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Oral Answers to Questions
(4 years, 3 months ago)
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Dr Jamie Wallis (Bridgend) (Con)
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Con)
Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Wendy Morton)
Finding a covid-19 vaccine is a top priority for the Government. The Prime Minister has set up a vaccine taskforce and appointed Kate Bingham to lead it. The taskforce aims to secure access to promising vaccines for the UK population and to support access to vaccines to help bring the pandemic to an end. We have invested more than £130 million in research for the vaccine front-runners at the University of Oxford and Imperial College, London, and this is in addition to the £250 million that we have contributed to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and the £1.65 billion to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.
Wendy Morton
That is a really important point. The Prime Minister has made it clear that equitable access is an integral part of the UK’s approach to vaccine development and distribution. Only last weekend, he emphasised how all the world’s leaders have a moral duty to ensure that covid-19 vaccines are truly available to all. That is why the UK has contributed more than £313 million of UK aid to CEPI, the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator, the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, and the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics. We have also committed £1.65 billion to Gavi over five years to strengthen immunisation for vaccine preventable disease in vulnerable countries.
Andrew Jones
Around the world, there are more than 100 programmes to develop a coronavirus vaccine. Can my hon. Friend confirm that our global diplomatic presence is assisting UK companies and universities to participate in those programmes, basically by using their local networks to highlight the significant expertise that the UK can contribute, but also vice versa to identify where those contacts can contribute to UK-based programmes, because this is truly a global effort?
Wendy Morton
Yes, our overseas network is working actively around the globe, particularly through our world-leading science and innovation network. The Vaccine Taskforce is also ensuring that work being done to find a vaccine in the UK complements and supports global efforts, including by providing industry and research institutions with resources and support. We welcome the announcement on 4 June of the innovative collaborations between AstraZeneca, CEPI, Gavi and the Serum Institute of India to support the production of 1.3 billion doses for global access to a potential covid-19 vaccine.
Christian Wakeford
Israel is at the forefront of MedTech innovation, which presents many opportunities for the UK’s healthcare system, such as the use of AI technology in diagnostics and screening. Can my hon. Friend tell me what the Government’s plans are to strengthen partnerships between Israeli MedTech companies and UK researchers, particularly in the north-west, to help them not only develop a vaccine but better prepare for the potentiality of any future pandemic?
Wendy Morton
International collaboration is absolutely vital as we search for a vaccine, and finding a vaccine for covid-19 is a top priority for the Government. The Prime Minister has made it clear that we see vaccines as a global challenge and that no one country can do this alone. That is why the UK has called for clear global commitments from international partners to tackle the pandemic, including through the G7, the G20 and other international forums. The Prime Minister hosted a global vaccine summit on 4 June, which brought together more than 60 countries, including 44 Heads of State and Government, and raised an incredible $8.8 billion to support immunisation of more than 300 million children against vaccine preventable diseases.
Jo Gideon
Does my hon. Friend agree that Britain has demonstrated its global reach during this pandemic? May I thank the Department for listening to my representations on behalf of my constituents in Stoke-on-Trent Central, who were repatriated from Kathmandu and Durban during lockdown, and ask that the Department use the same global reach to ensure that our world- class vaccine development work benefits the global community?
Wendy Morton
I know how hard my hon. Friend works in her Stoke-on-Trent Central constituency. Together, the Foreign Secretary, the ministerial team and the diplomatic network continue to galvanise international support and financial commitments to support research, development and equitable access to vaccines. Through ongoing research at Oxford University and Imperial College, London, the UK is leading the way in developing a coronavirus vaccine. We are also working with international partners to ensure that, wherever a vaccine is discovered, it will benefit the global community as a whole.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
Mr Speaker,
“The breadth of the work that DFID is involved in is exemplary…It is firmly in our national interest…As we have seen in recent years with the Ebola crisis”.—[Official Report, 13 June 2016; Vol. 611, c. 262.]
Those are not my words, but those of the Minister. Destabilising Britain’s efforts to tackle disease globally in the middle of a pandemic is not diplomatic; it is dangerous, and the hostile takeover by the Foreign Secretary has been slammed by 200 leading health and humanitarian agencies, Prime Ministers and MPs from both sides of the House, and those who have assessed the impact of mergers in Australia and Canada. Why does she think she got it wrong, they all got it wrong, and instead, it is Dominic Cummings who is right?
Wendy Morton
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. We served together on the International Development Committee several years ago, but to be absolutely clear, when it comes to the FCO and DFID merger, as the Prime Minister set out on 16 June we retain our commitment to spending 0.7 % of our gross national income on official development assistance, but it is through closer integration that we will maximise the impact of our aid budget. At the recent Gavi event—the global vaccine summit on 4 June—we mobilised the collective influence of diplomacy and development; it is an excellent example of what the two Departments working together can we achieve.
Miss Sarah Dines (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)
Mark Logan (Bolton North East) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and First Secretary of State (Dominic Raab)
Today China has enacted national security legislation. We are waiting for it to be published so that we can see the details and assess it against what we have said before. When that is the case, I will make an oral statement to update hon. Members. None the less, at this stage what I can say is that the imposition of national security legislation on Hong Kong, rather than through Hong Kong’s own institutions, lies in direct conflict with China’s international obligations under the Sino-British joint declaration.
Miss Dines
From what we know so far, it appears that Beijing has just voted to impose new hard-line national security laws on Hong Kong. They are widely thought to include a new law enforcement and intelligence agency to operate there, and to give the Chief Executive power to appoint judges to hear national security cases. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is only through an internationally co-ordinated action that we will be able to safeguard the hard-fought-for rights and freedoms of those in Hong Kong?
Dominic Raab
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and of course it is contrary to, we believe, China’s own interests and also China’s articulation of the relationship with Hong Kong through the one country, two systems policy. As she rightly says, we have been working very closely with our international partners, the EU and the G7, and, indeed, we are raising the issue with like-minded partners in the United Nations Human Rights Council shortly.
Mark Logan [V]
A number of commentators have been conversely saying that Hong Kong’s role as a financial centre may be buttressed by the national security law as Chinese companies look to list in Hong Kong, now that they are less welcome in the United States. What does my right hon. Friend make of this controversial assessment, and what are his predictions for the future of Hong Kong as an international financial centre and the implications for both London and British interests?
Dominic Raab
I thank my hon. Friend, who makes a very important point. Of course, the success of Hong Kong—the entrepreneurial spirit, the vibrancy, the economic success—has been built on its autonomy in the one country, two systems paradigm. That clearly is under threat if China, as we now fear, has enacted the legislation and our worst fears in terms of the substantive detail are borne out; and of course it would be bad news for all international businesses, but, fundamentally, not just for the people of Hong Kong but for China. That is why, even at this stage, we would urge China to step back from the brink, respect the rights of the people of Hong Kong and live up to its international obligations through the joint declaration and to the international community.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
China passed the national security law today. It is a direct challenge to the joint declaration and undermines not only the promises made to us, but those that we made to the people of Hong Kong. The Foreign Secretary told me in the House a few weeks ago that at its application, Britain would act. That law comes into force tomorrow. He must not waiver. Will he fulfil his promise to BNO passport holders? Will he stop dragging his feet on the Magnitsky legislation that he was once so keen to champion and give us a firm date? Will he confirm that this has now changed the Government’s thinking on Huawei? He said just a few weeks ago that we would
“live up to our responsibilities…to the people of Hong Kong”.—[Official Report, 13 January 2020; Vol. 669, c. 769.]
It would be extraordinary were the UK to turn back now. We must live up to those responsibilities.
Dominic Raab
I thank the hon. Lady for her support for the Government’s position, which, as we have already made clear, if once the national security legislation is published—she has not seen it because I have not seen it and it has not been translated yet—[Interruption.] Yes, but she has not seen the legislation, so I think the right thing to do is to wait to see it, but as we have made clear, if it is as we expect then it would be not just a challenge, as she said, to the joint declaration; it would be a violation of the joint declaration. It would undermine the autonomy of the people of Hong Kong and the freedoms. I welcome her support. It is incredibly— [Interruption.] She says that it is weak; she has not read the legislation—she cannot have done because it has not been published. [Interruption.] No, so how can she say that it is weak? I have already made a commitment to the House that I will come here to make sure that all hon. Members can be updated, not just on what we will do on BNOs, which I can confirm we fully intend to see through, but any other action we want to take with our international partners.
Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)
Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)
The Minister for the Middle East and North Africa (James Cleverly)
The UK’s position is clear: we oppose any unilateral annexation. It would be a breach of international law and risk undermining peace efforts. The Prime Minister has conveyed our position to Prime Minister Netanyahu on multiple occasions, including in a phone call in February and a letter last month. The UK’s position remains the same: we support a negotiated two-state solution based on 1967 borders, with agreed land swaps, Jerusalem as a shared capital and a pragmatic, agreed settlement for refugees.
Tonia Antoniazzi
Current sanctions are clearly not working as a deterrent for Israel’s plan to annex the west bank illegally. Strong words at this point are a betrayal of the Palestinian people—they need actions. Can the Minister outline what action the Government will take against annexation?
James Cleverly
The Government have maintained a dialogue with Israel. We are attempting to dissuade it from taking this course of action, which we believe to be not in its national interest and not compliant with international law.
Julie Elliott [V]
In 1980, the UN Security Council condemned Israel’s illegal annexation of East Jerusalem and, in ’81, its illegal annexation of the Golan Heights. What lesson does the Minister think the Israeli Government took from the failure to see those Security Council resolutions adhered to? Are the UK Government abandoning the Palestinian people, as suggested in a recent open letter by UK charities?
James Cleverly
The UK Government remain a friend of Israel and also a friend of the Palestinian people. We have continued to have dialogue both with the leaders of the Palestinian Authority and with the Government of Israel, and we encourage them to work together to come towards an agreed settlement that will see a safe, secure state of Israel alongside a safe, secure and viable Palestinian state. There is still the opportunity for that negotiated settlement to be the outcome, and we will continue working with both the Israelis and the Palestinians to facilitate that.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
World leaders are warning of consequences should annexation go ahead, but the silence from this Government has been deafening, so much so that the Israeli newspaper Haaretz says that France is now the world’s “last, best hope” to stop annexation. This really is shameful. I raised my concerns with the US ambassador—has the Minister? Will he commit to a ban on settlement imports and recognise Palestine, as this House voted to do? Forgive me, I may have missed it. If he will not do those things, can he tell us what exactly he is proposing to do?
James Cleverly
The UK remains a friend and ally to the state of Israel and a good friend to the Palestinian people. It is tempting—and I am sure it will placate certain voices on the left of the political spectrum—to stamp our feet and bang the table, but we will continue to dissuade a friend and ally in the state of Israel from taking a course of action that we believe will be against its own interests, and we will do so through the most effective means available.
Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP) [V]
I listened carefully to the previous exchange, and I have much respect for the Minister, but I am not asking him to stamp his feet or bang the table—I am asking him to match the sensible position that he has outlined today on the illegal annexation of the already illegally claimed settlements with some actual action. No amount of warm words and sympathy are going to cut it in this discussion. My party, likewise, is a friend of the two-state solution. We are a friend of the Israeli state, and we are a friend of the Palestinians as well. We want to see a viable solution, but there is a lively debate that we can influence right now within Israel, and we need to put action on the table, not warm words and sympathy. Settlement goods should at the very least be labelled as illegal, and targeted sanctions need to be put on the table to focus the minds of the coalition. I urge him to act, not just talk.
Mr Speaker
I hope, on his second question, the hon. Gentleman will be briefer.
James Cleverly
My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has spoken with his opposite number and other members of the Israeli Government, as have I and indeed our Prime Minister. We are working to dissuade Israel from taking this course of action. There will always be voices in British politics that would jump at any opportunity to bring in sanctions and disinvestment. We do not agree with those voices, and we will continue to work towards a negotiated two-state solution, using the diplomatic means we have at our disposal.
Alyn Smith
I appreciate that answer, and I would urge more. When Russia illegally occupied Crimea, the UK Government, with our support, implemented sanctions with the international community. We need that sort of action now, and I would urge the Minister to greater efforts than we have heard today.
James Cleverly
I reiterated the UK’s position at the UN Security Council on 24 June. I made it clear that annexation would not go unanswered. However, I will not stand at this Dispatch Box in order, as I say, to placate some of the traditional voices in criticism of Israel when the best way forward is to negotiate and speak with a friend and ally, in the Government of Israel, to dissuade them from taking a course of action that we believe is not in their own best interests.
Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Wendy Morton)
On 18 June, we welcomed President Macron and Foreign Minister Le Drian to London to commemorate the 80th anniversary of de Gaulle’s appel. President Macron presented the Légion d’honneur to London and the British people, and also met Their Royal Highnesses the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall. The Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary held talks with the President and the Foreign Minister. France is a close neighbour, a key ally and a vital partner, and that day in particular really emphasised our country’s shared history and our future joint ambitions. The Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and I continue to have regular phone calls with our French counterparts.
Felicity Buchan
South Kensington is home to a very large and vibrant French community, many of whom now have dual nationality. Will my hon. Friend assure me that, whatever temporary disagreements we may have with France—during, for instance, Brexit negotiations —it will always remain one of our closest and most strategic allies?
Wendy Morton
I can assure my hon. Friend that France will remain one of our closest and most strategic allies. We will continue to co-operate on security, defence, development and foreign policy. In regard to EU negotiations, as the Prime Minister has made clear, the faster we can reach an agreement the better. We welcome the fact that the EU has agreed an intensified timetable and signed up to a sensible process to take the talks forward.
Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Wendy Morton)
The UK mission to the EU, the UK delegation to NATO and the British embassy in Brussels collectively employ about 250 staff. UKMis was reinforced to support our exit negotiations, while still defending our continuing interests in EU decision making. UKMis will continue to be our principal interface with the EU after 31 December. The Government have launched an integrated review of security, defence, development and foreign policy, and the future level of resourcing for all three missions will be determined following this review.
Sir Christopher Chope
It is very disappointing that my hon. Friend has not got a target for the reduction in the number of bureaucrats in Brussels to take effect on 1 January next year. May I suggest that the target might be to reduce the current numbers of 250 down to 50? Can she explain why she does not think that is possible?
Wendy Morton
I thank my hon. Friend for his follow-up question. As I am sure he would understand, as an independent country we of course want to have representation in Brussels because, after the transition period, what will be so important is promoting UK interests and UK influence overseas.
Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)
Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)
The Minister for the Middle East and North Africa (James Cleverly)
The UK is deeply concerned about the humanitarian crisis and conflict in Yemen. We fully support the UN peace process and urge all parties to engage constructively with it. The UK has shown extensive leadership in this response, committing nearly £1 billion in support to Yemen since the conflict began. I recently conducted a virtual visit to Yemen, meeting special envoy Martin Griffiths, Yemeni Foreign Minister al-Hadrami and Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdul Salam, and I urged all parties to engage with the UN peace process.
Simon Baynes
I have been contacted by constituents in Clwyd South about the vital importance of the UK’s humanitarian aid to Yemen. Does the Minister agree that the UK Government’s role in Yemen is a prime example of the joined-up foreign policy and development work that will be needed in the new merged Department?
James Cleverly
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is impossible to separate our development work from our wider diplomatic work. The greatest step forward that we could have for the people of Yemen is for the conflict to cease, so that we can concentrate solely on humanitarian support. Conflict resolution is a classic function of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Indeed, when I speak to the development partners in country, they prioritise conflict resolution, and the work of DFID and the work of the FCO therefore go hand in hand with supporting the people of Yemen.
Caroline Nokes
There is an urgent and desperate need to continue to work to prevent hunger and suffering in Yemen. Please will my right hon. Friend reassure me that the prioritisation of covid, which is absolutely essential, will not come at the expense of some of the world’s most vulnerable people?
James Cleverly
I completely agree that the UK’s response to coronavirus is important, but we have not allowed it to distract us from the important international work. I recently announced considerable funding support for the humanitarian work in Yemen. As I say, I have had extensive conversations with parties right across the board, and indeed with regional countries, to support the Saudi ceasefire and encourage the Houthis also to engage with that ceasefire. We will maintain our responsibility —we will match our responsibility to the people of Yemen, and I can absolutely guarantee that that will continue under this Government.
Margaret Greenwood [V]
Yemen is facing a humanitarian disaster. According to UNICEF, there are 1.7 million internally displaced children and 2 million children who are acutely malnourished, so what conversations has the Minister had with other Government Departments to ensure that the UK can play its part in addressing this catastrophe?
James Cleverly
The hon. Lady highlights the important work of properly connected government when it comes to UK foreign policy. That is absolutely what under- pins the Prime Minister’s integrated review and his announcement of the merger of DFID and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. She is absolutely right to suggest that, in order to protect the people of Yemen most properly, whether young or old, the UK Government must work with a co-ordinated approach. I regularly speak with ministerial colleagues in other Government Departments about Yemen, as well as with our international partners. I thank her for so clearly highlighting why it is important that Government Departments work closely on this, as on other issues.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and First Secretary of State (Dominic Raab)
The new Foreign, Commonwealth and Development office is a huge opportunity for the UK to have an even greater global impact as we recover from the coronavirus pandemic, and also as we prepare to hold the G7 presidency and host COP26 next year.
Alan Brown
The Prime Minister thinks that international aid is a giant cashpoint in the sky and the Paymaster General wants to use the aid budget for a new royal yacht, so it is no wonder that 200 non-governmental organisations are against the proposed merger. It has also been claimed that international aid was undermining the diplomatic processes of the Foreign Office, so can the Secretary of State give me the No. 1 example of where foreign aid was used to undermine foreign policy that justifies the abolition of DFID?
Dominic Raab
The hon. Gentleman is right to point to some of the tensions. The reality is that we think we can have an even stronger impact by integrating—
Dominic Raab
I will give him an example if he waits a second. We think we can have a stronger impact if we integrate development policy and the aid budget with foreign policy. A good example is the GAVI summit, where we smashed the target and raised $8.8 billion. That is a great example where, led by the Prime Minister, we brought together our development heart and soul with our diplomatic muscle and reach. That is what we are going to do with this merger.
Dave Doogan [V]
The Paymaster General suggests spending official development assistance money on another royal yacht, instead of on supporting aid workers and the world-class development NGOs based in the UK that save lives. How does that square with the established commitment that every penny of aid is and will continue to be committed to the sustainable development goals, or are we to expect that definition to fade, along with any substantive connection to the Government’s legal obligation to spend 0.7% of gross national income on overseas aid?
Dominic Raab
I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are committed to spending 0.7% of GNI on aid. The examples of GAVI and COP26, the questions on Yemen and this pandemic all illustrate why bringing together all the different aspects of foreign policy—particularly bringing together aid and development policy with the Foreign Office’s network—is an opportunity for us to be bigger than the sum of our parts abroad and to have an even greater impact as a force for good.
Sarah Champion [V]
The Foreign Secretary is correct that we are starting to manage covid-19 in the north, but in the global south it is causing chaos, decimation and loss of life, as can be seen from the Afghanistan figures today. Will he explain why, when DFID staff are trying their hardest to shore up the global south against covid-19, he has chosen this moment in time to bring forward a confusing, complicated and expensive merger? Is he still looking for the merger to be completed by 1 September? Will the 30% cuts in the ODA budget that the Treasury is asking for be in this financial year or in future spend?
Dominic Raab
I reassure the hon. Lady that we are still committed to delivering the merger by September. She asks, “Why now?”. The reality is that coronavirus has illustrated just why it is so important to have an integrated and aligned approach. We have achieved a huge amount through the international ministerial groups we have brought together, but it has also shown how much more powerful we can be as a force for good abroad if we bring all those different elements together, such as aid and the foreign policy network. The GAVI summit is one example, but there are others. We have a moral duty to support the most vulnerable countries around the world to protect them against and prevent a second wave, but it is also important to save the United Kingdom from the implications of that.
Patrick Grady
As chair of the all-party group on Malawi, I hope the Foreign Secretary will join me in welcoming the election of Lazarus Chakwera as the new President. Malawi has benefited from DFID investment in governance and democracy, and from the transparency initiative, for many years, which has perhaps contributed to this peaceful transition of power. What guarantee is there that in merging the two Departments, that kind of work, which DFID was able to specialise in and which might otherwise be forgotten about, will continue to be provided and properly scrutinised?
Dominic Raab
I join the hon. Gentleman in welcoming the free and fair election in Malawi. It is really important that such things take place in countries that do not have a history or pedigree of democratic transitions. While I agree with him entirely about that, I am afraid that I do not agree with the assumption in his question. From Kenya to Nigeria in Africa, let alone more broadly across the world, the experience in our missions is that we are most effective when we fully integrate and align the development aims and aid budget with the wider foreign policy strategy. That streamlining is precisely what the merger will help us do across the board.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
May I welcome the words of my right hon. Friend this morning? When he listens to the different aid agencies that have supported the merger, such as the Carronbridge-based HALO Trust, does he realise that what they offer is a real change in how we do foreign policy, not just a change in the way we integrate foreign policy and aid at home? Having a forward-leaning, multinational organisation like DFID shaping the way our diplomats act and our embassies respond is a real opportunity to update the way the Foreign Office acts; it is not just about bringing the two Departments together.
Dominic Raab
I thank my hon. Friend, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee. He is right to quote the HALO Trust. He is right that this is an opportunity. Indeed, it will mean significant cultural change for the FCO, not just for DFID. We want to merge and innovate to bring something that is, as I say, the sum of our parts, but also something different. In fact, just one of 29 OECD countries has a separate Development Ministry. I have been talking to the likes of Paul Collier and Professor Stefan Dercon about how we can achieve this in the way that delivers the best impact, particularly in relation to poverty reduction and things like climate change.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
I am concerned by reports that as part of the DFID merger, the Government have agreed to pause all new aid spending, including the conflict, stability and security fund. At a moment of such global insecurity, that would be an extraordinary decision. In a week when the Government have fired their national security adviser, are stalling on re-establishing the Intelligence and Security Committee, and are delaying the Russia report, can the Secretary of State at least give me a cast-iron guarantee that conflict, stability and security funding will continue to be applied to new projects and that this Government are taking national security seriously?
Dominic Raab
I can reassure the hon. Lady that conflict prevention—humanitarian aid—is going to remain, if not be elevated, as one of the key strategic priorities of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. There has been no sustained pause, but we are having a review based on the economic figures that will apply given the impact of covid-19 on GNI. That will make sure that we can prioritise the aid budget in the places that need it most. I would have thought, if she is serious about this, that she would welcome that.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
The Minister for Asia (Nigel Adams)
The United Kingdom is disturbed by reports of militarisation, coercion and intimidation in the South China sea. We note the presence of a Chinese research vessel in Malaysia’s exclusive economic zone in April and May this year, close to a Malaysian-contracted drilling operation. This has raised tensions in the region. We take no sides in sovereignty disputes. We are clear that the best way to reduce tensions in the South China sea is for all parties to resolve their disputes peacefully in accordance with the UN convention on the law of the sea. In May this year, officials raised our concerns directly with China about the recent incidents in the South China sea.
Mr Ellwood
I am grateful for that reply, but it misses the bigger picture. China is tightening its grip on the South China sea, turning places such as the Spratly islands and Paracel islands into military bases, yet the west simply looks on. The UN has confirmed that this activity is actually illegal. Maritime shipping is now denied. The next step will be the airspace, and following that will be the fact that Taiwan will become all the more vulnerable. Can the Minister confirm that the UK does not approve of the nine-dash line and that we need to be more robust in standing up to China, which is taking advantage of the west’s risk-averseness?
Nigel Adams
I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. He has a great deal of experience in this area. With regard to the nine-dash line, as I have said previously, we do not take a position on the underlying sovereignty claims in the South China sea, but we do urge all parties to be transparent: they need to clarify the extent and the legal basis of their claims. UNCLOS provides a comprehensive legal order for the seas and oceans. Any claim should be set out in a way that is consistent with UNCLOS and its arbitration rulings.
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)
From the Himalayas to the South China sea, Beijing’s aggressive expansionism could have serious consequences for our national security, and yet our Government are absent from the global stage. The Chinese Communist party respects strength and unity and is contemptuous of weakness and division, but successive Conservative Governments since 2010 have been naive and complacent, and Beijing has exploited these weaknesses. Will the Government be making a robust statement of support for Taiwan given that Taiwanese airspace is repeatedly being buzzed by Chinese fighter jets? What steps are the Government taking to forge alliances with key partners in the EU, NATO and the Asia-Pacific democracies to build an international consensus that will enable us to push back against Beijing’s increasingly belligerent behaviour?
Nigel Adams
I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s question. I do not necessarily agree that we have remained silent on this; in fact, we have been leading the international community. He was present yesterday during the urgent question on the human rights violations in Xinjiang. Our approach to China remains clear-eyed, and it is rooted in our values and beliefs. It has always been the case that where we have concerns, we raise them, and where we need to intervene, we will intervene.
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
Mrs Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)
The Minister for Asia (Nigel Adams)
We will always stand by the overseas territories. Government Departments, led by DFID and the FCO, are supporting them to respond to the pandemic. Baroness Sugg, the Minister for the Overseas Territories, and the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), are in regular contact with political leaders and governors to assess the situation and identify how the UK Government can best support them. So far, we have procured and delivered medical supplies to all inhabited overseas territories except Pitcairn, which has had no cases of covid-19. That includes delivering testing systems to six territories, enabling them to test for coronavirus for the first time, and boosting testing capabilities in three others.
Greg Smith
I very much welcome my hon. Friend’s answer. I wonder whether he will elaborate on the steps being taken to ensure that those medical supplies and equipment are reaching our overseas territories so that they can respond to covid-19 rapidly.
Nigel Adams
I can confirm that we are working with the overseas territories to support their healthcare systems. In addition to the medical supplies and testing equipment that I mentioned, specialist health professionals from Public Health England provide ongoing advice and support to chief medical officers in each territory, and we have supported a number of them to recruit additional medical personnel.
Mrs Wheeler [V]
South Derbyshire residents care about our deep relationship with our overseas territories, so will my hon. Friend update the House on what security assistance has been provided to the overseas territories to ensure that the UK Government are safe- guarding the wellbeing of their people?
Nigel Adams
It is great to answer a question from my predecessor, who did such a fantastic job as Minister for Asia. It is great to see her live this morning, albeit digitally. The UK Government take their responsibility to protect the safety and security of the people of the overseas territories very seriously. The Ministry of Defence and the Home Office have provided in-territory support to the Turks and Caicos Islands through a security assistance team of military personnel and police liaison officers. Twenty-nine additional military personnel supported Turks and Caicos to counter illegal migration from Haiti, which risks undermining the covid-19 response. Another team is in the Cayman Islands providing reassurance, security and logistics planning for covid-19, and we must also be conscious of the potential for hurricane responses in those areas.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (James Duddridge)
We continue to spend 0.7% of our gross national income on aid, and that is enshrined in law. We will continue to be guided by the International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Act 2015, including a commitment to spending on reducing poverty, and we believe we will be stronger in that aim as one Department.
Bambos Charalambous
The Secretary of State will soon be responsible for a sizeable amount of official development aid, so can the Minister confirm that the Secretary of State for the future FCDO will be bound by the same rules for aid spending as the current International Development Secretary, including the four key Acts of Parliament that currently govern international development?
Ruth Cadbury
Those with long memories will remember the Pergau dam scandal of the 1990s, where the High Court found that the Government had unlawfully provided aid in exchange for a lucrative arms contract. That was one reason why the Labour Government made the Department for International Development a separate and independent Department from the Foreign Office. What steps will the Government be taking to ensure that we do not see a repeat of the Pergau dam scandal in the future?
James Duddridge
We do not need a separate Department to learn lessons from the past, but that type of transaction would be wholly inappropriate and would not happen under this ministerial team.
Taiwo Owatemi
The UK is rightly proud of its commitment to spend 0.7% of GDP on international aid. The decision by the Government to merge these Departments has been met with criticism by some world-leading international development charities. Former Prime Ministers have also criticised the decision, with David Cameron describing it as a “mistake”. Our international aid commitment can and does save lives, so will the Minister confirm that the budget for international aid will be ring-fenced within a future Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office?
James Duddridge
We are bound by law to spend 0.7%, so it is not a choice; it is in the law, and we will obey the law. I was one of David Cameron’s Ministers in the Foreign Office in that period, and I found a lack of joined-up thinking. I worked well with DFID, but I think this will work better as one Department and it has already worked better with a Joint Minister.
Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP) [V]
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and First Secretary of State (Dominic Raab)
Since the last oral questions, I have called on China, with our international partners, to adhere to its international obligations to respect the autonomy and freedom of the people of Hong Kong; we have welcomed President Macron to the UK from France to celebrate and pay tribute on the 80th anniversary of General de Gaulle’s appel; and I met E3 partners in Berlin last week to discuss Iran, the middle east peace process and ongoing negotiations in relation to Brexit.
I say to the hon. Gentleman that on Yemen we absolutely are part of the solution. I visited Saudi Arabia, where I had the chance not just to meet Saudi Ministers and members of the royal family, but to talk to the President of Yemen. We are fully supporting Martin Griffiths’ work as the UN envoy, and this is an exceptional example of where we can bring our aid budget—the significant contributions that we make—to alleviate the humanitarian plight, while also trying to resolve the broader conflict.
Imran Ahmad Khan (Wakefield) (Con) [V]
Dominic Raab
I am not going to be drawn down the tempting line offered by my hon. Friend, but he is right to say that the merger of our aid budget, and the heart and soul of our development expertise, with the Foreign Office network, and the diplomatic clout and muscle that we can contribute, will make our foreign policy more effective. I think I can give him a crumb of reassurance, which is that trade commissioners will be directly accountable to the ambassador or high commissioner in the specific post. That will make sure that we are more aligned and joined up, country by country, in the way he has described.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
In the wake of revelations about potential Russian exploitation of the covid-19 pandemic here in the UK and press reports in recent days that Russian officials have paid bounties for British troops in Afghanistan—who have served for more than 10 years in that most dangerous region—does the Secretary of State accept that the Government’s failure to produce the Russia report, which everyone in this House has been waiting for, shows just how weak the Government are on national security?
Dominic Raab
First, I know that the hon. Lady would not expect me to comment on intelligence matters or, indeed, intelligence matters from other countries. I can tell her that right across the board we work with our Five Eyes partners on some of the nefarious activities that Russia is engaged in. We work very closely, through our security presence in Afghanistan, to protect all our staff and British nationals. The Intelligence and Security Committee report of course awaits the formation of the new ISC, but I understand that it will be published shortly.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
Dominic Raab
Not only have we had advice from the JBC in relation to the review of quarantine and the potential exemptions, but it has also helped to inform the approach on travel advice. There are of course strict legal requirements that we must go through when we revise travel advice. We are considering exempting certain countries and certain territories, and we will update our travel advice shortly. Indeed, I believe my right hon. Friend will find that the Secretary of State for Transport will today publish a written ministerial statement that will give further updates.
Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab) [V]
Dominic Raab
I know that the hon. Gentleman follows this issue assiduously. I have raised with the Indian Foreign Minister issues in relation to human rights in Kashmir. We continue to regard it as a bilateral dispute that needs to be resolved between Pakistan and India, but the issues the hon. Gentleman has raised are important, we are concerned about them and we do raise them with the Indian Government.
Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)
Dominic Raab
As I set out in my statement on 19 June, in relation to cyber-attacks we stand shoulder to shoulder with our Australian close friends, partners and allies. We work closely across all Five Eyes partners to strengthen our resilience, and that applies in relation to cyber-attacks from not only state actors but, increasingly, non-state actors as well.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
The Minister for the Middle East and North Africa (James Cleverly)
The UK Government’s commitment to Yemen is unwavering. We welcome the ceasefire announcement from Saudi Arabia, and we encourage the Houthis to engage with that peace initiative and to cease their attacks into Saudi. As I say, we support the work of the United Nations special envoy and will continue not only to discharge our humanitarian duties to the people of Yemen but to work at a diplomatic level to bring about a permanent end to the conflict.
Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)
Dominic Raab
I thank my hon. Friend, who I know has been a stalwart champion of freedom of speech ever since we both entered the House. I reassure him. I spoke to Amal Clooney about the case; Maria Ressa was her client and worked very closely with her. I know that the Minister for Asia has raised this with the ambassador from the Philippines. I also discussed the case with Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State.
More broadly, there are three elements of our strategy for preserving media freedom around the world. We have a joint campaign with the Canadians to strengthen media freedoms and protect journalists. We are championing freedom of religious belief around the world and I will shortly—certainly before the summer recess—be bringing the new Magnitsky legislation to this House, both the legal regime and the first designations we will be adopting.
Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)
Dominic Raab
I have spoken to President Abbas and Benny Gantz and Foreign Minister Ashkenazi, as well as Prime Minister Netanyahu previously. We make clear that the United Kingdom’s consistent position—in fairness, across all sides of this House—is that we want to see a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders. We acutely feel that the vacuum without talks is very dangerous. We want to see talks proceed. That is why we are working with those partners in the region, Arab countries and the E3.
Let me be absolutely crystal clear to the House: we have made clear that any annexation, partial or full, in relation to further territory in the occupied territories and the west bank would be both contrary to international law and counterproductive to peace.
Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab) [V]
James Cleverly
The UK’s position on imported goods from Israel remains unchanged. As my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has highlighted, we oppose annexation. We have made it clear to the Government of Israel that we regard it as contrary to international law, and also not in their own interests. That position will remain unchanged.
Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)
Dominic Raab
I agree with my hon. Friend in relation to the concerns he has raised about Iran’s conduct. We do want to keep the joint comprehensive plan of action. We would like to do better and we think there is an opportunity to do better in the future, but that is what we have got now. In order to hold Iran’s feet to the fire and to hold them to account, the United Kingdom, with our French and German partners, triggered the dispute resolution mechanism. I was in Berlin last week for E3 consultations about how we will approach this issue and how we will continue to hold Iran to account. My hon. Friend is absolutely right; we will strive with all of our international partners to continue the arms embargo on Iran.
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab) [V]
Dominic Raab
I am not sure I caught all of that, but I think I caught the gist. One of the things that covid-19 has shown is the need for global co-operation and, frankly, the good co-operation we have had with some that might ostensibly seem unlikely partners. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and I take the opportunity to pay tribute to my Cuban opposite number, who during the coronavirus challenge provided proactive support to ensure that we could get passengers off the Braemar cruise ship—I think I am correct in saying there were something like 600 passengers at very high risk and a significant number of people with coronavirus symptoms—and back to the United Kingdom to the care they needed. We certainly welcome all of that collaboration.
Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)
Dominic Raab
The Foreign Office has put an incredible amount of work in. If the hon. Lady looks at the number of UK nationals who have been returned, it is over 1 million because of the work we did to keep commercial flights going. There were also the special charter flights we commissioned. We put £75 million in and tens of thousands of people got home via that route. I think we have had one of the most proactive and effective responses. It has been very difficult. We have also made sure there are loans for those who would otherwise be stranded. I am proud of the work across Government, but particularly from the consular division of the Foreign Office, to look after British nationals in their time of need.
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 suspending the House for three minutes.
Speaker’s Statement
Mr Speaker
It may be helpful to announce that, with effect from today, the length of time before the doors are locked in each Division will be reduced further. This will be 15 minutes for the first Division and, if possible, 12 minutes for subsequent successive Divisions.
Civil Service Appointments
(4 years, 3 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.
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Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Home Secretary, if she will make a statement on the appointment of the National Security Adviser and other senior civil service positions.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Michael Gove)
The Prime Minister has outlined today in Dudley how the Government will move to a new phase of their coronavirus response and focus on building a strong domestic recovery. Yesterday, he also set out a new structure of Cabinet committees better to co-ordinate our foreign and domestic policies. These reforms underline the need for separating the roles of National Security Adviser and Cabinet Secretary and head of the civil service.
These two senior positions have, of course, been separate under previous Administrations. Each is of vital importance, given the challenges ahead, and it is appropriate that they should be filled by two individuals who can serve in their respective posts through the rest of this Parliament. For this reason, the Prime Minister and Sir Mark Sedwill agreed some time ago that Sir Mark would stand down in September.
Sir Mark is a supremely dedicated, highly professional and hugely accomplished public servant. As the Prime Minister wrote in his letter of thanks to Sir Mark:
“You have done it all in Whitehall: from Afghanistan to the modernisation of the civil service; from immigration policy to Brexit and defeating coronavirus”.
I would like to add my own personal thanks for the exemplary contribution that Sir Mark has made to this country. Working alongside him has been both a pleasure and a privilege and I know that he will continue to contribute to the service of this country.
Sir Mark’s successor as NSA is also a distinguished public servant. David Frost has served for decades in our diplomatic service. A former ambassador, he has also been director of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s policy planning staff and principal foreign policy adviser to the Foreign Secretary. He is now, of course, the UK’s negotiator, shaping our future relationship with the EU, covering issues from trade and tariffs to security and defence co-operation. As NSA, David Frost will help to deliver this Government’s vision for Britain’s place in the world, supporting the Prime Minister in reinvigorating our national security architecture and ensuring that we defend our interests and values across the globe.
The NSA is a relatively new position, but it is always an appointment for the Prime Minister of the day. The First Civil Service Commissioner has agreed the position can be regarded as a political rather than necessarily civil service appointment. While it is a unique role, David Frost’s status will be akin to that of a special envoy representing the UK abroad, speaking publicly and setting the agenda for policy making. He will not be a permanent secretary or a special adviser, and the civil service will support him in the same way as any other political appointee: with objectivity, honesty, integrity and impartiality.
A competition will be launched shortly for the combined role of Cabinet Secretary and head of the civil service. This is open to existing and former permanent secretaries. We have been fortunate over the years to have been served by a series of outstanding Cabinet Secretaries, including Lords O’Donnell, Turnbull, Wilson, Butler and Armstrong, and, of course, Lord Heywood and Sir Mark. I have no doubt that their successor will continue their tradition of distinguished and dedicated public service.
Mr Speaker
May I just say, as this is a very important matter, that at some point the Government ought to be coming to the House with statements, rather than me granting UQs? Can we bear that in mind in future?
Nick Thomas-Symonds
I am grateful at least to the Cabinet Office Minister for turning up on behalf of the Home Secretary. I am also grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question.
After Sir Mark Sedwill’s letter on his departure—and I thank him for his work—No. 10 put out a press release indicating that the Prime Minister had appointed David Frost, currently the Prime Minister’s European adviser and chief negotiator with the EU, as the new National Security Adviser. The first duty of any Government is to keep people safe, and in carrying out that duty any Government should have objective, and at times challenging, advice from their National Security Adviser. That is why making a political appointment takes this Government into such dangerous territory.
Independent, impartial, specialist advice on national security is crucial. Prime Ministers come and go, but security threats remain and evolve. Can the Cabinet Office Minister give one good reason why this is a political appointment? Can he tell us to whom ultimately the new National Security Adviser is accountable, and if he will be subject to the code of conduct for special advisers in this new special envoy status that seems to be being bestowed upon him? Was the Civil Service Commission involved in this appointment, and if so can the Minister outline what the commission ruled? Have the intelligence agencies and the wider intelligence and security community been consulted on this being a political appointee? And at such a crucial time in our trade negotiations with the EU, how will Mr Frost’s additional responsibilities impact upon him being able to achieve the best outcome for the United Kingdom by the end of the year, as the Government have promised?
Also very worrying is the wider issue of a lobby briefing from February that No. 10 had a hit list of several permanent secretaries that it wanted to push out. Our civil service and our civil servants are world leading and we should be proud of the extraordinary work they do. Weak Prime Ministers take advice only from those who agree with them; those who put the national interest first should welcome different views and welcome challenge. So can Cabinet Office Minister tell us, quite simply: what is the Prime Minister so afraid of, and why will he not put his duty to keep people safe first?
Michael Gove
I am very grateful to the shadow Home Secretary for his questions. I am sorry that he did not find time to thank Sir Mark Sedwill for his service—
Michael Gove
Okay. I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s kind words now.
The hon. Gentleman asked about objective and challenging advice. Sir David Frost is a distinguished public servant who has spent decades in diplomatic service and as such has given advice to Labour and Conservative Governments without fear or favour. There is no suggestion that Sir David is anything other than an exemplary public servant capable of discharging his duties and responsibilities with authority and integrity, and in a way which will guarantee the safety and security of all. He is, of course, accountable to the Prime Minister, and he will operate as other special envoys have. It is not a novelty, as the hon. Gentleman implied, to create special envoys: under Labour Ann Clwyd was made a special envoy on human rights in Iraq, Des Browne was the special envoy on Sri Lanka and, of course, Michael Levy was made special envoy to the middle east. In each of these roles, appropriate political appointments were made.
The hon. Gentleman also asked about the First Civil Service Commissioner. The First Civil Service Commissioner, as I pointed out in my remarks, has agreed that it is entirely appropriate for this role to be carried out by a political appointee. I think it is important that all of us recognise that Prime Ministers, whether Labour, Conservative or any other colour, should have confidence in those advising them, and those advising them should also operate in a way that is true to the highest traditions of public service. That has always been the way in which David Frost and Sir Mark have carried out their duties, and I am confident that will be the case for the National Security Adviser in the future and for the future Cabinet Secretary.
Mrs Theresa May (Maidenhead) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. May I first pay tribute to Sir Mark Sedwill and thank him for his extraordinary public service over many years? I served on the National Security Council for nine years—six years as Home Secretary and three as Prime Minister. During that time, I listened to the expert independent advice from National Security Advisers.
On Saturday, my right hon. Friend said:
“We must be able to promote those with proven expertise”.
Why, then, is the new National Security Adviser a political appointee, with no proven expertise in national security?
Michael Gove
Like my right hon. Friend, I, too, want to pay tribute again to Sir Mark. Having served in Cabinet when she was Prime Minister and Sir Mark was Cabinet Secretary, I appreciate just how much we all owe to him for his distinguished public service. I should also say that we have had previous National Security Advisers, all of them excellent, not all of whom were necessarily people who were steeped in the security world; some of them were distinguished diplomats in their own right. David Frost is a distinguished diplomat in his own right and it is entirely appropriate that the Prime Minister of the day should choose an adviser appropriate to the needs of the hour.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP) [V]
Of course, Sir Mark Sedwill should be thanked for his distinguished service, but the truth is that his card was marked last year when he warned the Cabinet that Brexit would be a disaster. He also said that the consequent recession could be worse than 2008 and that prices could go up by 10%. This is all about the revenge of the Vote Leave campaign, whose so-called mastermind is now pulling the strings of this Government—although one does have to wonder about the masterliness of a mind that thinks a good way to test one’s eyesight is to go for a 60-mile drive.
I have three questions for the Minister. First, will he confirm that this is the start of the hard rain that Dominic Cummings promised for the civil service? Secondly, it has long been thought desirable for the Government to have the assistance of a civil service that is neutral, objective, above party politics and free from the taint of apparent bias. Does the Minister think there is any merit left in those qualities? Thirdly and finally, Lord Ricketts, himself a former National Security Adviser, has queried whether Mr Frost, a former diplomat, has the necessary experience of the wider security and defence agenda to fulfil the role of National Security Adviser. Will the Minister detail for us what experience Mr Frost has in those fields? Or should we be left with the impression that, even when it comes to national security, it is more important to have yes men in post than people with the requisite experience?
Michael Gove
I thank the hon. and learned Lady for her questions. The objectivity, neutrality and authority of our civil service is a source of pride to this Government, as it has been to previous Governments. I have been fortunate, in a variety of Departments, to work with civil servants of the highest standard, to whom I owe so much. I had the opportunity on Saturday, in the speech that my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) referred to, to thank them for saving me from mistakes that I might have made and for ensuring that policies that this Government have developed were delivered effectively.
The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) asks about previous National Security Advisers and their range of expertise. It is true that Sir Peter, now Lord Ricketts, was chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, and permanent representative to NATO, but it is also the case that other previous National Security Advisers, including Mark Lyall Grant and Kim Darroch, were distinguished diplomats, without necessarily being steeped entirely in the world of security and intelligence. It is appropriate that the Prime Minister’s adviser on national security should be someone with diplomatic expertise. It is also the case, of course, that David Frost, in the negotiations that he is conducting with the European Union at the moment, is tackling and dealing with delicate questions of national security and defence co-operation as well.
Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)
May I thank Sir Mark for his service, on behalf of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee? Notwithstanding the particular nature of the appointment, is the combination of the National Security Adviser and the Cabinet Secretary posts not a recent innovation? Is my right hon. Friend’s reforming zeal not merely a restoration of things past? Could he also confirm that the Civil Service Commission will be obliged to recommend the appointment of a current or former permanent secretary for the role of Cabinet Secretary, rather than an outsider?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Civil Service Commission has advised, and the Prime Minister has agreed, that it should be either a current or former permanent secretary who becomes the next Cabinet Secretary. He is also right that traditionally the roles of National Security Adviser and Cabinet Secretary have been split. When former Prime Minister David Cameron was in opposition, the then principal national security adviser was of course a political appointee.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
Will the new politically appointed special envoy and National Security Adviser be responsible for the performance reviews of the heads of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ? Does the Minister agree that nothing should be done to suggest any political interference in the crucial intelligence agencies that support our national interest?
Michael Gove
The right hon. Lady makes an important point, and of course those reviews are carried out by those who can be fully objective, in the round, in a way that is free of any taint of political interference.
Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)
In a speech at the weekend, my right hon. Friend set out a wider strategy for civil service reform and referenced President F. D. R. He said:
“FDR asked his government to remember the forgotten man. In the 2016 referendum those who had been too often forgotten asked to be remembered”.
With that in mind, what steps is he taking to ensure that my constituents in Redcar and Cleveland will never be forgotten and that they have a civil service that truly works for them?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes an important point. We have a superb civil service, but it is also important that we make sure it serves the people of this country even better. The Prime Minister in his speech in Dudley today announced that part of the doubling down on levelling up was making sure that more important policy-making roles in our civil service were carried out closer to people, including on Teesside.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
In his Ditchley lecture at the weekend, the Minister said:
“How can we in Government be less southern, less middle class, less reliant on those with social science qualifications and more welcoming to those with physical science and mathematical qualifications”?
I am pleased the Government now think that experts are important, but can he set out how his Ditchley commitments were taken into account in the political appointment of a non-expert and arguably initially part-time new National Security Adviser?
Michael Gove
There is no question but that David Frost is an expert. Someone who spent decades in diplomatic service, is currently conducting a complex international negotiation and was head of policy and planning at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is hardly an ingénue in the world of foreign affairs, but I am grateful to the hon. Lady for pointing out that we need to be a little less southern. Voices from Lancashire and Scotland are always important in the national conversation.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
Following up what the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), the Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said, may I ask who reports to who? Do members of the various security services report to the National Security Adviser or to a Cabinet Minister? Does the National Security Adviser report directly to the Prime Minister or to another person?
Michael Gove
The Secret Intelligence Service and GCHQ are answerable to the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary, and MI5 to the Home Secretary, and the National Security Adviser is, and always has been, accountable to the Prime Minister of the day.
John Mc Nally (Falkirk) (SNP) [V]
Could the Minister try a wee bit harder to explain to everyone watching why Sir Simon McDonald, Sir Philip Rutnam, Sir Kim Darroch and now Sir Mark Sedwill have been hung out to dry by the Government, when a man with great power but no responsibility, who can flout laws, and who is openly laughed at and disbelieved by the Great British public still has a job?
Michael Gove
I am not sure to whom the hon. Gentleman is referring—[Interruption.] I’m not, I’m not—I’m a simple soul. I am not sure to whom he was referring in the second part of his question, but all those he mentioned are distinguished public servants. In particular, I would like to place on the record my thanks to Sir Simon McDonald for the excellent work he has done, and is still doing, at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and to Sir Kim Darroch, who was a very distinguished National Security Adviser as well as a great ambassador to the United States.
James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)
Given the timing of David Frost’s appointment, could the Minister please outline the extent to which security considerations will be on the table during our Brexit negotiations and, in particular, on any role that David Frost might have in the forthcoming integrated review?
Michael Gove
It is the case, as my hon. Friend rightly points out, that one aspect of our negotiations on our future relationship with the European Union relates to internal security as well as defence co-operation, and Mr Frost is well-equipped, well-briefed and authoritative on those issues. It is also the case that an integrated review of defence, aid and foreign policy will be carried out by the National Security Council. It will be the case that David Frost will lead on that, ably assisted by the two deputy national security advisers and, of course, ultimately accountable to the National Security Council itself, which is a Cabinet Committee.
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
I served on the National Security Council in the first two and a half years after it was set up—with my right hon. Friend in fact—and it does seem to me that it is clearly sensible to have the National Security Adviser separate from the head of the civil service. Both are very exacting roles: they may fit closely together, but they are very different. I have read digitally my right hon. Friend’s brilliant, and long, speech at the weekend: will he confirm the centrality of the National Security Council—the reform that we introduced in 2010—and in particular in its role of wiring together defence, diplomacy and development in our national interest?
Michael Gove
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on displaying the stamina to read all of the speech. It would have been a shorter speech had I had the time to edit it appropriately. His point is absolutely correct. The creation of the National Security Council was an innovation pioneered by David Cameron when he was in Opposition. The potential National Security Adviser at that time was a political appointee, and it was the case when the coalition Government was formed that the distinguished figure of Lord Ricketts, then Sir Peter Ricketts, became the first National Security Adviser. It is an innovation in the governance of the UK, but it is one that has served us well, and it is of course the case that national security advisers in other countries are very often political appointees.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
Will Mr Frost have finished with his duties as the EU negotiator by the time he takes the security job, or is it still the Government’s view that the National Security Adviser should be a part-time role?
Michael Gove
We are confident that we will be making progress over the course of the next few weeks in EU negotiations. They are being conducted intensively, specifically at the request of the Prime Minister and the President of the European Commission.
Brendan Clarke-Smith (Bassetlaw) (Con)
May I thank Sir Mark for his service and wish his successor all the best? Does my right hon. Friend agree that the fundamental changes that are needed in the civil service go beyond personnel changes at the top and need to reflect the people’s priorities?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course it is the case that there will always be turnover in the civil service. The normal length of tenure for someone in a permanent secretary role is five years, and it is also the case that previous Governments, in order to ensure that they could achieve their agenda, had political appointees. It was the case that the previous Labour Government had, in the persons of Alastair Campbell and Jonathan Powell, two political appointees who were given the power through Order in Council to give direction to civil servants. My hon. Friend is right that we need to ensure we have the broadest possible talent pool and an exciting agenda of reform.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
We have heard that we lost Kim Darroch, Philip Rutnam, Simon McDonald and now Mark Sedwill. In appointing Sir David Frost as National Security Adviser, is this what the Minister meant in June 2016 when he said that
“people in this country have had enough of experts”?
Does he believe now that we have gone from “Yes, Minister” to “Yes, special adviser”?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reminding me of what happened in 2016, when the people of this country voted to leave the European Union. I am afraid that he has edited what I said at the time, which was that we had had enough of experts from organisations with acronyms that had got things wrong in the past. I was specifically referring to the legions of economic modellers in organisations like the IMF and the CBI who argued that we should join the euro and then were proven wrong because we were successful outside the euro. My own view is that expertise is to be applauded and should be rewarded, particularly in quoting opposing politicians. So I hope that he will look back again at the record and gently correct it.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
I strongly support the split of the two roles; they are very big and very different jobs. When the Government come to appoint a new Cabinet Secretary and head of the Civil Service, will they pay special attention to the need to improve the accuracy, timeliness and relevance of data being used by chief executives and other senior managers throughout the civil service and the agencies, as well as by Ministers, so that they can ask the right questions and provide the right supervision? There could be a lot of improvement in that area.
Michael Gove
My right hon. Friend is right. He was intimately involved in a programme of Whitehall reform when he was head of the Prime Minister’s policy unit in the 1980s, as a very young man. The innovations that were brought in at that time under political appointees such as Sir John Hoskyns and others helped to create the “next steps” agencies, which were so vital in ensuring that there was greater accountability in the delivery of public services. We could do well to learn from some of the examples that he set.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP) [V]
Under this Dominic Cummings Government, senior civil servants are in the firing line like never before, with three resignations and one industrial tribunal all in the space of six months. What steps will the Minister take to end this toxic workplace environment for senior civil servants, or can we expect a season of hard rain which puts us on a slippery slope towards US-style yes-men government based on political appointments?
Michael Gove
Well, the Scottish National party knows something about the importance of political appointments in government in order to deliver its agenda. It is only fair to record that, far from there being any sort of toxicity, the environment in which our civil servants work is one characterised by their determination to put public service first, and for that I thank them.
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)
What reassurances can my right hon. Friend give the House that, rather than leading to delays and disruptions, these changes to the civil service’s top team will turbo-charge the Government’s levelling-up agenda—an agenda that the Prime Minister reiterated his commitment to today?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is right. We need to ensure that we reform how the Government work in order to deliver better for the people whose taxes we spend and in whose name we act. The Prime Minister’s speech in Dudley today was a clarion cry for reform, and we need to ensure that Government are in a position to deliver it.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
Sir Mark Sedwill steps down at the end of September and will be replaced as National Security Adviser by David Frost, who will also remain the EU chief negotiator, which he says will be his “top single priority” until the negotiations have concluded. If the negotiations carry on into October and beyond, who will have the nation’s security as their top single priority, or is this just a case of misapplied persistent experimentation?
Michael Gove
Like me, the right hon. Gentleman is a believer in experimentation, scientific method, empiricism and pragmatism. As we both know, the negotiations with the European Union are accelerating at the moment, as both sides seek to find a conclusion over the course of the next five weeks.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
I am sure the Minister agrees that the incorruptibility and independence of mind of the civil service is one of the key features of our government, but it occurs to me that there may be a bit of hype around this issue. Surely someone who spends decades as a professional diplomat can hardly be accused of not knowing anything about national security, and surely independence is in their DNA. There is also hype about all these advisers—about Dominic Cummings and David Frost. These people just give advice. Can we not rely on the Prime Minister and the Minister to actually run the country? They are quite capable, are they not?
Michael Gove
As ever, my right hon. Friend speaks good sense. It is the case that national security advisers, like other advisers, are there to advise, and then Ministers decide.
Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)
The Minister has said that he believes that civil service objectivity, neutrality and expertise is a source of pride, so why are his Government riding roughshod over that objectivity, neutrality and expertise and politicising a very important national security appointment?
Michael Gove
I should say that we never had a National Security Adviser under a Labour Government. Some of us might think that we were well or poorly governed at that time, but it seems to me slightly recherché of the Labour party to object to the evolution of a role that it had no part in either creating or advocating.
Sara Britcliffe (Hyndburn) (Con)
Can my right hon. Friend outline what steps the Government are taking to attract new talent to the civil service and ensure that we have the right people in the right job and the right location, so that the civil service works for all constituencies, such as Hyndburn and Haslingden?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In the speech to which some hon. Members referred earlier, I made the point that we needed to disperse decision making in the civil service, and one of the locations I suggested we should think about locating more key decision makers was east Lancashire.
Stephen Farry (North Down) (Alliance)
From addressing nuclear proliferation to countering terrorism, there is a need to build and sustain relationships with European allies and, indeed, to secure a future relationship deal on policing and security co-operation. So how do the Government plan to reconcile David Frost’s role as National Security Adviser with his role as Brexit negotiator, in which he is currently engaging in brinkmanship, and indeed the risk of no deal at the end of the year?
Michael Gove
I should think that it is precisely because David Frost is involved in complex and serious negotiations about security and defence co-operation with our European allies that he is supremely well placed to take on the role of National Security Adviser.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
Having served in Afghanistan with Sir Mark, can I add my thanks to him as a hugely distinguished civil servant, diplomat and indeed, in many ways, our top securocrat? Can I also pay tribute to the work that he has achieved in reforming the government in the last few years?
Before the new National Security Adviser appears before the Foreign Affairs Committee, as he surely will in his new post—I am sure the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster will add weight to make sure that that representation or that parliamentary scrutiny happens—can my right hon. Friend assure me that the new National Security Adviser will actually work to build up alliances, not just simply talk about Britain first?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend, the Chairman of the Select Committee, makes a very important point. David Frost has already appeared in front of Select Committees—the Select Committee on the Future Relationship with the European Union and also the House of Lords European Union Committee—and I am sure that he would be delighted to take up that invitation. As my hon. Friend quite rightly points out, the building and maintenance of alliances are critical to projecting our interests and protecting our values globally.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
Can I add my thanks to Mark Sedwill for his work both in security and as Cabinet Secretary? Mr Frost is a political appointment. He has been given a seat in the other place, but he is not a Minister; he is a special envoy. Picking up on the question that the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee has just raised, will the ISC and other Committees that scrutinise his work be able to summon him before them to scrutinise what he is doing? That is important if we are going to have clear parliamentary oversight of his role. I think that needs clarifying, because the Minister in his reply to the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee did not answer that question.
Michael Gove
I am sorry if I failed to provide the clarity required, but I am sure that for all Select Committees, including the very important ISC, David Frost will make himself and his colleagues available so that he can answer questions.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)
The civil service review into the effectiveness of the National Security Council concluded:
“The NSC demonstrates the potential benefits of a ‘strong grip’ at the centre and the ‘halo effect’ of consistent prime ministerial investment of time and effort in committee work.”
Does my right hon. Friend agree with me that this strong grip will only be increased by the appointment of David Frost as National Security Adviser, a person who works effectively with the Prime Minister, has his full support and has demonstrated impressive ability during the trade negotiations with the European Union and during his long diplomatic career?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: it is important that someone in that role commands the confidence of the Prime Minister and is capable of working effectively with him. I should say—[Interruption.] The right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) makes a comment from a sedentary position. The Labour Government between 1997 and 2010 were responsible for many good things, but the idea that they were entirely free of any political appointees will, for most students of contemporary history, seem to be a form of selective amnesia.
Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP) [V]
During an evidence session of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee last March, Mark Sedwill came under considerable scrutiny regarding the demands of fulfilling two very important roles. The Minister is now asking David Frost potentially to do the same, as he is currently the UK Government’s chief Brexit negotiator and, as was mentioned earlier, he has stated that that is his “top single priority”. Given his lack of experience of the wider security and defence agenda, does the Minister not think that his entire focus from day one should go on this new job, or is the role of National Security Adviser now reduced to being a yes man to the Prime Minister?
Michael Gove
I gently remind the hon. Gentleman that the role of National Security Adviser did not exist before 2010; it was created by David Cameron as Prime Minister. The hon. Gentleman is also quite wrong to say that David Frost has no experience in these areas. He is a distinguished diplomat, he has been an ambassador, and he is dealing with negotiations at the moment that involve security and defence co-operation.
Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend share my genuine confusion at the ambivalence of those on the Opposition Benches and at the fact that someone who was first appointed to the Foreign Office at a time when the shadow Home Secretary was seven years old and who has served in Denmark, Paris, Cyprus and the United Nations does not command their full support?
Michael Gove
I quite agree with my hon. Friend. One of the surprising things about the tone taken by some Members on the Opposition Benches is the idea that someone who has dedicated their life to public service, such as David Frost, should be barred from office.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
If I am honest, I do not really care who the Prime Minister appoints as his National Security Adviser. It is entirely up to him; he can appoint all the duff ambassadors who have ever walked through the Foreign Office, if that is what he wants to do. However, my fear is that in creating this mixed role, where somebody is a quasi-Minister who has been given a job for life in the House of Lords, who is a member of the legislature but it is meant to be a special adviser, and who is a special adviser who can none the less give direction to civil servants, he has created Frankenstein’s monster.
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making the point that the choice of National Security Adviser is properly one for the Prime Minister. I dissent from the assertion that there was anything duff about the ambassadorial role that David Frost played. He has been a very distinguished civil servant—
Michael Gove
He was a very distinguished civil servant, and it is certainly the case that those whom I know who work in the Foreign Office have nothing but praise for him. Talking about political appointments, the distinguished former Cabinet Minister, Paul Boateng, was appointed by a Labour Government as high commissioner to South Africa and, as I mentioned earlier, a Member of the House of Lords, Michael Levy, again a distinguished figure who was a fundraiser for the Labour party, was appointed as a special envoy to Israel. My own view is: Michael Levy, Paul Boateng—good appointments; David Frost—excellent appointment.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
The National Security Adviser is clearly a very important role. It should be a separate role and I am sure that David Frost is well qualified to do it. On the confidentiality of secure Government information, could the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster update the House on what happened to the investigation into the leak of the diplomatic telegrams from Sir Kim Darroch?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend, who was a distinguished Foreign Office and International Development Minister, raises an important point. This is an area outside my immediate responsibility, but I will report back to the House on it.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
I congratulate the Secretary of State for making the most outrageous points and keeping a straight face. He is very good at doing that. Will he answer the question asked right at the beginning of this debate by the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May)? Precisely what are the new National Security Adviser’s qualifications in national security, which, after all, all of us care about because it is about the safety and security of each and every person in this country? What are his specific qualifications and expertise, and why on earth, given his other job, was he considered even for a second for this role?
Michael Gove
I know it was salty, but nevertheless there was an air of sweetness about it as well.
The broader point, though, is that, as I mentioned earlier, David Frost is involved in one of the most complex diplomatic negotiations that has ever been conducted, and a diplomatic negotiation that relates specifically to defence and security co-operation as well as to tariffs and trade. He has been a civil servant—a diplomat—for decades. It is the case that Mark Lyall Grant, who was National Security Adviser, and Kim Darroch, who was National Security Adviser, were not people who were steeped in the world of intelligence and security; they were gifted diplomats and gifted public servants, and of course they were supported, as David will be, by a superb team in the National Security Secretariat.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that a key lesson from all research about politically led organisations is that one-size-fits-all structures are doomed to fail, that leaders need to be able to structure their top teams to best deploy the available talent, and that leaders remain politically accountable for any decisions that they take as a result of their advice?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend, who is a very distinguished council leader, is absolutely right. During the second world war, for example, the Churchill-Attlee Government appointed people such as Professor Frederick Lindemann, who came from outside Whitehall but added specific expertise. There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all approach towards government; what it does, when it is done well, is marry the expertise of the civil service with challenge from politicians and others.
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP) [V]
To my mind, it is just inexplicable that the Government would seek to completely overhaul the civil service at a time when stability and clarity are crucial in tackling the covid crisis. Why on earth have the Government chosen a time of unprecedented uncertainty to dismiss the head of the civil service and then to set out on the inherently ideological vision of the unelected Dominic Cummings to politicise the UK’s world-class civil service?
Michael Gove
I am glad that the hon. Lady says that the UK’s civil service is world-class. That is one of the reasons why I hope that Scotland will continue to benefit from its expertise and authority and that the chimera of separatism will be seen off. I will make sure that the hon. Lady’s paean of praise to the UK Government is shared across Scotland between now and May.
Dehenna Davison (Bishop Auckland) (Con)
I join many colleagues across the House in paying tribute to Sir Mark Sedwill for his many years of distinguished service. Today, we heard the Prime Minister talk about levelling up and about how talent is spread right across our country. There is great talent in Bishop Auckland, but many young people in the north-east do not see the civil service as an achievable place to work. Does my right hon. Friend agree that getting some major elements of the civil service out of London—perhaps into County Durham—is a great start to making that happen?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is spot on. Whether they are in Newcastle, County Durham or Teesside, we need to make sure that the many talented young people in the north-east regard public service as within their reach. We need to bring Government closer to them to better reflect the diversity of this country, and to better reflect the cognitive diversity that means having appropriate challenge for Government.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
The first duty of any Government is to keep their citizens and their country safe and secure. However, the Prime Minister, having gradually forced out a highly respected national security expert, has decided to replace him as National Security Adviser with his political friend—someone who has never worked in defence or security intelligence and who, in fact, until recently was the head of the Scotch Whisky Association and the chief executive officer of the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Can the Minister explain why the Government hate hiring experts? Will he also confirm widespread rumours that the Prime Minister believes his plumber should be the next manager of the England football team?
Michael Gove
Speaking as a supporter of the Scotland football team, I think that appointing a plumber to be the manager of the England football team would be a novel and interesting way of evening the odds.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
My right hon. Friend may not be aware that there was a six-month stand-off in 2018 between the then Defence Committee and No. 10 over whether Sir Mark Sedwill, newly appointed as National Security Adviser, should appear before that Committee, because it was argued that he appeared before the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy and he need not come to us. Can my right hon. Friend give us an assurance that this National Security Adviser will indeed testify as required before all relevant Committees, including the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Defence Committee and, who knows, the ISC, if it is re-established by then?
Michael Gove
I very much take on board my right hon. Friend’s point. it is the case that normally for any particular official or Minister there will be one Select Committee, which is the principal area to which they will be accountable. But, speaking for myself in my own role, I have been held accountable by the Committee on the Future Relationship with the European Union as well as by PACAC. I know that David Frost will want to engage with all the Committees of this House and the other place in order to ensure appropriate scrutiny.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
The Minister must have misheard the question from the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, but, because I am very kind, I will ask him again. Will the party politically appointed National Security Adviser be responsible for the performance reviews of the independent heads of intelligence and security services?
Michael Gove
I know that the hon. Lady was a very successful teacher before she came to this place, so I am grateful to her for giving me the opportunity to resit the exam, and I hope that I will be able to pass it this time. It will not be the case that there will be any individual responsible for that, no.
Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that appointments to civil service positions need to reflect the experience of people of all backgrounds to be relevant to the needs of the hour? That means all types of school, all parts of the country, people from the charity sector and the private sector, as well, of course, as talented and skilled public servants?
Michael Gove
Yes, I absolutely do agree, and diversity of background and cognitive diversity are important in public service.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
The idea that this is about social mobility is for the birds. General Sir Richard Barrons, the former chief of Joint Forces Command and indeed a Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff, described this as
“a move for ‘chumocracy’. Someone in Boris Johnson’s inner circle is being moved higher up the inner circle”
He also said that
“when it comes to matters of security, his knowledge is zero, and that is a matter of concern.”
One of the key lessons from the Chilcot inquiry was the importance of speaking truth to power. How can a political appointee of this nature, part of the chumocracy, speak truth to power?
Michael Gove
I note that the Chilcot inquiry was an inquiry into the conduct of foreign affairs under a Labour Administration. Anyone who has seen how those in the National Security Secretariat discharge their responsibilities under this Administration will know that they consistently speak truth to power.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
May I put on record my thanks to Sir Mark Sedwill for his public service? I served with him when he was permanent secretary at the Home Office, and I served in that Department as Immigration Minister. I know that he brings a tremendous set of skills and has served our country faithfully over many years. Looking at the responsibilities of the National Security Adviser as the secretary to the National Security Council, which covers a wide range of matters, not just national security, it seems to me that David Frost is eminently qualified. That council also has the heads of the agencies and the military chief sitting on it. May I ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster whether, given all the threats and challenges facing the country, he anticipates the National Security Council sitting relatively frequently in the months to come?
Michael Gove
I am really grateful to my right hon. Friend for making that point; I should have made it earlier. It is the case that when the National Security Council sits, it is absolutely required that the representatives of the various security and intelligence agencies that keep us safe are there, along with key military and diplomatic figures. The National Security Adviser is one of a number of those with expertise, and it is the case that the National Security Council is now meeting more frequently, not least to take forward the integrated review that I know he supports.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
Don’t prorogue Parliament as the Supreme Court will find it unlawful. Don’t approve this planning application, Secretary Jenrick, as it will be found unlawful. Is this not just the latest case of the Government absolutely ignoring civil servants and making party political appointments that are wholly inappropriate. Does the Minister agree with that?
Michael Gove
It may surprise the hon. Gentleman, but, no, I do not. Of course, we benefit from impartial and authoritative advice, but, ultimately, Ministers decide. It is certainly the case that, in the Scottish Government, I know that the excellent civil servants there provide robust challenge, but, just occasionally, Ministers of the Scottish Government sometimes take a different view.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
You would think that nothing had changed since the fall of Thomas Cromwell. Has my right hon. Friend read Hilary Mantel’s “The Mirror and the Light”? It is not really like that, is it?
Michael Gove
I have not had the opportunity to read Ms Mantel’s latest novel, but I hope to have the opportunity to do so over the summer. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out that, historically, government has been carried on by a mixture of those who are dedicated public servants in the civil service and outside appointees of a political hue.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
On Radio 4’s “Today” programme yesterday, the Secretary of State for Education said that making the National Security Adviser a political appointment was following the example of the United States. President Trump has had well-documented rows with his security services. I always say that when it comes to issues such as Huawei or other security issues, we can follow and trust in the advice of our security services because we know it is non-political. Can I still say that?
Michael Gove
Yes, absolutely. If advice comes from the agencies, then that advice will always go, absolutely direct, to the Prime Minister and to the relevant politician. The record of previous national security advisers in the United States of America, from Condoleezza Rice to Henry Kissinger, is a distinguished one. Having people of that stature reflects well on the Presidents who appointed them, and it makes the case that a national security adviser of the kind that David Cameron introduced is a welcome innovation.
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
In 1987, David Frost was appointed to start his career in the diplomatic service. He served there for a quarter of a century. He has since served in senior appointments both in government and in the private sector. Does the Minister agree that it is exactly people with this range of experience that we need in senior government positions?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend, who has served in government as a political appointee, knows absolutely whereof he speaks. As I say, I find it somewhat curious that Opposition Members who have themselves supported the Government on many, many political appointees are now having a fit of the vapours at the idea that there should be a political appointee.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP) [V]
The Minister claims that there was an issue with Sir Mark Sedwill carrying out two roles, so how is it practical to combine the role of National Security Adviser with a commitment to intensify EU negotiations—or have the Government already given up on a good deal?
Michael Gove
It is precisely because we do want a good deal that negotiations are being intensified. That decision was taken by the Prime Minister and by the Presidents of the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Council. We all wish those involved bonne chance.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
I very much welcome the appointment of David Frost, who is well qualified for the roles that my right hon. Friend has outlined. At the weekend in a Government press release, David Frost is said to have said that he is particularly exercised by the importance of the integrated review and the formation of the new Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. What role does my right hon. Friend envisage for David Frost in the formation of that very welcome new Department? When will the new permanent secretary be appointed to the Department? Does my right hon. Friend agree that he or she has to be an excellent change manager? What relationship will David Frost have to the new perm sec?
Michael Gove
That is a very thoughtful set of questions from a very successful previous Minister in the Foreign Office. It is right that the integrated review should look at how diplomacy, aid, and defence and security mesh. He is right that David Frost’s experience equips him well for that role. There will be no single individual who will be reviewing these matters. There will be a range of people, including existing civil servants. I should add that one of those is also involved as another political appointee in the Prime Minister’s policy unit—a biographer of Clement Attlee. I am sure that the hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) would agree that that is a qualification for high office.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
Listening to the excellent Minister, I have learned that the National Security Adviser is not going to be a civil servant or a special adviser but a special envoy who will travel all over the world. Since we are adopting the idea from America of appointing people into government who support the Government—not a bad thing, I would say—would it not also be a good idea to take from America the idea of confirmation hearings and let this appointment be made only after a Committee of this House has held a confirmation hearing?
Michael Gove
That is an interesting constitutional innovation. I remember that when I was shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, the then Children’s Commissioner was interviewed by the Education Committee. The Committee said that she should not be appointed, but the then Secretary of State, Ed Balls, did appoint her, and he was entirely within his rights to do so. Of course Select Committees have an important role to play, but ultimately Ministers decide.
Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (SNP)
National security is reserved, but protecting communities requires co-operation with Governments and agencies that are devolved. How can the devolved Administrations have confidence in a lead official who acts not in the wider public interest, but at the beck and call of the Prime Minister?
Michael Gove
I think that the devolved Administrations can have confidence in David Frost. He has talked to the Ministers in the devolved Administrations who are concerned with the fate of the EU negotiations. We were reminded by the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) that David Frost was, for a while, chief executive of the Scotch Whisky Association, so those in Speyside and elsewhere in Scotland can be confident that this is a man who has their best interests at heart.
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 suspend the House for three minutes.
Lammy Review
(4 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab) (Urgent Question)
To ask the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the Government’s implementation of the Lammy review.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk)
Racism is an abomination. It is morally and intellectually bankrupt, and it strikes at the foundations of a fair and just society. It is particularly corrosive when found within the criminal justice system, because in that context the stakes are particularly high—guilt or innocence; freedom or incarceration.
That is why the Government, back in 2017, commissioned the Lammy review into the treatment of and outcomes for black, Asian and minority ethnic individuals in the criminal justice system. Although it was an independent review, it was heavily backed by Government resources. A team of six, headed by a senior civil servant, were devoted to the review, and it took evidence from across the world, with fact-finding trips as far away as the United States and New Zealand. We are profoundly grateful to the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) for the constructive and consensual way in which he led the review, and for the valuable 35 recommendations it produced. It is a good report and it has made a big difference.
Not uncommonly when reviews are commissioned, it was clear to Government that not every last recommendation could or indeed should be implemented precisely as requested. The Government made that clear, and they did so openly and publicly in their December 2017 response. Instead of flatly rejecting a large number of the recommendations, the Government were mindful of the importance of progressing the policy intent that lay behind them. That is why the Government undertook to take them forward to the fullest extent possible. They repeated that stance in the further lengthy progress updates they published in 2018 and most recently earlier this year, with the latest one running to more than 80 pages. The position now is that 16 recommendations have been completed, two have been rejected and 17 are in progress. Of those 17 in progress, 11 will be completed within 12 months and six thereafter.
Let me close by saying that enormous progress has been made, particularly in respect of the functioning and fairness of prisons. By way of one example, recommendation 3, which recommended the publication of datasets held on ethnicity, has been complied with, including in respect of home detention, curfew, release on temporary licence and prisons. All that data is set out in the official gov.uk updates on the “Ethnicity facts and figures” website, which is, by the way, arguably one of the most transparent sets of Government data in this field anywhere in the world. As a result, data on staff and prisoner ethnicity is significantly better than it used to be, allowing a spotlight to be more easily shone on disparities and action taken.
We have gone further, too, making progress in areas such as setting up the Race and Ethnicity Board to hold key partners across the criminal justice system responsible for improvement in their respective areas. Of course there is more to do, and I hope we can continue the constructive dialogue in taking forward the recommendations of this excellent report. I know things are different now. The consensual has necessarily, because of the right hon. Gentleman’s elevation, given way to a more adversarial approach. That is understandable, but great progress has been made. With common purpose and focus, we can finish the job.
Mr Lammy
In this country, we have two major political parties with different visions of our past and our future, but on some matters of political importance, it is right for us to work across the partisan divide to achieve lasting change. It was in that spirit of good faith that David Cameron asked me to complete an independent review into the disproportionality in the criminal justice system. It was with the same good faith and in the hope of forging political consensus that I completed it.
I was disappointed to hear the Prime Minister break that consensus last week when he claimed that 16 of the recommendations I made in the Lammy review had been, and I quote, “implemented”, when in fact the majority of them had not. Inadvertently, he misled the House, and it is a shame he is not answering this urgent question himself.
There is a huge difference between implementing my recommendations and, as the Minister has said at the Dispatch Box today, completing the actions the Government committed to following my recommendations. In fact, I think the Minister said that they have completed 11 of those recommendations. Last week, it was 16. I hope that he recognises it is important on a matter such as this to give the public clear information. When he returns to his feet, I hope he will correct the record properly.
Recommendation 13, for example, was that
“all sentencing remarks in the Crown Court should be published in audio and/or written form.”
As the Government admit, that has not happened. They have done all that they said they would do on that recommendation, but frankly, that is nothing. They have not implemented it. In fact, they have rejected it. It is the same story for recommendations 8, 18, 19 and 35. They committed to not implementing my recommendations, and it is wrong to pretend anything else. Language matters and, as the Black Lives Matter movement makes its voice heard about systemic injustice here and abroad, the very least the Government could do is be honest about their actions.
Last week, the Prime Minister broke the consensus around my review; now I am asking the Minister to correct the record so that we can win it back. History is littered with examples of what happens if we abandon good faith. Without good faith, people get angry. Without good faith, people take to the streets. Without good faith, people give up hope.
The truth is that many of the injustices that I highlighted in my review have since got worse. When I completed the review, 41% of children in prison came from a black, Asian or minority ethnic background—and now the proportion is 51%. The proportion of all stop and searches on black people has increased by 69% over five years. The average custodial sentence for a black person is almost 10 years longer than that for a white person. To recognise the pain of these injustices, the Government need to go further than my review went, not cover up for the recommendations they ignored. Change will happen only when we look in the mirror honestly. Change will happen only when we tell the truth. Change will happen only when we recognise that black lives matter. Do not take the community involved for fools.
Alex Chalk
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his remarks. Let me be clear: we say that 16 recommendations have been implemented. The point I was making about 11 is that there is agreement between the parties, so to speak, that 11 of those 16 have been implemented, or partially implemented—that is in the right hon. Gentleman’s letter. There is a dispute about the other five, to which I shall come in a moment.
In 2017, after this excellent report was produced, the Government could have said in respect of recommendation 13—to which the right hon. Gentleman refers and which, by the way, requires that all transcripts of sentencing hearings should be printed and published—“Do you know what, Mr Lammy? That is simply not feasible. We are just going to turn our face against that.” But instead, the Government looked behind the intention of that recommendation, and the intention—as set out in the text of the report, by the way—was to increase transparency. I will explain in a moment what then happened, but I wish to deal with this point first. In December 2017, the Government said in their response that they would not be able to implement every last word—in fact, the expression used was “to the letter”, in paragraph 8, if the right hon. Gentleman wants to look at it.
In respect of recommendation 13, to which the right hon. Gentleman refers, what in fact have the Government said? The report from 2020—which, by the way, runs to some 80 pages, setting out what the Government have done in respect of each of the recommendations—talks about recommendation 13, and if he wants to find it, it is at page 60. I remind everyone of what recommendation 13 says:
“As part of the court modernisation programme, all sentencing remarks in the Crown Court should be published in audio and/or written form. This would build trust by making justice more transparent and comprehensible for victims, witnesses and offenders.”
We said that transcripts for everything would be a gargantuan expense, and that money would have to come out of the legal aid budget and so on. We said that
“the costs are prohibitive at this time”,
but that the
“Ministry of Justice has however produced a four-part guide to support defendants as they move through the Criminal Justice System from charge to case completion, available online and in Courts. MoJ want to ensure that people are given the help they need to understand the Court process and the consequences of their own decisions, as well as those made by the Court. The guide includes information on sentencing”.
In other words, we implemented the spirit of the recommendation.
Alex Chalk
In a moment; let me just finish the point.
The right hon. Gentleman also asked about going further. We have required police and crime commissioners, for example, to report on the number of BAME victims they are supporting through support services. We have set up the race and ethnicity board. We have committed to publish the victims strategy. We have done all these things, even though they were not in the Lammy review, because we recognise that when it comes to cracking down on racism in the criminal justice system, we have to go further still.
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
I do not doubt the Minister’s commitment to this personally, or his personal good faith in this matter, and I am sure that no one does, but it is fair to say that the detailed report in February 2020 that he refers to also recognises a particularly intractable issue with the youth justice system, and some of the figures on that have been mentioned. Can he help me specifically on what the timeframe is for moving towards the implementation and achievement of those shared overarching aims and objectives for the three principal agencies in the criminal justice system, which were identified in the February 2020 report? There is a lot of good work set out individually, but in evidence the Justice Committee heard a concern that we need to pull these things together, with a specific action plan for delivery.
Alex Chalk
I am very grateful to the Chair of the Select Committee, and I recall that in March 2019 his Committee conducted an inquiry into this. One of the most important themes that came from the Lammy review was the adoption of the principle “Explain or change”—in other words, explain why there are these discrepancies, or do something about it, to put it in plain English. One of the key tools to enable that change to happen is publishing data. Data is one of the most powerful tools in all this. One of the things that encourages me is that, because we have now published the data on ethnicity facts and figures, we can pick a certain minority, see the data on homelessness, for example, or on the kind of accommodation people are in, and put that alongside criminal justice data to see how the outcomes are going.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP) [V]
If the words “black lives matter” are to have any real meaning, we must have honest appraisals of whether or not the Government have implemented the recommendations of the many reports that have already explored racial discrimination and disparities in the United Kingdom. There is no point in commissioning yet further reviews if the Government have not adequately addressed the recommendations in the reviews that have already been completed. In common usage, the word “implementing” in relation to a recommendation means giving it effect; it does not mean looking at it and then discarding it as inconvenient, or getting rid of it because it is too much like effecting real change.
It is important that we get to the bottom of what is going on here, because the Government’s curious use of language is not confined to this report. Last week, the Home Secretary told us she was accepting the recommendations of the “Windrush Lessons Learned Review” in full and that she would be coming back to the House before recess to update us on how they would be implemented. But when she was pressed on the recommendation that requires a review of the hostile environment policy, she refused repeatedly to say that such a review would be carried out.
So can the Minister, for whom I have the greatest respect, clarify the position for us? Have the Government invented a new meaning for the word “implemented,” or does it still mean “giving effect to recommendations,” and will he be crystal-clear about which recommendations of the Lammy review are to be given effect, and when?
Alex Chalk
I am grateful to the hon. and learned Lady, for whom I also have a great deal of respect. In December 2017, the Government response to the Lammy review said, at paragraph 8:
“We have…sought to mirror the pragmatic, ‘doable’ tone of the Review by setting out how we will address the underlying issues behind recommendations where there are real constraints that prevent us from following it to the letter.”
If the statement was in isolation—for example, “Have you implemented the change in the name of the Youth Justice Board?”—then, yes, the hon. and learned Lady would have a point, but what was made clear throughout was that the Government were determined to implement the policy objective even if doing things to the absolute letter would not necessarily be the best way of achieving that. I am proud of the fact that we have gone beyond a lot of what was stated in the Lammy review, so we have more data, more transparency, and a better way of drilling down on manifest injustices. Of course there is more to do, and this report has set us on a much better path.
Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)
The Lammy review was an important piece of work and it was also a wide-ranging one. As my hon. Friend knows, chapter 2 of the review deals with the Crown Prosecution Service. The right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) sensibly made some proposals for improvement within the CPS, but he also said this:
“Other CJS institutions should learn lessons from the CPS, including openness to external scrutiny, systems of internal oversight, and an unusually diverse workforce within the wider CJS.”
My hon. Friend knows that the criminal justice system is an ecosystem and it is important that all parts work with the others, so will he do what he can to make sure that those lessons are learned within the system?
Alex Chalk
I thank my right hon. and learned Friend, who makes a characteristically pertinent point. If we want people to have confidence in the criminal justice system, they need to have confidence in the people who are bringing forward the prosecutions. That means that we need to make sure that it is diverse and representative. I must say that I know it is sometimes fashionable to kick the CPS—I am not suggesting he is doing this—but overall it does an excellent job and takes the issue of diversity extremely seriously. We want to empower it with the tools through the data to promote, entrench and enhance diversity.
James Murray (Ealing North) (Lab/Co-op) [V]
Five years ago, 25% of stop-and-searches across England and Wales were of black, Asian and minority ethnic people. Can the Minister explain why, in the most recent data, this has risen to over 40%?
Alex Chalk
I am grateful for that question. Stop-and-search is, we think, an important part of the tools required to keep the streets safe. It is worth emphasising that those most likely to be victims of the kinds of crime the police may have in mind—knife crime, for example—will disproportionately come from BAME backgrounds. The key to ensuring that people have confidence in stop-and-search is to ensure that the data is published so that people can be satisfied that it is not being misused and misdirected. That is the focus of this Government and one that we are better able to deliver because of the work done to implement the recommendations of the Lammy review.
James Daly (Bury North) (Con)
There is a chronic shortage of magistrates in Greater Manchester and other parts of the country. Can the Minister outline what steps are being taken to increase recruitment and, importantly, to ensure the magistracy is more diverse and representative of the areas it serves, as per recommendation 16 of the Lammy report?
Alex Chalk
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. We need a diverse judiciary. Things have improved a bit—12% of magistrates were from BAME backgrounds as of April 2019, which was 4% higher than in 2012—but we need to go further. The magistrates recruitment and attraction steering group, jointly headed by the MOJ and the magistrates court leadership, held its first meeting in February 2020 and it is promoting the magistracy and increasing recruitment, with a particular focus on increasing diversity.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the Minister’s statement, and I want to return to the issue of stop-and-search. In my constituency and in the borough of Lambeth, black people are four times more likely to be stopped and searched, and in the last 12 months, more than 10,000 stop-and-searches were conducted on black people, compared with 5,000 on white people. I spoke to a group of year 12 students last Friday: almost 50% of the boys and one girl put their hands up to say they had been stopped and searched. Why is this still a big issue? Why is there this disproportionality?
Alex Chalk
I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for raising this directly but sensitively. My goodness, if people take the view that what has taken place is victimisation, of course it will corrode confidence in the criminal justice system and the police. Equally, though, we have to make sure that the police have the tools they require to try to hunt down crime and, as I have already indicated, it is very often people being stopped who themselves could be victims of crime. Forgive me for repeating a point I have made already, but the key to this is data—data to ensure that the right people are being stopped and, where they are not, it shines out like a beacon that there is an issue, in a particular borough, or wherever it is in the country, that needs to be addressed.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
There is a lot of pressure on time this afternoon. A lot of people want to speak now and in the next business, so can we have short questions and answers please?
Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)
It is noted in the report that BAME young adults face high levels of deprivation and disadvantage that may make reoffending more likely. What steps is my hon. Friend’s Department taking to reduce the likelihood of BAME children and young adults reoffending and entering the court system for a second time?
Alex Chalk
One of the really valuable things that emerged from the Lammy review was the point that many of the issues that lead to people being in the criminal justice are upstream. So when we look at how to try to address the issues my hon. Friend refers to, it is not purely about this Department; it is also about this Government. So when we talk about the levelling-up agenda, this has to be levelling up across demographics as well as across the country.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab) [V]
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for granting this urgent question to my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy). I was disappointed to find out that the Prime Minister’s response to my question last week turned out not to be quite as it seemed, and now he is not here to clarify his own statement. So can the Minister explain why only 1% of full-time police officers in 2019 were black and why this has not been improved since the implementation of the Lammy review?
Alex Chalk
Overall, diversity is improving. I do not know the specific figures on the police—I apologise, but that is a Home Office matter. For example, the Parole Board did not have a single black member, yet, as a result of the Lammy review, in recent recruitment 35% of new recruits were BAME. That is great news, but there is more to do.
Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree with my view, following conversations I have had locally with a range of BAME representatives, including Luther Blissett, the England footballer and Watford football legend, that one role we need to take now is on community and education, ensuring that when we look around us we see the immense benefits of the vast diversity we have and that we value and celebrate it?
Alex Chalk
My hon. Friend puts the point beautifully. We need a community—a cohesive community—that recognises and celebrates difference, but remembers that, in the words of a Labour MP, “We have more in common”.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
I, too, wish to thank the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) for securing this important urgent question, particularly at this time. I wish to return to the point that has been made about stop-and-search. The review points out that
“Grievances over policing tactics, particularly the disproportionate use of Stop and Search, drain trust in the CJS in BAME communities.”
That point is critical. Although I take on board what the Minister says about data being important, what are the Government actually going to do about that data? Will they look at ending suspicionless stop-and-search because BAME communities are disproportionately affected by that specifically?
Alex Chalk
Of course the Government will pull on every lever they can, but I want to make this point about the data. It is online, on the ethnicity facts and figures website, for anyone to see. We are also conducting the race disparity audit, so the evidence is there; there is a big bright spotlight on this area, so people can start to take action. Lastly, this is about not just the police, but those who then deal with the punishment, particularly those on youth offender panels—that was recommendation 18. We have delivered far more diverse youth offender panels, particularly in Hounslow and Wandsworth, and that is going to be a critical part of ensuring that justice is done.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
Many of my constituents work at HMP Rye Hill, HMP Onley and the Rainsbrook secure training centre. On the workforce, what progress has been made in creating more diversity among officers and, in particular, in senior leadership teams in our Prison Service?
Alex Chalk
We are absolutely committed to ensuring that there is greater diversity, for precisely the reason my hon. Friend indicated. It is not enough just for the police to be more diverse, to represent the society they police; prison officers must be diverse, to represent the prisons that they manage. We are making great progress in that regard, not least, in part, thanks to the Lammy review, and we will continue to make progress.
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab) [V]
I want to pay tribute to the Black Lives Matter movement, here and around the world, which is making important demands to tackle systematic racism in state institutions. David Oluwale was a British Nigerian killed in Leeds in 1969. He was drowned in the River Aire and he is buried in my constituency. His death led to the first successful prosecution—one of very, very few—of British police for involvement in the death of a black person. So as well as finally taking action on the Lammy review, will the Minister agree to implement all the recommendations of the Angiolini report on deaths in police custody?
Alex Chalk
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that important point. We are committed to taking forward recommendations across the piece. I do not know about every last one in respect of that review, but I undertake to him that I will look at it very carefully.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
Following the tragic death of Tavis Spencer-Aitkens in Ipswich in 2018, which was caused by gang violence, Tavis’s family have done an incredible amount of work to bring about positive change. Tavis’s stepmum, Helen, has this week qualified as a youth worker and, alongside Tavis’s father, Neville, has set up the Reflections youth club, to help prevent young people from falling into crime. Will the Minister join me in praising the incredible work they are doing? Does he agree with me on the importance of bottom-up community action in tackling the causes of knife crime and gang violence?
Alex Chalk
My hon. Friend pays a powerful and moving tribute to his constituents, but he also highlights such an essential point: the way we drive down, eradicate and root out the cancer of gang violence is by ensuring that we have cohesive communities—not just the older demographic, but the younger demographic—so that everyone feels that they have a stake in a diverse and fair society.
Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab) [V]
Intervention at school age is needed to end the structural racism identified by the Lammy review. The team at Lea Manor High School in Luton, with their inspirational head, Gwyneth Gibson, are working innovatively within the curriculum, bringing more non-white perspectives and being representative of black communities. Does the Minister welcome that, and how are the Government working with schools and families to respond to the specific needs of young black, Asian and minority ethnic people?
Alex Chalk
I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that, and I am quite sure that what is going on at Lea Manor High School is extremely enlightened and very advantageous to the children. I know that a number of schools are looking again at how they can make sure that the curriculum is modern and up to date. I would want to make sure that that curriculum does not seek in any way to eradicate history, as I am sure it would not, but to revisit it. That has been the purpose over the years of historical examination of the past and that will continue.
David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con) [V]
Will the Minister comment on the approach to embedding the principle of “explain or change” to inform the Government’s priorities?
Alex Chalk
My hon. Friend has hit on probably the single most important principle that emerged from the Lammy report—I think that was recommendation 4. “Explain or change” is intended to ensure that unless we can demonstrate the reason behind the figures that we are seeing—if there is a discrepancy that calls for answers and we cannot answer them as a society—we need to change the system. That is a golden thread that runs through the report and it informs many of our policy responses.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
Frankly, while we certainly need data, we also need decisions and action. Page 62 onwards of the Lammy report takes on the discredited Disclosure and Barring Service. That was in 2017, and the Supreme Court added its criticisms in January 2019, yet the pathetic response emanating from the Home Office is that it is “considering” the Supreme Court judgment and will set out a response in due course. Meanwhile, now, as we face mass unemployment, the unacceptable burden of disadvantage and discrimination will get worse. The Ministry of Justice know that this is wrong. What is it going to do about that?
Alex Chalk
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising that point. He is right that in January 2019 there was the Gallagher judgment from the Supreme Court. Judgments of the Supreme Court have to be implemented by this place—that is how it works in our society—and we will do that without delay. May I make a wider point? There is of course a balance that we have to strike: those who commit crime need to be held accountable for their actions, and that sometimes means in their records, but we also need to make sure that people can be rehabilitated and get on and build a brighter future.
Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)
If we are to live in a society based on mutual respect, does my hon. Friend agree that children need to leave school in no doubt about the evils of racism? Will he ensure that there is absolute zero tolerance of racism in our schools?
Alex Chalk
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. We cannot hope to solve this issue as a society if people are leaving school with ingrained racist instincts. I think we have moved on a huge way in that respect, but of course we must never be complacent, and we must redouble our efforts to ensure that school is a place of tolerance and understanding and of building a better future.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
Whenever the Government are asked about anything affecting BAME communities, they shout about the Lammy review, yet they have a long, long way to go to implement much of it. We heard from the author of the review of the prison population and stop-and-search increases. On lockdown fixed penalty notices, Katrina Ffrench of StopWatch said:
“The numbers are clear. Black and Asian people are disproportionately being given fines in comparison to their white peers. This ethnic disparity must be addressed and officers made to account for their decisions.”
Does the Minister agree?
Alex Chalk
That is the precisely the theme that I have been trying to advance in the course of these questions. Yes, of course—that is the whole point of “explain or change”. If there are these disparities, the whole purpose of the review is to get the data out there, and if they cannot be explained, people such as the hon. Gentleman, with his assiduous questions, will be shining the very light that we want to see him shine.
Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)
Youth clubs have a very important role to play in keeping children off the streets and out of the criminal justice system. Just before we went into lockdown, I took the Home Secretary to an inspirational youth club in my constituency, the Harrow Club. Does my hon. Friend agree with me about the importance of youth clubs?
Alex Chalk
I certainly do. For a long time, I have spent time with Earls Court Youth Club, which I think is in the neighbouring constituency to my hon. Friend’s. I saw there how lives were changed and futures were enhanced. Crucially, I saw that people had a strong sense of aspiration, when, because of their background—which, by the way, was no fault of their own—they made not have had any. Youth clubs can make a massive difference, and I commend my hon. Friend for the attention that she is giving to one in her constituency.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Does the Minister agree that it is essential that every community must feel heard, valued and understood? Can he outline the Government’s strategy to ensure that we have enough community workers and community police in every area of the UK to build community confidence, and outline how he believes this can be achieved?
Alex Chalk
This Government absolutely share that view, which is why we are committed to recruiting an additional 20,000 police officers—and, by the way, that process is making excellent progress. That will allow more officers to get out into communities to build up that crucial community intelligence to ensure that individuals are kept out of crime and victims are protected.
Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)
Following on from the previous question, the review talks about building trust between the police and young people. What consideration has my hon. Friend given to assigning a police officer to a year group in each school who could then build relationships with that year group throughout their school career?
Alex Chalk
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. I think that it is a proposal that has found favour in other jurisdictions—maybe even in the United States. I cannot speak for the Department for Education, but it strikes me as an extremely interesting idea, which I invite my hon. Friend to raise with DFE colleagues.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
We have seen a 69% increase in the number of black people stopped and searched over the past five years. At the same time, there has been a 69% decrease in the number of white people stopped and searched. Is it correct that the use of racial profiling to stop and search people is a waste of resources? If that is true, why the delay?
Alex Chalk
Of course if the wrong people are being stopped, it is a waste of resources. But one has to balance that against the knock-on impact of getting rid of this altogether. The point that I have made before, but which I am afraid bears emphasis, is that if that were to be the case and knives were not being taken off the streets, the very people we want to stand up for would be the very people who would fall victim.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
The excellent Minister has said that there is more to do, so what are the Government going to do next to improve the situation?
Alex Chalk
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. There is a huge amount more to do, but what I indicated in the context of this urgent question is that there are 17 further recommendations, of which we want to do 11 within 12 months and six a little after. I have spoken to my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor, and we are determined to put the afterburners on and really finish them all off without any delay.
Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)
I have been inundated with emails from constituents in Newport West asking me to press the Government to stop sitting on the recommendations of a number of reviews that they have commissioned in recent years. Today I add my voice to their: the time for full and comprehensive action is now. Will the Minister outline what recent discussions his Department has had about the review of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) with Ministers in the Welsh Government as part of the drive to implement the review fully?
Alex Chalk
The hon. Lady’s constituents are absolutely right. They want us to get on with it, and getting on with it we are. I do not have time now to go through what we have done: on recommendations 3, 23, 33 and 4. So much has improved. On the specific point she raised about liaising with Wales—I hope she will forgive me—I will write to her.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Every bit of social research makes clear the devastating result of family breakdown, yet this report says that black children are more than twice as likely to grow up in a lone-parent family. Will the Minister assure the House that the Government are fully committed to strengthening family bonds, promoting marriage and increasing resources for reconciliation? We spend just £10 million a year on this, when family breakdown may cost us £50 billion a year. Will he assure me that he is fully committed to families?
Alex Chalk
My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and has spoken about this precise issue in the House recently. He is absolutely correct. The right hon. Member for Tottenham agrees, I agree and my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) agrees; we need to address these issues upstream. Strong communities, marriages and strong relationships are essential to keeping people out of trouble and building them a better future.
Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab) [V]
According to statistics provided by South Yorkshire police, you are 2.5 times more likely to be stopped and searched by the police if you are black, and 1.5 times if you are of Asian heritage. In many communities in the United Kingdom, there has been a complete breakdown of trust in the criminal justice system. Does the Minister acknowledge that, and will he work to fully implement the Lammy review without further delay?
Alex Chalk
The hon. Lady lights on arguably the most important word throughout all of this—trust. If it is the case that trust is breaking down, which I certainly hope it is not, one of the best ways of achieving trust, as she knows, is through transparency. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. This review, and the Government’s response to it, has shone the brightest possible spotlight on this critically important area of our constitution and of our criminal justice system, and that will set us up for a better future for all.
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
We all want offenders to be rehabilitated and for reoffending to fall. Chapter 6 of the Lammy review goes into that in some detail. Can the Minister update the House on the progress in ensuring that our Probation Service reflects the society it serves, to help reduce reoffending, which is higher in some BAME communities at the moment?
Alex Chalk
My hon. Friend addresses an important issue. When we talk about the criminal justice system, we could be forgiven for saying, “Don’t worry: it’s all about the judges.” It is not all about the judges. We want to ensure that people who are sentenced by the courts comply with community orders, which might be supervised by probation, or comply with whatever the requirements are in prison. That means ensuring that we have greater diversity. We have made some significant progress in respect of probation but also the Parole Board, as I have indicated, and in the Prison Service. We are not complacent, and we want to do more.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab) [V]
On 16 July, the Youth Violence Commission, which I chair, will publish its final report on the root causes of youth violence, The Lammy review highlights that systemic problems cannot be rectified by the criminal justice system alone, and that the work needs to start far earlier. What hope can the Minister give me that the Government will take our recommendations seriously, when we are still waiting for the recommendations of the Lammy review to be implemented?
Alex Chalk
We have to recognise that in implementing some of these recommendations, some are quite easy to do but some are much more difficult. For example, as part of this we are piloting plans for improved judicial recruitment. We have to recognise that recommendations will proceed sometimes in tandem, and I would be delighted to discuss with her the recommendations she refers to.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
Black people from Wales are five times over-represented in prisons and BAME women face the extra disadvantage of having no women’s centres to support rehabilitation. That is just one example of data crying out for tangible action. Will the Minister provide a clear road map of the Government’s plans to open the first residential women’s centre in Wales?
Alex Chalk
I am very grateful to the right hon. Lady for raising the issue of a residential women’s centre in Wales. One of the things I am so proud of, in terms of the response to coronavirus, as the right hon. Lady will know, is the huge amount of money, as part of the £76 million that has been allocated, to support women in particular in the community—over £20 million coming from the MOJ itself. One of the things we want to do is to ensure that there is transparency about the data and who it helps. Crucially—this was not in Lammy, by the way—PCCs are now required to publish data on BAME representation, to ensure that those people as well are being properly represented and getting their fair slice of cake.
Brendan Clarke-Smith (Bassetlaw) (Con)
Can the Minister comment on the approach to embed the principle of “explain or change” to inform the Government’s priorities?
Alex Chalk
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this, because it is the golden thread that runs through this report—explain or change, put up or fix it. That is absolutely at the heart of it, and the right hon. Member for Tottenham was absolutely on the money when he said that. But we can only do that if we have the data out there so that people can observe it, see if there is a problem and then formulate a response. It is the golden thread that runs through the report and it will stand us in good stead for a fairer future.
Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)
Does my right hon Friend agree that all public institutions, from the courts to the police to this Parliament, should be reflective of the communities they represent?
Alex Chalk
Absolutely right. Although we recognise that we have to go further, because we should never be complacent, my goodness, how far we have come. We should take a moment to recognise that we have come a long way. In fact, from memory, I think the introduction of the Lammy review says precisely that. I will not read all of it out, because you would get cross, Madam Deputy Speaker, but it says:
“There is a growing BAME middle class. Powerful, high-profile institutions, like the House of Commons, are slowly becoming more diverse.”
We have done a lot: more to do.
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op) [V]
No disrespect to the Minister, but this is not about outputs or actions. This is about outcomes, and the outcomes for black and ethnic minority young people, in particular, in our criminal justice system are all going in completely the wrong direction. Does the Minister accept that the outcomes are going in the wrong direction, and that a lot more needs to be done to reverse that?
Alex Chalk
With respect, I think the position is more nuanced than that; I do not think that outcomes in education, for example, are all going in the wrong direction. One of the success stories over recent years is in how black British boys are achieving much higher standards than they were as little as 10 years ago. That is encouraging, but it is right to say that in some aspects of the criminal justice system, things are moving in a different direction. I completely get that, but it was this Government who commissioned the race disparity audit and then, when people thought it was going to be a one-off, actually decided that it had been such a valuable exercise that we would recommission it again and again. We have leaned into this issue because we recognise that if we want a fair society we have to make sure that outcomes are even too.
Points of Order
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Late on Friday night, a story was published in The Guardian, following the leaking of a Government document and briefing from officials in the Department for Education, saying that the Government appear to have committed in principle to moving university applications to after A-level results, commonly called post-qualification admissions. Yesterday, the Department for Education produced a written statement, but no mention of those changes were made, despite the huge impact they would have on university admissions and hundreds of thousands of students. I seek your advice on how the Government can be encouraged to keep the House updated on all policy developments, and ask if they have made any plans to bring a statement on higher education forward.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving me notice of her point of order. Mr Speaker has made it clear on several occasions that new policy announcements by Ministers should be made in the House and not to the media. It is obviously for Ministers to decide whether to make a statement to the House. The hon. Lady will be well aware of the fact that there are different routes to summon Ministers to the House if a policy announcement has been made that warrants the attention of the House and it has been made to the media as opposed to the House.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Many Governments have tried to bypass Parliament by making statements first to the media. Today, the Prime Minister has made a major speech on new policies, not to this House but to the media. What can Mr Speaker do to get the Government to abide by the rules of Parliament?
Madam Deputy Speaker
As I have just said, Mr Speaker has made it clear on several occasions that he believes that new policy announcements by Ministers should be made to the House and not to the media. I can only reiterate that. I am sure those on the Treasury Bench will have heard the disquiet of the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Lady, as well as the feelings of others in the House, and will take that back—[Interruption.] I understand it has been duly noted.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker, and one that I made last Thursday. This matter shows that, as soon as the lockdown effectively ends on 4 July, we should consider the end of call lists and go back to a much more spontaneous Parliament, because it would allow Members to be more fleet of foot and to come into the Chamber, without having to put in to speak a day before. It would also allow the Government to be more fleet of foot. I hope you will take that message back to Mr Speaker. We do not want to be like the Council of Europe, of which I am also a member—a dead parliament where everyone queues up on a written list. We want more spontaneity, more action and more of a traditional Parliament.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. Mr Speaker, the Commission and the House authorities have worked very hard to ensure that they note the advice from Public Health England and others on safety in the Chamber. The arrangements currently in place have been voted on by Parliament. They will continue to be updated as advice changes, and recommendations will presumably then be made to the House.
Virtual participation in proceedings concluded (Order, 4 June).
New Homes (New Development Standards)
Tuesday 30th June 2020
(4 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate New Homes (New Development Standards) Bill 2019-21 View all New Homes (New Development Standards) Bill 2019-21 Debates Read Hansard Text
A Ten Minute Rule Bill is a First Reading of a Private Members Bill, but with the sponsor permitted to make a ten minute speech outlining the reasons for the proposed legislation.
There is little chance of the Bill proceeding further unless there is unanimous consent for the Bill or the Government elects to support the Bill directly.
For more information see: Ten Minute Bills
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require residential developers to meet minimum standards of provision for insulation, broadband connectivity and electric car charging points in new homes; and for connected purposes.
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to bring this Bill before the House. My Bill will underpin in statute the requirement for all new-build houses to have full-fibre broadband connections, electric vehicle charging infrastructure and improved energy efficiency through increased standards for insulation.
It has been estimated that for England alone, 345,000 new homes a year will be needed to tackle the under-supply in the market. Through commitments including the affordable homes programme, the Government are ready to build, but we must ensure that, in the urgency to deliver, we do not compromise on the quality of these homes. As the Public Accounts Committee reported last year in the “Planning and the broken housing market” report, the standard of many new developments does not reach acceptable levels, with insufficient funding for their infrastructure. That is why these measures need to be underpinned by statute. With such a building boom planned, it is essential that we create the mandate to ensure the necessary infrastructure of our homes. Importantly, because the Government intend to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050, they must address the 15% of greenhouse gas emissions that currently come from the residential sector.
In the first part of my Bill, I propose that all new homes are full-fibre broadband connected. Historically, all new developments have been connected through a full-copper, part-copper or part-fibre connection. However, full fibre is 20 times faster than existing superfast broadband services and capable of download speeds of over 1 gigabit per second. If we had any doubt about the importance of reliable ultrafast broadband connectivity to new homes in Britain, the current covid crisis has surely dispelled that. Investment to install full fibre to the home will generate real and rapid benefits, helping communities to recover from the pandemic, and that is why it is so important that we underpin by statute full fibre across all our new homes. My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), who is sitting next to me, says that if we did that in statute, we could then enforce it through the planning system.
I welcome the steps being taken by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to ensure that new homes are built with support for full-fibre and gigabit-speed broadband. With digital connectivity now underpinning so many different facets of our modern life, future-proofing our homes has never been more important. Full fibre will not just affect how we work but where we work. According to Openreach, as many as 400,000 additional people could choose to work remotely, opening up employment opportunities outside London and the south-east. Home working has become a new way of life in the Cotswolds, as it has in many parts of the country, with almost half of UK workers doing so, according to recent Office for National Statistics figures. We are rapidly consuming more detail, and our future economic growth and connectivity will be based on having excellent broadband infrastructure. According to research in October 2019 by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, full-fibre broadband connectivity could boost labour productivity by nearly £59 billion by 2025.
Superfast broadband is currently available in 95% of UK premises, and I welcome the Government’s multibillion funding to deliver gigabit-capable broadband nationwide by 2025. This will mean that the infrastructure is available even in the hardest-to-reach homes, of which we have a fair share in the Cotswolds. Incentives are there for the developers. Openreach provides full-fibre infrastructure for any development with 20 or more homes, and offers initiatives on shared costs with smaller developments. To prevent a digital divide between developments and to ensure that we have the aligned digital infrastructure for the future, we must mandate now for full-fibre networks to be installed in every new home.
On energy and insulation efficiency, the second part of my Bill will apply a standard for insulation in all new-build homes so that they can reach higher grades of overall efficiency. The Government’s future homes standard legislates for house building standards and levels of efficiency to be substantially improved. An energy performance certificate provides information on the energy use of a property and the typical annual costs of running that property. The ratings of an EPC are graded between A and G. Landlords are expected to achieve at least E, while the overall average in England and Wales is D.
The Government’s clean growth strategy has the aim to get as many homes as possible to EPC band C by 2035 and upgrade all fuel-poor homes to band C by 2030. However, I believe we should be much more ambitious than that, which is why this Bill will legislate for all new homes to reach that level now. It is far cheaper to build it into new homes than to retrofit afterwards. There are a number of ways that the energy efficiency and cost-effectiveness of a property can be improved, including the installation of solar panels which, with little or no maintenance, can power an entire household’s appliances and lighting. The Government also have a target by 2025 that all new homes will be banned from installing gas boilers and will instead be heated by low-carbon alternatives.
I think it is shocking to read accounts of people living in new homes who report that they are cold and draughty. Well-designed, modern insulation and draught-proofing in a home mitigate the causes of damp and mould, make the home more heat-effective and lower the overall price of energy bills. Installing insulation, in conjunction with other building work, is also significantly cheaper than retrofitting. The energy company obligation is the only public scheme currently delivering insulation measures into homes in England to reduce carbon emissions and fuel poverty. Continuous and effective insulation is an essential aspect of making homes thermally efficient, creating warmer and more comfortable buildings, and reducing annual running costs.
Thirdly, on electric charging points, the final part of my Bill will also be vital in reaching our net zero goals by requiring electric charging points to be installed in all new-build homes. The 2018 £1.5 billion “Road to Zero” strategy sets out the Government’s ambitious target that, by 2030, between 50% and 70% of all new cars will have ultra low emissions. The Government have brought forward their plan for ending the sale of all petrol and diesel vehicles to 2035. To support the growth in electric vehicles on our roads, the Government and the private sector have invested in the installation of more than 24,000 public charging points. Unfortunately, a league table released by the Department for Transport last November on electric charging availability across the UK found that there are still over 100 authorities with fewer than 10 public charging devices per 100,000 of population. The road is set for electric vehicles, but there are still significant concerns when considering the purchase of an EV. A YouGov and Aviva study from last year found that 74% of people stated worries about finding charging facilities.
We must ensure that the UK has one of the best electric vehicle infrastructure networks in the world. To achieve this, my Bill will require all residential developers to supply the electric charging points that are needed to make owning an electric vehicle as easy and practical as possible.
Today, the Prime Minister has made a headline speech on building infrastructure for Britain. The Bill will supplement that by future-proofing new homes. In supporting the Bill today, we will be improving all new build houses so that they have connection to superfast full-fibre broadband, insulation standards that improve their overall energy efficiency and electric vehicle charging points. It is far cheaper to install all those measures in the initial build than to retrofit them expensively some time down the line, which will be inevitable. They will literally transform our housing market, go a long way to reducing the shocking 15% of residential emissions, and play a massive part in helping the Government achieve their ambitious net zero carbon emissions target by 2050.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, Mr Clive Betts, Sir Paul Beresford, Bob Blackman, Lilian Greenwood, Meg Hillier, Simon Hoare, Gagan Mohindra, Neil Parish, Mark Pawsey, Mr Laurence Robertson and Jim Shannon present the Bill.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 12 March 2021, and to be printed (Bill 149).
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I shall suspend the House for three minutes before the next business.
Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill
Tuesday 30th June 2020
(4 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead 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: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 30 June 2020 - (30 Jun 2020)
18:00 - The House divided: - Ayes: 247 / Noes: 344 - Question accordingly negatived.
18:21 - The House divided: - Ayes: 252 / Noes: 332 - Question accordingly negatived.
18:38 - The House divided: - Ayes: 248 / Noes: 337 - Question accordingly negatived.
18:53 - The House having divided: - Ayes: 255 / Noes: 332 - Question accordingly negatived.
19:16 - The House divided: - Ayes: 342 / Noes: 248 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 2—Children in care and children entitled to care leaving support: Entitlement to remain—
‘(1) Any child who has their right of free movement removed by the provisions contained in this Act, and who are in the care of a local authority, or entitled to care leaving support, shall, by virtue of this provision, be deemed to have and be granted automatic Indefinite Leave to Remain within the United Kingdom under the EU Settlement Scheme.
(2) The Secretary of State must, for purposes of subsection (1), issue guidance to local authorities in England, Scotland, Wales and Norther Ireland setting out their duty to identify the children of EEA and Swiss nationals in their care or entitled to care leaving support.
(3) Before issuing guidance under this section the Secretary of State must consult—
(a) the relevant Scottish Minister;
(b) the relevant Welsh Minister; and
(c) the relevant Northern Ireland Minister.
(4) The Secretary of State must make arrangements to ensure that personal data relating to nationality processed by local authorities for purposes of identification under subsection (1) is used solely for this purpose and no further immigration control purpose.
(5) Any child subject to subsection (1) who is identified and granted status after the deadline of the EU Settlement Scheme (“the Scheme”) will be deemed to have had such status and all rights associated with the status from the time of the Scheme deadline.
(6) This section comes into force upon the commencement of this Act and remains in effect for 5 years after the deadline of the EU Settlement Scheme.
(7) For purposes of this section, “children in the care of the local authority” are defined as children receiving care under any of the following—
(a) section 20 of the Children Act 1989 (Provision of accommodation for children: general);
(b) section 31 of the Children Act 1989 (Care and Supervision);
(c) section 75 Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 (General duty of local authority to secure sufficient accommodation for looked after children);
(d) section 25 of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 (Provision of accommodation for children);
(e) Article 25 of the Children (Northern Ireland) Order 1995 (Interpretation); and
(f) Article 50 Children of the (Northern Ireland) Order 1995 (Care orders and supervision orders).
(8) For the purposes of this section, “children entitled to care leaving support” means a child receiving support under any of the following—
(a) paragraph 19B of Schedule 2 Children Act 1989 (Preparation for ceasing to be looked after);
(b) s.23A(2) Children Act 1989 (The responsible authority and relevant children);
(c) s.23C(1) Children Act 1989 (Continuing functions in respect of former relevant children);
(d) section 104 of the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 (Young people entitled to support under sections 105 to 115);
(e) sections 29-30 Children (Scotland) Act 1995 (Advice and assistance for young persons formerly looked after by local authorities) as amended by s.66 Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 (Provision of aftercare to young people); and
(f) Article 35(2) Children (Northern Ireland) Order 1995 (Persons qualifying for advice and assistance.).’
This new clause aims to ensure that the children of EEA and Swiss nationals who are in care, and those who are entitled to care leaving support, are granted automatic Indefinite Leave to Remain under the EU Settlement Scheme to ensure they do not become undocumented.
New clause 7—Time limit on immigration detention for EEA and Swiss nationals—
‘(1) For the purpose of this section, a person (“P”) is defined as any person who, immediately before the commencement of Schedule 1, was—
(a) any person who, immediately before the commencement of Schedule 1, was—
(i) residing in the United Kingdom in accordance with the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2016;
(ii) residing in the United Kingdom in accordance with a right conferred by or under any of the other instruments which is repealed by Schedule 1; or
(iii) otherwise residing in the United Kingdom in accordance with any right derived from European Union law which continues, by virtue of section 4 of the EU Withdrawal Act 2018, to be recognised and available in domestic law after exit day.
(2) The Secretary of State may not detain any person (“P”) as defined in subsection(1) under a relevant detention power for a period of more than 28 days from the relevant time.
(3) If “P” remains detained under a relevant detention power at the expiry of the period of 28 days then—
(a) the Secretary of State shall release P forthwith; and
(b) the Secretary of State may not re-detain P under a relevant detention power thereafter, unless the Secretary of State is satisfied that there has been a material change of circumstances since “P’s” release and that the criteria in section [Initial detention: criteria and duration (No. 2)] are met.
(4) In this Act, “relevant detention power” means a power to detain under—
(a) paragraph 16(2) of Schedule 2 to the Immigration Act 1971 (detention of persons liable to examination or removal);
(b) paragraph 2(1), (2) or (3) of Schedule 3 to that Act (detention pending deportation);
(c) section 62 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (detention of persons liable to examination or removal); or
(d) section 36(1) of UK Borders Act 2007 (detention pending deportation).
(5) In this Act, “relevant time” means the time at which “P” is first detained under a relevant detention power.
(6) This section does not apply to a person in respect of whom the Secretary of State has certified that the decision to detain is or was taken in the interests of national security.’
New clause 8—Initial detention: criteria and duration (No. 2)—
‘(1) The Secretary of State may not detain any person (“P”) to whom section [Time limit on immigration detention for EEA and Swiss nationals] applies, under a relevant detention power other than for the purposes of examination, unless the Secretary of State is satisfied that—
(a) “P” can be shortly removed from the United Kingdom;
(b) detention is strictly necessary to affect “P”’s deportation or removal from the United Kingdom; and
(c) the detention of “P” is in all circumstances proportionate.
(2) The Secretary of State may not detain any person (“P”) who section [Time limit on detention for EEA and Swiss nationals] applies to under a relevant detention power for a period of more than 96 hours from the relevant time, unless—
(a) “P” has been refused bail at an initial bail hearing in accordance with subsection (5)(b) of section [Bail hearings (No. 2)]; or
(b) the Secretary of State has arranged a reference to the Tribunal for consideration of whether to grant immigration bail to “P” in accordance with subsection (2)(c) of section [Bail hearings (No. 2)] and that hearing has not yet taken place.
(3) Nothing in subsection (2) shall authorise the Secretary of State to detain “P” under a relevant detention power if such detention would, apart from this section, be unlawful.
(4) In this section, “Tribunal” means the First-Tier Tribunal.
(5) In this section, “relevant detention power” has the meaning given in section [Time limit on detention for EEA and Swiss nationals].’
New clause 9—Bail hearings (No. 2)—
‘(1) This section applies to any person (“P”) to whom section [Time limit on immigration detention for EEA and Swiss nationals] applies and who is detained under a relevant detention power.
(2) Before the expiry of a period of 96 hours from the relevant time, the Secretary of State must—
(a) release “P”;
(b) grant immigration bail to “P” under paragraph 1 of Schedule 10 to the Immigration Act 2016; or
(c) arrange a reference to the Tribunal for consideration of whether to grant immigration bail to “P”.
(3) Subject to subsection (4), when the Secretary of State arranges a reference to the Tribunal under subsection (2)(c), the Tribunal must hold an oral hearing (“an initial bail hearing”) which must commence within 24 hours of the time at which the reference is made.
(4) If the period of 24 hours in subsection (3) ends on a Saturday, Sunday or Bank holiday, the Tribunal must hold an initial bail hearing on the next working day.
(5) At the initial bail hearing, the Tribunal must—
(a) grant immigration bail to “P” under paragraph 1 of Schedule 10 to the Immigration Act 2016; or
(b) refuse to grant immigration bail to “P”.
(6) Subject to subsection (7), the Tribunal must grant immigration bail to “P” at a bail hearing unless it is satisfied that the Secretary of State has established that the criteria in subsection 1 of section [Initial detention: criteria and duration (No. 2)] are met and that, in addition—
(a) directions have been given for “P’s” removal from the United Kingdom and such removal is to take place within 14 days;
(b) a travel document is available for the purposes of “P’s” removal or deportation; and
(c) there are no outstanding legal barriers to removal.
(7) Subsection (6) does not apply if the Tribunal is satisfied that the Secretary of State has established that the criteria in subsection 1 of section [Initial detention: criteria and duration (No. 2)] above are met and that there are very exceptional circumstances which justify maintaining detention.
(8) In subsection (6) above, “a bail hearing” includes—
(a) an initial bail hearing under subsection (2) above; and
(b) the hearing of an application for immigration bail under paragraph 1(3) of Schedule 10 of the Immigration Act 2016.
(9) In this section, “Tribunal” means the First-Tier Tribunal.
(10) The Secretary of State shall provide to “P” or “P’s” legal representative, not more than 24 hours after the relevant time, copies of all documents in the Secretary of State’s possession which are relevant to the decision to detain.
(11) At the initial bail hearing, the Tribunal shall not consider any documents relied upon by the Secretary of State which were not provided to “P” or “P’s” legal representative in accordance with subsection (10), unless—
(a) “P” consents to the documents being considered; or
(b) in the opinion of the Tribunal there is a good reason why the documents were not provided to “P” or to “P’s” legal representative in accordance with subsection (10).
(12) The Immigration Act 2016 is amended as follows—
(a) After paragraph 12(4) of schedule 10 insert—
“(4A) Sub-paragraph (2) above does not apply if the refusal of bail within the meaning of section [Bail hearings (No. 2)] of the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Act 2019.”’
New clause 10—Commencement of detention provisions (No. 2)—
‘Sections[Time limit on immigration detention for EEA and Swiss Nationals],[Initial detention: criteria and duration (No. 2)]and[Bail hearings (No. 2)]come into force six months after the day on which this Act is passed.’
New clause 11—Report on the impact to EEA and Swiss nationals—
‘(1) This Act shall not come into effect until a Minister of the Crown has laid a report before each House of Parliament setting out the impact of the Act on EEA and Swiss nationals in the UK.
(2) A report under subsection (1) must consider—
(a) the impact on EEA and Swiss nationals of having no recourse to public funds under Immigration Rules;
(b) the impact of NHS charging for EEA and Swiss nationals;
(c) the impact of granting citizenship to all EEA and Swiss health and social care workers working in the UK during the Covid-19 pandemic;
(d) the impact of amending the Immigration and Nationality (Fees) Regulations 2018 to remove all fees for applications, processes and services for EEA and Swiss nationals; and
(e) the merits of the devolution of powers over immigration from the EEA area and Switzerland to (i) Senedd Cymru; (ii) the Scottish Parliament; and (iii) the Northern Ireland Assembly.
(3) A Minister of the Crown must, not later than six months after the report has been laid before Parliament, make a motion in the House of Commons in relation to the report.
(4) In this section, “health and social care workers” includes doctors, nurses, midwives, paramedics, social workers, care workers, and other frontline health and social care staff required to maintain the UK’s health and social care sector.’
This new clause would ensure that before this Act coming into force, Parliament would have a chance to discuss how EEA and Swiss nationals will be affected by its provisions, including no recourse to public funds conditions, NHS charging, the possibility of granting British citizenship to non-British health and social care workers, removing citizenship application fees and the potential devolution of immigration policy of EEA and Swiss nationals to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
New clause 12—Status of Irish citizens—
‘In addition to any rights enjoyed by virtue of their Irish citizenship under UK law, Irish citizens must be treated as having all rights enjoyed by persons with settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme.’
This new clause will ensure that Irish citizens enjoy the same rights in the UK as someone with settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme.
New clause 13—Exemption from no recourse to public funds—
‘(1) This section applies during the current Covid- 19 pandemic, as defined by the World Health Organisation on 11 March 2020.
(2) Section 3(1)(c)(i) and (ii) of the Immigration Act 1971 cannot be applied to persons who have lost rights because of section (1) and Schedule 1 of this Act.
(3) This section could not be disapplied unless a resolution was passed by each House of Parliament.’
This new clause would delay application of No Recourse to Public Funds rules during the current pandemic and until such time as Parliament decides.
New clause 14—Immigration Health Charge: Exemption for EEA and Swiss citizens who are healthcare and social workers—
‘(1) The Immigration Act 2014 is amended as follows.
(2) After section 38 (Immigration health charge) insert—
“38A Health care workers and social workers from the EEA or Switzerland
(1) Any person who but for the provisions of the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Act 2020 would have the right of free movement is exempt from the Immigration health charge if that person is—
(a) a healthcare worker; or
(b) a social care worker.
(2) The exemption will also apply to a person who is a family member or dependant of an EEA or Swiss national who meets the conditions in section (1)(a) and (b).
(3) For this section—
“healthcare worker” means a worker who works in a healthcare setting within and outside the NHS who may come into contact with patients, including clinical administration staff, and care home staff;
“social care worker” means a worker as defined by section 55(2) of the Care Standards Act 2000.’
This new clause would ensure that EEA and Swiss nationals coming to the UK to work as a healthcare or social care worker would be exempt from the Immigration Health Charge.
New clause 15—Tier 2 Immigration skills charge—
‘No Tier 2 Immigrations skills charge will be payable on an individual who is an EEA or Swiss national and is coming to the UK to work for the NHS.’
This new clause would exempt NHS employers from having to pay the immigration skills charge.
New clause 16—Immigration health charge—
‘No immigration health charge introduced under section 38 of the Immigration Act 2014 may be imposed on an individual who is an EEA or Swiss national.’
This new clause would prevent EEA or Swiss nationals paying the immigration health charge.
New clause 17—Report on cost of recruitment—
‘(1) The Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a report setting out the costs associated with the recruitment of overseas workers to the UK as compared to such other countries the Secretary of State considers appropriate.
(2) The report must also set out the Secretary of State’s assessment of the impact of the costs referred to in subsection (1) on different sectors of the economy.
(3) No regulations relating to costs for the recruitment of overseas workers may be made until such time as the report has been laid before Parliament and debated.
(4) In this section “costs” include, but are not limited to, the following in relation to the UK—
(a) fees paid by an employer to register as a Tier 2 sponsor;
(b) visa fees paid by a Tier 2 worker and family members;
(c) immigration health surcharges for Tier 2 workers and family members;
(d) the immigration skills charge
(e) recruitment costs; and
(f) legal costs,
and in relation to other countries, includes such fees and costs as the Secretary of State believes equivalent or otherwise relevant.
(5) “Overseas worker” means a worker whose right to work in the UK have been impacted by section 1 and schedule 1.’
This new clause would mean Parliament is aware of costs relating to recruitment of EEA workers to the UK compared with competitor countries, before it has to consider any regulations on fees tabled by the government.
New clause 18—Hostile environment—
‘(1) For the purpose of this section, a person (“P”) is defined as any person who, immediately before the commencement of Schedule 1, was—
(a) residing in the United Kingdom in accordance with the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2016;
(b) residing in the United Kingdom in accordance with a right conferred by or under any of the other instruments which is repealed by Schedule 1; or
(c) otherwise residing in the United Kingdom in accordance with any right derived from European Union law which continues, by virtue of section 4 of the EU Withdrawal Act 2018, to be recognised and available in domestic law after exit day.
(2) Regulations under section 4(1) may not be made until the Government has brought forward legislative measures to ensure that hostile environment measures do not apply to P, specifically—
(a) sections 20-43 and 46-47 of the Immigration Act 2014;
(b) sections 34-45 of the Immigration Act 2016; and
(c) schedule 2, paragraph 4 of the Data Protection Act 2018.’
This new clause seeks to limit the application of the hostile environment.
New clause 19—Data Protection—
‘(1) For the purpose of this section, a person (“P”) is defined as any person who, immediately before the commencement of Schedule 1, was—
(a) residing in the United Kingdom in accordance with the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2016;
(b) residing in the United Kingdom in accordance with a right conferred by or under any of the other instruments which is repealed by Schedule 1; or
(c) otherwise residing in the United Kingdom in accordance with any right derived from European Union law which continues, by virtue of section 4 of the EU Withdrawal Act 2018, to be recognised and available in domestic law after exit day.
(2) Regulations under section 4(1) may not be made until the Government has made provision to ensure that P has safe and confidential access to essential public services by ensuring The Secretary of State, or any other individual or body on his behalf, must not process personal data, by any means, for the purposes of immigration control or enforcement, where that personal data has been collected in the course of the data subject accessing or attempting to access the public services identified in subsection (3).
(3) For the purposes of subsection (2), the relevant public services are:
(a) primary and secondary healthcare services;
(b) primary and secondary education; and
(c) the reporting of a crime by the data subject or, where the data subject is a witness to, or the victim of, the crime, any investigation or prosecution of it.
(4) The prohibitions contained in subsections (2) and (3) do not apply where the data subject has given his or her explicit and informed consent to the disclosure of the personal data, for the purposes of immigration enforcement.’
This new clause seeks to limit use of data gathered by key public services for immigration enforcement control.
New clause 20—Recourse to public funds—
‘(1) For the purpose of this section, a person (“P”) is defined as any person who, immediately before the commencement of Schedule 1, was—
(a) residing in the United Kingdom in accordance with the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2016;
(b) residing in the United Kingdom in accordance with a right conferred by or under any of the other instruments which is repealed by Schedule 1; or
(c) otherwise residing in the United Kingdom in accordance with any right derived from European Union law which continues, by virtue of section 4 of the EU Withdrawal Act 2018, to be recognised and available in domestic law after exit day.
(2) Regulations under section 4(1) may not be made until the Government has brought forward legislative measures to ensure that P can access social security benefits, where P is habitually resident, including repealing or amending the following provisions insofar as they relate to P—
(a) section 3(1)(c)(ii) of the Immigration Act 1971;
(b) section 115 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999;
(c) any provision in subordinate legislation, which imposes a “no recourse to public funds” condition on grants of limited leave to enter or remain; and
(d) any other enactment or power exercised under any other enactment, which makes immigration status a condition to access social security benefits.’
This new clause seeks to restrict measures prohibiting access to public funds.
New clause 21—British Citizen registration fee—
‘(1) No person, who has at any time exercised any of the rights for which Schedule 1 makes provision to end, may be charged a fee to register as a British citizen that is higher than the cost to the Secretary of State of exercising the function of registration.
(2) No child of a person who has at any time exercised any of the rights for which Schedule 1 makes provision to end may be charged a fee to register as a British citizen if that child is receiving the assistance of a local authority.
(3) No child of a person who has at any time exercised any of the rights for which Schedule 1 makes provision to end may be charged a fee to register as a British citizen that the child or the child’s parent, guardian or carer is unable to afford.
(4) The Secretary of State must take steps to raise awareness of people to whom subsection (1) applies of their rights under the British Nationality Act 1981 to register as British citizens.’
This new clause would mean that nobody whose right of free movement was removed by the Bill could be charged a fee for registering as a British citizen that was greater than the cost of the registration process and would abolish the fee for some children.
New clause 22—Visa requirements—
‘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 will ensure that 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.
New clause 23—Amendment of the Scotland Act 1998—
‘(1) The Scotland Act 1998 is amended as follows.
(2) In Schedule 5, at paragraph B6, delete the words “free movement of persons within the European Economic Area;”.
(3) In Schedule 5, at paragraph B6, insert at the end—
“(none) Retained EU law relating to free movement of persons from the European Economic Area; and the subject matter of section 1 and schedule 1 of the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Act 2020.”’
This new clause would devolved retained free movement law and the subject matter of clause 1 and schedule 1 of the Bill to the Scottish Parliament.
New clause 24—Remote Areas Pilot Scheme—
‘(1) Within 6 months of this Act receiving Royal Assent, the government must introduce a Remote Areas Pilot Scheme to encourage EEA and Swiss nationals to live and work in remote areas.
(2) The scheme in subsection (1) must be designed in consultation with the Northern Ireland Executive, the Scottish Government and the Welsh Government.
(3) The scheme in subsection (1) must operate for at least two years after which an evaluation report must be published and laid before both Houses of Parliament.
(4) A Minister of the Crown must make a motion in the House of Commons in relation to the report.’
This new clause would require the government to introduce a Remote Areas Pilot Scheme, similar to the recommendations of the Migration Advisory Committee.
New clause 26—Right to rent (EEA and Swiss nationals)—
‘The Secretary of State must make provision to ensure that EEA and Swiss nationals, and dependants of EEA and Swiss nationals, are not subjected to right to rent immigration checks.’
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to ensure that landlords do not carry out immigration checks on EEA and Swiss nationals under the Right to Rent scheme.
New clause 28—Data protection: immigration (EEA and Swiss nationals)—
‘(1) The Data Protection Act 2018 is amended in accordance with subsection (2).
(2) In paragraph 4 of schedule 2, after sub-paragraph (4) insert—
“(5) This paragraph does not apply if the data subject is an EEA or Swiss national or a dependent of an EEA or Swiss national.”’
This new clause would ensure that the immigration exemption in the Data Protection Act 2018 does not apply to EEA or Swiss nationals.
New clause 29—Family reunion and resettlement—
‘(1) The Secretary of State must make provision to ensure that an unaccompanied child, spouse or vulnerable or dependant adult who has a family member who is legally present in the United Kingdom has the same rights to be reunited in the United Kingdom with that family member as they would have had under Commission Regulation (EU) No. 604/2013.
(2) The Secretary of State must, within a period of six months beginning with the day on which this Act is passed—
(a) amend the Immigration Rules in order to preserve the effect in the United Kingdom of Commission Regulation (EU) No. 604/2013 for the family reunion of unaccompanied minors, spouses and vulnerable or dependant adults; and
(b) lay before both Houses of Parliament a strategy for ensuring the continued opportunity for relocation to the UK of unaccompanied children present in the territory of the EEA, if it is in the child’s best interests.
(3) For the purposes of this section, “family member”—
(a) has the same meaning as in Article 2(g) of Commission Regulation (EU) No. 604/2013;
(b) also has the same meaning as “relative” as defined in Article 2(h) of Commission Regulation (EU) No. 604/2013; and
(c) also includes the family members referred to in Article 8 (1), Article 16 (1) and 16 (2) of Commission Regulation (EU) No. 604/2013.
(4) Until such time as Regulations in subsection (2) come into force, the effect of Commission Regulation (EU) No 604/2013 for the family reunion of unaccompanied minors, spouses and vulnerable or dependent adults with their family members in the UK shall be preserved.’
This new clause would have the effect of continuing existing arrangements for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, spouses and vulnerable adults to have access to family reunion with close relatives in the UK.
New clause 30—Impact assessment on the social care workforce—
‘(1) No Minister of the Crown may appoint a day for the commencement of any provision of this Act until the condition in subsection (2) is met.
(2) This condition is that a Minister of the Crown has published and laid before both Houses of Parliament an assessment of the impact of the Act on recruitment of EU citizens, EEA nationals, and Swiss citizens to the social care sector.’
This new clause makes the coming into force of the Act conditional on the production of an impact assessment of the changes on the social care workforce
New clause 32—Non-applicability of hostile environment measures to EU citizens, EEA nationals and Swiss citizens—
‘(1) No amendment to the definition of ‘relevant national’ in section 21 of the Immigration Act 2014, so as to alter the provision made for a national of an EEA State or a national of Switzerland, may be made by regulations under—
(a) Section 8, Section 23 and paragraph 21 of Schedule 7 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018;
(b) Section 14 of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020; or
(c) Section 4 of this Act.
(2) In Paragraph 4 of Schedule 2 of the Data Protection Act 2018 (“Immigration”)
(a) Omit “.” at the end of sub-paragraph (4),
(b) At the end of sub-paragraph (4), insert—
“, and
(5) Sub-paragraphs (1) and (3) do not apply where the personal data is that of a national of an EU Member State, an EEA State or Switzerland.”
(3) This section comes into force on the day on which this Act is passed.’
This new clause would prevent the application of key aspects of the hostile/compliant environment to EU, EEA and Swiss citizens.
New clause 33—Differentiated immigration rules—
‘(1) The Secretary of State must publish and lay before Parliament a report on the implementation of a system of differentiated immigration rules for people whose right of free movement is ended by section 1 and schedule 1 of this Act within six months of the passing of this Act.
(2) The review in subsection (1) must consider the following—
(a) whether Scottish Ministers, Welsh Ministers, and the Northern Ireland Executive should be able to nominate a specified number of EEA and Swiss nationals for leave to enter or remain each year;
(b) the requirements that could be attached to the exercise of any such power including that the person lives and, where appropriate, works in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland and such other conditions as the Secretary of State believes necessary;
(c) the means by which the Secretary of State could retain the power to refuse to grant leave to enter or remain on the grounds that such a grant would—
(i) not be in the public interest, or
(ii) not be in the interests of national security;
(d) how the number of eligible individuals allowed to enter or remain each year under such a scheme could be agreed annually by Scottish Ministers, Welsh Ministers and the Northern Ireland Executive and the Secretary of State; and
(e) whether Scottish Ministers, Welsh Ministers, and the Northern Ireland Executive should be able to issue Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Immigration Rules, as appropriate, setting out the criteria by which they will select eligible individuals for nomination, including salary thresholds and financial eligibility.
(3) As part of the review in subsection (1), the Secretary of State must consult—
(a) the Scottish Government;
(b) the Welsh Government;
(c) the Northern Ireland Executive; and
(d) individuals, businesses, and other organisations in the devolved nations’.
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to publish and lay a report before Parliament on differentiated immigration rules for people whose right of free movement are ended by this Act, and sets out a non-exhaustive list of issues that must be reviewed including the possible role of devolved government.
New clause 34—Late applications—
‘(1) Prior to the deadline for applications to the EU Settlement Scheme, the Secretary of State must publish a report setting out proposals for dealing with late applications and a motion to approve the report must be debated and approved by both Houses of Parliament.
(2) Until the report under subsection (1) is debated and approved by both Houses of Parliament, the EU Settlement Scheme must remain open for applications and the Secretary of State must extend the deadline for applications accordingly.’
The new clause will ensure that the EU Settled Status Scheme will remain open until such time as the Minister has published his proposals as to how to deal with late applications and that report has been approved by Parliament.
New clause 35—Visa extensions for health and care workers during Covid-19 pandemic—
‘(1) Where—
(a) A person (“P”) meets either the condition in subsection (2) or the condition in subsection (3); and
(b) P’s leave in the United Kingdom would otherwise expire prior to 1 January 2021,
then P’s leave is extended until twelve months after the date on which P’s leave would otherwise expire without any further fee or charge being incurred.
(2) The condition in this subsection is that the individual is a health and care professional, or a social worker, or employed in another frontline health and care role.
(3) The condition in this subsection is that the individual is a family member of a person meeting the condition in subsection (2).
(4) In this section—
“health and care professional” is a person within the class of persons who are nurses or other health and care professionals, or medical professionals within the meaning of the regulations referred to in sections 2 to 5 of the Coronavirus Act 2020;
“social worker” is a person within the class of persons who are social workers within the meaning of the regulations referred to in sections 6 to 7 of the Coronavirus Act 2020.”
“employed in another frontline health and care role” means a person employed in a role conferring eligibility for the NHS and Social Care Coronavirus Life Assurance Scheme 2020.’
This new clause would put the Government’s policy of visa extensions on a statutory footing, and ensure that it includes all health and social care workers and other frontline employees including cleaners and porters.
New clause 36—Applications for citizenship from people with settled status—
‘Where a person with settled status applies for British Citizenship, then the period of person’s residence that qualified them for settled status shall be treated as not being in breach of the immigration laws.’
This new clause would ensure that persons who qualified for settled status cannot then be refused citizenship on ground that their residence during the qualifying period for settled status was in breach of immigration laws (for example, because of a period without Comprehensive Sickness Insurance).
New clause 37—Annual report on skills and the labour market—
‘(1) Within six months of this Act coming into force, and every 12 months thereafter, the Secretary of State must publish and lay a report before Parliament setting out how changes made to the Immigration Rules for EEA and Swiss nationals have affected skill shortages in the labour market.
(2) A Minister of the Crown must, not later than a month after the report has been laid before Parliament, make a motion in the House of Commons in relation to the report.’
This new clause would ensure that the Government has to publish an annual report on skill shortages and the labour market, and that it would be debated in Parliament.
New clause 38—European citizens’ rights—
‘(1) This section applies to EEA and Swiss nationals—
(a) who are within the personal scope of the withdrawal agreement (defined in Article 10) having the right to reside in the United Kingdom; or
(b) to whom the provisions in (a) do not apply but who are eligible for indefinite leave to enter or remain or limited leave to enter or remain by virtue of residence scheme immigration rules.
(2) A person has settled status in the United Kingdom if that person meets the criteria set out in ‘Eligibility for indefinite leave to enter or remain’ or ‘Eligibility for limited leave to enter or remain’ in Immigration Rules Appendix EU.
(3) A person with settled status holds indefinite leave to enter or remain and has the rights provided by the withdrawal agreement for those holding permanent residence as defined in Article 15 of the agreement, even if that person is not in employment, has not been in employment or has no sufficient resources or comprehensive sickness insurance.
(4) The Secretary of State must by regulations made by statutory instrument make provision—
(a) implementing Article 18(4) of the withdrawal agreement (right of eligible citizens to receive a residence document), including making provision for a physical document providing proof of residence;
(b) implementing Article 17(4) of the EEA EFTA separation agreement (right of eligible citizens to receive a residence document) including making provision for a physical document providing proof of residence; and
(c) implementing Article 16(4) of the Swiss citizens’ rights agreement (right of eligible citizens to receive a residence document), including making provision for a physical document providing proof of residence.
(5) A person with settled status does not lose the right to reside for not having registered their settled status.
(6) A person who has settled status who has not registered their settled status by 30 June 2021 or any later date decided by the Secretary of State may register at any time after that date under the same conditions as those registering prior to that date.
(7) After 30 June 2021 or any later date decided by the Secretary of State, a person or their agent may require proof of registration of settled status under conditions prescribed by the Secretary of State in regulations made by statutory instrument, subject to subsections (8) to (10).
(8) Any person or their agent who is allowed under subsection (7) to require proof of registration has discretion to establish by way of other means than proof of registration that the eligibility requirements for settled status under the provisions of this section have been met.
(9) When a person within the scope of this section is requested to provide proof of registration of settled status as a condition to retain social security benefits, housing assistance, access to public services or entitlements under a private contract, that person shall be given a reasonable period of at least three months to initiate the registration procedure set out in this section if that person has not already registered.
(10) During the reasonable period under subsection (9), and subsequently on the provision of proof of commencement of the registration procedure and until a final decision on registration on which no further administrative or judicial recourse is possible, a person cannot be deprived of existing social security benefits, housing assistance, access to public services or private contract entitlements on the grounds of not having proof of registration.
(11) The regulations adopted under subsection (7) must apply to all persons defined in subsection (1).
(12) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section may not be made unless a draft instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.
(13) In this section—
“EEA EFTA separation agreement” means (as modified from time to time in accordance with any provision of it) the Agreement on arrangements between Iceland, the Principality of Liechtenstein, the Kingdom of Norway and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland following the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, the EEA Agreement and other agreements applicable between the United Kingdom and the EEA EFTA States by virtue of the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union;
“residence scheme immigration rules” has the meaning defined in section 17 of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020;
“Swiss citizens’ rights agreement” means (as modified from time to time in accordance with any provision of it) the Agreement signed at Bern on 25 February 2019 between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Swiss Confederation on citizens’ rights following the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from— (a) the European Union, and (b) the free movement of persons agreement;
“withdrawal agreement” means the agreement between the United Kingdom and the EU under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union which sets out the arrangements for the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU (as that agreement is modified from time to time in accordance with any provision of it).’
This new clause will ensure that all EU citizens have settled status (whether they’ve applied or not) and to require the Government to make available physical proof of settled status.
Amendment 34, 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 36, page 3, line 8, at end insert—
‘(5A) Regulations under subsection (1) must provide that EEA and Swiss nationals, and adult dependants of EEA and Swiss 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 3 months of the date on which it was recorded.’
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to make regulations enabling asylum seekers to work once they have been waiting for a decision on their claim for 3 months or more.
Amendment 32, 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 such date as the Secretary of State deems appropriate, being no earlier than 23rd June 2016.’
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.
Amendment 33, 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.
Amendment 38, 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.
(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.
(14) For the purposes of subsection (11), “close family members” means
(a) children (including adopted children); and
(b) other close family members where that relationship subsisted on or before 31st January 2020 and has continued to subsist.’
This amendment ensures that UK citizens who have been living abroad in the EEA and formed families before the UK left the EU, can return to the UK with those families under the rules that were in force before the UK left the EU.
Government amendments 1 to 4.
Amendment 35, in clause 7, page 5, line 13, at end insert—
‘(1A) Section 1 and Schedule 1 of this Act do not extend to Scotland.’
Amendment 39, 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.’
Government amendments 5 to 31.
There is a great deal of interest in this debate. I propose to start with a limit of six minutes on Back-Bench speeches. I know that those on the Front Benches are aware of the pressure on time.
Brendan O’Hara
New clause 1 stands in my name and in the names of the hon. Members listed on the Order Paper. It seeks an independent evaluation of the impact of the effect of this Bill specifically on the health and social care sector. The reason behind it is that the faith that this Government clearly have in their new points-based immigration scheme simply is not shared by tens of thousands of those working in the health and social care sector and millions of their service users.
As of this afternoon, no fewer than 50 organisations have given their backing to this new clause. Those organisations come from every part of the United Kingdom. They include: the Bevan Foundation; the Church of Scotland; Unison; the MS Society; the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations; the Centre for Independent Living in Northern Ireland; Disability Wales; the National Carers Organisation; Macmillan Cancer Support; the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh; social workers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; the Voluntary Organisations’ Network North-East; and the Alliance for Camphill to name just a few.
By supporting new clause 1, all we are asking is that the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, having consulted the relevant Ministers in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, as well as service providers and those requiring health and social care services, appoints an independent evaluator to assess the impact that this Bill will have on the sector and for Parliament then to debate and vote on that assessment. By accepting new clause 1, the Government would be saying to the sector, “We hear what you are saying. We recognise your fears and concerns, but we are confident that this new proposal will not adversely affect those caring for the weakest and most vulnerable in our society.” The Government would then be saying that they are happy to have that independent evaluation of these changes once it has been implemented.
The reason that this new clause has received such widespread support in the sector is that they, as the people who work on the frontline, simply cannot see how this Bill will help to deliver a better service to the millions of people throughout the UK who rely on it every day of their lives. One can understand their concerns, given that the sector is already struggling to recruit and retain the workforce that it needs right now to look after an ageing population, and a population with increasingly complex care needs.
At the end of September 2019, NHS England reported 120,000 unfilled posts. That is an increase of 22,000 on the previous year and it is a pattern that is being repeated across the United Kingdom. It is a bad situation, and it is one that is getting worse. There is genuine concern in the sector that the Government do not know what to do about it, and it is a concern that is only heightened by what is contained in the Bill.
In and of itself, filling those existing vacancies will be a major long-term challenge, but it becomes even more so if the Government are genuine about fulfilling the Prime Minister’s pledge to give every older person the dignity and the security that they deserve. To do that, they would not only need to fill the 120,000 vacancies that exist now, but would have to vastly increase the number of people recruited into the sector over a long and sustained period of time. The Nuffield Trust has said that providing just one hour of care to an elderly person with high needs who currently does not receive help would require 50,000 additional home care workers, rising to 90,000 if two hours’ care were to be provided. We must add to that the fact that one in four of the current health and social care workforce is aged 55 or over and therefore due to retire at some point in the next decade, resulting in a further 320,000 vacancies. I can understand why people are very worried. I cannot see how this Bill facilitates finding that army of workers, but, more importantly, no one I have spoken to in the health and social care sector sees how it can. In fact, there is a commonly held belief that the Bill will make recruitment of staff far more difficult and the delivery of what the UK Government claim they want well-nigh impossible.
I have said it before and I make no apology for repeating it: I believe that freedom of movement has been extremely good for this country and I bitterly regret seeing it go. It has been economically, socially and culturally beneficial for the UK. But if the Government are determined to abandon it, then the least they can do is to make sure that the weakest, poorest and most vulnerable are not disproportionately affected by it. I do not believe they have done that. I do not believe for a minute that they have considered the impact that this Bill will have on the health and social care sector—but I am prepared to be proven wrong. By accepting new clause 1, the Government will give the health and social care sector the confidence that this Government do know what they are doing, that they have carefully considered what the ending of freedom of movement will mean, and that they have a plan in place to protect the sector—and, more importantly, to protect those who rely on it.
Surely if the Government are really as confident about the efficacy of this new immigration Bill and the points-based system as they claim, they have nothing to fear from a comprehensive, independent evaluation that is there purely to assess the impact on the sector across the four nations of the UK. Indeed, it would be the prudent and responsible thing for the Government to do in order to ensure that any changes to the immigration system do not, however inadvertently, adversely affect the care needs of our most vulnerable.
This independent evaluation would not only ensure that no harm has been done to service users, but give any future Government a head start when planning and making decisions in the sector, particularly around recruitment of staff and investment. Surely the Minister can accept that such a far-reaching change as this should not happen on a wing and a prayer without a proper bespoke impact assessment on the sector—which there has not been—or at least an appropriate mechanism by which this House and Parliaments across the UK are able to accurately measure the effectiveness or otherwise of such a radical change.
By accepting new clause 1, the Government would ensure that these issues were being tackled from a foundation of accurate and independent research, allowing national Governments, local authorities, health and social care sectors, third-sector organisations and other key agencies to make strategic planning decisions while being fully informed by robust and independent evidence, thus securing the long-term future of the sector.
As probably never before, the people across the nations of the United Kingdom have come to appreciate the outstanding contribution made by those who work in our health and social care services. I doubt there is a family anywhere in the UK who has not benefited from their help in the past few months. But along with our sincere thanks and gratitude, we owe them an assurance that we will do everything we can to support them and the sector, and that must include providing them with the assurance that no decision taken in this place will undermine or adversely affect them. I hope the Minister will see that the Government have nothing to lose, but rather lots to gain, from agreeing to such an independent evaluation of the impact of this Bill on the health and social care sector, and I implore him to accept new clause 1.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
First, I declare my interests in the register. Secondly, it is getting rather difficult to talk to so many amendments in the space of six minutes. Perhaps I should have applied for a ten-minute rule Bill beforehand and got all my points in through that. I want to talk primarily to my new clauses 2 and 29. I certainly put on record my support for new clauses 7 to 10 tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis).
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
A ten-minute rule Bill would have been good. In respect of new clause 29, which my hon. Friend is also speaking to, the Government will say that the matter is subject to negotiation, and that acting now would pre-empt and tread on that. I always listen with great respect to what he says, and I take a lead from him in many regards. Why is that not the pertinent point?
Tim Loughton
I have not actually come on to new clause 29 yet, and other people will speak to that point, but the problem is that the Government position has been weakened. They produced a negotiation document, which now has a discretionary scheme, rather than the mandatory scheme. The EU will be even less likely to want to agree to that, and it is absolutely essential that we have a scheme in place, otherwise on 1 January next year there will be no safe and legal route for the several hundreds of children who have been coming to this country safely to avail themselves of. That is the problem.
New clause 2 would ensure that all looked-after children and care leavers were identified and given status so that they do not become undocumented. Issuing settled status now would prevent another cliff edge in the future. These young people would have to re-apply for settled status in five years’ time, perhaps without the help of the local authority. The evidential burden would be lowered for local authorities applying and for Home Office caseworkers, saving time with the complex application process. The amendment to the process for identification and granting status is time-limited. As set out in the new clause, it would be effective for five years after the settlement scheme deadline, until 30 June 2026.
These are really vulnerable children. We do a great job of looking after them in this country, from which we can take great pride. For goodness’ sake, let us continue being able to do that job and keep them here legally without allowing them to become at risk. This is not about bringing lots of new children into the country—they are already here. We just want to make sure they have representation, recognition and the documentation to ensure that when they grow into adults and apply for a job, it is not all of a sudden found that actually they have no right to be here and they face deportation.
New clause 29—what a sense of déjà vu—was raised many times during the Brexit Bills. We were convinced by Ministers that that was not the appropriate place for it. I accepted that. We were told that it would be in the immigration Bill instead. It is not in the immigration Bill. We have been told that it is going to be down to the negotiations instead. Time is running out; the Dublin III scheme ends in exactly six months’ time, and there is no replacement for it yet.
As I said, the Government published their negotiation document. The most fundamental problem with the scheme that is now being negotiated—it is not guaranteed —is that the text removes all mandatory requirements on the Government to facilitate family reunions and would make a child’s right to join their relatives entirely discretionary. The text intentionally avoids providing rights to children, contains no appeal process and attempts to be beyond the reach of the United Kingdom courts. Other categories of vulnerable refugees, including accompanied children, would lose access to family reunion entirely, and a series of other key safeguards have been removed, including strict deadlines for responses and responsibility for gathering information being on the state rather than the child.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Tim Farron
I am at the far end of the Chamber, but I thoroughly agree with the hon. Gentleman; I am very close to him when it comes to the point he is making. Obviously, this is a very regrettable state of affairs. Does he agree that it would be right for the Minister, at the Dispatch Box today, to commit the United Kingdom to signing up to the equivalent of Dublin so that children who are here unaccompanied can have their family come and join them, and children from outside this country who are unaccompanied can come and join family members here? That is the right and decent thing to do, and it would be continuing our obligations to those people.
Tim Loughton
The hon. Gentleman is right. Actually, the Government have said all along that that is their intention. I have had meetings with many Immigration Ministers over the last few years. I remember going to see the then Immigration Minister, who is now the Northern Ireland Secretary, after Baroness Morgan and I visited Athens with UNICEF. We visited some of the camps out there and saw some of the children who would qualify for this scheme. We were given clear undertakings that it was absolutely the Government’s intention to make sure that after we came out of the EU, when Dublin III no longer covered the United Kingdom, we would have a scheme at least as good as what there is now.
Again, we are talking about just a few hundred children. We are not talking about attracting thousands of children to this country; it is a few hundred specifically identified children—usually through some of our agencies operating in refugee camps and around the world—who have family links in this country. In some cases, those will be their only family links. They may have lost their parents in the civil war in Syria; they may be at the hands of people traffickers, fleeing abuse, fleeing war zones or whatever, and it may be that a brother, an uncle or an aunt is the only family member they have left and that that person is legally in the United Kingdom. Those are some of the most vulnerable children whom we have done a fantastic job of giving a safe home to in recent years, and it is essential that we carry that scheme on. It is a mandatory scheme, and it is a scheme of which we should be hugely proud.
That is why now is the time for new clause 29. We have had fob-offs, frankly, over recent years about why it would not be appropriate to put this in legislation. We need a very clear statement and intent from the Government today that there will be a scheme in operation on 1 January. I know that it depends on negotiations, but if all else fails, we can put in place our own scheme that is at least as good as Dublin. That is what the new clause tries to achieve.
We have a great record in this area. We have taken almost 20,000 refugees under the Syrian scheme. We targeted 20,000; we have actually taken 19,768. We have invested more than £2.3 billion in Syrian refugees—more than any other country in the EU. We have filled the 480 Dubs places. We have a great record, so why on earth would we not want to make sure that we continue that great record for some of the most vulnerable children fleeing from danger, whom we have been able to afford safe and legal passage to join relatives in the United Kingdom?
That is what the new clause asks for. We have to do better. I and my constituents will not be able to understand it if we fail to give a strong commitment that this country continues to want to do the best by those really vulnerable children. For that reason, I support new clause 29 as well.
Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to return to the Chamber for the Report stage of this important Bill and to follow the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). I will return later to the merits of new clauses 2 and 29, but I will focus my comments on the merits of new clauses 13 to 15, tabled by the Leader of the Opposition. I will also outline our support for several other new clauses that have appeal across the Labour Benches, not least new clause 1, the lead amendment in this group.
I am sorry that we could not persuade the Government to engage further with us on any of the amendments or new clauses that we tabled in Committee, but we have the opportunity on Report to make the case again for different approaches in certain areas. In Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) spoke to new clause 13, which called on the Government to review “no recourse to public funds” with a focus on vulnerable groups, including those with children and victims of domestic violence. We had hoped that such a review would establish an evidence base allowing for a more informed parliamentary discussion on the broader issue.
In the immediate term, we have already called for “no recourse to public funds” to be suspended for the duration of the coronavirus crisis. On 21 April, we asked the Government to lift NRPF as a condition on a person’s migration status, in order to ensure that nobody was left behind in the public health effort undertaken to fight against coronavirus.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is right. “No recourse to public funds” is one reason for what is happening in Leicester. Is she aware that both the Home Affairs Committee and the Work and Pensions Committee, on a cross-party basis, unanimously called for the suspension of the “no recourse to public funds” restrictions for the duration of the pandemic?
Holly Lynch
My right hon. Friend, alongside the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, has done an awful lot of work in this area, not least with the support of the Prime Minister. In response to his question about NRPF on 27 May, the Prime Minister said:
“Clearly people who have worked hard for this country, who live and work here, should have support…we will see what we can do to help”.
My right hon. Friend was right to raise this important point. The Children’s Society estimates that about 1 million people and at least 100,000 children have no recourse to public funds. Although new clause 13 has been drafted to sit within the scope of the Bill, it would start to deliver on the spirit of the Prime Minister’s commitment.
Local authorities have already had instructions from central Government to this effect. On 26 March, Ministers from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government wrote to all councils asking them to utilise alternative powers and funding to assist those with no recourse to public funds. People are, however, still facing destitution and a postcode lottery at the discretion of their local authority without a clear steer from the Home Office. With this in mind, we hope that new clause 13 will have the support of the House. It would prevent any extension of this condition to those who would lose their free movement rights for the course of the pandemic, and would ensure that NRPF could not be re-imposed without a proper parliamentary debate and a vote in both Houses.
Tim Farron
In addition to the imposition and the hardship that comes from “no recourse to public funds”, there is the burden that many asylum seekers face when it comes to being able to work. Does the hon. Member agree that it is right that we give asylum seekers the right to work while they wait for their application to be heard, not least because it would save the public money and give those people the dignity of work and the ability to provide for their own families and to begin to integrate much earlier?
Holly Lynch
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. We spoke in favour of the “Lift the Ban” campaign, which would have given asylum seekers the right to work after six months of not receiving a decision on their asylum claims. He is absolutely right that that would restore a degree of dignity to those in the system who have skills and are willing to work and want to contribute to the communities that they call their new homes. He is right to raise that important point.
On new clause 14, we very much welcome the Government’s commitment to scrap the NHS surcharge for migrant health and care workers. However, given that the commitment was made more than a month ago and that, to date, no progress as to how it will be delivered has been forthcoming, we have tabled new clause 14, which has, once again, been crafted to sit within the scope of this legislation and would make a start on enshrining the commitment in law.
The fee was described as “appalling, immoral and monstrous” by Lord Patten, the former Conservative party chairman. The general secretary for the Royal College of Nursing, Dame Donna Kinnair, said,
“it is a shame it took this pandemic for the government to see sense.”
The British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing, the Royal College of Physicians and Unison have all written to the Prime Minister to ask for practical clarification on his commitment. I also asked the Minister at Committee stage for an update on rolling out the policy change, but we are no nearer to having any insight into what progress, if any, has been made.
We worked with EveryDoctor, the doctor-led campaigning organisation to reach out to the 25,000-plus doctors on their Facebook group. It started a poll on Friday asking doctors to let it know if they had had to pay the immigration health surcharge since 21 May. So far, we have heard back from 55 doctors—all 55 have had to pay the charge.
I spoke to three of those doctors this morning. I thank them for their service to the NHS in our hour of need. Upon hearing their stories of what we make them go through in order to stay in this country and work in our NHS, I was genuinely embarrassed. They have each changed their roles within the NHS over the last three months. The automatic visa extension only covers those who are in the same job. If someone is moving to or from a 12-month specialist training post, for example, which is common in the NHS, they need to apply for a new visa, as they will be transferring sponsor, even though the move is within the NHS. They will not get a new visa without first paying the health surcharge.
I heard from Dr Olivia Misquitta, who is switching to a training placement role from paediatrics and who has been asked to pay the health surcharge twice in seven months—the last time being just last week, on 24 June. She hopes that eventually she will be refunded. I also heard from Dr Ahmed Bani Sadara, from Pakistan, who is working in orthopaedics but starts his GP training in August. His change in visa means that, on 1 June, he had to pay the health surcharge for himself, his wife and his six-month-old daughter, having already been asked to pay the charge for his daughter when she was born in this country just six months ago.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend recognise that social care workers and NHS porters and cleaners—those who do some of the most important jobs on the covid frontline—have not been included in the free visa extension and, as a result, are also being pressured to pay the immigration surcharge? Does she agree that the free visa extension ought to be extended to cover the lowest paid staff in the NHS and social care?
Holly Lynch
I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend. In her capacity as Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, she has pushed for this issue a great deal, and I commend her for that work. I agree with her wholeheartedly.
In the long term, we need to look at the sponsorship issue. If medical professionals had simply the NHS as a sponsor, rather than individual trusts, that simple step would transform the visa system and the fees for those working on the frontline of healthcare provision.
On the health surcharge, we seek to press new clause 14 to a vote, unless we are given a clear steer and assurances about how and when the changes will come into effect, and how those who have had to pay the fee since the announcement was made will be reimbursed.
New clause 15 would quite simply exempt NHS employers from having to pay the immigration skills charge. As things stand, NHS trusts pay the skills charge for those coming to work in the NHS from countries outside the EU, and they will be expected to pay those costs for those coming from the EU after free movement ends. However, in the context of the NHS, where certain clinical skills are simply not available in the domestic labour pool, levelling a tax on NHS trusts for having no choice other than to plug their staff shortages from the international talent pool is nothing short of an outrage. An NHS trust cannot unilaterally decide to train more nurses from the domestic labour force, for example; it needs Government intervention to deliver that uplift.
We have clinical workforce shortages almost right across the board in the NHS, and that is while we have had free movement. We submitted freedom of information requests to 224 NHS hospital trusts in England, asking them how much they were losing from their budgets to pay these charges back to the Government. To give an indication of what some hospitals are paying out, Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust told us that in just one year—the 2019-2020 financial year—it paid the Government £972,000. It has paid over £2 million in immigration skills charges since 2017. Over the past three financial years, Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust had to pay the Government £961,000 in immigration skills charges. Only 21% of trusts have responded to the FOI request so far, but this tells us that nearly £13 million has been taken back out of NHS budgets and handed over to the Government since 2017. That is nearly £13 million from just 21% of the hospital trusts in England. The fact that some hospitals could be paying out nearly £1 million in immigration skills charges in a single year must surely be a sign that the system is not working as intended, and this is all while people have been able to come and work in the NHS under free movement, where fees would not have been applicable. That is about to come to an end. I urge the Minister to adopt new clause 15, to mitigate any further detrimental impact on the NHS workforce and to ensure that NHS funding stays in the NHS.
I will briefly touch on the two other changes we have proposed. Amendment 39 would time-limit the Henry VIII powers in the Bill. These powers have been widely criticised by experts, and efforts from both Labour and the Scottish National party in Committee to curb the powers or to ask the Government to state explicitly on the face of the Bill what they would be used for have been to no avail. Amendment 39 would tie them to the end date of the EU settlement scheme.
I want to take this opportunity to say that we also support new clause 29, tabled in the name of the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), with cross-party support. This new clause would seek to continue the existing arrangements for unaccompanied child refugees and maintain our commitment to family reunion. I was reassured by the Minister’s positive response to the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Simon Fell) on this issue during the urgent question yesterday, and I hope that discussions can continue in that positive spirit. We also support new clauses 7 to 10, tabled in the name of the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), which reflect the sustained cross-party appetite to ensure that immigration detention is limited to 28 days, bringing about an end to unfair and unjust indefinite detention.
We are also keen to support new clause 2, tabled in the name of the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who has already given his very articulate explanation as to why it matters so much. We tabled new clause 58 in Committee to the same effect as his new clause, seeking to grant settled status to all those eligible children who are currently in the care of local authorities or who are care leavers. I am grateful that the hon. Gentleman has been able to share with the House some of the latest research from the Children’s Society, which foresees a bleak outlook if we do not take action on this important issue now, taking the responsibility from local authorities who are stretched as they have never been stretched before in order to make an application on behalf of a child. This is a cohort of children and young people who are our responsibility. We, the state, are acting as their legal guardians. They have already had the worst possible start in life, so let us do the best we can for them by at least giving them confidence in their immigration status.
As we have already heard through freedom of information requests, the Children’s Society identified a sample of 404 children who have had their status confirmed through the scheme, out of an estimated 9,000. Of those, 282 were granted settled status and 122 were granted pre-settled status. Given everything that those kids have been through, let us not sign them up for more years of paperwork and burdens of proof by giving them pre-settled status. Let us take all that uncertainty off the table for them by adopting new clause 2 and giving them indefinite leave to remain, as was so articulately outlined by the hon. Gentleman.
I very much hope that the Minister is open to the concerns that have been raised during the passage of the Bill and will no doubt be raised again this afternoon, but we are minded to take new clauses 13, 14 and 15 further if we are not satisfied that the Government are taking steps to mitigate the impact of the Bill and deliver on the promises that they have already made, not least to our brilliant NHS care workers.
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
I will speak to new clauses 7 to 10, but before I do, may I add my support to new clauses 2 and 29 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton)? As an ex-Brexit Secretary, I see no reason whatever to wait on the negotiation in order to take his clauses forward.
Today there is no limit on the amount of time for which people can be held in immigration detention in the United Kingdom. We are the only country in Europe that takes this stance. At the end of 2019, the individual detained in a holding centre for the longest period had been held for 1,002 days. In earlier years those numbers were even worse. These people are detained without trial or due process, oversight or basic freedoms, and they are carrying the debilitating psychological burden of having no idea when they will be released.
This flies in the face of centuries of British justice. Its operation has been severely criticised by the chief inspector of prisons, the chief inspector of borders, the Select Committee on Home Affairs, the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the Law Society and the Bar Council—quite a bunch of radicals, I would say. As a result of this early criticism, the Home Office had to reduce the numbers in the system, for which it claimed credit in a briefing note issued this morning. This is an improvement towards bringing down the numbers, but is still nowhere near right. We need a 28-day limit on immigration detention, and that is the purpose of my new clauses.
The Government also claimed in that briefing note that 97% of the occupants of immigration holding centres are foreign national offenders. Well, that is technically true, since at the moment, under covid-19 emergency arrangements, we have temporarily put out into the community a significant majority of the people who were detained in holding centres, keeping in only the most serious cases. In fact, in normal times—to which we will presumably return when the covid-19 crisis is over—the average proportion of foreign national offenders who have been detained over five years is 22%. The figure is never more than 23% and is normally at 19% to 20%. That tells us that four out of five detainees in these centres have no criminal action against them whatever; they are innocent people.
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
I completely agree with what my right hon. Friend is saying. Not only is his point correct, but I have found out, as a result of tabling a question to the Home Secretary, that over the past five years the taxpayer has had to pay out in excess of £20 million to people who were unlawfully detained. Is he aware of that?
Mr Davis
My right hon. Friend makes a good point, to which I will return in a moment because it impinges on another claim made by the Home Office that is plainly not true.
We have established what these people are not—they are not all foreign national offenders—but we should understand what they are. I do not have time in the six minutes available to me to go through all of them, but I have in front of me case after case of people who have suffered human trafficking, torture, rape, forced prostitution and modern slavery—mostly before they got to these shores, but in some cases after they arrived here too. Many are damaged people to whom the world has dealt a very, very rough hand. And what do we do when they come here for our help? We lock them up for an indefinite period.
Tim Farron
The right hon. Gentleman will be unsurprised to hear that I fully agree with everything that he has said so far. Is he aware of the detailed research by the Jesuit Refugee Service that looks into the psychological condition of the very people he is talking about? The research finds that that psychological condition is influenced by even the shortest of stays in indefinite detention and discusses what that means for those people and their families for the rest of their lives. I am sure that he understands that the Government need to consider the mental health and psychological impact of this kind of inhumane treatment.
Mr Davis
The hon. Gentleman is right: any stay is damaging. If someone was psychologically damaged before they arrived, it is even more damaging. If they do not know how long they will be detained, it is even more damaging again. He may remember that we had huge battles in this House over 90 days’ detention without charge, with the great defeat of Blair. We are now talking about detention of three months, four months, five months and three years.
Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is making an extremely compelling case, and I am proud to have signed his new clauses. Will he take this opportunity to put on record a view that I think he shares with me—that people who are serious offenders should be promptly deported, not living in the UK at taxpayer expense?
Mr Davis
My hon. Friend pre-empts the point that I am about to come to. A few are villains, and I would be the first to concede that, along with him. Predictably, as the Home Office always does when it has a weak case, it trotted out the gory details this morning—it listed 29 rapists, 52 violent offenders, 27 child sex offenders and 43 other sex offenders—designed, no doubt, to make our blood curdle.
That brings me to the other point of these new clauses. My question to the Minister, which I hope he will answer when he winds up the debate, is: when precisely did the Government start deportation proceedings on all those serious cases? Did they start the day that those people went into prison or sufficiently far in advance that those serious villains could go straight from prison to plane, with no stop at the detention centre? No, they did not, I am sure, but I would like to hear whether the Minister thinks they did the right thing on that.
The fact is that, to borrow a phrase from a former Home Secretary, the Home Office is not fit for purpose in managing deportations. Part of the point of these new clauses is to force the Home Office to get its act together, deal with the villains and stop punishing the innocent. That is why there is a six-month delay built into the new clauses—to give it time to get a grip.
I have one simple thing to say to the House. I have long been proud of our British justice system, but I am ashamed of what our incompetent deportation system does to people who arrived on our shores already badly damaged by human trafficking and modern slavery. It is time we put it right with new clauses 7, 8, 9 and 10.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). I am in the unusual position of agreeing with pretty much everything that has been said by all four speakers so far, which I do not get to say very often, particularly in relation to my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara).
We in the SNP believe that this is a bad Bill—bad for families and bad for businesses—that sells EU nationals short and extends the scope of the hostile environment. Meanwhile, we have seen the Home Office move from disinterest in specific solutions for devolved nations to disdain bordering sometimes on contempt. It has been made clear during the passage of the Bill that there is to be no remote areas pilot scheme, despite that being a recommendation of the Migration Advisory Committee and an earlier Home Office commitment. Our amendments give Parliament a last chance to remedy these defects, and we will support other amendments that seek to find a silver lining to this Bill, such as amendments on putting a time limit on immigration detention, protecting care leavers, and protecting family reunion rights.
Turning first to the issue of family, sadly, this Bill will destroy more families by extending the scope of some of the most anti-family migration rules on earth. The degree of complacency that there is in Parliament about the damage these rules do to families and children surprises me. Five years ago, just three years after the rules were introduced, England’s Children’s Commissioner estimated there were nearly 15,000 Skype families in the UK—kids separated from a parent overseas because of these ludicrous financial thresholds. These rules do not even take into account the prospective income of the persons applying to come into the country. The commissioner said at the time:
“Many of the children interviewed for this research suffer from stress and anxiety, affecting their well-being and development. It is also likely to have an impact on their educational attainment and outcomes because they have been separated from a parent, due to these inflexible rules which take little account of regional income levels or family support available.”
Amendment 33 puts a brake on extension of these rules and, as the commissioner recommended, starts putting the heart back into the policy.
A second group of families that are being put in an impossible position by this Bill are those formed by UK citizens living across the EEA who may in future want to come back here with their family. These are UK nationals who would have had no reason to doubt that if they had a family while abroad, they would have derived rights to return here with their family members to the UK without having to jump the impossible hurdles of the UK’s domestic family migration rules; they could not have predicted Brexit, and applying the UK family rules to them, denying many a right to return here with their family, would seem incredibly unfair.
To be fair to the Minister, he has acknowledged that there is an issue here and has provided a grace period until 2022, during which such families can return, but this is essentially just kicking the can a little bit further down the road. It still leaves many with horrible decisions to make: do they uproot their families now, just in case they do not qualify to return later on? None of these families could have predicted that they would be in this position, so why not remove the cut-off point altogether, as amendment 38 seeks to ensure?
Finally on the issue of family, we are 100% behind the cross-party amendment on family reunion. The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) will say much more about that shortly, and we fully support what the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) has already said, but it is plain to see that, despite talking a good game, the Government’s proposals mean they are backsliding on earlier commitments made to the House; they mean fewer safe legal routes for children to get to family here, and that means more children risking dangerous, unsafe routes. The Government’s stance is a boon for traffickers and people smugglers and a disaster for children and families, and that is why we must support new clause 29.
This Bill is not just anti-family; it is anti-business. I have spoken enough at previous stages about the huge problems that salary and skills thresholds will cause when the new system is brought into force, but today I want to focus briefly on the problems that the Bill will cause even if a job qualifies for a visa under the tier 2 system. Our system will make it unbelievably difficult and expensive to bring workers in, and will make this country an eye-wateringly unattractive place for people to come to. Figures from the international immigration law firm Fragomen show that under the future immigration system a tier 2 worker who enters the UK to work for five years with a partner and three kids could potentially involve a total payment to the Home Office of £27,000 upfront from October, once costs such as sponsorship licence fees and the immigration health surcharge are included. That is over 12 times as much as the equivalent for Canada and over 17 times as much as Germany, and it is similarly uncompetitive for other family arrangements.
Of course, skilled workers from the EEA are able to work in any other EEA country without paying a penny and with no need for the stress and uncertainty of a visa application. So if there is a skilled and sought-after French worker, that person can go to Dublin without paying a penny, no questions asked, but to get to Belfast they will need to pay many thousands of pounds and endure a Home Office visa process. It is a perfect incentive for skilled workers to go elsewhere, and it is a perfect incentive for key employers to move their businesses elsewhere. That is why we have tabled new clause 17, so that the Government have to be upfront and open with Parliament about the costs they are imposing on businesses and unskilled workers.
It is also why we have introduced new clause 16, a first step to removing the ridiculous immigration health surcharge, which makes up most of these humungous fees—a nonsensical double poll tax on workers, which is set to increase to £624 per person per year, all of which needs to be paid upfront.
So this Bill risks making it very hard to attract European workers to come to the UK in future, but what of the EU workers who are already here and other EU nationals? Amendment 32 would ensure that all EU citizens who are already here have automatic rights to remain and physical proof of their status. We support new clause 2, which would put in place that same right for looked-after children. Assuming, with regret, that the Government are not about to do that, they need to tell us much more about how they will respond when we wake up on 1 July next year to find an extra few hundred thousand undocumented EU migrants, without rights and potentially subject to removal. What will the Home Office do when a 70-year-old French woman writes to say: “I had permanent residence under the old scheme. I didn’t think I needed to apply, but now the DVLA have refused my driving licence and they say I’m here illegally.” What is the Home Office going to do in such circumstances?
The Government say that they will be “reasonable”, but what exactly does that mean? In Committee, the Minister helpfully explained that he will publish guidance for caseworkers with a non-exhaustive list of examples in which late applications will be allowed. That would be welcome and useful, but the key point is that I want to see it—and I want to see it before we close the EU settlement scheme to applications. Parliament should know precisely how late applications are to be treated before it allows the scheme to close. That is what new clause 34 would ensure.
Two other new clauses seek to push the Government towards fairer treatment of EEA nationals. New clause 36 flags up a new problem relating to EEA nationals who seek to become UK citizens. In fairness to previous Home Office Ministers, when the settlement scheme was established, the Home Office did not insist, as it could have done, on proof of comprehensive sickness insurance in deciding who had been legitimately exercising free movement rights. For some reason known only to itself, the Home Office has now decided to insist on that when it comes to applications for citizenship. That seems an awful miserly approach to take, and I urge the Minister to revisit it.
New clause 21 flags up the issue of those EEA nationals who have a right in law to register as British citizens, and I am grateful for the cross-party support for the clause. We are talking not about adults who have made a proactive choice to come here but about children and young people who were born here or who have been here since they were young, whose parents have subsequently settled or who have lived the first 10 years of their life here. In short, they are children and young people who had no choice over the fact that this is their home country. In law they have just as much right to British citizenship as you, Madam Deputy Speaker, or me; the only difference is that they have to register. When Parliament passed the relevant careful laws, the fee for the process was set simply at the cost of processing, but it has now rocketed to over £1,000—just to access British citizenship. That is profiteering on the backs of children and it has to stop.
Finally, I turn to the issue of the devolved nations. The end of free movement will have drastic implications for Scotland, and if anything the challenges for Northern Ireland will be even more extreme. Home Office disinterest in any notion of a differentiated system has transformed into hostility. New clause 33, which has cross-party support, simply makes the modest proposal that, instead of its usual dismissive attitude, the Home Office looks seriously at the options for addressing issues in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. With the Government refusing to look at any regional variation, some in Scotland had at least taken comfort from the MAC recommendation of a remote areas pilot scheme to encourage migration to areas that have a very small labour market. Originally, the Home Office accepted that recommendation, yet in Committee the Government said it had been abandoned. New clause 24 would restore that provision, and I certainly hope that MPs from all parties who represent constituencies with remote areas will insist that the Home Office thinks again.
It is clearer than ever that the only way we will have an immigration system that remotely reflects our needs and circumstances and fixes the injustices that it contains is if we design one ourselves but, given the Home Office intransigence, I have no problem making the case that control over migration will be a key advantage of independence.
Edward Timpson (Eddisbury) (Con)
There is no doubt that the Bill represents an important milestone in both the restructuring of the UK outside the European Union and the fulfilment of the promise that we made to, and that was endorsed by, the British people at the 2019 general election to end free movement. As an overarching policy, it is one that I endorse but, as with any wholesale reform to a national system—in this case immigration—there will be people caught up in the shifting sands created around them who, because of their own personal circumstances, will need specific understanding, attention and support to prevent them from being pushed to the very edges of society. Those people include, as we have heard, children in care and care leavers entitled to ongoing support. To that end, as a former Children’s Minister, I instinctively have sympathy for new clause 2, which proposes the provision of automatic settled status for all children in care and care leavers. In the short time available to me, I shall confine my remarks to new clause 2.
As we transition to a new legal framework for our immigration system, it is only right that, as my hon. Friend the Minister has said previously, we help to ensure that no one is left behind. As I understand it, new clause 2 is an attempt to put that principle into practice for children in care and care leavers, rather than leave it to chance.
Tim Loughton
As my hon. Friend and I have both done the same job, I think we appreciate the real problems that social workers and local authorities are having in identifying these children. Does he agree with me that part of the problem is that the Department for Education does not routinely collect data on the nationality of the children it looks after in the first place? Is it not essential that that is the very minimum that needs to happen if we are to identify all of those children who would be covered by this scheme?
Edward Timpson
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and he is right. When one is trying to understand the consequences of the actions one takes as a Minister—as we heard in the statement earlier from the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk)—the enrichment of data can help us appreciate whether we are making good progress. In the independent school exclusions review that I carried out for the Government last year, a lot of my recommendations were about getting better data about the children in our systems, why they are there and how we can better track them, so that we know we are making good decisions on their behalf. I agree that that information would be relevant to the considerations under new clause 2.
It is important that we get this right. The corporate parenting principles that we legislated for in 2017 are designed for circumstances just like these. Please can we make sure that we live up to them?
Yvette Cooper
I support the points made by the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson) and new clause 2, which was tabled by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), because we have a responsibility to ensure that children in care do not miss out on the European settlement scheme through no fault of their own, and that we do not end up with another Windrush generation because nobody was looking out for those young people and they missed out on their rights—just never got the right papers.
I will speak to new clauses 29, 30 and 32, as well as other new clauses that I support. New clause 29 seeks only to continue the UK’s current commitments to help child refugees. I welcome the work the Government have done to support Syrian families, to speed up the Dublin scheme and to support the Dubs scheme, as well as the recent flight from Greece. All of that work resulted from cross-party debates in this House that the Government rightly responded to. We should not turn the clock back now or rip up that progress.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend will know that the Government have talked about their
“proud record on supporting the most vulnerable children”.—[Official Report, 22 January 2020; Vol. 670, c. 318.]
Does she accept that there can be no children more vulnerable than those she is talking about, and that the Government simply must maintain this commitment?
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is exactly right. We are talking about children and teenagers who are alone, with no one to care for them, but who have family here who could look after them.
The Government have said that we should instead rely on the draft text they have put forward in the transition negotiations. However, the Minister knows that the draft text represents a major downgrade in support and rights for lone child and teen refugees. All it does is allow EU member states to request the transfer of an asylum claim. There is no obligation on the UK even to consider it, never mind accept it. There are no objective criteria on which an application could be based, no appeal rights and no safeguarding timetables to make sure that a case does not drift endlessly, leaving a child in danger and in limbo, and the child with no family will no longer have legal rights.
Let us consider the case of a 14-year-old stuck in the awful Moria camp on Lesbos, whose older sister or aunt is living here and could care for them. If the Home Office loses, ignores or refuses the Greek request for a transfer to the UK to join family, there will be nothing the child, the family or anyone else can do. That is wrong.
The Government do not need to wait for the negotiations to be completed. We should just decide what we think is right. We have the ability to do that. Whatever other countries decide, we in Britain should continue our support for child and teen refugees who are alone and need support. Any Member of this House who has visited the camps in Greece or northern France will know how desperate, unsanitary and dangerous the conditions can be. No child should be abandoned alone in a dilapidated refugee camp or shelter when they have close relatives here who would welcome them with open arms, care for them, get them back into education and reclaim a future for them.
Some child and teen refugees have fled war or escaped being child soldiers. Many have been abused, sexually exploited or assaulted, and many have lost family members along the way. Without safe legal routes to sanctuary, they will be easy prey to trafficking and smuggler gangs, and we know quite how perilous that can be. Desperate young people have already lost their lives; we should not turn our backs on them now. We need to sustain those safe and legal routes. That is why I urge the Minister to support new clause 29.
New clause 30 is intended to ensure that the new immigration system helps rather than harms our economy and public services by calling for a proper assessment of its impact on social care, similar to that in new clause 1, which I support. The Migration Advisory Committee said in its report that these changes will “increase pressure on social care”, yet so far there has been no plan from the Government on how they are going to address that. Social care and those workers are far too important to be ignored. That is why, as well as supporting new clauses 13 to 15—tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) on the Front Bench—about supporting the contribution made by many of those workers during the covid crisis, I also urge the Minister to accept the spirit behind one of the other clauses that we tabled which is not in scope today, but which urges the Government to extend the free visa extension to social care workers, as well as to the NHS, doctors and medics. Supporting doctors and nurses is right, but excluding the care workers who hold dying residents’ hands, the cleaners who scrub the door handles and the floors of the covid wards, or the porters who take patients to intensive care is just wrong. We should be supporting them as well.
I will also speak to new clause 32, which is about trying to make sure the system operates fairly, because by default, the Bill extends the hostile environment, even though the Windrush scandal has shown the damage that some of those measures can do. The housing provisions do not benefit the immigration system, but they do lead to discrimination for legal residents and British citizens, including discrimination based on the colour of their skin. That is why the Home Affairs Committee recommended a full review of the hostile environment and why Wendy Williams’ report has called for the same. Extending those hostile environment measures now, rather than accepting the recommendation of Wendy Williams’ report, is the wrong thing to do.
I also support new clauses 7 and 8 in the name of the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). Again, those reflect recommendations of the cross-party Home Affairs Committee, because we have found that by not having a limit on detention and not having proper reviews and safeguards, too often, the system just drifts. Too often, people are just left in limbo because there are not proper safeguards to make sure things happen in time.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Yvette Cooper
I will not—I am conscious of time. The Government have a responsibility through this Bill to ensure that they build a system that can build consensus and cross-party support; that supports our economy and public services and does not undermine that; that recognises and rewards the huge contribution that people have made to this country, including and especially during the covid-19 crisis; that is fair and respects people; and that continues to support those who are most vulnerable, and particularly children and child refugees. The amendments that I and others have put forward are in that spirit of building a system that can provide consensus across the country. I urge the Minister to accept them.
Dehenna Davison (Bishop Auckland) (Con)
Having served on the Public Bill Committee and knowing how much my constituents across Bishop Auckland care about this important Bill, it is my pleasure to speak in support of it in this debate.
We must never lose sight of why we are having this debate and why it is so important: this Bill symbolises the trust that voters put in our nation to decide our own immigration rules and, in turn, the trust that they put in this place to get those rules right. The Bill marks the start of a journey that will provide the framework to allow doctors, scientists and engineers to come to this country, contribute and make it their home, whether they are from Austria or Australia, Italy or India. There are some who mourn the end of free movement and indeed some—mainly on the Opposition side of the House—who would keep it indefinitely, but rather than seeing the changes to free movement as the end of a chapter of our migration story, we should view this as the start of the story in which Britain opens its arms to the rest of the world.
Turning to the amendments from my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis)—he is no longer in his place, but I have great respect for him and he has long been a proud champion of liberty—it is important that we look in detail at immigration detention and remember the reason why it is used. In moving into this new immigration system, we must remain robust and firm. We must have a level and fair immigration system, but one where those who fall foul and offend are dealt with and face sufficiently serious consequences.
Let us be clear: immigration detention is only ever used as a last resort. It is only used as an immediate precursor to removal from the country or where there is a serious risk of someone absconding or causing harm to the public. As with any system, there will be those who slip between the nets, and I would be grateful for the Minister’s reassurances that these people are being fully considered in this legislation. However, looking at the current immigration detention figures, we see that 97% of people currently in detention are foreign national offenders, who have committed some of the most serious, heinous, disgraceful crimes—crimes such as murder, rape and child abuse.
By implementing an arbitrary time limit on immigration detention, we could make it much more difficult for those offenders to be removed from our country. That is not good enough and it is not something my constituents in Bishop Auckland would accept.
Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)
I am enjoying listening to a number of the arguments I have heard being put forward. On this issue of foreign offenders, is not the right answer to deal with their immigration status while they are in prison serving their term, rather than throwing them into a detention system because we have not worked out how to do that in the first place?
Dehenna Davison
One could certainly argue that; I would argue the opposite, but I thank my hon. Friend for his point. Let me give a tangible example. Had a 28-day limit been in place in December, it would have resulted in the immediate release of some foreign nationals who were awaiting deportation, including 29 rapists, 27 child sex offenders and 52 violent offenders, including a number of murderers, and more.
Stuart C. McDonald
The hon. Lady is doing a good job of regurgitating what the Government put out this morning—
Stuart C. McDonald
Well, it is, almost literally. All of these points can be rebutted. This series of amendments provides for a six-month process in which the Government could transition, so it is not an overnight thing. There would be six months for the Government to deal with foreign national offenders and to have them removed.
Dehenna Davison
The point I make is that these are some of the most serious offenders, and, as I said, my constituents would not accept something along those lines. Furthermore, when we look at statistics on current detention times, we see that for the majority those are very short, with 74% detained for less than 29 days. For those held for substantial time periods, there must be a compelling reason, such as public safety. For example, we have the example of a man who gang-raped a 16-year-old, has a history of absconding and has delayed his own removal with five unsuccessful judicial reviews. Lawful immigration detention is needed to keep the public safe, so I cannot support these amendments. My constituents want a fair immigration system but they also rightly expect that system to keep them safe.
Turning to new clause 2—
Dehenna Davison
I will not give way any further.
I praise my hon. Friends for their commitment to protecting children in care, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who has long been a champion for children. Vulnerable children should always be in our minds when we make policy, and I echo the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson) on ensuring that nobody is left behind. However, I know that the Minister shares my concern that this proposal may inadvertently create a two-tier system. So rather than legislating in this manner, we should be strongly doing all we can to encourage local authorities to identify those vulnerable children and make sure that their EU settlement scheme applications are processed so that they have full and proper proof of their status and access to the documents for the rest of their lives, because we must never allow another situation such as Windrush to happen again.
On new clause 29, we have a proud history in this country of providing safe refuge, whether to the Kindertransport children or to Ugandan Asians fleeing Idi Amin. These are human stories and they should always be in our minds when we look at our policies today. The UK’s resettlement schemes have offered a safe route to the most vulnerable and given them a safe home on our shores. Unaccompanied children who are seeking international protection in an EU member state and have specified that family members are here in the UK should continue to be reunited with them, and I am glad that the Prime Minister has stressed the importance of that. The Government have approached the EU to offer a future reciprocal arrangement for the family reunion of unaccompanied asylum seeking children, and we know that a legal text was published in May to contribute to those negotiations. Getting a reciprocal arrangement is in the best interests of those vulnerable children and those families. We must not act unilaterally, as this amendment would have us do, as that would have a negative impact on the number of children who receive our help. Instead, we must work with the EU to form a joint agreement, and we in Parliament must allow time for these negotiations to play out, without binding the hands of our negotiators. We have seen what happens when Parliament tries to do that in past negotiations and we do not want to see a repeat of that.
This is an important Bill. It delivers on the referendum result and helps those of us on the Government Benches in particular, to repay the trust that the British people put in us in December. I vowed in December that I would do my utmost to represent the views of my constituents, whether in Bishop Auckland, Shildon, Barnard Castle or Spennymore, and that means backing this Bill and supporting a fair, robust immigration system that opens our arms to people across the world who have the talents and skills that our country needs to prosper.
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)
This Bill defines the type of country that Britain will be for decades to come and, more importantly, it reflects the type of country we want to be. My constituents and I care deeply about fixing our broken immigration system and replacing it with a regime that puts the United Kingdom first.
I wish to make it clear that the Bill has the support of my constituents. Rother Valley demanded an end to free movement: the Bill ends free movement. Rother Valley urged the Government to introduce a fairer points-based system for immigrants: the Bill does that. Rother Valley called for a transition to a high-wage, high-skill and high-productive economy: the Bill delivers that change while protecting our businesses and essential public services. We voted overwhelmingly for Brexit in Rother Valley. For too long, our voices were ignored on issues such as immigration. We watched our area decline from chronic underinvestment, which caused business closures, soaring unemployment and a lack of skills, training and education.
Meanwhile, Britain experienced an unlimited and uncontrolled influx of cheap labour from Europe. Thanks to the tyranny of the European Union, there was nothing we could do to manage our borders. A fundamental aspect of sovereignty was stripped from us and left us without a voice, but we have now found our voice. We took back control in 2016 and we are taking back control today with this very Bill, unamended.
In the wake of the coronavirus, we shall have a new immigration system in place that attracts the best and brightest from around the world, no matter where they come from—from Europe and beyond.
Christine Jardine
How would the hon. Gentleman react to the news that I had from my constituency that a professional couple who have lived here for 40 years—they were both born in France—and whose children were born here, who have contributed and brought skills to this country, are now thinking about leaving because of this sort of hostile environment that has been created by the Bill? Surely that goes against everything he has just said.
Alexander Stafford
I question whether the hon. Lady’s constituents are leaving because of this Bill, but I welcome everyone wherever they came from. In fact, my grandparents came to this country, and so I do not think the Bill is scaring anyone away. To say so once again underlines why the Bill is so important and the fact that those on the Opposition Benches do not get this country.
Crucially, this Government are ensuring that there will no longer be an automatic route for low-skilled foreign workers into the UK. We shall take immigrants as and when our economy needs them, but on our terms and not forced on us by bureaucrats in Brussels or by the real power brokers in Berlin.
Alexander Stafford
I have given way already, so I am not going to do so again. I will make some progress first.
We in Rother Valley are strong supporters of law and order. For that reason, I wish to address lawful immigration detention and highlight why it is necessary to keep the public safe. It has been suggested by some that we should impose a 28-day limit on immigration detention. I strongly reject that assertion, but I understand why hon. Members may suggest it. I also wish to remind the House that anyone wishing to leave immigration detention can do so at any time simply by leaving the country as they are legally obliged to. Nobody is forced to be in detention.
A 28-day limit would result in an immediate release of many foreign nationals who are criminals, as some of my hon. Friends have said. We want to emphasise that rapists, murderers and paedophiles could still be in this country under that system, and I for one—and the people of Rother Valley—do not want that.
Richard Fuller
I tried once, and I will try again with another Conservative colleague on this very question. We hear people trot out the stories that the Home Office has put forward about the people who are in detention and their heinous crimes. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is a job for the criminal justice system, not a job for the immigration detention system?
Alexander Stafford
I am glad for that intervention. I am not here to say whose job it is, but one thing I can say is that I do not want rapists or paedophiles over here. If they can be deported, let them be deported. Let them be detained. That is what I stand for: strong law and order.
Rather than imposing 28-day limits, we should ensure that the whole asylum and removal system works much faster and more efficiently. Currently, the legal process can take years with protracted appeals. I am pleased that the Government are considering reforms to ensure that genuine asylum claimants can claim asylum faster, that decisions are made more quickly, and that delays will be eliminated. That is the efficiency of a Conservative Government. This will benefit not only communities such as Rother Valley, but those who find themselves in the system. The changes mean that the numbers in immigration detention will drop. I am proud that this Government are taking real action on immigration after decades of mismanagement by Labour. We in Rother Valley and across South Yorkshire know more than most about the Labour party ignoring our wants and needs. We have taken note of the fact that Labour voted against ending free movement and taking back control of our borders, yet again dismissing the will of the British people. Labour voted against our immigration Bill on Second Reading and the Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), has declared that he would bring back freedom of movement if he were ever to become Prime Minister.
Labour cannot be trusted with control of our borders and it has proved that time and again. This Bill marks a new beginning for Rother Valley and for the United Kingdom as we exit the EU transition period and bounce back from coronavirus. We must build back better, build back greener, and build back faster. A sensible robust immigration system that works for Britain plays a central role in this strategy and guarantees a bright new future for my constituency and for our country. This Bill, unamended, does that. We promised this in 2019 and we are delivering. We are a Government who deliver. We are taking back control of our borders while those on the Opposition Benches want open borders.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. The time limit is now five minutes and it is likely to be reduced further later on.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
That was an interesting contribution from the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford). If he is concerned about Labour’s policies and about “leaving our borders open” then heaven knows what he will make of his own Government’s policy and how they are dealing with what could potentially happen at the end of the year and with what is happening with Brexit. He should have a word with Ministers about the things that they will need to do because of the arrangements that have not been made for our borders.
Let me return now to the substantive points of this debate. It was important to hear the points of the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) who have pursued the issue of the rights of child and teenage refugees in this House with diligence, and I support them in their work. I also thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) on the Front Bench made an excellent contribution, and I support all the points she made.
I rise to speak to new clause 37, which is, shall we say, broadly drawn and asks for a report from the Secretary of State on the impact of the new immigration system on skills and the labour market and how changes made to the immigration rules for European economic area and Swiss nationals have affected skills shortages in the labour market. If this clause were to be put in the Bill, I expect that that report would be quite a long one, because the impact of Brexit and the new immigration system on our country will be extensive. However, I just want to make a few short comments about a particular industry that is likely to be badly affected, especially as that comes on top of the very serious impacts that it has suffered from covid-19—that is the creative industries. You know, Mr Deputy Speaker, how important those industries are to our country. In making these points, I am proud to draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, because I could not be more honoured to have received the support of a great trade union, the Musicians’ Union.
The creative industries are currently in turmoil. They employ 3 million people. It is an underestimate to say that not all of those people are wealthy. I know that there are some very wealthy people in the creative industries, but the vast majority of them are not at all wealthy. They earn around the average income in this country.
Brexit is already a challenge for this industry. The creative industries face myriad issues—a panoply—from copyright to intellectual property protection and so on. As I said, covid-19, with the restrictions on their ability to do their jobs, is also having a radical impact. We must add to this Brexit and the end of the transition period coming down the line, because the ability to travel has a huge impact on creatives, whether it is touring or working in Europe more generally for those who work in the visual arts, in dance or in other areas.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
Diolch yn fawr iawn, Mr Dirprwy Lefarydd.
I rise to speak to new clause 11 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams), and to support the amendments in the names of the right hon. Members for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) and for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), and of the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald).
Immigrants have always played an integral part in the vitality of our communities, but we have been told, of course, that covid-19 changes everything. That prompts the question: does it change how we handle immigration as much as it does our approach to health and the economy? There has been some interesting mention of the value of the high-skilled jobs that we will expect from this immigration policy, but it is worth taking a step back and considering how things have changed under covid. I understand that 70% of people believe that the crisis has shown the key role of immigrants in running our essential services—the essential services that we have been clapping on the streets for many Thursdays; I think there is another clap here on Sunday—while 64% of people say that they now value so-called low-skilled overseas workers. We are now looking at who provides our services, and how, in a different way.
Surely what we have here is a hostile, inhumane immigration environment, and that is exactly what we should be questioning. Does such an immigration policy reflect the sort of society that we hope to be after covid-19? Plaid Cymru’s proposal in new clause 11 challenges how this Bill presents a radical change in UK immigration policy without allowing a thorough debate about the details of its replacement or the implications—although, as can be seen from the nature of the amendments, there is much concern about those implications. Before we legislate, we should have a proper comprehension of the following: the impact of discriminatory “no recourse to public funds” conditions; the impact of NHS charging; the merits of removing all fees for visas and citizenship applications; and the merits of devolving powers over immigration to our nations, recognising the different needs of the different nations.
Finally—crucially, in the current context—our new clause calls on the Government to investigate the possibility of granting citizenship to all health and social care workers who have given so much during this crisis. A former Government did the right thing and granted citizenship to the Gurkhas. Health and social care immigrant workers have been fighting heroically on two fronts. They have fought on our behalf against the virus; they are now facing having to fight a hostile environment in the Government’s immigration policy. The new clause would be a means to right that wrong; it would reflect the public mood, and I beg the Government to consider adopting it.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
I support the Bill, which I believe will make our immigration system better, and fairer. Some hon. Members—today, and before today—have bemoaned the fact that the new points-based system will end freedom of movement. I heard the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara) say so earlier this afternoon. In fact, there was no such thing as freedom of movement; the concept was an illusion, a chimera, apart from for those who were fortunate enough to live on the continent of Europe.
I benefited from the system—my wife is from Sweden, and for a while I lived and worked in Belgium—but it is a bad system, an outdated model, a discriminatory model, a system that works for Europeans but against the rest of the world. It is unfair. It discriminates against people who want to come here—people whom we want to welcome, people who help us build, run and support our country, who add value to our communities, contribute to our national debate and bring talent, expertise and drive, but who struggle to get entry purely because they are not from Europe. I am glad that we seek to replace that system today.
To those who are already here from Europe in this country, that have made it your home, that have raised families, invested, worked, lived and contributed to our society , we must repeat and repeat that they will always be welcome here.
Andrew Bowie
I remind the hon. Member that the hostile environment was created by the previous Labour Government and had no effect on anybody who was coming into this country from the continent of Europe under freedom of movement in the first place. It is incredibly good news that more than 3.5 million applications to the EU settlement scheme have already gone through, and we can be very proud of that.
Christine Jardine
Does the hon. Gentleman feel that the Prime Minister should honour the pledge he made during the general election that all EU citizens here had no need to worry about settled status and would have guaranteed citizenship?
Andrew Bowie
What the Prime Minister sought to do during the election was to reassure anybody who was here and had come here under freedom of movement from the continent of Europe that they would always be welcome here. All hon. Members in this place should urge anyone they know who has not applied thus far for the settled status scheme to do so immediately, because they are welcome here and contribute hugely to our national debates and national life.
Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. On his point about encouraging people to apply for settled status, does he agree that it is absolutely wrong for senior elected SNP politicians in Scotland to be urging people not to apply for settled status?
Andrew Bowie
If that is indeed the case, it is shameful. They should be doing everything in their power, from the position of responsibility they hold, to help and support those in this country who may be unsure about their future status here. They should urge them to apply for settled status, so that they can remain, and contribute to our country as we move forward.
Stuart C. McDonald
The hon. Gentleman may rest assured that the Scottish Government are investing a lot of time and resources in encouraging people to take part in the EU settlement scheme. We have our differences on immigration, but will he join me in encouraging the Home Office to think again about having abandoned the remote areas pilot scheme, which would be of huge benefit to lots of constituencies around Scotland—such as his, I suspect?
Andrew Bowie
I share the hon. Gentleman’s views on that issue. In fact, I will come to the seasonal agricultural workers scheme briefly in my speech—if I get that far this afternoon.
In Scotland we have a problem—as I said in my speech on 11 February in this place, we are, as a country, simply not attracting enough people to live, work or invest. The Office for National Statistics estimates that Scotland attracted only 8% of immigrants to the United Kingdom between 2016 and 2018. That is fewer than the north-west of England, Yorkshire and Humber, the west midlands, the east of England, the south-east, London or the south-west. We now have a growing population in Scotland and we need it to continue to grow, but even with freedom of movement we are not attracting enough people to make up for what will soon become a declining population, with deaths already outnumbering births. In 2019, there were 7,000 more deaths than births in Scotland and the problem is even starker in rural communities, as the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) was just saying.
In speaking to new clause 1 the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute was right to draw attention to the effects that the changes to our immigration system will have on the health and social care sector. Although I do not support new clause 1, I urge the Government here and the Government in Edinburgh to work together to find imaginative and creative solutions to the issue, and to work with all stakeholders to see what can be done through the UK-wide immigration system to support and continue to grow the Scottish population, particularly with regard to the health and social care sector on which we rely so much.
Before I move on, it would be remiss of me not to use the opportunity of a debate on immigration to talk about seasonal agricultural workers. I know that I am at risk of sounding like a broken record, as the Minister has heard representations from Scottish Members of Parliament on this issue a few times before, but the fact remains that Scottish agriculture relies on, and therefore simply needs, seasonal labour. A farm in my constituency saw a 15% shortage of seasonal labour last year, which led to an estimated loss of over 100 tonnes of produce. Although I welcome the quadrupling of the seasonal agricultural workers scheme from 2,500 to 10,000 workers—a very welcome first step in this direction of travel—the needs of Scottish agriculture for seasonal labour are, in fact, considerably higher.
Numerous amendments and new clauses have been tabled to the Bill, and no doubt they all have a good intention behind them: Members want to create an immigration system that is fair, humane and understandable. I say in particular to my hon. and right hon. Friends who tabled new clause 29 that although the intent is good, we must allow the negotiations with the European Union time to play out. We have presented an offer to the EU on the future reunion of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, where it is in the child’s best interests. For the UK to act unilaterally now—as the amendments seek us to do—would undermine the negotiations and make it less likely that we would secure a reciprocal arrangement, which might mean that the number of children we could help would be reduced.
We in this country are rightly proud of the steps that we have taken over the years to provide shelter to refugees fleeing war and persecution from around the world. We have been a beacon of light to the poor and oppressed of the world for generations, and we continue to be that country. We are rightly proud that so many people across the world seek to call the United Kingdom—this country—their home, and I am proud that in moving the Bill forward today we will be taking one more step towards making our immigration system fairer, non-discriminatory and fit for the 21st century.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Streatham) (Lab)
I rise to speak against this Bill in general and for any new clause that seeks to end the hostile environment.
Ministers seem to create confusion about the contents of the Bill. If they speak in public, they claim that it will introduce a points-based immigration system, which is not true. In any event, it is doubtful whether primary legislation is needed for such a system. When Ministers speak it is clear that they have no intention of introducing a points-based system, but rather an income-based one. There will be some exemptions because Ministers have been forced to accept the fact that many nursing professionals will not meet their planned income threshold, yet at the same time Ministers seem blissfully unaware that social care workers earn nothing like the proposed salary thresholds—and nor do the cooks, cleaners, security guards, porters and many others who have seen us through this pandemic.
Many of these people were on subsistence wages even before years of real-term cuts by the Conservative-led Government from 2010 onwards. There have been huge shortages of all these workers. Ministerial plans—if not this Bill—will only make those staff shortages much worse in care homes, in the NHS and in many other sectors of the economy, both public and private. It is as if this entire public health crisis has passed Ministers by. A plan that will exacerbate the crisis in the NHS and social care is one of the last things that this country needs.
The Bill in its current form is a disaster, so I am pleased to support the new clauses that would impose a strict 28-day limit on immigration detention; end the immigration surcharge, which should be ended for all; reform deportation law and citizenship fees for those who are brought to the UK as young children; and ensure that our moral obligation to child refugees for family reunion remains a legal one. Such provisions would address the glaring issues of our immigration system.
There is a further issue that I want to raise. Last week, the Home Secretary astonished most of us when she said that she would implement the recommendations of the Windrush lessons learned review “in full”. The entire spirit and some parts of the letter of that review run completely counter to the whole thrust of this Government’s immigration policies. In essence, to right the injustices perpetrated on the Windrush victims and to prevent their reoccurrence, the Government’s hostile environment policies have to go in their entirety, full stop.
Steve Brine
The hon. Lady keeps referring to this hostile environment. Let me just quote for her. In May 2007, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne), then the Labour Immigration Minister, stated in a consultation document put out by the Home Office:
“We are trying to create a much more hostile environment in this country if you are here illegally.”
Will she accept that and apologise to those of us on the Government Benches, please?
Bell Ribeiro-Addy
I will not apologise, but I will point out that the Conservative party has been in power for 10 years. To continuously blame various different Labour leaderships makes no sense. I have said it before and I will say it again: this is the second time in a decade that a Conservative Government have retrospectively changed the rights of migrants after they have entered this country. We saw the misery that the Immigration Act 2014 caused the Windrush generation. What does it say about us that we are bringing EU nationals under the same rules?
I turn to what is in the Bill and its real effects on workers here, whether they are from overseas or not. There is a real risk that the effect of the Bill will be to lower the rights of all migrant workers in this country and, in that way, lower rights and terms and conditions for all workers. Crucially, the right to residency will be dependent on employment status. There is no right to a family life enshrined in the Bill, and “no recourse to public funds” remains an explicit policy. The combination of those and other factors effectively creates another, lower tier of the workforce, with fewer rights and very limited means of enforcing even those.
That is dangerous enough to migrant workers, but it can also rebound on the entire workforce as unscrupulous employers play divide and rule. Our legislation on health and safety, on equal pay and on opposing discrimination is not enforced vigorously enough as it is. If a large section of the workforce can be treated as second class, the situation will get worse for everyone. Quite simply, the Bill is not fit for purpose as it stands.
Saqib Bhatti (Meriden) (Con)
I am pleased to speak on the Bill, not least because immigration is a topic that can invoke the strongest of emotions, yet it is imperative that we have an immigration system that works for us as a free and independent sovereign nation.
Immigration policy is not just a buzzword for me, nor is it an excuse to play identity politics; it is the reason I am here. I am the son of a man who came to this country from halfway across the world. He came here for a better life for his family. Indeed, to my father, having anything but a system over which we have control is, frankly, odd, and that is the reason many from south Asian communities voted to leave the European Union back in 2016.
My father’s desire to be in this country was nothing short of a desire to pursue what I often term the great British dream. I know at first hand that it is a love like no other, the love held for this country by the hopeful migrant who arrives here in pursuit of opportunities and freedom—the patriotism of the one who singles out this country as the place they want to call home; the one who comes to this country and chooses to be British.
The result in the European Union referendum in 2016 was a vote for control—for control over our laws, control over our spending and control over our borders. This was not about pulling up the drawbridge, as it is so often described by those who want to belittle the referendum result; it was a cry for a greater stake in the way our communities and our country move forward. It was a vote for migration, albeit migration on our terms: looking out to the world beyond our immediate neighbours and forging relationships with new countries and old friends. The Bill captures the true essence of that desire for an immigration system that works for us—an immigration system that allows us to be agile, and one that allows us to adapt to the economic needs of our country.
It is important to point out that the Bill enshrines the will of the British people—a will that has been expressed on a number of occasions over the past four years. Clearly, I am firmly of the view that immigration has been a success for this great nation, and the Bill acknowledges and celebrates that success by working to make sure that the system is even stronger.
We must have a system that works for Britain so that we can ensure that the best opportunities are available to everyone in this country. It is only with a thriving economy and a strong society that Britain will continue to be such a nation and such an appealing destination for those around the world who want to come here and start a new life.
Britain was built on generations of immigrants, from the post-war migrants who came here to help us rebuild after the devastation of war to the seasonal workers who come to the UK every year to contribute to our agricultural sector and support British farmers. What we can learn from this is that immigration is not a static concept; it is a dynamic one, and it must adapt to suit our domestic and economic needs. Just as other countries adopt systems that best support their needs, the UK can be no different.
The Bill paves the way for a new system that prioritises the most talented and highly skilled. Crucially, control over our own system will allow for an unwavering commitment to protect those who come into our country from the evil prey of traffickers and unethical working practices as we move away from cheap labour and unchecked movement. I know that the Bill does not provide for the details of our new points-based immigration system, but, given my background in business, I know that, to operate to its full potential, our new system will require a continuous dialogue between Government and industry. I ask the Minister to ensure that we have a reactive approach, with the needs of the national health service, business, academia, hospitality and many other sectors being listened to. Particularly in the case of business, the channels of communication must remain open, because it is only by listening to the business community that we will avoid a time lag between what business needs and what Government implement.
Contrary to the naysayers, I believe that our country is progressive and forward thinking. We need an immigration system that matches that—one that allows us to advance in research and development and further our technological innovation as we compete on the global stage, and one that emboldens us to lead the world in medicine, technology, film making, science and sport. Simply put, we must have an immigration system that attracts the best and brightest from across the world. As we venture into the world as a free, independent nation, we have to model ourselves on what we believe we can achieve.
While we are repealing freedom of movement, it is vital that we have the EU settlement scheme, to protect the rights and legal status of EU citizens who have made Britain their home. The contributions of EU migrants are extensive and undeniable, whether that is imported cuisines from the continent or the groundbreaking research we see in our universities. I welcome this legislation because I am excited by what lies ahead for our great nation. With greater control over migration, we will continue to attract the brightest and best while remaining a tolerant and welcoming society.
Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) (Lab)
We must not forget that this Bill arrives before us today in the context of the Conservatives’ hostile environment—a hostile environment conjured as a pernicious smokescreen to blame migrants for the economic damage inflicted upon working-class communities by Tory austerity, predatory capitalism and years of neglect and lack of investment.
Nadia Whittome
I will not be taking any interventions; I need to make progress.
The hostile environment, from right-to-rent checks to the immigration health surcharge, is built upon the premise that migrants should be discouraged from coming to the UK. Not satisfied with the disaster of the Windrush scandal, this Government seem determined to press ahead with this unjust, discriminatory and poorly designed piece of legislation. The Home Secretary has yet to set out the details of what will come in place of freedom of movement. This Bill does not do that. Instead, it introduces multiple Henry VIII powers, which remove much needed scrutiny from our future immigration system.
I am afraid that the benefits of a points-based immigration system are a myth. Under such a system of employer sponsorship, workers are heavily restricted in their access to public funds, which puts many at risk of destitution. They are also less likely to join their colleagues in employment struggles for better terms and conditions. Migrants have been blamed for low wages, but it is not them who drive down employment standards—it is exploitative bosses who do, and it is this Government who allow them to do that. We have to make it clear that nobody’s rights should be linked to an employer. A person’s worth is not determined by their economic value.
Instead of removing EU citizens’ rights, the Government should have focused on making up the injustices that they have inflicted on the Windrush generation and other migrant communities. The Windrush compensation scheme is clearly not working. Does the Minister have anything to say to these families waiting in limbo?
This punitive, discriminatory piece of legislation is a slap in the face to the carers, cleaners, drivers and shop assistants who have risked their lives on the frontline to keep this country running throughout the pandemic, and who Members here have applauded every week. The scale of the Government’s hypocrisy is breathtaking—clapping for carers one day and downgrading their status in law the next. This Bill would class many vital jobs as low-skilled and prevent people from getting a new work visa or extension. That would include care workers—people like my colleagues who I worked with before becoming an MP and during the pandemic. The work may be low-paid and badly undervalued by those in power, but it is not low-skilled. Will the Minister, for the avoidance of doubt, clarify whether the Home Secretary still considers care workers to be low-skilled?
A recent report, “Detained and Dehumanised”, is based on interviews with people who experienced detention in UK centres. It was done before the pandemic. The report highlights a disturbing level of despair. One person said:
“I saw people cutting themselves, someone who tried to hang himself, someone who died in detention”.
Another said:
“The most awful thing was an uncertainty: Not knowing whether I will be released and what they’re going to do to me”.
As the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) has said, this is a terrible, inhumane position to be in. Ultimately, nobody should be imprisoned because of where they were born, yet the UK is the only country in Europe that does not have a time limit on how long a person can be held in immigration detention. Twenty-eight days is absolutely the longest time allowed in any other context.
I urge the Government to do the right thing, even at this late hour. They should not block the many sensible amendments and new clauses. Carers, shop assistants and cleaners are risking their lives on the frontline looking after us. The least we can do for them is to use our votes today to look after them.
Richard Fuller
I am very glad that I sat in on this debate today to learn the origins of the hostile environment. We learned today that the author of the hostile environment was none other than the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne), the Labour candidate to be Mayor of the West Midlands. That is right. He is the author of the hostile environment for immigration. We have learned that today.
The second reason I wanted to contribute today was to be able to say thank you to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary for bringing forward the points-based system for immigration. Like her, I felt that the opportunity to bring forward an immigration system that did not discriminate based on the origins of where someone came from was one of the strong reasons to support Brexit in the referendum. I am pleased that she has confounded her critics by coming forward so quickly in this Parliament with a new Bill that does precisely that. She knows, and many Members here know, that many areas of the Home Office do not work well, and I am pleased she has started there. Now let us turn to some other areas.
I will turn to what I can only describe as a shameful briefing note on immigration detention put out by the Home Office earlier today. In that note, the Home Office claims that 97% of the people in immigration detention were foreign national offenders. Do they think we are stupid? Do they not think we understand that most of the people in immigration detention have been put out of the detention estate during covid-19?
The note goes on to describe in the most lurid details what may be the case about the backgrounds of individuals, forgetting all those other people who have been put through immigration detention who have perfectly legitimate cases to remain in this country and who may have been victims of communal rape or child trafficking. It is a shameful document that was put out by the Home Office today, and that is why I am very pleased to support the new clauses in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) that deal with 28 days as a limit on detention.
Tim Loughton
My hon. Friend gets it absolutely right about the misinformation that has been dispatched this morning. Is it not the case that a six-month grace period would be the result of the new clause? Those people would not be put out on the streets from the detention centre. The problem is that 63% of those in detention centres are released back into the community because the process has failed, and that includes serious sex offenders, rapists and other serious criminals, so it is happening now and not as a result of what the new clause would achieve.
Richard Fuller
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, particularly in stressing that the issue is not the people but the process: it is the process that does not work. An immigration detention estate is a manifestation of a completely failed process that fails the person coming to this country right from the start. We should not have an immigration detention estate; we should not have it at all. We only have it because of the accumulated errors of the Home Office going back well over a decade, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) said.
Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Lab)
I am afraid that this Bill fails on every conceivable measure of a humane and just immigration policy, and I am concerned that my constituents are particularly vulnerable to the predatory aspects of this legislation. Some 43% of Leicester East residents were born outside the UK, as opposed to 10% nationally, and our citizens hail from over 50 countries around the globe. This diversity is what makes our city special, yet with a two-week lockdown extension announced in my home city, this Bill fails to protect its most vulnerable citizens. To ensure that every Leicester resident can seek the medical help they need during this increase in coronavirus, it is vital for full citizenship rights to be extended to undocumented workers, those with no recourse to public funds and people with no indefinite leave to remain, yet the Bill fails to provide the necessary protections.
Under most visa categories, migrants who are legally in the UK working and paying tax cannot access publicly funded support. The Migration Observatory estimates that nearly 1.5 million people currently have no recourse to public funds, including those with children who were born in the UK. For people who already face uncommonly difficult challenges in their daily lives, this pandemic has only deepened fears over how to maintain an income, remain healthy or even stay alive. Citizens Advice has recorded a 110% increase in people seeking advice about having no recourse to public funds during the pandemic, and a recent report from the Children’s Society found that almost half of children whose parents were born abroad live in poverty. The Government must introduce an amnesty for all migrants, including residency rights, for the duration of this pandemic and end the callous policy of no recourse to public funds.
An estimated 1 million undocumented workers lack any entitlement to support from the state. Many of these people are destitute and living in the shadows, unable to access healthcare and fearful of what will happen to them if they identify themselves. In nearly all cases, undocumented people are not criminals but simply those who have fallen through the cracks of the Government’s callous hostile environment policies. For people forced to endure this level of insecurity, it is impossible to comply with Government guidance on self-isolation and social distancing. With the overwhelming rise in coronavirus cases in my constituency and with a rate of infection that is beyond acceptable, it is imperative and in the best interests of everyone in our country that the basic needs of all our residents are met, especially given the disproportionate impact of covid-19.
The tragic irony is that many undocumented people, or those with no recourse to public funds who are living in constant fear of the state, work in the frontline services that the Government have been at pains the praise during this crisis. We must ensure that all frontline workers, regardless of their immigration status, are valued and protected as we rebuild our economy and society. It is vital that we repay the extraordinary contribution of frontline workers during the pandemic with a permanent extension of migrant rights. That means an end to the hostile environment, shutting detention centres and granting indefinite leave to remain for anyone living in the UK. In Leicester, the coronavirus pandemic has caused widespread suffering for too many individuals and communities, with widespread job losses—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. I am sorry but we have to move on.
Paul Blomfield
There is clearly much to comment on in this Bill, but I rise specifically to speak in support of new clause 7 and to commend the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) for the powerful case that he made in speaking to it. Back in 2014, I was pleased to serve as vice-chair of a cross-party inquiry into immigration detention. We included parliamentarians from both Houses and all the main parties, many with huge experience, including a former Law Lord and a former chief inspector of prisons. There were more Government Members than Opposition Members, including the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller), who also spoke powerfully on this issue a few moments ago. I pay tribute to Sarah Teather, who chaired the inquiry and who now leads the Jesuit Refugee Service UK, as others have mentioned. After an eight-month inquiry, our recommendations included the limit on detention that is proposed in new clause 7. That was endorsed by the House of Commons in September 2014, so it is disappointing that we are still discussing the issue—but it is important that we are, because, contrary to some suggestions, it is not a particularly controversial proposal.
The truth is that we have become too dependent on detention, which takes place in immigration removal centres. The clue to the purpose of those centres is in the title. They are intended for short-term stays, but the Home Office has become increasingly reliant on them, under successive Governments. Home Office policy states that detention must be used sparingly, but the reality is different.
In our evidence we heard from many organisations, NGOs and so on, but, most powerfully, we heard from those in detention over a phone link. One young man from a disputed territory on the border between Nigeria and Cameroon told us that he was trafficked to Hungary as a 16-year-old, where he was beaten, raped and tortured. He managed to escape and eventually made his way to Heathrow, using a false passport, which was discovered on arrival, and he was detained. He told us that he had been in detention for three years. His detention conflicts with the stated aims of the Home Office in three respects—that those who have been trafficked should not be detained, that those who have been tortured should not be detained and that detention should be for the shortest possible period. His case is not the only one. There are more people like him than there are so-called foreign national offenders, which the Home Office briefers urged Members to refer to. Time and again, we were told that detention was worse than prison, because in prison you know when you are going to get out. One former detainee said:
“The uncertainty is hard to bear. Your life is in limbo. No one tells you anything about how long you will stay or if you are going to get deported.”
A medical expert told us that the sense of being in limbo, of hopelessness and despair is what leads to deteriorating mental health, and that
“those who were detained for over 30 days had significantly higher mental health problems”.
It is not simply the impact on detainees that demands change. A team leader from the prisons inspectorate told us that the lack of a time limit encourages poor case working, saying that,
“a quarter of the cases of prolonged detention that they looked at were a result of inefficient case-working.”
It has become too easy for the Home Office to use administrative detention, and that is what needs to be challenged. The Home Secretary talked about the culture change in the Home Office only a few days ago, in response to the Windrush review. Removing indefinite immigration detention would make a significant contribution to achieving that culture change, because with no time limits, it has simply become too easy for people to be detained, for too long, with no meaningful way of challenging that detention.
Our report gave a number of examples of alternatives to detention, which are being used by countries often held up as hard on immigration, such as Australia. We know that the Home Office is developing pilots on community-based alternatives, including one at Yarl’s Wood, which is a year in and is running well.
Richard Fuller
As the hon. Gentleman has raised the point about Yarl’s Wood, does that not show that with experimentation on alternatives, the Government can find ways to do what they want to do, but to do it better?
Paul Blomfield
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He is absolutely right. It is not simply the case that alternatives to detention are more humane—they are more efficient, more effective and more cost-effective for the Government.
I understand that the Government are shortly to announce a second pilot, and that is to be welcomed— I would be glad to hear anything that the Minister would like to say on that—but the pilot we have already seen and the experience of other countries have already demonstrated the effectiveness of community-based alternatives. We need to move faster. The proposal to end indefinite administrative detention in new clause 7 would be more humane, less expensive and more effective in securing compliance. The time really has come for Members from both sides of the House to get behind the proposals in new clause 7.
James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)
I was pleased to contribute on Second Reading of this Bill, and I am pleased to be able to speak now, notwithstanding a sore throat.
In recent weeks, people have told me that the Bill is contentious, but it should be regarded as what it is, not as what others fear it to be. For a start, it allows our country to evolve in the post-Brexit era as we wish it to evolve, and allows us to decide who comes in. For too long, we have seen uncontrolled immigration and a failure to remove those who have accepted our hospitality but sought to do us harm. We have indeed seen lower rates of deportation. Inasmuch as we should be more in control of who arrives on our shores, we should equally be more robust about who leaves. If the process takes more than 28 days, then so be it. I am not therefore convinced by new clauses 3 to 11.
For those who come to the UK and are proud to live here, the opportunities are plentiful. Contrary to what many of our political opponents might think, this is the land of milk and honey for those who are prepared to work hard. Let us look at what is on offer. We will give everyone the same opportunities wherever they come from. Our points-based system will allow us to identify the skills we require. We will protect the rights of EU citizens, and we will protect the long-held rights of Irish citizens to live and work in the UK, so I am mindful of new clause 12.
People have told me that this Bill flies in the face of what has been achieved by so many during the pandemic, particularly in the NHS. Nobody here should need any reminder of the admiration and the awe with which the British people regard these heroes. The Government have rightly agreed to extend the visas of frontline NHS workers, so I am mindful of new clause 35. They have rightly introduced a new NHS visa, offering fast-track entry to the UK for qualified overseas doctors and nurses under more generous terms. The contribution of all public sector employees, public servants and low-paid staff is the stuff of legend, and we will always be grateful.
For the avoidance of doubt, immigration is a good thing, and we have built a proud nation on the back of our history, shared values and unrivalled diaspora. I have been honoured to serve alongside so many brilliant foreign and Commonwealth soldiers, but there is a problem here, too. Although this is not directly relevant to this Bill, I urge the Minister to take note. We have recruited many to join our armed services, but the House will know that a small number have slipped through the net by not applying for indefinite leave to remain when they would otherwise have been entitled to do so. Given that some now face particular difficulties in not being British citizens, including crippling NHS bills, I believe it is now time to offer an amnesty to the entitled few who have proudly worn the uniform and borne arms but not become naturalised. Once we have done this, we should then review the crippling visa fees, which remain beyond the reach of most servicemen and women and their young families.
Let us disincentivise those who come here via illegal means, remove those who commit serious crime and place the ruthless people traffickers behind bars, but the quid pro quo is to provide those whom we willingly invite to serve in our armed forces with the security they deserve. It is time that we did the right thing for all of our Commonwealth veterans and fully recognise the sacrifices that they too have made for our great nation.
As for the future of this Bill, I expect it to become law, but inasmuch as it promises a points-based immigration system that mirrors those of other countries in the free world, we need to be careful that it does not become a blunt instrument. The legislation must therefore be flexible and agile enough to respond to the employment market at any given time, particularly in terms of the skills being offered. There will be a need for seasonal labour, and we must be able to attract all those that we need when we need them.
To conclude, as contentious as the Bill might be to some, it is what many have requested for the past four decades, and it is what the Conservative Government have promised. We must also do more to reunite children under the vulnerable children’s scheme, and we therefore need an enduring scheme to be in place by 1 January next year. I am therefore sympathetic towards new clause 29. To be worthy of its pre-eminence, the UK must take back control of its borders.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
I concur with the point made by the hon. Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) about armed servicemen and women from the Commonwealth. I hope that the Minister will bear that in mind when the next immigration Bill is introduced, because there are some egregious cases that desperately need to be looked at fairly.
We will not vote for the Bill tonight, mainly because it seems to have been written before the covid crisis. It seems to ignore the fact that we need a new approach to immigration based on solidarity, decent jobs, employment protections and quality public services for all, with all EU citizens guaranteed the right to remain in the UK. Anybody who has been watching “Sitting in Limbo” and following the fantastic work done by the journalist Amelia Gentleman on Windrush will know that it is these sorts of debates that sometimes end up creating systems that cause huge problems for hard-working families.
I wish to speak briefly to some of the amendments and new clauses. First, my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) has tabled a proposal that emphasises the need for a plan for and provision in the crucial area of social care. We are nowhere near through this pandemic and we desperately need to encourage those working day in, day out in the care sector. Those watching this, perhaps in the course of their duties today, may well feel a bit down and depressed that we are not backing them a little more with this Bill.
Secondly, I wish to talk briefly to the question of care leavers, as addressed by new clause 2. Care leavers face numerous levels of disadvantage. Anyone who has worked in a local authority context will be aware of just how many placements the average child in care goes through. Many children go from home to home, from foster carer to foster carer, into residential care and out again, and into their own flat. Throughout that journey they often lose documents and the phone numbers of their legal advisers. Changes to legal aid mean that they can no longer access legal aid. We then have a very disadvantaged and needy 17-year-old who desperately needs immigration advice when they are about to turn 18. Such are the realities of children’s lives in care. We are talking about a tiny number of individuals. It is the sort of clause that we should all be voting for so that a very small number of people are not left out of the system.
Thirdly, I call new clause 29 the Dubs clause. So many Members from all parties have spoken in favour of it, particularly the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller), who has Yarl’s Wood detention centre in his constituency. Many children are desperate to join family members here in the UK. Many other immigration systems in developed countries have positive family reunion programmes that are quick, that include a system in which people do not have to go in and out of the rules and write to MPs and everything, and that are clear and provide for children who have been torn from their families, mainly by conflict, so that they can get that reunification.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
Does the hon. Member agree that one of the big challenges for local authorities in making offers has been that in so many cases young people brought to the UK for family reunion find that the family member simply cannot take care of them? Does she welcome the fact that the Government have, at long last, announced a very substantial increase in the funding rate for local authorities that are caring for those young people as they go in adulthood? That will go some way to assisting the issue, about which many Members have talked today, of ensuring adequate provision for care leavers who have arrived in this country as unaccompanied minors or through family reunion, which can rapidly make them unaccompanied because their family member cannot care for them.
Catherine West
Indeed. The hon. Member and I may, I think, previously have been on joint, cross-party delegations to Ministers in respect of several subjects in the course of our local government work. It is important that the Government recognise the important specialist work that local authorities do, and the costs involved in having extra social workers, foster carers and so on, so that young people are properly supported in that process. I welcome any additional funding for local authorities to discharge that important duty.
Finally, I want to talk briefly about my experience a couple of years ago of visiting Brook House detention centre—in the constituency, I believe, of the hon. Member for Crawley (Henry Smith)—on the back of the report in 2014 that my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) mentioned. He and other Members visited and did an extensive piece of work on indefinite detention and concluded on a cross-party basis that future legislation, such as this Bill, which is a wonderful opportunity, should introduce a 28-day limit, like every other European country has, on detention in immigration facilities.
We are not talking about the 300,000-plus people who arrive in the UK every year. We are talking about a tiny proportion of total immigration—very small numbers each year. I visited with the Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group, a volunteer group that visits facilities to provide friendship, second-hand clothing, mobile phones, and so on, to very vulnerable prisoners. These detainees are the only detainees in the whole country who go into detention and count up. Most prisoners count down from, say, one year—364, 363, 362, and so on. These individuals in immigration detention go in and potentially get lost in the system.
If any Member has ever had a case with the Home Office, they will know that the Home Office can make mistakes—[Interruption.] I see smiles. We could do something practical tonight and vote for this amendment, which has lots of cross-party support, and ensure a just outcome for this tiny number of people in immigration detention.
Mr Steve Baker
I rise to speak to new clauses 7 through 10, tabled in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). I am proud, as I said earlier, to have put my name on those amendments with him, and I pay tribute to the superb speech he made earlier. I have heard him make many compelling speeches, but I would say to the Front Bench that his speech earlier was probably his most compelling yet and I agreed with all of it.
I signed the amendments because I want a humane and just immigration system, and of course one of the principles of justice is that we treat people equally. I am very happy to say that as we leave the EU my right hon. and hon. Friends are working towards an immigration system that treats people much more equally, and I am delighted because of course it is the sort of pledge I have been making to my very diverse community in Wycombe. I am delighted and wish Ministers well as they deliver it.
I want to turn to a particular point though. In talking about foreign national offenders, my hon. Friends the Members for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison) and for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford) said that constituents would not want these people loose in the UK. I am quite certain that the constituents of Wycombe do not want these people in the UK, but I say to my right hon. and hon. Friends and the whole House that we do not in the United Kingdom imprison people indefinitely on suspicion that they might reoffend.
Indeed, in 2003, Labour introduced a system of imprisonment for public protection, very much along those lines, and a Conservative Government repealed that system of IPP. I hope that my hon. Friends will not mind my saying that I feel a bit long in the tooth for remembering that we repealed that system. We did that because it was right to do so. I want to treat persons from outside the United Kingdom as morally, legally and politically equally as we properly treat people in the United Kingdom, and that means it is not right to detain people indefinitely on suspicion.
Of course, I do not think it is right either that we should be keeping serious offenders in the UK and paying for their upkeep. We should certainly be reforming the system so that such people are promptly deported, which the Home Office insists requires indefinite detention. I agree again with my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden that were the new clauses to pass it would put pressure on the Department to ensure that people are promptly removed.
I want to put on the record exactly what the Home Affairs Select Committee said about indefinite detention:
“lengthy detention is unnecessary, inhumane and causes harm”.
It also recommended bringing
“an end to indefinite immigration detention and implementing a maximum 28-day time limit.”
I am absolutely in favour of doing that in combination with seeing to it that we can remove foreign national offenders.
I possibly have not got time, but I want to cover a couple of other points.
Mr David Davis
My hon. Friend and I have fought together on other battles, not least Brexit, with one thing being that we viewed Britain as rather distinctive. Does he, as I do, see it as shameful that the one thing we are distinctive on in this case is that we are the only country in Europe that allows the indefinite detention of people in our country?
Mr Baker
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that, and I certainly share his sentiment, but, for reasons that I am going to come on to in a moment, I am going to try to avoid any words of condemnation. I wish to thank Detention Action for providing a helpful briefing, which points out that the claim that trafficking victims, with whom it works, are rarely detained beyond 28 days is “not true”. It has given us a number of accounts, but I am sorry to say I do not have time to read all of them into the record. However, it states:
“J had to leave her country of origin because her partner, who held a senior position in the army, was abducted and she was raped by the people who abducted him. When she tried…to leave her country, she ended up being trafficked”.
The story goes on and on. Such a person ought to be helped. We have a real problem with people who have been trafficked all too often ending up with criminal offences; we end up prosecuting, whereas they are people for whom we should have compassion. I do not doubt that these cases raise extremely delicate and tricky issues of evidence and justice, because, of course, some people will plead falsely that they have an excuse under a trafficking law, but we really do have to rise to the challenge of looking after people such as J, and indeed A and P, whose stories are in this briefing.
On this point about the availability of bail meaning that people are not detained for longer than they should be, let me say that that is not correct. I understand that £8 million was paid out in unlawful detention cases in 2019, and that judges have wide discretion—indeed, my right hon. Friend’s new clauses try to reduce that discretion. Bail decisions can be made on the basis of very limited evidence, and first tier tribunal judges in bail hearings do not have jurisdiction to decide the lawfulness of detention, only the High Court can do that. On and on the evidence goes, but I do not have time to put it all on the record.
What do I really want to say to the Minister? I want to praise him and officials, because I recognise, after 10 years of representing Wycombe, diverse as it is, that dealing with immigration is an extremely delicate, difficult and tricky job, characterised by very high volumes of often heartbreaking case work. I want to pay tribute to officials and I do not want us to be in an environment of condemnation, where people who are working hard and doing their best, with high levels of skill, end up with so much incoming fire. I do, however, want to say to the Minister that I could have stood here for another 20 minutes going through cases of injustice and setting out areas where there is opportunity for reform.
As a former Brexit Minister responsible for legislation, I recognise that this is an EU withdrawal Bill and its scope is:
“To make provision to end rights to free movement of persons under retained EU law”
and so on. Listening to the debate, it seems that we have perhaps forgotten that this is the Report stage of such a Bill. I understand the scope of the Bill and that this is not the end of the journey on immigration, but I say as gently as possible to the Minister that when he comes to the Dispatch Box I am hoping that he will set out something of where the Government intend, in the round, to get to on these issues of justice in the migration system and, in particular, on the principle of indefinite detention. It is right, morally, that we should treat people equally, wherever they come from, whether they are UK citizens or not. With that in mind, we really should be working towards ending indefinite detention, and we should certainly make progress on all those other areas on which I can and will provide details to the Minister. I hope we can do that without an endless series of urgent questions and Adjournment debates.
Christine Jardine
I wish to speak to new clauses 26 and 28, and to support new clauses 1, 7 to 10, 13 and 29. I believe this Bill is hugely flawed and potentially damaging because of the atmosphere it will create and the way in which it will undermine people who make a valuable contribution to our economy. If we accepted the jigsaw of amendments, we could turn the Bill on its head and it could become a positive and welcoming piece of legislation, which would value people who come to this country and make a contribution. It would welcome children, reunite them with their families and send a positive message to the rest of the world.
New clause 26 would remove the right-to-rent charges, which the High Court ruled in March 2019 caused landlords to discriminate on the basis of ethnicity when demanding proof from proposed tenants, and therefore breached their fundamental human rights. I would think that a right-thinking Government would want it in the Bill, to protect those human rights.
New clause 28 is about the sharing of data between public bodies such as police, the national health service and schools with the Home Office for immigration enforcement purposes. That is a fundamental pillar of the hostile environment that has appalling implications for those it affects, and often prevents victims and witnesses of crimes from coming forward for fear of being detained or deported.
As I say, those two new clauses could fit with the jigsaw of amendments placed before Parliament today, and fundamentally change not just the Bill but the atmosphere it creates and how it treats those who come to this country in search of a new life, including those whom we have for the past three months gone out many Thursdays and applauded for the contribution they make to our national health service and social care—the contribution they have made by putting their lives on the line for us. Instead of demanding a surcharge from them to work in that service, we should offer them indefinite right to remain in this country.
By making these changes, we would move away from the hostile environment, which I learned the origins of today, and I have to say that I am not as concerned about those as Conservative Members are. I am concerned about the impact it has had and continues to have on this country. I therefore ask the Minister and the Government to seriously consider these amendments, which would send out a message that we value people for who they are and the skills they bring to this country, and not just the monetary value of what they earn. We could do away with the NHS surcharge and allow those who have contributed to remain in this country and feel valued. We could create a system that reunites lonely, vulnerable, displaced children with their loved ones and gives them an opportunity to have a fine life, a good life in this country. We could say that we recognise that it is inhuman to keep people in detention for more than 28 days, and we could give asylum seekers the right to work, to contribute, to bring their skills to the table and help build and enhance our society and our economy, rather than denigrate them, rob them of their dignity and see, as a result, the sort of tragedy we witnessed in Glasgow last week.
We could send a message that we want to welcome people, that we will value them, and treat them humanely and with compassion. That is the country I have always understood us to be. An hon. Member said earlier that some of us on the Opposition Benches just do not get this country. I would contend that it is those of us on these Benches who do get this country, who get the people in this country and who get what they want to offer the people who come here to make a contribution and who have helped to make this country what it is.
Mr Mitchell
I have listened carefully to what has been said by Opposition Members, and I am not persuaded that the Bill is anything other than a good piece of legislation on the whole. The question for the House this afternoon is whether it could be improved, and that is why I put my name to the amendments and new clauses tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), by my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) and by the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee. I will listen carefully to what the Minister says, but he should remember that the Bill has a long journey still ahead of it down to the other end of the Palace, where undoubtedly some of these issues will be prominent in the minds of their lordships.
Like the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) I had the opportunity, courtesy of the Home Office, to visit Brook House. I went there following the “Panorama” programme, which led us to believe that the conditions were inhumane. Actually, I thought the conditions were both humane and decent.
I will come directly to the point I wish to make about the proposal for a 28-day limit. The problem is that the best regime in the world cannot ameliorate the fundamental injustice of a system that arbitrarily imprisons people without time limit, solely for administrative reasons. This is a matter not of criminal justice, but of the administration of our immigration rules—the distinction is important.
Many people in immigration removal centres have never been charged with any crime, while some have previously been in prison following conviction for a criminal offence, but have served their time. All are detained purely and simply because they are liable for removal. Some go on to be removed, but more than half are released at an arbitrary later date and are able to remain in the United Kingdom either temporarily or permanently. As other Members have said, we remain the only country in Europe to detain people indefinitely for the purposes of immigration enforcement.
If individuals have no right to remain here, our priority should be to strongly encourage other countries to accept the return of their citizens. That is something the coalition Government spent a lot of time trying to do from 2010 to 2015. Indeed, we should negotiate such deals and procedures as an urgent necessity. In this way, individuals are no longer left in limbo in immigration detention.
The proposal for a 28-day limit applies only to the use of arbitrary indefinite administrative detention. Convicted criminals will serve their sentences and then face removal if they have no right to remain. If the crime is particularly serious and the prisoner presents a risk to public safety, it will be for a criminal parole board to carry out a risk assessment and decide when and if they can be released. In those extreme cases, we should surely expect the immigration service to have removal arrangements in place to coincide with the release date.
The proposal is not a seismic change, but it would save the country the more than £500 a week per person that is currently spent on detention. That is a significant saving, since 27,331 people entered detention in 2017 alone. In addition, I was surprised to discover, as I indicated to my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden, that over the past five years, £21 million has been paid out in damages for unlawful detention. That figure came from a recent Home Office question. That figure could be vastly reduced, if not eradicated, if a 28-day time limit were in place.
Mr Steve Baker
Of necessity, the amendments that have been selected apply only to EEA and Swiss nationals. Will my right hon. Friend join me in saying to Ministers that we would like the Government to adopt this proposal, but for everyone?
Mr Mitchell
My hon. Friend makes an extremely reasonable point. I am sure that the Minister, who will have listened to the reasonable points that have been made on both sides of the House, but particularly on his own side, will take it on board.
The absence of a time limit does nothing to promote speed and efficiency in the administration of justice by the immigration service. I believe that the introduction of one would improve working practices, as well as creating a more humane system of immigration control.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
There are eight people on the call list and we have just over half an hour. If everybody sticks to four minutes, even if they take an intervention, we will get everybody in. Help your colleagues, please.
Stephen Farry (North Down) (Alliance)
I want primarily to address new clause 12, which appears in my name and the names of other hon. Members, but I will first make a couple of other points. I agree with the many Members on both sides of the House who have spoken in opposition to the hostile environment. To those who are, in a sense, celebrating the end of freedom of movement, I stress that it has worked both ways. It has also provided opportunities for UK citizens inside the European Union, which we are now walking away from.
I want to make a few detailed comments on new clause 33, of which I am a co-sponsor. The ending of freedom of movement in relation to Northern Ireland brings some potential distortions, above and beyond the challenges facing the UK economy and society overall. Northern Ireland exists in both a UK-wide and all-Ireland context. Under the Ireland/Northern Ireland protocol, we stay in the single market with respect to goods, but the four fundamental freedoms are interconnected. That includes the freedom of movement and the ability to engage services. The protocol makes reference to the wider context of north-south co-operation. That will create some degree of difficulty, particularly for EEA nationals who are engaged in enterprises that operate on both sides of the border in Ireland. We run the risk of seeing industries that depend heavily upon labour from elsewhere in Europe not being competitive any longer and moving out of Northern Ireland, southwards into the Republic of Ireland.
Gary Sambrook (Birmingham, Northfield) (Con)
I was pleased to serve on the Bill Committee, which was my first in this place. It was a whole five days of my life that I will never get back, but it was very enjoyable and informative. I particularly enjoyed the submissions from the Migration Advisory Committee, the Federation of Small Businesses and No5 Chambers, a Birmingham law firm. It was good to see a Birmingham firm down here contributing to our national debate. I cannot say that I agreed with most of what it said, but it was good that it was contributing.
A number of Government Members, including my hon. Friends the Members for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) and for Winchester (Steve Brine), have mentioned the real genesis of the hostile environment. They named him, but he is actually a Member of this place—the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne), who was also the architect of austerity, because we all remember the little note he left behind as Chief Secretary to the Treasury. He still sits on the Labour Benches. Labour MP after Labour MP stand up and complain about the hostile environment and austerity, but sat among them is the architect of austerity and the hostile environment. That is the sort of double standards that I do not want to see representing the west midlands in the mayoral election next year.
The ending of free movement of labour is a key cornerstone of the manifesto that I stood on in December and something that I am keen to get into legislation as quickly as possible. People have been calling for this for many years and many a politician have ignored their wishes. Included in this points-based system are things such as having a job offer or a sponsor before coming here, or being able to speak English sufficiently well, or meeting tougher criminality checks. Those are the sorts of things that people have been calling for and I am pleased that I am supporting those measures in this Bill tonight.
On the issue of immigration detention, I say to my colleagues that I hear their concerns, but I am convinced that immigration detention is used as a last resort. It is an absolutely necessary tool to ensure that we keep people safe on the streets of our country.
As my hon. Friends the Members for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison) and for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford) mentioned, the list of people who would possibly have been released early had we put in place a 28-day limit would have made it hard for me to look any of my electors in the eye. I would not have been able to say that I had allowed those people on the streets early when I was out door-knocking. It is not as if those people are just banged up and forgotten about; they have rights. If they think their immigration detention is unfair, they can apply to a judge, and their case is often heard within a matter of days. Anyone wishing to leave immigration detention can do so at any time by simply leaving the country. I agree that, in general, the whole asylum and removal system needs to work much faster, but we also need to have a tough and robust system in place.
Many Opposition Members would have us believe that, if we did not have EU migration, the social care sector and the NHS would fall apart overnight, but as we heard in the evidence sessions from Brian Bell from the MAC, only 5% of the social care sector comes from EU migration. The hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) said that she thought the Bill had been written before the covid crisis. I can tell her that, a couple of weeks ago, during the crisis, the latest claimant count from my constituency was 10.2%. Is she and many other Labour Members—
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
I speak in support of new clause 38, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine), and new clause 36, tabled by the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald), both of which I have signed.
The largest employer in my constituency is the University of St Andrews. I visited there back in February as part of the Royal Society’s parliamentary pairing scheme. I enjoyed seeing the amazing work that is being undertaken by researchers from across the EU and beyond and supported by EU funding. Their status and the funding that supports their ground-breaking work are both at risk. As of May 2020, more than 9,000 EU nationals in Fife have applied for settled status, yet nearly 4,000 are either still waiting for a final decision or have only been granted pre-settled status. I am not convinced that the Home Office will be properly able to manage the settled status applications of my constituents and the 3 million other EU citizens living in this country. Providing no certainty is no way to treat them. A British Futures report estimates that the difficulties in navigating the application system and the lack of awareness of the process will result in 175,000 EU citizens living in the UK with an insecure immigration status or no status at all. We risk the denial of legal rights of jobs, homes and medical care to EU nationals who are entitled to them but cannot prove it, and that is not right. That is why I speak in favour of new clause 38, which would ensure that all EU citizens have settled status and require the Government to make available physical proof of that status.
A particular concern has been raised with me by constituents relating to comprehensive sickness insurance and I thank Fife4europe for its representations to me in this regard. CSI was not a requirement for settled status until Government policy appeared to change on 15 May this year. EU citizens who are students or classed as self-sufficient do now need it. That is unjust. There was no CSI requirement for a number of years, and many of my constituents who are EU citizens are understandably concerned. There are some urgent questions for the Government to answer. Why has the requirement been introduced at this time? What are the reasons for it? What steps are the Secretary of State and the Minister taking to ensure that EU nationals are aware of this new requirement? Will it be applied retrospectively? What does it mean for applications currently being considered? I ask the Minister to provide clarity on this issue.
There has been little communication, zero justification and the cloud of uncertainty over EU citizens is growing. My constituents are concerned that the retrospective application of the CSI requirement could be used to prevent people from attaining settled status and prevent those who do have settled status from gaining citizenship. The fact that EU citizens in my constituency are worried about this indicates the total lack of trust and communication between the Government and these individuals, who have been left frustrated and concerned by intolerable delays. Therefore, I urge Members to support new clause 36 in the name of the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East, which would ensure that not having CSI could not be used to disqualify an EU citizen with settled status from citizenship
Finally, I would like briefly to address the role for workers in our agricultural sector. I welcome new clause 37, tabled by the Leader of the Opposition, which would require the Government to publish data on where skill shortages are in our economy. If we do not have the data, we will not be able properly to assess our agricultural needs. Farms in my constituency have access to the seasonal workers pilot scheme, but it is clear that we need a lot more people to be able to come here to work under the scheme. The figure of 10,000 was almost plucked from thin air. It was clearly never going to be sufficient.
Obviously there are challenges this year in relation to covid, but farmers are being told that they need almost to go back in time in how they harvest their crops, and that is simply not sustainable. I commend the local workers who are working on our farms—some during furlough—but we should note that fruit picking is no longer some part-time hobby occupation. These are operations with multiple complex supply chains that cannot operate on a hand-to-mouth basis while waiting to hear what crumbs the Government are going to provide to augment the workforce. I must also mention that many of the workers who come from abroad also train other people. The Government simply have to do more in this regard.
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
I was delighted to sit on the Bill Committee with my hon. Friends the Members for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison) and for Birmingham, Northfield (Gary Sambrook), who have spoken in this debate. It is always interesting to get that extra Birmingham-west midlands angle, particularly in relation to the previous comments by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) about the hostile environment.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Saqib Bhatti)—another west midlands Member—said, this Bill paves the way for a new system that values people on what they can contribute to the UK, rather than where they are from. That is the fundamental underpinning of what we are doing today. I associate myself with the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland), who said that those who have served our country deserve to be treated with dignity and respect for the contribution that they have made. I hope that the Government will continue to look at ways in which those who have served this country, either in the military or in other forms of public service, can be sped through the immigration system to make it easier for them. Overall, there is no doubt that immigration has made a massive contribution to the United Kingdom, whether that is through many of my constituents who came over decades ago from the Republic of Ireland, or the people who came to the other parts of the UK from the Commonwealth and across the world more widely.
Let me turn to the amendments. I share some of the concerns raised by my hon. Friends the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) and for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller), and my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), who made some really strong arguments. However, I worked with the Minister in Committee and know that he is working hard to ensure that as many concerns as possible are addressed. I hope to hear more about that in his winding-up speech.
On new clause 7, it was good to hear the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) mention that new options for detention are being looked at, including perhaps in a community setting. If such measures save money and deal with situations more efficiently, they are exactly the sort of things we need to be looking at.
I also share the concerns raised through new clause 12, as this is an issue that is particularly dangerous; we need to ensure protections for those from the Republic of Ireland who have been here for very many years, and with whom we have a different and historical relationship. We should not be splitting up that relationship through this legislation or treating those people as we would other people from across the world. The EU settlement scheme has been a great success. I urge the Government, as I do my constituents, to do everything possible to ensure that people who can settle here are settled here. It might be time for a big Government communications programme to the public on that point.
My hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) said that the system will be better and fairer. I really do hope that that is the case. It is particularly important for my constituents—whether from Weardale, Consett, Crook or Willington—that they see the system that we promised at the election coming forwards: a system that values everybody equally. This Bill really honours that commitment. It honours not only the referendum but the result of the last general election, which delivered a majority for the Conservative party not seen for 30 years, and in which seats like mine finally woke up to the fact that the Labour party was not listening to them any more on issues like this.
The Bill will therefore have my support today, but I hope that the Minister will be able to address some of the issues raised by hon. Members from across the House.
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate. Before I start, I would like to thank Members from across the House for their support for me, the victims of the tragedy in Forbury Gardens and indeed our whole local community. It has been a very difficult time for our town.
This debate addresses a series of important issues, which, as Members have said, affect the rights of European citizens living in Britain and many other vulnerable people. I support the concerns that have been expressed on a number of points and very much recognise the powerful speeches that have been made. I am aware of the limits on time, so I want to focus on new clause 2, on vulnerable children, and new clause 14, on scrapping the surcharge. I want to talk about the loss of rights that is, I am afraid, a defining characteristic of Brexit.
This is a very serious issue for people in my constituency living in Reading and the neighbouring town of Woodley. We have over 7,000 EU residents living in our constituency and I pay tribute to them. These are hard-working people who make a significant contribution to our community and indeed the whole country. They have made Reading and Woodley their home, and they should be supported and respected. That, for me, is the context of these two new clauses.
New clause 2 relates to the issues affecting vulnerable children. I am very aware of the problems with the settled status scheme. I have dealt with a number of issues facing EU residents in my area. For example, it is difficult for someone to go through the scheme if they have limited documentation. They might perhaps have an incomplete set of payslips because their employer does not provide them, they may have lost them, or there may be some other issue. They might have had to come in and out of the UK to visit or support relatives in the EU. They may be a long-standing resident, perhaps retired, who moved to this country after world war two and has made a contribution for many decades. All these categories of people are struggling to go through the settled status scheme.
Imagine the difficulties, then, faced by vulnerable children and their social workers, as described so effectively and eloquently by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). This is a really challenging issue for hard-pressed social workers. In my area, and indeed possibly in his constituency, social services are under severe pressure. We struggle with a lack of funding for them. We have high living costs locally. The last thing a hard-pressed social worker is going to able to do is to provide a great deal of extra documentation and support, however much they wish to do that. It is worth considering supporting this new clause, and I urge Members from across the House to do so.
The point about the surcharge has been well made, and I concur with my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch). At this time, when so many of the workers in our health and social care services are from the European Union, surely we should be supporting them and doing absolutely everything to make them feel welcome in this country. Enshrining the Government’s words in law is very important at this point. Hundreds of people in my constituency work in the local hospital and have been on the frontline during the covid crisis. Some of them have actually stayed across the road from the hospital in temporary accommodation—effectively, in Portakabins—to maintain social distancing from their families. These are the sorts of people we should be showing support and respect for tonight. I therefore urge Members to support the new clause.
Nicola Richards (West Bromwich East) (Con)
I support the contents of this Bill. It is straightforward and to the point: we are delivering on our promises in ending the free movement of people from the EU. The calls to end free movement of people were never about some skewed idea that the British people are inherently xenophobic. They were never, as some have attempted to brand them, part of a wider project to shut our island off from the rest of the world.
I have always been a strong believer in the need to open up our immigration system to the best talent from across the world, and not limit ourselves. This Bill is not designed to shut people out. The coronavirus pandemic has shown that we need to co-operate with our friends and partners across the world even more closely as we look towards our collective recovery. We are of course committed to controlling and reducing migration overall, but this must be done by extending the opportunities open to those from other countries outside the EU.
On new clauses 7 and 8, I hear the concerns of my colleagues across the House.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
My hon. Friend is right about the balance between migration from outside the EU and from within it, but we need to cut immigration per se. It is not just a question of displacement. This is a question of cutting immigration, as we committed to do and as the British people want us to.
Nicola Richards
I agree with my right hon. Friend. Obviously, we want to reduce the numbers on immigration. We were not able to do that while we were members of the European Union, but overall, it limited the number of countries and the areas that people were able to come from and that is what we are putting right now.
On new clauses 7 and 8, I hear the concerns of colleagues across the House, but I am pleased to hear that the Home Office already looks to avoid detention altogether where this is possible through community engagement programmes, and that detention is only really made where there is a reasonable timescale for the removal of an individual. I agree that detaining an individual indefinitely is wrong and should not happen.
Our current dual immigration system is simply not fit for purpose and does not serve our interests as a country. That is exactly what the people of West Bromwich East tell me. From Friar Park to Great Barr, people have been saying the same thing—that the EU does not and did not work for us. It became a one-size-fits-all club, especially with regard to immigration, and we have had enough.
I have said in the House before that we Black Country folk are proud of our diverse communities and we value those foreign nationals, both from the EU and elsewhere in the world, who help to deliver a world-class health system. I am really pleased that the new points-based immigration system will not just allow, but actively welcome a range of health professionals to this country. Our NHS simply would not function without the dedicated army of foreign nationals who work in it. We can see this on display in every hospital across the country, including Sandwell General Hospital, which serves so many of my constituents so well. The Bill allows us to further protect our treasured health service, as we can go beyond the strict arrangement that we have been bound to while in the EU by adding more flexibility to the way that we recruit our doctors and nurses. So we should embrace this opportunity.
This short Bill is the natural precursor to the immigration framework that we want to operate under once the transition period ends. It is surely right that, in an open, tolerant meritocracy, such as the one we have in Britain, we should have an immigration system based on skills rather than nationality. I also welcome the Immigration Minister’s commitment to a “digital by default” system. I know from my own casework that this has been a difficulty for some people and I am pleased that we are looking to make these necessary changes.
A simpler, fairer immigration system is what the Bill will pave the way for. I think that it is a landmark moment, given the strength of feeling about immigration in our communities, and it proves that the Government are getting on and delivering on their promises. This is democracy working at its very best. We are stripping away the old and allowing ourselves to be bold and ambitious moving forward. I want the people of West Bromwich East to know that this is what we voted for and it is what we are delivering on. I commend the team at the Home Office for their work, and I commend the Bill in its current form.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Like many others, I have been inundated with briefings and questions regarding the Bill, and I understand the importance of us all getting things right today, if possible. We certainly must, at all costs, protect our social care sector.
I was very happy to add my name, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), to new clauses 3 to 10, in the name of the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). I hope that he presses these amendments to a Division and that the Government perhaps will accept them, even at this late stage. I feel strongly about the time limit on immigration detention. New clause 3 would hopefully change that to protect people by having a period of 28 days. The other proposals relating to bail hearings, the criteria and duration are also important, and it is so important that we get this right.
I have seen the existing pressure on the social care workforce in my constituency, and one thing is certain from their side: there is not the staff or structure to carry all that is required. The social care workforce will need to expand to deliver the Government’s laudable commitments. It is important to note that the number of staff needs not only to rise to reduce the over 120,000 vacancies that currently exist, but to increase considerably over a sustained period to meet the Prime Minister’s pledge to give every older person the dignity and security that they deserve. The current system leaves a large number of vulnerable people going without any help.
Research by the Nuffield Trust indicates that providing just one hour per day to older people with higher needs who currently get no help would require approximately 50,000 additional home care workers in England alone, never mind Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and providing two hours per day would require 90,000 extra workers.
Although it can be argued that the economic impact of covid-19 will pull in more domestic workers, it is far from clear that that will create the permanent step change needed to deal with the loss of migration, fill the vacancies and grow the workforce all at once. In her new clause 29, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) has put forward a solution, and I hope that there is a cross-section of people in the House who will pursue that.
Analysis of the data by the Nuffield Trust shows that, from 2009-10 to 2018-19, almost half—46%—of the expansion in the social care workforce across the UK was accounted for by people born outside the United Kingdom. That is a case for why we need an immigration system that enables those people to come in and help our social care system. In regions with the greatest projected future need for social care, such as London, not only has the proportion of EU staff increased over time, but migrant staff now make up a large proportion of staff, with more than two in five care workers from abroad.
I remind the Minister very gently and respectfully that countries such as Australia and Canada have long employed points-based immigration systems and have introduced a range of special migration programmes out of necessity, including to help the long-term development of the domestic workforce. New Zealand has an agreement with the residential care sector under which it may offer more generous visa terms, such as longer stays, for a range of key jobs, including personal care assistants and care workers. In exchange, employers develop plans to boost the domestic workforce.
Having seen vulnerable people struggling to care for themselves, and yet knowing the difficulties of securing an adequate care package, I welcome this opportunity to speak on this matter. I hope that the Government listen to Members’ pleas in relation to the new clauses that have been tabled. They were tabled for the right reason—to do what is right today.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Kevin Foster)
It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). It is a pleasure I have had on many occasions since joining the House. Overall, this has been a good debate on a wide range of issues relating to immigration. Members will appreciate that, in view of the time remaining, I will be unable to respond in detail to every new clause and amendment. However, I would like to address some of the more prominent issues that were raised during the debate.
I know that Members were restricted by the narrow scope of the Bill, but I would like to put on the record that most of the new clauses and amendments, if implemented, would lead to a discriminatory immigration system with differential treatment between EEA and non-EEA citizens, which cannot be justified and is not in line with the Government’s approach of having a single global migration system in the future. However, I accept that the reason for the wording of the amendments was to get them in scope.
I turn to the 31 Government amendments in relation to social security co-ordination, which is dealt with by clause 5. As social security co-ordination is transferred in respect of Northern Ireland and partially devolved to Scotland, clause 5, as currently drafted, confers powers on a Scottish Minister or a Northern Ireland Department to legislate in areas of devolved competence. As is required, we sought legislative consent from the Scottish Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly. Social security is reserved in Wales.
The relevant Northern Ireland Minister has indicated that a recommendation will be put to the Executive to bring forward a legislative consent motion in the Assembly; however, the Scottish Government confirmed on 19 June that they would not recommend legislative consent. The Government amendments therefore amend clause 5 and schedules 2 and 3 to restrict the powers in the Bill in relation to Scotland so that the clause does not now engage the legislative consent process in the Scottish Parliament. I therefore hope that Members will be prepared to agree to the amendments.
Turning to one of the more substantive issues raised, the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara) started the debate around new clause 1. I recognise that Members across the House care deeply about the health and social care sector. I am pleased to again place on the record the Government’s thanks and recognition of the fantastic job that those working in health and social care do for the whole of our United Kingdom.
Mr Steve Baker
I have been listening to the Minister very carefully, and I repeat my earlier praise: he has a tough job to do. I do recognise that this Bill relates to the withdrawal agreement, and I can tell him that I will abstain on the amendments I have signed, and I shall vote with the Government on the rest of them.
Kevin Foster
I very much welcome my hon. Friend’s comments. Certainly, the Government look forward to working with him and my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden, because this is an area where we want to see better outcomes for everyone—a better outcome for those who end up in the immigration system, and a better outcome for the taxpayer and the public as well.
Moving on to new clause 2, I welcome the opportunity to speak about the important issue of how we best protect the rights of vulnerable children in care and care leavers. Since the full launch of the EU settlement scheme in March last year, we have had agreements and plans in place with local authorities to ensure that relevant children and care leavers receive the support they need in securing their UK immigration status under the scheme. Local authorities and, in Northern Ireland, health and social care trusts are responsible for making an application under the EU settlement scheme on behalf of an eligible looked-after child for whom they have parental responsibility by way of a court order. Their responsibility in other cases to signpost the scheme and support applications has also been agreed.
The Home Office has implemented a range of support services to ensure local authorities and health and social care trusts can access help and advice when they need it. This has involved engaging extensively with relevant stakeholders such as the Department for Education, the Local Government Association, the Ministry of Justice, the Association of Directors of Children’s Services and equivalents in the devolved Administrations. Guidance has been issued to local authorities regarding their role and their responsibilities for making or supporting applications under the scheme.
The Home Office will be conducting a further survey of local authorities across the UK shortly, as part of the support we are offering to them with this important work. This survey will ask local authorities to provide the assurance that they have so far identified all relevant cases. We will share relevant data from the survey with the EU settlement scheme vulnerability user group, comprising experts from the local authority and voluntary sectors, to help it to discuss progress in this important area and to focus our efforts in supporting local authorities with this work.
To be clear, new clause 2 does not facilitate applications to the EU settlement scheme but proposes a declaratory system under which those covered automatically acquire UK immigration status. This would cause confusion and potential difficulties for these vulnerable young people in future years, with their having no evidence of their lawful status here. They will need evidence of their status when they come to seek employment or access the benefits and services that they are actually entitled to access. This is not something we can allow to happen. However, to reassure hon. Members, the withdrawal agreements oblige us to accept late applications indefinitely where there are reasonable grounds for missing the deadline. This and other rights under the agreements now have direct effect in UK law via the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020, so this commitment is already effectively enshrined in primary legislation.
We have therefore repeatedly made it clear that where a person eligible for status under this scheme has reasonable grounds for missing the deadline, they will be given a further opportunity to apply—to give a specific example, where a parent, guardian or local authority does not apply on behalf of a child. This will ensure that individuals who missed the deadline through no fault of their own can still obtain lawful status in the United Kingdom. I am happy to underline this commitment at the Dispatch Box where children in care and care leavers are concerned, and this is not just for a five-year period, as suggested in this new clause.
Some Members have spoken about the Government’s “no recourse to public funds” policy during the covid-19 pandemic, and there are some new clauses relating to this. Let us make it clear that a range of safeguards are in place to ensure that vulnerable migrants who are destitute or at imminent risk of destitution and have community care needs, including issues relating to human rights or the wellbeing of children, can receive support.
We recognise and are immensely grateful for the contributions made by so many migrants, especially during the recent pandemic. We have provided more than £3.2 billion of additional funding in England and further funding in the devolved Administrations to support local authorities to deliver their services, including helping the most vulnerable. We have also made it more straightforward for those here on the basis of family life or human rights to apply to have the “no recourse to public funds” condition lifted, with change of condition decisions being prioritised and dealt with compassionately.
It is worth noting that those with no recourse to public funds have also been able to benefit from the coronavirus job retention scheme, the self-employed income support scheme and other measures introduced by the Government, such as protections for renters and mortgage holidays.
Kevin Foster
I will not be able to; I just do not have the time.
Moving to new clause 29, I have listened carefully, and I assure all Members that the Government are committed to the principle of family reunion and supporting vulnerable children, as set out in a letter I sent to all Members of Parliament this morning. We recognise that families can become separated because of the nature of conflict and persecution and the speed and manner in which people are often forced to flee their country. However, new clause 29 does not recognise the current routes available for reuniting families or the negotiations we are pursuing with the EU on new reciprocal arrangements for the family reunion of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in either the UK or the EU, as set out in the draft legal text.
Kevin Foster
I am afraid I do not have the time. A negotiated agreement for a state-to-state referral and transfer system would provide clear and consistent processes between the UK and EU member states, ensuring appropriate support for the child and guaranteeing reciprocity. The new clause seeks guarantees that cannot be provided for in UK domestic provisions alone.
The current immigration rules also include routes for family members wishing to enter or remain in the UK on the basis of their relationship with a family member who is a British citizen or settled in the UK, as well as those who are post-flight family of a person granted protection in the UK. Those routes will remain in place at the end of the transition period.
The new clauses on the devolution of migration policy are another unsurprising attempt by the Scottish nationalists to fulfil their ambition of setting up a passport control point at Gretna to fulfil an agenda of separation. We are delivering an immigration system that takes into account the needs of the whole of the United Kingdom and that works for the whole of the United Kingdom, and we will not put an economic migration border through our country. As Members who have spoken pointed out, serious discussion needs to be had about how Scotland can attract more people to live there, work there and be a vital part of the community, and many of those issues are absolutely in the hands of the Scottish Government to address.
Finally and very briefly, we had reference to comprehensive sickness insurance. To be clear, the rules have not changed in terms of the EEA regulations. The insurance would not block someone getting through the EU settlement scheme and we would be happy to hear any such examples. With that, I have explained why the Government does not accept the new clauses.
Brendan O'Hara
Very briefly, I thank all Members who have contributed to the debate. I thank Robert McGeachy of Camphill Scotland on a personal level for all the help he has given me, and I thank the Minister for replying to the debate, although I am very disappointed he has refused to accept new clause 1. It is beyond me why a Government would refuse an opportunity to say to the health and social care sector and its users that they understand the concerns, they have a plan, they know what they are doing and they would welcome transparency.
New clause 1 gives the Government the opportunity to make up for not having done a proper impact assessment and not having put in place any mechanism whatever for this House and other Parliaments across these islands to be able to assess and measure the effectiveness or otherwise of the Bill. For that reason, I will test the will of the House this evening and press new clause 1 to a Division.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Before I put the Question, I have to remind Members who are proxy voting that they need to email the Public Bill Office after each Division and that they need to specify which Division they are voting in each time. I also remind Members that I will lock the doors after 15 minutes for this Division and, if possible—if Members move fairly quickly—after 12 minutes for any subsequent successive Division.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Under Standing Order No. 9(3) and the Order of the House of 18 May, I must now put the Questions necessary to dispose of the new clauses selected for separate decision. Before I put the Question on new clause 7, I must inform the House that there is an error in the text published on the amendment paper. Lines 4 and 5 of new clause 7—the 11 words beginning with “(a)”—are duplicate text and should not have appeared. I do not think that that will make much difference to Members’ judgment as to whether they intend to support the new clause.
The Deputy Speaker then put forthwith the Questions necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that time (Standing Order No. 83E).
New Clause 7
Time limit on immigration detention for EEA and Swiss nationals
‘(1) For the purpose of this section, a person (“P”) is defined as any person who, immediately before the commencement of Schedule 1, was—
(a) any person who, immediately before the commencement of Schedule 1, was—
(i) residing in the United Kingdom in accordance with the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2016;
(ii) residing in the United Kingdom in accordance with a right conferred by or under any of the other instruments which is repealed by Schedule 1; or
(iii) otherwise residing in the United Kingdom in accordance with any right derived from European Union law which continues, by virtue of section 4 of the EU Withdrawal Act 2018, to be recognised and available in domestic law after exit day.
(2) The Secretary of State may not detain any person (“P”) as defined in subsection(1) under a relevant detention power for a period of more than 28 days from the relevant time.
(3) If “P” remains detained under a relevant detention power at the expiry of the period of 28 days then—
(a) the Secretary of State shall release P forthwith; and
(b) the Secretary of State may not re-detain P under a relevant detention power thereafter, unless the Secretary of State is satisfied that there has been a material change of circumstances since “P’s” release and that the criteria in section [Initial detention: criteria and duration (No. 2)] are met.
(4) In this Act, “relevant detention power” means a power to detain under—
(a) paragraph 16(2) of Schedule 2 to the Immigration Act 1971 (detention of persons liable to examination or removal);
(b) paragraph 2(1), (2) or (3) of Schedule 3 to that Act (detention pending deportation);
(c) section 62 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (detention of persons liable to examination or removal); or
(d) section 36(1) of UK Borders Act 2007 (detention pending deportation).
(5) In this Act, “relevant time” means the time at which “P” is first detained under a relevant detention power.
(6) This section does not apply to a person in respect of whom the Secretary of State has certified that the decision to detain is or was taken in the interests of national security.’—(Mr Davis.)
Brought up.
Question put, That the clause be added to the Bill.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. In the exceptional circumstances that have just been reported to me about an error made in the way in which Members were guided through St Stephen’s Hall and into Members Lobby, it has come to my attention that some Members were, correctly and in an orderly fashion, in the queue to vote and have been unable to do so. Fortunately, this matter has been reported to me before the Tellers have reported the numbers. I am therefore going to unlock the doors in order that the Members who have not already voted in the Division on new clause 29 and who are now present in the Division Lobby ready to vote may very swiftly and immediately do so.
Business without Debate
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
With the leave of the House, we shall take motions 3 to 5 together.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),
Electricity
That the draft Contracts for Difference (Electricity Supplier Obligations) (Amendment) (Coronavirus) Regulations 2020, which were laid before this House on 4 June, be approved.
Agriculture
That the Direct Payments to Farmers (Amendment) Regulations 2020 (S.I, 2020, No. 576), dated 8 June 2020, a copy of which was laid before this House on 9 June, be approved.
That the draft Direct Payments Ceilings Regulations 2020, which were laid before this House on 9 June, be approved.—(James Morris.)
Question agreed to.
Petitions
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
I rise to present a petition on the establishment of a food standards commission.
The petition states:
The petition of residents of the constituency of North Ayrshire and Arran,
Declares that the UK Government has not put proper safeguards in place to protect food standards post the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union; notes that the Government has rejected cross party amendments to the Agricultural Bill that aimed to protect standards of imports and ensure that any imports would not be able to undercut UK producers; further notes that leaving the European Union without a deal on 31 December 2020 will mean trading on World Trade Organisation (WTO) terms, and that the most favoured nation status will mean that the UK cannot prevent the import of hormone injected beef or chlorinated chicken from the US; further notes that the consumer group Which? has stated that a US trade deal poses the biggest risk to food standards since the BSE crisis and notes that the current deals struck by the EU provide the necessary protections; further declares that an extension to the transition period would create a short term protection against low standard imports, and that a Food Standards Commission with the remit of ensuring quality and welfare standards of food and drink imports in any trade deals could provide longer term protections for our farmers and growers in Scotland and the wider UK.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to consider the establishment of a Food Standards Commission to monitor any trade deals involving food and drink products and to protect UK welfare standards and value our farmers and growers who produce in Scotland and the wider UK.
And the petitioners remain, etc.
[P002583]
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
As I am sure you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, single-use barbecues are designed to be disposable but are causing great risk to the forest environment, and local laws and regulations to prohibit and restrict their use have proved extremely difficult, if not impossible, to enforce.
The petition states:
The Petition of Kate Collison and Janette Duke, residents of the New Forest District in Hampshire,
Declares that the use of disposable barbecues and their careless abandonment are a proven cause of wild fires; further declares that such wild fires not only risk human life but also cause devastation to wildlife and their habitat; notes that single use disposable barbecues comprise a tin foil tray filled with impregnated “easy light” charcoal with a wire mesh over; further notes that they are lightweight, can easily be carried to beauty spots, wildlife reserves, and beaches, and can be purchased for as little as £1.99 per unit; further notes they have no integral frame support so can be sat directly on the ground causing damage once lit; further notes they emit dangerous carbon monoxide fumes not only during use but also during the cooling process; further notes that whilst they are easy to carry prior to use they are almost impossible to carry away for many hours after use whilst they remain hot, meaning they are often left as litter with devastating consequences; further notes reports that fire services across the country have shown that these abandoned barbecues have been found in the areas where devastating fires have occurred, for example, Wareham Forest, which in May 2020, despite the efforts of 150 firefighters, burned for more than 3 days and devastated 470 acres of heath and woodland, with 11 portable barbecues subsequently found in the burn area; further notes that Chinese sky lanterns, which can pose a similar threat to wildlife and their habitat, were once seen as acceptable but are now recognised as irresponsible and dangerous; and further notes the related Change.org petitions on this matter from the same petitioners, which collectively have over 9,000 signatures.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to consider a ban on the sale of single use disposable barbecues within the United Kingdom.
And the petitioners remain, etc.
[P002585]
Black Women: Domestic Abuse
(4 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
It gives me great pleasure to raise a very important issue to the UK and to this House, particularly as we are about to debate the Domestic Abuse Bill, which returns to this place in the next fortnight or so.
In preparation for today’s debate, I was aided greatly by a number of groups. I would like to thank Refuge; Southall Black Sisters; Women’s Aid; the End Violence Against Women Coalition; Hackney Council; London Councils; Imkaan, which does amazing work in this area; and my local organisation, Sistah Space, with whom I met recently and who were the inspiration behind this debate.
I would also like to put on record my thanks to the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), who is unable to be with us physically today, for her assurance to me that she is committed to listening on this. I appreciate her willingness to engage on this vital issue, and look forward to hearing the Minister’s detailed response to the points that I raise.
It is important to summarise some of the concerns around this. We are dealing with domestic violence and domestic abuse, which is an issue that of course cuts across all people, all ethnicities and those of every socioeconomic status, but black, minority, ethnic and migrant women are particularly vulnerable to high rates of abuse. I am concerned that small specialist organisations are often unable to compete for the contracts that Government and other authorities run to provide money and support, partly due to funding cuts to local authorities and the knock-on effects on services provided. My own local authority, for example, has suffered over 40% cuts in the past decade. This collective loss of money means that anything that is not a statutory service is at risk.
There is also a need for greater representation of black women at policy level. The term, “black, Asian and minority ethnic”, or BAME, as some people call it, groups together a lot of different lived experiences and is a lazy shorthand for the real lived experiences of so many women. In Hackney, we see domestic abuse as an issue that particularly impacts black and minority ethnic women—disproportionately so. I will be touching on the issue of “no recourse to public funds” and of course return to the Domestic Abuse Bill.
The budget cuts to local authorities have meant that there has been a general push towards generic, lower-cost service provision for domestic abuse and violence against women services. Because of economies of scale, that push towards lower-cost services favours larger organisations and contracts over the small, specialist groups that are led by and for the communities they support. They often do not have the resources or finances available to them, or the stability, because they are small groups working in the community. We need to acknowledge that the experiences and discrimination faced by black women are different from those faced by other minority ethnic women, although I shall speak about other women in this speech as well. Using that term BAME—black, Asian and minority ethnic—as an all-encompassing term homogenises vastly different lived experiences.
Let me take a very human example. Imagine someone leaves their home fearful of their situation, in the middle of the night. They have managed to escape from their abusive partner and they turn up, if they are lucky, to a refuge or a hostel and are unable, as a black woman, to have the cream to cream their body or the hair products that they need to support their hair. Their dignity is already through the floor and these little things can make a significant difference, but generic services just do not always get that. That is not particularly a criticism of every generic service—they provide a service and I am not critical of them for that—but there often needs to be much more specialism, and it needs to be locally driven, because local areas know their communities best. Even in my own borough, for instance, we see many differences between our population and that in the neighbouring boroughs of Tower Hamlets or Islington, both of which my constituency abuts.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the hon. Lady for bringing this issue to the House. I am always inspired by her care and compassion for others, for her community and for this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as a whole—that is something that I have noticed in my time in the House. Does she agree that work must be done, time put in and funding directed to enable women to know that they are valued, that their experience matters and that there is a hand to help them towards a life in which fear is not the norm?
Meg Hillier
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his thoughtful and sensitive intervention. That is exactly what I think everybody is aiming for: to make sure that women are not living in fear and have somewhere to go. However, sometimes that somewhere to go is not a comfortable place to go for some women, and it is important that we recognise that domestic violence does not affect everybody homogenously, that different groups are affected in different ways, and that cultural, religious and other differences are important to recognise. It is important that we have an accurate representation of the needs of black women, and that they are listened to when decisions about services that disproportionately affect them are being made. Quite simply, I say to the Minister: no decisions about black women without black women.
Of course, work is being done to tackle domestic abuse, and I welcome the Domestic Abuse Bill, to which I will turn a little later. London Councils has begun work with the Women’s Resource Centre to better understand the structural inequalities that exist in grant making, to create a longer-term funding vision and framework that will bring about tangible change in the next grants programme. If we look at the numbers, we see that only 32 refuges are run by and for black and ethnic minority women. We know that there is a shortage of refuge space generally—I do not have time to go into some of the other wider issues today, but that is a big concern.
London faces some unique challenges with domestic abuse compared with the rest of the country. London-based refuges account for 23% of the total refuge spaces in England—higher than the proportion for any other comparable region—and domestic abuse is on the rise in London. Between July 2018 and December 2019, some 2,817 women and 2,425 children in London were placed in refuges. London boroughs will receive some £13 million in this financial year via the London crime prevention fund to try to tackle domestic abuse. London grant programmes distributed £14 million over the past four years to support the tackling of sexual violence and abuse.
It is important that we see better representation of different groups in the media. The London Borough of Hackney has been trying to promote awareness work, so that people from different backgrounds see themselves reflected and thereby have the confidence to come forward. It is a good way to educate people about what is available. Imagine, Madam Deputy Speaker, that you are living in fear at home. It is difficult to make that call to a domestic abuse hotline. You may be in a controlling relationship and it might be difficult to find help from a friend. You may have your phone monitored. But if the television is on and soap operas are sending out messages about where you can go for help, that is important. It is important that we press for that.
I recognise that it is not entirely in the Government’s control, but in focus groups that the London Borough of Hackney ran with survivors, the following comment was made:
“Having messages on TV shows, soap operas, radios would help.”
A recent storyline in “The Archers” was cited as a good example but, of course, only a narrow group of people listen to Radio 4 on a weekday evening. One person said,
“Having it talked about more makes it easier to talk about.”
Another said,
“There should be more advertising on buses.”
Someone said, rather poignantly,
“I lost my job due to being fearful. You cannot exactly tell your colleagues what is happening with your life, but if you see yourself represented in the media, you know that you’re not alone.”
It is a small but important element: too often, our media does not reflect the richness and diversity of cultures and backgrounds of people I represent in my borough, so I see this as a very significant issue.
I was talking about the London figures just now, but in London there was a 63% rise in reported domestic abuse offences between 2011 and 2018. In 2018, there were more than 85,000 recorded domestic abuse offences in London in just that 12-month period. Staggeringly, that represented one in 10 of all crimes reported in London that year, and that is just those that were reported. For many people, it is still very hard to report the situation that they find themselves living in, wanting to protect their children—I know that the Minister will be well aware of all the issues.
Funding for refuge provision is a key concern in London and for London councils. In my own borough since July 2017—so just in the last three years—169 women and 146 children have been placed in refuges. Of those 169 women, 110 were from black and minority ethnic backgrounds. There are real concerns about that percentage. Over and over, the evidence that I have gathered—although the data, I have to say to the Minister, could be better, including at national level—shows clearly that a disproportionate number of black women, and Asian and minority ethnic women, are affected in London.
In Hackney, in the last financial year, there were a total of 492 high-risk victims or survivors of domestic abuse reported to the multi-agency risk assessment conference. Black women constituted a disproportionately high number of those compared with the general population—27%. If this were any other group, people would take it a bit more seriously, and it is important that we recognise that.
I have mentioned children a number of times, and in my research for this speech I have been alarmed by the number of children who are affected by domestic violence, particularly for this group of women: 45% of all children assessed due to domestic abuse concerns in Hackney were black children. If there is a perpetrator in the household, it is not just the woman who is affected—it is usually a woman, but obviously men can be victims too—but it has a damaging and long-term effect on those children. In many ways, if domestic abuse was treated as a public health issue, notwithstanding the efforts of the Government to finally get the Domestic Abuse Bill through, it might have been dealt with in different ways and more seriously in the past.
I turn to the Domestic Abuse Bill, and I am particularly concerned as we approach that debate. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s views. The “no recourse to public funds” provision is a big concern in my constituency. I have many constituents who are migrants who come here to work, they work hard and pay their bills: they do all the right things according to Home Office rules, but they have no recourse to public funds, so if they need to flee a domestic abuse situation, they do not qualify for a lot of the support that is available. Those often life-saving routes to safety are not available, and the Home Office needs to look at this issue, just as it has with victims of human trafficking, for whom some safeguards are in now place—not all of them, but I will not go into that now.
There are some safeguards to support people in that situation, and there needs to be some safeguards here. These are people who want to work and will want to continue to work if they can, but if they have not got the money to pay their rent or they have a problem with their job, they will be left high and dry and in a very vulnerable position, often unable to leave, under the Domestic Abuse Bill. It is a significant barrier that excludes many people from those routes to safety.
The domestic abuse commissioner is also highlighted in the Bill. I hope the Minister can confirm that domestic abuse commissioner will listen to all voices and make sure that all these diverse groups—black women included—are at the table so that decisions are made that reflect their very specific needs. I know that my own Front Bench, with my support of course, are pushing for other migrant women to be better supported through the Domestic Abuse Bill. There is no provision, for example, for those on non-spousal visas to enter a refuge.
We also need to see a public duty on all commissioning authorities to fund domestic abuse services in the community. Refuges have a very important part to play but, as with Sistah Space in my constituency, it is the community-based services that are often there on the frontline, accessible and embedded, and they know who is who.
It is much easier to do that, especially for someone who, for example, is having their phone tracked or someone who cannot travel very far from their partner because they will not allow them to do that. Having that local specific support is very important.
It is important as well that the Bill reflects that the commissioning of community services needs to reflect protected characteristics. Too often, black and minority ethnic women’s services go completely unfunded, as I have touched on, and they cannot be sustained, and that means that black and minority ethnic women often struggle to access services.
It is essential—I hope the Minister will agree and give me some comfort and comfort to the women out there, some of whom are not yet affected, but may be in the future, and those who have been through it and those who are living through it now—that funding systems for domestic abuse understand that a one-size-fits-all policy will not address the problems within the sector. We need a granular way of funding so that whatever the main funding body, it can get right down to those small grassroots organisations that do not have the resources necessarily to bid, but can provide essential services.
We need, as I have said repeatedly, to ensure that black women’s voices are listened to and represented at policy level. I think I have time to segue into my experience 13 years ago almost to the day, when I became a Minister in the same Department as the Minister. One of the first things I was asked to do was sign off the board for the vetting and barring service. I was presented with a list of names, and I said, looking at it, “Can I just ask out of interest whether anyone has any experience of African child abuse?” At the time, there had been a number of such instances, including the torso of Adam in the Thames, which many people will remember vividly. Representing a constituency with a large number of West Africans, I was very attuned to it, but it was a very big issue at the time.
There was a slight awkward silence from the officials—I am not critical of the officials, who were trying to do a good job, but just were not tuned into this reality—but lo and behold, they went off and found an excellent woman. I have not told her I would name her, so I will not name her today. She was very expert in the area and became a vital part of making sure that our child protection and our set-up for the protection of vulnerable people began to understand and reflect some of those specific issues. It was a minority in that community, but nevertheless the issue was present.
She said to me, “I thought of applying for this position, but I thought they would not want people like me.” It is her story to tell, rather than mine, but the stories she told me about how people reacted to her as a black African woman in that position—unusual in the public sector—are important. The Minister is not entirely responsible for public appointments, but Ministers get that chance, and it is important we have a much more diverse reflection of our community in public appointments, especially for issues where their lived experience is vital to getting things right.
I do not think there is a single official deliberately trying to exclude people, but practices can build up and assumptions can be made. Unless we constantly challenge that, we will end up with a homogenous group of people making decisions about other people. I am on a mission to make sure we support civil servants and Ministers in understanding the wide diversity of people who are affected by the decisions they make.
The Domestic Abuse Bill is a real opportunity, but we also need clear data about the impact of domestic abuse on women, and we need detailed breakdowns of ethnic background, nationality and so on, so that we can really understand where the problems are and where emerging problems arise. As I have said repeatedly, future funding must recognise the importance of specialist services. In simple terms, let us make sure—I hope the Minister will agree—that we do not see decisions about black women without black women.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk)
May I begin by thanking the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) for a really thoughtful and obviously well-researched speech, which I know will have been heard beyond these walls? It was an extremely powerful contribution.
With the leave of the House, I will wind up the debate. As the hon. Lady has already indicated, I am standing in for the Minister for safeguarding, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), who is unable to be here. Although it is my pleasure to stand in her stead, I can say without fear of contradiction that she is personally deeply committed to this issue, and I know she would welcome the opportunity to speak to the hon. Lady further about the points she has helpfully raised this evening.
There is no dispute between the parties, I trust, that domestic abuse has a horrifying and devastating impact on individuals. The hon. Lady has spoken very powerfully about the stark and harrowing impacts it has on all people, but potentially in different ways, because we have to take account of the context—sometimes the cultural context—in which it takes place.
Darren Henry (Broxtowe) (Con)
I thank the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) for bringing this debate to the House. She makes a really good point that BAME is a bit too much of an umbrella term for an issue such as this, so my point will be about black women. I have been to Midlands Women’s Aid in Broxtowe and was told that there is a culture of shame and stigma around victims of abuse in black communities. Will my hon. Friend the Minister put at the heart of the agenda empowering women to access support?
Alex Chalk
I thank my hon. Friend and commend him for the work that he is doing with Women’s Aid. He is absolutely right, because we hear of this stigma and what is so upsetting about that is that, all too often, it will mean that victims continue to be victims. They will not necessarily have the courage to break free. That is why we need to make sure that there are tailored services, which take account of the cultural issues so that we can truly protect all victims, whatever their background. I am very grateful to him for raising that issue as he has.
We focus on this issue because of the impact not just on the individuals themselves, but, of course, on the children. No child should have to grow up exposed to violence. We understand fine well the repercussions—often life-long repercussions—that that can have, so we must do everything we can to expose this hidden and often under-reported offending and eliminate it, and the Government are fully committed to doing that.
Over the past four years, we have provided £100 million of dedicated funding, working with local commissioners to deliver a secure future for rape support services, refuges, national helplines and critical services, and, as the hon. Lady adverted to, we have reintroduced the Domestic Abuse Bill—the third time of asking, I think—and that will offer strength, protection and support for victims of abuse for the long-term and help bring more perpetrators to justice.
Before I go onto the specific points that the hon. Lady raises, I wish to say a word or two about coronavirus, because we cannot really fail to mention it. Although home should be a safe place, we know that, for victims of abuse, it is often not, and facing enforced confinement with perpetrators and isolation from normal support networks must be especially harrowing for victims. She made a powerful point about the extent to which all people are able to pick up the phone, but in certain circumstances, particularly in close confinement, that is a conversation that is very difficult to have, and it is why, as I shall come on to in a moment, we have been at pains to ensure that there is a diversity of channels through which women—it is usually women—can access the support they need.
Let me provide a little more detail on the things that we are doing. Our national communication campaign, “You are not alone” has raised awareness of this issue across the general public and helped signpost victims to sources of help. Additional funding has gone to support the national helpline—the one run by Refuge, of course, is a very important one—and online services run by domestic abuse charities, including those offering specialist support to minority groups. The hon. Lady will be aware, as, I am sure, you are, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the Treasury has provided £750 million to the charitable sector, of which £76 million has been allocated to support victims of domestic and sexual abuse, vulnerable children and their families and victims of modern slavery.
I want to pick up a point that the hon. Lady made about community-based support, which she was right to stress. Some £20 million is allocated via the Ministry of Justice, via, in turn, police and crime commissioners for precisely this. One of the encouraging things, if there is any silver lining within this horrible cloud of coronavirus, is that we are better able now to monitor where that money is going and to do so by considering protected characteristics. In other words, we can make sure that a police and crime commissioner for area A is taking proper steps to ensure that those under-represented communities get their fair slice of cake. That is putting it very simply.
We have also allocated money to the FLOWS charity, for example, which finds legal options for women survivors. I am taking this opportunity as a Minister of Justice to say that, sometimes, the potent weapon that the victim needs to defend themselves will be a legal weapon—be that an occupation order, a non-molestation order or a domestic violence protection order—and providing that legal support is critically important.
Let me quickly mention the Hidden Harms summit that was chaired by the Prime Minister. That was an opportunity to shine a light on domestic abuse issues, and I hope the hon. Lady will also welcome the strong focus on sustainability: we cannot simply patch the demand, very generously and appropriately, in respect of coronavirus; we have to ensure that it is sustainable into the future.
I turn to BAME and domestic abuse statistics. I echo the point made by the hon. Lady. BAME is a pretty clumsy expression, for the reasons that she powerfully expressed. It covers all sorts of cultures, traditions, needs and a whole diversity of experiences. I recognise that it is not a homogenous group, but simply a convenient shorthand. I hope that the House will not consider my usage a discourtesy.
Domestic abuse affects a wide and disparate group of people across all backgrounds. One size does not fit all, and a particular approach would not be appropriate for all victims. That is particularly important when we are working to protect and support victims of domestic abuse with specific needs and vulnerabilities, including victims from marginalised ethnic groups.
The hon. Lady made an extremely powerful point, which might have sounded trivial, but is anything but. It matters if somebody from a certain background goes to a refuge and it does not have the basic toiletries or whatever to give them that human dignity. Wanting to look right is about feeling human, and recovering a sense of dignity and self-esteem. It is not a trivial matter—although I did wonder whether hair products might not make quite the difference to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). For some people, this really does matter.
According to the crime survey for England and Wales, in the year ending March 2019 an estimated 10.4% of black British women aged 16 to 74 had experienced domestic abuse in the last year, compared to 7.2% of white women. Now, there is a statistic to conjure with. The figure rose to 20% for women aged 16 to 74 who identified as mixed ethnicity. From research and reporting, there is evidence to suggest that black and minority ethnic women put up with abuse for a longer period—the point that I was making to my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Darren Henry)—and are more reluctant to access services. One estimate puts the time period before leaving a violent relationship at an average of 10 years—10 brutal, wasted years. We need to do everything possible to bring that figure down.
It is vital that we ensure that specialist services continue to be available to black and minority ethnic women, and find ways to break down any perceived barriers to accessing available services. In this context, we need an approach that brings in all the relevant agencies. Yes, of course the Home Office does its bit, as does the Ministry of Justice, but one of the key messages that we have had from the sector is to ensure that this is a cross-Government fight; and it is. I am pleased to say that I now have regular meetings with my hon. Friend the Minister for Safeguarding and with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. That is very important. It is something that the sector has asked for and which we have been pleased to deliver.
The hon. Lady said that we need to present avenues for support in a context that is accessible for people. She referred to provisions being presented on television or whatever; there need to be different avenues. May I take a moment to plug the gov.uk website as a resource for accessing support, particularly legal support? People might visit the site for passport renewal and so on, but it often contains very good advice and support.
I completely endorse the hon. Lady’s central point. She said that there should be no decisions about black women without black women. That is what I want to come to now. We need to ensure that all Government Departments are diverse in terms of both ethnicity and experiences. Things have improved really quite dramatically and I pay tribute to those in the civil service who have pushed this agenda, but ethnic minorities are still under-represented at senior levels across the public sector, apart from NHS consultants, so there is further to go. There is much more that I could say about that, but I want to move on to some other points, if I may.
The Domestic Abuse Bill sets out a statutory definition of domestic abuse in legislation for the first time. It ensures that there can be no excuse for or hiding from abusive behaviour. The definition makes it clear that domestic abuse is not confined to violent or sexual abuse, but includes controlling or coercive behaviour, psychological abuse and economic abuse. That is critically important, because one of the barriers to that woman who has been experiencing it for 10 years might be the economic abuse. She needs to be able to say to a police officer or the authorities, “Well, hang on; this is not trivial just because it is invisible.” That is a really important point.
The hon. Lady also referred to the domestic abuse commissioner, which is one of the single most important innovations of the Bill. She has the ability—she has made an excellent start—to speak truth to power, to shine a light on the issues and, crucially, to ensure that there is co-ordination and coherence in this space, which could otherwise quite easily become fragmented, as well as proper representation and a proper slice of the cake for those from minority communities.
I am fast running out of time. There is more I wanted to say in respect to funding and so on, but I will close by recognising that this is not a subject for a single debate. This is a subject for an ongoing conversation. As I said, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle, wants to continue that conversation. She will be reading the hon. Lady’s speech and will be reflecting on the contributions in this debate. She remains committed to continuing to strengthen our collective approach.
Ensuring that we are truly inclusive of all sectors and working closely with expert organisations is how we tackle the scourge of domestic abuse. I am determined to ensure that we build such partnerships, safeguard the most vulnerable in our society and bring perpetrators to justice.
Question put and agreed to.
Members Eligible for a Proxy Vote
Member eligible for proxy vote | Nominated proxy |
|---|---|
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) | Jim McMahon |
Imran Ahmad Khan (Wakefield) | Stuart Andrew |
Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) | Stuart Andrew |
Tahir Ali (Birmingham, Hall Green) | Chris Elmore |
Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) | Chris Elmore |
Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) | Stuart Andrew |
Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) | Stuart Andrew |
Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) | Stuart Andrew |
Hannah Bardell (Livingston) | Patrick Grady |
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) | Stuart Andrew |
Margaret Beckett (Derby South) | Clive Efford |
Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) | Stuart Andrew |
Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) | Stuart Andrew |
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) | Chris Elmore |
Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) | Patrick Grady |
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) | Patrick Grady |
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) | Stuart Andrew |
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) | Patrick Grady |
Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) | Patrick Grady |
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) | Stuart Andrew |
James Brokenshire (Old Bexley and Sidcup) | Stuart Andrew |
Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) | Chris Elmore |
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) | Zarah Sultana |
Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) | Stuart Andrew |
Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) | Chris Elmore |
Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) | Patrick Grady |
Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) | Alex Norris |
Sir William Cash (Stone) | Leo Docherty |
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) | Chris Elmore |
Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) | Patrick Grady |
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) | Patrick Grady |
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) | Stuart Andrew |
Feryal Clark (Enfield North) | Chris Elmore |
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) | Stuart Andrew |
Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) | Chris Elmore |
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) | Patrick Grady |
Mr Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and West Devon) | Alex Burghart |
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) | Chris Elmore |
Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) | Patrick Grady |
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) | Chris Elmore |
Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) | Caroline Nokes |
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) | Chris Elmore |
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) | Chris Elmore |
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) | Chris Evans |
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) | Patrick Grady |
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) | Chris Elmore |
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) | Rachel Hopkins |
Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) | Caroline Nokes |
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) | Patrick Grady |
Dave Doogan (Angus) | Patrick Grady |
Ms Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) | Stuart Andrew |
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) | Chris Elmore |
Philip Dunne (Ludlow) | Jeremy Hunt |
Colum Eastwood (Foyle) | Conor McGinn |
Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) | Chris Elmore |
Natalie Elphicke (Dover) | Maria Caulfield |
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) | Chris Elmore |
Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) | Stuart Andrew |
Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) | Stuart Andrew |
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) | Stuart Andrew |
Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) | Patrick Grady |
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) | Patrick Grady |
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) | Chris Elmore |
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) | Theresa Villiers |
Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) | Chris Elmore |
Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) | Stuart Andrew |
Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) | Caroline Nokes |
Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) | Chris Elmore |
Dame Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) | Stuart Andrew |
Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) | Chris Elmore |
Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) | Stuart Andrew |
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) | Patrick Grady |
Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) | Patrick Grady |
Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) | Chris Elmore |
Kate Griffiths (Burton) | Aaron Bell |
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) | Chris Elmore |
Robert Halfon (Harlow) | Julie Marson |
Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) | Chris Elmore |
Claire Hanna (Belfast South) | Liz Saville Roberts |
Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) | Patrick Grady |
Ms Harriet Harman (Camberwell and Peckham) | Chris Elmore |
Sir Mark Hendrick (Preston) | Chris Elmore |
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) | Patrick Grady |
Mike Hill (Hartlepool) | Chris Elmore |
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) | Fay Jones |
Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) | Wes Streeting |
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) | Chris Elmore |
Kate Hollern (Blackburn) | Chris Elmore |
Adam Holloway (Gravesham) | Maria Caulfield |
Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) | Patrick Grady |
Sir George Howarth (Knowsley) | Chris Elmore |
Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) | Stuart Andrew |
Imran Hussain (Bradford East) | Judith Cummins |
Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) | Chris Elmore |
Mr Ranil Jayawardena (North East Hampshire) | Stuart Andrew |
Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) | Stuart Andrew |
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) | Stuart Andrew |
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) | Chris Elmore |
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) | Ruth Edwards |
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) | Chris Elmore |
Afzal Khal (Manchester, Gorton) | Chris Elmore |
Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) | Stuart Andrew |
Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) | Mr William Wragg |
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) | Kate Osborne |
Chris Law (Dundee West) | Patrick Grady |
Clive Lewis (Norwich South) | Rosie Duffield |
Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) | Stuart Andrew |
Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) | Chris Elmore |
Mark Logan (Bolton North East) | Stuart Andrew |
Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) | Cat Smith |
Julia Lopez (Hornchurch and Upminster) | Lee Rowley |
Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) | Stuart Andrew |
Mr Jonathan Lord (Woking) | Stuart Andrew |
Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) | Robert Courts |
Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth) | Stuart Andrew |
Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) | Chris Elmore |
Alan Mak (Havant) | Stuart Andrew |
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) | Chris Elmore |
Rachael Maskell (York Central) | Chris Elmore |
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) | Chris Elmore |
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) | Cat Smith |
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) | Patrick Grady |
John Mc Nally (Falkirk) | Patrick Grady |
Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) | Stuart Andrew |
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) | Chris Elmore |
Mark Menzies (Fylde) | Sir David Amess |
Johnny Mercer (Plymouth, Moor View) | Stuart Andrew |
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) | Stuart Andrew |
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) | Stuart Andrew |
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) | Patrick Grady |
Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) | Stuart Andrew |
David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) | Stuart Andrew |
Grahame Morris (Easington) | Chris Elmore |
James Murray (Ealing North) | Chris Elmore |
John Nicolson (Ochil and South Perthshire) | Patrick Grady |
Neil O’Brien (Harborough) | Stuart Andrew |
Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) | Rebecca Harris |
Guy Opperman (Hexham) | Stuart Andrew |
Kate Osamor (Edmonton) | Nadia Whittome |
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) | Patrick Grady |
Sarah Owen (Luton North) | Alex Norris |
Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) | Peter Aldous |
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) | Chris Elmore |
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) | Chris Elmore |
Christina Rees (Neath) | Chris Elmore |
Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) | Chris Elmore |
Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) | Chris Elmore |
Rob Roberts (Delyn) | Stuart Andrew |
Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) | Stuart Andrew |
Naz Shah (Bradford West) | Chris Elmore |
Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) | Chris Elmore |
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) | Chris Elmore |
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) | Patrick Grady |
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) | Chris Elmore |
Alyn Smith (Stirling) | Patrick Grady |
Royston Smith (Southampton, Itchen) | Robert Courts |
Jo Stevens (Cardiff Glasgow Central) | Chris Elmore |
Sir Gary Streeter (South West Devon) | Stuart Andrew |
Mel Stride (Central Devon) | Stuart Andrew |
Sam Tarry (Ilford South) | Chris Elmore |
Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) | Chris Elmore |
Owen Thompson (Midlothian) | Patrick Grady |
Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) | Olivia Blake |
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) | Chris Elmore |
David Warburton (Somerton and Frome) | Stuart Andrew |
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) | Stuart Andrew |
Mrs Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) | Stuart Andrew |
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) | Patrick Grady |
Hywel Williams (Arfon) | Ben Lake |
Beth Winter (Cynon Valley) | Rachel Hopkins |
Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) | Chris Elmore |
Petition
Extension of the Brexit transition period
Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill (Third sitting)
Tuesday 30th June 2020
(4 years, 3 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill 2019-21 View all Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill 2019-21 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 30 June 2020 - (30 Jun 2020)
The Chair
Our first witness is Mark Fairhurst, national chairman of the Professional Trades Union for Prison, Correctional and Secure Psychiatric Workers. Mr Fairhurst is participating via Zoom this morning, and I think it is just on audio, so it might be slightly tricky. Please bear with us. Do we have Mr Fairhurst?
Mark Fairhurst: Good morning.
The Chair
Good morning. Would you briefly just introduce yourself and your organisation, please?
Mark Fairhurst: I am national chair of the Prison Officers Association. We represent prison officers in every prison in the United Kingdom and secure psychiatric services as well.
The Chair
Thank you very much. We will start with questions. We have until 9.55 am, when we have to end the session bang on the dot. First, I will ask the Minister if he would like to ask some questions.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Philp)
Q
Mark Fairhurst: Thank you. That is most welcome, and it will be appreciated.
Chris Philp
Q
Mark Fairhurst: Sure. It is very much intelligence led and risk based. Throughout a TACT offender’s sentence, they will be allocated a key worker officer, who will get to know them and help them through their sentence plan. During that sentence plan, they will be offered the opportunity to address their offending behaviour, and they will be offered two deradicalisation programmes while they are in custody.
Staff will observe their behaviour on the wings, and who they mix with, and they will submit intelligence reports on a regular basis, specifically if they have concerns around radical behaviour while an offender is in custody. That will then lead to a multi-agency approach, and when the offender is coming up to their release point with the Parole Board, we put in place MAPPA arrangements. We will have reports from prison officers, psychologists, psychiatrists and healthcare, and we will liaise with security services, and a full picture will be presented prior to that person’s release.
As we have just witnessed with the Streatham attacker, he left prison as a high-risk, category A offender. The intelligence and the risks that we highlighted to the security services led to him being monitored 24 hours a day, because he was a significant risk to the public. When you look at it in that vein, what we did was appropriate and led to an atrocity being avoided because of the swift reaction. So I think we have got the risk part of the sentence planning really sufficient while in custody.
Chris Philp
Q
Mark Fairhurst: Yes, that is correct, even—[Inaudible] —reached the halfway point, because legislation dictated that we had no option but to do that. The intelligence we had gathered on his antisocial behaviour and radical behaviour in prison led the Security Service to believe that they were right in following and monitoring him upon his release so extensively. That would be the case in this situation as well. I believe that, with this Bill, at the two-thirds point, people must go through a parole process.
Chris Philp
Q
Mark Fairhurst: That is a really valid point, and these concerns have been expressed from the frontline. I can give you an example. At the moment, if we are going to extend the sentences, and we are going to insist that the most serious offenders spend the entire sentence in prison, that will increase headroom in the high-security estate. Also, it incentivises people not to behave correctly or to go on deradicalisation courses.
For example, at the moment, we have funding, and we should have open three separation centres, but we have only got one, with a small number of the most influential and serious terrorist offenders, in play. That leads to serious concerns from my members who are in that separation centre at HMP Frankland, because we are now in a situation where the prisoners who are housed there are not engaging with staff whatever. We have had a really violent assault on a prison officer, and there is nowhere to transfer those prisoners to if they show violence towards staff or if they become a security risk. That is why we need more separation centres open, especially with the implementation of this Bill. More concerningly, there is now no incentive for good behaviour.
Chris Philp
Q
Mark Fairhurst: I think the separation centres are the key. We need three open because, as you are all aware, the rise of the far right is a real concern for the security services. It would be unwise to put high-profile far-right extremist offenders in the same separation centre as Islamist extremist offenders, with staff stuck in the middle. That is the key point here.
To come to your point, what can we do to incentivise people to take part in deradicalisation courses if they know they are going to serve their full sentence? All we can do on the frontline is our best, and that is to try to engage with people, get to know them and encourage them to take part in deradicalisation. We involve imams and community groups to come in and speak to these people. We just keep chipping away, because it is down to the individual. Only the individual can change. We can encourage them to change. We can give them the ideas to change and the courses to help them change, but it is down to the individual. The biggest fear from the frontline is, “If I know, as a terrorist offender, that I am going to serve my full sentence, and I am not going to get any chance of early release, I might totally disengage, and that might reinforce my radical views, which leads me to a disruptive life inside.” That is the biggest fear.
Chris Philp
I understand, although, of course, if they step over the criminal threshold, they will be prosecuted. Equally, there is no value in people pretending to engage with deradicalisation programmes just to secure early release, so we need to be mindful of that risk as well. Thank you, Mr Fairhurst.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
Q
You recently made a film called “The forgotten service”. In that film, you talk about the lack of support for prison officers, particularly around mental health, and there are other issues as well. Somebody responded to that film by saying—I hope the Chair will forgive the swear word in the middle—
“I left 3 months ago from the high security estate, after 18 years I had seen enough. Too much political bullshit, ridiculous workload, rubbish managers causing dramas, and good managers having to pick up all the pieces”.
Few would disagree that the main measures in the Bill are right, but what needs to happen in prisons to ensure that they can cope with the ramifications of it?
Mark Fairhurst: Mental health is a massive issue at the moment. We are getting more and more members suffering from PTSD. When you take the sentiments in that statement from that member of staff who left the service, I can echo every one of those.
What you have got to understand is that staff on the frontline are doing an absolutely fantastic job. They will monitor individuals’ behaviours and make a referral. The current system goes through a three-stage referral process, with the ultimate decision being made to remove someone from the main population to a separation centre at stage three. Very few of those referrals from staff get approved, because of the red tape and the legal challenges. It seems to staff on the frontline that the legal challenges are the major stopping point and buffer to removing people, who are a real danger in the normal population, to a separation centre.
You will eventually have complete apathy from staff, who keep referring people they think should be separated from the main population and keep getting knocked back. That has a knock-on effect, because, day after day, they have to deal with people who are threatening them, who are underhand, who are trying to radicalise people. Day after day, they know that if they make a referral, there is a good chance that that person will not be moved from the main population.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Mark Fairhurst: You need mental health support. You need some sort of counselling service on site five days a week during the working week. You need training to help staff cope, to spot the signs of radicalisation and danger. There is good training on offer if you work in a separation centre, but not for the main body of staff who work on the wings. You need to recognise that staff are under stress, so you need to rotate their jobs so that they are not in a high-stress situation year after year. We need more staff on site to assist us as well, to help prevent trouble breaking out.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Mark Fairhurst: Spaces in the high-security estate, where most TACT offenders are housed, are at a premium. We have very few spaces at all in a high-security estate. We do have spaces on courses for deradicalisation programmes, but they are not mandatory; the offender has the choice of whether they wish to attend one. That is another issue: do we want to make these courses mandatory, and where is the incentive to go on a course if you know you will not be released early?
If we are going to increase sentences, I suspect that we will need extra headroom. We will certainly need the other two separation centres open, because of the rise of the far right, and we will certainly have to think about a high-security prison—perhaps specifically to house terrorist offenders. Although there are only approximately 230 in play at the moment, it may be an idea to separate them totally.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Mark Fairhurst: I would like the Parole Board involved more, because it is an independent scrutiny body, but the measures we have in place at the moment are adequate. They work really well with the intelligence gathering from the shop floor, with the assessments and with multi-agency experts, including the security services. I do not think there is much more we can do, but I have no objections to the Parole Board being involved more as an independent scrutiny panel.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Mark Fairhurst: This is another issue. If you look at people under the age of 18 and at female offenders, do we have the capability to house them in a secure environment, or are we going to throw them into the adult estate? Throwing a young person into the adult estate due to the nature of their offence could have an adverse effect, so we need to come up with programmes for young offenders who commit terrorist crimes. I do not think we have that capability at the moment, but rehabilitation of a young person has more chance of success than rehabilitation of someone who is seasoned and radicalised. I feel that we have a big opportunity to make a difference in that field.
Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (SNP)
Q
Mark Fairhurst: I do think it is important to have an incentive for people to engage with rehabilitation and improve their behaviour. You must also consider that when terrorist offenders are released, they rarely reoffend. Only about 5% to 10% reoffend, compared with 50% to 60% of the general population. I understand that those who do reoffend are high profile and commit atrocities, but we are looking at a cohort that, on the whole, has a 90% success rate, because only 10%—max—reoffend. We need to take that into account when we are thinking about the future of the offender—not only when they are in prison and what we offer them there, but when they are released. I do not think anyone has mentioned that yet.
Kenny MacAskill
Q
Mark Fairhurst: I like the sound of that, Kenny, I really do, because it gives people an incentive and gives them hope that they will be released before serving their full term, but they are also under no illusion that they will be monitored in the community, and if they commit an offence, they will end up back in prison. I like the idea of that. As you know, Scotland has a lot of good practices that we could adopt in England and Wales, and I ask people to seriously consider that element.
Kenny MacAskill
Q
Mark Fairhurst: None whatsoever, Kenny. That would be down to some independent body responsible for performing polygraph tests. That is another skill that I would not mind staff getting trained in—it would be another string to our bow. How often is it going to get used? Is it going to be a regular occurrence? All these issues need to be ironed out, but I am not against the polygraph test and I am not against prison staff being trained in polygraph testing. However, I would guess that scrutiny panels would say that prison officers are not independent because they work with the offenders, so they would want a totally independent body to facilitate that.
Kenny MacAskill
Q
Mark Fairhurst: This is the major concern from my colleagues at the only separation centre that is open, in Frankland. We have had one serious assault, and that member of staff had to be a moved away from the separation centre, because there is nowhere to transfer the prisoner. Once that prisoner goes to court, if he is convicted of that assault on the member of staff, where do we transfer him to? We do not. We keep him at Frankland.
We have got a Muslim member of staff at Frankland who is being moved from the separation centre because the terrorist offenders in that separation centre have threatened him. That is not right—staff are being penalised for doing their job because we do not have the capability to transfer violent and disruptive prisoners to another separation centre. We have funding for three, but we only have one open because of the red tape and the legalities of moving people into a separation centre, because apparently, if you have three or fewer prisoners in a separation centre, it is classed as segregation. Well, you know what? Staff on the frontline are not interested in how you term things; they are not interested in the legalities. They are interested in you keeping them safe and giving them the tools to do their job, so let us get these other two centres open and let us respect staff safety.
Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)
Q
Mark Fairhurst: I think we need a full review of those two courses, simply because of the last two atrocities, where both offenders had attended one of those courses. One was, in effect, a poster boy for one of the courses. I would like to see a full review, because what do we actually class as a success? Do we class success as offenders attending and passing those courses, or do we class as success the offender who attended those courses being released and not committing further atrocities? We need to look internationally at what is on offer for terrorist offenders, certainly around Europe, if not the world. We really need to review what we class as success, because I am not sure that those two courses offer what they should.
Rob Butler
Q
Mark Fairhurst: That depends on what you are going to offer in the community. Are you going to offer them support services with charitable groups, or groups that specifically deal with terrorist offenders, which meet them at the gate, take them to accommodation, maybe get them out of the area where there is peer pressure, engage with Muslim communities—there is a lot of shame involved with terrorist offenders, who want to reform when they go back into their communities—and get imams involved? Are we going to invest in that side of things and incentivise people while they are in prison to attend these deradicalisation programmes, in the knowledge that there will be massive support systems in play for them when they are released, or do we keep going along the same path, where offenders are released with not much support in place, and if they are a risk, they are monitored? There is still a lot of work and research to do. We have some really intelligent people getting interviewed this morning, with some really positive, radical ideas that need to be taken on board.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
Q
Thank you very much for your contribution, Mr Fairhurst. In response to the last question, you covered Muslim terrorist offenders. You have talked about deradicalisation, incentives to go straight and the success rate—the small percentage of terrorist offenders who reoffend. Do those figures and your general thoughts apply also to the growing number of far-right terrorists we are now seeing coming into the criminal justice system?
Mark Fairhurst: This is a completely new dynamic, but let me tell you this: if we have prolific far-right extremist offenders in the general population, they will be able to influence and recruit far more prisoners than Islamist extremists ever could. They will get more support. They will be a similar threat to what IRA prisoners were. They will have a lot of contacts in communities. They will be able to get staff details and addresses, and be more of a threat. That is why it is absolutely essential that we open the other two separation centres. What we do not want is, first, a situation where you have far-right extremists in the same centre as Islamist extremists or, secondly, a situation where a prolific right-wing extremist offender is recruiting in the general population and causing chaos. We really need to rethink this.
Ruth Cadbury
Q
Mark Fairhurst: Yes, without a doubt. At the moment, we only have these two programmes: healthy identity and desist and disengage. We need to look at alternatives, because the far right is a completely different dynamic. It has not really raised its head above the parapet in our prisons at this moment in time, but I can assure you that it is on its way, because it is on the rise.
Miss Sarah Dines (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)
Q
Mark Fairhurst: Yes, I agree with that. It will be an essential tool, but it would also be essential if we had an incentive to release people early, and prior to their release they were given a polygraph and asked about their future intentions. That is something else to consider. I agree: it is very useful. I have no opposition to it.
Miss Dines
So you agree with clause 32? That provision would be useful?
Mark Fairhurst: Most definitely, yes. I would not like to see it removed.
The Chair
That is the end of that session. Mr Fairhurst, thank you very much for joining us.
Mark Fairhurst: You are very welcome. Thank you for your thoughts about frontline staff. We appreciate your support. Thank you very much.
Examination of Witness
Ian Acheson gave evidence
The Chair
We have until 10.25 am for this session. Professor Acheson, thank you very much for joining us. Would you like to introduce yourself and your organisation briefly, please?
Professor Acheson: My name is Ian Acheson. I used to be a frontline prison officer, so I would like to be associated with the comments that were made this morning. They are the unsung heroes of our criminal justice system, often overlooked and certainly undervalued. They do an amazing job.
I worked in the Prison Service as an officer and then as a governor. I left it and joined the Home Office via the Youth Justice Board, where I was the senior civil servant responsible for the Contest strategy, our counter-terrorism strategy, among other things in south-west England. After that, I joined the Equality and Human Rights Commission as the chief operating officer and I left public service then. I now work for a variety of organisations, including the Counter Extremism Project, which is an international non-profit organisation that looks at ways of countering violent extremism. I am also a visiting professor at Staffordshire University School of Law, Forensics and Policing.
Chris Philp
Q
Professor Acheson: The Prison Service, as we are all aware, is under a great deal of pressure, certainly in England and Wales. The backdrop is what I would describe as a significant decline in all sorts of metrics of good order, discipline and control across most, but not all, prisons. That provides a backdrop of instability, which is germane to your question. We need to have stable, well-run prisons with suitable and sufficient numbers of staff present to set the tone, to be able to control the environment and certainly to be able to spot and intervene early when they see signs of extremist-related behaviour, whether from prisoners imprisoned under terrorism legislation or others who look like they are being drawn into violent extremism.
One of the problems that I have with the system is that we do not seem to have an assertive and challenging approach to managing terrorist prisoners, or ideologically motivated prisoners, from the start of their sentence to their last day in community supervision. The system is fraught with problems of handovers between the Prison Service, the Parole Board and the probation service. I do not believe that that system of managing a particular set of prisoners with some unique characteristics is the right way of proceeding.
I would like to see a dedicated unit, if you will—I recommended that in my 2016 report; unfortunately it was not one of the recommendations that was taken forward—that manages offenders end to end, from literally the first night in custody to the last night of community sentence, and that has a detailed biographical understanding of a prisoner. That involves specialists, psychiatrists, theologians and various people intervening but managing that prisoner all the way through into the community.
Mark Fairhurst mentioned the importance of reintegration after custody for terrorist offenders. In some respects, integration is the key challenge as well. At the moment, the state has a monopoly on the management of terrorist offenders after custody in terms of MAPPA, where the probation service, the police and the Security Service manage the security aspects. There are no other organisations, apart from some voluntary organisations that are involved in the desistance and disengagement programme. We do not have any community involvement in the resettlement of terrorist offenders and their reintegration in the community. That is a big issue that needs to be addressed.
Chris Philp
Q
Professor Acheson: In relation to terrorist offenders, for example, the situation feels to me as though, as long as they are not creating any problems, they are largely left alone. When they start to create problems, there are alternatives, which could include segregation, administrative penalties or incentives and earned privileges penalties. In extremis, if they are subversive—this was one of my recommendations that was taken forward, as you might be aware—separation centres exist for them.
We need to make sure that we look at it from the sentencing point. To illustrate it like this: what is really important is that we have got some sort of baseline measurement for a judge, after a conviction, to inform sentencing. We do not have that at the moment. We do have pre-sentence reports, I understand that, but we do not have a sufficient level of granularity or expertise put into that plan, which is the baseline measurement of dangerousness, for any terrorist offenders.
As you are aware, they are a very heterogeneous group. They resist being compartmentalised. We have people who murder people who are losers and we have people who murder people who are university graduates. There is an enormous variety and it resists generic sheep dip-style approaches. I am afraid I would categorise healthy identity intervention as one of those processes that I do not think works. We need to go back to having this baseline measurement at the start, managed by one unit all the way through that is frequently looking at whether dangerousness has increased or decreased, and devising and managing interventions to meet that individual pathology, that individual terrorist profile.
I am aware that Lord King has said in Parliament that you are recruiting some prison imams to take part in ideological interventions. That is very good news—so, theological, psychological, family-related and substance misuse. It is important to look at these people as individuals if you want to reduce their dangerousness. It is important to look at that dangerousness as early as possible, with the right people managing it all the way through.
As I have said before—I do not want to repeat myself—I think the system is far too fractured at the moment. We are only talking about 220-odd offenders at the moment, with the Government making what I think is the fairly optimistic estimate of an extra 50 as a result of the new legislation. It will increase because of the police and security services’ ability to spot people further and further upstream from actual terrorist incidents. That number will increase, but it is still a manageable number and it is still worth while investing significantly.
I am not a great fan of the statistic that is bandied about that says that only 5% to 10% of terrorist offenders reoffend after custody. That is a proven reconviction for a terrorist offence. That is a very lazy proxy for damage. If you apply that to our number of offenders, that means there are another 11 Sudesh Ammans in the system. That is completely intolerable and unacceptable. I do not think we should be comforted by the fact that some research is showing us that recidivism is fairly low. There is research in Europe that says that the period immediately following release of a terrorist offender is the period of most risk. That does not fit the profile of the Westminster bridge attacker, who waited for 11 or 12 months before something mobilised him into murdering two young people. We have to apply a very individualised, very assertive and challenging approach.
You talked about incentives and so on earlier with Mark Fairhurst. I think that might be looking at it in slightly the wrong way. I have a bit of a problem with the philosophical and organisational fitness of the Prison Service, the probation service and the Parole Board to manage these particular offenders. They are ideologically inspired offenders. We must insist they adopt civilised values, not look at it as a thing that needs to be rewarded. That is very difficult. I am not suggesting it is simple.
Just to avoid any misunderstanding, in my specification for separation centres, I specifically designed a regime—and suggested this to the Prison Service—that was not punitive and which was, as I have described it, a humanised approach. We cannot talk to dead terrorists; we can talk to live ones. We can find out an enormous amount. We can influence them an enormous amount with the right skills and the right staffing to be able to have a good sense of how dangerous they are and influence them towards disengagement, or desistance if disengagement is not possible.
The Chair
I suspect that your evidence is extremely useful to the Committee, but I have to ask for slightly shorter answers, please.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Professor Acheson: The amount of skill and training required to staff separation units—we know that only one out of three is running at the minute—is significant. If you are putting our frontline prisoner-facing staff, who will have the most influence and impact on individual terrorist offenders, in that sort of environment, it will take a huge amount of training, not only in the skill to deal with those prisoners, but in psychological resilience and so on. We know what seems to work in relation to violent extremism across Europe: it is the development of long-term, high-quality relationships, which are pro-social and expand far beyond the prison gates. That is very expensive, and it takes a lot of support to put that in place and to maintain it.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Professor Acheson: This is not a very auspicious time to talk about the Parole Board, but it is very good at managing ordinary offenders, and statistics would bear that out. I have said this earlier, and I do not want to repeat myself, but I do not believe the Parole Board is philosophically or organisationally the best suited to managing that risk. It is very good at managing ordinary offenders, but we have a new cohort coming through of profoundly different, ideologically motivated offenders, either through Islamism or through extreme right-wing philosophies, and we probably need a different, multi-agency approach to managing that risk all the way through the system.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Professor Acheson: I agree that the potential is greater, but I think sometimes we confuse vulnerability with dangerousness, and we use that in relation to young people and women. We have some very dangerous extremist offenders in either camp—very few of them, but we do have a small number—and we must not conflate the two.
In general terms, and I speak as somebody who worked for the Youth Justice Board, we need, where we can, to ensure that the disposals that are at the judge’s discretion, including detention and training orders and some non-custodial interventions, are still considered heavily before penalising people who, as you have said, may be just immature.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Professor Acheson: The circle of trust and accountability is a system devised by Mennonites, I think, in Canada, where one of their community had been convicted of a high-profile sex offence and was returning to the community. That group of people said, “How can we welcome this person back into our community”—because that was the Christian ethos—“but also keep our kids safe?” They devised a system where there was community involvement in a circle around the individual, which managed to help him to reintegrate properly but protected the community as well.
I am very keen on that idea being replicated for terrorist offenders after release in the community, as a parallel to the state’s responsibility to keep people safe. In other words, there could be a community response like that one, where we are getting members of the community involved in protecting national security. We miss a trick in this country—research backs this up—in that we do not, particularly in relation to Muslim communities, enlist ordinary members of the community who have some standing and some credibility in supporting the reintegration of terrorist offenders.
Those offenders will suffer many of the same challenges that sex offenders do: shame, difficulty in finding somewhere to live and difficulty in finding something to do. All those things would point towards further offending and delay disengagement, so I am very keen on the concept being looked at in relation to released terrorist offenders here.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Professor Acheson: I think we probably are. We are outriders in that respect in relation to the rest of Europe, which does heavily involve non-governmental organisations and community groups, for example, in reintegration. We have seen that in the Molenbeek suburb in Belgium, which is responsible for producing quite a number of jihadis, where the community has been involved and works in partnership with, although separate from, the statutory bodies whose first priority is safety and security. That is a necessary but insufficient way of dealing with the problem.
Kenny MacAskill
Q
Professor Acheson: I am not sure which would work better. I am certainly on record as saying that I support the Government in much longer sentences for terrorist offenders, primarily because it is a unique opportunity to incapacitate an ideologically motivated offender and bring services around that individual. Those services need to be extended through the gate and into the community.
We need to focus on this as a national security issue that we need to deal with in a different way, so lifelong restriction may have its merits. The key thing is that we make sure that support and control exist around offenders who are being released and who may go back into extremist offending, so that in whatever way we apply restrictions on their liberty—including TPIMS, for example—we do it in a proportionate way. There is absolutely an argument that punitive measures increase alienation. I think that might be a trade-off, in some respects, for people with whom we may never be satisfied that they are safe to release. We have to embrace the idea that there will be a few offenders who must be kept in prison indefinitely, because they either cannot or will not recant a hateful ideology, and they have the means to mobilise that into violence in the community.
Kenny MacAskill
Q
Professor Acheson: I must say I am not a great fan of the polygraph solution. Polygraphs are a very good way to demonstrate a physiological response to nervousness. Most people who take polygraphs are going to be nervous, so it is a very inexact science. I think it is probably slightly better than tossing a coin.
I am much more interested in using technology—wearable technology, in particular—with released terrorist offenders that will give us biodata and geographical data to allow us to spot when somebody is starting to re-engage in terrorist offending in all sorts of ways. It would create a geo-fence that restricts their movements and give real-time information on how that person is. I am not at all suggesting that technology is not useful here. I think we need to have much more investment in that.
The particular issue that I have seen—it has been talked about before—is the issue of disguised compliance, or lying, in layman’s terms. I am very happy to tell the Committee that Staffordshire University hopes to start a piece of research on disguised compliance led by me and Professor James Treadwell. It is mostly in the realm of social work in relation to domestic violence, but we want to see if there are ways to avoid a situation in which somebody like Usman Khan goes through an apparently successful deradicalization programme without apparently recanting any of his extremist principles, which are then put into murderous effect. I think this is a very under-explored area. It touches on polygraphs, but it is much broader than that. It is about how we skill up the people who are making the decisions on questions such as, “Can I trust you? Is your change authentic and credible, or are you trying to pull the wool over our eyes?”
We cannot have a perfect system. A perfect system would destroy our civil liberties, because we would keep terrorist prisoners in jail indefinitely and achieve the very effect that terrorists hope for in creating massive disruption in a liberal democracy. However, I think that we can do a lot more in relation to skilling up people to make decisions about whether and when somebody is safe to release, and under what conditions, and for how long they can be supervised.
Rob Butler
Q
Professor Acheson: Yes, for the reasons that I have just mentioned. I think that our position in January, where people who were so dangerous that they had to be man-marked by armed police officers had to be released from custody, was absolutely intolerable. We need to be focused on public protection. In relation to terrorist offenders, the Prison Service needs a bit of a change of mindset. There is too much of a reclamation and rehabilitation focus. I am not saying that that is not important, but I am saying that in relation to these prisoners, there has to be a primary public protection focus and a primary national security focus. That is not to say that the regimes in which terrorist prisoners are kept should not be as full and as varied as possible, so that people do not become alienated and further full of grievance.
Rob Butler
Q
Professor Acheson: This speaks to my earlier point about making sure that experts—forensic psychologists and psychiatrists—are specially chosen and trained to produce a baseline threat assessment, after conviction but before sentencing, to allow a judge to make a more informed decision on sentencing length, duration and so on, and to establish the basis against which that person’s progress can be managed and measured through custody.
Again, I think it is exceptionally important—the Government did not accept this, but I will reiterate it, and recent events have thrown it into the light—that we should have one dedicated multi-agency specialist unit that manages terrorist offenders from their conviction until they are deemed no to longer be suitable for supervision in the community. It is the most sensible way to manage this. We have far too many hand-offs in the system at the moment.
We have this morning’s report into Joseph McCann, a manipulative psychopath who managed to disguise his dangerousness because of failures in the probation system— because of under-trained staff who were over-stressed and insufficiently curious. All those things will apply to terrorist offenders as well. Having a dedicated unit that understands in great detail the individual’s biography, their background and the antecedents, and that could help to establish a programme of treatment or intervention that is individualised to that person, seems to me to make sense in managing the risk.
Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab)
Q
“the usual well-heeled, left-wheeled liberal rights activists”.
Neither the Chairman nor I could ever be accused of being one of those, and I do not oppose the Bill and the measures in it per se. However, as you have identified, it is important that the Bill receives scrutiny.
I was struck by something that you said about the Government’s approach to the Bill, which was that it was “populist”. Do you think that is at the expense of longer-term strategic thinking that could be contained in the Bill, particularly around things such as the Prevent strategy? The Bill removes the statutory deadline for reviewing that strategy. I suppose what am I asking is this: are the measures in the Bill serious and strategic and will they make a difference, or are they in keeping with a populist approach to these issues, as you have alluded to?
Professor Acheson: I was being quite flippant in that article, as you have to be if you write for The Spectator. The serious point is that there is no risk-free way to deal with this very dangerous, challenging topic; every way has risk. My small expert team and I sat and looked at separation units, and we argued for weeks about which was better: separation or dispersal of highly subversive, proselytising Islamist extremists. The focus was Islamism. In the end, we came to the view that separation centres would work as the least worst way of managing this phenomenon. The reason I mention this is that we are in a period of continuous evolution, and the law will need to be able to react to that.
They are not distinct, but we have an al-Qaeda generation of terrorists, from 2005 onwards, who are serving time—sometimes extremely long sentences—for organised plots, and we have an IS generation of much more oppositional terrorists, including lots of lone actors who have come along behind. Even looking at Islamist extremism as a group is very difficult. The answer to your question is that we have a good baseline for extending the amount of time that terrorists will serve in prison. We had an intolerable situation before, when it was quite clear that the system of supervision and the sentencing framework were broken; they let people such as Sudesh Amman out of custody. But we have to look at the quality as well as the quantity of what happens. The only way to do that is relentlessly to research what works.
Sometimes I am told by people, “There’s no evidence for what you’re saying.” I sometimes react to that by thinking, “That’s a kind of code for inertia, organisationally, or for timidity.” Sometimes we have to make the evidence. The point is that we have to take some risks. I am not sure whether separation centres will work or will continue to work. Mark Fairhurst eloquently made the point that there is a great deal of reluctance in the Prison Service to use them. There is some organisational resistance to the concept, and it is not simply about not being able to find the right people. A bureaucratic structure was built around selection for separation centres, which has made it all but impossible, frankly, for anybody to get in them.
Regarding separation centres and how the legislation needs to evolve, we need to make sure, as Mark has said, that there is sufficient capability for the extreme right-wing offenders who represent the biggest threat to be removed and completely incapacitated, breaking the psychological link between the “preacher” and his adherent. We will need to be continually alert and continually changing and challenging legislation in order to arrive at the best way of managing the evolving risk.
Conor McGinn
Q
Professor Acheson: I think there is a danger that we keep doing a Heath Robinson-type response. My critics will say, “Hold on, Ian, the Parole Board has specialist judges who sit on panels that consider terrorist offenders.” My response is: so what? Are they any better than the frontline prison officer who has been with an individual for four years, the psychiatrist who has been attached to that person’s journey, a forensic psychologist, the Security Service or the police? That is why I keep arguing that we need a completely separate way, philosophically and organisationally, of managing the risk. I am disappointed that that is not in the Bill, and that we are talking instead about skilling people up and giving them more training. I worry a little that that will continue to be exploited, given the number of hand-offs in the system.
Miss Dines
Q
Professor Acheson: You are quite right to call me out. I do not discount polygraphs entirely. I think they are perhaps a useful part of a more holistic approach to managing risk, but they are certainly no silver bullet. Again, we need highly skilled people who have been on a journey with these offenders, who understand them intimately, and who have been able to design interventions that speak to their plethora of needs, which I described earlier and are dealt with in a very individualised way. That is the way to crack this nut.
The Chair
I am really sorry. This is a very interesting session, but I have no choice but to cut it off at 10.25. Thank you very much for your evidence. Apologies to Members, but I have to do this.
Examination of Witness
Andrew Silke gave evidence.
The Chair
Good morning, Professor Silke. Will you introduce yourself and your organisation, please?
Professor Silke: I am Professor Andrew Silke, professor of terrorism, risk and resilience at Cranfield University.
Chris Philp
Q
Professor Silke: That is a crucial question. Probably one of the starting points—this has been touched on by some of the others who gave evidence—is how the UK sits in terms of the international approach to dealing with terrorism among violent extremist offenders. Overall, you would probably argue that the UK’s approach is seen as one of the better available approaches and enjoys what is seen internationally as a good success rate. I know that that is difficult to consider in the context of the attacks that took place in Streatham and London Bridge, but overall the UK’s system for dealing with terrorist prisoners is seen as one of the more effective ones available internationally.
Chris Philp
Q
Professor Silke: The approach has transformed a lot in the past 10 years. There has been a variety of ways in which it has changed. I am particularly looking at the approach in England and Wales here. First is the development of specialised risk assessment tools and frameworks for dealing with terrorist prisoners. There was recognition in the 2000s that the existing risk assessment tools did not work well with terrorist prisoners and that they needed something that was more specialised to more reliably assess risk with them. This led to the development of the extremism risk guidance 22+—the ERG—which is a bespoke risk assessment tool now used in England and Wales. In my view it has genuinely enhanced and transformed risk assessment for these prisoners, making it much more viable compared with what it had been prior to the introduction of this programme.
Tied into the development of the ERG has been the development of a number of interventions. The healthy identity intervention has already been mentioned, and desistance and disengagement has been flagged as well. The healthy identity intervention draws on the ERG, so the two of them are linked to some degree. HII has come in for criticism, but it is actually a much better intervention than perhaps it gets credit for. It tackles a lot of the issues that we are concerned about in terms of offender radicalisation. I have had the opportunity of being able to interview prisoners before and after they have gone on this programme, and certainly in many cases I have seen a transformational change in prisoners.
The other factor—this has also been raised in other testimony before the Committee—relates to post-release behaviour by prisoners. We have an extremely low reoffending rate for terrorist prisoners in the UK, which we should not dismiss out of hand. If we could get similarly low levels of reoffending for other types of offenders, we would be extremely happy.
Failures with interventions—such as a prisoner taking an intervention, being released and then reoffending—does not mean that the intervention itself is useless or ineffective in the majority of cases for people who use it. We should reflect that all the interventions used in the prison system, for a whole range of offences, have their failures. This does not mean that we should stop using them or abandon them or view them as unhelpful in the majority of cases.
Chris Philp
Q
Professor Silke: It is a complicated question. In general, I agree with Mark Fairhurst’s point that the potential for early release is an important incentive for behaviour in custody. If we lose the potential for early release, we are losing a tool from the toolbox, and we need to question whether that is sensible, or whether there are advantages in keeping it in some shape or form.
Does false compliance happen? Yes, it certainly does, but if we look at reoffending stats, compliance seems to be genuine in most cases. Nobody has a 100% effective intervention for dealing with these types of prisoner or any other type of prisoner, so we should never expect an intervention to be 100% accurate. However, the stats suggest that what is happening in prison with most terrorist prisoners is currently effective, and so if we are making changes to the regime and to the interventions, we need to have a careful think about what the knock-on consequences might be.
Personally, I prefer still to have the potential for early release at some stage as a tool in the toolbox for these serious offenders. I think it can make a difference in some cases. From my perspective, the Parole Board usually brings a serious and considered assessment of the available evidence in a particular case, which is often very welcome. Again, by removing that from the equation, are we losing something that has value?
Alex Cunningham
Q
Professor Silke: The problems are relatively new. My view is that they work far better than most members of the general public want to think. Again, the proof is in the very low reconviction rates that we see after people have been released. If it is working in the vast majority of cases, that is an encouraging sign. If there are failures, we need to look into that. One thing that the Bill does not do in its current format is try to identify what is different about the failures compared with the rest of the prisoners who are being released—what went wrong in their cases compared to the others? I am not sure that we are getting at that at the moment.
The evidence base around both risk assessment and interventions for terrorist prisoners is in development. It is massively better today than 10 years ago, and I think it will continue to improve. I know that the Ministry of Justice is involved in a range of programmes to improve the evidence base around ERG and healthy identity intervention, which I strongly welcome. Many Governments are involved in similar efforts overseas.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Professor Silke: That is a very good point. There are differences between very young offenders and the older, more established offenders, and I am not sure that that necessarily comes across strongly in the Bill. That is probably an area where our understanding is more limited than it should be. It needs more attention and research.
Alex Cunningham
Q
Professor Silke: One of the things we will need to do is refine it, in terms both of risk assessment and intervention, to tailor it more for younger offenders. At the moment, there is a question mark over whether what is currently available has young offenders firmly enough in its sights.
Kenny MacAskill
Q
Professor Silke: Honestly, I do not know enough about how it works to make an informed assessment of it. I am always cagey about anything indeterminate, which might imply indefinite detention. The advantage of having a fixed term, rather than something quite open-ended, is that at least you know exactly what you have to work with.
Kenny MacAskill
Q
Professor Silke: Polygraph testing is controversial—I think you have already had evidence on that—because it is not 100% accurate; there are errors in it. However, as I have already flagged, just because something is not 100% accurate, that does not mean that we should not use it.
Polygraph testing has a potential role to play in these cases. As an extra link in risk assessment and risk management, it could play a useful role. There has already been a commitment not to recall prisoners purely on the basis of a poor polygraph result. There would need to be additional information in order to justify that, and I think that is entirely sensible. There are potential benefits to using polygraphs within an enhanced framework, recognising that they do have their limits. I support the calls that are being made, if polygraphs are being introduced, for running a pilot programme first before implementing them across the estate.
Miss Dines
Q
Professor Silke: Yes, it is certainly more used in America than elsewhere. I am not intrinsically opposed to the use of the polygraph in these cases. I think there is a potential role that it can play. Obviously, it will need resourcing and appropriately trained and qualified people to run it. As I said, it can add an extra element to the risk assessment and risk management process, which can be useful.
Rob Butler
Q
Professor Silke: It stands even lower than 10%. For England and Wales, it is down to 3%. Really, when we talk about very low levels of reoffending for released terrorist prisoners, it is incredibly low. The vast majority of released terrorist prisoners will not re-engage in terrorism and will not be convicted for any future terrorist offences.
Rob Butler
Q
Professor Silke: The point there is that if we are going to be concerned about the potential risk of reoffending for any prisoner, we would then end up in a scenario where we release no prisoners. Risk for any prisoner being released for any type of offence is never zero.
Rob Butler
Q
Professor Silke: Sentences for terrorism can be long and, again, I am not opposed to that at all. One of the challenges we have is that we are imposing blanket long sentences across the board, when we know that the high-risk prisoners are a tiny minority of that group. One of the concerns I have with the Bill is that it does not distinguish; it is across the board. It would be nice if we could be more targeted and focused in terms of how we are identifying and managing the high-risk terrorist prisoners, as opposed to the entire group.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
Q
Professor Silke: Far-right and Islamist-inspired terrorism remain the two dominant threats in England and Wales, but many will be aware that the most active group in the UK continues to be dissident republican terrorists in Northern Ireland. Looking ahead, what are we likely to see? That will tie into a whole range of different factors. One of the concerns many people have is what are the implications of dealing with the pandemic for terrorism trends going forward. There are concerns about increased radicalisation in certain quarters, but also pressures on criminal justice and other agencies in terms of budgets going forward and what potential impact that might have over the next four to five years.
The Chair
We have time for maybe one or two more questions, if anybody would like to ask one.
Ruth Cadbury
Q
Professor Silke: I am not a fan of TPIM. The main saving grace of the approach has been that they have been used sparingly, and that has been consistently the case from control orders onwards. That probably is their main saving grace: they are only used in a handful of cases. The problem is that it is punishment without conviction, which is always problematic in a system of justice such as the one we have. The changes proposed are similar to some that have existed in the past. I would encourage the Government in general to look at alternatives to TPIM. If we are in a case where we are talking about five or six individuals who are under those measures, are there not alternative arrangements that could be used to monitor or otherwise manage the risk associated with those individuals, apart from a TPIM approach?
The Chair
If there are no more questions, Professor Silke, thank you very much for your evidence. It has been very useful.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. (Tom Pursglove.)
Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill (Fourth sitting)
Tuesday 30th June 2020
(4 years, 3 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill 2019-21 View all Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill 2019-21 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 30 June 2020 - (30 Jun 2020)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 6 / Noes: 8 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Chair
Members should feel free to take their jackets off if they are so inclined. We now begin line-by-line consideration of the Bill. The selection list for today’s sitting is available on the table. It is helpful to proceedings if hon. Members who want to push an amendment, other than the lead amendment in a group, to a vote could indicate that to me in advance. If they could supply your speaking notes to the Hansard reporters, I think they would be most grateful.
Clause 1
Offences aggravated by terrorist connection
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 35, in clause 1, page 1, line 8, at end insert—
“(ab) In subsection (3), after ‘if’ insert ‘the court has found beyond reasonable doubt that’”.
This amendment determines that a court must decide beyond reasonable doubt that an offence has a terrorist connection.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship yet again, Mr McCabe. Hansard should have our notes, as we have already forwarded them.
We support the Bill but, as hon. Members can see, we have identified some ways in which we believe it could be made better. We will get into the details of that over the coming weeks. Terror attacks have shaken this country: people have lost their lives; people have lost their livelihoods; loved ones have been lost; people have suffered life-changing injuries. Nothing we do or say in this House can bring back those people who have died or heal those people who have been so badly injured, but we can try to ensure that justice has been achieved.
In his speech on Second Reading, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) talked specifically about some of the terror incidents that we have seen in this country and the conclusions we can draw from them. Two possible conclusions were that prison sentences are not long enough and that deradicalisation programmes in prison are not working.
That is why Labour seek to work with the Government on this Bill, starting with amendment 35. We hope to make the case for why we believe there are some amendments that would improve the Bill. Ensuring that Government legislation does not discriminate unfairly against protected characteristics is a key part of what we will try to achieve throughout the process.
Terrorism is often conflated with Islamic extremism, yet the fastest-growing terrorist threat comes from the far right. We want to ensure that the legislation is fair and proportionate. It must go hand in hand with a coherent deradicalisation strategy alongside the Bill, working to minimise the risks of an offender committing further terrorism offences once they leave prison.
Many of the amendments that we will ask the Committee to consider are simply probing amendments to better understand the Government’s thinking, and to give the Minister more time to think about the different issues as we progress through this stage of the Bill. However, there are other amendments that we believe the Government should adopt, if the Bill is to achieve what it sets out to do and be seen to be fair. We will go further into the detail, but I hope we can have healthy and robust debate about how to move forward, and prove to the public out there that politicians from different parties can work together.
Amendment 35 determines that a court must decide “beyond reasonable doubt” that an offence has a terrorist connection. The purpose of this probing amendment is simply to clarify that the finding of a terrorist connection for the new offences that the Bill brings into scope will be subject to the same “criminal standard of proof” as is currently the case, and would effectively amend section 69(3) of the sentencing code, covering offences aggravated by terrorist connections.
We believe we should spell out in the Bill the need to ensure that there can be no reasonable doubt about the connection, because it can have serious ramifications for the offender and the legal system. The House of Commons Library briefing on the Bill states, under the provisions in clause 1:
“If the court determines that there was a terrorist connection, it must treat that as an aggravating factor when sentencing the offender. The presence of an aggravating factor may result in a higher sentence (within the statutory maximum) than would otherwise be the case.”
The Library briefing paper goes on to say:
“The finding of a terrorist connection can also trigger terrorist offender notification requirements and may result in the court ordering forfeiture in a wider range of cases.”
The briefing goes on:
“Such a finding also engages the restrictions on release contained”
in the Terrorist Offenders (Restriction of Early Release) Act 2020, which
“requires that all determinate terrorist or terrorism-related offenders must be referred to the Parole Board at the two thirds point of their sentence before they can be considered for release.”
The Bill’s equality statement acknowledges that
“Asian/British Asian and Muslim individuals within the Criminal Justice System (CJS) have been disproportionately affected by terrorism legislation relative to the percentage of Asian/British Asian and Muslim individuals in the total population.”
The equality statement goes on to the say that the provisions in the Bill are
“unlikely to result in indirect discrimination within the meaning of the Equality Act”.
However, the Lammy review highlighted evidence of disproportionate outcomes for BAME individuals at the sentencing stage and in decision making by judges and magistrates.
While the review found decision making by juries to be largely fair and proportionate, the same was not found when considering decision making by sentencers. That is relevant to the clause, given that the finding of a terrorist connection is at the discretion of the judge, taking account of any representations made by the prosecution or the defence. That is concerning, given the findings of the Lammy review, which are currently being discussed on the Floor of the House. We believe that BAME individuals may be at increased risk of discrimination, with their crime considered to have a terrorist connection.
Amendment 35 would amend section 69(3) of the sentencing code to require that the court must find “beyond reasonable doubt” that an offence has a terrorist connection. The House of Commons Library briefing paper, which colleagues will have read, says that clause 1 would
“greatly increase the number of non-terrorist offences that can be found to have a terrorist connection”,
whereas currently only specified offences can be found to have such a connection. The widening of what can be found to have a terrorist connection will, I fear, disproportionately affect ethnic minorities. That is why we must press the Minister on how he will guarantee decisions are made on the measure of “beyond reasonable doubt”.
There is also the question of what case law is used to guide sentencers as to what constitutes terrorism, as well as what constitutes a connection to it. Some of the commentators on the Bill are not entirely convinced about what the Government are trying to achieve. I can understand that, as there are already a lot of specific terrorism offences.
Unamended, the Bill seems to create the potential for sentencers to grow their own definitions, both of “terrorism” and “connection”. Can the Minister give examples of where the absence of the provision addressed in clause 1 has resulted in an injustice or an insufficient response? There are concerns that the provision could do more damage than anything else. A wrongfully determined terrorist connection could fuel or develop a grievance against the authorities that might not have existed before. We cannot ignore the impact a wrongful terrorism sentence would have on an individual’s life. We cannot take that sort of chance. We must be sure; we must be beyond reasonable doubt.
Taiwo Owatemi (Coventry North West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I share the concern expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North in relation to the burden of proof and the potential implications of the Bill in disproportionately convicting ethnic minorities by widening the scope of what a terrorist connection is under this legislation.
This is a sensitive subject. Terrorism and the actions of extremists have instilled fear, caution and a sense of doubt in many communities across our country. An act of terror and of any extremist is abhorrent. Those individuals should indeed be brought before a court of law and tried for their crimes, not least because of their direct action causing injury, committing murder or traumatising those who come anywhere near their path and because of the wider implications that will be felt across the country and the world in our age of quick-fire communications and social media.
In my generation, I have seen this in how the Oklahoma bombing instilled fear; in how 9/11 changed the world; and in how 7/7 changed my perspective and that it could happen here at home. The murder of Lee Rigby proved that even those who protect us are not always safe. The slain nine churchgoers at Emmanuel African Methodist Church and the Manchester concert bombings showed that no one, even those in the most innocent of settings, is off limits. The hateful act of violence that took Jo Cox proved that our own political discourse has taken an awful turn.
These acts by rampant extremists and the murderous death toll that they leave behind, the radical ideas that brought them to this path and the many plots that have been foiled that we will never know about show us that these crime, or crimes yet to be committed, are heinous. They also prove that we must determine, as this amendment seeks to do, that these crimes or plots are not small and should be taken with the utmost seriousness.
I have three concerns about widening the terrorist connection provision under this legislation and lowering the burden of proof. First, we are leaving it to sentencers to determine their own definition of what constitutes a terrorist connection. Secondly, it creates a form of suction like a vacuum that will imprison even more ethnic minorities and put them behind bars under terrorist legislation which will see them lose their freedom longer than they need to. Thirdly, and even worse, it potentially radicalises them while they are in prison.
There is a danger, as seen in clause 1, that by allowing any offence to be capable of having a terrorist connection, one’s judgement will inevitably come into play. This punishment carries a sentence of two or more years. It would not be amiss to say that everyone holds biases, including those who administer our laws and hand down sentences. By widening the scope and effectively leaving it open to interpretation, the Government want us to believe that we will capture individuals who may have slipped through the net thus far as ordinary criminals or should have been convicted of terrorism. Can the Minister point us to data that back this assumption? The likelihood is that we will just imprison people for the sake of being seen to be attacking the issues of terrorism and extremism.
We are already aware that ethnic minorities are disproportionately sent to prison under our legal system. We are also acutely aware that black and Asian men, particularly those of Islamic faith, are more likely to be seen as threats and harbouring extremist views. The Lammy review conducted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham highlighted some concerns about how our criminal justice system sees these individuals. The odds of receiving a prison system were around 240% higher for black, Asian and minority ethnic offenders compared with white offenders. Research commissioned by the review also found that at the magistrates court, black, Asian, mixed and Chinese women were all more likely to be convicted than white women.
The number of Muslim prisoners has more than doubled over the past 17 years. In 2002, 5,502 Muslims were in prison. By 2019, this had risen to 13,341. While in prison, Muslim prisoners described having their faith viewed by prison authorities through a lens of risk, according to the research, which also found that prisoners believed that this put them at greater threat of being radicalised. Given the biases in the system and the extraordinary likelihood of women from ethnic minorities receiving a prison sentence, what do the Government think this legislation will mean for ethnic minorities? Do they really think that lowering the burden of proof and expanding the scope of what constitutes a terrorism offence will do anything to keep these young men and women away from the hands of those who wish to radicalise them?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Philp)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe, in our line-by-line consideration of the Bill. I thank the shadow Minister for his opening remarks, in which he expressed general support for the objectives of the Bill. I hope that we can, as he said, provide an example of constructive cross-party working, although I am sure he will have many questions about the detail. As the shadow Minister has said, and as the hon. Member for Coventry North West said in her speech, the threat that terrorism poses is a serious one, and one of our heaviest responsibilities as Members of Parliament is to protect our fellow citizens from such attacks, but in a way that is lawful, fair and just.
Amendment 35 seeks to specify a beyond-reasonable-doubt standard of proof in making the terrorist connection, as clause 1 does. I am happy to confirm for the shadow Minister that existing criminal court procedure already requires the criminal standard of proof to be met in making a determination of a terrorist connection, or indeed any finding of fact in relation to sentencing. If, after conviction by a jury, there is a finding of fact to be made by the judge prior to sentencing in what is known as a “Newton” hearing, under existing procedures the criminal standard of proof is applied. On the request that the shadow Minister and his colleagues make, I am happy to confirm that it is already inherent in the operation of our criminal justice system, and rightly so, for all the reasons that the shadow Minister and the hon. Member for Coventry North West have outlined. I trust that on the basis of that assurance they will see fit not to press the amendment, given that the provision they call for is already enshrined in law.
One further point: both the shadow Minister and the hon. Member for Coventry North West raised the question of what happens if the judge makes an error or exhibits some form of conscious or unconscious bias. That is extremely rare, but, if it did happen, there are of course appeal rights against both the sentence and any erroneous finding of fact associated with it. If a defendant or, by this point, an offender who has been convicted feels that the sentence is genuinely unfair or that an unfair determination has been made of a terrorist connection, they can appeal, so a safety mechanism by way of appeal also exists. I hope that on that basis the shadow Minister will not press the amendment to a vote.
Alex Cunningham
I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation. He believes that the matters are already covered in existing law, but perhaps he will accept that later in the Bill we will be discussing how we make sure that what has happened over a period of time has in fact demonstrated that the judges have got it right. In other words, we will revisit this matter with a view to seeking a form of review of how the legislation is working to ensure that we do not have the particular problems that might well be possible. I am also grateful to him for reminding us that in criminal proceedings we still have an appeal process in this country, and I am sure that that would operate appropriately. On the basis of what the Minister has said and on the basis that we will seek reassurance through a review process later in the Bill, I am content to beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Alex Cunningham
I beg to move amendment 36, in clause 1, page 3, line 30, at end insert—
‘(8) Before this section comes into force, the Secretary of State must commission an analysis of the impact of this section on people with protected characteristics, including but not limited to—
(a) the impact on people from minority faith groups, including the numbers received into prison and the length of the sentence served;
(b) the impact on people from BAME communities, including the numbers received into prison and the length of the sentence served; and
(c) the consequences of any disproportionate impact on people with protected characteristics on efforts by the prison authorities to rehabilitate prisoners convicted of terrorism offences.
(9) A copy of the analysis must be laid before both Houses of Parliament.”
This amendment requires the Secretary of State to commission an analysis of the equality impact of extending the ability of the court to identify a terrorism connection.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 42, in clause 21, page 18, line 23, at end insert—
‘(3) Before this section comes into force, the Secretary of State must conduct an analysis of the impact of this section on people with protected characteristics, including but not limited to—
(a) the impact on people from minority faith groups, including the numbers received into prison and the length of the sentence served;
(b) the impact on people from BAME communities, including the numbers received into prison and the length of the sentence served; and
(c) the consequences of any disproportionate impact on people with protected characteristics on efforts by the prison authorities to rehabilitate prisoners convicted of terrorism offences.
(4) A copy of the analysis must be laid before both Houses of Parliament.”
This amendment requires the Secretary of State to commission an analysis of the impact of extending sentences for offenders of particular concern on people with protected characteristics.
Alex Cunningham
These amendments would require the Secretary of State to commission an analysis of the impact of this section of the Bill before it comes into force on people with protected characteristics, as well as the consequences of any disproportionate impact on efforts by the prison authorities to rehabilitate prisoners convicted of terrorism offences. With this amendment, we seek to address the issue that was highlighted by the probing amendment and to clarify whether the same criminal standard of proof would apply to determining a terrorist connection for all offences, as is currently the case for listed offences. In particular, we seek to determine whether the clause may have a disproportionate impact on people from minority faith and BAME communities, including on the numbers who are received into prison and the length of the sentence served.
There are significant risks involved in expanding the number of individuals who fall under the provisions of separate terrorism legislation, particularly if the imposition of additional sanctions is seen as neither fair nor proportionate and is found to have a disproportionate impact on minority faith and BAME communities in particular. As I said during my speech on amendment 35, the equality statement on the Bill acknowledges that
“Asian/British Asian and Muslim individuals within the Criminal Justice System (CJS) have been disproportionately affected by terrorism legislation relative to the total percentage”
of those individuals “in the total population.”
In 2016, a Ministry of Justice study of Crown court decision making found that, under similar criminal circumstances, the odds of imprisonment for offenders from self-reported black, Asian, Chinese or other minority ethnic backgrounds were higher than for offenders from self-reported white backgrounds. My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West spelled that out in some detail.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
I do not know whether my hon. Friend was in the Chamber to hear the urgent question asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham about the Lammy review, but he pointed out that, when the review was done in 2017, the proportion of BAME people in prison was 41%; it is now 51%. Does my hon. Friend have any thoughts about that?
Alex Cunningham
Unfortunately, I was not in the Chamber for that statement, but I bow to the superior knowledge of my boss and my Whip on this matter. It is absolutely essential that we never lose sight of the facts that my hon. Friend has just outlined.
Unfortunately, when it comes to magistrates courts, systematic scrutiny of magistrates’ decisions is hindered by the absence of reliable data collected on a number of key issues. For example, magistrates courts keep no systematic information about whether defendants plead guilty or not guilty, although there are similar disparities at the Crown court level. Magistrates courts also do not keep proper records of defendants’ legal representation, which means that no one knows whether particular ethnic groups are more or less likely to appear in court facing criminal charges without a lawyer.
The cliché suggests we are all equal under the law, but it would be foolish to deny that our justice system has a certain bias. We must make sure that when we amend or introduce legislation, we do so with our eyes and ears open. Particular attention needs to be paid to the equality impact of the Bill, to ensure that the House is as informed as possible about its impact. We must also ensure that the provisions do not have a disproportionate effect on minority faith or racial groups.
During the oral evidence session, one of my questions was to Peter Dawson from the Prison Reform Trust. We talked about the expansion of sentences for offenders of particular concern and how they would work. Peter Dawson said in written evidence:
“The expansion of SOPCs and the expansion of the number of offences able to be identified as having a ‘terrorist connection’ will need careful monitoring for their impact on prison security and on people from minority faith and ethnic communities”.
I asked:
“How can we improve the Bill to achieve that careful monitoring?”
Mr Dawson replied:
“It may not be something that the Bill can achieve, but I think it is reasonable to ask the Government, after the Bill becomes law, to provide a report on what the impact has been. I entirely take the point that the nature of terrorism at the moment means that certain communities are likely to be more heavily represented, but the point is that all criminal justice agencies need to go beyond that to guard against the unconscious bias that will otherwise creep in.”––[Official Report, Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Public Bill Committee, 25 June 2020; c. 38, Q88.]
Other witnesses talked about similar things during the evidence sessions. It is important that we do not lose sight of that.
Along with the expansion of sentences for offenders of particular concern, the clause has the potential to increase significantly the number of individuals in prison who are subject to separate terrorist sentencing. Many of those individuals are vulnerable to radicalisation and they have experienced a steady accumulation of institutional discrimination.
The danger with these provisions is that they could create a significant population of individuals in prison and under supervision in the community who will receive longer sentences and be subject to more onerous and lengthy supervision requirements and forfeiture orders than others who may have received shorter sentences for equivalent offences because the terrorist connection to their offence has not been identified.
That could place those individuals at greater risk from people who would seek to exploit that sense of grievance, in order to radicalise them in support of an extremist ideology. It could also undermine the effective management and supervision of this group in prison, increasing the currently small number of people designated as terrorism offenders to a substantial proportion of the population. This morning, we heard from a representative of the Prison Officers Association, who talked in some detail about the difficulties that prison officers now face in trying to manage particular groups in the prison establishment.
It is right that we commission analysis of the impact of our legislation and if such an analysis proves that there is a disproportionate impact on certain groups, Ministers need to act to correct any discrimination and, if required, change the law. Amendment 42 would require the Secretary of State to commission analysis of the impact of extending sentences for offenders, which is a particular concern regarding people with protected characteristics, and for that analysis to be laid before Parliament before the section comes into force.
Clause 21 replaces schedule 13 of the sentencing code, with the schedule set out in schedule 6 to the Bill. That schedule lists offences that require the imposition of an SOPC where an extended sentence or life sentence is not imposed. This will bring a wider number of offences into the SOPC regime, removing the possibility of those committing such offences from being eligible for a standard determinate sentence. That would mean that only the most minor terrorism offences—those with a maximum sentence of two years or less—would not require an SOPC where an extended determinate sentence is not imposed.
The Bill will also create new sentences—the equivalent of an SOPC for adult offenders in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and for under-18s throughout the UK. Clause 21 addresses a problem created by the TORER Act, which made all terrorist offenders serving a custodial sentence eligible for release two thirds of the way through their sentence, subject to the discretion of the Parole Board. There remained an issue with offenders who were not granted a release until the end of their sentence, and who, as a result, would be released into the community without any form of supervision. The amendment would address this anomaly by requiring that terrorist offenders in the UK would have a minimum period of supervision on licence of 12 months following release, even if they serve the full custodial part of their sentence in custody.
The combined impact of the TORER Act and the provisions of this clause, along with the provisions of clause 1 that allow for the court to determine a terrorist connection for any offence, is to significantly increase the number of individuals subject to separate and more onerous terrorist-sentencing legislation. This includes a longer period in custody, release subject to the discretion of the Parole Board, and a minimum 12 months’ supervision in the community.
There are significant risks involved in increasing the number of individuals who fall under the provisions of a harsher sentencing regime, particularly if the imposition of additional sanctions is seen as being neither fair nor proportionate, and is found, as I have said, to have a disproportionate impact on minority, faith, and BAME communities in particular.
The amendment also seeks to determine the consequences of any disproportionate impact on people with protected characteristics of efforts by the prison authorities to rehabilitate offenders convicted of terrorism offences. Many of those vulnerable to radicalisation have experienced a steady accumulation of institutional discrimination. The danger with the provisions is that they could create a significant population of individuals in prison and under supervision in the community who will receive longer sentences and who will be subject to those more onerous and lengthy supervision requirements than others who receive shorter sentences for equivalent offences. I have already covered that point. That could place them at greater risk from people who seek to exploit that sense of grievance to radicalise them in support of an extremist ideology. It could also undermine the effective management and supervision of this group in prison by increasing a currently small number of people designated as terrorism offenders to a substantial proportion of the prison population.
Chris Philp
I thank the shadow Minister for his detailed exposition of some of the risks that we must seek to navigate and overcome. For justice to function, we must make sure that it is truly even-handed and fair in assessing anyone who comes before the court, regardless of their background, race or religion.
Taiwo Owatemi
Is the Minister not concerned that, without proper consideration of the impact of the Bill on many BAME communities, relationships between these communities and authorities may worsen?
Chris Philp
Let me come on to that point, which is the substance of the amendment. The amendment calls for an assessment prior to the clause coming into effect; it does not ask for an assessment afterwards but beforehand. I submit to the Committee that the impact assessment published with the Bill and the accompanying equality statement, which looks specifically at questions of racial and religious discrimination—or the potential for those things to happen—has already thoroughly analysed the Bill’s potential impact. That detailed analysis, which obviously included a review by Government lawyers and others, concluded that nothing in the Bill would unlawfully discriminate against people of a particular ethnic or religious background within the meaning of the Equality Act 2010.
Of course, the provisions in the Bill are simply based on a measure of criminality—has somebody committed a specified offence? Is there a terrorist connection? Nothing in any of those provisions is biased for or against anyone from any particular background, as is the case with all laws that Parliament passes.
Alex Cunningham
The Minister says that nothing in the Bill would lead to further discrimination. I should hope that that would be the case for any legislation we pass. However, the fact remains that there are certain groups within our society—BAME and other groups—who are disproportionately disadvantaged in the legal system. The amendment asks the Minister to recognise that there could be even more of that as a direct result of the provisions of the Bill.
Chris Philp
Where there are concerns of the nature of those raised in the Lammy review, which I think the shadow Minister or the hon. Member for Coventry North West mentioned earlier, the Government are committed to responding to those. Indeed, in a sense, we are in the wrong room in Parliament today to raise that, because there was an urgent question earlier on exactly that topic, to which the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) responded.
The Government are committed to acting in response to the Lammy review to make sure that no unconscious biases discriminate against any particular group. I have not had a chance to read the Hansard of the debate, and I suspect the shadow Minister has not either, but based on the conversations that I have heard taking place in the Ministry of Justice, I think that the Government generally and the Ministry of Justice in particular are committed to taking action where needed. I would have expected the response of my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham to the urgent question an hour or two ago to have confirmed that.
Alex Cunningham
The fact remains that the Lammy review talked about a whole range of provisions that were supposed to be implemented, but very few of them have been. Some have been partially implemented and others have not. Can the Minister simply accept that we are failing as a Government and a Parliament to ensure that discrimination does not exist in our system? We are simply not taking the action to do that. Does he further accept that the more legislation we have where particular groups of people, BAME or otherwise, feel that they are being discriminated against, the greater the discord in society?
Chris Philp
Recent events obviously tell us how important it is to maintain social cohesion and confidence in the criminal justice system. The hon. Gentleman raises a point that goes far beyond the scope of the Bill, but it is a fair point none the less. If he listens to what my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham, my fellow Justice Minister, said in the House of Commons Chamber earlier, he will see that the Government are resolved to act where necessary to address issues of that kind.
The substance of the Bill is obviously public protection. It makes no distinction between any kind of terrorism, whether rooted in a twisted religious ideology or a far-right ideology, or terrorist acts committed for any other reason. The Bill, as with all Bills, as the hon. Gentleman says, is even-handed between different kinds of offence and different kinds of offenders. Where we need to do more systemically, not just in relation to the Bill but across the whole range of the criminal justice system, to make sure that everybody gets a fair hearing and fair treatment, the Government will do that. I hope that the response of my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham to the urgent question earlier will give assurance on that point. No doubt there will be many more opportunities to debate it.
Chris Philp
On the specific question of amendment 36 to clause 1 and amendment 42 to clause 21, which call for an impact assessment prior to the commencement of those clauses, I repeat what I said earlier. We have already done that. It has been published as the impact assessment together with the Bill and the equality statement that went with it. The obligation being requested by the amendments has already been discharged, but of course we must remain mindful, as the shadow Minister eloquently said, of potential unconscious biases. We must be vigilant and make sure that our justice system is not in any way besmirched by them. I am confident that the measures my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham laid out earlier will achieve that.
Alex Cunningham
I am sorry that the Minister would not give way, because I wanted to press him on that particular matter. We have several days of debate, so we have plenty of time to deal with these issues. It is a bit disappointing.
Chris Philp
I apologise; I did not realise that the hon. Gentleman was trying to intervene. Had I realised, I would, of course, have given way.
Alex Cunningham
Fair enough; I accept that.
The Minister was talking about how the Bill is important for public protection and I agree. It is essential to protect the interests of the public, but if the Bill results in a growing number of terrorists in prison, and if we are releasing into the community people who are still radicalised—or even new people who they managed to radicalise when they were in prison—perhaps public protection will not gain in the way that the Government hope.
I accept the Minister’s statement that he believes the law covers that, but I am disappointed that we cannot accept that a review, although it might cost a few pounds and take some time to commission, would at least give us some information to enable us to understand how well or how badly the legislation is working. I accept what he said, however, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Chris Philp
We touched on many of the purposes of clause 1 in our debate on amendments 35 and 36. Very briefly, clause 1 seeks to give judges the power to make a factual finding after conviction that a particular offence has a terrorist connection, to the standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt, as has been discussed, rather than simply referring to a fixed schedule of offences. If, for example, somebody commits an offence that is a serious offence but is not currently on the list of terrorist offences, the finding of terrorist connection can none the less be made. That has consequences in the rest of the Bill, and we will debate them in due course.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 1 agreed to.
Clause 2
Meaning of “serious terrorism offence”: England and Wales
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Chris Philp
The purpose of clause 2 is to create new categories of offences in relation to the new serious terrorism sentences. It defines the meaning of a “serious terrorism offence” in England and Wales, so that a sentencing court can establish whether an offender has committed a qualifying offence for the purpose of applying the serious terrorism sentence, which we will discuss more in due course.
The clause will amend section 306 of the sentencing code to include a new category of serious terrorism offence, with two subsets of offences: those in part 1 of schedule 17A, which specifies offences with a life penalty that are terrorist or terrorist-related; and those in part 2, which specifies offences with a life penalty that may be found to have a designated terrorist connection further to section 69 of the sentencing code, as amended.
Clause 2 inserts new schedule 17A into the sentencing code that is currently making its way through Parliament, so that those offences can be identified as serious terrorism offences by the sentencing court for the purposes of setting a serious terrorism sentence or, alternatively, an extended sentence.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 2 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 2 agreed to.
Clause 3
Offences relevant for provisions of this Act relating to Northern Ireland
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Chris Philp
Clause 3 has essentially the same purpose as clause 2. Clause 2 applied to England and Wales; clause 3 does essentially the same thing in relation to Northern Ireland, by amending article 12 of the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Order 2008.
Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab)
There is a specific point on this and some other measures in this Bill pertaining to Northern Ireland: they will require a legislative consent motion in the Northern Ireland Assembly. To start as we mean to go on, and so that I do not have to ask the Minister this at every juncture, will he outline what representations he has received from the Northern Ireland Executive, specifically the Justice Minister? For the benefit of the Committee, will he also set out what it means to have to go through the legislative consent motion process?
Chris Philp
Under the Sewel convention, where a provision in UK legislation touches on a matter that is devolved to one of the nations of the United Kingdom, one applies for a legislative consent motion. Most of the Bill, relating as it does to terrorist offences, is reserved to the UK Government, but some relatively limited elements of it touch on matters that are ordinarily devolved. For them, we will of course seek a legislative consent motion under the Sewel convention. In that context, we have made contact with the Scottish Government in Holyrood and with the Northern Ireland Administration—in particular, with Justice Minister Naomi Long. We have entered into fairly extensive correspondence, which is ongoing, about the provisions in the Bill. The Justice Minister in Northern Ireland has raised various matters, which she has asked questions about, asked for clarification about and wanted to discuss further. Those discussions and that correspondence are ongoing.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 3 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 3 agreed to.
Clause 4
Serious terrorism sentence for adults aged under 21: England and Wales
Alex Cunningham
I beg to move amendment 37, in clause 4, page 5, line 32, at end insert—
“(7) The pre-sentence report must—
(a) take account of the offender’s age;
(b) consider whether options other than a serious terrorism sentence might be more effective at—
(i) reducing the risk of serious harm to members of the public, or
(ii) rehabilitating the offender.
(8) The court must take account of any points made by the pre-sentence report in relation to the matters in subsection (7) and consider whether they constitute exceptional circumstances under subsection (2).”
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 45, in clause 6, page 9, line 20, leave out subsection (11) and insert—
“(11) In forming an opinion for the purposes of subsections (1)(d) and (6), the court must consider a report by a relevant officer of a local authority about the offender and the offender’s circumstances.
(11A) Where the offender is under 21 years of age, the report must—
(a) take account of the offender’s age; and
(b) consider whether options other than a serious terrorism sentence might be more effective at—
(i) reducing the risk of serious harm to members of the public, or
(ii) rehabilitating the offender;
and the court must take these factors into account when forming its opinion under subsection (6).
(11B) In considering the report, the court must, if it thinks it necessary, hear the relevant officer.”
Amendment 46, in clause 7, page 10, line 13, at end insert—
“(2A) Where the offender is under the age of 21, in forming an opinion for the purposes of paragraph (2), the court must consider and take into account a pre-sentence report within the meaning of Article 4 which must—
(a) take account of the offender’s age; and
(b) consider whether options other than a serious terrorism sentence might be more effective at—
(i) reducing the risk of serious harm to members of the public, or
(ii) rehabilitating the offender.”
Alex Cunningham
I am sure that these amendments come as no surprise to the Minister and other members of the Committee, given my interrogation of our witnesses during the oral evidence sessions over the past few days. This area needs particular attention from the Government, and I intend to press the amendment to a vote—unless, of course, the Minister comes up with an appropriate answer. On the basis of all this kindly co-operation and friendliness that we are sharing, and our intention to prove to the public that we can work across parties, perhaps he might surprise me a little.
Amendment 37 would require that when a court considers a serious terrorism sentence for a young adult under the age of 21, the pre-sentence report must take account of the offender’s age and consider options other than a serious terrorism sentence for rehabilitation and reducing harm. It means that the court must also take into account the issues raised in the pre-sentence report and whether it constitutes exceptional circumstances under proposed new section 268B(2).
We need a basic recognition in the Bill’s sentencing framework that, simply put, young adults and adults are inherently different, not only in terms of maturity, but in their potential for rehabilitation. Regarding the level of maturity, numerous organisations, such as the Howard League, have advocated for this proposal. It has been recognised in reviews such as the Lammy review, and by the Justice Committee. Why is it not recognised in the Bill?
As we have said from the outset, serious terrorist offences deserve a serious sentence, but it is still important to consider the age of the offender when other offences of a non-terrorist nature are committed. Although the amendment is specific to under 21s, in line with the Bill, evidence of maturation suggests that young adults up to the age of 25 ought to be considered as a separate group requiring a distinct response from criminal justice agencies.
The work in this area continues apace, and I have no doubt that Ministers may well have to address their approach to all manner of sentences for people up to the age of 25 when we can all be satisfied that the science proves, beyond reasonable doubt, that they ought to be treated differently. We had a considerable amount of evidence on that. I asked Peter Dawson from the Prison Reform Trust for his view on the different factors relating to young people. He said:
“The Bill should have a different sentencing framework for children and for young adults. At the moment, the law defines a young adult as someone aged between 18 and 20. It is not for this Bill to do, but at some point that should change to between 18 and 24.”
I think that is his opinion. He continued:
“At least taking account of the detention in a young offender institution provisions would allow some recognition of the fact that young adults are different from more mature people.”—[Official Report, Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Public Bill Committee, 25 June 2020; c. 34, Q75.]
We also discussed that issue with Jonathan Hall, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, who said that the point he was making was that
“there is recognition that people who are young and immature are probably more susceptible to change than adults.” —[Official Report, Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Public Bill Committee, 25 June 2020; c. 10, Q15.]
I asked him whether the bottom line was that with young people, there was perhaps a greater chance of change; he had said that there might be greater opportunity for reform than with those who are considerably older. Mr Hall responded:
“That is what judges are increasingly finding.”—[Official Report, Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Public Bill Committee, 25 June 2020; c. 10, Q16.]
I want to refer to a little more of Jonathan Hall’s evidence. He said that he believed that a younger person dimension needed to be considered in the Bill:
“One of the final points I make in my note about removing the Parole Board’s role is that, again, if it is right that children are more likely to change, and as a matter, perhaps, of fairness, one ought to give them the opportunity, then removing the opportunity to say, at the halfway or two-thirds point, ‘I have now genuinely changed; that was me then and this is me now,’ where it can be shown to the satisfaction of the Parole Board, does seem a little bit—I would not necessarily say ‘unfair’, but it fails to recognise the difference between adults and children.”—[Official Report, Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Public Bill Committee, 25 June 2020; c. 11, Q18.]
The current science and evidence tend to relate to people under 21, some of whom are a long way from full maturity. Analysis from the Royal College of Psychiatrists states that in terms of brain physiology, the development of traits such as maturity and susceptibility to peer pressure appear to continue until at least the mid-20s. That view was supported by the Justice Committee, which reported in 2016 that the growing body of evidence drawing on criminological, neurological and psychological research had led the Committee to conclude that young adults’ characteristics and needs made them distinct from older adults in terms of both their needs and their outcomes. There is no distinction in the Bill that recognises what the Justice Committee had to say.
The “Judging Maturity” report by the Howard League for Penal Reform also cited research that found the following:
“For the purposes of informing sentencing practice, the neurological and psychological evidence that development of the frontal lobes of the brain does not cease until around 25 years old is particularly compelling. It is this area of the brain which helps to regulate decision-making and the control of impulses that underpins criminal behaviour.”
As the Minister knows, I support trusting the experts where there is a significant trend. The trend of opinion from experts seems to be that we need to recognise the differences in maturity and development of young adults. In 2016, the Justice Committee reported:
“Dealing effectively with young adults while the brain is still developing is crucial for them in making successful transitions to a crime-free adulthood.”
Research into the success of interventions aimed at tackling radicalisation suggests that approaches that encourage young people to engage in education and training may be particularly beneficial, and that early interventions to encourage young people to undertake that education and training can be capable of successfully challenging radicalisation.
We talk a lot about rehabilitation, but we do not do enough of it. Labour Members do not want young offenders to be condemned to a life with no opportunity for rehabilitation when it has been reported to be successful in early adulthood. We can reform and rehabilitate, but doing so is a choice.
Bambos Charalambous
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech on this point. On the point about young people’s brains still developing, there is potential for grooming and undue influence by adults. With the Justice Committee, I visited a young offenders institution in Kent, where a young woman who was being held for terrorism offences had been influenced by her mother. Will he comment on that?
Alex Cunningham
Indeed, that is very much the case. I am grateful to my hon. Friend, because he reminds me of some evidence we heard this morning about young people being more susceptible to being radicalised. Another important point raised this morning was that our prison system is not yet properly equipped to deal with young offenders in a suitable environment that prevents radicalisation. They are housed—wherever they are—with people who have committed similar offences, who will be aiming to build on their insecurities and their immaturity to encourage them into further wrongdoing. We must never lose sight of that important point. That is why I will talk about young people throughout our proceedings on the Bill, because young people have to be given a chance.
I will talk about this later, but if a 20-year-old is sentenced to14 years in prison, that will make them 34 on their release. Add another 25 years to that, and they are almost pensioners before they are clear of the shackles of the state. They have not been given the opportunity to reform, because they are constantly looking over their shoulder, perhaps with an attitude of, “Why on earth should I change when the authorities are always on my back?”
Julie Marson (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)
We talk about children as victims in this context, but the experts who gave evidence told us that these young people are also extremely dangerous. They said that rehabilitation is extremely important—of course that can take place in prisons—but that sentencing has other objectives, such as the protection of the public, including young people walking the streets who also deserve the protection of the law.
Alex Cunningham
The hon. Lady is entirely correct. We must, first and foremost, protect the public. We need to understand that we may never be able to rehabilitate some young people, and they may be a problem to society for the rest of their lives. However, there will also be young people in the system who have done some horrible, terrible and tragic things but who can be rehabilitated and recognise that they got it wrong. They should be given the opportunity to live their life to its full extent.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I rise in support of amendments 37, 45 and 46, standing in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North. I want to cover some general principles in what is my first opportunity to speak in this Bill Committee. Like the Government, we are committed to keeping the public safe and we share the desire to ensure that attacks such as those at Fishmongers’ Hall and in Streatham never happen again—attacks where convicted but released terrorists were able to kill and maim innocent people.
We recognise the importance of adequate and appropriate punishment in sentencing, but punishment and sentencing must go alongside rehabilitation. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham said on Second Reading:
“We must not lose faith in the power of redemption—the ability of people to renounce the darkest chapters of their lives and move towards the light.”—[Official Report, 9 June 2020; Vol. 677, c. 213.].
For that, those offenders need an effective deradicalisation programme tailored to their motivation and circumstances, and they need hope—hope that before too long they can rejoin their family; that they can get meaningful work. They could even steer others away from the path they took before. I point out that programmes have operated in prisons in Northern Ireland with convicted paramilitaries on both sides of the troubles. In the later years of the troubles, those men became beacons of peace and reconciliation, educating young people towards positive paths.
Some contributions on Second Reading sometimes felt like support for a policy that almost veered on “Lock ’em up and throw away the key”. However, as many submissions and expert witnesses to this Committee have said, removing hope from these offenders and the opportunity to prove they are safe does not make the rest of us safer. I might add, even locking up people indefinitely, as the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford said earlier, does not protect us anyway. It does not prevent them from radicalising others. It spawns martyrs, not to mention the cost to the public purse of incarcerating prisoners for ever longer periods. As we heard this morning from the Prison Officers Association, there is also the danger to prison officers of attacks from angry men who have no hope of release in the foreseeable future.
I fear that some aspects of the Bill are born from a reaction to the terrorist atrocities in the last seven months and have been brought in without due research into what might work to further reduce the risk of attack from radicalised individuals, whether they are of a Daesh/ISIS persuasion, from the far right or, as a number of terrorists in the UK still are, rogue Irish paramilitaries.
The Fishmongers’ Hall and Streatham attacks were both committed by offenders who had been released automatically halfway through their sentence with no involvement of the Parole Board. Of course, with Labour support, the Government have now brought in the Terrorist Offenders (Restriction of Early Release) Act 2020, which ends the automatic early release of terrorist offenders and ensures that any release before the end of a sentence is dependent on a thorough risk assessment by the Parole Board. I am therefore not quite sure why the Government want to take the Parole Board out of sentencing now, without any adequate alternative provision being put in place.
Before I make some specific remarks, Dave, the father of Jack Merritt, who was killed in the Fishmongers’ Hall attack, wrote poignantly about how his son would have perceived the political reaction to his death, because of course Jack Merritt worked in the criminal justice system on the rehabilitation of offenders. Dave wrote:
“What Jack would want from this is for all of us to walk through the door he has booted down, in his black Doc Martens. That door opens up a world where we do not lock up and throw away the key. Where we do not give indeterminate sentences, or convict people on joint enterprise. Where we do not slash prison budgets, and where we focus on rehabilitation not revenge. Where we do not consistently undermine our public services, the lifeline of our nation. Jack believed in the inherent goodness of humanity, and felt a deep social responsibility to protect that.”
As I said, I support the amendments in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South—
Ruth Cadbury
My apologies.
Amendments 37, 45 and 46 relate to under-21s. I wish that they went a little older, possibly to 25, because they consider the issue of maturity. I declare a certain interest because for many years I was a trustee and, latterly, the chair of the Barrow Cadbury Trust, which initiated and funded the Transition to Adulthood Alliance about 15 years ago. Over a number of years, the alliance worked with a number of non-governmental organisations, the Ministry of Justice, Ministers, Opposition Members and so on to the point where maturity has now been introduced into sentencing practice and several other areas of the criminal justice system. I fear that we are going to lose that in this Bill.
When considering maturity, it is really important that we work on the basis of all the research that my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North mentioned and use that research to reduce the risk of serious harm to members of the public and to enhance the rehabilitation of the offender. The Committee has heard powerful evidence, particularly this morning, about the different motivations that people have for becoming terrorists or terrorist sympathisers, such as political, religious or psychiatric.
Sentences and rehabilitation must take account of the different motivations of different offenders. As we heard this morning, we probably also need to have tailored support, which needs to come into the pre-sentencing reports. One of the amendments says that the court must also take account of reports from local authority officers who have worked with the offender prior to the point of considering sentencing.
Alex Cunningham
I thank my hon. Friend for her comprehensive speech. She talks about resources and specialised facilities. The evidence we heard from some people in earlier sittings suggests that the system is not fit for purpose. Would she welcome from the Minister, as I would, a statement about how the Government will ensure proper provision for rehabilitation in our prison system?
Ruth Cadbury
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. As others have said, it would have been better if there had been proper risk assessments of a number of aspects of the Bill, because many clauses do not seem to be evidence-based. We know that we have funding problems within the prison system. We know that we have, as we heard this morning, disjoints between various elements of the course through the system for offenders. There is an awful lot of work to do, and there are a number of respects in which I do not feel that the Bill is fit for purpose. It would have been better if it had been based on proper evidence of what works to reduce the threat to the public and improve rehabilitation.
Children have long been treated differently in sentencing considerations, and the amendments would enable particular considerations for young adults, particularly of their maturity. Mr Hall, the independent reviewer, was concerned that, unless these considerations are taken into account, we risk locking people up for too long, building bitterness and a refusal to engage in the prison system, and actually, on eventual release, potentially a greater risk. He considered that longer and more punitive sentences do not in themselves ensure that people are less dangerous on release, and that while extending sentences for serious offenders may, of course, keep them out of our harm’s way for a temporary period, we do not want them to leave prison more dangerous than when they entered.
Early release provides prisoners with the incentive to behave and show that they are capable of reform. We heard powerful evidence that prison staff are at increased risk of harm where hope is lost. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North said, many studies show that young terrorist offenders are much more likely to reform than older offenders, yet the Bill treats a young adult who has just turned 18 the same as an older offender. Are the Secretary of State and the Minister concerned that the Bill effectively gives up on those offenders?
We need to look at the evidence, not the tabloids. We need a flexible response that is offender-based, and it must be tailored. If we really want to enable rehabilitation and reduce the harm to the public, I hope that the Minister will consider the amendment.
Chris Philp
I will speak to the amendments relating to younger offenders. There are a couple of things to be clear about first of all. For the sake of absolute clarity, offenders who are under the age of 18 are not subject to the 14-year minimum prison sentence. Only offenders over the age of 18 are subject to those provisions. The amendments relate to offenders aged between 18 and 21, so we are discussing a very specific cohort.
I agree and concur with many points that the shadow Minister and the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth made about rehabilitation, and about the increased opportunity for rehabilitation for younger people. It is of course the case that younger people are more open to change—particularly as their brains mature—than older people, and it is right that we try to work with them to achieve that. I would not dispute that as a general principle, but clause 4 as drafted applies to an extremely small subsection of those offenders aged between 18 and 21. It by no means applies to the generality of offenders, including terrorist offenders, aged 18 to 21. It applies to that narrow subsection who have committed a serious terrorist offence, as we have discussed already, but it also requires a finding by the judge, following a pre-sentence report—something the shadow Minister referred to in his amendment and in his speech—of dangerousness. What a finding of dangerousness means in law is that there is a significant risk of the offender causing serious harm by committing further serious terrorism or other specified offences.
There are already two hurdles to jump: a serious terrorist offence, followed by a finding of dangerousness based on a pre-sentence report. However, there is also a third hurdle that must be jumped before a younger offender aged 18 to 21 would fall into the scope of this clause, which is that, at the time of committing the offence. they were aware, or should have been aware, that their offence was very likely to result in or contribute to multiple deaths. That is a well-established test dating back to section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2000. We are talking about an extremely small subsection of offenders aged 18 to 21 and a very small subsection even of terrorist offenders—those who meet all three of those criteria.
Alex Cunningham
I wonder whether it really is true that it is such a small cohort of offenders, because the Bill opens up the number of offences that can be considered severe enough for this sentence to be passed. There may currently be very few, but this new law extends the offences quite considerably—in fact, in some ways, it leaves it quite open for people to determine that a terrorist offence or a terrorist connection is involved. Surely there is more opportunity now for people to be serving this sort of sentence.
Chris Philp
The provisions open it up for judges to make a finding of a terrorist connection, but the impact assessment for the Bill refers to a potential increase in the prison population of 50 people. Of course, that is for all ages over 18; if we consider how many of those estimated additional 50 places might be occupied by people aged between 18 and 21, one might reasonably assume that the number at any one time will certainly be less than 10 and possibly even less than five. That is an estimate, but none the less, it appears in the impact assessment.
Alex Cunningham
It might be helpful, as the Bill progresses, if the Minister could publish some of the facts and the evidence for the claim he has just made about the 50 people and the relatively small number of younger people.
Chris Philp
I think the number 50 appears in the impact assessment, and I would be happy to look into the basis for that estimate. As for the number of younger people, that was something that I spontaneously generated, based on the fact that we are talking about a three-year range from 18 to 21, whereas the number of offenders will generally cover all ages, from 18 upwards.
The point I am making is that, while I accept the generality of what the shadow Minister and the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth say about the need to have hope and to have an opportunity to rehabilitate, we are talking about a very small number of very serious offenders, who have been assessed as dangerous following a pre-sentence report and who have engaged in activity likely to cause multiple deaths. In those very serious circumstances, I think it is appropriate, and I think the public would also think it is appropriate, that we protect the public for an extended period, as this Bill does.
If we are talking about other offenders, including terrorist offenders who do not meet that level of seriousness—there are many—all the comments made about rehabilitation and the chance to reform do legitimately apply. Indeed, we heard in evidence earlier today that the proven reoffending rate on release for that sort of offender is between 5% and 10%, which is an extraordinarily low figure compared with other cohorts. That suggests that the rehabilitation work done in prison is effective, as I think our last witness this morning suggested.
It is important, given the assessment of dangerousness that is made, that the pre-sentence report fully reflects the offender’s ability to change and the changes to the brain and so on that take place around the early 20s. That is a point that my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury, who is not with us this afternoon as he is attending the Justice Committee, has made to me. I will discuss with the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer)—I would not like to get my north, south, east and west muddled up—who is the prisons and probation Minister, whether there is any more we can do to make sure that these pre-sentence reports fully reflect the points that the shadow Minister and the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth have made about people’s ability to change. Those points are relevant in the context of assessing dangerousness, because if someone is undergoing changes, they may be less dangerous than someone who is fixed in their ways. I will take up that point with my hon. and learned Friend.
Alex Cunningham
The Minister may well be considering whether he is prepared to take the risk with this small cohort of people. As my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth outlined earlier, these individuals, who could reach middle age before there is any prospect of the state being off their back, are susceptible to further radicalisation in prison and might radicalise others. Surely, therefore, there is an element of risk that needs to be considered so that we can try to balance things.
Chris Philp
The cohort that I have described are dangerous, have been found to be dangerous by a judge following a pre-sentence report and have tried to kill multiple people. With this very small number of very dangerous people, who are endangering the lives of our fellow citizens, it is appropriate to prevent them for an extended period of time—a minimum of 14 years—from attacking our fellow citizens in the future. It is a truly exceptional and small cohort.
Speaking of the word “exceptional”, if there are circumstances in relation to these people that a judge thinks are truly exceptional—some extraordinary extenuating circumstances—and that, despite the fact that they have done the terrible things I have described and despite the finding of dangerousness, merit different treatment, the judge has open to them the possibility to make a finding that there is an exceptional circumstance and can derogate from the 14-year minimum. We would expect that to be extremely unusual—indeed, truly exceptional, as the word implies.
Given how dangerous and damaging this very small number of people are, and given our obligation to protect the public, this measure is couched appropriately. There is the ability to not make a finding of dangerousness, having read the pre-sentence report. There is also the ability for the judge to find that an exceptional circumstance applies. That provides more than adequate protection, bearing in mind how dangerous these people are.
As for other offenders, however, I take the point about the need to rehabilitate; rehabilitation is often successful, as we have seen from the figures. As I said, I will talk to my hon. and learned Friend the prisons and probation Minister to make sure that all the relevant information is collected in probation reports, which will help a judge when making a determination on the question of dangerousness.
I would like to briefly respond to a point made by the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth about indeterminate sentences and throwing away the key, as she put it. Of course, the coalition Government legislated—I think it was in 2012—to get rid of the former sentences of imprisonment for public protection, which had been introduced in the early 2000s, whereby people could be left in prison forever, despite not having been given a life sentence. Those sentences were replaced with extended determinate sentences, so the coalition Government, which of course was Conservative-led, legislated to remove, or significantly reduce, that problem of locking people up and throwing away the key, which the hon. Member referred to in her speech.
I hope that I have explained why this measure is appropriate, bearing in mind the small numbers and the extreme danger that these people represent, and I express my support for the Bill as it is currently drafted.
Alex Cunningham
I am grateful to the Minister for his response. However, I am not convinced that we are talking about only a handful of people. The fact that this piece of legislation grows the number of offences that could potentially fall into this cohort suggests that many more people could be caught up in it in the longer term—some of them perhaps not quite such serious offenders as some of those the Minister has described this afternoon.
The Minister says he agrees that we should have an eye to rehabilitation and that we should work hard to achieve rehabilitation. However, if I am right and he is wrong, and we do have dozens or perhaps even more young people falling into this category because of the way the Bill is drafted, there surely need to be some protections there and some opportunity for a pre-sentence report to explore specific issues around age and maturity before reporting to a judge who will make the ultimate decision.
On the basis that this measure could affect many more people than the Minister suggests, and that some of them might not be the most serious offenders, I wish to press the amendment to a vote.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Chris Philp
In my response to the amendment, I described the effect of the clause and the tests to be applied. If those tests are met, the minimum sentence of 14 years will be imposed, followed by a licence period of not less than seven years and not greater than 25. I beg to move that the clause stand part of the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 4 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 5
Serious terrorism sentence for adults aged 21 or over: England and Wales
Alex Cunningham
I beg to move amendment 38, in clause 5, page 7, line 35, after “25 years.”, insert—
“(5) Where—
(a) a prisoner is subject to a licence for an extension period under this section, and
(b) the qualifying period has expired,
the Secretary of State shall, if directed to do so by the National Probation Service, order that the licence is to cease to have effect.
(6) Where—
(a) the prisoner has been released on licence for an extension period under this section;
(b) the qualifying period has expired; and
(c) if the prisoner has made a previous application under this subsection, a period of at least twelve months has expired since the disposal of that application,
the prisoner may make an application to the National Probation Service under this subsection.
(7) Where an application is made under subsection (6) above, the National Probation Service—
(a) shall, if it is satisfied that it is no longer necessary for the protection of the public that the licence should remain in force, direct the Secretary of State to make an order that the licence is to cease to have effect;
(b) shall otherwise dismiss the application.
(8) In this section, ‘the qualifying period’, in relation to a prisoner who has been released on licence, means the period of ten years beginning with the date of his release.”
The main area of concern that has led to the amendment relates to the maximum 25 years on licence specified by the Bill. We of course accept that we cannot have a cliff-edge situation whereby someone leaves prison without any further monitoring, particularly offenders in this cohort. There must be a licence period once the offender leaves prison. The issue is whether a licence period of up to 25 years is reasonable and whether it is a proportionate way of addressing the problem. There is also the concern over the lack of any review mechanism.
A licence for 25 years is equivalent to a licence for life. As well as severely curtailing the human rights of the offender after they have already completed their full custodial sentence, a licence for life also fundamentally constrains their ability to play an active part in society. For example, it would be a constant barrier to employment and—who knows?—perhaps new relationships. We would essentially be telling people that there is no point in them rehabilitating or contributing to society, because they will always be under suspicion—always under the careful watch and restriction of the state. A life on licence reduces individuals’ capability to reform and take positive action. It can have a detrimental impact on the joys of life that can keep an individual on the straight and narrow.
There is also the issue of the administrative burden on an already overworked National Probation Service, which has a financial cost, and which requires additional trained probation officers to deal with those released on licence. I would be interested to know where the idea for a term of 25 years on licence comes from. Is the Government’s intention simply that anyone convicted and sentenced to a determinate sentence of 14 years, with 25 years on licence, should have a life sentence, with the state constantly on their case and without any prospect of being released from it? If so, the Minister should say so. Can he confirm that there is logic in the period that he has decided on? Has he looked at the costs and at whether 20-year licenses, which would naturally be less expensive for the state, might be just as effective?
As I have said, the main area of concern that these amendments address is the maximum 25 years on licence specified by the Bill, which is effectively a licence for life under an indeterminate sentence for public protection. However, unlike the licence for life, the Bill does not allow for the licence to be terminated in certain circumstances. That creates an issue of unfairness, as well as a huge administrative burden, at a cost to the public purse.
I agree with the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, Jonathan Hall, who said:
“determining whether a 7-year, 15-year or 25-year licence is appropriate at the point of sentencing for dangerous individuals who have committed the most serious offences may be asking courts to engage in guesswork.”
I personally would not feel confident in making such a decision. Would the Minister?
As I said earlier, there is a concern about existing case law and guidance available for sentencers on identifying terrorism connections when sentencing. We cannot expect sentencers to feel truly comfortable and informed if the frame of what licence they can impose is so broad. It is worth reiterating that a 25-year licence period is not so different from a licence for life. However, whereas licences for life imposed on imprisonment for public protection prisoners could be terminated in appropriate cases, that does not apply to serious terrorism sentences. It feels like the principle of rehabilitation is again being somewhat missed.
I spoke earlier this afternoon about young people. Is it the Minister’s intention that they are effectively to remain on licence until within a few years of the state retirement age? A 14-year term for a 20-year-old means that they will be 59 before they are free of the licence. Will the Minister clarify the merits of 25-year licensing and address young people in particular?
I am a strong believer in people doing their time for violent offences, but with a strong focus on rehabilitation. Our amendment would give them some hope that their good behaviour has paid off after time. Perhaps we need to give people sight of a future where they would live their lives in a very different way—an honest and crime-free way. What, if anything, can the Minister offer those people—particularly younger ones?
Chris Philp
The shadow Minister posed a question: why a maximum of 25 years? Therein lies the answer.
Alex Cunningham
Maybe I misunderstood, but I thought the 25 years was mandatory.
Chris Philp
No, it is a maximum. The licence period is between seven and 25 years; within that, the judge has discretion to choose the most appropriate length of time. The point that I was about to make is that it is up to judicial discretion to decide the appropriate length of time. We ask the judge to make that determination, as we do when setting any licence condition. That is the way the licence system works at the moment. The judge sets the licence period at the point of sentence.
The shadow Minister, quoting the independent reviewer, asked, “How can the judge know in advance what a suitable length of time may be, looking potentially as far as 25 years into the future?” The answer to that question is that although the licence period cannot and in my view should not be varied by the Probation Service acting administratively—that is for the judge to decide—the Probation Service can, and frequently does, vary the terms of the licence conditions; as an offender behaves better over time and matures, or as their radical or criminal behaviour more generally changes as they get older, the licensing conditions can be and are relaxed. The Probation Service does that as a matter of routine, and I would expect and hope for that to happen as time passes.
Were we to give the Probation Service the ability to change the length of licence period, it would be overriding a judicial decision, which is wrong in principle and would possibly infringe article 6 of the European convention on human rights, which says that the Government should not be allowed to interfere with or alter a sentence handed down by the court.
The shadow Minister mentioned the arrangements for terminating licence conditions for indeterminate sentences—that is, the old imprisonment for public protection I referred to previously. As the name implies, those IPPs are indeterminate and indefinite. A judge has not imposed a time limit, so they could go on for the duration of somebody’s life. Some termination mechanism is needed.
Where a judge has made a decision—and it is up to the judge to choose, at their discretion, somewhere between seven and 25 years—it is right that licence condition is applied for that length of time. However, to reassure the Committee and the shadow Minister, I should say that the Probation Service can, as appropriate, relax and change those licence conditions as time passes. That is the right way of handling the issue.
Alex Cunningham
I accept the Minister’s explanation and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Chris Philp
We have covered many of the operative provisions. They are rather similar to the ones we debated in clause 4, in relation to people under the age of 21.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 5 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 6
Serious terrorism sentence: Scotland
Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (SNP)
I beg to move amendment 43, in clause 6, page 8, line 10, at end insert—
“(ea) the court does not impose an order for lifelong restriction under section 210F of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995, and”.
This amendment disapplies Clause 6 if an order for lifelong restriction, a sentence unique to Scotland, has been imposed.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. Before I move to the specifics of amendment 43, I will say by way of preface where my party and I are coming from. As the Minister is aware, we recognise that it is the duty of not just a Government to keep their citizens safe and secure; it is the obligation of all who serve in Parliament. At the outset, we have given the Government our assurance that any opposition will attempt to be as constructive as possible, to ensure that the challenge of terrorism that we now see, sadly, all too regularly in our communities, is addressed and that we keep our people as safe as they can be.
Some issues concern us. The burden of proof has been mentioned in terms of TPIMs. The balance of the burden of proof has been an issue for over 40 years, since my involvement in the law—and, in a way, since the legal profession and legal systems came about. We recognise that there is good reason why there has to be some distinction when it comes to terrorism and that standards that might normally apply in a wider criminal trial cannot be expected, especially with regard to TPIMs. However, there still has to be an element of proportionality, and we have to ensure that we protect the rights of those who face considerable periods of loss of liberty. That is why we have concerns and are watching the situation.
Sadly, the issue disproportionately impacts BAME communities; we are conscious of that. It is clear that we are required not only to protect our people from terrorism—and, indeed, to punish those who perpetrate it—but to prevent it from happening in the first instance. If we have a system that is perceived, whether it in fact is or not, as prejudicial and impacting harshly, even sometimes deliberately, on one community, issues arise. Those of us old enough to remember the consequences of internment in Northern Ireland will realise that a community’s feeling of being discriminated against can be a recruiting sergeant rather than the method of preventing such recruitment.
Chris Philp
I thank the hon. Member for East Lothian for his constructive comments at the beginning of his speech. As the shadow Minister said, in many respects the work on the Bill demonstrates Parliament and public life at its best, as we work together to protect our fellow citizens throughout the whole United Kingdom. Protecting our fellow citizens from violent attack is, thankfully, a principle on which we all agree, regardless of our differences on various other topics that often come before us. I am grateful for the constructive approach of the hon. Member for East Lothian, accepting, of course, that he wishes to discuss further points in due course, a few of which he mentioned.
There is clearly a question about how this legislation interacts with the order for lifelong restriction, which is applicable in Scotland. Indeed, the sentence that a Scottish court might hand down in the absence of this legislation could conceivably be longer—lifelong, as the name implies—than the period required by this legislation. The Government essentially accept the principle that there is an interaction that requires further work, and—let me be clear—further amendment.
On the detail of how the interaction will work best, discussions are ongoing between Ministry of Justice officials and officials in the Justice Directorate in Scotland about the technicalities. For example, although the clause as it is drafted would make it possible for an OLR to be imposed and, therefore, a lifelong restriction to be in place, we would lose the 14-year minimum sentence. What we would like to try to achieve technically is an amendment that preserves the concept of the 14-year minimum, but allows the lifelong restrictions to apply thereafter if a Scottish judge sees fit.
Those technical discussions are taking place. If the hon. Member for East Lothian or his colleague, the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West, wish to participate in those technical discussions, they are welcome to do so.
The fact that we would lose the 14-year minimum is problematic, but I accept the principle that an amendment is needed. If we can put such an amendment together quickly enough, we will be happy to bring it forward, in consultation with the hon. Gentleman, on Report. If we cannot get it ready fast enough for that, perhaps their lordships will be kind enough to consider making an appropriate amendment down at their end of the building.
I hope that my comments illustrate that I recognise the validity and the reasonableness of the point being raised. I hope that we can find a way to amend the Bill to preserve the 14-year minimum but not take away any ability that Scottish judges currently have to impose longer restrictions, should they see fit.
Kenny MacAskill
I am happy to accept that parliamentary drafting has its complexities; it is a skill way beyond my level of competence, but I appreciate the difficulties that go with it. I am happy to accept the undertaking given by the Minister, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Chris Philp
Clause 6 has the same operative effect as clause 5 has in relation to England and Wales.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 6 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 4 agreed to.
Clause 7
Serious terrorism sentence: Northern Ireland
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Chris Philp
Clause 7 and associated Government amendment 31 essentially do all the things we have just debated in relation to England, Wales and Scotland, but apply to Northern Ireland. The Government amendment is to ensure that we interact with Northern Irish sentencing law in a consistent way. It is rather the same issue that we debated a moment ago in relation to Scotland, where similar thinking clearly needs to be developed a little further. Government amendment 31 makes, I think, five technical changes to ensure that the measures that we have already debated apply consistently and coherently in Northern Ireland.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 7 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 8
Reduction in appropriate custodial term for guilty pleas: England and Wales
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Chris Philp
Clause 8 relates to a reduction to the minimum custodial term for a serious terrorist sentence where the offender makes a guilty plea at the earliest opportunity. Ordinarily, when such a guilty plea is entered for most offences—not quite all, but most—a discount of up to 33% of the sentence is possible. However, reflecting the very serious nature of the offences we are debating, the clause limits the discount for an early guilty plea to 20% of the custodial term. By way of illustration, if a 14-year minimum were imposed—it could be more, of course—the reduction could be to 11 years and 73 days, but no less. Practically, that is implemented by inserting a new subsection into section 73 of the sentencing code.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 8 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 9
Reduction in appropriate custodial term for guilty pleas: Scotland
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Chris Philp
Clause 9 has the same effect as the one we have just discussed, but in relation to Scotland.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 9 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 10
Reduction in appropriate custodial term for assistance to prosecution: England and Wales
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Chris Philp
Clause 10 provides for the court to apply a reduction to the custodial term for a serious terrorist sentence in England and Wales from the 14-year minimum in cases where the offender assists the prosecution. It does so by inserting a new subsection into section 74 of the sentencing code. The subsection notes that nothing in the STS sentencing provisions affects the court’s ability or power to take into account the extent and nature of any assistance given to the prosecution.
In keeping with the approach to all other sentences, including other minimum sentences and mandatory life sentences, there is no maximum reduction rate in relation to the flexibility that I have just described. While we are determined to ensure that serious terrorists receive the appropriate penalties for their offending, it is also important to ensure that an incentive remains for guilty offenders to assist the prosecution with other cases it may be pursuing.
This is a well-established process within the sentencing procedure across the whole United Kingdom. It can, and indeed often does, play a pivotal role in helping our prosecutors and the police to secure guilty verdicts in other, often more significant, related cases where the defendants may be a higher risk to the public than those in the case under direct consideration. We think it appropriate to continue that judicial discretion in cases where defendants assist the prosecution and where that assistance may help to convict other, even more dangerous people.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 10 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Tom Pursglove.)
Parliamentary Constituencies Bill (Eighth sitting)
Tuesday 30th June 2020
(4 years, 3 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Parliamentary Constituencies Act 2020 View all Parliamentary Constituencies Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 30 June 2020 - (30 Jun 2020)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 10 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 7 / Noes: 10 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Chair
I asked for fans to be supplied to Committee Room 14, and the fans are here. No sooner did I ask for them than the weather deteriorated. However, if anyone is too warm I will arrange for the fans to be shared with anyone who would like them.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Chloe Smith)
Sir David, it is a wonderful pleasure to return to the Committee under your chairmanship. I wanted to clarify a point that was raised by the right hon. Member for Warley. He is not in his place now, but I hope it will be helpful to the Committee if I proceed.
The right hon. Gentleman asked how the protected status of Ynys Môn, on which we had an excellent debate this morning, would relate to the allocation of seats between the nations in the calculation of the electoral quota. I can make that clear now. At the start of the boundary review, before any allocations are made, the protected constituencies and their electorate are set to one side, as it were. That happens at the beginning before the national consideration. They are then not included in any consideration of either seat allocations or the calculation of the electoral quota. To illustrate that, with Ynys Môn added to the existing four protected constituencies there will be five in total. Those five will be removed from the overall total number, leaving 645. Their electorates would then be subtracted from the UK total electorate. The remaining UK electorate would be divided by 645, and that would give the electoral quota—the average on which each proposed constituency will be based. That figure is likely to fall somewhere between 70,000 and 80,000. The number of constituencies per home nation—the allocation—is then calculated by the usual method set out under rule 8 of schedule 2 to the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986, which also uses the total electorate of each part of the UK, minus the electorate of any protected constituencies in that part. I will talk more about the method for that when we discuss new clause 3, but I hope that in the first instance that addresses the right hon. Gentleman’s query, even in his absence.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend is also a member of the Defence Committee, and the Secretary of State is giving evidence there this afternoon, so his not being here is certainly no discourtesy.
Chloe Smith
That is extremely helpful to know. As I said once before in this Committee, it is of great benefit that we have such experienced Committee members, including no fewer than two former Secretaries of State, who naturally have other calls on their time.
The final clause of the Bill, clause 12, makes provision with respect to the extent of the Bill, its commencement and the short title. As it relates to the UK Parliament and its constituencies, the Bill extends to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The subject matter is reserved to the UK Parliament, so legislative consent motions from any of the devolved legislatures are not required. The Bill comes into force on the day when it is passed. It is important that it should commence on that day in order to allow the boundary commissions to have legal certainty on the rules, such as the number of constituencies, for the next reviews, which begin formally on 1 December 2020—the review date—and in practice will get going in earnest in early 2021.
As I noted during discussion on clauses 8 and 9, the Bill applies retrospectively in two clauses in relation to Government obligations on implementing the 2018 boundary review and the review of the reduction of seats. The provisions in those clauses are treated as having come into force from 24 March and 31 May 2020 respectively. The short title of the Bill, once it receives Royal Assent, is set out as the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 2020.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 12 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
New Clause 1
“Registers used to determine the “electorate” in relation to the 2023 reports
‘(1) In rule 9(2) of Schedule 2 to the 1986 Act (definition of the “electorate”), for “The” substitute “Subject to sub-paragraph (2A), the”.
(2) After rule 9(2) of that Schedule insert—
“(2A) In relation to a report under section 3(1) that a Boundary Commission is required (by section 3(2)) to submit before 1 July 2023, the “electorate” of the United Kingdom, or of a part of the United Kingdom or a constituency, is the total number of persons whose names appear on a register of parliamentary electors (maintained under section 9 of the Representation of the People Act 1983) in respect of addresses in the United Kingdom, or in that part or that constituency, as that register has effect on 2 March 2020.””—(Chloe Smith.)
This new clause inserts a new clause (to be added after clause 6) which provides for the meaning of the “electorate” in Schedule 2 to the 1986 Act, in the case of the 2023 reports of the Boundary Commissions, to be determined by reference to the registers of parliamentary electors as they have effect on 2 March 2020 rather than by reference to the versions of those registers which are published under section 13(1) of the Representation of the People Act 1983 on or before 1 December 2020 (which is the “review date” provided for under clause 7), a prescribed later date, or 1 February 2021 (where section 13(1A) of that Act applies).
Brought up, and read the First time.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 4—Definition of “electorate”—
“(1) The 1986 Act is amended as follows.
(2) In rule 9(2) of Schedule 2 to the 1986 Act, omit the words from “the version that is required” to the end and insert “the electoral register as on the date of the last General Election before the review date.”
For the purposes of future reviews, this new clause would define the electorate as being those on the electoral register at the last General Election prior to the review.
Chloe Smith
First, allow me to address the new clause that stands in my name before turning to new clause 4, which stands in the names of the hon. Members for Lancaster and Fleetwood and for City of Chester.
The purpose of new clause 1 is to mitigate a risk arising from the covid-19 pandemic that could affect the successful delivery of the next boundary review. The risk relates to electoral data, namely information on the numbers of electors across the UK. Hon. Members will be well aware that this is fundamental to the work of the boundary commissions. We need the next review, and all reviews, to be based on the most robust form of the data. Under current legislation, the next boundary review would be based on the number of registered electors as at 1 December 2020, following the annual canvass.
As we know, the annual canvass is a large information-gathering exercise that checks and verifies the addresses of registered electors. The boundary commissions generally use the version of the electoral register that follows the canvass because it is the most up to date and accurate available at the start of the review. This year, however, concerns have rightly been raised about whether the operation of the 2020 annual canvass might be affected by covid-19, given that it is a considerable exercise mobilising many staff and contractors over several months. This new clause responds to those concerns and provides for the next boundary review to be based, on a one-off basis, on the number of registered electors at 2 March 2020.
That data represents the most up-to-date electoral registration information available from the point before the impacts of covid became widespread. It will capture the registrations that took place in the run-up to the 2019 general election, subject to any monthly updates that were then also made up to 2 March 2020. As hon. Members may know from other remarks I have made and the letter I sent to the Committee, I have engaged with both parliamentary party and administrator representatives on this issue. It is critical that the next boundary review is not compromised as a result of covid, so I have tabled the new clause.
New clause 4 seeks to change the definition of the electorate to that of the electoral register from the last general election prior to the boundary review. There are a number of reasons why the Government believe this is not the appropriate dataset to use for boundary reviews, and I will lay those out.
First, as I set out when introducing new clause 1, the electoral register is updated through the year. The annual canvass then provides the most comprehensive audit of the electoral register each year. It represents the most consistent and up-to-date picture of how many UK electors there are and where they live.
Secondly, the current approach of using the December registers, the data from which is collected, checked and published by the Office for National Statistics, ensures that the boundary commissions are using officially published data that is up to date, transparent and readily available to all citizens. By contrast, electoral registration officers are not required to published data on the number of electors on the registers of parliamentary electors for general elections. That data is not officially published by the Office for National Statistics, so it could be argued to be more opaque, whereas transparency is helpful.
Thirdly, I think many of us would agree that when we are looking to update UK parliamentary boundaries, it is important that the most up-to-date and robust data is used. Unlike the canvass, general elections do not happen every 12 months—or at least we hope that they do not—and the use of election data could therefore result in boundary reviews being based on information that was considerably more out of date than that provided by the canvass. I will go into that in a couple of ways.
It is unusual for a general election to occur in the second half of a calendar year. 2019 was a notable exception, and I am sure we all reflected on that as we were banging on doors in the rain and the snow. To take a past example, had we used the general election data for the boundary review starting in 2000, we would have been using data from the 1997 general election. That would have been two and a half years out of date at the start of the review, and over a decade out of date by the time the boundaries were first used in an election in 2010.
Let me take this moment to address a few other myths about electoral registers. There are a few areas of tension as to how the registers work, and the arguments can be confusing. I do not think general election registers are always the answer, and I want to address a few of the erroneous arguments that are made. One myth advanced by some is that after a general election people suddenly vanish off the electoral register; as the register compiled for the election is sometimes regarded as the fullest or biggest, people argue that electors have to have been captured at exactly that early moment. I do not think this is the case. It seems to derive from the idea the election registers are more comprehensive as a consequence of the many registrations made in the run-up to a major poll. However, they do not somehow vanish after a poll; they are not lost. Those people remain there, and the canvass that follows any general election will verify that those who registered for that election are still resident at the same address, together with any further registrations that have taken place in the intervening months. If they are still resident, they stay on the register—quite rightly—and are taken into account at a boundary review starting after the review date.
For example, if people registered in the run-up to the 2019 December general election and remained at the same address after the election, they remain on the register. It is as simple as that. Of course the contrary is also true: if they moved immediately after the election, it is only right that the canvass and the monthly updates that follow it highlight that change. Therefore, the fullest register, as general election data is sometimes described, does not stay accurate forever.
Maintaining accuracy and completeness needs to be part of an ongoing cycle. The quality of the register relies on these two elements—completeness and accuracy. One is not enough on its own: they have to be seen together. If a person registers in the run-up to a general election in area A and shortly afterwards moves to area B, it is not right that they stay on the register for area A. Some might argue, I suppose, that for completeness they would stay registered in area A while they also registered in area B, but that is not accuracy. The work of the electoral registration officers, who have responsibility for maintaining complete and accurate registers, is to create a picture that is both as accurate and as complete as possible while, admittedly, accepting that no register can ever be perfect because the population does move.
The Government have been working hard over the years with electoral administrators to improve the accuracy and completeness of the registers. I will take a moment to highlight some of that work. The introduction of online registration has made it easier, simpler and faster for people to register to vote, taking as little as five minutes. This also applies in a positive way particularly to people who traditionally found it harder to make an application to register. Working with lots of partners, we have developed a range of democratic engagement resources to promote democratic engagement and voter registration. That is all available on gov.uk. We are also in the process of implementing changes to the annual canvass of all the residential properties in Great Britain that will improve its overall efficiency quite considerably. It will let registration officers focus their efforts on the hardest-to-reach groups, and play an important role in helping to maintain the accuracy and completeness of the register.
I hope I have given a sense of what we are doing to support the best quality data available for the function of the Bill, in the form of the covid 19-related new clause 1. I have also presented some arguments why canvass data is better data to use than the general election data. I also wanted to provide the Committee with a few insights into how we have been working to improve levels of registration in this country, and why we should all agree that that is very important, albeit slightly to the side of the main subject of the Bill. If the Committee wishes me to respond to points that others may make, I will be happy to do so, but I shall pause here and urge that the Government new clause be added to the Bill.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
I will speak to both new clause 4, which stands in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester, and Government new clause 1.
I welcome new clause 1, which corrects what I feel would be the error of using December of this year as the basis for the register for our boundary review. Clearly, the covid-19 situation has put huge strain on all our councils and local authorities, which at present are working to support some of the most vulnerable people in our communities. It would be ludicrous to ask them to undertake an annual canvass at a time of such stretched capacity in local government. However, after 20 years of delay, the boundaries must reflect the electorate, with the best possible accuracy, and that means selecting the register that best reflects the reality of the general population of our country.
I would like to use this opportunity to probe the Minister on her choice of the March 2020 register. We are in a unique position, in that just six months ago we had a general election, and before that election we saw a huge spike in voter registration. Indeed, we can see that, since the introduction of individual electoral registration, there tends to be a spike in electoral registrations before major electoral events—the most notable recently being referendums and general elections, of which we seem to have had an awful lot. The Office for National Statistics data for the period between 1 and 12 December 2019 showed that approximately half a million people registered to vote, and electoral registrations increased in 94% of our constituencies. The number of electoral registrations was at its highest level, surpassing the previous peak in December 2012.
I have some concern about the drop-off in registrations between 12 December 2019 and 2 March 2020. We heard evidence that potentially hundreds of thousands of people have fallen off the electoral register during that period. Indeed, in the current context, in which the Government have been very clear that we will not be having by-elections or scheduled elections this year because of the coronavirus, there is not the same impetus for individuals to register to vote.
This is part of a much wider problem around electoral registration, with the Electoral Commission recently—actually, it was almost a year ago—making recommendations to the Government to plug the huge gaps in our electoral rolls. I look forward to hearing the Government’s response when that is forthcoming, but we know that about 9 million people in this country are missing from the electoral registers. My concern is to find the most accurate and most complete register possible in order to ensure that every one of our citizens is included within the boundaries that we have at the next general election. New clause 4, in my name, suggests that that register would be the one from the general election, for the reason that I have set out, which is the spike in electoral registrations that we see before major electoral events, in order to ensure that every single citizen in this country who should be counted in the review is counted.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
My hon. Friend has covered most of the points, so I will be very brief. In a sense, I will be asking the Minister only a couple of questions.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that we hit the high water mark at the general election. The Minister has corrected me when I have perhaps claimed too high an increase for the 2017 general election. Nevertheless, there is a surge in registrations that makes a general election register, as I have said, the high water mark and, if we are asking for a snapshot, the most accurate snapshot within, perhaps, a period of nine months or a year either side. In that respect, it is the most accurate register on which to base a set of boundaries.
I wonder whether the Minister can answer a couple of questions—I am not trying to catch her out. First, can she say, given that there is that rush at a general election, what measures a Government might put in place to maintain that high water mark level of registrations? For example, in the past year there was a proposal to downgrade the annual canvass. That proposal actually went through, which I was not happy with at the time, but the Minister was confident it was achievable. We are not going to see that this year, rightly, but what measures could be put in place to maintain that high water mark around a general election? Can the Minister also explain—I think this was touched upon during the evidence sessions—whether any assessment has been made of the numerical difference between the general election register and the register in March that we are going to base this on, and why that difference exists?
Using the March register, as opposed to waiting for more people to drop off the register at the end of this year—potentially 200,000 people—is a very sensible move. I have praised the Minister in the past when she has earned it; this was the right thing to do, and I echo my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood in welcoming the change to maintain as high a water mark as possible in the number of people registered. As she has said, there is a broader debate about automatic registration, but I do not think that is covered in this new clause.
Chloe Smith
I am happy to offer a few further arguments as to why it is misguided to seek to use general election data. Going back to the facts of the matter in December 2019, there are two points I want to make. The first is that the December 2019 general election was an unexpected event, for a number of reasons. That may be a matter of ins and outs for politicians, but for administrators, that is quite a proposition: they have to be able to run an election as requested.
At that time, electoral officers had broadly three options for when to publish their electoral registers—three different options at three different times. Some published in October 2019, just after the election was called, for very valid reasons: they might have seen the benefit of trying to simplify the process of giving each elector their identification number and arranging the printing and postage of poll cards. A second group published on 1 December 2019, the traditional deadline for publication of the revised registers following the canvass. And some published on 1 February 2020, which is the deadline for those who had an election other than the general election in their area during that period—that is, a by-election between 1 January and December 2019. My point is that there are three different times when election officers would have published the registers, so there is no such thing as a single register that provides the silver bullet the Opposition are looking for. I am afraid it is deeply misguided to think there is.
My second point, based on the facts in December last year, is that some registers were swollen, but some were not. The hon. Member for City of Chester will recall the evidence given by Roger Pratt to this Committee:
“Three hundred and eighty-eight seats were actually larger at the general election than on 1 December, but 261…were smaller at the general election”.––[Official Report, Parliamentary Constituencies Public Bill Committee, 18 June 2020; c. 30.]
Not only is there not a silver bullet, the bullet does not even go in the direction in which the Opposition would like to fire the gun.
Christian Matheson
My understanding, however, is that the overall number of electors always swells to a high-water mark during a general election, albeit there will be some constituencies in which that is not the case, as Mr Pratt advised us.
Chloe Smith
As a matter of common sense, that swelling is likely, and I agree with the hon. Gentleman that people have an incentive to register before an election. It is evidently the case that the demands of an election, where people have the chance to cast their vote and have their say, are an encouragement to registration. I do not argue against that at all; I welcome that. As I said in my earlier remarks, we want to encourage people to register year round, but there is that particular incentive with an election. These facts remain, however, and they drive holes through the Opposition’s argument right now.
I am afraid that there is one further point that I need to drive home hard: the hon. Member for the City of Chester should know better than to rehearse the really poor arguments he made about canvass reform when this time last year we discussed the statutory instrument that he mentioned. It was not a downgrade of the annual canvass. He had not done his homework at the time. It was an upgrade of the annual canvass, whereby resources can be focused on the hardest to identify, who, from Labour Members’ discourse, we might think they wished to go after. The upgrade also involved looking at where resources should be focused, rather than taxpayers’ money being put to poorer use where those resources are not needed. In other words, canvass reform allows registration officers to do a more targeted job of the canvass. That is a good thing. It allows citizens to have a better experience of canvassing, because they are being asked to fill out fewer forms. It allows taxpayers to save money. As the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood rightly pointed out, every pound in local government is sorely needed at the moment. There should never be an argument for wasting money in local government on an exercise that could be better targeted than it has been in the past. Those are the facts about canvass reform. Furthermore, I am afraid the hon. Member for the City of Chester is incorrect to say that we will not see that this year. We will. If he were in touch with his Welsh Labour colleagues in Cardiff, for example, he would know that it is going ahead this year, and that they rightly support it. Indeed, so do the devolved Government in Scotland, because it is the right thing to do. But enough on the annual canvass; that is not our subject matter here.
The Government strongly believe that the use of the electoral register in the way for which the Bill provides is the right thing to do. I have given comprehensive reasons why the idea of doing it from a general election register is not strong. I urge the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood not to press new clause 4 to a vote.
Cat Smith
We will be pressing new clause 4 to a vote. The Minister made some good points, and this is an area where we have spent many a happy day discussing the annual canvass and the inaccuracy of electoral registers. In the current cycle, I concede that the difference between the general election register and the March 2020 register is quite narrow because of the timing of the recent general election. However, new clause 4 is designed to deal with future boundary reviews. When a large amount of time has elapsed between the date of the snapshot and a general election, there may be significantly more than hundreds of thousands of people missing from the electoral register, therefore I will press new clause 4 to a vote.
The Chair
Just to clarify, that is not now.
Question put and agreed to.
New clause 1 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 2
Electorate per constituency
“(1) In rule 2(1)(a) of Schedule 2 to the 1986 Act (electorate per constituency) for “95%” substitute “92.5%”.
(2) In rule 2(1)(b) of Schedule 2 to the 1986 Act (electorate per constituency) for “105%” substitute “107.5%”.”—(Cat Smith.)
This new clause seeks to widen the permissible range in a constituency‘s electorate, which may be up to 7.5% above or below the electoral quota calculated in accordance with Schedule 2, paragraph 2(3) of the 1986 Act.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Cat Smith
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Moving on from which register to use, new clause 2 is about the percentage variants between constituencies of different sizes. The Bill must proceed by ensuring a fair and democratic review. We want all the new boundaries to reflect the country as it is today, and to ensure that all communities get fair representation. Those boundaries must also take into consideration local ties and identities. Communities have never been stronger than in the recent troubling months. Right across the country, we see communities pulling together to support vulnerable residents. Now more than ever, those community connections must be valued and respected. However, the restrictive 5% quota tolerance in the Bill flies in the face of protecting those community ties.
During the evidence sessions, the secretary to the Boundary Commission for England spoke about the difficulty caused by the smaller tolerance, which makes it
“much harder to have regard to the other factors that you specify in the legislation, such as the importance of not breaking local ties, and having regard to local authority boundaries and features of natural geography. Basically, the smaller you make the tolerance, the fewer options we have.”
He went on:
“The only real way to mitigate it is to make the tolerance figure slightly larger. The larger you make it, the more options we have and the more flexibility we have to have regard to the other factors”. —[Official Report, Parliamentary Constituencies Public Bill Committee, 18 June 2020; c. 7. Q3.]
Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)
To illustrate the hon. Lady’s point, the old boundary review proposed a new boundary for Ceredigion, north Pembrokeshire and south Montgomeryshire, which would have been 97 miles from one point to the other. I want to emphasise not only the distance, but that there is a continuous range of communities throughout that 97-mile distance. It is very difficult for whoever represents that seat to really represent the constituents in the way they have grown accustomed to.
Cat Smith
My hon. Friend makes a good and articulate point with his own local geography. Indeed, if constituents are perhaps struggling to see the identity of the communities around them, that may lead to people feeling disconnected from what their local MP is doing, because they are not perceived to be a local MP. Constituents may feel that the MP represents a different area, because of the size of some of those constituencies.
My example, also from Wales, is the constituency of Aberavon. The previous boundary review, which was on the 5% variants, proposed to cut through the heart of Port Talbot, separating the town’s shopping centre from its high street and cutting the steel works off from the housing estate that was built for its workforce. I spoke to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) just before we came into the Committee this afternoon. He recalled that when he told his constituents about what the commission had proposed for his community, they fell about laughing and struggled to believe that this was actually true. It was incomprehensible to them that this proposal to split their community down the middle would come from the boundary commission.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
For my own clarity, was that on the 600 proposal?
Cat Smith
It was. Obviously, the proposals that come out of this boundary review will look different because of the 650 figure. The tight 5% quota, however, still gives the commissioners a great deal of trouble in trying to keep those communities together, to ensure that people can believe that the constituency they are in represents a community.
Christian Matheson
My hon. Friend will recall that two academics in the evidence sessions suggested that the problems in drawing up the constituencies—linking the constituency to reflect its communities—were as much, if not more, because of the tight 5% limit as because of the reduction by 50 seats.
Cat Smith
His apology is very much accepted, but my hon. Friend draws me back to the point that I was hoping to make. From the evidence that we heard, experts such as David Rossiter and Charles Pattie agreed that the 5% rule caused significant disruption to community boundaries. Indeed, they concluded that the substantial disruption on the back of the constituencies to be brought in by the sixth review is not entirely due to the reduction in the number of MPs. Their report shows in detail that disruption was caused by the introduction of this new form of national quota with a 5% tolerance.
In addition, many members of the Committee have referred to the Council of Europe Venice Commission “Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters”, which states that good practice is to allow a standard permissible tolerance from the electoral quota of 10%. Internationally, a larger quota is viewed as promoting best practice to secure fair representation. This code also recommends that boundaries are drawn without detriment to national minorities, but the Government’s restrictive quota could have serious consequences for national minorities in this country. Councillor Dick Cole from Cornwall stated in his written evidence:
“The UK Government has recognised the Cornish as a national minority. This alone should lead MPs to ensure that the new legislation includes a clause…to protect Cornish territoriality.”
We do not have an amendment tabled to do that, but a larger quota allows flexibility for English commissioners to ensure that their proposals respect Cornish identity. Places such as Cornwall might then be able to identify with their seat, instead of the ludicrous Devonwall seat proposal of the previous review, which was met with much ridicule in the Cornish community and, I suspect, in Devon.
That is not just an issue for the Cornish. The UK Government recognise the Scottish, Welsh and Irish alongside the Cornish people as national minorities under the Council of Europe framework convention for the protection of national minorities, which the UK signed in 1985. The act of respecting those minorities will be made all the more difficult by a restrictive 5% quota, which could prevent the boundary commission from being able to keep those communities together. My Welsh colleagues feel very strongly that Welsh-speaking communities ought to be held together, and this would be made easier by having the larger flexibility for the commissioners.
We recognise the need for constituencies to be as broadly equal as possible, but anyone who claims that they truly believe that all constituencies should be equal means that every single constituency must be exactly the same size. I do not believe that anyone in Committee believes that, not least because this morning we had unanimous support for the protection of Ynys Môn, which will come in with a much smaller population than many other constituencies.
The evidence is strong: having wider electoral tolerance will create constituencies that are more representative of the communities that they seek to represent. A move from a 5% variance to about a 7.5% variance is a difference worth about 2,000 electors per constituency. That is a reasonable compromise to ensure that communities are kept together and that constituencies are as broadly equal as possible.
Alec Shelbrooke
I thank the hon. Lady for her remarks on her new clause.
Let me start by being controversial: I believe that the plus or minus 5% should be seen as a matter of last resort, and that the boundary commission should try to do everything in its power to be bang on the money in the middle. Let me develop that argument, and I am willing to take interventions on it.
These figures are not correct, because I have not messed around with the numbers. I am using them just as illustrations. If we take that figure to be 72,165—that is not the exact figure, but I am using it for illustrative purposes—in less than 600 seats, that figure would have been 78,198, of which another 5% would be 3,909 electors. Five per cent. of 72,165 is 3,609, whereas another 7.5% of 72,165 is 5,413. I make those illustrative points because the difference between the 5% on 600 seats and the 7.5% on 650 seats is 1,500 electors more. The difference between 5% and 7.5% on the 650 seats is roughly 1,800 voters. I wanted to lay that out at the start; please do not talk about the inaccuracy of the figures because I know that they are inaccurate, but they are in the ball park.
The Bill provides for the boundaries to be reviewed and set every eight years. We know that there are several cycles going on, with local government reviews, polling district reviews and ward reviews. As my right hon. Friend the Member for—I have already forgotten her constituency.
Alec Shelbrooke
I was going to say Billericay, but I think that is your constituency, Sir David, or was at some point—I am losing my thread. My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke has on several occasions drawn our attention to the planned housebuilding population changes that we all know are going to happen in constituencies. The plus 5% and plus 7.5% variances are open to interpretation about what they actually mean. Are we using them as a starting point, with constituencies at the absolute minimum or maximum to start with, knowing that within a certain time, they are going to be out of the equation?
In Wetherby, which is one part of my constituency, 800 houses are being built, and more are being built further down—a considerable number of houses. Some 5,000 are due to be built in the Leeds East constituency, which neighbours mine. The hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood mentioned North Yorkshire as a council that would not have to cross county boundaries if we went to a 7.5% tolerance. Some 10,000 houses are due to go in just on the boundary with my constituency—that is in just one small part of North Yorkshire—so we know that there will be a large shift in populations in a relatively short period, and certainly in that eight-year window.
Mr Bellringer said in his oral evidence—I think to a certain extent the Committee accepted his argument—that we have to draw the line at some point, so we cannot use in the figures new housing and so on. He was talking about potential ward boundaries; the point being that you have to draw the line with ward boundaries that have already been drawn, and not those that might be drawn.
Over the eight years, we will see considerable change in population in constituencies. Indeed, the driving force behind a lot of the Committee’s conversation has been that the data will be almost a quarter of a century out of date by the next election. That was always going to mean a significant movement in constituency boundaries because of the amount of time that has passed. Should the boundary commission be trying to construct seats within the plus 5% or minus 5% tolerance when, maybe with a year, that seat could be bigger than plus 5% or smaller than minus 5%?
I am not saying that we should change the Bill, but in my view, the boundary commission should try to be bang on the money at around 72,000 or 73,000, depending on the final figures. Surely, if we want a balanced electorate, we should look at how we can make that work over the cycle, so that when large housing developments are built, we tinker and make minor changes in an area every eight years, rather than the huge changes that we are making now.
My constituency has 82,000 electors and Leeds East has 66,000. Those are roundabout figures that vary quite a lot, and 10,000 houses will be built during the next five years. By definition, there will have to be a major change in eight years’ time. If we have already bumped right up to the 5% window when forming the initial boundary for the 2024 election, we are talking about elections after 2032. I cannot remember the exact phrase in the Bill regarding when the next review would come into effect. It could be 15 years from now before the next set of figures come in. There would be a lot of time in which there could be huge variation.
The Chair
Mr Spellar. I do apologise. Just to explain: speeches should alternate between the sides of the Committee, and I was so enthralled by the speech of the right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell that I had not noticed Opposition Members.
John Spellar
Thank you, Sir David. I am sure that like me you were trying to cut your way through all the contradictions and inconsistencies that were in the right hon. Gentleman’s contribution. Many of the points had considerable value, except that they were not consistent. They were not even consistent with this morning’s business. We were talking about being as close as we can be—except, of course, when the seat of Ynys Môn has been won for the Conservative party. I never noticed such interest when it was a battle between Welsh nationalists and Labour for that constituency. An exception, of course, is the Isle of Wight. It is perfectly possible to visit it by ferry, and MPs can go back and forth to it. We need to get as close as possible and we can split wards, and everything else, except of course when it comes to the Isle of Wight, which, on the basis of previous electoral trends—okay, it did go Lib Dem at one stage—is probably going to leave with two Conservative seats.
Then the right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell talked about taking account—which, of course, the boundary commission cannot do—of future building development. I think it is appropriate to be able to look forward. However, with a widened area of discretion, constituency A would be able to say, “We will build fairly close to the line.” Constituency B might be a bit smaller, because of the reasonable expectation, as long as builders do not sit on the land, that there would be a large number of additional people. Of course, it could not know how many of those would be eligible for parliamentary representation, because in many areas the size of the population does not necessarily match the size of the electoral register, because of the number of people who would not be eligible to be on it.
Alec Shelbrooke
On the point about house building going in, it goes back to the evidence that the boundary commission draws the line at that particular moment; but, again, if it is known that it is coming in, at the moment nothing stops that plus 5% being right up at the limits. Even though building the housing is in a city council’s plans, it will, within a year, almost immediately go over the limit.
John Spellar
That is rather my point—exactly. With a wider area of appreciation, it is possible to take account of that. It becomes much more difficult the narrower it is. It also comes down to the size of the building blocks. I think the right hon. Gentleman mentioned that some of his wards are in Leeds and some are in the country. For those MPs who represent rural areas or small towns the wards are quite often 1,000, 1,500 or 2,000. In most of the metropolitan areas they are in the 8,000 to 10,000 mark. In certain areas—not Birmingham, any more, since the change in the boundaries and all-up elections—including in Leeds, for example, my under- standing is that the number is somewhere around 16,000 to 19,000. That makes, again, for a sizeable building block.
There is, frankly—and with all due respect to our colleague the hon. Member for Glasgow East—no point talking about Scottish wards, because they are much larger, being based on a single transferable vote system, If, heaven forbid, Conservative Members now seek to move towards STV in the United Kingdom, that will be another issue entirely. However, there is not the same identity of ward members as we have when we must have much wider wards. The idea is to keep, as far as possible, structural organisation for a ward, although there may need to be some minor exceptions. The boundary commission initially crossed borough boundaries as an exception, to deal with problems in London, as I recall. Now, it seems to almost totally disregard such boundaries. That is one reason why the Labour party, unsuccessfully, still wanted to allow Parliament to act as a constraint on the self-fulfilling activities of the boundary commission.
It is enormously important to maintain some sort of coherence and identity. It is not just constituencies that should have geographic and community coherence, but wards as well. There should not be gerrymander-style wards, similar to some American constituencies, which get close to having exact mathematic equivalence but end up being utterly extraordinary shapes and sizes. That is why we should not take note of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe recommendation to look at size of population, as the United States does, rather than electoral registers. The United States bases its wards on census figures, not electoral registration. In some areas, authorities might be encouraged if they had to focus on electoral registration rather than registration suppression, as happens in a number of states, whipped on by Donald Trump.
For that reason, one probably has to have slight, and probably unjustified and unworthy, suspicions, about the vehemence with which the argument for 5% is being mounted by Government Members. We have been told, both by the Conservative party witness and by Members, that the OSCE report firmly says that the total variation should be 10%—in other words, 5% on either side. They prayed that in aid as justification for their case, but that is not what the OSCE says in its recommendation. It clearly states:
“The maximum admissible departure from the distribution criterion…should seldom exceed 10% and never 15%, except”—
it even says this—
“in really exceptional circumstances”.
There are practical reasons in favour of the proposal. We need to ensure the maintenance of communities and prevent considerable inconvenience similar to that experienced as a result of the previous boundary changes. We have heard evidence that 650 seats may or may not make it easier, but these very tight margins make it more difficult for the boundary commission, parliamentarians and, most importantly, the electorate.
Bim Afolami (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
I listened with interest to the right hon. Member for Warley and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell. I want to make a couple of points.
Bearing in mind that my party is keen on approving of Democratic Presidents in the US these days, one of my political heroes has always been Lyndon Baines Johnson. When asked about Gerald Ford, who later became President after Nixon’s resignation, LBJ said that he was “so dumb he can’t even pee and chew gum at the same time.” The intention of keeping the 5%, while maintaining relationships between communities within a constituency, is an example of how this Bill and this boundary commission, which I trust and respect, can and will be able to pee and chew gum at the same time.
I found the speech by the right hon. Member for Warley strange as he was, in effect, making the argument for what we have now, which is a wide appreciation of the number, so as to make it easier, so he says, for communities to stay together. I understand that argument. It is not a wholly illegitimate one, but if we take that view and do not trust the boundary commission to get this right, over time—probably quite quickly, bearing in mind the speed of population movements these days—we will get to the same position we are in now. I think there is broad agreement across the House and this Committee that we should take this opportunity to make a change to this system, given that these boundaries have been out of date for 20 years or so. If we are to do so, it is very important that we have a tight margin of appreciation so we can set the dial to make sure every vote counts as equally as possible.
John Spellar
Would the hon. Gentleman consider the possibility that it is because we have been through a couple of boundary commission recommendations, and found how inadequate and badly based many of them are, that we distrust them?
Bim Afolami
I was about to agree with the right hon. Gentleman. However, the point of our system is that in response to arguments, the boundary commission changes what it has proposed. Members can correct me if I am wrong, but I think that during either the 2013 review or the 2018 one—as we all know, those reviews were abandoned because the House failed to approve them—almost 50% of the changes that were made were changed in response to submissions, both from Members who were in the House at the time and from other interested parties, including members of the public.
I have no doubt that the boundary commission will make mistakes, but I trust the ingenuity of those people who will be able to challenge it: not just Members, but political parties, members of the public and random geeks who do this sort of thing for fun. I trust that the boundary commission will listen to reasonable representations—particularly those regarding local ties and linguistic points, which the hon. Member for Ceredigion spoke about earlier—and that we can get this right. We need to get the margin of appreciation as tight as possible so that the votes of all members of the public in this country can count equally. That is a very important principle, and one that I support.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
I am listening very closely to the hon. Gentleman. The Committee has talked at great length about the importance of voters having an equal say. Does he accept, however, that until people in this House are willing to be grown up enough to address the inadequacies of the first-past-the-post system, we are—I do not want to say “unable to pee and chew gum”—putting our effort in the wrong place? Quite rightly, we are saying that we want to have equal voting in constituencies, but we are unwilling to talk about the inadequacies of first past the post.
Bim Afolami
At the risk of straying from the measures covered by this new clause, we can have that debate. I happen to support the first-past-the-post system, but I understand that there are very good reasons for not doing so. However, that is not the place of this Bill. If people wanted another referendum on the voting system, I think first past the post would win, as it did several years ago, but I am perfectly happy to have that debate.
In relation to the point made by the hon. Member for Glasgow East about the inadequacies of first past the post, those who do not like that system need to accept that if one is going to respect local ties and local communities and regard them as important, one cannot at the same time support moving to a system that involves much bigger regions, such as a single transferable vote system, or proportional representation generally. That would negate the original point. There are a lot of things that people say they like about the first-past-the-post system. I am not saying that they like every aspect. For example, there are people in my constituency who vote Green, and it is unlikely that the Greens would ever win in my constituency—although, of course, strange things happen in politics. Those who vote Green might say, “I never get a chance for my vote to count.” I appreciate that, but one aspect that people do like about the first-past-the-post system is the fact that community ties are respected and they feel that their Member of Parliament to some degree represents what they feel their community to be like.
We have talked about the difficulties of this. Of course the boundary commission gets it wrong sometimes, but it is up to us, members of the public, political parties and the geeks who do this stuff for fun to try to ensure that the constituencies make sense, because that, I think, is the core of the legitimacy of the first-past-the-post system. And if—this, I suppose, is a warning to the Government or, indeed, anybody else—this whole process were mismanaged and the boundary commission ended up not listening to members of the public, constituencies, Members of Parliament and so on and not making sure that the constituencies did pee and chew gum at the same time, we would get delegitimisation of the first-past-the-post system, because people would not be feeling that they would be voting for a particular Member who represented their community. Therefore I think that it is a point well made.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
I support the new clause, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood. I think that we need to go back and listen to some of the arguments that we have heard in this Committee before, but also some of the evidence that we have taken. People have highlighted the problems with 5% and the rigid use of 5%. The hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden, who just spoke, really made an argument in favour of more flexibility for the boundary commission, because he was saying, “Let’s trust the boundary commission. Let’s set the parameters and let it get on with the job.”
What the boundary commission clearly said in evidence to us was this. Mr Bellringer, when asked about tolerance of 5% plus or minus, said:
“It is something that we always used to be able to do in the past and did do on occasion. Prior to 2011, there was not this hard maximum and minimum, but we would still be aiming to keep constituencies within a broad range. Occasionally we would breach that if we needed to, to provide a better holistic solution.”––[Official Report, Parliamentary Constituencies Public Bill Committee, 18 June 2020; c. 17, Q30.]
The boundary commission was clearly saying to us that it tried to keep within or close to the average, but on the rare occasions on which the local circumstances required this, it would use more flexibility. The argument from the boundary commission is clearly that it would like that flexibility in order to do a good job, and I think we should listen to it.
We have had experience of the 5%. We have just been through two reviews, and the complications and difficulties that the 5% created have given us the opportunity to have experience of that without having to implement it, fortunately, because Parliament saw reason. We have the opportunity now to correct that flaw in the process and increase the figure. I would suggest 10%, as the OSCE report suggests, but my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood has found a different solution to the problem.
We also heard from Dr Rossiter, who has investigated this issue. He talks about the situation where these tight tolerances force the boundary commission to go over local authority boundaries, and he respects the difficulties that that creates for Members of Parliament when representing different local authorities. He also made the point that the discretion of the boundary commission enables it to avoid those situations when putting forward proposals. We thus have evidence from an expert that such difficulties may be forced on the boundary commission the tighter we make the plus or minus above the average.
Dr Rossiter went on to say:
“I have noticed, when we have been looking at this, the significant help that increasing that tolerance by very small amounts will provide. As soon as you go from 5% to 6%, you have a big payback from going up by that one percentage point. That payback increases to around 8%, which is why we came to the conclusion in our previous report that a figure of 8% would be much more helpful.”––[Official Report, Parliamentary Constituencies Public Bill Committee, 18 June 2020; c. 140, Q269.]
My hon. Friend’s proposal is 7.5%, which takes us close to the recommendation. That recommendation is based on expert review of the process of creating boundaries and its impact on local communities.
Returning to a point that I made in a previous debate, I firmly believe that we represent communities as much as numbers of people. Obviously, that has to be met within a certain tolerance. We cannot have a situation in which there is one enormous constituency of more than 100,000 people and one such as mine that is below the average. I also entirely accept that we cannot continue with constituencies that are 20 years out of date, which has led to some of the fluctuations in numbers.
Alec Shelbrooke
The hon. Gentleman said, I think, that he would be happy to go to 10% or 15% on either side. At 20% or 30% difference, these boundaries work, so there would be no need to change them within his preferred tolerances every 20 years.
Clive Efford
I am not sure that that is correct. We have examples of differences in constituency numbers that go well beyond 10%. I would not go beyond 10%, but I accept the 7.5% that my hon. Friend the Members for Lancaster and Fleetwood is putting forward. That is an acceptable figure that would give the boundary commission the flexibility it needs.
We have all experienced elections, in various numbers. I am on my ninth general election now. I do not want to put years on you, Sir David, but you have been through many more. It is clear that sections of our constituencies vote in similar patterns. I would say that that is because there is a commonality about the experience of those communities. When we start to subdivide those communities, their ability to affect an election and gain representation through their vote is diminished. That eats away at the root of the democratic process.
Those who wrongly focus virtually on numbers alone are in danger of undermining that part of the democratic process. More emphasis needs to be placed on location, community and all the common characteristics that make a community, over and above the numbers. However, I accept that there has to be a limit. I would say that my hon. Friend’s recommendation is about right.
Alec Shelbrooke
I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the types of community, and Mr Bellringer has given evidence that wards generally reflect communities in an area, and that to split them therefore risks splitting local ties. However, I think the argument falls down around extending the parameters and not splitting wards. We have seen in the past that in order to stay within wards, and to get the constituency to fit within a number, some very strange constituencies get built that do not represent those communities. It comes back to the question: is it about the plus or minus figure, or is it about going sub-ward level to keep communities together, as wards are described as doing? If wards are described as doing that, why would we then bunch a lot of different, disparate wards together to make one constituency? Surely they should be the same.
Clive Efford
We are talking about plus or minus 7.5%. I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the issue of wards, but Sir David pulled me up because it is not within the scope of this debate. However, I agree that we should look at sub-ward level, particularly where it might avoid having to create a constituency with an orphan ward or community—one single ward coming in from a neighbouring local authority area. If that can be avoided that is very desirable. Again, that would go back to my point that that is why we need flexibility within the boundary commission. We also need more co-operation with local electoral registration officers who have numbers down to street level, so they could clearly do that.
However, I take the point made by the right hon. Gentleman—or the point that he from the Electoral Commission—that where that happens it has to be a community. It cannot just be a few streets from a neighbouring area that does not really relate to the rest of the constituency. It has to be something that it makes sense to take down to sub-ward level. We do not need to worry about polling districts, because we have heard from the Electoral Commission that local authorities carry out a review of polling districts immediately after parliamentary boundary reviews where necessary. Therefore, we do not need to worry about the parliamentary constituency boundary commission creating new areas at a sub-ward level if it avoids other disruption such as going out across other local government boundary areas.
To conclude, we need to provide this degree of flexibility for the boundary commission, which has made a case that that flexibility would help it. We have had expert advice that a tolerance level around 8% is most desirable; and that we get payback from each percentage point we go up from the rigid 5%, which begins to taper off if we go above 8%. I think my hon. Friend has got it right and I urge the Government to accept the amendment.
Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)
The hon. Member for Eltham said that Mr Bellringer indicated that the boundary commission tries to work as close to the quota as possible, and only varies where there is a good reason. I can only speak from the evidence I recall, which is mostly from the north-west. Our smallest constituency is Wirral West, which is just below 6,000 and was drawn at that size to try to avoid a cross-Mersey seat between the Wirral and Liverpool. The largest is 95,000 in Manchester Central, which was drawn very close to that size at the time because it was expected to depopulate. The commission does not always stay as close to the quota as possible. It sometimes take some very odd logical steps to try and make seats seem cohesive.
Clive Efford
I accept the hon. Gentleman’s point, because that is exactly what Mr Bellringer said. He said that as a general rule the commission would try to get as close to the average as possible, but in exceptional circumstances it would try to provide a better holistic solution. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, but that is not the norm.
Chris Clarkson
In which case, I invite the hon. Gentleman to look at the 75 seats in the north-west and see how many of them are close to quota, even when originally drawn. Very few is the answer. As a thought experiment I decided to see what would happen if we applied the 2019 electoral figures, which are the most up- to-date ones we have, to the 5%, 7.5% and 10% quotas. As a sample, I took all the seats represented by Conservative Members. Only one seat falls within the 5% quota, which is the seat represented by my hon. Friend for Hitchin and Harpenden. If we extend to 7.5%, we still have only one within quota—again, the seat represented by my hon. Friend for Hitchin and Harpenden. If we get to 10%, two of us—my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke and me—are still over quota.
Looking at the population drift from these seats, it is not that large over a number of years. It is simply that the more the quota is extended simply to try to reduce the extent of change, the more the seats end up disproportionately large. When starting with a 5% quota variant, the maximum difference between the smallest and largest seats is 7,260. That rises to 10,912 on 10%; then 14,551 on 10%; then 21,826 voters based on the OCSE of a maximum of 15%. It is never more than 15%. The reality is that we will see population change in the seats that will be drawn, which is a natural consequence of some areas depopulating and other areas increasing in population. Drawing the quotas as closely as possible to the mean is a way of ensuring that when we review the situation in eight years’ time, the variation will not be so severe that radical change will be needed. Obviously, radical change will be required in this review because the information is 20 years out of date. We should aim to get the electorate as close as possible to that mean now, so that in the future we are not having to radically redraw the map every time we come to this exercise.
Christian Matheson
I speak in support of new clause 2, which I tabled with my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood. I have really enjoyed listening to the contributions to the debate, but I am concerned about the lack of consistency expressed by Government Members. That is partly in relation to the clause, but also in relation to the clause as it reflects other parts of the Bill. I will try not to stray too far from the clause, and I am sure, Sir David, that you will pull me back if I do.
The right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell—who, as always, makes me stop and think—talked about the boundary commission getting it right first time. I suspect that he meant in the first set of proposals as opposed to the former ones. One of the problems is that we cannot always trust the boundary commission to get it right first time. Frankly, there are occasions when it does not get it right the second time. That is why we opposed automaticity in another part of the Bill.
I understand what the right hon. Gentleman is saying, but the lack of absolute confidence—we do have confidence in the boundary commission—might have been expressed in another part of the considerations. The hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton discussed disparities in our own region, and about his seat and that of the right hon. Member for Basingstoke who, I think, has described her seat as being a small market town that has grown and grown over the years. She might wish to correct me. These changes do happen, and it is not simply that the boundary commission chooses to draw much bigger seats. Growth does happen, and for that reason it is projected that south-east England is likely to get extra seats as a result of population shifts.
The hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden—I must get it correct—said that the situation was not what we have now, but the new clause does not propose the situation we have now—it is not proposing 10% either way. I listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham suggesting that we have 10%, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley suggesting that it is perfectly legitimate to propose that within the OSCE guidelines. However, the new clause proposes a balance between that very tight adherence to the variance of 5% and the need for community interest.
I listened to the debate at Second Reading, and the right hon. Member for Basingstoke, and the hon. Members for Newbury and for West Bromwich West might have mentioned the importance of reflecting community interests. We have all spoken on that subject, and the hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden discussed that in a question on first past the post, and spoke about maintaining the importance of community. Many Committee members have mentioned the importance of community, but the lack of consistency comes up when we reject all those arguments in favour of tight adherence. Somewhere, we have to strike a balance.
On this side of the Committee, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood said, we have accepted the Government’s arguments that we must have much more equally sized constituencies. We are asking Government Members to accept, as we strive to achieve that, that the guidance to boundary commissions should say that those community ties—which all other hon. Members have said are important—should be taken into account, so that they get it right first or second time. In this Bill, we do not have the opportunity to call them back if they do not get it right.
This new clause provides balance and a safety valve, as we have discussed regarding automaticity, to ensure that community interests and ties are taken into account. It achieves a tighter tolerance around the average, so that it achieves something of the Government’s aim—which is also our aim—to secure more equalised seats, but not going so far that it completely wipes out the community interest. Across the Committee, hon. Members have talked about that. I will therefore support my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood in the vote.
Chloe Smith
What a good debate we have had on this part of the Bill. I think we all knew this would be one of the main dividing lines in the Committee. I am pleased we have been able to air these arguments and discuss what they mean for the Bill and, crucially, for real people—to whom we should anchor our discussion.
As we all know, we are looking at the electoral quota followed by what is stipulated in the existing legislation, namely, that constituencies subject to a small number of exceptions must be between 95% and 105% of that electoral quota. That is the 10% point range. As we know, because we have looked at it comprehensively in Committee, the boundary commissions may then take other factors into account, which are subject to the overriding principle of equality in constituency size.
I do not want to detain the Committee on things we have gone over, but I will underline how far adrift the UK’s current constituencies are from that principle of equality. There are some very clear examples in England. Milton Keynes South clocks in at 97,000; Newcastle-Upon-Tyne Central clocks in at 54,000. That is not fair. In Wales, Cardiff South and Penarth comes in at 80,000 constituents, whereas only 43,000 electors get to have their say in Arfon. That is not fair. The Government are committed to ensuring greater fairness by updating parliamentary constituencies to ensure that across the UK votes have the same weight. That is what we care about. That is what we are delivering. That is the right thing to do.
I do not agree with the new clause tabled by the hon. Members for Lancaster and Fleetwood and for City of Chester. I want to make a point about the difference between theory and practice. It is easy for us to bandy about figures such as 5% and 7.5%, which seem theoretical. I pay tribute to the mathematical minds that we have in this Committee. My hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton is one of the finest, but there are others in the Committee who have a great facility with numbers and have really helped us in these deliberations by looking at what those figures mean when we run them under different scenarios.
Let us remember what those numbers are for. We are talking about people. Those numbers relate to the number of voters. Even the word “electors” might seem a step away from normal people, whom we ought to think of here. These people want a chance of fairness in their democracy and for their voice to be heard as equally as the next person in the next seat or nation in the country. That is the core principle at stake. It is unfair to go far off that average point. It is undesirable and it is unworthy of the people we are trying to do this for. We want to get this right for people who have asked for a change to their parliamentary constituencies. They voted for this as a manifesto commitment of this Government; indeed, it was in all parties’ manifestos, as I understand it. That is an important commitment to deliver. We should take that very seriously.
Ultimately, we must take that step away from numbers towards a judgment. The Committee heard evidence from Professor Charles Pattie of the University of Sheffield, who has been studying elections and boundary reviews for more than 30 years, about which we joked with him at the time—he has spent a very long time doing that. His conclusion was that he would certainly endorse the notion of an equalisation rule as the top priority. Dr Alan Renwick took us further in that argument. On the exact percentage that is appropriate, he said that
“numbers around 5% to 10% seem to be fairly standard. There is no answer that an academic can give you as to what is the correct number, but something in that region is appropriate.”––[Official Report, Parliamentary Constituencies Public Bill Committee, 23 June 2020; c. 74, Q141.]
Cat Smith
I thank the Committee for the exchange of views on the new clause. My hon. Friend the Member for Eltham made the point that OSCE recommended a quota variance of 10% either way as reasonable. My new clause, which would provide for a variance of 7.5%, is a compromise. It is reasonable; I am reaching out to the Government in the spirit of working together to come out of the boundary review with equalised constituencies. There is no doubt that they will be more equal, although obviously not bang-on equal, because that would mean that every constituency was of exactly the same size.
The new clause would mean a move towards the equality for which I know we all strive. I do not believe that the Electoral Commission should be drawing constituencies that bump up against the top or the bottom of the quota. Indeed, it should aim to make constituencies as close as possible to bang on the quota, but by doing that, we would not be keeping communities together, but dividing them up. By tabling my new clause with the 7.5% variance, I am striving to find a middle ground where we can balance community ties and constituencies of equal size.
It is not that we do not trust the boundary commission to get that right. It is quite the opposite: we are trying to give the boundary commission the framework to get it right. With a restriction of 5%, we make its job much harder, and we are much more likely to end up with constituencies that divide communities rather than uniting constituencies. The new clause is reasonable. I am striving to compromise—I would be very happy with 10%, but I recognise that the Government’s position is 5%. I aim to meet in the middle, and the new clause is a reasonable attempt to get all parties to recognise the balance between equalising constituencies and recognising that community ties are incredibly important in our one member, first-past-the-post electoral system.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment (a) to new clause 3, in line 8 leave out “35” and insert “40”.
Christian Matheson
I briefly seek the opinion of the Committee in discussion of the new clause. I hope that its aim is self-evident.
Most of us in Committee—my friends, the hon. Members for Glasgow East and for Ceredigion excluded—would consider themselves to be Unionists and proud to be British. I certainly would. My concern is that, as the Bill stands, the Union will be placed under unnecessary and increased strain, because the three smaller nations will take the larger hit to representation here at Westminster, in the House of Commons.
Historically, we heard in evidence that Wales and Scotland were over-represented in terms of population, but that there were historical reasons why that was the case. As devolution has progressed, we have had a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh Assembly, which on the passage of recent legislation became the Senedd—I look to the hon. Member for Ceredigion for approval of the pronunciation. Powers have passed to the Parliament and the Senedd so that more decisions are taken in Holyrood and on Cardiff Bay. Plenty of decisions, including large national decisions, however, still need to be taken at Westminster, on behalf not just of England but of the United Kingdom.
The important thing now—perhaps more than ever in the 20 or so years since we have had that level of devolution —is to maintain the strength of the Union and of the voices within that Union, in number as well as volume. The hon. Gentleman needs no support in terms of volume, but with number that importance is greater than ever.
I ask Members in the Conservative party—which, I think, is back to calling itself the Conservative and Unionist party—to share my concerns about all the hit being taken by the three non-English nations. We do not know the numbers yet, but we have a good idea and could make an assessment. Potentially, by transferring Welsh voices and Scottish voices to England—theoretically, Northern Irish voices too, although under the current numbers that does not look likely—we could destabilise not just the level of representation but the level of life experience from the nations.
What about areas that are more remote from Westminster? For example, and I have said this to the hon. Member for Ceredigion before, some areas of north Wales feel a little disconnected even from the Senedd on Cardiff Bay, and some areas of northern England and perhaps some in the far west, because of geographical distance, feel a little disconnected from Westminster. The more we disconnect from the national Parliament, the less legitimacy it has, and the less legitimacy it has, the less legitimacy the Union has, I fear. The unintended consequence—I genuinely believe that it is unintended—of the proposal in the Bill to transfer strength and numbers in this place from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to England is that it will damage the Union, and damage the voices within the Union, and damage the experience that all the nations bring to this Parliament.
Mrs Miller
I follow the hon. Member’s argument, but surely he should reflect on the fact that Wales did not undergo the changes that it was due to undergo at the time of the creation of the Assembly, which has since become a Parliament. Those changes now have to take place, so that we can deliver the fairness that I know he and I want.
Christian Matheson
I absolutely agree, which is why, to develop my argument and to answer the right hon. Lady directly, the new clause in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood does not seek to maintain the current number of constituencies in Wales. We accept—as we accepted, incidentally, with regard to the previous new clause that we talked about—that there has to be some level of equalisation of constituencies.
That means that Wales and Scotland will lose seats, but in order to manage the different pressures between getting equalisation and maintaining the integrity and strength of the Union and the diverse voices within it, the new clause seeks to maintain a balance by specifying a number of constituencies that is fewer, for example, than Wales has now, but more than it would have if absolute equalisation took place. We are therefore addressing some of the points that the right hon. Lady mentioned, and trying to strike a balance that puts the interests of the Union at the heart of the Bill.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
I am listening to the hon. Member very carefully. It will come as no surprise to the Committee that for me, as a Scottish nationalist, the strength and harmony of the Union is not something that generally keeps me awake at night; it often helps me to get to sleep. However, there is a point here. I do not want to conduct a debate with the right hon. Member for Basingstoke and the hon. Member for City of Chester, but it is very important for members of the Committee to reflect on the fact that this is not the first chipping away of the strength and harmony of the Union in this place.
The right hon. Lady talked about powers being devolved to Scotland and to Cardiff Bay, but let us not forget that this Conservative Government has introduced such things as English votes for English laws. That in itself has been a way of ensuring that Members of Parliament representing constituencies in England can have their say and has, in many respects, already opened up a second-class or second-tier Member of Parliament. I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that the issue the Committee is considering at the moment is not the first time that we have seen the integrity and harmony of the Union being chipped away, albeit inadvertently, by this Government.
Christian Matheson
The hon. Gentleman makes a salient point. I would suggest that we have English devolution, and if we were logical in these arguments, we would reduce the number of constituencies available in those parts of England where there has been devolution but not in the parts where there has not been. In my own area, for example, we do not have an elected mayor, whereas Greater Manchester—I see the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton is present—does have an elected mayor.
Christian Matheson
Of course I will. I mentioned the hon. Gentleman, so I could hardly not give way to him.
Chris Clarkson
Following that logical stride, the devolution settlement across the UK has been entirely piecemeal. It is uneven across the United Kingdom and part of the current problem is a result of that. For example, there was a Welsh Assembly, so there was no reduction in the number of Welsh seats in 2005, whereas there was a reduction in the number of seats from 72 to 59 in Scotland. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that this situation is a natural consequence of the poorly executed devolution plan across the United Kingdom, and that now, in the interests of wider fairness, there should probably be a wider discussion about the devolution settlement for England, and each constituency in the United Kingdom should carry the same weight?
Also, does the hon. Gentleman accept as a cautionary tale that when Canada began setting quotas for certain provinces to have a set number of seats, it led to a massive expansion of the Parliament? They added 30 seats two elections ago, simply to try to keep pace with the fact that Quebec had to have a minimum number of seats.
Christian Matheson
To be clear, I was not proposing different sized quotas in different areas. I was just suggesting that that would be the logic of following devolution to the letter, and to the max, in terms of representation at this place. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we have inconsistency in devolution in the UK. He should take it up, perhaps, with the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, or his successor. [Interruption.] I am not going to go there. The hon. Member for Glasgow East is naughty, Sir David, and knows he should not tempt me to go down that route.
There is another issue. Wales and Scotland in particular have different geography and different population levels from much of England, but not all of it. I am thinking of rural Wales and rural Northumbria, for example. Wales in particular is affected by geography—the sparsity of west Wales and areas such as Brecon and Radnor or Montgomeryshire, the geographic barriers represented by the Welsh valleys, the beautiful area of Snowdonia, where, again, I spent much of my childhood, coming over the border. There is also Ynys Môn. The Committee decided this morning that it should be protected, and I supported that and we have been calling for it for a long time. However, that has a knock-on effect for other constituencies, which must themselves deal with issues other than population, such as sparsity and geography, which need to be taken into account. Because the Committee has decided on a tight 5% tolerance, it is even harder to take into account those areas, and the issues are amplified because Wales is losing so many constituencies. The problems mount one on the other. Every decision that the Committee makes puts further strain on the Welsh area in particular and therefore on the integrity of the constituencies and their viability—and therefore on the Union, because of the way they are represented here.
The hon. Member for Ceredigion spoke this morning about a constituency measuring 97 miles from one side to the other. Whoever the Member for that constituency would be—I think that it would have happened under the 600 boundaries; if 50 constituencies were lost with a tight tolerance there might have to be a 97-mile constituency —they could not possibly do justice to such a huge expanse. It would not be fair to them or their constituents. We want equalisation as much as possible and we have had an argument today about constituents being properly served by having the same number of constituents, voters, electors or—the Minister was right—people living in the constituency. Similarly, they will also not be properly served if their Member of Parliament has to cover a constituency that is hundreds of miles wide.
It is the same for Scotland. I remind the Committee that it was previously proposed, as I believe I mentioned on Second Reading, that there should be a constituency that, if it were superimposed on England with one end at the Palace of Westminster, would have its top end at Nottingham. It would be impossible to serve that constituency or to give its residents any kind of service.
Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)
On the point about the proposed constituency I referred to, over lunchtime I looked to see how it would fare under the new proposed quotas and the 5%. Taking the quota as around 72% we would save about 2 miles.
Christian Matheson
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman—or in a sense I am not, because I should have liked an answer that put my mind at rest, which his did not. It shows the severity of the problems.
I shall deal with the new clause and then the amendment to it, which is a bit of a cheeky one, if the hon. Member for Ceredigion does not mind my saying so. The new clause tries to seek a balance between the point that the hon. Member for Ceredigion made about equalising constituencies, but at the same time not making the three other nations, other than England, take all of the hit, which in turn will damage the standing of this Parliament and the integrity of the Union. It will also recognise the unique geographical circumstances that Scotland and Wales have in terms of sparsity and geography, and will therefore support whoever is elected in these new constituencies to be able to do a decent job, and will support the residents to be properly represented. A constituency that is hundreds of miles wide is just as bad as a constituency with 100,000 residents. There has to be a balance. I suspect we will not be able to support the amendment tabled by the hon. Members for Glasgow East and for Ceredigion, which seeks to maintain the status quo.
We recognise that we cannot justify maintaining the status quo and therefore upsetting the apple cart of getting that equalisation of seats, but there has to be a balance somewhere to defend the Union, to make viable constituencies, and to be fair to the people who live in those extremely large constituencies. We have achieved that by meeting midway between the current situation and the situation that would happen with the Bill unamended.
Ben Lake
I thank the hon. Member for City of Chester for such a thought-provoking speech. I have thoroughly enjoyed our debate and I am perfectly willing to accept the charge of being a constitutional geek. We have debated a range of issues that really get to the heart of democracy and the questions of representation and what that entails. What the hon. Gentleman touched upon just now is something that we have not had an opportunity to discuss too much in Committee: the different challenges that an urban Member of Parliament might face compared with a Member of Parliament in a more rural constituency. I do not downplay the challenges of either; I simply say that there are different considerations and challenges. Although we might not be able to address some of those challenges in this Bill, I am sure the House authorities will have to do so in future. In the same way that it is unfair for a Member to try to represent a constituency of 100,000 electors, it is quite a behemoth task for a Member to do justice to a constituency that is more than 90 miles wide with a continuous population throughout it.
My point in relation to amendment (a) to new clause 3 —I am also willing to admit the charge of being a cheeky chappie in proposing the amendment—is purely to spark a bit of a debate around how we go about allocating seats between the four nations of the United Kingdom, and more specifically the appropriateness or otherwise of a single UK-wide electoral quota. I am here for the debate. I have my own set of views, which Members have probably already guessed, but the amendment is worth probing and it is worth having a discussion about some of the reasoning behind the single UK quota and, as my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester also illustrated in some detail, the possible unintended consequences.
There has been a common theme in not only the evidence sessions but in Committee discussions about the question of Wales: the elephant in the room. We cannot deny the fact that Wales, in terms of registered electors, is over-represented in this place. If we take a single UK-wide electoral quota, there is no argument. What I am trying to probe is whether we should apply a single UK electoral quota across the four nations. Points have already been made about the differential nature of devolution across the UK. The hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton correctly pointed out the fact that it has been piecemeal. To quote a famous Labour colleague in Wales, devolution has very much been,
“a process, not an event”.
I am glad to get that on the record.
Something that was raised in the first evidence session stuck with me; it was presented by the representative of the Liberal Democrats. He used the line of “no reduction, no further devolution.” It made me think about the rationale behind approaching a single UK electoral quota. If I were a Unionist, I would be quite concerned and would stay up at night worrying about the potential consequences of the provisions in the Bill for future boundary reviews, given that they are based on registered electors, when demographics and population change.
The differences in population between England and Wales are illustrative of how things might transpire or are likely to transpire. Between 2001—not quite the precise time of the last register—and the mid-year estimate of 2018, the population of Wales grew by 200,000. That is not a great deal in the broader scheme of things, but it is still an increase in the electorate. I know the point is that population growth in Wales is slower than in other parts of the UK, and it is likely to remain the case that Wales will not grow as quickly as other areas. The consequence of that, should the measures in the Bill be implemented, is that we will be talking about yet a further reduction in the number of Welsh seats at the next boundary review. That is based on the projections provided by the Office for National Statistics—it is a very real likelihood. I hope things will change, but unless we see some drastic changes in demographic trends and migration within the UK, Wales is unlikely to catch up with the pace of population growth.
What does that leave us with? It leaves us with a situation in which the number of representatives who are sent from Wales to this place will initially reduce by about eight—that is the figure that is commonly agreed on for this review. A further one or two seats will then be lost at each subsequent review every eight years or so, such is the disparity in the population growth figures. I am suggesting that, in maintaining 40 Members of Parliament, we focus on what we do about the nations. How do we tackle this constitutional problem? We are a Union of four nations. Although I completely empathise with and understand the arguments made for maintaining electoral quality as far as possible, I am very conscious of the fact that, to all intents and purposes, we have a unicameral system of elected representation. Yes, the House of Lords could be a vehicle to try to top up the territorial representation side of things, but that is not an issue that is being discussed at the moment in any great detail.
David Linden
At the risk of having a bash-the-House-of-Lords session, which I am sure the right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell would enjoy, is there not a case for looking at the situation in the House of Lords—ironically—where certain demographics are protected? For example, there are 92 hereditary peers and 26 clerics. If we can protect particular demographics in the House of Lords, such as clerics and hereditary peers, why can we not do it for the four nations?
Ben Lake
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, and my views on House of Lords reform are well known. Should we be serious about trying to make the best possible use of a second Chamber, many countries across the world have shown how a second Chamber can be used to top up geographical or territorial concerns. I would like to see the House of Lords reformed in that kind of direction.
I would also be quite happy to explore further whether we need to have some sort of an agreement at this point in time about the disparities between the number of seats for each of the four nations. It is already the case that should there be anything that agitates a lot of popular sentiment in England only, there is a very good chance that it will come to pass and that a majority decision in its favour will happen in this place. That is not necessarily the case for Wales or for the other two devolved nations of the United Kingdom. Although it is unlikely that we will manage to address the issue in the Bill, it is nevertheless something to which we need to give active consideration—I say that as somebody of a particular political persuasion.
The situation in Wales is perhaps slightly different from that in Northern Ireland. The devolution settlement is not as developed and deep as the one in Scotland, or indeed the one in Northern Ireland. There are certain important spheres of policy—policing and the judiciary, for example—that are reserved to Westminster and apply to Wales. That is not the case for my colleagues and friends from Scotland, so there are plenty of arguments why there is still a special case to be made for Wales within an unreformed Parliament. When I say “unreformed”, I mean the House of Lords continuing in its current constitutional position.
Clive Efford
I rise to speak in support of the new clause tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester. This is about representation of communities and making sure that voices are heard through the democratic process. If we were to stick rigidly to the averages as calculated and impose them on Scotland and Wales, the significant loss of seats would make people in those nations wonder, “What is the point in the Westminster Parliament if our representation is diminished by such a degree—if we lose out in this process?” That is the way the public would see it, and that would undermine local representation.
I am prepared to accept that the situation in Scotland and Wales is significantly different from my situation in London and the situation in the rest of England. If we are to represent communities effectively, different numbers may apply, and it may be wrong to make a significant reduction in the number of constituencies, particularly at this time. A minimum threshold below which we cannot go is a sensible proposal. Those who say that they want to protect the Union—the integrity of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—should think carefully about what the consequences of this process are, and the message that it sends to communities in Scotland and Wales.
The concept of making sure that we respect communities and local circumstances applies here, perhaps more than anywhere. During this debate, we have heard about constituencies that are geographically quite enormous compared with inner-city ones, in which people within a single constituency live more than 90 miles apart. When people are so distant, that cannot make for healthy democracy and healthy representation, so we have to accept some sort of limit on how large constituencies can be while still remaining a coherent, cohesive community that can be represented. I feel strongly about local representation, the link between a constituency MP and the communities they represent, which is something that Committee members on both sides of the House have referred to. We must give those MPs a racing chance of being able to represent their communities, so we cannot have constituencies that make that impossible.
I have an inner-city constituency, and although it is quite big compared with others, because there is lots of open space in it, I am able to go from one meeting to another; sometimes I do two or three meetings in an evening. That is nigh-on impossible for somebody with a constituency that is spread out over tens of miles—almost 90 miles. There has to be some sort of limitation on distance; we have to be realistic about that, whatever those who are fixed on applying mathematical formulas to this process say. There is an issue about democratic accountability and Members having strong ties to the community that they represent.
When it comes to the Bill’s impact on the number of Members of Parliament from Scotland and Wales, we have to step back and be realistic. If we want to maintain the Union, want people to value Westminster as the place where their laws are made, and want them to be well represented, there is a limit to how far we can go in cutting the number of MPs who come from Scotland and Wales to Westminster, so I support the new clause in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester.
Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)
It is a pleasure to make my first contribution under your chairmanship, Sir David; I seem to have missed you during our sittings. I want to pick up on the eloquent contributions of the hon. Members for Ceredigion, for Eltham, and for City of Chester. We run the risk of viewing ourselves from within a silo in this place, as if we were the only part of the democratic structure, but in fact we do not operate in a silo. Back in the 1940s, when we started reviewing parliamentary boundaries, we probably were the most significant part of that democratic structure, but of course that has changed.
This links back to the point made about the devolution settlement. Over the past 20 years, electors have got a lot more sophisticated. The hon. Member for Eltham said that people need to understand where their laws are made. Yes, they do, but a lot of people’s laws are made not here, but in Holyrood or Cardiff Bay. From the interactions I have had, I know that our electors understand that division in where their laws are made, and how we operate within the structure. There is also the role of local authorities; during the pandemic, we have seen that, and the support that they provide. Speaking from local experience, people understand the difference between the role of their local authority, and my interaction as a Member of Parliament with that local authority.
Clive Efford
I am interested in the hon. Gentleman’s line of argument. Is he arguing that the role of Westminster is diminishing in Scotland, and that reducing the number of MPs from Scotland is justified? It seems a strange argument for the Conservative party to make.
Shaun Bailey
I am saying that we have to take a pragmatic approach to how we view our United Kingdom; as a Unionist, I would never say that the role that the hon. Gentleman speaks of is diminished. It would be remiss not to recognise that voters, particularly in the devolved nations, understand the differences I mentioned. We talk about reducing the number of constituencies in areas of the UK; in a way, we have to balance that with the democratic structures that now exist there.
David Linden
The hon. Gentleman makes a thoughtful argument, but I rather feel that he is trying to square a circle. I follow where he is going with his point on the different legislatures that are available. My constituents have a Member of the UK Parliament, a local councillor and a Member of the Scottish Parliament. The problem with his argument is that until fairly recently, they also had a Member of the European Parliament. We are leaving the European Union—certainly not a change that I approve of—and legislative powers are, by and large, coming back from Brussels to Westminster. Under the Bill, those legislative powers will remain in Westminster, and representation for people in Scotland, including in my constituency, is diminished as a result. Can he not see that he is trying to square a circle in respect of Europe’s legislative powers?
Shaun Bailey
I see the hon. Gentleman’s point. It is a difficult one because it is a good point, but with respect to the line that I am following, I think the scope of what he is saying is a slightly different debate. It is slightly out of the scope of the clause but I see his point and recognise it to a degree. However, as we move into a more—without panicking Front Benchers—quasi-federal system perhaps, there needs to be a wider recognition of how we deal with these quotas. If we look at other systems—take Australia for example—and the way they set quotas between state and federal level, they differentiate. That is just how it goes. It means that areas lose seats and that loss of power is there, but it is made up for by the fact there is a system underneath and they interact with each other. I follow the argument of the hon. Member for Ceredigion, but given where we are constitutionally—I do not want to turn this into a huge constitutional debate because we could do that all day—and I agree that we need to be as pragmatic as we can and review this going forward, I think there is a balance there now with the Senedd and with the Scottish Parliament. I will draw my comments to a close to allow my hon. Friend to talk.
Chloe Smith
It has been another very interesting debate. I am grateful to the hon. Members for Eltham, for the City of Chester and for Ceredigion and to my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West for a thoughtful exposition of a much wider point—much wider than we could hope to do justice to in Committee. We have seen in the arguments, certainly on the Government side of the Committee, the desire to fix a much wider constitutional issue—namely, how England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland should relate to each other. Every single one of the hon. Members who spoke knows that that issue is much larger than the Bill. They also know that it comprises the rest of my portfolio and I would be delighted to speak about it at any other time. Indeed, we will. There are many depths in that work that are acknowledged and being worked upon and about which I am sure we will have many fruitful discussions in the future. I want to do two things today. I want to say a little bit more about why the Bill is not the right place to do that and then I will talk specifically about the merits of the amendment.
The Bill is not the right place to deal with the entirety of the constitutional settlement because, very obviously, it provides for a mechanism for independent boundary reviews, and the constitutional settlement is so much larger than that. This boundary review is, indeed, only for the UK Parliament. The constitutional settlement is much wider. Hon. Members will have heard the Prime Minister’s speech today, in which he made a number of passionately pro-Unionist points. He reminds us that the interests of the citizens of the United Kingdom—their security, prosperity, welfare, and all the opportunities we want to come out of the pandemic—are much wider than what we have here today and that he is addressing them. He is seeking to do that and he has set out clearly what he intends to do. Naturally, and as the Minister of State for the Constitution and Devolution, I am in full-throated support of that, but that is not the subject matter today.
Let us focus a little more on what the Bill does. We all want the constituent nations of the United Kingdom to have a powerful voice. That should be the foundation for all of us in this discussion and I am sure it is. We all want those voices to be heard loud and clear. That is the fair way for the Union to function and to come together in the Parliament of the unitary state. Because that is the only fair way, the new clause does not work. I am afraid to say that it would put inequality and inaccuracy in the way of that Unionist proposition and the prosperity of our Union. If we set in legislation the thresholds proposed in the new clause and amendment (a), we would be cutting into the heart of the idea that votes should be equal, and that would damage the equality between the nations and individual people of the Union.
Christian Matheson
I am grateful to the Minister and all hon. Members for taking part in an illuminating and positive debate. I was particularly taken by the intervention the hon. Member for Glasgow East made on the hon. Member for West Bromwich West, whose response was honest and positive. I welcome that. The idea of the legislative load being passed back from the European Union yet not having the legislative representation to manage that was a serious and salient point. I hoped the hon. Member for Glasgow East might have made a contribution to further develop that point, but he chose not to.
Chloe Smith
To make a brief correction, which should not detain us further, that is untrue. Those powers are returning to Stormont, Holyrood and Cardiff Bay—quite rightly. If we are referring to common frameworks, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Glasgow East will be intimately familiar with the detail. That is an incorrect representation.
Christian Matheson
I am intimately aware of that. I will take the Minister’s advice, because I do not think all of the responsibilities are coming back. Some will go back to the various different Parliaments; others will stay here in Westminster.
Christian Matheson
I do not want to take too long, but both interventions were correct. The point is that some powers will go straight to the devolved Assemblies and Parliaments, but others will remain here. We are where we are.
Let me deal with the Unionist point of view first. When England play football, rugby or cricket, I support England, but I am also British and I am proud to be so. I have a sense of identity that tells me I am British. I do worry that the Union will be weakened under the Bill, because people will feel, in the nations other than England, that their voices are being diminished. That bothers me.
The Minister is right: there is a broader constitutional issue here. We are not trying to fix the constitutional issue, but we are trying not to damage it further. I do not want this to become an English Parliament. The hon. Member for Glasgow East talks about English votes for English laws, which, let’s face it, is a hotch-potch even now. There is a danger that this becomes an English Parliament and is seen as an English Parliament in the nations that are not England. That is my concern.
David Linden
I am immensely grateful to the hon. Member for City of Chester for giving way. It is just interesting to note that the issue of English votes for English laws might have passed hon. Members by. That particular Standing Order has been suspended during the proceedings of the virtual Parliament. I will leave it to the Committee to ponder whether it might be a good idea to bring that back when virtual proceedings end. A lot of people, regardless of whether they are Unionists or nationalists, would think that English votes for English laws is a pretty silly policy in this place.
Christian Matheson
I had not noticed that. You learn something new every day in this Committee. I think the Minister was unfair to characterise this idea as we think we know better. It is not that; it is simply that we are proposing to do the process differently to bring in balance. That is something that I have talked about on this clause and other clauses, and that my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood has talked about. We are trying to find a balance between community and numbers and geography and numbers. It is difficult and we have different opinions on it, but it is a genuine attempt to create a balance between the different areas.
It is right that this House and Parliament give instructions to the boundary commissions to go away and do their jobs, and the new clause is about trying to make sure that those instructions are balanced. It was a helpful debate with positive contributions, for which I am grateful. In the light of that, it is not my intention or that of my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood to press the new clause to a vote, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 4
Definition of “electorate”
‘(1) The 1986 Act is amended as follows.
(2) In rule 9(2) of Schedule 2 to the 1986 Act, omit the words from “the version that is required” to the end and insert “the electoral register as on the date of the last General Election before the review date.”’—(Cat Smith.)
For the purposes of future reviews, this new clause would define the electorate as being those on the electoral register at the last General Election prior to the review.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
David Linden
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
I am acutely aware of the time and the willingness on the part of all hon. Members to try to get through the remainder of the new clauses in this sitting, so I will not seek to detain the Committee. I appreciate that some Committee members, including me, do not represent a constituency that totals 12,000 sq km, but my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) does.
New clause 5 seeks to initiate some thought in Government about the size of some of the proposed constituencies. In drafting the new clause, I was thinking specifically about the Highland North constituency in the last set of proposals by the Boundary Commission for Scotland. As Mr Martin of the Scottish National party set out during our evidence session, there is provision within the rules for a constituency up to that kind of size, but put simply, such constituencies are increasingly unmanageable. The clause, which is very much a probing amendment, seeks to spark a debate about the size of constituencies we expect Members to serve while providing an efficient service to their constituents. I found myself chuckling in the last debate at the thought of people being outraged at the idea of having a constituency that was only 90 miles long.
As I mentioned earlier, the largest constituency set out by the Boundary Commission for Scotland proposals was Highland North at 12,985 sq km. That is 16.66% or a sixth of Scotland, 65% of the size of Wales, 92% of the size of Northern Ireland, about the size of Yorkshire, 8.25 times the size of Greater London, five times the size of Luxembourg and larger than Cyprus and Luxembourg put together. Indeed, the three largest proposed constituencies, Highland North, Argyll, Bute and Lochaber, and Inverness and Skye, would cover 33,282 sq km.
To put that in context, those three constituencies would cover 42.7% of the area of Scotland, which is an area larger than Belgium. The two constituencies of Highland North and Argyll, Bute and Lochaber would cover an area larger than Slovenia. Those large constituencies would also include several island areas, which makes MP travel across constituencies even harder. My hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara) already has five airports in his constituency.
So I have outlined, to some extent, the challenges faced by colleagues in Scotland, which is the motivation for new clause 5.
Chloe Smith
I will keep it brief. I acknowledge the points that the hon. Gentleman has made, and he made them very well and very eloquently. He is right to bring in the experience of, for example, Charles Kennedy. There is no shying away from the fact that there will be large constituencies in a place that has a more sparse population. We have to face up to these issues and to how we can design constituencies accurately.
Essentially, the new clause seeks to achieve an easement, by reducing the impact of a certain rule, and I will just quickly run through that rule. Rule 4 in the second schedule to the 1986 Act relates specifically to constituencies that are geographically very large, and is, in effect, relevant only to Scotland and to the highlands, in particular. It stipulates that if a constituency is over 12,000 sq km and has yet to reach an electorate that is within the permitted variance range of 95% to 105%, the Boundary Commission may propose a constituency that is below 95% in electoral terms. That gives extra flexibility to meet the challenge of very large constituencies. As I said, it is a matter of reality that this matter falls to the Boundary Commission for Scotland. Indeed, the history of this rule involved using the largest constituency at the time to try to set a rule or a cap, so it is all quite specific.
It is not necessary to amend the rule in the way the hon. Gentleman proposes, because it is so rarely used and because the range of constituencies that would approach largeness is so spread out that even his new clause would not make a great deal of difference. I will just explain why.
At the 2018 boundary review, albeit that it was on the basis of 600 seats, the Boundary Commission for Scotland proposed only one constituency; that is the constituency of Highland North, which the hon. Gentleman has argued in this Committee is already infamous. There was only one constituency that exceeded 12,000 sq km. In that case, the additional flexibility provided by rule 4 was not even needed, because the proposed electorate was within the tolerance range.
Although we must not prejudge the proposals of the next boundary review, lowering the threshold to 9,000 sq km might bring additional constituencies in, but it might not, because the previous review was, as I have said, on the basis of 600 seats, and even it brought in only two proposed constituencies that were between 9,000 and 12,000 sq km. Their names—I am going to get my commas and “ands” wrong here—were Highland Central and Argyll. Those are two constituencies, and their names will be in the record.
There is my argument in a nutshell. Because we are dealing with such outliers in terms of size—the square metreage, and not necessarily the population—an extension to the rule is not needed. The sub-outliers, if you like, are still so far down the line from the outlier that even the hon. Gentleman’s new clause would not make a great deal of difference. That is fundamentally my point against the new clause.
To come a little more generally to the themes we have seen in the rest of the Bill, a boundary review is a balancing act. We have seen this across several of the new clauses that we have spoken about this afternoon and several of the clauses in the Bill. We have to balance important but competing goals. On one hand, there is the premise of equality, which is extremely important. We have spoken all the way through about the fundamental idea that a vote in the Scottish highlands counts the same as one in the Brecon Beacons, which counts the same as one in the Somerset levels. We have heard witness after witness back up that idea. But on the other hand, we also have to reflect local community ties and respond to specific and varied circumstances.
In this particular case, it is not an easy balance to strike, but I draw the Committee’s attention to the real nature of this part of the graph and suggest that it is not necessary to make the change the hon. Gentleman suggests, because the protection is already there through the specific protected constituencies and through rule 4 as it currently exists, which protects very large highland constituencies.
David Linden
I am grateful. This issue genuinely plays on the mind of quite a lot of Members in Scotland, so I am grateful for the opportunity to bring it to this Bill Committee so that people can consider it. At this stage, I will not press the new clause, but I will be giving further thought to it when we come to remaining stages on the Floor of the House. I am convinced that the matter is at least on the Minister’s radar. The very fact that she has stood up and shown a degree of understanding of the challenges faced by Members in Scotland is a source of at least some comfort—but perhaps I will bring something back in the remaining stages. On that basis, I will withdraw the new clause for now, but I suspect that we might see it at a later stage of the Bill. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 7
Constituency Groupings
“(1) Rule 7 of Schedule 2 to the 1986 Act (Northern Ireland) is amended as below.
(2) In the heading for ‘Northern Ireland’ substitute ‘Constituency Groupings’.
(3) In rule 7(1) for ‘Northern Ireland’ substitute ‘any grouping of five or more constituencies being considered by a Boundary Commission”.
(4) In rule 7(1)(a)(i) for ‘Northern Ireland’ substitute ‘the area being considered’.
(5) In rule 7(1)(a)(ii) and rule 7(2) for ‘in Northern Ireland (determined by rule 8)’ substitute ‘being considered for the area’.
(6) In rule 7(1)(b) for ‘Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland’ substitute ‘relevant Boundary Commission’.
(7) In rule 7(2) for ‘the electorate of Northern Ireland’ substitute ‘the electorate of the area’.”—(David Linden.)
The current Rule 7 is a special rule for Northern Ireland which recognises that with the small number of constituencies allocated, there may be difficulties in using the UK Electoral Quota, which may vary considerably from the “Northern Ireland Quota”, calculated by dividing the Northern Ireland electorate by the number of constituencies allocated. This problem exists when drawing constituencies in any grouping involving a small number of seats. It is an arithmetical issue, not one connected with any special Northern Ireland considerations. This amendment therefore extends the potential application of the rule to any constituency grouping of five or more constituencies, with the same conditions as currently apply to the design of constituencies in Northern Ireland.
Brought up, and read the First time.
David Linden
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
I hope that Members’ heads have not been hurting too much in trying to understand this new clause, which gives a discretionary power in certain circumstances to all boundary commissions, when considering a grouping of constituencies, that currently applies only to the Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland when considering those constituencies as a whole.
Boundary commissions have always worked by grouping areas together and designing constituencies within those areas. For parliamentary reviews, areas will be formed by grouping local authorities. Sometimes the initial set of groupings does not work and other things are considered. The Boundary Commission for Scotland helpfully publishes all its minutes at the start of the initial consultation period and, indeed, makes available maps of its rejected proposals as well, so that people can see exactly how it has come to its conclusions.
Let us say that we are designing 10 constituencies in an area with an electorate roughly equal to the UK electoral quota multiplied by 10. We would be able to use the plus or minus 5% variation to its full throughout the area to design our 10 constituencies. A problem arises when the electorate of the 10 constituencies combined represents somewhere between 95% and 105% of the UK electoral quota multiplied by 10, because the scope for variation then becomes very limited, meaning that, to retain the grouping, constituencies will have to be designed with very little scope for numerical variation. That can often lead to what looks like logical groupings being abandoned unnecessarily.
The problem was recognised in Northern Ireland, which was allocated 16 and then 17 seats in the two reviews under the current legislation. Current rule 7 allows the use of a Northern Ireland quota in defined circumstances. The Northern Ireland quota is simply the number of electors in Northern Ireland divided by the number of constituencies allocated. Use of that quota means the full plus or minus 5% variation for constituencies is then effectively reinstated.
To pre-empt what the Minister might say, there was an obscure issue in Northern Ireland in the last review around the point at which the decision to apply the rule was made, which resulted in litigation. I stress that that was very much a procedural issue, which was not relevant to the essential utility of the rule. The problem in Northern Ireland was a numerical one. It is not one in special recognition of the politics there. The numerical problem applies throughout the United Kingdom when we group constituencies, as all boundary commissions do.
I therefore look forward to hearing the Minister’s position and her explanation of why what is good for Northern Ireland is not good for all the other boundary commissions when faced with the identical issue. On that basis, I will draw my remarks to a close and listen to what the Minister has to say on new clause 7.
Chloe Smith
Sir David, may I invite the hon. Gentleman to say what his amendment does?
David Linden
I am grateful to the Minister for that. Essentially, I am looking to give as much flexibility as possible to the boundary commissions. That is the idea behind looking at whether we can apply rule 7 to other parts of the United Kingdom. I hope that that gives the Minister a bit of a steer about what I am looking to do with new clause 7.
Chloe Smith
I will do my best. What is puzzling me is why it might be a grouping of five, but if the hon. Gentleman will allow me to speak generally, I can, or perhaps he would like to articulate why it is five.
David Linden
I am happy to allow the Minister to deliberate more generally and look into the numbering. This is a probing amendment.
Chloe Smith
Okay. I will give it my best shot. My understanding is that the hon. Gentleman is trying to extend the rule that works in Northern Ireland and to apply it to the whole of the UK by saying that we could take a grouping of five or more constituencies, whose combined electorate meets a certain mathematical criterion.
I have said it before and I will say it again: the Government are committed to delivering equal and updated constituencies for the UK. We can do that only if the rules set for the boundary commissions allow them to propose constituencies that are equal or as equal as possible. That loops back to many of the nuances and balances that we have spoken about throughout the Committee. I fear the new clause goes in the opposite direction and, in doing so, raises a couple of problems, which I will try to draw out.
Let me start with what rule 7 is for. It exists because of a specific issue arising in Northern Ireland. Of the four nations, it has the smallest discrete group of constituencies. At the beginning of a boundary review, as I referred to earlier, numbers of constituencies are allocated to each nation using the Sainte-Laguë method. As each nation must have a whole number of constituencies, there is inevitably either a rounding up or a rounding down at the moment. For Northern Ireland, that has been likely to mean—and will still be likely to mean—either a rounding up to 18 or a rounding down to 17. The effects of that can be quite significant when you have only a double-digit number like that.
Rule 7 first applies a mathematical formula to assess the significance of the rounding effects. If, as a result of the rounding down, the overall electorate in Northern Ireland is significantly more than might be expected, by taking the UK electoral quota and multiplying by 17—the number of Northern Ireland seats—then rule 7 may come into play if the Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland judges that is necessary in order for it to adequately perform a boundary review. In those circumstances, rule 7 then allows the Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland to apply a more generous electoral quota variance range, that range being ascertained through a second mathematical formula. I apologise for the level of detail, but I wanted to set out what rule 7 does before going any further.
David Linden
While I am tempted to try to give everyone on the Committee a migraine, I probably will not press the new clause to a vote, but I am glad for the opportunity to have this debate and to explore some of the issues.
I have heard Committee members talk often about equal votes and equal constituencies but, as I said in response to an hon. Member whose name and constituency escape me, we are perhaps having that debate in a silo, because we are having it without cognisance of the unfairness of the first-past-the-post system. The Minister just mentioned equal votes and equal constituencies, but look at the constituency of the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Sir George Howarth). He has the largest majority in the House. He took 80.8% of the vote and has a majority of 39,924. That is great for him. I suspect he goes to his count and watches his votes being weighed. It makes the point that if we are going to have a conversation about equal votes and equal constituencies, I do not know if we are starting at the wrong end.
Coming back to my new clause 7, it was an opportunity to try and kick a bit of debate about, but it is probably best not to do that at about ten to five in the evening, when we have already done five or six hours in Committee. I am glad we had that opportunity but I will not put the new clause to a vote. I will consider whether I want to go down that slippery slope when we come to the next stage of our proceedings, although I suspect the appetite for that will be fairly small.
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 8
Boundary Re-alignment
“(1) Where—
(a) existing parliamentary boundaries when originally recommended by the relevant Boundary Commission contained an element of alignment with a local authority area boundary; but
(b) as a consequence of a local authority area boundary review these boundaries have ceased to be aligned; and
(c) the number of registered electors affected by the local authority area boundary change was not more than 1,000;
the relevant Boundary Commission may submit a report recommending the re-alignment of the parliamentary constituencies affected to the new local authority area boundary.
(2) The procedure in Section 4 applies to orders following a recommendation under subsection (1), as it applies to orders following reports of the Boundary Commission under Section 3, with any necessary modifications.”—(David Linden.)
Local authority area reviews typically happen when a new housing development is built on an existing local authority boundary. The review might mean that a whole development is moved in to one authority, or other aligning changes. Without a parliamentary boundary change, this can mean a small number of electors from one local authority being in a constituency otherwise wholly within another local authority. This amendment gives a power to re-align parliamentary boundaries with the new local authority boundary where no more than 1,000 electors are affected. If there are more than 1,000 electors, then the boundary would be for consideration at the next periodical review. As the local area boundary would itself have been subject to local consultation, a further statutory public consultation in relation to the parliamentary boundary is not proposed. The relevant Boundary Commission could carry out such informal consultation as it considered necessary.
Brought up, and read the First time.
David Linden
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
This new clause is slightly easier to understand. It seeks to deal with a specific situation that arises when local authority areas are redrawn and relates not to wards but to other electoral divisions within those local authority areas. Members will see that I have listed a registered interest as the Member for Glasgow East, and I will explain why as I develop my speech.
Unlike wards, local authority areas are not periodically reviewed. The justification for a local authority area review is usually when new houses have been built over a local authority boundary, although there can be other triggers. For example, the construction of the Edinburgh bypass resulted in one farm moving from Edinburgh into West Lothian.
Sometimes areas are redrawn without any voters being affected. I understand that principal area boundary reviews elsewhere are similarly unusual and not conducted on a periodic basis. The local government boundary commission for Scotland has only carried out 10 local authority area reviews since we moved to unitary authorities in 1995. As luck would have it, two of those reviews, conducted in 2010 and 2019, affected my own constituency, and it is for that reason that I registered a specific interest in relation to this new clause.
Constituencies where there are a small number of electors in one local authority area present additional difficulties for returning officers in co-ordinating elections. They also cause issues in relation to representation. If a constituency is equally divided between two local authorities, the MP will be able to maintain a good working relationship between both sets of local authority officials and, importantly, so will their staff. If only a very small number of constituents are from one local authority, those relationships will not be established in the same way. I reflect on that particularly as someone who represents both Glasgow and North Lanarkshire.
The Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011, combined with the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, anticipated a world where we would have elections every five years and boundaries reviewed before each election. I think some us probably wonder what on earth happened to that. With a model of the five-year elections and reviews every election in mind, the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act abolished the idea of interim reviews. In the past, interim reviews of UK parliamentary constituencies were a check on whether more minor changes should be made to constituencies between the major periodical reviews. With constituencies being reviewed before each election, that process essentially became unnecessary.
The Bill looks to having reviews every two Parliaments or so. We never know when the next general election will happen—with this Government, that is fairly clear as they are looking to repeal the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. Therefore, that brings back on the agenda the need to be able to set out the consequences of local authority area reviews.
My Scottish Parliament colleagues will have their constituency boundaries revised in time for the elections next year because Boundaries Scotland, as it is being renamed, retains an ability to conduct interim reviews. The 300 electors affected by the last local government area review in my constituency will move into a different Scottish Parliament constituency in May ’21. The electors affected by the earlier review were already in their correct constituency. The new clause does not attempt to bring back interim reviews, but to ensure that in those rare instances where there has been a local authority boundary change that can be reflected in the UK Parliament constituency, as it can be in the Scottish Parliament constituency as a result of the powers exercised by Boundaries Scotland.
The new clause contains a tightly drawn power that can only be used where a limited number of electors are affected by an area review. I would be happy to discuss further with the Minister the appropriate number, but in practice most area reviews involve considerably fewer electors. I hope the Minister therefore appreciates that the new clause is confined to very specific circumstances and is not an attempt to reintroduce interim reviews, and that on that basis the Government will support it.
Chloe Smith
I appreciate the way that the hon. Member for Glasgow East has framed the new clause—that it is not quite the same as the old policy of interim reviews but is a new policy for our times. I appreciate the way he put that. I understand the arguments he makes, but I argue that the new clause is not needed, and I will begin by looking back at what the old policy of interim reviews actually did, just to give us that context.
As I understand it, the new clause would give a boundary commission discretion to submit a report in between boundary reviews that recommends the realignment of existing parliamentary constituencies with a local authority area boundary that has ceased to be aligned with those constituencies owing to a local authority boundary change. The hon. Gentleman has been careful to try to temper that discretion by saying that it should only apply to 1,000 electors and, in effect, try to tackle the problem of orphaned electors who perhaps find themselves in a neighbouring constituency to the one they had expected to belong to. I think that the effect of this change would remain quite close to that of interim reviews and, for comparison, I will set out what those used to do.
Before the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011, the boundary commissions had discretion to carry out interim reviews of particular constituency boundaries. They could, for example, take into account intervening changes to local authority boundaries or to a number of registered electors that affecting the boundaries of existing parliamentary constituencies in a particular area. Provision for this was removed under the 2011 Act. It was thought unnecessary because, as the hon. Gentleman outlined, general reviews would then be held every five years.
Under the Bill, reviews will be held every eight years, so I argue—as the Committee accepts—that boundaries will be reviewed and updated regularly. That is sufficiently regular to make interim reviews not needed, so we have no need to return to that old policy. I have concerns about both the policy of interim reviews and the proposed policy which, even though the hon. Gentleman has tried to minimise disruption, would still be fundamentally disruptive, hitting local communities and their relationship with their representation in this place.
We should also accept the fundamental truth that the different governmental boundaries that criss-cross our country will never be fully aligned; it will inherently be a moving picture, and it will never be possible to align all of them at any one time. It is hard to put in place a policy that tries to align a small bit of that while acknowledging that the rest keeps evolving. Boundaries change all the time, owing to population shifts and the growth of new housing settlements. The point of a boundary review is to try to control for that by taking a snapshot in time, once every eight years, and saying that that is the point at which there will be changes—there will not be ongoing, perpetual change, but change at a key point in time.
I also do not think it cost-effective to keep going for that perpetual change. I appreciate the arguments that have been made, including the minimisation argument inherent in what the hon. Gentleman has tabled. However, there is a practical argument against asking the boundary commissions to effectively chase their tail and go after something that could move perpetually between those eight years or something that does not always come to fruition. The point has occasionally been made in the Committee about how to treat housing developments. That certainly ought to be accommodated in boundary reviews—that is the point of regular enough ones to do that—but it is also the case that sometimes housing developments do not come to fruition. Had that policy wrongly predicted a settlement, ultimately public money would have been wasted in getting the boundary commission to look at it.
David Linden
I have never felt so powerful as I do right now. I am grateful for the Minister’s response. This was a probing new clause. The issue has dominated my email inbox since I was elected in 2017—there is a lovely little area in my constituency called Stepps, by Cardowan, where the good people vote highly for the SNP actually, but that is by the bye. I was keen to spark some thought in Government, but when drafting the new clause, I feared that putting the number at 1,000 electors would frighten the Government off a little. I will reflect on what the Minister has said.
At one minute past 5 o’clock, I will allow the opportunity for the hard-working Clerks and Hansard staff to get some respite. As this is the last opportunity I will have to say anything in Committee, I also thank you, Sir David, and Mr Paisley for your forbearance in what have been long-drawn-out proceedings. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 10
Protected constituencies
‘(1) Schedule 2 to the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 is amended as follows.
(2) In rule 6(2), after paragraph (b) insert “;
(c) a constituency named Ynys Môn, comprising the area of the Isle of Anglesey County Council”.
(3) In rule 8(5)—
(a) in paragraph (b), for “6(2)” substitute “6(2)(a) and (b)”, and
(b) after paragraph (b) insert “;
“(c) the electorate of Wales shall be treated for the purposes of this rule as reduced by the electorate of the constituency mentioned in rule (6)(2)(c)”.
(4) In rule 9(7)—
(a) after “6” insert “(2)(a) or (b)”, and
(b) after “2011” insert “, and the reference in rule 6(2)(c) to the area of the Isle of Anglesey County Council is to the area as it existed on the coming into force of the Schedule to the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 2020”.’—(Mrs Miller.)
This new clause adds the parliamentary constituency of Ynys Môn to the list of protected constituencies in the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 and makes other consequential changes to that Act.
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
Question proposed, That the Chair do report the Bill, as amended, to the House.
Chloe Smith
I thank you, Sir David, and Mr Paisley for all of your work in chairing this Committee. We have all appreciated your clear chairmanship and good humour. I also thank the Clerks and all House staff who have made it possible to do a Bill Committee in these new circumstances. They have been most diligent. Also, many thanks to the witnesses who joined us and gave helpful evidence on our journey in Committee.
Finally, I thank all our colleagues in this room. I will pick on my two silent Friends who do not normally get a great deal to say in Committee, but I say it for them, so I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Walsall North and for Loughborough for their contributions. I thank all the parties represented here for the excellent quality of their debate and for the probing discussions we have had—in the witness sessions, as well, when we heard from other parties.
We have covered all the issues in the Bill comprehensively, with ample time to do so. I am pleased that we found common ground on the need to provide equal and updated boundaries for the representation of all the communities in our land.
Cat Smith
I want to put on the record my thanks to you, Sir David, and to Mr Paisley for chairing our proceedings in this Bill Committee. I also thank the officials for supporting our work, and members of the Committee for their contributions. I thank the Minister for her positive and thoughtful contributions.
This has been a first for me—the first time that I have made it to the end of a Bill Committee without giving birth. It is a great pleasure that this Committee did not go on as long as some of the others that I have briefly taken part in. I thank the Committee.
The Chair
I thank the three colleagues who have just spoken. Mr Paisley and I are both extremely susceptible to flattery, so we are very grateful for your kind remarks. I extend my thanks to all the officials, the Hansard writers and the Doorkeepers for all their support throughout the Bill. I thank all members of the Committee who have scrutinised the Bill to their full ability and who have coped with these rather unusual proceedings extremely well. Most of all, I thank our Clerk, whose wise counsels have prevailed throughout our proceedings.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill, as amended, accordingly to be reported.
Parliamentary Constituencies Bill (Seventh sitting)
Tuesday 30th June 2020
(4 years, 3 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Parliamentary Constituencies Act 2020 View all Parliamentary Constituencies Act 2020 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 30 June 2020 - (30 Jun 2020)
The Chair
Good morning. You are all very welcome. Before we resume consideration of the Bill, I have a few preliminary points to which I always like to draw hon. Members’ attention. Of course, the important one is that we must respect social distancing guidance. I will intervene to remind everyone if necessary—if we get too familiar. I remind Members to switch their electronic devices off or to silent mode. Of course, you want to bring in refreshments. I do allow that, given the detailed scrutiny that we are undertaking. I also remind colleagues that Hansard would be very grateful if Members emailed their speaking notes to the Hansard team.
The selection list for today’s sittings is in front of you. Members may wish to take a copy; it is available in the room. It shows how the selected amendments have been grouped for debate. Grouped amendments are generally the same or similar. Please note that decisions on amendments take place not in the order in which they are debated, but in the order in which 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.
Clause 6
Taking account of local government boundaries
Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)
I beg to move amendment 1, in clause 6, page 4, line 37, at end insert—
“(2A) In rule 5(1)(d) (list of factors), after “local” insert “and linguistic”.”
This amendment would enable a Boundary Commission to take into account, if and to the extent that they think fit, the effect of boundary change on linguistic ties as well as local ties.
It is, as always, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. It is also a pleasure to kick off this morning’s proceedings by speaking to my amendment 1, which hon. Members will have noticed is designed to probe the Government and provoke a debate on the nature of local ties, what “local ties” might mean, and, particularly with relevance to Wales but not just to Wales, linguistic ties. I will confine my remarks to the Welsh language, although I acknowledge that there are other languages within the United Kingdom to which some of the points I will make may be just as relevant. As I said, this is a probing amendment that I hope will spark some sort of debate.
The amendment would enable the Boundary Commission for Wales to take into account, if and to the extent that it thought fit, the effect of boundary change on linguistic ties, as well as local ties, when considering boundaries. We heard on 18 June, in the first evidence session, from Shereen Williams of the Boundary Commission for Wales. In answer to a question about local ties, Ms Williams mentioned that the commission in Wales looked at electoral wards and communities that are linked through joint programmes and projects. She went on to say:
“Also, quite uniquely, in Wales…is the Welsh language. We take it into account that you have constituencies where there are lots of links to the Welsh language. That is something we would like to keep together.”––[Official Report, Parliamentary Constituencies Public Bill Committee, 18 June 2020; c. 20, Q37.]
My concern, in tabling the amendment, was not that the Boundary Commission for Wales takes no notice of the Welsh language and the links that communities have in certain parts of Wales—far from it. I know from past experience that the commission has been very receptive, and not just in the way in which it consults communities on proposed new boundaries; it has also taken into account, in submissions on certain proposals, what the impact of those might be on the Welsh language and the community. Rather, my concern is how the Welsh language, and indeed the local ties, will be catered for in future developments.
I know that later, when considering another part of the Bill, we will discuss the fact that Wales in particular stands to lose quite a number of seats, which has consequences for the commission’s work in redrawing the electoral map of Wales. It may be difficult for the commission to cater to all the different ties that fall under the statutory rule. In response to the next question, Ms Williams from the Boundary Commission for Wales said that
“it will be just as complex as the previous reviews, because we are losing quite a lot of seats.”––[Official Report, Parliamentary Constituencies Public Bill Committee, 18 June 2020; c. 20, Q38.]
She was referring, of course, to the change to 650 as opposed to 600. We also know that demographics and the relatively slower rate of growth in the Welsh population will mean that we will probably stand to lose further seats in subsequent boundary reviews. I am quite concerned about how the commission goes about its work to try to incorporate all the different local ties, including the Welsh language and linguistic links.
If Members needed to be convinced any further about the importance of the Welsh language in Wales, in our afternoon evidence session on 23 June, in response to a question from the Minister, Dr Larner said:
“There is a lot of very well-backed-up evidence in Wales that Welsh speakers, particularly fluent, first language Welsh speakers, tend to hold slightly different opinions on a whole range of ideas…I would absolutely say that the ability to speak Welsh is a really important part of some people’s identity.”––[Official Report, Parliamentary Constituencies Public Bill Committee, 23 June 2020; c. 128, Q245.]
I suppose that gets to the nub of the issue that I want to probe today: how does the “local ties” rule really capture the extent of the different elements that could constitute identity for some of our communities? I appreciate that identity is not something that we could ever capture perfectly, as it is very subjective. Rather, I am probing into whether under the statutory rules we can ensure that the importance and prevalence of linguistic ties, particularly in Wales, are maintained in future reviews.
Bim Afolami (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
With regard to linguistic ties, how does the hon. Gentleman see dialect as being included within that—not so much the separate languages, but the separate ways and methods of communication and separate vocabulary, as seen in dialects?
Ben Lake
I am grateful to the hon. Member for that point. The debate about dialect is very interesting, and could certainly spark quite a bit of interest in Wales. He might be aware that northerners, or gogs as we call them in Wales, hold quite proudly that their Welsh is somehow superior to that of us mere mortals in the south. Of course, I am a west Walian, so I am better than both. However, he makes a good point on the distinction between dialect and language.
For the purposes of linguistic ties in Wales, I think it would be only fair for the Boundary Commission for Wales to consider the language as a whole. It would be unfair, and perhaps impossible, to draw the commission into adjudicating which dialect is more important. People feel quite passionately about whether they speak north Welsh, south Welsh, or west Walian as I do.
It is a good point, perhaps, for other languages. I do not want to interfere in the war of the roses that we had last week between Yorkshire and Lancaster, but people feel quite strongly about their dialects and accents. I would not be opposed to that being captured by the “local ties” considerations as the boundary commissions do some of their work in different regions. That would be a perfectly appropriate consideration for them to make. In Wales, I would not want the commission to have to tie too closely to the different dialects, but certainly the language itself is something that I want it to hold true to.
I reiterate that my remarks are not a criticism in any way of the Boundary Commission for Wales, which does incredible work. I fear that subsequent boundary reviews will be of greater complexity due to there being fewer seats, but the commission’s operation is compliant with Welsh language standards, and I know that it does a lot of work to ensure that it works as bilingually as possible, both in terms of its day-to-day administrative operation and when it consults with different communities. That is so important, especially when consulting with Welsh language communities.
I should mention that the naming of constituencies is not an issue for anybody to be concerned about. I am quite relaxed about that. We have two wonderful languages in Wales and we are very fortunate in that regard. I am happy that the names are bilingual; if anything, it is a bonus and a win-win situation. It is not a matter of the naming of constituencies, although I know there was quite a bit of work on that in the commission’s previous review.
My final point is that in subsequent reviews we may find that there are a greater number of Welsh speakers in the first place. I am happy that there has been progress in recent years in encouraging more people in Wales to be bilingual. This may well be a fear we need not address in the future, but at the moment it would be good to know how the different considerations that we can capture under local ties are prioritised, whether there is a hierarchy and how that works. In future reviews, if Wales has a smaller number of seats to divide the electorate, I would be concerned that the Welsh language may be a secondary or tertiary consideration, and would be relegated in that sense. Naturally, I would oppose that.
Can the Minister say how the Welsh language will be treated in future reviews, especially when the task of allocating seats within Wales will be far more complicated? I would be grateful. Diolch, Mr Paisley.
The Chair
Before I call the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), I remind Members that Tony Bellringer submitted a paper late last night. You should have an electronic copy of that. There are no hard copies, but there is an electronic copy.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Paisley, in a much cooler room.
I commend the hon. Member for Ceredigion on his amendment. He has made an extremely strong case for the importance of recognising language. I know how important the Welsh language is. I was brought up in south Wales, albeit not west Wales, and we all have views on the parts of Wales we know and love well. Now, more than when I was at school, Welsh is a living language. I commend everybody who has made that possible.
Within the rules that are already set out in schedule 2 to the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986, “local ties” can take account of language. Indeed, in the hon. Gentleman’s own advocacy for his amendment, he set out clearly that the boundary commission is already receptive to arguments made with regard to the Welsh language and it has already been shown that Welsh can be taken into account in the local ties.
The reason I have chosen to speak to this amendment is that I want to share with the Committee a way that we might think about this. There are lots of different ties that can be called local ties, including language. My concern about specifying language on the face of the Bill would be the impact that that might inadvertently have on other local ties. By having language on the face of the Bill, it might imply that other local ties that are not specified in that way may not be taken into account, or not be treated as well as they might have been in the past.
I understand the hon. Gentleman’s argument and why he wants to put it forward, but my concern is that that might inadvertently affect the way the boundary commission views other local ties. I hope that the Minister, while listening to the point, will see that the Government should not accept the amendment at this point.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I rise to support the arguments made by the hon. Member for Ceredigion about the ties that are the Welsh language. I do not think it is possible to overstate the fact that the Welsh language is a cornerstone of Welsh identity. Although in the past we have seen a decline in the Welsh language, that is now reversing with the Welsh Government’s target of 1 million Welsh speakers by 2050. The hon. Gentleman’s arguments may one day become quite irrelevant if Wales is entirely full of Welsh speakers.
We have previously referred to the Council of Europe’s Venice commission, which recommends that boundaries be drawn
“without detriment to national minorities”.
Welsh language speakers are a national minority who require protection within this legislation. Welsh language ties are an important part of identity, and I would like the Minister to provide some clarity about the use of the Welsh language as a factor in the commission’s decisions. Language is an indicator of local ties. Although I do not speak Welsh myself—dwi ddim yn gallu siarad Cymraeg—and my life is probably all the poorer for it, I recognise the importance of the Welsh language to the Welsh identity, as does the Labour party. I therefore congratulate the hon. Member for Ceredigion on having tabled this amendment.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Paisley. I congratulate the hon. Member for Ceredigion on having tabled this probing amendment, because our whole debate about clause 6 has emphasised the point about local ties and local communities. We must use this Committee to emphasise to the boundary commissions that although we do not necessarily need to legislate—the hon. Member for Ceredigion presented this amendment as a probing amendment, to spark that debate—we are discussing a very important section of this Bill, as I said last week, and it is incumbent on the boundary commissions to take notice of what has been said.
Rule 5 in the 1986 Act is exceptionally important. One can only draw on one’s local experience, so I come back to Leeds, because that is my area; it is where I live in Yorkshire, but there is a world of difference between inner Leeds and outer Leeds. The communities are very different. I have made reference to the long-serving previous Member for Leeds East, George Mudie, who was horrified at the thought of such different communities coming into an area that he had represented for so long. I hope that when the boundary commissions do the reviews, they take real notice of the debates about clause 6. Intelligent and sensible points have been made by Committee members on both sides of the Committee during this debate, which should act as the key guidance. Rather than us putting things on the face of the Bill, the commissions should consider the over-driving will and well-thought-out arguments in all the areas we have debated.
Again, I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on having tabled a thought-provoking and important probing amendment to this Bill, because it is important that we probe all of its aspects. Everything that has been said during this debate—even on the comical side, such as the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood, on the other side of the Pennines, and I joshing last week about the wars of the roses—shows the importance of local identities and how they are put together. That is a very important aspect, and I hope the boundary commissions will take notice of it when they are drawing up their first draft.
The Chair
We now have a brace of speakers. I remind Members that they should confine their comments to amendment 1 proposed to clause 6, as there will be an opportunity to speak on clause stand part.
Christian Matheson
It is a great pleasure to see you in the chair again, Mr Paisley. I will speak very briefly, reflecting on the contributions made by right hon. and hon. Members.
I agree with the right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell: this is a thoughtful and thought-provoking amendment. Somebody with my own experience would not necessarily have thought of it, but I am now giving it great consideration. However, having listened to hon. Members from both sides of the Committee, my concern is that although we can discuss what is important and what we want the boundary commissions to regard as important factors when deciding boundaries, none of them is relevant as long as we have such a tight variance—5%—around the quota that trumps everything else. The Committee has already considered this. Something as important as language and identity, which the hon. Member for Ceredigion has spoken about, simply will not get a look in because nothing else matters. I ask the Committee to bear that in mind.
I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman intends to press his amendment to a vote—we will wait and see what his decision is on that—but I ask hon. Members to think about that as we progress through consideration both of the amendment and of the rest of the Bill. Members on both sides of the Committee talk about the importance of community, of identity and of keeping together communities that share common interests, but unfortunately none of that will make a difference when the commissioners come to do their work, because of the very tight variance that we are asking them to use, which is the only consideration in the Bill.
Shaun Bailey
It is great to see you in the Chair again, Mr Paisley. I thank the hon. Member for Ceredigion for his probing amendment. I am a something of a fledgling Welsh speaker and taught myself in his constituency. Ydw, ‘dwi’n gallu siarad Cymraeg—ddim yn rhugl, ond yn iawn. Diolch yn fawr iawn. {Translation: Yes, I can speak Welsh—not fluently, but okay. Thank you very much.]
My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke made a really pertinent point—my one concern is that the amendment could better limit how it define local ties— but the hon. Gentleman makes some really good points about language. Unless someone has been there and experienced a language in a community, they can never fully appreciate it, particularly in Wales. I speak of Wales because in my experience, the language, the community and the identity are so fundamentally ingrained there, meaning that the level of conversation and the way it flows is totally different depending on whether it is in Welsh or in English. That needs to be experienced as a Welsh speaker.
As many hon. Members have said, this is a really interesting probing amendment and it is great that the hon. Gentleman has tabled it so we can think about that. Hopefully, reaching 1 million Welsh speakers, which I think is an absolutely vital goal set by the Welsh Government and one with which I agree, will change the dynamic. I was pleased to hear in our evidence sessions about how the Boundary Commission for Wales takes language into account, which we saw in the proposals for the joined-up constituency of Ceredigion and Machynlleth in the aborted review; language played some role in drawing that boundary.
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: we cannot forget linguistic considerations. However, as my right hon. Friend for Basingstoke said, we need to be really careful not to constrain ourselves, so I cannot support his absolutely fantastic amendment, which I hope the Minister will consider carefully none the less.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Chloe Smith)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I echo right hon. and hon. Members in welcoming this debate and the very thoughtful way in which the hon. Member for Ceredigion has proposed his amendment. It is important that we look at those issues, and he has given us great food for thought in the way that he has presented the topic.
That said, I will argue that the proposal should not form part of the Bill, and will do so on the basis of a point that we have covered a number of times in our deliberations so far, which is that we ought to retain the framework of factors in the schedule to the Bill at a relatively high level, thereby giving flexibility to the boundary commissioners rather than being any more specific. To be clear, we are talking about the list of factors in a specific paragraph of the schedule to the Bill. As the Committee will be aware, any boundary commission may take those factors into account when making recommendations if, and to the extent that, it sees fit. Those factors already include any local ties that would be broken by changes in constituencies.
I will make just one other preliminary point before I go on to how the boundary commissions have already been able to accommodate the importance of the Welsh language. It is that the amendment would have to apply to all the boundary commissions. The nature of putting something into these factors is that it would have to apply across the United Kingdom. Hon. Members might question whether that would be appropriate for the other boundary commissions to the extent that the hon. Gentleman has argued it is appropriate for Wales. There are some questions there. For example—Mr Paisley, I hope you do not mind me saying so—it is obvious that in Northern Ireland this would be quite a particular argument to put in the context of language and culture, which would have different effects from those in Wales, Scotland or England. For that reason alone, I hesitate to accept this amendment.
That said, the Welsh language is very important. It is an official UK language and one of the great inheritances of our Union, which we all have a responsibility to protect and develop. It is a manifesto commitment of this Government to support the ambition for 1 million people in Wales to be able to speak Welsh by 2050 and I am delighted that there are some in the Black Country as well, as demonstrated by my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West. The UK Government are working closely with our counterparts in Cardiff on that commitment. I am pleased to say that 11 UK Government Departments have implemented their own Welsh language schemes, too.
In 2017, the Boundary Commission for Wales voluntarily adopted the Welsh language standards that became applicable to its sister organisation, the Local Democracy and Boundary Commission for Wales. It reports annually on how it has delivered against the Welsh language standards. The most recent report outlined that the Boundary Commission for Wales had implemented a language preference system for all correspondence with the public and confirmed that it published all online and offline material bilingually at the same time.
A critical part of the commission’s work is its extensive public consultation. We have touched on this in other parts of the debate. Equal status is given to Welsh and English throughout these consultations. I think that is very important, because it allows people to be able to advocate for their views in whichever language they are most comfortable with.
As the hon. Member for Ceredigion set out, the Boundary Commission for Wales already seriously considers Welsh language issues and links under the “local ties” factor. At the 2018 review, the boundary commission moved to designating all constituencies in Wales with English and Welsh names, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned. I can give some examples for the benefit of the Committee of how the boundary commission takes account of language.
During the 2018 review, a report by the assistant commissioners into the proposed constituency of Gwynedd noted that there was strong support for including four particular electoral wards in that constituency,
“because of the strong Welsh language, social and economic ties between that area and Gwynedd.”
[Interruption.] Did my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke wish to intervene?
Chloe Smith
It was so emphatic that I thought it was another marvellous point coming from my right hon. Friend. Let me meet that noise of approval with another example from the 2018 review about naming constituencies. The commission initially proposed naming two constituencies in alphabetical order: “Colwyn and Conwy” and “Flint and Rhuddlan”. However, the order of these names was reversed in the final recommendations after the commission received advice about
“a Welsh language convention of naming geographic place names from north to south and from west to east.”
I make no comments about the merits of north, south, west or east Wales. The hon. Member for Ceredigion has already done that very capably. I should also note that the Boundary Commission for Wales raises the issue of Welsh language links in the meetings and briefings with the various political parties at the start of any boundary review, and it is open to the parties and members of the public to raise Welsh language links in the extensive consultation carried out during a review.
I hope that I have provided reassurance that the law as drafted already gives the boundary commissions—in this case the Boundary Commission for Wales—all they need to take account of languages and how they contribute to local ties. This is a pressing case in Wales. I hope the examples I have given show that that is already happening in action. On that basis alone, I suggest that the amendment should not be accepted.
However, I will advance one other, perhaps darker and more serious argument than the one the hon. Member for Ceredigion intended, and I certainly do not cast aspersions on him for making those points. I want to highlight a slippery slope that could occur with such an argument. It is right that the legislation does not set out characteristics of people, but sets out characteristics of place. There is an important moral dimension to that. It is easy to foresee a slippery slope, whereby other characteristics of people could be argued for in terms of how constituencies ought to be drawn. Although we have not given him much time yet in our debates, we could think back to Governor Elbridge Gerry in 1812 in Boston who did that. Of course he gave his name to the term “gerrymander”, because he created a constituency that looked like a salamander that had the characteristics of people that he wanted to be seen in one constituency. We should be cautious about the idea of opening up to placing people together because they have a certain characteristic, as opposed to local ties of place, which perhaps give a more respectable way to look at community. I am conscious that the hon. Gentleman certainly did not go that far in making his argument, and I would not want to say that he had done so. I am grateful to him for his thoughtful presentation of the issues, but I hope that the set of arguments I have put both demonstrate how the language is rightly taken into account, and show some of the dangers of going further with the amendment. I urge the hon. Gentleman to withdraw it.
Ben Lake
I will keep my remarks brief. As I set out earlier, amendment 1 was a probing amendment and I am pleased with the debate we have had. We have not only highlighted the importance of the language in Wales, but had a bit of a discussion about what constitutes local ties, and how we might try to balance them out. I agree with the Minister that the Boundary Commission for Wales has done sterling work in the conservation of the language and in adopting the Welsh language standards voluntarily. I know from experience in my own part of the world that in the proposed boundary change of 2018—or even before that; I have lost track—the Welsh language was a key consideration that informed the final recommendation. In no way did I try to criticise the work of the boundary commission in tabling the amendment. The boundary commission does very good work. My concern relates to how local ties are balanced in the future, but I accept the point about not only the appropriateness of having the language on the face of the Bill, but the possible unintended consequences for the boundary commissions. With that in mind, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Chloe Smith
I managed to give some of the principal arguments for clause stand part earlier, so I will not detain the Committee long. If hon. Members can bear to think back to what was said, I explained why clause 6 was important in allowing a fixed picture of local government boundaries to be taken into account, and explained the necessity of fixing that point in time. I also explained the rationale for our inclusion of prospective changes in the Bill. Having heard no further questions or comments on any of those points, I hope that the clause will stand part of the Bill.
Mrs Miller
This will probably be a slightly longer speech than I would have hoped given the note that we received from the boundary commission last night. Now might be a relevant point to discuss the content of that note, although it will not necessarily be easy given that we have had it for such a short period. The reason why it is relevant to discuss it at this point is that clause 6 refers to the rules to achieve the overall objective in the Bill, which is to create constituencies of equal size, and those rules are set out in schedule 2 of the 1986 Act. Therefore, in this stand part debate I would like to talk about three different points so that the Minister might be able to respond and so that they are on the record for the boundary commission to understand the importance of these things to getting this right.
The first point is the content of the boundary commission’s note, which will help us create equal-sized constituencies by looking at sub-ward level. The second point is about protected constituencies, which I know we will come on to when we consider my string of amendments to the schedule, but I will briefly touch on it. The third point is how we take into account future growth, which I raised in an evidence session, but it was interesting that nobody really answered the question, so I am going to raise it again for the Minister to perhaps respond to.
Looking at the first issue, the number of electorates per constituency at sub-ward level, I put on record my thanks—and I am sure the thanks of the whole Committee —to Mr Bellringer of the Boundary Commission for England and his team for the note of 29 June and such a rapid response to the issues raised when he gave evidence. The lengthy note we received uncovers that we have hit upon something important. My right hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell and others made the point several times that it is important that, first and foremost, we look at equality in the context of local ties. I think the only issue I take with the note from the boundary commission is the assertion that wards always—they say generally—
“reflect communities of broad common interest in an area”.
I think they mostly, but not always, do that. We could all give great examples of where wards even in our own constituencies do not particularly reflect communities of broad common interest.
Alec Shelbrooke
I thought I would intervene on my right hon. Friend rather than make a speech later because she is making absolutely the right points to sum up this stand part debate. A very important line that I picked up in the letter said that,
“wards generally reflect communities of broad common interest in an area, and to split them therefore risks splitting local ties”.
My right hon. Friend will agree that we do not want to argue with that statement, but that should also be the guidance for forming the constituencies: if the commissioners recognise that at ward level, they must recognise it at constituency level as well when choosing the wards that they are going to build constituencies from.
Mrs Miller
My right hon. Friend makes an extremely important point. Again, we can all think of constituencies, either our own or in our area, where that will be a considerable challenge for the boundary commission—where, in their words, there is going to be a significant review of constituency boundaries, particularly in constituencies such as mine, where the town of Basingstoke is now, one could argue, really too big to be one constituency. The debate is important and the Committee has shown the value of the process in raising this.
I note from the boundary commission’s response that they are not against looking at sub-ward level splits, which is obviously a matter of fact and they have done that in the past. However, I sense a reticence there for the future. I hope when the Minister responds she can underline the importance of ensuring that reticence is alleviated. Mention is made of the cost of splitting wards and pulling together data at a sub-ward level. There is a great focus on polling district data, which was not the only source of information that was mentioned in the evidence sittings and our debate. Yet the focus in the Boundary Commission for England’s response seems wholly to be on that form of information. Scotland and Wales already use postcode data, yet no mention is made of that in the response.
Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)
The boundary commission settled on the fact that it has to be units available across the entire country and then solely focuses on polling districts, which we have already said are subject to political considerations. What are not, of course, are postcode areas, which also represent, broadly speaking, cohesive communities. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is an area that the boundary commission should consider?
Mrs Miller
My hon. Friend is right. It feels to me that the issue needs further consideration by the boundary commission. It is a great shame that even though it has already done an extensive piece of work with Ordnance Survey, surveying polling districts between 2013 and 2018—at a cost of a quarter of a million pounds, according to the note—there still seems to be resistance to looking at that in more detail or, as my hon. Friend suggested, at other data sources, which are presumably much more readily available. I understand that the Post Office delivers post every day, and therefore must update its information on a regular basis—particularly when new houses are built. Many of us will have had constituency casework on that issue.
Perhaps individual political parties might want to pick that issue up with the boundary commission. My feeling is that the Committee would want to press further for it to look at it in more detail.
Alec Shelbrooke
Is not the point—and the thing that we are trying to avoid—the fact that in previous boundary reviews there have been significant changes from draft 1 to draft 2, when things have moved to the evidence stages? Is not it better for the boundary commission to approach the matter with the advice and thought provided by the Committee, to try to get draft 1 right, so that there will just be minor changes in draft 2?
Mrs Miller
There is an old adage in the business world about doing the right thing right. Yes, the commission should do the right thing right first time, and not create re-work. I note from the letter that the Boundary Commission for England wrote to the Committee that it recommends that it should give priority to mapping metropolitan areas, given the late stage we are at, and the concerns it might have about being able to map the whole country at this stage. I think that that is part of the answer, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton said, there is also room for it to look at other datasets, so that it will not be quite so focused on just one solution. I note from the submission that one member of staff was given the matter as a project. Perhaps if a little more resource was put into it, it could be turned around a little more quickly.
I am not quite sure how the Committee can put further pressure on to the boundary commission, but my ask to it would be why it is not looking at other datasets and why it cannot resource the matter more. Surely the Government, for whom the project is important, would want to look at any suggestion of additional resources that are needed to complete the work in a reasonable timeframe so that such data could be available, whether that is only for metropolitan areas or for a broader cross-section of the country.
The second issue that I wanted to turn to, briefly, is protected constituencies. Clause 6 touches on the rules in schedule 2 and I think we can be more ambitious for the Bill, in relation to using the concept of protected constituencies not just in England and Scotland but Wales. We will discuss two amendments on that later in our proceedings, when we can pick up on some of the issues raised by the hon. Member for Ceredigion and show our understanding of the importance of community. As a kingdom of islands, sometimes we need rules in place to respect that unique nature of the United Kingdom. We will come on to that shortly.
My final point is on taking into account future growth, which I raised with a couple of our evidence givers. I suppose I am thinking about constituencies like my own, Basingstoke, which has grown significantly in the past three decades, from being a sleepy market town predominantly surrounded by the most amazing and beautiful Hampshire countryside, when it was the constituency of David Mitchell, the father of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), to what it is today, which is one of the top 10 centres of employment in the south-east—still surrounded by the most amazing and beautiful Hampshire countryside.
To the west of the town is a major development area by the name of Manydown, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse). No houses have yet been built, but they will be, and to stop unnecessary change in the future it will be important for that in some way to be taken into account geographically in the setting of the boundaries.
Please do not get me wrong: I am not asking for that to be taken into account in the quotas, but surely with such major areas, which have already had many hundreds of thousands if not millions of pounds-worth of development put into planning for the future, it would be an unnecessary change pending in the future for it not to be taken into account. I am sure every single Committee member can think of somewhere in or near their own constituency where that would be the case.
Given that one of the factors in the rules—I think I have this right—is that we can look at such things for the future, I hope that the boundary commissions will be able to think about the geographical nature of what they do, not just the numerical population-based nature of it. However, I did not get a sense from their response, or from others, that that was something they were focused on yet. I hope that we can register that with them at this early stage, to stop what my right hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell said in his intervention on planning for the future and instead to get things right first time.
Christian Matheson
I find the right hon. Lady’s contributions thought-provoking and very helpful. Mr Speaker—
Christian Matheson
Mr Paisley! Not yet—maybe next year.
May I express a sense of frustration at what I am hearing in Committee, including from the right hon. Member for Basingstoke, who has just spoken? She was absolutely right to talk about the importance of geographical nature as a consideration for the commissions, not just numerical nature.
As with the previous section of the debate, however, I worry that we are making heavy weather of the whole process. We have been talking about splitting wards and how the Boundary Commission for England—in particular, with Mr Bellringer’s note to us from last night about splitting wards—might somehow obtain data to help it split wards more accurately, or split streets, and perhaps we can even use postcode data. The hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton talked about using postal districts—I think I am roughly quoting him correctly.
We are making extremely heavy weather of something that we need not make heavy weather of, because the answers are already there. The only reason we have these difficulties, these problems and this debate is that the one consideration that the Bill gives to the boundary commissions is the tight 5% tolerance. Everything else flows from that. The right hon. Member for Basingstoke rightly talked about the importance of geography, not just numbers. Unfortunately, everything else that the Bill does denies that hope. We cannot have it both ways. We are making it difficult for ourselves, and for the boundary commission, by making everything else subservient to that one numerical fact.
Alec Shelbrooke
We are almost straying into new clause 2, which I think we will debate this afternoon. The hon. Gentleman is talking about how much easier it is with the 7.5%, and I hope that we can explore that further. In Leeds and in Kirklees, two West Yorkshire constituencies, 7.5% does not do it; we still have to split wards. Perhaps he can challenge my argument this afternoon.
Christian Matheson
I would not challenge the right hon. Gentleman. I take the advice that his local knowledge makes him an expert to give. We listen to each other and say, “Actually, in those circumstances it wouldn’t work.” However, the number of areas where we would not need to do that would be far fewer. I think that the Leeds issue, with wards of 17,000, is quite an extreme one. I suspect that some of those will have to be split anyway, but we make heavy weather by making the number of those instances, and their frequency, much greater as a result.
Mrs Miller
I am intervening only because the hon. Member referred to what I said. To be clear, what I am calling for is more rigour in the process. I do not hold with his assertion that by giving people more leeway we will get a better answer. We need more rigour in what is being done, and more detail from the boundary commission, to ensure that the commission comes up with the right answer and we get equal constituency sizes. There will always be special cases—that was the point that I was making—and they have to be recognised, but I was not calling for a more lackadaisical approach; I was calling for more rigour and detail in the system.
Christian Matheson
I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for that clarification. The point that I was making in response to her speech and other contributions was that as long as we insist on 5%, none of the other considerations that hon. Members across the Committee are calling for will be possible or indeed relevant. I believe that it is important, for example, to have community ties. Language ties had not occurred to me until they were raised by the hon. Member for Ceredigion in relation to the previous clause. I found that very thought provoking, but there has to be a balance between the aim of achieving equal-sized constituencies and achieving the community ties for which hon. Members are calling. Unfortunately, at the moment we are not hitting that balance.
Chloe Smith
I will keep this fairly brief, but I wish to take a moment to acknowledge the arguments made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke and other members of the Committee regarding the evidence that the Boundary Commission for England has now provided to us. I confirm that I will look at this matter in the Department to see whether there are any ways that the non-legislative side of it could be taken forward. I am not in a position to say anything more about that at this point, but I wanted to acknowledge it now as part of the stand part debate on clause 6.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 6 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 7
Alteration of the “review date” in relation to the 2023 reports
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Chloe Smith
Hon. Members will remember that clause 1 made certain changes to the timing of boundary reviews; it did that by establishing the end dates of boundary reviews—namely, the dates by which the boundary commissions must submit their reports to the Speaker. We discussed then how the next boundary review, starting in 2021, would have an end date of July 2023, to allow a slightly compressed timetable of two years and seven months for that review only. The intention there was to provide the best possible chance of the new boundaries being in place ahead of the next general election.
Clause 7 is the other side of the same coin. It sets the start date for the next review. The formal start date of a boundary review is known as the review date, and the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 defines it as being two years and 10 months before reports are due to be submitted. Clause 7 amends the 1986 Act—I am talking now about rule 9(5) in schedule 2—making a change for the next review only, by maintaining the review date of 1 December 2020. For all subsequent boundary reviews, the review date will continue to be two years and 10 months before reports are due to be submitted.
As we have already discussed, bringing this back up to the general level of the arguments on this Bill, it has been well over a decade since the results of a boundary review have been implemented. Our constituencies are therefore based on electoral data that is up to 20 years old. The purpose of this provision is to ensure that the next boundary review, starting in 2021, finishes as promptly as possible, but without compromising the processes of the boundary commissions. The timetable of two years and seven months has been discussed with the boundary commissions and with parliamentary party stakeholders who, as I outlined in an earlier session, all support the move. I therefore hope that it will also have the support of this Committee as well.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 7 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 8
Removal of duty to implement, etc. in relation to current reports
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Chloe Smith
It is that part of the morning, Mr Paisley, where you keep me on my feet all morning, going through a rattle of clauses. Here we go.
Chloe Smith
Exactly; the audience awaits—or, as my three-year-old managed to learn to say the other day, “And the crowd goes wild!”. That surprised me coming out of the mouth of a three-year-old, but perhaps the same will be true of the Parliamentary Constituencies Bill Committee.
Chloe Smith
What does clause 8 do? It removes the legal obligation to implement the 2018 boundary review. As hon. Members will recall from when we discussed clause 5, the Bill will amend the existing legislation to ensure that we continue to have 650 parliamentary constituencies, as we do now. In order to achieve that, clause 5 set the number of constituencies at 650 for future reviews. That in itself does not resolve the current legal obligation on the Government to implement the 2018 boundary review, which was based on 600.
The boundary commissions have submitted their final reports for that review, but the recommendations have yet to be brought into legal effect. Clause 8 therefore brings the 2018 boundary review to a close without implementation. It removes the Government’s obligation to bring the recommendations of the 2018 review into effect, because those proposals would take us down to 600 constituencies at the next election, which this Committee has already agreed is undesirable.
Under this clause, that obligation would be removed retrospectively, with effect from 24 March of this year. I can explain that specific date to the Committee: it is the date on which the Government announced their intention to retain 650 constituencies in the written ministerial statement that I laid before the House. Without this clause, there would be a very irregular situation. We would be legally required to implement the 2018 review and implement the reduction to 600 constituencies at the next general election. I think that this Committee would agree, having already taken the decision to move from 600 back to 650, that that situation would be confusing and undesirable. Therefore this clause, although technical, is important and I urge that it stand part of the Bill.
Cat Smith
I will make a brief comment, not least to give the Minister a breather and a chance to get some water as she rattles through the clauses. I just ask her whether she is pleased to be able to have clause 8 in the Bill because the 2018 review did not have the automaticity clause that future reviews will have.
Chloe Smith
The debate would not have been complete had the hon. Lady not raised that point. I think it is fair to say that we have answered that one comprehensively in the course of these Committee proceedings so far; and given that we have also already agreed that automaticity is the right thing to do in this Bill, I am not going to entertain the argument any further.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 8 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 9
Removal of duty to review reduction in number of constituencies
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Chloe Smith
Here we go again, Mr Paisley.
This clause is connected to clause 8, in that, as I have already said, the Bill seeks to maintain the number of constituencies at 650, reversing the changes from the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 that provided for 600. Section 14 of the 2011 Act also imposed a requirement on the Government to make arrangements for a committee to carry out a review of the effects of the reduction to 600 constituencies. I know we all love being on committees, but I think we can agree that we do not need another committee to do that particular function, having just agreed clause 8 and, earlier, that there should be 650 constituencies. Therefore we are cancelling those arrangements. They would have been required to be made no earlier than 1 June 2020 and no later than 30 November 2020—in other words, this year. As the reduction in the number of constituencies has not taken effect and clauses 5 and 8 already stand part of the Bill, the duty to review the reduction in the number of constituencies is entirely redundant.
Like clause 8, this clause is retrospective, and it will be treated as having come into force as of 31 May this year. That is obviously the day before 1 June—the start of the period within which the Government were to be required to make arrangements for a review to be carried out. Without this clause, the Government would be legally required to make those arrangements to undertake a redundant review, so I urge hon. Members, on the grounds of sensible work and governance and the need for no more committees, to support the clause’s standing part of the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 9 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 10
Effect of Orders in Council under the 1986 Act on NI Assembly constituencies
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Chloe Smith
Clause 10 makes a different kind of provision, and it will take me a little while to explain the detail of it, so I trust that the Committee will bear with me while I do. This clause makes specific provision in relation to Northern Ireland and how boundary review recommendations are brought into effect there. I shall make a couple of preamble points that outline related legislation.
First, existing legislation—the Northern Ireland Act 1998—dictates that constituencies in Northern Ireland automatically mirror UK parliamentary constituencies. Therefore, when a boundary review is brought into effect for the United Kingdom, the constituencies for the Northern Ireland Assembly, each of which has five Assembly Members, will automatically change. Currently, that change happens at the next Assembly election. By the bye, this is not the case in either Scotland or Wales, where the boundaries used for the devolved legislatures are not linked in law to UK parliamentary constituencies, and are devolved matters.
The other point to bear in mind at the outset is that the Northern Ireland Assembly has scheduled elections, so we can predict when there will be moments when a UK parliamentary boundary review will finish close to an upcoming Stormont Assembly election. One of those moments, we can foresee, is in 2031/32. In addition, if, as there has been in the past, an unscheduled Assembly election were to be triggered close to the end of the boundary review, it would be important for there to be clarity about the boundaries to be used.
Chloe Smith
On a point of order, Mr Paisley. Are we dealing with the schedule and its amendments after the stand part debate?
Chloe Smith
Clause 11 gives effect to the schedule to the Bill that contains minor and consequential amendments, including the repeal of provisions that are now spent or superseded. The schedule contains several minor provisions. As I mentioned at the beginning of our line-by-line scrutiny, one such provision clarifies that references to the Secretary of State include the Minister for the Cabinet Office, which alone takes up three of the 11 paragraphs that make up the schedule—perhaps a reflection of how minor the provisions are.
Others provisions in the schedule include paragraph 4(2) which, to reflect clause 5 of the Bill, which amends the number of constituencies to 650, updates the UK electoral quota to be based on 646 rather than 596. That reflects the number of constituencies minus the four protected constituencies. I acknowledge, however, that we will come on to debate aspects of that matter later. To reflect clause 4’s changes to public hearings, paragraph 5 tidies up the references to public hearings in the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986.
Hon. Members may be interested in the schedule’s reference to Blackpool, which I can explain, should the Committee be interested. No doubt the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood is agog to talk about Blackpool, so I will cover it briefly. There was a mistake in an amendment to the 1986 Act in the European Parliamentary Elections Etc. (Repeal, Revocation, Amendment and Saving Provisions) (United Kingdom and Gibraltar) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018.
The amendment made by that SI was intended to maintain the current position, that the BCE may take into account the boundaries of the European parliamentary electoral regions in England if it wished to do so, despite the repeal of the European parliamentary elections legislation. The regulations provided for newly defined English regions that correspond to the make-up of the existing European parliamentary electoral regions. The Bill adds the county of Blackpool to the description of the north-west region, which was erroneously omitted. Let the celebrations ring out around Blackpool for us having done that this morning in this Committee.
The schedule also ties up the drafting in previous related legislation, including the 1986 Act and the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011. As they are very minor, I will not set them out in detail, although I would be happy to if hon. Members wish. The minor and consequential changes made by the schedule are important for tidying up the statute book and making the legislation easier to understand for the reader.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 11 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule
Minor and consequential amendments
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
I beg to move amendment 14 in the schedule, page 7, line 16, leave out “for “596” substitute “646”” and insert “leave out “596” and insert “645””.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 11 in the schedule, page 7, line 17, leave out “646” and insert “645”.
This amendment is consequential to NC6, which would add an additional protected constituency.
New clause 6—Ynys Môn to be a Protected Constituency—
After Rule 6(2)(b) of Schedule 2 to the 1986 Act (protected constituencies) insert—
“a constituency named Ynys Môn, comprising the County of the Isle of Anglesey.”
This new clause adds Ynys Môn to the four protected constituencies
New clause 10—Protected constituencies—
(1) Schedule 2 to the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 is amended as follows.
(2) In rule 6(2), after paragraph (b) insert “;
(c) a constituency named Ynys Môn, comprising the area of the Isle of Anglesey County Council”.
(3) In rule 8(5)—
(a) in paragraph (b), for “6(2)” substitute “6(2)(a) and (b)”, and
(b) after paragraph (b) insert “;
(c) the electorate of Wales shall be treated for the purposes of this rule as reduced by the electorate of the constituency mentioned in rule (6)(2)(c)”.
(4) In rule 9(7)—
(a) after “6” insert “(2)(a) or (b)”, and
(b) after “2011” insert “, and the reference in rule 6(2)(c) to the area of the Isle of Anglesey County Council is to the area as it existed on the coming into force of the Schedule to the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 2020.”
This new clause adds the parliamentary constituency of Ynys Môn to the list of protected constituencies in the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 and makes other consequential changes to that Act.
Mrs Miller
These amendments and new clauses would effectively create an additional protected constituency of Ynys Môn comprising the area of the Isle of Anglesey County Council. The new clauses seek to amend schedule 2 to the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986, specifically the rules for the distribution of seats, resulting in Ynys Môn being included as a protected seat in rule 6. Consequential and necessary changes to rule 8 and rule 9 of the same schedule are needed to bring that fully into effect. Amendment 14 is a consequential amendment looking at the total number of constituencies.
There is an acknowledged principle in the 1986 Act that in our great British Isles, a collection of islands under our sovereign, Her Majesty, there are instances where the parliamentary constituency system needs to acknowledge challenges and limitations of building a constituency boundary system that adequately recognises island-based communities. Existing legislation does do that for two seats in England, neighbouring my own county in Hampshire, and for two seats in Scotland, but for none in Wales.
At this point I declare an interest. Although I was born in England and represent an English constituency, I was brought up in Bridgend, Wales. My maiden name is Lewis. My two brothers were born in Bridgend Hospital and my two nieces, Isabella and Olivia, attend a bilingual Church in Wales school in Llangattock. Yes, when England plays Wales in rugby, I support Wales. I am aware of the Welsh identity and the powerful role that communities play in Welsh life. When parliamentary boundaries were last debated, the move to 600 seats made it difficult to secure protection for the constituency of Ynys Môn. Given the return to 650 seats, I will attempt to turn the Minister’s head in the hope that she might be persuaded by arguments of both the head and the heart.
The people of Ynys Môn are rightly proud of their island and its unique history. While the boundaries of most other counties might be considered somewhat arbitrary—although not in Yorkshire and Lancashire, as we have heard—the boundary between Ynys Môn and the mainland is physical, perhaps indivisible and immovable.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
There is something I fail to understand in this argument. Is Ynys Môn not connected by a bridge that was built around 100 years ago and is readily used all the time? How is it different from any other bridge in this country over rivers? The Isle of Wight argument was pretty thin, because the ferry is quite effective. Here you have a well-established bridge.
Mrs Miller
The right hon. Gentleman brings me straight on to my next point. It is as if he was reading my notes in advance—I am sure he was not. The Menai strait may be narrow enough to travel over by bridge, unlike travelling to the Isle of Wight, which he will be well aware is not connected by any bridges. However, the bridges were built very recently, and the people of Ynys Môn continue to have a strong sense of independence—born from many centuries of separation from the mainland—and have not changed. There are countless examples of Ynys Môn’s deeply held identity as an island community both physically and sometimes constitutionally annexed to the mainland. The island is environmentally and economically distinct from the mainland, being flat and fertile, with its rugged coastline and deep harbours standing in stark contrast to the mountains of Snowdonia.
The hon. Member for Ceredigion will, I am sure, tell me that my pronunciation is not good, but the area is known as Môn mam Cymru—Anglesey, mother of Wales. That is rooted in its history. Countless windmills still stand on the island as testament to the fact that it kept north Wales fed during the middle ages.
John Spellar
The right hon. Lady’s definition of “recent” must slightly differ from mine. The Menai suspension bridge was built in 1826, at just about the time we were getting any sort of franchise and about 100 years before we had universal franchise. This is a pretty thin argument, is it not?
Mrs Miller
I am sure the people of Ynys Môn will listen carefully to interventions made by Labour Members, which I am not sure necessarily reflect the arguments made over many years by others who have looked at this very carefully. The right hon. Member has a point that can be made, but this is not just a river or arbitrary boundary. This is a significantly sized island, which I think is actually almost double the size of the Isle of Wight. It is significantly larger than the Isle of Wight, so I think a bridge, however long it has been there, does not take away from its sense of identity. Indeed, there is clear and direct precedent for Ynys Môn to be treated as an exception. I hope, more generally, that the Labour party will support this proposal. Certainly, the evidence given to the Select Committee suggested that there was cross-party support. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman is just making a little bit of mischief along the way.
There is clear precedent. The Isle of Wight’s two seats make an electorate of more than 110,000, Orkney and Shetland has an electorate of 23,000, and the Western Isles has an electorate of 15,000, so this is not about the number of people on an island but about the islands themselves, because they are geographically separate, with fractured populations. They have a tradition and identity that tend to override those numerical imbalances, which has rightly been recognised by this place over many years.
Ynys Môn possesses all the same exceptional qualities geographically, but also in its heritage. With an electorate of more than 50,000 registered voters, it is a sizeable community, as well as geographically sizeable. No other constituency I am aware of, or that Members have brought up so far in our consideration of the Bill, is in a similar situation to Ynys Môn. Its nearest comparators have all been granted protected status. While I know and understand the arguments made by some in Cornwall, I hope the boundary commission heeded the issues raised by Devonwall. That is a very different issue from those faced by island communities, and I do not think that the two arguments should merge.
We heard no dissent in our evidence sessions when the notion of protected status was put forward. As an island nation, UK citizens do not need to be told about the unique identity that results from living on an island. Recognising a plurality of identities is part and parcel of the geography of our British Isles and needs to apply to the Welsh island of Ynys Môn. There is a strong depth of feeling on Ynys Môn that the island should have this recognition. In our evidence session, Dr Larner, who is a research associate at the Wales Governance Centre at Cardiff University, was very clear:
“Obviously, Ynys Môn is not as isolated geographically as some of the Scottish constituencies, but, when you consider that the Isle of Wight is involved in these protections, it is reasonable to suggest that Ynys Môn should be too.”––[Official Report, Parliamentary Constituencies Public Bill Committee, 18 June 2020; c. 131, Q251.]
I have to say that my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) put it best when she said: “Ynys Môn is unique. It is very special. The people have a strong sense of identity and community, unlike any I have experienced on mainland Britain. The countryside is rich and fertile, the coastline rugged and rural, and there is a very real sense of being an island standing alone from the mainland, despite the connected bridges. There is a commitment to protecting and promoting local business, the Welsh language and the culture and traditions of Ynys Môn. This is an island community that deserves to be recognised and protected.”
Ben Lake
Diolch yn fawr, Mr Paisley. It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller). I echo a lot of the points that she made in support of the principle of ensuring that Ynys Môn is retained as a unique and integral part of Welsh political history, and indeed the UK’s political history. Some of the points that I will make support her arguments.
There is a bit of consensus in the Committee on the fundamental argument about whether Ynys Môn deserves to be its own constituency, but it is fair to point out that we have received a few pieces of written evidence questioning, and raising some valid points about, whether Ynys Môn is enough of an island and deserves to be one of the protected constituencies, along with the Western Isles, for example. Some of the points in the most recent piece of written evidence—forgive me, Mr Paisley, but I have forgotten the name of the individual who submitted it. [Interruption.] Mr Aaron Fear, that’s it! Mr Fear made the valid point that, whereas the remoteness of the Western Isles makes its own argument for that constituency, the proximity of Ynys Môn to the mainland means that it should not benefit from similar consideration.
We have had the opportunity in this Committee to look back at history, and we have covered many historical events. On the point about Ynys Môn being close to the mainland, the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) will attest to the fact that the Menai strait is a significant natural barrier—just ask the Romans, who had an issue with it. It is one of the most treacherous stretches of water, certainly along the British Isles. Despite the transport links that modernity has bestowed upon the island, when we come to the point about Ynys Môn having its own distinct community, we probably find ourselves in a similar position to the Romans looking across the Menai to the druids. The people of Ynys Môn consider themselves to be a very distinct community from that of the mainland, and that is something that we should bear in mind.
I do not have much more to add to the points that were very well made by the right hon. Member for Basingstoke. I will summarise as follows: when we consider whether islands should have protected status, it is valid to ask whether they are big enough geographically and in terms of population, whether they are remote enough, and whether they have a distinct sense of community. I have dealt with the remoteness issue. Yes, at the narrowest width, the Menai is only a couple of hundred metres, but the community of Ynys Môn is so distinct from that of the mainland that it deserves recognition.
When it comes to the island’s size, perhaps it is not so big in global rankings, but it is more than 700 sq km. The right hon. Lady mentioned a few islands. It is only 5 sq km smaller than the island of Singapore, to put it in context. It is the 51st largest island in Europe, if Madeira is considered to be a European island; it is the 50th if it is not. In terms of geographical size, it has a sound argument and pretty good credentials. The resident population is about 70,000, which again is not insignificant. If we consider some of the geographical areas on the mainland, it is quite a sizeable unit. Administratively speaking, it is the ninth largest local authority in Wales by population. Again, that speaks to why it should be considered its own entity.
I mention community again at this point. If the local authority point is not enough then it should be considered that Ynys Môn fielded a team for the Island games, competing with islands across the world in different sporting events. The team is proud to represent their island, not some sort of appendage to north-west Wales. To encapsulate everything, the point made by Mr Geraint Day during the first day of the evidence sessions is a humorous but important one. History is on the side of Ynys Môn being a distinct constituency too. Since the 16th-century Acts of Union, Ynys Môn has always sent its own Member of Parliament to London, and indeed—apart from the Barebones Parliament—has always had representation in this place.
Mrs Miller
I point out that my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn is with us today, although unable to take part in proceedings because of her role in the Government.
Ben Lake
I referred to the hon. Member for Ynys Môn earlier on, and I am confident that she would agree with us if she were able to contribute. Ynys Môn has had continuous representation in this place, apart from the notable exception of the Barebones Parliament. Further to the points that have been made, if one needs to think about how Ynys Môn is considered within Wales, Môn man Cymru is probably the best way of putting it, as the right hon. Member for Basingstoke said. In her remarks on an earlier amendment, the Minister mentioned that the Boundary Commission for Wales agreed to the Welsh language convention of place names that run north to south and west to east. If that logic is applied, Wales starts in the north-west. What is the north-west? It is Ynys Môn. I do not have anything further to add. If the hon. Lady wishes to push the amendment to a vote I will support her.
Christian Matheson
It is a pleasure to take part in the debate. I think an amendment that I have tabled is similar in effect to those tabled by Conservative Members. Anglesey, which I knew as a child, is a great place. I remember we used to go there on holiday every year, staying at Red Wharf Bay at Benllech and visiting Llangefni market and Llanfair PG. I will not go any further than that. We still go there, and not so long ago I visited Newborough Warren. It is a wonderful place, and is a fantastic place to visit. The hon. Member for Ceredigion talked about the history of the Romans and the druids, and I was aware of that. He might want to correct me, but I think I am right that eventually the Romans got round their problem by fording the Menai strait at low spring tide, resolving their difficulties with the druids in, unfortunately, the fashion in which Romans resolved such problems.
Chloe Smith
Will the hon. Gentleman explain what the Romans ever did for the druids?
Christian Matheson
I am sure, Mr Paisley, that you would not want me to start listing aqueducts, currency, safety in the streets, law and order and so on. The Opposition have tabled a similar amendment—I am not sure of the procedural mechanism for resolving the fact that there is more than one amendment on the same issue. I will take guidance from you on that, Mr Paisley.
I make two points in relation to the debate. First, I ask Committee members to bear in mind the knock-on effect on the rest of the Wales, if and when they agree the amendment. We will be discussing that matter later. Right hon. Members have made good, sound arguments as to why we should accept the amendment. However, that has an effect on the rest of Wales, and I ask hon. Members to park that.
Secondly—I have to make this point, unfortunately, from a political point of view—never since St Paul took a trip to Damascus has such a great conversion been seen as that of Conservative Members deciding that perhaps Ynys Môn does need to be a protected constituency. Other parties, our own included, have called for that change in several reviews. Something has obviously changed, if Conservatives are all of a sudden in favour of the proposal. I invite members of the Committee to decide, in their own time, what circumstances have changed such that the Conservatives are, all of a sudden, in favour of it. Let us be clear: we have called for it in several reviews. We are, therefore, pleased that Government Members have seen the light, whatever the motivation that drove them to that point.
May I be indulged briefly, Mr Paisley, to pay tribute to the former Member for Ynys Môn, my good friend Albert Owen, who like you was a member of the Panel of Chairs? I miss him greatly as a person and as a mentor and adviser, but I know he still maintains a full role.
Chris Clarkson
As a Romanophile, I thank the hon. Member for Deva Victrix. I very much enjoyed the talk of Rome. On the political considerations, Ynys Môn is one of only two constituencies in the United Kingdom to have been represented by all three major parties and the local nationalist party, so the hon. Gentleman’s argument does not stand. Talking about north Wales, possibly combining Ynys Môn with Bangor would be particularly unfair to some mainland parts of Wales, which have distinct identities. I support the amendment: Ynys Môn is a distinct part of Wales, with a unique culture and identity, and has a perfect case to be a protected constituency.
Christian Matheson
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. In fact, my argument stands because only now has the Conservative party changed its opinion—again, I leave him to come up with the reason why.
Christian Matheson
I am most grateful. I am sure that Albert will be following this debate and will be most grateful as well.
We support the amendment and welcome the conversion of Government Members. We will work with them to see this through. We await the Minister’s response.
The Chair
For clarity, this debate is about amendment 14, in the name of Maria Miller. I said at the commencement that it would also be convenient to consider amendment 11, new clause 6 and new clause 10. If amendment 14 is agreed to, the subsequent one, namely amendment 11, will not be called.
Cat Smith
The grouping of amendments and new clauses on Ynys Môn gave me cause to think about the nature of island communities. I have enjoyed hearing the exchanges across the Committee Room this morning. Indeed, my father was born on an island and my mother was raised on one—the Isle of Walney, which was only connected to the mainland by a bridge in 1908 so, arguably, has a stronger case for special consideration even than Ynys Môn. The arguments about identity apply to any island community in the British Isles. For anyone born or raised on an island, that sense of community runs so deep that unless someone has lived or experienced it, it is hard to explain how that can forge identity.
Ynys Môn also has a strong Welsh identity, which we have not really touched on so far in this debate, but with a 57% prevalence of being able to speak Welsh, it has the second highest proportion of Welsh speakers by local authority in Wales. That just adds to the evidence that Anglesey is indeed a special place, which is why we believe that it should be awarded protected status. It also has the village with the longest place name in Britain —if anyone wishes to make any intervention to tell us what that is, I would be happy to give way.
Alec Shelbrooke
I cannot do that, but I will tell the hon. Lady who can: my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), who was born there.
Cat Smith
Unfortunately the hon. Member for Pudsey is not taking part in proceedings. The amendments are about recognising the fundamental and distinct identity of Ynys Môn and awarding it protected constituency status. Although the Labour party will certainly support that, it throws up a debate about the potential conflict between the idea of protecting communities and identity, and equally sized constituencies. Creating another protected constituency makes it more difficult to have equally sized constituencies right across the British Isles.
I find many of the ideas that the Committee has discussed very contradictory. On the one hand, hon. Members argue for equally sized constituencies, and on the other, they argue for more protected constituencies, which ingrain unequal size. I am very clear that we should respect community ties and acknowledge that some constituencies will be larger than others to reflect those ties, but as far as possible, we should try to have constituencies that are as equal as they can be. The amendments highlight the challenge that that throws up, in recognising that communities should be included together when it comes to parliamentary constituencies.
Chloe Smith
I am really pleased that we have had this discussion, which, in formal terms, complements my opening remarks on clause 11 stand part.
Following on from the arguments articulated by the hon. Members for Ceredigion and for City of Chester, as well as by the shadow Minister, I can confirm that the Government will accept amendment 14, tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke, and give Ynys Môn protected constituency status. I will go through the reasons for that.
I will pray in aid the hon. Member for Glasgow East, who occasionally helps me out in this respect. He was so kind to say earlier that I am a considered Minister who takes arguments on merit, which is what I am seeking to do today. That starts with reflecting on what the current legislation sets out. It sets out four protected constituencies, the boundaries of which are fixed and do not change at boundary reviews. They are all islands: Orkney and Shetland, Na h-Eileanan an Iar, and the two constituencies on the Isle of Wight. Currently, there are no protected constituencies in Wales.
During debate on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011, arguments were made that Ynys Môn should also be a protected constituency. Those arguments centred on the fact that the constituency covers a relatively large island geographically and has a sizeable electorate—and they still have merit today. Indeed, we heard witnesses and hon. Members of all stripes make the case for Ynys Môn, including Tom Adams of the Labour party, Geraint Day from Plaid Cymru and Chris Williams from the Green party, in addition to the parties represented on the Committee. Dr Larner from the Wales Governance Centre added his thoughts to the argument, too. Of course, hon. Members outside the Committee have also joined the argument via amendment 14, including the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight (Bob Seely), whose support is, I think telling.
I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn, who is sitting in the Public Gallery. She has campaigned and worked very hard on this matter, on top of being a most assiduous constituency MP on other matters. If I remember rightly, her swearing in to the House was done in Welsh, which shows her commitment to the characteristics of her constituency. Since she entered the House, she has argued that local people sent her here to do just that, and I am glad that she is here to listen.
As the hon. Member for Ceredigion explained, Ynys Môn, which covers 715 sq km, is the fourth largest island in Great Britain in terms of geographical size, excluding the mainland—to be precise, that is including Holy island to the west. With an electorate of approximately 50,000, based on 2019 data, Ynys Môn is comparable to other islands that enjoy protected constituency status.
I am of course mindful that each additional exception slightly chips away at the underlying principle of equally sized constituencies—I will bring that argument into my own remarks before anyone else makes it. It is a consideration that we have to include in this decision. However, I am persuaded that the creation of Ynys Môn as a protected constituency would address an anomaly. It is the only island in the UK whose electorate and geographical area fall squarely within the range of the currently protected constituencies. It has a considerable electorate, sitting between those of the other protected constituencies: Na h-Eileanan an Iar is at one end, with an electorate of just over 21,000, and the Isle of Wight is at the other, with 111,000. The argument that Ynys Môn belongs among the protected constituencies is compelling.
Amendment 14 also responds in part to something else we have heard in this Committee, which is that Wales is likely to see a reduction in the number of its constituencies. For a variety of historical reasons, which we have discussed already and may discuss later when debating other amendments, Welsh constituencies are slightly smaller on average than most UK constituencies. Given that the next boundary review will seek to create constituencies that are equal in size, it is likely to result in fewer constituencies in Wales. It is relevant to note that the creation of an appropriate protected constituency on Ynys Môn will mean that the electorate of that island will not be included in any calculation relating to the number of constituencies in Wales.
This amendment also means that there will be at least one protected constituency in each part of Great Britain, which helps demonstrate the importance with which we regard those component parts of the Union, and that we think these are important, relevant considerations. We believe that Ynys Môn, with its sizable electorate and particular geography, would make an appropriate protected constituency to sit alongside the others. As I have already confirmed, we intend to accept amendment 14.
John Spellar
Can we have some clarity on how the arithmetic works? Will Wales be taken as a block and allocated a number of seats, from which the protected seat would then be abstracted and its quota spread among the other seats? Alternatively, will Wales’s population be included with England’s and Scotland’s, so that all the protected seats are taken completely out of the equation and the basic figure for constituencies will be decided quite separately from the protected constituencies?
Chloe Smith
I believe it is the former; indeed, that is what the consequential amendments in this bundle go on to do. We can complete that argument when we discuss the tolerance and the way in which the quota is arrived at.
I will now deal with the fact that a couple of amendments are grouped together, and other Members have already asked questions about the procedure. I assume it would be in order for me to indicate that I would like to accept amendment 14 and new clause 10, but not new clause 6 and its associated amendment. That is for the very good reason that consequential changes to the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 are required to fully implement this protected constituency, and we need to ensure that those consequential changes are made by the amendments tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke, not those tabled by the hon. Members for Ceredigion and for Glasgow East. That is not to say that those Members have not made good arguments today—they have—but I intend to accept the amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke. I hope that is in order, Mr Paisley. I think I have answered all the points raised.
Mrs Miller
I thank the Minister and also the hon. Members for Ceredigion and for City of Chester for their kind words and support for this approach to achieve what we all want. The Minister has indicated that she will accept amendment 14 and, when we come to it, new clause 10 as well. It is my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn who has campaigned for this change, this protection, and today’s debate reflects her assiduous hard work and the understanding that she has of the community that she represents.
Amendment 14 agreed to.
The Chair
An historic day, colleagues! The next amendment on the paper is amendment 10, but that was debated last Thursday and David Linden indicated that he did not wish to press it to a Division. Unless Mr Linden has changed his mind, which could happen, we will move on.
Schedule, as amended, agreed to.
Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Paisley. It would probably be more appropriate if we pause and continue our deliberations this afternoon. I therefore beg to move that our deliberations be now adjourned.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Eddie Hughes.)
Written Statements
(4 years, 3 months ago)
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The European Communities (Designation) Order 2020
(4 years, 3 months ago)
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The Paymaster General (Penny Mordaunt)
An error has been identified in the laying letter for The European Communities (Designation) Order 2020, and as a result it was laid under an incorrect procedure. The Order should have been laid under the negative procedure but the laying letter indicated that there would be no parliamentary procedure. This was due to an administrative error.
A correction has been issued under Votes and Proceedings 23 June 2020.
The statutory instrument was laid on 27 May 2020 and the House authorities have agreed that they consider this instrument to be laid under the negative procedure from the date of laying. I wish to inform the House that the 40-day laying period ends on 3 July 2020.
[HCWS325]
Negotiations on the UK's Future Relationship with the US: Update
(4 years, 3 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for International Trade (Elizabeth Truss)
The second UK-US Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiating round took place from 15-26 June 2020.
Talks continued to be positive and constructive, with progress being made towards a comprehensive agreement. Discussions spanned the majority of areas covered by the FTA, with further sessions coming over the next two weeks on the remaining major policy areas. This follows almost 20 intersessional meetings held in between rounds one and two.
The Government are clear there is no set deadline for this agreement. Quality is more important than speed. Any deal the Government strikes must be fair, reciprocal and ultimately in the best interests of the British people and the economy. Furthermore, the Government remain clear on protecting the NHS and not compromising on the UK’s high environmental protection, animal welfare and food safety standards.
During the round, talks advanced across a number of chapters and teams are now into detailed discussions on text.
There was good progress on a dedicated SME (Small and Medium Enterprises) chapter. This included agreement that the next formal UK-US SME dialogue will be held in Boston in October 2020.
UK negotiators also underlined the importance of high ambition on services, with financial services particularly vital to any final agreement.
On professional business services, both sides agreed to go further than existing precedent and agree provisions that reflect the strength of the UK-US relationship. This included a discussion on how best to support regulators pursue closer collaboration on the recognition of qualifications and licencing.
There was also discussion of specific proposals that might benefit the legal services sector.
More work needs to be done and both sides committed in the round to a full programme of engagement ahead of round three. Talks scheduled over the coming weeks include rules of origin, market access, digital, telecoms, intellectual property and business mobility.
The third negotiating round is expected to take place at the end of July.
Below is a summary list of those areas discussed in the round, which continued to take place through video conferencing:
General co-ordination
Trade remedies
Services sectors—professional business services
Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)
Services sectors—transport
Anti-corruption
Competition
Cross cutting services
Financial services
Good regulatory practice (GRP)
Customs and trade facilitation
Sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS)
Investment
Legal group—core text
Sectoral annexes
Environment
State owned enterprises
Technical barriers to trade
Other issues—including innovation and women’s economic empowerment
Economics
[HCWS324]
House of Lords
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Lexden) (Con)
My Lords, the Hybrid Sitting of the House will now begin. A limited number of Members are here in the Chamber, respecting social distancing. 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. Oral Questions will now commence. Please can those asking supplementary questions keep them short and confined to two points? I also ask that Ministers’ answers are kept brief.
Marriage and Religious Weddings
(4 years, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Cox
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Integrated Communities Strategy Green Paper, published on 14 May 2018, what progress they have made on their commitment to “explore the legal and practical challenges of limited reform relating to the law on marriage and religious weddings”.
The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Keen of Elie) (Con)
My Lords, the Government continue the exploration of limited reform and non-legislative options that they began in detail last spring. We are doing so with the greatest care. Any proposals affecting how religious groups are permitted to conduct marriages must be thoroughly assessed for their fairness to all religious groups, and for how far they could achieve the change of practice intended.
Baroness Cox (CB) [V]
My Lords, I remain deeply concerned because we have seen no evidence of any significant progress since I asked a similar Oral Question nine months ago, on 23 October. Given the strong recommendations of the Casey review, the sharia law review and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and given the number of Private Members’ Bills that I have submitted since 2011 with cross-party support and the support of Muslim women’s groups, will the Minister give an assurance at last that government legislation will be introduced as a matter of urgency? So many Muslim women in this country are suffering in ways which are unacceptable and make our suffragettes turn in their graves.
Lord Keen of Elie
My Lords, I am not in a position to give such an undertaking. The issues raised are considered in the Integrated Communities Action Plan.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con) [V]
My Lords, to what extent does the right to practise one’s religion, subject to a proviso, affect the right to maintenance and property during marriage and on divorce or separation?
Lord Keen of Elie
My Lords, if a religious ceremony of marriage or purported marriage does not conform to the requirement of Lord Hardwicke’s Act of 1753 or the marriage Act of 1836, then there will be no marriage. In these circumstances, a couple would be regarded as cohabiting and that would clearly have an impact upon any circumstances in which they ceased to cohabit.
Baroness Meacher (CB) [V]
My Lords, it is seven years next month since the same-sex marriage Act was passed, enabling Governments to bring about legal recognition for humanist marriages by ministerial order. Since then, successive Ministers have been very supportive but have had a series of reviews rather than taking action. Meanwhile, 6,000 couples who have had humanist weddings have also been required to have a second marriage ceremony with a registrar to get legal recognition of their ceremony. This cannot be justified. Will the Minister help to achieve legal recognition of humanist marriages, which has the support of the majority in all religious groups?
Lord Keen of Elie
My Lords, the Law Commission is proposing to look at the matter of where and in what circumstances marriage should be celebrated. I understand that its consultation document will be available in September.
Baroness Whitaker (Lab) [V]
My Lords, following the question of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, can I press the Minister on this issue? Provision for legally recognised humanist marriages was overwhelmingly supported in the government consultation. What are the real obstacles to our having equal rights with Scotland?
Lord Keen of Elie
The major obstacle is the fundamental difference between the law of marriage in Scotland and that in England. The law of marriage in England and Wales, as determined since Lord Hardwicke’s Act, depends upon the place of celebration as well as the celebrant. That is not the position in Scotland, where it is not necessary to identify the location for the marriage ceremony.
Lord Dholakia (LD) [V]
My Lords, is there any evidence of girls being married before reaching the legal age at which marriage is permissible, particularly during the Covid emergency of recent times, and is the situation regularly monitored here and abroad to ensure that this does not happen to girls settled in the United Kingdom?
Lord Keen of Elie
My Lords, any purported marriage to a person under the age of 16 would be void and of no effect. A marriage of an individual between that age and the age of 18 would of course require parental consent.
Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, for some years, I have spoken in this House in support of the Register Our Marriage campaign led by Aina Khan OBE, whose commendable work has established the urgent need for legal recognition of any marriages conducted with religious ceremonies. This is not the case at present, as noble Lords have said, which significantly impacts many vulnerable women, who often only become aware when the marriage dissolves that they have little or no marital and financial rights. Will the Minister agree to meet—even on Zoom—with me, interested Members of Parliament and the legal and community experts of the ROM team, to gain greater insight into resolving these outstanding anomalies and eradicating their harmful impact, given that the laws on marriage are due to undergo further and imminent changes?
Lord Keen of Elie
My Lords, the position is that there is a very real social issue, but not a legal issue, with regard to this matter. It is not possible simply to say that we will acknowledge all religious ceremonies of marriage, of any kind, as legally enforceable. That would actually expose people to greater harm in the long term. I am perfectly content to meet with the noble Baroness and others to discuss this matter. It would be sensible to defer such a meeting until we have the Law Commission’s terms of reference and consultation document in September of this year.
Baroness Warsi (Con) [V]
My Lords, I am sure my noble and learned friend accepts that the role of politicians and indeed government is to ensure that the law responds to the needs of a changing community. Therefore, could he explain why, despite 10 years of government policy consensus on religious marriages—that Muslim women in particular deserve the same protection as other married women—the Government still fail to put that protection in place?
Lord Keen of Elie
First of all, those who undergo only a sharia ceremony are not in marriage; that is the source of the problem we have to face here. That is more a social issue than a legal one, and it requires education and information more than legislation.
Baroness Deech (CB) [V]
Do the Government not realise how urgent reform is in this area? Not only are religious marriages continuing to take place, with all the drawbacks outlined by my noble friend Baroness Cox—the Minister is right to say that this must be stopped by education—but lockdown has shown the need for simpler weddings and more certainty in formalities, to increase choice, lower cost and ensure legality. Will the Government make time for statutory reform soon, encompass those reforms and whatever the Law Commission comes up with in its timely work on weddings, which has a broader scope but will include discussion of religious-only marriages and the consequences for couples who do not comply with the requirements?
Lord Keen of Elie
My Lords, the Law Commission review will consider the law on how and where marriages may take place in England and Wales. The terms of reference for that project have already been published and we look forward to the consultation paper and the results of that consultation.
Lord Desai (Lab) [V]
My Lords, the evidence is not only that underage marriage is sanctioned by parents, but that any woman defying parental orders can suffer violent death. We have to understand that it is not just a matter of the law of marriage but of the legal human rights of underage children, especially girls, to have protection from their families. The Government must do something about that part of the law and not just wait for the Law Commission.
Lord Keen of Elie
My Lords, there is an issue to be addressed with regard to what amounts to forced marriage. Since 2014 that has been a specific criminal offence, and since 2017 we have ensured that those who come forward in these circumstances receive lifelong anonymity.
Baroness Sheehan (LD) [V]
May I ask the Minister how the Government measure the effectiveness of awareness campaigns to educate socially isolated Muslim women and girls on the benefits of a civilly registered marriage?
Lord Keen of Elie
My Lords, there is no absolute means by which one could accurately measure that, so it is necessary to engage with these communities and to analyse feedback from them in order to ascertain the extent of the problem. I readily acknowledge that there is a very real issue with regard to the Muslim community’s tendency, in many cases, to undergo a sharia ceremony rather than a legal marriage.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Lexden) (Con)
My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has now elapsed.
Covid-19: Universities
Baroness Randerson
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what support they are providing to universities to assist them in dealing with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Baroness Randerson (LD) [V]
I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, and in doing so I declare an interest as Chancellor of Cardiff University.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, in May we announced a package of stabilisation measures to ensure that we continue to look after the best interests of students, as well as supporting our world-class higher education system. We are bringing forward £2.6 billion of forecast tuition fee payments to help universities manage cash flow and provide support to students, and £100 million to help protect vital university research activities in England. We have also established a ministerial task force on research stabilisation.
Baroness Randerson [V]
My Lords, the Government’s recent announcement provides little new money, and 75% of that will be in loans. Universities’ research is heavily subsidised by international student fee income, which is predicted to drop by £2 billion this year. Many universities have made massive contributions of equipment, research and staffing to the fight against coronavirus. Does the Minister accept that they now need a much more ambitious package of support, because they are making research and staff cutbacks at this moment?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay
The noble Baroness is absolutely right to point out the vital contribution that universities are making to solving the pandemic, which is putting pressures on them as well as on everybody else. She referred to the further package of support which the Government announced this weekend. In addition to bringing forward the tuition fee payments which I mentioned in my Answer, the Government are providing a package of support to universities to continue research and innovation. That includes £280 million of taxpayer funding available to sustain UK Research and Innovation and national academy grant-funded research, which is available immediately. From the autumn, there is a further package consisting of low-interest loans with long payback periods and supplemented by a further amount of government grants. I am therefore not sure that I accept what she says about the Government’s response being inadequate.
The Lord Bishop of Winchester [V]
My Lords, universities make a significant contribution to their local communities and economies, particularly smaller institutions that attract a larger proportion of students from disadvantaged backgrounds. These make a significant contribution to their local context, particularly in this pandemic. In particular, several Cathedrals Group universities during the 2018-19 academic year had 20% undergraduate students from low-participation—POLAR4—backgrounds. How will the Government work with higher education institutions to maintain the widening of access and retention of students, especially those preparing for key public service roles that have been so important during this pandemic crisis?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay
The right reverend Prelate is absolutely right to point out the vital contribution made by smaller and specialist higher education providers; I know there are a number in his own diocese, as there are around the country. He is right too to point out the importance of encouraging people from all backgrounds to continue to go to university and to avail themselves of the benefits that it can bring. That is why I am pleased that higher education providers can draw on existing funding, which is worth around £23 million a month at the moment, to provide hardship funds and support for disadvantaged students who are particularly affected by Covid-19.
Lord Black of Brentwood (Con) [V]
My Lords, I declare my interest as chairman of the Royal College of Music. Music conservatoires have been particularly seriously impacted by the emergency. As small institutions, they do not have the scale, financial headroom or borrowing capacity of the large universities, or significant research income, and are highly dependent on tuition fees, including from a high proportion of international students. As the future on that front is so uncertain, does my noble friend agree that there is an overwhelming case for a temporary increase in the specialist institutional funding which is essential to their sustainability? That would be a clear sign of the Government’s commitment to music and the wider creative economy.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay
My noble friend is absolutely right to draw your Lordships’ attention to the huge value of small and specialist providers such as music conservatoires, which have such benefits for society, our culture and indeed our economy. As chairman of the Royal College of Music, he is a redoubtable champion for such institutions. Like all higher education providers, these institutions are eligible for the business support schemes, like any other business. However, I hope I can reassure him that the Government are working closely with higher education providers of all shapes and sizes to make sure that things such as our visa regulations are as flexible as possible for international students in these unprecedented circumstances.
Lord Craig of Radley (CB) [V]
My Lords, many university students in England have been missing tuition and access to libraries, laboratories and other university facilities, and may face financial hardship. The Minister says that the Government will not cut the amount paid to universities in tuition fees, but will they reduce sums to be recovered from formerly affected students in later life?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay
The noble and gallant Lord is right to point out some of the many ways in which the university experience is being affected by this pandemic with regard to access to libraries, laboratories and so on. I am pleased that universities across the sector have responded swiftly and creatively to ensure that they remain open and that students can continue to avail themselves of high-quality education. Universities are autonomous and responsible for setting their own fees, and of course, as they approach the forthcoming academic year, if they decide to charge full fees, they will want to ensure that they can continue to deliver courses which are fit for purpose and which help students to progress their qualifications. However, any matter regarding the level of those fees and refunds is first and foremost for the providers and those who apply to them.
Viscount Chandos (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I declare my interest as a trustee of LAMDA. In the absence of more appropriate emergency grant funding to compensate for irrecoverable loss of revenues, the Government have encouraged universities to apply for business interruption loans. How does the Minister think these loans, designed for profit-making companies, can be repaid by non-profit HE institutions, other than at the expense of the quality of courses for future generations of students?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay
The noble Viscount rightly points out that universities, like other businesses, whether they make profits or not, are eligible to apply to the Government’s business support schemes. However, he is also right to point out the wider societal benefits that universities bring, which is why the Government brought forward the additional package of measures which I outlined in my Answer.
Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)
My Lords, what plans do the Government have to reform student and university funding to enable a greater number of people, especially mature learners, to undertake short higher education courses and build up to a full degree in a way that suits them? That will be increasingly important as individuals reskill post Covid.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay
The noble Baroness is absolutely right that many mature students and others may wish to consider courses of different lengths and varieties, and the Government are glad to see that wide range of courses offered. As she says, that will be particularly important over the coming months. The package of support which the Government have announced is of course available to providers irrespective of the length and format of the courses they offer.
Lord Norton of Louth (Con) [V]
My Lords, I declare an interest as an academic at the University of Hull and as chair of the Higher Education Commission, which produced a report on the value to the United Kingdom of the export of higher education. Given how crucial that export is and that from next year EU students will no longer be subject to home fees, will the Government consider extending the new graduate route post-study work visa to three or four years to ensure that the United Kingdom has a competitive offer to international students?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay
My noble friend draws attention to the new graduate route which comes into effect from next summer, which allows people graduating from UK universities to stay here in work of any level and any remuneration for up to two years— an increased and very generous offer. That is part of the Government’s ambition to increase the number of international students coming to study here in the United Kingdom.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Lexden) (Con)
My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has now elapsed.
Covid-19: Women’s Sport
(4 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Randall of Uxbridge
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to support women’s sport after the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Barran) (Con)
My Lords, it is vital that we continue to strive for greater equality and opportunity in sport. I am keen that we maintain the focus on women’s sport and build on the fantastic progress of the last few years. That is why on 29 May we wrote to the Football Association, the Rugby Football Union, the Rugby Football League, the Lawn Tennis Association and the England and Wales Cricket Board to ask about their plans to promote sport at the elite level and to grow women and girls’ wider participation, and how we can support them to do that.
Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]
I thank my noble friend for her Answer. I declare an interest as a trustee of the Saracens Sport Foundation. We know that many girls drop out of sport and physical activity by the age of 14. What does my noble friend think can be done to improve the situation?
Baroness Barran
My noble friend is right that more needs to be done to tackle the decline of physical activity through secondary school. One way we are approaching that is through Sport England, which is providing free training for two teachers in every secondary school in England to help foster positive attitudes towards physical education and sport. We recently announced a £17 million investment so that that additional support can go to primary schools as well across the country.
Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a director of Carlisle United. Recent years have been very exciting for women’s sport, including football. As the Minister knows, many of the lower Football League clubs have given great encouragement to women’s football locally. Now of course they find themselves in great financial difficulty themselves. Will the Minister do her best to ensure that none of this valuable contribution and co-operation is lost?
Baroness Barran
The noble Lord is absolutely right. As I have declared previously in this House, I am a shareholder in Bath City Football Club—so we are as one on the importance of grass-roots sport and football, and the Government are clear and committed that that part of the fabric of our community should be maintained.
Baroness Wheatcroft (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, community sports centres have proved to be key in getting women involved in sport and keeping them there. What will the Government do to encourage them to open up as quickly as possible?
Baroness Barran
The Government have been working very closely through the recreation and leisure task force, as the noble Baroness may be aware, to plan for the reopening of community sports centres. They play a crucial role in keeping everyone active, including younger and older women. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State indicated that our aspiration is to open those centres in mid-July, if it is safe to do so.
Lord Hayward (Con) [V]
My Lords, is it not the case that one of the best ways of improving the opportunities for women and generally diverse communities is by changing the structure of the governing bodies of so many sports? Could my noble friend consider recommending to governing bodies that they adopt something similar to the Rooney Rule to enhance their diversity?
Baroness Barran
My noble friend is absolutely right. Women now make up an average of 40% of board members across bodies funded by Sport England and UK Sport. Three-quarters of these sports have already achieved the gender benchmark of 30%, as set out in the Code for Sports Governance. My noble friend may have seen that on 11 June the Sports Minister announced his intention to review the code more broadly, with a view to introducing a target for more black, Asian and minority-ethnic representation on the boards of sports governing bodies.
Lord Addington (LD) [V]
My Lords, does the Minister agree that one of the biggest steps forward has been that it is normal to see elite-level female competitors taking part on our TV screens? Will the Government look at why, in great football matches of the past, the women’s competitions that were shown were not given more prominence?
Baroness Barran
This is a highly relevant topic. The noble Lord is right about the opportunity to broadcast some of the inspiring women’s games that have taken place. Obviously, the editorial independence of broadcasters is key, but we are also clear that the visibility of women’s sport is critical.
Lord Naseby (Con)
My Lords, I declare an interest as president of Northamptonshire County Cricket Club. Will the Minister recognise the enormous progress that has been made in cricket, particularly women’s and girls’ cricket, in recent years? Will she also listen sympathetically to any proposals that come from the ECB, in light of the financial constraints this summer, and look urgently at getting club cricket, in particular for girls and boys, on the pitches, because at the moment they cannot even start to play the game?
Baroness Barran
I am sure that my noble friend also was pleased to see the appointment of Clare Connor as the first female president of the MCC. There is a great commitment to getting cricket started again. The county cricket season starts at the beginning of August; the ECB is committed to staging women’s cricket during 2020. Thanks to Sky’s coverage of the women’s game, we will see free-to-air coverage of women’s cricket return on the BBC later this season.
Baroness Bull (CB)
My Lords, women’s sport depends on getting girls and young women active, but they frequently have a negative association with sport, especially as they go through the changes of adolescence, because the physical exposure too often leads to body shaming. Does the Minister agree that the pressure on female athletes, laid bare by Mary Cain’s brave testimony, is the tip of the iceberg in a culture in which body shaming is all too prevalent? What are the Government doing to educate sports coaches about the negative impact of body shaming and to drive this harmful practice out of the sports arena?
Baroness Barran
The noble Baroness raises an important issue. I point to the campaign This Girl Can, of which I am sure she is well aware. It has highlighted and celebrated how normal girls and women look and has inspired 3.9 million women and girls to get active since it started in 2015. That has been an important part of this, but the body shaming issues she raises are real, and I think are even more so for women of colour, who can feel pressure to whiten their bodies as well as reshape them.
Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab) [V]
My Lords, as a Lady Taverner, I too welcome the appointment of the former captain of the England women’s cricket team as the first woman president of the MCC. Does the Minister think that one way forward in women’s sport is to appoint more women to high-level posts and to increase funding to the level of men’s games?
Baroness Barran
I think the noble Baroness knows the answer to her question. Of course senior role models are absolutely critical, and we are fortunate to have several in this House, including the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, with her leadership role in women’s football at the FA. However, we need role models at every level in sport, not just the most elite, and that is part of what we are working on with all the different bodies involved.
Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD) [V]
The Minister has acknowledged that young sportswomen need opportunities. What financial support are this Government willing to provide to improve these opportunities?
Baroness Barran
Particularly in relation to Covid, we have made a generous funding package available. More broadly, we are working with the governing bodies of all sports to make sure that resources are committed to the women’s game and that the positive momentum we have seen in recent years is continued.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Lexden) (Con)
My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has now elapsed.
Korea
(4 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord West of Spithead
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the situation on the border between North Korea and South Korea; and what residual responsibilities they have, if any, in relation to the 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Department for International Development (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, we are concerned by North Korea’s recent confrontational rhetoric and actions. We urge North Korea to act responsibly when dealing with South Korea and the international community. The UK works multilaterally and with partners to seek peace and prosperity for the Korean peninsula, and we are an active member of the United Nations Command, which continues its important work to maintain the armistice agreement.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab) [V]
I thank the Minister for his Answer. Seventy years ago this Friday, HMS “Triumph” and an American carrier made the first carrier strikes against North Korean airfields. This was only five days after Prime Minister Attlee agreed that Britain could operate with the US on behalf of the UN, proving once again the versatility of carrier strike and that prompt, resolute action against an aggressor ensures the survival of free and democratic nations. The war lasted three years, with 3 million deaths, and an armistice was signed but there was no peace treaty.
With the failure of President Trump’s three on one high-profile summits, North Korean aggressive statements, the blowing up of the joint liaison ops in Kaesong, renewed missile testing, threats to remilitarise the border, et cetera, is the whole peace process now lost or is there hope? Have the UK Government tried to bring the parties back together, using our membership of the Military Armistice Commission as a lever? Does the Minister agree that worsening US-China strategic competition in the post-coronavirus era will make negotiations on North Korea’s denuclearisation, which is the key to a peace agreement, more difficult?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, the noble Lord summarises the situation very well. The challenges are immense, not least given the current and most recent actions taken by the North Koreans, including blowing up the building where negotiations were continuing to take place on a daily basis. We remain positive about the need to seek resolution to this issue, which has gone on for far too long. We continue to support American efforts in this regard, including support given to the US and the South Koreans on a recent statement issued, and we implore all sides, including those who support the North Korean regime, to ensure that both North Korea and South Korea can resume their discussions, which had borne fruit in certain respects.
Lord Triesman (Lab) [V]
My Lords, the armistice agreement, which was signed by an American lieutenant-general, was of course signed on behalf of the United Nations Command. The period since then has been punctuated by hostile provocations, which have occurred on both sides although it is much easier to see the absurdity of the North Korean regime, its bellicose nuclear threats and its recent actions, including blowing up the building. It is true that there has been fault on both sides, including the United States’ abrogation of paragraph 13(d) of the agreement in 1956.
I wonder whether, as a permanent member of the United Nations and—
Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)
My Lords, I am afraid that the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, is inaudible, so the Minister will write—if he would like to write—with the supplementary answer.
Baroness Northover (LD) [V]
My Lords, what assessment has been made of the spread of coronavirus in North Korea, for example through satellite assessment and attendance at clinics, and do the Government think that conflict with the south is a deflection from that?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, the noble Baroness is right to draw attention to the situation in North Korea on both the humanitarian and human rights front. Yes, the challenge remains to understand what support we can provide. Although we of course support sanctions, she will be aware that humanitarian support continues to be delivered through the UN avenues. We called on North Korea to make an assessment of its situation domestically on Covid-19 and allow support to its citizens.
Lord Robathan (Con) [V]
My Lords, as the Minister has acknowledged, the Korean War never really ended in 1953; indeed, it is still going on, with the actions from an erratic and hereditary autocrat who may or may not have nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. The Minister mentioned support to allies. It is important that, when we support allies in the region and fellow democracies such as Japan and Australia—and, indeed, down in the South China Sea —we have the means to support them. I fear that we need to look closely at how much we are spending on defence, not because we want some conflict with North Korea—or, indeed, anyone else in the region—but because we must be taken seriously by countries such as North Korea.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, let me assure my noble friend that we take our role as part of the UN Command very seriously. Most recently on the specific issue of deployment and support, the Royal Navy deployed ships to the north-east Asia region in 2018, through HMS “Sutherland” and “Albion”, and in 2019, as my noble friend may be aware, through HMS “Enterprise”.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB) [V]
The APPG on North Korea would particularly like to ask the Minister about two issues. First, what assessment has been made by our ambassador in Pyongyang of the widespread reports of food insecurity, even famine? Secondly, is anything known about the size of any listening audience to the BBC World Service’s Korean service and whether it is in fact helping to break the information block?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I will write to the noble and right reverend Lord on his second question. On his earlier question, we retain a mission, of course, but as he may be aware, we drew that down due to concerns around the Covid pandemic; we are working to restore the ambassador to North Korea at the earliest opportunity. As I said in response to an earlier question, the situation on the humanitarian front remains very dire within North Korea.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, this is a dangerously escalating situation and the noble Lord has mentioned our acting multilaterally. However, the two key players in this are obviously the US and China. What direct contact have we made with both of those players to ensure that we move to de-escalation? Also, I read in the FT recently that we would be targeting by using the Magnitsky powers in relation to North Korea. Before the Recess, the Minister promised that those statutory instruments would be put before us. Can he give an update of when that will be, because obviously this situation demands urgent action?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I can assure the noble Lord that we continue to work to ensure peace on the peninsula. He is quite right to say that both the United States and China have a key role to play. We continue to liaise with both nations bilaterally and, more importantly, through the Security Council. On his second point about Magnitsky sanctions and the regime, as I said earlier, we are proposing to bring those forward before the Summer Recess, and we are in the final stages of doing that now.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD) [V]
My Lords, the Minister has talked about the Government supporting sanctions but also about providing humanitarian aid. What assessment have the Government made of the relative balance between the two in the context of North Korea?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, the sanctions are not targeted against the North Korean people, and we will continue to support delivery of humanitarian aid to the most vulnerable in that country. Denuclearisation will assist in that respect.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab) [V]
My Lords, what is the Government’s assessment of the likely success of the US negotiation strategy of maximum pressure based on “denuclearise first, reward later”, including the effectiveness of the UN sanctions and their impact on North Korea’s humanitarian crisis?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I believe that I have partly answered the question put by the noble Lord already. On the specific issue of the US sanctions, the US is demonstrating patience and has adopted a sense of willingness in its approach, although success is not guaranteed. Enforcing sanctions which have been agreed unanimously in the UN Security Council in response to North Korea’s nuclear ballistic missile testing does help to create the conditions to incentivise change on the part of North Korea, while of course keeping the humanitarian corridor open.
Lord Sheikh (Con) [V]
My Lords, following the invasion of South Korea by North Korea, 16 UN member nations, including the United Kingdom, sent fighting units to the peninsula under the auspices of the United Nations—we sent more than 100,000 servicemen. The United Nations command provided core military strategic direction. Subsequently, the UN has passed resolutions and applied sanctions. In 1953, an armistice agreement was signed, but no formal peace agreement has ever been signed. Recently, the situation in North Korea has deteriorated. I would like to ask my noble friend the Minister if the UN can play a more active role in achieving peace. Can we influence this in any way?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, we continue to implore that we work with the UN Security Council in pursuit of that objective.
Lord Kilclooney (CB)
My Lords, I have visited the Republic of Korea and gone to the 38th parallel, but it was one of the most scary experiences that I have had in my life. The Republic of Korea is a stable, democratic country, and we have a responsibility to support it. Will Her Majesty’s Government raise the threats being made by North Korea at the United Nations Security Council in an effort to get both Russia and China to help calm the North Koreans?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, the noble Lord has raised an important point. I believe that it is through the UN Security Council, as I have just said in response to my noble friend Lord Sheikh, that will provide the real route for North Korea to come back to the table and to continue with its denuclearisation and demilitarisation effort. That will bring more stability to the Korean peninsula but to the wider world as well.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Lexden) (Con)
My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has now elapsed. That concludes the Hybrid Proceedings on Oral Questions.
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Speaker (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)
My Lords, the proceedings will now commence. Some Members are here in the Chamber, others are participating virtually, but all Members will be treated equally. I ask noble Lords to be patient if there are any short delays as we switch between physical and remote participants. The usual rules and courtesies of debate apply.
David Frost
(4 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Robertson of Port Ellen
To ask Her Majesty’s Government (1) when they expect David Frost to be introduced to the House; and (2) whether he will be accountable to the House in relation to his duties as (a) the Prime Minister’s Europe Adviser and the United Kingdom’s Chief Negotiator of Task Force Europe, and (b) the Prime Minister’s National Security Adviser.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con)
My Lords, the Prime Minister has recommended David Frost for a life peerage. Her Majesty the Queen has graciously approved the recommendation. He will be introduced to the House in due course, in the usual way. The Prime Minister has appointed David Frost as National Security Adviser; he is not a Minister and will be accountable to Parliament in the usual way for officeholders—for example, appearing before Select Committees where necessary and appropriate.
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply but, sadly, it raises many more questions than answers. Do the Government not recognise that the post of National Security Adviser was designed for giving impartial advice in the national interest? By appointing a Conservative Peer as the National Security Adviser, it will instead be political advice in the Conservative interest. I first ask the Minister this: will Mr Frost, as a Member of this House, simply sit silently on the red Benches, while the business of the National Security Council is debated here?
Secondly, Mr Frost is, at present, in charge of the negotiations on our future relations with the European Union—perhaps the most important negotiations in our lifetime. Will he again be sitting here silently or will he regularly report on the progress of the negotiations to the House, of which he will be a Member? The public outside will see this Government not reforming the system in a thought-through way, but introducing yet another partisan way of politicising our remarkable Civil Service.
Lord True
My Lords, there were a number of questions there; I am not sure I remembered them all by the end. The post of National Security Adviser has only existed since 2010 and it is an evolving role. Mr Frost is a career diplomat of 25 years’ distinguished service to this country. He is perfectly capable of giving dispassionate and wise advice. His role as an outstanding negotiator with the EU will continue as now. He will be ready to appear before your Lordships’ Select Committees, as he has already.
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab) [V]
My Lords, the politicisation of this and other posts at the top of government is a significant change in the constitutional settlement of this country. When and how will the Government seek democratic approval for this decision?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD) [V]
My Lords, both the Prime Minister and Michael Gove cited President Roosevelt as the model for this Government’s approach. When I was first a student in the United States, I was invited to seminars given by three former members of President Roosevelt’s cabinet, all of whom emphasised the efforts Roosevelt made to carry cross-party support in both Houses of Congress for his New Deal. Are this Government similarly committed to building support across the parties and in both Houses of Parliament or do they prefer, as Dominic Cummings suggests, to move fast and break the conventions?
Lord True
My Lords, this Government, who have a great public mandate, want to carry the widest possible support and, indeed, increase their support across this nation. I welcome the support given by Sir Keir Starmer to the principle of heavy investment in infrastructure, which the Prime Minister is announcing.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB) [V]
My Lords, watching Washington provides daily lessons on the perils of a politicised public service, and the Iraq inquiry reminded us of the dangers when politics and intelligence assessment overlap. Mr Frost is a man of proven resilience and stamina—he used to work for me—but he is being put in a very difficult position. Will the Minister reassure us that the Government understand that the primary role of the National Security Adviser is speaking truth to power, co-ordinating and presenting to Government the considered collective advice of the council, welcome or unwelcome, and not acting as a delivery mechanism to impose policies born in a back shop in No. 10?
Lord True
My Lords, the noble Lord slightly lost my sympathy in the last few words of his question. I welcome his endorsement of Mr Frost’s qualities—I cannot judge how many he learned from the noble Lord—but assure him that anybody in public service, even a Minister, has the duty to speak truth to power. I am sure Mr Frost will be mindful of that.
Lord Howard of Rising (Con) [V]
Could the Minister confirm that, when David Frost is elevated to the peerage, he will, at the very least, be given an earldom or possibly be made a Marquis, in recognition of his brilliant letter of 19 May of this year to Michel Barnier and his superb negotiating with the EU? That led to the EU understanding that it cannot continue to treat this country as a colony of an empire run from Brussels.
Lord True
My Lords, I am glad to have that endorsement of Mr Frost from the other side of the river to the previous noble Lord. Her Majesty is the fount of all honour, but I fear that if my noble friend’s suggestion were followed, Mr Frost might find himself on the expulsion list of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. Perhaps we should be satisfied by a simple life peerage.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab) [V]
My Lords, this is really quite extraordinary: a political appointment has been made into a Civil Service job. We have not seen the like of this before. I wonder whether the Minister has really considered both the practical and constitutional issues that this raises. As the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said, the National Security Adviser is there to tell truth to power. We all fear that there is a concentration of power in Downing Street that does not like either challenge or scrutiny. Will the Minister confirm whether Mr Frost, when he comes into your Lordships’ House, will take the Conservative whip and be allowed to speak on security issues or EU negotiation issues?
Lord True
My Lords, I repeat what I said about speaking truth unto power. I assure the noble Baroness that Mr Frost will be supported by the normal substructure of government, which remains. We are talking here about one appointment. It is my understanding that he may be introduced as a Conservative Peer, but I cannot confirm that to your Lordships today.
Lord Rennard (LD) [V]
My Lords, in the Times today, Rachel Sylvester quotes a former Permanent Secretary saying of this Government that
“basic propriety and ethics have gone out the window, and the decision-making is a shambles.”
Does not giving someone with no expert knowledge of terrorism, intelligence or defence responsibility for national security, as well as for the Brexit negotiations, confirm this?
The Earl of Kinnoull (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, will the Minister explain how, in this intense phase of the Brexit negotiations—the tunnel—our chief negotiator will have the time for his induction into his new role? Does he accept that there is a strong risk that the Brexit negotiations will not be concluded by the end of September, and that the undivided attention of the chief negotiator is needed until they are concluded?
Lord True
My Lords, I do not agree that there will be a difficulty. The announcement suggests that Mr Frost will take up his appointment around the end of August, and, as the noble Lord said, there will be a period of handover. Mr Frost will remain chief negotiator for the EU talks until agreement is reached, or until they end. That will remain his first priority. As I have already said, he will also be ready to answer to Select Committees of the House in that period.
Baroness Noakes (Con)
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that, when Mr Frost becomes a Peer, this House will be very lucky, because we will gain a new Member with huge experience—as my noble friend has outlined—and with complete dedication and commitment to the success of the UK outside the EU?
Lord Ricketts (CB) [V]
My Lords, as the Government’s first National Security Adviser, I welcome the moving words of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster at Ditchley Park over the weekend about the need for reform in the Civil Service to ensure the “mastery of deep knowledge”. Since Mr Frost has not, as far as I know, worked on defence, security or intelligence matters in the way that each of his predecessors had done, how is Mr Gove’s dictum about reform of the Civil Service to be read in the light of Mr Frost’s appointment?
Lord True
My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, who was, as he told us, the first National Security Adviser. Each of those, although coming from a diplomatic background, has had different and diverse experience—the noble Lord had a particular role as chairman of the JIC. Where I do agree with him is that the Prime Minister has decided that the role of the National Security Adviser and that of the Cabinet Secretary should be divided. That will give the incumbent time to display his dedication and skills, as I have no doubt he will, in carrying out this important role.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab) [V]
My Lords, in his own words, the Prime Minister recently said that we have embarked on the most significant reassessment of the UK’s position in the world, its allies and alliances, and its defence, security and intelligence needs. Subsequently, the Wuhan virus struck, so the task is doubly complicated. This huge job is being led and co-ordinated by someone with almost no background in defence, intelligence and security. Now, we find that the other key figure in all of this work—the most important work since the Second World War—the new National Security Adviser, Mr Frost, similarly has no experience in any of these key areas. I am only a simple sailor and I would like the Minister, who I understood severed as a spad in various guises for many years, to make it clear whether he preferred advice with political spin from someone with little expertise in their field, or unbiased expert advice, particularly where the security and safety of our nation and people depended on the outcome?
Lord True
My Lords, again, I do not agree with the characterisation of the presumed danger. The Prime Minister is responsible for the integrated review, as chair of the National Security Council. Mr Frost will be involved, but there will be a cross-Whitehall process. Even as a humble special adviser, I felt it part of my duty often to give unwelcome advice to a Prime Minister, and I am sure that any decent public servant, political or otherwise, would always feel the same.
Lord Lilley (Con) [V]
Does my noble friend agree that David Frost will be a valuable Member of this House and welcomed by all noble Lords, even those who may be embarrassed by his presence, given that they firmly declared he would never succeed in reopening the withdrawal agreement, dropping the original Irish protocol or completing negotiations by the end of November, and who now object to the robust way in which he is negotiating to achieve the mandate of the British people, democratically asserted in the referendum and the last general election? We should sympathise with their embarrassment but not allow it to mute our welcome for his presence.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)
My Lords, the time allocated for the Private Notice Question has elapsed. The House will now adjourn until 12.30 pm for questions on an Answer to an Urgent Question asked in the House of Commons on Monday 29 June.
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Speaker (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)
My Lords, some Members are here in the Chamber, others are participating virtually, but all Members will be treated equally. I ask noble Lords to be patient if there are any short delays between physical and remote participants. The usual rules and courtesies in debate apply. Please ensure that questions and answers are short.
Covid-19: Support and Accommodation for Asylum Seekers
(4 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Rosser (Lab) [V]
This UQ has been prompted by the tragic events in Glasgow on Friday. I express our best wishes for a full recovery to those injured, not least to PC David Whyte, and our thanks to our emergency services for their professionalism and dedication.
I have two questions. First, asylum seekers are interviewed, including about vulnerabilities, at the point when their asylum claim is made. It appears that the 321 who were moved into hotels in Glasgow at the beginning of the lockdown did not have a further vulnerability risk assessment on being moved. What ongoing vulnerability assessments of asylum seekers are required, and in what circumstances? Secondly, is it correct that the limited daily allowance for asylum seekers is withdrawn when they are moved into hotel accommodation? If so, how are such asylum seekers able to pay even for items such as postage stamps, personal telephone calls or a non-prescription cough mixture, and how does that contribute to their general well-being?
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, I join the noble Lord in paying tribute to all the emergency services and in sending our best wishes to those injured, including PC David Whyte, for a swift recovery.
The noble Lord is right: people get an initial assessment. Regarding further vulnerabilities, 24-hour healthcare is available to anyone who may need it who is in this or any other type of asylum accommodation. On the lack of cash for those in hotel accommodation, it is important to point out that anyone in hotel accommodation gets all essential living needs and costs met in terms of food, toiletries, hygiene products and healthcare, so there are no additional costs that they might need to meet. People can apply for additional assistance, should they need it.
Baroness Hamwee (LD) [V]
My Lords, 5% of very little is almost nothing. I refer of course to the recent increase of 26p per day in the allowance for necessities for asylum seekers who are not in hotel accommodation. Even if the Government will not increase the allowance, why can it not be paid fortnightly or, even better, monthly? That would allow for more efficient shopping, would cost no more and perhaps would save on administration and even allow a smidgen more dignity to asylum seekers.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, the Government are looking into the frequency with which the allowance is paid. The increase is quite a bit above inflation, even though it may not seem like much. The assessment of the amount of money needed to purchase sufficient food is based on data from the ONS, looking specifically at expenditure on essential living items by people in the lower 10% of income groups, and is supplemented by market research.
Baroness Coussins (CB) [V]
My Lords, many children of asylum seekers have been severely disadvantaged during lockdown because their parents do not have and cannot afford the broadband or wi-fi connection, or the equipment needed, to access online schooling. The daily living allowance of a little over £37 barely covers essential needs. Does the Minister agree that for asylum seekers’ children, online education is also essential right now, and will she agree to look at an immediate and backdated uprating to reflect that?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I totally agree with the noble Baroness that children have been disadvantaged in their education during Covid, whether they are the children of asylum seekers or not. All hotels provide wi-fi, and I am almost certain that online learning can be provided. Of course, it is essential when people arrive here that they have a good grasp of English before they can learn anything at all. It is one of the things that is most important to people’s assimilation into this country.
The Lord Bishop of Coventry
My Lords, vulnerability assessments are so important. There are questions about when they happen and the need for them to be ongoing and serious. There is also a question about how. Is the Minister satisfied that the vulnerability assessments are sufficiently tuned to the experiences and needs of asylum seekers in their extremity, and take into consideration the whole person and the impact of the ongoing experience of lockdown?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, the health service generally, whether in Scotland or here, has had to find new ways of working through the pandemic, so assessments probably happen remotely, as they do for the general population. He is right to ask whether they take into account the specific needs of people who perhaps have fled war-torn countries to seek asylum and refuge here. This pandemic has seen the very best of our NHS. I am fully confident that when assessments happen, NHS doctors and nurses are well trained to take into account the vulnerabilities and traumas that these people may have faced.
Lord Marlesford (Con) [V]
My Lords, in her reply last week to my Written Question on the asylum process, the Minister said:
“Individual applications are referred to Ministers where they are identified as potentially sensitive”.
Unfortunately, she was unable to give me any information on how often this happens. Does she agree that in determining an asylum application, the authorities must always consider potential risks to national security, which may require balancing the risk to the asylum seeker with that to the UK, and may mean that asylum seekers must be detained in custody? Of the 10 serious terrorist attacks since March 2017, some have been associated with an asylum seeker. Is she prepared to review the cases where asylum and permanent UK residence have been granted, and where the seeker has been convicted of terrorist offences in other jurisdictions?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My noble friend makes some valid points. He is absolutely right that we need to balance the claim of the asylum seeker with any danger that they might pose and also the genuine nature of the claim. My honourable friend Chris Philp, a Minister in the House of Commons, said yesterday there how important it was to weed out the genuine from the—shall we say?—non-genuine asylum seeker. I am sure that the services do analysis like that all the time, examining the type of behaviour experienced after someone is granted asylum, their vulnerability and the things that might cause it.
Baroness Whitaker (Lab) [V]
My Lords, following directly from those last points, I say that indefinite detention of asylum seekers is generally acknowledged to be one of the most stress-inducing and unjust disposals. The Home Office was forced in January to release 350 of the 1,225 asylum seekers held in detention, but how many of those remaining have now been reviewed, as was promised? Will the Government cut down the maximum period to 28 days, as was recommended by the parliamentary committee?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, it is unlawful to detain someone indefinitely, and the danger in seeking 28 days is that it encourages behaviour such as running down the clock with various appeals. It is important that people do not spend months and months in detention and that their claims are seen to swiftly and expeditiously. Certainly, that is what is best for the asylum seeker and for the system itself.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)
My Lords, time allocated for this Urgent Question is now up and I can call no more speakers.
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)
My Lords, 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 should remind the House that our normal courtesies in debate still very much apply in this new hybrid way of working.
A participants list for today’s proceedings has been published and is in my brief, which Members should have received. I also have lists of Members who have put their names to the amendments in each group or expressed an interest in speaking on them.
I will call Members to speak in the order listed. Members’ microphones will be muted by the broadcasters except when I call a Member to speak. Interventions during speeches or “before the noble Lord sits down” are not permitted and uncalled speakers will not be heard.
Other than the mover of an amendment or the Minister, Members may speak only once on each group. Short questions of elucidation after the Minister’s response are permitted but discouraged; a Member wishing to ask such a question, including Members in the Chamber, must email the clerk.
The groupings are binding, and it will not be possible to degroup an amendment for separate debate. A Member intending to press an amendment already debated to a Division should have given notice in the debate. Leave should be given to withdraw amendments. When putting the Question, I will collect voices in the Chamber only. If a Member taking part remotely intends to trigger a Division, they should make this clear when speaking on the group.
Pension Schemes Bill [HL]
Tuesday 30th June 2020
(4 years, 3 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Pension Schemes Act 2021 View all Pension Schemes Act 2021 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 104-I Marshalled list for Report - (25 Jun 2020)
15:27 - Division conducted remotely on Amendment 32 - Ayes: 270 / Noes: 246 - Amendment 32 agreed.
19:00 - Division conducted remotely on Amendment 52 - Ayes: 281 / Noes: 244 - Amendment 52 agreed.
20:03 - Division conducted remotely on Amendment 63 - Ayes: 270 / Noes: 236 - Amendment 63 (to Amendment 62) agreed.
20:58 - Division conducted remotely on Amendment 71 - Ayes: 263 / Noes: 227 - Amendment 71 agreed.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment and the Minister’s amendment at page 7, line 18, make all regulations under Clause 11(3)(a) subject to affirmative resolution procedure (see Clause 51(5)).
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Stedman-Scott) (Con)
My Lords, perhaps I may start by addressing the government amendments. I recognise that in Committee and in subsequent meetings, some noble Lords expressed concern over the regulation-making powers in Part 1 and how they might be used. I have considered those arguments carefully and am persuaded that your Lordships are, in many instances, right. Following your Lordships’ helpful comments, I am now persuaded that it would be more appropriate to make certain regulation-making powers subject to the affirmative procedure on all usages. I recognise that CDC schemes are a totally new form of pension provision in the UK and it is right that Parliament is, as a matter of course, able to debate changes to key parts of the regulatory framework surrounding them.
Your Lordships will recall that Clauses 11 to 17 set out the authorisation framework that all CDC schemes must meet. I know that the House was concerned by the delegated powers in respect of these clauses, as they provide for the core foundations of the authorisation regime. I am pleased, therefore, to announce that those delegated powers which were subject to the affirmative procedure only on first use will now be subject to the affirmative procedure on each use. In addition, the transfer-related regulations for CDC schemes, introduced by Clause 25, will now always be subject to the affirmative procedure rather than the negative procedure.
The relevant provisions contain two powers to amend the timeframes set out in primary legislation which govern when action must be taken by trustees once a transfer out of the scheme has been requested. First, there is a power to extend the time in which trustees must facilitate a request to transfer out of a CDC scheme to a period longer than the specified six months. Secondly, there is a power to amend the three-week “cooling-off” period, during which trustees may not facilitate the requested transfer unless they receive written instruction from the member to do so. Given the importance a decision to transfer out of a CDC scheme may have for a member, it is right that regulations in respect of the timeframes for related action are debated in Parliament under the affirmative procedure as a matter of course.
Amendments 35 to 38 make changes to Clause 47 to make it clearer that this power is not as wide as it may have appeared on first reading. I understand noble Lords’ concern about this clause: it contains a Henry VIII power and as such it should be as clear as possible when and for what purpose it can be used.
Our amendments make it very clear that the power can be used only to provide for non-employer established schemes, such as master trusts, and other non-connected multi-employer CDC schemes as and when concrete scheme designs come to light over the next few years. Noble Lords may recall that the Work and Pensions Select Committee in its report on CDC schemes called for our legislation to be extended to provide for CDC master trusts at the earliest opportunity, and organisations from commercial pension providers to trade unions and even the Church of England have made similar requests.
However, there are clear administrative differences between a scheme with one closely involved employer and a master trust with many more distant employers. The authorisation and supervision legislation will therefore need to be tailored to reflect the risks posed by such schemes and providers so that members and participating employers are to be adequately protected.
This is what Clause 47 seeks to do. It is intended to allow us to make the necessary changes via regulations in a timely fashion so that master trusts and other non-connected multi-employer CDC schemes can be up and running as soon as possible, and employers and employees can benefit at the earliest opportunity. Without this clause, it is likely that the extension of CDC provision to master trusts and other non-connected multi-employer models would be delayed.
However, I assure noble Lords that any such changes required would be considered carefully and consulted on thoroughly before being brought before the House to ensure that they covered the right ground. Such changes would also be subject to the affirmative procedure, which would give the House opportunity to scrutinise the regulations.
The amendments before the House are intended to address concerns in key areas— authorisation, transfers and the provisions relating to the future expansion of CDC—and I am grateful for the informed and thoughtful comments that have led us to this point. The points that I have made also apply to the corresponding Northern Ireland provisions in Part 2 of the Bill. I hope that noble Lords are reassured by the amendments. I beg to move.
Lord Sharkey (LD) [V]
My Lords, I shall speak briefly to government Amendments 1, 3 to 7, 9 to 12 and 14 to 31, as well as to my related Amendment 2. First, I thank the Minister and her team for their close engagement with us on the Bill and their time, patience and occasional willingness to change their minds.
The government amendments are a good example of mind-changing. As the Minister said, they remove the instances in Part 1 of first-use-only affirmative procedures; that is a very good thing. The DPRRC’s report on the Bill in February this year was concerned about the use of these procedures. It pointed out that the powers in the regulations remain exactly the same on subsequent use. In Committee, I strongly urged the Government to remove this type of procedure; I very much welcome the fact that they have now done this. All the subsequent uses of the negative procedure have been withdrawn by these amendments.
However, one negative procedure remains: what is left of Clause 11(8) in line 18 on page 7. This is the subject of my probing Amendment 2. Subsection (8), as amended by government Amendment 3, prescribes the negative resolution procedure for regulations under Clause 11(2)(e). Subsection (2)(e) seems a little opaque. It seems to allow the Secretary of State to add persons or categories to those whose fitness and propriety TPR must assess. On 22 June, the Government confirmed to me in writing that this was the case. They believed that this was largely an operational matter and that the negative procedure provided
“appropriate scrutiny as well as opportunity for debate if desired”.
This is a mischaracterisation of the negative procedure, which in practice barely merits the label “scrutiny” at all. Possibly because I did not ask them to, the Government did not address why subsection (2)(e) was necessary at all or give examples of what kind of persons or categories of persons are envisaged in subsection (2)(e) and what role they may play in the schemes themselves. Any additional involvement of these persons or categories of persons may give them significant influence over the conduct of the schemes.
It is obviously desirable to have these new entrants assessed for fitness and propriety. The issue here is the Secretary of State’s decision to add persons or categories to the list without constraint, restriction or proper scrutiny. I would be grateful if the Minister could address these points when she replies.
Baroness Altmann (Con) [V]
My Lords, I very much welcome the Government’s amendments to this Bill and congratulate my noble friend on her initial speech, in which she so clearly explained what the Government intend to do. I also congratulate her on the way in which she has engaged with Members across the House and, together with the Bill team, has listened to the concerns expressed at previous stages of this Bill. I particularly welcome the change from the originally proposed first-use-only affirmative procedure and the comments made by my noble friend on the importance of, for example, the cooling-off period before pension transfers occur.
I must admit that I also support Amendment 2 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey. I share his concerns and would welcome an explanation, such as he has requested from my noble friend when she comes to respond, of why only this area—assessment of whether somebody is fit and proper to run a CDC scheme—should be left to the negative resolution procedure and be wholly at the discretion of the Secretary of State without what we would normally consider to be appropriate parliamentary scrutiny in this important area. The CDC framework is completely new for this country. I therefore think that colleagues across the House who have expressed the same concerns are right in suggesting that it is important that we have as much scrutiny as possible.
I have an amendment in this group—Amendment 13—regarding the accuracy of pensions data that needs to be submitted to a CDC scheme. I will not move it at this stage; I will come back to this subject during debate on a later group with my other amendments.
I welcome the current government proposals and hope that my noble friend will listen to some of the concerns expressed. I look forward to hearing contributions from other noble Lords and colleagues as we go forward in this debate.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)
We will move on because we cannot hear the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. We will perhaps try to get her back later. I call the noble Baroness, Lady Janke.
The Deputy Speaker
I did not have a note of that. I call the noble Lord, Lord Balfe.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, this is the first time for two months that I have been in this Chamber. It is a bit emptier than normal but it is good to be back.
I hoped to speak after the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, because I want to say a few words about her Amendment 33, which is about trustees. It seeks to require trustees to take age, gender and ethnicity into account. I will certainly not support or oppose this amendment but I want to make a few points on trustees and where I think she is trying to get us to. The fact of the matter is that the whole area around the appointment of trustees could do with a close look.
There are a number of problems. The first problem for any pension scheme, particularly a small one, is getting trustees from among the membership. You can always get a professional trustee because they are normally paid £1,000 or more a day for coming to the meeting, so it is not too difficult. The difficulty is getting representatives of the pensioners. The second and even greater difficulty is getting representatives of the pensioners who actually know what they are talking about, because many people are completely bewildered by pensions.
When I read through both this amendment and the amendments about ESG and environmental safeguards, I was reminded very much of pensioners who come to me and say, “All I want, Richard, is for you to pay my pension. I couldn’t care less where it comes from.” I say, “Presumably you wouldn’t like us to invest in gas ovens,” and they say, “Well, no, but you’ve got enough common sense not to do that. You don’t need me to tell you.”
So I come to the point that, when we are looking at the age, gender and ethnicity of trustees, we also need to look at their qualifications and the way in which they are allowed to come forward, because some trustee boards are effectively self-perpetuating because they govern who is allowed to stand. You are invited to apply to become a trustee, and then you are assessed as to whether you are able to become a trustee. Often, people who come forward are not highly professionally qualified, but they are qualified in one thing, which is common sense. My experience of pensions, which goes back quite a long way, is that certainly some members on a board—not a majority—who can demonstrate common sense are extremely good.
I would also like to say that dealing particularly with gender and ethnicity can lead you into many problems. My wife gets a pension from the Workers’ Educational Association pension fund. It got itself tied into complete knots trying to deal with ethnicity and gender. It ended up asking people to vote for trustees who were anonymised. They were anonymised by taking out not only their name, age, gender and ethnicity but also most of the other things about them. So the great game in this case was to look back at previous reports and try to work out which trustee was the anonymised one. Of course, that gets you nowhere and in fact is a bit of an insult to the members who have applied.
So I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and to the Minister that this is a subject that is much wider than this amendment, but it is certainly one that needs looking at. The way in which pensioners are represented on the governing boards of pension funds is haphazard, to put it mildly. It varies enormously between funds. Although there is a great cry from professional trustees that you clearly need professionals in the room, I counsel the Minister and everybody else to beware of the cry for the professional. It is very easy to get a professional to sit there and give you advice as an employee or if they are hired for the purpose. You do not necessarily need more than the odd one of them actually on the board. They have nothing great to add than cannot be added by a professional adviser. They do not need a place on the board, although sometimes—note the word “sometimes”—having a professional trustee as a chair can add a certain amount of discipline, knowledge and structure to the way that debates go. But it can be overestimated and, particularly since the pensions industry is dominated by the professionals, there is a great danger that it gets overemphasised because it is precisely the people who write in the pensions papers who are the experts and who then promote themselves for the jobs.
So I welcome the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett; I see it just as a probing amendment, laying down a few guidelines that we could look at. I say to the Minister that when there is an opportunity, it would be well worth while to set up some sort of study or working group to look at the way in which trustees are chosen or appointed, how they work and how they are remunerated.
Lord Hain (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I thank the Minister for the way in which she introduced these amendments, and particularly for the concessions that she granted on affirmative procedures for the issues that are contained in the government amendments. This is a very welcome response by Ministers to the feeling that was in the House.
I will speak to Amendment 1 and associated amendments in the name of the Minister concerning the authorisation criteria for collective money purchase schemes. I warmly welcome the introduction of these schemes, also known as collective defined contribution—CDC—schemes, as they represent an attractive third way in workplace pension provision, with a capacity to deliver significantly better outcomes for savers than individual DC—direct contribution—schemes. However, in order for the CDC schemes to be widely trusted, we need to get the legislative and regulatory framework right. To give one example, it is vital that the authorisation criteria are appropriate. A balance must be struck in ensuring that requirements are not so cumbersome as to deter employers who might offer these schemes from doing so, while ensuring that there are robust protections in place for employees saving in these schemes.
If we can get this right, there is a significant prize to be had in the introduction of CDC schemes, and the case for this is only strengthened by the current Covid-19 crisis. The virus has had many negative consequences for our society and economy. One of those consequences is directly relevant to the Bill before us today: there has been significant negative impact on the defined contribution pension savings of many individuals as a result of the financial markets’ reaction to Covid-19. I am afraid that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, so compellingly pointed out, the Bank of England’s recent injection of quantitative easing will make this much worse. A drop in asset values and bond yields has led to more expensive annuities and resulted in pension reductions of around 8% to 10%. This has caused much consternation and led a significant number of people to defer their retirement during this period.
In my remarks at Second Reading, I welcomed the introduction of CDC schemes and cited, among other factors, their enabling of the pooling of risk between savers. This can, in turn, enable higher-yield investment strategies, as well as less volatility and greater predictability for savers. It begs the question, therefore, of how CDC schemes might have fared in comparison with individual DC schemes in the light of the recent crisis and the sharp economic downturn that has so negatively impacted DC pension savers.
Royal Mail, which in conjunction with the communication workers—CWU—has been leading the push for the introduction of CDC for its 143,000 employees, asked its actuarial advisers to look at precisely this question. The resulting analysis, carried out by pension consultants Willis Towers Watson, was conducted in the context of the 20% fall in the global equity market in the first quarter of this year. The modelling looked specifically at how the CDC scheme design proposed by Royal Mail would have been affected. The conclusion reached by Willis Towers Watson was that the CDC would have performed significantly better than an individual DC scheme. In this scenario, a scheme member close to retirement would have been able to retire as planned, with no reduction in their retirement income. This is because the Royal Mail scheme is designed with a certain amount of headroom in contributions, intended to fund future pension increases. As Willis Towers Watson has written,
“it is only if the funding health suffers very materially that the headroom could run out and pensions would be reduced … in the vast majority of scenarios, it would only be the level of future pension increases that would be at risk.”
Even with the severe level of market shock experienced in quarter one of this year, therefore, the modelling shows no effect on current pension levels for CDC scheme members, and that is very welcome. Future pension increases would be impacted, but only by a modest 0.25% per year, as this market shock was nowhere near severe enough to remove the significant headroom that the scheme would hold. In contrast, an individual DC pension saver, due to retire by starting to draw down benefits in the near future, would expect their pension pot to have fallen in value by approximately 10% over the quarter. While they would have the option to keep the pot largely invested, this saver would potentially have to rethink their retirement plans, such as changing their planned pace of drawdown, or even deferring their retirement altogether for a period. Those considering an annuity would find that the price levels had increased by around 8% over the quarter.
This analysis provides a timely and powerful illustration of just one of the benefits that CDC schemes will bring to savers through the pooling of risk and the capability to build up significant headroom to smooth out the impact of shocks, even those as severe as we have recently experienced. CDC therefore represents an attractive third way in workplace pension provision, offering better value and greater certainty for savers than individual DC schemes. With that in mind, I welcome the Government’s commitment to ensuring that the appropriate processes will be in place around authorisation criteria. I commend the Bill to noble Lords, and I hope that we will see its swift passage through its remaining stages in this House and its early introduction and passage through the other place.
Baroness Fookes (Con) [V]
My Lords, I join other noble Lords who have already spoken in saying how pleased I am to see that my noble friend the Minister has listened to many of the recommendations made by the Delegated Powers Committee, which were warmly endorsed by the committee to which I belong, the Constitution Committee. We have had two powerful committees of one mind, so I am extremely pleased by this turn of events. Perhaps I may make one or two points because I know that the chairman of the Delegated Powers Committee, my noble friend Lord Blencathra, is to come in later in this debate, and I am sure that he will want to go into much more detail than I am minded to do.
The first-time-only procedure has happily now been abandoned in Clauses 11 to 17. It is not simply that the current Administration may well want subsequently to bring forward massive changes, but that they cannot know what use a future Administration might make of them. That is all the more reason to be careful about what powers are given to any Government.
I confess to some disappointment about the negative procedure being used where urgent changes need to be made. The Government seem to be suggesting that that is absolutely essential because otherwise delay would be difficult. Have they not heard of the “made affirmative” procedure, which allows a Government to put a regulation into action immediately, and then after 40 days Parliament has the opportunity to confirm it or possibly to reject it altogether? I hope that the Government, and the departments which support them, will no longer continue to use this weak argument in favour of the negative procedures. That said, I am pleased with the way things have gone and I offer my noble friend a bouquet—a modest bouquet—for what she has done.
Lord Naseby (Con)
My Lords, it is entirely appropriate that I should first declare my interest. I am a trustee of the Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund; I have been one for the best part of 20 years. I am also 83, and all I can say in reflection is that I was formerly the chairman of three financial companies, and I have been a pension trustee on two schemes prior to the one—the only remaining one—that I am on now. It is not my intention to comment too much on the Bill; rather, I see my role in the interests of the membership—I am a member and there certainly will be others in Parliament who are members—to keep a watching brief and, if appropriate, to make some comments to my noble friend on the Front Bench. I should also say to her that I was the Chairman of Ways and Means in another place and I too was not in favour of the negative procedure for really serious things. She has taken a very wise decision on Amendment 1; I am sure that it is the right one and should be applauded on all sides.
I will listen to my noble friend’s answer on Amendment 2 because, if it is right in the round, there would need to be a specific reason for its not being appropriate in leaving out subsection (8). Amendment 33 is in this group and has been commented on. I have given my age and I think that my gender is obvious, as is my ethnicity. It is appropriate that every set of trustees should have a range of people as regards age, experience, gender and so on, but in my judgment the key issue is commitment. We are very lucky on the Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund because the members, almost to a man and a woman, turn up regularly to meetings, ask good questions and are good advisers, so that, at the last point, as a fund we were very much in positive territory. As I say, I am not going to make too many comments, so without further ado I once again congratulate my noble friend on the Front Bench.
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on the Front Bench on the clarity with which she has introduced this Report, and I thank her and the Bill team for the time, effort, care and consideration they have taken with Members, which is best illustrated by the number of government amendments which have rightly been brought forward at this stage in our proceedings. She has clearly demonstrated what can be achieved collaboratively in the legislative process when it is approached with such openness. She and her team absolutely epitomise a truth that everyone should constantly remind themselves of: two ears, one mouth.
The pensions proposition is one of the greatest creations of civilisation, but just in my lifetime—without giving away my age, I am only slightly younger than my noble friend Lord Naseby—we can see that the proposition has changed, not so as to be unrecognisable but significantly. It started out with a commitment by employers to have defined benefits where they would take the risk. The fund was rightly separated from the employer under the governance model of a trust. That clear separation of powers was eminently sensible because something as significant as someone’s retirement nest egg should be separated from the corporate entity so that if, God forbid, anything should happen to the corporate entity, the pension fund would remain. What has occurred in recent years is an extraordinary shift of that risk, if not a wholesale one, from the employer to the employee, hence the explosion of defined contribution schemes. In reality, neither position is where an individual, a group or even a society would wish to be, given that so much of the risk falls on to one or other of the parties. That is why CDCs have a lot to recommend them, not just in the combining of resources and the pooling of risks, which is a great advantage, but in the positive implications that the initials “CDC” have in other areas of our lives. Let us consider the Commonwealth Development Corporation and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We should take something from the positivity of the acronym because it has a lot to recommend it.
This would certainly not be necessary had we not seen some of the changes, not least to how schemes were funded and how the funds were treated, particularly from the taxation point of view. That was one of the biggest nails in the coffin of defined benefit schemes. However, that is water long under the bridge. CDC schemes will become increasingly significant to pension provision as we go forward. They are a positive contribution to this area and I wish this Bill a speedy passage through your Lordships’ House, and its equally speedy consideration and passage through the other place.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op) [V]
My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for her introduction and for returning to her usual helpful mode on this occasion, unlike during questions the other day. I hope that it does not do her any harm with her Whips, but we are very grateful to her.
I want to speak in support of Amendment 33, which has not yet been moved, although I hope that we will hear later from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. I nearly said “Barnard Castle” but that is a more notorious place.
Diversity, whether based on ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, socioeconomic background or disability, continues to be a key issue facing our society today. Indeed, diversity is still lacking across many FTSE companies in key sectors such as engineering, science, technology and banking, not to mention in this House and the other place.
In the pensions sector, many pension fund trustees and the top levels of executive teams also lack diversity. Some progress has been made. Nevertheless, data from the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association indicates that, overwhelmingly, private sector pension fund trustees are male. The Pensions Regulator also found that about half of the chairs and a third of the trustees are over 60 years old. With no disrespect to my noble friend Lord Naseby—whom I must be nice to as he is doing a good job on the board of the Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund, in which I must declare an interest—I think that this is a bit of an imbalance.
Of course I am concerned. In other areas, older people are discriminated against on grounds of age, but in this instance it is younger people who are underrepresented on boards, which make decisions of importance to them as well. With the introduction of auto-enrolment, which has brought about more and more young savers, as well as a greater focus on those in society who are “under-pensioned”, such as women and ethnic minorities, it is important that trustees managing the increasingly diverse pension profile also become increasingly diverse to reflect these savers. Requiring pension schemes to provide information on the diversity of the boards helps to provide some form of greater transparency and opportunities for the better governance of pension schemes.
To add to that, I believe that, although reporting on diversity is important, it may be of equal, if not greater, importance for schemes to be required to provide plans on how they hope to achieve better diversity on their boards of trustees. I hope that the Minister will continue in the helpful manner with which she started and that she will give the House, and me, some encouragement in this direction in her reply.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con) [V]
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes. I should say that I grew up near Barnard Castle and it was not notorious at that time.
I echo the tributes that have been paid to my noble friend the Minister. It plays to her strength, charm, innate graciousness and wisdom that she has listened to the concerns expressed at the earlier stages of the Bill. Therefore, I, too, pay tribute to her and thank her most warmly for the work that she and her team have done in this regard.
I also echo the comments about the remaining instruments that will be taken by the negative procedure, particularly where they have an impact and perhaps have to be taken urgently. It is always important to have proper parliamentary scrutiny of these instruments.
For a year—I think at the invitation of my noble friend Lord Blencathra or his successor—I was asked to look at, and shadow, the impact on women’s pensions. During that time, I learned how difficult it is for women to seek advice at the earliest possible stage. I take this opportunity to ask the Minister to reassure the House today that, not just on the face of the Bill but particularly in the regulations that we are empowering under it, trustees, board members and all those concerned, including financial advisers, will be asked to urge women —particularly younger women at the start of their careers—to take advice at the earliest possible opportunity. Never is that more appropriate than with CDC schemes, which are a new form of pension scheme. Echoing the thoughts of my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond, I suppose that pensions from defined benefit schemes were deemed to be a sort of deferred income. Now, the situation is completely different with defined contribution schemes and with a generation coming through, many of whom will have student loans to repay and difficulty in entering the workplace at this time.
Lord Blencathra (Con) [V]
My Lords, I will speak to this group and pass observations briefly on other issues raised by the Delegated Powers Committee that are covered by other amendments, so that I do not have to speak again and take up the time of the House.
I begin by saying how nice it is to see my noble friend and roommate Lord Naseby back in the Chamber. I also see that we share the same non-barber. In contradiction to the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, I want pensioners, not youngsters, on my pension board.
As chair of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, I give a very warm welcome to these concessions from the Government in Clauses 11 to 17 and Clause 25. As noble Lords will know, our report was highly critical of a number of delegated powers in the Bill, and it would be churlish of me not to acknowledge that the Government, and particularly my noble friend the Minister, have listened to quite a bit of what we recommended. I am sure that the whole committee would be delighted if the Minister would go one step further and accept our remaining recommendations, but that might be a bridge too far for her.
The government amendments to Clauses 11 to 17 now mean that all regulations, and not just the first ones, made under the provisions will have to be affirmative. We said in our report that the Government had failed to justify the first-time affirmative regime. We accept that there will be measures where the first regulation is major and should be affirmative and that subsequent ones might be just little tweaks where the negative procedure might be appropriate. However, that is not always the case, and we see a growing tendency among government departments, in addition to bunging highly inappropriate Henry VIII clauses into every Bill, to use this ploy of applying the first-time affirmative procedure and then the negative procedure for all subsequent regulations. The subsequent regulations here could be as important as the first regulation and I thank the Minister for making the change. The same reasoning applies to Clause 124, and I regret that the Government will not make that affirmative too.
We all accept that speed is often essential, but there is an alternative to the negative procedure which is just as speedy: the made affirmative procedure, whereby the Government lay the regulation, it comes into force immediately and then Parliament has 40 days to confirm it. That is a far better procedure than the Opposition having to put down a Motion against a negative resolution. This procedure would deal also with the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, on the negative procedure. I pay tribute to my illustrious predecessor, my noble friend Lady Fookes, as chair of the Delegated Powers Committee. Today, she made very telling points on the made affirmative procedure and first-time affirmatives.
I welcome the government amendment to Clause 25 too. We generally deplore Henry VIII powers, and for very good reasons: they deprive Parliament of the opportunity to scrutinise properly legislation that should go through all the procedures applied to Bills and Acts of Parliament. It is quite wrong to use the negative procedure, where there is no discussion whatsoever, for Henry VIII powers. At least with the affirmative procedure there is 90 minutes of debate.
As for the government amendment to Clause 47, we said:
“The fact that the Government have not yet worked out how multiple-employer collective money purchase schemes should be regulated has led to very wide powers being conferred by clause 47(3) to (5). Subsection (3) confers a power on the Secretary of State to make further provision in regulations about multiple-employer collective money purchase schemes. Although specific things are mentioned in subsection (3) as to what the powers may be used for. These are not exhaustive of the things which may be dealt in the regulations.”
We therefore recommended that the delegation of powers was inappropriate.
My noble friend the Minister’s amendment goes some way to flesh out the details of the plans, but we are still concerned that they give extensive powers to the Secretary of State. I was going to award the department and my noble friend eight out of 10, but in view of her generosity of spirit, graciousness and courtesy today, I will upgrade that to nine out of 10. While I would have liked all our recommendations to have been accepted, I congratulate the department and my noble friend for moving on so many of them when other Ministers and departments have obstinately refused to budge on anything.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle [V]
I thank your Lordships’ House for allowing me to speak. I apologise for the earlier confusion. I also apologise in particular to the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, for upsetting the rhythm of his speech. I thank him and other noble Lords for providing an introduction to Amendment 33. I must pay tribute to the campaign group ShareAction, which has done a lot of work on the amendment. I know that it has informed other noble Lords about it.
I moved the amendment in Committee. In response, the Minister pointed to the consultation on the future of trusteeship, which concluded that, due to a lack of consensus on how to address the issue, it would look at setting up, and is setting up, an industry working group to look at the diversity of pension boards. While this is welcome, we need the data to inform that work. I ask the Minister to consider incorporating this into future versions of the Bill.
A further development has happened since we last debated the Bill. There has of course been a great upswelling of frustration and understandable anger, represented by the Black Lives Matters movement. The issue of ensuring that all voices in our society are heard and have decision-making powers is particularly pressing. I urge Members of your Lordships’ House to consider it.
In response to the amendment in Committee, the Minister stressed that she wanted the pensions dashboard to focus on the provision of basic information. That is why the amendment has been amended so that it does not refer to this information being on the pensions dashboard, but rather that it would simply be reported. Information on diversity could be published elsewhere. That might be on the Pensions Regulator’s website, or as an annexe to its planned SIP repository.
Other noble Lords have referred to the level of inequality in our society and the lack of diversity. I will finish by reflecting on what the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, said, and the fact that a 2016 survey showed that on average 83% of pension boards are male and that a quarter are all male. That reflects another crucial disparity: we all know that there is a very large pay gap between men and women, but the pensions pay gap, at 40%, is double the pay gap. These inequalities have to be tackled in our society along with levels of inequality and poverty. We have had a lot of discussions about intergenerational fairness, but we must not forget that there are already a lot of people at pension age now who really are struggling to get by in this difficult world.
I thank your Lordships’ House for the debate that we have had thus far and I look forward to further debates.
Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD) [V]
My Lords, like other noble Lords, I appreciate the government amendments to make regulations by the affirmative procedure. Having thanked the Minister for that, I will move on to speak on noble Lords’ amendments.
Amendment 2, in the name of my noble friend Lord Sharkey, would delete reference to negative procedure regulations being used to change the rules around fit and proper persons. It has been laid out how that might change who becomes a fit and proper person. My question is: would it also affect who might not become a fit and proper person and potentially elaborate further if it is found that people are doing things that should disqualify them? I sense that that might be a possibility. Although, under Clause 11(3)(b), regulators can take into account other such matters as they consider appropriate—I presume that that can be in the negative sense as well as the positive—it would be useful to know whether such powers in other areas as well as this are, in general, used. I detect that regulators are often reluctant to go beyond things that they can specifically point to in regulations. If that is the case, maybe the Minister has an excuse to have these powers. That is the area that I am interested in, but it would certainly be a much more significant move for this to be made by the affirmative, rather than the negative, procedure.
The noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, has tabled an amendment about data that I support, but like her I think that it is probably best to have just one debate on data. I will make my intervention on that later.
I also support the intention of Amendment 33 on diversity. I recognise, as the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, did, that it links to the wider issue of how trustees are appointed and where from. Many trustee appointments will link back to present or former workforces and therefore carry through any historical lack of diversity for quite a long time. Despite the fact that there might be costs to professional trustees, I still think that there should be scope to ensure that there are more additional independent external trustees, without necessarily going to people who are so embroiled in the making of regulations. It should be possible to find objective people who are not necessarily charging the equivalent of full professional rates.
Finally, my Amendment 45 is a simple one that says that regulations may not create a regulator. That might not be the intention, but Clause 51(3)(a) says that regulations may
“confer a discretion on a person”.
A discretion to do what: to allow, not allow or approve certain things? What kind of things and what kind of person? That could be wide enough to allow or disallow the doing of things regarded as being a regulator, yet there are none of the constraints in the Bill that would normally appear in such circumstances. I therefore seek some clarification about what “discretion” means and what powers it might conceal or cover.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I should declare a historical pecuniary interest as a former independent director of the Financial Ombudsman Service. I should also declare that my home is in Durham so I have often visited Barnard Castle, but solely for the purpose of visiting the wonderful Bowes Museum. My eyesight is okay for the moment. I will save my remarks on data issues until a later group, but I will briefly address the other two issues raised by amendments in this group.
On regulations, concerns were expressed on all sides in Committee about the use of Henry VIII powers and the skeleton nature of much of the Bill, especially Part 4, but I am grateful that the Minister has engaged with us throughout this process on these and other issues. I think that it will make for a better Bill in the end.
I am grateful to have had sight of the draft regulations under Part 1, even if I would have preferred to see all the remaining draft regulations before Report. I am very glad to see the government amendments clarifying the scope of some of the regulations and those which make regulations affirmative or confirmatory. If nothing else, it saves me from tabling endless Motions just to ensure adequate scrutiny. However, I will be interested to hear the Minister’s answers to the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, and the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, about the retained use of the negative procedure and other matters related to delegated powers.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
I start by responding to some of the points that noble Lords have made, for which I thank them. On the point raised by my noble friend Lady Altmann, who questioned whether it should be for Ministers to decide who is running a scheme under negative procedures, let me clarify that the power in Clause 11(2)(e) does not determine who is running a scheme. It simply means that such people as prescribed are subject to regulatory scrutiny.
My noble friend Lady Fookes is obviously highly regarded on the issue of delegated powers. The “made affirmative” procedure is for use where there is a need to legislate in an emergency; here, we are talking about acting urgently, so the negative procedure is appropriate. I also thank her for the bouquet.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hain, about getting regulations right, especially on authorisation. On the points made about the recent market changes and the impact on pension schemes, we will have to keep that under constant review but his support for CDC schemes is much appreciated. He also raised how pension members’ benefits would be impacted by the recent downturn—I have already referred to this—in asset values during the coronavirus pandemic under Royal Mail’s proposed CDC scheme. Like the noble Lord, I welcome the fact that the latest modelling conducted by Royal Mail’s actuaries, based on market performance during the first quarter of 2020, indicates that the downturn in the value of its anticipated asset portfolio would not have resulted in cuts to pension benefits and had only a small impact on next year’s inflation increase.
My noble friend Lord Naseby is not in favour of the negative procedure. This point was made by many noble Lords across the House and I can say only that we have listened. This brings me to the contribution of my noble friend Lord Holmes. The Bill team has been outstanding—they have been very patient with me—and I liked his reference to two ears and one mouth. We have definitely used our ears on this. On the comments of my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering, we would of course urge everybody to take advice before committing to a pension scheme.
I am really pleased that my noble friend Lord Blencathra is pleased, and I am grateful for the increased mark of nine out of 10. I am sorry that I have not pleased the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, this week but I promise to try harder.
My noble friend Lord Blencathra and other noble Lords raised the point about Clause 47 still being a Henry VIII power and asked why we have not changed it. A Henry VIII power to amend the CDC framework through regulations is necessary if we wish to see CDC provision opened up to master trusts and other non-connected multiple employer schemes sooner rather than later. I can confirm to the House that all regulations made under this power will be subject to the affirmative procedure. We would not want to make any regulations under this clause without proper debate.
My noble friend Lord Blencathra referred to Clause 124. As the supplementary delegated powers memorandum explains, the Government need to be able to respond to the constant development of industry best practice. It is expected that the Government will periodically amend requirements to ensure that they reflect those developments. These updates will focus not on a fundamental redesign of the policy, but evolution in light of emerging methodologies. We therefore believe that the negative procedure is appropriate.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, mentioned Clause 11(2)(e) and queried the power for people to be excluded from regulatory scrutiny. No—the power can be used to include people but not to exclude them from scrutiny.
The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, asked whether there is enough urgency about increasing the diversity of boards. I will talk in my concluding remarks about the work that we want to do on diversity. We must inject as much energy as we can.
The amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, to Clause 11 is intended to enable discussion of the Government’s retention of the negative procedure in relation to regulations made under its subsection (2)(e). I have already demonstrated our willingness to listen to and address the concerns expressed about delegated powers in Part 1 of the Bill. We are confident that the list of persons, as set out in Clause 11(2), will capture necessary persons who should be subject to this test. However, should it become evident during live running that a person who has a significant role in the scheme is not captured, we would want to address this omission promptly so that members and their pensions are not put at risk. The power in subsection (2)(e) allows regulations to extend the reach of the “fit and proper persons” requirement to other people acting in a specified capacity in relation to a CDC scheme. It is in the interests of members for the regulator to have the power to assess the fitness and propriety of such persons without unnecessary delay. Time may be critical, and it is right that the fit and proper requirements apply effectively. We therefore consider that the negative procedure is appropriate in this instance.
My noble friend Lord Balfe raised the issue of the quality of trustees. The Government’s primary focus is on ensuring that trustees in all occupational pension schemes meet the standards of honesty, integrity and knowledge appropriate to their role. However, the Government are aware that the regulator plans to establish a working group aimed at developing additional guidance and supporting material to help the diversity of trustees. We welcome this development and look forward to seeing the outcome of this work.
Amendment 33, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and supported by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and my noble friend Lord Balfe, is intended to promote diversity in trustee recruitment. As I mentioned in Committee, the Pensions Regulator will look at trustee board diversity across all schemes and, as I have said, is planning to set up an industry working group to help pension schemes and employers improve the diversity of scheme boards. Unfortunately, the launch of this working group has been interrupted by Covid-19, as the regulator’s resource has had to be diverted quickly to deal with emerging issues from the pandemic.
I believe it was my noble friend Lord Balfe who talked about a study to see how trustees were performing and how they were doing. I will certainly take that back to the department and I endorse the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, about independent and objective trustees. I hope noble Lords will understand this delay to the working group, given the unprecedented situation we find ourselves in. However, I have been assured by the regulator that it intends to move forward with the working group as soon as is practical. I recognise the importance of diversity; however, it would be premature to pre-empt the outcome of the regulator’s work in this area. We will of course consider any outcomes from the working group as the CDC regulations are developed.
Finally, I turn to Amendment 45, tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Bowles and Lady Janke. This amendment seeks to ensure that regulations in Part 1 of the Bill cannot be used to set up a new regulator. I recall that the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, was concerned that the powers in Clauses 47 and 41 in particular could be used for this purpose. I hope that the amendment to Clause 47 that I have just discussed has reassured both the noble Baronesses, Lady Bowles and Lady Janke, on this point. Clause 47 cannot be used to establish a new regulator. Clause 51 cannot be used to create a new regulator. The power it gives to confer a discretion on a person cannot be used for the purposes of setting up a regulator. The powers in Clause 51 are intrinsically linked to the specific powers in the Bill under which the regulations are made, and they do not permit an unrestricted power of delegation. This power is commonly found across pensions and other legislation; it is not wider than normal. More widely, I repeat the assurance I gave the noble Baroness in Committee: there is no need to rule out the creation of a regulator through regulations, as there are no powers in this Bill to create a regulator.
I apologise for the length of my response and hope that the explanations I have provided will help noble Lords not to press their amendments.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
Member’s explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement for the Minister’s amendment at page 7, line 16.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment and the Minister’s amendment at page 7, line 32, make all regulations under Clause 12(2)(b) subject to affirmative resolution procedure (see Clause 51(5)).
Member’s explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement for the Minister’s amendment at page 7, line 30.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment and the Minister’s amendment at page 8, line 30, make all regulations under Clause 13(3) subject to affirmative resolution procedure (see Clause 51(5)).
Member’s explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement for the Minister’s amendment at page 8, line 28.
Baroness Drake
“(c) specifying requirements to be met by an employer using or intending to use a qualifying scheme under section 3(3) in respect of the costs under subsection (2) of this section.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would give a power to the regulator to seek a contribution from an employer, using or intending to use a qualifying scheme, to the financial resources available to meet the costs of setting up and running the scheme or resolving a triggering event.
Baroness Drake (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I refer to my interests in the register. I move Amendment 8 in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Sherlock and the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles of Berkhamsted. Collective money purchase schemes—CMPs—seek to share risk collectively and more efficiently between their members. There is no employer promise under- pinning that risk. The Bill currently restricts CMP schemes to those set up by an employer or connected employers such as the Royal Mail. It would require the Secretary of State, exercising powers under Clause 47, to extend the qualifying definition to include CMP schemes that cover a lot of unconnected employers.
A function of the legislation is to understand the risks that members face in a CMP scheme, and to put in place appropriate measures to mitigate them. One of those risks is that a scheme becomes financially unsustainable and has insufficient resources to meet the costs of dealing with a triggering event where it occurs, and the cost of continuing to run on the scheme for a period while the problem is dealt with. These costs may include the cost of transferring members’ assets to another pension scheme and winding up.
Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted [V]
My Lords, I have signed my name to both these amendments, which follow on from significant debate in Committee. I agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, said about how Amendment 8 bolsters the importance of ensuring adequate finance for the administration of a scheme in all circumstances. It is necessary to have certain requirements specified and agreed in advance rather than to rely on negotiation at what might be a difficult time or, indeed, where it might be impossible. I therefore wholeheartedly support Amendment 8.
Amendment 32 is important and reflects the matter of general fairness and, in particular—although it is not specified—intergenerational fairness, which was discussed in Committee. My noble friend Lord Sharkey will explain further, but I wish to make the point that we should remember that CDCs have shared risk, that their strength is that returns can be more predictable, and that there is intergenerational solidarity so that good times and bad are to some extent smoothed. That solidarity cannot be undermined by allowing market highs to be carried away by those who may chose to leave the scheme. It surely must be possible to devise mechanisms, whether by way of buffers, conservative valuations, a delayed retained part or something else, to prevent the problem that those wishing to transfer their pensions out essentially ruin what is left for everybody else. The point is that fairness has to extend over more than a snapshot in time. That is the only way that you will have fairness in the sense of shared risk to all the members.
Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB) [V]
My Lords, I wish to support Amendment 32, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, to which I have added my name. I should add that I also wholeheartedly support Amendment 8, but I will restrict my comments to Amendment 32.
While there seems to be general support for the introduction of this new type of pension—collective money purchase schemes, or CMPs; I am going to try very hard not to call them CDCs as we go through this—they are not without risk. As we discussed at some length in Committee, one of the greatest risks that is often raised in respect of CMPs relates to intergenerational fairness. Indeed, at the extreme, in a situation where no returns are being earned but pension levels are maintained for existing pensioners, the pensions being paid would be dependent on the funds being put by new joiners, as in a Ponzi scheme. That is very extreme, as I say, but it demonstrates that there is the possibility of one cohort being disadvantaged by the treatment of another cohort. If existing pensioners are paid too much, those currently paying in will suffer, and if the scheme is overcautious in what it pays out to pensioners, pensioners will suffer and current workers will gain.
This is not theoretical. We only need to look at what is happening in the Netherlands to see that the question of whether to cut benefits when returns are not as good as expected is a real and current issue. In a standard defined contribution scheme, the risk is not pooled, so the issue does not arise. In a defined benefit scheme, the matter is dealt with by the employer making up the difference. However, in a CMP, there is no possibility of that happening. If you want to maintain the level of pensions when returns are low, the future pensions of those still contributing will be impacted and vice versa, so the issue of intergenerational fairness is specific to CMP schemes.
It is also worth pointing out that CMPs have implications for not only intergenerational fairness but fairness more generally. For example, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, pointed out, if someone wants to transfer their fund out of a scheme, how do you value their share? The benefits that arise from the scheme are uncertain, being targets only, so if you value a transfer based on the target benefits, which seems to be what is proposed, that will not take account of the risk that those benefits may not be achieved. In that situation, the person transferring out is getting a better deal than those staying, unless that risk is taken into account in the transfer valuation. The issue is complicated further because of the pooling of longevity risk in a CMP. For example, if someone has just a couple of years to live, there would be a strong incentive for them to take their money out to the detriment of those staying in.
Given that fairness is the single most commonly raised risk that relates to CMPs, it is curious that there is no explicit mechanism in the Bill to deal with it. In our previous discussions, we were pointed in the direction of Clause 18 to see how the matter is dealt with, but in fact that clause sets out only how benefits and so on will be calculated and says that regulations will be made in that respect; nowhere does it mention the critical question of fairness. I imagine that that is because it has been based on other pension legislation, which, as I said, does not suffer from this risk.
Amendment 32 introduces as very simple means by which to ensure that intergenerational fairness and fairness more generally must be assessed by the trustees. Given the importance of this issue, I urge the Minister to consider it really seriously.
Baroness Altmann [V]
My Lords, I have enormous sympathy with the aims of the two amendments in this group. Amendment 8, in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Drake, Lady Sherlock and Lady Bowles, was expertly moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, and deals with situations where a pension scheme may not have enough money to meet its obligations and there is a risk that it will need to draw on the funds in the members’ pension pot rather than have money coming in from outside.
As I mentioned in debate on earlier stages of the Bill, I am particularly concerned about the situation where a scheme has had a triggering event or is winding up and may not have sufficient administrative budget to cope with, for example, a significant IT failure in which member records are lost or transposed from one to another so that it is an enormous job to unscramble each member’s entitlement. The costs of that work can be significant; if no reserves are in place to meet those costs and the employer is in financial difficulties, what will a CMP scheme be able to do to fund the costs of sorting out the records? It is true that the aims of the CMP scheme as set out in the Bill will be to have central estimated assumptions for guiding benefit adjustments to ensure that there is no difference of treatment between different members, but on the particular issue that I am referring to and that Amendment 8 refers to, the continuity strategy outlined in the Bill is supposed to have money to meet a triggering event, including its costs, but may not do so.
Therefore, as I understand it, the thrust of this amendment is to ensure that the Pensions Regulator requires a separate capital buffer, or that an insurance arrangement will cover the costs incurred in winding up, or that, in exceptional circumstances, the costs required to administer the scheme are met other than from members’ funds. When we set up this new regime, it is important that we make sure that we cater for eventualities that we do not expect to happen but which we know could in theory happen. Having seen with defined benefit schemes the devastating impact of scheme wind-up without sufficient resources and the amounts of money taken out of defined benefit schemes when an employer has failed or walked away from the scheme—those cases have reduced the amounts available for pensioners, in some cases to zero—there is a real need to look at some catastrophe insurance, disaster-type insurance or capital buffer of some kind to make sure that we have catered for that before it happens.
I think it would be wise for my noble friend to consider what else might be done over and above what is in the Bill. I also look forward to her answer to the specific question asked by noble Lords about what would happen in practice should a scheme require money that does not currently exist within the fund, other than in members’ entitlement pots, to cover the costs of wind-up. Of course CMP does not give each person an individual pot, but if the overall assets have to be raided to meet these costs, their pensions will be impacted.
Lord Blunkett (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I will not detain the House for very long. I draw attention to the interchange and interface between the insolvency legislation that has now passed into law, on which I spoke a short time ago, and this Bill. The reason for that is that we are at a moment of the trigger events being more likely than in our recent history. The noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, referred to the pension freedoms. It struck me as I was listening to the debate today how relevant that is because five years ago the then Chancellor decided to provide a stimulus to the economy as PPI out-payments were drawing to a close, and he did so with an understanding that that would not destroy the pension entitlement or, as provided in Amendment 32, the balance of fairness between generations.
I am supporting both Amendment 8, moved extremely well by my noble friend Lady Drake, and Amendment 32. Anything that puts people and the wider scheme at risk, including these CMP schemes, is dangerous not only to the individuals concerned but in the dislocation of something broader—that is, the commitment that I commenced when my noble friend Lady Drake, along with John Hills and the chair of the commission back in 2005, Adair Turner—the noble Lord, Lord Turner—proposed auto-enrolment.
We are at a moment when, following the withdrawal of the furlough schemes, we face enormous unemployment, great insecurity and risk. At this moment we need to be able to secure not just the present but the future, and that future has to be about those young people contributing, as has already been said in relation to Amendment 32, and the danger that those who find themselves in temporary need of funding will withdraw funds at a moment that is deeply inappropriate for the viability of the programme as a whole. I hope that the Minister will respond positively and, if not, that we will press Amendment 32 to a vote.
Baroness Janke [V]
My Lords, I support Amendment 8 but I will address my remarks to Amendment 32. The amendment seeks to ensure fairness for all members of CDC schemes, especially between different generations who may stand to gain or lose from future circumstances, as noble Lords have already referred to.
In Committee we debated this issue at length and a number of issues emerged. The Bill states that the scheme provides for intergenerational fairness among its members, specifically in connection with the amount of benefits paid to pensioners, proposed adjustments to annual benefits and cash-equivalent values provided to members wishing to transfer out of the scheme. A requirement of collective money purchase schemes requires outperformance or underperformance to be reflected in the benefits paid to all members. However, there is usually a reluctance to deliver pension cuts, as in the Netherlands example that the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, described in Committee: when the Government intervened temporarily to avoid a cut in pensions, younger members of the scheme lost out as pensions were kept higher than the scheme could afford.
CDC schemes are required to agree a pension target rather than a firm outcome, and the expectation of pensioners may be different in the event of the underperformance of investments over time. So unless pensions were to be cut, which is a decision that is largely avoided, younger members of the scheme could lose out in the interests of existing pensioners. In the instance of a large number of people choosing to cash in their pensions, as others have said, there is a risk to new and younger entrants to the scheme, particularly if the value of the scheme is significantly reduced.
Our Amendment 32 seeks to press the Government into being more explicit and much clearer in their commitment to fairness across the board to all members of the scheme by requiring the trustees to make an assessment of the fairness of the scheme. The amendment addresses the interests of transparency and fairness and the welfare of all members of the scheme, and I support them.
Lord Naseby
I think the amendments have been extremely well aired and I await the response from my noble friend on the Front Bench.
Lord Sharkey [V]
My Lords, I will restrict my remarks to Amendment 32, which is in my name and the names of the noble Lord, Lord Vaux of Harrowden, and my noble friend Lady Bowles. I thank them for their support. In Committee, we spent a long time discussing intergenerational fairness in CDC schemes. We did this partly because we knew from the Government’s excellent briefing note that concern about intergenerational fairness was raised by many respondents to the consultation and because it seemed clear that the risk to intergenerational fairness was an almost inevitable feature of such schemes.
We pressed the Government to legislate the requirement for intergenerational fairness into the schemes. We knew that the Government themselves were deeply concerned about the issue and seemed to be choosing mechanisms for intergenerational fairness over benefit stability; but as I remarked at the time, it was hard to tell how they might work, since the mechanisms for bringing this about were not yet explicit and no real assessment of effect was possible.
In her response, the Minister made it clear that she shared our commitment to ensuring intergenerational fairness and that the mechanisms for achieving it would be introduced, after extensive consultation, by regulations under Clause 18. This will be long after the Bill has become an Act, and leaves open the question of how we will assess the success or otherwise of these mechanisms. It also leaves open the question of how the assessment of any such mechanisms will be communicated to members and potential members of the scheme.
Our Amendment 32 proposes a way of addressing these issues. It provides that, whenever TPR issues a notice requiring a scheme to submit a supervisory return, the notice must include a requirement that the trustees
“make an assessment of the extent to which the scheme is operating in a manner fair to all members.”
The amendment speaks of fairness. Intergenerational fairness is a critical subset of fairness, but there are other kinds of fairness, too. For example, there is gender fairness, and single versus married status and the fairness implicit in that, or not. The amendment makes no attempt to define fairness; it relies on the trustees to do that, as they should in the normal operation of the scheme. Their definitions and assessments will help members of all classes, and potential members, understand the working of their scheme and the success of the trustees in operating it fairly in the interests of all members.
As I mentioned in Committee, AJ Bell noted that the DWP leaves little doubt that it will not allow schemes to be skewed in favour of one cohort of members over another. I am sure that is the intention, but AJ Bell also noted that fairness could make outcomes in CDCs less predictable and raises the spectre of pension cuts. It goes on to say:
“The DWP itself notes any reductions in benefits will not be well received, and so clear communication of this – not just upfront but on an ongoing basis – will be absolutely essential.”
Our amendment will bring some communication and transparency to the balancing required to produce, and to the consequences of producing, fairness across all member cohorts.
In Committee, the Minister explained how the proposed headroom mechanism for the Royal Mail scheme would be fairer than a capital buffer. All classes of members and potential members of the scheme need to know how well this headroom mechanism or other mechanisms generated by Clause 18 are working. Our amendment will require the trustees to explain these things and to assess their success in managing the scheme fairly for all members.
Given the acknowledged risks to fairness inherent in the scheme, and that Parliament’s opportunity to influence the mechanisms that might arise in regulation will be as small as usual, it is vital that scheme trustees are open and transparent about their success in producing fair outcomes for all members. That is what our amendment would help bring about, and I intend to test the opinion of the House.
Baroness Sherlock [V]
My Lords, I say at the outset that Labour supports Part 1 of the Bill and the move to create CMP schemes, provided, of course, that they are not used as a means of downgrading good DB schemes. The two amendments in this group deal with different concerns that have been expressed about CMP schemes. Amendment 32 acknowledges that there may be a divergence of interests between different sets of members in a scheme of this kind. It does not prescribe any particular action but it does require trustees to surface the issue and to assess the extent to which the scheme is fair to all members.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
My Lords, I begin by addressing the amendment to Clause 14 tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Sherlock, Lady Bowles and Lady Drake. In doing so, I want to stress that ensuring members are treated fairly has been a central part of our work on CDC schemes since we began. As I explained in Committee, and in more detail in the letter sent to your Lordships on 5 March, the financial sustainability requirement will mean that CDC schemes are established on a sound financial basis and members are adequately protected from unfair and excessive administration charges.
I understand the intention behind this amendment but I do not consider it to be a necessary addition. For the financial sustainability requirement at Clause 14 to be met, the trustees must provide evidence that they can access sufficient financial resources to cover the costs associated with setting up and running the scheme, as well as those associated with dealing with triggering events. If the regulator is not satisfied about the security of these resources and that they can be accessed as needed, the requirement will not be met and the scheme will not be authorised. It may well be that, in the early days of a CDC scheme, initial funding comes from the employer, but our approach does not just rely on employer-provided financial support; it enables trustees to draw on other options, including funds held in escrow, insurance policies or contingent assets. These should be available to cover any costs arising from a triggering event.
The noble Baroness, Lady Drake, asked who can be required to meet the cost of triggering event. The regulator will work with the trustees, employees and others connected to the scheme to ensure that the scheme always has secure access to sufficient assets so that members’ funds are not affected. My noble friend Lady Altmann made the point that transfer values should be adjusted for future risk. Our legislation will require benefits and transfer values to be calculated based on long-term factors such as longevity, inflation and investment returns. This has the effect of smoothing outcomes and will mean that transfer values will not suddenly rise and fall, making cashing-in not as attractive as my noble friend suggests.
Once authorised, the scheme will need to continue to have access to sufficient financial resources so that it continues to meet the financial sustainability requirement. The regulator will monitor this through ongoing dialogue between the trustees, intelligence work and the significant events framework in Clause 28. This will ensure that it can intervene if it is concerned about a scheme’s financial sustainability and that, where necessary, a scheme could be de-authorised and wound up using the financial reserves. Our approach means that a CDC scheme must remain financially sustainable and able to deal with situations such as an employer withdrawing from the scheme or becoming insolvent.
As we set out in the letter that we sent to noble Lords, we are also taking additional steps to protect members. The CDC charge cap will help to protect members from excessive administration charges if the usual running costs of a scheme increase significantly for any reason. In addition, the continuity strategy at Clause 17, the implementation clause at Clause 39, and the prohibition on increasing charges during a triggering event at Clause 45 are all designed to protect members’ interests when things go wrong.
I now move on to address Amendment 32, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Sharkey and Lord Vaux, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, which is about intergenerational fairness—a matter raised by many noble Lords and the subject of extensive discussions. We have been mindful of the problems that other countries have experienced, for example in their approach to adjusting benefits. We have learned from these. That is why envisaged regulations under Clause 18 will mean that the CDC’s scheme rules must require that there is no difference in treatment between different cohorts or age groups of scheme members when calculating benefits and applying benefits adjustments.
The noble Baroness, Lady Janke, raised a point about issues experienced by CDC schemes in the Netherlands. We have been mindful of the problems that other countries have experienced. UK CDC schemes will not be required to have a buffer to smooth out fluctuations in the value of the benefits. Members’ benefits will be adjusted each year in light of the most recent actuarial valuation. This protects members from the need to fund a surplus and means that adjustments to benefits are provided for each year rather than hidden and stored up.
I welcome the sentiment behind the proposed amendment; it is something to which we want to give further consideration. We need to give careful thought to how such reporting might work in practice and would want to work with trustees, administrators and the regulator to ensure that any such requirement is proportionate, appropriate and clear. We would also want to consult on any such approach to make sure that it is effective. I reassure all noble Lords that we will give this matter careful consideration. Should we need to bring forward such a requirement in regulations, we already have sufficient powers in existing legislation to require schemes to report on fairness in CDC schemes if warranted. This includes powers under Section 113 of the Pension Schemes Act 1993 and Clause 46 in Part 1 of the Bill. There are also equivalent Northern Ireland provisions. For the reasons that I have set out, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Drake [V]
My Lords, I support Amendment 32, but I shall direct my comments to the Minister’s response to Amendment 8. The Minister has been very courteous in the face of my persistence on this issue and I have listened carefully to what she has said. In listening, I noted four things: first, that the powers in the Bill mean that the regulator can require initial funding from employers in the setting up of a CMP scheme; secondly, that those funds can be used to buy an insurance policy or be put into an escrow account; thirdly, that they can be available to fund triggering-event costs; and fourthly, should a triggering event occur, the regulator will work with both the employer and the trustees to ensure that sufficient financial resources are available to meet the costs of a triggering event. That is my understanding of what the Minister has said; I would, of course, expect the final regulations presented to Parliament to reflect that. On that understanding, I shall not push Amendment 8 to a vote. I beg leave to withdraw it.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment and the Minister’s amendment at page 9, line 12, make all regulations under Clause 14(3) subject to affirmative resolution procedure (see Clause 51(5)).
Member’s explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement for the Minister’s amendment at page 9, line 10.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment and the Minister’s amendment at page 9, line 43, make all regulations under Clause 15(4)(a) subject to affirmative resolution procedure (see Clause 51(5)).
Member’s explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement for the Minister’s amendment at page 9, line 41.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment and the Minister’s amendment at page 10, line 31, make all regulations under Clause 16(2) subject to affirmative resolution procedure (see Clause 51(5)).
Member’s explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement for the Minister’s amendment at page 10, line 29.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment and the Minister’s amendment at page 11, line 20 make all regulations under Clause 17 subject to affirmative resolution procedure (see Clause 51(5)).
Member’s explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement for the Minister’s amendment at page 11, line 18.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment and the Minister’s amendment at page 47, line 8, make all regulations under Clause 62(3)(a) subject to confirmatory procedure (see Clause 102(5)).
Member’s explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement for the Minister’s amendment at page 47, line 6.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment and the Minister’s amendment at page 47, line 22, make all regulations under Clause 63(2)(b) subject to confirmatory procedure (see Clause 102(5)).
Member’s explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement for the Minister’s amendment at page 47, line 20.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment and the Minister’s amendment at page 48, line 21, make all regulations under Clause 64(3) subject to confirmatory procedure (see Clause 102(5)).
Member’s explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement for the Minister’s amendment at page 48, line 19.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment and the Minister’s amendment at page 49, line 3, make all regulations under Clause 65(3) subject to confirmatory procedure (see Clause 102(5)).
Member’s explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement for the Minister’s amendment at page 49, line 1.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment and the Minister’s amendment at page 49, line 33, make all regulations under Clause 66(4)(a) subject to confirmatory procedure (see Clause 102(5)).
Member’s explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement for the Minister’s amendment at page 49, line 31.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment and the Minister’s amendment at page 50, line 22, make all regulations under Clause 67(2) subject to confirmatory procedure (see Clause 102(5)).
Member’s explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement for the Minister’s amendment at page 50, line 20.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment and the Minister’s amendment at page 51, line 8, make all regulations under Clause 68 subject to confirmatory procedure (see Clause 102(5)).
Member’s explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement for the Minister’s amendment at page 51, line 7.
Lord Sharkey
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require any notice from the Secretary of State to CDC scheme trustees to include a requirement to report on the fairness to members of the operation of the scheme.
Lord Sharkey [V]
My Lords, I wish to test the opinion of the House on Amendment 32.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Bates) (Con)
We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 34. I remind noble Lords that Members other than the mover and the Minister may speak only once and that short questions of elucidation are discouraged. Anyone wishing to press this or any other amendment in this group to a Division should make that clear during the debate.
Amendment 34
“( ) require information to be published relating to actions taken by the scheme with regard to how scheme investments take environmental, social, and governance factors into account.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment adds requirements for reporting on broader environmental and social issues. It does not require it to be included on the dashboards, but it could be published elsewhere.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle [V]
My Lords, I rise—at least metaphorically—to speak to Amendment 34. I will also refer to Amendments 73 and 79, to which I have attached my name. I pay tribute to the Minister, who has been very generous with her time on those two later amendments addressing the climate emergency. Her department has paid a great deal of attention to them; this is an area on which progress has been made, which is appreciated. It is a positive sign.
However, Amendment 34 addresses the fact that the climate emergency is only one of the critical factors facing our society today. “Environmental, social, and governance” is one of those buzz-phrases that does not exactly trip off the tongue. It means this: how does a company perform as a steward of the natural world and as a part of the society from which it makes, hopefully, its profits? What is its impact on its employees, suppliers, customers and the community in which it operates? We are talking about systems thinking of the kind that lies behind the sustainable development goals, to which this Government and most others around the world have signed up. It means having a decent life within the physical limits of this one fragile planet.
You might say that that is a pretty good goal that we should write into pensions legislation anyway. Even if you do not think that it is something this legislation should try to achieve, if you consider the narrower situation of the direction and risks of investments, there is increasing awareness in the investment community that environmental, social and governance issues are also a very good measure of risk. In some of the great financial and natural disasters of recent times, such as the BP Deepwater Horizon oil well blow-out in 2010 that had such enormous environmental impacts and the Volkswagen “Dieselgate” scandal, we have seen a problem with a company’s actions, but with a narrow focus on the climate emergency and not considering other factors that proved to be a real issue.
On the technicalities of this amendment, I stress that it has taken on board the Minister’s comments in Committee. The amendment then suggested that this information be included in the pensions dashboard; it now proposes that it could be included elsewhere when supplied to the Pensions Regulator—perhaps on its website or the SIP repository.
I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, will say later in the debate on this group of amendments that some of the amendments relate to Northern Ireland and that pension Bills have previously been left to the Assembly. I would appreciate it if the Minister would address that in her response. I would also appreciate a response on the fact that, while the climate emergency is one of the critical issues we face, we are in an age of shocks. There are many others: the nature crisis, the social emergency and the big impacts some of our largest companies are having around the world, as we see in the protests and extreme distress in garment factories in countries such as Bangladesh, India and Cambodia. Pension investors should be able to take account of these issues.
I suggest to your Lordships’ House and the Minister that taking account of the climate emergency is a necessary condition in this Bill, but for the Bill to be sufficient for the 21st century, we also need to include the broader environmental, social and governance issues. I beg to move.
Baroness Janke [V]
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for her speech and her amendment. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, for her work on this issue and the Minister for all her work in achieving the government amendments on this important matter. While I recognise the major progress that has been made, I shall speak in support of Amendments 72 and 74, which are signed by my noble friend Lord Sharkey and myself. I shall speak also in support of Amendments 73 and 79 from the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman, Lady Jones and Lady Bennett. I had also intended to sign these amendments and I apologise for not doing so.
In Amendments 72 and 74, the intention is to strengthen the obligation to ensure that the regulations of the scheme reflect the importance of the issue. Replacing “may” with “must” in the amendments to the Pensions Act strengthens the requirement on trustees to ensure that there is effective governance of the scheme with respect to the effects on climate change.
Amendment 73 strengthens the regulations and adds to our Amendments 72 and 74 by ensuring that relevant information in relation to climate change must be considered as part of the regulations.
Amendment 79 aims to ensure that the regulations place an obligation on trustees or fund managers to report on and publish how they have taken into account relevant treaties and other government commitments on climate change. The improvements to the Bill already made are very much welcomed, and we support these amendments today in the spirit of strengthening them. It has been well documented that more and more savers are keen that their savings should serve to strengthen ethical policies, particularly on climate change. As a result, they require more transparency on how their savings are invested.
Pension funds have huge economic power and must play their part in meeting our 2050 targets. UK pension funds hold more than £1.6 trillion in assets. The size and influence of pension schemes means they have a vital role to play in ensuring that the UK meets its climate commitments. It is essential that the Bill enables that to happen.
Baroness Hayman (CB)
My Lords, I remind the House of my interests as a co-chair of Peers for the Planet. I should perhaps also declare that my son works for a new campaign, Make My Money Matter, which is being launched today by Mark Carney and Richard Curtis. It encourages all of us to be more active to ensure that our pension schemes reflect our values and that they protect both our financial and environmental future—an indication perhaps that consumer pressure on issues like climate change in relation to pensions is on the rise from that described by the noble Lord, Lord Balfe. In that context, perhaps I should warn the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, that as a pensioner under the parliamentary fund, I may come and discuss these issues with him later.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Janke, said, I have Amendments 73 and 79 in this group, which are cross- party. I will also speak to government Amendments 75, 76, 77 and 78, which cover the same ground—I know that the Minister would say “cover that ground more comprehensively”.
At this stage, it is appropriate that I join others in thanking and praising both the Minister and her officials for the amount of work and careful consideration they have given to these issues and for their responsiveness to the issues that have been raised. We have moved some distance from the start of the Bill, from a position where there was no provision on climate risks to provisions for a regulatory framework that takes into account our objectives under the Paris agreement and which will ensure that trustees and managers are required to assess and report on their scheme’s alignment with the objective to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees centigrade. That includes assessing and reporting on how their schemes are exposed to the effects of climate change and on how the assets of the scheme themselves contribute to climate change.
Improving disclosure in this way is essential for consumers, who need to understand the risks attached to their personal investments. It is also essential for trustees, as greater transparency will help drive their behaviours and decisions, and trustees will need clarity on what is required of them and a clear signal of the long-term trajectory that the sector will need to follow if we are to achieve our net zero targets.
The two amendments that I have tabled are drafted very simply—some might say simplistically. They are broad and would apply to any regulations made under the Bill. Amendment 73 ensures that, in making regulations, the Government take account of international climate change treaties of which the UK is a signatory. It also ensures in turn that regulations require trustees or managers to take account of such treaties in addition to the existing general provisions to secure effective governance of a scheme with respect to the effects of climate change.
Amendment 79 ensures that regulations can place requirements on trustees or managers to publish information about how schemes have taken into account the objective to keep global warming well below 2 degrees centigrade or any other future targets under international treaties. That is critical, because disclosure will create pressure on trustees to reduce schemes’ contribution to climate change.
As I have said, the Minister has been extremely responsive, and we have had a constructive dialogue about these amendments. She has put down Amendments 75 to 78, which are, I hope, more comprehensive but slightly less comprehensible to the lay person. I will ask a couple of more technical questions, which I would be very grateful if she could respond to.
The first question is on Amendment 75 and addressing climate risk. Although the most significant climate-related risks which pension schemes face long-term are not idiosyncratic to particular companies, sectors or geography, they arise from system-level macroeconomic and financial stability risks caused by the impacts of climate change and a disorderly transition. Yet in fact the three material climate risks to portfolios that managers identify tend generally to focus on the risks associated with the transition to a low-carbon economy over the physical risks of climate change. I therefore hope that the Government will confirm the broadest possible definition of the risks in the Bill, meaning transitional, physical, financial and systemic.
On Amendment 76, I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that proposed new Clause 41A(4A) and (4B) apply across all the regulations to be made under the Bill, rather than applying only to regulations referred to in new Clauses 41A(3)(b). That is essential if consideration for international and other climate change goals is to permeate the regulatory framework as it should.
On Amendment 76, again I would like some confirmation. There is reference to
“or other climate change goal.”
Can the Minister confirm that that includes our domestic net zero target—I think that was very much the intention—and that there will not be any diminution of our targets?
On Amendment 77, again, the reference is to Article 2(1)(a) of the Paris agreement, but does that encompass provisions in Article 2(1)(c) as well, which relate to financial flows and therefore seem to be relevant?
Lastly—the Minister will be glad to know—on technical issues, can the Minister assure me that Amendment 78 does not limit publication requirements to information on the effects of climate change on schemes but that it also covers the contribution of the assets of schemes to climate change?
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I am speaking to Amendments 73 and 79, to which I have added my name. I will also speak to the government amendments in this group.
We have come a long way since we first raised at Second Reading the issue of pension scheme obligations to address the risks associated with climate change. I say at the outset that, along with other noble Lords, we have been heartened by the response of the Minister, who, from the very start, has taken our concerns seriously and sought to address them.
Our aim all along has been to protect savers from the risks associated with climate change by requiring UK pension schemes to align their investment activities with the objectives of the Paris agreement, to which the UK Government are a signatory. This requires the Government to hold the rise in temperature to well below 2 degrees centigrade. Our amendments would require regulations to ensure that trustees take account of our international treaty obligations on climate change and publish information about how this is to be achieved.
There is an increasing realisation among financial regulation that such action is necessary, and a number of leading pension schemes are already taking action on this issue. They have already begun to follow the advice of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures. This Bill enables us to raise the bar, so that the best practice becomes the standard practice and all funds play their part equally in delivering on their obligations.
Since we started the dialogue with the Minister and her advisers, we have made considerable progress. We very much welcome the government amendments that have now been tabled. They spell out in more detail how the funds should address their exposure to the risk of climate change and assess the impact of their assets on climate change. The most obvious example of this is investment in fossil fuels, but this would require a more comprehensive appraisal of which assets were adding to the problem of global warming and which were contributing to a low-carbon economy.
The government amendments also require schemes to undertake scenario planning on the impacts and risks of different outcomes as we move towards the Paris deadline. We see this as sending a clear signal to the regulators and the pension funds that the Government are not only paying lip service to this issue, but expecting clear change in governance and in investment strategies. Finally, on a similar theme to our amendment, the Government require clear transparency and accountability through reporting to scheme members and the public the actions taken. Again, we welcome this amendment.
Of course, all these requirements will need robust enforcement to ensure effective implementation. I hope that the Minister can clarify the plans of the Pensions Regulator to undertake these functions and can update the House on the progress made across the different types of pension schemes to create a level playing field in their obligations under these provisions.
These are the first steps in driving a UK investment strategy towards delivering on the Paris promise, but this is an important group of investors. I hope that this will send a wider signal throughout the financial markets that business as usual is not an option. There are huge calls for a green economic recovery plan as we grapple with the legacy of coronavirus. Let us hope that all these policies can come together to help deliver that green recovery. In the meantime, I am pleased to support our amendments and the government amendments to this clause.
Lord Balfe
In my last speech I omitted to declare my interests, not only those recorded in the register, but also as chair of the European Parliament’s Members’ pension fund—which has a number of beneficiaries in this House—and as manager of the House of Commons fund for former Members of the European Parliament. That is certainly not as big a fund as that of my noble friend Lord Naseby, but none the less is part of the pensions scenario in Westminster. I also advise a number of pension schemes, all fairly small. My amendment, Amendment 80, concerns how small schemes will deal with the duties that will be laid on them by this legislation, and asks the Minister to have their situation firmly in mind when making the regulations.
We often think of pension schemes as huge things, like the British Airways or Lloyds Bank schemes, but the great majority of schemes in this country are quite small. My amendment sets the quite arbitrary figure of £500 million in assets under management, a figure below which the onerous requirements of the amendments put forward in the Bill would not apply. That does not mean that I think small schemes should be exempted from any social concerns. Most of my advice is based on advising small schemes to go into asset tracking, because the evidence, of which there is now a lot, is that active management costs a lot and does not work. The sensible thing, particularly for a small scheme, is therefore to invest in index trackers.
However, being an index tracker does not mean that you cannot have social responsibility. There are index trackers that follow the UN principles of responsible investment, and there are others. We are concerned in this Bill particularly with the environment; I personally am concerned with schemes that follow the principles of the ILO. It is fine to have a scheme which invests in a company that has many trees in its garden that workers paid low wages for long hours can shelter under, but there are many things in this world to concentrate on other than just the environment—I do not want to detract from that, but we need a broader set of principles.
Norway, which has the biggest public scheme in the world, has an ethics committee that looks right across the investment market and advises the Norwegian Government and the scheme on what sort of investment should be avoided. Within the past few days, it has identified as not fit for investment companies that make what are called “autonomous weapons”—in other words, killer robots. So, there are many areas where we need to look carefully at what sort of investments we make.
In the case of small schemes, this is difficult. I advised one such scheme recently. I went to see them and asked, “How many pensioners have you got?” They said, “Oh, 22.” I said, “How do you look after them?” They said, “Oh, X”—naming the person—“in the wages section pays their pension each month when she does the monthly salary run.” I said, “What about the rest?” They said, “Oh, well, the general secretary looks after that. We have a man who comes in twice a year and we pay him, and he keeps us on the right side of the regulator.” This was a scheme with barely three figures’ worth of members in it, and many schemes are like it. We need to look for a way in which such small schemes can transfer their assets without there being any residual liabilities.
One problem is that you can get someone to run your scheme, but if the overall master trust gets into trouble, it can come back to those who have put their schemes in it and make quite unreasonable demands of them. If the number of small schemes is to be slimmed down, there has to be a way of transferring them so that the benefits are guaranteed but there is no comeback for more money. The amount of money required would be actuarily calculated, but it should not be possible to say, “Oh, well, the whole scheme has run into trouble. We know you transferred X years ago, but we now need more money from you”, because it is a direct disincentive.
I shall give another example, of a quite rich London club which, again, has a small scheme. It could quite easily transfer it in—it has huge assets: it could sell one or two of its pictures and cover its pension fund deficit—but it is reluctant to do so in case it received subsequent bills which detracted from the members’ assets. Again, this is something that the Minister and the department could look at in the future. It is outwith this Bill, but it is part of how we need to sort out the pensions legislation and administration for small funds.
My plea to the Government is that when they make the regulations, they remember the small schemes, which probably will not be able to afford the type of administration and advice that big schemes can. They should be encouraged into index trackers, because they are cheap and easy to run and, frankly, return the market, whereas active management charges a lot and does no better. I ask the Minister to look kindly on this amendment. I have never thought of pushing it to a vote; I tabled it to make these points, because I know that she is a sympathetic Minister who would be happy to ask her department in due course to look at the points raised.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, I first declare an interest as a recipient of the parliamentary pension fund. I support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. I will also refer to Amendments 85 to 88 in the Minister’s name, which make particular reference to Northern Ireland.
Lord Naseby
My Lords, as a trustee of the Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund, I see it as my duty to take into account anything that may have an impact on the long-term financial performance of the fund and on Members’ pensions. I expect to communicate that to the membership in our annual report, or alternatively when requested.
I do not wish to comment on any of these amendments in detail, but I particularly warm to Amendment 75 from the Government, which seems entirely appropriate.
Viscount Eccles (Con)
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, opened the debate on this group with a request for more detailed information from collective money purchase schemes, particularly on the environment. That is entirely right and very appropriate when we move on to Clause 124, which is quite another matter. It builds on the 1995 and 2004 Acts, which refer to injunctions on trustees to produce statements of funding. That is a wide request; one can imagine all sorts of matters that trustees would wish to put into their statements.
It is not the same thing at all, however, as focusing on the risk of climate change, which is a much more accurately aimed request. The change risk, of course, is against the background that climate change, as in the use of the English language, is neutral, but I do not think that that is what we have come to mean by climate change. We should be careful not to use language inaccurately. I think that what we really mean is man’s contribution to, or effect on, the climate and what actions the world’s population have taken that affect the climate. That is considered in general to be something about which we should be very concerned. When it comes to considering the environment, who can avoid being incredibly concerned?
In the Government’s approach to how to deal with this matter, climate change is defined in the Bill as relating to Paris, its two-degrees limit on the rise in temperature from pre-industrial periods and other climate change goals. This is potentially a demanding and widely drawn comparison with things that have applied to trustees to date. We have to take care in our expectations of what it is reasonable for trustees to decide as they carry out their role in the interests of their members. They rely very heavily on advice. Their actuaries, who are often rather disregarded figures in the world of pension management and in our debates on pensions, have a wide knowledge of what is going on in pensions as a whole and why it is the way it is.
Trustees have to take very professional investment advice, of course. Like my noble friend Lord Balfe, they may decide that trackers are the best thing for them, but in many schemes, the investment decisions will be very detailed and always based on advice. Those advisers—the investment industry as a whole—can safely be assumed to know that there are huge issues relating to climate change and the environment, so their advice will be shot through with that understanding. Of course, there is also in the life of the trustees the employer, who can also be judged as knowing what is going on and understanding how he would like to see his trustees view these complicated matters.
Noble Lords should rest assured that these are complicated matters. It has been a long time since I was a pension trustee; nevertheless, there was always a huge debate about how to balance your portfolio, what to hold in it and what not to hold. The environment is not a thing for the future, of course; it is a thing for today. It is already part of our life; it affects our daily lives, to the extent that the world is already warmer. Those effects are connected to the temperature that we experience and the environment in which we live. When we come to consider the responsibilities of trustees to their scheme members, however, we need to be a bit cautious about how far down this complicated road we expect trustees to go when their members will be much more focused on their daily lives than on the way in which the powers that be are tackling these very difficult issues.
The Government’s stall is set out in Clause 124 and Amendments 75 to 78, which contain discretionary powers. They leave the opportunity to observe events and gauge responses to the problems we face before taking too much action, and they leave flexibility, as in their reference to other climate policies.
Lord Sharkey [V]
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 72 and 74 in this group. Neither amendment in any way alters any of the important climate change amendments in the group, except in one respect: they require the Government to make something happen.
What the amendments would do is very straightforward: they would simply impose a binding legal obligation on the trustees or managers of an occupational pension scheme of a prescribed description with a view to securing effective governance of the scheme with respect to the effects of climate change. They would also impose an obligation to include, in particular, the risks arising from steps taken because of climate change, whether by the Government or otherwise, and opportunities relating to climate change.
All those things are word for word in the Bill except that they are all governed by the word “may”. Our amendments would replace the two references to “may” with “must”. As the Bill stands, the Government are not actually obliged to do any of those things, or indeed anything at all, in this clause. The word “may” in subsections (1) and (2) is permissive, not directive—a point made by my noble friend Lady Bowles and me in Committee.
The Minister kindly wrote to us all in response on 5 March. She confirmed that the Government intend to take action and were wholly committed to legislating for effective governance of occupational pension schemes with respect to climate change. She concluded by saying:
“Changing the legislation to ‘must’ would therefore make no practical difference, because as a Government we are committed to making regulations under new sections 41A, 41B and 41C introduced by the Government’s amendment.”
This argument works both ways, of course. What can be the basis of the Government’s objection to “must” if they are committed to doing it anyway? What possible reservations, hesitations or changes of mind are being contemplated here? What can be wrong with having legal certainty that what has been promised will actually happen?
There is a parallel in this Bill to our discussions on the MaPS pensions dashboard. The Committee asked why the provision for MaPS to provide a public dashboard was only a “may”, not a “must”. In reply, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, confirmed that the Government were absolutely committed to MaPS providing a qualifying dashboard service. Several Members, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Drake and Lady Sherlock, noted that the Government being committed to MaPS producing a dashboard is not the same thing as saying that they will ensure that there is a MaPS dashboard. The noble Baroness, Lady Drake, made the point that a little amendment—“may” to “must”—would capture the Government’s assurances
“so that the next Secretary of State does not change their mind.”—[Official Report, 26/2/20; col. GC 186.]
This argument clearly convinced the Government. They have now introduced their own amendments to make a MaPS dashboard a “must” rather than a “may”. I know that we are all very pleased about that.
Can the Government accept the same logic here? If it was right to change “may” to “must” for a pensions dashboard, why is it not right to do the same thing for climate change? I look forward to the Minister’s eager acceptance of the precedent and these amendments.
Baroness Sherlock [V]
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who raised climate issues in relation to pension schemes during our proceedings, especially those involved in the cross-party talks led by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and my noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch. I also thank the Minister for listening and moving on from the broad government amendments brought forward in Committee.
This Bill has been on a journey. When it was first published there was no reference to climate change at all. Indeed, from having been given advice from the Library, I understand that climate change has never been included in domestic pensions legislation before in this country, so we are making history here today.
The Labour Benches had two priorities on this: first, to provide clarity on climate risk by ensuring that the Paris Agreement is referenced; and secondly, to ensure that trustees and managers take international climate treaties into account when making decisions. The word “account” is clearly significant. It recalls the Court of Appeal judgment that found that the Government had failed to take into account the Paris Agreement when permitting the Heathrow expansion. That was a good example of the need to make sure that positive action on the international level to combat climate change is not forgotten when Ministers make domestic policy decisions.
Our priorities are reflected in Amendments 73 and 79, but because we have secured cross-party consensus with the Government, they are also reflected in the government amendments in this group, especially Amendments 75 and 76. I will be interested to hear the Minister’s reply to the questions from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, about whether these refer also to the physical impacts of climate change and the impact of steps taken to transition towards a low-carbon economy, and for clarification that Amendment 76 includes the UK’s net-zero target.
However, as my noble friend Lady Jones said, we are only at the beginning of a journey to net zero. Divesting pension funds away from fossil fuels is a big challenge. The Government and the industry need to go further and quicker, with aligning investment strategies with domestic and international targets being the ultimate goal. For this Bill, we have reached a good place with broad cross-party support. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
My Lords, government Amendments 75, 76, 77 and 78 seek to amend new Sections 41A and 41B of the Pensions Act 1995, which are to be inserted by Clause 124, introduced by the Government in Committee. The amendments would allow regulations to require that the trustees and managers of occupational pension schemes explicitly consider climate change goals, including the Paris Agreement temperature goal, for the purpose of ensuring the effective governance of their schemes with respect to the effects of climate change. The UK Government and others are committed to the Paris Agreement’s goal of holding the increase in the average global temperature to well below 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels. In fact, the UK is leading the way globally and has committed in law to the target of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. We are completely committed to that.
The Covid-19 emergency has triggered the devaluation of many assets across the globe, affecting many investors. Climate change has the potential to bring about a greater, more permanent devaluation that pension schemes need to be prepared for. The Government intend to deliver a recovery from the current Covid-19 emergency that results in an economy that is more sustainable and resilient. Tackling climate change will be a win-win, as many of the actions we need to take to reach our UK climate targets, net zero included, will also support our economy as we emerge from the Covid-19 emergency. The ultimate achievement of the Paris Agreement goal and other climate goals, along with the steps taken by the Government and others to achieve them, are now of greater importance for pension schemes to consider in their overall governance of risk. These amendments would enable regulations to require that scheme trustees and managers take climate change goals and the steps taken to meet them into account.
Amendment 75 makes a minor change to subsection (4) of new Section 41A to make explicit provision for two types of assessments that may be required under subsection (3)(b). Amendment 76 inserts new subsections (4)(a) and (4)(b) into Section 41A. Subsection (4)(a) makes explicit that regulations may require scheme trustees and managers to take into account the different ways in which the climate might change and the steps that might be taken because of those changes. This allows for the assessment of physical and transitional risks respectively—the typical description of risk used by industry. Subsection (4)(b) provides that regulations made under subsection (4)(a) may require trustees and managers to adopt prescribed assumptions about achievement of the Paris Agreement goal and other climate change goals, or the steps that may be taken to achieve them.
The third amendment, Amendment 77, defines the meaning of “the Paris Agreement goal” by specific reference to Article 2.1a of the Paris Agreement. I would like to assure the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, that Amendment 78 does not limit publication to the effects of climate but includes the effects of assets that contribute to climate change. Pension schemes already have a fiduciary duty to steward their assets, and all schemes have a duty to report on their stewardship policy, including engagement and voting, while from October of this year they will be required to report on how they have implemented their policies.
Finally, Amendment 78 to Section 41B would ensure that trustees and managers may be required to publish information relating to the assessments they make by reference to the Paris Agreement goal or other climate change goals under Section 41A. This includes publication of the contribution of schemes’ assets to climate change referred to in Section 41A(4)(b) as a way of measuring the extent of Paris alignment. Amendments 85 to 88 make corresponding changes to paragraph 12 of Schedule 11 for Northern Ireland.
I turn to Amendment 80. We believe that it is inappropriate to limit the scope of the legislation in this way. I should like to talk about the points made by my noble friend Lord Balfe about smaller schemes. I have been given assurances about such schemes and I can also reassure my noble friend that none of these measures would prevent pension scheme trustees investing in index trackers or seeking to drive schemes towards higher-cost active management. Innovation in the market has led to a blossoming of index-tracking products that take account of climate change risk in different ways. If the trustees of schemes of any size wish to take advantage of these, they can. Members of occupational schemes rarely have a choice of where they save, and they have a right to benefit from the effective governance and reporting of climate change risk, regardless of their employer’s chosen scheme. However, I can reassure my noble friend that these measures are intended to protect benefits through better consideration and management of climate risk.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)
I have received no requests from any noble Lord to speak after the Minister, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle [V]
I thank the Minister for her answer. Amendment 78 refers to this covering not just the effects of assets but of climate. I will leave it to others to assess the technical details of that, but I have a specific question for her. She referred to the need for larger funds to report on ESG matters. She does not have to give me an answer now, but I wonder whether there will be also a requirement to publish that, so that it is easily accessible by the public and can be publicised.
This has been a very productive and useful group of amendments. I am sure that the House will join me in paying tribute to the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman and Lady Jones of Whitchurch. They have clearly done an enormous amount of work, some of which I have seen first hand, to get the Government to this point.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, made a very important point when she said that your Lordships’ House would love not to have to challenge the Government, Bill by Bill, to see the climate emergency recognised in legislation and government action. In this aspect, it is crucial to look at the Committee on Climate Change progress report to Parliament from last week. The Minister made reference to the 43% cut in our territorial emissions of climate change gases. That report highlights the impact of consumption emissions, and the reduction is considerably lower when that is factored in.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, said that we want to see best practice become standard practice. There is an acknowledgement that that has to be legislated for and cannot just be assumed. The noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, referred to elements of the Bill still being permissive and not directive. I am sure that that is an issue that the House will return to again and again when we come to the Agriculture Bill. We need to see direction to all to act, because the climate emergency and the biodiversity crisis, along with so many other factors, such as the state of our economy and society, impact on all.
The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, referred to Britain’s international role. Understandably, with the impact of Covid-19, attention has swung away from our crucial global role in COP 26. I therefore suggest to the House that everything we do should hold that in consideration. We are in a position where we need to be a global leader, and the world needs us to be a global leader.
In conclusion, it is not my intention to push Amendment 34 to a vote. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment and the Minister’s other amendments to Clause 47 are intended to make clear that regulations under the Clause may only be made in connection with collective money purchase schemes established by non-employers, or used by multiple employers not all of whom are connected with one another.
Member’s explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement for the Minister’s amendment at page 37, line 31.
Member’s explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement for the Minister’s amendment at page 37, line 31.
“(5) The provision that may be made under subsection (1) or (2) may be made by—(a) modifying or amending this Part;(b) making consequential modifications or amendments of any other enactment.”Member’s explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement for the Minister’s amendment at page 37, line 31.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment and the Minister’s other amendments to Clause 98 are intended to make clear that regulations under the Clause may only be made in connection with collective money purchase schemes established by non-employers, or used by multiple employers not all of whom are connected with one another.
Member’s explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement for the Minister’s amendment at page 77, line 25.
Member’s explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement for the Minister’s amendment at page 77, line 25.
“(5) The provision that may be made under subsection (1) or (2) may be made by—(a) modifying or amending this Part;(b) making consequential modifications or amendments of any other statutory provision.”Member’s explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement for the Minister’s amendment at page 77, line 25.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
“3A_ In section 186 (Parliamentary control of orders and regulations), in subsection (3) (statutory instruments subject to affirmative resolution procedure), after paragraph (f) insert “, or(g) regulations under section 99(2)(c), or(h) regulations under section 99A(2)(b),”.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment makes regulations under sections 99(2)(c) and 99A(2)(b) of the Pension Schemes Act 1993 (inserted by Clause 25(4)(c) and (5) of the Bill) subject to the affirmative resolution procedure described in subsection (3) of section 186 of that Act, subject to the exceptions in subsection (4) of that section.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
“3A_ In section 181 (Assembly, etc. control of regulations and orders), in subsection (2) (regulations and orders subject to confirmatory procedure), after “20B(5)” insert “, 95(2)(c), 95A(2)(b)”.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment makes regulations under sections 95(2)(c) and 95A(2)(b) of the Pension Schemes (Northern Ireland) Act 1993 (inserted by Clause 76(4)(c) and (5) of the Bill) subject to the confirmatory procedure described in subsection (1) of section 181 of that Act, subject to the exceptions in subsection (3) of that section.
Baroness Noakes
(d) the person was—(i) an employer in relation to the scheme, or(ii) a person connected with or an associate of the employer.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment confines the criminal offences in Clause 107 to persons connected with the pension scheme employer.
Baroness Noakes (Con)
My Lords, in moving Amendment 46, I shall also speak to Amendments 47 to 49, which are in my name and those of my noble friends Lady Altmann and Lady Neville-Rolfe. There was a wide-ranging debate in Committee on the two new criminal offences and two new financial penalty powers in Clause 107. Unfortunately, I was unable to be present for that debate, but my amendments were moved by my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe, and I have read the record in Hansard.
The scope of the offences and penalties is very widely drawn and, while they do not apply if there is a “reasonable excuse”, there is no clarification of that term in the legislation. My noble friend Lord Howe spoke at length and helpfully in Committee, but it remains the case that there is considerable anxiety from pensions professionals and from companies about the impact of these provisions on ordinary commercial transactions. In Committee, the Government resisted attempts to define “reasonable excuse” and preferred to leave this to non-binding guidance from the Pensions Regulator—that may or may not be forthcoming as there is no obligation on the regulator to produce any guidance—and ultimately to the decision of the courts. We therefore have the classic formula for uncertainty for all those who might be affected by Clause 107, and that uncertainty could of course last many years, until enough cases establish the boundaries of the new offences and penalties.
My amendments today take a different approach from that in Committee and seek to limit the offences and penalties in the same way as the contribution notice regime in the Pensions Act 2004—namely, to the employer or to an associate or connected person of the employer. In Committee, my noble friend Lord Howe gave some examples of the people that the Government intended to be covered by Clause 107. On my reading of the scope of the contribution notice regime, all those mentioned by my noble friend would indeed have been covered by the amendment. If the Government think that the contribution notice’s scope is inadequate, I would have expected them to amend that scope in this Bill; after all, the contribution notices are there to make sure that defined benefit schemes are adequately funded. Criminal penalties and financial sanctions might make everyone feel better, but they do nothing directly to protect scheme funding.
I suspect that the Government intend these new provisions to apply to more people than are covered by contribution notices. In that case, it would seem to me essential that the Government set out clearly who they want to be covered by Clause 107. It cannot be right to create criminal offences without such clarity. However, even if the Government will not do that, I hope that the Minister can be clear about who they do not intend to be covered by Clause 107.
I shall concentrate my remarks on two groups—lenders and landlords—but the problem is wider and extends to all commercial counterparties. I should at this stage declare my interests as recorded in the register, including my directorship of the Royal Bank of Scotland.
I start with an employer who has a loan from a bank. That could fall due for repayment, because its term has ended or covenants have been breached. If the bank seeks repayment of a loan or decides not to renew it, that may cause financial difficulties for the employer. At one end of the spectrum, it could impair the employer’s ability to continue to trade as a going concern. In less extreme cases, it could impact, for example, the employer’s ability to meet payments under an agreed deficit repair plan. In either case, the result is material detriment within the terms of Clause 107. A bank should be well aware of this, because lenders have to know basic financial facts about their customers, including their pension commitments. That is clear within the language of Clause 107, but is it what the Government intend? If not, will the Minister say that clearly?
Similarly, a landlord may decline to renew a lease or decide to enforce early termination due to breaches of covenants. This can cause or amplify financial stress in an employer and have a knock-on impact on its ability to support its related defined benefit scheme. Is the landlord within these new offences and penalties or not? In the case of landlords and banks, there is no commercial or other nexus between them and the defined benefit scheme, yet they are drawn within the net of Clause 107 because their actions or conducts could indirectly impact the benefits payable by the scheme.
I remind my noble friend that we have not even begun to see the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on businesses. The wonderful financial support provided by the Government in these early days of the pandemic will soon come to an end. Many businesses will be facing an uncertain future and are likely to have taken on additional debt. They may need more debt to survive. Many have chosen not to make quarterly rent payments this year. Their pension scheme deficits will almost certainly have worsened, due to extremely low interest rates and weak asset prices—a double whammy. The noble Lord, Lord Hain, referred to this in an earlier group of amendments. Banks and landlords will be making big decisions about enforcing existing loans or leases, as well as making new ones.
The impact could go beyond concerns about particular commercial transactions, with a chilling effect more widely. Defined benefit scheme employers may well become untouchables as counterparties, if there is major uncertainty about the implications for those who deal with them. My preference would have been for the Government to be clear about what counts as a reasonable excuse for the purposes of Clause 107. My Amendments 46 to 49 have instead concentrated on the persons who are intended to be covered by the new offences and penalties in order to invite the Government to provide certainty to third parties about whether they can expect to be covered by Clause 107. I beg to move.
Baroness Altmann [V]
My Lords, I have added my name to these amendments in the names of my noble friends Lady Noakes and Lady Neville-Rolfe. I congratulate my noble friend Lady Noakes on the way she introduced this amendment.
There are valid concerns around the wording of the good intentions of this Bill to introduce criminal offences or financial penalties for avoiding employer debt or risking member-accrued benefits. But it is right to express some concerns that this should apply only if the person is either an employer or associated with the employer, so that professional advisers cannot be held criminally liable, nor banks just making loans in the ordinary course of business, nor even insurers for mistakes made in underfunding the pension scheme.
I welcome the long-overdue extension of the Pensions Regulator’s powers contained in this Bill, which can punish wilful or reckless behaviour and non-compliance with contribution notices and so on. I also welcome the intention to deter bad practice by scheme employers, and indeed scheme trustees from undermining their pension scheme. It is right to have a criminal offence, but, as currently written, the provisions under Clause 107 could criminalise anyone who deals with a pension scheme. I do not believe that is the intention, and it could leave parties reluctant to deal with a business because of its pension scheme, which could in turn jeopardise the ongoing solvency of the company. Therefore, I would welcome some reassurance from the Minister that this will not be the outcome of this legislation.
Some might say that advisers should surely share the responsibility were there to be attempts to avoid pension debt. I have some sympathy with this. So, once again, will my noble friend reassure us that this Bill will not see those acting in good faith being caught out by the actions of an employer, or even perhaps of complicit trustees who might act in ways that are detrimental to the scheme? I hope that this reassurance can be forthcoming.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con) [V]
My Lords, I support my noble friends Lady Noakes and Lady Altmann and the strong case they have made for these amendments. Noble Lords may recall that at Second Reading on 28 January I expressed some doubts about the scale and nature of the penalties in this Bill, which include a civil penalty of up to £1 million. I am still concerned that increasing them, especially the new criminal element, will deter the respectable people we need from becoming pension scheme trustees.
The world has been changed by the challenges of the coronavirus, as we have just heard. According to Patrick Hosking in the Times yesterday, using figures from pension experts Barnett Waddingham, FTSE pension deficits have soared by £45 billion to £210 billion since the start of the year, so that companies that have a deficit are now a good deal further away from closing it. This is an enormous strain on mostly well-run companies and schemes and reflects years of low interest rates caused by QE and turbulent equity markets. Who would want to get involved in pension administration? Yet its success is at the heart of the British savings system and vital to the future livelihoods of millions of hard-working people, often of modest means, up and down the country.
The Bill rightly reflects the need to plug a hole revealed by the Philip Green case and the furious debate in Parliament before Sir Philip was persuaded to pay up. However, as is often the case with legislation that responds to scandals, it is wide-ranging and takes enormous powers. It goes too far in my view towards burdening business at the expense of other stakeholders. The result will be less willingness to become a trustee and more administrative and other costs for pension schemes paid for, in the end, by the unfortunate pensioners, and the risk of more businesses being pushed into the Pension Protection Fund. This is the background to my unease with Clause 107 and why I moved an amendment in Committee with the help of my noble friend Lady Noakes, and why I now support her and my noble friend Lady Altmann with these amendments.
The criminal offences in Clause 107 are widely drawn. They try to catch bad behaviour by anyone who might be involved. But I maintain that this may have appalling perverse effects, injecting great uncertainty into what is permitted behaviour by those involved in pensions administration. My principal concern is with trustees, having been one and knowing what fine judgments one is called to make, but also with financial advisers, actuaries, accountants, insurers, property consultants and even secretarial support, all acting in good faith. It is one thing to provide for criminal sanctions against an employer, but wrong to extend this in such a vague and general way. A number of suggestions were made in Committee as to how one might tackle this, but disappointingly the Government have not listened—or not so far.
These new criminal offences will have a chilling effect on trustees and others involved, as my noble friend Lady Noakes explained, and I ask my noble friend the Minister to agree to think again and to narrow the very wide offences in this Bill to provide some comfort, either in this House or when it proceeds to the other place.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)
Lord Naseby has withdrawn, so I call Lord Blencathra. No? I gather that there have been some problems, so I call the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard.
Viscount Trenchard (Con)
My Lords, while the Bill has generally been welcomed by the pensions industry and members of pension schemes, I worry that it may give the Pensions Regulator too much power. The new criminal offences contained in Clause 107 affect not only employers and senior associates of pension schemes. They could apply to anyone involved in such schemes: for example, trustees, banks and insurers. I therefore support Amendments 46 to 49, proposed by my noble friend Lady Noakes so eloquently and so well supported by my noble friends Lady Altmann and Lady Neville-Rolfe, which confine the new criminal offences to the employer and persons connected with the employer. It is absolutely right that the Government have acted to ensure that failures such as that of Carillion and BHS will no longer have a negative effect on members of pension schemes.
The offences created in Clause 107 are serious. They carry a potential seven years’ imprisonment and a civil penalty up to a maximum of £1 million. It is therefore right that these offences should apply as broadly as they do, but they should be limited in effect to the employer and the trustees of the pension scheme concerned. These penalties seem proportionate to the gravity of the crimes in certain cases, but both offences apply very broadly to “persons”, with no requirement for association with the pension scheme. The Government’s intention may be that the measures are there to catch wilful and reckless behaviour, but the problem is that their potential ambit is wider—much wider—than just the reckless.
As currently drafted, the criminal offences could impact ordinary pensions and business activity, and, in distressed situations, they might act as a disincentive to corporate or business rescue—for example, by encouraging directors to file for insolvency to avoid the risk of criminal liability that might arise through seeking a turnaround plan or a pension scheme compromise. So far, attempts at making the measures clearer and more targeted have not succeeded. Regulator guidance on how the new powers will be used has been promised, but this has no special status in law.
The Pensions Regulator is not the only possible prosecutor in Clause 107 offences, as the noble Lord, Lord Hutton, eloquently pointed out in Committee. My noble friend Lord Howe explained that the Secretary of State would prosecute only as a last resort, such as if the regulator ceased to exist or changed. I find it hard to envisage that in such circumstances the whole of the current pensions legislation would not be changed.
I think that it is necessary to confine those who might commit these two new offences to connected parties; otherwise, many other persons might unwittingly, or unintentionally, become exposed to prosecution. For example, the fund manager of a pension scheme, in handling investments entrusted to him by the trustees of the scheme, might make investments or realise sales that negatively affect the value of a pension fund’s assets.
I think that these amendments are very sensible and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply.
The Deputy Speaker
The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, has withdrawn. Have we had any success in finding the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra? Alas, no, in which case I call the Minister, the noble Earl, Lord Howe.
Earl Howe (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Noakes for tabling these amendments to Clause 107 and for the helpful conversations that we have had about them in recent days.
I start by saying that the Government understand the genuine concerns that have been raised during Committee and by my noble friend through these amendments. The first point that I would like to make —I think that it is necessary for me to make it—is that, in introducing the new criminal offences, the aim is to target individuals who intentionally or knowingly mishandle pension schemes or endanger workers’ pensions by behaviours such as chronic mismanagement of a business or avoiding pension liabilities. It is not the aim to frustrate legitimate business activities where they are conducted in good faith.
The key point is the one that I made in Committee: that it is an offence only if the person intended to harm the scheme or should have known that the conduct would have that effect and they have no reasonable excuse for their actions. The decision on whether a person does or does not have a reasonable excuse and ultimately did or did not commit an offence in a particular case is a matter for the courts. However, in coming to such a verdict, the courts will have paid due regard to all the circumstances in the individual case in question. That, of course, includes coming to a view on whether the person’s excuse for acting in that way was a reasonable one. The burden of proof on that question falls on the Pensions Regulator. In other words, the Pensions Regulator would need to prove that the actions of the individual were unreasonable.
The other dimension of the issue is that it is important that, where the elements of an offence are met, no matter who has committed it, the regulator should be able to respond appropriately. Any restriction of the persons potentially in scope would create a loophole for those people to act in such a way.
Having said all that, we are aware of the concerns raised by industry and by noble Lords. To address those concerns, I draw the House’s attention to the general prosecution policy which the regulator already publishes and which sets out the matters that it considers when using its prosecution powers.
My noble friend mentioned the regulator’s guidance. The regulator has stated that it will also issue further specific guidance explaining its approach to prosecuting the new offences under Part 3. Before it does so, the regulator will consult the industry on the contents of the guidance for the new offences, and it expects to publish this guidance prior to the commencement of these provisions.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, I first thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this short debate. I was pleased to get support from my noble friends Lady Neville-Rolfe, Lady Altmann and Lord Trenchard.
I am grateful for what my noble friend the Minister has said, in particular that Clause 107 is not aimed at legitimate business activities conducted in good faith. He went on to say that there were other activities which might harm the defined benefit scheme but that they would be caught only to the extent that there was not a reasonable excuse. We will come back to that being the heart of the problem because there is no real comfort about what is included in “reasonable excuse”. We are invited to rely on future guidance on prosecution issued by the Pensions Regulator and guidance on how the regulator would approach the reasonable excuse.
I say to my noble friend that the pensions advisory industry has not always found guidance issued by the regulator helpful in guiding, as opposed to giving warnings about what the Pensions Regulator does not like. I do not think there is a lot of hope that that guidance will necessarily put an end to the uncertainty—and, at the end of the day, we are left with major uncertainty hanging over business until cases come before the courts and we see what the Pensions Regulator does in practice.
Having said that, as my noble friend knows, I never intended to divide the House and am grateful for what he has been able to say today. I will want to reflect on it further with those who have helpfully provided briefing on this. I know that some parts of the industry may want to stay in dialogue with the Government as the Bill goes forward. We will obviously have Third Reading in your Lordships’ House, but the Bill is a Lords starter and it will be taken in another place. So, while for today I will withdraw my amendment, and while I believe that we have made a lot of progress, we may not have made quite enough in making people comfortable that the range of transactions which could potentially be caught by this will not unintentionally fall within the ambit of Clause 107. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
The Deputy Speaker
We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 50. I remind noble Lords that Members other than the mover and the Minister may speak only once and that short questions of elucidation are discouraged. Anyone wishing to press this or the other amendment in this group to a Division should make that clear in the debate.
Clause 109: Duty to give notices and statements to the Regulator in respect of certain events
Amendment 50
Lord Vaux of Harrowden
“( ) In particular, the declaration of a share buy-back by the employer is a notifiable event for the purposes of subsection (1) if the value of the assets of the scheme is less than the amount of the liabilities of the scheme.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment makes the declaration of a share buy-back by a company notifiable to the Pensions Regulator if the scheme is in deficit.
Lord Vaux of Harrowden [V]
My Lords, in moving Amendment 50 I will also speak to Amendment 51 in my name. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Bowles and Lady Altmann, for their support and the Minister and officials for the time they have given to discuss the issue on a number of occasions.
Both these amendments relate to a similar concern: shareholders of companies with pension deficits removing excessive value from companies and thereby increasing the risk relating to their pension schemes. We had a long discussion about this in Committee, so I shall try not to duplicate that too much, but I will briefly explain the issue for those coming to this for the first time. I suggest that events since Committee have conspired to make the matter more rather than less relevant.
The Bill introduces a requirement that the regulator should be notified in advance of notifiable events and that the notification should be accompanied by a description of how the notifiable event might impact the pension scheme and what is being done to mitigate that impact. The Bill does not say what those notifiable events will be; they are to be prescribed in future.
However, it is understood that the Government intend these to be, first, the sale of all or a material proportion of the assets or business and, secondly, the granting of security on a debt in priority to a debt of the scheme. An email I received from the regulator describes the purpose of the notifiable event regime as being to act as an early warning system so that it is alerted to corporate actions that may have a detrimental impact on the scheme and that it may otherwise not have been aware of.
The easiest way for shareholders to remove value from a company is through either a dividend or a share buyback. While the regulator will be able to find out about these after the event, it has no way of seeing them in advance. Once the money has gone, it is too late; it is very hard to recover, especially if it has gone abroad. We have seen high-profile examples of companies going under after large dividends have been paid, leaving pension schemes with deficits—BHS and Carillion being just the two most high-profile ones. It is not a theoretical risk and, sadly, recent events have made such situations only more likely.
The Government rightly argue that we should not restrict the payment of normal, reasonable dividends; I completely agree with them. Restricting the payment of normal, non-excessive dividends could have a negative effect on the company and therefore on the pension scheme. Anyway, many dividends end up in pension schemes. It is only excessively high dividends, compared with the deficit repair payments, that I am trying to catch here. Even then, I am asking only that they be notified in advance so that the regulator can consider whether they have a negative impact on the pension scheme. I am not trying to block them, despite some noble Lords wishing that were the case.
Secondly, the Government also rightly argue that we should not overburden the regulator with too many unnecessary notifications. Again, I agree with them, so I have changed the amendment we discussed in Committee so that Amendment 51 now allows the regulator to set the level of dividend at which it should be notified. Share buybacks are a less common action, so I suggest that they should always be a notifiable event.
Amendment 50 simply says that any company with a pension deficit should notify a share buyback to the regulator in advance. Amendment 51 says that a company with a deficit should notify the regulator in advance if the dividend is bigger than the deficit repair contribution and the deficit repair period is longer than a period to be specified by the regulator.
It is interesting to note that if a company borrows more than £50 million under the Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme, the Government forbid it to pay dividends, make a buyback or pay a bonus. They have taken that view presumably because they are worried that if it pays a dividend or a buyback it will increase the risk of non-payment of the loan.
By contrast, we are allowing companies that owe large sums to their pension schemes and deferred salaries to their employees to pay whatever they want without even a notification. That feels slightly like “one rule for us”. I do not think that the Minister will accept these amendments, and I would prefer not to push them to a Division. The Bill allows the Government to prescribe events as notifiable events in the future. The noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, has kindly confirmed to me that the Government will keep the issue of dividends and share buybacks under review, and take appropriate action if they or the regulator feel that they are becoming a potential problem. If the Minister could kindly confirm that understanding for the record, I will not seek to divide the House over these amendments. I beg to move.
Baroness Altmann [V]
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, for moving these two important amendments. I have added my name to Amendment 50, which requires share buybacks to be notified to the regulator if a company is responsible for a pension scheme in deficit.
The case for accepting this amendment seems quite overwhelming. The noble Lord has been extremely reasonable in only requiring notification of a buyback. Equity buybacks are sometimes used by companies to distribute to shareholders what is considered surplus cash where management believes that it has no better use for that money. That suggests that sometimes, management believes that the current share price is undervalued. Of course, the buyback improves reported earnings per share and flatters financial statements, but these measures are sometimes used as a yardstick to determine top executives’ pay or bonuses. Many receive a large element of their compensation in the form of stock options, and a buyback can offset the dilution of existing share values and any potential reduction in earnings per share that might otherwise come from their options. Therefore, buybacks could be considered a ploy to boost reported earnings per share or share price levels.
It should be remembered that although the buyback may increase earnings per share, it does not increase the fundamental value of the company. Even more worrying, sometimes, companies engage in buybacks funded by increased borrowing. One of the reasons given for taking on the increased debt to fund such a buyback is that it is more efficient, because the interest on the debt is tax-deductible, unlike with dividends. However, clearly, this will reduce the financial resilience of the company when the debt must be repaid or the gearing level rises, leaving less money available to fill a pension deficit.
A company’s financial difficulty results from lack of cash, not lack of profits, and for a company which sponsors a defined benefit pension scheme with a deficit, the buyback would allow shareholders to enjoy rewards at the expense of pensioners. Ultimately, if the cash has gone into buying shares, it is no longer available to fill the deficit. The buyback itself cannot be argued to generate future growth, because a company’s investing its cash in the business would be a reason to suggest that it will be better off as a result of that decision. However, where spare cash is simply given to shareholders to boost share prices and potentially boost management remuneration, this requires some oversight by the regulator.
Baroness Noakes
I shall be brief. I indicated that I want to speak on these amendments because I am concerned about the impact that they would have on companies’ ordinary transactions. Part of the problem would be that there is no distinction between ordinary dividends and something that might be regarded as an excessive dividend.
The noble Lord, Lord Vaux, has taken the approach of saying that share buybacks are always less common and always have to be referred to the regulator but other distributions of capital by way of dividend are not. Life is never that simple; if you are sitting in a boardroom deciding on dividend policy, there is clearly an approach to ordinary ongoing dividends. Then there is what you do with surplus capital, which can go by way of either a special dividend or a share buyback. I do not know how this amendment could possibly differentiate between those.
When one gets into the detail of Amendment 51, which tries to set a level at which so-called ordinary dividends would trigger the potential interest of the regulator, we could potentially get into problems. I do not think that it would be healthy to have major uncertainty hanging over companies undertaking their ordinary approach to the distribution of profits alongside what might well already be a well-defined deficit repair plan with contributions already agreed with the pension trustees, and then have something on top be required to go to the Pensions Regulator. The definition of what the regulator should be interested in will end up with a lot of things being notified to the regulator that, frankly, cause no concern at all. I do not think that that is an efficient way to approach life.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe [V]
The noble Lord, Lord Vaux, has adapted his amendments to meet some of the concerns that we all expressed in Committee, for which I thank him, but I am afraid that I am still not happy with the two amendments that he has tabled. For example, nearly all pension schemes are in deficit. Amendment 50 would allow the Pensions Regulator basically to stop all buybacks, which is a matter not for this Bill but for a governance Bill—following proper review and consultation—because buybacks can be justified in some circumstances and we have not had a chance to debate that.
The coronavirus measures, with which a parallel was drawn, are unique and different—that has been made clear in parliamentary agreement to them—so it is better to leave the arrangements to ministerial discretion, as the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, suggested. We have to remember that, however good the regulator is, he or she introduces delay and uncertainty, so we need to make sure that the powers are used with care.
Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted [V]
My Lords, I declare my interests as in the register: I am a non-executive director of London Stock Exchange plc, which has a pension scheme of which I am not a member.
I have signed both amendments, which are about getting priorities right on the matter of how a company uses spare cash and the importance of paying down deficits, especially if it is over too long a time. If there is spare cash around, deficit reduction should rank ahead of share buybacks and be balanced with regards to dividends. Both those issues have already been well elaborated, especially by the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, and the noble Lord, Lord Vaux.
The amendments would not prohibit either of those eventualities; they would make them notifiable events. The regulator could then exercise discretion about whether there were good reasons; for example, checking that, in the circumstances, the quantum of the dividend was acceptable. I am less certain about good reasons for buybacks, but if there were any, they could be discussed. I therefore support the amendment. To deem it excessively cautious would not be to take it as it is intended. Although we say that the matter would need to be investigated, we would expect the Pensions Regulator to be reasonable in all the circumstances. For example, if everybody had fallen into big deficits, obviously the situation would be different, because of what was going on in the markets, from where a company was being a laggard in making up its deficits. However, we must not forget that if those deficits are not repaid and the company is under stress, it will be the workers and the pensioners who lose out in the end. They cannot always be put at the end of the queue.
Baroness Sherlock [V]
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, for returning to this issue. We all know that there are some DB schemes with significant deficits and employers who could be doing more to clear them more quickly. Let us not forget the work done by LCP, which showed many firms paying out dividends 10 to 20 times their pension deficit payments, or the regulator’s annual DB funding statement last year, which raised concern about the disparity between dividend growth and stable deficit repair contributions.
The problem will not disappear. As more DB schemes have closed, they will soon be paying out more in pensioner payments, leaving them less to invest and with a need to de-risk their remaining investments.
The Covid pandemic is going to make things worse. The Pensions Regulator reports that, so far, only around 10% of schemes have agreed a temporary suspension or a reduction in DRCs post Covid, but more trustees and employers are in the process of discussing possible requests to suspend or reduce contributions. We all know that the full force of the economic storm has yet to hit us.
The noble Lord, Lord Vaux, mentioned the no-dividend rules for Covid business loans. The regulator’s Covid-19 guidance on defined benefit scheme funding and investment says that, if trustees face requests to suspend or reduce contributions, then they should seek mitigations. It gives an example, saying:
“All dividends and other forms of shareholder distribution to stop throughout the period of suspension and not to start again until the deferred or suspended contributions have been paid.”
TPR will still require trustees to report agreements to suspend or reduce contributions and provide information on the mitigations.
Ministers say that the regulator can chase employers if resources are taken out that should not be taken, but we know what the danger is if action is taken only after a dividend has been paid out. If the dividends are paid out by a UK employer to an overseas parent, it can be very difficult to get them back. It is entirely possible, in these difficult times, that if a company is in trouble and its parent company is based overseas, there may well be a move to repatriate assets to the home state. These amendments seek to tackle that problem not by stopping dividends or even buybacks where there is a deficit but by making them a notifiable event in certain circumstances.
The noble Lord, Lord Vaux, has softened his amendments, but he has still made a compelling case. Therefore, if the Minister does not want to accept these amendments, can he tell the House how he will ensure that the next BHS or Carillion scandal will not be a company with a foreign parent seeking to repatriate assets before abandoning its obligations to the pension scheme? I look forward to his reply.
Earl Howe
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, for tabling these amendments to Clause 109, which brings us back to an issue that we debated at some length in Grand Committee. It would be helpful to consider these amendments together, as they seek to make the declaration of a dividend or share buyback the subject of a notice and accompanying statement to the Pensions Regulator and trustees of the pension scheme. In the case of a share buyback, this notification would be required where the value of the assets of the scheme was less than the amount of the liabilities. In the case of a dividend, notification would be required if the amount of the dividend exceeded the annual deficit repair contribution and the amount of the annual deficit repair contribution was less than a percentage of the scheme’s deficit. That percentage would be specified by the Pensions Regulator.
I understand where the noble Lord is coming from, but I will address his concern with an explanation of Clause 109. The purpose of the clause is to make sure that the Pensions Regulator and trustees of a defined benefit pension scheme have prior knowledge about corporate transactions or events of which they would otherwise have been unaware and that pose a risk to the scheme and ultimately the Pension Protection Fund. The clause would also ensure that the trustees work with employers to mitigate the effect of such risks.
The Pensions Regulator and the trustees of the pension scheme are able to access information about dividends and share buybacks already. There are well-established processes whereby the regulator is able to get the information that it needs on dividends and similar payments as it assesses covenant strength and the ability of the employer to make contributions to deal with any deficit. Adding additional notifications of the kind that the noble Lord is suggesting is unlikely to be of any help. What it would certainly do is put an unnecessary burden on both employers and the regulator.
The regulator simply would not have the resources to deal with these additional notifications. That is not a trivial point: let us remember that it is a risk-based regulator and must focus its resources where it can do most good. We think that this focus is best directed at ensuring that recovery plans are robust. That is the best way to ensure that schemes are treated fairly. It is the strength of the recovery plan that is key here. Of course there will be occasions when dividends are paid without the regulator’s knowledge, but even if the regulator had been able to prevent that from happening, that would not help the scheme. That is because there is no requirement for the sponsoring employer to pay anything into any scheme deficit other than what is set out in the recovery plan.
Lord Vaux of Harrowden [V]
My Lords, I thank all those who have taken part in this short debate. While I do not entirely agree with the Minister on everything he said, I do agree that a strong recovery plan is the most critical element of making sure that deficits are dealt with. I part company with him on the idea that taking excessive dividends out does not impact on the ability of companies to strengthen the deficit repair plans. However, I thank him for the confirmation that he has given, which I asked for in my earlier speech. On that basis, I am content to beg leave to withdraw Amendment 50 and not to move Amendment 51.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Henig) (Lab)
My Lords, we now come to the group beginning with Amendment 52. I remind noble Lords that Members other than the mover and the Minister may speak only once, and that short questions of elucidation are discouraged. Anyone wishing to press this amendment, or any other amendment in the group, to a Division should make that clear in debate.
Clause 118: Qualifying pensions dashboard service
Amendment 52
Baroness Drake
“( ) Requirements prescribed under subsection (2) must include a requirement that a pensions dashboard service may not include a facility for engaging in financial transaction activities.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment ensures that a pensions dashboard service does not include a provision for financial transaction activities.
Baroness Drake [V]
My Lords, Amendment 52 is in my name and those of my noble friend Lady Sherlock and the noble Baroness, Lady Janke. The Bill enables the introduction of an ecosystem of public and commercial pensions dashboards. When built, the dashboard service will find and display, for view by all individuals, all the information about their occupation, personal and state pensions in one place. The Secretary of State can mandate all pension providers and schemes, including the state, to release their data on an individual. That mandate will cover the financial data of many millions of people.
The intention is that the dashboard will contribute to better decision-making by individuals about their long-term savings. Unfortunately, the evidence shows that that will not automatically translate into engagement and good decision-making by everyone. Structures will need to exist around the dashboard which support people making choices and protect them from detriment. That is why Amendment 52 is important. The amendment ensures that a dashboard service should not go beyond the finding and displaying for view information on a consumer’s savings into allowing financial transactions to take place through the dashboard before Parliament has had the opportunity to consider the matter and approve this through primary legislation.
The long-term savings market is particularly vulnerable to consumer detriment, because of the asymmetry of knowledge and understanding between the consumer and the provider, consumer behavioural biases, the complexity of products, and the irreversible nature of many pension decisions. There is a plethora of reports from different regulators confirming this. Allowing transactions on commercial dashboards, such as the transfer of assets, could provide new opportunities for detriment. The impact of scams, mis-selling, provider nudging and poor decision-making could increase if an individual’s total savings are displayed in one place, the dashboard allows financial transactions, and the wrap of consumer protection is not fit for purpose. For some vulnerable customers, poor decisions could be more costly if the impact is across all their savings, and if people are scammed, they could be scammed out of everything.
Before transactions are authorised, Parliament needs to understand how the dashboard is driving behaviours, of both consumer and provider, and how consumers will be protected. In this market, the consumer demand side is weak, and, increasingly, regulatory focus is on provider supply-side controls to protect consumers’ interests. Commercial dashboards could make it much easier for firms that have attractive front-end offerings to capture consumer assets through, for example, encouraging early consolidation and the transfer of pension pots. It is to be remembered that pension transaction decisions are mostly irreversible, and poor decisions can be financially life-changing in their impact.
Dashboards are not a silver bullet for removing consumer risk. Most individuals do not proactively engage with their pensions until they have to. When they do, they can be price insensitive and vulnerable to nudging, inertia and judgments detrimental to their retirement income. We now see that vulnerability in the drawdown market following the introduction of pension freedoms, as the FCA has confirmed.
Consumers reveal powerful behavioural biases which have more impact on financial capability than lack of knowledge and information. They take what the FCA describes as the “path of least resistance”, even in the face of information available to them. If someone is looking to consolidate all their savings, rather like Alice and the Drink Me bottle, if there is a button on the provider’s commercial dashboard that is marked “Transfer All Savings”, they are more likely to press it.
The FCA rules have not prevented mis-selling. Regulated advice failed the Port Talbot steel workers. The FCA report on the financial advice market’s support to pensions does not make good reading. In a dashboard service which allows financial transactions, protecting individuals’ data, and who can hold, access and use it, are questions of major importance. This amendment does not argue against allowing financial transactions longer term over the dashboard, but it recognises that the consumer protection issues are of such importance and magnitude that the decision to allow transactions must be preceded by the approval of Parliament. Neither Government nor Parliament can be agnostic on the matter. The state supports the long-term saving system with more than £40 billion of tax relief and mandates employers to enrol millions of workers into a pension scheme.
The Government must ensure that the dashboard service makes a positive contribution to retirement income outcomes for the consumer and the public good of the UK. I am arguing that people should have the freedom to make good decisions and be protected from poor decisions that they cannot reverse. This is something that the FCA often tries to do, and I am sure that if one put the issue to some of those Port Talbot steel workers, they would agree. Some of those steel workers learned a cruel lesson: poor pension savings decisions are irreversible. In Committee on 2 March, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, commented:
“I do not believe that I expressed a categorical Government intention to include transactions on the dashboard. I said that we would make that incremental step only after the most careful consideration and public consultation, and assessment of all the risks. I freely acknowledge that risks exist in that quarter.”—[Official Report, 2/3/20; col. 209GC.]
My case, and the sheer weight of the evidence, is that such are the potential risks that Parliament itself should have its say and that scrutiny by secondary legislation in the affirmative is not sufficient. Furthermore, the very nature and extent of the protections required may, because of their nature, require primary legislation. This is not an area of settled policy and it is a matter of significance for many millions of citizens. I hope that the Minister will accept the amendment. If he does not, I intend to push it to a vote. I beg to move.
Baroness Altmann [V]
My Lords, I have little to add to the wise words of the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, on Amendment 52. There are significant dangers should there be an easy transaction button on a pensions dashboard right from day one. However, perhaps I may speak briefly to my own amendments, which have been kindly supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles: Amendments 56 and 59.
Amendment 56 is probing in nature and seeks to amend Section 119 of the Pensions Act 2004 to provide that regulations may be imposed that would require information from occupational pension schemes to dashboards to be accurate and up to date. Further, the amendment would ask the regulator to impose requirements for regular data audits, accuracy checks and error correction reports.
Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted [V]
My Lords, I shall speak briefly to each amendment in this group. The noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, has a series of amendments on data accuracy—there was also one in the first group—which I have signed. It is important to have accuracy, especially when there are matters of significant value and security. Ensuring that records are accurate and are kept up to date should be in-built from the start of operations, and as the dashboard is starting out there is no reason not to take that precaution.
I have expended time and energy tracing and correcting inaccurate records on pensions and with banks. Key causes of corruption and inaccuracy have been that information was not transferred accurately, or sometimes was not entered accurately in the first place but particularly when legacy systems did not join up with a new system. It is immensely important that pensions information is not lost or inaccurate, as that can also open the door to potential scams or other sales pressures built around tracking pensions or correcting pension data.
With regard to the pensions dashboard, I agree with what has already been laid out by the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, so I will not repeat it. Transactions are the dangerous point. They are certainly not where the focus should be as dashboards are set up and their operations tested, but it is going to be very tempting for commercial dashboards. Commercial companies may find a way to get around that, but this information would give the FCA as the regulator a direct guide to what is to be expected so that it could take action against any circumvention of the intentions of the amendment. I therefore support all the amendments in this group.
Lord Vaux of Harrowden [V]
My Lords, I support all three amendments. The grouping is slightly odd, mixing the question of transactions with that of data accuracy; there is a relationship but it is only tangential. The noble Baronesses, Lady Drake, Lady Altmann and Lady Bowles, have already explained the reasoning for the amendments so I shall try to be brief.
Amendment 52 would prevent a dashboard service from engaging in financial transactions. The matter has been well explained by the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, so I will just say that the risks around pension-related transactions happening without proper advice are very well known. Dashboards are being created primarily for the purpose of allowing people to obtain better information about their situation. That information will be helpful when deciding whether to carry out some transactions but it does not in any way negate the need for proper advice, so allowing dashboards to become transaction platforms would make ensuring that proper advice had been taken much more difficult. At least until they have been fully established and the implications well understood, it really must make sense to prohibit dashboards from becoming transactional platforms.
The other two amendments along with Amendment 13, which was discussed in the first group, are about establishing appropriate processes to ensure the accuracy of the data on the dashboard. It almost goes without saying that a dashboard containing inaccurate information may actually be more damaging than no dashboard at all; I apologise for the echo of something else there. These dashboards are intended to help people and their advisers to make decisions about their future pensions. Inaccurate data will lead to wrong decisions being made. It is therefore critical that data must be fully and regularly checked and audited, so I urge the Minister to accept these amendments.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe [V]
My Lords, as noble Lords know, I am as concerned as anyone with consumer protection. I therefore welcome the amendment which we have agreed to during the passage of the Bill to ensure that the Money and Pensions Service provides a public-owned dashboard. That was a great step forward, and we will come on to that on the next amendment.
However, I fear that this amendment could stop commercial experimentation, which is desirable if properly regulated. As I understand it, any organisation providing a pension dashboard must achieve authorisation from the FCA. Innovation is important and can help consumers and pensioners. If the amendment were passed, it could have a chilling effect and prevent innovation until another Bill had cleared Parliament—not, I suspect, a welcome prospect for HMG after the extent of the amendments made to this Bill.
I have a question for the Minister. I am a little concerned about compliance with GDPR, which obviously is important in securing equivalence in the EU context, where portability is a key requirement. I wonder if the amendment could run us into any trouble on that aspect of regulation.
Baroness Janke [V]
My Lords, I support Amendment 52. I also support the other two amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, as a result of the matter being much debated in Committee, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, for her clear analysis of the issues involved.
Many would say that pensions dashboards are long overdue. They enable people to plan their future finances taking account of existing pensions, and to take a long-term view of future financial provision. However, the challenge of producing a dashboard that will adequately cover the complexity of the pensions landscape should not be underestimated. We are talking about millions of people, and the enormous number of lost pensions that we hear about shows both the need for and scope of the task. Given the level of complexity, the scope for scams and fraudulent actions increases and it is therefore essential that members of the public are sufficiently protected.
As many noble Lords have said, the vulnerability of many people means that they can be much more susceptible to scams and bogus claims and apparently attractive offers from the commercial sector. The additional factor that digital literacy and access can be problematic for some people also needs to be considered. That and the lack of sound advice can lead to bad decisions and life-changing, irreversible mistakes, as we heard from the noble Baronesses, Lady Drake and Lady Altmann, in Committee.
Pensions is a complicated subject; it is not easily accessible by everyone. Lack of engagement, which has already been talked about, is a result and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, said, people often take the line of least resistance and take wrong decisions that they are unable to change. I hear the arguments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, about innovation. Certainly, it is an important factor, but I feel that the protection of pension holders is more important. Measures to provide full protection should be the subject of further primary legislation rather than secondary legislation, as indicated in the Bill.
Baroness Sherlock [V]
My Lords, I will deal first with the data issues. There are known to be problems with data quality in many pension schemes that need to be addressed. The regulator has rightly been pushing trustees to improve the accuracy of their data and to evidence that they are doing so. But as we move to a world of pension dashboards, with a consumer’s savings all being displayed in one place and the expectation that behaviour will be influenced by it, data accuracy and standards are key, so I hope the Minister will take to heart the issues raised today.
On transactions, done well, a pensions dashboard can be a really useful service, helping savers to locate lost pots and see all their different pensions in one place—state and private—and work out if they are saving enough for retirement. But there are big risks, especially because the Bill leaves almost every aspect of the dashboard service wide open. In Committee, we tried to put some boundaries around this. We tabled an amendment to insist that there must be a public dashboard from the outset, and I am delighted to see the government amendment now requiring that. Another of our amendments required the FCA to regulate the provision of dashboard services; again, Ministers confirmed that that would happen. Another of our amendments proposed that using the dashboard to see your own data must be free, and Ministers confirmed that it would be. We have come a long way and I am really grateful to the Government for engaging with our concerns.
But two important issues are still outstanding, and they are addressed in this and the next group. As my noble friend Lady Drake explained so well, Amendment 52 would stop delegated powers in the Bill being used to authorise commercial dashboards to engage in transactions. We simply believe that the risks of this are such that Ministers should have to come back to Parliament and seek further authorisation before going down that road. Remember, we still do not know how many dashboards there will be, who will run them or what information can be put on them. We do not know where liability will lie for each link in the chain or how consumers will be compensated if they lose out. We do know that there will be a public dashboard and that the Government want commercial dashboards running alongside it from the start.
But let us think for a moment. If a company cannot charge to look at a dashboard, why would they create one, unless they can profit from it in some other way? How might that be? Could a company show a consumer their data and say, “Look, you’ve got all these different pots. Wouldn’t it be tidier if your brought it all over into this fund here, which my firm happens to run?” Could they fund it by taking advertising? Could a consumer log on to a commercial dashboard and see an advert popping up, inviting her to connect with an adviser, or saying, “Have you ever thought about equity release?” There are even risks just in presenting data in a way that could privilege some kinds of assets over others, depending on who is running the scheme.
This is a risky market—a point that my noble friend made very well. Those who sell complicated pension products generally know and understand a lot more about them than those who buy them. Let us remember the history of financial services mis-selling—from personal pensions through to endowment mortgages, to the PPI scandal, as a result of which, firms are likely to end up repaying up to £50 billion to consumers. The average pension pot is worth rather more than the average PPI policy. The dashboard project could extend to some 22 million people. It is a powerful tool.
Earl Howe
My Lords, I begin by turning to Amendment 52, tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Drake and Lady Sherlock. We have been clear that the initial aim for dashboards is simply to present people with information about their existing pension provision, whether that be the state pension, occupational pensions or personal pensions. Giving people the opportunity to see that information in a single place will represent a significant achievement. The pensions dashboard programme published papers in April that identify the scope of this initial offer, and it announced recently that the call for input on these proposals will start in early July.
The concern raised by the noble Baronesses relates to transactions. It is worth reminding ourselves that people can already undertake all kinds of financial transactions online, such as transferring existing pension pots between providers or consolidating small pensions into a single account. However, any organisation offering such services must meet existing regulatory requirements. In relation to pension transfers, these include requirements designed to ensure that people understand the potential consequences of undertaking these transactions.
These legislative requirements arise from the Pension Schemes Act 1993 and a member’s statutory right to transfer their cash equivalent to a pension scheme of their choice. Clause 125 seeks to amend that statutory right by creating safeguards to give trustees and scheme managers assurance that such transfers are to safe destinations. I do not think that the noble Baronesses, or indeed anyone who spoke today, gave sufficient credit to those provisions. Any such functionality would also have to navigate other existing legislative requirements, including those set out by Section 48 of the Pension Schemes Act, which require members with a cash equivalent value in a defined benefit scheme greater than £30,000 to seek financial advice. Members with guaranteed annuity rates must be sent personalised, tailored risk warnings before they are informed that they must take such advice.
In addition, I ask the noble Baroness to take into account the Government’s amendments to Clause 125, which will add a further series of safeguards. By taking a regulatory power to notify members to take guidance and information where a transfer meets prescribed circumstances, selected “at-risk” members will have to pause their transfer and demonstrate they have taken action to consider the risks of proceeding. Therefore, it is not fair to portray the Government as ignoring consumer protection.
Alongside this, we have been totally clear that any organisation wishing to provide a pensions dashboard must first complete an authorisation process, overseen by the Financial Conduct Authority. Once it has been authorised, it will be subject to the existing regulatory requirements for that activity and for any other activity it has the regulatory permissions to carry out. Where applicable, this may include the new protections offered by Clause 125 of this Bill.
The decision on whether transactions will be allowed on dashboards is not one we will take lightly. First, we need to understand how users respond to initial dashboards offering a simple “find and view” service and, subsequently, what additional needs users may have where dashboards could add value. Any decision to enhance the functionality of dashboards would have to be supported by extensive user testing as well as a review of the existing consumer protections to ensure that all necessary safeguards are in place to protect the consumer. We would also need to consider the legislative implications of such actions. Any application to transfer made using dashboards would be subject to the transfer requirements set out in primary and secondary legislation that are in force at the time of the application.
I strongly believe that Amendment 52 is the wrong way to go. It would deny people the right to take control of their financial situation. It actively seeks to frustrate. It would mean that consumers, even when properly advised and informed, would have to follow a parallel track to execute their wishes. It may even go so far that it could stop dashboard providers developing useful modelling tools that could, for example, inform people of the potential benefits of increasing their contributions or the impact of increased earnings. This amendment risks stifling future innovations that could demonstrably benefit consumers. My noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe made that point very effectively.
As I have indicated, this amendment completely fails to take into account the existing regulatory regime under which many types of financial transaction are already regulated. The Government have been clear that we want to enable consumer-focused innovation; as I have said, we will always ensure that safeguards are progressed in line with this innovation.
My noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe asked whether our proposals risk contravening any GDPR rules. I remind her that only the Money and Pensions Service and qualifying pensions dashboard providers that meet the requirements set out in regulations and operate to agreed standards will be able to connect to the dashboard infrastructure, so the request will effectively be a subject access request from an individual to the data controller to view their data. The individual’s identity will have been verified to the agreed standard level so that the pension scheme can be confident about who is making the request. Any request to search for consumers’ pensions information that is not received from the pension finder service will not be provided via pensions dashboards.
Turning to Amendments 56 and 59, tabled by my noble friend Lady Altmann and the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, we agree that the accurate recording and management of pensions data is important. That is why the Pensions Regulator set out its expectations on record-keeping in 2010. It provided additional guidance in 2017 and 2018 to support trustees and scheme managers in measuring and improving their data.
The regulator already expects schemes to conduct annual reviews of their data that cover presence and accuracy, that trustees engage with administrators to identify and prioritise data for improvement, and that they report their data scores so that the regulator can monitor improvements and target its engagement with schemes. The Pensions Regulator has increased its scrutiny of scheme records and has targeted regulatory intervention based on reported data scores. Previous interventions have seen positive results.
The Financial Conduct Authority also has relevant requirements in place. Under its general compliance requirements in the FCA handbook concerning senior management arrangements, systems and controls, firms are required to
“establish, implement and maintain adequate policies and procedures sufficient to ensure compliance of the firm including its managers, employees and appointed representatives (or where applicable, tied agents) with its obligations under the regulatory system”.
As a result, when the FCA makes rules to compel schemes to provide data via dashboards, these will have to comply with this provision; we expect the rules themselves also to set out that the data must be accurate. In addition, the Financial Conduct Authority has the power to make further rules relating to data accuracy so long as it advances one or more of its operational objectives and is consistent with data protection legislation.
Alongside those requirements, the Minister for Pensions and Financial Inclusion recently wrote to some of the largest pension schemes, providers and third-party administrators to galvanise the industry’s approach to data accuracy and readiness for dashboards. The Minister requested a status report on the quality of their scheme data and, accordingly, their plans to improve it. The Government will feed the findings into the pensions dashboards programme to support their efforts. Schemes will be required to meet a clear set of data standards to connect to the dashboard system; these will be finalised in the autumn.
In addition, the programme will work with the regulators to develop a comprehensive onboarding strategy to support schemes in preparing their data ahead of their connection to the dashboard infrastructure. These activities seek to ensure that dashboards are a success by achieving the necessary coverage and that the data supplied is accurate and clearly understood by the user.
With those assurances and explanations, I hope that my noble friend will feel able not to move her Amendments 56 and 59 when they are reached.
Baroness Drake [V]
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have supported Amendment 52. I say to the noble Earl that nothing in my amendment would deny any of the things that he listed. That is simply untrue. It seeks to say that Parliament should have the authority to clear taking transactions on to a dashboard system. The noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, captured it quite succinctly: transactions are a key risk danger point and require attention in that sense.
The noble Earl does not deny that there are risks. The difference between us is that I believe that the scale and implications of those risks, and the unknown evidence that is yet to come forward from our experience of the dashboard, are such that this should not be dealt with by regulations or secondary legislation. It should be dealt with by Parliament clearing enabling legislation to allow people to transact on dashboards. That is the thrust of my amendment; it is not to deny people freedoms. This is not without precedent. It was Parliament that intruded to insist that charge caps should be applied to pension savings pots. In spite of the arguments articulated against that, the industry has survived perfectly well and everybody has gone on to thrive under charge caps on pension schemes.
In moving my amendment, I did not put forward a single argument saying that the Government were neglecting consumer protection. Ironically, a lot of the protections that the Government are introducing are to deal retrospectively with the consequences of introducing pension freedoms without a protective consumer wrap. It would be sensible not to make the same mistake twice.
The issue here is that the scale of the potential risks—the unknowns of what behaviour will be like on the dashboard—are such that, in my view, it is perfectly reasonable to say that that issue should come back to Parliament for clearance through primary legislation rather than through regulations or secondary legislation. I wish to press my amendment to a vote.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Henig) (Lab)
I shall now put the Question. We have heard a Member taking part remotely say that they wish to divide the House in support of this amendment; I will take that into account. The Question is that Amendment 52 be agreed to.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)
We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 53. Anyone wishing to press this or any other amendment in this group to a Division should make that clear in the debate.
Amendment 53
Lord Young of Cookham
Member’s explanatory statement
This is a probing amendment, following the debate in Committee, to establish the Government’s proposals to use GOV.UK Verify for the purpose of authorising access to the Dashboard.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con) [V]
My Lords, Amendment 53 in my name presses the Government to clarify progress on identity verification. This is crucial because without a system for identity verification—proving you are who you say you are—no one can use a dashboard. The original proposal for verification was summarised on the ABI website:
“The process to confirm the identity of users is based on the gov.uk/verify system”.
Verify was a government-sponsored IT project that began in 2014 and has cost about £200 million. It should have provided the basis for accessing pensions dashboards. To put it mildly, however, it has not lived up to expectations, leaving a void in the dashboard programme.
Last year the NAO published a critical report on what in its words was
“intended to be a flagship digital programme”.
It said:
“Even in the context of GDS’s”—
the Government Digital Service’s—
“redefined objectives for the programme, it is difficult to conclude that successive decisions to continue with Verify have been sufficiently justified.”
A year earlier, the Infrastructure and Projects Authority recommended that Verify be closed as quickly as practicable. The Institute for Government’s Whitehall Monitor commented that the scheme continued to be “mired in issues”, had fallen “short of targets”, and had
“failed to build its intended user base and … is not delivering the efficiencies that the government sought.”
In March this year the Government stopped funding the scheme. Verify’s falling out of favour was heralded by my noble friend in his reply to my amendment in Committee. This is what he said:
“I understood what my noble friend said about Verify, and I assure him that the industry delivery group has this issue squarely on its radar.”
Putting on his black cap, he went on to say:
“The solution may not be Verify. … We hope to make announcements on that in due course.”—[Official Report, 2/3/20; col. GC 205.]
Responsibility for taking identification verification forward now rests with MaPS, the Money and Pensions Service. In its progress report in April on identity verification, there is no mention of Verify, which seems to have been airbrushed out.
Yesterday, I got an email from Mr McKenna of MaPS, for which I am grateful. I had asked him whether the current market engagement exercise on the dashboard included verification, and this is the reply:
“The current market engagement exercise does not include identity verification. This is a separate work strand within the programme that requires more work before we will be in a position to engage with the supplier market.”
So a prerequisite for the dashboard programme has been put to the back of the queue. Who is going to provide the identity verification service? Given the commitments that we have heard this evening that the service will be free, how on earth will it be funded? Will it be by MaPS, for example? Is my noble friend able to make the announcement that he trailed in his earlier reply to me, on the timing and funding of this crucial element in the programme?
Amendment 65, in my name, places an obligation on MaPS to provide a dashboard by replacing “may” with “must”. It is the identical twin of an amendment that I tabled in Committee, and I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Altmann and the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, for their support. To the amateur, our one-word change seems a more economical way of achieving the desired objective than the five government amendments with thousands of words, but we bow before the expertise of professional drafters. I say straight away how grateful I am, as I am sure other noble Lords are, that the Government have listened to the strong case made on all sides in Committee, and recognised that we need the certainty of compulsion, rather than the uncertainty of discretion, when it comes to MaPS and the dashboard. That we have this concession is typical of the patient listening of Ministers and their officials in the last three months, on this and other issues, and I warmly welcome it.
But—and it is an important “but”—there is no date by which they have to do this. Without some idea of timescale, we could be left holding the menu without ever getting the dish—hence my Amendment 68, which obliges MaPS to complete this task by December 2022. I referred in Committee to the length of time it has already taken to get this project up and running. It was first promised by Government in 2002 as an online retirement planner, and we were told 12 years later by the then Financial Secretary to the Treasury that:
“A ‘RetirementSaverService’ (dashboard) will be essential to support pension freedoms.”
Five years after pension freedoms, there is still no dashboard, while eight national dashboards have been launched in Europe and we have been reassured by the ABI that there has been extensive testing of prototypes.
In response to my amendment in Committee, my noble friend Lord Howe said,
“but I can tell my noble friend that MaPS and the industry delivery group intend to set out their approach for the year ahead by Easter. By then, we should have at least the outline of a plan, with milestones I hope, so that we can be a little clearer on the answer to the question that he raised.”—[Official Report, 28/2/20; col. GC 184.]
Easter has come and gone, but no milestones. The latest from MaPS is:
“We plan to lay out a more detailed timeline by the end of the year.”
I looked at the ABI website over the weekend to see if it had updated it on the subject of the dashboard since Committee, and I found this under “FAQ”:
“If the prototype has worked, why do I have to wait until 2019 to use this myself?”
Perhaps that could be updated before Third Reading.
Since Committee, MaPS and the ABI have had to cope with the pandemic, and their top priority has to be the continued payment of pensions, the collection and investment of contributions, and the provision of advice. But the introduction of “must” instead of “may” risks being meaningless without some indication of a date by when the obligation must be discharged. I hope that my noble friend can provide some sort of road map and destination time by which we will do this.
Finally, Amendment 63, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, would require the MaPS dashboard to be up and running for a year before other dashboards. My initial view was that we did not need to have more than one dashboard as the data displayed on each would be identical, so why duplicate? However, as a Conservative, I was persuaded to support competition and choice, but I have a lot of sympathy with this amendment; I believe it would be best if MaPS became the brand leader of dashboards and was well established as such in the minds of the public. It has a better chance of doing this if it is first out of the traps, rather like the BBC and commercial broadcasters. In practice, this should be the case as MaPS is in charge of the plumbing for all the dashboards.
Looking at the progress update report from MaPS in April, I see that Chris Curry of MaPS is in charge of the pension dashboards programme. His remit will be to develop the secure digital architecture to support and enable the development of pension dashboards. Therefore, MaPS is doing the specification, procurement and testing of the common systems that everyone will be using; with this inside track, it ought to be first in the field.
The Minister said in reply to the debate on this in Committee:
“It could be that the publicly funded dashboard will be launched first and be first in class, and that others will follow.”—[Official Report, 26/2/20; col. 185GC]
It would be helpful if the Minister could go a little further this evening and encourage MaPS to say publicly that it is indeed its intention to be up and running before anyone else. On this, as indeed with other amendments, I will listen very carefully to what my noble friend says in reply. I beg to move.
Baroness Drake [V]
My Lords, the introduction of a pension dashboard service raises major considerations of the public good and consumer interest, which is why I, my noble friend Lady Sherlock and many other noble Lords across the House have argued strongly for citizens to have the right to access their data through a public dashboard and not be restricted to commercial services.
I thank the Minister for his courteous consideration of our arguments and the decision of the Government to require the Money and Pensions Service—MaPS, a public body—to provide a pension dashboard service. Amendment 63 would ensure that the MaPS public dashboard must have been in operation for a year, and the Secretary of State must lay a report before Parliament on the operation of that service, before commercial dashboards are authorised by the FCA to enter the market. A MaPS dashboard would be part of their function to deliver guidance to the public that is free at the point of use—a safe space, unfettered by any commercial interests.
As the Government can mandate all pension providers and schemes to release personal financial data on the order of 22 or more million people, Parliament needs to be confident that the public good and consumer interest are well served. The points of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, are extremely valuable and important, and I thank him for making them. Financial technology should be harnessed for the public good and to improve financial markets, and the dashboard has that potential.
However, building a dashboard service has complexities and challenges. The architecture, the liability model, consumer redress on detriment, data standards and sharing risks, identity verification and security—that quite rightly preoccupied the noble Lord, Lord Young—delegated access and consumer behavioural responses, to name just a few, are all work in progress. As I observed in the previous debate:
“The long-term savings market is particularly vulnerable to consumer detriment”.—[Official Report, 26/2/20; col. 176GC]
There is a major governance challenge to be addressed: the consumer protection of millions in both the provision of the dashboard and the infrastructure that supports it.
The ABI, speaking for some commercial providers, has acknowledged the need for strong governance to make clear what obligations, liabilities and controls will be in place and are necessary. In requiring near-universal coverage, the dashboard service raises the bar on protecting customers from poor behaviour by regulated and unregulated providers, scammers and consumers’ own vulnerability, when all their savings can be viewed in one place.
Baroness Altmann [V]
My Lords, I want to speak briefly in support of Amendment 63. I have also added my name to Amendment 65. As the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, has just outlined, consumer protection has to be paramount. There has to be significant concern that, once a dashboard is up and running, we will need to learn lessons before further activity takes place. If we have a public service dashboard for a minimum of a year, we will have chances to learn lessons that otherwise might not be learned—particularly in light of such issues as data concerns, types of protected benefits and requirements for MaPS guidance. I am most grateful to the Minister for accepting the concept of requiring MaPS advice or guidance before any transfers. This is an important issue. I therefore hope that the Government will recognise the necessity of ensuring that private dashboards do not start before the public dashboard has been tried, tested and reported upon in Parliament.
The principle of Amendment 68, tabled by my noble friend Lord Young, is right. I would just advise caution on the issue of data accuracy and the lack of data standards, and the fact that it may simply not be possible for a dashboard and the data to be ready in the timescale he is suggesting, but the thrust of it and having an end date is absolutely the right way forward.
Lord Vaux of Harrowden [V]
My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 63 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock. This amendment is very simple. It seeks to ensure a period of a year from the establishment of the publicly operated dashboard before competing commercial dashboards are allowed to operate. This may seem a small point, but it is quite important. Dashboards are a new concept and will include large amounts of sensitive and complex data from many sources. We do not yet know how they will used, whether the current design concepts are suitable in practice and whether changes will need to be made to ensure that they operate well and safely. Therefore, it must make sense for the system to be tried out in one place, with proper controls, and reviewed and reported upon, before we open it up to the commercial world. This period of a year will allow us to see how a dashboard is used and whether any unforeseen problems and consequences arise.
I am grateful to the ABI for its commentary on the amendments to this Bill, but I am afraid that I disagree with it on this matter. The ABI is right that making dashboards as accessible as possible is desirable, but that must be done in a way that ensures that unforeseen consequences are avoided. As I mentioned in an earlier debate today, a bad dashboard is worse than no dashboard. A year’s grace period to ensure that what the noble Lord, Lord Young, called the plumbing is working well, and to make any tweaks, seems a common-sense safeguard.
Lord Sharkey [V]
My Lords, I have put my name to Amendment 63 because it is vital to allow the MaPS dashboard the best possible chance of reaching a wide public and establishing MaPS as a trusted and independent operator. This amendment would provide the MaPS dashboard with a head start of about 12 months. Without that, I doubt that MaPS would be able to do any of those things very successfully. I doubt that it could establish a wide customer base. If it is competing from the start with rival commercial organisations and their dashboards, those rival dashboards, whose eventual presence I would welcome, would be provided by organisations that have more resources than MaPS does, more consumer-facing expertise and more experience and skill in communications with consumers. Many would also have a very large existing consumer contact base, firmly established brands and loyalty, whereas MaPS would find it very hard to establish itself as a distinct, recognised and trusted independent operator in the clamour of a vigorous competitive marketplace. You need market share, visibility and actual customer experience to do that. That is probably impossible for MaPS in a very busy, very fragmented and possibly very confusing marketplace.
To make the MaPS dashboard work, we need lots of people to know about it and lots of people to use it. If we are to generate trust, we must provide high levels of consumer satisfaction and embed the notion and value of independence in the MaPS brand. The only way to do this is to allow MaPS a head start, to properly fund its launch and its communication campaigns, and to give it time to use what it learns in its first year. That would enable it to offer a very high level of service by the time that the huge marketing expertise of its well-funded and contact-rich competitors arrives on the scene. That is why I support Amendment 63.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe [V]
I welcome my noble friend Lord Young’s probing amendments on verification and timing, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister. I was very struck by the summing-up on the previous amendment by my noble friend the Deputy Leader of the House, who showed just how strong the Bill is on consumer protection and to what lengths the Government have gone to meet the House’s concerns. But others have just tried to use the Bill to bring in yet more burdensome measures.
For me, Amendment 63 takes the biscuit, because the Government have agreed to bring in a Money and Pensions Service dashboard so that there is a government, public-funded version that includes people’s various pension pots and the old-age pension. The proponents of this amendment are then trying to exclude the trail-blazing commercial version, which was behind the Bill in the first place and is designed to help savers, building on the good practice that exists out there in the best pension funds and elsewhere. The amendment would lead to a delay of a year for those dashboards, yet they will all be properly regulated and monitored and MaPS would be in the lead. Competition from others will be an incentive to quality and speed, helping to identify the bugs that the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, who knows so much about pensions, referred to.
I cannot support this amendment. It is worrying that the Government are losing on a series of inappropriate amendments because noble Lords are not coming to the House to speak and listen, but can vote from their garden benches.
Baroness Janke [V]
I support Amendment 63 and am not voting from a garden bench. The case for this amendment has been very well stated and I will therefore not take up time by repeating it here. I support Amendment 63 and will vote for it if there is a Division.
Baroness Sherlock [V]
My Lords, this has been another interesting debate. Before I address the question of the dashboard, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Young, who has been deploying his considerable stores of intellect and wit as he has politely but determinedly pursued Ministers on the matter of verifying and identity verification. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to him yet again.
I am delighted that Ministers have now agreed to ensure that there will be a public dashboard and that it will be available from launch. I welcome the government amendments in this group, but Amendment 63, in my name and that my noble friend Lady Drake and others, aims to push the Government an extra step further: to put in place an essential safeguard that the MaPS public dashboard must have been in operation for a year, and the Secretary of State have laid a report before Parliament on the operation and effectiveness of the service, before commercial dashboards are authorised by the FCA to enter the market.
I am sorry to hear that the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, regards this amendment as inappropriate, and that she somehow seems to think that people were using the Bill as an opportunity to bring in other things. The only reason that we have had to table amendments to place safeguards is because the Government have brought forward proposals without adequate safeguards in the first place. I have certainly never voted while on a garden bench and I have more confidence that my fellow Members of the House of Lords are listening to the arguments and able to make an intelligent judgment. I hope that they will feel able to support us on this amendment, as they did on the last.
I am, however, grateful for the support of the noble Lords, Lord Vaux and Lord Sharkey, the noble Baronesses, Lady Altmann and Lady Janke, and the kind words of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham. The case for this amendment has been made overwhelmingly by my noble friend Lady Drake and other speakers, so I will not rehearse it in detail, but I was struck by her summary of the many complexities and challenges still to be dealt with in the dashboard project. These are building the architecture, sorting out the liability model, deciding how to compensate consumers for a detriment, managing data standards and data-sharing risks, identity verification and security, and behavioural responses. Basically, there is a lot yet to be decided, designed, operationalised and tested. The Government’s plan is to do all this with a public dashboard and commercial dashboards running alongside each other from the launch. It is our contention that that simply unnecessarily increases the risk.
Earl Howe
My Lords, there was general agreement in Committee that pension scheme members should have access to a dashboard service that is publicly owned and free of potential commercial imperatives. As we set out in Committee, the Government wholeheartedly agree that such a dashboard should be available to all users from day one, alongside dashboards offered by other organisations. We explained that the single financial guidance body, now known as the Money and Pensions Service, can provide a dashboard under its existing statutory functions, but I accept that the Government could provide further reassurance in legislation.
The government amendments reflect this commitment by placing a duty on the Money and Pensions Service to provide a pensions dashboard. The dashboard must display information from private and occupational pension schemes. These amendments also enable the inclusion of state pension information.
In addition, these amendments repurpose the provisions that were in new Section 4A(1)(b), as inserted by this clause, as new Section 4A(1A). The original purpose of these provisions, however, is unchanged. They make it clear that the Money and Pensions Service can carry out functions relating to the provision of qualifying pensions dashboard services by others as part of its pensions guidance function, including providing state pension information. This could, for example, include publishing data standards with which providers must comply.
The amendments also make minor consequential changes to Clauses 119 and 121, as well as to Schedule 9, which relates to Northern Ireland. The duty to provide a pensions dashboard will apply only once the necessary supporting technical architecture is in place and pension schemes are required to provide information to their members via dashboards. I therefore very much hope that the government amendments will be accepted when they are moved.
I will now respond to the amendments tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Sherlock and Lady Drake, on the Money and Pensions Service dashboard being the sole dashboard for at least 12 months. The Government have been clear throughout that offering consumers a choice of dashboards is the best way to increase engagement. Our position on this has not changed. Allowing consumers to access their pensions information in the way that they want to is key to putting people in control of their savings.
Having a period of exclusivity for the Money and Pensions Service dashboard, as is being suggested, would seem to achieve relatively little, other than to restrict people’s access to their own information through a route of their choosing. However, what we will not allow to happen is for any commercial dashboard to be launched before that of the Money and Pensions Service. I would like to be clear that the Money and Pensions Service dashboard will be available from day one, alongside dashboards offered by other organisations.
I invite the noble Baroness to note that the Money and Pensions Service has an existing legislative requirement, in the Financial Guidance and Claims Act 2018, to report to the Secretary of State annually on the achievement of its objectives and functions. This report is also laid before Parliament and will provide detailed information about the development, delivery and operation of dashboards.
The noble Baroness, Lady Drake, asked me about the liability model and whether we can guarantee that it will be ready before commercial dashboards can be used. The pensions dashboard programme will develop a robust liability model to ensure that there are clear roles and responsibilities in the event of a breach. This will be in place before the public launch of dashboards.
I hope I have given reassurance that there will be a publicly owned dashboard and that there is a range of reporting requirements that allows sufficient oversight of progress, not least in making sure that the functionality which will underpin all dashboards can be relied upon. I have to say that some noble Lords rather over-egged the argument of functionality risk.
The long and the short of it is that we remain strongly of the belief that multiple dashboards are the best way to ensure that everyone can access their pensions information in the way that they desire. Therefore, I respectfully ask the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, not to move her amendment when we come to it.
My noble friend Lord Young has tabled three amendments, covering the Money and Pensions Service dashboard, a date for the introduction of that dashboard, and the verification of identity. I am glad he agrees that the government amendment fully meets his desire for the Money and Pensions Service to provide a dashboard. On providing a timetable for delivery, we are all keen to see dashboards available as soon as possible. However, it is essential to get the design of the service right, to ensure that it provides accurate information and is secure and consumer focused.
On that point, I can assure my noble friend that the pensions dashboard programme put in place by the Money and Pensions Service is taking the necessary steps to deliver the dashboard architecture. In April, it published two papers relating to data. Having deferred consultation on these papers because of the impact of Covid-19, the programme will now run a call for input throughout July and August. It is also bringing together a data working group to finalise a set of data standards and requirements by the end of the year.
The programme is also making progress on the supporting dashboard infrastructure. On 22 June, it started a six-week market engagement exercise with potential suppliers of the supporting dashboard architecture for the pensions finder service and the governance register. This will help the programme to determine the most appropriate route to market in preparation for a formal procurement process, anticipated to start in autumn this year.
Finalising the data standards and the procurement route is key to informing the timetable for delivery. However, it is essential that we do not force upon the Money and Pensions Service an arbitrary timetable set by legislation. I hope that, on reflection, my noble friend will come round to that view.
I understand that my noble friend wants to maintain momentum, and I agree with that. Alongside the annual report by the Money and Pensions Service, which I mentioned, the pensions dashboard programme has committed to publishing a progress update every six months, for the length of the programme. It will also set out a detailed timetable for delivery by the end of the year.
My noble friend also brought us back to the issue of digital identity and how a user of a dashboard is verified. In the March 2020 Budget, the Government reiterated their commitment to the creation of a ubiquitous digital identity market. To achieve this, they created the digital identity unit, which is a collaboration between the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Cabinet Office.
As my noble friend rightly said, an identity verification service is an essential component of the dashboards infrastructure. It will provide the verification required to assure pension schemes—the data providers—that they are returning data to the correct user and to nobody else. The verification service must also meet the needs of users, enabling them to verify their identity without undue difficulty.
On a point raised by my noble friend about funding, I say that the pensions dashboard service, including ID verification, will be free at the point of use for individuals. The identify verification service for dashboards will be managed centrally as part of the supporting infrastructure, as I indicated. Funding options will be carefully considered as part of any proposed solution on identity.
As outlined in the progress update report published in April, the pensions dashboard programme will need to source a functioning, workable identity verification service. It is working with the digital identity unit and the supplier market to explore potential solutions for dashboards. These solutions will be based on managing and mitigating the type of risks associated with dashboards. Developing their requirements will enable the pensions dashboard programme to assess the suitability of available products against robust success criteria.
I say to my noble friend that we understand the need for progress on the delivery of dashboards; we recognise the need for a safe and secure method for verifying someone’s identity, and we understand how important this will be for the success of the dashboard concept. While I can go no further than that, I hope that I have said enough to convince him that his concerns are squarely on the radar, and that he will accordingly feel able to withdraw his Amendment 53.
The Deputy Speaker
I have received no requests for noble Lords to speak, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Young.
Lord Young of Cookham [V]
My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, not least my noble friend Lord Howe for his response to the issues raised. I repeat the welcome given by all those who spoke to the government amendments, which in effect oblige MaPS to provide a dashboard. I make it clear that I do not propose to press any of the amendments in my name to a Division.
On identity, I note the new joint unit between DCMS and the Cabinet Office to come up with a digital verification process. It sounds a little like the exercise that was started in 2014 to initiate the Verify programme, which had the same objective. I only hope that this initiative is more successful.
On funding, there was a sentence in my noble friend’s response that I did not have time to write down in full, but it sounded as if it came from the Treasury: that funding options would be considered as part of a range of solutions. I would like to look a little further at that, but I welcome the reassurance that there will be no charge to the consumer. I am grateful that he recognised the importance of getting the identity verification process right as a precondition for a successful dashboard.
On the date, I say with respect that we heard a lot from my noble friend about “day one” but nothing about “day when”. We are no further forward in having any idea as to when the pensions dashboard will be up and running. I look forward to the six-monthly progress reports and I welcome what he said about recognising the urgency of getting the system up and running.
I think that we had a new commitment from my noble friend this evening which I welcome, which was that no one would be able to provide a pensions dashboard before MaPS. I am not sure that we have had that before. I wonder whether there will be some legislative underpinning of that commitment, which I would very much welcome.
The bulk of the debate was on Amendment 63. The majority of those who spoke, led by the noble Baronesses, Lady Drake, Lady Janke and Lady Sherlock, my noble friend Lady Altmann, and the noble Lords, Lord Vaux and Lord Sharkey, all wanted, in the interest of consumer protection, MaPS to have a head start so that it could be trialled and tested. My noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe put the contrary view that there should be a more market-based approach to the dashboards without an inside track for the public sector. I do not propose to support the amendment in a vote, but my view is that it would be best if MaPS made it absolutely clear that it plans to be up there, using all its advantages, ahead of the field to set the pace. However, I understand the arguments and I suspect that when it comes to a Division the Government may be obliged to rethink whether this is something they really want to go to the stake on, or whether it is something that they can live with. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 53.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential upon the Minister’s amendment at page 117, line 6.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential upon the Minister’s amendment at page 117, line 6.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment corresponds to the Minister’s amendment at page 108, line 32.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment corresponds to the Minister’s amendment at page 108, line 36.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential upon the Minister’s amendment at page 117, line 6.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential upon the Minister’s amendment at page 117, line 6.
“(A1) The single financial guidance body must provide a pensions dashboard service by means of which—(a) information that the trustees or managers of a relevant occupational pension scheme are required to provide by—(i) regulations under section 238D(1)(a)(ii) of the Pensions Act 2004, or(ii) regulations under Article 215D(1)(a)(ii) of the Pensions (Northern Ireland) Order 2005 (S.I. 2005/255 (N.I. 1)), and(b) information that specified authorised persons are required to provide by general rules under section 137FAA(1)(a)(ii) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000,may be requested by, and provided to, an individual or a person authorised by the individual.(A2) The single financial guidance body may, by means of its pensions dashboard service, provide information about—(a) state pensions,(b) basic and additional retirement pensions, and(c) state pension information relating to an individual.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment requires the single financial guidance body (the Money and Pensions Service) to provide a pensions dashboard service to deal with information from occupational and personal pensions schemes. It also enables the body to include state pension information in its pensions dashboard service.
Baroness Drake
“(A3) Before any other pension dashboard services can qualify under section 238A of the Pensions Act 2004 (qualifying pensions dashboard service)—(a) the pensions dashboard service under subsection (A1) must have been established for at least one year, and(b) the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a report on the operation and effectiveness of the pensions dashboard service under subsection (A1) in its first year.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment ensures that the publicly owned pension dashboard service has been operating for one year and the Government has reported to parliament on its operation and effectiveness before commercial dashboard services can qualify.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Henig) (Lab)
I should inform the House that if Amendment 64 is agreed, I cannot call Amendment 65.
Amendment 64
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential upon the Minister’s amendments at page 117, lines 6 and 25.
“(1A) The single financial guidance body may carry out other functions relating to pensions dashboard services, including functions for which provision is made by—(a) regulations under section 238A of the Pensions Act 2004 or Article 215A of the Pensions (Northern Ireland) Order 2005 (S.I. 2005/255 (N.I. 1)) (qualifying pensions dashboard services),(b) regulations under section 238D of the Pensions Act 2004 or Article 215D of the Pensions (Northern Ireland) Order 2005 (S.I. 2005/255 (N.I. 1)) (information from occupational pension schemes), or(c) general rules under section 137FAA of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (information from personal or stakeholder pension schemes).” Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment enables the Money and Pensions Service to carry out functions relating to pension dashboard services, including functions for which provision is made by the regulations or general rules, whether relating to pension scheme information or state pension information.
“(1B) The functions of the single financial guidance body referred to in subsections (A1) to (1A) are part of its pensions guidance function.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment secures that the functions of the Money and Pensions Service referred to in the Minister’s amendment at page 117, line 6, and the Minister’s other amendment at page 117, line 25, are part of its pensions guidance function.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential upon the Minister’s amendments at page 117, lines 6 and 25.
““relevant occupational pension scheme” has the meaning given by—(a) section 238F of the Pensions Act 2004, in relation to England and Wales and Scotland, and(b) Article 215F of the Pensions (Northern Ireland) Order 2005 (S.I. 2005/255 (N.I. 1)), in relation to Northern Ireland;“specified authorised person” has the meaning given by section 137FAC of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000;”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential upon the Minister’s amendment at page 117, line 6.
The Deputy Speaker
My Lords, we now come to the group consisting of Amendment 71. I remind noble Lords that Members other than the mover and the Minister may speak only once and that short questions of elucidation are discouraged. Anyone wishing press this amendment to a Division should make that clear in debate.
Clause 123: Funding of defined benefit schemes
Amendment 71
“(2) In exercising any powers to make regulations, or otherwise to prescribe any matter or principle, under Part 3 of the Pensions Act 2004 (scheme funding) as amended by Schedule 10, the Secretary of State must ensure that—(a) schemes that are expected to remain open to new members, either indefinitely or for a significant period of time, are treated differently from schemes that are not;(b) scheme liquidity is balanced with scheme maturity;(c) there is a correlation between appropriate investment risk and scheme maturity; (d) affordability of contributions to employers is maintained;(e) affordability of contributions to members is maintained;(f) the closure of schemes that are expected to remain open to new members, either indefinitely or for a significant period of time, is not accelerated; and(g) trustees retain sufficient discretion to be able to comply with their duty to act in the best interests of their beneficiaries.”Member’s explanatory statement
The liquidity profile of an open and active scheme that is receiving regular, significant cash contributions is very different from a closed scheme. This amendment seeks to ensure that they are treated differently accordingly.
Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted [V]
My Lords, this amendment revisits the issue of open direct benefit schemes on which discussions started in Committee; I thank the noble Lord, Lord Young, and the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, for supporting it. Nowadays, those with defined benefit pensions are regarded as the lucky ones, yet there are still millions of people in thriving open DB schemes where, if you start work today, you can join.
However, these are under threat because the Pensions Regulator does not recognise the substantial difference between open and closed schemes. An open scheme is open at both ends. It has no end date and is open to new members, providing a continuing supply of new contributions, including from future members. Cash flow is steady state or positive, giving inherent liquidity and allowing assets to be used to generate returns. A closed scheme is closed at both ends. It does not permit new members. Contributions progressively dwindle to zero and it has a finite end date when everyone in the scheme has died. Closed schemes have a progressively ageing member profile, often or usually negative cash flow and to pay the pensions, the assets must provide liquidity and are progressively consumed.
Examples of open pension schemes include local authority pension funds, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and the Railways Pension Scheme. The different classes of open and closed schemes require different investment, risk and liquidity strategies. A low-risk liquid investment strategy is more appropriate for closed schemes where the loss in asset values would impair a model that relies on asset consumption as it moves to its end date. They cannot risk running out of assets too soon and recovery from losses on dwindling assets is difficult.
The same strategy does not need to be applied to open schemes. With a pipeline of new and younger members, assets do not need to be liquid, are not inherently dwindling, and a far longer investment horizon is possible. An investment risk profile of the type generally classed as balanced rather than risk-averse can safely be followed, including real assets such as infrastructure. As an example, the Railways Pension Scheme invested in the Carraig Gheal wind farm in West Argyll and the Sleaford biomass plant, providing both environmental and local community benefits. This type of investment brings higher returns and the contributions from the members and the employers remain affordable. If open schemes are needlessly pressed to have the liquidity and risk profiles defined for closed schemes, it is inevitable that they too will close due to unaffordability: start the run-down, jeopardise employer companies and employees will lose out, pay more, or both.
The reason for this amendment is that, although open schemes and run-on is given as an acceptable strategy in Annex F of the impact assessment, the Pensions Regulator is developing a strategy that requires both open and closed schemes to have a de-risking profile, without adequate recognition of the different natures of the schemes. The regulator’s DB code suggests treating accrued benefits the same in open and closed schemes of the same maturity, which fails to recognise the difference in the models that I have just explained. One open scheme may have a greater or lesser age maturity of its members than another open scheme, but it is not comparable in risk and liquidity terms to a closed scheme of identical member age profile because both ends are open. It is perpetual and new members and cash flows come in.
Amendment 71 would add new requirements on the exercise of regulatory powers by the Secretary of State to ensure that regulations on scheme funding, as provided for in Schedule 10, do not fail to recognise the characteristics of open schemes. Sub-paragraph (a) would require that open schemes are treated differently from schemes that are closed, which means that there should not be a one-size-fits-all policy that disregards the substantial differences that I explained and tries to compare an open scheme with a closed one. It must have its own regime. Sub-paragraphs (b) and (c) list the features of liquidity and investment risk that need balancing with maturity, but also in the light of the perpetual characteristics of open schemes. Sub-paragraphs (d) and (e) specify maintenance of affordability of contributions to both employers and members. Sub-paragraph (f) would require that regulations and principles do not accelerate closures of open schemes—essentially, a do-no-harm requirement. Sub-paragraph (g) states that trustees must
“be able to comply with their duty to act in the best interests of their beneficiaries.”
The effect of treating open schemes as if they are closed would require huge increases in contributions and, at an instant, put schemes in deficit. Dependent on the scheme details, that may not fall only on the employer. For example, the Railways Pension Scheme has a shared-cost approach to funding in which the contributions of the members would substantially increase as well as those of the employer. The Railways Pension Scheme provided me with figures on its strategy, but I understand that other open schemes are similar. For every £1 of pension income received by members, 75p comes from investment gains, with only 25p from contributions. Investments are maintained in a balanced portfolio with equity in the 40% range and only 15% in government bonds, defensive assets and cash. They have consistently met or exceeded investment return requirements.
If that portfolio were switched to gilts, income would crash because the days of 4.5% yields that underpinned conventional wisdom of investing in the long-dated gilts has gone in the wake of global quantitative easing. Where would the Railways Pension Scheme’s missing 75p per pound then come from—a near trebling of contributions? That would lead to closure and worse. The employees cannot afford it, the companies cannot afford it and the fair-paying public cannot afford it. It is not protecting the public’s purse. Why allow that to happen due to an over-simplistic approach? The Government really need to defend open schemes in this Bill. Given that importance, I am minded to press the amendment to a vote. I beg to move.
Lord Young of Cookham [V]
My Lords, I will add a brief footnote to the powerful case made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles. She referred to the Railways Pension Scheme. As Secretary of State for Transport from 1995 to 1997, I am familiar with the scheme, which has grown in the intervening years to be one of the UK’s largest funds and which I believe to be well run.
I shared with my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott the concerns of the RPS; namely, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, has said, that the draft DB funding code that will emerge as a result of this legislation would oblige the various schemes under the RPS to de-risk with lower returns. As the noble Baroness has explained, these would have to be made good by the industry, if it could afford it, or its employees, or the schemes would be closed to new members.
I was encouraged by my noble friend’s helpful reply, dated 17 June, which said:
“Those employers and schemes who are already following good practice and planning for the long term should not need to change and we would not expect such schemes to require significant additional funding.”
However, I shared the letter with the RPS and, despite this, it believes that the powers in the Bill are too loosely expressed and that more specificity would ensure that the subsequent regulations got off on the right track. If the Minister cannot accept the amendment, can he make a commitment that there will be a distinction between open and closed schemes, to be followed up in the subsequent regulations? Will he ask his officials to discuss these concerns further with interested parties in an endeavour to find an acceptable way through as the Bill completes its passage through both Houses?
Baroness Altmann [V]
My Lords, I support Amendment 71, to which I have added my name. I have little to add to the excellent words of the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, and my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham.
I stress to my noble friend the Minister that this is a really important amendment. The Government’s recent White Paper called for pension scheme funding which enables the best deal for members, supports the economy and does not place extra burdens on business. If those are the objectives—and I think they are the right ones—they will be at odds with the draft DB funding code that may emerge from this legislation, which seems to want to drive DB schemes on a path to so-called de-risking, aiming for a particular date of maturity. This concept is simply inappropriate for an open scheme.
The regulatory approach for schemes such as USS or the Railways Pension Scheme would see their ability to invest for the long term, which must be in the members’ best interest, become much more difficult. There does not seem to be sufficient recognition of the difference in liquidity profile and investment horizon of an open, relatively immature scheme compared to a closed scheme. Indeed, this would pose an existential threat to the survival of all remaining 1,000 or so open schemes. In the face of quantitative easing, increasing exposure to gilts and fixed income assets makes little sense while central bank policy is designed to force bond yields lower. Forcing schemes to compete with central banks to buy ever more expensive bonds is the most expensive way to fund these pension commitments.
The Bank of England’s pension scheme is an ideal example. It follows a lowest-risk approach, investing solely in gilts and other such supposedly safe assets. It does not match its liabilities, but it is open and entails a contribution rate of between 40% and 50% of pensionable salary. Should such pension contributions be required without any upside potential for a diversified investment strategy that can take advantage of the wide range of investment options available from infrastructure assets, building housing for rental and other areas where pension schemes with a long-term horizon are ideally placed to take advantage—for example, our own infrastructure, in which other countries’ pension schemes have significantly invested—schemes such as RPMI would require such significant contribution increases that members could not afford it and would opt out, and employers could probably not afford it either.
Therefore, I urge my noble friend to look carefully at this really important issue and to recognise explicitly that there are different needs for open DB schemes relative to those that are otherwise closed.
Baroness Drake [V]
My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 71. Given the hour, the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles of Berkhamsted, with her usual skill, has captured the issues clearly and succinctly. It is clear that there is genuine concern among those running DB schemes which are materially open to new members with strong employers, such as the sections of the Railways Pension Scheme and the Universities Superannuation Scheme. They fear that they will be forced to de-risk unnecessarily, with all the implications that that carries and all the potential detriment for both employers and employees in the scheme.
The amendment seeks to address two issues: first, that it should not be government policy to require trustees of pension schemes materially open to new entrants with strong employer covenants to adopt a strategy that will result in them de-risking their investments unnecessarily and prematurely, for all the reasons that other noble Lords have clearly articulated; and, secondly, that the Secretary of State, in exercising powers under Schedule 10 to make provisions through regulation on the funding of defined benefit schemes, should make provisions that are consistent with the policy in the White Paper statement that running on with employer support could be an acceptable long-term strategy for a materially open scheme. The amendment is consistent with any reading of the government policy in the White Paper, but it seeks to ensure that it happens.
Lord Vaux of Harrowden [V]
My Lords, I had intended to add my name to this amendment, and I apologise that I failed to do so. The noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, has raised an extremely important issue in the amendment and has eloquently set out the reasons.
We are often guilty of looking at defined benefit schemes as a concept that is on the way out—that we are only really talking about the run-out of closed schemes —but that ignores the fact that many DB schemes remain active and open to new joiners. I am very grateful to the Railways Pension Scheme for explaining the potential implications for such schemes of the regulator’s consultation on the defined benefit funding code of practice.
For schemes that are mature or closed and in the run-down phase, it makes complete sense to minimise the risk of the investment strategy so that there is a high degree of certainty that the fund will be able to meet its obligations. The flipside of that, of course, is that a low-risk investment strategy means a low return. That is fine for mature schemes, but schemes that are not mature and still live would suffer from being restricted to a low-risk, low-return investment strategy. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, said, the largest part of benefits paid from a fund typically come from the investment returns earned over its life. If forced to take such a low-risk, low-return approach in order to meet a certain level of benefit, they would have to massively increase contributions from either the employer or the employee or a combination of both. Indeed, I confess that I had not understood that there are DB schemes that specifically share such risk between employers and employees.
A higher-risk investment strategy with the ability to earn better returns is entirely appropriate for schemes that are not mature. I think that it was the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, who, in Committee, raised a concern about hastening the demise of defined benefit schemes. If the regulator, in taking an overly risk-averse approach, insists on too low a risk and a low-return approach for open or immature schemes, they will inevitably become less attractive to employers and possibly to employees. All we will achieve is the hastening of the end of defined benefit schemes, which are the gold standard for pension saving, especially for those on lower earnings.
The amendment is therefore critical to ensure that the regulator takes into account the state of maturity of a fund when looking at scheme funding and to ensure that trustees have sufficient discretion to be able to act in the best interests of their beneficiaries.
Lord Berkeley (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, on bringing forward this amendment. It is vitally important that the many contributors to these open schemes have comfort that these schemes will continue and will provide them with a reasonable level of benefit when they retire. I am grateful to the Railways Pension Scheme for a very useful briefing, which other noble Lords have seen. I myself am not a member of that pension scheme, but I have a large number of friends who are among its 350,000 members. I think it is relevant that 100,000 of them are still active, and that number will probably continue. That will happen, as the noble Baroness said, in the schemes for local authorities, nuclear decommissioning and many other sectors.
The real point is that many of the people contributing to these funds are comparatively low paid. Perhaps the Minister when she comes to respond can explain why the Government think it is a good idea to allow the schemes to require a greater contribution from the members and from the employers for no particular benefit. It seems absolutely clear that open and closed schemes must be treated separately. In ending, I ask the Minister to explain to me and other noble Lords why Ministers are not going along with this amendment. It seems so simple and well thought through, and I will certainly support it if the noble Baroness decides to divide the House.
Lord Snape (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I will confine my remarks to the impact of this amendment on the Railways Pension Scheme, and I join other noble Lords who expressed support for the amendment. As a former railwayman I was a member of the RPS in my younger days, although I was sensible enough—if that is the right term—to transfer to the parliamentary pension scheme when I was elected to the other place many years ago. However, I remain in contact with many of my former colleagues within the railway industry, and certainly they and the trustees of the Railways Pension Scheme have expressed their concern about the impact of this legislation on their future policy.
I remind the Minister that the RPS is a final salary defined benefit scheme that replaced the British Rail Pension Scheme after privatisation in 1993. Successive Ministers since then—among them those as distinguished as the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham—have assured the Railways Pension Scheme that matters will continue pretty much as before, and phrases such as “mirror image” and “the continuation of the present scheme” have been used. To find ourselves in the position that we will be in if this amendment is rejected is, to say the least, something of a surprise.
I have to tell noble Lords that the future of the Railways Pension Scheme is of massive concern among the railway unions, one of which, the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers—I used to be a member of its predecessor, the National Union of Railwaymen—has already balloted or threatened to ballot its members about the future of the scheme. The acceptance of this amendment would go some way to ease the fears that many members of the scheme feel about the future.
However, the trustees of the RPS themselves have expressed concern about the future. Without this amendment being written into the Bill, they feel that the regulations which will follow will force trustees to take short-term investment decisions rather than the long-term and ethical decisions that the RPS takes at the present time. Indeed, one of them passed a comment to me that “We will be forced in the end to buy nothing else but government gilts”—which is probably not an investment path that most advisers would recommend in the current circumstances.
To ensure that the RPS is traditionally able to make long-term and ethical investments, I make this plea to the Minister to write this amendment into the Bill. It may well be that the noble Earl, Lord Howe, says to us, “We hear what you say. We are conscious that there is concern; we will look at this. Of course, many of your fears are groundless, and Ministers will bear all these fears in mind”. However, over the years that I have been a Member of the other place and your Lordships’ House, Ministers have come and gone. The other day I counted that 27 Ministers for Transport have been around in my time in one House or the other. Ministerial pledges are all very well, but times change—not quite as often as Ministers.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe [V]
My Lords, I have little to add, but I very much agree with ensuring that
“the closure of schemes that are expected to remain open to new members, either indefinitely or for a significant period of time, is not accelerated”,
to quote from the amendment. I look forward to hearing from the Minister on how he can meet the House’s concerns.
Lord Bradshaw (LD) [V]
My Lords, I too welcome this amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Bowles to help keep open defined benefit schemes. This is to be applauded, as I believe that they are in the best interests not just of their members but of wider society. Open defined benefit schemes assist UK plc over the long term and reduce the potential burden on the state from inadequate pension provision.
As we have heard, the genesis of this Bill dates back to corporate failures such as Carillion and BHS. It is right that the Government look to address the shortcomings that led to these failures and the losses that members of those schemes unfortunately suffered—but it is important to learn the right lessons. BHS and Carillion were fundamental examples of pension schemes brought down by a failure of corporate governance to manage those companies properly, not of companies brought down by a failure to manage their pension schemes.
Like other noble Lords, I understand the Pensions Regulator seeking to protect members’ benefits, but it should look at defined benefit schemes, because they look to the future. They do not just look in the rear- view mirror but have a much wider responsibility to act in the best interests of all members—past, present and future.
Any moves to significantly reduce those returns by forcing schemes that remain open to new members to start investing in line with the risk profile of closed schemes will have unintended consequences. I shall certainly support the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, if she decides to call a Division.
Lord Sharkey [V]
My Lords, I strongly support my noble friend’s analysis of the one-size-fits-all regulatory threat to open schemes. I also strongly support the proposed remedy, which would ensure proper consideration of the essential differences between open and closed schemes, is proportionate and is not unduly prescriptive. I hope the Minister will respond positively.
Baroness Sherlock [V]
My Lords, we all believe that trustees of DB schemes should have a clearly defined funding and investment strategy for insuring pensions in the long term. However, if that is pursued in a way driven by the need to protect members in closed maturing DB schemes, then schemes with strong covenants open to new entrants risk being swept up in an approach that is wrong for them. As closed DB schemes increasingly mature, the regulator will expect them to de-risk and reduce their deficits. However, if that approach is applied in a blanket form it will force some open schemes to de-risk prematurely, putting pressure on employers and, in the railway scheme with its shared-cost basis, on employees too. Given all the concerns expressed, will the Minister accept this amendment?
Earl Howe
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, for her amendment, which touches on a number of important factors to be considered in the development of secondary legislation, including the factors that it lists. I say immediately that I agree that these are all important factors to take into account when developing secondary legislation for defined benefit scheme funding. However, we do not need an amendment to do that. The amendment includes factors that are all taken into consideration during the whole process of framing policy, legislation and guidance.
One of the greatest strengths of our scheme-funding regime is that it operates on a scheme-by-scheme basis because every scheme is different, and it would be unhelpful and inflexible to treat them all the same. The measures in the Bill build on that approach, as will the secondary legislation. The existing scheme-funding legislation has been drafted to ensure that it is flexible enough to apply to all types of defined benefit scheme—for example, whether open or closed. Equally, the scheme-funding measures in the Bill are flexible enough to apply to all types of defined benefit scheme.
In the protecting defined benefits White Paper we were clear that there are a number of examples for suitable long-term objectives and that running on with employer support would be a reasonable course of action for an open scheme. Whether or not the strategy for ensuring that benefits can be provided in the long term is suitable will depend on the specific context of a particular scheme. Additionally, we entirely accept that schemes with different liquidity profiles and maturity will be able to take different trajectories. This is, and will remain, fundamental to the scheme-specific approach. So I assure the noble Baroness and the House that any regulations will also be formulated with considerations such as those outlined in the amendment in mind, where appropriate.
The big danger with an amendment of this kind is that it creates inflexibility. It remains our aim that the scheme-funding measures in the Bill do not change existing flexibilities but, rather, seek to make best practice universal and ensure that all schemes are planning for the long term. It is good practice for all schemes, including open schemes, to set a funding and investment strategy.
My noble friend Lord Young asked whether I could commit to a meeting along with officials to discuss these issues. Yes, I am happy to do that, and if schemes have concerns with what TPR is proposing they can engage with the current consultation. The Pension Regulator’s current consultation on the defined benefits funding code includes a twin-track compliance process that takes account of scheme and employer circumstances. Indeed, the current consultation has a full chapter on open schemes, and I encourage anyone interested to contribute their views.
Regulation-making powers exist precisely to allow the system to be calibrated effectively to ensure that this balance is struck. While the noble Baroness’s amendment reflects a number of factors that are considered while developing policy, we do not need to specify those in primary legislation and indeed, as I hope I have indicated, it would be unhelpful to do so. We need to leave room for the flexibility that I have emphasised; we must leave enough flexibility in the system to allow it to react effectively to future changes. Indeed, in the light of the current social and economic climate, it is very clear that the economic shape of the future is unknowable.
I hope that the noble Baroness will recognise from what I have said that the Government’s approach is fair and proportionate and that she will accept my assurance that appropriate flexibilities are, and will continue to be put, in place. On that basis I respectfully urge her, and urge her with some emphasis, to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted [V]
My Lords, I thank all those who have spoken in this debate. I particularly thank the noble Lord, Lord Young, and the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, for signing the amendment, for making their contributions and for speaking to the Government. It is clear to see that there is support for the amendment from across the House, and I hope that it is also clearer to everyone why preservation of open DB schemes is in the public interest. We are, in fact, in a rather strange situation where the Minister is in agreement with the policy; it is in government policy, but yet there is a significant danger from what the Pensions Regulator has actually said. That is the sole reason why there needs to be something on the face of the Bill that confirms what is government policy.
The Government have a further opportunity to amend this Bill in a way that they consider is better than my amendment and give guidance in a different way. I would be happy to help, but we have run out of time and I have not heard a suggestion that something will actually be presented at Third Reading. This House does not have any more opportunities with this Bill, and I cannot see anything coming down the track to give us another opportunity that would be in time to make a difference with regard to the Pensions Regulator’s obvious position.
This is not a new argument: I have spent 10 years in Brussels arguing the toss on these things, on the difference between IORPs and Solvency II, and I know where the pressure comes from the former FSA—now the FCA. Part of this Bill, on CMP schemes, is fixing a problem for one newly privatised employer. Why dump others who have found good ways to make their DB schemes flourish and last? If the Government do not make it clear, that is what will happen: they may well end up being dumped.
In the first group of amendments, the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, said that she did not want CMP schemes to undermine DB schemes. Without this amendment or something like it, they may well have nowhere else to go. This is not a nice-to-have amendment; it is vital. The issue should not be swept into the corner for these pension schemes to die quietly, and I wish to test the view of the House.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
(a) that assets are assessed by reference to their exposure to risks of a prescribed description, and(b) that an assessment includes determining the contribution of the assets of the scheme to climate change.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment makes separate provision about assessing pension scheme assets’ exposure to risk and their contribution to climate change.
“(4A) The regulations may require the trustees or managers of the scheme to take into account— (a) different ways in which the climate might change, and(b) different steps that might be taken because of climate change.(4B) Regulations under subsection (4A) may require the trustees or managers of the scheme to adopt prescribed assumptions as to future events, including assumptions about—(a) the steps that might be taken for the purpose of achieving the Paris Agreement goal or other climate change goal, or(b) the achievement of the Paris Agreement goal or other climate change goal.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment enables regulations under inserted section 41A of the Pensions Act 1995 to require trustees and managers of pension schemes to consider different future scenarios, including scenarios involving the achievement of particular climate change goals.
“( ) In this section “the Paris Agreement goal” means the goal of holding the increase in the average global temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels referred to in Article 2(1)(a) of the agreement done at Paris on 12 December 2015.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment defines the Paris Agreement goal which is mentioned in the Minister’s amendment at page 118, line 36.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment ensures that information relating to the effects of climate change includes information about the matters to which regulations under inserted section 41A of the Pensions Act 1995 may relate.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
“(c) the member obtaining information or guidance about exercising the option conferred by subsection (1) from a prescribed person in a prescribed case;(d) providing the trustees or managers with evidence that—(i) the member has complied with a prescribed condition about obtaining such information or guidance from a prescribed person, or(ii) the member is not subject to such a prescribed condition.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment enables regulations under inserted section 95(6ZA) of the Pension Schemes Act 1993 to prescribe conditions about obtaining information or guidance from persons such as the Money and Pensions Service, before the trustees or managers may act on a member’s application under section 95.
“(6ZC) Regulations may make provision requiring the trustees or managers of a pension scheme to notify a member who makes an application under subsection (1) of conditions prescribed under subsection (6ZA).” Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment allows regulations to make provision about requiring trustees or managers to notify members of conditions prescribed under section 95(6ZA) of the Pension Schemes Act 1993.
“(c) the member obtaining information or guidance about exercising the right under subsection (1) from a prescribed person in a prescribed case;(d) providing the trustees or managers with evidence that—(i) the member has complied with a prescribed condition about obtaining such information or guidance from a prescribed person, or(ii) the member is not subject to such a prescribed condition.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment enables regulations under inserted section 101F(5A) of the Pension Schemes Act 1993 to prescribe conditions about obtaining information or guidance from persons such as the Money and Pensions Service, before the trustees or managers may act on a member’s transfer notice under section 101F.
“(5C) Regulations may make provision requiring the trustees or managers of a qualifying scheme to notify an eligible member who gives a transfer notice of conditions prescribed under subsection (5A).”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment allows regulations to make provision about requiring trustees or managers to notify members of conditions prescribed under section 101F(5A) of the Pension Schemes Act 1993.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
(a) that assets are assessed by reference to their exposure to risks of a prescribed description, and(b) that an assessment includes determining the contribution of the assets of the scheme to climate change.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment makes provision for Northern Ireland corresponding to the Minister’s amendment at page 118, line 33.
“(4A) The regulations may require the trustees or managers of the scheme to take into account—(a) different ways in which the climate might change, and(b) different steps that might be taken because of climate change.(4B) Regulations under paragraph (4A) may require the trustees or managers of the scheme to adopt prescribed assumptions as to future events, including assumptions about—(a) the steps that might be taken for the purpose of achieving the Paris Agreement goal or other climate change goal, or(b) the achievement of the Paris Agreement goal or other climate change goal.” Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment makes provision for Northern Ireland corresponding to the Minister’s amendment at page 118, line 36.
“( ) In this Article “the Paris Agreement goal” means the goal of holding the increase in the average global temperature to well below 2°C above pre- industrial levels referred to in Article 2(1)(a) of the agreement done at Paris on 12 December 2015.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment makes provision for Northern Ireland corresponding to the Minister’s amendment at page 118, line 39.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment makes provision for Northern Ireland corresponding to the Minister’s amendment at page 118, line 44.
“(c) the member obtaining information or guidance about exercising the option conferred by subsection (1) from a prescribed person in a prescribed case;(d) providing the trustees or managers with evidence that—(i) the member has complied with a prescribed condition about obtaining such information or guidance from a prescribed person, or(ii) the member is not subject to such a prescribed condition.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment enables regulations under inserted section 91(6ZA) of the Pension Schemes (Northern Ireland) Act 1993 to prescribe conditions about obtaining information or guidance from persons such as the Money and Pensions Service, before the trustees or managers may act on a member’s application under section 91.
“(6ZC) Regulations may make provision requiring the trustees or managers of a pension scheme to notify a member who makes an application under subsection (1) of conditions prescribed under subsection (6ZA).”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment allows regulations to make provision about requiring trustees or managers to notify members of conditions prescribed under section 91(6ZA) of the Pension Schemes (Northern Ireland) Act 1993.
“(c) the member obtaining information or guidance about exercising the right under subsection (1) from a prescribed person in a prescribed case;(d) providing the trustees or managers with evidence that—(i) the member has complied with a prescribed condition about obtaining such information or guidance from a prescribed person, or(ii) the member is not subject to such a prescribed condition.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment enables regulations under inserted section 97F(5A) of the Pension Schemes (Northern Ireland) Act 1993 to prescribe conditions about obtaining information or guidance from persons such as the Money and Pensions Service, before the trustees or managers may act on a member’s transfer notice under section 97F.
“(5C) Regulations may make provision requiring the trustees or managers of a qualifying scheme to notify an eligible member who gives a transfer notice of conditions prescribed under subsection (5A).”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment allows regulations to make provision about requiring trustees or managers to notify members of conditions prescribed under section 97F(5A) of the Pension Schemes (Northern Ireland) Act 1993.
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