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Oral Answers to Questions
(4 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
James Grundy (Leigh) (Con)
Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)
Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con)
Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)
Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)
The Minister for Trade Policy (Greg Hands)
The Government are firmly committed to our manifesto pledges to uphold our high environmental, food safety, and animal welfare standards. Under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, our current standards are taken into UK law, and the Secretary of State has now placed the Trade and Agriculture Commission on a statutory footing.
James Grundy
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Government’s actions in strengthening the Trade and Agriculture Commission firmly dismiss the rumours that UK food standards would be compromised as a result of Brexit?
Greg Hands
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Placing the Trade and Agriculture Commission on a statutory footing will ensure that public and industry interests are advanced and protected in Britain’s agriculture and trade policy. As the National Farmers’ Union said:
“This significant commitment to primary legislation on food standards, both in the Agriculture Bill and the Trade Bill, is exactly what we have been calling for.”
Anthony Browne
The farmers of South Cambridgeshire are some of the most efficient and environmentally friendly in the country, but they have concerns that they might be undermined in any trade deal by imports that are produced to lower animal welfare or environmental standards. They strongly welcome the Government’s decision to put the Trade and Agriculture Commission on a statutory footing—a move also welcomed by farming and environmental groups across the country. Will my right hon. Friend tell the House what role the commission will play during trade negotiations, to ensure that standards are maintained?
Greg Hands
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. He is a reliable supporter of farmers in his constituency. The Agri-food trade and agriculture group will feed in during the negotiations. He also asked about the TAC, and I wish to use this occasion to praise its chairman, Tim Smith, for the excellent work that he has done so far, and in very good time.
Damian Hinds
Colleagues across the House welcome the news about the Trade and Agriculture Commission’s statutory footing. It will be a strong voice for our farmers, and it will also provide expert independent advice for this House as we consider the impact of each trade deal on agriculture. When does the Minister expect those amendments to be tabled, and for the Trade Bill to resume its progress?
Greg Hands
We plan to table that amendment to the Trade Bill on Report in the House of Lords. The scheduling of business is obviously a matter for business managers, but we intend the Bill to be completed by the end of the transition period.
Duncan Baker
I represent a rural constituency, North Norfolk, where farming is the lifeblood for so many. My farmers are delighted about the Trade and Agriculture Commission’s statutory footing, and that move has also been applauded by the National Farmers Union. Will the Minister reassure my constituents that the commission will protect animal welfare and farming standards, and help to allow the farming sector to assess the deals that come forward for that important sector?
Greg Hands
I know from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State how important farming is in Norfolk, in both her constituency and that of my hon. Friend. Farming has a strong voice on the Trade and Agriculture Commission, and the NFU, NFU Scotland, NFU Cymru, the Farmers Union of Wales, and the Ulster Farmers Union are on it. It puts UK farming at the heart of our trade agenda, and allows the sector to help advise on our future trade deals.
Virginia Crosbie
I thank the Minister for his answer. The extension of the Trade and Agriculture Commission has been incredibly welcomed by farmers across Ynys Môn, and it shows this Government’s commitment to upholding our high food standards. What feedback has the Minister received from Welsh farmers regarding that move?
Greg Hands
My hon. Friend is a strong and passionate voice for Ynys Môn farmers, and the feedback has been extremely positive. Putting the Trade and Agriculture Commission on a statutory footing has been welcomed by NFU Cymru. Indeed, its president, John Davies, said that this
“is a milestone moment and one that should be welcomed by all those who care about our food, environment and high standards of production.”
Robbie Moore
Latest figures show that the UK’s agrifood sector is now worth £122 billion to the UK’s economy, and there is plenty of room for growth. As we set out into the world as an independent global trading nation, will my right hon. Friend confirm that, even though we have the weight of the Trade and Agriculture Commission in place, UK agriculture will be at the forefront of his mind as we go forward in future trade negotiations?
Greg Hands
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and—crucially—we would never want UK agriculture to be sidelined from our trade agenda. We need and have UK agriculture fully on board, to take advantage of selling our fantastic British food and drink produce to foreign markets. Already, for the first time in many years, we are selling beef to the US, pork to Taiwan, and we have secured better agrifood protection in our recent UK-Japan trade deal.
Mrs Drummond
According to blind tasting, French champagne has nothing on sparkling wine from the south downs. Hambledon, Wickham, and Exton Park are vineyards that produce brilliant wine in the Meon Valley, and we have some of the best produce in the UK. Will our free trade agreement support that burgeoning industry?
Greg Hands
I look forward to tasting some of this Meon Valley wine, although I have to say that 9.39 in the morning might feel a little early. Our commitment to promoting British wines is very strong. Among the potential 70 geographical indicators in the UK-Japan comprehensive economic partnership agreement deal are: English wine, English regional wine, Welsh wine and Welsh regional wine. We are in regular contact with WineGB and the Wine and Spirit Trade Association to help to promote this vital industry.
Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)
After listening to these Whips’ questions, I think I would like some English wine as well, Mr Speaker.
I had a long and detailed discussion with NFU Scotland on Monday. In its words, it is “really worried” about future trade deals. Fundamentally, the UK is a high cost, high food standard regime. It argues that it simply cannot compete with low-cost competition with lower food standards elsewhere. Is it not now time for the Government to change tack, and include chapters on food, animal welfare and standards in trade agreements?
Greg Hands
I studied very carefully the hon. Gentleman’s amendment during the passage of the Trade Bill. In many ways, he had an even more extreme amendment than the Labour party in terms of trying to dictate our trade partners’ domestic production standards. That would have killed off a huge amount of our trade with the developing world. He mentions NFU Scotland. I thought I would go directly to the source. I am reading here from The Scottish Farmer, which I recommend he reads. NFU Scotland president, Andrew McCornick, said in The Scottish Farmer only last week, on putting the TAC on a statutory footing:
“This is a huge step forward.”
Stewart Hosie
Putting an organisation on a statutory footing is one thing, but protecting food standards is something different. I think the Minister’s answer is what Americans call doubling down on a previous mistake. Let me give an example. UK egg producers simply cannot compete with imported eggs produced where the density of laying hens may be twice that permitted in the United Kingdom. The only way they could do that would be to massively lower food production and animal welfare standards, something we know from the recent Which? survey the public are implacably opposed to. Is it really the Government’s intention to be on the wrong side of food standards, the wrong side of animal welfare, the wrong side of the farming industry and the wrong side of public opinion?
Greg Hands
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question. He mentions the Which? survey. I was delighted to be the guest speaker at the launch of the Which? survey, “The National Trade Conversation”, where we discussed many of these aspects. To be absolutely clear to him again, our commitment that there will be no lowering of standards on animal welfare, food safety and the environment is absolute. I urge him again to get with the trade agenda and listen to NFU Scotland, which says it will
“strive to ensure that the best interests of farming, food and the drink and the public continue to be front and centre of any trade deals.”
That is exactly the right approach being taken by NFU Scotland. I urge him and the SNP to get on board with that positive approach for the first time, please.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
The Government say that they want to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, but some of its members allow growth hormones, genetically modified food in animal foodstuffs and insanitary conditions for animals. The CPTPP is already in operation, of course, and trade is permitted between its members on the basis of lower animal welfare and food production standards. How does the Minister plan to renegotiate the CPTPP to exclude the lower animal welfare and food production standards it contains, given that existing members of CPTPP say that they will not allow new members to change the agreement?
Greg Hands
The Secretary of State and I have told the hon. Gentleman time and again at the Dispatch Box that nothing in any trade agreement prevents this country from carrying out its own domestic regulation. We have been absolutely clear that a lot of the production methods and food standards he describes will remain illegal in this country after 1 January. He mentions CPTPP. I urge him to get on board with a positive agenda. Joining CPTPP, a trading group of 11 countries, including Canada, Singapore and Japan, will be a fantastic opportunity. I am not expecting him to support it, because of course he never supported trade deals with those countries in the first place, but I might hope he could reconsider now.
Mr Speaker
Let us head to the Chair of the International Trade Committee up in Scotland, Angus Brendan MacNeil.
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP) [V]
A very good morning to you, Mr Speaker, on the day you have been waiting for: the day of the first report on the UK-Japan comprehensive economic partnership agreement from my Committee. I am sure that you are looking forward to reading it. Indeed, we are hoping to have a debate in your Chamber, Sir, before the end of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act process—just to let you know.
On food and farm standards, yesterday we heard from Tony Abbott, the former Australian Prime Minister and now adviser to the Board of Trade, who said that when he had an important deal to do with China, he took the state premiers of Australia with him. I wonder whether the Ministers at the Department for International Trade will consider doing the same for important trade agreements, taking the Welsh Minister, Jeremy Miles, the Northern Irish Minister, Diane Dodds, and the high-flying Scottish Minister, Ivan McKee, who might indeed be leader of the Scottish National party and First Minister one day. We need that to happen given that the UK Government are ready to burn particular sheep farming in Wales and Scotland by being outside the 45% tariffs. It is not just our standards, but the standards of our neighbours that are really going to matter for farming.
Greg Hands
I thank the Chairman of the Select Committee for that, and I look forward to reading his report. When it comes to the devolved Administrations, we all need to respect the devolution settlement, which is that trade policy is a reserved matter and the UK Government carry out their negotiations on behalf of the whole United Kingdom. It is also right, however, that we consult the devolved Administrations, which is why, since May, when I took over the role of interaction with the devolved Administrations in this Department, I have had six meetings with Minister Ivan McKee. We have the quarterly ministerial forum for trade. I have already described how NFU Scotland, two farming unions of Wales and the Ulster Farmers Union are on the Trade and Agriculture Commission. We also make sure that our trade advisory groups include representatives from the devolved Administrations. Our commitment is clear to negotiating the best possible deals for the whole United Kingdom, while making sure that voices from Scotland and the other devolved Administrations are very much included.
Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)
The Secretary of State for International Trade (Elizabeth Truss)
Our deal with Japan secures opportunities for businesses in the north-west, which currently export goods worth £380 million to Japan. We have agreed an SME chapter that will make it easier for SMEs to cut the red tape on customs and ensure they have access to a dedicated website of opportunities.
Antony Higginbotham
Burnley has a significant engineering sector, creating highly specialised parts for aircraft and cars, so will my right hon. Friend tell us what impact the UK-Japan deal will have on those businesses in Burnley?
Elizabeth Truss
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the aerospace and automotive industry is incredibly important for Burnley. That is why it was important that we saw all the tariff benefits that were previously negotiated retained in the new deal, as well as additional benefits, such as a new data and digital chapter that goes far beyond what the EU has agreed and really helps to support our advanced manufacturing sector.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
The Secretary of State has repeatedly claimed that the deal that she signed with Japan goes far beyond the original EU-Japan deal, so I return to the question that I asked her two months ago: will she tell us, in billions of pounds and percentages of growth, what the forecast benefits are for UK exports in GDP from her deal, compared with the forecast benefits of retaining the existing EU-Japan deal?
Elizabeth Truss
It is interesting that the right hon. Lady is interested in the difference, because the Labour party did not support the original deal with Japan. If it was down to Labour, we would not even have this deal in the first place. We have been very clear about the additional benefits that we have secured: better provisions on digital and data, better provisions on business mobility, a better position on intellectual property, better protection of British geographical indicators—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) is shouting, “How much is it worth?” from a sedentary position? Why, when we have left the EU, do Labour Members constantly seek to compare us with the existing EU provisions? It is almost like the Labour party never wanted us to leave in the first place.
Emily Thornberry
What is going on? The Secretary of State claims that the UK-Japan deal goes far beyond the EU-Japan deal but will not quantify the difference. Why not? If she will not publish the exact figures at this point, will she at least do one basic thing and simply state on the parliamentary record whether the growth in our exports and GDP is forecast to be higher as a result of the UK-Japan deal than it was under the EU-Japan deal?
Elizabeth Truss
I think it is extraordinary that the right hon. Lady is asking me to carry out economic analysis on behalf of the EU. She has not asked me about the Australia-Japan deal and whether that is better or about the deal that China has with Japan or any other deals. Why is she me asking me about the EU? We have left the EU, and it is no longer our responsibility to do economic calculations for it. I have been clear, however, that this deal goes further and faster and brings in additional economic benefits.
Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
The Secretary of State for International Trade (Elizabeth Truss)
We are determined to reach a deal with Canada before the end of the year. It is a fellow G7 member and one of the top 10 economies in the world. It will help our trade, from cars to beef, fish and whisky, in a trading relationship already worth £20 billion.
Elizabeth Truss
What we are negotiating at the moment is the vital continuity agreement, but I do hope that, in the future, as Canada is a member of the trans-Pacific partnership that has advanced chapters in areas such as data and digital, we will be able to go much further and build a much deeper relationship.
Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
With just days to go, and with not just this continuity agreement still to be completed, British exporters such as our car manufacturers simply do not know whether they will face tariffs potentially as high as 20% in markets as diverse as Mexico and Vietnam and beyond. Is it not the truth that the Secretary of State has focused too much of her time chasing new deals with the Trump Administration and others and taken her eye off protecting the free trade that we already have?
Elizabeth Truss
The Government have completed trade deals with 52 different countries covering £146 billion-worth of trade. That is a massive achievement. Unlike the Labour party, we are not prepared to agree to any deal put on the table; we will work hard to get a deal that is in Britain’s interests. There are deals ready to go with the countries the hon. Gentleman has mentioned, but I am not prepared to do a bad deal to push things forward. We are pushing all those deals forward, and we are making good progress.
Mark Eastwood (Dewsbury) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Graham Stuart)
Latest Office for National Statistics figures report that the UK’s inward foreign direct investment stock reached £1.5 trillion in 2018—a new record. According to the United Nations conference on trade and development, the UK held the highest FDI stock in Europe in 2019. The Financial Times FDI report highlights that last year the UK had more greenfield FDI projects than any other country in Europe at 1,271; by comparison, Germany had 702 and Spain 658. We are looking to go even further to improve our high value investment offer, which is why the Prime Minister launched the Office for Investment just last week.
Mark Eastwood
I congratulate the Minister on the impressive inward investment results so far. What is he doing to boost investment and broader trading relationships between the UK and the Asia-Pacific region and, in particular, those with Pakistan, which is of interest to a number of businesses in my constituency?
Graham Stuart
There can be no greater or more persistent champion of UK-Pakistan relations than my hon. Friend. The Government remain committed to increasing trade and investment with the Asia-Pacific region. We have signed a free trade agreement with Japan, are negotiating FTAs with Australia and New Zealand and hope to be able to apply for formal accession to the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, as already discussed. At the end of the transition period, the UK will put in place its own generalised scheme of preferences, and my hon. Friend will be delighted to learn that Pakistan will continue to receive the same market access to the UK next year. The scheme will help British and Pakistani businesses to continue trading seamlessly after we end the transition period.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
Sir Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for International Trade (Elizabeth Truss)
We have made good progress on our US deal, agreeing the majority of text and the majority of chapters. We are working with both sides of the House in the US for a deal that benefits both our two nations.
Andrew Gwynne [V]
But if the Secretary of State’s global Britain is to mean anything, we must not put all our eggs in one basket. I think it fair to say that, in recent times, the Secretary of State has bet everything on securing a trade deal with the Trump Administration. She might want to conclude a deal with Canada, but the Prime Minister there said that the Secretary of State had lacked the “bandwidth” to focus on getting a deal with his country. Does she intend to ignore that criticism and continue making a deal with the US her dominant priority? If so, what confidence does she have that the Biden Administration will feel the same way in terms of their own priorities for trade?
Elizabeth Truss
We have now secured trade deals with 52 countries. We have secured a deal with Japan that goes beyond and above the EU’s agreements, we are working on accession to the trans-Pacific partnership and we are negotiating with Australia and New Zealand, so we are by no means entirely focused on the US, but it is our largest single country trading partner. I am always struck by the anti-Americanism among Opposition Members. They simply do not understand that these deals are incredibly important for British business. As for the comments from overseas Governments on our trade negotiations, it is interesting that Labour Members simply like to repeat their “lines to take”. Maybe they need to think of some of their own ideas.
Mr Dhesi
We are all aware, sadly, that the Prime Minister has a litany of racist, sexist and homophobic remarks, but to the detriment of our national interest, it seems that some of his foul-mouthedness has now caught up with him. In particular, his derogatory remarks on President—
Mr Speaker
Order. Unfortunately, this has to be linked to the question that has been asked.
Mr Speaker
Right, well the hon. Gentleman had better get there quickly, please.
Mr Speaker
Order. I am sorry, this has to be linked to the trade question. This is completely off beam. I am sorry, but we have got to stick to the question. As important as this matter is, and the hon. Gentleman quite rightly wishes to get it in, this is not the question to do so—
Mr Speaker
I am going to make that judgment, and the judgment so far is that it is not. We are wasting time for other Members.
Helen Hayes
One of many sources of hope at the US election result is that after four years of climate change denial, President-elect Biden is talking about the global climate crisis and the action we must take to address it. Will the Secretary of State support him in those endeavours by guaranteeing to put climate change co-operation and green technology at the heart of any US-UK trade deal?
Elizabeth Truss
I am absolutely delighted to hear somebody on the Labour Benches being in favour of a trade deal. That is a real step forward. Of course we will have strong environmental provisions at the heart of our trade deal with the United States. I remember that Labour Members did not support a trade deal with President Obama, and they do not support a trade deal with the current Administration, but I am delighted to hear that they are supporting a trade deal with the new Administration. I look forward to working with them to ensure that the climate change provisions are excellent.
Sir Mark Hendrick [V]
A new US President and Congress will not ratify a trade deal if we scupper the Good Friday agreement; our banning of Huawei infrastructure has angered China, and now this Government are prepared to break international law in the way we leave the European Union. How many major global trading partners are this Government prepared to upset before they do more harm to our economy than covid-19 has done already?
Elizabeth Truss
We have already done trade deals with 52 countries and we are on course to do many more, and we are absolutely committed to the Good Friday agreement.
Dame Diana Johnson [V]
As one of the MPs for the Humber energy estuary, where we are doing pioneering work in areas such as carbon capture, it is heartwarming to hear American President-elect Biden talking about the global climate crisis and the action needed to address it, and seeing this as a way of generating the jobs of the future. Will the Secretary of State expand a little on what she thinks can be put into any trade deals in terms of this country’s green technology and making sure this creates the jobs needed on both this side of the Atlantic and the other?
Elizabeth Truss
In the new UK global tariff we have reduced the tariffs on 100 green goods, and we want to encourage more other countries to support that. Of course we are committed to working with the US, and next year we will have the presidency of the G7. That is a really good opportunity for us to pursue that agenda of tackling climate change, alongside our COP26 commitments, and of course we will be looking at putting these in all our trade deals.
Matt Western
Although we would all want a successful outcome to any trade negotiations with the US, will the Secretary of State confirm that, according to the Government’s own best-case scenario, any US deal with the UK will account for growth of only 0.16% over 15 years? Will she confirm what this will translate into if we do not get a deal with the EU? What loss in growth will we sustain?
Elizabeth Truss
Our assessment suggests that a £15 billion increase in trade will result from a US deal and also that we will see tariffs of half a billion pounds taken off fantastic British companies, be they in ceramics or the car industry, which will help to boost that growth. But the EU deal and the US deal are not in contradiction to each other; we should be aiming to do both. The problem is that the Labour party seems willing to agree any deal with the EU and willing to agree no deal with the US. What Conservative Members want is a good deal for Britain.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
President-elect Biden has spoken powerfully about the need to end support for the war in Yemen and to stop selling arms that Saudi uses, in his words, for “murdering children”. Will the Secretary of State revisit her policy on arms sales in the light of the new President’s statement or will she choose to remain in lockstep with the blood prince bin Salman instead?
Elizabeth Truss
I am proud that we have one of the most rigorous defence export regimes in the world, and those are decisions we make on the basis of our values in this country.
Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP)
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Graham Stuart)
I talk regularly with businesses, business representatives, and ministerial colleagues about how we can make exporting easier for businesses across the country. That is why I was delighted to announce our new Scottish trade hub in September, which is staffed by expert trade advisers and dedicated to helping Scottish firms to grow internationally. I am pleased to say that our work to reduce barriers to trade and increase exports is paying off; the UK overtook France in 2019 to become the world’s fifth-largest exporting nation. All nine of the other 10 largest exporting nations in the world saw their exports fall last year, according to UNCTAD, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development—the exception was the UK.
Douglas Chapman [V]
Around 250,000 businesses export to the EU and not to the rest of the world. Many of them are small, not VAT-registered and difficult to reach, and to continue to trade they will need to go through a long and tedious process to acquire an economic operator registration and identification number. As the party that wants to reduce red tape, what action are the Government taking to reduce the administrative burden to ensure that SMEs can continue, or start, to export into Europe but do not suffer disproportionately from a madcap Brexit?
Graham Stuart
We are working to engage with businesses, and I recommend that all businesses that have not done so go to gov.uk/transition and look at the practical steps they need to take to prepare for the end of the transition period. From my engagements with Scottish businesses, though, it is clear to me that it is the relentless pursuit of Scottish independence, rather than the support for Scottish business, that they find the concern. I want to ensure, by using the power of the Union and our global reach, that we can boost Scottish business; otherwise, if follow the path of independence, we know that would lead to a shrinking of Scottish business and a loss of opportunity for Scottish people.
Martyn Day
Rod McKenzie, the Road Haulage Association’s policy director, gave evidence to the Scottish Parliament in which he highlighted a no-deal Brexit scenario in which lorry drivers would be forced to rely on European Conference of Ministers of Transport permits, of which the UK has been allocated around 4,000, despite more than 40,000 being required. In effect, that would stop the best part of 90% of companies trading with Europe. What assurances can the Minister give today that traders and hauliers will experience minimal disruption?
Graham Stuart
As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have been working flat out to engage with businesses, to provide easements on the customs regime up to July next year and to make sure that we minimise the challenges as we end the transition period. Of course, the issue that Scottish businesses raise with me is that the biggest threat to their trade is not any friction as we move to the new settlement on the EU border, but the fact that 60% of all Scottish exports go to England, Wales and Northern Ireland—more than to the rest of the world combined. It is that, and the threat that the hon. Gentleman poses to Scottish business in that way, that really worries them for the long term.
Edward Timpson (Eddisbury) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Mr Ranil Jayawardena)
We are committed to making sure that our ambitious global trade policy works for every corner of our United Kingdom. Trade unions and civil society are crucial to that, so I am delighted to have expanded our engagement to include a dedicated trade union advisory group and a series of civil society and think-tank roundtables from across the political spectrum, which I will chair.
Edward Timpson
I recently had a meeting with Jonty Cliffe and Claudia Bayley, the chairs of the Cheshire Young Farmers Club, and they were concerned to make sure that the views and priorities of all young people who work in agriculture and affiliated industries were fully integrated and taken into account by the work of the Trade and Agriculture Commission. I have raised this issue with the commission’s chair, Tim Smith, but will my hon. Friend also discuss it with the commission to make sure that those views and priorities are taken into account, because those young people are the future of British farming?
Mr Jayawardena
That is a great and typically thoughtful question. The TAC includes representative bodies from the length and breadth of Britain, so I encourage young farmers and others to continue to share their views with those bodies, which work proactively to provide insight to us and the TAC. Indeed, as my hon. Friend says, many young farmers—such as Jonty and Claudia in the Cheshire Young Farmers Club in my hon. Friend’s county and Tom Janaway in the National Farmers Union in mine—are already actively involved in sharing their views.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
The Minister for Trade Policy (Greg Hands)
The UK-Japan agreement locks in the benefits of the EU-Japan deal, including provisions on climate change such as those that reaffirm our respective commitments to the UN framework convention on climate change and the Paris agreement; those that promote trade in low-carbon goods and services; and those that support co-operation on trade and climate.
Christine Jardine [V]
Although I am disappointed with some aspects of the Japan trade agreement, such as the provisions on data, I am heartened that there is no investor-state dispute settlement clause in the new UK-Japan FTA, as ISDS has been used by large corporations to sue Governments over environmental regulations on issues such as water pollution, deforestation and fracking. Will the Minister confirm that, to protect our natural environment, the UK will not seek such an arrangement with either Japan or any other new trading partners after Brexit?
Greg Hands
I thank the hon. Lady for that question. I ought to add first of all that we really welcomed the announcement that Japan made on Monday, in advance of COP26, that it will be seeking to become carbon neutral by 2050. On her question about ISDS, I will be frank. This country is already party to ISDS with dozens of agreements, but let us recognise that the UK has never lost a case brought against it in ISDS. It is something that is there as much to protect British businesses trading abroad as it is for foreign investors in this country, so her alarmism about ISDS is misplaced.
Fay Jones (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)
The Minister for Trade Policy (Greg Hands)
The UK-Japan CEPA will benefit farmers and food producers in Wales through lower tariffs than would have been the case without an agreement. It also allows more UK goods to access preferential tariffs than under the EU-Japan agreement, thanks to new rules of origin. New protections for more iconic Welsh food products may also be possible, including for Welsh lamb and coracle-caught sewin.
Fay Jones
Twelve Welsh geographic indicator products have been protected in the UK-Japan deal on which I warmly congratulate the Department. I am particularly pleased to hear the Minister mention Welsh lamb. Can he reassure me that those products will be respected and protected in future trade deals, particularly with the US and Australia?
Greg Hands
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is the potential inclusion of around 70 geographic indicators, 12 of which are from Wales—she is quite right—including Welsh beef, Welsh lamb, Welsh wine, cider, perry, Caerphilly cheese, Carmarthen ham and others. One of our key objectives is to be able to sell Welsh lamb into the United States—British lamb overall is not currently allowed into the United States—but we will be fighting to get an improvement in Welsh lamb exports around the globe.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State for International Trade (Elizabeth Truss)
We have made good progress. In under two years, we have agreed trade deals with 52 countries, covering £146 billion of trade, accounting for 74% of the value of total trade with non-EU countries that we set out to secure agreements with.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle
We learn from The Telegraph that the Minister has rejected the Ghana deal because it was a “a substantial departure” from the EU deal, but she says that the Japan deal goes far beyond the EU deal. What is it? Are the Government exercising new British sovereignty to produce far-reaching new deals, or are they just rolling over and accepting the same deals that we already had?
Elizabeth Truss
The answer to the hon. Gentleman is that we are seeking to roll over the Ghana deal, as we are other deals, but with Japan, we have gone through the process of producing a scoping assessments. [Interruption.] No, we were very clear that Japan was a deal that would go further and faster than the EU deal, alongside the new deals that we are negotiating with the US, Australia and New Zealand. There is a deal on the table for Ghana to agree to. It has already agreed to the same deal with the EU. There should be no block on Ghana being able to get tariff-free, quota-free access to the UK, and we are very happy to talk to its representatives at any time of the day or night.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
The Minister for Trade Policy (Greg Hands)
This Government have a strong history of promoting our values globally, including human rights. While our approach to agreements will vary between partners, our strong economic relationships allow us to have open discussions on a range of issues, including on human rights. We will not compromise our high standards in trade agreements.
Cat Smith
In September, the UN said that the Saudi airstrikes in Yemen had led to
“a consistent pattern of harms to civilians”
unlike our own Government who said in July that there was no such pattern and therefore it was lawful to resume arms exports. Can the Minister tell me how his Government have looked at the same evidence as the UN and arrived at such vastly different conclusions?
Greg Hands
May I remind the hon. Lady, as the Secretary of State said earlier in response to a question from the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), that the UK has one of the most rigorous arms control regimes in the world? We follow the consolidated criteria at all times. On trade agreements, I ask her to judge us on our deeds and not always on our words. In terms of the trade agreements that we have rolled over, there has been no diminution of human rights clauses in any of those agreements.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Graham Stuart)
The Department for International Trade is working closely with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and others to ensure that businesses are prepared for 1 January. We have delivered specialist webinars and support tools to ensure that industry understands the changes required to keep trading effectively with the EU as well as to start trading under preferential conditions, such as those with Japan. Looking forward, we are aiming to produce the world’s most effective border by 2025, simplifying and digitising border processes so that exporters across the country will be able to sell their products around the world more easily once our free trade agreements are agreed and in place.
Joanna Cherry [V]
A report published this month by the National Audit Office estimates that the number of HM Revenue and Customs declarations that will need to be processed from 1 January will increase from the current annual volume of 55 million to 270 million. That is a huge increase. What discussions is the Department having with other Departments to ensure that this huge increase in the administrative burden does not discourage exports to Europe and the world?
Graham Stuart
The hon. and learned Lady is quite right; there are a lot of challenges. That is why, across Government, we have been making such an effort to work with other Departments to make sure that we do everything possible to inform business and to facilitate the border, including investing hundreds of millions of pounds in improving customs processes and others.
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
The Secretary of State for International Trade (Elizabeth Truss)
Last week, we announced that the UK will be continuing our trade preferences scheme for developing countries in 2021. It is important that developing countries continue to receive the same market access under our unilateral trade preferences as they do at the moment. We remain firmly committed to the principle that trade helps to lift the poorest out of poverty, and early next year we will be launching a consultation on how we can improve the preference scheme and help to use trade as a tool for development. We will aim to have the new scheme finalised by the end of 2021.
Greg Smith
With all our minds on both the health and economic recovery from the covid pandemic, may I ask my right hon. Friend what discussions she has had with her Israeli counterpart to further trade co-operation beyond the continuity deal, not least given the incredible and ground-breaking Israeli innovations to combat covid-19, such as through remote monitoring of patients and thermal scanning?
Elizabeth Truss
My hon. Friend is right. It is vital that we use trade as a way of motoring growth post this terrible covid crisis. We are working on negotiating a cat’s cradle of trade deals around the world to support British business. Of course, Israel is one of those priorities. It is very advanced in areas such as data and digital. There is strong scope for a world-leading agreement, and we are in discussions about that.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab) [V]
From 1 January, the Secretary of State will be responsible for our trading relationship with other European countries. With or without a deal, the services sector is concerned that its interests have been marginalised throughout the negotiations with the EU. This does not just affect financial and legal services, but engineers, technicians and others. Will the Secretary of State commit to securing—as a start—mutual recognition of qualifications to enable all these crucial sectors to work across Europe?
Elizabeth Truss
I am committed to having a positive relationship with the European Union. I speak to my counterpart, Valdis Dombrovskis, about issues concerning global trade. Of course, we want with every part of the world good trade deals that uphold our standards and facilitate increased trade in areas such as services, data and digital, but the important principle is that we cannot do that at the expense of the UK’s sovereignty. Those are the negotiations that are currently being conducted by Lord Frost.
Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con) [V]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Graham Stuart)
What an excellent question. It is the reach, power and financial heft of this United Kingdom that has allowed us to be the only top 10 global exporter to increase exports last year and allowed us to attract more foreign direct investment than any other country in Europe. Shorn of the UK’s assets, businesses—and, more importantly, workers—in places like Scotland would be impoverished as a result. We seek to ensure that we use every part of the power of this United Kingdom to support jobs and investment in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
The Minister for Trade Policy (Greg Hands)
I can tell the hon. Gentleman that there is no change in the effect of the existing EU trade deals when it comes to human rights and the role there of the UK agreements. I would urge him to look at those agreements and study the reports that have been produced comparing the agreements with the original.
James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)
Greg Hands
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. In fact, I am meeting the overseas territories on this very subject next week. You in particular, Mr Speaker, will be impressed by the Secretary of State meeting Fabian Picardo, the Chief Minister of Gibraltar, only last month on this. Getting our overseas territories participating in the UK independent trade agenda is very important. We recognise fully the constitutional responsibilities we have for the OTs and we work closely with them to ensure that their interests are represented.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Elizabeth Truss
We are working very hard to secure a good deal with the European Union and negotiations are ongoing. However, it is important that our farmers have as many markets as possible. That is why we have worked hard to get the lamb market open in Japan in 2019, we are working hard to get lamb into the US, which is the second-largest importer of lamb in the world, and we are working hard to get more lamb into the middle east too.
Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)
Elizabeth Truss
My hon. Friend is correct. That is why we want to join trade areas such as the trans-Pacific partnership with very strong provisions reducing the level of bureaucracy required, and liberal rules of origin that help our manufacturers. That is also what we are looking to negotiate with the United States. It is important that we get the advanced digital and data chapters that the EU was not prepared to sign up to but which provide so much value for advanced manufacturers in being able to sell their products around the world.
Paul Girvan (South Antrim) (DUP)
Elizabeth Truss
I can absolutely assure the hon. Gentleman of that. I was delighted that the first cargo of British beef to leave for the United States of America for 24 years left from Northern Ireland.
Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con) [V]
Greg Hands
We follow RCEP quite closely, but we are looking forward to making our application to join the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, or TPP-11, trading group in the new year. This is an excellent trading group. Its 11 countries are a mix of like-minded western trading nations such as Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, as well as more developing nations such as Vietnam and Peru. There are great opportunities for all of us, including my hon. Friend’s Morley and Outwood businesses.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab) [V]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Mr Ranil Jayawardena)
I thank the hon. Lady for that question, which is important, because we must apply anti-dumping measures in a clear and accurate way. The Department has assessed which of the existing anti-dumping trade remedies should be transitioned, and evidence has been provided by British producers of bicycles, which thus far has indicated that there are not sufficient British sales to transition the measure, but we will review any further information. That information would need to demonstrate that the British market share of British-based producers of the product in question was above 1%.
Mark Jenkinson (Workington) (Con)
Elizabeth Truss
I thank my hon. Friend for his invitation to the Board of Trade. It is likely that our next meeting will be held in Northern Ireland, but I will certainly be looking to Workington for a future meeting to see the fantastic work being done in advanced manufacturing.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Elizabeth Truss
Given that the Scottish National party voted for even fewer trade deals than the Labour party, and are even more anti-trade than the Labour party, I am delighted to hear that there seems to be some kind of turnaround and that under a Biden Administration, the hon. Gentleman will back a US trade deal.
Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)
East Midlands airport is the UK’s biggest pure cargo airport. It has lots of potential for growth. It has become a hub of investment for freight and logistics in recent years, and must surely be at the heart of our plans to make the most of our global trade. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it would be a brilliant site for an inland freeport? Will she put a word in with the Chancellor?
Elizabeth Truss
I thank my hon. Friend for his assiduous bidding on behalf of the east midlands. The bidding for freeports opened on Tuesday, and bids need to be submitted by 5 February 2021. I point out to him that these trade deals we are negotiating will just mean more and more trade coming into the freight hub, with or without freeport status, but I will of course mention what he said to the Chancellor.
Mr Speaker
In order to allow the safe exit of hon. Members participating in this item of business and the safe arrival of those participating in the next, I am suspending the House for a few minutes.
DHSC Answers to Written Questions
(4 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care if he will make a statement on his Department’s performance in answering written questions from right hon. and hon. Members.
The Minister for Health (Edward Argar)
Parliamentary questions are a key element of Parliament’s ability to scrutinise Government on behalf of the people of the United Kingdom. As the House would expect, we take them very seriously, and as you, Mr Speaker, and hon. Members will know, I take seriously all aspects of my and the Government’s accountability to this House. Prior to the pandemic, my Department had an exemplary record of providing accurate and timely answers. In the last full parliamentary Session, despite receiving more PQs than any other Department, we had the highest response rate in Whitehall. However, as hon. Members will be aware, DHSC, its Ministers and officials have been at the forefront of responding to this pandemic, with the attendant additional workload that has brought.
As such, it is a matter of regret that we have been unable to sustain previous PQ performance, for which I rightly apologise to you and the House. However, it is explicable in the face of a trio of concurrent challenges. The first is volume: between March and October this year, we received over 8,000 written parliamentary questions across both Houses. This compares with 4,000 for the equivalent period last year. The second challenge is timeliness: we have met a rapidly, almost daily, changing situation, and answers drafted by officials are sometimes out of date shortly after they are drafted. We have been prioritising accuracy of response to Members over speed, but this can mean that responses have to be redrafted, with attendant delays.
The third challenge is policy input: despite increasing the administrative resources to respond to parliamentary questions, it remains the same policy officials who are responding to the pandemic operationally and drafting regulations and are the only people with the requisite policy expertise to input into parliamentary questions and responses.
That said, Mr Speaker, although we continue to field exceptional volumes of parliamentary questions, I want to reassure you and the House that we are not making excuses in providing these explanations, and are taking every possible step to recover our performance. We have instituted a parliamentary questions performance recovery plan and are delivering against it by increasing resource where we can and clearing the backlog, focusing on the oldest parliamentary questions first.
More broadly, throughout this challenging time the Secretary of State and Ministers have sought to make themselves regularly available in the House to be questioned and held to account. Between March and October, the Secretary of State made 18 statements and answered seven urgent questions. We have also seen seven general debates on covid since March, and that is not including junior Ministers’ appearances in the Chamber. This is not an alternative to written parliamentary questions, but it is an important reflection of our accountability to this House.
To conclude, written parliamentary questions will continue to be a top priority on which I am briefed weekly. I thank you, Mr Speaker, and hon. Members for your and their patience and recognition of the exceptional circumstances of recent months. In the weeks and months ahead, we will work hard to restore our leading performance, which hon. Members have a right to expect.
Sir Christopher Chope
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question, which was born of extreme exasperation. I thank my hon. Friend for his response, his contrition and his apology, and for his offer to do better in the future.
If other Departments can answer 90% of named day questions on time, why cannot the Minister’s? Will he set a date for the clearance of the backlog to which he referred and guarantee future compliance with the rules and the spirit of the rules? This is not just about timeliness; it is about the quality of the answers. Since this is the week of resets, will the Minister now tell his ministerial colleagues and officials to abandon their tactic of, basically, dumb insolence towards those of us who ask challenging questions?
Does my hon. Friend accept that these questions and answers increase public trust in our democracy, and should be a catalyst for improving public policy? If his Department is in the lead in suppressing liberty in this country, is it surprising that there are more questions to his Department than to others? Because issues of liberty are at stake, surely it is all the more important that these questions are answered quickly.
Edward Argar
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. As he will be aware, other Departments, while they have heavy workloads, are not leading the response to the pandemic. In response to his final point, he will not be surprised that I do not characterise it in that way. Instead, I would characterise it as the Department of Health being in the lead in saving lives and protecting the NHS in this country.
My hon. Friend asked two other substantive questions. I think his language was a little intemperate in respect of the serious efforts that officials undertake every day to try to provide accurate and timely answers. There is no suggestion that they seek to stonewall or to avoid responding. They do their best, but it is difficult and the situation changes day by day. Where answers are deemed to be inadequate, hon. Members often revert to me directly or table their questions again, and we endeavour to fulfil our obligation to provide accurate answers.
On my hon. Friend’s question about recovery, we have set a trajectory for each month in order to recover performance over the coming months. Of course, that depends to a degree on the workload of officials in responding to the pandemic, as well as in providing answers, but I do not see it as an either/or; we intend to recover performance in parallel with tackling the pandemic.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for his response and for the hard work he and his Department put in. However, as he acknowledges, the performance here, like in so many other areas, is just not good enough. We know it is tough, but there comes a point when it begins to look like departmental scrutiny is being used as a cover for evading giving answers.
This morning, I looked at the Department’s response times to my own written questions over the past six months. I have had to wait over one month for an answer 29 times, over two months 11 times and over three months four times. I was actually thinking of putting in a question asking for the average response times to questions, but then I thought I would just be waiting a long time for that answer as well. I have even had to wait five months for the answer to what I thought was a pretty simple question asking what tests for covid-19 had been used. One hundred and sixty-eight days later, I received the utterly unrevealing answer:
“A large number of different tests have been used throughout the programme.”
I was lucky; my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss) waited 18 weeks for an answer to a question on tests, only to be told:
“The information is not held in the format requested.”
Why did it take so long just to say that? Do Ministers even read the answers that they sign off?
This is not just about the time; the quality of the answers that we get back also needs improving. On dozens of occasions, I have been told that the Department does not hold the data, or no real attempt is made to answer the question that was asked. I accept that sometimes that information may not be easily acquired, but too often it looks as though the Department wants to keep us in the dark. I remind the House that the ministerial code requires Ministers to be
“as open as possible with Parliament”,
even when that may be inconvenient to them. In the spirit of openness, will the Minister also look at restarting NHS England and NHS Digital publications?
In conclusion, we all understand that the Department is dealing with many pressing issues, but scrutiny is important. Accountability matters, and if the pandemic is used too often as an excuse for standards to slip, that is how we go from questions not being answered to major policy changes being announced by media leaks, until we end up with the shameful spectacle of spivs and cronies pocketing millions from PPE contracts. Government must do better.
Edward Argar
I was going to say that, as ever, I was grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his tone, right up to almost the end of his remarks. On his substantive points, when it comes to accountability to this House, he will know from our regular double acts at this Dispatch Box and in Committee that I and fellow Ministers do not shy away from our accountability to this House in all its forms.
On volume, as I have said, during the same period last year we received 4,000 written questions; this year, the figure has been 8,000. That cannot be addressed by increasing administrative resource alone, because the technical expertise of policy experts is required to provide accuracy in the answers that the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members seek. The same policy officials are dealing, day to day, with all aspects of the response to the pandemic.
The hon. Gentleman talked about accuracy, and he is right about the importance of accurate and timely answers. Given that we have answered 8,000 parliamentary questions between March and, I believe, October, some may, sadly, not live up to his expectations. I know that he will hold me and other Ministers to account when that is the case.
In answer to another of the hon. Gentleman’s question, yes, I and other Ministers read not only the answers and the questions, but the background to those questions. If we do not, we will quite rightly end up at the Dispatch Box, being asked those questions again and being challenged on the Floor of the House. In view of that, and in view of our obligations to the public and under the ministerial code, it is absolutely right that we take the answering of written parliamentary questions very seriously.
On the hon. Gentleman’s final point about NHS Digital and the publication of data and so on, I am happy to take that away and look at it for him.
Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), who is a fellow member of the Procedure Committee. I was pleased to hear the Minister say that the Department takes the answering of questions seriously, because the answering and the monitoring of written questions and correspondence from MPs will help Ministers to identify problems in the implementation and roll-out of their policies.
The Procedure Committee, which I chair, has shown some leeway to the Department in recognition of the pressures that it faces, but I invite my hon. Friend to come to the Committee in the next few weeks to explain how he is going to address the backlog.
Edward Argar
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. As a former member of the Procedure Committee, I recall when she kindly appeared before the Committee to answer questions on parliamentary questions at the Home Office. I look forward to the reversal of the position in the coming weeks.
Edward Argar
I would say that she gave exemplary answers, which fully satisfied the Committee. I have received the letter that she recently sent to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. We are grateful for the pragmatic and reasonable approach that her Committee has adopted. She will, quite rightly, want to scrutinise performance, and I look forward to appearing before her Committee to answer detailed questions on the matter.
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)
I am grateful for the Minister’s answer at the beginning of the debate. I initially thought that it was perhaps a tad unfair to single out his Department in the circumstances. In my experience, others have been worse—I hope his Treasury colleagues are listening. However, I will confine my remarks to his Department. My hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford), the SNP health spokesperson, was delighted yesterday to receive an answer to a named day question that she tabled on 22 June. It referred her to a table of data that, unfortunately, was absent from the answer. Perhaps the Minister could ask his colleagues to get that table over to her, rather than her having to wait six months for a response.
Edward Argar
I am again grateful for the tone that the hon. Gentleman adopts. We have adopted in our recovery plan an attempt to deal with the oldest questions first, to try to get as up to date as we can. If he or the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) lets me know the detail of that question, I will be happy to look into what he raises and to get that table to her.
Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)
No one could underestimate the challenges that the Department of Health and Social Care faces at the moment. I thank my hon. Friend for the way in which he has engaged with me and other colleagues during this time. However, there are clearly operational challenges as a result of this pandemic. My hon. Friend talked about the review that the Department is undertaking. Will he ensure that he shares the lessons learned from that not only with Members but across Government? We will have to look at being diverse in our operational structures, particularly within Government, to ensure that we expediently answer Members’ questions.
Edward Argar
I am happy to give my hon. Friend that assurance. Perhaps the best mechanism by which lessons learned can be shared will be through my written response—in due course—to and my appearance before the Procedure Committee, chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley). If appropriate, Mr Speaker, I will of course share that response with you and with the Leader and shadow Leader of the House.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
On the plus side, because I have the Minister’s and the Secretary of State’s mobile numbers, when I really want an answer, I just text them. To be fair to them, they have been phenomenally helpful at key moments. I think many hon. Members feel that. At the same time, to be honest, the comms strategy this year has been a complete mess and a disaster. I urge the Minister to go back to the Department and say that Parliament should not be used only for accountability but to try to speak to the people of this country and to get across clear messages in a timely fashion. In that regard, will he tell us when he will publish the national cancer recovery plan, because lots of people have major anxiety at the moment about when their cancer will be treated?
Edward Argar
I am always pleased to receive messages and inquiries from the hon. Gentleman. He raises two important points. The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) is working on the national cancer recovery plan at pace. I am happy to revert to the hon. Gentleman when I have had an opportunity to speak to her. On his broader point, he is right that it is important that we in this House recognise that, in our democracy, people consent and comply because they are persuaded. It is important that we use this House and all the mechanisms within it to persuade and bring the public with us.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con) [V]
We have all had enormous increases in constituency correspondence during the pandemic, so I can only imagine what it must be like at the Minister’s Department. However, in looking at how his Department responds to MPs’ questions, will my hon. Friend reassure the House that any changes will not come at the expense of his Department’s excellent parliamentary engagement and briefings for Members with Ministers and scientific experts that allow us to question advisers on detailed scientific and medical matters?
Edward Argar
My hon. Friend highlights that the workload from constituents has increased for all Members. I recognise that. It is important that we do our bit in trying to answer questions in as timely a fashion as possible, to assist colleagues in the House with responses to constituents. In response to his second point, he is absolutely right. As I alluded to, it is not only through attending the House and through its mechanisms that Ministers have been accountable; as a Department, we have sought to use multiple channels—briefings to colleagues, WhatsApp and a whole range of newsletters and other mechanisms—to get messages out and to communicate with colleagues and answer their questions.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for his departmental response to covid-19 and many issues. As one of the Department’s most prolific questioners, I am aware of the pressure on the Minister’s Department to respond to a vast array of complex medical and social issues. Perhaps to assist the Minister, his team could work closely with the health trusts to provide up-to-date data in a timely manner.
Edward Argar
The hon. Gentleman is indeed a prolific questioner, but his questions are always welcome and to the point. He highlights an important aspect that affects the response of the Department, which is that a significant number of questions, and the information required to answer them, is not held within the Department but by various health trusts, NHS England or other external bodies, which can occasionally introduce additional slight delays in the system. We are working closely with them to minimise that and get answers as quickly as we can to hon. Members.
Dehenna Davison (Bishop Auckland) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) for raising this matter and I recognise the importance of parliamentary questions for their role in parliamentary scrutiny, but it is only right that we recognise the substantial weight on the shoulders of the Department of Health and Social Care as it leads the charge against this pandemic. I personally have been blown away by the readiness and willingness of Ministers to engage through a whole range of communications, including Zoom, email and WhatsApp. I am grateful, in particular, for their engagement when it looked as though Bishop Auckland residents might have been teetering on the edge of tier 3 over the summer, which we thankfully avoided. Can my hon. Friend confirm that efforts are being made to clear the PQ backlog, but that other communication channels will remain open for MPs and their engagement?
Edward Argar
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I pay tribute to the officials in the Department, who are working hard to clear the backlog and do take this very seriously. As I say, we are trying to clear the older PQs first, and then get back up to the performance we had before. She is absolutely right to highlight the other methods of communication. I may not be the most technological Minister in this House, but we have been seeking to use every means we can to try to answer colleagues’ questions and to give them the information they need.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
In my time in this House, I have campaigned alongside women and families affected by sodium valproate. Many of the victims of this scandal have felt for decades that Governments have tried to push it under the carpet, so can the Minister understand the frustration and suspicion that these victims feel when written parliamentary questions about the Cumberlege review, which was published on 8 July, continue to take a long time to answer—and when those answers come, they are very poor—and their frustration that since July there has been no progress, beyond the apology in this House, in implementing that review? Can the Minister update the tens of thousands of victims of the Primodos, surgical mesh and sodium valproate scandals and assure them that their campaigns for justice remain high on his Department’s agenda?
Edward Argar
Again, I am grateful to the hon. Lady for the tone she adopts on what is actually a very sensitive and very important issue. I can reassure her that that issue does remain very high on the Department’s agenda. At risk of tempting fate, if she wishes either to write to me or to table a question to me, I will endeavour to get it answered very quickly so she has something on the record on that.
Mr Speaker
Let us head up to Harrow East with Bob Blackman and see if his replies have landed.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con) [V]
Thank you, Mr Speaker. Can my hon. Friend also look at the quality and at the repeat questions that have to be asked to clarify the answers that are given to written parliamentary questions? In my case, I have had to submit often detailed letters to Ministers because WPQs basically do not supply the information required. Some that are now coming back after six months of waiting have been about, for example, offers to supply PPE to the national health service and people who have had tests but not actually got the results—and I could go further. The reality is that the quality of the answers to WPQs as well as the quantity have not been good enough, so will he look at those two aspects, please?
Edward Argar
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who landed his question very effectively. He is absolutely right to talk about the balance between speed and accuracy. In some cases where the issue is complex, a letter may be more appropriate for getting detailed information, rather than the short factual response to a parliamentary question. Sometimes the delay can be because Ministers—this goes to the point made by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders)—on reading the question and the answer, and looking at it as a constituency MP as well, may realise that they want to send it back for redraft because it does not answer an hon. Member’s question. That can cause delays, but we endeavour to provide accurate answers as swiftly as we can.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
I absolutely understand and appreciate the pressures on the Minister’s Department. However, it does grate that I regularly hear, in debates in this Chamber, Conservative Members saying how quickly and easily they can get direct responses from Ministers. He himself referred to a WhatsApp group a few moments ago, and I suspect that that is for Conservative Members. For those of us on the Opposition Benches, written questions and letters are often the only means to scrutinise, secure detailed information and hold the Government to account. Over a third of replies to my questions have been delayed for more than a month, and the longest delay was 190 days. I have had replies to letters outstanding for up to five months. Do my constituents have any less of a right to a response? Does the Minister have any advice for me as an Opposition spokesperson about how I can get more timely and detailed information?
Edward Argar
I am a little bit surprised by the hon. Lady’s tone, because she and I regularly speak, and she has very easy access to me around the House, which she regularly uses, as do all Members. She has been on various briefing calls and other calls where we answer data questions and any question that Members wish to ask, and this House is for that purpose. Her constituents have exactly the same right to answers as anyone else, and they get exactly the same response as those of any other Member. Although this urgent question is about written parliamentary questions, I would flag that the Department has received more than 63,500 pieces of correspondence so far this year, compared with just 30,000 in the entirety of 2019. We have increased resourcing for that team, as we have for the PQ teams, and we are getting through the backlog as swiftly as possible.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con) [V]
I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests in terms of support for my local party association. I have recently tabled written questions on suicide prevention on the railways; earlier in November, a person in my constituency sadly died after being hit by a train. Will my hon. Friend pay tribute to Land Sheriffs, a Harlow-based security company which, through its railway security programme, has intervened and prevented close to 300 suicides on the railways across England?
Edward Argar
As my right hon. Friend mentioned, he has recently tabled a number of written questions on this issue, which I look forward to responding to in a timely fashion. I am happy to pay tribute to Land Sheriffs in his constituency for its impressive work in helping to tackle and prevent suicide on the railways. I know that the Minister for Patient Safety, Mental Health and Suicide Prevention will be very interested to hear about its work.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab) [V]
I thank the Minister for his answers today. I understand the pressure on his Department—I really do—but of the 28 questions that I have tabled to the Department of Health and Social Care, 86% were answered late, and if those due today are not answered, that figure will rise to 88%. I have to say that the quality of some of the responses is pretty poor too. Will he consider starting up the NHS England and NHS Digital statistical publications that were paused during the pandemic, so that we can get some of the information ourselves?
Edward Argar
I think the hon. Gentleman has four parliamentary questions outstanding. By his timely intervention, he may find that when I get back to the Department this afternoon, I will ensure that the figure does not rise to 88% overdue. His substantive point is the same one made by the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston, which I said I will take away and look at.
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)
I understand that since the start of the pandemic the Secretary of State has made 16 oral statements in the House on coronavirus and there have been seven urgent questions and five general debates on the topic. It is, of course, important that Members receive timely responses to inquiries, but does my hon. Friend agree that there have been significant opportunities for Members to raise concerns on the Floor of the House and to seek answers from Ministers?
Edward Argar
I think it is fair to say that no one could accuse Ministers in the Department or the Secretary of State of not being willing to be accountable to Members in a multitude of ways. But of course, it is not an either/or, so we will endeavour to continue to perform well in attending this House and also to improve performance on written parliamentary questions.
Mr Speaker
Some might argue that it is the number of urgent questions we have allowed in order for debate.
Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP) [V]
Openness and transparency around the sharing of data is key to ensuring that the public and the business community buy into the draconian measures that we have introduced in the fight against covid. I genuinely thank the Minister for his and the Department’s efforts in ensuring that we get timely information, but on 21 October, I asked the Health Secretary for data relating to positive cases among those who had not been in the UK 72 hours before their test, and I still have had no answer. Will the Minister agree to provide that data, which will be key to informing the full reopening of our airports, getting our airlines flying again and kickstarting our aviation sector and its supply chain?
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question. My understanding is that there are, I think, five outstanding written answers due to her, dating from November. She mentions one from October, so I will check whether that has been answered overnight. If not, I will go back to the Department and look into that particular written question.
Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)
May I thank you, Mr Speaker, for allowing so many urgent questions and statements, which allow so many Back Benchers to ask questions? I am very grateful for that.
All Departments have had a higher volume of questions, not least the Department of Health and Social Care, because of the health pandemic. What assessment has my hon. Friend made of the uptake of other forms of communications that have been made available?
Edward Argar
My hon. Friend rightly raises the other methods of communication with right hon. and hon. Members and the other ways they can access information—not as an alternative to written questions and scrutiny in this Chamber— which appear to have been extremely popular with Members on both sides of the House. We intend to continue to make such briefings and access available to all right hon. and hon. Members.
Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP) [V]
Does the Minister accept that questions are sometimes tabled to Departments in response to issues raised by our constituents, and that by failing to engage with Members in this way—I understand all the reasons why it is taking longer—it is ultimately the public who suffer the consequences?
Edward Argar
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question. I refer her to the answer I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood). We recognise both the increased workload on hon. Members from their constituents and the importance of timely answers to written questions in helping them to discharge that obligation to them.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con) [V]
I thank the excellent Minister for his response, but may I suggest that the covid situation is allowing the Government to dodge issues they do not want to answer? On the Floor of the House, I asked the Secretary of State how many tests with false positives and false negatives there are. He dodged that question, so I tabled a named day question on 21 October, asking for his estimate of how many tests with false positives and false negatives there are. Yesterday, I received a response saying that they had no idea. They must have known they had no idea on 21 October, so it seems to me that that delay had more to do with not wanting to put that information out than any other reason. Can we have accurate and timely answers, not politically motivated delays?
Edward Argar
It is always a pleasure to see my hon. Friend and to be questioned by him, both at this Dispatch Box and in other forums. I have to say to him that I do not think it is a fair reflection to suggest that the Government or others are dodging answers. We are at this Dispatch Box regularly. We do answer questions regularly. I will look into the particular question he raises, but often to answer we require information from external bodies or other NHS bodies, which can take time.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
The Minister emphasises other means of engagement to written questions, delays to which I too have experienced far too often. In April, I wrote to the Minister for Care, the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) with the concerns of a constituent of mine over personal protective equipment for care homes. I received a response in October. Will the Minister acknowledge that those kinds of delays undermine the confidence of my constituents in the Government’s public health measures? Will he commit, which I do not think he has done so far, to putting in place the capacity and resources to respond to constituents’ concerns in a timely manner, in whichever format they are expressed?
Edward Argar
I hear what the hon. Lady says, but we have already put in place that capacity. We have doubled the capacity for parliamentary questions and I have significantly increased capacity for correspondence. The only thing I would say on correspondence, which she alluded to, is that at any normal time we have 850 pieces of correspondence open. Reflecting the volume that comes in at the moment, that is about 10,000. We have increased the capacity in the Department, but, of course, as long as volume remains high it will always be a challenge to keep up with that demand. We are doing our very best.
Mr Speaker
I thank the Minister, because he has been courteous in the way that he has dealt with this matter. He certainly has had the short straw.
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.
Business of the House
(4 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House please give us the forthcoming business?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)
The business for the week commencing 23 November will include:
Monday 23 November—Motion to approve the draft Heavy Commercial Vehicles in Kent (No. 1) (Amendment) Order 2020 and the Heavy Commercial Vehicles in Kent (No. 2) (Amendment) Order 2020, followed by a motion to approve the draft Common Organisation of the Markets in Agricultural Products (Miscellaneous Amendments) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 and the draft Common Organisation of the Markets in Agricultural Products (Miscellaneous Amendments) (EU Exit) (No. 2) Regulations 2020, followed by a motion to approve the draft European Union Withdrawal (Consequential Modifications) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020.
Tuesday 24 November—Consideration of Lords Amendments to the Private International Law (Implementation of Agreements) Bill, followed by a motion to approve the draft Prohibition on Quantitative Restrictions (EU Exit) Regulations 2020, followed by motion to approve a money resolution relating to the Prisons (Substance Testing) Bill, followed by a motion relating to the appointment of members to the independent expert panel, followed by a motion relating to the Committee on Standards 11th report of Session 2019-21.
Wednesday 25 November—The Chancellor of the Exchequer will deliver the 2020 spending review alongside the Office for Budget Responsibility’s latest economic and fiscal forecast, followed by a general debate on the UK-Japan comprehensive economic partnership agreement.
Thursday 26 November—Debate on a motion relating to the final report from the Climate Assembly UK on the path to net zero, followed by debate on a motion relating to the Work and Pensions Select Committee report on the DWP’s response to the coronavirus outbreak. The subjects for these debates were recommended by the Liaison Committee on behalf of the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 27 November—The House will not be sitting.
Valerie Vaz
I thank the Leader of the House for the business for next week and note that the motion on virtual participation was objected to last night following the urgent question that you granted, Mr Speaker. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will accept the amendment and, if he finds time for a debate in the House, that there will be a free vote—no proxies—and that all Members can take part equally.
That is just a small step, but what we need is the giant leap to return to where we were. Yesterday, Mr Speaker, the Prime Minister did exactly what you did not want—we had Prime Minister’s questions by Zoom. When the Leader of the Opposition had to isolate, we had the deputies taking part. Perhaps the First Secretary of State and the Prime Minister are scared of our deputy leader, but worryingly, Paul Waugh of The Huffington Post tweeted that the Prime Minister would be taking part in a debate virtually next week. I am not quite sure what the debate is. I am assuming it is the Climate Assembly UK debate, which is listed for Thursday—he definitely did that—so I am not quite sure whether the Prime Minister is designated as clinically extremely vulnerable, or maybe he is just politically extremely vulnerable.
Our colleagues have important issues to raise. We now have two classes of MPs and, as the Leader of the House said in response to the urgent question, we have privacy issues around that. The Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), has received advice that the Leader of the House is in breach of article 10, on free speech, of the Human Rights Act 1998—article 14 gives effect to that. I know that the Government do not like the words “Human Rights Act” but if the Leader of the House looks very carefully, he can trace exactly all those human rights via the convention back to Magna Carta of 1215.
I wish the Leader of the House would look at the issue of interventions, because hon. Members have been to Westminster Hall to sit in on the debate, and they were told that they could not take part, or even sit there or intervene, because they were not on the call list. Please could he look at that? Will he look again at restoring a hybrid Parliament now that we are in the middle of a pandemic—with 52,000 deaths—complete with remote voting?
Could we have a statement on the EU negotiations? I understand that they are proceeding at a rapid pace. Will he look at establishing a new protocol on the press conferences that will come from No. 10? I am sure you will agree, Mr Speaker, that it is important that we hear from the Prime Minister here first on issues and matters arising in the House, rather than elsewhere, because we have to hold Ministers to account, as the Leader of the House has frequently said.
Accountability and transparency are so important. Exercise Cygnus took place in 2016. The report was only published on 18 October and, as Lord Sedwill said, some recommendations were implemented, but we do not know. Will the Leader of the House make time for a debate so that we can look at the recommendations and where we are? Many people throughout the country have made sacrifices, and we need to know whether we are implementing those important recommendations.
Last week, I asked about the procurement process, and the Leader of the House said that the Government will have turned out to have behaved impeccably. Has he read the National Audit Office report, “Investigation into government procurement during the COVID-19 pandemic”? It found that the Government were not transparent about suppliers of services when they awarded £18 billion-worth of contracts. It said there were two lanes, with a super-highway for those with special political contacts. Again, I reference “My Little Crony”, the excellent graphic by Sophie Hill. The NAO also said that decisions should be “properly documented” and made transparent if taxpayers’ money is being spent appropriately and fairly but that standards of transparency in documentation were not consistently met. May we have a debate in Government time on that report?
Twenty-one million pounds goes to a middle man, rather than to our frontline staff. The NAO report found that £350 million went to PestFix on false PPE, when our teachers and frontline staff were desperate for that PPE. Perhaps the Leader of the House can look at this ahead of the spending review. My constituent’s daughter, who is an A&E nurse, contracted covid on the second occasion she was working, saving our lives, and she says she has to stump up £300 a year to park—to pay to park to save our lives.
I want to ask about Nazanin, Anoosheh, Kylie and Luke Symons. We must keep their names alive and absolutely in the public domain. Iran is in the middle of a horrendous pandemic. More importantly, they need consular access, so will the Leader of the House please ensure that they get that? Will he also ensure that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office makes a complaint on behalf of Nazanin? She was used in a game of name that spy. That is a horrendous thing to do when it is not true.
Finally, there is some good news. I congratulate Lewis Hamilton—Lewis Hamilton the seventh. I also congratulate Marcus Rashford on his new book club initiative with Macmillan Children’s Books. We also celebrate UNICEF’s World Children’s Day. Let us all work to make the world a better place for all our children.
Mr Rees-Mogg
Before I come to the right hon. Lady’s specific questions, I have been asked to make right hon. and hon. Members aware that the 18-month review of the independent complaints and grievance service is under way, and it is important that as many people as possible take the opportunity to give their views about the scheme. Alison Stanley recently launched an online survey, and I encourage every member of the parliamentary community to take part. The deadline for giving views is 4 December. Please do take part in the survey and send any contributions to Alison Stanley directly.
May I of course join the right hon. Lady in celebrating World Children’s Day? As I have six of them, I do my best to promote children as far as I possibly can. It is a cause that I think I can show the House I am fully in favour of. I am grateful for her once again raising the issue of people illegally detained and the difficulties in getting access to consular representation. Every week after business questions, I write to Ministers highlighting the issues that have been raised, which obviously includes that on a weekly basis. We are therefore ensuring that it is kept at the forefront of Ministers’ inboxes, and they are doing what they can, though it is not easy with regimes such as Iran.
I turn to the various questions that the hon. Lady raises about a range of issues. I would like to make it clear that during the pandemic funding is being provided for NHS staff to get free hospital parking. I understand that London’s King’s College Hospital said that it was going to have to increase charges, but it will not now implement that until after the pandemic. It is important that people are treated fairly, and the Government have provided the funding for that.
As regards procurement, the issue is that a great deal had to be done and procured extremely quickly. The Government would have been much more criticised had we not ensured that the equipment needed was provided. So 32 billion pieces of PPE have been provided since the beginning of the pandemic. It is important to recognise that the normal time for a tender is three months, and often it runs to six months. Had these normal procedures been followed, we would not have been getting any additional equipment until October. So are right hon. and hon. Members who are complaining about procurement saying that the Nightingale hospitals should not have been opened until October? It is a ridiculous proposition. Speed was of the essence and speed is what was provided. [Interruption.] The speed that was provided was what was necessary, and it is worth pointing out that the vast majority of contracts of more than £120,000 in value have been published. This is important because transparency will ensure and will show that things are handled properly.
The right hon. Lady raises questions once again about virtual participation. She said that there should be a vote with no proxies. That would make it very difficult for Members. The reason for having so many proxies is to ensure that the Division Lobbies are not overcrowded and that the estate remains as covid-secure as possible. That has been the fundamental principle of what we have been doing. The House has gone to great efforts, Mr Speaker, particularly under your leadership, to be a covid-secure workplace, not just for Members but crucially for those employed directly by the House and for members of staff at the point when they were coming in.
Virtual participation is allowed in a number of areas such as Select Committees and interrogative proceedings, but it is not allowed in other areas, except—we hope, if certain people do not object to it—in debates, for people who are extremely clinically vulnerable. The question we have to face is whether we should be treated in the same way as our constituents. The Government advice is that those who are extremely clinically vulnerable should not go to work, but that if people need to go to work, they should. We are in that position. We need to come into work to do our job fully. People have to ask themselves whether they feel they do their job fully when they are entirely remote. I think that they will feel that they do not. They cannot attend Public Bill Committees; they cannot attend Delegated Legislation Committees—
Mr Rees-Mogg
That is not true. There are not the resources to do it across all these various forums. The resources are limited, and it is a question of how they are shared out. We are ensuring that the bits that need to be done physically are, and that MPs are here to meet other MPs, to see Ministers, to go to Westminster Hall, to do the great variety of things that amount to the fullness of the role of the Member of Parliament. Fundamentally, we should be in the same boat as our constituents. MPs do themselves and their reputation harm when they argue that they should have special treatment, as if we were some priestly caste.
With regard to the right hon. Lady’s point about human rights and freedom of speech, pull the other one it’s got bells on. We have freedom of speech in this Chamber. It is protected by the Bill of Rights. It is fundamental, and that is one of the reasons for coming together in this Chamber.
Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)
Pharmacists have remained open during this pandemic, not only in Carshalton and Wallington but across the country. Pharmacists tell me that they are ready to do so much more than they can currently provide, including covid vaccinations. May we have a debate about expanding the role of community pharmacies and ensuring that they have the funding model that reflects the work they do?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend raises an important point. Pharmacies have shown themselves a bedrock of local communities this year. Their doors have remained open and the pharmacists within welcoming and wise. They have been a model of public service, and I commend community pharmacies for the essential work that they have done throughout the pandemic. The drive to vaccinate the nation will require a great national effort, and my hon. Friend makes an important point about the role of pharmacists in distributing and administering the vaccine. He is right to raise it, and I will pass his suggestion on to the Secretary of State.
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP) [V]
The Leader of the House confuses matters with references to MPs as key workers. Of course our democracy cannot be compromised by covid. Members must represent their constituents and hold the Government to account, but we do not need to be in this place to do that. His continual references to “coming to work” show that he does not understand the distinction between work and place of work. It seems that he is unable to grasp that many Members are working remotely. We should help them to do that. Indeed, that is precisely what we are exhorting every other employer in the land to do. A majority of Members want to participate in debates without putting themselves and the public at risk, and they should not have to divulge confidential medical information to do so. When will he listen to his own Back Benchers, the Procedure Committee and the Liaison Committee and switch the virtual technology back on?
Let me turn to another matter. Does the Leader of the House agree with the Prime Minister that devolution north of the border has been a disaster, and that it was Tony Blair’s biggest mistake? Does he understand the insult that this is to the Scottish public? The Prime Minister may claim that he is referring to the SNP Government, but that Government only exist because the people of Scotland have voted for them—not once, not twice, but three times. The truth is that the Prime Minister is attacking the democratic decision of the people. Donald Trump would indeed be proud. The exposure of this level of disrespect from a British Prime Minister presents us with a grave constitutional problem. We need to have an urgent debate on devolution, not just, as I have argued for the past six months, to review its efficacy in the light of covid, but to clarify whether the British Government respect their own constitution. In May, the Scottish electorate will vote again. Now that the Prime Minister’s contempt for devolution is clear, a great many people will realise that the only way to protect the limited powers we have is to grasp the political power and capacity that comes with independence.
Mr Rees-Mogg
As I have set out before, I and the whole House have the greatest sympathy for people who are extremely clinically vulnerable and are advised not to come into work and for making provisions for them to participate. I have sympathy with people who are in difficult circumstances that do not fall into that category, even if the guidelines do not actually provide them with the security that they may be asking for. I have much less sympathy for members of the Scottish National party who do not actually like coming to Parliament in the first place.
As regards what the Prime Minister said about devolution, let us look at the SNP Government’s record, because it is a tragic record of failure. Schools were once the pride of Scotland, but schooling in Scotland has gone down under the SNP’s reign. Scotland has fallen to 15th in reading, from sixth in 2000. For maths, it is 31st—nine places lower than England—and down from 17th in 2006 and fifth in 2000. They have therefore failed in terms of schools. They have also failed in terms of the economy; before the pandemic, Scotland’s economy was forecast to trail the UK for the foreseeable future. They have failed in terms of policing; crime is on the rise, and most areas of Scotland have fewer police officers on the frontline since the SNP forced the police merger through.
Before the crisis, the SNP was causing the NHS to suffer. The £850 million waiting times improvement plan was a failure; Scotland’s public sector watchdog said that the NHS was under increasing pressure in 2019; and the SNP has failed to tackle Scotland’s chronic shortage of GPs. After years and years of SNP grandstanding on welfare, the party is failing to deliver on its own welfare promises, and SNP Ministers even had to hand back responsibility for one benefit to the Department for Work and Pensions.
The failure of devolution is the failure of the Scottish National party, and—just to add to the fun of it—its members are also mired in some discussion about who can remember who sent texts to whom, but it might be ungracious of me to delve into the inner workings of the relationship between very fishy Scottish figures.
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
As was referenced earlier, lifting our spirits from the gloom of lockdown, on Sunday, Lewis Hamilton secured his seventh Formula 1 world championship, having smashed through all the other records, with 94 race wins—seven of which were here at home, at Silverstone—and 97 pole positions. He is without doubt the most successful British sportsman. As he won the Turkish Grand Prix, he said:
“That’s for all the kids out there that dream the impossible. You can do it too”.
With that in mind, will my right hon. Friend join me in sending the congratulations of this House to Lewis Hamilton for all that he has achieved, agree that it is high time that he was honoured with a knighthood and schedule a debate on ensuring that children are encouraged to take up science, technology, engineering and maths subjects to become the engineers of the future and take up motorsport in Lewis Hamilton’s tyre tracks?
Mr Speaker
May I just say that knighthoods are not a matter for the Leader of the House? He has many duties, but that is not one of them.
Mr Rees-Mogg
One of my children thinks that Mr Ben Stokes ought to have a knighthood, too, and I point out to him that this is also not a matter for me.
The right hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) also wanted to congratulate Lewis Hamilton. What a fantastic performer he has proved to be, and what a model for the nation. He is, statistically, the most successful Formula 1 driver in history and it puts him among the greatest sportsmen that this nation has ever had. I must confess: is there not a little bit of all of us, when we are driving, who rather wish that we were Lewis Hamilton? When we are stuck at a red traffic light and the M4 stretches out for miles in front of us, we think, “If only we could put our foot down a little and go a bit faster.” So I admire him, I congratulate him and I am even a little bit jealous of him.
Mr Speaker
He might have to convert to electric as well. Let us go to the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee.
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab) [V]
I am not sure where the Leader of the House would put his six children in a Formula One car.
Next Thursday, we have two debates suggested by the Liaison Committee, and the Leader of the House has been kind enough to tell us what they are. I will just explain to the House that this is a time swap for estimates day debates, which are chosen by the Backbench Business Committee on behalf of the Liaison Committee. Although we are slowly but surely getting through the backlog of applications since the reopening of Westminster Hall, we still have a queue of about 20 as yet unallocated debates, so we hope that the recent flow of time for Backbench Business continues for the remainder of this Session.
Before coming to this House, I was for 27 years a member of Gateshead Council. I care deeply about the welfare of Gateshead Council, its staff and all the people that it serves. We keep hearing from Ministers about how much money has been allocated to local authorities in response to the pandemic. In Gateshead we have received, I understand, something like £22 million, but the expenditure on managing the pandemic is something like £70 million, a shortfall of £50 million or so. Can we do something about redressing this imbalance of expenditure over income as a result of the pandemic for local authorities around the country?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reminding the House about the swap for estimates days with the Liaison Committee.
On council funding, I just remind the hon. Gentleman that, so far, £7.2 billion has been provided to local councils in additional expenditure, plus £24 billion for local businesses, and another £3 billion included in that sum was announced recently, so there is a very large flow of funds going through to councils to support them in this very difficult period, which means that councils are getting the money that they need.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con) [V]
In addition to previous generous support, the Government have recently granted Crawley Borough Council a further £5.6 million in funding for the latest period of covid-19 restrictions, yet this local authority, which unfortunately has a record of financial mismanagement and reserves of well over £20 million, is complaining that it is not enough. Can we have a statement from the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government about ensuring that such irresponsible councils are audited?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend raises a really important point. I have just set out the very large amounts of money that are being made available, but some incompetent councils are not spending that money well. It is noticeable that they are often socialist-run councils that are not doing things properly, and he is right to ensure that they are held to account. Last year, the Government commissioned Sir Tony Redmond to undertake a comprehensive review into the quality of external audit, and the Government are considering its findings and will respond in due course.
Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab) [V]
The Leader of the House, being a father to six children himself, will hopefully be aware that on Tuesday we marked World Prematurity Day. He may not, though, be aware of the specific struggles that thousands of families up and down the country who have incredibly poorly babies in neonatal care are currently going through. I can truly say from my own experience that those days, weeks and months spent worrying about your neonate are truly some of the most agonising you will ever go through as a parent. Parents with children in neonatal care should clearly be able to take specific leave from their jobs and should not be financially out of pocket because of doing so. Will the Leader of the House therefore please commit to a debate in Government time to address this issue and ultimately give hope to parents in their time of absolute desperation?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I have the greatest sympathy for what the hon. Lady has set out, and I have some direct knowledge of the issue—not with my own children but from children who are closely connected to me. It is a very difficult and troubling time for parents and they deserve support. In the first place, I urge the hon. Lady to seek an Adjournment debate, but I think the sympathy of the whole House is with the argument she has made.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
The Guardian newspaper has applied for the release to the media of character references that were provided to a judge solely to assist in sentencing during a criminal trial. If allowed, this would be a fundamental change of practice, with far-reaching consequences for the criminal justice system. Will my right hon. Friend allow time for an urgent debate on this vital matter?
Mr Rees-Mogg
It would obviously be wrong for me to comment on a specific case, but my hon. Friend raises a concerning point. If people have, in a generality, given evidence to a trial on the understanding that is confidential, it risks people not being willing to give such evidence in future if what is believed to be confidential turns out not to be. A just system requires certainty, whatever degree of certainty that is. In individual cases, I understand that it is a matter for the trial judge, under rule 5 of the criminal procedure rules, but I will of course refer this matter to my right hon. and learned Friends the Lord Chancellor and the Attorney General.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
As we head into phase 4 lockdown in Glasgow on Friday, this is a really difficult time for small businesses such the Velvet Moon gift shop in Finnieston, the magical Big Top toy shop in Charing Cross, independent cafés such as Canary Girl Coffee Co, and the brand-new Cùrlach hairdressers in Govanhill, so may we have a debate on what we can all do to support small businesses and their owners as we head towards the festive period?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The magical Big Top toy shop sounds like a wonderful place to visit, full of treats. I wish I were going to be in Glasgow in the run-up to Christmas and have the opportunity to visit it, but I fear that will not be possible on a number of counts. The hon. Lady raises a matter of concern to Members from all parties and throughout the various parts of the United Kingdom. A great deal of support has been given to businesses—overall, there has been £100 billion in business support via bounce back loans, grants, rate reliefs and VAT deferrals—but the current level of closures is very difficult, particularly for small businesses. If the Chairman of the Backbench Business Committee, the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), is still on the line, he will understand that many Members would like to debate this important subject.
Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)
It is National Lorry Week, and there are very few people in this country who have not relied on the transport industry’s keeping calm and carrying on doing the pandemic. Whether it is food, goods, machinery or medicine, if we need it, the transport industry delivers it, often while we are sleeping. In the Stroud constituency, companies such as Cullimore, Smiths, Howard Tenens and many more employ thousands of people in Gloucestershire, and they have my thanks. Will the Leader of the House ask the Secretary of State for Transport to make a statement on this vital industry—which is dealing with covid, drivers’ facilities and Brexit planning, and doing so much to reduce its carbon footprint—and to celebrate the Road Haulage Association’s “HGV Heroes”?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend is right to raise the fantastic work that lorry drivers do. “HGV Heroes” is a great title for them, because they have continued to work throughout the pandemic and have been absolutely essential in ensuring that we are supplied with the necessities of life. National Lorry Week is a good thing to celebrate. Although when one is stuck behind a convoy of lorries on the M4 thinking that one wants to be Lewis Hamilton, one may not be as sympathetic as one ought to be, they are actually essential to the lifeblood of our nation: they keep the wheels of the economy turning and the engine of growth functioning.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
May I also congratulate Lewis Hamilton on his extraordinary achievement, but since the Leader of the House and I enjoy disagreeing, I have to say I absolutely do not feel tempted to speed when I sit behind my wheel. Speeding belongs to the racetrack, not on our roads.
Last week marked the 25th anniversary of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, and we have made a lot of progress since towards equality for people living with a disability. However, the pandemic has greatly disadvantaged people living with a disability, and we risk going backwards on the progress we have made, so can we have a debate in Government time about disability discrimination since the pandemic started?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am delighted that the hon. Lady wants to celebrate the great achievement of my noble Friend Lord Hague, who was the Minister who piloted the Disability Discrimination Act through Parliament 25 years ago. It was a landmark piece of, it has to be said, Conservative legislation. It would be a good thing to debate the success of this legislation and the Conservatives’ commitment over 25 years to end disability discrimination—I think that is something all parties wish to see. I cannot promise a debate in Government time, but the hon. Lady knows how to go about applying for debates in other ways.
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con) [V]
Last week, our nation came together to give our thanks and to honour the extraordinary sacrifices of those who gave their today for our tomorrow. Rutland and Melton is home to a great number of our armed forces and a thriving veteran community, and it is a deep privilege to represent them every single day. Does my right hon. Friend share my concerns around a sinister anti-poppy campaign that offensively seeks to recast poppies as a sign of nationalism and warmongering when, in fact, poppies are a sign of our gratitude for our safety and security and a universal symbol of human virtue and loss?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The growing popularity of the poppy appeal in the past 20 years has been a wonderful expression not only of popular patriotism, but of an understanding that the first world war was the war to end all wars. The poppy was the symbol of regrowth after disaster. It was not there to be something to be jingoistic about. People who think that it is are misunderstanding it and are joining in a rather unpleasant anti-British culture that sees the sacrifice made by our ancestors as being jingoistic, rather than as something actually to safeguard liberty, freedom and hope.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab) [V]
Last week, the all-party parliamentary group on haemophilia and contaminated blood published our report on access to treatment for people with bleeding disorders. Sadly, we found that many patients were not included in decisions about their treatment, and we found a lack of diagnosis and access to treatment for girls and women. As the Leader of the House knows, this group was at the centre of the scandal that is currently the subject of the NHS infected blood inquiry. Improvements to treatment need not wait for the outcome of Sir Brian Langstaff’s inquiry, though, so can we please have a debate on how the Government might take forward the 19 recommendations in our report?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The hon. Lady has campaigned on this issue so effectively for a long time and has been enormously successful in her campaign, and rightly so, because the contaminated blood issue is one of great seriousness and difficulty for the people who were affected. I cannot promise her a debate, but as I have said to her before, if there are specific issues she would like taken up with Ministers from these sessions, I will unquestionably do so on her behalf.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con) [V]
I hope the Leader of the House will agree with me that the greatest achievement so far of the Prime Minister, among many achievements, is to implement the decision of the British people to leave the EU. This Tuesday, Lord Frost indicated that the trade deal may well be landed. If that is the case, will the Leader of the House guarantee a statement on that day and, later in the week, a debate on the trade deal or, if there is not a trade deal, on what will come next? Let us be able to celebrate what is a fantastic achievement by our Prime Minister.
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Paeans of praise should be prepared for our Prime Minister in celebration of his achievement in getting us out of the European Union and delivering on what was promised to the British people and what they voted for, but my hon. Friend asks me to guarantee something based on something that is theoretical, and a guarantee based on something that is theoretical is not really a guarantee, so I cannot give it.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
Surely, in reality, the most important issue facing the country and this House is the renewal or otherwise of the lockdown, so I am surprised and slightly concerned that it is not clear when that will be debated. Many MPs on all sides want to move on from risk avoidance to evidence-based risk management. Many sporting and leisure venues have invested in helpful and costly improvements, and whether they are football and rugby clubs, racecourses, betting shops, bingo halls, casinos, airports, shops, gyms, pubs, clubs, restaurants or cafés, they all need some degree of change, help and actual opportunity. Can we have an urgent focused debate and a vote on proper alternatives, rather than the usual all-or-nothing, take-it-or-leave-it approach?
Mr Rees-Mogg
One of the things the right hon. Gentleman asks for is not possible, because statutory instruments are introduced on the basis of take it or leave it. The law has to be clear, and it has never been possible to amend statutory instruments. On his broader point, I am glad to say we have the most freedom-loving Prime Minister that we could have. In at least 100 years, there has been no other Prime Minister who is more freedom loving, and therefore the desire to get back to ordinary ways of living is very strong, assuming that it can be done in a way that is safe for the nation at large. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that the Government have made a commitment that any matters of national significance will be brought before this House before they are introduced. I cannot give the timings on that, because the decisions have not been made, but the basic choice of the House is that any new statutory instruments will come before this House for a vote if they are of national significance.
Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is justly and naturally proud of the county of Somerset—it is, after all, the cheese capital of the south-west—but he will know that while his half-naked ancestors were sitting about watching what happens when you leave milk out for a very long time, the men and women of Wiltshire were building some of the wonders of the ancient world, such as Avebury, Stonehenge and Silbury Hill. Does he agree that, for the sake of both our counties, the Great West Way, which is the tourist trail between London and Bristol following ancient routes—including the Kennet and Avon canal, where the speed limit is only 4 mph—deserves all our support? Does he share my hope that next week’s spending review will include a commitment to fund new tourism zones, of which the Great West Way should be the first and the greatest?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend is right to say that Wiltshire is a great county, because in 878 it was on the right side of the battle of Edington, where Alfred defeated the Danes and where the good people of Somerset, Wiltshire and Hampshire came together for that historic victory on which this country is essentially founded. He is wrong, however, to highlight the ancient monuments of Wiltshire, because there is a much better one in Stanton Drew. It is of greater antiquity, greater beauty and greater interest, and I would suggest that people go to Stanton Drew rather than to Stonehenge so that they do not have to worry about the A303. However, the Great West Way is a fantastic route—you can make a detour off it to go and visit Edington, where the battle may have taken place. The Government are supporting it via the £45 million Discover England fund, so let Somerset, Wiltshire and Hampshire rejoice in our shared and distinguished history.
Mr Speaker
Just for the record, the hon. Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger) might want to know that the Leader of the House last week said how important it was to see Stonehenge, as he travels past in on the A303.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab) [V]
As you know, Mr Speaker, we have a public health emergency in Hull, with the highest covid infection rate in the country, but my city is being left in the dark with no contact from Ministers and we are being hung out to dry without any additional financial support. Could we please have a statement as to why no Government Minister has picked up the phone to our council leader, Councillor Stephen Brady?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I know this matter came up in the debate yesterday and that the Paymaster General, my right hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), responded to say that
“during the course of the debate I arranged for the covid-19 taskforce—who, through the Cabinet Office and my office, will co-ordinate this—to have a meeting with the hon. Lady”—
the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson)—
“ and any other people, whether colleagues in this place or the local resilience forum.”—[Official Report, 18 November 2020; Vol. 684, c. 430.]
So I believe that this is in hand, as of yesterday.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
May we have an early debate, in Government time, on the regulation and prevention of online harms? This afternoon’s Backbench Business debate, which was already the amalgamation of two approved Backbench Business Committee debates on the subject, has had its time substantially truncated by Government business on the Order Paper today. This is a matter of considerable concern to colleagues in the House—the debate was heavily subscribed—and to people outside it, and of course the Government’s online harms Bill is still long-awaited.
Mr Rees-Mogg
Online harms continue to be a priority of the Government, and we are firmly committed to making the UK the safest place to be online. My right hon. and hon. Friends in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Home Office are working to introduce legislation next year. We will also be publishing our full response to the online harms White Paper consultation. My hon. Friend will have further opportunity to raise this issue again during the Backbench Business debate on the regulation and prevention of online harms, and I am sure there will be other opportunities in due course.
Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)
The Leader of the House will be aware of the National Audit Office report on government procurement during the pandemic, which, although acknowledging the exceptional circumstances that did apply, identified many problems with the processes that had been undertaken and highlighted the need to maintain public trust in the process. I accept that there are regular general debates on covid-19 in the Chamber, but this report surely merits a more detailed exploration by Members. Will he therefore make time, in early course, to allow a full debate in this Chamber on that report and its content?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I refer to what I said earlier: there has been an extraordinary success in procurement, which had to be done quickly and everybody wanted it done quickly. For example, the vaccine taskforce has secured agreements for 350 million doses of seven leading vaccines; 300,000 people have signed up to the vaccine registry to accelerate this development; and, through Test and Trace, nearly 36 million tests have been completed and we have the capacity to test half a million a day. I believe that 80% of contracts over £120,000 have been published so far, so that there is transparency. There is always a choice; everyone knows that if they have a leak at 2 o’clock in the morning and call the plumber out, it costs more than if they book the plumber to come in three months’ time. We were in the situation of having a leak at 2 in the morning, so it was inevitably expensive.
Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con) [V]
Does the Leader of the House agree that given the nature of our role, MPs who can attend Parliament in person should do so and that any motion to extend remote participation to debates should be based on clinical vulnerability, in accordance with the Government guidance, rather than personal choice? Our fantastic broadcast team, Parliament’s house staff, teachers, postmen, supermarket workers, delivery drivers and our NHS workers leave home to go to work, and so should we.
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. Members of Parliament are key workers and should not be treated any differently from other key workers, many of whom have been continuing to come into work since the start of the pandemic. It is the Government’s strong view that Parliament best serves the UK public when MPs are present in Westminster carrying out their essential functions. Just as hospitals and schools provide essential services in health and education, Parliament performs an essential constitutional role, making and changing legislation, debating key issues and scrutinising the work of government. The House authorities have made every effort to ensure that the physical proceedings in operation are in line with Public Health England guidance and safe for Members and the staff of the House. Our approach has evolved as the pandemic has evolved, and we are pleased that this latest change, if it is accepted by the House, will allow those who are clinically extremely vulnerable to participate.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)
I have a number of constituents whose landlords have backtracked on their word, having said that they would give rent relief but now saying that it is only a rent deferral. They have even been taken to court because the law is weak and the advice is unclear. Can we have a proper debate about housing and whether the Government will fulfil their manifesto commitment of bringing forward a renters’ rights Bill that will ban section 8 and section 21 evictions once and for all?
Mr Rees-Mogg
It is worth setting out what the Government have done. During the first wave, evictions were banned for six months, protecting 8.6 million households. We then doubled the eviction notice period from three to six months, meaning that if someone is served notice today, they can stay in their home until May in all but the most serious cases. Tenants are being protected, but obviously there needs to be a balance between landlord and tenant.
Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)
I understand that the housing target standard methodology is being tweaked, but does my right hon. Friend agree that in central London, it needs to be not only tweaked but radically changed? In my local authority, the housing target goes from 450 to almost 3,300—a sevenfold increase. Will he make time for a debate about how we can get more housing, which we urgently need, in a way that is achievable and practical?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am grateful that my hon. Friend agrees that we must increase housing supply, so that a new generation of young people have the opportunity to buy their own home. The current formula for local housing need is inconsistent with our aim to deliver 300,000 homes annually by the mid-2020s, and we are committed to reviewing it at this year’s Budget. We will amend planning rules so that infrastructure, roads, schools and GP surgeries come before people move into their new homes. We want to get the balance right when determining local housing need between meeting our target of building 300,000 homes, tackling affordability challenges in the places people most want to live and renewing and levelling up our towns and cities.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
We have heard a lot from the Prime Minister about Captain Hindsight, but whether it is the economic response and the risk of a cliff edge, testing or the crisis in schools, the Opposition have actually shown a degree of foresight and provided good advice to Government. Will the Government now engage constructively with advice to solve problems, or do we have to resort during our debates and exchanges to calling the Prime Minister General Chaos and the Health Secretary Major Blunder?
Mr Rees-Mogg
That was very funny; we do all split our sides with laughter. It is worth pointing out the amazing amount that Her Majesty’s Government have done—seven Nightingale hospitals built, the number of ventilators up to 30,000 from 9,000 in March, 32 billion pieces of PPE provided, 500,000 virus tests on 15 November, 12 million testing kits going to 14 million care homes and £200 billion of taxpayers’ money spent to support the economy. There is an amazing record of hard work being done to help us through this difficult period, and advice is welcome from all sources, however eccentric they may be, including the hon. Gentleman.
Mark Fletcher (Bolsover) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will know that the east midlands has amazing economic potential, and one way in which we can fulfil that potential is the building of a freeport alongside East Midlands airport. That will bring skilled jobs to our region and major investment, and it is supported by Conservative colleagues across the region. Can we have a debate in Government time on the strength of the application that the east midlands is putting forward?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am tempted, but I am limited by what I am allowed to say. The Government have published a bidding prospectus for freeports in England, setting out how ports can apply for freeport status and further details on our proposals for the policy. The bidding period will close on 5 February, but I wish my hon. Friend’s application for a freeport every success. It is a really exciting policy development. Mr Speaker, you are a kindly gentleman, and I am sure you will look favourably on an application for an Adjournment debate, so that my hon. Friend can praise his area at greater length.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
Mr Speaker, I am sure that you, like me, are an avid reader of Martin Lewis’s Money Saving Expert website. Will the Leader of the House join me in commending to our constituents the availability of tax relief for those working from home? Can we have a statement or something else from the Government encouraging our constituents to apply for that tax relief, as many of them are working from home and could do with a bit more money in their pockets?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that important point. It is the job of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to raise the right amount of tax—neither too much nor too little—and therefore it has a duty to help people to claim any reliefs that are available to them. The lack of people claiming pensioner credits was raised with me the week before last, and the hon. Gentleman’s point about people claiming their entitlements to tax relief is also important and deserves wider publicity.
Mr Speaker
In order to allow for the safe exit of 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.
Integrated Review
(4 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister (Boris Johnson) [V]
With permission, Mr Speaker, I will update the House on the Government’s integrated review of foreign, defence, security and development policy.
Our review will conclude early next year and set out the UK’s international agenda, but I want to inform the House of its first outcome. For decades, British Governments have trimmed and cheese-pared our defence budget. If we go on like this, we risk waking up to discover that our armed forces—the pride of Britain—have fallen below the minimum threshold of viability, and, once lost, they can never be regained. That outcome would not only be craven; it would jeopardise the security of the British people, amounting to a dereliction of duty for any Prime Minister.
I refuse to vindicate any pessimistic forecasters there may have been by taking up the scalpel yet again. Based on our assessment of the international situation and our foreign policy goals, I have decided that the era of cutting our defence budget must end, and it ends now. I am increasing defence spending by £24.1 billion over the next four years. That is £16.5 billion more than our manifesto commitment, raising it as a share of GDP to at least 2.2%, exceeding our NATO pledge, and investing £190 billion over the next four years—more than any other European country and more than any other NATO ally except the United States.
The Ministry of Defence has received a multi-year settlement because equipping our armed forces requires long-term investment, and our national security in 20 years’ time will depend on decisions we take today. I have done this in the teeth of the pandemic, amid every other demand on our resources, because the defence of the realm and the safety of the British people must come first. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friends the Chancellor and the Defence Secretary, who believe in this as fervently as I do. Reviving our armed forces is one pillar of the Government’s ambition to safeguard Britain’s interests and values by strengthening our global influence and reinforcing our ability to join the United States and our other allies to defend free and open societies.
The international situation is now more perilous and intensely competitive than at any time since the cold war. Everything we do in this country—every job, every business, even how we shop and what we eat—depends on a basic minimum of global security, with a web of feed pipes, of oxygen pipes, that must be kept open: shipping lanes, a functioning internet, safe air corridors, reliable undersea cables, and tranquillity in distant straits. This pandemic has offered a taste of what happens when our most fundamental needs are suddenly in question. We could take all this for granted, ignore the threat of terrorism and the ambitions of hostile states, hope for the best, and we might get away with it for a while, before calamity strikes, as it surely would. Or we could accept that our lifelines must be protected but we are content to curl up in our island and leave the task to our friends.
My starting point is that either of those options would be an abdication of the first duty of Government: to defend our people. My choice—and I hope it will carry every Member of the House—is that Britain must be true to our history and stand alongside our allies, sharing the burden and bringing our expertise to bear on the world’s toughest problems. To achieve this, we need to upgrade our capabilities across the board. We have already united our international effort into a new Department combining aid and diplomacy, led with grip and purpose by my right hon. Friend the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Secretary. Next year will be a year of British leadership when we preside over the G7, host COP26 in Glasgow, and celebrate the 75th anniversary of the first United Nations General Assembly in London. We are leading the world towards net zero with our 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution. We are campaigning for our values, particularly freedom of religion and the media, and giving every girl in the world access to 12 years of quality education.
But extending British influence requires a once-in-a-generation modernisation of our armed forces, and now is the right time to press ahead, because emerging technologies, visible on the horizon, will make the returns from defence investment infinitely greater. We have a chance to break free from the vicious circle whereby we ordered ever decreasing numbers of ever more expensive items of military hardware, squandering billions along the way. The latest advances will multiply the fighting power of every warship, aircraft and infantry unit many times over, and the prizes will go to the swiftest and most agile nations, not necessarily the biggest. We can achieve as much as British ingenuity and expertise allow.
We will need to act speedily to remove or reduce less relevant capabilities. This will allow our new investment to be focused on the technologies that will revolutionise warfare, forging our military assets into a single network designed to overcome the enemy. A soldier in hostile territory will be alerted to a distant ambush by sensors on satellites or drones, instantly transmitting a warning, using artificial intelligence to devise the optimal response and offering an array of options, from summoning an airstrike to ordering a swarm attack by drones, or paralysing the enemy with cyber-weapons. New advances will surmount the old limits of logistics. Our warships and combat vehicles will carry “directed energy weapons”, destroying targets with inexhaustible lasers. For them, the phrase “out of ammunition” will become redundant.
Nations are racing to master this new doctrine of warfare, and our investment is designed to place Britain among the winners. The returns will go far beyond our armed forces, and from aerospace to autonomous vehicles, these technologies have a vast array of civilian applications, opening up new vistas of economic progress, creating 10,000 jobs every year—40,000 in total—levelling up across our country, and reinforcing our Union. We are going to use our extra defence spending to restore Britain’s position as the foremost naval power in Europe, taking forward our plans for eight Type 26 and five Type 31 frigates, and support ships to supply our carriers.
We are going to develop the next generation of warships, including multi-role research vessels and Type 32 frigates. This will spur a renaissance of British shipbuilding across the UK, in Glasgow and Rosyth, Belfast, Appledore and Birkenhead, guaranteeing jobs and illuminating the benefits of the Union in the white light of the arc welder’s torch. If there is one policy that strengthens the UK in every possible sense, it is building more ships for the Royal Navy. Once both of our carriers are operational in 2023, the UK will have a carrier strike group permanently available, routinely deployed globally, and always ready to fight alongside NATO and other allies.
Next year, Queen Elizabeth will lead a British and allied task group on our most ambitious deployment for two decades, encompassing the Mediterranean, the Indian ocean, and East Asia. We shall deploy more of our naval assets in the world’s most important regions, protecting the shipping lanes that supply our nation, and we shall press on with renewing our nuclear deterrent. We will reshape our Army for the age of networked warfare, allowing better equipped soldiers to deploy more quickly, and strengthening the ability of our special forces to operate covertly against our most sophisticated adversaries.
The security and intelligence agencies will continue to protect us around the clock from terrorism and new and evolving threats. We will invest another £1.5 billion in military research and development, designed to master the new technologies of warfare. We will establish a new centre dedicated to artificial intelligence, and a new RAF space command, launching British satellites and our first rocket from Scotland in 2022. I can announce that we have established a National Cyber Force, combining our intelligence agencies and service personnel, which is already operating in cyberspace against terrorism, organised crime and hostile state activity. And the RAF will receive a new fighter system, harnessing artificial intelligence and drone technology to defeat any adversary in air-to-air combat.
Our plans will safeguard hundreds of thousands of jobs in the defence industry, protecting livelihoods across the UK and keeping the British people safe. The defence of the realm is above party politics, and we all take pride in how British resolve saved democracy in 1940, and in how British internationalism, directed by Clement Attlee, helped to create NATO and preserve peace through the cold war. The wisdom and pragmatism of Margaret Thatcher found a path out of confrontation when she met Mikhail Gorbachev in 1984. In each case, Britain tipped the scales of history and did immense good for the world. Now we have a chance to follow in this great tradition, end the era of retreat, transform our armed forces, bolster our global influence, unite and level up across our country, protect our people and defend the free societies in which we fervently believe. I commend this statement to the House.
Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)
I thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement.
Under my leadership, national security will always be Labour’s top priority. Britain must once again show global leadership and be a moral force for good in the world, both in how we tackle present and emerging security threats, and in how we build a fairer, greener and more secure world. So we welcome this additional funding for our defence and security forces, and we agree that it is vital to end what the Prime Minister calls—with, I have to say, a complete lack of self-awareness—an “era of retreat”.
This is, however, a spending announcement without a strategy. The Government have yet again pushed back vital parts of the integrated review, but there is no clarity over their strategic priorities. Then there is the question of money. How will this announcement be paid for? Such is the Government’s handling of the pandemic that the UK has had the sharpest economic downturn of any G7 country. Next week, the Chancellor will have to come here and set out the consequences of that. Can the Prime Minister tell us today: will the commitments that he has made require additional borrowing and tax rises—if so, which ones?—or will the money have to come from other departmental budgets? In particular, at the election last year, there was a very clear Conservative party manifesto commitment
“to spend 0.7 per cent of GNI”
on international development. A straight question, Prime Minister: are the Government going to keep to that manifesto commitment? He must know that if he breaks it, that will not only undermine public trust, but hugely weaken us on the global stage.
The Prime Minister spoke of an “era of retreat”—a really interesting phrase, after a decade of Conservative government and under-investment in our armed forces. I remind the House that defence spending has fallen by more than £8 billion in real terms over the past 10 years. Over the same period, UK regular forces have decreased by a quarter, and on top of that, the National Audit Office estimates that there is a black hole of up to £13 billion in the MOD equipment plan. The additional funding announced today is on foundations that have been seriously weakened over the past 10 years.
Let me come to a point that is very important to our armed forces personnel. Can the Prime Minister tell us whether there will be any further cuts to the size of our armed forces over the period of this spending review?
There are a number of other holes in the Prime Minister’s plan. With less than six weeks to go until the end of the transition period, there is still no clarity about the direction of our post-Brexit foreign or trade policy. The Government have not yet rolled over existing trade agreements with 15 countries—deals worth up to £80 billion of trade a year. The Prime Minister speaks of tackling global security threats and improving cyber capability—that is all welcome, and we welcome it—but four months after the Intelligence and Security Committee published its report concluding that Russia posed, in its words,
“an immediate and urgent threat to our national security”,
can the Prime Minister tell us why he has still not acted on that or followed through on the Committee’s recommendations? When will he do so?
There was very little beyond warm words about how the UK will lead the global efforts against the biggest threat we face: the international climate emergency. The COP26 conference is a once-in-a-generation opportunity, but the Committee on Climate Change says that the UK’s domestic measures
“are not making adequate progress in preparing for climate change.”
Yesterday’s announcement—another press release without a strategy—will do nothing to address that.
This is a time of huge global uncertainty. It is time for Britain to emerge from a decade of decline. I know that the Prime Minister is always keen to talk about the bits of government that he enjoys—big announcements, space programmes, moonshots—but this statement shows that the Government still lack a clear strategy, a coherent vision for Britain in the world or any idea of how the promises that the Prime Minister makes will actually be delivered.
The Prime Minister (Boris Johnson)
Of all the humbug that I have heard from the right hon. and learned Gentleman, that really takes the cake. This is a man who campaigned until December last year to install in government a Prime Minister who wanted to scrap our armed services and pull out of NATO, and his own record of support for our armed services is very thin indeed.
I am glad that the right hon. and learned Gentleman now welcomes this package, although his comments scarcely do it justice. This is the biggest package of support for our armed services since the end of the cold war. It bears absolutely no relation to discussions about overseas aid. This House and this country should be incredibly proud of what Britain does to support people around the world. Under any view, this country is, has been and will remain one of the biggest contributors to aid of any country on earth. I am proud of that, and I am proud that this package will help to deliver 40,000 jobs around the UK.
The Conservative party fundamentally believes in defence of the realm, supporting our armed forces and ensuring that the country as a whole is strong and able to project our strength around the world. It is notable that, in government, we have instituted such extra protections for the armed services as wraparound childcare for armed services families and, by the way, protection for our veterans and their families from the misery of continual vexatious prosecution by well-paid lawyers long after the alleged crimes were committed and with no new evidence provided. The Opposition, under the leadership of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, refused to vote in favour of the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill, which will give veterans that protection and reassurance.
I do not think I have heard so much phoney stuff from the right hon. and learned Gentleman in all the time that we have faced each other. This is a guy who campaigned actively to install in government somebody who wanted to break up our armed forces and pull out of NATO. I do not know what he was thinking. He never mentioned his support for the armed services then, and frankly I do not attach much credence to it now.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the Chair of the Defence Committee.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
I welcome the commitment to significantly upgrade our defence posture, for which the Prime Minister knows I, the Defence Committee and others in this House have been calling for some time. I also welcome his honesty in recognising that the UK, and indeed the west, has become too risk-averse in standing up to some of the threats we face. I recall my frustration as a Foreign Office and Defence Minister in wanting Britain to play a more assertive and proactive role on the international stage, not only with our hard and soft power but with our thought leadership. However, there was ever less appetite to do so, so I very much welcome this statement today.
Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that, as we take on the presidency of the G7, we will work closely with the new US Administration in boosting western resolve to confront a growing number of hostile competitors, including China, who have for too long been allowed to pursue their own destabilising and competing agendas?
The Prime Minister
I thank my right hon. Friend; he is completely right. This package will encourage and bolster our friends and alliances around the world and enable the UK to project global influence into the future. That is why it is a multi-year package. I do not think that anybody around the world will doubt, after this announcement, our commitment to NATO, to the transatlantic alliance and to the security of our friends and allies around the world.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the leader of the Scottish National party.
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
I thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement.
In the SNP, we support a refocusing on the contemporary threats that we face. We need to readjust our defence capabilities for the modern world and it is especially important that a focus is given to issues such as cyber-security, but what we do not accept are the priorities of this Government and the threat of the disbanding of historic regiments such as the Black Watch. Disbanding the Black Watch would show that the promises made to Scotland during the Scottish independence campaign have been broken, buried and forgotten by this Government. We were promised 12,500 personnel stationed permanently in Scotland; the number remains well below 10,000. Such broken promises not only mean fewer jobs in Scotland, but undermine Scotland’s security interests. Billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money are still being spent on Trident nuclear weapons. Scotland remains overwhelmingly opposed to weapons of mass destruction on the Clyde. We need to respond to today’s challenges rather than on vanity projects.
The SNP also has serious reservations regarding such a windfall to defence spending during these unprecedented times of hardship for so many. This review will reportedly see the UK as Europe’s biggest defence spender, when just three weeks ago this Government refused to provide free school meals for children during the holidays. We have learned that the UK Government are considering cutting the overseas aid budget by billions of pounds. The Prime Minister may use the term “global Britain”, but on these Benches we believe the Prime Minister has his priorities all wrong. The Tories have closed the Department for International Development, one of the most successful Departments of Government, in order to politicise instead of focusing it on sustainable development goals.
In our submission to the integrated defence review, we have put forward sensible suggestions on how to meet the modern-day threat picture, but not to the detriment of our historic regiments in Scotland. I ask the Prime Minister today: will he rule out scrapping the Black Watch—[Interruption]—and cuts to international aid spending? [Interruption.] It is an absolute disgrace, in the face of the threats, that we get contempt yet again from the Defence Secretary and his colleagues on the Tory Benches. It is shameful, and he really ought to grow up and show some respect to the regiments of Scotland.
With independence, Scotland can have a foreign policy that reflects our values and interests and a defence capability that matches capabilities to threats. With our submission to this review, we are looking to play a constructive role in informing UK policy, but we will be setting out how Scotland can play a full role as a normal, law-abiding and values-driven independent country on the world stage.
The Prime Minister
I can certainly give the right hon. Gentleman that guarantee. Once again, he seems to be a veritable geyser of confected indignation. Of course we are going to guarantee the Black Watch. DFID will remain in East Kilbride, as long as he does not continue with his ambitions to break up the United Kingdom; and even if he does, DFID will remain in East Kilbride.
It is preposterous to listen to the Scottish National party talking about its desire to support defence spending when everybody knows fine well that it is thanks to UK-wide investments that we are able to deliver not just the Black Watch and DFID in East Kilbride, but a fantastic programme of shipbuilding in Govan and Rosyth. Under his plans, it is not just that there will be no deterrent; there will be no shipbuilding and there will be no Black Watch in the land of the SNP. That is the reality.
Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)
May I say to my right hon. Friend that this statement smacks not only of promises kept, but of promises exceeded? I congratulate him on that. Does he accept that in an era when global cyber-attacks threaten our entire way of life—from the economy to the NHS—we need to spend more of our defence budget on assets that we cannot see as well as on updating our core assets, and that that needs to be clearly explained to the British people? In this war of the invisible enemy, does he believe that cyber doctrine has evolved to match our capabilities, especially on existential threats, in order to provide adequate deterrence?
The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend is an expert on what he is talking about. I can tell him that the National Cyber Force is working on doctrine that is currently evolving, but we will deploy our cyber capabilities, as I am sure he and the House would expect, in accordance with international law to protect the British public and our citizens.
Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD) [V]
We all owe an enormous debt to the brave men and women of our armed forces and security services for their work in keeping our country safe. We will give the review the study it merits, but I immediately welcome the extra investment in cyber-security so that Cheltenham’s GCHQ and the amazing people who work there can continue to ensure the UK remains a world leader in this crucial aspect of modern defence. With data and cyber so important to modern defence, the Prime Minister will know that access for our security services and police to European crime databases is vital to keeping the British people safe. Can the Prime Minister guarantee that we will retain direct, real-time access to all European databases after 1 January?
The Prime Minister
We will make sure that we have all the co-operation. I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point, which is a very important one, and I agree with him on what he says about GCHQ and Cheltenham. I am assured that we will be able to maintain all the co-operation and collaboration we need to protect our people and our citizens, not just with our European friends and partners, but with Five Eyes and other allies and friends around the world.
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
My right hon. Friend has delivered for our armed forces today and he deserves the support of the whole House, particularly as he seeks to improve the procurement mechanisms of the Ministry of Defence. Will he bear in mind the wise words of General Mattis, the former US Defence Secretary, who told Donald Trump that the more you cut aid, the more I have to spend on ammunition? Britain’s development leadership—standing by our promise to the poorest by keeping the 0.7%, which was a manifesto commitment—will stand my right hon. Friend in very good stead as he assumes the chairmanship of the G7 on 1 January and promotes the important values of global Britain.
The Prime Minister
I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s points. He has done extraordinary work to champion the poorest and neediest around the world. This country, as I say, can be very proud of our record on overseas aid. We will continue to lead the world on that under this Government. What I can say is that this statement is about our defence and security, and there is no read-across to any other issue. This is driven by our need to protect the British public and keep the world as safe as we possibly can, and to unite and level up across our Union with 40,000 more jobs.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Prime Minister for his commitment to the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Will he confirm that while the goal is speed, readiness and resilience, as opposed to mass mobilisation, for the British armed forces to remain the best in the world the training of personnel must be a top priority to ensure that while we are ready for technological warfare, we also remain ready for physical forms of war? How will the review of recruitment procedures secure that very goal?
The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. The defence review will ensure that we remain full spectrum capable. I think that is the phrase the House should use: full spectrum capable.
Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con) [V]
I strongly welcome and support my right hon. Friend’s statement. We live in difficult times, but, as he states, the defence of the realm must always remain a top priority. The announcement will be warmly welcomed by so many British businesses who rely heavily on our defence industry. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that this will safeguard jobs, helping us to build back and level up opportunity across our nation?
The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend is completely right. We will use this defence package and spending review not just to modernise and update our armed forces in a truly revolutionary way but to drive jobs across the whole of the UK. It is a very exciting prospect.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
If this boost for defence spending is the first fruits of the departure of Dominic Cummings, it is most welcome, especially in ensuring that we can continue to work effectively alongside our long-term allies and partners including the United States—even more so with the welcome arrival of President Biden. Will the Prime Minister ensure that, wherever possible, spending is directed to firms in the UK and that orders are pulled forward to get British industry moving? He can start with the fleet solid support ships by telling the Ministry of Defence to send out the invitations to bid not in some ill-defined spring as the MOD says, but early in 2021. That would be a welcome Christmas present and new year message not only for our shipyards but for our engineering and steel industries and their communities.
The Prime Minister
The right hon. Gentleman speaks for many in what he says about the fleet solid support ships—he certainly speaks for me. This is a great moment for shipbuilding in this country. Be in no doubt of the ambition of my right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary, the shipbuilding tsar who is now leading a renaissance in shipbuilding. I am sure he heard the right hon. Gentleman’s points loud and clear.
Dehenna Davison (Bishop Auckland) (Con)
I welcome in the strongest possible terms the incredible announcement from the Prime Minister. Before joining this place, I worked for a County Durham start-up in research and development and saw at first hand the incredible value that R&D brings to society, particularly when tech is developed that can be applied to other uses. I have no doubt that investing in military R&D will lead to advancements for civilian applications in areas such as aviation and autonomous vehicles. Indeed, the technology that allows us to see the Prime Minister beamed on to our screens today first came from a military communication innovation. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that this package of funding will be underpinned by a strong commitment to military research and development?
The Prime Minister
I can indeed. There is big, big chunk of this package specifically dedicated to research and development in cyber, AI and drone warfare—all the warfare of the future. The victors of the future will be those who are able to master data and new technology in the way that this package supports.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab) [V]
I really welcome this commitment to our armed forces. The Prime Minister spoke in his statement about defending our people and keeping the world safe, which I would argue are development objectives, thinking specifically about climate change, food security, creating stable Governments and investing to end violence against women and girls. How will he ensure that development remains front and centre of the UK’s new international policy following the integrated review? Will he please quash rumours and confirm his manifesto commitment to the 0.7% both now and going forwards?
The Prime Minister
As I have said several times to the House, we can all be proud of our record on overseas aid, and that will continue, but it is also by investing in our armed services that we can do some of the greatest things for the poorest and neediest people around the world. I have often found, when travelling around the world to countries in real distress, that the single export they crave the most is the help, reassurance and security that comes from the British armed services. That is one of the reasons why helping to keep our world safe is a huge part of this agenda.
Ben Everitt (Milton Keynes North) (Con)
Our armed forces have played a crucial role in our response to the pandemic, not least in setting up and scaling the mega lab in Milton Keynes. Looking beyond Milton Keynes to the world, does the Prime Minister agree that this investment sends a huge message to our friends and allies around the world that Britain is serious about security, and to those who would do us harm and threaten the security of our people and our nation that Britain is serious about defending our people, our businesses, our economy and our values?
The Prime Minister
That is exactly the purpose of this announcement. It is a long-term plan that allows us to reform our defences. They must be reformed and they must be improved, while allowing us to project force and stability around the world. That is what it is designed to do. It simultaneously creates tens of thousands of jobs across the whole of the United Kingdom. So it has a big economic benefit as well.
Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab) [V]
I welcome the commitment to additional future funding, but we should not forget that British boots are on the ground in Afghanistan today. A consequence of President Trump’s threat to reduce troop numbers would be that the UK needed to play a greater role in building peace, security and resilience. So does the UK stand ready to meet that challenge and ensure that the people of Afghanistan are afforded the opportunity of a more peaceful and prosperous future?
The Prime Minister
I thank the hon. Gentleman and I recognise and admire the service that he has given to this country in our armed forces. He is completely right to point to the issue of a proposed potential American draw-down in those areas. We are watching it very closely, and we will be working with our American friends in the new Administration to do whatever we can to protect the stability and security of those troubled countries.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Ind) [V]
Thankfully, the Prime Minister is fulfilling his leadership election promise on defence spending. Given that the National Cyber Force formally announced today involves offensive cyber operations, I welcome the fact that the ISC will provide oversight of this joint MOD-GCHQ venture. Is my right hon. Friend fully satisfied that the ISC is now properly constituted to conduct this scrutiny impartially and independently?
The Prime Minister
Yes. I believe that the Intelligence and Security Committee is well equipped to provide exactly that further layer of scrutiny of cyber operations.
Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP) [V]
The Prime Minister has outlined his ambition for a space control to secure space launch capability from the UK, but concerns have been raised by some in the UK-based space industry about the recently published US-UK technology safeguards agreement, which has not yet been scrutinised by this place. What guarantee can the Prime Minister give the UK-based industry that it will be central to any space programme, and will he meet me to discuss this in more detail?
The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman raises an important and interesting issue. I will do my best to ensure that his concerns are addressed and that the House is able to look at all the technology safeguard measures that we are putting in place. That is obviously right.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
First, may I hugely welcome this announcement? It is a fantastic statement of resolve for the UK at home and abroad. It does more than guarantee the future of the Black Watch. It invests in businesses from Arbroath all the way to Abergavenny. It is a fantastic statement of the defence capability of our nation—of a whole United Kingdom. It also raises questions. This spending package is enormously important because it allows the planners to think about the future confident in the money that they will have to spend. Will my right hon. Friend commit to bringing forward as soon as possible the integrated review so that we have a strategic approach to that spending? This time, we cannot outspend the communists; we have to out-think them.
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is spot on. What this package does is set out much of the basic structure of the integrated review. We can start to see the tools that we will be using, but we will shortly be completing the review. He is absolutely right in his fundamental point that this is about having smarter forces to outwit our foes. Every time the UK has been asked to do that, we have always historically risen to that challenge. This will give us the tools to do it.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD) [V]
As a Scottish MP, I have no doubt as to the vital role that Scotland plays in the defence of the realm. When we think about the recruitment of personnel, as the Prime Minister mentioned, establishments such as Rosyth and RAF Lossiemouth are great examples. On 7 September 1921, the Cabinet met outside London for the very first time in history. This was to consider the Irish crisis and it met in the Town House in Inverness. May I suggest that the UK Cabinet meet again in the Inverness Town House on 7 September next year? This would be to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 1921 meeting and to enable the Prime Minister and the Cabinet to review the defence of the UK by visiting places such as RAF Lossiemouth, and perhaps also to learn about the great role that our armed forces played, and play right now, in beating the covid pandemic?
The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman makes an incredibly important point about the role of our armed services in beating the covid pandemic, which I should have made earlier on myself. I was up in Scotland—actually in Lossiemouth—talking to members of our armed services who are doing the testing and helping to fly patients from remote islands to hospitals. It was wonderful to see the way that the UK armed services have helped during this pandemic, Mr Speaker/Madam Deputy Speaker—I am sorry but I can hardly see you down there with the TV screen here. What I can say is that I will keep very closely in mind the hon. Gentleman’s invitation to come to Inverness for a Cabinet meeting next year. We will study that with interest.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con) [V]
It was a great pleasure in the previous business to praise the Prime Minister for his leadership in delivering Brexit. It is also great to be able to praise the Prime Minister’s leadership in delivering this multi-year settlement for our wonderful men and women of our armed forces. Would he like to thank all those officials and civil servants in the Ministry of Defence and all the armed forces who have worked many hours to help deliver this multi-year settlement? In particular, would he like to thank the Secretary of State for Defence whose robust work on this has helped to ensure that we have come to this point and delivered for our armed forces?
The Prime Minister
It is always a pleasure to thank my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence whom I have known for many, many years and is a good friend of mine. He is supported, as my hon. Friend rightly said, by thousands of brilliant officials, to say nothing of the members of our wonderful armed services who have helped to make this package what it is. I believe that it will deliver for our people and deliver for our country for years and years to come.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)
In the mid-‘90s, the UK was one of the largest contributors to UN peacekeeping missions in terms of troops and personnel. Now we have only 600 personnel worldwide whom we contribute. Will this budget turn that around and take us back to our proud tradition of peacekeeping troops, and will the Prime Minister commit to ensuring that the 0.7% is not devalued at all in this wider review?
The Prime Minister
One reason why I am so excited about going up to 2.2% of our spending on defence, as the hon. Gentleman points out, is that it will allow us to do more on peacekeeping. By the way, he is right to draw attention to the fact that the UK could do more on peacekeeping. I am proud of what we are doing, for instance, in Mali, but this programme, this investment, gives us the scope to do even more.
Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con) [V]
This is a hugely important announcement, which, as a member of the Armed Forces Parliamentary Trust, I know will be much welcomed by our armed forces. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that it will in fact strengthen our global influence and secure jobs across a range of supply chain industries, some of which are located across the Dudley borough and the Black Country?
The Prime Minister
Yes, indeed. This will be big for the Black Country. The west midlands, once again, is at the cutting edge of technological change and the new industrial revolution. The technologies that we will need and that are foreseen in this spending package will certainly drive jobs in the west midlands and around the whole UK.
Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)
Britain is the penholder for Yemen at the UN Security Council, with the responsibility to support the peace process and a real opportunity to show global Britain at its best, but will the Prime Minister tell us why his Government have resumed indefensible arms sales to Saudi Arabia, which has credibly been accused of human rights violations that may amount to war crimes?
The Prime Minister
Under the consolidated guidance, we have some of the strictest rules about exports of weapons to any country in the world. Everything is closely overseen and scrutinised by our lawyers, and, indeed, judicially reviewed. I am content that we are doing everything in accordance with the law and in accordance with humanitarian law.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
I very much welcome this increased commitment to invest in our armed forces, though to pay for it by reducing the commitment to global peace, which our overseas aid budget represents, would be a mistake. How is the Prime Minister going to ensure that jobs are created across the country through this investment? Innovative, high-tech businesses in Newcastle tell me that it is easier to secure a contract with the American Department of Defence than with the British Ministry of Defence, so what is he doing to improve procurement opportunities for small businesses?
The Prime Minister
I am interested that the hon. Member says that, because, as I recall, one cannot even sell rulers or paperclips to the US military under the Pentagon’s procurement policies; but I may be in error. The hon. Member makes an important point about the need to source as much as we can from the UK. That is obviously what we are going to do. It is a big opportunity to buy British, to stimulate jobs and technology, and to drive jobs across the UK, and I have no doubt that Newcastle and the north-east will be big beneficiaries.
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con) [V]
May I say to the Prime Minister that this is the best and most intelligent defence statement that I have heard in a quarter of a century in the House of Commons? Will he assuage, however, two concerns that I have? The first is that it appears that the numerical size of the armed forces is still on a downward trend. The evidence of recent wars—most recently in Nagorno-Karabakh—is that the route to success is through both novel technology and conventional forces. How are we going to cope with that? Secondly, since the era of the Duke of Wellington, the MOD has not been very good at managing big, expensive projects. What are we going to do about that?
The Prime Minister
First of all, it is important to understand that there are no redundancies in this package. My right hon. Friend is right about the need to maintain full spectrum, and that is what this does. We also have to fight the wars of the future—to adapt and change. That is what this package allows us to do; it permits us to modernise. My right hon. Friend’s final point is a very important one. We are going to be following this with a very beady eye. There have been historic over- spends and historic mistakes in procurement—some painful episodes that we do not need to go into, in which investments have not turned out well. We are setting up a unit to ensure that we get value out of this massive package.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
There is much to welcome about the investment in our armed forces in this statement. The Prime Minister will be aware that in the last month, we have seen atrocities against civilians in Nigeria, jihadis on the rise in the Sahel and Mozambique, attacks on democracy in Uganda and Tanzania and now a spiralling conflict in Ethiopia, with huge refugee flows, attacks on civilians and the destabilising of the region. On that specific issue, will the Prime Minister say what he is doing now to seek an urgent de-escalation in Ethiopia and humanitarian access? More widely, given his statement today, what role does he see for us as a partner for peace, development and security in Africa, not least given the crucial role that the 0.7% commitment has played, as the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) set out so clearly?
The Prime Minister
We have made representations to the Government in Addis Ababa to de-escalate in Ethiopia. We continue to make our points with them. This package will help us to step up our commitment to Africa and, as the hon. Gentleman may recall, when I was Foreign Secretary and now under my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, we are opening up embassies, opening up UK representation across Africa, and this package will help us to support that.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)
I thank both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor for finding a way to provide this long-term financial stability for defence, despite the huge financial pressures that covid has brought upon us this year. Getting our defence funding on a sound footing affords us the chance to ensure that it can be genuinely resilient, so does the Prime Minister agree that ensuring that we get going at pace on the shipbuilding commitments he has set out is critical not only for the next generation of Royal Navy ships to be in service as soon as possible, but because the UK, in building ships and boats across the four nations of the Union that they defend, can lead the world in adapting to green maritime technologies?
The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend is completely right because not only are we massively expanding shipbuilding with the two frigate production lines that I have described, the five Type 31s at Rosyth and the six Type 26s in Govan, and we are also committed to the Type 32, but we want to be in the lead globally—as she and I have discussed, and I thank her for all the work she has done to champion shipbuilding and the Royal Navy—in clean, green marine technologies so that our ships are also emitting less carbon. That is perfectly feasible.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP) [V]
The Prime Minister has announced an additional increase of just over £4 billion a year in the defence budget. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defence admits that it already has a £6 billion budget shortfall in its equipment plan. That shortfall could rise to as much as £13 billion over the lifetime of the plan, so will the Prime Minister tell us what he thinks the MOD’s equipment budget shortfall will be at the end of the four-year period covered by his statement today?
The Prime Minister
As I say, this is the biggest increase in defence spending since the cold war. It gives us a long-term ability to reform, but it also delivers more ships, cyber, artificial intelligence, drone technology and the future combat air system, which will be absolutely vital to this country—all of it creating 40,000 jobs across the UK, so this is a big step forward for our whole country.
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)
I warmly welcome this statement from the Prime Minister and his continuing commitment to strengthening our defence capabilities. I am sure he will agree that is vital that other NATO members also fulfil their obligations with regard to spending 2% of their GDP on defence by 2024. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that other members of the alliance fulfil their obligations to increase their defence spending?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is completely right, and we never tire of telling other NATO colleagues that they need to increase their defence spending for the good of the whole alliance. We will continue to make that case, but we are doing the most powerful thing—that is, setting a fantastic example ourselves with 2.2%. This is something that will not only help to drive jobs and prosperity in the UK and protect the people of the UK, but help to make the world safer.
Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)
In June this year, the Prime Minister abolished the Department for International Development, telling me and the House that there had been
“massive consultation over a long period”—[Official Report, 16 June 2020; Vol. 677, c. 678]—
with aid organisations prior to making the decision. Since then, around 200 aid organisations and his own Secretary of State have contradicted that. Can the Prime Minister provide evidence that this consultation took place prior to making the decision, or will he finally apologise for misleading the House?
The Prime Minister
We are in daily contact and communication with the aid organisations that have benefited from the many billions of pounds that the UK contributes to international development—more than virtually any other country. We will continue to do that, and we will continue to work with those organisations on the ground.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I am sure the hon. Lady meant “inadvertently” misleading the House.
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con) [V]
I welcome this statement and the increased investment. The Prime Minister has rightly set out the importance of spending this money wisely and efficiently and buying as much from British suppliers as we can. Can he bring forward revised public sector procurement rules that apply right across public spending, so that we can achieve both those welcome objectives?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes an interesting suggestion. As I said in answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), we want to make sure that this money is well spent. We are going to scrutinise it very carefully. Normally, defence spending is outwith most OJEU—Official Journal of the European Union—procurement rules, but we will make sure that we procure all this in the UK in so far as we possibly can and use it to drive jobs and growth, and that means spending it wisely.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
With the Conservatives having been in power for over a decade, it is ironic that the Prime Minister has just referred to coming out of an era of retreat and decline, since he has helped to facilitate huge cuts to spending on defence and our brave armed forces. The Government rightly sanctioned Russia for its annexation of Crimea and the appalling chemical weapons attack in Salisbury, so why has the Prime Minister failed to address the deep systemic failings in dealing with threats to our national security identified by the Russia report?
The Prime Minister
I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is pretty indistinct from here because of the size of the screen, but I think that that was a question from the Labour Benches. It seems extraordinary that complaints about not being tough enough on Russia are being directed at the Government from Labour, which was led until only a year ago by somebody who regularly appeared on Russian TV and took Russia’s side in the Salisbury poisonings. We remain absolutely determined to protect this country from threats from all quarters, particularly from those who wish us ill. That is why we are investing in cyber and our security in the way we are today.
Jeremy Hunt (South West Surrey) (Con) [V]
This is a fantastic announcement. The Prime Minister will remember that in the leadership campaign last year, I said that we should move towards spending 3% of our GDP on defence, so we think exactly the same on this. May I urge him not to listen to any voices in his ear that say the way to fund this is a temporary cut in the 0.7% aid commitment? We spent a decade winning the argument for that, and even a temporary cut will create an enormous clamour of people who say that we should not go back to it. In a year when 100 million more people have gone into extreme poverty, I know that he would not want to send the wrong signal out to the world about our values as a country.
The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend and I think alike on so many of these issues, and we think alike on this, too. This country can be immensely proud, and he can be immensely proud of the leadership he showed as Foreign Secretary on aid and development and in championing the needs of the underprivileged around the world. The UK, under any view, continues to do that. Look at what we just did with the GAVI summit for global vaccines, raising $8 billion or $9 billion to spread vaccines around the world. We lead the world in investing in epidemic preparedness and in so many other ways. We will continue to do so, and the people of this country will continue to be world leaders in giving aid. I remember my right hon. Friend’s campaign to increase defence funding—I listened to it very carefully. I thought he was right at the time, and I am glad that we have been able to fulfil his expectations now.
Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (SNP)
When the major threat is terrorism, largely homegrown and driven by inequality and prejudice, and with other budgets being cut, inequality rising and prejudice increasing, how will all the king’s soldiers and all the king’s weaponry put further victims together again?
The Prime Minister
I could not quite hear that question, Madam Deputy Speaker, but the hon. Gentleman seemed to be saying that terrorism is somehow caused by injustice in this country. I do not believe that to be true.
Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con) [V]
I very warmly welcome this material increase in the defence budget and, in particular, the multi-year nature of the settlement. A significant challenge in defence budgeting is the stop-start nature of political decision making on multi-year projects, so this statement will help to modernise the equipment plan and get it back on track, which is welcome. Does the Prime Minister agree that the United Kingdom can now fully take into account the UK prosperity impact of defence procurement, and will he do what he can to ensure that state aid issues and the opportunity cost of making in the UK are fully recognised by the Treasury?
The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend makes a really important point. This is a big moment for us, because we can ensure that that these colossal investments do drive jobs and growth in this country, and that is what they are going to do. That is why I am so thrilled about the announcements for shipbuilding in particular, but this is not just about shipbuilding; it means new jobs in new technology in all kinds of ways across the whole country.
Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP) [V]
I can only assume that Conservative Members are awfully punch drunk on the numbers, because what the Prime Minister has effectively done is to rip up the integrated review by announcing the spending before the review. Surely, the review is supposed to inform the spending. Let me ask him a specific question about a specific promise. At the last independence referendum, his party promised 12,500 armed forces personnel permanently based in Scotland. Will that promise be met by the time of the next independence referendum?
The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman asks a very interesting question about a hypothetical political event that is at least a generation away. What I can say is that there is absolutely no threat to the Black Watch, to DFID in East Kilbride or to any of the other fantastic investments that this package brings to Scotland. It is a fantastic thing for our country and for our Union.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con) [V]
This announcement is extremely welcome and one that I know, as an ex-soldier, will be well received by our superb armed forces. My right hon. Friend will know that the integrated review offers the opportunity to consider Britain’s foreign policy assets in the round, including its world-class soft power capabilities. Will he therefore confirm that when the review is published, it will reflect the recommendations of the recent British Council all-party parliamentary group report and include a soft power strategy at its core, with a central role for Britain’s primary soft power assets, including the British Council?
The Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend for that question, because he is right to highlight the importance of soft power. Studies have shown that we are among the biggest wielders of soft power in the world—we are a soft-power superpower. That soft power has many components, of which the British Council is one, but a robust, self-confident defence policy that allows us to project strength around the world is also hugely valuable. Hard power leads to soft power.
Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)
I thank the Prime Minister for his statement. Like many people throughout Newport West, I welcome the election of Joe Biden as President of the United States and Kamala Harris as the first woman Vice-President. Will the Prime Minister tell us how he explained, in his first phone call with President-elect Biden, the actions of his Government’s undermining of the Good Friday agreement?
The Prime Minister
What I said to President-elect Biden was how much I congratulated him and Kamala Harris on their election and how much we look forward to working together on a number of issues. On Northern Ireland, I made the point that we both share the strong desire to uphold the Good Friday agreement and the stability of Northern Ireland and that that was the purpose of the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill, but more importantly we talked about what we were going to do not only to advance the cause of free trade, international democracy around the world and human rights, but to tackle climate change. It was a very good phone call.
Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con) [V]
In welcoming the statement and strongly supporting the central purpose of the integrated review of defence, diplomacy and development to better defend free societies, I trust that my right hon. Friend’s Government will continue to show global leadership in supporting the rights of all people to that most fundamental freedom to be themselves and to live their lives as they wish. Does the opportunity of the integrated review enable my right hon. Friend to make real the rhetorical commitment to LGBT+ people globally, with the relatively modest sums needed from the integrated budgets to deliver British leadership in programmes that can make a massive difference to the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world, so that they can enjoy the freedom to be themselves that Britons have? I wrote to the Foreign Secretary on this issue on 4 September and 12 October; does the review now enable him to say yes to that request?
The Prime Minister
Yes, it does. My hon. Friend raises a very important point that is close to my heart. I argue with countries around the world that repress LGBT rights and do not see things the way that we do in this country that they are making not just a profound social and moral mistake but an economic mistake. Our attitude to those issues and the way we have advanced LGBT rights in this country is of huge value to the lives of people in this country—to people’s happiness and their willingness to come to live here, invest here and make their lives here. It makes a huge difference. That is the point that I make to friends and partners around the world, and we will continue to do so under this review—that is certainly part of it. I seem to remember that when I was Foreign Secretary, one of the first things I did was to make sure that all our embassies around the world felt able to fly the multicoloured LGBT flag wherever they wanted to.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab) [V]
I am really pleased to hear the Prime Minister recognise the excellent work that the armed forces have been doing throughout this pandemic. I am hoping that the Prime Minister will make some of those excellent armed forces personnel available to Hull and East Riding to assistance us during the awful time we are facing right now with our health emergency.
The Prime Minister
Yes, indeed. The hon. Lady makes a really good point and a good request, because we are looking at what we can do with our armed services to ramp up and roll out the lateral flow mass testing—the rapid turnaround test that people, I hope, are starting to be aware of. We are looking for places to trial that in addition to what we have done in Liverpool, and the armed services will certainly be playing a part in that.
Brendan Clarke-Smith (Bassetlaw) (Con) [V]
I wholeheartedly welcome not only the Prime Minister’s commitment to increasing defence spending but the investment in new military technology. I have companies in my constituency such as Drone Defence in Retford who specialise in innovative drone technology. May I invite the Prime Minister to visit Drone Defence and show our commitment that British companies such as this will be at the forefront of this investment? Does he agree that this is not just an investment in our nation’s defence but also in local high-skilled jobs?
The Prime Minister
I am absolutely thrilled to hear about the company my hon. Friend raises, Drone Defence. I understand that it has also been able to take on some new young employees through the kickstart scheme, and that is great. These are exactly the kinds of cutting-edge companies that we are going to be supporting, but also many, many other types of industry and business across the country. I certainly look forward to coming to see him in Bassetlaw, where I think we have good news on the hospital as well.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
We will have a three-minute suspension to allow safe exit and entry of hon. and right hon. Members.
Sport Sector: Financial Support
(4 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Nigel Huddleston)
For millions of people up and down the country, sport is so much more than a pastime. Sports clubs, large and small, enrich lives both on and off the pitches, the courts and the grounds, and they play a vital role in their communities. The value that sports clubs bring to their communities has been clearer than ever during this pandemic, and it is right that we support them.
Earlier this year, in May, we announced a £16 million emergency bail-out for rugby league to prevent the sport’s collapse, and the Treasury’s multi-billion-pound support packages, including the furlough and loan schemes, have been a lifeline for countless sports clubs and organisations across the country, helping them to stay afloat when their doors remained closed. Sport England has announced separate emergency funding of £220 million for grassroots clubs, and we recently announced a £100 million scheme for leisure centres. Together, that support has acted as a significant buffer to the pain.
However, we know that the decision taken in late September not to re-open the stadiums from 1 October has had major consequences for sports clubs large and small. It was the right decision, given the rate at which coronavirus was spreading across the country, but clearly, not being able to generate gate receipts deprives many organisations of a major source of income. The vast majority of those sports operate on tight financial margins and have been forced to make serious cost reductions such as locking down grounds, furloughing their staff, cutting wages, and halting excess payment. It was clear that if we did not act, a number of clubs would go to the wall, with real consequences for the grassroots game. That is why, over the past few weeks, we have been working tirelessly with the sports sector to understand the real pressures it is facing.
We promised to stand by the sports sector when we made the decision to postpone the return of fans, and today I am pleased to announce a £300 million sports winter survival package to see major spectator sports through this difficult period. The majority of that funding will be given through low-interest loans, with flexible repayment terms and grants where organisations are unable to repay loans. The package will focus on those sports that have been severely impacted by the restrictions announced in September, and it is the largest package announced by any Government for its domestic sport sector in the world.
I stress that these are provisional allocations of funding. They were made on a needs-based assessment process, and reflect the submissions made by the individual sports. Recipients will still need to apply, and the funding process will be overseen by an independent decision-making board, and supported by Sport England. That funding will include a top-up for rugby league of up to £12 million, as well as cash injections of up to £28 million for national league football and women’s football, up to £135 million for rugby union, and up to £40 million for horseracing. There is also up to £6 million for motorsport, up to £4 million each for netball, basketball, and ice hockey, up to £1 million for greyhound racing, up to £5 million for tennis, and up to £1.6 million for badminton.
Today’s provisional allocations are not the end of the story. The door is open for any sport to apply where there is a need. That includes cricket and other sports that are not on the initial list of allocations. Full details of the application process will shortly be announced by Sport England, with the first tranche of support expected to be distributed to clubs and bodies before the end of the year. In the meantime, if any individual club is facing imminent collapse, we will work with it through its national governing body. Based on the information that sports have given us, this package will help them to survive until the spring.
Of course, we would all prefer to see fans back in the stadiums. Spectator sports need spectators, and with the real progress that we are making on vaccines and testing, that goal is now firmly within our sight. Until then, we have stepped in to protect not just individual clubs and organisations, but entire sports and the communities they serve. I commend this statement to the House.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for sight of his statement, and for the accepting manner in which he has dealt with the pestering from me and from other Members on this subject. Through you, Madam Deputy Speaker, I also thank all the civil servants at the Treasury and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport for their hard work on this support package for sport. That work is not unnoticed, and we thank them for it. However, as I mentioned, getting to this point has taken cross-party pestering, and meanwhile, sports are hanging by a thread.
I know that, for the Treasury, sport in the context of the UK Government’s spending is almost a rounding error. It is a comparatively small commitment on the very, very big Treasury spreadsheet, but that fact is irrelevant to how important sport is to families in all our constituencies. It plays a huge role in the life of our country and, given its place in keeping us healthy, we needed a swifter response than this. That is particularly the case when we see how sport has been messed about. In August, with eat out to help out and the Prime Minister saying that he wanted to see “bustle”, sports were told that it was full speed ahead towards the reopening in October until No. 10 executed a sharp about-turn, and since then the pace has been slow to glacial. So in order to speed things up, I would like to help the Minister with some questions that will hopefully prompt action.
In two weeks’ time, the current lockdown arrangements will come to an end, and we hear rumours of a return to the tier system. Can the Minister please clearly explain what that means for grassroots sport? There are so many people who rely on swimming, their football team, their rugby game, their running club or their round of golf for their mental and physical health, and the lack of sport is doing our country damage. It cannot go on for much longer, and that is especially true when it comes to our nation’s children, so will the Minister please tell us when children can return to training? Robbie Savage speaks for the nation when he counts down the days in frustration to when we can play sport, and we need answers.
Next, we need to know that the money the Minister has announced just now will reach sports quickly. The cultural recovery fund did not reach cultural organisations quickly enough, so can we ensure that we have no repeat of that experience? Will he commit to coming back to the House next month to explain the detail of the effect of this funding? Will it reach disability sport effectively, and will it support women’s and men’s sport absolutely equally, by penny piece? What measures will he put in place to ensure that that happens?
We live in uncertain times, and the once predictable sporting calendar has been shifted all over the shop, so will the Minister commit to keeping the situation under review? I think I heard him say that he had an open door for anyone who needed help. That is a good thing, and I welcome it. In relation to that, he has explained that these funds are in response to the cancellation of the very slow piloted return of spectators that we were expecting from 1 October. We had an extensive debate on this only last week in Westminster Hall, so can the Minister bring us up to date on that? What is the truth of the rumours that spectators will return, but only in line with the as yet unannounced tier system? There are also rumours concerning the number of spectators. Is it true that the cap will be 1,000 people? While we are on the subject of Members’ concerns, we have another Westminster Hall debate coming up next week on the governance of football, and I expect to see many Members there. If the Minister cannot give us full details of the fan-led review of football at the Dispatch Box today, I suggest that he does so next Wednesday.
Finally, Madam Deputy Speaker, I know it will not have escaped your notice that the Government started this crisis accusing premier league footballers of not doing their share, and ended the summer U-turning on child poverty in response to the heroic campaigning of a premier league footballer. That should be a lesson to the Government. Sports people have been messed about month after month, and the British people want better. My final question to the Minister is this: in the face of a deadly virus, nothing matters more than public health, so where is the comprehensive plan for wellbeing right across the UK? This funding announcement today is a panicked response to a bad situation made worse by Government incompetence, and the country deserves better.
Nigel Huddleston
I thank the hon. Lady for the gracious tone that she adopted—at the beginning of her speech at least—and she has also given me the opportunity to express my thanks to the Treasury team, DCMS officials and all those involved, including the sports, the governing bodies and the individual clubs who have worked tirelessly to get us to this point. That is perhaps an indication of why this has taken so long. It has taken several weeks to gather the necessary amount of information in the forensic detail required, but that was right because it is the disbursal of public money that we are talking about. In terms of the total amount, the Treasury estimates that around £1.5 billion, perhaps more, of public money has gone into sports, because we are talking not just about this fund but about the £200 million from Sport England and all the additional money that has gone into the various support schemes such as furlough, grants and reliefs over a period of many months.
The hon. Lady is absolutely right to highlight the priority in terms of reopening. It is a shared goal across the Chamber to open as soon as it is safe to do so. That goes for grassroots and elite sport. As the Secretary of State has said, he wants to ensure that grassroots sport is at the front of the queue when it comes to reopening.
I can confirm, as I mentioned in my statement, that we hope for the money to be going out within weeks, and certainly for some of it to be disbursed before Christmas. There will be an appropriate proportion for women’s sport, and of course the total package will also support women’s sport. The hon. Lady has heard me say again and again—I will repeat it today—that with anybody receiving Government money, I expect an appropriate level to go to women’s sport. There is specific money for netball, as well as women’s basketball and women’s football, in the package.
Governance is not necessarily the major topic of today, but we will come to it again and again, and it is a priority. I am very happy about the hon. Lady mentioning that she effectively supports the Conservative party manifesto, which of course had a commitment to a grassroots review of football. We will continue that, and I welcome her joining us in that effort.
Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con) [V]
This announcement is very welcome. Rugby league, rugby union and the national league have all expressed to me their concerns about their survival during the latest lockdown period. Will the Minister explain whether the apportioning of money to individual sports clubs will be on the basis of lost ticket sales, revenue, or a combination of lost ticket sales, revenue and hospitality? The Minister has mentioned need. How will “need” be defined? How long will it take? Furthermore, this is not a one-for-one replacement for lost revenues, so what proportion of revenues across the major sports contained in the package does the Minister envisage will be covered?
Nigel Huddleston
I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for his comments and look forward to working with him over the coming weeks. In terms of the allocation of money, it is in the name: this is a winter survival package. It is not meant to be a full pound-for-pound compensation for lost revenue. The focus is from the point at which we were unable to open sports stadiums on 1 October through to spring. Therefore, while there may be hopes of and aspirations for a greater package, we needed to focus on what was needed to ensure that sports clubs can survive, and that is the focus of this effort. We are confident the package will do that. It is a substantial sum of £300 million and will make a huge effort in that direction.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. I have spoken many times in this place about the power of sport and the crucial role that sports clubs, be they amateur, semi-pro or professional, play in our local communities. The Minister was absolutely right to lead with that point.
I am disappointed that the Government have decided to go down the loans route, rather than having 100% grant funding. While I welcome his commitment to the national league and to women’s football, the continuing omission of support for the senior professional men’s game is disappointing. Scottish football does not have the megabucks TV deal that the English game enjoys and is almost three times more reliant than most European football on ticket sales as a share of revenue, with gate receipts making up nearly half of all revenue. Does the Minister recognise that even if a small number of fans can return to stadiums, financial support is still needed for these clubs?
If the Government pursue a reopening strategy at any future point allowing the return of fans in low infection areas, what provision will be made to devolved nations that have different lockdown rules and permissions for fan return? Will the other UK nations be forced to follow in England’s footsteps, or will support for the industry from the UK Government respect devolved decision making?
In September, I asked the Minister to commit to full engagement with the Scottish Minister for sport, Joe FitzPatrick. Will the Minister confirm that he has spoken to his counterpart in Edinburgh to explain the ramifications of this announcement for the Scottish Government’s finances? The Minister will be aware that the Scottish Government have still not received clarity on the Barnett consequentials from previous announcements. He should also be aware that the Scottish Government do not have the powers to borrow to finance a similar loan scheme in Scotland—an aberration that the Treasury could and should fix.
To conclude, will the Minister please provide clarity to this House and to Scottish Ministers about what Barnett consequentials will flow from today’s announcements, so that the Scottish Government can provide similar support in Scotland and Scottish sport is not disadvantaged?
Nigel Huddleston
The mix of loans and grants will of course be driven by need and the ability to repay. Of the £300 million package, we estimate at this moment that £250 million will be loans and £50 million will be grants. However, the loans will be on preferential terms and will therefore have features of a grant in the early stages, such as payment holidays, so immediate repayment will not necessarily be expected. We all have skin in the game here, and the incentive is to get sport back up and running and on its feet and paying back some of those loans, because then we all benefit.
I can confirm that there are Barnett consequentials to this, as there are for other support packages. I cannot provide the hon. Gentleman with the details at the moment. I actually talked to Minister FitzPatrick this week, and I am sure we will do so again. How the money is spent is a decision for the devolved Administrations; sport is a devolved matter.
Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con) [V]
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this excellent package of financial support for some core professional sports. I particularly welcome the settlement for national football, and I hope he will ensure that its distribution is based on gate receipts rather than league position.
I will focus specifically on rugby union. The Minister will be aware that, while the professional game has resumed, grassroots rugby has not, thus putting many clubs, which are small businesses themselves, in a challenging position. We have healthy, well-supported rugby club rivalries across Kent, but I fear that we are losing players and potential talent as a consequence of their not being able to play for most of this year, which threatens the viability of clubs due to the lack of supporters. Will he therefore tell the House what conversations he has had with the Rugby Football Union about the trickling down of that money to local rugby clubs and about the safe resumption of rugby at grassroots level, so that clubs can sustain themselves for the future?
Nigel Huddleston
It is great to see my hon. Friend and I wish her well in her recovery. On the rugby union package, we are in constant dialogue with Bill Sweeney about the entire package and about both the grassroots and professional game. The money announced today will have trickle-down effects and will benefit the grassroots game. Any professional club that is helped and saved with this package will often share facilities with the grassroots game, so it will help. As my hon. Friend knows, Sport England has provided £220 million of support, and we share the goal of getting grassroots sport up and running as soon as possible. Dialogue will continue on rugby union, and I look forward to talking to my hon. Friend about it further.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab) [V]
I very much welcome this statement, as will sports clubs locally. Will this new package be backdated for sports clubs that faced regional lockdowns? I also highlight the important role that broadcasters played during the pandemic, and could continue to play, with more sports fixtures universally available, free to air. Has this not shown the importance of the listed events regime?
Nigel Huddleston
The hon. Gentleman raises a range of issues. We have encouraged free-to-air broadcasting, and we are pleased that sports that have never been broadcast before, such as Premier League football on the BBC, were broadcast during lockdown, and we are pleased with the various moves by the Premier League and others to make sure that their games are more accessible. This package runs from 1 October through to the spring, and that is the focus of the package.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
I welcome the Minister’s statement. He mentions leisure centres. I also put in a plea for the great outdoors, because many of our open spaces—parks and the like—are supported and maintained by community groups and councils, and they need funding to provide that. I also welcome his continued efforts to allow spectators to watch sports. League Two Grimsby Town play their home games in my constituency, and we fans are desperately keen to see at least one or two games before the end of the season.
Nigel Huddleston
It is not a question from the hon. Gentleman without his mentioning Grimsby Town. He never fails me on that. As I said, the goal is to open up and get fans back into stadiums as soon as it is safe to do so. We are working on the detail of the disbursement of the £100 million leisure facility package and will provide that information in due course. He is also right to point out the importance of our great outdoors. Throughout the coronavirus crisis, including during the first lockdown, the one thing that we were able to do consistently—not every country did this—was exercise outdoors. It is really important that people do that, to keep activity levels up. That is an absolute priority of the Government, as demonstrated in the latest lockdown restrictions.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
I, too, thank the Government for the support package that has been announced today, but no matter how much financial support there is, we need our supporters back into our stadiums. Bath’s local football and rugby clubs have worked a great deal over the summer to make sure that spectators can be safely brought back to matches. I know the Government are also keen to see that, but we need a clear road map from them on how our fans can return. Will the Minister therefore meet me to discuss the plans of Bath Rugby club and Bath City football club to get spectators back at the earliest possibility?
Nigel Huddleston
I would be delighted to meet the hon. Lady and I am sure we can arrange that soon. She is right to say that clubs have gone to great efforts, and great expense in many cases, to make sure they are secure and have followed the hygiene and coronavirus procedures to a great degree. Recently, we had to press the pause button on the reopening plans. We have not stopped those plans—we have just pressed the pause button—and we want to get back to reopening as soon as it is safe to do so.
Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con) [V]
As a lifelong Mansfield Town supporter, I want to get back into the One Call Stadium as soon as possible to cheer on the mighty Stags. Having 1,000 fans inside football grounds is not enough to cover clubs’ costs, and we need our clubs to survive. Will my hon. Friend look at having a sliding scale attendance figure for each Football League club, based on its current capacity, which will allow fans to support their teams safely and give clubs a financial boost, which they need to survive?
Nigel Huddleston
It is amazing what people can get away with on video link, isn’t it, Mr Deputy Speaker? I do not think you would allow that scarf to be worn in the House.
My hon. Friend raises valid points about when we will get back, and what the criteria and process will be. All of those are live issues and I would be happy to talk to him further about his proposals.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I will have words with you, Mr Anderson, when you come back to Parliament. Get well soon.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab) [V]
I thank the Minister for his statement. Three weeks ago, a number of MPs met Rick Parry, the chair of the English Football League, to discuss the crisis facing EFL clubs. He told us that 10 clubs were unlikely to be able to pay their wages this month, and if substantial financial assistance was not available soon a number would go out of business. I have not heard anything in the statement today that would give reassurance to the EFL and the clubs.
I am sure the Minister recognises that clubs are not like any other business; if one closes, fans cannot go down the road and simply buy their football from another club. Fans give a lifetime of support to their club and clubs are at the heart of their community. So will the Minister now respond to the letter that I sent him, along with the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), on behalf of the all-party group on football? Will the Minister agree to meet us to discuss the problem of the EFL and meet Rick Parry, its chair, to have a look again at the financial assistance that is going to be needed to ensure that when spectators go back to football they will actually have a team to support?
Mr Deputy Speaker
Before the Minister answers that, may I ask everyone to focus on short questions and short answers, as we are really under time pressure today?
Nigel Huddleston
I can confirm to the hon. Gentleman that I regularly meet Rick Parry and Richard Masters from the Premier League; we met this week, along with other stakeholders. As the hon. Gentleman will know, the Premier League has made a commitment that it will not allow any EFL club to go under. At the elite end we have that commitment that no club will go under, and the package we have announced today for football will make sure that the National League does not go under. Therefore, across the whole pyramid we now have this security, but it is up to the Premier League and the EFL to come to a conclusion to those discussions. I encourage them to do so on a regular basis.
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
I really welcome the Minister’s announcement that national league clubs up to level 7 will get extra support. Unfortunately, Northern league clubs including Consett, Tow Law Town, Crook Town and Willington in my constituency, along with Northallerton Town in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak), are not quite there at the right level yet. We have had support from Sport England and the Football Foundation, but will he hear representations for support from the Northern league?
Nigel Huddleston
I thank my hon. Friend for those comments. We have talked about football many times, and I appreciate his support. The support announced today is for national league steps 1 to 2 to the tune of up to £11 million and national league steps 3 to 6 of up to £14 million. The more grassroots level is not supported in this package, but, as he mentioned, the route to get support is through Sport England and other packages such as the Football Foundation’s grants, which have helped clubs get back up to speed and ready for reopening. I am happy to continue those conversations with him.
Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
Football gives hope and joy to millions, just as we saw last week when big Davie Marshall dived to his left-hand side to send Scotland to our first European championships since 1996. For that hope and joy to persist, we need our football clubs in Scotland to exist. Will the Minister explain why £97 million-worth of cultural funding has been made available to Scotland through Barnett consequentials but we have yet to see a single penny of direct funding to support Scottish professional football clubs?
Nigel Huddleston
May I add my congratulations on Scotland’s performance? As I have said, there are Barnett consequentials to this package, as indeed there have been to others, but how that is spent is up to the devolved Administrations.
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
I welcome the package. I take note of what the Minister said about the football league, but, as he knows, there is no financial package in place for community clubs in the football league. People may wonder why it is that, for example, the Exeter Chiefs—the premiership rugby team and European champions—will benefit along with premiership rugby from Government support but Exeter City football club, with its lower income and lower fan attendance, has so far got nothing at all. There needs to be more of a focus on those community clubs in the football league. After the end of the lockdown on 2 December, will communities in tier 3 not see grassroots sport return? There is concern about that, and I would be grateful for his reassurance, even if only to say that no decision has yet been made.
Nigel Huddleston
I thank my hon. Friend for those comments. I know what a great champion he is of sport and football in particular. Indeed, I cannot commit to exactly what the tiering system will be—no surprise there—but I repeat the commitment of the Secretary of State, who said that we want to ensure that grassroots is at the front of the queue. As I said, we all have an incentive to ensure that sport opens up and we get stadiums open as soon as possible.
In terms of EFL support, I refer my hon. Friend to the comments I made earlier about the Premier League and EFL needing to come to an arrangement. On the grassroots, we are very reliant on, and grateful for, the work Sport England has done with its £220 million of support for the grassroots game.
Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab) [V]
I have been contacted by sports clubs in my constituency, many of which, including Bedford Town and Kempston Rovers, are still unclear about what support, if any, they will get to help them through the crisis. While today’s announcement may be a relief to many rugby clubs, I am not confident that it will be enough to save those with a sustainable model such as Bedford Blues. Will the Minister guarantee that all clubs will be better off under today’s announcement than they were under the furlough scheme?
Nigel Huddleston
Perhaps I should it make clear that we encourage all clubs to take advantage of whatever Government support measures may be out there, including the existing scheme. This scheme and announcement is on top of existing schemes. I therefore encourage everybody and anybody to apply for everything they are eligible for. Of course, we are talking about a £300 million package, with over £100 million going to rugby union. Therefore, by definition, they will be better off than they would have been.
Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con) [V]
I welcome the news that the Government have agreed further financial support for rugby league clubs, which recognises the really important work that clubs such as Warrington Wolves do in our communities. Will my hon. Friend set out more details about that assistance for rugby league clubs? What contribution can his Department give to underwrite the world cup, which, as he knows, is due to be played here next year?
Nigel Huddleston
I thank my hon. Friend. Indeed, we are announcing today an additional £12 million for rugby league, and that is on top of the £16 million that was announced earlier in the year. We will be working with the Rugby Football League to distribute that additional money. Actually, it has done a pretty good job so far, and therefore we will continue with the existing scheme, but topping it up with the £12 million. Like him, I am very much looking forward to having my first visit to a game in an official capacity as sports Minister, and maybe rugby might be one such game, but I hope that is before the world cup.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
There are many volunteer-led, grassroots sports clubs that are really struggling at this moment in time, and equally there are probably a number of would-be developers that are looking at developing their assets. They are in a vulnerable situation, and we need to make sure that this funding gets to the grassroots so that we do not lose the vital sports fields in all our constituencies. What is the Minister doing to ensure that that does not happen?
Nigel Huddleston
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point about the availability of spaces and fields on which to play a game or, in fact, all sports. As I have said, the Sport England package of £220 million to help clubs of all sports through coronavirus is important, and today’s package will trickle down and help the grassroots. In particular, it will help sustain clubs where, of course, grassroots as well as professional and league games are played.
Fay Jones (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)
The Minister knows I care passionately about the sports clubs in my constituency, particularly the rugby clubs. I very much welcome this announcement and his efforts to get stadiums back open again, so that I might be able to go back to Gwernyfed rugby club very soon. He has already mentioned that this decision generates some funding for the Welsh Government. Can he tell me what can be done to make sure that the Welsh Government actually get the money to sports clubs in Wales?
Nigel Huddleston
I thank my hon. Friend, and indeed it is not the first time we have talked rugby in this Chamber. To appeal to the common sense and good will of our colleagues in Wales is the most important thing we can do. There will be Barnett consequentials, but I respect the fact that sport is a devolved matter, and I am sure that they will be listening to this debate. As I have said, there will be Barnett consequentials, and therefore I hope that they will use this money appropriately.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
Community leisure facilities are the most accessible way for people to get fit and active, yet we face the real prospect of sports facilities in clubs in more affluent areas of the country enjoying reopening post pandemic, whereas those in the more deprived and disadvantaged communities remaining unviable. In Newcastle, we are very concerned that the West Denton swimming pool, for example, is at risk of remaining permanently closed due to the financial impact of the pandemic, despite the area facing some of the worst health inequalities. This cannot happen, so will the Minister commit to ensuring today that funding will be given for community leisure facilities post pandemic to ensure that sport remains genuinely accessible for all?
Nigel Huddleston
I thank the hon. Lady. Of course, community facilities and leisure facilities are the responsibility of both central and local government. I know how important they are for local government, and as I say, information on the application process for this £100 million package will be coming very soon. The hon. Lady is absolutely right to mention the importance of making sure that Government money is spread right across the country. The very first sport package we gave out in order to help was for rugby league, and today’s announcement will help clubs right across the country.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP) [V]
I welcome the £6 million announcement for motorsport in particular. There is currently no certainty about the future of next year’s world rally championship in the United Kingdom. Can any of the resource that has been announced today be released to facilitate the bid, which is being supported by racers and by Motorsport UK, for Northern Ireland to host the WRC in 2021? This is not a devolved issue; this is a UK-wide issue. I hope that the Minister can help us, and help Elfyn Evans in what I hope will be his world championship year to race it in Ulster?
Nigel Huddleston
I know what a fan the hon. Gentleman is of motorsports. What he proposes is not the purpose of this package. As I said, this is a sports winter survival package for the specific purpose I outlined earlier, but I am happy to have conversations with him about what he proposes.
Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)
I am delighted that the Chancellor’s money tree continues to bear rich fruit, but while the premier league is cash-rich, lower league clubs such as Southend United have been suffering during the pandemic as a result, dare I say, of poor results and finances. Will my hon. Friend write to me to let me know precisely how much of this money Southend United will get? Will he also look at golf clubs and bowls clubs?
Nigel Huddleston
To be very clear, we are not announcing today, club-by-club, what will be allocated. That is subject to the next stage of the process, working with Sport England and governing bodies to make sure the money is disbursed to individual clubs, but I am happy to follow up with my hon. Friend as that process evolves. In terms of other sports, the criteria we are talking about is the financial challenge caused by the decision not to open on 1 October and what is required by sports to enable them to survive through to spring. Therefore, for any entity that believes it fits that criteria and deserves some money, while the allocations I have announced are provisional, the door is open to other bids.
Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for this welcome announcement for England. I am sure he will join me in congratulating the Welsh Labour Government on their £14 million funding package for Wales’s sport and leisure sector, which was made in advance of his announcement today. What conversations has the Minister had with the Welsh Government and what funding will flow to the devolved nations after this announcement today?
Nigel Huddleston
As the hon. Lady may have heard, I can confirm that there are Barnett consequentials to the announcement today, and it is up to Wales how it chooses to spend any money. I congratulate the Welsh Government on prioritising sport and leisure. As sports Minister, she would not expect me to say anything else.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
I welcome this package of support. I am keen to get fans back into Portman Road as soon as possible in a safe way.
My particular point is about the Landseer Park BMX track, which lies at the heart of the Gainsborough community. It is unique and has been there for a very long time. It is in a deprived area and it gives young people there something positive to do. The track is deteriorating and there is a campaign to raise money to resurface it, but it is around £60,000 short at the moment. Will the Minister work with me, Tracey from the BMX track and British Cycling to, one way or another, make sure it gets that financial support, so that that unique BMX track can remain at the heart of the Gainsborough community?
Nigel Huddleston
My hon. Friend raises an important point about making sure we have sports facilities of all sorts and ranges available for our constituents. Sport England is the body most appropriate to approach to seek funding. Of course, it has prioritised its coronavirus response recently, but I am sure it will get back to business as usual in allocations as soon as possible. I would be happy to have further conversations about this with my hon. Friend.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
Today’s announcement is very welcome for premiership rugby clubs such as Harlequins, as well as national league south football clubs such as Hampton and Richmond, both of which are in my constituency. The Minister is aware that Quins ran the largest pilot event to date with spectators: 3,500 attended a match earlier this year which was proved to be very safe and very secure. We will naturally return, in time, to spectators in stands, which will be a graduated process, so can the Minister provide some assurances to clubs such as Quins and Hampton and Richmond that support will not be withdrawn immediately, because ticket revenues will cover only a small proportion of their costs? Will he see to it that we will not have the perverse situation whereby people are allowed into hospitality suites to watch matches, but not outdoors in the stands where it is an awful lot safer?
Nigel Huddleston
The hon. Lady and I have spoken a couple of times about some of the points she raises. I can give her the reassurance that the pilots that took place earlier this year in her constituency and across the country were not a waste of time. They were fantastic learning experiences and proved very well that we could open stadiums safely, but of course there is a bigger issue in terms of transport to and from stadiums and all sorts of other matters that we need to consider in the context of the current coronavirus environment. I would be happy to follow up on some of the other issues she raises.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
May I ask my hon. Friend—my very good friend—to look at why UK Athletics and England Athletics seem to be allowed to self-assess what they do with the money given to them, especially with regard to the results they achieve? Perhaps we could have a meeting on the matter, to which I could bring some of the affected athletes from my constituency, who feel most aggrieved.
Nigel Huddleston
I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend for a whole host of reasons, but in particular to talk sport. I note the concerns he raises and would be happy to discuss them with him. To be fair, I think we have made huge progress with British athletics. Think back to 1996, which is not so long ago, when we got one gold medal and were 36th in the medal table at the Olympics. We were second, with 25-plus medals, at Rio. We have made progress, but perhaps we can make even more.
Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP) [V]
Scottish football clubs, such as Forfar Athletic, Brechin City, Montrose and Arbroath in my Angus constituency, are almost three times more reliant on ticket sales, with gate receipts making up approximately 43% of club revenues. The Minister advised my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) that Barnett consequentials will be a feature of this package, but he was unable to say how much it would be or when it would be available. Can the Minister at least advise us when this detail will be made available to Scottish Government colleagues, so that they can, together with clubs, plan how to invest it?
Nigel Huddleston
As I have said, I can confirm that, as with other support packages, there are Barnett consequentials. I am not able to give the hon. Gentleman the details he seeks today, but I will work with Treasury officials and others to make sure that information is forthcoming.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
I welcome this package and congratulate the Minister on securing it from the Treasury. However, we all recognise that it cannot last forever, so does he accept that we need a change of approach for sports participation, with its huge benefits for both physical and mental health?
Does the Minister also accept that we need help for the huge ecosystem of the sport and leisure industries, and their army of employees? They have spent considerable sums on making things safe, and they need the public back through their doors and gates. That includes sports clubs, racecourses and gyms, as well as pubs, clubs, betting shops and casinos. Can the Minister now persuade the Department of Health and Social Care and the Cabinet Office to abandon their risk avoidance and risk aversion strategy, and to adopt an evidence-based risk management approach?
Nigel Huddleston
The right hon. Gentleman makes a pertinent point about the importance of the mental health benefits of sport, as well as its physical benefits. The conversations about what we can open and when are always ongoing, and all opinions are welcome, but we will take an evidence-based approach to those decisions.
Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Con)
Smaller sports teams such as Radcliffe and Prestwich Heys in my constituency sit at the heart of their communities and are a source of local pride. I look forward to being able to get back to the Neuven Stadium soon. Will my hon. Friend confirm that the winter survival package will support sports teams in Britain’s towns, and not just in big cities? Will he commit to looking further at what support can be given to grassroots football?
Nigel Huddleston
It is always good to talk football with my hon. Friend—it is not for the first time. I know his passion for the subject. As I have said, it is really important that we get grassroots football up and running again as soon as possible. We made great strides in the summer and we want to get back as soon as we can. The package announced today will benefit areas across the country—towns, cities and rural areas will benefit.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab) [V]
I thank the Sports Minister for meeting me to discuss Castleford Tigers, and for listening to us and the thousands of rugby league supporters who have signed petitions and called for this urgent help. The funding he has announced is really important to get clubs through the winter, but as we do not yet know what next year will bring, will he undertake to keep working with rugby league, with grants as well as loans where needed, to guarantee that none of our vital rugby league clubs go under because of covid?
Nigel Huddleston
Yes, I would of course be happy to continue the dialogue. This package is intended to provide help through to the spring. We do not know what the circumstances will be next year—none of us has a crystal ball—but we are all extremely hopeful that vaccines and other measures will enable us to have a much brighter future. We will address the circumstances as they arise.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Minister, thank you for your statement and for responding to questions. We will now suspend for three minutes.
Virtual Participation in Debate
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
We now come to the Select Committee statement. Karen Bradley will speak initially about the report for up to 10 minutes, during which no interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of her statement, I will call Members to put questions on the subject of the statement as on the call list, and call Karen Bradley to respond to them in turn. Members can expect to be called only once and questions should be brief. I call the Chair of the Procedure Committee.
Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)
I rise to speak to the report issued by the Procedure Committee last night about virtual participation in the debates of this House for those who cannot participate physically. It is the sixth report of the Committee in this Session, and the fourth we have produced on House procedure under coronavirus restrictions.
I must start by thanking the Chair and members of the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time in the Chamber for this statement, and the sponsors and contributors to this afternoon’s debate for their understanding. My final thank you is to the very many right hon. and hon. Members from all parties who have given evidence both publicly and privately to my Committee on this matter. It is that evidence that has informed the Committee and on which our recommendations are based. Those recommendations go much further than the Government’s position on this matter.
I am a great fan of my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House. He is a most courteous parliamentarian and, as a Back Bencher, was one of the greatest champions of the independence of Parliament from the Executive. But his failure to schedule any debate on this subject and his refusal to listen to the views of the House, expressed so fervently on Monday in response to the urgent question secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron), when tabling the motion to extend virtual participation in debates is indefensible.
The Procedure Committee was unanimous in its view that virtual participation in debates should be extended to all Members who cannot, for whatever reason, participate in person due to the pandemic. There should not be different tests for those who can participate virtually in debates, those who can enjoy virtual participation in our scrutiny proceedings and those who decide to use a proxy vote. It should not take the image of my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) being denied the right to participate in a debate on the very disease that is keeping her from Parliament to make the Government move. The Leader of the House was right to say that nobody could fail to be moved by that image. It is my view that he should have seen the possibility of that image, demonstrating the complete contradiction in his position on this matter, and never have let it happen. The public will be baffled by a situation in which the Prime Minister can answer Prime Minister’s questions virtually yesterday and make a statement to the House virtually today but cannot take part in a debate until he has finished self-isolating. This is an utterly farcical situation.
I am sure that the Leader of the House, being a traditionalist, does not want to change our procedures too much because of a fear that those changes will become permanent. I have enormous sympathy with that view, but we must acknowledge that things are not as they were. This hybrid House is, to coin a phrase, sub-optimal. We must try to make this House work as best we can for the situation we find ourselves in now and ensure that all Members can do their job today. That requires us to look at the issue strategically, with easy-to-understand and clear rules about participation that reflect today’s reality, as set out in the four reports published by my Committee on this matter.
I must tell the House how much the Committee appreciates the work being done on the House’s behalf by all those across the House service and our digital and audiovisual services to support the work we come here to do. Our corridors are eerily quiet at the moment, for reasons we all appreciate, but I know that the staff involved will have been working non-stop to get the broadcasting systems ready for virtual participation in debate as soon as there was a prospect of the Government allowing it to happen.
Under Mr Speaker’s leadership, we have a House service that is well placed to take a strategic view of our circumstances. If there had been a little more strategic thinking in certain other quarters about how best to equip the House to meet the challenges of the pandemic once it was clear that the restrictions were to be extended well into the new year, perhaps the necessary political signals enabling work on virtual participation to commence could have been sent rather earlier than last weekend. Not for the first time, the Government have looked for tactical fixes rather than strategic solutions that would increase the House’s capacity for resilience now and in the future.
The House must be allowed to have its say on how best we represent our constituents in this place. We are all accountable to our constituents, and they will challenge us if they do not believe that we are representing them properly. Around one quarter of Members are using the ability to participate virtually in scrutiny proceedings. With pandemic restrictions likely to be in place until the spring at least, I ask the Government to stop using short-term tactics that require constant U-turns, and instead let that quarter of MPs take part in debates.
Nobody—not even my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House—has a monopoly on being right. It is possible that the majority of the House agrees with him, not my Committee, but the only way to find that out is to schedule a debate on the matter and allow a free vote, as I think he would have demanded if our roles were reversed. As a Back-Bench Member of this House, there are two ways that I can represent my constituents: by speaking in this Chamber on their behalf and by casting my vote. We are in danger of removing both those rights from far too many Members. I commend my Committee’s report and this statement to the House.
Ms Harriet Harman (Camberwell and Peckham) (Lab) [V]
May I thank the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley) for her statement and say that I agreed with absolutely every single word of it? I commend her and her Committee for this report, which is based on the principle that, despite this awful pandemic, all Members should be able to participate in our debates, whether in person or remotely, and I strongly support that principle. I agree with her that it is the role of the Leader of the House to support MPs to do their job and to speak in debates and that it is not for him to set up exclusions.
Is the right hon. Lady aware that the number of MPs who are exercising proxy votes and therefore excluded from debates is 62%? That means that 62% of us are not able to speak in our debates; that cannot be right. Is she also aware that the figure for Scottish Members of Parliament is 78%? Imagine having a situation during this pandemic where 78% of Scottish MPs are excluded from debates. We want and need to hear from them and from our colleagues in Wales and from the regions outside Westminster as well. We do not want a situation where half of the Chairs of Select Committees are not able to speak in debates, even those debates that are on the subject on which they have done inquiries and reports.
We might be essential workers, but we can work remotely. I strongly back the amendment of the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) and my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) to the motion of the Leader of the House. I urge the right hon. Lady to back that amendment—I am sure that she will—and to urge all other Members to do the same, so that we can override the Leader of the House and ensure that all Members are able to speak in debates on equal terms at this crucial time.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I gave the right hon. and learned Lady some leeway, as Members may have noticed, but please can people just ask questions now?
Karen Bradley
I thank the right hon. and learned Lady for her comments. It is important that I make it clear that the Government moved their position on proxy votes, so that those who have a proxy vote can now take part in proceedings in the Chamber and I give credit to the Government for doing that. None the less, she is right to say that there is a large number of Members who cannot participate in the Chamber; around one quarter of Members are exercising the ability to participate virtually in scrutiny proceedings because they do not feel that they are able to come to the Chamber. It is that quarter of Members whom my Committee is incredibly keen to see taking part in debates. By the time we get to the end of March, it will have been nearly 12 months that a quarter of Members will not have been able to take part in debates. That is simply not acceptable.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con) [V]
I completely agree with everything that my right hon. Friend has said. I also agree with the Mother of the House. It is absolutely unacceptable that Members are still unable to fulfil their jobs properly in our Parliament. We have this superficial sense that we are all taking part: we are able to ask questions and to ballot for absolutely everything, but we cannot bob, we can barely intervene and far too many people cannot even speak in debates. Will my right hon. Friend please continue to press very firmly that we get some normality back into our Parliament so that we can hold the Government to account properly?
Karen Bradley
I thank my right hon. Friend, who was an esteemed Leader of the House in her day and knows these issues incredibly well. The point that the Committee wanted to get across was that we cannot continue having a situation where so many Members are unable to take part in our debates. As I have said, by the end of March, this will have been going on for nearly 12 months. I urge the Government to give time for that debate and to give the House the chance to have its say. The House may well agree with the Government, but we will never know unless we have that opportunity.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD) [V]
I am my wife’s carer, which I think is well known in the House. If I come down from the north of Scotland to London, catch the virus and have to self-isolate for two weeks, what good is that to my wife? I have to make a choice between my constituents and my wife. Surely the situation that we have at present is extremely dangerous and corrosive to our precious democracy—something that should be an example to the world, but which right now is not.
Karen Bradley
The hon. Gentleman is right about the way in which our democracy is being portrayed. When we introduced our hybrid proceedings in April, we were actually held up around the world as a fantastic example of ensuring full participation for all Members. We all accept that there will be differences in ability between those who participate virtually, and those who are here in the Chamber and can therefore interact in a different way, but that does not mean that we should preclude people who wish to participate virtually from all our proceedings. I know that the House services can make it work, and I want the Government to allow them the chance to do so.
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con) [V]
Does my right hon. Friend agree that if we have to find a balance between spontaneity and interactivity in debates, and allowing all Members to take part in those debates, the choice should be easy and clear—we should choose to have as many Members taking part as we possibly can, and not restrict a quarter of them?
Karen Bradley
I thank my hon. Friend, a fellow Committee member, who has made such a contribution to the report. I agree wholeheartedly with what he says.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
I pay tribute to the right hon. Lady for the leadership that she has shown since taking over the chairmanship of the Committee. It must feel like a decade ago, but it has not even been a year. She has shown enormous leadership in ensuring that the reports have all been on a cross-party basis. As a member of the Procedure Committee for the last four years, I think that we have covered more ground in nine months than we did in two whole previous Parliaments.
Let me take her to paragraph 33 on page 11 of the report, where we talk about the issues of hybrid procedures and a mixed debating system. We state in that paragraph that the Clerk of the House has confirmed that we have made significant progress in relation to the availability of the Chamber to be fully hybrid for all debates, but that the Standing Orders for this have not been progressed because there has been no request from the House to do so. To me, this confirms that the House is ready and there is enough capacity. As I said on Monday, it is disappointing that the Leader of the House has suggested that he has now requested the capacity be improved when the Clerk argues that the capacity is there. Does the right hon. Lady agree that if the Standing Orders could be changed to allow for full participation, another Standing Order could be changed to say that those taking part in the hybrid proceedings on the screens could not do things such as intervene, but that, as was so eloquently put last week, that is a small price to pay for allowing Members to take part in all debates, including on Armistice services, when Members were excluded from what should have been truly cross-House debate that brought the House together and showed it at its best?
Karen Bradley
I thank the hon. Gentleman, who is another esteemed member of the Committee; it is very gracious of him to make those comments. His experience as a member of the previous Committee certainly helped me coming back on to the Committee, as I did in January this year as the new Chair. He makes some incredibly important points. The Armistice Day debate was so powerful and did show the House at its best, but by excluding a quarter of Members, who simply could not take part because their own health or the health of their loved ones would be put at risk, simply demonstrates to me, once again, the need for this provision. There is capacity; we have heard evidence time and again that the House service can deliver this. I urge my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to give the House a chance to have its say on the matter.
Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con) [V]
I also extend my appreciation to my right hon. Friend for her statement. I understand the strong desire to have MPs appearing in the Chamber in so far as it is possible for them to do so, but would it not be sensible for there to be a system whereby Members who are self-isolating, either because of age, health or pregnancy—or indeed, because of a member of their household having equivalent concerns—could verify their status via a doctor’s note? I know that there has been some reticence to have Members disclosing their health conditions, but it strikes me that that would draw parity with employees in any other workplace, who would have to explain the reason for their absence, and would create a justifiable basis for allowing Members to participate remotely.
Karen Bradley
My hon. Friend made a very important point on Monday when she raised the issue of pregnant women. The fact that those women do not fall into the definition of clinically extremely vulnerable means that, as things stand, the Government propose that they will have to come into the House if they wish to take part in debates. I know that the Leader of the House has concerns about that; he has said so to me privately. I hope that he would listen and make sure that he does allow for pregnant women to be able to take part in debates. My hon. Friend makes an interesting comment about the analogy between other workplaces and this workplace. She will know that for other workplaces the Government’s advice is, “If you can work from home, you should.” Perhaps the Leader of the House should listen to that piece of advice as well.
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
It would be a good thing if the Leader of the House would actually listen to the statements that are happening at the moment. I add my congratulations to the right hon. Lady on the superb work she is doing on the Procedure Committee in these very difficult times in which we find ourselves. I note that the first questions on this statement came from two very well-liked and effective Leaders of the House—the Leader of the House’s esteemed predecessors to whom he should listen. Does the right hon. Lady agree that the situation we have now has created two different classes of MP? Behind each MP, there are the constituents that they represent, and they have the right, having been elected to this House, to represent them in the same way as any other Member of the House. The Leader of the House appears to think that he can dispense with that principle because he does not want spontaneity in debates to disappear. He must not—does she agree?—let the perfect get in the way of the good. He must recognise that these are temporary issues in a pandemic, and that we all wish to return to this place being the lively, crowded, interesting, challenging place that it is when the green Benches are completely full.
Karen Bradley
I thank the hon. Lady—another esteemed member of the Committee. It is much easier answering questions on a statement from here on the Back Benches than it is from the Dispatch Box where I used to answer questions. It is a much more pleasurable experience. She makes exactly the right points. I think that all of us were able to accept that this was a short-term measure and that maybe we could allow for a little change in our procedures because of that. However, it is not short-term. It is going on until at least the end of March—that is what the Government’s procedures say—and we cannot continue to exclude so many Members from our debates. I agree with what she said.
James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)
As another member of the Procedure Committee, I commend my right hon. Friend for her leadership, for her statement and for the report that she published last night. It is absolutely the right thing to do to bring in this motion and to extend virtual and remote participation for our Members. May I urge her to consider the fact that this can only be temporary and that we must of course return to normality and a fully operating Chamber as soon as possible?
Karen Bradley
You will spot, Mr Deputy Speaker, that Procedure Committee members are very active in the Chamber, and it is great to have a contribution from another member. I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I want to be clear to the Government: anything that they have written in this report is about how we conduct our business today and for the foreseeable future until we can get back to normal, but the Committee is unanimous in wanting to get back to normal, returning to our procedures as they were, as soon as we possibly can. It will then of course be for the Procedure Committee and future Committees to consider the way that procedure happens in this House and things that they may want to change in the future, but the measures we are asking for today are only for the period of the pandemic, not beyond that.
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP) [V]
I also welcome this report and commend the Chair and her colleagues on the work they have done and are continuing to do on this matter. As she rightly observes, for these proposals to be implemented, they will require the acquiescence, if not the support, of the Government of the day and the Leader of the House. He remains firm in his conviction that unless Members are physically present in this Chamber, they are somehow not truly at work. Why does the right hon. Lady think the Leader of the House is so firm in his view and so resistant to the deployment of technology to allow Members to work remotely and fully?
Karen Bradley
I am not going to try to answer that question on behalf of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. I am sure he will answer it for himself. I say again that the House wants to have its say on this, and I hope that he will listen to that point.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
I place on record my thanks to the Chair of the Procedure Committee and all its members, who have been absolutely assiduous in their work. With so many reports, the workload has been incredible, and the Committee has informed a very important debate.
I also place on record my thanks to the Broadcasting Unit, which has been absolutely superb. As has been said, we are world leaders in a virtual Parliament, and people are looking at how we do our work. In paragraph 28 of this excellent report, Matthew Hamlyn, the strategic director for the Chamber Business Team, confirms that the resilience of the broadcasting hub has been substantially improved. At paragraph 33, the Clerk of the House confirms that the infrastructure necessary to support mixed physical and virtual contributions is ready to roll. At paragraph 58, the important point is made about hon. Members’ eligibility. We are all equal, and we all have to play our part in democracy.
There is a mention of Mr Speaker reporting by 14 December. There is such important legislation coming through at the beginning of December, not least because it is the most dramatic time for the United Kingdom, as we leave the EU. Important pieces of legislation need to be put through Parliament, and our colleagues will not be able to take part. Is there any way that the Chair of the Procedure Committee can look at that? We stand ready to work with her and with the Leader of the House to ensure that these measures are put in place so that all colleagues can take part in those debates.
Karen Bradley
The right hon. Lady is right when she says that we are a world leader. As we discussed earlier in this statement, the rest of the world looked on in awe at what we in this House were able to achieve so quickly. The other place is using so many of the facilities and procedures that we developed and then disregarded. We decided that we did not want to use them; we wanted to return to some form of normality that simply cannot be achieved at the moment.
I have not yet paid tribute to the Clerk of the Procedure Committee, Martyn Atkins, and I must do so. He is, sadly, moving on. His time with us has been and gone several times over, and he is finally being dragged from us—kicking and screaming, as far as we are concerned. He has turned around reports and dealt with these matters in a way that no one could have anticipated. We may have thought that we had finished with procedural novelties when we left the European Union, but it turns out that covid has introduced more procedural novelties than we could ever have imagined.
The right hon. Lady asks what mechanisms we can use to bring these measures in. The first, of course, is to implore the Government to listen and give time for a debate. If that is not possible, I will speak to the Backbench Business Committee and see whether there is any way we can find time for a debate on the matter to give the House an opportunity to have its say, even if that is not on a binding measure, as it would be if the Government tabled a motion.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I thank the Chair of the Procedure Committee for her statement and for responding to the questions. I, too, would like to put on record my thanks to the Broadcasting Unit for performing miracles on a daily basis while the House is sitting. It is quite remarkable what has been achieved in such a short space of time.
We will now suspend briefly in order to sanitise the Dispatch Boxes and to allow Members to leave safely.
Virtual participation in proceedings concluded (Order, 4 June).
Backbench Business
Online Harms
(4 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House recognises the need to take urgent action to reduce and prevent online harms; and urges the Government to bring forward the Online Harms Bill as soon as possible.
The motion stands in my name and those of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce). I begin by thanking the Backbench Business Committee for finding time for what I hope the House will agree is an important and urgent debate. I am conscious that a great number of colleagues wish to speak and that they have limited time in which to do so, so I will be brief as I can. I know also that there are right hon. and hon. Members who wished to be here to support the motion but could not be. I mention, in particular, my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight), the Chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, who is chairing the Committee as we speak.
I hope that today’s debate will largely be about solutions, but perhaps we should begin with the scale of the problem. The term “online harms” covers many things, from child sexual exploitation to the promotion of suicide, hate speech and intimidation, disinformation perpetrated by individuals, groups and even nation states, and many other things. Those problems have increased with the growth of the internet, and they have grown even faster over recent months as the global pandemic has led to us all spending more time online.
Let me offer just two examples. First, between January and April this year, as we were all starting to learn about the covid-19 virus, there were around 80 million interactions on Facebook with websites known to promulgate disinformation on that subject. By contrast, the websites of the World Health Organisation and the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention each had around 6 million interactions. Secondly, during roughly the same period, online sex crimes recorded against children were running at more than 100 a day. The online platforms have taken some action to combat the harms I have mentioned, and I welcome that, but it is not enough, as the platforms themselves mostly recognise.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
You may have noticed, Mr Deputy Speaker, that I am ostentatiously wearing purple. I have been missioned to do so because it is World Pancreatic Cancer Day. We have been asked to emphasise it, because raising awareness of that disease is important.
My right hon. and learned Friend is right to highlight the horror of degrading and corrupting pornography. Indeed, the Government have no excuse for not doing more, because the Digital Economy Act 2017 obliges them to do so. Why do we not have age verification, as was promised in that Act and in our manifesto? It is a straightforward measure that the Government could introduce to save lives in the way my right hon. and learned Friend describes.
Jeremy Wright
I agree with my right hon. Friend, but I will be careful, Mr Deputy Speaker, in what I say about age verification, because I am conscious that a judicial review case is in progress on that subject. However, I agree that that is something that we could and should do, and not necessarily in direct conjunction with an online harms Bill.
Digital platforms should also recognise that a safer internet is, in the end, good for business. Their business model requires us to spend more and more time online, and we will do that only if we feel safe there. The platforms should recognise that Governments must act in that space, and that people of every country with internet access quite properly expect them to. We have operated for some time on the principle that what is unacceptable offline is unacceptable online. How can it be right that actions and behaviours that cause real harm and would be controlled and restricted in every other environment, whether broadcast media, print media or out on the street, are not restricted at all online?
I accept that freedom of speech online is important, but I cannot accept that the online world is somehow sacred space where regulation has no place regardless of what goes on there. Given the centrality of social media to modern political debate, should we rely on the platforms alone to decide which comments are acceptable and which are unacceptable, especially during election campaigns? I think not, and for me the case for online regulation is clear. However, it must be the right kind of regulation—regulation that gives innovation and invention room to grow, that allows developing enterprises to offer us life-enhancing services and create good jobs, but that requires those enterprises to take proper responsibility for their products and services, and for the consequences of their use. I believe that that balance is to be found in the proposed duty of care for online platforms, as set out in the Government’s White Paper of April last year.
I declare an interest as one of the Ministers who brought forward that White Paper at the time, and I pay tribute to all those in government and beyond, including the talented civil servants at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, who worked so hard to complete it. This duty of care is for all online companies that deal with user-generated content to keep those who use their platforms as safe as they reasonably can.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
We have covered some important information. Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that there needs to be a new social media regulator with the power to audit and impact social media algorithms to ensure that they do not cause harm? Such a regulator would enable that to happen.
Jeremy Wright
I agree that we need a regulator and will come on to exactly that point. The hon. Gentleman is entirely right, for reasons that I will outline in just a moment.
I recognise that what I am talking about is not the answer to every question in this area, but it would be a big step towards a safer online world if designed with sufficient ambition and implemented with sufficient determination. The duty of care should ask nothing unreasonable of the digital platforms. It would be unreasonable, for example, to suggest that every example of harmful content reaching a vulnerable user would automatically be a breach of the duty of care. Platforms should be obliged to put in place systems to protect their users that are as effective as they can be, not that achieve the impossible.
However, meeting that duty of care must mean doing more than is being done now. It should mean proactively scanning the horizon for those emerging harms that the platforms are best placed to see and designing mitigation for them, not waiting for terrible cases and news headlines to prompt action retrospectively. The duty of care should mean changing algorithms that prioritise the harmful and the hateful because they keep our attention longer and cause us to see more adverts. When a search engine asked about suicide shows a how-to guide on taking one’s own life long before it shows the number for the Samaritans, that is a design choice. The duty of care needs to require a different design choice to be made. When it comes to factual inquiries, the duty of care should expect the prioritisation of authoritative sources over scurrilous ones.
It is reasonable to expect these things of the online platforms. Doing what is reasonable to keep us safe must surely be the least we expect of those who create the world in which we now spend so much of our time. We should legislate to say so, and we should legislate to make sure that it happens. That means regulation, and as the hon. Gentleman suggests, it means a regulator—one that has the independence, the resources and the personnel to set and investigate our expectations of the online platforms. For the avoidance of doubt, our expectations should be higher than the platforms’ own terms and conditions. However, if the regulator we create is to be taken seriously by these huge multinational companies, it must also have the power to enforce our expectations. That means that it must have teeth and a range of sanctions, including individual director liability and site blocking in extreme cases.
We need an enforceable duty of care for online platforms to begin making the internet a safer place. Here is the good news for the Minister, who I know understands this agenda well. So often, such debates are intended to persuade the Government to change direction, to follow a different policy path. I am not asking the Government to do that, but rather to continue following the policy path they are already on—I just want them to move faster along that path. I am not pretending that it is an easy path. There will be complex and difficult judgments to be made and significant controversy in what will be groundbreaking and challenging legislation, but we have shied away from this challenge for far too long.
The reason for urgency is not only that, while we delay, lives continue to be ruined by online harms, sufficient though that is. It is also because we have a real opportunity and the obligation of global leadership here. The world has looked with interest at the prospectus we have set out on online harms regulation, and it now needs to see us follow through with action so that we can leverage our country’s well-deserved reputation for respecting innovation and the rule of law to set a global standard in a balanced and effective regulatory approach. We can only do that when the Government bring forward the online harms Bill for Parliament to consider and, yes, perhaps even to improve. We owe it to every preyed-upon child, every frightened parent and everyone abused, intimidated or deliberately misled online to act, and to act now.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
There is a three-minute limit on speeches.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
I pay tribute to the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright) and the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) for securing this debate. Today is World Children’s Day, when we are asked to imagine a better future for every child, and I will focus my remarks on an online harm that the Government could act on quickly to protect our children. Commercial pornography websites are profiteering from exposing children in the UK to hardcore violent pornography—pornography that it would be illegal to sell to children offline and that it would be illegal to sell even to adults, unless purchased in a licensed sex shop.
Three years ago, Parliament passed legislation to close this disastrous regulation gap. Three years on, the Government have still not implemented it. Assurances that the regulation gap will be filled by the forthcoming online harms legislation do not stand up to objective scrutiny. This is a child protection disaster happening now, and the Government could and, I hope, will act now.
Children are being exposed to online pornography at an alarming scale, and during the covid-19 pandemic, there is no doubt that the figures will have increased even more with children more often having unsupervised online access. The issue is the widespread availability and severity of online pornography accessible at home. It is no longer about adult magazines on the top shelf in the newsagent. Contemporary pornography is also overwhelmingly violent and misogynistic, and it feeds and fuels the toxic attitudes that we see particularly towards women and girls.
Back in 2017, Parliament passed part 3 of the Digital Economy Act. Enacted, it would prohibit commercial pornography websites from making their content available to anyone under the age of 18 and create a regulator and an enforcement mechanism. It was backed by the leading children’s charities, including the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and Barnardo’s, as well as the majority of parents. However, in 2019, the Government announced that they would not be implementing part 3 of the 2017 Act. In the online harms White Paper in February, the Government said that any verification
“will only apply to companies that provide services or use functionality on their websites which facilitate the sharing of user generated content or user interactions”.
That is not good enough. Parliament has already spoken. We have said what we want to happen. I expect the Government to build on part 3 of the 2017 Act. It is set out and is ready to go to. They should act on it now.
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright) on his excellent speech introducing this debate. We need to be clear that the online harms White Paper response from the Government is urgently needed, as is the draft Bill. We have been discussing this for several years now. When I was Chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, we published a report in the summer of 2018 asking for intervention on online harms and calling for a regulatory system based on a duty of care placed on the social media companies to act against harmful content.
There are difficult decisions to be made in assessing what harmful content is and assessing what needs to be done, but I do not believe those decisions should be made solely by the chief executives of the social media companies. There should be a legal framework that they have to work within, just as people in so many other industries do. It is not enough to have an online harms regulatory system based just on the terms and conditions of the companies themselves, in which all Parliament and the regulator can do is observe whether those companies are administering their own policies.
We must have a regulatory body that has an auditing function and can look at what is going on inside these companies and the decisions they make to try to remove and eliminate harmful hate speech, medical conspiracy theories and other more extreme forms of harmful or violent content. Companies such as Facebook say that they remove 95% of harmful content. How do we know? Because Facebook tells us. Has anyone checked? No. Can anyone check? No; we are not allowed to check. Those companies have constantly refused to allow independent academic bodies to go in and scrutinise what goes on within them. That is simply not good enough.
We should be clear that we are not talking about regulating speech. We are talking about regulating a business model. It is a business model that prioritises the amplification of content that engages people, and it does not care whether or not that content is harmful. All it cares about is the engagement. So people who engage in medical conspiracy theories will see more medical conspiracy theories. A young person who engages with images of self-harm will see more images of self-harm. No one is stepping in to prevent that. How do we know that Facebook did all it could to stop the live broadcast of a terrorist attack in Christchurch, New Zealand? No one knows. We have only Facebook’s word for it, and the scale of that problem could have been a lot worse.
The tools and systems of these companies are actively directing people to harmful content. People often talk about how easy it is to search for this material. Companies such as Facebook will say, “We downgrade this material on our site to make it hard to find,” but they direct people to it. People are not searching for it—it is being pushed at them. Some 70% of what people watch on YouTube is selected for them by YouTube, not searched for by them. An internal study done by Facebook in Germany in 2016, which the company suppressed and was leaked to the media this year, showed that 60% of people who joined Facebook groups that shared extremist material did so at the recommendation of Facebook, because they had engaged with material like that before. That is what we are trying to regulate—a business model that is broken—and we desperately need to move on with online harms.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
I thank the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright) for securing the debate with the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce). I pay particular tribute to him, because when he was Culture Secretary, he and Margot James, who is no longer in this place, spearheaded this legislation. They are a credit to the House for ensuring that this was a priority for the Government then. I know how important the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman), thinks this is, but some of us—me included—have been talking about this issue for more than three and a half years, and this Bill needs to come forward. The delays just are not acceptable, and too many people are at risk.
I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) for not only his speech but his chairmanship of the DCMS Committee, which he did without fear or favour. He took on the platforms, and they did not like it. All credit to him for standing up for what he believes in and trying to take on these giants.
In the two minutes I have left, I want to talk about the inquiry of my all-party parliamentary group on social media in relation to child harm, which the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam touched on. The Internet Watch Foundation is a charity that works with tech industries and is partly funded by them. It also works with law enforcement agencies and is funded by the Government and currently by the European Union. It removes self-generated images of child abuse. It removes URLs of children who have been coerced and groomed into taking images of themselves in a way that anyone in this House would find utterly disgusting and immoral. That is its sole, core purpose.
The problem is extremely complex. The IWF has seen a 50% increase in public reports of suspected child abuse over the past year, but the take-down rate of URLs has dropped by 89%. I have pressed DCMS Ministers and Cabinet Office Ministers to ensure that IWF funding will continue, to address the fact that these URLs are not being taken down and to put more resources into purposefully tackling this abhorrent problem of self-generated harm, whether the children are groomed through platforms, live streaming or gaming.
The platforms have not gone far enough. They are not acknowledging the problem in front of them. I honestly believe that if a future Bill provides the power for the platforms to decide what is appropriate and for Ofcom to make recommendations or fine them on that basis, it is a flawed system. It is self-regulation with a regulator—it does not make any sense. The platforms themselves say that it does not work.
In closing, will the Minister please—please—get a grip on the issues that the IWF is raising, continue its funding, and do all that he can to protect children from the harm that many of them face in their bedrooms and homes across the UK?
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
The Prime Minister reminded us today that the first duty of Government is to protect their citizens from harm. Our children need and deserve to be kept much safer from online harm, so I urge the Government not to let the best be the enemy of the good. They committed to producing an online harms Bill to comprehensively address online harms and acknowledged that such a Bill was critically urgent, but they have failed to do so expeditiously. Specifically, the Government have failed to implement age verification, legislation on which was actually passed in part 3 of the Digital Economy Act 2017. I urge the Government to implement age verification, and join colleagues in doing so today. We will never make the internet safe, but we can make it safer by implementing measures quickly to give children some protection from commercial pornography sites, pending the introduction of a more comprehensive Bill.
We need to do so much more to protect children from being drawn into producing material themselves. There is growing concern about self-generated indecent images of children, made when a child is tricked or coerced into sending sexual material of themselves. I commend the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), who, with the Centre for Social Justice, has launched an investigation into child sexual abuse, and I commend his op-ed in The Sun on Sunday last week. It is not often that I commend something in The Sun, but in his op-ed he highlighted the increase in livestreamed abuse in which sex offenders hire traffickers in countries such as the Philippines to find children for them to violate via a video link. I also thank the International Justice Mission for its effective work in highlighting this despicable trade and consumption, in respect of which the UK is the world’s third largest offender. As the IJM says, we need to do more than highlight this; the Government need to improve prevention, detection and prosecution.
Yes, we have made great strides as a country in detecting and removing child sexual abuse material from UK-hosted websites, but livestreamed abuse is not being detected or reported and much more needs to be done by tech companies and social media platforms to rectify the situation. Legislation must require them to act. For example, they could adopt a safety-by-design approach so that a camera cannot be flipped to face a child. Regulation of the online space is needed to ensure that companies take swift and meaningful action to detect the online sexual exploitation of children, and there must be more accountability for offenders who commit this abuse. We should not distinguish the actions of those offenders from the actions of those who prey on children in person. Every image depicts a real child being hurt in the real world. Communities of online offenders often ask for original videos and images as their price of admission, prompting further targeting and grooming of vulnerable children.
The Government need to act urgently to help better to protect vulnerable children—indeed, all children—and to promote greater awareness, including through education. Children need to know that it is not their fault and that they can talk to someone about it, so that they do not feel, as so many teachers who have talked to Childline have said, “I can’t deal with this anymore. I want to die.”
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
Many of us took part in a debate on these issues in Westminster Hall recently. I do not want to repeat all the comments I made then, but I have seen the wide range of online harms in my constituency of Cardiff South and Penarth, and the online harms leading to real-world harms, violence and hatred on our streets.
In that Westminster Hall debate, I spoke about the range of less well-known platforms that the Government must get to grips with—the likes of Telegram, Parler, BitChute and various other platforms that are used by extremist organisations. I pay tribute to the work that HOPE not Hate and other organisations are doing. I declare an interest as a parliamentary friend of HOPE not Hate and commend to the Minister and the Government its excellent report on online regulation that was released just this week.
I wish to give one example of why it is so crucial that the Government act, and act now, and it relates to the behaviour of some of the well-known platforms. In the past couple of weeks, I have spoken to one of those platforms: YouTube—Google. It is not the first time that I have spoken to YouTube; I have previously raised concerns about its content on many occasions as a members of the Home Affairs Committee. It was ironic to be asked to take part in a programme to support local schools on internet safety and being safe online, when at the same time YouTube, despite my personally having reported instances of far-right extremism, gang violence and other issues that specifically affect my constituency, has refused to remove that content. YouTube has not removed it, despite my reporting it.
I am talking about examples of gang videos involving convicted drug dealers in my constituency; videos of young people dripping in simulated blood after simulated stabbings; videos encouraging drug dealing and violence and involving young people as actors in a local park, just hundreds of metres from my own house—but they have not been removed, on grounds of legitimate artistic expression. There are examples of extremist right-wing organisations promoting hatred against Jews, black people and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community that I have repeatedly reported, but they were still on there at the start of this debate. The only conclusion I can draw is that these companies simply do not give a damn about what the public think, what parents think, what teachers think, what all sides of the House think, what Governments think or what the police think, because they are failing to act, having been repeatedly warned. That is why the Government must come in and regulate, and they must do it sooner rather than later.
We need to see action taken on content relating to proscribed organisations—I cannot understand how that content is online when those organisations are proscribed by the Government—where there are clear examples of extremism, hate speech and criminality. I cannot understand why age verification is not used even as a minimum standard on some of these gang videos and violent videos, which perhaps could be justified in some parallel world, when age verification is used for other content. Some people talk about free speech. The reality is that these failures are leading to a decline in freedom online and in safety for our young people.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
There are so many aspects to this, including misinformation on the pandemic, disinformation and foreign influence operations, harassment, engagement algorithms, the effect on our politics and public discourse, the growth in people gambling on their own, scammers and chancers, and at the very worst end, radicalisation and, as we have heard from many colleagues, sexual exploitation. I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for granting time for the debate, but this is not one subject for debate but about a dozen, and it needs a lot more time at these formative stages, which I hope the Government will provide. My brief comments will be specifically about children.
When I was at the Department for Education, I heard repeatedly from teenagers who were worried about the effect on their peers’ mental health of the experience of these curated perfect lives, with the constant scoring of young people’s popularity and attractiveness and the bullying that no longer stops when a young person comes through their parents’ front door but stays with them overnight. I heard from teachers about the effect of technology on sleep and concentration and on taking too much time from other things that young people should be doing in their growing up. I take a lot of what will be in this legislation as read, so what I will say is not an exclusive list, but I have three big asks of what the legislation and secondary legislation should cover for children. By children, I mean anybody up to the age of 16 or 18. Let us not have any idea that there is a separate concept of a digital age of consent that is in some way different.
First, the legislation will of course tackle the promotion of harms such as self-harm and eating disorders, but we need to go further and tackle the prevalence and normalisation of content related to those topics so that fewer young people come across it in the first place. Secondly, on compulsive design techniques such as autoplay, infinite scroll and streak rewards, I do not suggest that the Government should get in the business of designing applications, but there need to be natural breaks, just as there always were when children’s telly came to an end or in running out of coins at the amusement arcade, to go and do something else. Actually, we need to go further, with demetrification—an ugly word but an important concept—because children should not be worrying about their follower-to-following ratio or how many likes they get when they post a photograph. Bear in mind that Facebook managed to survive without likes up to 2009.
Thirdly, we need to have a restoration of reality, discouraging and, at the very least, clearly marking doctored photos and disclosing influencers’ product placements and not allowing the marketing of selfie facial enhancements to young children. It is not only about digital literacy and resilience, though that plays a part. The new material in schools from this term is an important step, but it will need to be developed further.
It has always been hard growing up, but it is a lot harder to do it live in the glare of social media. This generation will not get another chance at their youth. That is why, yes, it is important that we get it right, but it is also important that we get it done and we move forward now.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
This vital work is indeed taking far too long, and so much so that the Petitions Committee has launched a new inquiry on tackling online abuse following up our report in the last Parliament and looking at potential solutions for reducing crime and preventing it. Although the Government’s response to our previous report was positive, regrettably its online harms White Paper failed to address most of our concerns in relation to the impact on disabled people. The new inquiry will therefore continue to scrutinise the Government’s response to online abuse and press Ministers on the action that needs to be taken. We would welcome evidence to our inquiry from campaigners, legal professionals, social media companies and members of the public.
I want to address as well some of the most troubling material available online—material that has too often spilled over into the offline world with tragic consequences. From your internet browser today you could access video that shows graphic footage of real-event stabbings before alleging that the attack was, in fact, a Jewish plot. If you were so inclined, you could watch a five-hour-long video that alleges a Jewish conspiracy to introduce communism around the world—10,000 people already have. I could go on. These videos and others like it are easily discoverable on some of the so-called alternative platforms that have become safe havens for terrorist propaganda, hate material and covid-19 disinformation, so it is crucial that when the Government finally bring their online harms Bill forward, it has to have teeth.
The White Paper proposes establishing a new duty of care for users, overseen by an independent regulator, making it clear that fulfilling a duty of care means following codes of practice. The Government have rightly proposed two statutory codes—on sexual exploitation and abuse and on terrorism. Will the Minister now commit to bringing forward another code of practice on hate crime and wider harms? Without such a code, any duty of care for users will be limited to what the site’s terms and conditions allow. Terms and conditions are insufficient, as the Government acknowledge; they can be patchy and poorly applied.
The Antisemitism Policy Trust, which provides the secretariat to the all-party parliamentary group against antisemitism, which I co-chair, has produced evidence outlining how hateful online materials can lead to violent hate crime offline. A code of practice on hate crime, with systems-level advice to start-ups and minimum standards for companies will go some way towards creating a safer world. There is much more in the Bill that needs serious consideration, but as a minimum we need to see a code of practice for hate crime brought forward and given the same status as that for child sexual exploitation and abuse and terrorism, and I hope today that the Minister can give us some reassurance that this will be taken seriously.
Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright) on securing this debate and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting time for it.
There is no doubt that the internet can be a force for good. Over the past few months, we have all enjoyed the fact that we can keep in touch with family and friends. We can work from home. Even some people can participate in certain parts of our proceedings, although clearly not this debate. But the internet can be used for harm. In the limited time I have I want to make just two points. One is about the impact on children and the other is about advertising online.
When I was the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, I initially took the idea to the then Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), that we should have an internet safety strategy. That is what has become the online harms strategy. The internet safety strategy was born out of my work in the Home Office when I was the Minister for Preventing Abuse, Exploitation and Crime. It was so clear to me through the work that I did in particular on protecting children that the internet was being used to harm children. We have some great successes. The WePROTECT initiative, for example, which has had a real impact on removing pornographic images of children and child abuse online, is a great success, but we must never rest on our laurels. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister, who knows full well about all this, because he was with me when lots of this work was happening in the Department, to deal with the issue of age verification on pornography. I know that it does not resolve every issue. It is not going to solve every problem, but there was a message given to me by children time and again. If there was one thing they wanted to see stopped, it was access to pornography because that was what was fuelling the harm that they faced.
Turning to advertising, I will share with the House that this weekend I will be cooking a beef brisket that I will be purchasing from Meakins butchers in Leek, and I will be putting on it a beef rub. Hon. Members may ask why I am telling them that. I am telling them that because I have been mithered for weeks by my 15 year-old son, who has seen such a beef rub on Instagram. He is not getting his advertising from broadcast media. He is getting his advertising from the internet and he is desperate to try a beef rub on beef brisket, and I will therefore make sure he does so over the weekend.
We have to have a level playing field on advertising. Our broadcast media is about to face real restrictions on the way that certain products can be advertised. This will impact on our public service broadcasters in particular, but we do not see the same level of regulation applied to the internet, and I know for one that the place my children are seeing advertising is on the internet. It is, sadly, not on broadcast media in the way I picked up my advertising. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to make sure he does something on that matter as well.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
I want to raise just two points: first, the current epidemic of online frauds; and, secondly, the online sale of the illegal weapons used on our streets in gang violence.
First, the Pension Scams Industry Group has told the current Work and Pensions Committee inquiry that 40,000 people have suffered the devastation of being scammed out of their pension in five years. Much of that is online. Mark Taber told us he has reported to the Financial Conduct Authority this year 380 scam adverts on Google. It is a crime, but after weeks or months the FCA just issues a warning. The Transparency Task Force told us of
“high-profile, known crooks…running rings around the regulators”,
and-:
“Paid keyword search is a highly efficient means for pensions & savings scammers to target their victims.”
Another witness told us that there is
“a big increase in social media scams”.
Which? said that
“we need to look at what sort of responsibilities should be given to those online platforms to protect their users from scams.”
A director at Aviva told us that it
“had to take down 27 fake domains linked to our brand... It is very difficult and it takes a very long time to engage the web domain providers to get it down.”
He called big technology companies “key enablers of fraud”, and he made a call
“to extend the Online Harms Bill to include the advertising of fraudulent investments”.
I think that should be done, and I want to ask the Minister if it will be in the legislation.
Secondly, the Criminal Justice Act 1988 bans the sale and import of a list of weapons: disguised knives, butterfly knives, flick knives, gravity knives, stealth knives, zombie knives, sword sticks, push daggers, blowpipes, telescopic truncheons and batons. But all of them are available online for delivery in the post. That is how most weapons used on the streets in London are obtained. As we debated in the Offensive Weapons Bill Committee in 2018, companies should not sell in the UK products that it is illegal to purchase here.
The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), said in Committee that the Home Office was working with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on these online harms, and looking at
“what more we can do to ensure…companies act responsibly and do not facilitate sales of ‘articles with a blade or point’ or ‘corrosive products’ in their platforms.”––[Official Report, Offensive Weapons Public Bill Committee, 11 September 2018; c. 280.]
What I want to ask the Minister is: will that promise be fulfilled in the coming legislation?
Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)
Through this pandemic, we have seen what a saving grace the online world has proved to be to us. It is a window, and it has connected us to family and friends, and it has provided important information and services. In fact, I have worked hard to bring together different providers and trainers to close the digital divide that so disadvantages those who are not online. However, at the same time as being a saving grace, it is also a serious threat to our health and wellbeing, our security and our democracy—all of these things. I hope that, through this experience, we have now come to a place where we recognise that there is no longer this distinction between the offline and the online worlds.
That question was very much put at the trial of the man who threatened to kill me in 2017. I can assure hon. Members and all watching that it was real and it hurt. The same pain, the same suffering and the same frustration was felt by one of my constituents in 2016, where again the same question was posed: is there a difference between our online and offline experiences? She was a victim of revenge porn, a really dark and sinister crime. Her frustration and her powerlessness at not being able to bring down images that directed people from across the country to find her and rape her—and how the law did not reach her—was just something extraordinary to me. I therefore hope that that distinction is very much gone. We need a levelling up in our online and offline worlds
I want to focus on children. I applaud the work done to date and I welcome the online harms Bill to come, but unfinished business is my point in this debate. We made a commitment to introduce statutory age verification on porn websites. We supported that in 2016 and we supported it in 2017. It is still supported now. The most recent survey suggested that 83% of parents urged it as mission critical to protect their children. We know that early exposure to porn is harmful. I understand that there are technical issues, but surely these can be overcome. Other countries have shown the way, when we were previously world leading—France, for example, most recently.
More must be expected of our social media giants to maintain safe online environments, but I urge the Minister: we have the legislation, let us use it.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
The huge rise in online scams, hate speech and conspiracy theories has highlighted why the Government have to take action urgently, not just by passing legislation but having a counter-narrative to challenge the fake stories we hear about.
Looking at online hate speech at a recent Home Affairs Committee session, we heard that Facebook had deleted a staggering 9.6 million hate speech posts in the first quarter of this year. Much of that hate was directed towards south and east Asian communities, fuelled in part by President Trump using his position of power to fan the flames of hate by calling covid-19 the China virus. However, those 9.6 million posts are only the tip of the iceberg. There is still hate speech that has not been taken down, where it falls short of being hate speech. This is an area that must concern us greatly.
It is not just the south and east Asian communities who have been targeted. Before lockdown, the blame for coronavirus was already being directed at the Muslim, Jewish, Gypsy, Roma, Traveller and LGBT+ communities. Chinese and east Asian people in the UK endured physical and verbal attacks, while Muslims were accused of ignoring lockdown and spreading the virus by visiting mosques. Conspiracy theories were abundant, and falsely linking those groups to the spread of the virus allowed those conspiracy theories to flourish.
That leads me to disinformation and conspiracy theories. The anti-vaccine conspiracy theories are particularly insidious, because casting doubt in people’s minds will result in people choosing not to be vaccinated, which in turn could lead to them catching the virus and passing it on to others. I will not give credence to any absurd anti-vaccine conspiracy theories by repeating them, but unchecked they could be damaging to the health of the nation.
Last year, I had the pleasure of visiting Ethiopia with the charity RESULTS UK to see how it has almost eradicated tuberculosis by vaccinating the majority of the country over the past decade, so I have seen the impact that a well-administered programme of vaccination can have. There needs to be a strong counter-narrative from the Government. That has been missing in countering both hate speech and anti-vaccination theories.
In conclusion, the Government have been dragging their heels on the online harms Bill, which has been talked about for the past three years. Urgent action is needed to counter hate speech, extremism and conspiracy theories to keep our communities and those who need protection safe. We need a counter-narrative to challenge those threats and we need legislative protection. We need action and we need it now, because people’s lives could be depending on it.
Robert Largan (High Peak) (Con)
The internet has changed the world. In the past, typical hate crime took place on the street and involved a small number of people: the perpetrator, the victim and perhaps a handful of witnesses. The internet has changed all that. Now, when hate crime takes place online, it is seen and shared by thousands within minutes. The hatred is amplified and echoed in a toxic spiral that incites others to go further and further, sometimes spilling over into real life with devastating consequences. We are seeing the impact the amplification of hate is having in real numbers. In the first six months of this year, the Community Security Trust recorded 789 antisemitic incidents across the UK. In 2019, it recorded a record annual total of 1,813. That is just one particular kind of hate directed at one tiny minority community.
I have seen this at first hand, for reasons I can never quite fathom. Last year, one then Labour councillor decided to start bombarding me with abusive messages over several months, accusing me of eating babies, claiming I was linked to Benjamin Netanyahu, repeatedly sending me messages with images of the crucifixion and images of pigs, songs referring to the Wandering Jew, photos of himself dressed in orthodox Jewish clothing, and repeatedly changing my name to Herr Largaman or Herr Larganberg. These incidents are relatively minor compared with what others have had to face, particularly women and many Members of this House. I pay tribute to the Community Security Trust for the amazing work it does, as well as to the Jewish Leadership Council and the Antisemitism Policy Trust, but the fact that such groups have to exist underlines why this Bill is so important.
We need to grasp the nettle and update our laws to reflect the new reality of the online world, and to make certain that this legislation is sufficiently strong and effective. In particular, I urge the Government to carefully consider the issue of anonymity. Many extremists hide behind a keyboard, masking their true identity to unleash abuse and spread false information. That has been facilitated by the growth of alternative social media platforms that anyone can access and post on anonymously. As a result, we have seen them turn into hotbeds of incitement and radicalisation. Some platforms even allowed the live-streaming of atrocities such as the murder of 51 worshippers at two mosques by white supremacists in New Zealand. It is important that we recognise that there is a place for anonymity, particularly for whistleblowers, victims of domestic abuse and people living under authoritarian regimes, but that there is a sensible compromise, which I hope the Government include in the Bill.
When I worked in financial services, we always had to carry out extensive “know your client” checks, as part of an effort to prevent fraud and money laundering. The same concept should apply to the online world. Firm penalties should be in place for companies breaching the duty of care—a modest fine will barely affect those companies—and there has to be individual liability for senior management in extreme cases. Again, that is not a new concept, as it already exists in financial services and in health and safety.
Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)
In my short contribution, I wish to focus on two areas: the need for this legislation to have sufficient teeth and for clear definitions of what constitutes an online harm, which many of my constituents have been in touch with me about. I hear the criticism and concern that an online harms Bill could be overreaching and damage freedom of expression, but that should not stop the Government going ahead and trying to make the internet a safer place.
One of the best ways the Government could do that is by providing a clearer steer as to what constitutes “harm”. As we have heard, and as I think we are all agreed on in this House, high on the agenda must be a robust set of actions and consequences in place when content relating to terrorism, child abuse and equally abhorrent crimes is not taken down by social media companies. We can safely say that we, as Members of Parliament, know full well what a vile place the internet can be, given that we are sometimes on the receiving end of the most vile and horrific abuse. I was subjected to homophobic abuse during the election campaign in December last year.
Any online harms Bill must therefore be sufficiently defined and powerful enough to consider how we can protect people against some of the harmful content available online. I wish to go through some examples that have been raised with me by constituents. They include the fact that almost a quarter of children and young people who sadly lost their lives to suicide had previously searched the internet for suicide-related content; that one in five children had reported being victims of cyber-bullying; that social media companies were not just ignoring but refusing to take down content from so-called “conversion therapy” organisations, which leads so many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people to consider self-harm or even suicide; that one in 14 adults were experiencing threats to share intimate images of themselves; that one in 10 women were being threatened by an ex-partner and going on to feel suicidal; that there was a higher prevalence of abuse among those with protected characteristics, be they women, religious minorities, LGBT+, black and minority ethnic or disabled people; that there was the issue of distorted body image among girls; and so much more.
We have seen the unwillingness of social media companies to act, which is why further regulation is necessary in this area, but it must be backed up not only by a regulator that has the teeth to act, but by proper education on safe and proper internet use, as regulation alone will not solve the problem. If the Government do get this right, they have the opportunity, probably a once-in-a-generation one, to make the internet a safer but no less free place to be.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I congratulate the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright) on his introduction and on all that he said. In my intervention I referred to the need for a social media regulator, and, as the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) has just said, we need a regulator with teeth. We need a regulator that actually does what it says it is going to do. That is important.
The Conservative manifesto of 2015 was very clear that it pertained not to social media platforms but to pornographic websites, and it committed to protecting children from them through the provision of statutory age verification. Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act 2017 made provision for that and it should have been implemented over a year ago. I respectfully express my dismay and concern that that has not happened.
The non-implementation of part 3 of the Act is a disaster for children as it needlessly exposes them to commercial pornographic websites, when this House has made provision for their protection from some sites. Perhaps the Minister could give us an explanation as to why the Government’s detailed defence in the judicial review for not proceeding with the implementation seems to relate to the protection under paragraph 19, which states:
“US-based browser companies were planning on implementing DNS-over-HTTPS…a new internet standard”.
I have great concerns about that.
I am also troubled by the way in which the Government have moved from the language of requiring age verification for pornographic websites, as referred to in their manifesto, to the very different language of expectation. The Government have said:
“This includes age verification tools and we expect them to continue to play a key role in protecting children online.”
They also said:
“Our proposals will introduce higher levels of protection for children. We will expect companies to use a proportionate range of tools including age assurance and age verification technologies to prevent children from accessing age-inappropriate or harmful content.”
In their initial response to the online harms White Paper consultation, the Government also said:
“we expect companies to use a proportionate range of tools, including age assurance and age verification technologies to prevent children accessing age-inappropriate content such as online pornography and to protect them from harms.”
Quite simply, that is not enough. That should not be an expectation; it should be a requirement. We have to have that in place.
The NSPCC has highlighted some worrying statistics. Instagram removed 75% fewer suicide and self-harm images between July and September 2020, industry compliance to take down child abuse images fell by 89%, and 50% of recorded online grooming cases between April and June this year took place on Facebook platforms. What conversations have the Government had to ensure that Facebook and others design and deliver platforms that put child protection services front and centre, as they should be?
Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright), my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) on securing this important debate. As my right hon. and learned Friend said, there needs to be parity between online and real-world abuse. Just because hate is fuelled online, it does not make it any less real or any less hurtful, so there really should be parity. We are taking this seriously and that needs to be reflected in the law. People cannot hide behind a keyboard and expect to get away with it.
In the brief time I have, I want to tell two stories. The first involves a Conservative Member of this House who was in Germany some years ago, where they happened upon a far-right rally. The Member confronted the neo-Nazi group and was told to read a book about how Hitler was, in fact, a British spy—a preposterous conspiracy.
The second story is about a man named Joseph Hallett, who for some time has asserted his right to the throne of the United Kingdom, claiming he was cheated of his birth right by the illegitimate conception of King George V, a claim with no basis. He is known online as King John III, and his story has gained popularity among the QAnon movement, a conspiratorial group claiming special knowledge of satanic paedophile rings at the heart of government. Hallett, the fake king, thinks that the royal family is in hock to the Rothschilds, and anyone with an understanding of antisemitism will know where I am headed with this. He is an author, known by his second name, Greg, and he has written about his mad theories. His tome “Gifting the United Nations to Stalin” blames the Jews for 9/11. What else did he write? The book about Hitler being a British spy, recommended in person by a neo-Nazi to a Member of this House. Hallett has interacted with the QAnon community online. This conspiracy network captures the imagination of the unsuspecting, the naive or the bored, and drags them into worlds of hate.
The hatred is not limited to online spaces. QAnon accounts inspired the German faction known as Reichsbürger—citizens of the Reich—to storm the German Parliament in August. Perhaps it was one of its members that our colleague spoke to. More than 50 5G masts were burned down in Britain following another Q conspiracy. In spite of this, some elected representatives in the United States are voicing support for Q. Dealing with the type of legal but harmful content that Q represents is just one of the steps that will need to be taken through the online harms Bill.
In closing, I call on my hon. Friend the Minister to assure me that the proposed duty of care will not simply consist of a requirement for terms and conditions, which the White Paper professed to be insufficient. Will the Government consider giving a code of practice on hate crime equal status to the two proposed statutory codes on terrorism and child sexual exploitation and abuse, as the Antisemitism Policy Trust, the Community Security Trust, the Jewish Leadership Council and the Board of Deputies have called for? And can the Minister confirm that the Government will ensure that all elements of platforms with user-generated content will be covered?
Nick Fletcher (Don Valley) (Con)
This is an incredibly important issue, and I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) that we should waste no time in introducing age verification as soon as possible to ensure that our children can use the internet in a safe way and not come across content that would expose them to material that they are far too young to see. Not only would that uphold the law, which is clear in setting out the illegality of under-18s viewing such content, but it would ensure that our young people’s development is not threatened and that children are allowed to be children.
Furthermore, we Conservatives should not forget that a year ago, we stood on a manifesto commitment to introduce statutory age verification checks for pornographic websites. This really matters and the public seem to believe so as well. Research carried out for the British Board of Film Classification in 2019 concluded that 83% of parents believe there should be robust age verification controls in place to stop children seeing commercial pornography online. If we are to respect the views of the public and uphold the public’s trust in this place, the Government must commit to enacting this policy. Statutory age verification checks for pornographic websites is what we promised and there should be no doubt that, as Conservatives, that is what we must deliver.
Equally, it is crucial that this subject is not broadened out by the Government to include other issues such as access to pornography on social media. Having read the debate on 7 October, I think that it is really important that today the Minister does not try to change the subject to accessing pornography on social media. Although that is an important issue, it is not what was referred to in our manifesto commitment in 2019. Of course, while I would be more than happy if the Department also brought something forward to protect children from pornography on Twitter, we must press ahead and look at that specific issue later. There is no reason not to press ahead and deliver part 3 as soon as possible.
In business questions last month, the Leader of the House laid out the Government’s reasons not to implement part 3, yet while I appreciated his time in answering my question, I did not wholly buy into his argument. I therefore appeal to the Government to give the matter more thought after this debate. This is, after all, in the interests of protecting children from pornography between now and the implementation of any online harms Bill. As that is likely to be several years away, it is crucial that the Government reconsider their decision and act on the wishes of the electorate.
Having spoken to stakeholders, I am told that the Government could redesignate the regulator and bring forward an implementation date at any time and that we could move to full-blown implementation of part 3 within a matter of months. As a family man and a committed Christian, I urge the Government to enact part 3. This will protect our children and ensure that the Government hold true to their election promise.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
We have had another excellent, if curtailed, debate today. I thank the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright), the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) and the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) for securing it and the Backbench Business Committee for facilitating it. I do not have time to discuss and praise the various speeches that we have had, but I particularly praise the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam, who opened the debate. I thought his speech was fantastic and immensely powerful; nobody could ignore what he said. Take note, Minister: if an SNP Member and a Tory Member can agree so wholeheartedly, actions surely must follow.
We spend more and more of our time online, whether we are interacting with others or are passive consumers of content—the growth of Netflix is testament to the latter. As we spend more time online, the harms that were historically the preserve of the physical world are shifting to the online world. We have seen the growth in online financial scams and their increasing sophistication.
I have a number of constituents, as I am sure do other hon. Members, who have been scammed out of tens of thousands of pounds and lost everything, in part because the scammers were able to manipulate Google keywords advertising to drive traffic to their site and begin the scamming process. The pandemic and lockdown have seen an increase in those scams, as the perpetrators know people are spending more time online than normal.
Since the start of the pandemic, the level of disinformation around vaccination and healthcare has grown exponentially. Anti-vaxxers have already targeted the newly developed vaccines that we all hope will get us out of this situation. Such disinformation campaigns have always been dangerous, particularly for young people who are usually the main recipients of vaccines, but now present an even bigger danger to public health.
These lies—that is what they are—are propagated via the platforms of social media companies, which should have a responsibility to tackle such anti-science, anti-reason and anti-fact campaigns quickly and directly. It is not good enough for Mark Zuckerberg and the like to parrot free speech as if it were a “get out of jail free” card. Free speech comes with responsibilities; it does not give people the right to place others at risk of illness and death.
Just as children were most at risk from the anti-vaxxers until the pandemic hit, it is children who are most at risk from online harassment and abuse, in particular young women and girls. A recent report by Plan International on girls’ rights in the digital world makes extremely depressing reading. More than a fifth of girls have received abuse on a photo or status they have posted, and nearly a quarter have felt harassed by someone contacting them regularly on social media. The net result of the abuse, harassment and pressure is that nearly half of all girls are afraid to give their opinions on social media, for fear of the response, and 13% have stopped going on social media completely to avoid negative responses. Less than a week before the international day for the elimination of violence against women and girls, those figures are shocking.
A toxic environment is stopping women and girls participating in the online world on the same basis as boys and men. It feeds into a dangerous and violent misogyny that is on the rise on social media, again largely unchecked by the big tech companies until it becomes a big PR issue. It is no surprise that so many executive positions in those companies are occupied by men and so few by women.
For most households, online communication is now a fundamental part of daily life, whether it is streaming content or keeping in touch with family and friends on social media, but too often the regulation of online activities that cause harm seems to be stuck in the last century, when the internet was something we read about in newspapers or heard about on one of our four TV channels. The world has moved on dramatically in the past two decades, but the legislative framework has not. It is especially important that the victims of online harms, whether it be abuse, harassment or financial scams, feel able to report their experiences to the police or other relevant authorities. If big tech will not act, it falls to the Government to protect our citizens.
I understand that the pressures on the Government at the moment are absolutely huge, but so are the risks for individuals and for society the longer these harms are allowed to proliferate. I urge the Government to heed the contributions of Members right across the House and bring forward concrete plans to introduce the Bill as soon as possible.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
I thank the Backbench Business Committee, the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright), the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) for stepping in where the Government have failed by bringing forward this debate and for the excellent opening contributions. Indeed, we have heard excellent remarks from all parts of the House in this debate, and I am sorry that I do not have time to do justice to them all—I have just noted how much time I have.
As a chartered engineer, I spent 20 years building out the networks that have become the internet. I am proud of that work and of what it has become. As we have heard, we are increasingly living our lives online, and the ongoing pandemic has accelerated that. For those who are not digitally excluded, social media platforms such as Facebook, Google, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter are all now woven into the fabric of our lives and, together with the vast array of online apps for everything from video conferencing to healthy eating, they are a critical enabler of an active life for citizen, consumer and economic contributor. None the less, as Members have shown so acutely, the internet can be a dark, challenging and inhospitable place. Content is curated by tech platforms that allow the spread of disinformation, sexual exploitation, fake news, extremism, hatred and other harmful content. September saw the highest number of public reports of suspected child sexual abuse material ever received in a single month by the Internet Watch Foundation. On TikTok, the #vaccinesaredangerous has had almost 800,000 views, with almost no misinformation warnings. Incredibly, we have yet to have a debate in Government time on online harms. Hon. and right hon. Members have expressed many concerns in this place in written and oral questions over the years, but Government have done nothing. Regulation has not kept pace with technology, crime or consumers, leaving growing numbers of people increasingly exposed to significant harms, but it did not have to be this way.
In 2010, the then Labour Government saw the growth of new communications technologies and undertook a comprehensive forward-looking review. The result was the Communications Act 2003 and a new regulator, Ofcom, with the power to ensure that these issues were resolved in the public interest. That regulatory framework had a 10-year lifespan—I know because I was head of technology at Ofcom at the time. In 2012, the Conservative-led Government saw the growth of our online lives—social media and big data—and did nothing. The 2012 review of online harms may be the most important review that we never had. It was not until April 2019 that they finally began a consultation since which legislation has been promised repeatedly and yet it comes not, leaving big tech in control of our online lives.
I consider myself a tech evangelist. I believe that tech is an engine of progress like no other. I believe that it can improve the lives of my constituents and enable a more equal, more productive and more sustainable skills-based economy through a fourth industrial revolution, but people need to be protected and empowered to take control of their lives online. The Government need to be on the side of the people and not tech lobbyists. This Government have failed us to a degree that is historically negligent, as this debate shows.
Members have highlighted how Government are failing in their duty to safeguard children from child abuse. Other Members have focused on the economic harms and the existing tech giants business model, which means that Google and Facebook have control of the online high street, even as Amazon unfairly competes the high street in our real-world towns out of existence. Ninety seven per cent of UK consumers consult reviews when buying products online, yet investigations by Which? have repeatedly exposed fake and misleading reviews. How will the Government address these online harms in economic terms and enable real competition? We have also heard about online advertising, which is the driver of the business model. It is unregulated, leaving television companies at a disadvantage and driving more and more extreme content in front of viewers. My understanding is that the Government plan to ban all advertising of unhealthy foods on the internet. Is that the case, and why will the Government not act more broadly to address the failings of the advertising model?
As a constructive Opposition, we have proposals as well as criticisms. Self-regulation has failed—this debate has made that clear—but, robust, reasonable, rational, forward-looking and principles-based regulation can succeed. It is shocking that in all this time, the Government have not established what those principles should be. Our ability to build back from covid depends on a successful vaccine, and we have had fantastic news about that recently, but, as we have heard, misinformation on vaccines as well as on 5G, the holocaust and so on is freely available. That is why Labour is calling for emergency legislation on anti-vax disinformation. Will the Government commit to that?
Labour has made it clear that we need a digital bill of rights and a legal duty of care to give more powers and protection. We need a statutory regulator for online platforms to crack down on the harm, the hate and the fake. We also need a public debate on what our online future should look like, and that is why we launched the consultation “Our Digital Future” to build consensus on the underlying principles. We are now analysing the over 600 responses that we have received, and we will publish our report soon. We are committed to eradicating the digital divide—indeed, the many new digital divides—as a result of which marginalised peoples have become increasingly excluded from the online world.
Many bodies, including the NSPCC, Big Brother Watch, the Carnegie UK Trust, Which? and the Institute of Alcohol Studies have contacted me and asked me to raise their concerns. I cannot do them all justice or spend time talking about algorithms, artificial intelligence, the internet of things and all the other emerging potential harms. Government must set out a clear plan to address these online harms and give people back control of their online lives, if our lives are to flourish online without fear or favour.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Matt Warman)
I thank my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright) and the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) for securing this debate. [Interruption.] Wait for it; I entirely sympathise with the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) in business questions. The little time that the House has spent on this enormous subject today could never have done it justice, and it certainly does not reflect the huge importance that the Government ascribe to better protecting children and adults from online harm, while, of course, balancing that against the precious freedom of expression that we all hold so dear.
We know that we can and must do more in this vital area. Covid-19 has emphasised how much we rely on the web and on social media, and how vital it is for firms to apply to their users as soon as possible the duty of care that has been discussed this afternoon. Platforms can and must do more to protect those users, and particularly children, from the worst of the internet, which is sadly all too common today. The Government will ensure that firms set out clearly what legal content is acceptable on their platforms and ensure, via a powerful and independent regulator, that they enforce that consistently and effectively. Codes of practice will set out what is acceptable, on topics from hate crime to eating disorders, so that the networks themselves no longer make the rules.
I pay tribute to the many fine contributions that we have heard today, and I pay particular tribute to the work of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam, the former Secretary of State responsible for the White Paper. I reassure him that the Government’s forthcoming online harms legislation will establish that new duty of care; that platforms will be held to account for the content that appears on their services; and that legislation will establish a systemic approach that is resilient in the face of a host of challenges, from online bullying to predatory behaviour.
Earlier this year, as my right hon. and learned Friend mentioned, we published the initial response, making clear the direction of travel. We will publish the full Government response to the online harms White Paper this year. We will set out further detail of our proposals, and alongside that we will publish interim voluntary codes of practice on terrorist content and child sexual exploitation and abuse. The full Government response will be followed by legislation, which will be ready early next year. I know that there is huge concern about the time that this is taking, but we also know that it is critical that we get this right, and we will do that early in the new year. Covid emphasises the need to get on with this. We want to introduce effective legislation that makes platforms more responsible for the safety of their users and underpins the continued growth of the digital sector, because, as he said, responsible business is good for business.
The White Paper also set out the prevalence of illegal content and activity online, with a particular focus on the most serious of those offences, namely child sexual exploitation and abuse. Protecting children online from CSEA is crucial. Alongside the full Government response, we will publish interim codes on tackling the use of the internet by terrorists and those engaged in child sexual exploitation and abuse. We want to ensure that companies take action now to tackle content that threatens our national security and the physical safety of children, and that is what we will do.
I am sure that many Members here today have been the target of online abuse or know someone who has. We have heard powerful stories. Close to half of adults in the UK say that they have seen hateful content online in the past year. I want to make it clear today that online abuse targeted towards anyone is unacceptable; as with so many other areas, what is illegal offline is also illegal online.
Online abuse can have a huge impact on people’s lives, and is often targeted at the most vulnerable in our society. Our approach to tackling online harms will support more users to participate in online discussions by reducing the risk of bullying or being attacked on the basis of their identity. All in-scope companies will be expected to tackle illegal content and activity, including offences targeted at users on the basis of their sex, and to have effective systems in place to deal with such content. My Department is working closely with the Law Commission, which is leading a review of the law related to abusive and offensive online communications. The commission will issue final recommendations in 2021 that we will carefully consider.
It is important, though, to note that the aim of this regime is not to tackle individual pieces of content. We will not prevent adults from accessing or posting legal content, nor require companies to remove specific pieces of legal content. Instead, the regulatory regime will be focused on the systems and processes implemented by companies to address harmful content. That is why it will have the extensive effect that so many Members have called for today.
I will deal briefly with anti-vaccination content. As we have heard today, many Members are concerned about this issue. As the Prime Minister made clear in the House yesterday, as we move into the next phase of vaccine roll-out, we have secured a major commitment from Facebook, Twitter and Google to the principle that no company should profit from or promote any anti-vaccine disinformation, and that they will respond to flagged content more swiftly. The platforms have also agreed to work with health authorities to promote scientifically accurate messages, and we will continue to engage with them. We know that anti-vaccination content could cost lives and we will not do anything that could allow it to proliferate. We will also continue work on the media literacy strategy to allow people better to understand what they see online.
Let me briefly address a few points that were raised in the debate. On product safety, the Office for Product Safety and Standards has a clear remit to lead the Government’s efforts to tackle the sale of unsafe goods online, and my officials are working with their counterparts in other Departments to deliver a coherent pro-innovation approach to governing digital technologies, and they will continue to do so. The Home Office is engaging with the IWF, including on funding. On age verification, the Government are committed to ensuring that children are protected from accessing inappropriate harmful content online, including online pornography. The judicial review mentioned by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam prevents me from saying more, but the Queen’s Speech on 19 December included a commitment to improve internet safety for all and to make the UK the safest place in the world to go online.
Tackling online harms is a key priority for this Government in order to make the internet a safer place for us all. I close by reiterating how vital it is that we get this legislation right. This Government will not shy away from ensuring that we do, and that we do so quickly.
Jeremy Wright
I warmly thank all Members who have contributed to this debate, and congratulate all of them on saying so much in so little time. I hope that we have come together this afternoon to send a clear message about how much support there is across the Chamber for identifying not just the problem of online harms, but also the solutions.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for what he has said this afternoon. I am even more grateful for what I know he is going to say after this debate to his colleagues in government. I do not doubt for a moment his personal commitment to this agenda, but I hope that he will be able to say to others in government that there has probably never been a piece of legislation more eagerly anticipated by everyone, on both sides of this House. Although the Government will not get a blank cheque on this legislation—no Government could and no Government should—they will, I think, get a commitment from all parties to a proper analysis and a proper supporting examination of how we might do this effectively. With that encouragement, I hope that the Minister will make sure that this happens very soon.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House recognises the need to take urgent action to reduce and prevent online harms; and urges the Government to bring forward the Online Harms Bill as soon as possible.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Moving very swiftly on, I am going to suspend the House for two minutes in order to do the necessary—only two minutes, because time is of the essence.
International Men’s Day
(4 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered International Men’s Day.
It is right that the House should consider the challenges faced by men and boys across our United Kingdom today, on International Men’s Day. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for its consideration in allocating the time to consider this in the House on the day itself—19 November. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) for his work in co-sponsoring the debate, as well as those across the House who have supported it. I have drastically shortened my speech because our three hours have become one. That is perhaps indicative of the problem of men’s issues being pushed off the end of the agenda: it nicely typifies the problem. I also want to give as much time to colleagues as I can.
In these challenging times, it is hugely important that we have this conversation. We face a difficult situation because of covid and particularly because of the economic impact. We know that there were huge spikes in male suicide and depression following the 2008 economic crash due to losing employment, struggling to provide for families, and struggling to find purpose. It is also challenging because of the general discourse that so often seems to pervade our society that talks of male privilege, of toxic masculinity, and of men as oppressors rather than positive contributors or role models. Men are talked about, all too often, as a problem that must be rectified.
Too often, the constant drive for equality and diversity seeks to drag others down rather than lift everyone up. Just a few weeks ago, I spoke in Westminster Hall about the impact of equalities legislation, which sometimes seems to provide additional help for everyone except men and boys. One of my great passions in the campaigning I most regularly return to in this place is that of working-class boys in areas like Mansfield and in other parts of the country where there is deep and entrenched disadvantage. Figures from education show that these lads are least likely of any group to do well at school, to improve their lot in life, to get to university, or ever to have the opportunity to spread their wings further afield and aspire beyond the borders of the place they grew up in. Working-class white boys often seem to sit at the bottom of the pile.
Across the board in our education system, the advancement of girls has been noticeable. It should be celebrated and recognised that girls are doing much better in recent years. That is brilliant news, and it is the result of countless interventions and programmes of support. However, it also needs to be recognised that, more often than not, boys do not have the same encouragement. No matter the race, geography or social class involved, girls now outperform boys throughout the education system. For example, in GCSE attainment, three quarters of girls’ grades in 2019 were passes, compared with two thirds for boys. We have had reports of record-high gender gaps in university places, with girls a third more likely than boys to access higher education.
That brings me back to the Equality Act 2010, which is so often misinterpreted and misunderstood. If we know that boys are now hugely under-represented at university—a growing problem—where are all the programmes to support boys into higher education? I am not keen on discriminating by gender or any other physical characteristic, but given that the Act pushes for positive action based on these characteristics in order to level the playing field, where is the support for those who are struggling? The figures clearly show that girls are already outperforming boys, so why are we allowing this misuse of our equalities law to exacerbate gender inequality, rather than fixing it, with countless programmes to support girls into HE and none for boys?
Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend join me in looking forward to the exciting prospect of the holiday activities and food programme? We must do all within our power to encourage maximum participation from working-class boys in particular.
Ben Bradley
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Representing a constituency and community like mine, where these lads are really struggling, taught me about the need for face-to-face contact and support for the most disadvantaged children. That is hugely important, and I thank her for raising that.
What is the point of the Equality Act 2010 if its usage is based only on what seems popular or politically correct, rather than on reality in order to help those most in need? The reality and the figures tell us that boys need help getting into higher education, more so than girls, so are these interventions actually making this inequality worse? Possibly so. To be absolutely clear, that is not to say that we should not help girls, but simply that selecting who to help based on physical characteristics alone is the very definition of discrimination; that the need for this help should be evidenced if it is to comply with the law; and that boys need help too.
Boys seem consistently left behind by this kind of politically correct agenda. So long as the Equality Act continues to be so wilfully and regularly misapplied across gender, race and every other characteristic, it can do more harm than good. We need to make clear in this place that we should help people based on their actual need, and that the Act applies equally to everybody. Would it not be nice to try to help those most in need —based not on their physical characteristics but on what they need? Or at least to recognise that we all have equal protection under this law? Whether gay, black and minority ethnic, female or a straight white man, those are all protected characteristics.
Men face countless challenges in our society. Three times as many men as women die by suicide, with men aged 40 to 49 having the highest rates. Men report lower levels of life satisfaction, according to the Government’s national wellbeing survey, but are less likely to access psychological therapies. Nearly three quarters of adults who go missing are men. Eighty-seven per cent. of rough sleepers are men. Men are three times as likely to become dependent on alcohol or drugs, are more likely to be sectioned under the Mental Health Act and are more likely to be a victim of violent crime. Of course, men also make up the vast majority of the prison population. These figures really put that male privilege in perspective.
In recent years, it seems like more and more phrases coming into use are designed to undermine the role and confidence of men in our society. I mentioned a few before—male privilege, toxic masculinity, mansplaining, manterrupting, the trend of spelling “woman” with an x to remove the undesirable “man” part. That is wonderfully empowering for some, I am sure, but as I said at the beginning of this speech, somebody seeking equality of fairness does not need to mean they drag down everyone around them. I am fairly sure that bad behaviour is not limited solely to the male of the species, nor is rudeness gender specific.
The outcome of this discourse and this language for many men is serious, particularly in the most disadvantaged communities. There is such a thing as working-class values—values that have lasted for many decades that might be considered old hat or even sexist by the modern establishment. They include holding the door open for a lady and expecting a man to stick around and provide for his family. The idea that a man being a worker and breadwinner is a positive role model for his children is still entrenched and well taught. That is not to the detriment of women or to limit their ambition, but about the promotion of family, of tradition, of strong male role models. These things are important.
Having been brought up with those values, a lot of men from those communities will feel lost if they are unable to find work due to our economic situation. They might feel helpless, or like failures. They are far from it, but they need our support. We might also find that young men looking ahead and seeking their purpose in life might struggle to find it when they are told that those things they thought were virtues—their good manners, wanting to provide for their family, wanting to be a man’s man, wanting to go down to the football at the weekend and have some banter with the lads—are in fact not virtuous but toxic and doing down the women around them; those manners and the way they were taught to respect the women in their life are now sexist; that banter is now bullying.
On family, rather than promoting strong male role models, we often encourage dads to be more like mums, trying to break down tradition, teaching them the opposite of what they were always told growing up and that they have been doing it wrong. We talk of “deadbeat” dads. We have a legal system in the family courts that seems to assume the guilt of many men in a relationship. We have men being alienated from their kids. We talk more and more about how desirable it is to have different kinds of families, with the implication that we do not need those strong male role models. Is it any wonder that so many are struggling to figure all this out?
It is right that people should live by their own choices, and be who they want to be, however they are comfortable. That is true whether someone is gay or straight, black or white, male or female, and it is equally true if what they want is to fulfil the traditional role of a strong father, provider and breadwinner—to be, for want of a better word, a bloke. I fear that we are building up huge problems for the future when we forget the traditional role of men—indeed, sometimes we do not just forget it; we try to eradicate it from our society.
With few of life’s advantages on their side in such an environment, and when society seems insistent on ripping the heart out of things that they experienced growing up and the things they were taught, it is no wonder that so many young men tragically cut their lives short. We cannot continue to talk down the role and purpose of young men when we should be building them up.
Let me move on a little from the gloom and doom and speak about some positive things and actions we can take. I particularly want to play tribute to dads, and to all those dads who are putting their families first and doing the right thing, I say this: thank you. That is often taken for granted, but it is so important. I know myself how difficult it is in this job to balance being a dad with work, and try to keep myself on a level and live up to expectations. It is not easy.
There are countless thousands of dads out there who have a much tougher task than me—dads who might be struggling financially or be battling things like trying to see their kids, or fighting in the family courts to do the right thing. They are trying to be a role model for their kids, although truthfully, we are all making it up as we go along. Some dads might be trying to overcome their own challenges with mental health, work or stress, and they might feel as if they have to hide that away for the sake of their families and children.
I want to say a big thank you to good dads, and to those who are trying their best to be good dads and good men. That can make all the difference for our kids, for families, and for our society. There are places and people that dads can go to if they need help. Those are places such as the Samaritans, Rethink, the Campaign Against Living Miserably—CALM—helpline, Safeline, or a friend or relative. It is good to talk, as they say, rather than sweep things under the carpet.
What more can we in this place do? For starters, we can change the discourse here. Can we look again at equalities legislation? If we are to hold Departments across Whitehall to account, with people dedicated to ensuring—quite rightly so—that women are considered, why not do the same for men? Why have a Minister for Women, but not one for men? Why single out one characteristic for a special mention? Can we ensure that equality means just that, rather than positive discrimination at the expense of certain groups, and ensure that the male is as equally protected as the female? We could do worse in this place to confirm how the Equality Act 2010 should be properly used.
Can we promote the role of fatherhood, and stop shying away from its importance? Yes, families come in all shapes and sizes. I do not wish to detract from anyone who wants to do things differently, but the positive role to be played by an active father cannot, and should not, be ignored. Modern families are all different, but you can guarantee that every one of them has involved a dad in one way or another. The vast majority of families still look like a mum, dad, and kids and we should not shy away from that.
Can we push forward an action plan to look at male suicide? We know the figures are awful, and we should have someone in Government accountable for delivering that plan, including better access to mental health support. Can we review our legal system, which is not always balanced, and our family courts, which too often seem to consider dads guilty until proven innocent? Parental alienation seems to be increasing, and more and more dads feel that they have been let down by the system. Can we reform the Child Maintenance Service—the bane of every MP’s life, by the way—so that it is fairer to all parties and works in the interests of families? Can we have a long-term plan to improve available alcohol addiction services, as those who need them are overwhelmingly male? Can we boost support for new fathers, as well as mothers, at a time when men can often feel totally helpless?
Although, as the name suggests, the Prime Minister’s Race Disparity Unit focuses particularly on race, I am pleased that it includes looking at education, attainment and support for white working-class boys. There are regional, cultural and gender-based inequalities, and the challenge faced by boys in education cannot be denied. The figures show a clear picture of increasing numbers of left-behind boys who grow into troubled young men seeking purpose. That is a huge challenge for our wider society, and I hope we can build on that work and consider it in more detail. I will end with that, Madam Deputy Speaker, so as to give colleagues as much time as I can. I thank the Minister for her consideration today, and I look forward to listening to the thoughts of colleagues across the House.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
We will have to rush into this with a time limit of three minutes for Back-Bench speeches, and there will not be much time for Front-Bench speeches either.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
As I have said before, there are many areas where men are disproportionately affected that do not get enough focus in the House. This debate should be about highlighting those areas. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) for his speech. Unsurprisingly, I completely agree with him, particularly with regard to the points he made about the disadvantage and poor outcomes, especially in education, of white working-class boys—something that the politically correct lobby has brushed under the carpet for too long.
Just this week, Bradford Council has consulted on its latest equality plan. It has set targets for people in jobs, including one for 65% of its top 5% of employees to be female. I do not believe in quotas and targets. I believe that each job should be awarded on merit and merit alone, but even if we go along with all this so-called equality, where on earth is the equality in that target? The leader of Bradford Council represents a ward in my constituency with a high proportion of white working-class people in it, yet she is completely silent about that in her so-called equality plan, despite the fact that she must know the disadvantage they face.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield brilliantly defended good dads, and I want to echo that message. I know of men who have had their lives ruined because of a relationship breakdown, which has needlessly led to a whole family breakdown and, in some cases, a mental breakdown, too. I have talked about parental alienation before and do not apologise for mentioning it again. It is quite simply abuse, and the many people who have written to me with heartbreaking personal stories show how this happens all too often. It is abuse against the alienated parent—not just men—and against the sons and daughters of the parent. It also affects a whole host of people in the wider family.
I am pleased that the Government have taken some of my points on board and included parental alienation as an example of abuse in the draft statutory guidance for the Domestic Abuse Bill, which is going through Parliament. I hope the Government will continue to look at ways to prevent this, as it would make a huge positive difference to so many if it could be stamped out.
Finally, that leads me on to suicide. Men’s suicide has been a common theme of all the past debates on International Men’s Day, and rightly so. Suicide rates among men are three times higher than for women in the UK. The connection between relationship breakdown and suicide risk in western countries has been studied, and the data from those studies indicates that, unsurprisingly, relationship breakdown elevates suicide risk in both sexes, and more so for men. None of the studies apparently investigated the specific effect on the likelihood of suicide of fathers’ separation from their children, despite charities reporting that it is the overwhelming source of distress. It is quite clear to me that we need to do a lot more to ensure that fathers are not stopped from seeing their children, to save lives. In these covid lockdown times, it is too easy to imagine how this will be causing even more mental health problems and, unfortunately, more suicides.
Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)
As someone who used to work in the national health service, I would like to focus on the health challenges faced by men, and I will look at three primary areas in the short time available to me.
The first is in relation to the coronavirus pandemic. Public Health England’s review demonstrated that, despite making up only 46% of diagnosed cases, 60% of deaths are among men, 70% of admissions to intensive care are men and working-age males diagnosed with covid-19 are twice as likely to die. The Minister is doing cross-departmental work to understand the risk factors associated with this disease, so I hope she will continue to look into the reasons why that disparity exists.
The second health risk I would like to focus on is cancer. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men in the UK and the second most common cause of death, with around 12,000 deaths in 2017. In addition, since the early 1990s, testicular cancer incidence rates have risen by nearly 24% among men in the UK. Great strides have been made in this area, including in survival rates—particularly for prostate cancer, which has gone from 76% of people dying within 10 years in the ’70s to just 16% now—but there is still a lot more to do. The NHS long-term plan has an ambitious cancer screening commitment, but that must be coupled with work to tackle the stigma around men’s health, particularly male cancers, and too many men leaving it too late before they seek help.
As Members have already outlined, one of the most chilling statistics comes in the form of mental health and suicide, because it truly is a terrible thing that the single biggest cause of death in men under 45 in the United Kingdom is men taking their own lives. Men account for about three quarters of suicide deaths registered in England and Wales. Middle-aged men in the UK have the highest average suicide rate of any age group.
I again draw attention to the good work of the NHS long-term plan, which is working to design a new mental health strategy and improvement programme, which will focus on suicide prevention. Ministers say that reducing suicides remains an NHS priority, and I urge them to ensure that is the case, because it cannot be right for the most common cause of death for anyone of any age, gender, sexuality, race, religion or creed to be from them taking their own life. I urge the Government to do all they can to ensure that these terrible health statistics are consigned to the dustbin of history as soon as possible.
Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn), who made a very informative speech. He has touched on many of the points that I wish to raise, but in beginning my comments, I, too, commend my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) for highlighting these issues. He has been an ardent campaigner on this area since he was elected to the House and beforehand. These are issues that we just have to talk about.
I want to focus my comments on three areas in particular: domestic abuse, mental health and the attainment gap, which my hon. Friend articulated so well. I pay tribute to the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) for piloting through the Domestic Abuse Bill, which is currently awaiting Second Reading in the other place. It will ensure that all victims have the confidence to report their experiences of domestic abuse.
We know that 786,000 men have reported being victims of domestic abuse. Looking at the numbers, we find that only just over half of men will report domestic abuse, whereas 88% of women are prepared to do so. There are 37 refuges and safe houses with 204 spaces. Of those 204 available spaces, only 40 are dedicated for men. In Greater London, there are no spaces for men needing refuge from domestic abuse. The Respect Men’s Advice Line has said that some male victims of domestic abuse have reported sleeping in cars, in tents or in the gardens of their relatives to seek refuge from their abusers.
As someone who has seen domestic abuse at first hand, the ability to escape is fundamental to ensuring that people survive. We need to be doing more to ensure that there is provision, because there is clearly a gap, although I pay tribute to those organisations supporting the victims and survivors of domestic abuse.
My hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington articulated the mental health issues perfectly. Some 75% of suicide deaths in England and Wales are men. We need to tackle that, and we must do so across the board. It is not right. We need to look at the fundamental underlying issues that lead to these deaths.
I do not want to repeat the stats that my hon. Friend read out, but I round off my comments by saying this: ultimately, this is about ensuring that we all have access to the services and support that we need. We should value everyone as an individual—as the person they are at their core, irrespective of gender, what they look like or where they come from. This debate highlights that, and my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield has drawn that out once again. I pay tribute to him, and I pay tribute to the fantastic work being done to support men in the areas I have highlighted.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
First, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) for securing this vital debate. I agree with his comments about the underperformance of white boys from underprivileged backgrounds in the school system. The facts speak for themselves and they cannot be disputed. I think it right that the Education Committee, on which I serve, is currently looking at that issue in depth. That is not to say we are not going to look at other issues, but why should we not look at that one issue as well?
I want to talk about men’s mental health, which is getting more attention now than it ever has. The simple fact is that many men who struggle with their mental health do not feel comfortable talking about it. They might think deep down it is a sign of weakness—of course they are wrong, it is not—but they should feel comfortable to talk about it. Awareness of mental health is greater than it has ever been, because there is not a single person in this country whose mental health has not been impacted to some extent. I think even about my own father. If I had spoken to him a year or two ago about mental health, he probably would have said, “Man up—stiff upper lip,” and taken a very masculine approach to it, whereas he is 75 years old and has had to shield himself, and when I talked to him about this very issue not long ago, I never thought that I would hear it but my dad was talking about his mental health. That is a good thing, and we should encourage more of it.
There are great challenges, and the pandemic has brought this issue to light more than ever. Many of the things that men rely on, such as going to watch the football, fishing and golf, have not been possible, particularly during this second lockdown. I wish, though, to highlight something brilliant that is happening in Chantry in Ipswich. Over the summer, the local landlady, Penny, spoke to me about the problem of men’s mental health and how she wanted to do something about it. After a small period—two to three months—she now has 33 members of her men’s mental health support group in Chantry, including Rex Manning, a professionally trained chef from the local area. They have secured an allotment at the Robin Drive allotments, and all the men go down there, become members and talk. Even if they do not feel comfortable talking about their mental health directly, engaging in something like that, which is so good for their wellbeing, really brings people and the whole community together. They make produce with the vegetables, and Rex collects it all together and they all eat it together in the local pub.
Men’s mental health is a very challenging issue, and it is right that we have this debate, but there is a great opportunity here. The pandemic has highlighted mental health more than ever before, but talking about our mental health is not a sign of weakness; it is something that should be encouraged. It is right that we have this debate today, and I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) for securing it.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
An hon. Gentleman has, unusually, withdrawn from the debate, which gives us a tiny bit of extra time. I am therefore going to raise the limit on Back-Bench speeches to four minutes.
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)
Thank you for the good news, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) for securing this very important debate. We both understand the acute disadvantages and difficulties —ranging from health and education to incarceration and suicide—experienced by men in our region of the UK. I welcome the opportunity to draw the House’s attention to this unacceptable inequality and to stand up for men and boys in my constituency.
We do not talk about men’s mental health enough, and toxic masculinity is a severe problem. Tragically, suicide remains the biggest killer for men under the age of 45. Research suggests that men who are less well-off and living in the most deprived areas are up to 10 times more likely to die by suicide than more well-off men in affluent areas—a grim statistic that is relevant to areas of high deprivation such as mine in Rother Valley, with the likes of Maltby and Dinnington. This must be addressed.
Beyond the realms of health, many men suffer from low attainment and reduced opportunities at every stage of life. This is of particular concern to me in Rother Valley. At school, there is an old adage that girls consistently outperform boys at GCSE level, and they have done so for the past 30 years. At higher education level, more than 67,000 fewer men than women accept places at university—a huge gap of 35%. After 10 years of Government reforms, standards are increasing, but for areas such as mine in Rother Valley, this cannot come soon enough. We must continue to put pressure on schools, universities and companies to do more for working-class boys and men. Only this week, I read that in 2016 SOAS did not accept any white working-class boys into the university. That is a disgrace.
It is worth noting that women in Rother Valley are in full support of empowering our local men. They see the everyday struggles of their fathers, brothers, sons, uncles, grandfathers and friends. They do not have the reductive mindset—pushed by many in the liberal metropolitan elite of the Labour party—in which men as a whole species are blamed for gender inequality. Instead, they recognise that while women still face substantial social inequality—and they absolutely do—so do many of our men. For example, 79,000 people are in prison, and 96% of them are male—a shocking statistic. These men cannot be blamed for having privilege that they simply do not possess.
I am in full agreement with my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield on this point: I want to lift up everyone, men and women, rather than dragging them down. This fits with my persistent campaign for Rother Valley to be levelled up across the board, in all areas and all sectors, but especially for all people. Growing up in Maltby or Dinnington should not mean that a person has a lesser chance of succeeding professionally, and it should not mean that they lack access to high-quality services and facilities. Unfortunately, too many men and boys in Rother Valley tell me exactly this: they feel abandoned, left behind and forgotten. It is in everybody’s interests that we raise our men’s aspirations and help them to use their inherent talents to reach their full potential. I firmly believe that this Government are doing so for men, boys and everyone, and especially for those in Rother Valley.
James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)
International Men’s Day has been an annual event since 2010, and the UK has the most events of its kind anywhere in the world. It is overseen by the Men and Boys Coalition, a registered charity including over 100 organisations, academics and professionals who believe in a society that values the wellbeing of men and boys.
There are some positive themes: it makes a positive difference to wellbeing, it raises awareness and funds for charities supporting men and boys and it promotes a positive conversation about men, manhood and masculinity, all of which is a good thing. There are some serious themes, too. In 1998, my very closest friend sadly committed suicide. It was a devastating event for me, his family and all of his friends. I am well versed in the mess left behind. We must end the stigma around men’s mental health and commend the truth that it is okay not to feel okay. The simple answer is: please seek help.
International Men’s Day is also about the challenges faced by men and boys at all stages of education, shorter life expectancies, infertility and workplace death. It is about the challenges faced by the most marginalised men in society and homeless boys in care. It is about inner cities and black and white working-class males. It is also about male victims of violence, the challenges faced by men as parents, and survivors of sexual abuse, rape and domestic abuse. That is all relevant.
In this era of identity politics, it is becoming increasingly popular to ridicule men who display traits of traditional masculinity such as self-reliance, personal responsibility, discipline and courage—even fatherhood. Guess what? I do not subscribe to that, because all men matter. Indeed, the UK prides itself on being among the top meritocracies in the world. Equality of opportunity is something we absolutely must strive for, so it is about black and white, gay and straight, male and female. Everyone has a role, and no one should feel ashamed of who they are. It is not about men as a comparative species; it is simply about drawing attention to particular issues affecting men.
Lastly, I have some quick stats. In 2018, almost 5,000 men took their own lives at a rate of 13 a day—17.2 per 100,000—which is the highest rate since 2013. Men also make up 75% of suicides. Girls are now 14% more likely than boys to pass exams in English and maths, while boys are permanently excluded more than three times as often, with 6,000 permanent exclusions. I think much of that is down to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and to autism spectrum disorder, which is a separate issue in itself but one we need to look at closely. Of the 79,000 people in prison, 96% are male. So we have got work to do.
Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)
It is estimated by the World Health Organisation that globally 800,000 people die every year due to suicide. In the UK, three quarters of suicides are of men. I question why it is that men suffer the most with suicide and think it is often down to the challenges in society and how we, as a male species, do not ask for help.
During my maiden speech, I spoke about the concept of HOPE being an acronym standing for Help One Person Everyday. Sometimes, that one person has to be ourselves, but it so hard to ask for help when that is seen as a weakness. I say to anyone out there right now who is suffering that it is not a weakness to ask for help and support; it is a strength. When I look at the social media narrative and the often divisive debate around masculinity and men, I draw on my belief that we cannot heal divisions by being divisive, we cannot tackle hatred by being hateful and we cannot show our strength only by belittling those who show weakness. The debate that we have in this Chamber today should not be limited to the time we have here. It should be a societal debate about how we tackle these big challenges in society. How do we look at tackling the stigma, not just through medical and NHS support but through the narrative that we provide as politicians and members of the public.
We need to listen to each other. Sometimes when I look at the world, especially through the lens of social media, the web and the media, I feel as if we are in a world full of those shouting and it makes me ask who are those who are listening. Let us all listen to what people are saying. Let us not consider men to be the enemy. We are all part of the important fabric of society. We all have differences. To anyone who is struggling right now, who is thinking the worst thoughts, remember that you are unique. You are one of 7 billion on this planet and you are the only version of you. You need to continue your story. You need to be here for one more day; just give it another few minutes, another hour. Just give yourself a bit more time to find out why you are really here. The power of your story, of overcoming it, will make a difference to others and to those around you and, by God, it will make a difference to your family and friends. If they do not have you here tomorrow, if they do not have the stories of the difficult times as well as the joyful times, we all lack because of that.
So I ask all of us: please ask for help if you need it and ask others if they need help. Remember it is okay not to be okay, as my hon. Friends have said. It is also okay to ask others if they are okay. It is okay to say to them, “Are you really okay?” Ask them more than once. That second or third time might be the chance for them to open up in a way that they never have before. I am so pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) organised the debate today because without it we may not have these voices. Today we might change someone’s life. If, off the back of today, we stop just one person from committing suicide, even if it is over the next hundred years, that will have made this debate worth while.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Watford (Dean Russell). I have always thought since he arrived in the House that he was an incredibly thoughtful person, as that speech typified. Thank you.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) for securing today’s debate. I take this opportunity to welcome to the Dispatch Box my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols). I understand that it is her debut at the Dispatch Box. She is a fellow member of the armed forces parliamentary scheme, so when I finally shut up and sit down I will certainly be cheering her on.
Clearly, the covid-19 pandemic has hugely impacted everyone’s lives. Many of our constituents now face insecurity of employment and financial hardship alongside having to deal with restrictions on seeing loved ones. Never before in our lifetimes have we experienced a pandemic that effectively shut down society, closed businesses and required us all to stay at home. I worry about everyone’s mental health at the moment. I know that continued lockdowns and restrictions can be incredibly tough, especially as we are now heading towards the winter months, full of colder days and darker evenings. Today’s debate is a good opportunity to focus on men’s mental health. We know, as others have said, that men are typically less likely to reach out for help with their mental health. Just over three out of four suicides are by men, and suicide is the biggest cause of death among men under 35. Men are nearly three times more likely than women to become alcohol dependent and men are less likely to access psychological therapies than women. Indeed, only 36% of referrals to psychological therapies are for men.
I know from personal experience that conversations about mental health can be tough, sensitive, private and awkward, but they are so important especially at the moment. With further restrictions and lockdowns, we are all more isolated than ever. A survey in April showed that one in four UK adults had feelings of loneliness compared with just one in 10 before the pandemic. Young people aged between 18 and 24 were most likely to experience loneliness since lockdown began; indeed, before lockdown one in six said that they felt lonely. Since lockdown, young people are almost three times more likely to experience loneliness, with almost half feeling that way. At a time when more of us are feeling isolated and lonely, it is important to reach out to loved ones. A simple text, phone call or FaceTime can make a world of difference.
In terms of men’s mental health, there still exists that stigma around acknowledging that you are struggling and seeking the help we need. For example, in 2016 a survey conducted by opinion leader Men’s Health Forum found that 34% of men were ashamed to take time off work for mental health concerns, compared with 13% for a physical injury. Some 38% of men were concerned that their employer would think badly of them if they took time off work for a mental health concern, compared with 26% for a physical injury. The hon. Member for Mansfield touched on this, but phrases like “man up” and “toughen up” only reinforce the stereotypes that men should be stoic and face such problems alone. That is dangerous rhetoric and it prevents men from pursuing help. I am really glad that all hon. Members who have spoken today have put that on the record.
It is important that men come together and support one another. That is why I am such a passionate supporter of Men’s Sheds, as well as the Menself group in my constituency led by Jim Malcolmson. We should encourage men to acknowledge that the stresses of this unprecedented public health crisis will naturally have an impact on our mental health. Whether due to a loss of employment, financial insecurity or just missing our loved ones, I think we would all agree that this is a very tough time for everyone. My message to everyone, not just to men but men in particular, is please reach out to your loved ones. Let them know that you are always there to listen and take care of one another, because this too will pass.
Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to respond to this debate on behalf of Her Majesty’s Opposition. As shadow Minister for Women and Equalities, I am conscious that we should seek not to pit the problems of men and women against each other but to aspire to raise outcomes where one is below the other.
We have heard a number of important contributions in this debate. First, I congratulate the hon. Members for Shipley (Philip Davies) and for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) on securing the debate through the Backbench Business Committee. We see that it is now truly an annual occasion after a year’s absence, as it fell during the election campaign last year. Having read, through Hansard, previous iterations of this debate, I am reassured that we are continuing to emphasise these important issues, but concerned to note that they still need to be raised.
The ongoing tragedy of male suicides has continued, with the rate in England and Wales of 16.9 deaths per 100,000, the highest since 2000. That remains in line with the rate in 2018, and makes up about three quarters of suicides. Males aged 45 to 49 still have the highest age-specific suicide rate. A number of colleagues have mentioned charities that work hard in this field, so I commend the work of CALM, the Campaign Against Living Miserably, Rethink, Mind and the other organisations that have been highlighted. I would also like to remind all Members that the Samaritans can be phoned at any time, day or night, on 116 123.
The same messages are given every year and are ever more relevant in 2020, with all its stress and fear. Men should feel able to talk about their problems with friends or professionals. They do not have to do it in public like hon. Members have today, but society must accept and embrace a more open understanding of men’s feelings and concerns. I include in that men who may be gay, bisexual or transgender who feel alone or scared about their very identities. They must be more supportive of each other. I note the news today that the Government are ending the £4 million funding for anti-LGBT bullying in our schools. That is a real step backwards that will prolong harm for too many young boys.
I cannot join Movember, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I praise the Members who are doing it this year and hope that they may continue to brighten the spotlight on men’s health. Most obviously, covid has had a disproportionate fatal impact on men. As further research unearths more about what is still a very new virus, we may find out why. On prostate cancer, the second-biggest killer of men worldwide, I encourage men to discuss it with their doctors at age 50, and black men or men with a family history of prostate cancer should discuss it at 45. On testicular cancer, men should know how to test themselves. It is not taboo to look these things up. Men are more likely to die prematurely than women, including of diseases that are considered preventable. Please do not be too scared to ask questions for fear of some toxic male expectations or image. I thank the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) for raising these health issues.
We have rightly heard today about the challenges of boys’ educational attainment and the need for schools and the Department for Education to address this. Whether this means more male teachers, more male role models or closer support and attention to alternative teaching methods, it is a real concern. The literacy gap between boys and girls peaks at 16, when children are beginning to consider their choices for life after school.
Men are still more likely to be victims of violent crime in the UK—men are nearly twice as likely as women to be a victim of violent crime—and among children, boys are more likely than girls to be victims of violence, while more than two thirds of murder victims are male. It is worth mentioning the male victims of domestic violence, and the statistics show that they are less likely to speak out or confide in somebody about it. They must not be forgotten, as was mentioned in a powerful contribution to the debate by the hon. Member for West Bromwich West (Shaun Bailey).
As the days and nights get colder and wetter, it is sombre to think of the thousands of rough sleepers on our streets. The Government’s actions earlier in the year showed that it is possible to eliminate rough sleeping, but now, once again, there are huge numbers of people forced to choose between a cold winter on the streets of our country or the threat of catching covid in an overcrowded shelter. Government statistics state that 86% of rough sleepers in England are male. I hope the Minister can say what will be done to end this awful situation.
Finally, it is worth remembering that today is International Men’s Day, and we should consider the problems that men and boys face around the world, where they die on average six years before women, thousands are forced into becoming child soldiers, and gay men in particular are all too often oppressed with threats of violent death. Once again, I thank all of the speakers, and I hope that in next year’s debate we will be able to report on progress in these many important areas.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Before the Minister starts, I must commend the House. I said we would have to rush through this and I was expecting the Minister to be on her feet with only five minutes to spare, but the House has been so disciplined, speeches have been so to the point, precise, moving and clever, that I hope other people will learn that brevity is indeed the soul of wit. I am not going to mention the fact that very few women have taken part in the debate this afternoon.
The Minister for Equalities (Kemi Badenoch)
I am pleased to be standing at the Dispatch Box on International Men’s Day. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting a debate on this important subject, and I thank all the hon. and right hon. Members who have made heartfelt contributions. I also welcome the hon. Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) to her position as shadow Minister.
International Men’s Day is an opportunity to celebrate men and boys in all their diversity and to shine a spotlight on the issues that affect men—from shared parenting to health and wellbeing. I think it is sad that, on a day like this, it seems to be mainly Members on the Government side of the House who felt interested enough to speak. I recognise that the shadow spokespeople have been here, but it does highlight the fact that this is an issue that many people believe is not important enough to speak on. I hope that next time the hon. Lady will speak to her colleagues across the House for this reason.
David Linden
I just put it on the record that the restrictions on virtual participation may be why there are fewer Members taking part in this debate.
Kemi Badenoch
I understand that, but this is not the only debate that has taken place today, and others have been very well attended. I am afraid I do not accept that position and, like I said, I hope that at the next International Men’s Day debate we will see many more Members participating.
This Government are committed to levelling up opportunity and ensuring fairness for all. As Minister for Equalities, I want to ensure no one is left behind, regardless of their sex or background. Both men and women in the UK benefit from our having some of the strongest equality legislation in the world. The equality hub will consider sex, along with factors such as race, sexual orientation, geography and socioeconomic background, so we can ensure we are levelling up across the country. This will support data-driven policy to reduce disparity across the Union and make the UK the best place to live, work and grow a business. Levelling up is the mission of this Government, and every one of us should be free and able to fulfil our potential.
My hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) mentioned the coronavirus, which, as we all know, is the biggest challenge the UK has faced in decades, and we are not alone. All over the world we are seeing the devastating impact of this disease. We know that men have been disproportionately impacted by covid and that, after age, sex is the second largest single risk factor. However, not all men are the same and not all men will be affected in the same way. My report on covid disparities showed, for example, that the job someone does, where they live, who they live with and their underlying health all make a huge difference to their risk of covid-19. We recognise how important it is that each individual understands how different factors and characteristics combine to influence their personal risk. The chief medical officer commissioned an expert group to develop a risk model to do just that, and the Department of Health and Social Care is working at pace on how to apply the model.
As well as its impact on lives, covid has had a huge impact on Britain’s livelihoods, which give us pride and a way to support our families. Of course, men and women do not exist separately and in isolation; we are part of families, businesses and our communities, which is why the Government’s support is targeted at those most in need and looks at how issues are impacting on individuals, not homogenous groups, so that we ensure a fair recovery for everyone. As a Treasury Minister, I am particularly proud of our comprehensive package to protect jobs, which the International Monetary Fund highlighted as one of the best examples of co-ordinated action globally. As this House has heard time and again, we have given unprecedented support through the coronavirus job retention scheme and the self-employment income support scheme to ensure that people can get the support they need, especially those in sectors most affected by covid-19.
My hon. Friends the Members for Watford (Dean Russell), for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) and for West Bromwich West (Shaun Bailey) spoke passionately about mental health. The challenges this year have no doubt taken their toll on many people’s mental wellbeing. It is very understandable during these uncertain and unusual times to be experiencing distress or anxiety, or to be feeling low, and we know that this affects many men. Those are common reactions to the difficult situation we all face. Anyone experiencing distress, anxiety or feeling low can visit the Every Mind Matters website and gov.uk for advice and tailored, practical steps to support wellbeing and manage mental health during this pandemic.
Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)
Will the Government also consider research by the Samaritans that talks very much about middle-aged men who are often missed by community-based support when facing a mental health crisis, which can often lead to suicide? Perhaps the Government could factor that in, so that those people, who are not as visible as those most at risk, can also be supported at times of crisis.
Kemi Badenoch
I completely agree with the hon Gentleman on that. We know that some men are less likely than women to seek help with their mental health and that some can be reluctant to engage with health and other support services, and it is right that he highlights that. That is why I say to every man that the NHS is open for business—we really want to stress that. I urge any man, whatever their age or background, who is struggling to speak to a GP to seek out mental health support delivered by charities or the NHS. Services are still operating and it is better to get help early.
This week, the NHS launched its “Help us help you” campaign, which is relevant to the point the hon. Gentleman just raised. It is a major campaign to encourage people who may be struggling with common mental health illnesses to come forward for help through NHS talking therapies, also known as improving access to psychological therapies, which are a confidential service run by fully trained experts. I am sure the Minister for Patient Safety, Mental Health and Suicide Prevention will consider his point and the request made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) for an action plan on men’s mental health and suicide. I also wish to remind people that the “Help us help you” campaigns have sought to increase the number of people coming forward if they are worried about cancer symptoms, including those for testicular and prostate cancer. My hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) spoke movingly about his friend who tragically lost his life and urged men to seek the help they need, as did the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden). The current campaign will run throughout the winter to ensure that men feel able to come forward to get tested and treated earlier.
The hon. Member for Warrington North asked about rough sleeping, and I want to answer her question on what the Government are doing. On 18 July, we launched the Next Steps accommodation Programme, which makes funding available to support local authorities and their partners to prevent previous rough sleepers returning to the streets. The programme comprises £161 million to deliver 3,300 units of longer-term move-on accommodation in 2020-21 and £105 million to pay for immediate support to ensure that people do not return to the streets.
On 17 September, we announced local authority allocations for the short-term funding aspect of this programme. Some £91.5 million was allocated to 274 councils in England to help vulnerable people housed during the pandemic, and recently, on 29 October, we announced allocations to local partners to deliver longer-term move-on accommodation. More than 3,300 new long-term homes for rough sleepers across the country have been approved, and that is backed by Government investment of more than £150 million. As the House can see, quite a lot is being done on this issue, which we take very seriously.
I would like to close by taking a moment to celebrate the contribution that men and boys make to our society. My hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford) talked about men and boys in his constituency feeling like they have been forgotten. It therefore seems opportune to celebrate our fathers and our sons, our brothers and our friends, and, indeed, our colleagues this week and the progress we have made in supporting them under this Government.
For example, since 2010, we have seen the introduction of shared parental leave, allowing mothers and fathers to share the highs and, indeed, the lows of caring for their new babies. The Government are also committed to making it easier for fathers to take paternity leave, as set out in our 2019 manifesto. Subject to further consultation, we are committed to introducing measures to make flexible working the default for men and women unless employers have a good reason not to. As someone who came back from maternity leave only this year, I can tell you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that my husband was able to take paternity leave and it made my return to work much easier, having two ministerial responsibilities as well as my work as a constituency MP, so this is a policy that I am very passionate about.
Philip Davies
That is all very well, but will the Minister also look at making it easier for absent fathers to have access to their children and speed up the process through the family courts, which is often a tortuous one that causes so much heartache for so many fathers?
Kemi Badenoch
My hon. Friend is right and, yes, that is something we can look into. I recognise the work that he has done to raise awareness of fathers who feel a sense of alienation from losing access to their children. He will be pleased to see that the draft statutory guidance to be issued under the Domestic Abuse Bill currently recognises parental alienation as an example of coercive or controlling behaviour, no doubt in part due to his representations on this issue. I thank him and my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield again for their tireless work on these issues and for securing this debate.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield for his vigorous campaign to support boys from white working-class backgrounds. He raised many issues about the way the Equality Act is interpreted—protecting groups when, actually, what it protects is characteristics, which we all have. Some of his questions, especially about whether we should have a Minister for men, are above my pay grade, but I will definitely raise this with the Minister for Women and Equalities and the Prime Minister on his behalf. I assure my hon. Friend that the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, which I sponsor, is currently studying how we will improve outcomes for these boys in the towns and regions of our country.
I also pay tribute to the equalities Whip—the Comptroller of Her Majesty’s Household, my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer), who, as a Whip, rarely gets chance to speak these days—for his successful campaign to get the HPV cancer jab given to men and boys. We are very proud of the work that he has done.
In conclusion, I am honoured to have taken part in today’s debate on International Men’s Day to mark the progress that we have made and to highlight what more needs to be done.
Ben Bradley
I thank the Minister for her response and for the work that she is doing to get the equalities agenda right, and particularly the hub that she mentioned, which includes socioeconomic and geographical factors for the first time—I raised this in Westminster Hall a few weeks ago, and I am very pleased about that. I welcome the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols), to her place and I thank the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) for talking about reaching out to our loved ones at this very difficult time.
I say a huge thank you to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). I am very sorry that he got only three minutes to speak, because he is as responsible as I am for securing this debate. It is a great shame. He gets half the credit at least that colleagues have paid to me in the Chamber. I thank all colleagues for their thoughtful contributions. I do not have time to go through them all but others have, and there were some very moving, heartfelt ones.
International Men’s Day is one day that we celebrate annually, but this is not a conversation just for one day. It is a chance to raise great role models and huge challenges—things that we can do every day in this House in the very privileged position that we hold. The public discourse—the negative attitudes—that I mentioned pervades every day. The support that men and boys need is needed every day and is available every day. We should all be helping men to reach out and seek help, and continuing to raise the issues that we have discussed today—many of which are around mental health, suicide and our services—at every opportunity in this House, not just on International Men’s Day, but when this day has long gone.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered International Men’s Day.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
What an excellent debate—and accomplished in less than one hour.
Independent Reconfiguration Panel
(4 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
I have lost count of the number of times that I have spoken in this House about the future of St Helier Hospital. Time and again, the hospital has been hurled head first into turbulence, with countless consultations coated in fancy branding repeatedly asking my constituents whether they want their hospital to keep its A&E, critical care and maternity services. The latest plan—almost laughably named “Improving Healthcare Together” proposes to downgrade both Epsom Hospital and St Helier Hospital, moving all acute services south to leafy, wealthy Belmont. The purpose of this debate is to look at whether the Independent Reconfiguration Panel was actually independent when it came to a decision not to look into these proposals.
The panel is a little known but hugely important body that provides checks and balances to the plans of one of the most powerful institutions in our country: the NHS. The NHS employs as many people as the red army, and some would argue that it is built around the same command and control principles—that is, decisions are made and everyone is expected to row in behind them. Communities are hugely affected by proposed NHS changes. As such, their representatives in local government have the power to consider whether they agree with a hospital reorganisation. If they do not, they can refer it to the Secretary of State, who has the power to refer it to an independent panel of experts.
In the case of the “Improving Healthcare Together” programme, my argument is not that the chair of the panel, Professor Sir Norman Williams, is not a man with a hugely important and successful medical career who has brought benefits to thousands, or that he has not made a huge contribution to the NHS. My argument is simply that he could not be regarded as independent, and that through his involvement as a member of the board of St George’s Hospital—which will be profoundly affected by these changes—he should have recused himself. We know that in public life not only do we have to do the right thing; we have to be seen to do the right thing. I will argue that Sir Norman could not be regarded as independent because his connection is far from “tangential”.
Let me turn first to the plans themselves. The programme proposes to turn St Helier Hospital into a glorified walk-in centre, removing its A&E, maternity services, children’s beds and critical care. Some 62% of beds would be lost from the area where health is poorest and life expectancy shortest. The programme’s own analysis unsurprisingly reveals the indisputable link between deprivation and the need for acute services, but ignores the fact that 42 of the 51 deprived areas in the catchment are nearest to St Helier. It is a slap in the face for expectant mums in my community.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate. Does she agree that although moving beds to a nearby hospital may make sense on paper, to ask expectant mothers to add a lump of time to their journey makes no sense, and that community-led care is essential and should be kept in the community?
Siobhain McDonagh
I agree with the hon. Member.
In the plan, it is assumed that mothers in my area want home births. That is a discriminatory assumption that is completely against their right to choose. It takes maternity services away from the mothers who are most likely to deliver a low-weight baby and mothers who are less likely to want a home birth. It also breaks up the continuity of care, with pre and post-natal services being delivered at one hospital and the birth at another.
The programme ignores the intrinsic link between old age and life expectancy in pointing to the higher number of elderly people in Belmont when deciding where need is greatest. The sobering reality is that Mitcham has a far lower life expectancy than Belmont—nine years lower, in fact. There are more elderly residents in Belmont because, quite simply, its residents live longer. To experts, it is yet another example of the Tudor Hart law, or the inverse care law as it is also known: the understanding in health academia that the areas in greatest health receive the most health investment. Or as my mum, herself a nurse, would say, “Much gets more.”
The reality is that the Minister and his Department are being asked to commit £500 million of scarce NHS resources to move acute services to one of the richest and healthiest areas in London, at the expense of one of the most deprived. Surely the Minister can see that that is wrong, if not from a health perspective, then from a financial one. The plans require 22% more capital than the option of rebuilding where health needs are greatest. Improving St Helier would have a higher return on investment, posing far less risk with a significantly lower capital requirement. Our economy is being decimated by the virus. Can the Minister not see that this proposal goes completely against Treasury guidance and value for money?
This was a devastating decision before the pandemic, but have we learned nothing from coronavirus? How can it possibly make sense for south-west London to come out with fewer acute beds and fewer intensive care units than before? Surely the decision to place the only intensive care unit on the same site as a cancer hub now has to be questioned. I do not dispute the extraordinary work of the Royal Marsden or challenge whether it requires an intensive care unit, but these plans were formed long before the pandemic was known about and have to be reassessed in the light of it.
The programme’s own impact assessment in January warned that any unplanned event such as a pandemic could challenge the resilience of the proposed reconfiguration. It described this situation as “unlikely” and yet, astonishingly, just five pages of analysis have been produced on the pandemic’s impact on the plans. It is the wild west, where everything proceeds full steam ahead, no matter the evidence presented—evidence that cannot be dismissed.
We now know that people from black and ethnic groups are most likely to be diagnosed with coronavirus, more likely to require admission to an intensive care unit once in hospital, and up to twice as likely to die than those from white British backgrounds. We know that black women are five times more likely to die in childbirth than white women, and more likely to require neonatal or specialist care baby units. We also know that 64 of the 66 areas with the highest proportion of BAME residents are nearest to St Helier, and that half of those are in the bottom two quintiles of deprivation, increasing their likely reliance on acute services.
It is indisputable: these proposals would negatively and disproportionately impact BAME residents, deprived communities and expectant mums in my constituency. It is no wonder that when they were put out to public consultation, tens of thousands of residents voiced their disapproval, with overwhelming opposition to the downgrading of St Helier. It was also clear from the public response that if these plans went ahead, many residents would not travel to inaccessible Belmont, but would head instead to St George’s—a hospital that is already under immense pressure, with an A&E in the bottom quartile for safe standards.
Why does Sir Norman have a conflict of interest? Because this is a reorganisation of a neighbouring trust that will have a profound impact on St George’s. That is a case that the board of St George’s has rightly and successfully fought, very publicly, so much so that in a letter in March this year, the chief executive of St George’s made it clear that support for the plans was contingent on her hospital receiving capital investment for a new emergency floor to take account of the increased number of emergency care patients that it would receive. That is the kind of change that requires the full consideration, scrutiny and involvement of the board and the most senior staff. I can think of a number of words to describe that relationship: conditional, connected and dependent, but certainly not “tangential”.
In July this year, Merton Council saw these plans for what they are and used its power to call them in for review by the Department of Health and Social Care Independent Reconfiguration Panel. By its name and nature, it is an independent panel of health experts who can cast a fresh, impartial eye for the Secretary of State. The chair of the panel is Professor Sir Norman Williams, who until 30 September 2019 was a long-standing board member at St George’s Hospital. Naturally, I presumed that that conflict of interest would be recognised and he would step aside from judging this proposal. Unfortunately, he did not, with his connection to the plans described as “tangential” and
“not relevant to his role in independently formulating a response”.
This evening, I ask the Minister to consider just how tangential that connection is. In April 2016, Sir Norman became a board member at St George’s, and board meeting minutes and papers reveal that the reorganisation was debated time and time again. The papers from one of his first board meetings in June highlighted the requirement for service change and reconfiguration in south-west London. In March 2017, the chair discussed the upcoming board-to-board meeting with Epsom and St Helier, which would provide an opportunity to discuss the development of joint renal services. Fast forward to October, and the board’s attention was on a joint letter signed by the CEO of St George’s about the importance of considering the future of their hospitals with any reconfiguration at St Helier.
The issue came to the board again in December, following Epsom and St Helier’s indication that it needed to change its clinical model. By the following November, the impact of the proposals on St George’s was so clear that the chair of the board, Gillian Norton, wrote to the programme directly on behalf of her board, including Sir Norman:
“Senior staff within St George’s have spent significant amounts of time over the last 3 months engaging with both the programme team and colleagues in other providers to work through the impact on providers of the shortlisted options…The board agreed that I need to write to you now, formally, to set out these concerns…I understand that a key principle of how programme process has been agreed is that there is no formal requirement to take account of the impact on other providers. I find this difficult to understand in any event given we are a health system but particularly so in the context of the SWL Health and Care Partnership and the expectation that we will work collaboratively.”
I found this letter so extraordinary, after fighting this reorganisation for 23 years, that I wrote back to the board and the chair. Naturally, this issue rightly remained high on the board’s agenda. The papers for the board meeting of December 2018 show concerns from St George’s finance and investment committee about the lack of options explored by Epsom and St Helier, and agreement that the trust should feed this back to the programme. By January 2019, the chief executive spelled out to Sir Norman and the board:
“Any changes to the current configuration of services at Epsom and St Helier are likely to impact St George’s, and it is important these are factored into any future proposals.”
She again used her notes at the February board meeting to state:
“While the location of the new facility is yet to be decided, it’s clear that there are significant estate issues at both Trusts that need to be addressed through capital investment.”
Time and again, the programme was brought to Sir Norman and the board’s attention—in April, in May and in June. This would be a landmark decision for St George’s Hospital. It is completely understandable that it had their full attention.
In July 2019, the programme released the impact assessment on St George’s. It is utterly inconceivable that someone as diligent and respected as Sir Norman would not have been aware of this, particularly as senior staff at his trust had helped produce it—a document released just months before he became chair of the Independent Reconfiguration Panel. That Sir Norman was so heavily involved in these proposals is no criticism. He was rightly fulfilling his responsibility as board member of a hospital that would be heavily impacted by these proposals. He declared his role to the other Independent Reconfiguration Panel members, explaining that he had even had recent discussions with senior consultants at Epsom and St Helier through his role as chair of the national clinical improvement programme. All public office holders are subject to the seven principles of public life, one of which is objectivity. But how could Sir Norman be objective? How could he even appear to be so? In public life, it is important not only to be objective, but to be seen to be objective.
My community has fought tirelessly for St Helier, and the least we expect is transparency, honesty and objectivity from the top. Astonishingly, the panel instead considered that there was nothing more than tangential connections, irrelevant to Sir Norman’s role in independently formulating a response for the Secretary of State. Tangential! If there is any doubt over how interconnected the hospitals are, then be aware that the chair of St George’s also became chair of Epsom and St Helier in 2019. Conveniently, it was on the very same day that Sir Norman became chair of the Independent Reconfiguration Panel. Surely the Minister can see that there is nothing tangential in the evidence that I have laid out today. Not only did Sir Norman already know about the proposals before he was asked independently to judge them, he must have known them inside out, having faced them repeatedly at board level and in conjunction with a whole host of the key personnel involved. It was tangential to the tune of millions of pounds of investment on which his former hospital’s support is contingent.
We must not underestimate the importance of a fresh eye. One of the leaders of these plans, Daniel Elkeles, formerly led the infamous “Shaping a Healthier Future” plan, which proposed similar hospital downgrades in north-west London, wasting £76 million over eight years before the Treasury finally put a stop to it.
I draw to a close now. I must say that I respect the Minister. He found time to meet me in the summer when his time must have been so scarce. I explained my reasoning for calling this debate to his office last week so that he could come prepared. I am not trying to catch him off guard. I am asking that he steps away from party politics and recognises that this connection is indisputable rather than tangential. If an independent panel was asked to review the plans, the panel must be independent. I am asking that he consults his Treasury colleagues on why the most expensive option is being chosen at a time of such economic turmoil. I am asking that he reflects on the powerful shoes he is in and the unique opportunity he has to help to close health inequalities in an area where they are so stark. Surely that would make any Health Minister proud of his work, and maybe then we really could improve health together.
The Minister for Health (Edward Argar)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) on securing this important debate. I recognise her continued interest in local health matters and her championing of her constituents’ interests. She knows that I have considerable respect for her and her work in this House on behalf of her constituents. However, she will perhaps not be surprised that I cannot fully agree with the picture that she painted to the House today.
Before I get into the meat of the debate, let me pay tribute to all the staff at the trust and across our entire NHS for the amazing work they do day in, day out, particularly at this time. I know that is a sentiment that the hon. Lady would share.
As the hon. Lady said, all proposed service changes should be based on clear evidence that they will deliver better outcomes for patients and should meet the four tests for service change: they should have support from GP commissioners, be based on clinical evidence, demonstrate patient and public engagement, and consider patient choice. It is right that these matters are addressed at a level where the local healthcare needs are best understood, rather than emanating from Whitehall. I should point out that in cases where these proposals are referred to Ministers, they are considered impartially and on their merits, and that is what has happened in this case.
Without recounting all the background that the hon. Lady has set out for the House this evening and on previous occasions, in December 2017, the “Improving Healthcare Together 2020-2030” programme was established to address the significant estate quality and finance challenges that Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust is currently facing. NHS Surrey Heartlands and NHS South-West London clinical commissioning groups are the organisations responsible for making decisions about local healthcare. They led the development of proposals for any potential service changes, and it is right that they did so at that local level, including appropriate consultation. As she set out, following a period of sustained engagement and options development, on 3 July 2020 local NHS leaders approved plans that will see a brand new state-of-the-art hospital built in Sutton to treat the sickest patients and most services staying put in modernised buildings at Epsom and St Helier hospitals.
The hon. Lady raised a number of concerns about this decision—in particular, around transport and travel, bed numbers, acute services, and the impact on more deprived communities and health inequalities. As she said, she also raised these issues at our meeting in July, which it was a pleasure to undertake with her. When the decision was made, measures to address these issues were also set out, including extending the H1 Epsom and St Helier hospital bus route into Merton and further south into Surrey, beyond Epsom, and increasing the frequency of travel between the three hospital sites; reviewing car parking on all three sites; increased bed capacity to care for an extra 1,300 in-patients a year; advances in technology and treatment; closer working with community services so that fewer patients will need an overnight stay and will be able to get home sooner; exploring further opportunities for primary care services at Epsom and St Helier hospitals; and expanding child and adolescent mental health services on the St Helier site. Under the proposals, about 85% of current services would stay put at Epsom and St Helier, with six major services being brought together in the new specialist emergency care hospital, including A&E, critical care, and emergency surgery. The capital investment for those proposals is not only to fund the new hospital but to invest in and improve the current sites at both Epsom and St Helier, including funding for the A&Es.
I can reassure the hon. Lady that the Treasury is and will remain fully engaged with not only this proposal but all 40 of the Government’s hospital proposals. As she would expect and know from her long career in the House, the Treasury takes a close interest in any proposals that entail the spending of significant amounts of public money. This is a significant investment in improving healthcare across the communities served by these hospitals, which is why my hon. Friends the Members for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) and for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) have recently set out their and their communities’ strong support for these proposals.
The Independent Reconfiguration Panel was at the crux of the case made by the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden. As she set out, the IRP is the non-departmental public body set up in 2003 to provide the Secretary of State with expert independent advice on contested NHS service changes and reconfiguration. There are currently 15 panel members who review referral cases. They have a mix of clinical, lay, patient representative or engagement, specialist and managerial backgrounds. The IRP has provided independent advice more than 80 times since it was established. With reconfigurations referred to the IRP, there is an open and transparent process, which people expect to be carried out to the most rigorous standards of integrity, honesty and impartiality. We must adhere visibly to those standards, and I believe, on the evidence I have seen, that those standards were met in this case.
As the hon. Lady will know, local authorities have a power to refer certain proposals to the Secretary of State where they consider that there has been inadequate consultation, where reasons given for non-consultation are inadequate or where they believe that the proposal is not in the interests of their area and communities. The Secretary of State can then choose whether to commission advice from the IRP, which is normally provided in 20 working days, and Ministers are clear about the need for that advice to be swiftly and efficiently given. Following collection of evidence, the IRP submits its report either with advice not to proceed or containing recommendations to the Secretary of State on specific proposals. I emphasise that the IRP’s role is advisory, and the Secretary of State ultimately makes the decision.
In July—at roughly the same time as my meeting with the hon. Lady, which slightly limited the conversation we were able to have—Merton Council referred the scheme to the Secretary of State, who referred it to the IRP, which provided its advice on 28 October. Following thorough consideration of that advice, the Secretary of State accepted the IRP’s impartial advice, which was that there was no reason to contradict the proposed choice of Sutton—Belmont—as the location for the new specialist emergency care hospital. I know that there have been some noises locally about the possibility of subsequent legal review or legal action, so I will not dwell on that aspect. I do not believe that any judicial review has been tabled at this point, so I feel that I can comment a little further on the issues she raised. I must emphasise that the IRP provides impartial, independent advice.
I turn to the specific points that the hon. Lady made about Sir Norman. It is up front and totally clear in the IRP report that Sir Norman Williams, the chair of the IRP, declared openly to IRP members what was already a matter of public record: that between May 2016 and September 2019, he had been a non-executive director of St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which neighbours the Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust, and he made it clear to the panel that that was a linkage. However, Sir Norman clearly left some time before the proposals were considered by the panel and, indeed, before the March date of this year that the hon. Lady referred to. As she said, independent panel members considered that matter and the issues that she had raised, and confirmed that in their view the historic connections with the case did not represent a conflict of interest and agreed that they were not relevant to Sir Norman’s role in chairing the formulation of the advice.
I have to say that I think it would be wrong to question in any way the integrity, impartiality or independence of the panel or the chair, who I believe is more than capable, rightly fulfilled his previous role to the best of his ability and fulfils his current role entirely to the best of his ability, recognising and fulfilling the requirement to be independent in the view he takes. I have seen no reason—or no compelling reason—to suggest that his behaviour has in any way contradicted that need for independence and objective guidance.
It is of course right that all reconfiguration decisions are taken in the best interests of patients and the local population, following due process. The people affected by the changes need to be involved in making the key decisions, and the IRP advice concluded:
“Patients and the public will need to be engaged in shaping and understanding the new landscape of services to gain maximum benefit from them.”
I believe that they will be.
I know that the hon. Lady’s constituents are and will continue to be strongly represented by her. I recognise the strength of her views, but I do believe that the process has been carried out fairly, independently and appropriately, in seeking to reach the best decision for the people who use the hospitals.
Question put and agreed to.