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Commons Chamber(3 years, 11 months ago)
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Commons ChamberI remind colleagues that deferred Divisions will take place today on seven statutory instruments in the Members’ Library between 11.30 am and 3.30 pm. Members will cast their votes by placing their completed Division slip in one of the ballot boxes provided. I remind colleagues of the importance of social distancing during deferred Divisions and ask them to pick up a Division slip from the Vote Office and fill it in before they reach the Library, if possible. The result will be announced in the Chamber as soon as possible after the Division is over.
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Commons ChamberThe Government are committed to supporting disabled people affected by the covid-19 outbreak. We continue to monitor the impact of covid-19 on disabled people using existing and new data sources.
Between March and July, disabled people, including people with a health condition or impairment, accounted for almost 60% of all covid deaths, yet a survey of disabled people in Greater Manchester revealed that eight out of 10 were not included in the official Government shielded group, in spite of 57% having significant support needs. With the second wave upon us, what is the Secretary of State doing to ensure that all clinically vulnerable people are shielded and properly supported?
That is a really important point. Through my work as the Minister for Disabled People and in conjunction with the Disability Unit, for which I am responsible, where stakeholders identify challenges around support for those who were shielding, we raise that with the relevant Minister. Obviously, shielding has come to an end, and that is kept under review. We must ensure that people feel safe, particularly those who are seeking to work. We expect employers to act in accordance with the Equality Act 2010. Working with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Health and Safety Executive and ACAS, we are publishing helpful guidance to ensure that there is sufficient support for those who are coming out of shielding and returning to normality.
The charity SignHealth has been working to provide British Sign Language translation for covid sufferers in health settings free of charge since the pandemic began. It has submitted a grant application to the Department of Health and Social Care, but so far that has not been awarded. Will my hon. Friend use his best endeavours with colleagues at that Department to get this apparent blockage shifted? As we seek to avoid a second wave of the virus, we also have to ensure that deaf people who are reliant on BSL as their main form of communication are not disadvantaged in their access to information.
I know that, through my right hon. Friend’s work as Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, there is no stronger advocate for accessible communications. Stakeholders rightly raise this issue time and again, and through the Disability Unit, we have reminded all Departments of the importance of it. It sounds to me like SignHealth has provided a wonderful service. I know that the DHSC values good services, and I will encourage the relevant Minister to look at this personally and respond as quickly as possible.
Before I ask my question, I would like to pay tribute to the many people out there with disabilities who have been helping others during the pandemic. It is important to keep saying that having a disability does not stop someone contributing. However, for many people, their disability prevents them from having a job, and they are dependent on social security payments. Sometimes they have to jump through hoops to prove that they are disabled enough to “deserve” those payments. Face-to-face work capability assessments are on hold right now, understandably, but the wait is causing untold stress, so will the Minister represent the needs of those people to the Work and Pensions Secretary and join me in calling for paper-based assessments to be made available to everyone?
That is a really good question. First, the hon. Lady is absolutely right about people wanting to contribute. If we ask any disabled person, they want to have the same opportunities that anyone else would take for granted. Rightly, we had to suspend face-to-face assessments. We have used paper-based reviews where possible, and we are bringing telephone assessments into the WCA in the same way that we have done with personal independence payments, which is warmly welcomed by stakeholders. In the long term, as part of the Green Paper in the coming months, we will be exploring better ways to reform the assessment and increase the likelihood of being able to do paper-based reviews wherever possible, predominantly where we are able to get better-quality medical evidence.
We continue to fund numerous programmes to increase girls’ and young women’s take-up of science, technology, engineering and maths subjects. The number of girls’ STEM A-level entries has increased year on year, despite an overall reduction in cohort size. Since 2010, there has been a 31% increase in girls’ entries to STEM A-levels in England and a 34% increase in women accepted on to full-time STEM undergraduate courses in the UK.
We know that the new core maths course is highly regarded for both its accessibility and its pragmatism, and therefore it can play a huge part in increasing participation in maths. Can the Minister tell me how we are engaging with female pupils in particular to encourage them to take up this fantastic course?
Our advanced maths support programme, worth £8 million per year, aims to increase the number of girls studying level 3 maths, which includes core maths. Out of more than 17,000 students participating in the programme’s events last year, 55% of attendees were female. We will be using research such as our behavioural insight studies to inform future work on how to get more girls studying maths after GCSE.
My constituency is a world-renowned centre of aerospace and defence expertise, so how can the Government help to encourage more women to take up these subjects and apprenticeships in particular so that we can equip the country and them with the skills we need for the future?
Along with the significant measures that I have mentioned on increasing the take-up of STEM subjects among girls and women, we are also raising awareness of STEM careers through programmes such as STEM ambassadors, 45% of whom are women. The Department for Education is also taking steps to engage with the sector through apprenticeships. On aerospace specifically, we are supporting industry’s efforts to increase diversity in the sector through the women in aviation and aerospace charter, recognising that a more diverse sector is good for business, customers and workplace culture.
In the UK, female employment in the technology industry stands at 16.7% and grew less than 1% in the last 10 years. This is one of the most promising and booming industries, but it is one that women hardly find themselves in. What discussion has the Minister’s Department had with her Cabinet colleagues to provide incentives for technology businesses to employ women?
The Government take this issue very seriously. The Government Equalities Office carries out various studies to encourage women into this sector. We know that there are disparities in gender representation in some sector subject areas. Women still account for 6% and 8% of starts in construction, planning and the built environment and in engineering and engineering technologies. This is a space in which we are working very hard. We continue to consult business and I know that my Cabinet colleagues are also working on this issue.
We are determined to tackle geographic inequality and level up our country. The Equality Hub will look at the data to identify the real barriers that are holding people back.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that geographical inequality has been a neglected strand of the equality agenda?
I very much agree. Often, the differences in wages or employment are greater between regions of the UK than they are in other types of inequality. For example, there is a 28% gap in weekly pay between the north-east and London.
I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. She will be aware that people in Cornwall have for far too long faced a disadvantage of opportunity because of our geography. Will she ensure that among all the loud political noise at this time, levelling up geographical inequalities will remain at the heart of this Government’s agenda?
I agree. It is vital that we level up across the country and make sure that someone’s postcode does not dictate their life chances. As I saw when visiting Cornwall’s growing lithium mining industry last week, there are real opportunities to level up and help Cornwall to grow economically and benefit all the people of that great county.
The Government have taken a number of steps to protect all those who may be disproportionately affected by covid-19 to reduce the spread of the virus. This includes targeted testing of occupations and groups at higher risk, including ethnic minority women. We have also translated the latest information into multiple languages in accessible formats to help to ensure that our public health communications reach all communities across the country.
Women from black and minority ethnic backgrounds are strongly represented in the workforce in our care system, so will the Minister have a strong focus on keeping care workers safe from covid, with a particular emphasis on the higher risk faced by women from black and minority ethnic communities in those jobs?
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right: there are very many BME workers in the social care sector and they must be properly supported. That is why in June, the Department of Health and Social Care published a covid-19 adult social care workforce risk reduction framework to help to manage specific risks to staff, including risk by ethnicity. We are also providing financial support to the Race Equality Foundation to provide additional services to BME communities with dementia during the covid-19 pandemic.
Trade and enterprise are vitally important to women across the world to help them take control of their own lives. That is why we are backing programmes such as SheTrades and Female Founders to support women across the Commonwealth.
Many South Derbyshire residents have concerns about improving the lives of women in developing countries, as they often write to me about this. How will women in developing countries benefit from the trade policies of our Government?
On Sunday, I was pleased to speak at a United Nations General Assembly event on investing in Africa’s female future. Nimco Ali’s Five Foundation was also represented. It is doing great work to tackle female genital mutilation and bring more economic opportunity for women. In the Department for International Trade, we are currently working on trade continuity agreements with countries such as Kenya to help to build trade and help women in those countries to succeed.
There has been a worrying rise in the amount of abuse, harassment and intimidation online, and women are often disproportionately targeted by such abuse. It is completely unacceptable and, in fact, impacts individuals’ rights to participate online. We set out robust measures to deal with this in the online harms White Paper and will be publishing a full Government response to this later in the year.
I am glad that the Minister recognises this point. Almost one in two women report experiencing online abuse since the start of covid-19. However, the Government have delayed the draft of the online harms Bill until, I understand, the end of 2021. Legislation is clearly needed now, so when will the Government bring the Bill forward?
I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is misinformed. We are absolutely committed to making the UK the safest place to go online. The online harms White Paper will set out how we are going to make world-leading legislation. We intend to publish that before the end of the year and the legislation to follow at the very beginning of next year.
We want to make sure that everyone in the UK is free to live their lives and fulfil their potential regardless of their sex, gender identity or sexual orientation. We will soon be hosting the Government’s first-ever international LGBT conference to advance LGBT rights across the world.
After an organisation in Anfield in my constituency was exposed for offering “cures” for homosexuality involving rituals and starvation, the Government gave me a commitment in this House that they would ban these so-called conversion therapies. That was back in 2018 and there is real concern that the new Government are backtracking on LGBT rights. So when will the Government bring forward a ban on these harmful practices, as promised in their own LGBT action plan? Following the Minister’s response yesterday on changes to the Gender Recognition Act 2004, which fell well short of what is needed to secure the rights of trans people in the UK, will she make a full statement in the Chamber to allow proper debate on it?
Conversion therapy is a completely abhorrent practice. We are working to end it. We are currently conducting research and I will be coming back shortly to talk about the future and how we do end it, but it is important that research is conducted. As I made clear in my written statement yesterday, it is very important that we protect transgender rights but also improve transgender healthcare. That is what we are doing by opening more clinics and also making the process of gender recognition certificates kinder and more straightforward.
I would like to make it clear that caste is not a protected characteristic in the Equality Act 2010. Case law has shown that a claim of caste discrimination may already qualify for protection under the race provisions in the Act. We therefore intend to repeal the uncommenced duty in the Act to make caste an explicit aspect of race discrimination as soon as practicable.
I welcome my hon. Friend to her place to answer my regular questions on this particular topic. The fact is that we have had a large-scale consultation of the community. We have had a written ministerial statement making it clear that we are going to remove this protected characteristic from the Equality Act. So I urge her to bring forward, without delay, proposals to remove this unnecessary, ill-thought-out and divisive move in the Equality Act 2010.
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. We do agree with him. The Government completely oppose any discrimination because of a person’s origins, including any perception of their caste, and we do remain committed to repealing the duty as soon as the opportunity arises.
Statutory sick pay is increased annually through uprating, which does not require an equality impact assessment. Individuals requiring further financial support may receive it through the welfare system.
Research by my union, the GMB, has shown that a failure to raise statutory sick pay to Liverpool rates has had serious detrimental effects on particular groups in our society. The status quo is disproportionately harming women workers, older workers, disabled workers, black and minority ethnic workers, workers who hold particular religious beliefs and workers who are married or in a civil partnership. Does the Minister agree that the Government should do an equality impact assessment of these policies and do more to ensure that statutory sick pay is set at a liveable rate?
Equality impact assessments are taken when there are policy changes, not part of the annual uprating exercise. That said, statutory sick pay should not be looked at in isolation because individuals, subject to their own circumstances, could access additional support from their employer, universal credit, or new-style employment and support allowance. We have recently concluded the consultation “Health is everyone’s business” in which many of these issues were raised and we will be publishing our reviews. We understand the points that the hon. Member has raised.
Our priority has been to continue delivering the state pension and pension credit to new and existing customers. We also supported those in the shielding group who would normally have had to rely on cash through the post office to cover their weekly outgoings.
We know that elderly and disabled people, especially those living alone, are less likely to access online platforms. During this covid pandemic, knowing the rules and understanding the ideas and information behind them is critical, so will this UK Government be re-establishing regular briefings, including British Sign Language translation, as we have in Scotland, so that no one misses out on vital information?
The hon. Member is absolutely right to highlight the importance of accessible communications. It was an issue raised particularly in the early stages that we then shared cross-Government. I am delighted that BSL, for example, was then picked up by the BBC and that is then provided. Yesterday, the Prime Minister’s statement to the House was also simultaneously interpreted by a BSL interpreter. That was a very valid point to raise.
Appropriately, a question on sport as I sprint to the Dispatch Box.
We remain committed to supporting our young, female and disabled Olympic and Paralympic athletes through this very difficult period. We continue to work with UK Sport to ensure that athletes are assisted and supported in their preparation for the Tokyo games and beyond to Paris 2024.
Does the Minister agree that this kind of investment will establish role models, which will encourage people to get active in their own communities?
I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his new role as the spokesperson on digital, culture, media and sport. He asks his question on a very appropriate day as today is National Fitness Day. He is absolutely right: if you can see it, you can be it. We want to inspire the next generation of young people to get physically fit and active not only for their own physical health, but for the mental health and well-being that it brings.
I want transgender people to be free to live and prosper in modern Britain. We will maintain the Gender Recognition Act, protect single-sex spaces, and work to make the recognition process kinder and more straightforward. In line with the priorities of transgender people, we are improving health services and reducing waiting times, and we have also launched the Cass review to ensure that under-18s are getting the right support.
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, as well as to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and the Prime Minister, for giving backing to my campaign to end the abhorrent practice of so-called LGBT conversion therapy. Will my right hon. Friend kindly update the House on when she hopes to bring forward this vital legislation?
I congratulate my hon. Friend on her leadership on this issue and her work to support women when they are giving birth. Conversion therapy is an abhorrent practice and we are currently conducting research, which I hope will be finished by the end of this month, on how to end it in the United Kingdom. Shortly after that, we will set out steps to end it.
Yesterday, after nearly three years, the Government finally published their response on reforming the Gender Recognition Act 2004; disgracefully, they have let the trans community down. The written statement said that the Government are opening at least three new gender clinics this year. Will the Minister clarify whether the mention of those three clinics was a reference to the pilot services committed to by the previous Government in 2018, or represent a new investment by this Government to improve trans healthcare?
In line with the priorities of the transgender community, we are seeking to reduce waiting lists in the health service by 1,600 people, as well as to improve access to services, with three new gender-identity clinics. We also want to make sure that proper training is available to general practitioners so that we get better services on the frontline.
I did not get an answer to my first question, but I will try this one. The average waiting time for NHS gender services is 18 months, yet the NHS constitution says that the first appointment should be within 18 weeks. The Government have rightly committed to reducing waiting lists by 1,600 people by 2022, but that will still leave an estimated 10,000 trans people on the list. Will the Minister set out what steps the Government are going to take to bring the waiting lists down, to ensure that trans people can access healthcare within the time set out in the legal framework?
The hon. Lady is right that it is a priority to bring down waiting lists and make sure that transgender people get the healthcare that they deserve. That is why the Government Equalities Office has put in extra funding to support Dr Michael Brady as our LGBT health adviser. We are working closely with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and the NHS to make sure that those services are in place.
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend: education is important and it is obviously wrong when girls get married at an early age against their will. My hon. Friend has done a lot of work to raise these issues, and the Government are listening carefully to the debate on the legal age of marriage and continue to keep it under review. Tackling forced marriage is one of our key priorities and I am proud that we made forced marriage an offence in 2014.
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I will take the issue up with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.
Farming is a vital industry in Britain, and I want all farmers to feel supported. I applaud the work of groups such as Agrespect in supporting LGBT farmers to thrive. I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend and his colleagues to discuss what more we can do.
This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.
The unanimous decision by Highland Council planning to grant consent for the UK’s vertical space launch site in Sutherland is clearly extremely good news. I hope that the Prime Minister agrees that this will be extremely good for the local economy of the highlands, and will provide a huge opportunity for the UK economy in the international satellite market.
Absolutely; I congratulate Launch UK on what it is doing. As the hon. Gentleman rightly says, the project would create 250 full-time jobs, including 130 at the facility in Forres. I am in no doubt that it will launch the UK on a path to ever greater presence in the global satellite market.
Yes, indeed. My hon. Friend can certainly reassure his constituents that our purpose, and the purpose of the package that carried overwhelming support in this House yesterday, is to continue to drive down the R number while keeping businesses open and pupils in school.
Three months ago today the Prime Minister said that Test and Trace could be a “real game changer” for us. He was backed up by the Health Secretary, who said:
“Finding where the people who test positive are is the single most important thing that we must do to stop the spread of the virus.”
Yesterday the Prime Minister said the complete opposite. Standing at that Dispatch Box, he said:
“Testing and tracing has very little or nothing to do with the spread or the transmission of the disease.”—[Official Report, 22 September 2020; Vol. 680, c. 822.]
Both positions cannot be right. Which one is it, Prime Minister?
It is an obvious fact of biology and epidemiology that, alas, this disease is transmitted by human contact or aerosol contact. One of the great advantages of NHS Test and Trace—which, alas, we did not have working earlier in the pandemic because we simply did not have it in the spring—is that we now have the ability to see in granular detail where the epidemic is breaking out and exactly which groups are being infected. That is why we have been able to deliver the local lockdowns and it is why we are able to tell now, at this stage, that it is necessary to take the decisive action that we are taking and which I think the right hon. and learned Gentleman supports—he did yesterday anyway—to drive the virus down, keep kids in school and keep our economy moving. That is the point.
So why yesterday did the Prime Minister say:
“Testing and tracing has very little or nothing to do with the spread or the transmission of the disease.”?
I hesitate to reprove the right hon. and learned Gentleman for a flaw that he sometimes seems to fall into, which is not listening to my previous answer. I gave a very clear answer. The answer, simply and sadly, is that it is an epidemiological fact that transmission of the virus takes place via human contact from person to person. Test and Trace enables us to isolate the cases of the virus in ever greater detail, which we were not able to do before. Thanks to the efforts of NHS Test and Trace, through many thousands of people—trainee nurses, doctors, young people and members of the armed services—we are not only testing more than any other country in Europe, but capacity today is at a record high. He should pay tribute to that work.
I listened to the answer that the Prime Minister gave to the questions; that is why I asked him the question, because yesterday he said the complete opposite of what he said today. Everybody who was in the Chamber, and everybody who reads Hansard, will see it. He talks about testing. May I remind the Prime Minister that last week, before the Liaison Committee, he admitted that testing currently “has huge problems”? Dido Harding said,
“plainly we don’t have enough testing capacity”.
The Health Secretary said that fixing testing would take weeks. Pretending that there isn’t a problem is part of the problem, Prime Minister.
Let us test what the Prime Minister’s explanation is—it is unclear. Is the explanation for the problems that we do not have enough capacity? [Interruption.] He says, “Which problem?” The problem that he acknowledged one week ago before the Liaison Committee. Is the explanation from the Prime Minister that we do not have enough capacity because nobody could have expected the rise in demand? That is the Dido Harding defence. Or is it that we have all the capacity we need; it is just that people are being unreasonable in asking for tests? That is the Hancock defence. Which is it?
The continual attacks by the Opposition on Dido Harding in particular are unseemly and unjustified. Her teams have done an outstanding job in recruiting people from a standing start, but this is not for a moment to deny the anxiety of those who want a test, which I readily accept. Of course we would love to have much more testing instantly. It is thanks to the efforts of NHS Test and Trace that we are not only at a record high today, testing more people than any other European country, but that, to get to the point that the right hon. and learned Gentleman raises, we are going to go up to 500,000 tests by the end of October. That is the work of Dido Harding and her team.
What we want to hear—what I, frankly, want to hear—is more of the spirit of togetherness that we had yesterday. This is an opportunity to support NHS Test and Trace. This is an opportunity to get behind that scheme—to encourage people to believe in it and its efficacy. Instead, the right hon. and learned Gentleman constantly knocks it from the sidelines. [Interruption.]
Sorry. I will just say to the Whip, the hon. Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris), that there is a little bit of rowdiness coming from the Opposition, but also from your good self—I would normally never have that from you. I want to be able to hear the Prime Minister. When I cannot hear him, I worry about the people who watch our proceedings. If you have further comment to make, please speak to me afterwards.
The Prime Minister knows that my complaint is not with the NHS; it is with the Government. My wife works for the NHS. My mother worked for the NHS. My sister works for the NHS. So I will not take lectures from the Prime Minister on supporting the NHS.
The Prime Minister says we have capacity—he goes on and on about capacity. Let us test that. Three weeks ago, millions of children went back to school—that is a good thing. Then the inevitable happened. Kids get coughs, bugs, flu. That is what happens; it is in the job description. But there is no effective system in place to deal with it. Many cannot get tests quickly. Schools are allocated only 10 tests, and many wait days for results. The outcome is obvious: child and siblings off school; mum, dad or carer off work; and in some cases, all-year groups off school. How on earth did we get into this mess?
Come on: the right hon. and learned Gentleman knows perfectly well—or he will have read the advice from the four chief medical officers—that there is an exceptionally small risk to children of primary and secondary school age from this disease. He knows that children have a significantly lower rate of infection. That is all in the letter that they published today. But he also knows that we are doing our level best to get every child who has symptoms a test, and further, that thanks to the efforts of teachers in this country, and of parents and pupils, 99.9% of our schools are now back, in spite of all his attempts throughout the summer to sow doubt on the idea that schools were safe. The people of this country had more common sense.
That is such a poor defence. The point is not whether the children have got covid, but that they have got covid symptoms and then they are off school. The Government’s own Department has shown that one in eight children are off school this week. That disrupts their education. Whether it is covid symptoms or other symptoms is not the point. If the Prime Minister does not see that, he is really out of touch with families and what they have been going through in schooling, day in, day out in the last few weeks. The reality is that losing control of testing is a major reason why the Prime Minister is losing control of the virus. As a result, he is phasing in health measures—restrictions that we support—but at the same time, he is phasing out economic support. Health measures and economic measures are now dangerously out of sync. Let me quote the director-general of the CBI:
“there can be no avoiding the crushing blow new measures bring for thousands of firms…It is vital that all announcements of restrictions go hand in hand with clarity on the business support that protects jobs.”
Why was that not announced yesterday?
Let us be in absolutely no doubt that the work that this Government have done to protect this country’s economy and support the jobs of 12 million people through the furlough scheme and overall expenditure of about £160 billion is unexampled anywhere else in the world. The right hon. and learned Gentleman should pay tribute to the Chancellor and his work. We will go forward with further creative and imaginative schemes to keep our economy moving. That is the essence of our plan and proposals. The right hon. and learned Gentleman talks about our plans; he supported them yesterday. I hope he continues to support them. The essence of what we are saying is that we want to depress the virus but keep pupils in school and keep our economy moving. That is the single best thing we can do to support firms across the country.
I am not asking about the support that was put in place in the past. We support that. I am asking about the support that is needed now, particularly in light of the restrictions that were announced yesterday. This is not theoretical. Yesterday, 6,000 jobs were lost at Whitbread, one of the major employers in the hospitality sector. The CBI, the TUC and trade unions, the Federation of Small Businesses, the British Chambers of Commerce and the Governor of the Bank of England are all calling on the Prime Minister to stop and rethink, support the businesses affected, not to withdraw furlough. We have been saying it for months. When is the Prime Minister finally going to act?
These are indeed tough times and I have no doubt that many businesses and many employees are feeling a great deal of anxiety and uncertainty and we will do our level best to protect them throughout this period. But we will get through this by precisely the methods that we have outlined and that were agreed upon in the House yesterday. The reality of the Opposition position has been exposed—the cat is out of the bag—because the shadow Education Secretary said of the current crisis,
“don’t let a good crisis go to waste.”
That is the real approach of the Labour party—seeking to create political opportunity out of a crisis, out of the difficulties and dangers this country is going through, while we are taking the tough decisions to get the virus down, to keep our education system going and to keep our economy moving. The right hon. and learned Gentleman supported that yesterday. I hope that, in a spirit of togetherness and unity, he will continue to give it his support.
I know what a passionate supporter of Mansfield Town my hon. Friend is and I want to thank John and Carolyn Radford for all they have done for the club. The Secretary for State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is in active consultations with clubs across the country to see what we can do to help.
Last night, the Prime Minister and leaders of the devolved Governments announced restrictions aimed at stopping the number of covid cases reaching a predicted 50,000 a day by mid-October, but there are other major threats that we face this October. There is another set of numbers—all this is of the Tory Government’s own making—with 1 million jobs at risk if furlough ends early, a £30 billion-a-year bill to the taxpayer from a no-deal Brexit, and today we learn of 7,000 trucks queuing for days at Dover. If those numbers become a reality, the Prime Minister is leading us into another winter of discontent.
Our First Minister has shown leadership on all fronts during this pandemic. However, the responsibility and powers for extending the furlough scheme lie with the Prime Minister and the Chancellor. The Prime Minister must announce an immediate extension—no half-measures, no half-baked projects—of this vital and life-saving scheme. Will the Prime Minister show the leadership required and save the jobs?
I notice that both the leader of the Scottish nationalist party and the Leader of the Opposition now support an indefinite extension of the furlough scheme. [Interruption.] That is what he said. What we will do, as I have said throughout, is continue to put our arms around the people of this country going through a very tough time and come up with the appropriate creative and imaginative schemes to keep them in work and keep the economy moving. That is the essence of our approach.
That is so poor. What we are talking about is protecting the jobs of people today. It is not indefinite and nobody—nobody, Prime Minister—has asked for that. The first step to any recovery is admitting that there is a problem. Even the Governor of the Bank of England is telling the Prime Minister to stop and rethink. The solution for millions of people right now is an extension of the furlough scheme beyond October. The alternative is putting 61,000 jobs in Scotland at risk. Yesterday, the only reassurance the Prime Minister gave those Scottish workers was saying that he would throw his arms around them. I can tell the Prime Minister that the last thing those 61,000 Scots are looking for is a hug from him. They need the security of knowing that they can hold on to their jobs and incomes for themselves and their families. Time is running out. Workers are facing the dole today. Will the Government instruct the Chancellor to extend the furlough scheme and stop 1 million workers being sold on to the scrapheap by this Government?
What I can certainly tell the right hon. Gentleman is that the furlough scheme has already been extended until the end of October, and people should be in no doubt about that. As I have said before, we will continue to provide the best support we can possibly give to keep people in jobs and to get people into work—new jobs are being created—while suppressing the virus. I can imagine that he does not want a hug from me, but that was a metaphor. It is physically incarnated by the £12.7 billion of Barnett consequentials that we are seeing come from the UK Exchequer to support people across the whole of our country.
I suspect, Prime Minister, that you might get a hug from Andrew Bowie.
I have absolutely no idea. It is totally baffling, because it is a Bill that underpins a massive transfer of powers back to Scotland from Brussels. About 70 powers and prerogatives go back to Scotland, which SNP Members would throw away again, as they would throw away again the entire beautiful, glistening haul of Scotland’s spectacular marine wealth by handing Scotland’s fisheries straight back to Brussels. That is what they want to do.
Last week, a Royal Society for the Protection of Birds report noted that the UK has seen a lost decade for nature, with the Government failing to reach 17 out of the 20 targets they had signed up to. There is a major United Nations biodiversity summit next week. It is a vital moment to put this right and to show some real leadership. The EU’s biodiversity summit aims to protect a minimum of 30% of land and sea for nature by 2030, so will the Prime Minister commit now at least to match that goal of 30% of land and sea for nature by 2030 and deliver the funding via the forthcoming spending review?
The hon. Lady simply cannot be unaware that the campaign to get the world’s leaders to sign up to a leaders’ declaration on biodiversity has been led over the past few weeks by this Government. [Interruption.] She knows that, Mr Speaker. It is this Government who devised the charter. It is this Government who are leading the world in protecting biodiversity across the planet, and we will put in the funding. We pioneered the 30% idea, and we will certainly put in all the funding required.
I thank my hon. Friend, and he is completely right that the legal position is currently very difficult because of the inflexible and rigid Dublin regulation on returns. What is happening now is that people think there is a way in that is legally very difficult to resist, and it is tragic for those who are coming across in rubber dinghies or children’s paddling pools and who are being cheated by gangs, as they are. We must find a better way of doing this. Once we are out of the EU and able to make our own return arrangements and settle our own laws on this matter, I have no doubt that we will find a way forward.
The hon. Gentleman is entirely right about the gravity of the situation, and although it is true that some firms are powering through this, many face very difficult circumstances. That is why we have put in the support that we have, and do not forget the job retention bonus at the end of the year that will help firms to keep people in employment. That is also why we are looking at a massive package of investment in jobs and growth in the short, medium and long term. We have already put in place the £2 billion kickstart fund and about £640 billion of investment overall in infrastructure. In addition to the package that I set out yesterday, as I said earlier, there will be creative and imaginative measures from the Chancellor to help people through this crisis.
The cause of education in Tiverton can have no more fervent and effective advocate than my hon. Friend, and although the first 50 schools have not yet been announced, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education will have heard that powerful cry, and I have no doubt that my hon. Friend will be answered.
I thank the hon. Gentleman. Very simply, it is to keep doing what we have been doing, but to intensify our support for every part of the Union and—from spaceports to backing our armed services throughout the whole UK and investing in our healthcare—that is what we will do. The overall Barnett consequentials, as I have said, so far are £12.7 billion, and we will continue to provide that support.
It grieves me to see football clubs—Mansfield, Norwich City and others—not able to go back in the way that they want to right now. I totally sympathise with my hon. Friend and with the fans, and I really wish we did not have to do this now. The best way obviously to get through it, as I say, is to follow the advice and suppress the virus; but in the meantime, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is looking actively at solutions to help Norwich City and other clubs.
The hon. Gentleman is right in the sense that of course the Government are going to come forward with further measures. I do not think that it would be sensible simply to extend the current existing furlough scheme in its present form beyond the end of October, but we will do everything we can to support businesses and to support those in jobs and, indeed, the self-employed, as the hon. Gentleman rightly says.
I certainly can. It was a former Labour Planning Minister who said, “The Green Belt is a Labour achievement, and we intend to build on it.” That is what he said. The Government’s approach is entirely different. Our planning reform will not change. That is what the Opposition want to do. We will not change existing policy to protect the green belt, and our housing targets, which are very ambitious, will focus, as my hon. Friend rightly says, on brownfield.
Unsafe cladding is leaving hundreds of leaseholders across Vauxhall unable to sell or remortgage their properties. The EWS1 forms are not being used as intended, leaving my constituents trapped between risk-averse lenders and irresponsible building owners. They have been waiting three years already, so can the Prime Minister tell me what steps he is taking now to resolve this really dangerous situation?
I thank the hon. Lady, because I am aware of this problem of people facing real disadvantage—leaseholders and others—because of unsafe cladding still on their buildings. I think it is disgraceful, and both ACM and HPL cladding, in my view, should come off as fast as possible. We are investing massively to achieve that as fast as we can, but I sincerely appreciate the problem that she raises.
In 2006, Menheniot parish council was told of improvement plans to the dangerous junction on the A38—something I have long campaigned for. However, two months ago, the regional director of the south-west part of Highways England told me that this was not going to happen, blaming the change from the old Highways Agency. Can my right hon. Friend tell me when, if ever, the people of Menheniot will finally see shovels in the ground?
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, because she gave me advance notice of this question. This is really a case for a project speed, and I hope that Highways England, which is currently undertaking a safety study of the A38 between Bodmin and Saltash, will be able to accelerate its work and get on with the Menheniot junction as fast as possible.
I am grateful to the hon. Lady, because she is raising a very important point. Getting kids back into school has been the most important objective that we have had over the last few months, and I am glad that it has got under way, but she is right in what she says about the digital divide. That is why we are investing massively in online education, giving 2,200,000 laptops and tablets, and putting routers in schools across the country. That is what we are going to do, and I want to see a world in which every school in our country has full gigabit broadband, with the equipment that will give pupils the access to the internet that they need.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, as the UK’s performing arts are a global gold standard that are not only the envy of the world but a vital showcase for UK plc across the world, we should treasure them and look after that industry? We have had the furlough and other job retention schemes, but those who have fallen through the cracks are the freelancers. We must do something to protect the freelancers—the actors, the costumiers, the prop makers and many others. Can we do something to look after those people?
That is a very important point. Obviously the job retention scheme has been very effective in keeping people in work, but there are of course people who do not have employment of that kind. That is why we have given £1.57 billion to support the creative, culture and media sectors, including the theatres. We will do whatever we can to support the freelancers who my hon. Friend describes, because they are the backbone of our theatrical world, which, as he knows, is the jewel in the crown of the London cultural economy.
What I can certainly tell the hon. Gentleman is that I am not an enthusiast for encouraging the spread of gambling in this country.
Like the vast majority of the British public, I support the new restrictions. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said we will get through this, but long term, there are only three routes out of this pandemic: one, eradicate the virus; two, gain herd immunity; or three, suppress the virus and reduce deaths until a vaccine or highly effective treatment arrives, such as the ones that the brilliant researchers of South Cambridgeshire are working on. Will my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister tell me which of these three routes are the Government taking?
The right hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point of scepticism about the about the medical forecasts. All I can say is that everybody should look at what has already happened in the first phases of this pandemic and be in no doubt that it is possible that such a thing could happen again. It is precisely to avoid that that we are taking the steps that we are now, because a stitch in time saves nine. There would be far more damage to the economy throughout our country if we failed to control the virus now and we were obliged to put in seriously damaging lockdown measures that really affected every business in the country. That is why we are taking the approach that we are now, and that is why I hope it has his support and the support of his party. I can certainly tell him that the advantage of this approach is that it will allow us not just to keep the virus down—if we all follow the guidance; if we all do follow the package that we have set out—but to enable education to continue and our economy to go forward. Of course we will continue to support businesses in Northern Ireland and across the country throughout the period.
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 a few minutes.
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberI rise to present a petition on behalf of two residents of the constituency of Loughborough regarding access to B12 injections, alongside an online petition that they have started on the same topic, which has been signed by over 94,000 people. Today is B12 Awareness Day, and this petition shines a light on how the rules around only accessing B12 injectables at GP surgeries is having a far-reaching physical and mental impact on those who rely on them.
The petition states:
NICE CKS guidance states that treatment of B12 deficiency in people with neurologic involvement should include injections on alternate days…a restricted maintenance dose of just four injections per year is what is normally allowed, which can leave people physically and mentally unable to contribute to either family or society…B12 injectables should be made available over the counter at pharmacies, which would bring our approach in line with that of other countries, affording those with B12 deficiency…dignity and control over their own health…and reducing the workload and financial burden on…NHS services…The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to remove the classification of Prescription Only Medicine from injectable vitamin B12. And the petitioners remain, etc.
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of the residents of the constituency of Loughborough.
Declares that a lack of B12 can have far reaching and significant effects on both physical and mental health; notes that a significant number of people who are B12 deficient are unable to absorb the vitamin from food or supplements, and so need to inject it, which they can only do at their GP practice; further notes that NICE CKS guidance states that treatment of B12 deficiency in people with neurologic involvement should include injections on alternate days until there is no further improvement; further notes that a restricted maintenance dose of just four injections per year is what is normally allowed, which can leave people physically and mentally unable to contribute to either family or society, and lead to permanent neurological damage; further notes that, in response to a Freedom of Information request asking for the clinical evidence for the three monthly maintenance dose, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency stated that they were unable to obtain this information; further notes that B12 injectables should be made available over the counter at pharmacies, which would bring our approach in line with that of other countries, affording those with B12 deficiency the same dignity and control over their own health as a diabetic using insulin, and reducing the workload and financial burden on GP practices, District Nurses and other NHS services; further notes that a Change.org petition started by the petitioners on this issue has garnered over 94,000 signatures.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to remove the classification of Prescription Only Medicine from injectable vitamin B12.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P002599]
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State if he will make a statement on the end of the eviction moratorium.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) on securing this urgent question. The Government have taken unprecedented action to support renters by banning evictions for six months, preventing people from getting into financial hardship and helping businesses to pay salaries. We have boosted the welfare safety net and increased the local housing allowance rates to cover the lowest 30% of market rents. We have made available £180 million for the discretionary housing payments this year, for local councils to distribute to support those renters who require additional support. We have now introduced comprehensive measures to ensure that renters continue to be protected over the autumn and winter, following the resumption of possession proceedings on Monday.
However, we must strike a balance so that landlords are able to access justice alongside measures to protect the vulnerable. That is vital to the long-term health of the private rented sector. We have worked with the judiciary to put in place new court arrangements that seek to ensure appropriate support to all parties within the current statutory framework. The judiciary will look to prioritise the most serious cases, including antisocial behaviour, fraud and egregious rent arrears. New court rules also require landlords to reactivate any claim they have made before 3 August and to provide information to the court on the effect of the covid-19 pandemic on the tenant and their dependants. A court would be likely to take a very dim view of any landlord who tried to circumvent this requirement or mislead the court by not disclosing relevant information where known.
To help to keep people in their homes over the winter, we have changed the law, increasing notice periods to six months in all but the most serious cases. Tenants now served notice will not be required to move over winter, while landlords will be empowered to take action where necessary—for example, where a tenant’s antisocial behaviour severely affects their neighbours’ quality of life. To further support renters, guidance has been issued to bailiffs by my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor to ensure that possession orders are not enforced in areas where lockdown restrictions are in place or over the Christmas period, except in the most serious circumstances.
Our package strikes a fair balance, supporting landlords to act in the most serious cases while keeping the public, including renters, safe. Comprehensive guidance has been published for landlords and tenants to explain these new arrangements and the possession process in courts. The Government are clear that all these measures are to protect renters over this period. They are kept under constant review in the light of evidence on public health, and we are prepared to take further measures as they are needed to protect landlords and tenants alike.
I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question.
The ban on possession proceedings has given many private renters protection against the economic impact of coronavirus; at least the roof over their heads could not be taken away. That protection ended on Sunday and now 55,000 households are in immediate danger of losing their homes. They are the 55,000 served with eviction notices between March and August. Their landlords were not required to give six months’ notice, so courts could be processing their eviction orders as I speak. In addition, by the way, asylum seekers who fled to Britain for sanctuary will receive eviction notices with immediate effect. For context, in the same period last year, just 21,000 eviction notices were served. The scale of the hardship that is now being unleashed is unprecedented and no one is ready for it. Shelter estimates that a colossal 322,000 private renters are newly in arrears since the pandemic began, so things will get worse even more quickly. Unless he acts now, the Secretary of State will break his promise made in this place on 18 March that
“no renter who has lost income due to coronavirus will be forced out of their home”.
The Minister insists there are new measures to provide protection. That is not so. The new civil procedure rules require the landlord seeking possession to describe the effect of the pandemic on their tenants’ circumstances, but judges have zero authority to take those circumstances into account. In practice, it provides no protection. We recognise, too, that some small landlords will be unable to pay their mortgages or put food on their tables, so I remind the Minister of his promise to landlords that none should face unmanageable debt. The Minister believed the eviction moratorium was justified as the pandemic took hold in spring, but as we battle a second wave in the harsh depths of winters are not such measures justified still?
I do not ask the Minister to kick the can down the road. Instead, I ask for an extension to the eviction moratorium, so that the underlying problems can be solved. The 55,000 at risk of homelessness today cannot afford to pay their rent now, they are not likely to have the money in a few months’ time, and they are not going to have enough money for a deposit for a new place if they are evicted, so, very briefly, my four suggestions are these.
First, let us enact a further six-month moratorium on the bulk of evictions starting today, but this time do not waste the six months. Secondly, let us amend section 8 evictions to give judges discretion over tenants who are in need. Thirdly, the Minister should, as his manifesto promised, fast-track legislation to repeal section 21 no-fault evictions. Throughout the crisis, the Government have swiftly moved through legislation when they have needed to and there is nothing more urgent than preventing avoidable homelessness. Finally, the Minister should provide a comprehensive package of financial support for those in arrears, so that when the moratorium does end, we do not see the appalling misery of mass homelessness, whether that is in the Lakes or in London.
The British people are united in their decency and in their belief that the virus should not bring families to their knees and dump them on the street. The Minister has the power to prevent a pandemic of homelessness. I beg him to use that power and take the actions I have outlined.
I am grateful, again, to the hon. Gentleman for securing his urgent question. I remind him of the unprecedented series of measures we have undertaken to protect renters during this very difficult time. Court actions have been stayed on eviction for six months, the longest period of intervention in our history. I remind him that it is the courts themselves that wish to reopen and begin to hear cases again, because the Master of the Rolls, Sir Terence Etherington, and Mr Justice Knowles have made it quite clear that they believe that landlords and tenants alike should have access to justice and so the courts should not remain closed. The courts are able to prioritise cases and, of course, that is a matter for them. They will prioritise the most egregious cases first.
The hon. Gentleman quoted some figures. I can tell him that the most recent figures suggest that 3,022 applications have been made to the courts for evictions. That is 89% down on the same period last year. The fact of the matter is that landlords are acting responsibly and talking to their tenants to avoid such actions. Such a low figure for notices made is also due to the unprecedented measures we have introduced. We will continue to keep our policies under review. We will act fairly to landlords and tenants alike.
I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is about achieving an appropriate balance between the unprecedented protection that was rightly provided by this Government and supported by many landlords and the right of landlords, many of whom rely on rents for their livelihood, to protect their properties in the face of egregious behaviour?
I quite agree: it is about striking a fair balance. There are many landlords in this country, with the private rented sector accounting for about 21% of all houses available to live in, and many of those houses are owned by smaller landlords who need the rental income to pay their bills and survive. That is why, while extending the period of notice of eviction under section 21, we have reduced the period of notice to four weeks for the most serious matters, such as antisocial behaviour, domestic abuse and violence, fraud, and egregious rent arrears, which means arrears that predate the covid emergency. I think that is a fair balance, and I suggest the House should support it.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) on securing this urgent question, because it is scandalous that this Government are lifting the ban just as we are heading into a second wave of coronavirus. The chief medical officer gave a stark warning, but 16 public health bodies and charities also warned of a rise in covid infections if the Government force people into homelessness or overcrowding.
In March, as we all know, the Secretary of State promised that
“no renter who has lost income due to coronavirus will be forced out of their home, nor will any landlord face unmanageable debts.”
The Government have reneged on that promise. They have failed to change the law to prevent automatic evictions. The courts might take a dim view, but with section 21 still on the statute book despite the Government saying they would get rid of it, the courts will have no choice. The Government have failed to prevent financial hardship—whatever the Minister says, many people are struggling with rent—and failed to deal with arrears, with the number of people in arrears having built up since the start of the crisis to over 300,000.
The Welsh Labour Government have a plan to prevent evictions and homelessness, but as with testing, this Government had summer to develop their plan and wasted it. They now choose to withdraw the protection of the evictions ban exactly when it is most needed. There have been last-minute chaotic announcements, creating a complex and confusing situation. Will the Minister confirm that the extension of notice periods will not help those who were served notice before 29 August? What steps are the Government taking to help tenants and landlords to navigate this complex situation? Why do lockdown regulations for Newcastle and Gateshead have no rules barring bailiffs from enforcing evictions? What are the Government doing to prevent illegal evictions, which are reportedly up by 50%? Why will they not stick to their commitment to remove section 21 and automatic evictions? Are they trying to collect any data that gives an accurate picture of the problem?
We are likely to see a rise in evictions and homelessness because of this Government’s incompetence. The Government must act now to prevent a wave of evictions just as covid rises this winter, and honour their promise to landlords and renters.
The Government have honoured their promise to landlords and renters. That is why we introduced the most significant package of support in our history for people suffering from the emergency: £35 billion has helped over 9 million people on the furlough scheme. We have introduced the local housing allowance and increased it to the 30th percentile of local market rents, which will increase the annual income of those in receipt of it by some £600. The next steps accommodation programme is providing 3,000 new homes for those who have found themselves homeless, to make sure that they receive long-term help.
The hon. Lady says the Welsh Government have a plan. Well, we would all like to know what it is. They have announced some form of help, but not told us when it starts or what the amount is. We have made the rules in lockdown areas very clear. The Lord Chancellor has written to the association of bailiffs to make the position clear, and further guidance will be issued. We will continue to keep our measures under review, but we will also continue to support landlords and renters alike through this crisis.
I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
There are 2.5 million landlords in this country. Most have just one property, often indebted, and for retired landlords it can form the backbone of their retirement income. Good landlords repair properties, get them back into use and provide millions of properties that would otherwise fall to the public and quasi sectors. Sadly, however, landlords are too often demonised. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is right and fair that we allow courts to exercise due discretion and sensitivity, as they always do, to decide on the correct pathways from now on?
My hon. Friend makes a valid point. Landlords in our country provide a valuable and important service to the many people who rent. Demonising landlords, forcing the good ones out of business, will result only in fewer properties available to rent, and it may result in more of those properties being rented out for Airbnb or by less scrupulous landlords, so he is absolutely right. We have tried to be fair to renters and to landlords; the package of measures that we introduced on 29 August is fair to both. It is important that those landlords who need access to justice are able to get it, that those landlords who are facing egregious rent arrears, antisocial behaviour and issues of domestic abuse are able to repossess their properties, while at the same time those people who through no fault of their own have got into difficulties because of the covid-19 epidemic are helped.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) on securing the urgent question.
We heard from colleagues about the urgency of the situation in England which I can see, as an observer in these proceedings, clearly needs urgent action. I urge the Minister to reflect on that.
As a result of SNP Government action, in Scotland there is a ban on eviction until March 2021. The Scottish Government have also brought forward a new £10 million tenant hardship loan fund, as well as a further £3 million in additional funding for discretionary housing payments. I therefore urge the Minister, once again, to look north to Scotland to see what protecting tenants looks like.
I also want to raise some issues with the Minister about support for asylum seekers on accommodation. Will he agree that no one refused asylum or those with insecure status should be made street homeless, given the public health emergency? Will he further commit that the Government will not follow through on their decision to subject vulnerable asylum seekers to evictions and street homelessness without the explicit consent of the affected local authority and public health director?
The Prime Minister’s announcement yesterday is a sage reminder of the precarious situation we find ourselves in as we head into a second wave. The last thing that people need is for the Government to pull the rug from under their feet. I very much urge the Minister to act now to protect people when they need our help most.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his contribution. As he knows, the Scottish legal system is different from the system in England. He knows that tenancy arrangements are different in Scotland from those here in England. He also knows that the Scottish courts began their actions some several weeks ago, whereas we maintained our stay until 21 September. I note what he said about discretionary housing payments; I am sure he noted what I said about the £180 million that we made available to local authorities in England to help people who have difficulty with their housing needs. He mentioned asylum seekers—I am sure that Her Majesty’s Government will always do their duty by asylum seekers, and so will the courts.
Sarah Dines is not here, so I call Clive Betts, Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee.
I have two simple asks of the Minister. First, does he recognise that there will be people in dire financial hardship who struggle and cannot pay their rent? I heard what he said about help for discretionary housing payments. Will he continue to monitor that, and if local authorities say they do not have sufficient to help people in real need, will he look at expanding the amount of money?
Secondly, with regard to the issue of discretion, will the Minister confirm that, as long as landlords have talked to their tenants and presented their financial information to the courts, when applying for a section 21 notice or possession on ground 8, of rent arrears, the courts have no discretion at all to reject those applications? Will he further consider those points, do what the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee has asked and strengthen the pre-action protocol to give the courts more discretion?
We always listen with great care to the Chairman of the Select Committee. I can confirm that we will keep all our arrangements, including our financial provisions, under review as the situation develops; it probably has some time to go before things begin to get better. He mentions section 21. He knows that the Government are committed to repealing section 21 in our renters’ reform Bill, and we will do that at the appropriate time, when there is a sensible and stable economic and social terrain on which to do it.
The hon. Gentleman will know that the courts do have discretion to prioritise the cases before them. He will also know that, if landlords do not provide the right information to the courts in pursuit of their section 21 application, the courts have the discretion to adjourn the case and push it to the end of the queue. I am quite sure that Sir Terence Etherton and Mr Justice Knowles will look carefully at landlords who fail to comply with their duties. Our approach has always been to be fair—fair to those who have lost out as a result of the epidemic, and also fair to landlords, particularly smaller landlords, who need their incomes.
The “Everybody In” programme has had unprecedented success in bringing rough sleepers off the streets. Will the Minister assure the House that the Government will do everything they can to build on that success, to engage with rough sleepers and to get them into long-term, stable accommodation, with support to grapple with the problems—substance addiction, mental health issues and others—that contribute to the causes of rough sleeping in the first place?
I am obliged to my right hon. Friend, who is a doughty campaigner for her constituents in Chipping Barnet. I agree that we need to build upon the programme that she mentions. That is why, on 18 July, we announced the next steps accommodation programme, which I referred to earlier. At that point, it had spent about £263 million on 3,000 homes to help the long-term homeless. Dame Louise Casey is tasked with ensuring that we get people off the streets and keep them off the streets. As a result of the measures that we have undertaken, about 90% of those who were homeless at the start of the epidemic are now housed. We will continue to discharge our obligations. That is why, on 17 September, we announced further funds to the tune of £93 million to support the sorts of programme to which my right hon. Friend referred.
York has one of the highest levels of private rent in the country. So many people are falling into rent arrears, and we do not have any capacity in our social housing provision. In fact, the waiting list has gone up by 300—over 20%—over the last six months. How will the Minister ensure that local authorities such as mine have sufficient resources in their discretionary grant to support constituents and stop them becoming homeless?
As I have already described, we have disbursed £180 million in discretionary housing payments to local authorities to support them in supporting those in difficulty. We have spent several billion pounds on supporting local authorities through this pandemic, and we will keep our proposals under review, to ensure that we help everybody who is affected by this crisis, including the hon. Lady’s constituents in York. The measures put in place by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer—described by the shadow Chancellor as a “lifeline”—and by the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), which to date have injected a further £9.3 billion into our welfare safety net, are designed to do exactly what we want to do: keep people off the street, keep them in their homes and keep them in their jobs as we move through this crisis.
The Government took really excellent, strong steps to get rough sleepers off the streets during the first wave of the pandemic. My right hon. Friend might recall that, together with the noble Lord Bird from the other place—the founder of The Big Issue—I wrote to the Government with some suggestions on how we could continue to ensure that rough sleeping becomes a thing of the past. Now, of course, with the end of the moratorium on evictions fast approaching, the risk of people losing their work and then their home is increasing, so will my right hon. Friend agree to look at some of the excellent and practical proposals of the Ride Out Recession Alliance, started by the founders of The Big Issue, and consider taking some of them up to prevent joblessness becoming homelessness yet again?
I have already described the package of measures that we have introduced: we have extended to six months the notice period that landlords are required to give their tenants, which means that tenants will not have to leave their homes over Christmas, and we have made it clear that over the Christmas period and in areas of lockdown there will be no evictions—between 11 December and 11 January there will be no evictions. I think, therefore, that we have taken some steps that my right hon. Friend has described. I am always prepared to look at ideas, particularly if they are supplied by my right hon. Friend.
I find it incomprehensible that the Minister has not taken the opportunity to cut the Gordian knot and deal with section 21 and the need to protect decent, honest tenants who are facing the loss of not only their job but their home. There is another, smaller group of antisocial tenants who are ruining the lives of their neighbours with their behaviour and seem to think that at the moment they are untouchable. Will the Minister ensure that councils and the courts have the power and capacity—and are fully aware of that—to take action against antisocial tenants, and fast?
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for the points he made, which are apposite. It is for the courts to determine the priority of their cases, but I am sure the House will be reassured to know that they will do so based on matters such as antisocial behaviour, fraud, domestic violence and the like. As a result of the statutory instrument that we laid on 29 August, landlords seeking possession of property because of the antisocial behaviour of their tenants will be able to move much more quickly than the former rules allowed: they will be able to seek possession of their properties in four weeks. I think that is the right balance of fairness between those tenants who fall into difficulty because of no fault of their own, and those tenants who abuse their rights and privileges and against whom the courts should act.
It is right that the Government brought about a moratorium on evictions, but it is also right that landlords’ legal rights can once again be enforced. Will my right hon. Friend share with the House details of the level of unpaid rent in the private sector and what support he is giving to those individuals who rely on rental income as their only income?
I understand from my discussions with the National Residential Landlords Association that about 89% of tenants are paying their full rent; about 4% of tenants have agreed either rent holidays or rent reductions with their landlords; and about 7% are in arrears. My hon. Friend is right to point out that smaller landlords rely on their rents, which is why we have made it plain, through our introduction of the SI on 29 August, that where there are egregious rents, landlords should be able to move quickly to repossess their properties and rent them out again. If they do not, the likelihood is that the number of properties available to rent will fall away as landlords leave the sector. As I said, 21% of homes are in the private rented sector; it is an important part of our economy and we will support it.
Newcastle citizens advice bureau reports a massive jump in housing queries, and no wonder—for most people, after their family’s health and wellbeing, their home is what is most important to them, and the two are often related because, as we know, covid-19 feeds off bad housing, overcrowding and the respiratory conditions associated with that. The Minister is giving a lot of general reassurances, but can he say to me specifically that no one in Newcastle will face eviction, court action or bailiff action as a consequence of arrears due to covid-19?
The hon. Lady has heard clearly the measures that I have laid out to support tenants who find themselves in difficulty. Tenants who have not paid their rents for more than six months, which predates the covid emergency, may well find themselves in receipt of a notice from their landlords, and that notice to move will be much quicker. That seems to me to be a fair balance between protecting people who have got into difficulty through no fault of their own, which is why we have extended the notice period that landlords have to give other tenants, and protecting landlords and the neighbours of antisocial tenants, or tenants who are not paying their rents and have not been paying them for some time, so that we protect people who are doing the right thing as well as landlords who also want to do the right thing.
I welcome the confirmation that as eviction hearings resume, cases of antisocial behaviour will be prioritised. However, to follow on from the question from the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar), will the Minister confirm that my constituents who are suffering from this blight will now have to wait only four weeks before being put out of their misery?
I can confirm to my hon. Friend that neighbours of antisocial tenants will find that their landlords are able to move much more quickly now to seek justice and to seek repossession of their properties and ensure that that sort of behaviour is stymied.
Housing advisers are reporting a surge in illegal evictions, and indeed, I have had experience of this myself. Do the Government recognise those figures? Do the Government collect data on illegal evictions? Are the Government expecting illegal evictions to continue to rise during the coming months? When was the last time that guidance was issued to police forces across the country on what their duties are to intervene in these cases?
The law is quite clear, and I advise and encourage all landlords to adhere to it. Those who do not may find themselves in receipt of a very dim view from the courts. Of the 7% of tenants who are in arrears, I am told that about 1% have received notices to evict, so landlords, on the whole, are doing the right thing. Those who are not will, I hope, be pursued by the law, because we need to make sure that landlords do the right thing and that illegal evictions of the sort that the hon. Lady notes are not tolerated in any way.
I know that the Government are desperately trying to be fair, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and this is an absolutely clear example. My casework is full of landlords complaining about tenants who are working but have refused to pay their rent, and who are behaving antisocially—but is not antisocial behaviour rather a broad catch-all? What guidance will the Minister ensure that landlords and tenants get so that when they go to court, justice is done, as he wishes?
I am obliged to my hon. Friend. The advice that we have given to renters and landlords is published on gov.uk. He can take advantage of his technological know-how to take a look at it. We keep it under constant review and revise it as necessary.
Urgent action is needed to strengthen support for tenants struggling to pay their rent, and many have joined us in calling for the UK Government to lift local housing allowance rates further to cover average rents. Has the Minister discussed that call with Department for Work and Pensions and Treasury Ministers, and if not, why not?
We keep our policies under constant review, as I say, and I will certainly talk to my ministerial colleagues at the Department for Work and Pensions. We have increased the local housing allowance to the 30th percentile of local market rents. That was called for last year by Crisis and by Shelter, so we have been listening to stakeholders in this area who are concerned about the effect on tenants. As a result of that intervention, we have increased tenants’ incomes by some £600 a year to help them through this crisis.
Can my right hon. Friend confirm that this Government have made available an extra £9.3 billion in welfare support, including a more generous local housing allowance, to help renters like those in my constituency to pay their rent?
Yes, I can. My hon. Friend is a hardy campaigner for her constituents. When I came to the House before the recess to answer a similar urgent question, I told the House that we had injected into the welfare system some £6.5 billion of further investment to help people in difficulty. I can now report to the House that, as she has pointed out, we have now spent £9.3 billion on the welfare system. That is a very tangible example of the investment that we are putting in to help people out during this crisis.
Young people have been hit hardest by the coronavirus jobs crisis and receive less local housing allowance. As a consequence, 100,000 young people are now at risk of eviction. What discussions has the Minister had with youth organisations working with young people who are homeless, at risk of homelessness or perhaps sofa-surfing to ensure that they do not face an evictions crisis?
The hon. Lady makes a good point. My Department and my officials are in regular contact with a large number of stakeholders and groups concerned with those affected by this crisis. I myself have taken part in a large number of roundtables with various interlocutors. As I say, we will keep our policies under review to deal with the challenges that people face. I simply point her again to the interventions that we have already made, including the job retention scheme, the help with local housing allowance and the discretionary housing payments that have been disbursed to local authorities to help people in difficulty, including young people.
The Minister will know that a large number of homeless people and those facing eviction are veterans. Although there are many good charities out there working to help homeless veterans, such as Help 4 Homeless Veterans, led by Steven Bentham-Bates and operating in South Yorkshire, what support can the Minister and his Department give to those men and women—our heroes—who are facing evictions?
My hon. Friend will know that anybody who has been a regular member of Her Majesty’s armed forces will receive priority treatment from local authorities with regard to housing and housing need. I certainly commend the work of Help 4 Homeless Veterans, led by its chief executive officer, Mr Steven Bentham-Bates, in my hon. Friend’s constituency. I wish them, and him, more power to their elbow.
In my constituency, the number of universal credit and jobseekers allowance claimants has more than doubled since the lockdown. Almost a third of employees have been furloughed and a third of households in Putney are rented privately. With the evictions ban ending last weekend, the ending of furlough coming up very soon, and yesterday’s announcement of six months’ more restrictions, does the Minister agree that this is the perfect storm? Will he now end section 21 no-fault evictions?
The Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), has, with his Department, increased welfare spending by £9.3 billion since this crisis began. That is helping millions of people who, through no fault of their own, are in need of universal credit. The Chancellor has introduced the job retention scheme and the furlough scheme, which has resulted in our spending something like £35 billion to help 9 million people, so we have taken very tangible steps to help people through this difficulty. We will continue to keep all our policies under review as the epidemic develops. It has some way to go yet, and we shall be watching and reacting as appropriate.
Forty-two per cent. of my constituents are in the rented sector and they have appreciated the moratorium over the past six months, but can I just bring my right hon. Friend back to an answer that he gave some moments ago? Can he confirm that, for areas in my constituency such as Sandwell, which is currently under local restrictions, there will not be any evictions during those local restriction periods?
My hon. Friend is correct. My right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor wrote to the bailiffs’ association to give it clear direction as to its duties and responsibilities in lockdown areas in this crisis. While there is a lockdown where movements are restricted, no evictions will take place.
I would be more than happy to meet the Minister to discuss the forward plan in Wales, which has been in the public domain since last week, so if he wants to take me up on that offer, please do. Hundreds of thousands of people are already in rent arrears and millions more are at risk in the coming months. It is imperative that we prevent evictions and ensure that people are safe and secure in their homes. Does he agree that increasing the local housing allowance, as my Welsh colleagues have asked, to the 50th percentile is the most effective way to achieve this outcome?
As I said in answer to an earlier question, we have increased the LHA and we did so in response to a call from Crisis and from Shelter. We are listening. As I said, that will result in £600 of additional income to people in difficulty. The best thing that we can do is to help people to pay their rents. That helps and also means keeping people in jobs. Our primary focus as we work through this public health crisis is to keep the economy moving and keep people in jobs, ensuring that people can pay their bills.
The Government were absolutely right to protect renters over the last six months but, unfortunately, some people have misused that protection by causing unnecessary levels of antisocial behaviour in streets and law-abiding citizens have had to put up with that. Does the Minister agree that it is the right time now to lift the ban so that people can go back to a good quality of life in their streets and not have to put up with antisocial behaviour?
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. The police have powers under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 to deal with egregious antisocial behaviour, but he is absolutely right: where tenants are behaving irresponsibly, abusing their privileges and abusing their neighbours, not just the police, but landlords and the courts should have the right to act swiftly and that is the power that we have given them.
I know that many of my constituents have warmly welcomed the evictions ban as they have faced severe financial difficulties as a result of the pandemic. So can my right hon. Friend confirm that landlords will still be required to take into account coronavirus issues when starting eviction proceedings?
My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. If a landlord wishes to pursue an action through the courts, that landlord will have to give the courts clear and defined information about the status of the tenants and the way in which the covid-19 emergency has affected them. If any landlord fails to do so, or attempts to circumvent those rules, the courts can adjourn the case, pushing it to the end of the queue, which will cost the landlord, if nothing else, probably quite a bit of money. So we have made sure there are tenant protections in place as we move through this crisis.
As of yesterday, Warrington North is subject to local lockdown. The Government have announced that bailiffs will not evict in areas under local lockdown, but the eviction ban has been lifted and the guidance for bailiffs remains unpublished. Given that local lockdown guidance does not clearly rule out bailiff actions, what assurances can the Minister give to constituents of mine in the private rented sector, anxious about losing their homes as we stand on the precipice of a second wave of this pandemic?
As I said in a previous answer, the Lord Chancellor has written to the bailiffs’ association to make absolutely clear what its responsibilities are. Further guidance will be published in due course, but we are absolutely clear that, where there is a lockdown where movement restrictions are in place, evictions should not take place. The Lord Chancellor has made it clear in his letter and I have made it clear from the Dispatch Box.
In Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke, I have a constituent who lives with her disabled son in private rented accommodation. She has recently been served a section 21 notice and has until 9 November to find alternative specialist accommodation in a competitive marketplace. Can my right hon. Friend advise me on how we can best assist those who need such specialist accommodation?
I have made clear in my previous answers the work that we are doing through the next steps accommodation programme to the tune of £263 million. I am not aware of the exact circumstances of my hon. Friend’s constituents, so it is probably better if he writes to me with more detail; I will be sure to follow it up.
Ministers will know from my interventions and interests in this place that I am not an enemy of the landlord, but it seems to me that the balance here is totally wrong. Landlords and homeowners have been able to have mortgage deferrals, and they cannot be repossessed without the court looking at circumstances and the mortgage company discussing payment options. Why on earth does the Minister think it is acceptable for courts to have no discretion on section 8 notices on the grounds of rent arrears, and when will he fulfil his manifesto pledge to get rid of section 21 and introduce the renters’ reform Bill?
Given what the hon. Gentleman sometimes says in this place and on social media, one might be forgiven for thinking that he is the enemy of everybody some of the time. We will reform section 21 of the Housing Act 1988 when we bring forward the renters’ reform Bill, which we will do in due course.
It is crucial that we ensure that the most vulnerable in society are supported, especially throughout this pandemic. Is it not also the case that we should recognise that not every tenant is unable to pay their rent? Where necessary, should we not be supporting the landlords who rely on the income from their rental properties to live on or who have mortgages of their own to pay?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Tenants should continue to pay their rent where they can. Where they can but will not, we have changed the Coronavirus Act 2020 to make it easier for landlords to act. We think we have struck a fair balance between the rights of tenants and the rights of landlords, and I ask the House to support it.
The end of the moratorium on eviction strikes fear in my heart, and it should strike fear in most Members’ hearts, because we know what is coming for so many families with children in our constituencies who have done nothing wrong, but are at the end of section 21 evictions. My local authority, the London Borough of Merton, has had 24 two-bedroom properties available since 1 April; that is less than one a week. It has had six three-bedroom properties available; that is one a month. The families who are going to be evicted over the next few months face years in temporary accommodation. What support is the Minister giving local councils to ensure that the temporary accommodation that these families find, which will be long term in anybody’s imagination, is fit for them and allows them to remain in their jobs, in their schools and close to their support networks?
We have invested a great deal of money in local authorities throughout this crisis, as the hon. Lady knows. I have described to her the accommodation programme, which invests £263 million in 3,000 units to house the long-term homeless. We have just announced an affordable homes programme, which will result in something like 180,000 affordable homes being built over the next cycle, about half of which will be for a discounted rent. I encourage her to take up her concerns with the Mayor of London to ensure that he is building out the right number of homes, which he has pledged—and has thus far failed—to do.
As the Minister will know, a number of new restrictions were introduced in my constituency earlier this week to try to bring down the spread of covid. I have received a number of emails from constituents concerned that they may be at risk of eviction. Can my right hon. Friend give assurances that no evictions will take place in areas such as Warrington where local restrictions are in force?
I commend my hon. Friend for campaigning on behalf of his constituents in Warrington, and I can give him that assurance. Where there is a local lockdown—where movement restrictions are in place—no evictions will take place.
The Government are reintroducing evictions at the same time as scrapping employment support for millions of people, making it highly likely that we will see a very bleak rise in homelessness. Is the Minister aware that, due to covid regulations, many hostels and shelters cannot open to support homeless people this winter? Is it his intention to resource alternative provision or revise those regulations?
We have provided a great deal of resources for local authorities and charities to support people through this emergency. We will continue to keep those policies and programmes under review. If the hon. Gentleman has specific ideas that he wishes to suggest, I am happy to hear them.
I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. It is absolutely right that we should be fair to tenants affected by the covid crisis, and the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), who secured the urgent question, is right to say that we might consider giving the courts discretion over the nature of arrears. But it also has to be right that we should be fair to the neighbours of those guilty of antisocial behaviour, fair to those affected by domestic abuse and fair to landlords who were affected by arrears pre-covid, and that should be the immediate focus of the courts’ attentions.
My hon. Friend, as ever, puts the point eloquently, and I am sure that Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service will have listened to him carefully.
My constituent Nichola is a key worker. In May, her landlord served her with a section 21 no-fault eviction notice, giving her three months to move out. Housing benefit will cover only a one-bed flat for Nichola and her two teenage daughters. Letting agents demand an above-average income and the details of someone who earns more than £50,000 to guarantee the rent. What does the Minister suggest that people in Nichola’s position do to provide a suitable home for their families during the pandemic?
I have outlined to the House the range of measures that the Government have undertaken to support renters during this crisis. I do not know the specific circumstances that Nichola finds herself in, although the hon. Lady outlined some of them. If she cares to write to me with further information, I will give her a full and considered response.
Many renters in my constituency work in the leisure, hospitality and creative sectors. With the new restrictions coming in, they will continue to see a big shock to their income. The Prime Minister announced that the new restrictions may be in place for another six months, but they have not been matched by any support for renters. Will the Minister reintroduce the evictions memorandum while those restrictions are still in place, and scrap the benefit cap, which is impacting tenants and those who are falling into rent arrears?
Even with the benefit cap, from which there are right and proper exemptions, I think in London there is an equivalent income of £28,000 for a person in receipt of benefits. We keep our policies under constant review—the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), is here listening to the points that the House is making—and of course if we do choose to make future changes, will bring those to the House.
I have information on dozens and dozens of small-scale landlords—not property tycoons—who are now owed several thousand pounds in rent arrears, some due to genuine hardship, some as a result of tenants’ taking advantage of the current situation. This situation is now causing some landlords, particularly those with mortgages, severe hardship. I know that my right hon. Friend has said that the best option is to give the tenant as many options as possible to pay their rent, so will he look at the development of interest-free Government-guaranteed hardship loans for tenants to pay off their covid arrears?
As I said, we will keep our policies under review, to ensure that they take account of the state of the emergency at any given time. The steps that we have already taken, including mortgage holidays and the right to extend those mortgage holidays, also apply to landlords. I am happy to keep in touch with my hon. Friend as we continue to keep our policies under review, to make sure that he is apprised of the steps that we are taking to support landlords and tenants alike.
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.
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberWith permission, I would like to make a statement on preparations for the end of the transition period.
There are now just 100 days to go until the United Kingdom leaves the single market and the customs union, and that will be a moment of great opportunity, but also of significant change and challenge. It is vital that we all take the steps required to grasp those opportunities, and to meet and master those challenges. The Government are of course committed to negotiating a new free trade agreement with the EU before the end of the transition period, and those talks are progressing; but whatever the outcome of those negotiations, things will change for businesses and individuals as they trade with and travel to the EU. It is important that we, as parliamentarians, all understand that, and that we all take action to prepare.
Whether we secure a good FTA before January or not, whether we get a Canada-style deal or exit on Australian terms, we will have left the single market and the customs union, and that fact means adjustments for businesses trading with the EU; changes for citizens travelling to the EU; and, of course, new responsibilities for Government in both scenarios.
The superb civil servants at Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and their colleagues across Government are working with business to ensure that exporters and importers are ready for new rules. Every business trading with Europe will need to thoroughly familiarise itself with new customs procedures and, whether they develop their capacity in-house or work with a customs intermediary, enhanced preparation is vital. The Government have invested in increasing customs agent capacity and supported growth in the sector, and of course we stand ready to do more. HMRC is also able to support businesses to secure authorised economic operator, consignor and consignee status, which will ease the flow of goods.
Businesses that are fully ready for life outside the customs union will also be better prepared for the growing number of export opportunities outside Europe, as the UK establishes new trade relationships with partners across the globe following the highly successful conclusion of our new trade deal with Japan. Because preparing for customs procedures will be required with or without a free trade agreement, these adjustments cannot be left until the last minute. More and more businesses are becoming fully prepared, but there are still many that have not quite taken the steps they need to take. Our survey evidence indicates that while 78% of businesses have taken steps, just 24% believed that they are fully ready. Indeed, 43% of businesses believe that the transition period will be extended, even though the deadline for any extension is now long past and the date on which we leave the single market and the customs union is fixed in law and supported across the House.
The Government are taking action to prepare for that date, with the XO Committee—the EU Exit Operations Committee, the Cabinet Committee charged with preparations for the end of the transition period—now meeting almost daily and taking decisions on trader and haulier readiness, border infrastructure and fisheries protection. The Committee has met 136 times since it was established, and it will continue to meet to ensure that we have taken all the steps required to prepare, but we also need businesses to prepare. The consequences of a lack of business preparedness will be not just missed economic opportunities for those companies that do not prepare but potentially much wider disruption.
That is why today we are publishing our reasonable worst case scenario planning assumptions, indicating what could happen if we do not all secure improved preparedness. I should stress that this is not a prediction or a forecast; it is just a prudent exercise in setting out what could, in the worst circumstances, occur if we do not improve preparedness and, of course, if our neighbours decline to be pragmatic. The scenario builds on an estimate that only 50% to 70% of large businesses and just 20% to 40% of small and medium-sized enterprises will be ready for the strict application of new EU requirements. In those circumstances, that could mean that only between 30% and 60% of laden heavy goods vehicles would arrive at the border with the necessary formalities completed for the goods on board. They would therefore be turned back by the French border authorities, clogging the Dover to Calais crossing. In that scenario, flows across the critical short-strait crossings could be reduced by up to 60% to 80%, compared with the normal rate, and such circumstances could lead to queues of up to 7,000 HGVs in Kent. Those queues and the associated disruption and delay would of course subside, as unready businesses that had had their goods turned back at the French border would not want to repeat the experience, but it is clearly far better for everyone to be aware now of what is needed to prepare, rather than face additional disruption next year. This is why we are publishing our reasonable worst-case scenario today: not just because any prudent Government will always prepare contingency plans for the worst, but to illustrate the costs of a lack of preparedness while there is still plenty of time to prepare.
The Government are committed to doing whatever it takes to help business, and we have brought in a comprehensive series of measures to help businesses and individuals to adapt to the changes ahead. We are helping businesses that import by introducing new border controls on imports in stages, and full controls will be imposed only from July of next year. We have produced a comprehensive border operating model, which provides a simplified guide, complemented by the work of gov.uk for business, and we will be publishing an updated version with more granular detail in the coming weeks. We have invested £705 million in new technology, infrastructure and jobs at the border, and we are ensuring extra personnel: Border Force has recruited more than 1,000 additional staff, with hundreds more being recruited now. We have also made available over £80 million in grants for organisations to recruit and train new customs agents to support an expanded customs intermediary sector.
A new network of information and advice sites will help to ensure that hauliers are up to speed with their new requirements and the correct paperwork. They will be able to check that their documentation is export-ready using the new Smart Freight web portal. We have complemented all this activity with a public information campaign to help businesses to prepare. The campaign communicates the actions that all businesses need to take before the end of the transition period, and there is a user-friendly checker tool on the gov.uk/transition page, which details exactly what businesses need to do.
The Government are taking all these steps to help businesses to prepare, because change requires preparation. But change is what the British people voted for because, outside the single market and the customs union, the UK can exercise all the freedoms and flexibilities of a truly sovereign state. Outside the common agricultural policy, we can support our farmers better and enhance our natural environment. Outside the common fisheries policy, we can revive our coastal communities and improve our marine environment.
We can strike new trade deals, which help developing nations to grow faster and lower prices for consumers. We can develop tailored policies to better support new technologies and level up our economy. We can invest the money that we currently send to Brussels in the NHS, in our science base and in improving productivity in all the nations of the United Kingdom. We can develop freeports, which bring investment to overlooked communities. We can regulate more smartly, legislate more accountably and strengthen our democracy.
These are great prizes, and the British people voted in the 2016 referendum and the 2019 general election to make sure they were delivered. This Government are committed to honouring those democratic choices, and I commend this statement to the House.
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for advance sight of his statement.
The news today that there could soon be tailbacks of 7,000 lorries in Kent is quite extraordinary. I know that the Government have said that they are committed to building new infrastructure, but I did not realise it meant concreting over the garden of England. Today’s warnings are based on a reasonable worst-case scenario, but given that we have a reasonable worst-case Government, we have to assume that these scenarios could play out quite soon.
In their letter to the road haulage industry, the Government say that business should get ready, but what about the Government? There is a long list of promises for the future in the letter: the UK Government will be contacting haulage companies; they will be running targeted advertising; they will be publishing an updated haulier handbook; and they will launch advice stands at UK service stations. Why are these essential prerequisites for a smooth transition not already here? It is all well and good to tell businesses to act now, but without the systems in place, frankly, it is like telling me to bake a cake but forgetting to turn the oven on.
Sectors from farming to haulage and car manufacturing are crying out for the Government to get this right. These sectors are the backbone of British industry, and they are vital to our everyday economy. If we do not listen to these experts, we will lose exports. I met the Road Haulage Association last week. It is tearing its hair out. It has since met Ministers and described that meeting as “a washout”. Frankly, this is not good enough.
In the summer, I visited the proposed lorry park in Ashford, Kent, where construction had just begun. It was with some dismay that I later read that workmen had encountered a Saxon brick wall in their excavations. I hope this is not a metaphor, but can the Minister assure the House that progress there is on track? Another site apparently earmarked is in Ebbsfleet. It is currently a covid testing centre. With the test, trace and isolate system on its knees, this would be farcical if it were not so serious. Is it really too much to ask for a little bit of joined-up government from Ministers?
On 4 September, the Government granted themselves the power to build additional lorry parks in 29 local authority areas without consulting residents. Can the Minister tell us exactly where those facilities will be? That is the least that local people deserve. Will he also tell the House how many customs agents and intermediaries are trained and in place? This is so important for the system to work.
In the summer, the Government admitted that there would be £7 billion-worth of additional bureaucracy for UK businesses. It is the last thing they need right now, so is that still the most accurate assessment of the costs for businesses?
It has been estimated that 10 new IT systems will be needed to make our new trading relationship with the European Union work. Can the Minister list those IT systems and guarantee that they will be in place and fully operational on 1 January? Given that we were promised a contact tracing app, first in May, then in June and then in July, and it is now September, what assurance can he give that this time the Government will deliver that vital technology and that it will be working and delivered on time? Frankly, the Government’s track record does not inspire confidence.
We have just 100 days until the end of the transition period. Labour’s message to both sides in this negotiation is clear: stop the posturing, and start negotiating. It is in our national interest—it is in all our interests—that the Government get a deal, and get it soon, so that businesses have time to prepare. The Conservatives have had three Prime Ministers and four years since the referendum in 2016. We have seen serial incompetence and countless U-turns. I say to Ministers: get a grip on preparations, and get a grip now. The transition period comes to an end on 31 December. Will the Minister guarantee, not just to this House but to the whole country, that we will be ready?
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her questions. She makes the point that there have been three Prime Ministers and four years since the referendum and alleges that there have been some U-turns. This Government have been consistent in our determination to honour that referendum result. If we are thinking of U-turns, I think of the Labour party, which at different times has been in favour of a referendum or of extending the transition period, against our exit from the EU, and it now seems to be resolutely in favour of that exit. I am grateful that the Labour party has now taken the decision to recognise the democratic verdict of 2016, but when reflecting on U-turns, flip-flops and changes of position, we should all exercise appropriate humility.
The hon. Lady asks what is required in order to prepare. We will, of course, be stepping up our intensive co-operation with business, but when the chief executive of the port of Dover appeared in front of the Committee on the Future Relationship with the European Union in June this year, he made it clear that at that point it was possible for any business to know exactly what was required, from the acquisition of an economic operators registration and identification number, to securing a customs intermediary or having in-house capacity. Everyone knew at that stage what would be required on our departure from the customs union and the single market. That information is there, and we want to ensure that more and more businesses, including those who think the transition period will be extended, realise that, as the hon. Lady rightly pointed out, there is no turning back from that date, and we all need to be ready by 1 January.
The hon. Lady asks about our determination to secure a deal. We are determined to do everything we can to secure a deal, but one purpose of this statement is to underline that, whether or not we secure a deal, because we are leaving the single market and the customs union, there are some activities that all businesses must engage in. I hope that Members across the House, whatever their views of the merits of our departure from the European Union, will work with the Government to ensure that businesses are directed towards the information they need and given the support they deserve.
The hon. Lady mentions to her visit to Ashford. I am grateful to her and to others for drawing attention to the need for additional infrastructure at or near the border, as well as Government investment to ensure that we are ready. The Ashford motorway site will provide transit facilities for those who are exporting, and from July 2021, it will also provide facilities for those who are importing. I am grateful to everyone who has played a part in ensuring that that site will be ready on time.
The hon. Lady refers to the Ebbsfleet site, which was acquired by HMRC some time ago, in preparation for a potential no-deal exit before the withdrawal agreement was secured. It was temporarily allowed to become a testing site, but testing facilities have now moved to another location in Kent. Ebbsfleet, along with North Weald, is available as a transit site. It is important that this Government, like all Governments, ensure that we provide not only for the public health of our people, but also for the free flow of commerce.
The hon. Lady refers to customs agents and intermediaries. The £80 million provided has not yet been fully drawn down, and I hope that our exchanges today will encourage businesses and others to ensure they have access to that money. She asks about IT systems, and systems such as the import of products, animals, food and feed system have been in place for some time now. That new IT system will replace the EU trade control and expert system—TRACES—to which we will, of course, no longer have access. Other systems such as the smart freight system or the goods vehicle movement service are in operation and being tested with business now.
As I said earlier, it is vital to recognise that business needs our support to navigate, meet and master these challenges and to take advantage of these opportunities. The Government stand ready to work with everyone across the House to ensure that business is ready, and at what is undoubtedly a difficult time for the economic life of our country, we will do what we can to help.
I can assure my right hon. Friend that the so-called Saxon wall on the Ashford site is in fact a myth: it is not Saxon and it is not holding up work.
The prospect of 7,000 trucks queuing to cross the channel will send a chill through my constituents, because we know the disastrous effect that has on all the roads in Kent. I very much support my right hon. Friend in his work to prepare the road haulage industry for the end of the transition period, but may I ask about the Government’s own preparations and specifically the smart freight system that he mentioned, which is essential for the smooth running of traffic across the channel? Can he give a guarantee that that system will be fully up and running and operational from January?
My right hon. Friend makes a number of very important points, and I am grateful to him for clearing up the point about archaeology, which I failed to address in my response to the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), but his expertise in this area is greater.
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that we want to avoid the level of congestion that this reasonable worst-case scenario sets out, and he is also absolutely right that that requires people to work together. It requires not just the haulage industry, but in particular those goods exporters who commit goods to haulage to be ready in time. Part of that is the smart freight system, which has been developed and is being shared with business. We want to make sure that people use a relatively simple process to get what will become known as a Kent access permit, which means that they can then proceed smoothly through Kent because they have the material required. If they do not have the material required, through policing, ANPR cameras and other means, we will do our very best to ensure that his constituents are not inconvenienced.
Today is the day when all the Brexit chickens come home to roost, only of course they will not, because they will be sitting in a 7,000-strong lorry queue on a Kent motorway for two days, waiting to be dispatched. I remember the days of the easiest deal in history, of having our cake and eating it while observing the sunny uplands, when even the Duchess himself told us that we hold all the cards. Well, it seems that the only card we are holding is the joker with his “Spitting Image” mush all over the front of it. What I do not understand is why he continues with the charade of seeking a deal when we know that it is the no deal that they all want and all covet?
I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that the Scottish people are also scenario planning. We are planning our best-case scenario, when we get out of rogue state UK before the worst of this Brexit madness consumes our beautiful nation. His European counterparts must be looking forward to the next round of talks with all the relish of a vegan being served a platter of chlorinated chicken.
We are told that the talks are at a delicate stage; they are so delicate that the EU is close to telling the UK to go and get stuffed, and I can see its point. It is having to deal with a UK that is prepared to tear up the withdrawal agreement that was oven-ready and the greatest deal ever just a few months ago and, in the process, break international law, but there is one good thing that has come out of all this: it has focused Scottish minds on the type of future that we want. Do we want a future in rogue state UK, with all the horror of their low-deal, no-deal Brexit, or a future as a normal European nation making our own decisions free of this clown-shoed Government? As a famous son of Aberdeen, the right hon. Gentleman must know which direction the Scottish people are travelling in.
I do not know where to begin: chickens or cake. Those questions were a mixter-maxter of mixed metaphors the likes of which even the most impressive makar would be proud. It was a remarkable performance —they usually are. I thank the hon. Gentleman for referring to the fact that “Spitting Image” has fashioned a rubber puppet in my likeness. It is one of the greatest honours that has ever been paid to me, and I hope that other Members will enjoy that recognition in due course.
The hon. Gentleman asked about chickens. One of the things we will do is ensure that we prioritise day-old chicks, and fish and shellfish from Scottish harbours to make sure that they reach the fish market in Boulogne without let or impediment. As we take back control of our waters, and access to our marine resources enables Scotland to get thousands of new jobs and millions in new investment, we want to be able to take full advantage of that. Sadly, one of the Scottish Government’s decisions is that they wish to re-enter the European Union, give up access to that bounty and sell Scotland’s coastal communities short. I gently suggest that that is probably a mistake.
The hon. Gentleman makes the point that the best-case scenario for Scotland is independence. That has long been his position. Of course, while we set out to answer questions in this House, there are many questions about independence that have not been answered. What currency would an independent Scotland use? How would UK pensions be guaranteed in an independent Scotland? What would be the replacement for the furlough scheme in an independent Scotland when HM Treasury was no longer capable of providing that money? As Andrew Wilson’s growth commission has pointed out, an independent Scotland would have to pay a premium for borrowing on international markets. No pounds, no pension and poorer, an independent Scotland—unless the hon. Gentleman can come up with better answers—is the worst case of call.
May I ask a question that actually matters in relation to jobs and the economy in Scotland? With only 100 days to go to the end of the transition period, will my right hon. Friend confirm that the UK Government have given up on the EU’s resolving the Airbus-Boeing dispute, which has led to damaging tariffs on Scotch malt whisky in the US? Will the UK Government pursue a bilateral resolution of that dispute to see those tariffs lifted and enable the Secretary of State for International Trade to negotiate a free trade agreement that banishes such tariffs forever?
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that issue. It is because of the EU’s mishandling of the Airbus project that the US imposed tariffs on malt whisky that did not exist beforehand, hitting one of Scotland’s most important exports. My right hon. Friend the International Trade Secretary has been negotiating on Scotland’s behalf directly with the US to see those tariffs lifted. She has already secured progress on gin and I hope that she will secure progress on whisky. The excellent Karen Betts, chief executive of the Scotch Whisky Association, has been appointed explicitly as an adviser to the Secretary of State to help ensure that the UK Government, with their negotiating weight, can do for the Scotch whisky industry what the EU was not capable of doing.
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for his statement, although a queue of 7,000 lorries would not be much of a great prize for the country. As he knows, for months, those who move goods for a living across the short straits have been warning Ministers that systems and training will not be ready in time. Now the industry says that it is being “fitted up” to take the blame for the Government’s failure to grasp, in the words of one logistics expert involved in the talks, “real-world complexities”. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster just told the House that the Goods Vehicle Movement Service and the Smart Freight IT systems are in operation. When did that happen?
They have been developed. They are in operation now. We are refining with business exactly how they should operate for businesses’ benefit.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his “Spitting Image” puppet and on the literary prowess visited on him in recently published diaries.
I remind my right hon. Friend of his considerable generosity in coming to the west midlands to attend a roundtable with manufacturers some 12 months ago. He did that with our outstanding west midlands Mayor, Andy Street. As my right hon. Friend discharges his most important duties as set out in his statement, will he remember two of the points that were raised with him at that roundtable? The first is concern about just-in-time supply chains and the second is the importance of removing tariffs on finished goods and components in those supply chains.
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. I was not aware that there were any diaries being published this week.
I will look out anxiously when I next pass Waterstones in Camberley.
On the substantive point that my right hon. Friend makes, he is absolutely right. There is no better champion of the automotive sector than the West Midlands Combined Authority Mayor, Andy Street. The roundtable that I had with him, as well as the opportunity I have had with him to visit Jaguar Land Rover to talk to Ralf Speth and others, have impressed upon me the importance of doing everything we can to support that sector, on which so many jobs depend. That is why we are so anxious to secure a deal.
The Minister will be aware of the considerable concern that Welsh ports such as Fishguard and Holyhead will be severely impacted by any delays to the introduction of the goods vehicle movement and smart freight systems. Could he tell the House what proportion of vehicles crossing the Irish sea from Wales to Ireland he expects to face disruption in the Government’s reasonable worst-case scenario?
Goods coming from Ireland to Wales should not face impediment because we are staging our processes in the way that I described. For goods going the other way, much depends on the determination made by EU member states about the processes they will apply, but we are working with the Welsh Assembly Government to invest in a facility near Holyhead in Anglesey, to ensure that transit and other procedures can facilitate the flow of traffic and trade.
The people of Hyndburn and Haslingden voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU and for someone who would respect their decision, and yet they are still urging me to press the Government not to extend the transition period. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that the EU has accepted that we will not accept or seek an extension to the transition period and that, at the end of this year, we will deliver on our promise to the British people and regain our economic and political independence?
My hon. Friend makes absolutely the right point. The certainty of knowing that we will leave on that date and the publication of the information today will, I hope, help businesses to prepare with certainty for the end of the transition period. Every Conservative Member of Parliament was elected on a manifesto which made it clear that we would end the transition period on 31 December. One of the difficulties we have in this House is that, while those on the Opposition Front Bench quite rightly support that position, Labour politicians in power, such as the First Minister of Wales and the Mayor of London, take a different position. The leader of the Labour party was talking yesterday about patriotism. I think it would be patriotic if he were to make it clear that Labour is united in backing the British people.
The Government have promised a shared prosperity fund to replace EU structural funding for regeneration and growth since 2017. Despite originally promising a consultation, we have not seen one. There have not even been any engagement events since the Prime Minister took office. When will the Minister publish the framework through which the shared prosperity fund will work, to keep it accountable and prevent pork barrel politics and bungs to target seats?
The hon. Lady makes an important point. The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government will outline how the shared prosperity fund will be distributed. She is right: as a result of our departure from the European Union, we will have more money to spend on our priorities, and we will, of course, spend that money on what the Prime Minister has called the levelling-up agenda. There are parts of our country—overlooked communities and undervalued families—that have been neglected by Labour local authorities for far too long and now have Conservative MPs in this place, and it is vital that their advocacy on behalf of their constituents to improve their productivity is supported. That is why everything from new free ports to increased investment will go to those areas that have been neglected by Labour for far too long.
The figures that my right hon. Friend has given today on business preparedness for 31 December are concerning. Is not the important advice that he has given that those businesses should either do the paperwork themselves or get an intermediary to do it on their behalf?
My hon. Friend is right. We want to help and support business. That is why we have provided the funding that we have. One reason for publishing the reasonable worst-case scenario today is to draw attention to the fact that, if we do not all work together, there will be disruption, but if we do work together, there are huge opportunities to be seized.
Seven thousand HGV lorries parked end to end would stretch from this building to Dover—that is the scale of the problem that the Minister has set out. Where will the 29 extra lorry parks be? We need to know that. This is about Government preparedness. His statement seemed to be all about passing the blame on to business for the chaos being caused by his Government.
No. The hon. Gentleman, by emphasising that figure, is helping, because what we want is to avert that scenario. As I pointed out, it is not a prediction, but it is a warning. He is right that there is a responsibility on Government, which is why we have invested in the sites in Ebbsfleet and North Weald, Ashford, Warrington and the west midlands. Should we need to deal with specific areas of traffic management in Kent, steps have been taken with the Kent resilience forum to do just that. The reason for publishing the scenario today is to avert that happening. I hope he will work with businesses in his constituency to make sure they let Government know what more they need to be ready.
The most senior Labour politician in office in the UK is the Welsh First Minister, and he has called for the transition period to be extended beyond the end of the year. Some people see that as a way of avoiding or delaying Brexit. I can advise my right hon. Friend that the Welsh people voted in greater numbers than the average across the UK to leave the European Union. Can he reassure me that the end of the year will be the end of the transition period?
My right hon. Friend makes an important point. The result across the United Kingdom—we voted as one United Kingdom—was clear, but it is true that support for leaving the European Union was very strong across Wales. I have great respect for the First Minister of Wales and we have worked well together in dealing with the covid pandemic, but I do think that my right hon. Friend is absolutely right. It would be sensible now for all politicians, rather than saying that the transition period should end later and creating that illusory prospect, to work together to prepare for 31 December.
The road haulage industry has been talked about a lot, and its workers have kept food on supermarket shelves and medicines in our pharmacies through the recent crisis. The statement says the Government have put aside £80 million for customs agents. How many agents do we have at the moment? How many will we need on 1 January? How many will this training provide on 1 January to ensure that the haulage industry can keep operating?
The hon. Lady is right. The haulage industry has been doing a fantastic job. I make no criticism of the industry or of individual hauliers—quite the opposite. Most of the work required will be required by the companies that are exporting rather than by the haulage industry, and it is they who will either hire customs intermediaries to do the work for them or, as my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) pointed out, do that work in house. So some of the work is being done in house, some by major players and some by companies such as Kuehne+Nagel, which is expert in the area. The market is moving; the response we have had from some is that, particularly in the past couple of weeks, there has been significantly greater call for their services, and they are recruiting, but the £80 million we have has not been entirely drawn down yet, and we keep the amount we are providing under review to ensure that if more is needed, more can be provided.
I am sure we are all aware that when we finally leave the transition period, at the end of the year, we will also be leaving behind the common agricultural policy, which has done such damage not only to agricultural economics but to our environment. Will my right hon. Friend detail how the replacement system we are preparing will be better for farmers, fairer, better for our agricultural economy and our environment, and support our target of net zero?
My hon. Friend makes an important point. As the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has pointed out, as we move away from the common agricultural policy, we move to a system where farmers can be supported with public money to provide public goods—for example, increasing the organic content of their soil or contributing to better and cleaner management of our waters—and, as the recent trade deal secured by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Trade shows, we have improved access for our superb produce to new markets.
I thank the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster for his statement. Last Friday, I had the opportunity to meet Gordons pharmacy in Newtownards. As a type 2 diabetic, I declare an interest. Many are saying that insulin and other medications will not be able to be sourced post-Brexit. Will the right hon. Gentleman tell me what progress has been made to ensure that the supply of medicines from the EU to the UK, and then from GB mainland to Northern Ireland, will continue after the transition period ends?
The hon. Gentleman raises a very important consideration, because of the operation of the Northern Ireland protocol. I was discussing yesterday with a Minister of State at the Department of Health and Social Care, and officials in the Northern Ireland Office and other Departments, how we can make sure that the supply of medical goods continues uninterrupted to Northern Ireland. He is quite right that one of the single most important is insulin, because of the particular requirements that diabetics like him, and indeed my father, faces.
I am grateful for the statement setting out the current position. During these uncertain times, it is vital that businesses have as much clarity as possible, especially the many businesses in Cheadle that rely on trade with the EU. In addition to the preparations my right hon. Friend outlined, we can give those businesses the certainty they deserve by agreeing a free trade deal with the EU this year. Can my right hon. Friend therefore reassure my constituents that the Government continue to work towards that prime objective?
Yes, absolutely. The Government are absolutely committed to securing a Canada-style free trade agreement. One of the difficulties we have had in the talks is that, as our negotiator David Frost pointed out, the European Union still has not come to grips with the fact that we will be a sovereign equal, not in the size of our economy but in our democratic mandate. There are, therefore, still one or two sticking points, because it is seeking to tie us to its rules rather than recognising that we will follow our own path. However, I am confident we can overcome those difficulties and secure a free trade agreement, which would be in everyone’s interests. Of course, many preparations that businesses are required to undertake are the same whether or not we have an FTA.
Businesses in Northern Ireland and elsewhere urgently need to see the detail of the border model between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Previously, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster promised that that would be published by the end of July. It is desirable that we see the outcome of Joint Committee and future relationship negotiations, but they are not essential for that. Will he therefore give a revised commitment on when we will see that?
Yes. The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. The Joint Committee should, God willing, meet next Monday in Brussels. I will be seeing Maroš Šefčovič then, as we seek to make progress on those matters. The hon. Gentleman will know that we made more than £200 million available through the trader support service and support for IT to help businesses in Northern Ireland. Even though it has been a subject of contention in this House, the provisions in the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill are there to make sure that Northern Ireland’s businesses do have a guarantee that, whatever happens, they will not be required to have export declarations when goods move from Northern Ireland to Great Britain, because the principle of unfettered access is so important.
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement, in particular the extra £705 million for infrastructure at our border. Will he be able to update us a bit more on how the technological solutions are developing, such as the smart freight service, to facilitate movement across the borders?
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. Yes, there are a number of systems. For example, I mentioned earlier IPAFFS, which is critical for those in the agrifood sector and has been developed for some time now. The smart freight system and the GVMS are being operated within Government at the moment, in consultation with business, and we hope they will go live so they are there for all to see in their ideal form in the course of the next few weeks.
In just 100 days, all food exports to the EU will require an export health certificate and an authorised vet to sign it off. Do we have enough vets to do that? I understand that £80 million has been made available for the 50,000 custom agents required. Can we be told how much of the money has been drawn down and put in place? As a former IT person, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he is really confident that the IT systems will be in place and working?
Those are three very good points. On the question of vets yes, but there is a requirement on every part of the United Kingdom to play their part. For example, we have been talking to the Northern Ireland Executive about making sure that the specific need for vets and the new border control posts in Northern Ireland is satisfied. It is the case that there are vets and others who can carry out that job across the UK, but for example I hope, fingers crossed, that the Scottish Government have provided enough money to Aberdeenshire Council to make sure that those who provide export health certificates in the harbours of Fraserburgh and Peterhead are in place. I do not think that voters in either Fraserburgh or Peterhead would forgive the Scottish Government if they had not made that investment and had used the money elsewhere. I am sure they will not have done so.
On the point about IT, we are working hard, internally and with authoritative expertise, to make sure that those IT systems will work. I do not think any of us can make a confident prediction that everything will always be perfect, but some of the very best people in Government and in the private sector are committed to making them work.
Would my right hon. Friend agree that, as we reach the end of the transition period, as well as seeking a positive future relationship with the European Union as a sovereign independent nation, we are well positioned to take advantage of new global opportunities? Will he join me in congratulating advanced ceramics research company Lucideon in my constituency, which is set to receive a £1 million boost as a result of the new Japan trade deal that the UK and Japan have agreed in principle? Lucideon’s joint venture with a Japanese partner will bring new jobs to Stoke-on-Trent Central and plans for an advanced ceramics campus in north Staffordshire a step closer.
I agree with my hon. Friend that that is unmitigated good news. The ceramics sector is well placed to take advantage of new international trade deals, and it could not have a more effective champion than my hon. Friend.
With the end of the transition period fast approaching and our borders with the EU woefully ill-prepared for the trading arrangements a no-deal Brexit will bring, may I ask the Minister how the £700 million he has announced will, over the three months he has available, enable us to recruit and retrain the hundreds of new customs officers required to carry out border checks? With so little time left to fully test, install and commission the smart infrastructure technology required to implement those checks, is this not just another example of what the whole of Brexit has been about—wishful thinking and self-deception, rather than accepting the reality on the ground?
The first part of the hon. Gentleman’s question was, I think, very apposite. The £705 million is being made available of course to ports. It will also help pay for inland infrastructure, but I should stress that much of that infrastructure will be required only when we ourselves are imposing checks, which will not come until next July. Any individual Member of this House who will be seeing infrastructure built in their constituency will be contacted, if they have not already been, by my colleagues Lord Agnew and the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Lopez).
The people of Newcastle-under-Lyme voted very clearly to leave the European Union, but contrary to the wild claims from the SNP spokesman earlier, they are not seeking a no deal. They want a good, fair, constructive deal negotiated in good faith with the EU, but they do want this over and done with. Would the Minister join me and them in rejecting the calls from senior members of the Labour party, such as the Welsh First Minister and the Mayor of London, to extend the transition period? We cannot have that happen, because if it does happen, it will only lead to more uncertainty for business. We need to move on.
My hon. Friend makes an absolutely important point. We have set out a timetable, and sticking to that timetable will enable people, I hope, to take all the steps required. He makes the point that we on this side of the House do not seek a no deal: quite the opposite—we are keen to seek a deal. But one question that has never been answered is if there were ever a vote for independence in Scotland—I am sure there will not be ever, but if there were ever—the SNP has never made it clear whether it would rely on there being a negotiated settlement or would go for a no-deal Scexit. It is one of the many questions that the SNP declines to answer.
I was listening very carefully to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster about business preparedness, not least because it is only three months to the end of the transition period. Businesses in the food and drink industry in my constituency would love to be able to be ready for Brexit, but there is no guidance yet about what labels businesses need to use to legally sell their goods in the EU and in Northern Ireland next year. When will the Government announce these measures, so that food and drink manufacturers are not held back from making the preparations they need to make?
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Some of that detail has already been published, but there is more that depends on the negotiations. If he gets the companies in his constituency with particular concerns to get in touch with me directly, I will work with him to provide them with the information we have.
The markets Bill does not break any law, does it?
The UK Government fought an election and won a majority in this House on the basis that they had an oven-ready Brexit. In March last year, the right hon. Gentleman said:
“We did not vote to leave without a deal”;
now, we are staring down the barrel of a no-deal Brexit, the consequences of which will be magnified by the economic fallout from Brexit. What does the right hon. Gentleman say to those who voted for his Government on the basis that they had an oven-ready Brexit and now feel utterly betrayed?
I have not met anyone in that position. The truth is, of course, that we left on 31 January. Increasingly, I find lots of people in Scotland who, the more they look at the position of the Scottish National party and the Scottish Government, are becoming yes-to-no voters—that is the growing trend.
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. He will know that there are two important industries in the UK that begin with the letter F: one contributes £1.4 billion to the UK economy; the other contributes £132 billion and employs more than a million people. In his July statement, my right hon. Friend committed the UK to upholding international norms so that there is a free flow of capital and efficient markets. Is he convinced that he can still deliver those international norms so that there is delegation? Is he convinced that there will be equivalence for UK financial services in July 2021?
I am confident of that. One thing about equivalence is that it is what is called an autonomous process in the EU. To be very fair to the EU, since the Prime Minister drew attention to the slow progress of some of those autonomous processes, it has meant an acceleration, so I am confident, yes.
I do not think we have had clarity in response to earlier questions as to how many customs agents are in place now. Will the Secretary State provide that figure? Will he also guarantee that when the time comes, any business that needs the services of a customs agent will be able to access one?
Customs agents are provided by the market. It is the case that a number of customs intermediaries’ businesses are growing, and a number of other businesses will employ people in that role. Just as I cannot precisely state at any given time in a dynamic market how many people are doing exactly what job, I can state that the £80 million that we have made available has not yet been fully drawn down. Any company that operates in customs will know that come 1 January there will be increased demand for its work, so this is an opportunity to expand and Government stand ready to help.
As we reach the end of the transition period and take back control, I welcome the Government’s United Kingdom Internal Market Bill. One issue that has been raised many times during the debates is the EU’s refusal to give us third country listing. Does my right hon. Friend agree that third country listing is vital to agreeing a deal with the European Union? Will he assure me that he will continue to push to make the EU take reasonable steps to make sure that it happens?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The reluctance to grant, or slow pace in granting, third country status for food exports to the UK has been concerning, but thanks to the Prime Minister’s having drawn attention to the issue, progress has been made.
Further to the question asked by the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond), the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster will know that financial services firms in the UK generate a huge number of jobs, a not insignificant number of which are held by my constituents. Will he tell the House exactly what progress has been made on the vital issue of achieving equivalence, and what remains to be sorted out?
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Equivalence is decided by the EU. It is an autonomous process separate from but occurring in parallel with the negotiations. As I mentioned earlier, with the Prime Minister having drawn attention to the slow pace in these processes, we have seen an acknowledgement of that on the EU side. The EU is obviously a sovereign equal and will make its own decisions, but I should say that it helps EU businesses to have access to the broad and deep capital markets that we have in this country. Were the EU to cut itself off from our capital markets and financial services, the cost of EU businesses’ transactions would increase and their shareholders would lose out.
This Government were elected with an overwhelming mandate to get Brexit done. In fact, substantially in order to ensure that the 2016 vote was respected, constituencies such as mine and others across the blue wall returned Conservative MPs for the first time ever. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, in order that to give businesses clarity and to respect the will of the people of North West Durham, there will be no extension to transition?
Yes. My hon. Friend is a brilliant advocate for the people of Consett and the whole of his constituency. There will not be an extension.
In the worst-case scenario that the Secretary of State outlined, on the basis of no employment Bill, which the Government had committed to, and the European Union looking to strengthen workers’ rights for zero-hours contract workers, agency workers and those workers susceptible to short-term shift changes, are the Government still committed to at least matching the employment protections of the European Union?
It is a good question from the hon. Gentleman. He has a distinguished background in the trade union movement and elsewhere in defending workers’ rights, and I pay tribute to him for his work in that area. Yes, we want to ensure that we protect workers’ rights. We will always look at what the EU and other jurisdictions are doing to see where we can match and, where possible, exceed the protections offered.
I and many of my constituents want to see supertrawlers banned from destroying our marine wildlife and damaging our fishing towns, which is something that we cannot do while part of the EU. My right hon. Friend has long been committed to support our fisheries as we leave the EU, so will he confirm that after 31 December we will have the ability to stop foreign supertrawlers operating in our seas? At a time when our negotiations are at their fiercest, will he stand firm on our commitment to take back control of our waters?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that one of the benefits of departing from the EU is that we can safeguard our marine environment from predators, and we will take all steps necessary to do so.
Seven thousand truck long queues in Kent and two-day delays to trade would be disastrous for UK businesses, but so too would any delays and queues as a consequence of checks imposed within the UK as a result of the repugnant Northern Ireland protocol. What assurances will the right hon. Gentleman give me and businesses in Northern Ireland that no such delays will feature at Larne? Will he give an assurance to meet me and the major agrifood sector businesses in the not-too-distant future?
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that and for the opportunity I had to visit Ulster Carpets in her constituency over the summer. The Government are committed to ensuring that the Northern Ireland protocol operates in such a way as not in any way to disadvantage Northern Ireland’s agrifood businesses. I would be delighted to meet them with her.
Despite all the scare stories, surely there is no bar to a deal. We will surely not undercut the EU on state aid—we will not return to picking winners and all that rubbish—and with the regulation of business, we will not create a bargain-basement economy or produce rust buckets like the Morris Minor I drove to university with a hole in the floor in 1968. Breaking news just now, however, is that if the deal is conducted late, there might be not indeed an extension of the transition period, but a two-year implementation period. I want now an absolute commitment from the Secretary of State: no extension to transition and no implementation period. We want a clean break, as we promised the electorate, at the end of this year.
Everything my right hon. Friend said I completely agreed with, apart from one thing—I cannot believe that he went to university in 1968. He looks much younger than that.
This morning I met the North East England chamber of commerce and local businesses. We discussed the massive investment in technology and digital skills required by the pandemic to move processes, services and products online. Now we have another transition to face, so will the Minister list each IT system with which a business will have to interface, and when it will be available to be tested by them so that they can begin the process of preparedness?
The border operating model, which we published earlier, outlines the IT systems—
It was published in July. It outlines the IT systems with which business will interact, but of course we are augmenting and updating it, so it will be published later this month.
Does the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster accept that although the worst-case scenario situation of 7,000 queuing lorries would be intolerable for people in Kent and my constituency, even only half that number would require the closure of the coast-bound M20? Will he assure us that he will do all he can to ensure that that is not the reality that people are confronted with next year?
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. It is precisely because we want to avoid that scenario that we are sharing it today in order that Government can be held to account for doing everything possible to avoid it, and so that we can work with business in order to avoid it. We have to be ready for the worst, which is why we have taken appropriate contingency plans. In order to avert that scenario, we want to work with him and those in his constituency, and businesses everywhere, to ensure that we can be ready. Eurotunnel, in his constituency, has been brilliant in the support that it has been giving to the business sector as well.
How much does my right hon. Friend think the EU will lose in the event of no deal? Is not this figure not helped by senior Labour politicians suggesting that we might extend the transition period?
My hon. Friend is absolutely correct that no deal is in nobody’s interests. The fact that the First Minister of Wales or the Mayor of London are holding out the prospect of an extension to the transition period does not contribute to the concentration of minds and—to be fair to the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves)—the productive work required in order to secure a deal.
The London School of Economics estimates that a no-deal Brexit could lead to a 63% decrease in exports to the European Union. For the salmon farmers, the crofters producing lamb and the shellfishermen in my constituency, that could be absolutely ruinous. What comfort can the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster give to the people in my constituency whose livelihoods depend on that export market?
The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point. One of the things that the Government have always stressed is that in the event of a no-deal exit, the sectors that would be most adversely affected by tariffs would be in the agriculture sector, with red meat producers particularly hard hit. That is why we are anxious to avoid that outcome and to secure a deal. Come what may, there will be new processes, but also new markets, for producers in Orkney and Shetland. I will work with him to make sure that, in whatever eventuality, we support the high-quality producers in his constituency.
My right hon. Friend will know that I share his vivacious optimism about Britain’s future as an independent sovereign trading nation, but the farmers of Teesdale and Weardale are understandably concerned about what happens if we get to the end of the year without an agreement. Will he reassure the House and my constituents that all is being done by our negotiators to reach that deal? Does he agree, in terms of the future of Britain’s trading policy, that our independence as a trading nation will provide great opportunities for our agricultural sector?
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for attributing to me vivacity as well as optimism. I am certainly optimistic, but it is Conservative Members who were elected in the 2019 general election who provide the vivacity, including herself. She is absolutely right to raise the concerns of farmers in Teesdale and Weardale, and indeed across the north-east. As I mentioned in response to the previous question, it is red meat producers who, in the event of no deal, will most need our support, but it is also red meat producers, particularly lamb exporters and sheep farmers, who have a great deal to gain. One of the biggest consumers of lamb and sheep meat in the world is the US. At the moment, our access to the US market is restricted. It is one of many markets, including markets in the far east and the middle east, to which we could have access. My hon. Friend’s advocacy on behalf of the farming sector and on behalf of free trade shows the way to future prosperity for the constituents she serves so well.
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberOn a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. We were informed yesterday that the Paymaster General’s calls are set to resume. Members will remember that those calls were used earlier this year, while the House was not sitting due to the coronavirus pandemic. Many Members were very concerned by the lack of opportunity for scrutiny during that period, and that concern is ongoing. I am still struggling, as I know other hon. Members are, to get a response from Ministers from many Departments, including the Treasury, and I am concerned about what the resumption of these calls implies. I am sure that Members from across the House will agree that any resumption of the calls must be in addition to existing scrutiny, rather than a substitute that allows Ministers to be required to come before the House less frequently.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I should be grateful if you would offer guidance on how best to seek assurances from the Government that they are committed to parliamentary scrutiny, and that the resumption of these calls does not herald new limitations on the mechanisms available to Members of the House to hold Governments to account.
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that point of order. The Paymaster General, who of course is a Cabinet Office Minister and does an excellent job in keeping Members from all parties updated, and has done throughout the difficult time of the coronavirus pandemic, is resuming the calls to augment the scrutiny that, quite rightly, Ministers will be exposed to at this Dispatch Box, as we all seek to ensure that we do the right thing by all our constituents at this inevitably testing time.
I thank the hon. Lady for that point of order. I am very glad that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was present to respond, and I hope that that will give her some reassurance.
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.
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberA 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
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision regarding pets with microchips; and for connected purposes.
This Bill should more commonly be known as Tuk’s law and Gizmo’s law. Every responsible pet owner wants to ensure that their pet is safe. It is now a legal requirement for all dog owners to microchip their dogs since compulsory microchipping came into force in 2016. British Veterinary Association best practice guidelines recommend that vets should scan microchips on the first presentation in veterinary surgeries and at other regular intervals, including prior to any decision being made on euthanasia. These guidance notes also include advice on what a vet should do if details of the person presenting the dog are different from what is in the database, and on what to do when stray or lost dogs are brought into the veterinary surgery, including the need to check the microchip databases in order to reunite the animal with its owner or back-up rescuers. Although the guidance is helpful, the Tuk’s law campaign has found that many vets are not following these recommendations and a large number of healthy dogs are being euthanised without checking microchips to ascertain the owners or back-up rescuers.
To date, over 121,000 people have signed a parliamentary petition set up by the Tuk’s law campaign, calling for a change in the law to make it mandatory for vets to scan microchips for owner and rescue back-up details before euthanising a healthy dog. Tuk’s law campaign began as a result of the premature and unnecessary euthanasia of a young, 16-month-old rescue dog called Tuk, who was a beautiful Mioritic dog who had full rescue back-up and whose rescue contact details were registered on his microchip as a secondary contact. His euthanasia was requested and acted on by someone who was not registered on his microchip—a vet who did not scan him prior to ending his life. Had the vet scanned him, he would have seen the rescue back-up contact details, registered the microchip and contacted the rescuer, who would have collected him and Tuk’s life would have been saved.
Although Tuk’s death prompted the parliamentary petition, during the past 18 months the reported amount of unnecessary euthanasia of healthy and treatable animals—in particular, rescue animals—has grown alarmingly. Today I am putting forward a private Member’s Bill to ensure that all vets are legally required to scan for owner and rescue back-up contact details on microchips when any healthy or treatable dog is brought into a veterinary surgery to be euthanised. On Government-endorsed microchip databases, a prefix will be added to microchips to identify dual registration of rescue animals. If an unsubstantiated reason for euthanasia is made, the vet will be expected to seek corroborating evidence. Vets will also be expected to seek alternative options to euthanasia in situations where there are no life-threatening or emergency situations causing the dog suffering.
By implementing this change in legislation, the lives of hundreds of dogs will be saved every year across Britain. Unless we act to make it mandatory for vets to check microchips, I am deeply concerned—taking into account the coronavirus pandemic—that we could see a steep increase in healthy dogs being put to sleep across Britain in the next 12 months. We must offer these dogs a lifeline. We must make the scanning of microchips mandatory without further delay.
My constituent, Helena Abrahams, began the campaign for Gizmo’s law in 2016 following the death of her much-loved pet in tragic circumstances. Gizmo was 15 years old and involved in a road traffic accident. Sadly, she was disposed of before anyone scanned her chip. As I mentioned earlier, dogs must be microchipped under UK law, and drivers who hit dogs on the road must report the accident under UK law. An animal rescue or vet would be informed, and the animal would be scanned and identified in order to inform the owner. But the same is not true for cats, despite being the second most popular pet in the UK. Instead, cats are often picked up from the roadside and disposed of in landfills without being reported, scanned or identified, and certainly without their owner’s knowledge. A parliamentary petition set up by the Gizmo’s law campaign and signed by over 107,000 people, entitled “New law that cats killed/injured by a vehicle are checked for a chip”, led to a Westminster Hall debate on 17 June 2019, where it received broad cross-party support. The Government response to the parliamentary petition stated:
“We encourage microchipping of cats and it is established good practice for local authorities and the Highways Agency to scan domestic pets found on our streets so that the owner can be informed”,
but went no further.
As part of the Bill that I am introducing today, there would be a legal requirement for local authorities to scan the microchip of a deceased cat and then to make all reasonable efforts to contact the owner to confirm what had happened to their animal and from where they can collect the cat if they so choose. Cats could be collected from the local authority or a local vet, and there would be a further legal requirement that owners will be given seven days to recover their much-loved animals.
Guidance would be issued by Government on good practice, and local authority employees will be required to record the chip number, the location where the cat was found, its sex, colour, colour of the collar and any owners’ details on the bag in which the body will be preserved and protected. However, we must not limit our ambition only to return microchipped cats to their owners. This Bill will further require local authority employees to provide information in line with the aforementioned guidance, together with photographs, to organisations such as Deceased Cats UK and Ireland that exist to do everything possible to return deceased cats to their owners. A register of such organisations would be provided to local authorities by the Government.
Deceased Cats UK and Ireland was established by Helena, Wendy and all at the Gizmo’s law campaign. They worked tirelessly through their Facebook page and with an army of volunteers all over the country to reunite much-loved pets with their owners. Thanks to their efforts, working with local vets and concerned members of the public, they are able to ensure that well over 1,000 much-loved pets are returned home each year.
Finally, I address the issue of cost. Many local authorities do not have scanners, but we have a commitment from Encore, an international pet food manufacturer, to provide a scanner to any council that does not have that facility, and I thank it for its generosity and commitment to animal welfare.
We should not allow deceased cats simply to be treated as rubbish and their bodies disposed of without a thought for their owners. That is not acceptable. Through this Bill, Gizmo’s law ensures that remains are treated with respect and reflects the fact that cats are much-loved pets and companions for millions of people throughout the country.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That James Daly, Anthony Mangnall, Andrew Griffith, Antony Higginbotham, James Sunderland, Joy Morrisey, Sara Britcliffe, Mark Logan, Mark Eastwood, Sir Graham Brady, Chris Loder, Andy Carter and Jim Shannon present the Bill.
James Daly accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 29 January, and to be printed (Bill 187).
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Commons Chamber(3 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberNo amendment has been selected, so I call the Minister to move the Second Reading.
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The men and women of our armed forces are some of the most professional and capable people this country has. They risk their lives to keep us safe, uphold our values and support society whenever the call comes. I know the exceptional and often dangerous tasks that we ask them to do, and the war memorials sadly record the price of that sacrifice that they sometimes have to make. Our support for them should not be confined to the occasional act of remembrance, but should be real and should recognise the things that they do in our name.
In 2004, Phil Shiner, a lawyer, went fishing. He fished for stories, he fished for victims and he fished for terrorists. Phil Shiner and his company, Public Interest Lawyers, fished for people from whom he could make money and to accuse British troops of wrongdoing. By the time Phil Shiner and his like had finished, he had dragged before the courts 1,400 judicial reviews and 234 compensation claims against hundreds of troops. Alongside him on some of those occasions was another law firm that will be, I am afraid, all too familiar to some on the Opposition Benches—Leigh Day. From 2008, those types of firms hauled industrial levels of claims before the courts—never mind the fear and worry and the endless investigations triggered into the men and women of our armed forces. What mattered to the ambulance chasers was the money—the legal aid income, the commissions on compensation claims.
I agree with the Secretary of State’s comments about Phil Shiner, but I have asked his Department for the numbers of cases—as, I understand, have representatives from the Scottish National party—but it has not produced them. The explanatory notes say that there were 900 civil claims. When is he going to produce the figures?
They are in the Library. They were published last week and this is in the impact assessment, but I am very happy to write to the right hon. Member with the clear numbers. I can tell him now that overall, 1,130 compensation claims were brought between 2003 and 2009. One hundred and eighty-eight of the 244 claims put forward by Public Interest Lawyers were struck out by the High Court, and a further 32 lapsed due to inactivity, so we could say that they were found out and justice was eventually done, yet in the meantime, our troops had to endure repeated investigations, interviews and, in some cases, prosecutions.
The system as it stands provides an all-too-easy route for lawyers to spark repeat investigations and multiple claims, too many chances to earn fees and too many chances to drag yet another soldier through a witness box or an interview. If that all fails to produce a result, and most of them do not, there is always the opportunity to use the media to drum up more business, damaging our reputation across the globe with unsubstantiated allegations.
In theory, a veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan could have been involved in up to 13 investigations. The list is exhaustive: a coroner’s inquest; a commanding officer’s investigation; a service police investigation; the Iraq Historic Allegations Team, a judicial review, a service inquiry—the list goes on. Remember that in the middle of this are the men and women who risk their lives to ensure that we sleep safely in our beds.
I welcome the fact that the Bill has been brought to the House. The introduction of measures and safeguards are very important, and one reason why is the mental health and wellbeing of those who are potentially prosecuted because of things that perhaps did not happen. It is very important that the welfare of soldiers, sailors and airmen is protected, is it not?
The hon. Member makes a really important point. Under the Bill, there are steps where prosecutors will have to pay due regard to the impact on soldiers and sailors of that type of further action.
We have been told that this Bill is controversial. Some have gone as far as to say that it decriminalises torture or prevents veterans receiving compensation. Both allegations are untrue. I have to question whether those making such points have actually read the Bill in full. As the former Attorney General for Northern Ireland, John Larkin QC, has recently written:
“It is clearly wrong to say that the Bill would forbid prosecution of serious allegations of torture supported by evidence.”
The Secretary of State invokes the Attorney General for Northern Ireland, so I will invoke Northern Ireland at this point. He knows that of the 300,000 veterans who served in Northern Ireland, none can find comfort in this Bill, as it is about overseas operations. However, he also knows that when the Bill was introduced, there was an equal and comparable commitment given on 18 March that those who served in Northern Ireland would get equal protection. That Bill is yet to be introduced, but can he convince us this afternoon that that commitment still stands?
The hon. Member points to the statement made in the House, and the Government still stand by that. We will ensure that legislation comes forward as part of the overall package to address legacy issues in Northern Ireland.
Notwithstanding the Secretary of State’s comments, he knows that some people who are very close to the military consider the Bill to be extremely controversial. Indeed, the Financial Times today leads with a quote that it is an “international embarrassment”. Does he agree with General Nick Parker, a former commander of UK land forces, who was quoted in the Financial Times today as saying:
“We shouldn’t be treating our people as if they have special protection from prosecution…What we need to do is to investigate properly so that the ones who deserve to be prosecuted, are”?
First, that is what we are doing. I do not agree with the point about torture. I absolutely agree with the point by the former Attorney General for Northern Ireland on that subject.
I am going to make some progress. I know that there are lots of people down to speak in this debate and, although I am willing to give way as much as possible, I would like to make sure that other Members across the House get a chance to speak and make their points.
Let me set out what the Bill does and what it does not do. First, the Bill ensures that, in accordance with article 6 of the European convention on human rights, every member of the armed forces and Crown servant is
“entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law.”
Not my words, not the Government’s words, but the actual words in the ECHR itself. Note the phrase “reasonable time”. That condition runs right through this Bill.
Clauses 1 to 7 introduce new conditions on prosecution for certain offences. In particular, clause 1 sets out when the presumption against prosecution measures will apply, including that the measures will apply only to alleged events that took place on overseas operations more than five years ago. Clauses 2 to 5 create new thresholds that a prosecutor is required to consider when bringing a case. That will give service personnel and veterans greater certainty that the unique pressure placed on them during overseas operations will be taken into account when decisions are made on whether to prosecute for alleged historical offences. The first threshold is that, once five years have elapsed from the date of an incident, it is to be exceptional for a prosecutor to determine that a serviceperson or veteran should be prosecuted for alleged offences on operations outside the UK.
When the Secretary of State’s Department consulted on the Bill in July last year, it suggested that there were two categories of offence that might be excluded from the Bill. One was sexual offences, and the other was torture. Sexual offences have been excluded; why has torture not been?
First, I took the decision that, if we look back at many examples of case law or challenges, the debate around torture and murder has often been about the excessive use of an action in doing something that is what a soldier may or may not think is legitimate. For example, it is an act of war to go and attack a target. It is, unfortunately, an act that a soldier may have to do, which is to use lethal force in defence. It is often a side effect or a consequence of an action that you detain people. Often, the legal debate around that has focused on whether the soldier has been excessive in that use of force. If a soldier uses an excessive amount of force in self-defence on duty, that is viewed as murder. That is where we have often seen challenges in courts around both investigations and decisions to charge.
What is not part of war in any way at all is sexual offences. It is not a debatable point. It is not a place where it is possible to turn on a coin and argue that there is a right and a wrong. That is why I took the view that we should exclude sexual offences from schedule 1 but in the main part of the Bill cover all other offences. It is not the case that, even after five years, someone cannot be prosecuted for torture, murder or anything else. It is absolutely clear that it is still possible to prosecute, and it is our intention, should new or compelling evidence be brought forward, to prosecute for those offences. The Bill is not decriminalising torture and it is not decriminalising murder in any way at all. I mentioned earlier the view of the former Attorney General of Northern Ireland, who is himself well practised in that type of law and an expert.
I think that this is an excellent set of proposals, which the Secretary of State has thought through with great enthusiasm and common sense. It is of course right that people should be investigated fully, and prosecuted if necessary, close to the event, but we want to avoid double, treble or quadruple jeopardy by money makers who should know better than undermining the reputation of our armed forces. I thank the Secretary of State very much for getting the balance right.
I do think we are nearly there on this point, but my right hon. Friend knows that it is important, because it has been raised by some very senior members of the armed forces. I have talked to his excellent junior Minister, the Minister for Defence People and Veterans, my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), and we all want the lawfare that my right hon. Friend described, which is so outrageous, stopped. Mrs Thatcher brought in the Criminal Justice Act 1988, which made it clear that torture of anyone, anywhere is a criminal offence. It would be very helpful if my right hon. Friend now made it clear, in addition to his response to the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), that it is never acceptable, under any circumstance, for any act of torture to take place.
I fully agree with my right hon. Friend: torture is not an acceptable part of what any soldier or any citizen of this country should take part in. Where former Governments, of all colours, have been found to have not upheld those standards, they have either been prosecuted or faced the consequences. No one is excluding that and no one is decriminalising it.
Does the Secretary of State accept that the primary problem is not repeated prosecution, but repeated reinvestigation? The Bill does little to rule that out. With the sorts of cases that he has outlined, the problem has been the innumerable investigations. They are what were so traumatic for the troops, not the tiny number of prosecutions. As the former Attorney General for Northern Ireland says:
“Nothing in the Bill limits the investigation of offences—even outside the period of five years…The Bill impliedly contemplates the possibility of multiple investigations.”
That, I am afraid, is where the Bill falls down.
First, the Bill deals with two parts of why often people are investigated. One is under civil proceedings, where they are investigated or interviewed, or involved in the inquest. Many of those personnel find themselves repeatedly interviewed, either as a suspect or, indeed, through constant summonses as a witness in an inquest. As we know from a number of cases, that has happened on multiple occasions. That is why the second part of the Bill deals with the civil route and the first part deals with the criminal bit.
On the criminal bit, one change is the requirement after five years for a number of thresholds to be gone through before a decision to prosecute is progressed. We think those thresholds are enough to make sure that investigators, or the prosecutor, before perhaps embarking on a repeat investigation—for example, if there has already been one—have to have regard that this is important new evidence. In my experience, investigators do not just investigate for investigation’s sake; they investigate to reach a point of prosecution. If they feel that a prosecution is unlikely, they will not pursue it. I feel that will therefore reduce the number of investigations.
My right hon. Friend also makes the point, in regard to the critics, that the Bill does not prevent prosecution in certain circumstances of egregious crimes committed either against humanity or our treaty obligations at all. That is really important. We will never prevent new evidence from producing a prosecution if a crime has been committed.
I am now going to progress.
The second element of the first part of the Bill ensures that, when making a decision, the prosecutor must give particular weight to certain matters, such as the adverse impact of operations on our personnel and the public interest in finality where there has been a previous investigation and there is no compelling new evidence. If it is deemed that the case should proceed to trial, the third threshold requires consent before a prosecution can proceed. In England and Wales, for example, that will be from the Attorney General. In those cases, the Attorney General will be acting independently of Government, as guardian of the public interest.
Some groups such as Liberty have suggested that this is political interference. It is nothing of the sort. Given that the Attorney General already has decisions over prosecutions in statute ranging from the Auctions (Bidding Agreements) Act 1927 to the Theatres Act 1968, it is neither uncommon nor controversial.
If the hon. Gentleman is going to tell us about the Advocate General for Scotland—[Interruption]—or rather, the Lord Advocate in Scotland, who also sits in the Scottish Cabinet—and his role in directing prosecutions, I will be interested to hear.
Of course, the Advocate General for Scotland resigned just last week. I believe it is the case that the Department consulted the Lord Advocate in the Scottish Government. It is normally the case that the Government would not publish the advice of its own lawyers, but the Lord Advocate in Scotland is not a UK Government official; he is a Scottish Government official. Will the Secretary of State publish the opinion that the Ministry of Defence received from Scotland’s Lord Advocate?
We are not going to publish his opinion or anybody else’s.
We do not publish the opinion of our Attorney General. It is a long-held policy of most Governments not to publish the legal advice they receive, except in exceptional circumstances.
Part 2 of the Bill makes changes to the time limits for bringing claims in tort for personal injury or death and claims for Human Rights Act 1998 violations that occur in the context of overseas military operations. Clauses 8 to 10 introduce schedules 2, 3 and 4. Taken together, these provisions introduce new factors that the courts in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland must consider when deciding whether a claim for personal injury or death can be allowed beyond the normal limit of three years. The provisions also introduce an absolute maximum time limit of six years for such claims. These new factors ensure that operational context is properly taken into account, and they weigh up the likely impact of giving evidence on the mental health of the service personnel or veterans involved.
Clause 11 amends the Human Rights Act. This provision largely mirrors the changes that are being made for tort-based claims. It will change the rules governing the court’s discretion to extend the one-year time limit for bringing claims under the 1998 Act and will introduce an absolute maximum time limit of six years for human rights claims in relation to overseas operations. Again, critics of the Bill are trying to mislead veterans with tales that this somehow discriminates against our armed forces.
Let us put this six-year backstop into perspective. Currently, for claims in tort, where personnel may sue for personal injury in England, there is already a time limit. Mostly, that limit is three years from the date of the incident or knowledge of it. In other words, if a former soldier is diagnosed with PTSD 20 years after his service, the time limit starts then, not when the operation took place. The existence of time limits is commonplace and was upheld by the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Stubbings v. the UK. The UK Human Rights Act itself has a 12-month time limit for claims from the event happening but does allow for further judicial discretion, and the armed forces compensation scheme has a seven-year time limit.
Finally, clause 12 will further amend the Human Rights Act to impose a duty to consider derogating from—that is, suspending our obligations under—the European convention on human rights in relation to significant military overseas operations. This measure does not require derogation to take place, but it does require future Governments to make a conscious decision on whether derogation should be sought in the light of the circumstances at the time. We want in future the ability, if necessary, to allow soldiers to focus on the danger and job in hand when on operations, not on whether they will have a lawsuit slapped on them when they get home.
I thank the Secretary of State for giving way. He knows that my views on these matters are sincere. I abhor vexatious claims against former service personnel. I have witnessed the training of armed forces on the laws of war at first hand and seen how seriously they and their commanders take it. He will be aware that derogation from that section of the ECHR is used in very rare circumstances, and it would be helpful to have more clarification on that. Many people have spoken out on the Bill, including a former Chief of the Defence Staff, a former Commander Land Forces, former Conservative Defence Secretaries and Attorney Generals and learned and gallant Members on both sides of the House. Does he accept that they are expressing those concerns sincerely? I urge him to listen to them as the Bill goes into Committee.
I certainly recognise that people have concerns. Some of those people were doing the job that I am doing when these things were going on, so I would venture to ask them why they did not do anything about it at the time. It is a fact that there has been abuse of this system; we all know that on both sides of the House. It is a fact that we need to do more, rather than just talk about it, for our veterans. It is really important to include measures to recognise the very unique experiences of and pressures put on the men and women of our armed forces when they go on operations hundreds of miles away.
I want to pick up on the point made by the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty)—I am glad to see him wearing his Royal College of Defence Studies tie; there are quite a lot of military ties in the Chamber today—about the application of the ECHR. The derogation that we are asking for and that the Bill recommends is not new; it was included in the initial treaty when it was signed in the ’50s, and other countries have already used it. We are talking about recognising the provisions of a treaty that we signed in order to allow the military to act in a military way, because this treaty was written by people who had fought in the second world war and knew exactly what they were talking about.
My hon. Friend makes a substantive point, and one reason we find ourselves facing these challenges is because there is a clear conflict between international humanitarian law in some areas, and international human rights. The encroachment and growing reach of ECHR into areas of combat has created a clash, in some sense, between things such as the Geneva convention and individual human rights. That is why when the authors wrote the ECHR, they included some of those carve-outs as a way of accommodating the international laws under which they had been operating in the mass conflict of the second world war. Indeed, when the Defence Committee was chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), it picked up on that very real clash, which is hard to resolve. In my view, some of the problems with lawfare is that people are exploiting that clash for financial gain. It is easy to hide behind a humanitarian law on one day and a human rights law on another, and we have a duty to try to make a difference.
We are not going as far as many countries under the jurisdiction of ECHR. Other countries in Europe have a statute of limitations on criminal offences. Germany and France both have a number of criminal statutes that are statutes of limitations. Other countries also do that, or have amnesties, but we are not going that far. We are trying to resolve that clash and see how we can ensure a proper threshold, so that there are no vexatious investigations and our men and women do not constantly find themselves the subject of them.
Surely, the debate of the past five or 10 minutes has exposed the truth of this matter, which is that it is easy to build consensus in the House on provisions relating to civil actions—there is very little exception to that. However, may I take the Secretary of State back to the answer he gave to the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell)? He is right in what he says about torture, but the logic of his argument is that torture should be listed in the first schedule to the Bill. He is right to put sexual offences in that schedule because, as the Government says, there are no circumstances in which sexual offences can be tolerated in war, but the logic of not including torture suggests that there are some circumstances in which torture is accepted. That is the logic. Will the Secretary of State tell the House what those circumstances are?
The right hon. Gentleman is a learned Gentleman and a former colleague of mine—
Well, he should be. Only a solicitor would argue the toss between a barrister and a solicitor; for us mere soldiers, they are learned gentlemen or women in this context. I am afraid that he is absolutely wrong in his assertion. Nowhere in the Bill prevents a prosecution for torture either under five years or over five years. If he can show me where in the Bill there is a decriminalisation or tolerance of torture, I would be delighted to hear which clause or subsection decriminalises torture. Will he show me the statute?
The exclusion of torture from schedule 1 raises the inference for any court that—and this is a matter of logic, not of law—there are circumstances in which torture is acceptable. All the Secretary of State needs to do is include torture in schedule 1, and the Bill would have no difficulty.
Does the right hon. Gentleman therefore venture that beyond torture there is murder? Should we include murder in that schedule as well?
Obviously not, because murder is dealt with by the common law of this country. The Secretary of State is perfectly aware that such a case could still be brought under the exceptional circumstances provisions. The problem he has is that there is no such thing as unexceptional torture.
I will crack on. The House has heard the point from the Liberal Democrat spokesman. I venture that I will side with the former Attorney General for Northern Ireland on his views regarding whether this provision does or does not prevent torture. I think his judge of the law is pretty succinct, although I have not always agreed with his views. [Interruption.] I shall carry on.
In conclusion, the Bill is about doing the right thing by our troops. Our soldiers and values must uphold the highest international standards. The Bill is not an amnesty, a statute of limitation, or the decriminalisation of erroneous acts. We will continue to protect the independence of our prosecutors and our service police, and we will investigate and, if necessary, prosecute service personnel who break the law. But what we will not accept is the vexatious hounding of veterans and our armed forces by ambulance-chasing lawyers motivated not by the search for justice, but by their own crude financial enrichment.
This House should reflect on how lawfare has ranged way out of control. All too often, the victims have been the very people who risked life and limb to keep us safe. The Bill is a measured step, making provision for the unique circumstances our troops find themselves in on operations overseas. I commend the Bill to the House.
I remind colleagues that many right hon. and hon. Members wish to contribute to the debate, so Back-Bench contributions will be limited to five minutes to start with. We will have to review the limit as we go to allow as many people as possible to participate.
I start by also paying tribute to the role, dedication and work of our armed forces. They face exceptional risks, give exceptional service and require exceptional skills. As we face as a nation a second covid crisis, they are likely to be called on again, more heavily, including overseas.
I am pleased that we have come to the Commons debate on this legislation. I thank the Secretary of State for the way he introduced the Bill. The first duty of any Government is to protect the nation and its citizens, and the first duty of any Defence Secretary is to protect the men and women who dedicate themselves to the service of their country. We have our own British way of doing this. Since the days of Churchill and Attlee, when Britain led the global efforts to establish the rules-based international order after the second world war, we have been the champions of democracy, freedom and universal human rights. Our British forces uphold, unequivocally, international law and conventions. By adhering to the highest standards of legal military conduct ourselves, we can hold other countries to account when their forces fall short. The Bill calls into question Britain’s proud commitment to the Geneva convention, our duty as a “permanent five” member of the United Nations to uphold international law, and our moral authority to require the conduct of other nations to meet the standards set by those international conventions.
Since the end of the 2000s, all parties in this House have upheld a strong commitment to the armed forces covenant, which declares that those from the armed forces and their families
“should face no disadvantage compared to other citizens in the provision of public and commercial services.”
The Bill breaches that covenant by denying troops who serve overseas the same employer liability rights as are held by the UK civilians they defend. Our aim with this Bill is, first, to protect British troops and their right to justice from the MOD, and secondly, to protect Britain’s reputation as a force for good in the world, upholding human rights and the rules-based international order. We will work to help forge a constructive consensus through the Commons and the Lords for the changes necessary to achieve that aim.
The right hon. Gentleman must recognise—I am sure he knows this well, having spoken to his opposite numbers in socialist or left-wing parties around Europe—that many other countries follow this system of derogation and have national caveats. France itself has a reserve of emergency powers it can use to defend its troops against vexatious or inappropriate litigation. Is he seriously suggesting that France is not a law-based state, or that it is in some way immoral and has no right to sit as one of the P5? Surely he is not suggesting that.
No, I am very clear that we want to and must protect our British troops against vexatious claims and repeat investigations. Important parts of the Bill are wrong; we can get them right and that is what I want to do. There has been a problem—I get that—arising especially from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, as the Secretary of State said. The al-Sweady inquiry chairman, when he finally cleared the troops in 2014, spoke forcefully of the “most serious allegations”—of murder and mutilation—that
“have been hanging over these soldiers for the past 10 years”.
The family of an Iraqi boy, Ahmed Jabbar Kareem Ali, who drowned in a canal in 2003 with British soldiers directly implicated, had to wait until the Newman inquiry reported in 2016 before they got the truth and the MOD issued a full apology.
Long-running litigation, repeat investigations and judicial reviews are indeed the signs of a flawed system—a system that has failed British troops and failed victims under successive Governments. I get this problem, and it must be fixed, but it is important to see it in perspective, not least so that we can see clearly the problem that we are legislating in the Bill to fix.
My right hon. Friend was touching on an important point that Members on the Government Benches have touched on as well. The problem is, as it stands, the long investigations and the repeated investigations that allow double jeopardy not via the courts, but by intimidation of investigation. The Bill does nothing whatever to deal with some of those issues. Is that not a reason for the Government to go away and rewrite parts of the Bill or even issue proper investigatory guidelines to stop that kind of thing happening?
I sincerely trust that the Government will rethink and will be prepared to rewrite parts of the Bill. If they do so, I think they will find broad consensus for some of the changes that could be made to the Bill to help protect our troops and protect Britain’s reputation worldwide at the same time.
On that point, I have seen successive Governments overlook the armed forces, having been one of those people thrown on the pile to fend for myself. This Bill is a massive step forward for any veteran who has served on the frontlines. We are playing politics with this issue, and I plead for all Members to put that aside and focus on the massive step this Bill is for our armed forces.
I will come on to that matter in a moment, because the Bill does nothing for those troops who have served, as the hon. Gentleman describes, on the frontline overseas. It does nothing to deal with the past cases and the past problems.
On that point, the right hon. Gentleman is right about the armed forces covenant and the ability of members of the armed forces community to bring a claim for injury or death after six years. There is some concern about the unique deviation of the Limitation Act 1980 in the Bill that will place members of the armed forces community at a disadvantage compared with civilians. After six years, civilians can register a civil claim, whereas soldiers and Army, Navy and RAF personnel cannot.
In his typical way, the hon. Member puts his finger on an important point. He understates his argument, as there is more than just some concern; there are, for instance, according to the Royal British Legion, very clear grounds for concern that the provision breaches the armed forces covenant, and I will come on to that point.
Let me deal with getting this problem, which does exist and must be fixed, in a proper perspective. My right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) was absolutely right about how hard it is to get hard, clear information out of the Government. Over recent months, I have had to prise figures out of the MOD. There is a deep resistance to releasing full, open information. The first important figures to give a broad perspective are these: over the past 15 years, there have been 25 cases brought by injured British troops against the MOD for every one case brought by alleged victims against our troops. You can see why, Madam Deputy Speaker, some of the veterans I have talked to about this Bill reckon it is more about protecting the MOD than it is about protecting troops. Britain deployed 140,000 troops to Iraq over six years. The Government cite—the Secretary of State did so today—1,000 civil claims, all against the MOD, not individual service personnel, as evidence for the Bill to end vexatious legal claims. One third of those cases—330—have had the MOD pay compensation. Clearly, they were not vexatious as the MOD rightly insists on only settling cases in which it accepts liability. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State says, “No, we don’t,” but if he looks at the annual report on the cases that the Department publishes and takes, he will see exactly that commitment and clarification. It does not have the power to settle claims where it judges that it would not be found liable in a court. However, one fifth of the cases—217—have been withdrawn or struck out. They may well have been vexatious cases—they were certainly baseless. They may have taken too long, but the system, even as it stands, has dealt with them.
Two fifths of the cases—414—are ongoing, according to the MOD, although that definition could mean that those cases are settled and the MOD has agreed to pay compensation, but there may still be outstanding arguments over legal costs. Those cases may again be long-running, but they are hardly vexatious if they have not been struck out by now.
On the criminal side, the Government cite 3,400 allegations. The Secretary of State referred to the Iraq Historic Allegations Team that looked into them. Despite deep flaws in that investigation, 70% were ruled out as there was no case to answer or no proportionate grounds for a criminal investigation. In other words, those allegations did not warrant a full investigation so got nowhere near the point of decision about prosecution. They would have been wholly unaffected by the Bill if the measure had been in place because, as the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) said, it does not deal with investigations—as it should—but only with prosecutorial decisions and process. By the way, just seven prosecutions have been brought against British soldiers from the remaining allegations and investigations, and all but one have now been dropped.
On Afghanistan and criminal cases, the Operation Northmoor investigation in 2014 examined 675 criminal allegations from 159 people. The investigation closed and no charges have followed. Indeed, the investigation concluded a year before the MOD confirmed in public in June that it had closed.
On judicial review, the Government have cited 1,400 JRs of civil and criminal Iraq and Afghanistan cases as justification for the Bill. I can only find evidence that two judicial reviews are continuing. The court gave the MOD permission to strike many of the others out three years ago. Yet in April, the Minister told me in answer to a written parliamentary question that the MOD had still only notified fewer than half—630—of the court’s decision not to take the investigations further.
To put the matter in perspective, certainly some vexatious claims have been lodged and the current system has taken too long to weed them out, but the bigger, more serious, more consistent problems lie in the system of investigations, which lacks speed, soundness, openness and a duty of care to alleged victims and to the forces personnel who may be in the frame. Those are the problems, which occur well before the point of decision about prosecution, which is the point at which the Bill starts to operate. They are what the Bill should and can deal with. Our aim during its passage through Parliament is to help ensure that it does.
To pick up on the point made by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Stuart Anderson), I must confess that when I first looked at the Bill, I thought that it was designed to draw a line under the cases still caught up in the problem of so-called lawfare. The first paragraph of the explanatory notes gives the same misleading impression. It says:
“This Bill aims to provide greater certainty for Service personnel and veterans in relation to vexatious claims and prosecution of historical events, that occurred in the uniquely complex environment of armed conflict overseas.”
But this legislation will have no impact on any past or any continuing cases, and clause 15 on commencement makes that clear, so it offers no hope and no help of faster resolution either for the troops or for the alleged victims, who may still be involved in long-running litigation or in repeat investigations. I want to make sure that no one in this House and, much more importantly, in the armed forces and the veterans community is misled by what they may have heard or may have understood before now.
Similarly, nothing in this Bill applies to Northern Ireland, despite the same commitment in the Conservative manifesto, similar concerns on the Government side about drawing a line for British troops who served in Northern Ireland and the Secretary of State’s letter to all MPs last week in which he confirmed his eagerness
“to ensure also the equivalent protections of our veterans who served in Northern Ireland.”
The Secretary of State’s speech looked back, but we now legislate for the future. The Bill is not a framework fit for the future point when Britain must again commit its forces to armed conflict overseas. The Government have got important parts of the Bill badly wrong, and I want to see Ministers work with all parties in both Houses and with groups beyond Parliament who have expertise to offer on this—from the British Legion to Liberty—to get this legislation right.
There are problems. The Bill is silent on the command responsibility and the role of commanders in some of these cases. There is a problem, I think, with the Attorney General’s consent, as it risks political factors coming into prosecutorial decisions. There is nothing on the disclosure rights, responsibilities and duties of the MOD. Let me summarise our biggest concerns about the Bill.
I agree with many of the points the shadow Secretary of State has made during his very valid contribution. Does he agree that one of the fundamental weaknesses with the Bill was put forward by the UK’s most senior military judge, who has argued that the consequence of the legislation is that UK military personnel are more likely to find themselves in front of the International Criminal Court?
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for conceding that I am making some valid points. His point is certainly valid, and it will be a point of central argument, probably in the debate today, but certainly as the Bill passes through both Houses.
Let me return to the biggest problems in the Bill. Part 1, as the Secretary of State said, introduces what the Government have called their so-called triple lock to make prosecutions for the most serious crimes harder. The presumption against prosecution for all crimes except sexual violence clearly creates the risk that the very gravest crimes, including torture and other war crimes, go unpunished if an incident does not come to light for five years or if the investigations are drawn out beyond that deadline.
My right hon. Friend is making an extremely constructive and compelling speech, and I hope that all Members on both sides will listen to what he is saying. On that specific point about torture, may I commend to him the article by our hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis), who has very clearly set out today the objection he has, as I do, to vexatious claims and vexatious investigations? He is also very clear that the prohibition on torture is absolute: there are no exceptions. We as a country are a signatory to a whole series of international conventions on that very issue, and the derogations we talked about under the European convention make it very clear that we have to comply with those international obligations.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for a very succinct and spot-on point, and I look forward to the contribution that I hope my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) will be able to make in the debate.
Will the changes the shadow Secretary of State wants to make overall give more protection to our veterans, or will they actually reduce the protections in this legislation?
The changes will give protections that are fit for the future. They will give protections that are required, and they will avoid parts of the Bill that at the moment put at a disadvantage in a unique fashion those British troops who serve overseas, which is why we argue that it breaches the armed forces covenant.
To come back to the presumption against prosecution, in the explanatory notes the Government maintain:
“Nothing in this Bill will stop those guilty of committing serious criminal acts from being prosecuted.”
That is a point the Secretary of State made, but many legal experts disagree and say that the Bill, as it intends, will be a significant barrier to justice. The Law Society’s briefing on this debate says:
“The Bill creates…a limitation period for a select group of persons in specific circumstances, i.e. armed forces personnel alleged to have committed offences overseas.”
Alongside the extra factors for prosecutors to take into account and the requirement for the Attorney General to give the go-ahead for such prosecutions, that clearly risks breaching the Geneva convention, the convention against torture, the Rome statute, the European convention on human rights and other long-standing international legal obligations. Where the UK is unable or unwilling to prosecute, the International Criminal Court may well act. So rather than providing relief for the troops accused, the Bill also risks British service personnel being dragged to The Hague, the court of Milošević and Gaddafi, instead of being dealt with in our own British justice system.
Let us just step back a moment from the technical detail. This is the Government of Great Britain bringing in a legal presumption against prosecution for torture, for war crimes and for crimes against humanity. This is the Government of Great Britain saying sexual crimes are so serious they will be excluded from this presumption, but placing crimes outlawed by the Geneva convention on a less serious level and downgrading our unequivocal commitment to upholding international law that we in Britain ourselves, after the second world war, helped to establish.
What is appalling is the straw man being put up time and again by a Labour party half-funded by these ambulance-chasing lawyers. That is going to damage our reputation. No apology for the money they took from a number of them—no apology whatever. What we should recognise is that many of—[Interruption.]
Order. Do not shout in the Chamber.
Much of the mess we are having to come and clean up today is because of your illegal wars, your events in the past and the way you have run the safety of our forces. To put up straw men and make wild allegations that are wholly inaccurate, and disputed by people much more learned than the right hon. Gentleman, does a disservice to our troops and is all about making an excuse for not supporting the Bill. We will see tonight whether or not he supports the Bill.
That is not worthy of the office of the Secretary of State for Defence. We are dealing with matters of torture, war crimes, MOD negligence, compensation for injured troops and compensation for the families who have lost their loved ones overseas. This is too important for party politics. It should be beneath the Secretary of State to reduce this to party politics. We on the Labour Benches will work with the Government to get the Bill right.
This is embarrassing.
Order. When you speak, you speak standing up not sitting down. Now, we will just have a drop in temperature while we consider the facts of the Bill and let the emotions settle down somewhat.
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The facts of the Bill are that it places torture and other war crimes on a different level to crimes of sexual violence. That is not embarrassing; that is unconscionable for a country with a proud record of upholding unequivocally the international conventions that we helped to draw up.
No, I will not at this point.
Ministers must think again. No wonder that the former Chief of the Defence Staff, Lord Guthrie, says that the Bill as it stands would be a stain on Britain’s standing in the world. Ministers must think again. They must remove torture and other war crimes from the Bill. There are better ways of protecting our troops and Britain’s good name.
Part 2 creates a higher hurdle for civil cases after three years, as the Secretary of State said, with extra factors that a prosecutor must take into account, and a hard block on any case after six years. For British troops serving overseas with claims to make against the MOD, that does breach the armed forces covenant—a point that I made to the Secretary of State early in the summer, reinforced today by the Royal British Legion in its briefing for this debate, which says that in removing “the ability of members of the armed forces community to bring a claim for injury or death after six years, the Government will create a unique deviation from the Limitation Act 1980.” It denies those who serve our country overseas the same employer liability rights as the rest of us enjoy at home. It creates circumstances that allow the MOD to avoid claims when it fails properly to equip our troops or makes serious errors that lead to the death or injury of British troops overseas.
It is plain wrong that those who put their lives on the line for Britain overseas should have less access to compensation than the UK civilians they defend, and, since 2007, there have been at least 195 cases of troops who would have been caught by the Bill. Ministers have tried to play that down by saying that the clock on that deadline starts only at the point of diagnosis, but that is misleading because diagnosis is not in the Bill and the point of knowledge is in the Bill. That is another important provision that we must put right.
ln conclusion, we believe, and I believe strongly, despite what the Minister for Defence People and Veterans is chuntering under his breath, that the Government, Labour and the armed forces ultimately all want the same thing: we want to protect British troops and we want to protect British values, and that should not be merely a matter of party politics.
I say to the Secretary of State, during the Bill’s passage through Parliament we want to help forge a constructive consensus on the changes needed to overhaul investigations, to set up safeguards against vexatious claims that are entirely consistent with our international obligations, and to guarantee troops the right to compensation claims when MOD failures lead to the death or injury of our forces overseas. It is not too late for Ministers to think again about the best way to protect service personnel from vexatious litigation while ensuring that those who do commit serious crimes during operations are properly prosecuted and punished. As the Bill begins its passage through Parliament, I urge the Secretary of State and his Minister to work with us to ensure that it does just that.
The House will be aware that a great many people would like to speak this afternoon—far more than the number of people who are currently able to be in the Chamber. We have a waiting list. We therefore start with an immediate time limit of five minutes.
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wish to make a declaration of interests. I am a current member of the armed forces and I did serve in Northern Ireland.
I very much welcome and support the Bill; it is a step in the right direction. We do not seem to have many opportunities to praise the armed forces; there are not enough relevant debates in this place. I am pleased that so many Members are speaking here today.
I join Members on both Front Benches in paying tribute to our entire armed forces community. They help define what this nation believes in and stands for. The versatility of our armed forces is reflected not only in times of conflict, but also when there are needs and challenges closer to home. I am pleased to see the Prime Minister instigate Operation Temperer, inviting the armed forces to support our constabularies. We will not be seeing the 4th Battalion the Rifles Regiment enforcing last orders at the Dog and Duck just yet, but we look forward to their supporting us as we tackle the pandemic.
The UK’s are volunteer armed forces. The gene pool from which we recruit is society itself, and we want the best and brightest to step forward and join the ranks of all three services. For that to be successful, we must not only train, equip and house them well, but provide the best possible care for the injured, for the bereaved, and also when members of the armed forces finally retire and rejoin our civilian society.
I turn to the Bill itself, the billing of which has been quite something, promising to end the vexatious witch hunts that have plagued service personnel who have served in Iraq, Afghanistan and Northern Ireland. I began by saying that that was a step in the right direction, and that is absolutely the case.
This issue was first raised back in 2013 by the former Defence Committee Chair, my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis). We have had the Iraq Historic Allegations Team put together by the MOD to deal with this matter, and we have also had consultation by the Government to see how we should move forward. One thing our soldiers are good at is smelling a rat. You learn that pretty fast when you are in the military. Do not attempt to try to bluff them: they will see you out, whether you call it political spin or otherwise. Let us be upfront, no matter how brutal the truth is, on what is the way forward and what we achieve here today. I politely ask the Government to follow this practice and not to over-promise.
Let us be honest: this Bill, as it currently stands, will not help any veterans who are currently under investigation. It is not retrospective, and it will not help anybody who served in Northern Ireland, as my Defence Committee colleague, the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), said. It focuses on supporting those currently in uniform. However, it provides greater certainty, we hope, for service personnel in relation to crimes that may be committed in future to ensure that they are properly prosecuted. We understand that those who serve our country are not above the law—far from it—but we do ask those who stand in harm’s way on our behalf to do something quite extraordinary in making the toughest of decisions about the utility of lethal force. We cannot have any commander hesitate in carrying out his or her legitimate orders, and we cannot have any soldier hesitate in the heat of battle.
How did we get here? There seems to be a clash between international humanitarian law traditionally governing armed conflicts and human rights law, which is increasingly now applied in armed conflict situations— exactly what Phil Shiner choose to exploit. I ask the Secretary of State to clarify when the Northern Ireland legislation will come through. In choosing the last resort of war, we must follow, and be seen to follow, the rules of international law. If any British armed forces personnel ever fail to uphold these standards, it is entirely appropriate that their actions—potential war crimes—are properly and fairly investigated.
We are immensely proud of our armed forces. They may leave active duty, but they never leave the armed forces community. We must watch their backs if we are to ensure that the next generation of warriors step on to the parade square and wear their uniform with pride. I am pleased that this Bill is, in that sense, a step in right direction.
I, like others, pay tribute to the armed forces, not least for the work they have done during the coronavirus crisis, particularly in erecting the extraordinary construction of the NHS Louisa Jordan Hospital in my own home city of Glasgow. I know they have done much in Members’ constituencies all across the UK, and I am sure we will expect more of them in the times to come.
I acknowledge at the outset of my remarks—this will probably be the only bit that pleases Government Ministers and Conservative Members—the sincerity with which Ministers have approached this, in that they recognise the problem and sincerely wish to fix it. Indeed, the Minister for Defence People and Veterans, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer) was a jolly advocate of getting this done way before he became a Minister, and I think I am right in saying that the Secretary of State himself was raising this when he was a Member of the Scottish Parliament in the first Parliament of 1999. I acknowledge their long-standing desire to fix these issues, but I am afraid I do not believe that this Bill does it.
Those who risk their lives for their country do so in some of the most unimaginable circumstances. There are gallant Members here who have gone through that. I certainly have not. Far from home, they are often surrounded by danger at the behest of this Parliament, and they have to make split-second decisions under circumstances that, as I say, I cannot imagine. Sometimes those decisions are wrong, and when they are wrong, there needs to be a means by which that can be righted and justice can be done. Sometimes many years later these incidents rear their heads in the form of legal claims that force claimants and former service personnel to relive some of those dark days in a search for answers, but no one, least of all service personnel and veterans of the armed forces, deserves to be accused of a crime that they did not commit, and far less to be harassed by investigation after investigation. As the Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee and former Chairman of the Defence Committee, the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) has said, the Bill does not achieve that.
The Secretary of State has mentioned Phil Shiner, and other firms have also sought to cash in on this kind of behaviour. I do not deny that they have done so, and they are to be deprecated for it. Indeed, I believe that they are deprecated on all sides of the House. However, this legislation is not the way to deal with this. It is using the proverbial sledgehammer to crack a nut. I accept that the nut is deeply problematic, but I have to say that this looks like a Bill designed more to protect the Government, and in particular the Ministry of Defence, rather than anyone who dons a uniform. Indeed, it was the Minister for Defence People and Veterans, who we will hear from at the end of the debate, who said that
“one of the biggest problems…was the military’s inability to investigate itself properly and the standard of those investigations…If those investigations were done properly and self-regulation had occurred, we probably wouldn’t be here today”.
The Bill makes no provision whatsoever for an independent investigative body or for reporting accountability mechanisms of the kind that would help to address the historical claims that I believe we all want to address. We are asked to hope by the Government, and to trust and believe that a real solution will come later, after we vote to undermine international law and the rules that keep us safe. That is a promise that seems to be being made with increasing regularity from the Government Benches. That is why I believe that this Bill is bad, not just for our rules and laws but for the armed forces as well.
If we can agree with the Minister for Veterans, as I do, that the investigations process in the Ministry of Defence is flawed and needs fixing, let us bring forward a Bill to do that. If that does not require legislation, let us bring forward those proposals. Let us have that discussion first. Passing the Bill in this form or a form close to it would be to put the cart before the horse. If the Government truly want to protect the UK armed forces from legacy allegations of war crimes, they must create mechanisms for allegations, both contemporaneous and historical, to be properly addressed by independent investigators. I am horrified, as I am sure other legal minds in this place, the other place and outside Parliament will be, at the extraordinary powers that the Bill invests in the Attorney General, who is not an independent Law Officer of the Government, but a political appointment and part of the Government.
We believe that the ways that I have just outlined are the ways to ensure that we can deal with this properly, but instead, the Government have offered a Bill today that does not help the victims of these cases—by which I mean service personnel, veterans and their families—who feel that the courts are their only recourse to justice. I would argue, as do other Members, that this exposes UK forces more to the International Criminal Court. And I can tell the House what will happen then: Tory Back Bencher after Tory Back Bencher will be on their feet complaining about foreign judges intervening in UK justice. How long would it then be before someone made it mainstream within the Conservative party that the United Kingdom should withdraw from the ICC? I can see the start of a very slippery slope indeed.
Is it not part of the problem that, where suspicion exists, there requires to be an investigation, and that if that investigation produces evidence, there should be a prosecution? By putting barriers in the way of prosecution, we do no favours to those who are accused of criminal acts in the first place, because no line is ever drawn underneath it for them.
The right hon. Gentleman is correct, so I do not need to expand on that. I am conscious of your points about time, Madam Deputy Speaker, but he is correct in what he says.
I want to go through some of the senior military, legal and political opinion that has come out against the Bill. I can accept that Conservative Members, probably those on the Front Bench, think that the Opposition—if not the entirety of it, my party—are just Guardian-reading, lentil-munching sandal wearers, but that can hardly be laid at the feet of Nicholas Mercer, can it? Nicholas Mercer, the former command legal adviser during the Iraq war, has pointed out that this Bill
“undermines international humanitarian law while shielding the government”.
The Bill serves one body, and that body is the Ministry of Defence.
I can also point to some other opinion against the Bill—indeed, one of the Secretary of State’s predecessors, Sir Malcolm Rifkind. The Secretary of State has managed to unite Sir Malcolm Rifkind with the Scottish National party, and he was a leading nat-basher-in-chief back in his day. He has said that the Bill risks
“undermining the UK’s position as a champion of the rule of law”.
That might be fashionable on Government Benches these days, but it is something that we in the Scottish National party will not stand for.
You could also quote the former Attorney General, Dominic Grieve. I hear the Government Front Bench often praying in aid the Attorney General for Northern Ireland. For a Bill that does not concern itself with Northern Ireland, you seem awfully keen on the Northern Irish Attorney General. As the shadow Secretary of State mentioned, we were told by the Secretary of State in a letter that he sent to all Members of the House that the Bill will be equivalent to what is brought forward in Northern Ireland. Well, good luck with that one!
We can also quote Field Marshal Lord Guthrie, although I understand he has taken some of what he said back. Again, he is hardly a lentil-munching leftie. He said:
“There can be no exceptions to our laws, and no attempts to bend them. Those who break them should be judged in court.”
He also stated:
“These proposals appear to have been dreamt up by those who have seen too little of the world to understand why the rules of war matter. If we start down the slippery slope of arguing that rules apply to others, but not to ourselves, it is we who will suffer in the end.”
To make a small point of clarification, Field Marshal the Lord Guthrie has rethought his words, having spoken to the Chief of the General Staff.
I do not believe that anything I read out is what he has withdrawn, however. If I am wrong on that, I am happy to be corrected. I thought I was going to be told that he was indeed a lentil-munching Guardian reader, but clearly not.
To come to how the Government are approaching this, I have listened to many of the sedentary chunterings that have come from the Treasury Bench this afternoon, and I had a call with the Minister for Veterans yesterday—he told me that he was not the “king of good ideas”, but I did not need to be told that—but all I have seen is arrogance. Any objection, whether adumbrated by people outside or inside the House—including people on his own side, by the way—is all met with, “Didn’t read the Bill”, “Doesn’t understand it”, “This is embarrassing”, or “It’s this way or no way.” I am afraid that unless we can amend the Bill within an inch of its life, beyond any recognition of what appears before Members this afternoon, there is no way that my party can support the Bill in this form.
I will say this, however: if the Minister wants to get the issue solved—which I believe we both do, as I said at the start—
I will once I have completed my peroration. Scrap the Bill and let us have a discussion about the way in which the Ministry of Defence investigates these things internally. I am more than happy to engage in that discussion with the Minister and with the Secretary of State, but to ask us to vote for a Bill so roundly condemned by senior legal, military and political opinion is something that we will not contemplate.
As ever, the hon. Gentleman makes reasoned points and a good speech. First, he has not mentioned it yet, but he will be aware that there was something called the Lyons review, which was the service justice review that has reviewed and continues to review. We are in the middle of implementing some of its recommendations on improving on exactly the points he makes about service justice.
Secondly, before the hon. Gentleman finishes his speech, I ask him within what parameters we should work when trying to come to a consensus with the Scottish National party. For example, does he except that in cases of civil law there is a need for tort limitations? Does he accept the statute of limitations on civil pursuit—that many of those cases should have a time limit? Does he also accept the line in the relevant article of the European convention on human rights that says people are entitled to
“a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time”?
If he accepts both those parameters, perhaps we can talk.
I have not disputed any of those things. I am willing to have that conversation, but the Secretary of State has introduced a Bill that is so egregious he makes it impossible for me to support it. Look, he has his majority so he will get it through in whatever form he wants, but if he wants to have, as we often do in defence discussions in this Parliament, a degree of consensus that most people outside this place probably do not think exists, it cannot come on the back of a Bill like this one. I understand that the review he mentioned at the start of his intervention is taking place; why not pause the Bill and let that review report first? Let Parliament debate it and then see what we can fix.
I have a lot of time for the hon. Gentleman and recognise his allegations of how I have ridiculed some of the approaches. The reality is that we on the Government Benches have to deal in what is actually in the Bill and the reality of operations. We have a duty to these people. We have engaged both the hon. Gentleman and the shadow Secretary of State in trying to improve the Bill, and not once have you come forward with something with which I can improve the Bill. The Bill is moderate, fair and down the middle. If you are on the wrong side in the Lobbies tonight, you are clearly on the wrong side of history.
Order. I am not entering into the debate, but I shall merely say that all day today Members on both sides of the House have been using the word “you”. They have been calling the Prime Minister you and they are calling Members on each side of the House you. In this Chamber, you means the occupant of the Chair. It is really important, in order to keep the right sort of distance in an argument of this kind, that we use the phrase “the hon. Gentleman” or “the hon. Lady”, or something along those lines. Mr McDonald, you have not committed this sin.
That is because I know what I am doing, Madam Deputy Speaker, as you well know.
Let me say this to the Minister for Defence People and Veterans. We always try to find the maximum consensus, but I rather suspect that we just cannot agree on this Bill. He is not willing to change it to the degree I would like to see it changed, which in essence would mean scrapping it and letting the review come forward. When we table amendments in Committee, it will be interesting to see what they say; I am sure the Minister will be interested to read them, and it will be interesting to see how the Government approach them. As I say, we all know what is going to happen: the Government have a huge majority and are not going to accept anything that they feel they do not have to. We do not agree with them that the Bill is moderate at all, which is why we will vote against its Second Reading tonight.
The Minister for Defence People and Veterans is keen that we look at the Bill itself. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill creates a presumption against prosecution for a class of defendants, placing one group above the other in the eyes of the law? Does he agree that that is unprecedented in our domestic legal systems, whether we speak of England and Wales or the separate and independent jurisdiction in Scotland? That is unprecedented and that is what is objectionable about the Bill: it does away with the idea of equality before the criminal law, and that is wrong.
My hon. and learned Friend is absolutely correct in saying that. I would go further and say that actually, in terms of the whole scope of the Bill and how it protects the Ministry of Defence from claims coming from members of the armed forces themselves, as brilliantly illustrated by the shadow Secretary of State in his speech earlier, it is not welcomed by those people who need protection. We all agree that they need protection, but we cannot agree with the Government that this Bill is the way to do it.
The context is this: this Parliament has no power to prevent the Government from entering a discretionary conflict. There is no war powers Act. When Tony Blair took the country to war—a war that, in an interesting contribution earlier, the Defence Secretary said he now accepts was illegal, but which his party supported at the time—he at least came to this Parliament and held a vote. When the airstrikes in Syria took place in Easter 2018 under the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), that was done away with; that discretion was used without any parliamentary consent.
On the issue of special forces oversight or lack thereof, we stand out as unusual, even by comparison with a country such as the United States with zero oversight of special forces operations. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) said earlier, this Bill creates two levels of playing field for people in this country. This is all unwelcome and highly unusual. There is a reason that no other country has a version of this Bill on its statute book or before its national legislature. Members of the armed forces are rightly expected to perform to a high standard and members of the armed forces are right to expect a high standard of us in this House, but for the reasons I have outlined we will vote against this legislation tonight. Members of the armed forces are entitled to a better standard than this.
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to follow my friend, the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald), who made some interesting points, some of which—forgive me—I am going to disagree with. He will not be surprised to hear that, because we have often entered into many civilised, and sometimes lubricated, conversations on these very subjects. These issues affect the whole House and have been discussed by many Members in here and in other places, because they really matter.
I declare an interest; I got into politics on leaving the Army, after writing a paper for Policy Exchange in 2013 called “The Fog of Law”, which covered these very subjects and highlighted many of the issues raised in this debate. I appreciate that there are difficult decisions and that it is hard to balance what the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) quite correctly said was the difference between the liability that a civilian employee could expect with their employer and that which a soldier on overseas operations could expect. I accept that that is different.
I accepted that it was different when I swore allegiance to Her Majesty and put on the uniform for the first time. I accepted it was different because the job that I had accepted to do was different; it was fundamentally different—different in every sense from any civilian job at all. Why? Because I promised, as the men and women of our armed forces still promise, to give everything even unto death. That is not something that any other employer asks of their team or their staff. Nobody who is not wearing the Queen’s uniform pledges to defend our people, our islands, our values, our country, our allies and our interests even up to their own life. That is different.
In recognising that that is what we need from our armed forces, we must also recognise that the law defending our troops and the law that applies to their terms of employment must also be different. It simply cannot be the case that civilian employment contracts are applicable to the invasion of Iraq or hard detention operations in Afghanistan, or even to training missions in other places that go wrong and become combat in ways that the people involved do not expect. Of course they must be different.
Will the hon. Gentleman accept that this is a distinction not just between the armed forces serving overseas and civilians, but between armed forces serving overseas and armed forces serving and based in this country? To that extent, this legislation uniquely disadvantages the latter and reduces their rights.
I will accept that this is an overseas operations Bill and that being on patrol in Helmand is different from bringing on guard at Buckingham Palace, and therefore the rights that troops should accept in different places under different terms should of course be different.
I have served, as have many of my colleagues in all parts of the House. Indeed, my friend and former comrade in arms the hon. and gallant Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) and I served in camps in places where the electricity could best be described as ropey and would fail any civilian investigation. We served in places where to walk outside the camp was to risk everything, from loss of life or limb to very real mental damage. We served in those places because the national security and the interests of our country—decided on by people here, by the way, not soldiers—was judged to be that important.
I listen with interest to what my hon. Friend says and to his example of unique circumstances. The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) made the point that this Bill makes some people less or more equal before the law—that it was an unfair application—but it does not prevent anyone from being prosecuted for a crime that they have committed, nor does it introduce special defences for people, so that some of these offences allow them to have an excuse. All it does is ask a prosecutor to have exceptional regard for the circumstances that those concerned may find themselves in and also, where an investigation has already happened, to think about the level of new evidence that should be applicable.
I agree with my right hon. Friend, and the important point about the Bill is that it recognises the difference between a crime and an error. We all know that crimes should be prosecuted, and we all know that the difference between a crime and an error is a difference of understanding and, on some occasions, circumstance. It is not necessarily a crime for a missile, sadly, to go astray and kill civilians. It can be an error; it may be a terrible, regrettable error; it may be an error that we should learn from a thousand times. But it cannot always be a crime, otherwise the invasion of Normandy could never have happened, because if it was always a crime for civilians to die in combat, the troops could not have prepared that battlefield to land on those beaches.
If that was a crime, it would always be a crime to use force in situations where we cannot be absolutely certain of the outcome of that force. Of course, that is never possible, because the reality is that if we put such blocks on any use of force, what we are saying is that force can never be used.
I am failing to follow this argument. Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman suggesting that torture is a crime that can be committed by error?
That seems to be what he is suggesting. But let us focus on what we are talking about here. We are talking about torture—[Interruption.]
That is simply not what I am saying, and it is quite clear that it is not what I am saying. What I am saying very clearly is that there is a fundamental difference between an error and a crime, and there is a fundamental need in military law to allow soldiers to take the risks that we need them to take if they are going to keep our country safe. If we do not allow them to take those risks, what we are saying, fundamentally, is that the weak must defend themselves and the strong can look after themselves; because the point about military service, soldiering and our armed forces, fundamentally, is that they allow the strong to defend the week. They put the use of force under the rule of law, and they allow this country to be strong and safe, and partnered with others around the world.
It is a great pleasure to follow my friend the hon. and gallant Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat). It is a great strength of the veterans community, both inside and outside this place, that we can debate these important matters and take a different view but do so with decency and humility.
I should declare an interest as a veteran. I know very well, and we have heard in the House today, the strength of feeling and the very high regard that Members from across the House have for those who serve in our armed forces. No one, whether they have served in the military or otherwise, deserves to be repeatedly investigated without good cause. If we allow that abuse to continue, we fail collectively in our lifelong commitment to support those who have sacrificed themselves for our country.
This Bill seeks to address such abuses, but however well-intentioned it is, it does require significant improving, otherwise it will be potentially damaging both to Britain’s standing in the world and to the reputation of our armed forces.
First, I wish to address the definition of “relevant offences” as laid out in clause 6. Subsection (3) states that an offence is not relevant
“if it is an excluded… by virtue of Part 1 of Schedule 1.”
The offences excluded are largely sexual offences. Although that is, of course, welcome, it is worrying to see the omission of other crimes against humanity and war crimes. I heard what the Secretary of State said earlier, but let us take torture as the obvious example. The prohibition of torture is absolute. There are no exceptions. Its use is illegal under numerous international treaties to which the UK is a signatory, including the Geneva convention.
Speaking as a commanding officer who has gone into the field, may I point out to the House that it is not just this Bill that we have to operate under? Let us take, for example, torture. Article 17 of the Geneva convention specifically prohibits torture, and we can be charged for that. I certainly used to make great emphasis of this point in training troops to go into the field. It is not just this Bill under which we operate.
My friend the hon. and gallant Gentleman raises a very important point. The reality is that, despite what we have heard from some Members today, if this Bill is passed in its current form, a decision to allow a prosecution to proceed following an allegation of torture after five years had elapsed would be made virtually impossible due to the threshold imposed by the triple lock. This is not the way to rebuild our reputation on the international stage. It would mean the UK reneging on our international legal obligations and could well put us at odds with the ICC. At a time when we are witnessing an erosion of human rights and leaders turning their backs on international institutions, it is more important than ever before that we uphold our values and standards and not undermine them.
Through this Bill, the Government are seeking to right a wrong, but not by addressing the root cause of the issue. In an interview last year—we have heard the quote already, but it is worth hearing again—the Minister for Defence People and Veterans said that one of the biggest problems with this was
“the military’s inability to investigate itself properly and the standard of those investigations. If those investigations were done properly and self-regulation had occurred, we probably wouldn’t be here today.”
The Minister is absolutely right, and the underlying problem is how we have ended up at this point, but nowhere in the Bill does it mention the need to review how military investigations are conducted. If we had a credible investigatory system that dealt with allegations in an effective, impartial and timely manner—one that allowed us to refer back with confidence—we would not be in the position that we are in now.
There is, though, plenty of support across this House for measures that will protect members of our armed forces. We all know, and I am sure we all agree, that historical prosecutions of our veterans is an emotionally charged subject and one that urgently demands a solution, because nobody—surely nobody—wants to see a repeat of the decades of legal wrangling, the delay and the misery that are still ongoing following investigations into the troubles.
I conclude by saying that the overwhelming majority of members of our armed forces serve with distinction and honour, and they follow the rules, but no one—not one of us—is above the law, and that principle remains true whether or not somebody wears a uniform. One of the best ways to protect our troops is to ensure that we apply the rule of law in every instance. There is much work to be done to improve this Bill, and I hope very much that Ministers will listen to the concerns that have been expressed today and work constructively to improve it in Committee and beyond. I hope that we all agree that we owe the brave men and women of our armed forces—the people who serve our nation—a massive debt. Diminishing their hard-won reputation by reneging on our legal and moral obligations is not the manner in which to repay it.
I greatly admire and respect the hon. and gallant Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis), but I fear that it would require rather more than just an improvement to the way in which service authorities investigate allegations to solve this problem, because the problem derives in large part from the application of the Human Rights Act abroad.
The purpose of this Bill should not be to stop sound cases being prosecuted, and it does not do so. Its purpose should be to stop unsound cases being repeatedly investigated, and that, I fear, it fails to do. The hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) seized on this point in his earlier intervention, in which he referred to intimidation by reinvestigation, and he is right; that is the nub of the problem. The Secretary of State conceded that only a small proportion of these many cases—most of them spurious—end up in a prosecution. He suggested that, if it were known that there would be less likelihood of a prosecution, there might be fewer rounds of investigation and reinvestigation, but I am afraid I do not find that wholly or, indeed, at all convincing. Something must be done to stop the repeated reinvestigations, which, in large part, happen because of the application of the Human Rights Act abroad.
I first became aware of the scale of this problem several years ago when I heard speeches from my hon. and gallant Friends the Members for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) and for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti). The effect of that was to interest me in trying to take the matter further during the two periods for which I chaired the Defence Committee. In those two periods, we produced three reports. The first inquiry was carried out by the sub-Committee under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), now the Minister for Defence People and Veterans. That inquiry dealt with Iraq and reported in February 2017. The second one dealt with Northern Ireland and reported in April 2017.
The third one, dealing with the whole panorama of all these scenarios, reported in July 2019. That report warned that the European Court of Human Rights
“has gone far beyond the original understanding of the European Convention on Human Rights, and… its rulings have stretched the temporal and territorial scope of the Human Rights Act beyond Parliament’s original intentions”.
The report examined proposals by Professor Richard Ekins, now professor of law and constitutional government at Oxford University, in which he proposed to restore the former scope of the HRA and the application of the ECHR. As long as that legislation, which was never intended to be applied abroad when it was enacted by this House in 1998, persists in its extended application, we will not solve this problem.
Is my right hon. Friend aware that it is not only the United Kingdom facing an issue with the extraterritoriality of the ECHR? The French Conseil d’État —in which I must declare an interest, as my wife is a member—has also been investigating this, as has the German court, because this extraterritoriality was never envisioned by the signatories in the ’50s, nor was it envisioned by the then Prime Minister in the ’90s.
I absolutely accept that this is not a problem confined to us. It is something that has crept into the international scene. Law-observing democracies are finding themselves hamstrung because of the misapplication of what is essentially civil law to the battlefield. That is wrong. It was never intended to be the case, and until it is put right, we will not solve this problem.
It is true that the Government, in this Bill, are considering derogating from the ECHR; clause 12 encourages, but does not require, such derogations. That would help, but according to Professor Ekins, whose work with Policy Exchange I acknowledge, that would be no substitute for amending the Human Rights Act and providing that it should not apply outside the UK, or at least that it should apply only in strictly limited circumstances. Parliament should go back to what it intended in 1998. It would also be much better for Parliament to require the Government to derogate in relation to overseas operations and to amend the Human Rights Act so that it does not apply abroad.
With good will on both sides, the Bill can be improved, and I urge those on both Front Benches to work together in pursuit of an improved outcome.
I have been in the House for nearly 20 years, and I have always prided myself on being a strong advocate for defence and the support of our servicemen and women, both from the Back Benches and as a Minister. I am also no friend of unscrupulous lawyers. Older Members of the House will remember my campaign of the early 2000s against unscrupulous lawyers who defrauded my constituents who were claiming miners’ compensation. That led to the instigation of the Solicitors Regulation Authority, which took the disciplining of lawyers away from the Law Society. I am also, though, a strong supporter of the legal system and of the military justice system. I have served on the last three armed forces Bills as either a Minister or a Back Bencher, and I think I understand the system well and respect it.
Unfortunately, though, this Bill does not pass the Ronseal test: it does not say what it does on the tin. It excludes completely the arguments, with which I have a lot of sympathy, about prosecutions of those in Northern Ireland. The other issue is the need for the Bill. Its promoters give the impression that there is an army of vexatious lawyers out there who are pursuing veterans. I asked, in a parliamentary question, for numbers. I was told that they were not kept by the Department centrally. The explanatory notes say that there were 900 cases for Afghanistan and Iraq between 2003 and 2009; the impact assessment says the number is 1,000, but what they do not explain is the nature of those cases. How many were brought by vexatious lawyers? How many were compensation cases rightly brought by members of the armed forces or their families?
I accept the issues around the case of Phil Shiner. That individual was disgraceful, but I have to say that the Solicitors Regulation Authority, which was put in place by the last Labour Government, sorted that problem out. On the other main thing that has been raised today, I was a Minister in the Department at the time, and the problem was the way in which cases were investigated. The Bill will not address that.
The other point that I would like to address is my fear that the presumption, as outlined in the Bill at the moment, that prosecutions will not go forward outside a certain timescale will lead to members of our armed forces going before the International Criminal Court. That cannot be acceptable. If we had that presumption against prosecution, the court would perhaps conclude that the UK was either unwilling or unable to initiate a prosecution. I do not want to see that, and I do not think the Minister does either, but it is an unintended consequence of the Bill and it has to be changed.
I also have problems with clause 3, which says that prosecutors should take into account “exceptional demands and stresses” in cases after five years. If it is good enough after five years, why not before? There is no need for the clause, because that is already taken into account. The Judge Advocate General, in his letter to the Defence Secretary, outlined the case of Marine A, where evidence of unique circumstances taken at the first court martial and then at the appeal meant that the sentence was reduced to manslaughter.
Does the right hon. Member not agree that it diminishes the Government’s standing when they come to the House and cast to one side all these concerns from experts such as those he mentions, when there probably is a reasonable Bill that the House could gather around?
I think there is, but I also say that people should talk to those in the service justice system, because they do this every day of the week. They are an independent judiciary—that is recognised internationally. They do a job in ensuring that people get justice and I think that this Bill will complicate that. One of my fears is that this will undermine the military justice system, of which I am a passionate supporter. I know that some people want to do away with it, but I certainly do not. I also agree with the points that have been raised by the Royal British Legion and my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) concerning conditions around the ability of veterans to make compensation claims later.
I will not vote against the Bill tonight, because I think it can be improved. However, I will also not fall into the political trap that has been set, where it will be said that if someone is against the Bill or criticises it in any way, they favour ambulance-chasing lawyers over our armed forces. I am sorry but I take great exception to that, and I am in good company, along with a lot of other people, such as Field Marshal Lord Guthrie, Nick Parker, whom I have huge respect for—I worked with him in the Ministry of Defence—and the Judge Advocate General.
I respect the right hon. Member and sit with him on the Defence Committee. We have mentioned a lot of names today, but none of them is below General. I have served on operations with some of those people. None of the riflemen, junior non-commissioned officers and young officers has been mentioned, and their fear of ambulance-chasing lawyers and this lawfare should be brought in as well.
I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman, but I am saying that these are people of higher rank, and others, who understand the command of that justice system. You cannot get a higher person than the Judge Advocate General. He was not even consulted on the Bill, which I find remarkable. The most senior lawyer in that system was not actually consulted.
Not really, no, because I am about to conclude.
The Bill is not perfect. It can be improved, but the Minister who is taking it through the House has to change attitude. He has to be open-minded to change. He has to not play politics on the basis that anyone who criticises the Bill is somehow against the armed forces, because we are certainly not, and I include myself in that.
I will finish on this point: in the letter that the Judge Advocate General sent to the Defence Secretary, he said:
“The bill as drafted is not the answer.”
I agree with him on that.
I have the greatest respect for the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) and I accept what he said, but I emphasise the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West (Stuart Anderson) just made. He made the first reference to the people who are really affected by what we are talking about—that is, the young men and women who are normally charged. Let us remember, colleagues, how bloody awful it is to undergo some of these investigations time and again. Let us remember how dreadful it was when we saw those ambulance-chasing lawyers going after units and individuals in Iraq, and later in Afghanistan.
In my constituency, there are many people with mental health issues—indeed, one of my constituents, unfortunately, died just within the last month. Does the hon. Gentleman believe that the Bill can enshrine in law the support for those being maliciously and wrongly dragged through the courts, which definitely affects the mental health of those people in their service to Queen and country?
I hope so, but I am not sure that it can retrospectively. We all know that a lot of money was made—3,400 allegations were made about our servicemen and servicewomen, and 65% of those were made by Mr Shiner’s company, Public Interest Lawyers, which made a heck of a lot of money. With every accusation, the Ministry of Defence had to back it up with legal aid. The lawyers got four hours of legal aid; probably about £1,000 was given to these lawyers. Actually, the people who were under investigation did not have much support when they were going through it.
I have no particular love for lawyers, particularly of the grasping variety, with the right honourable exception of my colleague, my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael). Does the hon. and gallant Gentleman agree that what he is talking about is ultimately counterproductive to recruitment to our armed forces?
Actually, I do not. What is counter- productive is if people joining the armed forces feel that they will be under this sort of pressure and they will be investigated unfairly. If they believe that they will be investigated fairly, that will encourage recruitment.
I am appalled by the idea that the Ministry of Defence had to pay out £40 million for fallacious claims and another £10 million on Operation Northmoor, which was about Afghanistan. I am pretty appalled that the Iraq Historic Allegations Team within the Ministry of Defence did what it did. It did not help our armed forces, and that is held against the Ministry of Defence. It should have sorted that out a long time ago. Obviously, most claims were fallacious. Shiner was struck off in 2017, but not before he, with 65% of the allegations, had done huge psychological and mental damage to our servicemen and servicewomen.
I am pleased that these two organisations have been closed down. It cannot happen again. That is the purpose of the Bill. It may not be 100% perfect, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West said, it is what our armed forces want to happen. There are about 2 million veterans in this country and they want this to happen, and it will encourage, not discourage, people to join the military.
I did seven tours in Northern Ireland and I totally understand that Northern Ireland has to be dealt with. The Government have promised to deal with it this year, and will somehow get it sorted out. The Bill is not about Northern Ireland; it is about what happened overseas. I personally am delighted that the Bill has been brought forward. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), although if he wants to continue as a Minister in the Ministry of Defence he should get a haircut. I think I have said enough. I will sit down.
It is a pleasure, as always, to follow the hon. and gallant Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), whose hair is looking glorious this afternoon as well. I declare an interest because, as most Members will know, my husband is a veteran. [Interruption.] He is also an Ulsterman: I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for pointing that out.
I must pick the hon. and gallant Member for Beckenham up on one thing. It is not true to say that all members of the armed forces want this Bill, as that is not the case. None of us wants a repeat of the shameful Phil Shiner episode, and no person in this House would disagree that we need protections in place for our personnel and veterans. Unfortunately, however, the Bill is not the vehicle to do that. Our armed forces are the gold standard for militaries around the world and that must include the structures we have in place to deal with behaviour that falls short of our expectations.
Like the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), I have submitted a series of written questions to try to get a feel for the scale of this problem. I was hoping for a bit of information, but I have yet to have any answers to these questions. The Minister has not been in touch. Despite what the Secretary of State said— it is a pity he has gone now—about the Library impact assessment having all those numbers in it, it does not. It has numbers relating to part 2 of the Bill, not part 1. It is worrying that we are bringing forward legislation to tackle the industrial scale of vexatious claims, but we cannot get a handle on how many there actually are.
As we know, many conflicts involving our personnel are in parts of the world that are now experiencing a fragile peace. To put in place a statute of limitations on prosecutions assumes that normality and the structures of a democratic society will be promptly established post conflict. This, of course, is not the case. If we are to rely on investigations that have taken place, we must have confidence in those original investigations.
I appreciate the hon. Lady’s point about the confusion of post-conflict societies and therefore about the statute of limitations, but would she not accept that this goes both ways? There is also the difficulty people can have in defending themselves when evidence has been lost, burned or destroyed in exactly those post-conflict societies, and therefore time works both ways on this question. This is essential for the defence in justice, because justice must not only be for the prosecution, but for the defence.
There are two things: that is not unique to conflict—that happens in many things—and that is also why the original investigation must be carried out properly. If we want to minimise the opportunities for these vexatious claims, such investigations should be independent. They should be collecting accurate evidence, and without this we really do leave the door open.
If the conduct of our personnel is as we expect, why should anyone fear this transparency? This legislation undermines our international standard the more so because it includes, as Members have already mentioned, unlawful killing and torture. Judge Blackett, the Judge Advocate General of the armed forces, has warned:
“This increases the likelihood of UK service personnel appearing before the ICC in the future.”
Is this what any of us want?
Part 2 of the Bill has not had much mention this afternoon, and it should. It is ironic, when we have the Tory chest-thumping going on about protecting our brave soldiers, that part 2 is actually an attack on these very personnel. It removes many of the rights of those who have been injured through the negligence of the MOD to claim against it. Here is the nub of this Bill: it is about protecting the MOD, not personnel.
In the urgent question on 16 July, the Minister for Defence People and Veterans said:
“I will be honest that I cannot, off the top of my head, think why individuals would be diagnosed and choose not to do anything about it… I have not come across that in all my experience in the field, but I am happy to learn. If that is the case, I am happy to change the Bill”.—[Official Report, 16 July 2020; Vol. 678, c. 1675.]
Well, that is great, because it needs changing. There are many reasons why claims are not brought forward promptly, such as a culture in the military meaning that personnel may be told they cannot pursue a claim while serving or told by their chain of command they do not have a valid claim. If part 2 of the Bill becomes law, those injured through negligence will no longer have the full discretion of the court to allow a claim to proceed after the limitation period has expired.
Will the hon. Lady give way?
No, I am short of time.
Instead, those who have served overseas, potentially risking their lives, will have an absolute six-year time limit. Given that people can live with conditions such as deafness, asbestos poisoning and the impact of radiation exposure, with the severity increasing over years, how many personnel would pursue a claim within that time limit? The Government say this Bill will be beneficial to personnel and veterans, so perhaps the Minister can give us some real examples of how.
Personal injury claims are important not only in securing justice, but in holding the MOD to account. The unsuitability of Snatch Land Rovers would never have come to light if it had not been for bereaved families pursuing claims against the MOD. The Bill is contrary to the armed forces covenant, which is a promise by the nation to ensure that those who have served in the armed forces, and their families, are treated fairly. The removal of human rights protection is not treating armed forces personnel fairly.
It is a great privilege to be called so early in this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. I might be new to this place, but I spent three decades in uniform. I have worked with many veterans charities across the UK, not least in my previous role as commander of the Army engagement group at Sandhurst and in my Bracknell constituency where our armed forces champions are working wonders.
The Bill needs to be considered for what it is, not for what it is not. Given that it is groundbreaking, it needs to start somewhere and is therefore bound to attract negative interest. For those who have not noticed, the architect of the Bill is a veteran. I cannot think of a single Minister who has invested so much of himself against such a tough backdrop and I commend the Minister for Defence People and Veterans, my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), for everything he has done this far. He has fulfilled his promise, to date, to our veterans and it is incumbent on us in this place to be objective, because we will not be forgiven if we fail. I do not believe that anybody can be a supporter of our armed forces and vote against the Bill.
I will not have that. The armed forces look to this place to get this right—the hon. Gentleman is correct on that—but they expect and deserve a better standard than the comment he has just made. I know he is new, but I like him and I just ask him to withdraw it. Please withdraw it.
I am a great fan of the Bill and the Bill is right. We need to put it through.
At its simplest level, the imposition of a presumption in law against prosecution after five years will provide greater certainty for our service personnel. Since 2002, the MOD has faced 1,400 judicial review claims and over 2,000 civil claims relating to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan alone. Many are valid, but about 3,400 allegations of unlawful killings have also been received by the Iraq Historic Allegations Team, of which at least 70% have been filtered out as being spurious. Members will also be aware of the al-Sweady inquiry, which cost the taxpayer £31 million and was proven to be based on
“deliberate lies, reckless speculation and ingrained hostility”.
That was just the tip of the iceberg, and it is right that public interest lawyers, such as Phil Shiner, should have been struck off. But that is nothing compared to the anguish of our veterans, many of whom are innocent.
Does my hon. Friend agree that the measures in the Bill will reduce the uncertainty and anguish of both current armed forces personnel and veterans?
I agree very much. The bottom line is that veterans I have spoken to over the years are worried about the next knock at the door. I believe that the Bill will give certainty to the current generation and to who those come afterwards.
To tackle the conjecture, if I may, the Bill does not absolve any member of Her Majesty’s forces from the obligation to operate within the law. It does not impact on criminal investigations and it does not create, or come close to creating, any de facto immunity for service personnel, as the few bad apples will always be brought to justice. As for the downright fabrication, the Bill does not place our troops on a collision course with the Geneva convention or The Hague, and it does not break international law.
I have read the Bill.
In fact, I cannot think of a more robust institution than the MOD for upholding the law, and the UK has a proud record of overseas military service which is to be applauded, not undermined.
As for part 2, I comfortable that the six-year long stop of civil claims for personal injury and death is about right given that 94% of all claims since 2007 have been settled within five years. However, we have Committee stage to unpick that further if we need to. I also understand that the long stop applies to the point at which legacy issues, such as hearing loss, PTSD and physical illness first come to light, therefore providing a safety net.
Most important for me, the Bill requires that, when making legal judgments, the courts must consider the unique circumstances of overseas operations and any adverse effect on our personnel. Those who have served will know that warfighting is dangerous and terrifying, with confusion all around, friends falling beside you, sweat dripping into your eyes, the ground exploding, people moving in every direction, images of family flashing before your eyes and abject terror everywhere. What would you do? Fortunately, the training is good, the loyalty and camaraderie in HM forces are unparalleled and our soldiers do operate within the law of armed conflict. I salute all those who got closer to danger than I did.
Despite what others would have us think, the Bill does not provide blanket immunity for soldiers to commit war crimes. Indeed, the suggestion in some of what I have read that the best trained and best led armed forces in the world are somehow predisposed to inflicting torture or sex crimes on operations is ridiculous. It is deeply offensive to those who serve, and the people who peddle this nonsense just need to stop. [An Hon. Member: “Nobody has said it.”] I have seen it.
To those who seek to judge our veterans after many years of service from the sanctity of their courtroom or the comfort of their armchair, I say, “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, whatever notion you have of idealism, it may be that you just don’t get it.” That is why the Government need to provide the protection in law.
To conclude, I pass on three messages on behalf of many of our 2.2 million veterans who have contacted me to offer support. First, to the esteemed figures who have chosen to unpick the Bill by writing divisive articles for the national media, I regret, you do not speak for me. Secondly, I say to those dishonourable lawyers who have pursued the victims of a witch hunt into their later years, “You need to be struck off.” To my esteemed colleagues on the Opposition Benches, I say, “Please pay heed today, to stay on the right side of this. Unlike the thousands of soldiers I was proud to serve with, your constituents might not be quite so forgiving.” Let us do the right thing for those who have endured so much for so long and put the Bill through.
My constituents clearly live in a very different country from the hon. Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland). I declare an interest, as it seems that everyone else is, in that my brother is a member of the armed forces, as is my nephew. Unlike the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Stuart Anderson), a fellow member of the Defence Committee, they are not generals, members of senior command or part of the officer corps. [Hon. Members: “Not yet!”] Yes, hopefully in an independent Scotland.
Let us start with what we do agree on. Those of us who have close family members who have put themselves in harm’s way overseas, such as in the illegal war in Iraq that the Secretary of State mentioned earlier, know the feeling of dread when that loved one leaves and the utter relief when they come back. The very idea that that dread should be extended long after they have left the battlefield simply on the whim of vicious lawyers is unconscionable. I think we all agree about that. Vexatious claims are rightly illegal, not only because of the psychological duress they inflict on the veterans they target, but because they seek to paint the actions of those who serve and the overall conduct of our armed forces in a negative light purely for profit.
Let us also be clear that while those instances of serving UK personnel breaking international human rights law are well documented, as they should be, they are exceedingly rare. The improvements that the Army in particular has made in the past few decades in ensuring adherence to international human rights law and the rules of engagement should give a sense of genuine achievement and be a matter of pride. Hard fought for, through conventional and non-conventional conflicts, those advances should be jealously guarded by the Government.
However, the fundamental divergence between me and Conservative Members is about how we deal with an intractable issue. Her Majesty’s Government believe that issue is best solved by putting members of Her Majesty’s armed forces beyond the law. Perhaps it is the working-class boy in me—or the fact that I am from a socialist tradition —who thinks that it would be better spent examining the rare lapses of leadership, failures in the chain of command and imbalances in the power structures that led to the crimes being committed in the first place.
I can think back to when I brought forward a ten-minute rule Bill on the formation of an armed forces representative body. I see the former Chair of the Defence Committee, the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) in his place, and he will know a lot about that. For many veterans I have spoken to since and for many civilians, the principle that serving members of the armed forces deserve the same rights as civilians was self-evident. Just as NHS workers and the police on the frontline protecting our security have certain obligations that cannot be abrogated, so do the armed forces.
When I introduced that Bill, what surprised me was the lack of understanding among Government Members of the idea that there might be a better way to fulfil the solemn contract that a state has to those who place themselves in harm’s way to defend that state. I think that Ministers would agree that this state has not always done that in the best way possible. At the same time as the number of those with experience of military service is at a historic low, as therefore is the number of people like me with direct family experience, too, this Government have consistently taken the path of creating a discrete military caste remote from the communities they have sworn to protect.
I and those I have spoken to in my party wish to see a country where veterans and serving personnel are given top-class medical care because top-class medical care is available to all. We want to live in a country where veterans and serving personnel can access affordable and liveable housing for their families because that is available to all. That also means a country where veterans and serving personnel are accountable for their actions in the line of duty, because we are all accountable for our actions in the line of duty.
I stand here as a veteran. Under current legislation, hypothetically, I could be investigated for spurious claims made against me for my service in the Army back in the ’80s. I therefore have a personal interest in the Bill. I have also spoken to many veterans at surgeries, breakfast clubs and legions, and I am acutely aware of the pressures our veterans are placed under and the injustices they feel right now. Many of the veterans I have spoken to were junior ranks, and I concur with the statement of my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West (Stuart Anderson).
The Bill represents a huge milestone for military personnel. To be incorrectly accused of wrongdoing is an unacceptable burden. For our veterans and our veterans of the future, the Bill represents an opportunity to combat that cycle of reinvestigation and vexatious claims and to support our service personnel, who have risked their lives to defend our country and our freedoms overseas. I thank the Secretary of State and the Minister for Defence People and Veterans for bringing the Bill to the House today.
I would like to address the first part of the Bill. For me, the triple lock is the most crucial part of the Bill. The presumption against prosecution for alleged offences committed more than five years ago will both curb the often baseless claims made against veterans and stop lawfare by those who seek to abuse the legal system. Critics of the Bill cite that that provision will protect service personnel from wrongdoing. The Bill does nothing of the sort. There is no debate in this House, nor should there ever be, about the fact that if service personnel commit a crime, they must be called to account. The Bill does not give service personnel de facto immunity from prosecution. There are still provisions to allow for prosecutions of historical cases where there is compelling evidence.
I have had conversations with veterans living life on the edge, with constant anxiety, thoughts and fears that engulf their post-service lives and the lives of their families. We have lost too many veterans to incapacity and suicide. I am committed to veterans’ health and wellbeing, and I know the veterans Minister is, too.
I hesitate to interrupt my hon. Friend’s compelling and persuasive speech, except to say that she is absolutely right: the Bill is a huge leap forward and the Minister and the Government deserve great credit. As she may know, I am the champion of and have led the parliamentary campaign on behalf of the British nuclear test veterans. Will she ask the Minister to give an absolute assurance that those who fought a long time ago, if evidence emerges that they were damaged through that service, will not be disadvantaged by the provisions of part 2?
I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. I think the Minister heard it loud and clear.
I am passionate about veterans’ health and wellbeing, and the Bill goes a long way to offering security and peace of mind. The requirement for prosecutors to consider the circumstances of warfare is a welcome element. War is not black and white; it is grey and involves instant judgments and assessments under life-threatening pressure. It is right that the law reflects that reality. Although I am extremely supportive of the Bill, I accept that there are certain limitations. I would welcome further reassurance from Ministers on how we ensure that rogue lawyers do not bypass the legislation in favour of the international criminal courts to have claims heard. How will the Bill affect service personnel and veterans who are already subject to claims? The six-year longstop in part 2 has drawn criticism. Will the Minister assure me that that will not disadvantage the armed forces community compared with civilians?
We in this House are responsible for sending young men and women into harm’s way, and we rightly expect them to uphold the highest standards of the British armed forces. Despite limited reservations, the Bill will protect our service personnel in the future. It is wrong that servicemen and women we send into conflict should be hounded for years after their active service is over. I understand this legislation will not apply to Northern Ireland, but I am grateful for the Government’s commitment to pursue that separately in Northern Irish legislation. For the current and future service personnel and veterans of my Wrexham constituency, I will support the Bill today. To vote against it would be to deny our service personnel the support of their politicians and this country.
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wrexham (Sarah Atherton), not only because she made an eloquent speech but because it has been a pleasure to serve with her on the Defence Committee for the past few months. She is a welcome addition to our group. She followed the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes). Although our opinions on the Bill may differ throughout our proceedings, it is right to acknowledge that on the Defence Committee, there is great sense of collegiality and a great degree of cohesiveness. We work well and sincerely in the interests of our armed forces and all those who serve our country.
I see the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) in his place smiling at me. A former Chair of our Committee, he expertly navigated the way through two of the three reports published by the Committee. I was a member of the Committee during the passage of the two substantive reports, and I commend them to Members, not just in relation to the Bill but in relation to future provisions that we hope to see apply to Northern Ireland, because they outline the complexity of the legal arguments that are engaged. Not once have we heard mentioned in the debate thus far the rationale for Northern Ireland not being included in an overseas operations Bill. It is not because it is expedient, but because we operate in entirely different legislative frameworks. International treaties and the Geneva convention do not apply to domestic deployments.
I listened very earnestly to the hon. Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) and thought that he made a good speech, but he wanted to focus on what is in the Bill rather than on what is not in it, and I am afraid I cannot do that. I cannot say to the 300,000 veterans who served in Northern Ireland during Operation Banner —the longest continual deployment in our country’s history—that they do not count today. I recognise that those 300,000 do not all live in Northern Ireland. In fact, the majority live in constituencies in England, Scotland and Wales. Yet they are hearing us debate issues about protecting those who protected us without recognising fully that they are not included.
I am very pleased to hear the hon. Gentleman talking about this because it matters so much to many of us. But there is a difference, surely, between overseas operations and domestic operations that he has touched on. The very nature of what we are dealing with, with citizens of countries from around the world rather than citizens of the United Kingdom, means that the legal framework must be different. While I appreciate that he is absolutely right that the Bill should go further, or indeed the Northern Ireland Secretary should bring forward a Bill that covers similar issues, does he not recognise that it at least addresses part of the lacuna, even though not the whole?
I have enormous respect for the hon. Gentleman, and he is right that there is a different legal framework. That is the point I was making, and I acknowledge it. However, I am not prepared to let this Second Reading debate go by without saying that there is a compelling and equal argument that needs to be made for those who served in Northern Ireland: his constituents and mine. When this Bill was introduced for its First Reading on 18 March, a written ministerial statement was also tabled in this House giving equal provision and commitment to the people who served in Northern Ireland. If that was necessary on the day of its first introduction, the very least we could ask is that we would today have had clarity and further sight of that, and potentially its introduction, so that there was some parallel progression of the commitment that was in the Conservative party’s manifesto, and veterans are looking to see how it will be brought forward.
As I have mentioned in this place before, both my brothers-in-law served in the Ulster Defence Regiment. The risk to life was as great for them, if not in some ways greater, than in overseas operations. I can remember them both having to shine a torch under the car every morning. I just make that point for the record. It needs to be remembered.
That is an absolutely compelling point, and I am glad that the hon. Gentleman made it. There has been no progress on the commitment that was given for veterans who served in Northern Ireland, and I am concerned that that commitment is being watered down.
We are very clear that we will not leave Northern Ireland veterans behind. The commitment of equal treatment in any Northern Ireland Bill that comes forward will be absolutely adhered to. This Government will not resile from their commitments to those individuals. We recognise, value and cherish the service and sacrifice of everyone who served in those operations.
The Minister will probably make points like that when he concludes the debate. There has been no progression for Northern Ireland today. The right hon. Member for New Forest East—and, indeed, the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle); I rarely agree with him—were absolutely right that nothing in the Bill will frustrate investigations. That process is so burdensome and cumbersome for those who are subjected to it, with repeated inquiries and repeated investigations. Veterans in their 70s and 80s have had their doors knocked in dawn raids or, on one occasion that I can think of, have been taken from their home and flown to Northern Ireland to answer questions for investigatory purposes about an incident on which they have been through two or three investigations in the past. In considering what will come for Northern Ireland, and as fundamentally part of the Bill, we do not believe in the conferment of an amnesty, and I do not believe that what is contained in the Bill does that. I am pleased that that is the case.
When we consider the principles underlining statutory protection for veterans, we must understand that such protection should always be given in a case where there has been a satisfactory investigation previously and, in our domestic context, where the state has discharged its duty under article 2 of the European convention on human rights. I am therefore slightly concerned that clause 4(1)(c) envisages circumstances where an investigation may have commenced previously but not concluded. That should be reflected upon in Committee. It is unwise to offer levels of protection through a presumption of no prosecution, on the basis that an investigation may have commenced but resolved no outcome whatsoever.
I highlight that issue now because it is worthy of further exploration but, in principle terms, having highlighted the need for more progress for Northern Ireland veterans, no amnesty and no equivalence with paramilitarism, which is another concern this evening, I will give my support to the Bill this evening.
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson). As he said, I too am honoured to sit on the Defence Committee. We have a very cohesive Committee, which is doing some fascinating work on behalf of our armed services.
May I point out to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) that once a commanding officer, always a commanding officer—of course I refer to the mention of the hairstyle of the Minister for Defence People and Veterans, my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer). I thank the Minister while he is sitting on the Front Bench, and the Secretary of State, for the huge amount of work that they have both done to get the Bill before the House. I would like to show my appreciation for all the armed service personnel in another country, and to those in South Dorset in camps such as Bovington and Lulworth, the headquarters of the armoured force nowadays. There are many thousands of troops and their families who serve with great distinction and honour, in Dorset and around the world, and we owe them a huge debt.
It is those of us in this House who send troops to war—no one else; we do. We sit here on these green Benches, or at home in our comfortable armchairs, armed with a gin and tonic perhaps, watching the men and women we sent fight for their lives in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Can we possibly, with few exceptions—honourable exceptions—really understand what they have gone through and are going through? I do not think we possibly can.
The law had until recently covered warfare very well. Things like torture and sexual assaults and so on are already covered by international law, under which our troops serve. Unfortunately, other laws have crept into military law and are being exploited, as we have heard, in some cases by unscrupulous lawyers, and even scrupulous lawyers who genuinely feel that they have a legal duty to protect their clients’ claims and investigate them.
The Bill, we have heard, gives immunity to those who commit crimes—or, some have said, amnesties. Hon. Members may remember the case of Marine A, Alexander Blackman; I sought his permission to mention his name today. I was honoured and privileged to form part of a small team that fought for him for three years to get his conviction for murder reduced to manslaughter. In that case, if hon. Members remember, he shot a member of the Taliban while serving in Afghanistan. He was convicted of murder and sent to jail for 10 years. Under a very able QC and his team, we took the case to the Appeal Court, where it was reduced to manslaughter with diminished responsibility.
What I find encouraging in the Bill is that—if I may read the notes that I was helpfully given by the Minister—it will require prosecutors, when deciding whether to prosecute, to take into account the unique circumstances of “overseas operations” and the “adverse effects” that those can have on personnel.
In the Appeal Court, five of the top judges in the land listened to the case that I have mentioned and decided that it was not murder. So, having served four years of his life, and having served 16 years with great distinction and honour for Queen and country and for us, Mr Blackman was released.
I will not give way, because 70 Members wish to speak, and the hon. Gentleman has had plenty of time to say his bit.
The point I am trying to make is that this man did not get away with it. He was convicted for four years of his life. He paid for a terrible mistake in the heat of battle after a long tour. When the circumstances were investigated by the lawyers at the Appeal Court and the experiences that he and others had been through came out, and the psychiatrists had their say, it was discovered that this man had been pushed to a point that none of us in this place can understand.
Next time—and there sadly will be another time—we send our men and women into harm’s way, we must remember what we are sending them to. This Bill, which I totally support, is being introduced to protect them from new aspects of law that our forebears in world war two and other battles did not have to cope with. I shall be voting with the Government tonight. I thank the Minister and the Secretary of State for bringing this Bill to the House, and I look forward to the Northern Ireland Bill coming to the House before Christmas.
This is the second piece of legislation that the Government have brought forward this week that is predicated on breaking international law. It is alarming that this is the global Britain that was promised in such glowing words by the Prime Minister and his allies over the last few years—a Britain that alienates itself on the world stage and is driven by bluster, tub-thumping and a form of nationalism that endangers both our armed forces and civilians around the globe.
The Defence Secretary has boasted about going to war on lawfare, but preventing acts of torture is not some burdensome red tape. The UK military has opposed torture for decades, and that principle is enshrined in the Army field manual and the Ministry of Defence doctrine, yet the Government wish to provide a triple lock amnesty which would ensure that acts of torture cannot be prosecuted if they took place more than five years ago. The Bill would also enshrine direct political interference from the Attorney General in such cases.
Many human rights groups, including Amnesty International, Freedom from Torture, Liberty, Reprieve and Rights Watch UK strongly oppose the Bill on the grounds that it contravenes international humanitarian and human rights law. The organisation Redress warns:
“The Bill risks creating impunity for serious offences including torture, and thus will result in the UK being in breach of its international treaty obligations… The Bill makes the mistake of assuming that all victims are fake, and that British soldiers are always in the right. That is not borne out by history.”
Indeed, it is believed that thousands of allegations of torture and mistreatment from Iraqis and Afghanis have been lodged against British soldiers serving in the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. Earlier this year, the International Criminal Court prosecutor determined that there was a basis to allegations that the UK armed forces committed war crimes against detainees in Iraq. Rather than face up to any wrongdoing, the Government now wish to silence victims by introducing time limits for civil claims in connection with overseas operations.
The Bill would also place a duty on all future Governments to consider deviation from the European convention on human rights in relation to significant overseas military operations. That reveals what this legislation is truly about: slashing away crucial protections on human rights under the guise of macho patriotism. Even if we agree with the Government’s argument that those involved in controversial overseas operations should not be left in uncertainty for years, the solution is not to issue a blanket amnesty for potential war crimes.
We have 70 people speaking in this debate.
The solution is for the Government to reverse their severe budget cuts to criminal investigations and to increase accountability and scrutiny of their military interventions.
The Government claim to be standing up for British troops, yet the erosion of global rules against torture would put UK personnel at risk by endangering British soldiers who are detained by foreign forces overseas. Not only that, but the Bill breaches the armed forces convention by preventing British armed forces personnel from holding the Ministry of Defence to account for negligence, personal injury or death. Therefore, despite all the Government’s bluster, this legislation does much more to protect the Ministry of Defence than it does service personnel.
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Lady may have inadvertently misled the House, and I would not want her to do that. She made the point just now that the Bill meant that serving personnel could not be prosecuted for war crimes. That is fundamentally untrue, as the Minister no doubt will confirm. If she withdrew that remark, we could all make some progress.
I appreciate what the right hon. Gentleman is saying, but he knows that it is not a point of order for the Chair but the very point that we are debating. The hon. Lady thinks one thing, the right hon. Gentleman thinks another.
I guess I now do not have the time.
If the Government really cared about the wellbeing of veterans, they should pledge today to invest in mental health services and tackling the scourge of homelessness, which affects 3,500 veterans. According to the No Homeless Veterans campaign, this legislation also increases the likelihood of UK service personnel being tried at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, instead of being dealt with in our British justice system.
The hon. Lady has exceeded her time.
My constituency has a proud history of supporting our veterans. I would like to start by congratulating VetRun 180, a veterans charity based in Mirfield, on raising a significant amount of money for injured servicemen following its 13-day expedition from John O’Groats to Land’s End. Mirfield is also home to what is reportedly the largest remembrance parade outside London, with Dewsbury not far behind and large services also held in Kirkburton and Denby Dale. I hope that Ministers will give assurances that remembrance services, albeit with smaller numbers, can go ahead this year, so that we can show respect for the war dead and our veterans.
I am pleased that the Bill has been introduced, as it delivers on our manifesto pledge to tackle vexatious claims against armed forces personnel. We owe it to our veterans to ensure that they are protected against these claims and that the circumstances of their judgments are taken into account.
I have seen at first hand the impact that serving in conflict zones can have on someone. When I was a teenager, a friend of mine joined the Army and went on to serve in Northern Ireland during the troubles. Having seen his colleague and friend killed in front of him, he came home and looked a shadow of his former self, clearly affected by that traumatic experience. As a result, he distanced himself from our friendship group and could only seek solace and comfort from his Army colleagues. I cannot begin to imagine what my friend went through during his time in the Army, with his life constantly under threat and having to make snap decisions under extreme circumstances.
Of course, the Bill does not deal with Northern Ireland, and I echo the sentiment expressed by the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) in his speech earlier. However, I expect the Government to honour their manifesto commitments and bring forward legislation relating to Northern Ireland veterans in the not-too-distant future.
That aside, those on overseas operations will have endured similar trauma to my friends. Such experiences can affect people’s judgment and I would be hesitant to criticise people who have made decisions in such gruelling circumstances when I have not been in such situations myself. It is absolutely right that the Bill will ensure that such conditions are taken into account when prosecutions are considered.
I am satisfied that five years is a sufficient period within which to bring forward a prosecution. The impact on veterans of the looming threat of court action can be horrific and they do not deserve to be hounded for many years after they have left service. Many of the inquiries and organisations set up to investigate allegations found little basis in the vast majority of them. Operation Northmoor discounted 90% of investigations into the allegations it received, and none were referred for prosecution. The sort of vexatious claims that prompted many of the investigations could ruin the lives of veterans, placing an enormous burden on their mental health.
It is important to recognise that the Bill includes a presumption against prosecution, not a total exemption. Many of the scenarios put forward by the Bill’s critics— including gruelling torture, which has been discussed by many Members—would certainly still be dealt with, and rightly so. We have a top-class military with dedicated personnel who put their lives on the line in circumstances that many of us will have little understanding of, and we owe it to them to provide the support and peace of mind that they need. That is why I fully support the Bill.
From the point at which I first became aware of its proper formulation, I have been a supporter of the military covenant. It has always seemed to me to be a statement of decent common sense. The covenant has been important for the past two decades because of the way in which it has shaped and, indeed, changed the debate in politics on matters relating to the military. It has given us something around which we can all unite and is a common starting point for us all. The debate in this House and in the community at large has been much the better for that.
It is for that reason that I have particular regret about the way in which the Bill has come to the House today and—I have to say—about the way in which we have debated it. There has been a degree of heat and asperity in this debate that does not serve this House, or those in our armed forces whom we seek to protect, well. I ask the House, and not just those on the Treasury Bench, to reflect on that. I am aware that I may even have been part of it myself, but on reflection I think those who serve in the armed forces deserve better than this.
As I said to the Secretary of State, there is an easy consensus to be built around taking action against vexatious civil dreams. Unfortunately, what we have heard in support of the Bill does not really build that consensus; we have heard a conflation of civil and criminal procedure, with a view to justifying the otherwise unjustifiable changes to criminal procedure. I have very little problem with the part of the Bill that relates to the regulation of claims. What Phil Shiner did was absolutely unconscionable. If we want to stop that sort of thing, the first point ought to have been to call in the regulatory authorities in the legal profession. If we really want to address that problem, that would be the first place I would start to look.
I wish to put on record the concerns that my right hon. and hon. Friends and I have about the Bill. First, there is the question of a presumption against prosecution. The Secretary of State said earlier that I was a right hon. and learned Member; he was not quite right: I was but a humble solicitor. In fact, in the early stages of my legal career, I served as a prosecutor—as a procurator fiscal depute—and it was useful experience. I cannot think of any other example of this presumption in legislation, and I counsel the House that it is a dangerous one.
I want to focus on the use of torture, because this illustrates very well the lack of logic in not having torture in schedule 1 to the Bill. Where there is evidence of torture, no prosecutor sitting in his or her office should say, “Well, there is clearly evidence of torture, but it is presumed that we will not prosecute it.” What sort of signal does that send? But if we read the Bill, we see that its architecture is such that torture is clearly designed to belong in schedule 1, along with sexual offences. That makes perfect sense. As I have said, that is a matter of logic, not of law. The provisions in schedule 1 cover eventualities whose use is never in any circumstances acceptable, so surely that is where torture belongs. Not to put it there suggests that the use of torture in warfare is in certain circumstances acceptable, and that is a proposition for which there should be no support in this House. In suggesting that, we risk doing ourselves serious damage and, worse than that, we ill serve those whom we seek to support and to help through the passing of this legislation. The people who will be most damaged by the application of that presumption against prosecution in relation to torture are those who serve and have served in our armed services. As I said in my intervention on the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald), the purpose of prosecution is to prove beyond reasonable doubt that something has or has not happened. This presumption will work against that, and at the end of the day, the people who will lose as a result are those against whom suspicion exists.
After the next hon. Member to speak, the time limit will be reduced to three minutes so that we can try to give an opportunity to as many people as possible to participate in this important debate, but now I call Stuart Anderson to speak for five minutes.
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the extra few minutes. I declare an interest as a veteran who has served on multiple overseas operational tours and successfully taken the Ministry of Defence to court over injuries sustained in my time. In my maiden speech I spoke about what was best described as a hatred of this place and the decisions that were made here. After those decisions were made, I had to go and fight in those conflicts and saw them at first hand. But I think we need to move on from that and say, “There are new Members in; let us help to educate the House from our perspective”. We do not all have the same views, but we have been given that opportunity, so I want to show hon. Members a day in my life as a young soldier.
At the age of 22, I had been shot, rehabilitated, learned to walk again, returned to active duty, spent several years on different operational tours, gained promotion and got married. Then Kosovo erupted. We were chosen to go at the start of the conflict, so on returning from my honeymoon, I kissed my wife goodbye and said, “See you in six months.” As we entered Pristina, we did not know what awaited us. I was a proud junior NCO—that meant I could read a map—with the formidable R Company of the 2nd Battalion the Royal Green Jackets. I worked alongside professional, battle-hardened men, and we knew our job and did it well. There was no proper accommodation when we arrived, so we put our doss bags down in what could best be described as rat-infested, disease-ridden derelict buildings. We worked all hours round the clock, so sleep was a real bonus if we got it. Within a couple of weeks of the tour starting, it was clear that we were stretched thin, had unsuitable kit and lived in the worst conditions imaginable. We did not complain. We got on with it.
One evening, I was a quick reaction force commander, and our temporary base was burned down. It would have been a blessing to get rid of the place if my friends had not been so badly burned in it. As we were trying to put the fire out, the conflict raged all around us. We had to go and deal with that, regardless of the fact that all our stuff was getting burned as we did so. My brief over the radio on the way to the incident was: “Several armed men have entered a house. Civilians inside. Serious threat to life. Deal with it.” That was the brief.
There are all kinds of ways of dealing with such situations in training, and loads of support agencies that can be brought in. Not one was available then, so I and three of my colleagues arrived at the location. I briefed the team by saying, “Make ready.” For those who do not know, that means put a round in the chamber and prepare to engage the enemy. We entered the building and had a split second to decide whether these men were armed. Were they waiting for us? Were they even in there? What were they going to do? We were sleep deprived, under pressure and had just watched our mates burn. We knew the rules of engagement. We knew what we could and could not do. If we made the wrong decision, we went to prison or we died.
On that occasion, we were able to get the men to surrender and prevented any loss of life. That incident is nothing unusual in the day of a soldier on operational tour. That is what they do—day in, day out. They never want to be held above the law. They do not want to be treated differently. They want to do their job without fear of being chased decades afterwards. If a crime is committed, they must be prosecuted and they all get that, but this lawfare culture is a disgrace to this country. It will damage the military and it must be stopped.
This Bill is a major step forward for veterans and soldiers. It will bring back reassurance for our troops that they can move in operations without that fear of prosecution. I welcome everything that my hon. Friend the Minister for Defence People and Veterans has done to get this legislation here. It is a major step forward. I also welcome the Northern Ireland Bill that is coming forward. We must see that through.
I just wondered whether my hon. Friend would like also to praise the Minister’s hair.
Like me with the long beard, the Minister has long hair; we are leading the game in this House.
I am new to this game. I have only been a politician since last year. As I said, I had never voted before 2015. I hated politics and the decisions made. I have watched some of the debates and have honestly found myself angry at some views, but I have to put that to one side because we have to debate this matter fairly. I have seen the impact of these issues on soldiers’ lives; some of my friends are not here now because they took their own lives. We have got to put that above everything else. I am asking the House to put egos and political parties aside, and to support this legislation tonight. We will be judged by our actions, not our words.
It is right that we protect our armed services personnel and veterans. These men and women have served us and our country, and it is only right that we serve their needs. It is our duty to prioritise their welfare and mental health, and to support them and their families in every conceivable way, not just when they are in service, but after they return home—for as long as they need it.
It is our intention to work supportively with the Government to improve this Bill for the better protection of our service personnel and veterans. Unamended, the Bill leaves Army personnel with less power to protect themselves once they have completed service. What are the Government more concerned about—protecting the Ministry of Defence as a Department or protecting our honourable service personnel on the ground, who risk their lives day in, day out to make sure that the people of the United Kingdom and citizens across the world are kept safe? As it stands, the Bill does more to protect the Ministry of Defence than it does for our troops and veterans.
The Labour party is determined that we will absolutely stand up for our troops’ rights to justice from the Ministry of Defence should it fall short in protecting our forces. Members of the armed forces have given years of their lives and sacrificed memories with their families to protect us and our great nation. It is utterly unfair to place a time limit on their right to hold the Ministry of Defence to account if they develop later in life mental and physical disabilities as a result of their time in service. It is well documented by numerous organisations and armed forces veterans themselves that, in many cases, duty-related ailments, injuries and mental health issues do not develop until years after they have left service. Many service personnel and veterans have spoken out about their horror at the Bill’s intention to introduce a six-year time limit on claims for personal injuries and/or death. Will the Minister accept that one reason for a delay in soldiers bringing cases can be the impact of trauma? As we know, tragically, there can be extremely high rates of PTSD in the military. The Bill penalises our wonderful service personnel and is a flagrant breach of the covenant.
There is no reason why we should be under-protecting our service personnel and veterans, who have sacrificed so much to protect us. Personal injury claims are incredibly important not only in securing justice for injured people or bereaved families, but in holding the Ministry of Defence to account.
As I mentioned, our intention is to work with the Government and to strengthen the Bill. The Government can do that by increasing protection for our own forces while, crucially, still adhering to international obligations and frameworks that determine best practice of behaviour and standards for all armed forces across the world. As an MP for many service personnel and veterans in Coventry North West, I am here to protect them, to speak up for them and to stand up for them. We should focus on looking after them on their overseas missions and when they return home, when many face an uphill battle to survive. We must protect and uphold their rights when they return home from service, and provide them with the dignity and respect that they deserve.
I welcome the Bill, as it delivers on our election manifesto promise to deal with a long-standing injustice. It paves the way to a new framework that puts justice at its heart.
I have always been proud of our armed forces. My late father was in the Royal Scots Greys and the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment, and my husband, my hon. Friend the Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti), is an Army veteran who served in Afghanistan. I am also very proud of how my constituency supports our veterans, especially the Royal British Legion in Morley, where Gail and her team of volunteers raise tens of thousands of pounds per year for our veterans. Veterans are part of all our communities and it is crucial that we value their contribution to this country. We must seek to protect them as they put their lives on the line to protect us and our country.
The Bill finally finds a solution to end the injustice of vexatious claims. For too long, veterans have been the victims of lawyers’ profiteering ventures, in which profits were made from the constant threat of reprosecution. A new five-year limit on the time in which our troops can be subject to legal claims, apart from in exceptional circumstances, will help to stop unfounded allegations.
We ask much of our armed forces, yet, as things stand, they face an unending trauma from persistent reinvestigation. In essence, the Bill acts to remove that injustice and creates a new legal framework that puts justice at its core. The Bill will achieve that with a triple lock to protect and secure the welfare of our armed forces personnel.
My hon. Friend, as ever, makes a strong case. Will she confirm that, far from the irresponsible, scurrilous and unpatriotic claims of the hon. Member for Leicester East (Claudia Webbe), the Bill does not mean that soldiers can do as they please? It simply protects them from those very malicious and vexatious charges long after they have served, which they have been plagued by for too long.
I thank my right hon. Friend for his comment. That trauma has been inflicted on veterans by disgraced lawyers should be a source of shame to us all. Many veterans’ lives have been put into a state of unending misery.
The Bill will require that prosecutors take into account the adverse effect that overseas operations can have on service personnel. It recognises that, in the interests of justice, there should be reasonable and swift resolution of cases that have already been investigated and in which there is no compelling new evidence. There is justice in having certainty about the future for our armed forces—they deserve that. This is a legal framework that provides clarity in dealing with these allegations. I welcome the Bill not only for removing the injustice of repeated investigations, but for being a measured step—
No, I am running out of time.
The Bill will not put our armed forces in any legal privilege. The same laws, both domestic and international, will always apply. The Bill’s statutory presumption against prosecution does not prevent justice being served in cases where armed forces personnel have committed genuine crimes. This is a Conservative party manifesto promise and, as a party, we will always stand up to fight for our servicemen and women. Most importantly, however, the Bill ends the blight on the lives of our veterans with sensible and fair measures. My constituents will welcome its contribution to guaranteeing justice for those who have protected our freedom.
I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Andrea Jenkyns) and I share her objective of ending vexatious claims. But it is to our shame that Governments of which I was a member, in circumstances that we still do not fully understand, participated in rendition leading to torture. That should not have happened and it must not be allowed to happen ever again. That is the aim of the all-party group on extraordinary rendition, of which I was recently elected Chair. I am afraid that this Bill will not help with that shared objective. I am troubled, for example, that, in the Bill, the presumption against prosecution will extend not just to the battlefield, not just to the sort of circumstances that the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Stuart Anderson) very powerfully explained to us a few minutes ago, but to peacekeeping operations and to a worryingly undefined category of operations dealing with terrorism. We could so easily slip back to repeating what went so badly wrong before.
The House’s Intelligence and Security Committee has carried out two investigations on extraordinary rendition. There is still a great deal that we do not know, but the Committee has identified hundreds of cases linked to the UK. Many of the people involved still do not know that the UK was involved in what happened to them, and it would be quite wrong to cut them off now from any legal redress. There will one day need to be a judge-led inquiry into what happened with that extraordinary rendition, but, for now, the Government seem to have set their face against that. It may well fall to the Front Bench of this party to do the right thing, but let us not now choose to downgrade the seriousness with which we regard acts of torture. I asked the Secretary of State why, having floated the idea of excluding torture from the remit of this Bill along with sexual offences, the Department did not exclude torture. Sexual offences, I am pleased to say, have been excluded. The Secretary of State did not give an answer. He simply said that that was the decision that he had made. In the case of sexual offences, it is absolutely right: those are not acceptable in any circumstances. Surely the same is true for torture. That must surely be the view of this House and of the British Government as well.
I must declare an interest, as I am a member of the Royal British Legion. I will be brief as I know that time is short. I pay tribute to the work of the Secretary of State for Defence and the Minister for Defence People and Veterans for their unwavering support for the veteran community both nationally and in my home constituency of Blyth Valley.
Blyth has a long history of supporting our armed forces. Members of my own family have served in both the regular and the youth branches of the Army. My father served in the RAF in the post-war years. The Blyth shipyards built many ships for the Royal Navy, including the first aircraft carrier, HMS Ark Royal. During both world wars, the port of Blyth served as a submarine base and today it plays host to the 203 Elswick Battery Royal Artillery and Army reservists and many of their families.
I am a proud member of the Royal British Legion, which ensures that ex-service communities have a voice here and their concerns can be heard by the Government. With this Bill, the Government have shown that they have listened to our veterans and serving personnel and have taken their concerns seriously. Our armed forces perform exceptional feats in incredibly difficult circumstances to protect this country and I am proud of the fact that they uphold the highest standards when doing their job overseas.
We have some of the most committed and professional service personnel in the world, who not only adhere to the rule of law, but promote it through their conduct while on operations and we should not second-guess their actions from this House. There seems to be confusion in much of the reporting about the difference between investigations and prosecutions. This Bill does not give free rein to our forces to behave in a way that would bring our services into disrepute and it will not prevent the prosecution of any service personnel found to have committed illegal acts on operations overseas. Despite suggestions by Opposition Members, it does not provide immunity from torture, but it does make provision for the prosecution of any service personnel found to have been involved in such acts.
The Bill does not act as a pardon, amnesty or statute of limitations. Prosecutors will have the ability to prosecute for criminal offences, including torture, taking into account factors such as sufficiency of evidence and public interest. Furthermore, service personnel are subject to criminal law in England and Wales and to the disciplinary framework of service law, and have a duty to uphold both wherever in the world they are serving. Indeed, the people we have failed in recent years, whom we now deny the protection of law, have—
Order. I am terribly sorry, Ian; we have to leave it there.
As co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on human rights, my comments will be heavily focused on human rights. Perhaps not surprisingly, when I see a Bill come forward from this Government that seeks to achieve a derogation from the ECHR, I am sceptical about its intentions. This Bill is another example of the Government trying to get around our international legal obligations in a specific and limited way, and in so doing opening up a whole can of worms for our armed forces personnel overseas.
There can be no doubt that our armed forces carry out incredibly sensitive and dangerous work overseas, and they have our gratitude for doing so. They do not deserve to be repeatedly investigated for vexatious claims against them. The internationally agreed rules of warfare simply must be adhered to. That includes prosecuting war crimes and crimes against humanity when there is evidence to suggest that those serious offences have been committed in the course of armed conflict. Doing so not only upholds our commitment to the rules-based order but offers armed forces personnel crucial protection from torture and abuse themselves. It is hypocritical of us to demand of others that they should obey international law if we do not follow it ourselves, and the consequences for serving personnel on the battlefield are serious if we undermine our commitments to human rights.
I have considerable concern about the impact that clause 12 will have on our human rights obligations. In its current form, the Bill enables the Secretary of State to derogate from article 15 of the ECHR under certain circumstances, even though article 15 is one of the provisions of the ECHR where derogation can take place. I am concerned about the concentration of power in the hands of the Executive on matters pertaining to states of emergency, especially as the clause only places a duty on the Secretary of State to consider whether an overseas operation is significant enough to merit derogation. At the very least, additional parliamentary oversight is required before such a derogation is made, given the existing notification requirements to the Council of Europe for such a derogation to take place.
Our armed forces deserve protection but should not be above the law. Unfortunately, the Bill creates far too many unintended consequences for the UK’s reputation as a country that upholds human rights and the rule of law. I do not believe that the Government have adequately addressed those issues in the Bill as it stands, and it is for that reason that I will join my colleagues on the SNP Benches in voting against the Bill tonight.
My constituency is home to many veterans. Their service to our nation is valued by me as their MP and by the overwhelming majority of the local community. For their service, we owe them a great debt of gratitude, and central to that gratitude is the full implementation of the military covenant right across the United Kingdom—something on which we in Northern Ireland still have a way to go.
At the core of that covenant—that promise between society and our military family—is the principle of fairness, and I believe that the Bill before us is no different. At the heart of this should be fairness. Is it fair that our military personnel are targeted through vexatious actions that are proven to have no legitimacy when they reach a court but, in the period up to that point, come at a mental and financial cost that is a heavy burden to bear? Likewise, would it be fair for those who have committed wrongdoing to be able to escape justice? Would that be fair on victims? Absolutely not.
I am conscious of the concerns raised both by hon. Members in this House and by constituents that this Bill could exempt soldiers from justice in relation to heinous acts such as torture. No one wants that. At all times, the punishment, whether or not the alleged offence is within a five-year period, must fit the crime. There should be no amnesty for those who abuse the uniform when serving Crown and country.
One area that still remains unresolved by this Bill, despite a promise and platitudes from the Government, is the vexatious prosecution of those who served in Northern Ireland. These veterans must not be left behind.
There are still many veterans who are awaiting the knock on the door. As has been mentioned, 80-year-old men are receiving a knock on the door. When the Minister is summing up in winding up this debate, will he give assurances on the progress of implementation and forward movement of inclusion within the Northern Ireland Bill?
I thank my hon. Friend, and I agree entirely with his sentiments.
On 18 March, in a statement to this House, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland did give a commitment that there would be equal treatment for Northern Ireland veterans, yet today we have no sign of a Bill that will give that equal treatment to the veterans who served in the streets and laneways of Ulster. Such delays create suspicion, so I urge the Minister to commit that, before this Bill becomes law, veterans in Northern Ireland will have that equal treatment.
Order. I am sorry, Mr Shannon, but you cannot make an intervention from there.
Take 2! Mr Shannon, you must come here more often and you will find out how this place works. [Laughter.]
It is always a learning curve, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I am still learning.
On the issue our veterans in Northern Ireland—I declare an interest as one of those veterans, having served in the Ulster Defence Regiment in Northern Ireland—the Minister gave a commitment previously that, by the end of this year, a Bill would be coming through on Northern Ireland veterans’ issues. Does my hon. Friend, like me, want to see the Minister committing himself at the end of this debate to giving veterans in Northern Ireland the same protection as those here on the mainland?
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and I wholeheartedly agree with him. I think the Minister will have got the message loud and clear from the Ulster Benches that we want that clarity today. Those who served in Operation Banner, who stood firm against terrorism and who defeated those terrorists must not be left behind as prey for unscrupulous lawyers, emboldened by smears and innuendo from self-styled rights activists, republican politicians or investigative journalists. To do so would be wrong.
In Northern Ireland, we have the ludicrous scenario where terrorists were freed from prison having served only 18 months for the murder of police officers and soldiers, yet we are here having to debate why we do not pursue elderly men who have served their country by standing against those very terrorists. These same terrorists now want to be paid compensation for the injuries they suffered carrying out their illegal and murderous deeds. I want to put a marker down in relation to this Bill: there can be no consideration and no legal framework to offer a level of equivalence between the perpetrator and the innocent victim.
In conclusion, this is a matter of fairness—fairness to our servicemen and women, fairness to victims and the fair application of the law of this land, but also fairness within the ranks of service personnel. Northern Ireland veterans must be treated fairly, and in that regard this Government must step up and live up to their prior commitment—no more lip service, no more delay.
I welcome the clear intention to support our service personnel, whom we send into harm’s way on operations overseas quite often these days, with this Bill. First, I would like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister for Defence People and Veterans on all the incredible hard work he has done on veterans’ issues and on the work he has done to bring this Bill before the House.
I would like to declare an interest as a veteran. I was proud to serve our country in Afghanistan on Op Herrick 9 as a mobilised reservist in the Royal Artillery. One of my sons, Michael, is currently serving in the Royal Artillery as a lance bombardier in 1RHA—1st Regiment Royal Horse Artillery—having just returned this week from a six-month deployment to Estonia. I am looking forward to catching up with him at the weekend and having a few beers.
While I anticipate the important legislation that will follow this Bill and address the great injustice of the treatment of our Northern Ireland veterans, I hope that this Bill will end the vexatious and repeated claims that some of our service personnel have had to endure following their service in Afghanistan and Iraq. I will support the Bill, although I have some questions about which I hope Ministers will reassure me.
Will the Minister assure me that the Bill will not lead to an increased risk that our people will be pursued through the International Criminal Court? We must be careful not unintentionally to give the impression that our armed forces do not operate to the highest possible standards, as we know they do, or that some sort of immunity exists for them while on operations. We must make that point throughout, and be clear that if a service person commits a crime on an overseas operation, they will be held to account legally.
Service personnel are taught about the law of armed conflict and their obligations under the Geneva convention, which they take incredibly seriously. Colleagues have drawn attention to the fundamental difference between an error in the fog of war, and a crime. Even with all the modern technology now available to our armed forces, sadly, we will never eliminate the risk of civilian casualties.
In a recent interview, General Sir Nick Carter drew attention to the need for better records to be kept on operations, and for service personnel to know that any incident that occurs on operations and leads to an investigation will be dealt with quickly by the MOD. As my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) said, it is not entirely clear that the Bill will be able to stop repeated investigations. I hope Ministers can assure me that once an investigation has closed, it will not be repeated unless there is more compelling evidence that specifically relates to that case. That will put an end to repeated investigations and interviews by various boards of inquiry that can drag on for many years, with both service and civilian police.
I was proud to serve on the Armed Forces Bill Committee, which enshrined the armed forces covenant into law for the first time and means that military personnel will not be disadvantaged by their service. Will the Minister reassure the House that the Bill will not inhibit the ability of any veteran who seeks legal action against the MOD?
It is a privilege to speak in this debate on an issue that is of great importance to me and my constituents. Indeed, it was a manifesto commitment, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer) on his considerable energy in delivering the Bill. Lincolnshire is the proud home of much of our air force and its heritage. Sleaford and North Hykeham is lucky to have a number of RAF bases, including RAF Cranwell, at which the next generation of officers are trained. Through the armed forces parliamentary scheme, I have seen at first hand how our armed forces personnel train night and day, so that they are fully prepared to protect us in the most difficult circumstances imaginable.
Although our armed forces put their lives on the line to protect us in conflict overseas, there has been a collective failure to protect them from vexatious claims when they come home. The strong emotions on that topic cannot be understated, and like many colleagues, I have received much correspondence about this issue, which is often raised in conversations with veterans, service personnel and families. I believe that the Bill cannot come soon enough, although tragically, for many veterans it will have come too late. In 2014, the al-Sweady inquiry found that the vast majority of claims made against the British military were the product of “deliberate and calculated lies.” Those lies came at a huge personal cost to soldiers who were victims of them.
Our brave men and women in the armed forces do not want to be, and should not be, above the law, and the Bill will not make them above the law. They want to be protected from vexatious claims, however, and we should ensure that they are. At the core of this issue has been the expansion of human rights law under the ECHR to apply outside the UK, and its conflict with international humanitarian law. The Bill will protect our personnel from vexatious claims, and I proud to see the Government fulfilling their manifesto commitment to protect the armed forces.
As other hon. Members have said, the Bill does not cover Northern Ireland veterans, but earlier in the debate I heard the Minister’s assurances in that regard, and I hope that further legislation will come forward soon. I welcome the introduction of the Bill, and will support it this evening. I look forward to the day our veterans no longer need to worry that their brave and honourable service for this country will be tarnished by repeated intimidation by investigation.
Let me say at the outset that although I did not agree with all his conclusions, I found the speech by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Stuart Anderson) to be stark, powerful and illuminating. I pay tribute to him for his service.
Chester is a proud garrison city. The hon. and gallant Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), who is in his place, served as leader of the Cheshire Regiment and is still highly thought of there. Many of the men who served with him are now veterans, and I have a large veteran community in Chester. I seek to represent them because they served us, and we owe them a debt for that service. We owe it to them to look after them, which is why I have in the past called for measures to protect veterans from vexatious claims. Consequently, I will not vote against Second Reading tonight.
None the less, it is the role and the right of the Opposition to point out errors and holes in legislation and to try to improve it. I was disappointed by the response from the Secretary of State, particularly his outburst when my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State pointed out some of the holes and criticisms. There are clear reasons to include torture in the scope of the Bill, but that was rejected.
My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) and the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) both talked about the fact that the legislation will not prevent investigations, and in that respect there is a particular group I want to talk about. When there is a knock on the door at 7 o’clock in the morning, it is not just the veteran who suffers; it is his or her family as well. We need to remember the families of veterans.
I was especially disappointed when, in response to my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State, the Secretary of State tried to associate ambulance, tank or armoured personnel carrier-chasing lawyers with the Labour party. My right hon. Friend had taken a constructive approach and will continue to do so. I ask the Minister to consider carefully: these lawyers, who deserve obloquy, have no support from us. Those of us who represent areas where there are high numbers of honourable ex-servicemen want to find a way to protect them. The Bill may be the right way, but it needs to be considered carefully in Committee. I hope the Minister and his colleagues will take into account our genuine and heartfelt concerns about its failings, so that they can be amended during the Bill’s passage through Parliament.
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson), who made a reasonable and moderate speech. In our debate on the Bill today, we have heard some powerful stories based on personal experience, not least from my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West (Stuart Anderson), as well as some fairly strong accusations based on the belief that the Bill will somehow undermine this country’s enviable legacy in respect of human rights.
I read John Larkin’s article, and I have to concur with the conclusion reached in relation to Felix Frankfurter’s tripartite test for deciding whether a law does what it says on the tin:
“1. Read the statute, 2. Read the statute, 3. Read the statute”.
The Bill does not give, or even approach giving, immunity to service personnel in respect of serious crimes. There is no special provision to prevent prosecutions for torture, and those who claim otherwise should be ashamed of themselves. We hear a lot of Opposition Members paying lip service to supporting our forces, and I believe that some of them genuinely do, but when asked to do so, some have demurred. Failing to support the Bill will be a serious breach of faith on their part.
What the Bill does is create a new framework for prosecutions of alleged offences that take place on overseas operations. It requires exceptional grounds for bringing such prosecutions, and factors relevant to overseas operations must be taken into account in deciding whether it is in the public interest to prosecute. Specifically, prosecutors must take into account the negative effects on mental health and decision-making capacity arising from being exposed to the overwhelming stress of continuous threat to life or commanding those who are so exposed, from seeing colleagues killed or maimed, or from the myriad other harsh realities of overseas service, which most of us in this place should be grateful for never having seen.
Can the hon. Gentleman tell me how those things are not already taken into account under current provisions in courts and when deciding to prosecute?
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, but if they were taken into account and taken seriously, we would not need legislation such as this.
What I described should dispel suggestions that the Bill will create immunity from prosecutions. The Bill only creates a test of exceptionality for prosecutions after a period of five years has expired. What is exceptional within the scope of the Bill is determined by an independent prosecutor, the Attorney General, who is still accountable to this place. It is clearly wrong to say that the Bill would forbid prosecutions of allegations of torture supported by evidence.
The Government are seeking with the Bill to provide some reassurance to service personnel that they are unlikely to be prosecuted many years on from events, where no new evidence has come forward. To paraphrase my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat), we the powerful must protect the strong—
Only honourable? Very honourable indeed. We the powerful must protect the strong in order to protect the weak. In welcoming the Bill, I join others in the House and veterans in Heywood and Middleton, many of whom served on Operation Banner, in encouraging the Government to move quickly to provide similar protections for those who have served in Northern Ireland, where comparable prosecutions are a serious concern. I welcome the Government’s indication that legislation will be forthcoming before the end of the year.
I concur with my hon. Friend’s viewpoint. Veterans in Stoke-on-Trent, Kidsgrove and Talke have talked relentlessly about the need to bring an end to these vexatious claims, and especially veterans who served in Northern Ireland, where the Staffordshire Regiment was strong. I want to put on record my full support for his comments; we must have this Northern Ireland legislation soon.
My hon. Friend is entirely correct. I say with no shame that I am a law graduate, but I am extremely offended by the behaviour of some of my compatriots, and their wings need to be clipped quite severely.
A lot of people in this country are extremely grateful for the role that our armed services play. I would like to associate myself with them in saying that passing this Bill will go some way to ensuring that the dedication, patriotism and selflessness that our forces show are not undermined by those who seek profit in doing so.
Sadly, I rise to speak in opposition to the Bill, but at the outset, I place on record my enormous respect for all those who have served the UK in uniform and have acted in various theatres around the world with great honour and distinction, and from my perspective, for those who served under Operation Banner in Northern Ireland. In saying that, we have to recognise that at times things have gone very badly wrong in Northern Ireland, and there are legitimate issues around accountability and investigations in that respect.
The Bill is regrettable in its own terms, but we are seeing quite a lot of Members referring to the pending legislation regarding Northern Ireland, and I want to make a couple of comments on that at the outset. Dealing with the legacy of the past in Northern Ireland is an even more thorny and difficult issue than Brexit, to put it in some context. It is something that people have been wrestling with for over 20 years. We have had the basis of some type of agreement through the Stormont House agreement from 2015, which the Government have struggled to implement over the past five years. I want to say this very loud and clear, so that everyone is aware: if this Parliament acts unilaterally over one aspect of legacy in Northern Ireland—around veterans—they will destroy any prospect of an agreed way forward to deal with the contentious past in Northern Ireland. This has to be a rounded process, and it has to involve all the parties in Northern Ireland, the victims’ groups in Northern Ireland and the Irish Government. Those have not been the characteristics of what we have seen so far with the statement from 18 March.
The narrative of vexatious prosecutions is one that I do not recognise. We have seen many claims of this from Ministers and others, but we never hear any reference to particular cases, so it is a narrative. Indeed, it has been debunked on many occasions by eminent persons—most recently, by the Lord Chief Justice in Northern Ireland. I have to say, I am somewhat bemused to see the references to the former Attorney General for Northern Ireland, John Larkin, as somehow the intellectual force behind what is happening, because he has been far from infallible, as many people in Northern Ireland will recognise, over the past number of years.
The triple lock in the Bill will make things more difficult, because it undermines the whole legitimacy of the people who served in Northern Ireland and overseas. They feel they do not need the system to be rigged and changed to give them an advantage. They can stand on their legacy. They were serving to uphold democracy, human rights and good governance—the values we need to project around the world.
Does the hon. Gentleman think it might also cause difficulty because part of the triple lock is a political decision, which might, particularly with the balance in Northern Ireland, cause real mistrust?
Indeed. I see a lack of accountability around those measures. The checks are very ill defined. We have had a pattern of substandard investigations, and that is often what lies behind some of the concern arising around the narrative of vexatious claims: the standard of investigations catches up with that. There will, of course, be the opportunity for more rigorous investigations to happen sooner, when issues are raised, and hopefully that will address the issue. However, whenever I hear references to human rights potentially having to be compromised to get the Bill through and have a new basis for dealing with claims, we should all be extremely concerned.
It is worth recalling that one of the very few rights under the European convention that cannot be qualified in any circumstances is the freedom from torture. We should reflect very heavily on that. It is eminently possible for people to serve and have clear rules of engagement that can be respected without going into situations that compromise either human rights law or humanitarian law.
I am grateful to the Minister for bringing forward the Bill and for the fantastic work he does with veterans in our country.
Like many in this House, I have family who have served this country and put themselves at risk for our peace and security. In my view, it is essential that the Government take steps to protect our armed forces from a long shadow of vexatious claims. As our veterans return to the peace of home, we must ensure that they enjoy the peace of mind they deserve.
There has, sadly, been much misinformation circulating in advance of the Bill. The Bill is not a licence to torture. No one in this House would condone such behaviour. The is Bill is not an amnesty providing a window of immunity. The Bill has a very clear limitation period for the longstop of prosecution and litigation. Britain’s armed forces are held to the highest standards of conduct and international reputation. The Bill does nothing to undermine that, but simply serves to update the law in light of an increasingly litigious landscape.
As a lawyer, I have acted for both claimants and defendants in civil matters. Litigation is not an enjoyable process for any party involved. I can only imagine the distress, anguish and mental health problems that must arise in our veterans who are subject to claims long after they have concluded their duty and service. Just as they have protected us, and as they face increasing speculative litigation years after events, we must play our part to serve them and provide them with the peace that the Bill seeks to bring.
There will be those who worry, wrongly in my view, that the Bill will prevent genuine victims from using legal avenues of recourse open to them. That is not the case. As figures from the MOD reveal, over 94% of claims made within the past 15 years would have still been able to have been made within the time limits set down by the Bill. Our armed forces serve our United Kingdom with exemplary conduct in the toughest of situations. To suggest that the Bill will give them free rein to abuse established international treaties on conduct in warfare is dangerous and damaging both for our reputation and to our service personnel.
In conclusion, the Bill does not undermine the UK’s commitment to human rights, nor does it undermine our commitment to our international obligations. The Bill strikes a proportionate balance between the rights and wellbeing of our service personnel, and ensuring that genuine victims can access justice in a reasonable time. I believe we should support the Bill. I urge Members on all side of the House to support it and to show their support for our armed forces.
I have been in the House for 23 years, and the hardest decisions that I have had to make in voting have been when we have been asked whether we want to send our armed forces abroad to conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria or Libya. When making those decisions, I have known, as all Members have known, that our armed forces would have to put their own lives at risk, they may have to kill people and they may be killed themselves. We have had to think very carefully about the justification of such actions. As I say, those have been the hardest decisions that I have taken in the House.
As we consider this Bill, it is right to applaud what our armed forces do for us. They strive to keep peace, they strive to protect us as individuals, and they strive to protect the United Kingdom as a country. In the same way that we have rightly applauded our NHS workers and other vital workers recently, it is right to remember what our armed forces have done for us and continue to do for us.
It is also right to remember that, when our armed forces are acting on our behalf, they uphold very high standards, and that is right. The difficulty is that the people they are fighting against do not uphold those very high standards. They can be indiscriminate. They really do not care who they kill—men, women, children; innocent people. That puts our armed forces at a disadvantage. It is still probably right that we uphold those standards, but it is surely wrong that those soldiers should face vexatious claims many years afterwards, when they have been under such tremendous pressure.
I would say the same about our veterans who served in Northern Ireland. I served as Chairman of the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs for seven years, and it greatly troubled me that our armed forces who served there were fighting against an enemy who called it a war. They used the term “war” so that they could excuse their indiscriminate murder of men, women and children, yet members of our armed forces had to abide by the yellow card—they had to abide by very strict rules. It is wrong that they are facing prosecution up to 40 or even 50 years after events, and even more of them may face prosecution. That is very wrong, so I urge the Minister to introduce legislation similar to this to cover Northern Ireland as soon as possible.
I will confine my comments to the presumption against prosecution for serious criminal offences contained in part 1 of the Bill. I believe that the way in which this is framed will make prosecutions close to impossible for some of the most serious crimes under international law. I am also concerned, as are many lawyers, that it will create a presumption against prosecution for a class of defendants, which is unprecedented in our domestic legal systems.
In cases where UK personnel have committed crimes such as torture, the triple lock will apply no matter how grave the conduct involved is or how detailed the evidence is. The Government claim that this measure is designed to protect soldiers, but in fact, it runs counter to everything that our military personnel stand for. I respectfully remind Government Members that many Opposition Members have family members who have served in the armed forces as well. My paternal grandfather served in the Royal Air Force.
After the second world war, our armed forces helped to update and expand the Geneva conventions, which protect captured personnel. Both the Army field manual and the Ministry of Defence doctrine explicitly forbid torture or cruel treatment. Torture has been prohibited in Scotland since the Treason Act 1708 and in England for more than 300 years, since the Long Parliament’s abolition of the Star Chamber. Even Margaret Thatcher—not somebody I am normally given to praising—fought to preserve the ban on torture, and in 1988 she made it a criminal offence, no matter who committed it or where it was committed. Right-thinking Conservative Members might wish to bear that in mind when considering the part of the Bill to do with the triple lock.
I know that the hon. and learned Lady has a much finer legal mind than mine, but I merely draw her attention to clause 3(2)(b), which refers to “no compelling new evidence”. Surely the Bill does envision the possibility that there could be compelling new evidence, and therefore this is not the absolute lock of which she speaks.
I have not said that it is an absolute lock. It does envisage some possibilities. But the bottom line is that you do not create a triple lock against something if you are expecting to encourage it or to allow it in. It simply cannot be right not to prosecute criminal acts of a crime as serious as that of torture if there is strong evidence that it took place. Torture victims have a right to see their tormentors brought to account, and there should be no time limit on justice.
This is not just a matter of domestic law. As we have heard from other hon. Members, our international legal obligations under the UN convention against torture and the Rome statute consist of recognising prohibitions against torture, which are absolute. That was the point of my intervention on the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat). The prohibition against torture in international law is absolute, and it ill behoves us to pass a statute creating one class of defendants in the United Kingdom wherein there is a presumption against them being prosecuted for that crime.
I have no time for vexatious litigation. I can say, as somebody who practised at the Bar for many years, and also someone who prosecuted, that vexatious litigation is a pain in the neck. What I am concerned about is the international reputation of the United Kingdom, for so long as Scotland remains part of it. Indeed, I will be concerned about the international reputation of England even when Scotland is no longer in a union with it. International law may not mean much to this Government, but they forget at their peril that it keeps all of us safe. If this is what the Government meant by their manifesto promise to update human rights laws, then we should all be very concerned.
I remind Members that if they intend to press the Second Reading to a Division, it would be very useful if the Chair got the names of the Tellers in advance, please
I have listened to the views of my constituents, the experiences of former service personnel, and various human rights groups, and I am of the view that this Bill fails in its primary purpose, in that it does not provide greater legal protections to forces personnel who have served on overseas operations. The Bill denies public transparency and accountability for military intervention overseas. There is an assumption within it that all allegations made against the MOD and UK forces are vexatious, and that the MOD and UK forces are always in the right. We know from history that this has not always been the case. Opposition to the use of torture is enshrined in the MOD doctrine, so why are the Government now trying to exclude the use of torture from the triple lock against prosecutions? As the human rights group Liberty has stressed, if this Bill goes through in its current format, it will result in the effective decriminalisation of torture and many other breaches of the Geneva convention.
We also need to look to the future. We know that this Government are no strangers to violating international law, and this Bill in its current form seeks only to diminish our global reputation further.
I am afraid I do not have enough time.
How can we as a nation criticise and hold states to account for engaging in torturous practices if we are happy to set laws that would allow us to do exactly that?
There are also issues with the part of the Bill that relates to civil matters. UK service personnel should be afforded the same employment rights as those they seek to defend. The Bill gives the MOD a free pass. Stress disorders can manifest many years after the original trauma. Therefore, the fact that the Bill allows a time limit on claims being introduced denies service personnel the ability to hold the MOD to account.
I listened to the argument made by the hon. Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) that one cannot be a supporter of our armed forces and vote against this Bill. Frankly, that is extremely offensive: there is nothing patriotic about undermining and letting down our veterans. They have been let down by this and previous Governments for too long. The available care and services are just not adequate for those who have served this country. Ultimately, the Bill fails those who have served our country and seeks to further diminish our global reputation.
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this incredibly important debate. I commend the Minister for Defence People and Veterans, my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer); his commitment to standing up for the rights of veterans has been evident ever since he became a Member of Parliament in 2015. The Bill reflects that commitment, which is shared by me and many parliamentarians from all parties, to better protect those who have served our country and to offer reassurance to those contemplating a career in our armed services that we are on their side.
One of my earliest conversations in Stoke-on-Trent Central during the election campaign was with local veteran Alan, who asked me to ensure that the law was changed to protect veterans from vexatious claims. He said, “Why would anyone sign up to serve their country if they thought that years later they would be hounded and threatened with legal action simply because they obeyed orders in a conflict? It is not right and it needs to stop.” I promised him that I would campaign for and back legislation to put this right. For Alan, and all those like him who want greater protection for our veterans and service personnel, I speak today in support of this much-needed Bill.
The measures in the Bill are a proportionate solution to the existing problem and strike an appropriate balance between victims’ rights and access to justice and fairness for those who have served this country. Time and again, we have seen investigation after investigation into the conduct of service personnel, but they have not led to prosecution. This supposed lawfare benefits the specialist legal firms that cynically profit from the misery caused. It is time that we redressed the balance.
The Bill is not intended to be an obstruction of justice; instead, it will be easier for families of victims to find out what happened to their loved ones. Access to family reports is vital in ensuring that that happens. The triple lock in the Bill, enforcing greater legal protections for armed services personnel and veterans, will provide certainty that the pressures placed on them while deployed will be considered when prosecution decisions about historical offences are made.
I am pleased that long-standing campaigners for veterans have praised the Bill’s objectives and the outcomes it will have. I know that the Minister has worked diligently to ensure that the balance between justice for veterans and for victims will be respected. I will be pleased to vote for the Bill.
There are two substantial parts of the Bill: the criminal part, which in my view puts an unnecessary burden on the prosecution of war crimes and other crimes; and the civil part, which protects the MOD more than it protects veterans.
The Royal British Legion and numerous others have said that great sections of the civil part need to be rewritten. My view is that so much needs to be rewritten that the Government should come back with another proposal. Let us be clear: there is currently a presumption of three years, but that can be extended; a hard line of six years for civil actions, with no ability to extend, will potentially reduce the ability of our veterans to take action and seek compensation.
As an example, let us use a scenario in which a veteran is slowly going blind. Blindness can sometimes take 10 years from the initial act. The blindness comes on, but veterans are patriotic; they do not go running to the courts immediately. Only 10 years down the line does the veteran realise that it has ruined their lives and that they need support or compensation, but it is too late. In my view, that is wrong and that provision is totally wrong.
I know that the hon. Gentleman speaks with passion, having worked with him in all-party groups. There is the timeframe to consider, but it is also about the point of knowledge. It was 15 years before it was recognised that I had post-traumatic stress, although I had seen the problems many years before that. Under the Bill, there would be time for me to take that forward.
That is why I used the example of blindness: the point of knowledge would be the first time that sight is lost, but total sight loss could take much longer. [Interruption.] The Minister for Defence People and Veterans can come back come in his usual style.
On the criminal part, I think the Bill threatens our service people with being more likely to be investigated by the ICC. I am not convinced that prosecutions would be sought in the ICC, but the very risk of investigation by the ICC defeats the whole point of this Bill, which in my view—I have said this a few times in the Chamber tonight—was to tackle a series of vexatious investigations. We need a system where cases, once they are fully investigated, can be closed and not reopened unless a significant bar is met. This Bill does nothing at all about that and fails in its very purpose. That is why it is a great shame that this wording—not the concept; I think we all agree this issue must be tackled—is what the Government have brought forward.
I also want to touch on the time limits. France has a 30-year time limit for serious crimes, while crimes under international humanitarian law are never given a time limit. In the USA, time limits are exempted for the law of war and also for serious crimes or murder. This Bill would put us at odds with how the French and American systems protect their veterans. It would seem extremely odd to take that approach. We should be learning from our allies, not trying to diverge from their approach.
I am extremely disappointed with the wording of this Bill. If it passes tonight, I will work extremely hard to try to amend it. I do not think it will ever be an amazing Bill, because it started from the wrong point and is answering the wrong questions, but I will work with others to try to get the best out of it. Given its drafting, however, I am not convinced that it deserves to go forward in its initial form. The Government should come forward with an alternative plan that hits the nail on the head, because this certainly does not.
I am terribly sorry to the 23 Members who were unable to get in, but I am afraid there was a lot of interest in this debate. I call Stephen Morgan to start the wind-ups.
I would like to start by paying tribute to our armed forces and joining colleagues from across the House in expressing gratitude to those who serve. They truly give us reason to be proud of our country.
There is consensus across the House today. Labour, the Government and our armed forces all want the same thing. We all agree that we must protect our troops from vexatious claims, and we all agree that we must defend those who serve our country overseas with courage and distinction. The Government promised to bring forward legislation to do just that in the first 100 days of government. Now, 284 days later, they have disappointingly got crucial elements of this Bill badly wrong.
The question we must be asking is: what does this Bill mean for our troops? It risks breaching the armed forces covenant and rolls back on their employment rights. It fails to properly protect against vexatious claims and undermines Britain’s proud adherence to international laws, such as the Geneva convention, that we helped to create. However, it is not too late. There is still time for Ministers to work with us to get this right.
A number of powerful points have been made in the House today. It would probably be unwise of me to single out any of them, but let me just mention my right hon. Friends the Members for East Ham (Stephen Timms) and for North Durham (Mr Jones), and my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson), who all spoke commandingly on the importance of our nation’s national standing; my hon. Friends the Members for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi) and for Jarrow (Kate Osborne), who spoke about ensuring that we always think about the impact of this Bill on our armed forces personnel and veterans; my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Claudia Webbe), who spoke about the need to invest in mental health services and tackling homelessness; and my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle), who spoke about the concerns raised by the Royal British Legion.
I also congratulate, and pay tribute to, the Chair of the Defence Committee on passionately saying that we do not want the Government to over-promise and that the Bill in its current form will not help a number of veterans. Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) said that Britain must uphold its commitment to human rights. I agree with him that we cannot afford to become an outlier among our allies by refusing to investigate allegations of some of the gravest crimes imaginable.
I am most concerned by the Bill’s potential infringement of the rights of Her Majesty’s forces. I share the view of the Royal British Legion—an organisation with an unwavering commitment to service personnel—that the Bill constitutes a possible breach of the armed forces covenant. I urge other armed forces groups to share their views on what the Bill means for our forces community. Our troops must be at the heart of this debate.
The Government’s introduction of a six-year limit for bringing civil claims will prevent troops who suffer injury from taking cases to court. As we heard earlier in the debate, over the past 15 years there have been 25 cases brought by injured British troops against the MOD for every one case brought by alleged victims against our forces. That means the main beneficiary of this Bill is the MOD, not our personnel. The Bill should be designed to protect troops, not the purse strings of Government. I put this to the Minister: if this Bill is for our armed forces community, why does it deny them the same employment rights as civilians?
Labour is also deeply concerned that this Bill does not meet its primary objective. It does not do enough to protect our troops from vexatious claims. Months of letters from the Defence Committee to the Defence Secretary —the Committee only received a reply yesterday—made the point that the Bill does nothing to prevent arduous investigation processes; it just protects from prosecutions. It does nothing to deal with the serious failings in the system of investigating allegations against British troops, something that Defence Ministers have themselves admitted. Had those allegations been dealt with properly and self-regulation had occurred, we probably would not be here today. Perhaps the toughest, most intrusive aspects of the vexatious claims process are not being dealt with in this Bill, and that is not the only way in which it leaves our troops open to so-called lawfare.
By going back on our commitments under the Geneva convention, the Bill risks dragging our people in front of the International Criminal Court. I put it to the Minister: does he really want to make it more likely that the ICC can open investigations against British troops?
There is also a set of wider issues. Vexatious claims are not the only problem that our forces face. Action on the issue is not licence-e to neglect others, such as low pay, 10 years of falling morale, a decade of falling numbers and a housing crisis across the tri-services. If the Ministers are serious about tackling the poor track record on defence, we need to see action on all those issues. The Bill presents an opportunity to turn the tide, to break the mould and to work with Labour to get it right.
In this country, we are proudly patriotic, and reinforcing that patriotism—that love of our country—is the high regard in which our armed forces are held. When we see Union flags on the shoulder patches of service personnel overseas, that means something: it means honesty, it means respect for the rule of law and it means justice. From Sandhurst to Britannia Royal Naval College, there is a reason that countries around the world send their officers to be trained in our military institutions.
This Bill puts all that at risk. It is at odds with the rules-based international order we helped to create. In its current form, the Bill would make Great Britain the only nation among our major allies to offer a statutory presumption against prosecution. As the previous Chief of the Defence Staff but also the ex-Attorney General and a former Defence Secretary have said, the Bill undermines Britain’s proud, long-standing adherence to the Geneva convention.
Great Britain has proudly stood and must stand against the use of torture and against the use of rendition. I urge the Minister: do not undo the work of Churchill, do not undo the work of Attlee and do not chip away at our nation’s proud reputation. I put it to the Minister: how can we expect Great Britain to speak with authority on international law to China, Russia and Iran if we go back on our own commitments? In years gone by, a commitment made by our proud nation meant something. Last week, the Government tarnished that reputation by breaking international law with the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill. I urge the Minister to commit to working with us to ensure that this Bill does not do the same.
Unfortunately, the Government have got important parts of the Bill badly wrong. In its current form, it risks damaging our reputation and failing to protect Her Majesty’s armed forces, but it is not too late. As I said, there is consensus in the House today. There is still time for Ministers to work with the Opposition to get it right. Protecting troops from vexatious claims does not need to be at odds with our commitments to international law. Labour stands foursquare behind our troops. We want to work with the Government to build the broadest consensus possible around a Bill tailored to support our armed forces and to safeguard human rights. Let us work together to get this right, protect our troops and their reputation, and our country’s international standing.
It is a pleasure to finally be able to speak in the debate. I have not heard such a lot of vacuous nonsense for a long time from the Opposition. They talk about protecting our troops while invoking a litany of things that I am afraid are not true. I started writing them down, but I got bored after about two hours: “almost impossible to prosecute”; “independent investigations”; “breaks the armed forces covenant”; “time limit on prosecutions”. None of that is in the Bill. I have written down those phrases word for word, and it is disgraceful that Opposition Members try to build on the back of our armed forces personnel a caricature of the Bill that is totally false.
We have heard some good speeches today and there were some challenges for me to take away as the Bill Minister. I will address some of those now. The Bill delivers a promise made to brave individuals that we will deal with the threat of prosecution for alleged historical offences many years after the event and help put an end to the vexatious civil claims that undermine our armed forces. It delivers that promise in a proportionate way by ensuring victims’ rights and access to justice on the one hand and fair treatment of those who defend our country on the other.
I will deal with a couple of detailed points. The question of Northern Ireland veterans was quite rightly raised on a number of occasions. We are clear that we will deliver our commitments to Northern Ireland. In a written ministerial statement on 18 March, we committed to equal treatment for those who served on Op Banner. We will not resile from that position.
Regarding any perceived disadvantages to service personnel and veterans, as I have said before I do not anticipate the measure having a significant negative impact. Let me address the point about the armed forces covenant. It was designed to ensure that there is no disadvantage for people who serve in the military. It was never designed to compare somebody who works in Tesco with somebody who is asked to go away, serve on operations and sacrifice their life. The Bill applies to both civilians and military personnel who are deployed on operations. I totally refute that it is any way a breach of the armed forces covenant—something I worked hard to produce and will be the first Minister to legislate for, next year in the armed forces Bill.
I have noted the concerns many hon. Members raised about part 1 of the Bill and the fact that it does not address the problem of reinvestigations. We could not run a Department if we did not take seriously every allegation that came in and investigated every single one. The problem comes when that is advanced further and starts impacting on veterans’ lives and way of life. That is why we have introduced a very low bar for prosecutors to get over. To say, as my friend the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis)—he knows he is a great friend of mine and I have a huge amount of time for him—said, that it is almost impossible to prosecute, is simply incorrect. It is a low bar. It asks for consideration of the circumstances under which the House asks servicemen and women to operate. It is asking for consideration of whether it is really in the public interest to prosecute repeat allegations with no new evidence, and it is asking for Attorney General’s consent.
No I will not give way.
Any allegation that has a very low quality of evidence will clearly be investigated. There is no time bar on murder. There is no time bar on any of the offences in the Bill. That is a low bar that we are asking prosecutors to get over. Unnecessary? Seriously? Say that to Lance-Corporal Brian Wood, who I was with yesterday. When his kid comes home from school, he goes upstairs and cries in his room. Why? He says, “Daddy, at school they’re all saying that you’re a murderer.” Every single one of those allegations was found to be completely false and generated simply to build the financial position of solicitors.
The shadow Defence Secretary made some comments about the Secretary of State. Let us get this absolutely clear and into the open. Many colleagues here have been very quick to declare interests seeking associations with the armed forces, but not with the lawyers who pursued them. The shadow Secretary of State failed to declare his interests when referencing the much criticised law firm Thompsons Solicitors, from which he received £2,000 for his direct mail campaign literature in 2017. In fact, since 2001 Labour and its MPs have received £229,000, including £80,000 from solicitors Leigh Day. It is all on the record, including tens of thousands of pounds to the shadow Attorney General, the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry).
I will not take interventions. Members have had hours and hours to whine away on these points.
The reality is that over a consistent period of time, the Labour party—
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Minister is not giving way, but he is making allegations about these firms that are simply incorrect. Thompsons Solicitors works exclusively for trade unions. Leigh Day has taken class actions against trade unions. Frankly, the Minister does not know what he is talking about.
That is not a point of order for the Chair; it is a point for debate. Let us have no more points of order on that subject.
It is not a point of order. It is yet another effort to waste time in a very important debate. [Interruption.] I hear the complaints about my attitude towards Opposition Members. Let me be absolutely clear. I have said in private a number of times that I will engage with the individuals who are so loud this afternoon. Not once have they chosen to do so, and not once have they come up with a proposal.
Absolutely not; I am not giving way.
It is very clear to me that this is the first Government to come to this House and not to say, “What a difficult problem this is, but we will hand all our soldiers off to the human rights lawyers.” This is the first Government who are actually going to do something to protect our servicemen and women. I am proud of that and I make no apology for it at all. [Interruption.] There really is no point in whingeing on at me because I am not going to give way.
I came to this place because I loathed the way it treated cheaply my generation of servicemen and women as we fought for the freedoms and privileges that Members of this House enjoy every day. Summer after summer, I served with what was and is this nation’s finest product—our fighting men and women—in some of the most testing circumstances that this House has deployed for generations. Yet when they came home, this House was not there for them. In those heady days, Members will remember the pain of our veterans’ families as they fought for decent prosthetics or effective mental health care. We are light years away from where we were—
“Absolute rubbish”, the Labour party says—amazing.
I still cannot describe what it was like sitting with the family of a young man who could not cope with the trauma that he suffered as a result of what we asked him to do on our behalf and who took his life. I cannot describe what it is like to visit the parents of a soldier who died in your arms 48 hours earlier, thousands of miles from home, and tell them that it is pointless. This Bill is different. It is fair, it is proportionate and it is balanced. It is good legislation. Members can match words with actions and vote for this Bill tonight.
Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I now have to announce the results of the deferred Divisions.
On the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Wearing of Face Coverings in a Relevant Place) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2020, the Ayes were 337 and the Noes were 6, so the Question was agreed to.
On the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (No. 2) (England) (Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations 2020, the Ayes were 340 and the Noes were 1, so the Question was agreed to.
On the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Wearing of Face Coverings in a Relevant Place) (England) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2020, the Ayes were 335 and the Noes were 6, so the Question was agreed to.
On the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Blackburn with Darwen and Bradford) (Amendment) Regulations 2020, the Ayes were 335 and the Noes were 1, so the Question was agreed to.
On the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Wearing of Face Coverings in a Relevant Place and on Public Transport) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2020, the Ayes were 334 and the Noes were 6, so the Question was agreed to.
On the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Restrictions on Holding of Gatherings and Amendment) (England) Regulations 2020, the Ayes were 332 and the Noes were 5, so the Question was agreed to.
On the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Blackburn with Darwen and Bradford) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2020, the Ayes were 332 and the Noes were 1, so the Question was agreed to.
[The Division lists are published at the end of today’s debates.]
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberOn a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. My apologies for being slightly delayed in raising this point of order, but I hope that you can help me. I have been approached by a number of right hon. and hon. Members from across the House who are concerned that there may be some Members who do not understand parliamentary protocol when it comes to dealing with constituents, particularly constituents who might be from another Member’s constituency. Perhaps you could offer some guidance.
I thank the right hon. Member for her point of order, and for providing advance notice of it. This may not, perhaps, be the right forum today to go into the details of any specific cases, but I am happy to take the opportunity to remind all colleagues of the importance of always treating other Members of Parliament with due respect, inside and outside this place, especially when it comes to the support that we provide to our own individual constituents.
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberWe now come to motion No. 6 on voting by proxy, and with it we will also debate motion No. 7 on proxy voting during the pandemic. I inform the House that I have not selected the amendment to motion No. 7 in the name of the Chair of the Procedure Committee.
I beg to move,
(1) That:
(a) the Resolution of 28 January 2019 (Proxy Voting (Implementation)), as amended on 16 January and 20 July 2020,
(b) the Resolution of 4 June 2020 (Proxy Voting (Extension)), as amended on 10 June 2020, be rescinded.
(2) That the following Standing Order be made:
VOTING BY PROXY
(1) A Member eligible under paragraph (2) may arrange for their vote to be cast by one other Member acting as a proxy (a proxy vote) under a scheme drawn up by the Speaker in accordance with this order and published by him.
(2) A Member is eligible for a proxy vote by reason of absence from the precincts of the House for childbirth or care of an infant or newly adopted child, subject to the conditions set out in the scheme published under paragraph (1) of this order.
(3) A proxy vote may be cast:
(a) in any division, including a deferred division, in the House, in Committee of the whole House, or in any legislative grand committee, save as provided in paragraph (4) below; and
(b) in a ballot cast in an election under Standing Order No. 1B (Election of Speaker by secret ballot), Standing Order No. 2A (Election of the Deputy Speakers), Standing Order No. 122B (Election of select committee chairs) and Standing Order No. 122D (Election of Chair of the Backbench Business Committee).
(4) No proxy vote shall be reckoned in the numbers participating in a division for the purposes of (a) Standing Order No. 41(1) (Quorum), and (b) Standing Order No. 37 (Majority for closure or for proposal of question).
(5) (a) A proxy vote may be cast only if the Speaker has certified that the Member for whom the vote is to be cast is eligible under the terms of this order.
(b) The Speaker shall cause that certificate, including the name of the Member nominated as a proxy, to be entered in the Votes and Proceedings no later than the sitting day on which it takes effect.
(6) A vote cast by a proxy shall be clearly indicated as such in the division lists published under the authority of the House.
(7) A Member is also eligible for a proxy vote by reason of absence from the precincts of the House in circumstances where there have been complications relating to childbirth; and the Speaker may make appropriate provision for the exercise of a proxy vote in such circumstances in the scheme drawn up under paragraph (1) above.
With this it will be convenient to consider motion No. 7, on proxy voting during the pandemic:
That the following amendments be made to the Standing Order (Voting by Proxy) and have effect until 3 November 2020:
(1) In paragraph (2) after “child” insert “, or for medical or public health reasons related to the pandemic”.
(2) After paragraph (5) insert –
(5A) The Speaker may certify that a Member’s eligibility for a proxy vote for medical or public health reasons related to the pandemic should take effect before the certificate is published in the Votes and Proceedings, or that a certificate already granted should be varied, if satisfied there are urgent and unforeseeable circumstances to justify this.
At the outset, may I put on the record my gratitude to my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley) and the Procedure Committee for the Committee’s review of the pilot arrangements for proxy voting and their recommendations, which have formed the basis for the motions before us today? I am pleased that we have been now able to bring forward proposals to implement a permanent scheme for parental proxy voting. This is an important step in ensuring that we do all we can to support new parents in the House, in a measure that more broadly reflects the approaches to maternity and paternity leave seen across the country.
As well as being an important step, it is an historic one for the way that the House operates. Together we take decisions on vital matters of state, sometimes affecting questions of life and death. The results of Divisions in this House change people’s lives across the country. So the legitimacy of the system by which Members vote must be above reproach. Any reform of voting procedure is something that we need to get right in order to ensure that we maintain the full confidence of our constituents. That is why it was important to pilot these measures properly, as well as to review their operation.
I wish to thank my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) who, when Leader of the House, introduced the pilot scheme. The Procedure Committee, both in the last Parliament and in this, has played a key role to get us to this point. The pilot proxy voting arrangements for parental leave have now been in place for nearly 20 months. As the Committee has reported, proxy voting has worked well for Members who are new mothers and fathers, allowing them to continue to serve their constituents while also dealing with their familial obligations.
We are therefore in the happy position of being able to make such a fundamental change to our voting procedures. We are confident that it will work, and work well. I hope that the whole House will support the Procedure Committee’s recommendations to make a permanent change to Standing Orders to reflect the success of this scheme.
Let me now turn to arrangements for proxy voting that have been put in place during the pandemic. Early in June 2020, the Government brought forward a motion to extend the scope of proxy voting to allow Members unable to attend Westminster for medical or public health reasons related to the coronavirus pandemic to vote by proxy.
I thank the Leader of the House for bringing forward the continuation of the system. I want to ask him a specific question. I do not want to mention the person’s name, but someone took ill on the Sunday who was intending to come here to vote on the Monday, but was therefore not able to. Is there any way, at very short notice, in a real emergency, that provision could be made, on that timescale, to enable someone to vote?
Yes. The motion before us says:
“a certificate already granted should be varied, if satisfied there are urgent and unforeseeable circumstances”,
so Mr Speaker now has the ability to do this at very short notice. With parental leave, there is normally some element of notice, whereas with the coronavirus, there may not be any notice at all. However, there has to be some discretion for Mr Speaker, because there comes a point in the day at which it is too difficult administratively to get something in place. The hon. Gentleman raises a fair point, and I am glad to say that that has been taken account of.
My right hon. Friend said that we have brought in proxy voting to help Members for reasons of public health. The trouble is that this whole system has been corrupted. A huge number of Members of Parliament now have proxy votes. I do not believe that the great majority of them are actually shielding or medically ill—I think it is just for convenience. This shows the creeping danger of what is going on. I would like to get from the Leader of the House, as someone who loves the House of Commons, a personal view of that and a determination that if a Member wants to vote, in virtually all circumstances, they should take the trouble to turn up here.
I hope that my right hon. Friend is wrong in saying that people are abusing the system. We have to have a system that works on trust, and that is one of the changes being made to the parental leave system: previously, evidence had to come from a doctor, but now we are accepting that hon. Members will behave honourably.
The motion states:
“The Speaker may certify that a Member’s eligibility for a proxy vote for medical or public health reasons related to the pandemic should take effect before the certificate is published in the Votes and Proceedings”.
It is for “medical or public health” reasons. That includes being in an area subject to a local lockdown; being unable to send children to school because of needing to self-isolate or because the school has required children to be at home for whatever reason; and issues relating to difficulties with public transport, which were more acute earlier in the crisis than they are now. It is a fairly broad definition because the circumstances are changeable and, to some extent, unknowable. It seems only fair to allow Members, on their own say-so and their own cognisance, to say to Mr Speaker that they feel they are in such a position that they need a proxy.
May I press my right hon. Friend on that? Why do some Members have a proxy vote one week but are then here the next week, or they have a proxy vote and we see them wandering around the corridors? We all know that this is being abused, and I want the Leader of the House to give a firm commitment that he will not have this creeping corruption of our procedures.
Members with a proxy vote may only appear remotely. They may not appear in the Chamber. Mr Speaker has been absolutely clear on that. I would not expect Members who have a proxy vote to be in the precincts of the Palace, because if they can be here, they ought to be voting in person. Any Member who had behaved in that way would not be behaving within the spirit of the temporary Standing Order.
This system has allowed many Members to have their votes recorded, and in the current circumstances, I think it is right that we make the continuing provision for proxy voting. The broad eligibility criteria provide appropriate flexibility in the circumstances. Any Member who has any concerns related to the coronavirus must feel entitled to apply for a proxy vote, and I hope that this motion will be agreed by the House today. It will allow for the current temporary arrangements to be in place until 3 November 2020, in line with the arrangements for remote participation in the Chamber and other measures that facilitate social distancing.
Forgive me for referring to a matter that was dealt with a few moments ago. I knew I had read this and I just wanted to make sure that I was accurately quoting it, just to help my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). In the report of the Procedure Committee on proxy voting, the Clerk of the House noted in his evidence that there had been a small number of issues with colleagues not understanding the rules on whether they should be here if they had a proxy vote. He said that there were a very small number of cases where he had had to intervene, and that number was diminishing as colleagues properly understood the rules. I hope it is helpful to put that on the record.
I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend. It is indeed helpful and useful to put on the record the evidence given to the Select Committee.
The Government, working with the House authorities, will continue to keep these matters under review following broader public health guidance, as we have since the outset. We are fortunate in the robust measures put in place under the leadership of Mr Speaker, which have allowed this Parliament to conduct its essential business in a covid-secure way. It is worth noting—this is, I think, significant—that because we did not apply the relaxation of the rules that came in over the summer, we are able to continue as we are now because we always remained in line with the tighter rules that allowed us to come back on 2 June. That is why this week’s announcements do not necessitate any sudden reversion. It is, however, worth reminding all Members of their obligation to observe social distancing, especially when queueing for Divisions. That is important and we have an obligation to show we are doing the same as other British subjects.
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. Does he feel that in the current situation there is appropriate social distancing when a Division takes place? From what I have seen, there is not.
The Doorkeepers and the Whips are doing an excellent job to encourage proper social distancing, but we are a society that believes in individual responsibility. Members of Parliament really must lead by example and show they can be responsible. I confess I find that most Members keep a safe six-and-a-half-foot distance from me, Mr Deputy Speaker, although I am worried about whether that is because of the coronavirus or for other reasons that perhaps I will not go into.
None the less, I am extremely grateful for the continuing work of all those on the estate who contribute to making our proceedings possible in the present difficult and imperfect circumstances. Meeting the challenge posed by the pandemic has certainly provided lessons for all of us in appreciating afresh the value of actually being here together. The effectiveness of our scrutiny and the efficiency of our law making was sadly diminished during the period of the hybrid proceedings. Since then, the rigour of the measures applied across the estate and the ingenuity of the procedural approaches pioneered particularly by Mr Speaker have enabled so much that was once thought impossible: the welcome return of Backbench Business Committee debates, sitting Fridays, and soon, from a motion coming immediately after this one, Westminster Hall debates. All those things help us to represent our constituents better.
May I thank my right hon. Friend for his endeavours as Leader of the House to ensure the voice of this House can be heard during this crisis, but reiterate that not a single constituent is saying that we are suffering from an excess of legislative scrutiny, given some of the measures that are being brought forward at this time?
I doubt that in the whole history of Parliament any constituent has ever complained about an excess of legislative scrutiny. I think a surfeit of lampreys is more dangerous than an excess of legislative scrutiny.
I am only intervening on my right hon. Friend because he mentioned the subsequent motion on Westminster Hall. I was not going to bring it into scope myself. I do not know whether this is a matter for him or for the Chair on a future occasion, but I note that that motion states:
“the Chair in Westminster Hall may limit the number of Members”.
My question—it may not be for today—is whether we will have call lists and, effectively, the same processes for Westminster Hall that we have for the Chamber to enable that limitation to take place, and whether that could be furnished to Members in due course.
By your leave, Mr Deputy Speaker, I will try to answer that question. Mr Speaker or the Chairman of Ways and Means will set out the proposals, but, yes, there will have to be limits and, yes, therefore call lists, except that many Westminster Hall debates do not have so many people involved that we would face getting up to the limit.
I wanted to put on the record that at the meeting of the Procedure Committee earlier we agreed to a short sharp inquiry into the use of call lists and time limits. We encourage all hon. and right hon. Members to contribute to that inquiry.
I am very grateful for that and I know that Members will be glad that such an inquiry is taking place.
Ultimately, we have a system that is working and balances the need to ensure the safety of Members and staff, while providing a robust voting system to allow the delivery of the legislative programme and the key decisions affecting our constituents. I therefore commend the motions to the House.
I, too, will address both motions in my response. I thank the Leader of the House for tabling them, and a special thank you to the Chair of the Procedure Committee and its members. They have worked incredibly hard to get many reports out in double-quick time, so that we can continue with this.
The Committee’s report is the fourth of the Session and was published on 10 September, but the launch of the first inquiry seems a long time ago, after the House resolved on 1 February 2018:
“That this House believes that it would be to the benefit of the functioning of parliamentary democracy that honourable Members who have had a baby or adopted a child should for a period of time be entitled, but not required, to discharge their responsibilities to vote in this House by proxy.”
We have had a number of debates and, as I set out from the Dispatch Box on 18 July 2018, 13 September 2018 and 22 January 2019, Her Majesty’s Opposition, the Labour party, support the principle of proxy voting for parental absence. I am not sure when baby Sixtus was born and whether the Leader of the House indulged in proxy voting at the time.
The motion provides for the new Standing Order for voting by proxy for parental absence. It is not temporary or time-limited. It accepts the Procedure Committee’s recommendation that
“provision for proxy voting for parental absence be made in the standing orders of the House”.
The new Standing Order makes a number of amendments to the original proxy scheme, allowing proxy voting for the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, in addition to the others. It removes the provision for the exercise of a proxy vote for Members who have suffered a miscarriage, quite rightly replacing the wording with
“in circumstances where there have been complications relating to childbirth”,
which may include postnatal depression. It removes the restriction on proxy voting in a Division
“on any motion in the form specified in section 2(2) of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011”—
if we want to vote for an early general election, we may do so by proxy. Those were all recommended by the Procedure Committee in its report.
In the proposed Standing Order, the certification process touched on by the Leader of the House becomes the responsibility of the Speaker alone. The Procedure Committee’s report found:
“The requirement to produce certificates of pregnancy or adoption to demonstrate eligibility for a proxy vote has proved onerous.”
The Committee suggested that such certificates were “unnecessary”, which I also suggested during the debates—people do not have to prove that they are pregnant or having a baby. It is up to the Speaker to decide whether to remove the certification process. I agree with that recommendation.
I was to provide evidence to the Procedure Committee in March, but the pandemic set in and I was unable to do so. It was arranged for 15 July, but I think the evidence was incorporated into the Committee’s other report, “Procedure under coronavirus restrictions”. As a result, the evidence was not included in this report, but I know that the written evidence is on the website. I hope it was taken into account. I have to pay tribute to the Clerk of the Committee, who has been assiduous. I have known him from other Committees, and my thanks go to him.
I wanted to say absolutely, categorically, that the right hon. Lady’s evidence was very informative and informed our report. She was right that the evidence is published under a different inquiry, but it very much helped to inform us in this inquiry.
I thank the right hon. Lady for that.
Turning to proxy voting during the pandemic, the second motion amends the Standing Order on voting by proxy to allow proxy votes
“for medical or public health reasons relating to the pandemic”
until 3 November 2020.
The Procedure Committee report found that
“the system of remote voting used in May was a more effective means of handling divisions in the House under conditions where the division lobbies could not be used in the traditional way and where a large number of Members were unable to attend for public health reasons.”
Her Majesty’s Opposition put that in our written evidence for the Committee on 9 July 2020, when we said:
“The electronic remote voting system was a practical and necessary measure which allowed Parliament to continue in unprecedented circumstances during the pandemic. The decision to end electronic voting on 2 June 2020 was”—
I am afraid—
“undertaken without consultation or consideration of Members”,
or of their democratic accountability. It was replaced by the proxy voting system, which was clearly inferior to the safe and efficient remote voting system that did not fail once.
In its report, the Procedure Committee found that the current system of proxy voting for coronavirus absences
“is barely adequate, is potentially unreliable and imposes disproportionate administrative burdens on staff.”
Even with the extension to proxy voting, does the right hon. Lady agree that a number of Members are still disenfranchised because they are not able to cast a vote in the House?
They are able to cast a vote through the proxy system, but they are not able to come here to do that.
I am sorry, but I cannot believe it is right that I was sitting in my garden at my daughter’s birthday party in Lincolnshire, and I could nip in and try to proxy vote. Given the circumstances we are in—we are supposed to be Members of Parliament; we are not forced to be here—most Members of Parliament can make the effort to come here in person and vote. Remote voting did not always work. I do not know what it is like in Leicester or Vauxhall, but in Lincolnshire our broadband is terrible, and at least twice the system broke down for me. Members turning up in person and being seen by their colleagues—that is the right way to vote.
The right hon. Gentleman may have been in his garden, but he could not have used proxy voting—it was by remote voting. The House worked hard to get this system up and running, and there were many tests. When it came to voting, the system worked, and it enabled people not only to vote remotely, but to take part in debates, which was vital. How the right hon. Gentleman chooses to vote is a matter for him, but I know that hon. Members are assiduous. They did listen to and take part in debates, and they could vote remotely. I am sorry that he did not like the system. It did work, and it worked extremely easily.
In my oral evidence to the Procedure Committee on 21 July, I recommended the reinstatement of electronic remote voting for those Members who are unable to attend the parliamentary estate in person for public health reasons related to the pandemic. That is key: a pandemic is going on. I am delighted that the Procedure Committee also took that view, and it is unfortunate that the Leader of the House has chosen not to implement the recommendations.
Members are still unable to take part in debates on primary legislation, and can participate virtually only in questions, urgent questions and statements. I do not know whether the Leader of the House is aware that the Petitions Committee had a debate with people taking part even while shielding. We know that can work, and I hope he will look at that. As we enter a new phase of coronavirus restrictions with rising infection rates, Parliament needs a safe, functional remote system.
I have discussed this matter with the Leader of the House, and I agree with the right hon. Lady’s point about participating in legislative debates. It is good that we have enabled colleagues to participate virtually in the scrutiny parts of the House’s proceedings, but we must look at a way of enabling those who cannot be here to participate in the legislative process. As the Prime Minister said this week—I think he is right—we are in this for the long haul. This is not a short, tiny period. We could be operating under these procedures well into next year at the earliest, and we need measures that enable all colleagues to participate fully in the business of the House. That is not for our benefit, but for that of our constituents.
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and many right hon. and hon. Members have told me that they are disenfranchised because they cannot take part, particularly in recent important legislation such as the Internal Market Bill. They cannot tell the House what is happening in their constituency if they are unable to be here for public health reasons. We need a functional remote voting system that ensures fair representation and allows all right hon. and hon. Members to do their democratic duty. We in Her Majesty’s Opposition support the motion.
Order. This is a time-limited debate, and I will be allowing a short period for the Leader of the House to respond to the debate. Everybody has a call list, so they can see who wishes to speak. It would be nice if everybody could show some time restraint in their contributions and allow everybody some say in this important debate, but I am not imposing a time limit.
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I will be quick.
I thank very much my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), and the Chair of the Procedure Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley), for what I think is a real improvement on proxy voting for parental leave. It is great to see that someone no longer has to prove, when their tummy is out there, that they are actually pregnant and it is not just a cushion. That is very valuable.
On the other hand, I have to say that I am a bit disappointed. As the right hon. Member for Walsall South said, we had many debates in this place, and there was a Procedure Committee review of parental leave a long time ago. That was always done on the expectation that if it worked, we would include it, but also potentially expand it. I see that the Committee’s latest report says, “We don’t want to expand it because if somebody is very ill or recently bereaved, for the purpose of transparency, that would have to be disclosed.” I am sorry; I just do not accept that.
I think that this is a missed opportunity. We have had some colleagues in this place who have been desperately ill. They are not allowed to vote by proxy. They are just going to have to turn up or be paired. What really sparked this change was the inadvertent breaking of a pair when a colleague was off on maternity leave. I do think it is a grave disappointment—
I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for the work that she did to get us to this point. May I just assure her that the Procedure Committee is committed to looking at proxy voting once we are through the pandemic? What we wanted to do at this stage was to ensure that we had a report that allowed the Government to bring motions forward on parental leave and that dealt with proxy votes during the pandemic, but I give her my absolute commitment that we will look at this again and consider whether it is right to expand proxy voting beyond parental leave once we are back to—let us hope—business as normal at some point soon.
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that reassurance. Even so, were somebody to be very ill now with cancer or some other awful thing, they would, under the current circumstances, be very tempted to say, “This is related to the coronavirus pandemic.” My right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) said that people are swinging the lead. I do not think people are swinging the lead, but I do think that, since we have what is in effect a very lax system of self-assessment for any illness related to the coronavirus pandemic, for someone who was recently bereaved or, indeed, very ill with something that was nothing to do with the pandemic, that would be the way to remain enfranchised in this place. Surely, that cannot be right.
Very briefly, on proxy voting during the coronavirus pandemic, I am concerned that we are not really able to socially distance in a properly fit way. Instead of using our passes in the Lobbies, I would love to see us perhaps using them in Westminster Hall, where it would be much easier for people to remain apart from one another. We do have bottlenecks. It is very difficult for the doorkeepers to keep us all away from one another when there are bottlenecks as we are filing through the Lobby, even after using our passes, so I would like to see that change. However, I welcome all these changes, and I congratulate all those who have sought to improve the system.
Thank you, Andrea Leadsom, for showing huge time restraint.
I appreciate that we will not vote on the motions tonight and that the amendment was not selected, and I appreciate that there will be a lot of discussion happening in other places about this ongoing process, so I do not wish to detain the House; I will be brief. However, I wish to make some points by way of giving notice of things that I do not think are going to go away as we chart our way through this in the next weeks and months.
First, although on the face of it these motions appear very similar—both are concerned with proxy voting—actually, in character and intent, they are quite distinct and different. The first, which deals with proxy voting for parental leave, is a matter of providing a facility to individual members in specific circumstances that they may or may not come across during their time in this place. The second, however, is a matter of the type of changes that we should make to how we function collectively in order to deal with a public health response to a global pandemic.
For the benefit of the right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), who I do not think has quite got this, this debate is not just about trying to do the right thing for individual Members who may be ill or shielding; this is also about us as an institution trying to do the right thing and protect the rest of society from the actions that we take, because they have consequences, too. That is why it is important that we revisit how we operate in this place.
On the face of it, there appears to be a fairly major contradiction between the stance that the Government took yesterday—what they are imploring the public to do—and the rules that we apply to ourselves. Yesterday, the Prime Minister said to employees and employers, “You should work from home if you can do so.” It is not good enough for this Chamber to tell the general public that, but when MPs have the opportunity and the possibility of working from home, they choose not to do so by switching off the machine that allows remote participation. We do need to revisit this issue and make sure that the message is consistent.
We need to do three things. First, we of course need to go back to the system of remote voting. As the shadow Leader of the House said, it was simple and secure, but most of all it was safe and allowed us to vote effectively without coming into proximity with one another.
Secondly, we need to get rid of this ridiculous split, with some of our proceedings allowing virtual participation and some not. Frankly, I do not understand the distinction, so I do not expect the public to understand it. Were I not here tomorrow—Thursday—I could participate in business questions and fulfil my role by making a two or three-minute speech in the morning using my computer. I am down to speak in a debate in the afternoon, but I would be forbidden from taking part in that debate were I not here. That is wrong; we should have the opportunity to participate virtually in all our proceedings.
Finally, I implore the House leadership to be more open-minded and ambitious about how it approaches this topic. Instead of thinking about this as a matter of how we can, with second-hand iPads and dodgy broadband connections, try to communicate through the screens in the Chamber, let us be a little more sophisticated. Let us harness all the technology that is available to us, look at major centres of population throughout the United Kingdom and hire proper video-conferencing facilities that will allow Members to go to a place and be absolutely certain and secure that they can participate safely and remotely.
I, too, will attempt to keep my remarks short.
I thank my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House for accepting most of the recommendations in my Committee’s report. We do support the motion on the Order Paper. Although the amendment was not selected, my right hon. Friend will have noted that it did not try to change the motion; it would merely have added to it something on other forms of voting.
I pay tribute to my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Sir Charles Walker), because his incarnation of the Committee was the first to look at a version of proxy voting for parental leave. Had it not been for the work done by his Committee at that time, we would not be where we are now. I also pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), who was the Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee at the time and part of the team that pushed so hard to make sure that proxy voting for parental leave could be brought in. I reassure my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House that there was unanimous support for the recommendations on parental leave in our report, and we are grateful that the Government have taken most of those recommendations forward.
The Committee members do differ when it comes to proxy voting for coronavirus. I am afraid that the majority view—I will be clear that it was a majority view; not everybody on the Committee feels the same—was that the proxy system for coronavirus is substandard. The majority view was that it is a very unwieldy system and is possibly open to abuse—that point was made by some Committee members; indeed, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) would have found friends in our debate on that—but it was also felt that it is simply unreliable and not robust. We know that the queuing is not properly socially distanced. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is right to say that that is a matter of individual responsibility, but it simply is not possible: we see perhaps 500 Members queuing up and, inevitably, there end up being logjams, delays and points at which people are too close to each other. People are worried and scared—not just for their own health but for the health of the staff of the House of Commons. If we do not have our staff here, we cannot operate.
The majority view of the Committee was that we had a robust system of voting. The remote voting system that we used on our phones worked. It works consistently in the other place, which has been using it, and it is quick and simple. I do not accept that Members would not attend this place; Members want to be here. We want to take part in Committees and we want to take part in proceedings. We want to be here and be part of it. Some simply cannot, but we can see that it is not possible for all of us to be here. We are limited to 50 in this Chamber, and many Members feel that they are putting their health at risk to take part in a Division. They may really want to be part of that, but they have not been able to take part in the debate because there simply is not space for them.
As a member of the Committee, I would like to pay tribute to the chairmanship of my right hon. Friend. It is true, nevertheless, that we as a Committee were unable to reach consensus. We had a strong consensus—consensus I was proud to be part of—on the issue of parental leave, but we were not as a Committee able to reach consensus on the appropriate means of voting. I would just urge my colleagues on the Committee and the Leader of the House to ensure, as we continue to address this issue, that the full House has a chance to express its view. It is so profound that it is really not something I suspect we are likely to be able to reach full consensus on in the Committee.
I absolutely agree. The point of my amendment was to give the House an opportunity to have its say. I personally believe there is a majority now for a return to voting by phone, not because people do not want to participate, but because it is robust and sensible. It gave more time for people to be able to do their job as an MP, and it meant that we were the safest and most efficient Parliament. I have to say to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House that we were held up across the world as a Parliament leading on how to manage the pandemic and keep Parliament going, and it looked like a very retrograde step to move away from that.
On that point, I can give as an example the fact that we had the Japanese Parliament talking to the Procedure Committee about the processes we had implemented. It was looking at what we had done, but during that process, we had to say, “We’re very sorry, but actually these leading processes that we implemented have since been turned off. They were great; however, we’re not using them anymore.” There are some Members who still cannot take part, but if we were to have such a vote it would be the first time all Members would actually be able to take part, because they were not able to do so last time.
Absolutely, and I would reflect that. I gave evidence to the Procedure and House Affairs Committee of the Canadian Parliament, and exactly the same points of view were put forward.
Another point about the system we have at the moment, with the large number of proxy votes, is that the power is held in the hands of the Whips. Hundreds of votes are held by the Whips. I know my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will say that a Member can give their proxy to anyone they wish, but that is not what has happened. Whether we like it or not, constitutionally, it is not perhaps the best look for this Parliament, and it is something that many right hon. and hon. Members are desperately uncomfortable about.
I want to be very clear that the moment we can go back to the Division Lobbies and use them in the traditional way, I will be the first person to request that we do so, but until we can do that—until we can vote safely in the Division Lobbies, in a way that is safe for our own health and that of the staff in this place—I ask my right hon. Friend to consider giving this House a chance to have another say on whether we want to return to remote voting.
Hon. Members may not know this, but in the 18th century Members used to send their servants to vote for them—they would mumble “Leigh” or whatever the name was. That is why we are not allowed to wear an overcoat as we walk through the Division Lobby.
I am afraid that human nature is innately lazy, and there is a reason why we vote in person. I say to the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) that, yes, the Government are encouraging solicitors to work from home, but this is not a solicitor’s office; this is the Parliament of the United Kingdom. We are elected by the people to come here and to be here—to be seen and to see.
With regard to the safety of Members, I agree that what we are doing is completely absurd. Here we are, totally socially distanced—I am not allowed to go just one step further towards my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie)—but then we wander through the Lobby, all crowded and chatting to each other. Is it beyond the bounds of possibility that we could have another voting terminal in the Lobby, or outside the Chamber, or in Westminster Hall? We could even have one in Portcullis House—at least it would still be in Parliament. People say that we are unsafe when voting, but there is a way of getting around it.
This whole issue of proxy voting just shows what happens when we make these reforms. I am afraid that, human nature being what it is, people would much rather be sitting at home or doing their gardening and then tapping on a computer to vote than making all the effort of coming down here. I say to the hon. Member for Edinburgh East—we know that large numbers of SNP Members are proxy voting—that of course it is a crashing bore to have to come all the way here on the plane from Edinburgh or Glasgow, taking three and a half hours. It takes me three and a half hours to get here from Lincolnshire, but I take the view that if I want to speak and take part, I should make the effort to come.
What if someone is genuinely ill and cannot be here? Again, I suspect that a lot of people who have proxy votes are not really genuinely ill—it is just very convenient to sit at home, appear on the screen up there and have their say without making the effort to make the journey. But if someone is genuinely ill and does not want to come, they do what we have always done—they go to the Whips and say, “Can I have a pair?” The advantage of that is that we have to give a reason, and sometimes they say yes and sometimes they say no. If they say no, we can sometimes ignore them, as I have done many times, or, if we want to preserve our careers, we can obey the instruction and make sure we turn up.
There is nothing wrong with pairing. We have the Whips here. It would be perfectly possible. We have always done it in the past. In the famous vote that Jim Callaghan lost by one vote, there was one Labour Member genuinely ill in hospital. Even then, we were allowed to bring people down here in ambulances and the Whips would check them in. But Jim Callaghan, being a gentleman, said, “No, I’m not going to take that Labour MP out of hospital to come here in an ambulance to be checked by the Whips to vote—he will be allowed to stay in hospital and die in peace.” He lost the vote, lost the Government and lost the general election. People did things properly, and we must ensure that we do things properly.
This is a zombie Parliament. These call lists are just terrible. The much derided Speaker Bercow, who everybody apparently now dislikes—I thought he was quite a good Speaker at the time—made sure that everybody got in. The Prime Minister was constantly coming here. Mr Cameron was constantly coming here, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) was always coming here: we were questioning them and everybody got in. Now we have these call lists. Some people have been applying for Prime Minister’s Question Time for two years and have not got in once. This is giving too much power to the Government. It is scandalous that some Whips are going through the Division Lobbies wielding 50 votes. This is just letting the Government off the hook.
By the way, I am all in favour of parental leave. I was on the Procedure Committee and I voted it through. I remember that when my son was born on a Thursday, the Whips made me turn up here on the Monday. They were pretty tough. They are quite nice people now, the Whips. In those days, they were all ex-Army officers who had had a good war and had burnt faces from burning tanks and things. They were cruel and horrible. They made me turn up three days after my son was born. I am all in favour of parental leave, but it has to be tightly controlled.
I beg my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley): do not take this system too far. Let us recall what has happened in this period and go back to the traditional way of being here and voting in person.
I rise to very much support the motion and commend the Leader of the House for his statement.
This motion is all about improving the functioning of this place for the benefit of parliamentary democracy, as we have heard. But, as ever, there is a very careful balance to be struck, not because, as a body, we are resistant to change, but because the way Parliament works is more of an art than a science. Enabling more Members to participate is a very good thing, whether their physical presence here is curtailed for reasons of parenthood or pandemic. I agree with a lot of what my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) said, because we have to be clear that using a proxy is no substitute for being here in person. Voting is only one small part of what MPs do while they are here in the precincts of this place. I would go so far as to say that physical participation in debates and questions is absolutely more productive than participating virtually, although that is better than nothing at all.
I believe that we have lost a great deal of the depth of scrutiny, influence and spontaneity within this Parliament under the coronavirus restrictions and I, like my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough, feel that that is a very negative thing. In particular, the rigorous use of call lists, which seemed appealing, is now stifling a great deal of the scrutiny that we take for granted in this place, because it is the interaction between Members and Ministers inside and outside the Chamber that influences the scrutiny of the legislation we bring before Parliament. Parliament was designed to be interactive, and the use of technology is diminishing that. We need to be honest and acknowledge that proxy voting is not the same as being here, but that it is better than nothing at all.
Change does not happen here very often, but in the past six months we have seen a great deal of change, some of which we have not enjoyed at all. We feel that the application of proxy voting particularly for parental leave is something of a keeper and that we should continue with it, but the broader application of proxy voting should be dealt with with a great deal of trepidation.
I want to ask the Leader of the House whether making the use of proxy voting permanent for those with family obligations will be coupled with further consideration of other support for people in that position, particularly the support that they might get from the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. At the moment that is still somewhat based on conversations that people have in corridors rather than on a set of rules that have actually been agreed, and that makes it unfair.
We are elected first and foremost to be representatives of the people in our constituencies, but we are also custodians of this democratic process. The way this place runs, our culture and ethos and the way we evolve the procedures here are a serious responsibility, and I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley), who does so much on this. We need to take this responsibility seriously. The motion tonight is proportionate. It is tested and it is welcome, but it is no replacement for people being here, and I very much hope that we will see people back in the Chamber in their full numbers as soon as we are possibly able to do that.
I will endeavour to be brief, and to pick up a number of points that other Members have made. First, I support the motions on the Order Paper, and I welcome them. Perhaps I can be of help to my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley), the Chairman of the Procedure Committee, on the point that my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) made about coming back to the arrangements regarding other reasons not to be here. One of the things I can perhaps offer, as a former Chief Whip, is that these things are connected. For example, when someone is absent for parental reasons, the fact that they can now have a proxy vote actually makes it more challenging to enable other colleagues to be absent for other reasons, particularly ill health. That is because pairing involves colleagues from both sides of the House, and it was often those who were not here for maternity or paternity reasons who enabled other colleagues to be paired with them.
On the question of delay, I would counsel that if we are in this for the long haul, the Committee might wish to attend to that matter—maybe not to reach a conclusion but at least to look at it—earlier, and to see whether we need to address the point about people who are seriously ill earlier. Another point is that, culturally, pairing is not well understood outside the House. It means that when two people who are going to vote on opposite sides cannot be here, they effectively cancel each other out. Our voting is more visible now, however, because there are apps to enable people to see how we vote, so if we think that it is not really acceptable for someone who is very ill to just not vote, we need to put in place a mechanism whereby they can vote, so that people who are seriously ill are not required to turn up here in person. It may be that things have moved on and that, because we have made one set of changes, we need to make the other set of changes because they are more difficult to implement.
Let me pick up on the point that the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) made. It is not often that I defend members of the Scottish National party in the House, but I will defend those who are not here. In my experience, it is easier for many Scottish Members to get here by plane than it is for me to get here from the Forest of Dean—certainly in terms of the time that it takes. I do not believe that there is a significant number of Members in this House—I am afraid that I disagree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) on this point—who do not want to be here. In my experience, Members of Parliament work really hard to get into this House, and they want to be here. I certainly love my constituency and I love being at home, but I would not trade it for being in this place.
None the less, we do have to recognise the issues facing many of our colleagues—either because of their own health or because of their shielding responsibilities, or, as the Leader of the House mentioned, the variety of reasons around childcare. A parent may be in their place here, but if their child is in a bubble and a child in that bubble has coronavirus, that bubble will get sent home and that parent may not have access, particularly at short notice, to childcare. Someone will have to stay at home to look after their children, so they may not be able to get here. That will mean not that they are not dedicated, but that they are having to balance their responsibilities as a Member of Parliament and a parent, as many of our constituents have had to do during the pandemic. We need to recognise that if we want a diverse range of Members of Parliament, of different ages, different backgrounds, different financial requirements, and people who are parents, we need to ensure that they can all participate in this House as Members of Parliament. I think that what the hon. Gentleman said was perfectly sensible.
On remote voting, the Leader of the House and I could probably have a competition over who was most keen on in-person voting—I am not sure which of us would win that competition. I always champion in-person voting when people suggest that we should move to modern electronic mechanisms. That is because, certainly for members of the major parties—the Labour and Conservative parties—it is a fantastic opportunity for Back Benchers to engage with Ministers. I say to every Back Bencher that if they ever want to keep Ministers accountable and accessible, never move permanently to remote voting because they will never see a Minister in this place again. For constituents who wonder what the benefit is for them, I say that in-person voting is so valuable because we can then raise their issues directly with Ministers quickly and efficiently. When Ministers do not have their civil servants present, they can sometimes see the point of something without someone persuading them that the issue is not worth solving.
The whole point about that is that we can access people. The problem at the moment with the way t we have to vote is that we cannot just go and grab a Minister. If Members are to be properly socially distanced, they have to be 2 apart, or perhaps a little less if they are wearing a face mask, but a complex, difficult conversation is impossible in those circumstances. I am afraid, therefore, that I do agree with what is in the report.
From my experience, because Members want to use that opportunity to talk to each other, they are torn between socially distancing and creeping closer together. I do agree with what the hon. Member for Edinburgh East said: we need to set an example. Even if, individually, we try to set an example, it is not always possible when there are hundreds of colleagues getting very close. I am not saying that I am perfect at it, but sometimes I try to shoo people away because they are getting too close. It is difficult. As a fan of in-person voting, I think we need to think about setting a good example and looking at remote voting.
Not only is it not possible for a Member to find the Minister that they need to find in the queue in a socially distanced way, but they are not able to do so privately, because they are in a queue of hundreds of people from all different parties. With the best will in the world, even though I have great friends from all parts of the House, I may not want to discuss some issues in front of them.
My right hon. Friend makes a very good point. All I ask the Leader of the House to think about is the fact that the big advantage of in-person voting—my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and I are in massive agreement on this point—is the access that Back Benchers get to Ministers. That is simply not deliverable in the present circumstances. Perhaps it is a little bit, but certainly not to the extent that it was. Regrettably, because I love in-person voting, I do think that during this period, which I fear will be lengthy, the Leader of the House should at least think about that and put in place some procedures that will mean that we can bring in remote voting if we need to. In particular, if we are forced to take more stringent measures—I hope we are not, but it is entirely possible that we are—we may need to look at it.
On remote voting, and then I will conclude to allow the Leader of the House to get in, the other point that struck me in the report was about areas of local lockdown. I agree with him that if someone is in an area of local lockdown, there are ancient privileges for Members of Parliament to be able to come here, but we also have to set an example. If someone is in an area where we are telling constituents that they must not go to work if they can work at home, although there may be reasons why Members of Parliament feel that they should be here, this would set a dreadful example and look very much like, “One rule for us and one rule for our constituents”. If a Member is in one of those local lockdown areas, as something like a fifth of the population are, we want them to do what they are encouraging their constituents to do, and in those circumstances, they cannot be here and participate. I think we need to think about how we deliver that, and those points are made powerfully in the report. Although I am a traditionalist on in-person voting, I urge the Leader of the House to look at it going forward.
It is always a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper). In the event that we went back to the level of lockdown that we had in April, of course the Government would reconsider the situation.
I note the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) about more support for families. That is very important. An interim chief executive of IPSA has just been appointed and I will ensure that it is taken up with him.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) goes back to the 18th century, which shows what a modernist he is, but it is of course true that overcoats are not meant to be worn so that people do not send somebody in their place to vote.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley), the distinguished Chairman of the Procedure Committee, made a number of points. It is really important that Members know that they do not have to give the proxy to Whips. That is fundamental; they can give it to anyone they like. And remote voting is not that robust because of the conditions mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough, in that wi-fi goes down.
I am so grateful for the speech by the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard). I am not sure if he is going to like this—it is part-flattery and it is part-disagreeing with him—but, when he is here, his points are made 10 times more effectively than when he is appearing up on the screen. I do not know whether, from my point of view, that is a good or a bad thing, because his points come across extremely well, but we are key workers as Members of Parliament, and therefore I think we need to be here to hold people like me to account, which is a thoroughly good thing,
I finish by thanking the right hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) for her support on these motions.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
(1) That:
(a) the Resolution of 28 January 2019 (Proxy Voting (Implementation)), as amended on 16 January and 20 July 2020,
(b) the Resolution of 4 June 2020 (Proxy Voting (Extension)), as amended on 10 June 2020, be rescinded.
(2) That the following Standing Order be made:
VOTING BY PROXY
(1) A Member eligible under paragraph (2) may arrange for their vote to be cast by one other Member acting as a proxy (a proxy vote) under a scheme drawn up by the Speaker in accordance with this order and published by him.
(2) A Member is eligible for a proxy vote by reason of absence from the precincts of the House for childbirth or care of an infant or newly adopted child, subject to the conditions set out in the scheme published under paragraph (1) of this order.
(3) A proxy vote may be cast:
(a) in any division, including a deferred division, in the House, in Committee of the whole House, or in any legislative grand committee, save as provided in paragraph (4) below; and
(b) in a ballot cast in an election under Standing Order No. 1B (Election of Speaker by secret ballot), Standing Order No. 2A (Election of the Deputy Speakers), Standing Order No. 122B (Election of select committee chairs) and Standing Order No. 122D (Election of Chair of the Backbench Business Committee).
(4) No proxy vote shall be reckoned in the numbers participating in a division for the purposes of (a) Standing Order No. 41(1) (Quorum), and (b) Standing Order No. 37 (Majority for closure or for proposal of question).
(5) (a) A proxy vote may be cast only if the Speaker has certified that the Member for whom the vote is to be cast is eligible under the terms of this order.
(b) The Speaker shall cause that certificate, including the name of the Member nominated as a proxy, to be entered in the Votes and Proceedings no later than the sitting day on which it takes effect.
(6) A vote cast by a proxy shall be clearly indicated as such in the division lists published under the authority of the House.
(7) A Member is also eligible for a proxy vote by reason of absence from the precincts of the House in circumstances where there have been complications relating to childbirth; and the Speaker may make appropriate provision for the exercise of a proxy vote in such circumstances in the scheme drawn up under paragraph (1) above.
Proxy Voting During the Pandemic
Ordered,
That the following amendments be made to the Standing Order (Voting by Proxy) and have effect until 3 November 2020:
(1) In paragraph (2) after “child” insert “, or for medical or public health reasons related to the pandemic”.
(2) After paragraph (5) insert –
(5A) The Speaker may certify that a Member’s eligibility for a proxy vote for medical or public health reasons related to the pandemic should take effect before the certificate is published in the Votes and Proceedings, or that a certificate already granted should be varied, if satisfied there are urgent and unforeseeable circumstances to justify this.—(Mr Rees-Mogg.)
Parliamentary Works Estimates Commission
Ordered,
That Lilian Greenwood and Dame Eleanor Laing be confirmed as members of the Parliamentary Works Estimates Commission under Schedule 3 to the Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Act 2019.—(Mr Rees-Mogg.)
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Commons Chamber(3 years, 11 months ago)
Commons Chamber(3 years, 11 months ago)
Commons Chamber(3 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberI rise to present a petition on behalf of two residents of the constituency of Loughborough regarding access to B12 injections, alongside an online petition that they have started on the same topic, which has been signed by over 94,000 people. Today is B12 Awareness Day, and this petition shines a light on how the rules around only accessing B12 injectables at GP surgeries is having a far-reaching physical and mental impact on those who rely on them.
The petition states:
NICE CKS guidance states that treatment of B12 deficiency in people with neurologic involvement should include injections on alternate days…a restricted maintenance dose of just four injections per year is what is normally allowed, which can leave people physically and mentally unable to contribute to either family or society…B12 injectables should be made available over the counter at pharmacies, which would bring our approach in line with that of other countries, affording those with B12 deficiency…dignity and control over their own health…and reducing the workload and financial burden on…NHS services…The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to remove the classification of Prescription Only Medicine from injectable vitamin B12. And the petitioners remain, etc.
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of the residents of the constituency of Loughborough.
Declares that a lack of B12 can have far reaching and significant effects on both physical and mental health; notes that a significant number of people who are B12 deficient are unable to absorb the vitamin from food or supplements, and so need to inject it, which they can only do at their GP practice; further notes that NICE CKS guidance states that treatment of B12 deficiency in people with neurologic involvement should include injections on alternate days until there is no further improvement; further notes that a restricted maintenance dose of just four injections per year is what is normally allowed, which can leave people physically and mentally unable to contribute to either family or society, and lead to permanent neurological damage; further notes that, in response to a Freedom of Information request asking for the clinical evidence for the three monthly maintenance dose, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency stated that they were unable to obtain this information; further notes that B12 injectables should be made available over the counter at pharmacies, which would bring our approach in line with that of other countries, affording those with B12 deficiency the same dignity and control over their own health as a diabetic using insulin, and reducing the workload and financial burden on GP practices, District Nurses and other NHS services; further notes that a Change.org petition started by the petitioners on this issue has garnered over 94,000 signatures.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to remove the classification of Prescription Only Medicine from injectable vitamin B12.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P002599]
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberIn the past 10 years that I have been fortunate to be the Member of Parliament for Kingswood, I have been proud to have campaigned for and helped to deliver several new schools in my constituency, including King’s Oak Academy primary school, the Digitech Studio School on the site of the former Grange School, a new special school for Kingswood that is due to open shortly and a new primary school for Lyde Green. In addition, since 2010 many more schools have received funding to expand their premises, including Barley Close Community Primary School, Mangotsfield Primary School and Beacon Rise Primary School.
These new schools and this new investment would not have been possible without the funding and support from the Department for Education and the Minister for School Standards, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Nick Gibb), who is in his place today. He knows well my commitment to securing the good school places needed in my local area in order to meet demand and raise standards. He has met me and delegations that I have brought from South Gloucestershire Council on many occasions over the past decade. He has even come to visit local schools in my constituency. I thank him dearly again for the commitment that he has shown.
Tonight I wish to raise with the Minister yet another campaign for a new school—this time, new co-located primary and secondary schools. It is the largest school investment project that I have ever called for. I am incredibly excited to be supporting this proposal for a school to be situated in and at the heart of the newly built Lyde Green community. I have been running this campaign with my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Luke Hall), because Lyde Green straddles both our constituencies. I assure the Minister that my hon. Friend is as committed and passionate about delivering this project as I am, and I am delighted that he has been able to attend this debate. I congratulate him on his recent appointment as Minister of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. Given his new role, he is unable to speak in this debate—it is important that our constituents recognise that—but that does not diminish the fact that he has been championing this project behind the scenes with me. Just the other week, we both visited the location of the site where the potential new school might be built.
Over the past 10 years, my constituency—like many others, including that of my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate—has seen growth in new housing. This has taken place primarily in the entirely new village of Lyde Green, which, when complete, will number around 2,500 houses, many of which are family homes. The Minister gave permission for the £5.7 million Lyde Green Primary School following a previous campaign I ran, way back in October 2014. The funding resulted in the new primary school being delivered within a year and fully open within two, which is testament to the speed and efficiency of South Gloucestershire Council and the educational trusts in our area in meeting the commitments that they have signed and agreed. Indeed, South Gloucestershire Council has secured land and the financial contributions for 15 new primary schools and two new secondary schools, which are being delivered over a 10-year period. To date, the council is able to evidence the successful delivery of five new primary schools and their phases since 2013. I pay tribute to and acknowledge the fantastic leadership of Councillor Erica Williams, Councillor Toby Savage and Councillor Jon Hunt, who, as executive members for education on the council during that period, have spearheaded some truly vital work across the district. I also take this opportunity to recognise the campaigning efforts of many Conservative councillors in South Gloucestershire, most notably that of Councillor Colin Hunt, who has campaigned vigilantly and vigorously over the past 20 years for a secondary school to be delivered as part of this new and flourishing Lyde Green community.
To meet this rising demand and in particular the demand for school places in Lyde Green—principally as the first pupils who have been educated at the fantastic £5.7 million Lyde Green Primary School will move to a secondary setting in September 2022—we need to act now to provide the secondary school that Lyde Green deserves and, indeed, was promised as part of the section 106 agreement with the developers of the Lyde Green site.
In addition, further primary school places are needed to meet the demand of the community. Again, those places were agreed as part of the development’s initial planning permission. In particular, to meet demand in Lyde Green, my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate and I are campaigning first for a 420-place primary school to be delivered by September ’22. That school will provide for children aged between four and 11. Secondly, we are campaigning for a new 900-place secondary school to be open by September ’22. That would be made up of 450 places required to mitigate the impact of new housing that I have spoken about, and also 450 places to meet basic need growth for the whole area of south Gloucestershire. Basic need refers to the growth of the existing secondary school age population, which at the moment exceeds the current number of places in south Gloucestershire secondary schools.
As I am sure the Minister is aware, South Gloucestershire Council is seeking to commission the new secondary school via the Department for Education’s ongoing wave 14 free schools programme. As part of that programme—the bid that is now open is wave 14—South Gloucestershire and Stroud Academy Trust, the delivery partners, known as SGSAT, has submitted a bid for a new secondary school at Lyde Green to meet the demand for 900 places for the 11-to-16 age range. That bid has been shortlisted by the Department, and SGSAT attended an interview as part of the process.
Following the interview round, I understand that the Department will determine which free school projects nationally will receive formal approval, which I hope will happen, to use ministerial phraseology, to which I am accustomed—I should probably put on record that I have been a Minister in the Department for Education not once, but twice, I enjoyed it so much—“in due course”.
I want to use this debate tonight to highlight my determination about this individual bid for a new secondary school at Lyde Green. It is essential not only for the Lyde Green community, but for the wider south Gloucestershire area if the local authority is to meet its statutory duty to place all pupils in secondary school provision, given the demographic uplift in demand locally.
I put on record also, in advance of the outcome of the wave 14 free school bid process, that time is tight and time is getting tighter. As I have mentioned, September ’22 is the end date to deliver the new school buildings and, as a result, South Gloucestershire Council has already developed an outline design and submitted that for planning approval. In advance of any potential wave 14 successful bid—God willing—I want to reassure the Minister that, as a result of previous agreement with developers, so many of the important milestones have already been reached and are already in place. The council has already secured 2.83 hectares of land for the second primary school and new secondary school provision. The land designation for the new school was reflected in the original masterplan for the development site. Following site investigations of the land, the council has identified some very specific site constraints and, in order to overcome those constraints, the council has renegotiated the school site boundaries. Drawings of the revised school site have been prepared by the development consortium, Emersons Green Urban Village, which I would be happy to share with the Minister and his free schools team overseeing the wave 14 bid process. The plan shows a revised school site location and infrastructure road layout, and the amalgamation of two previously separate potential school sites, including an amendment to the local centre land to provide for part of the revised full school site. It also demonstrates indicative school buildings within the new school site, as well as adjacent residential parcels and how they are being planned within the revised masterplan layout.
The council is in a strong position to deliver new school provision for September 2022, which is reflected in the following considerations. Working with sponsor trusts, the council has developed an outline design and submitted it for planning approval. That means that the scheme will be ready for contractor selection next month, in October. Planning permission will be in place by November 2020, and construction could commence from June 2021. At every stage of the initial process, there has been positive engagement with the local community, and current year 5 children attending Lyde Green Primary School anticipate that they will be able to express a preference for the new Lyde Green secondary school at secondary transfer in September 2022. No contentious issues have been raised in response to the design proposals.
That is significant progress in developing the scheme and reflects the relatively short period of time in which to design, procure and build the new school ready for September 2022. It is for this reason that I have called today’s debate: to highlight to the Minister that we are shovel-ready, as it were—ready and more than willing to get going on a new secondary school, along with a primary school, co-located on the same site, which is more than much needed by the growing Lyde Green community. As the local Member of Parliament, I would be honoured if he and his Department considered this wave 14 bid as quickly as possible. It is a strong bid, a desperately needed bid, and a bid that will help to transform secondary school provision in my local area. I place my faith in the Minister. He has delivered for me many times before, transforming the lives of young people across my constituency, for which I thank him. I hope that he can deliver once more.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) on securing the debate. I listened carefully to his speech, and I know how instrumental he has been in securing new schools for his constituency and for parents in his area. I know at first hand how committed he is to ensuring that standards of education in schools in his constituency are high. I pay tribute to him for his work over many years in developing education policy, most recently in his role as Universities Minister.
As my right hon. Friend has explained, Lyde Green has grown significantly over the last five years, with developments that are to include 2,500 new homes, a large science park, and other business and industrial developments. Although there is an open primary school in Lyde Green—thanks to my right hon. Friend—there is currently no secondary school. As he is aware, given the changing demographics, the need for a new secondary school is now under consideration.
Since 2010, the Government have worked hard to drive up academic standards. Our aim has been to ensure that every state school is a good school, teaching a rigorous and broad curriculum, with world-class qualifications and high standards of behaviour. During that time we have seen standards rise. As at March 2019, 86% of schools were graded good or outstanding by Ofsted, compared with 68% in 2010. Ensuring high-quality education in south Gloucestershire is a priority for my right hon. Friend, as it is for the Government. Primary school results across the local authority are good, with over 84% of primary schools having been as assessed by Ofsted as either good or outstanding. Of the 17 secondary school in south Gloucestershire, eight are graded by Ofsted as good.
Since 2010, the number of academies nationally has grown from 200 to over 8,500, including free schools, and four out of 10 state-funded primary and secondary schools are now part of an academy trust. When the opportunity for schools to become academies arose, 13 out of 15 south Gloucestershire secondary schools took the opportunity to convert. With a further conversion planned in January and two new secondary free schools successfully opened in recent years, there has been a significant change in the education landscape.
It is clear that the presence of strong multi-academy trusts is starting to have an impact in south Gloucestershire. The six previously inadequate secondary schools that are now sponsored are beginning to show improvements. For example, Greenshaw Learning Trust was introduced into the area and sponsored Yate Academy in September 2017, and it has demonstrated rapid impact. The Progress 8 score has moved from minus 0.48 in 2017 to plus one in 2019, which means that it is well above the national average in terms of the progress that its pupils make. Hanham Woods Academy, with the support of the Cabot Learning Federation, came out of special measures and was graded good by Ofsted in November 2019.
As a former Minister in the Department, my right hon. Friend will know that we are increasing funding by £2.6 billion in 2020-21, by £4.8 billion in 2021-22 and by £7.1 billion in 2022-23, compared with 2019-20. That is in addition to the £1.5 billion a year that we will continue to provide to fund additional pension costs for teachers over the next three years. The national funding formula continues to direct funding where it is most needed. South Gloucestershire will receive 3.8% more per-pupil funding in 2021-22—above the national average of 3.1%—which amounts to an additional £6.9 million based on provisional allocations and will take its total funding to over £177 million.
I turn to the question of secondary provision in Lyde Green. Until now, based on demographics, a school has not been needed in this area, but there is now an increasing need for places for secondary school-age pupils in this part of south Gloucestershire, which is projected to put pressure on the school system from 2022 onwards. To date, the deficit in places for year 7 pupils in this area—88 in 2019 and 106 in 2020—has been accommodated by local secondary schools. The largest group of pupils attend Downend School, and other pupils attend Mangotsfield School and Winterbourne Academy. However, as this demographic trend continues, the schools taking these extra pupils will no longer have the capacity to accommodate increasing numbers of pupils, and therefore an alternative solution will be needed.
Through the free schools programme, the Government have funded thousands of new good school places and opened schools across the country. As of 1 September, there are 558 open free schools, 49 university technical colleges and 22 studio schools. Those will provide more than 340,000 places when at capacity. We have approved a further 222 applications from groups that we are now working with to establish those schools. Of the mainstream free schools approved since 2014, 86% have been in areas where there was a need for more school places, and Ofsted’s latest information shows that 86% of all free schools with inspection reports published by the end of August are rated good or outstanding.
The purpose of free schools is to deliver choice, innovation and higher standards. We want them to challenge the status quo and drive wider improvement, injecting fresh approaches and drawing in talent and expertise from a wide variety of groups and backgrounds.
In 2019, seven of the top 15 Progress 8 scores for state-funded schools in England were achieved by free schools, including three of the top five in the country: Eden Boys’ School in Birmingham, Eden Girls’ School in Coventry and Michaela Community School in Brent. Secondary free schools are among the highest-performing state-funded schools in the country, providing a world class education to their students. For example, Michaela Community School was proud to announce its first wave of excellent GCSE results in 2019—54% of all grades awarded were level 7 and above, which is equivalent to A to A*. The proportion of disadvantaged pupils at the school is above the national average. We want to do more to unleash that kind of successful innovation in areas of the country where it is needed most of all, so that children, regardless of their background, have the opportunity to fulfil their potential.
My hon. Friend mentioned wave 14. Applications for wave 14—the latest wave of the free schools programme—had a key focus on targeting areas most in need of good school places. We received a total of 89 applications and we have funding for up to 30 new schools. As my hon. Friend knows—he mentioned it in his speech—an application for a secondary free school in Lyde Green was progressed to the interview stage and is still going through the national assessment process. Covid-19 has unfortunately delayed the original timetable, but we have been able to complete interviews online. We expect to announce the names of successful applicants later this autumn, or in my hon. Friend’s words, “in due course”, as he parodied.
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his success in securing time for this debate, which enabled him to raise an issue of concern to his constituents in the Lyde Green area. The Government recognise that in future years there will be an increasing need for more secondary school places in the Lyde Green area. The regional schools commissioners team will continue to work closely with the local authority on plans for meeting that need and the Department will announce the free schools decisions later this term.
Question put and agreed to.
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberMember eligible for proxy vote | Nominated proxy |
---|---|
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) | Bell Ribeiro-Addy |
Tahir Ali (Birmingham, Hall Green) | Chris Elmore |
Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) | Chris Elmore |
Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) | 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 |
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) | Stuart Andrew |
Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) | Stuart Andrew |
Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) | Stuart Andrew |
Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) | Patrick Grady |
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) | Stuart Andrew |
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) | Patrick Grady |
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) | Stuart Andrew |
Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) | Patrick Grady |
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) | 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) | Beth Winter |
Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) | Chris Elmore |
Amy Callaghan (East Dunbartonshire) | Patrick Grady |
Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) | Chris Elmore |
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) | Chris Elmore |
Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) | Patrick Grady |
Feryal Clark (Enfield North) | Chris Elmore |
Theo Clarke (Stafford) | Stuart Andrew |
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 |
Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) | Patrick Grady |
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) | Chris Elmore |
Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) | Caroline Nokes |
Judith Cummins (Bradford South) | Chris Elmore |
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) | Chris Elmore |
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) | Chris Evans |
Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) | Chris Elmore |
David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) | Stuart Andrew |
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) | Patrick Grady |
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) | Rachel Hopkins |
Allan Dorans (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) | Patrick Grady |
Ms Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) | Stuart Andrew |
Peter Dowd (Bootle) | Chris Elmore |
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) | Chris Elmore |
Philip Dunne (Ludlow) | Jeremy Hunt |
Mrs Natalie Elphicke (Dover) | Maria Caulfield |
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) | 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 |
Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) | Patrick Grady |
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) | Chris Elmore |
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) | Stuart Andrew |
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) | Bim Afolami |
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 |
James Grundy (Leigh) | Stuart Andrew |
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) | Chris Elmore |
Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) | Chris Elmore |
Greg Hands (Chelsea and Fulham) | Stuart Andrew |
Ms Harriet Harman (Camberwell and Peckham) | Chris Elmore |
Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) | Stuart Andrew |
Sir Mark Hendrick (Preston) | Chris Elmore |
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) | Fay Jones |
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) | Chris Elmore |
Kate Hollern (Blackburn) | Chris Elmore |
Adam Holloway (Gravesham) | Maria Caulfield |
Sir George Howarth (Knowsley) | Chris Elmore |
Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) | Stuart Andrew |
Imran Hussain (Bradford East) | Chris Elmore |
Ranil Jayawardena (North East Hampshire) | Stuart Andrew |
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) | Chris Elmore |
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) | Stuart Andrew |
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) | Chris Elmore |
Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) | Chris Elmore |
Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) | Stuart Andrew |
Julian Knight (Solihull) | Stuart Andrew |
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) | Kate Osborne |
Chris Law (Dundee West) | Patrick Grady |
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) | Chris Elmore |
Clive Lewis (Norwich South) | Chris Elmore |
Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) | Stuart Andrew |
Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) | Chris Elmore |
Julia Lopez (Hornchurch and Upminster) | Lee Rowley |
Mr Jonathan Lord (Woking) | Stuart Andrew |
Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) | Patrick Grady |
Rachel Maclean (Redditch) | Stuart Andrew |
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) | Patrick Grady |
Karl MᶜCartney (Lincoln) | Stuart Andrew |
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) | Chris Elmore |
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) | Zarah Sultana |
John Mc Nally (Falkirk) | Patrick Grady |
Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) | Chris Elmore |
Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) | Chris Elmore |
Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) | Mark Spencer |
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) | Chris Elmore |
Mark Menzies (Fylde) | Stuart Andrew |
Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) | Stuart Andrew |
David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) | Stuart Andrew |
James Murray (Ealing North) | Chris Elmore |
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) | Chris Elmore |
John Nicolson (Ochil and South Perthshire) | Patrick Grady |
Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) | Rebecca Harris |
Guy Opperman (Hexham) | Stuart Andrew |
Kate Osamor (Edmonton) | Nadia Whittome |
Owen Paterson North Shropshire) | Stuart Andrew |
Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) | Stuart Andrew |
Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) | Peter Aldous |
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) | Chris Elmore |
Christina Rees (Neath) | Chris Elmore |
Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) | Chris Elmore |
Andrew Rosindell (Romford) | Rebecca Harris |
Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) | Chris Elmore |
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) | Chris Elmore |
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) | Chris Elmore |
Henry Smith (Crawley) | Stuart Andrew |
Sir Gary Streeter (South West Devon) | Stuart Andrew |
Mel Stride (Central Devon) | Stuart Andrew |
Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) | Olivia Blake |
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) | Chris Elmore |
Hywel Williams (Arfon) | Liz Saville Roberts |
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) | Patrick Grady |
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Commons Chamber(3 years, 11 months ago)
General CommitteesI beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Surrender of Offensive Weapons (Compensation) Regulations 2020.
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Elliott. The regulations, laid before the House on 9 June, are made under the Offensive Weapons Act 2019. The Act is about tackling serious violence, including violence involving the use of knives, firearms or acids and other corrosive substances. It will prohibit the possession of specified offensive and unpleasant weapons, knives and firearms that would have devastating consequences if they were used violently. Members might recall the detailed scrutiny that was given to these prohibitions during the passage of the Act through the House. Our focus today is on the arrangements for surrendering the weapons to the police and for the payment of compensation.
The regulations reflect the principle that was recognised during the passage of the Act that prohibiting items that are currently lawfully owned impacts on the individual’s right to property. It was agreed by both Houses that it would be right and fair that the lawful owners of the weapons who surrendered them to the police in accordance with the arrangements we are making should be fairly compensated for the loss of their property. The arrangements for surrender and compensation will apply to England and Wales and will extend to Scotland and Northern Ireland in respect of firearms and related ancillary equipment only.
The regulations provide for a three-month surrender period during which the lawful owners of the weapons will be able to surrender their property to the police. If they wish to claim compensation, they will need to do so at the same time as the surrender using a form that we will make available before the scheme starts. We will also make available a values list setting out the standard levels of compensation for all the weapons that come within the scheme. A claimant can indicate on the claim form whether they accept the standard level of compensation or whether they are claiming a higher amount, which they are able to do, provided they can support it with a credible and up-to-date valuation. The regulations give some examples of the types of valuations that would be acceptable, but we have sought to avoid undue prescription. Our overarching objective is to compensate fairly those who give up their lawful property so that we can take these dangerous weapons out of circulation.
The claims for compensation will be processed by the Home Office. We will do so as quickly as practicable following the launch of the scheme. The draft regulations deliver the full intent of the measures set out in the Offensive Weapons Act to allow for surrender and compensation. I commend them to the House.
It is a pleasure, Ms Elliott, to serve under your chairmanship. I thank the Minister for his remarks. Labour Members do not intend to divide the Committee on these draft regulations and I will not keep the Committee here too long.
The Opposition support the proposals in the instrument to reimburse those in possession of weapons now banned under the Offensive Weapons Act. We will work with the Government, the police, partners and other public bodies to tackle knife crime and serious violence on our streets. Today we are discussing a technical piece of legislation that is limited in scope, but has implications for the vital task of reducing the number of dangerous weapons on our streets. Although we support the provisions in this limited instrument, the Government’s approach to reducing violent crime, particularly knife crime, has been inadequate, as violent crime has continued to rise following a decade of underinvestment in policing, which has resulted in the loss of thousands of officers, police community support officers and staff.
At the same time, demand on the police from recorded crime and non-crime duties has increased substantially. The role of the police keeps expanding, but the resources are not yet there. The Offensive Weapons Act was an opportunity for the Government to make productive changes based on evidence to bring down the decade-long rise in knife crime levels that we have seen under their watch. The Act failed to go far enough. The limited measures outlined in the 2019 Act and in this instrument must work alongside action to tackle the root causes of crime.
I regularly hear from police officers who are worried about how they will manage with the limited resources to tackle rising crime, enforce the Government’s coronavirus restrictions and manage the growing number of non-crime incidents that the police are called to as the service of last resort.
The impact assessment outlines the costs to the police to provide individuals who held weapons legitimately prior to the offence’s introduction with the opportunity to surrender their offensive weapon and claim compensation. It states that police forces have provided an average estimated cost of approximately £8,000 per force to run a full amnesty, equating to a total cost of approximately £0.3 million across all forces in the first year as an upper-bound estimate. Will the Minister confirm the date that the surrender of weapons scheme will commence and whether the money will be made available to the police, and how will it be made available and paid?
Another point on which I would like clarification is the standard rate of £30 for compensation and the fact that no compensation is payable in respect of a claim that amounts to less than £30. Will the Minister explain to the House the reasons for coming up with that figure? Furthermore, can he clarify Home Office plans to monitor and review the compensation process? The impact assessment for the Bill that became the Offensive Weapons Act 2019 says that
“the number of weapons eligible for compensation…is likely to be small”,
given that it has not been legal to purchase most of those weapons for several decades.
The Opposition want to remind the Minister again that this country is facing record levels of knife crime. With incidents continuing to rise across the country, we need a long-term public health approach to tackling violent crime. The limited provision of the Offensive Weapons Act means that this statutory instrument is much more likely to remove from a farmer a weapon that has been in his shed for 20 years than a knife from a vulnerable young person who is carrying it for self-defence.
I conclude by reiterating that we support this draft legislation, even though we are disappointed that the Act with which it is in accordance does not go far enough to reduce the number of people carrying dangerous weapons on our streets.
First, I welcome the legislation and the thoughts that the Minister has expressed, because I think it important that we address the issues of knives and weapons. I really am interested in the matter of compensation and I want to ask a question that the shadow spokesperson touched on in her last comments. I am ever mindful of how the measure refers to Northern Ireland and certain firearms. Obviously, we experienced a type of terrorist campaign for umpteen years in which weapons of all sorts were used and 99% of them were illegal. Sometimes we find that something is in the possession of elderly relatives, which the shadow Minister referred to in her contribution. It might come to light only when the elderly person has passed away. We then find out that something had been tucked away somewhere for however many years. It might be an antique shotgun—probably nothing of any higher calibre than that. When it comes to compensation, which I think would be the issue for me, how will the compensation be agreed? I ask because there will be occasions on which the weapons will be of a fairly high-class order and value. It would not be unusual for someone perhaps to have had a shotgun that was a Boss or a Purdey, or something of a similar calibre and design. The value would probably go into thousands of pounds, so again, when it comes to compensation, how will that be agreed? Also, if a compensation value is not agreed between the relevant person and the family handing over the item, is there a review process to enable the true value to be looked at?
Part 3 of the order deals with compensation, and I welcome the fact that compensation may be claimed in respect of a firearm that has a bump stock. I presume that we all know that such a weapon would be totally unacceptable. It might be okay in America, but it is certainly not okay here. Therefore, I welcome the fact that compensation will be available for that type of weapon. My contribution is really just questions. I know that the Minister will know the answers to them all—he always does.
I thank hon. Members for their contributions. I will deal first with the questions from the hon. Member for Croydon Central, who speaks for the Opposition. I hope that she will be reassured to have, from the person who led the fight against the last spike in knife crime in the capital, between 2008 and 2012, my personal commitment to dealing with what is undoubtedly an increase in knife crime over the past couple or three years. We are taking lots of action on that. Of course, we are, as she knows, rapidly expanding police capacity. The recruitment of police officers is going extremely well: we are well ahead of target on our first 6,000, and I am confident that we will get to 20,000 over the next two and a half years or possibly before. That will address many of the capacity concerns that she expressed.
On start dates, we have not yet agreed a start date. Given the current stage of the pandemic, we have to be careful about judging a time at which it is appropriate for people to travel to police stations and at which the police have capacity to administer the scheme. In discussion with the police, we are hoping to agree a date later this year, but we will have to see how the pandemic progresses.
On the standard rate of compensation and related questions from the hon. Member for Strangford, we had to set a base price somewhere and there were two considerations: first of all, that the administration of the scheme did not cost us more than the worth of the item; but, secondly, that by setting a bar too low we might stimulate people, frankly, to go to their kitchen drawer, find a knife and turn up to get some money for it. So, £30 was deemed an appropriate level, whereby we would not stimulate that kind of activity but that would still provide a fair level of compensation for the majority of people we are talking about.
I should just point out that obviously these regulations do not cover items such as Purdey shotguns; those shotguns are still perfectly legal, subject to licensing conditions, and will continue to be so. They do cover certain types of rifle and bump stocks, and a list of other weapons, which should, in theory, have been circulated to Members. I am happy to write to the hon. Gentleman with specific details about what might be on that list.
Perhaps I have got it wrong, and if I have I apologise to the Minister. As he knows, the firearms law in Northern Ireland is very different from the law here on the mainland; we need to have a licence for everything from an air rifle to a high-calibre rifle and so on, and in between we have shotguns. Any weapon that someone has that is not licensed is illegal. Therefore, if someone finds it as I have outlined, it is not as if it is legal any more. Does that mean that those shotguns perhaps do not come under this scheme? I just want to clarify that, to be sure. If it is an illegal weapon, and it is not held under a firearms certificate, then I ask the question: does it qualify?
As far as I am aware, the intention of the scheme—I am happy to write to the hon. Gentleman to clarify matters, because, as he says, the arrangements in Northern Ireland are slightly different from those in the rest of the country—is just to compensate people for those items that were banned by the 2019 Act, which does not include shotguns. There will be a list of items attached to the form, with the standard list of compensations, and in Northern Ireland it will not include offensive weapons, other than firearms and ancillary equipment such as bipods, sights and those kinds of things. It is largely for firearms where there is, as it were, gas-assisted expulsion of ammunition. However, as I say, I am happy to write to him to clarify matters, so that he is clear in his mind and can communicate the requirements to his constituents. On the compensation issue that he raised, while there will be standard rates, it is possible for people to make a higher claim, subject to a valuation, and the regulations detail the types of evidence that can be offered to make a case for a higher valuation.
In a small number of circumstances, it may be the case that there are some items of historical importance. We are in conversation with Ministers at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport about how we might allow people to surrender such weapons, perhaps to museums or to other organisations, where that importance can be recognised. Hopefully, I have answered the questions that were asked and we can move towards consideration of the regulations.
Question put and agreed to.
9.38 am
Committee rose.
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Written Statements(3 years, 11 months ago)
Written StatementsThe fourth meeting of the Withdrawal Agreement Joint Committee will take place on 28 September 2020 in Brussels, with delegations attending in person and by video conference.
The meeting will be co-chaired by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Right hon. Michael Gove MP and Vice President of the European Commission, Mr Maroš Šefčovič.
The agenda will include three items:
Introduction and opening remarks from co-chairs
Stocktake of Specialised Committee meetings
Update on withdrawal agreement implementation
Citizens’ rights
Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland
Protocol on Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus
Protocol on Gibraltar
Financial provisions
AOB and concluding remarks the UK delegation will include:
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Rt Hon. Michael Gove MP
The Paymaster General, Rt Hon. Penny Mordaunt MP
Representatives from the Northern Ireland Executive have also been invited to form part of the UK delegation.
[HCWS465]
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Written StatementsI am today launching a call for evidence on loot boxes in video games. I want to understand fully the existing research and concerns around loot boxes including any evidence of links to gambling-like behaviour and problem gambling amongst young people. This fulfils a commitment the Government announced on 8 June as part of their response to the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s report on immersive and addictive technologies.
The Government take concerns around potential harms from loot boxes seriously. This open call for evidence will seek detailed information on the impact of loot boxes on players, particularly children and young people, examining concerns that loot boxes may encourage gambling-like behaviour and lead to problem gambling, as well as examining the size and scale of the loot box market in the UK, and the impact of current voluntary and statutory protections. The call for evidence will also seek information on the direct experiences of video games players and adults responsible for children and young people who play video games.
In 2019, the Government committed to review the Gambling Act with a particular focus on tackling issues around online loot boxes. The results from the call for evidence will be considered alongside the review of the Gambling Act and will inform future actions in regard to loot boxes. The Government stand ready to take action should the outcomes of the call for evidence support taking a new approach to ensure users, and particularly young people, are better protected.
The Government continue to support the growth of the video games sector in the UK, recognising that video games bring great economic, cultural and social benefits. Over half the UK population plays games, the vast majority engaging safely with content that allows them to enjoy fun, exciting play, find moments of relaxation, socialise and learn new skills. The video games sector, a key part of the UK’s world-leading creative industries, is also a cutting edge creator and adopter of innovative new technologies, and a provider of highly skilled creative jobs.
However, evolving digital technologies such as video games also present new responsibilities to ensure that users, particularly children and vulnerable people, are not exposed to harm.
I believe the call for evidence the Government are launching today is an important step towards gathering the evidence required to ensure we can support the further growth of this innovative and important industry while protecting users.
The call for evidence document will be available on gov.uk.
[HCWS464]
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Grand Committee(3 years, 11 months ago)
Grand CommitteeMy Lords, the hybrid Grand Committee will now begin. Some Members are here in person, respecting social distancing, and others are participating remotely, but all Members will be treated equally. I must ask Members in the Room to wear a face covering except when seated at their desk, to speak sitting down and to wipe down their desk, chair and any other surfaces they may touch. If the capacity of the Committee Room is exceeded or other safety requirements are breached, I will immediately adjourn the Committee. When the expected Divisions take place in the House, the Committee will adjourn for five minutes.
I have been asked to make it clear that, in the debate that will begin in a moment, the following speakers whose names appear on the list will not be taking part: the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey of Didcot, the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, the noble Lord, Lord Loomba, and the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford. The time limit is four and a half hours.
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Grand CommitteeMy Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to open this debate for this Grand Committee to take note of the United Kingdom’s approach to negotiating the future relationship with the European Union. I am looking forward to the usual extraordinarily well-informed and wide-ranging views that we will no doubt hear from your Lordships this afternoon.
It is over four years since the British people voted to leave the European Union in the largest democratic exercise in this nation’s history. It was an historic vote for freedom, parliamentary sovereignty and change. Since then, two general elections have underlined and cemented the Government’s mandate. The road has been hard and, at times, I confess, difficult—not least in this House and sometimes the other place. However, at the beginning of this year, thanks to this Government, Britain left the European Union.
As the 19th-century Danish philosopher, Kierkegaard, once said:
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
In that spirit, I believe that we must not lose sight of where we have come from. The principles of our approach for a future relationship are rooted in the mandates that the British people have repeatedly given the Government—and, indirectly, all political parties—to regain our political and economic independence. No matter what happens in the negotiations, by the end of this year we will leave the customs union and single market and become a fully independent and sovereign country.
There is no mystery about where the British people and Government stand. We have been clear from the outset that we are seeking a relationship that respects the independence for which the British people voted and for an agreement with a free trade agreement at its core—one similar to those that the European Union has readily agreed with other countries. We are asking not for a special or bespoke relationship but for one which is grounded in precedent, which is aligned with the parameters agreed in the political declaration and which builds on the European Union’s own past offer of a Canada-style deal. We have also always been clear that such a deal must of course accommodate the reality of the United Kingdom’s well-established position on state aid and fisheries and fully recognise the United Kingdom as a sovereign equal party.
However, the European Union has continually insisted not only that we must accept continuity with EU state aid and fisheries policy, but that this must be agreed before any further substantive work can be done in any other area of the negotiation, including on legal texts, making it unnecessarily difficult to make progress. There is still a lot of work to do, but it remains our goal to reach an agreement and we will continue to work hard to do so.
We have kept the House updated throughout the negotiations. I have issued Statements after each round of negotiations when the House has been sitting and did so most recently on 14 September. I can now update the House again on progress and I welcome the opportunity to be able to do so in a debate of this kind.
We have entered the final phase of negotiations with the European Union. The chief negotiators and their teams met in Brussels last week, as planned. As set out in the terms of reference published online, UK negotiators have continued informal discussions with the Commission between formal rounds. These informal discussions continue today in London on a range of areas. The next formal negotiating round—round nine—will take place in the week commencing 28 September. Before that, there were useful exchanges in the eighth negotiating round, with all issues being covered in some detail, including the most difficult ones. There are large areas of convergence in many areas and we will keep working to bridge the gaps.
However, differences still remain, including on fish and state aid, where the EU continues to ask for continuity of the status quo. On fisheries, we have been clear that we will not accept any proposals that compromise United Kingdom sovereignty over our fishing waters. We are seeking a relationship based on the European Union’s existing bilateral relationship with Norway. In order to make progress, the European Union must accept our position as an independent coastal state and any agreement on quotas must reflect that reality.
On state aid, the World Trade Organization rules are an internationally recognised common standard. Many major economies do not regulate subsidies beyond these rules. The European Union’s state aid rules are unique and have been developed specifically for the single market. The United Kingdom’s offer to the European Union goes further than World Trade Organization rules. We still believe that it would be straightforward to agree a free trade agreement, like those that the EU has agreed with other close partners around the world, and that this could be done quickly, but only if the European Union drops its unreasonable demands on fisheries and state aid.
As the Prime Minister has set out, there needs to be an agreement with the European Union by the time of the European Council on 15 October for it to be in force before the end of the transition period on 31 December. If there is no agreement, we would have a trading arrangement with the European Union like Australia’s. This would still be a good outcome for the United Kingdom. It would represent us reclaiming our independence as a sovereign nation, and that is what the British public voted for—twice. That said, I repeat that we remain committed to working hard to reach agreement by the middle of October.
Whatever the outcome, we have already done a lot of work to prepare businesses and citizens for the end of the transition period when we will leave the customs union and single market. In July, we launched a major public information campaign to encourage businesses and citizens to take action to prepare for the changes that will take place. In addition, we are taking a number of practical measures to prepare, particularly around borders. Also in July, we published the border operating model which, alongside a £705 million package of investment for border infrastructure, staff and technology, will ensure our borders are operational after the end of the transition period.
We have said that we will introduce new border controls in a pragmatic and flexible way in three stages up until 1 July 2021—an announcement that was widely welcomed. This approach gives industry extra time to prepare for the new procedures for goods coming into the United Kingdom, particularly in light of the impact of the pandemic. My right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster made a full Statement on border provision, which I shall, with the permission of your Lordships’ House, repeat shortly.
As we set out in May’s Command Paper, we are committed to working closely with businesses to implement the Northern Ireland protocol to ensure unfettered access to the rest of the United Kingdom and to maintain and strengthen the integrity and smooth operation of our internal market. In August, we set out further guidance for how goods will move into and out of Northern Ireland and the support available for businesses. For example, our new free-to-use Trader Support Service, backed by up to £200 million of funding, will also deal with all of the formalities on behalf of traders importing goods from Great Britain or the rest of the world.
The United Kingdom Internal Market Bill will protect jobs and trade across the whole of the United Kingdom after the transition period ends. It will guarantee that companies can trade unhindered in every part of the United Kingdom, as they have done for centuries, ensuring the continued prosperity of people and business across the four parts of the United Kingdom, while maintaining our leading high standards for consumers, workers, food, animal welfare and the environment.
On the measures relating to the Northern Ireland protocol that have—how shall I put it—prompted much discussion, these have been included as the actions of a responsible Government with a duty to uphold our commitments to the people of Northern Ireland. The measures create a safety net that ensures that Ministers can always deliver on their obligations and could take steps to protect the transformational progress in Northern Ireland seen in recent decades. Your Lordships will, of course, have the opportunity to scrutinise the Bill shortly, and I look forward to hearing your views then.
I have set out today our approach to negotiations with the European Union and have given an update. I have outlined how the Government are preparing, and helping businesses and citizens prepare, for the end of the transition period on 31 December, regardless of the outcome of the negotiations with the European Union. We have been clear from the outset that we are seeking a relationship that respects our sovereignty and which has a free trade agreement at its core. We have been clear from the outset that we will not accept any proposals, such as the EU’s offer on fisheries and the so-called level playing field, which compromise UK sovereignty. We now need the European Union to understand the fundamentals of our position as an independent, sovereign country.
We believe there is still an agreement to be had with the European Union and remain committed to working hard to reach one by the middle of October. We need an agreement by 15 October; otherwise this will mean that we will have a trading arrangement with the European Union like Australia’s. Whatever the outcome of negotiations, on 1 January, the United Kingdom will regain its economic and political independence and finally, after four long years of debate, honour the wishes of the British people. I beg to move.
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his lessons for life at the beginning and for his update. However, I am particularly pleased that the wording that he chose for the debate is about the Government’s approach to the talks, given how very sadly the Government have managed to undermine trust—the trust that guarantees that “my word is my bond”. Well beyond our relationship with the EU, these tactics will affect our international relations beyond trade to “diplomacy and integrity”, in the words of our DPRR Committee. How the UK is seen globally, and whether we respect international law, affects our credibility, our moral authority and how other countries behave. It will also affect how Parliament is seen. As my PhD supervisor, and renowned Westminster watcher, the noble Lord, Lord Hennessey, mused to me, “All these years I’ve naively assumed that Parliament exists to make laws, not break them.”
Today, I want to touch on four points: obedience to the rule of law; state aid; UK citizens; and devolution. As Mrs May, other former Prime Ministers and Conservative Party leaders have stressed, disregard for the rule of law undermines trust in us as a nation, with the Government’s own chilling words, to
“disapply international and domestic law”.
To the outside world, renouncing of established international law or a treaty matters for the future. No. 10’s statement that
“unless the EU agree to each of the UK’s demands in the joint committee, the UK will breach the withdrawal agreement,”
will be quoted around the world, to the detriment of a rules-based international order. The Prime Minister says he will renege on the very detail he himself signed, by removing checks from the GB/NI border if no deal is reached, but why did he not see that that is what he signed up to?
Late last year, the Prime Minister told firms that they could put forms “in the bin” because they would not be needed. We told him checks would be needed. Northern Ireland politicians told him. The Road Haulage Association told him. As we have heard from the Minister, the Trader Support Service has been set up to help this. Over £500 million has been allocated to the system for moving goods into Northern Ireland, as they will need customs declarations—indeed, Fujitsu has won the contract to help with this. His own Cabinet Office wrote to the Northern Ireland Executive about new border posts at ports in Belfast, Warrenpoint and Larne, for checks on agri-food. How come the Prime Minister professes not to know this and moved a Bill giving Ministers power to disapply Article 10 of the protocol unilaterally, by regulation, breaching Article 4 of the withdrawal agreement?
Foreign Governments, with whom we will need to negotiate, hear Mr Johnson threaten to break the withdrawal agreement if he does not get his own way—a breach of the UK’s commitment, in Article 5, to implement it
“in full mutual respect and good faith”.
Those foreign Governments witness our Government unpicking their own “oven-ready” deal, jeopardising trust in our willingness to keep to the rules and keep our word. What does this do to the trust that we will need when we negotiate around the world?
Along with the Minister, we want a deal with the EU. The City of London Corporation stresses the need for a positive relationship for the sake of households and businesses, wanting close regulatory and supervisory co-operation to make a success of our relationship. Business wants a deal, and at speed, as its needs certainty and time to adjust. Siemens needs to be able to work closely with the EU for its future prosperity and for jobs here. PwC and others urge a deal, not least for our SMEs, which are woefully ill-equipped at the moment for a no-deal outcome. The Food and Drink Federation is aghast at the impact of no-deal procedures on its imports and exports, possibly in 100 days’ time, giving no time for adjustments. It is worse for some sectors—for the organic sector, for example, where, if mutual recognition of regulation is not sorted, it might not be able to sell into Northern Ireland, let alone the rest of the EU.
The economy is already in trouble, so our EU negotiations need to help, not hinder. We need a good deal, tariff-free trade, consumer protection for goods imported from the EU, and no two-day delays and the major back-ups that the Government anticipate. Today, we hear that they are even trying to put the blame on hauliers rather than on their own negotiating failure. Why are the Government willing to sacrifice a good deal, which I and others think is already there and ready to be done, as well as our reputation, on the altar of being able to write our own state aid rules and move away from a level playing field?
On state aid, it is hard to understand why a Government, unwilling to use the freedoms they already have over state aid, would risk a deal for the ability to do more. As it is, the Japan trade deal commits the UK to stricter state aid curbs than those being discussed with the EU. If this is all about tech companies, have not the Government noticed that Silicon Valley did not grow on government handouts? It is the same across the piece. Whether in our negotiations with the USA or any other country, the same questions will arise on environmental, worker, safety or consumer standards and over dispute resolution mechanisms or redress. That is the meat of trade deals.
Thirdly, what does the Government’s approach to the talks mean for our citizens? Those living in the EU and following this delayed “I won’t move” process worry about their status. As Ruth Woodhouse, a Brit living in Spain wrote to me from Malaga:
“UK citizens residing in the EU thought we had secured a relatively good, guaranteed level of protection in the withdrawal deal. However, if the government can tear up the rule book, clearly anything can be changed on a whim and nothing is guaranteed. I fear that our hard-fought rights could be just as easily be removed.”
Yesterday, we learned that thousands of Britons living in the EU were told their UK bank accounts will be closed, with Lloyds, Barclays and others taking action due to the lack of a post-Brexit trade deal. It is no easier for employees, with JP Morgan sending staff off to other EU capitals, due to lack of confidence that an agreement will arise on services. Jobs, money and people’s lives are all at risk because the Government are failing to negotiate.
Without a deal, there will be trouble for travellers, whether by air or sea. When the police imposed full border checks at channel ports last week—nothing to do with Brexit—the main road to London was snarled up within hours, with trucks parked up on the M20 motorway, a reminder of how any delay quickly causes chaos and will not solved by lorry parks across Kent or, indeed, around Holyhead.
Finally, the UK’s approach to the talks has challenged the devolution settlements, by excluding the devolved Governments from its thinking and talks. We see it in the internal market Bill described by the Welsh Government as,
“an attack on democracy and an affront to the people of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, who have voted in favour of devolution on numerous occasions.”
I remind the Minister that it is not just the referendum result that should be recognised but those votes for devolution. Indeed, the treatment of the Welsh Government led to the resignation of the Conservative MS, David Melding.
My Lords, just as the Welsh Government felt offended because they were not consulted on the internal markets Bill, and because the powers that it gave to the Government took away from the devolution settlement, there is a similar feeling about these talks, because they have been neither fully involved nor consulted in the Government’s discussions with the EU. Do the Government not see that every time they upset the devolved Administrations, that challenges the very future of the union?
The economic disruption of leaving the transitional period without an agreement, or indeed with a deal which falls short of the Government’s promises, would worsen the hit already caused to the country by Covid-19. We have left the EU but it remains our closest neighbour and most important trading partner. We still share a continent in which security and judicial co-operation help to keep all our people safe. The Government’s approach to negotiations is weakening rather than strengthening our ties and mutual trust, and is therefore to be regretted.
I call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire. Lord Wallace? We might have a chance to come back to him later. In the meantime, I call the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard. Lord Kerr? Oh, there are some technical difficulties. We will adjourn until they are sorted out.
My Lords, the Committee will now resume. I call the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire.
My Lords, I hope you can hear me. Good.
In his opening speech, the Minister talked about the Government’s well-established position on state aid. I am puzzled by that and I hope that he can explain. My understanding is that the European Union rules to which we now object were largely drafted by British Ministers and officials under Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Government and that the Government’s current position on state aid has changed radically since last December, largely under the influence of the Prime Minister’s special adviser Dominic Cummings, but is not yet entirely clear. Perhaps he can explain.
We are now approaching the end of the transition period. That means, as the City of London briefing spells out, that we have to focus on what it describes as
“the necessities of the UK’s future trading relationship with the EU”—
and not just the trading relationship. Britain cannot escape its geography, for all the nonsense put out by Brexit Central and others after the referendum about the irrelevance of geography to Britain’s future. The number of British citizens who travel abroad for holidays, study, or work to the European continent dwarfs the number who travel to Australia, New Zealand and the western Pacific. The City memorandum points out that 75% of the data flows across the UK’s borders are with European countries. Cross-border crime is predominantly a matter affecting neighbouring countries. Britain’s security, society and economy will all continue to be profoundly affected by the ease or difficulty of interaction with our neighbours across the channel.
The maintenance of close relationships requires a legal framework that is treaty based, as again the City memorandum stresses. Treaties limit national sovereignty: they build relationships of “shared sovereignty”, as Sir Geoffrey Howe—that great and true Conservative—used to argue. The closer the levels of interchange, the denser the network of legal agreements that is needed to ease cross-border working. British Border Force personnel work in France under a bilateral agreement. British police exchange data on criminals with their counterparts in the Netherlands and Spain within a legal framework that safeguards confidentiality. British researchers collaborate with respected counterparts in Germany, Sweden and Finland. British holidaymakers have benefited for the past 40 years from access to a European health card in case of illness—a mutually advantageous arrangement, from which a large number of Conservative voters have benefited over the years and which the Government are now, sadly, determined to abandon.
To manage this future relationship, from 1 January 2021 —three months from now—we need a legal agreement: a partnership, spelled out in treaty form. One of the most dishonest statements that the Government keep making to the public is that we can opt for an “Australia-type agreement” with the EU, when no such agreement exists. A no-deal future relationship threatens damage not only to our economy but also to our security and to the openness of our society.
Successive British Governments, from James Callaghan and Margaret Thatcher onwards, have negotiated agreements with our neighbours to manage the rising intensity of interactions between us—within the framework of the European Union. Our current Prime Minister signed up to a declaration 11 months ago on our future partnership, which envisaged a network of agreements to manage our unavoidably shared interests. Since then, however, he has retreated, under pressure from the ultras in his party and those now in the Cabinet who were previously in the Referendum Party or UKIP. The noble Lord, Lord Frost, has spelled out a doctrine of sovereignty that would suit North Korea but makes no sense for a democratic country with an open economy.
Worst of all, the level of hostility expressed by Ministers, Conservative MPs and the right-wing media towards the Governments of France, Germany and the other members of the EU has risen alarmingly. The City of London briefing that we have all received expresses
“growing concerns that acrimony between the UK and EU may result in a failure to reach an agreement … a no deal outcome would be likely to engender ill will on both sides and damage the future UK-EU relationship.”
Even if the Government reach a last-minute deal, the image of a Government who distrust their neighbours and break international treaties when they feel like it will damage Britain’s ability to sort out the unavoidable problems that will follow from our more distant relationship. The Prime Minister talks about a global Britain and an independent foreign policy, but the failure to maintain close co-operation with our European partners in international organisations and negotiations across the world would leave us dependent on the limited good will of whoever comes out of the contested American presidential election and our distant friends in New Zealand and Australia.
Before the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, repeats yet again her accusation that any criticism of the Government’s stance flows only from remoaners who never wanted to leave, I stress again that we are now debating the future, not the past. We are debating the framework within which our holidaymakers will travel next summer, the difficulties that British banks will encounter if agreements on data flows and financial flows have not been reached, and the obstacles that British police and intelligence will face if there is no clear legal structure within which to maintain the co-operation that they have built within Europol.
The noble Lord, Lord True, is a real Conservative, not one of those who have entered the party from more right-wing groupings as more moderate Conservatives have left or been expelled. I hope and trust that if the Prime Minister deliberately crashes the final stages of the negotiations and leaves without a deal, the noble Lord will follow other colleagues and resign. The national interest requires a deal, and the Government will betray the national interest if they fail to agree one.
How should one react if one’s Government deliberately, knowingly, admittedly and formally break international law? Like the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, I think that Mrs May got it exactly right in the other place on Monday, and I congratulate her on her honesty and courage.
What matters for our debate today is how the 27 will react. They will have been as shocked as was Mrs May by the Bill that the Government produced, and shocked again when our Prime Minister had the nerve to accuse them of bad faith. However, I do not see them breaking off the negotiation; I see them starting infraction proceedings. The European Union runs on laws and pacta sunt servanda. I do not see them rejecting an agreement if the Barnier-Frost negotiations are to produce one but I cannot see them signing it—not without suspending its coming into force if our Government persist with what is now Clause 45 of the internal market Bill. Suspension seems to me to be the minimum on which the European Parliament would insist.
Why are we in this mess and how can we get out of it—indeed, will we? Let us not waste time on the fanciful story, for which no evidence has yet been produced, that the 27 were planning to blockade Northern Ireland’s food supplies. Who would enforce the blockade—the Commission navy, under Admiral Ursula von der Leyen? I suspect that the more banal context is our refusal to say what our future regime will be for sanitary and phytosanitary checks. Perhaps we are refusing to say because the chlorinated chicken war may still be raging in Cabinet.
The withdrawal agreement leaves Northern Ireland in the single market. Third-country suppliers of foodstuffs to the single market need a working SPS regime but the noble Lord, Lord Frost, seems to be telling the EU that ours is none of its business. Surely that is a stalemate that is relatively easy to solve, with the solution entirely in our hands. As for the other three problems that we have now discovered in the protocol, first, the Article 5.3 issue—how to ensure that export declarations and goods moving to the mainland apply only to those originating in the Republic—is an obvious task for the joint committee, and a relatively simple one. Secondly, the Article 5.2 issue, relating to goods at risk of entering the Republic, disappears if there is a free trade agreement.
Thirdly, the Article 10 issue—reach-back into the mainland on state aid—falls away if the level playing field argument is settled. This could be the crux of the matter. On state aid, the EU has dropped its unrealistic bid for dynamic alignment and CJEU jurisdiction, but it wants to know that we will have an effective regime with an independent authority, transparency, legal redress and, where trade with it is concerned, a dispute settlement mechanism. However, we seem to have said again that all that is none of its business and we are not going to set up our system until next year—so there.
This is serious. I do not believe that there can be a UK-EU free trade agreement unless on state aid we meet the EU half way. It has moved but we have not; indeed, we have regressed, resiling on last October’s political declaration when we agreed:
“Given the Union and the United Kingdom’s geographic proximity and economic interdependence, the future relationship must ensure open and fair competition, encompassing robust commitments to ensure a level playing field.”
The EU still believes that that is needed because it has heard far too much talk of Singapore-on-Thames, so I do not see us getting an agreement if on state aid—as on food standards, the environment, fish and carbon trading—we stick to saying, “Sorry, mind your own business, we’re taking back sovereignty.”
It is the sovereignty point, so stressed by the noble Lord, Lord Frost, that really puzzles me most. I would say that France and Germany are sovereign states and that their sovereignty was not diminished by their commitment to co-operation. I would say that we never lost our sovereignty; indeed, we have just demonstrated that by using it to leave. Sovereignty does not just mean the right to be left alone. Without sovereignty one cannot make treaties, but having sovereignty does not confer the right to dictate, or unilaterally revise, the terms of treaties and does not preclude binding commitments to co-operation.
Of course, I may be being naive. If, contrary to today’s reassuring remarks from the noble Lord, Lord True, we are actually on the ERG’s preferred policy of no deal then “none of your business” and the Clause 45 blunderbuss are easily explained. Avoiding commitments to high SPS standards might make sense if one’s priority was a deal with the United States. If so, there is a fatal flaw in that logic: if we blow up the Good Friday agreement, there will be no deal with the EU or with the US. The US is a guarantor power of the Belfast treaty, and American support for the Good Friday agreement is deep and bipartisan. The Foreign Secretary’s attempt last week to convince Washington that the threat to it comes not from us but from Brussels was not British diplomacy’s finest hour; it did not wash, nor will it.
I still hope for a second UK-EU treaty. That can only be thin now, but even a thin one would be better than nothing. However, it will not be agreed if we stick to our exceptionalist “mind your own business” sovereignty, and it will not come into force if we blow up the first treaty, which is only eight months old.
My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this debate. I thank my noble friend Lord True for his usual masterful summary in opening the debate. It is also a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, and to confirm that our views remain some way apart. Given the amount of excitement in the House that is normally engendered whenever our relationship with the EU is raised, I am quite surprised that our numbers today are rather modest. However, I am grateful for the fact that at least we have a decent amount of time to speak, which is rare in this ghastly hybrid House, and we must treasure the opportunity.
When we celebrated our freedom from the EU on 31 January this year, it seemed such a huge relief. We had put behind us the disastrous negotiations by the previous Administration and the prolonged period when Parliament tried to thwart the will of the people. We might briefly have cherished the thought that negotiating the future relationship was going to be the easy part after all that. But that did not last, and we have had to face the reality of trying to negotiate with an EU that does not yet accept us as a sovereign equal. It is completely natural for the EU to prioritise its own interests, but the EU seems also to want to punish the naughty child across the channel for its temerity in leaving. The EU knows that if we make a success of Brexit, other EU countries may well question the value of staying locked into the European project.
I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Frost for the calm, measured and thorough way in which he has conducted the negotiations so far. It is certainly not his fault that we have failed thus far to deliver a deal on the basis of our own very reasonable requirements. We have asked for a free trade agreement like those that the EU negotiates with other trading partners. The EU has responded by saying that, because of our geographical proximity, we must have more restrictions placed on us, in particular in the area of the so-called level playing field. We have been clear, as my noble friend Lord True emphasised, that sovereignty is of paramount importance, but I do not think that the message has yet been received in Brussels. In the case of the level playing field, we do not need anything beyond WTO terms.
The issue of sovereignty is also at the root of the lack of agreement on fisheries. Our fishing industry was decimated by the EU’s quotas, which allowed France and Spain in particular to take our fish. We have said, perfectly reasonably, that we want sovereignty over our fishing waters back and that we will set the agenda for access for other countries. The EU thinks that it can carry on as before.
Northern Ireland was never going to be easy. It was the most difficult part of the withdrawal agreement, and it looks as if it is going to be the most difficult part of the long-term arrangements. The EU’s bully-boy tactics of threatening to stop food imports into Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK are completely unacceptable, and I have it on very good authority that those threats were actually made. We should perhaps have expected trouble. Although he has denied it, Martin Selmayr is believed to have said that Northern Ireland is the price that the UK will pay for Brexit. While Mr Selmayr has been moved to somewhere he can do less damage, I expect that his spirit lives on in Brussels.
I shall support the Government when the internal market Bill comes to your Lordships’ House. I believe that it is necessary to create the powers that are in that Bill to allow us to reconcile the conflicts between the withdrawal agreement, including the Northern Ireland protocol, and the Belfast agreement. I regret the clumsy initial characterisation of it as a breach of international law, because it is no more than a reserve power to deal with problems. I hope that we do not have to use it, but the EU needs to recognise that we are not giving it carte blanche in Northern Ireland, which remains a sovereign part of the United Kingdom.
I do not know how many other problems remain in the negotiations with the EU. While it would be interesting to have a bird’s-eye view of the negotiations, they are best conducted behind closed doors. I was grateful for the update from the Minister on the negotiations when he introduced this debate. At the weekend, however, I read with incredulity that the Channel Tunnel, governed by the bilateral Canterbury agreement between the UK and France, is now part of the EU’s power grab. I certainly hope that that story is untrue; perhaps the Minister can comment on it when he winds up.
I have always said that, while I favour a deal with the EU, it would not be the end of the world if we left without a deal. It would certainly be inconvenient and would cause some confusion in the early part of next year, which would not be helpful given the damage already done to our economy from the public health response to the coronavirus pandemic. But we would survive. We are a resilient nation and are capable of overcoming that. In the meantime, the Government are pressing ahead with free trade agreements with other countries, and will seek to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership next year. While the EU is certainly a large market, around 90% of global growth is expected to arise outside the EU, and that is where we must set our sights.
My Lords, just three months away from the end of the Brexit transition period, there is still no clear idea of a “landing zone” for the negotiations on the UK’s future relationship with the EU, with the UK Government’s latest threat to break international law destroying our negotiating trust and threatening a massively damaging hard or no-deal Brexit, compounding the economic recession resulting from Covid-19.
In March this year, your Lordships’ excellent EU Committee report contrasted the latest negotiating position of the EU as a “development” of the political declaration, which the British Government had solemnly agreed, with London’s new approach of turning its back on that. Within a couple of months, it had become clear that the EU was leaning towards an inclusive approach to the negotiations, with extensive consultations achieving consensus among member states, a willingness to engage in open and interest-based discussion aimed at problem-solving, and high levels of transparency. The UK approach, on the other hand, focused upon defending predetermined red lines, and decisions taken behind closed doors.
Now the Prime Minister has lurched into reneging on the treaty commitments for joint decision-making, in an agreement not yet a year old. This may be pure brinkmanship—upping the ante, either to prepare to blame the EU for no deal or to retreat into a “thin deal” under the guise of triumphal Boris Johnson tub-thumping, as happened last October. The EU, although shocked at this tactic—which calls into question whether any treaty signed by the UK is worth the paper it is written on any more—and despite declaring its intention to mount a legal challenge, is still negotiating, to its credit under the present German presidency. It appears that its real objective is to get a deal, although not at any price.
One of the main bones of contention is state aid, where the UK Government were warned by civil servants in January that provisions in the Northern Ireland protocol could potentially “reach back” into the rest of the UK. It is very strange, therefore, that according to the Financial Times on 14 September, the recent trade agreement with Japan commits the UK to tougher restrictions on state aid than the ones the Government are currently offering to the EU.
If a solution to the state aid issue can be found—the Institute for Government has recently proposed a possible solution—there is every likelihood that compromises on other outstanding issues, such as fisheries, can follow. However, we still have no clarity on what the Government’s aims are, apart from bombastic “sovereignty” slogans, which they continue, tragically, to confuse with UK power. No. 10 apparently wishes to see its discretion to subsidise “pet” projects unfettered by any agreement. Sir Ivan Rogers, the former UK ambassador to the EU, told the Irish Times on 16 September that he thought the Boris Johnson-Dominic Cummings view on state aid would prevail, with no deal the outcome. Perhaps we should hope that the Prime Minister, who was given six months to save his premiership in the Daily Telegraph last week, will decide there is a political premium from even a “thin deal” which, as the Centre for European Reform think tank argues, would at least provide a platform on which to build a more substantial EU-UK relationship going forward. Meanwhile, UK businesses are reduced to reading the tea leaves in trying to decipher what will be the trading environment for them after Christmas with the market which constitutes nearly half of the UK’s trade.
Britons make almost 60 million trips in a normal year into mainland Europe. Next year, will they still enjoy the protection of the European health insurance card, will pet passports still be valid, and will the current extension of UK mobile phone deals to EU countries, which means no roaming charges, still apply? Otherwise, UK citizens will need to take out costly health insurance, travelling with pets will be extremely onerous—with a new four-month process, including having cat or dog blood samples tested at an EU laboratory—and costly mobile phone charges will return. UK travellers will need at least six months’ validity on their passports, and drivers will need one or more of three different types of international driving permit.
The UK imports 50% of its food, with 30% coming from the EU, and the Food and Drink Federation anticipates tariffs of 23% on £35 billion-worth of imports of food. There will be higher prices, lower quality, and less choice.
A large percentage of medical supplies come from the EU, and the Government wrote to suppliers in August advising them to stockpile, as “significant disruption” to trade was likely for six months. Pharmaceutical firms have told the Government that disruption caused by Covid-19 has meant stockpiles have been “used up” and it may not be possible to replenish them in time.
Manufacturing is threatened with tariffs and disruption to Europe-wide supply-chains, with the more than half a million cars exported to the EU last year facing in future a duty of 10%. Road haulage will face a limit on the number of permits, and two-thirds of UK firms will not be able to operate in the EU at all. In finance, many firms either have or are planning to relocate to mainland Europe. Restrictions on EU migrants will make it more difficult for UK businesses to plug their gaps with European workers, and the UK will be unable to return migrants crossing the channel without negotiating new bilateral agreements. It will become illegal for EU servers to send personal data to the UK. Law and intelligence agencies will lose access to pan-European criminal databases, and shared arrest warrants would be limited. In addition to the ending of trade agreements with the EU 27, the UK will lose the benefit of deals that the EU has with up to another 70 countries, except where these have already been renegotiated.
The list of potentially catastrophic consequences of a no-deal Brexit is endless. In Hemingway’s 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises, a character is asked how he went bankrupt. The answer is: “Gradually, and then suddenly.”
My Lords, that was a massive contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and a tremendous catalogue of the disadvantages that we will face. Monsieur Barnier reflected recently that the demands of the UK so far as concerned the road haulage sector—for this purpose, that includes short-sea shipping—were too close to the existing Common Market rights without meeting any of its obligations. I want to concentrate on road haulage because it is so essential to our economy and so vulnerable to any disruption.
What Monsieur Barnier said should have sounded warning bells, meaning we should prepare ourselves for a no-deal Brexit, particularly in the light of the steadily worsening relations with the EU and the rhetoric emanating from Downing Street, to which the noble Lord, Lord Hain, drew our attention. Business is not prepared for a no-deal Brexit and the likely disruption of supply chains affecting both food and production lines, which are dependent on just-in-time delivery.
Whatever Michael Gove is saying, the effect on the UK economy is potentially calamitous and awful. When the noble Lord, Lord True, replies to the debate, I wonder whether he will be a little less opaque than usual, not brush those real issues aside, and confirm that the Government will have a new freight management system before we leave the EU. That certainly is not the view of the logistics industry, which we heard this morning. Those people were mostly warm supporters of the Government’s wish to leave the EU and feel angry that matters are now in some sort of limbo. Any special permits likely to be available will in no way be sufficient to meet demand. We heard in a debate on Monday that there were bilateral agreements on the way, that there would be more permits, and that there would be a need for further negotiations. None of that bluster, if I can call it that, actually faces up to the fact that we are in a desperate situation.
Since the UK has been involved with Brexit, the EU has been developing a new mobility package, which it published at the end of July and which impacts on freight transport access and access to the profession. Of course, the UK was not a party to those negotiations, but have the Government made any assessment of the impact of the new arrangements on the UK?
Assuming a worst-case scenario now—I am afraid that we have to—enormous lorry parks will be necessary for goods to await clearance. How large will those semi-permanent additions to local landscapes be? How will local planning consent be required to establish them, or will the Government simply ride over local wishes and dump them on unwilling localities that they choose? Will such facilities incorporate places for people to sleep, service lorries, refreshment and trans-shipment facilities? Who will pay for all this? It is a lot of money. In other modes of transport, it is usual for the operator to build his own facilities. Ship operators build their own ports. Train operators build their own stations. Bus operators build their own bus stations. But these facilities are likely to be very large impositions on neighbourhoods. I want to know how they will be policed, as I fear that they will be centres of totally unregulated crime, affecting both goods and people.
Those are a few of the problems on which the House, and more particularly the logistics industry, wants answers.
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, in this thought-provoking debate; I thank the noble Lord the Chief Whip for finding such a substantial slot for this important Motion at a critical period in the lead-in to the final tableau of the Brexit drama. I also thank the Minister for his time in recent weeks, both virtually and physically, and for the courteous and frank way in which he engages with my committee.
In the period leading up to Sunday 6 September, I had thought that the two interrelated strands of UK-EU discussions implementing the withdrawal agreement and the negotiations on the future relationship were on some sort of glide path to actual landing rather than crashing, albeit that the rhetoric between the parties had become sharp and the temperature had risen somewhat. It was on that day that the rumours of what was in the internal market Bill surfaced and boiling point was reached instantaneously.
Perhaps I could step back and start with the withdrawal agreement and its Ireland/Northern Ireland protocol. The protocol is a masterly fudge which left much to the joint committee structure to resolve. We reported on that in June this year, but I remind the Committee that the protocol consists of two pages of recitals, 19 articles and more than 40 pages of the seven annexes, which are really just lists of legislation.
The essential problem that it sought to address was to maintain the Good Friday agreement absolutely while protecting the EU and UK single markets. The soft recitals contain a number of very comforting paragraphs for the UK including
“DETERMINED that the application of this protocol should impact as little as possible on the everyday life of communities in both Ireland and Northern Ireland”
and later on
“HAVING REGARD to the importance of maintaining the integral place of Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom’s internal market”.
The hard text of the articles suggests, that in the absence of further agreement at the Joint Committee, every EU customs rule and practice will apply on everything moving to or from Great Britain to Northern Ireland or the border in the Irish sea.
We were critical in our June report of what we saw as a lack of early government pace in implementing the withdrawal agreement. It is now our impression that this has been addressed, but still marrying up the aspirations of the recitals with the hard fallback position of the articles has not yet happened. This failure of process, of statecraft, on the part of both parties is also of great concern and will potentially have damaging consequences for all on the island of Ireland.
The withdrawal agreement as a whole contains plenty of dispute resolution mechanisms but, instead of going down this path, the Government now propose to take powers under the internal market Bill to allow them to disapply parts of the protocol. My committee anticipates reporting on these aspects of the internal market Bill in time for its Second Reading in this House, and we have written to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster asking for clarification on various assertions made by the UK since 6 September and why the dispute resolution mechanisms under the withdrawal agreement are not used. We expect a response at the end of this week.
The debacle on the withdrawal agreement has spilled over into the negotiations on the future relationship with the EU, and it could not be otherwise. After all, Michel Barnier is Maroš Šefčovič’s deputy and alternate on the joint committee on the withdrawal agreement and the interrelation is shown by the simple fact that the deeper any future relationship agreement between the UK and the EU goes, the lighter the burden should be on the withdrawal agreement customs administration. We reported in March this year on the material available on the negotiating positions of the EU and the UK and compared them with the political declaration. The Committee will recall that both sides had moved their positions away from the mutually agreed, but admittedly not legally binding, political declaration.
While the gap looked quite wide in March, the British position was that everything that they were now asking for was precedentially to be found in other EU international agreements. The EU has pushed back on this with various arguments, and I do not want to rehearse them here, save for one comment made to me by a senior EU official this month. He said that the UK had selected the best-in-class precedents on each of the difficult topics. It is, however, greatly to the credit of the two negotiating teams that, despite the very short time period, the additional problems posed by Covid-19 and the non-discussion of some issues due to the EU tactic of parallelism, they got to the point at the start of September where the finish line was within sight, just about, albeit with a small number of the most difficult issues to be resolved.
As I said, my strong impression was of progress at the start of the month. Nothing was tied down—the principle of nothing is agreed until everything is agreed applies—but the key differences between the two sides in terms of the future relationship were boiled down to state aid and fish—difficult, but, one would think, manageable. What the internal market Bill has done is place trust at the centre of the debate. It raised the already high temperature but also took these two separate but linked strands, each of which is difficult in its own right, and combined them into a single strand. It has doubled both the stakes and the difficulty, and has done so in the most public and confrontational way possible. The glide path for this single strand is much harder to discern and, without a bit of calm on both sides, I fear the prospects of a mutually beneficial landing are not good.
We heard much on the progress of the talks from the Minister in his opening, and I thank him for that. He covered the Northern Ireland protocol in his speech and the internal market Bill provisions that have caused so much uproar. My only question for the Minister is: will he explain why the dispute resolution mechanisms in the withdrawal agreement were not a sufficient safety net so that this extra safety net was necessary?
In closing, I note that with so many challenges facing us, surely it is time for some old-fashioned diplomacy to bring the two great democratic sides together.
My Lords, it is a privilege for me to follow the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, on whose committee I serve and which—before I joined it, I must hastily add—has done so much to clarify the position in relation to Northern Ireland and other aspects of the negotiation. I thank the Minister for his clear and courteous introduction to this debate.
So many of the points I would have wished to have made have already been made, but I shall take three as briefly as possible. First, on the inclusion of the devolved Governments, I do not believe it is too late, even at this 11th hour, for there to be more involvement of the devolved Governments in the formulation of the final strategy and in the final negotiations. What has happened in the past few days in relation to co-operation on Covid-19 has, without doubt, been beneficial to the whole of the UK. Why not do this in respect of the UK negotiations? It is a sad conclusion to say that what has happened to date is wholly inadequate—as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, so eloquently pointed out—judged, as people should be judged, by deeds rather than words.
Secondly, it is important to move forward in a way that produces a good long-term relationship while respecting the sovereignty of the United Kingdom. A positive future relationship with the European Union is, without doubt, in the interests of the UK and throughout the EU. I make one point regarding the development of the law. We live in a world that in my current day-to-day experience is, despite the effects of the pandemic, becoming more global than ever. Online meetings and discussion fora have driven globalisation, dialogue and interaction at a faster and more inclusive pace over the past six months, and I think it is inevitable over the next six months. It is so easy to contribute worldwide without having to travel and yet to make the points powerfully at meetings, conferences and negotiations. Moreover we have seen how data is ever more easily transmitted, which is driving and building an even more valuable market quite apart from progress in digitalisation. This means that the law must develop apace. To date, the UK has exercised a considerable degree of influence in the development of the laws that underpin trade, commerce, including trade in data, and other aspects of the digital economy and our financial and professional services. We are currently leaders, and this is hugely beneficial to the UK. From the new year, we will be on our own. In relative terms we must accept that we are a small-sized player, and in such circumstances our reputation and integrity will be central to our continued ability to punch above our size. Apart from integrity and reputation, we need close working relations in order to drive forward legal development. What matters is that we have in place a good structure for legal development and also regulatory co-operation, supervisory arrangements and the management of data, which are allied to it. The City’s suggestion of a memorandum of understanding is well made and entirely consistent with sovereignty, however you may wish to describe it. Relying on unilateral actions, such as the equivalence decisions, is not the way forward in our globalised world.
Our ability—and this is the third point that I wish to make—to move forward and build our position for the future must be done on good, sound legal foundations. It is a common experience for a lawyer that people disagree about the meaning of agreements, even those that may have been made only a short while before. I was not entirely surprised that there might be disagreements about the meaning of the Northern Ireland protocol or difficulties in working it through, but we agreed it. In such circumstances, what is expected is that the parties try to resolve their disagreements through provisions such as those in the protocol and the withdrawal agreement, and if they cannot resolve it by agreement, they do what litigants always do, and that is use the dispute resolution mechanisms. If a quicker decision were needed than through the mechanisms contemplated in the agreement, then modifications would be proposed. That regularly happens when a dispute arises that needs urgent resolution. I see no reason why the current dispute could not be resolved in a matter of a month or more. If the British Government believe that they are right, why not propose that?
Therefore, it is very difficult to understand why that obviously right course was not followed. However, what is entirely understandable is the resignation of the two expert leading government lawyers, Sir Jonathan Jones and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, who carry the highest degree of respect in the profession and have so expertly advised and helped the Government throughout this period. In following what is required, you uphold the rule of law and you comply with the law. As the Civil Service Code reminds us, complying with the law is an essential aspect of integrity. What you do not do is deliberately break an agreement or threaten it. Many have spoken powerfully about that, and I need say no more about it or about the consequences, but there are due consequences for the areas about which I have spoken.
First, the rule of law, our adherence to it and respect for it, is central to our position in the world and our leadership in the development of the law and those other areas of commerce and trade underpinned by the law: financial and professional services and the digital and data economies. That is central to our future, and we do ourselves enormous damage by pursuing the current course. Secondly, we need agreements with the EU and others for the future. Who wants to deal, or at least deal on good terms, with those who break or threaten to break agreements rather than have recourse to dispute resolution? I very much hope that the Minister will be able to explain, as the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, has already asked, why we are not pursuing that course.
My Lords, Germany’s Europe Minister, Michael Roth, is reported this morning as saying:
“We are really really disappointed about the results of the negotiations so far ... Please dear friends in London stop the games. Time is running out.”
Well, Herr Roth is, of course, right in this respect: the clock is ticking in the countdown to our freedom, but he is wide of the mark if he thinks the Government’s tenacity and resolve amount to games. They do not. Thankfully, the Government’s commendable approach is serious and earnest precisely because, as Herr Roth will be acutely aware, the stakes are so high.
His remarks took me back to when I was in Berlin with a parliamentary delegation shortly after the referendum. Two memories in particular stay with me. One is of a member of the UK delegation, with tears in their eyes, telling our opposite numbers in the Bundestag, “I hope you give us a good kicking, so we realise our mistake.” The other memory was of being berated by our German hosts, who said, “How could you do this to us? We thought you were our friends. How could you leave us to foot the bill?” Those are my abiding memories, and I for one am not at all surprised that Herr Roth should be so disappointed or that Germany should be so keen to punish us, as my noble friend Lady Noakes pointed out in her excellent speech. No wonder we are on the naughty step.
For Germany will pay far more. For them, and for the EU, this only underlines why it is so crucial that there must be no reward for daring to step out of line. As I said before, the stakes could not be higher. We are on the threshold of liberty, of growth and of a brighter future outside of the EU, but in co-operation with the EU, Europe and the world and they know it. They are desperate that our freedom is seen to come at a price that deters any other member state from following the courageous example of the UK.
But the EU is not Europe, and Europe is not the EU. The EU will come and go, as all empires do. Europe will remain. While the EU, as an empire that is overreaching itself, cannot afford for Brexit to succeed, Europe cannot afford for it to fail. For though I do not wish for this to happen, if the eurozone implodes, as some commentators predict, if the EU disintegrates under the weight of its own anti-democratic contradictions and if Europe breaks free from the shackles, it is vital that the UK is able to reach out and offer the steadying hand of friendship, stability and economic security that will underpin our future relationship and peace and prosperity in Europe and the wider world.
So I thank the Minister, my noble friend Lord Frost, whom I was so proud to introduce, along with my noble friend Lord Ahmad, to your Lordships’ House only recently and, above all, our brave Prime Minister for their admirable restraint and resolve. To them I say: hold firm, and the best of luck in fighting Britain’s corner in these crucial negotiations.
My Lords, certainly the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, has held firm to his own particular views.
It takes two to negotiate and, of course, the EU is not the easiest of negotiating partners. It is excessively legalistic because of the treaties and continental traditions—plus, of course, there is the need to build consensus among 27 countries, which leads to rigidity and delays, as we saw for example with the seven years of negotiations with Canada over a trade deal—but the EU can be relied upon to honour agreements once reached, as used to be the case with us.
We in the UK prided ourselves on our pragmatism. That has now been replaced by dogma and ideology, impaling us on the altar of sovereignty, autonomy and a clean break. No wonder then that any objective observer will readily conclude that there is little to show so far on our negotiations. Is this just yet another example of the gap between promise and delivery so much a feature of the Prime Minister?
Understandably, the emphasis on a trade agreement—plus Covid, of course—has pushed other areas of policy into the shade because of the immediacy, hence the trumpeting of the deal with Japan as a triumph. Yet it is only marginally different to the current position and is relatively small compared with the big prizes of the European Union and United States. It is very clear that negotiations with both the US and the EU have been soured by the Government’s threat to breach international law in the internal market Bill. Is it just posturing? If so, it is very dangerous posturing.
I remind noble Lords of Article 26 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which is entitled “Pacta sunt servanda” and which states:
“Every treaty in force is binding upon the parties to it and must be performed by them in good faith.”
Further, Article 27 states that no domestic legal provision can protect a party if it breaches the terms of an international agreement, which is surely very germane, and the right response, to the internal market Bill.
On 16 September, in her state of the union address, Frau Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Union, quoted Mrs Thatcher, saying that breaking a treaty
“would be bad for Britain, bad for our relations with the rest of the world and bad for any future treaty on trade”.
Mrs May spoke in similar terms on Monday.
Surely a stated willingness, readiness or threat to break international law is almost as bad as the act itself. Further, any parliamentary endorsement of the illegality is irrelevant—illegality will remain illegality. I have enormous respect for Bob Neill, in the other place, but I believe he sold himself and his own position too cheaply. Apparently, the Attorney-General, a leading member of the European Research Group, did not seek the advice of leading Treasury counsel but that of three outside lawyers who are all prominent Brexiteers: two law professors and, wait for it, Richard Howell, a barrister who is just out of pupillage. None of the three is on the Attorney-General’s panel. Having put politics before objective legal advice, she deserved her scorching at the recent meeting of the Bar Council and should surely consider her position.
In the early 1970s, I was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Sam Silkin, then Attorney-General. I was also deputy to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris. Neither of them would have taken that position, I am sure. Neither would have put a political position before their commitment to the law.
The relevance of this to the negotiations is clear. For the European Union, it will raise questions about our trustworthiness in future deals, as my noble friend Lady Hayter said. For any prospective deal with the US, the position is clear: the Irish lobby is powerful and the US Congress, with its key constitutional role in trade negotiations, has responded with outrage. Surely the Government, who were advised by our embassy, should have anticipated this response.
As a member of your Lordships’ Sub-Committee on Security and Justice, I have witnessed similar neglect adversely affecting our citizens in areas such as consumer protection and criminal and civil justice, including the dangers of losing the European arrest warrant and the damage to family law co-operation. The UK’s new proposal on unaccompanied migrant children has been met with the EU response that their negotiators have no mandate. Surely the Government should have been aware of that.
I conclude with a few observations on foreign and security policy. The EU has shown itself ready to negotiate by publishing a draft agreement on future co-operation in this field on 18 March. Why have the Government chosen not to respond? We have led missions in the past and acted as a bridge between the US and the EU. We have lost EU solidarity, as shown by the Chagos Islands vote, and are largely irrelevant in key issues, such as Nagorno-Karabakh, Ukraine and Belarus. Yet the EU has shown some good will and a willingness to co-operate by bringing us into discussions on sanctions at a pre-adoption stage. Our strategic interests are broadly the same as those of the EU, faced with the Russian threat under “Putin the Indefinite” and with China’s new assertiveness. Do we wish to work together? Have we ruled out foreign policy co-operation?
Finally, Liam Fox used to tell us that trade deals would be easy. After all, we could simply transpose existing EU deals. The reality has proved very different. Ideology rules okay—and we have not missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
My Lords, as far back as February 2020, the European Commission laid out its negotiating position, covering general arrangements, values, principles and governance, economic arrangements, trade, level playing field guarantees, fisheries, security arrangements, law enforcement, judicial co-operation in criminal matters, foreign policy, security and defence. Then, in May, the UK published a draft free trade agreement in a series of separate draft agreements covering fisheries, air transport, civil aviation safety, energy, social security co-ordination, civil nuclear, law enforcement and judicial co-operation in criminal matters, the transfer of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, and readmission of people residing without authorisation.
Between March and September, we have had eight rounds of negotiations. At the end of the eighth round, the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, accused the UK of refusing to include indispensable guarantees of fair competition in our future agreement, while requesting access to our market and said that
“the UK has not engaged in a reciprocal way on fundamental EU principles and interests.”
The noble Lord, Lord Frost, the UK’s negotiator, said that the UK had
“consistently made proposals which provide for open and fair competition, on the basis of high standards, in a way which is appropriate to a modern free trade agreement between sovereign and autonomous equals.”
So what if there is no agreement? What if there is a so-called Australia-style agreement whereby we will trade with the EU on WTO terms? The Prime Minister said in early September that a trading agreement like Australia’s
“would be a good outcome for the UK.”
Can the Minister confirm that this is the case? We have of course also had the whole issue of the internal market. In his statement after round eight, Michel Barnier said that:
“The EU remains committed to an ambitious future partnership with the UK. This would clearly be to the benefit of both sides. Nobody should underestimate the practical, economic and social consequences of a ‘no deal’ scenario.”
I speak as president of the CBI, which has been urging both the UK and EU to renew efforts to get a deal. This is essential in order to protect people’s jobs and living standards amid one of the worst recessions in living memory. Time is running out. We have to avoid a cliff edge. This must be the utmost priority for both sides; the UK and the EU cannot afford a no-deal scenario, which would weaken the economies already impaired by the Covid-19 crisis. Business preparations on both sides have not only stalled but have gone backwards. Firms have had to use their stockpiles and reserves—previously built up in the run-up to the threat of no deal last year—to survive the pandemic. There is now next to no capacity to rebuild reserves while directing resources and attention to dealing with the impact of Covid-19 and now a potential second wave of the virus.
Over the last six months we have seen extraordinary levels of ambition, determination and collaboration between businesses and Governments across Europe. These efforts have helped weather the immediate impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and must be redoubled for the challenges that lie ahead. This same level of determination and creativity is now needed by both the EU and the UK to deliver a Brexit deal for growth.
A deal will have tangible, positive benefits for firms employing thousands of people across Europe in industries such as advanced engineering, manufacturing, green technology and digital and cyber technologies—I could go on. It will also underpin economic recovery on both sides, protecting our younger generation and the future of our public services. Does the Minister agree?
A deal will form a foundation for a strong, growing relationship between the UK and the EU in the future. It will create space for both sides to focus on shared challenges, such as creating jobs, rather than needlessly adding red tape, extra costs and paperwork.
A deal will also be a catalyst to address the global challenges of our time, from tackling climate change at next year’s COP26, which we are going to be privileged to host, to strengthening international institutions, including the WTO, and global co-operation during the UK’s presidency of the G7. It will be crucial for the UK and the EU to work hand in hand to be at the forefront of these issues.
The CBI is committed to working closely with BusinessEurope—which we will continue to be a member of although we have left the European Union—and its sister federations to champion a strong and open Europe on the global stage. In short, the size of the prize is real. Ending years of division and delay by securing an agreement between the EU and the UK will help our economies during the biggest challenge of our generation.
This has been such a turbulent period, not least because of Brexit, but talks are on and the efforts to get a good deal must continue. Business cannot afford anything else. Amid all the noise of the negotiation, businesses in the UK and the EU remain clear that a good deal is essential. Let us not forget that a negotiated outcome is the official position of the UK Government. Can the Minister reassure us about this once again?
An agreement will be the foundation for post-Covid recovery across the continent. It will protect jobs under pressure from the pandemic by duty and quota-free trade, closer customs co-operation and easing the implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol. We must remember that the protocol was the compromise needed to avoid a hard border in Ireland. For Northern Ireland’s businesses and communities it must be implemented in an effective and sustainable way. For that, we need a deal.
A deal will provide a platform on which the UK’s world-beating services industry can continue to trade with its biggest market and stay competitive. It will also be a great fillip for UK exporters, allowing them to focus on R&D, not red tape. Getting a deal requires political leadership and compromise from both sides and is needed urgently in the coming weeks.
As I have said, the reality is that many businesses are still struggling to deal with the fallout from Covid. That is why getting the deal over the line is so important. It means a greater choice for consumers. It means prices of groceries do not rise during a recession. This is vital to help people who are struggling. It will allow businesses to concentrate on helping the Government’s levelling-up agenda. It means building more schools and hospitals, better-quality housing, and growing our economy through the creation of green jobs, and it will be a catalyst for the global challenges of our time. Ultimately, a deal with our biggest trading partner provides a platform on which future trade agreements can be built.
Businesses have shown extraordinary resilience over the previous four years—and over the past six months. We need this deal urgently in the interests of everyone, both in the UK and Europe.
The noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, is not contributing, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley.
My Lords, I address my remarks this afternoon to the frontier controls and customs arrangements because we have three months to the end of the transition. Many noble Lords have spoken about whether we are going to get a deal but many of the frontier issues will be similar, if not the same, whether we have a deal or not. Businesses should still be ready and still expect the Government in their dealings with them to be open, transparent and inclusive with information and with what has to be done.
As is so often the case in this sphere, we have heard lots of good words from the Government which are mostly, sadly, motherhood and apple pie. We seem to be getting into a big blame game, with the Government seeking to blame business, the EU and the electorate for their own failings. I know that the electorate voted in favour of Brexit, but I do not think they voted in favour of the chaos that we are seeing. As many noble Lords know, the devil is in the detail. It can have a massive adverse effect on business, as many noble Lords have already mentioned. We are not told the detail at the moment, nor even the options. In some of the discussions I have heard, I question whether Ministers themselves actually understand what is needed or listen to their officials who clearly do know.
In the Guardian today there is a report of a letter that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster wrote to the haulage industry and customers earlier this month —I have a copy of it—saying that we face some 7,000 trucks in a queue in Kent. Mr Gove claims that the cause of the delay is the traders not being ready. That is blaming the traders again. The Secretary of State for the Environment, George Eustice, similarly blamed other people for the delays. After Mr Gove wrote the letter, industry representatives had a meeting last week with him, the Secretary of State for Transport and the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, from the Treasury. They discussed three separate issues: the need for intermediaries, the readiness of systems, and the physical infrastructure. All these are needed, whatever the outcome of the negotiations. I think about 40 people were at the meeting. A report of the meeting said that there was
“frustration over the lack of clarity and too many unanswered questions.”
On intermediaries, questions were asked about
“how the cap on state aid could be lifted and potential use of government loans”.
It was questioned how systems
“could be made ready earlier to allow training and familiarisation to take place”.
Of course, this should have happened many months ago. The Government are blaming the industry for not having 50,000 intermediaries to do it for them. We do not know who is going to pay for it. It is a serious issue. At the port there are quite a few structures required and arrangements. Who is going to pay for them and when are they going to be in position?
Then at the meeting we heard more motherhood and apple pie when the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was quoted as saying that
“he hoped that the EU would not take a rigid interpretation on all legislation”.
Well, isn’t that lovely? Why should the EU give way on this when we are digging our heels in as hard as we possibly can?
In the end, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said, in summing up,
“if businesses haven’t prepared they will suffer against what is a known change”.
Does the Minister know what the “known change” is? Has he told anybody? Has the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster told anybody? It is clearly still a secret.
All the Government talk about now is in the export direction. We have heard very little about what might happen on the French or the continental side apart from the fact that the Government have decided that they will not require all the paperwork to be complete on the incoming direction for six months—but only for certain cargoes. We know that cargoes will not be allowed on to the ferries unless they have all the right paperwork.
It is really wrong that the Government are allowing this to carry on, with George Eustice saying that the queues are down to “slipshod” EU lack of planning. That is not a good way—indeed, it is a very bad way—to conduct negotiations. It is no way to undertake a trade negotiation with our major trading partner. As many noble Lords have said, something like 40% of our exports go to the EU.
I believe that Ministers should know most of the detailed changes that will be required, whatever the outcome, but the Government are failing miserably to share this with businesses so that their systems and their staff can be ready for the changes. Do they really know what has to be done? Should they not be proactive and positive in helping? I am afraid that, if they are not, many businesses will give up and, after a few weeks or months, settle fully on the continent. I hope I am wrong. But I wish the Minister would confirm that the Government will stop blaming businesses, the EU or the coronavirus crisis. It is down to the Government to sort this out.
My Lords, I remind the Committee that the time limit for contributions is a maximum of seven minutes. I call the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza.
My Lords, despite ministerial denials, we appear to be marching inexorably towards a no-deal Brexit and a consequent reliance on WTO trading rules. There are two issues I wish to put to the Minister. One concerns the potential impact of a reversion to WTO terms of trade, and the other is about reaching a decision on continued participation in the EU Erasmus+ programme.
From the start of the legal process at the end of last year, there was a disconnect between the EU’s mandate to uphold common high standards in areas of state aid, social and employment standards, environmental standards, climate change, relevant tax matters and other regulatory measures and practices, set against the UK’s statement that its
“primary objective … is to ensure we restore our economic and political independence”.
No wonder the negotiations have run into trouble. Apart from the major issues taken up by your Lordships so far—the Irish border, fisheries and state aid—I would like to revisit some of the other consequences of a no-deal departure, which would kick in on 1 January 2021.
The expressed hope that the UK might achieve a Canada-type relationship would not go even half way to resolving the current negotiation sticking points. For a start, the CETA is not, as yet, fully implemented, despite being agreed in 2014 and provisionally in force from 2017. Tariffs on certain food items would remain, requiring lengthy examinations at ports. Furthermore, 53% of all UK imports are from the EU, and 45% of all UK exports go to the EU. Those figures do not compare well with the equivalent Canadian figures of 10.5% and 7.9% respectively.
The Australia-style deal—another “solution” championed by the Government—is essentially a WTO agreement, and would allow the EU to impose punishing tariffs on some goods, such as dairy produce, which in turn would impact badly on British farmers. There is no FTA between the EU and Australia, so it is difficult to understand why the UK Government ever thought this might be a useful model.
The recent removal of some existing EU tariffs by about 20% was, and is, welcome, until it emerges that these concessions refer to items such as pistachios in shells, sewing thread and vacuum flasks—not necessarily key trade items. Nor will WTO rules allow most favoured nation status: any UK trade concessions would have to apply to the rest of the world as well. The 20 or so additional agreements via the EU with countries around the world have not yet been rolled over, further restricting UK trade transactions. Most importantly, in the absence of a trade deal the non-tariff barriers will require all produce standards and safety regulations to be checked at borders.
An exit based on WTO rules would present a huge challenge for the service industries, in that there would be a loss of guaranteed access for bankers, lawyers, musicians and chefs, among other trades. The financial services sector is a huge contributor to national income, estimated at approximately 10% of all tax receipts. Preserving the integrity and reputation of the sector should be an absolute priority, yet there is still no agreement on the legal status of contractual relationships, which in turn affects a whole tranche of SMEs and the job security of up to 2.3 million people who work in the financial services industry. The City of London Corporation has said that even a deal with limited coverage of financial and professional services would be preferable to no deal.
Above all, the current acrimonious nature of negotiations will do nothing to generate a positive future relationship with the EU, which is surely in the interests of each and every household and business in the UK. It is difficult to understand why the Government have remained tranquil about a possible no deal, and are apparently satisfied to engage on WTO terms. The cost of achieving, by 31 December, political and economic freedom from the EU could be very high.
In the political declaration of October 2019, both sides agreed to establish general principles, terms and conditions for the UK’s future participation in EU programmes, including youth, culture and education, and further agreed that this would be subject to the conditions set out in the EU’s own legal instruments establishing such programmes. In February, the UK set out its overall approach, saying it was ready to consider third-country participation in certain EU programmes, and on Erasmus+—the most successful EU exchange programme—that it would consider options on elements of the programme on a time-limited basis. None of the papers or draft legal texts published so far refers to UK participation in Erasmus. As we have heard, the EU published a draft new partnership agreement on Erasmus with the UK in March. However, no detailed information on negotiations is available.
The Government are now apparently considering the option for a domestic alternative to Erasmus. This is despite widespread praise, both within and without the Government, for the programme and its investment in forging international friendships and co-operation. Universities UK calculates that leaving Erasmus could cost the UK up to £243 million a year.
In an Oral Question in June, the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, questioned the Government’s plan for continued participation. The Minister repeated that while the matter was being discussed no further details would be given. Nor was any leeway allowed to the devolved nations to negotiate their own participation deals. In answer to the question about what possible advantage the UK would gain by leaving Erasmus, the Minister, rather lamely, stated that the Government wished to encourage mobility beyond the 27 EU member states. Continued participation in Erasmus would in no way impede this.
Overall, the lack of transparency and willingness to consult with the many sectors affected is a severe failure. The Government’s overriding priority of escaping any EU controls on any aspect of political, economic and cultural life is not based on sound economic impact assessment. Thus it does not serve the British public now, and it certainly will not serve them in future.
Since the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey of Didcot, will not be contributing to our proceedings this afternoon, I now call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Judd.
My Lords, there are sinister and ugly forces at work in Europe. They evoke too many reminiscences of what happened in the 1930s. One of the reasons why I shall always be sad that we are no longer a member of the European Union is that I believe we should be at the heart of the European community, with those who stand firm for democracy, justice and human rights. We should be strengthening the resolve of Europe, and the people of Europe, to see off these new tendencies.
Not for the first time in this debate, I was greatly cheered by the thoughts of the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, who seemed to get it absolutely right. He certainly seemed, if I may say so, to live in the same world that I live in. The first reality of life and politics is the total interdependence of human society. It is there in migration, climate change, health and the virus with which we are now contending. There is no way we can look to the interests of the British people and their well-being without full co-operation with others across the world. What is called for at this stage in our history is statesmanship, wisdom and leadership of that calibre, leading a Britain of which we can all be proud to be a part because of the respect with which it is held in the world because of what it is contributing to the solutions that are necessary.
On the immediate front of our preoccupations this afternoon, we should not in any way allow the importance of Northern Ireland to slip from our priorities. The people and institutions of Northern Ireland have taken the Good Friday agreement and all that followed from it as an opportunity to start building stability and hope for the future. Many people in Northern Ireland—this came out in the referendum—as they determined to try to build a new reality in that part of our country, felt reassured by our membership of the European Union and the other institutions that were there. That is no longer there, so what is terribly important—more than ever—is certainty and trust. I simply do not understand how the present state of uncertainty and double talk can possibly be helpful as the people of Northern Ireland struggle and work to build their future. That is why that issue is crucial, together with the deal.
I conclude with the point that I made earlier. Vocabulary and demeanour are terribly important in leadership and in weighing the place we want to have in influencing world affairs. We want to be seen as a nation that is wise and statesmanlike, not as one that is selfishly and opportunistically playing all sorts of unpredictable games. It is a serious time—this debate re-emphasises that—but I believe that at the centre of our concern for the future is the character and calibre of leadership in this country. It certainly must not fall into the hands of unelected people in No. 10 who have a very unfortunate view—to put it mildly—of what kind of Britain they want.
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Judd, who has reminded us in a timely fashion that the whole idea of the European Union is about more than trade and visiting the continent. His words need to be listened to.
I thank the Government for providing this debate, even if it is overdue. I know and understand that they do not wish to give a running commentary on negotiations, but our citizens and Parliament are entitled to know where we are headed, particularly since there is such a short time until 31 December, and an even shorter time until the Prime Minister’s October deadline.
We started this Parliament with the famous oven-ready deal, which was negotiated, at least to a small extent, by the Prime Minister. That agreement is now enshrined in the withdrawal Act and was accompanied by the political declaration, which was also changed from that negotiated by Mrs May. However, the Prime Minister’s declaration nevertheless contains ambitious aspirations for our future relationship with the EU. The Government should tell us openly and honestly how many of the hopes expressed in the political declaration have now been abandoned. It appears that the security partnership has been set to one side for now, and obviously the concept of a level playing field envisaged for trade agreement has vanished. What else are we not pursuing?
For those who have always wanted no deal or who have been relaxed about its prospect, this may be of no great concern. However, for others, who may have been supportive of Brexit or who, like me, have had to accept the reality of Brexit, the dash for the door and the apparent desire to cut as many of our ties with the EU because it is the EU is unnecessary and undesirable. There is a temptation, to which the Government seem willing to succumb, to blame everything on the EU negotiators. Perhaps we have never understood that the EU is a law and rule-based union, so the negotiator has to stay within his mandate until it is changed by the other 27. Nor do we seem to acknowledge the special position we occupy by geography and more than 40 years of membership. We are not just an ordinary third country. The withdrawal agreement especially and the political declaration are assumed to be settled and binding upon the parties, and there is a presumption that we will see them in the same way. That we do not is evidenced by the Internal Market Bill. Indeed, I say no more than has been said by Sir John Major and Theresa May, who both brought to the office of Prime Minister the dignity and integrity that we expect. They have been supported by other eminent Conservatives from both sides of the Brexit/remain debate.
Although we understand that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, I urge the Minister to persuade his colleagues in government to let us have some kind of statement setting out what has been discussed to date, what has been agreed in principle and what in the political declaration is no longer an aspiration. Many of the issues are of importance to individuals. If you visit the Government’s website on visiting Europe from 1 January 2021, it tells you, as set out by the noble Lord, Lord Hain—I will not repeat what he said—all the possible problems that you will face as a traveller to Europe post 31 December. I will take one example only, which is the problem you will have trying to take your dog with you. The site advises you that it may take four months to make the arrangements, but we will be out by then. Four months has long since gone. I am told that some matters in the list are for bilateral agreements, but where are we with the 27 on drivers’ licences and disabled people’s blue badges? Which member states have been able to agree the same arrangements? Almost every aspect of the negotiation process gives cause for concern.
We were assured during the passage of the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill that EU citizens with settled status and social security rights are safeguarded by the withdrawal agreement and the Act passed by this Parliament, and I have been assured that Clause 5 of that Bill could not be used to change their benefit entitlement unfavourably with EU citizens. I read the Government’s Factsheet 4 on that Bill; it is not easy to read and seems to have a number of perhaps unintended ambiguities. It says that the Bill contains a power to
“amend the retained EU social security co-ordination rules and deliver policy changes at the end of the transition period.”
It says that the SSC regulations may be changed and modified by “an appropriate authority”, and that
“The EU (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 establishes a cohort of citizens to whom the EU’s current social security co-ordination rules will continue to apply after the end of the transition period, whether or not a future relationship … is agreed”.
However, it says that changes to these rules will be made only under the Bill and
“will not be applied to this group for as long as they remain in scope of the Withdrawal Agreement.”
What, in the view of the Government, does that mean? We have already seen that they have read certain agreements in their own way when it did not actually suit. The factsheet says:
“The government would require clause 5 to repeal those areas of the retained regulations not covered in a reciprocal agreement with the EU.”
So where are we on no deal? These are all matters where clarity, openness and honesty are needed. I pose the question again: can Clause 5 of that Bill, in any circumstances at all, be used to leave EU citizens with settled status in a less-favourable situation than UK citizens?
It is not easy to have trust in the Government in the light of their abandonment of the aspirations of the political declaration signed by the Prime Minister, either in ignorance or with the notion that “Well, it’ll all be all right, and we can change it if we desire it.” I wish that we had stayed with the words of the political declaration, where we were
“determined to work together to safeguard the rules-based international order, the rule of law and promotion of democracy, and high standards of free and fair trade and workers’ rights”,
and many other things. In that position we would have established a broad, deep and flexible partnership. That is what we should have with our near neighbours and friends.
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bowness.
I hope that the negotiations succeed and I am glad that Michel Barnier is in London today to push them along. I cannot believe that either side would willingly allow them to fail. For the Government to do so, and to heap more difficulties on an economy already reeling from Covid-19, would be the height of folly. After the ferocious blame game that would surely follow, the more sober commentators and historians would blame both sides for a massive failure of statesmanship—surely not the legacy that any Prime Minister would seek.
There are of course difficulties still to be overcome, particularly, though of course not exclusively, Ireland. For many of us, even before the referendum, Ireland has always seemed the most difficult issue of all. That is why the EU Committee’s first report after the referendum, which I launched at a press conference in Dublin, was about Ireland. The dilemma is simple: you can have a border between the north and the south, risking violence and intimidation with which a depleted Northern Ireland police force would have difficulty dealing—for which, let there be no doubt about this, both sides would be blamed—or you can have a border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which would damage the integrity of the United Kingdom. Let us hope that the keenest minds in Whitehall are working with their Irish counterparts and the EU to find a way through. I confess that I cannot easily see it. However, to do anything to jeopardise the Good Friday agreement would be folly.
The worst possible course would be to go back on a treaty that the Government signed with much aplomb less than a year ago and, in doing so, to break international law. That would not solve the problem of the Irish border, but threatening to break international law, and saying quite openly in the House of Commons that that is the Government’s intention, raises an issue far larger than Brexit, and no midnight compromise would make any difference to that. It is the threat to break international law because it happens to suit us that puts us on the same level as countries that we have sought and will seek to influence. Such influence relies on trust, and it is trust that is vanishing. Threatening to break international law does nothing to advance Brexit but it seriously damages our pretensions to branch out beyond Brexit and find an influential role as global Britain—a real and depressing double whammy.
My Lords, on the basis that it is never too late to avoid making a bad decision, I want to set out what I think should be the Prime Minister’s guest speech to the European Council in mid-October:
“As leader of the UK, I have been having a think about the future. I have not so much changed my mind as reverted to my original views when I said:
‘We are, and we will remain, a paid-up, valued, participating member of the single market. Under no circumstances, in my view, will a British Government adjust that position.’
As I said before the referendum:
‘I would vote to stay in the single market. I’m in favour of the single market.’
It is not true that only in 2019 I understood the meaning of the single market. I now have the knowledge and experience that leads me to want to avoid damage to my country, its stability, economy and culture, by simply allowing the current negotiations to linger on into no deal. There are a host of issues that are very damaging, and I am going to refer to a few of them.
“Our energy security will be put at risk. I cannot possibly preside over power cuts to gas and electricity while leaving the EU’s internal energy market. If the UK were a member of EFTA or the EEA then we could have had a Norway-type energy arrangement, but my predecessor ruled out such membership.
“I have only recently been made aware of the importance of the chemical industry. I had no idea that the UK uses over 21,000 substances that are registered for safety under the EU-wide chemical regulation system. Only around 5,000 of those are registered in the UK; the others, the great majority, are under the control of the EU. The market is huge in terms of exports from the UK to the EU. I do not think we can take the risk of less safe chemicals being dumped on the UK.
“Furthermore, I had never heard of ADNS, RASFF, EASIN NOTSYS or EUROPHYT. I have asked my advisers why not, since these are so valuable to UK citizens and the economy. ADNS is the Animal Disease Notification System, which registers and documents the development of infectious animal diseases. RASFF is the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed, which enables swift and timely exchanges of information on health risks. Only EU members, along with EFTA and Switzerland, can be members. Approximately 10 alerts per day are issued. RASFF came into being only in our time as an EU member so there is no previous system for us to fall back on. The other two systems involve alien species and plant health notifications, which are both highly important. Witnesses to Select Committees in the UK Parliament such as vets and the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board said that they were in favour of the UK remaining a member of these systems, which give instant access to information. We cannot do that with no deal, thereby putting the UK at risk.
“I have woken up to the fact that no deal will lead to some real problems, such as a prolonged period of uncertainty, which we have had far too much of already. Half of UK export goods will face disruption, and there will be a reduction in the safety of UK citizens by leaving the EU arrest warrant system. No one explained to me that leaving with no deal means that future negotiations with the EU will be outside the Article 50 framework, meaning they will be much more difficult. If the disruption were prolonged, it is likely that in January and February next year there would be shortages of food in the UK. While residency rights are to be protected—and we have all agreed that—UK expats will lose their right to have bank accounts in the UK. This is a disaster.
“No deal will not bring Brexit to an end. It could go on for a decade, as warned in the UK Government Command Paper 9216 on the process of withdrawing from the EU, which I had not seen until now. The holy grail of the world trade terms would mean the UK economy growing more slowly. After Covid, I cannot possibly countenance this. Therefore, I say to my colleagues—still colleagues, EU Council members—that I will not put the unity of the UK union at risk or the safety of the population and the economy in a danger zone. Therefore, I request a further extension of the transition period of two years for the United Kingdom to enter into meaningful arrangements to continue membership of the single market and the customs union. If that requires rejoining EFTA, we will willingly come to a mutual agreement.”
That is the substance of the speech that the Prime Minister should make.
The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, is not with us this afternoon. I therefore call the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley.
The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, is always a hard act to follow. The Minister saying that life is “better understood backwards” reminds me of the Irishman who, when asked for directions, replied, “If I were you, I would not be starting from here.”
We should have exercised our minds on EU negotiating strategy four years ago. Positions appear, regrettably—from afar anyway—to be well entrenched, with now limited manoeuvrability. Fighting one’s corner on a principle is coming to an end, with the direction of travel and endgame becoming clear. It seems probable that we know where we are going to end up; doomsday scenarios will have to be replaced with innovative solutions in the national interest. That does not mean that much does not remain to be done.
I wish to address two specifics: trade policy and relationship building. I start at the outset with a question to the Government, and I would be grateful if the Minister would undertake to write with a considered response and place a copy in the Library. Simply, what is the UK’s trade policy? Many around our country are deeply concerned on that lack of clarity. I would welcome a considered response. My remarks should be perceived not as negative but rather, I hope, as attempting to be constructive. This applies equally to a newly formed APPG this week for trade and export promotion, which I have the honour to co-chair. The first three buckets under consideration are veering towards trade policy, trade finance and trade export promotion, addressing—as an example—SME export strategy for new FTAs. We look forward to the opportunity to engage with government in all these matters. Endeavour was made to ensure that representatives from all quarters of the union are serving officers.
It appears that we have launched into negotiations with some of our largest trading partners, the EU, the United States and Japan, without a clear position on what is wanted to be achieved—and, specifically, what people wish for, for or from across the European Union. It should be acknowledged also that, within the private sector, unions, consumers and civil society are all equal stakeholders in the UK’s future. That the mantra is to deliver and get Brexit done is clear, but at what cost? I advocate a retrenching exercise, bringing together all the disparate bubbles that exist in our country—industry representatives and multipliers—to sort ourselves out in advance, knowing all that all hearts and minds are behind an implementation strategy. That should include government looking closely at what its principal functions are and focus on delivery of them, recognising the strengths of the private sector as paramount, and have that firmly at the policy table. Government should focus on where it adds value, not competing and undermining the private sector. In a word, we need a more inclusive process in the decision-making process.
The time has come to review what the role of government is in providing trade support. The private sector has long been undermined by heavily subsidised services when it can in many cases deliver the job better. We are also now faced with Henry VIII powers in the Trade Bill with clauses that would feel more at home somewhere between Russia and China. No serious independent trading nation delivers trade policy and support in this way.
To date, beyond the two substantive deals with Switzerland and Japan, the remainder are continuity deals to avoid disruption. They will all need to be negotiated as proper deals at some point. We need a strategy on trade in services through every trade negotiation, whether bilateral or multilateral. We need a trade strategy that reflects our obligations to climate and sustainable development goals. We need a legal reform programme that unlocks growth and removes barriers to digital trade. We need action to tackle the growing trade finance gap, which has doubled during Covid to $5 trillion. We need a strategy that invests in our Commonwealth relations and bridges the gap between developed and developing economies, while articulating what we want in trade in services, which accounts for 80% of our economy. A plan for what we want at multilateral level and how to use bilateral negotiations to achieve that is also urgently required. It is not as though our future is about just doing trade deals. It is about having a more inclusive decision-making process so that deals that are done succeed and have better long-term outcomes for everyone.
Public trust must be the centre of rebuilding in trade, and Parliament must play a critical role in scrutinising the process and ensuring that everyone’s voices are heard. We must come to terms with the fact that we are no longer part of the three big trading blocs, but we can play to that as a strength by being an influencer in the next tier with the likes of Japan, Australia and Singapore and a broker between developed and developing nations and between the large blocs advocating for pragmatic process on trade liberalisation, as a country that stands for the rule of law, best practice and high standards. We can no longer be woolly about these things. We need to regroup, get the right strategy in place that upholds the values for which we stand, and from that point execute a clear negotiating position.
My Lords, I agree with so much of what colleagues have said today that I do not want to repeat it. I shall just emphasise that I accept the reality of Brexit and want to see the best possible deal negotiated with our European friends. However, overarching this, we have to ask ourselves a much bigger question, and this is what I would like the noble Lord, Lord True, to address in his conclusions. What do we envisage as the relationship between the EU and the UK in 10 years’ time? Where are we going?
At the moment it seems to me that the Prime Minister has to resolve in his mind where he is. He seems torn between a Churchillian sense of Britain’s role in the world and a desire to make populist, semi-Trumpian appeals to his electoral base. He has got to resolve that in his mind. I was very interested that it was said that Mr Johnson took as some of his holiday reading Brendan Simms’ book on Europe. As I understand Professor Simms’ argument, it is that Britain has for centuries been inextricably bound up with the future of Europe. He is supportive of Europe’s efforts to unite to heal its century-long divisions but he argues that it is legitimate for Britain not to want to be part of that because of the unique circumstances of our history.
I do not believe that argument, but there are two propositions there that I would like to hear the Government accept fully. The first is that our future is inextricably bound up with the European continent, both in economics and security, and in our attitudes to the rest of the world, our values and our interests. The second is that we actually want the European Union to be a success. The Government should say that. They should reject the view that Michael Gove put forward in the referendum campaign, that Brexit would somehow be the prelude to the breakup of the European Union. The Government should also support further steps towards European integration. The success of Europe—[Inaudible]—to accept that point of view.
It seems to me that on many of the big questions we take a much more European than American view of the world. Take, for example, climate change, Iran, our attitude to Israeli annexation of the Occupied Territories, sanctions against autocrats, and even a reset of the Chinese relationship that does not result in the creation of a new cold war. Many of us, of course, hope that Mr Trump will be defeated in November. But my forecast is that if we have a President Biden, his first instinct in relation to Europe will be to repair relations with Germany. Instead of feeling left out of our special relationship, the UK should welcome that, because it is what Europe needs.
We must have a constructive attitude towards Europe, and we must demonstrate it in everything we do. That is true of the security relationship. The Government will not tell us where the negotiations are going on that. I do not think that that bodes well for them. But if, after a couple of years, we discover that where we are on security represents a significant detriment compared with where we are today, will the Government commit to have a rethink, and think about a new security treaty with the European Union in which we are prepared to recognise the need for some common judicial order, if we are to have deep security co-operation?
Similarly, on the economy, one of the great puzzles about the present rows is that, yes, we are having this enormous row about state aid—but for what purpose? Is it seriously suggested that having freedom on state aid is a bigger benefit to Brexit Britain than the avoidance of tariffs and quotas at our borders? That is a ludicrous proposition. What is even more ludicrous is that the Government cannot even tell the EU what they want that state aid freedom for. We talk about divergence but there is no analysis to underpin where we want to diverge, so the EU is bound to be suspicious of our motives.
In the present situation we must put effort into avoiding a catastrophic breakdown and try to rebuild a positive relationship with our partners step by step. We should welcome the future track of deeper European integration, and recognise that what happens in Europe is as decisive for the UK’s future when we are outside the EU as it was when we were inside.
My Lords, I was delighted to hear the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, refer to the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties because I believe it will have a profound effect on the final resolution of our recovery of sovereignty on a number of issues. I would like to read an extract from Article 53 of the convention. It states:
“A treaty is void if, at the time of its conclusion, it conflicts with a peremptory norm of general international law … from which no derogation is permitted and which can be modified only by a subsequent norm of general international law having the same character.”
I suggest that that is a convenient way out for us. It avoids the confrontation of having to argue to take back areas of our sovereignty which are not lawfully given by Europe. We can effectively just wait for the European partner to initiate its own action—under what it sees is available to it under that convention—to try to force it on us. In that case it will have to revert to a plea to the bar of world opinion by going to the United Nations. Good luck to it. I do not think it will succeed on much. I think we have a soft way out that we should not overlook.
Everything else I want to say is about sovereignty issues. The principal concern when the vote was taken was the recovery of sovereignty. Of course, the European Union’s acquis communautaire—or ratchet mechanism—is steered towards ever-closer union. It has directly encroached on our sovereignty on so many issues in a manner not necessarily understood and foreseen at the completion of the treaty of Lisbon.
I have 13 sovereignty concerns that I wish to see resolved. That is too many to cover this afternoon, but I will try to go through eight of the most important ones. On 28 January, I obtained an Answer to a Written Question which assured me that there was no intention whatever for Britain to enter into the European defence union nor to forsake any of our Five Eyes capability to Europe. I was very pleased to get the answer saying, “You are right. Nothing is intended.”
Since that time, an eight-minute film has been put out by the European Union. It is easily available on a video link. It shows what the EU considers to be the celebration in Bosnia-Herzegovina of the first meeting of the armed forces of the European defence union. It starts with the downloading of an RAF jet containing 200 members of the Parachute Regiment. The commentary says they are accompanied by 30 members of Special Forces, who I take to be the SAS. There is then a march past, behind the European flag, in front of a saluting base, and a Jeep is pulling a platform on which are the 27 flags of the European defence union, including the union jack. I want further reassurance that we are not part of the European defence union. That is hugely important.
That leads to my second point. All our defence forces have to be under direct oath of loyalty to our sovereign. The European defence union requires a direct line of commitment to Brussels. We cannot have that situation. It would get us straight into the issue of whether we are participating in a standing army, which has been strictly prohibited since the trial of Charles I. We cannot possibly encumber our sovereign with the burden and embarrassment of having to contend with that in the latter stages of her reign. This is a disgrace. Those issues are paramount and we must have a definitive statement on them.
Throughout the past three or four months, we have been frozen as to the defence contracts we can engage in as Europe is still insisting that, as part of the go-forward arrangements, we will use only the authorised European defence production capability, which includes its boatyards, its tank capacity and everything else. It has already allocated to Krups the order for the first 50 of the new key Type 51 frigates, which are very important to us for our own coastal defences, and we are therefore prohibited from placing the order for the remaining 30 or so which we need for ourselves.
Similarly, the most important vessel required for the British Navy at this time is the replacement for the fleet auxiliary. The original one has been sold off to the Far East to be turned into razor blades—I am sure it was a good price—and we now have a situation where we cannot put out an order for the new form of fleet auxiliary, without which our carriers are effectively port-bound. These issues really need to be resolved, and we need clear direction on them.
The fisheries have been talked of much, and they are a major issue, but I wonder if your Lordships know just how bad the situation is in certain places. I have a direct and particular interest in Bridport bay, and the situation there is rather like a war zone. The trawlers going in are of what is called the wedge variety, which means they are flat-bottomed, and they are used to scrape up the bottom of the sea. As a result, they have destroyed the entire spawning and breeding capability of the Bridport area for the future. They have encroached so far upon the beach that they have undermined the sands adjacent to the cliffs, so the cliffs are crumbling, and this is now the worst area of crumbling in the country. It is like a war zone, and it is quite unfair on the local community. This is not fishing rights; this is absolute aggressive intrusion.
If the exercise is correct, that we sent 200 paratroopers to participate in the jollification in Bosnia about the creation of the EDU, it was also significant that it was said in the commentary all to be under the direct command and control of the European development union, at the head office of the EU. I have been sent fortuitously, by an anonymous person, a complete set of the command and control procedures for the European defence union, and it is fascinating. If you are a corps of armed soldiers and you have occasion to take a defensive situation, or even fire a round, you are then not allowed to reload or fire another round until you have been through 16 levels of consent, up to Ms von der Leyen herself, for consent to reload and shoot—
Could the noble Lord bring his remarks to a close, please.
Sorry. I have said my peace, and I hope you will understand it has come from the heart.
My Lords, I have to confess that when I first had sight of this Motion coming from the Government, I wondered why as it clearly focuses attention on an aspect of the Government’s performance that leaves so much to be desired. I thank the Minister for his explanation today, but I think lots of questions need to be put, and answers need to be given.
I regard Brexit as a social and economic disaster for the UK, and in particular for Northern Ireland, but I accept that the UK has left and that the exit, however shambolic, will be completed by the end of the year, so the remarks I make here are not rerunning the Brexit debate. They are about the Government’s approach to the negotiations, which has been dreadful from the very start.
We set out with former Prime Minister May’s assertion that “Brexit means Brexit”, without any further elucidation. Contrastingly, the EU made its three requirements clear and patiently asked the UK Government to outline the kind of Brexit they wanted to negotiate, but it got no clear answer. Instead we have had the chaos of hard Brexit or soft Brexit, in the customs union or not in the customs union, backstop or no backstop, ERG and even a general election. We had a Brexit Secretary who did not like going to meetings and a Foreign Secretary who likened our negotiating partners to the Soviet Union.
Then we had a year of farce in the other place while the EU waited patiently, allowing more time for the UK Government to get their act together. Eventually we reached a withdrawal agreement which, along with the Northern Ireland protocol, settled the most vexed matter of all: the future of the EU-UK customs border. Then only in February this year, as the pandemic was starting to break around Europe, the UK Government finally said that they wanted a Canada-type trade deal.
Since that time, the UK Government’s approach to negotiating the future relationship with the EU has been characterised by bluster, brinkmanship and, I am sad to say, bad faith. There is a refusal to accept that along with the obvious benefits of the free trade agreement, which the EU actually wants to give us, we have to accept some responsibilities. Instead the Government want all of the freedoms and none of the obligations.
The negotiating strategy is based on “They need us as much as we need them”—surely one of the greatest untruths ever peddled in this country. With the introduction of the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill and some of the Prime Minister’s own recent utterances, the Government have taken that bluster, brinkmanship and bad-faith approach to a new level. Imagine legislating to disapply the withdrawal agreement while breaking international law in the process; ridiculously accusing the EU of bad faith when it is the other way around; ludicrously claiming that the purpose of the Bill is to defend the Good Friday agreement, when it threatens to do the exact opposite; and simultaneously grabbing power back from the devolved Administrations without their consent.
That is not all: while the Government’s approach has seriously damaged the prospects of a deal with the EU, we should remember that any deal with Mr Barnier has to get through an increasingly agitated European Parliament and EU 27, not to mention the warnings from Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi about a US trade deal and the unnecessary damage to the UK’s relationship with Dublin.
This is doing real damage. Businesses in Northern Ireland, including hauliers, while apprehensive about new customs impositions, were satisfied that with the Northern Ireland protocol they could at last plan ahead. That has now been thrown into doubt. Only yesterday the Northern Ireland Assembly backed a Motion brought by my colleagues that roundly condemned the Government’s approach to the EU negotiations. Maybe the Minister could indicate what progress has been made on the deal relating to hauliers and indeed to fisheries? I think of both the Irish Government and the UK Government having jurisdiction in the Irish Sea. Will they be concluded soon? How will the Government protect our economy and society if there is no deal? How will they protect our devolution settlements?
Perhaps most ridiculous of all was the scene of Boris Johnson in the other place conjuring up fantastical images of the completely fictional threat of an EU blockade of UK food supplies, a nonsense that was brilliantly exposed by the colleague of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, Ed Miliband. Unfortunately, the PM still has to clown around with jokey notions of exports of Devon clotted cream being blockaded by the EU.
I am afraid for me and for the people of Northern Ireland. This has gone too far. We want to see a deal. We want to see those intricate sets of relationships that we have on the island of Ireland between north and south, within the north and between Ireland and Britain, as captured in the Good Friday agreement, protected and enhanced. We want no further nonsense such as we have seen espoused by the British Government. I hope the Minister can provide some answers today to those vexing questions on that vexing issue, because there was no doubt that the protocol provided an answer to that most vexed question of the border.
Since the noble Lord, Lord Loomba, is not contributing this afternoon, I call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Wei.
My Lords, I want to say thanks to many of those who have contributed to this debate. I declare my interest as in the register.
There have been many speakers already, so I hope I do not have to take up all my time. I definitely do not want to repeat many of the excellent statements and comments that have been made so far. I am probably in a minority in this debate by wanting to actually congratulate the Government on the negotiations in a very tough situation, not least with Covid, the lockdown and all that is going on in the world, especially given all the activity of the last few years and the difficulties that we have had.
Ultimately, as other speakers and my noble friend the Minister have said, we have to negotiate from a position of safeguarding Britain’s sovereignty. That is the reason we are leaving the European Union. There has been a perception and perhaps a reality—sometimes it is both—that we have not always had full sovereignty over our own affairs. If you look at it through that lens rather than just requiring stability at all costs as we move into the next year, whether politically in terms of Northern Ireland or for economic reasons for our businesses and so on, we can see that there are many people in this country who voted to leave and who are willing to accept whatever pain may take place as we exit. That is because the issue of sovereignty is important.
I wish that I did not have to say this, but having listened to some of the remarks from other Peers, I thought that as a Parliament, we have made a vow to the Queen and to this country. I am therefore disappointed, quite frankly. Sometimes I feel like we are listening to opinions that sound so pro-European that they ought to be coming from the other side of the negotiating table rather than thinking about what we as a country really need. I accept that we need to have positive relations with Europe, but I feel that the Government have been doing their best against a very belligerent negotiating partner who, in my view, has not always played fairly.
Some have argued, and I would not disagree with them, that we have grounds to say that the withdrawal agreement has been violated even because of the way that we have sequenced the negotiations in Europe’s favour over the past few years. The discussion about fisheries has been made more important than other matters that are critical to the future of our relations with Europe. Again, in my view, that shows a high degree of bad faith, so I do not agree that the Government are necessarily the villain here. I do not think that that is generally the case because there is much to say about Europe’s behaviour.
On that note, I would like to ask my noble friend the Minister whether, when it comes to the negotiations, we are looking at other alternatives to just hoping that we are going to get a reasonable agreement or no deal. As we look forward to the future relationship with Europe, is it better, as other Ministers have mentioned, to work on other agreements, even in an Australian scenario such as the CPTPP, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, so that at some point we can come back to these negotiations as a more equal partner with a sizeable bloc to negotiate with rather than being treated like a minor counterpart?
I have another question, having observed the behaviour of the European negotiators. Do we need to build an economy that is more resilient because there is no guarantee that, at a future date, Europe might not seek to place demands on us that might affect our sovereignty again? For example, as a country we are strong in areas such as intellectual property, licensing and so on. These are things that are less impacted by tariffs and perhaps by certain regulations. If we can build a set of industries in the future that are all about spreading our knowledge with partners in other countries, maybe we will be less impacted by the rising protectionism that we are seeing both in Europe and around the world. Even our exporting expertise has value across the world in terms of raising the knowledge base in other countries. Could Britain be not just global but also a source of knowledge by building an even greater knowledge economy in the future?
Finally, I want to ask the Minister about what we are doing in terms of taking this opportunity. Sometimes, when you are up against a wall, whether in terms of these negotiations and we could say the same about the Covid situation, that can drive innovation. You can say, “We have these limitations.” Northern Ireland is the classic example. We have to try to fit the regulations of multiple jurisdictions.
We have talked before about the power of technology, and blockchain especially, to rewire our supply chains, so that with free ports and more generally in our relationships—not only with Europe but with multiple FTA partners—we can find ways in which to actually thrive in this world and benefit from being able to sit between different jurisdictions, rather than being dictated to, whether by the US, China or Europe, in what we do. It is about trying to find a way to work with multiple systems, to be what we have always been: a trading nation that has a powerful and seemingly neutral legal and regulatory framework that allows us to work with the best of those who want to work with us around the world.
What thinking has been done on this? From what I can see, as much as I and others would hope that we can get a deal—and the chances of going into an Australian WTO situation are high—what are we going to do as we come out of that? Negotiation with Europe will not stop there: we still have this set of partners that we have to work with. If they continue to show bad faith, even in that situation, do we need to build a set of negotiating positions—in our economy, our regulations and our technology—in such a way that we can be in a strong position to be an equal partner in future negotiations?
My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for giving your Lordships a chance to discuss the Government’s approach to the negotiations with the EU, of which the eighth round has recently completed. Like my noble friend Lord Wei, I believe that the House should offer its strong support to the Government at this delicate stage in negotiations. In spite of the hype and noise made by certain newspapers, especially those of a remain disposition, I believe that the negotiations are being conducted in a more constructive mode than some would have us believe.
My noble friend Lord Frost stated after the last round of negotiations that he and his team have been consistently clear that they want to find a modern free trade agreement between sovereign and autonomous equals that provides for open and fair competition. This does not mean, as Monsieur Barnier still insists, that we must commit to EU standards on social, environmental, labour and climate regulations. He complains that there are too many uncertainties about the UK’s SPS regime, which we debated yesterday in your Lordships’ House. It is unfortunate that noble Lords opposite decided to reinstate amendments previously rejected in another place to commit to retain our existing rules on animal welfare and food production standards. Your Lordships also approved another amendment which, as my noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach, who speaks with enormous experience in these matters, said, would make it impossible for farmers to control noxious and persistent weeds and fungal infections on his farm.
Monsieur Barnier wants us to commit to maintain the EU ban on the import of hormone-treated beef. To read the Daily Mail, you would not know that the reason the WTO found that the EU ban on this violates its SPS rules is that it is not based on sound science and that levels of hormones as a result of the treatment are inconsequential. A 3 gram serving of hormone-treated beef produced 0.85 units of oestradiol, whereas the same serving of eggs produced 0.94 units.
During my banking career, I established many relationships with Japanese companies, including a life sciences company that is a major investor in this country and in several EU states. The chief executive of that company told me that he was not best pleased when Brexit came along because he had to spend $7 million on duplicating licences and strengthening his network of companies in Europe. He has now told me that he expects an upside of Brexit: that we should abandon the very prescriptive and cumbersome style of EU regulation and revert to a style which we used to apply, and which is still applied in common-law countries such as the United States and Australia. If we do that, he thinks that the United Kingdom will remain the best country in the world in which a life sciences company like his can research, innovate and develop new products.
That inevitably means that we should diverge from EU regulation, as we must no longer allow the precautionary principle to be applied to a disproportionate extent. Its effects are counterproductive and, over time, increase the risks to people’s health and the environment by delaying or preventing the development and use of beneficial new products. Can my noble friend the Minister confirm that the statements often made by government spokesmen that we will retain our high standards in agricultural and environmental matters do not mean that we will maintain EU-style cumbersome rules in doing so?
I was surprised to hear the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, argue that we are more like our European friends than our American cousins—I do in fact have American cousins. Our strength has been, and is, that we understand both well.
We will soon be debating the internal market Bill in your Lordships’ House. I welcome the Government’s agreement to provide a parliamentary lock on the use of powers which are held to conflict with the Irish protocol to the withdrawal agreement. However, there are ambiguities in the withdrawal agreement that need clarification. The EU’s interpretation would also be in breach of the treaty of union between Great Britain and Ireland of 1800. The Irish protocol also sets out the clear principle that Northern Ireland is part of the customs territory of the UK, so goods should be allowed to flow from Great Britain to Northern Ireland without tariffs. Joint agreement with the EU on goods that are at risk of crossing the Irish border is clearly necessary. It was unhelpful of Mr Šefčovič to react so strongly. How can he argue that the proposal has damaged the Belfast or Good Friday agreement? The introduction of border formalities such as the EU wants to see would clearly cause huge damage to the agreement, and it is disingenuous of the EU to fail to recognise that.
Further, does my noble friend the Minister know why the EU did not punish Germany over its dispute over the legality of the European Central Bank’s bond-buying programme? In fact, the EU has been quite silent over this issue, which contrasts with its feigned outrage over the internal market Bill. Everybody knows that we are negotiating to leave the EU and enter into a free trade agreement as a sovereign nation. The Prime Minister has been consistent from the time he signed the withdrawal agreement that we will not have a substantive border in the Irish Sea, so who could be surprised at this? I do not believe that this matter will lead our present and prospective trading partners to consider the UK to be a dishonest and unreliable partner.
Of course, it may have been a mistake to agree to the EU’s insistence that we should negotiate the terms of withdrawal before our future relationship. Does my noble friend not agree that this was also a breach of international law, because Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty clearly states that the terms of withdrawal shall be negotiated against the background of the future relationship? It is now so clear that it was quite wrong not to agree both the terms of withdrawal and our future relationship at the same time. Perhaps we might not have needed to agree to give to the EU the whole of our share of the retained earnings of the European Investment Bank, to mention but one of the several points where we have yielded to unreasonable EU requests.
I look forward to the Minister’s winding-up speech.
My Lords, when he was electioneering back in December last year, the Prime Minister promised that:
“We have an oven ready deal, put it in the microwave as soon as we get back after the election on Friday 12th December and get it done.”
I know that rash promises are sometimes made before elections—indeed, they are sometimes made after elections; the “world-beating” test and trace system comes to mind—but today, we are discussing the UK’s approach to negotiations with the EU. Can the Minister say what the Government’s approach to that oven-ready deal has been? Did it ever exist? The withdrawal agreement was a framework, though not a perfect one, that is now being torn up, but the oven-ready deal that electioneering led people to expect is not in sight. The Government’s preparations for leaving the EU are about as close to oven-ready as the turkey that has just been hatched.
Others, most notably the noble Lord, Lord Judd, reminded us that the EU is about far more than trade. I accept that we have left the EU; now what we need is a good deal. Trade deals are never easy to negotiate but it is clear that a deal with the EU is what we need most. In 2018, 49% of our trade was with the EU. It is potentially great news that we have concluded a trade deal with Japan, but Japan accounts for just 2% of our trade and we do not yet know the details of that deal. There are questions over quite what we have given up, particularly on state aid. I find it incomprehensible that a Conservative Government should be prepared to risk our future relationship with our major trading partner over the issue of state aid. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell the House what state aid the Government are so desperate to provide that they are prepared to sacrifice such a crucial relationship.
As the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, pointed out earlier, we learned this week that if we leave without a deal there could be 7,000 trucks piling up outside Dover, causing chaos and delaying deliveries by up to two days. It seems now that there is even to be a border around Kent. Michael Gove said this afternoon in the Commons that there would be a “Kent permit” for all lorries that needed to enter the county and without such a permit they would not be allowed in. Last week we learned that Logistics UK—formerly the Freight Transport Association—was told that the Government’s smart freight system, designed to reduce the risk of cargo delays, would still be in “testing mode” in January. Well, at least it has been traced.
It turns out that life outside the EU is harder to organise than this Government appear to have imagined. Their gung-ho talk is just that—delivery is the problem. Being a member of the EU brought numerous benefits beyond the smoothly flowing travel of goods and people. Take GPS, now such a crucial part of modern life. The Galileo system, of which we were beneficiaries through our EU membership, worked efficiently but the Government did not want any part of Galileo. We would go it alone. Earlier this year, this gung-ho Government spent £900 million on buying 45% of OneWeb, a bankrupt US tech company, which had attempted to build a constellation of 650 satellites. This was to be the basis for our very own GPS system. Just months later, that project is being abandoned.
Tobias Ellwood, the chairman of the House of Commons Defence Committee, dismissed the scheme as a “vanity project”. It takes vanity on a monstrous scale to blow what adds up to more than £1 billion on feeding it. However, it is not merely the waste of public money that is appalling, it is the risks that a lack of such a system causes. According to Mr Ellwood, if we do not have the back-up of Galileo we are going to have problems. We will be extremely vulnerable from a security point of view. In the continuing negotiations with the EU, will access to Galileo be included?
This afternoon, the president of the CBI, the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, spoke eloquently of the need for business to have a deal. He explained that Covid had wrought havoc on our companies. It has eaten into their cash resources, if they had any, and into their material stockpiles. Companies have struggled to get through the last six months, but this week brought the news that restrictions could last another six months. An avalanche of redundancies looms. Is this the time to embark on what even the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, accepts will be an uncomfortable process?
This afternoon Michael Gove told the Commons that there might be a few bumps in the road. I was delighted to see the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, back in fighting form and even more pleased to have listened to what he had to say. If only our Prime Minister would read that speech in Brussels next month. Extending the transition period is the sensible thing to do, but this gung-ho Government do not do sensible. Michael Gove stated this afternoon that 24% of businesses believe that they are ready for 31 December, and acknowledged that flows across the critical short strait crossings could be reduced by 60% to 80%. Nevertheless, an extension of the transition period will not be contemplated. In a pre-Covid era, it would be mad to press on in such circumstances. As the country struggles to cope with Covid, it is simply incomprehensible.
My Lords, ever since the referendum, my advice to businesses has been “prepare for no deal”. It has always been far more likely than is generally assumed. However, partly because of the controversial internal market Bill, I am inclined to think that the chances of a deal have now risen. I will explain why.
There are two unusual features about the negotiations between Britain and the EU. One makes them simpler than other free trade negotiations; the other makes them harder. They are simpler because we start where most free trade agreements and negotiations end up after years of haggling. We have zero tariffs and we want zero tariffs; it cannot take more than 10 minutes to negotiate. We have identical or equivalent rules and regulations, and we need to agree only a divergence mechanism: what happens when one side or the other changes their rules from the starting point. Such arrangements exist in most free trade deals and are comparatively straightforward to negotiate.
Why, then, are these negotiations harder than normal free trade agreements? Normal agreements and negotiations are win-win affairs: each side tries to offer concessions that cost it the least but will be of greatest value to the other side. Therefore, a mutually beneficial win-win outcome usually emerges. However, the European Union has an overriding political imperative, which is to discourage other member states from following our example. The EU believes that this means that Britain must be seen to get a bad outcome even if that means that the EU gets a less good result, economically, than was possible.
When one side is more interested in the other side losing than itself gaining, that creates a very unstable negotiating dynamic, which is why no deal has always been a significant possibility and even been used as a threat. However, as we have approached the endgame, it has become clearer to both sides that, although no deal would be a suboptimal outcome, it would not be as painful to the UK as the EU and many in the UK—and, indeed, in this debate—have supposed and that it would be more painful to the EU itself than they or others had initially assumed.
If there is no deal, each side will apply its tariffs to the other. That will cost British exporters to the EU about £5 billion a year. That is half the £10 billion saving from not making a net contribution to the EU any more. Therefore, UK plc will be a net £5 billion better off: small beer, but not negative. By contrast, losing tariff-free entry to the UK market would cost EU exporters £13 billion a year and, of course, the EU will also lose the £10 billion a year that we pay it. Therefore, the EU will be a net £23 billion worse off; again, that is not huge compared with the size of the European economy, but it is more difficult to cope with in these difficult times.
Why do EU exporters stand to lose nearly three times as much from tariffs as British exporters to the EU? It is partly because the EU exports far more to us than we do to it, but the main reason is that the goods that it exports to us are highly protected goods, which it can sell to us only because we are currently prevented by the EU external tariff from buying them more cheaply elsewhere. Therefore, it is the realisation on both sides that no deal, though not the best outcome, is not a disaster for the UK but would be a problem—or a cost—for the EU that has made the latter look to the Northern Ireland protocol for other negotiating levers.
The withdrawal agreement has even more loose ends and internal contradictions than most international agreements. That is not surprising, given that Boris was given only 100 days to renegotiate it, during which Parliament did its best to shackle his negotiating powers, but we signed it and accepted it because it has a mechanism to resolve those internal contradictions: the joint committee, within which both sides are treaty-bound to negotiate in good faith to resolve outstanding problems by the end of the transition period.
However, recently the EU has been pointing out—doubtless as a negotiating lever—that if it simply refuses to reach agreement in the Joint Committee then, arguably, all goods going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland will have to pay the EU tariff, and all goods coming from Northern Ireland to Britain will have to fill in EU export declarations, and if the EU refuses to list the UK as a third country from which it will accept food imports, not only will we be unable to export food to the continent, but it would be illegal, as the EU has threatened, to take a single kilo of butter from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. As far as I am aware, the EU has not seriously denied making those implicit threats.
Those outcomes would be economically damaging to Northern Ireland, flagrantly in conflict with the Belfast agreement and contrary to the Acts of Union with Ireland and Scotland. They would inflame unionist opinion, demonstrate manifest bad faith and breach the clear intention of the withdrawal agreement itself, so the UK Government had no option but to introduce legislation enabling them to override those potential interpretations of the withdrawal agreement, should they emerge.
In doing so, the UK Government adopted the EU’s own approach to international law, clearly set out by the Advocate-General in the European Court of Justice in the Kadi case. He said that
“it would be wrong to conclude that, once the Community is bound by a rule of international law, the Community Courts must bow to that rule with complete acquiescence and apply it unconditionally in the Community legal order. The relationship between international law and the Community legal order is governed by the Community legal order itself, and international law can permeate that legal order only under the conditions set by the constitutional principles of the Community.”
I cannot see that we are doing anything different from what the EU would, very sensibly, do if there were a conflict between international law and its internal legal order. I invite the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, as the last remainer of note due to speak in this debate, to be as critical of the EU doctrine as I have no doubt she will be of the Government’s behaviour. However, because we have effectively called the EU’s bluff, there is every reason to suppose that it will in practice resume negotiating sensibly and help us to resolve those issues, and there will be an agreement at the end of the day.
My understanding is that the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, is not participating in the debate this afternoon, so I now call the Minister to reply.
My Lords, as expected, this has been a robust debate; I think that is the word often used in your Lordships’ House, which is why it is such a splendid House. I am grateful to all noble Lords for their insightful and at times impassioned contributions.
I am fond of the game of cricket: I used to play it and I love watching it. One of the pleasing conventions of the game is that the umpire always gives the batsman the benefit of the doubt. Actually, that never seemed to happen much when there was an lbw shout against me—but that is the convention. I have tended to notice in some debates in your Lordships’ House, when EU matters and negotiations are discussed and when your Lordships are the umpire, the EU is always the batsman and the poor old British Government the bowler who never gets the benefit of any doubt. The EU is always entirely innocent, honourable and above board, and the UK Government always guilty as charged. It is not always that easy, although I think that the umpires would have differed today. The EU obviously would not accept my noble friend Lady Noakes as an umpire in this age of neutrality, and I suspect that the UK Government would not welcome the noble Lord, Lord Hain.
The noble Lord, Lord Hain, in a typically brilliant and well-argued speech, with which I profoundly disagreed, was really the trombone or perhaps even the tuba of the arguments of doom and gloom and futurology that we heard in the course of the debate. But the rest of the brass section and the woodwind were quite well developed in the debate. Richard Wagner or Richard Strauss would have been well pleased with the blasts of doubt that were piped out.
As many have said, we are where we are. As I said at the beginning, the mandate has not been given by some sort of sinister, unelected figures, whoever they might be—as was said by the noble Lord, Lord Judd. We are actually marching to a mandate given by the electors, the British people, more than once. That is what the British Government conceive as their duty—to accomplish what the British people have asked for—and that is what we will do, we hope with engagement and agreement with the European Union but, if that is not forthcoming, without it.
The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, made a delightful speech, as ever, with an imagined speech. I think that the chances of my right honourable friend Mr Johnson picking that one up are about as likely as a previous Prime Minister picking up the draft speech that I sent into No. 10 on this subject a few years ago. The reality is that there is no chance of the Government extending the transition period—and I must say that to the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, and the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft. That is the law of the land.
A number of questions were asked, and I shall try to answer them in the time available. I am not going to talk out all the original time, noble Lords will be pleased to hear.
The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, in a typically balanced speech—and I do not want to give the impression that there were none; there were a large number of very balanced and thoughtful speeches—reminded us of the importance of the work of your Lordships’ European Committee and its balanced and thoughtful contributions to our debates. I thank him and all members of the Select Committee for that and for the kind things that he said personally, which I gladly reciprocate.
The noble Earl mentioned the recitals. The position is that we remain fully committed to implementing the withdrawal agreement and the Northern Ireland protocol, and I shall come back to that in a moment. We have taken many practical steps on that. On the dispute mechanism, it does exist. The noble Earl asked why we would now legislate. The answer is that this is our last chance to introduce legislation, rightly or wrongly—and we will have great opportunities in your Lordships’ House to debate it in the weeks ahead—which would become law become law before 1 January. It is our last chance to put in place a safety net in case issues are not resolved, as we hope they are, in the joint committee.
Of course, the Government respect the rule of law. We have discussed this on several occasions in the House, and we will discuss it again on the Bill. In response to a number of noble Lords who spoke, understandably, on this subject, I repeat that we are fully committed to implementing the withdrawal agreement and Northern Ireland protocol. That is seen in the many practical steps that the Government have put in place to put those agreements into physical being. It is absolutely not the case in any circumstances that this Government would wish to undermine the Belfast agreement. Indeed, with regard to motivation, as I discussed when I answered the question in the House, the Government are very mindful that the Northern Ireland settlement, which we all wish profoundly to preserve, has an east-west dimension as well as a north-south one. It behoves the European Union to recognise that. It is just in these very tightly defined potential circumstances that Parliament is considering—and the House of Commons approved in Committee—the possibility of giving the powers that might disapply the EU law concept of direct effect.
I do not want to pursue that at the greatest length today, not because I demur from the question—I anticipate many hours of discussion on it—but the protocol had to solve very complicated issues and certain elements were left for ongoing discussion, as all noble Lords know, after the UK left the EU. They were drafted in a broad-brush way, and what is before us now is a safety net that ensures that Ministers can always deliver on the obligations to secure unfettered access to the rest of the UK for Northern Ireland. These are necessary steps in case agreement cannot be reached in the joint committee, but our objective is to reach agreement through the joint committee. We do not accept that, if people keep level and sensible heads, there is any reason why this need risk, as was put by someone in the debate, blowing up the talks altogether.
I was asked about citizens’ rights by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, who made what I thought was a very well-argued opening speech, although again I did not agree with all of it. She asked a number of questions that I will endeavour to answer. UK citizens’ rights are of course of profound importance. I believe that we have done well in the United Kingdom in seeking to confer rights on the European citizens living in this country, and we are working constructively and continually with the EU member states on the implementation of rights in member state countries, as well as providing advice to UK nationals via our “living in” guides, which are on GOV.UK. However, we continue to call on EU member states to provide equal certainty to UK nationals. We want faster implementation, longer application windows and clear communication.
I was asked about Erasmus. The noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, is right that we are considering participating on a time-limited basis, provided that it is in line with UK interests and we can agree on a fair financial contribution. Her Majesty’s Government are considering a wide range of options on student exchange, including, if needed, a domestic alternative.
On Galileo, however, I must repeat what I have said to the House before: the UK and the EU discussed the Galileo programme during the withdrawal agreement negotiation but the EU’s offer on Galileo did not meet the UK’s defence and industrial requirements.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and many other Peers, including the noble Lords, Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Kerr, who made an interesting and balanced speech, asked about state aid. As I set out in the opening speech, there is a problem with state aid. The EU is asking to see the design of our state aid regime, which in any typical free trade agreement would not be within the scope of negotiations. As I said in my opening remarks, the EU state and aid rules are unique and were developed specifically for the single market. We are being clear that we are not going to become a high-subsidy regime at the end of the transition period but also, as an independent nation, we are not going to allow the EU a say over a UK domestic regime. As I have explained before, we will make clear our approach to subsidy policy at the end of the transition period in due course but we will do so on our timetable, not the EU’s. After the transition period the UK will have its own regime of subsidy control and will not be subject to the EU state aid regime. Again, as I said in my opening remarks, there are other well-established ways to regulate subsidies. The World Trade Organization rules are an internationally recognised common standard and many major economies do not regulate subsidies beyond those rules. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, in welcoming the fact that the EU has rowed back from some of its demands in this area.
As I set out before, all we would need to agree is a mechanism to resolve any disputes with the EU, as is the case between countries which trade under a free trade agreement on WTO terms. For our future arrangements, we have proposed appropriate dispute settlement procedures, including arbitration where it is precedented. We have heard the EU’s concerns about a complex, Switzerland-style set of agreements, and we are ready to consider simpler structures, provided satisfactory terms can be found for dispute settlement and governance. The UK’s offer to the EU on subsidy control goes further than WTO rules, and we continue our negotiations on that matter.
On trade more widely, I will have to leave it to my right honourable friend Liz Truss to set out a broad statement on trade, but I say to the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, that my noble friend Lord Wei made some very strong and important points in this area. Trade deals with other nations are not to be derided. One of the benefits of leaving the EU is to deliver an independent trade policy for the UK that works in the interests of our businesses and our consumers. We want to start negotiating with new trading partners as soon as possible to take the new opportunities they offer, of which my noble friends Lord Wei and Lord Lilley and other noble Lords spoke. Noble Lords will know that the UK Government have announced their aim to secure free trade agreements with countries covering 80% of UK trade within the next three years—including, we hope, with the European Union—and negotiations with priority partners on free trade agreements are currently taking place.
The position of the Government remains that at a time of growing protectionism, free trade agreements provide economic security at home and opportunities abroad. They help improve the resilience of supply chains through diversity and opening new markets for business, bringing investment, better jobs, higher wages and lower prices when we need them most. I agree with what my noble friend Lord Wei said on that.
I was asked about engagement with the devolved Administrations, to which we attach great importance. We are committed to working closely with the devolved Administrations throughout negotiations with the EU to ensure a future relationship that works in the interests of the whole UK. The UK Government have been working closely and having constructive discussions with the devolved Administrations during those negotiations, and I do not agree with some of the remarks that were made on that score. We will continue to engage at both ministerial and official level.
As noble Lords will know, at ministerial level, the Joint Ministerial Committee (EU Negotiations), or JMC(EN) in the jargon, is a forum for the devolved Administrations and the UK Government to engage and discuss the UK’s approach to negotiations with the EU. It is the principal route for Ministers in the devolved Administrations to input collectively into the UK Government’s negotiating approach. This is supported by frequent official and ministerial bilateral engagement. Attended by delegates from the UK Government, the Welsh Government, the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive, the 25th Joint Ministerial Committee met on 3 September via video conference chaired by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. It was a constructive meeting which discussed ongoing negotiations relating to the future UK-EU free trade agreement and the wider relationship, preparedness for the end of the transition period on 31 December, and an update on common frameworks. In answer to the noble Baroness opposite, I underline that we recognise the significant interests of the devolved institutions in our negotiations and we have been clear that they should be fully consulted in preparations.
A number of noble Lords asked about security. There is a good deal of convergence in what the EU and UK are seeking to negotiate in terms of operational capability. We will keep working to bridge the gaps where differences remain.
The EU has listened to the UK on some of the issues most important to us and we welcome that more pragmatic approach. There is, in our judgment, still an agreement to be had, and we will continue to work hard to achieve it, but we must also continue preparing for all possible scenarios at the end of the transition period.
The safety and security of our citizens is the Government’s top priority. We continue to discuss with the European Union an agreement on law enforcement and criminal justice co-operation in criminal matters. The agreement should equip operational partners on both sides with the capabilities that help to protect citizens and bring criminals to justice, promoting the security of all our citizens. The UK will continue to be a global leader and good partner on security and, I hope and pray, one of the safest countries in the world.
I was asked about financial services in negotiations, which is obviously a crucially important area. We are seeking to provide a predictable, transparent and business-friendly environment for firms to undertake cross-border financial services business. An FTA chapter would sit alongside our respective equivalence assessments, which are progressing in parallel to the FTA negotiations. As we have always said, however, co-operation mechanisms should be proportionate to the level of market access agreed. It therefore makes sense to return to co-operation once the FTA negotiations are more advanced. However, it is disappointing that the EU did not wish to engage with our proposal for regulatory co-operation within the framework of the FTA. After all, this was something it had previously agreed with Japan, but we must proceed with the art of the possible. I am pleased to note—and I underline—what my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said in the House of Commons earlier, that he is confident of securing a good deal on financial services.
I was asked about fisheries. As we have set out many times, and as I said at the start, we will not accept proposals that compromise UK sovereignty over our own fishing waters. We are looking for a relationship based on the EU’s existing bilateral arrangement with Norway. Our position on fish is, we contend, reasonable and straightforward. We want a simple, separate fisheries framework agreement that reflects our rights under law and provides for annual negotiations over access and sharing opportunities based on the scientific principle of zonal attachment. That is squarely in line with existing precedent.
We contend and believe that the scientific principle of zonal attachment better reflects where the fish live; in practice, it means the share of a stock of fish residing within a particular country’s economic zone. That is, as I say, the basis for the EU’s existing fisheries agreement with Norway. However, the EU wants to maintain the current access provisions that it enjoys under the relative stability mechanism, which is based on historical fishing activity from the 1970s, and rejects zonal attachment as a principle on which to base future sharing arrangements. Until the EU is willing to accept reality and to have a science-based discussion about the future, it will be difficult to move forward. In order to make progress, the EU must accept our position as an independent coastal state, and any agreement on quotas must reflect that reality.
I was asked about readiness for the end of the transition period and borders; with the permission of the House, I will be making—or repeating—a Statement on that tomorrow, so I will not go into the full details. I was told that I was “opaque” and “motherhood and apple pie” on this subject. Unfortunately, my dear beloved late mother used to give me a lot of very good Bramley apple pie when I was young, and that is probably why I have grown up being rather chubby and opaque. However, I will try to please the House better on this subject.
We are taking a practical, pragmatic and flexible approach to using some of our regained powers as a sovereign nation, and we are pragmatic in the sense of trying to help all practitioners and users of the borders by deciding to introduce new border controls in three stages up until 1 July 2021. This should help business and industry benefit from extra time to adjust. We published the border operating model in July, announced a new £50 million support package to boost the capacity of the customs intermediary sector, and are committed to building new border facilities in Great Britain for carrying out customs checks.
Additionally—as I said earlier—we have announced an unprecedented £705 million package of investment for border infrastructure, staff and technology to ensure that our border systems are fully operational after the end of the transition period. Of course, we are committed to working closely with businesses as we implement the system; they are at the heart of our approach. However, it is not criticising or blaming business to say that it is critical that businesses across the country should continue with preparations for the end of the transition period. Today does mark a key milestone for citizens and businesses because there are now just 100 days to go until we regain our political and economic independence on 1 January, when the UK will have left the single market and customs union, and there will be change—whether there is a free trade agreement or not. I say again: for our country, this should be a moment of great opportunity as well as significant change. All of us can and should make sure that we are prepared, and I am sure we will return to that tomorrow.
I was asked about social security. We are discussing these matters and had a most useful discussion on social security in the most recent round. We expect to discuss the matters further.
I must conclude in two minutes, so I will wrap up. I could not resist referring to the “oven-ready” charge. I must say that, for the electric oven I know and use, you need two buttons or dials to turn it on to cook the turkey. Unfortunately, in the course of these negotiations, the EU has sometimes not been ready to turn the dial with regard to picking up texts and other issues. Let us hope that that now ends. It is a characteristic of our beloved friends in Europe—and they are our friends—that, sometimes, negotiations are allowed to run long. We cannot let them run on indefinitely—precisely for the reasons of certainty and clarity that others referred to.
The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, asked where we were going. We are going—I hope—towards a future of friendship and co-operation with the nations of Europe and, as my noble friend Lord Shinkwin said, Europe is not only the European Union; it is something wider. We did leave the European Union in January this year, and we want a relationship with it that is based on friendly co-operation between sovereign equals and centred on free trade. We will have a relationship with our European friends inspired by our shared history and values. We want to reach an agreement, but we cannot compromise on the fundamentals of what it means to be an independent country to get that deal.
My Lords, that completes the business before the Grand Committee this afternoon. I remind Members to sanitise their desks and chairs before leaving the Room. The Committee stands adjourned.
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Lords Chamber(3 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, the Hybrid Sitting of the House will now begin. Some Members are here in the Chamber respecting social distancing, others are participating remotely, but all Members will be treated equally.
Oral Questions will now commence. Please can those asking supplementary questions keep them short and confined to two points. I ask that Ministers’ answers are also brief.
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberTo ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the condition of Uighur internment camps in Xinjiang in China.
My Lords, there are reports of torture and overcrowding in detention centres in Xinjiang, where over a million Uighurs are extrajudicially detained. We have repeatedly condemned the abuses of human rights perpetrated against the Uighurs in Xinjiang and again call upon China to immediately allow UN observers unfettered access to the region and to end extrajudicial detention.
I thank the Minister for his reply. The International Olympic Committee’s charter states that its goal is to
“place sport at the centre of harmonious development … with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.”
Given that the Chinese Communist Party’s treatment of the Muslim Uighur minority in Xinjiang contravenes the principles of preserving human dignity, will the Government consider holding the IOC to account by pushing for a review of its decision to hold the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in the People’s Republic of China?
My Lords, as the right reverend Prelate will know, any representation to the IOC would be a matter for the National Olympic Committee. The British Olympic Association operates independently of the Government. However, ensuring human dignity should be the approach of the Olympic committee or, indeed, any Government.
My Lords, I am co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group. Does the Minister acknowledge the strength of feeling of people of all faiths on this matter? Will the Government persist in opposing the crimes of blasphemy and apostasy around the world, particularly in the case of Mubarak Bala, a humanist arrested for blasphemy in Nigeria?
I can assure the noble Baroness that the Government’s priority is, and will remain, to stand up against abuses of all human rights and for freedom of religion or belief anywhere in the world.
My Lords, the noble Lord will now be very familiar with the China Tribunal’s conclusions on the forced removal of organs from the Uighurs and others. Are the Government now taking this report seriously? Are the Magnitsky sanctions being considered for those who may be involved in this appalling practice?
My Lords, on the noble Baroness’s second point, I cannot speculate on designations. On the organ harvesting report, I have, as she knows, met with Sir Geoffrey Nice. We have also carefully considered the group’s report of 1 March. That report contains numerous disturbing allegations of serious human rights abuses, including sexual violence, torture, and forced DNA testing. After reviewing the situation this morning, I have again written formally to the World Health Organization
My Lords, the appalling treatment of the Uighur Muslims by the Chinese regime is horrific. Yet China is expected to be re-elected to the Human Rights Council next month. Sadly, it seems that nothing can be done to halt the increasingly sinister influence of China within UN structures, seriously undermining the UN’s credibility. Will the Minister confirm that China is continuing to block the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from having a presence in China? Will he also confirm that we will not support China’s election to the Human Rights Council?
My Lords, on the issue of election to the Human Rights Council, I assure my noble friend we consider carefully all countries’ policies on standing up for human rights both internationally and domestically. On his earlier point, I spoke with High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet last week, and we have made the point directly to her that we continue to lobby for her unfettered access in Xinjiang.
In terms of the UN machinery generally, the United Kingdom has led on two statements—the only joint statements at the UN on Xinjiang—once last year and once this year in June at the Human Rights Council. I am intending to raise the issue in the UK’s national statement at the 45th session of the UNHRC, which is scheduled shortly.
My Lords, I should mention I am vice-chairman of the all-party group on the Uighurs.
In the light of the near impossibility of arriving at a legal determination of alleged genocide or crimes against humanity in the Uyghur region, which Ministers in the other place have acknowledged, will the Minister join me in welcoming the new initiative of Sir Geoffrey Nice QC in setting up the Uighur tribunal? Will he confirm that the Government will do everything possible to co-operate with the tribunal, including providing evidence and agreeing to take seriously what will be a rigorous and impartial judgment when the process is completed?
My Lords, I am fully aware of the formation of this new inquiry, and we are looking at it carefully. I am discussing our approach with officials. We intend to attend the inquiry as we did the inquiry on organ harvesting.
My Lords, I welcome the fact that the Minister has written to the WHO about forced organ harvesting. But it is not enough to write with the evidence; there needs to be concrete evidence. Would he argue with the WHO that this so-called self-assessment process needs to end, and that there ought to be independent verification of the harvesting of organs? Also, will he commit the Government to support my noble friend Lord Hunt and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, in making changes to the medicines Bill, which can address this issue and have concrete action to end this awful practice?
My Lords, on the latter issue of the medicines Bill, that will be discussed in your Lordships’ House; however, as a domestic piece of legislation, I do not think it is the right instrument with which to be looking at this issue, which is about international action. As for the World Health Organization, as I have said, we have taken steps. I will also seek a meeting with it to see what action can be taken. The evidence base is building, and it is clear that, if proven true, the abuses will be there for all to see. It is now important for the World Health Organization to consider the evidence carefully.
My Lords, returning to the original Question: could the Minister tell us what it would require for Her Majesty’s Government to analyse the treatment of the Uighurs as a potential genocide, and what it would take for them to raise that internationally?
My Lords, as I have already said, as well as raising this internationally, we are raising concerns bilaterally and directly, as my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has done, with the Chinese Foreign Secretary and State Councillor. We are also raising this through multilateral fora, through the third committee at the UN and the Human Rights Council. On the specific definition of genocide, the noble Baroness is aware of the Government’s position that this is something for tribunals or judicial authorities to assess.
My Lords, China has shown a callous disregard for the human rights of minority ethnic groups over a number of years. The evidence is now clearly overwhelming. Does the Minister not agree that the time is now right to instigate Magnitsky sanctions against those who perpetrate these indefensible wrongs against their own citizens? Words are clearly ineffective—this is time for decisive action.
My Lords, as I have already said, I cannot speculate on future designations, but I am pleased that we have now initiated, through my right honourable friend’s efforts, a formal procedure through the Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime, to ensure that those who abuse human rights are held to account.
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that states that do not live by basic international human rights standards should not have unfettered access to international trade markets? Is he aware of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which was recently passed by the US House of Representatives? Do Her Majesty’s Government have plans for similar legislation to be introduced here in the United Kingdom?
My Lords, my noble friend raises an important point. She will also be aware that it was through our support and initiation of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and our support for the evidence taken by a particular inquiry in Australia that we saw many companies changing their approach to trade initiatives, particularly in Xinjiang. We are looking at the US legislation carefully, and whatever the outcome of those discussions, I will write to my noble friend.
My Lords, the tragedy of this is that we have seen it before—these steps towards genocide. It is even more tragic that the United Nations is impotent due to the position of China. The only thing I believe the Government can do is publish a list of those brands to which it is thought forced labour by the Uighurs is contributing and call on the population to boycott those brands and hopefully prevent their import.
My Lords, I have already detailed the action the Government have taken, and I believe it is for companies to make their decisions in light of that evidence.
My Lords, all supplementary questions have been asked and we now move to the next Question. We now come to the second Oral Question.
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberTo ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership; and if they have such plans, when they plan to join.
My Lords, accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership is a government priority and a key part of our trade negotiations programme. We aim to begin formal accession negotiations next year. Any final decision to apply will consider both the progress of bilateral negotiations with CPTPP members and our confidence that we will be able to negotiate accession on terms compatible with the UK’s broader interests and domestic priorities.
I thank the Minister for his Answer. Can he tell the House when he expects CPTPP members Australia, New Zealand and Canada, which are also our Five Eyes partners, to support our membership and sign trade deals with us? Also, I welcome the deal with Japan. There is a chapter on SMEs, an ambition I understand the UK has for all other FTAs negotiated. This will help our innovative small businesses break into new markets, but sadly, the Government’s ambition for our global exports is more disappointing. Germany currently exports 47% of GDP, so why are the UK Government happy to set a low bar of just 35% for our exports?
My noble friend makes very good points. In terms of engagement so far with CPTPP members, the Trade Secretary met with ambassadors and high commissioners to discuss this, had a warm response and recently opened the first meeting between the UK and CPTPP officials to discuss preparations for the UK’s application to join the group. I will take up his point about exports with my colleague the Minister for Exports.
My Lords, since the Government are in the process of reneging on the withdrawal agreement that they freely entered into, how can Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the other members of the Trans-Pacific Partnership have faith that this Government will abide by any agreement they make to become a member?
My Lords, the British Government take their responsibilities under agreements very seriously. Sometimes, special circumstances arise where they have to take a view on the matters in the agreement, but I assure the noble Lord that we will adhere strictly to any free trade agreement that we sign.
My Lords, what assessment have the Government made of any implications for UK intellectual property rights? What progress have they made in the establishment of a utility trade platform, which would truly enable us to be a 21st-century, global, electronically based trading nation?
My Lords, the UK will ensure that any future accession talks with the CPTPP are consistent with the UK’s interests and the Government’s stated policies and priorities. We will not make changes to our intellectual property regime that are in any way detrimental to ourselves.
My Lords, we on these Benches are enthusiastic for UK businesses to utilise any expanded opportunities to export to the CPTPP countries in future, but this is the future, and what we face over the next couple of months, according to the DIT website this morning, is the fact that the UK will be trading on a free trade basis with only 8% of all UK trade—the worst record for the UK since the 1930s. Does the Minister agree that that will be disastrous for British exporters in the current economic climate and a very weak basis to look for further opportunities around the world?
My Lords, the Government are very keen to reach agreement with the European Union because of the importance that the noble Lord refers to; we are still working very hard on that. We have plenty of other trading partners around the world. If that agreement is not reached, we will trade on WTO terms with the EU. I think that there will be a bright future for this country in any event.
My Lords, I congratulate the Government on not only obtaining the treaty with Japan but getting Japan’s support for our membership of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The partnership contains quite significant provisions in relation to state subsidy, competition and investor remedies. Does my noble friend think that these will be insuperable barriers to our membership?
I thank my noble friend for her question. Of course, we will accede to the CPTPP only if we are happy that the arrangements we are acceding to are in the UK’s interest. We are confident that we will be able to reach that position with its members.
My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that we face two spheres of internet governance at the moment: one controlled by authoritarian regimes, rife with surveillance; and the other, western, free and accessible to all? Does he therefore agree that, alongside the CPTPP, another priority should be digital FTAs with Japan, Australia and India?
My Lords, in the recent agreement in principle with Japan that we were so pleased to reach, there is an extensive data and digital services chapter that we hope will be a model for our future free trade agreements. The points made by the noble Baroness are important and are always in our mind when we negotiate these agreements.
My Lords, can the Minister confirm that the CPTPP contains ISDS clauses? Given that the Secretary of State described this as an
“advanced agreement full of countries committed to the rules of international trade”,
why do the Government believe it necessary to provide secretive ISDS structures when we and the current members are in good standing and have perfectly adequate legal systems?
My Lords, the UK will ensure that any future accession talks with the CPTPP are consistent with our interests and our stated policies and priorities. We are clear that our future investment policy will continue to protect our right to regulate in the public interest and we will ensure that UK investors abroad receive the same high standard of treatment that foreign investors receive in the United Kingdom.
My Lords, there are some incompatibilities between the withdrawal agreement and the principles of the CPTPP, such as protection of traditional names for wine under Article 58.2. Those would require a carve-out. Has an assessment been made of how many carve-outs might be necessary to fit UK law into such areas as food safety and how many could be tolerated by CPTPP members?
My Lords, because we have not entered into negotiations on this agreement yet, it is hard to predict exactly how they will progress, but we are clear that more trade will not compromise our high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards.
My Lords, picking up on the theme of the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, in wishing otherwise, I would not invest in the Pacific Alliance countries, having listened to a briefing of somewhat negative messaging about that region from our resident ambassadors. Knowing the opportunities that exist, will the Minister sit with his colleagues in government and agree to a sea change in approach that focuses on opportunities for a global Britain, which will need alliances with emerging and frontier markets—of which there are plenty in the Pacific Alliance, which additionally forms a useful springboard for such organisations as Mercosur, for example?
My Lords, the CPTPP is one of the largest free trade areas in the world. It represented 13% of global GDP in 2018, which would increase to more than 16% if the UK were to join. It is one of the world’s premier growth interests and we consider that it is very much in the interests of the United Kingdom to be part of it.
In the event that we are successful and negotiate a deal with the CPTPP, or individually with Australia, New Zealand and Canada, what will be the parliamentary oversight and scrutiny of that agreement? Will the Government follow the procedure set out so effectively by Henry Dimbleby in part one of his national food strategy?
My Lords, I am not familiar with my noble friend’s reference, but I will certainly look that strategy up and consider it in our future efforts in this area.
My Lords, all supplementary questions have been asked.
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberTo ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they made of external expert advice prior to the use of the algorithm to determine A-level results for the 2019/20 academic year.
My Lords, the independent qualifications regulator, Ofqual, is responsible for securing qualification standards and promoting public confidence in regulated qualifications. As part of the development of the grading system introduced in place of exams this summer, Ofqual drew on the advice of experts from the exam boards and convened an external group of well-respected assessment experts to advise on the principles, main features and details of various aspects of the standardisation model.
My Lords, expert advice early on identified the algorithm as flawed and particularly damaging for state school and disadvantaged pupils. We have been told that the Secretary of State was fully in charge of his department throughout this debacle, yet two senior officials have resigned, which is outrageous. When I tabled this Question four weeks ago, I thought that he might have fallen on his sword by now—but no. So can the Minister confirm that the Conservative Government, with the exception of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, have abandoned the principles of ministerial honour and responsibility?
My Lords, on the standardisation model, Ofqual is a non-departmental body. It is important in principle that our examinations are not subject to government interference. While the department was in contact with Ofqual during this process, the decisions made on the algorithm were Ofqual’s. That respects the appropriate relationship between a department and independent bodies such as Ofqual.
Algorithms were a failure this year; they will not happen next year. Today, there are thousands of students—possibly even hundreds of thousands of students—who are not at school because of the lack of testing. On Monday, Liverpool University Technical College had to send home all year 10, year 11 and year 12 children—hundreds of children, who may be out for 10 days. This will happen all over the school estate. There will not be a level playing field of attendance records for students, and it will not be their fault. It is therefore very unfair to test them by written exams next year, because each student will have a different level of attendance. The Government should recognise that teacher assessment will be needed this year, in which case they should issue guidance to teachers now on the state of reports they will have to keep on each student, not only on attendance but on progress. If written exams happen next year, the brightest children will do well and the disadvantaged will do very badly. That is simply not fair.
My Lords, every Tuesday, the department publishes attendance data. As of yesterday, nearly 88% of students in state-funded schools and institutions were in school. The guidance published before the summer holidays made it clear to schools that by the end of this month they must be able to stand up remote education in the eventuality that pupils are sent home in these circumstances. We are working with Ofqual, which is looking at the arrangements for next year’s examinations.
My Lords, the algorithm for predicting A-level results this summer was clearly too harsh, leading to overcompensation using teacher predictions and subsequent difficulty finding college and university places in subjects such as medicine. If the physical sitting of exams again proves impossible this summer, will the Minister ensure that the timetable for publishing results allows more time for the better matching of teacher and improved algorithm predictions with the availability of places in higher education?
My Lords, on the important issue of the placing of students—particularly for A-levels, which are more often progression exams—the noble Lord will be aware that the Government, working closely with higher education institutions, lifted the cap on certain courses to raise capacity. The most recent figures are that 89% of students who received a grade increase have got their original offer, their insurance offer or an offer at an institution with the same tariff as their original offer.
My Lords, the most frustrating element of the algorithm was that it assumed that schools could not improve on previous years’ best performance. That seems contrary to what any Education Minister should believe about the power of schools to improve and change children’s lives. Did that element of the algorithm come from an external expert? If so, why was it accepted?
My Lords, as the noble Baroness will be aware, Ofqual consulted on the methodology and what aspects to include in the algorithm. The issue of what we termed “outliers”—highly performing students in institutions which have previously not performed well—was raised and was in the balance; students who might be affected in that way could be put right through the appeals processes. However, when the balance became such that the level of anomalies outweighed this, the more just situation became to use teacher assessment grades rather than the algorithm to assess grades.
My Lords, could the Minister give us an absolute assurance that this algorithm or anything like it will never be used again? That is something we should hear today.
My Lords, all four nations of the United Kingdom attempted to use this method. At the moment, the Office for Statistics Regulation, which is part of the UK Statistics Authority, is looking at the algorithms used for all four nations. However, it is intended that exams will go ahead this summer.
My Lords, the Secretary of State, the Department for Education and Ofqual were all warned by Cambridge Assessment of serious flaws in the grading of exams two weeks before A-level results were published, yet no action was taken. Much more seriously, the Royal Statistical Society has said that the issues with the algorithm could have been avoided had independent expert advice been taken. As far back as April, the society highlighted to Ofqual the problems coming down the road and suggested the establishment of an advisory panel involving independent statisticians to deal with them. Can the Minister explain to the hundreds of thousands of young people whose lives and education have been disrupted unnecessarily why that course of action was not taken?
My Lords, a member of the RSS was present on the expert advisory group at Ofqual, which I have already outlined. Ofqual tested 12 different models of the algorithm. During the algorithm’s development, there were various meetings between the department and Ofqual, and we were assured that any irregularities in its application could be put right through an appeals process. We responded when an issue arose in Scotland around its use of an algorithm.
My Lords, will the Government conduct research into the extraordinarily large difference between predicted grades and actual grades at A-level, so that we can understand why deprived children fall below predicted grades so often and do something about it?
My Lords, there was a rise of about 12% in the top grades awarded this summer. We are not in a position to go behind the teacher assessment grades. The only appeal available to students is on the basis of administrative error in giving those teacher-assessed grades to the exam boards.
I draw noble Lords’ attention to my relevant interests in the register as an adviser to a decision science company. Does the Minister agree that the approach taken to determine the outcome of this year’s A-level results clearly demonstrates that using an algorithm or human expert judgment in isolation is flawed, and that highly complicated decision-making by government needs to embrace decision science, which seeks to exploit the right balance of artificial intelligence and human judgment?
My Lords, in relation to the involvement of human decision and algorithms, I have outlined the current investigation into the algorithm, but I will take back what the noble and gallant Lord says, because at the moment we in the department are at the juncture of Ofqual having consulted on the timing of exams next year.
My Lords, universities have the challenge of speedily picking up the pieces at the end of this sorry episode. Can the Minister tell us how the Government plan to support universities ahead of next year’s admissions cycle to ensure that the year 13 students from this year, who have already faced Covid disruption, are not further disadvantaged by places already being filled by students who had to defer this year?
My Lords, we are grateful to the many staff behind the scenes in the admissions departments of universities who have managed to achieve the statistic I outlined previously. My colleague Minister Donelan is working with the higher education task force, which works closely with the universities. There are discussions around capacity of places for next year and particular concern about any delay in exams. Ofqual has been consulting on this to make sure that discussions are ongoing in the other section of the system, which is the admissions process.
My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed.
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberTo ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies 2020 annual report on education spending in England: schools, published on 18 September, what plans they have to increase school spending per pupil.
My Lords, we are investing more in schools over the next three years, starting with an additional £2.6 billion this year and rising to £7.1 billion by 2022-23, compared to 2019-20. This will ensure that per pupil funding for every school can rise at least in line with inflation this year, and faster than inflation for most. The IFS has said that this investment will near enough restore schools’ per pupil funding to previous levels in real terms.
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that Answer, but schools in England have suffered the most severe funding cut in 40 years, with the biggest brunt falling on secondary schools in areas with the lowest 20% of incomes. School spending has decreased by around £1,000 per pupil over the past 10 years, and even the extra £7.1 billion which the Minister just mentioned will not reverse those cuts; there will still be a 1% in gap in funding since 2010. I should say that 1% equates to around £500 million per year.
With the Covid catch-up fund due to be spread across all schools, regardless of disadvantage, I ask the Minister when the Government’s commitment to levelling up educational opportunity will be translated into a greater targeting of additional funding to schools in more deprived areas, and a real increase in funding per pupil.
My Lords, the national funding formula obviously takes deprivation into account, and 18% of that formula—£6.2 billion—is aimed at disadvantaged students. That is in addition to any supplementary funding such as that for music hubs, which is also directed funding to free school meal areas. There is also, in the catch-up fund, the £350 million national tutoring programme, aimed at disadvantaged students. Some of the figures that the noble Lord outlines, in relation to schools in the most deprived areas, relate to the fact that the most deprived students are now spread across more areas of the country. That is why there has been a decrease in funding in some of the most deprived areas, because the most deprived students—for whom the funding is there—are spread more evenly across the country. Therefore, the funding formula has taken that into account.
My Lords, I welcome the IFS report, which clearly outlines that the recent and future strategy for education spending in England was on track to deliver the Government’s commitment to level up poorer regions of the country and to narrow the achievement gap between children from rich and poor families. However, the closure of schools during lockdown, and the need to restructure both teaching timetables and physical resources, is creating immense challenges for schools, which I particularly understand as a previous chair of a large academy in a deprived area in Plymouth.
I welcome the extra provision that the Government have already committed in recognition of the difficulties ahead for pupils and staff this year—but is it enough? Could the Minister inform the House whether additional funds will be announced, in the forthcoming spending review, for sixth-form pupils to accelerate their learning where cuts had been significant in previous years? Will there be a capital investment programme to return school buildings to at least a satisfactory or good condition, which the National Audit Office estimated in 2017 would cost in the region of £6.7 billion?
My Lords, in relation to the particular challenges—I mentioned those attendance statistics, and one cannot underestimate the effort made in our schools to get attendance at that level. In relation to 16 to 19 year-olds, £96 million of the national tutoring programme fund is aimed at disadvantaged students in that year group, and an extra £400 million is going into 16 to 19 funding. Indeed, we should in the autumn get the list of the first 50 schools that will be rebuilt under the repair programme. Over the last five years, £23 billion has gone into the school estate. The noble Baroness is correct that we need to accelerate the building programme, not only to give our children the buildings they need to learn in but to motivate the economy and the recovery that we need.
My Lords, the House will have become familiar with the many government pronouncements of overwhelming investment in education and public services. Equally, the House will have noted the persistent and alarming social divisions shamefully ever increasing in the fifth-largest economy in the world. With the Government’s levelling-up agenda and intention to close the gap between students from wealthy backgrounds and those who battle an onslaught of socioeconomic conditions—poor housing, poverty, racial and religious discrimination, and now the digital divide—what additional resources have the Government allocated to meet these challenges? Does the forward strategy include increasing the recruitment, retention and promotion of teachers from minority communities in leadership positions, which remains unacceptably low?
My Lords, in relation to the issues that the noble Baroness outlined, the Government are obviously concerned about the attainment gap and are trying to ensure that students from disadvantaged backgrounds have the opportunity of a great education. That is why £2.4 billion has gone into the system as pupil premium money for those students. At the moment, we have spent £100 million on remote education, and in addition to the 220,000 laptops that have been distributed, another 150,000 are being delivered to ensure that we can help schools, particularly in those areas with disadvantaged students, if they have to learn at home. As I have outlined, the national funding formula prioritises the most deprived students, and a significant proportion of that money goes to them.
BAME teachers are part of the recruitment strategy. In relation to governors, we are now making it a KPI of the forthcoming contract subject to spending review that they should be able to achieve targets for BAME representation in the governing of our schools.
My Lords, schools might be saving money on the large number of children being home educated, many of whom then miss out on proper education entirely and are vulnerable to being caught up in county lines and criminal gangs. What are the Government doing to enable proper standards in, and preferably to register, home education?
My Lords, the noble Baroness may be aware that, before the pandemic, the Government had consulted on precisely that issue of whether to have a register for the local authority of those who are home educated. There will be in the coming months, when it is appropriate, a response to that consultation. At the moment, the teams on the ground are in contact with local authorities, and we have made it clear to local authorities that we want as much data as possible on trends in home education. We are advising local authorities to make clear to any parents thinking of opting for home education, although it is their right, the responsibility and obligation that this is. Delivering home education is very different from supervising at home the curriculum delivered by schools, and we recognise the safeguarding issues for many children if they are electively home educated but are then not actually being educated.
My Lords, all supplementary questions have been asked.
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberTo ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the announcement by National Savings and Investment about reductions in interest rates.
Her Majesty’s Treasury set NS&I an annual target of net financing to raise. In July, this was revised from the £6 billion set at the Budget to £35 billion to support the Government’s higher financing requirement. NS&I reviews the interest rates on its products regularly and recommended a reduction in interest rates, with the objective of meeting its financing target, while returning to a more normal market position.
My Lords, I declare my interest as an optimistic holder of Premium Bonds. NS&I’s decision to cut interest rates drastically to near zero was a direct consequence, as my noble friend has just said, of the Government’s net financing target—a devastating decision for millions of savers who find their income decimated, or worse. NS&I is a key source of government borrowing but has a broader mission. I quote from its annual report:
“We want to inspire a stronger savings culture”.
That objective is out of the window. Earlier this year, a decision to reduce interest rates was reversed. Will the Government now enable NS&I to reverse this latest decision before it comes into effect in November?
My Lords, perhaps I should also declare my interest as a holder of NS&I savings products. I can understand people’s disappointment at the rate reductions. I reassure my noble friend that the prize fund rate for Premium Bonds, at 1%, even after the reductions, remains competitive relative to the savings market. I remind him that although NS&I has a remit to encourage a savings culture, it also has to balance that against providing value for money for the taxpayer and its position and effect on the broader financial services sector.
I will deviate slightly from NS&I, important though that institution is to millions of British savers. Noble Lords will know that for various reasons a sizable number of people find it impossible to save at all. One in three adults had no savings at the onset of Covid, and one in four families had less than £100. Step Change estimates that 4 million people took on £6 billion of personal debt in the first months of the crisis—an average of £1,500 each. That figure is likely to grow as we enter a second wave. Does the Minister agree that, important as it is to consider the specifics of incentivising savings, we must give broader consideration to how we enable everyone to have a degree of financial resilience? With the furlough scheme due to be wound up within weeks, what steps are the Government taking to prevent those with no financial fallback experiencing serious hardship in the coming months?
My Lords, the noble Lord is correct to say that we need to help those on low incomes to save, so that they have a buffer if they face unexpected financial events. That is why we have introduced Help to Save, a government-backed savings account that offers a 50% bonus on savings of up to £50 a month for those in receipt of working tax credits or universal credit, with a weekly earnings equivalent to at least 16 times the national living wage. Returning to National Savings and Investments, one of the other benefits of NS&I accounts, including Premium Bonds, is the low level of savings, at £25, with which people can start those accounts and access those rates.
My Lords, I have savings products with NS&I and was stunned yesterday morning to get an email announcing savage cuts to its rates. Every bank will now cut its offers in light of the NS&I decision, leaving millions of small savers with essentially zero returns. As the noble Lord, Lord Young, said, the rate cut rests at the door of the Treasury because it sets the funding target for NS&I. Does the Minister accept that this will destroy confidence and make savers even more reluctant to spend? It is an act of self-harm for an economy already in free-fall.
My Lords, I disagree with the noble Baroness that the decision on NS&I interest rates will have an impact on interest rates in the wider market. It is partly because NS&I rates were so out of line with the wider market that this decision was taken. I should also point out that the interest rate decision was taken in light of the Government’s net financing target, which was increased from £6 billion to £35 billion in response to the pandemic.
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend for tabling this Question. After 12 years of miserly returns, surely, we need to encourage savers rather than punish them. Banks do not need savers’ money. In the current environment, might the Government consider “corona bonds” to help finance the current emergency spending and demonstrate that they believe in a savings culture?
In effect, customers’ deposits with NS&I are a form of government borrowing and could be interpreted in that way. The increase in the financing remit for NS&I has allowed it to offer those products to many more people without exceeding that remit. However, we have reached a difficult moment whereby it is on track to grossly exceed that remit if action is not taken. However, the Government want to encourage savings and that is why, over recent years, we have taken the vast majority of savers out of paying tax on their savings. We will of course continue to look at what more we can do.
My Lords, surely NS&I interest rates should roughly reflect market rates for different amounts and terms if government policy is to offer a modest premium over market rates to encourage saving. The proposed cuts look to take NS&I rates below market rates. They are too large and will damage saving. Is wanting to inspire a stronger savings culture still government policy?
I assure my noble friend that that is still government policy, but I disagree with him on the fact that the changes to NS&I’s interest rates take it below competitive rates in the market. As I have pointed out, on premium bonds, a 1% prize fund rate is extremely competitive while on a number of other tax-free instant access products, the rates remain in line with the rest of the market.
My Lords, I must start with a disclosure. Many years ago, I invested what to me was a substantial sum of money in NS&I. We are now seeing the rates go down to well below 1%—indeed, to a fraction of 1%. Is it going to stop there? Will the Government look at negative rates? If not, will they make a clear commitment to move away from them? How much of that target of £35 billion has been achieved? Is there likely to be more than just that target? If so, will there be any return to those people who are dependent on National Savings?
In response to my noble friend’s question about whether the net financing target is due to be exceeded, I can tell him that in quarter 1 of the 2020-21 financial year, NS&I saw an inflow of £19.9 billion and delivered £14.5 billion of net financing. Demand for NS&I products has remained at similarly high levels during Q2. If the current trajectory continues, it will be on track vastly to exceed that net financing target.
My Lords, the Minister seems to have felt the need to disagree with almost all the noble Lords who have spoken. In particular, she disagreed with my noble friend Lady Kramer, who suggested that the impact of the NS&I cuts—[Interruption.] I am extremely sorry for that interruption; it was possibly from a website trying to sell me bonds because I have been looking up NS&I activities. My noble friend Lady Kramer suggested that the cuts in NS&I rates would have a knock-on effect. The Minister disagreed. However, as that website has just pointed out, other banks have followed suit with their products in trying to match the NS&I higher rates. The fact that they are now being cut is likely to have a knock-on effect. Surely the Government cannot claim that they want to have a savings culture any longer.
My Lords, I also expressed sympathy with those savers, including many noble Lords, who have been affected by the decision to change the interest rates. It is not an easy decision but I have tried to explain to noble Lords that the Government take several factors into account in this decision. One of them is the interests of savers. Premium bonds continue to offer a market-leading rate for those savers. However, that must be balanced against the need to protect the interests of taxpayers and the broader financial services sector.
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Young on securing this Question. Like him, I declare my interest as a holder of NS&I products. There is a particular cohort that has not been raised, and that is pensioners and others living on fixed incomes. After having saved all their lives to have a top-up on those fixed incomes, they will be devastated. Will my noble friend consider something like that put forward by my noble friend Lady Altmann: a form of corona bond for pensioners?
The Government will continue to consider all the ways that they can to encourage saving. I am happy to assure both of my noble friends that I will take the specific idea of targeting toward pensioners back to Her Majesty’s Treasury.
My Lords, all supplementary questions have now been asked.
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberThat Lord McFall of Alcluith and Lord Macpherson of Earl’s Court be appointed as members of the Parliamentary Works Estimates Commission.
My Lords, this Motion appoints the Lords Members of the Parliamentary Works Estimates Commission, the two names having been nominated by the House of Lords Commission. I beg to move.
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberThat a Motion for an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Civil Procedure (Amendment No. 4) (Coronavirus) Rules 2020, laid before the House on 17 July, be annulled because they will permit evictions of individuals who have been served a notice of eviction between 23 March and 28 August before Parliament has had an opportunity to debate the impact of the Rules on (1) homelessness, and (2) the spread of COVID-19 (SI 2020/751).
Relevant document: 24th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
My Lords, in the last general election this Government promised to scrap Section 21 evictions—evictions that are mandatory and require no explanation from the landlord. In March, the Government promised that
“no renter who has lost income due to coronavirus will be forced out of their home”.
This Motion, with your Lordships’ support, will achieve those objectives—those two promises from this Government—for thousands of renters who face the pandemic second wave and a bleak winter.
I thank all Peers who have joined me in discussions about this debate in advance. I recognise that this afternoon we may well tour a multitude of issues faced by both tenants and landlords, and many valid points will be made, but I urge Peers to comment on the significant loophole as a result of this statutory instrument, namely the Civil Procedure (Amendment No. 4) (Coronavirus) Rules 2020, laid before Parliament on 17 July. Its welcome baby sister, the Coronavirus Act 2020 (Residential Tenancies: Protection from Eviction) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2020, was laid on 28 August, introducing six-month notice periods for tenants, unless there are serious issues such as domestic violence and anti-social behaviour or significant rent arrears.
My only question to the Minister today is: why can we not explore methods to apply longer notice periods to ensure parity between those served notice before and after 29 August? This request was shared with the Government yesterday, and I gave the Minister notice of it this morning. I hope that he will answer this specific question. The letter sent to all Peers by the Government yesterday dwelled almost entirely on the second statutory instrument, not the first, which is the subject of today’s debate.
As a result of this identified loophole, an estimated 55,000 households, according to Generation Rent, will not have six months’ notice, so if a landlord served a Section 21 notice to their tenant during the height of lockdown, they could be coming to the end of their tenancy now. Indeed, many notices served at the height of the pandemic have already expired, or the best-case scenario is three months’ notice.
I have asked many parliamentary Questions about how many people will be impacted by this loophole. The MHCLG has answered each request for data with verbal claims of “unprecedented packages”, instead of answering my questions. It has put some data out on Twitter suggesting that the official statistics show that only 3,022 private and social sector landlords applied to the courts for possession of their property between April and June. Perhaps the MHCLG should heed the warning of the Ministry of Justice, which says that
“the data is unlikely to be representative of general trends in possession actions.”
Most Peers involved in this debate will be only too well aware that tenants subject to a Section 21 eviction rarely make it to court, knowing that it is mandatory, requires no explanation from the landlord, has no discretionary role for the judges and leaves the tenant with the bill to pay for both the landlord and themselves.
The 55,000 households teetering on the brink of eviction are the subject of this vote today. That figure is calculated using widely accepted methodology based on population levels and numbers of private tenants. Given that Shelter has already said that by the end of June, 174,000 households had been warned that they would face eviction, we can safely assume that we are talking about tens of thousands having been served with an eviction notice between March and August of this year. All it takes is for a landlord to now reinvoke that eviction notice and during the second wave of an epidemic, in the run up to winter, these families will be searching for a new home. Some will face homelessness and many the misery of temporary accommodation, supported by local authorities that are struggling every day to help. My noble friend Lady Thornhill will elaborate. The winter truce was welcome, but it is too late for these tenants—tenants such as Kevin from Kendal, who told Generation Rent:
“Our landlord has decided to sell their house, no doubt to take advantage of the stamp duty holiday. We have paid our rent on time and in full for almost 4 years, even with the reduced income over Covid-19, but we received a Section 21 Notice. We’re struggling to find a suitable home in our town and are now having to consider moving away and changing our kids’ schools. My eldest son should be starting Year 7 at the local secondary in September. I was a child when I was evicted from my home 24 years ago. I never thought my kids would go through this.”
We must vote down this statutory instrument today to help tenants such as Kevin. The Government were warned and had time to prepare. They could have used the recommendations of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee back in May to give judges more discretion or to accelerate the abolition of Section 21, but they did not. In this debate, some will want to talk about how difficult it has been for many landlords. I agree, and I wholeheartedly support the package of proposals for tenants and landlords drawn up by the National Residential Landlords Association, Shelter, Crisis, Generation Rent and others, but that is not the subject of the vote today. If we vote against this statutory instrument, will landlords still be able to take action regarding more serious eviction cases? Yes, they will, because of the second statutory instrument. This Motion ensures that there is fairness between those threatened with eviction before August and those threatened with eviction after August. That is all.
I recognise that this House does not like to vote down statutory instruments—it is not a good precedent—but this Government have already abandoned due process. The Commons did not do its job and properly scrutinise this SI. The Government did not comply with the 21-day rule of having 21 sitting days before it was enacted. This week, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale, set Parliament the challenge of not surrendering our role because of Covid-19. This is not comfortable parliamentary business, but neither is it comfortable for the tens of thousands threatened with eviction.
As for the Motion to Regret, clearly, I agree with its laudable aims, but if we vote for that, nothing happens. We will come back tomorrow to discuss more Covid-19 regulations, but we will not have changed the law. We must vote down this SI and change the law. The sky will not fall in. Serious evictions will still happen, but thousands of families threatened with eviction, with no cash and no options, will have your Lordships to thank for changing the law and giving them the reprieve that they need in these terrifying times.
My Lords, Ministers promised that no one would lose their home because of coronavirus. The rules before this House today will see this promise broken. Tenants across the UK are struggling to make ends meet right now, and just as the furlough scheme ends, redundancies begin, and lockdowns start again. This Government’s response is to bring the evictions moratorium to a halt.
I remind the House of some of the figures that we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Grender. Shelter estimates that close to 250,000 renters are now at risk of a Covid-19 eviction as a result of the ban being lifted. Already, 174,000 private tenants have been threatened with eviction by their landlord or letting agent. Even before this crisis, more than half of private renters aged between 25 and 34 had no savings. On top of this, 45% of renters have lost their income since March, according to Generation Rent.
The Government are well aware of this and rightly avoided the cliff edge back in August, when they chose to extend the evictions ban. However, less than a month later, they have driven off that very same cliff edge. I understand that the Minister will tell the House that the evictions ban cannot go on for ever—I accept that—but it is not what we, or anyone else, are asking for. We are asking the Government to stick to their word that no one will lose their home because of coronavirus.
In the months that have passed since the announcement of the moratorium, the Ministry could have put in place the right measures to ensure this promise is honoured. It could have brought in the right to support for tenants who are struggling, changes to the universal credit system and an uplift in local housing allowance. It could have also announced a credible plan to deal with rent arrears. Instead, it has leapt from crisis to crisis, wasted the summer months, and now tenants are facing the same predicament they faced at the beginning of the pandemic.
Yesterday, all Peers received a letter from the Minister in which he outlined the support the Government have brought forward to help with people’s living costs, including rent. These measures are mitigation, but they are hedged around with discretionary payments and different eviction rules in different parts of the country, depending on whether there is a local lockdown. The central point for today’s statutory instrument is that the eviction process will restart, and Government will break their promise to some of the most vulnerable people in our country.
The Government should feel compelled to extend the evictions ban because of the misery which will be caused to those who will lose their homes. They should also recognise that if they do not act, there will be wider implications for us all.
Sixteen health bodies, including the British Medical Association, have warned of a potential rise in Covid infections if the Government force people into homelessness or overcrowded accommodation. The consequences of these measures extend far beyond those who will be directly evicted.
The National Residential Landlords Association is also calling for more support for tenants. In other parts of the UK there has been recognition of the looming crisis. I draw attention to what the Welsh Government are doing, for example. They have extended minimum notice periods, launched an early alert scheme, introduced tenancy saver loans and begun a housing advice campaign. Through their local authorities, they have supported people in the private rented sector.
The Liberal Democrats’ Motion is a fatal Motion; ours is a regret Motion. I believe that a fatal Motion would go against the express view of the House of Commons, but above that, it would be a diversion from the seriousness of this issue and quickly degenerate into a constitutional row, which would take the focus off the central importance of this issue.
The Labour Benches have repeatedly warned that the Government should not lift the evictions ban until they have a credible plan which ensures that people who have lost income due to coronavirus do not lose their homes. Regrettably, that has not happened. The ban will be lifted, and the plan to be put in place is insufficient for the Government to say they have kept their promise. I hope that today, the Minister can unveil a better plan.
My Lords, I am pleased to follow the noble Lords proposing the two motions before the House. The noble Baroness, Lady Grender, is an experienced Member of this House. I expect she fully understands that her proposition to annul these measures is contrary to the practice and conventions of this House. Such a proposition, if successful, will be greatly to the disadvantage of the House. I hope she reconsiders the matter and withdraws her Motion.
I will address the regret Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby. I think he is wrong. In the light of the pandemic, I can understand the anxiety of noble Lords about this matter, but if we agree with the view that the justice process is not just about the resolution of difficult matters but also about fairness, we need to get the courts hearing cases again. Justice and fairness, to both landlord and tenant, cannot be put on hold just because of the pandemic, particularly as the Government have introduced measures to assist fairness and justice following the working group convened by the Master of the Rolls. There has been reference to yesterday’s letter from the Minister, Alex Chalk; it makes the measures in the practice direction clear. The prioritisation of cases will focus on anti-social behaviour, extreme rent arrears, domestic abuse, fraud and deception, illegal occupation and squatters, and abandonment of a property. I think noble Lords will agree that these cases are not just about parties to the dispute, but often about the rights and distress of neighbours.
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, and the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, for giving us this chance to consider how a Covid-related rise in homelessness can be avoided. I declare my interests as on the register.
The pandemic has revealed how insecure and vulnerable is the private rented sector. Tenants, who can be paying over 40% of their income on rents, can lose their homes if they lose their jobs. Landlords, and there are over 2 million of them, can lose much of their income if they lose their rent. Therefore, the problems now faced by tenants and landlords call into question whether halving the size of the social housing sector—councils and housing associations—and doubling the size of the private rented sector, has been a sensible switch. We can now see the necessity not only of promised renters’ reforms but of rebalancing the two rental sectors, so that more households once again have the greater affordability and security of council and housing association accommodation.
The immediate necessity, however, is to avoid thousands of households with rent arrears losing their homes, not least because temporary accommodation for homeless families is already costing £1 billion a year. The annulment Motion by the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, seeks to do this by addressing one unfair anomaly in the current arrangements. The Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, points to the lack of discretion for the courts in England—unlike their equivalents in Scotland —to refuse or delay a possession order where this is clearly justified.
I recommend that the Government also top up councils’ Covid hardship funds and reconsider the Spanish tenants’ loan scheme: a government-guaranteed, interest-free bank loan, repayable over six years or more, that pays off the arrears so the tenant is not evicted. The landlord is happy, the cost to government is very modest and to the tenant, bearable; and a rise in homelessness and misery is avoided.
My Lords, it is always good to follow the noble Lord, Lord Best, with his knowledge of this area. I am aware of the importance of this matter for both landlord and tenants. I am grateful for many of the measures that have been in place hitherto and many of the protections and mitigations which will continue under these rules. However, to pick up a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Best, I am concerned about those who may now find themselves in significant arrears, not least because of the pandemic. I think we will find there are many more in this situation than there were some months ago. This will disproportionately affect those from the most vulnerable groups in our midst, including migrants and those with mental health conditions.
A few months ago, the Everyone In initiative was in very many ways an astounding success and something of which the Government and others can, rightly, be proud. I would not want to see that being reversed by the effects of what is now being proposed, whether intended or not. My anxiety is that, just as infection rates may be rising, so evictions could reverse the good work that was done by putting people back on the streets. I will listen carefully to the debate. I hope for reassurance from the Minister but I have an inclination to vote for the regret Motion to give judges greater discretion in this matter.
My Lords, very briefly and swiftly I shall give the local government perspective of the impact of this SI.
This pandemic has merely highlighted and exacerbated a growing problem—namely, that, with a significant reduction in social housing over many years, many low-waged earners are now privately renting and, as a direct consequence, are spending a higher percentage of their wages simply on putting a roof over their head.
Pre-Covid, the most common reason for people turning up homeless to their local council was eviction from a private tenancy. That figure is still at 74% nationally. In the longer term, we must reverse this decline and provide significantly more social, not affordable, housing. Just 6,000 homes for rent were built last year.
Local authorities, with government help from the Everyone In initiative, have taken 15,000 homeless people off the streets, but there is not the appropriate accommodation to house them permanently. Adding to this number by enabling further evictions will exacerbate an already difficult and unsustainable situation. Councils are using hotels and hostels, which is a temporary solution. In the last financial year, councils’ net expenditure on temporary accommodation was £140 million over budget. It is crucial that we prevent by whatever means possible any further homelessness.
To reduce evictions from the private sector, the Government should urgently bring forward their proposal to end Section 21 no-fault evictions and commit to maintaining the local housing allowance at the 30th percentile in the longer term. They should provide assurances to councils about the continuation of the much-needed discretionary housing payments for at least the next financial year and, finally, address the £2 billion local authority funding gap.
My Lords, I wish the House to understand the view of the Welsh Government on the importance of housing and the private rented sector. It is a humane and supportive way of dealing with the fundamental issue of people having a decent home.
In February, the Welsh Government introduced an amendment to their housing Bill. The aim of the Bill was to improve security of tenure for those who rent their home in Wales. Although its provisions will apply to all landlords, its greatest impact will be felt in the private rented sector. Increased security of tenure would be achieved by amending the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 to extend the minimum notice period for a notice given under Section 173 from two to six months, and to restrict the issuing of such a notice until six months after the occupation date of the contract, currently set at four months. The net effect of these changes would be to double the length of time before a landlord could seek possession at the beginning of a contract from six months to one year.
The Minister for Housing and Local Government in the Senedd said that she was committed to ensuring that the Government continue to protect renters, while at the same time mitigating impacts on landlords and protecting communities from the harmful effects of anti-social behaviour. Where rent arrears have accumulated due to Covid-19, private rented sector tenants will be able to apply for a loan through the tenancy saver loan scheme, which opens at the end of this month and will provide £1.4 million to manage debt problems. Looking beyond the pandemic, the Welsh Government will continue with their Bill to amend the Act to increase the security of tenure, meaning that security of tenure in Wales will be greater than elsewhere in the UK.
This ground-breaking legislation sends out a very clear message—a secure home is essential and forms the basis of a decent society. The regret Motion in the name of my noble friend Lord Ponsonby follows that sense of decency in trying to protect tenants in England from eviction. I urge this Government to look at what we are doing in Wales to support people, particularly in these most difficult of times.
My Lords, although it was right to impose a ban on evictions as we worked to understand the effects of coronavirus, it was not without consequence, particularly for victims of domestic abuse. For months, victims have been trapped in their homes with their perpetrator, living in daily fear of abuse because landlords have not been able to end tenancy agreements. This situation cannot continue. If we do not redeem evictions, we will prolong people’s suffering and let victims down. I know how seriously Members across the House take the issue of domestic abuse, so I am sure that this is something that none of us would want.
My Lords, my involvement in the private rented sector is parliamentary, personal and professional. I saw the freeze on evictions as a necessary but blunt instrument due to the prevailing immediacy of circumstances and for good order, given judicial incapacity. Landlords and tenants, lenders and borrowers, the honest and the less so, and many pre-existing or unrelated issues were swept up in this. However, coronavirus cannot go on being cited for all ills.
I might have supported the Motion to Regret and the Motion for an humble Address to annul the rules had it been possible to distinguish a genuine balance of Covid-related hardship from more opportunistic practices, or indeed from unrelated pre-Covid matters. I could have done so had it been clear, on fair assessment, that the balance of hardship was invariably in favour of protecting renters and maintaining the freeze. However, I am not convinced. I note that over 60% of private rented sector landlords are owners of but one rented property. Perhaps the owner wanting to reoccupy their sole rented home, the pensioner, possibly in care and reliant on the rental income from their former home, and the buy-to-let borrower also need fair treatment or we risk serious consequences. The sector needs protection from poor tenants and poor landlords alike.
Covid ultimately affects our entire existence and economy, and we have to get back to normal somehow or other. I accept that the Government might offer financial assistance, which would ease the issue, and I would support that, but I feel that it is probably out of scope and I certainly do not believe that it is a cure-all.
Rocks and hard places apart, matters cannot just drift. The eviction freeze comes with moral hazards and abuses, and must revert to case-by-case assessment of the individual circumstances, so that landlords and tenants are subject to independent adjudication. Therefore, although the Government need to demonstrate an approach to the lacuna referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, I follow the reasoning and conclusions of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor.
My Lords, I believe that the right to shelter is just that—a fundamental human right. Incidentally, in the light of recent remarks, I also think that that right comes even before someone’s right to buy to let. That said, I understand the property right, but the crucial thing here is that in a pandemic, of all times, we do not need people to be rendered homeless, whatever the reasons for that homelessness. Therefore, it is my belief that the Government should enact emergency legislation after this debate to ensure that no one is homeless during the pandemic. How will it be possible to enforce further local or national lockdowns, or to deal with this catastrophic crisis of social mixing, before there is a vaccine if we cannot guarantee that everyone has basic shelter and that no one is homeless?
At the moment I am minded to support the regret Motion rather than the fatal one, and not just because of constitutional conventions, significant though they must be in the context of an unelected House. Can the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, explain in a little more detail in her summing up the legal effect of annulling retrospectively Civil Procedure Rules that have granted eviction protection for the past month? It is a concern about throwing that last month’s protection and legal certainty into doubt that gives me real pause for thought about the fatal Motion.
Therefore, as I said, at the moment I am minded to support the regret Motion, but not just as a debating point. Your Lordships’ House is not the Oxford Union or Cambridge Union; it needs to have more teeth than that. I am not a great fan of this Government but the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, is a fantastic representative of them and a distinguished Member of this House. However, this is not just about adjudicating fairness between landlord and tenant. If we are to be fair to both, there is no problem with the Government stepping behind landlords and tenants, and providing the finances to make sure that no one need lose out or become homeless in this crisis. That can be done with emergency legislation to ensure a basic income, including the rent payments that people need and, where necessary, emergency social housing.
My Lords, I have nothing to add on the substantive issues to the excellent speech made by my noble friend Lady Grender. I just want to say one or two things on affirmative Motions. I have been a Member of this House for 20 years. During that time, there have been a handful of occasions when the Conservatives have moved or supported fatal Motions on affirmative instruments. Their view seems to change according to whether they are in government or not.
Whenever there has been an investigation into the powers of the Lords on affirmative instruments—there have been two major investigations in that time—on each occasion, the conclusion was that the Lords have the power and ought to keep it but it ought to be used extremely sparingly. Therefore, it is wrong to say, as the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, said, that this was contrary to the practices and conventions of this House. Rather, it would be contrary to the practices and conventions for such powers to be proposed and used frequently.
There are some occasions when fatal Motions are justified. One is when there is a very unusual situation and the Government have got themselves in a mess over what they are doing procedurally. That is the case at the moment, when all the statutory instruments that we are getting are not being dealt with properly, so we are in an exceptional situation. Another occasion when they are justified is when the fatality is technical. If this were to be voted down today, it would be a fatal Motion but not in practice. For example, 20 years ago, the House rejected a statutory instrument on GLA elections, but that did not stop those elections because it was possible for the Government of the day to turn around and sort it out.
Why have affirmative instruments in the first place? If we can never vote them down, there is no point in having them. The fact that we can, and occasionally do, vote them down actually gives all affirmative instruments a great deal more importance and means that the Government have to pay attention to them, so we should vote for this Motion.
My Lords, the Government are absolutely right not to continue the blanket ban on repossessions. After six months, when many landlords have struggled without any government help, with tenants who have already not been paying rent since before lockdown or who are damaging the property and behaving violently, is it really right effectively to force landlords to continue to provide free social housing even to problem tenants, costing private individuals thousands of pounds? These are not rich tycoons: just under half rent out only one property. Many are pensioners relying on rent for their retirement security. A balance must be struck between protecting tenants affected by Covid and enabling a property owner to recover their losses—or, indeed, to move into their own property on return from military service or working abroad when they would otherwise be legally barred from doing so.
The Motion of the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, to annul this statutory instrument, as my noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach explained, would be against the conventions of our House. It would also cause chaos around the country and would damage the availability of private rented accommodation, which will be needed so much in future. There are protections for tenants, and the prioritisation of the courts will focus on anti-social or violent tenants, squatters, fraudsters and those with arrears that already go back more than one year. Homelessness is a dreadful problem; the Government must get to grips with it. I support the calls from around the House for emergency funding to support landlords and tenants where they face such problems in the current emergency. However, this blanket ban on repossessions does not seem like natural justice.
My Lords, earlier this year, research by Age UK found that there were 750,000 private renters over the age of 60 in the UK. Older renters are often forgotten, and many live in constant fear of being evicted. This happened even before the pandemic. Some 28% of those who have been shielding during the pandemic usually work; half of these people are over the age of 50. That is why I, along with a cross-party group of 46 other Members of this House, recently wrote to the Chancellor asking him to give those who need it most job security and a decent income while the risks of Covid remain high. As the coronavirus job retention scheme or furloughs come to an end, there is a risk that many of these people will end up in rent arrears and face eviction.
One in five people aged between 50 and 64 are carers, as research from the Centre for Ageing Better in August last year showed. Many of these carers are forced to reduce their working hours and their income to care for loved ones, as we know. ONS figures from April this year found that 17% of employed carers had to reduce their working hours during the pandemic, while Alzheimer’s Society figures from 2019 showed that 112,000 people have left employment to care for family members who have dementia. Dementia Carers Count found that 36% of family carers provide care in excess of 100 hours a week.
The broken social care system means that carers’ incomes have been reduced during the pandemic; they are at greater risk of falling into rent arrears and now could also face eviction. A 2018 survey conducted by Mind found that one in four people said that having an unstable tenancy had impacted negatively on their mental health. A 2017 study by the Association of Mental Health Providers found that people with mental health problems were more likely to be evicted for either financial reasons or disproportionate anti- social behaviour. The same study found that people who are evicted tend to have worse physical and mental health than the average person. Moreover, the process of eviction itself can have profound psychological consequences and is associated with increased suicide risk. Do the Government have any plans to help these varied—
I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness. Could she conclude her remarks?
I remind noble Lords that the time limit is two minutes.
My Lords, many people risk eviction because the pandemic means that they cannot afford to pay their rent. The Resolution Foundation found that 32% of private renters of working age have seen their earnings hit, and one in eight private renters have fallen behind in their rent since the pandemic started, with figures much higher for benefit recipients.
Renters who have claimed benefits during the pandemic are almost three times as likely to be struggling with housing costs. Many are shocked to find that benefits do not cover their rent. After years of freezes, the Chancellor announced that a local housing allowing will cover “at least 30%” of market rents in your area, but for many people, that is not true. The Commons Library brief says that
“the caps still bite at a lower level than the 30th percentile for half of the local housing association rates in central and inner London.”
Meanwhile, the number of households hit by the benefit cap increased by 93% in the quarter to May, driven by a 600% increase in the number of universal credit households being capped due to the pandemic. So much of this is driven by high housing costs. Ministers always say that you can beat the cap by getting a job—but what jobs?
Ministers have given some extra funding, and that is good, but it is clearly not enough. Labour has called for Ministers to act, asking them not to ditch the furlough scheme but to adapt it; to extend the universal credit top-up of £20 a week to legacy benefits; to suspend the benefit cap; to remove the two-child limit; and to end the five-week wait for universal credit, which is a massive driver of housing arrears.
I support the Motion of my noble friend Lord Ponsonby. Only this week, my church told me that homeless people are now being seen back on the streets of Durham. If Ministers do not address the underlying financial problems facing so many people in this pandemic, I am afraid that we will see a lot more people losing their homes before it is over. I urge the Government to act.
My Lords, I declare my interests as stated in the register and fully support the way that, during the Covid crisis, the Government have tried to allay the fears of those tenants in cases where there is a danger of them being oppressed or evicted by bad landlords or unavoidable economic or social hardship.
However, we should reflect that the size of the private rental sector has grown dramatically in recent years. Nearly 25% of the UK population is now housed in the private sector—an increase, over 10 years, of over 60%. In the vast amount of cases, the relationship between landlords and tenants works well and to the satisfaction of both parties. In a small percentage of cases, it does not. This might be because of dissatisfaction felt by one party about the other over some of the arrangements between them or the quality of the agreement between them. However, in only a few cases—proportionally—is the behaviour sufficiently bad to require action by either of them. This may be the anti-social behaviour of a tenant or a long-term failure to pay rent without excuse, or it may be the threatening behaviour of a landlord or a precipitant notice to quit. However, in some cases, the only solution for a landlord may be to commence eviction proceedings.
The Government recognise that, in the present crisis, some tenants will be under especial pressure—both economic and social—and have therefore introduced changes to give breathing space before evictions can be effected. This is sensible but, surely, we must also consider the effects on many landlords, who are also under enormous pressure and who may well be exemplary in their treatment of their tenants. They also have bills to pay and responsibilities to maintain their properties. If they are without rents or cannot regain possession of properties where bad tenants are currently situated, what are they to do?
I ask my noble friend to do his best to ensure that there is a level playing field and that, in seeking to help tenants—which I am sure is right—he also looks to ensure that the consequent burden put on landlords is alleviated by more positive and balanced government assistance.
My Lords, I declare an interest as the director of Generation Rent. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, and the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, for tabling these Motions, both of which I support. Because of the pandemic, rent debt is piling up for thousands of renters. Yes, the Government have given welcome support, but the scale of the rent-debt crisis means that much more is needed. Rent arrears have doubled, and that is before the end of the furlough scheme. However, when the Government were asked what estimates they have made of the number of private renters in arrears as a result of the pandemic, they were unable to answer. Therefore, I ask the noble Earl to answer that question today.
In addition, will he agree to review why the Government do not collect data on the number of Section 1 notices served or how often different grounds for eviction are used, especially as Sections 21 and 8—ground 8—are mandatory grounds for eviction, over which judges need to be given discretion? Without this, the information on Covid-19 that the Government have asked to be supplied cannot be used to good effect. The lack of government data on private renters as regards evictions has led to gaps in support, such as the issue raised today by the noble Baroness, Lady Grender.
Yes, the Government have given a six-month notice period, but it applies only to renters giving notice from 29 August. If you were handed a notice before this date, the six-month extension does not apply. If reactivated, your eviction will progress. Therefore, will the noble Earl agree to review and remedy this gap in support?
In conclusion, the situation for many renters is as follows: if they have little or no income, or not enough benefits to cover their rent, what are they to do? The rent just cannot be paid. If you are then asked to leave your property by your landlord but have accumulated rent debt, how do you move on? How do you get a deposit for a new home? How do you find a landlord who will take you on? Unless the Government step in with additional legislative and financial support, which will help renters and landlords alike, homelessness is the only option for many renters with rent debt and eviction notices. I urge the Government to act.
The noble Lord, Lord Singh, is not with us, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. Are you there? I call the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. Please unmute.
My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Ponsonby’s proposal that the court should have discretion to consider all the circumstances in relation to eviction orders in this terrible time. I also support the creation of an effective landlord-tenant mediation service and the kind of emergency funding that people have referred to in this debate.
The Government were clearly right to impose an evictions moratorium and to extend it. However, we now have the worst of all worlds, with the combination of the lifting of that moratorium and a tightening of general restrictions, the ending of the furlough scheme and an increase in business closures, all of which will mean more lost jobs and precarious incomes.
We are faced with tens of thousands of evictions of renters in the pipeline, a large proportion of whom have never previously been in rent arrears or engaged in anti-social behaviour. Many will inevitably swell the ranks of the unemployed. Therefore, my noble friend Lord Ponsonby’s Motion is the one to support here, but there are also, of course, longer-term and fundamental issues. The structure of social security under universal credit—and the interplay between the various elements—is clearly not fit for purpose in this context.
On the housing market, I note that the absence of more secure alternatives to private renting has meant a massively increased reliance on that sector, enhanced by the tax advantages of buy to let, which has created a range of amateur landlords who cannot afford or do not know how to take account of their tenants’ precarious incomes. Other countries with a high dependence on private renting have stronger legal protection and significant institutional elements in the market. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, and others, I am in favour of a big increase in council housing, but the objective should also be to professionalise and institutionalise the private rental market.
Let us try the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, again. No? I call the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton.
I declare my interests as recorded in the register. I wish to oppose the two Motions —in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, and the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby—before us today. From 21 September, courts can start to hear possession proceedings again. Since March, no landlord has had access to the courts to regain possession, even in cases where tenants have broken the law.
The effect of the Motion of the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, will be to reverse the ability of the courts to start hearing these cases. Surely, it is right that landlords can take action against tenants whose anti-social behaviour is causing misery to them and others, as well as those carrying out acts of domestic violence. Surely, it is also right that they are able to address situations where tenants have large arrears incurred before lockdown and in no way connected with the Covid-19 pandemic.
I know that all landlords have concern—rightly—for tenants badly affected by Covid-19. The Government’s rules provide a good balance between the rights and needs of the landlord and the needs of the tenants.
Let us try the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, again. No? I call the noble Baroness, Lady Watkins of Tavistock.
My Lords, I declare my interest as outlined in the register. I really appreciate the need to balance the rights of landlords and those of tenants, and realise that the Government have put policies in place with an overarching aim to do so during the Covid-19 crisis. However, the recent increase in the rate of Covid infections has led to further sanctions to prevent transmission, as outlined by the Prime Minister and leaders of the devolved nations yesterday. This is not the time to accelerate the eviction of people in arrears associated with the financial challenges they may have experienced due to job losses or salary reduction over the last six months, or, as so ably put by my noble friend Lady Greengross, because they have mental health problems or caring responsibilities.
Generation Rent estimates that there are 55,000 renters at risk of eviction. I ask the Minister this: do the Government have an estimate of the numbers of these households that contain children of school age? Any such children would be disproportionately affected in their studies through eviction at this time. Can the Government do something further to protect such families from eviction for the next six months?
Some landlords wish to sell properties because of the current high values of homes and the reduction in stamp duty. Could Her Majesty’s Government consider novel approaches to reduce evictions during the ongoing Covid challenge and secure tenancies by, for example, a stamp duty holiday for the purchasers of properties where a landlord delays sale until after March 2021, or by offering interest-free loans to landlords until debts can be resolved?
Crisis is calling for three actions from the Government to protect renters who are facing homelessness: immediately introducing emergency legislation to give judges discretion to prevent evictions where tenants have accrued rent arrears because of Covid-19; providing financial support to help tenants pay back debts in order to remain in their current homes; and amending the benefit cap to add protection for people threatened by homelessness. Can the Minister inform the House whether the Government are actively considering the suggestions from Crisis at this time?
My Lords, first I would like to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, on her expert and compassionate opening remarks.
Being a sympathetic person, I see that the Government have faced an unprecedented challenge in the last few months. It would be a challenge for any Government, let alone a team newly in place, but it has not helped the Government that that team, and of course the Prime Minister, are arrogant and boastful, persistently making comments, claims and statements that bear absolutely no relation to the truth. It must be hard for a Conservative Government to spend so much public money so fast, albeit that a considerable amount was misspent.
I understand that the Government are trying to get back to normal, but I would argue that restarting evictions and allowing more people—families—to be pushed out on to the streets is not the answer. Everyone has the right to a home. It is plain cruel that, during a pandemic and a massive economic downturn, people are being forced out of their homes. The short extensions to the ban have done nothing to alleviate fears of renters up and down the country. We are now once again on the precipice of a homelessness crisis, which will not only bring misery to many but will hinder any effort to tackle Covid-19. We have to do whatever it takes to protect people during this pandemic, and that means a permanent ban on evictions for the duration of the crisis.
Of course, as with most crises, it is the poor and vulnerable who suffer most. It is within the Government’s power to ensure that nobody is left without the basic human right of a roof over their head. The Green Party and I have urged the Government to extend the ban on evictions.
I would like to answer the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, for whom I have a huge amount of respect normally. He suggested that we were going to break with convention, but when we have a Government who break the law, what price convention?
My Lords, I have in the past been a residential landlord and I am currently a residential tenant, so I am aware of the difficulties that can be faced by both entities. I am fully aware of the very serious hardships experienced by both tenants and landlords alike from the current pandemic. However, in the property rental world there has always been a minority of bad tenants—those who cause misery for other tenants and neighbours through anti-social behaviour or for other reasons—and landlords need to address situations where a small minority of tenants are regularly in arrears. There are bound to be instances of arrears which go back way before Covid. While I have every sympathy with those who have suffered financial difficulties as a consequence of Covid, I have little sympathy with the other group.
It is plainly wrong to regard landlords as being wealthy individuals and businesses that can afford to take a hit from rent arrears. The majority of landlords have only one property, and a considerable number purchased a property with their pension fund and have the rent as their sole form of income. To evict a tenant for whatever reason is a slow, arduous and expensive exercise in itself, notwithstanding the considerable loss of rent.
I have no time to comment further, but suffice to say I strongly support the Government in their views on the rules before us today.
My Lords, it is incumbent upon a civilised society not to ignore the dreadful impact of the inevitable consequences of these proposed evictions. I add my support to the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, and my noble friend Lord Ponsonby, with whom I am in total agreement in what they have said before the House.
While I accept that landlords must be protected from any intentional or criminal negligence caused by a small number of tenants, that problem is nowhere near the punitive impact of these measures on the majority of vulnerable families, with inevitable consequences that will place the burden on a local authority that is already well stretched. Measures to protect tenants must be in the forefront of our strategies and actions. The Government must consider writing off the debts of those who cannot afford to meet their financial obligations as a result of Covid-related job losses and not having access to other government support.
We have so many experts on housing solutions in this very House—the noble Lords, Lord Bird, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, Lord Young and Lord Kerslake—as well as the advice of Shelter and other notable NGOs. In addition to stopping the section 21 eviction notice, will the Government consider bringing together an expert group of Members and external advisers, alongside Ministers and civil servants, to consider how to create urgent housing solutions to meet the needs of homeless families, and particularly to avoid overcrowding and prevent the dangerous explosion of Covid-19?
My Lords, this is not an area that I normally get involved in in this House. However, having read the papers which were available to me, I realised that there is a deep problem here. Sometimes it does not help to rush in with a solution that just involves depriving one set of people of all rights, as has been indicated by previous speakers. For that reason, and having looked at the statutory provisions, I would support the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, but only go that far.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, is with us.
My Lords, I apologise for my wi-fi glitch and thank the House for allowing me back in.
It would have been my pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, and I share her concerns, particularly about discretion for judges. Today’s debate is about emergency evictions, and my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb has addressed the details of that. I am going to look at the broader picture.
We have a profoundly insecure housing model. As in so many other areas, Covid-19 has only exposed pre-existing weaknesses in our society. Houses have been treated primarily as financial assets rather than secure, genuinely affordable places for people to live. Just as in the UK in the depths of the Second World War, there was deep, effective planning for the NHS and the welfare state, we need to be thinking now about a different housing policy future.
In 1979, heading on for half the British population lived in council housing; they were secure. Then right to buy arrived. Now, nearly half the homes purchased under that and not replaced are owned by private landlords, massively subsidised by housing benefit and tax breaks. Money that might have gone into productive economic investments has gone instead into lifting prices. In private rental accommodation of 4.6 million households, one in 10 of which are insecure in the age of Covid, a significant number of tenants are over 50, as the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, noted.
Insecurity is not the only problem; we know there is a huge problem with quality—draughty, cold, badly maintained housing stock. That poor quality sadly extends to homes being sold now to people who are stretching every financial sinew, with prices supported by Help to Buy, also known as “help to profit” for a few large corporations. In 2019, the National Audit Office noted that many buyers would immediately lurch into negative equity—something now of even greater concern.
It is tempting to think now that we should just patch the worst problems, but we also need to see the Government putting serious work into a different housing model.
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Grender for bringing this Motion to Annul, and I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, for his Motion to Regret. However, my noble friend is right that the Motion to Regret will achieve no practical result, so the only way to protect the 50,000-odd households faced with eviction notices served between March and August is to annul this SI. It is important to note that the Motion would not protect tenants guilty of anti-social behaviour or domestic violence, as the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, suggested.
I know my noble friend has thought carefully about this fatal Motion, but, although this step is serious, it does no more than annul this change in the Civil Procedure Rules, which can be changed again to produce a just and humane result. My noble friend put it into context. The Government promised in April 2019 to legislate to end Section 21 no-fault evictions—a promise they have not yet kept. But these are not just no-fault evictions, they are also no-discretion evictions. After an assured shorthold tenancy ends, a court “shall” make an order for possession when the notice period expires.
On 28 August, the compulsory notice period was extended by SI to six months for notices served from 29 August. That was a humane measure to protect renters from eviction during the pandemic. However, by this SI, tenants served with eviction notices between March and August have no protection. From this last Monday, they can be evicted without six months’ notice. They get no genuine protection from the new practice direction 55C. That requires only that the landlord provides information about the effect of the pandemic on tenants and dependants—in a reactivation notice in stayed claims, or under a protocol in new claims. Crucially, however, as the noble Lord, Lord Best, and many others have pointed out, the rules give no discretion, whatever the hardship and unfairness, for a judge to withhold a possession order provided only that the landlord has provided the required information.
We have heard of the likely practical effects of these short-notice evictions: untold hardship for tenants and their families hit by the pandemic, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester said; pressure on local authorities unable to rehouse evicted tenants, described by my noble friend Lady Thornhill; increased homelessness and poverty; exposure of those newly homeless and their families to greater risk of coronavirus. Turning to the numbers, I am convinced by the evidence that the figure at risk is about 55,000 households, but the point is also one of principle. Each affected household is unfairly the victim of an anomaly that causes hardship and injustice.
Nothing in the all-Peers letter from Alex Chalk MP meets any of these points. The Government have been misguided in leaving these tenants without the protection of six months’ notice. If they will not back down, this House should exercise its undoubted power, of which my noble friend Lord Greaves spoke, to annul this unjust SI.
My Lords, first, I draw the attention of the House to my relevant interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. It is worth making clear right at the start: there is no blanket ban. There is nothing here suggesting that people who commit anti-social behaviour, domestic violence or other illegal activity cannot be evicted today—absolutely nothing. It is important to recognise that this SI is about no-fault evictions: you have decent, hard-working people whose only crime is the fact that they have not been able to work since March in the entertainment industry or the hospitality industry and they do not have the money to pay their rent. I want judges to have discretion to consider the impact of Covid-19 on renters and/or their dependants.
I have several questions for the noble Earl. Some points have been raised across the House, but I am sure that, in the time he has, the noble Earl cannot answer all the points put to him, so I should like a commitment from him to write to me and other noble Lords on the points raised.
The first is on lockdowns. If lockdown conditions are resumed for England and Wales, will the evictions ban be put back in place? As regards local lockdowns, will the noble Earl confirm that bailiffs will not be able to perform evictions where there are restrictions on members of other households entering your home?
The second is on benefits. It is a fact that rent payments cannot be covered by benefits, and the caps on housing benefit and local housing allowance limit the amount you can have to pay your rent. Can we temporarily lift the caps and increase benefits to cover average rents? This will immediately ensure that thousands are not up for eviction and will help landlords and tenants alike.
Thirdly, it is clear that we need to get money into the hands of renters and landlords to help rent debt and avoid homelessness. I welcome what the Government have done, but the scale of the economic shock and the effect on jobs and incomes is now huge—so, sadly, it is not enough. Renters cannot pay to landlords what they have not got. Many landlords have been accommodating, but of course, as money gets tighter, more landlords will get more anxious about their own situation and more eviction notices will be issued, leaving homelessness as the only option for renters. So does the noble Earl agree that the Government must step in to stop this increase in homelessness and introduce a system of grants and benefit increases to stop thousands of renters being made homeless?
The fourth point is on data. Will the Government commit to collecting and publishing data on Section 21 notices served, and how often different grounds of eviction are used? The fifth is on discretion for judges. Landlords and tenants have been asked to provide information on Covid-19, but the judge cannot use that information to pause or change the terms of an eviction under Section 21 or Section 8, ground 8. Can this be changed? Will the Government bring forward emergency legislation to give judges discretionary powers to take Covid-19 into account?
The final point is on discrimination. The Government’s guidance published last Thursday states:
“In some circumstances, it may be possible to prevent the eviction if you feel the landlord has discriminated against you based on who you are”.
Can the Minister confirm that it is possible to stop an eviction under Section 21 if the landlord is seeking it based on the tenant’s gender, disability or other protected characteristics?
In conclusion, as I said earlier, the noble Earl cannot give a commitment on all the issues raised here, but I hope that he can respond to us all in writing. For me, this is about decent, law-abiding people whose only crime is that they cannot pay their rent because of the pandemic.
My Lords, I first declare my interests as set down in the register. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, and the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, whose Motions have given rise to it. Each of those Motions highlights concerns about the effect of removing tenants’ protection from eviction, which was provided by the stay on possession proceedings between 27 March and 20 September this year. Each Motion expressly criticises this instrument for not going far enough to protect tenants. I hope to demonstrate to the House that this criticism is unjust.
I start by addressing the Motion of the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, which seeks to annul this instrument. Lest any noble Lord has overlooked this, I need to make it crystal clear that, even though the stay on possession proceedings has now ended, the rules set out in this instrument and the practice direction they introduce contain some vital continuing protections for tenants, which I shall explain. The effect of an annulment would be to remove those protections.
Secondly, I remind the House of the policy the Government have consistently followed in this area since the start of this pandemic, which has been to strike a balance between protecting the vulnerable and supporting the legitimate rights and interests of landlords. I will say more on that theme shortly.
Thirdly, noble Lords should appreciate that this instrument and the accompanying practice direction form part of a wider package of measures that the Government have put in place to ensure fair treatment for both tenants and landlords going forward. I will summarise those measures in a moment, but the point here is that this instrument should not be considered in isolation.
The Government took unprecedented action to ensure that renters were protected from eviction at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, including agreeing with the courts to use powers in relation to court procedure to stay possession proceedings for a total of six months until 20 September—but that stay could only ever be temporary. The civil justice system and the rules that underpin it must be accessible, fair and efficient for tenants and landlords alike.
In what way does this instrument provide protection for tenants? Through these new rules, we have sought to make sure that where possession cases come to court, the resumption of such cases is carefully managed —first, to ensure that the courts are not overwhelmed; and secondly, to enable them to make decisions so that the most vulnerable can get the help and support they need, and in particular that tenants have access to legal advice and support.
For any possession proceedings up to 28 March 2021, the new court rules will also require landlords to set out any relevant information about a tenant’s circumstances, including—as the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, will wish to note—information on the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on both the tenant and their dependants when making a possession claim. This information will enable the court considering the claim to have regard to vulnerability, disability and the social security position, and to those who are shielding. This is a requirement under the relevant practice direction, which parties are under a duty to comply with. The tenant will be provided with a copy of this information and may add to or correct it.
Landlords will also be required to notify the court and their tenant where they wish to continue pursuing a possession claim that was already in the court system prior to 3 August, so giving notice that the claim is being reactivated. If such notice is not filed by 29 January 2021, the claim will be subject to an automatic stay. Where claims are based on arrears of rent, landlords must produce a full arrears history for the previous two years, and they must do this in advance of, rather than at, the hearing of the claim. In other words, landlords cannot just pick up where they left off, so to speak.
The noble Baroness, Lady Watkins of Tavistock, asked how many of the 50,000 people at risk of eviction include families with schoolchildren and whether the Government are considering Crisis’s recommendations. My advice is that the Generation Rent figures she quoted are not to be relied on. Analysis published by the Government shows that 3,022 private and social landlords applied to the courts for possession between April and June, 89% lower than in the same time last year.
I mentioned support. It is important that all parties receive appropriate support, and we have worked with the judiciary to put in place new court arrangements to that end. I am grateful to the working group convened by the Master of the Rolls and chaired by Mr Justice Knowles, who have played a key role in this.
The working group contained a broad range of stakeholders and, resulting from its recommendations, the judiciary will look to prioritise cases that can be classified as the most egregious—that is to say, those involving anti-social behaviour, extreme rent arrears, domestic abuse, fraud and deception, illegal occupiers and squatters or abandonment of a property—as well as claims started before the stay commenced in March 2020. That prioritisation will provide assurance to landlords, their tenants and neighbours, especially those who are having to confront really difficult and pressing situations.
I mentioned the availability of legal advice for those facing possession proceedings. We have made adjustments to the legal aid Housing Possession Court Duty Scheme to ensure that it can be delivered remotely where necessary. We have also tendered for new contracts to fill gaps in provision, to ensure that this vital support can be accessed by those who need it, wherever they are in England and Wales.
A number of speakers referred to notice periods for tenants, and I stressed a few minutes ago that this instrument should not be looked at in isolation. We have taken decisive legislative action, through a statutory instrument laid on 28 August to require landlords to provide tenants with six months’ notice in all but the most serious cases. That SI amends Schedule 29 to the Coronavirus Act 2020 and came into force on 29 August, providing reassurance to responsible tenants that they will not face new court proceedings during this time.
We recognise that in some circumstances, landlords have been dealing with a difficult situation in which there is no reasonable alternative to possession proceedings. We have therefore lowered notice periods for cases involving anti-social behaviour, domestic abuse, fraud and egregious rent arrears of more than six months to enable landlords to progress those cases more quickly. This approach ensures that tenants will remain safe and have additional time to find new accommodation, while empowering landlords to take action where necessary—for example, if a tenant’s anti-social behaviour is severely impacting their neighbours’ quality of life.
The noble Baroness, Lady Grender, asked whether we might explore ways to apply longer notice periods for those who were served notice before 29 August. As she will recognise, the difficulty here is that of applying retrospection to existing law and thereby undermining the certainty that the law should provide to all parties. In practice, those who received notice before 29 August were protected from eviction by the suspension of possession hearings until 20 September, as well as by the prioritisation of cases in the courts and the new requirements placed on landlords to which I have referred.
The noble Baroness referred to Section 21 of the Housing Act 1988, which permits no-fault evictions. I therefore add that the Government remain committed to bringing forward legislation to abolish Section 21 in due course. That does not mean ignoring landlords’ legitimate interests. Any such legislation must balance greater security of tenure with an assurance that landlords are able to recover their properties where they have valid reasons to do so.
A number of noble Lords expressed concerns about forced evictions. We are taking steps to ensure that no enforcement of evictions will take place in areas where local lockdown measures are in force that restrict access to premises. Guidance has been issued to bailiffs to ensure that no enforcement of possession orders will proceed where local lockdown regulations restrict gatherings in residential properties to protect public health. I will write to noble Lords with further details about that.
One or two speakers, including my noble friend Lady Altmann, the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, and the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, referred to the need to provide tenants with enhanced financial support. In addition to the measures I have mentioned, I remind noble Lords that the Government have already put in place a major package of financial support to help communities through the pandemic. There is the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, which has provided support for businesses to pay staff salaries. We have also strengthened the welfare safety net with a nearly £9.3 billion boost to the welfare system. That includes an extra £1 billion to increase local housing allowance rates so that they cover the lowest 30% of market rents, meaning we now have a £25 billion budget to help people with rent payments in the private and social rented sectors. For renters who require additional support, there is an existing £180 million of government funding for discretionary housing payments made available this year. That is an increase of £40 million from last year for local councils to distribute to support renters with housing costs.
We need to look at all these measures in the round. Taken together, they strongly encourage landlords and tenants to sustain tenancies as far as possible and to discuss their situation before seeking possession and bringing a claim to court. Where cases end up in court, these measures ensure that court time can be used effectively, that the most egregious cases can be dealt with as a priority and that court users, both tenants and landlords, have the additional support they need. Comprehensive new guidance for landlords and tenants to explain all these new arrangements and how they impact on the court possessions process has also been published.
I will write to those noble Lords whose questions I have not covered in the time available, but please understand that things never stand still. The Government are clear that all measures to protect renters over this period will be kept under constant review in the light of the evidence on public health. I therefore say to the House that this instrument should be supported as a vital element in the safeguards that we are providing to parties and to manage cases sensibly in the courts. For those reasons, it most certainly should not be annulled; nor, I submit, should it be viewed as a matter for regret. I therefore do very much hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, and the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, will feel able to withdraw their respective Motions.
My Lords, I feel compelled to repeat one paragraph from my opening speech because it seems that it was not heard originally. I apologise if it lacked clarity. If we vote against this statutory instrument, will landlords still be able to take action regarding more serious eviction cases? Yes, because of the statutory instrument that was tabled in August, which is not the one the House is voting on today. I want to make sure that noble Lords are absolutely clear that egregious cases, domestic violence, long-term arrears, et cetera are included in the statutory instrument that was tabled in August.
It is therefore possible to vote to annul this instrument. It will not freeze or stop the egregious cases. If, as the Minister said, I am talking about so few cases—I do not agree with him; I think that the loophole is larger—then why not do it? What is the harm in ensuring that there is a longer notice period for people who were served notice between March and August? This is not for the egregious cases, just for the no-fault evictions under Section 21 with no explanation, because judges still have no discretion whatever.
I completely understand that it is difficult and messy to do this retrospectively. However, if this instrument falls, it would be up to the Government to come back. This House has done the job that the Commons failed to do: ask the Government to think again. This is about a very small but incredibly important factor; I believe that it is 55,000. The Minister has alternative figures, which I disputed in my opening speech.
Fourteen years ago, the Joint Commission on Conventions met. When summing up, the noble Lord, Lord Cunningham of Felling—Jack Cunningham—from the Labour Benches said:
“It is not incompatible with a revising Chamber to reject”
a statutory instrument. I agree, and have thought long and hard about this since I put down this humble Address at the beginning of the summer. The Government tabled this statutory instrument with no 21-sitting-day period for it to be considered. That consideration did not happen. The Commons did not do its job, so it is up to this House to do the job for it. For that reason, the fatal Motion should go ahead. I therefore wish to test the opinion of the House.
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberTo move that the House regrets that the Civil Procedure (Amendment No. 4) (Coronavirus) Rules 2020 will not continue to protect tenants from eviction, and calls on Her Majesty’s Government to amend the Housing Act 1998 to give courts temporary discretion on evictions, including on evictions arising from rent arrears (SI 2020/751).
Relevant document: 24th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
My Lords, when the noble Earl gave his speech just now, he urged us to look at matters in the round. We are looking at matters in the round. We are not saying there should be an indefinite ban on evictions, but that the Government should honour their original promise that there should be no evictions as a result of coronavirus.
There have been a number of very knowledgeable contributions to today’s debate, but the one from my noble friend Lord Whitty is worth emphasising. His point was that there are potentially tens of thousands of evictions in the pipeline. The Government’s response, which we have heard today, is too little, too late. Perhaps this accounts for the huge discrepancy between the figures we heard from Generation Rent and those the noble Earl gave us today on what is actually within the court system. It is the pipeline of potential evictions that we are most concerned about.
I urge Members to support the Opposition’s regret Motion. As I said in my opening remarks, a regret Motion is the best way of dealing with this matter as it keeps the central problem at the heart of the debate, rather than the constitutional issues which would be raised by taking an alternative route.
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, I assume that noble Lords have read the Prime Minister’s Statement, given that in our new circumstances, the noble Baroness does not repeat it. Many of us would have seen it made yesterday in the other House. It is clear that we are now at a point which the whole House would have hoped to avoid. The warnings from the Government’s own advisers are very stark, so when restrictions are needed, they will have our support because we need to avoid any confusion and have clarity in communication. However, perhaps I may raise a few issues with the noble Baroness.
I turn first to testing. The Prime Minister pretty much dismissed this yesterday. The lack of a comprehensive, even world-beating, test, trace and isolate system is making the nation’s efforts to tackle the virus more difficult, but yesterday the Prime Minister said:
“Testing and tracing has very little or nothing to do with the spread or the transmission of the disease.”—[Official Report, Commons, 22/9/20; col. 822.]
Surely the point of having the world-beating system that we are waiting for is to reduce the number of people who will be infected. What is that about? I heard the Prime Minister trying to explain what he meant at Prime Minister’s Questions but, despite a lot of words, I did not understand his explanation, so it is now the turn of the noble Baroness. Perhaps she could try to explain what the Prime Minister really meant. Does his comment that testing and tracing has very little or nothing to do with the spread of the disease mean that that is now the Government’s view, or did the Prime Minister get it wrong and the Government are still committed to a world-beating test, trace and isolate system?
On the new restrictions, we appreciate the difficulties in getting them right. Can the noble Baroness assist your Lordships’ House in understanding the rationale behind them? In many of the areas currently managing more restrictive measures, we have not seen the fall in the number of infections anticipated or hoped for. Were those results factored into the decisions taken for the rest of the country? It would also be helpful if she could say which rules the residents of those areas are now following. Is she confident that the actions being taken now will be effective and at what point will the Government make a judgment on their effectiveness?
Also, can she advise me on two sets of circumstances on which I would like some clarity? If I decide to go out for a curry tonight and I take five other noble Lords with me, that follows the rule of six and the six of us will be able to enjoy our meal in the restaurant. However, if two of those noble Lords come back to the House for the last business, does that mean that our group of six is now four, so two other noble Lords, perhaps from the Cross Benches, can join us for dessert? Is the rule of six the rule at any one point or can the six change during the course of the evening?
I am asking my second question for a friend. If a couple I know are at home with their two kids asleep in bed upstairs, does the rule of six mean that they can have only two friends round to socialise in their home, or can four friends come round? Again, what does the rule of six mean in those circumstances? Can six people be together or do the children, asleep in their beds, count as two of the six people in the home? That is the level of clarity that the Government will have to provide, and if the noble Baroness can respond, that would be really helpful.
On the furlough scheme, the noble Baroness will be aware of how valuable it has been to viable businesses that just need to get through this period so that they can survive until better days. The Government are bringing the scheme to an end for all businesses in all circumstances at the same time. Surely we can do better than that. The noble Baroness may have heard Paul Nowak of the TUC speaking earlier on Radio 4’s “Today” programme. He called for a smarter, targeted version of furlough. She may have heard him offer to work with the Government to bring employer and employee representatives together to help design a scheme that has the kind of flexibility needed to respond to struggling industries—and struggling areas—and will help companies and workers alike to get through what will clearly be a difficult time in the months ahead. That seems a wise, practical and pragmatic suggestion. Will she take it to the Prime Minister today and bring his response back to your Lordships’ House?
The Prime Minister also said yesterday that schools can access the tests they need and that every child with symptoms should automatically get a test. Of course that is right, but if the system is not in place yet, when will it be, and what is the current turnaround time for schools to get the results back?
Finally, this is a terrible virus. Many are suffering from the consequences of long-term Covid infection and others have lost loved ones, while people have had their lives restricted in trying to avoid getting it. The consequences of making the wrong decisions are enormous—literally matters of life and death. We know that there is pressure on the Prime Minister from all directions on what the appropriate course of action is, but these decisions can never be predicated on placating one group or another. We just have to do what is right. I hope that the noble Baroness can answer my questions today—I can see her riffling through her papers—but if she is unable to do so, I hope she will write to me over the next couple of days.
My Lords, I thank the Leader of the House for agreeing to answer questions on the Prime Minister’s Statement yesterday.
The Government now face four tough challenges in combating coronavirus. The first is how to act proportionately to drive down infections and deaths while at the same time allowing as much economic and social activity as possible to continue. This is an extraordinarily difficult balancing act but, if the threat is as severe as the scientists believe, I find it surprising that the rule of six remains intact and allows, for example, individuals from six different households to meet in a restaurant, possibly for several hours, with zero social distancing. If I were a generous-hearted soul, I could invite five noble Lords for breakfast, five different ones for lunch and five different ones for supper. That sounds a lot to me. Can the noble Baroness confirm that Professor Whitty argued for stronger measures than those now being proposed? The rules also appear inconsistent. Why can 30 people attend a funeral but only 15 a wedding? That seems bizarre. Can the noble Baroness explain the science behind that decision?
The second challenge is how to identify those with the virus quickly and then isolate them from the rest of the population. Sadly, the Government’s track record on test, track and trace is hopelessly inadequate. It is miles behind the system devised in Germany, where, for example, anyone entering the country by car can have a prompt test at the side of the motorway, the results of which are quickly relayed to a working app, and where localised delays in getting tests done are so rare that they become major news stories. To argue that the German success and our failures have anything to do with our attitudes towards freedom is both risible and insulting. The Government are at least trying to be clearer on those who have priority in getting a test in future. But does the noble Baroness accept that it seems illogical to exclude from the priority list ancillary staff who work in hospitals, care homes and schools? Surely a caretaker, cleaner or member of the catering staff is just as capable of spreading the virus as a doctor, care worker or teacher.
The third challenge relates to persuading the public to adhere to the rules, and the Government have this week strengthened the stick and the carrot. On the stick, the Government have proposed increased penalties, but they are no good without more effective enforcement. The Prime Minister said yesterday that the Government will provide the police and local authorities with the extra funding they need to do this. But will he really live up to his promise? Up to now, the Government have provided extra resources to local government at levels well below what they believe they need to do their Covid work effectively. Will the noble Baroness confirm that the Government will now make funds available to police forces and local authorities at a level that they, not the Government, judge to be required to do their job properly? On carrots, the Government have announced a new £500 isolation support payment for people on low incomes who have tested positive or been told to self-isolate. What is the definition of “low income”, and how quickly and by what means do they intend to get this extremely sensible initiative up and running?
The fourth challenge relates to the additional economic damage that the new restrictions will bring. The hospitality, arts and sport sectors will be particularly badly hit. We are told that the Chancellor and Business Secretary will bring forward further plans to help support those most affected. But the new restrictions bite from tomorrow. So when will the promised new business support measures be announced and take effect? Businesses have a very small cash cushion to keep them going while the Government decide what they are going to do to support them.
Finally, the Prime Minster expressed the Government’s willingness to give the Commons every opportunity to scrutinise government decisions. This is a sound principle but, as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale, forcefully pointed out, Parliament has effectively surrendered its scrutiny role over Covid legislation. The principal Covid Act was passed with barely any debate, and the delay in debating statutory instruments means that by the time we do discuss them they have been in operation for many weeks in most cases. So the scrutiny is, in effect, meaningless.
This deficiency, however, could easily be rectified by the Government. Will the noble Baroness assure the House that future statutory instruments such as the one coming into force tomorrow will be debated at the earliest opportunity? In the specific case of those new rules, and in light of the completion of the debate on the Agriculture Bill yesterday, can she give any reason why the House should not discuss the new statutory instrument tomorrow, in advance of it coming into effect, rather than at a later date when it will already have done so?
For the Government’s measures to work, individuals across the country have got to believe that they are necessary and proportionate. The scientists can set out the objective evidence, but only the Government can decide on the response. Bringing Parliament and the nation with them will be vital in the months ahead. To achieve that, they will need less bombast and more openness. I hope that we might now get it.
I thank the noble Lord and the noble Baroness for their comments and questions. I assure the noble Baroness that the Government remain committed to the test and trace system, and it will clearly play an important part in our efforts to continue to tackle the virus. I am sure she will be pleased to know that the test and trace app will be rolled out nationally tomorrow, further enhancing that programme. It is designed to work alongside the traditional contact tracing services and testing to help people understand if they are at risk. On her questions about the rules, my personal interpretation is that she could indeed invite two noble Lords to join her for curry if two had left, as the rule is about six people. Children are counted as individuals, so they are counted as one of the six.
Both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness talked about evidence. Certainly both the Government and the scientific advisers looked at a range of evidence in order to come up with the package that we have.
The noble Lord and the noble Baroness quite rightly talked about the economic impacts, which we are all extremely aware of. They will know that through the measures we have taken so far we have protected 12 million people and jobs through the furlough and self-employed schemes, at a cost of £40 billion. However, I entirely accept their points about the impact that this virus is still having, and the impact it is still having on our economy. I can certainly assure the noble Baroness that my right honourable friend the Chancellor, and those across government, are working with employers, representatives, unions and businesses to continue to work out exactly what the best form of support for businesses in all sectors is. We keep that package under constant review.
The noble Lord, Lord Newby, asked about the prioritisation of testing. He is absolutely right: at the moment prioritisation is for those who work in acute clinical care, broader NHS staff and people in care homes, and targeted testing for teaching staff. He is obviously quite right to mention other individuals who work within these settings, and we will keep the prioritisation under review. As we increase our testing and look towards the 500,000 tests that we hope to get to by the end of October, we hope to be able to offer tests much more widely and include more people within that prioritisation.
On face coverings, the noble Lord, Lord Newby, talked about indoor settings with lots of people. That is why we are now mandating face coverings in indoor settings and enclosed places which are freely accessed by the public, where it may not be possible to maintain social distancing. He will be aware that we already had those measures in place for shops and supermarkets and on public transport. It is for that very reason that we are now extending the mandatory wearing of face coverings to hospitality settings, taxis and private hire vehicles—again, in enclosed settings where it is particularly difficult for people to maintain social distancing.
The noble Lord also asked about extra funding for the police and local authorities. We have already announced an initial £50 million to support the range of enforcement activity we would expect to see in relation to the new rules that we have just announced. It will be up to the police to decide how they wish to deploy that—for instance, it could be used for increasing patrols to enforce social contact rules, deploying police to high-risk areas where there is rising concern, and providing more support to local authorities and NHS Test and Trace where quarantine and self-isolation breaches are being escalated. Of course, those are just some of the ways in which this funding could be used at a local level.
In relation to the new payment that was announced, the £500 is targeted at those on low incomes and who cannot work from home. It is an additional payment, on top of statutory sick pay and existing benefits or support, such as universal credit, employment support allowance, local housing allowance or hardship fund payments. It will become available for those who are required to self-isolate from 28 September. Local authorities are working quickly to set up these support schemes, and we expect them to be in place by 12 October. Anyone who has had to self-isolate from 28 September will receive backdated payments. That is, I hope, the detail of the new scheme.
The noble Lord talked about parliamentary scrutiny, which is of course extremely important. Each SI has undergone full scrutiny, in line with the requirements of its parent Act. We have been using the appropriate parliamentary procedures for considering regulations, including waiting for the JCSI and the SLSC to report on them before they are debated. On Monday, we will have a more general debate, in line with the commitment we made, on the Coronavirus Act itself.
The noble Lord asked about tomorrow. As the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton—who is sitting there—will be well aware, we have two days of full discussions on coronavirus SIs, so I do not think we can criticise the House or anyone within it for the work they are doing on this. We will be discussing the SIs that were to be in the Grand Committee in the Chamber. We are dealing with them in order: there are deadlines within which we have to discuss these SIs, and that is the order in which we are taking them. I hope the noble Lord will accept that, as well as the fact that we have two coronavirus Statements today, we are taking this very seriously and ensuring parliamentary scrutiny.
My Lords, the noble Baroness has not answered many of my questions on restrictions, schools, the TUC or the Prime Minister.
Sorry, I did have an answer on schools. Our advice for children is very clear: they should have a test only if they have symptoms. Obviously, we are well aware that there is a capacity issue in the system at the moment, which we are trying to address, so there are perhaps longer waits than we would like for tests. However, 64.7% of people who have a test get the results back within 24 hours.
We now come to the 30 minutes allocated for Back-Bench questions. Please keep questions and answers brief, so that I can call the maximum number of speakers.
My Lords, I join others in thanking the noble Baroness for taking questions on the Prime Minister’s Statement, and in so doing draw your Lordships’ attention to my declared interests.
The first wave of Covid-19 earlier this year saw major challenges for the NHS, in being able to treat patients with non-Covid conditions, such as cancer and cardiovascular disease, while dealing with the large numbers of patients needing admission for acute Covid conditions. How will Her Majesty’s Government determine whether the measures now in place are having sufficient impact to be confident that the NHS will be able to manage not only patients requiring Covid-19 admissions but those with non-Covid conditions requiring urgent treatment during the winter? This is a critically important issue. Do they have modelling available? How will they determine if these measures are going to have the desired impact and, if not, how will they act to ensure that the NHS will be able to look after all patients, both Covid and non-Covid?
I assure the noble Lord that the department is working extremely hard with the NHS to ensure an absolute minimum of disruption to other treatments. It was thanks only to the incredible work of staff that, even at the peak of demand earlier this year, hospitals were still able to look after two non-Covid patients for every Covid patient. A similar picture was seen in primary, community and mental health services. The most effective way to ensure that other treatments are not disrupted is to make sure we tackle this disease and try to make sure we do not have huge numbers of hospitalisations of patients with Covid. We are working towards that. We are also working on the principle that the most urgent treatments, including mental health support, should be brought back first. I assure the noble Lord that is a priority for the department.
My Lords, what matters most in this crisis is not the number of coronavirus infections but the deaths that occur. All deaths are tragic, but I regret to say that they are mostly among the elderly, the frail and those with comorbidities. Two weeks ago, the number of deaths was approximately 11 or 12 a day. In the last seven days it has just about doubled. The number fluctuates, but it appears to be going up. Still, it is only between 1% and 2% of the average daily death rate in this country. That is after three months of greater social mingling.
I regret to say that this policy is incoherent, illogical and, without a vaccine, unending. It is doing incalculable harm to livelihoods, lives, the economy, our country’s future and, worst of all, our children’s future. Will my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal take this message back to the Prime Minister at the next Cabinet? Whatever focus groups may say, the British public are fed up and will not support the restrictions announced in this Statement any more than I do.
My noble friend has been very clear in his views on the actions being taken and I respect them. He speaks for people who feel that way but, I am afraid, as the CMO and Chief Scientific Adviser set out earlier this week, we know that death rates are a lagging indicator. We have raised the alert level because we have seen that the doubling rate of cases could be between seven and 20 days, and that in the last fortnight daily hospital admissions have doubled. There is enough concern that we have felt it absolutely necessary to take this action early so that we can try to stop a devastating second spike. I completely accept and understand the points he makes about the economy—I touched on that in my answers earlier—but we strongly feel we need to take this action. I am very sorry—I think we all are—for the inconvenience it causes, but it is worth it to save lives.
My Lords, I am looking forward to my invitation to curry supper. More seriously, I think I speak on behalf of all the faith communities in welcoming the Prime Minister’s continued affirmation of the importance of places of worship being open, albeit with restrictions, not just for the private benefit of the adherents of a particular faith but for wider community cohesion and well-being, bearing in mind not least that many of these places host food banks and other community care initiatives. I hope that, if any further measures are needed, that community well-being dimension will be kept in mind alongside others.
I return to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, about the 30 and the 15 attendance at particular kinds of events and add to that the announcement made, I believe, this afternoon that as of Monday attendance at life events will be restricted to six. There is some confusion about definitions here. As a narrower question, can the noble Baroness confirm that an ordination service, of which there will be dozens all over the country in the next few weeks, is not a life event for this purpose but rather a regular part of church and community life? Restricting attendance to six in a space such as Canterbury Cathedral would seem a bit odd when tourists can visit every day.
I thank the right reverend Prelate. I am afraid I am not so on top of that detail as to be able to give him an answer I would have confidence in, but I will certainly take his point back to MHCLG, which I believe is the lead department on this. I am sure that Ministers there will want to talk to representatives from the Church and other faiths to make sure the rules make sense.
My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that there has been a considerable rise in mental and emotional ill health since the pandemic began? Many people are fearful, anxious and depressed. In the Government’s messaging on the virus, does she agree that there needs to be a balance between frightening people about the seriousness of the disease so that they will obey the rules and reassuring people that, if they do obey the rules, they will probably be okay? Does she think the Prime Minister got that balance right yesterday? I am afraid I do not.
The noble Baroness is right about how incredibly important it is that we get messaging right. We are in a very complicated situation and everyone is doing their best. She is also right about concerns over mental health; for those with severe needs or in crisis, all NHS mental health providers have established 24/7 mental health crisis lines, and PHE has published its surveillance tracker to monitor the impacts of Covid-19 on the population’s mental health. These are proactive steps to help ensure that our response to the effects of the pandemic is shaped by emerging data. I am sure work such as that will help feed in as we think about messaging now and going forward.
My Lords, during the Statement yesterday the Prime Minister spoke of Parliament’s ability to
“take forward its business in a covid-secure way”.—[Official Report, Commons, 22/9/20; col. 798.]
Does the noble Baroness the Leader of the House recognise that there are grave concerns about how we are taking that business forward and the quality and effectiveness of current debate and scrutiny? As the noble Lord, Lord Newby, said, particularly concerning is the retrospective and often totally irrelevant nature of our scrutiny of statutory instruments which have been in force for weeks or months before they are ever considered in the House. In her response to the noble Lord, the noble Baroness did not seem to recognise that there was a problem. I urge her to read the words of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale, and of her noble friend Lord Forsyth in the debate last Friday, and reconsider.
I am sorry if the noble Baroness did not think I gave due weight to that response. As I have said, we are very concerned to ensure we have scrutiny. We have ensured that each SI has undergone full scrutiny, in line with the parent Act, and worked around the appropriate parliamentary procedures. At this point I also thank the House authorities for all the work they have done to help us ensure we are a Covid-secure workplace. I hope noble Lords, while finding it frustrating, will continue to appreciate that we are working in a hybrid way and doing remote voting in an attempt to make sure that as many noble Lords as possible can continue the important work we do in this House in scrutinising legislation.
Following the lead of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Rochester, I thank the Government for the clear, helpful and sensitive guidelines given to the Jewish community for celebrating Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, last weekend. It was Rosh Hashanah, but not entirely as we have always known it.
As more local lockdowns will inevitably follow, bringing difficulties for people and businesses—perhaps even a good crisis to exploit, were I the shadow Education Secretary—can my noble friend the Leader of the House explain what extra help will be given to businesses which find themselves in local lockdown areas?
Businesses in England required to close due to local lockdowns or targeted restrictions can now receive grants worth £1,500 every three weeks. To be eligible for the grant, a business must have been required to close due to local Covid-19 restrictions. The largest businesses will receive £1,500; smaller businesses will receive £1,000. Payments are triggered by a national decision to close businesses in a high-incidence area. That is specific help for businesses within local lockdowns but, as I alluded to in answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, we are keeping the broader package of national support under review. That is why we have introduced things such as the £2 billion Kickstart Scheme, paying employers £2,000 for every apprentice they hire. There will be national measures and those specific measures I mentioned for local lockdown areas.
My Lords, the Statement says the Government
“will provide the police … with the extra funding they need”.—[Official Report, Commons, 22/9/20; col. 798.]
If that is the case, what exactly is the role of the military to free up the police, given that promise of adequate funding for the police?
The police will have the option to draw on military support if they require it. This would follow tried and tested mechanisms and so, for instance, could involve the military back-filling certain duties, such as office roles or guarding protected sites. What this is absolutely not about is giving additional powers to the military or having them replace the police in enforcement roles. They would not be handing out fines.
My Lords, I was pleased to hear the Leader of the House mention an increase in testing to 500,000; I hope that that includes a rapid turnaround time. My question is about the ambition, mentioned by the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister, to use testing as a mass screening tool. The current test and track system has lots of problems but mass screening has even bigger problems, so I hope that before it is introduced, the Government will publish the plans and consult beforehand.
I am sure that the department will take soundings and work with as many experts as possible as we look to develop this. It is a future aim to start testing people to identify those who do not have coronavirus and are not infectious with a quick, simple, scalable test but we are not near that yet, so we will certainly work with experts and companies to develop it. We will draw as much expertise as we can because, along with the development of vaccines, this will be critical hopefully to moving back to some kind of normal life.
My Lords, the announcement yesterday hit sport very hard at all levels—not just those levels that are seen on television but community sport in whatever form. I believe that Ian Botham is to be introduced into this House on 6 October. Will my noble friend guarantee that sports will receive the same proportion of grants as have been given to the arts by the time that he arrives in this Chamber?
I thank my noble friend. Like him and many others, I am extremely disappointed that we have had to pause these events. I was able to get one of 1,000 tickets to see Norwich play football on Saturday as one of the pilot events and, in terms of the way that was held, I thought that it worked very well.
We absolutely understand the economic consequences, as he rightly says, particularly for community and grass-roots sports, which so depend on spectators. I know that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State is working at pace with representatives from a variety of sports to ensure that we can come up with some kind of package to help them.
My Lords, there is a well-supported view that, in or close to lockdown, the most elderly should be allowed to meet close family and friends, or to self-isolate if they prefer, because of the human importance of such contacts. They should not be legally imprisoned for the rest of their natural lives in lockdown. Will the Government give this view serious consideration?
I can certainly assure the noble and gallant Lord that such considerations are at the forefront of everyone’s mind. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, talked about the impact on mental health generally; of course, many of us have not seen some of our relatives for a long time, which is very painful for them and for those of us who cannot see them. I assure him that we are considering that very carefully. It is why we are trying to take packages of measures that continue, at this point, to allow social contact, because we know how important it is. However, we will obviously have to take action if we cannot stop the virus continuing to increase, because it is critical that we save as many lives as we can.
The Statement drew attention to the fears of those who were on the shielding list and those who are shielding others. What additional practical support is being reactivated to ensure that those people can remain Covid safe? In relation to businesses and private rentals in the commercial sector, what are the Government doing about the exorbitantly high commercial rentals that are destroying local businesses, whose profits have fallen at the moment?
The noble Baroness will be aware that, in the announcement yesterday, the advice remains that the clinically extremely vulnerable do not need to shield at the moment, although this will be kept under review. Obviously, if things change, packages of support will be looked at. Local directors of public health are also able to offer specific advice for clinically vulnerable residents. Of course, in local lockdown areas there will be different packages of support, so that is absolutely something we will consider as and when the guidance changes. In relation to rents, I am afraid that I will have to write to the noble Baroness as I do not have information on that particular issue.
Following on from the comments of my noble friend Lord Hayward, my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal will be aware that, in May, the whole rugby league family applauded the Government for the £16 million lifeline that they made available to the sport. That money was, however, predicated on a 12-week lockdown, and yesterday’s announcement on pausing the return of spectators could have a devastating impact on the viability of professional rugby league clubs both large and small. Can my noble friend therefore assure the House that the Government will engage urgently with the Rugby Football League to seek a quick solution to this issue and examine what more can be done to ensure a future for a sport that is so deeply embedded in communities such as mine in Leeds?
I thank my noble friend. As I said to my noble friend Lord Hayward, the Secretary of State is working on this as we speak. He is well aware of the issues faced. As my noble friend said, we have already worked with the rugby league to help but, as he said, with the new situation unfortunately facing sport, we will certainly work to see what we can do because so many clubs in a range of different sports are absolutely central to their local communities and we want to make sure that they continue to thrive once this crisis is over.
My Lords, I thank the Leader of the House for being here to speak to this Statement today. I want to talk about people who need to remain at work, of which nothing was said in the Statement yesterday. What are the Government doing about PPE stocks, based on the highest prediction of need? Does the UK hold sufficient stock for the NHS, voluntary and independent providers of health and social care, and domiciliary care services? If so, for how many days? How rapidly can the stock be replenished and what proportions are now manufactured in the UK? Are the Government’s distribution plans for PPE satisfactory, and have they adequately tested a system for distribution over the summer?
Obviously, PPE was a significant issue earlier this year. Lots of lessons have been learned. The department continues to work to make sure that we have plans in place. The noble Baroness will be aware that, for instance, we provided more than 250 million items of PPE. We are working with both the public and the private sector to ensure that we have robust plans in place so that we can make PPE available as and when it is needed. Obviously, one of the priorities, as I have just identified, is care homes.
My Lords, would it not be deeply unfortunate if the economic devastation that has already been caused by Covid—devastation that will continue following yesterday’s announcement—were compounded by a self-inflicted wound; namely, the total dislocation of the channel ports, as envisaged by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster this morning?
My noble friend is absolutely right: ensuring that we protect jobs and support those in work has been central to our work so far. As I mentioned in a previous answer, we have put in place an unprecedented package of support for businesses, including grants, loans and the furlough scheme. We will continue to support business to make sure that we have a thriving economy once we come out of this crisis.
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, the noble Lord, Lord Newby, and the right reverent Prelate the Bishop of Rochester have all effectively set out the scientific and medical problems with the rule of six and the lack of clarity or logic in the rules announced. Will the Government consider, instead, having rules that will be enforced and guidance for the public, with a clear division between the two? Confusion between the two has been a significant source of problems. Rather than, for example, threatening to roll out the Army for two groups of neighbours numbering seven who are standing at a distance and briefly exchanging greetings in the park, will they acknowledge that it is the vulnerable and communities already suffering discrimination who are most likely to be affected by such enforcement action?
I have made it clear that the military will not be rolling out but may be called upon to help with certain back-office duties, so I do not accept that characterisation by the noble Baroness. Of course, she and others have correctly talked about the need for clear messaging and guidance, which is, and will continue to be, at the forefront of our minds.
My Lords, I thank the Minister for the Statement and for responding this afternoon. She will be aware of the massive investment that restaurants, pubs, clubs, bars and casinos have made to be Covid secure, so the devastation to the night-time economy following the announcement of the 10 pm closure will be considerable. The Prime Minister said that it is true that the number of new cases is growing fastest among those aged between 20 and 29. How are the Government specifically targeting that group to ensure that they stay safe, maintain a safe distance and are not super-spreaders?
Obviously, we continue to put out as much public messaging as possible, and we are looking at social media and other ways of getting the attention of that group of people. The other issue we need to recognise is that unfortunately, cases are now rising throughout all age groups, which is a concern. The package of measures we have put together is an attempt to stop the rise in cases while ensuring that the economy continues, albeit in a somewhat restricted fashion. We do not want another full national lockdown. We hope that, added together, this package of measures, as well as everyone sticking to the basics of social distancing, good handwashing and wearing face coverings, will help to stop the rise that we are seeing at the moment, before we have to take further and more unpalatable measures.
My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register and apologise to the House for omitting to do so in the debates today on the two rental Motions.
What assessments have the Government and their advisers made of the evidence from Sweden, which has managed so much better by not accepting the modelling assumptions predicting significant deaths? What estimates have government advisers and the CMO made of the number of deaths from undetected or untreated other illnesses such as cancer, stroke, heart failure and suicide, which have resulted from the NHS’s seemingly singular focus on one serious illness? We may not be choosing between deaths from Covid and the economy; maybe the choice has been between deaths from Covid and deaths from other causes.
Certainly, the Prime Minister, the CMO and other advisers have been talking to their Swedish counterparts regularly in order to learn lessons from there. Indeed, they have also been talking to other European countries such as Belgium, which have taken measures, in order to learn internationally. We are all learning the best way to deal with this virus, so I can certainly reassure my noble friend of that. As I said, we are trying to restore the NHS services that were suspended while we dealt with the initial impact of Covid. NHS England has issued guidance for the return of non-Covid health services to near normal levels, making use of the available capacity while protecting the most vulnerable from Covid. As I said, this is something that the department is very much focused on. The way to minimise disruption to other treatments is to deal with this virus as effectively as we can, so that we do not have a huge spike of people with Covid being admitted to hospital.
My Lords, all supplementary questions have now been asked.
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberThat the draft Regulations laid before the House on 21 July be approved.
Relevant document: 25th Report from the Secondary Legislation Committee
My Lords, each year, hundreds of millions of pounds are spent on exit payments to public sector workers that exceed £100,000. The money funding these payments comes from taxpayers. This statutory instrument will fulfil the Government’s 2015 manifesto commitment to end six-figure pay-offs by capping public sector exit payments at £95,000. This House discussed the proposals in great depth when considering the parent Act, the Enterprise Act 2016.
Public sector workers play a vital role in the running of our economy. Earlier this year, we accepted the recommendations of the independent pay review bodies and announced a significant, real-terms pay increase for around 900,000 public sector workers. For the majority, this was the third inflation-busting pay rise in a row. But we must ensure all aspects of public sector pay and renumeration deliver value for money for the taxpayer. It is our view that these large exit payments do not deliver that aim.
The coronavirus is having a very significant impact on the economy, labour market and fiscal position, and the Government will need to continue to take this into account in setting public sector pay and renumeration. Exit payments are important to an employer’s ability to reform and react to new circumstances. They are also an important source of support for individuals as they find new employment or as a bridge until retirement age.
However, these payments must be value for money and fair to the taxpayer. The high exit payments we have seen granted in recent years clearly breach this principle. That is why the Government are taking forward regulations to cap public sector exit payments as £95,000. The proposed cap, amounting to almost six times the maximum statutory redundancy payment entitlement, will still offer a significant level of compensation and support to employees.
The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee noted these regulations as a statutory instrument of interest. I will address the points raised in its report. First, a number of bodies are exempt from these regulations. These include the armed services, the Security Service, the Secret Intelligence Service and the Government Communications Headquarters. This is appropriate due to their unique career requirements. Often, individuals working in these fields experience lifelong impacts, sometimes at early ages. It is right these individuals should be properly compensated, and their reward packages are typically designed to reflect that.
The regulations also outline which payments are deemed an exit payment for the purpose of the cap. The Government are clear that all payments conditional on an individual’s exit from employment must be in scope of the cap to avoid opportunities for manipulation, with a few exceptions. Payments such as death in service will not be capped and should be paid in full.
The second point raised by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee is that public sector pension schemes may need amending to account for these regulations. Where required, these changes are the responsibility of the parent department. Some of these amendments are already under way, with the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government publishing its consultation on amendments to the Local Government Pension Scheme on 7 September this year.
Prior to amendments being made where the application of the cap would result in an employer being unable to make a pension strain payment due to pension scheme rules, it may instead pay the pension scheme member an equivalent cash sum. The aggregate of that cash sum and any other exit payments must not exceed the cap.
The Government accept that in some limited circumstances, it will be appropriate for employees to receive an exit payment that exceeds £95,000, including where imposing the cap would cause genuine hardship. To account for these circumstances, a waiver has been designed that ensures flexibility, while maintaining an appropriate level of scrutiny from Ministers.
Today, the Government are taking forward regulations that deliver a long-term manifesto commitment and ensure value for money for the taxpayer. The regulations do this in a proportionate and thorough way, while ensuring the flexibility to protect the most vulnerable. I beg to move.
My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I have briefings from the LGA, the Association of Local Authority Chief Executives and the BMA. All have the same concern—that lower-paid staff will be adversely affected.
The Government’s aim to reduce the large redundancy payments made to highly paid staff in the public sector is one to which the public readily subscribe. But the way the Government are implementing this not only breaks the law but affects those on lower pay.
The pension strain payments should not be included in the cap. In 2019, ALACE indicated that including pension strain would affect long-serving staff earning well under £40,000. For these staff in their mid to late-50s, with service between of 35 and 39 years, earning between £31,000 and £34,000, the strain would exceed £100,000 if made redundant. Their redundancy payments would be well under £20,000. The regulations would mean that they would all suffer a reduced pension for the rest of their lives. I ask the Minister to confirm that this is, indeed, the case.
Junior doctors are similarly affected, in some cases having to make declarations for sums as small as £200. These are the very people who, up and down the country, are currently saving lives on the Covid-19 wards.
What the Government are proposing is for contractual arrangements between employers and employees to be broken and for those on very low earnings to be penalised. For local authorities, this is direct interference with the role and responsibility of elected councillors, who are well able to deal with these matters through full council. Instead, it will be dealt with by the Secretary of State.
This is at a time when MHCLG, as the Minister said, is currently conducting a consultation on the Local Government Pension Scheme. The regulations under this SI are due to come in immediately, well before the consultation on the LGPS has finished. It would seem that the right hand of government does not understand what the left hand is doing.
In addition to there being little communication between government departments, no equality impact assessment has been produced. Why not? Are the Government afraid that, if they produce one, it will be obvious that the bread-and-butter staff of public service are being caught in this trap?
However, I note that the Armed Forces and security services are exempt from this regulation. “Good,” many will say, “our service men and women deserve to be exempt”. But what of the rear admirals, air vice-marshals and lieutenant-generals, in cushy jobs at the Ministry of Defence, earning £120,000 to £150,000? Surely, they should not be exempt. The Government have got this wrong and should realise such and withdraw this SI.
I declare my interest as a vice-president and former chairman of the Local Government Association. I am pleased to speak this afternoon.
The regulations before us bring into force the exit payment cap legislated for in 2015. I supported the principle of ensuring the best value for money by making payments to employees back when the House agreed this legislation, and that remains the case today. However, I have to raise concerns about the unintended consequences of the implementation of the regulations.
As my time is limited, I will focus on timing, which has been mentioned in part before. The regulations will come into force before the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government is able to bring into force its changes to the pension regulations. The concern is that without the MHCLG regulations, the timing could lead to employees continuing to receive full pension payments despite the cap. This is because the exit payments the Government are seeking to limit are often made up of pension entitlements.
These regulations prevent the council paying the scheme the full cost of the employee’s redundancy entitlement but do not remove the employee’s legal right to the full pension payment. Therefore, the gap between what the council will pay and the amount that the employee will receive will need to be made up by the Local Government Pension Scheme until such time as the MHCLG pensions regulations are passed. That is clearly not the Government’s intention, and I would be grateful if the Minister could use this opportunity to provide some reassurances about the situation and about the legal confusion that today’s regulations are likely to cause.
As I said at the start, I support in principle the Government’s aim of ensuring that taxpayers’ money is spent wisely. In my time as a council leader, I took pride in how efficiently and effectively my council was run. However, it cannot be sensible to create entirely avoidable uncertainty for council employees or to put additional strain on the Local Government Pension Scheme and limit councils’ ability to restructure or reorganise at a time when local government faces significant financial pressures and many councils are looking to work differently. I hope that the Minister can use the opportunity today to reassure the House on the timing of the regulations, as they are causing a lot of concern in local government.
My Lords, this is not my area of expertise but since April I have been assisting Exeter City Council with its Covid response, chairing a visitor economy recovery group, from which I have learned first hand about the dedication and diligence of local government staff, the current unprecedented demand for their services and the budgetary cliff off which they are being driven.
These regulations come at a challenging time for local government. Although I generally support the aim of reining in six-figure public sector pay-offs to high earners, that is not the concern. The worry is the impact, as discussed by the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, of the pension strain payments for long-serving local government staff earning under £50,000. Those who have worked for many years in housing, benefits, environmental health or social work, and those who might have turned down much better-paid private work to continue their dedicated public service, stand to lose out on pension benefits that they have worked towards for decades if they are made redundant or seek early retirement after the age of 55. Why is that?
This is not a new issue. I see from Hansard that it was raised a number of times in November 2015, along with the serious concerns being raised now by the Local Government Association and the ALACE, which were well rehearsed nearly five years ago.
Local government is staring into a very bleak winter, with redundancies looking inevitable. The regulations as drafted will hit the pensions of the longest-serving and the most modestly paid. They will remove much-needed staffing autonomy from local councils, and, given that there is no equality impact assessment, they may well impact certain groups disproportionately, but we do not know that. Exeter City Council, for example, has over 700 staff members, whose average age is over 50. Why has no EIA been published?
I understand that the Government’s preferred solution is to change the Local Government Pension Scheme to avoid significant pension reductions. However, the MHCLG consultations commence this month but do not close until November. Why do these changes to local government pensions not take place at the same time as the regulations, and why wait until now to begin a consultation?
Loyal long-term local government employees are being poorly treated and taken for granted. This is not the message that the Government should send out just as they tighten the lockdown. What assurances can the Minister provide?
Finally, I understand that the medical professional bodies, such as the GMC, are concerned that they might be included under these regulations. Will the Minister please provide some clarification on that point?
My Lords, although I recognise that these regulations will not apply in Northern Ireland, the fact that devolved policy on public pensions and compensation is broadly benchmarked against terms in GB means that they remain of clear relevance to employers and employees in the Province.
I agree with the Government that it is important that public sector exit payments are proportionate and fair to the taxpayer. There has been an increasing number of six-figure sums paid out that exceed three times the average annual salary. However, at the same time, I would not favour a blanket cap that fails to allow circumstances to be considered on a case-by-case basis. The safeguards built into this legislation to waive the cap in cases of illness, death and statutory redundancy pay, for instance, are therefore positive.
The role of exit payments is vital to an employer’s ability to make reforms and broaden the skills and talent base for the future. The use of exit payments as part of early retirement arrangements often incentivises young people to enter a specialism where there will be gaps in the skill base in the future. I think, for example, of the previous scheme for mental health nurses in Northern Ireland, which allows those who entered the scheme several decades ago to retire at 55 without detriment. This positive role that exit payments can play should be retained, albeit with a recognition that we need to balance it against the interests of the public purse.
It is important that those whose early retirement could be disrupted by these arrangements are not disadvantaged by being unable to re-enter the workforce to apply their skills to temporary roles in our hospitals and schools that desperately need to be filled —although without, of course, taking jobs from young people who desire full-time employment. We need to see a close and regular review of the impacts of the regulations. Back in Northern Ireland, it will be important for local Ministers to review the changes in England to ensure that public sector roles and payments in Northern Ireland are both competitive and fair.
My Lords, the attempt to address egregiously large public sector exit payments is undoubtedly a good thing and I applaud it. However, to enact regulations without attention being given to unintended consequences for lower-paid staff is surely not.
Reference was made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, to the LGA’s concerns with the regulations as drafted. The LGA believes that employees in scope of them could be earning far less than the Government have suggested. I am standing up because individuals in my diocese have expressed grave concern about this. They are frightened because pension strain is included in the £95,000 cap, as has been mentioned. The regulations could have lasting negative impacts on long-serving staff who do not earn large sums of money. The Minister mentioned cases of genuine hardship, and I would be pleased to hear what he means by that.
As the noble Earl, Lord Devon, made clear, in these economically uncertain times pension strain is particularly significant, as large numbers of public servants only a few years below pensionable age are increasingly likely to be made redundant. These regulations could penalise low-paid, long-serving, loyal public servants.
When the Scottish Government implemented similar regulations, they intentionally opted not to include pension strain payments, stating that
“including employer pension costs in any severance payment cap may unduly expose longer-serving and lower-paid employees to the cap”,
and that they have
“therefore decided to exclude these costs from the cap.”
Following in Scotland’s footsteps might be a positive way forward in protecting lower wage earners at the heart of our public services.
It is of course right that high exit payments are brought to acceptable levels. However, it is surely vital that proper attention is paid to the unintended consequences that these regulations could have for lower-paid public servants who have dedicated decades in local authorities and public bodies to the common good. I would welcome any clarifications or assurances that the Minister is able to give.
My Lords, I begin by assuring the Minister that I too have no objections at all in principle to the imposition of a payment cap on public sector employees. I only wish that the private sector would voluntarily incorporate some form of limit on what employers pay as golden goodbyes, but I fear that that is not imminent. However, I am troubled by the immediacy of these regulations, by their seemingly sweeping application—particularly as it impacts older workers on modest levels of pay—and by the burden imposed on individuals.
The rush to implement these regulations within 21 days seems inappropriate. Surely a longer period is required for the plethora of public sector bodies to examine the implications and communicate with employees who might be affected in the next several months, when finances and workloads will be particularly stretched. Why not pause the implementation for a reasonable period while HMT deals with the significant concerns that employers have and issues appropriate guidance after listening to those concerns?
I turn to the human rights implications. The briefing from West Midlands Employers concerns the impact on employees who might be caught by these regulations, who are mainly long-serving but on relatively modest incomes and disproportionately female. When the original legislation was passed in 2015, we expected it to deal with high-earning executives, but it now appears that it will also catch those I have mentioned due to pension strain costs. This is an issue on which almost every speaker has commented. The briefing gives an example of an employee who
“on a salary of £40,000, with 37 years of service, on early retirement, would require the county council to pay approximately £97,000 into the fund, without adding redundancy pay, notice, or holiday pay.”
The Minister has mentioned that a waiver might be available for a limited number of cases. Could he indicate whether guidance will be issued to explain what those circumstances might be?
The BMA highlights different issues and I hope the Minister will reclarify its main charge—that the regulations are unlawful because they capture individuals who have claims against their employer which arise during their employment. These might relate to claims for damages for race or sex discrimination, or any form of discrimination under the Equality Act 2010. They point out that this is a significant change from the 2015 statutory wording. My interpretation of Regulation 6(f) is that such payments would come under its terms. Could the Minister clarify what would happen if an employer settled a claim without resorting to a tribunal—that is, where Regulation 6(f) is too narrow in its scope and does not take into account this kind of settlement?
Why are such onerous terms of a requirement to inform placed on the individual by Regulation 9, rather than on the employer, as required by the 2015 Act? Here I have sympathy with the example of junior doctors frequently moving between NHS employers, particularly as the sums concerned are nowhere near the £95,000 cap. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
My Lords, I first declare an interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.
I do not object to the principle of a cap, but these regulations erode the rights of councils to decide workforce changes. Regulation 11 requires Treasury consent for a full council decision in such matters. It is inconsistent with the Government’s claimed support for devolving power to local authorities.
These regulations represent yet another government somersault. The Government have abandoned the values they defended back in 2015, when the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, referred to the need for full council approval to relax the cap without any Treasury consent. Will the Minister confirm that these regulations undermine the 2013 agreement between unions and employers on the Local Government Pension Scheme, and the 25-year guarantee of no change in the Public Service Pensions Act 2013?
Where are the transitional arrangements to protect people from the cliff edge of the cap? Pension strain payments should not be in the cap because that can reduce people’s pensions for life. The Treasury’s approach would mean that key local government workers, earning £30,00 to £40,000 a year, could, if made redundant, suffer pension reductions of up to a staggering 40%. These regulations do not affect only the highest paid staff. Can the Minister assure us that the regulations, if passed, will come into force at the same time as changes to the local government pension schemes? The Government’s consultation ends on 9 November. It is essential not to have a gap between the two sets of regulations.
The Treasury’s equality impact assessment was not published when the regulations were tabled. Why not? Is it because paragraph 2.4 of the assessment says that the
“target scope of this policy … is the high earners in the public sector workforce”?
The reality is that these regulations will damage the pensions of long-serving key workers earning between £30,000 and £40,000. That, surely, is unacceptable.
My Lords, I declare that I am a former BMA president. The BMA is so concerned that it is seeking a judicial review of the regulations, having sent a letter before action on 17 August 2020, setting out why these regulations would be unlawful, but received no reply. It believes that the regulations will force public bodies to act unlawfully. NHS staff have contracts of employment that, in the event of redundancy, contain clauses defining the level of contractual redundancy payments, which can exceed £95,000.
How can the Government justify extending the scope of the definition of exit payments to include payments made to compensate an exiting employee for an infringement of their legal rights during their employment, before their exit? The BMA believes that doing so is unlawful. What about a person with an equal pay claim that goes back years, who leaves before the back pay is settled? How can Government justify preventing public bodies paying money owed to an exiting employee—payments such as a contractual redundancy payment, to which the employee is entitled under existing lawful contracts of employment negotiated in the proper and recognised way? Again, the BMA believes this is unlawful.
Junior doctors rotate as part of their training, moving from one trust to another, often with varying overtime payments owing them a few hundred pounds. These complex calculations will now fall to the trainee, keeping them away from clinical work. Therefore, how can the Government justify imposing a reporting duty on all exiting employees, regardless of the amount due to them—even for £200—as would be the case for thousands of junior doctors who change employer regularly through their training and will frequently be owed sums by their former employer nowhere near the £95,000 limit? The BMA believes that this is unlawful and it is clearly irrelevant to the statutory scheme.
I gave prior notice of these questions. NHS staff are public sector, have worked above and beyond to tackle Covid-19, and must not be demoralised by these regulations, which appear unlawful.
My Lords, the more time I spend looking at these regulations, the more concerned I have become. I start from a principle, as I suspect everyone in this House does, that employees in the public sector need to be treated fairly. We have all seen how incredibly effective and dedicated members of the public sector have been in dealing with the challenges of Covid.
These regulations were designed initially to deal with excessive payments to high-earning senior civil servants. I have not heard a single Member of the House object to that aspect of the regulations. However, again and again, one noble Lord after another has made it clear that the framing of the regulations is such that it impacts on public servants on modest incomes, whether through the issues raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, affecting junior doctors, or in the damage faced by mid-level local government workers who are made redundant, a point raised by nearly every speaker.
The biggest issue under these regulations is pension strain. Access to unreduced pensions for a worker made redundant after the age of 55 in local government is part of an agreement for local government workers enshrined in the Public Service Pensions Act 2013. We must keep in mind that salaries have been crafted with this benefit in mind. The relevant section requires the local government employer to contribute to the pension fund to offset the lost years of contribution created by a forced redundancy. That payment to the pension fund can easily exceed £95,000, even for a modestly paid worker. This is someone who gets only £14,000 or £20,000 as their redundancy payment. Now they are caught by the new cap, leaving them on a significantly reduced pension for the rest of their lives.
We understand that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has begun a consultation on the consequences of the exit payment cap. It does not close until 9 November 2020 and regulations will take time to follow. It is beyond me, and I suspect most Members of this House, that the package has not been considered as a whole. These regulations should not be enacted without confirmation of what any mitigation might be.
I am worried by comments in the report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee that HMT’s answer is to suggest that the redundant worker make up the contributions gap. Does it really think that a 55 year-old local government employee on a mid-level salary has a savings pot in the many thousands, especially as he or she faces redundancy? Does it then expect them to get high-paid work to enable them to contribute to make up the money that has not been paid by a local government authority?
In the original legislation, the local authority could waive the rule if approved by full council. That seems to me reasonable. Indeed, it is what the then Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, assured the House on 30 November 2015. Now the regulation gives that power solely to a Minister—in other words, the Secretary of State. The full council is overridden, and I join the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, in saying that this is entirely inappropriate. Taking back control is really starting to have an unpleasant new meaning.
To make matters more murky, the Government have not published their updated equality impact assessment, and women are expected to be among the hardest hit by this new regulation. None of us believes in rewarding failure, although we notice, interestingly, that the regulation makes an exemption for the banks owned by the Government. Apparently, those institutions are not to be bound by that same notion that failure should not be rewarded.
I am concerned that this regulation expresses a general hostility to civil servants, and we have seen that in other areas of government behaviour. The regulation makes exemptions for the Armed Services and for spies. I do not resent their luck in finding that they have exemptions, but that does not make it fair for others. I understand that whistleblowers and victims of discrimination are also exempt. Again, that is entirely appropriate, but, frankly, whistleblowers and victims of discrimination should not be made redundant in the first place.
This is a really badly crafted regulation. Its enactment needs to be halted so that a new version can be put in place once the whole picture is sorted and the various mitigations have been understood.
My Lords, public sector workers carry out vital work each and every day. Over the past six months, their importance has become ever more apparent as they have provided the essential services that have kept the country running. To introduce these measures at a time when we appear to be entering a second wave of Covid-19 is not only unnecessary but, frankly, extraordinary.
The Government claim that the regulations are about ensuring value for money when spending public funds. That is a noble cause, and the Labour Party certainly does not believe in huge public sector exit payments for the sake of them. However, we have fundamental objections to how this policy is being implemented. It does not appear to be fully thought through.
We are told not to be concerned as the vast majority of those affected by the cap will be those who are highly paid. Indeed, the manifesto commitment was clear: the cap was for “the best paid public sector workers”. However, it is simply not the case that only high earners will be affected. Contrary to previous promises, the cap will quite easily capture midwives, social workers and librarians who have served their communities for decades and who, when nearing retirement, happen to find their employment being terminated through no fault of their own. Does the Minister really think it is fair to arbitrarily limit the settlement that these workers would receive?
Noble Lords will be aware that there is no index-linking on the cap, meaning that the threshold will slowly reduce in real terms. The figure of £95,000 is the same amount floated by the Government back in 2015. How does the Minister justify the decision to set the limit at this level, which represents a real-term decrease on when the policy was announced?
Paragraph 10.4 of the Explanatory Memorandum mentions the introduction of a new waiver system
“for use in exceptional circumstances”.
How will this operate in practice? Will figures relating to its use be published and, if so, in what form? Paragraphs 10.6 and 10.7 outline two options—an earnings threshold and a phased implementation—which were considered by the Government but either not consulted on or not taken forward. Does that not suggest that the 2019 consultation and the department’s meeting with the Trades Union Congress were mere box-ticking exercises rather than an attempt to find a mutually agreeable way forward?
The Scottish Government took the decision not to include pension strain costs when implementing a similar regulation. The UK Government’s decision to include such costs means that the regulations are likely to affect far more people than might have been expected. Has the department undertaken modelling on this point, and if so, what was the outcome?
I understand that no equality impact assessment was undertaken for the scheme, which strikes me as problematic. While the judiciary is excluded, staff of the Crown Prosecution Service are included. Can the Minister confirm whether his department looked at the demographic profiles of staff in these different elements of the justice system before that determination was made?
I hope the Minister can also provide a justification for including nuclear decommissioning workers within the scope of the regulations. He will know that such workers are often employed by private sector organisations which assist in the realisation of public policy. Why should the Government interfere in the redundancy arrangements of such workers, when their very success is defined by making themselves redundant?
We will not be formally opposing this instrument, as it is not the role of your Lordships’ House to do so. However, I simply cannot understand why the Government have decided to proceed now when there is more work required, and at a time when implementing this change will send such a negative message to the public servants we rely on. Just yesterday, the Prime Minister talked of how our collective compliance with the coronavirus guidance forms a protective ring around the NHS and other public workers. Why, then, is the Minister still seeking approval for an instrument that would unfairly penalise thousands of them? I hope he will urge his colleagues to pause this process, think again and do the right thing by those who were never supposed to be subject to this arbitrary cap.
I have dealt with many statutory instruments, and I have rarely experienced such unity among those taking part. The important point about this unity is that the individuals involved all have in-depth understanding of this environment. The hostility to these regulations surely should cause the Minister to pause the process, think again, take account of all the points made today and bring these regulations back in a much healthier form.
I thank noble Lords for their contributions to this debate, and I will seek to address their comments and queries in my closing speech.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, together with several other Peers, raised the issue of pension strain. All payments relating to exit should be in scope of the cap. The option of employer-funded early retirement is often the most costly element and is ultimately funded by the taxpayer. There is of course a difference between redundancy and early retirement, and I think they can often be conflated.
I will address the points on the impact assessment a little later. The noble Earl, Lord Devon, also raised the issue of pension strain, which I have addressed. The noble Lord, Lord McCrea, also mentioned the waiver system. This allows us to look at the application of the cap on a case-by-case basis to consider whether an uncapped exit payment would be appropriate, as I mentioned in my opening remarks. We have that there to ensure that there are not cases of genuine hardship.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester is concerned about lower-paid people. The guidance document outlines situations where the waiver system may be used. It explicitly states that the discretionary waiver may be exercised with the approval of the sponsoring department and the Treasury if capping a payment would result in genuine hardship.
The noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, asked about the BMA judicial review. It is now a matter subject to litigation so I am not able to comment. However, we have certainly considered the issues that have been raised on that; no doubt they will come out further in due course.
The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, again asked about the waiver. The power to waive the cap is delegated to the full council as the decision-maker for local government pay. If the full council approves a waiver case, sign-off is required from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, and then the Treasury if the waiver is discretionary. We believe that the waiver system as currently designed is appropriate, as the Government need to maintain oversight of how the system is being used. Any cases put forward for relaxation will be considerable sums of money and need to be properly scrutinised. Of course, we will ensure that cases are processed in a timely manner.
The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, addressed a number of points. I reiterate what I said in my opening remarks: we are very grateful to public servants for the work they do. The noble Lord is correct that we are in difficult times at the moment and public servants have had to go beyond the call of duty on many occasions. However, these regulations are simply about ensuring that rewards and remuneration provide value for money by capping exit payments at £95,000. These payouts are funded using taxpayer money so it is right that we take action.
Since the beginning of the Covid-19 outbreak, the Government have agreed specific pay and pension packages for a number of public sector workforces—including the NHS—both to increase system capacity and, importantly, to recognise their work. As we respond to the financial impacts of Covid-19, the inappropriateness of large exit payments is reinforced. Ensuring that rewards are proportionate and taxpayer money is spent fairly must be prioritised.
Like many others, the noble Lord referenced the system—I hope that I have addressed this—in relation to the guidance and directions outlining the situations where the cap must be waived, including where a payment is made to settle a discrimination grievance, and where it may be waived, such as instances where implementing the cap may result in genuine hardship. Guidance and directions explaining the way the systems were published at consultation—and updated versions of these documents—will be published in due course.
Similarly, the noble Lord suggested that no equality impact assessment was undertaken. However, the Government did conduct and publish an assessment of the primary legislation. The previous impact assessment was linked to the 2019 consultation document. In addition, the 2019 consultation asked for comments and information related to impacts; an updated impact assessment has since been conducted based on the final regulations laid before Parliament and will be published in due course. We outlined this in the published consultation response.
As is also outlined in that response, we do not propose changing the level of the cap, as we still view £95,000 to be an appropriate level. However, the primary legislation allows for the figure to be changed in the future, taking into account the full contextual factors. The inclusion of the nuclear workers in the scope of these regulations has been debated extensively throughout the passage of the primary legislation and in a recent Commons Committee debate on Monday. I refer the noble Lord to Hansard, where some extensive passages deal with that.
We are able to exercise our own judgment, but, for the most part, the scope has been guided by the ONS, which makes objective judgments independently from these regulations. Based on the ONS classification, it is appropriate that the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and its site licence companies are within the scope of these regulations. However, we have listened to concerns, and a mechanism to waive certain pension-related payments upon redundancy has been designed. This was agreed by the Treasury, BEIS, unions and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority in 2017.
I believe that the Government are right to take this course. We are strongly of the view that these regulations will deliver value for money for taxpayers and put a stop to excessive payouts, which we have unfortunately seen too often in recent times. After a long period of consultation, it is now right that this policy comes into force.
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, the Hybrid Sitting of the House will now resume. The time limit for the following debate is one hour.
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberThat the draft Order laid before the House on 21 July be approved.
Relevant document: 24th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
My Lords, as we have all witnessed during this pandemic, our National Health Service is one of our country’s greatest assets. It has been a shining beacon of hope in this time of need and we could not be prouder of it. For those who live in the UK, it is the contributions made over the course of their lives that enable our NHS to continue its fantastic work.
We value the contribution of everyone who comes to the United Kingdom. It is a simple fact, however, that temporary migrants will not have built up the same contributions as a permanent resident of the UK. We therefore believe it is right that they make a fair contribution to the NHS’s sustainability. That is why we introduced the immigration health charge in April 2015. The charge is currently paid by non-European Economic Area temporary migrants who apply for a visa for more than six months. It also applies if they wish to extend their stay in the UK for a further limited period. The charge is separate from the visa fee and is paid up front and in full for the length of leave granted.
From their point of arrival in the UK, a charge payer can access NHS services in broadly the same manner as permanent residents. This can be without ever having made any tax or national insurance contributions in the UK. They pay only those charges a UK resident would pay, such as prescription charges in England. They may also be charged for assisted conception services in England, should they choose to use them. To date, the charge has raised more than £1.5 billion for the NHS. This much-needed income is shared between the health administrations in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, using the formula devised by Lord Barnett.
As noble Lords will all be aware, next year the new points-based system will be in place. This means that all migrants to the UK will be treated the same and will pay the charge if staying for longer than six months. The current exemptions, including for certain vulnerable groups, will continue to apply.
The Government recognise the value and importance of migration. We welcome talented individuals and are immensely grateful for the contribution they make to this country. However, it is only right that migrants contribute to the wide range of NHS services available to them.
Last year, the Government’s manifesto committed to increasing the annual amount of the charge to a level that would broadly reflect the cost of treating those who pay it. In line with that commitment, this order amends Schedule 1 to the Immigration (Health Charge) Order 2015. The Department of Health and Social Care has estimated that the cost to the NHS of treating charge payers in England is £625 per person, based on analysis carried out in April 2019, which used 2017-18 NHS England data. To support the administration of the charge, the new level would be set at £624 per person per year. As before, students, dependants of students and youth mobility scheme applicants would pay a discounted rate. This would increase from £300 to £470 per person.
The Government are aware the charge has a greater financial impact on family groups than on individual applicants. To support families, a new, lower rate would be introduced for those under the age of 18. This would be set at £470 and would be in line with the rate for students and those on the youth mobility scheme.
The Government are committed to supporting our NHS and health and social care workers, not least because of the vital role they have played during this pandemic. In May, the Prime Minister asked the Home Office and the Department of Health and Social Care to work together to exempt these workers from the immigration health charge. This order amends Schedule 2 to the principal order to provide an exemption for tier 2 general health and care visa applicants and their dependants. The tier 2 general health and care visa is for eligible health professionals, including doctors, nurses and allied health workers. These are people working in the NHS, for organisations commissioned by the NHS to provide essential services and in the adult social care sector.
The visa was launched on 4 August. It is a fast-track visa, offered with reduced application fees. Until such time as a formal exemption is in place for this group, the Secretary of State has waived the requirement to pay the health charge. In addition, tier 2 migrants who paid the health charge on or after 31 March 2020 but who would have qualified for the new health and care visa had it been in operation at this time, are being refunded.
Migrants who work in the NHS and wider health and care sector and who paid the charge on or after the 31 March, but who do not qualify for the health and care visa, may be eligible for reimbursement of the charge. On 15 July, the Minister for Health announced that this scheme will be launched in October. More details will be published by the Department of Health and Social Care shortly.
Now, more than ever, we need to ensure that the NHS is properly funded. The health charge is designed to benefit the NHS and to support its long-term sustainability. We are indebted to overseas health and care professionals and it is right that they are exempt from the charge or have their payment reimbursed. For those migrants who come to the UK to work in non-healthcare related roles, it is only right that they should continue to pay towards our health service through the health charge. The government manifesto, as voted for by the public, committed to increasing this charge. The order delivers that commitment and I commend it to the House. I beg to move.
At the end, insert “but this House regrets that the Order increases the immigration health charge; and fails to exempt key workers outside the scope of the Health and Care Visa, and National Health Service and social care staff already working on the frontline in the United Kingdom during the COVID-19 pandemic, from being required to pay the charge upfront.”
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her explanation of the content and purpose of this SI, which, as she says, increases the amount of the immigration health charge to £624 for adults and £470 where the applicant is aged under 18 at the date of application, or is a student or dependant of a student. The order also provides an exemption from the charge for migrants who apply for the new tier 2 general health and care visa.
The Immigration (Health Charge) Order 2015 was made under the Immigration Act 2014, and required a person who applies for entry clearance to the United Kingdom for a limited period of more than six months, or for limited leave to remain in the United Kingdom, to pay an immigration health charge. The amount of the charge was set at £200, apart from for students and dependants of students, for whom it was £150. The charge was doubled by the Immigration (Health Charge) (Amendment) Order 2018 to £400 and £300 respectively, so that for a family of four staying here for two years the cost would be £3,200.
The immigration health charge is currently payable by non-EEA nationals and enables them to access NHS services free of charge apart from those charges that UK residents must pay. It is, though, a matter of regret that the Government find it necessary to increase the immigration health charge at the present time, when we are in a public health crisis and access to healthcare is essential. It is an increase that will apply to those already in the United Kingdom. Yesterday’s announcement of a tightening of restrictions, to try to contain a second wave of Covid-19, simply emphasised how serious the situation remains and how it is likely to continue for many months, well into next year. Surely, this is not the moment to be increasing the immigration health charge on the argument that now, in the middle of a public health pandemic, is the very time for it to reflect the full cost of use.
It is a time when many people affected may well be struggling financially in vulnerable and precarious work and may also be facing the prospect of unemployment. These are people who could also be key workers who have paid into the system and worked hard, working on farms or in shops for example. Increasing the costs substantially for those already here who might be changing jobs or extending their stay, which means paying the fees again whether or not they will be reimbursed, is not what we should be doing now. This is surely not the time to be increasing the immigration healthcare charge by what appears to be over 50%.
We support the intention in the SI to exempt from the fees those who plan to come to the UK on the new health and care visa. However, that simply highlights the fact that this SI does not also offer automatic exemption from the immigration health surcharge to migrants currently working in health and social care. These migrant workers still have to pay the charge, with the promise of a refund at some date and within a timescale at present unspecified. They have put their own lives on the line, and continue to do so, to help us combat coronavirus. They have displayed the truly British qualities of commitment and stepping up to the mark in a time of need and crisis. In the care sector in particular, these key workers are on rates of pay that do not reflect the significant contribution that they make and the value of the work that they do—a reality that the Government appear to have just woken up to.
All those working in health and social care should be exempt from the immigration healthcare charge and should not have to pay the fee. The Government will issue refunds to those who are not automatically exempt under the tier 2 visa—a sizeable number of social care workers. But what will be the cost of administering these refunds? How will the Government ensure that all those to whom they should be paid receive such refunds? Why does it have to be done in this way? Why do we have to have refunds at all, rather than exemptions, when those affected will still have to find the money initially to pay the immigration health charge?
Last May, the Prime Minister pledged to abolish the immigration health charge for health and care staff as soon as possible, yet the reality for many migrant workers in health and social care is that they will have to continue to pay not just the existing fee but an increased fee if they move jobs and their sponsor changes, or if their period of time in this country is extended. Owing to their immigration status, some have no recourse to public funds so are not eligible for any state aid, such as free school meals or child benefit, yet will still have to pay the immigration health charge up front and face the financial pressure that that will involve.
The Government told us at the start of the pandemic that we were all in this together, a sentiment repeated by the Prime Minister in his broadcast last night. It is clear from this SI, though, that the Government’s togetherness does not appear to extend to many migrant workers who have shown true grit and determination in the invaluable, and at times life-saving, work that they have done and continue to do in our country during the pandemic. I beg to move.
The original question was that the draft order laid before the House on 21 July be approved, since when an amendment has been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, to insert the words as set out on the Order Paper. The question I therefore have to put is that this amendment be agreed to.
My Lords, I rise to support my noble friend Lord Rosser in his amendment. I shall not delay the House for long because the Minister has heard me before on this issue. It was just a couple of weeks ago, when I was trying to point out the contradictions of a policy that encouraged people to go into the residential care sector and to progress, only to find that we are encouraging, enabling and supporting people who are coming in at a higher level—at management level as well as higher care levels—but not those who come in at the lower levels. We have the contradiction of expecting domestically resident employees to stick at the lower levels of residential care while we encourage migrants to come and take the more highly skilled parts of the health and residential sector. As I always do from the Minister, I felt I got an ironic smile when she said that she understood that this area and the world we are working in are full of contradictions.
It is a matter of great regret that we have chosen to provide the exemption just for the tier 2 health and care visa for higher skilled workers but not for those who are doing the grinding jobs. On a previous occasion, I asked the Minister for the staff turnover rate in residential and nursing homes. She was good enough to come up with a figure that I think was accurate—41%—which is staggering. It does mean that, over the months ahead, there will be substantial numbers of vacancies in work that supports those who are often at the most critical part of the care journey they are undertaking.
I also want to draw attention to the contradiction in relation to the increased charges for students and their dependants. At the moment, universities are on tenter- hooks. While, thank the Lord, domestic undergraduate recruitment has been better than was previously predicted, we are still uncertain about the recruitment of overseas students, particularly for postgraduate taught courses and postgraduate research. This recruitment is crucial not only to maintaining funding for universities, which has been so badly hit, but also for cross-subsidy with other elements of the system, including vital research. By increasing these charges, we are discouraging people who are part of a cohort that draws down less on health services than other groups of the population simply by the nature of their demographic and well-being. At the same time, we are sending a message that, at a moment of crucial investment for both universities and the future for those individuals—as well as the soft power that that brings to the United Kingdom—we would like to charge them more. That is a matter of considerable regret.
My Lords, I welcome the Government’s proposal, which seems sensible and appropriate. It has always been rather baffling that our welfare system is based on the principle of contribution and that our NHS is not in a position to get full and fair funding from all sources—particularly from those coming to this country from abroad. Having looked at the systems in Germany, France and Switzerland, for example, I can see that they are very different because they have that principle built in. Of course, they benefit from having ID cards. If Parliament had listened to the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, when he was Home Secretary, that sensible proposal might have made it much easier at an earlier time. Indeed, some of our history might have been rather different if we had brought in identity cards.
One reason why identity cards would have been helpful is this. I uncovered some data from 2016; I have not seen it openly published since, although I am sure that it has been published somewhere. When I uncovered the figures, I found them quite extraordinary. They showed the differential between this country and other countries in terms of recharging for healthcare; that is, not recharging the individual, but for those European countries with which we have reciprocal agreements, we were recharging the sum of £49 million for their citizens to use our NHS, whereas through the British Government the British taxpayer was being charged—directly to the Government, not to individuals —£651 million. The deficit with Ireland was more than £200 million, while the figure for Spain, where there appears to be a significant number of British citizens who are often elderly and therefore use the Spanish healthcare system, was also a deficit. In other words, with all the Brits living in Spain and using the health service there, we were still in a deficit situation.
The Minster may not be able to do so at the moment but it would be useful for him to state afterwards in writing what the current situation is. There is no reason why our NHS should not be recouping those sums; they do not come from the individual but from the Government. Some £600 million a year, broken down into individual hospitals, is pretty much what the NHS deficit was running at until the current crisis. All that would be required is the presentation of some form of identity including nationality for that automatic process to be easily followed. A cultural barrier is holding this back, which is also why I am so supportive of this contributory initiative, of which the Attlee Government would have been proud and probably should have thought of at the time.
Let us have fairness in the system. It would be helpful if the Minister could take this issue back to her ministerial colleagues to ensure that we are charging back foreign Governments, not individuals, for their health treatment here. If not, perhaps there should be an explanation of where weaknesses in the system remain, so that some of us can pursue them with vigour.
My Lords, as the Minister has said, the 2019 Conservative Party manifesto contained a commitment to
“increase the health surcharge to ensure it covers the full cost of use”.
As a result, this statutory instrument, as the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has said, increases the full immigration surcharge to £624 a year. However, in April 2019, the Department of Health and Social Care, using 2017-18 data, estimated the cost to the NHS of treating immigration health surcharge payers at £624 per year—the amount that the SI increases the charge by—but re-ran that estimate using 2018-19 data, putting it at £646 a year. Why are the Government using the old estimate and not the current one?
My understanding is that the Home Office takes a cut of the £624 charge to cover its costs. The amount therefore paid to the NHS is even less than the outdated £624 a year. What does the Home Office take out of the £624 allegedly taken to fund the National Health Service? Taking those two factors into account, the Government are falling short of their manifesto promise to cover the full cost of use.
I strongly disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Mann, not just on ID cards but on the statutory instrument. The flaw with the immigration health surcharge is that it takes no account of income tax, national insurance contributions and VAT, which are funding sources for the National Health Service paid by working migrants who also have to pay the IHS. The difference between the UK and most other countries with which the noble Lord was making a comparison is that they do not have health services that are free at the point of need, as we have in this country.
Analysis by Oxford Economics for the Migration Advisory Committee estimated that in 2017-18, the average non-EEA migrant made a net fiscal contribution of £310 more than the average UK adult. The average EEA migrant made a net contribution—that is, paid more in tax than they received in benefit from the state; for example, in healthcare, education and benefits —of £1,940 more than the average UK adult.
This analysis shows that migrants already pay more than the average UK adult towards government services, including the National Health Service, so why should they pay the immigration health surcharge on top? Even if we ignore the baseline figure, surely a further option the Government should have considered is discounting non-EEA migrants working in the UK by £310—the amount they contribute in addition to that contributed by the average person in the UK—and exempting EEA migrants altogether. Surely, this would cover the full cost of the use of the NHS. Or, why not charge migrants who do not work and not those who do?
These provisions are estimated to raise £177 million a year, a tiny fraction of the 2018-19 NHS budget of £114 billion, yet the impact on reducing the number of migrants seeking to come to the UK is estimated to be 2,500 people per year. Can the Minister confirm that the main objective of the immigration health surcharge, along with the vastly inflated sums charged for visas, is to reduce migration into the UK by pricing those least able to pay out of the market?
We then have the farcical situation whereby migrants working for the National Health Service have to pay the immigration health surcharge. Yes, there are exemptions, but these are for the more highly paid professionals such as doctors, dentists and pharmacists. Those least able to pay the IHS, such as porters and cleaners, are not exempt. NHS and social care staff from other countries—many of whom are working on the front line of the coronavirus pandemic, as the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, said—should have the right to stay in the UK without having to renew their visas or pay the immigration health surcharge. That is why Liberal Democrats in the other place have tabled legislation to give them indefinite leave to remain.
There is no justification for imposing the immigration health surcharge on working migrants, who already contribute not only more to the Exchequer than they cost it, but more—in the case of EEA migrants, considerably more—than the average person in the UK. Failing to exempt all NHS and social care workers from the IHS adds insult to injury. We support the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and if he presses it to a Division, we will vote with him.
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who contributed to what was quite a quick debate; nevertheless, they were thoughtful and insightful contributions. The health charge remains an attractive offer for migrants. It provides near comprehensive access to NHS services without further charge, regardless of the amount of care needed. It is not there to reduce migration, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, attests; moreover, it ensures that migrants do not need to worry about meeting the cost of unexpected treatment or arranging health insurance, which, for some people with health conditions, must be costly.
I turn to some of the specific issues that were raised. As set out in our manifesto, the Government believe that the health charge rate should broadly reflect the cost of treating those who pay it. However, the rates for students and those eligible for the youth mobility scheme will continue to be discounted. As I said, a new discounted rate for children will be introduced. The increased surcharge will continue to represent a very good deal for migrants who pay it, given the range of NHS services that can be accessed without further charge. The cost compares favourably to private medical insurance here and abroad, which is a common requirement for individuals wishing to migrate to many other countries.
We are really grateful to our essential workers and key workers who have performed such a public service throughout this pandemic, including emergency service workers, transport workers, teachers, delivery drivers, supermarket workers and many others. However, it is only fair to expect people arriving in the UK who work in non-healthcare roles to make a contribution to the full range of NHS services they can access from the point of arrival.
I will talk a bit about the reimbursement scheme, because the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, touched upon it. Tier 2 migrants who paid the health charge on or after 31 March 2020, but who would have qualified for the new health and care visa had it been in operation at this time, are being refunded. Migrants who work in the NHS and the wider health and care sector and who paid the charge on or after 31 March but who do not qualify for the health and care visa may be eligible for reimbursement of the charge. In July of this year, the Minister for Health announced that this scheme would be launched in October. As I said earlier, more details will be published by the Department of Health and Social Care shortly.
Volunteers have been raised today and previously, and we absolutely pay tribute to the contribution they make to our communities. The Department of Health and Social Care is considering who will be eligible to apply for the surcharge reimbursement scheme and will publish that information shortly.
On tier 2 refunds, tier 2 migrants and their dependants who paid the health surcharge on or after 31 March of this year are, as I said previously, being refunded. Those who believe they are eligible for a refund on this basis may contact the Home Office; the relevant contact details are available on the GOV.UK website.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and others talked about the impact on families and young people and the total cost of the applications people are faced with paying. I am absolutely aware of concerns regarding the combined costs—I think the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, raised this—of both the health charge and the visa fees, and the impact that this might have on families and young people in particular. The Government are committed to ensuring that the surcharge remains affordable for family groups and intend to provide, through this draft order, a reduced surcharge rate for children. The Government are clear, however, that migrants must pay the charge when they make an immigration application and should plan their finances accordingly.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, talked about those in a vulnerable situation, perhaps facing destitution. There is a fee waiver in place for those making specified human rights applications who are destitute or at risk of imminent destitution. Where the fee is waived, the requirement to pay the health charge is accordingly waived also. If you can demonstrate that you do not have adequate accommodation or any means of obtaining it, or cannot meet other essential living needs, that would be considered destitution.
The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, asked what cut the Home Office takes of the £624. I do not know if the Home Office does take a cut; he is asserting that it does. I do not have the answer today, and I will find that out for him. However, as to how the Government estimate the cost to the NHS of treating the charge payers, that was produced by the Department of Health and Social Care. Not to buck-pass, but the cost was produced by the DHSC, based on analysis it carried out in April 2019 using—the noble Lord is absolutely right—2017-18 NHS England data. I do not know how that data differs from the following year, but I will find out, and therefore get a more up-to-date picture for the noble Lord. The small increase from the previous analysis was mainly driven by health inflation and updated data. Mindful of the need to ensure that the surcharge is not set above cost recovery, the Government have decided to set the surcharge at £624 per person per year.
The noble Lord, Lord Mann, asked about recharging. It is something that has exercised me in the past: we pay ever so much and we get so little back. I do not know what the up-to-date figures are—he tells me £49 million versus £600 million, which is quite a gap indeed—but clearly it is a matter for the NHS to collect the money. The noble Lord is nodding in an exasperated way—he knows that. If I can, I will get him more information on what the up-to-date figure might be.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked how we are targeting people affected by the change. We are looking to engage as many eligible people as possible through various means of communication.
The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, talked about other people who may not be eligible but who have played their part in tackling the pandemic. While currently a subcategory of the tier 2 immigration route, the health and care visa offer will form part of the future skilled workers route. We intend to review the list of eligible occupations that can benefit from the offer to reflect the introduction of the expanded skills threshold, ensuring that those health and care professionals who meet the skills threshold can benefit from this offer.
I hope that I have answered all the questions. If I have not, I will follow up in writing.
I thank the Minister for her reply and thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. I will be brief. I am not sure that I have really had an answer to my question. Bearing in mind that some people coming into the country under the tier 2 visa will get automatic exemption, why can that not apply to all those in the health and care sector? I asked why we had to have refunds and why there could not be an exemption for all, but I did not get a very clear answer.
I also raised the specific issue of why it is necessary to make a dramatic increase in the healthcare charge now, when we are in the middle of a pandemic? A lot of those affected will be financially very stretched, and in certain circumstances will potentially have to pay the increase. I have not had an answer as to why that increase must be brought into effect now. The Minister quoted a manifesto commitment, but manifesto commitments do not all have to be implemented immediately. I do not suppose that when the manifesto was written it was envisaged that we would be in the middle of a pandemic crisis at this time. I have not really had an answer as to why it is necessary to make these substantial increases now.
However, I will leave it at that. I have made our two points, which are reflected in the amendment. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for indicating that if I pushed it to a vote, I would have the support of the Liberal Democrats. I do not intent to do so. It has been an interesting debate and I have made clear the basis of our regrets about this SI. I am very grateful to noble Lords for their contributions and thank the Minister for her response. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
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Lords ChamberMy Lords, the sitting of the House will begin shortly. I thank you for your patience.
The hybrid sitting of the House will now resume.
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Lords ChamberI thank the Minister for taking questions on this Statement today. It was noticeable yesterday, and on Monday, that at no point was there any attempt to reveal any scientific basis or evidence for the impact on the spread of the virus of either a 10 pm curfew or going back to working from home if you can. A few weeks ago, we were all being urged to go to the office or workplace if we could. We have certainly not been told what SAGE’s modelling shows as the impact a ban on mixing households indoors would have.
The Government are lacking a clear Covid-management approach. We recognise that the pandemic, and its impact, are complex. The response can be no better than the best compromise, and that should be admitted. Timely policies to rejuvenate the economy will fail if policies to contain the infection fail; we recognise that. In the absence of a vaccine, testing, tracing and isolation is the only response that matters now. Covid infection data should be published, to make it clear to the public where the risks are. The Prime Minister said that more information would be made available. I would like to know that it will and when that might happen.
This leads back to testing, tracing and, importantly, isolating, as every conversation about the containment of Covid-19 does at the moment. Looking back over the last few weeks of growing disquiet, and then serious concern, about not being able to get tests, does the Minister agree that part of the problem—leaving aside the seeming failure of the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, and her operation—is the clear lack of communication about testing? I plead with the Minister not to treat the House to the mantra about the record number of tests and so on. It is completely clear, from MP’s postbags and the media, that “them out there” were under the impression that tests were more widely accessible than they in fact are. Lecturing us on how simple all this is both misses the point and is dangerous.
As far as schools are concerned, I asked a headmaster how things were going. He said: “If they ran a school the way they are running the country, what Ofsted grade would they put on their self-evaluation form?” I thought that was quite a good question. The tone of the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister in their Statements rather gave the impression that the Government were blaming people for breaking the rules and allowing the virus to grow. The reality is that people have done everything that they were asked to do. They have missed birthday celebrations, weddings and funerals; they have, quite rightly, sent their children back to school; they have gone back to their workplace. They have done what they were asked to do. In return, Ministers were supposed to fix test, trace and isolate so that we could return to something like normality.
The mayor of Tower Hamlets, John Biggs, said:
“With cases rising the government is right to bring in stricter restrictions to prevent the transmission of COVID-19. In Tower Hamlets we need to keep each other safe by following these new rules”.
He added:
“Government also needs to ensure adequate testing is available and that there’s continued support for those losing out financially due to these restrictions. The next few months will continue to be challenging—as a community we’ll remain resilient and together can get through this”.
He puts the case extremely well.
The Cabinet Office Minister, Michael Gove, said the 10 pm curfew on pubs in England has been brought in after evidence from places such as Bolton, where the curfew has already been in place for two weeks, suggested it will drive down coronavirus infection rates. However, according to the latest figures released by Public Health England, the infection rate in Bolton has risen again. Does the Minister share my concern that the new regulations may be based on poor evidence? Will the Government review this decision and immediately publish the evidence to allow it to be scrutinised in peer review?
Why is that 10 pm curfew not on all sales of alcohol? For example, you get thrown out of the pub at 10 pm with five of your mates; you go to the off-licence, buy whatever you want and go to somebody’s home. I cannot see the evidence that this will make any difference. I would really like to know.
Returning to tests, can the Minister confirm that only half of all tests have been received in less than 24 hours and will he publish the Pillar 2 data which breaks down how many people asking for those tests were symptomatic and how many were asymptomatic? Many parents report going to walk-in centres with their sick children, when they had no symptoms, and being given a test. Was that a national policy? Has it been abandoned? This is further evidence of confusion.
I welcome what the Minister said about prioritising NHS staff, care workers and teachers, but can he clarify why he has issued guidance to hospital trusts placing restrictions on the number of tests they can carry out? Also, how he will protect care homes? In a previous exchange this afternoon between the Leader of the House and the Leader of the Opposition, my noble friend asked the noble Baroness about domiciliary care. I think she maybe did not understand what was being said—it might have been after a question from the Back Benches. Will people in domiciliary care, going from one home to another doing social care, be given PPE and will the tests available in care homes be available to them? I am trying to put it as simply as I can because it is a very important question.
Will the Minister ensure that no one is discharged into a care home without a Covid test? Given where the virus is, what is his advice to the shielding community? What protections is he putting in place for those from black, Asian and minority-ethnic communities, given that there are disproportionate numbers from those communities in intensive care units even today?
None of us wants to see another lockdown or circuit-break. We will understand if one becomes necessary, but test, trace and isolate should be fixed. The failure of that has left us vulnerable and exposed. It seems to me we must now act with speed to save lives and minimise harm.
My Lords, three months ago the Secretary of State said that test and trace was the single most important thing that had to be done to conquer the virus. Yesterday the Prime Minister said it had “little or nothing” to do with the transmission of the virus. These two things cannot both be right. For six months, the problem has been that we have had confused messages, careless use of statistics and a persistent refusal to work with and listen to people who run local public services and know what needs to be communicated to whom and how.
All those are the fundamental reasons we find ourselves in this situation. We still lack an effective and timely track, test and isolate system. In its place and without any evidence base behind them, we have come up with messages which, quite frankly, do not make sense to the general public. The rule of six does not make any practical sense at all, as was very well evidenced today by my noble friend Lord Newby in an earlier interaction with the Leader of the House.
Yesterday, the Prime Minister said the Government now had granular data that enabled them to understand the transmission of the virus. When will that evidence be released? And when will it be released to Members of this House and the other place, who, next week, are going to be asked to renew emergency powers the like of which have never been seen before to this Government? If the Government cannot come up with that evidence—and, I have to say, over the last six months, they have persistently failed to answer any kind of detailed question from Opposition Benches in this House—why on earth should they be trusted to have those powers renewed? When are we going to get the evidence base?
It is helpful, looking at the Secretary of State’s Statement, to see that finally, after repeated questions from these Benches and the Labour Benches, we have got a clearer statement on who is being prioritised for testing and in which area. But, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, said, it is remarkable that there is nothing about black and minority ethnic communities, which we know are at greater risk, and nothing about the important people who work, for example, in domiciliary care, or who work in hospitals but are not medics.
I would like to ask one final question. When will they start listening to local authorities, who are persistently asking, in helpful ways, what they can do to expand the capacity for testing and to make sure that testing is better tied into the rest of the services? We are about to have an app launched, and local authorities are already telling us that there is soft intelligence that people who think they have symptoms but are unable to get a test just give up, and that people whose children are ill give up. It is all well and good for the noble Lord to say, as he did the other day, that they are going to completely redo NHS 111 to make it a more streamlined portal into the NHS, but if people have given up looking for tests long before they should, we are never going to get the data we need to get on top of this.
So I ask, as I did the other day: when they are revamping NHS 111, will they talk to the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health about the NHS 111 protocols? I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton; I think the public are desperate to do the right thing. They have been extraordinarily patient and have listened throughout, giving the Government the benefit of the doubt. But they will not go on doing that indefinitely while the Government continually fail to come up with a decent evidence base for their actions.
My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, for correctly characterising our response to the epidemic as “the best compromise possible”. It is a compromise. We have competing demands on our strategy: we have to protect lives and the NHS, but we also have to be conscious of the economy and the livelihoods of people, and we have to look after our students and pupils. The package of measures being put forward by the Government is the best compromise we can make for this moment, and we are unashamed of that compromise.
But the noble Baroness is wrong when she says we do not have a strategy. The strategy is really clear; it is to suppress the virus and protect the economy and education until the vaccine and mass testing are ready. It may not feel like it now, but there are glimpses of sunlight in the distance. The vaccine and mass testing provide a strong opportunity for us to suppress the virus. The strategy that we have put in place, as the Prime Minister rightly described in his address to the nation, is a way to “get through the months” until we have those arms at our disposal.
Both the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, talked about the publication of data. I must confess that I have a genuine sense of confusion about that point, because we publish so much data. If there is one thing that this Government have got wrong, it is that we have published too much data too early. Too much has not been audited; too much has been put out as early as possible in our efforts to be transparent. Tomorrow, we will have a REACT survey; we will have an ONS survey; we will have test-and-trace data. There are SAGE minutes; there is NIHR; there is literally data coming out of every organisation of government. It is a fantastically huge amount of data. It is, I confess, extremely difficult to process all of that data all at once. The story it tells does chop and change at an amazingly fast rate—much faster than any experience I have ever had in my life. It is a rollercoaster that the Government have to ride.
I make no apology, however, for the fact that this Government have sought to act swiftly and to bring in measures quickly when the evidence has changed. In the last few weeks we have seen the latest example of that, where the infection rates have clearly lifted quickly in a way that was not expected, and we have had a discussion about that point in previous sessions in the Chamber. We have moved promptly to address the challenge that those worrying and concerning figures have presented to us.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, raised the question of testing. I completely and utterly acknowledge the frustration of anyone who has not been able to get a test for themselves, for their child or for a loved one. It is true that we have more people wanting tests today than we have supply. However, I cannot avoid pointing out that—boy oh boy—we have come a long way since February, when we were doing 2,000 tests a day, to today, when we are doing 240,000 tests a day, and we are well on the way to doing 500,000 tests a day by October. Our aspiration is to do many times that within the near future.
That is not in any way to avoid the fact that I wish that we had more tests today. I want to convey to the House that this Government are 1,000% committed to answering the needs of this country for testing and have put every resource—human, technological, administrative and financial—behind the testing programme in order to deliver that promise.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, raised the question of tone. I completely accept her point that the people of Britain have made a terrific sacrifice. There is no question at all of blaming the people of Britain, but we have to acknowledge that the spread of the virus indicates as a fact within itself that some people are not respecting the principles of social distance, hygiene and isolation, and we have to move in order to shore up the basic principles of this country and, by the way, of any country that is effectively fighting the virus—because, if we do not, the virus will sweep through the country.
I thought that the Prime Minister put that challenge very well, and in a way that a large majority of this Chamber would support. He said that the choice was before us: we could ask those who are vulnerable and older and shielded to simply lock the door and we could turn our backs on them. That is not the choice that this Government have made. They have made a choice to fight the virus at every level, because we love the people whom we care about; and it is a pragmatic choice, because if we find the virus growing in one part of our society, whether that is young people, health workers or the very young, then sure as night follows day, it will sweep through the rest of society.
I turn to the evidence on the curfew. This is a moment where I do not have the science at my fingertips. However, I have been in pubs and clubs after 10 o’clock enough times to know about the proximity and intimacy of late-night drinking, and I know that what happens then is not conducive to social distancing. This is a moment when plain common sense can tell you that a curfew will help to break the chain of transmission among young people. It is, unashamedly, a signal that we cannot go on like this and, in particular, that young people have to change their behaviours because the signs of infection are crystal clear. The prevalence among young people is too high, and we have to turn that corner.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, asked about symptomatic and asymptomatic testing. The honest truth is that it is very difficult to tell; if someone is standing in a testing queue, we do not turn them away. By the way, in order to get a test, people do have to fill in a form, on which they are asked if they are symptomatic. What we do know from closer analysis and questionnaires is that a proportion of testees—between 20% and 25% at current rates—do not meet the strict criteria of our testing. I am grateful to the British public for beginning to show respect for the fact that every test counts, and for helping us direct them at the most needy.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, asked about domiciliary care, an issue that has been raised in this Chamber a few times. I reassure all those in the Chamber, including the noble Baroness, in answer to her specific questions: yes to PPE, yes to testing and, by the way, yes to new guidelines that help minimise contact and the number of patients seen by each itinerant domiciliary worker; and yes to substantial extra funds for the social care system, specifically to help social care avoid relying on people travelling from patient to patient.
The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, asked about our relationships with local authorities and the local teams. I reassure her that we have moved a very, very long way in the last six months and that the picture she paints is understandable but out of date. We have come a huge way to share all of our insight, data, analysis and systems with local authorities, local directors of public health and local infection teams. Decisions on lockdowns now have a protocol whereby they are led by local teams after engagement with local civic groups and brought to the Secretary of State after they have been agreed at a local level.
Substantial sums—billions of pounds—have been given to local authorities to help them afford the kinds of local intervention that they choose to make in order to support the most vulnerable and disadvantaged during the epidemic. Money is given to local authorities for PPE for the people that they decide need it. Community health is being supported within the NHS in order for communities to be given the support they need. Engagement with local civic groups and business leaders is at a level I have never seen in government before.
I will give one example in relation to contact tracing, which the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, specifically asked about. In Leicester, money has been given to the local council for it to commission its own contact tracing, because we recognise that the local authority may well have the insights, cultural connections and sensitivities, and contacts needed for this kind of work. Therefore, we have provided financial and logistical support, and professional advice on how it can fill the gaps. We recognise that a national system cannot do everything, and that we have to be both national and local at the same time.
The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, ended by talking about the public mood and her concerns that people are reaching a state of despair. I completely recognise the exhaustion that many people feel about the state of the epidemic. I particularly recognise the morale within the NHS and social care, where people have worked incredibly hard, often in circumstances and doing tasks that they did not originally sign up for, and the sacrifice that many people have made, whether they work in the healthcare system, are supporting people they love, cannot do the things they want or are isolated and on their own. Of course, lots of people have made massive sacrifices, but I do not recognise the world she describes.
I think the public largely support the steps taken by this Government to suppress the transmission of this virus. After all, it is the virus that is the enemy. In many respects, we have an incredibly united country in fighting that enemy. The way in which the British public have supported the regulations and guidelines, which have had a tough effect on many people’s lives, demonstrates a huge amount of support. No Government —and certainly not this Government—will stretch that beyond what is tolerable. I posit to the Chamber that, to date, that support is still in place, and I remain extremely grateful for it.
My Lords, we now come to the 30 minutes allocated for Back-Bench questions. As ever, I ask that the questions and answers be brief, so that I can call the maximum number of speakers.
My Lords, I thank the Minister for coming to take questions on this Statement. I will ask about two issues. If he cannot answer me now, could he kindly write with information? My main concern is people who are still going to work and caring for people who are Covid positive. Based on the highest prediction of need, how many days’ worth of PPE stock does the UK currently have in store for the NHS and voluntary and independent-sector providers of health and social care, including care homes and domiciliary services? How rapidly can stocks be replenished? What proportion is produced and manufactured in the UK? Have we tested the distribution systems and are they satisfactory?
My second question is in relation to vaccination. Vaccination will obviously be really important, but what are we doing now to support the Prime Minister’s approach, declared in August 2019, that we will increase MMR vaccination rates, among other needs, so that all people are protected as far as possible against other infections during the rise of Covid?
My Lords, the noble Baroness asked about PPE, which is naturally a concern as we go into winter. I assure her that the NHS has 15-day, 45-day and 90-day plans for the supply of PPE to the NHS and the independent sector. Roughly half of that comes from British sources. The distribution mechanisms have been radically overhauled and tested, and have proved to be utterly modernised.
We are working extremely hard on the deployment of a Covid vaccination. She rightly mentions other vaccinations. I assure her that we have 30 million doses of the flu vaccination. As she rightly points out, there appears to be a strong link between having flu today, Covid tomorrow and problems with a combination of both at a later date.
Sweden did not go for a total lockdown, as we did in this country. Although there is some evidence that its number of infections is going up at the moment, it still has far fewer deaths from Covid per 100,000 than we do. On top of that, its economy is supposed to be declining by about 5.5%, while ours will decline by at least double that. Does my noble friend think there are any lessons to be learned from Sweden?
My second question is about herd immunity. We started this whole process of dealing with coronavirus by talking about herd immunity. We then seemed to completely desert that idea and did not think it held any promise. Where do we stand now on herd immunity?
My Lords, it is with sadness that I note that the infection rate in Sweden is inching up, and with regret that I note that Stockholm is bringing in many lockdown measures similar to those in the UK. The noble Lord is right that Sweden has had a distinctive approach, but it is not as distinctive as would appear. Many of the same regulations that we have had here have been applied in Sweden. One area where Sweden has shown leadership is in compliance among the public. When regulations have been brought in, there have been extremely high levels of compliance, and therefore the optics are different from the reality. This Government have never supported a herd immunity strategy.
My Lords, I remind the House of my presidency of the Health Care Supply Association. I want to ask the Minister about testing. He will be aware that the medicine supply chain rose to the huge challenge presented partly because, early on, pharmaceutical wholesale staff were classified as key workers. That gave them access to priority testing, but on Monday the Government issued a revised list that excludes those pharmaceutical wholesale staff. The Healthcare Distribution Association has reported to me that there are already delays in staff accessing these tests. It is very concerned that, if this continues, it will have a very detrimental effect on the supply of medicines to hospitals and pharmacies. Would the Minister be prepared to take this away, look at it and see whether they could be added back to the priority list?
The noble Lord makes an extremely good point. I am grateful to him for alerting me to this question in advance. We take the contribution of pharmacists to the battle against Covid extremely seriously. I am not sure, right now, why pharmacists have been taken off the list and I would be glad to look into the matter and respond to him shortly.
My Lords, turning to the new proposals affecting people advised to self-isolate, on the one hand, an isolation payment of £500 is being offered, which is an incentive; on the other, there is a new legal duty, the enforcement of which could result in some quite swingeing fines if people do not do it. It is a two-sided thing. I have two questions about this. First, what involvement will local authorities have in this process? Will it all be done centrally or locally—like the payments in the pilot areas—or will it be both together? Secondly, there is obviously a lot of scope for disputes about this—about individuals and how they are treated and so on. What documentation will be involved? It is rather more than simply getting a telephone call and being asked to do something. It is an offer of quite a bit of money, and it is an instruction to do things. Will they be sent pieces of paper or will it be done by email or whatever? Will there be documentation to back all this up?
My Lords, implementation of both the payment and the legal sanctions will run their course through exactly the same channels as any other social care payment or the implementation of any other social duty. That will be led by local authorities, as it would be with any other social penalty. The police will be involved. The courts will be involved. Appeal processes will be involved. We hope that there will not be many sanctions, and that the payments will make a big difference to isolation protocols.
My Lords, I ask the Minister whether the Government have considered better ways of communicating the data to the public. One of the things that many of us have found, in talking the issues through with the general public, is that they simply do not understand the limitations of data analysis, which inevitably will be part of the whole story. Therefore, particularly when it concerns younger people, we should be trying to explain the data better than by giving the absolute numbers that always seem to come over. Inevitably, those who think they are not affected disregard the data. An improvement here would help with people’s agreement to isolate and to take preventive measures to stop the continued transmission of Covid-19.
My Lords, I have said on other occasions that we publish a lot of data, and I would be glad to share a full list of our data sources with my noble friend. To put a different perspective on the point she makes, the biggest challenge we have is to persuade people that their personal health is not a private matter that affects only them; it is a public matter that affects the people they love, the people they are standing next to and everyone else. This is particularly challenging for young people, quite understandably. Young people may have very few symptoms or none at all. They may carry the disease without any personal implications whatever but are vectors of disease who carry it to the vulnerable, ill or elderly. Persuading the country that their health is a public matter is our number one priority. My belief is that we are making great progress, but there is some way to go.
To break the chain of transmission, people must isolate if carrying the virus. Therefore, people have to understand that a negative test means only that they were not carrying the virus at the time the test was taken. The new contact tracing app being launched tomorrow has the potential to interrupt the transmission of the virus, but in order for it to work, a large proportion of the population will need to download and use it. Is it true that only just over half the mobile phones currently in circulation in the UK are compatible with the new app?
My Lords, the noble Baroness is entirely right that a test today only proves that you have not got it this morning; it does not necessarily prove that you might not have it in a couple of days’ time, when you go and see your loved ones. However, she is not correct on two points concerning the app. First, all the epidemiological data suggests that even small numbers of downloads—even two people, but certainly 10% of the population—can make a difference. Our aspiration is much higher than that, but it is not true that a large proportion of the population needs to use it for it to be effective. Nor is it true that that it works on only half the phones: our belief is that it will work on a very large majority of phones.
If I may take a moment, I shall use it to advertise the “Distance Aware” badge sponsored by the noble Baroness. It is a really good device for encouraging people who are near those who are shielding to respect the social distancing rules.
Again, I take the Minister to his own department’s weekly statistics for test and trace for the latest week, 3 to 9 September. He said on Monday that I did not understand the chart on page 8. Has he now read the annexe on page 37, which states, in table 1, in bold, that the number of people tested under pillar 1 and pillar 2 was 571,400? This amounts to 81,628 per day. So, can he now tell us the date on which more than 100,000 people were tested?
My Lords, I can confirm that in the week to 22 September, in pillars 1 and 2, 188,865 tests were taken during each of those days.
The noble Lord may know of my interest in public transport. Since the wearing of masks has been mandated by law, is he satisfied now that everything possible is being done to make the use of public transport safe for people?
My Lords, I recognise the expertise of the noble Lord on public transport. It is my observation that the public have come a long way on mask wearing. When I was on the Tube this morning, absolutely everyone, including small children, was wearing a mask. That is huge progress. Yes, there is more that could be done, and we have brought in fines and support for isolation, but I pay tribute to the public attitudes that have moved a long way in this matter.
My Lords, first, I thank the Minister for all the work that he and the Government have done in Leicester. The many millions that have been spent have been hugely helpful to our communities there. However, given yesterday’s Statement by the Prime Minister about increased restrictions, my concerns relate to the mental and physical well-being of women and girls, in particular, in the densely populated areas of Leicester, as they will not be able to go out and get the right amount of exercise or make good choices when it comes to eating. Will my noble friend assist me in trying to get those messages across to people in communities such as mine in Leicester, where the messaging is so important? If the restrictions are extended, those communities will suffer far worse outcomes, and for much longer
My Lords, I recognise that this epidemic has hit women hard—it really has—particularly in high-density areas such as Leicester where women and girls do not have access to the kind of exercise and space that they need in order to lead fulfilled lives. We have given substantial funds to the authorities in all cities, including Leicester. I greatly encourage those authorities, including the ones in Leicester, to think about how they can help women and girls to access the space and exercise that they need to fulfil their lives during this difficult period.
[Inaudible] the presence of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, perhaps I may refer the Minister to his response to me when he presented a Covid update on 14 September, and indeed as he has confirmed today. On what calculation does he anticipate that
“we are looking at making up to half of our PPE requirements in the UK.”—[Official Report, 14/9/20; col. 1007.]?
Why do the Government have their sights on only 50%, and what plans do they have to increase national production? Is it suggested that this is the sum total of our manufacturing prowess?
Absolutely not, my Lords. I pay tribute to British manufacturers, which have come an enormous distance—everyone from high-end manufacturers such as Burberry to those which once made recycled bin bags and have now turned their factories over to producing aprons and other important PPE articles. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Deighton, who has done an enormous amount to generate interest among British manufacturers of all kinds in order to support British PPE production. However, we have to have a balance to this. Some specialist goods, such as gloves, are best made elsewhere, but having the capacity and expertise to make 50% of our PPE means that we now have a route to making it all if necessary.
The last question is from the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering.
My Lords, I am delighted to hear that there are 30 million doses of flu vaccine. I remind the House of my interest with the Dispensing Doctors’ Association. How and when will the flu vaccine reach doctors’ and GPs’ surgeries? My noble friend will be aware that PPE will presumably have to be worn for the dispensing of each dose of flu vaccine, which means that the vaccination will be administered at a loss to dispensing doctors and others. That does not seem sustainable. Is that an issue that my noble friend will be able to address?
My Lords, flu vaccines are being distributed right now. I know that because I had mine yesterday. The person who gave me the vaccine was not in PPE and in fact spoke very movingly about the way in which walk-in methods are being used to make administering the vaccine as easy and quick as possible, removing all barriers to the public. When I asked him about the commercial practicalities, he gave me an encouraging update on the financial settlement for the distribution of vaccines by pharmacists. I am led to believe that there will be a huge amount of interest by pharmacists in distributing as many flu vaccines as they can.