemployment will be at about 7.3% by the end of 2020. My concern is that there will, in addition, be regional inequalities, which our Prime Minister is keen to level up. Therefore, it is important for us to take appropriate and immediate medium-term measures. During the pandemic, there was a need to spend, spend, spend. Now that we are coming out of the crisis, our motto must be to think green, to achieve growth and to create jobs. I commend the Prime Minister for his commitment to spending £2 billion investing in greener transport, including providing walking and cycling facilities.
We must all ensure that all the BAME communities are fairly treated in all aspects of the country, including the business sector, as part of our future strategy. This is a wake-up call for us to do so. What is the Government’s reaction to the two letters sent to the Prime Minister by 200 business leaders and the Committee on Climate Change, and how are the proposals being considered?
Lord Berkeley (Lab) [V]
I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, on this excellent opportunity to debate how we will achieve zero carbon emissions in 2050.
The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, talked about the importance of transport. Cars and trucks are probably the biggest polluters in this sector. We need radical solutions. One example is the retail system. We now can happily buy anything for home delivery the next day. The shops are replenished several times a day with multiple deliveries, often in white vans. This is all backed up by worldwide logistics, including air freight, container ships, 40-tonne trucks, distribution centres et cetera. We are still building motorways, mainly for trucks. So how do we reduce the carbon footprint?
There are many solutions. Clearly, rail freight into the city centres is one, as are electrical cycle last-mile deliveries. Most of all we need to change our lifestyle, with fewer choices in shops. Do we really need air-freighted avocados every day of the year, unless there is a carbon tax attributed to them? We must have a massive reduction in car use, but the Government are still advising us to use cars rather than public transport. What about the people who do not have cars? The Government seem to have been forgotten, or they just do not care about them. Perhaps they should withdraw the car advice. I hope that the Minister will say something about that today.
On Monday, I raised a question about Manchester City Council not participating in a new cycle scheme for the Manchester area. Two days later, it applied to the Government for financing. I am pleased to hear this and hope that many other local authorities will support it.
We have the opportunity now to change our environment and set an example to the rest of the world. I hope we can do it.
Baroness Walmsley (LD) [V]
My Lords, as we come out of the Covid-19 pandemic, we must find clean technologies that encourage investment, create jobs, provide opportunities and training for young people and address the climate crisis. I recommend one such innovation, which the Government should encourage in every way. As we build new homes, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Risby, that we need to find local ways to heat them that do not use fossil fuels. In County Durham, the council has partnered with the Coal Authority and private developer Tolent Construction to provide district heating for a new garden village from the geothermally heated water that floods a network of disused coal mines in the area. I was very interested when I read about this because I live in north Wales, on top of a lot of disused coal mines, where there is a large development of houses in a village called Llay, which is less than half a mile from the shaft of the tragic Gresford coal mine. However, I do not believe that such an innovative solution to space heating is being used there.
The system works by pumping the water from the mine—which, year round, is always warmer than the air above—up through a heat exchanger. Warm water is then distributed to the homes and businesses in the new Seaham Garden Village. This renewable energy reduces the heating bills of local families, which contributes to equality, half of them being in affordable homes, provides jobs for the local economy and encourages investment in the area, as well as providing low-carbon space heating. There are hundreds of disused coal mines all over the country, many in disadvantaged areas that need levelling up. Will the Government invest in this innovation elsewhere to leverage private investment and create jobs? It is a nice irony that coal mines, which once contributed to global warming, can provide part of the solution to stopping it.
Lord Eames (CB) [V]
My Lords, I too welcome this debate, introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, but there is a danger that, as we turn our attention to high-level economic issues, we lose sight of down-to-earth, human realities. We have reached a point in the Covid-19 nightmare where questions of high-level policy and planning for the future are becoming more and more essential, but if we allow that human face to become less important, we will have lost one of the most important aspects of a sustainable economy of the future.
For that reason, I emphasise one aspect of that human face: 4.5 million people in the United Kingdom have become unpaid carers in society as a direct result of the pandemic. This is in addition to the 5 million carers already involved. Thousands of people have had to make serious personal decisions affecting their everyday lives. They have had to weigh up responsibilities for family life when they have been crucial in every aspect. To organise caring duties while holding down paid work is a dilemma and far from easy. The recent announcement of the bubble relationship will ease the strain for some, but the bigger question remains: as we move towards national recovery, can that army of carers receive proper recognition and support for the burden that so many carry? Flexible working and a genuine appreciation of the human problems by employers are only two of the issues that we face in a fair economy and a fairer future. I urge the Minister: please do not lose sight of the human face of recovery at this time.
Baroness Blackstone (Ind Lab) [V]
My Lords, I declare my interest as the chair of trustees of the Asthma UK and British Lung Foundation Partnership, as I want to focus on the urgent need for a cleaner economy with clean air.
Air pollution causes lung damage and is linked to early death. It can cause irreversible change to children’s growing lungs and hearts. Moreover, people living in the poorest areas are more exposed to air pollution, reinforcing unequal health outcomes. It is bad for everyone, but for the 12 million people in the UK with a lung condition it poses a real threat to their health. A spike in levels of pollution can lead to worse symptoms, flare-ups and even hospitalisation. It also damages their quality of life as it can stop them leaving their houses for the justifiable reason that they fear dirty air. Research from around the world also shows a possible relationship between higher levels of air pollution and an increased risk of dying from Covid-19. More work is needed on why that happens.
One of the few benefits of the lockdown is that it has led to cleaner air with lower levels of NO2 and particulate matter. We must not lose this gain. That means that we must develop policies for active travel, a reduction of car use, clean air zones and strengthened clean air laws. I welcome the announcement of £250 million funding for local authorities to promote walking and cycling with new guidelines on the need to take action urgently. However that is a very small amount of money, and I hope the Government will bring forward more funding for policies of this sort as well as advancing the requirements for electric cars.
Lastly, can the Minister confirm that, when the Environment Bill returns, it will commit to reaching at least WHO guideline levels on particulate matter by 2030 at the very latest?
Lord Shipley (LD) [V]
My Lords, we have learned much from Germany in recent months. Germany has met the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic far better than us. Its policy of test and trace and its devolved structure of government have resulted in a much lower death rate from Covid-19, which stands at a quarter of ours.
Perhaps the Government will therefore now look very closely at how Germany is planning its economic recovery from the pandemic. It has announced an enormous fiscal stimulus worth €130 billion, with measures for the short, medium and long term. There will be a six-month cut in VAT to encourage consumer spending and a €300 payment for every child. There will be much more research investment in green technologies and significantly lower taxation on electric cars.
In the UK, the Chancellor has announced an intention for a green industrial revolution, and I hope he keeps to it. The UK is well positioned to build on the achievements of my party in government, which encouraged green investment and, particularly, renewable energy. We should just note that our electricity supply system ran without coal-fired electricity throughout May, when wind and solar power produced 28% of our electricity. We should build on that, insulate more homes and invest in a much more widespread electrical charging infrastructure.
Yesterday, the OECD forecast that the UK economy is likely to shrink by between 11.5% and 14% this year. The implications are very serious. Above all, we must avoid a return to 1980s levels of unemployment and, in particular, youth unemployment. Many young people have lost schooling. They may find their hoped-for career unavailable or non-existent. It will be necessary for our schools, colleges and universities to alter the courses they offer to reflect a changed economy and to be resourced accordingly.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB) [V]
My Lords, I make no apologies for devoting my remarks today to the international aspect of climate change, while many other speakers, led so admirably by my noble friend Lady Hayman, whose debate is so topical, will very justifiably be focusing on what we need to do ourselves. It is a simple fact that we in this country acting on our own cannot make any serious impact on global warming or the mitigation of climate change, but nor can we hope to play an influential part in the essential international effort if we do not set an example by what we are doing at a national level. Those two aspects are two sides of a single coin, and right now we are not winning the toss with either side of the coin.
The challenge of ensuring that the COP 26 meeting in Glasgow succeeds in consolidating the implementation of the Paris agreement and in strengthening action beyond its commitments is certainly no easy one. The postponement of that meeting is of course time lost, but it could prove a cloud with a silver lining if we factor in the consequences of Covid-19 and use them as an opportunity as well as a grievous blow. For COP 26 to be a success, three conditions must be met. First, it must be a genuinely co-operative venture, which will mean working closely with others, including the European Union. Secondly, we need a critical path to success in terms of objectives and method. Paris showed it can be done, and Copenhagen showed how not to do it. Thirdly, we need to make a political input at the highest level, because decisions at Glasgow will be reached only if they are supported at that level. So far, I can see no sign of any of these conditions being met.
A word now about Africa, on which your Lordships’ committee on which I serve will shortly produce a report. Africa is a victim of climate change, from desertification to sea level rise and deforestation. It is not a cause of that change. It has as yet underused capacity to mitigate those changes through the development of renewable energy: solar, wind and even hydro. By helping Africa mobilise those resources, we will be furthering our interest.
Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, not just on securing this debate and leading it so expertly and comprehensively but on her work on establishing the Peers for the Planet group, which is also working outside the Chamber to take forward many of these issues.
I would also, perhaps unusually, like to endorse the concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, in his speech which followed that of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. He spoke about the tsunami coming towards us economically, and I would add that there is the impact on children right across the country, particularly vulnerable children, in their education, mental health, sport and physical activity with the closure of schools. There is a lack of an adequate strategy in the four nations of the UK to recover that educational opportunity, particularly for the most vulnerable children.
But I want to focus on the sustainable development goals. The Prime Minister said in May, shortly after he returned from his enforced period in the hospital, that he wanted to see a
“fairer, greener and more resilient global economy”,
and that he wanted to “build back better”. Indeed, he said on 28 May that
“there is every need for us to work together to get our shared goals back on track, including … the Sustainable Development Goals”.
The 17 sustainable development goals agreed by the United Nations in 2015 give us a framework for a recovery that would ensure that we also do that as part of a healthy planet. They are domestic as well as international.
I welcome the Minister to her place today, and I ask her to say in her reply in what way the UK Government will build the sustainable development goals into their plan for economic recovery. On Tuesday, more than 100 business leaders and organisations called on them to do so, and I hope that the Government will respond positively.
Baroness Jolly (LD) [V]
My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, on securing this fascinating debate. My home is in Cornwall, where our economy is largely based on agriculture and tourism. We have some of the best beaches and moorland in the country. Once known only for pilchards and tin, Cornwall is now recognised for fine food from our local farms and coastal waters. Educational standards are low but rising. Aspiration is on the up too. However, there are still too many who have not been as far as Devon.
In the past 20 years, and thanks to excellent fibre broadband right across Cornwall, young professionals have moved down and increased the diversification of employment opportunities. Falmouth University has been a great asset in supporting local entrepreneurship.
Sadly, however, we have a dependency on the car for travel. Too many cars are diesel powered—cheap to run, but not helpful for our air quality. Electric cars do not yet have the range to get about, and hybrids are expensive.
Using sun and wind, we now produce 37% of our electricity from renewables, and we are looking at how floating turbines could deliver jobs and prosperity to our coastal communities. I must not forget geothermal schemes, which are in the very early stages.
London outstrips Cornwall’s economy by a factor of nine. Fifty years ago, 70% of our labour force worked on the land. The same percentage now works in food production, but not in farms. Our economy is growing. We had Objective 1 status, and, were we still in the EU, we would be eligible for more targeted support. Our MPs reassure us that it will continue. Can the Minister confirm this?
How our smaller businesses will thrive after Covid is another issue, but the local council, the LEP, and business and community organisations have a hunger for success. I feel sure that resilience, borne out of established partnership working, will stand Cornwall in good stead.
Lord Ravensdale (CB) [V]
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Hayman on securing the debate and declare my registered interests. Over the past few days, we have heard the forecasts of the scale of the hit that the UK economy could take this year. Investment is needed on a massive scale to rebuild the economy post Covid. It is essential that this investment focuses on building back better.
We have seen the devastating effects of one ecological crisis in Covid. This must surely focus minds on working to avoid another, in the form of climate change. We must use post-Covid investment to focus on key recovery and our net-zero targets. The macroeconomic case is rock solid, with the Government able to borrow at negative real rates to invest in clean industries with high rates of return.
A key gap is investment in nuclear. Nuclear is currently the only mature low-carbon technology that can provide large quantities of firm, non-variable power into the grid. To mitigate the risk of no firm power alternative being available to meet the 2050 targets, the build rate of nuclear needs to expand significantly. The key issue remains the cost of capital, and the Government urgently need to clarify their approach to funding new nuclear. Will the Minister clarify in what timescales a decision and announcement will be made on the model for funding new nuclear?
Fairness must also be a priority of the recovery. Thousands of new high-skilled jobs are needed to rejuvenate and level up the regions of the north and the Midlands, where I live. We need an evidence-based plan for recovery that fits these regions. Data must play a key role in how government policy is targeted. I highlight the excellent work of the Midlands Engine Economic Observatory’s independent economic review; it provides a unique dataset on the Midlands economy, which should be a key reference point for designing a recovery plan that fits the Midlands. Does the Minister agree on the importance of this data, collated at a regional level, to government policy-making regarding the levelling up agenda?
Lord Adonis (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, on her excellent speech, and indeed on her starring role in this House last week. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, on his following speech, which linked the potential problem of mass unemployment after this crisis with meeting the green agenda. It is stark staring obvious that we need a Keynesian boost after this crisis, linked directly to providing green infrastructure, which we will need as a society for the next generation. We also need what the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, mentioned: an opening up of the economy, so that people can get back to those companies that are working at the moment in as safe and speedy a way as possible. We need to put the two together.
Having been in government and seen these situations before, particularly in the aftermath of the 2008 and 2009 crisis, I know that it is one thing to say that we need a big programme of public works and quite another to have shovel-ready projects. There is one massive shovel-ready project ready to go: HS2, the biggest infrastructure project in Europe. The Government have already let £16 billion-worth of contracts for the first phase of HS2 from London to Birmingham. More than 10,000 people are employed. More than 200 construction sites are in operation, with HS2 staff on them. That is almost all of the construction sites for HS2—they have been specially prepared with social distancing and the other measures needed to ensure that the work can proceed.
It is very clear what we need to do: we should accelerate the building of HS2 north of Birmingham. Legislation is before your Lordships to take the line up to Crewe. The detailed route planning has been done through to Manchester and Leeds. We should take the advice of Martin Sandbu, the FT columnist, in his excellent new book The Economics of Belonging. He argues that we should take a leaf out of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s book of the 1930s and have an equivalent approach to that of the Tennessee Valley Authority. We should accelerate the building of HS2 to Manchester and Leeds; legislation should come before this House to get the line all the way up to Manchester and Leeds by 2030. We should get on with it.
At the end of this debate, the Minister has a golden opportunity to agree to that, and to unleash the huge constructive potential of HS2 to generate tens of thousands of jobs across the country, and, ultimately, even to take it up to where the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, lives, in Scotland.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP) [V]
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, for two reasons: on getting the debate, but also on her excellent opening speech. She used a phrase that I was going to use: this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We need transformation and it absolutely cannot wait.
The coronavirus crisis has shown us how the Government can move heaven and earth when they listen to scientists, put ideology aside and go all out to avoid disaster. There is a lot that Ministers can learn from this response and carry forward for the climate and ecological emergencies that we face.
The Government must put net-zero carbon targets at the heart of their economic policy. The Treasury should be required to produce carbon budgets for every single economic policy, showing how they will contribute to the Paris climate goals. We must stop propping up failing, planet-destroying companies with tax incentives and cheap borrowing. We have done far too much of that already in this crisis.
A green new deal is needed that can reshape our economy and create good, and secure jobs that enrich our lives, communities and planet. Right now, the Government could provide access to online training and learning for all jobseekers and furloughed workers, to develop skills and knowledge for the green economy.
Greening our homes is still way overdue. Alongside grants and interest-free loans, the Government should abolish VAT on home improvements. We are all spending a lot more time at home; let us make it easier and more affordable to make our homes greener, comfier, and more beautiful places to live and work. To all those sceptics who say, “How much will this cost?”, I say: how much will it cost us if we do not do it?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con) [V]
I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, on her contribution to the debate, and thank her for encouraging me to speak, as a member of Peers for the Planet. I am an unusual member because, as a businesswoman of long standing—I refer to my register of interests—I am essentially practical. I question the wisdom of virtue signalling and I argue for all countries to play their part, so that we are not disadvantaged economically.
I want to make practical progress on plastic. The crisis has shown that it is the magical substance that its inventors found it to be: flexible, light, clean, cheap and indestructible. It is being put to great use in PPE, ventilators, contactless payment and screens in shops, but the scale of indestructible plastic use has been a growing worry for years, and the crisis is creating an even larger mountain of plastic waste. As we know from experience, this will clutter watercourses and reach the sea, where it will mass in hotspots and have a devastating effect on wildlife and fisheries.
Can we use the crisis to introduce reform in the UK, and to dispense with the patchwork of different systems that I see when I move from Wiltshire to Southwark? There must be a single system of bins for both household and business waste, and a single, clear post-Brexit system of labelling, showing what can be recycled and what cannot. With an advertising campaign of the kind that the Government have pioneered on Covid, citizens and business will get behind recycling. There have been literally years of consultation on different schemes and taxes, and mixed signals from different departments, but mountains have grown, and we have witnessed an unacceptable delay in bringing in a single system to encourage the right consumer behaviour. As others have said, Covid gives us an opportunity, here and elsewhere, to change the paradigm.
Baroness Blower (Lab) [V]
My Lords, a fairer, cleaner and more sustainable economy in a more equal and socially just society cannot just be an aspiration: it must be seen as critical to our survival. We must build back better. This debate is indeed timely, with many people thinking that a target of 2030 rather than 2050 to be carbon neutral is actually needed. The situation of lockdown will have caused mental and emotional health difficulties for many. These came on top of pre-existing, deep-seated fears—in particular, but not exclusively, among young people—about the climate emergency. However, many will have walked and cycled in streets free of traffic and breathed cleaner air than for many years. New plans must be put in place to limit road traffic and ensure that there is not a return to the massive use of the car.
Nelson Mandela said:
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”.
But, as one noble Lord said earlier, a change in education is needed, too, to ensure that we have a focus on the climate emergency and on sustainability in our classrooms and lecture halls. We also have the opportunity to help young people, with projects such as Imagine 2030 being run in Hammersmith and Fulham, to help people look at what changes are needed and how they can help to make them.
The TUC has focused in its report not just on equality issues, vital though they are, but on the need for a plan towards net zero carbon, with a just transition for workers across the economy, rebuilding the UK’s industrial capacity but on the basis of what a carbon-neutral economy and society actually needs. This will require investment in education and training at all levels and will offer a real chance for a more positive future, rather than the dystopian vision foreshadowed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, in her opening remarks, if we do not act.
Lord Razzall (LD) [V]
My Lords, the Motion calls for a fairer, cleaner and more sustainable economy: three separate goals, all of which I endorse. As for fairness, we all seem to agree that we cannot simply go back to the world we had before. With at least 10% unemployment forecast by the Bank of England and even more by the OECD, there is no doubt that young people will be the worst hit. It is generally accepted—perhaps the Minister can confirm it—that the apprentice scheme needs to be extended and become universal.
I also wonder, with the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, whether this is the time to contemplate the introduction of a universal basic income. This concept has a lengthy and not entirely utopian origin: although it started with Thomas More’s Utopia, it was taken up by Tom Paine and ended up with the approval of the monetarist Milton Friedman. Even President Trump has introduced legislation giving $1,200 per adult under certain income limits. Is it not time to look at this here?
As for a cleaner economy, we have all welcomed the clearer air as a result of lockdown. I support all the proposals of my noble friend Lady Randerson, but is this not also the time to bring forward the date for the scrapping of diesel cars from 2040 and to introduce a scrappage scheme for existing cars? In addition to the climate benefit this would provide, it would also provide a boost to the hard-hit car industry, with an encouragement for hybrid and electric cars.
Finally, as for a more sustainable economy, we must increase investment in green technology. One of the great achievements of the coalition was Vince Cable’s introduction of the Green Investment Bank in 2012: before the sale to Macquarie in 2017, £12 billion had been invested in UK projects. The Government must ensure that significant sums are now invested in green technologies, including, of course, hydrogen projects, in which Germany has recently announced a €9 billion investment. The concern, of course, is that hydrogen investment will be significantly less attractive now that we are leaving the EU’s single energy market at the end of December—yet another own goal by the Government.
Lord Woolf (CB) [V]
My Lords, I refer to my entry in the register of interests and I start, as others have started, by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, on obtaining this debate, which has produced such excellent speeches. Of the subjects she raised, I shall focus on fairness. Without seeking to detract in any way from the horror of the disease, I note that Covid has helped to expose the lack of equality that exists between different sections of our society. There is the black minority and other discriminated minorities, the disabled, the elderly and the deprived members of our society, and indirectly there is the education of our children. Individually and cumulatively, these consequences are not only unfair but arguably result in contraventions of the Human Rights Act and damage society.
When I was a High Court judge, a small book was produced and made available by the Government with the title The Judge Over Your Shoulder. The picture on the cover was of a very frightening judge—I do not know whether it was a caricature of myself. I do know that it was intended to convey to civil servants that what they were doing could be breaching the law, and judges could intervene to prevent this happening. This is exactly what judges are doing and have been doing for more than 20 years now. However, the judiciary can intervene only if a member of society or a public interest body makes an application to the court to seek relief.
I do not want to encourage litigation, and this can be avoided if the Government and officials comply with the law. To achieve this, it is healthy for administrators to know that there is a judge looking over their shoulder. However, the courts can perform their role only if applications are made to them. Unfortunately, it is increasingly difficult for judges to do this. This point was strongly emphasised by the Equality and Human Rights Commission in a letter it wrote to me just two days ago which said:
“We’re here to stand up for freedom, compassion and justice in our changing times. We do it by promoting equality and human rights ideals and laws across the nation. Our work is driven by a simple belief; if everyone gets a fair chance in life, we all thrive.”
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con) [V]
My Lords, I declare my interests in the register and join others in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, on calling this very timely debate and introducing it so eloquently. Environmental sustainability must lie at the heart of any government policy. The results following the Covid-19 lockdown have been dramatic and the OECD report this week, which other noble Lords have referred to, highlighted the potential damage to the UK.
I welcome alternative means of transport to work, particularly walking and cycling. In their much-heralded and promised review of cycling strategy, I hope that the Government will use their good offices—I urge my noble friend the Minister in responding today to do so—to address the legal loophole which is also in my Private Member’s Bill on road traffic offences, and set penalties for road traffic offences caused by cyclists and riders of e-scooters. Currently, deaths and serious injuries caused by cyclists, such as in the tragic loss of Kim Briggs, do not attract the same penalties as those for other road users. This is the legal loophole I seek to address, where death or injury is caused by their actions, and I hope that we can move forward. I note that many countries have banned e-scooters on safety grounds, and I hope that the Government will be mindful of that when they address this issue.
Covid provides an opportunity to address the balance between rural and urban economies—in particular, access to internet and mobile phone signals. So often, poor mobile phone signals and poor connectivity hold rural businesses and farmers back: they need the tools to do their job.
Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD) [V]
My Lords, in partnership with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, the Greater Manchester local enterprise partnership has launched the Build Back Better campaign, an initiative that sets out to build back the economy and create a better opportunity for a strong and successful recovery from Covid-19. Among the emerging themes are the need to embed good employment practices and deliver a sustainable low-carbon and green economy across the Manchester city region.
In Greater Manchester, 30% of households do not have access to a car, so public transport and a city region’s ability to shape its networks are essential to prevent people being left behind figuratively and literally. The Clean Air plan can form an important part of Greater Manchester’s post-lockdown recovery, cleaning up our commercial vehicles and providing bus operators and taxi drivers with the necessary funding to move to a modern green fleet. We are finally beginning to understand the value of the working classes—the drivers, delivery men, refuse men and council workers. They should be given the best employment rights in the world.
However, this is all aspirational; we need real powers devolved to deliver these things. Those powers—in transport and planning—have been outlined by other speakers today. City regions understand what city people need. We need support from the Government. It is not always top-down; sometimes we on the ground understand the needs of our communities. The sooner the Government get that and begin to devolve real powers to real city regions—that was the deal when we all signed up for them—the sooner we, all around this country, can deliver the services that our communities demand and which, at the end of Covid, will surely give us a better society for all.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab) [V]
My Lords, like others, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lady Hayman for introducing this debate in such an excellent way.
What is Covid-19 about? Fundamentally, it is about cutting our numbers. What is climate change about unless we respond to that challenge? It is about cutting the numbers of the world’s population. The issue has not been raised so far in the debate today. As I see it, at the heart of our problem is our human desire to acquire more and get bigger—to multiply and to grow, particularly materially, and as quickly as possible. I think nature is now hitting back.
We have triggered a steep rise in the population of our species; in the last 200,000 years it had barely moved. The Duke of Edinburgh celebrated his near-century birthday yesterday. In 1918, the population of the world was 1.8 billion. It is now 7.8 billion. The projection is that, by 2030, it will be in the order of 8.5 billion, yet scientists tell us that there is no way that the planet can sustain this continued growth. When we went into lockdown, I sent a Written Question asking what the Government are doing to try to restrain the growth in world population and, if possible, reverse it. I had a helpful reply about efforts to assist with contraception in many parts of the world, but we need more than that—much more. Covid-19 is just the first of many hits coming our way unless we address the fundamental issue of trying to bring all the parties together—churches and everyone involved with the growth in population—to seek a change in the direction in which we are going.
Lord Kirkham (Con) [V]
My Lords, at a time of nationwide stress, sorrow and bereavement, it may seem crass to point out the upsides of Covid-19. But they are real enough; not least in the cleaner air and cleaner waters we have seen pictured across the world, from Venice to Beijing by way of the Himalayas. People are, of course, wasting less, walking and cycling more, supporting local shops and, above all, caring for each other.
The pandemic has effectively pressed a reset button on how we think and act, presenting a unique opportunity to change ourselves permanently for the better. It would be utter folly not to seize that opportunity. The pandemic has created the greatest economic challenge of my lifetime—“a total catastrophe”, as my noble friend Lord Forsyth described it—but as we take on the monumental task of rebuilding our economy, why would we not grasp the opportunity to do so in a greener way that tries to protect the natural environment? Why would we not seek to stimulate the creation of new jobs in green industries such as renewable energy? Why would we not invest in better home insulation, greener new housing, the development of hybrid- fuel aircraft or the national rollout of superfast fibre broadband?
We could even free up our frustrating, snail’s-pace planning system. The public clearly accept that something must be done. Opinion polls show solid support for ensuring that our post-Covid recovery is a green one, and revolution is most definitely unnecessary to achieve that ambition. Accelerated evolution with the encouragement of the entrepreneurial spirit will do the trick. I earnestly believe that we must build back, and build back better, to ensure that the next chapter in our national story is greener, cleaner, stronger, fairer and more caring than the one we are leaving behind. I caution, however, that this should not be at any cost. We must retain perspective: urgent action to save and create jobs is vital.
Baroness Crawley (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, on securing this debate. I begin with a couple of general points. There is no way out of the worst economic crisis in living memory if the Government do not reject their magical thinking of pre-Covid days. Tax rises will need to happen from old and new sources, austerity must be shown the door and sustainability and diversity must be our watchwords. The Bank of England will not be able to just keep printing money; that way lies Argentina. The OECD prediction of the UK having economic shrinkage of 11%, even without a second spike, must surely send a red alert to our EU negotiations. As noble Lords have said, a new national consensus on investing in our public transport, our public services, our young people and our green, clean future has to be number one on the Government’s to-do list.
I have one more specific point. It is 50 years since the Equal Pay Act received Royal Assent. The IFS states that mothers are more likely to have quit for family reasons, lost their jobs or been furloughed since lockdown. They are the majority in the current shut-down sectors, and their jobs’ futures are as fragile as feminism in a Trump White House. What hope can the Government give to prevent women becoming Covid afterthoughts?
Baroness Bull (CB)
My Lords, the palpable improvement in air quality over the past three months has been the silver lining in the Covid cloud. In London, there has been an average fall in nitrogen dioxide levels of 26%, with even greater reductions in some of the capital’s traffic hotspots. Across the UK, some cities have seen reductions of up to 60% compared with the same period last year.
We will all benefit from this given the well-evidenced connection between air pollution and physical, as well as mental, health, but a study from Harvard has uncovered important links between air quality and Covid-19. It found that even a small increase in long-term exposure to fine particulate matter—the main source of which is vehicle emissions—leads to an 8% increase in the Covid-19 death rate. This is of particular relevance as we think about not just a cleaner economy post Covid but a fairer one.
Air pollution inequalities are mainly an urban problem, with research finding higher levels of pollution in the UK’s most deprived neighbourhoods and in areas with a population more than 20% non-white. This means that ethnically diverse communities are, in general, exposed to higher levels of air pollution, increasing their already greater susceptibility to Covid-19. It is therefore surprising that this aspect of risk was not addressed in the recent Public Health England report on the disproportionate impact of the disease on our black, Asian and minority ethnic populations.
Can the Minister tell us whether the Government have plans to design differentiated recovery strategies for those areas more heavily affected by poor air? Cleaning up these pollution hotspots would not just maintain the unanticipated gains in air quality; it would help to tackle some of the UK’s most stubborn and persistent health inequalities. Levelling up is a laudable aim and one I support, but it cannot just mean rebalancing between north and south, urban and rural. It must also mean addressing the inequalities rife within our cities.
Lord Wei (Con) [V]
My Lords, I declare my interests as in the register. Like other speakers, it is surprising to me—or perhaps not—that this year’s lockdown may have done as much to reduce the impact of human behaviour on the climate as almost any other thing that we have tried to do in previous years. I find that curious. As a previous speaker mentioned, there could also be a link on the health side between pollution and those most affected by Covid.
Climate change is often presented as being in opposition to jobs and the economy. On one level, I do not blame the Government for focusing on getting the economy going in the short term and not necessarily taking a climate-orientated approach; whether we sell diesel cars or electric cars, people need jobs, and the Government will have to do a lot to get everyone working. However, I had a thought recently when I looked into the origin of the pandemic and our response, which made me wonder whether there is another way to attack this issue as we rebuild our economy and look at climate change—and how we can mitigate it—afresh: looking at resilience as a uniting theme.
As a country, we now know that we are vulnerable in terms of health and what is going on with the planet, as well as in business, because our many supply chains all over the world have been shown to be fragile. In future, we should make the goal not just to help the planet from a climate perspective or to create jobs and get the economy going at whatever cost, but to focus on how to make sure that this never happens again. How do we ensure that however many millions of people are never at risk of losing their jobs because those jobs are primarily physical or, perhaps even worse, easily automatable? How do we ensure that our transport networks continue to support the country in future lockdowns? Can the Minister address this in her reply and talk about how the economy recovery plan will build a more resilient economy and society in future?
Lord Desai (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I have a concrete radical suggestion. Covid has proved that our way of doing politics, especially parliamentary business, cannot be restored to how it was. Whatever we do about decanting from the Palace of Westminster and restoring it, we cannot move back into it permanently. We must immediately and urgently commission the building of a new Parliament as soon as possible. That would make possible the latest electronic and other facilities that have been so brilliantly and quickly introduced to this Parliament. Let us make Parliament socially distanced, so that people may sit next to each other with proper desks, proper distances and proper equipment, and so that people living in remote areas of the United Kingdom do not have to travel all the way here to be part of Parliament. Let us build a modern, roomy and technologically well-equipped Parliament that decentralises the politics of the UK.
Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick (CB)
My Lords, my gratitude goes to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, for allowing us to discuss fairness and sustainability in the same conversation.
I will focus on fairness, with two particular themes. First, as a result of this pandemic, many companies have decided that well over a million graduate placements or internship opportunities should be cancelled and removed from their working opportunity. Just as the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, said, this trashes the generation coming after us. I cannot understand why certain sectors have thrived in the course of the last 10 weeks to four months of this pandemic and therefore ask the Minister to give us clarity on that. The tech sector and anyone involved in food retail, distribution, health equipment, pharmaceuticals, any aspect of microengineering and, of course, computerisation and mobile have all boosted their massive profits and incomes legitimately. Surely they could mop up the internships and graduate work necessary to protect more than a million young people from coming out of university and finding there is no sustainable work for them. Will the Minister commit to rounding up the chief executives of those companies and requiring them to mop up the places left behind by other businesses?
Secondly, on fairness, this is the week of George Floyd’s funeral. One great aspect of unfairness that remains in our society is the unique way in which black and ethnic minority people are harassed by our public services, particularly the police. If we are to have a fair society, we need sound experimentation in ending stop and search and seeing whether that delivers better criminal outcomes. After all, the tension on our streets will not go away unless a fair future is available to those people as well.
Lord Oates (LD) [V]
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, for initiating this critical debate and I thank noble Lords for their important contributions.
I do not always agree with the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, but I agree 100% with him that an urgent two-day debate on the economy is critical and that it is extraordinary that this has not happened already. I might not agree with everything that the noble Lord would say in that debate but the idea that he, and almost every other noble Lord, is limited to two minutes in debates on issues as important as this is absurd. I hope that the House of Lords Commission will look at this again.
How we respond to the impact of the Covid-19 crisis and rebuild our economy in its wake could not be more important. After all the sacrifices that have been made, after all the suffering that has been endured and after all that we have witnessed of the heroism of our front-line workers, this is not a moment to return to business as usual. It is a moment for a profound rethink about what we value in our society and how we can rebuild our economy to reflect those values.
Do we want to continue with an economy and society in which 10% of the population holds 50% of the wealth while NHS staff and care workers struggle to make ends meet, where 4.2 million children were living in relative poverty in 2019 and where the IFS expects that number to rise to 5.2 million by 2022? Do we want to continue with an economy and society in which 45% of children from black and minority ethnic groups live in poverty, compared with 30% of the population as a whole and 26% of the children of white British families, and where 72% of children growing up in poverty live in a household where at least one parent works? Do we want to continue with an economy in which not only are poorer people living shorter lives but, as research suggests, life expectancy is going down for some? Do we want to continue with an economy that fails to transform itself to tackle the climate crisis, misses the economic opportunities to lead the way on green technology and condemns future generations to an impoverished economy laden with stranded assets and trapped in feedback loops that destroy wealth and endanger our planet?
Those are the questions that we must answer. If the Government go back to business as usual, it will be clear that their answer is, “Yes, that is what we want.”—or, at least, that is what they will tolerate as a price for maintaining the status quo, although, as we know, it is future generations who will end up picking up the bill. I do not think that this is what the British people want, and I hope that it will not be the direction in which the Government travel. We have much work to do to tackle the challenges posed by pre-existing structural injustices in our economy, which are now being compounded by the impacts of the Covid-19 crisis: the lack of social mobility across our society; gender, racial and intergenerational wealth disparities; the discrimination that still exists in the workplace and with regard to access to capital; and the desperate plight of many of those on universal credit.
Yesterday, the Social Mobility Commission published its report on the government response to its recommendations over the past seven years. It marked the Government’s responses to 76% of its recommendations as either red or amber—that is, that the Government had made either little or no progress or insufficient progress towards meeting them. The Government had met less than a quarter of its recommendations in full. The report notes that social mobility has never been more important, as the young and the poor will suffer most from the economic downturn as a result of Covid.
However, despite the rhetoric of government that it intends to level up opportunity, it is not acting to make its words a reality. If we are to build a dynamic and sustainable economy, it will be critical that we improve social mobility and remove additional obstacles facing BAME communities. Sadly, the Government’s record in that respect is no more encouraging. Their response to most of the recommendations in the report on Race in the Workplace by the noble Baroness, Lady McGregor-Smith, was one of either obfuscation or rejection—another opportunity to show that black lives matter was not taken.
Likewise, as we rebuild after Covid, we need to recognise the role of SMEs as the backbone of our economy. They need continued access to capital and protection from the frequent failures of the banking sector to provide the support they need. SMEs are particularly to the economy for BAME communities and often find access to capital the hardest. The Government must give clear direction to the banks that, after all the assistance provided to them in the banking crisis, they now need to assist in supporting the productive economy.
It is critical that we get these things right as a country, and it is equally critical that the steps we take to emerge from the Covid crisis are rooted in delivering a green recovery and a sustainable green economy for the future. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said, if we do not act decisively now, the climate crisis will deliver an increasingly dystopian future for all of us the world over. We have to use this crisis to accelerate our progress towards net zero.
I welcome the fact that the Government have placed themselves under a statutory obligation to meet the net-zero target by 2050. But the truth is that we are nowhere near taking the policy steps necessary to achieve the objective. The Government have to accept that their words will become increasingly hollow if they do not start to match them with actions. To date, the Government seem determined to pursue an approach that seems to be a combination of Saint Paul,
“the good that I would I do not”,
and Saint Augustine,
“Lord, make me chaste—but not yet.”
We cannot afford for this approach to continue. Meeting our obligations under the Paris agreement will be incredibly challenging in any event. We therefore cannot afford to waste a moment in seeking to tackle them.
An immediate step, which was raised by a number of noble Lords, is the need for an urgent programme to start retrofitting our existing housing stock, which contributes about 15% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions. This would not only tackle climate impacts but would be a source of employment across the whole of the country. It should be a priority for the Government’s green recovery plan, and I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us what concrete steps the Government are planning in this regard.
Equally, we cannot go on building homes that do not meet zero-carbon standards. My noble friend Lord Stunell introduced such a policy of zero-carbon homes during the coalition Government only to see it scrapped by the Government that followed. As a result, we are allowing developers to profit from building properties that are not fit for purpose, while handing on a bill for the future. As the climate change committee has made clear, if we do not tackle the energy efficiency of existing housing stock and new build, we have absolutely no prospect of meeting our zero-carbon objective. We also need to look at the sort of innovative district local heating schemes raised by my noble friend Lady Walmsley and other noble Lords.
The UK’s cutting-edge capacity in research and development, which the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, highlighted, offers us the opportunity to ensure that the UK is a leader, not a laggard, in building a productive and competitive green economy. However, as my noble friend Lord Shipley said, if we are to take advantage of that capacity, government will need to think hard about how it supports investment, research and innovation. Clean hydrogen is one area where the UK has the opportunity to lead the world, but it will require government investment to support research into scaling up cost-effective production through electrolysis from renewable energy sources. Tackling the challenge of producing cost-effective green hydrogen will be vital to tackle climate change, and we need government to take a much more committed and focused approach in that regard.
There is so much we need to do across every area of government if we are to build a fair, clean and sustainable economy. Above all, it will require a massive shift in the mindset of the Treasury and the Government as a whole. The Government have to recognise that the debt we have incurred and will continue to incur over the period of this crisis has to be managed for the long term, that we need significant investment to build the new green economy, and that any return to austerity will betray our people, exacerbate our economic challenges and do nothing to transform our economy.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, on securing this debate, and thank her for her excellent speech, which put forward real policies backed by evidence that not only is it possible to achieve a fairer, cleaner and more sustainable economy but that it is the right thing to do.
This is the third debate on the economic recovery post-Covid-19 in the last three weeks, and I thank all concerned for their contributions. This third debate takes us into the strategies that could contribute to a fairer, cleaner, and more sustainable economy here and, as the noble Lords, Lord Duncan and Lord Hannay, reminded us, through our international co-operation to greater effect.
It has been an excellent and wide-ranging debate, even although individual contributions have been severely curtailed. As the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said, even taken together, we miss out when individual contributions to debates are so limited in time, and speaker numbers are so restricted. Your Lordships’ House has a lot to offer, and we should be heard.
On a fairer economy, my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe suggested that we had to think about the economy in wider terms than just GDP, and I agree. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, mentioned the recent IFS review of inequalities, which argues persuasively that the Covid-19 pandemic has brought existing inequalities in our society to the fore. As the noble Lord, Lord Birt, and other noble Lords reminded us, it says that it also risks exacerbating them.
Among the risks the report identifies are, as the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, pointed out, a widening in wage and employment inequalities. In the short run, it is overwhelmingly the low earners who are in shut-down sectors, being furloughed and at risk of unemployment. In the longer run, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford said, more reliance on technology and working from home could favour the more highly educated at the expense of others.
There has been a widening in health inequalities. In the short run, the crisis appears to have widened even further the gap in death rates between better-off and less-affluent neighbourhoods.
There has been a widening in ethnic inequalities. Some minority ethnic groups, especially those of Pakistani or Bangladeshi origin, are much more likely than others to work in shut-down sectors. Black groups are disproportionately represented in key worker occupations and, sadly, have been contracting Covid-19 at far higher rates than the white majority.
There has been a widening in generational inequalities. As my noble friend Lord Blunkett said, those leaving school or university this year will enter the toughest labour market in more than a generation, and workers under 25 are twice as likely as those over 25 to work in locked-down sectors.
The noble Baroness, Lady Burt, mentioned a widening in gender inequalities. The additional childcare and housework, as people stay at home and schools and nurseries are closed, has inevitably fallen far more on mothers than on fathers. There must be a risk that this disproportionately inhibits work and career progression for mothers, when progress in closing the gender wage gap had already stalled.
There has also been a widening in educational inequalities. The report points out that private schools are almost twice as likely to be providing online teaching as the state schools attended by children from the fifth most deprived families. So there is a long way to go for a fairer economy.
A cleaner, more sustainable economy is also a challenge that we can no longer afford to ignore. Last week, almost 200 chief executives, from companies including HSBC, National Grid and BP, signed a letter to the Prime Minister, which said:
“Efforts to rescue and repair the economy in response to the current crisis can and should be aligned with the UK’s … target of net zero emissions by 2050 at the latest.”
As the CCC chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said in a recent letter to the Prime Minister, recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic means investing in new jobs, cleaner air and improved health. The actions needed to tackle climate change are central to rebuilding our economy. The Government must prioritise actions that reduce climate risks and avoid measures that lock in higher emissions. The Committee on Climate Change’s advice to the Government is that actions to recover from the pandemic, in all UK nations, should be based on six resilience principles, which are worth looking back at.
We should use climate investors to support recovery and jobs; these should be labour-intensive, spread across the UK and ready to roll out as part of a targeted and timely stimulus package. We should lead a shift towards positive long-term behaviours. The Government can lead the way by introducing new social norms that benefit well-being, improve productivity and reduce emissions—this goes back to the point about not relying so much on GDP. There should be strong policies to reduce the UK’s vulnerability to the destructive risks of climate change, and to avoid a disorderly transition to net-zero carbon. There will be more worldwide floods and other climate change difficulties, and we must prepare for them.
We should embed fairness as a core principle—this goes back to the earlier point about the fair economy. The benefits of acting on climate change must be shared widely, but the costs must not burden those who are least able to pay, or whose livelihoods are more at risk as the economy changes. As they kick-start the economy, the Government should avoid locking in higher emissions or increased vulnerability to climate change in the longer term. Support for carbon-intensive sectors should be contingent on their taking real and lasting action on climate change, and all new investments, whether supported by the Government or not, should be resilient to future climate risks. As the CCC chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said in a recent letter to the Prime Minister, the Government should use the funding that they are currently giving to companies to force behaviour changes in support of a greener economy.
Finally on this list, we should strengthen incentives to reduce emissions when looking at tax changes. This is a matter for the Government, and they must take it seriously. Revenue could be raised by setting or raising carbon prices for sectors of the economy which do not bear the full costs of emitting greenhouse gases. Global oil prices provide an opportunity to increase carbon taxes without hurting consumers at the present time.
If we want to build a fairer economy, we need to recognise that people are not affected equally by the Covid-19 pandemic, either in the immediate risk to health or in the negative social and economic consequences. In particular, some minority-ethnic groups, people in certain key worker occupations, and those in low-income jobs, are often at much greater risk, and of course these groups often overlap. Does the Minister agree that the immediate policy response should take steps to address these inequalities, and that we need to understand and mitigate the underlying systemic and institutional factors that can underpin them?
Today’s debate has come up with a huge range of ideas about what a green new deal would look like in practice. We should expect to see an army of workers planting trees, building wetlands around our countryside, retrofitting insulation of our existing housing stock and office buildings, working on new green technologies, and expanding the digital capacity of the country. This is all good stuff, but what about a scrappage scheme focused on switching private and public transport to electric vehicles, and, as others have suggested, local heating schemes and more, and more systemic, recycling approaches? Taken together, such a package could provide people—particularly those entering the labour force this year—with much-needed job security after a period of turmoil, and benefit everyone’s financial security through lower energy bills.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said, possibly the most important task must be for the Government to stop the piecemeal, incoherent approach that we have seen in policy-making in this area so far. Can the Minister confirm that this is on her agenda? At heart, this boils down to the Government coming up with a fair green rescue plan to drive up demand and reduce business uncertainty in the long term—a strategy which focuses on creating a fair society with good employment derived from sustainable investment and cleaner growth.
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their words of welcome. My first appearance at the virtual Dispatch Box was to answer a Question from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, on building a fair, clean and more sustainable recovery. It is therefore a particular pleasure that I am able to respond to a full debate on such an important subject. I add my words of congratulation to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, on securing it.
That I can respond from a physical rather than a virtual Dispatch Box, albeit one protected by a wipe-down plastic box, is a sign of the small steps that we have been able to take to ease social distancing measures and begin the process of carefully reopening our country and our economy. There is, of course, a huge distance still to travel. As we do so, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Oates, that we cannot simply seek to go back to business as usual, but should take the opportunities from some of the very difficult and disruptive changes that this virus has brought about to do things differently —to build a recovery strategy that will contribute to a fairer, cleaner and more sustainable economy.
The first step towards doing so has been to put in place measures to protect people’s livelihoods and the economy while we have taken measures to control the virus. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, has noted, it is precisely because this disease is not a great leveller, but instead affects some of the most disadvantaged in our society in the most profound ways, that the scale of government action has been so great. Under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, £19.6 billion has been claimed by businesses to support 8.9 million furloughed jobs. Some 2.6 million people have made claims for a total of £7.5 billion under the self-employment scheme, and over 780,000 bounceback loans have been approved, worth over £23 billion. Nearly 2 million people have been granted mortgage holidays. The Government have increased the value of universal credit and the local housing allowance, and provided £3 million for accommodation for rough sleepers. Importantly, we are now translating that into funding for over 3,300 homes, to make that transition off the streets permanent.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, noted, it is not just the scale of the action that has been unprecedented but the speed at which these programmes have been set up and able to put money into people’s pockets. At a human level, it has provided a layer of security for people at a very difficult and uncertain time. Economically, it has been essential to efforts to reduce the long-term impact of this pandemic and minimise the chances of future economic scarring. I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, that we are not complacent about those prospects; we will not be able to protect every job or business, but we know that the costs of inaction would be far greater.
We also know that, as we turn our thoughts from immediate protections to rebuilding our economy, we must focus our energies on ensuring that it is one in which everybody has the opportunity to thrive, while driving clean and sustainable growth across all regions of the UK. Noble Lords will know that, last year, we became the first country to legislate to end our contribution to climate change by 2050. We remain more committed than ever to that goal, and, next November, the UK will host the 26th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, in Glasgow.
This year’s spring Budget reinforced the UK’s strong track record in this area. Announcements included £460 million for tree-planting and peatland restoration, over £1 billion of further support for ultra-low emission vehicles, at least doubling funding for energy innovation, and tax measures to encourage greater energy efficiency and reduce plastic waste. We have already committed £2 billion for cycling and walking over the course of this Parliament, to support our ambition to encourage more people to opt for these greener modes of transport.
This week, we held our first recovery round tables, bringing together businesses, business representative groups and leading academics to consider measures to support economic recovery and ensure that we have the right skills and opportunities in place for our workforce over the next 18 months. These round tables cover five key themes, including ensuring a green recovery, capturing economic growth opportunities from the shift to net-zero carbon emissions, increasing opportunity and levelling up economic performance across the UK through skills and apprenticeships.
I should now like to turn to some of the specific points made by noble Lords. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, set out very well, the challenge before us is to restart the economy but without returning to the previous levels of carbon emissions. We must put a green recovery at the heart of government and I reassure noble Lords that climate change plays a central role in government decision-making. We have already legislated to end our contribution to global warming by 2050 and a number of government measures embed that approach. Under the Climate Change Act, the UK is the first country to set legally binding carbon budgets that limit the total amount of greenhouse gases emitted over a five-year period. We have the Green Book guidance for evaluating and appraising the policies of the Budget and the spending review. They account for the cost of extra carbon emissions as well as the wider social costs and benefits of a project. We are reviewing that Green Book and the process for allocating spending to ensure that all the regions and nations of the UK have the opportunity to spread and drive growth.
We will seek to take action across all sectors of our economy, and a number of noble Lords raised the energy sector. Renewable electricity generation has more than quadrupled since 2010. It now gives us 38.9% of our total electricity and for the first time exceeds the share of generation from gas. Using research and innovation to reduce the costs of meeting net zero will be essential and will put the UK at the forefront of the new technologies needed to decarbonise the economy. The Spring Budget therefore committed to at least doubling the size of the Energy Innovation Programme. We will also create a carbon capture and storage infrastructure fund to establish this technology in at least two sites by 2030.
The noble Lord, Lord Risby, and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, talked about heating, which accounts for 18% of our emissions. We will need to get that to virtually zero if we are to meet our climate change targets. To support this transition and future-proof our infrastructure, the Government committed in the Spring Budget to over £400 million of new funding for low-carbon heat pumps and heat networks and are consulting on improving standards in new homes.
A number of noble Lords raised transport. As I said, to encourage greener modes of transport, we have introduced a £250 million emergency active travel fund so that people can use cycle and walking routes while public transport is more difficult for them to use during this pandemic. This will encourage them not to return immediately to their cars. The Government have also committed to ambitious targets to increase zero-emission vehicles on the roads and are consulting on bringing forward the phasing out of the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2035 to 2040. On air quality, the Spring Budget allocated an additional £304 million to enable local authorities to take immediate steps to reduce nitrogen dioxide emissions, bringing the total funding to £880 million.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and the right reverend Prelate were right to say that we must embrace not only new technologies in transport but new ways of working, to reduce the demand for transport. To do that, we must recognise that the digital infrastructure is just as important as our physical infrastructure. The Government’s existing superfast broadband programme has shifted its focus to delivering gigabit-capable broadband and has already delivered full fibre to more than 370,000 premises.
On biodiversity, as promised in our manifesto, the Government will invest £640 million in England to plant more than 40 million trees and restore 35,000 hectares of peatland. The 2019 spending round included an extra £30 million for biodiversity measures, and the Government are providing up to £25 million of match funding to help communities to create and enhance wildlife-rich habitats through the Nature Recovery Network.
On climate finance, last year we launched the Government’s Green Finance Strategy, with an ambition to align private sector financial flows with clean, environmentally sustainable and resilient growth and to strengthen the competitiveness of the UK financial sector. We have also worked with the City of London to launch the Green Finance Institute to cement the UK’s position as a global hub for green finance.
As noble Lords have noted, we cannot meet this challenge on our own and, as I said, the UK is hosting COP 26 next year. In the run-up to November 2021, the UK as host will continue to work with all involved to increase our climate action, build resilience and lower emissions. The new date will also allow the UK and our Italian partners to harness our upcoming G7 and G20 presidencies to drive our climate ambitions. Last year, the Prime Minister committed to doubling the UK’s international climate finance to developing countries to turn the tide against climate change and species loss. The UK spend on climate finance over the past eight years has already helped 57 million people to cope with the effects of climate change. This ranges from support for poor farmers to grow climate-resilient crops to preserving water in areas facing an increased risk of drought, while investing in systems to help communities affected by extreme flooding and other effects of climate change.
A fair recovery will also require international efforts to tackle Covid. The IMF predicts that global GDP will fall by 3% in 2020, while GDP in emerging markets and developing economies will fall by 1%. This would be the worst recession since the great depression and much worse than the 2008 financial crisis. It is also predicted that sub-Saharan Africa will experience its first recession in 25 years, and DfID modelling suggests that an additional 70 million people could end up living in extreme poverty. That is why the UK has redoubled its efforts on the international response to Covid. We have committed over £700 million in ODA-eligible spending to the Covid response as well as reprogramming existing country spending to this effort. We are the leading contributor in the G20 towards global efforts to produce a vaccine. Perhaps I may also reassure noble Lords that the sustainable development goals remain at the heart of our approach.
Moving on to the economy, we must also ensure that we build a fairer recovery at home. Noble Lords have raised the prospect of looming unemployment as the furlough scheme comes to an end. As my noble friend Lady Eaton said, green jobs will be essential to provide new opportunities for those affected and the Government are committed to working with local government on this. We also remain committed to bringing forward a devolution White Paper.
The noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, referred to the Taylor review and the forthcoming employment Bill. We are committed to bringing forward the reforms contained in that review. The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, spoke movingly about a new cadre of unpaid carers brought into being by Covid, while the noble Baronesses, Lady Crawley and Lady Burt, talked about the impact of the pandemic and the lockdown on mothers. I would like to reassure all noble Lords that the Government will keep the human face of recovery in the forefront of our minds, although I will have to disappoint the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and the noble Lord, Lord Razzall, on a universal basic income. I am just not able to make the promises that the noble Baroness asked for.
A number of noble Lords raised the tragic death of George Floyd in America and the protests that it has sparked here in the UK. They are not just about events abroad, but the racism and inequalities faced by black people here in this country. To build a fairer country, we must recognise that black lives matter. We must listen, engage, converse, reflect and, importantly, act. One of the tools that will help us to do so in government is the Race Disparity Audit. It shines a light on outcomes for different ethnicities. It is guided by the principle of “explain or change” and has already led to a programme of work by the DWP to tackle high unemployment rates in 20 hotspots; to taking forward the recommendations in the Timpson review of school exclusions; and to taking forward the recommendations in the Lammy review of the disproportionate treatment of and outcomes for black, Asian and minority ethnic individuals in the criminal justice system. However, I know that there is more to be done.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, and others have pointed out, the Public Health England review into Covid has shown the disparity of its impact on different ethnicities and communities and, as a number of other noble Lords noted, the disparities in its economic impact too. The Public Health England review is an important piece of work, which sets out firm conclusions. We are taking its initial findings very seriously. As the review makes clear, there is more to do to understand these disparities and what we can do to close the gap. We are determined to address them, and that is why the Equalities Minister will be taking forward important work to build on this review, including considering what changes might be required to future policy and existing guidance, as well as how data collection and quality can be improved.
A number of noble Lords raised how the current social distancing measures have impacted on our economy and on particular sectors as we move out of the lockdown. Perhaps I may reassure noble Lords that the two-metre rule is kept under constant review, including by looking at evidence from other countries. At the same time, noble Lords have talked about the careful balance between protecting our economy and protecting our health. These two are not mutually exclusive. The lockdown has had a significant impact on the country’s health, and the recovery will be held back if we face a second peak in infections, so this is a careful balance and we will continue to be guided by the science.
The contributions to the debate have highlighted the link between the impact of the Covid pandemic and the climate crisis on young people and our next generation; if we are not able to address both of these, we will have failed in the question of intergenerational fairness. Those contributions have provided rich food for thought as the Government develop our recovery plan and ensure that we do not fail that test. I once again thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, for securing this valuable debate.
Baroness Hayman
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister. I congratulate her on a comprehensive and indeed encouraging wind-up speech. My thanks go to everyone who has contributed and made this a rich and fascinating debate. It has been wide-ranging and covered an enormous number of subjects.
Despite that diversity, there are three themes that I would like to highlight which for me emerged as moral imperatives going forward. The first is the multiple inequalities in our society, and the fact that we will be able to say that we have succeeded only if we address them in the policies that we adopt. The second is the effect on the young, who are most at risk not only from the economic consequences of the pandemic but from the potential consequences of unmitigated climate change. My generation, the post-war generation, has had a golden life in many ways. We were not tested by war as our parents’ generation was but we have a test now, and that test is the legacy that we leave to our children and grandchildren.
The third theme is the need to rise to the scale of the challenges that we face and, perhaps above all in this excellent debate, to recognise that we will be judged not only on our words but on our actions.
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)
My Lords, we now come to the Question in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. A limited number of Members are here in the Chamber, respecting social distancing. If the capacity of the Chamber is exceeded, I will immediately adjourn the House. Other Members will participate remotely, but all Members will be treated equally, wherever they are. For Members participating remotely, microphones will unmute shortly before they are to speak; please accept any on-screen prompt to unmute. Microphones will be muted after each speech. I ask noble Lords to be patient if there are any short delays as we switch between physical and remote participants. I remind the House that our normal courtesies in debate still very much apply in this new hybrid way of working.
This is a time-limited debate; the time limit is one hour and speaking time is one minute. There is no spare time, so I invite all speakers to observe the one-minute limit.
Covid-19: Masks
(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Campbell-Savours
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to review their advice on the wearing of masks in public to address COVID-19.
Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab) [V]
My Lords, 14 weeks ago, I raised in the House the issue of masks. The Government’s response was to reject my case. I have repeatedly raised the issue. Meanwhile, nearly 60 countries worldwide have adopted mandatory mask wearing. During that period, we have registered the second-highest incidence worldwide of death and new cases. Indeed, today there are more cases in the UK, with a population of 67 million, than in the whole of Europe, with a population of 460 million. We are struggling in the UK against an avalanche of reported new cases—between 4,000 and 7,000 a day—and we have moved into second place worldwide for deaths per 1,000 of the population.
I am not arguing that our shocking record is down to PPE shortages, though I do argue that mask policy has been a major contributory factor. The Government’s whole approach to this pandemic has been riddled with miscalculation, misjudgment and mistake. Their errors in the case of the elderly, on PPE, on testing and in the dispersal of the elderly from hospitals to care homes—all unparalleled in medical history—have undoubtedly cost thousands of lives. Those responsible will never be forgiven—never.
Obsession with the herd, the abandonment of test and trace, reliance on Public Health England’s advice on testing and an early failure to take the big decisions have all contributed to this disaster. The sight last week, televised worldwide, of MPs lined up over a kilometre to vote in our Parliament has made us an international laughing stock. That is the background to this affair: the worst example of government incompetence in my political lifetime.
Last week, the policy on masks was finally rescinded. It would be churlish of me, despite what I have said, not to welcome this decision, limited as it is. I understand that, for many in government, the change would have been professionally embarrassing. One would hope that comments in the Lancet of 27 May, where it is stated that there is increasing evidence of aerosol spread of Covid-19, meaning that people further than two metres away are all at risk, help to strengthen their resolve. If that is so, why are the Government still so wedded to hesitant change at a time when the country is desperate for real action and resolve? The truth is that they should never have allowed procurement and supply to compromise their professional judgment. The policy change does not go far enough.
In setting out my case, I thank Mr Philip Collett of Banbury, who has been of invaluable help in carrying out my research. First, on the evidence of transmissibility in the absence of masks, there have been innumerable case reports. In the particularly interesting Hunan bus case in China in January, more than half the people infected were more than two metres away and three were infected at 4.5 metres. People wearing masks were not infected. In a call centre in South Korea, of 1,100 people tested, nearly 100 tested positive—that incident speaks for itself. On 10 March, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that one person in a choir in Skagit County, Washington, infected 53 choristers, of whom two died. The virus was spread by a superspreader. This well-documented case was a clear indicator of breath-borne transmissibility. In another choir case, this time in Amsterdam and again well documented, a single chorister infected another 102 choristers. The list goes on. These and many more similarly documented cases should have alerted policy- makers to the dangers of transmissibility and the need for masks.
What has been the response of government? We now have the revised WHO guidance, which recommends mask wearing not only on public transport but in grocery stores, at work, at social and mass gatherings and in closed settings—including schools, churches and all places of religious worship. Then we have the view of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which strongly recommends the wearing of face coverings in public settings including stores and pharmacies. We have the Royal Society’s working group now strongly supporting masked protection. We also have the comments of KK Cheng, professor of public health at Birmingham University, who charges that without masks we have no defence whatever against asymptomatic superspreaders.
We then have the views of Professor George Gao, who heads the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. He is a highly respected veterinarian with an Oxford PhD in biochemistry. He did his post- docs at Harvard, specialising in immunology and virology. He states:
“The big mistake in the US and Europe, in my opinion, is that people aren’t wearing masks.”
You have to wear a mask, otherwise droplets come out of your mouth when you speak. He continues:
“Many people have asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic infections. If they are wearing face masks, it can prevent droplets … escaping and infecting others.”
He has co-authored papers in the New England Journal of Medicine and the Lancet. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health used lasers to demonstrate transmissibility at up to five metres—that is with people without symptoms. That is said to be responsible for half of all cases. Now we have the BMA view. Again, I quote:
“Given there remains a considerable risk of infection … wearing masks can reduce the spread of the virus … measures should not be restricted to public transport but to all areas where social distancing is not always possible - the risk will be much less if the public adopts this now - not mid-June … the Government should ensure a supply of face coverings for the public, similar to practices in other nations.”
Yes, that is the BMA. The Government say that they go on the advice of experts; now they have it in that presentation.
On 14 May, 100 of the world’s top academics released a statement asking for mask wearing in all public places. During our researches, we were able to identify over 80 highly reputable research sources pointing to the use of masks in reducing onward transmission. I was particularly interested in the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, about distributing disposable face masks to all households, because it brings us to the nub of the problem. There can be no doubt that the failure to organise procurement, and inadequate mask-manufacturing capacity in the United Kingdom, have influenced policy.
To put it simply, in wartime the Government direct; we are in a war, with hundreds of thousands of lives lost and many more at risk, yet our approach to procurement has been appalling. We need a Beaverbrook Ministry of Supply, not a Hancock. Ministers are far too preoccupied with hiding behind preconceived views on virus transmission. They should spend more time more accurately interpreting reports from the Covid-19 Mobility Data Network.
Where do the public stand? In this debate, YouGov’s recent polling shows that 73% want compulsory masking in shops and 64% want masking in crowded spaces, such as town centres. The public are not stupid; they live in the real world. So where do I stand? I believe that a combination of track and trace, vaccination and masks will bring it all under control and avoid a second wave. We should have mandatory masking in offices, shops, schools, libraries, factories, hotels, pubs and garages—indeed, all confined areas apart from, obviously, one’s own home. A combination of these measures should bring it all to an end.
Finally, in Stop Press, I hear that only yesterday a Cambridge University modelling study, backed by considerable data, called for the immediate and universal adoption of face masks by the public. It stated that if widespread face-mask use by the public is combined with physical distancing and some lockdown, it may reduce the all-important R factor and offer an acceptable way of managing the pandemic, while reopening—before there is a vaccine—economic activity. That is all we want; let us just all get on with it.
Lord Balfe (Con) [V]
I think the debate is no longer about face masks. We accept that there may be shaky evidence that they are needed, but what we need to debate is when they should be worn and what sort of face mask? The overall European opinion is that they need to be worn in enclosed spaces and where people are together for a minimum of 10 minutes, because that is where the danger lies. I hope that we will look into this and not talk just about face masks. There are different types, with different levels of effectiveness. I would like the Minister to comment on what is going to be done to get them distributed. This morning, at King’s Cross station there were no face masks; at St Pancras, they were being given away free; and in Cambridge station, there were none. What do HMG have in the way of plans to distribute face masks and to look at the quality control of the types of masks that are going to be used?
Baroness Northover (LD) [V]
My Lords, many people now wearing masks may feel that they are protecting themselves. The WHO makes it clear that any role non-medical masks have is to protect others. It advises Governments to adopt a comprehensive strategy to suppress transmission. Only where physical distancing is difficult should Governments encourage the public to use non-medical fabric masks.
In the UK, people have been asked not to buy medical masks so that they do not deprive the NHS and care sector. Will the Government therefore stop companies from advertising these masks, for example in newspapers? The care sector still reports not being able to get adequate PPE, especially via Clipper. When will there be sufficient? Are the Government building reserves of PPE for a second wave of the infection? These issues must be addressed if the risk of coronavirus is genuinely to be reduced.
Lord Skidelsky (CB) [V]
My Lords, I welcome the Government’s decision to make mask wearing compulsory on public transport from 15 June, but I believe that this needs to be accompanied by two further measures. First, mask wearing should be encouraged by distributing free masks to all households. Japan and Turkey have done just that. Secondly, the recommended measurement for social distancing should be cut. We are now almost alone in asking for two metres. One metre is the distance recommended by the WHO; Austria, Germany and Holland advise 1.5 metres; and Hong Kong, Singapore, France, Italy and China advise one metre. Our Government have made no effort to test the trade-off between social distancing and wearing masks. The noble Lord, Lord Bethell, admitted on 1 June in his reply to a Written Question that I asked:
“No assessment has been made of the change to a face covering’s health benefit when social contact is at two, one and zero metres.”
Common sense suggests that wearing a mask reduces the distance you should keep from someone else. Giving people the confidence to interact normally is the key to reopening schools and to economic recovery.
Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I am pleased to be here supporting the increased use of face masks in public—so ably argued by my noble friend. In his argument, which he made with conviction and authority, he used evidence, information and knowledge to make his case. I want to highlight two of his arguments.
First, he gave us an indication of the bodies that support the increased use of face masks—the BMA, the World Health Organization, the Royal Society, the Lancet, and so on. Then—this is critical—as further evidence, he cited 80 research sources worldwide that found that wearing a face mask increased the success rate in the battle against Covid-19.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns (Con) [V]
My Lords, can my noble friend the Minister say what work is being done with health experts to ensure that face coverings on sale are in good supply, of sufficient quality to stop the virus spreading, and affordable? I looked online yesterday for sales of face masks and saw that some well-trusted high-street retailers now have non-surgical masks in stock—but they are not cheap, especially for those on lower incomes and for those who need to use masks on public transport every working day, perhaps for many months ahead.
Finally, I watched online as Members of the House of Commons voted yesterday and noticed that some wore masks. Has advice to parliamentarians been changed to permit or indeed encourage the wearing of masks while on the Parliamentary Estate?
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, this debate, as well as the one introduced last week by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, and the one earlier this afternoon are really opening this House to ridicule, with the lack of ability for us to debate some of these important issues properly.
I live in the Scottish Borders and from next week we will begin to see people again travelling across the border frequently or every day on public transport for retail purposes or for business or securing public services. From next week, those people will also have an unacceptable level of uncertainty over the guidance, legal requirements or ministerial requests on the use of face coverings if they are under 60 or medical face masks if they are over 60. Therefore, I want to ask the Minister a very specific question. Next week, what will be the law—not guidance or ministerial requests—for those crossing the border on public transport to secure public services without being able to socially distance and for those carrying out business activities?
Lord Wood of Anfield (Lab) [V]
My Lords, this is the Government’s history on the issue of face masks. On 6 March, NERVTAG expressed concern that the public did not understand why face masks were acceptable for healthcare staff but not for them. The minutes explained that, unlike the public,
“healthcare staff are trained to use the masks and know when to change the masks when they become soggy or contaminated.”
In the remainder of March, as lockdown measures were introduced, face masks were not discussed. On 7 April, NERVTAG concluded that the increased use of face masks would have minimal effect on stopping people becoming infected. SAGE agreed. There was no further mention of face masks in SAGE until 11 May, when the Prime Minister issued advice that the public should wear “face coverings” in enclosed public spaces. On 4 June, the Transport Secretary said that face coverings would be mandatory on public transport from 15 June.
I support the use of face masks, but what on earth is the scientific rationale that justifies this handbrake turn in policy? We cannot expect people to know what they are doing unless the Government explain what they are doing. Until they do so properly, people will conclude that the Government do not know what they are doing.
Lord Blencathra (Con) [V]
My Lords, it seems that there are two ways to protect oneself and others from the virus. One is distance and the other is face masks and hand washing. Face masks seem to give limited protection to the wearer of the mask from inhaling the virus from others, while giving much more protection to others who do not get exhaled upon. The further the distance the lower the risk, and that risk increases until one is up really close. If two metres is regarded as the safe distance without a mask—except in closely confined public transport—then it seems a no-brainer to reduce the distance to one metre and insist on face masks for all out in public, as the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, said. This is a sensible compromise, giving as little risk as possible while opening up the economy. Therefore, we should reduce the distance to one metre and make it compulsory to wear a mask.
Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD) [V]
My Lords, as we relax the lockdown, the Government have the opportunity to put forward a triad: wash your hands, keep your space, and wear a mask. In doing that, they will not only assist the relaxation, but continue to make clear to the public just how important it is to take the necessary precautions. When we come to precautions, I have a question for the Minister: supposing the wearing of face coverings had been essential—even compulsory—in all the care homes in this country, how much more successful would we have been in preventing the quite tragic number of deaths that have occurred there?
Lord Singh of Wimbledon (CB) [V]
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, on the excellent way in which he introduced this topic. While it is important to understand that the wearing of the face mask offers only slight protection to the wearer, it will offer a degree of protection to others, especially where social distancing rules become difficult. It is also important to understand that we need protection against those who may have the virus without realising it. A face mask worn by a carrier will reduce the chance of the spreading of the infection. A rudimentary mask or scarf is better than nothing; common sense requires that we must use all means if we are to defeat this deadly virus.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, I will start with a simple question because, like all those who have spoken, I am not clear as to the Government’s evidence or why they are hesitating to recommend the widespread use of face coverings across the board, not just for public transport. There is one question that has not been answered: have the Government had discussions with the security services, the police or other law enforcement bodies on whether they have views on the implications of people being at large, out and about in public, wearing face coverings? I wonder whether that is one of the reasons why they are hesitating so much. I join with others in saying that we need to reduce the social distancing rule to one metre so, if face coverings are the way to go, perhaps we need to find some other ways of reassuring those who are concerned about crime.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab) [V]
I am grateful to my noble friend for giving us this opportunity to discuss another government U-turn. Originally, masks were not recommended: we were told that they were counterproductive, ineffective and would produce a false sense of security. What has changed and why? Is it advice from SAGE, Dominic Cummings or a focus group?
I have four questions for the Minister. First, will sufficient masks be available for those who are now required to use them? Secondly, what measures are there to make sure that the masks available to the public are of an appropriate quality? Thirdly, will there be a kitemark so that the public know whether what they are buying is of good quality? Finally, what are the Government doing to prevent retailers hiking up prices and making excessive profits on the masks they sell?
Lord Duncan of Springbank (Con) [V]
My Lords, there is a significant difference between cloth coverings that can be reused and disposable face masks. Will the Minister commit to explaining clearly to the public how cloth coverings for faces can be disinfected to ensure that there is no accidental spread of the virus?
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD) [V]
We have compulsory mask wearing for NHS staff on 15 June at all times. At the daily rate at which the NHS uses face masks, are there enough masks? The Government announced on 28 May that all dental practices would open as normal from 8 June. They also have to source masks, competing with hospitals and care homes.
What about the general public? An article in the BMJ raises the ethical question: should the Government apply the precautionary principle and encourage the wearing of masks on the grounds that we have little to lose and maybe something to gain?
There are four key messages on Covid-19. The precautionary principle is to act without definitive evidence. It is contested that wearing masks will reduce transmission, and limited protection could prevent some transmission, but because it is such a serious threat, the wearing of masks in public should be advised under the precautionary principle.
Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]
My Lords, as my noble friends Lord Duncan of Springbank and Lord Balfe said, there is a great deal of confusion among the public about not only the wearing of face masks but what constitutes a suitable face covering. For example, does a cotton scarf constitute a suitable face covering? I hope that my noble friend the Minister will tell us that there will be ample publicity to ensure that the public know exactly what is what.
Lord Bilimoria (CB) [V]
My Lords, the University of Cambridge has just said that we have little to lose from the widespread adoption of face masks, but the gains could be significant. On 15 June, face coverings will be mandatory on public transport in England. On 5 June, the WHO updated its guidance on using face masks.
Does the Minister agree that the reduction of social distancing from two metres to one metre is really crucial now? The risk goes up from 1.3% to just 2.6% by doing so. Denmark has moved to one metre, as have France, Singapore, Hong Kong—I could go on. From a business point of view, one metre could be the difference between survival or bankruptcy. A pub or a restaurant can operate at barely 30% with two-metre social distancing; with one-metre social distancing it can operate at more than 70%. With one-metre social distancing, we can get four times as many people into any space than with two metres. The difference between opening or not is for not just the hospitality sector, which employs 3.5 million people, but schools, theatres, cinemas and universities. The wearing of masks on public transport can add to making one metre even safer. For the sake of our economy and livelihoods, could the Government please bring social distancing down from two metres to one metre immediately?
Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I too welcome the Government’s sadly rather late decision to advise the mandatory wearing of face coverings on public transport from next Monday. The Mayor of London had recommended this two months ago at the height of the pandemic, when drivers were already dying.
I asked on two occasions in late April when Ministers would consider encouraging the public to wear coverings, only to be told that there was insufficient scientific evidence to do so. Surely the Government must regret taking so long to make this recommendation. No one is suggesting that masks are a cure but, as SAGE said on 20 April:
“Wearing facemasks outside the house could complement existing government messaging of social responsibility”.
They could have helped to provide protection from others who showed no symptoms but were infectious. It is regrettable that the Government have again been too slow to act, disregarding lessons from abroad.
Lord Naseby (Con) [V]
Back in March, we were told by the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, that the science behind the general population wearing masks was “extremely weak”. At the same time, the WHO said to wear masks, and Germany and the others followed. Two months later, based, presumably, on new evidence that no one has seen—if, in fact, there is any evidence at all—we have advice on transport and hospitals; I am not sure about advice for care homes, or whether they have been forgotten again. The WHO continues to advise 1-metre distancing, and that is immediately followed by France, Italy and the others. Meantime, we poor souls have to stick with 2 metres, and a whole host of queries around why the WHO advice is yet again being ignored. Frankly, this is not acceptable.
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con) [V]
On a related issue, can my noble friend confirm that there is no longer any out-of-date PPE in the NHS and care home delivery pipeline, and if there is, when that will no longer be the case?
To the matter at hand, it is clear that if one wears a face mask, it does not stop one getting the disease, but it prevents others getting it. To that end, would the Minister agree that, logically, if we all come together and wear face masks, we will all necessarily stop each other getting the disease? Does he agree that it is time to mask up and make the difference? It would enable us to drop 2 metres to 1 metre, get the economy back up and get kids back in school—they desperately need to be learning. If the Government want a line for it, does he agree that it is time to come together as a country, mask up, cover up and kill Covid-19?
Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD) [V]
We all know how indebted we are to certain centres that care for rough sleepers. But, unfortunately, some of these centres are unable to function and, shortly, folk who need help will have to go by public transport. They go a lot from the west to the east. This morning, the Whitechapel Mission served over 300 breakfasts. People travel, and they have to travel on public transport, so who is going to be responsible for giving these folk fresh, clean face masks to face the day? Is it going to be the local authority, or the Government themselves?
The Earl of Clancarty (CB) [V]
I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, on his persistent campaign, and only wish that the Government had acted earlier. We knew in April, from Jeremy Howard’s research, of the significant effect that mandatory face masks had in Austria and Czech Republic. A new German study finds that masks reduced reported infections there by 40%. Lives will still be saved in the UK if mandatory mask wearing is extended to other public spaces. That is particularly important in those areas of the country where there is still a high rate of infection, and local authorities should be involved.
Will the Government ensure that masks are worn on station platforms and concourses, by all station staff, as well as those on trains, and by the British Transport Police, who should be seen to set an example? Will this measure be extended to shops, where close contact with people is often unavoidable, as well as to restaurants and pubs providing takeaways? Current guidance for restaurant staff does not recommend face masks for Covid-19. Will that be urgently reviewed?
Lord Kirkham (Con) [V]
My Lords, I grew up in a world where the only wearers of face masks were bank robbers, sexual deviants and the Lone Ranger, in a mining community where the underground workforce would have benefitted from wearing face masks, but did not, and paid the price. It seems now that, in many situations, masks will be mandatory, yet not long ago, we were informed by Public Health England that face masks were worse than useless outside of clinical settings. The subsequent volte-face, inconsistency across the devolved Administrations, and publicity given to more draconian recommendations by the World Health Organization are confusing and damaging to essential credibility and trust. Whatever the veracity of the mask concept, if we want the public to take our advice, then the message needs to be bold, clear and, above all, consistent until the pandemic is over. At that time, I trust that non-clinical masks will be worn only as a fashion accessory, and by those with unusual hobbies.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)
My Lords, I understand that the noble Lords, Lord Pendry and Lord Wei, have withdrawn, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Barker.
Baroness Barker (LD) [V]
My Lords, on 4 March, the government advice on face masks was that they do nothing, so do not wear them. On 17 April, the advice was that they do more harm than good, and on 11 May, it was that wearing one is an added precaution. As of 4 June, wearing them is to be compulsory. In that time, the science did not change but the death toll rose. Why have the Government failed to distinguish between PPE standards necessary in acute treatment settings and masks which are suitable for people using public transport? Why, given this record, should the public trust them during a second spike?
Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Lab) [V]
My Lords, there is strong scientific evidence to support the obligatory use of face masks as part of a strategy to fight Covid-19. To name a few examples, as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours, there is the modelling survey published yesterday by the Universities of Greenwich and Cambridge; the compelling evidence from Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea and Germany; and evidence that shows that droplets can linger in the air for tens of minutes, which potentially rides roughshod over the effectiveness of measures for queueing in shops. With shops reopening on Monday, social distancing will become harder. The government advice is to wear a face covering where social distancing is not possible, especially indoors, but when we decide to go to a shop, we will have no idea how empty or busy the streets or shops will be. Rather than the government advice remaining vague and weak, should the advice not now be strong and clear: wear a mask to protect others and their mask will protect you?
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con) [V]
My Lords, first, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, for his very cogent presentation. I have several questions for the Minister. The first relates to supply: do we have enough, and enough for venues other than transport? If it is right for transport, it is hard to see why it is not right for religious buildings, town centres, shops and so on. As others have said, surely that is the case. We need to make sure that masks are of an appropriate quality—is that being monitored? We need to make sure that appropriate publicity is given to this.
As a country, we seem to have been a bit too leaden- footed in our response to this. To get the R rate down, we clearly need face masks in all sorts of venues. I hope that the Government will proceed with this, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister on those specific questions.
Lord Mann (Non-Afl) [V]
I do not intend to tell the Government what they should be doing, but I hope that they are following the science. In Germany, Berlin is not mandating or requiring the use of face masks, unlike some other regions, such as Saxony, which are. Are the Government evaluating any difference in the prevalence or death rate in Berlin compared to, say, Saxony, where the policy on face masks is entirely different?
Some football clubs are now producing their own face masks. Can we anticipate, at some stage later this year, socially distanced spectators at outdoor sports, such as cricket and football, wearing face masks in order to watch their favourite team?
Baroness Fookes (Con) [V]
My Lords, I very much welcome the chance to enter this debate. If there are powerful reasons now for wearing face masks, I think it is up to the Government to give very clear, practical guidance to members of the public as to what kind of face mask they should use. I feel that single cloth masks are probably worse than useless, but I would like guidance on that, as well as guidance on actually using them. On my limited excursions outdoors, I have seen people take them on and off, and touch their faces. I wonder whether this really makes it difficult for them to be as hygienic as they should be. Finally, I think we need guidance on their disposal. Are they to be the type that can be washed thoroughly, and if so, how? If they are to be disposed of, are they to be disposed of very safely indeed? I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some real guidance on these matters.
Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab) [V]
My Lords, there is evidence that wearing a mask can reduce the risk of transmitting and succumbing to infection. The most precise that I have seen is from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which states that if a Covid carrier wears a mask and a close contact also does so, the risk of contagion is a mere 1.5%. I wonder why the Government are not giving more clarity on the use of masks. I also wonder whether there have been discussions on potential protection from masks making school openings possible. It may be difficult to insist that younger children wear masks, but surely older pupils and staff can. This will be essential if lessons cannot be outside or classrooms cannot have good ventilation. Will the Government, while relaxing some of the measures, enforce the wearing of masks more widely? The wearing of masks is an important issue, and I thank my noble friend for raising it.
Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, in support of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, I call on the Government to give explicit instructions about the mass use of masks in all public spaces, including community organisations, retail and the hospitality sector. In countries where masks are mandated, the infection rate appears drastically lower. How will the Government ensure that local health and community organisations are given adequate supplies, particularly for households in areas deemed vulnerable and disadvantaged by low income? Finally, I acknowledge Edmund Yeo from the Chinese Information and Advice Centre, Yisha Xieu, Emma Zhong and the Beijing association for enabling me to distribute thousands of masks to vulnerable women in the East End of London.
Lord Sheikh (Con) [V]
My Lords, it has been announced that from 15 June anyone travelling on public transport must, as a rule, wear a face covering. In addition, all hospital visitors and outpatients will have to wear a face covering and all staff will have to wear surgical masks at all times. The WHO has now revised its guidance relating to the wearing of masks. Will the Minister comment on the recent announcement by the WHO and on whether we should make it compulsory for face coverings to be worn by everyone where social distancing is not possible, as advised by the BMA? As someone who wears a face mask all the time when I go out, I would like us to follow the BMA’s advice. I also feel that the social distancing rule should be reduced from two metres to one metre. Lastly, we need to ensure that face masks sold in the market are of appropriate quality.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op) [V]
My Lords, the serious failure of the Government over face masks lies in communication. They have been neither clear nor consistent, which makes the situation all the worse. Wearing face coverings when you are out, travel on public transport or go shopping helps stop the spread of this terrible infection. Business wants to get back to work and our economy needs to start moving again, so we need a secure supply of non-medical face coverings and a proper communications plan. We need a clear, consistent message broadcast from the Government on social media, national and local government websites and terrestrial television channels and through civil society: “Wear a face mask when you leave your home as we ease lockdown. You will help stop the spread of this terrible disease, help save lives and help our country get back on its feet.” That should be the clear and consistent message.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con) [V]
My Lords, the advice of the World Health Organization is very clear: wearing a face mask or face cloth protects the wearer against any infected person and prevents an infected person infecting another person. Does my noble friend therefore agree that wearing a mask can help and that the guidance from the Government could and should be clearer, particularly on the use of masks in restaurants and hospitality in addition to on public transport? Will my noble friend agree to extending the guidance to the wearing of gloves by all of us, further to protect the wearer and others from being infected or from infecting surfaces, where we know the infection can remain for a long time?
Lord Truscott (Ind Lab) [V]
My Lords, as we have heard, the Government’s policy on wearing face masks has been shambolic, like much of their response to Covid-19. My wife and I went into voluntary lockdown on 14 March, and if the Government had brought lockdown forward similarly, tens of thousands of lives would have been saved. The president of the Royal Society has pointed out that mask-wearing countries have a much lower rate of transmission of Covid-19, as has been mentioned. The evidence for wearing masks is now overwhelming. I shall ask the Minister two questions. First, where does he expect people to buy the masks required to travel on public transport et cetera? Secondly, will Her Majesty’s Government, like some other countries, be handing out free masks at railway stations and shopping outlets, as some noble Lords have suggested?
The Deputy Speaker
Lord Rennard? I apologise, but we cannot hear the noble Lord. Baroness Thornton?
Baroness Thornton (Lab) [V]
My Lords, a speed dating debate such as this one at least ensures brevity. I congratulate noble Lords. There is a theme to the questions: our regret at another issue that exemplifies the Government being slow to act. Is this yet another policy announced without discussion with the devolved Administrations?
Two months ago, Labour backed the Mayor of London’s call for face masks on public transport to be compulsory. Two months ago, we raised the issue of bus drivers needing PPE, and asked whether buses should still run if there is not sufficient PPE. Does the Minister know the answers to these questions, and is he aware of the vulnerability and risk to bus drivers? We must wear masks on public transport from Monday, but who will enforce this policy, and who will help those who forget to bring their masks, forget to put them on, or cannot afford them? We need a comprehensive transport policy, to get our public transport moving, to protect staff and to protect passengers.
The Deputy Speaker
My Lords, may I just see whether the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, is available before we come to the Minister? No, I think he is not. In that case, I call the Minister.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con) [V]
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, for raising this important issue. I pay tribute to his passion and perseverance on the issue of masks. I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate for their thoughtful comments, which I will tackle at pace. I apologise if I am unable to namecheck each contributor or address each question as I would have liked.
As we ease lockdown restrictions, the debate on these non-pharmaceutical interventions is key, and I very much welcome the debate and the points raised. As for our strategy, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, suggested a Covid-19 defence triad, which I welcome, but our triad, which the Government support, is, first, one of social distancing; secondly, one of hand hygiene; and thirdly, one of isolation. This triad offers the best protection from the spread of the disease. These three measures are our priority and our advice on face coverings does not negate this.
The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, asked what plans the Government have to review their advice on this issue. Noble Lords will be aware that last week the Government made two announcements on the use of face coverings in specific situations. On 4 June, the Transport Secretary announced that the Government will work with transport operators to make it mandatory for passengers to wear face coverings when using public transport in England from 15 June. On 5 June, the Health Secretary announced that all hospital staff in England will be provided with surgical masks, which they must wear, and that all hospital visitors and outpatients should also wear face coverings from 15 June.
Many noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, and my noble friend Lord Blencathra, provided interesting and well-considered ideas on the exact distance that we need to enforce in our social distancing policy. I assure noble Lords that we will continue to review the evidence on social distancing, and on the question of one or two metres, we will be led by the science and the advice of experts on any changes to this policy.
On 11 May, the Government issued their first set of guidance on the use of face coverings. Informed by the scientific evidence, we advised that, if they can, the public should wear a face covering in enclosed spaces where social distancing is not always possible and where they will come into contact with others they do not normally meet. This announcement and the accompanying guidance from Public Health England came after a careful review of the latest scientific evidence by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, SAGE. The noble Baroness, Lady Northover, makes an important point about the risk of cannibalising the supply of masks to the NHS.
In reply to my noble friend Lady Anelay, I also commend the work of my noble friend Lord Deighton, who is charged with securing a resilient supply of PPE; the progress that he has made is impressive. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, and my noble friends Lord Holmes and Lord Bourne that his work, and the hard work across all NHS procurement, has ensured that we are now confident in stocks and sources of supply of PPE to meet the needs in health and social care over the next 90 days. We also continue to pursue contracts for additional stock both to manufacture and to purchase.
My noble friend Lord Balfe and the noble Lords, Lord Skidelsky and Lord Harris, raised the important issue of the distribution and supply of face masks to the general population. Our guidance has been and remains proportionate to this evidence, and we have been clear that a face covering is not the same as a surgical mask or respirator used by healthcare or other workers as PPE. These should continue to be reserved for those who need them to protect against risks in the workplace. I emphasise that it is a considerable challenge for the Government to undertake responsibility for the distribution of masks to the whole population.
In response to the noble Lords, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill and Lord Bilimoria, I want to explain that the principle of “There is little to lose” is not one that we subscribe to. If we support measures that do not work, we create a false sense of security and distract from the measures that really do work.
My noble friend Lord Duncan made a critical point about the hygiene of masks and the danger that they can be a vector for infection. A badly maintained or dirty mask, or a mask that is handled badly, can be a dangerous object that spreads disease. We have published guidance to show people how to properly remove masks and wash them. None the less, the public can and should wear face coverings that they make at home. Accordingly, the Government have provided advice online on how to make these using scarves and other textile items. The advice on face coverings was in addition to the key advice about maintaining social distancing and washing hands regularly, which has proven to be crucial in preventing the spread of this deadly virus. We have been clear that wearing face coverings cannot replace those important practices, and if you are symptomatic then you must self-isolate.
In relation to workers in numerous sectors, including public transport, we advise that they continue to follow the advice of their employers and make sensible workplace adjustments. I welcome the comments by the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, on this.
Since that initial advice we have continued to review our position, consider the evolving context in the UK and refine our approach accordingly. However, we should note that, whatever we would like to be the case, the available evidence on the efficacy of face coverings has not moved substantially from the initial advice.
I want to update my noble friends Lord Naseby, Lady McIntosh and Lord Sheikh that in recent days the WHO has updated its advice to encourage the wider use of face coverings in public settings, but it has been clear that
“the widespread use of masks by healthy people … is not yet supported by high quality or direct scientific evidence”.
Evidence from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies suggests that face coverings may help to reduce the risk of transmission if you are suffering from coronavirus but not showing symptoms. SAGE also advised that using cloth masks as a precautionary measure could at least be partially effective in enclosed spaces, such as public transport, where social distancing is not possible.
In continuing to take a risk-based and evidence-led approach to guidance, the Government have continued to adapt our guidance proportionately to the science. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, I say that it remains guidance, not law. As lockdown restrictions ease, more people will now come into contact with others and there may be incidences where social distancing is more difficult to maintain consistently. For example, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, mentioned, we expect that more people will leave their homes to make essential journeys, returning to work if they cannot work from home, and some children are returning to school.
While we encourage the public to walk, cycle or drive, this may not always be possible and we can expect the transport network to become increasingly busy. That is why, on 4 June, the Government announced that we will work with transport operators to make it a requirement for passengers to wear face coverings when using public transport in England from 15 June. On board public transport is a space in which it is less easy to socially distance, and people may spend extended periods of time in close contact with others they may not normally meet. The Government remain clear that social distancing and hand hygiene remain the most important ways to guard against the virus, but face coverings may help to prevent individuals who have coronavirus but are not presenting symptoms from spreading it to others.
The noble Lords, Lord Campbell-Savours and Lord Mann, the noble Baroness, Lady Healy, and others shared helpful interventional anecdotes. But the consensus in scientific literature is that the evidence base for the effectiveness of face coverings is inconclusive. Mandatory face covering specifically on public transport is the approach taken in a number of countries, including France, Germany and Italy. Although face coverings are more habitually and widely worn in public in some countries, such as China or Japan, the evidence remains inconclusive around their widespread efficacy in protecting individuals from Covid-19. In answer to my noble friend Lord Blencathra, I say that there is no evidence that these masks are interchangeable with other measures in the triad.
The Government have recognised that, as we bring the overall incidence of Covid-19 down, it is important that we cut down on infections passed on in hospitals. We have noted the evidence that healthcare workers are 10 to 20 times more likely to be Covid-19 positive than the general public. In light of this learning from NHS hospitals and IPC teams, the Government announced on 5 June that all staff in hospitals in England will be provided with surgical masks, which they will be expected to wear from 15 June. NHS staff already wear face masks in clinical areas where they come within two metres of a patient. But this new guidance will apply to everyone working in all areas of hospital, including non-clinical settings. Furthermore, all visitors and out-patients will be expected to wear face coverings at all times. These are measures that some organisations have already started to adopt. We are clear that this will not mean that anyone is denied care. If necessary, a mask will be provided for a patient if they arrive without a face covering.
Detailed guidance on these measures will be published this week to enable hospitals to get stocks and put plans in place; we are confident in the stocks of face masks needed to meet this new demand. We also continue to pursue contracts for additional stock, both through manufacture and purchase. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, asked at the start of this debate what plans the Government had to review our advice on face coverings. As I have set out, we continually review these measures, evolving them as we have from 11 May by continuing to follow the evidence and the scientific advice. We will therefore continue to review this latest iteration of advice too. As I have set out, the Government will always look to the scientific evidence and advice we are given in continually reviewing and refining our guidance.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, who has pushed hard on this important issue and rehearsed these important arguments. As the pandemic evolves and the science develops, he will have an impact on our understanding of this important issue.
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Henig) (Lab)
My Lords, we now come to the repeat of the Statement on the wider opening of education and early years settings. For Members participating remotely, microphones will unmute shortly before they are to speak; please accept any on-screen prompt to unmute. I remind Members that our normal courtesies in debate still apply in this new hybrid way of working.
It has been agreed in the usual channels to dispense with the reading of the Statement itself, and we will proceed immediately to questions from the Opposition Front Bench.
Education Settings: Wider Opening
(4 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I normally thank the Minister for repeating the Statement, but we take it as read. It represents an inevitable volte- face. Head teachers, education unions, school staff and many parents were right to describe plans to open whole primary schools before the summer as incompatible with implementing social distancing safely.
That is not to say that I welcome the continued closure of schools. There is a very real risk that so many children losing up to six months of formal education, socialising with friends and a structured routine to their day will have lasting serious consequences. Together with many others, I am extremely worried that a deepening learning disadvantage gap will be the result, with possibly millions of children lacking the education they need to progress in life.
Sadly, the current hole into which the Government have dug themselves is the result of education having been the poor relation in the response to this pandemic. In part, that reflects the fact that the Government have never had a coherent plan for dealing with Covid-19, frequently defaulting to panic mode, it seems.
Yesterday, the Leader of the Opposition called for the establishment of a national task force to help the Government put together a plan for schooling not just in the months ahead but in the longer term. I urge the Minister to tell noble Lords that the Government will indeed adopt such a collegiate approach as a means of moving forward and helping those children whose education has been left in limbo.
The national plan must be robust. It should build consensus among key stakeholders—schools, multi-academy trusts and local authorities—which properly understand what is required and what they can do collectively to deliver it. It is about bringing together top-down planning with bottom-up planning to make the most difference in the shortest possible time. The key to developing such a plan and then making it effective may be the most demanding factor: strong leadership from the top—a factor that has been absent thus far.
More immediately, does the Minister accept that there is a need for all children of compulsory school age to have a one-on-one meeting with a teacher from their school, with parents if appropriate, before the summer holidays start? Without teachers being able to assess the needs of their pupils at this stage, there is a danger that valuable time will be lost when the new school year begins in September, as we all hope it will. Does she agree with the Children’s Commissioner that some schools should be open during the summer holidays, staffed on a voluntary basis, to provide classes as well as clubs and activities for children, enabling them to re-socialise and re-engage with a love for learning?
When the pandemic started, one of the Government’s few successes was the Nightingale hospitals, constructed within a matter of days. On a much smaller scale, could not something like that be done for education? Portakabins are hardly unknown in school playgrounds, and many could be built quickly to accommodate children during the summer to access the learning and other activities that they need while observing social distancing requirements. Rather than rely solely on regular teachers, many of whom have been working flat out to maintain education for their students and deserve some respite, why not invite retired or trainee teachers to assist? They all have much to offer in these critical times for so many children.
All that is required is some imagination. Has the Secretary of State considered, as Scotland has done, using public buildings, such as libraries, sports halls and other council properties to relieve pressure on classroom space? Surely the independent sector should be told that their wide range of facilities should be opened up to state school students during the summer. There are already examples of state/private collaboration of that sort on which to build, and opportunities should be maximised.
The Statement also concerns early years settings. If the Government do not act soon, there will not be many nurseries left to send children to. There is currently no additional funding to help childcare providers manage this difficult transition, or even pay for vital safety measures such as PPE and regular cleaning. Over two-thirds of nurseries and other childcare businesses expect to operate at a loss for at least six months, so without more support it is unclear how many will be able to survive. The Government need to wake up to the reality that millions of childcare places could be lost in this crisis unless there is a properly funded plan to save the early years sector.
I therefore ask the Minister: when does the Secretary of State intend to come forward with a realistic plan to protect these essential nurseries and other early years provision?
Lord Storey (LD) [V]
My Lords, I thank the Minister for the Statement.
We all want to see children and young people back in school as soon as possible, not least because if we are not careful, we will see a whole generation of children whose educational progress has been blighted, and we know that the children most at risk are those from disadvantaged circumstances, those in care, and those with learning difficulties.
If I was being kind to the Government’s handling of the reopening of schools, it would be to describe their approach thus far as cack-handed. This is not a time for Boris Johnson’s high-command approach but a time for bringing education stakeholders together to agree the way which is rooted in good practice, which can work and be implemented, will provide a safe environment for pupils and staff, give the reassurance to parents that their children are safe and, as the Children’s Commissioner said, use some imagination in what we are able to do. That imagination might include keeping children in nurseries for longer and admitting them to reception for the term of their fifth birthday. It may include part-time schooling, or changing the school day and school holidays, and staggered starts—anything which helps our children.
Can the Minister now agree that the Prime Minister’s proposal to have a big plan will bring together council leaders, teachers’ unions, experts, opposition parties and parent voices to agree that big plan for the reopening of schools in England before the disadvantage gap becomes a gulf? My party has a five-point national plan, which our education spokesperson, Layla Moran, has sent to the Prime Minister.
As well as getting schools open safely in September, we also need to ensure that we are providing high-quality educational provision now and over the next three months of the summer. As good as the BBC has been in providing Bitesize, this is only a small-bite step in what is needed. Parents who have finances will buy in resources, pay for online tutors and will have the time to go on walks of learning, but for a large number of families this is not possible.
It is interesting to note that the hubs that were set up for key workers and disadvantaged pupils, not surprisingly, saw a massive drop-off rate of the disadvantaged pupils. Can the Minister tell us of any ideas that she might have to ensure that those pupils are being mentored and encouraged to do their work?
The Minister previously has told us of the IT provision that the Government are providing, but in reality it not available to all disadvantaged pupils. In my home city of Liverpool, the laptops provided for children in care were for only 40% of those children. Can the Minister assure us that there will be IT equipment for all children in care so that they can access learning?
Many families are worried about family budgets and how they can provide the resources their children need. Can the Minister take back to her ministerial colleagues the need to look at extending the free school meals over the summer holidays, recognising the scheme is flawed and so combining it with an emergency uplift in child benefit of £150 per child per month, with £100 for every subsequent child, during the crisis? They could also implement a catch-up premium of £700 per disadvantaged child to enable schools and charities to give them a much-needed boost for the next academic year.
Also, could the Minister take on the idea of creating a summer learning fund so that councils can run summer learning camps for children, focused on local authorities in the most deprived areas? Incidentally, that proposal was first made by the Children’s Commissioner for England.
We are living through very difficult times. We need to look to our future as well as our present. Just as the Prime Minister wants our economy to bounce back, surely we want to see our young people and children bounce back. That means doing whatever it takes to make that happen.
Finally, will the Minister agree to abolish SATs and Ofsted inspections during this period and give us regular updates on plans laid and progress made?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education and Department for International Trade (Baroness Berridge) (Con)
My Lords, I am glad to join the noble Lord, Lord Watson, in his desire to welcome everyone back to education. It is the Department for Education’s desire and ambition to see all children back in school, when the scientific evidence allows. We are very concerned about the learning disadvantage gap that experts tell us is probably growing during this period.
As in many other countries, schools have been open throughout this period for vulnerable children and the children of critical workers. The Secretary of State made it clear in the other place that we need a plan for beyond the summer. We are working with the stakeholders that have been outlined to ensure that we can deliver the catch-up across the summer and into the next academic year. In fact, local REACT teams are working jointly with redeployed Ofsted workers, department officials and local authorities to ensure that we are in touch with what is happening on the ground, both locally in schools and in children’s social services departments in councils. Indeed, as of Monday, year 10 and year 12 pupils will be back in school for some form of face-to-face contact, with a maximum of 25% being in school at any one time. We are looking at all of the options for targeted support through the summer and beyond, as I said.
On premises, there are thousands of varieties of school buildings across the country. Some of them do not have the outdoor space that would be appropriate for temporary buildings such as Portakabins. We are grateful to the independent sector, however, which has worked closely with the state sector in many areas; we welcome those collaborations.
The noble Lord, Lord Watson, raised concerns about the early years sector. I am happy to say that, as of Thursday last week, 48% of those settings were open. Over the next year, it is planned that the £3.6 billion of early years entitlement will be paid to that sector, regardless of the children who attend. It is clear from Public Health England advice that normal education settings do not need personal protective equipment and that a very limited supply is needed for circumstances where a symptomatic child may be on the premises. Of course, it is different for special schools if they are open and providing care akin to medical care. Only in those very limited circumstances—which education settings can manage through their own supply chains, or, if needs be, can approach the local resilience forum—do they need to think about personal protective equipment.
The early years sector has a blend of incomes. The sector’s loss of private income is one reason why the comprehensive schemes made available by the Chancellor of the Exchequer are open to the sector, on the basis that salaries that they pay were previously paid using income from private sources. The sector can go to the job retention scheme or apply for a business interruption loan and, if they are eligible for small business rate relief or rural rate relief, they are eligible for the £10,000 small business grant.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Storey, that we are very concerned about disadvantaged children and children in care. We are working with all the sector’s stakeholder groups. We based our guidance on the PHE guidance, outlining to schools the measures that they can take to provide a safe environment in which to learn.
On reception admissions—I thank the noble Lord for his advance notice on this question—we do not anticipate that, as a general rule, children will need to delay their admission to school purely as a consequence of the coronavirus outbreak. However, where parents genuinely believe that delaying admission is right for their summer-born child, we expect admissions authorities to give careful consideration to the needs of that child. Admissions authorities must provide for the admission of all children in the September following their fourth birthday. However, parents cannot be required to send their children to full-time school before they reach the compulsory age.
As the noble Lord mentioned, we are deeply concerned about the attainment gap, which has been narrowing since 2011. That is why we have now made available the Oak National Academy for remote learning, which offers 140 lessons a week. The noble Lord mentioned the BBC. In the week commencing 11 May, there were 5 million users. This is not an insubstantial resource and we thank the BBC for making it available. This is why we have prioritised disadvantaged students in year 10 as well as care leavers and children with social workers for access to the over 200,000 remote devices that we have purchased and for which delivery is in train.
I am pleased to say that yesterday the Prime Minister announced an additional £63 million of funding for local authorities over the summer, as they are best placed to know who might be in acute need of food over that period. Some £9 million has been made available for summer provision; there will be holiday clubs, building on the programme of 2018 and 2019, that can be accessed.
During this period, routine Ofsted inspections have been suspended. That is why Ofsted has been redeployed in other areas. It can still inspect settings when safeguarding has been raised. GCSEs, A-levels, SATs, the two year-old assessment and the assessment at the end of the early years foundation stage have all been suspended; no performance tables will be published this year. However, this Government stand by their ambition that every child in this country should have a world-class education and were right to have an ambition to bring all children back to school. It is sad, particularly for those children, that in the circumstances of the scientific evidence that has not been possible.
The Deputy Speaker
My Lords, we now come to the 30 minutes allocated for Back-Bench questions. I emphasise that it is 30 minutes, not the 20 minutes that was on the Order Paper. I ask that questions and answers be brief so that I can call the maximum number of speakers.
Lord Lexden (Con)
My Lords, would it not be appropriate to extend to the secondary sector the flexibility that primary schools have been given to allow more children back when they can do so safely? Can my noble friend confirm that independent schools, which are actively engaged in the national effort to bring pupils back into school, as she has mentioned, can bring children on to the school site as long as the correct protocols are observed?
Baroness Berridge
My Lords, the flexibility is to respect the professionals on the ground. Unfortunately, because of the specific risks that secondary pupils travel greater distances to school, often use public transport and usually have a wider range of social contacts, we have not been able to have the numbers back in a secondary setting. We are grateful to the independent sector. The guidance is that boarding schools should not expect year 10 and year 12 back; if they can have that face-to-face contact on a day basis, that is permissible. I am grateful that, as they have atypical transition years, they have heeded the Government’s guidance to bring back reception, year 1, year 6, year 10 and year 12, as I have outlined.
Baroness Bull (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that schools play a vital role in not just academic learning but the development of social and emotional skills that lead to better mental health and academic outcomes? It is shown that the relationships built at school serve as a buffer against psychological and social risks, so the continued closure increases the vulnerability of many children, especially disadvantaged ones. Can the Minister help ensure that schools prioritise social and emotional learning when they reopen, alongside academic learning, and that they have access to adequate resources and specialist input to help support the most vulnerable pupils?
Baroness Berridge
My Lords, from speaking to many teachers and multi-academy trust leaders, I know that they are concerned about the emotional stability and well-being of children when they re-enter school, particularly of those who are vulnerable. On mental health support, certain teams are on the ground, particularly in secondary settings, and we are doing the remote training-up of the allocation that we had hoped would be in schools by now. We have also funded a coalition of charities for vulnerable children to the tune of £7 million, being led, I believe, by Barnardo’s; it is a “see, hear, respond” service, because we are acutely aware of what will walk through the door of a school when vulnerable children are back in that setting.
Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)
There are a lot of warm words from the Government about this, but it really has been a totally inappropriate response to what is fast becoming a crisis in a critical area of our society. In particular, how can the Government think it is acceptable to present a Statement at a time like this that is nothing more than a list of things which cannot be done? It does not contain one new idea and makes no response to the many ideas that have come from people across society. I want to push the Minister to say why she is not encouraging primary schools to use the space that is available—she just made that clear in response to a previous question—to enable secondary schools to provide access to outdoor space and classroom space, to ensure that they could offer the sort of education to children that we all want to see.
Baroness Berridge
My Lords, the Government have been acting on this matter. We are working with the Education Endowment Foundation to make sure that the interventions we put in place to help these children to catch up are based on evidence. I can assure the noble Baroness that we are seriously considering a package of measures in relation to the catch-up provision. However, I will take back her comments about using space in other premises.
Lord Addington (LD) [V]
My Lords, do the Government have a clear picture of what has and has not worked when it comes to the underlying issues around learning and teaching? Many reports are coming out on how some children are missing out, while others are getting quite a good deal. Unless we have a good idea about what is actually happening, we cannot plan for how we will support and correct any problems later on.
Baroness Berridge
My Lords, the changes which this virus crisis has brought about to how children learn are unprecedented. The move to remote learning and to the use of technology will change some teaching practices for ever. We are of course gathering evidence about what is and is not effective in remote learning. As I have said, the Oak National Academy and BBC Bitesize will be part of the effort to analyse what effect this has had on children’s learning going forward.
Lord Baker of Dorking (Con) [V]
It is 80 days from today until September, when secondary schools are expected to open. Those are 80 days during which schools will be closed, padlocked and empty. I think that that is unacceptable. They should become learning centres during June, July, August and September. Will my noble friend encourage the Secretary of State to urge for the reopening of secondary schools as soon as possible? Will he also make representations to the Prime Minister and to the Cabinet that social distancing for children in schools should be reduced from 2 metres to 1 metre, because they are the least vulnerable members of our society? To protect them further, teachers, and any other staff who go into a school, should be tested for the virus daily, which it is now quite possible to do.
Baroness Berridge
My Lords, since schools reopened for the priority year groups, testing has been available for staff, pupils and anyone in a household who displays symptoms. On summer schools, I have outlined that holiday activity clubs are being funded. We are working closely with Magic Breakfast and Family Action in relation to breakfast provision over the summer holidays. Moreover, imaginative consideration is being given to the kind of targeted support which can be offered over the summer. But it is not anticipated that schools will be open throughout the summer holidays.
Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I remind the House of my interests as set out in the register. Last week, the Minister said in Oral Questions that the Secretary of State has made it clear that schools will not be expected to open throughout the summer holidays, and she has just said something similar. Given that, what exactly are the Government planning? Yesterday, the Prime Minister said that there will be a
“huge amount of catch-up over the summer months.”
Is that the £9 million for holiday clubs which the Minister has just mentioned, which is the equivalent of just £360 per school in England? Where will this huge amount of catch-up take place? Who will attend and who will lead it?
Baroness Berridge
My Lords, noble Lords are tempting me, but I am not permitted to—nor will I—steal the Secretary of State’s thunder. But I am aware, and can tell noble Lords, that, working on an evidence base, there will be a programme of targeted support over the summer holidays and beyond. We are acutely aware of the loss of learning, as Ministers and as people who have been through the education system. The effort and energy are there, and will continue to be, to have the appropriate support and programmes for these young people to catch up. As I said, we have purchased, and are about to deliver by the end of the month, more than 200,000 devices to enable some of the most disadvantaged children to catch up on their learning.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, notwithstanding the differences in timetables and school schedules between the devolved regions and England, what discussions have been held with devolved institutions about eliminating and eradicating inequalities for vulnerable children, because there should be many similarities right across the regions? What will the Government do about that?
Baroness Berridge
My Lords, the recovery response to the virus in education is, of course, a national response, but we are obviously in touch with the devolved Administrations, at ministerial and official level. Education is a devolved matter, but any of the plans to return will be done on a phased basis, but in different circumstances —for instance, Scotland has a different start date for its terms and different examinations. We are seeking to learn best practice from across all the nations of the United Kingdom.
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury (LD) [V]
My Lords, I apologise that noble Lords cannot see me, but it was a choice between seeing me and hearing me. I think that hearing me is probably better—and I hope that noble Lords can hear me.
Does the Minister agree that creative activities have been central in helping children and their parents get through the challenges of lockdown? I hope that this has been heard loud and clear by the Department for Education. Cultural education is also of central importance for facilitating learning across subjects, and for children’s general well-being. Will the Government ensure that creative subjects will not be overlooked in the school timetable from September, and that the emphasis will be moved from STEM to STEAM?
Baroness Berridge
My Lords, the Government agree that the creative subjects and children’s cultural development are important. That is why music, art, design and drama are part of the national curriculum. Post 14, all pupils in maintained schools must be offered the opportunity to study at least one subject in the arts. That is why, since 2016, almost £500 million has been invested in those subjects, and an arts premium will be given to secondary schools. With the new Ofsted framework as of September last year, arts is an essential part of schools’ broad and balanced curriculum, which it inspects against.
Baroness Pidding (Con) [V]
My Lords, much is spoken about the attainment gap between richer and poorer students widening during time off school. This Government were elected on a promise to level up society. What measures will the Government take to close that gap and reassure parents that we are committed to see every child, from every background, reach their full potential, despite the challenges that Covid has presented?
Baroness Berridge
My Lords, as I outlined, we are keen to ensure that the narrowing of the attainment gap is not lost during this period. The £2.4 billion a year pupil premium, which is paid for disadvantaged students, will continue to be paid to schools for their funding, even though most pupils are obviously not in school at the moment. We are looking at interventions for vulnerable children in particular, to ensure that they have not fallen behind.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB) [V]
My Lords, I declare my interest as I chair the Commission on Alcohol Harm. At the outset of lockdown, we know that alcohol sales increased by 67%. It is now said that 29% of people report drinking more during lockdown, and one in seven families report an increase in tension in households where there is a child under the age of 18. The highest number of children on record are calling the NSPCC helpline—with a 32% increase from previously—and reporting domestic abuse. How can these children, who previously accessed a place of safety at school, be case-found now? What safety is being provided for them since they are a hidden, silent and vulnerable population?
Baroness Berridge
My Lords, it is incredibly sad to think about the lack of the protective good for children in schools during this time. I am pleased that the £1.6 million for the NSPCC helpline has been useful to it. We are also pleased that among vulnerable children in contact with a social worker, we have now seen a considerable increase in the numbers in school. There are 47,000 of them in school, up from 37,000 on 21 May, which is to be welcomed. As I say, the teams reacting on the ground are working closely with local authorities’ children’s services, so that information about children who are not in school is passed on. We have redeployed Ofsted staff to bolster local authorities where they have needed it. While it is not possible to replace the protective good that school is for those children, we are seeing a steady increase in the numbers going to school.
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I had the opportunity to hear from the Chief Inspector of Schools and the Children’s Commissioner yesterday at a Select Committee in this House. They found the Statement disappointing and said that it lacked urgency and creativity. Is it not clear that, despite the attention with which the Minister feels that she and others in the department have been addressing these issues, the measures to prevent some children falling behind are failing at the moment? We need a detailed action plan, with stakeholders involved to get those falling-behind children into school before September, and for the Government to act with that creativity and urgency which was sadly lacking from this Statement.
Baroness Berridge
My Lords, it is a great regret that the scientific evidence on social distances does not allow us to achieve our ambition of getting all primary schoolchildren back before the summer. However, as I say, more vulnerable children are in school. We have also acted with specific initiatives on behalf of, for instance, those transitioning from alternative provision at 16. We recognise the risk that they could drop through the net, so we have announced £750 per year 11 pupil in alternative provision. We are obviously aware that it is unprecedented to be in the Department for Education at a time when we had to close schools. There is urgency and a plan to catch up for those children.
Lord Caine (Con) [V]
My Lords, I endorse the wise words of my noble friend Lord Baker of Dorking. As the product of a state comprehensive school in a predominantly working-class part of Leeds, I need no lessons on the importance of tackling educational inequalities. Does my noble friend agree that the longer schools remain closed, the more difficult this will be to achieve and that those who suffer most will be from less well-off backgrounds? Is it not about time that the leadership of some of the teaching unions adopted a more constructive, responsible and sensible approach to these matters?
Baroness Berridge
I am grateful to the noble Lord and, as someone who is also the product of state education, I know that there will be children falling behind because their education is not offered in schools at the moment. Away from what I might call the bluster of the headlines, I am aware of many teachers who are getting on with their job and have been planning to reopen. Along with the Department for Education, they long for the situation—and for the scientific evidence—to be such that we can welcome all our students back into school. In addition to the remote learning I outlined, there are tales of teachers dropping worksheets at the door for students. They are acutely aware of the disadvantage to those students, and we will work together with teachers on the front line and all support staff to help them catch up.
Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD) [V]
My Lords, with social distancing set to continue for quite some time, capacity on public transport and dedicated home-to-school transport will be significantly reduced. Is a strategy being developed to ensure that transport is available for all students, particularly secondary students, when they return in September?
Baroness Berridge
My Lords, as I have outlined, secondary school children travel greater distances. Local authorities and schools are still under a duty to provide home-to-school transport within the social distancing rules. If there is capacity on those services, we have said that it should be made available to other students and that it can be charged for. We are aware that an essential part of getting students back to school will be ensuring that they can get there safely.
Lord Robathan (Con) [V]
The risk from this virus to children of primary school age is, frankly, negligible. For secondary school pupils, it is still pretty tiny. There is a higher risk to teachers, who will be older and may have underlying health conditions, but it is still pretty low for anybody under 50. Why then do pupils need social distancing at all? Teaching is a profession to be admired, so does my noble friend share my huge disappointment—that is an understatement —that some teachers, and only some, supported by their unions, are putting minor risk to themselves above the very real threat to their pupils’ futures?
Baroness Berridge
My Lords, there is indeed a high degree of confidence that the severity of the disease is lower in children than in adults. In the primary setting, we have been clear that we do not expect the younger cohorts to socially distance; the measures to enable children to come back state that they should be in groups of a maximum of 15, that they should not mix across groups and that there should be good hygiene in schools. As soon as the scientific evidence allows, we will be relieved to be able to welcome children back to their education.
Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab) [V]
Has the Minister seen today’s report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies showing that the closure of schools is accentuating the socioeconomic divide? Does she recall that, four weeks ago, I asked her at Question Time to prepare for summer schools, in particular so that youngsters transferring from primary to secondary school in September are not absolutely disadvantaged? Some may have been out of school for six months and have had no education at all. Can some concentration be given to the easy entrance of those children to secondary education so that they do not lose out completely? We need summer schools and not just holiday activity clubs.
Baroness Berridge
My Lords, the clubs that I have outlined offer educational provision as well, but the noble Baroness is right about the transition year. That is why we have recommended that schools bring back year 6 so that the transition into secondary school is managed for those children. However, we are aware that a number of reports indicate that more provision is available to children from more affluent backgrounds. I have outlined the remote devices and other support that we have given to schools to try to level up some of that gap.
Lord Moynihan (Con)
My Lords, the Children’s Commissioner and others have argued that the Government should fund summer sport and fitness courses, with voluntary organisations and governing bodies of sport using school sport facilities. Given that ukactive has data suggesting that children’s health and fitness levels may drop by 80% this summer, with the hardest hit the poorest children, will the Government prioritise and support this proposal?
Baroness Berridge
My Lords, even before the summer, the Government have been clear in their guidance to schools that they should use outside space wherever possible when they reopen. We have provided guidance even on how to introduce team sports for the small groups that are back. However, we are aware that many children will have been sedentary over this period and that is a concern. We have linked to resources to encourage people to get the 60 minutes of exercise a day that Sport England recognises. I will take back my noble friend’s specific question about summer provision of physical activity.
Baroness Blackstone (Ind Lab) [V]
My Lords, I want to re-put the question put by the noble Lord, Lord Baker, as the Minister did not answer it. Why has the two-metre social distancing rule not been relaxed in line with WHO guidance, since this rule is the main block to all children returning to school at the earliest possible time? Will she accept that a failure to bring children—especially disadvantaged children—back to school poses much greater risks to their academic development, mental health and safety from abuse, whether on the streets or in their homes, than the negligible risks to their health of returning?
Baroness Berridge
My Lords, throughout the crisis, the Government have been guided by the science. The view at the moment—based on SAGE and the best science we have—is that social distancing should be at two metres. Should that view change, the Department for Education will of course be the first to welcome that, as it would ease many of the issues that schools have in relation to their buildings. As I said, it is important that the offer has been there for vulnerable children to come to school during this time. The provision for vulnerable children is made in addition to provision for the year groups as they come back.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD) [V]
My Lords, few children with special needs have currently returned to school due to parents’ concerns. Children attending special schools come from a wide area, especially in rural locations, and often have personalised school transport. More than others, those children need tailored plans to ensure that they are safe and happy. What arrangements have been made to ensure that these vulnerable special needs children are able to access their schools?
Baroness Berridge
My Lords, throughout the crisis, those children with an EHC plan—the overwhelming majority, if not all, of the children in special schools—have had a school place available to them. Risk assessments of those children have been encouraged, specifically to work out whether they are better in school or at home during this period. Where there is equipment in the school that could be of use to parents with children at home, we have encouraged schools to make that available. In line with the increase in attendance of vulnerable children as of last Thursday, the number of those attending schools who have an EHC plan is now 42,000 children, up from 23,000 as of 21 May. We want to see all children back, but this is a significant increase in those attending school, which is obviously to be welcomed.
Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab) [V]
My Lords, the chair of the Education Select Committee said this week that 70,000 disadvantaged children are not working at home and have no access to the internet. Will the Government ensure that all children entitled to free school meals be guaranteed internet access, immediately?
Baroness Berridge
My Lords, there are indeed 1.3 million children currently entitled to free school meals. We have offered that provision over both the half-term and Easter holidays since schools closed. As I have outlined, over 200,000 devices have been purchased and delivery will be made by the end of June.
Lord Truscott (Ind Lab) [V]
My Lords, first, the Statement said that Her Majesty’s Government would be working to bring all children back to school in September. Do the Government actually have a plan to achieve this? Secondly, what is the message from the Minister to international pupils and students? Should they make plans to come back to study in the UK in September, or should they look to study or complete their studies in another country which is perhaps better organised?
Baroness Berridge
My Lords, obviously the plan is to bring all students back to school in September if the scientific evidence allows for that. In relation to international students, there has been an amendment to the guidance on the visa regulations. We are working closely with the boarding school sector and the independent sector to enable them to plan for a full reopening, along with all other schools, in September.
Lord Pickles (Con) [V]
My Lords, this morning the chair of the House of Commons Education Select Committee made three brief suggestions. The first was for a catch-up programme with an army of volunteers consisting of retired teachers, Ofsted inspectors, education charities and graduates, paid for by a catch-up premium; the second was the establishment of Alan Turing summer schools; and the third was a national education service on TV for those without internet services. Does my noble friend feel that Robert Halfon has a point?
Baroness Berridge
My Lords, I assure my noble friend that the Secretary of State is listening carefully to the suggestions from Mr Halfon, as chair of the Education Select Committee. As I said, a targeted programme of catch-up provision for the summer and beyond will be announced, and of course there is already access to BBC Bitesize provision, as I have outlined.
Baroness Andrews (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I can understand that the noble Baroness does not want to pre-empt what the Prime Minister has called his very big plan, but can she give us some indication of who might be targeted for special provision? To follow up on the question from my noble friend Lady Taylor of Bolton, I ask whether the noble Baroness can give us an assurance that creative and accelerated learning will be on offer and not simply holiday clubs.
Baroness Berridge
My Lords, the department’s ambition is obviously to offer universal catch-up provision for all students in our schools but with a particular focus on those who are disadvantaged. I gave an outline of the summer catch-up provision and what will happen beyond that. We are talking about catch-up of educational attainment so that these students are able to fulfil their potential and are not blighted by the lack of provision that they have had to endure due to the health crisis that we have all been living through.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, referred to school as a place where social skills are learned and emotional intelligence is developed. The Minister is not allowed to tell us about the summer schools, but perhaps she can tell us whether they will be targeted not just at disadvantaged pupils, who obviously have huge needs, but at pupils who are not at obvious disadvantage. I should perhaps declare an interest, having been an only child. A single child will have been in the company of one or two adults for months, and for younger children that will have accounted for a large part of their lives. Will there be provision over the summer for all children at least to develop those social skills, even if there is no educational component?
Baroness Berridge
My Lords, over this period the department has published guidance on a number of matters. We have aimed to get the balance right between guidance and respecting the professionals on the ground. School leaders have been able to apply that guidance at the school gate in relation to vulnerable children, even though those children might not fall into the categories that we have outlined. As I said, we are concerned that all children should catch up, but disadvantaged children in particular. We respect the leadership in schools and will continue to do so in relation to catch-up provision, so that children whom school leaders deem to be disadvantaged and in need of support can get access to that support.
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
My Lords, we now come to the last business of the day: questions on the Answer to a Commons Urgent Question on support to sub-postmasters wrongly convicted in the Post Office Horizon scandal. The Answer itself will not be repeated. For Members participating remotely, microphones will unmute shortly before they are to speak. Please accept any onscreen prompt to unmute. I remind the House that our normal courtesies in debate still apply in this new hybrid way of working. Please keep questions and answers short.
Horizon: Sub-postmaster Convictions
(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab) [V]
My Lords, the whole country owes a considerable debt of gratitude to Kevan Jones MP, Andrew Bridgen MP and the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, who have been campaigning tirelessly to expose this appalling scandal for over seven years. Too many sub-postmasters, often respected and hard-working pillars of their local community, have been imprisoned and many have been ruined financially, physically and mentally. By settling in mediation before the Horizon trial judgment was made public, the Post Office avoided public scrutiny and the facts of its transference of operational risk to sub-postmasters, persistent denials of fault and coercive behaviour were covered up. Thanks to recent TV and radio programmes we now have a lot of detail, but much more clearly needs to be uncovered.
The question that we have to answer first is whether the proposed independent review will do what is needed, as it is not a public inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005. Can the Minister confirm that the review will have the same powers that a public inquiry would have had under statute to compel the disclosure of documentary evidence and to compel witnesses to come before it to give evidence in public?
Secondly, can the Minister confirm that the review, which presumably is being set up by Ministers, will have sufficient power to investigate the same Ministers who were responsible for the Post Office over the relevant period? Can he confirm that all the costs of the victims of this scandal who may be asked to testify and provide evidence, many of whom have yet to receive the full compensation that they seek, will be met?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Callanan) (Con)
My Lords, I join the noble Lord in paying tribute to all those Members from both Houses who have laboured for many years to draw attention to this unfolding scandal.
While the terms of reference for the review chime with that of an inquiry, we are undertaking a review in order to allow progress to be achieved in an accelerated timeframe. I can tell the noble Lord that the Post Office has committed to fully co-operating with the review, and Ministers will hold it to that commitment. The purpose of this non-statutory inquiry is to ensure that there is a public summary of the failings that occurred at the Post Office, drawing on the judgments from the Horizon case and listening to those who have been most affected, so that we make sure that those lessons have genuinely been learned and this cannot happen again. With regard to documentary evidence, as I said, the Post Office is expected to co-operate fully with the review.
Lord Fox (LD) [V]
My Lords, I associate myself with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, regarding the campaigners in this case, because hundreds of people have had their lives ruined, and sometimes ended, by this terrible scandal. The Prime Minister in February committed to getting to the bottom of this, and we have to take that at face value, but in answer to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, I do not think it is entirely clear what powers this independent inquiry will have. Yes, the Post Office has committed, but will this inquiry actually have legal powers to command people to give evidence and to sequester evidence? Unless it is able to do that, I do not think the Prime Minister is going to get his wish—we will not get to the bottom of this. I understand the time element, but can the Minister reassure the House that this will be an inquiry with teeth?
Lord Callanan
Well, we are committed to getting to the bottom of this scandal. I can tell noble Lords that, yes, the Post Office has committed to co-operate fully with the inquiry; Ministers will expect it to do that. We expect others involved to co-operate with the inquiry as well, and if we need to take further action to make sure that they co-operate, we will be prepared to look at that.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con) [V]
The Horizon case is an appalling matter. It was, as I have mentioned before, the most worrying issue that I had to deal with as a Minister, because it involved many respectable individuals with no record of criminal activity, many of whom we now find have had their lives ruined. Does my noble friend agree that the immediate need, from information already available, is to remove the Post Office’s unusual right to act as prosecutor itself, and to do this forthwith?
Lord Callanan
My noble friend makes a good point, but powers to bring a private prosecution are not specific to the Post Office. The Post Office has the same rights as any other person, whether an individual or a company, to bring a private prosecution. I can tell her that the Post Office is conducting no current private prosecutions and it has provided assurances to Ministers that it has no plans to indulge in any further prosecutions.
Lord Craig of Radley (CB) [V]
My Lords, depending on court appeals, the Post Office may be liable to pay further compensation. Does it have insurance against computer system failure? Is it obligatory for businesses to take out insurance against any serious computer malfunction? If not, does this Horizon scandal suggest that it is required?
Lord Callanan
The Post Office operates as an independent business. As noble Lords would expect, it has all the necessary insurance in place for a company of this kind. It is not, however, obligatory for businesses, including the Post Office, to take out insurance against computer malfunctions or liabilities to third parties that could result from such malfunctions. It is therefore unlikely that any of the Post Office’s insurances would provide cover for any compensation payments the business may be required to partake in.
Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con) [V]
My Lords, when did the Government’s representative on the Post Office board first know that the Post Office had privileged access to sub-postmasters’ accounts, so that the Post Office or Fujitsu could alter those accounts at will without the sub-postmasters being aware of it? Was it from the Ernst & Young management letter to the board of 27 March 2011, or was it earlier than that? If my noble friend does not know, will he please write to me?
Lord Callanan
First, I pay tribute to the work my noble friend has done, both in the other place and in this House, to draw attention to this unfolding scandal. The issue of privileged access was discussed throughout the Horizon case and highlighted in the Horizon issues judgment. The Ernst & Young management letter he refers to was issued before Post Office Ltd was separated from Royal Mail Group. At the time, there was no government representative on the board. The first government representative was appointed to the board of the Post Office in 2012. The Government were aware from the information they received, such as that by the forensic accountants, Second Sight, in 2013, that branch records could be accessed remotely; however, we were then advised that any transactions entered remotely would be visible to sub-postmasters in branch. As far as I am aware, the Government were only made aware that this was incorrect early in 2019, via witness statements that were used by Fujitsu in the court case.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab) [V]
My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, on this issue, for all the reasons that have been mentioned. He deserves significant recognition for his effective leadership on this issue. While I support the call for an inquiry, already every parliamentarian, including every Minister, believes that those damaged by this scandal deserve to be exonerated and properly compensated, so how much additional evidence do the Government need before that can be achieved? For more than a decade, while covering up the truth, the Post Office spent in excess of £100 million maintaining the convictions and the impoverishment of hundreds of innocent sub-postmasters. Not one director or senior executive has been held to account. What do the Government, who own the Post Office, plan to do about this shocking failure of corporate governance?
Lord Callanan
The Horizon IT system was put in place in 1999, with the first issues being raised by sub-postmasters in the early 2000s. Mr Justice Fraser has considered what happened over this period and has set out his findings in considerable detail in the court case. Of course, the senior directors responsible at the time of the prosecutions against sub-postmasters are no longer at the Post Office. Any further proceedings against such individuals is a matter for the Crown Prosecution Service, and the courts and the justice system.
Lord Mann (Non-Afl) [V]
Being experienced, knowledgeable and of impeccable character, and having no vested interest, were seen to be the appropriate qualities required for the person to chair this inquiry. Can the Minister think of anyone better suited than the former postman Alan Johnson?
Lord Callanan
I thank the noble Lord for his question. We are actively considering who should chair the inquiry at the moment, and as soon as I have further information, I will refer it to the noble Lord.
Birmingham Commonwealth Games Bill [HL]
Thursday 11th June 2020
(4 years, 6 months ago)
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